CHAPTER EIGHT
Titans Tower, 10:30 AM
"You been up all night?" Beast Boy asked as he opened the fridge and pulled out some soy milk.
"I wasn't able to sleep," Raven replied softly. She took a sip of her herbal tea. "I'll be fine." Of course that was a lie. She wouldn't be fine. She'd allow Trigon into the world, and then she would rule by his side, forever corrupted. It was inevitable. Or was it?
"More Slade nightmares?"
Raven nodded, omitting certain... demonic details. "Gar, what was your... father like?"
Beast Boy goggled at that. "My father? Um. Well... he died when I was young. But... he was cool, I guess. Really smart. He saved my life, you know. Made an antidote when I got a disease from a green monkey bite and WHAM! Took it right out of me...?" At that, he slammed his fist into his hand as if the cure for sakutia was a wrecking ball or artillery shell. He must have noticed Raven's annoyed glare—or perhaps the worry she was trying to hide—because he ceased his typical theatrics. "Why are you asking? What about yours? Didn't you say you had 'issues' with him that time we were in your head.?"
"I'd rather not talk about that, Gar."
"Raven, if there's a problem you can't just keep ignoring it. Please tell me what's bothering you. Don't you trust me?"
"Beast Boy..." Raven put on a facade of annoyance. "I... I trust you. But there are some things I just don't want to share with the world just yet."
"I'm only trying to help..."
Raven started to walk towards the Tower elevator. Beast Boy could not provide the help she needed. No one really could. But at least someone understood her. Of course he could never know the truth. The REAL truth.
"Hey, where are you goin' Rae?"
"I need to go out for a while. Contact me if anything comes up. I shouldn't be gone for more than two hours." She said.
"So much for being fine," Beast Boy remarked as she left.
0000
"I'm glad you could come," Raven said. She wasn't exactly smiling, but she felt better than she had in a wile. The so-called "Lovers' Garden" in Jump City park was the closest thing to Azarath Raven had found on Earth, and that's where the two all too likely star-crossed teens were now standing.
"I'm surprised you actually called," Trevor replied, reaching out to taker her hand.
"Um," Raven stared stupidly at his extended hand. "I... uh... my hands are dirty." She realized how pathetic that sounded.
"If you say so, Princess." Trevor smirked.
"Princess?"
"Princess Leia? Star Wars?"
"Oh, right." Raven sighed. "Sorry. I don't get out much. She ran her right hand through her hair, this time not tied by the headband, since she had reprogrammed the hologram ring to hide her chakra as well.
"So, Rachel," Trevor started. "You look great." Raven flexed her rather underused smiling muscles. "You want to go... grab lunch somewhere?"
"Sure." Raven said. Ugh. She couldn't believer herself. WHY was she letting herself get so attached to this guy? What could he offer that the other Titans couldn't? But she already knew the answer to that question. Having always been Raven, she couldn't talk about her father without the question of who he was come up. But with Trevor, who didn't even like metahumans, who didn't know she was one, she could talk about anything she wanted, referring to it obliquely. To him, 'her father' was nothing more than a cruel manipulative human who wanted his daughter to follow in his footsteps.
WHAT YOU HAVE CONCEALED, YOU SHALL BECOME!
"Shut up!" Raven blurted.
"What?" Trevor asked.
"Nothing... just a bad thought. That's all."
"OK..." She watched Trevor eye her quizzically for a moment and then shrug. "So, where to? Obstinate Nickel again?"
"No. Actually, I'm more in the mood for pizza," Raven said.
"You eat pizza?" Trevor laughed. "Then you must work out, right?"
"I guess you could say that," she replied.
"Anyway, we should go before the lunch rush. C'mon."
0000
The city-planet of Oela was both ancient and awe-inspiring. Ruins of buildings stretched high into the atmosphere, eerily similar to a bombed-out version of Coruscant. Enormous buttresses stretched into the sky, and the ground was more than a mile below the tops of the buildings. But all of it was lifeless and dead now.
"The Oelan temple of X'hal is over there," Starfire said as the T-Ship fell farther into the planet's atmosphere.
"Starfire," Robin said over the comm system, "This place is amazing. What happened to it?"
"Many centuries ago, the planet was under the control of the Citadel Empire. They attacked Tamaran, and that was a terrible mistake. In those days Tamaran was a lush world, much like the tropics of Earth, and the Citadel envied it, so they tried to conquer us. My people repelled the invasion, but our planet was irreparably scarred. Our people sought revenge for the destruction of our planet, and since we can travel through space unaided, the Tamaranians of that era invaded Oela in droves and fought the Citadel. Many died in that battle, but eventually the Citadel fled the world, and my ancestors built a temple to X'hal in gratitude for the victory."
Arsenal switched his com so that only Cyborg could hear him. "Man, I never though I'd hear her talk like that. She always seemed so... naive."
"Kori's sweet, and she's a bit naive of Earth's ways, but she isn't stupid. You know she's taken a lot of flak from idiot web-blogs and metahuman discussion forums on the net..."
"You read those?"
"Sometimes. Forget it, Roy. It's not important. Just remember not to underestimate Starfire, OK?"
"I won't."
00
After a about ten minutes, the ship came close to the Temple of X'hal, which, while architecturally similar to the rest of the planet's towering structures, showed little of the age or battle erosion the rest of the planet did.
The five Titans disembarked and braved a narrow bridge across from the landing platform—or makeshift landing platform, as it wasn't the most stable thing they'd ever seen—and reached the entrance of the temple.
Robin stayed unusually close to Kori the whole time, as well. "What's going on?" Arsenal asked Cyborg.
"Huh?"
"Robin normally isn't so open about his feelings for Starfire, but now he's practically hanging of of her."
"Roy, don't you see it? Robin sees Collin as competition. Kori doesn't think of him that way, though. To her, he's just another friend. But Robin doesn't see it that way. You see the way he looks at her, don't you. I swear it's freakin' me out. And I'm the one who's half robot"
"Guys, keep up!" Collin shouted back. Victor and Roy sped up and reached the door shortly after Star, Robin, and Ragnarök.
Starfire recited the same chant she'd used to open the other doors, and they slid open. Revealing.
Rock monsters.
"Ugh. Why are all these temples so predictable?" Robin sighed, drawing his bo staff.
"All the defenses are designed to be powered by something you cannot possibly have the catalyst for already." Kori replied.
"That... was rhetorical, Robin shot back, smashing his staff into one of the humanoid terra-androids."
"Well, obviously they didn't count on me having the ability to do THIS!" Collin shouted, raising his hands as if to manipulated the earth that the monsters were composed of...
But nothing happened.
"Do what?" Cyborg quipped.
"OK... This is not good." Collin complained. "Why do my powers not work?"
Starfire blasted some more of the first wave and landed between Tim and Collin, in front of Roy, ducking low enough for him to fire over her shoulder. "You only possess a low-class earth-moving artifact," she said. "The Crimson Catalyst's power is greater than your own, and supersedes it."
"That's just great," said Colin, pulling out his bag of "ammo."
And the struggle continued...
0000
Raven was rather miffed that Trevor's idea of a romantic pizza dinner for two was the same pizzeria the Titans normally ate at. He'd said he figured if it was good enough for superheroes, it was good enough for them. Of course, he'd said it in a demeaning manor, not concealing his mistrust of the metahuman population, which now numbered in the hundreds. (Not counting the Carolina city of Uberton in the census, which would have shifted the number to the thousands most likely.)
It was then Raven realized that the fact she could confide in Trevor about her father and his evil for her was precisely BECAUSE he hated superhumans so much. She could only tell him the truth as long as she continued to lie to him. The other Titans—they would be too inquisitive. They'd try to stop the unstoppable. Raven just wanted to enjoy their final days and weeks on the Earth. Soon, all would be Trigon's.
But enough of that train of thought. She had to focus on the here and now. And now, Trevor was passing her a slice of pizza. "Thank you."
"Don't mention it." He took a bite of his own, a MegaMeatyMeat special, which the owner had taken from the now defunct Nufu restaurant. (Defunct of course, because Cyborg had accidentally eaten the Source, the alien cube that ran the restaurant.)
"So, I don't mean to pry, but what exactly does you dad do that's so terrible?" Trevor asked. Oddly, Raven felt sincerity from him. How could such an otherwise nice guy hate metahumans so much?
"My Dad...?" Raven thought a moment. "He is... in the real estate business. He wants me to do things... that I'm sure are illegal in order to... bring the prices down... So he can buy them and sell them at higher prices."
"OK..." Trevor's look showed her for sure that wasn't at all what he was expecting, but it was the closest she could get to her father without revealing his demonic nature. "Like what sorts of things?"
"I'd rather not say." Because she hadn't thought of anything yet. Now Trevor was getting concerned.
"It's that bad? Seriously, Rachel, if he's forcing you to do things you're not comfortable with, you should call the police or something... I mean.."
"The police can't do anything about it." Raven sat back. Boy couldn't they! No one could stop Trigon the Terrible. "Trevor... Let's just say he wouldn't hesitate to take over the planet, given the chance."
Trevor arched an eyebrow. "Sounds like a comic book villain." He smirked at his sarcasm.
"Well, we live in a rather comic book-like town, don't we?" Raven shot back. "Have you... reconsidered moving away?"
"Well, something new has come up. My uncle, you see, he's owned this newspaper company out in Apex City for years. And he's offered me a job working for his new branch here in Jump—Geez, what a stupid name for a city. You ever get over that living here and all?—I guess I'll be staying here. He's agreed not to tell my father where I ran off to, but he said my dad's worried sick about me." Trevor let out a sigh, then inhaled. "Is your dad local?"
Raven sweatdropped. "Not exactly."
"Well, anyway. I have to get going. My uncle said I had to be at work by three, so I guess I'll be seeing you around." Trevor got up and walked towards the stairs, almost bumping into a red haired young adult in a dark coat. Odd that he'd be wearing such a jacket in the weather, but to each his own.
Raven started to leave herself, when she noticed the red-haired stranger staring at her... and it made her rather uncomfortable. She looked up at him and arched an eyebrow. His yes... Geez his eyes... they... Something seemed familiar, almost knowing in them. She felt nothing malicious radiating from him, but at the same time, she couldn't read him at all. His mind was a stone wall, there, but concealing something. As if he knew how to block her out...
"Can I help you?" she asked, rather confused, hoping said confusion wouldn't cause a chair to shake apart or the building to collapse.
"It's funny, you know. How something that seems small can make a world of difference. What if Thaddeus Jump had settled in Florida instead of Cali? Makes you wonder."
"Then I suppose Jump City would be in Florida," Raven ventured. "What's you point?"
"Nothing. Just how little things that seem insignificant, times, conversations, dates, choices... How in the long run they might become something larger."
"Do I know you?"
The stranger smiled. "Perhaps in another life." And he turned and walked away.
Raven buried her mixed emotions. She had to get back to the Tower.
0000
The Titans burst into the room, finally glad to confirm it was indeed at long last the room that held the Crimson Catalyst. Cyborg dived into a prone position and began firing shots from his left sonic cannon, as his right arm had been removed during the fighting. Starfire launched some starbolts, and Robin, out of Birdarangs and explosive discs, and having had his bo staff broke in two, was fighting with the jagged ends of the staff halves. Roy was supplying a constant stream of arrows, and Collin was doing what he could with the rocks he was given—well, the rocks he had taken.
"Die you brother-glomping snorkel breathers!" Collin yelled, smashing a rock through the dirt and rock shells of his foes.
A Rock Monster leaped up high, assisted by it's brethren, and slammed into Starfire, knocking her to the ground.
"Star!" Robin yelled.
"Kori!" Ragnarök echoed.
Suddenly, the creatures surged forward, trampling the tough, but fatigued Tamaranian underfoot. "Starfire!" Cyborg growled, turning his Sonic Canon up to maximum and firing through the creatures, shattering scores of them. But they kept on coming.
Thankfully for Robin's peace of mind, Kori stood up, furious, and began blasting with all her might at the monsters.
"It's no use!" Roy warned. "You're just burning yourself out, Vic."
"Arsenal," Robin yelled. "Try and shoot the Catalyst out of the statue's ring." (As in this particular room, the statue of the Guardian had an outstretched hand, bearing a ring, bearing the Crimson Catalyst.)
"Right." Roy aimed his arrow and let it loose...
And it hit it's mark, but rather than low, as Roy had intended, it hit dead center, knocking the tiny device away from the Titans, towards the stampeding Rock Creatures the Titans could barely hold off.
"Crap!" Collin made a tornado of dust from the dust in the room., and then oddly, leaped to the top, using the swirling dust as a very haphazard set of stilts, and used it to hurl himself towards the falling Catalyst, catching it in one hand and grabbing hold of the statue's with the other, and then using the dust once more to give himself a boost onto the statue—and all this happened in about 12 seconds.
"What are you doing?" Cyborg yelled up at him.
"I have an idea. I saw this on Star Trek once!"
"Which means it isn't going to work," Roy muttered. "Everybody knows that nearly all science on Star Trek is pseudo-science."
Collin jammed the Catalyst into the insertion point on his Tamaranian armor's gloves, and held his hand up. "I HAVE THE POWEEERR!" he yelled.
"That was lame," said somebody... perhaps not in the temple, but in the audience. Maybe it was you.
But sure enough, all the Rock Monsters stopped, and went flying away from the Titans, and Robin ran over to the injured Kori, trying to console her or whatever one is supposed to do when their significant other is trampled by semi-sentient rock beings on and from another planet.
"Become this shape!" Collin yelled, and kept repeating. The Rock Monsters began contorting and changing, but never assuming an actual shape, and the catalyst in Collin's glove went from Crimson to a glowing hot red, with bolts of lighting shooting out around it. "Become this shape!"
BOOM! Suddenly, Catalyst gave a burst of light, along with smoke rising from Collin's left hand.
And all the Rock Monsters collapsed to the ground, reverting into lifeless dust and rock.
"Um... What just happened?" Robin asked.
"I told the Rock Monsters to become a paradoxical shape that can't exist in a three dimensional world." He held up the Catalyst. "I think I broke it."
"BROKE IT?" Starfire yelled, quickly flying to Collin and nearly jerking his arm out of his socket trying to examine the device. "It CANNOT be broken!"
Cyborg walked over and scanned it with his mechanical eye. "I don't think it's broken, Star, just burnt out. He kept trying to make it do the impossible until he overloaded... whatever makes it tick."
"Why then has it turned gray?" Starfire inquired. "It is supposed to be crimson!"
"Hm... I'm reading an ingress of energy, put the energy output has fallen to almost zero. I think it just needs to recharge. I can't say how long that will take, though."
"Oops." Collin said.
Robin didn't open his mouth, but gave him a glare that spoke volumes. Nice job, it said.
0000
Back at the Tower, Raven sighed heavily and sat down in a chair in ops. Beast Boy was trying to teach Mas y Menos how to play Mech-Racer and Impulse was mixing a drink he said came from the 30th century and was all the craze.
That was the thing about people from 1000 years in the future: they were always trying to introduce us primitive hillbillies to their advance ways.
"It's almost done, Rae. I'm sure you'll like it." He began shaking a thermos in his hands, his super speed more powerful than any blender could ever hope to be. "By the way, why is it that I saw you in a hologuise at the pizzeria today with a pretty boy talking and, dare I say it, smiling?"
Raven's eyes were the size of saucers in about .0295 seconds.
"You can't offer an explanation?" Bart asked.
"He's just a friend." Raven... lied. Or was it a lie? She didn't know. It felt like one, though.
"Oh, hey!" Beast Boy called from the couch. "Does Raven have a boyfriend?"
"Tiene un novio!" yelled Mas.
"Si, tiene un novio!"echoed Menos.
"Raven's got a boy friend!" From Gar.
"Tiene un novio!"
"Tiene
un novio!"
Raven's got a boyfriend!
Tiene un novio!
Tiene un novio!
Raven clenched here fists, small sweat drops began to run down her face and the backs of her hands.
Tiene un novio!
Raven's got a boy friend!
A vein throbbed in her forehead... emotions... rising...
She began to change. Her cloak became alive, her body became a black shadow, taken an amorphous shape, with writhing tentacles, enormous enough that they could be seen from Jump City proper, jutting out of the T-Tower through the now-broken windows... And her eyes both split in two, and became glowing red pits of demonic fury. Her Soul Self, the monstrosity within her body, the manifestation of Trigon's evil power in her blood.
"SHUT UP! BE SILENT OR YOU SHALL FACE YOUR DARKEST FEARS AND SINS!" Raven bellowed... in a voice not her own.
Mas and Menos darted out of the room, and an astute observer might have noticed them heading East, running the 3000 miles to the safety of Steel City.
Lacking that ability Beast Boy leaped behind the couch, eyes full of fear. "Raven I'm sorry! Please calm down it was only a joke!"
Raven's red eyes went from anger to shock, and suddenly her body began to revert, reforming itself inside her cloak. Her four red eyes, blinked, then closed, and opened again has two normal ones. "I... I'm sorry," she whispered.
Beast Boy said nothing, and ran out of the room, fearing what Raven had become.
Raven just vacantly stared forward, saying nothing. She felt a hand on her shoulder and glared back in anger, ready to tear it off. But it was just Bart, his mask removed and a somber expression on his face. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that. I just... don't want to see you hurt."
And across the bay, the Red-Headed stranger from the pizzeria stood atop pier 41, looking out at the T-Shaped building, having just observed the spectacle of dark power raging forth from Titan's Tower.
"Ugh. This is just what I was afraid of," he sighed.
And before he slips your mind, a word about our mysterious stranger. His identity will remain a secret for well into the sequel "Colors" so if you want to know who he is ahead of time, you might want to go read that story. Just watch out for the Legacy of the Tamaranian spoilers in the first chapter.
The stranger is not a character created by me, but rather one borrowed from a friend of mine, whose fics you should read if you haven't already. If you want the author's name, just PM me.