The world was gray in the hour before dawn when the Titans arrived at Jump City Stadium.
Fog curled over the empty parking lots, coiling around dead streetlights, muffling sound. Even the city itself seemed to be holding its breath.
Their convoy moved quickly and quietly, headlights dimmed, engines kept low.
The arena loomed ahead, a colossus of concrete and steel, its outline jagged against the paling sky. Inside, the stadium was cavernous—rows upon rows of silent seats yawning in the dark. Once filled by thousands of cheering voices, it now felt like a tomb. It had to be here. Raven was too dangerous anywhere else.
---
1. Arrival & Setup
Cyborg moved first, boots clanging against the concrete. His voice was steady, but the small tremor in his hands betrayed nerves.
"Scrambler net deploying. Perimeter alarms in two minutes."
He unloaded crates of tech, releasing a cloud of drones that zipped outward like insects. They climbed into the rafters, weaving a lattice of invisible energy across the dome—traps to snare anything that tried to escape, psychic or otherwise.
At the entry points, Jinx crouched low, tracing sigils into the cracked floor. Her whispers made faint runes pulse before vanishing. "Hex traps online," she muttered. "Anything leaves, it trips into bad luck and broken bones." For a heartbeat her hands shook—but she steadied herself, pink hair bright in the gloom.
Robin was everywhere at once, sweeping shadows with crisp, economical movements. His commands cracked through the silence:
"Starfire—overwatch. High arc. If she goes for the air, cut her off."
Starfire nodded, eyes blazing emerald, and shot upward. Suspended above the field, she was not just vigilant—she was a beacon against the darkness pressing in.
At midfield sat the containment pod, its obsidian shell humming, glyphs crawling with restless energy. Wildcard stood nearest, cloak brushing damp grass, palm pressed against the cold surface. Beside him, M'gann hovered just above the ground, her eyes glowing faint green as she probed psychic frequencies.
They exchanged a silent nod. No bravado. Only respect—for the storm about to break.
---
2. Psychological Preparation
Robin regrouped them at the fifty-yard line, his gaze cutting across the circle of friends, family, defenders, survivors. The hush was heavy, broken only by the groan of steel in the wind—like the stadium itself dreaded what was coming.
"Everyone knows the stakes," Robin said, voice hard as stone. "Once she wakes, it'll be seconds before she tests the walls. Hold until the leyline surge passes. After that…" His jaw tightened. "There won't be another chance."
No one argued. They didn't need to.
From the sideline transmitter, Sage's voice rasped through static:
"The leyline peaks before sunrise. Her powers will resonate—storm feeding wildfire. If you falter, she will be unstoppable."
The words sank heavy.
Beast Boy forced a grin, though it was thin and crooked. "Well… lucky she likes us, right?" He shifted into hawk form, wings jittering before he reverted to human. The joke fell flat, the fear in his eyes betraying him.
Starfire dipped low, her radiance softer now. "We risk much, but she is our sister. If we do not try—who else will?"
Wildcard leaned toward M'gann.
"Anchors ready?"
Her breathing slowed as her eyes fluttered shut. "Yes. I'll take the first surge. You reinforce with wards."
Wildcard's knuckles whitened against the pod. His aura crackled faintly, chakra weaving through Sage's runes.
"Then let's wake the bomb."
---
3. The Awakening
The stadium became a mausoleum of anticipation. The pod pulsed like a heart, indigo light beating deeper, older, hungrier.
A cold crackle jagged across the glass—shadow sparks crawling, glyphs shuddering.
Wildcard pressed his palm to it. The pressure hit instantly: a crushing weight in his skull, a chorus of alien voices whispering despair. His breath caught, but he pushed chakra into the fissures, patching fractures as fast as they spread.
M'gann's mind slipped inside Raven's, threading through nightmares.
The stadium flickered. One instant—steel and concrete. The next—stone halls awash in blood, shadows stretching into jaws.
Beast Boy shrieked as the turf melted into hands dragging him under. He shifted wildly—tiger, rabbit, wolf—fighting phantoms.
Jinx snapped her fingers, a pink spark ripping illusions apart, but for a second she saw endless corridors, every door locked tight.
Robin's staff faltered as phantom feathers strangled his throat, whispers of every failure dragging him back into the shadow of his own regrets.
Cyborg's HUD glitched, his father's face flickering between love and blame.
Starfire's flames sputtered; Tamaran burned again before her eyes, her sister's laughter cutting through the screams.
M'gann anchored, psychic shields reinforcing reality, but blood traced her temple.
"She's… breaking through faster than expected."
Wildcard's hands shook, aura straining. He tasted copper at the edge of his tongue. Still he pressed on.
"Raven." His whisper was both command and plea.
The pod pulsed—then cracked.
---
4. Raven Breaks Free
The hum became a shriek, ripping across the arena, rattling steel beams and human bones alike. Indigo light exploded outward, painting the field in ghostly fire.
The pod shattered inward—implosion without sound. Shards evaporated into mist.
And Raven rose.
Her cloak was shredded, hair a tide of shadow, her eyes twin stars of burning crimson. She hovered above the wreckage, winds screaming, earth trembling.
Jinx's traps lit pink, snaring her wrists—but Raven twisted, and they shattered in a thunderclap.
Cyborg's net flashed blue, then died with a hiss of sparks. "She's overloading everything!" he yelled, voice ragged.
Reality buckled. The stadium flickered into nightmare—pews instead of seats, grass into jagged glass, sky boiling with faces.
Starfire clashed with her mid-air, emerald bolts colliding with tides of black. "Raven! Fight it!" she cried.
Beast Boy dove as a hawk, talons raking illusions before he was swatted from the air.
Robin hurled disks, smoke, everything he had—each swallowed by psychic storm.
Jinx's laughter cracked as she cast curse after curse, more desperation than control.
At midfield, Wildcard and M'gann held their ground. Their auras flickered dangerously, both one push away from collapse.
"Anchor!" M'gann screamed, psychic threads fraying.
Wildcard poured everything into the lattice—magic laced with raw fear. His aura shuddered, burning on fumes.
Raven's forms cycled—demon, shadow, grief incarnate—each lash more violent.
Then her gaze fixed on Starfire.
A crimson-violet hurricane built in her chest, aimed skyward.
Starfire braced, hands glowing, but her plea cracked with dread. "Raven!"
Wildcard's body moved before thought. He dove between them, aura blazing white-hot, warping with strain. For an instant, every version of him flickered in and out—battle-hungry doppelgängers clawing reality.
Robin barked commands through grit teeth. Cyborg slammed barriers into place. Jinx hurled every last hex in her bones.
For one impossible moment—they had her bound. Chaos magic shimmered pink, psychic tethers glowed green, electric nets sparked blue. Raven strained, every muscle trembling, her body a conduit of black fire.
Then it all broke.
Her cloak unfurled into shadow wings, stretching wider, wider still. The light collapsed into black flame. Her body grew, elongated, dissolving into a colossal form.
A raven of shadow rose, its wingspan blotting the sky, its eyes two red suns. Its cry was a psychic blade, slicing through air and thought alike.
With one savage beat of its wings, a cyclone erupted.
Robin was thrown across the turf. Beast Boy was blasted from hawk to mouse, rolling helpless. Jinx skidded in sparks of dying pink. M'gann collapsed, blood streaking her jaw.
But at the storm's heart, three figures stood unbroken.
Starfire hovered, battered but burning, emerald fire defiant.
Cyborg locked in place, arms braced, feet gouging trenches in the grass.
And Wildcard straightened—bloody, aura ragged, but smiling like a wolf at the hunt.
His eyes glimmered with eager madness.
"Finally," he breathed, a voice made for war. "Now it's a fight."
The battlefield burned with fractured light.
Raven rose, her cloak whipping as if caught in a storm of shadows.
From her hands, black sigils flared open, birthing a massive, ethereal raven
Its feathers dripping with shadowfire, wingspan blotting out the broken stadium lights. Its screech pierced the air, a sound that rattled bone and soul alike.
Wildcard crouched low, chakra surging violently around him, blue flames erupting into the shape of a glowing bird that wrapped his body like armor. His eyes burned scarlet — the Sharingan whirling with predatory delight.
"Fire style: Brave Bird Jutsu!"
Blue flames of pure chakra erupted, shaping into a massive bird of prey that shimmered with killing intent. Its wings stretched wide, feathers trailing sparks as it screeched across the stadium sky.
With a thunderclap of chakra, he launched upward, a living missile of blazing azure fire, his avian chakra-construct trailing behind him like a comet.
"Wild…!" Robin shouted, shielding his face from the shockwave.
But Wildcard wasn't alone. Above, Starfire shot forward, palms glowing with emerald light. She spread her arms wide, emerald light boiling in her palms ,hurled volley after volley into the blazing construct.Starfire Her voice rang out like a war cry.
"Starbolt Barrage!"
Dozens of green starbolts streaked downward like meteors, slamming into Brave Bird mid-flight. Instead of dispersing, they fused with it, igniting the azure flames with radiant emerald fire. The bird grew in brilliance, its form almost alive — a blazing, green-and-blue phoenix screaming across the night.
The chakra bird roared, now a blazing avatar of both magic and chakra, streaking like a comet toward Raven.
Across the field, Raven's shadow raven answered with a screech, wings snapping forward as it dived. Darkness thickened around its beak, swallowing the glow of the stadium in pitch black.
"Azarath… Metrion… Zinthos!" Raven's voice boomed, layered with demonic distortion.
From the maelstrom of obsidian energy, a colossal raven tore itself free, its feathers made of shadows, its beak dripping with void-light. It shrieked, the sound rattling the glass of the stadium.
Both titanic birds locked eyes for an instant — as though alive, aware, and sworn enemies.
Two birds — one of darkness, one of blazing light — collided mid-air.
Brave Bird's emerald-blue flame smashed against Dark Raven's abyssal wings. The two avatars slammed mid-air, beak against beak, claw against claw, thrashing for dominance like primal gods of the sky.
For one breathless moment, neither gave way. Then—
KRA-KA-BOOM!
The impact detonated, an explosion ripping through the field, the shockwave blasting rubble and smoke across the Titans' formation.
Silence.
Dust.
The smell of ozone.
The clash was cataclysmic.
A shockwave ripped through the stadium.
The ground convulsed as if struck by a meteor. Rows of seats rattled violently, centuries-old stone trembling on the verge of collapse. Dust and shattered plaster rained down from the upper tiers.
The turf ignited where the two forces touched—sacred blue fire and abyssal black flame twining in an unholy storm. The grass curled and withered, leaving a scorched scar across the arena floor.
Above, Cyborg's surveillance drones sparked and fell like broken stars, their frames screaming as they spiraled down, crashing in showers of molten metal.
"—!!" Beast Boy threw up his arms against the blast, feathers and debris cutting across his skin. Starfire hovered in midair, aura flaring wildly, barely holding her position.
The storm of energy finally collapsed inward on itself—
and then erupted outward in a final, ear-splitting explosion.
Smoke and flame swallowed the battlefield.
For a heartbeat, silence. Then… a figure moved within the haze.
Raven's silhouette emerged, tall and statuesque, yet wrong.
Her cloak hung in tatters, yet what caught every eye was the flicker—her form splitting between her human shape and something monstrous.
Two red, vertical eyes glowed where her face should be. Horned shadows crowned her head for a fraction of a second, her limbs elongating unnaturally—then snapping back, only to flicker again.
"...Asmodeus," Wildcard whispered, his Sharingan spinning, catching what the others could not. In the distortion of chakra and magic, he glimpsed a vast demonic outline behind Raven, a predator made of fire and chains, wings unfurling in the dark.
The stadium groaned, a low rumble of stone on stone, as if the very world strained under the pressure of her aura.
Raven raised her head. When she spoke, her voice was two layered as one—hers and something far older, far hungrier.
"You all… belong to me."
The Titans froze.
Fear coiled in their chests. Starfire's fire faltered, Robin's mind blanked, Cyborg's systems screamed error, Beast Boy's claws dug into the ground, Jinx's magic quivered uselessly, and Miss Martian's telepathy recoiled as if burned. They all felt it—overwhelmed, vulnerable, helpless.
Everyone tensed, hearts hammering, ready to break or fall.
Everyone, except one.
Wildcard stood there, lips curling into a sharp grin. His blood sang, his Amazonian strength surging, Uchiha eyes spinning with unholy delight. Battle lust flooded through him like fire.
"This…" he whispered, voice trembling with exhilaration. His grin widened as Raven's gaze locked onto him, the air trembling between them.
"…is going to be fun."
End of chapter.
Author's note:-
Check out my new Book:
Spider-Man: Legacy of the First Hokage