Chapter 1: breach
"What you have concealed, you shall become."
Raven's eyes widened, conveying a melting pot of pain and fury. Her back was alive with an unnatural, ungodly searing heat. It was almost as if she'd touched her skin to an iron. The stabbing of hot pokers in her flesh erupted in a revelation of patterns, jagged twisting swirling designs. The new sensation dulled the lingering throbbing of her earlier encounters with the inscriptions. For that one fleeting moment, all she could focus on was how much she wanted to curl up and writhe out the affects of the unholy marks.
"You have no other choice."
She was unaware to the sounds of her leotards fabric finally ripping and allowing the watch tower's steal roof to leap up at her. On reflex her arms moved to cushion the landing. Fabric tore around her neck, around her shoulders and chest, breaking free from her skin. Flesh became exposed to the air, and Raven flinched as her sweltering, blistering back made contact with it. The dark empathy turned her head, glancing at her back. The red runes etched into her skin glowed an angry, bitter red. Her amethyst eyes lowered as she looked to the towering figure over her.
"NO!" In a moment she had leapt up like a tiger ready to take down its prey. Normally apathic, Raven did not deny the Trigonian impulse to wish hurt upon Slade, and she thrashed her arms forward, fingernails ready to grip and dig deeply into something, anything to harm him. Slade, however, would never be harmed by such a movement. With ever quick reflexes, he'd snatched Raven's wrist in a strong grip. She struggled. Another prompted swipe with her free hand. That too, caught in Slade's clutches. Her teeth ground together, every fiber in her being screaming to destroy the threat, to stop his message. So fueled by her anger, his words lacked clarity in her ears, gone unheard.
The fire erupted again in her skin. Like dying embers being poked and suddenly flaring to life, the charters came rushing up to the forefront of Raven's flesh with fervor. Her mind reeled, screamed. The message never seemed to reach the motor skills over her mouth, instead she cringed, teeth clenching and groaning out her pain. She'd touched the fires of hell, and her body was melting away from her, changing, becoming something more…something less of itself.
Suddenly the intense burning halted, Raven collapsed to her knees. Her chest heaved lungs and heart thumping madly from aftershock, desperately suckling in oxygen, desperately trying to deliver adrenaline to her system. Her all ready splintered, confused mental state slowly grew into self awareness. The once cloaked titan looked down at herself, down at her hands. These were not her hands. This was not her body. This couldn't have been her.
Her head lifted, her body sluggishly following of its own free will. Raven merely stared. Everything around her had changed like her body. Once was the blue, clear sky, was one wracked with dark bitter clouds and painted in fire hues. Heat wafted up in unbearable temperatures from the lava pits encircling the once proud Titan's Tower. The echoing sounds of ravens were the only signs of life present. She didn't have to see the birds to know that they were demonic in nature. Raven heard those beings constantly throughout the corners of her mind. Her father's mockery of her.
He stood clearly visible off in the distance, masked from the smoke of a raging fire city scape. His jaw opened and he howled a dominating, territorial, demonic cry, Trigon's ever present quartet of eyes narrowing and peering through her tortured being. The demon's immense body hovered over the lone figures of her friends, her family, frozen in their last moments, encased in stone. This was what Raven's mind had awoken to.
Raven could not describe the overwhelming knot, the feeling of dread and despair, of utter horror and body numbing panic. That brief moment, she couldn't feel the deep, burning sensations of her angry red marks. At that moment, they meant nothing.
"No…," she stumbled back. Her voice was low, deep and thick, betraying the desperate urge to allow a chance to cry.
"Yes," Slade's voice trailed tangibly dragging the edge of the word out, "Look at it. Drink it in. This is the world you are destined to create."
She threw her hands up to her head, body shaking, swaying. "NO! I won't do it! This is just a vision! This. Can't. Be. REAL."
"Oh, it is real." She felt his hands touch her shoulders fatherly, dominatingly. "I will make sure of it." His breath came out low and in a hiss, replacing the commanding voice with the poison of a snake. Slade's hot breath tingled in her ear, and Raven began to tremble.
"You're going to destroy the world, Raven." His hands began to slide down her shoulders, tracing her arms, her chest. The once stoic, icy witch now a quivering emotional wreck shook unrelentlessly as his hands explored. Raven was unable to move, almost paralyzed by his touch, frozen from the sights of destruction. Her destruction.
Despite the tingling embers in her skin, Raven still felt the presence of his adventurous digits. One finger wriggled its way beneath the remains of her clothed chest, then another, inching up and just lightly brushing the skin of her breast. Still the other hand crept further downward, down, down….sliding between the fabric and her skin, inching closer towards her inner thighs.
Her heart had all but stopped; her breath caught somewhere, unable to scream in protest. Raven's mind reeled like the amusement park rides Beast Boy loved so much. The exquisite pain dancing through her skin, her burning sky, the sculpted monuments of the last of life, Trigon…Slade's dominating, yet gentle touch…
"It is written all over your face." His breath lingered by her ear once more, and the charter atop her brow surged viciously to life.
It was almost as if that very sentence had broken any and all spells that kept Raven a prisoner to the tortures around her. She inhaled sharply a large breath of air, before throwing her mouth ajar in loud feminine shriek of denial.
The young lithe pale figure shot up in bed, body stiff as a bored, mouth still a large o shape with a silent scream wheezing from her lips. Her tense frame began to shake, sweat dripping from her face, neck, and down her back. She'd allowed herself to fall asleep. Willed herself into believing the lie that the visions would not return to her. Oh, how she was so very wrong. Naturally if she could see the images with the mere blinking of her eye, that she would see it in detail in her sleep?
Raven had to sleep though. She couldn't avoid it. So long without sleep drove one insane. "But so will seeing it every waking moment."
Her body remained shaking with ferocity, and she willingly curled her limbs up to her chest. Slade had… Raven's face grew hard, eyebrows set downward in a soul piercing glare. It had been nothing. All he had done was touch her…no, it wasn't just a touch. Slade had molested her. There was a difference.
The empath knew this. He'd touched her so many different times that particular night, each grasp exposing more flesh, each delicate touch like she'd been bruised. If Raven didn't know better, it could've been rape. Slade had belittled her so easily just by touching her that it made herself sick inside. Was this the sort of sensation Robin constantly felt? That feeling of being overpowered and having felt you did nothing, could do nothing to stop it. Raven bit her lip bitterly. Slade wanted to break her, her father wanted to break her. She would not allow it.
"My destiny's sealed. But I can at least delay it as long as I can….give the others some time…"
"How considerate of you." A brightness blossomed in the distant corner of her room. It illuminated a figure, the light flickering around him, and appearing to have no other source but the individual it surrounded. "You never cease to surprise me, Raven."
"Slade.," she hissed. Although her body was still tense, she forced her figure into a fighting stance. Raven would not have any of it. Not here. In a battle between Slade she knew he would out best her. There was no point in trying to win. However, his business was with her and her only. The witch would flee from the tower if need be, drag it away from her dear friends, her family. "Why are you here?"
"Now, now, Raven. I promised I would keep in touch." He stood straight in posture, hands clasped firmly behind his back. Casually he began to walk forward.
"Stay away from me.," she hissed again lowly, venomously. All ready her eyes were a glow of white, her hair whipping about in a breeze created through the force of her magic. She wasn't exactly sure how to think, how to feel, how to react to Slade's presence. The last she'd seen of him he'd done…that to her. Reminding herself of the events only caused her to display more of her power in threat, causing her black energy to wrap around her fists warningly.
Slade ignored her threatening order, regardless. He was Slade, and he didn't take seriously to threats from children. It used to be that he took threats from no one, but that was a change he had to adjust to with this new life of servitude. A life he inwardly loathed. He'd been offered a good deal, yes, he admitted to that. The downside to it was he had to suffer the indignation of being some devil's messenger boy. Just a mere lackey. At least he could enjoy playing in his role for a time. It was always nice to…visit his titans.
The tall, strong domineering figure that was Slade proceeded in his approach towards the smaller woman. Both eyed the other with untrustworthy faces, though Slade's was harder to distinguish. Finally he came to a halt at the room's divide, crossing his arms, and leaning on the small portion of extended dry wall divider. A coy, calculating smile tugged on his hidden lips, and his eyes curled in such a way to display the hidden expression.
Raven growled out an undeterminable warning as she kept her energies up.
"You have so much power Raven, yet you are still holding back."
Raven's purple eyes narrowed. She'd never told any of the others, never told them about her powers. It was clearly understood by her teammates she had enough trouble keeping the power she did show in control. What would they think or say if they'd known fully how strong she was? Where that power came from?
Robin suspected it, she was certain. When she'd entered his mind some time ago, she'd seen so much of his life, yet, as a consequence he had probably seen bits of hers. He'd never mentioned it to her. That wasn't Robin's nature, he wasn't one to announce information or give out speculations unless he was certain of them first. No, her team leader would try to research into it before addressing it. Now that she displays the ability to hinder time, Robin would definitely be researching.
However, the fact Slade knew made her want to shiver, an action she snubbed out before it occurred. All ready Slade had displayed some knowledge of her on her birthday. The seemingly undefeatable Slade would've gotten such information from her father, no doubt. Trigon was always with her, in some way, shape, or form, he was there. Now Slade probably knew every nook and cranny of her life because of it. The fact the Titan's enemy knew more about her than her beloved team…That bothered Raven, more than she'd liked to admit.
"Don't waste my time, Slade." Raven found her voice, powers still charged up. "There's no reason for you to be here. You delivered your message weeks ago. My destiny occurs whenever I tell it to, and not a second sooner."
"Oh, but you're wrong." The other lightly chuckled. It was amusing, really. The things he knew that she didn't. Had she really been so disillusioned that the matter was in her hands? If that were the case, it was time he gave her a wake up call. Slade was right up in her face suddenly using reflexes and skills that it appeared only he could possess. "You have no choice in the matter. You never had. His will is absolute."
Raven's eyes glowed more intense white. "My will's stronger."
Slade's eyes narrowed in a deathly scowl. Any amusement was gone from his masked face. "And that, child, is why I'm here."
Raven began to move, sensing the attack too late. Slade's flame encased hand all ready connected with the pale skin of her cheek. The fire in his fist exploded in a bomb of heat and darkness, the force throwing her off her bed and at the corner. Her face stung with the pain of fresh blisters, her lavender hair was singed and turning up at the ends.
The half demoness knew it was imperative the injury be healed immediately. Not doing so would allow Slade to exploit it. It was serious enough where she knew that he would make the attempts to. The option she needed was to buy time. Unfortunately, Raven was still trying to figure out the mechanics behind her time stopping fiasco, not that it would do much good. Slade could move outside stopped time. Raven just could not rely on the skill.
Eyes widened as the blurring motion of black covered legs and steal boots came crashing down into her direct vision. Panic and natural impulse took over, and she rolled to the side. His boot embedded itself in her floor, splintering the foundation, in a spot where her cape was likely to have been if she had been wearing it. There was an advantage in that, she knew, but she wondered how much longer that would be.
Raven continued to move. Slade wouldn't be so generous as to willingly give her the time to heal her wound, not unless it worked into his favor somehow. He was at the top of his game, both mentally and physically, and beyond any natural limits now fused with her father's power. Chances were every action had been calculated by him.
Running still on instinct, she sought darkness for cover. The closest and thickest source was under her bed. The moment her slim, ashen digits touched the inky undersurface, she began to conjure the shadow hopping skill. Slade's hand barely touched her foot, and it gave her the boast to move faster still, barely slipping past his grasp. She'd made it into the world between shadows. It would give her just enough time to recover from the attack.
With her body nearing the surface of another shadow, like a diver slowly ascending to breach the water's top, Raven mentally forced herself to retain her calm exterior. She could not afford to let Slade exploit her emotional weakness; she couldn't let him get the better of her. Whatever he was trying to do to her this time, she refused to allow it. Raven would—A black, armored glove pierced the darkness and snatched the fabric across her chest. Raven gasped in alarm as Slade expertly flicked her out from the shadows and into the living plane again.
"Good Raven," he praised her like a student, "A fine use of stratagem and a much better attempt than Robin's. And, although it was futile, you managed to obtain closure to your wound." His fingers traced a line down the once injured cheek, then suddenly throwing her across the room.
Raven slowed the momentum down with her ability of flight, and the blow of the wall was diminished greatly. The dark titan gritted her teeth and picked up her defending stance while still attaining a position in the air.
"It's a shame you lower yourself by being surrounded by individuals such as Robin. Your talents are wasted here. They use you for your skills, but they disregard you at any other time." It was said as if it were fact. "If only they knew you as I know you, Raven."
What if it was fact? Raven scoffed inwardly to herself. They were important to her, yes, but that didn't mean they had to share the same sentiment…not that she was uncertain they didn't…but did they always have to give up on pestering her into socializing with them? They did all seem to come up short of the finish line. No. Raven was letting it get to her. Issues could be resolved later. Now there was Slade to reckon.
"It's because you don't belong here. You've never belonged anywhere, really. Even on Azarath, you were an out cast. But you had shown them, hadn't you.," his approach was expected, and even more so unstoppable. Raven floated, containing her emotions best she could, trying to wait out the storm. "You'd relished in your anger then, hadn't you? Lashed out to those around you. Killed…and you enjoyed it."
Raven's black energy felt and enclosed around her globe, hurtling at him with the force of a slightly annoyed demon. Slade's aura merely flared as the object approached. The globe splintered in fragments as it hit the aura, catching a blaze. Within seconds the flames encroached the whole of her room. The two were surrounded in a cage of fire.
Smoke caused Raven to touch down to the floor again. A drop of forming sweat slide down the side of her face as the empath's eyes narrowed testily, so too did Slade's.
"A nerve, was it? Such reckless abandon, so quick to toss aside the pacifism of Azarath, it's no wonder you left. Even here, you struggle every waking moment. Yours is a fine, thin wavering line….all that needs to be done is one, tiny snip."
The fire continued to spread through out Raven's room. By now it had consumed her bed, and the far wall. The trails forming on the carpet scaled the distance towards her ceiling, drawing unnatural patterns, patterns Raven recognized from her first vision of her destiny. Smoke was pillowing around, building up, though did not obscure Trigon's ever present signature. Deep down somewhere she was aware that staying in the room much longer would force her to pass out from the smoke's affects.
"That's all it took for me…both you and I, there's so much in common. So much gray area, we're never both black and white. It's a shame I never considered you to have been the perfect apprentice. Robin was too easily broken, but he liked what he did to an extent, which is why it was so easy. Terra needed to be guided, and she willingly let herself be led. However she bit the hand that fed her."
He casually picked up one of the books sitting in her book case. Slade flipped it open randomly, casually. His eye glanced once over the page before returning the now flaming book to its place. Swiftly after the shelf was a roaring wall of fire. The attention was focused again upon the dark empath.
"But you…you have the power, the skill, that reckless abandonment I find endearing, all you've ever needed was someone to direct that energy. Sadly, I no longer have the option for apprenticeship."
Raven stepped back, trying to inch her way closer the door. "Don't ever compare me to you, Slade." Had that really just came from her mouth? She suddenly felt foolish…foolish like Robin.
Slade chuckled in response. "Do you honestly believe you can just waltz away from me like that?"
The witch and messenger stared the other down. Her body was tense, taught like wire. Sweat was dripping profusely down her face, rivaling the sweat she'd woken up to moments ago. Whatever Slade had been planning entirely had eluded her. Yes, her 'strong will' apparently, but what was between the lines she hadn't read yet? All he'd done was seemed to ramble in circles, doing little more than try to intimidate her, or piss her off. It was working for both.
She turned and bolted in a dash towards her door. Her body leapt up in a moment, using the leverage of flight to gain speed towards her exit. Materializing in a wicked blaze of firey lightning was Slade, right in front of the door. Raven tried to stop, but careened into him hard. She groaned out at the impact, but was not given the time to gain her bearings. His hands clamped down on her arms like a vice, swinging her viciously around and planting her up against the very door she tried to get to. Raven gasped, hacking and sputtering, trying to regain the precious breath lost moments ago. The smoke was declining her that right.
Slade's figure narrowed the distance between them, and he stared at her, eye to eye. It narrowed, and his voice was very thick and sharp.
"Try as you might, Raven, you cannot run from me. I will be everywhere you go. There is no hiding. I will get what I came here for." His thumbs rubbed the tops of her shoulders playfully, before his touch grew tighter.
Raven cringed her face away, trying to pull her head as far from his as possible, but there was not much room to call it much of a success. The fire was growing brighter, the smoke thicker, and Slade's touch was beginning to set her skin ablaze. Not the same stinging she felt in his first blow to her face. No. The scorching hell fire that ignited the charters inscribed in her flesh was surfacing. Fiercely she tried fighting it, clenching her jaw shut and grinding her teeth.
Every fiber in her being was on fire with the fresh pain. It burned her like the last time, the very heat shredding the fabric touching any of the red, angry marks. Raven expected another vision, another reminder of her ever looming destiny. None came. Instead, that pain only seemed to concentrate and intensify to a level far greater she'd experienced the last time. She couldn't contain it any longer. Her mouth flew and hung open in a long and loud howl.
It somehow numbed her and hurt at the same time. Her mind receded to the corners, while she took the physical thrashing. Natural instinct took over then. A deathly ferocious anger boiled up to her fronts. She was being attacked, she was being threatened, and she wouldn't sit for it. Without her constant hold over herself, she could not contain the dark temptation. Easily Raven tapped into a fraction of her demonic blood and instantaneously she had the leverage to fight back.
Half open eyes turned from a glassy staring purple to a bloody red. Whatever she'd been screaming turned from pain to those of fury. Black encompassed her first, then Slade, then growing and staining all the corners of the room. The fire continued to rage in an eerie display of black and white.
Slade's eye widened momentarily. It wasn't so much as from shock or surprise as it was from awe. He refused to back down from the lashing out he knew as coming. No, this was something worth the after affects.
It was at that time the two red eyes became a quartet, all four narrowing at Slade with a deadly stare. Having one last yell of rage emerge from her throat, the energy about them exploded in a large wave, rolling out from the epicenter.
Slade went flying to the opposite end of the room, crashing into a wall, but landing professionally on his feet. In that brief second he was stunned. That was the power he'd wanted to see. The power Slade knew was but a mere fraction of her strength. It was the same energy levels she'd spent during the quarrel with Terra. At the time, he wasn't sure of what the power was that she'd tapped into that time, but now clearly he knew it was demonic in origin. Slade's lips curled up into a smile. This was exactly the sort of reaction he'd hoped for.
Raven landed to the ground firmly on her two, bare feet. Her eyes were wide, while the set on her forehead narrowed threateningly. The angry marks, Raven's own personally little stigmata, glowed a sickly red. Residue of her energy output lingered, and her hair still flailed about her. Now that the threat to her had been immediately handled, and the immediate pain was no longer present, the affects of her power surge began to diminish.
Just as quickly as it started, it dissipated, and her extra set of thin slit eyes closed and disappeared back into her brow. The red formerly glowing in all sets faded, and what was left was a pair of weary lavender orbs. Pain and fatigue became apparent on her face, and Raven dropped to her knees, depleted of strength. The inscriptions throbbed painfully deep into her flesh, and Raven felt helpless when they wouldn't fade as well.
Teetering on her knees, she finally toppled over face first to her carpet, her mind hazy and barely functioning with the ever diminishing supply of oxygen in her room. Through half lidded eyes she could discern the blurry mess of hot, loathsome flames dancing about her, climbing and capturing her ceiling. What wasn't a mix of red, yellow, and orange was a deluded mask of harsh, black smoke. Raven's lips moved, trying to vocalize a cry of help as Slade's boot interrupted her vision.
Using great effort, Raven lifted her irises and tilted her head to gaze up towards the towering form. His image kept blurring, doubling. The only things remaining crisp were the gaze of his eye and the glowing insignia on his head matching her own.
Slade lowered to his knees, bending his face down and meeting hers. Raven strained to focus, but oxygen lack was causing more and more of her functions to shut down. He rolled her over to her back, and before the actions registered in her brain, he was sitting on top of her, straddling her. Panic muted from smoke began to form in her brain, and her head began to sway slowly in defiance. Too soft to even be called a whisper, "D…do…..n't…"
His figure leaned down over here, one hand cupping the back of her head and lifting it up to his, the other tracing her feminine assets. Raven began to pass out, but Slade shook her head with his hand.
"Wakey, wakey, Raven…" It was cooed, and Raven groaned in half comprehending response. Her head was shaken again, stirring her awake enough to focus on his face. "Robin had been mere putty in my hands. So easily defeated, dominated. That boy really would do anything I asked him to protect his team…"
Raven fought to keep herself conscious, least Slade force her awake again.
"And Terra willingly submitted thinking someone had accepted her, loved her. She'd do anything to feel that tiny ounce of acceptance, a mere seven minutes of bliss…" The end of bliss drug out in a long cat like purr.
What was he getting at? Raven couldn't comprehend!
"I expect you to be different, something much, much more.," his fingers once again slid under the fabric of her torn leotard and began to kneed the area lightly.
Her body was numb, she couldn't feel what he was doing, could barely see his face, barely make out his words. All she was able to tell was she knew she didn't like it. With every ounce of strength left, she raised her arm in protest, sluggishly placing it over his unviewable right eye.
"In case you care, he'll live." A woman. Young. Early thirties at the oldest. Alluring green eyes. Bitter eyes.
"I know. I called." Masculine voice. "Addie, it was a calculated risk. I didn't think he'd be hurt. I just couldn't compromise my professional standing."
"No, you couldn't, could you?" Those bitter eyes again.
"I haven't been a full person since the army kicked me out. I needed something. Being the Terminator is it."
"Killing makes you complete?" She was beautiful. Beautiful especially as angry as she was. A beauty mark graced her left cheek.
"They're executions—not killings. They're different. And I never do anything to compromise our country's security."
"But it's okay to compromise your son's life"
"I have another contract. We'll talk when I get back."
A pause. "Addie?" Beautiful face…bitter eyes…the cold shaft of a gun starring him down (Wolfman).
Despite the lack of clarity mere moments ago, Raven's eyes now grew wide with horror. The hand on Slade's face trembled. "S-she…y-yo…ou…."
Slade leapt back, removing himself from her person instantly, as if in a panic. Her head dropped like a heavy weight upon the ground, knocking the clear sense she'd attained that brief second. Raven tried to hold onto that focus like an anchor, trying to decipher the sudden emotions Slade momentarily unhidden from his control. She watched as his eye narrowed, and he bent down once again to her eye level.
Raven's mind blurred consciousness fined. The last thing she'd distinguished was Slade's shaken voice. "We shall finish this later."
Wolfman, Marv. THE NEW TEEN TITANS: THE JUDAS CONTRACT. Broadway: New York. 1988.
AN: I began writing this fic back in April after stumbling upon (it seemed at the time) a Slade/Raven pairing fanfic. The idea stuck with me and after having serious issues with a BB/Rae fic I'd worked on, thought it be a nice break. Since then it's escalated, and I'm still working on it. The piece is nearing 200 pages and is in counting. I am not finished with the fic, but the direction it is going down has been mapped. Jewel said I should start posting chapters, so I figured why not.