Woot! Part three. This one takes a far different turn from the others, but I really liked how it turned out
Disclaimer: the Teen Titan are not now, nor will they ever be, mine.
A Night on the Town
"Raven! Dr. Light's on the move! He's heading down Main Street and should be coming up on your left just . . . about . . . NOW!" Robin followed in heated pursuit on his R-Cycle, his communicator clutched tightly up to his mouth.
The raw power of the empath's energy exploded outwards and sent the villain flying through the windows of a building on the other side of the road.
Raven loomed after him eagerly and disappeared into the soul sucking maze of office cubicles.
She drifted hesitantly between the identical faux walls, but Dr. Light made nary a peep, that is, until his voice seemed to emanate from all directions at once.
"Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night."
A shiver crept its way up her arms and all of a sudden, every bulb in the building was flaring with unapologizing light until they shattered simultaneously mere seconds later.
Momentarily distracted and made blind by the impressions burned into her retinas, Raven wasn't expecting the blow that came squarely to her chest and sent her soaring back into the street. Her winded lungs were on fire as she clutched at her heart, desperately taking in as much air as possible.
Robin had been just about to go in after his teammate when she flew out while the other three titans were homing in on the location from all directions. They'd been fairly spread out when the alert about Dr. Light came in and had hoped to have him surrounded.
The boy wonder sent a brief message to Beast Boy and Cyborg about taking care of Raven as he and Starfire went after the villain and then disappeared through the broken windows, guided by the alien's green light.
Beast Boy changed into a cheetah and made it to her first.
"Rae? Raven!" He skidded on his heels in an attempt to slow down and approached her with cautious concern. "Hey, you alright?"
He reached out and rubbed along one of her shoulders tenderly. When she didn't attempt to kill him, he knew that something was seriously wrong.
But then Cyborg was there, brushing him aside and scooping her up.
"Raven, we need to get you back to the med bay. Now. Broken ribs are a best case scenario considering how hard you were hit."
She was still choking in lungfuls of oxygen when Robin and Starfire returned, an apprehended Dr. Light in tow and hardly a scratch to show for their effort.
Their easy success added an extra edge to Raven's grimace of pain and she would have cast the expression in shadow with her hood if Cyborg didn't currently have her arms locked up against his robotic frame.
At the sight of her obvious turmoil, Dr. Light began to laugh, even as the cops arrived and set about propping open the back doors of the heavy-duty van that would soon form his cage.
"Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night."
After hearing the lyrics for the first time, Beast Boy's eyes were drawn to Raven's chest whereupon a little light had suddenly started to pulsate red.
"Dudes, uh, what's that?"
Raven looked down at the spot to which he was pointing and felt her eyes widen exponentially. Before the others could even think to react, she'd expelled an overwhelming sphere of power outwards from herself and knocked them back. Even Cyborg couldn't keep his grip on her.
It was worth it for her, though.
Seeing her teammates safely out of harm's way, even as she was caught in the middle of a brilliant explosion of white light, was always worth it.
The flash seared Beast Boy's extra sensitive eyes, but he could still sense Raven.
The sound she made as her body crashed into the ground.
The smell of blood that she exuded in place of her normal vanilla scent.
And then he was shattering as the Beast fought its way to the fore. He didn't need any of his further heightened senses to tell him that Dr. Light was escaping amid the adrenaline fueled confusion; he could feel it.
His feline reflexes had him spinning on dime and running down the cause of his boiling rage. The beams of light shot by the villain were like flies: pesky, but in the end, relatively harmless as he weaved his way among the sporadic bursts.
Dr. Light let out a distinctly feminine scream as the Beast pounced, his body ending up pierced between the monster's oversized fangs.
Satisfied with his catch, the Beast turned back to his alter ego's companions and didn't hesitate to fling away the garbage between his teeth. Dr. Light landed with a crash into the van of the police officers, all of whom were now quivering in their boots.
The Beast had no patience for them, though. His attention was directed solely towards the figure laying prone and broken on the hard asphalt.
Beast Boy's friend's were blocking his view of her and he would have none of that. Growling as if it were they who had invaded on his territory, he strode purposely forward.
Not wanting to further set him off, the other titans skidded back hastily.
But before the Beast could get too close, Raven's cloak began to flap upwards with an unnatural air and she was quickly rising with it, her mangled body on full display for his newly readjusted eyes.
He stopped, speculating his next move, until Raven reacted once more.
Her eyes shone red as tendrils of power allowed her to stretch up to double her normal height, seemingly ignorant of the pain that must be coursing through her body.
The Demon's gaze was stark as it regarded his foreign appearance. After a second of dead silence, the Beast began to move towards her and she reached out one of the branches of her power as well.
As the tendril first started to brush against the Beast's face, the three remaining titans found their voices once more and immediately protested the actions of their pseudo-comrades.
The complaints fell on deaf ears as the Beast continued to stalk forwards, the tendril feathering lightly along his body all the while.
At only a few feet away, he rose to full height and met the Demon face to face. Losing her apathetic demeanor, she now seemed curious as she brought a slightly clawed hand to rest upon the Beast's head and gently stoked at one of his ears.
The touch brought a purr to his throat as he nuzzled her palm, but before she could fully cant her head in consideration of his actions, the Demon crumpled back into Raven and she dropped to the ground.
Beast Boy was already there to stop the impact and slide to his knees in order to better absorb the weight, her body braced delicately against his own.
When he could at last drag his gaze away from its cataloguing of her injuries, it was to search the similarly dumbstruck expressions of his friends.
"Uh, guys . . . what just happened?"
What do you think of a companion piece to this one?
Think spiked punch, karaoke and special song that may just apply to a certain Azarathian we know.
Remember, feedback is love. :)