Demons (Damirae)

Chapter Seventy-Five

A piece of brick crumbled off the alley wall as the man's shoulder slammed in to it. Pinning the shifter to the wall with beams of pure darkness, acting like extensions of her arms, Raven narrowed her eyes at him. Allowing red to overcome her irises, the demoness payed no attention to the lesser shifters that Damian and Jason dealt with; her attention was on this one, the gang leader.

"Try another unproved attack like that again and we will know about it.", she tilted her head, leaning closer in, "Got it?", Raven released her magical hold on him, calling out to the other two that they should let the Dark shifters go- just this once. That warning would keep them out of trouble, for so long but not forever.

Damian kicked the leather-jacketed, hair-jelled, scar-faced shifter besides him (a bear shifter, by the smell of him) and almost growled, "Take that back to your filthy accomplices!"

True to his nature, Jason complained at not being able to skin the men and turn them in to rugs- or simply shower the dirty braggarts with bullets- but, after Raven forced an aura of calm over his bloodthirsty self, he conceded to simply punch a few of them...really, really hard.

Scarcely two hours after Damian had arrived at the apartment and the three of them had set out through the sleazy streets of Gotham's crime pits, they returned, satisfied. After relating to his kind-of-girlfriend that her attackers had been threatened and wouldn't try anything again, Jason gave them his version of a thanks.

At the doorframe, before Damian and Raven left for the Manor (Robin would explain it to Stephanie later) Jason leaned against the wood and scratched the back of his head, "I still think a bullet to the head would've taught them a better lesson, but I s'pose your way was fine.", he raised an eyebrow at Damian, "I'm surprised you helped- you're getting soft,", he teased and tried to ruffle his brother's hair, only receiving a smack to the hand, "or Raven's just a good influence."

There was something in the way he said those last two words and winked afterwards that brought to Damian and Raven a mild sense of alarm. Before either of them blurted out indignant excuses or confused splutters, Jason smirked, "Hey, I won't ask any questions...yet. Now go magic a portal or whatever because I really need a drink."

***

With a whole weekend ahead of them before school inevitably took hold of their lives, the Titans -minus Jon- were gathered up by Kori. The pregnant Tamarinian was still a force to be reckoned with as she stood before the Titans in the Manor's training room. It had been just under a fortnight since they had trained together and Koriand'r had noticed a rising frigidity between Damian, Raven and Jon, and Donna. They and Jaime were the Titans. The family of misfits that somehow survived Hell and near-death together. That didn't judge based on planet, realm or country of origin. Despite the option being available, Jonathan and Donna had chosen to stay at the Manor with the others: Koriand'r didn't want to put that relationship at risk, Garfield's absence was still a gaping hole in the group even after four months.

"We are doing some training today, it's important that we are preparing for any threat that must be faced.", Starfire said.

Twirling an escrima stick, Nightwing stood besides his fiancé and explained, "Its one-on-one, with powers. No grievous bodily harm", he narrowed his eyes at Damian, "there are no points and it is NOT a competition. We can point out ways to improve technique.", Robin was deeply disappointed. Ah well, you can't win everything....unless you conquer the world and force everyone to follow your ideology, then you can...but other than that.

"We're choosing the pairs.", Dick added.

Damian proceeded to curse under his breath a little too loudly, thankfully for him, Dick's Arabic was a little rusty.