For the first time in a long time, Raven finally had a place she belonged. A place that was given to her freely without anything asked in return. It scared her just as much as it elated her.
The thought of losing this small bastion of peace terrified her so much that her nightmares grew increasingly vicious. Her thoughts were so in disarray after waking that only when she sensed the old man's presence would she finally regain her sense of calm.
It was almost like Taro knew because she had an easier time sensing his presence now than she did before.
For a young girl that fighting demons, dark acolytes and pushing back the influence of a dimensional gone had been her routine for the past few years, this new state she found herself was both a blessing and a curse. Just like everything in her life.
There was this growing dynamic between Raven and Taro that was foreign to the younger girl and accepted in strides by the older man.
Once she had dared thought that the budding connection between the both of them was something she'd never felt before, not even when her mother had been alive, but she banished that thought to the darkest deep where she kept the rest of her emotions.
"Do you think we'll get attacked soon?" Raven asked after helping a customer clear out their purchase.
You know them more. What do you think?
She pursed her lips. It's been a little over a week since the last attack in her room and she was growing a bit concerned since they might have found out about her location and were simply gathering a stronger group to kidnap her.
The words mulled over in her mouth before they came out. "I've been doing my best hiding myself from any scrying or locating magic but that's hardly a solution. A very skilled sorcerer can find me easily."
She was hesitant in asking them to move around because she also didn't like that idea, good one as it was.
"Gotham also makes it easier for people like me to hide, so there's that. It is also possible that they've lost track of me." She squinted her eyes as she said those words. They tasted foul in her mouth. They were too optimistic for someone like her to stomach.
What do you have in mind?
She deflated at the question. "I honestly don't know. Superman and the rest of the Justice League are halfway across the world right now so…"
The door opened and Taro stepped inside the store with a toolbox and gave her a thumbs up. "I fixed our sign."
"At least that's one of our problems solved." She said dryly.
He bent down to drop the toolbox and froze, his face turning grim.
"What happened?"
His neck creaked like a rusted cog as his face turned to her. One of his hands went to his back, his face looked pained. "My back."
She stared blankly at him and remarked apathetically. "Old man."
Taro straightened up with a sharp wince and foggy eyes. "I'm not that old." He groaned.
Raven scoffed. "You are in your forties."
"Early–" His pitiful argument was brutally cut off.
"But still in your forties." Came her cold rebuttal. "Plus you're overweight with an unhealthy obsession with canned soda. You should count yourself lucky if you see the gate of your fifties."
His tall height and big frame seemed to shrivel up. He felt aggrieved at Raven's word.
"Your last days aside, what should we do?"
He trailed his way to his chair behind the counter and bumped her to the side with his hips. He was sulking and she could see it.
"If there's nothing important to do then we do nothing." Taro said as he picked up a new magazine and flipped it open with a flair.
"Right."
The door to the store swung open and a man walked in and went around picking up a few things, cursing when he didn't find some he was looking for.
"Hey fatty, try stocking up some more heh?" He yelled angrily as he stomped towards them and dropped a few things on the counter. "Make it quick, girl. I've got lotta things to do."
"Right." Raven replied evenly, neither of them showing much of a reaction. "That'll be $24.70."
The man's face changed into a pissed snarl. "The hell you just say? While not make it 50 bucks while ya at it."
Raven made to reply when a gun was pulled and leveled at Taro who was focused on his magazine.
"Since y'all are into daylight robbery, let me repay the favor aight?" His face wore a salacious smirk. "Hop on it, girl! Clear the register or fatty here gets it."
Raven looked at Taro who continued reading his magazine unbothered. "I said hop on it. And don't be no smartass and call the cops."
"Right." She said dispassionately and glanced at Taro who was still engrossed in his magazine. "We're getting robbed."
The customer-turned-robber looked between the two of them and stretched his gun threateningly at the languidly relaxing ball of flesh.
"You deaf girl?" He corked the gun, his next action shown clearly in his eyes. "Open the damn thing and count them bucks up! Or fatty over here will be Gotham's newest statistic."
Raven's hands twitched behind the counter. She was a breath away from acting when the old blob beside her dropped his magazine and looked at their robber.
"What you looking at fatty?!" The man had just about had it with the two of them and aimed at Taro's shoulders only for Taro to spit out something from his mouth straight into the barrel of the gun.
The startled man immediately fired his gun only for him to scream as it blew up in his hand.
His eyes went dark as he crumpled to the floor in the next moment.
"Are you going to call the cops?" Raven asked.
"Already did it."
The police came soon and whisked their poor customer away, blaming his accident on a faulty gun, which unfortunately wasn't a rare occurrence among criminals in Gotham. Most of them knew jack about servicing a gun.
All in all, it was an uneventful day for the new duo.
.
...
.
Somewhere in Gotham….
A group of black and red robed people gathered around in a circle in a crypt, chanting in an obscure language with their hands connected to each other.
They stood on top of a magic circle that was constantly oozing black miasma. As the miasma rose some of them started falling dead. Half of them had died by the time the whole crypt was suffocating in the bale fog.
It formed a visage of a demonic face with four glowing red eyes and a mouth that echoed the screams of the terribly damned.
Seeing the magnificent visage of their god, the ones that were still alive fell on their knees and worshipped the projection of the overlord god of death and darkness.
Trigon the Terrible.
"You will find her soon. When you do, send me the soul of the one at her side. He has earned my ire. I dare you to fail." It was a demonic voice traipsed with the wailings of the eternally tormented.
The projection was gone as soon as it finished speaking, and it took with it the souls of half of those that had been alive.
One of the robed men that wore a coronary piece on his head barked impatiently with his tainted voice.
"Find her now!" Raw terror painted their words and actions. How could they remain calm when Trigon's wrath loomed over their heads?
Wraiths and dark spectres rose from the ground and flew out through the walls into the city above.
"I want her found in 48 hours or I'll refine your souls into my Spectral Flames!" A baleful aura leaked from the Head Priest's body as his threat fell on the last retreating figures.
The Head Priest was left alone in the dark crypt as he whispered darkly to himself. "Centuries of Priests… I will not be the one to fail in preparing for his magnificent descent." All four of his beady black eyes gleamed with madness.
.
...
.
Raven couldn't help but sigh for what was probably the millionth time.
Taro had taken the robber's words yesterday to heart and wanted to refresh his shop's stock of random products.
So now they were in his van, driving into Central Gotham after he put in a call to his numerous suppliers.
"You said we were close to striking red so why do you want to waste money stocking up when the shop is still full?"
She didn't particularly care either way, not about his money problems or his failing shop – she wasn't materialistic. What she cared about, and was greatly annoyed by, was that he was driving her straight into the heart of the city where thousands of people mingle at every second. She was an empath with basic control. She was the ultimate introvert.
Taro, being his usual dumb mass of flesh, only looked at her with disdain from behind his glasses. He shook his head.
You are still a child, Raven. You wouldn't understand.
Cue Raven's pending trademark glaring deadpan. This insufferable old man was patronizing her? On top of his rash decision?
She ignored him and leaned against the window after pulling down the hood of her dark purple jacket.
"I still don't like this city." She muttered to herself. The very air of the city felt uncomfortable against her skin. A feeling that grew more potent as they went deeper into the city.
Other than the familiar nausea and constant irritation that accompanied her abilities whenever she was in grossly crowded places, they only spent a short few hours between going through the city to the different retailers and loading up the car and they were done and ready to return.
It was already nighttime when they started their return drive.
To keep her busy, Taro had spent half of the time during his shopping forcing small training instances as they moved above. It kept her busy and drew her attention from the rampaging emotions that seemed to fill the city of vice.
"That wasn't so bad." Taro said as he drove at a moderate speed.
"Hmm." Raven, even with her reluctance to be out in city, agreed. She equally enjoyed and hated the spontaneous attacks she suffered from him during their training.
She still hasn't managed to remain calm, not even once, to his deathly projections but she was somewhat able to react. He had graded her as barely passable. That was enough for now and she could tell that it was working.
As they left Central Gotham and drove towards the outskirts, both of them couldn't help but think of what would be the best way to end the day.
Taro shifted between beverages and ice-cream accompanied with an episode rerun, while Raven pondered between reading some of Taro's books with a cup of his tea or more mental practices.
BOOOOOM!
The car directly behind them exploded which violently knocked their car into an uncontrollable swerve.
Taro's face turned serious as he tried to get the car in control, which he succeeded with before they could tumble over, and pushed back into the main road.
"That's Batman." Raven pointed as an heavily armored car zoomed past them with a bike following sharply behind.
Another explosion rocked the road, breaking the windows of Taro's van, but Raven had them protected with a barrier inside their car.
"It's coming from behind. We'll have to get off the main road." She informed him.
"Got it. Hold on." He frowned and spun the wheel harshly as he saw someone firing an RPG, barely avoiding it as he saw it fly past the back of his car towards the bike at the front.
"Gotham is crazy." Raven said with a tone of finality as Taro grove sharply past Old Gotham, a section of the city that had burned to the ground decades ago and was overrun with broken buildings and overgrown vegetation.
"I can't deny that." Taro said. He already regrets leaving his shop today.
"Uh oh." Taro suddenly looked like he was about to cry.
"What is it?" Raven asked as she felt a wave of despair rolling off him.
He leaned back into the headrest as the car slowed to a stop. The deceleration of the car proportionately increasing the acceleration of his soul leaving his body.
"Why are we stopping?" She asked blandly, refusing to believe for an instant that the car just stopped in the middle of nowhere.
"The least of our problems is burst tires. The bonnet is smoking." His soul fractured with every word he spoke. He looked at Raven with tears in his eyes. "We are already in the red. How are we going to fix the car?"
She gave up. She kicked the door open to get out and did what she could to stop the car from smoking.
"Are you just going to cry in there?" This guy was unbelievable. He could dodge bullets, swerve through explosions, kill demons with a spoon, all with a neutral expression on his face, and a red ledger reduced him to a broken slump.
He grumbled incoherently as he got out of the car. Defeat all but apparent in his eyes.
"We'll walk through here. Get to the nearest junction and take a cab. I'll come back tomorrow with my tools to fix it." He said, though almost breaking a whimper at the end there.
They walked through the wirily vines and trees that grew through the broken buildings and roads of Old Gotham.
They walked for a fair bit when Taro held Raven to stop. "There's fighting up ahead."
She closed her eyes for a moment and nodded. "You're right. It feels like different groups. Some are hard to pick up for some reason."
He didn't hesitate and pointed in another direction. "We'll circle over them."
He suddenly dragged Raven behind him and used his other hand to snatch three shurikens out of the air.
"Assassins." He said with a certain draw to his voice.
The bushes around them were too silent. Even the thrown shurikens had barely made a noise.
"Assassins?" Her brows were scrunched in concentration. "Are they like ninjas or something? I can barely feel them around."
"Yes."
His hand whipped out and caught a dagger, filling the spaces between his fingers with the addition of the three shurikens, and with barely what could be called a jerking motion he chucked them all so fast that none of his assailants noticed they were gone until it had nailed them to where they hid.
Seeing Taro pointing out their hiding spot, Raven grabbed them with her magic with enough force to knock them out.
"Good. Let's go."
She followed behind him as they cut an arching path through the bushes in order to avoid whatever fight was going on, unfortunately however, the fight found them.
Four shadows dropped from above with short swords only for two of them to be grabbed the moment their feet touched the ground and promptly smacked against the ground, instantly knocking them out.
The last two saw this and jumped back to put distance between them and the surprising threat, only for their eyes to lose sight of him for a second and in the next second when they saw him he was in their middle with his hands grabbing their heads which he smashed together, adding them to the rising tally of knocked out ninjas.
"The fight is moving. It's getting closer." Taro caught a glint from the edge of his glasses. He rolled on the ground to grab a small stone and threw it to accurately knock out a dagger flying for Raven.
He flicked three smaller pebbles and knocked down five curving shurikens.
"Behind you!" Raven warned but he was already on it as he turned around to trap a sword between his bicep and forearm.
"Oh? You're quite something, fatso." A man in a stylized armored suit decked out in weapons with a mask asymmetrically divided in black and red stared threateningly at Taro.
Deathstroke. A world renowned mercenary and master assassin.
"Sorry, no witnesses." He didn't seem to care about his sword trapped in Taro's arm since he whipped out a gun, something that couldn't be dodged at such close range, only for Taro's other hand to reach out in the same moment and dismantle the gun from the barrel before Deathstroke could pull the trigger.
The both of them separated, scrutinizing the other, Taro's face a mask of deceptive calm while Deathstroke hid his behind his mask.
"Who are you?" Deathstroke asked but Taro remained silent as he stood between the famed mercenary and Raven.
Deathstroke chuckled. "Trust Gotham to hide all the crazies. How about an introduction? You can't expect me to believe you're just a fat chump, hmm?"
Seeing Taro staying silent, Deathstroke sighed and shook his head. "Well then, too bad. At least this outing won't be completely boring."
Raven who stood to the side stayed still and silent as Taro told her to. She kept her eyes and senses open for any ambush attacks–
3 o'clock. The rocks' shadow.
–just like this one Taro pointed out.
She was wowed at the level of his awareness and acuity, something she could only understand because she was learning the same thing under him.
He had his focus on Deathstroke, on her exact location and position of her body, the location and awareness of the actions of nearby enemies, WHILE also painting a precise mental picture of their exact location and current action.
Take away the level of his combat skills, something she still couldn't wrap her head around, and any other mastery he was capable of and leave just his mental capabilities and it would still be one of the most impressive things Raven has ever seen.
"Oh, so the girlie knows magic. This might be tricky." Deathstroke commented with audible interest but remained wholly unbothered. "Is she your daughter or something? I have a lass too, so how about it?"
Deathstroke attacked with lethal precision the moment Taro tilted his head in confusion, having sheathed his sword and opted for using his fists, and brought his hand down on Taro's solar plexus and at the same time made a vicious chop towards his neck.
Taro caught the hand dead center and deflected the chop with a chop of his own. He swept his leg at Deathstroke who easily saw through the basic maneuver and raised one of his legs to avoid the sweep only for Taro to pick him off the ground and throw him over his shoulder. Back to the ground.