Malchior's been alive for centuries, and what he can't match them with in terms of tactic, he makes up for with archaic incantations. Raven, who has studied magic her whole life, takes twice as long to come up with counter attacks for every attack Malchior orchestrates. While her four teammates are adept at countering his physical attacks, Raven is the only one with experience in the otherworldly. So in the intervals when her teammates were spent, huffing on the floor, cut up and bruised, Raven tries her best to twist her tongue around foreign words that'll at least give Malchior pause.
Garfield turns into a whale and drops his full weight on Malchior's head. Only to be flicked across the street. Malchior didn't even need to strain himself. A few words and Garfield was flying. Nightwing, a formidable opponent to almost anyone, can only throw explosives at the dragon as a distraction. During this time, Starfire and Cyborg blast the beast as frequently and heavily as possible. Nightwing runs up the beast's neck, using his baton to poke and prod at sensitive areas like the eyes and ears.
Malchior flexes his chest and tosses them all to the ground like rag dolls.
"Azarath Metrion-" Raven is interrupted when Malchior spits fire at her forcing her to phase through the ground.
"I must admit, you all have sharpened your skills significantly. The green one isn't as incompetent as you painted him to be my dear heart," Malchior chimes. Raven's throat is tight and burning with the restraint it's taken to reign in her anger.
"What do you want from me?" Raven asks through clenched teeth, her powers shoot out like static shocks between her fingers. Malchior bends his long neck down, his tongue swirling through his sharp fangs.
"What more can I ask for when you have given me everything."
"Quiet!" Raven growls from the deep recesses of her chest, a place she very rarely pulls from. A dark, bubbling place.
And Malchior giggles gleefully.
"You still hide. Timid girl," Malchior hisses. "What point is there to feigning innocence when I've known the ravenous appetite within you?"
Raven's powers crack the road between them.
"Why won't you tear me down? Wouldn't it be satisfying to have me rrrrumbling under you again." Malchior laughs, spitting small bursts of fire between his words. Malchior's body dips into the cracks Raven's powers make in the ground. Raven feels her hands go limp beside her.
"I was fifteen," Raven says, her voice warbling as if she is speaking through water. Malchior snarls.
"You are an insatiable demon!" Malchior says, his voice gaining an sharp edge it didn't have until this point. "And a willing, enthusiastic participant in everything we did."
"I was fifteen!" Raven repeats, louder, accompanied by an energy blast that knocks Malchior back a couple of inches. Malchior tilts his head back and laughs.
"You were desired...which is much more than you can say about yourself before I came into your life."
Raven's next blow hits Malchior at the same time that Starfire and Changeling do, and he actually stumbles back a few steps. Long enough for Garfield to turn into a dinosaur and sink his teeth into Malchior's neck. Malchior cries out and quickly grips Garfield tightly in his palm. Garfield transforms into a bird and moves to escape.
"Ah, ah, ah green man. I wasn't done with you," Malchior says, and he forces Garfield to transform into a fish. Garfield plummets and flops into Malchior's palm.
"Turn him back," Raven threatens, using her powers to try to encapsulate Garfield's fish form. Malchior mumbles something, flicks his wrist and Raven is tossed back. Her concentration is broken. She immediately tries again but is faced with a similar result. Garfield flops around energetically in Malchior's palm.
"Turn him back!"
"You want to save this creature. The boy who snuck into your room and listened into our conversations because he was so utterly surprised that someone could love you-" Malchior chuckles. "-or at least feign to."
Raven feels lava erupting in her chest. She shoots her energy at Malchior's elbow. It's enough force for Garfield to flop out of his hand. He immediately turns into a fly and escapes.
"Have you come out of the book to converse?" Raven growls and blasts Malchior squarely in his chest. "Your escape is temporary." Another blast. "You are capable of a lot. But I have leveled an entire world since I vanished you to your book." The last sentence comes out in a deeper, booming voice. It comes from a purposefully untapped reservoir of chaotic power in Raven; it fills her with the weight of it's darkness. She feels her eyes start to split. The next blast causes Malchior to fall to his knees but Raven can still see an amused twinkle in his eye.
"No dear, that was your father's doing, do not mistake his ability for your own."
"I vanished him too," Raven's voice sounds like the scratch of a snow plow scraping against ice packed snow. She wraps her powers around Malchior's neck and lifts him off the ground.
"Have you?" Malchior grins. Raven's powers falter and Malchior drops to the ground. The next energy burst that comes from her is so uncontrolled and unexpected that it hurts as it tears through her corporeal form and tosses Malchior into the ground. The pavement ripples around him and she drags him through the street pulling up pavement underneath his body.
"You think I fear you?" Raven asks, tone even, head tilted. Her eyes have fully split. She's pounding car after car into him. They hit him like bullets. "You pull your power from the darkness. I am the darkness." Raven squishes him further into the ground. "You will return to your book or I will drag you into the fiery depths of the world."
The open holes in Malchior's body project blood onto the surface below him. When he smiles at Raven this time, blood dribbles out of the corner of his mouth.
"I like it better there anyways."
And suddenly, he's gone.
…
Raven can't focus on anything as the team reaches the Tower. She's trying to hold every bit of herself together with thread. She's all filled up and she can feel it in the tightness in her throat, the stinging in her eyes, the pressure in her head, the tension in her clenched fingers. One wrong move and…
She was afraid of what she might do in this state.
She sees the cold waffles on their dining room table. She splinters.
She can feel Nightwing's burning desire to ask her questions. It pushes at her fragile composition like wind on a teetering children's blocks tower.
"We will talk after I meditate," she bites out, not bothering to look back at her team.
But when her bare feet touch the common room floors, it is pitch black outside. She usually hovers over the ground; she hated whenever her feet felt dirty. But her body was exhausted. She needed to feel the cold beneath her feet.
She made a truce with her emotions, but still feels a slight push and pull inside of her gut. She wants to sleep. But she didn't have a room until Cyborg and Nightwing took a look around it for clues. She had been on the roof. Her teammates hadn't even tried bothering her, recognizing she needed space. She faintly hears Garfield on the phone beyond the entrance to the common room. He must be updating Terra. She thinks to herself.
She grabs the tea mug she had just put in the microwave and sits on the counter, resting the bottom on her feet against the door to the spice rack. It was grounding to feel something solid beneath her. She takes a sip of her tea and feels it spread tendrils of comforting warmth throughout her body.
For the most part, Raven was content with her life. But tonight, she wonders why anything couldn't work out for her normally. She fully believes the universe always balanced itself out. In almost every creation myth she's ever read there was always an Evil Twin and a Good Twin. Things were never all bad. But today she lets herself sit in the feeling that she has monopolized grief.
"On the phone with Terra?" Raven asks, when she feels Garfield tiptoe nervously into the kitchen. He slumps in relief.
"Yeah," he mumbles, reaching for the bag of popcorn in the cabinet. He sits on the counter next to her, offering her some popcorn. She politely declines. Silence fills the gap between them like a balloon, pushing against her until she feels like it's going to explode.
"You know- I mean- How are you feeling?" Garfield asks, eventually, fingers rubbing his neck raw. The popcorn bag is long discarded. Raven brings her tea to her lips and stares blankly at the fridge, contemplating how to answer that question when Garfield suddenly coughs. It sounds painful, like a car struggling to start. Raven's eyes widen and she puts her mug down. She moves in front of Garfield, forcing herself in the space between his legs but making sure not to get too close.
"Rae, you don't need to. You've already done-" he begins to say, grabbing her wrist. Raven looks at him, eyes wide. Garfield's close enough to see the dark purple rim around her irises.
"Please," she whispers in a voice that is just high enough for him to hear with his sensitive hearing. His hand drops limply at his side. She debates hovering her hand over his chest but doing so means she'd have to extend her powers a little more to heal him and she is really so very tired. So she lays her hand directly on his chest, peaking at him through her lashes to make sure he is consenting to her touch. His eyes are fixed on her face and she has to look away. She watches as her thin fingers get partially obscured in the curls of hair on his chest.
"I'm sorry." she says, once she starts healing him. She looks up at Garfield tentatively and notices his jaws twitch a little. "He transformed you. I'm sorry," she mumbles again lamely. She feels herself shiver at the memory of her doing the same to Garfield all those years ago.
She sees the veins on Garfield's arm bulge as he clenches the edge of the counter.
"Not your fault," Garfield says simply, but the bite in his tone makes Raven feel like he's just trying not to push her. He's gotten good at that.
"I was the one who let him out the book the first time," Raven mumbles, looking at her feet between them. Her index finger nervously taps against Garfield's chest. Garfield grabs Raven's other hand.
"Rae this is not your fault. He manipulated you," Garfield says, moving his head lower so that he can look Raven directly in the eyes.. Raven removes her hand now that Garfield is fully healed. Garfield feels the cold air immediately assault the place her hand once laid. Raven sits next to Garfield on the counter once more and drops her head into her hands. Maybe it's because they're talking in such low tones. She feels like they're in a tiny little bubble. Raven feels the latch to Pandora's box open up inside her.
"I slept with him," she whispers into her hands, but she knows that Garfield is listening. "Before I released him in his dragon form."
It's quiet again and Raven feels it settle onto her hunched over back, getting heavier and heavier. She feels her palms grow wet.
"You were fifteen Raven. He was...centuries old," Garfield says. "That could never have consensual."
Raven doesn't lift her head. She's told herself those words many times. She's hoping one day they'll make her feel less stupid. Raven tries to make her shaky breathe as quiet as possible.
"I don't know how to put him back in," she whispers, her voice sounding clogged and muffled behind her hands. Raven feels herself shaking. Malchior was out and every dream and feeling she locked away after him felt like it was clawing its way out of her too. She feels Garfield move her hands away from her face gently.
He's kneeling in front of her and Raven can feel the anger bubbling underneath him like a current.
"We are going to put him back where he came from." He says it like a promise, never breaking eye contact and Raven feels herself nodding despite her intuition telling her that Malchior was never going to be locked away completely and forever.
Raven moves to put her sink in the cup.
"I'm-" she clears her throat. " Going to sleep on the couch."
Garfield nods and she feels weird for telling him that. She turns her back on him and shakes her head slightly.
"...you could always sleep on one of my bunk beds," Garfield mumbles and Raven drops her cup in the sink a little louder than intended.
"Thank you, but I need some space tonight," she mumbles, keeping her back to Garfield. She can feel him nod. She moves to the common room doors with the intention of looking for some spare sheets for the night.
"Rae-" Gar starts. Raven turns just as the doors open up behind her. "You know he was wrong right?"
Raven waits for him to elaborate.
"The team...I want you here. I have always wanted you here."
Raven places her hand gently on her neck and nods once. Then a couple other times. She turns her back on Garfield, knowing that she couldn't sit in her sadness for long with a family like hers.
…
It's still pitch black outside when Raven is shaken from her sleep.
"I'm sorry to wake you up Rae," Cyborg says, lips in a thin line. She looks at the clock behind him and blinks a couple times to get her eyes to focus. She sits up despite feeling like something was pulling her back onto the sofa.
"Is everything okay?" she asks groggily.
"I ran a code to look through our security system for any unidentified people in our rooms."
"They would have tried to avoid the camera," Raven says, pushing a piece of hair behind her ear.
"That's what Nightwing and I thought too..." Cyborg starts. "But we found someone."
Raven feels like ice was poured down her back. She sits upright.
"Came into your room while we were all asleep," Cyborg says, then bites his lip. Raven watches as he holds the iPad awkwardly. Raven reaches out to the iPad and looks at the security footage on the screen.
Raven feels bile rise to the back of her throat, making her sweater feel too hot. She feels her vision tunnel as she looks directly into the eyes of the man she's certain had let Malchior out of his book. He was looking straight at the security camera. Raven feels herself shiver.
"Do you recognize him?" Cyborg asks softly. Raven nods, her head feels filled with cotton.
"He's my brother."