She woke up slowly, groaning as she did so. Propping herself up on her arms, she looked around what appeared to be her room in Cain's home.
She stilled when she saw Cain sleeping, she reached a hand out to him, putting it on his own. She gasped as the world lost color and fell away in shards of glass.
She wasn't in bed anymore, she was somewhere else, a barren wasteland that held nothing but death, corpses and a mangled blood red sky. Rain fell as dragons flew overhead, breathing fire, darkness, and poison.
She hit the ground in a flash, shielding herself from the dragons' fury coming for her. She waited but nothing came. When she opened her eyes, a stalwart shadow held the dragons, in all their glory, at bay.
Not letting anything get through to her, but something did.
It was a small grotesque little thing that shouldn't've existed that yapped at her ankle. When it bit into her, pain like nothing she had experienced before assaulted her body as she screamed out in agony.
"CAIN HELP ME!" She screamed.
A crash made her look to her side, Cain stood there; skin red, eyes turned into four and horns grew from his forehead and twirled back behind his ears in a spiral. "...no no, th-that's not possible. You can't be here!"
He smiled, "Hello... daughter." Her magic lashed out without a second thought, going straight for the kill only to be deflected off to the side like waving something away.
She was on her feet in an instant and running. "Don't do that, you know your destiny is with me." His words brought tears to her eyes as she kept running.
"CAIN PLEA--"
Something grabbing her leg pulled her as she tried to pick up anything on the ground to break the hold it had on her. When she got close to her father, her palm had felt a shard of something that would have to do but instead of cutting what held, she opted for a different approach.
Swinging the shard upwards, she stabbed her father in one of his eyes, disorientating him and consequently letting go of her.
Getting up yet again, she didn't manage to run for more than thirty-seconds when her father's arm punched a hole through her chest. She felt her heart be removed as she fell.
As the right side of her face hit the dirt, she watched as her father ate her heart. Her breathing slowed until...
She woke, well, more like jumped up from her bed, her eyes searching for her father. Arms wrapped around and took her to the ground. "Hey, hey! What's wrong? Raven what happened just then?" Cain asked as she cried.
She didn't say anything and neither did he. They were silent for quite some time. He just kept calming her down, telling her everything was okay.
Then he started to sing.
"I'm on the run with you my sweet love,
There's nothing wrong, contemplating God, under the chemtrails over the country club,"
She moved her head from his chest to look at him, he was smiling. It wasn't his normal smile or one that would usually make fun of her. It was smile that was trying to understand and calm her.
He kept singing, the song was nice, his voice quiet but ethereal-like. She squashed the feeling in her stomach down.
She listened up until he finished singing, "...I thought when I 'woke' up, that I was fine. Safe. Then I saw you, you looked so peaceful sleeping and when I tried to wake you up, I was there..."
Cain look confused as she kept explaining what happened, "When I called out for you, my fath... Trigon came instead. In your body, he hunted me down until I was pulled back here. Did... did you do something to bring me back?"
Cain looked torn between angry and worried.
"No, I didn't do anything. If I didn't do anything, and you didn't do anything," she nodded at his confirmation, "then he let you go. Which is so much more terrifying than I could possibly think. Okay, our chances of killing your dad just dropped, significantly."
She just sighed at what she already knew would be difficult getting more difficult.
"What a pain in my fuckin' ass." Cain said. She couldn't agree more.
***
It was a week later now, we, well she was more stable now. Her bruised body had healed from Zatarra's attack, and she was in tip top condition. Relatively.
"Why don't you help people?" Raven asked. We were currently playing a fighter game and somehow, she was kicking my ass.
"Huh?" I felt that was an appropriate reaction. "What do you mean 'why don't you help people?' I help you. Ain't that enough?" I mean... wasn't it?
She put her controller down with a sigh, "I know you don't really care about other people so long as they don't bother you, but..."
"Just say what you mean. You're not gonna hurt my feelings if you do." She snorted. Hey, I have feelings too.
"...I feel like you could be doing more. Not just petty theft to fund your addiction to lollies and sweets."
"Oi, it's not an addiction. I can stop anytime I want to; I just choose not to. And the fuck you mean 'petty theft'?" I said, using air quotes. "I pay for our lives, and might I add that you're wearing the clothes that I 'stole'. So... take that."
And I really have to find a stable source of income, stealing gets boring after a while.
"I don't know why I try with you." Its cause you love me. I just know it.
"What's this really about Raven? We've been runnin' together for a while now and I feel like we should be able to talk about what we really want." I said, wondering what she really wanted to talk about.
I mean I can talk for centuries but this is... out of character (no pun intended) for Rae Rae.
"I don't... I don't want to always do this," she said, looking at me as if I would disapprove or be disappointed. "I'm grateful for everything that you've done for me Cain, I am... but I can't live my life like this. When I was fighting my father, do you know what my first thought was? 'I hate you.' That was it, no fear, no sadness... just anger and hate. And I can't live my life like that anymore, I can't be a slave to both my father and my anger."
...Well, what do you know. "Okay." I said.
"'Okay'?" Which was the wrong fucking thing to say apparently.
"What do you want me to say? So you figured out that you need to... reinvent yourself, so what. A lot of people feel that way; doesn't mean that wrong to feel that way-- hell I've felt that way."
She raised her head to look at me, "Really? You? Figuring out what to do with your life?" Why'd she say it with such suspicion? I have layers you know. "I highly doubt that; if the moon crashed into Earth tomorrow, you'd survive like a cockroach."
"Okay first, thank you. Second, fuck you." She smiled a little. "Plus, I'd just dip instead of staying here." I clarified.
She just sighed.
"So, what? You're gonna join the Justice League and kick dear old daddy's ass, hmm? Ooh, what about being a vigilante?"
"Woof!" Bronx agreed with me.
"See, the wisest of us agrees with me." Nyeh~ woman, take that.
"God you're insufferable!" She hissed at me; what, my idea was pretty fucking good wasn't it? I mean if you wanna be a hero, be a hero. You wanna find a purpose, find a purpose. Like, shit sounds simple enough.
"I'm gonna give you some life advice here Raven, do what you want. It's as simple as that, but I promise you it is not fuckin' easy." I told her, and I wasn't wrong or at least I didn't think I was anyway. "Anyway can we stop talking about this shit, you're giving me a headache."
She just looked gob smacked at my masterful deflection of her questions, nyeh~ to the power of two woman. I win!
"God you're infuriating."
"Don't bring him into this." I laughed; this was too easy. "Is that really all you wanted to talk about? Nothing about the books I nicked."
The books in question were some I think Zatarra wouldn't really miss anyway, just some basic stuff on incantations, transfiguration and transmutation, a few books on meditation for Raven but sadly nothing stronger or darker in nature.
"Just give me the ones I was reading before, okay." I nodded and got up to give them to her.
"So, you staying or going somewhere else?" I asked, if she did go somewhere else than I'd be bored as shit.
"I think I'll stay for a while, if you don't mind..." Aw, how cute. I nodded; sure, you can stay Rae Rae but you'll be paying rent. Daddy's food doesn't pay for itself after all. "But I... I also want to do more."
I raised an eyebrow, what do you mean 'do more'? "...Elaborate please."
"I want to help people."
...
You fucking what cunt?