Chapter 3 – Black Moon Shining
From the Annuls of Circe
Year of the Three Moons
I fear this entry may be my last. Though I have tried again and again to keep my son away from me, my efforts have been in vain. I can feel that accursed demon drawing closer. He looks for me tirelessly and has already destroyed three galaxies in anger. Now I scribble these words furiously within the last shrine of mine that stands.
All my work seems undone. The Ultimate One still lies dormant. Curse fate! It has forced me to do this, to cry into the future. My mentors would frown upon this method of possession, but there is no other way.
Curse that demon! He is upon this planet. There is no time. I must do it now…
~~~
Darkness.
Like a layer of filth it covered the city. None could escape its terrifying grasp, and none wanted to for they had all given up. The city had given up, daylight had given up, even the moon had given up. It watched silent now behind a blanket of shadow, the dark orb emanating an unquenchable doom.
"Robin, look at the moon!"
"Robin, where's Raven?"
"Robin, the energy signals." The voices pounded into their leader. Everything had suddenly happened at once and he was left to fight the chaos.
"Just BE QUIET!" the three remaining Titans were silent as they waited for instruction. "Cyborg, what did you say about energy signals?" Sweat was beginning to bead on his forehead.
"It's the same frequency as the one in the subway, but it's so much more…powerful," Cyborg replied looking blankly at the viewing screen.
"But what about the moon?" Starfire said.
"Will you just forget the moon?! Where's the energy coming from?" He had to stay focus. He had to keep the Titans focused. There were other voices in their heads growing louder each second trying to break their concentration. They fought to pull them into hopelessness.
"Somewhere in the city. I don't know, it keeps breaking up," Cyborg said.
"Dude, I'm telling you," Beasboy said, "Raven's doing this, its gotta be one of her…"
"Just…hold on Beastboy. We have to focus here." But he couldn't. The voices just made him want to curl up in a corner and die, but he couldn't give up, not to this.
"Hold on, I'm getting something," Cyborg said. He turned a dial as crackling noises began to come from the speakers. Slowly, he honed in on a signal.
"…I repeat! …need an ambulance…crrr…38th and 12th! Thirty…on the … -nd unconscious, perhaps dead, cause unknown…" The three Titans looked at Robin waiting for anything to calm their fears.
"We should wait for Raven," Cyborg said. Robin shook his head.
"There's no time. Those people need us." He paused as if unsure of himself. Everything was beginning to feel very wrong.
"Titans GO!"
~~~
Looked out my window last night
From my pillow, and I
Saw the willow weeping a casual sigh
The man in the moon looked rather
Sad and confused as if he'd
Become a mirror to my watery eyes
~~~
"Little Raven?" The voice echoed through her mind. What familiarity! Could it finally be her…?
"Mother?"
"Come, little Raven." The presence seemed so fragile as if it would shatter at any moment. Raven ran after it as fast as she could, forgetting emotions, forgetting her memories, forgetting everything. She would not let her mother go.
"Mother! Don't leave me!" she cried. Far into the darkness, she could see her gown floating gently. Was that really her? Could it be? She ran faster not knowing where she was going. It felt as if the surrounding darkness urged her on.
"Come here, little one!" her mother cooed. She had her arms opened in a warm embrace running full speed towards her daughter. Raven could not believe her eyes. Truly her mother seemed to be running there before her. As she was inches from her mother's arms, something stopped her. The smile and laughter faded from her lips. Looking at the running legs, she realized that her real mother could not walk.
In fear, Raven turned and fled from the lie. Darkness caved in around her pushing her back towards her mother, but she would not let it. In a futile cry, she collapsed giving way to unconsciousness.
~~~
"Hey, Hardy! Come take a look at this!" The man speaking had his eye fixed on the ocular lens of a gigantic telescope. "Gotham Observatory" was written on the side in bold letters.
"What?" came the reply, " I'm trying to call my wife."
"Well tell her you're going to be late. You've gotta see this!" The scientist moved out of the way to let his colleague view the anomaly. He approached the telescope with a tired sigh and placed his eye firmly against the lens.
"What in the…?" The image he saw appeared to be the moon, but something strange covered it. It was like living shadow for it seemed to vibrate and move across the field of vision, a sight that made his insides wrench with fear. He tried to change to a stronger lens, but the image would only dissipate. "You sure the lenses are clean?"
"I just checked. Pretty strange, huh? It's not even in the right equinox." He couldn't take his eye from the lens. It was as though the darkness was calling to him.
"Pretty strange…"
~~~
The four remaining Titans landed silently amid the dark street. No lights bore forth from the impenetrable darkness, not even stars. The scene they beheld was sickening. There was no wreckage, no sign of any battle whatsoever, only dead bodies. They littered the streets like forgotten trash tossed aside days ago.
"Dude, this is pretty creepy," said Beastboy. The other three said nothing, but fear was plastered on their faces. They crept slowly along hearing only the sound of their footsteps.
"A-are your scanners picking up anything, Cyborg?" Robin said in a cold sweat.
"The energy is everywhere. It doesn't make sense." In a burst of flame the screen on his arm suddenly exploded. "This isn't right, Robin."
"Nothing is right," Starfire whispered remembering Kamen's words. They heard an ambulance begin to screech its way towards them finally responding to the call that they had heard hours ago. They were relieved to finally see a source of light as it barreled around a corner in a flash of sirens.
But as it neared them, something happened that no one could explain. From an alley came what seemed like a mountain or wave of shadow billowing forth in a furry. Unable to react in time, the ambulance plowed into the dark monstrosity merely floating through it as if it were smoke. Suddenly the air was filled with screams as if the hearts of the men in the ambulance were being torn from their chests. The Titans watched unmoving as the speeding vehicle careened off the road and barreled into the side of a building exploding in flames.
When the four turned towards the shadow creature, it had disappeared altogether leaving no trace of its coming or going except the three dead EMT's lying in the wreckage of the ambulance.
~~~
"No!" said the echoing voice. It bounced off dreams and empty thoughts. "This cannot be!"
"We knew this would happen. You knew this would happen," came a vacant reply. The energy around them was beginning to fade as the light of the moon seemed doomed to never return. "Do not fear him. This battle has only just begun."
Got a stack of books so I could learn how to live
~~~
Raven…
Her mind struggled to regain consciousness. Slowly, pain mixed with thoughts filled her head. The voices throbbed through her echoing off of her broken emotions. She couldn't reach consciousness, not all the way. Something held her inches from reality. She fought hard to make the gap, but it was no use, her mind surged with pain.
Do not fight me, Raven
Much to her surprise, her eyes began to open, inch by inch letting through more light. It hurt, but she had to look, she had to see. Her gaze was fixed on what seemed like the ground, but the pieces didn't make sense.
There…
"There, that's better," the voice said with sharp clarity. Raven's eyes suddenly darted up towards the speaker. She saw two figures before her but couldn't make out who or what they were.
"I can't let you see too much, Raven. I might loose you," the voice said again. It seemed to be coming from the figure on the left, but she couldn't tell. Her thoughts weren't fitting together right. She was unable to focus her energy on anything as if some inhibiter was pouring forth an internal chaos.
"I suppose I should allow you to at least see me." With those words the two figures suddenly came into perfect focus. The one on the left was a tall and rather beautiful woman wearing an ancient purple robe. She held herself with an elegant countenance almost like an empress. Her words were like honey, but Raven wouldn't let herself trust the woman. She did not trust anyone she could not feel mentally.
The figure on the right angered her. It was Kamen, the curse that would not stop haunting her mind. He was crouched on the ground next to the woman and seemed to be shivering; his face tucked between his legs not daring see the light. The woman rubbed his back with a cold affection.
As the figures came into view, a sharp pain shot through Raven's arms. They were sore and stiff as if they had been holding a large weight at bay. But her thoughts could not properly focus on the sensation. Everything was covered with fog.
"It is a pity you rejected my earlier vision of your mother," the women said with a broad smile. "That truthfully would have been a happy life for you, but alas I got ahead of myself and forgot that my son crippled that mother of yours. So now you will have to see what I allow Kamen to see."
"What are you talking about? Where am I?" Raven said. She felt dangerously helpless.
"You don't recognize me? After all that trouble I went through to finally see you face to face, you don't recognize me? I'm hurt Raven, and so is Kamen." Her words did not make sense.
"What do you want from me?"
"Do you always have to ask so many questions? Can't you just enjoy the beauty of the moment? Ah…this truly is beautiful. I feel as if I have been waiting for this since the beginning of time." Raven was starting to grow angry, but all of her emotion seemed to focus itself on Kamen as if directed by a funnel.
"Ah, but who am I? Surely you should see a familiarity in me. Take a good look." Raven scoured the woman's form slowly beginning to recognize the sharp features. Her sunken eyes, her pointed nose, all of it reminded her of… "That's it, do you see it now?"
Raven's mind shook with disbelief, but she couldn't ignore this emotion. Not this time, she lacked the focus. Her lips trembled as she formed the words.
"You're the one who…"
"Come on, say it!" The air around them was deathly still as Raven forced the words out from her mouth.
"…who summoned my father."
~~~
"This is not a test. This is not a test. City disaster agency requests evacuation of all metropolitan areas due to an internal emergency. Access to city will be locked down shortly by police and federal officers. Do not panic. Proceed with caution upon leaving, and do so at once. This is not a test. This is not a test…"
~~~
"What is happening?" was all that they could think. They searched for an answer on the outside having combed alleys and passageways, but their thoughts were distracted. Fear was holding back their concentration. This thing was intangible and indescribable. It was as if death walked through the silent streets of the city.
"This is not a test. This is not a test…" blasted the loudspeakers. Every time the message was repeated the Titans grimaced.
"They're yelling that to deaf ears," Cyborg said. "This whole city is dead." The other three nodded unable to speak words. It felt true though the disaster had only spread along the internal blocks of the city. The surrounding areas had been abandoned by light and sound as the few left living cowered in fear beneath shadows.
"What's the plan now?" Beastboy whispered to Robin. The four had been creeping down Main Street for what seemed like hours.
"…keep looking," he replied. His voice quivered with a growing fear. There was no plan any more. It was simply to await an eminent death. They continued to search fruitlessly along the empty street seeing only lifeless bodies tossed casually aside. A gust suddenly blew from a side street shooting forth a deathly chill.
"What was that?" Starfire said with a gasp. The others jolted to look where the sound had come from expecting a sudden end to their search, but what they saw did not make sense. "Raven? Look! It is Raven!"
Her shadowy form floated over the top of a building almost lifelessly. She made no response to Starfire's calls but only continued to float through the silent air. The Titans could faintly see her eyes shooting forth a white energy.
"Thank goodness," Robin called out to her. "Do you have any idea what is going on?" But Raven didn't seem to hear him. She drifted out of sight behind a building without a word. "Wait a second, Raven," he said sprinting after her. The others followed in suite hoping that the discovery of their comrade would help answer their questions.
They plunged into a dark alley forgetting a fear that had once choked their hope. Dodging trashcans and jumping fences, they ran just inches behind Raven. Having rounded a corner Robin suddenly stopped his pursuit. The sight before him made his eyes grow wide and caused a chill to course its way down his spine.
In the open street stood a monster over five stories high sheathed in a blanket of gloom. Its form seemed darker than the very shadows that hung around it. It was as though it tried to hold a tangible form but continued to surge and change constantly unable to control the darkness it was made of. However, one part of it remained constant; one part did not stretch and grown. Two unblinking eyes glowed orange with a pitiless light. They hung suspended in what looked like a head and searched the city for a new life to devour.
But the strangest part of the scene they beheld was Raven. She floated inches above the beast hands held out before her as if orchestrating the monster's actions. Her eyes glowed with the familiar white power, but there was something wrong with them. They were only a shell as if Raven had become a puppet in someone else's hands.
"Raven?"
"Those eyes…"
"The moon!"
The Titans stood frozen in the ground unable to make sense of what they saw. The huge figure loomed over them and began to draw closer threatening death, but their feet were anchored to the pavement. Just as the shadow was about to swallow them whole, the form of the beast rippled with a strange power and retreated a step backwards. Its eyes faded for a brief instant and looked as if its form had shrunk. But the moment passed and the beast turned away from the Titans to continue to scour the city for the living.
"What have you done Raven?!" Robin screamed out but she would not respond. Turning away from her friends, she continued to hang at the shoulder of the shadow demon. As it stormed away it left behind the stench of death.
Robin's fist began to clench tight in anger. Why had she not told them anything? Why did she always hide away from everyone? He couldn't let her roam the city to kill off everyone that was left, but he couldn't bring himself to fight her either. However, something was different. When he looked after her retreating figure he was sure that she was not truly real.
"Titans," Robin said with a trembling voice, "…go!"
~~~
Many are left half read
Covered by the cobwebs on my shelf
Got a list of laws growing longer every day
And if I keep plugging away
Maybe one day I'll perfect myself
Oh but all of my labor seems to be in vain
And all of my laws just cause me more pain
So I fall before the dead moon in all of my shame
~~~
"You summoned Trigon!" Raven screamed in vain. Her mind split with the power of the truth. The form of the woman before her now fit perfectly with a brief childhood memory. She had come only once to her house and her quiet planet, but it had been a momentous visit. She had argued for hours with her mother speaking in words that young Raven did not understand. Her mother had sent her to her room hoping to shelter her from the pain that this woman had brought their once peaceful family, but Raven had understood enough to blame her for her father.
The woman shook her head almost apologetically.
"That name…I still regret it. Yes you are right, I summoned that cursed demon. I did so for a son, ironically, but he was more dangerous than I could ever have imagined. I did not plan for him to destroy your home and your family."
"You could care less for my family!"
"A truth, I will admit it, but things happen. What I still don't understand is why he spared you." She looked to the ground letting her wild grin briefly fade. Raven wanted so much to storm after her and ring her neck if only to watch her choke and die, but her muscles would not obey her mind. The only part of her body she could feel were her arms. They continued to throb with pain that she could not understand.
"I apologize, Raven, I have never been good with introductions. My name, if you've forgotten, is Circe, the legendary sorceress. I suppose if I summoned your father, then you could call me your grandmother."
"You're a living hell!" she screamed. Tears of rage began to form at the corners of her eyes.
"Such strong words! Your mother would be ashamed if she heard you now. Strange, though, I would bet you have never felt this much emotion since you came to earth." Circe's words stopped Raven's thoughts dead in their tracks. It was true. This strange illusion threw away all the emotional walls she had ever built for herself, something she had always feared. But instead of feeling in ways she had always longed to, Raven only felt anger.
"It is too bad your friend here does not act in the same unbridled way," Circe said looking down at the shivering form of Kamen. She continued to rub his back imitating a mother's affection. "You really crushed him, Raven. All he ever wanted to do was help, but you rejected him time and time again. Now look what he has been reduced to."
Raven turned her focus on his pitiful form but when she did, a strange feeling erupted in her. It was as if a foreign power was driving hatred into her mind.
"What does he have to do with anything?" Raven asked unwilling to let the emotion control her.
"He was the reason your father destroyed all that you once loved…"
"That is a lie!" Raven burst out. "If you had not summoned him, I would have been free from pain."
"Do not be so ignorant, Raven! If I had not summoned him, you would have never been born!" Circe sighed as she paced back and forth trying to think of the right words to tell Raven. "Trigon was a project for me, one that got out of hand. He was so filled with lust and had little regard for things of importance, but his strength was astounding." She turned her gaze back to Kamen. "Believe it or not, this little boy is what drove him insane.
"He is not limited to just your lifetime, Raven. Kamen's physical existence began with me, not with you. I am the one he spoke briefly of, the one who named him, the one who manifested him for the first time. Yes, Kamen was also a project, but he was more than that, Raven. He has so much power that no one can understand, a power that I can only dream of. That is why I summoned him."
Circe paused briefly to watch her words soak into Raven's mind. Slowly, the cruel smile began to spread across her features.
"That is why I told you to summon him."
~~~
"It's no use!" Cyborg said panting hard. He ran furiously as a car crashed to the ground behind him. "We can't defeat it!" He looked behind him to see his other three teammates trying in vain to subdue the apparition. It reminded him of the battle that took place in the tower. Robin had his pole brandished, Starfire was firing useless star bolts, Beastboy circled as a ram looking for an open moment, and Raven stood behind watching with unseeing eyes.
"We can't give up," Robin said knowing their efforts were useless. "It's heading for the residential section of the city. It could kill thousands!" The beast kept hurling anything it could touch at the Titans but would not allow its shadowy form to touch them. Everyone else the monster had enveloped and torn the life from their bodies, but something held it back from the Titans. It could only hope to crush them.
Starfire leapt into the air hoping to strike one of the fierce orange eyes but only folded through the nebulous form as if she had fallen through smoke. "Just like Kamen…" she muttered to herself. "Those eyes are just like his mask…"
As the monster approached a department store, televisions and other electronic devices came hurtling from the window drawn by a telekinetic power attempting to subdue the attackers. Robin and Cyborg tried to dodge them in time but each took an object to the chest falling to the ground. This battle was making them weary.
"Hang in there, Titans," Robin said pushing plastic pieces of shrapnel off of his body. He struggled to his feet and watched his other comrades also taking blows beginning to slow down. The black moon watched from the sky as hopelessness drew the strength from their bodies.
So many questions racked their brains. Why was Raven doing this? Why did this monster not steal their life? Nothing made sense, everything was cloaked with mystery the same way the city was cloaked with darkness.
"We have to attack Raven!" Cyborg said firing a futile sonic blast into the anomaly.
"No!" Robin shouted. "We can't! Not yet, there has to be another way." He stopped his attack long enough to see the lights from apartment buildings and small suburban houses dotting the landscape just before the path of the monster. They were running out of time.
"Robin, it is growing closer to those left alive," Starfire said. Her voice had lost its familiar ring of innocence. "I do not like it either, but there is no time." The truth of her words buried itself into their leader.
"I have sworn to protect this city," Robin murmured to itself. "I must do what it takes to protect this city. I am sorry, Raven." His voice quivered with anger. Fate had shown him no other way. Looking towards the other three he gave a simple and solitary nod allowing them to make a final attack.
~~~
"I won't believe it," Raven gasped. There was no way she could lower herself to the level of summoning demons. She kept trying to understand, to see more but something kept holding her back. Her mind was no longer in her control.
"Of course you won't. But that doesn't change the truth. You see, Raven, you have a weakness that is easy for someone like me to exploit. It is not your emotions, as you are probably thinking, not exactly. Rather, it is your hatred for them. Through all of your meditations, all of your séances, all of your efforts of hiding your emotion you have built up a dependence that you yourself will not admit to. Do you know what you are dependent on, Raven?"
She made no response. Lowering her gaze, she starred into the ground. Tears began to well up in her eyes.
"What is that dependence, Raven!?" Circe yelled louder. The tears rolled off her cheeks and fell into darkness. She did not know where they fell; her mind would not let her see.
"Have you completely given up? It is love, Raven! Affection, care, longing, infatuation even! The more you deprive yourself from these feelings the more you need them. You are human, Raven, completely and totally human. You can blame your mother for that curse. Those gifts you inherited from that father of yours do not mean that you are not human."
Each word Circe spoke caused Raven's eyes to harden. The tears still fell, but sorrow began to be forced from her breast by anger. The more truth she heard about herself only caused more rage to build up inside of her.
"I rode your emotion and used the most powerful means possible to enter your mind. Do you know how I gained control over you? Surely you will not deny yourself that answer!"
Raven reached for that maternal feeling she had felt only days ago, but every time she grasped for it, the emotions pointed to the woman that stood before her. Through tears, her lips slowly formed words, "You used my mother…"
"Yes! Your poor, pitiful mother! Ever since that day she perished beneath Trigon's rage you've held those memories most dear. You are no different from her, Raven! You are just as pitiful! All I had to do was disguise myself as your mother within your mind to pull you into my hands. It was easy to delude you to thinking that your mother was behind the gate that held Kamen with his realm. Possession may be low, but I had no choice. Your father left me no choice.
"Don't you see, Raven? My plan is perfect! Kamen has been transformed into his Ultimate Form giving me complete and total power over this pitiful physical realm. Every life that Kamen takes adds to my growing power. I am the angle of death now! I hold the keys to who lives and who dies!"
"You're insane," Raven said feeling the rage well up inside of her. But as hard as she tried, she couldn't focus the emotion. That foreign presence held her mind at bay, and her rage was scattered throughout the empty air. All she knew was that her arms were continuing to hurt more and more as each second dragged on.
"Even now you can't hate me because I still bear the mark of your mother. This is where you will stay; your mind and your body will remain under my power. Here with this broken form of Kamen you will stay."
At the mention of the boy's name, Raven's eyes rose from the ground to stare into him. The restraint on her emotion suddenly lifted and her anger and rage rushed forth onto the boy. Circe's smile grew hideously large as she felt Raven's focus boring down onto Kamen. "That's it, Raven. Hate him with all that you are." The more she focused her unbridled emotion on Kamen, the more he quaked in pain. Her mind may have been restricted to this limited viewpoint, but nothing was holding back her emotions.
As her anger and her hatred reached a climax, Kamen raised his head slightly from the ground and looked back at Raven. One of his pale eyes caught her mid glare and asked without words, "Why?" Over and over again the question repeated itself within Raven's anger challenging the root of her emotions.
Circe's grin suddenly left her face. She felt Raven slipping through her fingers as her deadly emotion began to subside.
"No! I will not loose you now! I have waited too long!" Circe began to storm towards her, the purple robe flapping from behind. "Kamen is all you have ever hated, Raven! Kamen is your pain! Kamen is your weakness! You must hate him, you have no other choice!"
Right as Circe's hand was about to grip Raven's neck, the illusion before her eyes suddenly split in two. She saw before her the other four Titans fighting in vain against her. She felt her arms throwing objects without her control. She fought with all of her might to grab a hold of this fleeting glimpse of reality. But the darkness surged through her mind and forced emotion into her thoughts.
"Hate him!" Circe yelled, her eyes radiating with a deadly energy. "Hate him!"
~~~
"I don't want to do this, Raven," Beastboy said transforming into a hawk with razor talons. He rose up into the air and poised himself for a dive into his teammate. Inside he hoped she would stop, but he had no choice. Circling he folded his wings in and felt the air rush past as he hurtled headlong into her, but just as he his talons were about to knock her from the air, Raven's eyes met with his. They lost all of their white rage and looked deep into Beastboy as if she too had lost all hope.
"Help me…" she whispered into the air. In a burst of power, the monster drew Raven in as if afraid to loose her while Beastboy soared past where she should have been. On the other side of the beast, her eyes again glossed over with unknown power having returned to her lifeless state. Gripping Beastboy with telekinesis, she hurled him across the street to crash into the side of a parked van.
The Titans stared in shock at Raven watching her make an outright attack against them. She made no sound, spoke no words, but hung there in the air behind her shadow monstrosity with an alien grin across her face. They had never seen such a cruel smile pressed on her features. As Beastboy struggled to his feet, a reality began to settle in each of the Titans minds. The battle was near to having been lost, and they were now forced to be spectators to a merciless slaughter.
~~~
Help me!
The words had just faded from her lips as Raven's consciousness was returned to its imprisoned state. The anger, fear, and pain rushed back into her field of vision as she saw Circe standing inches from her with unbelieving eyes. Her lips struggled to form words but made no complete sound. Knowing no alternative, they both quickly turned to see Kamen on the ground no longer quaking and shivering. From his crouched position he looked back at both of them with his pale eyes. Though they were as lifeless as before, there was a light behind them that danced with victory. Slowly he rose from the ground not breaking his vexing stare for an instant.
"What are you doing?" Circe asked as the boy stretched himself to his full height. One step in front of the other, he began to advance towards the two women. "Why are you not shivering? You are hated! Return to the dust!" Kamen reached beneath his cloak and pulled out the mask planting it firmly on his face. The two orange eyes glowed with a brilliant flame.
"I am compelled to obey her order," Kamen said silently with an inhuman voice. Raven suddenly realized the power of the two words she had spoken earlier.
"You are compelled to obey no order but mine! You are both under my control!" Circe yelled, but her voice did not hold the forcefulness it had before. He grew closer, each step replacing Raven's anger with fear.
"The one who summoned me has given me an order. I am compelled to obey her order." He was inches from Raven's face, the mask so close that she could see each woven grain of the wood. Kamen lifted his bodiless hands and placed them upon her arms. For the first time, his form did not sift through Raven's flesh.
"This is impossible! How can you do this!" Circe screamed. She felt her power and control leave as Raven's mind began to awaken. Kamen's grip seemed to cause Raven's eyes to open completely, and a fog lifted from her thoughts. Before her rose the same huge oaken door that she had stood in front of only days ago. Her hands were clutching the iron fittings with an unknown strength as her arms barely held the door open. The seal was cracked just enough to cause darkness to surge from the opening into her surroundings. This was why her arms had been screaming in pain. The effort to hold open the door had been breaking them.
"Let go, Raven," Kamen said with a horse voice. "You must let go." She felt his grip tighten around her arms as he fought to pull her away from the door. The darkness fought against Kamen's grasp trying to tear his hands from her arms. Her mind felt as though it would split in two as her consciousness strained between the opposing forces.
"Hate him, Raven! Hate him!" Circe's voice echoed. It was fading fast as Raven was being awakened to the true state of her mind. Voices all around her yelled and screamed, the shadows pressing in on them. The power of emotion threatened to crush all she was beneath its weight.
Circe ran forth in an attempt to subdue them one last time. Grasping hold of Kamen's mask, she tore it from his face. "Do not trust Kamen; do not trust what you see! He is only an illusion!" That last word caused something deep inside of Raven to snap in half leaving her mind feeling as though it had been freed from a vice.
"No, Circe!" Raven screamed against the voices and darkness. Her penetrating yell caused everything to suddenly fall to silence. She looked deep into Kamen's hands that still gripped her arms. "You are the illusion!"
In a blur of light and power, Raven released her grip from the cast iron of the door. Her arms were shoved against her chest as the door came slamming shut, the sound resounding throughout the chasm of her mind. The door faded, the pain faded, the darkness all faded leaving Raven to plummet into unconsciousness.
Slowly she fell leaving all illusions behind.
~~~
You can't find the answers 'till you learn to question
Don't want to appear stupid then ask for direction
You're insecure and it clouds your perception
So stop and listen and learn a lesson
In love without condition
~~~
"A drop into an endless sea."
Raven tried to focus and meditate, but thoughts distracted her. Emotions distracted her, but they did not trouble her mind as they had in the past. This night she would let her focus be broken. Slowly, she opened her eyes and starred into the ground beneath her. She was perched atop the Titan Tower beneath the light of the crescent moon. The waves played beautifully with the moonlight, but Raven did watch the scenery as others would have. She was content with starring into nothing as her thoughts drifted like the wind that tossed her hair.
Only a ribbon of the moon shone now, a thin crescent casting its reflective light across the city. Something was pleasant in that moon, something fresh. With the shining of the new moon came the unveiling of mysteries that had clouded the lives of the Titans for the past week.
Whatever that shadow beast was, it had faded with the coming of the crescent moon. Moonlight had shattered the darkness and opened up hope for their city once again. The actual death toll had been much less than they had expected. When the Titans fought the apparition, it had seemed as though dead bodies clogged all of the streets, but actually the only ones struck down had been the EMT's and a few others crushed by pieces of building or shrapnel. Specialists had called the incident an "unknown epidemic" while only a handful understood the true story.
Kamen had also disappeared as the new moon had risen. Starfire constantly talked about him and how kind he had been to all of them, but no one else spoke of the boy. He was merely been a shadow that had drifted across their lives like a fading memory leaving little in its wake except a passing darkness.
Raven had hoped to see him again and apologize for the inhuman emotions she used against him during the illusion. But instead she sat alone on the tower letting the past wash over her like the waves that lapped across the shore. It was nice to let go for once and allow her mind to drift. Peace, that was what she felt now, a pure and complete peace.
"What a moon…" murmured a voice, but it was not hers. Turning, her eyes met the form of Kamen sitting beside her. He appeared silently and unexpectedly, the way he had always done. Raven did not know what to say or do now that he had shown up one last time. She felt shame for what she had said and done, but did not know how to express it. Instead of apologizing, she followed his gaze to rest her eyes upon the crescent moon that hung new in the sky.
"Are you real?" she said after a few moments of silence. Kamen's eyes did not drift from the moon for a second.
"What is real?" he replied. Raven was tempted to smile at his reply having realized the irony in her question. The wind shot forth an icy gust that caused both of their cloaks to fluttery wildly in the moving air.
"I cannot change the past," Raven said looking downwards once again. "I cannot change what was said and done." She wanted to apologize, but it was difficult to conquer her pride.
"It is alright," Kamen said with the same pitiful, raspy voice. "You do not have to explain. It was a powerful illusion." Raven nodded several times accepting his humble form of forgiveness. "Did you tell them the truth?" Again Raven only nodded in reply to his question. Robin had forced the story about Circe from Raven, but she was brief and did not go into explicit detail about her encounter. She had only told enough to understand why and had not revealed the humility it took to accept victory.
Kamen rose to his feet and leaned on his withered staff. Step by step, he limped away from Raven leaving her to enjoy the moonlight.
"Will you return to your…home?" Raven searched her mind for the right words. Kamen stopped his retreat and returned his gaze to the new moon.
"I cannot return this time," he said barely loud enough for her to hear. As he continued his steady walk for the door, his form began to recede into the shadows, his body fading into wisps of lifeless smoke. "You closed the door."
Raven thought she heard the clank of his staff continue into the night, but he had altogether disappeared leaving her to wonder if Kamen had been merely a figment of her imagination. As the apparition became only a memory, Raven looked up once again at the moon. Its beauty and power struck her for the first time having finally understood why so many starred longingly at it. She allowed a smile to slowly draw across her thin lips as she watched the black moon fade with a new light.