xiii. Chapter Twelve
The Titans had appeared over the top of the mound of rubble that had once been the library. Robin stood in front, fists clenched around his weapons, ready to move. Cyborg had his cannon charged, glowing a violent blue. Starfire's eyes and fists blazed green. Beast Boy just looked tense, crouched in readiness, fangs bared. The air around him was charged with energy.
It was a struggle for Raven to lift her head enough to look at them. She was weak. Her body felt empty and limp as a rag doll's. Periodically she trembled from the aftershock of pain, her scattered nerves firing off wildly at nothing. But it didn't really matter anymore - relief was bearing down on her, relief like a torrent, like a breaking of the dam, blaring and blazing, trumpets and hot sun even in the night. She was floating. She could have wept.
"Alright," said Robin into the stillness of the settling dust, "we don't know who you are, or why you're here…"
"But if you wanna get to Raven," Beast Boy continued, "you're gonna have to go through us first."
"Move away from the girl, man," Cyborg ordered in a hard voice, gesturing to Alaric with his canon. "And do it slowly."
Raven's eyes flicked to Alaric as he stepped gravely forward toward the Titans. She wanted to tear him apart. She wanted that more than anything she could think of. He was a tall, dark shape, seeming to float rather than walk, the long fall of his black robe swallowing everything, until it was all she could see. A fierce, red bloom of anger welled up.
She closed her eyes, cutting it off. A shiver ran through her wasted body. She concentrated on breathing, taking air in gently, allowing it to travel to her lungs, and releasing it back to the world. One breath at a time, slowly.
"I have no desire to fight you," she heard Alaric saying.
"Then give Raven to us, and we won't have a problem," Cyborg shot back.
"But if you interfere with our plans we will have no choice," Alaric continued as if Cyborg had not spoken. His voice was as severe as thunder. "This girl cannot be allowed to live."
"What?" said Beast Boy angrily. "What has Raven ever done to you?"
Raven opened her eyes. She saw Alaric's shoulders rise and fall as he sucked in a breath. He passed a hand slowly and stiffly over his crown of white hair. As if sensing her eyes on him, he turned suddenly and caught her gaze. Something black and hideous seemed to lurk quietly behind his stare.
Raven hated him with everything she had. She hated his voice, she hated his height and the rigid straightness of his back. She hated his face, she hated the stony eyes in it and she hated the blue, blue veins in his milk-white hands and the bluntness of his fingernails. And she hated his thick, white hair, and she hated his shoulders and his arms, his legs and his elbows, his lungs and his heart, she hated, hated, hated -
Stop, Raven told herself, choking on the dark, heavy feeling. Stop.
"She should never have been forced upon this unwilling world," said Alaric, without looking away from her. "Every one of Trigon's offspring is but a tool which he may use to conquer new planets. Despite his defeat, as long as this girl lives there is a chance for Trigon to return. She is bad blood. Her mere survival invites danger. She cannot be allowed to live, to procreate, to carry on Trigon's line."
"But… Raven truly has caused no harm," Starfire argued.
Alaric raised a brow. "She has ushered Trigon into this world once before. That is not what you call harm?"
"We've defeated Trigon before," said Robin. "We can do it again."
Alaric laughed harshly at that. Raven remembered seeing him in the museum, in his crisp, gray suit, and how even his smile had been a miserable thing.
"You may be willing to take that chance. I am not." Alaric's mouth became a line of grim determination. "Now, if you still wish to stop me, then you leave me no choice but to fight."
Raven strained to sit up. Her body was heavy with exhaustion, and when she made it to her knees she was dizzy from the effort and from blood-rush. Her vision swam. But, if she could not fight…
…if she could not fight…
Then she had to get out of the way. In the corner of her eye, Alaric's hand gestured forward. There was a whisper of fabric, and suddenly the robed figures of the white guard were stepping past her, all around, until they stood beside Alaric like a sentinel row of trees and all she could see were their backs.
She heard Robin's voice.
"Titans, go!"
Raven made herself climb to her feet.
A blast shook the ground. The distinct, familiar sounds of Cyborg's cannon and Starfire's shots of energy rang out. Raven looked up, her heart pounding. She hardly noticed that she had been knocked back down to her knees.
Alaric and his guard had made a shield to hold off the Titans' attack. It worked for a few moments, but Raven knew it would not hold out forever, could already feel it sagging around the weakest members. She got up as quickly as she could and staggered toward the end of the line of enemies - only four men long in her position, eight total. Her mind was whirring. If she could make it out from under their shield, she might then make it back to her friends.
Another blast, a noise like a gunshot, like a strike of lightning, and the shield was cracked. Rubble flew, and Raven had to crouch down low. She saw the weaker members falling, saw bursts of gray energy being thrown from the hands of the stronger ones, saw green and blue lights exploding over her head and Robin's trademark weapons flying, seeming to be everywhere at once in a great swarm.
It was all a blur, shouting, lights in her eyes, dust in her lungs. She coughed out the dust and the smoke. She was helpless. What was she doing here? Blurs of gray, bright blue, green, red, rubble flying out to get her. Why couldn't she fix this?
And then, suddenly, Beast Boy was there, leaping through the line of enemies as a huge wolf. In one fluid motion he transformed back to himself and crouched beside her. He touched a hand to her shoulder.
"Rae!" he said. There was so much urgency in his voice, in his eyes, and the tension of his body, that it seemed to swallow him. "Raven, are you hurt?"
"Yes," she breathed, momentarily stunned at his intensity and his abrupt arrival. "But I'll be alright, I think."
He smiled at her, encouragingly. "Can you walk?"
"Not well," she admitted, eyes darting quickly to where the Titans were fighting. She saw Starfire and Cyborg firing away, their blasts sometimes meeting the oncoming gray energies in midair and exploding outwards, fizzling to nothing. Starfire swooped in for closer combat, but the white guard were careful to avoid her. Robin had engaged his bo staff, and gone for Alaric. With a look of deep concentration, Alaric manipulated the library rubble as a defense, great rocks flinging themselves through the air each time he lifted a hand. Robin was too busy dodging or shattering the rubble to press his attack.
Raven's hand formed a tight little fist.
"Come on," said Beast Boy, startling her, seeming to wake her from dreaming to the loud and uncertain reality of the battle. Before she knew what was happening, he had scooped her up in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all. She reached automatically around his shoulders, gripping closely, nails biting in to him as he ran crazily toward the other Titans, ducking and weaving to avoid the shots of energy and the flying rubble.
Raven did not have the will to protest. She held on tightly to him. For a moment, she raised her head to look over Beast Boy's shoulder. Alaric was looking back. The corners of his lips rose into an unpleasant smile as his mouth formed the words -
"Lights out."
Raven's eyes went wide.
The moving stones dropped from the air. The white guard snapped into focus, hands folding into the meditative pose. Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire all stiffened up, and then fell to the ground in lifeless heaps, as if the thumb of some great force had come down and crushed them, marionettes and cut strings, moving and then suddenly just… not. It was quiet.
"Beast Boy," said Raven, hardly noticing that he had stopped running in shock, his mouth hanging slightly open. Her heart was in her throat. "Beast Boy, do something."
"Okay," he said, shakily, allowing her to stand on her feet. She felt his heart beating wildly. She saw his eyes go completely, brilliantly white. He shuddered as he gave himself over, as he let go.
"Don't… don't worry."
Almost before she could blink he had transformed into the beast, more huge and more terrible than she had ever seen. Her legs gave out, and she dropped to the ground. He towered over her. Her eyes had to climb for miles to find his face, sharp, protruding tusks, snarling muzzle, flattened nostrils, fierce, white eyes and furrowed brow. He was fearsome, but she was not afraid.
Beast Boy lifted a massive paw and stepped forward, growling from deep within his chest. It rumbled through her. Raven followed his gaze to where Alaric was standing.
"What did you do to them?" she demanded angrily.
"Don't you remember? It's the same thing I did to you - once they were distracted by the battle, I made them sleep. When they wake, you will be gone, no matter the strength of your guard dog. At this stage, physical power is insignificant."
Raven felt a rustling of air, and then Beast Boy was leaping toward Alaric. But it came to nothing. Alaric swung himself aside, levitating, his feet never touching the ground. Beast Boy skidded to a stop and whirled around, snarling. One smug corner of Alaric's mouth lifted.
"Now for you," he said.
Beast Boy surged forward as Alaric's eyes narrowed in concentration. Raven could sense his powers at work, a cool fluttering hitting somewhere between skin and bone. She watched, tension gripping her body, gripping her heart so tightly that it seemed not to beat at all. She could only think that even in his transformed state, Beast Boy would fall just as the other Titans had fallen. She watched and waited.
Nothing but the powerful beating of Beast Boy's paws against the ground as he barreled forward.
Alaric's eyes widened. "What?"
Beast Boy slammed into the shield that Alaric had erected at the last moment. The impact forced Alaric to his knees, but he sprung immediately up and levitated in retreat.
Beast Boy pressed forward relentlessly. Alaric began to call huge pieces of rubble to meet him, but Beast Boy either stoically allowed the stones to glance off of him or batted them easily aside. The remaining robed figures joined in moving the boulders defensively, and Beast Boy whirled on them and knocked them down like flies, hardly stopping.
Raven had never seen him fight with such deadly single-mindedness, moving forward, forward without thought beyond the goal. Awe pressed in on her, against her will. But as he was now, a creature of instinct and emotion, she did not know that he was able to really think at all.
Was that what was saving him from Alaric's compulsion to sleep? That, in becoming the beast, his mind had given over entirely to impulse, had retreated to where no one could touch it?
"Enough of this," Raven heard Alaric mutter.
The largest block of rubble yet rose up, eclipsing Alaric. Beast Boy made no move to dodge, seemed set on crashing through all that stood in his way. The rock sailed toward him. Raven sensed a gathering of power from Alaric, so much that it seemed almost to burn.
Her heart thundered.
"Look out!" she cried, full of panic, shaking with it, useless, useless. What could she do? She rose, shakily, to her feet. "Beast Boy!"
But if he heard, he gave no sign. He ran, head-down like a bull, straight into the boulder that was coming for him. He gave a short grunt of pain as it collapsed into pieces around him.
At that moment, Alaric released the energy he had been building in one great rush toward Beast Boy. It left Raven feeling raw all over. It sent Beast Boy flying, crashing into the bottom floor of one of the many old and empty buildings. With a wave of Alaric's hand, the entire seven-story building came down on top of him, burying him beneath.
Time seemed to stretch itself idly like a cat, to slow, slow everything, to thicken into amber. Raven did not know how long she stood there, staring at the pile of debris, waiting. But Beast Boy did not get up.
"I regret that this had to happen…. But I've come too far now to turn back…"
Raven looked at Alaric. His back was turned to her. He seemed almost to be speaking to himself.
Anger burned through the deadness then, boiling up to a place where she could reach out and grasp it. There was so much hate running through her body, in her veins, making her head swim. She was heady with it. Everything seemed to sharpen focus. The rise and fall of her chest, the beating of her heart. Fury. Something stirring in the deep.
Alaric turned to face her. She listened to the rustle of his cloak. Her eyes burned.
"Well," said Alaric, sounding almost humbled, "it appears I'll have to kill you the old fashioned way."
Raven did not see the blow coming. Suddenly she was thrown off of her feet by a burst of Alaric's power. She flew backward, hitting the ground with a shattering thud and skidding in the dirt to a stop. It knocked the wind out of her. For a moment, she could not breathe, could not seem to force the air into her lungs. Slowly, painfully, she propped herself up on her elbows.
But Alaric was flying toward her like a bolt of lightening. Instinctively, Raven rolled out of the way and pushed herself fluidly to a stand. He whirled around in the blink of an eye and before she knew what was happening, Alaric's fist was in her stomach and she was bent over, choking. She slumped to the ground.
"I expected you to put up more of a fight."
"I did, too," she mumbled, absently, without much thought.
Dazedly, Raven looked up at him. Everything was slow. Motion blurred.
"It's easier this way," he said.
Almost tenderly, his hands came up, long and pale, and wrapped around her throat. She felt a gentle, building pressure there. It began to hurt, and her vision faded, and she was straining for something against this terrible tightness which seemed all she could feel or be certain of.
I'm going to die, she thought suddenly, I am dying now.
Burning, burning all over. She was on fire, as white-hot as a supernova, bursting and blazing across the universe, and everything was bright and beautiful, and wanting to be part of it, and a feeling of oneness, and I'll protect you, little bird. I'll protect you.
Raven heard somebody shout. Her eyes opened.
She saw Alaric yards away, getting up slowly from the ground, and knew somehow that she had done that. Her hand touched her throat, and it was tender. She breathed in hungrily.
Her powers had protected her. She reached for them, experimentally, and found the dark place in her mind, the barrier that separated her from her powers. Warmth spread through her at the contact. She pressed, slowly, insistently. It was softer, but it would not yield.
Raven stood up and saw that Alaric was already on his feet.
"I've come too far to turn back," he murmured. He seemed far from here, far from this moment. His gaze sharpened as it turned to Raven. "It always pays to be ruthless, doesn't it?"
She watched him with wide and wary eyes. He raised his hands.
In the background, something stirred. Raven's mouth went dry. She swallowed convulsively.
Slowly and quietly, like sleepwalkers, Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire rose from the ground and to their feet. They came forward at a flick of Alaric's wrist, and Raven felt herself shuffle instinctively back.
"I'll be curious to see how well you fight against your comrades," said Alaric, smiling grimly, his eyes sharp and narrow with anticipation.
Fury slithered along her senses, and she grabbed a hold of it and tugged it fiercely to the forefront. Her fists clenched. A red fog seemed to wrap around her, hot and angry. Something was expanding inside her, filling out the small spaces of her body, flooding her through and through, into her teeth and her nails and her heart, expanding, expanding, expanding. She dug in deeply, she reached in with her whole self.
A wind rose, flapping all around her, tangling her hair. Everything was red, red as the evening on Azarath, low sun in the sky, red as fire, as red as she could stand it. Her eyes burned. Her skin burned.
"To let anger rule you…" said Alaric, musingly, "that is the way to reach your powers. It touches their true nature. It would be easy now for that side of you to take control…"
Hate seemed all there was, hate that burned holes in her, writhing like an animal, pressing, pressing, rising closer to the surface, and then, and then…
No. No.
"I won't let that happen." She said it like a command. Her voice was full of gravel, heavy and charged. It seemed to shake the ground.
She reached out and grasped at chaos, held it in her fist, and it burned there like a star. She pressed it to her heart and swallowed it in, called to it, letting it fill her up, letting it wash over and over and over her, until suddenly she felt new again, like a fresh, green shoot. Wind whipped up, snapping violently.
Then the Titans leapt to attack.
Raven was immediately on the defensive. Power moved fluidly through her, light and free as air. She did not have to bend it to her will, because it was her will already. Black shields formed around her, and they were like pieces of her own body, not tools, not weapons, but like her own hands. Creating them was as instinctive as walking. There was no thought, no leap of concentration. She hardly knew what she was doing.
She blocked attacks from all sides. Robin, Starfire, and Cyborg closed in on her, fists and bolts and weapons all flying in, and she could only retreat and block and retreat. The Titans were not up to form, their movements sluggish and messy under Alaric's control. But Raven was weakened through and through. The power within her was a bright light illuminating an empty husk, the only thing enabling her to fight. Her body was heavy with exhaustion. Moving grew more and more difficult.
Lightly she brushed against the minds of the Titans, but the heavy compulsion that controlled them repelled her like a barrier. She could not win physically. She could not touch them mentally. It almost didn't matter. What she had to remember, even as Robin's projectiles sliced the air close by her neck, was that the one she needed to defeat was Alaric. Raven looked for him beyond the battlefield. He was pale and drawn with concentration. Sweat beaded at his temples. He was kneeling on the ground. He was -
Suddenly, Starfire's fist was rushing toward her. Raven swung wildly out of the way. The blade of Robin's projectile whispered against her cheek, leaving a line of warm and wet. Raven touched her fingers to the spot, and they came away smeared with blood. She looked almost wonderingly at it, the odd smudge of red. Robin had done that - no, Alaric.
A streak of blue sped toward her, and Robin swung his bo staff, and Starfire was bearing down from above.
Stop, she thought, stop, stop.
And then, somebody, help me…
And then…
…and then, and then…
Time stopped.
Her senses shot out over the area, seeking, seeking automatically, without thought, without reason, tumbling over the distance like a bullet, like a heartbeat, like a falling star. She felt herself swallow thickly as if from a great distance. Her body was far behind. Her mind was reaching out, was searching for a sign of life within the rubble where Beast Boy had fallen.
Are you there? she thought, Are you there?
Something pulsed beneath the stroke of that thought. She felt the contractions of the heart. She felt blood traveling in the veins. She sensed the shape of his body. Oddly, he had not transformed back. She touched along the ridges of his mind until it seemed to open for her, to welcome her in.
Inside was hot and dark like a dog's mouth. Flickering light scattered across the emptiness, flush against the growling shadows.
"Are you there?" she shouted. Her voice echoed back at her. "Beast Boy!"
She felt alone. This was what Alaric had found when he had tried to take control of Beast Boy. It was a nothingness so intense that she forgot herself, forgot the existence outside.
But… this could not be all there was. It could not. She knew better than that.
Beast Boy, she thought, remembering the uncertainty of their first meeting, remembering his heavy hands, his face, the fang that stuck out of his smile, his arm across her shoulders, the jokes and the birthday parties and the ridiculous plush dolls in the bottom of her closet, his wrists poking out of the hospital scrubs, video games, soy milk and tofu bacon, her name, her name, her name on his lips, and telling her it's okay, it's okay, I'll protect you, pointing out the north star, wind in his hair, the hot breath of the beast on her neck, and his real name was Garfield Logan, he had sheepishly admitted, but everybody called him Gar -
Descending, descending, a slow sinking down into the gray matter.
Voices floated out to her.
"Look at this sky, my darling boy. Don't worry."
"To do whatever it takes… That is our oath. Don't take it lightly, Beast Boy."
She fell further and further in, thinking only of his shoulder blades and his thick gloves, the smell of his soap and the length of his body, the way his ribcage fluttered when he cat-napped on the couch, the mess in his room, the sprawl of his sleeping body, his finger in the peanut butter jar and his nose in everybody's business, mixing up the toothpastes, singing in the shower -
" 'Yes! In the sea of life enisled -'"
"Larry! I'm sick of poetry. Enough with the poetry! All I asked was -"
"What's it like to be in love? … It hurts, kid."
- loud and off-key over the spray of water, long limbs and wide eyes and smiling all the time -
"We're still you're family. You don't have to go, Beast Boy."
"Yes, I do."
She closed her eyes, drowning, filling up with second-hand memories, losing herself in the rush of it, losing the place where Raven ended and Beast Boy began, unable to extricate her own emotions from his. She couldn't breathe.
"I thought that I could trust you!"
"She was… in your teeth…"
It seemed as if she might fall forever.
"Are you there?" she cried in desperation, not expecting any answer.
There was too much here for her. She had gone too deep. But then, in a small voice…
"I'm here."
Her eyes opened.
They were standing in a field full of brown wild grass, dotted with bushes and with squat, flat-topped trees. Was this… Beast Boy's Africa?
"Raven," he said abruptly, eyes widening, "your hair, it's… you're back to normal!"
"What?" she pulled at a strand of it, and it was long, long and indigo. Only a small part of her was shocked, and that seemed buried by all else. At this moment, it was just not important. She shook her head, feeling the length of the hair floating about her.
"Raven," he said, looking at her closely, "are you okay? You're crying."
Raven rubbed her eyes, surprised when her fingers came away wet.
She looked up at him briefly, blinking, and then suddenly she was wrapping her arms around him, clutching him as tightly as a secret, never wanting to let go.
"Raven…?"
"I'm just… glad you're alright," she mumbled into his shoulder, overcome with love at that moment, love that made her weak in the knees. "I'm glad that I found you."
"After I transformed it was dark, and then… you came," said Beast Boy softly, his words fluttering into her hair. "I… can hardly remember anything. Raven… what happened?"
"Alaric is controlling the other Titans, and I…" Raven closed her eyes, leaning into him carelessly. "…I can't fight them. I need your help, Beast Boy. I have to break Alaric's hold, but I can't do it when he's so focused. His powers are… knotted up, and I can't break through. If Robin and the others are out of the way, then I think I can get inside his mind, and… and stop all this. Please, help me."
"I thought - I thought you would have figured it out by now," said Beast Boy.
"What…?"
"I'd do anything for you."
A great rushing seemed to swell around her. She pulled back slowly. They were standing then by the water before Titan's Tower.
"Help me," said Raven.
"I will."
"Let me share your body," she said.
"Okay," Beast Boy nodded. Then he winked. "You're the boss."
She took his hand. "Let's go."
"Wha - ? Now?"
But they were already moving upwards, shooting upwards towards the sky, Raven leading him further up from the deep, knowing somehow that she could. The past rushed by, all around them, the old world of Africa, of Titans Tower, of familiar places, falling away, becoming smaller and yet smaller, becoming gray and indistinguishable. Up and up they went, unstoppable, until they were breaking surface and stumbling headlong into the bright outside.
Raven opened her eyes.
She saw the rubble-strewn field, the Titans poised to attack, Cyborg's laser a hair's breadth from her eyes, Starfire's fists above her head, Robin's bo staff touching her side lightly, tickling against the fluttering of her ribcage. And she saw the darkness beneath the fallen building, dense and claustrophobic, hot and thick with dust, and felt the heavy, smothering pressure of the wreckage. Her body heaved a sigh and sunk into the ground.
Time began.
The attacks of the Titans collapsed in on each other and sent the fighters sprawling. They rose stiffly in confusion.
Raven pulled her body from within the earth up to a spot before the fallen building and folded it into a meditative pose, gathering for a spell. She sent a stream of life into the body of the beast, she pushed him from the ground. The body was heavy, was tired and beaten. She opened wider the channel between them. She pushed him from the ground. Jump, she told the body, and it obeyed.
Out from beneath the rubble came the beast, with a sigh of earth like thunder, leaping forward, streaming trails of dust and dirt from his mane. He landed heavily on the ground in front of Raven, his back to her, his eyes wild, flanks heaving. She felt his body as if it were her own, the burning of his lungs, the stiffness of the muscles that must be willed to move, everything straining, heart pumping frantically. Wider she opened the channel, trying to soothe some of the weariness.
She heard Alaric's voice, as if from far away.
"This is more like it," he said, laughing coldly. With a wave of his hand he gathered the Titans before him.
They faced each other, she behind the beast, he behind the Titans.
The Titans leapt to attack, and Raven, swallowing thickly, urged the beast forward. The beast dodged Robin's projectiles, only to be hit in the side with a blast from Cyborg's cannon. Raven pushed away the pain from his body, sending a cool tendril of healing energy out toward the spot. He was grazed again, by one of Starfire's bolts. Raven poured more of herself into him. She opened wider the channel. She urged him forward, urged him toward Alaric.
The beast took a blow from Robin's bo staff, and Raven hissed in pain. Confusion skittered across her vision. As if in a dream she saw the beast, she saw ground rushing beneath her paws, she saw, she saw… She saw Alaric, and then she remembered.
The beast was nearly upon Alaric now. Raven pulled him back, pulled him into the ground and forced herself forward so fast it made her dizzy. She was in front of Alaric. She jerked her mind from the beast, collapsing the channel, but her consciousness seemed to skid forward, to snap away from her like a rubber band, and she looked up and Alaric's eyes were grey and wide.
She saw Trigon. She saw death and fire, red as hate, smoldering in the blackness of space. It was dark and empty. And then Azar came, but came too late. And to grow was all that could be done, to become greater and more powerful, not to be defeated or withstood. She saw herself, her mother… and then banishment, the return to that dark emptiness, and nothing to occupy but thoughts of revenge and of vengeance. Raven floated through Alaric's consciousness, stumbled through to the end until somehow she was pulling back to herself and seeing from her own eyes again.
She looked at Alaric, fallen to one knee before her, breathing heavily with exhaustion. He looked up at her. The spell that she had been preparing was ready.
"You're going to kill me," he said coolly.
"No," Raven answered. A black hole, a tear in the universal fabric, appeared in the air behind him. "I'm going to banish you."
The look of horror that stole across his face suggested that he would have preferred to die. The black hole swallowed him and each of his followers before he could scream.
Raven mended the tear without much thought, realizing with a distant kind of surprise that she was utterly exhausted, that she had run herself dry of anything that might keep her going. She wondered what had happened to Beast Boy. She heard somebody shout her name.
Her body dropped heavily to the ground and deep sleep took her into its arms and let her rest.
A/N: I know it's been like a thousand years, but… better late than never, right, hehe? I honestly don't know when/if the next chapter will come out, but rest assured it's a happy ending.
Thanks to all my reviewers! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I'd really like it if you reviewed… Please?