Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans, WB and DC do. I do,
however, own Caspia and Breon, whom I borrowed from something else I've
written.
Notes: The second chapter in the Inner Demons story. If you've read 'Herbal Tea' you might notice some similarities, but remember that the other story was written to get material for this one.
Also, for the very few who know about the original Caspia, I juiced him up something fierce to be a match for Raven. For the most part only his appearance and personality are the same, and even then he's less psychotic than he used to be. Enjoy.
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Part 2: Dark and Light
Raven entered the living room after returning from her mind. She knew full well that removing the plants that her happy side had planted wouldn't restore her control completely, but it was a good start. The process would probably take a few weeks before she was as she had been.
Only Robin and Starfire were in the room, sitting together on the couch, so close they touched. "That sounds really simple, Star." Robin said, continuing a conversation that had been going on for a while..
"Mm-hmm." Starfire nodded, "Anti-gravity is not a difficult endeavor."
Raven felt like she was intruding again, but they weren't exactly being secretive about what they were doing. She also wished that she were around for at least one of Starfire's explanations of alien technology, but as it was, the most anyone, other than Robin, heard of them was the last two sentences.
She intentionally stepped heavier to let the new couple know that she was there as she went over to where the hole in the window was now taped shut.
"Raven," Starfire said and turned to her as she realized that she and Robin were no longer alone. "You are better?" The look of concern Starfire gave Raven bordered on the disconcerting.
Starfire was the most sensitive and outgoing person Raven had ever met, which meant that if she asked something like that, then she was genuinely worried.
"I'm fine, Starfire." Raven said in her usual deadpan.
Starfire still looked worried, "I had heard that your control was lost to you." Starfire glanced deliberately at the damaged window.
"I'm fine, Starfire." Raven repeated, a little more firmly. Starfire was the only one who could truly understand: The two girls had switched bodies for a brief period and having a bubbly girl in command of emotion driven powers had proven to be dangerous, and costly.
Starfire kept looking at her, then let it go. "Very well." She said simply before turning back to Robin, who had decided not to get involved with the conversation.
Raven watched the two out of the corner of her eye as she poked at the hole she'd made in the window earlier. She was happy that they'd gotten together, but she'd always thought that she and Robin had more in common. Even if he had been interested, she rationalized, it wouldn't have been fair to him as she couldn't return the emotions. Besides, he really loved Starfire, and vice versa.
"There's someone coming later to replace that." Robin called over to her, surprising her out of her thoughts, even if she made no external signs of it. Tact, Raven decided, was something that Robin was good at. They all knew that it was Raven's fault, but he didn't lay any blame down.
Besides, before this she'd been the only one, Robin included, who hadn't damaged the tower in any way.
Raven didn't look at him, "Good." She said simply. Through the window she could see Cyborg and Beast Boy digging near the base of the tower. Or rather, she corrected herself, burying. She didn't need to ask what.
Raven abruptly turned toward the exit, walking unhurriedly she said, "I'm heading out for a bit. I need to buy some more tea."
"But Raven," Starfire asked, confused, "much of your tea remains unconsumed and..." Robin silenced her with a small, sad shake of his head. When the dark girl had left she asked, "What is wrong with Raven?"
Robin looked to where their friend had vanished out the door, "She just needs to be alone for a while."
"But many people frequent the mall of shopping," Starfire was getting more confused, "Would it not be better to be alone here, or in here room?"
Robin gave her a small, sad smile, "Sometimes, its just easier to be alone in a crowd, Star."
Starfire shook her head, "I do not understand."
"I know." He said and kissed her.
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Raven didn't much like the mall, it was the crowds. Too many people who all thought they had too little time to buy too much stuff. There were also the teenyboppers: teenage girls who all but lived in the mall, and, on rare occasions, tried to recruit her.
Despite its flaws, here she could disappear into the sea of people. Be nothing more than a momentary obstacle for whomever was closest to her. Here, no one knew her, no one recognized her. Here, she could become truly faceless... there was a kind of Zen in that.
She had her tea, more for show when she returned to the tower than anything else. She knew Robin understood, and would probably explain it to Starfire, but she didn't want the other boys to give her a hard time about it. Now, she was just walking for the sake of it.
The mall itself was shaped like a giant 'I', so when she reached the end, she decided to take a left. It was then that she felt it: A force, like a fishhook in her brain, that compelled her to look behind her.
Down the other bend of the mall, she saw him. He stood out like a sore thumb to her, but to anyone else he would never be found in the crowd. He had short, dark hair; from what she could tell from the loose sweater he wore, average build; slightly shorter than average, but not remarkably so; was in his upper teens or low twenties and was neither ugly nor handsome. Perfectly average, except that he was looking right at her.
Their eyes locked for a moment. A word crept into Raven's consciousness from God knows where: 'Breon.' Time slowed for her, she had from now until forever to size him up. His eyes narrowed at her menacingly from across the crowd.
She knew him, or at least thought she did. Whatever part of her knew him also told her be wary.
Raven made a point never to use her powers in public, especially after she'd been seen with her hood down. She'd discovered that the best way to go unnoticed was to simply look like a girl trying to look like Raven. Since no one ever saw without the hood up, it was remarkably effective. If she'd had her hood up, she'd simply have, gently, held the man there with her powers, gone over and gotten some answers. That not being an option anymore, she had to take a more passive approach. She began to push through the crowd.
Raven tried hard to keep an eye on him, but the persistent elbows and shoulders of the people pushed her around just enough that she lost him. If she'd have been Cyborg, she'd have sworn. Instead, she decided that she'd had enough of the mall and went home.
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"So these... 'Peadiayes,' as you call them, invoke feelings of discomfort?" Starfire asked as Raven walked in. Judging by Cyborg's face, it was buried in his hands, it wasn't the first time she'd asked. The two were sitting on the crescent couch, on the ends so that they were looking at each other. As a change of pace, Robin wasn't with Starfire.
Raven dropped her box of tea on the counter and looked at them. "What are you doing?" She asked Cyborg.
Cyborg looked up at her, "I'm trying," He emphasized the word 'trying,' "to explain to Starfire about PDAs."
Raven raised an eyebrow, "Without Robin?" It was a rhetorical question, spoken in her usual deadpan, but the meaning wasn't lost on Cyborg. Robin was the only one who had the patience and the knowledge of people, Starfire in particular, to know what, exactly, it was that Starfire didn't understand and explain it to her.
Starfire looked between the two, subtlety was usually lost on her, and so she didn't understand the statement. Instead she asked, "And what are these PDAs of which you speak?"
Raven rolled her eyes at Cyborg, "You didn't tell her?" Raven was good at rhetorical questions.
"I thought she knew!" Cyborg, frustrated, threw up his hands.
Starfire stood up and held out her hands, "Friends, please!" Starfire stopped a lot of fights doing that, if for no other reason than her if they kept going they knew that Starfire would feel responsible. "Explain to me how I have erred that I may correct it." She said her calm, innocent tone of voice.
Raven didn't know how it had happened, but somehow the explanation process had been delegated to her. Rolling her eyes again, she explained. "Starfire, PDA is short for 'Public Displays of Affection.'"
Starfire blinked at her, "And these are unacceptable on your planet?"
Now Raven was stumped, she had no idea how to explain this properly. "They make people uncomfortable." She ventured. The thanking look on Cyborg's face told Raven that this was more progress than he'd made in however long he'd been at it.
"Why?" Starfire asked.
Raven had no answer, she found herself wishing she knew where Robin was.
"Its something that some people think should be private." Robin was at the door, apparently. He walked in, supporting a limping Beast Boy. Starfire smiled both at his return and the new understanding.
"So," Cyborg asked with a grin, "How the sparring match go?"
Beast Boy pushed away from Robin, staggering a bit, but keeping his balance. "I was so in the zone!" He said, doing a limping boxer's dance. "But then Wonder Boy here caught me off guard." He finished with a jerk of his thumb at Robin.
Robin smiled at him, "You tripped over a dumbbell." He said, matter- of-factly.
"Dude!" Beast Boy yelled accusingly.
Raven saw where this was going and edged past the two boys and out the door.
"Hey, Rae? Where ya going?" Cyborg's voice reached her before she vanished down the hallway.
"I'll be on the roof." She called back and was gone before the argument got any worse, which it would, but they'd still be friends when it was over, so it was okay. She found the stairs and took them up to the rooftop.
Raven stepped out into the mid-afternoon sun. She often mediated up her. The wind was refreshing, the sun was warm and the only sounds, except when the pool that was up her was in use, were the rush of the breeze and the calls of birds. She felt a small pang of regret at the thought of birds, but dismissed it.
Sitting lotus style near the edge of the roof, she closed her eyes and began to chant to clear her mind of all but finding the answers she needed.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos" What was bothering her was that man she'd seen at the mall. Breon. Was that his name? No, that didn't seem right, somehow.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos" Maybe it was where he was from? She doubted that too, she had only ever been to Azarath and Earth, so far as she knew.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos" He had obviously known her, so they must have met at some point, but where? And when?
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos" What about that feeling of, well, not quite dread she'd felt? Where did that come from? Maybe he was a priest from some order that was against Azarath. That made some sense, anyone who knew what Azarath's power felt like could feel it on her, but who would be against an order who wanted nothing but peace?
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." Raven knew the answer to that last question: A lot of people were opposed to peace, for whatever reason.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." If that was the case, was Breon the name of the order? Or of someone in it she'd met before and she had recognized something about it on the young man?
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." Her mother might know, but she was hard to get in touch with at the best of times. She'd be out on that ranch of hers for days at a time away from a phone.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." Besides, it might bring back memories that she didn't want to deal with. No, Raven would find out on her own.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." Making no progress, Raven allowed her mind to clear completely, and entered into deep meditation.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos."
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos."
"Azarath Metrion..." Raven felt the fishhook in her mind again, pulling behind her and to the right. Slowly, she opened her eyes and turned only her head to see.
It was him. He stood on the roof about forty feet from her, just looking at her. A perfectly average young man, but something in her brain was screaming at her.
He said a single word: "Trigon." His voice was deep, and carried some force, but it too wasn't really all that special. It was the word that rang in her ears and made the hair on her neck stand up. She didn't move or even seem to react at all.
"How do you know that name?" Raven asked him, still using her normal deadpan, but it cracked a little despite her best efforts.
The man nodded sadly, as though he'd just heard something he didn't want to hear, but was expecting anyway. "The same way you know the name Breon." He said sadly.
The chill in Raven's spine got worse. Their eyes locked. Something that had been bothering the girl revealed itself: They were on the roof of a ten-storey building with no external ladders or fire escapes, and with alarms to sound if someone unauthorized entered. So, how did he get up here?
His eyes softened slightly, "I'm sorry." He said almost too low to hear. Then he seemed to go out of focus. Try as she might, Raven couldn't really see him, as though she were looking at him through the waves of heat distortion over a highway during the summer. It made Raven's eyes water.
An instant later, he snapped back into focus; changed. He was the same man, perhaps an inch taller, but now his back sported a pair of leathery wings covered in black hair and with a clawed 'thumb' at the main joint. His hands had also become a set of claws. This explained how he got up here, at least.
Raven still didn't move, even if her eyes had widened slightly and she knew it showed on her face that she was getting worried. But that didn't mean she wasn't still calm. She risked a look at his hands and saw that his claws weren't edged, like a cat's, they were curved and tapered, but more cylindrical. They were meant for gripping and digging. Which meant that they'd tear, not cut, the bigger ones on his wings were the same. Raven didn't want to think about that. She looked him in the eyes again and the standoff continued.
Raven moved first. She stood up and took a defensive posture toward him, but he was already moving. Eating up the ground with three quick strides, he was on her, his right hand scything through air that had only a moment before been occupied by Raven.
She kicked off the ground, levitating backwards as fast as she could, zigzagging to avoid the arcs of the claws that threatened to tear parts from her body. As fast as she was, he was at least as fast, if not faster and kept pace with her easily, the attacks never letting up.
Raven was being forced back toward the wall of the raised staircase, and she knew it. If she reached it, she would have nowhere to run. "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" She cried out, almost desperately. She felt her power increase and reached it out to take hold of part of the satellite dish support. She jerked the short length of metal free and slammed it into the back of her attacker's head.
He fell to his knees shaking his head. Raven stopped, panting slightly, eyes glowing with dark light as she was still holding her power at the ready. He looked up at her and their eyes locked yet again. He seemed taken aback by what he saw, then his expression change. Raven knew instantly that it was serious now.
The man stood up, flaring his wings behind him as his right palm began to glow bright white. The light seemed to gather, then shot forward, becoming a two and a half foot spike emerging from his palm, but staying straight with his forearm. The spike was perhaps three inches at the base and writhed with a life of its own, like a snake that had its head and tail held fast, fingers of light arcing like lightning off the main body..
Raven lifted herself an inch off the ground.
Her attacker launched himself at her, full force, the blade scything across his body. Raven pushed back as fast and hard as her power would carry her, dodging the blade, but feeling the tendrils sting her as it passed within inches. Her back was now firmly again the wall.
The man reversed his attack, his whole body spinning and bringing the blade down on her with all his weight behind it. A normal steel blade would have cut her in half, she didn't know what this one would do to her, but it never touch her. She cast a barrier up to catch it, but she wasn't expecting what happened when the blade hit her shield. For the space of an inch there was a nothingness, as though the universe seemed to cease to be, right where their two powers met. She found that she had to continually feed energy into the shield and rebuild it constantly to hold it there, and from the looks of it, her attacker was doing the same with his sword.
Raven gathered her will and pushed up, hard, on her barrier, forcing the man to stagger backward. Before his back foot hit the roof he was already gathering himself for a thrust, but he telegraphed himself too much. Raven was ready this time.
When he lunged forward, Raven was already moving past him. His blade buried itself uselessly into the wall as his momentum carried him forward, but he spread his wings, claw first, out to stop her. Raven felt the claw catch and tear at the edge of her cloak, but it didn't even slow her down. She smiled to herself.
Raven realized that she was excited, that this was exciting her. She felt so alive right now, she felt... no, she told herself, she couldn't afford to feel. She shook her head to clear it.
From start to finish, her lapse took about a second. In combat, no one can afford a second.
She would have screamed in pain, but the attack knocked the air from her lungs and propelled her forward. She hit the roof hard and rolled to her hands and knees. Her back was badly burned, right between her shoulder blades and she felt a warm trickle spread down her spine.
She looked up at him, his right hand still held, for lack of a better word, the blade but his left hand was held, palm up with fingers splayed out to toward her. Tiny, white arcs of residual energy played between the spread fingers. He must have wheeled around and shot her with his lightning. She didn't know he could do that.
He started toward her slowly and Raven felt it start to rise inside of her soul, again. Anger and despair, the feeling that it she was going to die because she had been careless and that there was nothing she could do to stop it now. Just like against Dr. Light. She fought for control of herself, but it was a losing battle.
"Stay back." She told the man in a weak voice.
He just shook his head sadly, "I'm sorry." He said as he continued forward, raising his blade for another strike.
Raven lost control.
In a flurry of movement Raven rose up ten feet, her cloak swirling around her and extending to whirl about the ground, her eyes glowing a deep, blood red. The front of her cloak opened, becoming a dark maw into a nether realm of eternal darkness.
"You're sorry?" Raven heard herself say
Raven watched, separate from herself as her attacker staggered back a step, but, to his credit, recovered quickly and dropped into a fighting stance. From deep within her cloak, living ropes of pure darkness launched themselves at the man. He moved fast, cutting down the first three with the same burst of nothingness each time, but the next four caught him; one on each limb.
He was slammed, hard, into the ground, the air and control of his blade knocked from him. The white light vanished into the ether. Coughing, he began to be pulled into the darkness, feebly scrambling to find a place to grip on the smooth rooftop.
As his feet entered the maw of Raven's cloak he cried out and a dozen tiny arcs of light lanced from his wings in rapid succession, pock marking the roof and giving his clawed hands and wings a purchase. He held on as though his life depended on it, which it did.
Raven watched as her body, under her father's control seemed to shrug and simply moved over him rather than pull him in. When his legs and hips were gone into the darkness, he began to shiver from the cold of it.
Her attacker turned victim looked over his shoulder at where he was disappearing into and his eyes flashed red for an instant, but he buried it with a shake of his head. He forced himself to turn over as his shivering began to look like a seizure.
"No!" He cried out at least, when only his arms and head remained free. He called the blade back to his right hand, a pitiful shell of its former self, and thrust it deep into the darkness within Raven's cloak.
There was an explosion of nothingness. There was no sound, no light, in fact, were someone to have been looking down at the Tower's roof from a plane, they would have sworn that it was suddenly twenty feet closer. There was force, however. Deep inside herself, Raven felt her father being knocked into unconsciousness even as she flew back on the roof, bounced twice and rolled to a stop some two dozen feet away from where she started.
Raven gingerly pushed herself up, careful of any broken bones, but found that there were none, even though her back screamed at her. She staggered toward where her attacker lay.
He had fared much worse than her. He had been only a few feet from the wall when he was blasted back and had hit it with such force that many of the bricks had cracked. He lay in a crumpled heap on the ground in a small pool of his own blood. As Raven approached, he slowly, painfully, pushed himself up to his elbows, but his legs were completely useless. He turned to look at the staggering girl.
Raven reached out her power and pulled out a support cable for the satellite dish, wrapping it tightly around his neck, but not quite enough to strangle him.
"Who are you?" Raven managed weakly.
He looked at her almost angrily, but it could be just from the pain, "Caspia." He forced through clenched teeth. They looked at each other, both were fading fast, "Either do it, or let me go." He said, his eyes almost hopeful, for either choice she made.
Raven felt the warm trickle from her back reach the back of her knees as the door to the stairs opened. All four of the other Titans stood in the doorway, all wide eyed. Raven looked at them, then back to the man named Caspia, who had passed out and was hanging by his neck from the cable Raven still held at his neck.
Raven released the cable, which fell, along with her attacker, to the ground, looked briefly to her friends. She noted that they were hard to focus on, then blacked out.
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This is the end of Part Two, I hope you enjoyed it. There will be more to this, though when exactly, I don't know, probably not for a week at the very least.
Notes: The second chapter in the Inner Demons story. If you've read 'Herbal Tea' you might notice some similarities, but remember that the other story was written to get material for this one.
Also, for the very few who know about the original Caspia, I juiced him up something fierce to be a match for Raven. For the most part only his appearance and personality are the same, and even then he's less psychotic than he used to be. Enjoy.
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Part 2: Dark and Light
Raven entered the living room after returning from her mind. She knew full well that removing the plants that her happy side had planted wouldn't restore her control completely, but it was a good start. The process would probably take a few weeks before she was as she had been.
Only Robin and Starfire were in the room, sitting together on the couch, so close they touched. "That sounds really simple, Star." Robin said, continuing a conversation that had been going on for a while..
"Mm-hmm." Starfire nodded, "Anti-gravity is not a difficult endeavor."
Raven felt like she was intruding again, but they weren't exactly being secretive about what they were doing. She also wished that she were around for at least one of Starfire's explanations of alien technology, but as it was, the most anyone, other than Robin, heard of them was the last two sentences.
She intentionally stepped heavier to let the new couple know that she was there as she went over to where the hole in the window was now taped shut.
"Raven," Starfire said and turned to her as she realized that she and Robin were no longer alone. "You are better?" The look of concern Starfire gave Raven bordered on the disconcerting.
Starfire was the most sensitive and outgoing person Raven had ever met, which meant that if she asked something like that, then she was genuinely worried.
"I'm fine, Starfire." Raven said in her usual deadpan.
Starfire still looked worried, "I had heard that your control was lost to you." Starfire glanced deliberately at the damaged window.
"I'm fine, Starfire." Raven repeated, a little more firmly. Starfire was the only one who could truly understand: The two girls had switched bodies for a brief period and having a bubbly girl in command of emotion driven powers had proven to be dangerous, and costly.
Starfire kept looking at her, then let it go. "Very well." She said simply before turning back to Robin, who had decided not to get involved with the conversation.
Raven watched the two out of the corner of her eye as she poked at the hole she'd made in the window earlier. She was happy that they'd gotten together, but she'd always thought that she and Robin had more in common. Even if he had been interested, she rationalized, it wouldn't have been fair to him as she couldn't return the emotions. Besides, he really loved Starfire, and vice versa.
"There's someone coming later to replace that." Robin called over to her, surprising her out of her thoughts, even if she made no external signs of it. Tact, Raven decided, was something that Robin was good at. They all knew that it was Raven's fault, but he didn't lay any blame down.
Besides, before this she'd been the only one, Robin included, who hadn't damaged the tower in any way.
Raven didn't look at him, "Good." She said simply. Through the window she could see Cyborg and Beast Boy digging near the base of the tower. Or rather, she corrected herself, burying. She didn't need to ask what.
Raven abruptly turned toward the exit, walking unhurriedly she said, "I'm heading out for a bit. I need to buy some more tea."
"But Raven," Starfire asked, confused, "much of your tea remains unconsumed and..." Robin silenced her with a small, sad shake of his head. When the dark girl had left she asked, "What is wrong with Raven?"
Robin looked to where their friend had vanished out the door, "She just needs to be alone for a while."
"But many people frequent the mall of shopping," Starfire was getting more confused, "Would it not be better to be alone here, or in here room?"
Robin gave her a small, sad smile, "Sometimes, its just easier to be alone in a crowd, Star."
Starfire shook her head, "I do not understand."
"I know." He said and kissed her.
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Raven didn't much like the mall, it was the crowds. Too many people who all thought they had too little time to buy too much stuff. There were also the teenyboppers: teenage girls who all but lived in the mall, and, on rare occasions, tried to recruit her.
Despite its flaws, here she could disappear into the sea of people. Be nothing more than a momentary obstacle for whomever was closest to her. Here, no one knew her, no one recognized her. Here, she could become truly faceless... there was a kind of Zen in that.
She had her tea, more for show when she returned to the tower than anything else. She knew Robin understood, and would probably explain it to Starfire, but she didn't want the other boys to give her a hard time about it. Now, she was just walking for the sake of it.
The mall itself was shaped like a giant 'I', so when she reached the end, she decided to take a left. It was then that she felt it: A force, like a fishhook in her brain, that compelled her to look behind her.
Down the other bend of the mall, she saw him. He stood out like a sore thumb to her, but to anyone else he would never be found in the crowd. He had short, dark hair; from what she could tell from the loose sweater he wore, average build; slightly shorter than average, but not remarkably so; was in his upper teens or low twenties and was neither ugly nor handsome. Perfectly average, except that he was looking right at her.
Their eyes locked for a moment. A word crept into Raven's consciousness from God knows where: 'Breon.' Time slowed for her, she had from now until forever to size him up. His eyes narrowed at her menacingly from across the crowd.
She knew him, or at least thought she did. Whatever part of her knew him also told her be wary.
Raven made a point never to use her powers in public, especially after she'd been seen with her hood down. She'd discovered that the best way to go unnoticed was to simply look like a girl trying to look like Raven. Since no one ever saw without the hood up, it was remarkably effective. If she'd had her hood up, she'd simply have, gently, held the man there with her powers, gone over and gotten some answers. That not being an option anymore, she had to take a more passive approach. She began to push through the crowd.
Raven tried hard to keep an eye on him, but the persistent elbows and shoulders of the people pushed her around just enough that she lost him. If she'd have been Cyborg, she'd have sworn. Instead, she decided that she'd had enough of the mall and went home.
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"So these... 'Peadiayes,' as you call them, invoke feelings of discomfort?" Starfire asked as Raven walked in. Judging by Cyborg's face, it was buried in his hands, it wasn't the first time she'd asked. The two were sitting on the crescent couch, on the ends so that they were looking at each other. As a change of pace, Robin wasn't with Starfire.
Raven dropped her box of tea on the counter and looked at them. "What are you doing?" She asked Cyborg.
Cyborg looked up at her, "I'm trying," He emphasized the word 'trying,' "to explain to Starfire about PDAs."
Raven raised an eyebrow, "Without Robin?" It was a rhetorical question, spoken in her usual deadpan, but the meaning wasn't lost on Cyborg. Robin was the only one who had the patience and the knowledge of people, Starfire in particular, to know what, exactly, it was that Starfire didn't understand and explain it to her.
Starfire looked between the two, subtlety was usually lost on her, and so she didn't understand the statement. Instead she asked, "And what are these PDAs of which you speak?"
Raven rolled her eyes at Cyborg, "You didn't tell her?" Raven was good at rhetorical questions.
"I thought she knew!" Cyborg, frustrated, threw up his hands.
Starfire stood up and held out her hands, "Friends, please!" Starfire stopped a lot of fights doing that, if for no other reason than her if they kept going they knew that Starfire would feel responsible. "Explain to me how I have erred that I may correct it." She said her calm, innocent tone of voice.
Raven didn't know how it had happened, but somehow the explanation process had been delegated to her. Rolling her eyes again, she explained. "Starfire, PDA is short for 'Public Displays of Affection.'"
Starfire blinked at her, "And these are unacceptable on your planet?"
Now Raven was stumped, she had no idea how to explain this properly. "They make people uncomfortable." She ventured. The thanking look on Cyborg's face told Raven that this was more progress than he'd made in however long he'd been at it.
"Why?" Starfire asked.
Raven had no answer, she found herself wishing she knew where Robin was.
"Its something that some people think should be private." Robin was at the door, apparently. He walked in, supporting a limping Beast Boy. Starfire smiled both at his return and the new understanding.
"So," Cyborg asked with a grin, "How the sparring match go?"
Beast Boy pushed away from Robin, staggering a bit, but keeping his balance. "I was so in the zone!" He said, doing a limping boxer's dance. "But then Wonder Boy here caught me off guard." He finished with a jerk of his thumb at Robin.
Robin smiled at him, "You tripped over a dumbbell." He said, matter- of-factly.
"Dude!" Beast Boy yelled accusingly.
Raven saw where this was going and edged past the two boys and out the door.
"Hey, Rae? Where ya going?" Cyborg's voice reached her before she vanished down the hallway.
"I'll be on the roof." She called back and was gone before the argument got any worse, which it would, but they'd still be friends when it was over, so it was okay. She found the stairs and took them up to the rooftop.
Raven stepped out into the mid-afternoon sun. She often mediated up her. The wind was refreshing, the sun was warm and the only sounds, except when the pool that was up her was in use, were the rush of the breeze and the calls of birds. She felt a small pang of regret at the thought of birds, but dismissed it.
Sitting lotus style near the edge of the roof, she closed her eyes and began to chant to clear her mind of all but finding the answers she needed.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos" What was bothering her was that man she'd seen at the mall. Breon. Was that his name? No, that didn't seem right, somehow.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos" Maybe it was where he was from? She doubted that too, she had only ever been to Azarath and Earth, so far as she knew.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos" He had obviously known her, so they must have met at some point, but where? And when?
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos" What about that feeling of, well, not quite dread she'd felt? Where did that come from? Maybe he was a priest from some order that was against Azarath. That made some sense, anyone who knew what Azarath's power felt like could feel it on her, but who would be against an order who wanted nothing but peace?
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." Raven knew the answer to that last question: A lot of people were opposed to peace, for whatever reason.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." If that was the case, was Breon the name of the order? Or of someone in it she'd met before and she had recognized something about it on the young man?
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." Her mother might know, but she was hard to get in touch with at the best of times. She'd be out on that ranch of hers for days at a time away from a phone.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." Besides, it might bring back memories that she didn't want to deal with. No, Raven would find out on her own.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos." Making no progress, Raven allowed her mind to clear completely, and entered into deep meditation.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos."
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos."
"Azarath Metrion..." Raven felt the fishhook in her mind again, pulling behind her and to the right. Slowly, she opened her eyes and turned only her head to see.
It was him. He stood on the roof about forty feet from her, just looking at her. A perfectly average young man, but something in her brain was screaming at her.
He said a single word: "Trigon." His voice was deep, and carried some force, but it too wasn't really all that special. It was the word that rang in her ears and made the hair on her neck stand up. She didn't move or even seem to react at all.
"How do you know that name?" Raven asked him, still using her normal deadpan, but it cracked a little despite her best efforts.
The man nodded sadly, as though he'd just heard something he didn't want to hear, but was expecting anyway. "The same way you know the name Breon." He said sadly.
The chill in Raven's spine got worse. Their eyes locked. Something that had been bothering the girl revealed itself: They were on the roof of a ten-storey building with no external ladders or fire escapes, and with alarms to sound if someone unauthorized entered. So, how did he get up here?
His eyes softened slightly, "I'm sorry." He said almost too low to hear. Then he seemed to go out of focus. Try as she might, Raven couldn't really see him, as though she were looking at him through the waves of heat distortion over a highway during the summer. It made Raven's eyes water.
An instant later, he snapped back into focus; changed. He was the same man, perhaps an inch taller, but now his back sported a pair of leathery wings covered in black hair and with a clawed 'thumb' at the main joint. His hands had also become a set of claws. This explained how he got up here, at least.
Raven still didn't move, even if her eyes had widened slightly and she knew it showed on her face that she was getting worried. But that didn't mean she wasn't still calm. She risked a look at his hands and saw that his claws weren't edged, like a cat's, they were curved and tapered, but more cylindrical. They were meant for gripping and digging. Which meant that they'd tear, not cut, the bigger ones on his wings were the same. Raven didn't want to think about that. She looked him in the eyes again and the standoff continued.
Raven moved first. She stood up and took a defensive posture toward him, but he was already moving. Eating up the ground with three quick strides, he was on her, his right hand scything through air that had only a moment before been occupied by Raven.
She kicked off the ground, levitating backwards as fast as she could, zigzagging to avoid the arcs of the claws that threatened to tear parts from her body. As fast as she was, he was at least as fast, if not faster and kept pace with her easily, the attacks never letting up.
Raven was being forced back toward the wall of the raised staircase, and she knew it. If she reached it, she would have nowhere to run. "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" She cried out, almost desperately. She felt her power increase and reached it out to take hold of part of the satellite dish support. She jerked the short length of metal free and slammed it into the back of her attacker's head.
He fell to his knees shaking his head. Raven stopped, panting slightly, eyes glowing with dark light as she was still holding her power at the ready. He looked up at her and their eyes locked yet again. He seemed taken aback by what he saw, then his expression change. Raven knew instantly that it was serious now.
The man stood up, flaring his wings behind him as his right palm began to glow bright white. The light seemed to gather, then shot forward, becoming a two and a half foot spike emerging from his palm, but staying straight with his forearm. The spike was perhaps three inches at the base and writhed with a life of its own, like a snake that had its head and tail held fast, fingers of light arcing like lightning off the main body..
Raven lifted herself an inch off the ground.
Her attacker launched himself at her, full force, the blade scything across his body. Raven pushed back as fast and hard as her power would carry her, dodging the blade, but feeling the tendrils sting her as it passed within inches. Her back was now firmly again the wall.
The man reversed his attack, his whole body spinning and bringing the blade down on her with all his weight behind it. A normal steel blade would have cut her in half, she didn't know what this one would do to her, but it never touch her. She cast a barrier up to catch it, but she wasn't expecting what happened when the blade hit her shield. For the space of an inch there was a nothingness, as though the universe seemed to cease to be, right where their two powers met. She found that she had to continually feed energy into the shield and rebuild it constantly to hold it there, and from the looks of it, her attacker was doing the same with his sword.
Raven gathered her will and pushed up, hard, on her barrier, forcing the man to stagger backward. Before his back foot hit the roof he was already gathering himself for a thrust, but he telegraphed himself too much. Raven was ready this time.
When he lunged forward, Raven was already moving past him. His blade buried itself uselessly into the wall as his momentum carried him forward, but he spread his wings, claw first, out to stop her. Raven felt the claw catch and tear at the edge of her cloak, but it didn't even slow her down. She smiled to herself.
Raven realized that she was excited, that this was exciting her. She felt so alive right now, she felt... no, she told herself, she couldn't afford to feel. She shook her head to clear it.
From start to finish, her lapse took about a second. In combat, no one can afford a second.
She would have screamed in pain, but the attack knocked the air from her lungs and propelled her forward. She hit the roof hard and rolled to her hands and knees. Her back was badly burned, right between her shoulder blades and she felt a warm trickle spread down her spine.
She looked up at him, his right hand still held, for lack of a better word, the blade but his left hand was held, palm up with fingers splayed out to toward her. Tiny, white arcs of residual energy played between the spread fingers. He must have wheeled around and shot her with his lightning. She didn't know he could do that.
He started toward her slowly and Raven felt it start to rise inside of her soul, again. Anger and despair, the feeling that it she was going to die because she had been careless and that there was nothing she could do to stop it now. Just like against Dr. Light. She fought for control of herself, but it was a losing battle.
"Stay back." She told the man in a weak voice.
He just shook his head sadly, "I'm sorry." He said as he continued forward, raising his blade for another strike.
Raven lost control.
In a flurry of movement Raven rose up ten feet, her cloak swirling around her and extending to whirl about the ground, her eyes glowing a deep, blood red. The front of her cloak opened, becoming a dark maw into a nether realm of eternal darkness.
"You're sorry?" Raven heard herself say
Raven watched, separate from herself as her attacker staggered back a step, but, to his credit, recovered quickly and dropped into a fighting stance. From deep within her cloak, living ropes of pure darkness launched themselves at the man. He moved fast, cutting down the first three with the same burst of nothingness each time, but the next four caught him; one on each limb.
He was slammed, hard, into the ground, the air and control of his blade knocked from him. The white light vanished into the ether. Coughing, he began to be pulled into the darkness, feebly scrambling to find a place to grip on the smooth rooftop.
As his feet entered the maw of Raven's cloak he cried out and a dozen tiny arcs of light lanced from his wings in rapid succession, pock marking the roof and giving his clawed hands and wings a purchase. He held on as though his life depended on it, which it did.
Raven watched as her body, under her father's control seemed to shrug and simply moved over him rather than pull him in. When his legs and hips were gone into the darkness, he began to shiver from the cold of it.
Her attacker turned victim looked over his shoulder at where he was disappearing into and his eyes flashed red for an instant, but he buried it with a shake of his head. He forced himself to turn over as his shivering began to look like a seizure.
"No!" He cried out at least, when only his arms and head remained free. He called the blade back to his right hand, a pitiful shell of its former self, and thrust it deep into the darkness within Raven's cloak.
There was an explosion of nothingness. There was no sound, no light, in fact, were someone to have been looking down at the Tower's roof from a plane, they would have sworn that it was suddenly twenty feet closer. There was force, however. Deep inside herself, Raven felt her father being knocked into unconsciousness even as she flew back on the roof, bounced twice and rolled to a stop some two dozen feet away from where she started.
Raven gingerly pushed herself up, careful of any broken bones, but found that there were none, even though her back screamed at her. She staggered toward where her attacker lay.
He had fared much worse than her. He had been only a few feet from the wall when he was blasted back and had hit it with such force that many of the bricks had cracked. He lay in a crumpled heap on the ground in a small pool of his own blood. As Raven approached, he slowly, painfully, pushed himself up to his elbows, but his legs were completely useless. He turned to look at the staggering girl.
Raven reached out her power and pulled out a support cable for the satellite dish, wrapping it tightly around his neck, but not quite enough to strangle him.
"Who are you?" Raven managed weakly.
He looked at her almost angrily, but it could be just from the pain, "Caspia." He forced through clenched teeth. They looked at each other, both were fading fast, "Either do it, or let me go." He said, his eyes almost hopeful, for either choice she made.
Raven felt the warm trickle from her back reach the back of her knees as the door to the stairs opened. All four of the other Titans stood in the doorway, all wide eyed. Raven looked at them, then back to the man named Caspia, who had passed out and was hanging by his neck from the cable Raven still held at his neck.
Raven released the cable, which fell, along with her attacker, to the ground, looked briefly to her friends. She noted that they were hard to focus on, then blacked out.
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This is the end of Part Two, I hope you enjoyed it. There will be more to this, though when exactly, I don't know, probably not for a week at the very least.