A/N: Dun, dun, DUUUUUN! :D
(8)
Hrist has found me in my sanctuary. She came to me during the night when my friend was gone and attempted to sway my decision to stay. She has tried to sway me against my benefactor, the one individual in this world who understands my plight. She told me that he intends to use me against the High Priest but I laughed in her face. The dragons' king has no love for me. How could he? All this time our friendship was a falsehood. How could a dragon chosen by Iiam Bormah himself deign to befriend the son of The Putrid One? I sent her away.
My friend has vast knowledge of fire for it is his affiliate element. I have begun to study extensively under his direction, though he insists my affiliate element to be fire's opposite. He approves of my preference, however, and we have practiced for many long hours together. Fire is life, fire is power.
For dragons the Thu'um provides only three affiliate elements. Fire, ice, and lightening. The High Priest is of all three.
~ Excerpt from Rorek's memoirs.
(O)
Chapter 52 – Paid In Flesh
It turned out that Angel's back way wasn't even necessary. If they had only waited another ten minutes everything would have been over. It was over, at least on the surface.
"Friend of hyu?" Angel asked, adding something else in Russian that she directed to Batman, who nodded and replied.
"These are monks from Azarath! But, how did they know we were here?" Beast Man asked, astonished.
"Why don't we go ask the Patriarch?" Nightwing suggested, pointing.
"Is that Marlen Zanith?" Batman asked.
"Yeah, you know him?" Nightwing questioned.
"We have corresponded, yes. Raven gave him my e-mail address and I've been assisting some of their operations. They have managed to track down quite a few minor factions of the Church of Blood but none of them have been participating in the Blood Magic." Batman replied.
It was hard to figure out what was going on in the chaos. It was dark, there was a lot of shouting, a considerable amount of violence, but it seemed as though the monks were neutralizing the hired muscle. This wouldn't have been quite as much of a problem if it wasn't for the fact that they were trying to take these people alive. Weapons were removed, but not all of these people had or even needed weapons.
Fortunately Marlen Zanith was easy to spot. He was the only one wearing long gray robes, he was standing outside of the chaos, and there were large orbs of light hovering over him providing all the illumination the post-battlefield had had. Some idiots were attempting to shoot him, of course, but their bullets appeared to be hitting some invisible barrier. He was also standing next to the Martian Manhunter and Wonder Woman. The two of them spotted the group as it approached.
"Batman, Lantern, Flash! We got your signal, what happened? What's going on?" Wonder Woman asked.
"Boy have we got some stories to tell." said Flash.
"Where's Raven? Is she with you?" Marlen Zanith demanded sharply.
"No, she and some of the others are in the basement levels fighting Mother Mayhem." Nightwing answered. "By the way, somehow Mother Mayhem managed to snatch Red X. The Red X you have in your cells right now is a brainwashed Damien in a fake suit."
"What!-?" Zanith shook his head, then he pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned. "Alright, who are all these people with you?" he asked.
"Victims…or rather, some of them. The others…"
"The others committed suicide the first chance they got." Batman finished.
Zanith sighed. He did not look surprised. "Alright, I think we have things wrapped up on the surface here. How do we get into the basement levels?" he asked.
"Don't!" Terra said, rushing forward. "As soon as Raven and the others come back I'm going to collapse the entire thing. The facility is already pretty unstable as it is. It'd be easier if we could keep everyone up here and wait."
"What if there are other victims down there?" the Martian Manhunter asked in alarm.
"We don't have much of a choice, now. You can't teleport down there or in there and we don't have time to do a thorough search." Jinx came in.
"J'onn's powers might not be affected by magic." Batman reasoned. "Here, take these and see what you can find. But whatever you do, don't engage anyone. Just look." he said. He gave the Martian Manhunter the rings on his fingers.
"What do I do with these?" J'onn asked.
"Put them on. They'll protect you from most Blood Magic." Batman answered. "We need to get these people out of here as soon as possible."
"We will take care of them." Zanith told him. "We have retained records and techniques for such a situation. They will never be the same as before, but if they still have some will to live then they can regain some semblance of life."
"How did you know we were here?" Nightwing asked.
"Raven contacted a field agent and told them what was going on right before she teleported her team here. Told us exactly where you were and not to come unless we had a significant force mustered. I'm sorry it took this long for us to arrive." Zanith explained.
"She didn't tell us she contacted you." Kid Flash said, frowning.
"I bet she didn't want anyone to accidentally spoil the surprise." Flash considered.
"Rusalka die?" Angel demanded, prodding Batman for some information. He turned to her and rattled out a length of Russian. Marlen Zanith turned to Nightwing and gestured to the two that were currently carrying the body of Phantom.
"I'm guessing they're not victims."
"Uh, no, they're sort of helping us. Sort of. We're not entirely sure who's side that Angel woman is on but she was the one who started all the fighting amongst the thugs themselves. Apparently a lot of them didn't really want to be here." Nightwing answered.
"And the dead body? I notice it has multiple gunshots to the face but appears to be twitching slightly."
With a yelp, the two luckless musclemen dropped Phantom to the ground and bolted. No one bothered to stop them. Phantom groaned and pushed himself shakily to his feet. His face was a complete wreck but he was somehow still able to lift it and look around with only one working eye. Before Angel could shoot him down again, though, Marlen Zanith stepped forward. Phantom saw him and seemed to freeze.
"Oh hell no…" he said. It would probably be inaccurate to say he looked like he knew who Zanith was. Instead it seemed to Nightwing that he could tell what Zanith was and that was enough.
"Oh hell yes." Zanith chuckled, a knife of some sort appearing in his hand. It had a line of odd characters along the blade that were brought into sharp relief when he turned it to catch the light. Nightwing thought they looked a bit like dancing people in a vague sort of way. "Nice trick there, Sonny Jim, but I've seen it before."
(O)
It looked like a human heart. Pumping and pulsing, it sent out an a-rhythmical 'thud, thud-thud, thud…thud…thud-thud thud' that grated on the ears, the head, and her very skin. It was suspended just above an enormous platform that had a bottomless abyss below, hanging on what had to be hundreds of tendrils of varying sizes. It was also crawling with lesser glang.
Neither Rorek nor Lady Eisen had dared to approach it alone. They hovered nearby waiting for the rest of the party to arrive, Cyborg and Red X being levitated by Raven's power. It occurred to her then that, in this instance, they were probably going to be more of a liability than a help. She didn't even want to know what was down below that platform and what might happen should they fall in.
"What's the battle plan?" Red X asked. He looked at Raven, but Raven looked at the twins.
"You two know what this is, right?" she asked.
"We are inside a Rotthurst, an yes, we have been in one before." Malchior told her.
"Only once, though. After that we perfected a technique that allowed us to destroy one from outside. Obviously that won't help us here, though." Rorek said.
"We need to cut down the core." Malchior said. "That means destroying every last one of those tethers and quickly. See the lesser glang? They can repair a tether in five minutes, maybe less maybe more."
"I can take care of them." Raven said.
"We will undoubtedly gain the immediate attention of Mother Mayhem as well." Rorek said. "Malchior and I will fight Mother Mayhem. Raven will deal with the glang. The rest of you need to cut down that core." he instructed.
Cyborg's arm turned into his laser cannon. "You got it." he said. "Dang, y'all, this is really feeling like some kind of survival-horror video game."
"Yes, but the difference is that when you die in a video game it's just pictures." Lady Eisen said. "Let me carry Cyborg." she said to Raven, who nodded.
"YO!" Cyborg exclaimed when he plummeted a few feet before Eisen caught him with her powers.
"Sorry!"
"On the count of three we all attack at once. Give Malchior and I space for we do not intend to play fair."
"Meaning?" Red X asked.
"We are going to become dragons." Malchior answered. "One, two—"
Raven only just managed to surround them in a shield of spellfire before the enormous blast of red-orange flame got them, ripping through the wall of organic-looking tissue that they had been hiding behind. Even so Malchior and Eisen let out shouts of pain and clapped their hands on some part of their bodies. Some tongues of the fire had preceded the inferno, catching Eisen on the arm and Malchior on the cheek.
"Aw, hell!" Cyborg exclaimed.
"Yes indeed." Malchior said, staring at the blood on his fingers.
(O)
The waiting was the worst part, Nightwing reflected. This opinion was only reinforced after the Martian Manhunter reappeared from his sweep of the underground facility to report.
"There is no one down there." he said. "There are bodies, most of them with no blood and some very little. But nothing living. There is no sign of this Mother Mayhem or the Titans and…" he paused.
"What is it?" Wonder Woman prompted.
"Many of the bodies appeared to belong to the cultists themselves. There was one chamber, an auditorium of some sort, where a large number seemed to have simply died where they stood. All at once. There was no blood in their bodies. It was there that I found this." He produced what, at a glance, looked like a large crystal about the size of his forearm with something red on the inside. Upon closer inspection it looked like someone had decided to preserve a crushed mix of unidentifiable organs inside a case of all-too-clear quartz.
More than one observer turned and jogged a few feet so as to be violently sick without inconveniencing anyone nearby. Angel drew back and made some sort of sign with her hand that was probably meant to ward off evil spirits, saying some staccato mantra that possibly did likewise.
"Do you know what this is?" Batman asked Marlen Zanith.
The patriarch looked very grim. "Yes. I do. And I know where Mother Mayhem and the Titans are as well." He took the crystal from the Martian Manhunter and…explained.
"What can we do?" Starfire asked. "Can we crush it?"
"I am afraid the only way to destroy a Rotthurst is to do so from the inside out. The Mortix describes the preferred method in great detail – one that does not involve entering the Rotthurst physically. But even if we had The Mortix I do not know that it would work while there are living people trapped within." Zanith explained. "We will have to wait."
Waiting, more waiting. "There has to be something we can do!" Nightwing exclaimed.
"There is."
"What's that?"
"We can make sure that, should it be Mother Mayhem who emerges rather than the Titans, we are ready for her."
(O)
The next attack was a blast of Blood Magic spellfire so they scattered, deciding not to rely on Raven's shield to stop it.
"Not good! Not good! Not good!" Red X shouted. "She stole Slade's fire stuff!"
"I thought hellfire and Blood Magic were at war or something! How come she can use both?-!" Cyborg demanded.
"Power is power, I am afraid." Rorek returned.
"Not to the Deep Magics." Malchior rounded on Raven. "Raven you—"
"LOOK OUT!" Raven threw up a shield to stop the hellfire from hitting him. Then they had to split up fully to avoid the dozens of blasts, some spellfire, some hellfire, all coming from Mother Mayhem hovering just above the enormous heart.
"God, this all looks so weird with night-vision!" Red X exclaimed.
Two roars erupted in the enormous space and, when Raven looked 'round, both twins had become dragons. She wasn't so sure that this was such a good idea since it meant there was more of them for Mother Mayhem to aim at, but they could shift between forms so swiftly and seamlessly that she wasn't landing a hit with either power. She was mostly using the hellfire now, however. Her Blood Magic could not compete with Malchior's and Rorek had the other Nibelungen ring so it did very little, if any at all. The hellfire, however…Rorek might survive a few hits but Malchior would be all the more vulnerable for his Blood Magic, wouldn't he?
"Yo, Raven! We need help!"
Cyborg and Eisen were already at the core attempting to fend off the glang. Raven shook herself and joined them, allowing X to land on part of the heart so he could assist as well. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment, and began to bring her power out. All of it, or as much as she dared. She enveloped the core and all its surrounding tendrils and, all at once, destroyed the present glang. Immediately more began to appear to replace them. She had thought to try and destroy the tendrils of the core as well but this was surprisingly difficult. Her power wasn't working the way it should. It felt like trying to run through knee-high water when all her life she'd only ever had air to stop her.
"Alright, I'll hold them off, you guys get those tubes." she told them.
"On it!" Cyborg said, blasting away with his cannon.
"Hey, check it out! My teleport belt works here. Awesome!" Red X said. He threw an X bomb at a small tendril, which broke easily when it exploded.
"So happy for you." Lady Eisen said, slicing through tendril after tendril as though they were made of butter. Raven could feel just how sharp her sword was, though. She doubted even a laser could do that. And Eisen could probably keep it that sharp no matter how much she used the sword.
This was hard, this was very hard. And Malchior just got hit—no, don't think about that. It was only in his leg, he's fine, he's still fighting, in fact he was swearing. She concentrated, bringing out more and more power. But this wasn't about power, was it?
She could feel the core. Wrapped in her power like this, it was almost as bad as when she'd tried to send out her senses in order to find the others. Not quite to that level, but getting there. She could barely stand it; it was so foul! She was going to be sick, she was going to be sick – no, she couldn't be sick. She took several deep breaths, wishing for clean air that she knew she wouldn't have here, and folded herself into the familiar lotus position. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos. Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos. Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos."
It was better, but it wasn't enough. She felt like she was hanging on by her fingertips and in only seconds her nails were going to break and she was going to fall. She tried to get a firmer grip but it was so hard! Her power just wasn't working right!
Then a new set of words rose in her mind. They were brilliant and shining and seemed to be burning into her, attempting to force their way out into the world through her voice. Desperate and unable to think of any good reason not to use them in the circumstances, Raven took a deep breath and let them out.
"Naykronah, Hetbriikah, Maartuz."
It was not enough to simply know or say the words. You had to have them as your own, branded in you like…like a stamp of permission. Permission to call the power woven in them.
It felt like something had just snapped. Not only did she have a firm grip now, but she almost felt like she could do tricks. Her power flooded the entire battlefield, making it her own. She could feel the core, the heart, and all those tethers, those veins. She started cutting them herself. One at a time, yes, but she was doing it. Then two at a time. Half the tethers were gone now. Another, and another, and—
"RAVEN!"
Her eyes shot open just in time to see the enormous blast of Blood Magic coming at her. It hit her, shooting right through the spellfire barrier she threw up as though it wasn't even there. And then she was plummeting. The foul power was everywhere, biting into her skin. The iron ring was gone, rusted away completely. The Nibelungen ring was burning so hot she wanted to take it off. She was falling, falling, she tried to levitate but her power wasn't working right. Everything hurt! And it hurt because of the ring. She had to take the ring off.
Don't take it off!
Suddenly something caught her by the wrist. It was cold and clammy, but the moment it touched her skin the biting subsided a little. She looked up. There was some sort of…wall here. And against it was her shadow out of which a blotchy blue-gray hand with no finger nails was gripping her wrist with the strength of a tree root wrapped around stone. Some feet above her was the upper edge of the wall. Below her…
It looked like she was in a large octagonal-shaped well and beneath her was a pool of blood. Something told her she'd have been in a lot of trouble if she'd fallen the rest of the way. Someone was shouting her name; a booming, layered voice full of fear and panic. It was so hard to think. She reached around and up, feeling the wall for a handhold. She had just enough time to realize the wall was smooth before another hand emerged from her shadow and clasped her palm. She couldn't say she liked the feel of its clammy skin, but at this point she wasn't about to get picky. Gripping the hand, she made to pull herself up. More hands began appearing along the wall, some with long arms that reached down and began dragging her upwards as she climbed. Helping hands…she almost wanted to laugh. Almost.
Looked like they didn't want her to die just yet. Or rather, they weren't going to let her die. Not like this anyway. She wasn't sure just how comforting that was. One look back into the pool revealed that her shadow seemed to be stretching downwards as well as up. Blackness touched the blood and began to spread out like ink. She refocused her attention.
She found the ledge and rolling onto it, finding herself on a wide channel that separated one octagonal well from another. Not wells, then. More like honeycombs. Very, very large honeycombs filled with blood. She felt very weak. All she wanted to do was lay here and sleep. If the Nibelungen ring had protected her from the worst of that blast, then she just didn't want to know what would have happened if she hadn't had it on. That finger still stung a bit but the pain was dull. She was just so very tired. She tried to concentrate. She had to get up again. The others needed her! She took a deep breath, rolled onto her stomach, and forced herself onto her feet.
"Raven!" came the roar.
Suddenly there was a sharp piercing sensation in her left shoulder and a hand came around her throat, lifting her into the air. Her eyes shot open to find Mother Mayhem smiling at her. One glance told her that there was a small knife stuck deep into her shoulder. Pins and needles were shooting down that arm and she could feel it growing numb. Poison?
"Gotcha." Mother Mayhem said sweetly.
(O)
She's fine, she's fine, she's fine, she's fine! Red X told himself repeatedly. A powerhouse like Raven isn't going to get creamed that easily. She's fine, she'll come back all red-eyed and vengeful, she's fine! The good guys never go down after a single hit like that. It's got to be some long dramatic takedown, right? Where she, like, sacrifices herself to defeat the bad guy. Well she didn't, so she can't be dead. It's, like, written into the universe or something. Right? And even then she'd come back in some dramatically improbable way. Right?
But he had seen Mother Mayhem preparing that blast, watched the two dragons circling with the distinct air of worry despite the fact that they had some serious defenses against the red sticky stuff. And then, when Mother Mayhem suddenly threw it at Raven, he had felt it when it hit her. He hadn't been anywhere near it but he felt it in his very bones, heard screaming in his head, an agony in his chest that caused him to black out two seconds too long. The Eisen chick had caught him before he fell to his death, though.
Mother Mayhem was nowhere in sight. Neither was Raven. And the glang were coming back.
"Uh oh."
"Cyborg! Do you have anything bigger than that cannon?" Eisen yelled.
"Blow that, man! We've gotta save Raven!" Cyborg exclaimed.
"You think we could get to her faster than Malchior? Listen, at this point we're a liability. Let's—"
"I am afraid you are correct, Ophelia." said a voice that, up until this point, Red X thought you needed audio editing software in order to achieve. It turned out to belong to the white dragon who hadn't seemed nearly that big when he was fighting Mother Mayhem off in the distance.
Red X had just enough time to wonder how the hell it was possible for something that big to be airborne – magic on overtime, probably – before, with a flash of brilliant white light, he suddenly found himself laying down staring up at stars. He blinked a few times and three faces appeared over him, peering down with worried expressions. Two of them belonged to the cute girls he'd only met briefly. Terra and Jinx. The last belonged to Beast Boy.
"Are you guys alright?" someone asked.
Red X sat bolt upright. "Dude! What the hell, man?-!"
Lady Eisen let out a long string of words in a language Red X didn't recognize. She was probably swearing, though. Sometimes you can just tell.
"What's going on in there?", "What happened?", "Where's Raven and the other two?", "Are they still in there?", "What did you see?", "Are they fighting the Mother Mayhem?"
"One question at a time, y'all!" Cyborg protested.
"Did Rorek just kick us out of the boss battle?" Red X demanded, getting to his feet with Beast Boy's help.
"Yeah, he did." Lady Eisen growled. Then she sighed and looked around. Then she her jaw set, "So that's a Rotthurst, huh? Looks worse from the inside."
Red X followed her line of vision. Then he turned off the night-vision on his mask since it didn't look like he needed it. He blinked when he saw the large crystal sitting in the middle of some fancy glowing blue circle with all sorts of weird characters dancing around it. Looked like something you'd find in a video game. He recognized the crystal, though. Mother Mayhem kept it on her dresser. He thought it was just some sort of ugly decoration she put up to inform the world that herein is the dwelling of a seriously screwed-up witch, beware – or something. Like Blood Magic's version of the jarred oddities and mysteriously bubbling cauldron with green goop. It looked too dramatic to be real…at least, it had up until this point. Eisen was right, though; it did look worse on the inside.
"So what's going on in there?"
Lady Eisen took a deep breath. "Right now? There's a very good chance that Raven's dead."
Silence, but only for just long enough that the shout of, "BULLSHIT!" rang out like a gunshot. It took a moment for Red X to realize it had come from him. He decided to repeat himself. "Bullshit, Raven can't die. Not like that! You heard what Slade said. She's like a magical Superman on steroids now, right?"
"But Mother Mayhem isn't playing fair!" Lady Eisen wailed. "The Rotthurst is her personal playground. No one else's magic or powers work as well as they should and at the same time her power was exponentially increased because she is intrinsically connected to it, meaning all the power she's gathered in it is at her beck and call. Not even Malchior's power could beat hers in there, and she's got Slade's hellfire. The only reason we're still alive after so much as setting foot in there is because of these rings!" she exclaimed. "If Raven survived a hit like that then she'll be practically powerless."
"So that's it? More waiting? There's nothing we can do?" Nightwing demanded angrily.
Red X rubbed his arms as the chatter burst out around him. He wasn't sure if they were all arguing or if everyone was simply trying to be heard at once, asking questions and suggesting solutions that wouldn't work. He tuned it out. He was still aching from that blast. All over and down to the bone, despite the rings. He hadn't even been near it and yet Raven had taken it full-force. He stared at the Rotthurst. No, he couldn't, he wouldn't believe it. Raven was still alive. He shuddered.
Please let her be alive, please let her be alive, don't let her die…
Dully, he tried to figure out when he'd started to care so much. Would he feel this much dread if it'd happened to anyone else? Probably not.
(O)
Hellfire erupted from Mother Mayhem's palm and became a dome barrier that surrounded the two of them. There was a scream of rage somewhere on the other side of it and, struggling to breathe, Raven managed to catch sight of two dragons flying this way and that just outside the barrier. They were shouting words, attacking it with both magic and the Thu'um. Neither power was working, not even Rorek's ice.
"Trigon's power is mine now, little girl." Mother Mayhem giggled. "I don't need you anymore. I don't even need her. And you can be sure the next Church of Blood will not question me, oh no! The glang are good at finding children for the Church. Lonely children, little lost souls thirsty for love, thirsty for guidance and attention. I think I'll start by sending them to find those brats you call yours. What do you think?"
The rage rose up and she clung to it. She felt her nails growing, becoming sharp and pointed, thick and strong. She dug them deep into Mother Mayhem's arm, tearing at the sleeve until she could get at the bare skin. But the woman just chuckled; her grip was like stone and Raven lost all use of her left arm only seconds later.
"I'd love to keep you around, Darling. I mean, I did promise Sebastian but, well, it won't be the first promise I've had to break for the good of the Church."
Raven's right hand wrapped around Mother Mayhem's exposed wrist. The ring on her middle finger was suddenly cold and hot at the same time. There was pain of a sort, but not nearly as much pain as that which registered on Mother Mayhem's face.
The woman screamed. She dropped Raven and tried to yank her wrist free but Raven hung on. With her free hand, Mother Mayhem threw balls of hellfire at Raven but this did absolutely nothing. Then she tried to use Blood Magic but what blasts emerged from her hand were weak and feeble. They hurt, but Raven refused to let go even though the rest of her body felt limp and useless, her left arm might as well not even be there anymore and her mind was full of fog. But The Other was there in her right arm, refusing to let go.
It is your power in her body. You can command it.
Not really knowing what she was doing, she willed the wall of hellfire to come down. To what little bit of amazement she was able to muster up, it did. The dragons descended, screaming their rage.
"No!" Mother Mayhem cried, still trying to free herself. She raised a hand towards Malchior and Raven could feel the hellfire preparing itself.
NO! she shouted inwardly. The hellfire dissipated before it had time to get more than a few yards from Mother Mayhem's hand. The woman's head whipped 'round. Raven grinned horribly and without humor. This was her power. She could command it. It obeyed her.
Drawing on strength and stamina that her body possessed only through adrenaline, Raven forced her legs under her and stood up, still holding on to Mother Mayhem's wrist. She took hold of that power, began drawing it into her body where it filled her veins like an electric current. It frightened her at the same time it exhilarated her. It was wild, angry, and in her head she saw a landscape of red full of ravens and a garden of spikes. Part of that power was still within Mother Mayhem. She took hold of it and yanked.
It did not come easy or gently, and Raven hadn't intended it to. Mother Mayhem let out a shriek of pain and redoubled her efforts to free herself from Raven's grip. But then another hand took the witch's second wrist, tearing away the sleeve in order to grip the skin. Mother Mayhem's stricken face went from Raven to Rorek, and then she saw Malchior approaching at a swift stalking pace. Her face went white. She struggled but she had no true physical strength, Raven had taken the hellfire away, and both rings together were completely neutralizing her Blood Magic.
Malchior's hand shot into her chest, nails first. Then Raven felt him unleash the full force of his own Blood Magic into her body. Mother Mayhem threw her head back and screamed.
It went on for a long time, each second felt like an hour but Raven refused to let go. Her body was running on adrenaline and hellfire now. She wasn't sure how long she could keep this up but she was determined to see it through. Mother Mayhem sank to her knees, her face and hair were turning blotchy and black in various places, as though they were being burned away. But…but…
But it wasn't enough. Malchior put everything into his attack, every last drop of the Blood Magic he had, and then he pulled back, his markings no longer glowing with that shimmering red power. They were dull and tan-colored once again. Staggering back, he fumbled swiftly to get a pair of iron rings around his fingers. He was probably just in time. A few seconds was all it took for blood to start leaking from his sweat glands and other orifices; eyes, ears, nose, there was even a trickle down the edge of his mouth.
Weak as a kitten in Raven and Rorek's grip, Mother Mayhem started to laugh. "Well, now what?" she asked. "It wasn't enough, was it? The power of a willing sacrifice?" She spat. "True power is taken by force. That is the way of the world. The strong take their power to prove they are worthy of it while the weak are the cattle they feed from."
"That is the Sin of Gods." Malchior growled.
Mother Mayhem smirked. "People can't be trusted to take care of themselves. They are stupid and weak; like chickens. Blaming others, blaming companies, blaming religions, blaming the government, blaming anything and anyone but themselves for their own inability to manage the lifestyles they think they ought to have. They spend their money on fancy things and wonder why they can't afford food. They eat junk because it tastes good and wonder why they have so many health problems. They drink and smoke and inject themselves with poison after poison and wonder why they are dying. They're cattle. They want to be cattle. They want the higher powers to take over and provide all their needs and pass all these laws so that they're no longer responsible for their own stupidity. Look at how much power this so-called free country is giving their government. The cattle wander aimlessly through their petty, unimportant lives; their only purpose is to be ruled and told what to do. They know this. They want it. In exchange for their blood I gave them homes and food and everything they could ever need or want. They don't even have to work. I take care of them, and I do a better job than they would if left to themselves because they are so very stupid and lazy and so quick to pass along the responsibility of life itself. Is that really a sin?"
"Yes." said Rorek coldly. "Because what you take is everything and what you give is next to nothing. People are not things. Cattle do not look at their tether and know they are a prisoner. Cattle do not experience the world through the eyes of self-awareness. You are as bad as the gods of old, if not worse."
She chuckled, "But in the end, I'm going to win. How long can you last? Oh you have me bound but you can do nothing about it. I have only to wait for my power to replenish and you? What more do you have? You cannot kill me now, can you?"
Raven had the hellfire now. She could feel it in her veins but…but it was in a body that was slowly losing the ability to stand. It was like having a bullet with the properties of a grenade lodged in a broken gun that couldn't even detonate it.
Then she saw her shadow. It was a long shadow, stretching from her to the edge of the blood pool she'd nearly fallen into. She craned her neck over. What little she could see of the liquid was completely black.
Malchior and Rorek were exchanging thoughts too fast for her to catch, though she was sure they were trying to think of what to do.
Raven took a deep breath. Speech came as a terrible effort and it burned her throat, but she forced the words out. "The shadows…she's…theirs…their price…pool…" she rasped. She nodded at her shadow, hoping they would understand. She had no more breath for words, though. She began to tug Mother Mayhem towards the black pool. Wordlessly Rorek complied with her demand.
"And what are you planning, dear? Going to toss me into the holder? It's not going to work. This is my Rotthurst." Mother Mayhem told her, almost conversationally.
Raven ignored her and continued towards the pool. When she got to the edge and looked down, she saw a sea of hands rising up, waiting to collect. Rorek swore in Draconic and let go of Mother Mayhem, backing away from the edge. The woman herself didn't spot the danger in time to put up any sort of struggle. Raven already had her over the edge when the gasp left her lips.
She didn't even have time to scream.
Raven swayed and blacked out for a split second. When she opened her eyes she was staring down at the black pool at a very precarious angle, but a number of inhumanly long arms had come out of her shadow to catch her. Gently they pushed her back so she stumbled the other direction, this time finding herself in arms that were far more welcome, even if they were slick with blood.
Malchior picked her up bridal-style. "Come, Love. Rorek will destroy the Rotthurst."
There was some white light and then…
She must have passed out again because the next thing she knew there was a sharp pain in her left shoulder and Rorek was kneeling over her, removing Mother Mayhem's knife. There were voices, people, friends. There was excitement, confusion, relief, and joy. Someone (Red X?) was shouting, "I told you! I totally called it! Someone give me 20 bucks because I told you she wouldn't die!"
"How bad is the poison?" Malchior's voice asked.
"Not as bad as it would have been if she hadn't been wearing that ring." Rorek reported. A cool hand stroked her face. "Raven?"
"Is it over?" she managed to whisper.
"Yes, My Love. It is." he answered.
"Awesome." she looked from him to Malchior. "You need a bath." she told him. Then she closed her eyes, listening to his laughter as it turned into white noise, merging with the excited chatter of all the other voices around her.
It was over…that realization and the relief that it brought settled over her like a soft eiderdown. In her mind's eye she watched as the terrible brooding storm that had been circling above began to dissipate. They had gotten what they came for.
(O)
One of the great things about being an anti-hero was that you didn't have to save the bad guy. Red X reflected on this as he watched flames rise up from the large hole that was the last place the Church of Blood would ever taint. One stomp from Terra's foot was all it took and somewhere during the underground collapse the house had caught fire for some odd reason. Maybe by the power of poetic justice. Having it all go up in flames seemed very appropriate to him.
Oh, maybe The Joker got out, but X doubted it. The Martian Manhunter claimed he hadn't found anyone alive down there but X also doubted he had been able to do a truly thorough sweep and hadn't simply searched all the obvious areas of occupation. A closed and locked vault wouldn't be top on his priority list. And all X had to do was simply not tell anyone that The Joker was still down there and bam! Bye, bye Joker!
So, Mother Mayhem had killed off the rest of the cult for power. Just like she'd killed off the first half. Red X had to explain the second sentence and it came as a shock to the heroes. Apparently they thought all the dead people who had the Mark of Scath painted on their skin were innocent victims.
"Uh, no. You don't get that mark unless you're part of the cult." Red X explained. "All those people are, well, were, prominent members in the cult. They were either making trouble or Mother Mayhem just wanted some easily accessible juice."
"It occurs to me to wonder how you know all of this." Batman mused.
"Undercover agent, dude. I infiltrated the Church of Blood a few years ago." he invented.
"Oh, so I misheard when Slade mentioned something about you, Mother Mayhem, and custody rights?"
Damn it! "Awwww, come on man! Give me some credit, will ya? What, do you think I'm going to going to start up a new Church of Blood or something? Well let me set your mind at rest on that score: I couldn't, even if I wanted to. You have to go through a certain ritual to be a proper Brother Blood or Mother Mayhem and I have neither performed said ritual nor do I know how to do it. Everyone who does or did is now dead. Satisfied?"
"For now." Batman decided.
Hell, after all this, he was tempted to go back to a real church just to further spite his mother. Somehow he didn't feel like he could go back to being a thief. There didn't really seem to be any point now. He'd only ever done it for the anonymous money since getting a real job was flat out of the question. Before Mother Mayhem had gone totally bats and started offing her own congregation, the Church of Blood had had a seriously scary intelligence network set up. Proof of this was in the fact that they'd still managed to find him despite the full-face mask and the myriad number of guises he wore when he was trying to look normal to get groceries and stuff. Now, though? Now anyone with sense would have cut off all ties to the Church of Blood, especially with Marlen Zanith and the Monks of Azarath preparing to break their own laws for the sake of making sure this cult went down and stayed down this time around.
Malchior was being hosed down by way of magic and a handy duck pond some distance from the mansion leaving Raven under the sole care and protection of Rorek. Red X sidled over as nonchalantly as he could. Her white cloak was stained with blood where Malchior had been carrying her, but it wasn't her blood. That was the important thing to remember.
"She alright?" X asked.
Rorek raised an eyebrow at him. "For the fifth time, Serrah: She is fine. Her left arm has been severely damaged but she will recover."
"Cool, cool…any chance you can wake her up for a second?"
Suspicion suffused the white dragon's features. "Why?"
"I kinda wanted to say goodbye before I left." X admitted sheepishly. "I mean, she did save my bacon several times through all this. And she's more or less the reason I don't have to run anymore. I'd feel kinda bad if I just left without—"
"Left? Why are you leaving?" Rorek asked, now surprised.
"I…well…I'm not really the hero type. And I was only with the Titans for protective custody and all that. I figured I'd…" he'd…what? He hadn't really thought about it. "I just…Well anyway…tell her I said goodbye, will you? And, um, tell her 'thanks' too."
"Tell her yourself. You're not going anywhere tonight." Nightwing said.
Red X whipped 'round to find the kid's glare pinning him to the spot.
"It's late, we're all dead tired, I've just about managed to convince the Justice League to keep their eyes off you, Batman thinks Raven's going to become a person of interest to the Russian Mafia because some woman named 'Angel' disappeared right after Rorek told us she killed Mother Mayhem, Marlen Zanith wants to take Raven to the Azarathian medical wards to recover which is inevitably resulting in a Malchior hissy fit, and it would be so nice if I didn't have to lie awake at night worrying about you at the same time! Lady Eisen says you need to be checked out because that thing that hit Raven probably did more damage to you than her or Cyborg since they were covered in iron while all you had were the rings so you're coming back to the tower and you're getting medical attention or so help me I will hunt you down, tie you to a chair, and force you to watch 24 hours of bad internet flash cartoons non-stop!"
"…Dang, Wonder Boy…didn't know you cared."
"Just get in the T-car." Nightwing ground out.
(8)
A/N: Not quite finished yet! Still have a few chapters of aftermath to get through, about four. After that there's going to be a break between stories. I don't yet know how long it's going to be, especially since work gets so crazy at the end of the year that overtime is a given, but I will try to start 'Knots' up in January at the ABSOLUTE LATEST. And there's a chance it'll start out with an update schedule of only one chapter a week. But, since things usually calm down around February, that'll only be temporary. Thanks for sticking with me this long, and there's more to come! :D
Coming up in the next chapter:
There is no space in this timetable for bleeding to death, got it?
Cat: So are you going to start updating Squares again?
Uuuuuuuum…
Cat: (Taps paw impatiently)
(Grins nervously)
