Author's note3: Man... My last chapter was really stinky. Even my last author's note was bad. At least my OC origin story was okay. My chapter was deleted while I was in the beginning so I am having serious deja vu redoing my authors note. I try to make it clear that I am following rules so know that my most important one is this: The story will have an ending and an epilogue. It may be a bit early in the game to be thinking about an epilogue but my point is that there will be one.
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Devil's€™ Paradise
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 Starfire stirred. She picked herself up from the hard surface she had been sleeping on and tried to blink away the sleep from her eyes. She gasped. She couldnt believe her eyes. You wouldn’t either. In fact, would you believe it if you was inside a giant, rusty birdcage, hanging from an equally rusty chain that was attached to a metal tree? I didn't think so. You wouldn’t be able to tell that it was made of metal at first because it was brown in color from the rust and had wire sprouting from it like twigs and vines.
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 First, she tried to bend the bars but when she started to use her enhanced strength the bars started glowing red hot and she had to pull her hands away. She then tried to examine her surroundings and discovered her friends were also out cold in cages hanging in the tree like her own. At least she was very close to them, as they were all bunched up together in only one part of the tree for some reason.
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"Friends?" she whispered uncertainly. She tried again until Robin was starting to stir. He rolled from his side onto his belly and slowly managed himself onto his hands and knees. "Starfire?" he grunted. Yes. It is I. Are you all right? she asked Robin I do not like this place.
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 Robin could see why. As if the freaky tree wasn't enough, they were at the bottom of a high cliff. Just because they were at the bottom doesn't mean that it wasn't intimidating. The sky was red, and the atmosphere of dust storms, volcanoes, spiky towers, and a moon with something that resembled a sneering face, made the place look a lot like Mordor from the lord of the rings. Except, you know, bigger.
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 The two of them set to work on waking up the other three. Cyborg's red cybernetic eye began to glow and Robin knew that Cyborg had to reboot before getting up. When Cyborg got up, he groaned, shook his own head and cracked his neck with a crack-clink.
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 Before Cyborg could say anything other than wow Robin asked them where they were. Cyborg, although a little cranky, (no pun intended) opened the panel on his arm and frowned. My scanners don't recognize the surrounding area and my receptors aren't picking up any signals from satellites to pinpoint our location. It feels like these cages are disrupting my systems.
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 At some point Beastboy was woken during this conversation and broke in, Are we in Raven's head again?
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Actually come to think of it, I can't remember anything after we got home. Does anybody else remember what happened to us? Robin inquired.
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 Nobody answered him. Nobody could remember. They all just looked at each other confusedly.
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Umm, hay Raven, are you okay? asked Beastboy. Raven was still asleep despite their efforts to wake her. Cyborg scanned her body for some kind of illness but all he could find was low brain activity, shallow breaths and slow heartbeats. She seems to be just sleeping as far as I can tell. Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary. What could be wrong with her?
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Wouldn't you like to know? buzzed a high pitched voice close by. This one sounded as though the voice was talking through a kazoo. A small creature, about two feet tall, stepped out of a crack in the cliff side. Dang, it was ugly. It had a huge head, which was oval shaped horizontally. It appeared that it had no mouth or nose but two skeletal nostrils, which would explain why it sounded as though it was talking through those two holes. It's huge, powerpuff girl like eyes, had no irises and the black pupils were shaped like stars. It had webbed feet, a thin black stick in one hand, and a black pouch tied off with a string in the other. Plus it was naked as a certain mole-rat so you know it looked just plain weird.
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What have you done to my friend! shouted Starfire. Me? I am not strong enough to do anything to someone who has dark powers stronger than mine. The lord of this world had put her into mental stasis to keep her from helping you to escape. The imp snided. He started walking to the sleeping form of Raven and said Have a nice coma.
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The lord of this world? Could he mean Trigon? Robin thought.
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In case you were wondering, my master isn't Trigon, though I admire his work. No, my master, though maybe not quite as powerful, is much cleverer, or at least he seems to think so... The creature said.
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 Robin was shocked. Can that thing read minds! He thought.
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No, I cannot read minds the thing said.
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Robin's sweat dropped, or at least he would have if he was in his own world with its own laws of physics. No, instead, he made a face that plainly said stupefied and thought Man, for an evil mind reading imp, he sure is stupid.
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I am not stupid! The thing shouted, then, realizing his cover was blown, continued Well, I'm glad you are soon to be destroyed anyway. You will know me as your torturer! I will be the one bringing you PAIN every day! I am... CURSES!
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Wow. It even forgot its own name. Robin thought.
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I DID NOT FORGET MY NAME! CURSES IS MY NAME YOU ROTTEN KID! Curses shouted. He pointed his black stick, which turned out to be his wand, at Robin's cage, which shot a small bolt of lightning, shocking Robin.
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Robin yelped, and Starfire, looking on shouted What did you do that for! Without waiting for an answer, she fired green lasers from her eyes at the imp. Curses sidestepped and, brows furrowed, in retaliated by firing his own red laser-eyes at Starfire. It was like a leering contest where you could actually see the death rays.
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ENOUGH. boomed a thunderous, bodiless voice. CURSES. YOU ARE DISMISSED. I AM TO INTRODUCE MYSELF BEFORE YOUR WORK BEGINS.
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 Cruses, shaking with fear, dashed back into the crack in the cliff. MY NAME IS MALICE. YOU WILL KNOW ME AS YOUR DESTROYER! The voice thundered.
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 Black clouds swirled and thundered overhead and fired a red bolt of lightning, which caused an explosion of dust in the area where it struck. The wind and dust blew towards the titans, causing them all to shut their eyes and block their faces. When they could see again they all, save for Raven, beheld the form of Malice.
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 His body was humanoid, but it looked pale and decayed. His head, however, fused the image of Nosferatu and Dr. Pirana from that old craptastic Street Sharks cartoon. Most of his body was covered in black armor, including his bat-like wings, making them look even more menacing covered in metal.
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I am Malice. The monster thing said in a voice with the same demeanor as Slade. He stretched out his wings with a gross bone cracking sound and a screech of squeaky metal. I own this world you're in, so I make the rules. If you try anything smart, this world will eat you. Understand? A starbolt flew at his head. He turned his head slightly with an evil grin and the starbolt turned in that direction and harmlessly crashed into the cliff side. It seems you need to learn some humility. He said. His face tightened slightly, and the bars to Starfire's cage started to grow more of those strange metal vines, as the bars started to close in.
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 Starfire tried to push the bars back but they started getting hot again. She ignored the pain and tightened her grip on the bars and managed to bend them a little. These bars were stronger than regular metal for some reason. She was about to break them with another pull but a surge of electricity added to the heat repelled her hands away.
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 Starfire screamed as vines became more numerous and started to close of the light. Every one else started to panic for Starfire as she was about to be closed from view. Being distracted by Starfire's plight nobody notices Raven grunting in her sleep as if in a nightmare. The bars on Starfire's cage were about to close off the last of the green light from within when the bars became completely black and returned to there normal shape. Starfire was panting with exhaustion and from her adrenaline rush from that experience. Raven returned to normal and no one noticed anything about the way she acted while this happened.
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 Malice, while not letting it show in his face, was getting edgy about having the daughter of Trigon as an opponent. Let that be a lesson of your insolence. I am law here. That includes the laws of physics, not that you super heroes would know anything about that. he led. He knew that the powers in Raven were dangerous to him with her pure heart, prophesy or no prophesy.
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 Another explosion and streak of red lightning and Malice was gone from view. The Titans were left to just think about there situation. Beastboy tried to escape by turning into a cat to slip through the bars but that was no good, as more bars just appeared to make the spaces impassible even for a cat. The others just stared at him for a moment until he seemed to have given up after trying getting by as a dwarf mouse. Before Robin could attempt a heroic speech Beastboy got there, attention again when he brought his hand over his brow, then turned into a hawk. He turned back and said DUDES! We are so screwed! The other Titans are here too! Cyborg and Starfire gaped but Robin was instead angry with another would-be sweatdrop. He was hoping to have some thunder with his words but now nobody was in the mood to be hopeful now that they knew that nobody would be coming to their rescue. Robin was the least surprised but every one else wasn't prepared for this news because every one else didn't know the other Teen Titans were missing to begin with.
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Later, while they were all sleeping, a loud ringing was heard as Curses woke them all with his giant gong. This wasn't going to be pleasant.
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Authors note: Damn... Writer's block hurts worse than I thought. Sorry this chapter is shorter than I thought it would be. I hope I do not find as many mistakes as my first two when this actually gets posted. Big Red has not been a great help with this chapter. He did describe enough about what Malice looks like. I want to write more but I am losing momentum without reviews. The second chapter is embarrassing but I am sticking with it sadly. I lost the original. I wish I could think of more because there was more I wanted to say while I was working on this. Just call this Hiatus or something. I may never get to finish this during my lifetime. It is sad because I really like being an author.
