.................

Chapter 181: A Plan Years In The Making III

................. 

He crouched before her with a reassuring smile as if he hadn't just killed numerous people, innocent and evil all the same. He then patted her head, "You did well."

Raven remained silent, closing her eyes though Ian could see the tears trying to escape, ones of happiness. 

He brought her into a comforting hug, allowing her to relax, and feel secure, thus drifting into sleep from exhaustion.

It all started with Raven's goal to get rid of Trigon's influence. She had darkness within her, and she knew it. 

She knew that if that darkness was to take control, she would cease to be Raven, becoming nothing more than a puppet for Trigon.

So she took Ian's teachings to heart and sought a way to face Trigon on her own. She felt like she had something to prove, so she traveled the Earth, made some friends, and learned many things.

She then started planning for Trigon's demise using everything she had learned, and her methods were just as extreme as Ian's.

Perhaps Raven took Ian's greater goodness too serious, as she should because he very much appreciates the greater good.

It's the greater good that led her to do some questionable things for the sake of getting rid of Trigon.

She knew that she had a long way to go before being able to face her father in a fair battle, something neither she nor her father would do.

So her only option was other methods, and everything only started lining up perfectly when she met someone, Starfire. Specifically, when she learned about her abilities.

A plan started to form, then became more and more complete by the day, so when faced with a path that requires a bit of a fucked up moral compass, Raven didn't hesitate.

She acquired a Kryptonian body, one kept clean and fresh since General Zod's invasion. It was kept to be studied by none other than Lex Luthor, so he, unfortunately, had to lose something very valuable in the hands of Raven.

Raven studied the body thoroughly, then using her very extensive magical powers, she created a battery out of it, one made of flesh... A dark spell.

Ian did after all share with her the book of eternity of which spells mainly consist of dark spells and curses.

Raven wasn't weak by any means. In fact, she was extremely strong, but it's all relative, so when compared to Trigon, a multiversal danger, she falls short.

Her power has only grown as she continued to get more control of her dark side, using the darkness within her for her benefit.

That power is exactly what allowed her to reach a faraway sun and fill the flesh Kryptonian battery. 

Kryptonians' strength mainly comes from the sun, yellow sun to be specific, so the battery devoured the energy of the sun like a hungry beast.

Well, it only devoured what Raven allowed it to, Ultraviolet radiation as that is what Starfire absorbs for her powers.

She joined the young justice for a while. It was more so doing a few missions with them here and then for the sake of learning. 

Through that, she made a deal with Starfire. She would help her save her hometown from those who had invaded it, and she'll in return fulfill a request of Raven.

The last piece of the puzzle was someone or something with strong emotions. The stronger, the better. Raven sought more, someone with emotions so unbearable they would drive one insane.

So she sought delirium with a touch of happiness. It comes back to a story Ian told her once, about the Endless.

The Endless are a somewhat dysfunctional family of seven siblings who each represent an aspect of life: Dream, Death, Destiny, Despair, Desire, Delirium, and Destruction.

The origin and exact nature of the Endless are unknown. The same goes for exactly why the Endless exist; Ian implied that they are natural processes. He described them as being children of Time and Night though he said this may be true only in the abstract sense.

The Endless are as old as the concepts that they represent, and although exact ages for any of them are unavailable, they are known to have at least existed for far longer than life on the Earth has. 

This is possible because of the existence of many advanced alien civilizations from long before the creation of the earth, or perhaps they don't need life to exist.

Many things about them are unknown, a mystery, but Ian stressed that they're real, as real as those sinister nightmares you dream of, as delirious and incomprehensible as the mind of the insane. 

Because in their domain, everything is real, even the unreal in an abstract sense. Raven learned a lot about them from Ian, so after thinking about the nature of Trigon for a very long time, she chose Delirium.

Across her travels throughout Earth, she never once failed to visit a mental hospital, an asylum. Arkham Asylum was actually her first stop, and it definitely had some of the most unhinged of the insane.

But it still wasn't enough. What Raven wanted was someone deliriously happy, filled with nothing but positivity. She wants overwhelming positivity, and Gotham had nothing but negativity in its Asylum, remnants of what Gotham once was, a shithole.

And she got exactly what she wanted after roaming Earth for a very long time, and this is where the cruelest thing she's done yet happens. 

She didn't care about the delirious person's past, present, or future. She saw the person as nothing but a tool and ignored everything else for the sake of her mentality.

Despite how hard Ian worked to shape her moral compass, and twist it a tiny bit, there were some values she still held on to, ones ingrained in her by her mother.

But for the sake of killing her father, she went quite far, as far as letting the darkness within her take control of her, becoming an evil version of her own self.

Or as she predicted, Trigon himself took control of her because the darkness within her was himself. It was a theory she confirmed with Ian and the very thing on which her current plans stand.

Trigon took control of her, thus triggering her plans, an extremely complex spell created by Raven herself which in turn, triggered a few things into happening.

At this point in time, Raven isolated herself on a faraway planet with the happy Delirium as it will be called by her side.

Not far from her was a portal, leading to Starfire who followed in accordance with the plan, releasing all of the energy she absorbed from the flash battery at Raven. She didn't hesitate much as if she had absolute trust in her.

At the same time, one of Raven's abilities was triggered. Empathy, the psionic ability of empathy, the power to read, manipulate and absorb emotions, enabling her to feel the feelings of others.

It's also a weakness because if she comes into contact with an individual with strong emotions whether good or bad, it will overwhelm her and bring her unbelievable amounts of pain.

Luckily for her, or in accordance with her plans, Trigon was the one who got to feel all of that pain and positive emotion, and god doesn't he hate positive emotions, especially ones as overwhelming as these.

He was in so much pain that he lost control of her for a second, triggering another spell of hers, basically taking all of Trigon's darkness hostage, and using it for her own benefits to create a passage to his domain.

And through that passage, Stafire's star bolt went, wreaking havoc across the entirety of his domain. The power of a sun, concentrated in a single bold fracturing the dimension.

Raven wasn't normally able to reach Trigon's domain because she didn't really know where it is, she didn't grow in it, but she was able to once she established that connection with her Father.

She jumped into his domain right after, feeling right at home with much of Trigon's power under her control. Her plans worked seamlessly, making her unable to hold a bright smile back.

She wanted to let Ian know that she succeeded right away, to see if he would be proud of her, but she regained her composure soon and focused on the goal, killing her father.

This is where things went a tad bit awry. Trigon seemed to know that she will come for him, so he prepared several countermeasures in his domain, numerous measures.

Someone told him of her goal, but not much else because her plans still succeeded for the most part. 

Raven had to adapt, but facing not only the ready army of Trigon but also all of his artifacts collected throughout the years was certainly a challenge to the point she saw death standing right beside her.

But Death left soon after as Trigon's dimension started to die out much to the latter's dismay. He had no idea how, why, and what the fuck was happening. 

His dimension was a large portion of his power, so he ended up falling under Raven's hands, leaving her all alone in the hellishly dead dimension. 

"You did well..."