Disclaimer: As usual I don't own anything I have written about. :'(
Note: Wow. Busy week for me. Sorry this is somewhat late, but I warn you the updates might be slower now that I'm moving to the other side of town and packing all my things(YIKES!) So yeah, I hope you enjoy this, In my opinion its better than my previous chapter.
Chapter 4: Inner Demons
"Pathetic." Her voice rang into the empty street.
She looked down at the robotic Titan, a private smile twisted unto her face. She shook her head as if ashamed by him.
"Tisk, tisk, tisk." she teased, "missing mommy are we?" she threw back her head and let another cackle escape her lungs, laughing at her own 'joke'.
"Oh, well, that was...pleasing." She said, turning her eyes away from him and to the other four team mates, "Who's next in line?"
Her eyes rested on a slim green form, lying face down on the floor. Her eye-brows rose in curiosity, considering to enter his mind next. A frown grew on her face as her eyes passed over him.
"Nah, not yet."
She flicked her eyes to a hooded figure laying between the robot and the green one. Her expression lifted in curiosity. She released a toothy grin from her lips.
"Hum, I think I like you." She said to the unconscious Titan, closing her eyes and letting all of her victum's thoughts flow through her mind.
"Ooh, I like you a lot!" She let out an excited squeal, "So dark..."
She opened her eyes, bending down next to the figure, "Congratulations,"she spoke in an almost sweetened voice,
"I choose you."
"Uhhh." Raven slowly opened her eyes, moaning in slight pain.
"Ow."
Her vision cleared and found that she was on her back, sprawled out on a rock. Propping herself up, she took a moment to scan the area.
Rock surrounded her, massive grey boulders building up to the pitch-black ceiling, which was too tall for her too see. The looming grey boulders showed no sign of any exit, or anything to suggest how she had even got in there. The rocks around her absorbed all heat from the area, leaving her slight shaking. Cold air bit at her bare legs, and when she breathed a plume of smoke rose out from her mouth.
She was in a cave.
"Where is this?" She mumbled to herself, and getting up on her feet.
She received a small echo in reply, as her voice bounced off the walls. When she heard her own voice in her ears, it somehow triggered a sense inside of her.
Abruptly, Raven was hit with a strong a sense of foreboding. It crept into the air as if rolling off the rock walls in waves. The sense stifled her other senses, her breathing became heavy as it grew harder and harder to breathe. It was as if all the oxygen around her was being sucked away, as if there was nothing for her lungs to capture.
She wrapped her hands around her throat, choking madly as her lungs were stripped from all support. Falling to her knees, she opened her eyes and searched the strange cave for help. Her eyes were immediately stung by the air, and tears gathered up in her eyes and fell to the floor.
Smoke was rising in the room from an unknown source. The smell stung her nose and burned through her senses. The room temperature was changing rapidly, she could feel the heat filling the air of the cave.
Suddenly, her lungs retracted from their lock and she gasped a breath of the burning air. The stifle was lifted and she could breath once again.
Drawing in long, shaky breaths, she stayed in her position on the floor, trying to gain back control of her panic-set body. But her recovery was interrupted.
A mental alarm set off in her mind, her senses felt another presence in the cave. A threatening presence.
Acting quickly, she levitated a few feet into the air, dark energy accumulating at her hands. Prepared for anything that might attack her, Raven waited, her eyes calmly scanning the empty cave.
She knew someone was there, or something.
"Show yourself!" her aggressive tone split through the air.
After she spoke, fire suddenly erupted from the ground, forming a circle around the Titan. The circle of fire isolated her, it's flames rising abnormally high off the floor, and shooting up above her head.
The heat of the flames exploded around her, as sweat began to drip down her face in attempt to cool her off. Unable to take the heat, she created a force-field around her with her power, protecting her from any outside harm.
Suddenly, dark figures appeared from the other side of the fiery walls that surrounded her. There were three of them, taking positions to the right, left and front of her.
She eyed them suspiciously, her eyes narrowing as she held the force-field around her.
Then, she felt an unexpected pressure push against her shield. Her eyes snapped upward to find that the fire had copied her bubble, and was tightening it's hold against her own. Grunting in effort, she felt the fiery shield contract harder, trying to force her to back down. She held her hands up over her head, concentrating and putting all effort into keeping her force-field up.
She opened her eyes and looked at the three shadows within the orange-red glow of the fire. They were doing this, and she would not back down with out a fight.
She struggled to hold her power against theirs, but her power could not defeat their three combined.
Then, her power gave under theirs. The dark energy protecting her fell suddenly, and the scorching heat enveloped her.
She screamed in pain as the fire consumed her. It was everywhere, in her skin, filling her lungs, burning through her veins. Then, the fire released her, and she fell from her levitation and thudded hard onto the floor.
She opened her eyes again, her expression twisted in utter agony as she felt the remnants of the fire crawl through her body. But her pained face turned to fear and disbelief at what her eyes saw next.
A glowing red mark was embedded on to the palm of her hand, The marks of her birth.
She gasped and quickly got up to her knees, looking at her outstretched palms. Her purple eyes were wide, mixing with fear and shock as she stared at the marks, her mouth slightly open.
"NO!" she screamed in panic, and the marks reacted,glowing brighter and streaking across her body, covering her entirely with the scriptures of her father.
"Yes, Raven." a hiss sounded in her ear. A chill pulsed through her as she recognized the voice. She closed her eyes tight, trying to rid her mind of everything that was happening right now. This wasn't real it couldn't be.
"Go away." she growled threateningly, grinding her teeth together.
The voice laughed, lightly whispering in her ear, "Never."
Her hands closed into tight fists, and she kept her eyes closed, hoping that this was all a horrible, horrible nightmare.
'This isn't real, its not real. It a nightmare, that's all, that's it.' she repeated to herself in her mind.
'You know that is nonsense. This is very real, sister.' Her eyes snapped open at the hissing voice.
Acting quickly she swooped herself off the floor, facing the figures that hid themselves in the shadow of the fire. She prepared herself for battle, holding her dark energy at the ready as anger swelled inside her.
Raven's three brothers surrounded her, all dressed in different variations of red, with similar marks running all along their bodies. Four pairs of red eyes glowed from under their long cloaks, all eyes trained on their sister.
"Hello, sister, are you surprised to see us?" their three voices spoke as one, almost chanting every word they said in a way that made her blood run cold.
"Go away. You three don't belong here."
"But of course we do, Raven. You can not escape us. You are a part of us just as much as we are a part of you. We are, after all...family."
Anger seared inside her as they said that they were family.
"You are not my family! I Want nothing to do with you!" she shouted at them, abandoning all thought of keeping her anger under control.
"You can not escape it." Their voices never broke through a whisper, "Just as you could not escape your destiny."
"I did. Father's defeated, didn't you hear?" She spat at them with dark sarcasm.
"He is never fully defeated. He lives within us Raven, he is a part of all of us."
"No, that's not true, I defeated him, I felt his presence leave!" She shouted at them.
"You may have defeated father, but we still live. As long as we are living, father is never gone." Their monotone voice echoed off the walls menacingly.
Raven activated her powers, her anger building up inside of her. She closed her mind off to her brother's, deciding to ignore them. All they did was provoke the demon inside of her. She reminded herself to control it, and she tried in vain to keep it leashed.
"You're not real, and this is a nightmare. Now leave me alone!" her voice somewhat returned to it's cool monotone, letting no emotion show.
Turning her back to them, she folded her legs into her body and floated in th air, concentrating hard on ridding them from her mind. She needed to meditate.
"Azera-"
"Do you believe that will really get rid of us, sister?" They hissed into her ears.
It took all of her effort to ignore them, "Azerath, Mentiron Zinthos-"
"You still have not told your friends the entire truth of your family, Raven." Their hisses reminded her.
Their statement halted her failing mediation, "Shut- up."
"You knew we existed, and yet you have not told them. You knew that we would come back someday, but still your refused to let them know. We thought they were your friends, Raven. Are you not supposed to tell friends everything?"
"I said, Shut up!"
"Especially when we are returning to kill them?"
"NO! Your lying! Your not coming, it's not possible!" she whirled her body around to face them, her eyes narrowed in hate.
"Oh it is very possible," they sounded pleased with the reaction they were receiving from her, "And we will come to finish what father started. And you will join us in our cause, your anger will consume you, and there will be nothing you can do to stop it. You can not deny who you are, Raven. You know we speak the truth."
"NNOOOO!" her scream of fury pierced the air.
The anger that had been building up with each word her brothers spoke to her consumed her entire being. Her two eyes turned to four and glowed red with fury. Dark energy turned to fire at her wrists. A sinister smile spread across her lips, revealing sharp teeth.
Her father's evil consumed her very soul, and the demon Raven had been suppressing for so long was finally unleashed.
"I tried to do good things, I tried to control the dark side of me, and hope that would all make up for the horrible thing I'm destined to do."
-Raven; "The End Part 1"
Note: I also did my homework on Raven! OK, here's the explanation: Raven is part demon(as you all know)thanks to evil father. In the comic books, Raven is often tempted by the demonic side of her and is known to turn her evil at random times, never free of the evil lurking inside her. In one issue, Raven's brothers pay a visit to the Titans, using the seven deadly sins to entrance them as they reek havoc. That is where I got the idea of Raven's demon brothers, and I took the initiative to say that Raven would be afraid to them coming to avenge her father. :)
