*This chapter is not very long, but I thought it a nice exciting chapter. Enjoy and R&R please!
Raven, Cobra, and Bear crouched several yards outside of the demonic prison. They had to fly all the way there, since any demonic energy would be sensed by the Demon Hunters. Even now, they were struggling to suppress their demonic auras.
"It worked," Cobra breathed. "The majority of the troops are headed to the east wall."
"It was a believable plan," Bear commented. "The east wall is their natural weakness. This sort of trickery is the oldest strategy there is."
"You can always count on the classics," Cobra said.
"They're not stupid enough to leave the west wall unguarded," Raven said.
Cobra groaned. "Though obviously we're stupid enough to attack their strongest side."
"Vixen is in the west dungeon. If we all follow the plan exactly, this should work. Does everyone remember their stations?"
"Yes, oh great commander," Cobra replied with a mock salute.
Raven smiled to herself and Bear glared at him. "Let's go then."
On that order, each flew off in different directions. Raven flew a few yards closer and took refugee behind a few stray rocks. She watched Bear and Cobra fly swiftly together through the sky and into the watch tower. After a moment, Cobra, formed in his soul self, flew silently around the west wall, dropping Glintonian vegetation out of his void as he went. The green pus seeped out onto the ground.
"Again," Raven said to Bear, landing beside her. "Charming."
"They'll be coming quickly. The radiation energy should keep them from noticing you using too much power inside. We'll keep them stalled here as long as we can. Go!"
Raven shifted into her soul self and tore through the air as fast as she could. She flew through the walls and past the oncoming troops and dropped Gintonian plants. They didn't notice her energy. It was working! She flew down the long, winding stairwell as Bear had directed to the dungeons, finally shifting back into normal form at the bottom.
"Vixen?" she called. "Vixen!"
"Demon!"
Raven turned toward the voice, deep as a well, echoing through her very mind. Dreadful and frightening images from the tales of her childhood flashed before her eyes, freezing her heart. She stared into the face of her worst nightmares and felt a scream freeze in her throat.
On their way to the demonic prison, located on the barren wasteland of Trshnosh, Cobra had related the real history of the Demon Hunters.
'They began as mortals,' he had said. 'At the beginning of time, they lived peacefully. They were not quite like humans, but fairly close. When the first demons began to attack, they trained their youth to fight them. For centuries it went on like this. Usually the demons merely raided the villages, stealing food and livestock. But one day, the chief's wife was killed in the action. The leader of the fighting youth was her son. He'd had enough.
He sought help from the most powerful sorceress in the universe. He pleaded with her to help his people. They were strong, he told her, but the demons were relentless. They would have no peace until all demons were destroyed.
The sorceress warned him that power enough to destroy all demons would cost them dearly. But he told her he accepted the cost, whatever it may be. So, she cast a spell. A spell that gave all of his people the powers needed to vanquish demons. But, it did cost them.
They were changed. Mutated. Their true form...I cannot describe it.' He had paused here and stared fiercely ahead. 'Their power has corrupted them. Though they do what they think best for the universe, they have come to believe that the sacrifice made so long ago was truly worth it. They believe he made the right choice. Power means more to them than anything now.'
Now Raven stared a Demon Hunter, in its true form, in the face. It was much larger than her, twice the size of Bear. White alien electricity like she had seen earlier, shaped like flames, whipped around a bizarre skull head, slightly resembling that of a human. The voltage spread down around the creature's armored body. In one clawed hand it held a mace and in the other, the electricity snapped and cackled like lightening. Empty, black eyes, cold as bitter winter and dark as darkest night, bore down into her. There seemed to be no end to those arctic black eyes. And it's presence. It's aura. Raven felt the weight of it crash down on her. So heavy. So burdened. She fell to her knees.
"Demon!" it cried again, reaching out with one clawed hand and shooting electricity toward her.
Raven urged her body to disappear into the ground, and had just enough energy to get out of the way fast enough. She materialized behind a pillar thirty feet away from the Hunter. 'Cobra,' she cried out weakly. 'Bear. I need help.'
A black snake shadow suddenly lashed through the wall, littering green oozing bushes as it went. The Demon Hunter screamed, shooting after Cobra. Raven took advantage of the cover while she could and used her soul self to locate and materialize in front of Vixen's cell, unable to transport inside it.
"Vixen!"
Her sister was kneeling on the floor, staring blankly at the ground. She had bruises, cuts, and blood all over her body. Her eyes were unblinking.
"Vixen! How do I get you out of here?"
"...you can't," the broken girl mumbled after a minute. "Demons can't..."
Raven looked around the wall for some ideas. She heard the Demon Hunter yell before she saw it running towards her. She looked at the high iron gates, impervious to her powers, then back to the quickly approaching Hunter. She stood her ground.
The Demon Hunter swung his mace, filled with white voltage, as hard as he could at her. Raven wait until the last possible moment, and then tried to leap out of the way. The mace still caught her and threw her across the dungeon, through the stone wall. She weakly raised her head to make sure there was room for Vixen to escape. The iron door was bent almost in two. But Vixen wasn't moving!
And the Hunter was walking toward her. She materialized through the floor and appeared again behind him, but he could sense her energy and caught her with the mace again, knocking her into the cell with Vixen. She fell against her sister, still unmoving. Pushing herself up, Raven watched the Hunter approach and begin to straighten the iron bars back into place. Last chance...
"Demons can't..." Vixen mumbled again, looking Raven in the eye.
"Yes I can!" Raven shouted, eyes glowing white. Her soul self, white instead of black, wrapped around her sister and they disappeared, her energy knocking the Demon Hunter flat as it fled from the room. They materialized again outside the prison, amongst the oozing plants. Raven dropped Vixen and fell to the ground, feeling completely empty.
'Cobra, help...Beast Boy...' She finally drifted into the black nothingness clinging to the back of her mind.
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Beast Boy's eyes widened, but this time, he did not make the mistake of calling out her name. But he had heard her call to him. And then the presence disappeared, like a small, flickering flame appearing in the night to be snuffed out right after it had been lit. 'No...' he thought. 'Raven...'
The Titans heard an angry yell from the other room and then a table came crashing through the wall. "No!" Vince yelled. "They saved her! They survived!" Through the hold in the wall they could see the Hunters clearly, glaring at each other. "You let them fool you!" he continued, raising his fists before him. "Demons!"
"They fooled you too," Giselle answered, her own fists lighting up in electricity. "If you'd like to have this fight, I'd be more than happy to oblige."
He lowered his arms slowly. "Make contact with whatever remaining troops there are and tell them to report here immediately. We must all be ready. And we'll need a new plan, since the trap we set for their fake rescue plan isn't going to work."
Giselle nodded, releasing the energy from her hands and walking away. Vince retreated behind her.
Robin studied the broken table beside his place on the wall. "Hey, Cy, why don't you lend me a hand?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You've already used that one," Cyborg said, sighing at the cheesy joke. "And remember what happened? I dislocated my hand, tried to free you, and I got fried! She took into account that I could use my hand that way, man."
"Yes, but she didn't take into account that there would be anything for you to use," the masked boy responded.
Cyborg looked at the broken table and smiled slyly. "Boo-yeah."