Chapter 12
This Is Me
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately.
The Titans tumbled out of a decidedly less-than-stable teleport. As they gathered themselves and got to their feet, their eyes took in the disturbingly familiar surroundings of the dead dimension; Cyborg, Starfire and Jinx provided light.
"Where's Raven?" Robin asked no one in particular, turning in place and scanning about with the others.
"There!" Starfire pointed to a spot in the distance: an outcropping of rock, illuminated by the empath's telltale glow.
Just then, that glow exploded into tornado of violent energy, whipped, bent and snapped straight into a column reaching high into the sky.
Their lights seemed to dim as the rest of the area grew brighter, the ground beneath them blanketed by an eerie, white iridescence. Arms, legs, and other strange limbs stretched and reached up, dragging and pushing up their bodies behind them; no longer the half-strung puppets of earlier, this time they moved with purpose in forms more solid and recognizably humanoid.
Robin shot Cyborg a glance.
Interacting with a panel on his arm, he gave a shake of his head. "No good. Too much interference."
Beast Boy yelped and snatched up one foot when a spectral hand emerged too close for comfort.
On the whole, though, the creatures seemed to ignore them entirely—even Robin. Instead, the shambling mass lumbered toward Raven.
Robin pointed in that direction. "Titans, go!"
They did, any momentary paralysis swept away by the familiar phrase and the call to action it inspired. Starfire with Robin and Cyborg and Jinx clinging to the legs of a green pterodactyl, they took to the air.
They landed in typical formation not far from the pillar of energy that contained the empath.
Robin, gears turning all the while, took another moment to survey their position: a sloping path, a little wider than a city street, that led up to Raven's perch about to be swarmed by those things, which apparently couldn't emerge any closer. Too much energy, maybe. Or just the opposite? Eye of the storm, less energy here than out there.
Didn't matter. He shut down his curiosity with practiced precision to focus on what did matter: if they could hold their natural chokepoint, the enemy had to go through them.
Either they calmed Raven down and got out through Cyborg, or they held on until the League got to them.
Options weighed, Robin locked in a course of action; with a meeting of eyes and a nod back at the outcropping behind them, he directed Jinx to try to get through to Raven, then turned to face the fight. His bo staff sprang to life, and he took it in both hands.
Around him, Starfire rose up, hands and eyes a furious and determined green, and Cyborg's hand converted into his sonic cannon. Beast Boy morphed back into a pterodactyl, took the metal man at the shoulders and took off, and they engaged.
Behind them, Jinx hurried over to the towering column of energy, stopping short when she reached it and craned her neck back at its size.
She ground her teeth. Besides Raven, she may've been the only magically inclined whatever, but Jesus. What exactly did Bird Boy expect her to do?
Negate a spell, sure. Unravel an incantation or dispel a barrier, maybe. But this…this was less like magic and more like…more like will made manifest, Raven's entire soul pouring out in the form of pure energy.
Somehow, she figured a good old-fashioned abracadabra wasn't gonna cut it…
On the front line, Robin tossed a handful of small explosives, causing several of the creatures to destabilize and sink back into the glowing ground. Spinning, he caught three more with blows from his staff, cutting them off at the knees; they were more tangible now, offered subtle but perceptible resistance when struck, but still not perfectly stable. Anything that cut or blew them apart seemed to be enough—enough to banish them, but his gut told him they would just reform as close as they could and keep coming.
A hail of green starbolts tore a line in front of him nearby, and he leapt high, reaching out; a hand took him firmly at the wrist, swinging him up before letting him go. At the peak of his height, he tossed another handful of explosives. As he landed, a sonic blast engulfed them, setting off a chain reaction that cleared the immediate area and gave them breathing room to regroup.
A short distance from the base of the path leading up behind them, every creature they had destroyed congealed again and resumed the approach, joined by others pouring in from all sides. The next push would be larger. The next after that, larger still.
Robin first, the Titans engaged again.
"Hey!" Jinx yelled at the column of energy, then, indignant, even louder, "Hey!"
Seconds ticked by, and she received no response.
She spared a look back over her shoulder at the tower defense in progress behind her, and swore under her breath—then swore a few more times at her total lack of ideas.
The black column hummed and crackled in front of her.
There was no spell for this, not that she'd ever heard of. The only person she knew who might've known anything close was stuck in the middle of it.
Her heart sank.
All those stupid compliments, telling her how accomplished she should've felt, how extraordinary she was, it was clearer now than it had ever been how little of that praise she deserved.
Might as well have had Beast Boy, instead. At least he could roar or something.
She swore again, this time at her own inadequacy.
Meanwhile, despite their best efforts, the Titans found themselves slowly but steadily losing ground against the otherworldly tide each time they beat it back and it surged forward again.
And they were still coming, more and more still spawning in joining the horde. The round-based nature of the fight hadn't lasted long, replaced by a single, endless wave by virtue of sheer numbers: the recently dispatched rematerializing behind the mass and being reincorporated into it just as quickly.
With no respite and the pressure continuing to build, the Titans found themselves forced back imperceptible inches at a time, but forced back none the less.
Whether any of the Titans took notice, however, Jinx certainly did. The flashes, the yells, all the sounds of battle growing louder, the action closer every time she dared to look.
She refocused, drowned out the mounting tension and forced herself to think.
No portal. That meant Tin Man couldn't pull it off, or Bird Boy would've had him bring in the reinforcements already. They needed Raven. Either she was the reason the portal didn't work, or they were counting on her to teleport them out.
Jinx groaned out loud to herself in frustration. She had to do something, but getting her powers anywhere near something like that could've…could've…she didn't know what.
Robin touched down nearby, dropped by Starfire who didn't linger before flying back to rejoin Cyborg and Beast Boy in the fray.
"Tell me you've got something," Robin said to Jinx.
Jinx's tightened her fists, head spinning at how fast everything seemed to be happening. She tallied her ideas, or lack thereof, one more time before offering her reply through gritted teeth. "A really bad one…"
Psyching herself up, she flexed one hand quickly a few times before plunging it into the column of energy.
She snapped it out again immediately, like a kid who'd touched something stupid; she had thought to only use a little, enough to connect herself to it, to Raven inside it somehow, reach out to her, but…
She hadn't even gotten to make that connection. The power, the real force hadn't even struck her. Just the specter of it, the shadow, the waterline on the beach—and her with it—had receded so far and swelled up so high in anticipation of the wave about to come crashing down that she had withdrawn out of reflex.
One hard swallow later, she forced her hand in again, keeping it there this time as she felt herself picked up in the rising swell, felt her guts slide up into her chest.
But when it finally hit, it…wasn't anything like she'd expected. The moment came, the peak of that wave, then the heart-pounding fall before the crash but…no crash. Instead it…felt like that wave hadn't broke onto her but…into her somehow, the whole thing, pouring itself into her until she could scarcely keep her mind together in the rush.
Pins and needles everywhere: her skin, under her fingernails, bubbling in her eyes, her whole soul felt like it was about to burst, but it felt so good.
A giggle escaped her with an involuntary shiver. "What a rush…"
Her neck cracked when she bent it sharply to one side, then her back and shoulders, and then her arms, wrists, and fingers, the stiff jerking of a marionette learning to move without strings. In the process, her gaze fell upon the battle down below. Her left eye twitched over her distinctive Cheshire grin, which she had only just realized was there, and a bolt of pink energy sparked, jumping from her to each of the misshapen figures she could see.
In a blink, they were gone—destabilized and disintegrated at the tiniest level—without even waving her hand.
She shivered again.
Touching it felt good. Using it felt even better.
She grunted when she was abruptly shaken at the shoulders by a very irate Robin. "What was that?" he asked sharply, then recoiled when she looked at him.
Whatever he had seen there on her face, the shock he wore in response, was enough to draw her back to her senses. She offered only a deer-in-headlights look as, up the path, Starfire and Beast Boy helped up a partly short-circuited Cyborg.
"I'm sorry," she said, all she could offer.
Robin looked briefly back at his comrades moving toward them, then out at the horde beginning to reform, and then back to Jinx. "Never mind. Can you get through?"
Without a response, Jinx steeled herself, did her best to clear and focus her mind and, one hand still outstretched in the column of erupting energy, reached in with the other and waded inside.
Far from the maelstrom she had expected, inside, Jinx found only Raven, hands and knees on the ground, silent in the eye of the storm.
"I'm sorry," Raven said as she approached, without looking up.
The little hitch in her voice betrayed that, although she no longer was, she had been crying.
"It all happened so quickly," Raven went on. "I didn't expect—didn't anticipate how…intense… I didn't mean to bring you all here."
Jinx took a few more steps, looking from Raven out and around to the walls of energy that enclosed them on all sides. "What is all this?"
"Guilt," Raven told her.
Jinx rolled her eyes. "This again? I thought we were over—"
Raven cut her off with firm certainty. "Not about that," she said as she stood up. "This, all of this energy, what I call my power, it was never mine to begin with. It was his, taken from them." She gestured outside. "I…used it…used them…to defeat him. Now, I'm giving it back. That's all."
Jinx furrowed her brow in concern. "So what—"
"I don't know," Raven admitted, facing her companion, imploring her. "But whatever happens, this is right. I-I…" she struggled to find the right words, then settled on, "I can feel it. I've used what was stolen from these people for the noblest thing I will ever use it for. When we came here before, they wanted it back and…they deserve it. Keeping it for myself now, I-I…I can't justify it. It would make me the same as—"
"Oh, don't even start," Jinx said, throwing up her hands in exasperation.
While the two argued inside the column of energy, outside, the rest of the Titans waited together in the extended reprieve granted by Jinx's attack. Since then, the creatures had attempted and failed several times to regain shape.
As Robin and Beast Boy tried however they could to assist Cyborg with what he insisted were only minor repairs, Starfire kept watch. She watched them, the strange, sad creatures, try and fail and try again, only to fail once more, each time struggling on their stilted limbs to rise before those limbs gave way and they collapsed back into the dirt.
They were her enemy, she knew. But her heart broke for them, and swelled for them in respect for each attempt they made. Whatever this was, whatever their goal, it was everything to them, and they gave everything in pursuit of it. Over and over, they pushed their bodies until they broke, put back together the pieces, and pushed again. And they would continue to do so, she was certain, until the bitter end.
In her short life, in all of the tales she had heard sung of the great battles and heroes of her people and others they had met in their exploration of space, she saw here, in these creatures that should not have been, one taking place in real time before her eyes. Had she not hardened herself for the battle, she could have wept for them, and at the majesty of the song they wrote.
In time, the number of those who rose up grew fewer and fewer. And those that did, did not rise as tall. She watched their strength wane, and her zeal began to fade as she knew that there would be no more battle.
And then, in a wide area, all attempts at regaining form stopped. In the middle of that space, a single creature struggled to its feet. A last attempt, Starfire understood, the combined strength of every creature nearby consolidated for one final effort. One step at a time, stumbling and unsteady, it proceeded forward.
A thought came to her mind, a story told once by Robin about a similar creature so thoroughly set on its goal that, although it knew it could not succeed, it would not yield.
Robin stood up, bo staff in hand, and moved to meet the new threat.
As he passed her, she stopped him, a hand on his shoulder.
He turned to her, his jaw set in the unbreakable determination she so admired. "I won't lose this fight," he told her.
"Perhaps," she suggested in response, "fighting is not the answer."
The words seemed to resonate in Robin, to trigger the intended recollection, and he looked back at the creature moving toward them. Then, he turned to Starfire again, asking without asking, whether she was sure.
She did not waver.
Robin seemed to consider for a few moments. Then, at his side, his bo staff retracted.
With a thankful no, Starfire left him and flew to meet the creature. When she reached it, although it ignored her almost entirely and it took great care to keep her hands from pushing through its body, she made her best effort to assist it.
Beast Boy and Cyborg watched from nearby Robin.
"You sure about this, man?" Cyborg asked him.
Robin only looked on. When it reached him, Starfire on one side, he took the other and helped the creature forward.
Once they approached the edge of the energy column, he and Starfire stepped back and let it proceed on its own. The creature drew near, raised its right arm, and touched the column. As it passed through and was swallowed as Jinx had been, a wave of light rippled over the ground. Humanoid shapes rose up in every direction, packed densely as far as the eye could see, but they did not move.
"Now what?" Beast Boy asked, clearly unnerved by the sudden resurgence.
"We wait," Starfire said softly.
"Come on," Jinx complained, at her wit's end over how to make her point any clearer. "We've been over this. He was a monster. I get it. But you…are not…your dad. Okay? Say it with me: you—"
"I am, if I keep what he stole for no other reason than my own selfishness," Raven insisted, calm but adamant in her decision.
"You don't know what this'll do to you!" Jinx shouted. "It's part of your soul, right? So what happens when ya just…give it all back? Ya could drop dead, for all you know!"
"It doesn't matter," Raven said. "I have no right. At this point, there's no way to justify—"
The creature emerged from the wall of energy, cutting their argument short, its every iridescent limb and follicle perfectly formed, although featureless still.
Jinx wasted no time in rushing to her defense, but Raven held her back with a hand and gently ushered her aside. Unafraid, she stood with nothing between her and it.
"I'm sorry," she told it. "For what he did to you. This is the best I can do."
The creature's arm flinched forward, just slightly, although for what purpose she couldn't be sure. But it was only a flinch, stopped short and withdrawn. Instead, it turned its gaze up and past her.
When she turned to look, she saw images of fire reflected in the wall of energy—fire, fury and rage. She could hear the agonized wails, the tortured screams, the low, rumbling satisfaction of her father; she forced her eyes shut.
"I'm sorry," she said again. Then, she heard a familiar voice: her voice, from long ago.
"Get up! Robin, please! Get up!" it pleaded, sobbing.
The sounds of suffering grew quieter, as though listening.
"Farewell, dear daughter," she heard her father say.
Just then, the entire column of energy dissipated, leaving them there on the rocky perch and revealing a sky full of twinkling stars.
More illusions, Raven decided, reflections of the past. She was hearing the moments leading up to her victory over her father, and being allowed to see behind the curtain.
It all struck her at once, and she felt it, felt them, all of them, all of their pain, all of their torment pushed aside to seize this thread of hope, this one chance to strike back.
"You may have raised me, but you were never my father," she heard herself declare. "Fathers are kind! Fathers protect you! Fathers raise you!"
She remembered those words, the blasts of energy with which she had punctuated every one, the strength, the righteous indignation, the feeling that she could not fail—feelings not only hers, but bolstered by them.
With each remembered blast, in perfect sync, the lights in the sky pulsed brightly.
"I was protected by the monks of Azarath. I was raised by my friends. They are my family. This is my home. And you are not welcome here!"
In the moment of her father's defeat, the illusion shattered, leaving only her, her friends, and those comparatively few beings who her outpouring of power had allowed to reform nearby not to punish her, she saw now, but to put her fears to rest, to give thanks for the small chance at redemption she had given them then.
And in that, they had succeeded.
She had stolen nothing, but had been given a gift: a power that, now that it had been taken, could never be given back in the way she had intended. But it could be used properly, or at least not be misused, to prevent others from ever having to meet a fate like those from whom it had been derived.
In a way, she had come here for much the same reason as she had sought out Fate—to be judged—only to find out that she already had been: not for what she was or where her power had come from, but for who she had chosen to be and how she had chosen to use it.
She turned again to the beings' representative. But before she could speak, it reached out its right arm and touched its hand to her head.
In an instant, Raven saw herself, her selves, in visions not unlike the alternate timeline she had shown Jinx: hundreds of them, thousands, more than she could keep count, all living lives that could have been hers—and all made to take pause and bear witness. Her father's defeat, an event so profound it had sent shockwaves reeling through every conceivable reality, had planted the seed in them all, in every version of herself: It could be done.
She understood then that what she had done was, in truth, much larger, much more significant than even she had ever imagined. She hadn't just denied her father one victory that day; she had denied him every victory.
She felt the tears again, less urgent this time, less panicked, and made no effort to bite them back or blink them away. Instead, she allowed herself to appreciate them.
The being pulled its hand away, and the world around Raven returned as the vision it had given her slowly subsided.
"Thank you," she told it.
Wordlessly, it bowed and disappeared, followed by all the rest. The light faded, and the Titans found themselves alone on the rocky perch.
"What…was that?" Beast Boy asked aloud.
Starfire smiled gently. "Gratitude."
Jinx approached Raven, reaching out but unsure whether or not to touch. "You, uh…okay?"
"Yes," Raven said honestly—truly, honestly—sporting a smile of her own and, for the first time in perhaps her entire life, truly content with her place in creation.
In the otherwise vacant Titan's Tower, the visiting Justice League members mulled about the common room where the Titans themselves had vanished not long before.
Superman floated by himself in front of one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out. Strange, Fate thought as he passed the time playing chess against himself, how one so practiced in self-control could find such difficulty in concealing his unease. The Man of Steel might have deferred to Fate's judgment on how best to approach the matter at hand, but clearly the approach did not sit well.
Understandably, perhaps. After all, few were the problems his incredible gifts did not allow him to solve outright, simply by intervening. The subtle art of doing nothing did not come easily to him, especially when it meant allowing someone to struggle whom he might have helped.
But help came in many forms, as Superman well knew—even if he found some of them more difficult to give than others.
After some time, Batman stood up from his chair in the kitchen area, where he had been sitting with Zatanna. Chair in hand, he moved opposite Fate and sat down.
"Do you mind?" he asked, gesturing at the chessboard.
"Not at all," Fate obliged; the pieces on the board rearranged themselves, resetting.
Given the white side, Batman moved first. "I had something I was hoping you might help me with."
Fate took his turn. "Oh?"
"A private matter."
Fate glanced at Superman and, when he received no objection although he was certain Superman had overheard them, erected a soundproof bubble around himself and the Dark Knight.
Batman moved again. "I've been trying to understand something, and I'm having trouble wrapping my head around it."
"By all means," Fate invited him to continue.
"I'm sure you're aware that Dick and I haven't always been on the best terms, these last few years especially," Batman went on. "When he left, part of me considered it only natural: a boy his age with his life experiences wanting to strike out on his own. I don't pretend to be the best parent—or even a good one—but at the time, I thought it best to give him his space. Some time to sort himself out. Of course, I never really stopped keeping an eye on him." He made another move.
Fate reciprocated, both with a move of his own and a slight nod.
"When he came here, started his own team, of course I did due diligence," Batman said.
"Of course," Fate agreed.
"You can guess which one stood out."
"Yes, I suppose so," Fate said with a small laugh.
His offensive support now in place, Batman moved a more significant piece behind enemy lines, pressuring his opponent. "Imagine my surprise when I found out that she was the demon Zatanna mentioned in her mission log."
Fate paused, considering, then moved but offered no reply.
"She called it an oversight and, at the time, I could accept that explanation," Batman said. "It made enough sense, after all: a headstrong hero with her own prejudice and a case of tunnel vision that made her mistake a cry for help as a diversionary tactic? Wouldn't be the first time, I'm sure."
Batman's hand hovered over the board momentarily before he lowered it to his side and looked up from the game to Fate. "I read Robin's report on the Trigon incident. We all have. A young girl with extraordinary powers managing to fly under The League's radar is one thing—something that happens more often than we'd like to admit. But someone with that kind of power and that level of demonic heritage slipping into this dimension right under the nose of a Lord of Order? I don't buy it."
Having leaned forward slightly while they'd played, Fate straightened up at what sounded like an accusation.
Batman resumed playing, looking over his pieces, hand on his chin, weighing his options. "That only left one possibility: she hadn't. You knew about her as soon as she was brought here. At first, I wondered why you hadn't said anything. I thought about bringing it up—and part of me still wonders if I should have—but…" He moved a piece.
Fate watched his partner, not the board. And yet, despite it all, even after Trigon's incursion, Batman still had said nothing. Until today, which begged the question: "Why now?"
"If you're asking, 'Why not then?'" Batman seemed to ponder, then shrugged. "The world had already ended, albeit temporarily. In terms of consequences, we had already dodged the worst bullet in that chamber. As for why now, specifically," he pondered again, "I'd be lying if I said part of it wasn't pure curiosity. What end could justify those means, that kind of gamble?"
When Batman paused, as if indicating he should, Fate offered a response. He allowed his usual demeanor to fall away and spoke in a voice befitting the gravity and depth of the subject. "You used the word 'gamble,'" he said, allowing himself a moment to think. In his mind, reflected in his eyes behind the helmet where no others could see, were the ruined lives of countless purple-haired young girls, all the tears; the nights spent huddled alone in the dark; the nameless, unvisited graves of those who had sacrificed everything for one peaceful sleep; the years spent sewing destruction and pain by those who found solace in despondent resignation; the ruins of entire dimensions. "You were not wrong. It was a terrible gamble."
"Then why?" Batman pressed—though whether for the sake of the universe he had risked, or on behalf of the child whose cries he had chosen to ignore, he remained unsure.
"The Raven we know today," Fate tried to explain, "needed to be something that she created. Any guidance, any interference of any kind before a certain point would only have served to breed uncertainty in her mind as to whether she was a person of her own design—that is, a construct of her own choices—or merely the patchwork of someone else's ideals. A normal child would be allowed to confront these questions in his or her own time, but she would not have that chance. The day would come, well before even her twentieth year, when she would need to know—to know—that every decision she had made, she had made, and could continue to make," Fate implored him. "You must understand. I have looked, on the very day she was brought here, and if there had been any other way…"
"All right," Batman appeared to accept Fate's plea. "But that still doesn't explain—"
"Trigon is a being of cruelty and chaos—"
"Was," Batman interjected.
"No," Fate said pointedly. "The form it took was defeated, yes, but the entity itself remains: scattered to the cosmic winds as it was in the time before Trigon. One day, that negative energy will find form again, take new, horrible shape and return to wreak its havoc across dimensions once more." He took a breath, reorganizing his thoughts. "These things we do now—good works, certainly. We call ourselves heroes, and rightly so. But on that day, we, all of us, will be tested. On that day, we will require a real hero, a true Lord of Order. Without it, all of our might will count for nothing, as it did on the day Trigon set foot in this dimension."
Seconds ticked by, half a minute, as the two men sat in contemplation of what Fate had described.
"And this hero," Batman said finally. "What happens when she realizes she spent her whole life trying to escape being used by one prophecy—one person's plan for her—just to be fitted into another? I connected the dots. You know she will."
Fate's shoulders fell. "I…would hope she does not see it that way," he said sadly. "This is…not a prophecy. And if it is, it is one she will write, with her decisions. I have hopes for her, yes, but the only plan is hers. That is precisely why it was so important that she be allowed to reach this point, if she reached it, on her own."
Some more time passed before Batman rose from his seat. "Let's hope you're right."
Fate allowed the bubble around them to dissolve as Batman walked away. He could tell doubt still whispered through his partner's mind, somewhere far in the back, but he heard no such whispers. He heard only the marching drums of a battle yet to come, but one that would come. And in his mind, he saw at the head of that army of heroes new and old, from realms far and wide, a champion he knew would be there to lead them.