Villain Brother Blood

Once upon a time, there was a villain who believed that the most powerful thing in any fight was not strength or speed, but control.

His name was Brother Blood. He wore dark robes and spoke in a low, smooth voice, and he ran a school — the H.I.V.E. Academy, hidden somewhere in the mountains where ordinary people would not accidentally stumble upon it. The school taught young people to use their abilities not for goodness but for the opposite of goodness. It was a sad kind of place, really, though it tried very hard to seem impressive.

Brother Blood's real power was this: he could reach into another person's mind and turn their loyalty around. Not by being kind to them. Not by making a good argument. He simply pushed his will into them the way you might push a door open, and suddenly they were doing whatever he wished, following his orders, calling him High Commander, and forgetting who they had been before.

It worked on almost everyone. Almost.

He had heard about the Teen Titans many times. He had heard about Robin's quick thinking and Starfire's warmth and Cyborg's strength and Beast Boy's animal transformations. But the one he thought about most was Raven. He had read everything he could find. He had thought about it very carefully. And he had come to a conclusion.

Raven, he decided, could feel emotions. He could project emotions. Therefore, his power should work on her better than anyone.

He was so confident about this that he returned to Jump City with a whole squad of H.I.V.E. cadets — young people he had trained and turned to his purposes — and he marched toward Titans Tower quite certain that today was the day he would finally win.

The Teen Titans came to meet him in the city, just as they always did.

Brother Blood looked at the five of them standing together and smiled. Then he focused his attention on Raven, and he sent his mental will toward her like a wave.

ZZZNNNN.

And then nothing.

The wave reached Raven and there was no crash, no grip, no point of entry. It was like throwing a stone into a cloud. It moved through her awareness and left nothing behind.

Because Raven had been practicing stillness since she was very small. The monks of Azarath had taught her that her greatest danger was not an enemy outside — it was her own feelings. She had learned to meet any surge of emotion with steady, quiet attention. Her mind was a still pool. It did not panic. It simply observed.

Brother Blood's influence had nothing to hold on to.

What Raven felt instead was something useful: she felt exactly what he was doing. She could read his projected will line by line, calmly and carefully. She understood how his power worked, and how it reached for the gaps in a person's awareness.

She turned to her teammates and extended that understanding to them — a gentle nudge through the empathic connection she shared with each of them. It said: this is what he is doing. Here is how to resist.

SNAP. Robin's eyes went from distant to focused. His jaw set.

SNAP. Cyborg's systems hummed back to full power.

SNAP. SNAP. Beast Boy and Starfire shook their heads like shaking off cold water.

Brother Blood looked around. His H.I.V.E. cadets, suddenly free of his influence, looked confused. Several sat down on the curb and seemed to be rethinking their choices. The five Teen Titans formed a calm, determined circle around their villain.

"This is over," Robin said. Quietly and absolutely.

It was, indeed, over.

Afterward, Raven found the steps of the city library and sat with the thermos of chamomile tea she had carried in her cloak the whole time.

Beast Boy appeared beside her.

"How did you do that?" he said. "The not-being-controlled thing, and the signal you sent us."

Raven took a careful sip.

"Brother Blood's power finds something unsteady in your mind," she said. "Fear, doubt, longing. He finds the wobble and presses. If there is no wobble, there is nothing to press."

"And you don't have any wobbles?"

Raven considered this.

"I have many," she said. "I have simply had a great deal of practice carrying them steadily."

Beast Boy sat beside her, and neither said anything else for a while. It was the kind of comfortable silence that only very good friends can share.

On the steps of the Jump City library, with the city safe again, that was enough.