Disclaimer: This is a fan work created at no profit and for entertainment purposes only. The author acknowledges that Teen Titans and related characters are property of Warner Entertainment.
Teen Titans – What Grows From Deception
Chapter 25 – All Fall Down
It was a quick and dirty plan. She hadn't expected to be fighting the Beast at all, hadn't bothered drawing up contingencies for it. So she did what she did best when she didn't know how to handle a task: she dumped it off on someone else.
In this case, Aionor picked the swarmers as 'someone else', dropping the Beast into a thick cluster of them. It was a vast miscalculation. The Beast didn't get confused; it was pure instinct. The swarmers didn't even slow it down. Claw tore through them in droves, not pausing to let them dissolve before moving on to the next.
Within seconds, a wide swath around it was cleared and more swarmers were reluctant to fill the gap. The Beast sniffed the air. Raven wasn't near anymore. But the one that hurt her was. Stopping that one was just as good as standing over Raven to protect her because this was the predator that hunted her; one of the rare creatures that could hurt her.
It gave no warning before turning and leaping at Aionor. She tried to fly up, but never expected something so big to jump so high. It's huge paw caught her leg and used it like a handle. On the way down, it swung her straight down like a club.
Aionor's Beast-assisted fall was broken by a digger caste swarmer, which was destroyed instantly. Shocked by the sudden turn of her fortunes, Aionor ignited her body in static, sending a deadly shock coursing into the beast.
Roaring in pain, the hulking monster swung Aionor one more time, this time throwing her as far away from it and Raven as it could.
Across the cavern, Robin and Cyborg were fighting in a circle enforced by bo strikes and sonic blasts.
"We've gotta do something big real soon, Rob." Cyborg said, cutting down swarmers by the dozen, only to find dozens more incoming. "I've never seen so many mooks in on place before. Why does she even need a barracks if she's got these things?"
Robin smashed one swarmer to the ground and dispatched another with a spinning kick. "Short answer? She doesn't."
"What? Then what's the point of hollowing all this out?" Cyborg kicked a swarmer out of his way that slipped in past his fire, then launched a volley of shoe rockets into a cluster.
"I don't know yet." Said Robin, sidestepping a scything claw, then breaking it with a hard elbow, sending it's owner reeling back, hissing in pain. "But look around: there's table, chairs and beds, but nothing for food, nothing for entertainment. And all the lights are out here, not in the rooms. All of this is just a show."
An unnerving, but familiar roar caught their attention, followed by another a minute later, but on the opposite end of the cavern. Suddenly, a white comet was thrown through a line of unfortunate swarmers. It finally broke through the ranks attacking the two Titans and clanged into Cyborg's back.
The half-machine Titan turned and goggled at finding Aionor lying at his feet, trying to clear the cobwebs.
"Well ain't that convenient." He chuckled. "Just the gal I wanted ta have a talk with." He grabbed her by the back of her armor and hoisted her up.
She gasped, but it wasn't because of him. A green blur tore through the swarmers, bellowing with hatred. Just as it came fully into view, Aionor teleported, leaving Cyborg to face the Beast.
Her departure was almost entirely ignored when Cyborg saw what was in front of him. "Aw no. B, not again." He murmured as the deadly behemoth lumbered up to him, snarling. It smelled Aionor on him, but it didn't see Aionor.
Robin puzzled for a moment as to why the swarmers had cut off their attack, but when he looked behind him, he had all the answer he needed. "Oh no. Cyborg, get down." His hand went to his belt. The other would hate him when they found out, but after the first fiasco with the Beast, even though Beast Boy was exonerated, he'd had a set of special discs made: sonic screamers that would be torture to the Beast's sensitive ears.
He got one in his hand, but before he could throw it, a lightning bolt as wide as he was tall tore down from above, striking the Beast directly in the chest and driving it back into the wall, shattering stone.
Aionor, breathing heavily and listing from the pain the Beast had inflicted, hovered above them, eyes locked on the cloud of debris where the Beast hit it. Sure enough, the monster burst from the dust cloud with a mighty leap toward her. She responded with another lightning bolt that slammed it right back into the wall.
She was readying a third when a beach-ball sized orb of green fire whizzed past her, slamming into the rock wall beyond with enough heat and energy to send out spattered of lava where the rock melted. It was followed by another and another, forcing Aionor to teleport or be incinerated.
Starfire emerged from the pit with a primal scream, still throwing what Robin's mental catalog was already calling galaxy-bolts. Raven wasn't far behind, almost invisible at the heart of the raven-shaped manifestation of her soul-self. Boulders the size of a man orbited her and as Aionor came into sight, she let them fly all at once, like a shotgun the size of a subway car.
Both 'bolts and boulders missed their mark, but they demolished the alcoves and galleries behind Aionor, causing yet another minor collapse in the cavern.
Aionor focused on Starfire first. "Nerconom Hezberek, Mortix!" Black flame plumed form her mouth to engulf the alien princess. The force of it drover her to the ground and all but extinguished the 'bolts already in her hands. Starfire was up almost immediately, but reeled from the unsettling sensation the spell sent through her.
"Everyone!" Robin shouted. "Regroup and focus everything you have on Aionor. Whatever it takes, bring her down!" It took everything in him not to run to Star. And he knew that everyone would think he was issuing that order purely in retaliation.
But the latest collapse of the galleries had brought Aionor's plan to sudden, terrible clarity in his mind. They needed to reconvene so Raven could get them out immediately.
Cyborg was the only one that seemed to take it to heart. He converted his other hand into a cannon and let Aionor have it with both barrels as he followed Robin forward to where the Beast was trying to recover from that last bolt. Robin contributed to his own plan by throwing a handful of explosive discs.
But Starfire was slow to stand, and Raven... Raven was following half of his orders at least.
She didn't move, but her soul-self was spiraling down like a tornado to grab more and more rubble to pelt Aionor with. Her eyes and mouth glowed so brilliantly white that they rivaled the arc lights around the tunnel.
That was not a good sign, Robin knew. She had been running on fumes, and now, his best guess was that she was running on emotion. So far she was keeping control, barely, but it was only a matter of time before she cracked.
Just as Robin and Cyborg reached it, the Beast forced itself to its feet.
"Whoa man." Cyborg said in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "You gotta stay down."
The Beast was having none of it. Raven was fighting Aionor and it wasn't there to help her. That could not stand. Unleashing another composite roar, it bounded into the air, headless of the fact that the air around Aionor was filled with flying boulders.
Aionor only had a second's warning. And in the second, fear paralyzed her, the recent brutal attack still fresh in her mind. She lost concentration and stopped flying. That was what saved her.
Gravity reclaimed her enough that the Beast overshot her, its claws slicing the air barely an inch form her. She screamed and fired a powerful lightning bolt into it from point blank range.
A thunderclap filled the chamber, shaking everything. The Beast was thrown with the force of an explosion into the massive, central stalactite. Stone cracked around it, kicking up dust all around the point of impact. Aionor flew in the opposite direction, hitting the ground hard and rolling.
After several agonizing seconds, the Beast fell from where it hit, trailing dust after it as it tumbled into the pit.
Raven acted quickly, forming a platform out of her soul-self beneath him. But Aionor, lying with her cheek pressed to the stone floor of the cavern, mustered a tiny burst of static, which she flicked right up into Raven's eyes.
By reflex, the dark girl covered her face to protect it, in the process, losing the concentration that kept the platform in place. The Beast fell through and disappeared into the dark pit.
When Raven took her hands way from her face, her white eyes were red and to the horror of her teammates, split into four as they watched. A scowl came to her face, warping and twisting into a saw-toothed maw as her body elongated. Without her cloak, they others could see the tentacles of dark energy emerging from her body.
She pointed a black clawed finger at Aionor and when she spoke, she spoke with the voice of legion; a cacophony of her own voice, her father's and the distortion of Hell. "Why did you do that?" She demanded.
Aionor didn't answer. Her mouth was moving as she recited a healing spell.
Raven wasn't going to let her finish it. Or anything. Ever again. "I'll show you the fate of anyone that attempts to take what's mine. Much like the Beast, Raven's inner demon wasn't a creature of cognition or social mores. What it wanted, it took and did whatever it pleased with. Also like the Beast, it knew what it wanted long before the rest of her did.
Five dark tentacles struck out, their tips hardening into spears, all on course to hit Aionor. They shattered mere inches from her body.
Aionor calmly finished her healing spell and sat up. Her cocky smile was only marred by an aside glance at Starfire. That dragonfire wasn't going to keep the alien down much longer. Time to finish this. Or rather, let Raven finish it.
She tapped the penny still around her neck. "Forget something, Rae-Rae? What's the matter? Big, scary demon and you can't even touch me?"
All four of Raven's eyes narrowed. "It won't be as satisfying with spitting you like a pig," dozens of tentacles shot out and grasped the central stalactite, the one she'd earlier identified as the swarmer hive. Oh yes, this would be poetic. "But crushing you will still get the job done."
She ripped it free from the ceiling, bringing hundreds of tons of rock to bear on her nemesis.
Wait. Hundreds of tons? As a hive, it should be hollow. It shouldn't be this... No.
Looking up, she found her mistake. The stalactite wasn't the hive. The ceiling was. And she'd just pulled out what was basically the central support. Cracks were racing along it, faster than her eyes could track.
"No..." She murmured, eyes fading to white and merging back into two. "What have I done?"
Aionor grinned sweetly. "You just dropped a mountain on the Teen Titans." And then she teleported way.
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A/N: What a tweest!
Thanks for all the awesome reviews so far. Not bad for a first fic, huh?
Next Chapter: Beneath 150 Billion tons stands Raven Roth – And she's not happy.