Present

Fighting was something that came easy for me after all of my years of practice. Sure, there were times I lost and had to accept that, but now...I wasn't going to accept defeat. This was a battle that I had to win, and if I didn't...it meant losing everything, and I wasn't going to allow that.

I keep that thought on my mind as motivation as I race through Central City, trying my best to protect it from the "meta-pocolypse", as Iris was calling it. Soon after I decided to stay and fight with Barry, news came to us that Zoom sent out the metahumans to raise all hell already. I didn't think he'd start this so soon, but turns out I was wrong.

So that's what I was doing; helping Barry gather them all up to throw them down into the pipeline. We already had most of them taken care of, but it seemed as if every time we took care of some of them, more just came. I knew that was his plan all along; to make it as hard as possible for Barry. Only he didn't know I was here to help too.

"Get down!" I hear a voice say then, causing me to stop and look over to see Joe hiding behind a police car. My eyes trail away from him then as I look over towards another ten or so metas; they just never stopped coming.

I grit my teeth then as I dart towards the group of metas. It was odd to see some of them; I recognized a few from my earth, but they didn't have the same powers as they had here. In fact, some of them weren't even villains. They just hid in the shadows and helped whenever they were needed to.

When I go to grab a girl I knew as Poison Ivy on my earth, I was struck in my side by a force I didn't know. My feet get knocked out from under me as I tumble into a concrete wall, causing me to groan under my breath. When I look up to see who my attacker was, I see a green glowing man a few feet away, staring at me with a devious look.

As I start to get to my feet, he hits me again with his green glowing orb, causing me to fall back down the ground with a thud. I growl under my breath then as he goes to hit me again, but I was ready this time. I get on my feet and dash away before he hits me again, and instead of grabbing him off the streets and taking him to the pipeline, I thought I'd have a little bit of fun first.

First, I run around in circles around the guy as he stares around in confusion, shielding his eyes from the light. It was then I make my move towards him and land a punch on his jawbone, causing him to flip sideways and fall onto the ground below. As he lays there in pain, I walk over to him and look down.

"It's not nice to hit a lady you know," I mock as he scowls up at me. Before he can make another move against me, I dash side to side, avoiding the green blasts. I quickly grab him by the collar as I throw him up against the concrete wall nearby, staring him in the eyes as I scream. "How many more of you are there?"

A trail of blood drips from his nose as he glares at me, not daring to tell me what I wanted to know. I look over my shoulder briefly then to see utter chaos; metas were surrounding Joe. I turn back to him then as I tighten my grip around his neck, clenching my teeth.

"I said, how many more of you are there!" I scream into his face, and I knew then he was going to tell me what I wanted.

He takes a deep breath. "I-I don't know, okay? Not too many more-"

"Thanks," I briefly say before throwing my fist back once more, hitting him across the face hard. His head hangs then, but he wasn't dead. I just needed to make sure he wouldn't get away from me as I went to take care of these other metas.

However, as I turn around to go help out Joe, I see a flash of blue lightning run towards me before I'm being swept up off my feet, and I couldn't do anything about it. Before I know it, I'm sitting back in the police station, staring up at a familiar face: Hunter. I go to run away from him, but before I can even get up off my feet, I see him thrust a metal bar that was lying beside him into my thigh, causing me to cry out in pain.

"Agh!" I gasp loudly as my chest heaves in huge breaths, my eyes widening as I stare down at the metal rod sticking through my leg. Blood starts to appear around the edges of the entry wound, but not as bad compared to how much blood was starting to seep from the bottom.

Hunter steps back away from me as I wrap my hands around the rod, telling myself to pull it out, but I couldn't. Something about the idea of it and the pain kept me from even attempting. So instead of trying to get away, I glare up him, wondering what he wanted.

"If you're going to kill me, just get it over with," I dare as he slips his mask off, blue lightning still dancing on his skin. I felt pretty confident in my statement...at least, until he starts to laugh.

"You really think I'm here to kill you, Raven?" I raise my eyebrows. "No, I'm not here to kill you...I just wanted to tell you what my answer was."

I stare at him for a moment, not sure what in the world he was talking about, but then I remembered the question I had asked him last. I asked him to chose between me or Caitlin, and I guess now he finally was ready to tell me. A part of me didn't care anymore, but the other still did.

"I chose you, Raven," he says to me calmly, making me grow nervous. Whenever he spoke this calm he was ready to explode, and I knew it was coming soon. "I came back here and let Caitlin go. I decided that you were more important, but then I see you out there...fighting against our cause. Not to mention seeing The Flash back in town when he should be dead."

I gulp. "This isn't our cause anymore, Hunter. What we were doing wasn't right-"

"Funny, cause I remember you wanting to come here more than me," he says as he kneels down in front of me, eye level now. "Your thirst for power is stronger than this, Raven. I know it is."

I wince from the pain in my thigh. "Not anymore."

He stares at me for a long moment, thinking about what to say next. I wait for him to speak, a part of me growing afraid on what he was going to do next. I just wished that I didn't have a metal rod sticking in my leg, or else I'd run far away from here.

"Now it's my turn to ask you now." I scowl at the man in front of me as he looks me in the eyes, them being darker than what I once knew. "Who's it going to be; Barry or me?"

I knew my answer; it was Barry. I wasn't going to let Hunter ruin this city, and I wasn't going to let him control me anymore. However, instead of giving him a straightforward answer, I grit my teeth and lean closer to him. "You taught me all of my life to survive; to do what was best for me. Well here I am now, making the choice to either live or die. I don't know which side holds that promise for me, but I do know that I'd rather die fighting for myself than spend another moment fighting beside you."

His head lowers then as a darker look washes across his face, but I wasn't afraid. I meant what I said, and I wouldn't take it back. Hunter has taken my life away from me in more ways than one, and he'd never see it. I never thought I would either; but that was until Barry showed me the truth.

I clench my teeth then as he reaches out and grabs the metal rod in my thigh, twisting it slowly before ripping it out completely. I scream at the top of my lungs as the skin starts to slowly pull back together, but I still couldn't get up and run away. I lost all strength in that leg. For a moment, I look back up at Hunter and expected him to thrust the rod into my chest next, but instead he drops it down to his side as he stands, stepping to the side.

"What is this?" I ask as I press my hands against my leg, trying to stop some of the bleeding.

He motions his hand towards the door. "I'm letting you go."

I don't even flinch. "Letting me go?"

"Yes," he says a little too lighthearted. However, what he says next is much darker than the previous tone. "If you truly believe what you said, then go; fight on the losing side and lose your life. But just know that if you walk out that door, Raven...you're nothing to me."

I look up at him for a moment before I stand slowly, hissing under my breath from the pain. However, I pull myself together enough to get in his face and say slowly,"You took my life away from me...I already was nothing to you."

He keeps a straight face as I turn and limp my way towards the door, not looking back. However, as I make my escape, I realize that Caitlin was no longer sitting there handcuffed to the file cabinet, either meaning he moved her or let her go too.

As I make my way closer to the door, something made me stop. A voice in my head was screaming at me to turn back around; to stay here with Hunter. It wasn't really a voice; it was more-so my inner instinct. I knew that going through this door meant I would lose him forever, and it was a big decision to make. Hunter shaped me into the person I was today, and he kept me safe all of these years. However, I knew that what he did to me was something I'd never be able to forgive him for, and that was why I had to do this.

So, without another thought, I step through the door, leaving the man that meant so much to me for so long behind forever.

-*+*-

...intense.

I predict that there will only be a few more chapters left! ah I'm so excited y'all, I love writing this fic so much. Raven is my baby and means the world to me.

thanks for reading as always, and don't forget to comment and vote too! xx