String of Memory
Part Three
His foot stepped lightly, right over the left. The toe and heel were bare; the arch was aided by a supporter that stopped just over his ankle. The color was blue, but it didn't matter. What did matter was that foot touched the ground silently and rose off again without shifting the wind.
Bruce Wayne stood with his eyes closed in the pitch black room. Not a single drop of sweat had left his body in the thirty minutes he had been sparring, despite the heat of the room. He had barely moved except to parry once and counterattack, but that had been nearly ten minutes ago and he anticipated it would be another five before his opponent struck again.
His long black hair was free against his back, knowing that despite the absolute stillness of the room that the movement of his uncontrolled tresses wouldn't give him away. That was something he had possessed even before he was trained by Bruce Wayne, he had always had presence of body.
Richard Grayson had trained for weeks to the point of exhaustion. He hunted for criminal activity at night and had become a new legend in the streets of Gotham after months of the city becoming accustomed to surviving with no night justice.
The nineteen year old had abandoned Robin and taken to the night as a fighter with no name and no identity to speak of. His clothes were black his hair was black and so was his mask and his mind state.
His mind state was why he Bruce had put on a gi and insisted that they spared that night. Bruce had all but rejected Richard's plea to help him, but allowed his protégé all of his resources to find some sort of satisfaction.
What Bruce found was that he had created a monster.
ºBruce and his companion entered Commissioner Gordon's office just before the older gentlemen was preparing to leave.
"Bruce, what are you doing here?"
"I have a favor to ask you."
"Must be a doozy if you had to come here to ask." He replied.
"It's a big order, but not one you're unfamiliar with." Bruce answered.
Commissioner Gordon stroked his beard for a second: if it were any other man it might have taken him a bit more information to understand what was being asked of him. But it was Bruce Wayne and so there really were no questions to ask.
"You want to come back?"
"Not me. Another player is back for the nights of Gotham." Bruce replied.
"Robin?" He asked.
Bruce shook his head. "I'm no longer in the business of training birds."
Commissioner Gordon hated it when Bruce became cryptic like that. "Then who is this?"
Bruce turned his head and his companion stepped forward.
"Call me Darkwing."
"Dark… wing?"
"I'm imperfect. Calling myself Robin would imply that I'm a whole being… instead I'm a being with a hole in him."
Commissioner Gordon sat back down into his chair. He pushed his glasses higher onto his nose. "And that hole can be satisfied with vigilante justice?"
"Nothing can satisfy that hole: nothing I'll find in the night, nothing I'll find in Gotham… nothing on this plain of the universe… but it will calm it. Make the wound less dangerous."
"Less dangerous to whom?"
"No one who is good will fear me. And as I grow stronger there will be less of those who fear period."
Commissioner Gordon rubbed the palm of his thumb over the fleshy part between his thumb and index finger on the opposite hand. He looked at Bruce, then looked at Darkwing, then down at his hands. "Will I need a new signal? I got rid of the Bat signal at Bruce's request."
Darkwing shook his head in the negative. "I won't need a sign. I'll be aware of every dark thing in this city."
Commissioner Gordon frowned. "No one is aware of everything."
Darkwing crossed his arms over his chest. His black clad arms covered the bright blue symbol on his chest. "We'll see."º
That had been where it started. Where they currently were was a mess.
The diving kick was easy enough to counter. Bruce caught Darkwing's leg and delivered a counter elbow, striking the younger fighter in the ribs. Bruce found each of Darkwing's thrusts and lunges and returned his assault with a brutal message. After a dozen or so counters, Darkwing's movements became blind and Bruce realized that he might have to beat the message into his student to get him to learn.
He grabbed the slightly shorter fighter, shifting the fighter's weight with a sweep. When the flexible fighter turned to escape, Bruce dropped his weight onto the other man's back, sending them to the floor. No amount of squirming could release the pin, Bruce captured Darkwing's lower half and secured his pin with an ankle lock.
"Enough." Bruce commanded and the lights in the training room switched on. Neither of them had to look up to see Alfred pressing the control panel to activate the lights. The Bat Cave was flooded with light; enough of them were focused on the heat that it generated a spotlight over the pair.
"It's not enough!" Darkwing replied, gritting between his teeth.
"Your pursuit of vengeance is unsatisfiable! This isn't a cure or an answer!"
"You were vengeance once. You should understand!" Darkwing squirmed, cautious in how his body turned, with a simple twist Bruce could break his ankle and he knew his mentor wasn't against the execution of that attack.
"I do understand and I also grew up!" Bruce replied, twisting the ankle tightly. Darkwing gritted his teeth to keep from yelling out. "You've become a menace, not a hero. Catching those who do wrong isn't the same as executing judgment on them."
"Every street atrocity is a crime. Those that hurt others should be punished."
"Does Raven deserve to be punished?" Bruce asked.
Darkwing's lips curled and the black haired boy found the opening to plant his free foot into Bruce's chest. The sharp blow allowed him to twist his body free from his mentor's hold. With his momentum he rolled clear of Bruce, turning a handspring and landing in a full crouch, his masked eyes gazing with no fondness at his teacher.
Bruce stood to his full height. He looked down at his long haired counterpart. "You've done this before and it got you no satisfaction. You're on the path to being a gray son again."
Darkwing sneered. "It's who I am."
Darkwing dove forward. Alfred flinched: he would have a devil of a time cleaning up the glass. The display case that held the retired Bat suit and Boy Wonder garb was fractured and destroyed as Darkwing's body sailed through it courtesy of a counter throw from Bruce Wayne. Darkwing rolled, crushing glass before catching a stop on his chest. He raised himself weakly to his hands and knees, one arm reaching back to hold his wounded side.
"That's not who she needs you to be!" Bruce yelled. Darkwing panted and his mentor walked forward. "Do you want to become a Deathwing? Do you think when Raven comes back that she'll trust you to protect her?"
Richard pulled his mask off and looked up at Bruce. "Show me how to survive this!"
"Why don't you know already?"
"Because… I'm afraid. When my parents died, there was absoluteness about it. I could push that all back to function. But I can't do that with Raven."
"Do you think I could with Sakura? Every day I have to accept the fact that my daughter is in a coma because I wasn't there."
"You couldn't have known." Richard said, pulling himself to his feet.
"And could you?" Bruce asked.
"No…"
"And that's the first lesson. Get up; clean this mess up so Alfred doesn't have to."
"And then?" Richard asked.
"Then go to bed." Bruce replied, turning to walk away. Then as a last minute thought, his voice threw over his shoulder. "And no thinking."
…
Arella's purple eyes had always been sad in their disposition. Her lips were usually in a straight line, if not a frown. She tended to be the kind to sink into the background, despite her beauty and intelligence.
Like mother, like daughter.
Arella stood in the door of her clay built home and watched her daughter from a distance. Raven sat in Arella's rocking chair and Arella remembered sitting the same way when her belly was heavy with child. But when Arella sat, she had been nervous, her hand constantly touching her stomach, rubbing the warm spot with worry as if she took her hand away the little life would disappear: when Raven sat in the chair she was reading, she always had a scroll unfurled or a book open. She only caught Raven touching her filling stomach once or twice when she thought she was alone.
Raven had been living with Arella for thirteen days. It had been quite the argument to convince Raven that she didn't need her own home when Arella had an empty room that she was familiar with. Despite her fragile appearance, Arella could hold her ground against opposition; she had faced Katora's insults and slurs for years: she could handle her own daughter.
º"You can not do this alone." Arella said.
"I've done everything alone my whole life."
"I wish you would forget your sense of betrayal for a few moments and listen to me."
"Forget? How could I forget? I feel it all the time Arella. I see it in your eyes and every time I look down I see it."
"Raven…" Against the dark brown and grey background of Arella's home, their purple eyes seemed to shine like diamonds: especially when sad, especially when close to tears.
"Did you know? The true prophecy?" Raven asked.
Arella nodded. "I do not regret giving you life… I only wish that the circumstances behind your birth had been better for you."
"If you would have told me, I could have… I could have prevented the Transient." Raven whispered, though in the back of her mind she knew that that statement might not be true. Her mind had never been able to conquer her body.
"Raven, your virginity only facilitated the Transient. No matter your caution any daughter you had would surrender to Trigon."
"I will not allow my daughter to be a victim to him."
"And I believe that… That's why I wouldn't let them tell you the truth… I refused to let them take away the chance of love…"
"But you lied to me." Raven replied.
Arella touched her daughter's shoulder. "I didn't want you unprepared."
Raven stared into Arella's eyes hard. "Nothing prepares you for a child."
"I know that better than you do."º
Raven lost that argument and stayed in Arella's house.
Arella often watched Raven; watched the way she moved, watched the way she didn't move. Raven had always been conscious of her body, she had the proportions of womanhood very early and while she made no conscious effort to actuate them, everything she did reminded others of the curve of the world. Her body was suited for baring children, but Arella knew that despite her best wishes, a child was something Raven hadn't been prepared for.
She had talked to Raven, about her life on Earth and had stolen bits of information about her friends, her heroism, and her Robin. It was sometimes difficult for Raven to speak, she often cried to remember her life and what it felt like to be safe and in control. She had looked to Arella more than once, now and in her early childhood, and asked if "free will was really just a lie". Arella had thought to lie to her and tell her otherwise, but the proof of such was obvious.
Raven didn't belong in Azarath, as far as Arella was concerned. Though she knew something of the horrible things that would be born from Raven going to Earth, she couldn't have been happier when the Azar had told her to leave. Raven had a right to be like other girls: to be happy, to laugh, dance and sing just like all the other girls and it was unfair of the universe to keep her trapped in Azarath because the father behind her creation was a terrible, terrible beast. Raven wasn't her father, she wasn't her mother either, she was her own woman… but the plans and plots of Trigon and Azarath were making her something of a puppet and the only one who could cut the strings was Raven.
Or perhaps Robin.
Or perhaps that little life inside of her.
…
Adonis found that when Starfire wanted to she could throw a human being through two skyscrapers and a car. The gorgeous Tameranian princess retrieved the obviously incapacitated Adonis and delivered him to the proper authorities. For the last month it had been that way. The lower level criminals like Johnny Rancid, Mumbo, Mad Mod and Control Freak had been sporadically and unsuccessfully attempting to make chaos in Jump City. All the villains had taken a combination of the fighting four Titans to take down, but more and more it seemed as if the fighting four were really two pairs. She and D'ucel often scouted the city together, taking one half of Jump while her sister and Tempest took the other. It was a strategy that was successful, but it did nothing to satisfy Starfire's fear of the Rackmas.
D'ucel joined her and the pair returned to the tower to find themselves in the closing end of an interesting proposal.
Tempest knelt on the floor at Blackfire's feet, holding both of her hands in his.
"Komand'r." Tempest said gently.
Blackfire laughed a little whenever Tempest used her birth name. "Yes, Orin?"
Tempest thought it was cute whenever she butchered his name. "Will you marry me?"
Blackfire blinked twice. "What?"
"Will you marry me?" Tempest repeated.
Blackfire waved her hands. "I heard you, I just did not understand."
Tempest frowned. "Not understand…"
Blackfire leaped forward and hugged him. "Please do not fret! I did understand the proposal, I was confused on---"
"The timing?" Tempest asked.
The black haired Tameranian beauty nodded.
"This whole thing has made me see something Blackfire, life is a precious and very delicate thing. I couldn't risk ever losing you without you understanding the true depths of my feelings for you. I love you, Blackfire."
"I love you too, Tempest."
"Marry me?" Tempest asked.
"Yes."
They hugged and kissed and Starfire left the room. She had entered as Tempest explained his proposal and that had been enough. Blackfire would send Tempest to request her blessing and while she didn't want to make herself hard to find, Starfire wanted to put off the moment for as long as she could.
Marriage was naturally a very joyous occasion. The union of love between two people was traditionally beautiful. Starfire could not be happier for her sister to again be preparing to take upon herself the great promise: both times in acts of great proven love.
The tragedy of great proven love was that it was as easily snatched away as great hatred or even benign emotion. Love was thieved and thieved savagely from the hearts of many in Titans' Tower. Many loves had been lost in many ways, nearly every heart was affected: the tragedy of Raven to Robin, the stealing of Sakura to Speedy, the betrayal of Terra to Beast King… D'ucel witnessed the loss of Blackfire daily, as Celine had with Cyborg and how Starfire had with Robin. Only Tempest was the lucky one among them who did not know the pain of a love lost.¹ And he was making the effort to keep her close in a way that no one else had been able to secure their love.
I greatly wish for their success and for the repair of all of our hearts.
Starfire walked down the empty corridors of her home and by chance of luck bumped into Speedy.
"Speedy, you have returned from you training." Starfire smiled.
"Yeah, I got some long needed practice and even longer needed sense knocked into me."
When Starfire was younger she would have furrowed her pretty brow and asked if he was undamaged and if such tactics were necessary to acquire the sense. But Starfire wasn't youthfully naïve and hadn't been for years. The pretty woman smiled.
"Then it was good to see your mentor?" Starfire asked.
"It always is." Speedy replied and left the girl to check in on his girl.
Speedy stretched his shoulders as he dumped his pack and went to check in on Sakura. Still sleeping and still beautiful… Speedy touched her face and smiled down at her. He remembered a time when he had almost acted to never see anything so beautiful.
ºA young Roy Harper walked away from his rescuer and the thrashed bodies of his pursuers. He didn't ask to be rescued; it was actually the last thing the street urchin wanted. The green eyed redhead made his way quickly, hoping to keep his distance from his rightly confused rescuer: no such luck, he caught up.
"Where are you going?" His rescuer wore a grey suit that couldn't hide his impressive physical build. Roy had seen that there was more to his strength than his physical form. He might be able to take care of himself against a couple of thugs, but that ring of his could only dispense out so much damage before something bigger and stronger broke the fingers it was attached to.
Roy shook off a shudder and kept walking. "To die on a street corner where I won't be bothered."
His rescuer kept pace. "There are options better than death."
"Not for me." Roy replied, shaking his head. "I've got no father, no mother, nothing to eat and a masochist with me in his sights. I got nothing to live for."
"You've got a future."
Roy stopped where he was. He turned to his companion with an incredulous look. "Nobody has a future. All we have is the present and the past and after experiencing both of them, I don't think it's a trend I want to keep up."
"I can offer you better."
"No you can't. You've made my life worse now and there's a good chance you're going to die before you leave Cook for what you've done…"
"You mean saving your life?"
"Exactly." The red head replied.
"How exactly would you like me to pay for my offense?" The older man replied, waiting to be baited.
"Go away. Save your life and don't endanger mine anymore." Roy replied, sliding his dirty hands into his dirtier pockets and began to walk away again.
John Stewart raised a manicured eyebrow and didn't follow him. His arms crossed over his chest and his voice boomed well enough to reach Roy's ears. "But if you're just going to let yourself wilt away, what have I endangered?"
Roy stopped midstep. He pivoted on his planted foot; something like a smile crossed his face. He raised his palms in a questioning gesture. "Fine, so I have a flair for the dramatic. It's one of the few things that keeps me going living here."
"Then don't live here anymore."
"You say don't like I made a conscious effort to get stuck here."
"You're not stuck here." John Stewart replied.
Roy frowned. "Who are you anyway? You seem to know a lot about of me considering I don't even know your name."
"My name is John Stewart. I've also been known to respond to the Green Lantern." He pulled open his dress top and displayed his hallmark.
"Nice handle, I'm not impressed." He turned about and kept walking.
The Green Lantern laughed. "You shouldn't be yet. I haven't showed you anything."
"And what can you show me Mister Stewart?" Roy asked, not even turning his head back to look at him.
"I don't intend to show you anything, I'll just give you the opportunity to see for yourself."
Roy stopped and frowned. He turned about and gave John Stewart a good stare up and down. "And what do you get out of this?"
"Haven't decided yet. Either a sidekick or a partner. Sidekick to start and depending how speedy you are… Well, let's just work from sidekick." John replied. º
After a few missteps as the ill thought out Spedaris², Speedy was born and in his actions he got to see how pretty the world was. It was undeniable that the last few years had been tinted with uncertainty and darkness, but Speedy found that he was capable of keeping some light on the situation. For years that sense had been beaten into him in his training with the Green Lantern; and even more so in those months when Sakura had become his lover and eventually his love; and in the years where his life was static, Robin had provided him with some guidance to what needed to be done.
But somewhere between all those things, Speedy managed to find it himself. He thought he could pinpoint it down, it occurring somewhere about two months ago when the Titans had recovered Raven. When he had seen Raven's face and seen Robin's face, there was a flare of something that continued to burn even when the two were gone again and he was alone in the tower. Speedy didn't know what to call it, didn't care what it was called but he held onto it and with it in his chest pocket he waited for Sakura and waited for the future.
…
As the approach of the birth of her child became shorter and shorter, Raven spent more time at the Temple of the Azar. There was only a month left in her pregnancy and the incoming birth of her daughter made Raven desperate for something that only Azar Metrion could answer.
He hadn't moved once in the two months Raven had been in Azarath. Really nothing ever moved in the temple except the monks who were training the fledgling demon heirs to control their powers. But Raven had noticed that there were few if any young demon children practicing in the weeks she had been back. Whether it was because they trained the children in secret or if no recent demon sires had occurred, as if they were aware of Doomgaze's plot, Raven didn't know.
There were so many things she didn't know.
Raven knelt down inches away from Azar Metrion and stared into his silver eyes. Azar Metrion was perfectly still, wrapped in his authoritative robes. She had asked a million questions before; none of them were apparently worthy of his response. The tragedy of her birth and the circumstances of the continuance of her life were things that the Azar simply refused to answer in regards to, no matter how many times and ways she asked or how hard she cried.
Raven found that she was past the stage of tears. She was righteously angry and her tone demonstrated it.
"Why did you send me to Earth? Why did you let all these bad things happen when you had the power to stop it all?"
But Azar Metrion did not respond to her. To her face, with his eyes wide open, he continued to refuse her the truth.
Footsteps echoed closer and Raven knew who it was without looking up. Most of the citizens of Azarath had either been warned to stay clear of Raven or stayed clear because they had common sense. On a regular basis Raven saw four people: Jinx, Katora, Arella and Sabrah.
"He stopped talking years ago… four years ago he said his last absolute truth. His highest monks selected the next Azar."
"You." Raven answered.
Sabrah nodded. Sabrah had grown to be a very pretty woman, though of the pair, she had always been referred to as the pretty one. Of course with time the difference between their comparable beauties had shifted: Raven had someone who thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, it was unlikely that Sabrah had some equivalent, being Azar was an all consuming position.
"Should I be asking you for answers Sabrah?"
"If it satisfies you, Lethe… I may not give you answers."
"Why do Azars lie?"
"We do not lie. We withhold the truth at the request of certain liars."
Raven snorted and let Sabrah help her to her feet. The weight of her pregnancy made it difficult for her to move from a sitting position to a standing one and sometimes when she was standing she found it difficult to maintain her balance. Her mother had told her it was normal, if felt anything but. Raven found that her body accommodated readily for the changes it had to endure to carry her child, she never got sick or felt pain in her body. However, her senses that were directly tied to her mind state, totally uninfluenced by her body, were often displaced; senses like confidence and security were constantly unbalanced.
"Didn't you see, in your infinite wisdom, what tragedies would become of me from those withheld truths?"
"Lethe, you know very well that Azars do not see everything, only the absolute truths. No matter what causal paths were taken, you would have born a portal of Trigon. Azar Metrion's actions were simply to calm Arella's love for you."
"That isn't good enough." Raven replied.
"Nothing is good enough. But that is how the universe exists, my friend. When we were children, I was withheld the truth the same way you were. The severity of the hidden agenda in my case was positive; there was no question who between us would be Azar."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"If you were to know that, the world would be cast in shadow."
…
Jinx confronted Katora eight days before Raven was due for birth and the pink haired demon found that she did have the capacity to kill. She also had an under appreciated sense of restraint.
Katora Hahn was a North America woman who had born a demon sire at the age of seventeen. The child that was created from that sire was born in Azarath beneath the watching gaze of Azar Metrion. It happened that the child was born a girl and possessed an incredible wealth of energy, all of which could be manipulated at her will. The girl was Kykiyon tu Grave: her mother was a reluctant mother and despite the child's predicted importance, Grave was unwanted.
Grave was trained behind Azar Metrion and was introduced to the Gabriel Jericho when Metrion met with him to form a union to reduce the spread of the demon sieges. The fights of demon ranking were imposing on the ring of Azarath and even in the alternative dimensions of Earth. More half breeds were being born to create armies and energy stores for the wars to last millennia.
To end the battles Metrion had foreseen that they would have to defeat the great demon kings: Trigon, Doomgaze, Isarnes, who was Grave's father, and Bruhiki. Defeating Bruhiki was not difficult and in comparison neither was Isarnes. The challenge lied in the greatest of the great demon kings: Trigon and Doomgaze.
When Metrion, Jericho and Grave were close to gathering the energy needed to defeat them both, they were introduced to the Devine Master, the only full human fighter amongst them, and gained a significant amount of strength. They were also introduced to the son of Grave and Jericho. The consequences of that birth were not really consequences, rather a series of unanticipated events. The boy was taken to Earth and raised quietly in the Devine Master's temple and for most accounts was never exposed to his history.
When the boy was a man of nineteen years old, the warriors of Light: Azar Metrion, The Gabriel Jericho, The Devine Master and Kikiyon tu Grave challenged Doomgaze and Trigon in a battle that lasted exactly six years. The battle saw the sealing of Trigon behind Grave's Yiken Stone, the great wounding of Doomgaze, an even greater wound to the life of Jericho and the death of Grave.
The Warriors of Light were celebrated for their heroic fighting and many of the great half-demons were given a sense of pride in the knowledge that a half-demon like them could defeat the great evil plots against their lives. Grave was immortalized; the Devine Master returned to Earth; the Gabriel Jericho disappeared to recover his strength; and Azar Metrion returned to his world of work. Within weeks of the end of the war he learned that Doomgaze had sired and a year later Trigon had also been transferred.
Somehow in the glorification of Grave, Katora was glorified for birthing Kikiyon. No one remembered how Katora had loathed to bear Grave and had suffered her to live. Jinx didn't know, didn't care really for how Katora had felt about her own daughter, what Jinx did care about was how Katora felt about Raven's daughter.
"Who are you?" Katora asked.
Jinx stopped directly in front of the much older woman. "Astarte tu Jinx."
"Jinx? I don't know that name."
"No you don't. You don't know much." Jinx replied, crossing her arms over her chest.
"I know that you came with Raven so you're probably some demon whelp trying to end the world."
"I can't be one of the good one's like Azar Sabrah or your daughter?"
"The Azar Water³ warned us that you'd be coming. If you require a warning you're bad news."
"That's probably the smartest thing you've said since I've been here… the smartest thing you'll do is stay away from Raven's baby." Jinx said smoothly. Her pink eyes followed Katora as she moved about her living room, or what could be called a living room in a rounded earthen shack.
"The child must be destroyed."
"That isn't your decision to make." Jinx replied.
"It should be and if the Azar would open her eyes, both Raven and her whelp would be erased."
"I'm going to give you a fair warning to keep that sentiment to yourself. You know nothing and the more you speak the more you prove it."
"Are you threatening me?" Katora asked.
"Yes, I am. If a hair on Raven's head or her child's is out of place from anything slightly smelling of your deeds, I will annihilate you." Jinx replied.
"You don't scare me." Katora replied.
"Then you're dumber than I thought… and I already thought you were an idiot." Jinx bit back.
"My daughter died to protect Earth from demons like you and Raven and Raven's child. I will not sit back and allow the work done to protect the Earth to be destroyed."
"Your daughter was a demon like me and no where in Kikiyon's life reading did Azar Metrion see that the salvation of the Earth would be through her. The prophecy that you hold tightly as truth is not without its flaws and your believing in them, accepting them as your scripture, will lead to nothing."
"Are you convincing me or convincing yourself?" Katora asked.
"You. I don't need convincing." Jinx replied. She turned out of Katora's house and removed a sealing hex that would pin Katora in her home for eight days. On the seventh day, the world ended.
End of Part Three
¹You could count Bumble Bee but she's really an off and on player so establishing a love interest for her would be really pointless.
²Still not sure why I ever came up with the name Spedaris. I really can't remember.
³ The Azar is Sabrah tu Water