Blood: Our Truth (Teen Titans: Future Storm)
And here is where Slade and Ravager show up. Cue the freaky enhancements, mysterious motives, and more demonic chaos!
Title: Teen Titans: Future Storm
Arc: Blood
Chapter: Our Truth
Fandom: Teen Titans (TV/comic hybrid)
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Slight for "Apprentice" and Season 2
The Teen Titans stared down Slade and Ravager, who both seemed to have modified their uniforms. Slade’s new uniform consisted of black leather/polymerized titanium weave with gray metal covering his torso, shoulders, knees, and shins. The metal was ridged at his abdomen, shoulders, and knees, while chain mail-style mesh covered his arms, shoulders, and neck. His hands and forearms were covered by black gloves with metal pads on the backs of the hands and a utility belt wrapped around his waist. The one detail that remained the same was his mask, which was a featureless black on the right side and burnt orange with a singular lens on the left side.
Ravager, on the other hand, seemed to have modified her uniform very little. It remained largely the same, but there were still a few modifications. Like her father’s uniform, the armor on her knees and shins was ridged, but not nearly as heavy to allow greater freedom of motion. Her sleeves were now leather/polymerized titanium with gray bands wrapped around her forearms and gray metal pads on the backs of the gloves. Finally, her sides - including the outside of her thighs - were covered in chain mail-style mesh like her shoulders and she’d filled the triangular gap in her chest. Like her father, her mask remained the same - burnt orange on the right side with a singular crimson lens and featureless black on the left side.
“What are you doing here?” Nightstar asked.
“Come now, Nightstar,” Ravager replied. “We’re not here to hurt you. On the contrary, we’re here to help.”
“Help? You guys?” Beast Girl asked. “You’re joking, and you’re even crazier than we think you are if you expect us to buy that.”
“Little changeling, we don’t expect you to trust us,” Slade replied.
“What made you guys want to help us?” Inferno questioned. “What’s in it for you?”
“We simply wish to protect Samara,” Slade answered. “She’s family.”
“I wouldn’t claim any kind of kinship with psychopaths like you two,” Samara snarled.
“Brother Blood isn’t going to touch you,” Ravager stated. “Father and I will see to that.”
“Your concern touches me,” Samara remarked sarcastically.
Slade looked at Mercury. “I see you’ve recovered quite nicely from our last encounter.”
“You should know, Slade, I’ve gotten better,” Mercury said. “If you double-cross us, you’ll see just how much better.”
“I’ve observed you, Peter Allen,” Slade responded. “You may be the most powerful speedster of your generation and you may have learned some new tricks, but you’ll find me to be more than a match for you when the time comes.”
“Where’d Raziel go?” Ravager asked. “I wanted to thank him for his help.” Nightstar just glared at the younger of the two assassins. “Sore subject, huh? Very well. We’ll be in touch.” She and Slade departed Titans Tower, leaving the Titans bewildered.
“What the hell was that?” Beast Girl asked.
“They seemed sincere,” Samara replied. “As sincere as they can get, anyway. I still wouldn’t trust them, not after our experiences with them.”
“Remember that break-in at Grayson Enterprises some months ago?” Bladefire asked. “My father was working on a medical nanotech solution that had the potential to repair damaged immune systems, which could have put an end to scores of diseases. Unfortunately, someone stole it. I’ve been looking into it and I managed to recover the video feed from that night.”
He walked up to the Tower mainframe and typed in one of the keyboard ports connected to it. The image that came up was Slade and Ravager infiltrating the Blüdhaven headquarters of Grayson Enterprises. “It was them,” Bladefire said. “They took it.”
“What would they need with medicine?” Mercury asked.
“Nanotechnology is self-repairing,” Inferno explained. “It can continually replicate, which would enable a human body to recover from disease faster than normal since the nanotechnology would be constantly replenishing itself. This also leads to enhanced healing abilities and even better . . . in terms of military applications . . . enhanced physical and mental capabilities. That must have been why Slade and Ravager took it.”
“Both of them are already enhanced by that serum,” Nightstar said, “but if they were to mix it with the nanotech, they’d be even more of a threat.”
“It’s been a pretty long night,” Bladefire said. “We should rest. We can worry about Slade and Ravager tomorrow.”
The Titans retired to their rooms, except Inferno, who followed Samara into hers. “You’re really worried, aren’t you?” he said.
“How could you tell?” Samara drawled sarcastically.
“Because I’ve known you for years,” Inferno answered. He reached out and pulled her close. “Blood isn’t going to get you. Neither are those demons. I won’t let them.”
“You sure about that?” Samara asked, trepidation clear in her voice.
“I’m sure,” Inferno replied. He kissed her gently on the forehead, right above her chakra gem. “Sweet dreams, Sam.”
He departed her room, leaving Samara alone with her thoughts . . . and just a bit of hope.
Bladefire lay on his bed, pondering what had just transpired. As impossible as it was, he felt betrayed. He cursed himself for feeling that way, as he’d known right from the start what sort of woman she was.
And you slept with her, anyway, the little voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like his father, commented. How many encounters did you have with her? Three, at least? Bladefire turned onto his side, muttering under his breath.
Were you that lonely? the voice mocked. That lonely that you’d gladly screw the first girl that offered herself to you, even if she was a killer?
You’re actually quite wrong on that, Bladefire answered. If I was really going to screw the first girl who offered herself to me, I’d have done it with one of those insipid fangirls of mine. I don’t know what it is about her, but I . . . I almost can’t help myself when I’m around her.
I guess that’s why you fight her with such enthusiasm, the voice remarked. If only your teammates knew that enthusiasm was really not-that-sublimated sexual tension.
“Thinking of me, Joh’n?” a very familiar voice asked.
Bladefire leaped off the bed and into a fighting stance, energy sword extended. “Ravager. What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Is that any way to greet a lover?” Ravager asked, poised right in front of his window and balancing herself on the edge in a rather . . . appealing manner.
“Going to have to get that worked on,” Bladefire murmured.
“But you won’t,” Ravager replied. “You like having me break into your room to have my way with you.”
Bladefire just glared.
“I didn’t come here to fight,” Ravager said.
“Then what are you here for?” Bladefire asked.
“Just a little romp,” Ravager answered. “With you, of course, although in my honest opinion it’d be even better if we could convince Nightstar to join us.”
Bladefire’s eyes went wide and his energy sword dissipated. “You. Are. Nuts,” he said.
“Oh, don’t worry, you won’t have to touch her,” Ravager said. “The both of you can focus all that sexual energy on me and I can focus mine on the two of you. Imagine the fun all three of us will have.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for that,” Bladefire said.
Ravager just smirked. “For now, let’s just have some ‘me and you’ time,” she suggested, hips swaying seductively as she strode over to Bladefire. She gently pushed him back down onto the bed and straddled him, kissing him deeply. Bladefire returned the kiss, hating himself for doing so and yet unable to help himself when in such close physical contact with her. As they kissed, Bladefire removed Ravager’s mask, letting her silver hair flow freely.
When Bladefire broke the kiss, he looked at Ravager . . . and saw that she had two eyes, as opposed to one. The right eye was blue as always, but the left eye was black with a purple triplicate whorl around the pupil that resembled three sixes sprouting from the same loop. The skin around and near the left eye had a scarring pattern that almost resembled a snake’s scales.
“What is that?” he asked.
“A special enhancement,” Ravager replied. “It’s an eye that used to belong to a demon who could see every possible immediate move an opponent could make in combat and counter them. Now that I have it, it gives me the same power. Not to mention that moving objects that would be fast to others . . . are slow as molasses to me.”
“Is the eye to help you protect Samara?” Bladefire asked.
“She’s family, like my father said,” Ravager answered.
“Speaking of your father, what are you doing with him?” Bladefire inquired.
“He’s my father,” Ravager replied. “I . . . need him.”
Bladefire sighed sadly, hearing the forlornness in his enemy-slash-lover’s voice. He stroked her hair gently.
“I don’t wanna think about it,” she said. “Just make love to me. Please.”
Bladefire looked into her mismatched eyes . . . and kissed her again. Ravager returned the kiss, full of desperation and need.
The next morning, the half-alien boy woke up and wasn’t surprised to find himself alone in his bed. A note lay on the nightstand next to him, which he picked up and read.
“Blade, thanks for last night. Sorry I couldn’t stay. See you soon. -R.”
Bladefire folded the note and got out of bed, donning a robe and going to the bathroom. He discreetly avoided Nightstar and Beast Girl, for both of them had particularly sharp senses and if they smelled Ravager on him, they’d start asking questions that he didn’t want to answer and wasn’t even sure he could answer.
After the brief shower, just long enough for him to wash away all traces of Ravager’s scent, he returned to his room and dressed himself in his usual uniform. He flew out of the Tower and joined Nightstar in their morning aerobatics, which the other Titans had exited the Tower to witness. The grace and agility with which the twin Titan leaders moved in the air was nothing short of beautiful, particularly in the way they worked together. Granted, the other Titans knew that this had taken years to perfect, but it was still amazing.
One Titan in particular, Samara, felt more at peace after watching this display of perfection. If only she knew what would come this night . . .
That very night, Jump City became a fiery charnel house.
Demons rampaged through the city streets as the citizens fled, either in cars or on foot. Those demons were by no means the “pretty,” human-looking kind; rather, they were the twisted monstrosities seen mostly in nightmares. Those that chose to flee in their cars were not any safer than those that fled on foot, as the demons simply jumped onto the cars and punched through the roofs or windshields. Those that tried to flee on foot were snatched up and killed in the most horrific of fashions, some so badly mangled that there was almost no way of telling that they’d once been living human beings.
In the midst of this carnage was Raven Roth, dressed in a blue cloak over a black corset with silver designs and black skintight pants. “You won’t have her,” she whispered fiercely. “Azarath Metrion Zinthos!”
Black psychokinetic energy lashed forth from her in the form of blades, piercing and shredding several demons. As she was about to attack another demon, a bastard sword impaled the demon from behind and carved it in half. The demon’s newly separated halves fell away, revealing Slade.
“Slade,” Raven growled. “Here for Samara, too?”
“To the contrary, Raven,” Slade answered. “I’m here for the same purpose as you - to protect her.”
“Why would you be interested in protecting Samara?” Raven asked suspiciously, even as she summoned another burst of psychokinetic power to kill several more demons approaching.
“She’s family,” Slade answered simply, suddenly lunging at Raven with his sword. Raven ducked, only to find that she was not the mastermind’s intended target. The bastard sword found its way into the chest of yet another demon and Raven noticed that the sword was glowing with a hellish aura.
“Where did you get that?” Raven asked.
“Remember when we battled Trigon?” Slade asked. “I stole a weapon from one of his soldiers.” He raised the bastard sword. “This is what I remade it into.”
“Where’s your lapdog of a daughter?” Raven asked icily.
Slade narrowed his eye at her, his displeasure radiating in waves of killing intent. Raven’s answer came in the form of a battle cry, followed by the sound of a skewering. “Never call me a lapdog,” Ravager spoke harshly, appearing behind Raven. “Never.”
Raven just chuckled and turned to face the younger woman. “What’s the matter, Rose, don’t like being called what you are? He’s only using you, just like he used Dick and Tara.”
Ravager was ready to attack, but Slade held his hand up. “Ravager, we don’t have the time,” he said. “Protecting Samara is what matters.”
“Your lucky day,” Ravager spat at Raven as she moved to join her father’s side.
“More like yours,” Raven muttered.
A blue-and-silver blur of motion raced into the fray, attacking the demons. Blue energy interlaced with silver lightning could be seen bursting out the backs of several demons. Purple energy wire sliced through even more demons, as a blue energy sword cut through other demons. Sections of earth tore out of the asphalt and concrete covering them and battered more demons. Demons began combusting and darkness-formed blades cut through more.
“That isn’t all of them, is it?” Beast Girl surmised.
“Your grasp of the obvious is indeed impressive,” Slade remarked sarcastically.
“Nice seeing you again, Mother,” Samara greeted. She glared at Slade and Ravager.
“It seems that for once, our goals coincide,” Raven spoke. “I still wouldn’t trust the bastard.”
“I would expect no less,” Slade said.
“It appears that even the lower scum of the demon regions want Samara’s power,” Ravager observed. “Or are they simply working for higher demons?”
“Most likely,” Samara answered. “These creatures are barely sentient; what use would they have for a consort?”
Just then, golden android soldiers made their approach.
“Blood’s killing machines,” Inferno stated grimly, igniting into fiery mode and attacking the androids with jets of flame. The androids did not seem to be adversely affected by the flames.
“Internal cooling system,” Slade deduced. “Activates whenever the external temperature exceeds a certain level. This new Blood is smarter than I thought.”
Nightstar and Bladefire charged Blood’s androids with their respective energy weapons, cutting through them like wet tissue paper. Beast Girl changed into a rhinoceros and began ramming the androids, using her horn to impale them. Mercury ran around the world . . . and came back with enough kinetic force to deal crushing blows to the androids, but it wasn’t quite enough to finish them. Samara and Raven combined their umbrakinetic abilities to tear numerous androids apart, and Slade and Ravager simply sliced them apart with their swords.
The remaining androids began fighting back with sonic weapons. Instead of channeling sound into blasts, they simply emanated sonic vibrations that nearly shattered the ears of their opponents. The vibrations were particularly harmful to Nightstar, Bladefire, Beast Girl, Slade, and Ravager due to their heightened senses. Mercury simply vibrated his molecules to a frequency that left him immune to the sonic vibrations, while Samara and Raven plugged their ears telekinetically.
The twins struggled to their feet, stalking toward the androids with painful determination. Before they could reach the androids, kunai flew at the androids, blocking their sonic emitters. With nowhere to escape to, the vibrations tore the androids apart. Bladefire turned and saw Ravager smirking in spite of her pain.
“You . . . saved us,” Inferno uttered in astonishment.
“I was saving myself,” Ravager answered.
Mercury ran to Beast Girl. “You all right?”
Beast Girl looked up at Mercury, nodding in response. Mercury touched her gently and lent speed to her body’s recovery system, healing her eardrums. He then ran to Inferno and did the same thing with him.
“Didn’t know Samara wasn’t the only doctor in the Tower,” the pyrokinetic remarked.
“All I’m doing is accelerating your own body’s healing processes,” Mercury answered.
“Blood, you might as well show yourself, you filthy coward,” Slade challenged.
“Deathstroke the Terminator,” Brother Blood spoke as he materialized. “I almost thought I’d never get the chance to meet you.”
“You sound flattered,” Slade remarked.
“It’ll pass,” Brother Blood answered nonchalantly. He looked at the remains of his androids. “I designed them to be resistant to extremes of temperature and concussive forces of a certain level, but it appears I didn’t plan for all of your abilities. Then again . . .” He looked at Beast Girl pointedly. “. . . I suppose some things can’t be planned for.”
Ravager slid a finger underneath the blank side of her mask and popped out a black lens, placing it in her belt. With the lens removed, her left eye - black with the purple triplicate spiral around her pupil - was exposed.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Nightstar asked.
“Hell Spiral,” Brother Blood spoke. “I’m impressed that a mortal - even an enhanced mortal - like you was able to survive it. Now we’ll see how well you can use it.”
He charged Ravager with speed beyond anything human, only for Ravager to easily block his attack and toss him. Blood flipped and landed in a crouch.
“Not bad,” Blood remarked. “You’ve already gotten the hang of dilated perception.” He withdrew a kris from his robe.
“You expect to beat me with that?” Ravager asked derisively.
“Why, Ravager, it’s not the size of the weapon . . . it’s how you use it,” Blood answered, extending the kris into a full-length sword.
Ravager drew her katana and she and Blood clashed swords. Blood was moving far faster than an ordinary human could follow, but Ravager wasn’t having trouble at all. Not only did the Hell Spiral provide her with enhanced perception, its ability to see every possible immediate future in conjunction with her own precognitive skills enabled her to stay several steps ahead of him. She was just stringing him along.
“She’s good,” Mercury remarked.
Slade said nothing, but Raven and Samara could sense that he was nearly beaming with sadistic pride under the mask, looking forward to the damage she would do to Brother Blood.
“What’s dilated perception?” Beast Girl asked.
“It’s like what me, my dad, and the others like us are capable of,” Mercury replied. “When we speed up, so do our perceptions of the world around us. When we’re in that state of accelerated perception, everything is either really slow or just standing still from our viewpoint. We can even accelerate our perceptions without actually speeding up our bodies, so we can still do things faster than a normal person could.”
“Oh,” Beast Girl said.
“Excellent lesson, Mercury,” Slade complimented with a dark smile underneath his mask. “I’ll surely remember it when we face off in the future.”
Mercury paled.
“What do you want with Samara?” Ravager asked as she continued battling Brother Blood.
“She will bring about the rebirth of Trigon,” Brother Blood replied. “He will be reborn in her.”
“And what do you have to do with that?” Ravager asked, evading a slash from Brother Blood’s sword.
“It will be my seed that brings forth Trigon,” Brother Blood answered in a tone full of cold menace. Those nine words horrified Ravager enough to throw off her concentration by a very small fraction . . . but even that was enough for Brother Blood to slip under her guard and slash her. The sword, mystically enchanted as it was, sliced through the polymerized titanium-leather mix of her suit and into more vulnerable flesh.
“Ravager!” Slade shouted, outraged by Blood’s attack on his daughter. He drew his bastard sword and attacked the young man, who simply stopped him in his tracks with a web of scarlet flame. “Blood! You’ll burn for this!”
Of course, Slade’s attack had proven to be a simple distraction, as Blood was pierced in his upper arm by a kunai from Ravager. Blood simply pulled the kunai out and smirked, the web of flames having dissipated since the pain of being pierced by the kunai distracted him from maintaining it.
“Not a bad maneuver,” the malevolent youth complimented. “Faking concern for your daughter in order to draw my attention away from her while she healed. Not bad, Deathstroke, not bad.”
Ravager said nothing, but the forlorn set of her mouth made Bladefire want to cry. It was only his tight grip on his emotions - far tighter than a Tamaranean, even a hybrid, ought to have - that prevented him from doing so. It also prevented him from flying over to comfort her, something he could not afford to do if he wanted to keep their relationship secret.
Not for the first time, the Tamaranean-human hybrid cursed himself for having learned too well the lessons of his father’s “kin.” Of course, there was a surefire way of burying his guilt and nascent self-hatred. “Take him down,” Bladefire ordered, materializing his energy sword and attacking Brother Blood along with the other Titans, Raven, Slade, and Ravager.
Inferno reached Blood first, quick, precise, and brutal strikes being made with fiery fists. Finally, Blood caught Inferno’s fist and turned the pyrokinetic’s flames against him, burning his own body as opposed to that of Trigon’s herald. Inferno was forced to power down in order to save himself from being burned to the core.
“How . . . did he do that?” the firestarter wondered.
“Inferno,” Samara said, at his side in an instant. “Are you . . . ?”
“I’ll be fine, Samara,” Inferno replied. “Just nail the bastard.”
“Sure,” Samara answered, passing the opportunity for a perverse joke. Now wasn’t the time.
Nightstar, Bladefire, Slade, and Ravager joined together to fight Brother Blood, who blocked their weapons with his sword. With a burst of psychokinetic force, he pushed them away from him. Beast Girl created a pillar from the earth and lunged toward it in a flying kick, attaching herself feet-first to the pillar and breaking it off to use as a traveling battering ram. Blood merely jumped on the pillar and slashed at Beast Girl with his sword. With animal reflexes, Beast Girl avoided the swing and scratched his face with her nails. Blood’s eyes glared at her from within a blood-covered face and he sliced the pillar apart. Beast Girl took harpy form and manipulated the remains of the pillars to strike Trigon’s herald.
Raven and Samara telekinetically manipulated traffic lights so that they bent and wrapped around Blood, binding him. Unfortunately, Blood teleported out of the twisted traffic lights and reappeared behind Samara. “Nothing . . . will stop me,” he whispered in her ear. “You won’t. Your mother won’t. Your friends won’t. Deathstroke and Ravager won’t. Even your aspiring lovers won’t.”
Suddenly, a shadowy tendril wrapped around Brother Blood’s throat and pulled him away from Samara, choking him in the process. “Wanna bet?” Leknaat asked with a cruel smirk on her doll-like face. The Titans, Raven, Slade, and Ravager turned to confront Samara’s “rescuer.”
“No one else will have you except me, Samara,” Leknaat spoke. “I will make sure of it by killing this fool who imagines himself Trigon’s emissary.”
“Unfortunately . . . I won’t make it that easy for you,” Blood hissed, teleporting away.
“Was it you who sent those monstrosities after Samara?” Ravager asked.
Leknaat looked shocked, very shocked. “That is nonsense. If I wanted to send lower creatures to retrieve Samara for me, I would have sent Shades.” She extended a shadow tendril toward Ravager, sharpening it into a deadly stiletto that she held at the assassin’s throat. “Ravager of the Hell Spiral, any demon that would send others to do the work of retrieving a desired consort is too cowardly for their station. And no one . . . no one . . . calls me a coward.”
“Your point’s been made,” Ravager said. “Get that thing away from my neck before I start pointing sharp objects at yours.”
Leknaat retracted the shadow tendril.
“I rather like her,” Slade whispered in Ravager’s ear.
Raven aimed a fierce stare at Leknaat. “I’ve spent too long protecting Samara from the likes of you to let you near her.”
Leknaat smiled threateningly. “Your desire to protect Samara is admirable; a good demon protects her offspring, after all. But don’t think you can challenge me . . . not without much pain.”
“Pain?” Raven echoed. “Spoken like someone very familiar with causing it.”
“Put away your animosity, Raven,” Leknaat said. “I offer a truce.”
Title: Teen Titans: Future Storm
Arc: Blood
Chapter: Our Truth
Fandom: Teen Titans (TV/comic hybrid)
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Slight for "Apprentice" and Season 2
The Teen Titans stared down Slade and Ravager, who both seemed to have modified their uniforms. Slade’s new uniform consisted of black leather/polymerized titanium weave with gray metal covering his torso, shoulders, knees, and shins. The metal was ridged at his abdomen, shoulders, and knees, while chain mail-style mesh covered his arms, shoulders, and neck. His hands and forearms were covered by black gloves with metal pads on the backs of the hands and a utility belt wrapped around his waist. The one detail that remained the same was his mask, which was a featureless black on the right side and burnt orange with a singular lens on the left side.
Ravager, on the other hand, seemed to have modified her uniform very little. It remained largely the same, but there were still a few modifications. Like her father’s uniform, the armor on her knees and shins was ridged, but not nearly as heavy to allow greater freedom of motion. Her sleeves were now leather/polymerized titanium with gray bands wrapped around her forearms and gray metal pads on the backs of the gloves. Finally, her sides - including the outside of her thighs - were covered in chain mail-style mesh like her shoulders and she’d filled the triangular gap in her chest. Like her father, her mask remained the same - burnt orange on the right side with a singular crimson lens and featureless black on the left side.
“What are you doing here?” Nightstar asked.
“Come now, Nightstar,” Ravager replied. “We’re not here to hurt you. On the contrary, we’re here to help.”
“Help? You guys?” Beast Girl asked. “You’re joking, and you’re even crazier than we think you are if you expect us to buy that.”
“Little changeling, we don’t expect you to trust us,” Slade replied.
“What made you guys want to help us?” Inferno questioned. “What’s in it for you?”
“We simply wish to protect Samara,” Slade answered. “She’s family.”
“I wouldn’t claim any kind of kinship with psychopaths like you two,” Samara snarled.
“Brother Blood isn’t going to touch you,” Ravager stated. “Father and I will see to that.”
“Your concern touches me,” Samara remarked sarcastically.
Slade looked at Mercury. “I see you’ve recovered quite nicely from our last encounter.”
“You should know, Slade, I’ve gotten better,” Mercury said. “If you double-cross us, you’ll see just how much better.”
“I’ve observed you, Peter Allen,” Slade responded. “You may be the most powerful speedster of your generation and you may have learned some new tricks, but you’ll find me to be more than a match for you when the time comes.”
“Where’d Raziel go?” Ravager asked. “I wanted to thank him for his help.” Nightstar just glared at the younger of the two assassins. “Sore subject, huh? Very well. We’ll be in touch.” She and Slade departed Titans Tower, leaving the Titans bewildered.
“What the hell was that?” Beast Girl asked.
“They seemed sincere,” Samara replied. “As sincere as they can get, anyway. I still wouldn’t trust them, not after our experiences with them.”
“Remember that break-in at Grayson Enterprises some months ago?” Bladefire asked. “My father was working on a medical nanotech solution that had the potential to repair damaged immune systems, which could have put an end to scores of diseases. Unfortunately, someone stole it. I’ve been looking into it and I managed to recover the video feed from that night.”
He walked up to the Tower mainframe and typed in one of the keyboard ports connected to it. The image that came up was Slade and Ravager infiltrating the Blüdhaven headquarters of Grayson Enterprises. “It was them,” Bladefire said. “They took it.”
“What would they need with medicine?” Mercury asked.
“Nanotechnology is self-repairing,” Inferno explained. “It can continually replicate, which would enable a human body to recover from disease faster than normal since the nanotechnology would be constantly replenishing itself. This also leads to enhanced healing abilities and even better . . . in terms of military applications . . . enhanced physical and mental capabilities. That must have been why Slade and Ravager took it.”
“Both of them are already enhanced by that serum,” Nightstar said, “but if they were to mix it with the nanotech, they’d be even more of a threat.”
“It’s been a pretty long night,” Bladefire said. “We should rest. We can worry about Slade and Ravager tomorrow.”
The Titans retired to their rooms, except Inferno, who followed Samara into hers. “You’re really worried, aren’t you?” he said.
“How could you tell?” Samara drawled sarcastically.
“Because I’ve known you for years,” Inferno answered. He reached out and pulled her close. “Blood isn’t going to get you. Neither are those demons. I won’t let them.”
“You sure about that?” Samara asked, trepidation clear in her voice.
“I’m sure,” Inferno replied. He kissed her gently on the forehead, right above her chakra gem. “Sweet dreams, Sam.”
He departed her room, leaving Samara alone with her thoughts . . . and just a bit of hope.
Bladefire lay on his bed, pondering what had just transpired. As impossible as it was, he felt betrayed. He cursed himself for feeling that way, as he’d known right from the start what sort of woman she was.
And you slept with her, anyway, the little voice in his head, sounding suspiciously like his father, commented. How many encounters did you have with her? Three, at least? Bladefire turned onto his side, muttering under his breath.
Were you that lonely? the voice mocked. That lonely that you’d gladly screw the first girl that offered herself to you, even if she was a killer?
You’re actually quite wrong on that, Bladefire answered. If I was really going to screw the first girl who offered herself to me, I’d have done it with one of those insipid fangirls of mine. I don’t know what it is about her, but I . . . I almost can’t help myself when I’m around her.
I guess that’s why you fight her with such enthusiasm, the voice remarked. If only your teammates knew that enthusiasm was really not-that-sublimated sexual tension.
“Thinking of me, Joh’n?” a very familiar voice asked.
Bladefire leaped off the bed and into a fighting stance, energy sword extended. “Ravager. What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Is that any way to greet a lover?” Ravager asked, poised right in front of his window and balancing herself on the edge in a rather . . . appealing manner.
“Going to have to get that worked on,” Bladefire murmured.
“But you won’t,” Ravager replied. “You like having me break into your room to have my way with you.”
Bladefire just glared.
“I didn’t come here to fight,” Ravager said.
“Then what are you here for?” Bladefire asked.
“Just a little romp,” Ravager answered. “With you, of course, although in my honest opinion it’d be even better if we could convince Nightstar to join us.”
Bladefire’s eyes went wide and his energy sword dissipated. “You. Are. Nuts,” he said.
“Oh, don’t worry, you won’t have to touch her,” Ravager said. “The both of you can focus all that sexual energy on me and I can focus mine on the two of you. Imagine the fun all three of us will have.”
“I don’t think I’m ready for that,” Bladefire said.
Ravager just smirked. “For now, let’s just have some ‘me and you’ time,” she suggested, hips swaying seductively as she strode over to Bladefire. She gently pushed him back down onto the bed and straddled him, kissing him deeply. Bladefire returned the kiss, hating himself for doing so and yet unable to help himself when in such close physical contact with her. As they kissed, Bladefire removed Ravager’s mask, letting her silver hair flow freely.
When Bladefire broke the kiss, he looked at Ravager . . . and saw that she had two eyes, as opposed to one. The right eye was blue as always, but the left eye was black with a purple triplicate whorl around the pupil that resembled three sixes sprouting from the same loop. The skin around and near the left eye had a scarring pattern that almost resembled a snake’s scales.
“What is that?” he asked.
“A special enhancement,” Ravager replied. “It’s an eye that used to belong to a demon who could see every possible immediate move an opponent could make in combat and counter them. Now that I have it, it gives me the same power. Not to mention that moving objects that would be fast to others . . . are slow as molasses to me.”
“Is the eye to help you protect Samara?” Bladefire asked.
“She’s family, like my father said,” Ravager answered.
“Speaking of your father, what are you doing with him?” Bladefire inquired.
“He’s my father,” Ravager replied. “I . . . need him.”
Bladefire sighed sadly, hearing the forlornness in his enemy-slash-lover’s voice. He stroked her hair gently.
“I don’t wanna think about it,” she said. “Just make love to me. Please.”
Bladefire looked into her mismatched eyes . . . and kissed her again. Ravager returned the kiss, full of desperation and need.
The next morning, the half-alien boy woke up and wasn’t surprised to find himself alone in his bed. A note lay on the nightstand next to him, which he picked up and read.
“Blade, thanks for last night. Sorry I couldn’t stay. See you soon. -R.”
Bladefire folded the note and got out of bed, donning a robe and going to the bathroom. He discreetly avoided Nightstar and Beast Girl, for both of them had particularly sharp senses and if they smelled Ravager on him, they’d start asking questions that he didn’t want to answer and wasn’t even sure he could answer.
After the brief shower, just long enough for him to wash away all traces of Ravager’s scent, he returned to his room and dressed himself in his usual uniform. He flew out of the Tower and joined Nightstar in their morning aerobatics, which the other Titans had exited the Tower to witness. The grace and agility with which the twin Titan leaders moved in the air was nothing short of beautiful, particularly in the way they worked together. Granted, the other Titans knew that this had taken years to perfect, but it was still amazing.
One Titan in particular, Samara, felt more at peace after watching this display of perfection. If only she knew what would come this night . . .
That very night, Jump City became a fiery charnel house.
Demons rampaged through the city streets as the citizens fled, either in cars or on foot. Those demons were by no means the “pretty,” human-looking kind; rather, they were the twisted monstrosities seen mostly in nightmares. Those that chose to flee in their cars were not any safer than those that fled on foot, as the demons simply jumped onto the cars and punched through the roofs or windshields. Those that tried to flee on foot were snatched up and killed in the most horrific of fashions, some so badly mangled that there was almost no way of telling that they’d once been living human beings.
In the midst of this carnage was Raven Roth, dressed in a blue cloak over a black corset with silver designs and black skintight pants. “You won’t have her,” she whispered fiercely. “Azarath Metrion Zinthos!”
Black psychokinetic energy lashed forth from her in the form of blades, piercing and shredding several demons. As she was about to attack another demon, a bastard sword impaled the demon from behind and carved it in half. The demon’s newly separated halves fell away, revealing Slade.
“Slade,” Raven growled. “Here for Samara, too?”
“To the contrary, Raven,” Slade answered. “I’m here for the same purpose as you - to protect her.”
“Why would you be interested in protecting Samara?” Raven asked suspiciously, even as she summoned another burst of psychokinetic power to kill several more demons approaching.
“She’s family,” Slade answered simply, suddenly lunging at Raven with his sword. Raven ducked, only to find that she was not the mastermind’s intended target. The bastard sword found its way into the chest of yet another demon and Raven noticed that the sword was glowing with a hellish aura.
“Where did you get that?” Raven asked.
“Remember when we battled Trigon?” Slade asked. “I stole a weapon from one of his soldiers.” He raised the bastard sword. “This is what I remade it into.”
“Where’s your lapdog of a daughter?” Raven asked icily.
Slade narrowed his eye at her, his displeasure radiating in waves of killing intent. Raven’s answer came in the form of a battle cry, followed by the sound of a skewering. “Never call me a lapdog,” Ravager spoke harshly, appearing behind Raven. “Never.”
Raven just chuckled and turned to face the younger woman. “What’s the matter, Rose, don’t like being called what you are? He’s only using you, just like he used Dick and Tara.”
Ravager was ready to attack, but Slade held his hand up. “Ravager, we don’t have the time,” he said. “Protecting Samara is what matters.”
“Your lucky day,” Ravager spat at Raven as she moved to join her father’s side.
“More like yours,” Raven muttered.
A blue-and-silver blur of motion raced into the fray, attacking the demons. Blue energy interlaced with silver lightning could be seen bursting out the backs of several demons. Purple energy wire sliced through even more demons, as a blue energy sword cut through other demons. Sections of earth tore out of the asphalt and concrete covering them and battered more demons. Demons began combusting and darkness-formed blades cut through more.
“That isn’t all of them, is it?” Beast Girl surmised.
“Your grasp of the obvious is indeed impressive,” Slade remarked sarcastically.
“Nice seeing you again, Mother,” Samara greeted. She glared at Slade and Ravager.
“It seems that for once, our goals coincide,” Raven spoke. “I still wouldn’t trust the bastard.”
“I would expect no less,” Slade said.
“It appears that even the lower scum of the demon regions want Samara’s power,” Ravager observed. “Or are they simply working for higher demons?”
“Most likely,” Samara answered. “These creatures are barely sentient; what use would they have for a consort?”
Just then, golden android soldiers made their approach.
“Blood’s killing machines,” Inferno stated grimly, igniting into fiery mode and attacking the androids with jets of flame. The androids did not seem to be adversely affected by the flames.
“Internal cooling system,” Slade deduced. “Activates whenever the external temperature exceeds a certain level. This new Blood is smarter than I thought.”
Nightstar and Bladefire charged Blood’s androids with their respective energy weapons, cutting through them like wet tissue paper. Beast Girl changed into a rhinoceros and began ramming the androids, using her horn to impale them. Mercury ran around the world . . . and came back with enough kinetic force to deal crushing blows to the androids, but it wasn’t quite enough to finish them. Samara and Raven combined their umbrakinetic abilities to tear numerous androids apart, and Slade and Ravager simply sliced them apart with their swords.
The remaining androids began fighting back with sonic weapons. Instead of channeling sound into blasts, they simply emanated sonic vibrations that nearly shattered the ears of their opponents. The vibrations were particularly harmful to Nightstar, Bladefire, Beast Girl, Slade, and Ravager due to their heightened senses. Mercury simply vibrated his molecules to a frequency that left him immune to the sonic vibrations, while Samara and Raven plugged their ears telekinetically.
The twins struggled to their feet, stalking toward the androids with painful determination. Before they could reach the androids, kunai flew at the androids, blocking their sonic emitters. With nowhere to escape to, the vibrations tore the androids apart. Bladefire turned and saw Ravager smirking in spite of her pain.
“You . . . saved us,” Inferno uttered in astonishment.
“I was saving myself,” Ravager answered.
Mercury ran to Beast Girl. “You all right?”
Beast Girl looked up at Mercury, nodding in response. Mercury touched her gently and lent speed to her body’s recovery system, healing her eardrums. He then ran to Inferno and did the same thing with him.
“Didn’t know Samara wasn’t the only doctor in the Tower,” the pyrokinetic remarked.
“All I’m doing is accelerating your own body’s healing processes,” Mercury answered.
“Blood, you might as well show yourself, you filthy coward,” Slade challenged.
“Deathstroke the Terminator,” Brother Blood spoke as he materialized. “I almost thought I’d never get the chance to meet you.”
“You sound flattered,” Slade remarked.
“It’ll pass,” Brother Blood answered nonchalantly. He looked at the remains of his androids. “I designed them to be resistant to extremes of temperature and concussive forces of a certain level, but it appears I didn’t plan for all of your abilities. Then again . . .” He looked at Beast Girl pointedly. “. . . I suppose some things can’t be planned for.”
Ravager slid a finger underneath the blank side of her mask and popped out a black lens, placing it in her belt. With the lens removed, her left eye - black with the purple triplicate spiral around her pupil - was exposed.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Nightstar asked.
“Hell Spiral,” Brother Blood spoke. “I’m impressed that a mortal - even an enhanced mortal - like you was able to survive it. Now we’ll see how well you can use it.”
He charged Ravager with speed beyond anything human, only for Ravager to easily block his attack and toss him. Blood flipped and landed in a crouch.
“Not bad,” Blood remarked. “You’ve already gotten the hang of dilated perception.” He withdrew a kris from his robe.
“You expect to beat me with that?” Ravager asked derisively.
“Why, Ravager, it’s not the size of the weapon . . . it’s how you use it,” Blood answered, extending the kris into a full-length sword.
Ravager drew her katana and she and Blood clashed swords. Blood was moving far faster than an ordinary human could follow, but Ravager wasn’t having trouble at all. Not only did the Hell Spiral provide her with enhanced perception, its ability to see every possible immediate future in conjunction with her own precognitive skills enabled her to stay several steps ahead of him. She was just stringing him along.
“She’s good,” Mercury remarked.
Slade said nothing, but Raven and Samara could sense that he was nearly beaming with sadistic pride under the mask, looking forward to the damage she would do to Brother Blood.
“What’s dilated perception?” Beast Girl asked.
“It’s like what me, my dad, and the others like us are capable of,” Mercury replied. “When we speed up, so do our perceptions of the world around us. When we’re in that state of accelerated perception, everything is either really slow or just standing still from our viewpoint. We can even accelerate our perceptions without actually speeding up our bodies, so we can still do things faster than a normal person could.”
“Oh,” Beast Girl said.
“Excellent lesson, Mercury,” Slade complimented with a dark smile underneath his mask. “I’ll surely remember it when we face off in the future.”
Mercury paled.
“What do you want with Samara?” Ravager asked as she continued battling Brother Blood.
“She will bring about the rebirth of Trigon,” Brother Blood replied. “He will be reborn in her.”
“And what do you have to do with that?” Ravager asked, evading a slash from Brother Blood’s sword.
“It will be my seed that brings forth Trigon,” Brother Blood answered in a tone full of cold menace. Those nine words horrified Ravager enough to throw off her concentration by a very small fraction . . . but even that was enough for Brother Blood to slip under her guard and slash her. The sword, mystically enchanted as it was, sliced through the polymerized titanium-leather mix of her suit and into more vulnerable flesh.
“Ravager!” Slade shouted, outraged by Blood’s attack on his daughter. He drew his bastard sword and attacked the young man, who simply stopped him in his tracks with a web of scarlet flame. “Blood! You’ll burn for this!”
Of course, Slade’s attack had proven to be a simple distraction, as Blood was pierced in his upper arm by a kunai from Ravager. Blood simply pulled the kunai out and smirked, the web of flames having dissipated since the pain of being pierced by the kunai distracted him from maintaining it.
“Not a bad maneuver,” the malevolent youth complimented. “Faking concern for your daughter in order to draw my attention away from her while she healed. Not bad, Deathstroke, not bad.”
Ravager said nothing, but the forlorn set of her mouth made Bladefire want to cry. It was only his tight grip on his emotions - far tighter than a Tamaranean, even a hybrid, ought to have - that prevented him from doing so. It also prevented him from flying over to comfort her, something he could not afford to do if he wanted to keep their relationship secret.
Not for the first time, the Tamaranean-human hybrid cursed himself for having learned too well the lessons of his father’s “kin.” Of course, there was a surefire way of burying his guilt and nascent self-hatred. “Take him down,” Bladefire ordered, materializing his energy sword and attacking Brother Blood along with the other Titans, Raven, Slade, and Ravager.
Inferno reached Blood first, quick, precise, and brutal strikes being made with fiery fists. Finally, Blood caught Inferno’s fist and turned the pyrokinetic’s flames against him, burning his own body as opposed to that of Trigon’s herald. Inferno was forced to power down in order to save himself from being burned to the core.
“How . . . did he do that?” the firestarter wondered.
“Inferno,” Samara said, at his side in an instant. “Are you . . . ?”
“I’ll be fine, Samara,” Inferno replied. “Just nail the bastard.”
“Sure,” Samara answered, passing the opportunity for a perverse joke. Now wasn’t the time.
Nightstar, Bladefire, Slade, and Ravager joined together to fight Brother Blood, who blocked their weapons with his sword. With a burst of psychokinetic force, he pushed them away from him. Beast Girl created a pillar from the earth and lunged toward it in a flying kick, attaching herself feet-first to the pillar and breaking it off to use as a traveling battering ram. Blood merely jumped on the pillar and slashed at Beast Girl with his sword. With animal reflexes, Beast Girl avoided the swing and scratched his face with her nails. Blood’s eyes glared at her from within a blood-covered face and he sliced the pillar apart. Beast Girl took harpy form and manipulated the remains of the pillars to strike Trigon’s herald.
Raven and Samara telekinetically manipulated traffic lights so that they bent and wrapped around Blood, binding him. Unfortunately, Blood teleported out of the twisted traffic lights and reappeared behind Samara. “Nothing . . . will stop me,” he whispered in her ear. “You won’t. Your mother won’t. Your friends won’t. Deathstroke and Ravager won’t. Even your aspiring lovers won’t.”
Suddenly, a shadowy tendril wrapped around Brother Blood’s throat and pulled him away from Samara, choking him in the process. “Wanna bet?” Leknaat asked with a cruel smirk on her doll-like face. The Titans, Raven, Slade, and Ravager turned to confront Samara’s “rescuer.”
“No one else will have you except me, Samara,” Leknaat spoke. “I will make sure of it by killing this fool who imagines himself Trigon’s emissary.”
“Unfortunately . . . I won’t make it that easy for you,” Blood hissed, teleporting away.
“Was it you who sent those monstrosities after Samara?” Ravager asked.
Leknaat looked shocked, very shocked. “That is nonsense. If I wanted to send lower creatures to retrieve Samara for me, I would have sent Shades.” She extended a shadow tendril toward Ravager, sharpening it into a deadly stiletto that she held at the assassin’s throat. “Ravager of the Hell Spiral, any demon that would send others to do the work of retrieving a desired consort is too cowardly for their station. And no one . . . no one . . . calls me a coward.”
“Your point’s been made,” Ravager said. “Get that thing away from my neck before I start pointing sharp objects at yours.”
Leknaat retracted the shadow tendril.
“I rather like her,” Slade whispered in Ravager’s ear.
Raven aimed a fierce stare at Leknaat. “I’ve spent too long protecting Samara from the likes of you to let you near her.”
Leknaat smiled threateningly. “Your desire to protect Samara is admirable; a good demon protects her offspring, after all. But don’t think you can challenge me . . . not without much pain.”
“Pain?” Raven echoed. “Spoken like someone very familiar with causing it.”
“Put away your animosity, Raven,” Leknaat said. “I offer a truce.”