The Best Titans Christmas Ever
"I need not repent, I need not believe; if you suffer, I am saved, - that is enough for me." --Melmoth the Wanderer, Charles Maturin
21:49 24 December 2005
Titans Tower, Jump City
The stove timer expired with a piercing ding, which brought Starfire rushing over to peer through the window at her creations. "Friends!" she exclaimed, "the baked treats of holiday cheer are completed!" She pulled a pair of over mitts over her hands and lifted the tray of cookies up for all to see. Her interpretation of the standard chocolate chip cookie sat and looked out at them all.
"That's great Starfire," Robin said distractedly as he focused his attention on hanging the last of the decorations around the meeting room. Beast Boy and Cyborg saw to the tree. Raven, failing to see the purpose in acknowledging this or any other time of year, sat idly off to the side.
Starfire set the tray on the counter to cool, and spryly floated over to where Robin stood flinging a length of garland through the air in an attempt to hook it on a nail in the wall. She caught hold of it it and drifted slowly upward to guide it into place.
"Robin," she began while she secured the silver festoon, "please tell me again about the celebrations of this time of year." Having been thus freed from his chores, he did so.
"Sure thing, Star. All kinds of things happen around now. Tomorrow will be Christmas Day, which makes tonight Christmas Eve."
"And the Santa Claus will come bearing gifts?"
"Right. Of course there are the other holidays too. There's also Chanukah and Kwanzaa, the winter solstice, and sometimes Ramadan."
A sudden cheer erupted from Cyborg and Beast Boy in the corner. Cyborg held two extension cords over his head. He brought the ends together with a flourish, and the tree erupted with light.
"But not in this tower, man. It's all Christian, all the time."
"Huh?" Robin gave a quizzical look with one eye squinted. Cyborg simply gestured over his shoulder with his thumb at the enormous, golden, glowing crucifix adorning the top of the tree.
"Right on!" Beast Boy added, and gave Cyborg a high five.
"Really? Since when?"
"Since forever, dude. Where have you been?"
"I'm...not sure. Raven?"
The girl looked over, raised an eyebrow, and wordlessly unhooked her thumbs from her outfit and rolled up her sleeves. Emblazoned along the full length of each forearm was a heavily stylized cross. The left had the word 'pain' inscribed beside it, and the right 'joy.' Clearly she had a number of unresolved issues. "Baptist," she said.
Nobody was quite sure how she proposed to reconcile this with her remarkably demonic heritage, her blasphemous library, rituals, and powers, or in fact any given aspect of her life. Her every breath was an affront to all that was holy. Yet everyone was too polite to ask.
"Well. There you have it, Star." And indeed she did.
Later that night, Starfire lay awake in her bed. She was chagrined. "It seems I lack the visions of sugarplums," she said. She didn't know what one was, but she wasn't having much vision of anything lying in the dark. She floated silently out of bed and across her room. The door emitted a slight pneumatic hiss as it opened and then closed behind her. A pale, mellow light spilled from the lamps mounted along the bottom edge of the walls of the corridor. She followed them some distance down the hall until she arrived at Raven's room.
Everything would have to be in order if the tower was to be visited that night. To this end, she crept into Raven's room, wincing at the sound of the door closing behind her. She was as yet undetected, and so began searching the shelves of books for resources to aid her endeavor. She held one dimly glowing hand before her, shielding with the other the side that faced Raven's bed so as not to be discovered.
After a moment she realized that in addition to her already tenuous grasp of the spoken language, she could not read it in the least. She had a vague notion of numerals and a few of the more common written signs and labels, but nothing more. Ashamed, she instead scanned the titles for an arrangement of letters most aesthetically pleasing. Removing it from the shelf, she noted that it had a roughly triangular illustration on the cover not unlike the tree in the meeting room. This would do nicely.
Extinguishing the light in her hand, she silently floated back into the hall with the book jealously clutched to her chest. She giggled. If only she knew what horrors would be unleashed upon her when Raven discovered that the sanctity of her room had been violated with the intrusion and theft, she would not have been in such an effervescent mood.
For the moment, though, she was concerned only with the book, which she opened to a random page as she stood before the Christmas tree. She flipped through pages of cryptic English text until at last she came to a number of diagrams. These would no doubt be the key to ensuring victory, and she set herself to her task.
When her work was completed she stood in the center of a beautifully constructed pink lipstick pentacle, in the center of which she had added a smiley face for good measure. Yet something was still missing. She took a few steps back and held up the book for comparison. Upon closer inspection she saw that the diagram clearly indicated a small circular dish in the center; no doubt it was some kind of offering.
She had an uncharacteristic flash of insight, and flew to the counter where her cookies still sat. She picked up the tray, retrieved a jug of milk from the refrigerator and set it next to them, and returned with the entire arrangement to her drawing. She placed the tray gently in the center, and waited for whatever would happen to happen.
Yet nothing happened. She tilted her head and stared at the tray for several minutes. When still nothing happened she tiptoed forward and nudged the tray with the tip of her boot. The tray rotated slightly until the spout of the jug of milk was aligned with the uppermost tip of the inner star.
It was then that the room exploded in an immaculate aura, accompanied by the sound of triumphant horns. She held her hands up in front of her face as a shield as the wave of light ripped past her. A moment later it faded. She lowered her arms to see the ultimate Friend of Man standing before her.
"Greetings!" she chirped. He simply looked at her, and bent down to grab one of the cookies that lay at his feet. "Do you like the offering?" she asked. He spoke some incomprehensible syllables and took a bite. "Ahah! I do not speak your language." She remedied this by quickly putting her tongue down his throat.
This was noted with horror by Beast Boy, who had just come out of the bathroom. "Noooooo!" he screamed as he ran across the room before tripping on his own feet and skidding across the rug. He collided most gently with the tray on the floor, but as the jug spun out of alignment the figure immediately winked out of sight. Starfire did not have an opportunity to test her new skill, which was just as well, since unbeknownst to her, her Aramaic was even more horrendous than her English.
He looked around frantically from side to side, and under the tray as he lifted it up. That was how the rest of the team found him when they came to the scene, summoned by his voice.
"What's up grass stai--hey, cookies!" Cyborg exclaimed, and grabbed a fistful from the upheld tray.
"This had better be important," Raven said, but was silenced when Cyborg shoved several cookies into her mouth as well. She glared fiercely at him, but chewed quietly rather than lose face by spitting her food all over the floor in front of her teammates.
This course of action failed forthwith, and in spite of herself she sprayed into the faces of her friends crumbs and infinitesimal specks of blood as her body revolted against the contents of Starfire's confections. Her lifeless corpse slumped to the ground, and while everyone gathered around nobody noticed Cyborg's human half slip away just as quickly. His electronic components however continued to hum away quietly, which would cause some manner of confusion moments later when the others tried to get his attention. Thus they died in their sins.
Judgment was swift and pitiless. Cyborg was instantly condemned. There was no discussion or explanation of the matter. Raven was just as swiftly escorted off into the peaceful swirling mists for her infinite reward. She turned only once, and gestured to the marks on her arms as she had before. "Told you so."
Back in the tower the team would begin mourning, foolishly unaware that they who were still among the living were the truly unfortunate.