Teen Titans – Side Stories and After – Snippets; Foxes Upon Foxes and Magical Girls Galore
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The Forbidden Myth – Into the Lair of the Underground King
Skipping on ahead to Rokuro's betrayal in order to save his companion from his father's threats. Not my best but hope it explains half of the arcs from earlier.
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"Father! Stop this!!" The ebony mane of a teen; one of a noble and accursed lineage struck out as his voice echoed across the walls of the great temple. His comrades were sprawled on their bellies like the insects the teen's father saw them all as.
Inferior.
Ungrateful for he, having been granted amnesty of their kind by his reign, and for his son having forsaken his father – yet that wasn't all true. His child was noble and too pure for words to measure. He had the love of his allies but, Roku wanted none of that to pass.
That boy's fate was still undecided. All of the demon's coaxing and pruning up till now had led them here. The heroes would fight the dragon and win, was what they'd thought. His son would never get to lead them back into the light, not with his heart etched in darkness since that fateful day.
~I'll not spake twice! Rokuro…You'll come to your sire with arms wide, yet I see nothing. Not a glimmer of hope. Not a speck of trust left in your companions.. ~ Mocked the godless one; a male who was both slender and strong with long black hair and horrid red snake's eyes. It was only an act, for his more human side was only revealed to those he trusted.
Or bedded down with. The boy saw this as a time to ask himself if his friends could live, should he decide to take the demon's offer to train him, to recreate what Catalina had stolen from the king's arms. To woo him over to the dark side where he could not scream for mercy ever again. The boy would be a dark prince, a tool to find A and destroy her world, allowing him access to the Universal realms and finally…
Ah, such were the stories of horrible monsters and prince's hearts being taken or devoured whole. Why was this any different? The lord Veravakumu; a son of old India by rite, had his teeth showing under the red mist this demon dragon spelled forth to distract them.
"He won't follow you…Richard! He is not your obsession! Not, your demi – God, never our lives…. We will stop your rule from erasing our world! Mark us, daemon scum!!" He growled and began to change. Verra was a fox that could transform into a dark wolf when provoked, as he hit the force field that held the young Ainsley child from his true protectors. The thing was, he did not wish to hide from the man he had come to discover, the being which had brought him to seek out the madness in his eyes…
~ See how they call out? You are what they wish to kw, but is that all we are? ~ Roku took to his form that held only a hand out as his eyes changed as well to gaze upon the broken prince's scornful blue.
~How you embody the one I trusted long ago…you will come for me. I won't make this promise less. They however, will ruin you. Train you to lie and take what does not belong of your birth rite. If you decide to lay down your sword, I will spare your miserable allies…~
Richard looked over his shoulder at Arianna, a Star capital princess from a second world in the galactic realm above. Logarth, a fae changeling who was still breathing and growling in and out of a trap created to catch wily beasts. Ravenna. A sorceress who could call to her past life and saw the future, warning them of their journey since the very start. Victor Stonewall. A metal worker from the past who had helped to forge the team's many weapons used to defeat the dragon lord's minions. And, Kayumon and Greg, who were now more understanding of how their actions affected the whole realm.
He didn't want to lose them. They were his family. His only pride left….but it had to be so. Richard returned his eyes to nod at the king, watching as the man's grin only made him uneasy, more than ever.
"I want to have Sir Gregory, Princes Verra, and Kayumon to come with me. They are my allies and will guard my very soul by their unending hatred… of what you have done to my people, your time will not flourish here again. What you have done to the spirit kin, and I will do as I must to protect them…" He kneeled and placed down his long sword for all to see, right at the king's floating feet.
The red eyed evil smiled and lifted a palm to dispel the fog that kept his allies sickly and useless, only to open up a vortex from behind. "Come. We have time to consider your initiation into my ranks, young prince." He was back to his old ways, so Richard looked over his shoulder and stood, watching Arianna as her eyes had never seemed so wide in all that time…Right then, Greg and the others could not protest. Verra reverted his form and Kay too stayed as mortal in face as his will could muster. "We will return, grant word to the gods that we will be the ones to vanquish all the devil here hath wrought." Smirked the white-haired relic beside his young charge. Roku seemed to ignore their declaration, instead ushering the pack through to never see the light of day.
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In the dungeon chambers, the sorcerer and his kin were left. The witless Verra knawed at the magical binds round his throat, while Kayu attempted to meditate and leave his body to look around the king's keep.
"Have you located the child?" Greg used his powers to try and further send word to his own allies back in the Eternal realm.
"By gods….no…" Groaned Kayu. He panted, finding the dragon's magic to be impossible to withstand.
"He has us in a cage, and the price was…"
"The boy's loyalty…" Verra growled at the bars holding them. "HEY! Anyone have a brain out there?? Let us out!! NOW!"
The guards were there, but not as easy to spot. This cage one could not run from, could not hide. Going deep, deep underground, it was a fortress. A single hole and gaping right through the void itself. As if a pit of ends…
"We cannot leave, we cannot call out for assistance…. We…. mummy…. Lady Sayu is going to riot! –
"Cool it off, cloud – chaser!" Verra sniffed and tried to look for a crack in the walls. "Aha! Dark to dark…. I got the answer…Anyone know a good curse??" It snickered and Greg turned pale white all the while.
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Roku looked over his newest guest, just as being seated at his throne did very little to sway the teen to come sit beside his father. They were at a divide and this, had to cease if hi power was ever to be realized.
"You are not welcome in any town that you and your former all –
"They will undo your spell, and I will soon go free with my guardians." The boy huffed with his magical cuffs jangling at his wrists freely. Roku frowned and leaned into his palm to his side, just to study the brat some more. "Why have you not done it, try to kill me?"
"I…It would be troublesome to try, you are unarm –
"Why would a god care about mercy, anyway…I am no god, my child. I am…Well, Eternal is too rich to think of us as being. My kind were the first, Immortals." The boy froze. That powerful??
"The ones who made mad bow in such matrimony to their deity." His king smiled below his boy's wistful thinking. "I will do not a thing to you, yet the gods I wish to burn for challenging me, they shall perish. I will have you see why they cannot survive in our world –
"I won't stay and rule beside a demon." The boy projected such animosity onto the godless figure that it sounded amusing, almost cute. If he could only corrupt that frame that stood before his throne…. How to do it…
"Then as a first order to your captor, you must kneel. At my feet. Can you do that? Prostrate yourself before a demon, all to save the ones you claim to care for?"
Richard opened his mouth, yet the king's eyes pulled him as his feet started up the dais steps. "My lord…. stop…...what?"
"You spake so well…" The king's legs moved to pull apart, as if he wanted –
"No! Unhand me!! Not ever will I –
"You MUST." The king leered at the teen with an angrier voice. "You cannot deny what you must do to stop the war I intend to start…Maybe your mind I too weak to see it, yet your body clearly knows what I may do to have it at my side…. Now, sit!" With a wave, the teen's feet moved to find that a second throne seat had appeared to bind his body down to it. The chains at his legs cut deeply, making the poor hero scream in his throat at this type of torture.
"There, you will stay by my side until I am ready to retire to our rooms –
"NO! –
A hiss to his side and Richard saw the dragon's eyes as his head fell, afraid to look up. "You WILL. You MUST." It spelled to him as he trembled in his chair, afraid now to flee from it.
"You know nothing of your rite to rule, so I shall teach you. My child, you will never be without…I promise…But for now? We shall see to business about MY kingdom." Roku waved for a face to be let in, and his hart sank.
"Verra….Greg……H-
"You were summoned to my throne room to be, tested of your loyalty to our realm. Once you have fallen far, you cannot leave. I won't have it. The boy has bound you to do as I say."
The hackles on Verra's back rose. "We are not guard dogs for any of your pig – relatives! The queen has that we only guard her –
"Adopted. Did you know, my child?" Roku looked to a shocked Richard as his eyes never left the floor.
"Wh…what? What is he –
"Don't listen to him, Prince Richard! Your mother –
"Is dead." Roku watched as Richard's eyes loaded - over with endless tears. "She's been dead since you were first sired, by us. And, me. And in fact, the reason that I could not claim you was because of that dead queen's cousin... Did Queen Catalina tell you the whole tale? That she is a relative of the woman who was killed for defying me?"
The prince panted. "Stop…." Richard couldn't listen… "He couldn't! She…. she raised us…. Alicia, Cecelia…. We…were –
"Never your family to know." Roku hissed. "Only you; kept all out of pity for a dead queen to keep her noble namesake. I came to take you back, but your memories of me were…. reduced to a point. As if that time we spent "bonding" had never existed. Did Isa work to keep my son from me? Did it work??" Shouted the dragon to the foxes at his feet.
"No…. you…. you told …why…. Why?? Why…." To the boy, this was a casting to stall, to take over….
"Yes…We were once in tandem, then they took you back…I should also tell you about that craft you carry; it is very powerful….in fact…" Roku leaned over to whisper into the boy's ear. "You were never going to stay a prince. They were going to use you as their shield. Just as I was tossed out for trying to warn my brothers of such ends by their hands…" The dragon hissed on, seeing the boy's eyes go from blue to a striking scarlet.
"You…can't hurt him. He's not a tool!" Kay bit back the bile rising in his throat. "Stop this madness right now!"
"Or what?" Roku scoffed as Richard's bind only grew tighter round his wrists. "You'll try to dismember my kind with your sword? Are you not aware of WHAT this new pact means for your fates?? I own you; the boy sold you off to save his family…You meant nothing, only as a sacrifice. And They know EVERYTHING I intend to take from you. Every thought. Every dream, and every ounce of power…."
"You cannot , Raku." Greg saw the dragon's smile vanish. "You cannot take what was never yours to begin with. I know of your past. Who truly holds your hand through the pain that's been inflicted upon your hide. We are the same, and I…Am the one who was cursed by Lady Lil. Ardius…Do you not remember?"
The dragon paused. Then with a flicker, he'd decided that his old wizarding pal was worth a nickel.
"Yes, I do…The fool who stole that women's heart for cheap coin and beer. I feel as if I'm glad you are as I see you now…In such a state that you shall remain, mixing poisons for me as you slowly go mad!" He waved to a guard by the door. "Take the wizard up to the tower! The other two foxes can rot in my dungeons until I decide what to do with these mongrels…"
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"Now…As for the initiation that I promised…"
"I…" Richard blinked and sputtered out his own protests when the spell had left him alone. "I AM NOT YOURS!"
A grab by a single tail; a red one, that tangled round the prince's throat, he was lifted and swayed from side to side as the king walked them out into another room. A very strange place to be, while the light dimmed completely from this space and all hope dwindled at a speck's distance away.
"No! Stop this!! You ar –
"I am going to change what they hath done. I am going to do as I must to see to my reign among their world – to be as I wish….and You?" Roku sneered up at the boy as his body was plopped and tossed into a stone center. The brightest sliver of moonlight crept in, just before a door was shut and the world, turned into everlasting night before the prince's bloodshot eyes.
"You'll combat your fears, here. Afterwards, I have a special recipe for you to enjoy to make your stay here, a permanent one." The only light cast upwards was a hole in the sky with grates upon it, a well…no…it had to be up so much higher than that or lower….the dark was scalding hot as Richard gripped his arms and trembled. As if a tiny biting sensation blossomed across his back and all over from the dragon's birth – marks he'd earned for uncovering the king's secrets.
"Lord Roku!! Stop this!! LET me go!! PLEASE!!!" The boy shouted and banged on the walls as a sensation so chilling took his body and had it plastered back. He was tainted and the moon was no moon, but a sun. It burned his flesh as the rays drew closer, then loped around again as the sun shattered his hope, -the darkness was his comfort. Oh, what a fool he'd been! Roku was calling to him when the others had forewarned of the dragon's trickery! Now, he was bound to become the very monster he'd sworn to end…
No. He still could track the sun….like a dial…he saw it! The pattern crossed over, so he'd step away fm the rays as they…and the door was there! He tugged at it. No. No! It was bolted in place! He threw his hands to his face and wailed out. No one heard it, not a soul ever could…
All maybe but one, in the clouds as he tried to find peace in the pain that had been granted to him, body and bone.
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Roku is a murderer who is going to corrupt his son to open the gates to a place that shunned his approval long ago, that's why he fell into Lori's world. He was stranded due to A shutting Roku out for wanting to become a real god based around power tactics and manipulation. She said no so he did wat he could to make the gods sorry. Took a child blessed by them, had another kid, kid was taken away, he went after mother – mother was killed – kid was forced to go into hiding with witnesses, dragon got back kid, guardians got kid back and erased his marks and memories of daddy, dad comes to leave message with son years later, kid goes on journey and then sacrifices himself to save friends…only to regret it later. Sam old shtick! For more, wait and see! Gets messier from here.
