Sherbet Mayhem: Hey guys, and welcome to chapter four of Visions! I'm so incredibly sorry for the huge wait – I've just lost interest in writing recently, but it's coming back to me again.
When I read the incredibly positive reviews that you guys gave my last chapter it made me so happy – reviews fuel my writing so much you know. They make me want to update and give me such amazing motivation! Thank you so much – you loyal followers you; you really don't know how much your reviews mean to me and I appreciate every second of time you spend both reading and reviewing my writing. I just hope I don't disappoint! I'll do my best!
Here's chapter four then, and I'm hoping you'll all enjoy it as much as you seemed to enjoy chapter three. I'll try and keep the updates a little bit more regular from now on, but if I don't update for an age it really is due to a mix of writer's block and a lack of free time. University is a lot harder than I ever expected – well, it's not really difficult work, it's just so much of it! I would advise people to take English for their degree though – it's so challenging and rewarding and you get to be the cool kids who sit in the coffee shops and drink and discuss books and theories and things and it's rather excellent!
I'll shut up now and get on with the next chapter! I hope you like it – please take the time to let me know what you think at the end of it by clicking on the old review button – ha I nearly wrote 'mutton'. Yes, click on the mutton. I know I will :D
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Chapter Four – After You're Gone
Robin slammed his fist into the wall. Again. Again. A small grey dint appeared beneath his anger. He growled.
"Find her."
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She placed the mirror on the dresser quietly, aware that all eyes were upon her yet again. She'd lost count of how many times she had stolen the limelight from the villains of Jump City in the past three or four days. It was difficult. She was no actress. She did not like the attention.
What did they want to know from her? She'd let them into her mind to find answers and all they'd returned with were questions! Was there no way to win? Their heavy, expectant breathing filled the room and she sighed.
"If you're asking about the last vision – I don't know who it was. There's no way I can find out. Why are you still asking me?"
Robin's mind briefly flickered back to the moments he had spent in Raven's mind swearing his own vows I will change her future I will not let this happen I said the pool before me the vision happening and I swore I'd protect her from that
Yet Cyborg's comments of earlier puzzled him "Seems more likely that she's seeing the past". It was true – she had seen Lowson's death moments after it had happened. Yet there was still the vision in the shower to be explained. He had told all he had seen in the pool in the dark crevices of Raven's mind, but had spoken not of his encounter with Rage, her fiercest emotion; how she had plunged him under the water, thrust him right into her vision and made him scream silently for liberation. He hadn't even told Raven. She seemed blissfully? unaware.
So what had he seen in the pool? It was assault – he was mature enough to recognise that. Furthermore it was an assault on Raven – the hands, sliding over her body as though they owned her, dark as night and unrecognisable – proved it. The image of her tears stamped itself in her mind ruthlessly as if I haven't seen enough of her tears recently and he attempted to concentrate on the present situation.
Starfire had called him out of Nevermore, the collective name for the entire of Raven's physically accessible mind. He pondered briefly at the name Why Nevermore it sounds so sad but again shook his thoughts clear to focus himself.
Starfire had called me out of Nevermore
with a voice stabbed with sounds of alarm and panic. He'd left quickly – Raven had explained the route to the exit doors briefly before he had entered and he had little trouble finding it. The décor of jagged, snarling red rocks and a deep purple, depressing sky had given him little incentive to stay. The resident emotions personified of her mind were hardly welcoming either. They'd done their best to make him feel uncomfortable and unwelcome – not to mention Rage's spiteful attack. In fact
Starfire had called me out of Nevermore
and he'd exited quickly hearing the panic in her voice. He was finding it difficult to focus. He'd arrived in Raven's bedroom alone; the others were all in the living room it seemed.
The scene had not been a pleasant one. The strong Starfire, gifted with alien strength, was pinning Raven down with a degree of frightened alarm by her wrists, and the machine-like Cyborg held her thrashing legs. Beast Boy watched, stunned into silence it seemed, by what was happening. Raven, unable to control herself when in the throes of a vision, was re-enacting what Robin had seen in the pool. Unlike the previous visions, she was speaking clearly.
"You cannot take this! It's mine!"
She kicked her strong, toned legs viciously, her lips dragged back in a dog snarl.
"Please! No! Help me, somebody! I won't let him!"
Her words ripped sharply through the air as she struggled, and Robin strained his ears to hear Starfire over the tortured girl's desperate screams.
"Robin, if we do not hold her, she will hurt us!"
"Yeah!" added Cyborg, growling as he gripped the girl's legs with his massive hands, his eyes squinted as if having them closed tighter would keep the situation under control. "She came in here, was talkin' to us normally, and then she went for Beast Boy! Hands, teeth, it was crazy!" His voice was high, his words flew fast.
Robin glanced at Beast Boy, who shook as he stood staring near the television screen. His bright eyes betrayed him. He was not afraid. Robin knew how much eyes could tell a person.
"In her mind I could see this happening. What she's seeing. I could see it. She's being assaulted by somebody."
In listening to Robin, Starfire loosened her grip on Raven's wrist; the moment she had enough strength, her hand was up and clawing at Starfire angrily, frenziedly.
"These chains are so cold! How am I supposed to laugh at this?"
The words sounded familiar to Robin as he ran over and fixed his hands on her face. He stared at her. Eyes tight shut, tears stealing out and trooping on. Teeth ground in an animalistic fashion. Sweat leaking from every pore, her skin clammy and bogged down by frightened hair that clung.
"It…it hurts…"
He remembered what he saw by the pool – on the rocks, on the walls, the floor.
Words.
Carved into every accessible crevice and surface. In bright white, hurried, sharp letters. Her thoughts. They were forever contained in her mind. Beast Boy had not mentioned this to him.
He was there suddenly, his hands clamped onto her face but his eyes staring at the frightening words about him, scrawled for none to understand, grouped according to context;
"Will it stoP him?" "YOU weRe NeVer my father"
"Blood rAin, bloOD reign" "i am thE bLood"
"MalCHioR!" "YoU thiNK i'm BeaUTiFul?"
"Zinthos" "MEditAte"
"NoNe of that mATters" "i'M just…necessary…" "I just Want tHis day to END"
"PrOmiSE you'll FIX me?" "Come back soon" "He likes The way I LAUGH"
He watched the words, lit by the fading light, and sighed. How could one person retain such hurt in their mind? Why did it stay with her always to torment her? At least in his own mind, the waters receded occasionally to relieve him; even (albeit rarely) bringing pleasantries now and again. How could she live with her mind constantly in the past?
He realised frankly that he too was in the past, and shifted to what was now. He held her face tightly in his gloved hands, and if he looked closely he could see his own face in the tears that inked her skin, sweat poring from his own features as he yelled words he had not planned.
"Raven, wake up! Break it off and wake up!"
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He searched her room. All he found was the empty breath of darkness and moths. He longed for her eyes. His fingers itched to touch her skin. He wanted to enclose her, tie her up, manipulate. He ached for the rising of the hairs on her skin as fear smiled back at him, the exposure of terror pimples on her grey arms as realisation swallowed her whole.
A door slammed downstairs, and he slipped into the shadows. His eyes whitened the darkness.
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As her eyes clicked open, she grew aware of his hands gripping her face, so tight, so tight. She held in a bitter laugh as she took in her surroundings. His worried face consumed most of her vision, but the others were there too, watching, concern scribbled in their eyes. Before they could question her, she spoke, dryly.
"I guess that makes three."
Dry tears lay on her face, and Cyborg, always the brother, watched on quietly as she began to pull herself to her feet. Her back straightened slowly, and her hands wiped the stiffness from her cheeks. Robin gave her space.
"And this time, I wasn't asleep."
She glanced around, glanced at each of the other Titans, not sadly, but grimly. Her eyes paused briefly upon Beast Boy, whose face was brimming with an odd look, and then let her gaze rest upon Robin.
"Find anything?"
How is she so calm I saw what was happening to her
"Uh...not much in the shape of answers, I'm afraid. I met a few of your doubles, and I found a huge pool which-"
"Forget the pool," she snapped sharply, her eyes shooting back to Beast Boy momentarily. "Anything useful?"
Starfire watched Robin, rubbing her own hands which hurt from clawing and tearing at her friend moments ago. He shook his head, and her heart fell further.
Before any more could be said or though, the Titan alarm rang unfamiliar through the house. It had been weeks; months, since the shrill siren had claimed priority over the sounds of continuing life in the house, and it shot through them brusquely.
Cyborg moved swiftly to the computer panel, not having forgotten the old ways. His huge metal fingers tapped away at the resilient keys till the location of the suspected crime was revealed.
Robin took command – he was leader; it was his unresented position. After identifying the hot spot, he turned to Raven, who watched the screen with bloodshot eyes.
"You are to stay here Raven."
Her eyes narrowed, as he knew they would. "And that is...why?" Tight lips.
Beast Boy answered quickly, his fangs glinting in his mouth as he spoke. "You just had a vision. You're weak. You'd be no help. You'd just get hurt."
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So she stayed.
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Robin, Cyborg and Starfire agreed to tackle the source of trouble in the city centre – there was no name attached to the symbol that appeared on their screen, so the villain remained unidentified until they reached the location of the trouble. After he had convinced Raven to stay, he appointed Beast Boy the task of checking her bedroom and the shower, and then the couch in the living room for bugs, gadgets, or anything that could have triggered the strange visions Raven was suffering. He was to take care of Raven if needs be. He saluted Robin as cheerfully as he could manage, and watched as the others left.
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She lay on her bed, cold. She didn't like being this way – the 'depressed' one, the 'boring' one. She knew what the others thought. She knew their minds as she knew her own.
My vision it can't be true I have to give him a chance he wouldn't do it I know
It had hurt her more than she let on. Never revealing herself, never showing skin where she could help it (the others weren't aware of the translucent tights she wore every day without fail) and there she was, hands all over her, hot, wet breath in her ear, in her face...
it won't happen he wouldn't its a mistake
She was honest with herself a lot of the time. She didn't see much point in hiding the truth from any of her personality traits – they'd find out in the end, and had the power to make life very complicated for her if they realised she was lying to even one of them. But this? This was cause for lies, a little sacrifice on her part, another skeleton being chained up in the closet.
His eyes he was crying himself he wanted to save me
Raven almost smiled. Love was sacrifice, and here he was, opening all doors to her, something she never dreamed she could do, and he went and just took it off, showed her what nobody else saw, something from his past that he hid from the present. It comforted her.
What's happening to me it's all so unprecedented all disintegrated and like a jigsaw puzzle missing the majority of the pieces why can i see past present future possibles why on earth did i see what can't possibly be true he wouldn't he wouldn't he WOULD NOT
A knock on her door interrupted her fast thoughts, and she wiped the puzzle from her mind, pushing herself onto her weary feet to pull open the steel barrier.
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"Robin! ROBIN! Help!"
Beast Boy's shrill voice smacking through his communicator tore him in two. He was instantly concerned for Raven – if there was trouble at the Tower it was likely to be another vision...but...
He narrowed his eyes at their assailant.
"Slade..."
Starfire watched him with her angry green eyes. A chill wind rustled through all of them, and it blew her hair about her face, long and wiry. They hadn't seen Slade since he'd actually proved of some assistance in the battle against Trigon, and now, he was an unpleasant reminder of times they'd rather forget, as well as a nuisance when they could easily be at home, figuring out the more pressing issues.
She spoke, bold. "Why have you come back, Slade?"
They couldn't see his smile, but they could sense it. He was always like that – another mask, another soul who preferred to conceal the truth from those who were curious – but somehow, they could see, they could feel every expression on his face. Robin wondered if he had found a real face yet. Or whether he was still a skeletal mess.
"My dear" he purred in that deep, chasm voice. "I didn't realise you'd missed me".
"We hadn't," Cyborg narrowed his eyes, and his cannon arm glowed. "You're an unwelcome visitor, Slade."
Robin remained silent, mind torn in two.
"I must say," Slade continued, unabashed, "I was expecting a better welcome party. Am I such a low-level threat to you that you can only spare three Titans to battle me? Even if all I did was..." he turned to the building behind him where alarms blurred, "Hold up a bank."
It hit Robin like a wall of water. Slade watched him, grinning under his metal exterior.
"That's right, Robin. A diversion. Congratulations."
No no he's always two steps ahead no no
"Cyborg, blast it."
Quick to respond, Cyborg fired his cannon at Slade, and as the fires died down, Robin picked up a piece of robotic arm with a pained grimace. He felt his face pale as he turned to the others.
"The Tower. Get back to the Tower."
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"Find her...now."
Her room was empty. Blood in the corner. Next to the bed, Starfire cradled an injured Beast Boy. Her window was cracked open, and tiny tears of glass lay across the floor. Slade had caused them to miss the storm. Now only the glittering floor remained.
Beast Boy was quiet, his breath shallow. He watched the others with a guilty look on his face. A wound on his forehead caused Starfire to hold him protectively.
Cyborg merely watched Robin, as he paced, his hand throbbing after denting the wall. The giant metal man turned to Beast Boy, offering a smile.
"You okay, grass stain?"
Beast Boy glanced up at him, green eyes shining, and then watched the floor, as if the answer lay there.
"No. She's gone."
Robin spun around, his concern for Raven obviously outmatching his concern for Beast Boy, who, as far as he could tell, would survive his wounds easily.
"What happened?"
His voice was cold; sterile. This was an autopsy. Beast Boy shook his head.
"I...I don't know...she opened the door to let me in...and the window...it smashed...I heard...a scream...he took...I don't remember..."
Robin moved to him quickly, till their faces were almost joined. "You DO remember. What happened?"
It felt strangely familiar. Starfire interceded quickly.
"Robin, he does not know. This was not Beast Boy's fault."
Robin stood, eyes still on the Changeling, who continued to watch the floor.
"Beast Boy...please...who took Raven away?"
The room was silent for a moment, and the floor of glass glittered in the dim lighting. Robin's eyes caught sight of Raven's mirror, the one he'd used to travel into the expanse of her mind. Why was it here? Why did it look...
Didn't I leave that in my room
Beast Boy looked up at him just as Robin realised that glass in the mirror was smashed.
"Slade. Slade took Raven away."
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Sherbet Mayhem: Woot. That's the end of the fourth chapter. Fifth one soon! Read and Review – and enjoy! D
