Raven

Since Karla and Warren were away and a return to Kaeleer wasn't imminent, and Fandom wasn't being invaded or transformed or infected, Raven decided to take advantage of the time to pay a visit to her mother in Gotham. She had seen Arella infrequently since her restoration at Sebastian's hands, and each time it had felt strained and awkward. But she kept trying to close the distance between them. For most of her life in Azarath Arella had been forbidden to see her for fear of creating a maternal bond and the emotions that would result. Azar had been wrong; true, negative emotions were dangerous, for anger and fear fed her demon side, but others, like the love she bore for her friends, made her stronger. And now she wanted the mother's love she'd long been denied.

( It didn't go well. )

[ooc: Dialogue swiped from The New Titans #67, because Raven is never allowed to be happy or something. Seriously, in rapid succession her mother abandoned her, she got bit by a wererat thing and temporarily went evil (again), she had an evil robot boyfriend who tried to coerce her into sleeping with him so he could eat her soul, and then she was tricked into trying to heal "the most insane man on earth" so she could be incapacitated and kidnapped and strapped down naked with the rest of the Titans for a freakin' YEAR before finally dying (again) in the LAMEST plot ever only to come back evil (again) wearing tiny strips of black leather so she could interrupt Starfire and Nightwing's wedding by smooching the bride and knocking her up (with herself) but I am not bitter really and totally ignoring most of that. GOD, CANON. Ahem.]
 

[Follows this.]

Trigon had risen, his strength now restored. He was too late to save his daughter, and her death filled him with anger. She would be avenged.

"I FEEL THE POWER NOW, FOUR BILLION SOULS ALL IN MY POSSESSION," he said, relishing the suffering all around him. "I FEEL THEIR ENERGIES AND THEY GIVE ME STRENGTH. THEY CRY OUT TO ME, PLEAD WITH ME. THEY WANT DEATH AND DISSOLUTION, BUT I GIVE THEM NEITHER. I HAVE NEED OF THEM. FOR CONQUEST OF THIS WORLD WAS BUT A MEANS TO ACHIEVE MY TRUE GOAL."

He gazed down at the figures on the street below. ( ''My name is Trigon the Terrible. You killed my daughter. PREPARE TO DIE.'' )

[WARNING for character death and assorted acts of violence. Preplayed with blondecanary, brat_intraining, furious_maximus, furnaceface, glacial_witch, icecoldfrost, justwantsquiet, life_inshadow, longislandiceme, not_a_parakeet, and sith_happened. NFI and NFB but OOC, as always, is welcome.]
 

[Follows this.]

Raven felt the tides of each dream turning, and smiled coldly. "I am victorious!" she gloated to Tara and Arella. "One by one, they give into their dark sides. And one by one they fall under Trigon's sway. Trigon has won!" The ground around them began to shake, and stone exploded into smaller shards as a bolt of lightning struck the ground where those trapped in nightmares lay. ( When the resulting cloud of dust dispersed, they were all standing, eyes gleaming red. )

[WARNING for character death and assorted acts of violence. Preplayed with blondecanary, brat_intraining, furious_maximus, furnaceface, glacial_witch, icecoldfrost, justwantsquiet, life_inshadow, longislandiceme, not_a_parakeet, and sith_happened. NFI and NFB but OOC, as always, is welcome.]
 

[Follows this.]

Raven teleported herself atop a building that overlooked her former friends, watching over them as they laid upon the ground, bodies thrashing as they fought against their darkest fears. She smiled and drank it all in, savoring their suffering. Soon they would be hers. Soon they would serve her father. ( Just as she did, they would have no choice. )

[Preplayed with blondecanary, brat_intraining, furious_maximus, furnaceface, glacial_witch, icecoldfrost, justwantsquiet, life_inshadow, longislandiceme, not_a_parakeet, and sith_happened. NFI and NFB but OOC, as always, is welcome.]

[Follows this.]

Black storm clouds roiled overhead as the group appeared on the streets of New York, and thunder boomed as lightning split the sky. All the people around them were looking upward in confusion and fear when Raven appeared floating in the air far above, red and terrible.

"Humans, hear me now!" she shouted. "They call me Raven -- and though my mother was born of this earth, my soul belongs not to this planet, but to him who sired me. Universe after universe has fallen before his might. No one who has opposed him has ever survived. Lay down your weapons! Submit to his will or this pitiful planet will soon be little more than a wasted, lifeless husk! He comes, humans! He comes!"

She threw back her head, and her Soul-Self, red now instead of black, rose from her shoulders, growing in size until it dominated the skies. Trigon stepped through it and loomed above the city, straddling two tall buildings. Raven hovered beside him, continuing to speak. "From this moment forth he expects your total subservience and your complete obedience. You will view him with the respect he demands! And you will accept that he is your god, for your meaningless lives are his to play with. Now, bow before your god! Bow before Trigon the Terrible! For if you do not submit, this will be your fate!"

Trigon raised his staff above his head and the world became transformed. The streets shuddered and split, holes appearing to swallow vehicles whole, and buildings groaned and crumbled, their facades turning to cracked stone. Grotesque faces and clawed hands erupted from the stone to decorate the buildings like enormous demented gargoyles. But worst of all, the people, every living being except those who had just arrived from Azarath, became twisted together into living columns of flesh, bodies contorted in agony and faces frozen in silent screams.

Above it all, Raven smiled, arm outstretched as she soaked in the pain and suffering her father had just created. Trigon himself gazed impassively around at his work, then moved to sit atop the former United Nations Secretariat building, which had been reshaped into a throne. ( He closed his eyes and was still. )

[Preplayed with blondecanary, brat_intraining, furious_maximus, furnaceface, glacial_witch, icecoldfrost, justwantsquiet, life_inshadow, longislandiceme, not_a_parakeet, and sith_happened. NFI and NFB but OOC, as always, is welcome.]

[Follows this.]

Those inside Temple Azarath were not fighting, of course. They chanted and waited as demons tore the roof off the temple, creating an ever-widening opening through which they would soon come. Arella, Raven's mother, was among them, tears in her eyes as she waited and listened.

"It is time, it is finished," the woman who led the ritual declared. "Azar summons us now, and we go to meet our destiny!"

( The woman who spoke turned to look at the new arrivals, stretching out a hand to Tara. )

[Preplayed with blondecanary, brat_intraining, furious_maximus, furnaceface, glacial_witch, icecoldfrost, justwantsquiet, life_inshadow, longislandiceme, not_a_parakeet, and sith_happened. NFI and NFB but OOC, as always, is welcome.]

Raven sat on the floor of her room, completely dark but for a single candle. "Azar, I beseech you," she prayed. "Hear my words, answer my prayers. I need you, Goddess. I need you. My mind is a battleground, whipped and ripped asunder, torn from the very fabric of reality. He, that demon who is Trigon, that demon who is my father...he calls for me. And his summons becomes so hard to resist."

She heard nothing from her former teacher, no words or comforting touch on her mind, but she hadn't really expected she would. Still, it hurt to have that last bit of hope crumble. "Then my course is charted," she murmured. "And my sad destiny awaits."

She'd leave in the morning. She'd run like she'd run from Azarath, a last attempt to protect those she loved before the evil churning within her consumed her. But for one last night she'd pretend Fandom was still her home.

Raven blew out the candle, crawled into her bed, and cried herself to sleep.

( Raven wasn't the only person still awake. )

[And away we go. Preplayed with glacial_witch. NFI and NFB, but OOC, as always, is welcome.]

Raven had been struggling to hold herself together for the past few days. It had been hard for her to deal with people leaving, Dinah and Hoshi and Joan most of all. But Didi hadn't just left, she was gone, and Jono was in so much pain. She'd pushed aside her own grief to be there for him, taking her charge from Didi very seriously, watching over him and making sure he knew he was not alone. She worried though about making him feel smothered, so she was glad take time to rest and to allow Ben or someone else to make certain Jono was all right.

Meeting her new little sibling Kon at the welcome picnic had been interesting, particularly since he was from a world similar to hers and knew of a Raven who was a hero. Through and through, he had said, and after what she had been told by someone else from her future about how she was evil, it had been a great relief.

But one more newcomer had spoiled that pleasure. Zatanna. The woman who had proclaimed her evil and made the Justice League turn its back on her. The one who led them to stop the ritual that would have barred Trigon's way into this world. Whose actions led to Arella sacrificing herself to hold Trigon back. Who said Raven had enough darkness in her to break this plane.

She'd contained her anger -- just barely -- even as some small part of her struggled to accept that this Zatanna was not the same as the one she knew. But that allowed all her grief and pain to come rushing out now, everything from Arella's loss to her soul being ravaged as Fandom had been devoured by the void to Andy and his brother who seemed to hate her to Karla to people going away to Didi and Jono to Zatanna. She'd held everything in too long, and now it all came crashing down on her, and all she could do was huddle on her bed and cry.


[ooc: Mostly establishly since she's been heading for a minibreakdown for awhile now, but if you want to deal with Emo Girl, feel free to knock. ;) And thanks to Bridgey for pointing out that first tag.]
 

mrs_theterrible

After Trigon and Raven had vanished and the demons had all disappeared, Arella turned to address those from Fandom. "I will return you to your home as my daughter requested," she said. "Unless...." She hesitated and glanced toward the Temple of Azarath, damaged but still standing.

( It wasn't over yet. )

[OOC: Preplayed with the spectacular spectacular blondecanary, brat_intraining, furnaceface, glacial_witch, longislandiceme, joan_notjane, life_inshadow, oops_mbad, psychic_wonder, sith_happened, and weetuskenraider. YAY THE ENDS OF PREPLAY. NFI and NFB, but OOC always welcomed!]
 

Raven had made arrangements with Dinah to meet her after class in her room. Afraid of losing her nerve, she didn't want to waste any time talking more about where they were going. It was a simple enough plan anyway: sneak back into Azarath, find the information they were looking for, and leave as quickly and quietly as they came.

As soon as they were ready, she teleported them outside the Temple Azarath in the interdimensional realm that existed between the planes of known reality. She felt a pang as she looked around. It had been months since she had been here, and she missed the beauty of this place. The skies overhead were a dark blue-green, speckled with stars and planets that hung impossibly above. The streets were paved in solid marble, and the buildings were accented with columns of pure gold. Magical flames provided illumination, but also shadows in which Raven pulled Dinah so that the dark-cloaked figures moving about would not see them. ( ''Welcome to my home,'' she said softly. )

[ooc: Preplayed with blondecanary, NFI but OOC is always welcome!]