Chapter 2
"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all."
- Oscar Wilde
When a world ends, things change. Perspectives, attitudes, opinions shift upon its destruction; people take different molds; events are looked upon with kaleidoscope eyes. Upon the simple loss of a bet, a world died, and as Raven stood uneasy in the semi-darkness of an alleyway in the slums, a new world began to form. In that old world, she never would have stared at a flickering alley light as though it answered her every question. In that old world, she would be finishing her current novel, her stomach content with the medium-rare steak Cyborg cooked for the Team's anniversary. She would not be out here, never here in this desolate place; never hanging upon the unlikely arrival of an enemy, deeply loathed, at this time of night.
But this was the new world. Things worked differently here.
Raven straightened the collar of her cloak, wrapping it around her mouth in an attempt to warm her quivering lips. She regretted with every hollow breath that she had not worn something warmer, but intimidation was key; sneaky, hazardous, criminal – like a demon-princess, like a true citizen of Azarath. Every minute, however, weighed only heavier on her shoulders as the adrenaline she had felt hours earlier flushed out of her system.
Flicker, light; flicker, darkness.
Her chest tightened as her eyes remained glued to the alley light and the firefly inside, which was inevitably caught in a spider's web. For once in her life, she wished to see the glass half-full; wished to be Starfire one damn day. "He'll come," her mind said, lying. "He'll never pass up a game."
Flicker, darkness; flicker, light.
She distracted herself with details – little details, important details; details that allowed no loopholes. Ways to keep her bet completely binding flew disorganized and clustered as the hands of her watch clicked away, approaching midnight. It was a matter now of him coming; it was a matter now of her winning. Winning always seemed to be the hardest part.
Flicker, light; flicker, darkness; flicker, light. Raven's head pounded along with the sound of the city clock striking midnight. A shadow emerged at the twelfth ring, stepping heavily, unhesitant, into the dull light of the alleyway.
"The strike of midnight," said Slade, spreading his arms for a dramatic effect. "Just as her royal demon-highness instructed."
"Slade," she said, her voice colder than the late autumn night. She pushed herself off the graffiti-ridden wall, digging her feet harshly into the ground to keep herself from stumbling. Her hand twitched slightly in anticipation. Adrenaline flooded her veins, her body, her brain once more. Her knees locked as she walked towards him, but she held a smirk, unwavering, and her eyes never left his own. Her height made her slightly inferior to him, made her have to tilt her head to look him straight in the eye.
Flicker, light; flicker, darkness; flicker, light.
"Come to accept my bet?" she asked him casually. The intense need to throw him against the nearest wall, to torture him with magic forbidden, to make Robin's location spill from his quivering, dying lips arose, but she felt a sudden bout of restraint. Robots filed on the rooftops, surrounded the alleyway, waited patiently below ground. She kept her eyes on his.
"How could I not?" he said. "I absolutely love games."
A cold gust of wind swept through the alleyway, brought on by a lone car speeding by. It pulled Raven's cloak into the air, causing her to shiver. The smirk held despite. "Shall we discuss the details, then?"
"Of course. What would a bet be without them?"
Flicker, darkness; flicker, light.
"The prize is Robin," she said, unhesitant. "If I win, he returns to Titans and you never come close to him or Jump City again. If… you win," (she hated herself for pausing), "I will report Robin's 'death' to the Justice League, pinning evidence on a false suspect."
"How… criminal of you."
She ignored him. "Only you and Teen Titan West will participate. No Justice League, no Batman." She flinched as the words from Slade's previous bet ran through her head: None of your silly friends are to hear of this – if they do, I automatically win. And no Batman – we don't want this to get messy, do we? It could get messy in a thousand different ways.
"And no one will be hearing of our bet either, or Robin's… current predicament." She hated his causality. "A time limit, also: one month – thirty days. If you fail to find… us by then, I, of course, win by default."
Flicker, light; flicker darkness.
Her lips curved into a deep scowl.
"If there is a disagreement, we will have to forget about this bet of ours." He leaned forward, his voice as thick as smoke. "You wouldn't like that."
Her smirk returned, her mind narrowed in on an advantage. "For me to accept that, you must give me a clue to Robin's location… and give me his identity." She hovered slightly, confidence growing. "That was the last bet, was it not? Finding his identity?"
Flicker, darkness; flicker, light.
"… I accept your terms."
"And I accept yours."
The sound of sirens echoed eerily in the distance. Another gust of wind entered the alley as another car sped by. The car's lights shined deep into the alleyway, causing Raven to squint. Slade spoke first. "This bet, like the last, lies on the plane and mystery of identity. You might be given a name, but a name is a name and nothing more." He folded his hands behind his back, giving a thoughtful look the alley light. Flicker, light; flicker, darkness; flicker, light. "It is the history behind it that makes a name an identity. He will be hidden, metaphorically, in his past. Seek help from whomever you like, even the great Dark Knight, but the situation is ours alone."
Raven nodded stiffly. "You'll have enough time," her mind told her soothingly. "You always do." It was lying through its teeth.
"You do realize you have drawn yourself into an impossible bet," Slade crackled. "A month is not possibly enough time to search one's past… and what a past he has…"
"I can," declared Raven, "and I will."
Flicker, darkness; flicker, light.
"Ah determination," said he. "Only the wise knows its power; but yours will be crushed, just like his. I'll have the pleasure watching it happen."
A stream of anger clawed at her chest, demanding release, and she had to do everything possible to keep it in. "I did not come here to be mocked," she growled. "His name, Slade."
Flicker, light; flicker, darkness.
"Richard Greyson – fitting, I guess, but I like Robin much better."
Raven's muscles tightened. She crossed the plains of ruthless Anger earlier that day and climbed halfway across the peaks of boundless Rage, but this comment threw her into one of the mountains' dreary caves, a labyrinth known as Uncertainty. Her eyes swung downcast as he purred the words, rapping his tongue around the name as though it was that of a precious possession, not of any human being. The dull ache in her chest cried to destroy him, robot or otherwise; the massive headache pounded her to turn away, to end the conversation; but her heart, beyond the aching pain, whispered secretly, in rebellion, into her ear: "Show him how dangerous Azarathi ideas can really be."
She drew her eyes to the flickering light and Slade just as he was examining his left wrist in a mocking manner. "12:04 a.m., December 10." He glanced up at her, purple eyes meeting a grey one. "I would make the effort to get you an early Christmas present, but seeing that time is indeed not on your side, I don't think Robin and I'll be seeing you for the holidays." He stepped backwards, relaxing himself as though Raven posed no threat – she didn't. "I will wish you an early Thanksgiving, however. We all have so much to be thankful for."
Flicker, darkness; flicker, light; flicker, darkness.
"Time's already running out, demon-child. I wouldn't be wasting it, if were you."
The alley light gave its last, but in that momentary illumination, only Raven stood. She thought of a dozen things to say that moment, but the one that came out was, "He always has to have the last word."
When a world dies, there is always a sort of doom to it. But as Raven buried her frozen limbs underneath the protection of her cloak and transported away from graffiti-ridden streets, she couldn't help but wonder whether new worlds brought a doom even Fate couldn't shake off.
November 11, 12:14 a.m.
Jump City, California
Beast Boy held this eerie feeling that none of this would have happened if he hadn't been so angry at gravity.
Shape-shifting had a certain art to it; one that most heroes would never understand. It was scientific, mathematic – every step calculated, every transformation studied. A misplaced disc could paralyze; an enlarged heart could kill. It never became second nature; those who were careless died. If the transformation did not kill, the environment did. Gravity did not support birds with too small of wings; weight crushed apes with too weak of bones.
Beast Boy had spent years under hazardous conditions; first the plains of Africa, then the concrete jungles of California, and many places in between. Through the gazelle he learned to avoid even the most swollen fires; through the monkeys he learned to use the trees to his advantage. His days in the Doom Patrol taught him to move seamlessly through warehouses and upon concrete slabs, no matter his size. By the time he joined the Titans, he instinctively measured every situation before a battle, choosing his form and method of attack before Robin even had the chance to yell his famous line.
Beast Boy, admittedly, had been distracted when he barged into that warehouse. Even so, the bridge should have held him, even when he shook its foundation with that tyrannosaurus lunge; but gravity must have weighed a little heavier than yesterday because the bridge caved in upon impact, giving in and dropping Beast Boy and Slade's robots into crates of bottled aspirin. Perhaps if he had not been cursing gravity, he would have seen Robin drop his metal bo as his identity spilt from Slade's lips; perhaps if he did not have such frustration with the first miscalculation he had made in a month, he would have seen Slade corner Robin and grab him; perhaps if he did not feel the need to take out his anger on the surrounding 'bots, he would have heard Robin scream.
It was over, just like that. One moment cursing gravity, the next damning Slade. The warehouse choked and gagged on stale peppermint, drowning any chance Beast Boy had of sniffing Robin out. He took to the skies, scaling skyscrapers and dodging cars, but was forced back to peppermint air when Cyborg's systems received a shock from a rigged security camera. He consulted K'baazh the raven on the ledge of the melting, stained window as Starfire worked to revive Cyborg and Raven floated, muttering darkened words, in the corner. Telepathy failed, as did arousing Cyborg. They returned, heavyhearted, to the Tower as dogs and crows found their way through slums and grime, failing then when they had succeeded once before.
The city lights seemed duller as he stared down from an outside cliff. The city's large population of birds fidgeted around him. Bad reports from hundreds of distraught mouths hung scattered in the air, but Beast Boy forgot to listen. The flaps of their wings were louder than normal; his breaths slightly heavier than the last.
He blamed gravity.
Raven stood a few feet off, awaiting a bird to announce her presence. She was not sure why she came here, to him, exactly. Cyborg was the logical choice, not Beast Boy – not the clown, the optimist, the shape-shifter. Azarathis despised his kind. It took a year of arguments and fights to regard him as an acquaintance; a forced apprenticeship and a betrayal to consider him a friend; and the end of the world for her to realize her hypocrisy. They were both devils, in their own right: she the daughter of the Destroyer; he an abomination her people called a devil dog – both fates unwanted.
"Only devils fight devils –" the words of the head monk before Azarathi politics engulfed him, blinded him. Heroes weren't involved in bets, especially over lives. Better to confront a devil dog than a righteous princess or a justice-driven miscalculation.
A songbird, small in stature, stumbled onto paling green knuckles and sounded a melancholy cry that quieted the others. Beast Boy tensed slightly, his ears rising at the first noticed noise in hours. His shoulders sagged a moment later, his eyes finding far off lights instead of seeking hers. "I talked to the dogs… nuttin'. The cats saw nuttin'. Even the birds…" He allowed the songbird to cross finger to finger and watched halfheartedly as it took flight. "He's good – almost too good. The streets… they see everything."
People do not just vanish. Those were the words of Starfire only hours before Robin first heard Slade's name. People do vanish; outdated pictures on cartons fade after years of lying in waste.
"I sent K'baazh to Gotham," he continued, dismissing the other birds with a mundane flick of the wrist. "He's gonna get some Gotham birds ta take me there soon. The birds… the bats there don't miss a thing. Snarkel 'as got some dogs lookin' to see if some bats are here in Jump. Batman might'a sent 'em to, ya know, make sure sumthin' like this didn't happen."
Raven ignored the birds as they flew past, the force of their wings wrinkling her cloak. She simply nodded, her lips thinning into a deeper frown.
He glanced to her, his eyes scaling idly, then narrowing as his nostrils flared at the familiar scent. His mouth curved into a scowl. "You saw one of his robots…"
"I did," she said.
"… It wasn't near Robin."
She shook her head, causing her hood to slip. "No. The real Slade's with him."
"The scent's dead."
"Older model. Messenger."
He rolled his eyes towards the starless sky. "He thinks he can just send some 'bot and start makin' demands?" The Beast flickered behind his eyes, his face gaining animalistic features for a blink.
"I'm the one making the demands."
He gave her a surprised, slightly disgruntled look, his ears raised high; the first time in a while he was really Beast Boy. "Wha?"
"I made a bet with him. For Robin."
Her muscles tensed, awaiting some sort of onslaught; however, Beast Boy remained silent, his eyes drawn away from hers and back to the city lights. The wind picked up slightly, weaving Raven's cloak seamlessly through the air, making Beast Boy look slightly older. His brow knitted lightly before asking, "What're da terms?"
He listened as she spoke clearly, loudly, his facial expressions distorting from anger, to surprise, to hope, and finally he shifted, uncomfortable. "… We can't – we can't tell nobody?" he croaked.
"That's not our problem," Raven said. "The month is. Robin didn't just decide to become Boy Wonder one day."
He nodded slowly, his eyes catching a particularly bright light below. "… Do Cy and Star know anything 'bout this?"
"They will in the morning," she said. "We'll be in Gotham then, unless Snarkel finds the bats." She hovered to him, dirt waltzing clumsily in her wake. "We have nothing, Beast Boy, nothing we haven't fought for."
Another nod but lighter. Scattered birds blended with the sky, their shallow voices singing songs of lines between truths and lies.
"The Titans are finished. The Justice League will make sure of that." Starfire had her planet, her throne; Cyborg had his cars, his Titans East. Devils had nothing.
False evidence tightened like shrinking shells, the last and most fatal touches to be added by the League itself; both daughter and dog had been indirectly blamed for Robin's first disappearance a year before. Beast Boy would escape to plains of Africa; she to a dimension where clocks struck thirteen. Both places would hold nothing. "Even if you call yourself a hero," she mouthed, her tongue curling loyally around the words her father spoke, "you're always a devil to someone."
Beast Boy's grimace deepened as he arose boldly, his eyes tearing away from the brilliant light that had been brutally slaughtered only seconds before. The last scent of Slade hung ghostly on ocean air. "… Let's go to Gotham."
Devils fight for everything, especially the things they cannot afford to lose.
