Rapturous Rhapsody N Furlough 6

And they say

That a hero could save us

I'm not gonna stand here and wait

I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles

Watch as we all fly away

Soone told

Love would all save us

But, how can that be

Look what love gave us

A world full of killing

And blood spilling

That world never ca

********

"It's been six minutes since the initial explosion," Nightwing explained, his voice coming through the communicators as the wind rushed by the group. He, rcury, and X-23 were being carried by Raven while the rest flew under their own power. "Ergency responders are on their way, but we will be there first. Civilian evacuation is a priority."

"What caused the explosion?" Winman asked as he navigated the sky on his hoverboard. Six of his drones followed in a loose formation.

"The exact cause is unknown, but there are sightings of a large, extrely muscular dark-skinned man running around and destroying the buildings. Apprehending him is also a goal but evacuation takes precedence. If anyone runs into him, radio the others and move to intercept if possible."

""Understood.""

Nightwing noticed Raven didn't respond with the others but filled it away for later discussion. This was hardly the first ti she hadn't spoken up when prompted.

The smoke from the burning shopping center, one of the largest in San Fransico, was visible long before the buildings were. A towering plu of black fus filled the afternoon sky, and the Titans could hear sirens and screams as they approached the disaster.

The area was devastated.

The parking lot was the center of the blast, with a large hole gouged out of the middle. Concrete, tal and piping lay exposed in the deep hole that was now filling up with sewage from the ruptured lines. Cars had been blasted to the side in a ring, toppled over on their sides and upside down.

The buildings were not better off.

They were all on fire, and most of the roofs had collapsed to one degree or another.

Large glass windows had shattered, sending shards like millions of tiny knives at the hapless shoppers.

The dead and the dying lay everywhere.

Screams, cries for help, wailing, and begging resounded through the air.

"Titans! Go!" Nightwing cried, landing with a roll and sprinting for one of the nearest buildings. Pressing a button on his neck, a gas mask rose to cover his mouth and nose.

Already briefed on the way over, the young heroes dove into action with the confidence of long experience.

Except one.

Raven flew over the parking lot, righting cars and freeing those trapped inside.

As she levitated the injured and the dying towards a safe spot for the paradics to treat when they arrived, she felt no confidence.

Even the sombre resolution that her teammates held was wholly absent in her.

As she gently lowered a woman screaming in pain due to the shrapnel in her legs to the sidewalk, all Raven felt was guilt and fear.

********

The fight left Raven at the Elden Lord's words.

He knew.

He knew everything.

Woodenly she floated to sit on the ruined fra of her bed, uncaring for the woodchips, destroyed sheets, or shards of glass that covered the floor.

What was the point of running anymore?

With Raven's emotional surrender, the chaos caused by her powers subsided.

For a long mont, everything was silent in the Titan's room. Her dark curtains had been shredded by the exploding window panes, letting in the barest hint of light from the fading sun and the much brighter blues of Ranni's Dark Moon.

Mikeal's smile, so teasing and smug a second ago, softened slightly as he watched her collapse.

"Hey," he said softly, a teasing note in his voice. "Relax. It's just an apocalypse. Not the end of the world or anything. Think of it as another Tuesday." He paused, realizing how absurd his words sounded. "Scratch that. It's Tuesday. You don't have the energy from the weekend left over, like on Monday, and you still have the rest of the week to go. Tuesdays are the worst. I'd rather have an apocalypse."

There was another long mont of silence, this one slightly more awkward, as Raven stared at the man in disbelief.

"Jeez, tough crowd," he sighed.

"What do you want?" Raven asked again, her voice firr than before.

"I already told you," Mikael smiled smugly again. "I want to stop the apocalypse. One of them, at least. You guys have one every other week, and I am not bored enough to spend all my ti dealing with them. This one just looks more fun than others."

"You can't stop him," Raven said softly, drawing her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She stopped looking at the man, staring at the debris-covered floor but not seeing it. "No one can. He's too strong. You might have conquered worlds, but he rules dinsions. This is just another one on his list."

"It's like you didn't listen to

at all. Everything dies. No exceptions. The big jalapeno is just a jumped-up imp with delusions of adequacy. I can take him."

"You can't!" Raven insisted, looking at the lounging man once more. At so point, he had flipped himself in the chair, his head hanging down in the air and his feet on the back. His hair brushed the ground as he grinned up at her. "No one can. I've talked to everyone I can think of. Dr. Fate. Dr. Strange. Constantine. I even managed to ask Morgaine le Fey. None of them have ever heard of anyone ever stopping him. Once he sets his sights on a dinsion, it is his. He is inevitable."

"That's my line," Mikael said petulantly. Then he frowned for the first ti in this conversation. Flipping himself right side up, he suddenly t her eyes, looking serious. Draconic eyes bore into Raven's own, and she swallowed nervously at their intensity. "You talked to all these people? About Daddy Daddy Do?"

"When I first arrived in this dinsion, I was looking for all the help I could get," Raven nodded, thinking back to those early months. Lost and confused, before eting her fellow Titans, she had wandered the world alone in search of anyone who could help her.

"And they did nothing?" Mikael asked, looking dubious. "Didn't try and banish you? Kill you? Stop Clifford, the big red dog? Nothing?"

"They didn't believe ," Raven shook her head, subtly clenching her fists at the mory. "Most thought the dinsional walls would hold him back like they have before. Those who realized I was his daughter, a half-demon, they thought it was a trap. They thought he was controlling . They'd be opening the way in trying to stop his arrival." Raven smiled wanly at the man rubbing his chin in thought. "He is not known to be a good father."

"Hmm," Mikael humd, eyes narrowing. Then he shook his and refocused on her. "No matter their mistake, never fear. I am here!" He puffed up his chest and sent a cheesy smile her way.

As if to reassure her.

It didn't.

*********

X-23 found the suspect in under a minute.

The smoke obscured her senses, so it was more a factor of luck than skill that she noticed the towering black man with four glowing red eyes crash through a wall in one of the buildings. A movent in the corner of her eye had drawn her attention, and she saw his back disappear into the smoke-filled halls.

"Target spotted," she called out to her communicator as she sliced through a door with her claws. The people trapped inside clamoured out, coughing and wheezing from the smoke, but since they were mobile and no one else was in that room, X-23 was already turning to chase. "The mail store. Pursuing."

"I'm nearby," rcury called out. "I'll be with you once I get this last guy out. Try to drag him into the open. The buildings are already unstable."

"Everyone else, keep evacuating," Nightwing called.

"Copy," X-23 called as she hurried to follow the trail of destruction the man was leaving behind.

The mutant felt her annoyance rise.

This entire attack was pointless.

Destruction for its own sake.

There was no reason to attack a shopping center. No money in it. Nothing valuable or significant.

She could be training, getting better with every spar against one of the best teachers the world had ever seen.

Instead, she was here.

A bunch of people were dead, and more would follow.

X-23 looked forward to taking out this frustration on the attacker's hide.

She was so caught up in her feelings that the mutant was almost defeated when the monster of a man burst from the wall to her side.

Sheetrock, wood and tal blasted away as hands the size of plate lunged to grab X-23.

Only instincts, long ingrained in her through training, saved her.

That, and Laura was short.

At over eight feet tall, the giant of a man was so massive that his head carved through the ceiling. His arms were so thick with muscle that each was as wide as her waist.

While all that suggested superhuman strength, it also limited flexibility and mobility.

X-23 tossed herself bodily out of the way, rolling on the ground and coming up in a crouch, claws extended in preparation.

Four red eyes glared at her as he snarled.

X-23 snarled back.

She lunged at him, claws extended to carve chunks from his flesh.

He smacked her aside with a massive fist.

X-23 smashed into, and through, two walls before landing and carving a groove through the dirt of the park behind the buildings.

She was on her feet in a few seconds, wounds already healing.

She snarled again.

Partly at the four-eyed man charging at her.

Mostly at herself.

It pissed her off that he had managed to get the drop on her.

It pissed her off more that she hadn't killed him yet.

"Grrrrr," she growled, the ability for speech lost in her rage.

She lunged for him, ducking under another punch and impaling one set of claws in his side.

He roared with rage and pain, grabbing her by the arm and tossing her aside closer to the buildings again.

She landed on her feet, ready to charge once more.

A tendril of liquid tal wrapping around her throat stopped her.

"You don't deserve it," a female voice growled in her ears. "If I can't have a body, no one can."

X-23 lashed out, claws separating the chunk of silvery substance holding her tight.

Whoever this was, they were pissing her off too.

"Die!" The strangely familiar voice snarled.

If the red haze of rage that consud X-23 had been less dense, the mutant might have cried the sa thing as she lunged.

Instead, Laura snarled as she tried to kill her best friend and teammate.

********

"You can't win!" Raven insisted, standing from her and glaring at the irreverent man. "I can't stop him. You can't stop him. The League can't stop him! No one can! He isn't sothing like an Endbringer! You can't fight him and beat him back. When he arrives tomorrow, that is it. The End!" The debris started to float around her room as her emotions rose again.

"I am sensing a lot of negativity in you," Mikael leaned back on his chair on two feet and stapled his fingers together as he looked at her in mock seriousness. "Let us talk about that. What are the stressors in your life? How is your relationship with your father?"

The chair under the Elden Lord shattered.

Mikael didn't move, still holding his position in mid-air like so bad magical therapist.

Raven had never wanted to strangle soone more.

Perhaps sensing she was near her breaking point, he finally took rcy on her.

"In all seriousness," Mikael sighed, standing up and ignoring the items whirling around the room. "No one and nothing is invincible."

He gently rested a hand on her shoulder as his smile turned sympathetic.

She flinched at his touch before relaxing. Usually, proximity to people increased her empathic abilities to an uncomfortable degree. Skin-to-skin contact was almost painful. But Mikael and his family were different. She felt nothing from them.

He still removed his hand when he noticed how uncomfortable she was.

"What do you have to lose?" He asked softly. "Either the world is destroyed tomorrow, and nothing we do will stop it, or we can stop it if we put forth the effort. I hate people who give up due to their circumstances without even trying. Even if a struggle is fruitless, it is never without aning. Even if only to ourselves."

Raven stared into the draconic eyes of a man she had only t a few days ago and felt a sense of vertigo.

In a brief, very minor flash of Insight, she realized a tiny fragnt of the Truth.

In her mind's eye, she saw a man walking alone through ash as worlds crumbled around him. As walls rose up in front of him, he kept moving forward.

Battered. Bruised. Beaten.

Broken.

But never bowed.

Worlds would end and rise again long before Mikael ever gave up.

"What do you want?" When she said the words this ti, even she was surprised by the acceptance in them. She still had no confidence in his ability to defeat her father, but Mikael was right.

What did she have to lose?

"I want to kill the devil," he said with a smile, realizing the implications in her tone. "And I need your help to do it."

********

Regarding search and rescue, rcury was hands down the best Titan.

Her form didn't have to worry about air and smoke, it could flow through the tiniest cracks, and her shapeshifting allowed her to beco anything needed to help civilians evacuate.

rcury, the liquid that is, boiled at over six tis the temperature of water. So long as she avoided active power lines or getting too much of her body separated, the heroine was one of the best heroes in the business.

This was why, despite Laura's call coming only a minute after their arrival, she had already rescued a half dozen trapped or injured n and won.

There was quite a bit of luck to it, rcury would argue. She seed to find those in need easily despite not possessing the enhanced senses of her teammates.

Nevertheless, she had evacuated the building incredibly quickly by the ti she received the call and would have gone to aid X-23 right away had she not caught sight of a form shrouded in the shadows of the smoke.

"Help!" The man called out.

"I'm nearby," rcury called out to her friend, moving back inside the building. "I'll be with you once I get this last guy out. Try to drag him into the open. The buildings are already unstable."

In tis like this, rcury was incredibly envious of Laura's mutation.

Healing, enhanced senses, and claws were soooo much better than shapeshifting and a body that couldn't feel anything.

Rembering the barbeque from yesterday, the one she couldn't eat, doubled the envy the young woman felt.

"Help!" The man called again, sohow even further from the entrance than before. Was he lost in the smoke?

"Here!" rcury shouted, trying to draw him closer. "This way!"

A burning support beam fell on her, splattering her body across the floor.

It only took a mont to reform and press forward, but rcury couldn't help but wish she had Starfire's strength and flight. She would have just caught the beam.

And she could have sex with her hot boyfriend.

One of many things rcury would never experience.

From a hole in the wall, billowing smoke into the air, rcury saw X-23 blast across the grass of the nearby park and the massive man chase after her.

Super strength would also be good.

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Life just wasn't fair.

All thoughts of rescue were lost to the young woman as she watched the brief clash.

All she could think about was all the things they had that she didn't.

It wasn't fair.

She didn't even realize she was strangling her best friend and teammate.

********

"How?" She asked, still not believing she was going along with this absurdity. "He is literally invincible."

"He is," Mikael nodded. "Make no mistake, I am not underestimating Tri-hard in the least. If we were both at the peak of our powers, he would wipe the floor with

and most things in this dinsion. I might have infinite power, but so does he. And he can bring more to bear at any given instant than I can. So I'd lose."

"You are not making

feel confident in your chances," Raven snarked, falling back on her default defensive response as she crossed her arms and glared up at him.

Why did he have to be so tall?

"I said that is only if I fought him at his peak," Mikael rolled his eyes. "I am not stupid. I do my howork. You forget we have the ho-field advantage."

"What does that an?"

"If Tri-Hard 2: Tri-Harder is so powerful, why can he not just barge in and wreck this dinsion? Why does he need you?" Mikael asked rhetorically. "Dinsions have their own protections, walls that do not co down easily. On top of that, we have people like the Sorcerer Supre who reinforce them and ward off intrusion attempts. To be honest, he should be here with you, not , but," Mikael shrugged. "I haven't been too impressed with him lately. I get he is busy, but he is never around when you need him."

"Dinsional walls," Raven forced the man to refocus before he went on another tangent. "How do they help?"

"Right," Mikael continued. "Think of each dinsion as a castle. Walls, defenders, standing armies, the whole nine yards. You can theoretically burst through the fortifications, but doing so is difficult and inefficient. Much easier to have soone on the inside to open the gate for you."