A/N: Standard Disclaimers Apply
Chapter Four: Random Acts
Raven fell to her knees, still staring at her hands. Her soul self surrounded her like a shroud, and the other two Titans cautiously approached. Raven's soul self watched them. Kory turned to Jinx who stepped back.
"What is going on?" Kory asked.
"I don't know."
The girls heard two cars bumping and the sound of broken glass. They turned and saw to men spring out of their cars and angrily shout at each other. They were both young, well dressed, but now spoke with such sudden rage that they were more animal than human. Blaming each other, they lunged and grappled. Patrons in a nearby children's store now argued over a blanket. A young woman threatened a clerk over miscounted change.
"I wish they would all shut the hell up!" Jinx spat. "God, I can't believe they're acting all so stupid. Idiots. Freaking idiots." Jinx walked away from her friends and yelled at the people. "Dammit, will you all be quiet!"
Kory felt her heart begin to race. Her body flooded with adrenaline. A low, feral growl escaped her throat. "What… is… happening?" she clenched her eyes shut and snarled. Her cheeks burned, and she saw red. Her eyes grew hot, and her muscles tensed. Koriand'r let go a primal scream and raised her balled fists over her head. She brought them down as a hammer striking hot forged steel and crushed the sidewalk. Shockwaves tore across the mall, sending Jinx into a wall an instant before the pink haired witch released a devastating spell, knocking down the fighting men, the arguing woman, and the patrons in the stores. Glass shattered. Car alarms went off.
People slowly came out of the stores and looked around in wonder. The young men stood, and realized they'd been fighting over nothing. Jinx opened her lilac eyes and looked around in confusion. Kory took shallow, shaky breaths and tried to calm her heart. She was covered in powdered concrete and snorted the dust from her nostrils. Raven opened her eyes and glanced at her hands. The young witch flexed her fingers and stood.
"Are you okay?" Raven asked Kory.
"No, I am not. I am confused and angry. And I do not know why."
Jinx quietly rejoined Raven and Kory. "Um, I think we'd better get out of here before people start asking too many questions."
Raven nodded and teleported them back to the Tower.
"Where have you been?" Cyborg snapped. "Over the past five minutes there have been four shootings, eight stabbings, two hundred assaults, a cop just turned himself in for shooting a guy he pulled over! What the hell is going on out there?"
Raven walked through her friends and straight to the sink. She picked up a bar of soap and started scubbing.
Jinx told Cyborg about their occurrence at the mall in full detail and asked him if he had any feelings of sudden and uncontrollable rage.
"That's effed up," Vic said. "No, thank God, I missed that."
"Raven!" Jinx exclaimed. She rushed over to her friend and pulled her hands out of the sink.
Straight hot water rushed through the faucet, and Raven's hands scalded. Raven didn't look up, but her powers fed on her physical pain as she healed herself reflexively.
…..
Robin set the autopilot of his T-Pod and read scanned the information about le Blanc's death. Mostly, he had press clippings. The French police were notoriously suspicious of anyone wearing a costume, but it gave Robin a chance to practice his hacking techniques. Le Blanc was identified by his fingerprints, but he carried a Canadian passport with the all too obvious alias of Andrew White of Montreal. The passport was last stamped by Zandian customs.
"Where in the world is Zandia?" Robin asked himself aloud. He accessed his world map and found the tiny Balkan principality between Romania and Serbia.
He took a breath and glanced out of his canopy. He'd just crossed the Rockies, but not yet flown over the Mississippi. Kansas, he thought to himself. He would have to refuel in Gotham or Metropolis before continuing on to Europe. But now to where? This new Zandian connection intrigued him, as it did a certain fly that set up shop behind the Teen Wonder. A certain, bright green fly.
…..
"Lust," the dark, robed man said in a voice as cold and as brittle as thin ice. He entered a dark colored room. It was lit only by three candles. Wax dripped down the pedestal where an ancient tome lay open. Its strange runes appeared black on the yellowed pages on first glance.
Several hooded figures stood in a half circle around it. Their heights and builds varied wildly.
"Lust, envy, and greed. They give us motivation, but are also tools to manipulate others. So sayeth the Book, not that it isn't something we all know and hold dear. Pride is paramount to foolishness, yet it is something none of use can deny. Gluttony. Sloth. They are weakness. They are defeat. They cannot be tolerated. Thus my Master speaks."
The hooded figures looked to each other.
"But Wrath, focused and directed rage, is power."
One stepped forward and pulled back the hood revealing a strikingly attractive woman with flaming red hair, but cold, icy blue eyes. She spoke, lightly accented, "What does that have to do with any of us?"
"My dearest Selinda," the hooded man said. "I have chosen you, all of you, to be new Apostles: Faithful servants that will be rewarded on Earth, as it is in Heaven."
