Brotherhood

Chapter 9: Better To Have Loved and Lost...

"You called, Lord Trigon?"

Malchior waited on one knee in the middle of the circle, his outward calm masking inner unease. Trigon's summons this time had been much harsher and agitated than usual, and the dragon had no desire to speak with a furious demon lord who was prone to outbursts of violence.

"That I did, Malchior," the deep reply came a few moments later, as a ghostly image of the human form of Trigon appeared and floated in the air in front of Malchior. "I have a mission for you."

"I assumed as much," the dragon said, keeping his form perfectly still even in the face of Trigon's palpable anger. "What are your orders?"

"Slade wants me to instruct you to discourage local politicians from running campaigns against him in the coming elections. But that is a paltry matter, and something that I can see to myself with no difficulty. I have a different task for you. You might say it is a way for you to… redeem yourself, in the light of your recent failure with regards to my meddlesome daughter."

"Failure?" Malchior repeated, one of his eyebrows arching despite himself. "In what way did I fail? I did as you commanded, and brought out Raven's repressed instincts once again."

"Don't try to argue semantics with me, little dragon," Trigon growled back, his eyes flaring with barely-suppressed anger and forcing Malchior to hold his tongue. "You set her Rage free, true, but you did not stop it from being curbed once again, and ultimately destroyed. This is a setback that would have cost you your head, were there not a contingency in place. Count your blessings."

The demon lord gave his lackey a moment to sweat before he continued, his voice now joyously vindictive.

"Raven might have forced Rage from her soul," Trigon said, "but that does not mean my blood no longer flows in her veins. In fact, Rage's removal is a blessing in disguise for us… so long as you do not fail me again."

Sensing that any danger had passed him over for the moment, Malchior relaxed slightly and got his tongue working again.

"And how would this setback be a blessing?"

"Because Raven has unknowingly crippled herself immensely by changing the source of her powers," Trigon explained. "All her life, she has fueled her strength with Rage; with my legacy. But now, that wellspring has run dry. Until she discovers how to harness the Love she has substituted in Rage's place, my daughter might as be lame, deaf and blind."

"And I assume you want me to kill her?"

Trigon responded to the question by looking at Malchior as if the dragon had asked him if he was going to repent his sins and become a holy man.

"Kill her? Why would I ever want to do that? No," the demon lord replied, "I have something much, much better in mind.

"Rather than simply using Raven as the key to restoring my powers, I intend to use her as the way to gain entry into Azarath itself once again, and finish what I started there years ago. Its mighty citadels will crack and topple to the ground. Its crop and livestock will burn and wilt. Its people will know true pain once more.

"And that is where you come in, little dragon."

Malchior bowed his human head even further in acceptance.

"What would you have me do?"

"Track down my daughter," the demon lord answered, "and place this ring around her finger."

A small band of gold appeared in the air in front of Malchior as Trigon spoke those words. Black flame flared up around it for a moment, revealing red runic marks etched into the band before fading.

"I had this forged by some mage-smiths in Azarath during my first assault in that godforsaken land, in exchange for my word that I would let them live," Trigon explained as Malchior took the ring into his hand and examined it in the light. "Its markings resemble that of a protective Ring of Azar at first glance, but instead the runes on this ring bring nothing but poison. Poison that, in turn, brings nothing but a slow and agonizing death.

"It just so happens, however," Trigon continued with a smile, "that there is a way to cure this poison. But that cure only exists in Azarath. If my daughter wishes to survive this agony, that is where she will have to go."

"And while anyone bearing the Mark of Scath is normally barred from entering Azarath," Malchior spoke up, beginning to understand, "Raven shares your bloodline. Which means she can still act as a gate once she is within the walls of the city, despite not explicitly bearing the brand."

"Correct," Trigon said, nodding his head shortly. "But I will not be the one journeying to Azarath. My presence would be too noticeable and obvious, even in my weakened state. You will be my avatar; the instrument of my revenge. Once Raven arrives in Azarath, you will infiltrate the city, ensure Raven's complete mental and emotional devastation and reduce Azarath's arrogant spires to ashes. When this is done, you are to bring Raven's heart back here to me, so that I might recover my lost strength."

Malchior rose to his feet, inwardly glad that he had survived the meeting. But there was still something that worried him about the specifics of Trigon's mission for him, and the nagging doubt in the back of the dragon's head compelled him to tempt fate and speak again.

"While I do not doubt the tactical soundness of your plan, Lord Trigon," he said calmly, "I do wonder how it is that you expect me, who is nowhere near your level of power, to defeat a group of mages who were capable of sealing you in your prime."

Trigon chuckled, a harsh, rumbling sound that slowly but surely built up into a laugh that seemed to shake the walls of the room Malchior was standing in.

"That is a fair point, little dragon," the demon lord allowed, "but not something you need trouble yourself with. The grand mages of Azarath did seal me, true. But it cost them of several members of their Order in exchange. They were left shattered in the wake of my defeat, and have never been the same since.

"And ever since my daughter succeeded in sealing me in this pathetic form, I have watched their security grow more and more complacent as the months and years have passed by. Only Arella seems to consider that I am still a viable threat to Azarath, and she is but one voice among the oligarchy which rules the city. Her words have little power, if any at all."

"I see," Malchior answered, his doubts eased by Trigon's words. "Rest assured that I will not fail you this time," he said, pocketing the ring as he did so, his blue eyes narrowing in determination. "Now, if you would excuse me, I must be off."

Trigon nodded once, and the specter of his image vanished in an instant. Malchior followed suit shortly afterwards, disappearing in a bright flash of light.

Raven woke up slowly, the morning sun finally rising too high in the sky to be ignored. Memories of the previous night were waiting for her, and the empath winced as the cuts that Beast Boy had given her during his fight with Rage seared painfully. The three lines were fading from a bright, angry red to a dull, light purple, but it would still be a few days before they healed completely.

Looking around as she blinked the last of the sleep out of her eyes, Raven saw the dilapidated buildings of Gotham's outer slum district around her and wondered how she'd managed to sleep through the night without being attacked by some wandering drunk or drug fiend. But soon enough the empath's eyes wandered over to see the reason for her protection, and she smiled.

Beast Boy was lying asleep on the ground a few feet away from her, curled up in the form of a large Amur tiger. Walking over quietly, Raven reflexively brushed the dust from the ground off of her uniform before reaching out and scratching her guardian behind the ear. Beast Boy began to purr, a resonant sound that Raven found oddly soothing.

Closing her eyes and letting her mind relax, the empath took a plunge deep into her own consciousness to try and discover just why it was that her powers were acting so strange. Nevermore flitted into existence in front of Raven as she reached her destination, but it was strangely empty. And not only were none of her usual emotions around, but there was another thing Raven noticed about the landscape that immediately piqued her curiosity.

Grass was growing on the rocks, and a dimly shining star resembling the Sun was hanging in the starlit sky. The empath knew that she wasn't in Happy's domain, so the sight of brightness and greenery was very strange indeed.

"Is it really that strange, though?"

The voice came out of seemingly nowhere and immediately yanked Raven out of her thoughts. Spinning around, she found herself looking at the white-cloaked figure of a young girl, who was leaning against a large rock and idly spinning a daisy between her forefinger and her thumb. Raven did a double take as she realized that the girl was a younger reflection of herself, but the girl didn't seem to notice.

"Everything changes eventually," she said, beginning to walk towards the surprised empath. "Even if you ignore it, or try to pretend like it's not there, change happens."

"What are you talking about?" Raven snapped back, more than a little unnerved by the new girl walking around inside of her head. "Who exactly are you, anyway?"

The white-cloaked young Raven stopped walking at the question, just inside arm's reach. She fixed the empath with a hard look, one that seemed very out of place on such a young face.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," she said seriously, as Raven tried to take a step back but found her feet unwilling to move. "You know exactly who I am, and I really don't like being treated like I don't exist."

The girl reached her empty hand out and placed the tip of her forefinger against the jewel in the center of Raven's forehead as she finished speaking. The empath felt like she was being hit with thousands of volts of electricity as a rush of emotion slammed into her, something so pure and overpowering that Raven had only experienced before in the smallest of amounts.

She staggered backwards as her feet finally remembered they could move, clutching her forehead in what looked like pain. But that didn't deter the newborn emotion at all, who took just enough steps forward to reduce the gap between them back to arm's length.

"So," the young girl spoke again after a moment, "are you ready to admit to yourself that I'm standing right here?"

"Stay away from me," the empath forced out as she edged backwards again, her voice no stronger than a thin half-growl. "I'll admit that I know what you are, but I didn't create you. I've never wanted anything to do with you before!"

"If you didn't create me," the emotion pointed out, "then what am I doing standing here? We're in your mind, after all."

"Just because part of me created you doesn't mean I did it on purpose, or even consciously," Raven rebutted, before she stopped to consider the fact that she was technically arguing with herself. "And what are you doing talking to me like this, anyway?" she asked. "Aren't you nine years old or something?"

The young emotion gave Raven a sidelong look at the question, and the empath realized at once how foolish it had been.

"I only look as mature as you let me appear," the girl in white shot back. "Back when Malchior first showed up, I was little more than a wisp in the corner of this place; when he betrayed you, I was sent back into limbo. At least now I have physical form here, but you're still keeping me on the fringes."

"Why would you drag Malchior into this?" Raven asked sharply, the mention of the dragon's name putting fight back into her. "I never loved him!"

The emotion smiled slyly, and the empath realized what she'd just been led into admitting.

"So, you can say my name after all," Love said with satisfaction, amusement gleaming in her violet eyes. "I was starting to lose hope over here, honestly."

Raven frowned, her fists clenching on their own at her sides.

"Are you implying I've never loved someone before?"

"I'm not implying anything," Love shot back. "I'm stating a fact. You've never let yourself love anyone before, because you've been afraid of having something that important to lose."

Raven heard the truth in her emotion's words, but still fought to disprove them. Scrambling for some kind of response, the empath finally found one.

"I loved my mother," she said defiantly. "I might not be able to remember a whole lot about those days, but I do remember that I loved her. There's no other way to describe how I felt."

Love frowned, her patience quickly evaporating. The emotion knew that if Raven didn't get herself together, she was going to be completely defenseless the next time Malchior decided to show up.

"Stop stalling!" she hissed, lashing out with her hand and binding Raven in tendrils of white energy. "You know that's not what I'm talking about. The more you deny the truth, Raven, the harder it's going to be to accept it in the end. If you can't accept my existence, you're as good as powerless. And against Malchior, powerless is as good as dead."

"As if he could kill me," Raven countered, cringing inwardly at how weak it sounded. Love gave a short laugh, completely devoid of humor.

"You know as well as I do that he wasn't even trying the last time you fought him," the emotion said scathingly. "He could have ripped you apart, if that had been his mission. Are you really going to force Beast Boy to fight all of your battles for you?"

The last question hit Raven hard, forcing her into silence for the moment. Even if she couldn't bring herself to believe that she was in love with Beast Boy, it was undeniably clear that he was at least incredibly infatuated with her. And that infatuation would lead him to do completely irrational things, like when he'd faced down her Rage in that last, potentially suicidal gambit.

No. She wouldn't let other people shoulder her own burden, and she certainly wouldn't let that moron get himself killed on her account. Not when she was finally starting to get used to having him around.

"Look," Love continued, realizing she finally had Raven right where she wanted her, "I'm not asking you to fall head-over-heels for someone. That's your own choice to make, when you're ready to make it. I'm just asking you to trust me, Raven. If you don't open yourself to the possibility that love can give you far more strength than it does pain, you'll never be at peace."

The empath sighed, bowing her head in acceptance at last as the white tendrils snaked around her shattered and scattered in pieces on the wind.

"You're right," she agreed, her voice calm. "Just because I don't feel you very strongly, that doesn't mean I can't accept you all the same. But are you sure you can replace Rage? She was pretty powerful; even I have to give her that."

Love smiled enigmatically, holding out her hand.

"I'm as powerful as you allow me to be," the emotion answered. "Open your heart to me, and the rest will take care of itself."

Raven reached out and took Love's hand, white energy spreading out to encompass both of them as the empath felt a surge of strength and confidence rush through her. She could tell right away that drawing her powers from a different source would require a lot of practice and fine-tuning. But for now, at least, it was a start.

"Thank you."

Raven started at the mature sound of the voice that had spoken to her, but when she looked up to see a white-cloaked, fully-grown version of herself standing in front of her, it made perfect sense.

"Being stuck in that short of a body was a pain," Love groused, but there was a smile on her face that took the edge off of her words. "I'll be seeing you, Raven."

"Yeah," Raven agreed as Nevermore began to melt away around her, feeling better than she had in ages, "I suppose you will."

The first thing she felt was a soothing breeze, bringing her gently back to reality. As soon as it had come, though, it vanished, replaced by insistent words.

"Raven? Are you okay? Raven?"

The empath shook herself out of the trance, opening her eyes to the real world once more. Beast Boy was standing in front of her, a worried look in his eyes. He was back to his normal appearance, but there was something different about him that Raven couldn't quite put her finger on.

"I'm fine, don't worry," she said at last. She raised her arms up slowly and stretched out her back, sighing softly as the joints popped and shifted. Once they'd settled back down, the tension that always built up during a trance was eased completely. "I was just having a talk with one of my emotions, that's all."

Beast Boy nodded, his posture relaxing as he realized that the need to stand guard had passed. A few moments passed in comfortable silence between them, before a churning sound came from Beast Boy's stomach and the changeling doubled over.

"Ugh," he groaned, feeling the strength sap clean out of his legs. "I could not be any hungrier right now. You think any places around here serve tofu burgers?"

Raven shrugged, feeling pangs of her own hunger starting to jab at her stomach. She hadn't eaten anything since dinner the previous night at the Tower, before the world had been turned upside down.

"Only one way to find out," she said, taking a breath and trying to gauge the stability of her power. The energy came when she called it, but the feeling of it was completely different from the normal black aura Raven usually wielded. Rather than crackling with aggressive impulse, the white aura was much more stable: focused inward, rather than outward. To protect, rather than to attack. Raven knew instinctively that it would be easier to teleport and defend with than the black energy, but attacking was another matter entirely.

"Come on," the empath finished, calling out a large white energy raven. "Let's get out of here and find something to eat."

Beast Boy smiled and nodded enthusiastically, and a few seconds later the white raven had closed in over its passengers and vanished entirely.

"Beast Boy," Raven said slowly, trying to hide her nervousness by using her fork to poke experimentally at the sausage links on her plate, "can I ask you a slightly… personal question?"

Beast Boy stopped in mid-bite, surprised. But he quickly regained his balance and finished chewing the piece of his vegetarian omelet, swallowing and pausing for a moment before he nodded.

"Uh, sure…" the changeling said hesitantly. "What's up?"

"Did you…" Raven started, before losing her nerve and trailing off, shaking her head. "Never mind," she finished, frustrated. "It's nothing."

She went to go take a bite of her pancakes, meticulously cut up into identical square pieces, cursing her awkwardness. But Raven had gotten no further than stabbing an unfortunate pancake square with excessive force when her hand froze in mid-movement.

Something soft and warm had closed over her empty left hand. Raven looked over slowly, and had to fight back a light blush when she realized Beast Boy had taken her hand in both of his, holding it gently.

"If it was nothing, you wouldn't have said anything to begin with," the shape-shifter countered. "What's eatin' you?"

Raven found herself wishing Beast Boy hadn't tried to comfort her in such an intimate way; the warmth of his hands was making it very hard for her to string together coherent thoughts.

"It's nothing important," she repeated, not even convincing herself. "It can wait until later, really…"

"We got nothin' but time," Beast Boy insisted, refusing to let Raven dodge this. "Seriously, Raven: if we can't trust each other with our secrets, who can we trust with them?"

The empath found herself suddenly feeling green with envy over Beast Boy's openness; he had always made it seem so easy, that vulnerability and sensitivity Raven had so often wished she could express without having to worry about blowing a hole in the side of a building as a consequence. Shaking off her negative emotions and taking a long breath in, Raven asked the question.

"Were you in love with Terra?"

The question at least succeeded in getting Beast Boy's hands away from her own, as the changeling recoiled physically at the unexpected words.

"W—What?" Beast Boy sputtered, completely off-balance. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Raven hung her head at the reaction, kicking herself mentally for expecting anything different.

"Nothing," she repeated, starting to feel like a broken record. "Sorry I brought it up."

Raven quickly stuffed her mouth full of pancake bites in order to make sure she didn't say anything else stupid, and was in the middle of trying to chew through all of them without choking to death when Beast Boy spoke. His voice was low, melancholy, and more reflective than Raven had heard from him in a long, long time.

"I did," he began simply, staring right through his plate with a look in his eyes that told Raven he was drifting back through his memories. "She was the first girl I'd ever met who I really felt like I connected with, who liked me for who I was and didn't seem disgusted by what I was.

"Even after she started working with Slade, I couldn't kick her out of my heart completely. To be honest, I think a small piece of it'll always belong to her, whether she remembers who I am or not."

I was never disgusted by you, Raven found herself thinking, but quickly shut the thought out of her mind. Now wasn't the time to be jealous, and especially not when the other person in question didn't even remember who Beast Boy was.

Wait, jealous? Since when had Raven ever been jealous of anyone?

"Not gonna lie, though," Beast Boy continued with a bittersweet smile, and Raven was beyond grateful for the distraction, "it was awesome while it lasted, even though it hurt like hell when it fell apart. Feeling like I could do almost anything as long as she was next to me, supporting me… there's nothing quite like it. The highest high, and the lowest low I've ever felt. Why'd you want to know?"

Raven shrugged noncommittally, hoping her aloof attitude would mask the true reason she'd dared ask that question.

I just want to know what it feels like.

"Just curious," she said flatly, before returning to systematically demolishing her pancakes.

Beast Boy didn't buy for a millisecond that Raven was telling the truth, but knew better than to try and crowbar anything out of her. Still, there was something… different about her, but it was something the changeling couldn't quite put his finger on. The white raven she'd used earlier to teleport them here had certainly been new; or at least, he hadn't seen anything like it since the day Raven had struck down Trigon. Maybe that had something to do with it?

Move!

The deep voice of his Inner Beast boomed out through his instincts, and Beast Boy felt all of his senses sharpen drastically as adrenaline pumped rapidly through his veins and time seemed to slow to a crawl around him. He was already diving across the table as a fireball crashed through the window directly next to them, shielding Raven with his body and forcing her to the ground in the same movement. Beast Boy felt the searing heat of the attack as it sailed over him, but avoided getting burned by it.

The two Titans were back on their feet almost immediately, turning sharply to face their assailant. Raven recognized him first, and her face immediately twisted into an expression of pure rage and hatred.

"Malchior."

"Hello, Raven," the white-haired youth answered smoothly, the same infuriatingly smug smile on his lips as always. He powered up a fireball in each hand, the red 'S' of Scath blazing in the center of his forehead as he did so.

"Miss me?"

…...

…...

A/N: Holy shit, he actually updated! That's right, ladies and gents: I'm not dead, nor is this story! It just took me a long, long time to get done with everything life decided to throw at me, and figure out how to structure this chapter. I apologize profusely for the delay, and I hope this chapter is at least somewhat worth it. Hopefully, the next one won't take me another 7 months to write.

If there's one thing that helps keep me inspired and writing, though, it's getting feedback from the few of you that're still reading! So if you have a few moments, please don't hesitate to review; it's much appreciated. Especially considering how few people are still reading this, words of encouragement from those that still are will go a long, long way towards keeping this story alive.

Thanks a million for reading, and see you next chapter!

p.s. Bonus points to the people who catch the shout-out to another superhero I slipped into this chapter.