System Error.
System Error.
Cyborg lay on the ground, covered in dirt, blood and oil, damaged and broken beyond belief, his visible flesh bruised and battered. His one eye was closed, his other was a dull, inert red.
Primary Power Cell Damaged.
Primary Power Cell Damaged.
On the inside of his eyelid, however, a soft light had begun to flash a message into his half-unconscious brain, continuing to feed information into the mind of Cyborg. His body twitched, his right arm shifting slightly.
Primary Power Cell Damaged.
Activating Backup Power Cell.
Power Level Rising. 25... 50... 75
Cyborg grunted as his eye fluttered open and he gave a grunt of pain. His internal structure had shut off the flow of blood, sealing off his wounds with mechanical plates as he used his undamaged right arm to push himself upright. His memory was somewhat hazy but...
Raven. The stone. The Ravager.
"Sonova..." he grunted in pain. "... ruined... my... paintjob..."
A quick scan of the area with his mechanical eye showed the residual footprints of the giant bug, showing him heading back down the tunnel he'd dug right up underneath them and back down below the surface. Pushing himself onto his one leg and using the wall to support himself, Cyborg headed down the tunnel, the way the Ravager had come from, down the floor and deeper under the Earth. That's where he'd be, where the stone would be, and where Raven would be. And he'd get 'em back or die trying.
The real question was... would he make it there in time?
Deep below the surface of Jump City there were a large number of natural rock formations. However, the majority of them were unstable and had been sealed off to the public, the Jump City officials forbidding people to go down at their own risk of being crushed or hopelessly lost and trapped below the surface of the Earth. A number of criminals and low-level super-villains had tried to set up fortresses but they hadn't been very successful either.
This was the location of the Ravager and his Zornian forces. Their hive, so to speak.
A large chamber, easily the size of a football chamber, far beneath the surface of the Earth. It had originally been smooth, somewhat stable stone walls. The Zornians had enhanced and strengthened them, covering them with a thick, sickly bio-machinery that clung to the walls and made them seem like the belly of some great beast. Traced into the ground was a pentagram, a symbol of magical power. Right in its center lay Raven, her head and four limbs spread out and lashed to the ground so they pointed to the five points of the star within the circle. She was only just regaining consciousness.
She groaned, opening his eyes, and immediately tried to sit bolt upright as she realized where she was. In vain. The Zornians had tied her down very thoroughly. And worse, gagged her so that she couldn't summon any of her more powerful magic. She couldn't recite the words to fuel her spells.
"Come now, little spawn... what troubles you so? Oh right... you aren't able to speak those cursed magical words, are you?" asked the Ravager as it slipped into view, the great scorpion-spider stepping across the open floor to just in front of Raven, peering down at her with its four reddish eyes.
If looks could kill, Raven's glare up at the Ravager would've obliterated him from this plane of existence and likely the next as well. She was beyond scared now. Right now she was angry.
Why haven't they just killed me? she asked herself. Why do we all still exist? Father would've flattened this measly planet by now.
"I imagine you're wonder why we haven't simply slain you, shattered the stone, and taken our time gathering what is rightful ours," said the Ravager, speaking in almost sinister tones that belied the horrible beast attached to the voice. It could've been a cultured (albeit evil) Englishman talking to her. "Come now little spawn, where's your sense of drama?"
Liar, she thought darkly, her eyes narrowing. She didn't believe him for one moment. Something had gone wrong. For them, at least.
The Ravager, sensing her disbelief, dropped the act, snapping its mandibles open and shut angrily. "This particular stone is more heavily guarded than the others. It seems the High Priestess has made it so that only the blood of an innocent upon the stone can weaken it to the point it can be broken. We know. None of us are able to destroy it."
Raven said nothing, but inwardly she could not have been more hopeful. If none with tainted blood could destroy the stone, then Trigon's list of potentials had shortened to perhaps one or two people, if that many, in the entire multiverse. She could not have been more relieved. Nor would she be of much use to the Zornians now. Her father's blood made her as far from innocent as possible.
However, if that was the case... why was the Ravager so non-challant?
"So we've had to resort to other measures," continued the Ravager. It shifted its body, revealing to Raven what lay behind it, stretching out one claw for emphasis. "The girl."
Starfire.
The Tamaranian girl looked downright terrible, her red hair was frizzy, her clothes were torn, her healthy orange skin was a duller shade and covered with angry black and purple bruises. And worse, her eyelids and face were dropped in an expression of despair. She seemed... broken. Spiritually. She hadn't even struggled against her bonds that left her suspended against the far wall, right in front of a pedestal. And on the pedestal rested the stone.
The blood of an innocent.
"Oh, you see our brilliant plan now perhaps, little spawn?" asked the Ravager, grinning as best he could with his ugly, insectoid face. "Well good. Although there is a key detail perhaps you've missed, so let me enlighten you..." it said, stretching out its claws and raising them up into the air. A malevolent wind picked up in the underground chamber. All around the chittering, wicked chanting of the Zornians could be heard as they praised their god, the demon that would destroy this world and, indeed, all worlds.
"You shall be the one to shed her blood," he hissed down at her. The pentagram began to glow along the ground, a reddish hue filling the air, and Raven gasped in horror as she realized their intent.
"Prepare, little spawn, to fulfill your destiny," hissed the Ravager, slicing off Raven's gag with his claw. At her shocked look, he shrugged. "I want to hear your screams," he explained.
Starfire watched, transfixed with horror and curiosity (albeit morbid curiosity) as the Ravager began his ritual to, as he put it, awaken Raven's evil. Surely these ugly mean bugs are mistaken, thought Starfire. Raven is not a bad person. She tries to stop bad people. But evidently Starfire didn't know her new friends as well as she thought.
Raven screamed aloud as bolts of red lightning pierced the air and struck her body in a most painful manner, slicing clean through it. However, none left so much as a scratch upon her skin. They did not strike her body... they struck her soul. Her screams split the air. And, as Starfire watched, the bolts did something else to friend Raven. They... they began to... -change- her...
Raven's violet locks were flung free of her hair, standing upright in the virtual lightning storm the Ravager had conjured up. Her anger had redoubled into raw fury, painted across every part of her features as she arched her back, straining against her bonds. Her teeth grit hard against one another, sharp fangs filling in where her normally blunt teeth had once been. The wind surged in the underground chamber, making her violet bangs flow in front of her face briefly. When they fled, two soft, expressive eyes of lavender were not present. Instead, they'd been replaced by four slit-like glowing red eyes, just like the Ravager's. She looked nothing remotely human anymore, she looked as much a demon as the Ravager.
"Azerath, Metrion, Zinthos," intoned Raven, and even her voice had changed. Deeper, angrier, more powerful. The bonds holding down her feet had snapped like they had been nothing. Floating up in mid-air, dark Raven drew on her hood, drawing it up over her head, her eyes glowing evilly as she approached Starfire, filling her hands with black energy to slice the Tamaranian Princess in half and spill her blood all over the stone, thus bringing about the end of the world.
"Friend Raven, please do not do this!" shouted Starfire, struggling against her bonds. It was no use. She'd lost her boundless confidence in her fear and despair. Fear for her friend Raven, despair for her friend Robin. She wasn't able to break the bonds, which were surprisingly tough.
But, to her surprise, her words had slowed Raven's approach. Her expression turned from anger to one of confusion. She was hesitating.
"Do it!" roared the Ravager, shaking the chamber with his roar, his legs sliding into place as he took a step forward. "Spill her blood and bring about the end we have been promised!"
"Raven no! Do not do this! Please!"
Raven was indeed hesitating, the black aura leaving her fingertips, her eyes flashing. Four, then two. Crimson, then lavender. Daughter of a demon, then a teenaged girl. She cried out from the pain of it all, clutching her head, fighting against both sets of voices, trying to decide where he fate lay.
Suddenly, in that instant, she heard something. She heard it crystal clear, right in her ear. A third voice. And it's words decided, right than and there, everything for her. Without turning, she straightened herself up, her cloak flowing down around her shoulders, her expression unseen in the shadows of her hood. Both Starfire and the Ravager anxiously awaited to see what she had decided.
"You know, Ravager," she said, her voice light again. "You're right about one thing. It -is- time for me to fulfill my destiny."
And with that, she made a sudden jerking motion with her hand, engulfing the stone (which she now knew to be indestructible) in a black aura and lifting it into the air, hurling it in another fluid motion at the Ravager, who caught it full in the face and staggered backwards. Raven turned to face him, her expression angry, but normal. Her own two eyes blazed with righteous fury. She was Raven again. Herself. Her own woman.
"Thank you," she whispered to her shoulder. "Now go free Starfire!"
A green fly, previously unnoticed (and why would it have been, it was barely visible to the naked eye), zipped out of Raven's hood and made a beeline for Starfire, transforming into a rampaging green-and-black-striped tiger as it neared her and slicing away at her bonds with its razor sharp claws. Starfire fell free as the green tiger shifted back into a recognizable form. That of Beastboy. He gingerly picked up Starfire.
"Friend Beastboy!" she cried out in relief.
"Let's get out of her!" he replied, picking up Starfire as Raven continued to do battle with the Ravager. True, it was powerful, it was a demon of fair ranking from their enemies world. But Raven possessed a power far greater than his, as well as an evil far darker. Her powers had been awakened by his ceremony, and now the Ravager was evenly matched against a teenaged sorceress who hurled rocks at his thick hide, forcing him back.
"Destroy her!" it roared. "Destroy them all! We'll find someone else to destroy the stone!"
The Zornians rushed in, swinging claws, mandibles, blasters, anything they had or could get their hands on. They surged in to surround the heroes, cutting off all escape, overwhelming them like a dark ocean tide.
"Uh, if either of you have a plan now would be a good time!" said Beastboy, glancing left and right fearfully as the Zornians started to close in on him and Starfire, as well as on the Ravager and Raven. The violet-haired sorceress would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers alone. So would Starfire and Beastboy.
"I got a plan!" shouted a new voice, as six spinning disks were flung through the air, striking the ground in a circle around Beastboy and Starfire and exploding. The blast and the smoke rose up and knocked back the Zornians, forcing them to search for their new opponent. Pausing in their struggle, the Ravager and Raven also turned to see who had entered the fray.
Their answer came swinging on a grapple-line and landing beside Beastboy and Starfire, extended a brand new retractable bo-staff to its full length and whirling it before him in a figure eight before snapping it behind his back and holding his other hand before him.
The new foe... was Robin.
Robin smirked, beckoning them on with his free hand.
"The plan is to kick... their... butts."
Author's Notes:
Good thing Beastboy knows how to play possum, eh? Or transform into one for that matter. Hehe. Okay lame jokes aside, I can bet you all saw a miraculous return for all the Titans. Like his death scene, Cyborg's "return from death" scene was largely modeled after the second Terminator movie. Raven's transformation into an evil creature is a reference to both the animated episode 'Nevermore' and her time in the comics as an avatar for Trigon's evil. Next chapter: the final battle. Next time: the final battle, and time for the Titans to really show the world, and their enemies, what they're made of.
Elrohirthewriter: It's a gift I suppose. And yeah, definently not enough Cyborg/Raven's out there. I see tons of just about every other couple, however, real or imagined. Glad you also enjoyed the characterization of Starfire, I seem to have trouble with her for some reason.
Katergator: I try to keep things as realistic as possible, one reason I've avoided Teen Titans before now because its too kids show. Also too humorous, which isn't my forte either. Glad I am that people are appreciating my descriptions. And yeah, a key element of my fast updates is to write several chapters in advance, that way even delays like real life can't slow me down.
Titansfan545: Oh most assuredly, I shall.
Koriand'r Star: Starfire does have two sides that some people neglect in their stories, often portraying her as just a brain-dead ditz. And yeah, I like Cyborg, because of his nature he's very easy to write. And yeah, the Ravager is their big time boss enemy, but don't worry. If you've read any of my previous stories you'll know I'm a sucker for happy endings with everyone getting exactly what they deserve.
WildspiritofDarkness2: Oh but I didn't kill them. A key rule of the DC Universe (and most comic/cartoon universes) is to never assume they're dead until you see the body. And even then, best decapitate it and burn it just to be safe. As you can clearly see, Beastboy was playing possum, Robin had escaped from drowning (as if such a meager fate could destroy the Boy Wonder). And Cyborg, well, pulled a Terminator on everyone.
ShadowSage2: Actually there were three Robins. And concerning Two-Face, you're thinking of the events that led the first Robin to leave Batman and strike out on his own (which I avoided in this new animated version of Robin). Dick Grayson, the one who started out in the Teen Titans. The other two are Jason Todd and Tim Drake. Glad you're enjoying the story, thanks for such a wonderfully long, delicious review.
Dragonblond: It happens, sometimes you miss these things. That's why I like to re-read stories, I always spot something new. A decent threat? Could always stick me in a room with Kitten and Gigrrisklechhh . That'd be so horrible that I'd gouge my eyes -and- ears out with a rusty spork. There, all alive and… well… intact at least. Happy?
ViciousAssassin: Of course we know what's going to happen, just like we knew somewhat what would happen with Terra. But hopefully, like the show, I can toss in some twists and turns to keep you guessing. .
Red Mage Neko: I would normally consider a sequel but I have the utmost fear of interfering with continuity. Fret not, I shall be writing more Titan stories as time goes on, I guarantee that. Glad I am to hear that I've managed to convert you over to the Titan side of the Force. Hehehe.
Ash's Scizor: Better send me the link in an e-mail, it doesn't show up in reviews. I found that out as well. Some fanfiction security feature, I think. Thirsting for more, eh? Well prepare thyself for a flood.
Todd fan: Always a good sign that I'm writing something good. Or twisted and humorous, but in this case that's a good thing.
Green-Husky: Bring it on, green-boy! I have the speed of the Flash on my side. Just look at how fast I update this damn story! Inspired huh? Kewl. Just learn to beware me, for I shall slay any who dare to stand in my way. Don't believe me? I perm-killed Xavier in my XME stories. I'll do it again!
Aninnymous: Check a chapter back, she touched Robin's hand and absorbed the English language, as only a Tamaranian can do.
Tigress419: Well thank you. I do enjoy writing action stuff its just so much gosh darn fun. And easier to write than introspective without loosing the thread of conversation.