Ave. This the third and final chapter to my 'Raven comes to Earth' story and it certainly took long enough in coming. If any of you forgot what happened before, entirely reasonable. Here's the K-mart version of the story so far. Trigon possessed Raven just as she was about to get promoted to High priestess of Azarath. He then used her to kill Azar and a bunch of notable Azarathians. Raven flees to Earth. She is met by Kent Nelson aka Doctor Fate, the supernatural border enforcer for the DC universe. He kindly invites her to his home and she accepts. We have quick intro to Fate's wife, Inza and fade to black. I've run on long enough, disclaimer and then story. I don't own Teen Titans in any way, shape, or form. That honor belongs to Cartoon Network and I'm not challenging them. The same applies to Doctor Fate and his DC owners. I seek no profit from this and merely hope to avoid being sued. If any of you are left, please enjoy.
From Darkness Unto Light
By Wordbearer
Raven's cloak snapped as she shot upward from the ground, the blade of a halberd biting into the soil seconds after her evasion. The wielder of the ornate weapon swung upwards, fiery runes blazing all over his weapon. He was a Grey Knight of Azarath, elite Temple-Guardian sworn to the destruction of the daemonic, a slayer of daemons and half-daemons. Raven put up a wall of black of energy to block the strike and grimaced as the blade drank in her power. She dodged backwards, keeping her eyes open for the man's companions. The dark mystic lashed out with a wave of force and threw him into a window. Another halberd lunged from behind and skewered her cloak. Raven teleported away to the top of a nearby building, desperate for some breathing room.
A voice chanted loudly in a language she had hoped to never hear again, "Azarath, Medrion, Zinthos!" The venerable speaker was clad in loose black robes, crouched with his palms together. A wall of air rushed toward Raven and shattered the building on which she stood. Raven went flying, but caught herself in cushioning veils of ebon power. She saw a quartet of grey knights closing with her and the black-robed monk gathering his energy again. She focused in preparation for the coming rush, her aura flaring and cloak writhing faintly. When the daemonhunters charged, she acted on instinct, deflecting strikes with her forearms wrapped in ebony power. As she fought, she reflected on the course of events that had brought her to this fight.
Raven's azule eyes skimmed over the massive tome perched on her crossed legs. The grey-skinned half-daemon read in quiet isolation ensconced in Dr. Fate's library. This solitude was broken as Inza entered the chamber. She smirked thinly when she spotted Raven, "Still studying? Raven, when we suggested you make time here to familiarize yourself with Earth, we didn't mean all the time." Raven merely frowned in response and turned the page.
Inza was undaunted, "In some ways you're the easiest guest my husband has invited here. You read. You sleep. You eat as little as I let you get away with. You meditate as much as possible… I'd swear I'm living with a hermit instead of a teenage girl."
Raven looked up, her eyes flashing with irritation and inquired calmly, "Would it be rude of me to ask you to get to the point?"
Inza archly commented, "It speaks! If you insist on being so curt, then I do have a point. Mind if I sit down?" Raven shrugged. The older woman sat down and leaned forward, chin resting in her palm. Her blue eyes locked on Raven, "You're not happy here, Raven. I can tell." Raven gazed back, her face a model of frozen serenity, "I am content." "Content isn't happy. Content is survival and there's a difference between survival and living," Inza replied. Raven narrowed her eyes, "What do you expect? I'm banished from my home. I killed the one person who ever respected me with my own hands. My father wants to use me to enter this world and kill untold numbers of people. Tell me what I should be happy about."
Inza frowned, "O.K. You have had some really bad things happen to you and you have my sympathy. But, the key to emotional healing is healing. You haven't been doing that."
Raven scowled as Inza continued, "You've been repressing it, hiding the pain away, and someday that will come back to bite you." Inza paused and ran her fingers over her wrist before turning back to Raven.
Raven cut in, "I'm doing the best I can. How would you do it? How would you magically make me happy?"
The older woman was deadly serious, "Nothing magical about it. Meet people. Hang out with others your own age. Just live. If you live in the present, the past will eventually loose its power to hurt you."
The dark mystic rolled her eyes and black lightening sparked along her limbs, "Yeah. That'll be easy. Plenty of groups will accept an outcast half-daemon as a member. I'm swamped with choices…"
Inza recovered some of her cheer, "Sarcasm. At least that's something. You didn't do that when you first got here. It was 'Ms. Inza this' and 'Ms. Inza that'."
Raven shook her head in annoyance at the non sequitur, "Thank you very much for the information. May I go back to my reading now?"
Inza nodded her ruefully, "Now you're acting like a child. I'll admit your options are limited. Humans are judgmental everywhere, but don't think they're all as bad as the Azarathians. Some people will accept you. Kent is too compassionate to press you, but if you want to be happy you'll have to leave this place."
"I intend to," Raven responded icily.
"And you'd likely end up in a monastery of some sort," chided Inza, "which doesn't solve your problem. Your father, not you, did something horrific in Azarath and you're letting your guilt and fear control you. Don't deny it. You need help and we can't help you here. It's not that we haven't enjoyed your presence here. As I said, you're one of the easiest guests we've ever had. But for you, this tower is a cocoon. No one can live in a cocoon. Kent and I help damaged beings find themselves. You know who you are. You just need to be able to live with that person. That requires other people." Raven's face had cooled until and an empty calm had dominated her features.
The dark mystic played with the hem of her cloak and looked down. Inza shook her long black hair and sighed, "Look. You're welcome to stay as long as you want. But when you're ready to move on with your life, Kent can help you find people you can stay with who will accept you. He knows everyone." Raven grunted acknowledgement.
Inza issued a parting comment as she paused in the doorway, "This wasn't the actual purpose of my talk with you. Kent sent me to tell you to come to the scrying chamber. He's found something that concerns you." Raven nodded acknowledgement and restored the book to its resting place before departing, a troubled glimmer in the depths of her eyes, a breech of her otherwise calm facade.
Kent Nelson was waiting for Raven in the scrying chamber, clad in his Doctor Fate regalia. Raven looked up questioningly at the towering sorcerer-lord and whispered, "You sent for me?"
Doctor Fate scanned his grey eyes over Raven's cloak-draped frame, shaking his head at something before responding, "Yes, I did. Visitors have come to this world from the other side of the Veil. They observed the normal protocols and thus would normally not bother me, entirely routine. However, they came from Azarath and that makes them a concern for you…" Fate gestured and a viewing sphere bloomed into existence between the two. It showed a darkened chamber, crowded with books and moldering relics. The room was in shambles and a quartet of armored figures held a battered old man to the ground with glowing halberds as a black-robed monk levitated in the background, a chant pouring from his lips.
One of the armed figures hissed at the old man, "You will surrender knowledge regarding the Betrayer Raven Roth to us… We have been dispatched to find and execute her. All those who do not aid us will be slain as befits those who would shelter a daemon spawn…" Raven's eyes widened slightly as she took in the image, her mouth tightening in concern.
The old man stammered, "I don't know who… who… you are talking about. I have done nothing to invite this attack. I obey the Illuminati Convent. This attack is undeserved. Please release me."
Fate calmly observed the dark mystic as she breathed, "Grey Knights…"
The leader of the warriors intoned, "We are not bound by your convent. We are servants of the Glorious One and your 'store' reeks of daemonic essence, a mark that you have invited the children of the Abyss within your walls. All who aid the daemon shall share its fate. I execute you and pray that your soul is granted mercy by the Grey Reaper, for we cannot spare you and remain true to our creed." The old man screamed as the blades pumped in and out of his flesh, the Grey Knights methodical in their purpose as they dismembered him.
The monk frowned at the bloodshed and intoned, "She is not here. I have found another nexus of magical energy. Let us depart." The warriors nodded in obedience and the scene was flooded with light as the group vanished.
Doctor Fate waved away the sphere and gravely asked, "I take it that you know these visitors?"
Raven shook her head to collect herself before answering Fate's question, "Yes. They are Grey Knights. Holy Hunter-Killers dispatched to slay traitors to the Azarathian faith. They are relentless…"
The helmed sorcerer-lord said, "I have seen enough evidence of that. This is the eighth victim they have slain, more than enough for me to order them to depart my protectorate. If they are here to kill you, I have all the more reason to banish them."
Fate went to cast another spell, but Raven replied, "No. Don't. They're here for me. If they don't find me they will come back and more people will be killed."
Fate tilted his head, "If you confront them though, it's likely that you'll be killed, isn't it?"
Raven nodded tightly, "Yes. They haven't failed in ten thousand years, but it's my problem. I have to handle it. I can't hide here…"
"I disapprove of this disregard for your own life, but it is not my place to stop you. I will send you to their current location and be watching in case you want me to intervene… All you have to do is ask."
Raven whispered, "Thank you." Fate gave the half-daemon a long look and gestured. She vanished in a flash of golden light, sent directly to those who would kill her for her actions in Azarath. Fate recreated the viewing sphere and settled into a chair to watch the confrontation, disquiet lingering in his softly-glowing eyes.
Raven snapped out of her flashback as a blade carved a rip through her upper arm. She grunted and drove a black-glowing palm into the attacker's chest and sent him stumbling backwards, chest plate dented inward by the strike. The butt end of a halberd struck her from behind and drove her to her knees. She spotted a blade arching for her head and summoned an invisible fist to halt the blade. The Grey Knight let go of the weapon and backed off as did his companions.
Raven was confused by the withdrawal until she picked up the sound of chanting again, "…Medrion Zinthos!" A wall of air drove her backwards and pinned her against a concrete barrier, the stream of force driving dust into her eyes. The monk sweated from the effort of keeping up the pressure. Raven vanished with a dark flash and staggered as she misjudged her teleport, appearing three feet in the air before dropping painfully to the ground. The grey knights closed again, weapons at ready.
Raven battered one Knight backwards in a surge of roiling, dark energy. Another braced himself against a follow up strike and allowed the ravening blast to roll off his armor and around him. The remaining pair darted in and swung with both of their weapons, one high, one low. The dark mystic pumped up a shield, but the blades carved through it like butter. A pair of wounds opened on her torso. Her upper back bled into her cloak. A cut on her stomach leaked ichor onto her under-robe. Raven blinked at the shock and lashed out with a storm of power that threw the off-balance Grey Knights backwards. She crumbled inwards, tattered cloak covering her like a shroud. The Grey Knights cautiously circled her, weapons held at the defensive. Most bore some kind of wound, and another winced with every step he took on a leg that was shattered under his platemail. Raven didn't move, her mind and body exhausted by the ordeal. The leader gestured to the monk and another blast of might caught her body and flung her through the air. At the half-daemon's lack of response, the Grey Knights closed with their prey, weapons ready to stab downwards.
Raven panted with pain and thought, "They'll kill me now. It will be over. My father will be stopped by my death…" Her brain froze as the world slowed, the steady footfalls of the Grey Knights dragging out exponentially.
A deep voice rumbled, "Are you going to let them kill you, daughter?"
Raven calmly replied, "Yes. If I'm dead, you're trapped in the Abyss and there is nothing you can do to stop me."
Trigon intoned, "I will admit that your death would be most disruptive, but I have forever. I merely have to breed another scion and begin anew…"
Raven mentally blinked, "No. This will stop you. My death will stop you."
"Think what you want, child. You're taking the easy way out. Death would be your freedom, your release. Have you earned that privilege?"
Raven mentally hissed, "I hate you, Father… I hate myself for allowing you to control me."
Trigon chuckled, "I know, child. I know. And for that reason, you will get up, you will fight. You would not give me the satisfaction of seeing you die so easily."
The world began to speed up again and tears dripped down Raven's cheeks as she growled, "Curse you to the Nine Hells of the Abyss."
Trigon was amused, "Those happen to be my Hells, but that's a good sign. Anger is power. Get up or die."
Raven was silent and Trigon continued, "How does dying help you to defeat Me and make up for my 'legacy of eternal darkness'? You can kill these fools with ease. Tap my power so that you live to fight another day." The Grey Knights drew closer and their blades went up.
The dark mystic answered, "No. I won't. I won't kill these men for you. It is wrong according to every law Azar taught me."
"These very same laws would condemn you to death. I won't allow you throw away your potential…" Trigon slammed an ethereal fist through the shards of her mental defenses, intent on grabbing the root of her mind and driving her into combat.
The Grey Knights drew closer to her body and prepared to stab downward as she mouthed, "No… I will not let youdo this. Not again…"
Raven directed desperate streamers of thought to restrain Trigon's mental probe, but they snapped under the incredible pressure he applied to his scion's mind. The fist went to close on the core of her soul, but something held it back, an outside presence that glowed with the light of ten thousand suns. The daemon lord growled as his probe shredded under this new attack.
A calm voice echoed through Raven's mind, "By the Law of the Phoenix King, the Faithful shall be protected from the Infernal and this Initiate has proven herself pure in heart and mind. You shall not have her."
Raven's mind trembled and Trigon growled thunderously, "She is mine."
The voice continued and Raven listened to it in quiet awe, "She is yours by blood and your taint runs through her soul, but faith is born of hardship and purity best when distilled from corruption. Be gone, daemon. You cannot have her." Trigon was driven from her mind by a surge of scathing light. Raven felt herself slipping into darkness, but the calm voice grabbed her mind and drew her back to the conscious world as the Grey Knights halted at a silent command from the monk.
The dark mystic opened her eyes and recoiled slightly from the quartet of armored figures that gazed down at her in quiet contempt, weapons secured to their backs. She lay on the ground, her wounds having disappeared mysteriously. She looked up at the Grey Knights, "Why am I alive? Death is the sentence for murder and blasphemy on holy ground."
The calm voice she had heard in her head now issued from a ebon-robed figure walking out of the fading clouds of dust, "You yet live as a result of my intervention. Your death may not be necessary in light of what I have observed here. The Grey Knights are trained in the art of holy combat, but they are guided by the wisdom and insight of the monks." The black-robed monk halted few feet from her, the very picture of venerable authority. Raven tensed as she recognized the figure as the monk who had been hurling energy at her a few minutes before.
The monk continued, "I can see deeper than most and I saw your struggle with He Who We Keep Bound in Shadow and your decision to avoid doing harm in favor of accepting your own death. In that, you validated Azar's trust in you."
Raven steeled her face, "I killed her. I killed so many of them."
The Grey Knights stiffened at this statement and the monk waved them back to restfulness, "But it was not your choice. That difference means the sentence of death can be changed to another more appropriate to your crime of failure, a sentence that allows you to make up for your sin in service."
Raven knew Azarathian law and murmured, "Exile and excommunication."
The black-robed elder merely nodded in return and began the formal rite. The warriors behind Raven withdrew to allow the pair room. Raven rose to her feet, face calm and eyes flat as he began, "Initiate Raven Roth, you are cast from the Light of the Phoenix King and sent into Void. You are banished from His realms and your Soul is banished from His Heavens for your Weakness. All duty owed to you by the Temple is rendered unto nothing. All duty owed to the Temple by you will not be accepted, for you are as nothing in our eyes, a Void in the Phoenix King's gaze. As He does not see you, we do not see you."
Raven internally flinched as the Grey Knights echoed the refrain, "We are blind to the presence of the Exile. We ignore that which is not touched by His sight."
The monk continued, "There is no resource but Faith and you are destitute in a land of Plenty. You are wretched and unworthy. I dismiss you from our midst. If you speak His name after this day, He will rend your Soul from your Flesh as He would do unto the Foulest Spawn of Darkness."
The warriors recited, "For the Unannointed may not speak the Holy Name, unworthy of even the smallest act of Faith."
The monk closed the rite with the final, grim words, "You are an Outsider, Flesh, Body, and Soul. With a Kiss, I remove you from us and Him."
The monk stepped forward and kissed her on the chakra. The black-clad figure whispered into her mind, "Giving you your life is all I can do and even then I overstep my authority. The High-Priestess saw potential in you. Don't waste it or I will have sullied my faith for nothing. Good-bye." He stepped back and turned away from the motionless half-daemon as she absorbed what he had just said. The Grey Knights did the same, breaking formation to go around her in such a way as to not look at her. Raven was frozen in place, thoughts whirling through her head in the grip of an emotional hurricane. There was chanting, a flash of light, and the Azarathians were gone. She knew they would not be back for her, not ever. Azarath was done with her and she was done with Azarath.
A tear bled from her eye and meandered down her cheek. More followed: a glistening flood that cut through the dust caked on her cheeks. Sparks of black lightning lashed in all directions as she grieved the loss of everything she had ever known, the ritual of excommunication irrevocable and eternal. The storm flared, forcing Raven to her knees as she chanted catechisms of self-control under her breath. Her hands shook as she brought her hood up and forced herself into seeming calm. The area was empty, a cold breeze whistling through the shattered buildings that littered the street. A golden light flashed behind the half-daemon and Doctor Fate appeared on the street. Golden cloak snapping in the breeze, he surveyed the scene and shook his head.
Raven rose and flatly stated, "They're gone. They won't be back. I'm not important anymore." She turned to face the sorcerer-lord and her emotionless mask was as frail as glass, a storm of grief ready to explode out of control thrumming through her form. Fate gazed at his guest, grey eyes consumed with sympathy.
He walked toward her and stated, "I heard everything. You survived; a first in my experience with Azarathians. You may be exiled, but you are not dead."
Raven whispered, "The ritual changed nothing, I was banished from Azarath the moment I killed Azar. The ritual is just words…" A tremble in her eyes betrayed her certainty.
Fate replied, "But words have power, especially to those who have lived by law and faith. I won't judge you, Raven. It's not my job to judge the innocent, merely help them. Let me help you before this wound scars." The dark mystic looked up at Fate in confusion.
Duty and weakness fought in her eyes as she asked, "Why do you care? I'm not human. I'm a half-daemon murderess and exile."
Fate stepped forward and forced the slight girl to his chest, "Stop thinking. You are alive and therefore, worthy of mercy. I help people. Let me help you. And stop judging yourself for once." The words were enough to drown her embryonic anger. The stress of her ordeal came piling down on her self-control and shattered it in an instant, prompting her into an open crying jag. Black energy cut into Fate's body painfully, yet he bore it without comment as thin wailing and choking sobs emerged from the blue-cloaked bundle clinging to his chest.
Eventually, the tears trickled to a stop and silence rose as Raven extricated herself from the sorcerer-lord's grip. She sniffed once as she primly readjusted her cloak. Fate shrugged his cape closed, hiding the long streak of snot and tears that stained the front of his uniform.
Raven looked up at him with azule eyes, "Thank you. I know that I hurt you with my powers when I lost control."
Fate merely tilted his head, "I do what is needed to comfort and heal. It is my calling."
Raven looked away, acutely uncomfortable as he continued, "It would be best if we returned to the tower before the authorities arrive. Unless you would prefer to linger here…" The dark mystic frowned as she looked around the gathering dusk.
She felt better, but there was something that she needed to bring up before she forgot, "I don't think I should continue to live in your home. You have been a gracious host, but I need to move on. If I can loose Azarath and survive, I can survive leaving your home."
Fate nodded gravely, "If that is how you feel, do you have an idea where you want to go?"
Raven mused, "No. But Inza said you know people who would accept a temperamental, half-daemon teenager into their group…"
Fate shook his head ruefully, grey eyes lit up with momentary pleasure, "That's true. There's one in particular you that should fit your tendencies. But those details can wait. You must be tired and we can talk in the morning."
Fate gestured and a golden portal snapped into being. Raven paused before stepping into the rift, "Can I ask what this group is called?"
Fate replied, "The name is up to change at this point, but their leader seems to favor something along the lines of The Teen Titans…" The portal snapped shut as the sun stained everything violet.
So you made it. What did you think? Good? Bad? Heavy-handed melodrama? If you see fit, leave a review, and tell me what you think. This is it, the closing chapter of my 'pre-Teen Titans' Raven trilogy and I certainly took my time about it. I shouldn't write series, not at my rate of updating… In any event, have a nice day and thank you for your time.
