Asbury
Park, NJ
Summer
Azarath… Metrion… Xinthos…
Azarath… Metrion… Xinthos…
Azarath… Metrion…Xinthos…………
The world was empty, dark. Nothingness. Everything was quiet… the absence of sound echoing in silence. All was still, all was everything and nothing. All was here.
All was gone.
Azarath… Metrion… Xinthos…
Azarath… Metrion… Xinthos…
Azarath… Metrion…Xinthos…………
There was calm in that silence. Peace in that darkness. Light in that peace and acceptance in that calm. Life was balanced and still.
Azarath…Metrion…Xinthos…
And then the feather-light touch upon her mind. A smirk. She opened her eyes and ceased her levitation. Coming to rest Indian-style on the floor, she stretched out her legs and massaged the cramps in her calves. She'd been at it too long again, she surmised. Not that she cared if her body protested, however. The… more important part of her… was content with it.
Calm, quiet, collected… peaceful… she stood from the floor. Her mother needed her in the kitchen. Probably for dinner, given the sudden rumblings in her stomach. Idly she glanced at the clock. Was it really—oh, yeah, she guessed it was.
Her mother had set the table and was pouring lemonade into glasses. Raven nearly smiled in greeting and her mother finished the gesture with flourish. The two sat down together for what was to be Raven's last meal in this place. The next morning she was off to school, and her mother, no longer really needed to provide the type of care her daughter had required, was off to… well, they hadn't quite discussed that yet.
Calmness… Peace… Stillness… Not a word, not a sound save for the clinking of silverware and the occasional creak of a chair. Yet nothing remotely uncomfortable.
Acceptance.
Routine.
Rote.
Of course there were other ways… but why intrude upon this moment with the harsh and abrasive customs of Earth?
Raven's mother, known on this planet by her Christian name Angela Roth, but to everyone that mattered she was Arella, the Messenger Angel. Raven's mother, who smiled congenially as her daughter cleared her plate and began on seconds, a misguided heroine to some and harbinger of the apocalypse to countless more, a frightened Earth-girl whose selfish choice has brought civilization to its knees.
Living is always the selfish choice.
And then an outcast, a runaway martyr who couldn't bring herself to destroy her offspring and ensure the salvation of worlds.
A mother.
Raven's mother.
Raven, the child.
A winged raven, messenger of Odin, memory of the Gods, link to power through knowledge of the outside world. Black Bird, Raven, flying on the wings of death. Raven, daughter of Arella and a demon who hoped to escape from Hell by being reborn into his offspring. A seed that was not destroyed. A child allowed to live.
Raven.
Arella.
A child…
And a mother.
That mother sat in silence and watched her daughter refill her plate with the ghost of a smile the only outwardly show of appreciation. This was her last chance to watch her daughter in this way… with eyes and ears and intelligence and from right across the room. The world—the one that mattered—would never forgive her for her choices. Yet, in their way, forgives is never necessary, because anger—even hate, aren't felt in their hearts and minds they way mere Earthlings conceive of such emotions. Choices were made that cannot be unmade. Instead… other choices were made.
Angela Roth was barely older than her daughter is now when she found herself in the arms of the cult that changed the world forever, starting with her. It was her own way of revenge against a man who would preach and pray with the same hands that did even darker deeds. Angela's fragile psyche and blossoming womanhood felt the mercy of the Good Lord for longer than a pained childhood could remember.
And so she fled…
…straight into the arms of a sinister cult. God didn't exist for Angela, so naturally the Devil didn't either. Wine and love and blood and acceptance and everything she hated of her father flowing freely from the upturned palms of strangers only because in her precariously warped mind it hurt him more…
Hurt his God.
When all is lies and pain and nothing is real the abstracts and the meanings and the feelings are twisted and used to suit one's own devices without pity and without fear because it isn't real. Why not sleep with the Devil to bring him alive on Earth when the Devil is the figment of an imagination that had conjured up worse things in its lifetime?
Why not? It hurts no one but the vague constructs of an abusive God whose faithful servant had to extract in flesh recompense for some unnamed sin.
Why not? Because the Devil is real.
Even though God, apparently, is not.
Angela Roth slept with the Devil, or rather, with a man she believed was masquerading as the Devil during what she thought was an acid-laced alcohol-induced fantasy.
Until the masquerade ended and nightmare became real.
The demon Trigon used the naïve and mostly-harmless rabble of occult-crazed youths, taking their simply conceived yet all together ludicrous concept of unleashing Satan and perverting it into something even more sinister: his ticket home. A bit of wine, a bit of LSD, and a willing mind with open legs, and Trigon was able to plant the seed of his return. Angela would bear his child, which would carry his blood, and through that blood he could exact control, and through that control she would be his avatar on Earth, and then from Earth he could assert himself as the ruler of all creation... including Azarath.
Angela conceived. The demon revealed his true form. The cultists rejoiced even as he slaughtered them as sheep that unwittingly followed the wrong shepherd. And Angela crawled away from the bloody aftermath, terrified, pregnant, and alone.
Yet for every demon there is a god, for every death there is also life, for every Hell… a Heaven.
She was not alone for long.
Azarath… the opposite of the Hell of Trigon, paradise compared to Earth. In Azarath Angela found the will to live—the will to be a mother to her child such as she never had for herself. She gave birth to a daughter, and the leader of Azarath named her 'Raven' after the mythology present on the girl's home planet. Angela took the name Arella and willed that her child's life be spared.
And Azar, powerful leader, teacher, and guide of Azarath… agreed.
And so Arella consigned that her daughter be raised in Azarath, fostered by Azar and taught how to control the demon within her. From Azar Raven learned what her father was and what her mother had become. From Azar Raven learned that in order to stop her father she had to control his vessel. And from Azar Raven learned that that vessel… was herself.
Raven learned that the key to beating her father was self-control. Balance, peace, calm, stillness… these were her weapons. Control was paramount, understanding was key, discipline was essential.
Arella watched from afar as her daughter learned at the feet of the master. Arella watched as her daughter mastered mind, body, emotion, matter, energy, and thought. Arella watched… and was content.
And then disaster.
As with all things too good to be true… as true of all Heavens…
It came to an end.
Evil came to Azarath. Some blamed Raven, others Arella. Some didn't care. Azar had a world in turmoil (turmoil happens in heaven?) she needed to protect. Azar's loving eyes were hard, her wisdom unforgiving. Arella was banished with her daughter back to Earth, seemingly for the greater good of all.
And, being cast out of Azarath at the tender age of fourteen, Raven found herself on Earth.
Earth was loud. Earth was bright. Earth was abrupt and harsh. Earth… was Hell.
And yet, somehow, Arella made due. Somehow she provided Raven with food and roof and other essentials. Somehow she taught Raven everything there is to know about Earth, from language to history to culture. And somehow here in Hell, Raven stuck to her teachings and kept a tight hold on the beast within.
Raven adapted to Earth well enough, though her stoic nature comes off here as cold and distant; her self control as rigid and uncaring. Angela home-schooled her daughter and kept her isolated from the population at large. Raven's gifts of reading others' surface thoughts and emotions—which was an essential part of life in Azarath, was more of a curse than a blessing on Earth. Here, people's thoughts were loud, their emotions glaring. Everything that wasn't said was thought, and Raven heard. Loud and clear.
That's why Raven and her mother ate their meals in silence—lived their lives in silence. Angela merely had to think and her daughter would hear. And Raven merely had to think loudly—i.e. project her thoughts, and her mother would hear. Communication without words; life without expressed emotion.
Calmness, stillness, peace, quiet…
Azarath…Metrion…Xinthos…
Alive. Content.
Happy?
Raven wasn't aware of the difference.
Her mother was.
As of right now it didn't matter. Raven was eighteen, an adult by Earth standards. And Arella had painfully noticed some time ago that there wasn't much she could do for her daughter to aid in the fight.
Especially now, with Raven twelve hours away from leaving for to college.
Her areas of study were undefined, but the intent was to focus on psychology, philosophy—anything that would help her to gain the edge in the constant war within her. And the study of humanity that would be the college experience is an essential tool to help her maintain her discipline. After all, it is easy to maintain control of one's dark side while in contented isolation. Keeping control when things get out of hand? That's another matter.
And there was a small part of Raven that was genuinely curious and eager to try and learn to live in the world that she was sentenced to.
And so, in less than twelve hours, Angela would be helping her only daughter/Raven Roth, move into Hudson University on Long Island for the start of the summer session. Her rather unorthodox home-schooling had made it difficult to place her in compulsory classes and the summer session would help the school figure out exactly where Raven belongs.
In less than twelve hours Raven would be living in a Hudson University dorm. In less than twenty-four, Arella was returning to Azarath to try and help right the wrongs so many believe that she helped to cause. Raven knew where her mother was going; that place that out of mercy they ensured that she would only barely remember, like some happy moment from early childhood or last week's favorite dream. Raven knew that her mother was returning to Heaven, because Heaven needed fixing. Raven knew… and accepted.
Tonight's meal was the last the two would share together—perhaps forever for all they knew. And it was spent in comfortable silence, each enjoying and subsequently memorizing the feel of the other's company: Angela's feather-light touch upon her daughter's mind that conveyed reassurance, love, acceptance, and a polite reminder to be sure that her winter clothes were packed as well. Raven smirked as she actively thought to answer in the way telepaths partition conversation from thought.
With chagrin she realized that this was the partition ordinary humans were lacking. It would make for a very trying semester.
Raven and Angela stood in the center of the dorm room, surrounded by boxes containing everything of Raven's worldly possessions. There was nothing left now but the unpacking, but just like the packing, Raven would not suffer anyone to help her.
This was it. The moment of goodbye. Raven stood, stoic and impassive by nature with Angela mimicking by design.
"This is goodbye."
Raven blinked slowly, absorbing the shock from the sudden disruption of the pristine silence.
"Words…" A question, or a statement of fact?
Angela kept up the impassive mask. "Thoughts fail me."
Raven's blank expression didn't change as she tilted her head once in barely perceptible nod. "You can't separate the ones you… wish… me to see from the one's you… don't."
A definite nod from Angela. "Forgive me?"
Raven blinked but didn't nod at the loaded question.
"Forgive what?" she returned finally, a smirk twitching on her lips.
Angela smiled fully. She nodded again, tears moistening her eyes that practice alone ensured would not fall. Her hands she clasped behind her back to prevent her from reaching out for her daughter. Whether or not Raven knew of the hidden emotional turmoil this final goodbye was wreaking with her mother, she never batted a lash.
"Well…" Angela said at last. "I should go."
"Indeed." It wasn't cold, but then it wasn't exactly warm, either.
Angela forced another smile, and a series of nods, as she backpedaled her way towards the door. "Good bye."
Silence.
Another nod, and Angela turned and opened the door.
"Say hello to Azar for me." Blank. Emotionless. Almost formal.
Angela stopped in her tracks.
"I will." Barely a whisper, words chocked back by emotion.
A pause.
Deafening silence.
Raven's mind was closed to her.
A purposeful nod. A controlled exit. Angela was strong enough to maintain control until she made it back to the rental van. Only when she was safely inside and out of Raven's perceptual range did she drop the walls and allow herself the luxury of a mother's tears.
Raven stood in her dorm room, not having moved an inch. Angela thought that she was out of range. Yet she was Raven's mother, linked by stronger bonds than psychic training.
And she was wrong.
Azarath…Metrion…Xinthos…
The meditation began.
Azarath…Metrion…Xinthos…
Raven levitated, found her center.
Azarath…Metrion…Xinthos…
The world melted away. All was calm.
Azarath…
Peaceful…
Metrion…
Still…
Xinthos………
Then what was the sinking weight in her stomach?
Azarath…Metrion…Xinthos…
Is this what's Azar's banishment felt like?
The soft chanting ceased and Raven drifted towards the floor again. She was alone now, as she had always wished to be; yet in that same measure, feared.
Calm, cool, collected once more, she began to unpack.
Morning dawned cold and gray. Raven awoke to the faint light as it streamed in her windows, and groaned. Nevertheless, she was up and dressed in a matter of minutes and seated in a bizarre yoga position to begin her morning meditations.
Azarath…Metrion…Xinthos…
Azarath…Metrion…Xin—Rumble!
She sat back down, hard, and groaned again.
Perhaps some breakfast first?
Raven left her room and headed for the elevator. There was another student already there, waiting patiently for it to arrive. He turned his head slightly, his smile even slighter, in the form of greeting. Raven blinked. Fortunately the stranger didn't appear to be waiting for her to reply in kind and her complete lack of acknowledgement was swallowed up by the silence between them.
The elevator dinged and opened its doors.
The stranger entered first and pressed the button for the ground floor. That was Raven's destination as well and so she simply stood quietly on the other side of the elevator. It descended in a silence that if perceived as uncomfortable neither let on.
The doors opened. Raven followed the stranger out of the elevator.
She wound up following him all the way to the Hudson U. Café, the only dining facility opened during the summer. She maintained her distance and he seemed not to care—or even notice—she was there.
The stranger handed his student ID over to the cashier, who swiped it and handed it back to him. He mumbled a sincere enough 'thank you' before heading into the café. Raven followed suit but didn't bother to thank the cashier, whose thoughts were full of judgmental opinions about a girl who dyes her hair purple and buys matching contacts. Raven smirked. If only she knew…
The stranger loaded a tray with waffles and sat himself at a random table. Raven grabbed some scrambled eggs and made for a table as far away as possible from the few random students who had beaten them to breakfast.
She pulled a faded paperback out of her jacket pocket and buried her nose, hoping that the slightly rubbery taste of café eggs and the ramblings of Sartre would distract her from the din of unsaid thought.
It didn't work.
The two girls in the corner—obviously new roommates, were sizing each other up behind friendly eyes and idle chitchat. Another boy sat alone reading a comic book and giving rather amusing voices to the characters he was reading. The cook behind the griddle was mentally counting down the minutes 'til quitting time with reckless abandon. Another table had girls evaluating every male in the room in a rather… primal way.
…What color are his eyes? …
Raven blinked and peered over her book. One of the girl's thoughts rang through loud and clear above the din. Raven couldn't help but be curious. Whose eyes?
That's when she remembered the stranger she had incidentally followed to the café. She remembered only because she had previously forgotten his presence. Raven lowered the book slowly in a calculated movement. There he sat, chewing on waffles and idly skimming the newspaper someone had left on his table.
Raven silently gasped.
His mind was dark!
Raven closed her eyes and hid behind her book, clandestinely stretching out with her senses...
PHEW!
Not dark like hers. Dark like somebody turned out all the lights. Dark like…
His mind is closed!
Raven lowered her book again, intrigued. She had never encountered an Earthling capable of shutting her out. Well, her mother could to some extent, but years' worth of training in Azarath is responsible for that.
But this stranger wasn't from Azarath. She would have sensed that about him immediately.
Raven's lips turned in the barest of smirks.
Blue. Ice blue.
From her vantage point she could see his eyes. They seemed to be reading the paper before them with disinterest.
Ice blue eyes, ink-black hair, ivory skin that hasn't seen enough daylight. Raven found it easy to study him. In doing so, so intently was she listening to the silence from his mind that all else faded away. She heard only silence, and in silence there was calm; there was stillness; there was peace.
Azarath…Metrion…Xinthos…
But she wasn't meditating.
She was staring with interest at a stranger with ice blue eyes.
Then suddenly he stood and grabbed his tray. Raven shoved her nose into her book again to cover herself and was bludgeoned with the rush of incoming thoughts. She grabbed her temple with one hand, as if dizzy, and slowly the pain faded.
When she looked up, the stranger was gone.
Raven didn't run into him again for days.
Summer session classes were about to start now that all the new students were supposedly moved in. Raven decidedly didn't like how paper-thin her walls were. She spent much of her time meditating to escape the headaches that come from hearing too much human thought.
So much time that she didn't truly finish unpacking.
Her computer still sat in pieces—or what she assumed was pieces. Why did it need so many boxes anyway?
With an unexpressed air of resignation Raven ripped the packing tape off the first box. The lid flew back and packing peanuts went everywhere.
"Azarath…Metrion…XINTHOS!"
The peanuts flew madly about and became enveloped in obsidian nothingness. The nothingness swirled and returned to the box, whose lid snapped shut with as much BANG as cardboard could muster.
Azarath…Metrion…Xinthos…
Find the peace.
Azarath…Metrion…Xinthos…
Find the calm.
Azarath…Metrion…Xinthos…
Find the center.
Azarath…Metrion…WHINE!
Find someone who knows about computers, idiot!
Raven entered the hallway, steeling herself for what would be her first verbal encounter with a stranger.
The first sounds she heard were coming from the room directly across from hers. Something hard, abrupt, grating...
… but the words…
Darkness imprisoning me. All that I see—Absolute horror. I cannot live. I cannot die. Trapped in myself—body my holding cell!
Raven gasped and stepped back.
Thankfully no one was there to see.
She regained her composure quickly, however, and silently berated herself for allowing coincidence to unnerve her. She looked at the door again—ignoring the music this time. She noticed with satisfaction that whoever lived here had done as she had and torn down the red construction-paper bird that said the occupant's names on every door. The denizen of this room had replaced it with a whiteboard, however, much like the others in this hallway. Though this one was pristinely blank without so much as name or greeting written there.
Raven full-out smirked. She suddenly caught the thoughts of the one behind the door. He was mentally grumbling in some form of techno-jargon. Obviously he knows something about those infernal machines…
Raven steeled herself… and knocked.
Nothing.
She groaned and knocked louder.
A pause. The music stopped. She knocked again.
Shuffling noises from within. Then silence.
… Silence…
The mind inside had closed.
Raven didn't have time to contemplate this, however. The door swung open and revealed the boy from earlier. Ice blue eyes looked down at her from an unreadable face.
"Yes?" His voice was just as unreadable and his eyes seemed to stare through her. Humans weren't supposed to have eyes that intense.
"Are you a stereotypical teenage boy?" she droned monotonously.
His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched slightly but he didn't respond.
"Computers," she clarified. "Can you… you know… make them work?"
A tense pause before the jaw unclenched and the eyes returned to normal. And was that the ghost of a smile she saw playing on his lips?
"What doesn't it do?" he asked candidly.
"Get out of the box and set itself up." That would have been sarcastic if the tone believed the words. Instead it was delivered deadpan.
"They usually don't," the boy returned, just as evenly.
"Can you do something about it?" she asked with only the barest hint of inflection.
His expression seemed frozen he appeared to be weighing his options. "Sure," he said at last. "Why not." He seemed to smile genuinely at her. "One second." Then he disappeared back into his room, the door shutting behind him. Half a second later though and he reappeared, Leatherman in hand.
Wordlessly Raven led him across the hall to her room. She unlocked her door and pushed it open. Her borrowed computer geek immediately saw the three boxes in the middle of her floor and walked over without preamble.
He knelt down and grabbed the box that was opened. Raven heard his displeasing thoughts towards packing peanuts and why some companies still use them loud and clear as he muttered something to that effect.
The first box contained the computer monitor. Her geek pulled it out of the box, spilling remarkably very few peanuts in the process.
"Where do you want this?" he asked as he brushed off the peanuts that stuck to its frame with static.
"On the desk," she answered as though it were obvious.
He paid no heed to the tone, instead focusing on carrying the monitor to the desired location.
Raven claimed a seat on her bed and watched in detached fascination as he somehow managed to assemble and successfully boot her machine in less than fifteen minutes. He worked efficiently enough, and the only thoughts she could glean from his mind were the occasion 'insert tab A into slot B' type setup remarks.
"Ta-da!" The geek stood up and admired his work. All of the wires had been secured with twist ties and the surge protector was neatly bundled. It almost looked… beautiful… in that mechanical sort of way. "Do you need any help setting up or are you good to go?"
Raven was startled out of her trance-like stare at her new machine. "Uh… isn't it set up now?"
The geek smirked and shook his head in mock despair. Then he proceeded to seat himself at her desk. The setup screen was displayed and he began filling in the required information.
Name: Raven Roth.
"How do you know my name?" she asked, her voice cold and suspicious. She was reading over his shoulder.
The geek chuckled slightly and kicked a discarded box with his foot. Raven looked down. Sure enough, her name was printed there plain as day on the address label.
Raven's eyes darkened but she said nothing.
The boy clicked to the next screen, and then the next, and the next until the desktop appeared again. However, as soon as it appeared, a blur of keyboard strokes and the flash of many screens and Raven saw her personal information strewn about almost casually.
"What are you doing?"
Dick Grayson froze mid-action. Her voice. Low, deadly, reminiscent.
"I'm setting up your machine," he replied as though it were obvious and signifying that her tone meant nothing to him. "Isn't that what you wanted?"
"The act requires your pasting my name all over the place?" she asked, backing off a bit but nowhere near calm.
"Not your name," her responded evenly. "Just your user ID." A slight smirk. "If you're sensitive about it I could always leave you to finish the rest. You should have received a handout with the directions..."
Raven quietly fumed. She didn't like how involved this process turned out to be, and she didn't like how this boy she couldn't easily read seemed to know so much about her, and she really didn't like how she realized that she'd be screwed if she sent him away without allowing him to finish.
"Go on," she practically growled, defeated.
A satisfied smirk from the geek and he was typing away again. Two more screens opened, were typed at, and closed. Then the desktop appeared. For a second it looked as though he was done, then another screen popped up. Once again he filled in her user ID as well as a few other computer-type things whose purpose sailed over her head. Then suddenly he pushed back in the chair and stood up.
"You're all set," he said casually. "All you need to do is set and confirm your password for the network. Then you'll be able to get to the web and all sorts of fun Hudson U network places."
"Oh… goodie…"
"You're welcome," he said, his tone no longer amused or sarcastic. In fact, Raven found herself doubting that it was even friendly. Without another word he strolled towards the door and left the room without so much as a backwards glance. Raven stared after him for a moment before scowling slightly and heading over to her PC to see just what the geek had done.
Dick Grayson returned to his dorm room and barely managed to avoid slamming the door. He flipped the lock almost angrily and grabbed his wireless headphones from the bed where he'd discarded them earlier. He put them on and grabbed the remote for his entertainment center. A few clicks later and his mood music was blaring privately.
Dick pulled a storage container out from under his bed and resumed the assembly of a wireless surveillance system he 'borrowed' from Wayne Enterprises' New York City office building for 'testing' purposes, humming casually along to:
It's a contradiction and I can't take it any fucking way! Can you feel it? I gotta live with it everyday. I can't take the pressure, I'm going insane! Now go away!
Dick liked listening to music. It was his escape; his way of making everything just go away for a while. It cleared his head. Helped him think. Drained his emotions away and left only cold, detached, rational thoughts in their wake.
… Thoughts like 'who was this 'Raven Roth?' He hadn't really focused on it then, but thinking back, her dyed purple hair didn't have any roots, and it takes quite a bit of effort to dye your eyebrows and eye lashes to the same color. And those purple contacts that upon closer consideration weren't contacts at all. Then there was the jewel she wore on her forehead that seemed to change colors in the light…
Dick grumbled and sighed and switched off his music. He abandoned the half-finished surveillance system and went over to his desk to boot up his laptop. The first level of investigation was to type 'Raven Roth' into google. Not surprisingly, nothing turned up. Undaunted, Dick then keyed over to a yellow pages site. He typed in the address he remembered from Raven's computer boxes… Voila! The apartment in question was leased to one 'Angela Roth.' … Who has been the tenant since 1 October 1999. … Odd that the apartment is now for rent…
Another google search, this time for 'Angela Roth'…
Jackpot!
Newspaper articles detailing a missing persons report from 1984. Then a police bulletin—an old APB, mentionings in America's Most Wanted from 1993. A murder—no, multiple murders, at a church in California in 1985. The only survivor, Angela Roth. The prime suspect, Angela Roth. Eight male victims, four female. Another link—crime scene photos leaked to the press… 404, page not found. Another link—Angela Roth declared legally dead by her family in 1995… a private memorial ceremony… a marker placed on the family plot.
Police notices post 1993: … none.
Dick Grayson sighed and rubbed his chin. Official channels had given him leads. Time to see where unofficial channels took them.
Dick rebooted his laptop and interrupted its processes with specific keystrokes. The screen blinked and then went dark. A few more keystrokes… a lengthy pause…
Success! A secure login screen… username and password entered… operation failed… steps repeated with a different name and password… operation failed… steps repeated with the third and set of data—a rather ingenious system if not a tedious one, requiring three different sets of data to be entered in precisely the correct order—which was on a rotating module that one had best memorize.
The screen blinked to black… a tense moment of waiting… the screen blinked to life again but before any of the usual displays were seen a message window opened. Dick didn't know whether to laugh or groan.
So you've figured out that you still have access to this resource. You would do well to keep in mind exactly why that is. And remember, every time you access this system I'll know about it.
"Typical Bruce…"
The message blipped into nothingness and the machine resumed its course. Seconds later and Dick Grayson was remotely logged in to the Central Computer in the
Batcave. With a satisfied air he cracked his knuckles and began his search anew.
Twenty minutes later and he'd read all he needed to read. Angela Roth was a runaway from a small suburban town in southern California. To say the least she fell in with the wrong crowd: a 'church' in Santa Monica whose members were accused by the radical Right of a slue of 'crimes' that ranged anywhere from sinful listening to 'rock and roll music' straight up through blatant and overt Satanic cultism. Angela became a member and was living in a rented room in the church's basement.
This is where the police report took on a decidedly… grizzly… tone.
Witnesses claimed that Angela Roth, in the company of twelve others—eight men and four women, entered the church wearing white robes around nine p.m. Wednesday the first of May, 1985. No one saw anyone leave. When ordinary parishioners arrived the following Sunday they discovered… only a stench at first. That led them to the basement—Angela's room.
Dick looked at the crime scene photos and then wished he hadn't. There was an… alter… of sorts. And candles that had burned themselves out. Blurred images of iconography… knocked over chalices of what Dick assumed was wine…
And bodies… or parts of them… everywhere. Blood everywhere… the walls… the ceiling… Those gowns were white? …
Dick shivered and changed the screen. The police report returned to view, sans photos.
Angela's body wasn't found amidst the carnage. No traces of her were ever found again. Well, that's not exactly true. With the advent of DNA testing, evidence from the crime scene was reevaluated. Much of it was inadmissible due to age and decay, but the splatter on the alter cloth was revealed to be the blood of Angela Roth. With her having been missing without a trace since the night of the murders (timed as late Wednesday-early Thursday) she was officially declared a victim and her family was granted consent to declare her dead—murdered—and place a marker for her soul upon consecrated ground.
The world considered Angela Roth deceased.
How can a dead woman rent an apartment in New Jersey for four years?
Assuming that Raven was typical college age she would have been born in '85 or '86, maybe '87…
Dick groaned. It physically hurt him to do so, but he reopened the file containing the crime scene photos. White gowns… oddly phallic idolatry… May 1st… What's so special about May 1st?
Dick bit his lip to quell the sudden nausea brought on by his next thought. He scrolled to the bottom of the page—farther than he had managed before. There was a grainy, black and white photo of Angela Roth, taken in 1983. Dick saw Raven's face staring back at him. Different coloring, but the exact same face.
"I wonder if your mom ever told you… you were the product of a fertility rite gone horribly, horribly wrong."
Dick sighed and logged out of the Bat Computer. Then he powered down his laptop. He wondered if Raven knew the details of her rather sordid beginnings. He wondered how Angela had managed to elude the authorities all this time while still providing for her daughter's well being. Er, that was assuming of course that she was raised by her mother. But then, the address on the computer boxes proves that well enough. Angela's name was on the apartment lease after all…
Dick stopped musing and went back to his headphones and his wireless surveillance equipment. He didn't want to think about Raven Roth and her likely beginnings, or about how her unique physical traits more than likely signaled metahuman DNA… or that the said DNA would have come from her father, whose identity remains unknown… except that Raven was most likely conceived during a Satanic fertility ritual…
No, Dick Grayson definitely did not want to contemplate such things. He scoffed. The Devil didn't exist.
Then he frowned.
Worse things did.
Dick clicked the remote and the entertainment center sprung to life.
You take a mortal man and put him in control. Watch him become a god. Watch peoples heads a'roll… A'roll... Just like the pied piper led rats through the streets, we dance like marionettes, swaying to the symphony... Of destruction...
Song credits: Metallica-One; And Justice For All
Godsmack-Bad Religion; debut album
Megadeath-Symphony of Destruction; Countdown to Extinction
AN- Everything revealed in this chapter about Raven, her mother, and the demon Trigon is found in the comics and touched on in the episodes Nevermore, Switched, and The End 1-3. Azarath is a place, a pocket dimension if you will, where Raven was born. Emotional control is the key to controlling Trigon's influence inside her, which manifests itself chiefly through rage.
When Raven came to Earth, the Teen Titans had been disbanded. She convinced them to reform in order to have people she trusted to help her keep control over her father. Robin formed the original Teen Titans, and Raven encouraged them to reform, which in a way also makes her a founding member of the group.
Raven is more empathic than telepathic, meaning that she can sense others emotions with crystal clarity but can only glean others' surface thoughts, enabling those who are trained to shield their thoughts from her. We have Dick being able to do this because Bruce taught him how. It's rather essential when dealing with villains like Scarecrow, Mad Hatter, Dr. Strange, etc. Bruce of course learned from the Martian Manhunter, but that's another story.
Raven's "magic words," Azarath Metrion Xinthos, aren't canon and mean absolutely nothing. She doesn't need to say anything to use her powers in the comics, and even in the cartoon she is seen commanding her telekinesis without them. Therefore we are of the opinion that the words have a more personal than practical reason for Raven: just like the charkas she adorns her costume with, they help her to focus her energies and maintain balance. They act as a safety net to make sure she doesn't go overboard, because her powers are linked to her emotions, and going overboard would be a bad thing.
Her other powers consist of empathic healing (as seen in Fractured) and the ability to project her thoughts into others' minds. That's probably what she did to Dr. Light in Nevermore, and how her fears were manifested in Fear Itself. The part where she uses her knowledge of others' thoughts and emotions to manipulate them is comic canon.
