The Last Battle
Chapter VII
~ Raven's Cavern ~
Moving over to the pool, she sank down into the cooling waters, washing the sweat off from that mornings event. As she floated lazily about on the surface, Raven wondered what had happened, she thought she had been careful. She had been meditating most of each day, keeping the jewel containing Trigon in her forehead, and trying so hard to forget him. 'What changed?' That question revolved in her mind, keeping her from enjoying the cool water as it enveloped her slender frame.
As the water surrounded her, the warmth of the cave felt familiar, yet mysterious to her, like soft hands caressing her wherever it blew over her. The strange sensation brought him to mind again, the dreams of those strong, sure hands of his as they must still be. How she wished for those hands to hold her, to come save her, but knew they never would. She stepped out of the water, moving to stand in the rays of the rising sun.
It took a few moments for her to notice that there was a low tone coming from her left, even longer to place what was making that sound. As she looked over, her mind came awake fully, reminding her of what she had forgotten.
The communicator was toning the day for her, bringing to mind an event that she had come to loathe for years. In a whisper, she gave credence to the day, breathed new life into it, before she could stop herself.
"Happy birthday, Raven."
~ Titans Tower Briefing Room ~
For the second time that day, the team was fully assembled at the table, but in the short time since their last meeting, the tension in the room was palpable. Wonder Girl was looking slightly uncomfortable, probably waiting for someone to excuse her. Jinx, on the other hand, looked expectant, perhaps hoping a fight would break out which she could join in on.
Damian waited for Nightwing to begin, as it was his responsibility to inform the team of the truth. Nightwing was waiting patiently for the right words to come to mind. It's never easy to bring something so clearly suspicious to light, especially when it concerned his team.
"So Nightwing, you called this meeting, what's happened?" Starfire always knew how to ease into a tense situation. It was part of why Nightwing still loved her, not that he'd actually said that yet. He mentally shook his head, getting ready for what he was about to do.
Nightwing stood, pulling up the folder from the mainframe, as well as a second folder, that had been left unnamed. Opening the folder entitled 'Raven', the pictures populated the space in the middle of the table, orbiting around the other folder as projections. "Everything you're seeing here has been authenticated, either by myself or Batman… They're all 100% genuine and real. Batman and I can only guess that the girl's name is Raven, but there's no trace of her in the League database, or any database, for that matter."
"So how come we've never heard of her?" Beast Boy was trying to ask the questions in place of Damian, who obviously was still tense.
Cyborg stepped up, pulling some database entry logs, "Well, after looking into the possible age of these photos, it looks like there was some unidentifiable access to every League system, even to Batman's secure server, all within seconds of each other." He highlighted the blank sections in each of the logs, clearly showing a pattern in the entries. "It always starts here in the Tower, then the access is recorded on the League system, followed by Batman's server. On this day," a special highlighted block comes into view, "whoever was doing this, accessed all systems simultaneously, and subsequently any data related to this girl was deleted from everywhere else."
Jinx jumped in, "So how do we know it wasn't some kind of plant? Maybe her name's not Raven, and she was a mole?"
"Nightwing just said they were real, Jinx. Why create a whole persona just to leave this behind?" Once again, Wonder Girl had made an excellent point.
"Besides, hermana, just look at the last time this weirdness happened… look familiar to anyone?" Beetle pulled a recording from his own archive, of the specific date.
"Duuude…"
Jinx looked perplexed, "What?"
Damian spoke for the first time, "It happened right after we fought Trigon… but the part that still gets me is this was kept secret. Not to mention the fact that there is still something else you haven't shown us."
Starfire, who had been sitting quietly processing the issue of trust in her team, looked over to the folder that lay unopened. "What's in that folder, Nightwing?" Her tone spoke volumes.
"Look, before I show you all what I found, you need to know that this is why I was keeping this a secret. What you're about to see is gonna confuse you-"
"Just show us, Nightwing…" Starfire spoke in a tone that brooked no argument from him.
Sighing, he typed a few keys in front of him, opening the folder, revealing a fragmented video file. Gesturing to the file, the playback began.
~ Raven's Cavern ~
Having decided to meditate in the shade of a tree, some miles from her cavern, Raven was trying to keep her mind focused. Yet each time she found her center, she would catch herself thinking of him again, 'What's so different from yesterday?' She stretched out, touching the cool ground near the tree, trying not to glare at the marks on her skin, trying so hard not to think about her team, and failing to keep him from entering her thoughts.
The flood of memories was threatening to overwhelm her, and nothing made sense. Nothing should have changed, she'd been so careful, kept the darkness within her at bay, and even– "No, don't think about it, you fixed everything, just forget–"
Even as she spoke, her mind went blank, the memories fading before a jolt shot through her, pain blinding all thought, all emotion. Memories came flooding in, flooding her with more emotion than she could control, pressing against the walls of her consciousness, trying to break free. 'Just breathe, it'll pass, it's gotta pass, please just let it pa-' before she could stop herself, she spoke three powerful words, unleashing everything that she had bottled up inside her.
"Azarath… Metrion… Zinthos!.."
~ Titans Tower ~
"No way, ese… This can't be real…"
"Yeah, dude… That's just not right… That's not what happened…"
"Well, it looks real enough, all except for me and Wonder Girl not being there."
"But that's not possible, I clearly remember fighting with everyone against him."
No words could describe the level of shock on Damian's face. Everyone turned to see how he was handling everything. Damian replayed the video in his mind, seeing Trigon's minions swarming over the team, him fighting with this girl against them, before the video skipped… Showing a mutilated version of him, no right arm, half his chest gone, that girl holding his head in her lap, his eyes closing, her screaming… Another skip, and flashes of muted light, as if shadows were dancing across whatever was recording this.
"Did I die?"
Before anyone could react, Damian drew a sharp breath, clutching his sides before doubling over in pain. Even as he felt the excruciating pain in his body, his mind recognized that his legs were shaking. He was vaguely aware of his ragged breathing, yet he could not say why he was feeling all this. His legs gave out, even as his mind faded to black.
