I am SO sorry it took so long for this chapter to get up! But we are almost done with the rewrite of Feelings! This week I will also be working on the next Story after "Dark Deal" which will be titled, "Being Evil has a Price" Im super excited to get after that and to continue this epic tale!
Thank you so much to those that review and to those that helped during my writers block. A-LionGleek, Golem, and Foamy to name a few.
Please Read and Review.
On with the show.
Chapter 9: Battle of the Beasts.
The demon known as Rachel sat against the wall watching as the king of demons slaughtered her associates one by one. Her hands placed over her wounds of her vessel trying to stop the dark blood pouring from her body, she was already slashed, stabbed, and cut so baddly she couldn't stand or fight back. The bodies the demons possessed were easily pierced with the blades conjured by the king, killing the demon inside of them. Watching Landon fight them off proved to her that the rumors about him going soft were very, VERY false, at least when it came to his demonic subjects. Landon pulled his blade out of the last demon Rachel had brought with her to do battle with the current king, it's body slumping to the ground with a thud. He single handedly took out an ENTIRE squad of demons like there were nothing more then flies, but he wasn't finished . . . yet.
She began whimpering as he sauntered towards her, red blood, almost black, dripping from his duel blades, his TRUE face fading away into the charming, handsome man he was known for. "My king." she choked, blood seeping from her mouth. "Please . . . have . . . mercy?"
Landon knealt beside her cupping the side of her face almost tenderly. She smiled leaning into his touch, then he pulled her close and met her lips with a fiery kiss . . . just as his blade slid slowly into her heart.
He pulled away, her black eyes fading away. "Your good Rachel," He pulled his blade out of her heart, his former minion passing on into oblivion, "but I'm Landon."
His blades vanished into black smoke while he stood up looking over his handiwork. He looked down at his ripped clothes and groaned, but his suit was still hanging up unharmed. Still his clothes were expensive after all.
"Now where was I?" he asked himself, as if he hadn't just slaughtered a handful of his former sunjects. "Ah, yes." He stepped over the demon carcusses to the elevator and pressed the button for the car to go back down to grab whomever was down there. The elevator let out a loud grinding moan, the mechanical parts sparking with energy then exploded with a buff of black smoke. As he feared, the explosion from before tore the elevator.
"Bollocks." he muttered.
He could feel it.
The energy surging through him. It wasn't magical, no, but it was powerful enough to give the magical item around his neck a kick start and thus the fire within him was kindled brighter then before.
Skin became scales.
Hands and feet became razor like claws.
Legs and arms becoming a hundred times stronger.
A tail, and wings spreading form his new form creating a large intimidating presence.
His neck elongated, his skull grew horns, his teeth became sharp and serrated and eyes becoming black slits, but still held the bright color of hazel.
Finally body armor finished the dragon warrior now standing before the young titan. His necklace glowing with swirling teal power.
"Uh . . . " a wide-eyed Kole started, "so it . . . worked?"
Dragon-Drake snorted hot soot from his nostrils. "I'll leave that to your imagination." She rolled her eyes at him as he stepped past her pushing against the rock wall with his shoulder bringing it down with an explosive crash.
"Oh how macho?" she said dropping the wire. Drake snorted again folding in wings over his chest giving him the illusion of wearing a cloak.
"Coming?" Kole scurried towards him as they both made their way out down the tunnel.
"So that demon that killed our friends," Drake long pointed ear twitched in her direction, but he didn't look down at her, "why did he do it?"
"Unfortunately I don't have an answer for that. I'm uh . . . sorry for your loss." Kole could tell that was hard for him to say clearly he wasn't a touchy feely guy, yet she was touched by the sentiment. It was . . . sweet.
"You mentioned before that as a soldier no one knows, cares, or remembers what you do for them right?" He nodded silently. Kole shuffled nervously, her stomach tightening and her heart beating faster with anxiety, and her face heating up. He tilted his head towards her direction, his senses telling him that she was nervous for some reason. Finally. "If it means anything . . . I'll always remember what you did for me."
Since she was looking down at ground when she spoke, she didn't see the dragon stop mid-step, but noticing only one set of footsteps, she looked behind her. The cloaked dragon cleared his throat, smoke whisping from his jaws.
"I-uh-your welcome." he said, then picked up the pace continuing down the tunnel. After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence they came to the elevator, Speedy and Bushido were looking over the elevator shaft trying to get it to work. Hearing the footsteps behind them they spun around, relieved to see Kole okay, but that changed once they saw the dragon next to her.
"It's okay," she said noticing the defensive stances they were taking, although she was curious to see what the two "normal" Titans were going to do against the muscled, scaled, seven foot, fire-breathing . . . humanly handsome . . . "he saved us." She had to speak hurridly to shoo the thoughts. Drake walked past her to the elevator.
"Broken down?" he asked.
"Yeah, probably from the explosion." Bushido responded. Drake looked up the elevator shaft, snorting in frustration. "So what now?" Bushido waved the smoke from the dragons snout out of his face.
Drake sighed again. "Hang on." With his tail he grabbed the girl by her waist and placed her on his back, her arms wrapping around his neck as tightly as she could. Speedy and Bushido hopped onto his back hanging onto his wings, then Drake dug his claws into the solid stone wall and began to climb the shaft.
"You sure you can carry all of us up there?" Speedy asked.
"I'm fine." he grunted, the pounding of his claws into the rock wall creating a deafening sound up and down the shaft, to be honest he was slightly distracted with the girls close proximity. With his senses dialed up to twenty, her smell from both her hair and her breathing was making him dizzy . . . in a good way, and even through his scales he could feel the soft skin of her cheek on his neck.
. . . Damn it . . .
Finally when they came to the bottom of the elevator car, with one of his claws he slit the metal like he was cutting through butter and made sure to cut a large hole for his passengers to crawl through.
"Ladies first." Kole scampered off of his neck and was quickly followed by the other two into the elevator car where they were met by a man in ripped clothes, and drenched in blood, but none of it . . . looked like it was his.
"It's about time-" he looked over the three, "where's my dragon?" The aformentioned dragon crawled through the hole he had created joining the other three. "What took you so long?" Landon asked with a rasied brow, and a smirk.
"Up yours." Drake countered.
"Whoa . . . " The titans had filed out of the broken down elevator and were now staring with slight amazment, and horror at the bloodbath before them. Corpses of the dead demons now decorated the abandoned factory, blood and flesh dangling from different parts of the factory. "Did you do this . . . by yourself?" Speedy asked, the demon king apprehensively.
Landon looked over his work, then responded nonchalantly. "Yeah." The three titans only stared with mouths agape. "What?"
"Move!" Robin yelled. Starfire grabbed him by his hands and flew into the air, just as the beasts claws came down on top of them. Raven created a shield of black energy around her that the beast began pounding on. She dropped to her knees, each blow as if it was beating against the inside of her skull.
"Beast-AGH!-It's me-AGH!" He continued to claw and beat at her shield, a few hits away from breaking it completely, but a battle cry and a flurry of starbolts drew his attention to the air. The bolts hitting the beast like she was throwing them at a brick wall. Starfire released Robin and he was now headed right for the Beast with his steel-toed boots aimed for his head. He kicked the beast upside the head, landing lightly on the pavement, but the blow he dealt to it's head didn't even phase him. The behemoth grabbed Robin by his leg and swung him away, then followed after his prey, fangs ready to plunge into the Boy Wonder.
"Robin!" Starfire yelled after him.
"I'm fine! Help Raven!" he ordered, as he backflipped away from the beasts claws.
Starfire relunctantly tended to her down friend. "Raven are you-"
"I'm fine. We need to exorcise the demon inside of him." Raven dizzily got to her feet, her head spinning and sweating.
"I do not believe the demon needs to get into shape." Starfire said innocently holding her friend up by her arm.
"She means ex-OR-cise."
Both Titan girls spun around to find Carnus sneering at them, his hands casually in his coat pockets. The Titan girls channeled their power to their tightened fists, causing an eerie black and green glow to shine over the demon. Their anger directed at the dark creature before them.
"You will release our friend!" Starfire demanded.
Carnus chuckled. "Or . . . what? You'll shoot me with your scawy green bolts?"
"For starters." Raven glared.
Carnus continued his chuckling at their expense. "Well go ahead and hit me with your best shot. I am just itching to see what you two will-" CRASH!
The girls "eeped!" leaping into each others arms. Carnus was hit dead on by a tow truck and was pinned against the side of the building. Upon impact, he seemed to combust into black smoke that flew off into the distance and out of sight.
Starfire and Raven held each other, staring with disbelief and shock at what they had just seen looking over the distruction, but what was more shocking was the object hanging off the back of the tow truck.
"BOO-YAH!" Cyborg was danging from the tow cables, obviously powered down, but that didn't rid him of his joviality. What they didn't notice after Carnus spontaniously combusted what that the beast forgot all about Robin and took off towards the city.
"Raven!" Robin called. "Beast Boy is getting away, we need to go!"
Raven released the alien princess. "Help Cyborg. I'm going to help Robin." Raven met her team leader, and once she created a disk of black energy went after the green monstrosity with Robin in tow.
Cyborg swung himself over so that he was staring at Starfire. "Starfire help Sarah in the drivers seat." The urgency in his voice was clear, but unsure of who this Sarah was, she floated to the drivers side door and ripped it off with her alien strength. She saw a blonde women with a tight, white knuckled grip on the wheel, adrenaline causing her to shake.
Starfire looked her over with concern for her well beaing. "Excuse me miss, are you well?"
Sarah shakily turned her head towards the Titan. "I . . . I just ran over a BAD guy . . . and helped save Cyborg, Raven . . . and Starfire of the Teen Titans . . . " strangely a smile came to her trembling face, "I'm . . . AWESOME!" Starfire nodded with an apprehensive smile at the very odd earth woman.
Landon, Drake and the three Titans met the others by the tow truck. Even inside the factory they could hear the crash of the blonde driver crashing into the demon.
"Did she . . . kill him?" Kole asked.
Landon scoffed. "You could hit him with a train and it wouldn't do much good in stopping him."
"So how do you kill him?" Speedy asked.
"YOU don't." Drake said "I do." His tone said that was the end of the discussion, so they remained quiet until they came to Cyborg and the others.
"Can he be repaired?" Starfire asked the blonde women. She was unsure if this "Sarah" knew what she was doing, but after a few minutes of Sarah working with Cyborg's systems it was clear to Starfire she knew what she was doing.
"I can get his basic systems online, but that's it." she responded.
"Your gonna have to get me back to the tower, basics aren't gonna cut it." Cyborg looked up when the others joined them, he turned to Landon and the dragon. "Carnus took off, Raven and Robin went after him"
Landon turned to Drake. "Go after him-"
"What about you?" Drake asked somewhat irritated by being told to leave. It had nothing to do with the fact that he wanted to spend more time around the pinkette . . . not at all.
"There is something I need to take care of. Sort of a failsafe if you will." Drake eyed him curiously, but relented.
"Make sure she's safe." he whispered spreading his wings.
"She?-"
"THEM! THEM! All of these kids . . . " He leapt into the air with a few beats of his wings. Landon looked over the young girl. Hm, I approve.
Cyborg blinked away the dust that was blown into his face and called to the others. "Speedy, Bushido we got some spare supplies for you out our tower, once we get back, gear up and with Starfire and Kole, go help Robin and Raven." They nodded. "In the meantime help me get back to the tower, Star, Kole go after Robin. Lan-" He was about to give Landon an assignment, but he was already gone. Cyborg shook his head as best he could. "Never mind. Teen Titans GO!"
The two birds soared over the city on Raven's black energy disk, hurridly scanning the ground below for their green friend. You'd think it wouldn't be that hard to find him. Robin, though on one knee and searching, had another matter on his mind now that he was alone with the demoness.
"Are you going to answer my question from before?" he asked her.
She rolled her eyes, the wind whipping her cloak about almost making it difficult to hear her companion. "Can you be more specific? I don't spend my time contemplating our conversations."
"I'm talking about why you've taken it upon yourself to be Beast Boy's babysitter?"
Once again she rolled her eyes staring into the sky with frustration. "Look when Beast Boy is down and upset, the world just makes a little less sense. We all have our roles. Cyborg is the big brother and protector, Starfire's the cheerleader, your the leader, I'm the mature voice of reason, and Beast Boy is the jokester, but even you have to admit that his cheerful attitude is the light in our dark world we need."
Robin regarded her words. Yes he was immature, yes he was a headache, yes he was a loose cannon, but Raven was right. When all else seemed dark and bleak, his attitude helped bring EVERYONE out of their funk. Still why did Raven want to protect this "light".
"So, your protecting what he brings to the team, Or what he brings to you?"
She was so shocked by the question she almost lost control of the disk. Quickly refocusing she responded. "If that's how you want to look at it then yes. Look I've never had a lot of good things in my life, you all being the exceptions, but Beast Boy being . . . Beast Boy, is something I can count on to help break my . . . boundries. I mean would the rest of you ever thought to give me a useless, stupid penny when the world was LITERALLY ending? So yes, I want to protect what he brings to MY life and if you tell anyone that, they will NEVER find your body."
Robin stared at her a little shocked by what he was hearing, it seemed like after six long years her and Beast Boy were finally friends, and she excepted what it was that he brought to the table. Noticing her staring she asked a snappy "What?"
"Nothing," he smiled softly, "your just growing up is all."
She rolled her eyes. "Shut-UGH!" They were blindsighted by an enormous green blur that knocked them out of the sky and onto a nearby roof top. Raven rolled to a painful stop in time for the beast to leap on top of her. "Beast Boy it's-AAAAAAHHHHHHH!" She felt a cold hot pain in the side of her neck, but once the pain was finally over she heard the clink of something metal hitting the ground. Looking at the item she gasped, It was a red hot brand with a burning star she recognized as the Star of Solomon.
Beast Boy had just branded her, with a symbol that shut off her powers. She fought the feelings of betrayel by reminding herself over and over again that he was under someone else's control. Still she shed a few tears for the fact that he had done this to her.
"Get off of her!" Robin dashed at the beast with his staff at the ready. It only took a fraction of a second for the beast to disarm the Boy Wonder and pin him to the ground with under his foot. With his other arm he wrapped it around Raven's waist pinning her close to him, she winced at the pain from the brand in her neck.
"Settle, settle!" a dark cold voice told them. Carnus emerged from the shadows looking over the teens now caputred by his possessed beast.
"Beast Boy, you can fight this." Robin groaned.
Carnus approached, his eyes flashing white as he stared at the beast. As if recieving a command no one could hear, the beast slid his claw against Raven's cheek, causing her to wince in pain again as the warm blood trickled from the wound.
"Sorry Robin," Carnus knealt down to look at the stuggling caped crusader, "but he's mine."
Robin faught against the beasts grasp, but it was ironclad. Carnus sauntered over to the demoness, pulling her head to the side to look at the brand bubbling on her neck. "Hmm looks like no powers for you my dear."
She wrenched her face from his grasp, to annoyed to be in pain. "Look take me, let Beast Boy and Robin go." she said evenly
"Raven no!" Robin growled.
Carnus considered her proposal. "Tempting offer, but I still have use of this," Carnus caressed the side of the beasts face, "miraculous creature." Noticing Raven's odd stare he continued. "I'm willing to admit when I've made a mistake, and also my admiration. First off it was a HUGE mistake to possess this young man. His mind is so . . . LOUD! Every animal in the animal kingdom has been biting, and hacking, and clawing, and slashing, and howling, to rid his body of my presence, as if I was a common cold. But I must say, in all my centuries of existance, I can say this young man has earned my respect, and believe me that doesn't happen often. Landon and Drake among this select few, and now him. I mean the things he's been through," he shivered in ecstasy, "make's me feel sorry for him and I don't have feelings."
Raven looked at the demon with her brows knit together in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
Carnus seemed puzzled by her question at first, then his face grew into a smile. "You don't know do you? You know NOTHING about his past? Tsk, tsk, tsk, some friend you are." She kept her scowl in place, but that was his answer. Carnus laughed kicking Robin in the side. "Well why don't you ask him, he knows what I'm talking about. Dontchya Robin?"
Raven looked down to her team leader. "Robin what is he talking about?"
Robin was silent. "Don't, Robin I got this. Apparently Robin know's all about the . . . horror's Beast Boy here had to endure. You see when he first became this incredible creature, Robin took it upon himself to learn all he could about him, and he learned it all. Didn't you Robin? But did you tell your team about it? Did you even feel sorry for him? DID YOU!?" Once again Robin was quiet. "No you kept it to yourself. Why don't you tell her why. Go ahead Robin tell her why you didn't tell your team about what you discovered about Beast Boy."
Robin merely grunted while on the ground. "I . . . didn't . . . "
"Awe speak up, we can't hear you."
"I KNEW WHAT BEAST BOY WAS CAPABLE OF! IT WAS ALL IN THE FILES THAT WERE SAVED BY THE SCIENTISTS THAT EXPERIMENTED ON HIM." Robin felt the tears of shame sting his eyes. "I couldn't even dream of some of the things I saw in those files. I couldn't . . . I wanted to tell him . . . but I know he kept it hidden for a reason . . . and I didn't . . . want to push him to be more, cuz then I would have been no better then the psychopaths that treated him like nothing more then . . . "
" . . . an animal." Raven finished, tears now in her own eyes.
Carnus was silent as the two let the new information wash over them, then looked back to the beast petting his head. "I have no choice but to admire him. After all he took his torment and became a better person because of it," he didn't sound like he was speaking to anyone in particular, "I can't say the same for myself . . . "
Before Carnus could say anymore the beast lifted his head to the sky sniffing and growling. Carnus followed his line of sight and saw the dragon coming for them. The demon groaned and turned back to the beast. "Kill the boy, and the dragon. I may like the dragon kid, but I don't want him in my way."
Raven squirmed in the beasts grasp. "And what about me?"
Carnus smiled at the demoness, caressing the side of her face gently, which made her pull away in disgust. "Oh my dear . . . do you even have to ask?"
Drake's crash landed on the rooftop, his eyes full or fire towards the demon who had Raven in a chokhold. "Release her! Now!" the dragon commanded.
Carnus sneered at the dragon, Raven attempting to pry his arm off of her neck. "Come after me, or save him, your choice?" Drake saw Robin inches away from being decapitated by a giant werewolf looking creature, and out of the corner of his eye, saw Carnus envelop himself in black mist ready to teleport him and his captive away.
The beast brought it's sword-like claw down on Robin's neck, but was intercepted by one of Drake's blades that came from his arm guards. Looking back to Carnus, the demon winked at him and vanished with Raven in tow. "Damn you . . . " The beast capitilzed on his distraction and tackled the dragon to the ground, using the momentum Drake kicked the beast off of him, retracting his blade and getting to his feet. Drake had seen and been around monsters all of his life, so there wasn't much that surprised him, however he had never seen anything quite like this before. It was the size of a car, and looked like a cross between a werewolf and with the maw of a cat with sharp pointed ears. The only thing Drake found really odd about it was it's fur. What the hell kind of animal is green? Then it hit him-
"Beast Bo-" The beast shot off the ground like a rocket, hitting the dragon square in the chest and pushing him off the other side of the roof. The two clawed and slashed at each other, not realizing how fast the ground was approaching. The pavement buckled underneath the combined force of the two beasts when they crashed, causing car alarms to go off and other street signs and lamp posts fall to over. The beast reared back bringing its clenched fists over the dragon, but before he can deal a blow, the dragons tail wrapped around his neck and threw him into a nearby car. The beast was dazed, but recovered quickly in time to see the same tail crash into his side sending him painfully down the road skidding across the hard pavement.
"I don't want to hurt you!" Drake growled, but the green creature paid him no mind and charged again. Drake ran towards him, locking their claws together as they pushed against each other, and thats when he saw it. The beast's eyes were pitch black. He didn't waste a second.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis-"
The beast began lurching in pain, as if the exorcism was ripping him apart from the inside out, but he fell to his back kicking Drake in the abdomen knocking him into the air, but he didn't come back down. Drake spread his wings and began floating over the confused creature.
"adversarii, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica-"
Angrily the beast leapt at the dragon, his powerful hind legs giving him the air he needed to reach the hovering dragon with ease, but didn't expect to have the strength of the Tameranean warriar slam into his chest, effectively pounding him into the ground. The beast attempted to get to his feet, but a solid brace of crystal formed around his legs imobolizing him. Kole had hugged the beasts legs together with her arms and legs, her crystal form making an unbreakable bond. The beast thrashed and clawed at the restraint, but it was usless, especially when he felt the talons of the dragon pin him to the ground. The beast continued to bite and snarl, as Drake continued the exorcism.
"ergo draco maledicte, ut ecclesiam tuam secura, tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos!" With a howl of pain the beast lurched upward, black smoke erupting from it's maw and flying into the sky disappearing into the darkness.
It was scary how quiet it had gotten, not even cars could be heard. Starfire floated over the green creature, Drake taking a step back and Kole becoming flesh again. "Is friend Beast Boy al-" Slowly the green monstrosity slowly shifted back into the green boy.
Kole went wide-eyed. "That was Beast Boy?"
Starfire tended to the groaning changeling. "Yes, friend Beast Boy becomes that creature whenever his moods are swinging."
"Be that as it may, we have more pressing issues at hand." A bright flash of light changed Drake back from his dragon form back into his human shape. "Carnus got away, and Robin is out cold on the roof."
Starfire gasped. "We must help him at once!"
"That's not all Starfire. . . " Drake's eyes fell to the ground in shame, "he took her. He took Raven . . . "
Big shout out to Auroa Nightstar who was hadn't read the original but knew from the very beginning who Carnus wanted on his table.
Next time, will the heroes make it to save her in time? I guess we'll have to see ;)
Read review and we'll see ya next time.