Deedee just laughed, "No, I'm afraid I'm still on the job."

~~ CENSORED ~~

Well, you did just remove a hundred galaxies worth of negative emotion from existence. Regardless of anything else, that has consequences. On a more relevant note, you also rule over several afterlives now, so I do need to make sure that you are briefed on union rules." Deedee said cheerfully.

Raven nodded, "Well, I was hoping to diversify those a little. Unlike Trigon, I draw power from more than rage and hate, so I need to make sure that I don't need to Inspire emotions to have a balanced power pool.."

"We can talk about that later ." Deedee said, "I do need to speak with you about that other thing… Inspiring, you called it?"

Raven nodded, grabbing my hand and pulling it down to her breast, "Yes? What of it?"

Deedee shrugged, "The Emotional Entities are quite surprised that someone other than their own pet projects figured it out first. It's why the Life Entity popped by to lend a hand when you were rebuilding this world."

"And she didn't show up to talk? How rude." Raven drawled, "But seriously, she was a great help, but I don't see how this really changes much other than getting in touch with Doctor Mist again."

"Well, the Maltusians and the Qwardians both know that they have been utterly upstaged, so Destiny is telling me that you need to deal with the fact that you are at risk of kicking off the Darkest Night before Saint Walker gets a chance to found his corps." Deedee offered.

I paused and stared, "Well… fuck. Saint Walker is one of the best ring-slingers to have ever existed, or he will be, I guess, but handling Nekron without him will be troublesome."

Raven rolled her eyes, "The Guardians are the ones that kick of that mess, right?"

"Krona, at least." I confirm.

Raven nodded, "So, can't I just deal with him and delay the problem back to where it's supposed to be?"

"Why would I know?" Deedee shrugged, "I don't really care too much about how you deal with it, as long as I don't have Destiny bitching about how you are about to end the world for the next five years."

I creased my eyebrows, "Five years? When's Blackest Night supposed to happen anyway?"

Deedee shrugged, "Well, it's supposed to happen in about five years, but the Guardians are being super insecure about the fact that you were able to just up and transmute a lot of negative emotions, utterly outdoing them at their own game, and your recent interference has made things pretty hard to predict. So they don't really know what to do. Thanks for that, by the way, the last few weeks have been a blast!"

Raven chuckled, "No problem. Though, I'm quite surprised that it affects your kind."

"It affects us enough that we have to actually try to perceive the future." Deedee explained, "If I wanted to view the future, there's not much you could do to stop me, but there's enough turbulence that I don't know it automatically. Well… I can still sense deaths automatically, but it's been quite fun being surprised by the deaths I see when I get there."

Raven nodded, "It's been the least I can do, I suppose. Though, I have to ask. Since I've got a few afterlives in my domain, will you finally come over for that slumber party? Starfire has been bugging me for the last few weeks."

Deedee sighed, "Okay… but you have to deal with the paperwork for killing the Joker."

"Killing the Joker?" Raven asked in confusion.

Deedee laughed, "Yep, one of your minions ended up killing the Joker when you sent them out. They're speaking with a lawyer right now, and even I would be surprised if they got into trouble with, but that fucker won't stay dead. I'll drop his soul off with you, and you deal with him and the paperwork assigned to one of your afterlives… you might want to be careful about where you put him though, the paperwork for an escapee takes ages to fill."

Raven nodded warily, "You keep talking about paperwork, is it really that bad? It can't be as bad as the time that Robin tried to get us all doing after-action reports."

"Honestly? No, we've been doing this for billions of years now and it's pretty streamlined, I'll be sending you the union-issued tablet to smooth things over, but there are a few edge cases that never really got patched up." Deedee admitted, "I actually envy you a bit, Trigon has basically no relationships with the other afterlives other than conquering a few of them, so you only really need to keep up with your paperwork if you don't want to get into a bunch of pointless wars when people try and blame you for their fuckups."

Raven face-palmed, "Is that why Trigon ended up in that fight against Satanus a few thousand years ago?"

"Somone got out of that hell and Satanus lodged a complaint that they escaped into your territories, Trigon killed the messengers and Satanus got some free cred among his allies in the union for being able to trow some of his more bloodthirsty hordes against your predecessor." Deedee said with a cheerful smile.

The conversation went on from there, with Raven remembering various occurrences that had pissed of Trigon at some point and Deedee admitting that the incident usually involved some other afterlife that was pissed off with Trigon.

All the while, my hands wandered across Raven's body, stroking sensitive spots and leaving teasing trails. Eventually, though, Deedee had to leave.

I pounced on her immediately, "So, how was it? Talking to your boss while I pleasured you?"

"Dee isn't my boss, she's my friend," Raven corrected, "and I suppose it was quite fun. It would be hilarious to hold court while you fuck me wouldn't it?"

I rolled my eyes, "You get off on exhibitionism?"

"Eh, It's more the idea that I'm not supposed to be doing it." Raven shrugged, "Got any fun new ideas?"

I shrugged, "Not at the moment, though I guess nudism is fun if you're already experimenting with exhibitionism."

Raven shrugged, "By the way, I found something interesting."

I raised an eyebrow and turned to her.

"Well, you asked me a while back about psychic defences, right? Well, apparently Trigon tried to break through the seal that Azar used to stop him from drawing upon the Heart of Darkness outside of his realms by trying to learn some Azarathian magic. I had no idea how closely linked it is to the shamanistic practices on earth." Raven remarked.

I shrugged, "Yeah, I guessed that. I thought we agreed that Azarathian magic was a little too unhealthy to explore though."

"Well, I'll have to speak with Tala, but I think that it might be possible to use shamanistic teachings as a jumping-off point to develop an Azaratian Astral Form, without the years of emotional scarring that the normal way involves." Raven said with a smile.

I paused a moment, "That sounds amazing, Raven. I'll make sure to get the engineering presentations done ASAP so that we can get to work on that soon."

Raven nodded, "By the way, could you open up a portal to my room?"

I quirked an eyebrow but shrugged and dug through my pockets for a moment to pull out the projector from the deep pockets, struggling and eventually giving up on operating the damaged case. I frowned for a second before Raven managed to crack it open, the actual projector having survived. As soon as the portal opened, a golden crown came flying out of it, landing on her head.

She grinned, "Now I look like a queen."

I laughed, "By the way, what was that about Inspiring?"

"Oh, that? I kinda figured it out when I was playing with my demon magic. Since it was linked to emotions, I figured that I could get the aspect of the energy shifted if I was using it as I used emotions to inspire other emotions. It was pretty successful." She grins.

I stare into the iridescent 'sky' above us for a moment, "Successful enough to purify one of the darkest objects in existence."

"Nah, that's just because I'm here and I technically draw power from it. A big part of Azar's binding stops Trigon from calling upon the powers of the Heart of Darkness outside of the under-realms. Since most of his power comes from feeding that thing the evil he breeds in his domain, he's not actually all that strong outside of these lands." Raven replied.

I stared, "That was weak for him?"

Raven shrugged, "Using anchors like me, he can draw a lot more power, enough to physically manifest and a bit more, but the bulk of his power was still bound up here."

I stared, "He was soloing at least twenty gods focusing all their power on him."

"Gods of one planet," Raven scoffed, "And not even the rulers of their pantheons. Sure, the Egyptian ones might have interests in other universes but I rule over… two… thousand… gal… ax… ies."

I stared at raven's face of horror and broke out in laughter.