Vengeful
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.
A quick warning: If you have a phobia of suffocation, there will be a section I mark off for you to skip. Consider yourself warned.
Jinx dives into a roll, sailing beneath the creature and coming up in a run.
They thunder along the ground after her, and with a curse, she pushes magic into her hands.
"Pr̥thvī, jāla ina jānavarōrh!"
The ground responds to her call, several tendrils of rock rising to entrap the Sidhe.
Unlike their much larger relative, the wolves are too fast for the limbs to trap, expertly dodging and lunging out of the path of the traps.
Still, Jinx counts it as a small victory that the limbs are keeping them further and further away from herself, and that the distraction has let her almost get to the pillars.
If she's going to be ripped apart by a pack of magical dogs, she's going to make sure she gets the last laugh on the hag.
When she finally reaches the pillars, though, and feels the energy flowing through the stone circle, she realizes how much power it's going to take to actually topple stones that have stood for millennia.
Growling behind her alerts the meta to the fact that the Sidhe have realized her goal, and with a pulse of energy, the earth beneath her jerks.
It gives her enough momentum for her jump to put her on top of one of the massive stones in the center.
When she touches down, exhaustion presses down on her, but she quickly shoves it down to be dealt with later.
She suddenly finds herself sympathizing a lot more with Raven's constant need to keep going as the wolves bark and yip at her from a shockingly large amount of feet below.
She hadn't put much thought to it before, but as she stares down at the Sidhe, she finds herself very glad that she doesn't have any issues with heights.
A resounding smack fills the air, and her gaze turns to find Etrigan soaring through the air in a cloud of black smoke.
Morgaine's gaze locks with hers, and once more she feels that strange sensation from the immortal.
"Barghest, stop playing with your food and end her existence," the sorceress commands, her voice echoing to reach them.
As soon as the wolves hear it, one of them turns its gaze to glare at the witch.
Jinx realizes then that the addressed, Barghest, has a body slightly larger than the rest, and that a black coating of some kind makes him almost appear as a blur even to her eyes.
The brief hope that maybe the beast is insubordinate and would take the rest of its pack with him is dashed when its hellish, red glare turns back to herself and it bares its fangs in a snarl.
Her heart skips a beat as it takes a running start and proceeds to use the various pillars around to make its way onto the same slab of stone she stands on.
"Good Barghest?" Jinx tries, releasing a nervous laugh when she realizes that the creature is almost the entire width of her platform.
Up close, she realizes there's a deep intelligence inside of the dog's eyes, and apparently the creature is smart enough to be capable of amusement, if its derisive snort is any indication.
The amusement lasts only as long as it takes for Barghest to coil and lunge at her.
She launches a hexbolt into its stomach, sending it veering off course and making him unbalanced enough to miss when she rolls beneath it.
Jinx winces as a metallic scraping noise tears into her ears, and she spins to face the creature with its claws buried into the stone to stop itself from falling off.
When it lunges again, she tries to jump over it.
She comes down hard on the other side of the lintel, her leg bleeding from a large chunk of missing skin that she finds in Barghest's teeth.
With a hiss of pain, she releases several pink discs at the landing creature.
Even as it moves to evade, several slam into its stomach and send it soaring off the slab.
It comes to a stop with a sudden, sickening crunch when its spine rams into the pillar opposite them, its body making a U around the stone briefly.
When it lands in a heap and starts growling at her, Jinx realizes how brief her victory will be and leaps onto the next lintel.
She lands and immediately shrieks as the stone wobbles, not nearly as balanced between the two pillars below as the previous had been.
Without thinking, she calls on more magic and the stone beneath cracks and fuses with the platform to balance it.
Barghest bays at her, slowly rising back to his feet.
Jinx's magic cuts off from the stone, and with a start, she realizes the simple solution to both her problems, as well as the very probable damage to her body in the process.
In the corner of her eye, she spots Raven and gives a whistle, shaking her head in disbelief.
"Giz was on to something, Rae, you've definitely picked up restraint from me. We can't deal with two dimensions fighting to crack the Earth like an egg," she babbles to herself.
With a growing suspicion of what the Questing Beast's magic has done to her, she kneels down and lays both hands on the slab beneath her.
All three pillars join her lensed eyes in turning the color of her magic, and the color slowly expands to encompass the rest of the pillars around them.
With each new pillar added to her control, Jinx's heart beats faster in her chest and her vision darkens just a slight touch more.
The energy travels down the stones and into the ground, expanding to the much smaller stones in the outer ring of Stonehenge.
When all 43 are alight as well, the ground begins violently shaking.
Barghest springs back towards her, making his way quickly across the stone towers.
Jinx's body ignites with energy, and the stones change as she pours more and more magic into them.
The sound of cracking stone explodes into the air, and Jinx feels her entire body throbbing in agony as she bends the earth to her will.
Barghest releases a loud screech that reverberates even louder than the rocks' sounds as the lintel beneath him shifts.
Stone grates against stone as Jinx wraps the lintel stone into a circle, crushing it into itself with the Sidhe in the center.
The lintel remains balanced on the pillar beneath it, and Jinx promptly swings one of her arms to the side.
A blood vessel pops in her left eye as the pillar breaks free and falls to its side, crushing itself, Barghest, and one of the other Sidhe not fast enough to get out of the massive rock's path.
The stones continue drinking in Jinx's chaotic magic, and with the fall of the first pillar, a floodgate seems to break open.
As one, the stones crack and crumble, the slab beneath Jinx one of the few remaining intact.
Agony washes through Jinx's entire body under the strain, and she finds herself suddenly wishing that she had thought to call for another magician to help when Raven had first fallen unconscious.
As if in answer to her musings, brought about as much by pain as regret at her approaching death, Etrigan's Hellfire washes over the entire area.
More stone is turned to cinders, and with each broken piece of channeling rock, Jinx's efforts are lifted just slightly more.
The Sidhe run away then, just before the last bits of Stonehenge fall to Jinx's power.
With the fall of Stonehenge, the air somehow becomes harsher, a magic she hadn't even been actively aware of vanishing and leaving her sick to her stomach.
Despite being impressed with herself, she finds a crushing sense of loss she hadn't expected forming as she takes in what used to be the stone circle.
All of this occurs to her in the time it takes for her own supporting stones to crack and crumble, leaving her to fall.
She crashes violently to the burning ground, her body suddenly finding itself racked in spasms and shakes.
For a brief, terrifying moment, she wonders what dying to Hellfire will do to her soul.
And then it doesn't happen, and she finds herself strangely numb to the fact that the black flames are burning the stones still while her own body seems unaffected.
The fire dies down at the same moment an echoing crack sounds, distracting her from her musings.
Etrigan slams into the ground and Morgaine lowers her raised, smoking fist.
Morgaine's hand opens, and a stream of gold unleashes on the flying demon, crushing him into the meadow in a cloud of debris.
"Bí imithe, chréatúr íseal, agus do do choireacht is féidir leat a bheith curtha as an méid atå déanta agat!" she screams, her voice taking on a shocking resemblance to Raven's demonic voice.
At the end of the concentrated eldritch energy, an explosion sets off, and Etrigan is sent soaring high into the air.
"Dóiteáin!"
Golden flames spring to life in the air around Etrigan, and with another thunderous detonation, the demon is sent soaring aflame back down into the meadow.
When the demon is out of sight in the depths of the ground, Morgaine turns her rage on Jinx.
"Do you have any idea what you've done!?" she screeches while stomping her way towards the unmoving meta.
Despite her blistering pain, Jinx pushes herself to her feet using every bit of will available to her.
"Yep. I just took down something that nature couldn't take out in several millennia, and killed some really old monsters in the process."
Jinx's expectation for a spell being hurled at her insolence is surprised when, instead, a fleshy fist rams into her stomach and sends her tumbling back to the ground.
"Clearly, you don't realize what the significance of what you've done is, insolent child," the immortal hisses in a voice like death given sound.
"You might be surprised," Jinx responds before coughing a glob of blood to the ground.
A hissing sound reaches her ears, giving her all the warning she needs to push herself into a backward dive.
Where she'd stood, Excalibur cleaves the ground in a halo of golden light.
Strangely, the remnants of Hellfire that she rolls into disappear the moment her skin touches it, and she finds an unexpected return of her strength.
With a huff, Jinx calls on yet more of her magic and sends a wave of rock and dirt to slam into the surprised witch.
Jinx presses her advantage, adding more and more weight to hopefully crush Morgaine.
With the burst of green fire that she releases, her returned strength quickly spends itself, but she refuses to let up on the attack when the immortal releases a scream beneath the earth.
It takes her roughly three seconds to realize the scream wasn't born of pain, and another second for her to recognize the burst of gold within the shell of rock and flames.
By that time, it's too late for her to dodge the debris as it's sent slamming into her, the sharp stone and coarse dirt ripping even more skin from her.
"Does your impudence know no bounds!?" Morgaine screams.
Jinx's response is interrupted when the rocks and dirt covering her suddenly coalesce, becoming a crushing skin around her.
The weight presses into her chest, making her breathing shallow and pained.
Her eyes widen in horror as more piles onto her frame, pressing her to her knees on the ground.
"What-"
"I've heard enough of your mouth, thruaill," Morgaine hisses. "I can't undo what you've done, but I will use your death as a tribute to the Fae instead."
As Jinx watches in terror, the immortal approaches her and her outstretched hand glows gold.
**Any pnigophobes and/or claustrophobes, this is where you'll want to skip ahead**
"For the pain you've caused so many today, I'll grant you a death that, as I understand it, is among the most agonizing. Bí gan aer."
Dirt and grass rise in front of Jinx's face, and in the most terrifying in moment in her life, she realizes the immortal's intention.
Her head becomes heavy under the choking weight, her scream interrupted by a clump of grass moving to cover her mouth.
She begins struggling against her bindings, releasing every ounce of hex magic in her body into the coating.
It's to no avail, as every time she breaks somewhat free, Morgaine sends more earthen material to cover her.
Jinx's eyes remain uncovered throughout, her pink lenses meeting the golden glow of the immortal's own.
Soon, though, her body begins shutting down as her lungs and heart desperately burn with need for new oxygen.
When her vision goes black, Jinx believes for a moment that it is Morgaine's doing until realizing it's her own eyes that are beginning to fail.
In her mind, she screams Raven's name as her heart begins to stutter.
**Commence reading here, pnigophobes and claustrophobes!**
Once more, some divine being seems to have pity on the meta, and the soothing touch of Raven's soul-self rises around her body within the rocks.
The next moment, she finds herself limp in Raven's arms, the sound of the rocky tomb cracking only vaguely registering in her frayed mind.
Her tears soak through her lover's cloak as she desperately takes in as much of her lover's embrace as she can.
Something strange briefly settles in her mind, and when it vanishes, she finds herself somehow calmer.
Noticing the familiar touch of her lover's soul-self, she tightens her hold on her girlfriend's cloak.
"Don't know… what the hell that was… and don't care… thanks… You… have some… amazing time, Raven," Jinx rasps.
"So we're clear, you no longer have a high ground about me pushing myself too far," Raven muses in her demonic echo of a voice.
With a laugh, Jinx wonders how she could ever have compared the sounds that left Morgaine's mouth to the sweet cadence.
She then realizes that, indeed, her lover's skin is a deep scarlet, and that all four of her eyes are glowing black while locked on something, presumably the enraged immortal.
"The score's… still… like one to… six or seven," Jinx rasps, her throat rapidly ceasing its horrific burning.
"Fair enough," Raven chuckles.
The demonling lowers the meta gingerly to the ground, laying her on a patch of soft grass.
"Please, just hold this and don't move, okay? You might break something if you try to move too much," Raven frets while handing the pink gemstone to her.
Jinx begins to argue, only to realize that the crushing weight of the rocks has, in fact, left her limbs feeling on the verge of breaking.
Further, the gem coats her in a lovely warmth, as though Raven's body still coils around her, and a small smile creeps onto her face as the horror is washed away.
"Are you much better?" she asks, staring into Raven's lensed gaze.
The first few times she'd seen her lover's demonic form, it had been very difficult to read anything from the seemingly empty lenses of color.
Somewhere along the way, though, she'd become able to read her expressions even in this form, unlike any else they'd ever run across.
And in that moment, she believes the demonling's terror is even greater than her own.
"The trance has done its job, as did your gift. I'm tired, but I can't allow any more harm to fall to you."
Jinx merely nods, clutching more tightly to the gem as she hears the still-present tiredness in her lover's voice.
Seeming satisfied, Raven plants a kiss on her forehead before leaving her inside what Jinx then realizes is a glowing circle carved into the grass, her duffle bag resting just within the border.
Raven materializes in front of Morgaine in a burst of black, her feet hanging several inches off the ground.
"Another demon? This day remains truly foul," Morgaine mutters while meeting the psychic's glare.
"You would kill my mate," Raven snarls. "You have brought Hell upon yourself, Morgaine Le Fey."
"Even that fool Blood is more powerful than you," Morgaine laughs.
The world darkens around them, and Morgaine watches as tendrils of living shadow expand from beneath her white cloak.
"You do not know what I am capable of. No one harms what is mine," Raven snarls.
Even on the verge of passing out, Jinx feels blood rising to her face at the bold claim, but even with the mask, the meta can tell Morgaine is less impressed.
It's then that her mind falls into the comforting embrace of the gemstone's energy and she falls unconscious, the rising bubble of darkness around her utterly unnoticed.
"Demons," the immortal scoffs. "Always such petty creatures. You've chosen a day where I have no patience to entertain you. Etrigan was far your better, much as it pains me to admit any strength or merit to that beast, and I've just finished besting him yet again, so honestly, what chance do you see?"
"Which of us is stronger is debatable. What isn't is that I was watching the entire time I was in my trance, greatly sped up thanks to you giving my mate the materials to construct such a high concentration of magic for me to absorb. Your energies are tapped, Le Fey."
"You presume much," Morgaine hisses before raising Excalibur above her head to strike.
"You fought Nimue and Etrigan both, while also calling on magic old enough to call both the Questing Beast and Barghest to you. Right now, Excalibur is all that keeps you going."
Following her declaration, a soul-self limb launches into existence and clamps around the sorceress's wrist.
A crack follows, and as her hand goes limp, a second limb grabs Excalibur from the air.
Before the sorceress can react, Raven drops the blade through a portal and into the depths of Nimue's lake.
She buries the sword deep into the rocky bottom before closing the portal, watching in satisfaction as Morgaine's aura darkens in the distinct way that exhausted souls do.
"Now you're going to tell me everything you know about the children of Trigon, or I'm going to separate your head from your body. It will not kill you, per se, but it will certainly make the job of ending your miserable existence simpler for Etrigan."
A grunting noise sounds in response, signaling Etrigan's return to consciousness somewhere within the crater his impact formed.
"So you've returned Excalibur to make me get it once more when this is finished. You are but a child, upset over a broken toy, with the delusion that you're capable of killing an immortal," Morgaine mocks.
In response, one of the tendrils snaps into action, and the immortal suddenly finds herself impaled on the soul-self.
While the tip rips through her body, the darkness expands to envelop the witch's entire torso in a crushing wrapping of energy.
Raven presses the attack, a red color bleeding into her attack as she slams Morgaine to the ground, pinning her entire body on the weight of the skewering spike.
"Having no patience is something we share in common," Raven muses over Morgaine's agonized grunting. "I cannot kill you, indeed. But you intended to make Nimue wish for death in her own immortalized agony, and that I can grant you."
Etrigan stumbles towards them, his expression cast in an infuriated snarl.
"Only I have the right to kill the harpy," he hisses.
Raven raises a brow at him, her psychic hold on the witch tightening until something gives with a snap.
"I know the claim of which you own. As soon as I'm done with her, you can have her. I assure you," she continues when he makes to argue, "you don't want to test whether I'm truly on my late father's level, while my Jinx lies injured because of this harpy."
Unexpectedly, Morgaine laughs at that, drawing both demons' attentions to herself.
"Child, you have no idea what's coming. You have no idea what your mate has done," she laughs.
Something about the immortal's words turns Raven's blood cold.
"She stopped the Fae from being loosed on Earth. Admittedly, she may've been able to do so in a less destructive way to one of this planet's monuments, if she had been given enough time, but to be childish, you started it," Raven reasons.
"And tell me, why would I choose now to unleash the Fair Folk on this world anew? I could have gotten that foolish metahuman to retrieve the blade for me at any time I wished. So do think, for a moment, why I would choose to not do so until after the rumors of Hell coming reached my ears?"
Raven winces at that, the confirmation a slightly horrifying one.
"Because you're an opportunist and would assume that most would fail to notice your workings. A not unreasonable assumption," she muses.
"Perhaps. But even I do not wish Hell on this planet. It would leave my dear son nothing to rule. The Faery could be weaponized, used to stay the realm and pushed back into their hovel once finished easily enough."
"Mauris," Raven swears.
"Fitting enough. This is one of the only portals in existence that would be fit to unleash enough to make a difference. So congratulate your dear mate for me when she awakens, demon, for what she's wrought. You're but an insignificant insect in the face of what comes."
Raven reflexively tightens her hold, a grunt sounding from the immortal as the soul-self squeezes on her.
"Tell me what you know of those planning to open the Hellmouth. What is done cannot be undone, but it can be used as a stepping-stone to learning and preparing. I know not nearly enough of what my siblings are plotting, and I'm willing to hazard the guess that you know significantly more."
For a moment, the immortal's glare burns into Raven, before something seems to occur to her.
With a shake of her head, Morgaine releases another laugh.
"Swear an oath on your soul that you shall not interfere with my affairs again, and I will tell you what I know."
Both of the demons' eyes narrow at that.
"Don't trust the word of a witch such as herself," Etrigan warns.
"I will do so only if your information is worthwhile and you equally swear to never enact plans that would endanger or seek retribution upon neither myself nor my mate," Raven says after a moment of thought.
"A deal is struck, then, demon."
The air becomes thick and heavy, and with a curse, Raven realizes that interfering with the immortal's affairs can be something as simple as restraining her from movement.
She feels Morgaine's amusement as the soul-self disappears back into Raven, her four eyes narrowed.
"Fair enough," she quips while rising back to her feet. "I know few specifics of those involved. I am not part of their group, but all magical dealings make their ways to my ears quickly enough for it to not matter. It is an organization of significant reach and capital, as they would need to be to free that rather loathsome Brotherhood of Evil I understand you had dealings with in your youth."
"And Wotan?"
"A puppet as the rest. Your vile siblings are the leaders, and they are using multiple organizations to arrange for their little schemes and heists. I would say that knowing they have a network for certain should narrow it down quite significantly for you, investigator."
Raven processes the new information for a moment before giving a nod.
"This satisfies our agreement. You stay away from us and we will return kind courtesy to you, Morgaine Le Fey. However, I will note that our agreement does not apply to him," Raven muses just before Etrigan's fist slams into the side of the immortal's helmet.
With that, Raven teleports to her lover's side and, taking the bag of their belongings in one arm and the stirring meta in the other, she vanishes into a portal…
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Author's Notes:
Pr̥thvī- Hindi: "Earth"
jāla- Hindi: "trap"
ina- Hindi: "these"
jānavarōrh- Hindi: "beasts"
Fun fact: the sarsen stones making up the pillars known as the Trilithon Horseshoe, or that horseshoe shape of the ring that makes Stonehenge famous, are upwards of 12 ft. tall and have been known to be up to 50 tons heavy. If you're interested in learning a lot about Stonehenge, I recommend the helios website's page on Stonehenge's phases.
Barghest is a legendary black dog that's reputed to terrorize England, especially Yorkshire, that's as described.
Bí- Gaelic: "Be"
imithe- Gaelic: "gone"
chréatúr- Gaelic: "creature"
íseal- Gaelic: "low"
agus- "and"
do do- Gaelic: "for your"
choireacht- Gaelic: "crime"
is féidir- Gaelic: "may"
leat- Gaelic: "you"
a bheith curtha- "be buried"
as an méid- Gaelic: "for what"
atå déanta agat- Gaelic: "you've done"
Dóiteán- Gaelic: "fire"
gan- Gaelic: "without"
aer- Gaelic: "air"
Interesting to note, apparently, there is no way to say "choke" or any of the synonmys I could think of in Gaelic.
Mauris- Latin: "shit"
This entire fight was a particularly fun one for me to write, and I hope it was equally entertaining for you all to read. Be sure to let me know your thoughts! See you all next time.