Author's Note: Thanks to those who reviewed since I posted the last chapter, the revered Lennox RH and evilsangel as ever, and Seurat and Lady Shafala, I hope any of you that reads this chapter enjoys it. I had a cruel thought and decided tghat the beginning of the Templar's masterful Plan wwould be a good place to leave the Temple for a while and start a new subplott that will eventually result in a new original character. Whether good or evil is as of yet indefinite.
Allegiance
As the most proficient and deadly assassin to pass through the hidden gates of the training facility in Jump City Ursula Lazuli was the obvious choice for the mission she found herself entrusted with.
Her target was extremely elusive, an unknown quantity without any known history or records.
Her employer wasn't a great deal different; she had only ever spoken with his subordinates. It was going to be hard to collect the necessary information on them.
That was Guild policy. The theory was that if the police ever discovered them they could pass on all the information on who involved themselves in the business of assassination. Then, while the law was fumbling its way through the bureaucracy the Guild could vanish from its grasp.
She turned of the busy street and down a side road, shielding her chocolate coloured eyes from the sun.
Her thin blonde hair was cut reasonably short, ending just below her shoulders. She wore a long dark coat over old looking trousers and an overlarge white T-shirt.
The coat had small pockets of explosives sown into its lining while the voluminous cuffs of the T-shirt hid a miniaturized dart gun and roll of wire designed for garrotting.
Two small knives hung at the back of her belt.
She moved down the street nonchalantly and came out onto another broad crowded road, she didn't know whether she loved or hated the Christmas shopping season. It was, in her profession, a mixed blessing.
She boarded a cable car and rode down the hill from the commercial district into the tourist section of the old dockyards with her breath crystallizing in front of her face.
She walked by the stalls selling cruises round the harbour on resurrected steamboats and other leisure activities designed for a summer afternoon, not the opening weeks of December.
She took a left turning into a narrow street and ducked into a doorway. She ascended a communal stairway into a dingy flat she had rented under a false name.
She placed several new implements of death into various pockets on the inside of her coat. Then she left the building. She walked back through the plaza and moved in the direction of the storage areas.
She climbed a ladder that ran up the side of one of the hulking corrugated iron warehouses. The roof of the building was awash with slush that the faint heat of the sun had failed to clear.
She crouched low and pulled off her outer clothing to reveal a dark grey skin-tight jumpsuit.
Small Long blades ran along the outer edges of her arms, protruding only slightly from the material. They were to small to be of great use in combat, but would cause serious damage to any knuckle smashing into them too fast. A small tube ran from a container on her wrist to the nail of her index finger.
She drew the nail in a large circle across the iron roof, slowly enough for the concentrated acid in the tank to flow out and cut through the old ceiling.
She pulled her mask over her head then swung herself down to hang upside down from the girders that held up the roof.
A rotting wooden wall bisected the warehouse, hiding whatever was going on in the other side from her prying eyes.
She chose a small rotted hole in the wood and flicked the pin from a smoke grenade.
The assassin tossed the small black capsule through the hole and waited for the rumble of the silenced explosion. She felt it more than she heard it; a low rumbling that came up through the cracked concrete flooring.
She drew herself a door with the acid dispenser and kicked it open, bringing her heels together to bring the spurs on her heels sliding from their brackets.
She scanned the vast chamber with the heat sensor on her spy visor. There were three pulses of red, a massive computer system that seemed to take up an entire wall, the remains of her grenade, and a bulky male figure.
She swept towards the third, drawing her two knives, striking up into the stomach then the heart. The blade met metal and the clang echoed throughout the aging structure. The man's fist swung towards her head, amazingly accurately considering the thick curtains of smoke that surrounded them.
She dodged away from the fist and sent its owner flying after it with strength that was belied by her trim figure.
The smoke was clearing now, escaping through rust holes in the grimy and dilapidated walls and roof.
She deactivated the heat sensor to see her quarry in full colour.
He was a large man, covered completely in a suit of silver armour, on his head was a mask, split into two sections, one black, not grey as most black things are, but truly black, and the other orange with an inlaid into its surface.
Obviously knives were of no use, she replaced them in her belt and clipped the barrel of a strange gun and a power pack onto their receptacles on her left forearm, carefully avoiding the blade there.
She could see the target sizing her up; she almost imagined that shining eye narrowing.
Suddenly he charged, catching her off her guard. Just before the attack made contact she jumped backwards, landing perfectly on her feet ready to strike forwards herself. She did, her right fist whistling forward and smashing with a hideous screech against her target's mask. She brought her left hand up and fired a burst of energy that scorched the concrete black as the man rolled.
He pounded the S insignia at the centre of his chest and things stepped from the shadows, charged through the doors, and climbed up from a trapdoor. She recognised them from her briefing, they were robotic constructs of some kind.
She knew, or thought she knew, that robots were useless in combat. They couldn't adapt fast enough.
This would be easy, if it weren't for the massive numbers of the things.
They all came forward in a mass, trapping her in an ever-shrinking wall of metal bodies. She fought ferociously, striking left and right with the acid pump and incinerating rank upon rank of robots.
Eventually though they overran her and pinned her to the floor for her target to pronounce judgement on her.
He stalked towards her, the artificial eye glinting.
All of Titans' Tower was infused with Christmas spirit, apart from the little sanctuaries Raven had created for herself.
Maybe, just maybe, she might be in a very slightly better mood than normal. Although that was probably to be attributed to the defeat and imprisonment of the cultist that had invaded her mind.
She was meditating in the corner when Robin approached her.
Raven didn't bother to open her eyes, "Yes?"
"I was wondering if you'd like to-" He stopped as Raven's eyebrows rose in a gesture that said quite clearly, do you really need to ask? "Oh, OK," said Robin and Raven could sense him walking away. She felt vaguely guilty.
Several days later Raven awoke with a headache.
She sat up in her bed and placed her hands on her temples, her expression serene.
She heard someone knock on her door and turned towards it.
She opened it to see Cyborg. "What is it?" she asked, her voice tired and impatient.
"Come on dude, it's Christmas today," Cyborg said. Raven grunted noncommittally. "No come on Raven, you can't be grumpy every day of the year."
Raven felt the pressure inside her skull build up behind her eyeballs and managed to mutter, "Oh really?"
"Yeah. Now come and have fun." Raven managed a sarcastic expression, but she followed her friend.
Starfire had enthusiastically decorated the central room of the tower, you could tell. There was a magnificent specimen of a pine tree standing over a green and red rug hung with clashing tinsels and baubles of too many different descriptions. The rest of the room was a blaze of colours. Raven gazed into the glittering display of unsubtleness and sighed inwardly.
She sat down on the couch next to Robin and opened a newspaper.
He nudged her, "There's a present for you."
She looked down and saw it. Like all of the room the wrapping was a cataclysmic mixture of over enthusiasm and an image of what festivity should look like.
She gingerly picked up the explosion of ribbon. For some reason she was nervous, she chided herself for it. She managed to pick away the wrapping to reveal a cardboard box. Raven pried it open and picked the gift from its bed of packaging pellets.
She was amazed, not at the object itself, which was certainly worth a considerable chunk of the Titans' combined income, but that she actually liked it.
The object in question was a silver coronet, not lumpy and extravagant, but elegant and subdued. A silver band inlaid at the front with a single sapphire formed the base, and in the centre was a black velvet raven, with gems for eyes and silver for a beak. At the front was a small triangular section that sloped forwards and up to an apex that the raven's head rested in. The entire crown wasn't too heavy and rested nicely in Raven's hands.
"Do you like it," asked Robin eagerly.
"Yes, it's beautiful," she paused, then chokingly, "Thank you." She looked around at their smiles, and knew she was smiling herself. Not a grin, Raven didn't grin, but a small smile, slightly sad, but full.
As the day progressed Raven inexplicably found herself having a good time. She had to fight with every scrap of self-control in her mind to prevent herself from indulging and simply going too far. The fight was hard, harder than it ever had been in all but a few previous moments.
Yet at the end of the day not only had she enjoyed herself but she also had the satisfaction of knowing that she had kept herself under control.
And knowing that, she slept soundly.
She awoke the next morning with a vague feeling of disappointment. Apparently her good mood hadn't lasted. Ah well.
She stood and looked down at the coronet, a solitary tear in her eye. With it, laid out on her desk was the Tamaranian sabre and another item. Seeing it brought a bead of water into Raven's other eye.
She heard a knock on her door and turned slowly, briskly brushing the water from the corners of her eyes.
"Yes?"
Robin opened the door and walked in, "Hey Raven."
"Hello."
He looked quite uncomfortable; Raven noted that he was fidgeting slightly. She decided that she didn't have the time, "Did you have something to say?" she prompted, not unkindly.
"Well we thought we should tell you that nothing's exploded," he said, his eyes roving over the room.
"Oh that's a relief," said Raven her voice coated in a layer of sarcasm.
Robin pointed at something, "What's that?" he inquired.
Raven looked round and picked up the jewelled metal rod that lay beside the crown and sword, "This?"
"Yeah," he answered.
"It's a sceptre, which considering I've recently acquired a crown and a sword is rather appropriate."
"Where did you get it?"
"Like almost everything in this room it's a relic from Azarath. They're all very precious, I can't let people blunder in and damage them. Anyway, the sceptre, when Trigon mortally wounded Azar and left her to die she nominated me as her successor, as signified by the passing on of the sceptre. Ceremonially, that makes me the ruler of Azarath, or what's left of the place since it was destroyed," Robin could sense that she wouldn't say any more if she were pressed.
"So you've got a crown, a sword and a sceptre. What about state robes half a mile long?"
"Well," began Raven, the barest traces of a smile forcing its way onto her lips, "it's funny that you should mention that."
Robin gave a snort of laughter. "Could I see you in them?"
Raven raised an eyebrow, "Quite definitely not."
