Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Teen Titans: Future Storm ❯ Feiticeira ( Chapter 9 )

 

“Teen Titans: Future Storm”

Arc 2: “Mentality”

Chapter 4: “Feiticeira”

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. Nightstar and Mercury do not belong to me; the former is owned by DC Comics and the latter is jointly owned by DC and Marvel. Everyone else, except for anyone you might recognize, belongs to me.

Author's note: So there you have it. The bloody tale of how Raziel came to be what he is . . . but that's only the first part. There's more to come, as well as a special surprise for all of you reading this story.

Also, I've edited chapters 1 and 2 of this arc so that what happens in the later flashbacks in this chapter will make more sense.

Raziel took a deep breath before continuing his story.

The police never were able to find my family's killers. That didn't matter. I already knew who did it and the knowledge ripped me apart. There were only two things I wanted then: to join my family and to end the lives of those who murdered them.

In the meantime, I was placed in foster care with the Millers. I didn't much like my time there, to put it lightly.

“What's not putting it lightly?” Samara asked.

Raziel gazed at her, amethyst meeting mauve. “They would regularly beat me senseless for the smallest infractions . . . and I incurred their displeasure very often. Half the time I sensed they were just looking for an excuse to take their anger out on me.”

“Why would the foster care system allow those people to be part of it?” Mercury asked.

“Because the Millers were very good at keeping their abuse of me under wraps,” Raziel answered, “especially since I healed faster than the average person.” He sighed sadly. “Evil isn't always found in the lairs of super-villains.”

“So what happened?” Beast Girl questioned.

“I ran away,” Raziel replied. “Six months of abuse and I'd finally had enough, so I fled, despite Memnoch screaming in my head that I ought to slaughter them both for their treatment of me.”

I soon discovered that my psychic talents could be turned to thievery. I quickly took to the role of a pickpocket, stealing wallets and using the credit cards inside to buy hotel rooms. I didn't exactly feel like sleeping on the streets; even I was too vulnerable there. Even so, there were times when I didn't have enough for a hotel room and had to make do with the streets.

One night, I made the mistake of stealing the wallet of a man whose name I later discovered to be Shido Fukata. His men spotted me and gave chase.

“Hey!”

“Stop, you little punk!”

I finally turned around and threw my ill-gotten gains at the suited men, using their surprise to get the drop on them. The first one fell quickly enough, but the other two were harder. After all, I was not that much taller than five feet then and was almost thinner than a rail, while they were six-foot, solidly built men. I ultimately lost, but neither one of them would be able to make good use of their arms for a while.

The men brought me before Fukata, who inspected me with his eyes. Thankfully, he didn't harbor any desire for my underdeveloped frame.

“Have you been eating?” he asked.

“What do you care?” I asked.

“I care . . . because I'm getting you out of here,” he answered. “You probably haven't had anything decent to eat in a while and you're kind of a mess. No way anyone who's gonna be working for me will look the way you do.”

“I'm gonna work for you?” I wondered.

“Why not?” Fukata responded. “You've got spunk if you're willing to steal from me. I admire that. And the way you fought my men shows me that you know something about the martial arts. A little rough, but all diamonds start out as dirty rocks. So what do you say?”

I weighed my options as carefully as could be expected from a fourteen-year-old boy. On the one end, I could continue to live on the streets and in hotel rooms bought with stolen credit cards, scrounging for an existence. On the other end, I could go with Fukata and have a steady home, as well as something to do, even if it didn't seem all that legal.

“You have a deal,” I finally decided.

Fukata took me to a large, lavish mansion that I took to be his. Once inside, he ordered a manservant to escort me to the bath. The manservant followed his orders and I was taken to a room with a large tub in the floor. The servant filled the tub with warm water and left me alone.

I stripped off my clothes and entered the tub, allowing myself to relax for a few minutes before beginning to cleanse myself of the detritus that had built up from my time on the streets.

After about ten or fifteen minutes, I exited the bath and dried off. I put on a robe and emptied the bath. Another servant came to escort me to a room and I gratefully followed her.

“Holy crap,” I uttered when I saw my room. Warm blue drapes covered the windows and the walls were painted a brooding indigo. Black carpeting covered the hardwood floor near the queen-sized bed that stood in the center of my room. A mahogany five-drawer dresser stood at one side of my room, while a wardrobe closet stood at another side. A nightstand sat next to my bed and a large desk with a desktop computer stood in a corner of my room.

“I will leave you,” the servant said and did exactly that.

I removed my robe and opened my wardrobe, finding many pairs of pants (most of them black), many buttoned and Asian-style shirts (also mostly colored black), and some button-less jackets (colored white). I happened to spot several gi and hakama, which were mostly colored black or dark blue, as well as a few suits. At the bottom of the wardrobe were a few pairs of black steel-toed boots as well as more formal shoes.

I removed a pair of pants from its hanger and donned them, along with an Asian-style shirt and the steel-toed black boots. I found a comb and took it to my hair to stop it from curling. Once that was over with, I sat on my bed and relaxed until I heard another servant calling for me.

When I came downstairs, I found a meal fit for a prince waiting for me.

“Ah, hello,” Fukata greeted me. “I'm sure you're very hungry. Please eat.”

I could sense that the meal wasn't poisoned, so I sat down, picked up the chopsticks, and began eating. It was rather awkward at first, as I had never eaten with chopsticks before. I did manage to get the hang of it, at least enough not to royally embarrass myself.

“You said I was going to work for you,” I said. “What am I going to do for you? Kill people?”

“Yes,” Fukata admitted.

“And don't you think I'm a little young to be your personal assassin?” I asked.

“Is that not what the people who taught you in that school intended you to be in the first place?” Fukata asked.

“How do you know about that?” I questioned.

“I had my men look into you,” Fukata answered. “You're a very interesting boy, Raziel Crestmore. And very skilled. You just need someone to shave off the rough edges.”

“And that's going to be you?” I asked.

“Not quite,” Fukata replied. “Your combat training will be overseen by someone else. Everything else will be left to me.”

“So what are you, the yakuza?” I asked.

“Yes, the Kokuryu syndicate,” Fukata replied. “You really have no choice in the matter. Where will you go, back to your foster parents, who beat you day in and day out? Back to the Brain Trust, to be turned into a psychic weapon? And it's not like your father's relatives will take you in . . . and your mother doesn't really have much in the way of family.”

I glared at him.

“You just have that look in your eyes because you know I'm telling you the truth,” Fukata said. “Don't mind me; I like seeing that barely repressed fury. You will make a fine killer, Raziel-kun.”

That was the beginning of it all. My combat training was overseen by an assassin who called herself Tokyo Rose. The same sixth sense that allowed me to see what others hid within their hearts allowed me to read her moves nine times out of ten. That didn't guarantee me victory, of course, as she was a far more experienced martial artist than me. Besides, what good did reading my opponent's moves do me if I couldn't counter them?

“You're improving, boy,” Tokyo Rose remarked after our latest exercise, extending a hand to me. I took it and let her help me to my feet.

“Thank you,” I said, blushing slightly.

Tokyo Rose sighed. “Don't act like an embarrassed child around me. I expect you to have more fortitude than that when addressing me.”

I looked her dead in the eye and spoke again. “Thank you.”

“That's more like it,” Tokyo Rose said with a glint of approval in her eyes.

When I wasn't training with Tokyo Rose, Fukata had tutors instructing me in English, Japanese, mathematics, science, literature, history, and social sciences. I had to admit . . . I was becoming a rather well-rounded little murderer.

To expedite the learning process, I fractured my mind again, creating two more personalities. The first was Gabriel, who would organize every bit of knowledge I acquired in a mental library. The second was Uriel, who consisted of pure, undiluted logic and did not allow emotion or preconceptions to interfere with the acquisition of knowledge. The good part of that was that he could check Memnoch, who was little more than a rabid dog. Since puberty had kicked into full swing, he'd done little to nothing except lust for gratuitous amounts of blood and sex. Until Uriel, it had become rather hard to tune him out, especially when Tokyo Rose was instructing me.

As I improved in the arts of combat, I thought to contain that knowledge within someone who could best utilize it, someone who lived for the fight. Once again, I fractured my mind, creating Michael, the warrior angel.

“Don't you think you'd go insane eventually, having all those other people in there with you?” Bladefire asked.

“Not really,” Raziel replied. “It's actually because of them that I've maintained as much sanity as I have.”

“How's that?” Beast Girl asked.

“Share the pain,” Raziel answered simply. “Now . . .”

After about a year's worth of training, Fukata judged me ready for my first kill. I donned a version of what was to be my traditional outfit: a white haori jacket with the symbol of the black dragon on the back, a black shirt with the kanji for demon over my heart, and loose black pants with numerous zippers and buckles. The zippers kept my pockets closed, pockets that were filled with seemingly innocuous objects like marbles, dice, paper clips, and needles. Of course, in my hands, those objects were not so innocuous.

“Who am I to kill?” I asked.

Fukata laid a picture in front of me, of a sharply dressed man with slicked hair.

“His name is Takaya Akashi,” he replied. “We gave him the money to start his business and all we expected was a little help from him. Unfortunately, he has been having thoughts of going fully legit and all our persuasive efforts have fallen flat. So he has to be terminated.”

“I see,” I stated with not a trace of emotion in my voice. That had been taken care of by Gabrielle, who was the receptacle of my feelings of guilt, compassion, and generally anything else that would interfere with my duties. Oddly enough, this personality was female. I had experimented with letting her have control of my body, only to discover that when that happened, my aura created the extremely realistic illusion of a girl's body in place of my own.

“And how did you know it was realistic?” Mercury asked, only to be smacked upside the head by Beast Girl.

“Quit being a pervert,” the shape-shifting geomancer grumbled.

Raziel sighed tolerantly.

“It was a perfectly innocent question!” Mercury protested. “I wasn't trying to be perverted!”

“Just let him go on,” Inferno sighed.

I hid in the shadows that night, waiting for Akashi to come out of the gentlemen's club he frequented. He exited about twenty minutes after I arrived, which was a good thing, too, because I had decided right then and there that I didn't like waiting for my victims to show up. It gave me far too much time to think about what I was doing.

“Akashi,” my voice spoke, utterly devoid of emotion.

“Who's there?” Akashi asked.

“Your executioner,” Uriel replied. “You should never have turned your back on the Kokuryu.”

“Leave me the hell alone!” Akashi exclaimed and tried to get past Uriel and into his convertible. Uriel tripped him and lifted him to his feet, supporting him with one hand.

“Go ahead, try to run,” Uriel suggested with not a trace of mirth or mocking or malice in his voice.

Akashi ran to his convertible, started it, and drove. Uriel pulled a needle out of his pocket and shot it at the convertible's engine, setting off a killing explosion. He walked away from the burning wreckage, allowing me to resume control.

“Good job, Raziel-kun,” Fukata spoke. “I am quite proud of you.”

“Thank you, Fukata-sama,” I answered.

“You may retire to your room for now,” he said. “Get some rest, Kokuryu no Kiba.”

I did exactly as he said, going to my room. I couldn't sleep, though; I was too busy thinking about what I had done. I hadn't killed for the sake of my own survival; I had killed because someone told me to do it, pointed me at a target, and set me loose. Silent sobs wracked my mind and soul, Gabrielle weeping for the thing I'd become because I couldn't weep.

About forty-five minutes later, I heard someone enter my room. It was a girl, a few years older than I was, petite with slight curves outlined by the black shift she wore. Long, straight black hair flowed down to her waist and almond-shaped dark eyes peered shyly at me.

“Hello,” I greeted. “What are you doing here?”

“Fukata-sama sent me,” the girl replied softly.

Reading her soul - as I had come to call my sixth sense - revealed the reason she had come, which was to “relax” me.

“What's your name?” I asked.

“Mariko,” the girl replied as she sat down next to me.

Poor girl, I thought. She must be new at this.

“It's ok,” I whispered. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

Aw, come on! Memnoch exclaimed. How frigging compassionate can you get? Let's just do her and be done with it!

She's scared, you horny twit, Gabriel answered. The way you'd like to “do” her; you'd practically be raping her. We have to put her at ease.

Mariko gazed warily at me. I looked into her eyes and reached out to gently stroke her face.

“I won't hurt you,” I whispered, but somehow I had the feeling that it wasn't really me talking anymore. I almost felt like I was outside myself, watching my own actions like it was happening on a TV screen.

As “I” continued to stroke her face, I felt her relaxing, growing more comfortable with me. I began to kiss her gently, my lips tenderly caressing hers. While I kissed her, one hand was in her hair and the other was moving down her side to her hip. To my relief, she kissed me back and I tasted cinnamon on her lips.

The strange thing was that I felt that I was no longer in control of my body, that it was someone else kissing and caressing Mariko.

What's going on? I wondered silently.

Relax, Kiba-chan, a voice that caressed my mind like one would caress a lover whispered. I'm only aiding you in making this little beauty comfortable.

Who are you? I asked.

Call me Samael, the voice replied. But I also like to be called Lucifer Morningstar.

I was rather shocked, as I had not created this latest persona.

You did create me, Samael whispered. Just not consciously.

I heard and felt Mariko moan into Samael's kiss as he continued to caress her, his hand working its way up her shift, closer to her . . .

I attempted to shut myself out of the experience, to close my mind off to it. Unfortunately, Samael kept me aware for each and every moment - the sight of her in the throes of ecstasy, the softness of her skin on my hands, her sighs and whimpers as this newest persona made love to her.

“Uh, how did he know how to do all that?” Mercury asked.

“The Devil is a seducer first and foremost,” Samara replied. “He was the most beautiful of all the angels until his rebellion, so a persona patterned after him would naturally be very good at charming women.”

“Plus, my sexual education was very thorough,” Raziel admitted. “Now, if you don't mind . . .”

The morning saw me wondering just what had happened . . . and with a new weapon in my hands. I laughed a little at that. In my experience over the past year with the Kokuryu syndicate, I'd found that humans were full of all sorts of cravings. If Samael-slash-Lucifer Morningstar was anything like his namesake, then those were cravings that he could easily warp to his advantage.

As time passed, I became Fukata's right-hand man. Not only was I his assassin, I also served as his negotiator. Uriel was impossible to intimidate, simply due to the fact that he operated purely on reason and not greed or fear or anger or hate, emotions that could easily be manipulated to another's advantage. Additionally, his coldly dispassionate nature had frightened many a person into compliance with Fukata's demands. Memnoch came into play only when a person was especially resistant, often inflicting just enough bodily pain to convince someone to see things Fukata's way. As for Samael . . . he was a little more indirect. In other words, if the person with whom Fukata was negotiating had a lover who was aware of his yakuza connections, Samael tracked her (or him) down and gave her (or him) the best sex of her (or his) life, which would convince her (or him) to persuade her (or his) lover to go Fukata's way.

“Man, you sound like you had quite a life,” Inferno remarked.

“Yeah, sounds like you had it made,” Samara agreed. “What made you give it up?”

Sometime after my sixteenth birthday, I received another assignment from Fukata.

“This man,” he said, laying out a picture on the table that separated us.

“Isn't he one of your lieutenants?” I asked.

“He's been talking to the FBI,” Fukata answered. “Softhearted traitor.”

“You want me to kill him?” I surmised.

“Not yet, Kokuryu no Kiba,” Fukata contradicted. “He loves his family very much.” He laid out another picture, this time of the traitorous lieutenant with his wife and two small children, the eldest being about the same age I was when I first came into my powers.

I gasped in horror when I read Fukata's intentions. “You want me to kill his family, don't you?”

“Preferably in front of him,” Fukata added.

“I won't do it,” I stated. “I refuse. His family has nothing to do with this life. I have no reason to kill them.”

“You will do as I say, Kokuryu no Kiba,” Fukata stated in a tone that left no room for argument.

“I see,” I said. “Very well.”

That was when I fled from the Kokuryu, from the man who had given me a home and saved me from the streets. However, I knew that if I didn't kill the lieutenant's family, someone else would. I was not going to let that happen.

By the time I got there, someone else had reached them. He was clad in black with a silver mask covering his face, bearing the mark of the Kokuryu - the black dragon.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I'm here to do the job you won't, you little gaijin coward,” the masked assassin replied.

“I won't let you kill them,” I declared. “They have nothing to do with this.”

The masked one drew his katana and slashed at me. I dodged the slash, but barely.

“What the -?” I wondered. “How can you be that fast?”

“A little experiment Fukata-sama's been working on,” the masked assassin replied. “That's all you need to know.”

“You may be fast, but you're not that good,” I retorted as I pulled out three senbon needles.

“Do your worst, Crestmore,” the masked assassin sneered.

I threw all three needles at him, each moving at a speed of two thousand fps. The masked assassin used his katana to deflect them all.

“Is that the best you can do?” he asked.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I'm called Wyndragyn,” the masked assassin replied before charging at me again. I called forth my psychic blades and we slashed each other. His wound healed almost instantly, but I was still bleeding in spite of my aura's healing abilities. Notwithstanding that injury, I was still determined to stop Wyndragyn.

Wyndragyn slashed at me again and I kicked his katana out of his hand. He lunged for it, but I slid under him and kicked his legs out from beneath him. He fell, but landed on his hand and twisted into a kick that brought me low.

“Try harder,” he snarled.

I kicked him three times, one high, one low, and one in the center of his body. Unfortunately, he blocked each and every kick, grabbing my ankle on the last one and twisting me into the air. I spun in midair and kicked him again.

As we fought, I had this one question on my mind: How could he match me so well? Was it possible that he could read my moves the way I could read his?

It didn't matter. I wasn't going to let him kill that family.

The fight continued, us trading punches and kicks that would seriously incapacitate - if not kill - an ordinary human. While we were both quick to recover from our injuries, I quickly noticed that my own powers of physical restoration paled in comparison to those of Wyndragyn.

“You really ought to give up,” he advised me in an almost sympathetic voice. “We may be equal in most of our abilities, but I can keep going longer than you can.”

He's right, Uriel stated. He heals far quicker than you do, so if nothing else, this is a battle of attrition . . . one he'll eventually win unless you end his life right now.

I snarled and went for his katana, intending to use it to decapitate him. Unfortunately, he beat me to it by a fraction of a second and stabbed me in the gut with it. I could practically feel him smirking as he removed it from me.

“You'll live,” he said. “I was careful to avoid your vital organs . . . and that aura of yours ought to sew you back up again. In the meantime, I'm going to let you bleed here, so close and yet so far away.”

He walked into the house and for the next few minutes, the sounds of bloodshed filled my ears.

By this point, all the other Titans were gaping at Raziel in horror at what they had just heard.

“I couldn't take him,” he mumbled. “I couldn't take him and he murdered innocent people.” He looked up at the others with a haunted expression. “Before that night, I either killed for my own survival or I killed people whose deaths I could justify because they were corrupt. I never once killed a person I deemed an innocent . . . until that night.”

“You didn't kill them,” Nightstar said.

“Didn't I?” Raziel asked. “Didn't my own weakness, my own inability to outfight Wyndragyn cause their deaths?”

“You're not the only person who's seen innocent people die simply because they weren't strong enough or fast enough,” Bladefire answered with weary sadness in his voice.

“So what happened to you after that?” Beast Girl asked.

“I got up and fled as fast as I could,” Raziel explained. “While doing so, I happened upon an armored car robbery that you six were trying to stop.”

“I remember that,” Mercury said. “While we were watching you make short work of those robbers, I couldn't help thinking, `That is one bad mother -'” A smack upside the head interrupted him.

“Shut your mouth,” Beast Girl quipped.

“I was only talking about Raziel,” Mercury whined.

Inferno snickered. “Yeah, and then we had to drag you back to the Tower because you were bleeding all over yourself. Wouldn't tell us what happened to you, though, although we did notice you were healing faster than normal.”

“So why did you let me stay here?” Raziel asked. “Why did you let me become a Titan, even with all the things I refused to tell you?”

“Mar'i has pretty good people instincts,” Bladefire replied. “And Terri liked your scent, even with the blood covering it.”

“Plus, I'm an empath,” Samara added. “If you had any bad intentions toward us, I'd have known.”

“Just one more question: What were you doing that Mercury brought you home kneecapped and bleeding everywhere?” Nightstar asked.

“I was going to kill Ariana,” Raziel admitted shamefully. “I was going to kill her and then I was going to leave. I didn't have the heart to do it myself, so I had Uriel do the job for me. He was winning, but this man showed up and beat the tar out of him. He had a psychic blade, too, but it was a sword in comparison to my knife. And when Uriel shot the bullets at him, he shot back.”

“Do you have any idea who he is?” Inferno inquired.

“No,” Raziel answered. “He looked like me, only older, and he claimed to be my father.”

“I thought your father was dead,” Nightstar said.

“Unless the man who died wasn't my father after all,” Raziel concluded with a heavy sigh. “I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case; I was the only person in my family with silver hair and purple eyes.”

“We'd better let you get some rest,” Beast Girl said. She gave Raziel a brief hug. “Get better soon.”

“Thanks, Ter,” Raziel said.

The other Titans left the infirmary one by one, except for Nightstar.

“You're staying?” Raziel wondered.

“Yeah,” Nightstar replied, reaching out and squeezing his hand gently.

“I'm happy you're staying,” Raziel said.

Nightstar blushed faintly.

They finally know . . . and they don't hate me, he thought. That's a relief.

Uh-huh, means we can get to the good stuff! Memnoch exclaimed. Nothing like a good sympathy lay to ease the aches and pains.

Gabriel sighed and pushed his glasses up on his face. Is that all you think about, Memnoch? Ways to get “laid”?

Hey, if you'd get laid, you wouldn't be so uptight and obsessed with your books, Memnoch retorted.

Your style, if you can call it that, wouldn't suit a girl like Mar'i at all, Samael remarked. If you wish a woman to be yours, you must be willing to delay your own satisfaction to focus on hers and I don't see you having the patience for such a thing.

Shove off, Memnoch grumbled.

As this was going on, Gabrielle drew in her sketchpad.

What's this? Michael asked as he loomed over the most emotional of Raziel's seven personas.

Like you don't know, silly! Gabrielle replied joyfully. It's Mar'i in flight!

Michael looked at the sketch, which was indeed Nightstar in flight. She looks like an angel.

That's because she is, Gabrielle answered with a wide smile on her face.

In the real world, Raziel looked at the hand that was holding his and the beautiful girl attached to it. He wondered if life could get any better . . . and remembered that it could get worse.

End Notes: Ah, so it ended on a semi-good note. The whole bloody truth is out and nobody hates Raziel for it. The walls have been torn down, so everybody's happy, right? Well, hang on for the next chapter because that's where things really start to get rocking. Without giving too much away, Raziel decides to settle accounts with the Kokuryu syndicate once and for all . . . encountering an enemy-slash-ally of the Titans in the process and indirectly contributing to the return of an old Titans nemesis. You wanna know who he is?

Well, I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to wait for the next chapter.

Tokyo Rose is not an OC; she's a character from the Kingdom Come miniseries. I was originally planning to use David Cain, an assassin in Batman's continuity and the father of Cassandra Cain, the third Batgirl, but I realized he'd be too old in the Future Storm timeline. Then I remembered Tokyo Rose from Kingdom Come and I decided to use her.

“Kiba-chan,” the nickname Samael uses for Raziel, means “little fang” in Japanese.

Since I've now made it clear that Raziel and Wyndragyn knew each other before their meeting in the first chapter of this arc, I had to go back and alter a few things in that and the second chapter to make this more evident.

Why did I name the yakuza syndicate Raziel was in after my penname? Actually, it's a very interesting coincidence; there really was a yakuza syndicate called the Kokuryu-kai. So I figured I'd use the name.

There, I'm done. You're free to review.