"BB, Star—bring them over here!"
Vic waved sharply at Garfield from across the room, and bent down, grabbing the ankle of the thief he had semi-electrocuted. The young man stirred slightly, letting out a soft moan as Vic dragged him unceremoniously across the floor towards the nearest wall.
Gar popped back up to his feet, dragging his attention away from the doorway where the blonde-haired girl had disappeared, Dick sprinting after her.
The man he had tackled scrambled up beside him, seeing his distraction, and lunged desperately for escape. Gar grabbed hold of him again with a growl, green fur sprouting over the back of his hands and arms like a strange pair of gloves, the musculature enlarging beneath, and yanked him back.
The man stopped struggling immediately, his eyes fixed on the sharp points of Gar's teeth. He put his hands up, allowing himself to be pushed towards the others.
Kori yanked up her captive, easily keeping hold of him as he tried to pull free, his arm twisted up behind his back. The ringleader of the little group lay curled into a fetal position on the floor next to her where Dick had left him, cradling his bloody face and cursing loudly—his words nearly unintelligible beneath his ruined nose—and she reached down and grabbed him as well, nearly lifting the fully grown man off his feet as she hauled him up.
Raven let the energy she had summoned in front of her dissipate. She climbed unsteadily to her feet, her chest aching where she had felt the bullet hit her shield.
Icy shards of fear radiated out from the people trapped behind her, slicing at her without relief, and she moved away from the clump of terrified civilians as quickly as she could.
She followed Kori and Gar as they dragged their charges over to Victor, using his bulk to hide from the stares she could feel directed at her from across the room.
They dumped the men in a pile against the wall near the remaining display counter—the only area relatively free of glass in the store. The skittering, frantic energy from the robbers hit her again as she drew closer, crawling all over her skin like little ants as Vic walked to each one, yanking off the ski-masks covering their faces.
"They're not—something's wrong with them," she said quietly to Vic. She wrapped her arms around herself tightly. The soft, dark blue fabric of her sweater fluttered around her, enveloping her body like a protective blanket.
He frowned at her, keeping one glowing red eye on the rather pitiful group corralled in front of them as Kori stepped back to scan the room for Dick. "What do you mean?"
"Their emotions are all over the place—they..." She shuddered, trying to shake off the sensations, and rubbed her arms. Her hood slid down onto her shoulders. "Everything feels frantic—out of control."
"They're probably on something—" Vic let out a heavy huff of annoyance, glaring down at them. "I mean—how else does this make sense? Trying to rob a store like this in a crowded mall in broad daylight, that's just all kinds of stupid—"
The big tattooed man with the bloody face surged back to his feet with a bellowed curse.
"Get off me!" he screamed, bloody spittle flying, and swung out at Gar's face with a fist. "You freak—"
Gar ducked the blow and shoved him back with a deep growl, fangs bared, the gold in his eyes brightening dangerously.
The man lunged towards Garfield again, and Raven released her iron grip on her power.
Energy surged through her veins, her eyes going completely black, burning with dark fire, her hair twisting and curling around a deathly pale face. Her shadow darkened impossibly beneath her feet, writhing and stretching across the floor.
She seized blindly at the cold chill of fear emanating from the people trapped in the store behind them—the fear that these men had caused—and pulled.
It turned ice cold in her grip, strengthening and sharpening into pure, undiluted terror, flooding the air, frozen, razor-sharp edges slicing at her, and she shoved it forwards.
The man lurched to a sudden stop mid-swing, his arm half-extended towards Gar, and gasped sharply. He staggered back until he collided with the wall, his pockmarked face draining of all color beneath the lurid smear of gore. Whites showed all the way around his eyes as he stared down at Raven in horror.
He slid back to the ground, pressed against the wall, and the other three bunched in on either side of him like cornered animals, their bodies trembling and hearts racing.
Cowering before her.
Gar straightened up, blinking down at them in confusion, completely bewildered by the reaction.
Then his ears perked up, his chest puffing out in pride, and he pointed down at them threateningly with one green finger, a stern expression on his face.
"Stay," he said firmly.
He turned around triumphantly with a cocky, lopsided grin, his hands on his hips, one pointed canine sticking out—and finally caught sight of Raven standing behind him.
"Oh—" He deflated, the smile sliding off his face, then rolled his eyes with a huff of breath, throwing up his hands in defeat.
Vic turned to look at her and had to fight not to jump back in alarm.
"Yikes girl!" He leaned away from her with a grimace, eyeing the shadows moving by his feet. "I thought the goal was not to scare them to death."
"Sorry." She dropped her eyes to the floor and stepped back, her shoulders curving inwards. She pulled back on the energy she had let escape, hauling it back into her skin, her features shifting back into a more normal appearance as she reestablished control.
Dick finally emerged back into the decimated store behind them. His gaze swept over their group at the side of the room, checking them for any obvious injuries as he marched back inside, then over the men cringing down against the wall, his eyes narrowing.
Vic nodded at him, letting him know they were fine, and Dick switched his attention to the tall counter at the back of the store.
A pair of spectacled eyes peeked out hesitantly at him from the side, the employee that had been trying to open the display cases crouching behind it.
He took a few slow steps towards the man and knelt down, putting himself on the same level. He murmured a few questions to him, his voice low and reassuring, just trying to get him to relax, and after a few moments, the employee let out an audible sigh of relief, wiping his forehead, and slumped back to sit against the wall.
Dick pushed back to his feet and made his way across the mess of the store towards the other people that had been trapped inside.
They still sat clumped together on the floor, terrified eyes fixed on the rest of his team, tension tight in the air.
He kept his movements smooth and slow as he approached, trying to radiate as much ease as he could as all eyes snapped to him. He stopped before he got too close to them, leaving a buffer of plenty of space between him and the group, his hands held relaxed and in clear view at his sides.
They gaped at him.
He smiled reassuringly, charm on in full force. "Everything's under control," he said in a calm voice, speaking slowly and clearly. "The police are on their way—they'll want to talk to you and make sure everyone's okay, and then you can all go home. Just stay calm, and we'll get this all sorted out." He smiled again, making deliberate eye contact with each person.
They didn't move, and he backed away a few steps, hands still slightly raised. Satisfied they would stay put, he turned back towards the center of the store.
Shards of glass crunched beneath his tennis shoes with every step, and he fixed his eyes on the ground, peering down at the remains of the jewelry displays scattered across the floor. He crouched down, picking at the debris with rapt attention.
"Rae—" He twisted back towards the other side of the room and waved her over sharply, eyes bright, a shot of excitement zinging through him.
She looked up at him in surprise, not moving, and he waved her over again impatiently.
She traded a wary glance with Gar.
Nervously, she made her way back across the room, Gar trailing behind her. Some of the group of civilians had begun to climb back to their feet, and they skittered back from her nervously with sharp inhales, mouths hanging open.
Fear poured out from them in icy waves, much colder and sharper than it had been before, and with a sinking twist of her gut, she realized that her powers had unintentionally effected their emotions as well—not just the criminals'—amplifying them to very nearly dangerous levels.
She winced, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead, doing her best to block them out.
Gar stepped up to her side, putting himself smoothly between her and the group of people, and smiled brightly at them.
Their eyes widened as they took in his green skin, and he gave a cheerful little wave, drawing as much attention away from her as he could.
His ears caught her faint breath of relief.
Dick stood back up as they reached him, tossing a diamond hair comb in the shape of a butterfly back into one of the shattered cases, and planted his hands on his hips, sharp blue eyes narrowed as he scanned the floor. A thin layer of dust covered one side of his face and body, the messy spikes of his dark hair coated with gray.
"What happened to you?" Gar asked incredulously.
Dick finally tore his attention away from the floor, his eyes dancing with light as he looked at them. "That girl?" he said, grinning like a fiend. "She threw a chunk of concrete at me."
They both just frowned at him blankly for a moment, the elated expression on his face not making any sense with the words they had just heard.
"Ummm…" Gar leaned forward, peering into his eyes suspiciously. "…Did she hit you on the head with it or something?"
Dick rolled his eyes, still grinning, and looked meaningfully at Raven. "She threw it at me—without touching it."
Raven's eyes snapped open wide. And the pieces finally clicked onto place.
"It was her," she breathed.
"Huh?" Gar looked between them in confusion.
"I felt the energy, but I didn't—I couldn't pinpoint the source with…everything else..." She trailed off, looking down at the ground, at the scattered debris that Dick had been examining.
The bits of glass and jewelry had been neatly separated as if someone had painstakingly picked through every piece—the shards of tempered glass lay scattered randomly across the carpet where the cases had shattered, untouched, but every piece of diamond jewelry, every single gemstone except for the butterfly, lay in a pile across the room where they had struck the walls and her shield.
"Concrete…" she said softly. "Stones—she was moving the stones."
"What do you mean she was moving the stones—" Gar gasped suddenly, his mouth dropping open, looking back and forth between the two of them. "Wait—I thought that was you…" he said, pointing weakly at Raven.
She shook her head, a brief flash of hurt crossing her face.
"So, you mean she's—"
"My guess would be another telekinetic." Dick grinned at Raven, raising an eyebrow in excitement.
Violet eyes flicked up to his, then back down, scanning across the glass scattered on the floor all around them. She bit her lip, nodding. "Maybe…" she said slowly.
"What?"
She looked back up to see both boys watching her attentively, and she winced. "It's just—I… wouldn't have been able to tell."
"Tell? What—"
"The difference between the glass and the stones." She waved at the spray of sparkling, unset diamonds that had embedded themselves in the wall—the loose, clear stones nearly indistinguishable from the tiny shards of glass.
The boys stared at her blankly.
She sighed and rubbed her temples, closing her eyes as she tried to explain. "I've never met someone else like...well…" She gestured helplessly at herself, words failing her. "But…it feels like…like touch—for me—when I handle something with my powers. I might have been able to differentiate between the bigger pieces of jewelry, maybe, but I don't think I would have been able to feel the difference between what was a diamond and what was just a bit of glass without serious concentration, and maybe not even then."
She pointed down to the pile of jewelry and precious stones scattered against the wall. Her eyes narrowed, brows pinching together. "She only moved the stones—not the glass—and probably only anything gold and silver because it was attached to a gemstone...I bet..."
Her voice trailed off and she glanced back over her shoulder, then walked over to the remains of the display cases, the boys following right behind her.
"See, look—" She showed them the jewelry left in the glass-strewn case, each piece still arranged neatly in its space—no gemstones on any of them, only metal. "Her power didn't effect these."
"Huh." Dick blinked, taking in that information. "So, maybe not a telekinetic, maybe something else. But definitely something."
Gar shrugged.
Raven nodded slowly, an unexplained twist of unease curling through her. "Yeah—"
Raised voices cut through their conversation, a sudden commotion breaking out from the group of civilians locked in the store with them.
An elderly woman pushed forward against several others visibly trying to calm her down, shoving her way past them with surprising force. Her large handbag swung from a white-knuckled fist as she marched towards Dick.
"Ma'am," Dick moved forward to intercept her apprehensively, raising his hands slightly to stop her aggressive forward momentum. "If you would wait over there, the police will be here soon, and they'll want to talk to you—"
"No I will not!" she shrieked.
Terror lanced through her words, her body shuddering with the beginnings of shock, heart racing, her heightened emotions sending her into a spiral of panic.
"You're all just standing there, what's wrong with you?!" She brandished her handbag threateningly at Dick and he retreated a step back from her, his mouth opening again to try to calm her down—
"She almost killed us!" Her hand shot out past him, one red-polished nail pointing in accusation and fear over his shoulder.
At Raven.
Raven flinched back, her eyes widening, physically recoiling as if the woman had reached out and slapped her across the face. Shadows darkened beneath her boots.
"Rae—" Dick shot a surprised glace at her over his shoulder in alarm, trying to corral the terrified woman back without touching her— "take everyone back to the Tower, I'll take care of the rest—"
"You can't just let her get away with it!" the woman shrieked. "Do something!"
"What?" Gar snapped his head around, staring at the woman in disbelief. "No she didn't—she helped you—"
"Gar, don't."
Gar barely registered Raven's small, quiet voice as she backed away.
He faced the woman fully as Dick tried to gently push her back, faced the whole room full of people—all of them looking at Raven with fear in their eyes.
And he realized that they had come to the same conclusion he had—that the destruction had been caused by the near-solid darkness that had whipped violently through the store, the other, unknown meta's powers completely invisible to anyone but Raven.
"She's the one that put up that shield that protected you—" he started.
"After she tried to blow up the store with her—her—" The woman shuddered, trying to find the words to describe what she had seen, not even considering that the explosion could have been caused by anyone else— "her unholy magic!" She shot a terrified glance at Raven as she hissed out the words—at the unnatural darkness pooling around her—panic making her voice jump to a higher octave, and finally stepped back, suddenly trying to put as much distance between the two of them as she could.
She crossed herself frantically.
Raven's back hit the wall, and she wrapped her arms tight around her chest, shrinking in on herself, unable to do anything else, that same terror on the woman's face mirrored on her own. The white plaster cracked behind her, dark crevices fanning out on either side of her body in a dark imitation of ghostly wings.
A shiver passed through the air, and every single person in the room tensed, fear shooting through them, every nerve ending standing on end.
"Rae—"
"Hey!" Gar stepped back, planting himself in front of Raven, ignoring Dick's warning tone. "No she didn't!"
A bit of a growl slurred his words, his jaw prickling as his teeth elongated in his gums.
"Gar, don't, please."
The tiny tremor in Raven's voice yanked him to a halt. He twisted to face her, keeping his body between her and the agitated crowd, half-blocking her from view. "But you didn't—you protected them—"
"It doesn't matter." She looked at him pleadingly, and he could have sworn he saw the glimmer of tears in her darkened eyes. "I told you," she whispered, "they—"
Her eyes flicked past him, to the concern filling Kori and Vic's faces from across the room.
She quickly dropped her gaze, swallowing the rest of the words, pushing them down with the writhing, screaming energy trying to claw its way out of her chest.
She reached up to tug her hood back over her head, her face falling into shadow.
The fear she had amplified beat at her mercilessly from every direction, and she pulled in deep, heavy breaths, the words of her meditation mantra repeating on an endless loop in her head, using every scrap of strength she had to pull back control of herself.
Her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides, and the raised edges of the hidden marks on her palms pressed into her fingers. A reminder.
"They're scared," she said evenly.
No emotion touched her words, her voice low and flat and completely devoid of any feeling. "They're just lashing out, and I'm the obvious target."
Gar gaped at her, his mouth opening to argue—and her words from before came back to him.
She had refused to use her powers to transport these people out, had refused to even try, and had been filled with blind panic at the thought of even attempting it.
This girl—this insanely powerful girl that could probably fry him with half a thought, and who had just faced down a mob of armed gunmen without hesitation—had been absolutely terrified out of her mind of exposing herself to these people, of letting them catch a glimpse of her powers.
Just ordinary humans, nothing scary or powerful about them at all—and they had reduced her to shreds with a handful of words.
"Raven—"
She heard the change in his voice—felt the shift in his emotions, the sickening twist of pity and sadness.
Something stirred deep beneath the surface of his mind, a bright spark of something fierce and primal coming to life within him, its hackles raised. Something with teeth.
She shook her head sharply, forcing herself to look up into his golden eyes to make him stop before he made the situation any worse. "Don't," she snapped, "it's not worth it."
She turned away from him, pushing away from the damaged wall.
He spun to follow her, reaching out for her arm, and a quick movement in his periphery snagged his attention.
One of the robbers huddled on the floor on the other side of the store lunged suddenly to the side—Victor and Kori's attention momentarily distracted—and grabbed a dark shape up off the ground where it had been partially hidden, lying forgotten in the shadows beneath the remaining jewelry counter.
He swung the weapon up, his eyes wild, face completely bloodless with unthinking terror, and pointed it straight across the room.
At Raven.
Gar moved without thinking.
He threw himself forward, grabbing her around the middle and crashing into her with his full weight as the sharp crack of sound reached his ears.
Fire exploded across his shoulder, a razor-sharp line of pain burning across his back as they fell, his arms wrapped desperately around her, one hand clutching her head against his chest.
And then they hit the ground with a bone-jarring crack, pain lancing through both of them as Gar slammed down helplessly on top of her in a tangle of limbs.
"Raven!"
Panicked screams erupted from every direction, Kori's shriek piercing through the chaos.
Vic yanked the gun away with a wordless roar, the metal pieces cracking in his silver fist. He grabbed a handful of the front of the man's clothes with his other hand and hauled him into the air, his thin legs kicking helplessly as Vic held him up off the ground.
A pulse of darkness exploded out of Raven.
She flipped their bodies, Gar going limp as he landed sprawled on his back on the carpet beneath her, the walls and ceiling a spinning blur around him.
Flickering black flames poured off of her, power rippling through the air as she knelt over him, pressing him down into the floor, her hand a searing brand against his chest. Her eyes turned to two pits of burning black in her pale face, zeroing in on the man on the other side of the room, dark veins scrawling out across her cheeks.
Red light glowed to life in their depths.
The delicate lights above her shattered in a spray of sparks and glass, the entire store dropping into sudden darkness, all light sucked into the blazing rings of red around her pupils.
She stood, and midnight shadows shot out across the room, monstrous black claws shredding through the carpet and gouging furrows into the concrete beneath, shards of glass flying in every direction—reaching for the man dangling from Victor's fist.
The human let out a horrified scream, hands scrabbling desperately against the metal arm holding him aloft.
"Raven, STOP!"
Dick threw himself in her path, grabbing her arms as Kori sprinted across the room towards her and Garfield.
Energy shot up through his fingers in stabbing jolts of electricity, shoving him stumbling away, but he got right back into her face, fighting against the instinctual panic rearing up inside of him as he met those nightmarish eyes.
As he felt the bloodlust screaming beneath her skin.
"STOP!" he shouted again. He braced himself, arms out wide, desperately trying to block her from advancing any farther.
The shadows just curved around him, flowing like water around a stone in their path, arcing again for their target, and he shot a desperate glance at Garfield behind her, hoping with everything he had to not see a body lying lifeless on the floor.
A strangled gasp of relief tore out of his chest.
The boy pushed dazedly up into a sitting position as Kori reached him, cradling one limp arm to his chest. Blood soaked the shoulder of his gray t-shirt, dripping down his green skin.
"Gar is fine—he's FINE!" Dick shouted frantically.
Burning red eyes locked on his.
"Look at him—he's fine!" He flung an arm out, pointing behind her, trying to force her to turn.
The darkness shuddered, hesitating, and very slowly, Raven turned, the sinister glow of her eyes flicking to Gar.
Dick pressed his advantage.
"Get everyone back to the Tower!" he commanded. "I'll handle the police, get them out of here—now! GO!"
She turned back to face him, and he saw Raven again behind that monstrous face—saw the girl drowning within that abyss of power, struggling to regain control.
He pushed her back a step, hands stinging as they met her body.
"GO!"
Her entire body shuddered, and the shadows redirected, swirling up to envelop Kori, Gar, and Victor in a heartbeat.
Raven grabbed hold of each them tightly, closing her eyes, focusing only on them, on getting them to safety.
She dropped through the floor as if it had turned to empty air beneath her, pulling the others down into the rushing, swirling, maelstrom of darkness, the endless void swallowing them whole.