Fan Fiction ❯ Frailty ❯ Hermes ( Chapter 1 )

"Frailty"

A pseudo-cross over fanfiction

by

JackoMegane (AKA OzZ Cometh)

Disclaimer-

I own nothing of what is mentioned in this fic relating to Teen Titans or The Suffering...

*Authors Note* This fic is strictly based around Raven, as she is my favorite character in the show. If you do not like this, I apologize, but my writing tends to be better when it is solely revolved around something I personally favor.

Ch.1-"Hermes"

What, oh what, were you thinking, challenging me? Yet another subliminal message, assuming the guise of a disturbingly disembodied voice, brayed into the mind of a sleeping Raven. In response the withdrawn titan grunted softly and rolled over, the freezing cold of her accommodations forcing her into a fetal position.

I can show you what truly lurks in the darkness...

These voices in her head continued to rage, with no sign of relenting and even in such a deep trance of sleep, Raven could tell that where she was, was not where she should be. With a chilly sensation, the air carried an ominous feeling of dread. This place she had lain to rest in was all but safe. If a move wasn't made soon, she would never awaken, and even her sub-conscience knew this. Yet she remained shackled, and thus the messages continued to intrude the depths of her mind, on this occasion assuming a deep, robust voice,

None of us thought you'd make it this far...So, who are you? ...What's your name? ...I wanna' know all about you...

It made her begin to shake violently and gently thrash around, kicking what her body thought would be sheets, but turned out to be only air. This voice, however was a bit more insistent, almost as if it were trying to awaken her....

You can't sit still and fight it forever...this place's stronger than you...

Indeed, if it's mission had been to startle her from sleep, it succeeded. Not a moment after the enane set of rambling entered her head, her eyes begun to twitch and as she crossed the barrier, she was visited by one last message,

How many of us have wound up here lacking a guilty conscience? ...Too many, but it never concerns me...because on Carnate, none of us are without sin for long...

Sure as this barged into her thoughts, Raven's eyes snapped open, shortly followed by her torso flying into an upright position. It took a split second after rubbing her drowsy eyes to notice that she was not in her bedroom. Left to the concrete slab she had been laying on was a toilet and matching sink, perhaps stainless steel when they were in their prime, but presently caked with rust. The dim light recessed in the ceiling of the room that enabled her to see her surroundings did little to actually illuminate the room; with it's consistent flickering and nearly orange glow it, in effect, only made things seem more eerie

It took only one brief glimpse to her right to see an iron gate that prevented her from entering the hallway that lay behind it; and for the bitter reality that she was in a prison cell of some sort to sink in. She looked down at herself...it was still her, outfitted in the same black leotard (Though her cloak looked to have gone MIA) No, she had not entered the life of someone else...so what was happening?

No longer wanting to remain still, Raven hopped off the slab of concrete that served as a bed and approached the gate. Placing both hands on two of the bars, she examined the empty cell across from her own. After seeing nothing notable, she peered down the hallway as far she could, but got the same results. There didn't appear to be anyone that could help her out of this predicament.

In fact, there didn't appear to be anyone at all, thus the purpose of shouting seemed defeated.

She turned and begun to venture toward the back of her cell, hoping there would be something there that could help her to escape, however before she could grow even a mere five-foot distance from the gate, there came a terrible groaning noise, as though there were a hinge in motion that had been in terrible neglect of some WD-40. Raven whirled around just in time to see the door to her cell Finnish swinging open.

She eyed it suspiciously for what seemed like a lifetime and most likely would have persisted had yet another voice, loud enough for her to think it was being filtered through a megaphone, not called out in her head,

Come now, little girl...you shouldn't keep your fears waiting...

Naturally, she hastily looked over every square inch of the cell, but found nothing, confirming her fears that someone...or something had gotten inside of her head. Deciding to take the matter of warnings into her own hands, Raven closed both of her eyes as tight as they could go, lifted her head to the ceiling and spoke aloud in her usual hoarse-yet-monotone voice, "I don't know what you are, how you got into my head or what you're trying to do to me, but I can guarantee this...you're not going to win this little game of yours...so back off!" When there came no answer, she proceeded through the doorway and into the hall.

On either wall of the corridor were three cells (She woke up in the very last cell on the left) and at the end of the hall was a thick steel door, accompanied by a plate glass window that looked into an office of some sort; clearly the exit from this particular block. Wanting only to grow further away from the creepy cell she had awoken inside, Raven begun to approach the exit. While walking, she peered into the cell that neighbored hers out of curiosity--and almost instantly wished she hadn't. The violet-hared girl's pale hand promptly clapped over her mouth and her eyes nearly doubled in size as she took in the contents behind the bars.

The door to the cell had been crudely ripped off it's hinges and was now propped against the rear wall. Blood littered the ground, walls and meager furnishings. The concrete slab positioned in the very center of the room was especially covered in the crimson liquid, on top of which there lay the savagely mangled corpse of an inmate. Jammed in both of his eye sockets were blood-stained, bright-green syringes (Raven quickly noticed that there were also well over seven of them deeply embedded in his bare chest) The poor man's mouth, twisted and gaping open, easily expressed the agony he had suffered in his final moments that his eyes could not.

Raven only looked at the gruesome scene for a split-second before averting her gaze to the floor, but that time-frame was all she needed to gain the urge to hurl everything she had eaten in the last week. The girl knelt over and prepared to let the torrent of vomit that was climbing up her esophagus out, however before she could open her mouth, the steel door that would lead her out of this horrible, horrible corridor swung open.

Raven brought her eyes up from the ground to see a black man, outfitted in an aqua blue business suit and clutching what appeared to be a Cougar Magnum in his right hand, running toward her at a break-neck speed. The quiet titan quickly shrank back and begun to look for something to manipulate and hurl at him, however the notion promptly died when he bellowed, "SWEET JESUS, HELP ME!!!"

Before Raven could ask what the problem was, the very subject of her question came racing into the hall, scaling on the wall, traveling at such a blinding speed that it easily caught up with the still sprinting man. At first it was tough for her to make out any excruciating details of the creature, however when it slowed down and eventually came to a stop in order to ravage it's prey, she got a very good look.

For the most part, it looked humanoid enough. The three most bizarre features being the absence of it's calves and forearms, replaced by blood-stained blades that strongly resembled that of a machete' (Which in some bizarre manner, enabled it to scale walls and ceilings as though it were a spider), the stretched pale white flesh, rended and tattered over it's chest, and finally, the head, that's mouth and eyes had been sown shut (Yet it seemed perfectly capable of seeing and shrieking very loudly, as Raven would soon discover), completely decapitated from the rest of the body. The only thing keeping it even remotely attached was a rusted steel cage, fitted with a collar at the base that was bolted to the neck in a most painful looking fashion.

Realizing that there was nothing she could do quickly enough to save this most misfortunate man, she looked away, closed her eyes and waited to hear him scream. And scream he did. The most blood-curdling, agonizing scream she had ever heard. When it subsided, she opened her eyes and quickly caught sight of the man's corpse, however there was no creature. After sparing several minutes of cautiously waiting for the beastly thing to reappear (In which it didn't) Raven approached the man's dead body. One of his arms had been severed and there was a large cavity in his chest; it had become blatantly obvious that there was nothing she could do now. This man had served his time in the mortal realm, and in ways, he could still assist her to remain alive. Without a second thought, Raven seized the magnum from his hand.

Naturally it felt awkward holding the firearm. With her powers, she had always assumed she would never have to resort to utilizing guns, however when fighting criminals in Gotham, she noticed how she never had to kill any of them. Down here there was the unsettling notion that lives would have to be taken if she wanted to continue living and as much as she detested the idea, there remained the knowledge that when you got right down to it, there was no other option.

Before Raven clambered back to her feet (As she had to kneel to acquire the magnum) she took notice of an I.D tag pinned to his chest. Not wanting to covey the information through her mind, she silently read to her self, "Corrections officer Trevon Wi--" The words were cut short when a droplet of blood fell from above and splashed against the nametag. As a natural reflex Raven gazed toward the ceiling and caught sight of the officer's murderer--it had been waiting for her to make a move the entire time. Mere seconds after Raven swiftly rolled into a safe haven, the decapitated monstrosity came crashing down upon the floor.

Thinking quickly, she gasped the words, "Azarathmetrionzithnos!" In one breath and with it, raised the unhinged gate door she had spotted earlier. Just as the beast begun to menacingly approach her, the door collided into him from the side. Totally unprepared, it released a glass-shattering screech and doubled over, momentarily pinned to the floor.

Knowing that it could quickly wrestle it's way out from underneath it's shackles, Raven raised the pistol and, not totally sure what she was doing, fired a single round, which sunk into the beast's throat. As the bullet released from the chamber, Raven involuntarily recoiled.

The sidearm had a bastard of a kickback, however that one well-placed shot to the throat was all she needed to send the beastly creature back to whatever oblivion it had come from.

As soon as the blast made contact, it emitted a high-pitched cry of death, feebly kicked out a leg, then lay perfectly still. In a particularly short window of time, a dark pool of blood began to spread out from underneath it. Raven stood over the prone form for some time, asking herself what she had just done. How she had found the courage to do it...and it was as she wondered these things, the robust voice spoke to her again,

Perfect...cold-heart bitch, ya' put me to shame...personally, I would like to have snuffed the life outta' one of those things, but whatever...maybe you'll make it outta' here after all...

Rather than grace the voice that seemed the most friendly with a reply, Raven turned and started towards the exit, wishing, hoping, praying that this hideous nightmare where her emotions didn't appear to effect anything, would soon end...

The office that was revealed by the plate glass seemed to be the most logical place to visit first. Inside Raven found some shells for the gun that she just happened to be carrying, a bottle full of pills and a map of that particular floor of the prison, however there was nothing that could ultimately help her escape. On a work-table there sat a communications radio, but a sign posted just above it read, 'Does not communicate with any radio frequencies outside of Carnate Island'. With that understood, it became evident that she was on an isle of some sort, and it seemed useless to be contacting another radio in the very place that was getting assaulted. Odds are, if something heard her call of distress...it wouldn't be coming to help.

Just before Raven exited the office, the speakers of the radio begun to crackle, stopping the dark titan in her tracks. Through the garbled static a man, clearly Negro, spoke,

"What's goin' down, bi-atches? It's Cedric Gibson, used to be servin' a life-sentence in this shit-hole, but with a little help from those freaky-ass spider-things, the inmates are runnin' the show now! Hah, hah, hah! I dunno' what the fuck's goin' on, but I LIKE IT!" With that, the transmission ended. Raven dismissed it carelessly and saw her self out.

The corridor she found herself in stretched a more-or-less long distance down then branched off to the left and right. On the wall was a directory sign reading,

'Showers-left

Admittance office, stairwells, restrooms-Right'

For a little while she tore herself over whether or not to go into the shower room, clearly a dead end, and hopefully find some survivors. In the end she decided for the showers. From what she gathered on the map in the radio office, she was not on the first floor (Though it really didn't bother to specify) and the odds were likely that simply by venturing down the staircase, she would not reach the way out.

The shower room was nothing like Raven thought it would be. Of course it was a prison, so she had particularly low expectations, but this just seemed inhumane. There was no entrance door; the hallway simply lapsed into a smaller-than-large room equipped with six chrome poles that had nozzles stuck on the top. At one wall stood two feeble, beaten up lockers that practically screamed to be recycled into something useful. As she rummaged through one of the scrap-iron storages, Raven muttered to herself, "Is this where the criminals we catch wind up?" By all means the punishment certainly didn't fit the crime...

While closely inspecting an un-marked bottle of pills, a voice, one that was not familiar and she knew for a fact wasn't in her head, spoke from behind her, "No...you're not like the others that wind up here..."

Raven swiftly turned, raising the magnum as she did so, to see a plume of visibly green gas begin to emerge from one of the drains in the stained tile floor. Strangely enough, it did not spread through out the room, but seemed to remain in one designated area. Once it had grown considerably, a humanoid figure began to take shape within it's confines.

"They were dull-minded...the only thing they thought about was finding a way out when the darkness consumed Carnate...you're not like them at all...you may want to escape...but at the same time, you want to embrace it, remain with it, drown in it..." The apparition continued in an eerily placid voice, occasionally taking considerably deep breaths through it's nose while speaking. Raven, awestruck, receded a few steps as the fear again began to strike her with a devastating impact...and again having no effect on the environment.

"Who..." She begun in an unsteady (Yet still hoarse) voice, "...Who are you?"

The ghostly image inhaled through it's nasals before replying, "Names...identities...labels...I always found them to be so...irrelevant..." He cut himself off to gracefully float toward the frightened titan. Raven, not totally sure of what to expect, took in a deep bout of air and held it.

"After all, when you are about to die, ready to take in that final breath, your name is the last thing you think of...I should know...but if you must know, it is Hermes...". Understandably, she begun to back away. The spirit whom had identified himself as Hermes remained where he was, still talking, knowing that no matter how close to the exit of the room she grew, she would still be listening.

"If in the end the side of you that want's leave wins over, I shall deal with you personally." As Raven turned and begun to dash out of the room, she could still hear his words, "Keep in mind...no one escapes what I bring about."

-End chapter one-

*Rambling from the author*

...So what do ya' think so far? I realize that crossing TT over with The Suffering was a bit risky, (Especially considering that I have no intention of even mentioning Torque) but The Suffering was a genuinely dark enterprise, and I figured that would go well with Raven. The chapter itself may have been pretty short, but if it's one thing I learned from my time spent writing on TMFFA, it's this; long chapters tend to bore the reader as they near the end (Unless of course, it's an MST) Please drop a review if you get to this sentence...I really need to have some kind of gauge on how my writing's been doing...