Author's Note: Thanks for reading this story everyone--and a special thanks to AslieFlame and AnisYamamoto for being the first to review! The last chapter was shorter than normal so I made this one a tiny bit longer. Side note: Sorry for any misspellings and such, I sort of just post the chapters as soon as I finsh typing them because I'm so darn excited for you to read them!
Okay, I'm done. Enjoy!
Chapter 4
Starfire
Starfire is crash landing, but she's not all that concerned. With the number of things that have gone wrong, she would have been surprised if something actually went right.
If she had to guess, she'd say everything went wrong the day war was declared against the people of her planet. It seems to only get worse as the years pass, and Starfire has maybe just reached the breaking point.
Nothing has ever coaxed a rage such as this from her before. Not the death of her parents, not the attack on her people, not her own enslavement and the things endured because of it.
She's not angry about her ship breaking apart around her. She is Tamaranian. This is nothing.
Only the still-fresh betrayal of her sister can bring this sort anger. She has lead a coo against Starfire and what's worse, the people sided with her.
It doesn't matter that is was Starfire who kept them strong and united through years of servitude. It doesn't matter that it was Starfire who lead the revolt and the reclaiming of their planet.
What mattered was that Starfire was weak. But it seems to her that there is a time fighting and there is a time for making allies--and Tamaran needed them, because loath as they were to admit it, they were still weak.
They got the planet back, but now they had to keep it. Starfire organized one peacetreaty after another. She planned weddings by the handful. She was going to fix everything.
Why could they not see that under Starfire's wise rule, they would have prospered?
Backfire prefers blood spilled over lives saved. She will lead their people back into despair and most of them heartily agree with her methods. It seems only Starfire can see the ruin it will bring.
They agreed with Blackfire so much that they lead Starfire, their Queen and savior, to an execution. But Starfire is strong, and she did not get where she was by giving in to death so easily.
She fought free of them and stole a ship. She rode off that planet and has not slowed down since. But now she is out fuel, and out of time to think of what to do.
For now, she blows the top off her small ship and jumps out as it plummets into dark waters.
Undeterred by the dark, she follows the closest source of light and zips angrily through the sky, taking in the foreign buildings and people who can almost pass for Tamaranian except they are rooted to the ground and have muted skin tones and hair colors.
Maybe this will be home for a while. At least until her people beg to have her back.
Raven
Raven spends a good three hours flying over jump city before finally falling into angry defeat. How is she supposed to find a single man in this place? Especially when the only thing she's got to go on is a name?
"Screw this," she finally mutters.
She touches down on a street with no cars passing but many parked. The already dim yellow street lights seem to shrink away as Raven feels the emotion of another nearby.
Pausing, she tilts her head.
Someone in this city is very angry. It pulses and continually slams into Raven like physical blows. She almost feels sorry for whoever caused an anger so fierce.
On cue, a flaming figure comes into view overhead.
"Someone is going to die tonight," Raven muses, watching the girl pass with mild interest. If Raven actually finds who she is looking for, then at least two will.
To her left, she hears hushed voices.
In the realm of her father she quickly learned how valuable information is. Anything worth whispering about was worth her knowing. On that instinct, Raven turns a corner and then another to find two men beside a dumpster, money exchanging hands.
She scoffs. A drug deal. They are only human after all, so what else should she have expected? They never seem to care about anything of importance, and they certainly never *know* any thing of importance.
"The fuck?" the tall one with a beanie says. "You some kind of witch? You gotta pay for my shit, no matter who you are."
The shorter one with frizzy blonde hair slaps the other guy. "Nah, man. That's one of them vigilantes. Look man, don't you have something better to be doing?"
"I'm just trying to make a living here," the tall one adds.
Just then, from atop the dumpster, a rat leaps down and transforms mid-air, landing on two feet. Raven finds it mildly alarming she didn't sense the shapshifters presence in rat form. Her senses now tell her he is most likely human, save for the unfortunate green skin and hair.
Not that she's one to talk. A glimpse of her true form and these tiny humans would die of fright.
The shapeshifter turns his back on the two apparent criminals and says to Raven, "I was totally here first dude, I've got dibs!" He blinks and clocks his head. "Woah, that's a scary uniform. Going for a dark night type of thing? That's freaky. I tried that once but people mostly just laughed at me." He smiles, oblivious to the two men who have started retreating.
Raven's eyes are already red beneath the dark of her hood but she makes them glow just for the pleasure of seeing his terror.
"You should tone it down though, otherwise everyone will think you're . . . a . . . bad . . ." The shapshifters smile fades as he seems to realizes she's not on his side.
To her own surprise, Raven only feels surprise coming from him, not fear. He's either stupid or brave.
"Hey, that's cool," he says with a returning smile, "you can have them both. No need to get angry."
Raven is leaning towards stupid.
Pausing in her thoughts, Raven is struck by another thought. If this guy is a vigilante then he must have some sort of knowledge to give her about where she can start to look for this Slade Wilson.
She dims the glow of her eyes and parts her cloak in order to pull her hood back. She watches his eyes drift down and shoot back up, a combination of surprise, lust, and emberassment running through him.
"Dude, your a girl."
"You're a hero," she replies, hoping to convey normalcy. "Can you help me?"
"Me? A hero?" He scratches behind one of his pointed ears and visibly perks up. "Well, yeah! I used to work with the doom patrol. Heard of them? Then I decided to go solo, they didn't really get me. I kinda sorta have a partner now. He's--"
"If there was someone I needed to find, but I only had a name and city, how would I go about locating them?"
"Oh, um . . . Have you tried google?"
Raven has a large number of retorts for this response but a chill running up her spine stops her. She whirls around to face what is climbing out of a the ground.
Misreading her actions, the shapshifter catches her shoulder. "Maybe my partner will have some ideas, he does most of that grunt work."
She can tell when the shapshifters sees them because all his emotions are overpowered by primal fear.
The three creatures that are climbing out of the asphalt like it's sand are six feet tall and have arms twice as thick as any human. Their eyes are classic demon-red and have a k-9-like snout and sharp rows of teeth.
"Friends of yours?" he squeaks.
"Run," she says.
"No way."
Surprised, she spares the guy a Glace, reassessing her initial assumptions of him. There is something about his expression that tells her he is indeed a hero.
Raven hates heroes. They never know when to back down. More often than not, it gets them killed. More often than she like to admit, she has to do the killing.
These low-level demons will get the pleasure this time. But this is one heroes death that would be supremely unnecessary.
Raven can handle them no problem, they just need to be kept at bay until the energy keeping them here fades away.
"These guys don't mess around. Trust me kid, just run."
She steps forward, pulling up her hood. "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" She flings a hand at them, directing a giant fist of black energy. The force of her blow sends the three skidding back a few feet.
The hole in the chest of the middle one begins to close up.
The shapshifter steps forward with her but he is not as stupid as she thought because he transforms into an eagle and flies away.
"I'm coming back with help," he promises.
Raven doesn't bother to acknowledge his promise. Promises, as she has learned, are lies only the stupid fall for. Besides, even heroes have their limits and the demons are surely more than he signed on for.
"I'm guessing my father sent you," she says in a supremely unconcerned tone.
"You are wanted," one of them hisses.
They don't speak in the tongue of humans, theirs is a language often called the Trash Tongue. Only the lowest form of demons speak it. For them to utter another language would be to presume they are anything but the slaves they are.
"You will be returned."
She sprints towards them, catching them off guard, and shoots three pointed spires at them.
"You'll have to kill me first," she says as she watches them flounder. They are pinned on the wall of a building like butterflies in a frame. "Can't do that though, can you?"
She glides forward, shadows writhing free from underneath her cloak. "I'm needed alive. You, not so much."
One of them claws at the black matter speared through its chest and bears its teeth. "We can not die."
She steps between two and grins hideously. "Because you're not fully here. So how do you plan to take me with you?"
A real curiosity. Her father is not a fool. What is point of sending these demons?
The one she turned her back on lashes its tail out at her and she goes flying back, sliding across the asphalt. Damn it. She always forgets about the tails.
The blow broke her concentration, making the spears pinning the demons to the wall dissipate, and she looks up to find them charging her like she did them. The one in the center reaches her first, getting a good hit across her face and another down her thigh before exploding into about a thousand pieces.
Raven didn't make that happen.
After two more flashes of green, the other two demons explode as well.
"Who the hell . . ." Raven blinks, taking in the new comer.
Yeah, someone was going to die tonight. Raven just didn't think it would be herself.