Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans.
Author's Note: I've had a bit of trouble with things not working out in this story lately. Then, I thought up a brilliant solution: As of right now, this occurs mere weeks following the Season Four Finale. A lot more stuff now makes sense. Thank God. Therefore, this also takes place some time after my other fic (it does tie in; you might want to read it).
Ch. 3: Prophecies Long Dead
The beam of sunlight that dissected the dark interior of the main entrance hall of Titans Tower grew gradually thinner as the massive metallic doors mechanically creaked shut. The thin sliver finally collapsed into itself as the two halves collided, sending an explosive thunderclap echoing into the far recesses of the chamber; the only light that twinkled dimly in that black abyss was the gentle turquoise glow of his electronic prosthetics. His glazed organic eye slid shut, the red light of its glass counterpart softening, as the tumultuous racket of the gears clicking and rotating and locking and whirring securely into place vibrated his plastic eardrums; the already tightly sealed double doors buckled several inches inward as the locks settled, an obnoxious crow caw of an alarm affirming it.
He stood idle for a moment, drowning in the silence; no Starfire belting out discordant Tamaranian folksongs, no Beast Boy rattling the grime-encrusted dish towers with the one hundred percent surround sound volume of the Game Station XL, no Robin barking orders and bursting sandbags in the gym… just the empty entrance hall.
"Well Cy… what are you going to do with yourself?" He gave a gentle sigh as he shuffled back toward the elevator, his silhouette liken unto a bell-ringer's. "Waffle time, I guess…"
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
"Rrrrrraaaaavennnnn…"
The smoldering embers of what had once been earth quaked and shattered; fissures snaked across the scalding soil of the expansive plane, belching out columns of ebon smog that arched high into the crimson heavens, veiling the decaying corpse of the sun.
"Rrrrrraaaaveeeennnn…"
The cacophonous bellow vibrated her throbbing skull, assailed her fragile eardrums to the point of rupture. Yet she faltered not, continuing unimpeded in her flight, the short, ivory cloak swaying gracefully in her wake.
"It can't be you…"
"But it is, dear daughter. Your father has returned. Your father has come back for you, Raven!"
Her boots blurred as quickly as her trembling six-year-old knees would swing them; the hinges creaked and groaned, threatening to snap like an abused elastic band, worn by overextension.
"Did you truly think you could vanquish me? I, the Great Overlord? I, the Conqueror of Dimensions? I, Trigon the Terrible?"
Inevitably, she stumbled; her Achilles tendon strained futilely as her ankle jerked sharply to the right at a cruel ninety degree angle; every pore gaped open, every nerve ending shrieked as she slid across the flaming soil, the earth rippling like a boiling sea behind her. Her violet eyes bled salt as the heat lapped at her palms like a ravenous beast.
"I, Trigon, the God of Demon Folk?"
Like a divine monument erected before the splintering wooden doors of a gothic church, the Demon King ascended from the withering womb of the ashes of the earth below. Bone; all that remained of him was a mass of silver calcium that reflected the apocalyptic firestorm that consumed the realm surrounding him. The torrents of flame had not blackened them a bit; soot and ash evaporated as they pelted their smooth surface. The pair of antlers that streaked forth from his tangled white mane like lightning bolts tore long, jagged gashes in the swirling black mist above as he strode forward. His eternally borne fangs were clenched in a jeering sneer; the guttural sound that emanated from his bare throat could not be equated to a cackle, for it was far too vile and cruel to fit that definition. He glared down upon her, the barren sockets that had once held eyes now containing embers that burned with the crimson hatred of Tartarus itself.
"I, Trigon, the Consumer of Souls? The Unholiest of Unholies? The Murderer of Peace and Tranquility?"
Gradually, yet suddenly all the same, the ash of the molten earth that seared her flesh wove together, like grains of sand fusing into slick glass; the glow of the inferno that still stood in the corners of her clenched, leaking eyes subsided, and the intense heat plummeted to an equally extreme frigidity, cooler than snow or ice, yet burning as much as the flaming daggers it replaced.
Unconsciously, her violet eyes fluttered open, as though she were awaking from a gentle slumber upon her own mattress, beneath her own lilac-scented sheets.
"No…"
Stone, stone everywhere, surrounding her in a great cylinder, engulfing her, hugging her scalded knees. Great stone columns stood erect, proud, stoic; they were her flawless facsimiles, perfect doppelgangers; the acidic tears cascaded anew from Raven's trembling violet eyes as she returned her own tranquil gaze; it appeared as though it were taking pity upon her, or perhaps regarding her with scorn and contempt. The visage was her own, there was no mistaking it, but it was as it would be ten years later… or was it ten years earlier, or now; time lost all relevance in that moment of dread, that mounting anxiety, fading away like the pigment of the dying leaves of autumn.
"Not here…"
The monotonous droning began, a thousand wilted tongues uttering what sounded like a child's nursery rhyme, gently yet forcefully buzzing through the chilled, mystical air like a million beating bees' wings: "The Gem was born of Evil's Fire…"
"Not again…"
"…The Gem shall be His Portal."
"Stop…" …accompanied by shuddering sobs.
"He comes to claim…"
"Stop!" …growled, through teeth welded shut.
"…He comes to sire…"
"I said stop!" …followed by a delayed, futile gasp that came much too late.
"…The End of All Things Mortal."
As the last echoes of the final utterance ricocheted into the recesses of nonexistence, a great tremor disturbed the vast, tomblike structure. Cracks as thin as a spider's silk streaked like splashed water across the towering monuments, slowly widening like gaping jaws, until the figures finally crumbled, clattering to the ground as mere pebbles, indistinguishable from any other pebble. The concrete beneath her writhing form cracked in two like a church door suddenly swinging open, and as she plummeted into the bottomless fissure, a crimson claw slowly ascended from the abyss, cradling her as she continued to writhe and thrash, moaning in agony as the darkness consumed her, as she succumbed to the evil within her darkened soul: Her hair slithered from her scalp like a tangle of convulsing serpents, and swayed like whipping tendrils in the supernatural wind; her pale skin darkened, turning a deep crimson, as though dyed by a dozen summer suns, to match the hue of the palm that continued to ascend mechanically like a living elevator; her clenched teeth extended, sharpening into short blades through which her forked tongue flicked; and her four fiery eyes refused to shut throughout it all, the moist orbs that stood prepared to plummet at their corners turning to black mist and dissipating.
"Don't you see, daughter? You can never escape my embrace. I am your father, and that means that you are bound to me, body, blood, and soul. You cannot kill me, Raven; you are me!"
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
The chilled, artificial air that seeped forth from the monotonously sighing vents bored into the barren gray walls filled her rapidly inflating lungs as she jolted upright, jarred awake as though by some frantic pandemonium or foreign agitation, though neither was possible; only she resided in the dimly lit chamber, accompanied by only sculptures, somber countenances staring blindly into the abyss with stone gazes. The frigid gasp erupted from her chest like the molten ash from a volatile volcano expelling its obstructions; the mass of amethyst sheets that constricted her cascaded to the carpet in a convoluted heap. Her frantic mind was rent; one half was still half-unconscious, lingering upon the caressing mattress, while the other half was in tumultuous shock, uncontrollable panic. Futilely her mantra drifted inches from her trembling pale lips, unable to assuage the pain, the gripping fear.
She stumbled once on her way to the ornate dresser that stood imperiously at the opposite end of the room, her knees striking the carpet with a muffled thud; its rough, perforated surface agitated the gray flesh on her kneecaps, leaving behind a bright red imprint. Without hesitation, she shoved herself up, a single, unbroken motion; her bare, blurring feet were already running past her arms as they supported the weight of her still-plummeting body.
In her journey (a mere breath away in distance but unending in time), she passed her towering bookshelf; the faded, splintering wood, already buckling beneath the tremendous weight of the ancient texts it supported, shattered in a sudden lash of warbling black tendrils that faded into nothingness like dissipating smog, and the tattered remains of the centuries-yellowed leafs drifted down like snowflakes ushered in by a mild flurry. She was blind and deaf to it, intent on reaching her dresser.
She met her own gaze in the ice-smooth, ornate looking glass mounted upon the wall; her normally piercing violet eyes had lost any semblance of solidity, transforming into wavering, quivering pools that bled saltwater, which singed her cheeks bright crimson as they slithered toward her trembling chin. Her voice was a barely audible rasp as she muttered, berating the frightened young woman in the mirror as she would a disobedient dog, an incorrigible child.
"He's dead," she scolded through teeth clenched to the point of shattering, her liquid eyes gradually transforming once more into eternal Arctic ice. "You cast him into a pit from which he can never emerge. He cannot come back torment you. Control your emotions. Control!"
A shuddering sigh swam out through her congested throat. She drifted limply from the mirror, her eyes hermetically sealed shut, her monotonous mantra once again drifting forth from between her half-closed lips: "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos." She reiterated the sacred words thrice, emphasizing the words more carefully each time, before letting escape another sigh.
"I need tea."
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
The sun appraised its reflection in the churning azure waters of the tumultuous Jump City Bay; the shimmering facsimile, though splintered gleaming into shards by the surging surf, cast a brightly burning pathway of gold across the wind tossed surface of the water, leading to the radiant, breeze swept sands of the distant shores, the land long untouched by technology, ignorant of the steel and concrete skyscrapers that thrust into the clouds short miles away; it knew only of the two jagged, rocky bluffs that jutted from the dehydrated fissures of the dull orange clay, and the enormous "T" that stood erect upon the lush green island in the distance.
The creature's golden embers burned nearly as intensely as the imperious afternoon sun, and with as much scorn and contempt toward the blind-deaf people scrambling like dying insects far below, the towering smokestacks belching pestilence into the one pure air, the pipes jutting from cliffsides belching toxins that corrupted the very bay that the city prided. It scowled; whether or not its plans succeeded, the humans were slowly decaying, little more than a thick glass jar of ants left beneath the sun's eradicating stare.
The same ominous, melancholy gale that turned the grains of sand upon the hillside into a maelstrom of miniscule pelting projectiles struggled to rend free the crimson cloak that enshrouded the creature, succeeding only in violently lashing it about, producing an irritating, repetitive noise something like the rapid flutter of a hummingbird's wings amplified tenfold. Despite the minor annoyance, its nonexistent lips curled up, lengthening the glittering daggers that lined its maw. Its prey was within pouncing range. Soon…
"Are you prepared?" it asked in something between a gentle purr and a rasping hiss, never shifting its stony luminescent gaze.
"Yeah, yeah," crackled the faint reply, riding upon the arches of the special psychic frequency. "Just give the order and we'll go!"
"Consider the order given!" it snarled with such ferocity, such resounding resonance, that the very wind tossed grains of sand clatters to the ground, trembling and huddling together in terror of the behemoth.
"Er… right," the human meekly stammered as the contact was quickly severed, swiftly as a snapping chord.
"I'll be glad to be rid of you, at last," the beast spat as its fangs turned once more into a jagged, ivory crescent moon. "All is falling into place, my master. You shall see the sky once again. And then… you shall own it." It was scarcely perceivable, perhaps so microscopic and fleeting that not even a gnat would mark it, but had a living soul been perched upon that outcropping with the creature, it might have noticed the smile receding ever so slightly with the last remark.
Author's Note: Sorry I haven't updated in some time. Life in general has been quite hectic as of late, and I've had little time to write much of anything that wasn't school related. I've been hacking away at this, revising and such, but I haven't accomplished a whole lot. I already have a sequel fic planned, so I've also been trying to plan that out. I had intended a much bigger update, but I decided it was overdue, so I decided to just upload this. I think I accomplished a lot with it.