Thank you all for being so patient! I feel terrible, making you wait this long.
I do have an excuse: my Mom's been in ICU for the past 2 weeks and I've been spending most of my time there, and now my grandpa is in the emergency room :(
I'll try and type more when I can! And hopefully I type it better than this turned out!
Enjoy…
They spent an immeasurable amount of time doing much of the same: jumping from memory to memory and fighting to stay hidden. It was made harder by the fact that, as a child, Raven had been incredibly paranoid. She always stopped and looked into every hiding place before settling down.
After moving through approximately three years of memories, both Beast Boy and Terra were getting impatient.
"Are we going to have to claw our way through 17 years of this?" Beast Boy groaned as they once again narrowly escaped one of Raven's perimeter checks and headed for another bridge.
"No, now stop whining," Malchior snapped at him as they stepped through.
Eventually they reached the point where Raven had first joined the Titans. Beast Boy carefully watched himself whenever he could, seeing how stupid he had actually looked.
After a while Terra made her appearance. Terra wore an expression of regret and anger as she watched herself attack her friends all over again. Beast Boy walked silently beside her, hand clenching hers, and pressed his lips together. He figured that speaking at that moment would be a bad idea.
And then, after stepping through a decrepit door that led to the next of Raven's memories, Beast Boy's eyes widened in recognition.
"I know this place…" he breathed, looking around. It was so familiar, and it left a sour taste in his mouth and a heavy feeling in his gut. The empty, smoking ruins, the burned streets, and the shattered glass. An old library, standing untouched in the middle of a circle of rubble several city blocks wide.
"What is this?" Terra asked, looking around with a look of apprehension on her face.
"The old library. Underneath that place was where Raven died." He frowned. "For the first time."
"This is the site of Trigon's ascent?" Malchior said from between his closed covers.
"Yeah. This is the place."
"Then we don't have far to go, I suspect. Let's go." Malchior tried to pull ahead and lead them on, but he was a book, so he just sat there.
"Well, where?" Beast Boy asked.
"I don't know; I wasn't around for this. I was sitting in a box," Malchior muttered. "Bridges usually form over or around the areas that Raven had the most emotions about in that particular memory. Where would that be?"
Beast Boy swallowed. "I think I know."
Terra sighed. "I don't like the sound of that."
Beast Boy led them carefully into the library and through a trap door, which was already open. Then they descended a ridiculously long spiral staircase, most of which showed signs of a battle. Eventually, they reached a square hole in the wall, and climbed through.
After walking through a maze that Beast Boy apparently knew the way through, they reached a cavernous room. In the center was a giant stone hand reaching up towards the sky. In the center of the palm was a swirling vortex.
"It's beautiful…" Malchior gasped as they walked in. Beast Boy's ears flattened and he growled threateningly.
Malchior shrugged from within his pages.
"I really don't like this place," Terra said softly. "The earth here is wrong; it feels dangerous."
"Don't worry," Beast Boy said grimly. "We're not sticking around."
He morphed into a pterodactyl and, with Terra astride his neck and Malchior clutched in his feet, flew up to the palm.
"Can we get out of here?" he asked, changing back and walking over to the portal.
"Fine. Jump in," Malchior said.
Beast Boy did, and Terra followed.
It was really cold again, but this time it was also dark and still.
Beast Boy opened his eyes to see them in a black space that seemed to stretch on forever. There was no sign of any walls or roof.
"Where are we?" his voice echoed.
"The Nexus, I believe," Malchior said from the ground. "Since the next memory is her most powerful, a sort of bus stop sprung up in between. It is here that we can decide if we want to continue on viewing memories or move deeper into Raven's mind."
"But how? I don't see anything except us," Terra said, hands on hips.
As if on cue, hundreds of doors suddenly faded into being. They were all of different ages and colors and materials, and they continued on out of sight.
"Are we in Monsters Inc or what here, what's going on?" Beast Boy muttered.
"There you have it!" Malchior said cheerfully. "Your door is that one; the all black one with the ornate silver handle."
Beast Boy picked the book up and began to walk towards the door.
"Wait, not yet," Malchior said.
"Why not?" Terra asked.
"Because that's not my door. Do you honestly think that I can along to rescue Raven?"
Beast Boy frowned.
"Put me through that one," Malchior continued, and an arrow made of paper extended from the book and gestured to an arched stone door with iron braces and torches on either side, like something out of a medieval castle.
"Fine." Beast Boy walked over, jerked the door open, and held the book out.
"You better not do anything you regret," Beast Boy growled threateningly.
"Neither should you," hissed the book.
Beast Boy dropped Malchior on his spine and slammed the door after him. He walked over to Terra, who was standing beside their door with a slightly angry look on her face.
"I only just met the guy in person today and I don't like him," she scoffed. "Should we go?"
"Yeah."
Together, they gripped the handle and pulled the door open.
They were in a rocky tunnel with an arched roof, and small torches burned along the walls.
"Looks sorta like Nevermore," Terra commented.
"I'll take that as a promising sign," Beast Boy said. "Let's go."
They walked hand in hand through the darkness, and the shadows thickened around them in spite of the fire flickering on the walls.
What's going on? Beast Boy wondered. Why is it so dark here? There's torches everywhere.
Suddenly all of the flames snuffed out at once, and were replaced by a pulsing red light. The color was familiar to both of them.
"Rage," they both said in unison.
A door appeared on the wall beside them. The mark of Scath was just visible on the old, pockmarked wood.
"Yeah, I guess this is it," Beast Boy said. "You ready?"
Terra nodded and Beast Boy opened the door. He walked through, but when Terra tried she screamed in pain and stepped back.
"What's wrong?" Beast Boy asked, running back.
"I dunno," Terra gasped, rubbing her hand, which had a nasty burn on it. "But I don't think I can go in there."
"So what now?"
"You go in and get Raven. I'll stay out here. If you get into a fight with anything, lead it back to me. Got it?"
"I can take care of myself," Beast Boy smiled. "We'll be back."
Terra nodded and gave Beast Boy a strong hug.
They held the embrace for as long as they could, then broke apart. Beast Boy let go of Terra's hand and slowly stepped across the threshold, looking back as he did so.
And even though Terra didn't move, the door slammed shut behind him.
