Chapter XXVII
I had another dream of her last night. Of Anna. We were walking in the park together. Laughing. Smiling. Happy. I hold her hand, wrapping our fingers together as she leans her head against my shoulder. I ask isn't it uncomfortable to walk with her head turned like that? She replies that it doesn't matter as long as her head is next to mine. We sat on a bench and watched the setting sun, the sky a painting of brilliant orange and yellow with strokes of white clouds here and there. I remember thinking to myself that there was no way this could be a dream, because my mind alone could never come up with something this beautiful.
I woke up in tears.
That girl Lucie came today. She was a rather gutsy child; she asked me to scoot over on the bed then propped herself on right next to me with a book in her hands. She ignored when the matron scolded her for her rude behavior. I heard her pencil scratching away on the book. She paused for a second, and then I heard her matron say to her, "Lucie darling, Mister Crowe can't see, remember?" I don't know what happened next, but I could guess that the girl gave a pouty face to her matron, whom I heard sigh and tell me, "Today the class had a day of silence to honor those with disabilities. They're not allowed to speak for the whole day. I told her because she can't talk today and because you can't see anything, you two wouldn't be able to play like the other days, but she refused to listen."
Play. What a funny word to describe our interactions. I do not understand why she keeps gravitating towards me. Ever since the accident, I've never particularly liked the presence of anyone. But on the other hand, having someone here makes the days a little less stifling, so I never minded when the girl came. But to describe it as play… Ridiculous.
I asked the matron what the girl just wrote. The woman walked over, glanced at the book, and said aloud, "HELP ME. It's a coloring book, so I assume she wants you to help her pick the colors to draw." I said that was fine and asked the matron to leave us be. She gave up and left with a sigh.
"Alright," I said to her. "How are you going to show me pictures I can't see?" The girl smiled—or at least I imagined that she smiled—and grabbed my finger in her little hand. Guiding my finger, she placed it on the page of her coloring book and began tracing the image. Once she was done, she repeated tracing it two more times to make sure I got it. I tried to imagine what image my finger was tracing, then said, "Is it… a bird?" She placed my hand on her head then nodded vigorously. "Alright. A bird…" I said. "Should it be a brown bird or a blue bird?" She didn't reply, and I realized she wanted me to decide. "What's your favorite color?" I asked her. Still she didn't reply. I give in. "Okay then. Let's make it a brown bird." This produced a response as I heard her rummage through her crayon box looking for a brown crayon. "Make the body a lighter brown," I suggested. "With the wings a darker brown. And the talons should be kind of yellow. With a gold beak." The girl followed my instructions very obediently.
We kept like that for a few more pages until a doctor went in and said in surprise that my heart rate had strangely rose greatly. Later on I heard him speaking with a nurse about it and shrugged it off as being an effect of being touched for the first time in months. I suppose it was true.
"You are dead, Malcolm," Raven once told me. "You are dead and you have been ever since Anna left you. You have to let her go." The words felt so long ago, but they still echoed in my mind as clearly as if they were uttered mere moments earlier. "If she loved you, she would have forgiven you. Love is forgiveness, Malcolm. So it's time you forgave her for leaving. And it's time you forgave yourself."
I have let go of Anna. Since that moment, I abandoned my dream of finding her. She is out there somewhere, alive and happy I presume. I doubt she even thinks of me anymore. What am I to you, Anna? Am I just a passing thought? A flagrant memory? Am I not even deserving of a place in your mind? You were my everything. You are my everything. I have let go of Anna, but if these dreams of mine mean anything, it's that a part of me is still clinging on to her. I want to know what love is, the love that Raven had so clearly proven to me existed, but the only love I know is Anna. And so, part of me is still clinging onto her. I have let her go, but if I'm still clinging to it, it must be because I have nothing else. Take away Anna, and I'm empty. There's nothing left but an ugly shadow—a rift.
…
Raven felt her shaking hand clutch the knob of the bathroom door. A drip of sweat slid down the temple of her forehead as she whispered in gasps under her breath, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos." A dark portal appeared on her feet as she sunk into it, reappearing in the kitchen where she slowly sat down onto a nearby chair, waving her hand to telekinetically brew some tea, a dark aura wrapping itself around a tea packet that floated into the air and landed with a ploop into a cup that was slowly filling with hot water. The cup glided through the air and landed effortlessly into her hands. She took a sip of it and immediately spit it back out, having forgotten that the water was still very hot and that the tea hadn't even settled in yet. Her mind was playing tricks on her, she tried to convince herself. No—she was sure everything she had just seen was real. It was her powers getting out of hand, like the time she watched the horror movie and her powers manifested her fear into reality. No—this was different. She had nothing for her powers to react to this time. So many things she didn't understand about what had just transpired but only one thing was for certain: what she had seen—whatever it was—was definitely and without a doubt Anna Crowe.
Anna, Raven remembered, was the mysterious woman who was once betrothed to Malcolm Crowe but left him on their wedding day. Her act of doing so brought Malcolm down from the grips of sanity and led him to assume the identity of Rift, committing many serious crimes which included kidnapping various young women and controlling their minds and forcing them to take on the name of Anna Crowe. One such woman happened to be Madame Rouge, one of the members of the Brotherhood of Evil, whose shape-shifting powers made her ideal to Rift's desires. His act of doing so attracted the Teen Titans to him in what would later be referred to as the Crowe Case. Eventually the Titans discovered the truth and Madame Rouge was free from her trance. In the years that followed, Malcolm would enlist the help of Slade Wilson in order to track down the real Anna Crowe. Slade would eventually find Anna's whereabouts, information which he taunted Malcolm with before he was ruthlessly killed. To this day, no one knows where Anna Crowe truly was.
Until now. Raven took a sip of her tea.
How was it that Anna appeared in Raven's mirror? Was she even still alive? The way she emerged was almost… ghost-like. In a blink of an eye she was Raven's reflection, and just as quickly—she was gone. What does this all mean?
She jumped in her seat as she sensed a presence approaching her. The sound of light footsteps echoed in her ears. She felt herself holding her breath and tightening her fists as the footsteps gradually grew louder and louder.
"Azarath…" she whispered underneath her breath.
The presence grew closer.
"Metrion…" She furrowed her eyebrows.
A tiny mouse emerged from the corner. Raven sighed in relief and relaxed herself, making a mental note to call an exterminator later.
The mouse quickly shifted into a human and greeted loudly, "Honey, I'm home—!"
"Zinthos!" Raven shrieked in surprise as a flash of darkness sent Garfield flying across the room. He landed with a sharp thud on the wall and sank to the floor. "Owww…" he yelped. "What was that for?"
"Gar!" she gave a sigh of relief. "Oh, it's only you."
"Of course it's only me," the man said exasperatingly as he rubbed his head, pain surging throughout from the impact the wall gave him. "What got you all jittery?"
"It's—nothing," Raven answered. "Where've you been so early in the morning?"
"Just fetching the morning milk m'lady," Gar playfully replied in his best impression of a British accent. "And the doctor's. They said you should just get some rest for your cramps and nausea."
"'Just get some rest'," the sorceress scoffed. "Doctors make over $200,000 just for telling me what I could look up on WebMD."
Gar shrugged. "You get what you pay for, I guess. Thanks to their superhero pensions, we don't pay those docs even a dime." He narrowed his eyes at his wife. "Are you okay? You seem kind of pale… or should I say, paler."
Raven quickly felt her cheeks with the back of her hand. They felt cool to the touch. "Oh, I don't know," she said, diverting her eyes and taking a sip of her tea. "Must be because I haven't gone out in a while."
"Well, now's your chance," her husband replied with a cheery clap of his hands. "How about a lil' road trip to this lovely place I heard of called Blüdhaven?"
"…You're kidding, right?"
Gar sighed. "Nope. Dick called. He and Star might need our help, and since we both don't have much to do, I said why not."
"Ugh, just when I thought we could have a break… Well, fine. I'll go get ready." Raven did her best to make it sound like a bother, but deep down she felt relieved. Months of inactivity had slowly entrapped her in boredom and she was immediately perked up at the idea of going out and fighting crime again, more so that it was with her old friends.
Walking into her bedroom, she briskly paced towards the wall next to her bed and constructed a dark portal, phasing through the wall and appearing in a room filled with superhero gear and gadgets with a single supercomputer situated in the center. The room acted as a Batcave of sorts and, since Raven and Garfield were officially retired, they rarely entered the room unless to contact other superheroes. In fact, this was one of the few times that the room had ever even seen a visitor since its construction.
Raven came towards a vault and waved a hand over it, releasing the magic seal over the door and unlocking the vault to reveal a shadowy blue leotard with a cloak and raven-shaped hood, attached with two golden disks along with a gold belt and matching knee-high boots and arm gloves. The new uniform was created by Azarathean seamstresses shortly after the Second Sorcerer-Demon War and was aesthetically based off the outfit she donned as a teenager. She quickly changed into her new suit, which fitted her perfectly and allowed for great protection against physical and especially magical harm while maintaining flexibility and a light weight.
The sorceress exited the room to find a changeling standing before her in his own updated uniform—a bodysuit sporting white on his chest, forearms, hips, groin, and feet and crimson red on his underarms, sides, and legs. "Hey there, princess of New Azarath," he said with a sly smile. "It's been a while since I've seen you in uniform."
Raven smirked. "You don't look too shabby, yourself. Changeling." Her calling him by his superhero name was something she hadn't done in years, and brought her a slight wave of nostalgia. Her compliment evidently boosted his ego a bit more than she would've liked as he proceeded to flex his muscles in an attempt to make them appear more defined. She rolled her eyes. "Okay, we're going to Blüdhaven, right? Give me a sec…"
Closing her eyes, she raised her hands in a cross, focusing on the location she wanted and chanted, "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"
A dark flash erupted but instantly died down like a flame that was extinguished the moment it was lit. Gar, who had shut his eyes, slowly opened them to find nothing. "Yo, Rae," he said. "I thought you were gonna make a portal. Rae?" He glanced over to Raven to find her staring at the palms of her hands, a look of bewilderment in her eyes. "Raven?" he called to her gently, taking a step towards her. "Are you okay?"
"Y—yeah. I just… I must be tired, that's all." She looked up to meet him eye to eye. "Let's just fly there. It won't take long.
"Fly?" He lowered his hand and placed his hands on his belly, giving it a little shake. Admittedly, it was a bit looser than he had hoped. "Well, looks like I could use the exercise," he laughed with a smile.
She smiled back. "You're starting to gain weight already?"
"Shut up and let's go!" he chuckled as he ran out the door, followed by his wife. Before he shifted into a falcon, however, Gar lost his enthusiastic grin. He pretended not to, but he had seen the look on his wife's face. That unmistakable look of worry, and almost a look of horror.
…
Blüdhaven was once known as Commonwealth, back in its days as a whaling town in 1912. Due to many failed attempts at transforming itself into a manufacturing and shipping center, the town had a generally poor socio-economic population, and as such lived through a corrupt balance of underhand dealings and unlawful policies, which was helped kept in check by the corrupt local police force. Seventeen-story monoliths of buildings towered the city, its walls coated with filth and graffiti. Flickering streetlights dimly lit the crime-infested streets, casting a muted glow on the occasional bloodstains. The drug game was everywhere, with the handle of a gun or a knife protruding from the top of every tenth person's waistline. People who lived in Blüdhaven felt like prisoners, kept in check by roving bands of gun-strapped gangs and a nightmare army of drug fiends. If you're not from Blüdhaven, you don't go to Blüdhaven. That was the rule—the unwritten law of the city that never saw justice. This all changed when Nightwing and Starfire arrived.
Shortly before the Second Sorcerer-Demon War and Trigon's attack a year ago, Nightwing had been paying a visit to Gotham when twenty-one corpses were found washed up in a nearby river. Further examination of the corpses revealed they were the dead bodies of criminals belonging to three gangs residing in Blüdhaven: Dragon Tails—a Japanese gang branching from the Yakuza who claimed the city for use as an international base for the shipment of illegal weaponry and firearms—, Arsenic Candy—a gang that essentially monopolized the drug business with Blüdhaven and its surrounding parts—, and Apocalypse—the largest out of all the gangs that formed just for the hell of it and consisted of former prisoners, corrupt policemen, and well known hitmen, among many others. Months of investigation into the hellish city revealed that the gangs were all secretly under the indirect control of Roland Desmond, better known by his alter ego Blockbuster. By the time he had discovered this information, Nightwing had already agreed to take residence in the city and clean it completely from the ground up. Starfire, of course, refused to let her pregnancy get in the way, and helped his as best as she could. In the months that followed, crime in the city still existed but was greatly decreased and the gangs had lost much of their power in the streets. Facing the hardest blow was the Apocalypse gang, as a good majority of their corrupt police force had been arrested and sentenced. The biggest victory was that Blockbuster had just recently been exposed and put behind bars. Blüdhaven was still not yet safe, but at least it had been released from the Blockbuster's chokehold.
"So what's goin' on now?" Cyborg asked as he and his former teammates sat together in the Grayson living room. "Blockbuster's locked up tight and the gangs have died down a bit after the gang war was stopped, right?"
"Right," Nightwing nodded. "Unfortunately, it turns out all of this was just one piece of the puzzle—of a really big puzzle, too."
Silence gripped the five former Teen Titans. Changeling gulped. "How big?" he asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer or not.
Raven, who had been closing her eyes, slowly opened them and said calmly, "Big enough for Superman, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter to be here hiding in this room."
Starfire, Nightwing, Changeling, and Cyborg jumped in their seats as a man dressed in a blue and red suit with a flowing cape, a beautiful woman in blue and red clothing, and a man with green skin draped under a blue cape materialized. The four Titans slowly took their seats. Nightwing—who had instinctively reached for his Eskrima sticks—relaxed himself.
"My apologies," Martian Manhunter started. "I can cause the bio-polymers in my body to lose their ability to reflect light, rendering myself and others invisible to normal light and human sight," he explained. "I can also mask most other senses as well in order to make myself highly undetectable. But how did you sense me?"
Raven answered simply, "Some things can't be concealed."
The Martian gave a single nod and turned his attention to Superman. "Greetings, Titans," the Kryptonian said. "Although, I'm not quite sure if that is the appropriate title for all of you now, considering that one of you is on-call and two of you are retired completely. Anyways, we apologize for intruding and cloaking ourselves but we found it necessary considering our current situation. Granted,"—he glanced out the window onto the streets of Blüdhaven—, "this isn't exactly the safest place for us to meet."
"Don't worry," Nightwing assured confidently. "This is my city now. As long as I'm alive, I won't let any of my guests get hurt."
"Not that we don't trust you," Wonder Woman replied, her voice a sweet and soft melody. "But we're not entirely sure that that is in your power."
"Why? What is happening for you all to be here with us?" Starfire asked, a look of concern growing on her face.
Superman turned to Nightwing. "How much did Batman tell you?"
"Not enough," came the reply.
He nodded. "That's just like Bruce. J'onn, do you mind doing a search on the city for Desmond?"
Martian Manhunter nodded and headed towards the window, placing his fingers on the temples of his head.
"Desmond?" Nightwing furrowed his eyebrows. "As in Roland Desmond? Blockbuster? He's just been put behind bars."
"Think again," Clark Kent said. "My sources say he's connected to the man we're looking for. If he really is connected to Ives then I highly doubt a cell will be enough to hold him in."
"Ives?" Changeling said with a puzzled voice. "With all due respect, Superman, we still don't know what's going on here so do you mind explaining a bit?"
"Ives…" Cyborg muttered under his breath, searching his mind for the name that struck him as familiar. "Professor Ivo, isn't it?"
Raven examined the Man of Steel, whose black hair had begun to gray and whose fair face had started to wrinkle. "Yes," he answered. "Dr. Anthony Ives… I assume you are familiar with him. After all, he's the reason you're here today." Everyone in the room looked at Cyborg in surprise. Superman explained. "Professor Ives was the Project Director of the A-Maze Operating System at S.T.A.R. Labs many years ago. He pioneered the organic pattern process: the means of creating technology to mimic organic life down to a cellular level, which lead to the successful creation of A-Maze OS that could mimic cellular regeneration. Consequently a similar program was created without Ivo's knowledge and was based off of his own OS. It was dubbed the B-Maze Operation System. The B-Maze OS was used by Dr. Silas Stone many years ago to save his dying son. As a result, his son Victor Stone became half man-half cyborg."
Cyborg cleared his throat. "Ives—who's recently taken on the persona Professor Ivo—has been searching for years for the ingredients to create an immortality elixir. By the looks of it, it seems he's already finished it," Wonder Woman said.
"How?" Raven wondered aloud. "Something like that—an immortality elixir—that can't be easy to make. Figuring out how to make one is hard enough but having to find the right ingredients, too."
"Well he's had a long time to work on it. His big break didn't come until many years ago, however. He had found out that in order for the serum to work, he would need a key ingredient that was almost impossible to find—Unobtainium. Luckily for him, someone was selling a 1/100th fragment on the black market."
The Titans froze, each of their jaws slowly sinking towards the floor. A 1/100th fragment of Unobtainium sold on the black market. They all remembered and they all knew. Eight years ago, when they first met Rift, he was stealing a 1/100th fragment of Unobtainium to sell on the black market for a sizeable amount of money—money that he would've used as Malcolm Crowe to pay for his and Anna's wedding. It was because of the Titans' failure to stop Rift eight years ago that inadvertently led to Professor Ivo's success at achieving immortality.
Superman continued. "The good news is Ivo destroyed his creation shortly afterwards. As with all things, the immortality elixir had a massive drawback—it forced him into an eternal life of great illness in which he experiences tremendous amounts of pain on a daily basis—illnesses that included Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, asthma, cancer, cardiac failure, diabetes, Ebola, hepatitis, HIV, and tuberculosis."
"So while the good news is Ivo is no longer the problem, the bad news is one of his creations is," Martian Manhunter explained as he walked back towards the other superheroes. "Amazo—the world's first fully functional Android—was a creation of Professor Ivo designed to protect him at all costs. What makes Amazo so dangerous is that it runs on the A-Maze OS, utilizing new and superior technology; instead of just regenerating cells, he can absorb them. This means that just by touching a metahuman, he can completely and precisely replicate their superpowers."
"We've had some difficult times with Amazo in the past, but now he's coming back full force," Superman added. "It seems now that he's coming to Blüdhaven. J'onn, did you find him?"
The Martian nodded. "He's hiding in the penthouse of a building five and a half miles south-south-west of here." He turned back towards the Titans. "Amazo seems to have struck a deal with Roland Desmond whom you call Blockbuster. It seems that the android wishes to use Blüdhaven as his base of operations. In exchange, he will kill anyone who threatens to get in Blockbuster's way."
"Forgive me, but I do not understand," Starfire said. "If Amazo and Blockbuster both wish to take over Blüdhaven and quite possibly much more as well, how could they both cooperate with one another?"
"You see, that's where things get tricky," Wonder Woman answered. "As far as we know, Amazo doesn't have a goal for himself. His original programming has him to serve Professor Ivo in his search for an immortality serum. Once that was completed, we don't really know what he's programmed for now. From what it seems, Amazo's programming and his own sentience and artificial intelligence does not display any intent on world conquest. From what we have seen, he only exists to destroy and kill."
Nightwing began to understand. "Amazo wants to destroy, Blockbuster wants a weapon."
Superman snapped his fingers. "Exactly. This is why we need your help. Diana?"
The Amazon princess nodded. "Because of Amazo's powers, the only thing that can contain him is the Fortress of Solitude, where Superman has a chamber that will nullify the A-Maze OS's absorption technology. We are asking you all for help. Nightwing and Starfire, you both have made Blüdhaven your home. You know the city as well as Blockbuster the best out of anyone. Cyborg, the B-Maze OS that saved your life literally flows through your veins—and your circuits. Part of that can be used to fight Amazo and bring a stop to him."
"No offense, but uh… why are Rae and I here then?" Changeling asked unceremoniously.
Superman gave a cheeky grin. "Well, we saw it as a chance to reunite the Teen Titans again, so why not?"
"Awesome," Raven muttered in her usual deadpan voice. "So what's the plan?"
"First, we find Blockbuster. Then we wait for Amazo to come and ambush him."
"That sounds almost too easy," Cyborg smirked. "Booyah, baby. We're back in business!"
"Keep your guard up, Tin Man," Changeling laughed. "You've gotten a bit rusty lately—literally, aha!"
"Keep on talkin', String Bean."
"Friends, this is just like the olden times back in Jump City!"
"A decade's gone and past and nothing's changed between us, huh?"
Superman smiled. The Titans reminded him of the vim and vigor he had many years ago. "Oh, that's right," he suddenly said. "Nightwing, Batman told me there was a certain someone you knew who could help us on this mission."
The look on Dick Grayson's face blackened. "No," he replied sternly.
Starfire seemed to immediately understand as she said, "Dick, she might be of good help for us." Cyborg and Changeling both glanced at each other at the mention of a "she".
"Catalina will not be involved in this no matter what. I am not resorting to her for this." Nightwing's voice suggested that he was clearly very much against the idea. By now, the others were interested.
"Who is Catalina?" Martian Manhunter asked him—though asking was simply a courtesy as his telepathic powers already allowed him to read Grayson's mind.
"Nightwing, please," the Man of Steel said. "Keep in mind how important this mission is. Now this Catalina person—would she be a big help?"
"We can get along fine without her—," he started.
"Yes, she very much would," Starfire interrupted. Turning to her husband, she said in a whisper, "I know you do not approve of her but reflect on this: how much quicker would we have captured Blockbuster in the past few months if she had assisted us like she requested?"
"And how many more people would be dead?" he hissed back.
"Nightwing." The couple looked up to see Wonder Woman gazing at them with her dark, imploring eyes. "Please."
Grayson looked down and relented. "Fine." Turning towards his old teammates, he explained, "There's something we haven't told you about what's been happening in Blüdhaven since we got here." He looked around to see everyone staring intently at him. He gave a slow sigh as if it hurt him to say it, but continued. "We told you about the three gangs, right? Well there was a fourth gang directly under the command of Blockbuster, himself. They were his lassies who did all the dirty work and contacting the other three smaller gangs. A couple of them were metahumans, too. About a month after Star and I came here, we met one of his accomplices—a woman who went by the name Tarantula. Her real name was Catalina Flores and she was a former FBI agent and the sister of Mateo Flores, Blüdhaven's assistant district attorney. She was a mole, working for Blockbuster but secretly leaking information to her brother. After some time passed, she found out that Mateo was working for Blockbuster all along and so she came to me and Starfire, asking us to help her take Blockbuster down. I refused because her methods were… questionable."
"Questionable as in?" Cyborg asked.
"As in she would kill her own brother without a single hesitation. Which she did." Nightwing paused, letting everyone react in their own way. "And you know how I feel about killing people," he added. "So while I accepted any information she could give me, I refused to work with her. And I still do."
"Understood," Clark Kent nodded. "But if the situation calls for it, you do understand that she is someone who could be of great use to us, correct?"
Nightwing bit his lip. "If the situation calls for it… I'll call Catalina myself."
"Thank you, Dick." He turned towards Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter. "We'll be off now. Let's meet again tomorrow. Rest up." Before the three left, he added, "And prepare for something big." With that, Martian Manhunter placed his hands on the shoulders of the other two and they disappeared without a trace.
The five remaining superheroes all sat in silence, not knowing what to say next. They all looked at each other wordlessly and noiselessly, each in a state of utter quietness. But there exists a kind of understanding between comrades as old as they were—an understanding that doesn't require speaking. They all knew what the other was thinking, and all knew that only a single thought existed in each other's minds at the time. It was a sense of relief as well as a feeling of homesickness. It was like a déjà vu just as it was like a reminiscence. It was the feeling that for the first time in a while, things were like what they once were.
…
"I'm full," Victor Stone sighed.
"What'd I tell you?" Karen said. "Liz's restaurant recommendations are top-notch."
"I had no idea that chicken wings could be that delicious. Oh man, if only I could go back in time and eat it all again…"
"That's a familiar line," Bumblebee smirked. The two walked side by side, both staring up at the white clouds. "So are you gonna do it? Fight this Amazo guy or whatever."
"Of course," Victor replied. "My friends are in danger. I'd do anything to help them."
"Good." The two walked for a moment down the street until Karen sensed something was off about her boyfriend. "Hey," she said. "You okay? You seem a bit quiet."
"Hm? I'm not quiet."
"Come on, Sparky. Talk to me."
Vic sighed. "It's just… okay, so get this. You know how my dad saved my life by putting all these robot parts on me?"
"Mhmm."
"Well those parts are running on this program called B-Maze Operating System. Modified, of course, to be used specially by me, but the base program is the B-Maze OS. And Amazo—he's an android that runs on something called A-Maze OS. Basically he's made up of the program my entire system is based off of."
Karen nodded. "Yeah. So… what?"
"So… I dunno. It's weird hearing something like that. I mean, you wouldn't understand but hearing about this android, this—this robot, is almost the same thing as me… it's scary." Victor's gaze lowered to his left robotic arm which, over the years, had been upgraded in order to create a layer of a substance that gives the appearance of human skin. He grazed his fingers over the dark, fake flesh and hesitantly tapped on his wrist. A blue glow emitted from underneath the skin on his arm, reminding him that he was part cyborg, after all.
"Sometimes I just can't help but wonder how human I really am," he continued, his voice growing more sullen as he spoke. He raised his arm up to his eye level. "Just think about it. Sometimes I forget what part of me makes me human. Am I even really me? Or just a robot who can only respond or react and act like I'm a real person?"
Karen sighed. "Look, Sparky. I know you feel that way sometimes, but you're you no matter what, so—"
"Look, it's easy for you to say that. You don't understand—"
"Now you listen here, Victor Stone and don't you interrupt me," Karen asserted more firmly. "Don't you say that I wouldn't understand. You're talking to a girl who can change into a bee, for crying out loud. Half of our friends are from other planets! Starfire is the princess of a planet where "nice" isn't even in their vocabulary. Raven was born from a demon god and was conceived solely for the destruction of everything. So don't you dare say we don't get what you're feeling 'cause we all understand a goddamn more than you think we do."
Victor gave a long, yet gentle sigh as he stared into his girlfriend's eyes—brown, yet gained a slight hue of hazel in the sunlight. They seemed like earth, gentle but strong and reassuring. "I'm sorry, baby girl," he said as he brushed his fingers over Karen's cheeks. "I don't mean to offend you, but… it is a little bit different. You all don't have to worry about if something's real or not. You know that you are all you."
"Then, what's the difference?"
Victor couldn't help but look away. "Sometimes I don't know if my feelings are real or if they're just my programming."
Karen frowned and hid her disappointed eyes. Victor never did like talking about commitment or relationships. She was reminded of the fact that she and he were the only ones of their friends who were not married. Her relationship with Victor over the years was… complicated to say the least, with so many on-again-off-again's that she had lost track. Sometimes she wondered, too…
The two walked next to each other in silence.
…
Raven was surrounded by the Anna's. There were maybe ten of them surrounding her in the room, all identical to Anna Crowe but with pale, ghastly faces with a look of terror on them. They stood silently. Suddenly the room began spinning and the Anna's began revolving around Raven. They reached out their arms towards her, gliding steadily towards her. Just as their cold hands were about to come in contact with Raven, bright lights suddenly flicked on.
"What's going on?" Gar asked.
Raven caught her breath and looked around. She was standing in the living room of her apartment and Gar had just entered and turned on the lights. She was suddenly aware that she was levitating in the air.
"Are you okay, Rae?" her husband asked as she slowly descended to the ground. "You've been acting kinda weird lately."
The sorceress placed a hand on her cheek. It was ice cold, but was beginning to regain warmth. "L—let's go to New Azarath for a bit," she stammered.
"Um… sure, okay," Gar nodded. "Let's go."
"Okay…" Raven raised her arm to cast open a portal, but found that nothing happened. "Again…" she muttered. It was the second time today that her powers had failed her. What was happening?
She quickly walked into her room and searched through her stuff before coming back out with a teleportation orb. Waving her hand above it, the small orb no bigger than a golf ball grew thin wings and dashed into the air, disappearing in a flash and creating a portal. Gar looked at her cautiously, then entered the portal. Raven followed suit.
The two emerged in Etzel's workshop, where the man greeted them fondly. Raven asked to be taken to Azar, which the old captain was more than happy to do. Within moments, the three had come to the Throne Room and Raven and Gar were let inside.
The beautiful sorceress and ruler of New Azarath stood before them. "Greetings," she said. "What brings you here, Lady Raven and Garfield Logan of Earth?"
The two bowed respectfully to her. Raven began, "Your Holiness, I'm terribly sorry for the intrusion, but there was something I need to know right now."
"Yes, Raven. Anything."
"What can you tell me about… Wanderers?"
Azar's eyebrows raised upon hearing the question. "Wanderers? As in wandering spirits?"
Raven nodded. Gar looked at the two of them in confusion.
"Well, as you know," Azar explained. "When a person dies, their spirit enters the realm of Purgatory, also known as the Land of In Between or its most common name—the Phantom Forest." She turned towards Garfield. "You are aware of this, I believe?"
He nodded, remembering that this was the mysterious forest realm that he and Raphael had walked through just after Trigon's defeat, where he had met the souls of the dead.
"Most of the spirits stay in this realm for varying amounts of time, and when their time has come, they board the Phantom Train and are taken to the after world." Azar paused a moment. "However, there are some who choose to stay in Purgatory—rather, they force themselves to. These souls have a very strong will inside them, a will that must be completed in the mortal world for them to be able to pass on to the next realm. Wanderers are very rare, however. Trigon, himself, is now a Wanderer, except in his case he is bound to it for eternity."
"I see. Is it possible for Wanderers to take form on our world?"
Azar shook her head. "No spirit is that powerful. However, if their will is especially strong, they may bind themselves to something or someone in order to help fulfill their wish."
Raven suddenly felt her heart jump. She placed her hand over her chest. "I see…" she sighed.
"Raven," Gar said. "What's going on? What's all this about Wanderers and spirits?"
The sorceress turned towards her husband, then towards Azar, then back towards her husband. "Maybe it's better than you know, too," she thought aloud. "Some strange things have been happening to me lately."
"Strange?" Azar said.
"Yes. I feel as if a wandering spirit has latched onto me. The spirit of a woman named… Anna Crowe."
Gar's eyes widened upon hearing the name. He stood silently as Azar closed her eyes and waved her hands over Raven, muttering some incantations in a foreign tongue. As Azar opened her eyes moments later, she nodded and confirmed, "I sense another spirit within you."
"So if that's the case, what should I do?"
"Perhaps mend her soul. Fulfill this wish that she so direly needs. Only then will her soul be able to pass on."
"I saw her." Raven and Azar both turned to Gar in shock as he said this.
"You what?" his wife asked.
"I saw Anna." Garfield remembered very clearly as if it had been yesterday. It was a year ago when he and Raphael were in the Phantom Forest.
Gar stood with his parents, Slade, Horatio, and the Azarathean soldiers who had been killed in war. He then noticed from the corner of his eye a woman standing in the distance. She had long, brown hair, blue eyes, and wore a sad look on her face. Before he could recognize her, she briskly turned around and walked away.
He raised his finger and pointed towards her. "Who is—" he began, but was interrupted by the sharp sound of a train horn.
That woman he had seen in the Phantom Forest, he now realized, was Anna Crowe.
"If that is the case, then we know for sure whose spirit it is," Azar nodded. "Raven, you must end her suffering. Help her to pass on to the next realm so that she may be at peace."
"This must explain why my powers have been weakened, lately," Raven said.
"Your powers are weakened? That is not the work of the wandering spirit then."
"How do you know?"
"I have met a wandering spirit once before who had come to me for help just as the spirit of this Anna Crowe had come to you, and in all that time my powers had not waned."
Raven had a confused look on her face. "If Anna's not doing it, then why are my powers suddenly weaker? Today I couldn't conjure portals at all and I feel drained at times."
Azar gave a shadow of a smile. "Have you been feeling fatigued lately?"
Raven nodded, "Yes."
"Stomach aches? Nausea? Dizziness?"
Raven nodded again. "Garfield had just come back from the doctor this morning about my stomach aches. He said I should just get some rest."
"My dear Raven," Azar said as her smile slowly grew. "Just now when I examined your body, I sensed your soul and I sensed the soul of a wandering spirit as well. But there was a third soul I sensed. A small one."
Raven's face bore a look of utter confusion before the dawn of realization slowly took over. Her hands immediately came to abdomen as she looked to her husband Garfield, who also came to realize what Azar had hinted at. "Oh my God," he mouthed. "Oh my God." His gaze lowered down to his wife's midsection then back to her face, shocked yet overjoyed. A rush like a great wind swept before the two as the joined each other in an embrace. Gar began to stroke Raven's hair as he held back tears of joy. Raven normally never liked hugs or any kind of physical contact at all, but this time she hugged him tighter than she thought possible. Moments like these, she needed a hug.
…
Today that girl came by again. Lucie brought me out for some ice cream. It seems that orphanage has nothing to amuse her anymore since it seems she spends far more time visiting half-dead people like me than she does in there. Today I found out she was ten years old. Ten years… I had always assumed she was much younger. Her antics were always somewhat childlike, after all. That girl is gutsy, too. While we were on the bench licking away at our ice cream she went up and asked me without hesitation how I became blind. Had she any parents she would have been scolded immediately for her rudeness. But her bluntness actually amused me, so I told her the story of how it happened—a house fire that accidentally happened as I was mourning my late fiancé. She asked me about Anna, too, but I was less obliged to answer that one. All I told her was to imagine the most beautiful woman you have ever seen and Anna would be even more beautiful than that. She was a free spirit, a dove in a barren land.
She told me how boring the orphanage was and how she wished she could find a real family. I told her immediately I had no intention of being her family if she believed that would be possible, and she—snarky little beast that she was—answered that being family with a blind man was boring since she'd have to do most of the housework.
She then told me that her matron told her blind people often feel trapped like in a cage. I told her I suppose it was like that, but I personally feel it's more like I'm alone on a dark path with no one else with me, and as I stumble around in the shadows my fear of the great unknown that lies all around me grips me tightly like chains. And then Lucie said: "Even if you're going on a dark path, you still have the moon and the stars to light your way, don't you?"
I paused for a moment. I didn't answer her question. Rather, it seemed like she didn't want an answer. She grabbed my hand and pulled me up from the bench. "Let's go on a journey," she said. She told me that since I was on a dark path, she'll be the moon that lights my way. Without a moment's hesitation she sprinted back towards the hospital, dragging me along with her. I almost cry out in shock for it was the first time since I was blinded that I had gone faster than a steady walk.
It was that morning that I was swept off my feet and I began to ran.
I ran and I ran and I ran. I was afraid at first, but my feet kept up with hers and never once did we trip or bump into anything. I began to relax and loosen up. As we ran, so many things began to take notice in my mind: the gentle breeze flowing through my hair, the warmth of the sunlight against my skin, the softness of my clothes as they touched my body, the hand that tightly grasped mine, the tap-tap-tapping sound of my feet against the sidewalk, the fresh smell of daisies in the surrounding gardens. A laugh escaped me at one point, the first time I had laughed in a while. This girl—this ten year old girl—was dragging a blind man through a busy street running like it was no one's business. Naïve. Bizarre. Hyperactive. It's like on I'm a rollercoaster—being jerked around and around mercilessly and tyrannically. It's like this girl herself is a journey with no clear destination.
I read something once, from a poem or a play or a book: "The moment I met her, my world began to take on color." I thought about it today, but I reminded myself of the cold truth: My name is Malcolm Crowe. I am going Nowhere. I am living in Monotone. My fate will Never Change. My fate to live in this eternal darkness shouldn't be allowed to change. I have hurt so many people. Destroyed so many lives. I deserve this cold emptiness.
Before she left today, she told me to wait a moment as I sat in my hospital bed. I heard the sound of crispy paper being folded as I waited patiently. She pressed onto my hand what felt like paper folded in a large ring. She told me it was a bracelet to go with my hospital identification bracelet. She said she made it from the paper ice cream cones we had eaten from. Apparently she had a talent for origami since at one end of the bracelet there was a tiny but distinguishable paper bird, which she carefully guided my finger over so that I could feel it. She said she was inspired by the brown bird I helped her draw a few days ago. She told me she hoped I could be like that bird and be free one day.
I threw the paper bracelet away when she left. Hours later, something within me urged to search through the trash can until I could find it again. It only took about half an hour. I wore the thing on my left wrist. I'm certain the staff will have no problem with that, or with cleaning up the mess I had made while rummaging through the garbage. As I felt the little paper origami bird on the bracelet, I admit that I felt what seemed like a crack of a smile on my face.
That girl, Lucie. She was a nuisance, an annoyance. Number one hyperactive knuckleheaded orphan. Without her, my days would be more quiet and less noisy. Without her, maybe I could actually have a moment's rest. But without her, my days would be dry and barren, as ephemeral as a passing second. I cringe whenever I hear her voice at my doorstep, yet I loathe the emptiness of the room that permeates the air when she leaves. They have a word for this feeling that I can't quite remember. Something I haven't felt in a long time. I wonder what it is.
~Difficult Words to Say~