Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Evermore ❯ Never Never Land ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter 4: Never Never Land

"How many times do I have to tell you, I'm not making a real omelette for breakfast!?" Beast Boy yelled at Cyborg from the kitchen as they fought for dominance of that morning's breakfast making.

"And how many times do I have to tell you, I ain't eating that stupid tofu stuff!?" Meanwhile, on the couch in front of the view screen, Robin was working on changing the bandages on his "souvenirs" from the fight with Titanus, the ones on his left arm being his current target. Of course, all of the shouting and screaming, along with the occasional "clang" of a thrown pot or pan hitting something, wasn't making that a very easy thing to do.

"C'mon, tofu is good for you, and no poor, defenseless animals had to be slaughtered to make it!"

"No way, you're not bringing the `poor, defenseless animals' into this, it ain't about that!" Cyborg snatched up an egg from the carton as he spoke, moving it over to the already hot skillet in front of him. "What it's about is filling my belly with good, REAL food, and this is both, so this is what I'm gonna eat!" Before he could crack the egg he held, though, the green hawk that Beast Boy had become snatched it from his grasp, landing on the counter a few feet away.

"You're not cooking this egg!" He said as he formed back into himself, crouching on the counter top.

"What do you care anyway, all of these eggs are sterilized, they ain't hatching into anything?!" Cyborg shouted in exasperation, but Beast Boy only pulled the egg he held closer to his body.

"It's the principle of the thing."

"Oh, I'll show you `principle!'" And, in virtually no time at all, the shouting match in the kitchen degenerated into a full-blown fight, complete with the cloud and everything. That was the last straw for Robin, who had already stabbed himself four times with the bandage clip due to the noise. He stood up, the bandages on his arm slipping off and falling to the ground, turned to face in the direction the two lay, opened his mouth to shout and . . .

"Friends, something is horribly wrong with Raven!". . . was preempted by the worried cry Starfire let loose as soon as she came into the room. The fight stopped, due to exactly how worried Star sounded, but Cyborg didn't yet actually take his hand off of the green-tinted shape shifter's neck, nor lower his fist which was poised to come crashing down on the smaller hero's head. Robin shook his head at the two, and then looked to Star.

"What do you mean, what's wrong with Raven?" He asked, wanting to figure out exactly what was going on before taking any action.

"She will not wake up, I tried- . . ." Starfire began, but even before she got very far Robin raised his hand with his palm open.

"Starfire, she's probably just tired from the fight last night, and besides-. . ." Now it was the Tamaranian's turn to interrupt.

"No, you do not understand, this is not normal and Raven is not all right!" By that point, Beast Boy and Cyborg had climbed off of each other and were looking at Star questioningly, just as Robin was. Starfire stared at all three of them, and the way they were regarding her, and in desperation clasped her hands together in front of her. "Please, you must believe me. Something is wrong with Raven." After a moment, Robin sighed a little and then nodded.

"Alright guys, let's go check on Raven." Even before they left the room, Robin started to worry that something truly was wrong, as Star did not smile or cry out in joy at his agreement, only flew back out the door to the room and into the hallway. As he and the others followed, he sincerely hoped that Starfire was wrong this time.

* * *

Raven was indeed still sleeping in her bed when the other Titans arrived, and quite soundly by the looks of things. As soon as they were all there, Starfire began her demonstration.

"It is time to wake up, Raven, no more sleeping the day away, so please, wake up." Despite the soft way the words were spoken, and the almost motherly lilt they possessed, they came out as pleading, Star's worry controlling the tone of her voice. When there was no response, she tentatively reached down to take hold of Raven's shoulder, and then gently shook her, but, besides the motion produced by the shake itself and the steady rise and fall of Raven's chest beneath the covers, the dark magus remained still as death. Starfire tried shaking her once again, but she already knew the attempt to be futile, and so let go of the girl's shoulder and looked to Robin, her green eyes pleading for an answer, a solution, anything to make things better. The boy wonder raised his hands up to gesture, his mouth opening to tell Star that she was overreacting, but Cyborg stopped him.

"One sec, dude." And then he ran from the room, returning in a moment with a bucket full of what could only be assumed was cold water. "Wakey wakey, Raven, time to get up!" The cybernetically enhanced humanoid shouted gleefully, before swinging the bucket forward and letting the contents fly out and toward Raven. With a cry, Starfire leapt away from the side of the bed, and narrowly avoided getting wet herself as the whole bucketful of water splashed over Raven's form drenching her and her bed completely. Cyborg's mischievous smile slipped from his features, though, when Raven did not stir at all, not even as the water began to soak into the bed beneath her. Cyborg let the bucket drop to the floor with a hollow, metallic "clang," and then shared a worried look with Robin.

Beast Boy, as dense as he always was, wasn't yet satisfied, and gave his knuckles a quick crack.

"Alright then, Raven, if you're going to be difficult, we'll just have to bring out the big guns." Before anyone could move to stop him, Beast Boy had already transformed into a rather large-clawed, green lobster and leapt onto Raven's chest. With what was probably the crustacean equivalent of a giggle, he gave her a nice, strong pinch on the cheek, but even that did not draw a twitch from Raven's sleeping form. With another leap, this time off of Raven's body, Beast Boy became himself. "Guys, something is wrong." Robin just shook his head and looked once again to Cyborg, who nodded, already knowing what the other boy was going to say.

"I'll go get the equipment." He murmured before quietly leaving the room, while Robin went to Raven's side. Without saying a word, he took a flashlight from his utility belt and carefully opened one of the girl's eyes, shining the light in to check on the speed of her pupil dilation. Then he moved to her neck, first removing his glove and replacing the flashlight in favor of a watch, and took her pulse. Lastly, he checked the skin on her arm, noting the fact that it was drawn up in goose pimples, and then gently prodded her hand a few times with a pointed metal stick, noting the truly minute muscle response to the action, but the overall lack of nervous response. By that time, Cyborg arrived back with a number of machines and devices on a table, which he hooked up to Raven as Robin continued his examination.

Meanwhile, Starfire stood off to the side, her normally smiling features still contorted with horrible worry and a barely noticeable mote of guilt. After several more minutes, and to the somewhat soothing background noise of even, consistent beeps from the heart monitor, the two stepped away from Raven's bedside and came over to the other anxious Titans.

"There's nothing scientifically wrong with her." Cyborg said quietly, though all that did to Starfire's expression was change it to one of confusion.

"But . . ." She began, looking past the two to the other girl's still form, before Robin answered her unspoken question.

"But despite that, she's still not waking up, yes." He looked back to Raven, even as he spoke. "I want to run some more tests, see if I can figure out what's actually wrong with her, but that's going to take time." It was at that moment that the room became aglow with multicolored flashing light, light emanating from all of the signaling devices on each Titan.

"No . . ." Starfire whispered, looking down at her blinking gems and knowing quite well what their flashing meant. Robin pulled his personal communicator from his belt, face grave, and looked at it for a few moments, and then put it away again. "And time is something we don't have right now." Briefly, he looked over each of the three Titans before him, making sure they all understood the gravity of the situation.

"One of us has to stay with her." Before anyone else could say anything, an unexpected voice called out.

"Starfire . . ." The eyes of all the remaining Titans were drawn to Raven's form in her bed, just as her mouth closed again. They said nothing, and quietly returned their gazes to one another. Robin looked to Star, question in the set of his features, and after just a moment's hesitation, she nodded an affirmative.

"Alright Team, let's go." The room emptied with the words, leaving only Starfire and her charge to occupy it, alone in the oppressive silence of it all, save for that slow, steady beeping, and the gentle sound of Raven's breathing. Silently, Starfire moved to the side of Raven's bed, walking with a slow step to muffle the sound of her booted footfalls. She took a seat in the chair that Cyborg had brought up with the equipment, and started to dry the water from Raven's face with the towel that Cyborg had also had the foresight to bring up. Her work went just a little bit longer than it originally needed to, as a few extra splotches of salty liquid fell upon the comatose girl's face.

"Raven, please . . . please just wake up . . ."

* * *

Within Raven's mind, all was naught but shadow and darkness, a wasteland of absolute emptiness without end, the tiny pathways that floated within its entropy desolate of life of any kind. And, right in the middle of it all stood Raven.

"Why am I here? I'm not meditating. I'm sleeping." She said without saying, looking around warily for signs of a disturbance. She flinched when she suddenly found a pair of arms draped over her shoulders and herself pulled into a hug with the body attached to those arms.

"Because I brought you here, dear Raven." The voice was hers, but it was at the same time not hers, and disturbed her greatly as she examined the appearance of the arms wrapped about her chest.

"Why?" Raven asked, for the moment resisting the urge to fight her way apart from the unusual being holding her. Somehow, she knew that a smile came to the face of the creature behind her, and one of its hands came up from its resting place on her chest to caress her cheek.

"Because you're my plaything, and I won't have anyone else toying with you while I'm not around to pull the strings." The intimate touch ceased, and the hand fell back to its original position. "Besides, now is the absolute best possible time to make your body mine, as it was originally intended to be." Raven growled quietly in the deepest part of her throat, and her body tensed for a move.

"Who or what are you?" Again, she felt herself being favored with that cruel, patronizing smile.

"Why, I'm you, dear Raven, or rather, what you really are." Raven broke free of the holding arms in a flurry of movement and leapt away from the figure, looking back at it over her shoulder even as she landed a few feet away from it. It was indeed her, from what she could tell even down to the most minor of details. The only differences lay in her black attire instead of blue, the obsidian stones replacing her gems, and the eyes. Instead of having Raven's eyes, it had four, triangular slits that glowed red, like the color of freshly spilt blood, still warm from the heat of its owner's body.

"You!" She yelled, standing and spinning to face her tormentor as she recognized the eyes, her hands coming up to hold in a defensive posture before her, but the creature that looked like her only laughed and emanated that patronizing feeling even more strongly.

"Don't pretend like you actually know me, dear Raven, because I already know that you don't, you simply recognize my symbol." Raven's blustery front faded slightly, the mask of utter assurance falling away from her features to reveal her confusion.

"Your symbol?"

"Ah, ah, no telling yet, as you've already asked all of your allowed questions for the time being, and besides, I have a friend who has just been aching to meet you again." It gestured to the "sky" above them and as a horrid screech ripped through the stillness, a monstrous bird-like creature came bearing down on Raven from above. She dove to the side to dodge its initial diving attack, just missing the creature's "fanged" snapping beak by inches. As she landed, Raven chanced a glance in the direction the imposter had been standing in before but found no sign of it then. There was no more time to contemplate that fact, as the demon bird came by for another pass, forcing Raven to roll to the side to avoid it, though its trailing, barbed tail still managed to cut a bloody line in her stomach, despite.

With a sound of annoyance, she pressed one arm tight over the wound to slow the bleeding. Meanwhile, the beast turned about to have another pass, cawing with glee at having injured its opponent. Raven decided her strategy with a single flash assessment and even as the monster was winging toward her at a high speed, she charged it head on. This confused the creature, as the behavior of prey was to avoid and run, not charge and attack. Its snap with its beak when they met came a moment too late, as Raven dove beneath the beast, a move which would have been suicide against a real bird of that size. Due to the nightmarish creature's lack of legs, though, the safest place in the world for a ground-based combatant was beneath it. She was left behind it before its tail could even react, and this gave Raven the time and concentration she needed to send a number of loose rocks from the walkway crashing into the monster bird's body.

It seemed unaffected by the assault, but Raven cared little for that fact, as she knew all she needed to about it by that point. So, as it came around for yet another pass, she simply stood her ground, further confusing the simple-minded predator. Regardless, it flew at her full-speed, beak aching to taste her tender flesh. Instead it tasted only cold, hard stone as Raven ripped up a huge section of walkway just before her and raised it in the beast's path an instant after it was too late to maneuver around. The creature's broken form vanished in a few moments after Raven came over to examine it, prompting her to look off into the nothingness that was her mind.

"Whatever you are, you're going to have to do better than that." She murmured, heading off down the walkway in the direction she knew the portal out of her mind lay. And, behind her, a metal soled and toed shoe fell quietly upon the walkway, and a black and yellow double-sided cape blew about slightly in the nonexistent wind of her mindscape.

* * *

It was dark out, and off in the far distance just above the horizon lay the shining moon, still casting a considerable amount of light even as it was just beneath half-empty. It was this that Starfire silently contemplated as she stood before the windows in Raven's room, having needed to take a break from sitting by Raven's bedside and worrying away all the skin on her hands. She knew, though, that no matter how long she stared off into the starlit night, she would still find Raven's comatose form on the bed behind her. She knew that she had to do something, that there was something she could do to save Raven. The problem was, she didn't know what that something was, did not have even the faintest of notions to that effect.

In silence, Starfire pulled her arms tight around herself, a feeble attempt to ward her body against the dropping temperature in the room, and the heavy chill of dread that had invaded her very soul. She turned to face the bed again, despite her fear of what she might find in doing so. In the silvery moonlight that filtered through the window behind the Tamaranian, Raven's skin looked even more pale and ashen then it usually did, so much so that she actually looked a little sickly. It was at that point that Starfire realized that there was a spot on Raven's a comforter, a slowly growing, dark red spot right over her stomach. She wanted to cry out in shock and worry, or some other suitable emotion at that moment, but even with her optimism whispering sweet nothings into her ear, she had always known that something horrible was happening to Raven. Like the specter of death, Starfire floated over to Raven's bed and very carefully removed the blanket from the dark magus' form, only to find a long, thin gash across Raven's stomach, a wound that sluggishly wept blood. There was no surprise in the Tamaranian's clear, green eyes at the discovery of the wound, even though she had been in the room with Raven constantly since that morning, and therefore knew that there was no possible way an assailant could have snuck in and inflicted the wound. Fear, though, lay entrenched deep in her eyes and her heart as she stared at Raven's still form on the bed, who looked exactly as if she was simply sleeping, if it weren't for the wound on her stomach.

Bandages and disinfectant came from the cart of supplies, and soon Starfire was absently wrapping Raven's mid-section up. Still, the fear did not diminish, not in the slightest, because she knew that the worst was yet to come. Something terrible was happening to Raven, but as far as Star could tell, there was nothing she could do to help now. Without any better recourse, she simply finished dressing Raven's wound, and then remained seated at her bedside in silence, head hung low in shame. "I am sorry, Raven . . ." She whispered into the dead night, not knowing whether or not Raven would hear the apology, wherever it was that she was at. The alien girl remained in that position for the rest of the night and well into the morning, seated beside her friend's bed, head hung low, her hands lain on her legs and clenched very tightly closed. It was her fault this was happening, she just knew it.

* * *

It appeared that there was indeed more going on in her mind than Raven knew, because no matter how long she walked in the direction of the doorway out of her mind, it never grew any closer. Obviously that other creature had a considerable number of things in store for her, and wasn't planning on letting her go just yet. So, lacking any more energy to waste on a futile task, Raven sat down on the rocky pathway and checked the wound on her stomach. It had stopped bleeding of its own accord sometime ago, which indicated that someone in the real world had bandaged it.

"Well, at least I don't have to worry about dying from neglect if she keeps me in here too long." The dark magus muttered gloomily, not finding much comfort in that fact. The sound of a booted footfall on the path behind her brought Raven instantly to her feet, hands glowing with dark power as she spun to face her foe. When she found that foe to be Robin, she almost dropped her guard, but her instincts remembered what her mind almost forgot, that Robin couldn't be here in her mind because she had hidden her meditation mirror after the fiasco with Beast Boy and Cyborg. "Go away." She told it quietly, violet eyes narrowed to focus only on whatever it was that was taking Robin's form, looking for even the slightest movement to indicate hostile intent. None came as the imposter simply stood there, staring blankly at Raven. After enough time and more than enough patience had been burned away, Raven simply fired off a pair of telekinetic bolts at the thing, and when they simply passed through without causing any harm at all, she sighed. "An illusion, she's toying with me." She muttered, before sitting back down, the fake Robin forgotten, though not for long.

"You know, Starfire and I are really happy together." The voice of Robin commented suddenly, causing Raven's head to toss a surprised glance in the direction of the illusion, before her eyes narrowed darkly. "We'll probably get married in a few years, when we get older." He added conversationally, transforming Raven's dark look into a full out glare.

"Shut up." She said quietly, getting to her feet as she did so.

"I know that sounds a little overly assured, but it's not like we're going to break up or anything, we love each other too much for that." Raven growled ever so faintly, not even looking at the illusion as she started walking, not even caring which direction she was going in, as long as it was away from the imposter Robin. But, unsurprisingly, it followed her. "I wonder what will have happed to you by that point?" It asked, actually taking a thoughtful posture as it did so. "Maybe you'll have gone insane, or be dead by your own hand before then." He showed little emotion at saying such horrible things, and Raven's impulses forced her to take the bait.

"Robin would never act this flippant about something this serious!" She accused, spinning about to face the illusionary Robin, who only laughed at her mockingly.

"Ha! You actually think that any of us care about you or what happens to you?" The illusionary Robin smirked. "You're more trouble that you're worth, dead or alive." The dark magus' jaw visibly clenched at that, and very quietly she whispered,

"Stop talking." The mirage seemed not to hear, though.

"You're always making Beast Boy feel bad for just being who he is, belittling Cyborg for his simple tastes, and you're trying to break Star and I up so you can have her when she doesn't even want yo- . . ." It was at that moment that Raven could stand no more, and physically leapt at the illusion of Robin.

"STOP TALKING!" Due to the figure being an illusion, though, she only managed to fly through it and tumble to the ground in a heap. As she clamored up onto her hands and knees, she felt a soft touch on the back of her head, and then her own voice whispered to her,

"The truth hurts, doesn't it?" Even before Raven's balled fists swung through the air behind her, the dark presence was gone, leaving her alone on the walkway, her cloak pooled about her on the ground as she remained on her hands and knees. The distinct sound of little droplets of liquid falling to the ground began to ring out through the emptiness of the mindscape, and after a few moments, the figure beneath the cloak curled up, and audible sobs came forth. And, in the far reaches of Raven's mind, the darkness itself smiled.