All About BBrae

Of beauty and Evil

Droplets of water hit the floor in Raven's room. Drying one's hair with an already-wet towel was an exercise in futility, but still she tried. There was no sense in inviting a cold; her day was already going badly enough that she wanted to tempt fate as little as possible.

Adonis always made her skin crawl, but this time… this time he had crossed a terrible line.

"A little backup would be appreciated!" Raven yelled into her communicator as she dodged another crate. Snapping it shut, she barely had time to place it back on her belt before a steel girder flew her way. This, she deflected with a shield of black energy. A wolf whistle drew her gaze to where Adonis was causing his mechanical suit to perform an absurd pelvic thrust.

"That would be more impressive if you had anything down there," she called to him, knowing his hubris would leave him careless and open to an attack. Deciding to go for the gold, she added, "And I'm not talking about the suit."

As predicted, the would-be bodybuilder roared and charged her head-on. With a slight smirk, the sorceress erected another shield…

And was dealt both a physical and psychic blow when he passed through her soul-self, dissipating its manifestation as he slammed her to the ground.

As she lay groaning in pain, attempting to regain her senses, the mech loomed over her and knelt, pinning one of her hands in each of its massive ones. "Who's afraid of the big bad witch?" the boy crowed as he leaned in, breath reeking of teeth not brushed for days. "Put a couple magic rocks in the latest model of my suit. Who's packin' heat now, sexy?"

Between the pain she was in and Adonis's remarks, it was all too easy to let her second set of eyes appear; the hard part was reining in her anger. "I think it's time for you to back off," she hissed in an unnatural voice.

The villain merely smiled even wider. "Ooh. Got yourself a little inner demon, eh? Guess you aren't as pretty inside as you are on the outside." His eyes raked over her, lingering in the most unwelcome of places. A mechanical hand dipped down toward her chest…

Thankfully, Adonis's idiocy hadn't been cured by the purchase of a few rune stones. While his suit might not have been vulnerable to magic, per se, it was still subject to the laws of physics— specifically, heavy projectiles launched at high speeds. By the time the rest of the Titans found them, Adonis had been wrapped entirely in the same girders he had thrown at her, only a head with a horrifically cracked faceplate showing through the metal.

Still, though his hand hadn't reached its destination, Raven couldn't shake the experience from her mind. Resigning herself to damp hair for the time being, she let the towel drop to the floor. Even though Cyborg had added on a bathroom to each of the Titans' rooms, she had no motivation to walk back in there and hang it properly. Taking a seat at the foot of her bed, she settled into the lotus position and prepared for a long session of meditation.

A knock at her door pulled her back from the edge of tranquility. "Raven?" came a muffled voice. "It's me."

"Not now, Beast Boy," she called loudly enough to be heard through the metal paneling.

"Please? It's important."

Reaching a tendril of empathy out, Raven felt the simmer of her teammate's emotions: anger, shame, helplessness, desperation, all ready to break out into a full boil. Problems with the Beast, then. It made sense; they'd been fighting Adonis, after all. Taking a calming breath and pushing aside her own needs for the time being, she used her powers to open the door.

Shoulders slumped, Beast Boy slunk into her room. His eyes were fixed on the ground, and he stopped short of her, as though afraid that sitting on her bed as per usual would be too close.