Raven blinked. Wait, how did she blink? She had felt the very fabric of her being and the world around her be torn apart at such minute levels she had never knew existed. But she was here. She was thinking. How was she thinking?
Raven opened her eyes but realized that she did not have eyes a few moments ago to open but they were now able to swearing the starfield surrounding her. The fathomless deep space filled with stars surrounded her and she was floating freely in them. Floating? She just had that though and could now feel her body. Raven looked down at her hands and saw her delicate fingers. They were hers but they seemed to have an inner glow that was never there before.
'I've got to stand,' she thought to herself and felt the ground underneath her. Somehow, a slab of dirt had appeared around them and it felt like she was on a planet. It was barren, just brown dirt with no hills or valleys. Just flat all the way around.
'Sovereign! He had destroyed everything.' she thought panicked and spun around to see him standing there with a mixture of amused and surprise on his face.
The creature known as Atethis stood there, somehow harmless and bemused of his circumstances.
"What? How? You destroyed everything."
"I don't know," He said but he held up his hands and Raven could see brilliant golden chains around his wrists. "but you bound me."
"I...bound you?"
She remembered that final emotional scream when reality ended and for a split second she could smell the blood and hear the chaos around her.
"I deleted your entire reality and consumed the other along with it but then I find myself bound and unable to move past the void." he said.
For the first time ever, Raven could see fear in his eyes.
"She is one of us now, Atethis,"
The voice came out of nowhere, a gentle melodic voice that was distinctly female. She felt the reverberation of shock from him as he careened around.
"Zanah?" his voice cracked.
"I am here, Atethis,"
The two turned to see a woman with brown hair and big eyes standing in simple clothing. Raven was surprised that they had a similar build and resembled each other. More of the pieces were falling together in the mystic titan's confused mind.
"Zanah, you...you died."
Sovereign embraced his lost love and broke in to a sob that seemed to span an eon. After what felt like a decade, she pulled away with a warm smile and kissed his eyelids.
"Oh, Atethis, I am so sorry that my leaving you has driven you to such horrors."
"They...they dared to evolve in your energy. I could not...i could not mourn you as your spirit was spread so thin."
"My love!" she said, her voice cracking with a sob. "I was always here in your heart. You just had to look for me. We protected existence together and I died to give all of them a fighting chance. There is no greater honor than to be the life of these souls. You have made my sacrifice in vain."
Atethis' legs became weak and he crumpled to the ground but she caught him and held him close.
"You are still gone, aren't you?"
"Yes, my love," she said kissing his forehead and running her hand through his hair. "I am an echo that manifests from the destruction you have wrought. I understand why you have done what you have done but that is not my Atethis. We are not cruel beings who destroy. We love. We create. We fade to the backdrop and give life to the energy and light. You should have reveled in what my death had created. Seen me in the creations of their hands."
"I failed you, my love. I am so sorry." Atethis sobbed. "There is nothing I can do. It is done."
"Not you," Zanah said stroking his head before looking up to Raven as if seeing her for the first time. "but she can."
"I don't know what you mean," Raven spoke out-loud and realized she now had a mouth.
"It is hard to explain with the time we have left of your own echo but you are now one of us. Whatever you did, the emotion that you felt, you took what power was left from Sovereign and made it to your own."
"I'm...I'm a Sovereign?"
"For a lack of a better term, yes."
"And I can save everyone?"
"You must focus all of your energy in to a memory. A memory is just a droplet of reality but if you can focus, make it real in your mind, you may be able to reverse what has been done. But only you."
"What of him?" Raven pointed to Sovereign accusingly.
"I think you know what needs to be done," Zanah said turning back to the broken creature in her arms. "Stay with me until it is over Atethis but it is time for you to sleep."
"Can you forgive me, Zanah?"
"Of course, my love," she said kissing his mouth gently. "but you must pay for the sins you committed. You have no right to see the worlds we created because of the way you treated them. I will not pretend that this will be easy for you, Atethis, but the Golden Empress will seal you away so that you may never hurt anyone again."
"I understand. Will...will I hear from you again?"
"In echoes, lovely Atethis, as you sleep, listen closely and you can hear me in the fabric of the world she shall create again."
Raven closed her eyes knowing what she had to do. She focused on that thought. The battle. The taste of blood in her mouth, the feeling of Jinx's lifeless body in her arms. The sounds of the wings of both Kaz-kal and Millennium troopers fighting mid air. Raven felt it. The svelte form in her arms but she kept her eyes shut not wanting the dream to fade. With every ounce she could muster, she pushed in to that dream and opened her eyes.
Robin gasped as Millennium release his leg and he pulled himself over to the rubble to shield himself. The boy wonder was not sure what happened but was sure that Sovereign had detonated the energy he was holding. Instead, he was greeted by a sight that he thought he'd never see.
Raven floating a few feet above the ground where she had once been clutching Jinx, her robe had gone completely white and her eyes golden and powerful. Everything about her screamed a goddess as she looked no imperiously at the form of Sovereign still standing where he had been after his failed attempt to destroy the universe.
"This ends now, Sovereign," Raven's voice boomed through every fiber of Robin's being.
"I won't resist," his quiet response came.
A surge of energy burst from Raven and immediately surrounded and wrapped around Sovereign like thousands of threads tying him up. Some sort of energy rift appeared behind him as he seemed to close his eyes in slumber. He felt backwards and like that, winked out of existence.
Raven slowly floated to the ground and faced Millennium who had taken a step or two back.
"My goddess," he said with a low bow. Raven waved a hand and another portal opened behind him. Robin could see a dead world glowing sickly green through the cracks and the remnants of a civilization on the horizon."
"Sovereign is now more. Return to the world of your birth and live among the decisions you made."
The giant creature did not resist or even argue, it turned and slunk through the opening with the minions of Millennium troopers following quietly behind. When the portal finally was closed only the Kaz-Kal remind, silently perched on every part of the battered and destroyed temple.
"You are free," Raven said with a wave of her hand. "Your no longer bound to me. Your loyalty to be rewarded. The imprint I give you is to your homeworld that you lost so many years ago. Return and start anew."
Like a cloud of locust, they began to ascend to what Robin knew as their mother ship probably parked somewhere in orbit. Soon all that was left was Robin, a battered Superman, and Raven. She knelt down and gently stroked Jinx's hair that lay unmoving on the ground.
"What now?" Superman asked squaring up to do battle with what he expected to be his new nemesis.
"I shall…fix...what I can," The glowing form of Raven said. "I….have been called the Golden Empress but that is not me. I am Raven. I shall fix what I can with my power and then...surrender to you. Will that suffice?"
Superman nodded silently.
Raven closer her eyes and Robin noted the glowing emanating from her was becoming more powerful. It soon became so bad that he could not look at her and turned away. Then with a snap, it was gone. Robin turned back and saw Raven standing there, in her dark purple cloak and no different than what he saw so many years ago, his best friend.
"Dude!" came a loud voice to his right. "I'm pretty sure I died."
"You think? I remember getting smeared against a wall? How the hell am I standing here?"
Robin turned to see a very confused Cyborg and Beast Boy examining themselves and each other to confirm they were real.
"I am also the surprised," Starfire called from the sky as she glided gently down. "I distinctly remember being torn apart and gazing confused at my lower extremities. But as you can see, I am whole."
"Starfire! Cyborg! Beast Boy!" Robin burst in to tears running over and throwing them all in a group hug.
Raven felt drained. The power that she once had was gone. Consumed in the two acts of creation she had just performed. She had recreated both universes and then reversed the deaths that had been suffered over so many years. She knew around the world, the dead had returned confused and in to the arms of their family.
Even now she could see the big grins of Wonder Woman and Batman (who never smiled) as they looked around at the metas that had once died in front of them. Even the shrill sobs of bumblebee reached her ears and she hugged on Titans East who were as confused as the rest on how they were standing in Ngawa of all places.
"Thank you," Superman said softly as he stepped to her side placing a hand on her shoulder.
"I don't know if it is enough. I have restored what was lost but the memory of what happened will still be fresh in everyone's mind." Raven said with a sigh. "I've done horrible things, Superman, and even this is not enough to make up for it."
He remained silent as she witnessed the hugs and cheers. The impossible had been done. Reality was saved.