Gone Native: Empathy (ch. 38) (Patreon)

"What happened?" I questioned, my lips thinning as I arrived at Titan's Tower and instantly took notice of the burn marks on Broly's body. He looked like he had yet to notice them, meaning that he was full of adrenaline. Meaning that he had come up against something that had managed to challenge him. That he was injured at all made the fact that Elery and her team were relatively unharmed information of little comfort. The Titans seemed unhappy with Robin going to pick up a flower left in the middle of the floor.

I didn't know what happened, but something clearly did. As far as I knew, the Titans and Elery's team just winked out of my range. I dropped everything I had been doing and immediately began to fly over to inspect what had happened, but I arrived to find nothing. Right when I began to fear the worst, they all appeared as if they emerged from Raven's shadow, rising from the ground.

Robin rolled the flower in between his fingers, a heavy frown on his face while the others seemed to gather themselves. Kori was apprehending some man that was muttering to himself while trembling like a leaf. However, it was Elery that spoke. "Raven stole our fight!" Elery exclaimed, clenching her hands into fists while she gnashed her teeth. "I didn't think she had it in her, but she totally stole our fight! If she wanted to join in, then fine, but she outright stole it!"

My eyes narrowed in a silent demand for a further explanation, lowering to the ground in the Titans living room after I came through a window. Shards of bulletproof glass fell while I brushed off shards of it, but no one seemed to mind. Or care at all.

"Raven brought us to her home dimension, and there we encountered Faust and a Lord of Chaos. Raven… she started to really lose control," Robin answered.

Beast Boy spoke up, collapsing heavily on a couch with his face in his hands. "She kinda flips out every once in awhile, but it's never been like this. If I didn't already know that it was her… I never would have guessed." He continued, his voice just barely above a soft whisper. Raven was losing control?

I found that hard to believe, in all honesty. Raven seemed to be the most level-headed person I had ever met. Then I recalled that flash of anger when we first met. When I had battled the Titans, defeat looked certain for them, and Raven had a surge of power. It hadn't been enough to turn the tide because Raven clamped down on the surge as soon as it began, but she had been the only one in that fight to make me bleed.

A Lord of Chaos. I had never encountered one before, but I was vaguely aware of their existence, if only because it had been on the short list for the most dangerous things the Earth had encountered. A Lord of a fundamental aspect of the universe, in an everlasting war with the Lords of Order. They were supposed to be magic users on a different level than normal ones. While I never had dealt with a Lord of  either Order or Chaos, I had seen first hand during the war how powerful magic could be.

I didn't care for the idea that one such lord was within my borders. Not at all.

"Where is Raven?" I questioned, not feeling her presence nor seeing her.

"She stayed behind to fight the Lord of Chaos," Broly explained while Elery and her team continued to grind their teeth. The difference between their reactions told me all that I needed to know. Elery and her team had treated it like another fight. One where the prospect of losing was just a risk they had to take for the sake of a fun fight. Broly, on the other hand, was visibly worried about Raven and the Lord of Chaos. "I don't think she's going to win, Tarble."

"Raven will emerge victorious!" Kori declared, as if willing the words to become the truth. Faust  flinched every time Raven's name was mentioned, telling me all that I needed to know. I knew what pure terror looked like. The kind when your mind shut down and all you could do was sob and weep. I had inflicted that level of terror before during the war, but I never managed to do anything like that -- given that he wasn't the Lord of Chaos, Faust seemed to have completely shut down. What did Raven do to him?

Robin looked at me, "If Raven manages to win, then she's going to lose herself. The stronger she becomes, the more her father's influence starts to take root. She's never been this strong or this far gone before. We need to get back to Azarath -- can you help us with that?"

"I'll put all of my resources into it," I quickly answered. I had no ability to enter other dimensions, but I had the means through magic or machines. It was becoming a staple in my empire, as was time dilation. "But it will take time."

Robin stood and passed me the flower, "She used this to get to Azarath, and there was also a mirror. What I know is that it was apparently a really difficult dimension to get to-" Robin began, trying to give me the tools needed so we could rescue Raven, even if it was from herself. However, as soon as the flower touched my fingertips, the petals began to glow with a dark and sinister light.

I wasn't used to being teleported without my permission. I think Broly had tried to stop it from happening, but even when he tried to travel with me, I was the only one that was taken. I felt the other presences disappear and in exchange I felt a familiar one.

Yet, even that seemed unimportant as I took in my surroundings -- I was in some kind of alcove. The ceiling was marked with small areas that a person could sit and view what I stood on, perhaps for some kind of ritual. My knowledge of magic was lacking, but I did know that the more mages there were, the more powerful the spells they could cast. With less than a hundred, I had scoured Shield Worlds. From even a quick count, there was enough room for thousands.

What stole my attention so quickly was what I was standing on. It was something I had seen so briefly during the last battle of the war, but I could never forget it. Not when there were enough human memories to piece together what it was.

A Dragon Ball. I stood on the surface of a Dragon Ball.

"Tarble," I heard, bringing my attention to the one that brought me here. I could see what Beast Boy had meant. When I looked at Raven, for a moment I didn't recognize her. Her normally pale skin with a faint gray hue was replaced with a vibrant and angry red. Her hood was up but within the impossibly dark shadow under the hood were four glowing red eyes. I could feel the energy that surrounded her like a violent tempest, not too different from ki but it felt that much more powerful.

"Raven," I returned, my tone even. "You're the one that brought me here?" Why went unspoken as I watched her carefully while she knelt before a statue of some woman.

"I did," Raven answered, her voice low and rough. There was a barely suppressed snarl in her tone that didn't at all suit her voice. Even as she spoke to me, she gazed upon the statue. My eyes narrowed as I paid it some attention -- unlike Saiyans, humanoids didn't have easily identifiable traits like hairstyles to determine who was related to who. The statue bore a strong resemblance to Raven when she looked like herself. "You recognize this thing? The Dragon Ball?"

There was no point in hiding it. "I do. During the battle of the Vega System, we encountered a creature known as Larfreeze that was empowered by the Orange Light of Avarice, similar to how the Green Lanterns are empowered by the Green Light of Will. There was an Ancient Saiyan named Froot amongst his enslaved constructs as a result of a deal that was made -- Froot would gather the Dragon Balls in exchange for an opportunity to eat the  Emotional Entity of Avarice. He failed after only gathering one, which had remained in Larfreeze's possession." I explained, taking a step forward, but Raven held up a hand. A gesture of warning.

Whether for her sake or for mine was unclear.

"Child seemed fond of Saiyans. Do you know her?" Raven questioned, and I shook my head. She was making a mistake with the timeline.

"She likely spoke of the Ancient Saiyans. According to the Guardians, our race was one of the first to gain sentience when the universe was very young. A Lord of Chaos being fond of them doesn’t surprise me. They were a force of nature that would have devoured the universe if the Guardians hadn't stopped them," I spoke, but Raven never looked at me. "Since then, for some reason that's lost on me, they've been reviving our species whenever we wipe ourselves out. They use cells harvested from an Ancient Saiyan named Sadala, but I don't know if she still lives."

Raven nodded slowly, "That explains some things. Child said that you feasted on gods for their divinity and that seemed beyond anything you or Broly were capable of."

Feasting upon a god? Is that what Yamoshi had done?

"Raven, why am I here? The others are concerned for you," I said, taking another step forward despite her warning. In response, her shadow unfurled, revealing some type of bird that positioned itself between us. Its shadow body flickering like a black flame while its glowing white eyes glowered at me, protecting Raven.

Why only me?

"You're not?" Raven questioned, a hand reaching up to her mother's face, her fingers ghosting over her cheek as if Raven was afraid to break her.

"The others seemed to have a much better idea of what is going on than me," I admitted, crossing my arms. "But I see no reason to be concerned."

Raven seemed to find that funny, and began to laugh quietly. Her laughter was a weak and fragile thing. I couldn't say I cared for it at all, for it had far too much in common with the sound of someone weeping. "I've completely lost control of myself! I was going to kill Child. I tortured Faust. I mind-controlled Broly -- you see?" She questioned when I bristled at the last one. "I can't trust myself right now. I'm too unstable and far too powerful! I could destroy even you on accident! I could… hurt them." There was fear in her voice. A deep rooted terror that conveyed that her worst nightmare had been made manifest.

In response, I started to walk forward, blatantly ignoring the shadow bird as it postured to keep me away. "I've lost control, Raven," I reminded her as I reached the bird. I stepped into it, the shadowy darkness washing over me like smoke. It did nothing to hinder me despite its posturing. "I experienced exactly what you're worried about. I ended up killing my team -- Fasha, Tora, Shugesh, and Borgos -- people that I fought with for most of my life, and I did it without remorse."

Emerging from the other side, Raven finally looked at me and her expression was one of pure fear. She looked every bit as terrified as Faust had been as he shivered and flinched at every noise while he laid on the ground. "Take it from me -- someone that knows all too well what you're afraid of -- you haven't lost control. If you had, then I would be dead. Your team would be dead. Maybe even the whole world would be dead." I came to a stop just before her, dropping to a knee so that we were at the same eye level, "The loss of control you fear is total. You wouldn't be able to stop yourself. You would only realize what was done after it was over… not afraid of what you might do. Nor would you be desperately looking for some kind of hope to bring back the ones that you lost."

That fear didn't leave her face as she looked away. "I still want to, though."

"So do I," I admitted. "Do you think it never crossed my mind that I should just fall back into old habits when I first arrived on Earth? That I should have just broken humanity like I did to so many other races? It would have been so much easier. Far less frustrating."

"I… I caused all of this," the confession seemed to spill out of Raven's mouth. "I knew that. I destroyed my home by letting my father here, but I never saw what happened. My mother, she sent me away to Earth to save me. I thought that she had died there, in that courtyard. I thought that saving me after what I did was the last thing she did, but it wasn't." Raven's head hung low, "She survived. At least for a while. She managed to reach this temple, and the defenses here, Tarble… I… she made it here, to this Dragon Ball. She must have thought that it alone could grant any wish."

Raven seemed to curl into herself, "She died here, alone, with no hope. It must have been years after my father arrived. Years of isolation. Years trying to get out of this dimension. It was all for nothing. She died here, after so much suffering. That is my fault." She spoke, her voice just above a whisper. My gaze flickered to the woman's face.

"I wouldn't say she didn't have any hope," I responded. "I've seen what hopelessness really looks like. I've seen it when my fleets arrived at a battlefield, or when I did with the Warworld. I can't tell you what she felt or what she suffered before she died, but you mother was a woman that died with her head held high," I told her, trying to read the womans’ final thoughts from her expression. She was resolute. And at peace. She looked like someone that accepted that they were at the end of a long, hard road.

"The Dragon Balls can bring her back," Raven spoke softly. "You can help me get them -- you have an entire empire! You can help me find them," Raven reached out, grabbing my wrist and nearly breaking it when she squeezed down desperately. I don't think she noticed. My gaze flickered to her hand, then to her four eyes and I felt… something. It was a brush against my mind, like a ghostly touch.

I wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't mentioned it earlier. I would have believed that my strong desire to gather the Dragon Balls was entirely my own. A wish without limits? Who wouldn't want such a thing?

I could bring back Planet Vegeta. I could resurrect my brother. I could bring back my team. I could bring back everyone that died in the war. I could wish that my people were more peaceful. I could wish to go back in time to prevent my many mistakes. I could wish that Frieza and the Cold Family and the Trade Organization had never existed in the first place

But that desire wasn't entirely my own.

Raven flinched away from me as if I had burned her. I wasn't used to seeing her expression  so… expressive. Her lips parted in horror as she stared at me for a moment, realizing what she did. "I-" she started, the words seeming to be lodged in her throat. She tried to mind control me. It was an accident, but it surprised us both. The Nth metal should have protected me from mental control. Was Raven really strong enough that the little that I wore wasn't enough? It wasn't the first time she had overcome items that were made to counter her, like Ada'la's earrings.

"What will you do?" I questioned her directly while Raven stammered, horrified with herself.

She looked away, "I'll stay here. You noticed what I did. Don't pretend that you didn't. I can't be around anyone. It's safer for my friends and everyone else if I stay here."

"You mean hide," I corrected, and I could sense her anger at that. Her frustration at my comment, because we both knew it was true.

"It's practical. Isn't that what you're known for?" She bit out, still not looking at me. "I brought you here because you're the one I can trust to be objective. The others won't be. You can see the danger that I am to everyone else and you'll take prudent measures. You have the resources to find the Dragon Balls. We… you… the wish you can make can bring back Azarath. Then, I won't be so… unstable." As far as plans went, it wasn't a bad one.

I did see the danger that she posed. I did have counters to her. I did have the resources to find the Dragon Balls. She wasn't expecting the wish herself, but she was pinning her hopes on that my wish would be able to bring back her lost home and family.

"I refuse," I responded to the offer, and Raven's gaze snapped to me, her four red eyes glowing brightly while the darkness around us began to writhe in barely restrained fury. I didn't feel a brush against my mind, nor did I feel an unexplained urge to just obey her.

"Why?!" Raven let out a low hiss, a suppressed howl of rage underneath the word. Her emotions were hitting her hard. I did see what she meant that she was losing her control over them. "It's safer. It's practical. It's the smartest option!"

In the end, my answer was simple. "If you’d really lost control like you think you have, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. Not because of any sense of attachment," I quickly added when she made to speak, "because I would be doing my best to kill you. I'm only tolerating villains on Earth because of the mistakes I made. If you're half as strong as I suspect you might be, then you wouldn't be a threat I would allow within my empire. Or at all."

Raven shook her head, retreating into herself just as fast as she lashed out. "You're wrong. I've… I've spent my entire life trying to deny this. What I am. To deny my father and his influence, but I have to accept it now. This is my true nature," she whispered morosely, despair heavy in her words. "I can't change. It's not a matter of trying or effort. I was born a half-demon, daughter to Trigon, and he will-"

"Then we kill him," I voiced, my tone resolute. Raven's gaze snapped to me, left speechless as if she never considered the idea before. I wasn't sure why. It seemed pretty obvious. "If it's his influence over you that is the issue, then killing him would eliminate the problem."

Raven was already shaking her head, the air itself becoming colder while the shadows seemed to grow longer and deeper. Like a pit was forming in all of them. "You don't understand what my father is. He's Trigon the Destroyer. He's laid waste to entire universes. The War of Light and all the destruction and death it wrought is nothing compared to him-"

"Good," I interjected, not letting her fall into her own hopelessness. "I would think far less of you if he was an enemy so easily defeated. More than that, I am in need of a worthy enemy." It would take time for me to defeat a being like Trigon. He was not an enemy I could take lightly, especially when I knew so little about him. But, one way or the other, he would be defeated by me.

Just like I had made the decision so many years ago to end the war, I decided that Trigon would be defeated and slain by my own two hands.

Raven was shaking her head, "No, you're supposed to be… why are you doing this!? I don't get it! The others, the Titans, they're my friends. I'd expect them to do something this stupid. Even Broly because he's too nice for his own good, but not you! This…"

I don't think she was wrong there. "Do you know why you were the first one to learn the truth? About my team?" I asked her directly, earning a slow shake of her head. "Because you didn't know any of the people I was talking about. Vegeta, Bardock, Fasha, and the others? They're just names to you. Broly, on the other hand, he knew them. He fought with them. He's the only other person  that would understand what happened because Elery and the others… they just wouldn't understand."

"After that," I continued, "I saw you as someone that was favorable to have around. You reached out to me before I fought the heroes of Earth and your empath abilities made you useful. I'm not gifted with words and even when I try, I'm not particularly good at explaining my actions or motivations." It was the truth. The cold truth. When people turned to Raven for an explanation on why I was doing things the way that I was, it saved me from creating any misunderstandings or fumbling things because of the tension between me and Earth.

In a word -- Raven was convenient.

"Thanks," Raven remarked drily, offering a hint that the Raven I knew was still there.

"Your welcome," I returned, my tone just as dry. "But I did hold you in high regard. As I do all of the heroes, however, now, you have earned something that most never get -- my respect." I continued, making Raven tense. "I didn't understand before, but you were trying to change who you are. You know I know how difficult that is."

Raven's head hung low, but I caught her looking at me through the corner of her eyes. "It's not the same thing."

"It's not," I agreed.

There was a long stretch of silence as Raven seemed to think about that. "Do you really think you can change?" She asked me, a pleading note in her voice. As if she were begging for an answer.

I gave her the truth. "I already have," I told her, my tone flat. She seemed hesitant but that clarified when I continued. "My first mission was to a planet called Rockoroad. It was a suicide mission meant to start the War of Light. It was the first time I had ever killed anything sapient. The first time I devastated a planet." Raven wouldn't look at me, so I reached out, reaching my hand into the shadow that she cast on her face, and lightly grabbed her chin to make her look into my eyes. "I cried. I vomited in horror. I wasn't like the other members of my species. There was never any glory in the butchery that we did. No honor. Only horror and death."

The shadow cast by her hood receded ever so slightly, revealing the bottom half of her face. "I hated what we did. I hated fighting. I hated killing. I hated the war. But I fought it all the same because I convinced myself that if I didn't, then my team would die. Then as the war dragged on and as my responsibilities grew, I told myself that everything I did was to end the war as fast as I could. That no matter how horrible it was, it was still better than centuries of death and destruction ravaging the galaxy. I changed then. The killing stopped bothering me. The butchery stopped bothering me. I got used to sending trillions to their deaths just as I did killing trillions of the enemy for a war that I started for Frieza's real estate scam."

I let go of her chin, but I still gazed into her eyes, "Everything Earth has been dealing with? That's me trying to change back. Until I can't swallow the deaths of billions so easily,"

"So, I'm a morality project?" Raven questioned, not looking away.

"No. You're a friend," I told her, surprise rippling across her face. "I don't have many of those left anymore, so I'm not in a position to leave any behind even if they do prove troublesome. I think that's the practicality you mentioned earlier." She seemed a bit ashamed of her earlier remark, but she shouldn't be. She wasn't wrong. For my entire life, my hand was guided by necessity. By what was needed to end the war.

But the war was over now. As much as I owed the dead and the living, it was long past time for me to decide what I wanted to do. Not just what I had to do.

"I shouldn't go back," Raven protested weakly, unable to hide how much she wanted to.

"Probably not," I was being honest.

"We should focus on gathering the Dragon Balls. If only to keep them out of other people's hands," she ventured.

"Seems like the prudent course of action," I agreed.

"You should go. You have an empire to run. You shouldn't waste your time on me." She really was just reaching for reasons, wasn't she?

"I'm the one that decides where my time is best spent," I refuted.

Raven's mouth opened to find another reason, her lips parting to speak, but nothing escaped her. "You're going to stay until I leave with you," she seemed to put the pieces together at long last.

"Naturally," I confirmed with no hesitation.

Raven swallowed thickly, and I could only guess that she was either regretting bringing me here or plotting to send me away regardless of what I decided. Instead, I thought I saw the barest hints of a smile tug at the edge of her lips for a moment before she turned to look away from me. "I need to meditate. Just for some time. I need to at least get some level of balance with my emotions… will you… stay?" It was the first time I had ever heard Raven sounding vulnerable.

"Of course."