Authors notes: Made major changes to chapter 97 which mostly involves how Beast Boy apologises to Raven. Now the chapter starts off with a battle piece and ends up with Raven and Beast Boy stuck in a room together where they have to interact, talk to each other and now Beast Boy is forced to apologise directly. Which I think works much better and makes Raven continuing her story feel more earnt by Beast Boy instead of just given.

Chapter 103

The Knowing Cowards.

Ace moved through the depressingly foggy graveyard of dead personality traits. Grey trailed behind, looking sadly at what Ace supposed were her sisters.

The place had a sense of foreboding about it with the low fog eerily lapping at the base of the headstones.

Grey knelt at the grave of Generosity and touched it sadly. She felt the soil and ran her hand over the grass in front of it, there was deep longing in her face.

"Zagreus sits inside your head,'

"Zagreus lives among the dead,'

"Zagreus sees you in your bed,'

"and eats you when you're sleeping!"

Came the song carried by the wind through the opening in the cavern.

"What is that creepy rhyme?" Ace asked.

"It's something the Doctor taught me as a kid." Grey said, "It's a nursery rhyme from the Time Lord culture. The Doctor said one interpretation of it is that Zagreus is a mischief maker who pulls on our strings, trying to get us to do bad stuff. I don't want to do bad stuff, people hate me when I do bad stuff. By chanting it we are supposed to drive Zagreus out of our heads."

"So you do a bad thing and you blame this mythical creature instead of taking responsibility for your own bad actions?" Ace asked. Grey swallowed. "Like, 'the devil made me do it!'"

"I never thought of it like that before." Grey looked distant.

"Yeah, I think you must've misunderstood something. The Doctor's never been one to let people get away with blaming some demon or myth for causing their own bad behaviour. Unless you're really are being mind controlled. Which, trust me, does happen."

"I have trouble centring myself and calming my emotions. Especially anger." Grey said.

"Yeah, I can tell." Ace said.

The wind blew, and along came the rhyme again.

"Zagreus taking time apart,'

"Zagreus fears the hero heart,'

"Zagreus seeks the final part,'

"the reward that she is reaping."

Ace perched herself on a wall and felt something shift in her jacket. She pulled a large book from her pocket. The one she'd found earlier on the floor. Subtle whispering came from the pages, like it was alive.

"Where did you get that?" Grey asked, up on her feet in an instant when she noticed.

"I found it when I first fell in here." Ace said. "Is it yours?"

"Yes, in a way it is mine now." Grey said laying a hand on it. "It was my tutors spell book. A gift from the Doctor. It means a lot to me."

"Why's it whispering?" Ace asked.

"I don't know, it didn't before." Grey looked up at Ace guiltily. "I hope there's nothing in there that'll make you hate me."

"Hey, kid." Ace said, patting the younger girl on the shoulder. "It's just a book. I've read all the bollocks in Mein Kampth. There's nothing in here that'd cause anyone to hate anything. I'll show you." Grey's eyes fell like she didn't believe her. "Oh, come on, cheer up." Ace said. "There's nothing in here that'll make me hate you. I might think less of the main toe-rag herself up there, but frankly I'm too old to be hating people."

"Maybe I should open it!" Grey said hurriedly. "It might hurt you."

Before Grey could stop her Ace opened the book. It didn't have pages to speak of. It was full of a bright light, and fog spilt from that light.

Voices emerged from the book. A wisp of smoke formed into a person. A boy in his teens. He was wearing some constraining, hooded grey robes.

"I'm sorry for what was done to you, Raven." The boy said, "It was wrong of us. We should've supported you and not pushed you away, I'm sorry."

Grey stared at the boy. "He took part in my torment." She commented.

The next ghost was a woman. "I'm sorry I blamed you for hurting my child. I realise now you were only trying to help. I let others influence my thinking, and for that I apologise. May Azar guide you." The spectre vanished.

Grey shook her head. "She blamed me for a bump on her child's head when I tried to save it from a falling rock. She didn't sound so generous at the time. The last time I saw her she said I was a monster."

Another spectre. "Raven, I know you have a lot of problems and a lot of issues, and I know the monks bully and torment you hoping for a reaction. I just hope you can forgive me for not acting to aid you. Know that a lot of us have known and supported you from behind the scenes. But we were unable to act."

Grey stared at this one like something had echoed into her core.

"Why didn't you act?" Grey asked the spectre. "Why didn't you make it stop?" The ghost couldn't see nor hear her plight. "Why didn't you tell me I was believed...?" Grey's eyes welled up, "Why are you telling me now..." grey looked down. "When it's too late?"

Ace shut the book, dropped from her perch and hugged the smaller girl.

The glass drum rose and fell with the wheeze and groans of the Master's TARDIS. Unlike the Doctors TARDIS this one smaller, and felt very clinical. Very clean. Very practical. The walls were black with the roundels glowing a dull white through the walls. The console was dark grey and the column had a red triangular prism within.

This TARDIS had a very different reaction to Raven than the Doctors had. Whereas the Doctor's TARDIS had welcomed her as a guest, this one saw her as an interloper. Once she was done with Azarath she was going to make this time ship respect her, it was 'her' time ship now. Raven was evil after all, so she'll get the Master out of the picture and take the ship for her own.

Then what? She didn't know. It depended on what her father wanted them to do next.

How they were going to bring Azarath to it's knees was another problem. But the Master had a plan.

"I have been working on this plan for centuries." The Master said, "I just needed the right opportunity to press forwards, and with both Willard Roth and Raven Roth finally the plan can come to fruition." Raven listened to the Master's plan and what would happen to the whole of Azarath. She smiled at the opportunity this would grant her for sweet revenge.

Raven looked at her Father. She looked forward to seeing him properly in the flesh. To be able to touch him, to hug him at long last.

Her mind went to the Doctor. She remembered the rare occasions when she'd let him hug her. It had felt nice.

"I'm proud of you, my little Rae-Rae." Father said. Raven shook her head.

"Please, don't call me that." Raven said hurriedly. "Sorry, just... memories I'd rather forget."

"I understand the Monks have been treating you poorly?"

"They told me I was a monster. Treated me like I was a universal atomic bomb that would destroy everything. I was a mindless weapon to them, instead of a person." Raven said bitterly.

"I'm sorry." Father said.

"There was nothing you could've done. It was all down to them." Raven said. "They chose this path, now it'll come to bite them."

"I know. But if I'd not stood up to them like I'd done, you might've had an easier life." Father said.

"An easier life, being brainwashed by Azarath." Raven scoffed. "I'd just become one of their little pawns in their games, and some other 'inconvenience' would've taken my place."

"And soon, the order of Azarath shall fall." The Master said. "You and Willard will rise to produce a new order, a more just order, a..."

"Can it!" Raven bit. "I have no intention of letting you anywhere near power."

"My dear, Raven." The Master went.

"Call me that again and I'll remove your skin." Raven threatened, her eyes so piercing they could slice his skin off themselves.

"What do you know of me?" The Master asked. "Just what the Doctor has told you, I'm guessing."

"You hypnotised me, forced me into the TARDIS, tried to brainwash me, and when that didn't work you dangled my real father in front of me." Raven said, "you fit what the Doctor told me of you pretty well so far."

"So how am I any different from you?" The Master asked. "You know I try to do good in my own way. My methods just lie outside the Doctor's acceptable morals. As some of yours do. The Shaydes, for example."

"Don't you mention the Shaydes." Raven said through clenched teeth. Some part of her wondered how he found out about them.

"Ultimately, you made the right call. I've seen an alternative timeline where they ran amok in the galaxy where they originally spawned."

"The Doctor means well." Father said, "But his morality is flawed. How many could he have saved if he'd dealt with the Daleks at the point of their creation? How many saved if he'd just wipe out the Cybermen while in their tombs on Telos? His insistence that everything deserves life doesn't just come back to bite him. But everyone else besides him."

Raven's eyes rolled to the Master and stared. He was a being who caused untold misery and unhappiness in his own quests. Yet, it could all stop if the Doctor just put a bullet in the Master's head.

A bleeping noise came from the console. "We're in orbit in the Azarathian dimension." The Master said.

Raven's head flinched for a second as something slammed into her mind. She tried to push it aside, but it came again. Voices... Many voices. She gripped her head and tried to focus them out, but they spoke to her. They told her things. She listened.

"Raven, my dear, are you alright?" Father asked. Raven's eyes snapped open, they were red with utter fury.

"They... they knew...?" Raven asked the air. She snarled in utter, burning hatred. "They all fucking knew!"

Raven had a tiny bit of sympathy for The Monks of Azarath. But now they were all so dead!

Ace hugged the Grey Raven for what felt like hours. The girl was so moved by what the spectres had said. Though the context of it went over Ace's head.

"Before I became powerful, the Monks of Azarath would pick on and bully me." Grey explained. "I had a short temper, but some of the monks wanted me to get angry. They wanted me to lash out. They wanted me to act evil." She sniffed. "So they could claim I'd gone mad and was attacking people for no reason."

"Violence is rarely the answer, especially on the playground." Ace said.

"It wasn't just the children, but some of the adults too. They said I was too dangerous to be allowed to roam free. They let the torment happen because each outburst eroded my freedoms in the Temple to the point where I was almost exiled to my own dwellings. When they'd pick on me I'd try to walk away, but they'd follow me. They'd start with teasing words, then they'd poke and prod me. They'd go so far as to pull on my chakra's. If they failed, they'd try something else to anger me. I tried to disappear into a dark, dank tunnel. But they'd find me, dragged me out and torment me until I lost my temper. It was all just a fun game to them, and I thought no one believed me. I had no friends, I had no support, and I had no future..." Grey began to cry again.

"Hey, hey." Ace gently soothed. "According to those ghosts you had support. People believed you."

"Why didn't they tell me?" Grey asked, "That last woman was two years younger than I remember. One year ago she stood and watched me get tortured, and she did nothing to stop it. Despite knowing 'I' wasn't the problem." Ace looked down, then back up to Grey.

"Yeah, sometimes peoples principles get a backseat when their social status is in danger." Ace said. "Perhaps this is the key to dealing with the fifty foot rage monster out there." Ace said, hefting up the book.

Grey stared at the book.

"I wouldn't count on it."

"Well, well, well, look who we have here!" Ace and Grey spun on their heel as from the sky descended the flapping forms of the Pink and Green Raven's. "Found you!" Pink said cheerily as they landed, giggling like this was a fun game. They stood like a pair of hooded cult members, one smiling cheerily, the other staring with intensity.

From her cloak Green produced a small, empty milk bottle.

"Time for you two to go back where you belong." Green said, pointing the bottle at them.

A child like giggle came from the tree above. Ace could see a shadow moving between the branches. This was something new. It had a cheshire cat grin on it's face and it was cloaked in the garb of another Raven, but totally black.

"Zagreus sits inside your head,'

"Zagreus lives among the dead,'

"Zagreus sees you in your bed,'

"and eats you when you're sleeping!" That hadn't come from the sky nor the wind. It came from that shadow.

"Oh no." Grey backed away. "Not her!"

"Who's that?" Ace asked. But Grey couldn't speak.

"Why don't you show them what's in the book?" The shadowy Raven asked, perched on the tree branches. "Make us all feel better like those monks intended us to feel."

"What is she talking about?" Green asked.

"Hey, Ace has the book of Azar!" Pink cried pointing. Grey stood in front of Ace and the book. The book was wrenched from Ace's fingers.

"NO!" Grey cried. The book sailed into Greens hands. Spirits began to spill from between the pages. Green opened the book and both she and Pink observed the spectres and the well wishers speaking to them. Light shot out of the book and dived into their eyes. The spirits flowed to fill every corner of the cavern and beyond. All with words of encouragement, sorrow and apology.

Ace relaxed. The two Raven's looked both shocked and serene as they watched the messages play out. Then came that foreboding feeling again.

"Is it my imagination, or is it getting darker?" Ace asked. The faces on Pink and Green became hollow, their breathing intensified.

Their fists began to clench.

"They... they knew..." Green and Pink said together. "They knew... and they did nothing! They knew... THEY FUCKING KNEW!? THEY ALL FUCKING KNEW!" Pinks and Green's eyes flashed red, their teeth became pointy. They both hissed at the air like untamed demons.

A loud bellow of rage screamed on the air from outside causing the ground to shake. A giant fist came through the opening, ripping open the cavern. Rage's face glared in at them.

"They knew all this time, and they let me suffer!" Rage bellowed. She smashed into the cavern again ripping it apart. "I HATE THEM! I HATE THEM!"

"I think this has gone a bit wrong." Ace said backing away, Grey pulling her to make them go while Green and Pink were in a rage trance. Ace didn't need to be told twice and they both made for the cave they'd entered from. "What's wrong with them? The Monks apologised didn't they?"

They dived for the cave and watched the cavern start to collapse in on itself. While the cavern fell the Shadow Raven danced on the air, relishing the destruction of Raven's ordered mind.

"We used to think Azarath was judgemental only because of their ignorance of me. From that perspective we had a vague hope that one day we could convince them otherwise, and then it'd all stop and our trespassers would be punished." Grey explained. "But they weren't ignorant of my treatment at all. They knew about it, they believed me all along, they watched and did nothing to stop it."

"But they've told you..." Ace started.

"They've told me now in a book only I can read." Grey said. "In a space and time where the social ramifications of their apology cannot hurt them. I wanted to convince one soul that I wasn't the monster and hoped they'd be brave enough to stand up with me against my tormentors. I had dreamed that Azarath would wake up and stand shoulder to shoulder with me and deal with the rot that went against Azars teachings. But they already believed me, so many of them already believed me. But their social standing in the Order mattered more to them than the pain I was going through. The pain they were so sorry about. They were never going to stand up to anyone."

Grey looked back at the destruction.

"I preferred Azarath to be hatefully ignorant, but they're worse. They were Knowing Cowards."

To Be Continued...

Authors notes: Next update might take another while as I'm still going through the story and making minor tweak's in preparation for what's to come. ;)