Rumble
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.
As flames and smoke flood the night sky, Raven winces.
"I'm so sorry," she bemoans.
In hindsight, setting off the curse had been a really stupid idea.
By shooting the energy in the mark back at her brother, she had easily worked right past the barriers she and Jinx had painstakingly constructed.
"It wouldn'ta' bought us much more time if you'd decided to just leave it on," Jinx soothes. "The next time you left, they'd've been on your ass."
Raven simply stares at the billowing flames, her face contorted in a frown.
Jinx isn't the only one with good memories in the apartment.
It had always served as a comfort, that no matter what hellhole they were in while working for the D.M.A., or how long they were hunting for the stolen magic weapons, they'd always eventually had the apartment to come home to.
She watches a small part of her life go up in flames, only comforted by Jinx's familiar body at her side.
"I could've contained the energy. Could've sent it through a portal, circumvented it coming right from our home… I just blew it apart. I was angry, and it made me stupid. So, so stupid," Raven mutters.
"Okay, I'll admit, not one of your best moments," Jinx reluctantly agrees.
At Raven's miserable expression, the meta presses on.
"But you were damn right to be angry. Raven, what they made you watch was fucked up. Honestly? If it were me, I'd've probably lost my shit and gotten that damned thing off my arm the second I saw it. And you didn't blow the wards. Something that did that," Jinx growls with a sweeping gesture to their former home, "to the defenses we had would've damn near killed you if it'd stayed on you."
Raven reluctantly nods in agreement, though the guilt remains heavy.
Seeing it, Jinx waves the duffel bag in front of her face, metal clanking together inside.
"Besides, I got all I give a shit about with me."
She tightens her hold on Raven's side in emphasis, her eyes glowing brightly in the dark.
"That was just a couple walls. Well-reinforced, enjoyable walls, but just walls. Besides, I was thinkin' that we might start looking for somethin' a bit homier once all this is done, anyways."
"Then that will be what we do. Perhaps a place that can house Melvin and her brothers for occasional visits," Raven muses with a small smile.
Jinx grins at that, taking a step back.
"That sounds wonderful. Though we could probably talk about the "occasional visits" part. For now, though, how about we get way the hell out of here?"
A pulse of psychic energy rises through the billowing flames, and Raven feels something searching for them.
"Caecus," Raven hisses.
Jinx shudders as magic washes over her, and she suddenly feels as though the world around her is dulled.
"Think that'll work?"
Raven nods, turning and taking off at a run with Jinx right beside her.
"Long enough for that bubble to be the end of our trail."
"No flying," Jinx comments.
"And no teleportation. We'll leave as little a trail for whatever is going to be following us to use," Raven agrees.
"So where do we run, then? We sure as hell can't get to any barriers on foot."
Raven's eyes move around as they run, her eyes seeming to glow with calculation.
"Options aren't good. We either run somewhere that isn't populated and stand against them, or run somewhere they either can't or won't go."
"A church, maybe?" Jinx proposes.
"Saying I'm not sure whether I could enter a church earlier wasn't banter. I honestly don't know, and I've never really felt like risking trying it. It might work. But if I can get in, then they can, so-"
"It'd only work for me if it worked at all," Jinx finishes. "Got it. That's not happening."
Jinx frowns in thought as well, and they turn a corner.
Their plans are interrupted by extremely loud, booming sounds that flood the air nearby.
"Sounds like a fight," Jinx muses.
The sky is filled with a brilliant burst of blue light, windows nearby shattering as it passes.
"And that was Victor," Raven sighs.
"How long will this spell last?"
As if in some divine mockery, the world snaps back into sharp focus around the women.
"Why? Why the hell would I ask something to tempt shit like that? You'd think I'd've learned better," Jinx groans. "So run or go see what's up?"
Before Raven can answer, her chakra gem gains a red glow, and Jinx's eyes widen as the Mark of Skaath appears in a ghostly, pink outline on her forehead.
"Troia might be able to match a demon's brute strength. And she has mystical knowledge, as does Zatanna. At the very least, we can throw our trail off a little more with everything Zatanna's throwing around."
On cue, the sorceress screams something unintelligible, and a pulse of magic runs through the air.
With a grimace, Jinx agrees and they run towards the fray.
Seeing the Titans East in the middle of fighting the Titans when they come out of the alley is a brief surprise.
Not letting it throw them too much, the women stop to take the scene in.
Nightwing rushes at a woman dressed in a Batman-like uniform, a glowing gold bat outlined across her chest.
As he swings his staff down at the woman's head, she steps into the charge and spins her foot into his knee and shoves, sending him sailing through the air.
While he recovers, Zatanna points at Batgirl and her eyes glow white.
"Detcart-"
Before she can finish her spell, the assassin lunges forward.
Zatanna barely dodges the fist aimed at her throat, but finds herself unable to mutter any spells while dancing around the following attacks.
Something explodes to their side, and Raven's gaze moves to the second fight in the street.
Troia jumps up from the concrete crater around her body, her eyes narrowed in wrath.
As the women watch, the blonde rushes through the air at a large, muscular man with glowing, red eyes.
Superman's logo rests on the man's chest, reversed and dark on his shredded black shirt.
Troia uses the symbol as a target, slamming her fist straight into the S's center.
The Bizarro clone grunts as his feet leave the ground, his body rushing through three large SUVs before rolling to a stop.
Troia merely growls and rushes through the air after him, blood coating her knuckles.
Another of Cyborg's sonic blasts rushes into the sky, bringing their attention to the last fight.
Deathstroke flips high into the air over the blast, letting an office building take the hit in his place.
While he's coming down to the road, Kid Flash rushes forward with a fist cocked back.
Despite his body almost being invisible from his speed, Deathstroke watches him approach with a narrowed eye.
While falling, he curls into himself and seems to push off some unseen surface.
As his body spins, Raven spots a flash of gold near the mercenary's body, and her eyes widen.
"Kid Flash, pull back!"
Her warning reaches Kid Flash just in time, and he immediately changes course.
Deathstroke comes out of his spin and stabs the sword he holds into the ground where the speedster would have been.
The golden blade glows, and the ground cracks in a massive circle around the blade's tip.
Deathstroke looks over at the new interruption and finds Raven glaring at the sword.
"What the hell is that thing?" Jinx demands.
The meta's hair rises at the power surging through the air, letting her know that whatever the weapon is, she doesn't want to be anywhere near it.
Raven, though, has no such problem.
She sees the sword for what it is, and knows that it needs to be taken from the mercenary's hands as soon as possible.
"Jinx, Gamma-6," she growls.
With a nod, the meta follows after the rushing psychic without anything else needing to be said.
"Kid Flash, go help with Batgirl. Cyborg, cover fire," Raven commands as they pass the men.
The seriousness of her tone leaves no room for argument, and Batgirl soon finds herself facing a red and yellow whirlwind.
Deathstroke dodges out of the way of another sonic blast, putting him right in the path of a large hex bolt.
Seeing the attack coming at the last moment, Deathstroke slices the bolt in half.
Pink sparks rise along the sword's surface, and he swings the blade back.
Jinx dives to the side, just as the reflected hex energy causes the ground to implode.
"What kind of sword is that?" she growls.
"The old world magic kind," he responds with his sneer coming across clearly in his tone.
With his attention on the meta, Raven is able to rise from a portal behind him without notice.
As soon as she swings at him, though, he ducks beneath her fist and slices at her midsection.
Her body immediately turns into a black raven, and she materializes again behind him with a claw of soul-self already swinging at him.
She gasps as he brings the blade straight through the limb, a cut shining gold opening on her real arm.
"Reckless," he chastises.
Raven ignores the blistering pain, a burst of black energy quickly washing over the wound and sealing it.
"How do you have that?" she demands through clenched teeth.
She can feel his amusement rolling from him in waves, causing the red specks in her eyes to brighten.
"Beat me and I'll tell you."
"You have no idea what you're playing with, colonel," she argues.
"Oh, but I do," he retorts before stabbing at her.
As Raven dodges to the side, Jinx moves in and launches another hex bolt at Deathstroke's blind spot.
Once again, he seems to have a way of seeing everywhere at once.
He rolls beneath the hex bolt and comes to his feet with the sword heading for Jinx's neck.
With grit teeth, she pushes into a handspring and somersaults backwards, out of his attack.
As she moves, the ground lights up with pulses of pink magic, and the road quickly disintegrates beneath him.
He quickly buries the sword into the edge of the cracked ground, balancing perfectly on the sword's hilt.
Jinx gapes at him, the sword not so much as wavering despite the man's weight directly on top of it.
"What the hell is that thing?"
"It's the sword of kings, the Excalibur, which I just so happened to luck my way into owning," he responds easily, unfazed by Jinx's shock.
Cyborg acts on the distraction and shoots his cannon again, the attack crashing into his undefended side.
The mercenary kicks downward, and he rises while the blade comes free.
Another crater appears where the energy hits, raining concrete onto the women.
Raven watches the man come back down to the ground, still exuding an air of confidence.
She does not, however, let his confidence distract from the tremors rocking his arms, nor the rapid speed of his chest's rises and falls.
The pain in her forehead grows worse, and Raven rushes through the air at him.
"Azarath Met-"
He jumps forward to meet her charge, swiping Excalibur at her face.
She drops out of the air, and as he sails over her, she sends a powerful kick into his stomach.
"-rion Zinthos!"
Her eyes flare red, and black light explodes around them as she connects.
He grunts as his body is sent soaring uncontrollably into the inside wall of Jinx's crater.
He falls limply to the ground, the armor bent and snapped around a foot-shaped indent.
She flies after him, but before she can reach his body, the sword glows brightly.
He pushes off from the concrete, his body surrounded in a golden aura.
"Ouch."
Jinx moves to Raven's side, her eyes glowing a dark pink.
They join hands, and magic begins coiling around them as their energies flow together.
"So, invincibility, huh?" Jinx quips while pink sparks begin popping in and out of existence around her fingers.
"Close enough to it," he responds while stalking towards them.
"We'll see. Impedio!"
The ground beneath Deathstroke turns black, and he grunts as his feet are pulled down into the concrete.
Like quicksand, the liquefied road sucks him downward until his waist is beneath the ground.
It instantly hardens around him, pressing into his legs and pinning his entire lower body down.
Jinx points at his hand, still clutching to Excalibur, and the sparks turn into a large, pink spike of energy.
"Drop the sword, or I find out what happens when you mix old magic and chaos magic together, with a human in the middle," the meta commands.
"Not a pleasant concept," Raven adds.
Her eyes flash black, and the hexbolt turns darker, almost red, from the influx of soul-self to Jinx's power.
As the bolt grows larger, Deathstroke goes utterly still.
Something moves through the air, and Raven's head snaps in the direction of the demonic energy.
A loud snarl brings her attention back, and her heart squeezes at the sudden wildness that appears in Deathstroke's visible eye.
It's wide, with a pinprick of a pupil.
More snarling sounds rise from his throat, and with a growl, he slams Excalibur down on the road.
The concrete explodes apart around him, the golden aura surrounding his body seeming like a nova to Raven's pained eyes.
Anger slams into her mental barriers, coming from the inexplicably enraged mercenary.
"Now, Jinx!"
The meta releases the blast, the ground tearing apart beneath it as it flies.
Deathstroke rushes towards the bolt, bringing the sword back in preparation for a swing.
Seeing it, Jinx begins blasting more and more bolts into it, making it grow to the size of a small car.
The blade changes, seeming to become nothing but the golden energy it exudes, and Deathstroke's entire body follows suit.
When he hits the hexbolt, light floods the intersection, blinding everyone.
Raven's eyesight is the first to recover, and her heart skips a beat at what she sees.
Deathstroke doesn't stop under the force of the magical detonation, and continues rushing straight for the blinded Jinx.
By the time the meta's eyesight returns, he's practically on top of her, Excalibur already mid-swing.
Raven, still holding onto the meta's hand, pulls her out of the way and dances back from Deathstroke's swing.
He turns to follow only to find four hellish, red eyes glaring back at him, though Raven's skin is still pale and her tattoos aren't apparent.
He doesn't have time to react as a fist of soul-self crashes into his chest and pushes him back.
As he resists with the sword's power, her hand clenches and the magical construct splits apart.
The golden aura around him quickly dwindles as soul-self begins stabbing and smacking at him from all directions, his body caught in the center of a black cage of Raven's energy.
He begins cutting the cage apart, wildly swinging his way out of it.
Raven moves towards him while he's distracted, waiting for her chance.
When it appears, she acts in a second, and he grunts as a massive black fist crushes him into the concrete.
The hand closes, and his armor begins creaking and snapping under the pressure.
Raven stands over him, all four eyes glaring wrathfully down at him.
While she keeps supplying the hand with energy to keep him contained, she kneels next to him.
"I'd've thought you would've figured out how to avoid these kinds of things after escaping my father's clutches," she muses.
She places a hand on his forehead, and all four eyes give off a burst of white light.
"Persolvo," she hisses, her voice echoing in the air.
He merely glares at her in response, though the small, pinkish glow to his eye vanishes and his pupil returns to its normal size.
"It would seem I have not," he responds.
"Pity. Work on that. Now if you don't mind-"
Her free hand swings down, and he grunts at the sickening crunch that sounds from his fist.
The hand slackens immediately, and she grabs Excalibur up before he can grip it again.
"-I have need of this."
"You could've simply asked," he mocks.
She shrugs, not letting the pressure off of him even as she holds the sword in another fist of soul-self, not quite ready to touch the weapon yet.
"Nothing personal. Since I'm not exactly above board anymore, I can't even really take some stance above you for attacking my former team. That said, any time you ever think of hurting my woman again, possessed or not, just remember that I could've done to your skull what I did to your hand just now, and that was a light tap."
He seems amused by her threat, though he also doesn't tempt her to prove her words.
Seeing him shrug and stop resisting, she rises back to her full height and pulls Excalibur to the corresponding hand.
She turns to face the direction she feels her sibling's energy in, all four eyes narrowed in focus.
As soon as the hilt of the magical sword connects with her palm, her entire body ignites with power, her every muscle feeling supercharged under its influence…
*********************************
Author's Notes:
Caecus- Latin: "Unseen, invisible, hidden, etc."
Impedio- Latin: "impede, ensnare, obstruct, etc."
Persolvo- Latin: "release"
Some comic book trivia:
Cassandra Cain is the Batgirl after Barbara Gordon, and got injected with a serum that put her under Deathstroke's (Slade from the cartoon) control. Match is the Bizarro copy of Superboy, and in the comics Deathstroke uses Match to fight Wonder Girl/Troia due to her being Superboy's girlfriend. There are 7 other Titans East members, but I took Inertia out of commission in the first part of the story and I don't know anything about 5 of the others, so I couldn't write them.
We're getting into the more dangerous items that've been stolen, now. Hope that Raven can handle something like Excalibur, or not, either way it could make the fight interesting. I hope everyone's enjoying so far, and I look forward to your feedback. See you all next time!