Raven

After doing her rounds of the camp to see if anyone needed any healing or help she could offer, Raven retired to her tent. It was a little lonely now, since she'd shared it with Dinah and Momoko before they'd left to take care of tasks elsewhere, but she was used to solitude.

She settled in with the book she was reading, the second in something called "The Raven Cycle." How could she resist a title like that?


[Open for she who needs healing first, then anyone else or texts or whatnot.]

Raven teleported them back to Glacia, not the Keep -- she didn't relish another run-in with Jaenelle. The skies of the netherverse were tossed with storms, and once they appeared in Karla's room, the ragged shreds of Raven's soul rushed back into her body, and she dropped to her knees, spent.

( Two Karlas, a Warren, a Dinah, a Raven, and an improbable child walk into a bar.... )

[NFI, NFB, OOC is always love. Preplayed with glacial_witch, blondecanary, and not_a_parakeet, and coded using whateverknight's spiffy coder. Follows this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and *pants* this. AUs is srs bzns. This is what happens when you let Nu play with your canon.]
 

Once Karla had vanished and Dinah taken Rook and run, Raven did her best to prevent her future self from pursuing them. She couldn't stop all of the minions, but she could keep the deadliest threat occupied while Dinah got Rook to safety and Karla sought out her own future self and Warren.

Their Soul-Selves still clashed overhead, neither gaining the upper hand over the other. "You can't stop me," the older Raven said as she lashed out with a jolt of pain. "No one can. I will destroy the child, and you all will be mine."

( Raven versus Raven, Round One, FIGHT. )

[NFI, NFB, OOC is always love. Preplayed with glacial_witch and blondecanary, coded using whateverknight's spiffy coder. Warning for violence, megalomania, the occasional comic book villain monologue, and cliffhangers. Follows this, this, this, and this, happening concurrently with this and this. This is what happens when you let Nu play with your canon.]
 

[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.]

[Follows after this.]

Fandom seemingly vanished, leaving them floating in a column of kaleidoscopic light that carried them upward, up through a hazy golden mist, into blue then purple and finally black. There was a momentary pause as light and dark merged into one. Their hearts suddenly stopped. No pulse. They were trapped in a moment of time, between worlds and dimensions and here and now and then and will be. Then the moment ended and they were elsewhere.

Most of them had seen this place before and would remember the beautiful city whose spires pierced the dark star-filled skies. They would remember Azarath in all its magnificent but sterile beauty. But what they saw now was nothing like before. Azarath had been razed and awaited death's dark scavengers to feast on its final meager pickings. The buildings were in ruins, and the skies burned red and yellow. Only one building still stood, the Temple Azarath, from which came voices raised in prayer.

Bodies littered the streets. Winged demons circled overhead, looking for more victims. ( And they'd spotted the new arrivals from Fandom. )

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

Since their return from Kaeleer, Raven had retreated to her room. She'd spent over 24 hours in meditation, trying to restore her shattered shields and banish the negative emotions that still churned within her. She'd gotten most of it under control, but she still felt some of Jaenelle's lust and Karla's despair and the anger from the confrontation with Saetan, Lucivar, and Morton. It had never been so difficult for her to purge herself of emotions she'd absorbed, and she blamed weakening herself in Agio and how Jaenelle had almost destroyed her along with the Jhinka. All those deaths, all that pain had torn through her shields and left her raw and exposed to her father's power. It'd come so close to taking control of her, closer than anyone, maybe even Jono, who'd been right next to her, could know.

Twenty-four hours of meditation later, she was tired and hungry but not feeling much more settled.


[Door is closed, but post is open for calls or knocks.]