Chapter seven: A Ray of Hope
Author's note: PLEASE NOTE! THIS IS A FILLER CHAPTER AND IS PROBABLY NOT AS GOOD AS PREVIOUS CHAPTERS! Sankyuu. Okay, from now on, I will be putting review replies at the bottom. Please scroll down and read your review reply, then scroll back up and read that story. Sorry for the confusion. I have an excuse for taking so long! I was at a convention!
Now, I'd like to draw attention to the fact that I've PASSED 100 REVIEWS! I'm so very happy! THANKS EVERYONE! A dedication to TameranianRaven, papersak, and teenRAVENtitan!
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The next day, around noon...
"Thank you very much! I can not properly express my gratitude," Lindo thanked, eagerly shaking all of the Titans' hands.
"Uh, no problem," Robin said, trying to remain professional.
She continued, "I would like to thank you for my employees, too."
All of the people who worked at Lindo's hotel waved and smiled.
Robin awkwardly tried to end the conversation so that they could go home. "Well, we have to get back to Jump City."
"Understood. Bye-bye, have a safe trip home!"
"Bye!" her employees echoed.
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That was earlier in the day. Now the team was at Titans Tower, all of them beat from the ridiculous mission. They had woken up that morning, prepared to hunt "ghosts." It turned out that the "ghosts" were merely rats, but nasty (and fast) ones at that. Now, I'd normally insert the "ghoul" chase here, but since this is K plus rated, let's just say that people were injured, several items were broken/exploded, and many animals (namely, rats) were harmed in the making of this chase.
Raven was perched on the couch, staring absent-mindedly at the pages of her book. She was unable to read. Not because Robin was playing Super Smash Bros. Melee and making quite a bit of noise, not because Starfire was in the kitchen, stirring some substance that appeared as if it had been obtained from a sewer, but because her mind was simply elsewhere. She looked out the window, streams of light pouring through it. Her thoughts wandered to the previous night and the events within it. She quickly shook away the thoughts with disgust.
The dark girl approached the window she had previously been glancing at. She tentatively placed her slender fingers against the warm glass.
'I could have completely ruined my friendship with Beastboy just by allowing Affection to have her way last night,' she thought sadly, closing her eyes.
Her string of concentration was ended by a certain Tamaranian princess.
"Friend, do you wish to ingest my pudding?" Starfire asked, holding to bowl up to Raven's face.
"Starfire, I'd really love to, but I don't really eat much, you know. Why don't you ask Robin?" Raven suggested, nodding to the Boy Wonder.
Starfire's smile waned a bit. "I really do wish to offer it to friend Robin, but he is very busy playing the games of video, and I do not wish to disturb him."
"Then why don't you look for Cyborg?"
"Oh, that is a good idea. I shall look for him." With that, Starfire left the room.
"YES! Take that, you smelly old glove!" Robin whooped at the television screen.
Raven arched an eyebrow at her teammate, and he laughed slightly at his outburst.
"Sorry," he apologized. "Am I too loud?"
Raven shrugged her shoulders, turning her back to him. "What do you think?"
"I think...I'm being too loud?"
"You are the smart one, aren't you?"
Robin wrapped up his controller and left the room, embarrassed.
Raven realized she was alone. Being alone was a rare thing she usually enjoyed, but somehow, she wished she could talk to someone.
"It's not like I could talk to anyone about this, anyway," she thought out loud.
An unexpected voice interrupted her thoughts. "How about to me?"
Raven spun around and saw Beastboy, standing still as stone in the doorway.
He asked shyly "Can I talk to you?"
"Yes," Raven answered just a little bit too quickly.
He slowly approached her. Not sure what to do with himself, he sat on the couch as she continued to gaze out the window.
"Soooo..." Beastboy stuttered blankly, not sure how to start the conversation.
"You want to ask about last night."
Beastboy looked at the girl in front of him, startled. "How did you know?"
Raven's hand gently pulled away from the glass and she held it to her chest. "I gained the power of empathy a while back."
"Em-what-thy?" Beastboy spluttered.
"Empathy," Raven corrected. "The ability to feel others' emotions. I got it not too long after we met Terra."
Beastboy mused over his newly-learned word. "If you could feel emotions, how come you couldn't sense Terra's motives?"
"I could, but because I wasn't skilled in empathy. Everyone's emotions melded together and it was a big mess of feelings. I couldn't read it at all. After Terra...passed away, I had to do a considerable amount of practicing with the ability. Sometimes, dealing with the feelings of everyone around you is hard."
Beastboy was surprised that all of this had happened right under his nose, and that she never mentioned her empathy to anyone. "How come you didn't tell us?"
"Because empathy is a dangerous power for me to have. Everyone's fears, joy, anger, sadness, gets channeled into me. Dealing with my own emotions is enough trouble in itself. Dealing with everyone else's emotions as well is...risky."
"Did you overcome it?"
"Yes. It wasn't easy." Raven closed her eyes and remembered the hassle.
Beastboy began to grow uncomfortable in his spot on the couch. "If you had told us about this, we might have been able to help."
"My troubles are nobody's troubles but my own," she retorted weakly. Raven remembered what the conversation had originally been about, and was hoping Beastboy forgot. Deep down, though, she could tell he hadn't.
"So you have empathy. Does that mean you can...like...read minds?"
"No, that's a psychic, and there's no such thing. But I can take an educated guess."
Beastboy "hm'd" in reply, and thought a bit more.
A long pause.
A long, uncomfortable pause.
Then Raven broke the silence. "How long...?"
Beastboy jumped at the sound of her voice, since it seemed the silence had taken over and would last forever. "'How long'? How long what?"
"How long have you...been thinking about last night...?"
"Ever since it happened," Beastboy answered sheepishly.
Raven slowly turned to face him and leaned against the glass. "You really want to know what happened?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Please understand beforehand, though, that for your own safety, I don't want the others to hear this or any portions of it."
"I understand."
"I'll just...start from the beginning. I have always been under the thumb of my father. From the very day I was born, he was a part of me, whether I liked it or not. I came to earth after I had finished my lessons in repressing emotion to find people to help me rid of him...then I met you guys, and I just...I don't know what happened. I thought maybe I would be okay here. Then, not too long ago, a particular emotion grew in strength immensely."
Beastboy chanced interrupting her to ask a question. "What emotion?"
Raven looked away from him. "Affection."
"Affection?"
"Yes. My father was angered by the manifestation of that emotion because there's a legend that says...Affection can defeat my father if it's strong enough."
"Why Affection?"
Raven's cheeks turned red. "Ah...um...I grew Affection for someone."
Beastboy's heart sank. She grew Affection for someone? He had already admitted to himself a while back that he liked her in some way or another. Hearing that she liked someone hurt like a knife. "Oh," he replied ever so intellectually. (XD)
"It sounds weird, I know, but it's true. Anyway, my father is linked to Anger...that's how he attacks me. He attacks me mentally, through my mind; it affects me physically as well."
"So why did he attack you in your sleep?"
"Because I was vulnerable."
Beastboy's eyes widened. "That reminds me..." He reached out and grabbed Raven by the arm. She stumbled forward.
"Wh-what are you...?"
Beastboy rolled up her sleeve and pointed to the cut she had sustained the previous night. "You haven't even wrapped it up or anything, yet," he commented.
She knitted her eyebrows angrily and pulled away. "What does it matter to you? It's my body. I'll take care of it as I please."
Beastboy smiled lopsidedly. He knew that she was just a bit defensive at the moment.
Robin's voice made both of the teens jump. "Come here, you two, quick! And bring a towel!"
Robin bolted down the hall, leaving Raven and Beastboy. They exchanged looks and chased after him, grabbing a towel from the kitchen as they left.
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"Cyborg, I do hope you'll forgive me...!" Starfire said, on the verge of tears.
Cyborg only moaned in reply, as eletrical sparks danced up and down through his body.
"Cyborg, dude, what happened?" Beastboy asked in shock, arriving to see his robotic friend on the ground.
"It was...Starfire's pudding..." he groaned.
"Starfire, what happened?" Robin asked, placing the towel Raven and Beastboy had brought into a bowel of cold water then on Cyborg's forehead.
"I was making a Tamaranian pudding, and when I finished, I wanted to allow someone to try it, so I went to find someone, and the first person I found was Cyborg, so I gave it to him, but I fear that it has made him ill and possibly even affected his metal components." The alien princess paused and panted for air after her exhausting run-on sentence.
"What did you put in that pudding, Star?" Beastboy asked. Starfire shrugged and floated off to retrieve her recipe book. She returned quickly and began flipping pages.
"Here it is. Gordanian pudding. 'One spoon of zoorms, three cups of ork, a bowl of ramen...'" She turned the page and continued reading. "'A pinch of martic powder, a roasted plorgan'..." The red haired girl gasped suddenly and announced "The second portion of this recipe is a recipe for poisonous spufflinks!" She flipped the pages back and forth and wondered "What happened to the second portion of the recipe for Gordanian pudding...?"
Everyone was silent until Starfire realized "These two pages are stuck to each other!" She cautiously peeled the pages apart, revealing the second half of the recipe for Gordanian pudding and the first half of the recipe for poisonous spufflinks. "I apologize again, friend Cyborg! I shall make a cure for you illness right away!"
Starfire retreated to the kitchen, her cheeks pink from her error.
Raven turned and left, seeing that the situation was under control. Beastboy followed after her.
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"Starfire's funny, huh?" Beastboy asked, to lighten the telepath's mood.
She stopped walking. "Beastboy, you have to stop following me...for your own safety. I'm dangerous. Without Hope, there's no way Affection can be handled properly."
She then left him behind.
"But...what about YOUR safety?" he whispered.
The empty halls quickly became unwelcoming and he headed to the living room. He passed by the aforementioned girl's room and couldn't help but stop in front of it.
"Hope can't really be lost for good...no one can really lose Hope. Not on my watch. Just you watch, Raven. I'll help you get Hope back as soon as I think of something to do..."
He continued walking.
End of chapter seven
I know this wasn't the best chapter. I'm just setting us up for the next few chapters!
Next time, on Finally Snapped...
Raven's health fails...now all Beastboy wants is for her to open her eyes.
"Please Wake Up," on Finally Snapped. See ya then!
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REVIEW REPLIES:
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