As soon as she walked into the main room, she knew something wasn't right. The whole day felt like it was part of a weird dream sequence. Reality seemed far, but she was very sure that this was reality. Kind of made the weirdness weirder, though.
Raven's fears were affirmed when she saw Robin, a bit more agitated than usually.
"We've got a problem," he said, and he wouldn't look her in the eyes. She didn't take it personally. That was simply his way; when something was serious, strained or just new, it was a problem and he treated everyone like they were a part of it. He didn't mean to, it was simply his way. "Meet you all in the briefing room."
Then he was gone, and Raven turned to look at Beast Boy who had trailed behind her a bit. He shrugged, and his face looked as lost as she felt. She was grasping at straws when she looked at him for assurance. Mentally, she groaned. Was everyone going to be this helpful today?
If so, it was going to be a really horrible and long day.
Raven rubbed an eye with her knuckles as she trailed the green teen down the hallway. This day was proving to be much more stressful than it needed to be, which was really a shame - it'd just started. Already though, she clenched and unclenched her fists for some relief. Maybe Raven should just sneak down the hallway back to bed... Maybe she wasn't supposed to get up today and she could just drift back to sleep and pretend like the nightmare and the conversations with herself had never happened. Thinking of her warm bed made her tired -
"Raven! I asked what you thought about it?" Agitation jumped from him like a solar flare.
Raven met the masked eyes, quickly tried to take in what was happening. She'd dozed off - that was pretty embarrasing, honestly. She was supposed to be the epitome of focus and she fell asleep in the mission briefing room.
Okay, there was footage on the screen from a security camera. Quickly, she took in the other Titans on the screen. Argent, Kole, Gnarrk and Red Star. Alright, so this was a bit away from them.
She blinked quickly, feeling the eyes of four other Titans on her as she registered the enemy on screen. Their expectations probed into her mind softly, waiting. The boy looked like he had walked through the desert, a bit reminiscent of Terra all that time ago. Windblown clothes, dusty hair partially covered by a the ram's bone. Raven blinked again, switching her view to the girl. The skull on her head gave even Raven the creeps; it was clearly a bird skull, but not anything from around here.
When she saw the ram pull desert rock from where asphalt was, she went slack-jawed. It took a lot to put Raven's face like that, it took a lot to unhinge her balanced attitude. She was the queen of composure through and through. But he... he just created matter.
That wasn't natural and it wasn't right. Matter can neither be created or destroyed, only transferred. Raven got shivers when she noticed that nothing was being transferred. The only other person to notice this was Beast Boy - for the other three Titans oozed anticipation but next to her he was drowning in dread.
"Well," she said, trying to think of the right words. The others were clueless, she noticed, waiting for her to be their redemption of knowledge. Raven, destroyer of worlds, drop some knowledge on us.
"Well," she said again "They look... they look like some kind of pagan or wiccan influences." She cleared her throat "Like deities, or something."
Three blank faces continued to stare at her, but an additional one just got more worried and worried. She eyed the furrowed, green brow.
She licked her lips.
"Or, I mean, that's what I thought just on their appearance. But the powers..." She looked down again, biting her lower lip for a minute. "Most likely, they are not from this planet - or dimension, honestly."
Finally, it registered with a quick and sharp nod from Robin.
"Yeah, that's what I was thinking - Look at this:" He pulled the video up to a certain segment, where the ram had his arm tight around the girl and was pulling his fist through the air.
Raven squinted her eyes as her fears were affirmed for the second time that day.
Through the screen it was fuzzy, but still gave her the chills. There was that blip in time, like a foot of the world was just missing and reality had to play over it awkwardly. It was a square of footage missing, it was the blurry horizon when the heat index soared. They'd seen rips in time before, they'd seen portals to other worlds but this was much more unnerving; they were stabbing in the dark about these two.
There was total silence before she cleared her throat again.
"Alright, well we know that they're big on self preservation." She tried to be a voice of reason and make this sound approachable, manageable. Tried to make them sound human. "As soon as the ram was looking at potential failure, he fled. And, uh, see that - yeah, that right there."
"He holds on to her very tightly - they care about each other very much so if one is losing, they both are." Raven squints and when she speaks she doesn't like this undertone in her voice. Everyone else ignores it, so she does too.
That made them sound less impossible and Raven felt a small swell of pride for that. Still... they hardly knew anything. There was a tangible silence that settled over them as this was realized.
There was nothing left to be said except for one thing, which Robin contributed.
"Titans North will have a much better time with us around. So, pack your bags, guys.
"You might want to bring a sweater."
Starfire threw a laugh for his benefit, but Cyborg and Beast Boy just stared. The joke was made worse by Beast Boy's continued silence. Normally he would've countered with something much worse.
"Pithy," Raven contributed.
It was then that they broke apart.
"Man, I'm gonna put some updates on the T-Car. Talk about the sickest road trip ever!" Cyborg was mostly muttering to himself as he left the room, cracking his knuckles.
Beast Boy sat very still for a moment, and Raven realized she hadn't heard a word from him all day.
That worried her a lot, actually, for various reasons.
First off, it was creepy to go that long without talking. Just creepy. After that, well... he should have a lot to say, right? He was the chatterbox, the relief for the group in times like this. And he was just mute. Rigid. His emotions felt blank, but there were small undertones of fear. The scurried around at her feet, afraid of being seen and shameful of their existence.
He got up calmly and walked away. She stared after him, trying to get her thoughts in order.
"Raven..." Robin called to her absentmindedly.
She turned her head and saw him sitting with Starfire. He didn't bother to look up at her, he was busy burying his nose three inches into a stack of papers. The Tamaranian was a dutiful partner next to him, naive of what he was doing but interested nonetheless.
That thought summed up their relationship accurately.
"Why don't you check on Beast Boy." His voice betrayed that Beast Boy's strange behavior was the last thing on his mind, as always. He threw the words out of obligation, opened his mouth because it was his duty.
No one would ever say it, but he could be a bit selfish sometimes.
Raven rolled her eyes. She wanted to tell him that his worry was simply suffocating but she just stood up, brushing her thighs off as she walked out of the room.
Once she was in the hallway, she started probing for Beast Boy's mind signature. Normally it was an easy thing to find, like his snoring. Beast Boy was vivid and loud, he was exuberant and persistent. Very little slowed him down.
But with how he was acting today it took Raven a little while to even think about what she was searching for. Softly, she let her mind escape through the building, and she pictured it all very clearly. She pictured the hallways and the feel of the floor under her feet. Beast Boy was not inside - the information came like a quick jolt. Look up, her mind told her and Raven bit her lip a bit.
Something about walking to the roof seemed like a hassle, so she let the raven's shadow envelop her and she went, well, up. The building fell away from her. Moving through concrete and metal was casual, effortless.
Once she was there she felt the sun on the back of her neck. It was probably only noon, and the wind was warm but with a soft, salty smell. He sat near the edge, studying his knee intently.
This was more worry for her. Raven didn't like to think of herself as a worrier - she wanted to be apathetic at best. But she was cursed as an empath, she was cursed as a portal to the end of everything. She would spend the rest of her life trying to make up for that, trying to fill the world with good until it swelled up with her kindness.
"Beast Boy," her throat sounded dusty, like words weren't something she used very often. It was just the way she felt that made them sound like that.