Corbeau

Chapter Eight: Lightning and the Thunder

"Wake up," one of the troll guards grumbled.

Raven got up with a start feeling quite disoriented at first. Remembering the events from last night and how she thought had snuck in to defeat Corbeau once and for all, she quickly got herself together and glared at the troll.

"What do you want?" she sneered.

"Not me," it replied, "her," it said and pointed to a shadowing figure. Raven's eyes blew up. Corbeau, right in front of her face. If she wasn't locked up, she would have blown her up right that instant.

"Calm down, dear. I am not here to hurt you...yet," Corbeau whispered chillingly. Raven felt shivers going down her spine. Yet? She still did not have a clear view of Corbeau who remained in the shadows, making her more intimidating that she probably was.

"What do you want," Raven asked in her boldest voice possible; the crack at the end however gave away her false sense of confidence.

"Oh I don't want anything to do with you," Corbeau snarled. "You should have stayed away when you had the chance, but look where you are now."

"Now," she continued, "you are going to tell me where exactly the rest of your friends are hiding," she threatened.

"I will not tell you anything," Raven spat back. "I don't care what you do to me, I will not tell you where my friends are." Corbeau seemed a little startled and proceeded to think for a while.

"You're right...you do not mind if anything happened to you," she said slowly. Raven was confused, what was she suggesting?

"But perhaps you would consider my offer if it involved for example the other Shimmers?" Raven gasped, she wouldn't. She saw Corbeau's pearly white teeth sneak in a grin, she would.

"I'll give you a little more time to think about my proposal," she stated. "Until then, I trust my guards will treat you with hospitality." With that final statement, she was off leaving Raven to have another breakdown in her cell. She could not believe Corbeau could be this sadistic. She had thought she was just a little emotionally unstable, but she seemed like she had actually meant what she said. She needed to defeat Corbeau, one way or another, but for some reason she couldn't bring herself to end the battle by physical means. Raven sighed, no matter how ruthless Corbeau seemed, she just did not have the guts to actually...take a life. Her enemy might be inhumane as proved when her troll guards took out her mentor, but Raven on the other hand knew she was better than that. She was determined to defeat Corbeau, not end her; but how? The plan earlier had been to trap her into oblivion, but that seemed to be a failure. Corbeau had probably hidden the portal a long time ago now that she came to think of it. Think Raven, there has to be another way. Maybe she could isolate Corbeau and throw her in the prison cell. Since the interior was made of Obsidian, it meant that Corbeau couldn't use magic to get out. On the other hand, Raven herself did not know the spell used to actually seal the spell. Looks like that plan was out. She was exhausted from thinking so hard. One of the guards had given her some food earlier, but she refused to eat it. The meal could have been poisoned and besides, she wasn't very hungry. Raven knew that she would need all the strength she could get at the moment, but she was not going to risk eating prison food. Instead, she took out a mixed trail granola bar which stuffed in her jacket. She didn't know when she had put it there, but she was glad it was there. She ate a quarter of it in one bite and saved the rest for later. She groaned and banged her head to brainstorm more ideas. Everything so far proved to be useless; she had to come up with something or risk losing Avalon. She shivered at the thought. Once Corbeau took over Avalon, she might not stop there. Eventually she would want more obviously and seek out other dimensions. Maybe she also wanted to conquer earth- that's how supervillain theories worked anyway in movies, tv shows, comics, and books which Raven had observed.