Salutations, my dear readers. Is this story really 17 Chapters long? No wonder I'm so tired! It has been fun, though, so I cannot complain at my fortune of being able to write this update, and having you read it! I do love my readers; I wonder if I would still write if no one was reading, but I do know that it would be less enjoyable.
People new to this story or returning after a break might want to jump back to Chapter 15 and read the plot summary to get up to date. Or, you could do the most excellent and enjoyable task of reading the entire. According to Phoenix, this can be done in 2 hours and is quite fun! I promise that they're worth it.
But enough of my ramblings as I hate stories that use too long introductions without cause, let us return to our story where Strata and Raven are coming to terms with each other (and the rain) and Beast Boy and Cyborg have been flattened under a crate by Cinderblock. It is, of course, to everyone's chagrin, still raining…
The Bird, The Boy, and The Mighty Beast
Chapter 17: Who Needs Free Will Anyway?
High in the sky above Jump City and interesting meteorological phenomenon was occurring. Within the dark cumulonimbus clouds charged with positive and negative energy, ice crystals were aligning and fusing and moving about in their own private dance miles above the city with little thought to the world below except their own ritualistic steps across the sky as they had done since the dawn of time. Each crystal was affixed on its own individual place in the dance so much that if it collided with another crystal, the two would fuse and continue their dance in unison, their steps aligned, their rhythm joined in a melody that kept time with roars of thunder. The unified crystals would dance and collide with other members, adding more and more to the growing community of its dance, and egalitarian union of ice, moisture, and hydrogen bonds with no regard to each individual drop's background, ph balance, or acidity. Sadly, each larger crystal became less aware of the cracks in its puffy supports below it and as it grew too fat from its joining brethren the large crystals would fall from its heavenly perch and melt in the night air. Falling with suddenly new appreciation of gravity to the city below where many would alight on the cape of a young girl immigrant from Azarath, clothed in blue and becoming grumpier by the minute.
In short, it was raining, and Raven was getting sick of it.
Turning towards Strata and his umbrella of blue energy, Raven sighed, "I think the sky is laughing at your umbrella. I swear the drops are swerving around it."
The red-haired new comer looked up towards the sky, "The clouds cover the moonlight. I cannot see the moon tonight."
Raven eyed her equally-soaked partner, "I thought I was your moonbeam Strata."
Strata looked at her with a wry smile as if he was going to say something but held his tongue and motioned them onwards. Raven growled inwardly, "Great, he did NOT just get me to say that." The two marched forward, lost in their own multitude of thoughts.
The precipitation was less problematic to some, however. In the language native to the planet Tamaran, this sort of extended thundershower accompanied with rapid dramatic bursts of lightning and window-rattling thunder was called a flubber dubber and was considered ideal for watching outdoor sporting events, going on picnics, and camping under the cloud-concealed stars. In fact, a hailstone falling on your head while sleeping at night during Druru, the third month of the Tamaranian calendar, was considered a sure sign that a special person you were thinking about would fall in love for you forever if you splashed them with water from a puddle before the rain ended.
It was not hailing, and she was not asleep, but Starfire was optimistic nonetheless as she flew down from the sky and rapidly slammed her feet into a puddle right in front of Robin, for the seventh time. They had been patrolling the far northern side of the docks for some time with no more luck than Strata and Raven. Robin had hoped that Starfire might provide some aerial reconnaissance during this mission, but the tall Tamaranian princess seemed distracted with splashing him and asking if he thought it might hail.
"Starfire, will you cut that out?" asked the irritated Titans leader, "Are you hoping I might like it the more you did it?"
Starfire was, in fact, hoping just that. "I am sorry Robin," she sheepishly muttered. She suddenly had an idea, "Do you want to splash me?"
Robin, who had water leaking out from under his mask by this point, failed to recognize the cultural black hole between them, "Starfire, we have to keep looking for signs of Cinderblock. I cannot seem to raise Cyborg or Beast Boy on the communicator; perhaps the storm is interfering." Starfire was sincerely disappointed.
"Friend Robin," queried Starfire, "what could the Cinderblock be doing out here?"
"I don't know Starfire; there's nothing to steal and nothing really worth wrecking. I don't feel right about this."
"As do I, Robin, why would Cinderblock come here and cause the mayhem and bad violence in this rain?"
"I don't know, Starfire; this entire mission is beginning to resemble a wild goose chase."
"I am sorry, Robin; I did not know that I was supposed to be looking for geese. Will they help us find Cinderblock?"
"Starfire….never mind," stammered Robin.
"Do geese even come out during hail?" sincerely questioned the princess.
"No, they are apparently smarter than us," quipped the Boy Wonder.
"So who is this Cinderblock guy, again?" asked Strata, to a very soaked Raven.
"He's a big stone head who tends to break all he touches, not unlike you."
"Please Raven, I only break hearts."
"And garage doors."
"I'm sure there was a heart in that somewhere."
They had been walking for some time under the punishing weather. Still huddled under Strata's now irrelevant umbrella and trying to maintain some pretense of resistance to the thundering skies, the two mysterious teens were wrapped in soaking cloak of night, smelling the salty air rising from the bay. Raven occasionally risked a casual glance at her enigmatic companion. His fiery red hair had darkened damply to contrast with her short, soaked amethyst tresses. As she gazed at him, Raven for a moment wondered if the weather and the rain and Cinderblock were actually all irrelevant to Strata's destiny. Not that she had much information to approach him from, Strata's destiny being at best a subject of conjecture right now. Still, the teen emitted an aura of confidence that made an empathetic connection with his ever-present aloofness. To her, Strata was the ultimate paradox of a person, his presence both reassuring and irksome.
Analyzing herself, Raven realized her mixed reaction towards Strata was likely a product of their last encounter on the roof of the Tower. When she had first given into her dark side around her teammates, she had felt afraid and ashamed of herself for what they might think of her. But now with Strata, she simply felt vulnerable, like he had seen some inner part of her without her letting it into view, like she had unintentionally offered him a part of her inner soul. She had to admit he could touch her raw nerves in a very unique way, yet he also had his own vulnerabilities, his own weaknesses, that led her to realize that she almost felt she could trust him with her insecurities.
"That," thought Raven, "Is his true danger. He is simply too alive."
Strata was also thinking to himself. Mostly, it was about the rain with several images of Ragnarok mixed in. He did think it was strange that Raven kept looking at him with some wonderful gaze. What forces of destiny had tied him together with this dark girl he could not truly appreciate, but he felt that as they trudged through the rain that they were paddling a canoe upstream the river of fate together.
"So we just keep walking until something happens?" asked the newcomer.
"That's the plan."
"The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray."
"Then you should just feel fortunate that I'm neither."
"Raven, can I ask you a question?"
"Go ahead; I know you won't shut up until you've said it."
"Do you believe in fate?"
Raven game him an awkward glare. Fate. Destiny. Those were words that were common in Azarath. A prophecy recited by the Azarathian monk Azar at her birth had foretold that she would be a portal that usher in the end of the world and the beginning of a new reign of tyranny for her father. That was to be her fate, her destiny. Yet, when that day come, her friends had saved her and stopped that supposedly immovable force of fate. For Raven, who was used to magic working the ends driven and prophecies being fulfilled, it had been a mind-shattering event.
The dark-haired girl turned toward her shifty companion as they walked among the shipping crates, "I used to, and I guess I still do…"
"But?" asked Strata, sensing more beneath the surface.
"I also believe in hope now. Why do you ask?"
"I was thinking about free will."
"Deep topic for a rainstorm."
"Do you think we are here by accident and or choice or have forces beyond our control led us here?"
"If this is another attempt of yours to be mysterious, I am not playing along."
"Because, I am not always sure if I have full control of my actions…"
Raven scowled and moved in front of Strata and stopped their movement. She turned to face him, her damp cape throwing more water around them. "Listen up; if you have something you want to say then say it! I am getting sick of your melodramatic, larger-than-the universe pandering. I am the dark, strange one in this city, and there is not room for one more. So if you have anymore of your obsessive drivel to say while I stand here soaking in this abysmal downpour standing here with the most double talking boy I have ever met, I suggest you let it out right now because one more mysterious sentence from you, and I'm going to take my stored up Beast Boy anger out on your red-haired hide!" She took a step forward put her face four inches from his and gave an interminable glare into the Severing Strata's eyes. "So, what now, Strata; anything you want to say to me?"
The seconds of raindrops passing between them were as drops of sand in an hourglass. Strata gazed into the eyes of Raven and wondered what was passing inside her head. As she stood there, the rainwater sliding down her wet skin from her dank hair, he looked into the eyes of someone that he had come to depend on for all his troubles, the one person in the world he did not want to hurt, and was yet the one person that he was probably troubling the most. Strata closed his eyes and suppressed some secret inner pain, then opened them and gazed back into those seething eyes.
"Raven," the boy said quietly, "there is something that I would like to say."
"What?" spatted the young sorceress, with her hands on her hips. "What do you want to say to me Severing Strata?"
"I'm sorry for getting you involved in all of this."
Raven fluttered a little inside, and she could feel her resolve slipping. She had half-expected to blast him into a crate whatever he said, but somehow, Strata had come up with a sentence that made her only slightly less upset with him. Shoring up the emotional reserves that she was not ready to give up yet, she continued her verbal assault.
"That's not good enough anymore. It's too rainy for your apologies. I want answers! You said that Ragnarok escaped your prison; did you let him out?"
Strata was taken aback, "No, no, I most certainly did not."
She maintained her glare, "So he forced his way out?"
"Yeah, I cannot hold him back forever."
Her eyes narrowed, "Will he get out again?"
"Undoubtedly, unless we can find some way to prevent it."
"Where is this prison? Is he somehow in that dark ship of yours? What is in there?"
Strata did not answer, but began staring at the ground sheepishly.
"Where is it you half-hearted coward?"
"Hey you don't have to call me…"
"WHERE?"
Strata was taken aback, and he wondered if she planned to harm him. "I…I…cannot say. It is enough that he is there."
Raven came one step closer to him and grabbed him by the chin, lowering his head so that their noses were almost touching. "It is NOT enough." She stopped talking for a moment. "I know you are in pain. I know that you are hurting, as you said before, you and I share the pain of people being alone." She paused and brought the hand holding his chin to her heart, "We each have our own monsters that we have to struggle with. Who can you tell if not me?"
Strata looked at Raven with a look of astonishment. "The last thing I deserve from you is sympathy."
"You're getting it anyway."
"I don't need your pity."
"You said you needed ME."
"I do."
"I need you to talk to me."
"We need to find Cinderblock."
"You don't care about Cinderblock. Cinderblock is worlds away from where you and I are right now. You came to find me. Here I am. Here we are, two people with our own monsters." She moved her hand from her heart and touched it to his. His jacket was damp, but at that moment, neither of them knew the rain existed. The smells of the salty air were foreign to them. There was that moment, where Raven was struggling to build a bridge between that alienated void that separated their souls.
Raven's voice fell to a whisper, "I need to ask you something, and if what we are doing right now means anything to you at all, I need you to be honest with me, if only this one time Strata."
Strata struggled inwardly. This moment was all too surreal. All he knew was that this heroine, this girl, meant more to him right now than a thousand more Ragnaroks, raindrops, or secret ships. If only he could forsee a happy ending in this, then perhaps he might have felt Ok about what was happening to them right now. Such is the nature of tragedy; the saddest events are often the inescapable nightmares that heroes make in their own minds, be they reality or fantasy.
Raven pressed her hand a little on Strata's chest, trying to sense some inner emotion in him that just would not reach her senses. "I still cannot sense you at all. You are such a magnificent mystery. Please Strata, talk to me. I must know…" Her voice again dropped to a whisper, "Are you the Raging Ragnarok?"
Strata's eyes focused in on Raven's. They grew very large and then narrowed. The corners of his mouth turned down and he felt his forehead grow heavy. "That is your question, is it?" Releasing the now irrelevant blue energy umbrella from his hand, it vanished the second his hand lost contact with it. "That is your question?" he said with the sounds of a churning temper in his voice?
"Yes, I must know."
Strata took a step back and Raven's arm fell limply by her side. "Don't you ever compare me with that monster. He ruined my life! No, we are not the same! Ragnarok is a terror! He lives in a cell of such design that I cannot fathom its make. But it is imperfect; as he is in there, his power grows and waxes and increases and when it is strong enough he breaks free."
"But you too are connected. When he was near out, the stress practically destroyed you."
"Oh yes, we are connected. I know his anger now; it is growing every moment." Strata stopped his tirade and looked at Raven, "I do not know if your presence will hold his fury again."
"But Ragnarok is so filled with sorrow…"
"Sorrow? Sorrow! Ragnarok is beyond dangerous! In spite of that fiend's creation my home is annihilated! My sister is dead, and my parents are dead, and I am alone, the last of my people!"
"Creation? That thing was MADE?"
Strata stopped for a second fearing that he had just made a fatal error. He gathered himself and looked at Raven. "Nothing that cruel can be natural. Everything surrounding Ragnarok, his cell, his powers, even the mighty beast himself was the part of a plot to stop the Tyrant, to put the Tyrant and Ragnarok in an inescapable prison together."
"I am guessing that it did not go as plan."
"No," murmured Strata, "it did not. Ragnarok's prison was inadequate, the Tyrant escaped only to later be vanquished elsewhere, and I am still alive."
Raven moved toward him again, "Is you being alive such a tragedy?"
Strata shook his head, "If I had died on my last mission as I had planned many people may have been saved. After I saw Alisha for the last time, I flew an experimental new fighter ship, the one you saw earlier, toward the battlefield. Our modified weapons were doing ok as I took on the enemy in the air. But while flying, I saw my friend Gradius in trouble below, and I landed the ship to assist the ground forces in close combat…"
Raven put her hand on his shoulders, "What happened, Strata?"
Strata stifled an inward tear, "We had heard the enemy had been using mind control devices; we all thought it was some fantastic rumor by defeated allies, but Gradius and our troops had been turned against us. When I landed, I was knocked out by who I thought to be my friends and was also outfitted with a traitorous mind control device and forced to fight for the enemy."
Raven stared in horror, "And your sister?"
"Unable to control my own actions; I, along with the rest of our army, burned our own city to the ground, helpless witnesses to our own civilization's destruction."
Raven was taken aback. This was what he had been keeping inside? She turned her head towards him, and in a moment of un-Raven like behavior, gave him a hug.
"Are you still pitying me?"
"No," sighed Raven, "I'm glad that there's a least one more monster-plagued teen who knows what its like to be the end of the world."
Strata smiled, "I'm not giving up on you Raven, don't give up on me."
Their grips tightened as the rain fell.
Strata chuckled, "So, back to my question, do you think it is fate that we are here together?"
Raven allowed herself a sly grin, "Who needs free will anyway?"
As they stood there in a deep embrace, the rain continued to fall. And neither of them noticed it at all.
To be continued…
Ok, so it has been a few months since the last update. I have been student teaching in a local high school all fall, and working 10+ hour days takes a lot out of me. As Virginia Woolf once noted, it is incredibly difficult to have a regular job and write often. Still, I am very committed to this story and wish to finish it soon. The future chapters hold some major battles (lots of action very soon), the HIVE 5, Ragnarok, some new foes, the third object in Strata's metal box, and many more revelations. Also, what happened with Cyborg and Beast Boy? Will Robin and Starfire find out what's going on around the docks? And is it ever going to stop raining? Chapter 18 people! That's 3,400 words so R&R!