Okay, I'm going to try my hand at Teen Titan's fiction now, but I fear that that my Warhammer 40k leanings are showing. This is Raven by way of the Apocalypse, so be warned. Disclaimer: Teen Titans is the property of someone connected with Cartoon Network and I have no intent of challenging that person! I don't seek to make a profit and hope that this doesn't get me sued... Please! Enjoy the show!

Let It End in Darkness...

A Teen Titans Story

By Wordbearer

Raven stood on Titan's island, gazing into the setting sun. The world was stained red with light, making the ocean seem like blood. She shivered with the aptness of the thought. Her blue uniform was torn and stained, ash clinging to her cape. With slow deliberateness, the half-daemon turned and faced Jump City. The city was burning, skeletons of skyscrapers silhouetted by the dying light of the sun. She could make out the outlines of fluttering shapes with bony wings that occasionally rose, clutching victims before dropping them to their doom. Only two days before everything had seemed so normal.

The Titans had taken a rare break: Robin headed to Gotham city to visit his old mentor, Batman, while Starfire took advantage of 'joyous interstellar warp travel conditions' to take a brief visit to her homeworld of Tammaran. That had left Raven, Beastboy and Cyborg to watch the city. Things had been quiet until two days ago. The boys had left her alone, entranced by the latest of their video game acquisitions. She was meditating in the comforting darkness of her room when she felt the first mental blow. It was nauseating, causing her to fall on her butt and making her vision ripple. The sensation was familiar from a thousand confrontations, but far more powerful. Her hand mirror, the accursed device that led to the tortured dominion of her mind, shattered and the psychic feedback gave her a headache. Before she could suffer from that however, another spasm shook her mind and body. A thin grey mist began to leak from her body and gather above her. The sensation burned every part of her and a familiar voice taunted Raven as the mist thickened and turned black.

"Hello child. I am glad to see you at last, unfettered by avatars and barriers on this most glorious of days," Trigon's mocking voice echoed through Raven's thoughts as she writhed in pain.

"How are you doing this?"

The question was an agonized whisper yet he heard her as he always did. "There shall come a day when all gates shall stand unguarded and the Dark Lord shall pass into the world if a spawn of his blood draws breath in the world. I was promised this by the mother of creation herself at the dawn of time."

Raven's only response was to close her eyes, Trigon's naked essence overwhelming her senses. "Your resistance amused me all these years, daughter. It was only a matter of time until I gained my freedom, and the appointed day happens to be now." The room was pitch-black by now and Raven slumped as the last stream of matter exited her form.

The door to Raven's room slammed open propelled out of its groove by the force of Cyborg's shoulder. The larger titan skidded to a halt as he saw the cloud of darkness and exclaimed, "Raven! What in the name of heck is going on?" Beastboy could be seen huddling in the outer hallway.

"Ah, your saviors. How amusing. I think I'll get some long desired vengeance." Only Raven could hear Trigon's voice as the dark cloud extended a pitch black tendril and engulfed Cyborg's form.

She whispered, her voice thick with horror, "No! Please. No." Frost appeared on Cyborg and the lighted panels studding his mechanical parts exploded in showers of sparks. Electricity jolted through his form, raising an unpleasant stink of burning plastic and charring flesh as he was ravaged by the shadow. His mouth was open to scream, agony clear on his features, but no sound could be heard.

The darkness withdrew as Raven's father spoke one last time, "I shall spare you and the green youth for another time. I have all eternity after all..." Deafening laughter filled her head as the mist melted into the ceiling, leaving it pitted and scarred.

The tableau held for one horrible moment: Beastboy stunned and silent looking into the room, Raven on the floor, shaky arms supporting her weight as she held her eyes tightly shut and Cyborg, burned and frozen by the touch of absolute evil, upright as a monument to violent death. Then Cyborg fell with a loud thud.

Beastboy rushed over to his friend crying, "Cy! Are you okay? Speak to me! Cy! Cyborg..." Beastboy broke down as the other remained silent, his ebony features slack in death. Raven slowly rose to her feet, a deadness on her face as she tried to hold it together. She simulated a control she didn't feel and surges of black energy arched from her body like miniature bolts of lightning. She was silent, gulping several times to regain her breath, sweat beading on her face and soaking her uniform.

Raven spoke to the sobbing Beastboy, "He's dead, Beastboy."

Turning on her fiercely, his grief turned to anger with the addition of a target, he replied, "You don't think I know that? You think I'm that stupid? Well, I'm not! Just be quiet, 'Miss I'm above it all'!" The comment hurt and Beastboy immediately apologized, but that did little to sooth her burgeoning sense of guilt and the growing conviction that things may just have started on their way to hell.

A clatter of rocks disturbed Raven's thoughts and she looked behind her as Beastboy made his way down the slope. He was tired and worn down by the events of the past few days but his irrepressible good nature allowed him to give the grey skinned mystic a slight smile, "Gathering your thoughts for tonight, Raven? Or just taking in the view?"

Grateful for the small gesture of normality but not showing it, "Just checking to see if the edict still holds the daemon hoards back. It does." She let a tear trickle down her check unseen as the dimming light brought the city's death knell into ghastly clarity.

A sudden surge of anger caused her to rattle the rocks all around her, "That monster! I repress him for years and it was all for nothing. He won't even fight me!" She felt that since Trigon had already escaped, there was little point to masking every emotion, but she calmed out of habit.

Shaken by the display, Beastboy commented, "Hey, it just means you're not on his 'to do' list. He's got a planet to kill after all."

Raven unleashed a tight glare at the changeling, who sheepishly backed off. In light of the recent events, that comment was really not funny. After they had grimly dragged Cyborg's body to his room, they had tried to raise the other Titans. Starfire was out of range and Robin reported that he was pinned down in Gotham as tides of daemons boiled out of the woodwork and assaulted the city. This was what Raven feared. To let something as powerful as her father, she spat at the title, out of the Abyss would bring a host of lesser beasts out with it. To make things worse, Trigon had vanished after leaving the Tower, content to let other spawn do his dirty work and remain undetectable. Trigon had forbidden his minions one thing though: they could not attack Raven, Beastboy, or Titan's island. This little unpleasantry had become clear on their first excursion when daemons had attacked Jump City.

Raven and Beastboy had flown out of the tower to the place where the daemons first assaulted, a quick look of relief passing between them at the thought of being able to fight back. Silently, still filled with sorrow and anger over their friend's death, they descended, intending to cut the daemons down like angry gods. Raven saw a multitude of horrors she had only heard described in the most obscure of Azarathian texts: tzentchen flamers, many faced and spiting eldritch fire, daemonettes, lithe and leathal with razor sharp talons, juggernauts, hulking infernal machines that hungered for blood, scampering tides of nurglings that spread disease in their wake with tiny poisoned teeth and others too foul for description.

Raven stopped as Beastboy continued to dive in hawk form, chanting her words of power, "Azarath Medrion Zenthos." Ebony power engulfed a destroyed car and the vehicle smashed against a juggernaut in a shower of smoking metal pieces. Beastboy didn't bother to slow down, shifting into gorilla form atop a swarm of nurglings as he landed with a splat.

A daemonette looked up at Raven and screeched, the shrill cry drawing other daemon's gazes before an airborne black blade of energy chopped it in half. The other daemons began to back away in fear from the two titans before fleeing. Beastboy tried to crush the nurglings who scurried away from his feet like obsese rodents. Raven was puzzled by this, yet continued to hurl debris like lethal rain at them as they departed. Another repetition of her magic words and a bus scythed through their ranks but not one nurgling remained to fight them, the mass of hellspawn seemingly intent on flight. Beastboy raged, before giving her a 'what the heck?' look and shapeshifting back to his normal form. Raven landed as well. She could see far down the street, packs of daemons pursuing hapless civilians, but it was if a magic perimeter was drawn around their position.

"Come on, Raven. We have to stop them," Beastboy implored. Raven nodded agreement, but the same effect occurred every time they tried to engage the beasts: wholesale flight from the pair of Titans. It was nightmarish. They saw Cinderblock fleeing down a street swarmed by nurglings with flamers blasting him from afar. Nothing seemed to stand against the tide of abysmal denizens. Raven and Beastboy were not allowed to intervene.

Beastboy announced at one point, "I know we're scary, but we're not THAT scary." Nothing but bodies and ruined buildings met their sight. Hours later, the pair returned home demoralized and confused.

"You ready to do this?" Beastboy asked her as the sun vanished into the ocean, bringing Raven out of her thoughts.

"For about ten years now. I need to speak privately with my father one last time."

She let a grim smile cross her face that left Beastboy slightly nervous as he asked, "What do you need me to do again?" "Keep them off me. Once he realizes what I'm doing he'll dispatch every single horror at his command to destroy me. You have to prevent him from doing that."

Beastboy gulped at the stone hard seriousness of the statement but gathered his resolve, "So here, or on the roof of Titans Tower? I prefer the roof."

The blue clad mystic replied in a low monotone, "I agree with you. We can see them coming that way."

Raven led the way into Titans Tower, studiously ignoring the moans of wounded civilians who lay all over the floor or huddled against the wall. There was one upside to Trigon's edict: rescue duty. They had made several runs over to Jump City, searching out hidden sanctuaries, and ferried frightened citizens back to the island. But it was never enough. Whenever the Titans withdrew, the daemons came back and continued their rampage. A more permanent solution needed to be found. So Raven had withdrawn to the soothing darkness of her room which the refugees avoided like fearful parishioners skirting around the inner sanctum of a temple. There she read and meditated, seeking an answer to the holocaust she had unwittingly unleashed. She had found an answer at last and meant to put into action tonight.

"You inform the refugees where they're supposed to go. I'll go and set up what we need," Raven's tone was cold and commanding, but the green youth was in no mood to oppose her will.

As she phased her way through the ceiling, Beastboy activated the intercom and spoke, his voice echoing throughout Titans Tower, "This is your captain Beastboy speaking. Heh, heh, heh..."

Kicking himself for not being able to focus, he continued in a more serious tone, "Everyone is to go into the basement shelters immediately. The healthy will transport the wounded and the doors will be sealed in 45 minutes. You will be informed when to leave the shelters, but remain calm." He left the room, forging a path to the roof as streams of people made their way downward.

Raven was waiting for him. Her eyes closed as she took in some last minute meditation, her mantra quietly whispered under her breath. Beastboy remained silent and closed the door. Raven nodded appreciatively in his direction, the gesture almost hidden in the darkness of the cloudy night.

This tableau remained until the timer on his belt beeped and Beastboy spoke, "Rise and shine, Raven. The civilians should all be in the shelter by now and its getting kind of cold out here."

Raven rolled her eyes in contempt as the changeling shivered for effect, but got up. "Clear enough, you know what to do when they come, but until then... Just be quiet." Raven walked over to a cloth covered object and pulled back the blue material. Revealed was a black orb the size of her fist that seemed to pulsate malignantly. Beastboy took an involuntary step backwards.

Ignoring the changeling's reaction, Raven engulfed her arms in ebony power and clutched the object in both hands. She tensed involuntarily in pain, but didn't falter, a torrent of whispered words flowing out of her mouth and into the empty air. The black power flared, drowning out all vision, and flared again. The orb ignited, glowing with a sullen scarlet aura that made Raven appear to be washed with blood, overpowering the faint illumination of her eyes. Something changed in the ether, a subtle warping that raised cries of alarm from the world. Clouds spiraled above Titans Tower and a sense of great evil gathered in the air. Beastboy could pick up faint daemonic cries and hellish winged shapes that hurried toward the island. He turned away from the spectacle that was Raven and got ready to face their attackers.

Raven could hear her father's voice roaring in her head as she continued, but ignored it, "What do you do, spawnling?!? What madness is this defiance?" Raven felt the air grow thick around her as Trigon was drawn to the orb, his hidden essence drawn by the arcane device.

"You cannot win against me!" A shockwave crashed onto the tower but Raven stilled it with a slight diversion of her power. She didn't open her eyes, but she could feel Beastboy holding back the incoming flock of daemons and chanted all the more insistently.

"I will destroy you, and torture your soul for all eternity. Know my wrath!" Trigon's mental shout was almost incoherent with anger as he was drawn closer and tighter. A beam of hellish might issued forth from the black cloud that was the daemon lord but Raven blocked it again, the crimson energy deflected from her black shield. The floor beneath her crumpled from the pressure as Raven channeled more power into the orb, leaving her levitating above a yawning abyss as one branch of the tower sheered away. Trigon fought with all his cosmic might to escape the pull of the bauble clutched in his daughter's hand.

The might of Trigon was great. He was as old as time and only Lucifer the Morningstar had beaten the fell spirit in combat, but Raven was his child and was fueled by her convictions and the curiously inexhaustible power of the human soul. Not for nothing did she fear her own power. Her hands burned as runes began to blaze white on the sphere's surface and Trigon was drawn into the device. The backlash of eldritch power shook half-daemon mystic and sent the daemons clustered around Beastboy reeling to the ground. Raven almost fell, but she remained floating and carefully lowered herself to the raining section of the roof. She was half dead with fatigue, but the task was not yet done.

"Father," she directed her voice telepathically into the orb knowing that she could be heard over Trigon's endless scream, "This device is forged of Azarathian glass and will hold you forever if I will it." She knew that the accursed mirror would be good for something.

The reply was faint as if the daemon lord was miles away, "I will be freed."

Raven allowed herself a cold smile and said, "No father. You shall not. This orb is marked with runes of protection against daemons. I can barely hold it. What will a full daemon do? And Azarathian glass is all but unbreakable."

She could feel Trigon trying to find a loophole, any loophole, that could free him from this cold prison, then, "What do you want in exchange for my liberation?"

"Nothing. Everything. My friend back, my mother back, those monks that you made me kill when I was six. I want you to have never poisoned my life!" Raven shook with anger, the surge of power shaking the damaged tower.

Raven forced herself to get calm and made her demands, "You will pull the daemon swarms on this earth back into the abyss. You will return to the abyss from whence you came. And you will give me your True Name."

Trigon roared inside her head, fury and pride warring with a terror so overwhelming that it broke his morale. "...and then you will free me?" Freedom was the only thing a daemon would not surrender, could not live without. To be bound was worse than death and this fear made Trigon agree to the demands though they would hobble him for as long as Raven lived.

"Yes," Raven succinctly answered, "I will release you from this sphere."

Trigon's voice sounded querulous and weak as he spoke, "Agreeed..."

"Your True Name first," His daughter demanded. The reply was a long sibilant stream of syllables that could never issue forth from a human mouth without causing the speaker's tongue to blister and blacken. Raven hoped that she would never have cause to say it aloud as she filed it away in her mind.

"Now, the recall of your hosts," Raven was stern and looked at the unconscious daemons around Beastboy's feet as they vanished in response to Trigon's silent command. The wave of power spread outward and she knew that by the following dawn the infestation of the planet would be over. Trigon would not pull so petty a trick as a partial withdrawal when he was so vulnerable.

"My freedom?" Trigon asked as Raven stared into the night. It would be easy to leave him trapped and bury the orb in a faraway place...

But she was not her father and her father was the one who broke promises.

"Very well. Azarath." The glowing runes began to fade.

"Medrion." The ruddy orb dimmed.

"Zenthos." A black mist channeled out of the orb and into Raven who dropped to her knees in reaction to the numbing cold. She demanded, "What trickery is this?" Trigon sounded smug as he passed into the Abyss via her form, "You are the portal. There is but one way I can enter or leave this world. Consider it a passing gift from me."

His voice faded as the barriers formed behind him, trapping the daemon lord once more, "You are indeed a worthy child of my blood. I fear for your world if you ever heed the call of your..." Raven blinked as the hated voice fell silent and slumped over. Beastboy hastened to her side and took her downstairs to the infirmary.

Raven would sleep for the next three days, her mind and body utterly drained by the ordeal. She opened her eyes and saw the blinding white wall of Titans Tower infirmary.

"Ugh. Just what I needed to wake up to."

A reply stunned her and she turned her head, "Glad to see that you are your usual self, Raven." Robin was the one who spoke, the masked youth seemingly none the worse for wear.

"Thanks," she sarcastically replied, then fell silent as she thought of what had happened the last several days.

Guessing the source of her sudden introspection Robin said, "Beastboy told me what happened to Cyborg. I'm definitely going to miss him, but he would have been proud of how you saved the world." Robin rubbed his eyes to hide his sorrow, but Raven's empathy made the gesture cut into her like a knife.

She thought to herself, "None of this would have happened if it wasn't for me. All those people dead and all the damage done. My fault, all my fault for not knowing when I'm being toyed with."

Robin again interpreted her minute facial expression and spoke with that eerie directness, "You may have been Trigon's portal here, but it was he was the one who did all this damage. You stopped him."

He paused and let a wry grin slip across his face, "Though you were the one to turn Titan's Tower into an upside down 'L'."

For once Raven wore a surprised expression on her face and asked in a sharp tone, "How do you know about Trigon?" She pointed almost accusingly at him and noticed for the first time that her hands were throbbing in pain and covered in bandages.

Robin spoke again, "Don't you know? Titan's Tower has been turned into the local super hero convention site for the west coast. Some big shot by the name of Martian Manhunter filled everyone in on the details of what happened. They're going to want to talk to you."

Groaning aloud, Raven asked, "I'm going to have to go out there, aren't I?"

"Afraid so. I'll give you a few minutes to pull yourself together. Don't take too long or Beastboy is going to come in here to get you. You've been all he's talked about since I got back here." Her face twisted into a grimace at the thought, and Robin turned to go.

Before he left, the half-daemon mystic asked, "Robin? Could you turn the light out when you go? I'd like to be in the dark for a while."

"No problem." Robin closed the door and the room was engulfed in gloom. Raven was half invisible as she rose and slipped her cloak over her thin shoulders and went out to face the world: a world that had been enshrouded by her father's darkness, but had been saved by her shadowy power. Perhaps that was light enough.

So you made it down here. What did you think? Good? Bad? Don't care? If you see fit, leave a review, and tell me what you think. Thank you for your time.