Azarath
A Teen Titans FanFiction
Chapter Two: Only in America
"Are you sure this will work?"
That simple yet complex question echoed throughout the hallways of a temple near the center of Azarath, where two monks stood solemnly engaged in conversation.
They both wore white robes with golden lining, and white hoods lay around the back of their necks. They wore soft golden-colored sandals, and stood there staring at each other.
After a pause, the other monk answered.
"We will find another way to protect Azarath… somehow."
They were both aides to the Head Monk himself, and neither of them truly understand the decision to find an alternate method of shielding themselves from demons.
As the other monk was about to ask another question, suddenly they heard footsteps coming from the hallway between them.
They turned to see the Head Monk, William Yoha Var Scots, approaching them.
They immediately faced him, and kneeled on their right knees, looking down.
"You both may rise," the Head Monk said, moving his hand in an 'upwards' motion.
They both stood back up, still holding a pose honoring his position.
"We have good news. Just as we honor every new member of our populous… those from other worlds are no different. A family of 3 has relocated to Azarath… adding 1 more nationality to the many here with us," he announced, as the two looked interested, and definitely curious.
"What nationality do they hold?" he asked.
With a brief pause, the Monk looked at both of them, with a wide grin.
"America."
With a brief pause, the other monk that had not spoken came up with another question.
"Where exactly is that?" he asked, taking a brief look around between the Head Monk and the other aide.
"Earth. Planet Earth," the Head Monk responded, his grin fading away.
"A Planet? Planets are very chaotic, and-" the other aide began, but shut up quickly after seeing the Head Monk's semi-annoyed stare.
"We are holding a welcoming ceremonies in the stadium soon. I suspect you both will be there." The Head Monk began, as he turned and walked away, the men kneeling once more as he left.
"And we now welcome, the 16th race to enter to world of Azarath… The American Race!" a loud voice echoed up above.
"They know Americans aren't actually a race, right? We're more like…-" 16-year-old Arella began, as her mother swiftly interrupted her with a sudden 'Shh'.
"They know that already," she said sternly, as they reached the end of the arch-shaped tunnel, monks in behind them. They walked out, at the bottom of the stadium, as those around them, way high above. Stood and clapped.
Of all of them, sat Agatha in one of the higher rows. Beside her was another woman she didn't know… and then, a very respected woman.
She stood, her eyes gleaming, and her white hood overlapping her slender face. She clapped softly, staring at Arella.
"So she arrives…" the woman stated, and then sat down while everyone else continued, getting out a feather, a bottle of ink, and what looked to be a book in-progress.
"Wow… are they going to release lions for us to fight with or something?" Arella continued, looking around in surprise.
"You wanted to see Rome, right?" her father whispering with a smirk, leaning down to her height, as the mother just kept on looking around in awe.
"Yeah," Arella whispered back, and his smirk grew a bit. He patted her on the back, and muttered, "This is close enough."
He rose back up, as Arella smirked now.
"Yeah, it is…" she said, staring up at the high stands above her, as the clapping continued.
When they got to the middle, finally, the monks positioned themselves parallel, facing each other, leaving a path straight to the Head Monk, stood in the middle of the sandstone floor.
The family got there, as all three of them stared down at the ground.
The Head Monk squatted down, and whispered, "Look here."
He pointed at the ground, and used his other hand to push away the dirt with magic.
"These… are the 15 races we have now," he continued gently, and waved for Arella to come there and squat with him.
She looked at her mom first, who motioned her on.
She squatted, as the entire coliseum fell suddenly silent.
"I want you to point your finger at an empty space… and carve the name of your place of living in it," he told her, as she looked at him confused, but with a smile.
"With my finger? I don't think-" she began, but the Head Monk cut her off quickly.
"No, no… don't think," he began, opening his palm, and then pressing it to his chest with this next word:
"Feel."
She looked down at the ground, and pointed her finger.
Suddenly, a white energy flew from her fingertip, and hit the ground. Arella gasped, as both her mother and father quickly flinched, bug-eyed.
"There you go… move it gently… write the name of where you're from…" he continued, as she bit her lip softly, writing letters.
"I-I've never seen anything like this before!" her mother said excitedly to her father, as he smirked.
"Isn't it… cool?" he added, as her mom quickly agreed.
As Arella Roth wrote the final letter, the Head Monk stood up staring at it, causing her to stand up as well, only with less grace.
She eyed the Head Monk for a second, and then looked down at the ground.
"U…nited… States… of… America," the Head Monk said slowly, trying to word it out before shouting it.
"United States of America!" he shouted out, as the crowd clapped, but this time sitting down.
The Head Monk went up and shook Arella's hand, saying politely, "Welcome to Azarath."
He then continued on to her parents, and everyone they passed on the way out greeted them that way. "Welcome to Azarath," and a handshake.
Arella thought as they made way to the exit, "It's like… my local Church greeter times 100…"
As the people in the coliseum either began to leave or converse, that one woman sat alone, writing the book.
As Agatha kept seated and looked around, the lady next to her asked, "What are you writing about?"
The woman lifted her head, and smiled.
"The Book of Azar," she replied.
"Oh?" the woman began, as the other turned her head, and then asked quietly, "Who's Azar?"
With miniature smirk, she looked back at the curious lady beside her.
"Me… My name is Azar," she replied.
Agatha listened in the entire time, and then turned her head after hearing that.
"Azar? Hm, a nice name. Tell me, what is your book about?"
"Oh… it's my teachings. I hope someday that some young girl will pick this book up and say 'Here is my mentor…'" Azar said, as the lady smiled.
"Oh ho, well, that sounds nice…" she replied, then turned her attention back out to the middle of the dome, as the monks down there scattered and talked, and the Head Monk began making way to an exit.
As the Roth family prepared to move in, Arella sat on her cottony bed, listening to an MP3 player she brought along.
"You can shine… forget about the reasons why you can't in life… and start to try…-" she began, singing along to a Hilary Duff song, before a sudden knock came at the door.
"Hey… can we talk about something?" her father began, leaning on the doorway.
"Sure, what is it?"
"You know… what happened back on Earth… the rape," he began, sitting near her, but she quickly replied before he was finished
"I know, that's why we moved here, so the demons can't hurt me…" Arella replied, apparently trying to deal with it by being happy and carefree as she could be.
"I know, the demons," he began with a sigh, "Listen… I've… never been much of a religious man… but I still think… God gave you this baby for a reason, Arella."
He took her hands, and said very dramatically, "I want you to take care of this baby, no matter what happens to me or your mom, do you understand that?"
"Wh… What's going to happen to you and mom?" she asked, as her father shook his head.
"No, no, nothing's going to happen… Even if something does happen, I didn't leave America without bringing a piece of it with us," he said, with a smirk. He held up an American-made pistol, as suddenly Arella's face lit up in a mix of shock and fear.
"No, they won't allow you to have that here!" Arella said frantically, as her father quickly replied.
"No, they won't find it Arella… listen, I want to protect you and your mother… that's why they made the 4th Amendment…" he began to explain, but his daughter quickly cut him off.
"Dad, we're not in America anymore. They don't even have guns here." She continued.
"I know, but just incase-" he began, but suddenly her mother's voice came from the doorway.
"What's going on in here?" she asked.
"Nothing." Her father said, standing up and obviously showing the pistol in his right hand.
"What is that?" her mother asked in surprise, as her father quickly replied.
"Nothing, I'm just showing our daughter that there's nothing to be afraid of," he said.
He quickly gave Arella the gun, and whispered, "Keep this under your bed."
As they walked into the other room, Arella could hear her parents quarrelling about her father bringing a gun, and then finally calming down after hearing her father say "I just want us to be safe."
She then shut her eyes, and hung her dream-catcher ornament, a gift from one of the monks in the coliseum, up on a lampshade. Most of the furniture they brought was American-made, except for the common imports in American households.
As she drifted into sleep, she began to dream… and the dream-catcher began to glow a strange white.
Next thing she knew, she was peeking around the doorway of her room, staring out into the barely lit hallway and main room, as a confrontation was ongoing.
"You can't barge in here like this!" her father was saying very loud, as a group of monks rushed into the house.
"Azar told us about your daughter, Mr. Roth. We know that you have been seeing her about your daughter's child for a while now," the monk began to explain.
"So, what? Are you going to arrest me?" her father continued, holding out his hands as if he was going to be handcuffed.
"No, we need your daughter. We need to put to rest to demon seed within her," the monk continued, and began to walk back to the room.
"You leave my daughter out of this!" her father began, grabbing the monk.
But as soon as he laid his hands on him, the monk went back with a large chop that hit her father square in the nose. He fell back in recoil holding his nose, as the monk made way to the room.
"It's a fighting monk, Roland! Haven't you heard of them?" her mother said loudly, as her father got back to his feet.
"Yes, I've heard of them, but I didn't do-" he began, but started huffing after seeing the monk going back into his daughters room. As he got up, suddenly another monk blocked his path, shaking his head.
As the father got ready to push past him, in the room, the monk kneeled down towards Arella.
"Come with me, Dear, your baby is in danger," he said softly, but suddenly, with a loud 'Grah!', the monk blocking her father's path before was tossed backwards through the door and into the nearby wooden chest filled with Arella's books, causing the monk in front of her to stand up in alert.
Her father swiftly ran in and cut around and got in-between Arella and the monk.
"She is my daughter, and I won't let you take her!" her father yelled, as at the same time, the monk yelled, "SILENCE!"
He cast his hand up, pinning her father up on the wall.
"Don't you see the evil living in this girl?" the monk shouted, as suddenly down the hall, her mother fired back with tears in her eyes.
"She's not evil, she's a 16 year old girl!"
"Enough!" the monk shouted, "I'm taking her."
The monk grabbed Arella with a lot of force, and began forcing her down the hall, as the mother screamed out 'No!'.
Suddenly, the mother lunged at the monk, causing his focus to drift from the father to the mother.
Two other monks grabbed the mother trying to get her off the monk, as Arella's father fell back down, and immediately reached for under the bed.
He grabbed the American Colt-brand pistol, and ran into the doorway.
"Let go of my daughter or I'll shoot!" he shouted furiously, as the monks turned around.
As the monk calmly switched Arella behind him, he cast out his hand, causing Roland Roth to pull the trigger.
The bullet went through the monk's thumb, and then into his chest, fatally wounding him.
"Mom!" Arella cried out with a scream, and ran into her mother's arms, as the two monks trying to take hold of her ran up to help the downed monk.
"Roland!" Isabella Roth shouted out, as a struggle could be heard.
A few more shots rang out, and a loud 'Agh!' could be heard in the other room.
A few monks walked out quickly, as Arella's mother peered out worriedly and shakily into her daughter's new room. Standing there was a monk, the smoking tip of a gun, and Roland Roth, dead.
"ROLAND!" her mother shouted out, as Arella screamed.
Suddenly, she woke up, her heart pounding. Her father and mother rushed in after hearing the scream, her father holding a wooden baseball bat.
"Are they here?" her father asked.
"No… I had a bad dream…" Arella began, out of breath, as beside her, the dream catcher suddenly stopped glowing, and her parents calmed down.
It was finally morning. Isabella Roth was washing dishes with a hand towel and a tub of hot soapy water as Arella walked in the bedroom, her long purple hair all messed up from the way she slept.
"Mom? Where's dad?" Arella asked at the doorway of the dining room, their wooden dining table sticking out like a sore thumb, as nothing else matched it.
"He went out to run some quick errands. Can you help me set the table, Dear?" her mother told her, as she nodded.
"Yes ma'am…" Arella whispered, and began setting the table with the white glass plates they brought on top of their placemats. She sat silverware on each of their napkins, and then sat down a bunch of glasses.
But as she sat down the last glass, she eyed it strangely.
"Mom, these aren't ours." Arella said.
"Oh, I know, they were a gift from my sister," Isabella said.
"Hey, do we have electricity around here? I need to charge my MP3 player…" Arella asked, straightened a chair after she accidently bumped into it.
"There's no electricity here, Arella. They don't live like that," her mother said, as Arella looked baffled.
"No electricity? You mean we've gone back to like, the 19th century? What am I supposed to do?" Arella asked a bit frantically, as her mother shook her head and sat the dishtowel down.
"Well, I can take you to the bookstore later and we can find some you like," she explained, as Arella sighed.
"I was never much of a book person…" Arella muttered, as her mother had a soft laugh.
"You were when you were younger… then your father bought you that GameBox," her mother began, but Arella quickly cut in.
"GameCube, mom," Arella corrected her, "Where is it anyway?"
"You packed it in your suitcase, remember?" her mom answered, as Arella nodded.
"Oh, right…"
Several roads and turns away from where the Roth family lived, Roland Roth was walking around with a piece of parchment, with an address on it…
"1… 8… 40. Ok, this is it," he said, and took a deep breath. He knocked on the door, as suddenly an older woman answered the door.
"May I help you?" she asked, as Roland cleared his throat a bit.
"I'm looking for Azar. I was told she could help me-my child." He began, as she nodded.
"She's in the back," the old lady told him, as he entered the house, "writing her book… Oh if Sir Akers could see her now…"
"Akers?" Roland asked, as she nodded.
"He once told her that she'd never be able to write… Pff…" the lady scoffed, and motioned him inside a room.
"Dear, you have company," she said, as the young woman turned around.
"Ah, the American," Azar said softly, actually pronouncing it Aim-Air-ick-an instead of Uh-mare-ick-an.
"How do you do?" Roland greeted her, trying to sound as formal as possible.
"Please, sit," Azar said, setting the feather in the nearby pot of ink, pointing to a nearby chair.
Roland sat down, as suddenly Azar smirked, and went 'Hmm…'
"You… the way you set down… moving the chair a bit with your arm and plopping down quickly… it seems the… American lifestyle you once led was hectic and fast-paced," Azar told him softly, as he had a quick chuckle.
"Well, compared to this, I guess so…"
"Tell me, Mr. Roth… you seem nervous… is there something you came to see me about?" Azar continued.
"I… my daughter. She's pregnant," Roland said, Azar smiling.
"Well congratulations," Azar said at first, but noticed Roland wasn't smiling, and went back to a more serious tone, "Who is the father?"
"I… I-… I can't tell you, it won't be right," Roland stammered, as Azar shook her head.
"I keep secrets very good. I have dozens of secrets I with-hold for others already," she coaxed.
"A… a demon," Roland began, as Azar looked very surprised, "I-I don't know what to do… he took the form of like… a really handsome man… then… raped her."
At the word 'rape', Azar's face went numb.
"Your daughter was raped by a d-… Oh sir, I am so sorry. … I will do more than just keep her secret," Azar began, causing Roland to look from his stare at the floor to her.
"I will help her, and her baby. It is the least I can do," Azar replied with a subtle smile, as Roland grinned wide, stood up, and held out his hand with the intent to shake hands.
He replied with a loud, "Thank you so much!"
Azar simply stared in confusion, and he calmed down.
"Uh… Americans… shake hands… it's like… a gratitude thing," Roland explained, a bit flabbergasted that she didn't know what it was.
"Oh, like at the ceremony… I should have known, considering we greet the new race with their own form of greeting at first…" Azar began.
"Wait, people don't usually greet like that?" Roland asked, as Azar nodded.
"Well, you must get going. And Mr. Roth," Azar began, as Roland stood up but turned around after his name was said, "Take no-one's advice without asking yourself what it is right for her. You are her father."
Roland nodded with a mixed facial expression, and then hurried out.
"Be safe," Azar muttered, opening her palm a bit, and thrusting her wrist forwards a few centimeters.
As Roland left the household and got back to the street, suddenly chills ran down his back, causing him to jerk a bit.
He took a deep breath, rubbing his back.
"Weird place…" he said under his breath, heading back 'home', as Azar watched out her window up above.