Star-Crossed Betrayal: Chapter 2
Disclaimer: DC COMICS owns "Teen Titans." I own whatever I write/create. Don't steal and don't sue.
"What, pray tell, haunts your dreams, young champion? What are your fears? What crafts your nightmares?"
Starfire opened her eyes and found herself standing in the middle of a hallway. Red light flooded into the hallway from rooms with no doors. She automatically began to look about, trying to learn as much as she could as quickly as she could. The stains on the wall told her enough, and she lifted off the ground. She flew into one of the room and out the window, stopping dead when she looked out at the world.
The ruins of Black City stretched on as far as her green eyes could see. A red moon hung in the sky above, casting down bloody light. The wicked laugh that suddenly echoed in the dead world made the chill rushing up and down Starfire's spine increase its speed. Her fear drew strength away from her, and she slowly descended to the ground.
"I see! You fear death and destruction—like most people. I'm surprised. I thought a hero's nightmares would be a little different."
"What are you?" Starfire shouted. More laughter echoed off of broken buildings. Footsteps came from a dark alley in front of her. Starfire pushed her fear away and lifted her hands, willing star bolts to her hands and energy to her eyes. The footsteps continued for a time, and then stopped abruptly.
"A demon," the voice whispered in her ear from behind her. Starfire screamed and spun about. She tripped over her feet and hit the ground, looking up quickly at her enemy.
"Who are you?" she demanded. "What is this horrible place?" The demon woman grinned at her, flashing fangs, and bowed low at the waist.
"My name is Kali," she said. She gestured at the ruins bathed in red. "This is your nightmare. You supplied the world, and I brought you into it."
"How?" Kali laughed, Starfire flinching at the sound.
"I said it before, Starfire," Kali said. "I'm a demon. It's nothing for me to find all your dreams and nightmares."
"Why are you doing this?" Starfire asked. Kali walked to her and crouched down, leaning forward until she was mere inches from Starfire. Though Starfire could only see her blood-red eyes, she could imagine the wicked grin that followed the demon woman's laugh.
"Quick answer, I'm going to kill you," Kali replied. "Long answer, I'm going to make you suffer before killing you." Starfire choked as a clawed hand snapped closed around her neck, squeezing tight. "You're actually a special case. I make everyone suffer before they die, but your sister specifically requested it."
She paused, seeing that Starfire's eyes were beginning to glow. The blast came, but Kali moved quicker. She bent backwards, the energy missing the skin of her chin by a hair's breadth. A moment later, Starfire felt herself being pulled down. The sight of Kali smirking and vanishing into the ground confused her, and so she did not react in time to keep her face from smashing into the rocky ground.
Anger immediately flared within her, spreading from the center of her chest as it always did. She stood up, eyes and hands alight, and looked about. There was no sign of Kali, though she had not expected as much. Starfire rose high into the air to widen her field of vision. The nothingness of the dead city was all she saw.
"Why do you speak of my sister?" she shouted. Her voice echoed, and her question was answered with another laugh. Before she could think to look about, pain unlike any she had ever experienced before erupted from her back. She screamed, her back arching and her hands pressing hard against the pain to try and smother it. Her hands slipped against hot wetness—blood.
"She's the one who's paying me to do this!" Starfire whirled, seeing Kali standing on the roof of a building with all its windows smashed. She was smiling, holding a broadsword in one hand. Blood—Starfire's blood—was slowly dripping from its sharp tip. Starfire hurled star bolts at the demon woman, and she vanished in an explosion of concrete and energy.
Claws ripped four lines in her bare stomach, and Starfire screamed again. She clutched at her stomach, tears welling in her eyes. She turned, finding Kali sitting, unharmed, on the jagged edge of a broken skyscraper.
"My sister would not pay for you to hurt me!" Starfire shouted. She whimpered at the pain her cries caused, closing her eyes and letting the tears come. "My sister is not like that!" She felt the sword slice a line down the length of her right leg and howled again.
"People change!" Kali called out conversationally. "She wants you dead!" She looked at the young woman hovering in the air, watched the blood fall towards the ground from her wounds. She smirked and leapt from where she stood, too quickly for Starfire to track her. As she passed by Starfire, she reached out casually and dug her claws into her left thigh. The new injury brought a new scream, and Starfire let the tears wash over her cheeks.
"My sister is not like that," she said again. Pain pulled strength from every part of her. It was taking all her will to remain in the air, and she was barely accomplishing it. "I know she wishes to have revenge, but she would not wish me…killed. She is my sister."
Kali was able to hear the whispers, and paused. Surprise was all she allowed herself to feel—she could give no pity. The thought that Starfire would still believe in her sister Blackfire and all but spit in the face of fact was fairly amazing. The thought that someone could still have a place in Starfire's heart despite all that had happened made Kali's heart clench painfully for a moment. The moment passed. She leapt again, slamming her fist against Starfire's left cheek. The heroine spun slightly at the impact, and Kali turned in time to see her start to fall.
Falling is horrible. A fall cannot be stopped, and there is no way to escape the knowledge that the fall is happening. No matter where one looks, the fall is brought to the mind instantly. The ground rushes up, or the sky falls away. Everything between ground and sky moves too quickly. Even if one's eyes are closed, the damning pull of gravity reminds the mind what is happening. The worst thing about falling, however, is not knowing what may lie at the end of it.
As her strength and her will finally gave in to pain, Starfire suddenly understood the terror of falling. Her eyes went wide as the red sky came into clear view. She tried to find it inside herself to at least slow her descent, but all thoughts were knocked clear out of her head almost instantly. With the kick Kali gave to her stomach after leaping one last time, it took Starfire less than a quarter of a second to slam into the ground.
For once, the thing to give way to the impact was not the ground, but Starfire. Many of her bones threatened to break, but they held. She lay still, unable to move and barely able to breathe. Kali landed in a crouch a few feet away, sword in hand, and stood up easily. She looked Starfire over and sighed.
"You're one hell of a lot tougher than you look," she admitted. "I didn't hear anything snap, and you're conscious. Still." She walked to stand over Starfire and took her sword in both hands, lifting it up. "No one's ever walked away from a sword through the heart."
Starfire thought her tears had run out, but new ones still flowed from her eyes. She lay beaten and broken, moments away from death, and the thing she felt most was sadness. That death would come so quickly for her after she had found everything she wanted from the world made her want to curl up in a ball and sob. Pain and terror kept her where she was, but she still was able to cry.
High above, the moon turned white. Kali saw the sudden shift of color in the nightmare world and looked up at the sky in confusion. Starfire was just as confused, but nearly started to weep with joy when she heard a voice speak.
"Get away from her." Starfire let her head fall to one side, a smile managing its way onto her face. Standing only a stone's throw away was everything she wanted from the world: Raven. Though her hood was up and shadows were cast upon her face, Starfire could still see those wonderfully lovely dark eyes.
"I wasn't told there'd be someone like you protecting her," Kali snarled. Raven's eyes lit up, and a tendril of dark magic lashed out. The magic hit Kali in the middle of her back, flinging her into a building. The building, though a ruin, held just as strongly as the ground had for Starfire, and the demon woman slumped to the ground after crashing into it. She stood up slowly, shaking her head.
"That's your warning," Raven murmured. Kali chuckled, turning slightly to look at Raven with a smirk.
"You too, then," she said. She vanished, and the ruins around them went with her. Raven rushed immediately to Starfire, falling to her knees and gathering her in her arms.
"Wake up, Starfire!" Raven whispered in her ear. "Wake up! Wake up!"
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Starfire woke with a gasp, her body jerking into a sitting position. She panted for breath, looking around for any sign of where she was. Next to her knelt Raven, eyes wide with worry. Starfire threw her arms around Raven's neck, hugging her tight.
"Dearest Raven!" she panted. "I had the most horrible of nightmares!" A flash of pain rose up from her stomach, and her eyes went wide. She took her arms away from Raven and pressed suddenly shaking hands against the source of the pain. Her fingers and palms came away wet. Starfire brought her hands up to look at them just as lightning flashed outside. She saw the red blood and looked down at herself. The lightning flashed again and showed her that every wound from her nightmare was real. She started to scream, tears welling over from her eyes.
"Starfire!" When she did not respond to the call of her name, Raven wrapped her arms around Starfire and pulled her close. The touch reached her, and Starfire buried her face in the crux of Raven's neck. She held onto Raven like a lost child, strength gone from her as her body shook with her sobs. The main door to the room hissed open, and Robin, Beast Boy, and Cyborg rushed into the room.
"What happened?" Robin demanded, vaulting over the back of the couch. He froze, eyes wide, at the sight of Starfire so injured. Beast Boy grew pale under his fur, and Cyborg, feeling suddenly ill, closed his mouth tight.
"A demon!" Starfire gasped between sobs. "A demon attacked me!" For a few long, cold moments, Starfire's sobs and moans were the only sound in the room. After those moments had passed, Raven put her fingers under Starfire's chin, lifting gently to make the other young woman look at her.
"Starfire?" she murmured. "Starfire, listen to me. It's all right—you're safe. I need you to calm down. Focus. Find your center." Starfire sniffed and swallowed hard, nodding slightly. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Repeat after me: Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos. Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos." Starfire swallowed again, ignoring the pain.
"Azarath…Metrion…Zinthos," she said. "Azarath…Metrion…Zinthos." Raven smiled, turning her attention to the wounds. She concentrated, calling up her magic. White energy surrounded her left hand, and she put her right hand at the top of Starfire's back.
"Good," she said encouragingly. "Keep going." Starfire nodded, tears still dripping from her eyelashes, and continued to murmur the mantra. Raven laid her left hand on the slashes on Starfire's stomach. Starfire winced, but kept speaking. The split skin came back together, leaving no trace of injury but the smears of blood. Smiling in relief, Raven began to heal the other wounds.
"Chaos can attack us in our dreams?" Beast Boy shrieked. "Dude! She's a real-life 'Freddy Krueger'! We're all gonna die!"
"It wasn't Chaos," Raven said, her voice harder than she had intended. The wounds on Starfire's front healed, she switched hands, putting her left on Starfire's shoulder and her right on the cut on Starfire's back. Starfire opened her eyes when Raven took her hand away, the pain fading to aching echoes.
"It was not Chaos," Starfire said, her voice quiet. "It was a demon named Kali." The memory of the nightmare came back, as did her tears. "She claimed my sister…that my sister wants…no!" Her breath hitched, her voice breaking. "My sister would not want me dead!" She reached for Raven again, laying her head on Raven's shoulder. Raven held her close, rubbing her back gently.
"It'll be all right," she murmured. "Come on—you need to get some rest." She stood up, Starfire mimicking her quickly to keep holding on. With a small gesture, the blood that had dripped onto the floor beneath Starfire vanished. Raven and Starfire left the room, and Beast Boy and Cyborg followed soon after. Robin remained, staring at where the blood had been.
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"May I rest in your room?" Raven looked at Starfire, the hand not currently in the taller young woman's grasp pausing over the control panel for the door to Starfire's room. Starfire was looking away, a small blush on her face. "Please. I would…feel safer if I could stay with you."
"Of course," Raven replied. As they both started down the hall, Raven finally noticed that Starfire was walking on the ground instead of floating. She felt surprise for only a moment, seeing that Starfire had yet-unshed tears in her eyes. The sight made her blood want to boil. Instead, she squeezed Starfire's hand reassuringly.
They came to Raven's room, and she tapped the button to open the door. It was dark inside, and Starfire paused. Raven only had to think and lights turned on. Abruptly, Starfire let go of Raven and walked through the door. She stood silently in the center of the room, her back to Raven.
"We can go back to your room," Raven said. "I know it's—dark." Starfire shook her head and turned around.
"It is your darkness," she murmured. "It is you, and it is comforting." She hugged herself and sat down on the edge of Raven's bed. "It feels as if you yourself were holding me close, never to let go." Raven stopped. She stopped moving, stopped thinking, stopped breathing. She simply stood and felt.
That pure acceptance of who she was—something she personally had not found—touched her deeper than anything she had ever been told before. That Starfire took comfort in her embrace made her smile. Warmth coursed through her, and she would have stood forever basking in it had she not seen the ugly bruise beginning to develop on Starfire's left cheek.
She crossed the room and sat next to Starfire, calling on her healing magic once more. When she laid her hand on Starfire's cheek, Starfire leaned into the touch. The bruise faded, but Raven did not take her hand away. She savored touching Starfire, fingers lightly caressing her soft skin. When Starfire sighed suddenly, Raven started to pull away her hand. Starfire quickly put a hand over Raven's, holding to her cheek.
"The demon said my sister paid her to kill me," Starfire whispered. Her false calmness was lost when Raven kissed her. She whimpered into the kiss, bowing her head when they parted. "How could that be true?"
"I don't know," Raven answered. She brushed the wet trails tears had left behind away with her thumb.
"Do you believe my sister could do such a thing?" Raven paused before answering truthfully.
"Yes." Her heart clenched at the soft sob Starfire let out.
"But why would she?" Starfire whispered. Raven's hands took hold of her shoulders and she looked up.
"I don't know," Raven said again. "I've only met Blackfire twice, and she tried to hurt you both times. I don't know what kind of relationship you two had in the past, but…people change."
"That is what the demon said," Starfire murmured ruefully. Her rebuttal was not nearly as vehement as before, and her eyes—for the first time in Raven's memory—hardened in thought and dismay. It lasted only a moment before her eyes went wide and her body began to shake. "The demon." She buried her face in her hands, her voice suddenly rising as she cried, "I do not wish to go back to sleep!"
She looked up as Raven took both her hands. She watched as Raven laid gentle kisses in both her palms. With that simple gesture, Starfire felt loved, protected, safe.
"What can I do to help you?" Raven asked. "Just tell me. I'll do whatever you ask."
"How can I fight something that attacks me while I sleep?" Starfire asked desperately in return. "I was unable to do anything, and if the demon returns…" She fell silent for a moment. "How do I stop my nightmare from returning?" Raven kissed her again and smiled when she pulled away.
"I'll watch over your dreams," she promised. "I won't let Kali get in to hurt you."
"Will you stay with me?" Starfire asked. Raven nodded, and Starfire pulled her close. They lay down on the bed, Raven spreading her cloak over both of them. It took some time, but with Raven near, Starfire calmed. Her eyes fluttered shut, her breath slowing. Raven smiled as Starfire fell back to sleep and allowed her own eyes to close, but not before whispering a spell.
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Kali opened her eyes, scowling. She sat up on the table and winced when a twinge shot up her back.
"Dammit," she growled. "First she interferes, and now she shuts me out of my own world." She reached around and rubbed her back. Touching an indent in her skin, she paused and followed the indent—a scar—to her front. Kali idly traced the scar in its X pattern, her tail doing the same on her back.
"Thanks, Chaos," she muttered bitterly. "Not only do I get a never-ending scar, I get a damn target on my back." She sighed, resting her hands on her knees and letting her tail curl around her waist. "That girl's the only other person who's been able to hurt me in my world. Everywhere I turn, I keep coming back to you, Chaos." Kali closed her eyes tightly, drawing her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them.
"You left me," she whispered. "You hurt me, and then you left me." She groaned and put her hands on the back of her neck. "Why did you leave? I still love you." Silence was all she heard, and it made her look out the window. The rain had finally stopped, and the moon was shining brightly. Kali's scowl returned as she stood from the table, making sure her sword was at her side.
"I need to kill something," she snarled.
—to be continued—