The Burning Darkness
Chapter 36
Dead Shades of Grey
Rage. It consumed her. Raven felt as her soul burning. She was unleashing hell itself not only upon The Master, but upon herself. The flames of the eternal pit could not merely be channeled through the user unscathed. This was impossible. All magic, power for that matter, has a price. She was feeling the burn deep in her spirit. The torch of damnation she was unleashing upon her foe, was slowly scorching her away. What she had never told her team was she had nearly burned her soul to ashes once before.
When Trigon had defeated Slade and the Titans, rage had consumed her then. She had found her unbridled rage had managed to completely subdue and unite her body and soul for a short period of time. When that happened, she managed to channel all of the dark forces of Trigon and hell itself to her body and regain her proper body. The price was pain unimaginable. This was a short pain but, to Raven, she felt every year she regained magnified by magnitudes beyond imagining. After she endured that, she had taken the pain and rage, and used it to turn Trigon's power around on him. She felt a small part of her soul die with his defeat, and the undoing of his magic, but it did what was needed. Raven was ok with that sacrifice, just as she was ok with the burning she felt now.
She felt something give and a brilliant eruption of light and darkness enveloped the battlefield. Everyone, living, dead, and otherwise was scattered across the temple grounds. All they could see and feel was a fog around them. The world had changed so drastically in mere moments that they couldn't quite fathom what had happened. Raven stood with her team, slowly, and made a silent head count as Nightwing reunited everyone together. No one was hurt, thankfully enough, but something still felt wrong. It was as though they were both, where they were before, and somewhere else altogether. It didn't take them long to see a change in the world around them.
Surrounding them, was a disorienting greying color to the world. It was as though someone had taken all the color around them and removed its brightness to the point it was almost different shades of grey around them. The temple buildings and the desert were little more than rubble. The once strong, although decrepit, structures were nothing more than stone and bones. The archway was gone, just a pile of bone dust and fetid flesh. They saw a large crater surrounding the platform that The Master was standing on, but there was no sign of him.
"Alright team." Nightwing began, "We need to fan out and see what happened. There could be danger anywhere, so stay within shouting distance, and travel in groups. Raven. You and your kids examine the archway. Star, you and I are going to check the northern temple. Lithuana and Changeling, you two check the south end. Bumblebee, you Cyborg and Cyberstrike check the immediate area. I don't want any more corpses getting up and surprising us. Titans! Move!"
With that said, everyone immediately went straight to their assignments. Changeling and Lithuana took the forms for cheetah's and sprinted down to their assignment and began combing through the debris. Nightwing and Starfire did the same on their end. Cyborg, Bumblebee and Cyberstrike began destroying the remains that they found. It wasn't hard. Most of the time all it took was a touch and they would dissolve to dust. Raven and the trio scoured every square millimeter of the now destroyed platform.
They moved the rubble with their powers, they refused to touch it for obvious reasons, as well as to protect themselves from any leftover enchantment. Their search, along with everyone else's yielded nothing. They didn't find a scrap of The Master or any sign of the portal. There wasn't even a trace of the magics that permeated the area before. It was as though a great lake had dried up years ago and the only trace left of it was the hollowed, dusty husk. The team got together and began to regroup
"Anybody find anything?" Nightwing asked, not really out of expecting anything, but more out of reflex. He watched as everyone shook their heads in confusion and lack of new information. He nodded his head and formed a new game plan.
"Ok. No one was hurt and everything is just ash and rubble around here. I don't know what happened but we will find…" Nightwing was cut off by the sound of groaning in the distance both north and south of their position. The team immediately took combat stances and watched the two directions.
At first, there was nothing. They saw nothing but the wind kicking up dust and sand in the distance. Slowly a quiet moaning began to fill the air. The moaning grew louder and closer. Slowly the dust that was building was not from the wind but from the movement of a large mass coming towards them. The image that slowly crystalized before the Titans filled them all with nothing short of Dread.
Hundreds of shambling, putrid bodies ground towards them slowly. The hordes became clearer and showed every level of decay between dead within minutes all the way to virtually nothing but bones and a few strings of flesh holding the bones together. The remnants of clothing on the undead showed uniforms and civilian clothes from the world over. These were all corpses of people from all over. Before the Titans could come to their full senses, a blood curdling screech filled their ears.
The horde has seen them, and they were coming for them specifically now.
All Titans turned to Nightwing for a plan. He only took a moment to assess their states, resources, and formulate a plan.
"Alright team. There are far too many for us to defeat right now. They have us almost surrounded and outnumbered 100 to 1 or worse. We need to get to the T-Ships. Raven, Starfire, and Bumblebee make sure the ships are clear. Changeling and Lithuana, you take point and clear any undead before us. The rest of you, follow me." Nightwing turned and sprinted full for the ships. He was hoping if they could get airborne they could escape the endless army coming for them.
Raven teleported ahead and appeared at the ships with Bumblebee and Starfire in tow. They began to scan for the ships, but what they saw crushed their spirits. The T-Ships were rusted out and destroyed beyond hope of repair. They looked like someone had managed to rip them apart and age them a couple of decades. Their best hope of escape was completely destroyed. Fortunately it didn't take long for everyone else to catch up. They all assessed the damage and showed the signs of losing hope.
Cyborg went to the back of the T-Ships and was fortunate enough to find the sealed emergency kits. He had managed to pack them away in the back end of the shuttles in sealed cases that prevented damage and decay. He passed them out quickly and the Titans took the desert as fast as they could. The horde was still coming.
The Horde had managed to gain some ground while the Titans reassessed. Much more than one would expect an army of fetid bone sacks could manage, but they did. The Titans were not half a mile away when the wretched mass descended upon their rusted out ships. They showed no discretion and destroyed what was left of the ships.
The Titans moved with the speed of a man being chased by the devil himself, and that wouldn't be too far off of an assessment. They moved with all the energy and swiftness their training and powers could muster. Slowly, ever so slowly, they put distance between themselves and the horde. After they had managed to get out of the immediate sight of the horde, they stopped to catch their breaths. They had easily cleared ten miles and needed a break.
"Raven… do you think… you could open… a portal… and put some… distance between us… and… those things?" Nightwing asked hunched over catching his breath. Nightwing was a near perfect physical specimen, but even he had a hard time sprinting as hard as he could for ten miles. Raven acknowledged him with a nod, and turned ahead of the group while mustering her energies. She focused on the tower. She knew she wouldn't be able to teleport them that far. Her goal was to put them on the North American continent, east coast most likely. Any more required a larger tear in time and space than she could muster.
"Azarath, Metrion, ZINTHOS!" Raven unleashed the energy and ripped a hole in spacetime. What she saw on the other end amazed her beyond comprehension. It was the main room of Titans tower. She had managed to open a portal on the other side of the planet. Before she even had a chance to question it, the team moved through and she was forced to follow. The instant everyone was through, the portal slammed shut with a small shockwave moving throughout the fibers of reality itself around them.
Raven knew instantly this couldn't be a good sign. Something had caused a destabilization in reality itself. If she had created a portal and had a consequence like that, it horrified her to even begin to put together what else could have happened. She was ripped from her thoughts by the feeling of Teether grabbing her leg and softly crying. He was terrified by what had happened and the new scary world, and no one could blame him, because they all felt the same. Something horrible had happened.
The Titans immediately took to the tower to find whatever they could. Everyone went different directions to get through the tower quick, the good thing about searching the tower was, someone was always within shouting distance.
Raven immediately went to her room. She was crushed by the sight. The instant she opened the door a mass of rotten flesh and bones collapsed at her feet. It was the carcass of a long deceased dog. She saw the stains of blood on the carpet by the door, and the scratch marks on the door itself. She had tried to claw her way to freedom and failed. She probably died of dehydration. Raven tried to put it out of her mind as she checked her room for anything strange. She saw nothing but a room torn apart by an animal a long time before. The dust everywhere showed it had been a very long time.
The team slowly trudged back to the sitting room and told of similar discoveries. The tower's power and security systems were still fully functional, but everything else looked like it had been abandoned for decades. It made no sense, they had been here just a couple days ago and suddenly time and rot had taken place.
Nightwing sat by silently listening and watching Raven. She had a look of slowly growing apprehension as time went on. He knew that face, and it didn't take him long to put two and two together.
"Raven. Your magic had a hand in this didn't it? Your powers have altered time before. On your birthday. You stopped time. Do you think that the battle with The Master had anything to do with this?" The tone was simple and direct. No trace of an accusation was present.
"I don't know. I used the same power I had used to defeat Trigon. I felt as though I was winning when something seemed to break, and then I saw a flash of light. Next thing I knew, we were all at the temple together getting our bearings. I don't know what happened." Raven knew somehow her magic and The Master's had mingled and altered reality itself in some way. She didn't know how, but it did.
"I have some books in my room. I'm going to bring them down so we can look through them and see if we can find anything." Raven phased to her room and returned seconds later with every book she owned in tow. Everyone grabbed a chair. This was going to be along night.