Author's Note: Again, sorry for the delay. Exams. Internet down. Etc. Hope you enjoy this next chapter.
Chapter Six: The Forgotten Soldier"How do you leave the past behind when it keeps finding ways to get to your heart? It reaches way down deep and tears you inside out 'til you're torn apart."– Company, RENT!
"On behalf of humanity I will fight for your sanity. How profound such profanity can be."– Barenaked Ladies, 'War On Drugs'– Barenaked Ladies, 'War On Drugs'
It seemed like a simple enough procedure for those who weren'tused to magic. But the Titans, all of whom by now had experienced magic in some sense, knew better. The atmosphere of their dimension was filled with unstable magical particles that, when stimulated, could implode and cause disturbances in the time continuum. Like the moon's gravitational pull mysteriously controls the waves, these small implosions altered many things in this dimension, both natural and unnatural phenomena. It could do anything from cause a local power outage to creating a grand tsunami to disintegrating anyone within a five mile radius. Magic had to be dealt with carefully in this dimension, so as not to disturb the natural magic particles in the air and avoid any catastrophes.
Unfortunately, like dealing with a radioactive substance, dealing with magic in this dimension also released plenty of negative side effects which, as Josh duly pointed out, had begun to take an incredible toll on Louis. You wouldn't notice it if you didn't know what to look for, but his fingers were more brittle than they should be and a slight shake was present when he stood for too long. Though gray hair was far from premature for him, he seemed to have more of it than his wife who seemed to be about the same age. He hid it well, but Josh was probably right. One more spell of this magnitude could kill him.
Karen stood in the center of a summoning circle, asking the blessing of whatever gods that governed magic, to have, for a brief period, the gift of Sight, to see past, present, and future events concerning the party involved– in this case Loki. Louis walked ceremoniously around the edge of the circle, chanting in a dead Lorethelian language and throwing dust into the center of the circle.
"Koomba kayush, koomba kayush, lorak'lahan, borahi borahi! Koomba kayush, koomba kayush, lorak'lahan, borahi borahi!"
Starfire was startled by a few of the words. "I do not recognize the dialect," she muttered, "but we speak a variation of this language in my home. How might it have reached this people?"
"What's he saying?" Robin whispered for curiosity's sake. But Starfire was still amazed that her mother tongue was being spoken so fluently by a human.
"Quiet," Raven hissed, hearing Robin's voice. "One word could upset the whole balance!"
Robin silenced himself because behind his annoyance, he knew that she was right.
In an instant, Karen fell to her knees, her eyes pure white and her mouth wide open, a black shadow pouring out of it.
"Karen!" Josh screamed in fear. His father had to grab him to keep him from entering the circle.
"Josh!" he said, urgently. "If you enter now, you could kill her and everyone else in this room."
Robin frowned, wondering but dare not voicing the question of what was wrong. Had it been his brief exchange with Starfire that had caused it? He looked over at the bright Tameranian only to be grandly disappointed by her darkness. She was staring wide-eyed, almost as fearful as Josh. She quivered and nearly fainted, but Robin caught her as he saw her knees give way.
"Starfire!" he said. She shook her head and blinked, her mouth partly open.
"No..." she whispered. "She's so young..."
A cyclone seemed to start to stir up in the chamber and Cyborg had to scream to get his point across. "Lou, what's going on!"
"Something's upset the magical balance!" Louis yelled back from across the room, trying desperately to keep his son from running stubbornly to his fiancé.
"Louis!" Sheila shrieked nervously. "She wasn't ready, we should never have–"
"Stop it, Dad, stop it now! Make her stop, please!" Josh was nearly in tears, fighting his father's surprisingly strong grip. His knees, too, give way beneath him as he fell to the ground followed swiftly by his father who had positioned himself behind him, his arms still around Josh's forearms and chest. Josh's eyes never left the blonde in the middle, who looked like a woman possessed.
"No!" Louis yelled in reply. "We can't!"
"Dad, Karen's life is more important than any duty you feel you have to fulfill!" Josh screamed at his father hysterically. "Let her go, please, God, just leave her alone!"
"It's not that," Louis told him, his eyes, too, on Karen. "It's that we can't. If we pull the plug now, she will definitely die. The magic needs to leave her body slowly, or else she has no chance of recovering."
"Then do something!" Josh cried, desperation in his voice. "Make it leave slowly, just make it go! Do a spell or– or–"
"Josh, even with your minuscule knowledge of magic, you know I can't do that," said Louis, shaking his head.
Josh looked on with helpless eyes, a soul lost in the storm of a woman's heart. He wouldn't let her go without a fight.
All of a sudden, the boy leapt up and made a mad dash to the circle.
"Josh!" Louis screamed.
"JOSH!" The Titans and his mother echoed, but it was too late.
"I have a really bad feeling about this..." Beast Boy muttered, shaking his head in terror.
But the moment he broke the circle, the storm ceased, however he didn't seem to notice the change as he ran to his beloved, now in a heap in the middle of the circle.
Slowly, Louis rose to his feet, looking murderous. "Oh Josh," he said, quietly. "You fool."
Sheila looked like she was going to have a seizure at any moment. "Oh my God... is she...?"
Josh was sobbing as he held her head in his lap and shook his head, repeating "No, no, no..."
"What just happened here?" Beast Boy asked his colleagues, who were too deep in fear to know. But he merely put his hands on his hips.
"Oh come on, guys," he said in offence. "You act like dying's a bad thing."
Slowly, all four heads of his friends turned to face him with an utterly perplexed look on their faces, but only for a moment as they turned back to the situation at hand.
All of a sudden, Karen opened her eyes. Josh nearly stood up in shock. But he settled instead for a horrified gasp.
"Oh Karen..." he whispered. "I'm so... so sorry..."
"I... I..." Her lips barely moved, but it must have been her voice. "I can't... where did... where did the light go?"
Carefully, tenderly, Josh stroked her hair and smiled through the tears, knowing that she would be able to feel his smile more powerfully than the tears falling on her face. "Sh," he said. "It's all OK now, Karen, I'm here... I'll always be here."
She reached up a delicate hand into the air and grasped at nothing a moment, then moved it towards the sound of his voice until she found his cheek. She felt his features with her fingertips and smiled warmly.
"Josh..." she said, almost wistfully. "You will do great things."
At this, Josh began to cry again, full force. He looked at his father. "Goddamn it, Dad, she was going to be a judge one day! We were going to go sailing in Catalina, we were going to go skiing in Canada, we were going to..."
"You can still do those things," said his father calmly.
"No!" Josh snapped aggressively through his misery. "No, Dad, we can't. Because she'll never see that sunset from our boat on the pacific. She'll never see the snow falling out the window of a mountain lodge. She'll never... she'll never see Dad! I never wanted this. I never asked for this. She didn't want this! Why did you have to drag her into this, Dad, for your stupid causes, these stupid things you have to do..."
It was then that Raven realized the magnitude of Karen's condition. She had become a very rare case indeed.
Meanwhile, Josh continued, now looking down at his fiancé who was staring at him with white eyes. "Oh God, Dad... she was so wonderful, just the way she was, she was..."
"She is," his father corrected. "She's still there, Josh."
But Josh was looking down and shaking his head. "No," he said. "She was mine. And now... she doesn't belong to me anymore. She's been infected and she's lost to me now. Dad, I never wanted to marry a Seer..."
"Josh..." the voice was without substance, yet omnipresent, like the wind. "Josh, Josh..."
Sheila moved over to the nervous Titans. Her eyes were sad as she looked down and whispered that perhaps it was time for them to leave.
Understanding without another word, the Titans moved towards the doors immediately and were about to exit, when the afflicted girl with white eyes shot up and stared right through them, without seeing.
"Wait!" she said, her hair seeming to blow ominously with a nonexistent wind. "There is much you must know."
In an instant, Louis was kneeling at her side with an urgent look in his eyes. "Karen... You've seen it, then? What we've been looking for?"
"Dad!" Josh snarled at his father's insensitivity, pushing him away.
"Well?" Louis pressed, ignoring his son.
But the young woman was staring straight at the five Titans. "There is one more that must be broken. One more soldier to fight the final battle. Locked in stone and hidden in hurt she waits to be awakened. You..." She pointed at Cyborg, who looked a little unnerved. "You are the balance," she said with an odd smile. She turned her eery eyes to Beast Boy. "You, friend, are the light." She nodded at Starfire. "And she is the martyr." She turned her head a few degrees to face Raven and Robin, who had by chance forgotten their distaste for each other in all the chaos for an instant and were standing very near each other as if for safety. Karen's strange smile broadened into a frightening grin. "And you... You are the key."
Raven and Robin looked to each other, not sure which one the Seer was indicating. But they were too unsettled to ask.
Beast Boy stepped forward, however, tentatively, his face awash in an odd hopeful– but painful– excitement. "And this last soldier?" he inquired. "What of... what about her?"
"She is your link," said Karen, "to the King. Each of you are vital to this world's victory and no one can be spared. Without one, the operation will fall. Find the last one and she will lead you to your goal."
"What about Loki?" Cyborg asked from behind Beast Boy.
"He is summoning Ragnorak," said the woman simply. But Robin was shaking his head.
"She's confused," he said. "The Norse God who shares Loki's name is supposed to summon Ragnorak; the fury of the Gods and the end of the world, but..."
"And what do you think our Loki's doing?" Raven replied with the twitch of a smile.
"We know that," Cyborg said, dismissing the statement. "But how."
"Exactly how it has been written," said Karen, vaguely. All of a sudden, she seemed to waver on her arm, which was supporting her and Josh caught her and laid her head back down on his lap.
"She's exhausted..." he said, looking down at her. He looked up at the Titans with weary brown eyes himself. "Go. Please, I'm sorry we couldn't be of more help to you, but just go... She needs rest."
"She needs–" Louis began, reaching out a hand to help Josh help her up.
"No, Dad," Josh snapped, doing just fine helping the girl up himself. "She needs me."
As the Titans walked back to their car they realized they were no where closer to saving the world than they had been when they'd came, and they had obviously ruined a family. Not even Starfire seemed optimistic at that point. In fact, she hadn't said a word since Karen had come around."
She was holding onto Robin's arm as if it would keep her from falling. He looked at her, concerned, and pulled her into his embrace as they stood outside the car. She still clung to his left arm as he embraced her with his right.
"Sh," he whispered into her hair. "It's over now, it's OK."
"No..." Starfire muttered at last. "It's not over. Not at all. That girl... the torment she will experience. I saw it all. With my link to time, I felt the manipulation of it and I looked in through a window. What will happen to her is so cruel, and I can not help feeling I am the cause."
"Well, it was Louis who wanted to..." Robin muttered, trying to assuage her fears, but she shook her head and looked up at him with tear-filled eyes.
"No..." she whispered. "Perhaps because I am affiliated with time and Chrona, I upset the balance in the spell, with my energy, and overwhelmed her..."
"Oh Starfire," Robin said, shaking his head with a smile and thinking about how insignificant his own guilt was compared to hers. "Believe me. You didn't do anything wrong."
"But I will," she whispered into his chest so he couldn't hear. He pulled away from her and smiled and climbed into the back seat, waiting for her to follow.
She stared on after him, and continued in her head. I will do something that will feel so horrible and unjust and it will hurt you more than I ever intended to hurt you. And all for this greater good...
"What happened to her... exactly?" Beast Boy asked as they sat in the car, once more with no where to go. There was silence as they all looked at Raven, who was staring out the windshield as if there was something to see in the black abyss before them. Finally, she spoke.
"She has been turned into a Seer by an overflow of precognitive energy. Blinded by the future, the nerves in the back of her eyes were damaged and her irises and pupils were magically erased. Now, it is all she sees. The pressure of living in two worlds, the present and the past and future, simultaneously might drive her mad. Past, present and future no longer has any real meaning to her now. She's in a permanent limbo until something kills her."
"You mean until she dies..." Beast Boy corrected.
"I mean until something or someone kills her," Raven repeated. "Eventually, her body will begin to rot and decay but her soul will remain. She won't die unless someone actually dismembers her or damages her vessel enough that she can't inhabit it anymore. And even then, no one knows if a Seer's spirit is ever at rest. And as of now, our best wizards haven't been able to find a cure for the Seer's Curse."
"I've seen it..." Starfire muttered. "I've seen it all. That poor woman..."
"Yes," said Raven. "But no more poor than us."
They all stared at her insensitivity. But she continued. "Come on, guys, let's face it. We've all been thinking it. We came here for answers, we even sacrificed a woman's free life and what do we have to show for it? Nothing. Nothing at all. What do they expect us to–"
"Terra..." Beast Boy interrupted, his eyes unfocused. The name was so random, Raven stopped her frustrated speech and looked at him.
"What?" she asked.
He blinked and shook his head. "Oh, did I say something? You started talking, my mind kind of wandered..."
"... to Terra?" Raven said with raised eyebrows.
"Well, who else?" Beast Boy replied. "Don't act so surprised, Rae, it hasn't been fifteen years since we've heard her mentioned before. And I swear, every time she comes up the ground rumbles. And man, you guys, I sure as hell felt an earth quake in that house."
The other Titans looked at each other skeptically. Beast Boy looked at them all in disbelief. "Oh come on!" he said. "Tell me you guys got that! It was so damn obvious! 'Locked in stone' and all that jazz? Who else do we know is locked in stone?"
"A million criminals we shut up serving a life sentence in Jump City Federal Prison?" Cyborg offered. Beast Boy glared at him as Robin slapped his forehead.
"Oh my God!" he cried. "I was so stuck on the balance, light, martyr and key bit! I heard her say it, but it never registered... He's right! Terra's our last piece!"
"But I thought Starfire was the last piece?" said Cyborg, pointing at the redhead in confusion.
"Though it pains me to admit it," Raven said, watching Beast Boy very closely. "I think Beast Boy has a point."
"Thank you!" Beast Boy said in appreciation.
"So we will go to her...?" Starfire said slowly. "To our old friend? Assuming that she is still alive after all these years?"
"Star has a point too," Raven acknowledged. "Any normal person would never have survived that. Can we be sure that–"
"Terra's alive," Beast Boy said resolutely.
Raven licked her lips and continued, slowly. "O...K... Assuming that's true, how do we know we can trust her again? Do you think that just because she did something right for once, she'll suddenly be–"
"No!" Beast Boy snapped, shaking his head. "Don't say that, Raven! Yes. We can trust her. We have to. You heard what Karen said. We're all imperative to this mission's success, including Terra. That means that she is alive and that we have to trust her because fate says that she comes through in the end."
"But what if the fact that she's not alive is how she comes through..." Cyborg said, slowly, knowing he was treading on thin ice but also knowing it must be said.
"That won't be the case," Beast Boy growled.
Raven raised a cold, skeptical eyebrow. "Whatever happened to 'death's not so bad!'?"
But Beast Boy turned to glare at her. "If you want me to be honest, I wish Terra was dead. It would have been better than being stuck in a stone statue for all these years. But to wake her up just to have her die... That's sad, Rae. Fifteen years of her life gone to the earth and now the earth wants her back? Death's only OK if you truly lived. And she never did."
There was an odd silence. Finally, Cyborg needlessly stretched his metallic fingers. "Okey dokey then, off to the underground I take it?"