Sharing
Raven considered, with not a little incredulity, how this had all happened.
Not the obvious change, of course, that had been thought about at great length. Even now, almost two months since she left the Tower, she re-analysed her decision and agreed with herself yet again. Not that it had been an easy choice: no one, not even the famously stoic Raven herself would say that. It had been necessary. She had needed to leave.
And not in the way Beast Boy "needed" the latest Monkey Magician VR game or the way Starfire "needed" mustard in the evenings or even in the way Robin "needed" coffee in the mornings. She had needed to leave.
Trigon. It was always Trigon, she thought to herself, or, in this case, those who sought his power. With a humorless scoff, she considered that their actions were a betrayal worthy of their terrible idol himself. Somehow (and the exact how was still not fully understood), they had reached into the great void where Trigon was imprisoned. The why was much more obvious: with Trigon trapped, he was no longer worthy of his own power, at least in their eyes, and so they designed to take it. It was a bold plan to say the least, and would have established them as a mystical superpower on Earth, maybe even the wider universe, if it hadn't been for one wrinkle.
Raven.
Raven was of Trigon, blood of his blood and heir to everything he was, good and ill... and a lightning rod for his power. Without warning, Trigon's power flooded into Raven, doubling and tripling her own impressive strength and immediately shattering the barrier she had between herself and her surroundings. Her senses expanded with her power and, in moments, the hopes and fears of the citizens of Jump City tumbled in through her breached defense and clattered around inside her skull. When she screamed, falling to the floor of the common room, the naked fear and concern of her friends, so much neared than the city, stung her already battered mind. After only seconds, they leapt into action, already knowing what they should do when Raven seemed on the verge of losing control. Cyborg scooped her up and ran full tilt for the elevator, remotely opening any doors in his path. Robin was at the computer, readying Cyborg's destination: the safe room. Beast Boy ran for the infirmary, where Cyborg had a pre-prepared kit of sedatives and relaxants tailored to Raven's needs. Starfire flew for Raven's room, where she could grab Raven's own emergency kit of mystical talismans and supplies. In less than a minute, Raven was ensconced in the safe room and screaming at Cyborg to leave and seal her inside. Beast Boy and Starfire deposited their cargo inside the door just as Cyborg emerged, slapping at the door control behind him. From the controls in the common room, Robin activated every protection the room had, technological and mystical. Cyborg relaxed a little when he saw the tension drain from Raven's expression as the room isolated her from the outside world. She blinked wearily at the observation window.
"C-cyborg?" she mumbled. Cyborg tapped the intercom button.
"Rae, are you okay? What the heck happened?" he asked, trying to keep any panic out of his voice.
"I'm... I don't know. All of a sudden, it was like everyone in the city was in the Tower. All of those emotions... they were too much for me," she said, shaking her head weakly. Cyborg frowned.
"What? How does... RAE!" he cried. Raven had sunk to her knees and pressed her hands to her head, her face newly contorted in pain. After several excruciating seconds, the pain lessened and she looked up again at the window.
"Trigon. Someone has drawn Trigon's power to this world. Now I have it," she said, grimacing with vague disgust. Robin had arrived and he paled at Raven's words, just as the others did.
"Who could do that?" Cyborg asked. Raven looked up at him.
"No need to speculate, I know exactly who did it... and I know where they are."
Raven subsequently described the exact whereabouts of the cult, named the Harbingers of Scath, and their numbers and capabilities. Seeing her friends understandably unnerved by her seeming prescience, she attempted an explanation.
"Whatever they did, I don't think they meant to include me. A ritual like that requires a certain amount of... openness. They had to reveal themselves for the ritual and so they are revealed to me. They're probably wondering what they did wrong," she said. Robin nodded firmly.
"Cyborg, relay Raven's direction to the T-Ship. These Harbingers don't seem up to much, at least in person. Cyborg, you stay here with Raven. Starfire, Beast Boy, we'll go and... investigate," he said, slowly clenching his fist. With fleeting glances towards Raven, Beast Boy and Starfire nodded and followed Robin back to the elevator as Cyborg tapped away at his arm, communicating with the T-Ship. Raven watched as her friends left her view, rising to her feet and wincing at the ache in her head. She walked over to the kits left at the door and rummaged around for an aspirin, picking up the bottled water Beast Boy had dropped next to it. She took a couple and then moved to sit on the modest couch left in the room.
"How you doin', Rae?" Cyborg asked. She held up her hand and slowly shook her head to dismiss his fears but even that small movement rattled her sore head, making her wince again.
"I'm okay, for the most part. Those cultists have forced an incredible amount of power through me and, even though my body is used to that sort of energy, it isn't used to so much of it," she said, sipping again at her water.
"So what, you got a magic hangover?" Cyborg tried, getting a wry smirk from Raven. She raised her water bottle in his direction.
"A doozy," she said, taking another swig. "But it's more than that, more than just power: I think my senses must have expanded as well. It wasn't the city moving closer to me, only my awareness reaching out to encompass it... maybe even further." Cyborg blew out a low whistle.
"The whole city? Damn..." he muttered. "I guess the next question is obvious: was it just the shock or the volume of the emotions?" Raven stared at her water bottle.
"You're asking if I can step out of this room without losing control. I honestly do not know. Damn them. DAMN THEM!" she yelled, hurling her now-empty bottle at the floor. She glared at the innocent bottle for a few moments before wincing again, this time her hand going to her chest as she started to cough. Cyborg watched her in alarm.
"Rae? Rae! What's wrong?" he cried, his brow knitting when an alarm sounded on the control panel. "A temperature spike?" Raven continued to cough until she finally expelled whatever was stuck in her throat: a gout of burning hellfire. The sulfurous stuff hissed on the floor, scorching it. Cyborg cried out wordlessly in alarm, ready to trigger the room's fire suppression system.
"Wait!" Raven said, her voice hoarse. She gestured toward the smouldering lump. "Azarath Metrion Zinthos..." Black energy surged around the hellfire, expanding to almost fill the entire room, until Raven gritted her teeth, forcing herself to concentrate the energy only around the hellfire. With a few more moments, the energy and the hellfire dissolved into nothingness, leaving only a smoking hole in the floor. Not wanting a repeat occurrence, Raven ruthlessly squashed her despair, but still felt like her stomach was dropping into her boots.
"That's new," she muttered. Cyborg, not knowing what to say, elected to say nothing.
In a few hours, they heard back from Robin and the others: the Harbingers of Scath had been handily defeated but now they were left with an assortment of magical paraphernalia to deal with. Raven was able to advise them, her instructions relayed by Cyborg. The Harbingers themselves were immaterial, but Raven was immensely glad that their artifacts had been disposed of. Still, now that the cult had been dealt with, that only left the consequences of what they'd already done: Raven had been imbued with Trigon's power, more power than she had ever felt before and expressed with greater variety. She wondered if she had only a fraction of his energy or if she had drained him dry, leaving him as near to death as an immortal being could be. She found she didn't care that much, at least about how it affected him. Looking up at the ceiling, she considered her options and only found two to choose from: she either found a way to rid herself of the power or she learned to control it. The idea daunted her, like she was a child again, struggling to learn control in Azarath.
In the end, it turned out there was only one option after all. After Robin had returned with the others, they decided to lower the shielding of the safe room for a moment while Raven readied herself for the onslaught, determined to pass this test.
She failed. Cyborg re-established the shielding after only a few seconds, during which Raven had been as overwhelmed as the first time. Even after two weeks, she had made little to no progress. In the end, they came up with a rather unorthodox plan: Robin had been in touch with Batman, who had somehow acquired a vast plot of undeveloped and rather inaccessible land (where he would get that sort of money, Raven had no idea. Perhaps he looted his enemies after kicking them into Arkham). In the centre of the plot, they built a spartan but comfortable dwelling for Raven. There she would have to live while she learned to restrain her new power, away from the emotional assault of an urban centre like Jump City. It was drastic and everyone exhausted every other option they could think of, even Beast Boy's outlandish ideas: no other viable options were found and so, with a heavy heart, Raven agreed to leave the Tower. Indefinitely. The move itself was easy, at least for Raven, as she had to be sedated before leaving the safe room, though she had to resign herself to letting Starfire and Robin pack her belongings for her. Cyborg worked on her new home, making sure they would never be out of touch and providing every amenity he could, also making arrangements to deliver supplies with drones or high-altitude air drops.
By far, the most painful part of the process was when the other Titans had to leave Raven behind, still sedated, in a place she had never even seen. Knowing they had no choice made it no easier to bear. Raven awoke in unfamiliar surroundings, though she quickly found her things waiting for her, along with a photograph of her friends. She quickly upended a few small boxes before finding what she was looking for: a talisman to aid her in restraining outbursts of her power. She clutched it to her heart as she sat on a comfortable chair, and allowed her tears to escape her eyes.
The others were entirely aware of Raven's need for isolation, and each had agreed, reluctantly, to limit their contact with her to essential communication outside of allotted time set aside for personal communication, all so Raven could set a routine for her training. Still, after a few weeks, Raven was feeling lonesome. She was amazed at herself, at the very notion that the mild chaos of the Tower that she so often complained about was something that she now craved. She missed them. Only a day later, something happened that did not fit her routine. Her communicator beeped, showing a message had been received. Thinking it could be an emergency, she quickly opened the message, only to see an image of a grinning Beast Boy. The arrow at the bottom of the screen indicated that it was, in fact, a video. The tapped the play button and Beast Boy started to move, making sure the camera pointed in his direction of travel. Shortly, Raven saw Cyborg sitting on the couch, viewed from behind. Beast Boy drew the camera closer to himself and shushed dramatically, making Raven shake her head. What was the point in shushing her through a video? Still she watched as he crept closer to Cyborg. Then his other hand appeared in the camera's field of view holding... something. Slowly, almost gently, Beast Boy raised his hand and pushed the object - wait, was that tofu? - into Cyborg's right ear. The effect was immediate, Cyborg leapt to his feet and immediately zeroed in on Beast Boy. Beast Boy kept the camera running as Cyborg pursued him, and the video finally ended with the screen filled by Beast Boy's laughing face followed by a particularly volcanic Cyborg. Raven carefully closed the communicator and put it down, putting her hand over her eyes.
"Azar..." she muttered. Then, she started to laugh, louder than she ever had before while promising herself she would never, ever tell him about it.
Guess what? I'm alive.
-Jack