Terra Nostra
Part Three
Beat, Beat Heartbeat…
The energy was out of her control now. After years of forcing it to do what she wanted, the demonic power deep within her had rebelled. It was the day she had prepared for after the Azar had told her all the wicked truths… and for this day she had studied, conquered the rebellion of her body and suppressed every inch of desire, lust, rage, charity and hope… but it seemed that all the meditation in the world couldn't help her, Raven was lost.
The alarm pulled Beast Boy from Terra, ending the moment at whatever it was. The siren was sharp and demanded attention. Their conflict was at home.
"Beast Boy… what's happening?" Terra asked, trying to pull herself to her feet.
"No, stay here. I'll see."
"Maybe I can help!" Terra didn't shake when her feet touched the ground. Beast Boy knew he shouldn't have let her, but he did nothing to stop her from following his dash down the hall.
In the corridor Cyborg's fists were having no effect on the door. The Titans were gathered outside Raven's room, the dark energy whipped at their ankles and drifted into the air.
"RAVEN! RAVEN! Are you okay? Say something!"
Terra turned a worried eye to Beast Boy. "She's in there?" The energy appeared to react to Terra's voice. Some of the random tendrils organized. Terra turned ashen white as the few strands of energy took form. The dark matter whipped about her waist. She leapt back, it might have only been in her mind, but she swore the energy had wrapped around her, constricted… intent to do damage. "I thought she had control of her powers!"
"It would seem something has upset her greatly."¹ Blackfire answered, completely oblivious to the consequences of her words.
"We need to help her! We've got to knock this door down!" Robin's shoulder was becoming raw as he matched Cyborg blow for blow. Celine hurried to her room and retrieved her Fire Fly. On her return, she and Cyborg stood side by side, powers charged to maximum, and unleashed a frenzy of sonic energy against the barrier between the outside world and the fragile state of Raven's mind.
Inside the room was dark save six blue flame candles whose fire refused to give out even as they were hurled around the room in a whirlwind of demonic rage. In the center of the room, floating parallel to the floor was Raven. Her hair swirled as if floating free in water, her brow was tight. She was trying to gain some control. She was failing. In her mind, masses of images; people in pain, people in terror, people consumed in darkness… and at the source of that darkness was Trigon.
Inside her mind she screamed. Inside her mind she tried to save the innocent lives, inside her mind she tried to stop what she had done… but her energy failed her and with every move Trigon's might grew and the terror escalated and Raven became less and less of herself… until she didn't exist anymore.
Trigon's roar echoed through the universe as his power spread as Raven dropped to her knees and faded to nothing.
Beat, Beat Heartbeat.
The wind spun faster and faster. Across her frame the red flashed, but Raven refused to open her eyes, refused to give her body the opportunity to unleash the true depths of her evil. The images came faster. The stone statues crumbled: all her friends, all the people who ever mattered, even Starfire, even Terra, even Celine, even Robin… one by one before the sight of her mind, they crumbled and became the nothing that only she could create.
No… not while I'm still here… Not while I have something to fight for… The power echoed. Pulses of her life force escaped her form. Shadows of her energy radiated from her center in terribly reds, blacks and pure whites. The energy paused and broke as the echoes spread throughout the room. The blue flames trembled and whorled hurriedly as if casting their own spell instead of being under the influence of Raven's terrible power.
Azarath Metrion---
GIVE IN! Her four eyes shot open. Her body turned floating her perpendicular but her hair and cape continued to float as if in water. The signs of Scath ran across her limbs, shining brighter than the candles.
I can't… can't let this happen… I won't do this! The energy pouring through the darkly lit room responded, recoiling against their path, returning to her body. I am not going to give up hope… I refuse to…I am… I can… … … I can't!
AZARATH METRION ZINTHOS!
A cry distinctly Raven, distinctly in peril, erupted from inside the room. The dark power that had waved across the corridors in a frenzied mad dash seemed to be pulling back… either something really good had happened or something terrible had.
It had taken two pairs of Tameranian eye beams, a flurry of exploding disks, two sonic cannons and a ram from a bull to collapse Raven's door. Robin ran in immediately. Inside he shielded his face from the swinging candles, black powder and bound tablets.
…
And he watched… his eye trained on the swarm of demonic energy. He smiled coolly. "Almost beautiful. Wait for me dear girl. That power has great potential… and I know that'll you'll never let me down again."
…
His masked eyes watched Raven float near the ceiling of the room, perfectly still, marked in red… dressed in white.
"RAVEN!" Robin called, he knew she could hear him, somehow in his heart he knew that inside that terrible energy was Raven; the girl who needed him most, the girl he needed more than he could admit.
The black energy shot through Robin. He flinched in surprise, but felt no pain. The energy wrapped around him and pulled him closer and closer to the center of the room, to the center of the universe, where he could lift his arms and grasp Raven's hips and pull her back to him, back to the rest of the world. When her arms fell on his shoulders the black energy recoiled from down the corridors of the tower, back into her room, back into her heart.
"Raven. Are you okay?"
"I… beat it…"
"Beat what?" Robin asked, easing the collapsing girl to the floor. It surprised him to see her smiling, that beautiful smile like when they sat on the beach all those years ago. The rest of the Titans stepped forward to hear.
"Raven. What did you beat?"
"My destiny. I will not be Trigon's portal."
"I never had a doubt Raven. You're too good to do something that bad."
"I'm still bad…" Raven whispered and her colors shifted back to the dark blues and black. "But I won't be evil… I have control now."²
Robin gripped her hand. Raven pressed her head into the hollow of his neck and shoulder. The other Titans gave a sigh of relief. Celine ushered the other Titans out, not even Starfire was reluctant to go, lest she impair whatever is was that was going on between friend Raven and friend Robin.
…
In the thinning moments of daytime, Terra stepped onto the beach and raised her arms. That glow, that energy that came from within her, twisted in her palms and commanded the earth to quake. The world rumbled and roared weakly and only for a few moments before the energy gave out. Terra stared at her hands in disbelief. She gritted her teeth. A cry escaped her lips³ as the wind from the earth lifted her hair. Concentrating, Terra found her power again. The rocks and boulders twirled and crumbled at her will and against it, and finally fell back the earth when the Geomancer's sad dance was over.
"It was all his power… None of the control was mine… I'm the same as when I first met the team. They've all changed and I'm the same."
…
Celine entered Starfire's room carrying a thick stack of paper. The green eyed Tameranian princess was staring at the floor of her room, where Blackfire's futon was prepared, where the black haired girl was sleeping. Celine waited over Star for a few minutes before she coughed. Starfire pulled her eyes away and accepted the papers.
"That's all the information I could gather about the Grugdindorf. I'll look again tomorrow for anything else I can pull up. The Yinti appear to be technologically advanced. I bet I could learn a thing of two from them."
Starfire did not respond. Celine sat down on the bed beside Starfire and tried to think of something to say. "I only know bits and pieces of your situation Star and it may not be my place to say… but, I think your sister did this for more than personal reasons. When the Yinti perform their 'returner technology' they design a key, to tell them what they wish to accomplish from their Grugdindorf. Perhaps you should ask Blackfire to look at hers."
Celine didn't wait for a response. Star looked at the papers in her lap as Celine left the Tameranians' bedroom. Star pushed the pile onto the bed and laid flat. Celine did not know the difficulties of her situation. Friend Raven is not the only one with fragile trust…
That same night Terra returned to her room; her old room, where all the things the Titans had given her were. When she turned the knob she found Sakura and Celine sitting on twin beds and a very angry wolf growling at her. Terra stepped back and shielded her face from an attack.
"Loberos! Come!" The blue wolf turned its back to Terra and retreated into the room. He leapt silently onto the bed with his mistress, eyes trained towards the door. "Sorry about that, Terra. Loberos doesn't like people. He still snorts at Sakura."
"It's okay…"
"Is there something you need?" Celine asked rising to her feet. Sakura turned her face towards the door for the first time since Terra had entered. There was a look on her face that Terra didn't like. She had seen that look, it seemed, a million times before. Distrust.
"I was just tired and I wanted to sleep in my bed."
Celine and Sakura said nothing. They had been living in the room for weeks and it occurred to neither one of them that with Terra's return would come the reverting of things: that Celine and Sakura would leave and Terra would take over the room.
"Terra, this isn't your room anymore." Sakura said flatly.
"Sakura, don't be mean. I'm sure we can make space, it is rather big… but Sakura's right. This is our room."
"I understand… I mean my bed's not even in here anyway so… it's not going to be the same. You can stay. I'll take the guest room." Terra turned to leave, but the older girls couldn't just let her walk away.
"Terra." Sakura finally said. Terra stopped and looked at the older girl. "If you need anything, the door's always open." Terra nodded, but closed the door behind her anyway.
The shift in players at the tower was beginning to take effect. While Raven and Robin were drifting towards each other; Starfire and the team seemed to be moving further and further away. Starfire might have seen it coming, if she weren't looking the other way. She took to spending every moment she could with Blackfire, trying to find some clue to why she had done what she had done.
Blackfire adjusted better than the other Titans had expected. It seemed easier to forgive Blackfire than it was to forgive Terra. Blackfire fought in battles against foes she'd never heard of, risked her well being to protect the city and was obviously the darling of Aqualad's eye. The two were often seen walking together along the water, Aqualad stepping right on top of the ocean as if it were land. He'd watch the way Blackfire's hair was pulled across her shoulder by the wind that came from over the water and he would say nothing. For all his talent and charm, when it came to Blackfire, Aqualad couldn't find his charisma, they'd walk together in silence and Aqualad hoped that she wouldn't get bored with him. To the rest of the Titans it appeared that he needn't worry.
But while things became steadily better for the memory-stripped Tameranian princess, it became apparent that the feeling of welcome didn't imply totally to Terra.
In the tower, Raven made great efforts to avoid Terra. The two had said all of seven words to each other and it suited Terra just fine. She knew what she had done, she knew that she didn't deserve Raven's forgiveness, but as hard as she tried to tell herself otherwise, it still stung when Raven fled the room.
That pain spilled over into battle.
End of Part Three
A/N
¹ Because of the changes I'm going to make in her character, Blackfire's words/speech will be more like Starfire's.
² What Raven's says and what she really is aren't necessarily the same thing.
³ "Laaaa!" – still weird. Still every inch Terra.