Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans
"Comrade! Over here!"
Robin looked up and saw the man who was waving at him crouching next to a pile of rubble. Terrible stench pervaded from the spot, and he could see ragged bodies of Russian infantry all around him. The tank-tracks and barbed-wire that criss-crossed the torn up earth around the heap only seemed to add on to the hellish quality of the place, but at this point Robin didn't really care what it looked like as long as it had cover.
"Were you part of the 3rd wave or the 4th? Well I guess it doesn't really matter now – does it? Do you want some beans? I think I have some somewhere around here…" the man continued to ramble away as Robin began to see that whoever his newfound 'friend' was, the man was clearly rattled. But then again, what did it matter?
"I was a member of the 2nd myself, I wa-" the man went into a coughing fit, and after recovering he remained silent as he continued to look for the can of beans that clearly wasn't there…
Raven woke slowly and stretched her arms only to find them hampered by something warm and soft… Raven's eyes flew open in an instant and she found herself looking directly into Robin's sleeping face.
Fuck…
Raven scrambled off the bed and started backing away toward the door. What had she been thinking? Turning, she half-ran half-walked to the elevator and punched in her floor number. When had she fallen asleep? HOW had she fallen asleep in that position? The door chime rang and she hurried to her room, where she could wrap herself in silence.
(Flashback)
She looked at the mask hiding his eyes, and finally gave in. "I... Well... It's just that-"
"What Raven? What's wrong?" The whirring of the machines and the beeping computers were the only sounds to be heard in the relatively empty medical room, but they seemed deafening to Raven, who simply wanted to sink into the floor.
"My father…" Robin nodded encouragingly, "well, he isn't the only daemon… there are others – endless others." Raven stressed the endless part. "I felt something earlier, a… a force, it was strong…" Raven shivered, "so strong…"
"Hey… hey it's alright…" Robin assured her. "What do you think needs to be done?"
(Present)
From then on Robin had worked ceaselessly in order to find the source of the daemonic aura, spurned on by Raven's occasional psychic attacks. But days turned into weeks and Robin begun to wear-out from his non-stop hunt. When a distress call came in for several collapsing buildings the Titans had moved out. But Robin wasn't in form, he tripped… he was crushed…
Tears began to run down Raven's cheeks as she thought of his broken-battered body being wheeled to that Emergency Room. She thought he was dead… She thought she would die…
Raven knew that things couldn't continue the way they were going, but what could she do? Robin was lost to her- no! not her! To them…
"Hey comrade, I found the beans!" Robin looked up at the old bedraggled man and saw him holding up a stone and grinning. He kept motioning for Robin to take the stone, and Robin didn't have the heart (or the energy) to say no. As he took the stone into his hands he noticed a hand-print of blood on it. When Robin looked up he was greeted by the most terrifying sight he had ever seen.
The man, who had only moments before been sitting next to him, seemed to be… opening somehow… The man's mouth had begun to overtake his face, while his stomach was actually warping into itself. The fingernails and had peeled back, blood was leaking and gushing everywhere… But of all the things that Robin noticed, the fact that no sound could be heard was perhaps the most off-setting.
When was the silence going to break? The man was not screaming, no popping or breaking sounds issued forth from his body. Even the constant rattle of the gunfire was gone, replaced only by that strange, deafening silence… When was the silence going to break!
Silence broken.
"YOU"RE STILL HERE!"
The roar was earth-shattering, it shook the bodies of the slain and the gravel that they lied upon and brought down the walls of the few buildings still left standing.
From the warped, twisted, scarred husk of that thing that was once a man; A nightmare arose. Pale and lithe, its ever-changing face leered at Robin. It (it because the thing that 'stood' before him could be described in no more specific a way) gazed at him with eyes unseeing, and moved its hands in patterns that Robin could not begin to fathom. The hands themselves were no more hands that a seahorse is a horse, as what seemed to function as its fingers had holes and strange whip-like… tongues(?) coming out of the 'fingertips.'
"Not de.Ad yet. , Ay Ri.Cha.Rd?" nearly unintelligible words flowed from it's mouth, and it's cloak of rainbow shadows thrashed around it as if in the middle of a deadly tempest – when in fact there was no wind at all.
"W.E! S.Hou.Ld F.ix. Th.At do.N't Y.O.U. Th.In.K?"
I apologize for the lateness of this chapter guys, I guess I just had a lot of things on my mind.
As many of you have heard – Lain The Fluff Master has recently left the fanfiction community, therefore, this story is dedicated to her.