Chapter Nine. Breaking Spells.
After the incident in the burning bank, Robin devoted all his resources to finding Ciaran as soon as possible. They finally tracked Ciaran to the underground cellars of the city library. The found him in the middle of the ritual to call the dark wave. The dark wave of destruction that would sweep over the city and leave only destruction in its wake. As the guardians of the city, there wasn't much that they had seen that would shock them, but that night, in that small room, the whole team was rendered speechless.
Within three rings, drawn on the floor first in salt, then a spicy golden powder, then in chalk, Ciaran, dressed in a black robe knelt. His chanting, in an eerie foreign language, echoing through the chamber, bringing with it, the promise of darkness, of destruction, and evil. As they watched in shock and horror, he opened up a rift in the very earth itself. They were at an angle to see the dark malevolent shapes with glowing red eyes swirling restlessly within.
What none but Raven knew, was that that rift between the world they knew and the malevolent spirit one, was that not only would it be the means by which the malevolent forces summoned to make up the dark wave enter, but the evil demon Trigon enter too.
This Raven summed up in a split second, and assessed also the dangers to those who were not accustomed and thus unshielded to these forces. Calmly she warned the others on the team to stay back, and not to cross the line she had drawn across the threshold of the doorway to the room. This was lest they, in their receptive unshielded minds they would fall prey to the dark magicks and cause themselves to be consumed and controlled by it.
However, they being the heroes that they were, they refused to obey and came rushing in as a body, determined to aid their friend in any way that they could. However, Raven had anticipated this eventuality and had prepared for it.
As they entered, with a graceful sweep of her hand, she created a shield as solid as the hardest metal, its hue deepest black. They struck it with all the strength they possessed but to no avail. They could only watch helplessly as their friend, admittedly the only one to have knowledge of the arcane went forward to face the dark forces over wich they had no control or knowledge over. Their efforts were in vain however, as the barrier held firm, trapping them helplessly, albeit safely away from the action.
That done, her friends, her family safe, Raven could now face her enemy, for it was hers and no others, alone with no distractions. Raven moved competently through the room, approaching Ciaran, expelling a experimental bolt of energy at Ciaran and the rings around which he had surrounded himself and his workings. As the bolt of energy left her hand and struck the perimeter of the circles, the bolt was instantly bisected, deflecting harmlessly across the surface of the domed shield that surrounded her enemy.
'hmm, not that tactic then' Raven thought, viewing her failure to penetrate the shields as no more than a puzzle, despite the stakes.
However, the strongest willed of them all, their leader, Robin was different. He battered at the barrier with not only his physical strength, but his heart as well. he struck it not only with physical force, but the force of his heart, his love. Love is one of th e strongest of the emotions and feelings, far stronger than friendship or brotherly caring. It was with this that he managed to breach the barrier, just enough to slip through. The barrier closing immediately behind him. the barrier to face the unknown. However, unknown to him, he would not be an asset in this battle, but a liability.
Somehow, Ciaran sensed the goings-on outside his shields and sent a shaft of fire winging its way toward Robin, like a homing missile following his every move, butning with a heat stronger than any normal fire.
Distracted by Ciaran's sudden distraction from his spell, Raven saw the bolt of flame winging toward Robin and managed, at that distance, to erect a shield of protection around him. The bolt of fire deflecting harmlessly off her shields around him, to be reabsorbed into Ciaran's
Turning to Robin in anger, she did the only thing she could think of to keep him safe. She drew several sigils and runes in the air and whispered a few words. These put a powerful holding spell on him and levitated him to the far corner of the room. Trapped in the holding spell, he felt as if he was trying to move through wet paper pulp until he reached a certain point, where he could not move at all.
That done, with a calm heart and mind, Raven turned to face the main problem. Ciaran had already almost reached the point of no return in the spell. She had to undo his circles of protection quickly and stop him from completing the spell. By this time Ciaran's focus had gone completely back to the performing of the spell. Invoking the Sight that allowed her to see magickal energies, she scanned his circles, its energies, swirling strongly, three layers thick. Ordinarily forcing the energies down would be a daunting exhausting task taking up a lot of time, but a glance at him showed they were running out of time.
She desperately probed his shields, searching for a weak point in which she would take advantage of. 'Calm, she told herself, panicking will get you nowhere. Take a deep breath and look at the problem form a different angle and with new eyes and it will all come clear' she told herself.
It was then so glaringly obvious that she kicked herself for not realizing it sooner. He had had not much time to set up the circles and get the spell established before the team was expected to arrive, so the power shunt that connected his personal energies and the energies from the earth, transmuting them together to create the circle energies was weak and too rapidly constructed. In short it was flimsy and built up in a hurry.
Raven smiled. This was the main weak point that she needed. If she could strike at the shunt hard and fast, she could maybe, just maybe overload the shunt and cause it to overload and cause in turn the shields to implode upon themselves.
Gathering her powers, she did just that. Hitting that shunt with as much power as she could muster in am instant, directing it at one singular point, where the entire shield was weakest. It worked, almost too well. The shunt exploded in a shower of visible sparks and the shields collapsed in onto themselves, causing Ciaran to lose his concentration and lose control of the spell.
She then took further advantage of this to forcibly take down and dismantle his spell. So painstaking to put up, but taking only an instant to remove. The breach she saved for alter as it would take almost as long to close as to open.
He loomed out of the ruins of his painstakingly constructed spell like a lion form its den, terrifying and almost beautiful in his anger, his energies swirling around him in a terrible dance.
"That was an exceedingly stupid thing to do my dear." He snarled menacingly, "Prepare to face this" with that he pointed his athame and hurled his force of will at her. She found herself pinned to the wall, unable to move, with an ever strengthening force at he throat.