7 Months Earlier

Raven sat on her bed and listened to Kresk talk. The Fire Demon had stopped by for one of his visits. Somewhere along the lines, the subject of fire got involved somehow. "Remember, all life is energy trapped within a shell. When we use fire, we make life as it should be. These are the teachings of Flauros, Son of Suns." He lit a fireball in his hands while saying this, and watched the flare's heart. As the pyre burned, he stared into its core, and the flames danced and reflected on his eyes so that they looked like two pools of orange light. Raven looked at Kresk, and asked, disbelieving the demon's statement, "But if all life is energy, shouldn't you burn yourself to achieve a higher level existence then?" Kresk closed his fist and the fireball disappeared. "It is our duty to be the ones who release that energy. If I killed myself, who would do all the burning for me? Besides, I'm already a creature of fire. I am as life intended me, therefore."

"So, basically, you're just saving your skin by finding a philosiphical loop-hole?" Kresk thought about it for a moment, and said, honestly, "Yeah, that's pretty much it." Raven rolled her eyes amd went back to the book she was reading. Kresk lit another fire-ball in his hand. He watched it burn, and then produced another in the opposite hand. He tossed the first fireball into the air and quickly followed it with the second. Soon, he was juggling the two around. Finally, he tossed both up. Kresk opened his mouth, and caught the two in his maw. He closed his mouth and swallowed. Smoke came out of his nostrils, and his eyes began to water. Raven almost looked up. "Oh, bravo." Kresk said, his voice dry and strained, "Thank you." He coughed, and spit out embers and smoke. "How do you do that?", Raven asked, still reading her book. Kresk cracked, "It takes alot of practice and luck. You don't want to see what happens when I miss."

"Not that. How do you generate the fire? You just do it so naturally."

"Because it is natural. Girl, were you listening to anything I said? Fire is the energy of life. Using fire is just as simple as tapping that energy. It is creation, it is destruction. It is life, death, and rebirth. Once you know how to do that, you have the ultimate power of the spheres at your disposal."

"You still havn't actually said how you do it."

"Oh gods below, nothing gets through that brain-box of yours does it? The fact is, I can't really teach you all that well. You can only teach yourself."

"Oh now you're just dodging it. Can't you at least tell me how you do it? How you tap this 'energy of life'?"

Kresk sighed. "Alright, I see there's no stopping you. Now listen and listen carefully. Keep on your toes here. Fire is a dangerous and powerful element. It isn't for novices to mess with. One wrong move and you won't be Raven, you'll be fried chicken. However, don't think for an instant that this means flames are bound by rules. Fire is life and unpredictability, all at once a free and explosive energy and pinned-up force waiting to break free like a river from a dam. It is-"

"Is this going anywhere?"

"Alright, alright. Now listen. Concentrate, meditate for a moment. Look deep into yourself. Go past your thoughts, than your feelings, and finally your basest impulses. Look past all those and find the source of energy for all that. Take your time! You don't want to rush this process." Raven closed her eyes and began to meditate. Clearing her thoughts was easy; she did that almost as easily as a fish swims. Then she looked at her feelings. She saw them, her sadness, her fear, her joy. She concentrated on them a bit more, thought and cleared them. Soon they were gone. Or maybe they had simply devolved. Now her darkest and simplest instincts were all that remained. She could feel the source, the warmth inside of her, the pulse of energy that every living thing, including herself, emanated. But she could not get to it directly. She thought, and for a long time meditated, clearing her darker instincts; her rage, her lust, all her passions, all the emotions that everything carries with it. And in a flash, they were gone. But she was not dead inside. On the contrary, Raven had never felt more alive. She had reached the wellspring of life in her, the source of all energy that flowed through her, in a word, existence. And for a moment she touched it. It was...everything. It was every feeling. It was pleasure, it was pain. It was love, it was lust. It was anger and calm, yin and yang. It was wrath and serenity, dancing and dying. It was a concordant energy, an unparalleled ecstacy and misery. Raven wanted it to stop, or maybe she wanted it to continue forever. She felt everything, she felt, she felt...nothing. Cut short.

Raven began to fall. She had been floating in the air for a moment, and Kresk had been watching. He saw her eyes moving while they were shut, smelled the sweat and energy coming off of her, heard her heartbeat go faster and faster. He knew what was happening He caught her as she fell and lay her down on the bed. He waited for a while and made a potion for her with some ingredients he found on her shelves, to ease the pain. Raven murmured, "Wha... What happened?"

"Ah, she wakes! In time, to. I was about to call the morgue. You drank too deep, kiddo. Tried pulling too much energy. Don't worry, it happens to almost everybody their first time. Trust me, from here on out it gets easier. Soon, you probably won't have to meditate to get to the source. All you need, is practice." He handed her the potion, "Here, it'll make it a lot easier to recover. Like I said, don't worry. I'm amazed you're as well as you are. I nearly got killed the first time I tried that."

"What pain are you-, AH!" Raven suddenly got what Kresk was talking about. She felt like there were burns on the inside of her throat and mouth. It was like that holocaustic center had escaped through her when she touched it and worked its burning hands all along her. She grabbed the potion out of Kresk's claws and drank fast and deep. The potion itself smelled like aloe and tasted like mint. It was ice-cold, and Raven felt the drink work its way down her throat. Kresk let out a hearty chuckle. "Slow down, kid! You're gonna be as cold inside as you are out if you drink that much!"

Raven wanted to protest Kresk's snide comment, but he had a point. She felt herself begin to freeze on the inside. She wrapped herself in the blankets on her bed to the sounds of Kresk chuckling even louder. When she had warmed up again, and Kresk was able to stop laughing, he said to her, "Now, that was a nice first try. Alot of people who try playing with fire wind up a burning husk on the ground. All you got was some internal damage, and that got cleared up rather fast. But you still didn't actually produce any fire. It's gonna take some practice before you can summon up that energy fast enough. Try again. This time, concentrate, try not to fit more in your cup than you can drink."

So again Raven meditated and found the source. But this time, she found it a little faster than the first time. And she didn't fall over or have to drink any weird potions, a definite plus. She still had an odd burning sensation in the back of her throat though. That broke her concentration and she had to quit. Kresk told her to try again, and so she did. And she tried again, and again, and again. After a couple of hours, Raven found that finding the source was like finding the back of her eye-lids. And the burning sensation had left. All that happened was that she felt a pleasant, hot feeling wash over her when she found the source. But if she stayed too long, the feeling would turn into burning and she would faint. After a while, Kresk felt that it was time to move on with training. "Alright, you can find the source fast enough, amazingly fast, truth to tell, but can you use it?" He picked up a book, looked it over, flipped through the pages, and ripped out a sheet. Raven, still keeping her voice calm but repressing a yelp, said, "What did you do that for?"

"Oh, relax. The text was in Draconic anyway. Nobody speaks that language on this planet anymore, except for me and a few other weirdos. (At this statement, every dragon in existence, from Malchior trapped in his book not twenty feet away, to Tiamat, Queen of Evil Dragons in her lair on Avernus, first layer of Hell, to Bahamut, King of Good Dragons in his cloud castle on the second layer of Heaven, one way or another, let out a disgusted shudder. And in his realm within the Concordant Outlands, Io, Father of All Dragons, shed a singular tear. Apparently, this sort of small multiverse spanning event occurs with disturbing frequency.) Now, hold this in your hand." He placed the wad of paper in Raven's hand. "Now, concentrate. Find the energy, the source. Now, focus that. Feel the paper in your palm, which you might want to open by the way, concentrate on it. Direct the energy inside you to that paper wad. Just keep focusing it. Don't try to control it. Just steer it. Think of it like you're trying to steer a river with a sheet of paper. Now feel the paper in your hand, its texture, its size. Now direct that river I was telling you about to the paper. And repeat after me; kraknec.

"Kraknec." Ravent heat coming from her hand. She opened her eyes from where she had been meditating. An ever-so small fireball floated in her hand. Kresk, eyes wide, smiled at the glowing yellow orb. "Brilliant.", he said under his breath. "It took me years to get it just right, and you did it in one day. Simply brilliant." Raven herself felt proud of her accomplishment, and inside her, the Demon smiled too. "Uh, Kresk, what do I do with it?"

"Here, hand it to me." Raven held out her hand, and let the burning piece of parchment fall out of her hand and into Kresk's. She was outstanded to see that her hand, her clothers, or anything else on her hadn't burned. Kresk weighed the fireball in his left hand. He produced one of his own, which had a distinctly more orange-red look to it as opposed to Raven golden yellow. He weighed the two like they were fruits, held them up to his eyes like they were gems, and even listened to them like they were clocks out of sync. "Odd. Yours is - differrent. For starts it's not nearly hot enough, it's naturally yellow, and it even sounds lighter, you know, like a soprano."

"Fire has a musical range?"

"Fire-is-life-thing, Raven, fire-is-life-thing."

"Yeah, whatever. So how do I do all those fancy tricks, the flamethrowing and stuff?"

"Well, first off, that'll come to you in time. I taught you how to fish, now go catch something with it. Second, that depends on fuel. You can't make fire without something to burn, at least an amateur can't anyway. You know how I told you how it took me years to generate a perfect fire-ball? Well it took me even longer to learn how to do it without something to burn and magic words. But it makes me wonder. Darkfire they call it, the shadows of flame..."

"What are you talking about?"

"Alright, listen. I want you to try something that I know absolutely nothing about and might just kill you. Supposedly, there are umbramancers, mages who deal with shadows much like yourself, who can supposedly make fire from darkness, darkfire. Bare with me. It's not an original name but it says everything. It's where umbramancy mixes with pyromancy. Supposed to have some weird magical effects, like it can blend with darkness and set shadows on fire and stuff like that. Right up your alley. Of course if it goes wrong, especially in your 'shiny' room, we might just all die. Think you want to try?"

"No."

"Oh come on. You won't know until you try. What's the worst that could happen, eh, aside from the obvious?"

"Still no."

"I'll spit in Garfield's breakfast every morning for a week."

"Deal."

"That's what I like to hear! I knew I could win over your maliscious streak yet. Now form one of those little shadow things in your hand."

"Are you sure this is safe?"

"Absolutely. And to show you how safe it is I'm going to go hide behind a three foot thick wall of solid rock and arcane runes over here now." Kresk summoned the wall, exactly as he said, glowing with runes on its monolithic sides. He ran behind it and shouted, giving her a thumbs-up to go with the bark "Alright! Give her the juice! By the way, if you die I'm killing your friends and dragging their souls back to the Abyss for an eternity of torture in the Sea of Salt!"

"WHAT?"

"Nothing!" Raven knew he was kidding (at least she prayed to God that he was), but she was a little unnerved by him hiding behind a magical three-foot thick wall. She concentrated on the ball of shadow in her hand, sensed it, sensed herself, the darkness, the overall feeling. Then, she directed her inner flame towards it, to the best that she could. It 'reached' the fire, but it was struggling. This could not ignite, this was not a real fuel, the fire 'said' to her. Raven struggled to control the pyre, to keep it from flooding out into the world. She felt the shadows in her room falter, their borders wave and start to break, heard Kresk whimper and mutter for Grazz't to protect him from one of his thousand children. No, this wasn't a real fuel, the fire told her again. And Raven talked to herself, or the fire to be more correct. It may not be real fuel, but the fire wasn't real flame, and it existed anyway. She still struggled. Soon her arm began to feel like it was burning. She wasn't going to make it. The darkness in her room danced now, their borders moving and dancing like they were trying to escape from the prisons of perception and burn the world, she could feel it. Kresk prayed to Rhyxali, the Queen of Shadow Demons to send her minions to grab him and save him from the holocaust. Soon, Raven knew, she would lose control and the fire would escape and any spot of darkness, from a the slightest shadow on a sidewalk to a shady spot under a tree would burst into flames and destroy. She felt sweat roll down her face, felt her skin burn. Then, her eyes still closed, she felt someone hold her arm and hand gently, so warmly, so gently, so softly. At first she thought it was Kresk, but then she realized it couldn't be, for even now he was telling Demogorgon that one of his children was coming home.

"Here, let me help." There was something chilling about the voice. It wasn't in her ear, but in her head. It wasn't Trigon's voice, no, it was her voice, but it was different somehow. "Just let me help." she said. And suddenly Raven felt the fire come under control. It didn't want to resist, it wanted to become one with the shadow in her hand. Raven opened her eyes and looked at the ball of shadow. It was changing, flickering, morphing into flame. Then she saw the abberant hand that was holding hers, the shocking arm that was running along hers. Like the voice she heard, it was hers but terrifyingly different. She could feel her hot, sulfur tinted breath on the back of her neck, feel her breasts pressing into her back as she drew close to herself, felt her smooth hair next to her head as her chin rested on her shoulder, just out of sight of her vision. But what really horrified her, was the arm's appearance. The hand's nails were more like claws, and were volcanic-rock black. And the skin, dear God, the skin. The skin was a crimson red and covered in fine, smooth scales. "Who are you?" she nervously asked the doppelganger. "I am everything you should have been." she casually told herself. (Confused yet? Good.) At that, the clone disappeared. "Where are you? Where did you go?" she asked herself. "Silly little Raven. I'm always with you. I've always been with you. I'm right here, with daddy."

Every hair on Raven's body stood on end after this. She felt it for a moment; for a moment, she had literally touched something darker, something wicked. For a moment, she touched a monster that lurked inside the inner, labyrinthine reaches of her twisted psyche. For a moment, if just for a brief, godless moment of absolute wonder, she touched herself. But what did she mean? "I am everything you should have been." Raven knew what she would be with nihilistic certainty, and she had spent so many countless hours thinking on how things could have been different. But what she should have been? That one little word; should. It perplexed her, drew her into a whirlpool of dizzying and maddening possibility. Her saviour, the life-saver drawing Raven out of his horrible pool (or perhaps dragging her still deeper and faster), emerged sheepishly from behind his barrier. Crouching low and predator-like, practically walking on all fours, Kresk approached Raven's outstretched hand and the ball of black fire she was holding. It reflected in his eyes, giving the illusion that his irises had grown larger. "Magnifico." he whispered. He awkwardly drew a little closer to it. "Could I...could I hold it for a moment?" Raven said with a puzzled tone, "Sure. Why do you ask?"

"That fire is yours. It is a piece of you, a unique thing that reflects the fiber of your being. It is your creation, your child by your own hand and your own force of will. It is everything that is you; your sister, your mother, your daughter. It is your core of life released into the world. If I was to hold it and damage it in any way, it would be as if I killed your own flesh and blood."

"It's not that important. Just take it." Raven slipped the ball of dark fire into Kresk's hand. He stared at for a few moments, fascinated. He listened to it; it had a dry sound, a sound concealing such a strong voice filled with life and humanity. This was Raven's to be sure. "Here, take it back." he said to her. "What should I do with it?"

"Whatever you damn well please. I've taught you everything I can. What you do now is up to you." Kresk sat down, looking like an eager cat begging for food as he watched the magnificent umbral burning in Raven's hand. Raven decided to take Kresk's advice. She concentrated on making the fire bigger. But that didn't seem to do much; it was like the flame was under strain. So she tried again, this time willing the fire to become bigger; not forcing, working with, empathizing with and mastering it. Soon, it was the size of her head. She willed it to become smaller, and it did. She would have done more, but she was still troubled by her encounter with...whatever it is she met that like the fire in her hand so disturbingly and beautifully reflected her. She finally asked Kresk something, who had drifted off into idle thoughts. "Kresk, when I was trying to generate the shadow-fire for the first time, I...I felt something."

"What kind of something? Something's a pretty broad term."

"Well, it's hard to describe. When you were cowering behind that wall, you didn't happen to sense spirits did you? You know, ghosts, spell by-products, other demons?"

"Sorry, I picked up nothing. If anything else had entered the room I would have felt it. Why do you ask?"

"Nothing. Just something happened while I generated the fire. I don't want to talk about it."

"Alright, everyone's entitled to their secrets I suppose. But if I had to guess, I'd say it was all just in your head, a hallucination, you know. Sometimes spellcasting can put a strain on the mind." Raven said nothing, and Kresk drifted back to his oblivious thoughts. Every now and then he occasionally looked over at the shadowy flame in Raven's hand. Finally, it was his turn to ask a question, "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Don't leave me in suspense! What are you going to do with it?"

"I don't know. I really don't want to use the fire with all these books around."

"Fine, have it your way." Nevertheless, Raven found herself toying with the fire in her hands. First she moved the flame from hand to another. Then she willed to move like a snake between her palms. Soon she found herself shaping it, morphing it into some form, any form, an indistinct shape. All the while Kresk watched, and slowly, grinned a steady smile. Raven was so close to getting a distinct shape out of it, she could feel it. A quadruped, something with wings maybe? Claws or feathers? It didn't matter. The fire was as alive as her; it would decide. So close, so close...

And then came the infernal beeping. It rang with the same monotonous tone, her Titan's signal, the same god-awful beep. Raven's concentration broke. Her promethean elemental dissolved in her hands, and Kresk's grin turned into a scowl. He painfully shut his eyes for a moment, inhaled deeply, and said, with the utmost solenmity, "I truly, honestly, deeply, hate that noise. I don't think you can fathom how much I really do."

"I don't like it anymore than you do. I was fine with just a silent signal."

"Very well. Go on, go with your fancy friends. I'll be fine here. But by the way, if you get back from wherever you're going and all the food is missing, I don't exist, remember?"

"Gotcha." At this Kresk disappeared in a fireball that failed to leave scorch-marks on the floor. Raven walked through the door (literally), down the hallway and into the living room. Robin worked at the computer at whatever emergency could summon him from the depths of his room, Cyborg attentively watching the screen. Starfire flitted about, and Beastboy was rummaging through the fridge for the scraps of his most recent prey; a tofurkey leg. Starfire spotted Raven out of the corner of her emerald eye, "Raven! Most good friend! Where have you been on this glorious day?" Cyborg looked back with a positive "Howdy." before returning to the computer. Robin didn't even look up. Beastboy emerged from the refridgerator, "Yeah, seriously, where have you been? We havn't seen you all day!" Raven, with the slightest turn of her head in his direction, and in her usually inaudible voice accompanied by a stare of daggers, said, vastly understating the situation, "I was playing with fire." Starfire flew away, but Beastboy held her gaze a bit longer before he backed down. A sane person wouldn't have even asked, but Beastboy's anarchic mind pressed him forward into oblivion sometimes. After all, curiosity killed the cat, and Beastboy could be any cat in the world. But still, he backed down. Any animal knows the presence of a demon, and knows when to be afraid. Raven walked over to the computer next to Cyborg and Robin. "So, what are we looking at?" "Someone's been draining electricity into a battery big enough to power the city and high powered solar items have gone missing." Cyborg responded. "Dr. Light." Robin replied.

He sighed a bit, and barely under his breath, muttered, "Sometimes I miss Slade. There, I said it universe. Happy now?" Raven and Cyborg said nothing. They knew very well that he meant it to an extent. Slade was Robin's mission in life. What Roadrunner was to Coyote, Moby Dick was to Ahab, and Trix were to Rabbit, Slade was to Robin. He often imagined what it would be like to catch him, to see him defeated, in fact it was one of the great moments of his imagination. He dwelt on it constantly, dreamed of it even, when Morpheus the Sandman was kind. It was nights like these that Robin slept the the sleep of the just (Neil Gaiman rocks). "All right, let's move. We've narrowed down to where he's likely to soon. Go." Everybody ran out the door, save Raven, who as usual, walked. "Raven." Robin said, looking back to her, "Go easy on him this time." Raven nodded in understanding, and continued to walk out of the room.

Of course I won't bore you with the details of the fight, for I have miles to go before I sleep and this is one detour on the long road I choose not to make. Let it suffice to say, that at some point, Raven did finally stop playing with fire and started using it, engulfing Dr. Light in a stream of black fire that tore through his beams of light and burned his very soul. And somewhere, she knew, the Demon, herself that is to say, emerged from her psyche to assist in the unleasing of this holocaust. And one more time, Raven heard her inner being's identity as she tried to control the fire, like controling a bull with yarn. "WHO ARE YOU?" she asked herself now, and that was spoken, was the chilling reply, resounded by an innocent giggle, "I told you. I am everything you should have been." She found herself spent, looking at the charred shell of Dr. Light, with barely any life in it, she found herself drained. She collapsed on the street where she had been fighting. All the while, Kresk, in his private study, had been gazing through his crystal ball, grinning at the scene. He laughed when Raven unleashed that final destructive flow, and said his own cryptic message, "And so, it begins."

That night, as Raven lay, a figure sat in the corner, dark and beautiful. She swore for a moment she saw a flash of teeth. But what entranced her were the yellow eyes glowing in the darkness. She heard a familiar giggle, and the figure was gone. Raven would sleep, and would walk among strange dreams of places and people that should have been. And, she would, for a brief moment that she would regret, revel in it. And somewhere, Dream and Destiny spoke to each other of this, before Destiny closed his book.