A/N: Sorry for the silence on this one. I've been in too way good of a mood to write on this fix. It's late enough at night that I'm able to get another chapter out. Yay!
It was time.
The feeling flooded through Raven like a dawning truth, and it caused her eyes to pop open. She felt the thrum of excitement, the primordial terror of failure, and the fact everything was about to change permanently.
Raven and Jinx's naked bodies were intertwined among the blankets and pillows in her room of the Fortress and the pinkette mode in protest when Raven pushed her off. The woman walked over to the windows and throwing them open to allow the light to flood in. The rain from last night left everything glistening in the morning light as the sun came up.
It was time.
"Wake up, Jinx," Raven ordered as she pulled on her dark dress and fastened the control gem around her throat.
"Just five more minutes, Mistress," Jinx muttered rolling on her stomach and burying her head in the pillows. The Midnight Empress scooped up the leather belt and gave a good swat across the sleepy girl's exposed posterior which caused her to yelp and fall out of bed.
Fastening the belt around her waist, Raven leaned down to the surprised and sleepy girl.
"It's time."
The knowledge that the world was on a knife's edge was not lost on Robin when Batman signaled for the pullback of his team from Boulder. They all knew the alignment of the realities would give their lost friend a clear shot at opening the portal to Sovereign's prison.
The Quinn jet that had picked them up screeched through the sky towards the rendezvous, only miles away from Boulder, Colorado at the foot of Apache Peak. They did not want to sit on top of the portal point in fear of the rupture, destroying their chance to stop the evil creature. Robin leaned forward with hands together while Cyborg and Gizmo were going over some of their gadgets.
"You get the briefing, Robin?" Clint asked in the jumpsuit beside him. Robin nodded without looking at the bow and arrow wielding Avenger.
"We're air support on the southern flank. We're to keep Midnight's troops busy so Superman and Shazam can close in on Sovereign."
"And the Midnight Empress."
"Yes."
"You gonna be okay, kid?"
"Do I have a choice?"
Had they ever had a choice. Weren't he and his friends just curled up in Titan's tower only over a year ago eating pizza and watching movies? Now, he was part of an army that was trying their best to murder a woman that he once cared so much about.
'Not murder. Stop.'
This was war, and this was something that needed to be done to preserve the rest of reality.
"T minus 13 hours before optimal alignment," Iron Man's voice came through the speakers. His suit of armor flying in formation beside them. "Then, the party begins."
The Armies of Midnight rose like a dark cloud from the Fortress. The heroes and metas that allied with her taking the lead of Millinium's minions. The giant cyber bug himself was not far, towering over her thin frame like an ever-present watchdog with the power to level streets. Raven strode out among the troops, humans who had joined her cause, Metas who saw the truth of Sovereign and the cybernetic bugs that followed Sovereign's oldest ally.
Even clans of the Kaz-Kal, space insectoids from another galaxy had joined her cause, probably sensing the impending doom if they continued to resist. Blackfire and Jinx stood in the front of their legions, their heavy black outfit mirroring her own in their own unique cut. Jinx was showing some skin while Blackfire's resembled more battle armor of Tamaran.
"Lead, Archon," Millennium's voice thrummed in low pressure. "We shall follow you."
Wrapping herself in the golden light of her power, Raven rocketed into the sky, and the swarms followed. The first fight of the final battle about to begin.
The wind whipped and cut at her, but Raven pushed through, her mind focused on the goal, to land in the center of the point and ripped a hole in the fabric of space. The thoughts of Robin's laugh, Starfire's ill aligned words, and Cyborg's battle cry flitted across her mind, but she shunted it aside. There was a greater good to be fighting for, a greater good that required sacrifice.
'Can you do it?'
Sovereign's voice came through to her mind as clear as a bell. The alignment was almost perfect, and his presence could be felt.
"Can I do what?"
'Can you kill them if you face them?'
"I'll do what I have to do, my Sovereign," she answered, pushing her friend's faces out of her mind. "Whatever it takes."
Conveniently, the mathematics pointed to the entrance of the portal being in a field at the foot of Shoshoni Peak, and it had allowed them to dig in and hide among the sparse wood and rock faces. SHIELD and ARGUS agents with all sorts of weaponry, metas that Robin had never seen, and weapons of all sorts had been set up. Robin strode out of the Quinn Jet, his armor activating and the mask extending and wrapping his face. His titanium gap still billowed, but he resembled more a soldier than the hero of Jump Suit. The suit's optics kicked in overlaying the scene with augmented reality.
Cyborg strode up beside him and pointed to a cluster of trees.
"That's gonna be the best place to intercept any of the air attacks. We're gonna need to keep as many as we can off of Iron Man as possible."
Traveling a few more clicks, His new Titans found their spots and quickly hunched down to hide. Gizmo dropped a few scatter probes that masked their signature from any sensors. Starfire huddled in close to him. She had donned the full Tamaranian armor and face mask. Koriand' r had insisted as this was a fight for the existence of her own people too. Her eyes flitted to his mask a few times as they silently waited. Bumblee had shrunk down to a smaller size and up in the tree.
It was now time to wait.
The waiting was the hard part. The holo chronometer counted off the seconds, and the sun slowly rose into the sky, bathing them in its light. It had begun to get hot to the point that his suit's environmental systems kicked in to try and regulate. Birds were singing, and animals flitted to and fro as if nothing unusual was happening.
A few deer had taken up to eat in the center of the large field oblivious that they stood in the center of an intergalactic portal point.
"This waiting is killing me," Gizmo growled, his binocular lenses zoomed out giving him a strange insect-like look.
"Trust me; we're going to want to wait as long as we can. Once it starts, it's going to be all in." Cyborg responded. "There's no booyah in what we're about to do."
"Robin?"
Dick Grayson turned to his friend Starfire, who had come up close and lowered her voice. "I understand how difficult this is for you, but if you face Raven and find that you cannot do it. I will kill her for you. I am willing to take that burden."
"Star..." Robin started as a wave of emotion, choked him. She had spoken all their fear. Each had pretended not to hear her words, but he knew that they had.
"I'll make it quick. A snap of the neck and she won't feel a thing. It's the least I can do for someone who has meant so much to us."
"I'm not giving up on her," Robin said firmly.
"Dude," Cyborg said as quietly. "She's gone. If we don't kill her first, she'll take us out. You saw her eyes. Our Raven is gone. It's the Midnight Empress we're about to face."
Starfire returned to her spot to keep a lookout, and for the next hour, the image of Raven's lifeless body and the sound of her neck snapping played over and over in his mind's eye. It couldn't come to that. It couldn't.
"Heads up!" the speaker in Boy wonder's ear kicked in. "We've got incoming and a lot of it."
Robin looked up at Bumblebee as she zipped down and returned to size, her entire body covered with yellow and black armor, weapons at the ready.
"What is it?"
"They're sending in the grunts. Clouds of cyber minions and Kaz-Kal. They're going to try to overwhelm and hold so they can bring the bitch in."
"Alpha-2 this is central," Batman's voice came over, grim and somber. "It's a go. We see Midnight Empress in the center of the cloud. Pull those flankers away and give us our opening."
"Understood," Robin responded standing and turning to his team. "Let's do this."
Charging out, all of them shot into the sky. The jet pack lifted Robin off the ground while Cyborg's jet boots, had him going alongside Gizmo. Almost immediately the sky became alive with multi-colored energy bolts emanating from hiding spots cutting into the swarm and dropping them in droves. It seemed though that for every one killed, three appeared in its place. Bombs and bolts cut through them, and The New Teen Titans all banked north drawing a good swarm of them away. Below Robin could make out the descending mass being met by the colorful metas of the Avengers.
"Damn, all hell just broke loose!" Falcon called as he shot overhead, machine guns blasting away.
'No, hell is coming.'
In the center, Raven watched from her floating perch in the sky. The swarms had begun to descend, and as she had expected, Iris had set up, and they were mowing through her troops efficiently. She had expected as much. With their positions shown, the sorceress turned to Jinx and Blackfire and gave them a nod. With glee, the descended leading their armies with them.
The Midnight Empress watched closely as the battle raged, watching for her opening to cut through and to land. She could feel the urgency, the draw of the alignment growing closer. Raven could taste the anticipation coming off of her imprisoned comrade.
"Now!"
Without hesitation, she shot down towards the spot, and her guard followed. They twisted and turned as they descended, and she could feel the enemy focusing their firepower on her. Heroes flew by in blurs as the Kaz-Kal, allies, and cyber minions put themselves between them and her. She alighted on the ground and fell to her knees. She drew held her arms out, and the world became silent.
What was next was sheer pain as the power exploded out of her and into a forming vortex. An energy beam sliced through her shoulder spurting blood, but she could not care. Sovereign had come.
Forcing her eyes open, Raven saw the black portal that warped reality as if being pulled inside and from the distant stars. A form appeared and stepping out, floating in the air was a young man with brown hair, simple features but brilliant glowing gold eyes. He glided forward with a grin of pure ecstasy on his face.
"I. Am. Free!" he said with a laugh that seemed to reverberate through her.
"Sovereign!" Raven choked out a warning as she saw Superman come blasting from the woods, every ounce of energy thrown into the Kryptonian's influence. She knew that the blow he was about to deliver could shattered meteors, but when it connected with Jason's face, he barely flinched. Superman halted in front of him with a mixture of surprise and realization of how powerful the entity was.
"Hello," Jason said, a look of glee on his face. He backhanded Superman which sent him soaring away and impacting the side of a mountain. Shazam, in his red outfit, tried to hit also but found himself caught by the arm and hurled into the ground below, leaving a crater on impact.
Raven floated up to him, and he turned his eyes on her. His smile softened, and the girl's heart thrilled with excitement. It was horribly stupid of her, but she was glad he was handsome. Her Jason wasn't striking or adonis, but his eyes seemed ancient but kind. He ran his hand down her cheek.
"You've saved me. Thank you."
"Anything."
"Now, hold them off while I begin my process of bringing peace."
He floated upwards with arms outstretched and instantly, she felt a strange tug on her body and mind as if the world itself was beginning to shift and phase.
"SOVEREIGN!"
Raven turned to see Superman, bloodied and bruised charging in again with Wonder Woman right on his heels. Jason gritted his teeth and turned to face the attacker but caught the glint from the corner of his eye just like she did.
Batman stood there with Coulson with a strange bazooka, and the realization hit.
"No!" Sovereign's scream of anger reverberated through her.
Instinctively she flew up to him to shield him, but he dropped and grabbed hold of her. Instantly, she felt white-hot as if his hand was somehow cooking her body completely. She screamed in pain as he held her fast with no way to escape. The feeling broke abruptly when a bolt of red and blue energy struck him and dropped him to the ground. Raven could feel the power being ripped from him. Iris had done it. They had found a weapon to hurt him.
Dropping as fast, she caught the entity who had fallen unconscious, and as Superman darted towards her to grab her, she threw open a portal, fell through and snapped in shut cutting of the shout of rage from the Kryptonian. The next thing she knew, she hit the marble floor of the Fortress hard, the sorceress head slamming with a sickening crunch and though being ripped from her.