The Last Stand (Damirae)

Chapter 16: Countdown

Batman and Raven were walking through the dense forest. "What power, to have created a whole forest. We have to hurry, there only an hour and half left on the clock,"Batman said. The thing was, Raven have been spacing out since they got here. "You okay?"

"H-huh what? Yeah I'm completely fine, this way, I feel faint magic from this direction,"Raven said. The atmosphere was awkward, it was obvious that there was something bottled up inside her. "W-what was Damian like when he was little? Like when he first came to you."

"What this all of the sudden?"Batman asked.

"Nothing just curious," she said.

"Well, he was certainly very different. He was violent, aggressive, short-tempered, still is, all his heart was filled with vengeance and blood lust. Wanting to kill everything in his path, but he was very interested in reading that was the only soft spot he had,"Bruce explained.

"I can somehow see that haha. Looks like you did raised him well,"she complimented.

"A lot of things happened, I believe I wasn't the best father as well,"he said."You changed him more that I could ever imagine. It was because of you he could feel calm and happy. So please don't leave him,"Bruce said sincerely.

Raven did not want to answer the question and just shrugged it off with a fake smile which left a sad frown on Batman's face. The two proceeded in silence. After 30 minutes, they stumbled across a alter with a glass case on it. Inside the case was the Sword of Azarath. 

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Damian and the others finally caught up and reached the ruin with Raven's scent. The team fought many of the demons on their way here and were exhausted. But that wasn't an excuse to not be on their feet. When they saw the forest part of the ruin they were all shock as much as they were surprised.

"Woah this is beautiful, I have a bad feeling about this," Jon said. "It's always places like this where the worse things happen."

"Aren't you overreacting a little?"Jaime said.

"Indeed, for something like this to exist in this wasteland, we can't know for sure whether there's any danger here,"Kori said.

"Guys, my nose is malfunctioning a little but Raven is definitely in there,"Garfield said.

"Stop wasting time and let's go,"Damian said. But before they could walk in a huge shadow towered behind them.

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"This is it, the Sword of Azarath, it is said that it can only activate during a blood moon-"

"Wait what?! How do you know that? ... You knew all along?" Bat said taken aback.

"I'm sorry I didn't want the others to see this, back when I first sealed my father in this gemm, I started to search for a way to destroy him immediately and this was the only thing I could think off. Trust me I've searched for other ways to but there wasn't any other way," she explained.

"According to these carving, this will only work when the moon is at it's peak, which is 12:05 midnight,"Bat man said.

"Yes, it will only last about 2 minutes. The Blood Moon is also the time when the demons are at thier most powerful, Eventhough it's only 2 minutes, it makes alot of difference for a demon in battle,"Raven said.

"It's kind of a double edged sword, the most powerful source for demons is also the power that fuels this sword,"Batman said. 

It was nearly time for the Blood moon to be at it's peak. The blood red light shined on the pillar making the sword start to transform. Thorns started to grow around the blade, the blade itself slowly turning into a pitch black colour. 

"It will start to transform into another form depending on the target that it wants to kill during those 2 minutes, the blade will pursue the gem on my forehead with or without a wielder,"Raven said. "Another 15 minutes."