Chapter 6-
The emotions councilThe trip through the mirror abruptly ended and the Titans were all dumped onto a floating rocky island, in a sea of nothingness, inside the mind of the comatose Raven. Beast boy was the first to pick himself up and view the changes Ravens mind had undergone, the sky around them still showed the stars, and there were still a few floating rock islands. Thousands of feet below an orange cloud divided what seemed like two minds, one Ravens, the other Malchiors, below the orange cloud the sky was loyal to Malchoir. Down there it showed massive pillars of fire, far below them stretched a landscape of erupting volcanoes, towering mountain peaks, dark forests, lakes of lava and geysers that gave of a hiss as they erupted at regular intervals. It all seemed so close, yet so far away.
"Dude, what happened here?" he said, to no one in particular. "It's because of the battle with Malchior" Drajo said sadly, "He's moulding my sisters mind to his liking. Below is his part, while the sky remains true to Raven" the two teens were silent for a moment remembering the memory of the girl who had saved both of their lives more times than they could count, shocked that her mind, that had been so calm and quiet before, could ever get like this.
When the rest of the team had recovered from their journey, they all sat down to discuss a plan of action,
"well Drajo, this was your idea, so what do you think we should do?" Drajo told them of his plan
"Our main objective is to find and free Raven, with any luck the two of us together may stand a chance of defeating Malchior once and for all"
"and how are we going to find Raven? Her mind is huge, it could take years!" Beast boy yelled,
"I'm getting to that, first we should try to find her emotions, hopefully some of them may have survived and as they know this place better than all of us combined, they will probably know where she is being kept by Malchior". The rest of the team nodded in agreement and they took off, Starfire carrying Cyborg, Beast boy turned into a Pterodactyl, with Robin on his back, Drajo flew on ahead, their guide in this strange place.
After a few hours of searching they were getting tired. Drajo pointed to a small floating island with a cave and indicated for them to land there.
"We'll rest here for now and in a few hours we'll press on, with any luck her emotions aren't too far a-" he stopped abruptly.
"Why did you stop?" Robin asked,
"I heard something, a girl crying, from inside there" he pointed a clawed finger at the cave. Robin drew a birdarang, Starfire powered up a star blot, Beast boy turned into a lion and Cyborg equipped his sonic cannon, they all stared intently at the mouth to the cave, shrouded in darkness. Drajo extended a wing out so it blocked their line of sight to the cave
"wait, don't attack" Drajo cried.
"Why?" Cyborg asked,
"listen", they grew silent. After a few moments Drajo heard the sound again a girl, crying, from inside the cave,
"I'm going in, the rest of you stay back, it could be one of my sisters emotions, so I'm the best one to go in, the odds are that the emotion has been fighting a lot recently so she'll attack first and ask questions later if one of you go, but if the emotion sees me she'll recognise me so she won't attack" Robin nodded in agreement, with that Drajo entered the cave, folding his wings in against his back so he could enter the cave without breaking them in the process. With his dragonic eyes perfectly adapted to the gloom he could see clear as day. In the far corner was the source of the sound, curled up behind a rock, partly hidden. Drajo could make out the shape of a girl, dressed in a grey cloak and leotard, her face hidden in her hands, crying softly. He knew this emotion; his sister had showed her when she visited him after her betrayal by Malchior. It was…..
"Timid" Drajo said softly, resting his hand on her shoulder, the girl looked up, tears running freely down her face.
"D-Drajo?" she asked nervously. Drajo nodded
"Yes timid it's me". Suddenly Timid hugged Drajo, burying her face in his shoulder, sobbing violently.
"Oh Drajo, it's been so horrible, first Malchior trapped Raven then he went to the nightmare gem and he, he…" At this point she degenerated into a fit of sobs, her tears running down her cheek and onto the dark green Kevlar Drajo wore for armour, leaving two circular dark patches.
"This is bad, very bad" Drajo thought, in all probability Malchior had indeed released Raven's fears and nightmares, an army of horrors and terror beyond anything that either he or his friends could hope to defeat (authors note Raven is a half demon and a dark sorceress who comes from a hellish nightmare world so anything that does scare her and manages to get put away in the nightmare jewel will be a bit worse than heights, confined spaces, snakes, spiders, rats or the boogie man). After a few minutes Timid stopped crying and Drajo signalled for the rest of the Titans to approach. Timid looked over his shoulder and whimpered in fright as they drew near
"it's all right Timid, they're my friends" he reassured her "now tell me what happened" Timid took a deep breath, dried her eyes and began her tale as Drajo and the Titans sat and listened intently.
"After Malchior imprisoned Raven, all of the emotions united in attempt to fight him and rescue her, I'd have gone as well but I can't fight so I stood back and watched from the sidelines (authors note. Timid has none of Ravens powers except the ability to teleport, mainly to escape danger and hide herself), we found him near the nightmare jewel. All of us were there, Bravery, Malice, Humour, Wisdom, and Kindness. We even released Rage to help us, the battle was going well, we had him on the ropes but then Malchior managed to open the nightmare jewel (this is the jewel in Ravens forehead, it's where she keeps all her nightmares, it's not something you would want to unlock unless you are pure evil or mentally insane). As soon as it opened, the tide of the battle turned, an army of horrors came flowing out, I saw Bravery, Malice and Loyalty torn apart before I could warn them, Wisdom, Kindness, Humour and Morbid fled, Rage just screamed and vanished, Laziness was too slow to escape and was caught and torn apart as well and depression ran into the tide of nightmares and ended it all" (depression committed suicide if you haven't worked it out yet), then me and the rest of the emotions fled as well, taking to the sky, we decided to split up and hide for a few days and then meet up to decide what to do. I went to this cave and I've been hiding here ever since". Timids bottom lip quivered as she remembered the demise of her fellow emotions. Drajo reached out and placed his arm around her
"don't worry as soon as my sister is free the emotions will all come back, good as new". He then addressed the other Titans "well what should we do now?"
Robin was the first one to speak up.
"The best thing we can do it get to the meeting place Timid mentioned earlier, with all the remaining emotions backing us we may have a chance of finding Raven." Drajo nodded
"Good idea, now Timid where is this meeting place?" Timid looked up, she seemed afraid to tell the Titans,
"If I do, they'll make me leave my nice safe hiding place and go with them" she thought,
"with all those nightmares running around out there, all kinds of bad things could happen to me. No Drajo is depending on me, after all Bravery used to say 'what is life without risk'; I'm not Bravey but I can make her proud by doing this" (Bravey is like a protective big sister to Timid, protecting her from those emotions who try to pick on her because she is scared all the time, especially Malice, Hate and Pain). Timid rose to her feet, for Bravery she would do it, "follow me" she said as she walked to the mouth of the cave and took off, a determination in her voice that had never been there before.
A rocky plateau loomed up out of the darkness as the Titans, Drajo and Timid approached, when they landed there was no one there aside from a few rocks, bushes and a large round stone table with a few seats around it but no one was there.
"Drajo looked crestfallen, "have all the other emotions been destroyed?" Timid looked at him and smiled, albeit a very small one.
"no we just cast an invisibility spell to hide ourselves if one of Malchior's nightmare henchmen came along, actually we are a few hours late". With that she reached into a leather pouch at her waist and drew out a handful of glittering blue powder, Timid threw the powder into the air. It spun around like it was caught in a tornado and revealed the council of Ravens emotions, all gathered to discuss the plight of Raven. Twenty-one seats were arranged around the stone table but only eleven girls were sat there, ten were empty. One was grander than the others, like a throne and had the word 'Raven' on the front, obviously this one would be empty as Raven was trapped in a glass chamber and could not attend, one had the name 'Timid' on the front, and she took her seat. The other eight had the names of those emotions that had been destroyed 'Bravery', 'Malice', 'Loyalty', 'Lazyness', 'Depression', 'Friendship', 'Love' and most worryingly 'Hope' were absent. Timid gestured to the Titans to sit at the table, Robin in Bravery's place, Starfire sitting in Friendship's seat, Cyborg sat in the seat with the word 'Loyalty' on it, Beast boy sitting the seat reserved for 'Love' and Drajo sitting where Hope would normally sit, his wings resting over the sides of the chair. A girl wearing thick glasses and a yellow cloak and leotard struck a little stone hammer against the table and brought the council to order, the name 'Wisdom' was on the front of her chair.
"Fellow emotions and honoured guests, we are gathered here to decide what our course of action should be against the evil dragon Malchior, who has imprisoned our much loved sister Raven, does anyone have any ideas?"
"Release me, as Trigon I can annihilate that wretched dragon and his army of nightmare scum in mere moments" Rage hissed. Wisdom shook her head,
"no Rage as soon as Malchior was defeated you would take over yourself, were not desperate enough to risk you taking over Ravens body and destroying the world." Rage hissed as she struggled against the countless chains and locks that bound her to her chair, Timid smiled but a snarl from Rage wiped it off her face and she ducked beneath the table trembling with Rage laughing at her, Drajo locked eyes with Rage and her laughter abruptly ceased, aside from Malchior, Rage was the person he had hated most in his entire life.
"We need a full frontal attack, if we hit him hard and fast, victory is assured" Headstrong said
"no that will only fail and bring about our destruction, we need to sneak around and seal the nightmare jewel, then we may have a chance of defeating Malchior" Wisdom said
"you know what your problem is. You're too clever to take risks" Headstrong snapped back,
"I hate both of your plans, I think they're both terrible"
"shut your hole Hate before I put you in one, you always hate everything," Humour snapped back, and this time she wasn't joking. At this point a massive argument erupted between Headstrong, Hate, Wisdom and Humour, the Titans and other emotions tried to break it up but got involved themselves and even Starfire screaming in Tamarainian at everyone wouldn't shut them up.
By the time Timid has plucked up the courage to suggest her plan the argument had reached the 'throw Beast boy across the table as an armadillo at everyone else to get them to shut up' stage, a game which was currently being played by Humour, Drajo, Strength, Jelousy, Hate and Cyborg. It took a few attempts for Drajo to hear Timid, even though he was sat next to her. (Well actually he'd heard her the first time but he preoccupied chest-passing Beast boy off Rage's face to do anything about it, he did stop eventually though, after about the two hundredth time when he broke Rage's nose and thought she would explode with anger if he did it again).
He lowered his dragonic head to listen as she whispered in his ear
"I have a plan" he listened intently and replied telepathically "good plan". He tried to get everyone's attention in a few ways first by simply shouting but no-one listened, then by covering everyone with a mild wave of fire, everyone stopped for a second, smouldering slightly and then resumed the argument. Finally he whispered to Timid
"cover your ears, this will be loud", tilted his head back and let loose a high-pitched screech (it sounds like a nazgul's fell beast). It was so loud it shattered Wisdoms glasses and he didn't stop until he was out of breath and everyone was covering their ears (well everyone except Rage who, being chained, couldn't raise her arms to her ears and was temporarily deafened, much to Drajo's satisfaction).
"Now is everyone listening? Good because Timid has a plan that I think we should hear. Go on Timid speak".
"Well my plan is for us to split up into three teams, each with a different objective, one to go after the nightmare jewel and seal it, thus dealing with Malchior's nightmare army. The second team would have to go and rescue Raven, without her captive he will be much weaker." Headstrong interrupted
"and the third?" Timid smiled sadly
"the third team will have to distract Malchoir himself, so he's kept occupied and doesn't interfere with the other two teams objectives, if those teams succeed then they will join up with the third one and with Raven free we can finally rid this mind of Malchior, that third team is the most dangerous one to be on because if the other two teams fail, the third team will be at the mercy of Malchior and will feel the full extent of his wrath." A silence fell on those gathered at the table, they all had their various half-baked plans, but none seemed as good as Timids, even Rage was surprised, finally Wisdom broke the silence and spoke up
"so does everyone agree to follow Timid's plan?" a chorus of 'yes' answered that question and with that the emotions and Titans rose from their chairs and crossed over to an adjacent rock to plan their attempt to free Raven.
Three hours later, everything was ready. The teams were picked, the plan was revised and the teams departed. Team one consisting of Cyborg, Headstrong, Humour, Starfire and Jelousy took off toward a dark mountain far below where Malchior had placed the nightmare jewel on the mountains peak. Team two which included Drajo, Strength, Kindness, Sadness and Beast boy headed to a large lava lake with a small island in the middle to rescue Raven. And team three, consisting of Robin, Pain, Hatred, Morbid and Rage, still bound by chains, enough to use some of her power but not enough to try to become Trigon, took off as well, they were headed to the largest volcano where Malchior was, overseeing his take over of Ravens mind, with this dark team at his command, Robin would stand a chance of stalling the dark dragon long enough for Timids plan to work. Timid remained at the council table with three viewing portals in front of her, overseeing her plan, at her side sat Wisdom, a set of green glowing chains in her hand, like the ones Rage was bound with.
"Is everyone in position?" asked Timid, a chorus of 'yes' was her reply
"then let battle commence". The three teams each descended on their targets, and the battle for Raven began.
To be continued, please review, no flames please.