A/N: I know, it's been too long kids. A whole lot has happened since I last updated this story, and while I'm not about to get into all of it, know that it won't ever be that long before I update again.
That said, I hope you all enjoy. This chapter was significantly longer, but Starfire was being a pain in the ass, and rather than making you all wait even longer than you already have, I decided to cut and rework sections of this chapter. The next chapter is already complete, but for those of you who haven't been following my other stuff, I'll tell you that I have no internet, and my computer sucks, so I'm having to print pages and typeset them at my mother's house before I can update. A lengthy process to be certain, and one I don't have much time for, unfortunately, but I will try.
Read, enjoy and please don't hate me. Lots of love to all who have been sticking with this one. I swear to you, I'll finish it. Peace, all.
Chapter Five: Specter
"It's a long road to Canaan." --Simon and Garfunkel, Bleeker Street
Red-X was an observant man.
Really, he was. Had to be in his line of work.
So, it was only natural that he wonder what had taken him so long to notice what had been staring him in the face for ages—and not just in the way her cloak now hiked up to her lower back, giving him an unfettered view of the smooth, shapely legs and nicely rounded, yet toned, backside she usually kept beneath the shadows of her protective veil, though it was definitely what had captured his attention.
It was in the way she moved; every step she took was an exercise in measured grace. And yet, there was more to it than that—the sway and gentle slope of her body, the way she carried herself...
Damn. She was down right seductive. He'd bet she didn't even know it.
He tilted his head to the left for a more complete assessment as she continued to walk in front of him obliviously and sighed a little. Such was irony. Seemed like the best looking ones always wanted to take him to jail.
"What?"
X jumped a little, though to his credit it wasn't obvious, and looked up to find that the sorceress had stopped and was turned slightly to peer at him over her shoulder. "Huh?"
Her gaze sharpened minutely. "You were sighing," she intoned. "Why?"
It was interesting, he thought; she shouldn't have been able to hear him over the sound of that droning wail off in the distance. His vision flickered above them momentarily, to the vapor trail of lingering apparitions making their way across the endless white desert toward a point in nowhere, though he paid them no real mind. X was never one to spook easily, and though he knew they'd be trouble later, he saw no point in getting worked up about them now.
Besides, he had better things to get worked up about and for entirely different reasons.
"Just checking out your ass," he shrugged, answering bluntly.
To his ultimate chagrin, the Titan made no sudden gesture of surprise or outrage, though he was satisfied to note the very brief stain of her cheeks as she turned to face him fully, one brow arched sharply in a show of marked disbelief.
"Honestly, X," she remarked, somewhat exasperated, "you could at least come up with something believable."
She didn't believe him. She honest to God thought he was just trying to get under her skin, which, granted, was usually his motive but this time was just an added bonus. The notion left him dumbfounded, really, and opened his mind to a possibility he'd not previously considered. Had she been fishing for compliments as many women might have and he knew she absolutely wasn't, he would have been annoyed and thus lost interest, but this...
Raven honestly had no concept of how attractive she actually was. Un-be-freaking-lievable.
If he were to be entirely honest, it was a notion he, himself, had been avoiding since they'd gotten into this mess. Hell, since the time he'd saved her ass some months ago. Granted, he found nothing more satisfying than irritating her, and doting on her feminine attributes was the quickest way to do it, he'd noticed. However, play aside, legitimate attraction—not physical admiration, but pure attraction...it was a medicine for disaster.
And yet, he did so love playing with fire.
"Believe it, sweetheart," he said, sidling up next to her with a leer he was certain she could feel through the mask. He made a show of examining the length of her body, an appreciative noise bubbling up from deep in his throat. "You should consider losing the cloak altogether. With a body like that, you don't even need powers."
The look she gave him was priceless, and X felt the laughter slip from his lips before he could think better of it.
She scowled further, if it was possible. "You would do well to put your eyeballs back in your head," she snapped, stepping up her pace to put the distance between them. "I'd hate for you to lose them in an unfortunate accident," she grumbled, though he heard it anyway.
It was fuel to the fire, and X didn't even try to stop the amusement from coloring his tone as he jogged to catch up with her, taking her by surprise as he grabbed her by the wrist and spun the dark witch to face him.
"What's the matter, pretty bird," he purred, seductive and smooth even through the distorter. "I'm beginning to think Wonder Blunder doesn't...appreciate you like he should." He brought her closer, and Raven went stock-still as his head dipped to the smooth slope of her shoulder, the electric sensation of his breath tickling the shell of her ear through the mask as he deliberately made his way along her neckline. "You know, I'd be glad to appreciate you as often as you like."
Raven refused to dwell on the way her pulse began to race or the way he made her cheeks flush. She wouldn't even consider the trill of excitement running across her skin as it prickled or how the heat unfurled in her chest and low in her belly, making it difficult to breathe. She was too damned angry for that. The arrogant bastard, how dare he!
She shoved him hard enough to take them both back, rocking on their heels. "Hands to yourself, thief!" she hissed, eyes glowing dangerously. God, what she wouldn't give for her powers right about now!
X chuckled, and it was like sweet, slow molasses from his mouth. "Honestly," he said with no small amount of amusement. "You're no fun, sunshine. You gotta lighten up if you're gonna tag along with me."
"Tag along with you?" she parroted, ready to lose control of her already frazzled emotions. The cocky son-of-a-bitch was seriously asking for it. "Let's get one thing straight, X. I'm not here to--"
Raven gasped, eyes searching wildly as the earth opened up and sucked him down into depths of that snow white oblivion so quickly no sound had escaped his lips. "X!" she cried, dropping to her knees in the sand and digging across the surface frantically, heedless of the dangers that had taken him. "X! Can you hear me?"
Nothing. Raven began to tremble as she felt the ground shift below her; the sorceress scrambled to her feet and looked around, helpless against what might befall her, though she would try anyway. She assumed her best defensive stance, wishing like hell she had a blade of some kind as she heard a high-pitched whine, steadily growing in the sand below her feet.
She jumped as the earth screamed, spewing forth scalding air and one surprised looking thief. He shot up into the roiling black sky and then cried out as he dropped like a stone, colliding with the ground some twenty feet away in a sickening thud that made Raven's skin crawl.
The thief groaned, and the dark Titan called out to him, assessing her best point of contact. The sand was shifting all around them now, the space between them taking on two distinct and curious patterns of clockwise and counterclockwise movement.
If Raven was smart, which she was, she wouldn't move a muscle, and she knew it.
The titan broke into a dead run.
Later on, she'd blame the disorientation she'd yet to recover from upon entering the realm. For now, she had only one thought in mind: reaching Red-X.
Raven skidded on her knees, sending sand about them in a spray as she came to a halt at his side. "X," she breathed, gripping his forearms to shake them lightly. "Jesus, X, are you okay?"
The blade in his palm dropped to the ground, and X wheezed, having had the breath thoroughly knocked from his body upon impact. His head lolled about in apparent confusion. "Wha?" he groaned.
"Hey," she said softly, taking him by the chin to bring his gaze in her general direction. He was rather disgusting, really; the thief was covered in some sort of…slime, and the grit of wet sand clung to his suit like a second skin. Oh well, she'd worry about washing her hands later. "Look at—
Raven's eyes widened as the ground exploded, bringing a hailstorm of grit down upon them when the creature surfaced, screaming.
"Fuck." Well, that certainly got his attention, Raven thought as she took in the gargantuan beast before them. In all her travels, she'd never seen anything quite like it; a mammoth albino, a thousand snake like tentacles writhing as tongues in the gaping chasm of its mouth. Its wormlike body heaved, discharging a green haze of noxious fume from the rows of razor-like talons along its back, and the blood red pupil of its one great, bulbous eye narrowed menacingly.
Raven scuttled backward in a crab-walk, stopping only when she made contact with X, already standing. Reaching down, he grabbed her by the top of the arm and pulled her bodily up to meet him.
"Time to go," he told her, only to be knocked from his feet by the force of another creature, just as nasty as the first in X's opinion, surging up from the depths. The beast let out a heinous shriek that chilled both thief and titan down to the core, and the hapless mortals struggled to gain footing in the sand with the ricochet of sound driving the ground to liquid below them.
"We've got to do something," Raven called over the noise. "Do you have enough power left in the suit to teleport?"
"To where?" X replied, hoping she could hear him over that god-awful screaming. "I guarantee those aren't the only two big nasties out here!"
"Well how should I know?" she retorted, hands moving to her hips irritably as she squatted on her knees in the dirt. "I don't suppose you have a better—"
She squeaked as he grabbed her by the waist and jerked her forward; the sandworm struck out with a mass of tentacled tongues, just missing the sorceress as she tumbled into Red-X's chest and sent them both rolling over in the sand.
She sputtered the grit from her mouth as he pulled her closer, wrapping his legs around her own. Had circumstances not been what they were, she would have been sorely tempted to cut them off and feed them to him.
"Don't move," he whispered, hoarsely, slipping his hand between them. He pushed the button and prayed.
Pinky was beginning to regret his decision.
He squirmed. He, six-feet three-inches of solid muscle, was writhing and whimpering like a little girl as he dangled helplessly from the end of what looked like reinforced cable, though Pinky couldn't help but have his doubts. Upside-down at 15-stories high had that effect on a person.
"You don't really expect me to believe that, do you?"
Pinky tensed at the soft click from above him, craning his neck around to see the stranger sweep the razor-sharp titanium blade down the length of the cable.
"Did you think I just picked you at random?" His voice was a harsh whisper, and Pinky could feel the eyes burning holes through his head from behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. He wasn't certain just who the mysterious figure was, though he couldn't help but find something familiar about the muss of his dark hair and the grim line set on his lips.
"Look man, I done told ya," he said, voice strained and head aching as the blood began to settle in his skull. "I don't fuckin' know nuttin'!"
The line jerked and Pinky screamed, heart coming up in his throat as he came to an abrupt halt, albeit with one-third of the cord holding his life frayed at the edges. The dark one held the blade menacingly at the edge of the next, straining flex.
He grinned morbidly, and Pinky knew, knew right down to his bones that this man would have no qualms with letting him split like a watermelon on the pavement below.
"Okay, okay, okay," he jabbered in rapid-fire succession. "I'll talk! I'll talk! Some punk came lookin' for me down at the docks a few months ago. S-s-said he knew someone lookin' for a professional to rip some junk from the museum. I p-p-passed him off ta Spud Masterson. I swear that's all I know!"
"Who came to the docks?" the stranger asked.
"I dunno," he replied, breathing heavily. "I ain't never seen 'im before."
Pinky shrieked as the line jerked and pulled taut once more, tears welling in the dirty yellow tinge of his eyes.
"You're a terrible liar, Pinky," he taunted.
"Martinez!" Pinky wailed, helplessly. "His name's Martinez! Hangs out down at that bodega on Fulks Avenue—I swear that's all I got, man!
"Please, God," he snuffled hysterically, "please don't kill me!"
The stranger set his boot upon the ledge, leaning over his bent knee to meet the dangling man at a point closer to eye-level. The pale glow of night caught the glint of his perfect, white teeth as the deliberate grin set into place on the hard edge of his features, and Pinky felt his heart shudder to a stop.
He swallowed the prayer on his tongue and snapped his wild eyes shut as the line wrenched violently.
Raven was, quite frankly, damned tired of falling.
She'd thought they were going to make it this time. Really, she did. Had felt the powerful exhale of relief deflate his chest as they rematerialized, solid feet to the earth, and she unclenched her jaw and let her eyelids flutter open as the warmth of her breath rolled along her cheeks, buried within his chest.
Disoriented, she stumbled back slightly, flushing visibly, whether out of embarrassment or frustration she really couldn't say, as he reached out quickly and steadied her, cupping her shoulders in his injured palms.
"Whoa, there," he spoke, winded himself. "You alright there, Sunshine?"
"Don't touch me," she fussed, shrugging his hands away, though her standard vehemence was sorely lacking. "I'm just not used to traveling that way." She rubbed her temple and stubbornly refused to acknowledge the sing-song voice of Rebellion. What did she know, anyway?
"Yeah, well, you're welcome," the thief grumbled, turning away to assess their surroundings, though he wasn't having much luck. Even with the infrared vision and sensory perception enhancers Robin had loaded the suit with, the visibility in this place just plain sucked.
The thief sighed, running a hand over the armored scalp of the suit to the base of his neck and massaged the muscles, despite the soreness of his palms and the swelling in his shoulder. "Well—"
Her eyes widened the fraction of a second too late, and X lurched forward when the thing lodged itself into the back of his head, sifting through the contents and probing the innermost toils of his mind in one aggressive, intrusive fog of hate.
Red-X screamed.
For the first time, in a very long time, Raven simply didn't know what to do. She reached out to the thief and jerked, hoping to dislodge the ghoul, though it seemed to do little more than incite the foul parasite.
"X!" she cried, gripping him by the shoulders to shake him violently. "Come on, X, focus on me!"
He just kept screaming, that god-awful, heinous wail set her teeth on edge, and Raven felt the pressure build in her throat. She'd never seen someone mind-raped before, and the sorceress decided right then that it was the most horrific and terrifying thing she'd ever witnessed.
Guilt settled into the pit of her stomach. It wasn't the same she knew, but at least a part of her wondered if Robin had felt very much the same on the night of their bond.
She swallowed past the shame, refusing to let the past cloud her judgment of the present. Raven had no intention of letting anyone suffer that kind of torment be it within her power or not, ever again. Not even Red-X.
The Titan grabbed him by the belt, digging through the pouches and pockets to find something—anything that might get the beast to let go. Just as she thought she might have something to go on, the thief grunted and slumped forward, like a marionette with its strings suddenly cut.
"X?" she whispered, tilting his face to make eye contact through the mask.
He wasn't looking at her. In fact, he was staring straight past her, and Raven felt cold dread settle in the base of her spine as slowly, she turned to face his attacker.
It was a girl. A young girl, though the lines of her face might have said differently. She smiled, and the thief whimpered in the back of his throat, apparently mesmerized by the ghostly fog of her transparent body.
"Jack…" it breathed, voice a soft, sweet litany. "Jackie…"
Raven drew her brow in confusion at the sudden hissing intake of breath, and her eyes drifted back to the boy leaning heavily into her side, his fingers beginning to tremble as he reached out tentatively.
She took his wrist suddenly, startling him into inaction. "Don't touch it," Raven warned. "It's not what you think."
"I…" X shook his head violently, pulling back from the apparition, though reluctantly. "You're not real," he whispered, one foot slowly behind the other.
The ghoul distorted, revealing the malicious white heat below the child's skin, a malevolent phantom, snarling with rage as it lunged for them without preamble.
Raven started, scuttling backward just a step too far as she met the edge of the earth, and the sorceress cried out as her balance tipped. Swinging her arms in wide circles, she struck out, catching Red-X by the armored fabric of his collar as she fell, effectively bringing them both tumbling down the rough stone incline.
And they were falling. Again. Damn it.
She grunted and cursed as her already battered body made contact with every razor-edged rock and limb in her path, and by the time they slowed in their descent, Raven would have bet at least one of them had suffered some broken bones.
Fortunately, her final resting point had been a soft enough landing. Perhaps less fortunate was the stunning lack of ground afforded her there. The water washed over her head and down the Titan's back in a frigid gale, and Raven had to force down the natural urge to gasp for fear of choking.
Still, it was the least of her worries and she knew it. While Raven could swim, she wasn't the strongest, and the steady ache of her muscles made it difficult to fight the rushing current. She kicked for the surface, struggling to free herself from the river's command despite the weight of fatigue settling in on her. God, but she was tired.
The dark witch pushed further, wishing like hell for the thousandth time for her powers as she kicked and pulled for the surface, trying to quell the rising panic when the air began to grow stale in her lungs. God, just a few more feet, she knew she had to be getting close.
Raven wanted to laugh out loud when she felt her hand break through the surface and latch on to the warm, soft palm of another. She was coughing and sputtering, lungs screaming for air as she surged forth from the depths to meet him, knowing they were each the other's only chance of breaking the shore.
X was there, clinging bodily to the one limb that branched out midstream with one hand and clutching her hand like a lifeline with the other. "Well, it's about damned time," he panted, fighting to draw her closer though the current was working against them.
"What can I say?" she deadpanned, tossing her head to sling the soppy mess of hair from her eyes. "Traffic was absolute hell."
He grinned beneath the mask, pulling her forward as she worked her feet to bring herself in his general direction. It worked, with no small amount of effort on either part, and within moments, the sorceress found herself pressed into his chest. She refused to dwell on that or the feel of him through the slickness of her wet leotard.
He held fast, working to keep her in place as he steadied himself on the limb, and Raven felt her breath hitch as he drew her closer, brushing her ear lobe with the slope of his jaw. Honestly, why did he have to go and touch her like that anyway? Her emotional barriers were raw and battered, and the tiniest little thing, just the slightest, made her…well, she couldn't say just what it made her. Whatever it was, it wasn't Raven.
Damn him, anyway. Arrogant jackass was probably doing it on purpose.
"You're going to have to climb over me and up the limb," he breathed through the distorter and eliciting a surprised squeak from the girl in his arms as he reached down and grabbed her belt, tugging forward.
Raven flushed hard. "Just what the hell—"
He snapped the lifeline into place, and the titan fell silent, comprehension dawning behind the muted crystalline of her eyes.
"When you reach the shore, you can pull me in," he continued as though she'd never spoken. "Kind of like fishing. Got it?"
Raven nodded once in acknowledgment, and the thief took her by the waist firmly with his one free arm, a move she got the distinct impression he was thoroughly enjoying by the slight squeeze he gave her as he lifted her upward. She'd have to remember to kick him in the teeth later.
The climb was agonizingly slow in Raven's opinion. Perhaps, if she hadn't been so tangled bodily about him, she could have tuned out everything but the task at hand. Perhaps, if she hadn't been fairly certain he was staring at her ass, bent so conveniently before him, she could have kept the presence of mind to finish quickly.
But Raven was awkward; she was clumsy and strange and altogether devoid of her typical ease and grace. And the titan felt her cheeks stain red once more when she realized they both had noticed and knew the other noticed. If that made any sense. God help her, nothing else seemed to.
She made it finally, after several long minutes and many near falls, and the sorceress rooted herself to the ground in dogged preparation, pulling the line taut along the crux of the tree that housed the branch that saved them.
"Okay, X," she called over the rush of water and distant howling. "Let go of the limb!"
He did, and Raven cursed as she jerked forward, toes brushing the ground as the distribution of weight tipped and leveled. Damn, but he was heavy with all that gear and water.
She bounced, touching ground and reaching up for a higher length of rope and, wrapping it around her palm below the base of her fingers, Raven pulled with all the strength left in her tiny body.
He collapsed as his flesh wound itself back together, the slips of low light in the sanctuary a blessed quietude among the chaos surrounding them. Red-X exhaled heavily, the breath from his abused body echoing in a strangled whimper from his throat.
For the first time since he'd entered this realm, X was tired—physically and mentally tired.
"Let me see your shoulder," she spoke quietly, decidedly more collected than the thief at this point, though haggard just the same as she sat down in the dirt at his side. "I want to check the swelling."
He shrugged, not really caring to fight her at this point, though her attentions were sorely misplaced as far as he was concerned. A few more bumps and scrapes to be certain, but he'd had no new major injuries. Nothing physical, anyway.
"I'm fine," he grumbled, turning over on his back. "The suit protected me from the fall."
"And before that?" she wondered aloud, pretending not to notice as the thief stiffened right down to his toes. "That ghost—"
"I'm fine," he snapped. "End of story."
"Is it?" Raven intoned, too perceptive for her own good. "You knew her," she observed, looking out into the darkness. She'd no need to see his face. She felt more in his aura than mere sight could ever grant her. "I saw you up there, you know. I saw you. Maybe for the first time."
"You don't know a damn thing," X growled, rounding on her in sudden fury, burning her with the heat of the fire within his chest. It was the first time she'd seen him as anything other than cool nonchalance.
And there was just something about playing with fire…
"Who was she?"
He was on his feet in the space of a heartbeat, yanking the titan up by her forearms. One violent shake brought the girl's probing to an abrupt end, and Raven stood in blatant, wide-eyed shock as he met her nose to nose.
"I said you don't know a damn thing," he hissed, voice a malicious storm beneath the mask. "Drop it, Princess. It's none of your fucking business."
He dropped her like a stone, and Raven hit the earth hard. The glint hardened in her eyes as he stalked to the far corner of the room, sliding down the rough, granite wall, head in his hands as he met the ground.
Hope it was worth waiting for. Please feed the author, if you are so inclined.
