Freedom

15

RAVEN
It was my choice.
I pushed away all my feelings until there was nothing left, a feeling of literally unknown.
I fly until I reach the area of the temple. A warm and humid climate, making my hair become frizzier than before. I travel down the coast of the water, following the path to the Temple of Ode.
As soon as people start to emerge from the trees with their chairs and umbrellas for a leisurely day, I stop flying and begin a steady walk on the sand. I am in no rush to end the world.
Legend has it, that people used to worship my father. Trigon the Great would require human sacrifices and fed himself on blood. Now, I am not one-hundred percent sure if this is actually true, but knowing my father, demise of humanity is his goal.
I proceed down the beach, looking like a complete outsider to this world, which I am. I watch children run into the waters, people sun tanning and drinking their beers. A perfect tropical day, at least a day as perfect as this would be their last.
I push through the thickness of the forest, passing streams and waterfalls. Animals caw and roar out, knowing that evil is approaching. They begin to hustle, trying to find warmth and shelter from the end, but the end is the end.
A temple, built by the people thousands of years ago. A temple that had spilt blood, over and over again. The temple is built of sand and stone, yet still stands tall, shading from the afternoon sun. A cold wind ballets around me, almost pushing me away from the temple. I want to follow the wind, I want to be as free as the wind, but there is no freedom here.
I walk to the steps of the temple. The entire temple is deserted, with just the wind making hollow sounds. I slump my shoulders.
This is the finale.
I made sure to curse the note with my powers, the note I left for the Teen Titans. The curse entails that they will have my powers. A bit of dark magic that should keep them safe from my father's wrath. Whoever touches the note will have a piece of me, and knowing the Titans, all of them would have touched the note.
I carve my foot into the ground, swerving my foot around in the sand. Each grain of sand will be gone. Because of me. Because I am a villain.
"Now's not the time to be dallying," Slade says, walking down the steps of the temple. "You have made the right choice coming here. Tonight, your prophecy is complete, and I will make sure of it."
"What's in it for you, Slade?" I hiss.
"Excuse me?"
"What is my father giving you?" I order.
"Everything I always wanted," Slade says, slightly dreamily. "I get to live my life the way life was meant to be lived. And revenge for the death of my wife."
Slade had a wife?
Slade led a normal life?
Slade was not always a villain?
"Every bad guy still has a right to life," Slade says to my shocked expression.
"You had a wife?" I ask, clearly stalling my time.
"Kim," he says, almost as if he had no job to do. "She was beautiful. She is beautiful, no matter if she is covered in dirt, six feet under. We were going to start a life together, have a family. I was going to be the husband of her dreams. But all good things come to an end, especially when a certain someone by accidently kills your wife. And now, I will have my revenge, all I have to do is reunite you with your father."
Slade had a heart?
Who killed his wife? Why? Why did he trust my father?
"And you really think my father will give you a human body with a quenching vengeance?" I ask. Slade stares dead at me.
"Why would he not?" he demands. "I did all he asked."
"He's Trigon, he is the demon of all demons, yet you trust him," I say. Knowing my father, there was no way that Slade was getting what he wanted. Because in Trigon's world, there is no one else, but himself.
Slade grunts. "Go!" He forces me up the stairs of the temple. We reach the top where there is a dark archway leading to nothing.
"Slade, the world will end, do you not understand?" I try to reason, but it's far too late for that.
"Good," he says angrily. "The world can finally feel what I felt. Feel what true pain is like. Feel the torture."
"Is that why you tortured Robin?" I question. "Is that why when you mentored him you beat him and verbally pained him?"
A shock hits him. "Made him a better leader, didn't it?" Slade says. Before realizing what I truly said. "He trusts you. He sees you as his outlet, his outlet of a prison that I spent years trying to build. This will be even more enjoyable then, to see you suffer."
Slade grips his hand harder on my arm, turning blue in his hands, just about to throw me into my own demise.
"Stop!" A voice shouts from the bottom of the stairs. I turn around to find the Teen Titans ready to fight.
Fuck.
Robin stares at me and then at Slade, glaring daggers dipped in acid.
"Such a pity your friends always intervene," Slade says.
"Raven!" Robin yells. "Don't do this!"
"She doesn't have a choice," Slade snarls.
"Raven, you always have a choice!"
"Freedom is a price she can't pay, Robin," Slade grimaces.
Two ghost demons emerge from the dark archway. They both wear dark rags and carry axes. The two ghosts grab my arms as Slade sends them away with me, leaving him behind with the Titans.
Flying in darkness is almost the same as sleep. Unsure of what will come next, but no weight bearing on your shoulders. The spirits lead me around nothing. I feel nothing, I see nothing, and I hear nothing.
A light emerges in the black. A red fiery light. A light from hell.
"Begin the incantation," a raspy voice demands from the shadows.
I don't move.
"Begin the incantation!" the voice shrieks.
I take a deep breath.
Nothing left to remember. Nothing left to forget.
I cross my legs, still floating in a bottomless pit of darkness.
"Born of fire, born of the great," I begin, gulping. "Born to sire, born to destroy. The destroyer is here and will deliver the demon himself. Born to create the end. And born to end the end itself. Release the demon of the worlds!"
Red lines burn onto my skin, the raven on my neck carves into my skin. I cringe in pain, moving to the wall, trying to find something cold to put the feeling out.
Flames ignite the temple, demons and spirits rising from the bottom, going out to destroy the world. Shrieking and laughing, screaming and crying, and the world's most horrific sounds. I'm held against the wall, unable to move.
A demon, hundred times a societal height, and capable of the deadliest of things, rises from the ground. His four eyes, red in anger, shoot fear into the world.
"Daddy's home!" he shouts with a laughter which is drowned out by several spirits rising.
"Master," Slade says, bowing and entering the temple with blood plastered to his metal suit. The blood. The blood of my friends. He will pay.
"You have done well," my father says, barely even looking at Slade.
"I expect my payment," Slade demands, looking at me and then to my father.
"Oh, Slade, you have so much to learn," my father bellows. Slade's eyes widen at the tone of my father. "A slave receives no payment. But I do, truly, appreciate you bringing my daughter back into my control. And for that, your death will be painless."
"What?" Slade's eyes open wide, as if my warning was still a shock to him.
"Tell your wife I say hello," my father says. Just as he is about to swat Slade into a pool of fire, he stops. My father never stops at destroying a mortal's life.
"Slade," Robin mutters, smothered in his own blood. Robin enters the temple, his eyes red with anger.
"Learn when to quit Robin," Slade says, annoyed more than ever. "Your parents knew when to quit." Robin bites back a growl. I try to move but I am stuck, stuck against the wall.
"I'd say go to hell, Slade," he grunts, victoriously. "But I don't want to see you ever again!"
A crash and a fall of rocks, a scream and a shriek, and Slade burns in the fire. Robin stands exactly where Slade did, his foot up and blood streaming down his body. Robin did it. Robin did all that he ever wanted to do, he killed Slade.
"Robin!" I yell, watching him become hungry for blood. Watching him turn into something he is not. Watching Robin fade away is something I cannot let happen.
"Ah, Robin, pleasure to meet someone who reached his goal in life," my father barks. "You have made my daughter happy, and therefore, I must make you unhappy. I must show you the way to hell. "
"Hell is no place," Robin growls, wiping the blood off of his cut face. "Hell is something I carry with me. And it's about damn time I put it down."
"Confident, are we?" my father hisses. He shoots fire at Robin, but my dark force field stops the fire from entering. "My daughter is too generous sometimes. Giving her powers up for some protection, but she'll change her mind when she enters the real world. Won't you?"
I say nothing.
Trigon clasps his hand around my body and brings me up to his face.
"Show time," he says, pushing the wall of the temple down to a world of fire.
Fire, burnt people, buildings crumbled, and hell unleashed. Demons butchered people, dismembering, burning and hurting them. Robin jumps out of the crumbling temple's way. Dodging the falling rocks. The tree engulf in flames as my father roars a triumphant cry.
"Let her go," Robin demands from the ground. Cyborg, Beast Boy and Starfire are there too, worn out, but still there.
"You want her?" Trigon asks veraciously. "You don't need her."
Then everything turns dark, just like the world.

I made my own prison. My own personal hell.
I push myself off the ground of a cage. A big cage, looking out into nothing. I push against the bars, trying to get out, but nothing budges.
Cold. Dead. Dark.
My mind is my own terror asylum.
There were no longer hopes, dreams, anything.
All it is, is a cage. A cage filled with shadows, and nothing else.
I ram once again at the cage, but the bars only bruise my shoulders.
"You think we haven't tried that yet?" my voice says, but not from my mouth. I turn to see me, me in a suit that I wear, except in green.
"Who are you?" I ask, pressing my back against the metal bars.
"You," she answers. "Except braver."
"Oh!" another voice sounds with joy. A clone of me comes out in the same suit except in pink. "She's here! Raven is here!" Several other clones come from the shadows.
"That's Happiness," Bravery explains. "Gray is Timid, orange is Rudeness, yellow is Knowledge, purple is Lust, Brown is Sloth and..."
A version of me jumps down from the top of the cage, directly in front of me. Her suit is red, and her eyes, they're just like my father's. Her red eyes glow at me, throwing shards of glass.
"You!" she, I, yell. "You did this! You locked us in here! Ever since Slade came you were the one who left us in here! You only ever let out Lust or Happiness, but you locked us in here! Chained us!"
Did I really?
My feelings were so dull. Robin changed me.
"I didn't know," I mutter. Timid coming forward.
"She didn't know, Rage," she mumble quietly.
"How did she not know?!" Rage roars. "This is suicide!" Rage pushes me against the cage. I push her back, Bravery immediately stepping in. Bravery rips Rage off of me.
"Do you think I wanted to put you in here?" I retort, furiously.
"Yea, four eyes!" Rude shouts from the back.
My magic gets into me, my hands growing with black. Rage pushes Bravery off of her, her hands glowing with red magic. I run at her, hitting her stomach hard. She hits the ground and I throw my black magic at her, throwing her against the cage.
"You try to suppress us!" Rage thunders, throwing her burning magic at me. I move slightly, but her magic burns my arm. "You oppressed Happiness and Lust by leaving lover boy! You oppressed Sloth by not sleeping! You oppressed Bravery and Timid by your fluctuation of emotions! And most of all, your burden me! You wouldn't let me kill! You wouldn't let me come out!"
When I wanted to kill Slade, I didn't. I left him for Robin. It was his biggest goal in life. I didn't mean for all of this.
She throws me to the other side of the cage. I hit my head on the bars, sending a major headache to my nerves. I roll over and get up on my feet.
I kick Rage down, pinning her arms down.
Raven! Robin's voice echoes throughout the cage which causes me to loosen my grip. Rage kicks me to the side. Raven! Where are you?! Rage gets on top of me, her fire bumbling in her fist. Raven! Trigon! He's killing and destroying! I forgive you, I don't care! I need you!
"Trigon," Rage and I say aggressively. I turn to Rage immediately.
"We have a common enemy," I notion.
"Besides each other?" she says rhetorically.
Something comes to my mind. Something Captain once said.
"A common enemy brings people together and makes them stronger," I quote. "How about I give you a deal?"
"I'm listening," Rage says, getting off of me. I push myself off of the steel floor.
"Trigon, he's not our real father," I explain. "I may have oppressed you recently, really sorry, but Trigon has been plaguing us since ever. He took everything away from us, now it's our turn."
"What do your propose?" Bravery asks.
"We are his prisoner," I say. "So, why don't we break free?" I sit down cross-legged, ready to meditate.
"I'm in," Bravery says, sitting down beside me.
Happiness and Lust sit down as well.
"He is our father," Timid murmurs.
"Timid, the worst of all betrayals," I start. "They come from the ones who are closest to us."
Timid doesn't think anymore and sits down beside Bravery. Sloth follows.
"Let's kill this bastard," Rude says. Knowledge thinks on it and then sits down.
The only one left out of the circle is Rage.
"Son of a bitch, let's do this," she says, sitting down and completing the circle.
"Remember, the greatest weapon is our mind," I remind. "We spent years forgetting all the suffering, and now it's about time we made him suffer."
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos," Bravery chants and we all join.
This time, we had a choice. And this time, I knew it was the right one.
Killing Trigon, it meant more and cost more than anyone could imagine.
It meant losing my friends, but saving their lives. It meant losing myself, but not losing hope. It meant losing my life, but not losing the world.