(Disclaimer: I don't own the Titans. The superhero team, the football team, or the mythical beings—take your pick.)
-CHAPTER TEN (finally)-
When Raven awoke, the first thing she noticed was that she was restrained, tied to a chair by the feel of it. The rope was quite tight and the knots were tied well. Not only that, but the chair was made of metal, so the usual "break the chair and escape" trick wouldn't work. Despite all this, Raven scoffed inwardly at these precautions—she was a superhero, after all, and a simple rope could never hold up against her powers. However, before her smirk had even fully formed on her face, she noticed the second thing: namely, that her powers didn't seem to be working. Needless to say, this caused Raven some consternation. She struggled briefly before calming herself enough to focus on getting her powers to work, but no matter how hard she tried, nothing happened. In fact, the harder she tried, the hotter a slim collar around her neck became (this was the third thing she noticed, for those who are keeping track). She craned her neck to see it, but the collar fit her snugly, and remained out of view.
"Faust's necklace," a voice said from the shadows that surrounded Raven, causing her to start. "Made of purest silver and ritually consecrated with various holy oils, it is anathema to demons of all sorts, rendering those forced to wear it completely powerless. Apparently it works on half-demons, as well. Struggling makes it worse, I'm told, but I have no personal experience with it."
"Who are you?" Raven asked. Her question was met with a chuckle, and Principal Baker stepped out of the shadows, a grin on his face.
"I suppose I shouldn't have expected you to recognize my voice after only one meeting, but still, I'm disappointed," he said. "Your reputation seemed to promise more."
Raven squinted a little to see into the shadows, making out the regular edges of a small room in the darkness, and the outline of a door behind where Baker stood.
"I'm still in the school, aren't I?" she said. "One of your little basement—what?—torture rooms?"
"Oh, they're not really torture rooms, my dear girl," Baker said. "They are used for that, of course, but we mostly just use them for whatever little things we need them for. When we can't use any of the more…visible rooms, that is."
"So you're the one behind all this," Raven said. "The possessions—they're all fallout from some massive summoning spell you're performing."
"Hah, yes, yes. Very good," Baker said, as he circled around behind Raven's chair. "You didn't disappoint me there, at least. Do you know what I'm summoning, though?" Raven remained silent.
"Hmph. I didn't think so," Baker said, as he continued to circle around Raven. "It's ironic, really, that you, of all people, should get caught up in all this. You see, all this has it's origin with your father." Raven gasped.
"What do you know about my father?" she said.
"What, Trigon the Terrible? Oh, please, don't look so surprised," Baker said. "You and your unusual parentage are far more well-known than you think in the magical community. There's a certain degree of celebrity that goes along with being the child of a dimension-conquering personification of evil." Raven scowled and looked away.
"Well, now, that's hardly a way to act," Baker said, his grin widening. "Anyway, as I said, my little plan has it's origin with your father, for, you see, he is gathering an army, as any conqueror must. An army of demons. However, he is not yet moving—he is biding his time, mustering his forces, and so on. Now, your average demon is not exactly a patient creature, and this waiting game that Trigon is playing is wearing thin with many of his 'soldiers'. Most do not act on this, of course, terrified of Trigon as they are, but there is a small fraction of his forces that, if the opportunity presented itself, would gladly split from his control and serve a new master."
"And that's where you and your summoning spell come in, I presume," Raven said. Baker smiled at her.
"But of course. I provide these fractious elements of Trigon's army with a way into our dimension, long before Trigon himself would make his move, and in return, they obey my commands," he said.
"An army of deserters…of course…" Raven whispered to herself.
"What was that?" Baker asked, leaning closer to hear.
"Nothing," Raven said. "But don't you think there's a flaw in your plan?"
"How so?" Baker said, a quizzical expression on his face.
"Well, you said that these demons you would be summoning are only a small fraction of Trigon's full army," Raven said. "If Trigon is gathering an army to conquer the world, do you really think that only a fraction of that army would be enough to do anything much?"
"Oh, you disappoint me again, Raven," Baker said. "Surely you must realize that your father's ambitions do not stop with Earth alone. His goal is nothing less than the complete subjugation of our entire dimension, and that's even ignoring his obvious designs on Azarath. Even the smallest fraction of an army capable of conquering an entire universe would be more than enough to, say, take over this one silly little planet." Raven was silent again.
"But enough of all that," Baker said. "What interests me most right now is how you found out about my little plan. It was the possessions, wasn't it?" Raven stayed silent.
"Ah, I thought so," Baker continued. "You must have just found the Gallian centre of the pattern of demon appearances, which, I suppose, led you here. A pity that we didn't find a way to channel those unregulated possessions until two days ago."
"Channel the possessions?" Raven asked, and her eyes widened. "The way Katherine changed—you put a demon in her, didn't you?"
"Katherine Massey? Oh, yes, I believe she is, or rather was, your neighbour in the dormitory," Baker said. "Yes, she poked around where she shouldn't have, so I arranged for her to be possessed to keep her quiet. It's really a wonderful little trick, and one that has allowed me to—how shall I put this?—upgrade several of my guards, as I'm sure you found out." Raven shuddered, remembering the way the eyes of the guard who caught her glowed red.
"Incidentally, I believe one of your little friends overheard a few of my apprentices talking about precisely that before he was caught," Baker said. "Oh, and while we're talking about him…"
Raven heard the door to the room opening, and Baker stepped aside as Robin appeared out of the darkness. He was unrestrained, and Raven's heart nearly skipped a beat.
"Robin! Robin, quick, untie me!" she said, but Robin did not respond. "Robin?"
"Not exactly, little one," Robin said, but there was something different about his voice. Raven gasped as his masked eyes suddenly began to glow red.
"No…" she whispered, and Baker chuckled.
"Yes, he will make a fine addition to my army," he said. "To see one of their so-called heroes turn against them will have such a delightful effect on the morale of my future subjects."
"And I suppose you're going to stick a demon in me, too?" Raven said.
"Actually, no," Baker said. "While Robin was a perfect candidate for possession, you, my dear, are already half demon, so you would naturally reject any normal demon's attempt to possess you. That collar keeps you from using your powers, but it does nothing to change what you are, so there's really nothing I can do in that regard."
"So what are you going to do with me? Keep me tied up here until I die of boredom?" Raven asked.
"Well, that was a question that I pondered for some time," Baker said. "However, after a little thought, I found the perfect use for you."
"And that would be…?" Raven said, becoming frustrated with Baker's often roundabout manner of speaking.
"There was this scroll on demons I read, oh, years ago now," he said. "Very informative. One of the things it said was that, while demons greatly enjoy feeding on human souls, they enjoy the souls of other demons even more, if they can get them. It's the reason they fight amongst themselves so much, and why they hardly ever unite unless forced to by a being as powerful as Trigon."
"Could you please get to the point, before I actually do die of boredom?" Raven said.
"Ah, yes, of course," Baker said. "Well, you see, while you are not a full demon, a half-demon's soul should be more of a delicacy than that of a normal human. So I figured I would use you as a sacrifice to attract more demons." Raven paled.
"A sacrifice?" she asked hesitantly.
"Oh yes. While the spell does not specifically call for it, sacrificing a virgin can never hurt a summoning, now can it?" Baker said. "I presume that you are a virgin."
"Oh, that is so none of your business," Raven said. Baker waved his hand dismissively.
"It hardly matters. You see, it gets even better," he said. "When I thought about it a bit more, I realized that I wouldn't be giving the demons just any half-demon—I'd be giving them the daughter of Trigon, who, as I said before, they are not exactly on the best of terms with, to say the least. Add to that the fact that you are believed to be the key to Trigon's entry into our dimension, and that killing you might very well deny him his great ambition, and you have a morsel that I doubt any demon could pass up."
"You won't get away with this," Raven said. "You only caught Robin and me—Beast Boy escaped, and he'll bring help. They'll stop your spell."
"And, incidentally, your sacrifice?" Baker said, a grin on his face.
"Well, yeah," Raven said with a shrug.
"Hmmm. In that case, they had better hurry, since the final ceremony begins in about…" Baker checked his watch. "…oh, twenty minutes. You, subdue her so we can get her ready for the ceremony."
The possessed Robin nodded and stepped forward, an evil smile on his face.
"Robin, don't do this!" Raven pleaded. "Fight it, Robin!"
"Shush, little one," Robin said. "It will all be over very soon."
"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid…" Raven began, but she was interrupted by Robin delivering a quick, hard chop to the side of her head, and she slumped forward against her restraints, unconscious.
OOO
Raven woke up again with a serious headache, and it only got worse when she took stock of her situation: she was wearing a rather short, gauzy white dress, and was chained to a rock in a stereotypically suggestive "damsel in distress chained to a rock" pose, her arms chained back so she had little choice but to stick her chest out.
Great. Baker's an evil sorcerer AND a sicko, Raven thought.
"Ah, so you've woken up. Wonderful," Baker's voice said, and Raven cast about for a moment before locating him—he was standing on a raised stone platform at one end of the massive chamber Raven now found herself in, smiling smugly, with what seemed like the only door out directly behind him.
"I understand that demons always prefer for their prey to be fully aware," Baker continued. "Probably some kind of sadistic instinct, I suppose."
"Speaking of sadistic, is this really necessary?" Raven asked, indicating with a nod of her head her chains and attire. Baker thought for a moment.
"Probably not, no, but it's traditional," he said. "Besides, it amuses me. Why, do you not like your dress?"
"Well, it's a little, um, revealing," Raven said. "The distinct curve to this rock doesn't help much either. And please don't tell me that you were the one who changed me into this get-up."
"Oh, no, no, no. I do have some sense of propriety," Baker said. "I made certain to only have my female apprentices attend to your clothing."
"That fills me with relief to no end," Raven deadpanned, sarcasm dripping from her voice. "You and your male apprentices still get the benefit of their efforts, though, I see." She looked around at the loose ring of robed figures that surrounded her, catching not a few leers from under the hoods.
Ugh. I'd chalk it up to their warped education under Baker, but I don't have nearly that much faith in humanity, Raven thought. Besides, Baker probably purposefully chose the degenerates to be his apprentices.
"Well, now, I wouldn't put it quite that way, my dear girl," Baker said, looking hurt. "I do not usually take pleasure from the distress of scantily-clad teenaged girls. Your friend, however, does seem to be enjoying himself."
Baker gestured behind him, and Robin stepped forward, his eyes still glowing red. He had a sadistic smirk on his face. Raven looked away, fighting back tears.
"Well, with the small talk out of the way, let's get to the main event, shall we?" Baker said, gesturing expansively with his arms. "I'd hate for us to be rudely interrupted, as it were." He turned to address his apprentices.
"Begin the ceremony!" Baker boomed, and the robed figures began chanting in unison. Raven felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as she felt the ambient magic in the room suddenly increase dramatically.
They've probably been preparing this spell for weeks, Raven thought. The magical field is all ready, now it's just a matter of focusing it all into this room to create the summoning portal itself.
Several dozen candles, arranged into a complex pattern of intersecting circles surrounding Raven and the chanting apprentices, burst into flame all at once. Raven looked around again, taking in the details of the massive room.
Candles and chalk—no, ash—arranged in patterns on the floor, it looks like a variation on the Harraneshi placement, designed to swirl the magic up into a vortex that will drill through reality at it's apex…there! she thought, looking straight up. Virtually invisible to the untrained eye, a wisp of what looked like unnaturally deep red flame was beginning to form just less than fifty feet above Raven's head, up near the ceiling of the massive chamber. It was still faint, and she had found it more by feel than by actually using her eyes, but Raven knew that it would soon bloom into full visibility as the magical field that had covered the entire city collapsed into just this one room.
With that kind of power, even the relatively unconcentrated walls and edges of the vortex will probably be visible, Raven thought, marveling at the sheer magnitude of power involved despite herself. Hmmm…I wonder how big this portal is going to be? Bigger than this little circle of Baker's apprentices. Once the demons show up, they're toast. I guess they're expendable, but do they know that?
"Hey, you do know what's going to happen once you complete this spell, don't you?" Raven said to the nearest robed figure. "Big portal, demons arriving—do you have any idea what demons do to humans, especially if they have a little magical skill?"
The apprentices did not respond, and continued to chant. Raven pressed on.
"They eat relatively weak mages like you like popcorn. Your power certainly won't be enough to stand up to them," she continued. "Do you think your master will save you? Even if he cares enough about you to try, he won't have time—once the portal is open, the demons will be on you guys before he can even get a single syllable of a spell out. Everyone in this circle will be dead, I assure you."
This seemed to get through to a few of the apprentices, as their chanting became uncertain for a moment, but Baker had been paying attention, and he wasn't about to let Raven foil his plans now.
"She is lying to you, my children!" he shouted from his platform. "The only one who has any reason to fear the demons is her, for as soon as they appear, they will be under my control, and as my chosen apprentices, you will have dominion over them as well. You will be the generals in my grand army!"
This seemed to bolster the confidence of the apprentices, and they began chanting again with renewed vigour. Raven groaned inwardly.
"No! He's lying to you!" she shouted. "This is someone who wants to take over the world! Do you really think he'll want to share power with you? He's just…"
Raven was interrupted by a deafening roar as a circle of red flame erupted all around, quickly whirling up into an immense glowing vortex. The candles had gone out, their mortal flames replaced by small eddies in the flow of the unearthly red flame, each centred exactly at the ends of each candle. As it reached the apex point, the stream of fire joined seamlessly with the single flame that had been floating there.
"Your efforts come too late, Raven of Azarath!" Baker shouted triumphantly over the roar of the magical vortex. "The spell is complete! The world is mine!"
Suddenly, the apex flame began to grow, becoming larger and larger as the vortex drained into it. Just as the last of the magic was absorbed into the now massive flame it contracted into a single point, bright white with a tinge of red around the edges. It then began slowly expanding out into a deep red disc, parallel to the floor of the chamber. Dark shapes appeared around the edges of the portal.
"Yes! Come, demons! Come to me, my army!" Baker roared. "I offer you all these souls—should you serve me, there will be many more!"
"What! No, you said…" shouted one of the apprentices, but he was cut off as a black-skinned demon that looked like something directly out of a nightmare dropped out of the portal and eviscerated him as it landed. After a moment of shocked silence, the apprentices panicked, and several more demons took this as their cue, falling from the portal and landing amongst the robed figures. It was only a matter of seconds before Baker's erstwhile apprentices were all dead.
"Told ya so," Raven muttered to herself, but then she started as a particularly large demon with dark green skin and bat-like wings suddenly dropped to the chamber floor in front of her. It stared at her intently for a moment, and then turned to look at Baker.
"What about this one?" the demon growled. "I sense power in her."
"That, my friend, is a lovely young lady called Raven," Baker replied. "You would perhaps know her better as the daughter of Trigon the Terrible."
The demons all stared at her, first in shock, then in barely suppressed hunger. Baker smiled nastily before continuing.
"Do with her what you will," he said, and the demons began to close in. Raven closed her eyes tightly and gritted her teeth, bracing herself for the pain.
"I think not," a voice said, and Raven heard a whistling sound followed by several metallic clanks. She felt her chains loosen and fall away, and the collar dropped from around her neck. As she opened her eyes, she felt her powers surge through her body once more. The demons drew away from her, and Raven looked up to the platform where Baker was fuming. Beside him stood Robin, his masked eyes apparently back to normal, grinning widely.
"One word for you, Baker—psyche!" Robin shouted, and jumped down to the floor of the chamber, landing hard on a demon as he did so. Raven smiled.
"Real mature, Robin," she said, as she used her powers to slam two demons into a wall.
"Hey, we are in a school," Robin shot back, striking another two in the head with his staff.
"How did you break free from the possession?" Raven asked. She had wrapped the chains that had formerly held her around one unfortunate demon and was using her powers to swing him like a wrecking ball.
"You know, these sutras are very handy," Robin said, reaching under his shirt and pulling one of the sutras out while keeping an enraged demon at bay with the end of his staff. "If Batman taught me anything, it's to always be prepared."
"ENOUGH!" Baker roared. "Demons! Heed me! Come forth to destroy these interlopers! Show these children the true meaning of power!"
In response to Baker's call, hundreds of dark shapes appeared silhouetted in the red of the portal, and demons began pouring out by the dozen.
"Uh oh," Robin said, staring wide-eyed at the army coming towards him. "I think we're going to need back up…"
As if on cue, the door behind Baker exploded inward in a flash of green and blue. The smoke cleared, revealing Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy standing ready for battle.
"Huh. Ask and ye shall receive," Robin said with a grin. "Titans! GO!"
OOO
Several hundred feet above, Drakon stood outside on the grounds of Marsdale College. The wind whipped his hair and long coat around him. He smiled.
"They've started. I should probably get down there," Drakon said, and started walking towards the school's main doors. "Hey, Slither! Are you coming?"
A sibilant hiss was just audible over the howling wind.
"I don't care what kind of dead animal you've found, get your scaly ass over here!"
-END CHAPTER TEN-
Author's Note: This one in a bit of script format, because it amuses me! (I hope this is kosher with the rules about 'no script format', since the vast majority of this is a regular narrative. If it isn't, please let me know and I'll change it.)
Sleeping Bag: Right, so I've finally started writing this stuff again. Sorry for the delay.
Raven: You'd goddamn better be sorry, bucko!
Sleeping Bag: Bucko?
Raven: It seemed appropriate at the time.
Robin: Yeah, so why did it take so long?
Sleeping Bag: Well, I went through a fairly long period of not writing for some reason. I don't know why, really, I just didn't end up doing anything. Then, once I started up again, I wanted to finish off my other story, Split, first, because it only had one or two chapters left, while this one will probably have a few more. I also wanted to be able to focus on these ones exclusively.
Raven: In other words, you wanted to put off finishing this story as long as possible.
Sleeping Bag: That's cold.
Beast Boy: Yeah, she's like that sometimes. Usually happens for a few days every month or…
Raven: (bludgeons Beast Boy with some large heavy object)
Sleeping Bag: Yeah…um…right, so as I was saying, that's cold, but not necessarily untrue. As those who have read my last couple of author's notes for this story will know, my enthusiasm for this story has waned considerably. I am really only finishing it out of a sense of responsibility…
Raven: How noble of you.
Sleeping Bag: …but I am finishing it nonetheless, and I will try to do a good job of it and not cut any corners.
Raven: Not much like your other stories, then.
Sleeping Bag: (sighs) Could somebody please shut Raven up? I like her, but seriously, sometimes she's just a bit much.
Starfire: (pulls out a tea bag) Raven! Over here, Raven! (tosses the tea bag) Go get it!
Raven: (runs off after the tea bag)
Sleeping Bag: Huh. You've done that before, I presume?
Starfire: Oh, yes. It works every time.
Robin: Can we focus a little, here?
Sleeping Bag: Sorry. Moving on, the observant will notice that the name of this story has changed. You might remember that little quasi-contest thing I had going where I asked for submissions of a new name for the story. While I haven't gone with any one suggestion verbatim, one of the major themes people included was watching, and variations on that. So, with my oftentimes minimalist sense of aesthetics, I went with just calling the story "Watched". So, if anyone is reading the whole story after I made the change, every time I say "Stalker", just substitute in "Watched" and everything will be fine.
Beast Boy: And what about your responses to your reviewers?
Sleeping Bag: Well, since it's been over a month since I put up the last chapter, I get the funny feeling that most of my reviewers will have forgotten what they wrote for that one, so for now I'll just say thanks for the reviews and leave it at that. Review responses will start up again next chapter.
Robin: Okay. Well, I think that about covers it.
Sleeping Bag: Yup.
Cyborg: Um…am I going to get any lines, here?
Sleeping Bag: Of course.
Cyborg: When?
Sleeping Bag: Just now. That was it.
Cyborg: Dang.