Birds of a Feather

24

When Slade stepped forward and slashed a knife down the exes on Starfire's hands she immediately ripped the ones off of her eyes. She studied her surroundings and first ignored me completely to run to Beast Boy. "Oh friend wake up. Please wake up." She cried as she knelt over his body. I let her have her moment as Rage processed through information in my mind. I watched as she sorted through boxes of information on Starfire and struggled to find material to work with. Finally she reached a certain file that had originally been labeled under Nightwing's information. Flashes of Tokyo appeared in front of me and rather than rage I felt an overwhelming rush of sadness and jealousy. I could see the two kiss as if it were yesterday and all of the flirtatious comments leading to that moment went along with it.

It wasn't fair, Starfire was the ideal woman, and everyone knew it. I had quite literally stood in her shadows for years before anyone really noticed me and even then, it was just Jason. My mind clouded with mixed emotions as rage struggled to truly get angry at her, but with a little nudge from the Slade bot her eyes returned to flames and my mind cleared.

"Friend please I know this is not you." In the midst of my clouded judgement Starfire had walked over to me and placed her hand on my shoulder. Her innocent eyes and sad expression only fueled my annoyance. I tenderly put a hand on hers and for a moment could feel the hope radiating off of her.

"You don't know me." I said quietly as my hand wrapped around hers and pushed her away as far as I could with my powers. She stayed on her feet and skidded to a halt at the other end of the room. I could see and feel the emotions running through her as she carefully thought out her next move.

"Raven you asked us to stop you at any means necessary. I do not wish to do this but I will if I must." She said calmly as her eyes began to glow an emerald green. I stood my ground and entered a battle stance. I fired first as I shouted in frustration. Our powers met in a spark with each of us standing our ground. Having fought two others before this my concentration was slipping in and out as she got the upper hand and pushed me back against what used to be a food stall. I winced in pain as I looked down at my arm which had been gashed open. Healing it would have taken too much energy out of me so instead I stand and attempt to regain my focus, which was hard with the Joker shouting profanities at me because I had been bested.

"That's enough out of you." I sneered as I ripped off one of the metal legs of a table and wrapped it around the Joker's mouth like a gag. He still tried to speak but at least it sounded painful. I was about to continue when the Joker's eyes went wide, and he started clapping giddily. I raised an eyebrow in confused and turned only to be met face to face with blue energy.

"Don't you make me do this again." Cyborg said. I could see that he was still booting up, which meant while my back was turned Starfire had turned him on. Starfire was circling around to stand behind me, meaning they had me surrounded.

"Go ahead. It will only be a temporary inconvenience" I smiled. I could sense the confusion in the air. Everyone including myself knew that Cyborg's sonic blaster had enough power to knock me out at the very least. I squinted my eyes, challenging him because I knew he would do it. After all, I was the one who told him to kill me if he had the chance, and I knew he would try. That's why when I heard the click of the cannon and the energy revving up I opened a portal beneath my feet and Starfire's. In the instant that Cyborg aimed for me I levitated upwards and with my magic dragged Starfire by the feet to be the one in front of the canon. With so little time to readjust his aim Cyborg ended up hitting Starfire square in the face and sending her several feet back, crashing into a pile of old garbage bins.

The look of shock phased out quickly as I entered his view again. "I should be thanking you; she wouldn't have been easy to beat." I laughed as I began to walk away. I could almost hear the gears in his head turning trying to process what had happened. "You're still in there somewhere Raven, and I'm gonna find you." He said. I stopped walking and turned to face him again. "This is me. No one understands do they. This has always been the real me." I say as my voice echoes through the room.

"If this was the real you, why haven't you killed any of us yet?" He said as he lowered the canon back into his arm. I stood still observing my surroundings and noticed that both Terra and Beast Boy had disappeared. "I could kill you without a second thought." I snarled. I could hear rustling from somewhere in the distance along with pained groans.

"That's the thing Rae. We aren't dead, and I know for a fact that it's because somewhere deep inside you know you care about us and you don't want to hurt us. It's them we need to be focusing on right now." He said as he pointed over to Slade and Joker. The two men looked at us as if they would also accept the invitation of a fight.

The lack of control I had over this situation was growing increasingly more infuriating so in pure anger I lashed my powers out in all directions. I heard multiple things shatter and start breaking from every corner of the large cafeteria. "I want everyone in this room to realize their place. I am wrath incarnate and I will kill each of you. Starting with you." I narrowed my eyes in on Cyborg and began moving towards him faster than I ever had before. I attempted to engage in hand to hand combat in order to get closer to his power switch that I knew was located on his back. I had managed to pin him to the ground with a little help from my powers when my hand that was reaching for the off switch was shot back in a ball of light.

I looked up to be met with a very bruised and bloody Starfire and a very mangled up Jason. "Raven I have tried pity. I will not let you hurt anyone any longer." She said sternly as she fired starbolts at me repeatedly. I attempted to block most of them with my shields but the starbolts broke through faster than I could form them. One bolt struck me on the side of my face that was still recovering from Cyborgs canon. My eyes shut as the searing pain sent shocks down my whole body. I let out a scream which in the end hurt more than I intended.

"Raven, stand down now." I heard Beast Boy's voice come from behind me. He and Terra were standing beside each other both looking out of breath. My vision turned red as my second set of eyes appeared where my eyebrows should be. "You will all die." I screamed and went for the closest person to me which happened to be Terra. I lunged at her as she sent rocks shaped like daggers towards my legs. I could see that despite accusing me of the same thing, none of them were aiming to kill me.

I reached out and landed a punch to Terra's nose which threw her off balance enough to stumble away from me. As I was about to make my second move a green blur moved toward me at such a fast pace I didn't see that it was a dinosaur's tail until it had already hit me dead in the stomach. The hit knocked the wind out of me and launched me back towards the same window I had launched Jason out of. Except this time there was a large sticky X over the broken glass that trapped me when I landed in it. I was like a fly in a spider web waiting to die as the five of them drew nearer looking like wolves about to attack their pray. My nerves skyrocketed as the shock hit my system that I wouldn't be able to defeat all of them if they all attacked at once. In a panic I did the one thing that I knew would work in order to free myself and come out on top.

Just as they were under the window I was trapped in I drew in a deep breath and screamed "STOP". For a moment nothing seemed to happen, and I feared that it hadn't worked. But slowly a blue glow emitted from around me as the world stood still.