Red Shifting: Chapter 4
Darkness and Light
Eye witnesses would later claim that it was one strangest battles that they had ever seen.
When it started, Prism had laughed fired a single laser from her fingertips, which Raven deflected. But Raven did not retaliate, and Prism, a frown forming on her face, did not fire again. Instead she reached into her backpack, tugged out the white cloak she had worn during the battle in the chemical plant, and swirled it onto her shoulders, pulling the hood up.
And then they just stared, like opposite twins, light and darkness.
Raven counted the seconds until Prism raised her hands, balls of light forming on the tips of each finger, and hurled them at Raven. The Goth Titan floated back several feet, raising a number of inky black barriers to block the balls, each of which flashed on impact, blinding her. As her vision cleared she saw Prism, now at the far end of the parking lot, running out into the street.
Luckily there were not many people on the road, and as Raven leapt into the air and followed after her, she began ripping up chunks of the asphalt lot and hurling them after the retreating girl, who jumped and dodged with almost the same acrobatic talent Raven had witnessed in Robin.
Well, this won't be terribly easy. Good. Raven smiled and propelled herself higher into the air, feeling herself giving in to the remnants of those emotions. She splayed her fingers out at the road, tearing up strips of concrete curbing to whip at the retreating Prism. The glowing girl managed to dodge each one, but narrowly.
As Raven was swinging a pair of the curb-whips at her opponent the blonde girl leapt sideways into an alley, both whips crashing into the walls behind her a split second later. Raven settled to the ground slowly at the end of the alleyway…eyes flicking through the shadows.
The alley was dark…not as though that would have been something her opponent wanted, since her clothing and glow gave her away, but somehow she had found a place to hide. Interesting. She hovered a few inches off the ground and started in, hands at her sides, mentally tugging several loose bricks from the wall and letting them float above her head.
The alley was bare, except for an ancient looking dumpster and a storm cellar someone had left open. Both places would have made convenient hiding places for her opponent, and Raven decided to check the dumpster first.
An easy enough task when one simply hurls bricks into the opening and waits for a reaction. The building stone clanged around inside the dumpster as she banged them around inside, but after fifteen or so seconds and no reaction, it was obvious the container was unoccupied.
Raven called the bricks back to her and started towards the storm cellar, the half-open basement entrance the only other choice for her prey.
* * * * *
Prism frowned, glowing eyes staring up through the darkened entrance of the storm cellar into the alleyway. Raven was smart, there was no way that the girl wouldn't find her. So she had to figure out something else, some way to get past her.
Ducking into the alleyway had been a mistake, but she had panicked. She had not expected to have to fight anyone this morning, let alone someone she was fairly certain could beat her. Prism wasn't one of those people who doubted their own power, but she knew when her opponent had an unfair advantage, and Raven's ability to block lasers was troublesome. She'd have to catch her by surprise.
The blonde girl held out her hands, half a dozen glowing balls of light forming within the palms. She felt herself getting colder, without a source of light to replenish her energy she couldn't keep up a fight for very long. She definitely had to get out of the alleyway.
When the brick came flying into the cellar she ducked, watching it tumble off into the darkness before she blew across her palm, the light balls flashing up through the entrance and flaring, each one the equivalent of a hundred watt lightbulb flash. Prism herself came flying after them, fingers gripping the top of the cellar entrance and pulling herself up into a roll, hands out as she stood.
Raven was rubbing at her eyes, muttering, and Prism shoved her into the wall as she went running past, back out into the street, hands and arms out to absorb the light from the sun.
It wouldn't take long for Raven to come out.
* * * * *
Raven stared at her hands as her vision returned. Damn it, she should have seen that coming. Or something like it. And now Prism was back out in the light, so…hell. Raven closed her eyes and summoned a thin pane of her power across her eyes, tinting everything a shade of purple but hopefully it would prevent her from being blinded again.
Then she picked up the dumpster with her power and floated back out of the alleyway. Prism was standing there in the street, her cloak thrown back over her shoulders, arms out as she absorbed the morning light. Raven smirked and hurled the dumpster without a sound, sending the blonde girl diving out of the way at the last second.
Prism rolled into the curb with a grunt, pushing herself up onto her knees, hand gripping her shoulder tightly, eyes locked on the spot where she had been, then back at Raven. "That could've killed me!"
Raven shrugged, feet settling to the ground lightly. "I doubt it. Maimed, maybe, but not killed." Her cloak drapped around her, hands vanishing as she watched the other girl stand. "Besides, you'd kill me if you had the chance."
"Not what I'm paid for, but if that's what you want." Prism steadied herself against a lamp post, leaning against it to catch her breath…then lifted her good arm and fired a giant laser at the other girl. "I can oblige."
Raven barely had time to raise her shields, and the laser bounced off, slamming into a car next to her, which promptly exploded. The blast sent Raven hurdling across the street, grunting as she slammed into the side of a building and slid to her knees, seeing stars.
Once they cleared, her burning eyes focused on Prism, who pushed off the lamp-post, holding her arm against her stomach. Light eyes stared into dark, and neither girl moved.
* * * * *
Starfire was asleep.
Well, she was drugged. Robin had given her the strongest dosage he could, considering what little he knew of her anatomy, and she had finally fallen asleep, the lasers from her eyes shutting off moments before the morning sun would have hit her.
And now the Boy Wonder was pushing his injured teammate through the tower on a gurney, his gaze resting on her face. Even asleep and in obvious pain the girl was still managing to smile.
He rolled her into his lab, moving her into the spot he had cleared out earlier while he was looking for the gurney itself. He had brought every monitoring device he could think of into the lab as well, and set them up around where the gurney would be. He was glad Starfire would sleep through all of this, since he knew she'd be frightening if she were surrounded by machines.
He began hooking up the various monitoring cables to her, on the arms and legs, on her forehead, her stomach…
"Oh damn it." He stared at Starfire's chest, trying to figure out what to do, then looked away realizing he was staring. "She's asleep, she won't know. And neither of the girls are around to ask them. So…" He reached for her shirt, hand pausing inches above it. All he had to do was reach forward, pull the shirt up, and put the monitor patch down. Just move his hand forward the next inch. Just one little inch. One little inch.
"Damn it."
* * * * *
It was Raven who decided to try a new tactic, and had thrown a punch at Prism, sending the blonde girl stumbling back with blood on her lips.
"Oh come on, I can't even use my arm and you want to fistfight?" The glowing girl rubbed the blood away with her wrist. "Well, fine." She spun around, bringing a booted foot up which slammed into Raven's shoulder with a bone-shattering crunch. Raven felt the flare of pain and tried to force it down where she was repressing the rest of her emotions, but she was still seeing through a sheen of red when she threw another pair of punches at the blonde, who ducked away from them easily.
"You don't fight hand to hand much, do ya Raven?" Prism slammed a pair of kicks into the other girl, sending her dropping to the ground again, panting. "Jinx was right, though. You fight like a boy."
"I do not…" Raven shoved herself back to her feet and into the air, levitating up above Prism and then dropping down to kick at her face, "…fight like a BOY!" Prism managed to block the kick with her forearm, but still dropped back to the ground, rolling away and coming up holding her shoulder again.
"Yeah you do." With a grunt, Prism was back on her feet and leaping into the air, grabbing at Raven's boot and yanking her back down to the ground, slamming her onto her back. "You have all these dramatic pauses between attacks. It's like a boy playing a video game." She tried to slam her good hand down into the Goths face, but the girl managed to roll out of the way.
Raven smirked as she stood up again, hands out. "So do you. And I'm still winning, despite my 'boy' fighting."
"Not really," Prism slammed her boot into Raven's stomach as the Titan finished speaking, sending her several yards down the street with a grunt. "See? Talk to much."
Raven bit back tears as she felt the bone in her arm snap when she hit the ground, pain blinding her for the third time in ten minutes. She pushed herself up onto her knees, cradling the arm against her stomach, and settled her gaze on Prism, who was approaching her slowly, smirking. The blonde looked as hurt as Raven felt, but at least she was standing.
"Fine," Raven managed to cough out the words as she gathered her power around herself and floated into the air slowly, legs hanging limply underneath her. "No more talking." She saw her glowing adversary tense, but ignored her, closing her own eyes and bringing her legs up to cross beneath her. Much as it had hours earlier at Titan Tower the her power seeped out from her, coating slowly over everything it touched.
The black wave was halfway to Prism before she reacted, taking several steps backwards and firing a laser from her good hand but the beam simply vanished when it hit the approaching darkness. With a wave of her hand she sent a flurry of small glowing balls towards Raven, and when they smacked into the front of the darkness it seemed to slow and even recoil backwards.
Prism let out a relieved sigh and forced her injured arm out with her good one, eyes half-closing as a barrage of light balls flared out to crash into the dark wave, which began receding towards Raven. Inside the darkness, Raven's form sunk several feet towards the ground and she opened her eyes wide, bringing her good hand up suddenly and curling her fingers. The wave slowed its retreat and shuddered to a halt, standing firm against the barrage of energy.
For a moment, nothing seemed to change. The dark wave stood like a wall against the light, neither girl flinching, and then the darkness leapt over the light, mimicking a tidal wave.
Prism had just enough time to cry out before the darkness enveloped her, the sound cutting off as suddenly as the glow from her skin. The struggling slowed, then ceased, and the power was drawn off, leaving bare and empty street where Prism had been before.
Raven slowly sank to the ground as the last of her energy disappeared, her broken arm cradled against her stomach. She could feel half a dozen cuts along her back, her clothing was torn, her left leg was throbbing and her right eye was slowly swelling shut, but she was smiling. She let out a long-held breath as she stared at the spot where Prism had been, then turned and disappeared into the shadows of a building.
* * * * *
Robin had spent the last hour hauling various bits of machinery out of the basement of the tower, and was now seated next to what he hoped would function as a containment vessel for Prism, if Raven managed to catch her. He regretted not being able to go along, or send Terra and Beastboy, but he was going to need Cyborg to help with the machines. And he was fairly certain Raven could take care of herself.
He would have had everything done by now, but it had taken him half the time to get the monitoring patch on Starfire's chest. But he had gotten it on, finally, and hadn't even stared at much. He was rather proud of himself.
The containment tube was ten or so feet high, a large glass cylinder with a metal backing full of tubes and cords. He had added restraints, and was now lugging a large black curtain from Raven's bedroom to drape over it. He had a hunch that her power worked through light absorption…it certainly would have made sense…so depriving her of a light source might help keep her controlled.
He was tossing the curtain over the tube when Raven stepped out of the shadows of the wall, dragging an unconscious Prism behind by her ankle.
"…are you alright?" Raven looked like death warmed over, but Robin knew better then to really pry. The goth girl just stared at him.
"I need you to put my arm in a cast. Otherwise, I'm fine." She unceremoniously dropped the glowing girls' leg to the floor. "Is that my curtain?"
The injured girl pointed with her good arm at the curtain being draped over the tube, and Robin nodded. "Yeah, I'm using it to keep the light away from Prism. Thanks for catching her."
"Don't get it dirty," Raven muttered, took two steps towards the door and passed out.
Robin barely managed to catch her before her head hit the floor, lifting her up and setting her in a chair. Then he hauled the almost-as-broken Prism into the restraints of the containment tube. The two girls both looked like they had been through hell. Course, they probably had.
Robin shook his head and draped the curtain over the tube. He'd deal with the blonde's injuries once he had patched up Raven.
(I know this sucks, but this chapter did NOT want to come out. I almost scratched the fight, honestly. Anyway, I'm leading the busy life at the moment, so chapters will be slow. But they'll be coming!
Thanks for the reviews, but I don't have time to reply to them at the moment. I will next time!)