Fallen Angel, Chapter 3: A Stranger Comes to Town
Dmitri had rarely felt this exhilarated before in his life. Granted, doing nothing but reading books and learning stuff cooped up in a library for 19 years with little-to-no interaction with the outside world wasn't exactly exhilarating, but even if it had been this would certainly be miles above that.
The fallen angel was weaving back and forth like a hummingbird on crack, dodging, pirouetting, and doing his utmost to confound the brainless monster in front of him. When he tried to get too fancy, though, Plasmus caught him in the middle of a spin and gobbled him whole in one gulp.
The first sensation Dmitri experienced was claustrophobia. That was quickly followed by a stomach turning wave of nausea as he realized that he was inside the living mound of nuclear byproduct. Then, however, came a wave of emotions that was far more unsettling. Panic. Fear. Doubt. Apprehension. Was this monster going to put him back in a cage again? He still hadn't seen pure sunlight yet, and judging by how nice the moon had looked Dmitri certainly didn't want to miss out. But then the unsettling emotions gave way to more focused, concentrated responses to danger. Rage. Disgust. Loathing. Hatred. And, last but not least, there was perhaps the most effective of all of these responses: unbridled, righteous fury.
Dmitri felt something tug at his mind again, some other power that was also begging for its turn to be used. But when Dmitri made a quick trip inside the void of his mind to unleash it, (after protecting himself from Plasmus' internal acids with an energy shield) though, he did a double-take and almost fainted into unconsciousness. A cloaked figure stood only a few feet away from him, its face totally obscured by the darkness of a hood. It held a huge scythe in on hand and wore a massive sword on its back. It did nothing for a moment, but then it held out a strong, muscular hand to Dmitri, as if offering a handshake. Dmitri stared dumbly for a moment, and then it all clicked in a single, horrifying epiphany.
If he was the new, albeit unofficial, Angel of Death then this guy must be where the 'Death' part came in. Dmitri knew that to shake his hand would unleash a terrifying power, but nonetheless something else inside him, perhaps his father's knowledge, told Dmitri he could control it. That, and his conscious display of his mind was fading, a signal that if the angel didn't do something soon he wasn't going to have a chance to do anything at all. Suddenly a lurching pain surged up from Dmitri's stomach and things started to go fuzzy. Half blind and feeling the effects of rage and fear the Scion reached out and grabbed the hand in front of him with as much strength as he could, silently begging it to pull him out of this mess. The hood was thrown back, revealing a face that looked just like Dmitri's, but with black irises and white, cat-like slits for pupils. The creature smirked darkly before evaporating into a dark mist and darting into Dmitri's chest. Dmitri closed his eyes tight as he felt another surge of power, although this one threatened to overwhelm him.
Gritting his teeth and fighting the sudden urge to destroy everything around him. Dmitri opened his eyes and found himself still in Plasmus' stomach; the entire exchange in his mind having taken only about 10 seconds of real-time. The physical change in him wasn't drastic, only his eyes had noticeably changed, but the power influx was considerable. Without the hands-on experience needed to fully control it, however, it was crude and unfocused. As such, the resulting explosion didn't kill the human inside Plasmus, but it disintegrated the sludge around Dmitri completely and sent the rest of it splattering against buildings nearby with phenomenal force. If the shockwave hadn't been physically invisible, it would have looked like a supernova had just gone off.
Dmitri took a deep breath, calming down and allowing his eyes to change back to normal. Exhausted, the angel flapped down to the ground and hunched over, collecting himself. He was going to need to work on controlling that side of him, that was for sure; but as soon as he had dominance over it and not the other way around it would be quite a formidable weapon. The Scion wearily walked over to the body of the man inside Plasmus, folded his wings away and looked down at the unconscious form.
"You're a real a pain in the ass, buddy. You know that?"
A voice from behind Dmitri spoke out, breaking the silence.
"Titans, G—! Wait, what the hell's going on here?"
The angel spun around quickly and found himself face-to-face with the superhero group he had read about in the library of the Empyrean known as the Teen Titans, although there were a few new faces that hadn't gotten mentioned in the scrolls that detailed the past and present of many of Earth's heroes. There were also three individuals Dmitri recognized as being Zodiac Knights by their armor. A girl with long, black hair and purple and silver armor (she had raided her sister's closet before the team had left in a rush) snickered at her leader's discomfort.
"It looks like you've just gotten shown up in a big way, oh Fearless Leader."
Robin, never one to take a bruising of his ego well, decided it couldn't be that simple and took his frustration out on this newcomer to a somewhat-unfair degree.
"Okay, explain yourself! Make it quick, or we'll consider you a villain just like Plasmus over there and treat you accordingly!"
Dmitri had smirked when Robin had gotten teased by that girl, but when his motives had been questioned he became insulted. So he had gotten here earlier than the other heroes had, minimized the damage done, saved the day and somehow that was a bad thing? The Scion snarled like an outraged lion and revealed his burgundy wings, spreading them all the way out before curling them slightly. His eyes didn't change like they had before, but his gaze became hard as iron, his eyes narrow. When he spoke, it came out as a growl.
"Was that a threat, you ungrateful human?" Dmitri dropped the veil around his powers slightly for added effect, just so these people could see the extent to which he had been pissed off.
Everyone except Ichijyo, and to a lesser extent Raven, who had no idea this guy had been anything other than human, were shocked and took a step back. The Snake Knight and the demoness, however, had totally different gut reactions and stood their ground. Raven could tell this person was an angel, and a powerful one at that, but he was also very frightened and weary under his fierce shell, and this was just a survival mechanism. Shadow knew at once this was the angel he had seen in his vision flying toward the earth, and if he was anything like the other bits of his personality that the Snake Knight had seen suggested, he was not going to hurt anyone any time soon. He was just insulted, and understandably so. Shadow glanced at his loved one and sent her a quick telepathic message to take care of Robin's temper, while the Snake Knight stepped forward to confront the fallen angel.
Dmitri tensed even more when Shadow started walking towards him, but when he noticed the ease of his gait and the lack of malicious intent in his rather strong aura the fallen angel relaxed a great deal, tiredly holding out his hand to stop the Zodiac Knight in mid-stride.
"You don't have to treat me like a feral beast, you know," he said, his voice suddenly soft and tired. "I don't bite. I was just stressed out and for that I apologize, honorable Knight."
The tension in the atmosphere plummeted as soon as it was made clear that this new guy wasn't a threat, everyone slumped out of their battle stances, and Robin felt like an asshole for automatically having assumed the worst-case scenario. Nevertheless, he still had his doubts and was going to ask some less-invasive questions until Starfire beat him to the punch, zooming up closer to Dmitri with unrestrained glee so bright it would have put the sun to shame.
"Oh, you do not bite? That is very much like the Zroglornaks of my homeworld, vicious on the outside, but kind of heart! What is your name? How did you come to this place? What is your favorite color? What about your favorite food? If you wish us no harm, would give us the great honor of becoming our friend?"
Dmitri was taken aback, although that might be too light a description. He looked as though he had just been plowed upside the head by an artillery shell, stunned at the display of unsolicited cheery attitude. His eyes darted back and forth nervously, until he decided he might as will answer the questions, lest this oh-so-happy girl become crestfallen.
"Well… erm… my name is Dmitri, I flew here, I guess I'd say I have a preference towards silver, I love a really good steak every now and then, and I guess I wouldn't mind having a few new friends."
"Oh, that is glorious to hear, new friend Dmitri! Welcome to our city!" Starfire plowed ahead with one of her bone-crushing hugs but, to everyone's surprise, Dmitri was unfazed by the incredible force and simply returned the gesture lightly, still a bit shocked. After Starfire floated back to her friends Dmitri glanced sideways at Ichijyo.
"Is everyone down here that… inquisitive?"
Shadow chuckled lightly at the angel's discomfort.
"Not quite. But I think we'd all like to hear about how you managed to take down Plasmus single-handedly, and what exactly an angel is doing down here on earth." Pluto, who saw that now was as good a time to break in as any, threw in his own two cents.
"And where'd you get that armor? It looks awesome! What's it made out of?"
Dmitri sighed, and smirked. "One at a time, guys, please. Besides," he looked up at the moon and measured its position. "I'd say its about midnight, I've had one hell of a day, and I really need some rest. Any of you know a place I could stay the night? I'll tell you guys everything you want to know tomorrow."
Normally Dmitri would have been more apprehensive about being so open with people he had just met, but going by what he could see in their eyes these were good people. Draco spoke up this time, answering Dmitri's question about a place to stay.
"You can stay with us, if you'd like. I'm sure we could find an extra room. It might be kind of bland, but I'm sure it would make due for the time being. If we can't find anything you could always just use my room; I could room with Jinx for a night no problem." Draco was struck by something in this stranger. He didn't know quite what it was, but he wanted to make sure he didn't spend the night on the streets or in some shitty motel. It wasn't the sort of thing that someone who just took down Plasmus by himself deserved.
Dmitri glanced at each of the Titans and Knights in turn, expecting to hear some rebuke but shocked to hear none. Agreement, acceptance and kindness was all the fallen angel saw, and he was nearly overwhelmed with gratitude.
"Well, I guess that would be… very nice. Thank you."
Robin motioned to Raven to teleport them all home, and in the blink of an eye they were in the safe and sound environment of the tower. Dmitri spied a comfortable-looking couch and collapsed on it, folding his wings over himself like a cocoon.
"Thanks for the generous offer, noble Knight," he mumbled, clearly exhausted, "but this will do just fine." Dmitri was out within half a minute of having laid down, and the rest of the team simply chuckled to themselves and dispersed, ready to be embraced by the comforting arms of sleep and peaceful oblivion.
