The team met atop the tower as the alarm finally died. Moonless night had swept over the greater Jump City metro. Starfire and Patrick had been the last two to arrive, greeted by Robin with a slight jealous suspicion. Patrick shrugged at Robin innocently. This seemed to satisfy the young leader and he went straight to business:
"Alright guys," he said authoritatively, "We don't have much for this one…" Robin went on to explain what little intel could be gleaned by the call for help. The nightclub district of the city was under attack by an unknown force. Reports indicated civilians were being explicitly targeted and that no movement towards any high value targets were apparent. "I know," he said exasperatedly, "I hate going in blind too, but we're going to have to make this work. Titans! Go!"
With the command, they were off. Beast Boy morphed to a massive pterodactyl and snatched up Cyborg under the arms, Starfire carried Robin, effortlessly, in much the same way. Patrick and Raven took up the rear. Patrick regularly looked over to her as the team flew in complete silence, but her eyes never met his. Strangely, each time his gaze fell on her, her flight path would seem to wobble, almost imperceptibly, for a moment. Patrick shrugged and put it out of his mind. They could talk later.
The blackened city skyline betrayed no signs of trouble from the distance, but as they approached, a section of the city, the night club district, could be seen bathed in the slight red glow of several small fires. It looked like a riot in its last throes of being broken up. Overturned cars had been lit on fire along with trashcans and newspaper dispenses. Street lamps had fallen from their home, rooted in the ground, and laid shattered on the roads. Storefront windows were shattered and strewn with debris. The various dance clubs that sprawled across the strip had none of their typical accoutrement of lines, flashing lights, and pounding bass. Chaos was apparent from even this distance, but nothing would prepare them for the scene to come though. This was no mere riot.
Starfire gasped in horror, overshadowing the rest of the team's more muted reactions. Gore and shambling nightmares unending met the team as they landed. The hellscape of a city street was strewn with heads, arms, torso, legs, all severed from their associated whole. Each piece looked as though it had been put through the ringer before being violently separated from their host body. Deep lacerations flayed what little skin remained on the parts out in a grotesque fashion. Ruby pools of coagulating blood streaked in long paths across most of the sidewalks and roads. Pieces of organs and entrails sat in splattered heaps haphazardly.
Robin refocused the team, he too visibly shaken by the scene. Nothing could be done for the shredded remains at their landing site, but ahead, there was the sound of hundreds of independent, agonized screams. The Boy Wonder urged the team onward and they made haste down the strip, towards the source of the fearsome sounds.
There was a feminine voice of pure sadism, sarcastically whispering gibberish in Patrick's mind. It grew in volume as they neared the source of the agonized screams. The words made no sense. "Vazirizx... Ciro… Aldruon… Mortix…" she - perhaps, it - spoke rapidly. Patrick could only pick out some of the arcane words. They had a familiar twang to them, but none struck as hard as when it spoke, "Azarath." He gulped and looked over to Raven. Perhaps she was hearing something similar. There was her same minuscule flight-path wobble, but she seemed otherwise unaffected. Patrick's internal descent to madness would soon become the least of his concerns, though. As the Team rounded a blind corner, they met the crime scene in all its terror.
Chaos - complete and utter - reigned. Bloodied civilians were fleeing from all directions, screaming with the incoherence of pure nightmare. Some were unfortunate enough to already be rid of their left or right arms, but rarely were they missing both; not yet, at least. Though, not a single person had been unscathed, it seemed. From their wounds, they did not drip the typical crimson. This blood was black and bubbling, like hot pitch. It oozed from their wounds with a sizzling, squelching sound. Where it would strike the pavement, the corrupted blood seemed begin moving on its own, coalescing into pools about the size of a trashcan's lid. When they reached that critical size, out emerged a chittering horror, the size of a large dog.
Twelve legs of sooty black, met at a body equally shrouded. The form was impervious to greater detail, nothing beyond an outline could be determined, spare a set of ten searing, red eyes, front-and-center, in arrays of three. As its final pair of legs came free of the bubbling tar, the abominable cross of spider and crab screeched a sound of metal on porcelain, and skittered off after the unfortunate citizen who had birthed it. Thousands of these creatures were in play, their dark bodies almost impossible to see in the low light of the city streets. Interlaced among the screams, amplified a many fold, was the sound of their vile limbs cracking with movement, and the gnashing of unseen teeth. It was enough for Patrick to forget the voices of gibberish in his head.
The team watched in horror as countless civilians were overtaken, before they could even act. Massive orgies of the monsters descended, remorseless, onto the men and women alike. Cuts and slashes were torn into their supple flesh. Their limbs came loose. All the while, screams. The monsters did not kill their victims outright, instead seeming to relish in the suffering. Only once the blood stopped flowing and the yelps of agony vanished, did they sever the head and tear into the exposed heart and lungs.
Robin wasted no time. Instinctively, he extended his metal bo staff, and shouted to advance.
"Stop!" came the stoic, yet commanding, voice of Raven. In a blur, she shot out in front of the pack, her hands bursting with the black energy of soul self. Her mouth moved with a silent chant as she hovered in front of the crowd of death.
"Azarath… Azarath… AZARATH… AZARATH… AZARATH!" the voice returned to Patrick's head with only these words. It became shriller with every moment of Raven's incantation, more angry now, than sarcastic. Louder and louder, it pounded his mind relentless. He clutched his ears and shut his eyes, but to no avail, the sound was already inside, blasting with an impossible decibel. Rough concrete ground into his knees as he fell hard on them. The world around him fell away, it was only the screaming voice now.
Then, suddenly, it vanished. No gradual fade, the voice stopped mid-Azarath, leaving Patrick with silence in his mind. Gone too were the sounds of screeches, and skitters, and gnashing teeth. "Cyborg! Check on Patrick," Robin demanded, "Star, BB, Raven, let's... do what we can." There was a sudden trepidation in his voice after he paused.
Patrick could hear heavy metal footfalls approaching. Each clunk was followed by a quiet mechanical whir, and yet another clunk; the telltale sounds of a sprinting Cyborg. Patrick opened his eyes and was met with the machine-man's familiar face. Cyborg was concerned, even the mechanical portions of his face seemed to contort with distress. "You alright?" he asked, lifting Patrick back to his feet and dusting off his back with a clap. Patrick was about to respond, but stopped in shock, right as his lips pursed to form the 'm' in 'I'm fine'. His face paled and his mouth gaped.
The blood had been more muted, when it was bubbling pitch. But with the departure of the creatures, torrents of red now filled the streets. Hundreds of people lay dead or dying, their chest's cracked open and entrails strewn sloppily out. Some poor, cursed souls, with the astronomical bad luck of still being conscious, rolled around with bubbling groans of pain. They painting the asphalt red, as though their body were a sponge brush. Large swatches of flesh plastered the scene. Patrick could see the team floating ahead, surveying what they could, in desperation to help. There was no saving these people. The destruction had been instant, and utter. Those who hadn't already bled out would surely be dead within minutes. The intense sound of sirens blared in the distance. It echoed, booming, of the concrete and steel of the city. Too late to matter, help was on its way for these damned souls.
Patrick flinched at the gore, then looked to Cyborg. "I don't suppose you heard any voices... in your head... did you?" he asked. Patrick felt the flush of embarrassment. The question sounded even more absurd on his lips than it did in his mind.
Cyborg looked at him with a confused face. "N-No," he said hesitantly, "can't say I heard anything over all..." He gulped, "...this..." There was a pause before Cyborg said, "Come on, we gotta help 'em out."
Patrick took to a slight hover and followed Cyborg as they regrouped with the team. Bloodied hands, attached to mangled bodies, reached up as they passed. Pale faces, frozen in horror, cried out voicelessly for help. Nothing could be done.