Chapter Six: Taciturn Parenting

Numb sleep.

And then…

Eyes fluttered open, gazing out upon the world thru a large glass window. The shade of night had fallen on the snowy ground, and moonlight hung mistily past the glass of the window.

Raven blinked her eyes at the window a few more times and then got her bearings. She was lying in a large love seat, alone. The chair was in a large and extravagant room with expensive furniture and a high ceiling. This place was obviously a mansion.

Raven stood up, fighting off dizziness, and explored the room some more. To her right there was a staircase against the wall going both up and down. Around the room was a large fireplace and a large table along with other comfortable pieces of furniture like the love seat. A beautiful rug was set on the hardwood floors. And the grand window stood out attractively.

Just as Raven was beginning to get her sense back and asking herself 'Where am I anyway?' She heard the not-too-distant sounds of piano playing. She walked over to the staircase and gazed down. The mystic girl, mind still swimming and half numb from the shotgun blow to the base of her skull, walked lackadaisically down the stairs to a long hallway, following the piano's drifting melody.

The dark girl arrived at the end of the hallway to enter a room much like the one she awoke in. It had a large window and a high ceiling, but no fireplace and with a large grand piano.

Raven paced slowly around to see the player.

There sat a small girl no older than fourteen. She was thin and not tall, with waist-length hair of silver. The hair, Raven noticed, was even more surreal when the moonlight mist seeped from the window and struck her hair as the girl's delicate fingers moved across the keyboard, sending haunting harmonies thru the seemingly empty mansion.

And without a word, sound, or expression to announce Raven's presence the girl stopped playing and lifted her delicate hands slowing off the keyboard and pushed herself and the piano bench away from the leviathan of an instrument. The girl was in pajamas (Hello Kitty, ironically) and was barefoot, Raven noticed, as the pianist jumped onto the hardwood floor with a near silent thud. The girl then looked up at Raven with light blue eyes and spoke with a sweet voice that was light and clear.

"Hehehe, you woke up! That's good, I was beginning to worry. I almost told Wintergreen to take you to the hospital despite what Daddy said, you know."

Raven cleared her throat and spoke, her voice echoed thru the large, unlit room, "Umm, thanks. I think." She rubbed her temples, trying to gain lucidity, "But… where am I, and who are you?"

"Oh! Excuse me Miss Raven! My name is Rose. Rose Wilson. This is my Daddy's mansion!" the girl nearly-chirped. This 'Rose Wilson' was an average (albeit cute) girl for her age despite her odd colored foliage, but it was obvious that beneath the average girl there was something else that was, mysterious… elusive.

Raven raised a brow.

"Umm, OK. Hi, Rose." Raven said, trying to speak on the child's level, "I came here with someone. He was tall-ish with blonde hair."

Rose said nothing but only gazed with faux innocence.

Raven knew something was up.

"… you seen someone like that tonight?"

"I dunno, maybe you should describe him more. I see a lot of people in a day."

Raven grumbled.

"Listen you little… grrr… He had hazel eyes, broad shoulders."

Rose gazed.

Raven's eyes narrowed, "Side-burns, kinda quiet."

"Oh!" Rose said, "I may know who you're talking about." The girl with the silver mane enunciated slyly. "Was this boy, handsome?"

Raven again rubbed her temples trying to fight off the migraine that was inevitably emerging, "If you must know, yes. He was something like handsome."

The innocence of the girl melted and a mischievous and sly demeanor was exposed, "Oh, yea. You must mean my brother, Joey."

Raven's eyes widened instantly.

"Come, he and Daddy are talking!" She giggled as she skipped down the hallways with unusual agility and glee.

"Hey- Hey! Get back here you little cretin! What do you mean Joey's you're brother? Hey! You better not tell him I said that!"

H

The T-Car came to a tire screeching, blistering hot halt in front of a four-story building in the middle of Mid-town. He opened the door and looked up on the roof where all the activity was happening. "What the hell?"

Up atop the pillar of concrete and glass Robin and Starfire were at violent odds with a tall girl in a very large green shirt, long black hair, and a mask of a smiling cat on her face who was dancing and jumping and fighting the two Titans in a show of kung fu mastery.

Cyborg's eyes narrowed, "Cheshire, what is she up to now?"

And the bionic teen ran to the building at an astounding speed and proceeded to take the elevator to help alleviate his friends of the asian she-devil.

The elevator… of ACTION!

Whilst Cyborg was in the elevator, a dire battle was being fought on the roof.

Robin charged Cheshire with his bo staff drawn and swung at her face.

Cheshire produced six thin needles from her long green sleeves and stopped Robin's bo staff dead centimeters away from her masked-face.

"Since we're already this close, Robbie, how about a kiss?" Cheshire purred roughly.

"RAAAUH!" Starfire screeched unleashing a barrage of starbolts upon the villainess.

With grace and agility she stepped back from the Boy Wonder's bo staff, leapt in the air and twirled athletically around the alien energy.

"You'll have to be quicker than that, Titans. I was slowed down last time, this time you get no mercy." She purred before throwing a handful of needles at each Titan.

Robin viciously spun his bo staff, barely managing to stop all the needles and save himself.

The angry Starfire's eyes merely flashed with emerald energy and all the needles harmlessly melted in to small, hot puddles of liquid metal with fell to the roof and cooled.

"Hmm, impressive Titans."

"Give it up Cheshire, you can't stop us." Robin said with clichéd bravado.

"I bet you say that to all the ladies you want, Don't you Boy Wonder?" she purred seductively.

… just before dodging another super-heated starbolt.

"Robin is right. You will be brought to justice. The only question is will this come down the hard way." Starfire's eyes flashed and alien energy immolated around her hands in a flame-like manner, "Or the excruciatingly painful way!"

Robin nearly faltered from shock at the fiery girls wrath.

Only a chuckled came from behind the feline mask, "Zeal is with you, alien. But don't let your superfluous obsession with the Gotham Prince dull your senses. After all, we are in battle!" and out those long green sleeves flew dozens of tiny little balls that scattered across the roof, jumped high in the air, and exploded with great vigor! These odd weapons left behind a thick cloud of gas that blinded, choked, and incapacitated both the Boy Wonder and the red crown Princess.

Only her mask kept Cheshire from feeling the effects, "Hehehe. Now, Titans. Take this." She said, charging thru the smoke and beating down both Titans with her martial arts skill. After a moment of this violence,

"RAAAAAUGH!" came Cheshire's shrill cry as she leapt in the air, both Titan's in hand, and slammed them hard into the concrete of the roof. Unconsciousness.

"Feh. That was anticlimactic." The asian warrior muttered cynically.

A soft ding came from the other side of the roof along with a whir of mechanical doors.

"How's this for climactic? Bitch!" Cyborg bellowed, firing his sonic cannon.

ZAAAAAAP!

H

Raven followed the mischievous silver-haired she-imp down the long, luxurious hallways of her Father's mansion.

Joey's Father's mansion…

Raven had regained much of her lucidity but now her mind was clouded by questions and uncertainty.

She'd get to the bottom of it.

After entering a large library, climbing the spiral staircase in the center, and walking down a short, dead-end corridor, Rose chirped, "Here we are, Miss Raven."

Raven gave the girl a glare that said, 'If you tell, I'll kill you.'

Rose only winked.

Raven growled under her breath.

Rose smirked.

The two glared, at odds.

"My Father's Study, Joey is in there." Rose gestured again to a large wooden double-door.

Raven gazed at the extravagant, richly colored double-doors. She looked halfway up and engraved and colored in gold was the script, 'Cogito Ergo Sum.'

Raven raised a brow with an interested, "Hmmm… guess your dad is smart."

No reply.

Raven looked around and saw that Rose had vacated the hallway.

With a shrug she turned and looked at the handles to push open the doors when she spied what was engraved in gold above those handles.

"Study of Slade Wilson"

Raven's eyes widened and she gave a large gasp, then, "Oh shit."

She recoiled from the doors like they were a viper about to bite. She stared wide eyed thru the doors as she press herself against the opposite wall.

She stood there, in a queer silence of the yellow-walled corridor, just outside that room…

Then, she heard his voice. That thunderous whisper of a man so dangerous he withstood her Father without a second's hesitation.

But, though his words were muffled and his diction not understood, the tone in that remarkable voice had a hint of something she had never felt from this person before.

Slade's voice, as an empath she could feel as well, was unmistakably warm. Not necessarily happy. But very warm.

Raven overcame trepidation and tip-toed to the door and carefully pressed her ear to it so she could hear.

She could hear Slade speak for a moment and then an intermission of silence in which Joey was surely hand signing a reply.

Though she couldn't make out all the words she did get bits and pieces of what Slade said.

She closed her eyes and opened her mind, releasing her power… and felt… felt… feelllt…

Slade was an ever-mysterious presence; he was manipulative and calculating, even in this current situation. But still there was that unmistakable warmth she had never attributed to the mastermind.

Joey, on the other hand, was alight with rage and defiance. Obviously angry with his father, she could taste his malice.

But, for all the opposition within Joey, he was not even close to violence. And, he too had that same warmth. Now, this was nothing new for Joey. As long as Raven had known him he was a kind person, a lover and muse at heart. But in such a state of fury it was an odd thing to sense.

And, despite the odds obviously between the two, the warmth told Raven it was safe to enter…

She gripped the handles, set her face to emotionless, and swung open the doors to the study of what may have been the most dangerous man alive.