Chapter Seven: Other End of the Spectrum
Note: Not really edited—may change. Don't have the desire to edit this a lot right now; working on the 100 Ways sequel. I may post the rest of this without many edits.
November 24, 2004
Rough landing from the portal this time. Since I last wrote, we've met the entity who's been moving us through universes, but in a violation of the Villain Exposition rule, his boss wanted a soda, so he sent us somewhere else.
That somewhere else is here, apparently. And it isn't much fun, yet we can't open up a portal and escape. I don't know why.
Inside the White Space, the black swirl cuffed the light.
"My remote. Get off of it!"
"Not until I get my tea!"
Warp watched, amused, and slowly charging his blasters.
We all landed on the sidewalk, except Terra, who landed on gravel. I healed up the injuries. We went to the Tower. It was immediately clear that Cyborg's sense of décor was a little different. The Tower was painted red, and the water around it was covered in flames. Red lights lined the pathway. It had a real 'we're trying desperately to look like harbingers of doom' look about it.
We were met at the door by Starfire.
"Hello, compatriots! You have returned! Where are your trophies?" She still had her normal… if not screechier… voice, but not the expression, which was strange and twisted.
"Uh... we're from an alternate universe," Robin said. He still sucks at that.
"Then you will die!" Starfire exclaimed it without much indication of evil intent. At first I thought it was a joke, but no, apparently she was just inept.
"You will… um… suffer general unkindness and meanness… and nefariousness… I am Starfire, Prophet of Doom and Zebnek Dinner—oops. Robin has told me not to say that second part. Um… I bring… uncomfortable discomfort to your…"
I flung her about a mile away, making sure to knock her out. Cyborg and Beast Boy appeared from the other room, and saw this.
"She's not exactly cut out for evil," Beast Boy said. Beast Boy was, uh, sneering. I never want to see that again. I might actually laugh.
"What're you looking at?" he asked. It reminded me of the time he was infected by those chemicals.
"Unfortunately, you," I said. "If you don't want to be thrown out like her…"
"Our Raven is so much better than you." With that, Beast Boy snarled and turned into a puma of some kind, leaping at me. I conjured up a quick shield and he crashed into it.
"Game over, BB," Robin said. "Titans!" I rolled my eyes. He didn't notice. "Go!"
We went. Terra slammed in a rock through the wall, swiping at Beast Boy and Cyborg. I hovered up and signaled Terra; we used both our powers to hurl a boulder at them at the speed of sound. It knocked them down. Cyborg fired his arm cannon. Sonic blasts came ricocheting off anything they could.
It made it too easy to find Cyborg, really. I collapsed a sofa on top of him, and the sonic blasts ceased. Then, Beast Boy leapt out from behind me and hit me, hard. Terra hesitated, and I knew that she was reluctant to hurt even this Beast Boy, after what had happened. I still couldn't help feeling a little outraged. Luckily, Robin was there too, and he warded Beast Boy away from me. BB transformed into a minotaur or something and dragged Cyborg out with him.
So here we are in another Titans Tower, but it looks very off. Everything's arranged backwards, and there are so many gadgets of mass destruction. In related news, I haven't seen Robin since he disappeared into the rooms with those gadgets.
Terra and I are going to make dinner, now.
"Yo, Raven!"
"This had better be important."
"Cyborg's lost the Tower."
"That was you, slimeball!"
"What?"
"Some other Robin, Raven, and Terra came and hit us around."
"Why do I even keep you around? I'll send over Robin and Terra, but my mission here is of paramount importance. I'll be back soon."
"Yeah, whatever. What're you doin', buying a new cape or something? Paramount importance my a..."
A red tendril of energy wrapped itself around Beast Boy's neck.
"Beast Boy, step carefully. You don't know the power of the dark side… and I know you have no wish to get acquainted with it now."
"Y…yeah… sorry…"
He was released.
"Good. Go."
Raven and Terra were struggling in the kitchen. Raven's ravioli was turning a sickly white shade resembling lacteous garlic. Terra's ground beef was looking like Beast Boy had made it—entirely out of tofu.
"I hope Robin likes tofu," Terra said. "Doesn't look like there'll be anything else."
"I've got some tapioca ravioli, too," Raven said. "Nutritious."
Terra laughed. "Maybe we should just get some pizza?"
"Yeah, why not." Raven picked up the phone and called…
"Yo, BB."
"What now, Cy?"
"I got a transmission coming from the Tower… for a pizza."
They exchanged wicked grins.
"What're we waitin' for? Get Robin and let's go."
Raven sat down. "All right. They'll be here in a couple minutes."
"So Raven," Terra said. "I've been meaning to ask you… why did you let me come along?"
"Because I couldn't tolerate another day with just Robin."
"No, really."
Raven sighed. "Don't think I'm not watching you closely. If you do anything wrong, I think I'm prepared—and Robin definitely is. Still, I think maybe Robin had a point. He told me I was being stubborn, closed-minded, and all that, and it's true, mostly. So I'm working on that. Happy?"
"Basically," said the blonde. A pause. "Thanks for being honest."
"I don't suppose you'd know too much about that," she mumbled.
"Sorry?" Terra said, eyebrow raised.
"Nothing." Raven got a little kick out of that. I have to allow myself the occasional luxury.
"Okaaaaay," Terra said, frowning. "I'll go check on Robin."
"Come in."
"Hey Robin!"
"Hi, Terra."
"Whatcha doing?"
"Just working on this little gadget here. It's like a super-smoke bomb. This nitrogen compound is volatile and will explode, causing a reaction with this gas that'll knock a regular human out for at least fifteen seconds. They won't even know it."
"Umm… okay." Terra's eyebrow was raised again.
"Sorry. I get carried away with my work sometimes."
"We're getting some pizza for dinner. Cooking didn't, uh, pan out."
"Very funny."
"The pun wasn't intended. I'll tell you when it gets here."
"All right, thanks."
As Terra was going down the stairs, she heard the doorbell.
"Oh. It's here already!" she shouted back to Robin. She opened up the door, and Raven joined her.
"Your pizza," said the delivery man.
"Thanks. Um, we do have a Titans account, right? Charge it to that?"
Beast Boy popped out from the side, outraged.
"What? Steal our house and charge our credit car… whoops.."
The delivery guy looked at him scathingly and deactivated the hologram disguise. Cyborg's mechanical frame popped out.
"Way to blow your cover, BB." He grinned and lit a cigar.
"We're back!" He plucked a newborn kitten out of his pocket, dunked it into a bucket of water, drowning it, and then tossed it to the bloodhounds at his side.
"Wow. The epitome of evil, personified," Raven said. "You just know this guy is evil."
Beast Boy smirked. "The only evil here is that we haven't gone on a date."
"That line is so old. Even Red X…" Raven started.
"That was only once!" Robin dropped down the stairs in time to hear the last comment.
"Not you—never mind," Raven said. She noticed an odd whine in the background, and considered asking whether the alternates had left the engine running.
"Look," Robin said. "I don't do that anymore. It was just one night! I had to do it! I'd been waiting too long for Slade. I just couldn't handle waiting anymore, so I did it. I was obsessed with him, I had to find some way to get a release."
Cyborg charged his sonic cannon to maximum overload while they discussed Robin's odd habits.
"…I couldn't handle waiting anymore, so I did it. I was obsessed with him, I had to find some way to get a release," Robin was saying.
"If you do it too much, you'll go blind," Cyborg said.
"We must be talking about disturbingly different things," Robin grumbled.
"I'm not going to think about that subtext," Raven said.
"Come again?" Beast Boy said, a devious grin on his face.
Silence.
Raven had an urge to say "eww," but resisted. "Well, I hope small talk about Robin's nightly habits isn't what you're here for."
"Nope!" Cyborg sneered and let the energy blast go, hitting Raven at full force and knocking her back into Robin, into the table, into the back wall.
"Booyah!"
"Owie, ow, ouch," Raven muttered.
"What happened to 'Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos'?" Robin asked. She hit him lightly. "Ow."
"What happened to 'Titans! Move it'?"
"Okay, okay, you got me," Robin said. "Can you get off?"
She did so hurriedly, and saw Terra being overwhelmed, ducking back behind rocks flying frantically around. Raven chanted and a field of black energy shimmered. The battleground cleared, and Terra ran back towards her.
Robin stood up behind her, and the three Titans approached the door again. Beast Boy was charging at them as an elephant. They jumped out of the way; Robin pulled out a net from his utility belt and tried to drag him backwards. Raven added her powers to his strength and they slowly dragged him back.
Cyborg was dodging more rock storms as Terra hovered around on her rock; he couldn't get a clear aim on the geomancer. Then, a grappling hook lodged on the rock and Robin flew in, knocking Terra off the rock and down. All the rocks in the nearby area precariously jolted.
"Looks like you're off your rocker," the alternate Robin said.
"That's an English saying. You're not English," Raven said. "And anyway, that means 'crazy', not anything like 'got knocked off of a rock'."
About then, she realized the alternate Robin had gotten enough to kick her in the stomach, and she doubled over.
"That was unnecessary," she managed. Her Robin dashed at the alternate to stave off further attacks, and they dueled outside her vision, though she heard the bo staves clanging against each other.
Terra had gotten up and was raising rocks in front of her, trying to deflect Beast Boy's mad attacks, yet he was quickly pushing her back. Cyborg was helping, cornering her slowly.
"Raven, I could use some help," Terra said. Raven painfully got up and concentrated, lobbing Cyborg out the window before he had a chance to react.
Beast Boy snarled and jumped at her, knocking her over again. She was getting rather tired of that. Terra flung the nearby debris at him, and together they buried him under a pile of it.
"Well…"
There was an explosion, and suddenly both Robins were knocked onto the debris pile. Scuffling ensued, until they both twisted out of the pile.
"Which one is which?" Terra whispered to Raven.
"Terra, Raven! Titans, blast him!" one of them yelled.
"Don't let him trick you!"
Raven sighed and blasted the one on the left. "Nice try, but the real Robin and I have a bond," she said to the unmoving Robin.
"Lock 'em in the basement," her Robin said, putting his bo staff away. "Come on, let's go. There's some perfectly good pizzas waiting for us."
November 25, 2004
It's around noon right now. Today's Thanksgiving, and Robin and I are still stuck in the middle of nowhere.
This is the seventh universe we've been through, if you don't count the white space, and we still have no clue how to get back. Apparently, I am not even the source of the portal power. I assume the yellow light we saw is what's really opening these portals, and that he and his employer are watching us at every turn. That's why I'm writing—I'm guess it's safer that speaking…
"Whatcha doin, Raven?" Terra stood in front of her. Raven slammed the book shut and heard the pen crack.
"Nothing."
Terra backed away slowly. "I'll… go get some… tofu salsa from the fridge."
"Good," Raven said. Suddenly she heard a piercing yell… was that… Robin? She teleported down to the first floor.
The alternate Raven was standing there, an infuriated glare on her face. She was dressed in a deep, fiery… or really, tomato-ish… red cape, and her four eyes glowed brightly. Both Robins stood in her shadow, and her hand was extended at them. Red energy swirled around him and they were screaming in pain.
Raven had never heard Robin do anything of the sort before. It was almost harmonic. She was almost amused, but also almost terrified.
"You inept fool!" said the red Raven, stopping her assault briefly. "I go away to acquire groceries and you lose my Tower!"
"Sorry, Raven," the older, alternate Robin said, flinching.
"No… excuses." She closed her eyes and Raven saw the other Robin's eyes widen. He dissolved in a flash of red.
Raven closed her eyes and chanted "Azara…"
The other Raven spun and lifted her other hand, and she felt herself sucked into a world of pain.
"Azarath…" she managed. "Metrion… Zinthos!"
The other Raven was blasted back ten feet. Raven had a premonition of doom as the other Raven landed. Red energy engulfed the tower as her emotions went wild. Raven felt herself being swept up.
"Trigon won, huh?"
"No," the red Raven said. "I won." She laughed, and unsurprisingly, office buildings across the river exploded. She didn't seem to care in the least.
"Out of my Tower," she said.
"Off of my friend!" Terra came from behind, and the red Raven was enclosed in a giant hill of earth.
"And I thought only Robin was allowed to say things like that," Raven mumbled.
Red flashes of energy came from inside Terra's earthen prison, but the tornado outside faded, and Robin and Raven felt themselves falling… onto soft cushions of earth that Terra raised. They felt odd vibrations, though, and saw an earthquake far off.
"Uh, sorry," Terra said. "I… still don't have full control over my powers."
"Better that than the alternative," Raven said. Another rumble came from the hill of ground that the red Raven was buried in. Terra strained to keep her in.
"Blastoff time," Robin said, mugging for the camera.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Raven asked.
"Just hurry up."
"Ah. Portal?" she tried. Nothing happened.
"You've delayed a bit too long," a cold, outraged voice said. Red Raven had blasted out of the earth prison.
"Whoa! Say, um… what did you mean when you said that you won against Trigon?" Raven asked. Stall… stall… stall…
"That's irrelevant."
"Villains Exposition Rule," Raven said.
"Whose what?" Terra asked.
"Villains must always recite evil plans or similar long-winded tales at great length to the hero before killing him or her in a gruesome, completely inefficient manner."
"Fine, fine," said the red Raven. "We were fighting Trigon, and Starfire had decided to go down to make some Tamaranean holy water."
Robin and Raven looked at each other. "Then how…"
"Don't interrupt. Beast Boy was going to go down with her but then she said she didn't need help."
"Oh, that's the difference," Robin said. Red Raven glowered at him and he desisted.
The Margthlorp had had no effect whatsoever on Trigon. Starfire looked vaguely disappointed. The Titans continued attacking Trigon, but couldn't hold him off. As Robin jumped at the demon with freeze disks, he was hit by his eyebeams.
"Robin!" Starfire yelled, and flew over to him. He slumped, unconscious. Or so Raven hoped.
Cyborg and Beast Boy did a dual attack on the rampaging Trigon, but he swatted them out of the air and threw them through three floors. Raven felt a surge of anger and her vision flashed, but she forced it down. Finally, Trigon stomped after Starfire, who was throwing starbolts frantically at the impervious demon.
"Uh-oh," she had time to say, before he threw her out the window.
They were on the sixth floor, Raven knew, but Starfire could fly, right? No harm done.
Thud.
Not while she was unconscious, apparently. Raven dashed to the window and saw an unmoving Starfire in a crater. The demon behind her grinned and picked her up, too, throwing her into the corner of the room.
"Big mistake, Dad," she said, seething. Control… control…
Trigon reared back and kicked the unconscious Robin out the window, as well. Unconscious! But that means…
She felt his fist impact her in the stomach, and collapsed against the other wall, when she heard the other thud of Robin hitting the pavement.
Her vision flashed red, and she was aware only of a sensation of rushing, burning hate, like sand flying towards her. When it cleared, Trigon was felled, prone and unmoving on the ground. The Tower had been obliterated down to its frame.
She didn't care anymore. She looked out the window. Robin and Starfire… gone.
"That's funny, since you just killed the other me," Robin said.
"Don't interrupt me," said the red Raven. "For your information, I created cloning cylinders and cloned you and Starfire."
What, exactly, was the point?
That was how Cyborg and Beast Boy found her, laughing in the middle of a wrecked battlefield.
No more constraints of emotion. Trigon's gone, but even if he wasn't… what would I care? With a single mental flourish, she tapped into the two other Titans' minds and subtly altered them for evil.
oooo
"There you have it," red Raven said. "Driven by my friends' destruction to a path of evil and treachery, or whatever you want to call it… hap… wait a second!"
Where the three dimension-hopping Titans had been, there was only a shoddy sign with 'sucker' carved on it.
Warp blasted both the swirl and the light, hoping to vaporize them in one fell swoop. Neither seemed overtly affected, but they both dropped the remote and turned towards him. He decided to make the best of it, and looked at the viewscreen.
"Now that you've stopped fighting, you might notice that they want to get out of that universe," Warp said.
"Ah, of course," the black swirl said. Swiftly, he dove for the remote and it disappeared. The light looked down glumly.
"Fine," he said, and channeled energy out.
Raven, Robin and Terra were running for their lives through Jump City's never-ending streets.
"Do you think we can take down the other Raven?" Robin asked.
"Not from what I saw," Raven said. "We'd need a full team to even try."
"Right, then…"
The red Raven appeared in front of the three fleeing Titans.
"Oh. Well, damn it," Robin said. Raven shot a vaguely amused look in his direction. That was until the red Raven raised her hands and everything within a hundred yards that wasn't nailed down or on fire came hurtling at them.
Raven pushed back, but her limits were showing; the debris pile moved inexorably towards them. Robin grabbed his utility belt and threw down a smoke grenade.
Red Raven barely noticed being knocked out for a grand total of fifteen seconds. Still, there was a sudden jolt and she assumed that the blonde nuisance had just whirled a rock at her. She shrugged it off and continued concentrating on battering the Titans in the smoke cloud.
But she couldn't find them. She reached out with red energy, permeating the area around her, yet nothing came and nothing resisted. A certain area was invisible to her energy, and she quickly blasted the lingering smoke away.
A black portal glimmered in front of her. Seething, she approached it, examining it.
"Clever," she said. "Very clever." Without hesitation, she jumped in.
"Really now," the black swirl said. "Tenacity is all and well, but… divert her away."
"Where to?" the light asked.
"Just back to her home universe, before she gets to some universe and takes an exit…"
"Too late," said red Raven's cold voice from next to him. The black swirl spun.
"How nice of you to join us."
Warp stood up from the sofa.
"Charmed," he said.
"I'm not," said the red Raven. "No one escapes me."
"Oh, shush. Again, this is not part of my plan, but why shouldn't I adapt?"
The red Raven's power crackled around her, but Warp and the sofa were the only things affected. Warp activated a switch on his suit and a shield protected him quickly from the onslaught.
"You're not bothering us," the black swirl said. "The light can either send you to a universe filled with pain…"
"Hah! I don't do fear," Raven said.
On the viewscreen, four figures in odd suits popped up.
"Yes, Tinky-Winky!" said the green one.
Raven screamed.
"No! Don't do it! I beg you, don't send me there!"
The viewscreen shut off.
"I would never do something so cruel," the black swirl said.
"So… happy…" Raven was frowning slightly. "I…" She stopped.
"What do you want?" she asked. Her voice was back to normal.
"I think this arrangement can be profitable to us both," the black swirl said.
The light interjected. "You don't have any tea, do…"
"Shut up. Anyway, Raven, my proposal is this… you will assist me with the managerial aspects of the events to come, and I will reward you richly."
"The only reward I want …" she stopped. "I want to go back to my universe. I… also want to be able to travel through time like him." She motioned to Warp.
"How did you know I can do that?" Warp asked.
"I killed you in my universe."
"I see," Warp said, discomfited. He put his blasters and armguards on standby… just in case.
"Unfortunately, the act of murder also destroyed your equipment… your… vortex modulator, or whatever," red Raven said to Warp.
"Quite correct," Warp said. "If the swirl here can synthesize one, then I suppose I have no choice but to go along."
"Not synthesize, my dear Warp. Light, show them."
The light opened a portal and another Warp fell through. The black swirl surrounded him and the sound of lightning roared throughout the White Space. When the swirl released itself, the other Warp was reduced to a pile of ashes, but the modulator lay untouched in the middle.
"There. You can, I trust, create your own suit. It requires nothing special."
"Very well," said the red Raven, picking up the modulator. "Then I'll help with what you require. Afterwards, you'll send me back. Agreed?"
"Agreed," the black swirl said. "Come, then. There's much to be done."