A/N: Okay, so I haven't heard a lot from you guys so it seems like I'll be working with what I have, doing a lot of improvising and take a bit of time to do this correctly. Omarnsian10, I apologize if I botch this chapter up. To answer a question I got, BB and Raven aren't together yet. BB is trying to earn it, and there's going to be a few ups and downs before Raven may choose to make it official. He's just got to be on continuous good behavior. Also, sorry Eris, but your review came around when I was near completion. But, your idea does sound original enough and is very interesting. Stick around to the end I'll tell you more.
On a random day, the titans were lazing around on the couch watching whatever random thing was playing at the moment. This commercial is about something... either stupid, brilliant, or brilliantly stupid. A woman was showing off a magnet.
"Hi, are you tired of growing love handles and flab after you just finish your exercise routine because you love food? Well here we have the Fat Magnet! It takes the fat and your body and distributes throughout your body or wherever you want so that you look slimmer without losing the weight. After all, look at me, I used to look like I weigh over 220 lbs. But now I appear to weigh a gorgeous 130 lbs. while all my fat has been directed to my butt." Turning around, her glutes looked like two extremely pudgy cheeks with each pocket saying 45 lbs. "Now, not only do I look beautiful again, I have the most comfortable butt to sit on things with! And you can do this in a week at only $29.99!" She cheered. Of course, none of the titans were interested.
"Bo-bo-bo-bo-boooored." Four of the five titans strung out.
"There's nothing to do around here." Cyborg complained.
"I know dude! We watched all the movies and did all of our typical outdoor activities!" Beast Boy cried out.
"The dreary time is here for me as well." Starfire admitted.
"If you're all going to complain, can you please take it somewhere else? I'm trying to read." Raven spoke out, reading a biography of Dr. Fate. The titans mumbled an apology collectively.
"Why don't you try reading a book? Like from the library?"
"What do we even have there anyway? We only ever use the library when it's an emergency or somthin'." The green teen wondered.
"He's got a point. We've only used that room for several occasion and even I've forgotten what it holds." The Boy Wonder shrugged.
"What is so special about the books?" The Tamaranean warrior asked. "I have only read the fashion magazines so far." Raven smiled at the opportunity.
"Well Star, books are a world of imagination. Unlike magazines, you picture the world in your mind."
"But comic books are so much cooler!" Beast Boy defended. "With books you're just sitting there looking at words. With comic books you seem them doing all the Bam! and Strike! and Thwack! Yeah you really get to see how the heroes beating the bad guys."
"Oh really. How about a small demonstration then? Give me a picture of one of your comics then?" The sorceress challenged.
"Alright then. This last issue I read, Mr. Evil was like 'I kill you, fool!' And then he tried to stab Captain Unpredictable with a knife, but he dodged and punched him in the face! How would a book make that more awesome?"
"Okay, here's how a book would do it: With a snarl, Mr. Evil threatened Captain Unpredictable by exclaiming, "I'm going to kill you where you stand, Captain!" And lunged with killer intent with his knife. But the captain in his unpredictable ways, spun around the villain like a top, blindsiding Mr. Evil. While he was perplexed, Captain Unpredictable retaliated and punched Mr. Evil so hard in the face a tooth fell out and the villain dropped to the floor, utterly defeated." With her detailed story, her friends were impressed with how much imagery there was in from imagining it.
"Wow, that sounds much better than BB described it." Cyborg admitted.
"Oh yes. Raven's depiction was much more of the engaging than the comic book. I wish to read the books now!" Starfire cheered.
"Then what are we waiting for?! Titans, GO! to the library!" And so there the titans went. Everyone except Beast Boy.
"Ppssh, whatevs. I'll just go and dig up whatever I may have buried in the yard." Heading out, the shapeshifter turned into a dog and started digging holes into the front yard. Some he buried as a prank if his friends found them but never have up to now, but some were actually surprising. He found a pair of dentures(his) a few animals skeletons, a chest of fake gold coins, a real cannonball caked in dirt, a license plate and a locked safe he knew was filled with a safe explosive prank inside. But something that he found he was sure was mysterious. A chest that felt really cold to the touch and the wood as black as obsidian. It was locked, but nothing like a good ol' rock couldn't fix. Or break in this case. Inside appeared to be a book with a sinister face. Noticing the book had a lock but no key, he shrugged. "Eh, bet it's just a boring old journal." Throwing the book over a ledge, it fell and tumbled a great amount of times until it fell into the ocean's water. It sank until it was inadvertently eaten by a tiger shark. At first nothing was happening as it swam further into the deep blue. That is until a flash of white that lasted only for a moment. A large mass started to rise rapidly. From above, the surface was pushed out of the way for a huge black dragon.
"Free! I am free! Behold the power of Malchior the Malevolent!" Breathing fire for the first time in millennia, he flew towards the city ready to rain fire down on the inhabitants as a display of might. However, just as he was reaching the piers, something slammed into his back with enough force he crashed into one of the wooden docks, splashing tons of water onto the sidewalks and streets. Many fishermen ran away in fear. Coming out of the water first was Starfire, shaking all the excess water off her body while a black portal let the rest of the titan reach her position. A large claw clasped part of the guard railed earth as the dragon pulled himself out of the sea and gazed upon the heroes. "Teenagers? You dare strike against an all powerful dragon?!"
"Dudes, where did he even come from?! Dragons are not part of the aquatic ecosystem here!" Beast Boy called out in disbelief.
"I believe it had to do with a green idiot that unearthed me just to toss my magical prison into the sea and get eaten by a shark." Malchior answered with venom in his tone.
"What?! You threw him into the sea?!" Raven scolded the changeling.
"How's I supposed to know?! It looked like a book!" He defended.
"You shouldn't disrespect books like that, you emerald whelp. Knowledge is power, and there is none more powerful than me!" He breathed a stream of flame at the titans, but they quickly got out of the way. Cyborg and Robin tried to push Malchior back with sonic cannon blasts and explosives, but he pushed right on and swatted them away with his tail. Starfire threw Beast Boy at the dragon, whom turned into a T-Rex that was half the size as him and rammed his head into the mythological creature. While the blow was powerful, it did nothing to deter him as he grabbed the green dinosaur by the tail and swung him around a few times before throwing the hero into a warehouse, causing it to fall on him. Starfire was having the best luck at dodging his fire and strikes while leaving burn marks by her starbolts and eye beams. But even she couldn't withstand his power as she was swatted by his claws and crashed into a nearby oil truck, thus exploding. Raven floated from a distance from Malchior, which he stared with sinister intent.
"You say knowledge is power. Well, you're not the only one who has the gift of both. Let me show you. Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Manifesting her soul-self high into the sky, it formed into a gigantic Raven that shrieked loudly. Racing down towards the dragon, he tried to fend against it with a breath of fire, but did virtually nothing as he was enveloped in black magic as her soul trapped him. The sounds of struggling could be heard by blasts of fire and bashing against the soul, only for the inside to shine white while a silhouette of Machior could be seen, screaming in excruciating agony before evaporating into nothingness. The soul-self returned to regular size and returned to the female titan. "Guess he wasn't as powerful as they say. Alright, let's go home." Forming a portal, she went back to the tower while the others followed suite, groaning from the hits they experienced. While her friends went back to their reading after a trip to the med bay, Raven went to her room for some needed alone time. Taking a tome from her bookshelf, she went to her bed and started to read. But as she read, something wrong was happening. Her heart was steadily beating faster, her hands were beginning to shake, sweat started to glisten her anxious face, experiencing shortness of breathe as she started to gasp for air before finally feeling weak all of the sudden. Dropping the book, resulting in a thud resonating around the room, the female titan took deep breaths to calm herself down. Was that an anxiety attack? No way could Timid just take over like that. And even if she could, she was more of the inwardly sulking and hide behind a wall or friend kind of timid, not the have a heart attack from picking up an object kind of Timid, if that word even applied to the level of fear she was experiencing.
Trying again just to test the waters, the girl shakily picked up the book and tried to read again, but it felt like the imprinted ink consisting the words were going to jump off the pages to attack her and drown her in a sea of ink-Raven threw the book away, no longer wanting to feel like the thing could chomp her head off. Bringing her knees to her chest, the poor girl shivered and quivered until she felt calmer relatively speaking and could breathe normally. "What's happening to me?"
"Oh you poor Raven." A familiar voice rang through her head, but it sounded more suave and calm rather than boastful and loud, but the voice was still the same. Running to her mirror, she saw herself, but also a dragon right behind her. "Did you really think you could destroy me? I used a spell to infuse myself into your soul, and now I am part of you. I can't do much in here though. Your mental defenses are quite powerful for a teenager. But, there is one thing I can do in here."
"What, make me afraid of reading?"
"Precisely. I know you now. More than you even know yourself, and I can tell reading is one of your calming hobbies. So... consider it the opposite now."
"Don't think you can win, dragon. I can put off reading for a time, and it'll be more than enough to purge you."
"Ah, but don't you see Raven? By purging me, you set me loose again. I'd bust out, destroy your tower, and eat you before you had the time to say the first third of your incantation before going after your friends."
"We'll see about that."
"Indeed." For the past week, Raven did her best not to read any books directly, but Malchior's influence was ever present. On the first day, Raven read the headline of the newspaper Robin was reading while eating breakfast and had a massive jump scare in her mind causing the titan to fall off her chair. Robin asked if she was okay, but she was able to convince the leader that she merely sat too far on one side. On the second day, while entering the living room she saw Cyborg and Beast Boy playing a video game and a scroll of text was present. Just the first five words themselves were able to cause the sorceress to trip and nearly fall flat on her face, but didn't thanks to her portal making back onto her bed. The guys looked back to see if they heard something, but nothing was there, so they resumed their game. On the fifth day, Starfire wanted to have another one of their girl days together and almost practically threw a couple of fashion and boy magazines into her face, and the half-demon freaked out by accidentally disintegrating them while all the light bulbs above them exploded. Raven retreated to her room leaving the Tamaranean confused. Eventually, her friends had enough and they went to her door. Knocking on the entrance, it showed a Raven that tried her best to look stoic, but it was obvious by the dark bags under her eyes and disheveled hair that something was clearly getting to her.
"Raven, we're starting to become a bit concerned of your behavior and health. Is everything okay?"
"Yes, I am fi-"
"Raaveeen." He emphasized her name, telling immediately she was lying. Sighing defectively, her face became exhausted and sad.
"Remember that dragon from last week? Turns out I didn't destroy him, and now he's inside me. Nothing I have tried works in getting rid of him without harming me or letting him loose and destroying us. Malchior has been giving me panic attacks whenever I read, and turns out even without a book I still read a lot of things."
"You coulda come to us for help, Rae." Beast Boy explained. "I trust you thought you could handle this yourself, but it seems like you could use some help."
"How? The Nevermore mirror is blocked off and I don't know what to do."
"I think I have an idea. If he's being a literal inner demon giving you bibliophobia, then we'll use that against him." The Boy Wonder decreed. "Titans, GO!"
"Ow, not so loud! I haven't been sleeping well." Raven complained, holding her temples.
"Oh, sorry. Titans, go." Robin said more softly. Off they went to the public library, where it already seemed like a bad idea at first. All this collected amount of knowledge and words was sending a constant shiver down the sorceress's spine thanks to Malchior, but as long as she didn't read anything with more than two words, she was good. After getting some books, they all gathered at the most secluded table and showed their books. Robin had Stockholm Sherlock the Swedish investigator solving mysteries, Starfire had a sci-fi called Nebula Battles that followed Luther Airsprinter. Cyborg got a 1980's horror book called That by Steven Ding, Beast Boy got Itemorphs, a collection of tween books about kids who could turn into any object they could think of, and hand picked by Beast Boy, Raven got... The Glove, where animals of all sorts tried to live as roommates in a human sized glove trying to pay rent during a winter to the landlord, The Glove Owner.
"Uh...what? Why am I given a baby book?"
"Exposure therapy. Since the dragon is making you afraid of books, we'll just have to reduce the amount of stress you experience, and children's books are as innocent as they can get. It may never go fully away, but at least you won't feel like you're going to have a heart attack."
("Hmph, I'd like to see you try.") Malchior challenged. Raven furrowed her eyebrows.
("Then you'd better sit tight, for this is going to be long and hard for the both of us.")
"Alright, let's start the first session of the Titans Book Club." Robin said. With a collective nod, they all began to read. While reading was still making the half-demon anxious, and had to put it down, her determination was able to shine through and pick it up again. Thanks to the little amount of words on each page, she was able to go through each page before having to put it down. After an hour of reading, they placed the books down and began to discuss. "So titans, what do you think of the books so far?" Robin asked.
"I wish to go first." The alien princess volunteered. "I find the premise I have read so far to be quite interesting. I relate to this so much with the giant space ships, empires and providences, and I empathize for Luther for losing his aunt and uncle. What I find most interesting is the mystical Force and lightsaber. Having a sword made of light? I have personally never seen such a thing myself."
"Sounds interesting Star." Cyborg commented. "I have to admit, I don't like the town called Merry at all. Despite the name... uh... let's just say men who like men as more than friends aren't treated well and leave it at that. But there seems to be a connecting line across all of it. Three people have died, and either directly or indirectly, it had to do with some sort of monstrous harlequin. A monster..." The metallic titan held up his book. "...called That. While I think the idea of a harlequin or jester being a monster is a bit silly, it does remind you about how people are afraid of clowns with their face paint, weird noses and oversized shoes."
"Weird. Well, here's what I thought about the first book." Beast Boy spoke up. "So it's about these five teens, and they meet this alien at a construction sight, and they've been chosen to become secret heroes and such, being given the power to turn into any object they touch from that point on. But it's not like they were chosen ones; they just happened to be there, and they got swept up to fight in this war with aliens trying to save their home, having to fight secret guerilla war tactics like. I have to admit, as far as hero origin stories go, this is both pretty tragic and interesting."
"The starts of the hero are rarely good and uplifting as for what I read, while I can very easily see someone like Stockholm Sherlock having such an awesome sense of observational skills and deductive prowess since I've worked with Batman who similarly does the same thing, I'm intrigued whether it's something he trained and honed for or he always had an affinity towards said skills. I also find his aloof and standoffish nature a little off putting since Batman always treated everything seriously, not just a challenge for amusement, so I don't entirely respect him as I do Batman." Having shared his thoughts, they all then turned to Raven whom noticed the attention.
"Oh uh... me? Well frankly, given the fact it took me an hour to read this story is so humiliating, and the fact it's a kid's book no less made it feel like I learned nothing at all and should be ashamed for it, I found the idea of the book to be ridiculous. Sure, a mole could fit in it, as it kept going with more and more animals it was getting ludicrous. It should've ripped."
("This is what kids find entertaining? How dumb and gullible can they be?") Malchior complained.
("Oh, don't worry. Even if I'm being forced to endure such childish stories to get used to your anxiety inducing attacks, at least you'll be suffering with me.") Raven retorted in her head. So everyday after that, either after lunch or after a villain attack, the titans would go to the library to engage in their book club. Sure, even reading books meant for kids 1-4 years old was hard for Raven, both because of Malchior's influence and her pride being wounded with each book, but at the same time, it was also becoming easier because Raven was progressively associating the pleasure of torturing the dragon with exceedingly simplistic books with the anxiety attacks, like how one could possibly learn to associate pleasure to pain. While her friends kept on with their one respective books, the half-demon titan always read something different thanks to how short the children books were. One was about snuggling puppies that focused on joyous love, another had barnyard animals dancing around all willy-nilly. The fourth was about every single occupant, human and animal, was napping in a house which had a lesson in the end about not to have all of them sleep on top of a granny so that she doesn't suffocate from all that accumulated weight. One of the books that Malchior loathed was where everything was being given a goodnight during a full moon out of the window. Everything. As if that weren't enough to slowly drive the magical dragon insane, each week that passed their sessions increased up to 10 minutes, and Raven would try to read an additional book. By the 84th book, a little over a month since they've started, he couldn't take it anymore.
("Stop! Make this stop!") He screamed in her head, trying his hardest to make the titan become at least a little afraid, but Raven smirked.
("What are you talking about? You've made reading simple kids books into a roller coaster ride by the time we reached The Artic Train.") She gloated with a smile. ("That was what, book 52?")
("How can you stand such childish, simplistic stories?! They don't challenge you at all!")
("Eh, I've gotten used to it. It's like drinking water now, instead of warm flat soda. Sure, I can probably read my regular books and tomes again, but that wouldn't be as much fun with you in my head.")
("You find my frustration amusing?! No! I will not be your prisoner! Make this stop! Set me free!")
("Perhaps we can make a deal?")
("What do you want?!") Placing her book down, the satisfied titan coughed to get the attention of her friends.
"He finally wants to come out."
In exchange for peace of mind, Malchior has willingly let himself be transferred into one of Raven's tomes. What he didn't know however is that once in the book, he was locked in a chest again, put inside a rocket he and Raven weren't aware about before, and was sent out of Earth's atmosphere heading towards the sun.
"Ah, I finally feel alone in my head. It feels so good." The half-demon sorceress sighed contently.
"Glad to have you back to normal Raven." Robin said as he patted her back."
"Yes, it is so wonderful that you are dragon free. We should go for the shopping as celebration in the near future!" Starfire cheered. Raven figured she could go this once. She and Starfire haven't had any girl days or talks over the past month.
"So Raven, uh... I was wondering before or after that shopping trip you and I could go out and get another coffee? I mean... just as friends or teammates of course, if you want. Anything is cool with me." Beast Boy asked, feeling nervous. Raven could see why. He thought he was still in the dog house for messing with her spell book. While he still hasn't earned back the privilege of touching her intimately, the proposal was doable.
"Same time and place as last." She agreed. The green teen sighed in relief.
"Alright, now that all that is taken care of, how about we go and get some pizza for dinner?!" Cyborg recommended. All agreed wholeheartedly.
A/N: So, what do you think? I know, based on what the idea talked about it may not have been as action packed since Malchior was in this, but this was a heck of a lot funnier to me as I thought about how to end it. Annoying an enemy by reading kids books. The ending of this chapter was even inspired by the climatic battle of the MCU movie Dr. Strange. No spoilers, but if you've seen it, you'll recognize the similarities and dialogue choices. So, what do you think of my parody names and ideas of the books I chose? My sister especially chuckled at the parody of "That" by Steven Ding.