11. The Dangers of Meditating Together

If there's one disadvantage towards living in a cellar, you have no indication of whether or not the sun is rising. So, on mornings such as these, I had to rely on crude, electronic alarms. I made a habit of getting up at 6am/7pm at the latest to get in morning practice and meditation and calisthenics. Truly, I've trained myself so that I can wake up at even the most inopportune times, but it never fails to surprise me how one unexpected event can hex an entire morning.

I was stirring in bed. Half awake. Half asleep.

I turned to my side and felt something furry brush against my nose.

"…….!" My black eyes widened.

I blurred my hand over and grabbed ahold of the intruding item in question; which turned out to be a small, hairy mass. I tossed it immediately to the other side of the room.

A curdling "meoooowwwwrrrr!!"sounded throughout the interior, followed by a WHUMP!!. I whipped on my shades and lit a nearby lantern. Blinding light (blinding to me at least) rose up and showered down on a green cat, lying dizzyingly against the wall.

I sighed out of both relief and exasperation.

"Duuude!" complained Beast Boy, rubbing his head in elf form. "What was that for?!?!"

I jumped out of bed and gestured angrily for an explanation.

"I was just coming down to wake you up!!" he said, getting up and smirking. "Cyborg and I were talking last night. We realized we never really dropped in on one of your morning exercises before. We were wondering if you'd allow us to join you this morning??"

I breathed easier and nodded. Then I paused. I glared at Beast Boy suspiciously.

"Okay okay…so that's not the only reason," he said, hands held out. "I couldn't help myself. Instead of knocking on the door, I thought I'd get a chance to see what was under those shades of yours! I mean, it's not like it's a secret or anything like what Robin keeps!"

I pointed firmly out the door.

"Fine fine…," Beast Boy rolled his eyes and sauntered out. He stuck his tongue at me. "But if you see a furball at your welcome mat the next few weeks, don't go blaming anyone but yourself!"

I made like to kick him.

He turned into an iguana and perched on the wall before reverting back to Elf and asking with a whimper: "Awww…but you'll still let us hang out with you today, right?"

I sighed and nodded.

"Woohoo! I'll go get Cyborg! You go get your Stick…or whatever."

He scampered off as a buffalo up the cellar stairs beyond my door.

I stretched, scratched my head, and wandered achingly to the bathroom…..

…and the alarm clock blew off, startling me into a pratfall.

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

"Dude, can I hold your Myrkstick for once? Pleeeeeease??? Come on, Noir!!"

I smirked and shook my head. Outside in the brightness of the rising sun and in the tall grass, Cyborg, Beast Boy, and I meditated in a fashion most closely familiarized with Tai Chi. I led the proceedings, performing my usual painful poses with Myrkblade and exercising my ability to exit out of them and transfer from one to another. Cyborg seemed to be getting the hang of it with his bio/mecha body. Beast Boy—impatient as ever—had his mind on less important things, in my opinion at least.

He was like a little brother….but…there were not many brothers out there I knew of whose head I sometimes wanted to chop off.

"Seriously! I won't play with it or anything!…….too much."

I winked through my shades and continued posing, exercising.

"Pleeeeeeeease?!"

"Aw come on, leave him alone BB!" Cyborg smirked in mid pose himself. "How would you like it if he hopped up and down while you were animal morphing into a dolphin begged to borrow your gills?!"

"Dolphins don't have gills, geniuses! He would much rather be begging for my blowhole!"

"Well, at least you understand the analogy," Cyborg smirked.

Beast Boy looked perplexed…then frowned. "Say, whose side are you on?!"

He turned to me. "It can't be all that hard to use that thing you've got, right?"

I slinked down out of a position and struck downward with a blur of Myrkblade. SWOOOOOSH!!!! Grass parted twenty meters down towards the waves and produced a spout of water.

Cyborg and Beast Boy were wide-eyed. I was used to such effects, but didn't try to think what their reaction would be.

"Dude….that would so pop a person like a zit!" Beast Boy exclaimed.

"Ewwwww! Beast Boy?!?!"

"Well, it's true!" he laughed and finally joined in with the exercise.

For a small period of time, the three of us were absolutely quiet in the morning glare of the sun. Out of the corner of my eyes, I took notice of Cyborg. For a huge fellow, he can be quite graceful. I've always imagined that the heat of battle was his ultimate undoing. But it's not like any of us could complain. His extreme brawn and straight-forward tactics helped us on more than one occasion to blitz the enemy into submission.

"You're doing pretty good for a half man half robot," Beast Boy whispered smirkingly. "I'm surprised that chi doesn't bump into roadblocks as it flows through you."

"Man, don't be cruel," Cyborg replied. "I have as much of a soul as you do."

"I've got a few million souls to choose from!" Beast Boy proudly grinned. He then proceeded to perform Tai Chi as a velociraptor, an octopus, a snake, and finished it all off with a bird. "Take that, Karate kid!"

"Ha ha ha ha!! Oh man…stop, you're ruining my concentration.

I smiled.

"Could you possibly be any louder???" groaned a voice from above on the rocky bluffs.

The three of us looked up amid poses to see Raven sitting cross-legged on a rock. Unfortunately for her, she chose to meditate in the exact time and location as we did….more or less. On many occasions in the past, we meditated in the same setting. But ours were two different worlds with two different arts. We never bumped into each other…until now, with the boys on my side.

"Typically, meditation is a silent technique. However, if you three are wanting to practice making noise, I suggest you go to the nearest wrestling match's warm ups. You so do seem to enjoy watching it on television."

"Dude! You better not be messing with the Rock! The Rock will kick your ass!" Beast Boy cackled up at her. Cyborg laughed in the background.

"Wow, an overpaid actor on steroids is gonna stare me to the ground," Raven remarked. "I am petrified." And she tried returning to her breathy chanting.

I was still exercising. With Myrkblade slightly charged, I aimed at an invisible target and swung slowly. A wave of smoke flew off and dissipated, leaving blades of grass dancing afterwards for a second or two.

"Say…just how much can you charge that sword of yours up?"

I looked over at the green changeling.

"Just asking," he smiled sheepishly in mid pose.

"Yeah, Noir…," Cyborg nodded. "You never did show us the full extent of our power…unless Robin's hiding something from us that only the two of you know."

I gave him a sarcastic look through my shades.

"Show us what you've got!" Beast Boy jumped. "How much punch can that thing of yours pack?"

I glanced forlornly at Myrkblade. True, during practice and crime fighting, I've charged it up to a great extent. But it had been honestly a while since I gave it a good workout. I was due for a session, so no time like the present. Right?

I gestured for Cyborg and Beast Boy to step back.

They did so, cheering.

"Yeah!"

"All right!"

"This is gonna be so cool!"

I stood in a fountain of wind-blown grass. Myrkblade hung by my side. I took a few deep, even breaths.

Raven, up on the rock, opened one blue eye and glanced down at me as I began.

I lowered my eyes beneath my shades. I slowed my breathing.

Myrk and smoke warbled up from my extremities and slowly oozed their way towards my swordhand.

Beast Boy's and Cyborg's cheers went silent. That, or I just couldn't hear them anymore. I don't know which. I felt a world of black come up to envelope me against the brightness as I charged up so slowly…so gently…that I was surprised at the weight of smoke and Destruction I was beginning to carry.

It felt like a hundred pounds, but I managed to lift Myrkblade up. I held it up—horizontally—at eye level. I dragged a pair of fingers of my free hand down its broad side. The digits swam through a fountain of black. Like floating ink in the air. The blackness became so thick, it almost developed secret colors of its own that screamed and shrieked to me in little pinpricks of mystery slithering into my solid eyes. And then it started pulsing…and then it started rotating. I knew I was standing, and yet the universe was spinning. I was impervious to gravity and weighed down by it all the same. Destruction and Construction danced around an orbital center inside my throbbing aorta and exploded in a million bits of laughter and pseudo light before the faint image of a face materialized before me in front of an infinite curtain of obsidian. And the face smiled. The face swam through my arteries on tiny canoes and I wanted to scream.

"N-Noir?"

My black eyes popped open.

Myrkblade fell….a forward slash.

WOOOOOOOOOSHHHH!!!!!!!!

Light exploded blindingly before me and then sliced in half like butter as a wave of murk and smoke trailed out from my leveling sword, ran out to sea, and parted waves with a splash of up to one hundred feet high for a quarter of a mile. It was a damn good thing I wasn't facing the suspension bridge to the North.

I gulped, slunk the sharp edge of Myrkblade into the earth, and fell back on my rear…panting.

"…………….," Cyborg and Beast Boy stared. They looked at each other. Goofy grins dripped down and soon they were jumping up and down. "Dude! Killer! That rocked! Yeah! Ha ha ha!!"

I panted, wiping sweat off my brow.

"That would make mince meat out of Slade for sure, next time we run into his ugly face!!" Beast Boy chuckled.

"I dunno….I don't think even he deserves that level of punishment! Ha! Great stuff, Noir," Cyborg looked down. A pause. "Noir, you okay buddy?"

I smiled weakly and nodded.

"Wore yourself out, eh?" Beast Boy extended me a hand.

I took it and stood up, brushing myself off and gesturing.

"He says 'it's time to call it quits'," Cyborg read aloud.

"Awwww….do it again, Noir! Do it again!"

I sniffed out a chuckle and shook my head, again gesturing.

"He's right, Beast Boy," Cyborg said. "Besides, it's time for breakfast."

"YES!" Beast Boy jumped with a cheer. "Thanks for reminding me! Tofu waffles it is!!"

"Oh no you don't! I'm getting there before you do so I can cook everyone an edible meal—HEY!! GET BACK HERE!!"

A laughing, green toucan soared off towards the elevated Main Room of the Tower. Cyborg ran on foot, sweatdropping.

"No fair! Some of us gotta walk, ya know!"

I watched the two return home, smiling. Wind kicked some of my hair loose. I tucked it back beneath the bandanna and turned around to retrieve my weapon……only to find out it wasn't there.

A swishing sound.

I glanced to my right.

There Raven stood, in a fencer pose facing the opposite way from me, Myrkblade in her grasp.

"A most interesting tool…," she said, trying a jab or two in the naked air, her cloak billowing in the wind. "Wooden swords are underrated these days…but in the right hands—such as yours—they become something to respect, I gather."

I watched curiously as she summoned a forcefield of black around her arm and Myrkblade in turn and slashed at a rock. The structure was swiped clean off its support, the heavy top half thumping to the ground.

I couldn't help it. I clapped.

She turned around and ever so slightly smirked. "Pretty nifty, huh?"

Without looking at where it went, she lowered the sword to her side—unwittingly colliding it uncharged with another rock.

CLANK!!

"Owch!" she winced as the wood was forcefully knocked out of her grasp.

I winced and walked over to pick my weapon up from the tall grass.

"I guess it would help to have your gift of spatial sensory perception," she said, rubbing her hand. "It must not be as easy as it looks to meditate with this thing."

Raven took the time one day to teach me the ways of Azzarath. Though I hardly grasped the extent of her teaching then, I felt honored by her sharing the art with me. So I felt it only natural for me to walk up to her, lift a finger for attention, place the hilt of Myrkblade back in her grasp, and move her arms with my hands so as to help her emulate the correct, fighting position.

"Oh…so is this how you hold it?" she asked.

I nodded…then twisted my hand side to side to signify 'somewhat'. I lifted my finger again and stood behind her, my chest to her back. I gently stretched my hands along her arms and pushed her shoulders so as to best reach the starting point of murk meditation.

"L-Like this?" she asked.

I leaned my head over her shoulder to get a better view of Myrkblade as I adjusted her fingers around the hilt and bent her elbows just right. Wind licked at us both, causing my hair to whip softly against her neck as I physically instructed her.

"Um….," she swallowed. "And just how do you do the horizontal preparation thingy?"

I was confused for a moment as to what she meant, then breathed a silent 'oh!' and lifted her other hand with mine so that it slid across the broad, dull side of the wooden sword. Her fingers trembled as I gently guided them, as if afraid of being cut by the hidden sharp edge of the blade…when the whole time it was still harmlessly in Myrkstaff mode. I lifted the sword up parallel to her eyes, and in doing so my left elbow brushed up against her inner forearm.

Suddenly, without warning, Raven's hair fanned up in a twirl. A static wave of black telekinesis flew up from the ground beneath us, raining soil and grassblades everywhere.

When I snapped out of it, I realized I had collapsed on the ground…and so had Raven a few feet away from me. She swiftly—quite awkwardly for 'Raven'—jumped up and brushed the dirt and grass stains off her cape and chest. I squinted through my shades and couldn't help but notice that she was blushing furiously.

"Um….er….I think that's enough….copying one another's meditation," she fumbled to say. I almost saw a touch of fear or something else in her eyes, but it was soon replaced by her cool demeanor (even though the reddening skin remained betrayingly the same). "We are obviously built for our own arts….but…th-thanks anyway."

I blinked up at her.

She saw I wasn't responding and immediately trudged—more like scurried—up towards the Tower. "See you later, Noir."

Had she forgotten to fly??

I got up, wincing, and walked over to where Myrkstaff was. I picked it up, charged it with murk momentarily to shake off the debris, and sheathed it in my wooden scabbard. I paused as I realized I was standing in a fresh circle of grassless dirt from where the two of us….er…stood.

A wyrd thought occurred to me. I looked up at the tower, grinning….humored. I decided to shake it off and head on back myself.

At that point…tofu waffles sounded not so bad…