TheRaven: The Tragedy of Ashley Bilefoot

Prologue

Jake fought against the violent force that pulled him towards the chilling abyss that was the colossal terror of Goth. His eyes darted around the room for someone, anyone to help him. Beth’s body lay on the ground with her head in literal shambles, and Pam had bled out only moments ago. He was trapped and alone with the one woman who wanted nothing more than to steal his soul for herself and her own selfish desires. All he could do was scream as the dual toned and sadistic cackle of his girlfriend filled the room.

Jake shot up in a cold sweat while panting. The icy chill from seconds ago was gone and in its place was the familiar warmth of his and Goth’s shared room. He closed his eyes and brought a hand to his face while he tried to get his bearings. This was becoming more and more common, night after night his dreams were plagued by horrific and twisted visions of what could have been. He glanced over to the source of his terror that seemed to be still sleeping soundly. His former girlfriend and Goddess turned...honestly, he still wasn’t sure exactly she was to him.

He pushed the covers away from him and slid himself over to the edge of the bed. He pulled his phone off of the charger and checked the time. It was almost three in the morning. He rolled his eyes as another text message came in from Beth bringing the total to thirty eight. The number was surprisingly low for the time of night. Pam must have been in town. His phone chimed once again as a new message came in from Pam. It was an apology for Beth’s obsessive nature and a promise that she would be limiting it when possible. That brought a ghost of a smile to his face for a brief second.

He rose from the bed and looked over his shoulder to see Goth still sleeping soundly on her side. He silently walked out of the room and made his way towards his usual late night sanctuary. The spare room that he had converted into a workshop, library, and training room. It was a tight fit and he didn’t have everything he needed to properly hone his skills, but it was enough to keep him busy and it served as a way for him to combat the demons that lurked in the back of his head.

His workbench was against the wall with various tools and gadgets tucked away in different baskets and bags, per Goth’s strict instructions. The opposing wall was lined with bookshelves that reached the ceiling and filled with various works from classics to studies on the occult. He had training dummies and a small VR setup to use for keeping his skills sharp. Everyone agreed that he was in no shape to return to his former life as a businessman or a hero; ironically it was the one thing that Goth, Beth, and Pam could actually agree on.

He walked over to the bookshelf and carefully selected a large book that he had tucked away in the corner of one of the lower shelves. He had managed to snag an old tome from he and Goth’s old room when they had stopped by to retrieve some of their basic necessities. He hadn’t told Goth about it nor had he told Beth or Pam. He could only imagine what their reactions would be to him bringing one of her tomes back to the city with him. He knew that it was risky having something like this in their home considering that it held the potential to help his Goddess regain some of her powers, but he needed it for his latest project.

After his last battle with Goth, he had taken the idea of creating some kind of blessed birdarang to heart. Magic was something that he wasn’t familiar with and, in truth, he had no idea how to even begin formulating the spell let alone pronounce the incantation. This was his second week trying to imbue one of his birdarangs with a holy aura. He had been trying off and on with little to no success at this; he’d accidentally destroyed almost half of his collection. He set his latest one on the table and cracked the tome to the marked page and began trying to make sense of the writing.

He tried to concentrate, but his mind continued to wander to the events of the last few months. His time with Goth had started out on a better note, although in comparison to the time prior that was a pretty low bar. The little kindness that she had shown him in the beginning of their new relationship had quickly subsided into little more than a front for whenever Beth or Pam came to visit. There were still moments, rare as they may have been, where she seemed to show some instances of compassion for him and his condition. It was more confusing than anything for him. She seemed to have an almost back and forth where she would lash out, demean, degrade, humiliate, or worse and then have days where she would simply sit in silence almost as if she regretted her actions.

He swore as he realized that he had read the same passage four times and failed to retain any of the information. He decided to take a short break from his attempted spellcasting and look for something else to occupy his racing mind. He pushed the stool out from his workbench and made his way over to the mu ren zhuang that was sitting a short ways from the doorway. He spread his legs shoulder length apart and took a deep breath to steady hsi nerves. Slowly, he raised his hands and brought them into a resting position before going to work. Elbows mingled with punches as he alternated between defensive counters and fast offensive strikes.

His rhythm came at a seminatural pace, but try as he might he couldn’t stop his mind from once again falling back to the thoughts of the last six months. Everything replayed over and over again in his mind. His breakup with Goth, her apprehension of his friends, his submission and borderline brainwashing, Beth’s checkup and change at the because of her, the defeat and breaking of his friend, and everything in between. His strikes started to land harder and off center as he thought about the more recent events of his life. The last week alone he had been forced into humiliating acts and told time and again that he wasn’t worthy of being with her. At one point, she had even told him that he didn’t deserve to be her Raven let alone have her as a mistress.

His blood started to boil as his anger started to get the better of him. He had told Beth and Pam that he needed her and that she needed him, but now he wasn’t so sure that was the case. She claimed to want to help him, but everything she had done so far said the opposite. His heart and mind were torn in an unending struggle. There were days where he honestly questioned whether or not he still loved her or hated her. In truth, he wasn’t sure anymore and that only served to anger him further.

He felt his control slipping and knew that he was falling out of the careful rhythm that once came so naturally to him. He threw his fist dead center of the wooden piece and heard a crack as he finally snapped, “God damn you!”

He pulled his shaking fist back from the wood and looked it over. He was slow to unclench his fist and looked his knuckles over. They were bleeding and he released a slow breath and closed his eyes to let his anger subside. He let his fist fall limply by his side and he tried to sort his feelings out.


Roughly 1 hour prior


Rebecca hadn’t been sleeping well this night or the past few nights for that matter. She had been tossing and turning night after night over the last couple of months. She had been struggling with her newfound status as a mortal since she had arrived at this Goddessforsaken apartment that she and Jake had been calling home. Jake continued to show her love that she felt she was owed, but she was struggling with something else as of late.

A new feeling had taken root within her and it was one that she was not accustomed to nor was she fond of. She felt that she was owed the adoration and affection that Jake showed her day in and day out, but more and more she wondered if she deserved it. Her time as a mortal had awoken feelings within her that had been dormant for centuries, the most notable and most annoying was guilt. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly when it had begun, but sometime after they had gotten settled into their apartment the feeling had crept in without warning.

She regretted her treatment of her beloved from the night she had punished him because of Elizabeth and, essentially, nearly every interaction after that. She was unsure how to process the feelings, let alone deal with them, and as such they tended to manifest themselves in the form of her lashing out at Jake. She wasn’t proud of it and she knew it was one of the many things that kept her awake on nights like this. In truth, Jake had done nothing wrong to her nor had he truly failed her in any ways that were unforgivable. He struggled with certain actions and reactions for that matter, but the boy continued to try with everything he had to please her and accept her guidance.

Tonight, she had remained distant and silent after the events of the previous day. She had snapped at him after he had dropped a tray that held empty dishes and told him that he was little more than a failure. She had screamed at him that he wasn’t worthy of her as a Goddess, as a partner, and that he was truly undeserving of the title of her Raven. She hadn’t meant a word of her outburst, but she had said it with such conviction that she almost believed it to be true in the heat of the moment. Jake had taken it to heart, she had seen it in his eyes and felt it as it swept through his emotions. She had hurt him and that hurt had in turn wounded her.

The truth was, that she couldn’t understand why it was that Jake continued to show her the love and affection that he did, most days anyway. He had defended her to his friends and the three women who would have seen her hung without a second thought. Without her powers, she was nothing more than a simple commoner. She felt, in her heart, that she was barely better than the slaves that served her months ago. She was reminded of her life before coming into power back when she served in harems against her will. She was unworthy of love then and so she believed that she was unworthy of it now. Try as she might, she simply could not express these thoughts and feelings to Jake; she wasn’t sure if it was simple pride or if it was just something that was new to her. She really didn’t like to spend too much time wondering about it; trying new things had never been a weak point for her and pride was something she simply didn’t believe she had.

She had been awake for almost an hour and her turmoil was intensified by the terror that was radiating off of Jake beside her. He had made no secret of the nightmares that he suffered, nor had he been secretive about him blaming her for them. It was just another thing that made her feel weak and strengthened the ever growing and all consuming guilt that swirled within her. She tried to distract herself from the feelings rolling off of him by tuning into the near constant chime followed by a buzz of his phone. Elizabeth had been messaging him obsessively since their return to Metropolis. The distraction proved to be futile and eventually she felt his fear come to a violent head right before he shot straight up in their bed.

She had been laying on her side in another attempt to block out the pain that he was in and as soon as he was awake, she feigned sleep. She laid there the entire time that he sat there panting and she listened to his ragged breathing as it slowed and returned to an even rate. She had spoken to Pamela about these nightmares and learned that Elizabeth suffered from a similar circumstance. She had gleaned from her former disciple that the most difficult part of these lucid terrors was when they first woke up; oftentimes those afflicted with these mystic induced nightmares had a difficult time telling the difference between reality and their dreams. There was a part of her that wanted to reach out and comfort him, but she couldn’t bring herself to act on those feelings.

She settled on simply lying there and listening to his actions and feelings. There was a clear conflict that was going on within him. Love and hate ebbed and flowed off of him like a literal rollercoaster. It wasn’t often that she got disoriented by the feelings from someone else, but it was becoming more common with Jake. The painful assault of emotions was brought to a sudden stop by a light brush of levity that came shortly after another chime from his phone. She wondered just what it was that caused his mood to lighten. It was gone again and replaced by that same painful torrent of misery that buffeted her beloved psyche.

She felt the weight on the bed shift as Jake slowly removed himself from their lovenest and stealthily padded out of the room. There was a time where she would have savored the bouquet of suffering that blanketed the air around him. Those times were now long gone now and she was instead left to once again wonder about what was happening to her. What was happening to her?! This question ran through her head so much that she had lost count.

She laid there for a while contemplating how this could have happened to her and how she could have fallen as far as she had. She had moved beyond blaming Elizabeth, Pamela, and Dilatrix for this change of heart and mind. The trio of women who had been a thorn in her side had certainly played a role in these new developments, but deep down she knew what the cause truly was. When Dilatrix had bent the time and undone all of her powerful progress it had broken the chains she had carefully wound around her mortal heart. She had placed meticulous wards, locks, and other incantations to bind the pesky emotions that threatened to stunt her magical growth. When all of those precautions had been shattered, all of those emotions that had been sealed away came rushing out like a proverbial flood.

Eventually, her bleeding heart won out and she felt compelled to try to talk to Jake. She was desperate to try to rid herself of these terrible feelings of guilt and remorse that had been plaguing her. She needed to try to convey how she felt and assure him that she cared for him and his well being. This was something that she needed to do, for herself and for him. Despite what she claimed, he deserved more than what she had been giving him. For the first time in a long time she felt a sense of clarity in the chaotic storm of guilt and pain that had been keeping her up; she was going to finally unburden herself.

She pushed the covers away from her and rose from their bed. She walked out of the room and down the hall towards the room that Jake had claimed for his own uses. She had several books and oddities from her old personal collection from her old home, but she seldom spent time there. It was an unspoken act of kindness that she tried to give to her beloved, one that she wasn’t sure that he was aware of.

The sound of his fists pounding into the training dummy that he had set up in the room filled the hall as she drew closer. His emotions poured out of the room were palpable and she felt herself becoming light headed once again. The sensations that hit her caused her pace to slow considerably. The sounds of his strikes were beginning to fall out of time with his typical rhythmic pace as she neared the doorway. She stood there in the darkness, the only light in the room coming from a small lamp on his workbench, and watched the man she loved slowly fall apart before her. She felt a part of her heart break at the sight of the man before her, and she once again cursed herself for being as weak as she was. He needed her to be strong and powerful, like she once was not some crumbling hasbeen.

His final punch broke his form and she was pretty sure probably dislocated his knuckle as he cried out, “Goddamn you!” at the top of his lungs.

He was talking about her and she knew it. Were this only a few short months ago she would have punished such blasphemy, but now she felt the pain in those words cut through her like a knife. Mortality and humanity were grossly overrated, in her honest opinion. She stood there silent for a few moments and watched him slowly pull his hand away and examine it. He stood there motionless for sometime and she could tell that he was working to regulate his breathing once again.

She decided that it was as good a time as any to make her presence known. She stepped into the room and spoke in as soft and gentle a tone as she could muster, “Jake, are you alright?”

He looked at her with those striking pools of brown that held the two emotions that had been raging through him. He hadn’t heard her approaching, he had been too caught up in his training and working out his anger to notice anything in his surroundings. The two were more of a match than either probably realized; both were shadows of their former selves.

He turned his gaze to the wall as he answered, “I think you already know the answer to that question, Rebecca,” his tone carried undertones of sorrow that were hidden beneath the venomous mask, “I haven’t been alright in a long time, not since I gave myself to you. Not since you got inside my damned head!”

She tried to maintain eye contact with him, but it was more difficult than she was proud to admit. She averted her eyes from his and spoke in a hoarse whisper, "Jake, I-please don't take that tone with me."

He glared at her, "Or what?! You'll punish me, hurt me, tell me how worthless I am again?"

She had done all of those and even after they had moved into this shell of a home. The feelings of remorse welled up within her and she felt the urge to lash out at his incredulous attitude. She pushed her retaliatory impulse down and reminded herself of why she was standing here before him, "No, Jake please let me speak," she began and took a step into the room, "I am coming to you as your partner not your Goddess. Please, may I speak?"

His guard was still up, maybe more so than it had been moments ago. He hadn't ever heard her as permission for anything even with him. He stepped back as she approached out of instinct. He felt like prey caught in the trap of an apex predator. The sad part was that his analogy was true and he knew it. He was still unsure of her intentions, but he decided to hear her out. It wasn't like he had much choice anymore anyways. That didn't mean he had to be amicable with her, "If you're going to tell me that I'm overreacting then I don't want to hear it. You've put me through hell."

"You tortured me and my friends, robbed two of them of their psyches, humiliated the one person who's been there for me since all of this started, and then you had the nerve to try to have her kill herself while her lover, your former student, was forced to watch! You tried to steal my soul and have given me these damned nightmares that keep me up all hours of the night! I'm broken and it's all because of you."

His words hurt more than any wound she had taken across all her lifetimes. She had heard the expression that the truth often hurt, but she had never felt the gravity of that saying until now. She spoke before she could stop herself, "I did all of that for your own good! I wasn't going to let anyone take you away from me and I was prepared to sacrifice everything for us!"

He scoffed and rolled his eyes at her while he took a defensive stance, "So this another speech about how you're some savior and you did it all for love?"

She stopped herself and took a deep breath to calm herself down. This wasn't coming out right and she needed to get this out if they were to have any kind of meaningful future together, "That is not what I'm saying, Jake, I just...black hells this isn't easy for me! I've...I know that I've hurt you and I know my actions have not always been clear nor has my intentions. Everything that I did, I did because I love you and because I want nothing more than to be with you…"

He turned his back to her and threw another punch at the wooden dummy, "I want to believe that, and there was a time when I did. You say you love me, you say you care about me, but when push comes to shove you push me away or berate me. How can I trust you or better yet, why should I trust you? Tell me something, if the shoe was on the other foot, can you honestly say you'd believe me?"

She wanted to say yes, but she knew better than he knew that it would be a lie. Maybe that was part of what was eating at her. She had lived his role long before she rose to power. Back then, all she had was the passive empathic abilities and that did little to help her. The memories of the hate, disgust, and sure disregard of those men who used her all that time ago hit her like a mack truck. If it weren't so painful to talk about then maybe she would have told him. Maybe things would be different if she could tell him. Her shame was her own, however, and though she was loath to admit it, her past had scarred her more than she cared to admit. The pain of it all haunted her in the darkest corners of her mind and far more than any of her actions since her ascension. It was the one weakness that she had never been able to undo, or maybe she never looked hard enough into erasing it. Through her life, those memories had served as the final tether to her past mortality.

She felt tears welling up in her eyes and she heard her voice break as she admitted the truth to him and to herself, "No, no I wouldn't. Jake, please understand that I know how you are feeling right now."

"Don't," he warned as he turned back to face her with a fire in his eyes that she hadn't seen in a long time, "Don't you dare tell me that! You have no idea what you've put me through, forget everyone else for a moment, you've taken everything from me!"

"I've never lied to you Jake!" she exclaimed, "Yes, I have manipulated and hidden things from you, but I never once lied to you. Everything that I did was to help you, to make you stronger, to bring us closer together!"

He moved across the room to take a seat at his workbench. He shook his head and weakly asked, "And how did that work out for you?"

She took a few tentative steps towards him as she tried to redirect the conversation, "Not well, for either of us. I'm not a fool, Jake, I can see all too well what I've done to you and it hurts me more than you will ever know. Do you know why I lash out at you or spend days sitting in silence and staring out the window?"

"Because I'm a disappointment to you and everyone around me," he said, "You sit off in that damned chair I'm your own little world thinking about how far you've fallen and how much you hate the life you've got now."

She faltered in her approach at his response. He wasn't entirely wrong, but she could tell that he still didn't fully understand. She shook the feelings off and pressed on, "You are not a disappointment, Jake. I...ever since I lost my powers I've had to face feelings that I sealed away long before I met you, this you. I've been forced to deal with a cascade of emotions that are as confusing as they are painful."

"Everything I've done...everyone I've harmed that you care about...guilt is not something I am accustomed to and not something that I know how to process. You have no idea how difficult it is for me to admit this, but I simply don't understand these feelings and that makes me weak. Weakness is something I left behind ages ago and I cannot stand these feelings. As a result of my own suffering, I've done all that I truly know and that is to cast my pain onto others...unfortunately that has been you. Jake, I love you."

He was silent, with his head in his hands as he listened to her speak. In all the time that he had known her, he had never heard her sound so vulnerable. He thought back to the time they'd spent together and realized that she was right. She had never lied to him, not outright anyways. He turned on his stool to face her and study her features. He was shocked to see tears in her eyes. Was she serious? He couldn't believe it, but against all odds he suddenly felt guilty for his feelings. That bled into the lines of his ebbing anger and served to further his frustration. How was it that she was still able to get in his head?

He sighed and finally admitted, "Rebecca, I don't know how or why, but somehow I still care about you."

She closed the gap and wrapped him in a tender embrace. She could feel the guilt bubbling beneath the hate and anger that he felt and it almost broke her. She closed her eyes and shushed him, "Please, don't feel guilty for what you've said tonight or for feeling the way that you do."

He sighed and rested his head against her bosom. He had almost forgotten what affection from her could feel like. She was trying to reassure him and he didn't need to be an empath to understand that. They held each other for a moment before he finally asked, "So where do we go from here?"

She opened her eyes and was about to respond when she saw it. There on his table was one of her tomes. The key to mending everything that she had done was in front of them. Her body stiffened as she felt a new conflict inside of her. Could she do this? Was it right? Was it wrong? That book was a piece of the puzzle to remedy her situation and to truly restore their relationship. In the end, she would pay the price, however steep it may be, to right the wrongs she had done to him.

She pulled away and rested her arms around his neck. There was a glint in her eyes that made him slightly uneasy and that feeling grew as she nodded in the direction of his table. Her tone was more sure and sweet as she replied, "Why don't you tell me why you have one of my old tomes in our home and on your workbench?"

He blinked and looked over his shoulder. She had seen it. This wouldn't bode well for him or his friends. He knew her well enough to know that she wouldn't let it lie, and he knew he was in no shape to fight, let alone, resist her. He hung his head as he caved to his submissive nature and explained, "I took it from our room back at the castle. I've been trying to figure out a way to fuse some kind of magic into my birdarangs. After our last battle I figured I could use an edge for whenever I finally get back in the field."

She smirked at him. He was sharper and more cunning than she gave him credit for and then he realized. She needed to maintain her composure lest she give herself away. She knew that he wouldn't approve of her decisions and choice, he simply wouldn't understand. She would tell him when the time was right, but this moment called for subtlety and that was something she didn't need magic for. "My little Raven is attempting to do some enchanting," she said with genuine pride, "You never cease to amaze me, beloved, that would explain the ashes I have seen on your table. Tell you what, why don't we retire to our bed and tomorrow we can begin working on this together?"

He hesitated for a second before replying, "I don't know, Rebecca, I'm not so sure that is a good idea."

"Nonsense!" she said with a wide smile, "I assure you that you will have more success with my tutelage than on your own. We can discuss it more in the morning. For now, why don't you return to our bed and wait for me. I will join you shortly and I promise to protect you from those awful visions you have been receiving."

He was leery of her, maybe more now than he had been when he woke up. He was tired though and her words of protection sounded wonderful. He could object and deal with this in the morning. He nodded and stood from his stool, "Alright, just so long as we can talk about this before jumping into it. Let me just get this place straightened up."

"You go on and get settled," she instructed, "You've done more than enough as of late and it won't kill me to do something for you. I will be with you soon, my love."

Her tone was still sweet and gentle, but he knew a command when he heard it. He pushed himself up on his tip toes and kissed her, "Alright, thank you Rebecca. I'll be waiting for you."

She watched him leave the room before turning back to the table. She walked to the book and grinned down at it. She ran her fingers over the well worn pages and felt the magical resonance that flowed from them. She would have her powers back even if she had to use him to get them. He would serve her and her alone, and in return she would give him the world. She closed the book and tidied up the small odds and ends before flipping the lights off. She paused in the doorway and made a vow to herself, "I will become your true Goddess again, Jake, this I swear and once I do I will make this right. I will do whatever it takes to restore what we had even if that means bringing this world to its knees."