Raven disliked when things disturbed her tranquility, whether that was an alarm breaking the sound of silence within the tower or some idiot pulling her away from her latest novella she had snuck into her room, hidden amongst her stack of actual educational reads about 12th-century demonology.
Admittedly, she had long since grown tempered to such disturbances. The repeated exposure to her teammate Beast Boy had made sure she had plenty of practice on both fronts, from blaring noise to unrelenting pestering. Don't even get her started on the mess of thoughts and feelings he bombarded every room he walked in.
However, despite how much she numbed herself to external stimuli, the one thing she didn't ignore was the people's minds screaming for help. The day she stopped helping was the day she became her father's child, and the day she became her father's child, the world would be better off coming to an immediate end than whatever horrors would be bestowed upon it.
So, in the face of a greater hell, she would stare down whatever menace that came to Jump City, triggering the tower's alarms, any day. Even if it looked like a construction site came to life as a golem, she'd take it over the indifference of evil.
"Cinderblock!" Starfire, the leader of the Titans, shouted. "Surrender now. Peacefully."
Her voice echoed down and across the city street from Raven and her teammates to where the animated concrete mammoth impolitely roared back in response. Swinging its arms down into the asphalt of the road, the ground fractured outwards, spiking upwards into the air, sending her teammates into a panic as they dived out of the way to safety.
It would seem 'surrender' and 'peacefully' were not in the cards for the day.
Raven merely levitated from the ground with aid from her magic, avoiding the fracturing altogether. Up in the air beside her, Starfire glanced at the team below them, who was quickly finding their footing. As a collective, the team looked to one another, checking if each other were okay.
And when everyone deemed the others good, they turned back to their foe. Raven could hear the unspoken chant of Titans, go! echoing in her mind. The rhythm Nightwing had established months ago still lingered even in his absence.
Doing her part, Raven pushed her hands out before her, channeling a black miasma that she could bend to never-ending purposes. Her soul-self blasted outwards with the speed of an arrow as it struck true to its mark.
Raven felt the golem's mind spark with a growing rage at being struck by what it deemed such a small insignificant creature….
She suppressed the scoff at its thoughts. It wasn't like the golem could comprehend enough thought to know how much she restrained. No one ever could fathom the weight upon her shoulders, hidden behind a mask of control.
Therefore, she didn't allow her mind to feel bad about upping the force of her blast. It could handle such a small creature, after all.
Cinderblock flinched as the blast now chipped away the stone from its face. It simply raised a hand to block the beam of demonic energy, uncaring as its arm now began to chip and fragment to the street below.
Its rage grew, pregnating the air and forcing Raven to shift her mental focus to ward away the emotion lest it overwhelm her.
Starfire immediately followed up the opening blast with her own. Rocketing forward, a flaming green spectral of light surrounded her fist, and the alien princess warrior was quick to connect. Her uppercut which had put down many before in one hit only forced the golem to stagger back. Unsteady stomps crushed parked cars and toppled trees planted in the sidewalk. Cinderblock's arm, which had once warded off Raven's power, now stabbed through a building as it caught itself from falling.
Like blaring sirens echoing off skyscrapers, screams from nearby civilians erupted from the fresh wave of destruction as they hurried out of the buildings they once thought safe.
For Raven, It was so sudden, like a flash of lightning. The air around her shifted from only being filled with Cinderblock's rage to a flash flood of fear from the helpless. It surged down upon Raven's empathic presence with unrelenting waves of noise. Their waves were far greater than the rogue wave that Beast Boy ever could be.
She shrunk under the tsunami of terror that slammed down upon her mental shields. Her brain rattled as if struck by a thousand hammers all trying to create their own crack in her cranium as if she was the Liberty Bell.
Raven's hands braced her own head, her knees touched the fractured ground. Completely vulnerable.
She passionately disliked when these episodes happened. It was a painful reminder that her resistance was still flawed, and imperfect.
She had to mend the breaks, quickly. She could go back and reinforce them later with some proper meditation.
Raven took a breath, eyes clenched shut as she pushed away the noise of the world. Under the assault of dozens of minds, she had to ingest their emotions and breathe them free from her soul. The last thing anyone needed was her powers going crazy if she couldn't control herself. Cinderblock would be the least of their problems.
"Azarath."
A mother cradled her daughter as she ran, feet slamming against concrete desperate to get away. It was the little girl's birthday, and the mother just wanted to take her to an ice cream shop that had just turned to rubble. Yet, even as she ran, her mind looped the scene of glass falling and shattering mere inches from her daughter. She could see the small drip of blood running down her daughter's cheek….
"Metrion."
A businessman tripped over his own feet. His briefcase cracked open as papers bled out across the sidewalk in utter disarray. A green parrot transformed into a human boy right before his eyes, quickly swathing up the papers into a crumbled and messy stack. The costumed boy then shoved the papers into his hands, urging him to run, but he couldn't. He was frozen in fear, watching as the freakish boy turned and transformed into a gorilla as it charged back off to its fight.
"Zinthos."
Raven exhaled.
Almost a hundred emotions and thoughts, not of her own, faded to a few whispering fears. It wasn't a perfect purge, but it would have to be enough for the now.
It had to be.
"Hey! You okay?" hands touched her shoulders, kneeling at her side. She disliked it when people touched her. The team knew that. "Raven?"
The empath peeked from behind her lashes, seeing the jeans of her teammate, Wonder Girl.
"I'm fine," Raven bit, shrugging off the offending hands, and she couldn't help but wince. She usually had a better hold on her emotions than this. However, the influx of terror and pure rage around her didn't help. Even with the fear purged, the rage still lingered on the edges, held behind the flood wall she first created.
The sea of emotions of the world had and would always drip into her being, Her mind mirrored that which others felt, but she couldn't let herself drown in it all. She needed control. Always.
"We need to move you, Raven. You're in the middle of the street, and Starfire can only do so much alone," Wonder Girl said.
"I'm fine," Raven insisted. She just needed a moment to purge the rage and she'd be good. "Help Star."
"Yeah, totally," the Amazonian in training said, turning away from Raven. "Beast Boy! Help Raven!"
Anyone but him, Raven groaned.
"On it, boss! One momma bear coming right up!"
Raven frowned. She was not going to be swaddled by a six-hundred-pound green creature today. She shook her head clear of the lingering pain and what she could of the rage.
She rose from the ground, once more levitating, but more importantly away from Beast Boy as she found herself level with the top of a streetlamp. The boy shouted at her from below, but she tuned him out. The fight was more important.
Starfire was holding her own well against the creature with the occasional sonic blast from Cyborg. The two oldest members of the team had always worked well together. Where Starfire would swing creating breaks in the golem, the black teen would send a volley of techno-sonic-blasts to dig deeper and widen the faults.
Yet, Raven could only feel the creature's rage grow at the edge of her mind. There were no decipherable thoughts anymore. It just wanted wanton destruction. Pure putrid rage. She doubled down on her mental barriers against the golem's mind. She couldn't take another break from the fight to purge. She had to help.
Raising her arms up, she blasted Cinderblock once again, not skipping on the force. Her and Cyborg's beams drilled away, sending rock and stone shattering through the air. A green rhino charged one ankle as Wonder Girl in her bright red shirt launched a gauntleted fist into the other foot. Starfire even topped it all off with a flying drive-by punch.
Cinderblock once more fell backward, crashing into a fresh set of buildings, toppling them down, and burying the area in rubble.
Yet, she still felt the ever-increasing rage.
Rubble shifted as a concrete hand shot upwards like the iconic imagery of a zombie rising from its grave.
Cinderblock stood once more, tanking Raven's and Cyborg's immediate blasts.
The concrete bastion swung back. Its sweeping arm caught both Beast Boy and Wonder Girl, sending them tumbling backward across the ruined road. The two skittered across the asphalt like flat stones on water.
Raven threw a hand out in their direction. The two teens became enshrouded in a black aura as her soul-self encased them, arresting their momentum inside a ball of swirling darkness. She could feel their pain echoing in her mind.
With her other hand, she stopped her assault on Cinderblock to form a portal that she quickly flew into and exited next to her teammates. The two of them struggled to get to their hands and knees. She could see Beast Boy cradling his arm to his chest. From the level of pain that she allowed herself to feel from him, she knew his arm was broken.
"Be still," she commanded, kneeling beside them.
Wonder Girl listened, shifting to sit as she held her jaw. Beast Boy, ever the annoyance she found him to be, did not listen. He continued to try and stand, yelping as he tried to use his wounded arm as a support. She swore the changeling had only five brain cells, on a good day.
"Be still, Beast Boy," she pushed, taking his arm into her clutch. Of course, he cried out as if someone had stepped on a puppy's foot. His pain stabbed her heart. "I'm setting the bone," she told him, pushing her powers into her teammate. "It's going to hurt."
"Like it's not alr– Oww!"
Raven felt her arm match his pain before she took it all from him. Her demonic physiology quickly served its purpose in response to her now broken limb. She could feel her bone shift and mend itself beneath her skin. It was always a weird feeling, like breaking a stick in reverse.
"I warned you," she muttered.
"That hurt."
Raven gave him her blankest stare. The fact the city depends on him….
"Cassie." the empath turned to her other teammate. The girl pointed at her jaw, wincing as she tried to speak. Only a garble of incoherency came out. "Broken jaw," Raven surmised. She reached to the girl, her hands gently cupping her cheeks. Once more, she flooded her soul self across the physical connection, taking first the pain and then the break upon herself.
"Thanks, Raven," Wonder Girl smiled right before leaping back into the fight, springing off into the fight like a cheetah on the chase. Nobody would be none the wiser that she had just broken her jaw a moment ago. Yet, that was Cassie in a nutshell. Beat her down, and she'll get back up ready for round two, three, or even six.
Raven stood as well, first rubbing her arm feeling the last moments of her arm healing itself. She then opened and flexed her mouth, feeling her jaw soothe itself.
"You okay, Rae?" Beast Boy asked, staying at her side. His eyes lingered on her now-healed limb.
She shot him a glare, or at least what she considered a glare. She knew her face never truly showed her full range of emotions with the control she maintained.
"That's not my name. You know I dislike that."
"Right, heh." he scratched the back of his neck. "Sorry, and thanks. I'm feeling better already."
She only nodded before rising into the air again. They had bigger things to handle than pleasantries. Playing field medic was the least she could do after all. She opened a new portal, arriving closer to the fray once more.
A panting Starfire swerved out of the way of an airborne streetlight as she hovered far from the golem's reach. Cyborg, on the ground, ushered a woman and her daughter away in the blindspot of the golem.
Cinderblock was not idle either. It smashed its arm straight through another building, its eyes locked on the leader of the Titans.
It didn't look like much had truly changed in her brief absence, Raven noted. There were some more holes in the foe, but nothing truly revealing of an end to the fight. If the stalemate continued, she'd probably have to pull out her trump card. She disliked her trump card, though. It felt wrong to hijack another being.
Once more, debris fell like rain onto the street below, and as the stone golem brought its arm out of the building, clutching rubble in its hand which it brought to the damage the team had already inflicted. It pushed the ruined buildings into its body like a lotion or a salve as the holes, cracks, and chips they had inflicted filled as if a cement truck dumped fresh wet mortar into the cracks.
All that they had done, gone, regenerated and repaired. All it took was for it to leech off a building as well, and here they fought in the middle of a city.
Raven did not like this. If this turned into a battle of endurance, the Titans would not win, and it would only add fuel to the critics.
She couldn't allow that. They–she would end this before it came to that.
"Anyone got a plan?" Wonder Girl shouted up at the other two girls hovering. Raven shook her head. She wasn't the person who came up with the plans, that had always been the former leader. The half-demon was used to being the one that was used as a last resort.
"Cyborg!" Starfire shouted across the street. "Check the files for how Nightwing and the old Titans took down Cinderblock last time."
"On it," the half-teen, half-machine called back. "Beast Boy, get the ladies out of here."
A cheetah zoomed across the road and behind Cinderblock to where Cyborg stood. The animal morphed back into Beast Boy as he patted the other teen's shoulder. "Got it, Cy." He quickly hurried over to the two who seeped with fear and worry.
Raven turned away from the boys, looking back to the matter at hand. Nightwing's chiding about staying focused echoed in her ears.
Cinderblock roared once more, louder, angrier than before. Both arms smashed into the road–a water pipe burst, spewing forth a fountain onto the ruined street.
"Report reads that Troy bashed its head in till she knocked it out!" Cyborg shouted. "So enough blunt force trauma should work."
"Right! I can do that!" Wonder Girl shouted. "With my gauntlets, I can do anything Donna did."
"Then that's the plan," Starfire told the team, turning back to their foe. Her starbolts rocketed from her fist in shows of green.
They smashed into Cinderblock who did not even flinch. Instead, he turned his hardened eyes to the orange woman whose body burned with fire from her long hair as green light manifested around her hands and eyes.
"RAHHHH!"
Rage.
The pure emotion burned across her mind as if Raven had swallowed acid. It bashed against her mental shields as strong as a hundred fear-stricken minds.
Her heart fluttered and her veins warmed.
So much rage.
Too much rage.
She had to purge it.
She had to ingest it.
Green. Strong. Kill.
Cinderblock swung for the alien princess. He missed, and his arm clobbered through another building. Office supplies littered the air, falling to the sidewalk below.
"Azarath."
Starfire's returning salvo rained down like arrows from the sun. Instead of blotting it out, they became the sun, a green and fiery sun.
Scorching. Hot. Kill.
Cinderblock swung again.
"Metrion."
Starfire took higher into the air and out of the beast's reach.
Flying. Out of reach. Kill.
"Zinthos."
Raven let free a burning breath, the acid escaping her throat. Her mind rapidly cleared. Yet, already, she could feel the rage growing once more. It was simply unnatural.
A steady stream of green fell from the sky, exiting Starfire's hands. From the ground, blue light emerged from Cyborg's arm cannon.
Not one to be left out, Raven fired up her own black.
From three directions, they hammered into Cinderblock. The golem's arms covered its face and neck as it shielded itself like a boxer in the corner of the ring. But there was no referee to blow the whistle. The three of them pushed harder, pressing their advantage.
Large chunks of concrete melted and fractured from CInderblock.
They had him on the ropes. Now they just needed the K.O.
Wonder Girl took a few steps back, tapping the heels of her dirty red hightops. Wings sprouted from the symbol of Hermes on the heel, and the girl leaped into the air, joining the other two girls in flight.
"I got this!" the blonde cheered, lifting higher and higher off the ground. Like a surfer, her arms hung outwards, holding her upright, seeking balance. "Come get this, Cinderblock!"
Wonder Girl shot forward like a bird's first flight. Raven watched as she wobbled in the air a moment, catching herself as she tried to ready a punch while closing the gap.
Cinderblock's tiny face peaked out between its arms, and Raven felt a wave of fear spike from Wonder Girl.
WhacK!
Raven was already extending her arm. Her soul-self cocooned around the other girl as she smashed into the asphalt like a stone thrown into an anthill. The road caved around the blackness, leaving an imprint of force.
The demonic empath could feel no thoughts from Wonder Girl. She had been simply knocked out in one blow. The very opposite of what they needed.
Raven shifted her power, creating a portal in front of Beast Boy that led to the downed teammate, and without a word, he went through. A bear, hoisting the girl up before waddling back through her portal to where he had taken the civilian earlier.
"You will not hurt the children!"
A blinding beam of raw emerald ultraviolet light lasered into Cinderblock. It was so bright Raven was forced to turn away and even shield her own eyes.
She quickly blinked away spots as she turned back. She had to stay focused.
Black smoke wisped from the golem. A blackened hole pierced through the creature's chest, and Raven could just barely make out the asphalt through the damage. But that wasn't enough for the teen. She shot her own power into the hole created by Starfire and forced her soul self to expand, to explode.
Whatever rock mixture made up the creature blasted outwards, magnifying the hole in its body and revealing a skeletal rebar structure inside. It really was a walking construction project.
"RAWW!" CInderblock raged, stumbling forward. One of its arms caught itself on the ground, preventing it from collapsing.
Starfire readied herself from above, fists over her head. Then she came down with the force of a meteor. Her hands caught fire in their ghastly green glow.
Raven could feel it as much as she could see it. This was the blow that would end everything. Let it be known to anyone who dared to push Starfire or the ones she cared about. Unleashed, unrestrained, the warrior princess found unmatched strength to rival any foe.
The blow connected, slamming the beast and shattering stone from the rebar.
Cinderblock whipped forward with the momentum, its head caving in the road even more. Raven felt all that unnatural rage it was emitting vanish in an instant as it hunched over like a marionette with its strings cut. It simply went still.
Defeated.
"Good job, Star!" Cyborg whooped, his own arm lowering as it powered down.
Raven gave her own nod of acknowledgment. With a blow like that, the creature probably felt down to the rebar in its feet.
The three moved closer to the downed foe. Cracks littered its head. Almost as many in the road by Raven's count.
"How will the police transfer him?" Cyborg asked, stepping closer to the pile of stone. "I don't think the back of a squad car could ever fit even a fraction of Cinderblock."
Raven had to agree. A police car would not fit a thing of this size. She'd probably have to portal the thing straight into a cell or whatever holding space they could find for a three-story golem.
Nightwing probably would've already been telling her the site to drop him off at by now.
Cyborg stepped closer to the thing, typing away at a datapad built into his cybernetic wrist. The teen crouched down, tilting his head as he looked around at the stone colossal.
Raven could sense the older boy's growing confusion as his finger traced over the rock. Perhaps by exposure or by her own instinct, she, too, felt her own confusion grow. Something wasn't right….
RAGE!
"Weak!"
An arm shot forward, slamming into Cyborg. The half-human, half-machine went involuntarily cartwheeling away from the blow, only coming to a rest at Beast Boy's feet thanks to Raven's powers.
"Really, dude. I just got back."
Starfire and Raven rocketed themselves into the air, rapidly creating as much distance as they could from the now-awakened concrete colossal.
Cinderblock's arms smashed into the ground where the two heroines had just stood. Its movements twice as fast as before.
It was all wrong.
Something didn't add up in the demon girl's mind. She knew the strength of her teammate. Starfire was no slouch even on her off day. Her blows very well could rival an Amazon before Star's emotions began to fuel her actions, yet the creature still stood once more.
Admittedly, it was showered in cracks. Rock dust and fragments actively fell from its body, but the thing should not even be moving at all with half of its head caved in. It was beaten, unconscious. Then awake at the flip of a dime?
"Starfire," she called to her teammate, who appeared to be frozen in the sky. "Starfire!"
The alien shook her head, her hair sputtering stray flames as if the girl's hair had gone frizzy.
"Something isn't right," Raven voiced her thoughts.
"Yes. You are indeed correct, Raven," the team leader responded, glancing down. "Our foe has once more begun to do the rampaging."
The empath frowned, turning back to the golem. Was it magic? Was something enchanting this being to do their bidding? She did not sense the taint of magic in the air….
All she could feel was the rage clouding the world around her like smog.
Cinderblock swung again at them, and it missed again for they were too high up. For their evasion, another building fell victim to the golem's mindless rampage.
The creature wasn't very smart. Raven had felt its thoughts already to confirm that, but even then it did not understand the notion of the distance the two girls had put between them and it.
It swung again at the sky.
"WEAK!" it roared again, eyeing them up from below.
Raven was going to have to possess him…. They were running out of options and low on players. She should've done it from the start. This could have all been avoided. If it meant she was doing good by the world, she should do it. Hell knows how much worse she could make things if she wanted to.
"Raven." The girl raised a brow to her leader, who gave her a blossoming smile. Her teeth were as white as snow. "We got this."
Determination oozed from Starfire, and Raven greedily let it fester in her own self. She easily accepted the emotion from her teammate, basking in its infectious hope. She could feel goosebumps tingle up her arms, her mind lightening–such was a taste of the power of hope.
"I'll show you weak!" the woman raged, an inferno billowed from her hair like a wildfire. Starfire raced forward, a green comet streak in her wake as she shot downwards, arms out before her.
Maybe she wouldn't have to possess him….
Both of Starfire's fists collided with the Cinderblock's chest, sending it staggering back as concrete fell from its chest like a rockslide, crumbling to the ground. Starfire cocked her right arm back and swung forward again. Then again and again. Three blows became six, and then it became twelve.
Cinderblock fell backward, arms flailing out. It once more was on the ground, but Starfire did not relent. The road warped as it adjusted to the wait being repeatedly forced down onto it, caving around the beatdown.
Raven knew she needed to snap Starfire out of her frenzy, she already knew she'd have to heal her leader's hands from this alone. Yet, she couldn't help but watch the violence. The guilty part of her, the part of her that was her father, enjoyed watching Cinderblock be destroyed and broken asunder. After what it did to her friends, it deserved a reminder of what was right and wrong.
Raven would intervene after she felt the rage disappear. After the message sank in.
"Star!"
Or the idiot would try to intervene.
"Star!" Beast Boy called out again, running up the street from where she had dropped him and Cyborg off at. His hands flailed about above his head, trying to wave down the frenzied woman. "You got'em. Calm down."
Raven rolled her eyes. Never tell a woman to calm down.
She flicked her hand, and a portal of black swallowed the boy before another word could escape his annoying trap. Right as he vanished she felt a swell of annoyance before it promptly relocated itself two blocks away. It was better he was away anyway, animals were of no use here.
Turning back to Star, Raven hovered closer. The orange woman was still bashing away, one jab to the thing's chest, and another to send its rising fist back into the ground. She gave no quarter and took everything.
And still, the rage grew, brimming and burning hotter. The flood slowly shifted to burn like magma ready to break free from the crust and burn everything down.
Raven didn't know how it was taking such a beating. Starfire needed to end this now, and it very much looked like she was trying. Scorched holes were carved into its chest cavity. Raven could see discarded cement fingers crumble upon the ground. They fell apart like sand between the fingers and fell back onto the beach.
If this was a human, it would be long since dead.
Yet, Cinderblock still had more in the tank, and seeing so, Raven couldn't help but tilt her head to the side. Beaten and breaking, it still tried to raise a fist that was actively crumbling away as it tried to fight back. Piece by piece it was being dismantled and melted, and still it was not submitting.
In fact, it seemed as if it was constantly breaking apart. While Raven knew magic had a tendency to violate the natural order of things, a golem of stone should not be an infinite source of gravel.
Maybe it was time to speak up. Something wasn't right, and she'd need someone to protect her if she was to leave her own body.
"Star!" Raven flew closer to the fight. "Star! This isn't working!"
The leader of the Titans did not respond, did not even incline that she heard the empath's words. She merely punched harder. Her glowing green fist grappled at rebar, turning it into slag. What was once determination and willpower was changing, shifting, burning darker.
And as Cinderblock roared from below, Raven finally started to understand what was happening. She couldn't see it before, but now as Cinderblock fell apart more and more, the black tar of the asphalt became even more apparent as it seeped into the golem, repairing itself, shifting the construct from the paleness of sidewalks to the darkness of the road.
As long as he was on the ground or even touching it, it was feeding on the infrastructure, regenerating.
"Starfire!" Raven shouted, not just aloud, but in the woman's mind as well. Starfire snapped her focus to Raven, eyes burning with a tainted determination, bubbling with rage. "It's regenerating everything!"
Starfire's eyes widen, the blinding green glow fading from her eyes and body as her fist halted. All her emotions blinked away in the absence of fuel, and she floated there for a moment, processing.
A moment too long.
A shadow fell over her.
A black and grey hand crunched Starfire's waist, and the woman shouted out in pain. Waves of hurt blasted outwards, and they found Raven's mind like a moth to a flame. The alien's pain fluttered and buzzed in Raven's ears, ringing and screaming, and the empath could feel the phantom sensation of bones breaking.
"Star!" Beast Boy shouted, dropping from the skies, unmorphing from a bird. Then just as quick as he shouted, he shifted into an elephant, ready to crush the golem beneath him.
It wasn't a smart move, in Raven's opinion, so she was quick to let the boy fall through another portal and land beside her.
"RAVEN!"
She shrugged off his growing annoyance. Come the night, he would thank her for saving him from being roadkill.
The pale empath glanced over at the changeling, standing up in a crater of his own making. He shot her a glare, and she didn't bother dignifying it with a reaction. Instead, she turned back as Starfire was slammed once more into the ground, still in the golem's hand.
"We need to get Cinderblock away from the ground. It's feeding on the infrastructure to regenerate, Beast Boy."
"I don't have any birds that can lift a thing of its size."
Raven frowned, "You have an animal that can knock it out?"
"Orbital elephant is our best bet," the teen shrugged. "I still am struggling with the whale shift."
Raven nodded, watching as Starfire was discarded to the ground, tumbling upon the asphalt like a discarded toy. Her body was limp and broken. Raven wasn't sure she could even teleport her without her being able to physically ensure the woman's body didn't move an inch during the phase. If anything along her spine or neck was broken…
She needed to act quick. She needed to be perfect. She needed to take control.
Raven donned her hood, pulling it well over her face and taking comfort in the familiar darkness it cast across her face. "When I teleport, fly up," she ordered.
"For sure."
Cinderblock took a step towards them. A low thundering rumble shook the ground. Three more steps and it would crush Starfire….
Raven shut out the world, her vision going dark.
CInderblock took another step.
"Watch out! Car!" Beast Boy yelped, his voice dashing away from her.
Then she sank.
It was cold, the realm between dimensions. For the very briefest of moments that most would never even realize, she traveled through a plane of existence that was very much not Earth. Yet, just as quickly, she reemerged underneath Cinderblock, a bubble of black miasma forming around her and Starfire.
A foot of asphalt and concrete pushed down on her dome, and she felt herself, Starfire, and the portion of the road within her power get pushed down into the earth, deforming the ground like pushing a rock into sand.
Her barrier strained against the weight, the dome bulging and compressing as Cinderblock pushed down harder with his foot.
Raven doubled down on projecting her barrier, it had to become unmovable. Her left arm pushed upwards.
She felt her vision split.
It had to be able to withstand the might of demons and gods.
Her four eyes watched as her raised hand turned crimson as blood as it held the barrier.
There could not exist a crack in her defense. It had to be perfect. She had to be perfect.
She pushed back at Cinderblock.
Raven was her father's pride and she would not be walked on.
Her soul-self hungered…. The dome reinforced itself, growing even, as tendrils flickered out, trying to break free of Raven's control.
The foot above pushed further into the defensive barrier.
She pushed more, feeding the demon. Feeding the rage. She let all the emotions trickle in.
They would fuel her. They would allow her to take control.
They would all grovel before her.
"Ra… ven?"
The Daughter of Trigon the Evil looked down on her wounded leader. She blinked, watching as an orange arm weakly took her red one. The color of hate and rage bleed away back to the unnaturally pale Raven was used to seeing.
"It's okay, Star. I have you," she whispered.
Blood dripped from the older woman's lips. Her left leg was bent askew, to put it politely. Her violet armor was torn and crumpled. The green jewels that littered it were fractured.
"G-get Nigh…wing," the woman whimpered between slow falls of her chest.
The world shook. The black dome, sunk further into the ground.
Raven glanced left and right, seeing the earth at her eye level. They were being buried alive.
"I'm getting you out of here, Starfire."
"Get Richard."
Raven nodded, wrapping herself around the older woman, letting her dome collapse. Her soulself raced back into her, just as quickly as she pushed herself and Starfire through a portal.
She teleported to the one place in the world she knew she could get help. She teleported to just above the atmosphere, to a watchtower lingering in orbit over the world.
Nightwing had shown them the Justice League watchtower only once before, but it was all Raven needed to know how to access it again.
The two women exited a portal straight onto a gurney inside the medical bay.
Raven looked up, feeling confusion simmer across from her. She met eyes with a black Green Lantern who was standing next to a female Thanagarian.
"She needs help."
Like a switch being flicked, the two Leaguers raced over to the Alien Princess. The Lantern ring scanning the wounded woman as Hawkgirl pulled out a communicator, speaking too fast for Raven to try and keep up. Her only focus was on watching the green light act like limbs, attaching various wires and such to her leader.
"Hey, girl," Hawkgirl touched her shoulder. "We got her. She's going to be fine."
Raven nodded, eyes still unmoved.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
Cinderblock….
He was still out there. With only Beast Boy opposing him.
"I have to go," Raven mumbled. "I have to get back to the fight."
She sunk once more.
Cold. Worry. Unease. Fear.
Raven squashed those feelings as she rose from the asphalt. She wasn't going to hold back. Cinderblock was going–
Who was he?
Someone new stood in the road with a single hand raised.
Water and shadows warped and bent around Cinderblock, hoisting him from the ground. The shadows restrained the being as if he were caught in a spider's web as water swirled like a vortex, eating away the rubble of the body.
One man, face hidden in a shadow just like her hood provided her, was dealing with Cinderblock where the Titans failed.
Raven expanded her mind, peering into the man's.
Calm, like waves on a windless day.
The man nodded, and Raven saw the green boy standing at his side. Beast Boy and whoever this was obviously found the situation handled by the way they stood at ease, not even looking up at the villain being defeated.
"I think I hit my head," a voice spoke up from behind her, and Raven turned to see the limping gait of Cyborg. The teen rubbed the human half of his skull. "I see you guys got this handled without little old me."
Raven nodded, before glancing at the mysterious man. "He does at least."
"Starfire?" Cyborg joined her at her side.
"Watchtower medical bay."
"That bad, huh?"
"I could've healed it if there wasn't a fight."
"Roger," Cyborg nodded, wincing as he did so. "I'm going to talk to the new guy."
Raven followed in his shadow. As they approached the man, she could see the slight hairs of a black beard sticking out of the shadow mask he wore.
"Hey, man!" Cyborg offered his arm to shake. "I see you got this under control."
The man's head turned to Cinderblock who was now half the mass Raven had last seen him as. "Yeah. Beast Kid was telling me he erodes down to an actual cinder block for a head, yeah?"
Cyborg nodded, tapping at his arm. "Yeah, that's what the files say."
The man returned the nod before looking Cyborg over. Raven's eyes followed where the man's gaze seemed to go, lingering on the dented metal of the machine teen. Then his gaze shifted to hers. Two veiled faces stared back at one another.
"You okay, miss? I only got here just after he stomped you."
Right when she teleported away…. He had restrained Cinderblock so effortlessly in seconds of her absence.
"I'm fine," she mumbled. She turned to Cyborg, "I'm going back to the Starfire."
"Got it," the teen replied. "Once things are handled here, I'll be up in a bit to see what I can do to help."
Raven nodded and called upon her power. Her gaze met the man's once more, and behind him, she could see Cinderblock now but a single cinder block with an unconscious face on it. Behind that head, she could see a man in blue with a red cape, hovering above the street.
She allowed herself to sink beneath the plane of existence and reappear above the Earth in a floating tower where the world's strongest heroes watched the planet, galaxy, and universe for threats against humanity.
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(New Chapter as of Sept. 24th, 2024)
Hope all is well.
-Manke