Collision
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.
The fight starts brutally.
The Sons of Trigon arrive early in the day, seeming completely oblivious to the way the shadows deep in the cave are too dark.
The entire cavern is lit up by the swirling pool of magic that they will be using for the Hellmouth, and if they'd paid attention, they would notice that almost an entire wall to the back is covered in unnaturally dark shadows.
Behind her illusion, Raven finds herself smirking, though the expression doesn't reach her eyes.
As expected, there are only five of them, and clearly, they haven't been having an easy time while hiding.
All of them have clothes covered in tears and crusted blood, and the tallest of them has several distinct burn marks coating his ancient-seeming jeans.
Despite the apparent damage, their power radiates through the air, their reddish-brown skin catching the shadows from the pit's magic to create horrific shadows.
Raven's eyes narrow, and both women tense in waiting as they approach the pit.
When all five stand at the edges, the least damaged of them reaches into his ridiculously expensive suit's pockets and begins rummaging around.
"Hurry up, Greed," an obese man grunts. "Those angels are right on our asses!"
The suited man sneers, his hand wrapping around something.
"Just eat them like the last one. We've bought ourselves plentyof time, with you scaring them with thatdisplay," the lanky, burnt sibling sighs.
His voice is almost a monotone, and Jinx finds that it almost makes her feel lethargic just hearing it.
The obese man grins, the expression wrinkling his bald forehead and baring fangs.
"Never had angel before. She was quite tasty," he muses, drawing a revolted shiver from Jinx.
"Yes, yes, I'm sure she was. Greed, if you've lost that goddamn key, I'm going to pull your head off," a thin, sharp-featured man growls.
Jinx stares at the new speaker, wondering what heritage would produce a body so angular and jagged, to the point that every part of him seems like it can be a stabbing implement.
"Try not to emulate Wrath," 'Greed' sighs.
His manner and appearance are both drastically different than Raven's other siblings.
Unlike the tall, dirty-seeming man, his frame seems to be thin by effort.
Muscles ripple under the mostly unblemished, crisp suit as he searches.
His military-cut, slicked black hair is drastically different from the greasy mop of elbow-length black hair of the lanky brother, or the spiky hair of the angular man's.
Jinx finds herself unimpressed by the clear attempt to make a showcase of himself.
His hand finally clenches around something, and with a satisfied huff of air, he pulls it free.
Jinx's eyes widen as she sees the key to Hell.
She doesn't know what, exactly, she'd been expecting for a key meant to open that realm's door.
As she stares, though, she feels her stomach turning.
Its design itself is simple, with three teeth and a ring large enough to cover three of Greed's large fingers.
With her vision, though, she cane make out far more detail than that.
The key is mode of serrated, pitted bone, in its entirety.
Raven, too, finds herself wincing as she briefly looks at the key.
Dark, evil power rises from the white bone, and her empathy lets the screams attached to the key, and the realm, rip their way into her mind.
She jerks her head to the side, and gives Jinx a nod.
The meta's body tightens, and then Raven moves.
The Sons of Trigon all feel a bare flick of power the next second.
It's all the warning they get before a wall of black soul-self suddenly forms in the air and sweeps against the ground.
Rock and smoke flies up as it slams into them, aiming to crush them all into the opposite wall.
A brilliant flash of red floods the caves, and Raven watches as they phase through the wall.
By the time they have, though, Jinx has already thrown a bolt of hex magic.
The ground rumbles as it hits, and their entrance is covered in a massive pile of rubble.
The Sons of Trigon all stare at the pathway, and Raven enjoys watching as they attempt to teleport out the second they realize the trap.
Red blobs rush at the wall, and as soon as they make contact, the sigils along the wall simultaneously pulse with black energy.
Their bodies bounce back, slamming hard into the ground.
With the signal given, Doctor Fate's ankh burns brightly in the air, revealing him at last.
Golden power radiates through the air as he points his palms at either side of the cave.
"Signa hac!"
His power expands, and in the next moment, they're trapped in a dome of golden light.
The magic expands through the entire cave's length, giving the women enough room to maneuver and fight.
It also stops a centimeter above the ground, sealing the Sons of Trigon off from the pit.
Raven doesn't mock them over paying so little attention.
She in fact barely makes a sound as she rushes through the air at her siblings, her eyes flooding with red light.
Greed's eyes narrow as she hones in on him, a claw of soul-self tearing at his neck.
He dives backward through the air, dodging the swipe with a huff.
"You must be Raven," he muses.
So distracted by Raven's apparent aggression is he that he doesn't notice Jinx until she's directly behind him.
Hex magic crackles in the air, finally pressing against his senses.
"And friend," Greed adds with a grin.
He jumps to the side to avoid her hex bolt, nearly running into Raven's magic-coated fist.
His body turns red, and easily bends to avoid the attack.
The women follow him as he shifts back through the air.
Raven's eyes widen at the rush of power heading for them, and immediately wraps an arm around Jinx's waist.
The fist of soul-self stabs through where they would have been.
"Our first meeting, and you're giving Greed all the attention. This family doesn't play with favoritism, since you kicked the old man out" the obese man quips.
Raven turns towards her sibling, finding the other three grouping around him.
A subtle nod sends Jinx back into action, her eyes burning brilliant pink as she rushes after their main target.
"I think he has something they want," the lanky man states.
Raven feels something pressing on her mind, and for a brief second, her eyelids droop.
Staring at his slacken face, and his incredibly unkempt features, somehow makes her tired.
Realizing what's happening, she lets her eyes narrow instead, letting the Sons of Trigon think nothing of her near-miss on catching his ability.
"Sloth," she snarls.
In response, the lanky man releases a jaw-cracking yawn into his hand, his head vaguely nodding as he does.
"Wha's yer first clue?" he asks tiredly.
Raven moves her eyes to the others, finding it odd how they make no move to save their brother from Jinx's assault.
Just as she thinks of it, a flash of pink sets off, and something explodes.
The sound echoes painfully around their magical bubble, rippling straight past her ears and into her brain.
"Can we get on with this? You and the metahuman are barely twigs. Not filling at all," the obese man complains.
"Gluttony."
The obese man turns a raised brow to the angular brother at his side.
"Should I be offended by that?"
Before the other sibling can answer, a loud grunt sounds behind their sister.
Keeping her senses focused on her siblings, Raven chances a glance behind her.
She grins as the recognizes the source of the grunt.
Greed presses back against Fate's barrier, holding a spot on his left shoulder and giving loud huffs for breaths.
Pink smoke rises from the spot he's clutching, as well as several centimeters to both the right and the bottom.
"You're a lucky sonuvabitch," Jinx growls.
Her pink eyes narrow further, and she lets more hex magic build in her fingertip.
"She's going for kill-shots. Stop playing with your food, before she makes you stop breathing," a man wearing a bright, neon blue jumpsuit hisses.
The yet-unidentified demonling narrows all four eyes on Jinx, sending a shiver through the meta.
His expression is at harsh odds with his strangely melodic, soothing voice.
Despite her attention being fully on Greed, Jinx gains a noticeable blush as the voice brushes across her mind like silk.
Raven feels her soul-self warping the air around her as she notices the expression.
He sees her attack well before it slams into where he was standing.
She watches Lust dive backward through the air, a smug grin on his lips.
"And that would make you Envy," Raven muses at the last, angular brother.
His misshapen jaw bends, and his fangs bear as he releases a very animalistic laughing sound.
Jinx watches as Greed's brain finally registers where the hex bolts had been aimed at, and he pales.
She curses the demon's luck.
Her shot had been spot-on, until he'd tripped dodging the previous bolt.
Despite him continuing to live, though, Jinx feels herself grinning at the sight of blood from the smoking hole in his expensive-looking suit.
Raven starts to head after the retreating Lust, before forcing her feet to land on the barrier floor.
The other three siblings are all staring intently at Jinx, right past Raven's own body.
The meta is too focused on getting the key to worry about the coming attack, and Raven recalls that she's supposed to be playing defense.
The air darkens as massive swaths of soul-self rush at her fiancé.
A claw rushes out from Raven's body, grabbing hold of the fastest spike.
The red energies swirl as Raven's energy clamps down, holding the attack completely still.
The other three continue moving, all of them swirling around Raven to head for her lover.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"
Raven's eyes turn completely white, and her siblings watch in surprise as her aura explodes around her.
From her back, hands of soul-self sprout like ruby wings, repeating the same process of grabbing as the first one had.
All four of her eyes narrow dangerously, and the Sons of Trigon feel their energy being compressed.
Despite how much effort they throw into stabbing the metahuman in the back, their limbs can't move.
And then, Raven's supernatural arms lift, and take all four of their limbs with them.
They find their bodies being pushed back as their limbs are bent and warped until the tips are aimed at their own bodies.
They manage to call back their energy just before she would pierce all of them through the heart with their own power.
As Raven plans for her next move, Jinx continues blasting at Greed.
Each attack is narrowly avoided, pulses of pink light rushing through the barrier around them like colored water being displaced.
"Enough of this," Greed snarls.
Jinx kicks into the air, avoiding the red blade that would have swept right through her legs.
His eyes burn bright red, and the meta's body tenses as his magic rushes out at her.
Raven doesn't put any conscious thought into sending her own soul-self out to wrap around the meta.
For a moment, Jinx simply vanishes.
Red smoke briefly clouds Greed's eyes, leaving him unaware of the darkness that pops into existence behind him.
Jinx slams into him, her knee sending an audible crack through the air as it connects with the back of his skull.
A wave of pink light explodes out from the contact, and Greed's entire body rushes through the air.
Disoriented as he is, he doesn't recognize the loss of the key in his hand as he slams face-first into the barrier.
Jinx catches it before it touches the ground, spinning it easily on her index finger.
A satisfied grin spreads across her lips, and she gives Raven a nod.
"And that is how your whole plan fell apart," she quips.
The demonling is at her side in the next moment, a dark wave of energy rushing against her as soon as Jinx puts the key in her hands.
"Give us the key, Pride, or what you face will be something you can't even fathom," Gluttony growls.
In response, her hand is encased in darkness, and the next moment reveals that the key is no longer there.
"And that is how we ensured you don't get to fix your plan," she adds, though Jinx's grin is missing from her features.
"If we kill her, that pocket dimension will pop right open," Greed grunts from where he pushes himself to his feet.
Jinx's grin widens at the sight of his thoroughly bruised face, making him glare even more.
Lust stares at the women, his expression even more smug than Jinx's.
"I can think of one way to get her to give it back to us without the hassle," he muses.
His tone sends another shiver down Jinx's spine, and she lets her hex magic pour into the air in preparation for whatever he's planning.
"Eating her won't be a hassle, though," Gluttony retorted.
"So, uh, how's that work, exactly? Do you literally eat people?" Jinx asks, cursing her curiosity.
His eyes latch onto her, and his lips split in a grin that reveal long, thick fangs.
"Not literally, no, but it's close enough to count."
The women watch as he kneels down, his hands touching Fate's barrier.
Something in Raven's stomach tightens, and she realizes that he's far more dangerous than his appearances would suggest.
"Go," Jinx hisses urgently.
Raven's body vanishes in darkness, a claw proceeding her out from the portal behind Gluttony.
His brothers move to his back.
Envy's soul-self expands through the air, batting her attack away with a startling strength.
When Raven's body follows behind through the portal, Sloth is waiting.
Despite his lanky build, his fist slams into Raven's jaw with the force of a small freight train, sending her hurtling towards the barrier.
Before she reaches it, Gluttony grins, and for a brief second, his eyes turn pure gold.
By the time Raven would have hit the glowing wall, it's no longer there, her body instead being buried in a wall of rubble.
Jinx stares at Raven's leg where it twitches under the rocks, her eyes wide.
Gluttony releases a loud burp, and rises back to his feet.
He happily pats his stomach, as Doctor Fate raises his hands.
"Don't waste the time, geezer. I'll just keep eating whatever energy you lay out for me," Gluttony laughs.
With his grin growing, a wall of red suddenly springs up.
Fate's body is encased in gold just before it slams into him, his own barrier being wrapped in Gluttony's overlapping barrier.
"And I can throw it right back, too. I'm going to keep you out of things," he laughs as he fights to crush Doctor Fate.
"We'll worry about getting out later. Right now, we need the key," Greed adds.
Jinx jumps, his voice coming from right behind her.
With her attention so stuck on Raven's struggling form, she hadn't noticed the teleporting demonling.
His hands clamp down on her elbows, the bones crackling painfully under the grip.
She shrieks as her body is lifted high, and just as quickly brought down.
Her body slams into the rocky ground, sending a spray of dirt and blood up from the small crater.
A hand clamps down on the back of her throat, and she whimpers as he lifts her using the same handhold.
Despite her daze, she latches onto her powers and lets them rise, her eyes burning dark pink.
He simply smirks at her, the expression ruined by the completely broken half of his lip, the burn marks and blood on his suit, and the dark black ring around one of his upper eyes.
Rocks explode into the air, and Raven is once more on her feet, though an ugly gash across her forehead slowly leaks blood down the side of her face now.
Her eyes immediately hone in on Jinx's dangling form.
Greed notices the expression, and nods at her.
"I'm a businessman, first. In exchange for the key, I won't only not snap the meta's neck like a twig, but I'll even give her back to you, instead of handing her over to Jacob."
"Why bargain? We can just kill her and get both," Lust sneers.
"If it means we can get this done and over with sooner, I don't care either way," Sloth muses around a yawn.
Raven stares at her brother for a moment, noticing the way Jinx's hand is rising towards him.
"I told Wrath the same thing I'll tell you. Pick a smaller target, and maybe I would let it slide. But I can't trade anything for the universe, even the people I love," she retorts.
Whatever Greed's response would have been is a complete mystery.
He takes his eyes off of Jinx for a second to retort at Raven, and the meta uses the distraction effectively.
Her body ignites in pink light, and her hand comes up to rest against his chest.
"Havā," she snarls.
Oxygen rushes into the space around them, enriching the air.
Her fingers click, and a small, green spark flies towards him.
Just as the oxygen ignites, she clicks her fingers again, and the hex magic mixes in with the burst of flames to make Greed's luck just that much worse.
The three factors combine, and Jinx has just enough time to slam a knee into him and drop back before a massive explosion is set off.
The burst throws her hard into the ground, her mind fogging briefly at the jarring sensation.
Even with her head trauma, though, she realizes how much worse Greed has it.
An echoing, guttural scream floods the cavern as his body is completely engulfed in the magical fire.
The flames swirl in a vortex around his lungs are charred, the bad luck spreading through his entire body with every agonized breath.
In the span of a few seconds, the flames sputter out once again.
A pile of bones is left in their wake, even the white marred with horrid black marks and foul smoke.
"Holy shit," Gluttony grunts.
Jinx shakes her head as she stands to face them, spots still dancing along her vision.
"Anyone else want to put their hands on me?" she hisses.
In her daze, she doesn't recognize the feeling that briefly plays across her brain.
It takes her a second to realize that there are suddenly two Ravens in the room, and several more to wonder if she got hit harder than she thought.
Raven's eyes narrow at her brother's transformed body, finding Envy suddenly gone.
Envy stalks towards the confused Jinx, his smug expression looking incredibly warped on Raven's features.
"I'm hopin' you were just bein' rhetorical, 'cause I think everyone in the room but the magic helmet wants to put their hands on you," Envy-Raven muses.
He grunts as Raven suddenly swipes at him with a mass of darkness, her eyes narrowed in anger.
"I agree with Rae's sentiment," Jinx adds as he dodges away from the swipes. "Shape-shifting doesn't work so well when you don't bother with anything except looks."
She feels Envy-Raven's eyes on her for a moment, and an incredibly creepy smile spreads across his/her lips.
Her eyes widen when he/she suddenly vanishes.
She feels the air shift behind her, and immediately lunges to the side.
Raven flies at the unoccupied space, sending a fist at her doppelgänger's body as he/she briefly surfaces from a portal.
Before her hit connects, the portal snaps closed, and she quickly jerks backward to avoid losing her hand.
Sloth appears in front of her, and between the women, before she can follow after Envy.
She dodges out of the way of his grabbing hand, only for him to follow with a blast of concentrated magic.
A grunt sounds as the strike slams home in her chest, throwing her back towards the rocks again.
"Don't let them work together," Lust barks.
A fist lashes into her face, nearly bowling Raven over.
Raven feels her mental defense slipping for the instant it takes for Sloth's power to take root.
Even as his power begins flowing into her brain, she finds her muscles suddenly too tired to get her away.
For a brief moment, it feels like her entire reserve of strength is being ripped from her, and she wonders at the way her muscles and bones feel painfully brittle.
The sensation vanishes the next second, though in its place, an incredible exhaustion presses down on her.
"Looks like it doesn't work the same way, on you," Sloth muses.
Raven blinks at him, her eyes narrowing briefly before the gesture almost ends in closing them entirely in exhaustion.
"What… did…"
She struggles to think of words, much less finding the energy to string them together in an audible question.
Sloth grins, the expression curling his gaunt face into a mask of harsh shadows.
He steps closer to her, and closes a hand around her shoulder.
She fights with everything she has not to fall in a limp pile of limbs to the ground.
Soon enough, though, she's sitting on the rocky ground, and Sloth's hand only tightens on her shoulder as he sits next to her.
"You guys take care of the meta. Sis an' I are going to take a nap while you guys play," Sloth says through a mix between laughter and yawning…
…..
Author's Notes:
Signa hac- Latin: "seal this domain"
Havā- Hindi: "air"
It's been a while since a major fight broke out, and I'm hoping all of you are enjoying this as much as I am. See you all next time!