Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Alright you two,” Kori spoke, cupping her hands around her mouth to make sure she was heard, “remember, this is only supposed to be a training exercise. If you two went all out, it might damage the building.”

Virgil removed the blue and yellow-highlighted coat that served as his basic costume, slipping it off his muscular shoulders and leaving him in his black pants and tank-top, before removing his goggles as well, throwing both items to the side, outside of the ring.

Rachel maintained her position. Unlike Virgil, her powers had less of a physical component, and were more dependent on how well rested she was and how much energy she was going to use. Her cloak maintaining its position, casting a small shadow across the top of her face, she looked onwards at Static.

Who was smirking like an idiot.

“Begin!” Kori shouted, dropping her hands as Virgil took the first move.

With lightning-fast (pun intended) reflexes, his left arm shot forward, a bolt of lightning blasting out. Trying to maintain stances, Virgil remembered, was key to using his powers. Otherwise, the recoil would knock him back and potentially throw him off-balance. Black Lightning taught him that.

Rachel immediately raised her hands, a shield of black light blocking the attack, but Virgil fired again, switching his stance and firing a second, consecutive shot from his right arm in the same spot.
It was ineffective of course, but he kept it up, smirk still on his face as he fired bolt after bolt of electric blue energy.

Garfield and Terra watched this happen, faces reflecting various levels of confusion as to why Virgil continued with an ineffective tactic, all as Damian watched them. He knew why.

Apparently, Virgil knew too.

Rachel could only focus on defensive maneuvers and shields for so long. Eventually, after striking the same spot for so long, Rachel’s shield began to crack. Seeing now use in remaining motionless and doing nothing, she took action.

“Azarath Metrion Zinthos!” she shouted. Immediately, the ground beneath Virgil began to open up, but he jumped out of the way before he could sink in.

Rachel fired a few small, consecutive blasts but Virgil saw through her strategy, firing bolts of energy to match Rachel’s and striking her own attacks out of the air.

“Why are you still holding back?”

Rachel looked up at her sparring partner, electricity rolling off his whole body in small waves.

“You know why,” Rachel retorted, annoyance visible on her face and audible in her words.

Sweat trickled down Virgil’s face onto his neck, breathing heavy as he prepped his next move and his next words.

Rachel was breathing equally heavy, exhaustion beginning to sink in.

“We’re able to keep you safe,” Virgil continued. “That’s why we exist, why the Titans exist…to help people like you.”

A light chuckle escaped his lips, pissing Rachel off more.

“I don’t need any saving. I can take care of myself.”

At the last word, Rachel shot out a blast of dark-tinted energy. Virgil leaped to the right, rolling to minimize the impact of the landing, dodging as he did so.

“Your father can’t control you anymore,” he spoke as he rose back up to his feet. His smile was long-gone, his eyes focused on his partner.

“You weren’t there!” she shouted as she threw another blast of energy. Virgil dodged it with relative ease, Rachel’s anger clouding her judgement and her aim.

The sorceress’ fury exponentially grew, but she wouldn’t stop. This outsider, this person she hardly even knew, this person she had never even met until a couple of months ago, was lecturing her on her powers, on Trigon of all people.

“How could you know?!” She spoke with a rage that none of the Titans had heard before, had never been familiar with in their time they knew her. Clouds began to gather above the two, the sound of thunder cracking from miles away.

“You weren’t with us at the time!”

Rachel’s side began to ache, her stitches throbbing, but she didn’t let it stop her words. She just clenched her stab wound and continued.

“You didn’t have to fight your friends! Or hurt them!”

Despite the fury and the energy at which Rachel spoke, Virgil stood his ground, unmoving like the statues in the Hall of Justice. Damian noted her tone; it was enough to scare even Kori, but this novice was standing his ground. The young Robin was impressed with this outsider.

But Rachel’s words were also like a punch in the gut to Damian. He knew how much grief he was in when he learned he hurt Rachel…he felt like he was drowning in despair. The guilt resurfaced all over again as he noticed Rachel clenching her left hand to her hip, her wound clearly hurting. Damian couldn’t help but cringe at the reminder of what he did when Young Justice was under Trigon’s control.

In spite of Rachel’s fury, Dick noted Virgil’s face was completely blank. No expression, no emotion whatsoever. Nothing but focus and determination, like he was taking an Algebra test…not fighting a half-demoness that could tear him to shreds.

Except she wasn’t tearing him to shreds. She wasn’t doing anything. Neither was Virgil. In fact, Dick might’ve argued he was winning the fight; he didn’t look nearly as tired as Rachel. From what Black Lightning told the team, he was plenty energetic and had lots of stamina. It saved him during the fight against Avatar.

“You’re right.”

Virgil’s posture audibly changed as he spoke, lowering his arms and moving his feet back, as if to indicate that he wasn’t going to charge at Rachel again.

“You’re absolutely right,” he repeated. “I can’t understand. I couldn’t possibly imagine how awful that must’ve been. To have to fight your friends. To have been hurt that badly yourself.”

Rachel realized how obvious it must have been that she was clutching her stab wound, realizing that Virgil noticed. But she didn’t care. She was still too fired up, too angry to care.

“But I don’t need to understand,” Virgil continued. “I don’t need to do anything except help you.”

He extended an out towards Rachel; an invitation, a gesture of friendship, both? It didn’t matter.

“Black Lightning told me we can’t do anything to save others unless we first save ourselves.” Recalling the words of his mentor came naturally to Virgil, but he didn’t know if it would mean anything to Raven. Nonetheless, in spite of this uncertainty, he knew he had to try and help her.

Damian, Terra, Dick, Garfield and Kori all looked onwards at the sight. The ferocious battle between two of their strongest members grinded to a halt in an instant.

“I think that’s true,” he continued. “Rav—Rachel, we can’t hold ourselves back. We can’t let our minds, or are worries, or are anxieties hold us back.”

“If we do…well, what kind of heroes would we be?”

“You’re…just not getting it.”

Virgil retracted his hand at Rachel’s words.

“If I go all out, if I unleash him or use his power…I can’t guarantee you won’t get hurt, or I won’t get hurt. I can’t have a repeat of what happened with Young Justice and the League.”

“But that won’t happen!” Virgil shouted. “That’s my point! We’ll keep you safe! We’ll keep ourselves safe! We won’t let that happen again.”

“Why does it matter!?” Rachel retorted. “I can function just fine using my powers.”

“Sure, you can,” Virgil replied, “but that’s only part of it. You’ve been so…consumed with fear lately, even minimal uses of your powers seem to frighten you. We don’t care how many villains you can take on at once or how many of us you can fight in sparring matches, but we need you to stop being so afraid!”

A silence ensued between them. No one dared speak between these two; not Dick, not Kori, not even Garfield. The crackling of static electricity in the clouds continued, as the energy gathered.

“I…It’s okay to go all out once in a while.”

“Static, I really don’t think this is necessary.” Dick spoke suddenly, stepping forward and about to break up the “fight”, but Virgil whipped around to face the vigilante.

“Nightwing, please.” Virgil’s voice audibly softened, almost a plea. “She needs this. Besides, I can take her.”

With that last sentence, his trademark smile returned. He’s cocky, Dick thought, but I don’t think he’s wrong either.

“But what if-“ Rachel began, but Virgil cut her off.

“It doesn’t matter!” He shouted in response. “It’s your power! You can choose what you want to do with it! You might think the only way to stop him is to not do anything, but that’s not true! You’d be playing into his hands! That’s what he wants!”

The clouds began to form further, taking shape in an ominous swirl around the two combatants.

Rachel sighed, removing her hood. The shadows finally disappeared from her face, revealing the blood-red gemstone on her forehead, maybe the size of a nickel. The wind picked up its pace, and Virgil noted that if he weren’t so fired up on energy, he’d be freezing right now.

“Fine,” Rachel spat out. As the wind picked up further, whipping her cloak in the air, she could only smile. “But remember, you asked for this.”

As she looked up at Virgil, he got a clear look of her face: yellow eyes, glowing a dull red, and scarlet-tinted skin. She still had control of her bodily movements, however; she wasn’t fully gone.
Yet.

In an instant, Rachel slammed her foot down on the torn up stone. What could only be described as an eruption of shadows flew out from under her, blowing the cloak right off her body. Every one of these shadows angled forward, like arrows. And all were angled towards Virgil.

“Raven!” Dick shouted. He ran forward, about to stop this, but Kori extended an orange arm forward, stopping her boyfriend in his tracks.

“Wait!” she commanded. “He can take her.”
Hopefully.

Virgil remembered Jennifer Pierce’s words, about letting the electricity he generated flow through his whole body instead of just concentrating itself in his hands like Black Lightning does. Taking this advice to heart, Virgil tried an attack, but re-focused his energy.

The sensation felt quite different, like when he absorbed the lightning strike while fighting Avatar, but obviously quite a bit less powerful. Energy flowed through his muscles, his nerves, and his skin, making Virgil feel lighter, stronger even.

And just in time.

Rachel combined her shadows into one massive, menacing claw-like structure, aimed straight at Virgil. Virgil leaped over it just in time, electricity powering his jumps like Jennifer and Anissa do. Rachel’s structure flew directly into the ground, shattering the stone and sending debris in every direction. Virgil shot another lightning bolt, but this one was different; more concentrated, and aimed closer to
Rachel’s head than the last one. It occurred to Kori that he must’ve charged it up beforehand. Nonetheless, it barely missed Rachel’s cheek. This was getting way too dangerous.

Both parties quickly recovered from the attack and turned back to fighting, tearing up the ground beneath them in the process and throwing more debris every which way.

“Now can we stop them!” Dick shouted at Kori, barely able to hear his own voice over the ruckus.

“Terra, end this!” Kori shouted at Terra.

The blonde heroine threw her hands up, a massive wall of stone emerging from the ground between Static and Raven, but it didn’t stop Raven, who simply grabbed onto the wall with her telekinesis and pulled it apart. Eyes still glowing yellow.

“Don’t tell me Trigon got her again,” Dick muttered.

“I don’t think that’s Trigon,” Garfield chimed in from behind Dick. “With Trigon, it took a couple of seconds for the possession to occur, and when it did, their skin was red for a few seconds.” Garfield pointed out towards Rachel, currently readying another attack and aiming straight at Virgil. “She went right into it, no hesitation, no waiting gap, nothing. Her skin is also consistently red, but only in a couple of places.”

“Is that good or bad!” Dick shouted in response.

“I don’t know!” Garfield yelled back. “Why would I! I’m just saying, I don’t think this is a possession! I think she’s still in control!”

“We don’t know how long she’ll be able to keep control!” Dick replied, before turning his attention to Terra.

“Terra, we need you to try again!”

Terra nodded once in agreement at her leader, before getting back to work making more stone constructs to block her two teammates’ attacks before they killed each other. I don’t think a single wall will stop their attacks, she thought, I’ll need to raise more than that.

Virgil charged up another attack using Jennifer’s technique, letting the electricity concentrate and pool in his core. Releasing it all at once, Virgil knew that if this didn’t work, he would surely lose the match.

This is all of my energy for the day, he thought. If this doesn’t work, or it misses…well, it’s gonna really hurt.

“Hey, Virgil.”

The hero in question looked up at Rachel, still very much in control of her own thoughts and actions but looking nonetheless. Demonic eyes still glowing, she allowed a small smile to form on her mouth.
“Thanks.”

Rachel charged all of her own energy into a singular attack.

“Azarath…Mentrion…ZINTHOS!”

At once, the two teens fired blasts of energy: Raven’s a deep maroon mixed with inky blackness, tinted the color of the ruby on her forehead; whereas Static’s was a smaller, but more concentrated beam of lightning.

In an instant, Terra’s three walls shot up in front of Virgil and Rachel, but their attacks went right through the stone. All three walls were decimated instantly, with the two blasts of energy meeting in the middle and colliding. A shockwave formed as the two blasts met each other, knocking Terra, Dick, Garfield and even Kori flying backwards. What remained of the walls were instantly decimated in the combustion, sending pieces of rubble every which way.

Ears ringing, jaws dropped in surprise, the four other Titans all looked at the smoke that emerged from their teammates’ attacks. Garfield was the first to speak.

“Who won?”

Only Terra, who landed right next to him, could hear what the shapeshifter said over the ringing in her ears.

“I have no idea,” she replied.

Once the smoke and dust began to clear, Garfield noticed Rachel kneeling on the split and cracked ground, breathing heavy. Skin back to a normal tint and eyes returned to their gray hue, she looked onward to Virgil.

Virgil’s tank top looked like it had been burnt off his chest completely. Only scraps of the black fabric remained on his shoulders and around him. Virgil was completely unconscious, and way out of the ring. He had been knocked into the trunk of a nearby tree, but the other Titans could see his chest rise and fall from the distance. The ring in question was essentially reduced to a few loose piles of rubble that happened to be stacked on each other in near-proximity. Scorch marks lined the center of these piles, showing where their two attacks met.

“Okay,” Kori spoke, the ringing still in her ears, “let’s not do that again.”