Wow. I haven't posted anything in two and a half years. Well, if there's anybody out there still watching for me, welcome back True Believers.
Upon originally penning this story way back when, I had always intended to write one last chapter; just a little something to wrap up a few loose ends. When I first started writing this thing, I was motivated by the fact that if I didn't get it done by a certain date, the new episodes threatened to ruin my cannon. Sure, this is FANFICTION, but I was rather proud of the fact that my take on things was perfectly plausible in the overall scheme of the show. I succeeded by scant weeks, and decided that I had reached an acceptable conclusion for the time being. Since then, my predictions about Jinx proved somewhat accurate, as she is now a Hero. Terra came back. Oh, and the series ended.
Friends, at long last, let's end this Bitch.
Aftershock Part. 3
By: Reedemption (aka XRR)
The twin globes of light danced and chased each other through the darkness like a pair of will 'o the wisps. Following their every turn and movement were a pair of equally luminescent and quite captivating feline eyes. A dazzling shade of pink that increased in intensity when their owner was feeling particularly pissed off, they now looked on with only a hint of apprehension, wondering what they had gotten themselves into.
Deeper into the cavern they ventured, passing the random piles of refuse and other remnants from teenagers looking for a private place to drink and smoke. The one bringing up the rear carelessly kicked a Heineken bottle across the rocky floor and smirked to herself: this was a favorite place of hers to come and rough up the youngsters in search of some free beer. The smirk disappeared as the person she was following strode forward into the ominous looking cleft between two manmade pillars, each decked out in cracked and broken stained glass. Even though she had been here often in the past, she never ventured this far in. There was something….wrong, about that place. She had a sense about these sorts of things, after all.
She almost hesitated at the entrance, wanting very much to simply turn around and leave, before she started to mentally berate herself: SHE was the bad girl here. SHE was the one who never followed the rules. Was she really going to chicken out and let the Whitewashed Wonder show her up? HELL NO!
That thought brought the smile back to her face. Even though she had often poked fun at her new friend, they both knew she was still a little in awe over what had happened less than a month ago on the roof of that building under the blood red moon. When the sunlight caught her friend's new wardrobe at just the right angle, she still had to force herself not to stare. Luckily, she had a reason to look at her down here, what with the fact that the duo's only illumination came from the white spheres of light conjured through the leader's hands.
Onward they walked, the rolling of disturbed pebbles giving notice to the downhill slope as they continued to travel further beneath Jump City. Suddenly, the rock walls and floor lost the rugged surfaces and coatings of pebbles and gravel, being replaced by smooth hills and ribbons of black glass. Here, the tail of the expedition couldn't help but pause and kneel down, running a hand over the dark Obsidian. Flexing her hand slightly, she brought forth a bright pink glow to her fingertips, trailing them around the jewel-like surface and watching the fires dance and glow, throwing shadows on the wall like in Plato's Allegory of the Cave.
She caught the movement out of the corner of her and spun her head around to find her friend standing nearby, watching her actions with a bemused smile on her face. The girl extinguished her amateur firework show, grateful that the sudden darkness hid her blush. If anyone else would have smiled so coyly at her like that, she would have amped up the light show until the air was filled with the smell of burnt hair. But it was okay when she did it. The fact that SHE, of ALL PEOPLE, could smile like that….
The strange young woman with unusual talents hurried to catch up to the other young woman with equally unusual abilities, only to crash into her stock-still frame. They were here.
The statue stood in complete darkness, it's very existence unknown to all but a handful of people; a monument to the heroes who dedicated their lives to protect their city; a memorial to the fallen, to which no one ever paid tribute. She stood atop a pillar of the volcanic glass with her arms outspread, her hair fanning around her head like a halo, the skinny body outfitted in battered armor, looking very much like a Valkyrie about to take flight.
Jinx turned to her companion. "Are you sure this will work?" She didn't mean it to come out as a whisper, but the atmosphere of the chamber made her feel like she had just walked into a Church.
Raven was silent for a little bit as she gazed up into the face of the girl entombed in the lava rock. "I'm not sure…" was her whispered response. Jinx took a step forward and jumped as she felt something crack underfoot. On the ground in front of her was an ancient and dried out bouquet of flowers.
It had been a quiet Sunday evening when Jinx heard the tapping at her window. She casually strolled over expecting to see that insufferable Kid Flash standing in the street below with a handful of pebbles, instead finding the white clad Raven hovering near the windowsill. The lack of her usual purple ensemble instantly signaled the start of something big.
All she had said was that she thought she had figured something out and that she needed her help. A few hours later, here they were, two young heroines standing in the solemn crypt of a third.
As soon as she had learned where they were going, something had been nagging at the back of her mind. Suddenly, she realized what was amiss. "Raven, where's the book?" There wasn't a particular book Jinx had in mind, but rather any of the numerous tomes from the shadowy Titan's vast library that may have been holding the key to the little trick they were about to attempt.
Raven's eyes didn't leave the statue's face as she answered. "There isn't one. I spent weeks going over every single page I could find after it happened. No…." Raven stepped forward and slowly reached out to the stone figure's arm. "This is something we're going to have to guess at…"
"Well, if you want ME to take a guess, I say we just start hitting it 'till it cracks open."
Raven glared at her, causing a hasty a back-peddling. "Hey, easy there, Mistress of the Dark. I was just kidding." She HADN'T been kidding, but she was going to keep that to herself.
Ignoring her friend's suggestion of senseless and wanton destruction to get even the most fragile job done, Raven stepped forward, crouched over slightly, and began to drag her hand across the floor as she circled the immobile form of her former teammate.
Her fingers left trails everywhere they ran, as would a child writing "Wash Me!" in the dust caking a rather dirty car. The problem was, there wasn't that much dust clinging to the near vertical pillar supporting the statuette. Oh, and everywhere her fingers danced, the volcanic rock glowed white, as if she were applying glow-in-the-dark finger-paint.
Jinx struggled to recognize the symbols, translating some but failing miserably with most. At first glance, they closely resembled the demonic runes which had covered Raven's body only a short time ago. These, however, seemed…friendlier? More smooth and gentle in the curves? She wasn't sure how to describe it, beyond the fact that they definitely looked more soothing than the gleaming red tattoos the Titan had been sporting earlier, and it wasn't just the change in color.
After one complete rotation, Raven stepped back to admire her handiwork before turning to her companion. "Your turn." Jinx could only look back in shock. "Excuse me?"
"Now you do it."
"Do WHAT, exactly? What am I supposed to write?"
"Whatever you feel like writing."
Somehow, Jinx felt tracing the words "This is stupid" over and over wouldn't accomplish much. Still, the look in her eyes told her Raven wasn't going to take no for an answer, and with a sigh of defeat she stepped forward, mumbling somewhat under her breath.
"Anything in particular I should feel like writing?" She asked. True, Raven was pretty much her best friend in the whole wide world right now; despite the mean burns they'd both give and receive when Jinx felt like stealing something. In the time since their little adventure together, not TOO much had changed; they still paired off whenever the Titans and the villains had a shuffle. They certainly didn't pull any punches. Of course, had they actually been training together, they wouldn't be going easy on each other either.
The big difference was that NOW, it wasn't unlikely for the two to meet up for a late night movie, going so far as to be seen in public together. Still, any amount of friendship didn't excuse being dragged out into a cave in the middle of the night to accomplish God knows what, and with seemingly no plan on how to do so. A little venom between friends was only natural in a situation like this.
"Don't think about it. Just start doing it." Raven replied. Jinx blew upward at her bangs in frustration before she crouched down and began to trace random stuff onto the pillar below the previous artist's work.
She really had no idea what she was doing. Basically, she was leisurely running her fingers over the smooth surface, a squiggle here, a circle there, dot that I and cross that t, all the while pouring forth her collective powers into her fingertips, engraving the symbols into the earth. A smiley face with vampire fangs. A band logo she remembered from some obscure album.
She was half way around when she saw what she was doing and gasped out loud.
She certainly didn't remember crossing that t twice, producing the strange double cross with a curved bottom that looked for all the world like something Raven had just penned. Was that smiley face sideways when she made it? What was the mouth doing all the way over there, way outside the circle. And she was positive that she had never seen that band logo before.
She was writing in some strange language that only really made sense to one person in the room. The problem was, it wasn't her.
Jinx looked up imploringly to her friend, searching for any answer whatsoever to what was going on.
Raven merely shrugged. "I don't know what I wrote either. But it doesn't look too bad, does it?"
Jinx looked back down at her wandering hand, which was continuing to paint the strange symbols upon the rock. "Are you doing this somehow?" Her voice betrayed no quiver; it was more from shock than fear.
"I think so. I had a dream the other night and when I woke up I tried to write everything I could remember. I know it wasn't the same signs, but they looked pretty close. And the more I wrote the easier it became. But it still looked unfinished. Like I needed someone to help me."
Jinx really didn't know what to say. The little flutter in her stomach was both familiar and alien to her; last felt when she promised Raven to help her save the world. Without responding, she smiled weakly and hid a slight blush as she continued her work.
At long last, she had completed her circumnavigation of the dais, standing back and noticing how well the two lines of runes and symbols complemented each other. As the white light mixed with the pink and glowed throughout the chamber, they cast waves over the surrounding walls, looking very much like the aurora borealis she had seen on the Discovery Channel and episodes of Northern Exposure.
She was slightly let down to notice that, other than the light show, nothing was happening. A sidelong glance at Raven's confused expression told her she was not alone. "Azerath Metrion Zinthos. Azerath Metrion Zynthos. Azerath-" She whispered over and over, desperate for her words to have some sort of effect. At last she was silent. "I don't understand it…This should work…At least, I think it should…"
Jinx hardly heard any of this, her attention drawn to how some of her writing had crossed over and intertwined with Raven's. "It's because you're trying it alone…" she whispered. Raven looked up, baffled, just in time to see Jinx reach up and grasp her right hand in her left, fingers intertwined. She lead her forward, till the statue stood between them, before reaching around and taking her left hand in her right, reminding her somewhat of two children spinning around the maypole. "Now try it" she whispered.
Raven did as she was instructed, repeating her incantation softly, over and over. She soon realized that her voice was not solitary. It was not the first time Raven heard her words coming from Jinx's mouth, but it still gave her the impression of waking up one morning to find she didn't recognize her own voice.
They continued to chant the incantation in voices that grew stronger and louder, matching each other's rhythm and tempo perfectly. Neither were sure how long they kept it up, only that suddenly and simultaneously, they stopped. Both opened their eyes, eagerly awaiting the outcome of their efforts.
Nothing. Silence. Stillness. Zilch. The two sorceresses stood motionless, hands still clasped together, both of them holding their collective breaths as the girl between their outstretched arms remained stone cold.
Shit. Jinx let go of her friend's intertwined fingers and sighed heavily. "Seriously, I've got a pretty good sized sledge in my room. Gimme three solid swings and I think I can-"
Crack.
Another crack.
And another.
Slowly, the chamber began to fill with the sounds of rock and Earth fighting against each other and themselves. Although the sounds were evident, the girl standing before them looked the same as she had for years.
Then it happened. Jinx saw it first. A small hairline fracture appeared on the girl's chest, over her heart, and began to spider web outwards.
Up her neck and over her face, circling her nose and eyes. Running along her outstretched arms and wrapping around her fingers. Down her torso and legs, towards the swirling light of the blazing runes. Then, the racing and spreading cracks made contact with the glowing symbols.
It was like a damn breaking; the swirling lights poured forth and raced through the cracks, shining waters flooding dry riverbeds. Up the legs, over the torso, out along her arms and up her face. The girl standing before them was covered in the churning glow.
A crack like thunder, a bright flash, and the statue was gone. In its place was stood a girl in the exact same pose, covered in dirt, dressed in tattered rags and dented armor, the glowing stone replaced with blonde hair and flesh tones.
In slow motion, the girl fell forward and collapsed to the floor, caught at the last possible moment by two pairs of startled arms which finished her descent to the floor in a more gentle fashion.
Raven and Jinx just stood there for a little bit, completely stunned, not sure if this was really happening. Terra was just lying there, as motionless as she had since they entered, if in a different position and color. Neither said anything. Raven didn't even object when Jinx's shaking foot snaked out and nudged the girl in the ribs. She was rewarded with a rasping cough followed by a groan.
"Holy…." Whispered Jinx.
"Shit…." Finished Raven. Jinx was too bowled over by what they had just accomplished to respond to Raven's use of language.
Minutes later, Raven and Jinx were hiking back up the tunnel, a weakened Terra loping between them with an arm over each. "Where's everybody else?" She asked weakly.
"It's just us." responded Jinx. "We'll take you to the hospital first, then back to the Tower for one hell of a surprise. Beastboy is gonna flip!"
Terra stopped in her tracks, bringing the trio to a halt. "You can't tell him." She whispered. Both Raven and Jinx looked at her in shock. "What?"
"Nobody else knows, right? They don't have to know." She looked at them pleadingly. "I don't want to have to deal with this again."
"But…what about all your friends?" Jinx only knew as much about Terra as she had heard second-hand, and being cracked in the head was new to her.
"The friends I tried to kill, you mean?" Again, Terra only knew Jinx by reputation from her brief time with the Titans, but if she had any questions as to why she and Raven were together, she kept them to herself.
"I've done terrible things…" She continued. "And I was prepared to go to any lengths to make it right. I can control my power now. But I'll still have to think about what I did with it whenever I use it. Please," She looked into Raven's eyes, begging her. "Please, don't make me use them again."
Raven was stunned. To tell the truth, she had been dreaming of this day for a long time, when she could finally find a way to free the girl from her imprisonment. If not so much for Terra, then for BB. When did she start calling him BB? But throughout all the dreaming and wishing and planning, she had never once stopped to consider what would happen if she had actually succeeded. Needless to say, she was at a loss.
She looked to Jinx, hoping for some support in getting the girl to think strait. Those pink cat-like eyes looked right back, and after a little bit she smirked. "Won't be the first big secret you and I have shared together."
Raven blushed a little at that. The girl standing one body length away was still the only other person in the world who knew exactly what transpired, as well as lead up to, the events that took place on the rooftop under the blood red moon. She looked back to Terra.
"Alright." She said. "We won't tell anyone."
Terra's grip on her shoulder tightened in what could only be an attempt at a hug.
The trio continued on up the tunnel in silence that was at long last broken by the girl in the middle. "I like the new look." She told her former teammate.
Raven and Jinx started to giggle, which quickly built in volume and crescendo until the halls were echoing with sidesplitting laughter. It was just too absurd to hear such a casual reaction like that given what the pair had gone through to give Raven her little wardrobe change.
Terra, of course, was completely baffled. But thought she was picking up something as she watched the mage clothed in white and the pink-loving Goth shudder with laughter, having to brace against each other to keep from falling over. The exchanged blushes and talk of shared secrets from earlier flipped a switch, prompting another question from the fair-haired Earthmover.
"So, are you two a couple, or what?"
It was almost frightening how quickly the cavern descended into silence after those words were uttered.
THE END (This is where Puffy Ami Yumi's song starts.)
Well, there it is. After putting my own spin on the events of Season 4, I thought it might be nice to add my own little touch to the ending of the series, giving it a little bit of closure. And thus, my first ever fanfic has been completed. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed sharing some of the inane ramblings that are rattling around inside my head. Speaking of which….
Perhaps the biggest change to take place in my life occurred since I put this on hiatus: When I was watching new weekly episodes of Teen Titans, I would generally steer clear of Anime. Oh, sure, I taped the occasional episode of Tenchi Muyo! Or Sailor Moon off Cartoon Network, but even this was done in secret, as I had no wish to affiliate myself with the anime genre. I lived in a small community where the only 3 people in my high school who openly talked about anime specialized in hentai. That and every adult within 20 miles could only assume Pokémon was the high point of Japanese culture.
Then, around Season 5 of Teen Titans, something happened that would change me deeply. Staying up late one night for Aqua Teen Hunger Force on Adult Swim, I caught the beginning of an episode of Fullmetal Alchemist. Curious as to why the big robot sounded like a kid, I watched it. And I became hooked. I followed the show religiously, and was completely blown away by the conclusion. Then, I watched Season 1 of Ah! My Goddess on YouTube. THEN, my college's anime, sci-fi, and gaming club scored Tiffany Grant as the guest of honor at our yearly con. You remember those tattoos I mentioned? I have the FMA Homunculus Ouroboros on my chest. I am proud to call myself an Otaku.
I have a list I'd like to share with you:
Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Halo.
Black Lagoon.
Hellsing.
Bleach.
Martian Successor Nadesico.
Vandread.
Transformers.
LOST.
Heroes.
Teen Titans.
Afro Samurai.
Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Predator.
Iron Man.
Ghost Rider.
Starcraft.
Now, upon first look, this may seem like my list of interests on Facebook. In reality, this is the collection from which I will be drawing the characters and events for use in the most ambitious and creative project I have ever undertaken. Simply put, I am working on a Crossover story so expansive and complex, it'll be like reading a vast trilogy based on Super Smash Bros.
Before I start receiving flames and whatnot, please, hear me out. I have put a lot of thought into this possibility, and have a lot more going for me than just the fact that many of these series deal with alternate dimensions and plains of reality. I love ALL of these characters deeply, and rather than write a dozen small crossovers, I plan on using some of my own original characters to tie this thing together tighter than Harry Potter 7.
So please, before you flame it, just read the first couple of chapters with an open mind. My primary goal is to entertain, and I'm confident that I will at least accomplish that.
I'm sorry if I was long winded. It won't happen again, and I'm REALLY excited.
And a special thanks to Darkbusterrancher, a great fan and soon to be my #1 Master Beta.