Author's Notes:
Let's explore a brief while on how the soul-sharing culture of those peace-loving Azarathians actually worked. As you may recall, Azarath was a "hive soul" - split into one thousand individuals at any given time. Azarath, being a small place, could only support the needs of one thousand people.
With her spiritual training, Zara realized that many souls may cohabitate into just one physical body so that no experience, memory or emotion need ever be lost in Azarath. All that information could be shared and preserved in the physical hosts of its citizens… so long as new citizens replaced the old ones.
When a body died in Azarath, a replacement was chosen from amongst the most tragic of all lives on Earth. If that chosen body and soul accepted life on Azarath, it would then embrace and contain all souls that the previous body contained and have access to all those experiences and memories.
Where many people view the body as the 'temple of the soul', Azarathians looked at it more like a condominium. The principal spirit (landlord) could visit whoever they wanted within their condo at any time and share in the tenant's past memories and experiences. No one truly died.
Remember, Raven still holds all one thousand Azarathian souls within her – and each of them are a collection of not only the previous generations of Azarath, but also the original, lost souls that have choose to live there. No wonder poor Raven went comatose when they suddenly flooded into her!
So literally, Mrs. Wayne houses millions of years of soul-memory and experience within her own soul… the combined and compounded history of all citizens of Azarath from each and every previous generation as well as the entirety of their past experiences before they even journeyed to Azarath.
Phew… So, now that we've cleared that up, let us also recall that the evil, eye-gouging, nasty Trigon is indeed the worst father in the Universe, so now let us now find out who is…
CXXVIII
The Best Mother in the Universe
Now hovering in front of the fifth crucifix again, Raven couldn't shake her anxiety about leaving Bruce alone below with her father and uncle in a heated argument. Hopefully Darkseid and Trigon would keep one another busy while she…
"You are worried, sister."
"Yes Abraxas, I am. I do not like to leaving Bruce alone with father."
"Your husband attacked father, that is why he was hurt. Father will destroy any who attack him."
"Bruce attacked Trigon only to save a very powerful friend who was trying to save our own world."
"Was the friend a Green Lantern, sister?"
"No Abraxas… He's a Kryptonian. Trigon destroyed his world years ago when he was just a baby. Now, as the last of his kind, he has sworn to protect his adopted world. His name is Kal-El, but we also call him Clark."
"But Krypton must have been one of the worlds who wanted me to be imprisoned like this. That is the reason they were destroyed, sister."
"Krypton didn't even believe Gods existed, Abraxas. They had nothing to do with your imprisonment. No one but the Guardians even know you're here. The green dome that surrounds this planet prevents people from seeing or getting inside."
"But father said…"
"Father lied, sister. He has been lying to you, increasing your hatred only to destroy, to fuel his own revenge against our uncle Darkseid."
"He is the evil one who gave me to the Guardians!"
"Yes, he is… But that does not make father good! Sister… Both of us were just a half of father's mad scheme for revenge. You were the daughter whose tragedy would allow him destroy all who dared oppose him. And I was the daughter promised to Nekron, the one that would raise those fallen corpses from the dead and allow him to destroy the rest."
"Father told me it was I who wished the Universe destroyed."
"…Do you truly wish for this, sister?"
"I… do not know. I long to experience new emotions like the ones I sense in your heart when you think of your mortal man! I want to feel everything and become alive in these feelings!... Can you free me Raven?"
"Abraxas… if I could, I would free all of you. The devices the Guardians have used to drain your power also seals your very essences to these damned crosses. But I will find a way…"
Another familiar voice now spoke in her mind… The peaceful voice of her mother, Arella.
'Raven… Can you release me a moment? I would like talk with Abraxas.'
Raven opened a portal within herself for her mother's soul to re-emerge into the world outside… Arella's white, translucent form materialized in front of the fifth cross. Even as a spirit, her mother was still amazingly beautiful.
"Abraxas…" spoke Raven's mother, "I too was once made to suffer as you do now. I would like to help you… if you would let me."
"You do not need to speak, Raven's-mother… I am the Goddess of the Unseen, I can feel your memories. Simply remember…"
Arella thought back to her tragic, early life as an orphan in Gotham City, passed from one overloaded foster home to another. Until that day when she turned eighteen, and was pushed out onto the mean streets of the big city... alone, uncared for and homeless.
As the winter approached, Angela Roth (as she had been called on Earth) found herself drawn into a group of teenage runaways and hate-filled misfits who had formed a secret doomsday cult. They all lived in one dilapidated apartment in the Bowery, Gotham's poorest neighbourhood… but it was still better than living under a bridge along the frozen river.
They became a shadowed family, protecting one from a world that had no use for them. Like fools, they sought the dark corridors of power - attempting spells of black magic to obtain the many things they had been so long denied. But it was only Angela who had been able to work the magic successfully in those old books they had stolen.
It was a simple spell. One question was answered.
But it was only days after she had cast that spell that the man arrived…
Ra's al Ghul.
This powerful, mature man had told Angela that she was unique… special… beautiful… powerful… Magical.
These were the words she had longed to hear her entire life. She was dressed in the finest clothes, taken to the best restaurants, living the life of a princess that she had never dreamed. Ra's told her that she was to join his League, an organization that would purge the Earth of its wickedness in order for a new Eden to be born, and Eden for the League alone. And it would be her child would lead them to this promised land, her beautiful child born of magic…
They would summon the Red Angel. A powerful entity who would plant his seed within her to bring about the birth of this second Eden and its new scion. All mistakes from the past would be buried deep beneath the soil of their new land. Man would be at harmony with nature once again. Her child would bring them to the promised land.
The night of the summoning came at the turn of the millennium. Angela was returned to the apartment she now despised and chained to the sacred bed, careful pentagrams lining the walls, ceiling and floor. Ra's had promised to return for her in the morning, when he would finally take her away from all of this so that she would finally be able to begin her new life as his Queen.
He warned her that the Angel may take a frightening appearance, but that she must accept his seed… for him.
The Red Angel was later summoned and appeared in a flash of crimson smoke laughing before the fools she had thought of as friends…
Trigon.
Like a sacrificial lamb, the demon took her unmercifully.
Every grief she had ever suffered suddenly then became inconsequential. This was a pain beyond anything she had ever felt - as if she had been torn asunder in both body and soul. Defiled, Angela's womb had been the true sacrifice, her pain the demon's greatest pleasure. Unable to bear the terrible anguish any longer, she finally blacked out when her tears ran dry.
And she awoke… Alone and bleeding in a night that reeked of sulphur.
They were all gone… dead.
Still chained to the blood-soaked bed and crumpled in mind-numbing agony, Angela wished to all that was holy that they would just let her die. She prayed with all her soul for the quick release of death. She screamed to the ceiling above and any who would listen to come and kill her - until the very windows exploded in her insane rage.
Angela had been used. She was nothing more than a prostitute for evil… The made-up whore of demons. The surrogate mother of demon-spawn – impregnated with a child she could never bring into this world.
The flowery promises of Ra's al Ghul were the same lies whispered by every other soulless pimp in Gotham to every other forsaken woman who dared to dream of finding love in the darkness…
The room suddenly lit like a candle as her hoarse screams quieted.
A spirit appeared before her…
Angela Roth knew that she had finally descended into madness… that her broken mind was conjuring a mother she had never known… a matronly vision to save her from Hell.
This apparition called itself Azar and told her that she could be reborn as noble Arella on a plane of existence called Azarath… but she must not kill the child inside her as all life was sacred and preserved there. That although Angela had suffered terribly, there was still salvation for her. As Angela would give birth to her child, Azarath would give birth to child-like Arella.
Heavenly Azarath was the home of one thousand of the most tragic of all human lives from the past one thousand years… A pacifist society that allowed broken spirits to mend, each guided and aided by the other… and Angela's was the most tragic and broken life on Earth on that fateful night. The people of Azarath would tend to her, heal her. But her child would be born…
"And the rest - as they say - is history. I willingly choose to go to Azarath with its High Priestess, Azar. It was quite a change, I assure you. Raven was born to a very scared and anxious mother - but I would never abandon her. You see, I had never known who my own mother was… and I could never do that to my own child.
When she was born, many around me wished to exile my child, telling me that she did not belong in Azarath. That she was the child of evil. But I was her mother and she needed me. So I protected her. I gave her all the love I could and… in time, she became a woman. She learned to love more than I ever could and became more than just the child of Trigon… She became the woman before me."
Raven felt a tear stream down her crimson cheek as she felt them flash with hot pride. She had often dwelled on how difficult her own upbringing had been in Azarath without realizing what it had been like for her mother. She knew that no one had ever believed in her more than her own mother.
"Will you be my mother, Arella?"
"If you would like that Abraxas, I can be your step-mother. I will love you like my own daughter."
"Yes, I would like that very much… My own mother died."
"I know, child… But that was not your fault. Your mother chose to be remade in the Source… but I know she would have loved both you and your sister if she were only given the chance. Suli was taken far too soon."
"Will you go to the Source as well, step-mother?"
"In time, Abraxas… But I will be with you for as long as you need me. I promise."
"Forever?"
"Forever and ever… And there are a thousand more souls who have lived a thousand years who would also like to visit with you, to share their emotions, experiences and memories. They too had very tragic beginnings but they learned to love and forgive."
"Were they slaves like me, step-mother?"
"Some were… One was a King who angered the Gods and was made into their servant. Some were broken women who lay dying in the gutters as Death herself stood over them. All have different tales to tell… Each of them had lives scarred by terrible tragedy - before they learned to accept and love themselves so that they could love and accept others. And they want to tell you their stories, Abraxas… just as I have done. To share their existence with… and for you."
"I would like that…. Raven-sister, could you give up the souls you carry for me?"
"I carry millions of years of life within me, Abraxas. Listen and learn from them well. For that, I will gladly free the souls of Azarath to you, who is the first-born Goddess of Emotion and the Unseen…. But more than anything, please… take good care of my mother."
"I will, Raven-sister. I promise."
Raven spread her arms wide apart, bracing herself as her dark cloak fluttered in the breeze behind her. From within the shores of her own soul, one thousand combined spirits, each a thousand years old, flew from her and into the invisible Goddess. The sun rose on Maltus as a conduit of spiritual light flowed from one sister to the other sister, ghosts of ages long passed… a million years rediscovered.
Raven felt the spirit of her own mother embrace her, kissing her crimson cheek as she wiped the tears from her daughter's eyes. The same mother who had died to save her whispered good-bye and faded away…
Arella and Azarath became Abraxas.
All except for one lone soul who now floated before Raven, the last and final spirit…
Azar.
"Raven… as you have given Abraxas the greatest of all gifts which is your own mother Arella… please, allow me to take her place as your own step-mother so that I may pay for my sins."
"Azar… I forgive you. You are absolved. You have paid for any perceived sins at least one thousand times over."
"But I have not forgiven myself, Raven. Do not forget, I am also the daughter and soul of my own mother, the original Azar who wronged my father Ra's al Ghul and made him into the scheming monster he became. The same evil man who used your own mother one thousand years later to exact his final revenge upon all life on Earth."
"Azar, I would be honoured. I will gladly be your step-daughter."
"Thank you, Raven-daughter. All wisdom I have known is yours, my dear. I will be with you always…"
As Azar happily slipped back into her soul, Raven suddenly cringed at the familiar roar that shook the very air molecules behind her, causing the planet's stony surface to recoil before its wake…
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"
Instinctively, Raven teleported both herself and Bruce from Maltus just as her father's heavy foot came crashing down through a black cloud of smoke - where her lover had only just been…
If she had been a millisecond later, her father would have flattened Bruce into pulp…
And, by the woven thread of Fate they shared, Raven as well.
Teleporting across the dark dimensions on their journey back to faraway Earth, Raven found herself smiling at a strange realization…
Trigon had finally accepted that she was truly married to the man she had chosen.