One Thing Leads to Another Chapter 18, a teen titans fanfic

"Victor? Would you like to go to the store with me?"

She looked up from the pushups she was doing on the bedroom floor.

"I thought you could drive, get some more of your hours logged for driver's ed," a woman said, smiling from the doorway.

She grinned. "Sure, mom."

It was a foggy day, the mist swirling and curling over the road, obscuring everything, buildings looming out of the haze.

"Victor, slow down a little, honey! I know you like to go fast, but this fog is dangerous. Cars can't see you."

Despite the fog, she was driving, zipping along the roads, enjoying the feel of the machine beneath her, the speed at which it could go… there was nothing that made her feel more free, more alive.

Her mother would tell her to slow down, to be more careful, but she always disregarded her mother's protests, feeling so confident, so in control…

"Watch when you merge here, cars can't see you when you merge onto the highway in this weather- VICTOR!"

Everything happened so quickly. One minute she was getting onto the highway, revving the speed, then the next second…

There was a crash. Glass shattered everywhere. The feel of spinning wildly out of control. The sounds, creaks and groans of metal twisting, the sickening splatter of flesh and blood, before she lost consciousness and everything went black.

It was dark, but there were voices, hushed tones and a steady beeping. Then suddenly her eyes were open and there was a gray metal ceiling… she sat up fluidly, dazed, and realized that her entire body felt different.

She glanced at her hands and fear bolted through her, a panic that gripped her chest. She hurtled off the medical bed she was on and ran for the first reflective surface she saw. A startled, anguished inhuman cry escaped her lips when she saw what stared back at her, and she screamed and screamed as tears leaked from only one human eye.

"How could you?! How could you do this to me?!"

"Victor, please, it was the only way-"

"NO! NO! You could've let me die! Rather than do… do… this to me," she spat. "I'm a fucking freak now! Everyone stares at me, they're afraid of me."

She breathed and breathed, and forced herself to become calm. She gazed at him with a blank face.

"I should be dead with mom."

She turned her head away and refused to look at the hurt in her father's eyes.

She couldn't move. The ceiling was all she could see, through only one eye.

She gasped and panted, fear racing through her circuits. She tried to move her arm, her leg, something… it wasn't working. Her body wasn't working.

malfunction

It just kept blinking before her dark cybernetic eye, taunting her, each blink sending a panic through her. What if no one found her? What if she couldn't get her body to move ever again, and just laid here for months before someone stumbled upon her?

The fears and uncertainties swirled around her head as a tear dripped down the soft flesh of her cheek.

It was hours before his familiar face appeared, worried and strained as he opened her chest plate and began to fix her.

"Your biological components are imperfect. They must be replaced."

"No," she strangled out.

The parts this strange being presented terrified her.

He wouldn't listen; she struggled against the straps restraining her to the table, glancing at the horrible cold metal gleaming under the harsh light.

Where were her friends? What if they couldn't find her, or… what if they didn't want to find her? What if they just stopped looking and went home, deciding to wait until she came home on her own… Oh God… that horrible metal plate, it would be her face…

Where are they? Where are they? All this strength and she couldn't save herself.

The parts won't fix her, they will destroy her, how could she make this creature understand… She didn't want to be a robot; she didn't want to lose the imperfect human parts. She was still a human, after all, she was still human…

There were trees… and vines surrounding her in the clearing next to rows of tents flapping in a hot jungle breeze. She was playing quietly with a ball, fighting off the boredom while her parents were working in a makeshift lab, pouring through notebooks and journals, endlessly recording data.

She bounced the ball high, as high as she could make it go, and when it came down it hit a root and flew erratically into the underbrush. She ran frantically after it, chasing the ball as it teasingly bounced away. Finally she caught up with it and grabbed the ball, admonishing it for running away so. But when she looked up, there was something looking back at her.

A monkey. A green monkey. Her eyes widened. The monkey snarled, bared its teeth, and she backed away, frightened. It pounced on her, scratching her with its claws and sinking its teeth into her shoulder.

She screamed as her ball bounced away.

Her parents came running, dashing through the undergrowth, chasing the primate away with pale faces when they realized what their son had just come in contact with.

She felt so sick… the next few weeks were a blur; she had been laid up in bed, deathly ill, consciousness coming in little bursts. Slowly she noticed that instead of the pale peachy skin she used to have, it was gradually turning green, everything… her fingers and toes first, then it crept into her hands and arms, up her legs, into her chest and stomach, and finally her hair, even her eyes.

There was a moment when she was awake, her breathing coming in short rasps. She was scared, frightened at how sick she felt, at the looks on her parents' faces. Her father and mother gazed over her with tears in their eyes, kissing her on the forehead, whispering that they loved her, that they prayed this would work before sinking the needle into her shoulder and injecting the contents of the syringe. Her body convulsed wildly before she lost consciousness again.

"Mom! Dad!"

It was the familiar rushing of water over her head, the same nausea clutching her stomach and the lightheadedness of drowning as she tumbled helplessly down the river, watching again in horror as a boat carrying two very precious people tipped over the falls…

A vague sense of place… a sterile environment.

Her hands gripped bars of a cage; the strange smells of chemicals assaulted her sensitive nose.

Shapes moved about the room, but everything was so fuzzy and faded to her, drugs clouding her senses. The shapes, white shapes moved closer, peered into her cage, would grab at her and take her out, poke her with needles, prod at her body, hook up strange devices to her.

She was hurt and scared. Her parents were gone, and no one was ever nice to her, hugged her, played with her, or read stories to her, like her parents used to. They were rough and stern when they handled her, restrained her, strapped her down to cold metal tables, ignored her frightened screams and her tears from acute pain.

She was scared.

It was a new family now, adults who sometimes seemed impatient with the only child on their team, one who was silly and green, and sometimes the big robot man would play with her, but she was expected to grow up and it was hard to be a hero at such a young age.

There was a large gorilla and a strange brain in a machine; they fought these creatures multiple times, like every mission was their last, but this time it looked as though it really was their last.

Deep in the jungle, in the depths of a hidden fortress base, her new family was broken, beaten, attempting to retreat, but it was useless. One cable car left, not enough room, not enough time for all of them.

She was kicking, screaming, as they loaded her into the little cable car and shut the door firmly.

Her new mother kissed her fingers and pressed them against the glass. Her new father gave her a curt nod, a goodbye.

Tears poured down her face as the car zipped through passage ways to the outside of the base, into the jungle. She pounded on the glass, screamed and cried as she watched the base self destruct. Black smoke billowed into the sky and fire licked the crumbling walls.

"Why does everyone I love have to die?!"

"If… if you knew something bad about me… you'd still be my friend, right?"

She felt a bit of foreboding, but it didn't stop the words of conviction coming from her mouth. "Of course."

"O…Okay…"

She leaned in close, the girl with blonde hair and vivid blue eyes closing hers, before they opened wide in fear.

The carriage was rocked violently, and the chilling words of someone she hadn't expected to be there slid through the night air.

"Hello, Terra. Remember me?"

The mirrors were smashed, the funhouse was eerily dark. The blonde girl's image kept flitting from broken mirror to broken mirror. And his voice, his taunting voice, disembodied and infiltrating her ears, her senses…

"She was never your friend."

"She was sent to tear apart your team from the inside out."

"She must have decided to save you… perhaps she wanted to keep you as a pet…"

She screamed at the girl, looked at her with wide unbelieving eyes.

"Terra! Why?!"

"Because you could never give her what she wants."

A sharp pointed rock hovered directly over her, held by the blonde girl, ready to strike any second with the flinch of a hand, a finger. It sent a sharp thrill of fear through her chest. She wanted to cry, but she spoke with a wavering voice as she tried to be brave in the face of death.

"It's your choice. It's always been your choice."

There was nothing left now but a solid rock statue of a girl, hidden deep within an underground cave, her hands outstretched and stone tears forever running down her cheeks. The plaque at her feet was beginning to rust.

Bright lights assaulted her senses, rotating all around as she stood extremely high up, waving to a massive crowd under a brightly striped tent. The name of the family was proclaimed, announcing their act.

The lights all dimmed except spotlights on a man and a woman, swinging lithely into the air; performing amazing and graceful acrobatics.

She knew. Now she knew. She had seen this before. She swallowed when she knew what was coming.

Her mother was swinging towards her, her father's feet looped around a bar and gripping her mother's ankles. She was about to jump into her mother's arms when she glanced up at the wires holding the trapeze bars, which were quivering under the momentum of two adults.

The screws to hold the wires in place were gone.

She had never felt more helpless as she looked into her mother's smiling face as she flew forward, and at the peak of the swing her arms were stretched to catch her boy, confusion in her features as to why her son was missing his cue.

She saw the exact moment her mother realized what was happening, what was going to happen as the wires snapped from the bolts and their support gave way.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she watched the panic cross her mother and father's faces.

She fell to her knees, the shock and pain wrenching her stomach, the horrified gasps and screams of the crowd not penetrating the haze of anguish she felt at that very moment.

Mary plummeted with her husband toward the unforgiving ground far below, hands outstretched; reaching up to her only son left standing safely on the platform, who was reaching a trembling hand back to her.

"Dick! No…"

The next moment, she was in a strange dingy lair, a warehouse… by the docks. Then like a switch, the panic in her chest turned on, her senses became acutely aware.

Two men, strung up in nooses attached to a gallows. Both of them struggling, both of them bound hand and foot.

Her hands were tied behind her back. Two very large henchmen kept her restrained.

She was calculating a plan, trying to figure out how to save them, eyeing the strange man in front of her who was casually flicking a coin up and catching it in his hand repeatedly. He was strange looking; half of him dressed in an impeccably clean business suit, his hair dark brown and slicked back. The other half was wild, a purple and black striped zebra print suit, untamed messy white hair, and a face that was purple and horribly scarred.

He was laughing at her.

"You should see your face kid; it's a riot."

"This isn't funny! Let them both go, right now!"

"Look kid," he said condescendingly, sweeping his arm back to gesture at the two hanging men. "They're both a nuisance to me. I'm gonna let both of 'em die."

"Your coin, Two-Face. Use your coin."

She could see her mentor's face frown, struggling at the gag placed in his mouth.

The villain seemed to stop and consider.

"Mm… alright. I'll use the coin, kid. I can never resist a gamble. Scar face for the Bat, clean side for the judge. Toss determines which one hangs first."

He flicked it up into the air, and she watched with bated breath as it fell into his hand. He grinned at her for agonizing seconds before slapping it onto his wrist.

Scar face.

"Looks like it's your lucky day, kid. The Bat hangs first. You've saved your precious 'innocent' judge for a few minutes." He turned behind him and called to men in the back. "Boys, you know what to do."

"Wait! Best two out of three. If it's clean twice, the judge doesn't hang."

"You a negotiator, eh? Think you can play the odds?" he chuckled cruelly. "All right kid. I flip it. If it's clean twice, the judge don't hang."

Two flips.

Clean.

"Well I'll be damned. We have a winner, gentlemen! The judge don't hang," he said, sweeping his arm in a gesture towards the two restrained men.

He went over to the judge and pulled a knife out of his pocket.

"What are you doing?!" she demanded, her voice cracking. "You can't kill him! You said he wouldn't hang, you said! You flipped your coin!" she screamed hoarsely.

The two-faced man leered at her, grinning with nicotine stained teeth.

"I may have said the judge wouldn't hang, but I never said..." he paused dramatically while he cut the rope above the noose, "…he wouldn't drown," he finished, grinning madly. He pulled a lever and a trap door underneath the judge swung downward, revealing a well of water underneath the warehouse.

Her eyes widened as everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

The judge's eyes were wide with fright and his face was red as he dropped through the hole and into the water with a splash.

"No! No!" she screamed, thrashed about in the hands of her captors. "You can't do that! That isn't fair!"

"It's perfectly fair. I always honor a flip, don't I? I swear kid, I won't hang the judge," he mocked, holding up his right hand. "See, that's the thing about negotiations, boy. You gotta be real specific; otherwise you end up in the deep end."

She struggled as she watched him approach her mentor, pulling the blind off his eyes.

"As for you, Batsy," he taunted, "you can sit here and watch it all before you dangle. I can't wait to see your feet kicking while you suffocate under your own body weight. You can watch me beat your little sidekick to a pulp, and die knowing you couldn't do a damn thing to stop it."

Her breaths hitched as she watched the man slowly and deliberately remove his suit coat and hand it to another henchman. He grinned and paced a few steps while methodically rolling up his sleeves.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. She was supposed to save them both… it wasn't supposed to happen this way…

She tried to escape, tried her best, but they were too strong. Her heart pounded in her chest as the man stalked towards her, an eerie smile on his twisted face.

The pain in her jaw knocked her senseless. Fists pummeled into her chest; her vision went hazy as suddenly the ceiling was all she could see. She grunted as she was kicked several times in the side, her body rolling listlessly.

"You see kid? It's like this. Your friend Batsy over there takes the law into his own hands. He lets his own morals dictate what he does, who he saves. So if he ain't wrong, neither am I. Eye of the beholder, kid."

She gazed up at him blearily, barely registering the mocking words he was saying.

She attempted to get up, to maybe try and save the man who was now underwater, the bubbles rising to the surface becoming less and less.

More fists, feet, pounding and kicking into her, breaking her body, making it impossible for her to move, to think. Her mouth was filled with the salty bitter taste of blood, and it dribbled down her chin. Her vision was going blurry; one eye was already swollen shut. Her cheek was puffing out with bruise and injury, and she was vaguely aware that one of her arms was broken, still tied behind her back.

He grabbed her hair, forced her onto her knees, sneered into her bloodied dirty face.

"I know this is hard for you to understand, kid. But it's all about justice. My justice. Don't take it personal. This is just about showing the Bat who's boss around here. He tries to impose his sense of justice on everybody, and we don't want it. The cops don't even want it. So, I'm just here to show you a new kind of justice."

He shoved her down, and snapped his fingers.

"If he wasn't so intent on making everybody follow his laws, this might not be happenin' to you now. For every action there is an equal opposite reaction."

Her vision swam before her and the room swung violently about as the cold words she heard him say next sent a sharp shiver of utter panic down her spine.

"Just remember, kid. It isn't going to be me that killed you, but the Bat."

Her breath hitched and lurched in her lungs as she vaguely saw him casually take the sleek wooden bat from his henchman's hands.

She coughed as blood poured from her nose and mouth and she spit it onto the floor.

It was going black. There was a dull ringing in her ears and intense pain… so many sounds, sickening bone crunching thumps… was it coming from her? Was… was this really happening?

"One good crack at the skull should finish it…"

She was choking on her own blood. It was filling her throat and nose, she could barely breath. It hurt to even try.

Suddenly… it was peaceful... a resigned moment of waiting for a final… something, anything, just wishing, only wanting the pain to end… that's all. Just want the pain to end…

There were sounds of scuffling, but she couldn't tell what was going on… the room was too dark...

She was being picked up, and felt her stomach roll, gurgling up the blood that had slid down her esophagus. Just before she lost consciousness, muffled words of someone who sounded more broken than she echoed in her head.

"Dick… I'm here."

There were broken bodies littering the floor, in pools of blood. The smell was so great she could hardly breathe, and she had to turn away, swallowing hard as she almost got sick all over the floor, hiding behind the tall figure in the black cape and cowl.

A man with ratted green hair and a pasty white face was leering at them with the most horrible yellow grin. A large gun was in his hands, pointed, aimed to kill again. She was fighting alongside the man in the cape, trying to stay out of the sight of that gun… one move, one mistake and it would be over.

They were caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse, hiding in the shadows and trying to disarm the villain, but he kept firing shots around the room, causing some close calls, until she slipped in a puddle of sticky dark red, and fell.

Her eyes widened in fear when the barrel of the gun was aimed her way, and time seemed to slow as she saw the bright red orange flash of powder igniting. She rolled out of the way as best she could, but there was a searing wrench and a sickening thud as a bullet ripped through the flesh in her shoulder. She continued the roll onto her stomach, gasping at the sheer pain of it.

She was dimly aware of her blood pooling onto the ground and trickling away as her body lay still in shock, feeling too heavy to move, while the man in the cape had finally restrained the horrible villain with the yellow leering grin.

Her vision was fading; the world was going black as she could make out a pair of black boots shrouded in a cape walk hastily towards her. Her senses went reeling before they blanked out completely as her adoptive father picked her up gently.

The smells assaulted her first, and her stomach convulsed and she had to swallow the bile down her throat as it nearly suffocated her senses. It was awful, a combination of every nasty imaginable stench; blood, sweat, urine, feces, vomit… the pain came next, hard metal was cutting into her wrists, her ankles, and her arms ached from being strung up and straining as hard as she could at her bonds. Sounds suddenly, her breath came in rasps and pants, and she winced as she heard the screams of agony echoing down the halls, knowing that any moment she could be taken there, be made to scream like that, again.

Sight finally, she opened her eyes, choking at the dirty dark cell she was chained in, the old splatters of blood on the walls, her blood. Currently it was running down her legs from her last encounter, and she cried from the sheer pain as it throbbed. Scratches from long lethal claws on her thighs stung.

Suddenly it hit her, the emotional wave of being in this place for months and months on end, the fatigue, the knowledge of everything she had experienced, everything this place had done to her.

She was filled with absolute horror.

The blood on her legs wasn't enough... it was never enough. The creature was not finished. It had come back, opening the cell door with a leering grin and a twisted apparatus of metal and sadistic spikes in its hand, and she swallowed the sharp thrill of panic in her chest at the sight of it. She inherently knew what the contraption was used for, and her entire body shuddered and trembled.

It placed the thing on the floor beside her, grinning and speaking in a strange guttural language, and she somehow understood him, could answer in the same language. Courage came to her at the moment. She was so tired of taking it, of lying down. She was Zhala. She was a warrior. She tried to convince herself to be brave.

She sneered in return.

"You are vile and I will never submit to you." She spit in the creature's face.

A fierce scowl crossed its features as it grabbed her throat and slammed her into the wall, causing her breath to escape her in a puff.

It thrust its hand under her rags, grinning as it showed her the blood on its fingers. She closed her eyes and turned her head away, willing to be strong, willing the tears not to fall, not to show how weak she truly felt, no matter how much she tried to talk herself into being stronger.

It began to release her bonds, unafraid of her, and pushed her against the wall, pressing her face and stomach against the cold stone, beginning to rip the meager shreds of rags from her body which didn't allow for much decency in the first place.

She snarled as he reached for the metal contraption.

No. She was strong. She was brave. This needed to stop… and suddenly there was a fury bubbling up from her stomach, vengeance at having suffered for so long filtered into her hands and eyes, consumed her entire being and she whirled around in a sudden display of strength.

Her rational mind faded away; suddenly everything was a haze of blazing anger. Before the creature could react she had sunk her fist into its face, hearing the bones give way with a satisfying crunch. Her other fist embedded in its chest, and then she clawed her hand down to its navel, its body cavity splitting open, its contents spilling out as the creature gurgled and fell to the ground.

Everything snapped back to clear uncensored reality.

She stood for a moment, unable to comprehend just what she had done, the creature's blood dripping from her hands and rapidly staining the dirt floor.

She backed away, eyes staring wide in horror.

After a panicked moment, she clenched her trembling fists, shaking them off as best she could, before flying up and slamming a fist into the solid masonry ceiling of her cell. She tried several times, but not even a crack appeared in the fortified stone. So she bolted out her open door, flinging through passage ways, turning corners at breakneck speed, dodging surprised creatures or viciously punching those that tried to catch her, until she finally was out of that place, flying at the speed of light, unsure of just how to handle her freedom after so long.

Her father was enraged, her sister was furious at her return. Even her mother was aloof, was pragmatic, and only offered a small hug and a short welcome back. The monsters were attacking because of her escape; they were invading her home world to which she had retreated, endangering them all.

A war was called, they had to defend themselves, and battles began upon Tamaranian soil. She was in the tower, watching from the balcony, attempting to hold back the tears when she knew she should be down fighting, but a large man with one scarred eye held her back, telling her she had already done enough.

She cried out when she caught sight of her mother, clubbed down by a creature as her blood began to pool around her fiery red hair.

Her sister came to her then, grabbed her by the shoulders and slapped her. She pointed to the battle and claimed it was all her fault before lunging at her again, fists flying, feet kicking, and at one point her sister had her on her knees, pressed her against the balcony by gripping her hair, and both looked down in time to see their father be run through with a spear.

Her sister grinned viciously, and she realized another language was being spoken, but once again she somehow understood, could answer in the same words.

"Oh, by the way, dear mika mehli'ea, it wasn't father's idea to send you to the Citadel. It was mine."

Raven!

Her face melted into a blank and vacant stare, until the shock wore off and her pretty features turned into a snarl.

Her sister slammed her face into the balcony ledge, splitting her lip, blood trickling down her chin.

"Oh yes, and I also sold the plans of the capital city's defenses to the Citadel. Made for a rather easy invasion, didn't it?" her sister laughed. "With father and mother gone, I will rule Tamaran!"

Raven!

"You traitor!" she screeched, whipping out of her sister's grip and throwing a punch at her. They began to fight, chasing through the hallways of the royal palace, until her sister had scrambled into a pod and zipped into space.

Raven! Please, you have to listen to me!

She had been captured again. She was strung out on a table in a white sterile room. There were bright lights and exquisite agonizing pain as she felt her body convulse and shake, being shocked, absorbing massive amounts of energy.

She could have sworn she was being burned alive, though no flames actually licked at her skin. Her arms and legs were pulling at her torso; she could feel her bones popping out of their sockets. Every cell in her body felt ready to explode.

She screamed until her voice was hoarse, and heard her sister's screams from the room over.

RAVEN!