Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Teen Titans: Future Storm ❯ Genesis ( Chapter 8 )

 

“Teen Titans: Future Storm”

Arc 2: “Mentality”

Chapter 3: “Genesis”

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. It belongs to DC Comics and Warner Brothers. Nightstar and Mercury do not belong to me, either; the former belongs to DC and the latter is jointly owned by DC and Marvel. Everything else is mine for the most part.

Author's note: As hinted by the title, somebody's beginnings are going to be explained in this story. It'll be a long flashback, or at least that's what I'm aiming for. First, I have to resolve the cliffhanger that I left you with in the last chapter.

The man gazed down at Uriel and brought down his psychic sword. The blade of psionic energy never made its mark . . .

. . . because a blur of blue and white had rushed Uriel out of the way of the psi-blade.

“A speedster,” the man murmured. “Interesting.”

“What do you think you're doing?” Uriel asked.

“Saving your ungrateful, soulless ass,” Mercury replied. “Now come on. Mar'i's gonna be pissed.”

“Let her be,” Uriel stated.

Meanwhile, the man picked up Ariana's bleeding body and walked back into the school building. He walked down to the subbasement of the school and pressed the down button for the elevator. The elevator opened mere seconds after and he stepped inside, pressing a hidden floor button. The elevator descended two more floors before stopping.

The man stepped out and walked into the medical ward of the subbasement floor, placing Ariana onto a cot.

“Commander Azazel!” a white-coated woman exclaimed.

“See to her,” Azazel ordered. “Now.”

Raziel lay on a cot in the infirmary of Titans Tower. Samara had healed him to the best of her abilities and his aura was taking care of the rest.

“So . . . what were you thinking?” Nightstar asked.

“Not now, Mar'i,” Raziel sighed.

“Yes, now,” Nightstar insisted. “And I'm going to keep asking until I get a straight answer from you. This isn't like before when you came back with a busted wrist. This time, you were quite nearly dead! Now what were you thinking?”

Raziel chuckled ironically. “So you do care.”

“Of course I care, you damned idiot!” Nightstar yelled. At that moment, she surprised Raziel by hugging him tightly.

“Are we interrupting something?” a dry voice inquired.

Nightstar released Raziel from her embrace and stood up as the other Titans entered the infirmary.

“The food good?” Beast Girl quipped.

“Not hungry,” Raziel answered. “Exhausted mostly.”

“So you mind telling us how you got so banged up?” Inferno asked.

“I suppose I'll have to tell you now,” Raziel conceded. “Very well. It's not easy for me to tell you this. What you hear may make you hate me . . . or at the very least, think less of me.”

“Quit being melodramatic and tell us already,” Mercury groused.

I started life as all beings do: innocent, naïve, and blissfully oblivious to the darker truths of life.

My mother was a woman named Marian, who I considered to have the face, voice, and disposition of an angel. My father was Christian Crestmore.

“Wait, Crestmore?” Bladefire repeated. “As in Crestmore Industries?”

“Yes, but I'll explain that if you let me continue instead of interrupting me,” Raziel answered.

“Sorry,” Bladefire said.

“Now,” Raziel said, “as I was saying . . .”

My father was Christian Crestmore. He was the second child of Kenneth Crestmore, who was the owner of Crestmore Industries before my uncle Anthony took over.

My father and grandfather never got along. Hell, I never actually knew my grandfather that well; he'd made a point of not being a presence in my life. As far as he was concerned, my father was a disgrace to the family and any children he had would be as much of a disgrace as him. His words.

I didn't know of any of this at the time and I couldn't care to find out. I had just started junior high and I was on top of the world.

Soon enough, my perfectly crafted world began to unravel somewhat. It started one day when I happened upon one of my teachers, Ms. Freeman. She seemed flushed and her clothes were almost out of place. Suddenly, information was surging into my brain. I struggled to make sense of it and when I did . . . it was safe to say that I saw some strange things.

“Ms. Freeman?” I asked.

“Yes, Raziel?” Ms. Freeman prompted.

“Why were you and Mr. Johnson exercising in the janitor's closet?” I inquired.

“Uh . . . I don't know what you're talking about,” Ms. Freeman replied, the flush on her face deepening slightly.

“Your face is red, your clothes look a bit rumpled, and you're breathing heavily,” I continued. “That's what happens when you exercise, right?”

Granted, I was aware of what sex was; my parents had taken the time to explain the basics to me. However, I had never seen the act itself before and so the images I saw confused me.

“Was it fun?”

“Young man, you shouldn't spy on other people,” Ms. Freeman admonished before walking away, her embarrassment evident.

That was only the beginning. At the dinner table that night, I asked my father one simple question.

“Why don't you and Grandpa talk to each other?”

This question caught my parents by surprise. “I'm not quite in the mood to answer that, son,” my father answered.

“Does it have to do with Mom?” I asked. “Is that why Grandpa is angry with you?”

“That's enough, Raziel,” my mother stated softly.

“Sorry I asked,” I grumbled.

After dinner, I was washing the dishes when my father came up to me.

“How did you know about your grandfather and me?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I replied. “I just . . . see things. Stuff people hide. Stuff people don't like talking about.”

My father paused and I could sense, even then, that he was silently gauging how much he should tell a “delicate” twelve-year-old like myself.

“Your grandfather didn't want me to marry your mother,” my father finally admitted. “He thought she was no good for me, that she would just bring me down. He was wrong, couldn't see how wonderful she really was. We got into a big fight over it and I walked out and never looked back.”

“That's sad,” I said. “That's why Grandpa won't talk to you, why he doesn't send me cards and stuff like Mom's dad does?”

“Yeah,” my father confessed.

“S'ok,” I uttered. “If he's gonna be a jerk, then I don't want anything to do with him.”

By the next week, I had found out enough dirty secrets about the people around me to wrap them all around my fingers. Being the generally good-hearted boy that I was, I never thought to do such a thing. To me, it was more fun to hoard all this knowledge.

“People are hypocrites,” I declared at the dinner table.

“You mean they're hippos?” my seven-year-old sister Aimee asked.

“No, they're hypocrites,” I explained. “It means they say one thing but they do the opposite.”

“What makes you say that?” my mother inquired.

“Lots of things,” I replied simply.

“Like what?” my father questioned.

“Adults tell you not to hit people,” I expounded, “but then my teacher goes and beats up his wife for no good reason.”

“How do you know he beats up his wife?” my mother asked.

“He got arrested for it,” I answered.

“You're getting a tad cynical,” my father commented.

“What's cynical?” I asked.

“It means you don't trust anyone and you see only the worst in people,” my father explained.

“Good is what everyone wants to see, so that's what everyone tries to be on the outside,” I stated. “On the inside, they're like sour grapes.”

“Sour grapes taste yucky,” Aimee commented.

The next day, I was playing dodgeball in gym class. To my surprise, I wasn't getting hit at all. I thought I was just lucky, but it turned out that I was dodging so quickly that the balls were missing me by a wide margin.

Eventually, I got sick of dodging and went on the offensive. I picked up a ball and I threw it as hard as I could at the nearest kid, who crumpled onto the ground, groaning in pain.

The instructor ran to him and rolled him over.

“Ahhh! It hurts!” he exclaimed.

The instructor muttered something under his breath and pulled out his cell phone. “Hello? This is Jamal Walters and I need an ambulance right now. I have a boy, Jason McCormick, age 12. I think his ribs have been cracked or broken.”

All the while, I was looking on in shock, not wanting to believe what I had just done.

That was when things really began to unravel for me. From then on, I heard the word “freak” whispered whenever I walked down the hallway. All the friends I had managed to make - and they were not many - abandoned me. I was as miserable as a twelve-year-old boy could get.

I came home one day from school and I found my parents talking to a guy who was dressed rather nicely, suit and tie and all that. I heard things about a special school for “the gifted.”

I waited until the man had left and I confronted my parents.

“Gifted? That what he called me?” I asked sarcastically.

“What's wrong with being gifted?” my mother asked. “It certainly explains some things. And here I thought you just had really good intuition.”

“I'll tell you what's wrong,” I replied. “I nearly broke a kid's ribs just by throwing an inflatable ball at him. How's that gifted?”

“The man who came in told us it was a mind thing,” my father spoke up. “Like, you can use your brain to do things that most people can't do.”

“So you gonna send me there?” I asked. “To that school for weirdoes who do stuff with their brains?”

“Not if you don't want to go,” my mother responded. “He said he'd give us a week to think about it.”

By the time the week was up, I had already made up my mind. I had no reason to stay in a school where no one liked me.

I found myself at the Institute for the Talented on the following Monday. To my irritation, I had to wear a uniform. To my dismay, I had to live away from my parents and I wasn't allowed any further contact with them until I had full control over my talents.

We had the standard classes that any school would have: math, science, English, gym, and so on. Once the standard school period was over, our studies turned to those of our abilities. I learned that my body was surrounded by an aura of psychic energy that I could manipulate for various purposes, although I had yet to fully master it at the time.

Unlike the last school I was in, they didn't hate me for having my abilities. To the contrary, they wanted to help me learn more about them so that I could live something resembling a normal life. Still, I was lonely.

Until I met her.

It happened when I was having lunch by myself. Note that for the first time since I discovered my powers, I was doing so of my own volition. I didn't really know anyone there and I didn't much care to. Arrogant of me? Perhaps.

“Hi,” I heard a girl's soft voice greet me. “Mind if I sit with you?”

“It's a free country, go ahead,” I replied idly, not even bothering to look at her.

I heard the girl sit down but I still didn't look at her.

“It's rude not to look at people when they try to talk to you,” she said.

“Maybe by your standards,” I answered.

“Why are you like that?” she asked.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like that!” she exclaimed. “I'm only trying to be nice to you and you're acting like you don't care.”

“That's because I don't,” I answered. “Not really. Now kindly give me my space.”

The girl huffed and I heard her rise from her seat and walk away. I chanced a look at her. She was barely five feet tall and dressed in the girls' uniform sweater, plaid skirt, knee-high white socks, and black shoes. To my own embarrassment, although I attribute this to my developing hormones, I noted that the sweater and skirt did little to nothing to hide her budding curves. Another thing I noted was the cascade of blood that was her hair.

Yes, blood. A morbid metaphor for a child of only twelve, soon to be thirteen. However, that was the only red thing I could think of that suited her.

After I finished my lunch, I went outside and found the girl with hair of cascading blood sitting on a bench. This time, I could see her face, childishly round with eyes of slate and lips like pale pink flower petals.

“Hi,” I said.

“Go away,” she said.

“I'm sorry for being a jerk,” I apologized. “I just haven't . . . gotten accustomed to people wanting to be nice to me.”

“You're really oblivious, aren't you?” the girl spat.

“Oblivious to what?” I wondered.

“You're very popular among the girls here,” the girl answered. “I think it's your hair. It's a really pretty shade of silver.”

“People think it's weird that I have silver hair,” I said, blushing slightly. “And what do you mean I'm popular with girls?”

“They think you're cute,” the girl answered.

“Do you think I'm cute?” I asked.

“Yeah,” the girl replied with a giggle.

“I . . . think you're cute, too,” I admitted.

This time, it was the girl's turn to blush.

“What's your name?” I inquired.

“Ariana,” she responded.

“Raziel,” I offered.

“Angel of mystery,” Ariana spoke. “Fits you to a T.”

“Huh?” I wondered, as I didn't know much about theology at the time.

“In the Judeo-Christian tomes, your name belonged to an angel who was called the `angel of mysteries,'” Ariana replied. “It works for you.”

From that moment on, we bordered very much on inseparable. We had lunch together, we shared a few classes, and we always saw each other after our studies were through.

“Were you two in love?” Nightstar asked pointedly.

“I was twelve years old,” Raziel replied. “I didn't exactly know what that sort of thing meant. Now for the love of God, let me continue.”

Beast Girl snickered. “Is somebody jealous?”

Nightstar aimed the Bat-glare at her.

Raziel sighed and continued his story.

It was fight training time that day. Our instructors believed that we shouldn't rely merely on the powers our minds granted us; we should be able to use our bodies as well if we had to. The students, me included, were dressed in gym shorts and T-shirts. To my embarrassment, the girls' shorts were smaller than the boys', meaning that I could see a considerable amount of Ariana's legs. Embarrassing me even greater was the fact that we all had to spar in pairs and Ariana was my partner.

Ariana aimed a punch straight for my face, one that my reflexes easily enabled me to avoid. I grabbed her wrist and spun her a bit, then pinned her to the ground. To my surprise, she giggled, and I felt a strange sensation from being so close to her.

So distracted was I that I allowed her to push me off her with her legs. I sprang to my feet, and she performed a capoiera move to knock my legs out from under me. Somehow, I saw it coming and I jumped out of the way. She got back on her feet and aimed a high kick at my chest, but I caught it, blushing as I surreptitiously gazed at the expanse of leg I was holding.

“You mind letting go?” Ariana asked irritably.

I gulped slightly. “S-sure,” I replied and let go of her leg.

Ariana spun around with her leg still out and bent her other leg, swooping low to once again kick my legs out from under me. I jumped out of the way just like last time.

“Familiar,” I mumbled, only to barely avoid a kick to my head.

“Still think that's familiar?” Ariana asked.

I decided to go on the attack, kicking Ariana in the stomach. She staggered back and I pressed my attack with a series of punches and kicks. Every counterattack she made I blocked almost before it happened, although I was confused as to how I was doing this. It didn't matter, as I did beat her.

“How did I do that?” I asked my instructor, a young woman who was nicknamed Bombshell.

“Do what?” Bombshell asked with a soft smile.

“When I was sparring with Ariana, I was blocking and evading every move of hers as though someone was telling me exactly when she was going to strike,” I replied.

“I see,” Bombshell said. “Raziel, you can see the truth. You can see beyond the concealments of another's mind. Would that not enable you to also predict what moves a person will make when they fight you?”

“Could be,” I concluded.

“You'll be very formidable one day, Raziel,” Bombshell said. “For now, get some rest.”

As time passed, I learned to harness my aura in new ways. For example, I found that I could concentrate my aura in my index and middle fingers, enabling me to slice through any material. My control of this ability was so fine that I could choose to slice through only the inside of an object while leaving the outside completely unscathed. My aura also increased my strength and speed to the point where I could dodge bullets - provided I was far enough away from the gun firing them - and lift a medium-sized car. In addition, I had an advanced form of peripheral vision that enabled me to see in 360 degrees, only if I wanted to see above me, I'd have to look up just like everyone else. When the technicians were measuring how fast I could shoot my projectiles, they discovered that I was shooting them at a speed of two thousand feet per second.

As happy as I was at the school, I couldn't help but feel something was wrong. After all, I could “see” past lies and deceptions and concealments.

One night, I was trying to sleep, but the increasing sense of foreboding simply would not leave me alone. Finally, I got up from my bed and threw on a robe over my pajamas. I exited my room and went straight to Ariana's, despite the fact that the girls' rooms were on a separate floor from the boys' and being caught there could get me in serious trouble.

I rapped on the door softly, loud enough so she could hear me but not so loud that I alerted everyone to my presence.

Ariana opened the door, looking at me through unfocused, sleepy eyes.

“Raziel, what are you doing up?” she asked.

While I tried to formulate an answer, I noticed that she was in pajamas as well, although hers couldn't quite hide her developing frame.

“I'm sorry,” I finally answered. “I shouldn't have bothered you. It's nothing.”

“Raziel, I -” Ariana started to say, but I took off from her door and sped to the elevator. I quickly entered and went down to the third subbasement level.

When the elevator door opened, I saw things that no boy of thirteen should have seen. The first thing I saw was people using telekinesis to levitate blades and throw them at targets, aiming for the heart or the head. Another thing I saw was a cyberpath with his head hooked up to a computer screen, the information he was accessing with his mind projected on the screen. The screen flashed images of satellites, experimental aircraft and spacecraft, and blueprints of military battle-suits.

“What the hell is this?” I whispered.

I saw men approach me from the sides, dressed in black Kevlar suits with additional body armor for the chest, shoulders, arms, and legs and featureless black helmets covering their faces. All of them were pointing strange-looking guns at me.

I shifted into a battle stance and summoned my invisible blades.

“Come on, assholes,” I challenged.

The next thing I knew, the armored men were shooting at me with their strange guns. I dodged to the best of my ability, which was made rather easy when I could see everything coming at me as though I was looking right at it. To confuse them, I threw my robe off and at two of the guards, obscuring their vision. I charged at another guard and flipped over his projectiles, coming down and slicing his gun in half with my invisible blades. I kicked him in the chest, but to my surprise, I felt a static charge that knocked me off my feet. As I fell, I felt one of the projectiles hit me.

I was rather astonished when it turned out that the projectile resembled chewed-up gum. I was even more astonished when I felt it melt through my pajama pants leg and into my skin.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Fast-acting sedative that can melt through clothing and skin,” one of the guards replied. “You'll be asleep in less than a minute.”

I could see darkness gathering on the edges of my vision.

Oh, man, I thought. I can't fall asleep now. No . . . gotta fight it . . .

But it was too late. The sedative was doing its work and I was falling into the embrace of Morpheus.

When I awoke, I was lying in a cell. “Where am I?”

“Where you cannot do us harm, young man,” Bombshell's voice responded from an intercom. “We'll erase your memory of what you've seen and we'll return you to your room. You'll fall asleep and wake up believing nothing was ever wrong.”

That was all she said.

I'm not letting them do this to me, I thought. This is all wrong and I'm going to find a way to put a stop to them.

But how? another voice in my mind asked. You've got powers and some skills, but you're a kid. They've got the edge over you in numbers and experience.

So what? I asked. I'll still take them on.

If you're gonna do that, you'd better take it all the way, the voice advised. They'll probably kill you if you try to resist. That sedative they dosed you with, they could pump enough into you to make you a vegetable for the rest of your life or kill you.

I can't do that, I protested. I'm not a killer.

So what? the voice asked. Have someone else do it. Oh, wait. You don't have “someone else.”

If I didn't have someone else to do my dirty work, I concluded, then I would simply have to create someone to do it.

An hour later, two guards opened the door. “It's time, kid. Come with us and you won't get hurt.”

“I'm not the one you need to worry about,” my voice spoke in a deadly hiss. My body lunged at the two guards, who shot at me with their sedative guns. My body dodged with near-demonic ease and ripped apart their guns - and them - with that selfsame ease.

The alarms blared as my body ran down the halls, painting them red with the blood of generally anyone stupid enough to get in its way.

My body's carnage was interrupted by Bombshell, who looked at it with a rather dismayed expression.

“You had so much potential,” she remarked almost sadly. “You still do. You'll make a fine assassin.”

“I don't kill for anybody except me,” my body snarled. “You wanna go next, bitch?”

“I wouldn't have figured you to have such a crude mouth, Raziel,” Bombshell commented. “You always seemed like such a genteel young man.”

“The name's Memnoch,” my body snarled, “and your name is Dead Girl.”

Bombshell raised her hands as though she was about to snap her fingers, only to bring them down along with energy arcs that flew at Memnoch, who dodged them. She shot more energy arcs at him, but he was dodging them with an ease that bordered on insane. He charged at Bombshell as she continued to shoot at him.

“I don't have anything on me, but I'm sure I could still do some real damage,” Memnoch hissed and slashed at Bombshell with his - my - invisible blade. She dodged, but he slammed his hand onto her abdomen and charged that particular section of her body with enough of his aura to push her into some rather sensitive equipment. Memnoch removed a strand of hair from his - my - head and my aura caused it to harden into a deadly needle. He shot it at the machinery in which Bombshell was trapped and said machinery exploded. “Sayonara, bitch.”

Satisfied with his work, Memnoch went to the elevator and went up the floors to the boys' dorm. There, I reclaimed control and dressed in a black polyester jacket, teal shirt, and black jeans. I packed a duffle bag with everything necessary and slipped out through the window, using my bed sheets as a rope.

Once out, I ran. I ran as far and as fast as I could, with only one destination in mind.

My parents' house.

I eventually did get there, despite tiring myself even with my aura-enhanced stamina. It was almost dawn, so I assumed that everyone was asleep. Oh, well, I reasoned, I'd just take a bit of a nap now and see them when the sun was completely out and about.

I'd never get that chance, though. There was meager light, but just enough for me to see a dark liquid on the floor.

“Aimee must have spilled her drink,” I said to myself. I went to clean it up, only to see Aimee herself lying on the floor. “Aimee?”

A closer look revealed a large, bloody hole in her stomach, as though someone had detonated a small bomb inside her.

“No,” I murmured. “Aimee . . . ?”

I turned and started to run to my parents' bedroom, only to trip over something and fall. I looked behind me, horror-struck to discover that I had just tripped over my parents' bodies.

I did the only thing any child with a modicum of sanity in their bodies did. I screamed. I screamed and I screamed and I screamed until I no longer had a voice.

As it turned out, my screams awoke a neighbor and she ran into the house.

“Raziel!” she exclaimed. “What's -” She cut off her own sentence with an appalled scream when she saw what had happened to my parents.

“They're - they're . . .” I uttered, barely able to speak after all the screaming I had just done.

“I-I'll call the police,” she stammered. “In the meantime, you come with me. You don't need to see this.”

Raziel stopped, his eyes closed, fighting off the ghastly memories.

“I'm sorry you went through all that,” Samara said.

Raziel looked at her with a slight blink. In all the time he'd known her, he'd never heard her express that kind of sympathy before.

“Believe it or not, this isn't where my story ends,” Raziel spoke. “I was only a boy of thirteen at the time and now I am close to my eighteenth birthday. You need to know how I got from there to here. It won't be an easy story for me to finish . . . but if you'll listen, I'll tell. I'll tell it all.”

End Notes: So now you know a little bit more about Raziel's past. That's not the whole story of his life yet; you'll get the rest in the next chapter.

If you wanted me to describe Memnoch's carnage, I couldn't, not without upping the rating to M, as he is quite the sick little bastard when he wants to be.

Who is Azazel? What is his relation to Raziel? He called him “son” in the last chapter and he looks very much like an older Raziel, but didn't this chapter state that Raziel already had a father? Just something for you to ponder, as I already know the answer and I like making people guess.

If you think the name Bombshell is familiar, you must have watched the Batman Beyond episode “Mind Games.” The Bombshell that appeared in this chapter is the Bombshell that appeared in that episode of Batman Beyond, only much younger. The Brain Trust I keep mentioning is the same Brain Trust from that episode.

Next chapter: More of Raziel's life story. See you next chapter. In the meantime, feel free to review.