Written: 11/27/05
Posted: 11/27/05Disclaimer: See Previous Chapters
Of Finished Plans And Broken Smiles
Plans were made that was all Raven could say. A plan to protect the civilians, plans to protect the children, and plans to kill. But in center of it, something in her cried but what about us. What plan did one make to protect her, to protect them, the fighters? The answer never came. It lay broken in the bottom a ravine; fighters didn't need survival and aftermath plans. They rarely needed more than a burial service.
Raven looked up at the sun, it was different, it sensed something had changed, that something was changing. Her pale hand raised itself dumbly to reach out for the sun—the burning purity. She could feel its warmth, its power, but she couldn't connect to it. It wasn't hers to connect to. She didn't belong.
"Raven!" Robin shouted out the young woman, who had saved and killed him at the same time. She saved him from Slade, and killed him by bringing him here. Here to a place were people sneered at him and cursed him for lost souls. She was cruel, he reflected sadly but looking at her at that moment, he remembered she was lost. Snatching her hand from the air, Raven turned to him, there was no blush covering her face like he imagined would have blanketed Starfire's. "Ready to go?"
"Is one ever ready?" She replied in that monotone that still chilled him. Robin knew that Raven had emotions and that Raven felt things, and it killed him to know that she would never show anyone. He hated the way she would deflect his questions with another question; she had always done that. Even now when that world might end, she wouldn't tell a soul how she was faring.
"Let's go." He began to wheel off, he was still in his wheelchair but he was going to fight. That would never change—his fighters will. Nothing would stop him, not even the thought of his demise. He didn't fear the upcoming battle, he feared more what this battle would do to Raven. Somehow instinctively, he knew that she wasn't planning on coming back. Soft footsteps followed behind the loud crunch of his wheels, she was walking beside him, keeping pace with his rather hurried movements of his wheelchair. "I know we have gone over the plans, but do you really think it will work?"
"Yes," she replied lowly, not truly listening to him but more listening to the sounds of nature. Sounds she may never hear again. "And no." She looked at him—truly looked at him. This wasn't the boy she remembered, or the one she had imagined during his time under Slade's thumb. He was real, he was something that kept her here in the now, but not something that would hold her back in the end.
"No?" He stopped and looked to his right, to Raven. He had to wonder where the sudden doubt from her came from, if it were doubt at.
"No, that it won't be the same," Raven wasn't here, she was in a different world, one where there weren't trees or people. A world where nothing but she existed, what a lonely place. There was hardly anything there; the only thing was a rock in a sea of blood and demons. Her home. Her hell. That is what the end meant for her.
"What won't?"
She looked at him hollowly, eyes lost in her own world, "The end." He understood what she was saying on a fundamental level, but he really didn't. They were the same; he realized with a cold wave a fear. If she died that day, he would in a sense be watching himself die. Without word, they commenced their journey that had no end, and no beginning. One could say, it started when the Titans fell, but they knew it started earlier than that—fate had woven their tale centuries before they were born.
-----
They stiffly sat in the ship as it flew closer the final battle site. Their final stand, the time when good and evil would face off—the end. Robin wished he could move closer to Raven, but it was impossible, the wheels on this chair had been locked down so he couldn't move. She seemed too cold and fragile to him, like a snowflake.
Raven had found a new suit of clothes. They were far too large for her but she managed, her pride was still smarting from the lashing it had taken to wear with apparel. No shirt, something akin to a sports-bra accompanied by a pair of large overalls. Perhaps not the most battle ready of garments but much more suited to fights than a lacey nightgown, which was rather translucent.
"Prepare to land." It was the final warning, the time to back out, a person's last chance to scream fear and leave. No one rose. No one would; they were all in for the long haul, come hell or high water. They could already see them, the demons, they had already swarmed together in the short period of time it took Raven and Robin to plan.
Raven stood, everyone prepared for her speech, "There isn't much I can say. All I will say is this, fight as hard as you can. If we lose, it isn't like it was with Slade, Sparrow won't gloat he will continue until every human is either a slave or dead." She glanced around, staring coldly for a moment into each person's eyes. "Is that clear?" Hoarse 'yes's and weak nods came from the small army that they had gathered so quickly. "Good. Be ready."
Those were the last words spoken as the ship landed. As the door to the cargo bay opened, silence then noise descended. The demons cried out in hungry glee and attacked the ship.
-----
Robin and Raven hadn't separated, not for the last three hours or was it days. The battle was warping their sense of balance and time. They were in the center of it all. The screams reached their ears slower and faster, the clash of the battle enclosed yet eluded them. It was distorted.
"Raven," Robin whispered to her, "See you after, right?"
Raven didn't respond. She continued chanting the spell that she had been doing for the last hour. It was the spell that would end this. The spell that would save them all, allow them all to live peacefully. But the price was high, too high. Raven clinched her eyes tighter and began to chant faster. Robin looked at her, "Raven if it were different would we have been closer?" Raven heard him and wanted to say something, a 'yes,' or a 'no' but couldn't the spell was too dense, too complicated. A single word mispronounced or a gesture that wasn't a part of the incantation would ruin it.
A bright glow engulfed them. Circling tightly around before encroaching and closing around them, trapping them inside. With magick there was always a price—a high price. This was no different. This was just a blood price.
-----
Silence echoed throughout the field as the fighters began to regain consciousness. Nothing moved, not even the air. All was quiet. All was still. The battle was over. The demons were gone, nothing was left of the horrible fight that had nearly wrenched their sanity from them.
Slowly, softly then quickly, loudly the cheer went up. Weapons were thrown to the ground. Smiles graced war-weary faces and battle torn souls began their first tiny steps to recovery. Hats were thrown into the air. The wind picked up on the jovial atmosphere and began to gently blow, to sweep away the dark images of the past.
An empty wheelchair rolled away; a thick scroll of parchment with a spell written hastily upon the it was pulled from the ground and lost to the world.
-----
A city was built, it was named Hero City, in memory of those who gave their lives for freedom. In the center of this city, there was a park. A beautiful park with birds. And in the center of the park, there was a gravestone. The center of this park was on the exact center of the battlefield that had changed the fate of man. And in this center, beneath a bouquet of roses that had been left, there was a gravestone. Inscribed on this gravestone was this :
For Robin and Raven,True Heroes to the End.
May they find peace wherever they are.
We hope they are happy and
Thank them for the
Sacrifice they made to save us.
-Memorial donated by Starfire, Beastboy, and the citizen of Hero City
-Fin-
Almost finished anyway, the next chapter is the 'Requiem' or 'Epilogue.'