Entrapped
Disclaimer: I do not in any way, shape, or form own the show Teen Titans, nor the various DC comics on which this fanfiction is based.
1 year later...
Raven watches the spell coming at her, an amused smirk coloring her expression.
"Really?" she inquires.
Her assailant's eyes narrow as his spell suddenly veers off course, exploding in a shower of black sparks at her side.
As the white glow of her eyes dissipates, she lets her smirk fall somewhat.
"Do not play games with me, Faust. You know why I'm here. Save yourself some pain," she offers.
She floats above the stone floor in the darkened amphitheater, the shadows seeming to coalesce around her form.
The sun, high above them, gives little reprieve from the illusion of darkness in the harsh stone building surrounding their prey.
The man opposite her studies her form, eyes glowing a dark, golden color as he does.
As the rumors have said, the former Titan is distinctly different in both appearance and personality to when she was their secret weapon.
Where her former uniform had been a shade of blue almost dark enough to be black, the cloak and leotard she wears now is a pure, pristine white.
Most jarring, though, is the change in her body itself.
The brilliant, ruby specks in her violet gaze reminds Felix Faust of encounters long past and creatures better forgotten.
This thought is amplified by the jagged, gleaming black claws hanging from the ends of her fingers, seeming sharp enough to rend flesh with ease.
A shining, silver necklace in the shape of an ankh hangs from a thick chain around her neck, and the way it floats on a wind he does not feel sets him on edge.
Gritting his teeth, he grips the staff in his hand more tightly, his knuckles going white from the pressure.
Something nags at his senses, and a small smile creeps along his face, reminding Raven of a snake.
"You're here. That implies a singular entity. A solo assault for your cause. Interesting."
With a flourish, he raises the staff high into the air and swings it in a powerful arc.
As it moves, a brilliant golden glow surrounds the gem resting atop the precious metal.
When he comes to a halt, a ray of power blasts outward, turning the air to steam as it passes towards the shadows.
A figure rolls out of its path, brilliant pink light making itself known before it again vanishes into the thick shadows.
"You have a friend, it seems," he muses, eyes casting about in search of the psychic's rumored teammate.
"Could've been a cat," Raven replies with a shrug. "I hardly need help from a mysterious guardian angel to beat you, even with that item you stole."
At that, he turns his attention back to her with hate burning in his gaze.
"Is that so? You seem to be quite assured of what you know of such an ancient item as this," he growls.
Raven snorts, wondering at how easily the sorcerer is distracted.
"All the items we've gotten from them, and they're still so cocky. Amazing," she laughs mentally.
The year since her departure with the Titans has been a very beneficial one, even as the heist investigation has not yet come to an end.
Once she gained the D.M.A.'s resources, Jinx's team had become a force in the retrieval and investigation of the objects of power and their heists.
It certainly helped that just under eighty percent of the stolen items had remained not only in America, but almost entirely within the half of the country the women's home resides.
"Ancient staff, supposedly the very one fabled in the Journey to the West. All very impressive, but I feel that if it was really Sun Wukong's weapon, the King would've come for it a long time ago," Raven deadpans.
His eyes widen, staring between the weapon and the psychic.
"More informed than I thought. This must end now," Faust thinks.
As he goes over plans on how to best distract her so to land a devastating blow, he misses the pink, sparking light taking form in the shadows directly behind him.
By the time his mind takes notice and sends him to action, the hexbolt slams home.
He groans as the staff is blown free from his hand, spiraling quickly through the air with smoke rising from the metal.
As he attempts diving to grab it back, a solid mass of black light forms and wraps around the weapon.
When he begins backpedaling out of his charge, the glowing hand quivers and another beam of the blackness slides free.
He moans in pain as a small fist of energy backhands him in the stomach, sending him tumbling through the air and into the stone behind him.
The staff quickly finds its way to Raven's hand, and she grins as Jinx emerges from the shadows, her feline, pink eyes glowing.
Groaning, Faust pushes himself back to his feet.
Shaking his head to clear the spots filling his vision, he glares at the women standing before him.
"Foolish. Too easily distracted. Won't happen again, I assure you."
He quickly raises a hand towards them, and they watch as his blue robes violently begin whipping around his body.
Black mist begins forming about his feet, and Raven meets the red-eyed gaze of what lay within.
"Surge, bestiarum tenebrarum!" he chants.
The mist solidifies, and the women stare on as three ugly, furry creatures wreathed in living shadows take form.
Dark, blood-red eyes stare back at the women, fangs seeming made of smoke and flames flickering in and out of view.
A grumbling, throaty roar sounds from the beasts, and Faust smirks as they begin advancing on the women.
His mirth vanishes when Raven's own eyes turn the same color, and the little light penetrating the stone shell around them leeches away from her body.
"Conculco," she snarls.
Her voice seems to make the very air around them vibrate, and with a whine reminiscent of mere dogs, the shadowy creatures stop their movements and lean back on their hind legs.
Smiling at them, she points her index finger at Faust, and he visibly pales as they turn on their summoner.
"What? How-"
"You really need to keep up on things," Jinx laughs, leaning her head on Raven's shoulder.
"Indeed. Hellhounds are not the best advised weapon to use against me," the psychic adds in her normal voice.
As the beasts lunge through the air at him, he waves his hands, and their forms dissolve.
The last disappears just as his fangs begin to tear into the stringy sorcerer, and he falls backward with a grunt as it vanishes.
Raven appears overtop of him, an eyebrow raised in amusement even as her hellish, red eyes, now numbering four, stare down at him.
"Now, if you would, professor, I'll get out of your… well, not hair, obviously, but I'll leave you to your devices when you tell me who's behind the heists."
He glares up at her, his headdress slanted and comically covering his face.
"Vade ad infern-"
A foot suddenly comes down atop his shoulder, a sickening crunch sounding.
"None of that, now. Just tell me what I want to know. I'm sure you'd prefer someone else be going through this humiliation," Raven states.
Groaning, he clutches at his shattered shoulder, eyes tearing up.
"Wotan. I've stolen nothing, he's the one that gave me and a number of others what we seek. Go bug him," he says between gasps of pain.
Nodding her head, Raven floats back to her lover's side, her eyes returning to their natural form.
"Obliviscor," she whispers.
The sorcerer's eyes glaze over, and by the time he awakens to gaze at his surroundings in utter confusion, the women are gone.
Just as his memories of the staff, their fight, and the breaks in his shoulder are…
************************************
"So… Wotan, huh? Isn't he a pretty heavy hitter? Shouldn't he, I dunno, be somewhere more mystical than Jump?" Jinx inquires.
The women move along the rooftops of Jump City, both of them simultaneously pleased to be home and unhappy about the potential risks.
"The man has a very similar aura to Doctor Fate's. We're just going where his residue on the staff takes us," Raven responds with a shrug.
"Fair 'nough. Doesn't seem all that different, huh?"
The two pause in their travel to look around the city, melancholy rising up.
In their year since Raven's resignation, the two have found themselves very rarely able to enjoy their home together, always out somewhere hunting for an object of power.
The long time outside of Jump has meant no run-ins with the Titans while doing their job, something both women were perfectly content with given the developments following her departure.
It has also meant no small amount of homesickness, however.
"When we get this done, what do you say we head to the Angelique? It's been a long while. They might not even remember us," Raven states.
Jinx stares at her lover, floating cross-legged in the air around her.
"Somehow, I doubt that. Kinda' hard to forget us," the hex caster laughs.
"True enough. Is that a yes?"
Grinning, Jinx leans forward and plants a kiss on her.
"You have to ask?"
"It's a date, then."
"Yep. So this guy's like Fate? That's not good, right?"
The man had been the only League Member their team had worked with in their retrievals, taking items deemed too dangerous to handle or destroy on three separate occasions.
The first time she'd met the man in person, Jinx had been terrified that any being could live with the raw, magical power that he seemed to be made from.
That Wotan is similar is not a pleasant thought.
"It could be bad," Raven agrees. "On the other hand, this is huge. If Wotan's a supplier-"
"Then he'd probably be high up with whoever's behind all this. Ya' know, I really just can't wait for this crap to be over so we can actually relax a bit."
"Like Steel'd let that happen," Raven snorts.
"So, what do you think? Should we call someone in?"
"Hmm… Think I could send a beacon without calling Wotan to us?" Raven asks, pondering on what range the villain can sense.
"If he's like Fate, I'm gonna' guess not. Who knows if he's going to move or attack? Well… Shall we, then?" Jinx sighs.
With a nod, they continue towards the docks, the staff vanishing in a pool of black once Raven is sure of the man's presence.
They quickly move to the ground, and move like shadows towards a boathouse.
As soon as they reach the sides of the entrance to the structure, though, a realization sets in.
It may be the way Wotan stands idly in the building, staring right at them that tips them off.
More probably, it's the large, cruel grin adorning his lips that lets the women know they were lured.
Raven grabs Jinx's hand and begins to vanish in a bubble of soul-self.
Before they can complete the transition, though, a hand wraps itself in her cape and they are harshly jerked onto the wooden docks.
"Your troublesomeness certainly outweighs your intelligence. Else you would not have come looking to die from one as powerful as I," Wotan mocks.
The women move away from the sorcerer, his grin revealing a series of fangs that glint in the sunlight.
"And I'd suggest not turning tail, demonling. You aren't the only one who can transverse dimensions with a mere thought."
"Did I hear him say we're troublesome?" Jinx asks with a grin.
"Make no mistake, you are irritants to our plans," Wotan states. "Hence why I made sure to not shapeshift with those I supplied objects to. You would eventually find me. That you were foolish enough to come to me without aid is more than I expected, though."
Raven's eyes narrow, and the red in her gaze glows brighter.
"We probably should've considered that," Jinx muses with a grimace.
"Gizmo will never let us hear the end of this," Raven groans, her agreement clear.
Jinx drops into a low stance, her fists rising to be in front of her face.
Pink light begins flowing around her body, and her eyes become like lenses of the color.
"Don't suppose you brought us here because you're secretly displeased with your employer?" she asks through grit teeth.
Wotan laughs, the sound almost causing the women to shiver.
"Nothing of the sort. You are a minor irritant. However, you are irritants nonetheless. Even with a full year of your work together, and gaining strength, if the reports I've read are proper gauges, you two are insects in my shadow."
His grin widens, and they tense as his body lifts from the ground.
"Azarath Metrion Zin-"
Raven's chant is cut off as a wave of light leaves the sorcerer, the ground where she'd stood liquefying.
A series of waves follows the first strike, sending Raven into an aerial dance to avoid certain death.
With every dodge, the margin gets narrower, and both Raven and Jinx go to work with creating a plan.
As the newest wave comes at her, Raven sends a fist of her soul-self into the body of the attack.
The energies collide, and a brilliant explosion sets off, blinding both herself and the dark mage.
Jinx uses the moment and throws a ball of pink flames at him, the air crackling and smoking in its wake.
Just before her large hexbolt lands, though, Wotan's body shifts.
Her jaw drops open as his body splits in the center, leaving a hole large enough for her attack to pass harmlessly through.
As his skin knits seamlessly back together, the solid bad luck collides with the wall, and a loud groan sounds.
In seconds, a metal beam bends and snaps downward, the brunt of its weight coming down directly on top of the pink-haired meta.
Before she becomes crushed, though, a bubble of blackness surrounds her body, and in a blink she finds herself at her lover's side.
"That didn't work."
"No, it certainly didn't, whelps," Wotan laughs. "I believe it's my turn, now."
As his eyes glow with power, the women notice for the first time a golden necklace coiled beneath his head.
The necklace takes on an ugly, red hue, and sparks the color of old blood begin leaping from his entire form.
"Morgan Le Fey's necklace packs quite the punch, I must say. Don't know how she managed to lose something so potent."
The name sets warning bells off in Raven's mind, and a shield of soul-self slams into existence around them.
A second later, his attack unleashes, and Raven groans under the impact.
Her body begins sliding backwards as she throws her physical strength in with the mental, pushing as much as she can into the barrier.
And yet, Jinx watches in horror as the shield begins to fracture and crack, even as she applies her own power to it as well.
"What the hell!?"
Raven doesn't respond to her cry, her body trembling under the weight of the power pushing towards them.
She grabs onto Jinx's arm with a shaky hand, and the two are immediately swallowed in a black pool, just as her barrier explodes.
When they rise up, their hands are linked and their power flows like magma in retaliation at the sorcerer.
Grinning, he spins to face them.
Even as he begins to show signs of his own fatigue, their attack is blown to pieces when he utters ugly, guttural noises and throws a disk of gold into its center.
"I'll admit, you put up better challenge than was expected," Wotan sighs. "I might even have a fight to contend with were it not for the witch's necklace supplying me with all the energy I could need."
"So who's backing all this?" Raven inquires. "Certainly not the hag."
"Know respect for your elders and superiors, demonling," Wotan hisses, his eyes narrowed on her.
"Well, you brought us here to kill us, so I mean, it's not like satisfying our curiosity would kill ya'," Jinx adds as she catches on to her lover's plan.
"Very true, but I won't answer you all the same. Honestly, even I do not know more than suspicions of who organizes us."
"You guys don't seem very organized," Raven challenges, hoping he misses the slight glow between their palms.
"Well, that's to be expected. We are many, all hired for the same goal, to serve unknown financial backers looking for the objects we collect. It's naturally bound to be chaotic in nature, yes?"
Wotan's eyes suddenly narrow, and he frowns in thought, as if something bothers him.
Only Jinx seems to notice the small smile curving her lover's lips, the expression so subtle only she is capable of picking up on it.
That does not, however, mean that she can decipher the cause of such an expression at such a terrible time.
But Wotan doesn't miss the pinkish cast to her gaze, and his teeth bare themselves in angered warning.
"To be expected, I suppose, demonling. Are your inclinations how you've destroyed such a large chunk of the objects we sought? How you've pushed the goal back by more than a year?"
Raven smirks at that, the red hue to her eyes burning clearly now.
"Goal you say? Interesting. I've no idea what inclinations you mean, though. Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"
The women's connected hands come up in a fast whipping motion, and a large raven made of fire shoots outward.
Black and pink light spiral and mesh within the raven's form as it flies at the sorcerer.
It is the four burning, glowing red eyes on its skull that gives Wotan warning of the fatality of its collision.
As it meets with his body, a wall of green light explodes into existence, pressing the psychic weapon back.
Raven's eyes narrow in concentration, and more of her power flows into the attack.
As her barrier before had quickly begun to crack, so too does Wotan's shield quickly succumb to the force of her soul-self.
But more of the ugly language begins rolling from the sorcerer's mouth, and Raven's eyes widen in horror at what begins happening.
As he speaks, their weapon begins to expand and grow, large sparks of black and pink bursting from its body.
Everywhere the sparks hit, the boathouse and docks begin to warp and bend, seeming to shift through realities.
"Raven?"
Jinx's scared tone matches the emotions rolling around in her own mind, and she immediately cuts the power off from her namesake.
Wotan looks at the damage around him, a grin adorning his face even as large beads of sweat roll around his skin.
He points at the women, and another wave rises from Morgan Le Fey's necklace.
The red glow of Raven's gaze intensifies, and with a powerful sweep of her fist, his attack is knocked off course by soul-self.
She then sends her own attack at the man, bursts of pink light accompanying it.
And so it continues, the dock slowly breaking and shattering as the trio continues their fight.
For a small eternity, their exhaustion seems to be matched, even as their attacks lose none of their potency.
And then, something shifts, and the women realize that the necklace is keeping Wotan on a much higher level of stamina than either of them have.
The tide changes, and Raven notices how reality continues warping around them on the docks as they continue.
"We… can't… keep this up," Jinx gasps, just as she comes up from her recent backflip.
Ravens' response is interrupted as Wotan's spell throws a blade of his energy for her head, aiming to decapitate her.
Even as she manages to dodge it, the blade manages to tear a line from her shoulder, blood quickly sliding down her arm.
Cursing, Raven wraps a bubble of her psyche around her lover and herself, and a mass of black in the form of another raven shoots skyward.
Before they manage to make any distance, or come up with a good strategy, the ugly voice sounds once more.
And Raven's retreat cuts off, another curse sounding from her lips.
The women float in the air at the edge of the glowing grey bubble, knowing that they're truly ensnared...
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Author's Notes:
Sun Wukong is the Monkey King, a character in the Chinese fable Journey to the West.
Surge, bestiarum tenebrarum- Latin for "Rise, beasts of darkness"
Conculco- Latin for "Heel" (verb)
Obliviscor- Latin for "forget"
So that's the start to the second half of the story. There's almost certainly going to be some Hellblazer later on. It's probably going to get a bit darker from here, though at present I haven't quite finished planning out the story's course. Also, as I suspected, I have nowhere near the backlog built up to do two updates a week, so it'll probably be Monday updates from here on.
Hope you're all enjoying the story so far! Whether you are or aren't, let me know! See you next time.