March 11, 2005
I am so sorry that I didn't get this up sooner (for those of you who wanted me to). I've had a hectic week, and on top of that it has been a horrible one. Keep in mind, hectic is usually a good thing for me, it just means I've been pretty busy. Anyways, my tuba broke (no lies, I play tuba, and it sprang a leak, which messed up the pitch and overall tone). So I've been panicking about that getting fixed because we have a competition tomorrow (as of when I'm typing, not when you're reading). On top of that, I have gotten horribly depressed about… something. If you ask, I probably won't tell you (no clue why you would). I just really don't wanna talk about it. Actually, I've been so depressed I couldn't even write, which is a first for me. This made me even more depressed. So basically I was screwed for this.
Also I'm reading both The Tempest and Divine Comedy for English, as well as writing an Opposing Viewpoints essay for the same class. Math is chaos, as usual (logarithms should DIE). World History is slitting my throat, since it's getting close to Test Day (I'm in AP, so it's a college test and I'm a sophmore in high school). We've got a review tomorrow from 10-12 (the band thing is at 1), and then at least 2 a week between now and May 3. Chemistry is making my brain hurt, as it always does, and I've given up in Spanish. And Band is Band. If you're in one with a psycho band director (ALL HAIL MRS. McCRACKEN!), you know what I mean.
So I've decided to write what I have now, and I'll clean it up later. If any of you were actually looking forward to this, I apollogize if it isn't great. But Evanescence is playing, I'm watching my recording of TT (starting with Birthmark, of course), and me and Brendt have been stuck with each other for the last 12 hours thinking up stuff for the Comic. We got some kick-ass stuff on the way with that. So I think I'll do reasonably well.
So, keep an eye out for the hidden song. It's only a couple lines, so look carefully. And it's in the thoughts/words of a particularly important person (not important character, but a person who has had major influence on history). No more clues.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed (sorry I'm not listing you, I don't know who you are cause I don't have internet access cause my parents have gone schizo about it). You know who you are. And sadly, that is the most reviews I've ever gotten for a completed STORY, not to mention single chapter. I've gotten… 5 before for one story, but 4 were from the same person. Anyways, I've begun to ramble. So thanks, and please review again, and this chapter is dedicated to you (and to Brendt, of course).
Oh yeah, and when Rage mentions the Phoenix, the next time she says "Raven" the "r" is lowercased. That is intentional. If you read it, it should make sense (she's been talking about birds up to that point). Anyways, I'll let you go.
HAIL THE ALMIGHTY ORACLE, TAIBA!
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Raven scrambled to her feet, the burns forgotten.
"Hello, father," she said challengingly. Slowly she walked towards him, feeling the soft sand slipping between her toes. She sighed softly at the pleasurable feeling as a thought slowly crept its way into the fog-shrouded hollows of her mind.
There was sand between her toes.
Her shoes were gone.
Jerking her head down, she saw her pale feet contrast sharply with the fine black sand. And she saw that her feet weren't the only parts of her anatomy that were showing.
Raven covered herself quickly, a faint blush creeping up her face. "Father," she growled threateningly, "Clothes… NOW!"
He chuckled, a silent, sinister rumbling. Though she could hardly hear it, the sound rang a beautiful, horrifying chord through every fiber of her being.
"Very well. But thou must first extend thine limbs and stand normally."
She glared at him in disgust.
"The spell shalt not work correctly unless thou dost follow mine instructions."
Slowly she turned away from him, trying to show as little of herself as possible as she stood straight and let her arms drop to her sides.
"Mine daughter," Trigon laughed cruely, "Dost thou honestly believe that a Demon Lord such as I wouldst waste mine sacred time using the foul body which thou dost inhabit? Methinks I couldst better use it to find a much fairer wench."
Do I really look that horrible? Raven thought, sadness and self-consciousness flooding through her. She realized she was feeling emotion, but nothing was exploding; before she could wonder why, her father gave a barely perceptible nod.
The sand swireled up around her, the suddenly sharp grains cutting at her skin. The vortex clogged her throat, momentarily blinding her as it coated her eyes. Coughing against the coarse particles, the introvert felt a thousand needles pricking her skin, then the dust fell slowly to the ground.
She blinked the sand, once more very soft and comfortable, away, coughing the last out. Hesitantly she glanced down at her new clothes, not feeling any there and wondering if Trigon had merely been pulling some sort of prank on her.
She was wearing clothes, though. A black leotard, similar to the one she had worn in life, now covered her thin body. The sleeves had long slits running down their lengths, displaying her slender arms to those who chanced to look.
The front differed greatly from her old clothes, however… if you could even call it a front. The neck went into a V, narrowing down to just under an inch as it crossed her breasts. It was held closed there by a complex lacing of softly gleaming gold of an unknown karet. Past her cleavage, it once more widened to show her entire stomach. The opening closed just below her bellybutton. Somehow the entire thing remained skintight.
The belt she had previously worn was back, though the gems seemed to give off a soft radiance that hadn't been evident before. Similarly, the gems on top of her hands seemed to glow eerily. A dark emerald bedecked the broach that now clasped her cloak, laced slightly with a swirling mix of several other colors.
Her new cloak was pure white, crossed by a number of hellish symbols and designs in a dull crimson.
The entire thing felt as though it wasn't there, making her feel as though she were still revealed to all who set their gaze upon her. She shrugged the feeling away and looked back to her silently waiting father.
"It's adequate," the Gothic girl said as insultingly as possible. After all, he had just called her ugly.
"Must thou always bicker, child?" he enquired disapprovingly.
At the Demon Lord's words, she laughed disbelievingly, remarking, "Maybe if you hadn't tried to, you know, kill me, I wouldn't." Then she grew serious and met his stony gaze in a silent, deadly challenge, "But keep this in mind, father: I have the power over all things now. Try anything, and your fate will make Cocytus look like a playground."
Beast Boy followed quietly behind Rage, through a mist of gently falling dust. For a moment, he stopped and stared at the ground, now coated in a solid half inch of the particles. They were a mixture of blacks and greys, with some white thrown in.
The emotion turned and watched him with a sickening kind of amusement as he hesitantly scooped up some of the stuff and sprinkled it onto his tongue. He felt sick, then a brief diziness, then he felt energized, even more so than before.
"Does she taste good?" Rage asked, a smirk crossing her face as confusion spread across his.
"She?"
The Ravenite gave a cruel cackle when she heard his questioning voice.
"Your little bird burned," she purred in an oddly seductive tone, her eyes shining as she watched him, "and now her ashes rain eternally in what was once her mind."
He looked in horror at the floating ahes then to his hand, still smeared with the falling remains of his dearest friend, comprehension dawning.
"That's her, Beast Boy," the emotion said. There was a strange change in her voice… almost as if she was… sorry?
"And this bird was no Phoenix; your raven will never rise from the ashes."
Beast Boy turned away, squeezing his eyes closed as his stomach heaved. His already boosted energy took another sudden jump, making him feel stronger than even the Beast had. Fighting off the dry heaves that racked his gut, he turned to look at the red-cloaked Goth.
"Why do I feel stronger now?" he demanded.
"Raven's ashes still contain part of her magic, but more importantly a part of her soul. She put a spell upon herself, so that her closest friends could still benefit from her even after death."
"I don't understand that last part," Beast Boy muttered, shaking his head in a vain attempt to clear his hair of the soot.
"You felt energized when you were near her in life… don't deny it, we've all felt it. Her emotions, I mean," the now-blushing changeling closed his mouth, having attempted to dispute her claim, "She knew this. and this is her way of acknowledging it."
As he nodded, understanding a little better, Rage reached inside her cloak and pulled out a matching red sack. It was made out of what appeared to be silk. Filling it with a single scoop of ash, she pulled the golden drawstring tight.
She handed the sack to him, and he realized it was smaller than he had thought, barely larger than his closed fist. Despite that, it easily weighed over a pound.
"What's this for?"
"You're going to hell to save her, correct?" the red emotion asked him. When he nodded, she said, "You'll need all the energy you can get, then."
He slowly nodded, tying the sack to his belt, and they began to meander down the path once more.
"What's going on, Rage?" he finally asked after a few moments of silence, "Why has all of this happened?"
"Even for a half-demon, your little bird isn't normal. She is at the center of the most important prophecy of the Four Dimensions."
"Four dimensions? What do you mean?"
"The Four Dimensions are Earth, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Obviously there are more, this being one," she said, giving a sweeping gesture, "Those four are the main ones, though, and so are known as the Four Dimensions." When he gave a soft grunt of understanding, she continued, "Raven must travel through each… and then choose which one she pledges herself to."
"But… she'll choose Paradise, won't she? Why would she choose Hell?"
"She is a Child of Hell," the red-eyed girl hissed, "And Dis and Trigon are extremely good at getting people to do as they wish… that is why Hell is so full."
"And what happens when she chooses?"
At his words, his guide looked away. Once more, she was acting like she had other aspects to herself than rage.
But how could she? he wondered.
"The Kingdom she chooses will get complete control over all dimensions. But there are other outcomes."
He waited silently for her response as they continued to walk. "What are they?" he finally prompted.
"She has four options: Paradise, Hell, Indecision, or Unknown," Rage said, speaking carefully, "Indecision will protect her friends… for a time. But she will die, and her soul would go to a dimension even worse than Cocytus, the center of Hell. After that, an enormous war will rage on Earth between Paradise and Hell, and one or the other will be erased completely from existence."
"She wouldn't chose that, then," the Changeling said, "She'd try to help as many as she could, and getting them destroyed doesn't exactly count as help. What was the fourth way, again?"
"That way is Unknown," the Ravenite murmured after a moment, "Even the Divine Omnipotence doesn't know what it is, or what its consequences would be."
They walked on in silence through the gently falling ash.
Raven gazed around at her bleak surroundings. Her father had gone forth to summon his demon followers as an escort, leaving her alone in this cold world.
Great moans of pain echoed up to her from the pit her father had gone to, mingled with screams of agony and despair only attainable through the punishments of Lower Hell.
She wandered over to a broken gateway, shattered from some impossible blow from time immemorable. Standing there, she could almost hear the whispers of the waves passing their secrets on to the rocky shore of the Titan's island from just a few hours previously.
Even Cyborg and Starfire combined couldn't have destroyed this, she thought, coming back to the present and looking at the thick quartz that had been the towering monolith. It lay now in a pile, the upper arch having collapsed in the blow that had shattered the gate itself. The massive bolts that had secured them lay nearby, rusted after god only knows how many years. The doors themselves were gone. Most likely vaporized, she thought.
As she examined the bolts, she shook her head. Each one easily weighed in at over a ton. Walking around to what had been the outside, she noticed writing, written in verse, and, oddly, in English.
There was a strange feeling about the inscription. Concentrating, the girl attempted to read the words as Azarathian. The package shimmered and faded, immediately replaced by a perfect translation in her native tongue.
That's strange, she thought, I guess they want everyone to read this.
Intrigued by this possibility, she read the intricate handwriting.
I am the Way into the City of Woe.
I am the Way to a forsaken people.
I am the Way into eternal sorrow.
Sacred Justice moved my Architect.
I was raised here by Divine Omnipotence,
Primordial Love and Ultimate Intellect.
Only those elements Time cannot wear
Were made before me, and beyond Time I stand.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
The moans of eternal agony rose around her as she grasped what the versais said. Her knees began shaking, and she felt a hand set itself upon her shoulder, squeezing it slightly. She winced in pain; the hand felt as though it were literally hot enough to fry an egg in its grasp.
"Thou couldst help them," her father whispered gently into her ear. Trigon's breath was, despite the burning heat of his hand, cold as ice. "All that thou must do is pledge thine allegiance to me, and I shalt end their suffering."
Raven closed her eyes and bit her lip; there was a sensation of very fast movement; she knew she had been teleported somewhere, though she didn't dare open her eyes.
With the moans of the damned making its horrifying music around her, Trigon's offer seemed very tempting.
"There it is," Rage said, pointing her pale hand to the dark portal. It lay nearly a mile distant, or at least whatever a mile equated to in this dimension. As far as Beast Boy knew, it was less than a millimeter in Earth's dimension since this was Raven's mind he was walking through. Nodding, he continued walking.
Several seconds later, he realized she was no longer with him. Turning around in confusion, he saw her calmly watching him.
"Aren't you coming?" he asked, his voice shaking slightly under her unfaltering gaze.
"I am not permitted to go any farther," she said. He bit his lip nervously, looking at the ground.
She's definitely not the best company in the world, he thought, especially compared to Raven. But she's much better than nothing.
The Ravenite's eyebrow raised slightly, widening both its left eyes as it heard his thoughts. After a short, uncomfortable silence, it spoke again.
"Beast Boy," the destructive emotion said, "once you go through the portal, you can never return. You will be tied to her by the prophecy, and her fate shall be yours. Do you willingly accept this Doom?" He nodded, and she gave another of her strange, unexpecte smiles. It gave him as much of a raise as Raven's ashes had. "Then good luck."
Without a second thought, Beast Boy turned into a cheetah and sprinted through the ash to the portal.
The Divine Omnipotence looked into the dense fog that hovered in front of it, watching the images that danced across its surface like it was a television set. The Allseeing watched as the green feline sped through the haze of his sacred friend to the portal to Hell. It smiled slightly.
He's just like those cowboys, but this time I can't send an angel to help him. With a thought, the mist's "screen" split to show both Beast Boy and Raven.
Cowboys and Angels… They've always been together, until now…it thought, somewhat sadly as it watched the demonness struggle across the rugged landscape of Hell. The leather and lace… we'll see if it all survives the hardships ahead.
Salt of the earth and heavenly grace… if any can survive, it is these two. They've been tested and tried more than most could be in a million lifetimes, the Holy One thought. As Beast Boy closed to within a hundred yards of the portal, he turned back into his own form and walked a little slower, visibly trying to catch his breath, his chest visibly heaving beneath his tattered shirt. The Divine Omnipotence closed its eyes, turning away from the images. The mist quickly dissipated. It thought one last thing before it turned to make its preperations.
It's a long way to heaven, and a hell of a ride…
"Raven, OPEN UP!" Robin shouted, pounding on the emergency seal that had closed over Raven's room. The frame was bent in, clearly showing that someone had broken in, and the fact that the emergency doors had engaged showed that someone was still inside. These special doors, made of a lightweight but nearly indestructible Tameranian alloy, engaged to form a sort of quarantine or temporary prison should an intruder be stupid enough to stay in the same room for five minutes while the tower was locked down. This was how Robin knew that someone had broken into Raven's room during the night.
Starfire and Cyborg rounded the corner, the alien girl hovering over to stand nervously next to the team's leader. Her eyes widened nervously as she reported.
"Beast Boy was not in his room." she said.
"And sensors show now exterior leaks or damage," Cyborg added, "So they probably weren't kidnapped or anything."
"Perhaps Beast Boy is in with Raven?" Starfire suggested, her eyes turning to gaze at the broken doorframe.
Cyborg gave a sly grin to Robin, looking at the door with fear despite his attempts to conceal it, as though he expected the Ice Goddess herself to emerge in all her dreadful majesty.
"You know," he said, "if Raven and B are in there together, we may want to just leave them to ah… finish?"
Starfire looked back and forth between Robin and Cyborg, her expression nearly identical to one of a preschool student walking into a Calculus classroom. Robin scowled and stopped his assault on the door long enough to say, "First of all, you're sick you metal freak. Rae wouldn't be doing something like that. And, well, Beast Boy is probably too stupid to do anything like that." Cyborg nodded slightly as he considered that "Second, if they were, the tower would probably be gone. After all, there'd be some pretty strong emotions in that room, and we all know how Raven does with emotions. Third, Rae's smart enough to say something to make us leave without us thinking anything was happening."
Cyborg thought about this, his computer brain humming softly.
"And besides, why would the door have been knocked down if they were?"
The metal teen nodded, mulling over everything, "But what if they were still asleep?"
"We can't risk that," Robin said, shaking his head, "especially with the door knocked down."
He looked hesitantly at the door, yelling a final warning. When no reply came, he reached into his belt.
"Stand back," he shouted, making sure that anyone inside could hear him as well as he placed an explosive charge on the door, ducking behind the corner with Cyborg and Starfire close behind. A dull thud echoed through the hall, shaking the walls. At first they thought the door may have survived, but then it slowly fell to the ground, accompanied by the hideous shriek of twisting metal.
The trio ran in through the dense smoke that the explosive had created, weapons ready for any challenge that might await them.
Silence was all they were met with.
"Beast Boy!" Starfire yelled, flying over to a lump lying motionless on the floor by the bed. She began shaking him violently, but he just lay stiffly on the floor. Robin walked slowly to the bed, looking carefully at the still form of his friend. In his hand, the boy held a small, ornately crafted hand-glass.
It must be Raven's, Robin guessed. He'd never actually seen her 'mirror', but Cyborg and Beast Boy had both described it after their adventure in Raven's mind.
Starfire was still engaged in a futile attempt to wake the anthro. Cyborg stood just inside the door, staring in apparent disbelief at the bed. His brain hummed a little louder, and a steady increase in temperature made it evident that Cyborg was doing some heavy thinking, or scanning.
Robin turned, feeling as though his stomach was being filled with molten lead. He slowly raised his hidden eyes to the bed, looking into the remaining eye socket of the partial skull that lay there. Another fragment, something from the arm, he guessed, lay nearby, pointing roughtly at the door and resting in a pile of ashes. Starfire still hadn't noticed, so intent was she on waking their green friend.
"Rob… it's Raven," Cyborg whispered in disbelief. He motioned to the burned corpse, "The fire that did that… it had to have been at least ten times as hot as the volcano that got Terra."
"And Beast Boy?" Robin hoped that this news might be good… something to lessen the shock of losing Raven so abruptly.
Cyborg went over the sensor readings he was receiving, checking the pulse and brain activity, "He's nearly flat-lining. Mental activity is dangerously low, except for areas in his deep subconscious… just like when he lost control that time."
"All right, let's get Star outta here before she sees Raven," Robin said. In truth, he was hoping it would give him an excuse to leave as well. He felt like he was going to puke. Cyborg nodded, and then stepped, as calmly as possible, between the beautiful alien girl and the grisly reamins on the bed. Robin gently grabbed Starfire's arms, pushjing her firmly towards the door.
"What are you doing? What about Beast Boy?" she demanded.
"Cyborg'll take care of him," he said, leading her out as she looked nervously back at her friends.
Several feet away from where Beast Boy lay, the Boy Wonder felt a blast of hot air hit him in the back like a sledgehammer, raising blisters instantly and causing him to collapse in pain. He heard Starfire scream in shock, and she stumbled towards the door, her eyes wide. Spinning, he stared at the bed.
Cyborg lay on the ground, several feet away from where had been a split-second before. His skin boiled, peeling away from his body, and some of his limbs had melted slightly from the heat.
And then Robin saw Beast Boy.
The Changeling was engulfed in flames, his skin fading from green to black, then finally to an eerie white. This simply collapsed into a pile.
"Beast Boy!" he shouted, crawling forward in a vain attempt to somehow help, but the heat drove him back again.
The boy's green eyes snapped open, staring in agony around the room. Robin gagged as the flames burned through the thin layers of flesh under Beast Boy's lower jaw, his shrivveled tongue visible for what seemed an eternity before that too collapsed into ash. His moth worked furiously, but no sound issued from him other than that of the crackle of burning flesh and the hiss of steam escaping his body.
Starfire screamed as a green light slid smoothly from between the body's withered lips. The fire instantly extinguished, and the skeletal body lay still. A soft, unbroken whistle came from Cyborg's sensors, but nobody was paying attention to that anymore.
The light drifted, its movements agonizingly slow, to the skull fragment on the bed, it drifted into it, melding with the bone. The remains of both bodies flared briefly with a black light, and then they were gone.
Raven gasped in pain, feeling her soul burning once more. She slumped to her knees, trying to will the pain away. Something drew her eyes back, entreating them in some unknown way to set her gaze upon the path she had already taken. There was nothing, just the slowly moving Titan's Tower.
No! she berated herself, It's not the Tower! It's just an illusion!
As she watched, the Tower flickered, changing momentarily into a small human. From this distance she couldn't see who it was. Then it changed back.
And she knew something had happened that nobody had forseen.
Beast Boy moaned with pain beyond imagining. His flesh no longer burned, but he could feel the Beast inside, scratching at his body, his soul, his mind, trying to break free.
He forced his eyes open, releasing the tears that had been held back as though a dam had broken. Like a drunk, he gazed at the alien landscape in incomprehension.
"Beast Boy!" Starfire shrieked, scrambling towards where he had been. Her cry brought Robin back to reality. He grabbed her in a vain attempt to calm her, but she simply dragged her over to the bedside behind her. Unexpectedly, she leaned over, flinging him to the ground as she picked something up off the carpet.
When she stood, the purple-clad girl was holding a small, melted mirror.
"We must follow them, we can use the mirror!" Starfire moaned, cradling the mirror to her heaving chest. Her sobs echoed through the cold room as tears poured down her face.
"Starfire," Cyborg said as calmly as possible, standing weakly next to her as the machinery that kept him alive cooled itself, "they're gone. We can't follow them, and with Rae bein' dead, the mirror is useless. Even if she wasn't, it probably wouldn't work, what with it having melted and all."
"You are wrong!" she screamed, turning to him with bloodshot eyes, "You-!" the rest was lost as she began speaking in a meaningless gibrish.
"Starfire," Robin said, walking slowly over to her with his palms towards her in a show of peace, "things are going to be okay. Please, follow me, and we'll get you some food and rest… and I'll even go and get you some mustard."
There was a brief flash in her eyes as she fought to regain her control, her sanity awoken by Robin's voice and the mention of mustard, but when she turned on him, eyes glowing green and with a starbolt clutched in her violently shaking hand, Robin knew that something was wrong. She screamed at him, but it was just pointless jargon brought on by insanity. With no other option available to him, Robin drew his staff, jumping forward and to the side.
A loud crack echoed through the room as the metal connected with the back of her neck, just where the top vertebrae joined the skull. Robin watched the princess of the tower fall, Cyborg catching her and lifting her onto his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Star," Robin mumbled, kneeling on the ground, emotionally exhausted already. Cyborg placed an understanding hand on his shoulder, giving him an encouraging nod, and then he left for the infirmary, the Tameranian still over his shoulder.
Robin looked at the mirror Starfire had dropped when she fell, feeling his spirits fall more than they had since his parents had died.
As he left, he glanced at the clock by the bed. 8:43 AM. It was going to be a long day.
Neraly an hour after first entering Hell, Beast Boy finally found the strength to move. The heat from the mortal flames still raked his body, making him wince.
I guess Rage was right about me dying, he thought bitterly, looking around. Despite the pain, he knew he had to leave. He had to find Raven.
I'll probably be getting pretty used to pain through all of this…
Looking around, his green eyes fell upon a pile of stones beneath a set of enormous pillars. Walking towards the ruins, he read the verses that his friend had read nearly an hour and a half before.
"Well that sure isn't inviting," he murmured when he had read it. Walking around to the opposite side of the rockpile, he tripped in a slight depression.
A line of footprints crossed the soft sand, one now destroyed thanks to his clumsiness.
"Raven," Beast Boy hissed, scrambling to his feet and staring at the familiar raven design in the middle of each print.
Following the tracks, he saw that they led back to the writing… the last ones directly in front of it.
Staring at the last print, Beast Boy felt a chill creep up his spine despite the air's warmth and the continuing pain from his death.
The raven was slightly smashed by a T-shaped depression, the kind that was on the male Titan's shoes.
He had literally been in her footsteps without realizing it. But he couldn't follow her anymore.
"Raven!" he shouted, "Rae! Where are you?"
His voice echoed solemly across the landscape, taunting him.
"Damn it all!" the changeling yelled, falling to his knees and violently tugging at his hair in frustration.
A soft voice whispered in his ear. When he spun around, darkness met his gaze. It was disturbingly similar to Raven's room.
"This way," the voice said again, so familiar that he began to frantically spin around, looking for the speaker.
"Raven? Where are you?"
There was a hint of annoyance in the monotone voice now.
"Shut up and STOP MOVING!" she hissed. His legs instantly locked, and then he felt himself slowly turn about sixty degrees to his left. He couldn't stop his movements, but then whatever was controlling him did. His arm raised to point straight ahead.
"Go that way if you want to catch her," the voice said, "And don't trust your eyes."
"What do you mean 'her'? And 'don't trust your eyes'? And how'd I just move?" He asked, voice rising slightly in pitch. There was no answer.
"Raven?"
When no one replied, he shakily began to walk forward towards the massive pit which he had been directed towards.
Raven looked around worriedly. She could've sworn that she had heard someone call her name, but the darkness here was too deep for even her eyes to penetrate.
"Come, daughter," the Demon Lord said, turning to motion her forward.
"Hey, comeon, talk to me!" Beast Boy shouted. Several hundred feet in front of him, the man finally turned. His beard was ratty, hanging down nearly to his waist, and his eyes were sunken as though he hadn't eaten in days. His clothes were nearly nonexistant, and what he did have was covered in blood and more… unappetizing things.
As if this wasn't bad enough, he was covered in open sores, all leaking blood and pus. Coming closer, Beast Boy noticed that thousands of maggots writhed under the man's diseased skin, feasting on him. Wasps hung in the air around him, rushing in to sting him and raising more sores.
Less than a dozen feet away, Beast Boy crossed an invisible line drawn into the dirt. In a perfect line, blood and pus covered the ground, and among it were trillions of worms and maggots, devouring the filth as though it were a banquet. The teen gagged, trying to not add to their feast.
"Young man, what woe brings you here?" the decrepit old man wheezed finally, looking at Beast Boy's odd features.
"I'm looking for a friend, and I don't really know what way to go."
The geezer cave a coughing laugh, blood spraying from his mouth. He wiped his lip and said, "There be many down here, boy. You won't find the person, I'm afraid."
"You don't understand. She's the half-demon Raven."
The man looked afraid now, stepping away slowly as though he were afraid the changeling may have some dreadful disease… if any disease could be worse than the torments he currently suffered.
"Well, she's a different one… You'll want to go farther into the Pit to find her." The man turned and began to walk, appearing to be longing to find something. He turned and gave Beast Boy a quick lecture before he left, however.
"Be careful, lad. There's a Banner out there. You'll be wantin to avoid it at all costs. You're friend is already down in the next level, so if you think you see her hear… it's the banner playin' tricks on ya. It looks like what you're most wantin, ya see. And it… mesmerizes ya. Don't fall for it!"
Then he was off, leaving only his horrible stink and a trail of slimy blood to show he had ever existed.
"Young woman, what horrible fate has caused you to fall in with such evil company?"
The voice called out, not challengingly, but merely questioning, through the seemingly endless gloom of the first level of Hell. As Trigon stopped, gazing in hatred towards the source of the voice, a tall man stepped from the darkness. A sword was brandished in his hand, though his loose grip showed it was more ceremonial than anything.
"Who're you, if you want to know my name?" the girl said, gazing at the sharp weapon, her eyes tracing the sharp edge to where it connected with an ornate golden handle. She raised her eyes back to the face, seeing it was that of an old man's.
"I am Homer… you may have heard of me," he seemed amused by something, though he nervously watched the Demon Lord. Raven remembered the man's name. The Illiad, one of the greatest works of Greek literature, had been written by him. Obviously she had read it.
"I have. And I am Raven, the daughter of this monster," she said negligently, motioning vaguely behind her. Homer's ancient eyes widened in surprise, but he let out a tired sort of chuckle.
Trigon's nostrils flared. He wasn't about to let his daughter… or this foolish soul… get away with an insult such as that. Within seconds, he had a whip out, and he viciously attacked the poet.
Raven cringed as the whip curled around the man's chest, biting in as it was pulled back. Blood soaked his loose robe as he fell to the ground, grunting in pain.
Trigon grinned in satisfaction, giving a few more strikes before he turned to his daughter, holding the bloody whip aloft.
"Your birthright, my daughter," he said tauntingly. Then he walked on.
Raven looked down at the bloody man, hate boiling through her veins. She would get Trigon back for that, she knew. He gave her a painful smile, and she forced one in return before following her father.
Not two hundred yards after speaking to the strange old man, and Beast Boy had already forgotten his, and Raven's, advice. Fleeting flashes of a blue cloak danced ahead of him, always just out of vision and reach. Calling to it, he heard now sound, not even the steady, rythmic beating of his heart.
Finally he caught up with the hooded girl. Reaching for her, he set his hand on her shoulder… only to have her vanish and reappear several hundred feet away.
He looked at his hand in surprise. Something inside screamed at him, but he shrugged it away as he began to mindlessly follow the elusive figure.
Something didn't seem quite right with it. It was walking too evenly, to ghostly, as though it were floating. But he was sure it was walking. It's legs were clearly moving beneath the cloak.
Once more he caught up with her, though he didn't reach out this time. He merely spoke.
"Raven, what the-?" he gasped. Instead of the familiar scent of magical chemicals and dry, old parchment, he smelled dead, decaying flesh. His senses returned as the figure vanished again.
It was all an illusion.
He had followed the path up the rise, looking for any landmark, or any sign of his friend. After a moment, he had seen her. Raven. It hadn't been hard; all the people here were following her. Jealousy spiked, and he hurried down the path after her.
Nobody paid him any heed here, though. Many were too occupied with following the girl to pay attention to another spirit in their midst.
So he had remained for half an hour, following the figure without question.
Thousands of spirits rushed past him, still eager for the illusion. Against his better judgement, the teen looked back up at the figure.
All he saw was a dark mist floating across the area, tempting the unfortunate souls of the people here. Instinctively he knew. These were the people who had been looking only for personal gain. They were the Opportunists, now plagued by a Banner that they could never catch, as well as the wasps and maggots which tortured their bodies.
He was different, though. He had broken the curse.
With one last spiteful glare at the Banner, he ran towards the pit.
Rage stumbled through the field. Just a day before, this place had been filled with flowers. It was Happy's field… but now it was dead. All of Nevermore was dead, except her… and she was dying.
Rage knew that her time was finished. She hadn't been able to defeat Raven, although she had never been all that interested in doing so. It was a game to her, and why should she win? That would end it, and there would be no rematch.
Not that it matters now, she thought bitterly as her legs gave out. A cold unlike any she had ever felt spread slowly from her stomach, freezing her from the inside out. As the cold gripped her heart, she knew what had happened.
She had helped Beast Boy. She had ventured into Hell with him, and even she couldn't survive such a drastic change. The Ravenite would die like all the others, but she would stay with Beast Boy, within the simple sack tied to his belt.
"Joy," she hissed.
Then there was darkness. Flames flew up from her body, turning everything they touched into crystalline ice. They spread across the field, and from there through all of Nevermore, leaving only a glittering, sharp landscape of ice. When there was nothing left to consume, the flames themselves hardened into ice.
Beast Boy crawled up the final rise, exhausted. Before him lay a river, flooded and churning violently due to the storm that was currently making his life… or death… more miserable. The river Acheron, if he remembered what Raven had told him so long ago. Here he was to wait.
A small boat rushed across the water like lightning, stopping just before it collided with shore. An old man, clothed only in a strip of white cloth that wrapped itself around him, looked angrily at him, chewing on his toothless gums. Finally he spoke.
"The Ferryman of the River Acheron suffers no divinity to pass."
………………………………………………………………………………………………
3/14/05 (Pi Day! HA!)
Wow, that has to be one of the worst ending I've done. Anyways, please review anyways. Tell me what you thought, what you think will happen next, any death threats you may want to get to me…
Tell me what you think the secret song was. If you get it… you're special. I dunno, give yourself a pat on the back or something. Just tell me what you thought it was.
Next chapter… for sure a confrontation between Charon and Beast Boy, some mourning by the remaining live Titans, major headaches between Rage and Beast Boy (in case you haven't guessed, they'll kind of be like MasterChief and Cortana from Halo, although I didn't plan on that). Anything else? Lets see… mostly everyone going farther into Hell.
Oh yeah, this is NOT meant to follow Birthmark, although it does rather nicely, so I'll probably change it. I'll tell you if I am having it follow Birthmark, or I'll just have Slade show up and torch the tower or something. And no more burnings are planned… but there will of course be some fire later. It's hell. There's fire. Hell Inferno. And I'm rambling.
Anyways, please review with the secret song and everything else. I'd appreciate it a lot. Oh, and if you like it, please tell your friends. I need publicity.
PS: One last thing. Tiffereth, if you don't mind, please either send me an e-mail at or give me your e-mail address (unless you really don't want to). I'd like you to join Duck On Moose, Eh? as an editor for The Comic. That's right. DUCK ON MOOSE, EH? HAS BEGUN TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT THE COMIC! MORE INFO SOON! AND WE ARE COPYRIGHTED!
Yeah, in case my rambling made you forget, REVIEW!