Witch Trials
Ok, I know that some of you, one person in particular, UNSecur to be precise, had some criticism over if fire would hurt Starfire/Kori badly. Well just bear with me, what you wrote will influence the story.
And thank you all of my lovely reviewers! Please visit my profile if you want to know more about me or you just want to laugh at some funny quotes. Thanx!
Disclaimer: Yawn. No, I do not own Teen Titans.
Chapter Nine – Familiar Scream
Confusion and disarray flooded each of the friends. Garfield, not enjoying the silence, decided to break it, "Why didn't it work?"
"I don't know, I just don't know," breathed Raven.
Raven fumbled around in her spell book to see any cause of this failure but her search went in vain. In frustration, Raven slammed the book against the table and ran to her room. She closed the door and leaned her back against it.
'You're really gone. You can't come back.'
Realisation is horrible. Ignorance is bliss.
All of the guys were standing in the basement as the uneasy silence reappeared. Richard didn't know what to say. Then an idea popped into his mind, "What if Kori doesn't want to come back?" he whispered.
Victor and Garfield didn't even hear him. They both wanted to get their minds off of their recently deceased friend. "Hey Vic, you want to go to the old watering fountain?" asked Garfield in a low-pitched voice. They had buckets of water at home, Garfield just desperately wanted to get out of the house. With a homicidally angry witch and a suicidally depressed muscular teenager slash martial arts expert, you don't really want to stick around too long.
"Yeah sure, Gar. I'll just get my coat," replied Victor.
---WT---
At the watering fountain, the two friends bumped into the vicar. Literally.
"Whoa, sorry dude, I was just… oh. It's you," Garfield pulled an angry face.
"Burn any good witches lately?" asked Victor spitefully.
"As a matter of fact, no. None of the witches I have put to death recently have prevailed long enough to prove witch craft. But none of the women I burned were good," answered the vicar casually.
"What about our friend? So you sentenced her to an unjustified death only to see how quickly she would burn? How could you kill such an innocent person?" asked Victor passing by the vicar and not really caring how he answered.
"Killed an innocent person? I never remember doing that!" defended the vicar.
"What about Kori?" snapped Garfield not even turning around.
"What about her?" the two friends turned but there was no sight of the vicar.
---WT---
Richard slumped onto his bed. He knew not of what to do next. His maybe-more-than-just-a-friend was gone. And to replace her was a wind of guilt. A lump came up to his throat. Maybe she didn't want to come back? Maybe she thinks it was my fault that she died.
Maybe she was right.
I did nothing to save her when I could easily have pulled some strings and got her off with a warning. I know people who could have made a difference.
I could have made a difference. But why I didn't is beyond me. Why didn't I?
He thought about this for a moment but couldn't think of a possible answer. If he had thought that witches were so bad and must be burned before they spread then why is Raven still alive? Why is Garfield still alive? What made the difference?
---WT---
"Dude, that guy is a freak! I mean, disappearing. Oh yeah, and before he goes, he leaves a bewildering question behind!" Garfield queried.
"That's just typical of bad guys in plays! You know, he's getting more and more suspicious to me," agreed Victor.
They were walking away from the watering fountain after satisfying their thirsts and drinking straight from the fountain while the other one pumps the lever.
"Where do you think he goes at night time?" asked Garfield.
"Well I've never seen his residence. He can't sleep at the church, can he?"
"Nah, only homeless people and old people who are homeless go there."
"Well he could be homeless, couldn't he? We don't know anything about him!"
"No way! He wouldn't degrade himself to sleeping on the floor of a public building. He's bigger than that. He's 'I burned 35 witches, how about you?' bigger than that!" complained Garfield.
"Look! Isn't that him there?" asked Victor suddenly. And there he was, the vicar walking at a sharp pace away from the church building.
"Hey, let's spy on him. Just like that guy in that play, you know, the one that spies on people, suspicious people. Ones that act bad and then make you think that there's some sort of conspiracy out there. And they are part of it. And so the spy follows them and then when they least suspect, the suspect turns and looks around, but the spy isn't there…" Garfield drawled on. Victor wasn't paying attention. He was just staring out at the vicar while Gar was making guns gestures with his hands and recreating a one-person fight scene.
"Come on, he's going!"
---WT---
Raven was having trouble focusing her powers. Ever since the only other girl in the house was gone, she stopped sensing deep emotions and happiness and started feeling depression and misery from everybody else. Including herself.
She tried to meditate but failed. Something was messing up her powers. Raven shrugged off her issues thinking it was the cause of the sudden emotion change. It most probably was.
Raven got out of her cross-legged position and walked over to her bookshelf. A little bit of reading would calm her sixth sense.
---WT---
Richard was in his own room staring out of the window at the night sky. All of his thoughts have been focused on Kori lately even though she was not with him any more. He sighed.
Suddenly, from not too far away, there was a scream. It startled Richard. He was convinced that it sounded familiar. He didn't know it but at that same time, Raven thought the exact same thing. The second time they both heard the scream after a moment's silence they decided to go find each other. They bumped into each other in the corridor.
"Did you hear that?" asked Raven hurriedly.
"It sounded just like Kori."
---WT---
Raven and Richard ran outside and followed the direction of the last scream that still silently echoed through the village. They dodged past startled villagers and Richard jumped over a barrel that just rolled in his direction. They ran as quickly as their feet would carry them and avoided every obstacle. By the time they got to where they heard the scream from, Raven had a strong stitch in her left side.
They listened for any sound that would help them know where to go. They were in a deserted rundown area. And so were Garfield and Victor.
---WT---
Garfield and Victor had abandoned their sleuthing when they heard the screaming. They were hiding behind several empty wine kegs. They were listening out for any more screaming to find out if it really had been Kori.
Suddenly, there was the sound of footsteps. Running. In their direction.
"Go out there and pounce on them!" whispered Victor.
"No way man, I don't do the whole bite-bad-guys-on-the-butt thing!"
The footsteps stopped, well at least some of them. There is more than one person out there, thought Vic and Gar. There was silence, some more footsteps and all this time a deep breathing sound. The pair listened for a moment and the footsteps started off slowly again.
"Just go!" urged Victor.
Garfield turned into a snake and slivered onto the pathway. As soon as the footsteps became clear thump sounds, Garfield got into a cobra ready-to-strike position.
---WT---
Raven was breathing deeply, she never had to run so far. She stopped for a moment to catch her breath.
"Come on, she can't be far now," whispered Richard as he turned to confront Raven.
"I can't. Too. Tired," she managed between breaths.
"The Raven I know does not get tired. And I bet she would get even less tired when looking for her dead friend. I'm only guessing, I've never seen you look for your long dead friend before," Richard rubbed the back of his head unsurely.
Raven looked at him, deeply. "Come on, we have a long dead friend to look for. Raven grabbed Richard's wrist and started walking again at a slower pace.
Suddenly a cobra appeared in front of them. It raised it's head and bent back and forth ready to strike at the sound of any movement. Hissing, the snake slithered closer to the now terrified petrified pair.
Raven slowly raised her hand and cast weak ebony magic towards the snake which hovered in midair for a moment and then got sent flying towards a pile of empty wine kegs.
---WT---
Garfield maintained his striking cobra position and slowly slithered toward the figures. He hissed and fluidly wiggled his neck back and forward. Gar was about to strike the hand that was slowly reaching out to him, how strange, he thought. Why would someone reach out for a snake?
But before he could spend another second puzzling over the question he was engulfed in a black ball. Garfield was terrified. Never had this happened to him and surely he would quickly run out of air.
But that was soon solved, the ebony magic threw his towards the empty wine kegs that he was hiding behind earlier and the blackness disappeared. As he was flying through the air, he turned back to his human self and made sharp and painful contact with the kegs that he soon discovered were not empty after all and were in fact half-full of old wine that was probably three times the cost of the last time it was seen.
Splash.
---WT---
Ok, that was a really long chapter. I'm hoping for at least 10 reviews, so there will be 51 reviews.
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No 10th chapter till then.