Somewhere to Belong Ch. 45 (DC/Multi) (Patreon)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: Eve is honest.

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Eve stares at Raven. Raven stares back at her, clearly waiting for an answer. Unfortunately, Eve doesn’t have one. At least, nothing she thinks the alien woman will find satisfactory. In the end, all she can say is the truth.

“I… I don’t know.”

When Raven arches a single brow at her, Eve flushes, her hands clenching into fists.

“It’s not as simple as saying I’d go with you. I have a responsibility to this planet… to the people of Earth. I can’t just… abandon them.”

Humming, Raven’s own hands move to her utensils and she begins to dig in. Eve watches her start to eat for a moment before quietly following suit. Her words are left to hang in the air for what feels like an eternity, until finally…

“And why is that, exactly? What do you feel you owe them.”

Frowning, Eve shakes her head.

“No… it’s not about owing anyone anything. I have a duty to Earth… when I put on my costume, when I took the name Atom Eve… it meant something. It meant I was a hero. And a hero doesn’t… run away just because the going gets tough.”

Raven watches her quietly for a moment longer, but thankfully the silence doesn’t last nearly as long this time around.

“Has the going got tough then?”

Blinking rapidly, Eve scowls in confusion.

“Of course it has! Everything has gone to shit! You yourself saw how bad things were just in the past few hours of helping me out! Mark and his father wiped out pretty much every first world government and left a total mess that we’ll be trying to set right for months, if not years. And that’s not even taking into account the alien empire that might be coming for our throats after we repelled the two of them!”

Raven hums.

“You speak much of how bad everyone has it. Of your duty… your responsibility. And yet, not once have I heard you say you actually feel any sort of connection to this planet or its people, beyond the shared species. Do you not have a family to keep you moored to this place? Someone you love enough to want to protect them with your life?”

Eve opens her mouth to respond… only to stop dead in her tracks as Raven’s words force her to acknowledge the truth. Because in actuality… she isn’t that attached to her parents. Shit, she’d literally left home because they’d become so unbearable that it was better to live away from them than with them.

She didn’t hate them necessarily, but it was rather telling that she hadn’t even mentioned them once during this entire conversation, wasn’t it? Most people would certainly point towards their family for why they couldn’t just abandon their place of birth… but not her.

“I…”

“Something to think about, I suppose. Still, you want world peace before you will consider leaving with us. Is that it?”

Blinking again at the sudden question, Eve ultimately huffs, rolls her eyes, and crosses her arms over her chest as she leans back in her chair.

“Sure. Let’s go with that.”

Raven nods, still casually eating.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Wait, what? Eve furrows her brow in consternation. There was absolutely no way that Raven could do anything about the state of the world. Sure, she could maybe help them eventually fight off the Viltrumites, but…

“In the meantime, it would seem that we have… company.”

Huh? Eve’s gaze follows Raven’s upwards as the blonde stares straight up into the sky. Obviously, Eve can’t see anything… but it doesn’t take much for her to understand what Raven is implying. Her eyes widen and she leaps to her feet.

“They’re back already?!”

Raven shrugs as she stands up at a far more sedate pace.

“At the speed with which the first two left the solar system, this is about when a response was due to arrive. Still, it’s only two of them… neither of whom are the two we already chased off.”

Eve doesn’t know whether to be relieved or not at that news. She doesn’t necessarily want to face Mark or his father again, but… who else might the Empire have sent if they thought only these two would be enough? Eve’s jaw sets.

“We have to get Myk-Zod and Sarah then. Together, the four of us should be able to handle it.”

Raven just smiles at her.

“That won’t be necessary. Though I do like that you’re already thinking in terms of the four of us. Keep doing that… I haven’t given up on encouraging you to join us in our bed just yet.”

Eve squeaks, blushing furiously. Was this really the time. And what did Raven mean it wouldn’t be necessary?!

Before she can ask, the blonde has already lifted off the ground and flown upwards, forcing Eve to bite down on her words and push off as well. They hadn’t paid for their meals… she would have to come back later and handle that.

For now though, she hurries after Raven, struggling to keep up with the blonde’s speed as she moves to intercept the two new Viltrumites. In fact, by the time she arrives, they’re already talking.

“-stand in the way of Conquest, worm?”

Raven just chuckles, a bloodthirsty grin on her face.

“Yes. I do.”

The Viltrumites are… nothing like Mark and his father. That’s Eve’s first impression. One of them is male, but he’s so old that he’s grey and balding. Not to mention missing an eye and an arm that’s been replaced by an alien prosthetic. The other is female and also appears older with her own hair going grey. She also wears her hair in a braid that ends in a blade.

Both have their arms crossed over their chest as they stare at Raven like she’s scum beneath their white boots. They don’t even look at Eve… she’s not even worth noticing.

The female leans forward, eyes narrowing thoughtfully.

“Are you the one that chased off Nolan and his son then? The ‘powerful alien’ who put fear in the Great Nolan of all people?”

Eve isn’t sure what she’s expecting… Raven to lie, maybe? But instead the blonde just shakes her head.

“No. That was my lover.”

That prompts the balding one to growl.

“Your mate? Call him forth then! I would rather a decent fight… if this planet is even capable of offering such a thing!”

But again, Raven just shakes her head.

“He’s busy at the moment. You two, I’m afraid, are stuck with me.”

And Eve! But Eve… bites her tongue rather than pointing that out. She would be lying if she said she didn’t feel a shiver of fear looking at the two new Viltrumites. Mark’s dad had been… dangerously intense and downright monstrous at the end there, with such anger and fury in his gaze that it had been enough to make Eve very, very afraid for Earth.

But Nolan had nothing on these two. These two weren’t angry. They weren’t furious. No… they were bloodthirsty. Their eyes promised pain for the sake of it, their focus had this sadistic edge that Eve had long learned to associate with the worst sort of villains.

Nolan had acted with monstrous purpose. These two… they just wanted to hurt something. Or someone.

“You should be afraid. I’ll break every bone in your body until you scream for him to come save you!”

And with that, the balding one blasts forward, snarling, his one working eye laser focused on Raven. Eve can’t even react in time with how fast his charge is, but even if she could she wouldn’t have been able to do anything, because just as quickly, the other one with the knife-braid is right in front of her.

“Tch. You really don’t look like much. I am called Thula, filth. Be glad that I give you even that much.”

Eve grits her teeth, readying herself and her powers for the fight of her life… only for a high-pitched scream to make them both whip around towards Raven and the male’s fight.

Eyes widen as she and the female take in the sight before them. Raven has torn off the male’s metal arm, stopped his flesh and blood arm in its tracks… and then grabbed him by the crotch and squeezed.

The white uniforms that the two Viltrumites wear are very good at showing bloodstains, Eve absently notes, as red seeps out of the crotch of the hulking male. And then Raven pulls and… well, the less said the better.

Eve suddenly regrets having a meal just before this. Not that she’d really known they’d be dealing with Viltrumites today. Still, as Raven pushes the writhing male Viltrumite away, letting him float in pain and agony, Eve has to hold down her lunch, lest she lose it.

The female Viltrumite, ‘Thula’, is frozen for a moment… and then roars in laughter.

“Bahahaha! You’ve unmanned the great Conquest! Incredible!”

Wait… the guy’s name was Conquest? He’d said something about that before, but Eve had thought he was just talking about the conquest of Earth in general.

Raven, meanwhile, simply stares at Thula.

“If he is the greatest that your species has to offer, then I should think you would all be better off rethinking your plans of conquering Earth.”

Before Thula can respond to that… an angry, high-pitched scream of rage answers Raven’s words… from Conquest himself. Despite taking a grievous injury and being down one arm, the Viltrumite Male has an incredible fortitude for pain, it would seem. Because he comes back in again for another attack, ready to drive his massive fist through Raven’s head.

The blonde alien turns… and meets his fist with her forehead. Eve’s breath hitches as every bone in Conquest’s remaining hand and arm shatters upon impact, Raven not even moved by the attempted blow.

She doesn’t leave it at that though. Rather, she follows it up with a hand of her own… but not as a fist. Eve watches as Raven’s fingers dig into Conquest’s chest, pushing through Viltrumite flesh like it’s nothing. And then they go further still, because the sternum is right underneath and it proves no obstacle either.

A moment later and Raven has pulled Conquest’s heart out of his chest and is holding it aloft in her hand as it slowly, steadily stops beating.

It’s around that point that Eve finally does get sick, only able to hope that her vomit doesn’t hit anyone down below… to be fair, they’re currently over a bit of wilderness. Likewise, Conquest’s body falls out of the sky as well, the Viltrumite dead and no longer keeping himself aloft.

Silence permeates the air as Raven studies Conquest’s heart for a brief moment. For just as brief a moment, Eve wonders if she’s going to try to eat it or something. But then she just shakes her head and drops it as well, seemingly without a care in the world.

Then, her eyes focus on Thula. Less than a second later and Thula suddenly has Eve in her grasp. She doesn’t even get the chance to blink, let alone use her power, before the female Viltrumite has one hand around her throat threatening to break her neck and the other hand poised at the small of her back, ready to punch through her spine and kill her.

“Enough.”

Eve tries not to panic. She needs to remain calm and look for an opportunity to use her power to escape. All she needs is a single moment…

“I see now that Nolan did not underestimate your species’ prowess. But you give yourself away, traveling to face us with a weakling like this one. You care for her, don’t you? If you try to attack me, I will kill her instantly.”

Raven tilts her head to the side, eyeing both Eve and Thula curiously, like a bystander might eye a developing situation that has nothing to do with them.

“Hm. That’s not very honorable of you.”

Thula barks out a laugh directly into Eve’s ear.

“Honor? The Viltrum Empire is not built on honor. It is built on the simple certainty that we are superior to everyone else. All is ours.”

Raven chuckles.

“From where I am, you don’t seem very superior.”

Thula growls and Eve chokes as the grip on her neck tightens a bit.

“We are superior… because you are too weak to go through this girl to get to me. Which is why you are going to let me leave, to secure her life.”

There’s a pause… and then Raven smiles.

“No.”

Thula snarls while Eve blanches.

“No?! What do you mean, no? Don’t try to pretend you don’t care for her!”

“We met last week. She’s cute but easily replaceable. Kill her if you like, it doesn’t matter.”

Eve pales at Raven’s words, while Thula’s grip starts to loosen as the female Viltrumite clearly hears the honesty in Raven’s voice.

“You-urk!”

And that’s when Raven acts. Eve, who had been looking for a moment herself, also acts. As such, thin pink shields form between her neck and Thula’s loosened grasp as well as on the small of her back where the Viltrumite’s fingers are poised to rip through her spine.

Fortunate that she does too, because even as Thula dies, she tries to take Eve with her. But while her power shatters under the Viltrumite’s strength, the shielding gives her the second she needs to lunge forward and escape Thula’s grasp.

When she whips back around, she gets to see exactly how Raven dealt with the Viltrumite… namely by grabbing her own knife-braid and slamming it through the back of Thula’s neck so it protruded out the front in a gruesome, bloody fashion.

Yanking it to the side, Raven finishes beheading the female Viltrumite, Thula’s decapitated body dropping to the ground far below while her head dangles from the braid that Raven is still holding by the end.

Frowning, Raven looks to Eve.

“My apologies for my words… as well as the fact that you had to save yourself. I underestimated her reaction time by a fraction of a second, giving her far too great of an opportunity to harm you."

She drops the head from her hand a moment later, sighing. Eve, meanwhile, just watches Thula’s head fall through the air, her knife-braid whipping about in the process.

… Myk-Zod really was a scholar, wasn’t he? And Raven… Raven was not.

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A/N: Throw me a comment if you can but please leave a Like if you don’t want to, it’s the main metric I use to track whether a story is doing well or not!

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Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-YrFewxSaTP-xP6E17WFx30oqvlFRkhz4Bv53TCUDRk/edit?tab=t.0