*REVISED
Chapter 9: Meanwhile...
Alright, before this starts, here is some more answers to reviews!
WimmerSpark: Just a quick question. Not criticizing or anything. But with the way you write Raven and Robins bond, wouldn't Raven be easily locate Robin when he was taken? I'm just curious. That's all...I love your story BTW!
Reply: Aw! Thanks! And Slade also has some tricks up his sleeve...
Davidscrazy234: Make this a Robin x Raven
Reply:...um, nah, I'm good. I see their bond as more of a twin bond, or at the very least sibling bond.
TTandYJforever: Holy Hera you are driving me crazy with your story because I love it so much can't wait for next chapters
Reply: Thank you so much! I love all of you who reply with this kind of motivation and praise so much! All of you are the BEST!!!!!!
Now, on with the chappie!
Her ears were still ringing and she gingerly lifted herself from the ground, a hand on her left ear. Raven may have been out of range from the brunt of the explosion, but the shock wave blew her into a shipping container, resulting in her momentarily clacking out with the collision.
The girls head throbbed, and she knew already the concussion she suffered from. It was mild, easily fixable once in a secure location, but it still hurt none-the-less.
Now standing, Raven took a moment to access her surroundings, just as her leader taught her.
The shipping container that they were previously on was nothing more than smouldering scrap metal, and the smoke filled the air like a beacon in the sky. Raven saw Kid Flash's out of the corner of her vision, staring at the blaze with suprise and worry. Superboy walked out of the ruins calmly, black splotches and his torn shirt the only evidence of anything wrong. Raven looked to her left, and her eyes widened as she spotted Cyborg face down on the cement, sparks flying off of his body.
Quickly, she flew over, turning him onto his back to see what damage had been done. To her relief it looked worse than it was, as he was simply unconscious with a few malfunctioning circuits.
A flurry of voices then penetrated her mind, causing her to grip the sides of her head at the unwelcome intrusion. Raven knew that the others were simply worried over the sudden explosion, but she did not take kindly to voices in her head.
"Hey, where'd Robin go?" Kid Flash announced as the other voices quieted. Ravens breath hitched, and she immediately tried to locate Robin with her mind.
Whether it was her concussion, or something else in the area, she found it hard to concentrate enough to preform that level of magic. Although, if she had to guess, Raven would say that Slade knew she would be able to locate Robin fairly quickly, so he would have enabled some sort of ward against her magic.
In order for her to reach out to someone's mind, she would need to concentrate with her entire being, feel the life-force of the person she seeks to find. It takes a great deal of power and magic ability to do, something which Raven was currently struggling with.
With a huff, Raven instead focused on finding wards around the area she may have over-looked. After a quick scan of the shipping yard, sure enough, she found several magical wards that dampened her magical abilities. They were not very strong, and didn't completely cancel out her powers, but they were enough to keep her from finding Robin.
"I'm-ah!" the other bird exclaimed through the link, and a pang of fear filled Ravens chest.
"Robin, what's wrong?" she asked in the most frantic voice she has ever expressed. She felt the others through the link equally express their fear, albeit much more openly.
"Someone's got my leg." he started, an underlying note of panic seeping through. "Landed on it wrong, and they're pulling me away by rope that wrapped around my ankle. I can't cut it!" everyone heard his frustration, but there was only a few that could sense the fear he was pitifully trying to mask.
The only other time Raven found these emotions coming off of her leader was during his forced apprenticeship. Every time the Titans ran into him, his whole mind reeked of fear. Whether it was for the Titans or of Slade was undetermined, but the girl could assume that it was a bit of both.
This only made Ravens desperation to find him increase, along with her frustration at not being able to.
"Robin, I can't locate you, there are wards around the docks. You need to tell us where you are." The empath stated, but was immediately bombarded with more panic, and a concealed moment of rage.
Her own concern rose when Robin didn't answer.
"I can not locate Robin, either. Please, tell us where you are Robin! We'll help you!" the Martians voice exclaimed, but once again it yielded no answer from the bird.
"Rob!? ROBIN!? Where are you?! Answer us!" came Kid Flash's voice, making Raven wince from the volume.
To the empath's relief, Robin responded to Kid Flash's worried tone.
"I'm okay, for now. I don't know where I am..." Robin trailed, confusion now replacing the other emotions. Raven could only focus on the fact he had not been taken away yet, and knew that if they didn't act fast that would change.
Floating up to get an aerial view of the shipping yard, she scanned the area in hopes of finding her friend. To her dismay, she could only sense the robots, henchmen, and her other team members.
"Can you describe your location to us?" Aqualad asked, his voice as calm as he could achieve.
"I can't. It looks like everything else I've seen here. But there are Slade-bots surrounding me-" the Titans in the link tensed at that statement, "-and one of them is defientetly the one who dragged me here. Wherever 'here' is..." Raven felt the panic enveloping the mind link from her fellow Titans, along with the slight confusion from some of the Young Justice members.
"Dude, get out of there! What if Slade is close by, too!?" Raven mentally rolled her eyes at Beast Boy's exclamation. Wouldn't Robin have been with them if he could?
Raven continued to scan the area with no more success than the first attempt. She growled, and felt the darkness inside of her fighting to come to the surface with her desperation.
She forced it down, but couldn't stop letting a small amount through, and the power surged through her for a moment before it died down.
Raven took a deep breath, and could only feel slightly relieved that no one was close enough to see that momentary loss of control. She had much bigger matters to worry about than than that little slip-up.
Such as the ebony who had gone strangely silent Beast Boy's exclamation.
"Robin, you still with us?" Artemis asked hesitantly through the link, also noticing the birds silence.
Before anyone could say anything else, a wave of anger washed through the link, and everyone seemed to take a mental step back.
Ravens breath hitched, as she knew exactly what was happening for that much anger to be produced by a single person.
"Do not engage. He only wants you to get anger, Robin. Don't let Slade control you. Don't let your emotions control you." Raven tried to convey a sense of calm through the link, but only managed to get herself even more enraged as Robin's fury began to swell, infecting her own emotions.
She got no response from the bird, and she tried one more time to scan for his mind. And, once again, she found nothing.
"Wait, Robin's with Slade?! Dude, where are you!" Kid Flash worriedly exclaimed, but he, too, was met with silence from the ebony.
Everyone seemed to get more desperate at Ravens first proclamation, and filled her mind with similar concern questions, to which Robin never responded to.
M'gann gasped, and Raven felt something in her mind snap. "Robin! He's been removed from the link!" the Martian proclaimed, and at that Ravens control seemed to be lost completely.
She let her emotions rule over her logic, and all of her eyes opened to scan the world around her on multiple plains. The darkness around her converged onto Ravens person, and her power grew in her desperation to find her leader that was most likely in danger.
"Woah! Raven? What are you doing?" Beast Boy asked, and Raven dully noted that the rest of the teams had converged at the location of the explosion.
She heard Zatanna gasp in horror, but ignored that as well. She knew she looked like a monster, but she refused to let Robin be taken by a monster that was worse than her.
Using all of the power she could spare, she stretched her mind as far as it would allow, scanning for areas with the heaviest amounts of wards. Raven could barely hear the other voices in her mind, focusing completely on the task at hand.
"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" Raven chanted, and sure enough, she managed to locate an area on her left that held many wards. Enough to completely dilute her magic if she went to close.
"Robin is to my left, there is a large amount of magical wards preventing me from seeing any further. I would not be able to get in close, and I doubt Zatanna would, either." Raven felt a pang of annoyance from the magician, but her horror was still very prominent. The empath questioned that, but quickly wrote it off as her, most likely, demonic appearance.
"We shall converge on that location, and we shall rescue our friend, then. Raven, Zatanna, stay here and look after Cyborg." Aqualad ordered, and the mind link went silent as the ones on the ground, sans Zatanna, ran off in the direction Raven stated.
Zatanna made her way over to Cyborg, most likely to check for injury, her hands glowing a faint blue. Raven, however, stayed in the air, struggling to once again gain control over her powers.
She chanted her mantra in her mind, until that proved useless. Raven then switched to verbally saying this, and could feel her power slowly diminish as the seconds passed. After a couple deep breaths and more chants, she felt her power and emotions turn back into a blank slate.
Ever so slowly, she floated back down to the ground, a couple yards from where Zatanna was crouched over Cyborg. The magician gave her a look that Raven couldn't distinguish, and she felt herself melt deeper into the confined of her cloak.
She felt ashamed, having to use her darker magic in front of everyone. Raven never wanted anyone to see her in her more demonic form. It made her feel like the person she was trying desperately to bury.
"So, you're…demonic." Zatanna stated softly, refusing to make eye contact with the bird as her hands continued to hover over the cybernetic teen.
Raven nodded slightly, but she didn't know if the magician could see it.
"I should have sensed it, to be honest." Zatanna continued. "Your type of magic usually has a very powerful aura."
"That's why I try to hide it. I...didn't want anyone to see who I truly am." Ravens voice was soft, and Zatanna paused in her work to glance over at the empath, still shrouded in the darkness of her cloak.
"My father always told me that demons were dangerous. That they should be banished whenever we happened across them." Raven tensed at that statement, but didn't show any other reaction.
"He wasn't wrong." the bird whispered, her face now completely invisible beneath her hood. Zatanna simply tilted her head, giving Raven a side-long glance.
They fell into an uncomfortable silence, Zatanna remaining vigil by Cyborgs side, slowly fixing his circuits, while Raven continued to hover nearby.
Zatanna's glowing hands returned to normal, and she hesitantly stood back up, staring at Raven as though she were the plague. Raven sunk even further into her cloak than she thought possible, as she didn't miss the scathing like the magician now threw her.
Distantly they could both hear the sounds of the ensuing battle, but that seemed to be in the back of their minds for the moment.
"I don't trust you. Never did, to be perfectly honest, but now there's no chance." she crossed her arms over her chest as Cyborg groaned on the ground. "You can bet that my father will be hearing about this, as well as the League."
Raven already knew this, and had accepted it. She knew it would only be a matter of time before her team found out, and they surely wouldn't want her then. She already had pre-planned places to go when they inevitably hated her.
Raven gave a slight nod, but said nothing else.
"And if you ever hurt Robin, or anyone for that matter, you can bet there will consequences."
Don't worry, Slade and Robin will return next chapter.
~Atatami