Author's Note: my apologies for taking so long to post a sub-standard chapter. It is more of a link between this chapter and the next. However, I could complain about my inadequacies all day, but instead I will ask you to judge the summary for the planned sequel to Templars and Daemons.
Coraxa Pheonixis
Even Trigon feared Appolyon, he knew the extent of the other daemon's power. Azar knew some of his strength, a knowledge she refused to divulge. Raven Roth had only a blank fearfulness, completely useless when she found herselffaced with the master of Death itself.
No Respite
Raven had healed quickly. She had needed something to divert her energy into. So she quickly became whole again, and without, O' Azar Hailiem Danqué! a trace of daemonic tissue. Regeneration on that scale should have seen some part of the newly generated flesh corrupted, but that patently hadn't happened this time.
After a few minutes rest, she should have had at least an hour, Robin had made the executive decision. Slade had to be captured; there would be no respite.
And so, with her energy drained by the strain of regeneration, Raven found herself levitating through the rickety tunnels under the wharfs that Slade was apparently hiding in.
Raven remembered these tunnels in fact. She had dug them, with the traitor at her side. So if these were the earth walls she thought that they were they should reach a massive centre underneath the Tower.
She flew with Starfire at her side reluctantly heaving along the assassin, who was bound up with spare length of Robin's steel cord.
Cyborg ran beneath them, his legs pounding with a continuity that could only be dreamed of by the unaugmented, or to the mechaphobes, the natural.
Robin and Beast Boy managed to keep up, Beast Boy by morphing into some cat or other, and Robin by hoisting himself forward with a gadget of some description whenever he fell behind.
And so they made their way forward, ignorant of what lay ahead, but prepared to fight it whatever the cost.
The reinforced doorways of the control centre came into view, springing from the vanishing point at the end of the tunnel. There were no robotic guards. Robin looked suspiciously at the door, then at the assassin, then once again back to the door.
The doorway exploded inwards and the Titans burst in.
Raven saw that the rival crime lord theory, although perhaps a better description would be hopeful fantasy, had not been quite so farfetched as it had seemed.
The few robots that Slade had not been using as a lure where retreating in around him, surrounded by swarms of other robots of a completely different description. And the machines that the Titans had through a continuous conflict come to know and hate were being butchered, many were lying in little heaps of scrap metal in expanding pools of lubricant.
The Titans turned as one to Robin, relying on someone else's initiative is easier than actually using your own.
He gave the order, and the Titans went, unfortunately the past tense of go is not quite so inspiring as the present.
Raven charged, sword, a streak of bloodied fire, of incarnate conflict, in the low artificial light.
Her comrades with her she began to slice apart the thirty drones that made up Slade's remaining bodyguard.
She became as one with the blade, and lost herself in the precise incisions that the fight became for her. A delicate slash across a crucial wire. A subtle flick and a pipe spills fluid across the floor as the machines falter before the whirling unstoppability.
She saw Slade before her, metal only on the outside, but human within, except in the mind, in the hateful, inhuman mind.
She drew the sabre back above her head, no armour could stop her blow, no survive it.
The cries of her comrades simply did not register upon her as she prepared to strike down like a God in full smite.
Yet she spent to long preparing and a sharp edge of metal cut into the still fresh skin on her abdomen and punch like the iron bar the outstretched arm of Slade virtually became sent her reeling airborne backwards, shocked out of the mindset that would have sent her hacking her way into a bloodbath.
She landed splayed upon the concrete surface, her eyes flickering with the shock then closing with every horrendous appearance of permanence.
The battle effectively ceased. Slade was hit simultaneously by more attacks than the normal human frame could handle. He went down.
The drones that had been attacking him milled around. Robots had no initiative, they could not make decisions, so for the moment, the Titans were safe, at least from being gunned down.
They ran to Raven, and managed to convince themselves that she was fine on the way. Luckily they were right.
The robots came at them seconds after the relief, falling upon them with claws and short ranged weapons that attacked with static electrical discharges.
Cyborg was vulnerable so the other Titans drew the robots away, leaving him to watch over Raven's unconscious form, with its limbs splayed in an insane balletic posture.
He knelt, his right arm whirring into cannon form, and muttered, "Man, you are getting it bad girl, you're getting it bad. Kidnapping, stabbing, now this. Everything's suddenly about you."
As if to prove his point the mob of robots that his friends had led of into the labyrinths of tunnels which had been bored by the vast worm machines suddenly returned, carrying the limp forms of Robin Beast Boy and Starfire.
No one had noticed, but the assassin had found some way of slicing her bonds, probably employing a shard of shrapnel, and had faded away into the darkness and was probably busy escaping from justice.
The robots advanced, charging their stunning weaponry as they came.
Cyborg took up a firing stance and pumped rivers of glowing might into the horde. The ultrasound heaved the machines apart with horrifying efficiency where it made contact. But the machines weren't built for subtlety. They were designed to mob their targets, and that was what they proceeded to do.
Cyborg fought with the ferocity of a wolf surrounded and selling its life for the pack, for the greater whole.
Yet like the analogical wolf, he was struck down stunned.
Three of the mechanical troopers were fitted with flight devices; they took Raven, handling her form with the utmost care. A care that everyone would afford to someone so seemingly peaceful as she was at that moment.
The others placed the other Titans on the hard floor and stood around them, motionless, the only symbol of their alertness the eerie red lights that were an ever-present part of machinery.
The robots took off, boring their way through the rock out into the open, and then carrying Raven's unconscious frame between them skimming over the bay then the concrete skin of the city, and then, finally, alighting.
Raven slept with every outward appearance of peace, but what meaning did appearance have?
Her dreams were troubled, not by any defined sense, but by a looming dread, growing closer, mightier, more defined. It skulked as yet in the periphery of her consciousness, unseen, known only by the shadow of nameless fear that it cast out in her dreaming.
Raven dreamt, unknowing, for three days.
Then, slowly, she awoke.
Determined never to give way to cliché Raven did not wonder, who am I, or indeed where am I? She instead gave her mind over to the thought, who has brought me here?
The unfortunate thing about the cliché in question was the fact that it was completely logical to wonder where one was, especially if the location was unfamiliar. And so Raven found herself pushed down the, where am I, thought path.
She was lying in a large yellow orb, not solid, but somehow separated from the rest of the world. The orb nestled on a stand at one end of a large airy room with high old-fashioned rectangular windows that stretched from the ceiling to the floor.
At the other end of the room was a desk covered in miscellaneous clutter, Raven identified a model battleship, a bust of Athena and a stand containing a large fountain pen.
It was morning and golden sunlight was streaming in through the windows, highlighting every speck of dust in the whirling dance that added grace and character to the space. On the floor was a deep maroon carpet; the walls were covered in mahogany panelling. Here and there were a few pictures, mostly landscapes depicting farms or mountains and in one case, a city, or at least its skyline.
Raven lay in the bubble for a time, searching her memory for any recollection of this place, but apart from a slight resemblance to Azar's residences it was completely new.
Her thoughts were broken by the entrance of a man through the doors at the opposite end of the chamber.
He wore a rugby shirt in a dark blue colour that contrasted with his smart trousers. His face might be described as handsome in an old kind of way. A Victorian style moustache stretched across his upper lip and was emphasized by, Raven was almost amused to see, a monocle. The man wore a slight frown and had eyes that seemed to put you on trial when they passed over you. His arms were folded and his head was tilted to one side, his features set in a thoughtful expression and his eyes resting on Raven.
Raven groped for some way to break the silence that seemed to grip them, motionless.
She needn't have bothered. "Good morning miss Roth," said her host with a smile. The man's smile was at best friendly, yet vaguely and ethereally annoying, irritating in some uncertain way. It gave you the feeling of having been somehow outsmarted.
Raven decided to take Azar's advice, or at least utilise the sentiment of one of her long informal lectures, which ranged from the correct application of politeness to the best way to avoid long-term disappointment, to the fundamental desires of the human psyche.
She opted for politeness, "Good morning sir."
"Please Miss Roth, though I may actually be a knight there is no need for formality. Now, allow me to introduce myself," he had advanced slightly and was now subjecting her to the thoughtful expression once again. "I have the dubious fortune of being called Greenwood Scott, snigger if you will, and I have of course heard of you, Raven Roth. Oh yes, I've heard of you."
"Please call me Raven," said Raven, annoyed, "I would like to labour under the delusion that only my friends could know the name Roth." The request was delivered coldly.
"Very well Raven, very well. Now, you must come to breakfast so I can explain myself."
"I'm trapped in a bubble," said Raven shortly raising her eyebrows in a gesture that was part accusation, part query.
"Oh yes, I apologise, but it was the only reliable way of protecting the property. I bought it off a man who called himself The Mechanic, apparently it contains psychic energy very efficiently." So, she held in an inescapable sphere to protect the property had she? Hopefully this Greenwood Scott's apparent tendency to say more than he really should would let her find the real reason.
He led her out of the room, the other end of which had been lined with bookcases containing the works of Jane Austen, and a compilation of the quotations of Churchill among multitudinous other volumes, most with an aging appearance.
She followed her host through wood panelled halls bearing relics from the ages of feudalism and the Industrial Revolution. There were massive pikes hung in what might be called bouquets, crossbows and deer heads, along with a sculpture of a lion swathed in the pelt of one of the creatures themselves.
It gave the appearance of an old castle or family manor, inhabited for generations by lords who could afford to go out shooting birds and the animals of the woodlands. Yet that could not be so. Closer inspection was required.
By now Scott was leading her into a large dining room with a long table easily large enough to seat ten people on each side. Two places were laid in the centre and Raven took a moment to marvel at the sheer array of food that this stranger had purchased, seemingly only to accommodate her. Suffice to say that there was food of all kinds, a variety of which the Agricultural Festivals of Azarath would have been proud to boast. Would have been proud to boast.
Scott sat in the chair on one side of the table and gestured to Raven to take the other. "You will, of course, be wanting to know why you are here."
"It did cross my mind," said Raven coldly with a you don't say expression on her face.
A flash of annoyance flickered on Scott's face, "Very well, Raven. If you wish I shall tell you."
Raven smiled with an obligingness that did admirably well to smother the sarcasm that screamed to escape.
Judgement on this man could be reserved for the moment. And when she pronounced her judgement, she hoped, mostly for her own sake, that it would be favourable.
