I lie in a crying heap inside the cathedral.
The world rumbles outside with swirling red, like some gigantic cyclone.
I am alarmed by this adult woman's voice squeaking out of me.
Just yesterday I was fleeing from the Temple of Azarath in a white leotard, screaming the mother whose blood soaked my skin.
Running from what I knew and didn't know to be my final reckoning.
Above me now, the stain glass windows rattle and waver with the kaleidoscopic transfiguration of the world's grumbling chaos.
I do not know why I chose this place.
But I know why I came here.
If for just one final moment.. …
One lasting second.. .. …
I can prolong the inevitable by keeping away from them… …
They…might be safe… ..
For a few more seconds.. …
And I weep.
And I weep.. …
For the tears that fall have only a few skim seconds to roll over the red marks blazing outward from the lengths of my arms—and then they sizzle into ash and steam.
I am covered in red tattoos from top to bottom.
They peek out from under the shredded remnants of my white gown.
My long blue hair is a shredded facsimile of yesteryear.. …the mother that unwittingly launched this venomous capsule into the world.
And his laughter.. ….
His LAUGHTER… .. …
It's making the Cathedral shake from the outside in.
Its granite arches shedding dirt and dust down onto me.
The pews rocking back and forth.
The altar swaying back and forth.. …
The cross losing its gleam and growing duller against the fiery-redder windows…
It has finally come at last.
Everything else was a precursor.
But now…..now….. …
There is nothing to do but end.
Not me, but everything around me.
For—Azar above, help me—I cannot bring about my own end.
Try as I try.. …
I cannot… …
So I weep and I wilt and I weep and I wilt… …
And I lie there in a puddle of pity.. …
.. …. ..I hear her footsteps.. …
Red-Brown hiking boots against the stone chapel floor…. …
Burgundy and red leotard framed by yellow sleeves and neck… ..
A brown leather jacket draped over the thin, feminine figure….
A red mask framing a determined face.. .. ..golden hair cropped short and simple with age.
Helpless blue eyes.. …now hardened into sharp sapphires…
She echoes.. …echoes.. …echoes her way from the large open doors to the red world outside.
And right at the edges of my trembling form, he stops.
"Raven.. .. …. …," she breathes. Her voice still has that lightness to it, and yet that chilling ferocity laced around the edges. "… … ….Raven, I cannot allow this to continue.. … …"
I choke back a sob. From beneath a shivering cocoon of red-glowing arms, I talk to her without looking at her: "T-Terra.. … …Terra, wherever you've come from.. … …wh-whatever your reason—"
"Raven, if the world is going to end.. … ..Somebody must be there to prevent it. Long ago, I turned my back on the Titans. And from a selfish distance I watched them. … ..listened in on them.. .. ..and in my restless dreams, I worried about them. But what I worried most of all is that someone or something might grow to become worse of a killer of the entire team than I ever was. And Raven, when I 'died'.. …I made sure I stayed 'dead'. You are ever alive to the Titans, Raven. And as such, you are the greatest threat to them and you continue to be the greatest threat there is to the world…."
I listen to her in shuddering silence. I do not intterupt….. ….I do not interrupt because one hundred percent of everything she is telling me is already second-hand truth to me, two decades and a half in the making…
"I overheard what Nightwing, Starfire, and the others are planning. Even with Herald, Jericho, and Menos dead—they're still plotting a roundabout way to save you. Even after you killed Aqualad with your own demonic hands, they still fail to act. The only answer to stopping further deaths of heroes… … …to stopping the ultimate return of Trigon to this world.. ….Raven, you.. ..must.. …die…."
I grit my teeth and clench my violet eyes shut. A hiccup. My womany voice: "D-Do you think I haven't tried, Terra?"
She takes a deep breath.. …doing her best to glare at me.. ….
I shake. I stand up on wobbling legs. I face her, hyperventilating. In a hunch, I'm bound by the red tattoos glowing brightly all across my body. I lift two shaking hands and expose my wrists to her. Immaculate now, but—"N-No matter how much a batarang or a sword edge cuts in, the dark magic seals the flesh b-back up!" Eyes wide. Cold sweat. I tilt my head up and part the blue hair to expose the nape of my neck. "N-No matter how tight the noose. … ..the rope always sn-snaps.. .. …" I point out the front entrance of the Cathedral. Fingers shaking. "No fall is h-high enough to claim me… … … no poison potent enough to finish me.. .. ..Terra.. …T-Terra, I have tried.. .. ..I have actually gone against everything m-my mother has ever taught me and TRIED.. …so pitifully TRIED in the end to take the weakest way out, and I have come up with nothing!"
"Then stop relying on the bias of your own hand.. …," Terra clenches her fists and an aura of hot yellow starts to emanate throbbingly from her center. ".. …and allow someone without a heart to do what's necessary for you and the world as well—"
"Can't y-you see?.?.?" I pant.. ..pant.. …pant…. "It's IMPOSSIBLE!" My teeth grit and four reptilian eyes briefly, hotly flicker RED across my brow as I spit: "It's Rage!… …RAGE! My father will NOT let me be DEFEATED… …by anyone.. …or anything!"
"If your father wants you that bad…," Terra snarls. Bits of dust and rock start to rise around her and rattle against the stone floor as her fists clench tighter. "… ..then allow me to reunite his daughter with him… … …by burying her once and for all in hell… …"
"Please… ….P-Please, Terra….," I whimper and hobble down the aisle, supporting myself with wobbling fists planted against the pews. ".. ..you can't.. …."
"We are both bound by are own similar fates, Raven…," Terra strips of her leather jacket, one arm at a time. She stands in her burgundy and orange leotard and tosses the jacket away, cracking and loosing her joints. "…. …you were always your father's daughter… .. …and I was always the slayer of Titans.. …. …Tonight our destinies consume each other….."
"… … ..y-you can't.. … ..T-Terra… …I-I'll kill you… …"
Terra nods. "As long as the rest of the world is left standing around our corpses after tonight…," she breathes one final gasp for courage and slips her goggles over the fitting holes in her eyemask. "… ….then I will finally have redeemed myself.. …."
"My father.. …," I shudder and bite my lip. Shaking all over. Unwilling to look at her. ".. …he will not allow you to claim me.. .. …th-the rage, Terra.. … it is more than I could bear.. …I-I only wish it would be that easy…"
Terra gnashes her teeth and resists at first, but eventually pours forth: "And I only wish you and I had gotten to be true friends, Raven.. … ..but as such, I know I must do this…" She walks towards me. Every footstep is like a thunderbolt. The cathedral shakes twice as much now—partially from the bleeding sky outside, as much as from the terrakinetick marching my way with the Earth at her command. "I may not be as powerful or skilled as I used to be.. … ..but I have something that Nightwing and the other Titans don't.. … ..and that's a stubbornness to break the convention.. … …and break Trigon through breaking you."
I heave… …I heave.. …I heave…
She stretches a hand out towards me. The Cathedral heats up. Burning dust rises and glows a bright gold--
I flash my face towards her. I am frowning. And a momentary pair of fangs appear beneath my lips as four RED eyes strobe and: "NoOoOoOoOo!.!.!.!" I fling my wrist towards her, and talons of intermingling red-and-black soar straight at the woman in a satanic explosion.
POW!.!.!
Terra has very little time to gasp. "Nnnngh!" She's tossed back down the line of pews. She lands on her rear and topples over to her shoulders, dazed and staring at the ceiling.
Fwoooosh!—Stomp-Stomp-Stomp!-Stomp! I'm streaking towards her on ghostly demon feet. "YoU wIlL nOt TaKe HeR fRoM mE!.!.!.!" I leap up in a crimson streak. FWOOOOSH! Hovering for the briefest of seconds on translucent red gargoyle wings, I shimmer down into the tortured body of a screaming banshee woman and sail towards her gut, heel first. "YAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!"
Terra all but bites her tongue—"Mmmmf!" She reverse-somersaults and leaps up out of the way of my impact—
CRACCCK! My heel digs into the cold Cathedral floor. The sudden impact shakes the ghost out of me. For the briefest of seconds, I'm again this helpless woman in a tattered white gown clinging to her red-glowing limbs and panting… …panting… …panting…
In the meantime, Terra collects the chunks of unearthed stone in mid-air and forms a disjointed platform of rock beneath her. Poising her body in a perpetual squat, she rides the burning rock pieces up, up, up and around until she soars directly overhead. She raises two hands to the ceiling—"Nnnnnngh!"—and produces a hot stream of gold energy that encircles two massive stone arches to the Cathedral's construct.
CRKKKK!
CRKK-KKKK!
She plucks the two giant stone beams from the ceiling like snapping wishbones out of a giant ribcage. She spins on her stone platform, screams, and hurtles both multi-ton slabs of curved granite towards me. Thwoooosh-THWOOOOOSH!
I feel the rush of air heating up as the gigantic projectiles close in on me.
I whimper and clench my violet eyes shut.
Please…
Father… …
Have mercy….
But four RED eyes promptly open. "Hsssshhhhh" A sneer, and—
FWOOOOOOSH! I blur directly upwards in a phantom streak of red limbs and red wings. I demon-hop-and-bounce through the debris, leaping off the two stone beams and letting them thunderously crash beneath me and shatter the pews into the splinters as I soar my screaming way into the levitating, earthen warrioress. "HRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGH!"
Terra gasps and summons a shield of dirt—
SMASSSH! I elbow through it and slam into her.
"Oommph!"
"HRRRRSHKKKK!"
The two of us plummet—flailing together as one—off her stone platform, across the echoing Cathedral, and slam into the giant organ to the left side of the altar.
KRONNNNNNGG!.!.!.!.!
The entire building fills with the ear-splitting vibrations of the shattered instruments. Like the orchestra of Hell has opened up to us to follow the soundtrack of the burning world gone red outside.
Terra rolls across the ground, grunting.
No less than a second after I myself have collapsed, I'm suddenly bolding straight towards her in a red streak. Four red eyes flickering. Fanged teeth drooling. "Haaaaaaaaccckkk!"
Terra—teeth gritting and hair a tangled mess—lifts a hand out towards the cold cathedral ground in front of me.
CRKKKK!
Giant spikes of jutting rock shoot upwards, smashing through and uprooting the earthen floor before the path my father is dragging me. On flickering red wings that are there and gone again, I slide left and right to circumnavigate the spikes and leap upon Terra—
"Nnnngh!" Terra clenches her fist.
The last jutting spike lifts up and slams straight into me.
SMASH!
I'm shoved back through the air and straight into the heart of the church organ.
CRUNNNNCH! The spikes of rock soar in after me and shatter the instrument to shreds all over. The tall, brass organ pipes collapse into a cacophonous pile of mangled metal. KLANNNNG! KLONNNNG! KL-KL-KLANNNG!
Dust.. …dust.. …dust… …
Silence… …
Terra pants…..pants.. …… ..pants….
She winces—but forces herself up.
She shuffles to her feet.
The woman stumbles.. .. …limping across the church floor.
She weaves her way around the crumbling spikes of earth and approaches the collapsed organ.
Her masked/goggled eyes narrow.
She looks at the collapsed metal pipes.
The debris.
The crumbling detritus….
She looks left.. … …she looks right.. … …she looks left—
Four RED spots reflect off the back of her leotard.
She gasps.
She spins--
"Stupid WENCH!" I snarl, red tattoos flaring as my arms lift a huge metal pipe over my head with scarlet energy. "You can't bury someone who's LoRd Of HeLl!.!.!.!"
Swooooosh-WHANNNNG! The pipe slams across her cheek.
Terra spins, coughing up blood and fragments of teeth.
"Hrssskkk--!" My four red eyes flare as I bear my fangs and slam the pipe across her midsection. CLANG!
Terra goes flying off and sprawling through rows of pews that smash and shatter apart like eggshell dominoes.
CrCrCrCrassssh!
Terra rolls t a groaning stop. She winces, sits up, and shakes the blonde bangs from in front of her goggles—
SNKKKKT!
"AAAAAAAAUGH!" She screams, tears burning free from her ducts. A pair of crimson, flickering talons have sunk into each of her breasts.
I lean into her and hiss in her face. "FiNaLlY.. … ..sOmEtHiNg To GrAb OnTo. Hrshhhh-haahahahahhhh—IsN't ThAt RiGhT, BITCH?.?.?"
I lift her by the impaling claws, spin, snarl, and fling her with red demon energy across the cathedral--….
….—and through the stained glass windows above the altar.
SHATTERRRRR!.!.!.!
Terra sails through the window in a sea of glass. Her already bleeding skin is knicked and scratched all the more as she plummets, plummets, plummets. Somehow—in mid fall—she summons the strength to fling a hand earthward and form a crater in the ground just in time to absorb her impact.
Fw-Fwump!
She gasps and jolts—
Clnlnlnknklkkkkttt! The glass showers all around her in a serrated rain.
Terra pants.. …pants… ..pants….
Her goggles are fogged.
Her leotard is torn all over.
Ten deep holes in her chest leak red.
She limps up to her feet, strips of her goggles, and looks around.
The rear of the cathedral sits in a glade.. …bordered by a babbling brook that stretches along the line of a thick forest of pine.
Terra lets out a shuddering exhale—
RUMMMMMBLE!
She winces and looks up to see the sky that has been stretched over her for these past few days. The red, blood-colored swirls. The gases mixing and morphing and dancing the devil's tongue juice. Velvet rich soups of scarlet cyclonically mixed in the air. The world is a rumbling echo of the breath of evil deflating poisonously towards the Earth.
Terra gulps. She hears a rushing sound. She glances up---
SWIIIIIIISH! An altar cross is flying at her like a javelin.
"Nnngh!" She leaps back.
SMASH! The cross shatters into splinters beneath her.
Swooosh! I land in a descending drift of red energy. Grinning fanged teeth, my eyes flicker a hot red as I march burningly towards her. "YoUr CoWaRdLy WaYs Of RuNnInG aRe OvEr, TeRrA. YoU aRe TrIgOn'S cOnCuBiNe NoW, jUsT lIkE eVeRy oThEr WhOrE oN tHiS pLaNeT! YoU aRe My FaThEr's, A qUeEn Or A cOrPsE!"
"Raven…," Terra raises her fists and hobbles backwards, frowning. "Work with me.. .. ..let's end this so that your father can't use you anymore…"
I can't… …
I can't.. … ….
"YoUr SpEaKiNg To ThE wRoNg EnD oF mY hAnDiWoRk… …." CHIIING! I raise two talons of burning red and snicker. "Hehhh-Hehhhh-Hehhhh…. … …BuT tHaT cAn Be ArRaNgEd… …"
Run, Terra… …
"I can't let you continue t-to continue existing…," Terra wincingly manages.
"Do YoU bElIeVe ThAt YoU aRe A hErO, WENCH?"
Please….
"One day.. …," Terra's eyes narrow icily. ".. …someone called me a 'true Titan'… …and a 'true friend'.. ….let that be the end of that."
Run!
"InDeEeD……" FWOOOOSH! I'm upon her, red talons swiping from the dimensions of Hell.
SLASSH! SLASSSH!
Terra lifts mud up to form two earth shields with her blocking elbows. THWUMP! TH-THRUMP! The clay splashes into her face. She grits her teeth, hobbles back, and stretches both hands down to the earth as I---
"HAAAAAAUCK!" I leap upon her and clutch my talons around her skull.
"Mmmmmf!"
"Heheh…." I open my jaws grotesquely large and bear my fangs to bite through to the bone of her skull.
No!
"MmmFF!" Terra clutches her fists. Two roping tentacles of mud rise up out of the earth and ensnare my human legs. In a jerk, the gasping lady inside of me is yanked back in a trailing ghost streak of white.
Th-Thwump! I land hard on the ground, red eyes shrinking to two violets and burning back to red---
"YAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!" Terra brings two fists together.
I glance on either side of me, gasping with a human voice as---
SMASSSSH! Two walls of Earth slam into me on either side.
A glaring Terra entwines her gnarled fingers together, bleeding over her outstretched arms as she struggles to command the two slabs of mud into constricting---
POWWWW!
Terra gasps and stumbles back as mud and dirt fly everywhere.
I stand there, my body flickering back and forth from pale vulnerability to red monstrosity. I seethe.. …hiss…and lift off. Fw-Fwooosh!
Terra glances up at me. Barely standing with her blood loss, she terrakinetically 'scoops' up two mounds of earth from either side of her and tosses the levitating globules at me.
I form a demonic symbol with both tattooed hands glowing together. "RrrrrRAAAAUGH!" I snarl and fling a spiraling array of scarlet-colored telekinesis down at the incoming earth field. CRUNNNCCCCCH! Terra's projectiles explode. With a twirl and a somersault on briefly existing wings, I fling myself murderously down towards her. "RRRRRRRGHHH!"
Terra gasps, hops back, and braces for—
SWOOOOSH!-SLASH!SLASH!SLASH!SLASH!SLASH! Scraping, burning talons shred into her blocking forearms at over two dozen spots.
Terra winces, gnashes her teeth, and shoves back against my glowing body. "Nnnngh!"
I stumble back and raise a telekinetic demon talon to strike--
SMACK! Terra elbows me hard across the cheek.
I nearly twirl from the impact.
WH-WHUMP! Terra kicks me in the hip.
I buckle--
YANK! Terra grabs a tangle of my blue hair in one hand and summons from nearby clumps of dirt a hard, sharp-edged spear. "Sleep, Raven. Sleep forever and consider it the only mercy you deserve—"
P-Please…
Do it now….
She stabs the spike towards the nape of my neck.
Please—FATHER! NO!
"HRAAUGH!" I head-butt her in the chest.
"Ooof!"
Her spear barely grazes my shoulder. SLIIIINK! Demon blood leaks out onto Terra's wrist and burns her like acid. SSSSsssssssssss!
"Aaa-Aaugh!" Terra drops the earthen spear and stumbles back—
WHAM! I back-hand her across the cheek and leap up with a red, burning foot slammed into her gut.
WHUMP!
Terra falls backwards towards the river. She falls on her rear in the wind-blown grass and shudders all over.
"YoU wIlL mAkE aN aMuSiNg SpItRaG iN hElL, BITCH!" I grin fangedly, marching towards her with the world billowing and thundering red overhead. "ThAnK yOu FoR tHe LaSt MiNuTe SpOrT!.!.!"
Terra grits her teeth and flicks, flicks, flicks, flicks her wrists towards me. "Nnngh-Nnnngh-Nnnngh-Nnnngh!.!.!"
Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-Thap!I Pellets of mud constantly bombard my body and cover the front of my being with a caking layer of filth. I shield myself with two tattooed arms and managed a cold, shivering gasp as my violet eyes twitch under the crimson control—
Terra—in the meantime—hyperventilates, glances aside, gasps at the sight of her discarded earthen spear—leaps for it and tosses at me amidst my blindness.
Thwooooosh!
My eyes twitch. All six of them.
Father---!
CLACK! My face jerks aside.
Terra watches, breathless….
"… .. .. …," I slowly turn my head and face him. I have the javelin of hard-earth lodged in my fanged teeth. I grin around the captured prize. But no sooner and I've spat it into my hand, twirled it amidst my fingers once and tossed it with demonic speed—
THWI-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-ISH!
THUNK! The spear impales itself between Terra's thighs.
"AAAA-HAAAAUGH!" Terra wails.
Eyes flicker as I lean forward with tightened limbs and sneer: "HoNeY, I'm HoMe!----SNKKKKKRAAAAAAUGHT!" I run. I glide. I shove her—
Dear Azar, please---
--and we go sailing—
No, Terra….N-No…
--and plummeting into the babbling river.
SPLOOOSH!
I land on top of Terra's reddened body.
I perch atop of her, half-submerged in the running brook.
"Heheheheheheeheheeeeeeeh!"
No. …Father……
WHAM!
St-Stop it!
WHAM! SMACK! TH-THUNK!
Stop it, father! P-Please!
My fists are pummeling, pummeling, pummeling.
Red talons scraping, scratching, carving.
I can't tell from the splashing impacts what is water or what is Terra's disintegrating face.
She spurts and gasps and sputters and tries to scream, but—WHAM!
WH-WHAM!
THUD!
STOP IT!
TH-THWACK!
WHAM!
PLEASE, FATHER!
DON'T MAKE ME DO THIS!
My fingers dig into Terra's neck.
I lift her soaked head out of the water.
Dribbling red.
Coughing.
One eye working.
The other hung back, filled up like a red grape with useless juices.
She gazes at me with whatever sight she has left.
"Hehehehehhhhheeeeeehh.. ….Is ThIs NoT rIgHtEoUs, BITCH?" I sneer into her face, four red eyes strobing. "ThIs Is BuT mY wOrLd.. …aNd NoW fAcE tHe JuDgMeNt ThAt AwAiTs YoU!"
The red sky swirls.
The babbling brook.. …the cold rivulets.. ….
The red.. ….the red….
"F-Fight it, R-Raven….," Terra gurgles. "I know there is s-something left inside of th-this that still can—"
"SILENCE, YOU WHORE!" I hiss hellishly into her shattered face. "OnCe YoU tRiEd DrOwNiNg Me In PuTrId MuD!" My demon drool drops past her and sinks into the riverwater. The liquid turns red. A puddle of scarlet bubbles up around a shocked, shivering Terra in my grasp. "AnD nOw YoU aRe SeNtEnCeD tO fOrEvEr SoAk In ThE jUiCeS yOu OnCe TrIeD tO rOb ThE tItAnS oF!"
Terra hyperventilate and hisses.. …hisses… ..wheezes to scream but can only look with one wide eye all around her as the river water she's lying in turns completely and utterly into boiling blood. "Mmmf…nnghsskkt.. …skkst…nkkktktkstttt-tt-ttt!"
"YoU aRe GoInG tO bE dRoWnInG….hehehehHEHEH—FOR A VERY…LONG.. .. …TIME!"
NOOO!
"Snkkkt—blblblblblbllblblblbblblblbb!" Terra struggles as my hands force her into the river of blood. Blood, blood, blood everywhere…
Everywhere… …
Everywhere, mother… …
I… …I cannot see you… ….
Terra's broken skull bubbles from underneath the crimson surface.
I cannot feel you… …
The bubbles lessen and lessen….
The laughter.. …the laughter.. …
The meat strings across the antlers…
Mother--
The bubbles stop.
Terra's broken and battered body lies limp in the bleeding currents.
And I feel through her.. …through the river of blood.
The stone creeping.
The stone consuming.
The ash and the sulfur and the dust between the screams, as—
Stone.. …Stone… ..Stone… …
It imprisons everyone in their own personal Hell.. …
Their own nightmares.
The demon blood spreading… ..infecting… …polluting… …
It is when I'm in the thick of it.. …
It is when I am wading in the river of blood, waist deep—that….
That the rage goes away.
My father departs…for a spell…
And I am left in my tattered ivory dissolution to soak with Terra's body and the bleeding river.
I clutch my skull in two gnarled hands and clench my violet eyes.
No….
No… ….
Save your screams.. …
It is all only beginning.
There will be all of eternity to howl….