Crimson Beast - The story of Raven Blair

"C'mon guys, this is getting boring!"

Raven attempted to walk through the chaos, realizing that their attackers were all but incapacitated. A single soldier still struggled in the gum, trying to break free more than get to Raven and Ima, at this point knowing he couldn't win.

Raven looked at him, shaking his head.

"You're not breaking out of the gell cell on your own power, buddy, you're just wasting energy."

With a quick shot the handle of his gun smacked the soldier in the head, knocking him out as he fell, his mouth free to still breath, just aas Raven spun his guns, placing them back in their holsters.

"Take a nap."

He placed his hands in his pockets, hearing the soldiers coming still.

"More guests, sweet."

The little alien floated down next to Raven, having taken care of all the guys that weren't on the ground floor. She was getting rather tired...she'd need to see the sun soon. Otherwise she might fall asleep again. Actually, thinking of it, she needed to tell Raven about that.

She shook her head. Not now.

"How many more do you think that there are?" She asked Raven, trying to keep the weary tone out of her voice and doing rather well. Trying to show that she saw fine, she bounced in place a little and threw a fist in the air. "I can take 'em all!"

Raven contorted his face in thought, as if he could determine the literal number of soldiers by the roars and footsteps.

"Uhhhhh.....I'm thinking like ten to twenty, nothing too bad, they kinda fall like flies."

He piveted on his heel, then continued into the mechanical maze, whistling in the face of battle.

Ima mentally sighed in relief. That shouldn't be too bad...though she really did need to find a time where she could tell Raven about her kind. That way they'd be able to take her weaknesses and limits into account.

She followed Raven through the maze.

Raven had stopped around the corner, looking forward to the group of soldiers before him. He counted them all out, one by one, not breaking his calmed pose.

"One, two, three,four........hmmmm, thirty or so, I was close enough."

He smirked, about ready to move, until the strangest of events shook the cavern in seismic fury. Stone crawled beneath them, formed into a body and layered like scales. raven looked over the edge at the beast, larger than anything else in the cavernous room, easily two-quarters of an american football field's length. A signal whistle escaped Raven's lips.

"Hmmmmm...foreshadowing."

He chuckled, his eyes narrowing and turning to the targets...er...soldiers.

"So....do you boys want me to call on you one on one, or can we just get this over fast? I kind of need to be somewhere."

Ima just stared at the rest of the soldiers curiously. Where did they get so many, she wondered? Sure, thirty wasn't that big, in comparison to other bigger numbers that Ima could and couldn't count. But still, there always seemed more no matter how many they beat...

She also couldn't help but think what an odd coincidence that they always ran into situations like this.

She burdened the soldiers with gravity and lessened Raven's and her own. Then the girl waited for Raven to make a move.

"What the hell is that? Wait....why can't I move?!?!"

The soldiers yelled in response, calling a response from Raven.

"So it's not with you?.....nice."

Raven seemed to disappeared in a flash, like he had faded out of reality, followed soon by one soldier falling, and then another, and then another! The remaining soldiers looked around in fear, not knowing what was happening. A second flash appeared behind one, silver hair falling next to him, a smirk to his ear.

"Hi."

He soon fell.

Ima jumped up into the air again, taking down the soldiers that Raven didn't from there. She really did think that he could take them all by himself, with the way he was going...still though, she wasn't going to let him go alone.

She did hope that this would be over soon though.

Raven stopped as he looked on at the lasers crushing the remaining soldiers, letting out a sigh before looking at Ima.

"Ya know.....this is starting to get kinda boring."

He laughed. These new powers made things way too easy.

"So I can't hear anymore and whatever that thing that crawled by was left, and I don't want to be here when it returns so....let's get out of here."

He motioned to the cave mouth, and the light that curved around the corner, most likely the way out.

Ima laughed and followed Raven. Ah, so maybe that was it. He was having fun playing with his new powers, and now that he had tried them out he was bored. Like a child with a new toy, she couldn't help but think. It seemed like that anyway.

It was an amusing picture.

"I hope it's sunny out." She told Raven. "I don't like the dark."

"Kinda realized that."

Raven laughed as he walked a ways ahead, just trying to walk to the exit. It was true, he was growing bored. Aside from the prince, who they abrely fought at all, he had seen no threat to their power, every seperately. He didn't enjoy being bored.

"I guess I've had my fun in the dark, so it'd only be fair."

"We can probably go back to that city one day." Said Ima, referring to the city that was always nighttime. She couldn't remember the name. "It might be a while, like you said for Terra Rex. But someday." She smiled at him, an optimistic look in her eyes.

Raven smiled at the thought. Ima was a good friend, she seemed to put him before her in every moment, which was weird to him. He had never met a human with that much courtesy, but then again she wasn't one. His arm came up over his eyes as the blinding sun shined down upon them, digging into his pocket he pulled a pair of black sunglasses. Unfolding them, he placed the lenses over his eyes.

His sight returned as he lowered his arm, now able to see everything. Sand rose up all around them in an unmoving sea. Clear blue skies let the sun above beat down upon them relentlessly.

"So.....the Ardoris Sands...."

Ravenlet out a brief sigh.

"Damn."

Bad time to be wear a leather trench coat.

Ima, on the other hand, cheered.

"Yay!" She cried, before skipping out into the sun and starting to dance. She laughed happily. The sun felt so nice! She couldn't help but wish again that was a place that was the opposite of the ever-night city. She still couldn't remember the name...

She was tempted to come ask Raven to come dance with her, but figured he wouldn't want to. This heat, though perfect for her, she knew could be very bad for others that weren't like her.

That, and she just couldn't picture Raven dancing. She laugh again as she tried and failed.

"Ugh"

Raven trudged into the sands, shaking his feet, realizing his combat boots were already filling with sand.

"There had to be a desert."

He couldn't help but smile at Ima in her celebration. She had to be a freakin' alien, because nobody on Earth was this happy. He shook his head.

"Sometimes you're too damn cute for your own good."

He placed his hands behind his head, walking up a large dune the size of difficult climbing hills. He stood at the top, the sun gleaming off of the black lenses as he surveyed their surroundings.

Sand.

Just Sand.

"This......is going to be a long walk......."

Suddenly, a roar erupted from the cave behind them, most likely from the crawling dragon-like creature. It didn't attack, but the roar was enough.

"Make that a run."

"Thank you!" The alien told Raven in response to his compliment. She also wondered what that one word meant...she had asked people before, but they never told her for some reason...and they did the same thing with a lot of other words...

Ima made Raven float just above the sand. "There you go, now you can't get sand in your shoes!" She chirped before adding. "Should I help us get farther away? It'll be faster!"

Raven gave off a look of realization. She could make them fly, well there went the long trudge through this sandbox.

"Well, I guess taking a sail through the desert air wouldn't be that bad."

He smiled at her.

"Make it so."

Ima gave a nod, making the two of them light before nodding again. "Alright, we're good." She said before jumping a good distance away, showing how to do it.

"Just jump normally in the direction you want to go, I'll take care of the rest." She said to Raven as she jumped back. "It's just like before, don't worry about falling...though it wouldn't be that bad, it's just sand. Unless you landed face first and ate it."

She wrinkled her nose at her own idea. "Ew..."

The teen shook her head. "But you won't fall so there's nothing to worry about!" She grinned brightly at him."

Raven looked across at her, crouching down before leaping into the air, flying past Ima and landing a ways away. He turned back to face her, letting go of a laugh before leaping again, this time into a front flip.

"WOOOOOO!!!!!!"

He landed again, backflipping this time, and sticking his last landing.

"Why don't we do this everywhere?"

"Because I get tired." Ima answered with a giggle as she followed him. "Otherwise I'd agree. It's fun, isn't it?"

Ah, thinking of it...

"Raven, do you have any questions about me?" She asked him, and then clarified. "About my kind?"

Raven scratched the back of his head, looking down to his little alien friend. He had plenty to work with, but he had thought back, to the very beginning of their journey.

"On the mountain....."

Raven looked back out over the horizon.

"I want to why.....you almost....you know."

Raven choked on the word "Died". He had never shown fear to the words of death before, in fact at times found glee, but with a friend things had changed.

"What happened?"

"Died?" Ima supplied the word that Raven couldn't seem to say. She had a feeling he would ask that.

"You remember when you asked me what happened before? That I agreed that it was that it was a bad apple, that I was allergic, and that it was something else entirely?" Ima said as she looked at him. "I wasn't lying. It was really 'sorta all of that'."

She continued on. "An allergy is when your body naturally reacts badly to some sort of substance, right? Well, that's what mine did. I can't handle your food, at all. My body tries to rid itself of the foreign substance and uses at least ten times the energy to get rid of it than you would get from eating it."

"As for being a bad apple? It was one. All apples are bad for me. All food and drink here is bad for me. I can't eat or drink anything, so all foods are 'bad'."

She paused. "And the other thing? That was being an alien."

She paused again. "There was also the matter that it was cold and cloudy. I can't handle either of those, especially not together. Add in the apple and BOOM!" Throwing her hands up into the air for emphasis, she said. "Big trouble."

The teen let her hands fall to her sides and smiled cheerfully at Raven, as if she hadn't been talking about why she almost died. "Does that make sense? Any other questions?"

"Ahhh, clever with words."

Raven kid Ima as he began to walk down the dune, choosing not to use his jumping at that moment. They were having quite a decent conversation, leaping would most likely ruin it. With his hands in his pockets he carried on.

"Any other "Will kill you if it happens" things I should know about?"

Ima hummed in thought.

"Well..." The girl trailed off, thinking, before saying. "If I lose all my energy, as you saw. That was what happened before. If it's dark and cold I'll eventually shut down...and if there's total darkness or...true zero I think you call it? If there's either of those I'll go out like a light. I don't even want to imagine both."

She gave a small shudder at the thought.

"I regenerate really really fast, particularly with vitals." She motioned to where she had been cut with the prince's sword before. There weren't even scars now. "But if I were to get stabbed through here..." She said this tapping her noggin. "I'd be a goner."

She paused once more. "That's about it I think. I'll tell you if I can think of more."

"Heh, I'll keep that in mind."

Raven bent his knees, taking a small hop that transformed into a great leap, digging his boots into the shifting sands at the top of the transition. He wiped his forehead, sweat glazing his forearm. He stared at it before throwing his arm toward the ground, the sweat flying off, trailing into the sand.

"I think we'll be here a while, might as well give you the same courtesy."

He looked behind him, down the trail to his partner in crime, so to say.

"Anything you want to know?"