Chapter Seven: The Serpent Strikes
"I can't reach Robin," Beast Boy said from the console in the main room.
"You sure?" Blackfire asked from beside her.
"Look, I don't know much about all this stuff, okay! All I know is that I can't reach Robin or Cyborg or Starfire! I can't reach them!"
They turned back to Raven, sitting on the long seat. She looked a great deal calmer then the pitiful, terrified creature they had found in her room, but she still looked a bit haunted.
"Raven, are you sure that whatever it was you had seen was going to attack us?" Blackfire asked urgently.
"Yeah, like now?" Beast Boy added in the same urgent tone of voice.
"Yes, I'm sure." Raven whispered.
"Then it may have jammed our communications," Blackfire concluded.
"Yeah, but why us? Now? Here?" Beast Boy said frantically.
"It wants me." Raven said softly. At the confused looks on her friends' faces, she continued, seeming to grow smaller, "It said… it said it was sent by my father."
"Your father?" Blackfire asked.
"Her dad's some big time demon, definitely not a nice guy," Beast Boy summarized.
And I thought my father was bad, Blackfire thought.
It was at that moment a siren blared. "What's that?" Blackfire asked.
"The perimeter alarm," Raven said. Beast Boy pressed a few more keys on the console, and an image of the area outside the Titan Tower entrance appeared, showing-
"Hey, isn't that that Legion guy? Or, er, guys?" Beast Boy asked. On the screen, a group of Legion clones were running toward the Tower, except that this time they seemed to be wearing something over their grey trenchcoats.
"What are they wearing?" Blackfire asked, peering at the image.
"Looks like some kinda big jackets," Beast Boy said.
"Is there any way to enlarge-"
And then all sound was drowned out by the explosions.
(scene change)
"Success!" Legion said, outside the tower, as he watched another group of Legions, rush toward the Tower.
"Don't celebrate yet, Legion," Shift warned him. "We've still got a bird to catch, and we're out of explosives."
"Now who's the worrywart, eh?" Legion asked, smiling. He had never felt an adrenaline rush like this (and he'd had quite a few), and now Shift's coolness gave him a tone of annoyed jollity.
"Not me, that's for certain," Shift smiled. "Shall we charge now?" she asked in a refined tone.
"Oh, let's," Legion replied in the same smarmy manner.
(scene change)
"What was THAT?" Blackfire asked, steadying herself.
"Sounded like a bomb," Beast Boy said.
"That was obvious," Blackfire and Raven retorted at the same time, a second before a beeping from the computer caught their attention.
On the viewscreen, now displaying the image from the entrance hall camera, the three Titans saw a solitary Legion enter with something on his back, attached to a tubelike device. Suddenly, a massive gout of flame spat out from the tube, engulfing all that it touched.
"I never liked that color scheme," Blackfire said straight-faced.
"Dude! They're torching our base! We gotta stop them!" Beast Boy yelled, heading toward the stairs.
Blackfire turned to follow him, then turned back to where Raven was sitting on the couch. "Raven?"
Raven sat with her eyes closed a second longer. Then they opened, and she said, "Let's go."
Her eyes and voice were blazing with a newfound determination.
And somewhere, a note of fear.
(scene change)
The flamethrower issued yet another stream of fire into the smoking ruins of the Tower's entrance hall as Legion Prime and Shift entered, escorted by another group of clones. "Legion dear, must you have all the fun?"
"Oh deary deary me, where have my manners gone?" Legion said theatrically, raising his hand to his forehead. "Of course you may have a turn, Shift."
Shift's body erupted into flame itself, and she immediately turned her attention to the steel double doors at the end of the chamber, her body blazing brighter as her temperature increased. Slowly, a molten circle within the doors began to take shape.
"Sure you don't want any hel-"
This time, it was the villains' turn to be floored by an explosion as the two double doors blew outward, flinging the burning Shift into the flamethrower wielding Legion with predictable results.
"Yeah! How d'ya like them apples!" Beast Boy exulted into the gathering dust cloud.
"I do my best," Blackfire modestly said. "What do you think, Raven?"
"They're still here." Raven said, pointing into the dustcloud.
Her two friends looked into the cloud to where Raven pointed. Out of the smoking ruins of the flamethrower, stepped Shift. "Come now, fighting fire with fire? All you get," here her voice took on a much more sinister turn, "is a bigger fire."
Legion too had obviously survived the explosion, as he emerged less than two seconds later. "You know Shift," he said, taking his two machetes out from his trenchcoat, "we were told to capture only Raven alive, weren't we?"
"Yes, why?" Shift asked, her now diamond body gleaming.
"Good."
"Guys, this does not look good," Beast Boy moaned.
(scene change)
It was one of the biggest manhunts in the city's history, with the CIA and FBI branches lending some of their own manpower to the police force currently approaching the cave that the other three Titans were directed to. At the Police Commissioner's request, trained antiterrorist units had took point and were moving toward the cave.
"You sure we shouldn't try calling the Tower, Robin? I mean, these guys are sitting on a stockpile of really heavy weaponry-and when it comes to heavy weaponry, I know what I'm talking about," Cyborg said, the dark shroud of the forest doing nothing to calm him.
"I'm sure, Cy. The faster we find these guys, the less time they have to actually use those weapons."
"But Robin, won't you- I mean, won't we might be placing ourselves in unnecessary danger?" Starfire disagreed.
"That's a risk we have to take," Robin said, not appearing to hear Starfire's original words. Then he turned to her and smiled. "Don't worry, I'll be careful."
Starfire smiled back when one of the operatives stood up and gave the all clear.
"All clear? What?" Cyborg asked, bewildered. But upon further investigation, it appeared the operative had called right. The cave had recently been abandoned, and all three Titans formed the same terrible conclusion too late, as their gazes locked upon the distant Titan Tower on the other side of the city.
A moment later, the sound of an explosion echoed above the city's normal din.
(scene change)
Beast Boy charged at the incoming Legions in the corridor with all the force that his bull form could muster, knocking them into the wall of the T-junction in front off him. But his feeling of triumph was temporary as he found himself assailed from both sides by the Legions who were waiting in the other two corridors.
"Er, take a number?" he asked the Legions, sweat forming on his brow.
"Take a number? Take a number he says," one of the Legions said derisively. "This isn't a bloody kung fu movie, I'll have you know."
Beast Boy gulped, and a split second later, ten Legions found themselves in hot pursuit of a green cheetah. Beast Boy ran desperately, the pounding of the Legions' boots seemingly never far behind, not caring where he was going until he saw light at the end of a tunnel. Following it, he found himself in the Titans' main room, the only exit being the windows facing the ocean.
At first, Beast Boy contemplated shattering the windows and finding the other Titans, a thought that he immediately shut from his mind.
He couldn't leave Raven alone.
Suddenly, the other door leading into the room glowed with dark energy before falling as if pushed by a massive force, and Raven entered, a second before the ceiling collapsed.
Raven had been busy trying to hold off Legion Prime and the clones accompanying him. Occasionally, he would send off a clone or two elsewhere, but for the most part Raven was outnumbered five to one. She cursed not being able to fly upwards; the low ceilings in the Tower made it impossible, and hovering backwards did not work either- Legion had been able to keep up with her.
Turning a corner, Raven saw the double doors into the electronics room. Unlike the furniture she had earlier thrown at her pursuers, these sturdy doors, by dint of their sheer size would make far more effective weapons. Holding her arm out, she threw it forward as soon as the doors became enveloped in energy and threw them forward.
Legion Prime grinned as two clones ran toward each door headfirst, stopping them with a loud clang. As the clones folded to the ground from the fatal injuries they suffered, the doors dropped to the ground as well, their force absorbed by the disappearing clones.
"Tut, tut, my dear Raven, is that the best you can do?" Legion Prime taunted. Placing a hand on the other two clones, he told her, "One mind, a thousand bodies. Ein Volk, Ein Fuhrer, ja?"
Raven flew ahead of Legion, throwing whatever she could in Legion's way to stop his relentless pursuit, but whatever she did, Legion simply used his clones to bulldoze though, displaying the same murderous indifference to his clones as he did with his victims.
Suddenly Raven heard footsteps from behind her. " 'Ullo, miss," the clone behind her said, emerging from the shadows as she spun around to face him. Behind him, a door loomed. Raven recognized it as the one leading into the main room. She enveloped the doors in her dark force, and swiftly slammed them down on the clone. It would have been comical had she been in the mood. Running into the room she saw Beast Boy at the other end.
And then the ceiling collapsed.
Blackfire wasn't faring too well as she flew from Shift. The first time she tried to blast Shift, her opponent simply turned into a puff of smoke, then to Blackfire's dismay, took the form of the starbolt's energy.
"Well, isn't that lovely? This old bitch's learned some new tricks," the glowing Shift said, as her hands glowed with starbolt fire. Blackfire desperately launched another volley at Shift, but her foe simply reabsorbed the blasts and redirected them at Blackfire.
Now she found herself running from her own starbolts as Shift, reveling in her newfound powers, fired again and again.
"What's the matter, dear heart, having a little trouble taking your own medicine?" Shift laughed.
"No, it's your ego that's a bit hard to swallow," Blackfire replied, dodging another starbolt. Turning the corner, Blackfire found herself at a dead end. Shift raised her arms to fire, and Blackfire responded in the only way she could think of.
Twin bolts issued from her eyes, blasting a hole in the floor, and she dropped through right before Shift's own bolt hit, finding herself falling through the debris of the main room ceiling and landing between a very surprised Raven and Beast Boy.
Surprisingly enough, it was Beast Boy who recovered first. "Whose idea was it to split up again?"
Blackfire opened her mouth to retort, but at that moment, the Legion clones who pursuing Raven emerged from where she had entered. Raven seized the dining table in her magic and threw it at the Legions, not noticing the ceiling above her, weakened by the force of Shift's blast breaking off and falling down towards her.
"Raven!" Beast Boy shouted, rushing to her aid. I can't make it, it's too far, Raven please don't die, I-
Suddenly the falling stone's progress was stopped. "Go," Blackfire told Beast Boy and Raven, as she grunted under the slab's weight, finally throwing it aside after her two comrades had moved away.
"Ooh look, this a lovely image. All together now, how sweet," Legion Prime said, emerging from the darkness of the doorway, cloning himself as he went.
"It is a wonderful thing to see, isn't it?" Shift, now looking like a normal woman, asked from above him as she looked down.
The three Titans formed into a defensive formation as the Legions started to encircle them, Shift dropping down from the ceiling and landing as lithely as a cat to face them.
For some reason, each Titan found the thought that they were most likely going to die one that was strangely comforting, tinged with a single regret.
For Raven, she knew that she could not allow these two bounty hunters to win at any cost, and if that cost was her life, then so be it. She had seen her father, in memories passed down by her mother that were so clear they might as well have been her own. Death held no fear for her anymore.
She had but one regret: that she could not act upon what she saw in her mirror…
Blackfire was silently amused at her situation. It appeared that if the Divine had a sense of humor, it was a fiendish one. To survive one last stand only to die in the next; Blackfire could appreciate the joke. Of course they could somehow survive this, just like they survived the first time, but from Blackfire knew, the universe did not grant second chances.
And that alone she mourned.
When an animal is cornered, a response known as 'flight or fight' is triggered and Beast Boy knew this intimately. He knew somewhere inside him a voice was telling him to run, to fly from all this, that to fight would be useless. And it was true. Animals are the most logical beings on the planet. Except Beast Boy was anything but logical. Corny as it sounded, he followed his heart. And his heart was with Raven.
He just wished he could have made her laugh, just once.
Unknown to all of them, their eyes narrowed at the same time. Raven was the first to speak.
"Titans…go."
And then it was like a dam had been breached.
There are none who would fight as those who have nothing left to fight for. The Romans learnt this, and built arenas to celebrate it; the Nazis learnt this too late in their war against Russia, and were defeated by it; and now it seemed that Legion and Shift were due that same lesson.
The black smoke of dying clones flew as Beast Boy ripped through their ranks. No mere bull, no meek goat faced them this time; the clones were torn limb from limb by a creature only before seen alive on the silver screen: a Velociraptor, a snarling whirlwind of claws and fangs. Beast Boy had never intentionally taken a life before, but considering what his opponents were…
"Shift! Shift! A little help would be dearly appreciated!" Legion Prime said, far behind the battlefield. He turned to retreat, but Blackfire's fist coming the other way put a stop to that.
"Not used to someone who actually fights back?" Blackfire asked, rubbing her fist in anticipation.
"Can't say I am, really," Legion agreed, as two clones crept up from behind Blackfire, machetes drawn. They raised their blades to deliver killing blows that never came as they were slammed against a wall by a piece of fallen ceiling shrouded in Raven's magic. Blackfire didn't even turn around.
Having saved her friend, Raven turned her attention back to Shift, now taking on her radiation form. "Let's see you work your sorcery on this," she sneered.
Raven did not reply. Instead, she lifted an arm and let off a magical bolt of her own, with predictable results.
Predictable, that is, for Raven.
Seeing the magic home in on her, Shift tried the tactic she had used with Blackfire, and it worked, to an extent. When she had finished, Raven found herself facing a dark cloud of her own shadow magic.
"My turn, angel," Shift said, and plunged toward Raven. At least, she tried to.
All forms of energy have their own individual properties. Magic in particular, is bound to its owner, and at that moment, Raven owned Shift.
What could have happened next no one would ever know. A clone who had escaped Beast Boy's wrath launched himself at Raven, arms outstretched. A hastily lifted rock managed to stop him permanently, but broke Raven's concentration, and an enraged Shift dropped to the ground, her flesh now flame, and advanced.
"No!" Blackfire and Legion Prime shouted, Legion Prime's collar in Blackfire's fist. Throwing him into the wall, Blackfire launched a starbolt at the incandescent Shift, and for the first time, one of the Starbolts actually had an effect when it impacted a Shift who did not transform in time, throwing her backwards into the Legions surrounding Beast Boy. This time however, there were no replacements.
Seeing Shift pick herself up from the ground, Raven decided to act on a hunch. "Blackfire!" she shouted, her hand glowing with darkness, "when I give the signal, fire- Now!"
As the two different energy bolts hit her, Shift's finely honed combat reflexes betrayed her by trying to mimic two energy forms at once. The reaction was catastrophic; a spectacular explosion that blew out the windows, and threw the Titans backward. Knocked into blissful unconsciousness by the pain, Shift dropped to the ground.
Beast Boy scanned the room, searching for more enemies, but as the red haze began to clear, as the bloodlust began to diminish, Beast Boy asked disbelievingly, "Did…did we just win?"
"Looks like it," Raven said wearily. Now that the adrenaline she never knew she had was wearing off, Raven felt exceptionally tired, and sat down on a miraculously unbroken seat she had righted up.
There was a short silence, where only the whistling of the wind and the distant sound of sirens were heard. Then Blackfire started laughing. It started as a small chuckle, then quickly rose in both level and volume as Beast Boy joined in. Raven, being Raven, just smiled.
"Hey Beast Boy," Blackfire said, during a lull in the laughter, "I have to tell you, those were some nice moves you put on Legion, nice and ruthless!"
"You weren't' so bad yourself, Blackfire," Beast Boy replied. "All those explosions, you da bomb!"
That's one good thing to come out of this, Raven thought, seeing Beast Boy and Blackfire break into raucous laughter again, for some reason.
What happened next was a combination of that laughter blocking out almost all other sounds there.
The tiredness of the Titans.
As well as the injuries suffered by Legion Prime affecting his control.
When Beast Boy opened his eyes after his latest laughing fit, the first thing his eyes focused on was the figure of Legion Prime creeping up behind Raven, one hand clutching his stomach, the other raising a leg broken off from the dining table, it was too late. When he yelled "Raven look OUT!" at the exact moment the leg came swinging down, it was too late.
A sideways blow to the head may have knocked Raven unconscious under optimum circumstances. These were not optimum circumstances, and Raven may have ended up in a coma anyway; but as it were, the leg smashed straight into the middle of her face. "No…" he whispered, dropping the leg as he stumbled backwards, his face a mixture of rage and disappointment.
Blackfire didn't bother with repartee this time. Her eyes glowed with both rage and starbolt energy as Beast Boy rushed to the side of the stricken Raven, before he too, looked up to Legion with primeval fire in his eyes.
Then he took them completely by surprise, not once but twice. "Let me save you two the trouble," he snarled, and took out his machetes. Before either Best Boy or Blackfire could react, he plunged one blade downwards into the base of his throat and the other upwards through his stomach.
His body then disappeared in a cloud of rapidly dissipating black smoke.
(scene change)
The other Titans arrived in less than a minute after Legion's 'suicide' to find Beast Boy and Blackfire on their way to the hospital.
They had been too late.