Sapphire Bullets 8 – Chemicals Between Us
DC – You know, writing this seems a bit premature. At the time of writing, I still won't be able to update the story for another two days, but on the other hand, I really want to. Thank you all for the theoretical support you'll possibly give me by potentially reviewing the preceding chapter, which isn't yet out…
Disclaimer: And here we see one the only DC's known to remain in the wild. The DC is an ambling creature, notably rarer than the common or garden Coupling Shipper, and is famed for not owning the cartoon Teen Titans …
Sapphire Bullets 8 – Chemicals Between Us
Love had swooned. It was really rather amusing. Rage had made every effort to throw up in the fireplace, but Raven didn't let that get to her, as she knew it was precisely what Rage would have hoped for. All her emotions reacted in different ways, some changes subtle, some not. Knowledge merely smiled, and watched the shelves expand to deal with the flood of new information and recorded feeling that one short moment had provided. If she was any judge, and to be fair she was, this would be a memory often returned to. Raven herself had her fingertips pressed to her mouth, her expression unreadable and her ears bright red. That seemed like a fairly good indication of what the overall opinion of the emotions had been. She leaned in close to the 'original' whilst the emotions lost themselves in what they did best, and spoke quietly in Raven's ear.
"See? That wasn't all that bad, was it?"
"He…kissed me. And not even a little that time," She murmured, astonished. Memory nodded, smiling a little.
"I'll let you dwell on that one." She said, and stepped back to allow Raven some space.
Raven nodded a little, staring into the middle distance. She didn't care what some of her emotions would say. Emotions are notoriously fickle, after all. But now, she knew what she was going to do when she was herself again. A fantasy ran wildly through her mind. She'd walk up to Beast Boy and she'd…She'd reprimand him for invading her personal space like that. Raven sighed. She liked Beast Boy more than she let on. A lot more, and here she had been able to accept it. In spite of his jokes, in spite of his insistence that she get out of her shell, in spite of his constant interruptions…She loved him for the very same reasons. Well, possibly not for the jokes, but for the nigh-on unshakeable optimism. But it wasn't as if it mattered. Raven Roth couldn't often have what she wanted. She'd push Garfield away just as she always had, and even though Trigon had come and gone, and the part of her that was the portal was gone, she was still half-demon. Her feelings still had to be controlled, just in case. The truth was, she didn't even know if she could change her ways now, even if she wanted to…
Slade didn't nod in satisfaction. He wasn't that sort of man. On a small table to his side sat a thin, curved piece of slate-grey metal. There were six marks evenly spaced along the crescent moon-shaped surface, each a separate colour. One red as an arid, sun-baked desert. One a deep, deep green, reminiscent of a monsoon. One a stark, frozen white. One light blue that captured the rushing wail of a wind. One grey, almost indistinguishable against the metal, the colour of a fierce storm cloud. One the gritty yellow of a sandstorm.
It was almost complete. Slade looked out calculatingly from behind his mask, his expression giving nothing away as he considered what else had to be done.
"Controlling the weather." He murmured. He sounded almost amused. Almost.
He reached down for the curved metal object. A few finishing touches…Taking hold of his art palette, he dipped the end of his brush into the green and brought it up to his canvas, giving some of the waves greater depth with a few simple strokes. He stepped back to view his work.
The canvas showed Titans Tower at night. Waves crashed against the shore of the island, lights flickered in the windows, and in the background, the city burned.
It wasn't bad, and it had been an interesting exercise in capturing the motion of the storm, but on balance, he thought the one he had painted earlier of the kitten looking out of the old boot was better.
Almost as an afterthought, he reached behind him and pulled the main lever on his weather-control machine, which, being a genius, he had completed several hours ago.
Clouds gathered together, and raced off across the sky at their master's bidding. This looked to be interesting…
"That's interesting." Cupid mused, apparently existing in some strange parallel to Slade. Beast Boy looked up at him, curiously. He'd been distracted by a maudlin moment of imagination, focusing on how the likelihood of Raven tossing him out of a window when she was herself again.
"Huh?" he asked.
"My contractors told me your friend there shouldn't be able to use her abilities like this. But that little display just then shows they might be wrong. She doesn't deal with her emotions in the same was as most mortals, does she?"
"No way." Garfield leaned forward as conspiratorially as he could with the person he was whispering about sitting on his lap, and put his hands over her ears. "They have bodies." He confirmed. Cupid looked confused.
"Well, I accidentally ended up in her mind once, and there was all rocks and trees and little birds that I thought were all 'Awww!' when they turned out to be all 'Aaaagh!', and standing on the underside of the floor and all different versions of Raven that turned out to be her emotions and this big red dude with four eyes who looked like her dad." He said helpfully. Cupid looked confused, only more so. Garfield tried again.
"See, her dad is Trigon, and-"
Cupid whistled, impressed.
"Trigon? That explains a lot. Why I can't see inside her head, for one thing. He's a big time player, isn't he?"
"Yeah. This one time, he destroyed the entire earth."
Cupid looked around at the bustling mall with its happy couples and families and screaming children.
"Interesting if true." He said politely.
"He did! But then Raven fixed it so he didn't, or something…Hey, if you're real, why didn't you guys help with that? We could have used the help." Cupid paused, trying to find a way to explain a rather complicated idea in such a way that it would fit in Beast Boy's head.
"We exist on a different spectrum of plausible reality to Trigon." He tried. Garfield's ears drooped a little, and he gave Cupid a puzzled, helpless look.
"Um, OK…Do you like the radio, kid?" Cupid asked. Beast Boy nodded, waiting to see where this was going.
"Well, imagine us Gods are like radio waves, OK? Us Earth Gods are where we're meant to be, and we don't need to go anywhere else. So we're one frequency. Trigon is from a whole other reality, and since he wants to cross over and control, he's an entire frequency all by himself, and it drowned us out. You see?"
"I…think so, yeah." Beast Boy said guardedly. Cupid nodded and leaned back, crossing his arms.
"That's why we couldn't help. Anyway, we're getting off topic. If glimmers of your friend's powers are getting through, there might be a chance she can break free."
"Would you stop talking about me as if I wasn't here?" Raven asked politely. "I can hear everything you say."
Garfield looked at her, agog.
"But I put my hands over your ears!" he exclaimed. Raven looked at him fondly.
"Yes, you did, and it was very sweet, but that doesn't actually work too well in real life." She said gently. Garfield looked at her quizzically.
"No offence, but I thought you'd be madder." He said, and flinched a little as she brought her hand up to his face, cupping his cheek, which was somewhat worse.
"After that? I don't think I can be…Besides, the sooner we try whatever it is you want to try, the sooner you'll see it doesn't work because there's nothing wrong with me." She said reasonably. She looked over at Cupid, dislike plain on her face.
"What's the plan?" She asked.
Over in Jump City, Robin was on the roof. He had temporarily exchanged his Robin suit for a looser martial artist's gear, which was a little cooler in the heat of the evening. He went through his kata perfectly, kicks, punches, and postures all seamlessly integrated into a single fluid motion. He'd been under a lot of stress lately, and he found that this was a good way to calm down, let his mind unwind. He'd had the others on edge recently with the whole 'Slade controlling the clouds' nonsense. It was nonsense, pure and simple. So what if Slade was missing, and had been ever since Trigon's defeat? So what if they had no idea where he was or what he was planning? So what if he could be in any shadow, any dark corner, lurking, lurking, always watching and listening and waiting and…
"It's good to see you're practising, Robin." A voice from behind him said. Robin suppressed a girly shriek, and spun around in a perfect combat position. Cyborg looked at him quizzically.
"Did I surprise you?"
"Not at all." Robin lied coolly, relaxing. Cyborg nodded, but it looked like he was distracted by something behind Robin. Something in the sky.
"What is it?" Robin asked, looking around. Dark clouds were blooming on the horizon.
"Looks like there's a storm coming. You should come inside soon, OK man?"
"Sure thing, Cy." He agreed, doing his best to put thoughts of Slade out of his head as the clouds gathered behind him…
DC : Trouble at home, eh? With any luck, there's going to be a tower for Raven and BB to come home to in style. Unless I get bitten by procrastination demons, things are going to start coming to a head in the next chapter of Sapphire Bullets, so watch out! Sorry if this chapter was a bit off, it's one of those 'get things established' things. Also, you might have noticed that I've started using song titles and lyrics as my chapter headings. If you can tell me what they are and who they're by, I might get you something special…
Peace Out,
DC