Shellshocked
Chapter 13 "Last Resort"
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"Raven!" Robin shouted. He knew what he had to do, he promised Raven he would stop her if she turned. But...he just couldn't. He dug into his utility belt and pulled out a small vile, its contents a dark crimson. As he stared at it, his grip on it tightened and he growled under his breath.
"Robin?" Starfire asked, her eyes wide with worry. She glanced down at his hand and saw the vile and frowned.
Robin placed the vile back into his belt and shook his head.
"What are we going to do?" Cyborg asked.
"Only thing we can do." Robin stated, but still remained quiet.
"...Which is?" Beast Boy asked.
Robin shook his head again. "We can't let Raven destroy everything." He dug into his belt again and pulled out the red vile. "Raven gave this to me...in case she turned."
"What is it?" Cyborg asked.
"It's a poison." Robin sighed.
"Dude!" Beast Boy exclaimed. "Poison? We're going to poison Raven?"
Starfire gasped. "It will not...harm Raven?"
Robin closed his eyes and lowered his head. "It'll kill her."
"Yo!" Cyborg shouted. "You're not seriously thinking of killing her are you?"
"We have no other choice." Robin replied.
"No!" Starfire argued. "We cannot harm Raven!" Tears slowly ran down her cheeks. "She is our friend."
"But what else can we do?" Robin asked, his eyes also showing great pain and sorrow. "We cannot allow Raven to destroy everything, not again after all that we went through with her father and Slade!"
Starfire closed her eyes and allowed more tears to roll down her delicate face. Robin's eyes lowered and he took a step closer to her, whispering an apology.
"What can we do?" Beast Boy turned to Cyborg.
The half robotic teen closed his eye and shook his head. "I dunno."
"There must be something!" Starfire announced, her tears suddenly gone and a fierce look of determination in her eyes. "We cannot hurt Raven."
Love's eyes opened and it lowered itself from its levitating position. It opened its mouth to speak, but the Titans were in a heat of conversation.
"I made a promise to Raven." Robin confessed.
"But we can't just kill her, she's our friend." Beast Boy interrupted.
"Why don't we just fight, we can weaken her and find a way to get the evil emotions out of her." Cyborg said.
Starfire was the only one to notice Love trying to speak. She inhaled and shouted, "STOP!"
All the Titans stopped talking and their attention was drawn to Starfire.
"The small sized emotion wishes to speak." She said and smiled weakly.
All the Titans turned and looked down. Love took off its hood and looked up.
"I can fix this." It said.
"You can?" Starfire shouted in joy and grabbed the small emotion in a tight, fierce hug.
"How?" Robin asked.
"That vile." Love pointed to Robin's hand. "Can I have it?"
Robing frowned. "Ummm...ok."
He handed the emotion the vile and it unscrewed the top.
"Raven told me it was–"
"Poison, yes." Love said.
"Won't it kill Raven?" Beast Boy asked.
"No, this poison will only weaken a person for a short period of time." It turned and looked up at Cyborg. "Put this in your arm with the cannon."
Cyborg lifted an eyebrow, but took the vile without saying anything. He lifted his right arm and turned it into its cannon mode. On the side there was a small hole that allowed anything with the same diameter to enter. He inserted the vile into the hole and once it was drained, he removed the glass tube.
"I'll distract her." Love continued. "When you have a clear shot, take it. The poison will combine with your firepower."
Cyborg nodded and smiled.
Love moved the front of everyone and quickly took off the force field. As soon as it did, dozens of rocks, energy, trees, even the small four eyed birds were being thrown at them all sent from Raven, her body form long and tall with her eyes glowing red and a sinister laugh escaping her lips.
"Titans, move!" Robin announced and everyone shattered.
Beast Boy turned into a gopher again and dug into the ground to prevent a tree from smacking him. Starifre grabbed Cyborg and flew up as high as she could. Robin used his cape to protect himself as best as he could and dodged whenever necessary and Love formed another shield around itself.
"Get ready." Love told Robing.
Nodding, Robin shouted towards Cyborg, "Cy! Start aiming."
"Gotcha." Cyborg grinned and pointed his cannon to Raven.
Raven growled and stopped throwing things at everyone. Instead, she decided to use dark magic and use pure energy to attack. Her hands glowed and long black spikes formed on her knuckles and palms. She turned towards Starfire and shot out the spikes towards the alien.
Starfire gasped and quickly flew out of the way of the spikes until a large black hand surprised her from behind and grabbed her. She lost her grip and Cyborg fell.
More spikes were thrown to her so she used her free hands to throw star bolts at the spikes but there were too many to shoot. She screamed and closed her eyes.
Cyborg shouted at Starfire, but there was nothing he could do. He took aim at Raven but there was too many things in the way. There were still rocks, dirt, trees, many things blocking a clear shot at Raven. He prepared for the impact of the fall, but he felt himself suddenly airborne again. He looked up and smiled, Beast Boy had turned into a large hawk and had him in his claws.
Starfire suddenly felt herself go free and when she opened her eyes, she found herself flying in mid air with a black shield around her in the shape of a raven. She turned towards Love and smiled, whispering a thanks to her in her alien language.
Love nodded and turned to Raven. It had to end this now before the Titans got hurt.
Protect them.
Raven's voice was still clear in the emotions head. It could not fail, too much was at stake.
The tiny emotion shook, its small body nearly not enough to contain the amount of power it possessed. It never used all of its power, nor even half of it. The emotion never was the type to show off its power, unlike Gross, Brave, and Anger. But now, it was its only last resort.
Power surged through the emotion like electricity, it could feel it running down its body like water. Arms and legs were feeling shaky, all due to the amount of power it contained. It lifted his hood back up and covered its small face. Closing its eyes, it whispered a soft "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos" and pointed both its palms towards Raven.
Raven, or Anger, noticing Love's motives, quickly shouted out in anger, Raven's fangs exposing, and sought for a target. Robin, Starfire, Cyborg, Beast Boy, any of them could do. She prepared a quick spell, but before she could release it to the Titans, something yellow caught her eye.
Turning to her left, Raven grinned. She found Terra hiding in the background, watching everything. New emotions swept through her, unbelievable, inhuman anger and hatred coursed through her. She hated Terra, and she would be the first one to kill.
Raven's eyes narrowed and she quickly discharged a spell from her hands, a wave of black magic with fire, water, wind, earth, and even lightning charged within the wave. Then she smiled as she watched Terra's face turn into a face of horror, she forced out rocks to block the attack, but the wave swept through it like paper.
Suddenly, the wave stopped.
"No!" Raven shouted. What could possibly stop that spell?
Then, to Raven's horror, the wave was being forced back towards her. As it slowly crept closer, the wave multiplied into practically an ocean's worth of waves and charged at its original creator.
Raven quickly summoned more spells, shields, even tried teleporting, but something was keeping her from moving anywhere. Then, she noticed something behind the waves. Squinting, she studied what was behind the spells and her heart skipped a beat. She turned towards Love and cursed at it, she tried throwing more spells at the emotion but there was still some kind of shield that kept her from doing anything. She yelled out in frustration, the waves were getting close and once they touched her, that will be it.
"Now!" Love shouted.
Cyborg nodded and pointed carefully at Raven, then shot. His sonic cannon shot out like a volcano and the beam was colored red, instead of its usual white. Around the beam there were small black lines running around, resembling veins.
The beam passed the shield, the waves, and finally caught its target, right into Raven's chest.
Raven screamed out as the beam continued to pour into her chest, and she expected the waves to soon hit her, but they suddenly vanished. Then, the red beam ended. Feeling drained and dizzy, Raven fell face down onto the ground.
The Titans stepped behind Love and cautiously waited for something to happen. Beast Boy was itching to shout out in victory, but with Raven hurt, there was no victory. Starfire felt the same.
"Is she?" Beast Boy asked.
Love stepped closer to Raven and lowered its hood. Moving its arms it a form of an X across from its chest and its eyes glowed white.
Raven stirred, then multiple different colored lights erupted out of her body and slammed onto the ground when they transformed into the different forms of Raven's emotions. Each laid on the floor weakened and not moving.
Love outstretched its arms and whispered several words in a language neither Titan recognized. Then, the emotions, except Anger, began to glow. The scars on their body that formed after Terra's attacks were healed and vanished. Slowly, one by one each emotion sat up and frowned. All of their faces were normal with only two eyes.
Each Titan smiled and their hearts raced. So far everything was going great.
Love walked towards Raven as all the emotions stood up, except Anger in which it still laid on the ground motionless. Each emotion turned its attention to Love and then they all nodded. They stood next to each other in a circle around Raven. Raising their heads up, they all began to glow and then they materialized into a single colored blue light and slowly entered Raven's body.
The Titans were dying of suspense, Beast Boy was nearly tearing his hair out, Starfire was jumping slightly, and Robin and Cyborg held in all their energy and watched quietly.
"Uhhh." Raven groaned. Her violet eyes opened and she climbed to her knees. She spotted Anger on the floor and smiled.
Standing shakingly, Raven walked towards Anger and touched it. As soon as she touched it, the emotion materialized into a red light and entered Raven. It struck her like a blow to the stomach. She stepped back and suddenly felt light headed. Her eyes closed and she was falling, until warm arms caught her.
Opening her eyes again, she found herself in Starfire's arms with the rest of the Titans watching over her, all with a wide smile on their faces.
Raven stood back up and returned the smile to her friends. More emotions swept through her and her chest was starting to hurt, she needed to meditate. She mentally winced, she hoped her body wasn't nearby anything breakable, the strong emotions sweeping through her was enough to break down even the Titans tower.
"Raven, you are unharmed!" Starfire shouted in pent up joy and grabbed the goth Titan in a fierce hug that cut off her air supply.
After a moment the alien let her go and Raven swallowed in precious air. Then, surprisingly, each Titan took a turn to hug her, and even more surprisingly, she returned the hugs.
"We're so glad you're back." Robin smiled.
"Yeah, you have two eyes again and no fangs." Beast Boy grinned.
Cyborg slapped Raven on the back playfully, but quickly apologized, Raven's body was still sore.
"Awww how heart touching."
All Titans looked behind them, and their eyes grew. Terra stood several feet away, her face emotionless.
"Forgot about me, did you Raven?" Terra asked, her voice straining to say the last part of her sentence.
"Terra!" Beast Boy shouted.
The blonde laughed. "Catch me if you can." Then she took off running and disappeared among the shadows of Raven's mind.
"After her." Robin growled.
"No." Raven said quickly, preventing the Titans from taking another step forward. "This is between me, and Terra."
The Titans slowly nodded.
"We'll wait for you." Cyborg smiled.
Starfire nodded. "Yes, we shall await your return at home."
Raven nodded and smiled once again. Then teleported herself and her friends to the Forbidden Door. Each Titan waved to her goodbye and went through the portal.
Sighing, Raven looked beyond her own mind. Terra was still around, lurking in the shadows. Now was the time to end it all.
A/N: Another chapter done, and I have the next one awaiting to be read. After a few reviews, I'll happily release it. Hey, who knows, depending on how many reviews I may release the new chapter today P
