Raven as designed by Eoraptor and drawn by Festum
((in progress))
Teen Titans: Roses and Violets
By Eoraptor
Rated T
AN: My First Teen Titans fiction, please bear with me! Set sometime in early part of the final season. Teen Titans, “The New Teen Titans,” and all related characters copyright DC Comics, Warner Brothers, and Cartoon Network. This is a not-for-profit work for the enjoyment of fans.
-TITANS-
Premonitions
“Rachel Roth huh?” The bouncer eyed the girl with an arch look, then turned his glance back to the ID she had presented.
He had a sneaking suspicion that it was fake, or at least that it was not this girl’s… but he had no way to prove it. Her hair was a little too black, her smile a little too big. After a long moment during which he made a few noncommittal grunts, he handed it back and waved her through.
Once she was well clear of the door, the girl ran a hand through her hair. It seemed to crackle faintly as she did so, as though it were overloaded with static cling. She let out a long breath. First test passed.
Raven sighed and looked around the teen club. Her new ability, limited though it was, had fooled the doorman. Which was good, because the Titans were all banned from this club ever since Starfire’s sister Blackfire had brought down the wrath of an alien police force on the place a few years ago.
The teen hero looked out one of the slightly grimy windows and caught her reflection. Black hair, and no gem visible on her forehead. Honestly, she wondered how the heck the man had been so easily misled. It did not inspire confidence.
This disguise was a sort of experiment based on some spells she had learned in one of her books. Using her astral powers, the dark energy that was her birthright, she’d cloaked her deeply colored hair in a thin field of black. She also mixed the black and white energies she called on, covering her body. Her skin, normally a faintly silver gray, now appeared only pale and not supernatural.
Those were the easier aspects of her disguise; requiring only some small concentration once she’d understood how to make her powers into thin fields instead of her typical drastic corvian cloak. All though it took a little will to prevent the dark energy field that was the physical manifestation of her magic from reverting to its usual bird-like appearance, the change to her face required far more work.
Raven looked closely at her forehead, and then her own eyes, and allowed herself a very small smile. She’d always known her face could transform. In the past, however, it was not voluntary, but a response to allowing her emotions to escape her control. During those times, her face would gain a second set of glowing red eyes above the first, and small fangs would appear at her lips.
With the help of a new spell that made flesh malleable, she’d willed her chakra jewel to sink beneath the skin of her forehead. The final bit, though, was the trickiest. It was the most difficult to maintain, and she still had some trepidation about it. To hide the unearthly indigo cast to her eyes, she had to allow forth some small part of her emotions, specifically anger and passion. These brought a red cast to her eyes and she found, through intense meditation before a mirror, that the layering of indigo and crimson gave them a natural-looking brown color.
Clothes and an ID card had been troublesome, but only in so much as finding ones that weren’t glaringly out of character for her. She’d finally settled on black pants, a baggy hooded sweatshirt, and her own boots. These contrasted just enough with her usual form fitting leotard and hid her body, while also being enough like her hooded cloak to keep her in her comfort zone.
All in all, if she were willing to experience it, she’d be proud of managing to disguise herself so well. It was a challenge, given her unique appearance, and she felt she’d accomplished it well. She allowed the small smirk to remain in place, and turned to order a tea from the club’s counter.
This was a teen club after all, no alcohol. Not that she would ever let such pass her lips. Alcohol only served to lower ones inhibitions… and for her, and those around her, that would be fatally bad.
Just as she was raising her hand to signal for her drink, the bracelet she wore began flashing. It was a smaller version of her usual large enchanted jewels, one she’d not worn in years. It was also now an electronic device which flashed to alert her to trouble, as all of the Titan’s various costume pieces did.
The flashing in itself was not surprising. What caused her carefully erected disguise to wholly evaporate in alarm, however, was the pattern. Her immense shock was because of the blinking sequence… Not the usual on-and-off flashing that was followed by a cry of “Titans Go!” but instead a set of three pulses…
It was a special signal Robin had set up. The signal was only used should either of two people return. Both were supposed to be dead. One, however, had already arisen once before.
Her disguise gone, Raven surrounded herself with her astral body in the shape of her namesake animal, and transmuted right through the club’s ceiling and in to the night, flying towards the tower.
-TITANS-
Robin gripped his staff so tightly that it faintly vibrated with the tension in his gloved hands. Starfire hovered just over his left shoulder, her fists clenched and glowing with a potent green light. At his right side, Cyborg, the silver and blue centurion, also stood at the ready, his right arm morphed into his trademark sonic cannon, his artificial left eye aglow.
Behind them, Beastboy had settled on the form with which he’d had the most luck against their intruder. The stiffened tail of a velociraptor twitched slightly as he paced, clacking sickle-claws against the floor.
The boy wonder heard a familiar shimmering sound high above, and didn’t need to look up to know it was Raven joining them from wherever she’d been cloistering herself. The team assembled, he grit his teeth, eyes narrowing behind his mask.
“Slade… What rock did you crawl out from and why are you here? Our business was concluded months ago.”
“Ah Robin… Welcoming and warm as always I see.” The criminal overlord shook his head faintly. Then he turned his lone eye on the other Teen Titans. “Starfire, charmed as always. Cyborg, You’re looking well. Beastboy, I heard recently that you stopped the Brain… Good work.”
Looking upward, he chuckled very faintly, “Raven… I must say that that is a new look for you. And I do hope our previous… encounters haven’t colored your opinion of me.”
Starfire and Beastboy exchanged confused expressions and cast their eyes skyward, where Raven hovered even above the level of her redheaded teammate.
“Dude… a hoodie? Raven must have been doing laundry. And here we could have used her crusty tights for stankball!”
“Indeed it is most… unusual.”
She grumbled faintly and shook her head beneath the gray-blue hood. “Could we focus on the important things right now? Like why there’s an undead criminal in our midst?”
“I assure you, Raven… I am quite among the living.” The man in the uniocular mask refocused his eyes on Robin and if it was possible, the mask seemed to smirk. “And our previous business was quite well concluded Robin. Which is why I am here; I have need of your further… Brotherly services.”
“What are you talking about?” Somehow, the other titans noticed, Robin was managing to carry on an entire conversation through clenched teeth.
“You were so loyal and protective of the endangered black bird there during our last… adventure… that I felt you would be the best group of people to see to the welfare of… my daughter.”
“Your who? Man who would be nasty enough to sleep with your ugly butt?” Cyborg quipped as he scanned the imposing armored man. “He’s telling the truth though, Robin. I got a pulse, respiration, the works… no skull-face this time.”
Ignoring the insult from the metal man, Slade simply stepped to one side slightly. “Allow me to introduce my daughter, Ravager.”
From seemingly nowhere, but apparently from behind Slade, stepped a young woman. She was almost as tall as he, but obviously much younger, and definitely feminine.
Her outfit resembled Slade’s distinctly. She wore the same blue-gray chainmail beneath a sleek black chest plate, with black pants similarly armored, and steel toed boots of an identical style. As Slade had indicated though, she was, if not his daughter, at least young enough to be. The cut of her costume reflected that.
Her chest-plate was styled to resemble a tank-top, and were she not wearing the Promethium chainmail beneath it, it would bare a surprising amount of skin. Her pants were likewise tighter, accentuating her long legs, where as her “father’s” were looser, more resembling fatigues. Both, however, were crafted of the same shimmering black cloth-like armor material, with metallic knee pads and thigh guards. The same was true of the gauntlets enclosing her wrists and forearms at the end of the chainmail sleeves.
Her belt was a gray utility belt with pouches, and clipped to each side was a featureless black sheath, holding what was presumably a pair of katana. She had her arms folded arrogantly across her chest, which, the boys at least, noted was rather ample despite being hidden behind the armored chest protector and mail.
Her mouth and chin appeared young enough, with pale skin and pink lips, but the rest of her face was hidden behind a mask. It took the form of a bandanna drawn down over the upper half of her face and head, wrapping around the back and trailing off in to two theatrically long streamers. Both streamers were Slade’s trademark orange, yet the mask itself was orange on the right, and black on the left.
Mimicing Slade’s mask, the orange side had an opening for her piercing blue eye, but the black left face had no such opening. Behind her mask, and intermingled with the orange ties of the bandanna, she had long hair which fell somewhere between platinum blonde and silvery gray.
She stood there, her hip cocked roguishly, and lowered her arms from her chest, resting them on her hips at the hilt of each katana. “These are the Titans, Father? I am not impressed.”
“She sounds…” Starfire began, looking the newcomer up and down, her eyes narrowed.
“Arrogant? Apparently.” Raven completed the statement, also watching Ravager and her haughty stance, trying to get a read on her.
“I was thinking English, actually,” Robin continued. His eyes narrowed behind his mask as he watched the woman standing there, studying them in return.
“Yes… Her mother raised her in London during her formative years.” Slade admitted casually. “But I did not bring my daughter to you to critique her accent. I need you to protect her.”
“Honestly Father… I am more than capable of taking care of myself.” Ravage sniffed, seeming to be offended. “Mother and her… friends taught me well to protect myself.”
“Not if I could find and abduct you without even using an alias, you can’t. Rose, I swear. You don’t know the people I deal with. Wintergreen kept you well hi-“
“Not that I want to interrupt this family chat… but why would we help you, Slade?” Robin twirled his staff, as if to remind the pair that the Titans were still there, and that Slade and Ravager were actually standing in their tower.
“Ahem, Yes… As you may have noticed… after the… unpleasantness surrounding Tara, I am not the best father figure. Be that as it may, Ravager is my daughter. And as such, my enemies, having learned her true identity, seek to use her against me.” Slade stood, his hands behind his back, and seemed to show no emotion.
“We’re not your babysitting service, Slade,” Raven scowled from the air, and the other titans nodded in agreement. “She said she can take care of herself.”
“Yes… but if you’re not protecting Rose from the world, Titans… who will protect the world from Rose?”
-TITANS-
“I really don’t like this, Robin. We’ve seen Slade use girls and material snuck into the tower against us before. I still can’t figure out how that mask full of nanotech powder worked.” Cyborg crossed his arms across his broad chest and frowned firmly. “…and this girl’s practically a walking arsenal.”
“Yeah, no kidding! Dude she’s walking around with swords on like they were her fuzzy bunny slippers!” Beast Boy pulled a face and gestured at his hips.
“I don’t wear fuzzy bunny slippers, and I’m standing right here.” Ravager’s visible eye narrowed behind her mask. Her father had left some time ago, and so far, all five of the Teen Titans had been keeping their distance from her and talking in hushed tones. It had worn her last nerve.
She again had her arms crossed over her chest in what seemed to be one of only two default poses, the other consisting of the same stance, with her hands on her hips at the hilts of the aforementioned katana. She tapped a heavily booted foot, expressing her irritation. “And I’m quite bored of this. Obviously you don’t want me here any more than I wish to be here. I’ll take my leave now.”
Robin, remembering Slade’s parting admonition about rose needing to be looked after for the good of others as much as her own, stepped in front of the departing girl. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Oh? And you intend to stop me, do you Boy Wonder?” Ravager’s speech took on a more imperious tone and her left hand drifted downward to one of her weapons. “I think you should know that my father has added to my already effective training.”
Robin’s eyes narrowed behind his mask and he scowled. The last thing he wanted was an all out sword fight in the control room, especially when she had two swords to his… none. He decided to try a different tact, “What sort of training did you have before Sla- your father took you in?”
Ravager’s icy blue eye narrowed from the visible side of her mask as she considered the red suited Titan, “My mother and her friends trained me in multiple forms of self defense, especially southern style kung fu and savate.
