Chapter 3: Quoth the Raven
What was that smell? It smells like metal.
What's that noise? It sounds like whimpering.
Where am I? I don't recognize anything.
She looked down at the floor, seeing her pale, bare feet against a dirty tiled floor. The icy chill from the freezing tile sending shivers up her bare legs and back, but the small droplets of blood help to warm them.
Wait . . . blood? Where is it coming from? Following the trail of blood she see's . . . her. The blonde traiter Terra strapped with leather straps to a cold iron table. No . . . . my table, made it just for her.
I know where I am now. This is my torture chamber. The one I made just for me and my prey. A large smile comes to her face as she grew nastolgic over what had taken place here. She looked down at the blonde again, her whimpering and pleading like sweet sweet music to her ears, until the music stops when she tries to speak.
"Please..." She begged in a raspy voice dry from lack of water and screaming. "Raven I'm so so sorry. Just please . . . stop . . . "
Actually no, she enjoys the pleading much, much better then the whimpering. She strolls over to her face, dragging the tip of her knife gently across her skin, but not deep enough to draw blood, but smooth enough to release gentle gasps from her victim on the table. Her once pretty face stained with tears and dirt and blood, she made sure to rub plenty of dirt in her face, just like Terra once did to her. She looks up with pleading eyes, the once beautiful blue eyes now dull and getting dimmer from blood loss.
"Don't worry dear, the pain will stop," I trace the blade over her heart, "When your heart does." Was that my voice? I don't recognize it.
"Raven . . . " There was another dry raspy voice by the wall on the other side of the tiled room. Looking over she saw the green idiot hanging by his wrists an inch off the floor. His clothes ripped off of his body with blood dripping down his chest. It reminds of me of christmas.
She turned back to the traiter tapping the tip of my knife on her nose. "Hold that thought." She walks over to the once cocky shapeshifter, making sure to sway my hips a little bit, after all he couldn't take his eyes off of her as she cut into the love of his life.
His breath is ragged and horse as he tries to speak. "Please let Terra go. I'll do anything just let her go."
"Awe." Raven wips the tears from his eyes. "Your begging is almost as cute as hers. You two really are meant for each other aren't you."
"Raven please. This isn't you-"
Raven grabs his face making sure his lifeless green eyes meet her red ones. She dug her nails into his cheeks, enjoying the sweet scent of his blood dripping from the puncture wounds. "No you see that's where your wrong. This is who i've always been, I've just decided to stop fighting it." Beast Boy cried more tears, how pathetic. "And to think I actually thought I cared about you. Blegh." There was one more thing to do to add insult to injury. The demoness presses her lips securely against his own, slipping her tongue down his throat as far down as it will go. The blonde bitch staring at them as she assualted his mouth with her own.
Their lips were still connected when she plunged the knife into his heart. "Look at that. You broke my heart, now i'm breaking yours." The child of Trigon is sure to twist the knife, taking more pleasure in his squirms of pain.
It's delicious.
Then from the darkness, a familiar voice can be heard. No not the voice of her father, who is usually cheering her on during nights like this. Someone else. In the darkness she can see him, smiling an evil smile as his eyes flashed a pale white. He is pleased with her work.
"So tell me Raven," Carnus Valogneus said, "How do you feel?"
Raven tried to scream, but it was caught in her throat. Her violet eyes wide with horror as her sleeping state gave way to wakefullness. She sat up, her pajama's sticking to her skin from the cold sweat all over her body. She could still smell the stench of blood and fear filling her nose. She began to gag on the bile in her stomach, but before she could retch she froze. Everything fell silent in her world, an eerie silence that seemed to suffocate her, then it was shattered by the sound of an ungodly screeching like rustic gears grinding against each other. She screamed in pain covering her ears with her hands, but it had no effect in drowning out the noise. Finally after a few agonizing moments, the noise stopped, but the pain didn't.
She stumbled off of her bed landing on her hands an knees. She felt as if someone had reached into her brain and started to pull her head apart from the inside out. She could feel fire bubbling inside of her that was clawing it's way out, a dark, malicious fire. It was familiar, something that couldn't be let out.
She began to crawl to her door unsure of what she needed to do, she just had to get out and get help from someone, ANYONE. She began to hear cackling all around her from various voices, overlapping one another, each speaking to her, but she couldn't make anything out as they shouted and screamed at her. The pain in her body was getting so intense she couldn't move any further and she curled up in a ball in the middle of her room, her door seemingly miles away from her. That fire inside her continued to boil and claw at her keeping her pinned in that spot.
With all of her left over strength she could summon, she managed to yell a single word,
"HELP!"
She had to believe someone heard her, but she was losing the battle inside of her. Her vision beginning to fade into red, her strength to stop it being drained with every effort. She felt the fire inside seeping out into the world around her, then she came to a realization. She had lost this battle, the darkness was taking her. She let her head slump against the floor in defeat, now all she had to do was wait for the red to consume her . . .
. . . . but once the door to her room was ripped off the wall and tossed to the side, she knew she'd have to wait just a little bit longer.
The alien princess flew to her friends side, dodging some of the artifacts flying about the room, Drake right behind her. If he hadn't heard her cry for help they would have kept going, but her shriek echoed through his ears like a frightening bell.
"Raven!" Starfire yelled. Raven didn't respond just kept quivering, her powers blasting in every direction. Starfire looked back to Drake with tears in her green eyes.
Drake could only think of one thing to do that would help. Without thinking of the consquences, he tore out of her room as fast as he could heading back to his own, leaving Starfire with Raven.
Starfire approached Raven, but she scooted away from her.
"Get away from me." she growled. Her eyes were fading from violet to red, her voice becoming deeper and more inhuman.
"Raven, it is I, your friend, Starfire." Starfire ducked out of the way of more of Raven's possessions that were flying about her room.
Raven pinned herself against the wall trying to get away from the her friend. "No . . . I . . . no . . . friends. . . ."
"Starfire!" The princess whirled around to see her friends standing in Raven's doorway.
"Friends you mu-" A surge of red power knocked Starfire away, throwing her against the far wall with a boom. Now the remaing Titans were faced with an entity that was supposed to be Raven, but any trace of their friend was gone.
"You." it snarled staring through the group directly at Terra. When they were out in the common room the power throughout the tower began flickering, then objects started flying in different directions. Knowing this had something to do with their dark friend, they all took off towards her room. Terra, without thinking, ran after them, but quickly regretted her choice when she was faced with the murderus rage of the creature floating in Raven's body. "Why. Wont. You. DIE!?" A red tendril shot at Terra, wrapping itself around her neck and pulling her into the room.
"Terra!" Robin yelled running after her, Cyborg and Beast Boy close behind. Red tendrils shot out again, but this time pinning the other Titans against the walls keeping them from going anywhere. The demonic Raven brought Terra close to her own face, her breath like hellfire as she breathed raggidly over the poor girls face. Her blue eyes wide with fear, the entity in front of her bathing in it, with utter joy.
"Now i'm going to finish what I started in that cannery." it growled. Terra's eyes got wider as the realization hit her.
"HEY!" The demon pulled Terra aside meeting the eyes of the Dragon Knight, who waisted no time as he held up a small box with something glistening inside of it and a small book in his other hand. "Dedi vobis potestatem hanc gemmam praecipio tibi !"
Raven's head shot backwards, a scream of agony shattering her windows and shaking her bedroom. Black energy began swirling from the chakra stone on her forehead, her mouth and eyes, then began to get sucked into the small black box that Drake was holding. Along with the black energy emerging from the demon everyone could also see a teal colored energy being pulled from Drake's necklace into the box as well.
As soon as it had begun, the teal and black energy vanished into the box in Drake's hand then both magic whielders fell to the gound out cold.
Robin pulled himself up once the choas had vanished and scanned for Starfire. He found that she had been thrown against the bookcase of Raven's room, books of the bookshelf had fallen on top of her, burying her in debris.
"Starfire?!" Robin crawled over to her, but she was already pulling herself up.
"I am unharmed, were is friend Raven?" She scanned the chaos, as she helped the Boy Wonder to his feet. With her gasp, she caught sight of her friend, unconscious in the middle of the chaos.
"Cyborg check on Drake." Robin was already making his way to Terra, who Beast Boy was helping up.
Cyborg knealt over the Dragon Knight, shaking him gently by the shoulder. "Hey man you alright?" No response. "Rob he's out like a light." Cyborg began to scan over Drake's body with his systems checking for anything out of the ordinary.
"What do your scanners say?" Robin asked.
Cyborg finished scanning. "Says he's alright," he made his way to Raven.
"How is she Cy?" asked Beast Boy.
Cyborg waited for the scan to complete before answering. "Everything looks normal. Well normal for Raven. My scanners say their both fine, they probably just need some rest."
Everyone let out a breath of relief.
"Guys," everyone turned to the timid voice of Terra who looked very frightened. "What did she mean by finishing the job at the cannery?"
Everyone stiffened looking at one another to answer.
"Well this is going to be a long day." Robin groaned.
Terra threw on a white t-shirt before putting on a brown leather jacket. After the team had explained as best they could about the incident involving the two girls, Terra ran back to the med bay completely mordified. Robin and Beast Boy were close behind her while Cyborg and Starfire put the two unconscious magic users down in their own beds.
Terra was in complete shock, well complete wasn't the right word. She knew Raven never liked, or trusted her and after what she did to the demoness Terra was lucky she was still alive. Deep down Terra couldn't blame Raven at all she even felt she may have deserved it, that didn't mean she wasn't still scared for her life.
Robin and Beast Boy hung back while she got dressed then entered when she gave the all clear.
"So it was Raven," she said somewhat angrily, "she tortured me?"
"No it wasn't Raven." Beast Boy defended trying to pry his eyes off the fact that her jeans hugged her butt rather nicely.
"Oh okay." Terra closed her suitcase in frustration and turned around to face him. "So it was a different Raven huh?"
"Well yes . . . and . . no . . . " Beast Boy looked around the medical room as if the words were right there in the sky for him to say.
Robin put a hand on his friends shoulder and stepped in front of him. "It's actually kind of a long story. About a month ago, five of our Titan teammates were murdered in ice cold blood, we didn't have any leads on who it was or how to find them. Then these guys show up out of nowhere and help us find the one who killed them. Drake was one of the guys that helped us. The person that killed them was a demon from hell, the same guy that took you." Terra shuddered at the vision of the man that took her.
So he was a demon?
"This demon, for some reason, has an obsession with Raven to the extent that he kidnapped her and," Robin paused, "he was inches away from killing her if Drake and I hadn't shown up." Terra felt the oxygen get sucked out of her body.
The same thing that took her almost killed Raven?
"After that Raven hasn't been the same and it was only last night that we realized that the demon wants Raven to give in to her demonic side. Somehow he knew about yours and Raven's past and used that to push her over the edge. You see, Terra, Raven is just as much a victim as you are."
Terra couldn't find the words to respond. Everything was just jumbled in her head with all of this information. Hell if she had known that demons were involved she may have re-thought her choice. However thinking on the matter further an unrelated thought came to her mind.
"So, demon's are real then?" she said her hands slowly slipping up her arms in a comforting gesture.
"It seems that way yeah." Beast Boy responded a little confused at her change of topic. Terra's behavior flashed from angry-scared to now just scared.
"So there's a . . . hell then . . . " The words came out as a whisper as she shuddered. The guilt and shame from the former Titan was radiating off of her.
Beast Boy, and Robin could tell why she had gotten so frightened all of the sudden. Beast Boy wasn't the sharpist when it came to most things, but he knew how to comfort someone. "Hey, don't think about that right now." He approached slowly with his hands up in an attempt to comfort her, but she turned to the side out of his reach. She was staring at the window with fear still in her eyes as she bit her nails nervously.
After a moment of silence Cyborg and Starfire entered the medical bay.
"How are they?" Robin asked drawing the unwanted attention away from Terra.
"They're fine, like I said they just need rest." Cyborg said.
Starfire on the other hand held onto a small box Robin recognized as the item Drake held when the spell was cast. Robin just assumed Drake took their powers away, but why his were gone as well he wasn't sure.
"Star can I see that?" he pointed to it.
Starfire was reluctant, bringing the box close to her, which they found odd. "It is alright Robin, I shall be taking the care of this."
His brow furrowed in confusion so he tried again keeping a gentle demeaner. "I just want to inspect it real fast is all." Starfire again was reluctant, but handed Robin the box. When he opened it he could see why she wasn't eager to part with it.
Inside was a beautiful diamond ring that was in the shape of the small rose, but the individual petals looked like snowflakes. Inside the ring however was a mixture of teal and black energy that was swirling around each other like a weird dance. Robin looked at it curiously, sure it was odd that it seemed their powers was in this tiny object, but why on earth did Drake have a wedding ring?
"Is it not beautiful Robin?" Starfire asked looking down at the ring with large eyes. At this point the rest of the Titans and Terra had leaned over Robin's shoulder looking down at the diamond ring. Starfire didn't seem to know the significance of the object in the box, but the others did. However even if they did know what it was, they kept all theories and questions to themselves.
"It sure is Star." Robin was still a little confused by the situation, but there was one thing he knew. "I think this will be safer with me for now, until we figure out whats going on." Robin closed the box and slipped it into one of his belt pouches. Of course it was safe there he rarely took it off, even when he went to bed he still wore it. Starfire pouted for a moment, but shurgged it away knowing that it was indeed safer with Robin for the time being.
Going back to the matter they had been discussing, Robin turned to Terra. "Well Terra we have a lot of questions as I'm sure you do too, but for now we need to hold off. I think in the meantime you need to think about what it is you want from us. If you want to be a Titan again, or freelance or whatever. When we talk about it next I want to hear that you have a plan, however I wont make any decisions until i've spoken with my whole team and that includes Raven, whatever shape she may be in. Does that seem fair?"
Terra absorbed his words. He was sincere in what he was saying, and he was willing to give her a chance, she just had to be patient. Plus at this point she didn't really have any idea what it was she wanted. She knew for sure she wanted to make amends and make things right with the Titans, but now it seemed a much higher judgement might be looming over her.
"Yeah it does." she responded.
"Alright." Robin looked back at his team and they all seemed to be on the same page as him. "In the meantime I think it's a good idea that you don't stay here. We can get you set up at a hotel that is not to far from here. How does that sound?"
At first she was kind of annoyed by the thought, but then again she didn't want to share a living space with something that wanted her dead, and would do it in a heartbeat. "Sounds good just let me get packed up."
"I'll make you a reservation and hopefully get you set up by this afternoon." Robin said turning to leave.
"I'll make sure she gets there ok." The team turned to look at Beast Boy who had made the offer. Wearily Robin agreed to let Beast Boy go with Terra, but they all had the same sickening feeling in their stomachs, including Terra. If there was any of the Titans she needed to make things right with, it was him.
Murakami High School. (end of the school day)
Murakami High was out of class for the day and no one seemed to notice they were missing a certain blonde student for the past day or so. If you were to ask anyone if they remembered a student named Terra Markov, they would all tilt their heads in confusion not remembering the person at all. So as typical high school students usually do they continued about their lives, homework, teachers, boyfriends and girlfriends, and all that fun stuff. Some people look on these kids and think "man they don't have a care in the world" though some of them should care, especaily a certain student who was currently being watched.
Name: Ashley Trevor, High school student at Murakami High
Address: 45564 Waterway st.
Weekly Routine: School duing the day. Cheerleading practise after school. Home by 8. Bedroom on second floor at the very end closer to the street. Goes to bed about 10.
That was the end of his notes for now as he pulled out a camera and started to take pictures of the young high school girl. Right now she was standing in the parking lot talking with some friends by their cars before she went off to cheerleading practice. There was a click click click of his camera at the girl, whom he noticed about a week ago and a half ago at the bowling ally where he worked. Since then she was always on his mind, well technically it wasn't her specifically he was thinking about, but another girl she reminded him of, Ashley was just easily accesible.
After a few more minutes of staring and camera shots she started to head towards the gym for her practice. He sighed in dissapointment before putting his camera away. As he reached for the steering wheel he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, a sick feeling beginning to settle in his stomach like someone was watching him, but he was alone. Keeping a weary eye out for anything odd he put the key in the ignition.
"Mister Adonis." Adonis almost lept from his seat seeing that he was no longer alone. A man he hadn't seen before was looking through his camera in the back seat. "I suppose it's time we met." Adonis spun around waiting for his heart rate to go down. He had no idea how this guy got into his car without him noticing, or hearing him, which frightened him all the more. He had never even seen this guy before, but he looked like the typical guy he hated. He had a very jock like appearence with a brown leather jacket, designer jeans, with scraggily facial hair and long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. However all of his fear faded to shock, anger and slight embarrassment when he saw the man going through his camera.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Adnois yelled. "And those are private!"
The man was unphased by the outburst of Adonis and continued to look through the camera. "Oh I can understand why. These are quite increminating if it happened to fall into the wrong hands. Or would it be right hands? Hmm dunno."
"What are you some kind of cop?" Adonis asked.
The man chuckled. "No no my friend far from it." He tossed the camera into the passenger seat then leaned between the middle of the seats, his elbows resting on the tops. "Name's Marik and I'm here to help you."
Adonis laughed. "What makes you think I need help?"
Marik simply smiled. "Let me ask if this sounds familiar? You find someone who . . . . interests you, then you follow them around, take a few candid's, get their schedule find out where they live, where they sleep, blah blah blah. Then you finally find the time and place to take them and do whatever it is you crazy kids do these days, only to puss out at the last minute. Am I in the ballpark?" Adonis simply scowled at Marik, but his silence told him everything he needed to know.
Marik chuckled then he waved his hands revealing a scrapbook out of black mist. Adonis's eye's widened again when he saw both the book and the impressive display of power Marik had. He flipped the book opened and started thumbing through it.
"You know I couldn't help but notice that all your 'interests' have the same distinguishing characteristics." Flipping through the book he saw both pictures and newspaper clippings all of which were of a young women dressed in a leotard and cloak. Marik recognized her immediately as the Teen Titan Raven.
Adonis angerily snatched the book from Marik's hands. "Yeah what's it to ya?"
Marik once again leaned forward between the seats, a smile on his face. "Well it just so happens that I have a certain skillset that helps individuals like yourself grow a pair and accomplish your goals. Without the need for a giant mechanical suit."
Adonis scoffed. "Yeah. Believe me I've tried the natural way and that didn't work."
Marik laughed. "I'm not talking about hitting the gym. What if I told you I can help you push past the 'mental barriar' as it were, and help you get what you want? And by tomorrow night you can make Raven yours and yours alone."
Adonis tried to keep his face emotionless, but Marik could see he was very interested. "So how can you help me?"
Marik smirked then he breathed out a stream of black mist from his mouth that began to flow into the eyes of the young man.
