Nevermore

Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based.

"How're we going to drain the gem here? If this is an astral plane, then there's no chance these are our real bodies," Jinx says as soon as they land. "No bodies, no gem."

In response, Raven releases her hand and turns her palm up.

With the meta's gaze on her, a cloud of black forms, and Jinx gasps as a window into the utterly normal cafe appears.

Silently, Raven reaches through and flicks her wrist against the gem, sending it into a small jump around Jinx's neck.

In response, the necklace around her astral form jumps in kind, almost hitting her in the face.

"What happens here happens in the mortal world," Raven explains as the portal quickly snaps shut.

"Not from anything I've ever heard about Astral travel," Jinx argues, holding the gem away as if it would attack her. "I mean outside of dying or getting trapped, obviously."

"Nevermore's a bit… different. While it's a mental, astral plane, it's also my mind. Kinda. It's kind of hard to explain, but it means that we're not totally here physically, nor are we totally psychic. So things that happen here reflect on the world outside."

Jinx stares at her with a gaping mouth, mind reeling at the information.

Shaking her head to snap out of it, she casts her eyes around the gloomy landscape.

"Well, it definitely suits you… Do I have to spend another question to figure out how the hell a person has a whole landscape in their brain?"

"I'm going to take that as a compliment, Jinx. And really, I just have a very odd genealogy, which lends itself to having a tendency towards dimensional weirdness."

"Uh-huh," Jinx responds, glaring skeptically at the unblinking woman. "So, riddle me this, Raven."

The psychic flinches slightly at her tone, one she always finds incredibly uncomfortable to hear, since the Monks arguing for her death had first used it.

"We're in your head. What could possibly tell me that everything I see and feel is real in here? For all I know, this could be a massive illusion. I mean, for all I know, I could really be unconscious at the diner right now, playing out some pre-recorded sights. Raven, if your mind looks like this, I don't-"

Raven puts her hand on the woman's shoulder, quickly cutting her off.

As she feels the rising panic in the feline metahuman, she realizes the error in her decision.

"I'd tell you it doesn't work that way, but frankly, you're right. Were the situations reversed, I would not trust anything my senses told me, nor would I accept anything I experienced in someone else's mind."

"So what the hell, Raven? Where exactly does that leave us? Cuz' I was having a lot more fun a few minutes ago, before you brought the damned gem up again, and I'd prefer to go back to that than suddenly be wondering if my brain's stuck somewhere."

Before Raven can answer, something shifts the rocks and ground nearby, and both women turn to face what's coming, though only Jinx puts her fists up as if preparing for a fight.

"There's a simple solution to your issue," a voice, Raven's voice, states.

Jinx's eyes widen as another Raven, dressed in yellow and wearing large glasses, appears in the rocky field.

Raven feels a sense of foreboding fill her stomach, and she silently stares at her Emoticlone, wondering what she's doing.

"Okay, not giving me confidence I'm not being messed with, Raven," Jinx says, not sure which one she's addressing.

The yellow-garbed figure has no such issue. Instead, she holds her hand out, and a black dagger materializes at Jinx's feet.

"You want proof that you aren't under an illusion. Simple solution, then. You kill her, then the illusion would fail, and it'd be over. You wake up. Of course, the down side would be waking up with her body slumped over in a coma across the diner's table, but if the whole night's been an illusion, then that's not a worry, right? No Titans will come hunting vigorously for who attacked her, and by extension myself."

Raven pales at Wisdom's words, even as Jinx clutches at her head.

"Gah! You're making me even more confused. Why the hell're there two of you?" she demands, going with the first question she can think of and desperately hoping the answer distracts her from her building migraine.

"Making it simple, she's part of my brain, just as Nevermore itself is," Raven states, glaring at her avatar.

"I said it's simple," Wisdom states. "You said you're worried about this all being a huge illusion built by us to ghost away the gem from your unconscious body. Surely, then, a former member of the Suicide Squad would find the choice to kill the basis for her illusion and free herself a very easy choice to make. And no, I am not breaking my geas, because as you pointed out, we're in her head, which means it's technically just you two here."

"Wisdom, you're not helping," Raven growls, eyes becoming narrow slits at Jinx's growing bodily tremors.

Jinx again sends her stare from one to another, finding her headache stretching to new heights of pain.

"If, on the other hand, you follow your instincts, where I suspect your real problem lies… well, then surely you'll find the idea of picking up that very real ceremonial dagger that was left here whilst Raven practiced its use and stabbing her with it to be… disagreeable."

Going over the logic, Raven gives a grudging nod to her other self, walking slowly up to the trembling Jinx.

"She isn't wrong, Jinx. Stabbing me would remove any doubt as to whether or not I am playing games with your mind, and it would also put me into a, possibly irreversible, coma right on the diner table. I should have explained things a lot more thoroughly before we came here, and I'm afraid that your understandable torment lies solely at the feet of my uncharacteristic impatience."

Jinx's shakes calm slightly under Raven's grip, and her mind slows down with them.

Without the soul-crushing panic, her instincts can once more assert itself into her logic.

"I don't have a fucking clue what to do, Raven," she says, deciding it's the only thing she is sure of. "I want to trust that we're really in some weird, messed up mental representation of your brain, and that we can de-power this damn gem and go back to the by-far more pleasant night we were enjoying while you were distracted."

"But…?" Raven prompts.

"But tonight was the first time we talked outside of banter when we were still fighting, and that's a lot of years for a person to change. Something I know damn well. I mean, for all I know, this is what you were talking about with yer damned aggressive questioning, Raven."

"I won't lie, this is more or less what I meant by that term. I don't bring people here, though. Too much risk to my psyche if they manage to hurt me in here, as my other self over there said. So I won't tell you that you can trust me, because really, you can't, not here. But think about it, with a calm mind. We talked for an hour, and the entire time was very enjoyable to us both."

"More than you'd know, to have her admit to that," the yellow Raven adds, turning and leaving now that the crisis is in the process of ending.

"Anyways, I need you to think about things. Your concern is valid. There's a counterpoint, though. From the time that we entered the cafe, you worked under the theory that you could trust your instincts, that at the very least I was not an immediate threat, despite knowing what I can do. Correct?"

Jinx nods, seeming to become calmer as her headache disappears.

"Then, I raise a question. What reason could I possibly have, to come up with an elaborate scheme, in the course of less than an hour, mind you, to manipulate you to coming here to trap you, when we were getting along just fine? I brought you here to do just what I stated. I want to drain the gem of its magic, and I decided you'd best join me so that you'd be able to keep me under watch so you know I don't do anything other than exactly what I said I would."

Raven gently squeezes Jinx's shoulder, stopping her interruption short.

"I should've explained how we'd be doing this… In here, the Titans, the Church of Blood, and anyone else knowing to look, will not know what is happening, and so it can be done without the irritating bureaucracy of either of our organizations' involvement. You achieve your objective, and I remove the threat that, as my lack of forethought proves, I find more worrisome than I originally assumed. I swear to you, Jinx, that was the reasoning of bringing you here, where I am uncomfortably vulnerable."

Something in Raven's voice reaches Jinx, and she cautiously meets the psychic's eyes. If her instincts hadn't been enough to convince her into accepting Raven's word, the regret burning in her gaze would have done it all on its own.

Letting out a deep sigh, Jinx gently pulls Raven's hand from her shoulder, her grin far more shaky than she would like.

"Alright, Raven. I'm going to have plenty of questions when we leave here, but for now, it'd suck to go through that and not get something accomplished. So what do we need to do?"

Raven's face visibly relaxes, a relieved noise coming from her that she is utterly unaware of.

"Okay. I need you to put the gem on the ground."

Nodding, Jinx begins unsnapping the chain from around her neck, a sudden thought occurring to her.

"The gem ain't gonna just fall off me in the diner, will it? Because that'd draw attention, and I don't think they'd handle two suddenly unconscious women well."

"Um… I don't know, actually," Raven muses with a blush.

She again opens her window into the real world, intently looking at the gem.

"Unsnap the chain, but don't put the gem down," she says without looking at the meta.

A relieved smile forms when Jinx moves the gem from herself and the physical one doesn't follow.

The window closes once more, and Raven gives her a nod.

As soon as the gem is on the rocky ground, Raven sits cross-legged before it. It takes only a hand gesture, and Jinx follows suit, the two forming a circle around it, their knees almost touching.

A thought occurs to Jinx, and her grey skin pales somewhat to reflect it.

"So, uh, how're we doing this? Because I really don't want this thing exploding on me," she states.

Raven shakes her head in response, a smile tugging at her lips.

"What would make you think that?"

"Well, the whole it can make you die thing was a clue… I mean, that makes it sound like I couldn't control it, which would mean it's unstable, right?"

"You seem to have misunderstood my explanation somewhat, Jinx. It is undeniably dangerous, but it is not volatile in nature. Were it unstable, the energy trace would have been imbalanced and likely too chaotic for me to follow. It will not explode, so long as we manage things well. As long as I don't go around smashing it and making the vessel itself unsuitable, nothing will explode."

"Okay, that makes me feel better… I'll warn you now that even though I've been working on things, I've only recently gotten into full-blown sorcery. I don't know many spells, so I really don't have a clue what good I'll do."

"No need to be humble, Jinx. That's a trait I certainly don't remember of you. Be proud of your vast improvement over so relatively short a time."

Jinx's grin returns in full force, an appreciative hum sounding in the back of her throat.

"I am pretty awesome."

"Indeed," Raven deadpans. "At any rate, I'll be doing most of the work. You'll be acting as the second part of a circuit, so I can drain the power from it without taking the full brunt of that power on my own."

"So I'm just some kind of insulation?" the pink-haired woman responds with a frown.

"Not in so many words, no. You have a decent amount of power, and a lot of potential, so your aid will keep me from going into a temporary coma from the strain. Because you are foreign to this realm, you'll ground me, so to speak, and significantly reduce the stress on my mind and power."

"Wouldn't it be better to have someone who, uh, knows how to do this stuff, then?" Jinx asks, her sudden nervousness clear.

"The point is subtlety, Jinx. As I said, I do not take random people here. Most do not even know of this place's existence. Which is why all the mystics in the various worlds won't feel a thing when we drain the negativity from the gem here, at least in theory."

"So why'd you bring me here? I get the whole keeping this quiet thing. But you barely know me, and apparently, if I'd taken that knife, I could've made you braindead."

"Path of least resistance," Raven explains. "Again, I did not think this all out nearly as well as I should have, or normally would. But you have the gem. Were that not enough, you put your life in direct danger with your confession of your absent time. Kind of hard to mistrust you after that much faith you put in your instincts, and as a consequence myself."

"That why you're so open about everything?"

Raven's smile widens at that.

"In part. And that you're very entertaining to talk to certainly did not hurt my willingness to continue the conversation. Shall we get started?"

With that, she closes her eyes, Jinx mirroring the action.

A gasp sounds as power floods through her, both of them rising off the ground and floating above the gem, now giving off angry red sparks of energy.

Raven's mouth moves, a language long-forgotten by humans reaching Jinx's ears.

Their hair begins to move in waves in the air around them, and with their eyes closed, neither notices the brilliant glow their bodies send out into the landscape before them.

They stay like this for a small eternity, Raven's mouth moving to an ancient rhythm while Jinx instinctively meets the energy and completes the magical circuit.

With a snap, the ritual reaches its peak, and a violent tremor runs through the ground under them.

Raven's eyes shoot open just as a massive column of red light rises from the gem, mixed with sparks of other colors that have no rhyme or reason to their existence.

The column reaches the red clouds above them, and a much larger hole than Raven's rips itself into existence above it.

Both women look up as the column shoots through, reaching the white clouds of Earth and quickly expanding with billions of strands of colored light.

Raven stretches her arms out, and Jinx grabs her hands almost automatically.

As soon as they touch, the column expands, and with the sound of panes of glass shattering, it leaves the gem altogether, the tail quickly expanding into more colored sparks of energy into the universe.

As it leaves, the women collapse back to the ground, their exhaustion making itself known.

Noticing the signature of the gem, Raven groans, releasing Jinx, who promptly falls onto her back to pant heavily on the ground.

"Please… tell me… we can finish eating… now," she wheezes, wiping at a large bead of sweat on her brow.

"That was… just the negative energy… in the gem," Raven responds. "There's still energy there…"

Jinx stares at her in horror, her expression quickly turning to a glare at Raven's audible laugh.

"Not… funny…"

Raven takes a deep sigh, her own breath evening out far more quickly than the unpracticed meta.

"I wasn't joking. All of that was the generations of evil stored in there. There was a large part of the energy stored as well, but there remains energy yet. However, it is no more powerful now than your everyday energy vessel. Nothing special about it anymore."

"Then just… say that… damnit," Jinx sighs, slowly feeling the ache in her brain fading as she talks.

"Will do."

Raven puts her hand on her forehead, and a circle of white light forms in her palm.

Immediately, Jinx's fatigue fades, eyes closing as a moan escapes her.

Blushing, Raven jerks her hand away.

"What was that?" Jinx asks, slowly sitting up.

"Healing your mental fatigue is easy enough, and the least I can do for putting you through all this."

"You can put me through it any time, if that's how I get rewarded," Jinx retorts, laughing at the dark red burning Raven's skin.

"Regardless. We've worked enough out to make the gem safe, so my mission is complete. For all I care, you can keep it yourself, now. The Church of Blood should have no interest of it once the word gets around anonymously that their toy was destroyed, as well."

"You'd better believe I'm keeping the damn thing, after all that," Jinx laughs. "As far as the bossman will be concerned, the threat's neutralized."

Nodding, Raven rises to her feet, pulling Jinx up to follow when she takes her offered hand.

"Hold on. Again," she states as another pulse of black energy washes over them...
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Author's Notes:

I was rather surprised, but the actual term for Raven's emotional avatars in Teen Titans Go! seems to really be Emoticlones. They'll be coming into things, too, a bit later.

For this scene, I actually had a rather hard time figuring out how to write it. When I got to the point that Raven reveals what Nevermore is, I originally planned on it being something said in passing that impresses Jinx. When I actually wrote it, though, I wondered how Jinx could possibly be nonchalant, when for all intents and purposes it means that literally anything and everything around her could be false to trick her. Hope I handled it realistically.

If I did, let me know. Compliments are always welcome. And if I didn't, let me know, because criticism is fantastic for figuring out my weak points, which objectively I have a hard time seeing. See you next time!