I'd like to thank all of you! If any of you out there were here since the beginning, thank you as well! To any new people who are just getting into this story, thank you too! I hope you like what I have so far :)
To KLD kitkat, this chapter is dedicated to you! And I just want to give you the biggest welcome! To minebuilder12, you rock! I wish you luck on getting a chance to play DA2! To JasonVUK, thanks too!
Let's play "Can you spot the reference?" How many references are there in here? The prize? The sweet satisfaction that you got it all. Nah, I'll throw in a few references of your favorite things in the next chap for you!
This is a long chapter but I'd also like to give you guys a warning though. This chapter is a little brutal. I suggest you not read this chapter if you don't like violent scenes. It's war and chaos, so what do you expect? No one to die? I'm sorry, but what world do you live in? But if you read on, don't say I didn't warn you.
I am not changing the rating because of this (and possibly next chapter) chapter.
I know that Trigon has fire demons at his disposal, but I thought that, that he couldn't just have those. I mean every big bad guy with an army from a fantasy/horror always has something other than just their run-old-the-mill soldiers. Besides, Trigon conquered how many worlds? So I thought that it would only make sense that his army shouldn't just consist of fire demons, but other creatures too.
On that note, I also know that Raven doesn't use any actual weapons other than magic but I also saw her belt and thought I could do something with it. And, remember that Rae is an ex-merc in my story. Also remember what I said: I do and write what I want!
Plus, you gotta admit Raven slaying demons like Levi with bandages on her arms looks and sounds pretty badass. Maybe I'll draw that...
Originally, the blades were supposed to be silver but I thought obsidian would better suit her. Plus if any of you are familiar with Tokko, then you'll have an idea what her blades look like. If not, I suggest looking them up, they look really cool!
I should stop ranting, its taking longer than the actual story lol
Disclaimer: I own nothing...
Chapter 23: The End is Nigh
"What is that?"
"That thing is huuuuge!" said a boy with spiky blonde hair in orange.
"That frickin' does it...I am never vacationing here again" said a foul-tempered blue-haired, blue-eyed man in white.
"You were the one who wanted to come here" said a girl with black hair and green eyes.
The citizens of Jump City looked up with awe at the rift. As if superhero cat-fights and supervillans weren't bad enough, now there was a damn hole in the sky and a big freaky hand coming out of that hole.
The hand had not moved since it appeared, rather, it seemed more like it was holding the rift open. But, the ghastly noises coming from the rift were getting louder and louder.
"Starfire, we gotta get these people outta the city!"
"Yes, Robin!"
"I need you to go find Cyborg and Beast Boy, we'll worry about Raven later. Meet me-"
Another loud explosion could be heard from the rift and the two Titans snapped their attention at the rift. Just then, hordes of fire demons poured out from the breach. Screams filled the air as the demons stormed towards the city as panicked citizens desperately tried to escape.
"Go find Cyborg and Beast Boy! I'll try to evacuate the people!"
"But-!"
"Just go!"
Starfire flung her arms around him and hugged him tightly before she reluctantly bolted into the sky. Robin watched her disappear, frightened he might not see her again and tore himself away to run in the opposite direction.
'Stay safe, Starfire...'
Not long after, the city was under attack and places that were hit the hardest were the places closest to the initial attack. Unfortunately, that was just the start; another wave was flanking the city.
It was a like a scene out of a zombie movie during the initial outbreak; it was absolute chaos. A cacophony of panicked people screaming, demon screeching and shrieking, as car alarms blared, engulfed the city. Police rushed to the scenes and rushed to fend off the demons only to die, while fire-fighters tried to put out fire. Explosions and glass shattering could be heard all over the place. People were getting slaughtered left and right by fire demons. Demons phased their bodies through people and shrieked as they burned while other burst into flames. Two demons ripped one person in half, his guts and bone bursting everywhere while others impaled, hacked, and strangled others. Demons flung humans at buildings where they just became bloody messes on the walls. It was a horrible sight. To make matters worse, the demons were not the only threat; cars crashed into buildings, signs, streetlights, other cars and even, people. Fire and blood was everywhere.
Some people decided to stay behind to look for their families while others tried to take a stand against the flame monsters, only to die in vain.
"Isabella! Help me find Bethany!"
"Marianne! We gotta go! I'm sure she's already gotten outta here!"
"She's my sister! I have to find her! Fenris! Please! She's the only family I have left!"
A small group of people were on the run. They had done well to sneak past the demons, but their shouting contest had attracted the attention of demons and within moments, half a dozen fire demons converged on the helpless group.
"Oh no!"
"Raaaah!"
Two explosive birdarangs embedded themselves in the chest of one demon, beeping three times before the birdarangs exploded. The explosion was large enough to extinguish 3 other fire demons. Robin landed in a crouched position in the middle of the surviving ones. He pulled out his bo-staff before he swung it at one, but it dodged out of the way and scored a hit on the Boy Wonder. He gasped in pain as the blow struck his shoulder. Robin staggered back and glanced at the new wound, which was severely burned and charred. He let out a pained growl; the Titan leader was not supposed to be fighting in his condition but he had to defend the city and help these people. One demon charged at him but he slid under it and stabbed his staff through its' head, and it disappeared. He heaved as he attacked the other one, and threw his bo-staff like a spear. The spear only phased through the demon as it charged the Titan but Robin threw another birdarang at the last fire demon. The birdarang dug itself into its hip before exploded.
"Get outta here!"
"We can't! My sister-!"
"Marianne!"
"Bethany!"
The two sisters embraced before graciously thanking the leader, but it was too soon for "thank you"s.
"You're not outta the woods, yet. Find somewhere safe or leave the city!"
"Yes, thank you!"
With that, the group fled and the Titan leader was alone as he pulled his staff from the ground. His eyes drifted to the rift as more demons poured out from the rift. The army split in half; one half was going for one half of the city while the other headed for the other side of the city.
"God help us all..."
+Eastern Jump City+
"Cy, watch out!" a green man cried.
"Urgh!"
The metal Titan was thrown back twenty-feet and crashed into a car. He shook his head dizzily, and his eye drifted to a corpse crushed under the car. Half of the dead man's face was now a bloody skull and his eyeball was hanging loosely from his head, probably from trauma, while the other half of his face was severely burned off. His body was a mangled mess; his arm twisted in an ungodly way while his one of his legs was missing.
Cyborg's lunch nearly made a reappearance as he pulled himself out of the car.
The two Titans were facing down over a hundred fire demons. But, their main threat was a monster that had escaped from the rift and looked similar to a wing-less wyvern The monster was thirty-feet long with a tail almost as long as its' body and covered in large, shiny scales. It's green scaly body walked on four legs, and in its' powerful jaws was a man, who slowly extended his hand for help. It spit out said man before crushing his head like a tomato. Bits of brain, blood and bone went everywhere.
Cyborg and Beast Boy had been fighting this creature for fifteen minutes and barely made a scratch on it. So far, it killed and injured dozens of people. Admittedly, they were tired and at a loss. How were they supposed to kill this thing? Its' tough hide was resilient to Cyborg's sonic blasts and its' powerful claws tore through metal like paper, while it used its' tail as a bludgeon. If that wasn't bad enough, it spit acid, so getting close was not exactly an option.
The fire demons let out what seemed like amused screeches as they watched from a distance. Oddly, they didn't seem interested in intervening, possibly because the creature would also attack them.
"How the hell do we beat this thing?"
"Dammit! Where is Starfire and Robin?!"
"BB! Can you turn into one a those?"
"I don't think so."
"Guess we'll just wing it!" Cyborg yelled as he charged.
The creature roared as it charged at the metallic man. It spit out acid but Cyborg bob-and-weaved out the way before firing it his sonic cannon, only for his attacks to bounce off the creature's hide. Cyborg jumped into the air and slammed his fist into the ground which caused a small tremor. The tremor extinguished some of the fire demons but also made the creature stand on its hind legs. That gave the opening the boys needed and Beast Boy hopped on his friends shoulder, before the 6'6" man chucked him at the creature. Beast Boy morphed into an armadillo and spun through the air, which gave him more momentum. At the last second, he morphed into a elephant and slammed into the monster. It roared as it crashed into a building and finally revealed its' weakspot
Not wasting a second, Beast Boy morphed into a T-Rex and stomped over to the creature where he violently tore into its' vulnerable underbelly. He tore into the creature, ripping out its organs and spit them out as the creature The creature had swiped and clawed at Beast Boy's face while it crunched its powerful jaws into the T-Rex's left leg. The green dinosaur let out a roar of pain as staggered back as the scaly creature convulsed violently before dying. Beast Boy morphed back and jumped towards his friend, exhausted.
His leg was now bleeding profusely and he could've sworn his leg was broken. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of their troubles and the fire demons surrounded hapless duo.
"Not bad, BB."
"Heh, thanks."
"How's it feel eating meat?"
"Heh, shut up."
"Looks like we got our work cut out for us" Cyborg said as the demons closed in.
His eye looked up to see another wave of fire demons escaped from the rift, and headed straight for them. Three more of those creatures they just killed stormed towards them.
+Western Jump City+
"Cyborg! Beast Boy!" the Tameranean princess yelled from the sky.
She flew back and forth around this part of the city, trying to find the others but there was no sign of them. As she was about to give up, she saw a flood of fire demons make a ground assault. Rising high into the air, the auburn-haired princess hurled starbolt after starbolt and fired her eyebeams.
To say she was making good progress was an overstatement, there were still hundreds of demons. And, their numbers were not decreasing, in fact, quite the opposite. Killer Moth's insect army had nothing on this
Starfire had been killing fire demons from her vantage point for about five minutes and in that time, the city was practically overrun. But, the princess would not give up. She raised her arms above her head, as she made a starbolt the size of a house before throwing it at the army. The bolt sped through the army like a bullet, and took down at least a hundred of them. But there were still too many of them. This wasn't working.
As she was about to make another starbolt, she got hit in the back with a red ray. Starfire grunted as she looked behind her, and was horribly disgusted. Her new opponent was a red corpse-looking skeleton dressed in rags with dingy hair that partially covered its' bulging white glassy eyes. It had long black claws, a long sharp lizard-like tail, horns on its' forehead and wings like a bat.
In its' hand, was a ornate spear and in the other was what looked like a gun.
Starfire's hands glowed bright green as she zipped towards her newest adversary. She punched it square in the jaw and it faltered back before it fired a red beam from the spear. Starfire dodged out of the way, only for the creature to shoot his' gun. The force of the blast was strong enough to send the hardy princess crashing into the roof of the building and she crashed through all five floors of said building.
It let out a condescending laugh, but not before the proud princess jetted towards it. The creature flew under and behind her, and slammed its tail into her side. Starfire managed blocked it with her arms, grabbed it and flung it at the fire demons below.
The creature shrieked as it melted with one of the fire demons, but somehow, it fused together with the fire demon. The result was something unexpected; the creature's emaciated flesh resurged. Lanky flesh grew muscular and toned, while its decrepit wings became invigorated. It let out a roar from its mouth which had teeth not unlike a shark.
'What manner of creature is that?'
Its' roar echoed across the battlefield and about fifty corpses that were lying on the ground arose.
"Eep!"
It growled before soaring into the sky and stabbing its spear through the Starfire's shoulder
+Raven+
Fire demons shrieked as they roamed the city. The southern part of the city was overrun and the dead littered the streets. It wouldn't be surprising if the dead outnumbered the living. People were still screaming as they desperately tried to escape from these creatures.
A shadow zipped and zoomed through the horde, ripping through every demon in its' path. It spun around as it slashed one, before rebounding on a streetlight and killing another, then ricocheted off a building and killed another. Then it slashed one fire demon's head in half, before stabbing one in the stomach. It jumped in front of another before spun behind it and carved up the fire demon's back.
A pair of boots landed on the ground as the demons behind her disappeared. A long black cloak swung around a twenty-one year old woman with dark purple hair and unraveled bandages covered her arms. She held an odd dagger in each hand; three black curved blades with a reddish gleam and a gold hilt and guard.
She panted as sweat dripped down her face as she felt a hot zephyr. She heard something to her right and instinctively assumed a fighting position.
Raven sighed in relief to see it was just a bunch of kids. One was a boy with dark brown hair and teal-green eyes while another was a blonde boy with a bowl cut and blue eyes. They had a girl with them with medium-length black hair and gray eyes.
"That was cool! I wanna be a hero!"
"Eren...we need to go find Mom..."
"Th-thanks for helping us."
"You kids get out of here, it isn't safe here."
"But...my mom..."
"Eren! Eren!" cried a woman with black hair pulled into a side pony-tail.
"Mom!"
A strange sadness nagged at her as Raven watched quietly as the mother and child reunite. She put the feeling aside for now.
"You all need to get out of here. It isn't safe."
The woman just looked at her irately. "You're the ones the brought this."
Raven stayed silent, her brows furrowed.
"But Mom...she saved us! I wanna be a hero!"
"Absolutely not! You tried to fight one of those things, didn't you?!"
"He came at it with a crowbar."
"Shut up, Mikasa!"
"I hate to interrupt, but you really should leave. Head for the old police station on Lincoln street and look for a brown building. Break down the wall at the ground floor at end of the building; it's hollow and it has a passage which will lead you out of the city. You won't have to worry about being struck in traffic" Raven said.
"Thanks" the mother spat as she and the three children disappeared into an alleyway.
Raven sighed as eyed the ground and gripped her daggers tighter. The mother was undoubtedly one of the people who disliked the Titans, but that was not what was bothering the amethyst-eyed Titan. Somehow, she envied the relationship with the child and his mother. After all, Raven remembered little about her own mother. Arella had given up Raven at birth and hardly visited her, in fear that Trigon would influence her.
The empath pushed that nagging feeling as a wave of demons headed to the east and west part of Jump City. Thankfully, this meant that the north and south had a small reprieve Obviously, taking out the army was useless; more would just come in larger numbers and they would hit harder. They needed to close the rift and then deal with all the demons. But getting close to the rift proved to be challenge, all by itself. Not to mention, it was highly likely that more demons were guarding the rift.
While she conceived a plan, five fire demons converged on her location, eliciting a tired sigh from the sorceress. Raven waved her hand and the creatures shrieked and struggled as they were bathed in a purple light After a few seconds, the demons ceased. They just stood silently as Raven circled around them.
"You're under my command now" she said as pulled out the four gems from her belt and gave one to the fire demons.
"Go and set up a perimeter around the city."
The creatures wreathed in flame let out hissing noises before Raven waved her hand and teleported each of them to the north, south, east and west. That left one which just hovered idly as its new master thought. She knew that the Titans most likely separated to cover ground to search for her and to stop the attack. But, she knew if she sent this particular fire demon, they would just attack it. The empath paced back and forth, anxiously.
'Dammit! What should I do?'
Her eyes fell to silver trinket wrapped around her wrist. It was a small silver charm bracelet with a small raven shaped charm that Beast Boy had given her for Christmas many years ago.
It was slightly rusty and a little beat-up looking, but otherwise in good condition. The empath sighed reluctantly and removed said bracelet before handing it to her new minion.
"Beast Boy is in the East. Where he is, Cyborg will be too. Lead them to Starfire, in the west. Robin is in the north trying to get people to evacuate. Gather them all."
It chirped before a pool of black appeared underneath it and it melted through the asphalt.
Raven stayed silent for a moment.
'There's still hundreds of monsters in roaming around...'
The Azarthian eyed the corpses that lay dead on the ground. She walked over to one that caught her eye; he was a teenage boy with black hair and freckles, half his body was gone. She sighed before raising her hands slowly. Her hands gave off a purple glow and purple light wrapped around the bodies on the ground. There must have been thirty or forty. Suddenly, they twitched slowly and slowly arose, their dead eyes looked soullessly at their master. Some were badly mangled, others were horribly burned, other had head wounds. Among the dead were also dead police officers, and all bodies gave off a purple glow.
"Defend the city. Take out any fire demons, do not engage any living humans. If there are any dead, recruit them. Now go!" Raven commanded like a general.
She watched as the creatures hobbled, crawled and walked away.
'This isn't gong to be enough., but at least it bought some time...' she thought as her eyes looked at the gigantic hand poking out from the rift.
'As for now, all I can do is wait for until the charges are set...'
Her eyes narrowed at the hand. 'This is just the beginning...'
+Elsewhere in Jump City+
Four fire demons obeyed the command of their master, Raven. One demon placed a black and red stone on the ground far in the east, another demon placed an identical stone far in the west while another placed the stone far in the north and the last placed it far to the south.
One fire demon raced to two Titans locked in combat. It was only a matter of time before another wave of demons would hit the city. Time, which none of the Titans had. Beast Boy and Cyborg were taking cover behind a car, avoiding the acid spit of the wvyern-like creatures.
"Dude...we can't hide behind here forever!"
"There's three of them, BB! One was bad enough, but three?!"
Cyborg grunted as he ducked as one of the creatures spit a wad of acid, which barely missed the tin man's head. He readied his sonic cannon and blasted one in the face. It shook off the hit before growling angrily and charged at the two.
"Shit! I think you made it mad!"
The two dove away from the car as the creature rammed into it with the force of an elephant. Cyborg barely had a moment to react before he was slammed with its' tail into building. He grunted as he struggled got on his hands and knees.
"Cyborg! Ughn!" Beast Boy's eyes shot to his injured leg.
His head snapped up at the two creatures charging at him. The green Titan barely had a second before he morphed into a humming bird and swiftly zipped past the large creatures. He zipped over to Cyborg before morphing back into human form.
"Cy! I think we have to fall back!"
Cyborg looked back at the corpses of civilians and police, and nodded. He got to his feet, swung Beast Boy's arm over his shoulder and the two attempted to escape. Not before, several fire demons cut off their path but Cyborg fired his sonic cannon, and they evaporated. He carried his friend into an alley and they sat down to catch their breath.
"Shit...we're getting our asses handed to us."
"We need to find Starfire and Robin. Raven too."
They gasped as they heard something in the distance and instinctively took cover behind the wall. Several fire demons patrolled the street, stopped briefly and continued on. Beast Boy took quick sigh of relief, until one fire demon strolled along before it turned its gaze on their hiding place. As it approached, Cyborg and Beast Boy thought of eliminating it since there was only one and would not draw attention. The metal man was about to blast it, when his friend halted him.
"Wait!"
"What?"
"This one...its weird."
"Yeah...you're right. This one's got a purple glow to it."
"Even has a bit o' Rae's scent, too."
"You gotta be shitting me. How can you smell it? It's made of fire!"
Beast Boy's grimace disappeared as quickly as it came. They eyed it cautiously and took up fighting positions when it slowly raised its' tentacle-like arm.
"What's that?"
Beast Boy's eyes fell to a small silver bracelet around its wrist. His eyes went wide with anger and before he knew it, he was shouting at it.
"What the hell did you do to Raven?!"
"BB! Keep your voice down! More of things'll show up if you keep shouting!"
"But it hurt Raven!"
"We don't know that!"
"What did you do to her?!"
It just stared hollowly as it backed away slowly.
"Where do you think you're going?!"
"Beast Boy, we gotta keep chill. Maybe we should follow it?"
"So it can lead us to a trap and kill us? No!"
"Rae can summon them too, remember? Maybe she sent it here to help us?"
The demon let out a quiet hiss as it nodded its' as it drifted away. Cyborg rose slowly as he followed it.
"C'mon, B."
The green Titan growled as he followed his friend and the fire-demon to god knows where.
End.
A/N: Accoriding to the Wiki, Raven really does have necromancy! Cool right?
Also, the little charm bracelet? Well, that's from my other story ;)