(Disclaimer: SLEEPING BAG NOT OWN! SLEEPING BAG SMASH PUNY LAWYERS!)
-CHAPTER FOUR-
The giant monitor in the living room of Titans Tower cast a hazy light in the darkness. Robin had lost track of time while trying to figure out the reason behind the recent demonic possession that had caused such damage to downtown Jump City, and it had long since gotten dark. He sat on the couch, his head in his hands, desperately wracking his brain for answers. On the screen, images of the attack in progress were arranged together, both still pictures and short video clips from the news that had been set to play in a loop. A close up still shot of the possessed man was placed alongside what looked like the man's drivers license photo—aside from the glowing red eyes and maniacal expression on his face in the former image, the man looked exactly the same in both. Underneath, there was a window of text, giving the man's name, address, occupation, and so on. His name was Randolph Giveny, of 405 Greendale Terrace, Jump City, no criminal record, and he was a chartered accountant working for Thompson, Thomson, and Tomson in downtown Jump City. Robin had found that Randolph had been at an office party for a coworker who had secured a big new account for the firm when the possession had occurred. Fortunately, nobody at the party had been seriously injured when the possessed Randolph had torn apart the office and smashed his way out of the building through a window—a thirty-second floor window.
No evidence of any black magic being performed at the party. I mean, they're accountants for God's sake, thought Robin. No evidence of any exposure to that kind of magic or demonic power of any sort shown in Randolph Giveny or any of the other party-goers. It just doesn't make any sense. Why did this happen?
Robin looked up, and his eyes were automatically drawn to one of the looped video clips on the screen. It was about five seconds long, and very blurry, but it clearly showed him charging towards the possessed man, only to be casually tossed aside by the man's telekinesis. He watched, as if hypnotized, for nearly a full minute, seeing the scene play itself out over and over, amazed that the helpless figure in the video had been himself only a day before. Frustrated with his lack of progress, Robin slammed his fist on the table in front of him, scattering a few papers.
Dammit! No clues, no leads, nothing! Why did this happen? he thought again. Why such a normal man? A sorcerer or someone dabbling in magic, sure, but an accountant?
Robin started as his thoughts were interrupted by the alarm. Ignoring the flashing red lights, Robin brought the cause of the alarm up on the screen. His mouth dropped open. The image on the screen showed a young woman in Jump City's Chinatown, floating at least twenty feet above the ground. Her eyes glowed red.
Oh, no, he thought. Not another one.
OOO
It was only twenty minutes after this latest possession occurred that the Titans arrived on the scene, but already three city blocks were in shambles, and the possessed woman was working on a fourth.
"Alright. Raven, how long did you say your banishment spell took to prepare?" said Robin.
"No more than a few minutes," Raven said.
"Right, get on that as quickly as you can," Robin said. Raven nodded and began to chant, while Robin turned to the other Titans.
"We need to buy time, that's it," he said. "I don't want any heroics, just keep her occupied, and watch out for her telekinesis. If anyone gets caught, everyone else work to break the demon's concentration. Alright?" The Titans nodded.
"Good," Robin said. "Titans! GO!"
As one, the Titans leaped at the possessed woman, leaving Raven several hundred feet behind to complete her spell. The woman laughed as she caught sight of the Titans, deflecting their initial attack with a telekinetic shield. It looked the same as the one used by the last demon they had fought—a translucent black, like Raven's powers, but with a blood red edge instead of just white.
"This is what this city sends to defend itself?" the woman said. "Five children? Ha! Pathetic!"
"Okay, so she obviously has more to say then the last guy," said Cyborg, firing his sonic cannon.
"Don't let her distract you," called Robin over the sound of several of his explosive discs detonating against the demon's shield. "Stay focused!"
"Focused?" the demon said. "On what? What can you ever hope to achieve against me, when none of your attacks have even come close to me?" A thoughtful look crossed her face, even while she held off a barrage of starbolts and a green rhinoceros.
"'The last guy', you say? Hmmm…" the demon wondered aloud. "So, you have faced one such as I before. How did you defeat this one? Tell me!"
The demon lashed out with her telekinesis, scattering the Titans and grabbing Starfire. Starfire screamed, and unleashed a nearly continuous stream of starbolts at her attacker, aiming first at the tendril of power connecting her to the possessed woman, then at the woman herself.
"No! Starfire!" Robin screamed. He recovered from the demon's telekinetic attack and launched himself back into the fight.
"Cyborg, Beast Boy! Frontal assault, NOW!" Robin called. He threw a handful of explosive discs at the demon as he rocketed past, rolling as he hit the ground behind her. Cyborg fired several long blasts from his sonic cannon, and Beast Boy slammed against the demon's shield in the form of a triceratops. For her part, Starfire kept launching starbolts at a furious pace, despite the vice-like pressure of the demon's telekinetic hold on her.
Excellent, thought Robin. They're all attacking from the front, putting all of the demon's attention there. Now, if I'm right…
Robin pushed off of a wall behind the demon, extending his staff in mid-air and slamming it into the demon's back. She shrieked in pain and dropped to the ground, and her momentary loss of concentration caused her shield to drop. The full force of the Titans attacks hit her: Cyborg's sonic cannon, Starfire's starbolts, a Tyrannosaurus-formed Beast Boy's tail, and even another few of Robin's explosives that he threw just as he passed. The demon was launched backwards through the front of a convenience store, which collapsed on top of her. In the silence that followed, the Titans approached the pile of rubble.
"Did we get her?" asked Beast Boy. He stared at the destroyed store. "Dude! We got her!"
"Wait, does that mean we killed the demon's human host, too?" asked Cyborg. Starfire gasped.
"She isn't dead," said Robin. As if on cue, the pile of rubble shifted, then was violently tossed away in all directions as the demon stood up, pelting the Titans with pieces of brick and other building materials.
"HA! Very good, little ones," the demon called. It cackled viciously—it was apparently unharmed. "Focusing most of your attacks to the front in order to draw power away from my rear defense. A brilliant feint. Let me guess—Robin was behind that, yes?"
"How do you know my name?" asked Robin.
"Heh. I hadn't realized that I had a young general on my hands," the demon continued, ignoring his question. "That's how she thinks of you, you know: a general, a military leader of sorts. Despite her naïve, peaceful leanings, she really is quite indoctrinated in her people's warrior culture."
"What do you mean, 'that's how she…'" Robin began, but then realization dawned and he stared at Starfire. Her mouth was hanging open in disbelief.
"Yes, yes, little ones, I can read minds," the demon said, a cruel smile on her face. "I learned quite a bit while inside the alien's head—your strengths, your weaknesses, which demon you fought before me. By the way, he was quite feeble, compared to my power. I am something of a general myself, you see, and if that is so, then by that analogy he would be the soldier cleaning out the latrines. I just thought you should know that."
"You're bluffing," said Robin.
"Maybe," said the demon with a shrug. "But I also found out your little plan to defeat me. Are you willing to take the risk of calling my bluff now?" She glanced pointedly at Raven, still several hundred feet away, and still only about halfway through completing her spell.
"Entering another's mind takes a fair amount of my power, so by doing so I risked weakening my defenses, which, as it turns out, you inadvertently took advantage of," the demon continued. "But your breach of my defenses did nothing, as you can plainly see, and now I am armed with intimate knowledge of your plans. Calculated risk leads to reward—any good general should know that, Robin."
"You're still bluffing," said Robin. He smiled. "You're trying to destabilize us so that we're easier to deal with. That means you must be weakened." The demon chuckled.
"Really, Robin, your grasp of strategy is hardly complete," she said. "A good general always destabilizes the opponent prior to attacking, even when attacking with overwhelming force and there is little chance of defeat." The demon smiled sadistically, and balls of dark power formed in her hands. The same power radiated from her eyes, and crackled around her like lightning.
"Let us consider this a part of your education," the demon said, and darkness erupted from her.
The Titans were scattered like leaves, thrown in all directions by the explosion of telekinetic power. Beast Boy was the first to recover, using his monkey form's agility to halt his uncontrolled movement, but the demon appeared behind him, seemingly out of nowhere, and knocked him unconscious before he could change into another form to attack. He resumed his human form as he fell.
Seeing his friend hurt by the demon, Cyborg charged her in order to exact revenge, but the demon ducked easily under his punch, and rose back up again with an open palm against his chest. Dark power flashed in her hand, and Cyborg was thrown back and up, crashing through two buildings before coming to a stop halfway through a tenth floor office in a nearby skyscraper. His mechanical components sparked for a second or two, and then he powered down, too heavily damaged to do anything else.
Starfire then attacked the demon, sending a stream of starbolts her way, but the demon just disappeared. Starfire looked around frantically, trying to locate the demon.
"Up here, alien!" called the demon, and Starfire looked up to see her floating ten feet above her head. A stream of dark power rushed from the demon's hands, and Starfire was driven straight down with enough force to smash her through the pavement and into the subway tunnel below, where she made a sizeable dent and lay still.
Robin screamed wordlessly, striking straight down at the demon with his staff from behind, but she simply disappeared again. Robin hit the ground and rolled, coming back to his feet in a ready stance, trying to find where the demon had gone.
"Over here!" said the demon, striking from his blind spot and sending him reeling. As Robin regained his footing, the demon disappeared again.
"No, here!" said the demon, again striking from Robin's blind spot.
"Here!"
"Here!"
"Here!"
Robin stumbled and fell to his knees.
Shit! he thought. She's totally changed her fighting style! I can't keep up with her!
The demon reappeared ten feet away, and laughed.
"Divide and conquer, eh, little general?" she said, and laughed again.
She's right. After scattering us, she was able to take us on one at a time, and we didn't stand a chance, Robin thought. She's just playing with me now. I have to take this fight to her if I want to have any chance of beating her.
He surged to his feet and charged the demon, swinging his staff in a series of short but deadly arcs. The demon fell back, still laughing, telekinetically blocking every attack.
"You're giving me everything you have, but you can't even touch me," said the demon during a lull in Robin's assault. "Does this remind you of someone you know?" For a moment, Robin's mind was filled with images of Slade.
"Dammit, get out of my head!" he yelled, and stepped up the pace of his attacks. The demon laughed again, and continued to block every strike. Just as Robin felt his second wind begin to fade, the demon caught hold of his staff and pulled him in. She placed her palm against his chest, and Robin saw her eyes flash with dark power before he was thrown backwards to slam into a brick wall. He sank to the ground, fighting unconsciousness—it was a fight he was losing.
"Do you see now, Robin, my little general?" asked the demon with mock sweetness as she walked towards where he was slumped against the wall. "You never stood a chance against me."
Robin tried to say something, but the pain in his ribs prevented him from even breathing deeply.
Some of them must be broken, he thought. The pain seemed to dull, and his vision began to blur.
"And now, little general, I am going to kill your friend," said the demon, levitating a piece of brick and sending it flying into the side of Robin's head. Robin fell to the ground, and knew no more.
OOO
"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos. Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos."
Raven was still chanting, almost done focusing her power into the banishment spell. She knew she had to hurry—her friends were counting on her.
"Your friends, girl? Your friends have already been defeated," said a voice. It penetrated through Raven's trance, dragging her back up into consciousness. Coming to full awareness, Raven felt a presence in her mind that had gone unnoticed while she had been concentrating on the spell. She looked up, and saw the possessed woman sitting demurely on a pile of rubble about a dozen feet away.
"What did you say?" asked Raven as she tried to dislodge the demon's presence in her mind.
"I said, girl, that your friends have already been defeated," the demon said with a smile. "Oh, and I doubt you'll be able to get me out of your head, Raven dear. Incomplete spells, especially ones as powerful as the one you were attempting, can be such a drain, can't they?"
Raven narrowed her eyes. The demon was right—until she had either completed and used the spell, or dispelled it, much of her power would remain locked up inside it. She doubted that the demon would give her the chance to do either, so she was stuck in a weakened state and would most likely be unable to fight effectively. She cursed inwardly, and the demon smiled.
"My, my. Where did such a nice little girl learn such naughty words?" the demon asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Raven cursed again—she had momentarily forgotten about the demon's presence in her mind. The demon laughed, and hopped off her perch on the pile of rubble. Raven decided that discretion would be the better part of valour for now, and tried to run, but the demon telekinetically lifted her up off the ground.
"Now, now, Raven, we can't have you escaping, now can we? Bad little girls need to be punished," the demon said, and slammed Raven into the ground. "Especially bad little girls who don't behave around their betters." The demon picked Raven up again with her telekinesis and threw her against a nearby wall. Raven grunted with pain, but said nothing.
"Trying to regain your concentration, Raven dear?" asked the demon as she walked casually over to where Raven lay. She grabbed Raven's chin roughly, and held her face close to her own.
"Sorry, but that won't be happening," the demon continued. "It would be very troublesome indeed if you were to complete that spell." She looked to her right to see a large chunk of concrete floating about ten feet away, encased in black energy.
"Oh, but what's this? That looks very heavy, Raven. Maybe I should carry that for you," the demon said, smiling as her own power took control of the chunk of concrete. She backed away and flung the concrete at Raven, who was only barely able to dodge. Giving up on large objects, Raven used her weakened powers to hurl a collection of broken shards of glass at the demon, but they were caught easily. The demon smiled again, and fired the glass shards back at Raven, cutting her in several places but not doing any major damage.
She's just playing with me, Raven thought.
"Yes, that's right," said the demon, obviously having heard this thought as well. "It would be no fun to just kill you. But then again…" The demon grinned sadistically, and collected dark power in her hands, but her plans were disrupted by a blast of what looked like bluish-white fire coming from behind her.
Slightly singed, but otherwise unharmed, the demon got back to her feet.
"Who dares…?" she growled, turning to see a dark haired young man standing a little ways behind her, his hand extended and smoking a little. It was Drakon.
"Leave her alone," he said.
"Are you going to make me?"
"Maybe."
The demon looked down at the now exhausted Raven, thought for a moment, then pulled several feet of metal piping up out of the ground to bend around her.
"Don't move. I'll be right back," she said, then snarled and launched herself at Drakon.
Drakon sidestepped the demon's initial rush with ease, reaching out as she passed. The demon erected a telekinetic shield, but Drakon's hand somehow passed right through it as though it wasn't even there, and he attached what looked like a small piece of paper to the demon's forehead. Symbols written on the paper glowed for a moment, as though they were on fire, and the demon screamed and fell to her knees. She clawed at the piece of paper, but it stayed firmly stuck to her forehead. After a few seconds, the possessed woman collapsed, and only then did the paper detach.
Drakon smiled to himself with satisfaction, and made his way to where Raven lay. He traced a complex symbol in the air with the index and middle fingers of his left hand, and the pipes bent around Raven's body unwound themselves. Raven sat up and rubbed the back of her head, still exhausted, but now at least able to move again. She looked up at Drakon.
"You're the guy from the shop earlier today…Drakon?" Raven said. Drakon smiled and nodded. Raven looked over at the unconscious woman.
"How the hell did you do that?" she asked.
"Banishment sutra," said Drakon as he helped Raven to her feet. "They take a bit of effort to prepare, but they're handy in a pinch when you're fighting demons. Against demons, Buddhist stuff is the most useful, I always say." Drakon held out a handful of sutras to Raven.
"Want some?" he asked. "You might be fighting a lot more demons over the next little while. You should be able to figure out how to make more with a simple magical probe of one of the sutras, just in case you run out of them." Raven reached out hesitantly to take the sutras, eyeing Drakon with suspicion the whole time.
"Who are you, and why are you helping me?" she asked.
"Heh. Cutting right to the questions I'm not supposed to answer, eh?" Drakon said. "I like that." He turned and began to walk away. Raven was too exhausted to chase after him, and turned away to wallow in her frustration.
"Your friends aren't too badly hurt, but they should still get some medical attention," Drakon called over his shoulder. "Your powers should regenerate in a few minutes—if you put that demonic heritage of yours to good use, you should be able to heal them up in no time at all, Raven of Azarath."
Raven's eyes widened in shock, and she turned to ask how he knew about the workings of her powers and her heritage, but he had disappeared. After a few seconds of frantically trying to see where he was hiding, she gave up and picked her way through the rubble to find her friends, chanting as she did so, both to focus on dispelling her incomplete banishment spell, and to rid herself of the nagging questions that filled her mind.
OOO
Drakon watched Raven from the shadows atop a nearby building as she healed the other Titans. He could still sense her confusion, but she was doing an admirable job of suppressing it in order to deal with the problem at hand. He smiled.
Slither detached himself from one of the lower shadows and wound his way up his master's leg, his head appearing over Drakon's shoulder.
"Oh, so there you are, you little sneak," Drakon said. "And where have you been?" Slither hissed irritably, indicating that he had things to do, but Drakon ignored him.
"Never mind, I didn't really need you here anyways," he said. "The Titans and Raven had already worn the demon down a fair bit, so it wasn't too difficult to finish it off." Slither hissed again.
"Oh, the sutras? Oh, don't worry about that," Drakon said as he melted back into the shadows. "Let's just see what she does with them."
-END CHAPTER FOUR-
Author's Note: So that was a fair bit longer. Odd, because I experienced a bit of writer's block right around when Robin lays out the battle plan ("I don't want any heroics."). Fight scenes are kind of a problem for me, possibly just because I tend to think very cinematically, and it's hard to effectively describe what would be a good movie fight in text. I'm fairly happy with the way this fight scene turned out, though. I was able to avoid the whole "powerful supervillain stick everybody" scenario, which can lead to very awkward scenes, by having the demon follow some pretty basic strategy—divide and conquer. As I said, I think it worked out well, but I would, of course, be happy to hear any suggestions for improving on it. I also really liked playing around with the character of the demon in this chapter. The one that appeared in Chapter 1 was basically just an enraged madman who didn't say too much, but this one had a hell of a lot to say (in case you hadn't noticed). I managed to put in some of my ideas regarding good tactics, an interest I have as an amateur fencer and martial artist. I hope that didn't seem too boring—I tried to mix it in with what the demon was actually doing to alleviate some of the dryness of discussing good combat tactics at a fairly abstract level. If you're interested at all in stuff like that, read Sun Tzu's Art of War. Pretty much anything you need to know about good tactics is in there, although sometimes it takes some interpretation to apply properly. Anyway, this demon's character as basically a psychotic genius is one that I find very interesting, for whatever reason, and I had a lot of fun writing her. In case there is any confusion over this, while the demon is really only possessing a female body, and may in fact be male (or asexual or something), I refer to it as 'her' because…well, there are probably several rationalizations I could give you that would all make sense, but the fact of the matter is that it just seemed the most natural thing to do as I was writing it. As I was writing, the demon just seemed to be female for some reason. Apply whatever esoteric psychoanalysis you want to that. I also sometimes call the possessed woman just "the demon" to save space and for the purposes of the flow of the writing. Saying "the possessed woman" all the time just seems stuffy.
To My Reviewers:
nevermoretheraven: My main appreciation of Robin is as a tactician, as might be apparent from this chapter's emphasis on him as a "general", although he has certainly shown the ability to beat the living snot out of virtually everything that comes his way, aside from Slade, in the TV show (including the other Titans). Still, my main focus in this story is on Raven, so naturally the other Titans will kind of get left by the wayside a bit. I hope my future chapters won't disappoint!
CloudsHalo: Everyone works at different speeds, and has different methods. I tend to not write for a long time, then get bitten by the writing bug and write a ton over only a few days, then lose my edge. If I keep writing after that, I tend to put out crap. I think I'm running into that with my work on Chapter 5, but I'll try to get into shape in time to be posted. As much as I like posting my best work, I also like posting reasonably regularly, so a balance has to be struck. As for the creepiness, I actually got a few reviews for Silly Villainy saying stuff like "You're scaring me, buddy." Ah, well. If people can't appreciate my warped sense of humour, that's not my fault. They just need to get themselves a few more complexes. Complexes are always useful—it is every parent's duty to make sure that their children get them. As for what Drakon is really up to, and who he really is, that should be going into Chapter 7, if all goes to plan. It looks like I might be squishing Chapters 5 and 6 together into one, like I did with Chapter 3 and what I had planned for Chapter 4, so what I planned for Chapter 7 might actually be in Chapter 6. I guess that makes sense. Ugh. Such an awkward sentence. From what I've done on Chapter 5 so far, though, it looks like it might be another "No Action, Minimal Plot Advancement" chapter. There will be some humour, though. I hope that will make up for it.