I suppose I should apologize for the long update. Between graduating, and prom, and family visiting, and my parents leaving me in charge of the house, and me being incredibly lazy, I didn't get much work done. Please forgive me my lovely and wonderful readers?
Disclaimer:
I wish I owned the Titans.
But the Titans belong to me just as much as the entire earth can belong to one individual.
My Iconic Birthday
Chapter 4
In Arella's living room the clock ticked with slow certainty. She sat against a wall of pillows, her feet propped in front of her as she read through one of her daughter's spell books. Raven had an interesting selection in her library.
She flipped past various crusty pages of useless demonic spells, her eyes resting on anything that might imply a prophesy or empowering demons.
Certain breeds of demons possess the ability to manipulate or completely control the emotions of another being. More commonly gifted to demons bound to hell, this power is difficult to counteract, requiring extreme devotion to obtaining complete control of ones own mind.
One demon known to possess this ability is the great demon Trigon, who has uses it to manipulate humans into his church.
Arella stopped reading for a moment. She placed a cold hand over the page and listened to the silence of her living room. Outside the bugs hummed in the night air. A fleck of dust floated from the ceiling and landed over her hand. She watched dim memories from her past: a tall handsome man, a marriage completed by a ceremony of blood and sacrifice, screaming, a bottle of pills… She forced herself to remember that she had learned from her mistakes. There was nothing she could do about him, and there was no changing what he had done.
She continued reading.
It is through meditation one can achieve a deep sense of self control and an empathy of your own. A demon's approach will be subtle, sometimes even unintentional…
She skipped through a couple pages. Maybe there was more about Trigon in later chapters. Ah, there.
The chapter depicted a series of prophesies based on the uprising of various demons. Many had already come to pass in other dimensions, but there was a passage that caught her eye. Trigon.
It is said that one day the demon Trigon will bring an end to the mortal realm. The prophesy is brief, implying terror and destruction through the release of Trigon's gem. It has not yet been discovered what is meant by…
So they knew about it even before she'd met him. She wished she could have had access to these books in her younger years. Maybe then she could have known just what she was getting into. And then what? She wouldn't have Raven.
She loved her daughter, no matter how little time she had had to spend with the girl as a child. Raven had been cared for by the monks of Azarath, the love of a mother having been deemed too dangerous for her young, impressionable mind. As Raven's control over her powers had grown, Azar had allowed Arella access to her only child. A bond had formed between the two of them.
Both Raven and Arella were haunted by the same man. They understood each other's plight and stood by when the other was haunted by mental images, whether memories of the past, or visions of the future. Raven was all Arella had now.
It sent a feeling of warmth into Arella's stomach to know that after all her time alone, Raven had finally made some friends. She could tell that Raven had yet to see them as such, but the three teenagers she had seen with her in the library were devoted to staying together. They were friends, and Arella was glad.
Outside there was a commotion. Hurried, unsteady steps. Hushed, annoyed hisses infiltrated the air as they clamoured around the front yard. Arella stood, and made her way to the front door just as there was a loud nock.
She opened it, not yet ready for the sight to come.
x-x-x
Garfield wasn't entirely sure what had happened.
The whole incident had left Raven in a state of ill shock. There had definitely been a fight of some form, but for some reason he felt there was more to it than protecting Raven from some psychotic stalker. His reasoning was that Robin was somehow involved the situation. Robin! The other half of Batman!
He looked to his side as they trampled over the flowers in Raven's front yard. Her trembling weight was being supported by a pair of green clothed shoulders, her ashen face hidden by a main of messy black-tipped purple hair. The purple was like the purple in his dream; something that confounded him immensely. How could he have possibly known she had died her hair?
Raven shivered suddenly, curling her body closer to Robin in an attempt to gain some heat. Her sweatshirt was charred, opening her skin to the frigid wind. Starfire gasped at her movement and removed her jacket, revealing a skimpy purple halter top that seemed to cover no more than her bra. Garfield's eyes traveled along her slender shoulders as he wondered what could have possessed such an innocent alien to wear something so seductive.
While Garfield was admiring Starfire's choice of clothing, the young alien slipped her jacket around Raven's Shoulders. Raven muttered a quiet, "Thank you."
"You are welcome Raven. The temperature must be-"
Robin jerked a hand in a motion meant to tell her to shut up. "People are sleeping," he hissed. He scrutinized the door in front of him through his mask. "This is your house?" Garfield had a feeling he didn't mean to sound condescending, but that's defiantly how the words exited his mouth.
Raven nodded.
Robin pounded his fist against the door, ignoring his own 'no noise' rule. Behind him Stella shifted her feet, hugging her body with a heavily swollen arm. "Are you gonna tell us exactly who this Slade guy is?" she queried.
"Not now."
The door swung open, revealing a very pretty woman in her early thirties. Her hair was the same shade of purple as Raven's, flowing gracefully down her back in gentle waves. Though her skin was darker than Raven's, she bore the same strange jewel on her forehead. Garfield assumed this woman must be his new friend's mother.
Raven squeaked, which was the only word Garfield could use to describe the sound she made as her mother gasped and pulled her into a tight hug. The girl collapsed into her mother's arms with a look of pure vulnerability on her face and in that moment, as a tear streaked down her cheek, Garfield felt his heart go out to her. What had that Slade guy wanted with her? And what had he said to make her so upset?
"What happened?" Raven's mother asked.
Garfield wasn't sure if she was asking Raven, who was so distraught she had nothing to say, or if she was addressing the group as a whole. It turned out the question had been directed at Stella, puzzling Garfield over the fact that they seemed to already know each other. Stella opened her mouth to speak, thought better of it, and looked to Robin for his own explanation.
Robin's expression hardened. "I'm afraid I only know part of the story," he said. "To get the whole picture we may need to have a discussion as a group."
Raven's mother scanned the group critically, before inviting them in. She briefly fussed over Stella's arm. "That might be broken." But Stella shrugged it off with a frown. It seemed there were bigger things to worry about.
Garfield stepped into the small living room where Raven's mother was helping her daughter onto the sofa. She knelt in front of Raven, brushing back her now long hair so she could get a good look at the girl's face. Raven's eyes were wet, her cheeks tearstained and flushed. With her clothing charred, a borrowed jacket draped around her shivering shoulders, and a messy mane of hair framing her pale face, Garfield wondered how Raven's mother wasn't in hysterics observing her daughter's current state. Maybe this kind of thing happened to her often.
The teenage boy decided to take a good look at Raven's living room. It wasn't particularly big, while somewhat cluttered in that way you know the owner of the house likes things to be clean but just didn't have time to fix anything. His eyes fell on the coffee table in front of Raven where there were about ten old, dusty books that made him want to cry from illiteracy. Either Raven had been reading in here, or her mother shared the same love for learning her daughter had.
There only seemed to be enough seating in the room for five people, and with Raven in one seat and another most likely promised to her mother, he wondered if he might have to stand.
Raven's mother stood, gently stroking her daughter's messy hair. Raven seemed to have calmed down a great deal, which relieved Garfield because her panic had been sending chills down his spine. She was now leaning against a pile of pillows on the far side of the sofa, hugging her stomach and looking decidedly ill.
"Why don't you all have a seat?" Everyone shuffled closer into the room, but no one sat down. Raven's mother tried to smile, but Garfield could tell she didn't feel it. "Can I get any of you something to drink?" Everyone declined, though Garfield noted that Stella looked like she wanted to take the woman up on her offer.
There was a shuffle from the sofa as Raven pulled her legs up onto the cushion so that she could hug them. "Oh, just sit down already," she grumbled.
At Raven's words, her mother took a guilty seat next to her daughter, draping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. She whispered concerns to Raven, but the girl made all assurances that she was fine.
The group took this as a polite time to find seats.
Stella chose the last spot on the sofa, while Starfire took the seat across from them. Robin, it seemed, preferred to remain standing, so Garfield reasoned he was allowed the last chair in the room. It was old, large, and poofy, sitting adjacent to the fireplace, though still facing the others. As he perched on the edge, too uncomfortable mentally to find a suitable position, he watched the distressed, nauseous look on Raven's face.
It was curious to him that she could seem so calm, her face a perfect mask of monotony, but at the same time he could practically feel the discomfort radiating off her body. She was still huddled against her mother, her legs pulled up to her chest, but her lips were set in a thin line on her pale face, daring anyone to accuse her of feeling anything.
He looked away.
"I suppose I should introduce myself." Garfield looked to Raven's mother. They looked so identical. And it occurred to him that she was young too. Much too young to have a daughter Raven's age. Then again, there was such a thing as teen pregnancy. "My name's Arella. I'm Raven's mother."
The others nodded politely, introducing themselves one by one, starting with the ever open Starfire. Robin's introduction was stiff and unpleasant, Garfield assumed because everyone in the room already knew him despite having never been formally introduced. When it was Stella's turn she only smiled awkwardly and look away, further backing up Garfield's assumption that Arella and Stella already knew each other from somewhere else. Maybe Stella had visited Raven's house once before.
"So what happened?"
They told her, starting with the late movie, their walk home and Raven being tackled into the ally. At the mention of the hieroglyphs of Raven's body, Arella gripped her daughter tightly and gave her an inconspicuous one over to make sure she wasn't hurt too badly. They explained about Robin's appearance and Slade kidnapping Raven and dragging her to the roof of the building. How he used her like a shield, and somehow magically grew her hair out. Raven remained quiet the entire time.
As they finished the story with Slade's escape over the edge of the building, Garfield remembered something that had been bothering him. "What did he mean by, 'It's starting?'"
Raven looked up abruptly. "How would you know he said that?" Her voice was harsh. Strained even.
Garfield looked away, blushing a strange brownish pink colour. "I just… I have good hearing."
Raven's eyebrows rose slightly. "I'll say."
Her words broke the ill tension that had settled over the room. Starfire giggled, and Robin cleared his throat.
"Look, we can talk about how good Garfield's hearing is later. Right now I think we all have some information that can help each other out."
At this Stella sat up from where she had been rubbing at her puffy arm. Her eyes locked on Robin's face in defiance. "Are you gonna tell us who Slade is now?" They were the first words she'd said since entering Raven's living room. Garfield remembered how she'd fled from the ally, the perfect picture of fear and panic. She seemed much braver now, he noted.
Robin shot her an irritated, almost challenging glare, successfully causing her to shrink back into the sofa like a scolded puppy.
"I've been tracking Slade for about a year now. He's a dangerous criminal, selfish in every respect and not above killing someone to get his way. I've seen him aim to get power, to gain wealth, and no matter how many times I stop him, he always comes back.
"About two months ago I tried to stop him from acquiring a new apprentice: a girl named Terra. In the end they both fell underground and assumed they died. I was wrong.
"Slade showed up again, and though I hadn't seen him doing anything illegal until today, he has new abilities, and a strange marking on his forehead; one I've noted you have as well." He nodded at Raven. She rubbed her forehead where the symbol had appeared. "I'm not sure what he's up to, but I feel like he's my responsibility and I get a feeling you know more about what he's doing than I do."
Raven pushed away from her mother slightly and looked away from Robin's expecting gaze. Her face had paled even more than usual and she seemed at be avoiding looking at anyone in the room.
"Why was Slade after you?"
At this she inhaled sharply, and Garfield got the impression of an interrogation going bad quickly. "I don't know," she said.
"What was the symbol on his forehead?"
Raven swallowed thickly. "I don't-" Her hands were trembling as she brought them to her face. She groaned. "I don't feel well," she grunted.
Arella placed a hand soothingly on her back, but Raven sat forward, pulling away. "I don't feel well," she said again. She closed her eyes and placed a hand over her stomach.
"Raven…" Arella seemed concerned for her daughter, but Raven only grunted in response. "Do you want to go lie down?"
Robin frowned at the idea, but Raven shook her head. She then stood abruptly, taking a moment to steady herself against the armrest of the sofa, and walked away briskly. She disappeared down the hall and Garfield heard a door slam somewhere out of sight. He remembered vaguely from having walked by that the bathroom was down that way.
Robin turned to Arella. "She knows more than she's telling," he said with a frown.
Arella responded with her own frown. "It's really a personal matter."
"We could help each other."
"There's really nothing any of us can do."
Garfield couldn't take anymore of this. "Dude! What is going on?"
Arella stood up nervously and paced to the other side of the room. She stood facing the window, and Garfield caught a reflection of her worried face in the glass.
"It's very complicated," she said finally.
Robin fixed her back with a determined stare. "I think we have the right to know."
"We should really wait until Raven comes back."
Stella stood up from her spot on the sofa. "I can go check on her if you want."
Arella nodded her consent and Stella left the room down the hall. No one spoke for the ten next ten minutes. It seemed no one knew what to say.
When she came back she was alone, but she gave the nod to go ahead. It seemed Raven was too unwell to join them.
Arella walked back to the sofa and perched on the middle cushion. She leaned forwards, elbows resting on her knees. Stella sat down next to her as if they were teaming up to tell everyone bad news.
"You have to understand," Arella said. "Raven isn't exactly normal."
Garfield nodded. "Ya. She can pick things up with her mind."
Arella first looked shocked. Then she turned her head to glare disapprovingly down the hallway. Garfield had a feeling Raven was going to get a stern talking to later about being careful with her powers.
Arella stopped glaring; it seemed because she remembered just what they were talking about.
"There's more to it than that," she said.
There was a long moment of silence. Arella stood up and walked back to the window, appearing to consider how to phrase her next words.
"Raven isn't entirely human."
Garfield shrugged. "That's okay. Starfire's an alien and I turn into animals." Garfield certainly didn't consider himself as entirely human. So why would Raven's mother think they cared about something like that.
Arella sighed. There was definitely more to what she was saying than was getting across. "Do you know who Trigon is?" she asked. It seemed asking this question had required an internal struggle on her part, because her face seemed strained, and her stance was rigid.
Robin nodded, and Starfire made some kind of motion of acknowledgement with her eyes. Garfield had no idea what she was talking about, which Robin seemed to pick up on. "I've read about him. Old stories, about a dangerous demon bent on ruling all mortals."
Well that sounded bad enough.
Arella nodded. "He's Raven's father."
Everyone froze in that moment. Raven's father was a demon? Did that even make sense? Arella looked human enough. Sure, she had purple hair, but that could just be some weird genetic mutation. In his confusion, Garfield asked the first thing that came to mind.
"You're married to a demon!?" He glanced down the hall, half expecting a black scaly animal to come charging in, frothing at the mouth.
Stella placed her head in one hand and groaned. He realised that there wasn't much tact behind what he said. Still, everyone must have been thinking it.
"I was," Arella said tersely.
"And you got a divorce or something?"
"Something like that."
He waited for more, but Arella said nothing. Maybe she was offended. Maybe she just figured they could make the connections themselves. As he glanced at the others, he noted the only one who didn't seem confused was Stella. But Stella seemed to have known everything from the start. How was that?
Robin spoke up. "I don't exactly see how any of this relates to Slade."
Arella turned to look at him. "That symbol you saw on Slade's forehead, if it was the same one that was on Raven's chakra it would have been the symbol of Raven's father." Starfire's eyes widened in surprise while Robin only furrowed his brow in thought. Garfield bit his lip, but didn't say anything. What do you say to that?
"There was a prophesy at Raven's birth that said Trigon would use her to bring himself into the mortal realm. That seems to be what Slade is trying to accomplish."
Garfield was confused. "He wants to use Raven to bring a demon into the world that's going rule over all mortals?" Arella nodded. "Um, no offence to Slade, but doesn't he count as a mortal?"
"Trigon must have offered him something he wouldn't have otherwise gotten."
Garfield heard faint footfalls in the hallway. He glanced in that direction and was able to catch a brief glimpse of long purple hair before it ducked back out of sight. He could see the tips of Raven's shoes around the edge of the wall and noted a pale, unhealthy grey face observing them inconspicuously. Raven was listening in.
They stopped talking then. Everyone was taking a moment to digest what they had just learned. Raven didn't make herself known and Garfield wondered if she was scared. He figured he should probably go talk to her.
Arella was still looking out the window, her expression pensive.
"I'm going to go check on Raven," said Garfield.
Arella looked startled, but didn't object, so Garfield stood from his chair and walked into the hall.
When he saw Raven, she backed away slightly. "You okay?" he asked.
"I've been better." She looked uncomfortable. "You're not afraid of me?"
"Why would I be afraid of you?"
"My father-"
"Isn't you." Garfield stepped closer to Raven and put his hands on her shoulders. "Raven, I'd like to think I've gotten to know you this year. You're a really good person, and I could care less if your father's the most evil thing to ever come into existence."
Raven's eyes started to tear up and she looked away from him. "Raven, I'm your friend and nothing's going to change that."
He wasn't sure if his next action was crossing some sort of boundary of hers, but Garfield pulled Raven into a loose hug. She didn't hug him back, but she didn't pull away either, and Garfield took that as a good sign. He felt her trembling slightly as she buried her face into his shirt and cried. He rubbed her back and let her cry it out; though he was startled when a strange wind seemed to burst through the halls. He glanced down the hall, but the front door was closed and there weren't any windows around that he could see.
As Raven calmed down, the wind seemed to died down as well.
"What was that?" he asked.
Raven sniffed and pulled away. She didn't look at him. "My powers. I just… I lost control for a second." She blushed and hugged her stomach. "I'm sorry."
Garfield smiled. "It's okay. I suppose it happens, right?" He watched her wipe her eyes with the back of her hand, the gentle tears glistening on her pale fingers. "Is it because you were crying?" She had been crying earlier, but he didn't remember her loosing control. Still, he couldn't think of what else could have triggered it.
She sniffed again. "I was trying so hard before not to loose control. I guess this time it just slipped." He watched her as she glanced back into the living room where another conversation had started up. "He is by the way."
"What?"
"My father. He is the most evil thing to ever come into existence." She smiled slightly, and Garfield wasn't sure whether he could consider the way she was breathing as a chuckle. He did anyway. "I'm not sure if you were exaggerating when you said that, but I figured you should know what you're getting into."
Garfield smiled. "Why don't we go back in? Your mom's worried about you."
Raven nodded and they both walked back into the living room.
Arella was still standing by the window when they entered. Garfield guided Raven over to the sofa and they sat down together, the others casting Raven concerned looks. Raven looked uncomfortable, but didn't say anything.
It was Robin who spoke next. "We're forming a team to stop Trigon."
Raven looked at him, frowning. She opened her mouth to say something Garfield was sure to contradict Robin's statement, so he interrupted before she could be too pessimistic about the situation.
"You mean like a superhero team?" he asked.
"I guess."
"And I get to be in it?" It's not that he'd never been in a superhero team before, he just wasn't sure he was ready. He'd left the Doom Patrol for a reason.
Robin gave the group an appraising glance. "I saw the way you guys fought Slade. You're really good. Well, most of you." At this he looked at Stella who grumbled something rude and stared at the floor.
But it seemed Raven had had enough of this optimism. She sat up straight in on the sofa and somehow managed to give everyone in the room a scornful look at the same time. "I'm not sure you guys understand what's going on here," she said. "The world is going to end and there's nothing you can do about it."
Robin shot her a glare that quickly shut her up. "All I see is a villain who needs to be stopped. If there's a chance we can keep all this from happening, we should take that chance, no matter how bleak the future seems to be." He smiled then, for the first time that night. "Raven, I don't know you very well, but I can tell you're stronger than you're letting on. There's a look in your eye that tells me you haven't giving up yet. I want you to grab onto that hope and use it to help us stop Trigon."
Raven frowned and looked around the room, but no one spoke to back her up. Garfield could tell she didn't outwardly believe her father could be stopped, but as he looked closer he could swear he could identify that gleam in her eye Robin had spoken of. "Fine," she said. "I'll join your team."
"I can do some tech stuff," said Stella. "I'm okay with computers and machines and the likes." She looked mildly embarrassed. "I don't exactly have powers or fighting skills or anything. I just want to help."
"Dude, I know someone else who can help with that kind of thing. He goes to our school." Garfield smiled.
"Who?" asked Raven.
"His name's Victor Stone."
Stella glared at him. Probably upset that he was tacking people onto the only job she seemed capable of doing, but everyone else considered it.
"We'll have to meet him first," said Raven finally.
The others nodded. It wouldn't do to be trusting complete strangers with your secrets.
"We need a name," said Garfield.
"A what?"
"A name. All superhero teams have names." Raven rolled her eyes. "It has to be something that tells the world what we are. We're stronger, more experienced than most teenagers. We're like-"
"Prodigies?" asked Stella.
"Titans."