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Disclaimer:I own nothing. Nothing, you hear? NOTHING! DC Comics own the Titans, and Dean Koontz owns the below qoute. I also heavily borrow from White Wolf's cosmology. Just warning ya.
Stranger fiends hide here in human guise
then reside in the valleys of Hell.
But goodness, kindness, and love arise
in the heart of the poor beast as well.
-The Bad Place, Dean Koontz
The superhero team known as the Teen Titans had recently come back from a tiresome day that involved battling giant mechas that had been commandeered by libarians who had been driven insane by the stress of converting from the Dewey Decimal system to a computerized inventory. And that was after the militant rednecks. This is definitely our story.
Roughly six hundred years ago, on a continent famed for it's lack of sun, a king stood dumbfounded as a lunatic black knight threatened to kill him, despite a lack of arms and legs. While part of an entertaining movie, this is hopefullynot part of our story.
In another dimension, a man and a hichhiker's guide editor that happened to be an alien were rescued from the earth; shortly before it was demolished to clear way for an hyperspacial bypass, despite the fact that recent technology had rendered such things useless. While still not part of our story, it is interesting to note that the man's house had earlier been demolished to make way for a bypass.
In a sprite comic universe, a sadistic mage; a moronic warrior; an obsessive roleplayer; and a con-artistic thief were on a weird adventure loosely based on the events of Final Fantasy 1. What with a secretuve martial artist and magickal healer duo, insanely bored wizards of inconceivable powers and deceptively evil princesses, this is most definitely not our story, as I am not Brian Clevenger.
In another universe, a short alien and his terminally insane moronic robot strove to conquer the earth for a pair of snack-obsessed taller aliens while a demented paranoid child sought to outwit them with idiot plots that a mute moron could see through. Thanks be to the powers above that this is not our story, or I would have the wrath of a thosand rabid fans on me. That hurts, ya know.
Yes, the inhabitants of the giant 'T' were having a rough day and barely eight hours after they had wearily plopped down after the fangirl swarm, they woke up.
Yawing laboriously, Beast Boy scratched his head while making low noises of the bodily varient.
He then, with a sudden fear of horrible pokey death, wondered why he had awakened in Raven's room.
Staring at the fearsome murals, he quivered in fear, at least until the paranoia got to him and he fled from the room, screaming like an idiot.
Behind, Raven watched smugly, musing on the fact that she, too, could pull a trick. He would be twitchy for days.
Beast Boy's bad day was fortunately brief, but he was unaware that the Titans would share it in an excruciatingly manner.
The others' bad day developed in an annoying way; what with Cyborg...well...
He rapidly awoke from sleep, when he realised a significant lack of space. Besides the fact that it was an impenetrable dark, it happened to be an immense space that seemed to be infinite, although it gave off the impression of infinity far better then the real thing did.
You see infinity when you look into starless sky, so infinity is distance which is incomprehensible and therefore meaningless. In terms of raw size, gigantic plus immense multipled by colossal to the power of staggeringly huge is the kind of scale I'm trying to get across to convey the humongousity of space.
Okay. It's big. You got it.
Not to meander, but Cyborg was a little unnerved by the darkness, so he slapped himself. "OW! Okay, so it's not a dream." Looking around, and switching on his lights, he noticed something even weirder:
He got the feeling there was a Presence among the shadow. He was suddenly aware of a voice. A incredibly deep voice, but strangely deviod of timbre, full of soprano tones. It was, nonetheless, beautific. But there was something stubbornly familiar about that voice.
"LET THERE BE LIGHT."
And in an instant, the entire place suddenly burst. The shadows dispersed by the light, while the hidden landscape warped into a grassy plain. It was definitely weird, seeing the universe suddenly come into being.
And he saw Him. An immensely tall being, though looking nothing like the old man shown in painting. Yes, resplendent beyond words, yes, emitting a virtual aura of power, but there was something horribly wrong about Him.
This became apparent as he bent over and proclaimed, "HEY DUDE!"
Yes, apparently Beast Boy was God.
Cyborg had abruptly shot up out of his Frankensteinian table, screaming loud enough to wake himself up.
It was just a dream. Or...was it?
Yes, it was.
Robin got up, unaware that he had stepped on a rubber duck. As anyone who has suffered this experience will tell you, this always leads to disastrous occurences.
His particular accident included such delights as sliding into a pile of birdarangs, falling into a pile of small scale explosives, blinded by a spare cape, trying, but failing to grab the handle of his crime files, slipping past a rotating door, the painful feeling of being a human pinball on the inexplicable reflector walls and an excruciating encounter with a lost crocodile. The crocodile proceeded to slap him out of a window, whereupon, in a shower of splinters, he fell into a tree. Then the tree fell on him.
Meanwhile, Starfire, who had been having a fairly pleasant morn-ing, was waking herself by splashing water into her face. Unfortunately, this inexplicbly angered the Irony God of Irrational Occurances, who had recently been on the pointy end of a celestial repremand, and he vented his displeasure by sending a swarm of horrors beyond mortal ken on the impudent...whatever it was.
However, for whatever reason, it elected to be merciful, changed it's mind, and plagued her with things far worse than it's attorney.
Seeing something strange in the water, she bent over to more properly view it, when a pair of great big green claws grabbed her and dunked her underwater and through the plumbing.
It immediately rose out of the water of the bay and began shaking her, when the bogman abruptly released her.
Considering that a bunch of alligators proceeded to chase her, it depends on your point of view as to whether or not this was a good thing.
Terrified of a horrible snapping death, Starfire was too busy flying to see the ship; she, therefore, flew directly into a cannon, whereupon she was launched into a mainland mountain, where she fell into a patch of prickly bushes.
Hey, no one said the life of a superhero is a pleasant thing.
Wearily climbing out of the plant, she was too busy feeling for more pain to notice the small blue alien that stole her left shoe, which left her foot vunerable to a psychotic family of hedgehogs that quickly assailed it with spines.
Literally hopping mad, Starfire suffered the further humiliations of having a firevent open up directly beneath her, a short-fused lit bomb tossed into her hands, a fire hose spray her, and stand directly in the path of a herd of rampaging animals such as elephants, zebras, ostriches, New York tourists, and rhinoceri.
And then a bolt of lightning hit her.
The Irony God finally relented, but not before he dropped a celestial payload on her in the form of an anvil; dump truck; Mack Truck; A Cruise Ship, Boeing Airplane and three satellites;one of which was a spy for Major League Baseball. For added flavor, the whole thing exploded.
As the MLB satellite said, don't that beat all.
Due to not having a computer to check; keeping her room fastidiously clean; and not annoying temperamental water spirits of spite, Raven was having a rather different experience from the others. She was not suffering any horrible agony, physical or otherwise.
She was about to have a difficulty of a rather more unusual nature.
She was meditating on a rock in the depressive mindscape she found oddly soothing rather calmly, when she became aware of something.
The sickeningly cute ravens that Beast Boy and Cyborg encountered when they entered her mind were watching her. That was unusual, as they usually ignored her.
She reminded herself to be watchful; they were one of several versions of her father's intrusions into her mind, after all. Right now, they were staring at her, with an awful hunger evident in their red eyes.
Suddenly, they changed into their slightly more realistic forms, toothy maws snapping angrily. Their eyes narrowed and the shade lightened, not in fury. This time, however, it was evident that they were terrified of something. Something behind Raven. She was aware of a immense shadow over her.
The psuedo-ravens mock ferocity abruptly gave way to the truer state in their hearts; they began to quiver in abject terror, and they took flight in a blast of wind, cawing madly.
And where they has squatted, a pair of large scaled talons clamped tightly. The sound of displaced air beaten by wings stopped with the swirling dust and the fluffed sound of folding wings.
And then there were the voices. A conspircy of ravens, flocking about.
Finally Raven gave up the meditation session as a lost cause and opened her eyes.
Her eyes abruptly lost their half-lidded expression; she shot up, staring at the visige of the creature standing before her. Her breath was vacant, leaving behind in her heart not the terrified horror of the demon-birds, but something very close to awe, the reverential fear familiar to true belivers.
The emotion abated, but the being did not. It continued to look at her solemnly. Taking a step, it tilted it head until it's head was almost at the breaking point, then it tilted into the opposite direction.
It walked towards her, and a feather brushed her. Now she was sure she was not hallucinating.
To all points of view, it was a giant raven. But unlike the smaller demonic ones that inhabited her mind, this one seemed at least roughly benevolent. Not to mention the difference in size;it had at least a twenty-foot wingspan. It's beak, feet and feathers were all black. It's unfeathered areas had a hint of dark blue, but the only sign of alternate color was the swirling gold in it's eyes.
Odd. She had thought that the eyes were a swirling gold, but now they were a deep shade of copper.
The strangest thing about, besides it's apparent perfection, was it's aura of wisdom and power it radiated, rather similar to Beast Boy's aura of annoyance, or that strange feeling of peace and tranquility being shot through the window whenever Starfire came in the room. And as far as perfection went, it was ebony avian perfection, perhaps an illusion caused by it's indistinct color.
It stared unblinkingly at her, and abruptly walked deliberately around Raven, as though inspecting her. Aware that it's pinions were inscribing a circle around her, it stopped where it had begun. It looked at the landscape, cawing approvingly.
It looked at her again, and did one of several surprising things that day.
It spoke.
It's voice wasn't anything to write home about, unless you had a really depressing home. It's voice had a sonorus timbre, and managed to be deep and high-pitched at the same time. Stranger still, it's voice had a quality which belied it's visige of magnificence; specifically, it sounded as though it spent it's time digging for bits of forgotten lore and secrets in what you could call the armpit of revulsion in a non-biased sense.
"Hey there."
Raven nearly jumped out of her shoes. It seemed somehow obscene for a giant bird to be a giant talking bird. Oddly, it seemed to be male to her.
Gathering her hood over her head, she quietly said, "Who are you, what are you, and why are you in my head?"
Looking around, he said, "Your head, eh? That explains the decor."
Taking note of her annoyed glare, he answered the rest of the question. "I am one of the denizens of the Middle Umbra, the spirit world of life. More specifically, I'm the Animal Avatar of the ravens; symbol of all they stand for; totem of many spiritual types; master of enigmas and subterfuge; creator of the world(at least to the Canadian Indians); knower of lore forgotten; unearther of secrets and Chosen of Helios."
He calmly waited a few moments for the half-demon to digest this. And Raven was having some trouble with this:Creator of the World? Animal Avatar? She had known of these things. An animal avatar was a spirit that was a living embodiment of that species, and they gained greater power with the animals numbers and beliefs surrounding them. But the Middle Umbra was uncharted territory for her. She was not very experienced with the spirit world as a rule. At least, not the one the spirit was refering to.
Looking at her, he added, "My name is not important, teifling. What is important is there are things you should know, things you might be better off not knowing."
Starting to walk away, he called out, "Follow, if you wish. If you stay, be content in this:You'll sleep better, at least, while your still alive."
Finished with his statement, he pondorously turned around and walked to the edge of the rock. His few moments of waiting were satisfied when his new accomplice ran up to his side, watching hin intently. Wonderful, he thought. Just like one of my children. Maybe she has what it takes.
"I'm coming," she said decisively. Odd. She couldn't scan the spirit's mind very well, if at all. The only thing she knew was that he was not being duplicitious.
He chuckled surprisingly warmly. "You got guts, kid. But it'll take more then gumption to deal with what I'm about to show you, little fledgling."
"Enough with the nicknames," she said dismissively. "My name is Raven."
"Really," he replied, and she detected a hint of irony behind the comment.
They rose up into the air, and soared into a golden portal that the totem indicated.
As they entered it, Raven said, "I can't keep referring to you in the second person. What is your name?".
"My name." he seemed to regard the question solemnly. "My name as I chose when the Father of Us All brought me into being. You couldn't possibly pronounced or even understood by you. My name as your mind might understand it." The expression that suddenly swept across his face was unusually like Beast Boy's when he had succeeded in steering the converation to a joke he had been leading everyone up to for a while.
"My name," he said, "is Raven."
Raven said nothing, staring at him. It did seem extremely obvious, in retrospect.
Raven regarded her with amusment.
"I told you it wasn't important," he said, as reality whipped, whirled, and generally made a mess of itself.
Meanwhile, approaching the city was an odd figure.
Such things weren't uncommon around this city, but this one was different in several regards. For one thing, he seeking neither to conquer the city, join the legions the Teen Titans, or eat stuff. In fact, he was totally unaware of the existance of the city, Titans and all. For another, he was traveling almost on all fours, leaping from tree to tree in a herky-jerky manner. And finally, he wasn't exactly human. Like the bottom of the ocean wasn't exactly dry.
Swinging through the trees, he jumped from a tree branch onto a trunk, sliding downwards. Sniffing the air, he intuited that the woods weren't very extensive. Pausing for a moment, he wondered why he couldn't orient himself. Looking upwards, he blinked in the face of the morning light. He suddenly growled.
Morons were afoot.
About twenty feet from were he had stopped, a couple of drunken frat boys were doing what they called kritter kicking. Specifically, they found a weak animal, and chased it down until either it's heart burst or they decided to shoot it.
Charming, isn't it?
At the moment, the object of their sadism was a runty kitten, which probably had a dim view of the sport. Panting with exhaustion, it abruptly stopped.
It had inaverdantly ran into a specially prepared clearing; surrounded with rocks on all sides, it was effectively trapped.
This sneaky suspicion was confirmed when two badly shaven humans staggered into sight, holding a gun apiece. One of them drunkedly said to the other, "C'mere Tom!" Both burst into laughter at this.
Yeah, real clever, the kitten thought. Bad enough to be hunted by idiot monkeys, but for said monkeys to be making bad jokes was intolerable.
One of them seemed to be having second thoughts. "Steve, I don't think this is a good idea. The Boss might get mad...".
Steve rolled his eyes. "Oh c'mon! He's the Boss! What's he going to care about off-hour activity, anyway?"
Apparently bored, he raised his gun and fired.
He was understandably surprised when no bullet fired.
"Huh? Whazzis'?" Confused, he looked into the barrel, when it launched a bullet that tore off his hat.
"Holy jeez!" This comment was aimed not at the decapping, but at the fact that, lit with a soft blue glow, the guns tore themselves from their owner's grasp and disassembled into scrap.
"Hey, morons!"
One of them pointed to a thing on a branch. "It..it..it...IT'S BIGFOOT!"
The green cloaked figure to which the speculation was aimed yawned lazily. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but Sasquatch doesn't exist in San Fransico. I might have large feet, but I'm no ape. Unlike you two." He jumped down, and allowed the morning light to illiminate him.
He was wearing a ragged green cloak, one that had probably suffered it's wear and tear from utterly random wandering. Wrapped around his hands and feet was greenish cloth, possibly to soften the impact on his hands when he ran fourlegged.
But within, that was a totally different matter.
It could have a trick of the light or something far less prosiac, but the inside of the cloak led no truths about the creatures nature, but a pair of massive feet poked out. Of course, paws might have been a more realistic saying as they were more elongated then a human foot, had large claws on each of the four toes, and all over that was ruddy orange fur with oddly runic stripes. And our of the back of the cloak was a long wavering tail, with a similar color scheme to the 'feet'.
He, growling loud enough to make a L.A. gangbanger look and decide he had an appointment to keep, decided to illustrate his potential danger to the two idgits.
A unanticipated wind sprang up, throwing his cloak back and exposing his true identity.
Both gaped mindlessly. "You're a...she's a.."
"Oh, shut up. Just because I'm of the feline persuation doesn't make me female. For the record, I'm a guy." the being hissed.
They gasped melodramicitly again. "He talked!" The creature rolled his eyes. I'm starting to get really annoyed with the cinematics, he thought. "Seems obvious t' me, dimwit." The two gaped again. "Jeff, I think we're insulting it," one muttered nervously. "Gasp and surprise! It thinks!" the thing said sarcastically.
Enough melodrama, he thought. This is starting to sound like a bad summer movie.
Exposing predatory claws and fangs, he grabbed them by the collars and snarled. Though no powerhouse,(certainly not a mesomorph, those destined for a life of muscular power)he had sufficiantly cowed them to make them pliable for his intimidations. "I'd advise you to start running, before I show how the kitten felt." When neither moved, he yelled, "Like right now!"
Smirking at the monkey's retreating backsides, he muttered, "Stupid yabbas." At least he hadn't done something stupid. Considerable power didn't easily translate into the capacity for intimidation.
Looking at the petrified kitten, he twiched abruptly, for no real reason other then he felt like it. As he liked to say, "Normal is boring."
The kitten was spared the choice of moving when it's mother lept through the brush and gripped it in it's teeth. Instantly relaxing, the kitten went totally limp. Staring momentarily at the being, the queen gave him a look filled with neither fear nor respect. Then, it lept off. Regardless, he grinned.
"Havok 1, idiots zero."
That was his name, or at least the one he knew. It was an accurate one, nonetheless. As his powers,as elemental as his personality, proved quite often.
He abrupted raised his arms, the glowing green eyes underneath his hood attained a supernatural gleam. A circle of extremely complex white runes shimmered around his arms, circling slowly and extending from the forearm to just in front of the hands. There were four symbols at the end, each signifying the element of Earth; four slightly curved lines forming a square, a trio of triangles, a complex Asian pictogram resembling a higly stylized TC, and a slanting line crossed with five lines ending in a curve; all were connected by a line with tiny letters that resembled Elvish script above and below.
The spell completed, a section of earth directly below his large feet seperated from the ground, and flew him into the air.
Why didn't I do this before? he asked no one in particular. It was a good question, seeing as how he had been wandering the continent aimlessly.
Inhaling deeply,he abruptly swerved upwards, soaring in the manner of birds and relying on friction to prevent falling off. The cloak almost completely straight with velocity, he suddenly fell to the ground. It was a magickly controlled fall, but a fall nonetheless. Zipped through the bramble forest with the greatest of ease, he jumped off the rock and into the air.
Plummeting to the ground like so much fruitcake, the rock soared and caught him. His heart had landed somewhere in his throat during this stunt, wondering exactly why he did this.
Loving the feeling of the wind whipping through his fur, he didn't notice the obstacle in his path until it slammed him in the midsection, throwing him off the rock while his transportation traveled heedlessly on.
Screaming in fustration at the commonness of that sort of thing, he smacked into the ground and rolled until he hit the tree that fell on him.
Standing up, he shook his fist and yelled to the chortling sky, "Why me! WHY DO I ALWAYS CRASH INTO AN INANIMATE OBJECT?" Fuming, he sat down and counted his 'accidents'. "Okay, that's been 24 trees, 35 mountains, 13 buildings, 54 random unseen objects and 31 and counting projectiles. You'd think someone with superhuman agility would be used to this." In a sudden fit of rage, he kicked the sign responsible, only to jump up and down in agony.
After a moment of the ow hop, he noticed it was a sign. "JUMP CITY, 23 MILES." Thinking for a moment, he shrugged. "Not like I have anything better to do."
He walked in the direction indicated, only to walk right into the sign again.
Meanwhile, something was rapidly encrouching on Jump City.
Something lost.
Something angry.
Something evil.
And that is a cliffhanger. MUWAHAHAHAHA!
Next chapter, Raven teaches Raven(Curse my cleverness! Curse you, I say!)an ancient prophecy regarding the Titans. And we get a closer look into the mind of the Titans! Plus, we recieve a further look at the misfortunate adventures of Havok, my personal punching bag! He he, I'm such a jerk.
Till next time!
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHA! And listen to Catmon! Reviewing saves the lives of favorite characters! Well, not really, but it's nice. Plus, it makes me want to sing! And reviews that consist of more then "yur stry iz kewl!" make me want to sing away from you. So spare your eardrums and be informative!
Also, keep in mind this story will all too soon be a crossover. With what, you ask? Well, that's what occasional checking is for!
And as a final note, I'll give you...AN HVK QUOTE!
"Some days you are the coyote, some days you are the anvil."
