Mark's heart pounded madly in his chest, the rapid beats traveling up to his temples and causing them to throb painfully. He felt something, something that didn't belong. It gnawed at the back of his mind, never failing to remind him that he was not seeing the whole picture. Mark was extremely tense, his hair still blindingly white and his eyes the same.
"What is it? What am I feeling?"
"Be prepared, Trigon is free."
"Trigon?" Mark queried the shadows.
"He has used his daughter as a vessel to transport his being from our spiritual plane to your physical."
Mark gazed upon Raven, her still features portraying a false sense of calm and serenity. Her eyes were still closed, and her cloak glowed dark crimson.
"Raven please wake up. Please!" Mark pleaded with her, receiving no reply other then the slight rise and fall of her chest to signify that she was still alive.
"She won't be the same Raven you knew." Mark's eyes shifted their gaze from Raven to the darkness beyond the street. The voice could still be heard echoing over his head, repeating the same word over and over again. "Raven…"
"Who's there?" Mark questioned, rising to his feet.
Somewhere in the darkness, a smile appeared on a red-skinned face, bearing razor sharp teeth stained yellow.
"You can call me dad."
"Can you feel it? As we speak, dad is taking care of Mark for us!"
Raven's pale face landed on the dirt with a muffled thud, her eyes closing instinctively in order to shield them from the grains of dust that were disturbed due to her fall. She rolled to her back with a groan and opened her eyes, revealing a pair of lavender pupils.
"Ugh." Raven moaned as she lifted herself to her feet yet again, ready to face her evil side once more.
With a raised eyebrow and a sinister grin she started to speak.
"You want more?" Raven didn't reply, instead opting to dig her purple boot into the dirt and gaze at her adversary, watching for any movement.
She shook her head sadly.
"You are a fool, Raven. You fight for this… this LOVE!-" She spat, her eyes burning red.
"-when clearly hatred is stronger. You have been beaten, again and again, yet you still fight!"
"Hatred isn't stronger. You're wrong."
Raven said slowly, each word rolling off her tongue gradually and deliberately.
"Oh please, you don't seriously believe that such a weak emotion like love-." She dragged out the 'o' in 'love' mockingly "Could possibly defeat hate? You're alone, Raven. All alone, and your 'love' has forsaken you." Her evil side was trying to tear at Raven's emotional defenses, rip them down and destroy them for good.
Raven stood firm, however, and she continued to speak.
"I am NOT alone." She said firmly, her cloak suddenly emanating a white glow.
"You see, the reason why love is the stronger emotion is quite simple." She began, her thoughts drifting back to her brief moments with Mark.
"When you are full of hate, you have only one person to turn to, only one person to lean on. Yourself." She said, stepping towards Raven.
"When you are in love…" She began, continuing her slow approach towards her manifested evil.
"You have two."
"Dad?" Mark scoffed, his eyes now coming to a rest upon a man, roughly six feet tall with snow-white hair atop his red-skinned head and body. He wore a cloak and hood, much like Raven, and he was powerfully built, like Slade. The figure didn't move, he simply raised his head to reply, two sinister yellow pupils penetrating Mark's very soul.
"I thought-." He began, his mouth slowly widening into a grin with every word he spoke. "-since you and Raven were getting so close-" He rolled his eyes. "-that perhaps you may look at me and see a father figure you never had."
"I had-have a father." Mark replied, a flicker of uncertainty invading his stone-cold face.
"I see… No matter. Raven has fulfilled her prophecy now, and that is all that matters. Apart from you, that is." Mark raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Now it is your turn to complete the prophecy, and make my arrival here permanent." The figure still didn't make a move, and he remained in the shadows.
"Permanent?" Mark was aghast at this sudden change of events.
"Permanent? That means… yes! He can still be defeated!"
"So, it's up to me to seal your position here on Earth, is it?" Mark asked, his fists glowing bright yellow. The figure barely nodded.
"What if I don't want to?" He asked, taunting him, mocking the large, red-skinned man.
"Then you will suffer a fate worse then death herself." He finished simply.
Mark's breath quickened as he thought of Robin, of Beast-Boy and Cyborg. He tore at himself for not being there for them when they needed him the most. His thoughts drifted to Starfire, and of how she was so quickly and ruthlessly dispatched by Slade. He could've saved her, but he didn't. He bowed his head and allowed a tear to fall from his closed eyes.
"I've suffered that already."
"You fight for nothing! You have already killed all your friends, every single one of them! No-one is left!"
An obsidian energy bolt struck raven on her chest and she fell, her crackling shield dissipating under the force of the attack. Her red cloak floated over her, covering her body and face. She was panting heavily, and she turned her head sideways, just in time to see a padded foot come crashing down upon her face. She rolled over, the force of the kick pushing her near the edge of the rock plateau they fought upon. Raven approached her evil alter-ego, taking slow, short strides. Silence befell them; the only noise came from Raven's footsteps.
"What are you going to do when you return? How can you face your precious Mark, knowing that you killed all his friends, all YOUR friends?"
Raven stopped walking, her feet frozen in mid-stride.
"Shut up." She simply replied, her eyes devoid of any emotion.
"You killed them, and you enjoyed it, Raven. I could feel you inside me; you took pleasure in seeing Beast-Boy writhe in agony, every one of his molecules being torn away from the other as you blew his entire room, his entire existence into oblivion."
"Shut up!" She said again firmly.
"Or when you took apart Robin. You have quite the knack for dismantling things, don't you? He screamed the loudest. Do you remember when you took apart Kardiak…?" She broke off, leaving Raven to fill in the blanks and conjure up unwelcome images.
"Shut UP!" Raven demanded, her hair flaring and her eyes shining white.
"You seemed to have the most fun destroying Cyborg though. He was the one person who put up an actual fight, as he was awake during the time. He awoke to screams, Raven. But you eventually caught him. You caught him and made him suffer twice as much as the others for wasting your time."
"SHUT UP!" Raven screamed. She was listing off the events as if it were her greatest achievements, her smile growing with each memory implanted in Raven's mind. With one last grin, she rose to her feet and attacked Raven, her four eyes glowing red.
"She will win, Mark, and you will destroy Trigon once and for all."
"So be it." The figure calmly said. He began moving, one foot over the other, closing the distance between them at an almost stagnant rate. He seemed almost detached, as if he had more pressing matters to attend to.
"When will this end?"
"Patience Mark, for it will all be over soon."
Mark was extremely fatigued. He had used all his remaining energy in defeating Slade, and he had been fueled by pure anger and adrenalin ever since. Now that a lull in the action had occurred, he felt an amazing amount of weariness washing over his body, and dousing his spirit. He felt once again, hopeless. Powerless to change this twisted vision that had become a reality.
He suddenly felt a tightening sensation around his feet, as if he had stepped in a noose that had closed shut around his ankles. In a split second, he was hoisted in the air by an invisible rope, and no matter how he squirmed, he could not free himself from its vice-like grip. He drifted towards the figure involuntarily, his invisible bonds taking control of his movement. He swung limply upside down, his hands falling down over his head and scraping the asphalt below. His eyes were no longer shining a brilliant white, but had instead reverted back to their original color. He never saw the fiery fist crashing down on his face, only felt it. He felt the pain of his jaw being thrust back to his neck, felt his nose begin to crack, felt a piece of his tooth fall free from the side of his mouth, being washed out by the dark crimson blood that seeped freely from his mouth and nose. He was flung back, and his invisible bonds allowed for the sudden change in direction and velocity, carrying him back a dozen yards or so. When Mark came to a complete stop, his bonds once again carried him towards the red-skinned figure, and he only felt agony from that moment.
"Get out of MY MIND!"
A blistering beam of obsidian light emerged from Raven's palms a second after she muttered her special mantra. It rocketed towards a figure cloaked and hooded in red, and all it could do was stand and laugh as it was torn apart, piece by piece, shredded into nothingness.
"The damage has been done, Raven, and YOU caused it. Now there is nothing you can do about it! HAHAHAHA!" Her manic laughter penetrated Raven's mind, filling her with rage and hatred. With a final yell she slumped to the ground below her feet, feeling weary beyond her years.
"Thwack!" The sound Mark's head made when it came into contact with Trigon's fist.