The 31st Night

Tria A Nox Noctis

Chapter 9: Erinyes

Starfire awoke to a bright sunlight filtering through the high tower windows. She blinked it away and covered her face, rolling over. What she had been laying on did not permit the action and she rolled onto the floor with a shriek.

Someone already snoozing there gave a snort, "Dude! Get off!"

"Beast Boy!" Starfire jumped up, her head spinning a little from the blood rush. "Many apologies!" She held a hand down to the changeling.

"Starfire?!" Beast Boy had finally chosen to look up and see, bathed in bright sunshine, the Tameranian Princess. He grabbed her hand to haul himself up and plant a tight hug around her middle. "You wouldn't believe how good it is to see you! C'mon we need to get you to Robin right away…"

With a stuttering and confused girl on his arm, Beast Boy sprinted for the stairs.


Robin and Cyborg waited in the infirmary. Raven had finally decided their sitting around wasn't getting anything done and vanished to her room to gather "resources."

Robin sulked.

"Anger and condemning aren't going to fix this." Cyborg was changing the bed sheets and putting away all the medical supplies.

"I just want a few minutes to feel like it's somebody's fault." The boy riled his hair and crossed his arms.

Cyborg sighed and puffed a few pillows before tossing them onto the bed. "We're going to need Raven's help to reseal whatever it was that got out."

Robin shrugged his shoulder but made no other movements. "Is she ever coming back?"

"Eventually."

"We don't have all day." He glared at his boots and at the newly made bed.

Cyborg ran a hand over his head in frustration.

Robin got up from his chair frustrated with the entire room and Cyborg's sudden silence. "I'm going to take a shower."

He was out the door before Cyborg could respond: Raven told them to stay put.


"Guys guess what!" Beast Boy burst into the infirmary with a gusto. He was grinning toothily, but that quickly shrank when he noticed his audience was but one Titan.

Cyborg turned his attention as Beast Boy's companion stumbled in the room beside him. "Ahh, Starfire!" The fiery red hair was in tangled and her clothes were rumpled, but the girl was still a sight for sore eyes.

He slid over to her and heaved her out of Beast Boy's grip, crushing her in a hug. "I was beginning to think there'd be no end to Robin's moodiness." He patted her head like one would a child and released her.

Starfire stood winded and dumbfounded. "I am grateful you all are so enjoyed to see me, but I am confused to the reason for such joy."

"Where was she?" Cyborg turned to address Beast Boy, he looked a little too pleased with himself.

"The living room, she landed on me this morning." He rubbed one of his shoulders in remembrance.

"Couch?"

"Floor."

"Oh."

"Where's Robin and Raven?" Beast Boy looked around the metal man, hoping the rest of the audience would appear to see his success.

"Ahh," Cyborg ran a hand across the back of his neck. "See, Raven kinda said there was a mistake in her spell casting."

The changeling's eyes grew wide and his mouth took an understanding 'o' shape. "Robin's taking a shower and Raven should be back-"

There was a sleek noise of a portal and Raven stepped out into the room. Her skin was a pallor paler and her eyes were dark. She had changed her torn clothes to a new set, but she looked worse than when she left. For all the shocking red hair Starfire had, it drew Raven's attention first.

There was a long breath that escaped her, "It is good to see you again Starfire."

Starfire nodded, still confused about the situation. Beast Boy turned to her to explain the situation and Raven strode to Cyborg with her spell book in hand.

"Where's Robin?"

"Shower. I think he needed a little cool down time."

Raven held the book tight to her. "We have a problem."

"What did you conjure?"

Raven opened her mouth to speak it's name but thought twice and looked around to make sure the other two were engaged in conversation. She leaned closer to the mechanical boy. "Erinyes."

"Which would be…?" Cyborg raised an eyebrow at the girl.

"Furies?" She offered instead. His face remained blank. "Don't you know your mythology?"

"Obviously not. Fill me in."

"I'm going to get Robin first." She waved a small hand at him before turning to open another portal.

"Ya sure that's a good idea?" Cyborg called as she disappeared.

"No time to decide." She just barely whispered it and was gone. Cyborg stared at the empty space a moment before pulling up the computer on his arm to do a little research.


Starfire was filled in, Robin was calmed, and everyone sat in the living room as the sun made its way into noon.

"…and they were sent to punish humans for sins." Raven snapped the mythology book shut (Starfire had needed picture references to keep up with the story).

"Is not this race continuously engaging in sin?" Starfire waved a small finger to input her idea.

"Yes, but Furies were sent after seven specific sins: wrath, lust, gluttony, sloth… greed…" Raven ticked them off on her fingers.

"Envy." Cyborg chimed in.

"Pride." Robin called the last one, finally looking up at her with domino eyes. "Superbia." He mouthed it like a curse word and Raven gave him a hard look.

"How do you know that?" A pause, he worked some half-truth, she knew it.

"It was on my computer."

Raven tucked her book back close to herself. She stood before them uncomfortable and informative. "The conjuring was to extract parts of my emotions from my soul. If instead they are Furies they would be merging together their own purpose as well as the spell."

Robin was the first to put it together. She could see it working from his face and down his arms and to the hands that clenched tight.

"They are punishing for sins by taking parts or your emotions or souls or something." Raven cast her eyes to the ground. The tension filled the room and there were sounds of muttering, breathing, fear.

"Do you have a counter spell?" Robin stood and was moving towards her. She looked upon him distrustfully, but kept her ground.

"There is no counter spell."

Starfire was fretting about herself and Cyborg pressed a hand on her shoulder to keep her sitting and calm.

"Ohh maan, I want to keep my soul!" Beast Boy moaned into his hands and looked down at the floor. Cyborg patting him carefully on the back.

"So how do we fix this?" Robin had turned his voice cold and demanding, the leader had returned.

"Try to trap it in the book again?" Honestly she didn't know, Furies were so much more intangible than dragons. Even so, how did they retrieve what had already been taken by the creatures?

She could see the same thought forming on Robin and she shook her head to quiet him. "I don't know."

"Well we don't have a lot of time left to figure this out!" He was in her space them, crashing the boundary she had set up and looking at her with what she was sure was wrath.

And then the idea flitted through the air to her. Wrath. Sin.

"Aren't you supposed to be a detective, what's wrong with you figuring it out?" Raven pulled back into herself and delivered the line with a chilling gaze.

As expected, it set off his temper. "Don't you dare try to push this on me, you set them free." He pointed a finger at her, his voice getting louder. The other three had quieted and watched with wide eyes incase the battle turned physical.

"Or maybe if you were a better leader…" Her eyes narrowed and met a fiery white set of eyes.

All translations at the end

"Ira." The voice was haunting and everyone stilled. The anger fell off of Robin and his look now was understanding.. Curious.

"Te Spiritus a mei!" It howled and suddenly the room was dark. It was around them and Raven could see the brightness of Robin's costume fading in the dark.

Without much thought, she lunged at Robin.

A voice shrieked and she knocked into something, tumbling and falling in a smoky darkness. The ground was wet and she felt around on the something she tangled with.

"Adversus mei?" It asked Raven from the darkness.

"Etiam." She answered it and gripped the hands of the boy to tug him away. He muttered something but did nothing to move. She glanced around for Cyborg-- Starfire--

There was just darkness.

"Deinde tu an mortuus." It raked claws down her back and Raven shrieked and tried to pull away still hauling Robin. There was laughter in the darkness that echoed, she could feel the blood gathering on her back.

The Fury faded with the sound of laughter.

Raven stifled a would-be sob of pain and pushed away from Robin. The darkness was clearing and her muscles were throbbing and the blood spilled and spilled…


Starfire was the one to find them in a crumbled pile in the hallway outside the living room. The smell of the blood and the sight made her weak and the girl screamed and stumbled back.

Cyborg and Beast Boy were there in a moment.

Cyborg cursed blackly and pulled Starfire away, commanding she get some bandages and water. She hobbled away dazed.

Robin was stirring so he appointed Beast Boy to check on him and gravely moved towards the girl. She lay in a puddle of blood on her stomach, unconscious. He quickly picked her head up from the floor to prevent drowning and checking her pulse. It was faint but rhythmic and he breathed a little easier.

As carefully as he could he began to strip her to get at the wounds. The cape came first, shredded and matted by angry gashes and he threw it to the side.

Robin was mumbling something half-heartedly in his stupor but Beast Boy had reported him unharmed.

Her suit was marred badly and the wounds were long and followed down her spine.

He tore at the fabric to pull the top half off. Beast Boy handed him a blanket from somewhere and he wrapped it around her front gingerly. The uniform was much more difficult to get off, it had dried and stuck in clumps inside the gashes. Removing it caused the cuts to reopen and blood was slipping across and down her back.

Starfire was crying, but she handed him a cloth and he blotted it across her back, holding it on spots to clot.

The process was slow and tiresome, but each cut took proper washing and disinfecting before he could wrap them.

Robin, who still seemed to be far from rational, and Raven were taken up to the infirmary.


She awoke to soreness at sundown. This time she was facedown to the pillow, but dared not move. Everything pounded in the beat of her heart.

Instead she groaned to alert attention to herself.

Cyborg stalked over and leaned down to her level. "Hey dark girl."

"What happened?" Her mind was messy and she cared not to sort it out at the moment.

"I was going to ask you." He smoothed a hand across her hair and rested it just at her neck. "But you're healing quickly, so you should begin to feel like your old self soon."

The direction she was facing and could see the bed beside her and another figure in it. The black hair that thrashed in the bed clued her in.

"Robin?" She called it and her throat was sounding stickier.

"There's something wrong with him." Cyborg backed away from her to look over Robin. "He's in almost a sleep, but he keep thrashing around. We tried to wake him up, but it was no good."

"Ugh." The muscles of her back were painful and throbbing. "Help me sit up."

"I think you should keep still a little longer." There was weight from Cyborg's cold hand to keep her down.

"There isn't time!" She tasted chalk in her mouth and insisted she got up.

Cyborg wasn't in the mood to fight and instead helped her adjust without opening any of the wounds. At this new angle Raven could see Starfire across the room, her hands fidgety between her knees. Beast Boy sat beside her and was speaking in a low mumble.

"Where's my book?"

Cyborg reached over her to the side table and picked the heavy thing up to hang it to her. "I'm going to assume that little stunt in the living room was apart of the plan?"

Raven raised violet eyes to his. "Obvious?"

"Stupid."

"Right." She looked back down at the binding and flipped it open. "I could try to pull the Furies back into the book, but then whatever they took from us would go with it."

"It's still better than loosing more."

"Mmm." She continued to flip through the pages for an answer. Maybe it would just jump out at her.

Robin rolled around on his bed suddenly and everyone jumped. He tugged at the sheets and muttered between clenched teeth. "Do you know what's wrong with him?"

Raven flipped quicker through the pages. "Yes, I--" She stopped at a page and pointed a finger to the text. "Here, help me over to him."

Cyborg propped an arm across her shoulder and carefully lifted her up. They stumbled to the other bed where she sat and waited for him to grab the book. "It's an exorcism deal, I would advise you all get out."

Beast Boy had been creeping closer to listen in on the conversation. "You're setting that thing free?"

"Would you rather it eat him inside out?" Raven gestured to the boy still tearing at the white sheets.

The green eyes grew wide and he stepped back towards Starfire.

Raven sighed and turned her eyes back to the boy. "Be ready." She placed her hands over his temple before looking down at the spell book . "Extractum te malum, devenio a mei."

And she felt herself sinking in, loosing her own identity and falling towards a darkness. It was violent and it grasped her tightly.

It tugged and she slid and she pulled. Back, forth. Something screamed, whispering threats in her language. Death, blood, revenge, malum. Sound and wind was tunneling and pulling back, pulling her back.

Everything was retreating and pulled and giving and…

Light. It came again quick and she dropped fast and fell through a universe of things to slam back into her own body. Everything jolted sharp and crisp and her lungs forced in a long breath.

All her senses came back at once and she could hear them. Raven reopened her eyes to a Fury.

It was a woman. Her skin was pale and transparent that gave away pointed features between raggedy garments. Cyborg had backed away and was shouting as he tried to fire at the creature.

It shrieked and evaded, crossing the room in a trail of blood.

"Mmfg?" Robin was awaking, but she couldn't spare him a glance. The Fury was closing in on the three Titans and Raven needed a solution quick.

There was one that had been stirring within her conscience, but she flipped through the spell book ever faster. It was dangerous and self-destructive and--

Starfire screamed as the demon reared ever closer and threw Cyborg across the room. It spoke in her language and was taunting them with all the ways it planned torture. Raven was the only one to understand the cruelties.

"What's going on?" Robin was pushing away the blankets and trying to steady himself on wary feet.

Raven blinked and contemplated. It slinked ever closer with razor nails and bleeding gowns. "Consto!"

The Fury obeyed and turned to her with black eyes, blood dripped down her cheeks like grotesque tears. "Qui?"

The sorceress pushed herself to careful feet and held her book to her. Her fingers flexed carefully as she gathered the energy there. "Devenio a mei. Spiritus malum, devenio. Mei a te magister…"

The dark magic burst from her finger tips and the book fell from her grip.

Black eyes had been watching her closely and they suddenly narrowed in recognition of the spell. "Nunquam."

But it was too late. The tendrils twisted quickly in the air and wrapped the creature tightly. It screamed in murder and tore at the spell. Raven tightened the grip and the blood was pooling across the floor as the Fury was pulled closer. It's eyes shown hatred and it spoke a million words in her tongue as it thrashed.

"Devenio." Raven spoke it simply and with one great movement of her arms the Fury was pulled to her. Instead of colliding with her solid form the wrathful woman slid inside her, disappearing in a mass of black tendrils.


Robin had watched uncomprehending. Uncomprehending until the last second when her plan had occurred to the boy and it was too late to do anything.

Silence stretched in the room with the demon gone. Raven was still for seconds that stretched and clumped into groups while no one moved. It was nearly a minute when she wavered and collapsed.

It unfroze the rest of the Titans and they hurried forwards, shoes splashing in the flood of blood that still covered the floor.

Cyborg picked her up and placed her on one of the beds that was quickly bled red from the floor. The tower was dark now with the exception of the overhead lights.

Another Fury shrieked somewhere off. Starfire shivered and Robin cast a dark eye at the door. What were they going to do? He went and picked up the blood soaked book. The pages were already rippling and scarlet, but readable. He began to blot at the pages with one of the bed sheets.

"Now what?" Cyborg took a chair beside her bed again and watched the shadows.

"We could try to translate this book, or venture to Nevermore." Robin answered, still separating the pages with careful fingers.

"Nevermore might be a good idea." Cyborg cast a look to Beast Boy. "Still know where the mirror is?"

"Yeah."

"Get it, but take Starfire and call us if there's even the faintest trace of another Fury." Cyborg was commanding now as Robin stayed solemn and kept at the spell book.

Beast Boy wrung his hands and his eyes looked watery in the light. "Oh-o-okay."

"We'll come after you in seven minutes if you're not back."

The two vanished in a worried bundle. Cyborg took the time to move around and replace the monitoring suction cups back to Raven.


They had agreed on only one person to check on Nevermore. It might be dangerous, and there was no use in all of them being harmed if that was the case.

Naturally, Robin had been the one to volunteer. They all bid him farewell and best of luck and gave him a twenty minute time limit before they would all start filling in after him.

Robin stayed silent through the exchange, hugging them all in turn and taking the horned mirror. There was a bad feeling through his body, but he chose not to speak on it. A leader never worried the ones they lead.

"I'll be right back." He nodded, holding the mirror up to face him. Four red eyes peered back at him in malice. Someone screamed, someone away from the pull of the mirror.

He looked up one last time, feeling Nevermore pulling him ever closer. There was a Fury, almost identical to the first that glided through the wall and into the room…

"No!" Robin yelled and tried to pull away from the red eyes. They were not to be deterred. It went for Starfire with dagger nails, but the image faded quickly from Robin's view.

He fell into the darkness, hollering for return and trying to grab at the air. It was useless and he landed hard on the ground of Nevermore.

The ground was different this time, thick puddles of blood pooled everywhere, he had even landed in one. Robin pushed himself up and tried to wring out his clothing, but he only managed to prove his actions were once again useless.

So instead he began down the path towards where he had once come across a Raven.


Starfire's pain was brief. The claws had come unexpectedly and slipped just as easily between her ribs and into her upper stomach. Everything in her tensed in one moment of agony before it all just slipped away.

Her feet collapsed beneath her and she fell to the floor, her blood mingling with that already there.

Cyborg and Beast Boy were horrified. They went at the creature with everything they had. The sonic cannon blasted through the relatively quiet night to slice away at the tower walls, only occasionally catching the Fury.

Even then it cackled and slid away, pushing its limbs back together where they stuck just as good as before.

Beast Boy tore at the thing with nails and teeth and claws of an assortment of animals only to come out scarred and unsuccessful. He moved to Starfire instead to try and help her.

But she bled fast, it was soaking her clothing and wouldn't stop even as he pressed a hand to it. Tears were falling down his face and the green boy couldn't care enough to wipe them away.

"Starfire, Starfire please!" But she was closing her eyes and her chest was moving ever slower and-- "Cyborg, do something!" He was blubbering and nearly incomprehensible.

Cyborg was still fighting with the thing without success. He turned to glance at the two on the floor with a pained expression. "Do what?"

The Fury took his moment of distraction to forward herself and sink her hands transparently into his chest.

"Cyborg!" Beast Boy called it when the woman had slid forward, but she was faster. The hands solidified and she ripped them back towards her.

Cyborg jolted as the wires and parts were extracted. Light and sounds were moving and hazy and his joints were suddenly immobile. Something was buzzing and malfunctioning and his robotic eye was shutting down and…


There was no Raven. He had gotten to the maze and through and not even the ravens had appeared to gawk at him. The silence of it all was disturbing.

But he walked quick because he needed to get to the end now to get back to the real world. Why knew what kind of threat they were without Raven? He splashed through the blood and felt sick and sticky at the same time.

It was so dark.

"Raven!" He shouted again and willed for her to answer. This was the world in her head, if she was not here, then what?

But someone was coughing in response. He had been concentrating so hard on sound that it was impossible to miss it. The boy ran towards it, clapping loudly in the puddles and ignoring the growing carnage of land.

It was a brown cloaked Raven. She laid across a torn ground, wrapped tightly in a shredded brown material and a blood smeared face.

"Raven!" He knelt by her quickly and picked her up. Her eyes were swimming and she couldn't hold her own head up. "What happened?"

"Killing." It jumbled out of her mouth and stretched a gash that ran up her cheek. Her eyes grew wide and she shook in coughing. "Run."

And she was dead.

He stayed there a moment longer before lying her back on the ground. He had to find the real Raven.

But as he got closer to the exit the damage to Nevermore became worse and worse. There were bits of rainbow colored cloaks blood soaked and full of angry gashes that occasionally were wrapped around Ravens.

Beside the brown cloaked one, none of them had been alive.

It made him feel nauseous and disgusted, but he continued to walk and call for Raven.


Beast Boy watched with horrified eyes. Cyborg fell to the floor useless and the Fury dropped the extracted pile of wired upon him.

Beside him Starfire had stopped bleeding, but the breath of her chest had stopped as well. He was speaking, but not saying anything and he pushed himself away from the creature and the dead girl.

The woman had turned to the changeling and was laughing. Her eyes bled and her fingers flexed, she called to him.


He had counted the Ravens. All of them, except for her full blue cloaked form had been accounted for. All of them, dead. What did that mean for her? These were parts of her mind, her personality and they had been… murdered.

The gateway to the real world was getting ever closer now. It was still terribly dark, but he knew he was coming to the end of the path.

He stepped quicker and quicker to get there. Voices whispered in the dark at him, but they were not Nevermore's creation.

There were a movement near the exit. It was a movement of color and immediately he knew it had to be her. Robin ran, jumping over the upset rocks and debris yet again.

And it was her.

"Raven!" He called it as he neared.

But she was just as rough as the others, leaning heavily near a rock beside the exit. Her hair was messy and clotted with blood and dirt, she looked up at him with dazed and dark eyes. "Hi."

Robin felt himself cursing and he leaned down to pick her up.

She stumbled over and away from him and shook her head. "Get out."

"What? No, c'mon." He reached for her again. The exit was right there… if he could only-

But she pushed away and fell onto her side, breathing hard. "This won't last, you've got to-- out." Raven pointed a feeble finger towards the exit, her eyes were becoming cloudy already.

"Raven!"

"Get."

"But-"

"No." And then her eyes were closing and she pointed at the exit again. The Fury was screeching again in the dark and it grew steadily louder.

Robin tried to pick her up now. Everything around him was shaking with the noise, his ears felt strained and prickly even as he hoisted the girl into his arms.

But then the rocks were collapsing. Nevermore was breaking down as the voice grew and split his ear drum with its pitch.

Robin went for the exit. It was so close and he staggered with pain as the vision around him jumped and shifted. The rocks and mountains crumbled and rocks rolled down around the exit.

He ran and Raven tightly. She was heavy, too heavy and the portal was too far.

The rocks were covering the way. His head was pounding but the voice grew still. His vision became unfocused and he staggered sideways with the weight.

A rock tripped him and blood splattered with his landing.

The world was ripping and splitting. Robin saw the rocks falling and felt powerless to do anything but watch them. They rolled and shattered pieces and closed in on them…


By sunrise the Titans Tower crumbled in its deadweight. It gave into the tides and buckled, sliding beneath the waves of the bay.

The newspapers of Jump City all ran the story, beneath a heading for the Missing Teen Titans.

Divers had gone through the wreckage of the tower, but nothing of suspicion was found.

Nothing, but a worn and faded spell book of waterlogged gibberish.

Gee, that only took a year, heh. Sorry for the wait lovelies.

Translations: Wrath. Your spirit, come to me. Defy me? Yes. Then you are dead. Extract thy evil, come to me. Stop! What? Come to me. Evil spirit, come. I am your creator. Never. Come.

The end. Death, ys you're welcome.

Happy Halloween.

:Bloody Fae: