(This chapter is dedicated to the incredible author and inspiration 'Post' who soon will be leaving our Teen Titans fan fictioning community, to move on to better things. He will be missed, but more importantly, he will be celebrated. Godspeed, God Bless, and Good Night, Post. You've changed everything.)
THE END IS NIGH!…
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Chapter Twelve: Shock and Awe
Dust and debris filled the innards of the Tower as flames licked the Main Room as the dust settled and the rattle settled down. The Essence of Trigon walked slowly into the Main Room, framed by the gray light pouring in from the hole he'd made and the flames that were catching.
A sinister bloodlusting grin of hate made it's way upon the devil's cracked lips.
"The time to down this system of surrogate guardian angels has come." The devil laughed.
And awaited his prey to find him.
He didn't have to wait long as the door to the defiled main room opened in a sick whi-zzztt-ah and Hot Spot and Killowat dashed thru the sparking door.
"What the-" Hot Spot started, he then spied the quad-eyed menace standing tall in front of them, "Who are you?"
Killowat merely frowned and charged up electricity, blue energy crackling in his flexing palms.
The Avatar of Trigon sneered and said, "Hehehe… All Your Base Are Belong to TRIGON!" and with blinding speed he leapt the length of the room and sent and black robed knee straight into the pyromancer's nose, sending him flying thru the sparking door and out into the hallway, unconscious.
"DIE!" Killowat screamed.
ZAAAAAAAAAT!
The sparkling tidal wave of electricity fell upon the devil's form with a piousity not found in nature. There was a bright flash, and then silence.
Killowat breathed cautiously as the light from his attack dimmed. "Whew," he let out a breath of relief. He slouched over, tired with effort of the impromptu attack.
A bald, pointy eared, four eyed, crimson head materialized over his shoulder, "Boo!"
"AAH!"
BLAM!
HStanding in black Kevlar and metal mesh, Slade stood in his study, helmet off, a copper-colored eyepatch over his nonexistent right optic, his light blue eye staring out on the gray sky… which was growing darker as a thunder cloud was coming in quick.
A knock on his door.
"Come."
The door opened and one of the robots like the mechanical observer came in and with a mechanical voice spoke, "Master, the Scarlet Eagle has landed."
Slade let out a sigh; he reached down to his desk and picked up his copper and black helmet mask. He slowly slipped it over his head, fastened it and opened his eye calmly on his creation.
"Very well, give the order to move."
HStarfire held the hands of the Archer and Atlantean as she soared up to the massive hole in the side of the Titans' Tower.
"Are you both prepared for our violent and hastened entrance into the zeroed ground?"
"Hit it." Speedy growled, peering hard thru his eyemask at the smoking orifice in their home.
"Go Starfire!" Aqualad bellowed.
"Raugh!" the alien angel gave a war cry as she dove in with her friends, eyes burning with searing green energy.
HRobin and Jericho sprinted much faster than humans such as themselves were normally capable of down to the Main Room, where the terminal in Robin's room had said the breach was.
And both the Prince of Gotham and the Artist had a sinking feeling in their guts that they knew exactly what had breached the Tower's exterior.
Jericho's brow formed droplets of sweat as he thought, and nightmares swam thru his waking mind.
They sprinted in two blurs.
H"Pathetic, surely you can offer more."
"SHUT UP YOU DAMNED PUNK!" Argent screamed as she leapt over Killowat's comatose body, hands glowing brightly with red energy as she gave a warcry of vengeance.
The Essence backhanded her, and she rag dolled across the tattered remains of the Main Room. Blood dribbled down her faced from her broken nose and busted lip; her pale petite body did not rise again.
Pantha, who was just getting up from an earlier hit similar to the one Argent had received, glanced at her friend's unmoving form, glowered at the Essence, and let out a growl of inhuman rage as she stampeded towards the devil with a malice not found in nature.
"RAAAUUGH!" Pantha let her muscled arm fly in a massive right hook towards the demon's smirking red chin.
THWU-THWACK!
The room reverberated from the hit, and Trigon's Avatar didn't move a millimeter.
Pantha, on the other hand…
"Oh, God dammit!" Pantha cried as she fell to her knees in pain before the Essence.
"Tell me little girl, did you break three knuckles, or four?"Pantha lifted up her head to gaze threateningly up at her malefic opponent.
The Essence merely snickered.
Pantha's hair stood on end, her lips curled into a defiant sneer, eyes glaring so heatedly thru her mask that she was bound to catch something on fire.
With a yell, she erupted from the ground with a bone shattering left uppercut.
WHACK!The room shook and the Avatar of Trigon rose in the air slightly…
… and stopped rising.
Pantha's eyes bulged from her head; the red devil had frozen in air, a foot off the ground.
He slowly floated down to the floor, popped his neck, and snarled with a sadistic happiness, "My turn!"
THWUCK!
HCyborg and Beast Boy darted out of their cowering spot in the boy's bathroom.
"What was that!" Beast Boy obligatorily spouted.
Cyborg glanced down at the screen on his arm, "There's been a breach in the Tower… right around the Main Room. Must've been big, the censors are mostly fried; but what little are left are indicating a fight.
They made to move… when they noticed Raven.
Fallen to the floor. Crumpled and wilted, like a flower crumpled in a fist and discarded via throwing on the floor. Her blue cloak seemed wrinkled and darker, spread about her fallen figure haphazardly; her limbs brought close to her petite body, making her seem absolutely miniscule and fragile. Her eyes were closed, her mouth was closed… she was comatose… save for the small rise and fall of her tiny torso, proving she was breathing.
"Raven, you OK girl?" Cyborg broke their silent shock.
"Raven? Raven!" Beast Boy called.
But, it was all no more than an echo of an inaudible whisper… drifting… drifting… drifting…
And in her mind there was silence, and black, and nothing… nothing… nothing, but black silence.
Then there were voices…
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A flash of gray, and a sob of a whimpering Raven's voice, "J-J-Joeyy lied! H-He lied to us!" a pathetic sniffle and a few more sobs, "He lied to us, and we trusted him completely! We were close to the liar! He lied! And we gave him what he wanted! Aahhh!" another bout of pathetic sobbing and sniffling… a flash of gray.
And there was black.
A small twinge of blue, and a voice even, almost shocked, but very detached, "He… lied."
A flash of green, "That damn wussy little guitar boy! I knew he was no good! No real man would lead us on like that and not have the Cajones to tell us the truth! What a fucking pansy! No good motherbitchin' … wussy little… kinda cute… erm, LITTLE. LYING. SCUMBAG!"… a flash of green.
And there was black.
A pang of blue on the noir scene, then detached, "Liar."
A flash of yellow… and red. Almost orange in spots. The flash extended itself as if the yellow and the red were struggling against one another. Eventually there was finality with a bright flash of yellow.
"Perhaps he had reasons. Joseph did not know the extent of our father's malefic terror. And after seeing our reaction, perhaps his emotions got the better of him and attempt… ed… to… pro…t-tect…" the voice of reason was waning, and red crept back into the scene like a horrible fire.
The yellow struggled and writhed, but soon became an orange hue, then more red. True finality came with a startlingly powerful flash of CRIMSON!
A baleful voice roared, "RRRAGGGEEE SHAAALLLL CONSUUUMMME!"
A bright flash of red, black, and like the base of a shotgun cracking against the back of a skull… a soft white silence cracked itself into Raven's mind… and she awoke, standing and shivering.
"Raven!" Cyborg said worriedly, holding his hands up as if wondering whether to stable the mystic girl.
Beast Boy had wide eyes of worry, but an odd voice of bravery came out of his small green body, "Raven, are you OK?" he said evenly.
Their voices registered, but the thoughts of Jericho's lying blocked out all other thoughts besides the small, but very sharp, idea that her father's presence was here. It had somehow snuck under her radar… Jericho… Jericho and his damn LIES!
The pool exploded in a large blast of ebony energy.
Cyborg and Beast Boy held their arms over their heads as the now steaming water came down in the form of in-door rain.
"R-Raven?" Beast Boy asked again, this time more desperate.
There was fire, red fire lining Raven's vision. And horrific visions of Jericho's demise littered her minds eye. She couldn't see it, but she knew her father's presence sensed her rage, and laughed.
She didn't care.
She had trusted Jericho, and he treated it like nothing.
He was going to pay… dearly.
The red fire grew.
Then, a soft echo, quiet but clear, rang like silver bells in the back of the mystic girl's mind. A gray developed her crimson vision, like a cooling cloud of gray snow. The voice said in a pathetic voice, "He lied… he lied. And it hurts… because we love him." The last phrase reverberated itself around Raven's skull, like a soft ringing in her ears. Cooling her rage. We love him. We loved him.
I loved him… but now…
"Raven?" this time is was Cyborg, his face was set and stony as his voice.
Raven finally responded in her monotone as she icily put up her blue hood over her head, "Don't get stuck in the sky."
The girl's surrogate brothers gave her a confused look.
A flash of shining obsidian… and the girl was gone.
And the two boys were left in sick…
…gray…
…silence…
…
A rumble and a rattle shivered up the Tower to the elevated room they inhabited.
And it shook the cobwebs of confusion out of the two, "C'mon, lets go." the two said to each other at the same time.
They didn't even flinch at the coincidence; they only ran towards the exit that would take them to the Main Room.
As they fell into the shadow's of the exit, a faint crack and a muffled scream of terror and pain reached the empty, gray, wet pool room.
"aaaahhh-
H-AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" came the bloodcurdling bellow of extreme pain as the red devil easily snapped the arm of Aqualad. Bone pierced skin, sticking out grotesquely, and blood flew profusely from the Atlantean's wound.
Underneath a pile of rubble that had once been a wall, a bruised and burnt Starfire stirred, and weekly lifted herself forward a little. Peering thru squinting eyes of pain at the horror.
"St-stop it..yo-ou bastARD!" a bruised, battered, and bleeding Speedy shakily yelled as he fought to stand up from where he had recently been planted into the ground by the red devil.
Trigon's Essence paid the Archer no heed and his focus remained on the Atlantean, "Hmmm, you're right. I don't think it's supposed to bend that way… maybe this way."
CRRRRRRRAAACCK!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
"DAMN IT!" Speedy bellowed as pure adreniline caused him to stand, aim, and fire his most destructive arrow at the beast mutilating his boyfriend.
The Essence mearly held out his free palm and-
BOOM!Dust settled, light dimmed, and the Essence stood… detached and unharmed.
Speedy's light blue eyes widened underneath his eyemask… and he promptly passed out from exhaustion.
"Looks like your boyfriend ha- Oh." The Essence started before noticing the Atlantean was already unconscious, probably from the pain.
He dropped the body to the ground with a sick thud.
The sound of shifting rubble caught the devil's attention, just before being blown back by a vast strike of green.
TZAAAP!"AH! DAMMIT!" the Essence cursed, holding his burnt eyes.
But his red, pointed ears heard clearly a deep, woman voice, filled with fierce, righteous anger.
"You, such foul and evil being, have invaded this home to defile our lives. You set about spoiling my Earthly brethren in a manner most hellish and unnatural. I am Koriand'r, you have harmed my family, brace for death. HYA!"
TZAAAP!
HRobin and Jericho were blurring down the halls, nearly to the hallway where they would find HotSpot's unconscious and discarded body, along with the bodies of Mas and Menos who had been struck down before they could even enter the fray, thrown thru a wall. Where they would find the current fight of the Essence vs the Titans.
Though Jericho was exceedingly speedy, Robin was far superior in fleet footedness. As the Caped Crusader turned a corner a few seconds before the Artist, the towhead was met by a large black portal in the floor, complete with warbling tendrils. A robed figure slowly ascended from the abyss, glaring with hot gray eyes at the son of Slade.
"!" he screamed mutely.
"We need to talk." Raven's voice graveled menacingly as the tendrils grasped his lithe body and brought him into the abyss.
H"AAGGHCCAK! ACK! Eeehhh…" Starfire wheezed as a fuming Avatar of Trigon strangled her thin neck roughly.
"YOU BITCH!"he spat, a few spots on his skin darkened and bleeding a nasty, stygnant blood, "YOU ACTUALLY HURT ME! HEH… ALOW ME TO RETURN THE FAVOR! HAHAHA!" the devil said, eyeing the Tamaranean's body quite crudely.
Her green eyes went wide with fear and tears as a red clawed hand went to move up her tattered skirt-
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ASSMO!"
ZWAAAA!"AAGH!" the Essence recoiled from the sonic blast Cyborg had sent speeding into his lower back.
Before he could respond a paw full of razor sharp bear claws came upercutting on his red chin.
SHWLACK!The devil ragdolled across the Main Room as Beast Boy changed back to elf form and kneeled down to the fiery angel; sprawled out and bleeding green blood on the floor.
"STAR!" Beast Boy pleaded.
Her weak eyes met his, "Thank you both for your timely rescue, I just need a moment to recover my vigor-"
"No!" Beast Boy commanded, "You stay there."
A mechanical boot stomped by the duo, "Y'all gonna have to hang tuff, he's not stayin' down for long." Cyborg said, his sonic cannon pointing at the already risen figure of the Essence.
"You fools think that you can stop the Essence of Trigon?"Cyborg scowled and answered hotly, "We've dealt with lackeys before, pal."
The devil smirked, "I'm no lackey, pathetic wretch. You see, I am no minion with orders to follow. I AM TRIGON THE TERRIBLE! Hah, I am literally a piece of the whole. My powers are diminished almost ridiculously, but my mind is a fresh as ever. And besides, this miniscule fraction of strength should still be enough to kill each and every one of you!"
Cyborg winced.
Starfire frowned.
Beast Boy scowled.
The Essence smirked and took a deadly step forward.
A lethal snarl came from the dark shadow of the doorway, "I beg to differ. By the time I'm done with you your ass will be even redder."
The Essence flinched and turned his head to the source of the threat…
…recieving a steel-toed jump kick right between his four eyes.
THUD!H
In a nondescript section of hallway in Titans' Tower conveniently possessing dramatic lighting from the nearby window, a portal opened in the floor, and the pale and slightly shaken Jericho was hurled into the hallway by a host of black tendrils.
As the tendrils receded the dark figure of the robbed Raven rose, and the dark portal closed.
Jericho, who was regaining his color and overcoming his shaking's of fear, was frightened again as the hot gray eyes of Raven opened and glowered at him from behind her hood.
A moment of dark… brooding… absolute zero plus windchill… silence.
…
Jericho looked with wide hazel eyes at Raven.
…
Raven pierced thru Jericho's head with her intense gaze.
…
Jericho blinked.
"You little punk." Raven started, it was obvious that she was restraining a massive amount of verbal and physical terror the likes of which would have made Hitler blush.
Jericho started to handsign.
That's when the dam broke. When the anger, sadness, and bitterness built up inside for years came thru and Raven let it out in a dangerous ranting fit to outdo a drunken Irishmen.
"Don't even give me that!" Raven snarled, a light fixture exploded. "You have the nerve, the absolute unadulterated gall, to befriend me, to entertain me, to cater to me, to court me, to date me, to KISS and HOLD me for the first time in my entire LIFE, and then betray my trust and dash the best thing THAT HAS HAPPENED IN THIS GOD FORSAKEN PERILOUS EVENT I CALL LIFE! YOU BASTARD!"
Windows shattered in sizzling ebony energy, the paint peeled off the walls accompanied by dancing black sparks.
Jericho just sat there, dumb, in complete shock and awe. Guilty.
She was right. She was right. She was right.
He was one hundred percent guilty, he didn't deserve the energy it took for him to blink.
The hot gray had receded from Raven's eyes, but her blue irises were no less piercing, "Why, Jericho? Just… why? Why the lies? Why the secrecy? Why rape my emotions by giving me love and then blatantly stomping on my trust! Why! Did it make you feel good? Maybe you thought it was funny! You piece of shit! Is my heart some kind of fucking joke to you?"
Jericho sat…
…mute.
"YOU DAMN BASTARD! WHY!"
Joey looked up with round, remorseful, hopeless eyes into Raven's infinitly more suffering ones.
And hand signed words that the mouth cannot begin to translate.
Raven's jaw slackened slightly.
That's when the wall exploded… but not due to Raven's powers.
As flame and debris sent the two Titan's sprawling, a group of machines like the mechanical observer leapt in the Tower… followed by the battle ready Slade.
HA green velociraptor charged forward, bleeting out a cry of bloodlust.
He was silenced by a red, flaming fist.
PHWOMB!Beast Boy flew back and rag dolled to the floor, his comatose body joining the litter of Titans already spread throughout. From Killowat to Kid Flash to Bushido and everyone in between. All had responded to the call, all had fought; all had been defeated in a matter of minutes, if not seconds.
"LETS PUT SOME BASS IN YO FACE! HA!" A dented and scuffed Cyborg bellowed, his arm in sonic cannon form, trailing a tail of plasma. He reared back the appendage to strike in a devastating sonic punch.
The devil saw, turned to face the blow, and stuck his tongue into the sonic cannon as it flew for his face.
The force of the strike backfired on the bionic being.
SHPLATZZZZAaahhhh…"AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" Cyborg bellowed as he was fried by his own electricity running amok on his circuits.
"CYBORG!" Robin called as he fell to the floor, sizzling.
Starfire squinted and panted at their newest fallen comrade, holding her hurt left shoulder in the process.
The Essence turned to Robin, "Well, Boy Wonder, I have a question for you."
"Shut up!" the Prince of Gotham snapped.
"Who should I rape first, your girlfriend or you?""SHUT UP!" Robin brought out his bo staff and sprang forward with inhuman ferocity. He thrust jabs and made sweeping passes with his bo staff and interjected with fierce kicks from his mighty legs.
The Essence dodged them all.
SHW-SHW-SHW-SHW-SHW-SHW-SHWISH!"To slow, Robin." The Essence said as it brought back it's red foot and kick the Prince of Gotham square in the abs.
He flew back into the wall which was quickly coming to resemble swiss cheese with it's many holes and dents.
The air left his lungs, his ribs cracked, pain racked his body.
Robin tried to get up, but he faltered, heaved, and cough up a mouthful of blood.
Starfire gasped and brooded, a worry deeper than mortal showing on her face.
"Pathetic, Robin. And here I thought you were supposed to be the pinnacle of human chivalry. The Knight in Shining armor who faces the dragon with nothing but his shield and sword and always manages to save the princess; or the cowboy who draws his gun before the black-hat or pulls the winning hand in a poker game and rides off into the sunset. The Guardian Angel for the entire city you protect, the law that keeps everyone safe, watching and stopping whomsoever attacks your precious population. Well, Robin… you've failed. Miserably. You've failed to uphold your pathetic standard of justice, which you've trained for all your life. So, in summary, you fail life, Robin. You're tower is breeched, your team is downed, and you, my friend, are about to witness your girlfriend's torture and the slow painful death of each of your unconscious teammates before I administer your own slow… painful… hellish demise."
Robin tried to stand, tried to fight, tried to shut that god damn bastard up. But his body wouldn't react, he was an inch away from death, and this devil was going to make sure it was the longest inch he ever traveled.
"Don't feel too bad though, Robin. After all, a wise man once said, 'Every bird must someday die.' It looks like today's your day."
"OR MAYHAPS IT IS YOURS! HRAAAAAAUUGGGGHHHHA!" red hair billowing in an invisible wind like a mane of molten fire, eyes aflame with emerald energy, the bronze skinned angel held her palms out and unleashed the most lethal wave of searing green righteous vengeance that had ever been reaped upon any villain.
And for a second time that day… the snowy, gray city rattled.
BOOOOOM!
H
Slade's one lonely eye peered down at the two, his mechanical henchmen behind him, "Ah, hello. I do hope we aren't interrupting anything-"
BOOOOOM!"What the Hell?" Slade cursed as an earthquake rocked the Tower.
Time froze, Slade's optic widened in horror as the wall to the right of he and his mechanical henchmen dissolved in a flash of molten green light.
And they were hurled out of the Tower like flies, Slade's own arms flapping comically as they flew thru the gray night air, landing in the cold waters of the bay.
PHWOOOSH!FLASH!
Green light.
…
Green light.
…
Green light.
…
And as the effect of Starfire's mammoth attack dimmed, Jericho and Raven picked themselves up slowly, pain escaping from every pore on their bodies.
But, they were beaten by a large, muscled, and red figure from Hell.
"So, dear daughter, is this the boy I've heard so much about?"Raven's eyes widened in fear.
Joey gulped.
The Essence snarled, "I heard you lied to my daughter… so why don't you TAKE A SEAT!" in a red blur the Essence was on top of him, and put a red foot into Jericho's diaphragm, immediately being rewarded with a hack of blood erupting from the Artist's silent mouth.
Raven watched wide eyed at the spectacle.
The Essence squatted down right next to Jericho's reeling figure, grabbed his throat in one clawed bloody hand and his face in the other, and spoke to the poor hazel-eyed boy, "I will now bless you, mortal. I am going to show you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help myself. Heh. You believe that peace, faith, love, that these things are all powerful, everlasting. I'll show you just how wrong you are. My daughter loved you, but with your simple lie, it came crashing down. Don't you see, because of your lie, which you made because you love her, she no longer loves you! HAH! Now do you see the faulty idea of life? … What's the matter boy? Knife got your throat? HAH!"
The Essence turned and smiled at Raven, "Oh, Daughter Dearest, how would you like to help Daddy with a little chore? I guarantee you'll like it, as I've seen spectacular ideas of it floating around your thoughts lately… oh such gruesome thoughts child. You make me proud."
Jericho's hazel eyes widened in surreal disbelief as Raven, in a similar state of shock and awe, slowly, hypnotically, took a small, obediant step forward.
Towards her father.
HLying on their backs, facing the ceiling of the defiled Main Room, the fallen bodies of their friends so numerous they acted as a new carpeting or sick, bleeding cobblestones. The red and green blood leaking from their young bodies and mixing on the floor beneath them, the Songbird and the Fiery Angel lay amongst the gruesome terror.
…Together.
But, beneath the eyemask of Robin, the blue eyes of Tim were weeping, "St-starfire?"
"I am right here Robin." The young girl promised in a soft, reassuring voice. "And here is where I shall remain."
But Tim would be harder to consol, "For how long Kori?" the Prince of Gotham all but sobbed, "How long until Trigon comes back to kill and torture us? How long until some one else kills us? Cause if it's not Trigon taking us out all at once it'll be other people taking us out one by one!" he paused to take a shuddering breath, "K-Kori?"
"Yes." Her soft, even voice came, she somehow managed the strength to slip a hand behind the Boy Wonder's neck and rub it warmly… softly.
Tim sobbed, and the tears carried the eyemask off his face, slowly, "Why? Why do we do it? How come things have to be this way? How are anyone, especially kids like us, supposed to live like this? How the Hell are we supposed to fight the good fight! When things are so bleak, so hopeless, how can we live on and do the right thing, when it's not even clear what the right thing is let alone if we can do it? How can the World survive? And further more, why would we want to?"
The Tamaranean Princess took a moment to breath, and the gray clouds outside the shattered window parted and the sun shown it's lovely, pale gold. A warm wind flew into the room, easing the two teens.
Causing most of the bodies to stir, proving their life still intact.
But others….
The pale sun shown brighter.
A smooth, bronze hand gracefully pulled a bloody green glove off Tim's hand, and clasped itself around the palm lovingly.
"We carry on because we are right. Our love, the love of truth and everything, is the only Haven that people have to hold onto in the long cold nights of eternity."
"But how do you know it's even there, Kori? How do you know what's real?"
Bronze eyelids with fiery eyelashes fluttered whimsically over green eyes as the pair lay on their backs, completely drained.
"I know, Timothy, because we exist. Our love exists, our anger exists, our happiness and our sadness. If they meant nothing, we would not have them, we would not hold onto them, they would never have existed in the first place. To me, all the proof I need… lies in holding your hand, the warmth of your breath, and the beat of your heart."
An amber skinned face with a fiery silk-like mane rolled across the floor to face Tim as his black head of hair turned to face her.
"Times are always darkest just before the dawn, dear Timothy."
They blinked.
And their lips met.
Warmth…
Light…
Golden silence.
H"Come, Dear Raven, he lied to you, he betrayed everything he ever gave you. Everything he ever said to you was a lie. He deserves to die… he DESERVES TO BURN! SO MAKE HIM MY CHILD!"
Raven stood in front of the broken Jericho, the Essence whispering wickedly over her shoulder into her ear.
And in her mind there was silence, and black, and nothing… nothing… nothing, but black silence.
Then there were voices…
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
A flash of gray and a sob. A flash of green and a yell. A flash of yellow and a plea. A flash of red and a bellow. A flash of pink and a plead. A flash of blue, and…
…
…
…
"Oh, Mother. God, Tom Cruise… whoever's listening… he lied to me. He gave me everything I wanted, everything I've always guarded against, and I trusted him enough to take it. To accept him… and it turned out just as I always feared. It's the quintessential nightmare come true, and, and, and… I don't know what to do.
"Joseph was in the wrong but, he doesn't
deserve this. God I want to hold his small bleeding body and heal
his pain. What? He doesn't deserve that either! It wouldn't be
fair.
"Are those my two choices, kill or love? Where is justice… which is right! Oh sweet Powers that Be! I-I'm l-lost! I don't know what's right! I-I don't know what to do…"
Things flashed before Raven's mind's eye, Joey's incessant greetings, him sticking with her at the poetry club, the glass of water, spending hours just talking, kissing, falling asleep on him, the warmth of his chest.
The lie about the concussion, the fight in the alleyway, his fath-Slade's mansion; her father being summoned.
And, even as her mind sobbed in confusion, big, wet, tears that had been restrained for years ran down her pale, immaculate face.
The Essence's four eyes widened in fear at her gaze down towards the quivering mass of a human beneath them.
And Joey's hazel eyes peared up into her blue ones, teary… sorry…
…loving.
"I don't know what's wrong… I don't know what's right… I don't have a reason to feel this bad and I don't have a right to feel this good…... All I know is… I just want to be happy dammit. I just want to be happy…"
And Raven's small mouth opened, her petite body shook, and with it so did the foundations of the Earth.
The Essence stumbled back in surprise.
Jericho's innate body looked startled.
But Raven screamed a deep, silent scream as the rumble of the world grew louder.
And then there was a flash, and then there was a crack.
And then, there was nothing.
Only a thick, white silence.
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