Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. Surprised? Didn't think so.
The moon was full on Halloween night. The sky was cloudy, but that only adds to the atmosphere. It was almost midnight, and all the late trick or treaters were returning home. Including a certain green skinned changeling.
Beast Boy was walking back to the to the tower in his costume; he wore a spiked black cape with red on the inside, he had a fancy vest and shirt on, both button up. He also had fancy black dress shoes and dress pants, makeup to pale his face, and a pair of plastic fangs. He was a vampire, quite a good one if he does say so himself. (Which he did. Constantly)
He was the only one of the Titans who goes Trick or Treating despite being sixteen years old. The other Titans had went to a masquerade party set up by Titans East. Beast Boy lugged his pillow case full of candy to the edge of the ocean. He jumped into the air, turned into a petrodactyle and grabed his candy sack. He flew over a small stretch of ocean and landed on the island that holds Titan's Tower. Immediately he noticed that the lights are still off.
'Unusual, the others should be back by now. Maybe they already went to bed.' He thinks to himself.
He walks to the door and holds his eye up to the scanner. There is the faint whirring of electronics and fine machinery as a small beam scans his eyeball. The shiny metal door slid open. Beast Boy recoiled in fright as he saw a grotesque zombie standing right inside the door, arms outstretched. He quickly caught his breath when he realizes that it's just a well made statue.
'Probably set up by Cyborg to get back at me for last year.' Beast Boy chuckled as he remembers the infamous "sparks" incident; courtesy of yours truly. 'I expected worse, Cyborg wouldn't normally be satisfied with this.' The changeling mused. 'Better stay on guard.'
The pale green vampire entered the tower with his hoard of sweets, not noticing the long haired figure that observed him from above. Staring; with her misty, spectral-blue eyes.
Beast Boy pushed past the zombie and walked down the metal hallway to the elevator. He entered, encountering slight difficulty when getting his bloated sack of candy through the elevator door. After a minor struggle, he pulled the sack in without ripping it, and hit one of the metal buttons on the inside of the elevator. The door closed. The elevator moved upward at an unusually slow pace. Beast Boy was starting to get impatient when the elevator suddenly dropped. Beast Boy grabbed onto one of the rails inside the elevator to stop himself from falling. Some of his candy spilt out of the sack and scattered on the floor. The elevator came to a sudden stop, and then started climbing back up at normal speed; it's program completed.
"Guess I should have seen that coming." Beast Boy said to himself as he picked up an Areo bar from the floor and returned it to his collection. About half way up the tower the elevator suddenly stops and the lights go out. "Cut it out Cy, you got me already!" Yelled the irritated shapeshifter. He waited for a minute and nothing happened. Suddenly the lights flickered and come back on, but they were a dim yellow rather than the normal white. The elevator started climbing again, slower than it was before, but not as slow as it started.
Beast Boy started to feel a twinge of doubt. The light being yellow and the slow speed of the elevator are signs that the Tower is running on the backup generator. "Cyborg is probably still messing with me." He muttered, but the doubt remained. The elevator finally reached the main level and the doors opened. Beast Boy exited into the hallway, dragging his catch, and marched down it to the main room. The doors slid open to reveal a seemingly empty room. Taking a few steps in, Beast Boy almost immediately tripped over a half-a-meter tall box. Getting up, the vampire imitator examined the box.
The box was a light blue cube with half-a-meter dimensions. It was lying, slightly crooked, about a meter in front of the door. It had wires sticking out the side, showing that the device was not finished.
'It's not like Cy to just leave one of his toys lying around without good reason. It's even stranger that it isn't finished. He never let's us see his stuff before it's done.' Beast Boy was starting to think something might be afoot. The zombie and the elevator drop made sense, and so would the box if it were finished, but Cyborg wouldn't leave something lying around unfinished, he says it's unsafe, and Robin would never allow the Tower to be switched to the backup generator, it reduces the capability of the Tower to alert everyone of a situation at maximum speed.
'None of the Titans would risk that.' Beast Boy thought to himself as he put his candy on the table. 'Maybe Cy just made it look like we are running on backup power to psych me out, yeah! And he made the box look unfinished to freak me out even more. That has to be it!" He was slightly reassured, but he rushes to Cyborg's room as fast as possible.
"Cy, open up!" He yelled, pounding on the door. No response. "I mean it Cy! You nearly gave me a panic attack!" Beast Boy expected Cyborg to open the door, laughing at his fear, or maybe jump out from behind him to give him one last scare. Still nothing. "I'm coming in Cy! Don't think I won't, 'cause I will!" he threatened.
Silence.
"Don't say I didn't warn you." Beast Boy muttered under his breath. He backed up to the other side of the wall and pushed off, turning to a bull just before he reached the door. The reinforced door was no match for nature's fury, and it crumpled under the impact. The mangled door fell to reveal a room full of tech, computers, and gadgets. There was a full length mirror on the opposite side of the now useless door. The main color of the room is blue and looked very high tech, but the room's star attraction and only resident was suspiciously missing from the stage.
Beast Boy looked around wearily. Most of Cyborg's machines were still running, they have a separate generator from the rest of the tower due to their importance and the sheer amount of power they take. Cyborg's small personal computer was on, but in sleep mode.
'Maybe this'll give me some answers.' The changeling thought to himself as he entered the futuristic room and moved the mouse on the laptop to wake it. It displayed four different camera views. One in the entrance of the tower where the zombie was, one in the elevator, one in the doorway of the main room with a view of the box, and one a view of the hallway just outside Beast Boy's own room where nothing had been set up yet.
'So this was a prank, but for some reason he never finished. Why?' Our favorite shapeshifter pondered this troubling question. 'And why isn't Cyborg here? He obviously intended to watch the fun from the comfort of his room.' Deciding that he wouldn't make any progress asking impossible questions, Beast Boy headed back to the main room and powered up the main computer. There was a brief silence as the computer started up, and Beast Boy swore that he could hear whispering. But the computer focused his attention on itself with an audible "beep." Beast Boy brought up a status report of the tower. Reading it, he became quite fearful.
Main generator: Offline. Cause: Unknown.
Backup generator: Online, 70% efficiency, unknown power drain.
Crime scanner: Online, 80% speed.
Other essential functions: Online, 60% efficiency.
Other functions: Offline
-WARNING-
Equipment failure: surveillance and non-essentials.
Location(s): Entire tower
Cause: Unknown power surge. Origin: Trophy room.
Time: 23:15
Notes: Rebooting alarm system.
-WARNING-
Security breach: Trophy room
Method of entry: Unknown
Identification: Unknown
Cameras: Offline
Damage: Unknown
Taken: Unknown
Time: 23:20
-WARNING-
Security breach: Main room
Continued breach. Origin: Trophy room
Identification: Unknown
Cameras: One online
Damage: None
Taken: Nothing
Time: 23:27
-WARNING-
Security breach: Bedroom hallway
Continued breach. Origin: Trophy room
Identification: Unknown
Cameras: One online
Damage: None
Taken: Nothing
Time: 23:30
-WARNING-
Essentials disabled: Alarm system, Warning System, Security system
Locations: Entire tower
Cause: Manual, forced override.
Time: 23: 40
A chill ran up Beast Boy's spine as he read. Someone, or something, had been in the tower, and probably still is. It didn't even get here that long ago. The changeling quickly brought up the cameras. They are just two of the ones that Cyborg had displayed on his computer. The, now EXTREMELY pale, vampire brought up the video tapes for the two cameras and played them back. The one set up outside his room had something on it first. Only one hour ago. Beast Boy plays the footage.
Cyborg was setting up the camera, and the view was shaking. Finally he gets it positioned how he wants, and says "be a good camera now, you need to keep working so I can see BB's reaction." Cyborg walked away laughing.
The next camera also had footage of Cyborg setting it up, but he didn't speak. He still had a grin on his face. Cyborg walks of screen and there is nothing else.
According to the cameras' internal clocks, they were set up just after the equipment failure, but before the warning system came back online, that's why Cyborg didn't drop everything and not bother to set up the cameras, he must not have known about the problem until after he set the cameras up. That's why they are still online. But the warning system was off, so there was no way to tell where the mystery enemy was aside from the four functional cameras.
Beast Boy processed all this information, until something hit him. The bedroom hallway had been breached!
"Rob! Star! Rae!" He hollered as he barrels down the dimly lit hallway. He smashed down their doors just like he did to Cyborg's. In Robin's room he found a birdarang dropped on the floor, in Starfire's there was a mask lying on the ground from her costume. The changeling gulped as he approached Raven's room, fearing the same kind of grim omen. He morphed into a bull once again and smashed his way into the sorceress' room.
The sheets of the bed were slightly ruffled, there was a half-completed magic circle in the middle of the room, and the small hand mirror sitting on the vanity emitted a spectral-blue light. There was a cloaked figure standing in the corner.
"Rae?" Asked Beast Boy cautiously, after changing back to his normal self.
The figure didn't move.
"Raven, what's going on here?" Asked the fearful green vampire, approaching slowly.
The figure didn't even twitch.
"Rae. What's..." Beast Boy spun the figure around. "Going on..." He trailed off; backing away in terror.
The figure was indeed Raven. She stared ahead blankly with misty, spectral-blue eyes.
"Dude... What's happened to Raven?"
"The same thing that will happen to you, once you become my puppet!" Announced a stuffy, nasally voice. Beast Boy spun around to see someone short standing in the doorway, flanked by two figures; one thin, but strongly built, the other resembles a bulky bodybuilder. A shadow darkened the window as a thin, wiry figure flies up next to it. The only visible features of the figures were five misty, spectral-blue eyes; two belong to the thin one, two to the wiry one, and a single misty eye was on the right side of the bodybuilder's face.
Beast Boy gulped, but he shoved Raven behind him into the corner of her room and stood in front of her, growling.
"There's no point in fighting. The one you are protecting already belongs to me." The voice informed the horrified vampire. Beast Boy cringed, knowing the midget-sized figure is right.
"Time to submit. Fall to the control of the Puppet King!" Commands the small figure, walking into the dim light cast by the glowing hand mirror. Rather than holding up a remote, the Puppet King just raises one of his hands and shoots a beam of ghostly fire at Beast Boy, holding a small puppet of him in the other hand.
The shapeshifter reacts quickly, shifting into a snake to dodge the beam, he launches himself at the Puppet King. He is knocked back by a sonic blast from the bodybuilder; Cyborg. Recovering, The snake avoids another beam of ghostly flame and slithers under the bed in the back of the room.
"Capture him." Came the order. Raven and the thin figure, Robin, lifted up the bed; only to find nothing. The wooden eyes of the Puppet King narrowed. "Find him!"
A small green fly watched from the vent as everyone in Raven's room left, as does the figure outside the window. The bug flies back into the room and returns to being our lovable green vampire-changeling.
"This is bad dude. Bad, bad, bad." He said to himself. "Your friends are in trouble. They're under the control of a walking toy! But you can't get the toy because your friends are blocking you! Oh no no no no no..." The shapeshifter moans in despair. "What would Raven do in this situation?"
Suddenly he stood up straight, slapped himself, and started lecturing "Beast Boy! Stop being unless and do something! Your friends are in trouble yes, but that doesn't mean you can't do something about it! Now figure something out!" He hisses the last sentence in a very Raven-esque voice. "That's what she would say, so I can't let her down. I can't let ANY of them down!" With renewed determination he scans the room for anything that might be of use. His eyes fall on the partially completed magic circle, and the open tome next to it.
"There must have been a reason Rae started making this, maybe it can help." Beast Boy stated, still talking to himself, as he inspects the tome. Luckily, the tome is in english. He spends a few minutes reading it. After reading over the instructions thoroughly the changeling finds the stick of white chalk that had rolled to a corner of the room, and finishes drawing the magic circle. He puts the chalk down and regards Raven's door. He needed to get other ingredients for the ritual, but he couldn't have the Puppet King figuring out what he was doing. Suddenly, inspiration struck the shapeshifter. He turned into a gorilla and used the ape's huge strength to pick up Raven's bed and place it over the magic circle.
'With any luck the Loser King won't remember that the bed was dropped back where it started, so he won't worry about it being in the middle of the room.' Beast Boy grinned; a terrifying sight in his ape form. Robin would be proud of his deception. The changeling made a mental list in his mind of what he would need to get:
12 slips of paper
Red, blue, and yellow paints
3 paintbrushes
1 cup of pure water
5 grams of crushed silver
The dolls that the rest of the Titans were probably trapped in
Beastboy kept this all in mind as he scurried around in the dusty vents as a rat, trying to locate his room. He kept paints in his room, he was actually quite artistic, he just didn't get inspired very often. Eventually, after ten minutes of fruitless searching he eventually caught the scent of dirty clothes wafting down a shaft to his right.
'Bingo.' Thought the rat as he ran down the shaft as fast as possible. He got to the grate at the end of the shaft only to find it blocked by a mound of clothing. This would be an issue for most, but not for this rat. Mostly, because he could just turn into a spider and climb through the grate and the clothing mound. The spider observed the messy room. Things were out of place. Despite what the rest of the Titans assumed, Beast Boy actually had very specific places he put everything in his room, and everything was in the wrong place right now. The Puppet King had been here already.
The spider turned into a vampire-like human who's makeup was fading fast. The shapechanger quickly located his paint cans. He dug them out of the pile he had found them in and set them down near the door. He walked over to his dresser and dug out his paintbrushes and a pad of paper. Three ingredients down already. Of course, he still had to bring the ingredients to Raven's room, and while that was just down the hall and around the corner, walking with paint cans is not exactly a quiet affair. Beast Boy put his ear to the door, listening for any sounds of movement. He didn't hear anything.
Picking up the ingredients, he opened the door and snuck down the dimly-lit metal hallway. He got half way down and was just turning the corner when he was confronted with a floating, red haired alien with misty, spectral-blue eyes. The changeling had forgotten that he couldn't hear what doesn't make noise, like a FLOATING alien girl.
Starfire's body lunged forward and tried to grab the boy who had his arms full of art supplies. Beast Boy dodged nimbly and dropped most of the supplies on the floor, only holding on to a single paint can. The shapeshifter waited until the alien made another clumsy attempt to grab him before side-stepping the attack and swinging the paint can full-force at the poor girl's head.
"Smack."
There was an audible sound of metal meeting skull as Starfire's body drops to the floor, knocked-out.
'She's gonna have one nasty headache when she wakes up.' Beast Boy thinks to himself as he collected his supplies and rushed to Raven's room. He looked back at the orange girl. 'And Robin's gonna give me hell about that bruise.'
The not-so-pale vampire wannabe reached his destination and enterd through the doorless doorway. (Thanks to the door being smashed by him earlier) He tucked away the supplies in a corner of the room, hoping it wouldn't be found. Suddenly he was grabbed from behind by a certain psychic who had been hiding in the shadows. The shapechanger struggled to throw the half-demon off and was rewarded for his efforts with Raven's body flying off him and hitting the vanity. The girl slumped, unconscious. Beast Boy dove forward to catch the hand mirror that had fallen off the vanity due to the force of impact. He managed to catch the mirror before it hit the ground.
'That was close.' Thought the changeling as he replaced the mirror back on the vanity, taking care not to look directly into it lest he be sucked into Nevermore. He regarded the sorceress and considered the alien out in the hall. He grinned, a plan formed in his mind.
Beast Boy walked away from his handiwork to go make pure water. Back in his room Raven's body was trapped in the closet with his mound of clothes, and Starfire's body was strapped down to Cyborg's bed with the titanium restraints they had used when he had caught the End Virus. That should take them out of the picture for a while.
Beast Boy entered the main room cautiously, knowing that Robin or the Puppet King could pop out of anywhere. He scuttled over to the kitchen area and poured out a jug of normal tap water. He couldn't help but grin. He had almost forgotten that the tower had some of the best purification systems available, even at 60% efficiency, the water should be at least as pure as spring water. Strike that off the list.
The changeling tensed, his animal instincts noticed something wrong before any human could, even Robin. Beast Boy leapt back as a metal hand burst out of the floor below him. The hand gripped the floor and pulled the rest of it's blue, metal body onto the same level. Beast Boy panicked, he had no idea how to deal with Cyborg, even if he was more clumsy than normal. Another idea struck the shapeshifter as he backed up to the window, letting the mind-controlled body follow. Cyborg's body charged, trying to pin his green teammate to the window. Beast Boy jumped and turned into a raven at the last second, letting Cyborg's body crash through the window and fall down to the rocks below.
"I can't wait to tell Cyborg that he fell for THAT old trick." Said the changeling smugly. "I guess we need a new window now though."
The shapeshifter grabbed the jug of water and carefully moved back to Raven's room. Placing it on the vanity he reviewed his mental checklist.
Paper? Check.
Paints? Check.
Paintbrushs? Check.
Water? Plenty, Check.
Crushed silver? Nope.
The other Titans souls? Nope.
Where was he supposed to find crushed silver!? Perhaps he could make it. Silver wasn't very hard to break after all. He just needed something made of silver...
Beast Boy looked back at Raven's room after acquiring his crushed silver. Formerly known as Raven's ornate ritual chalice. She was SOOOOO going to kill him. He checked in on Raven's and Starfire's bodies, both were struggling, but two feet of crusty, tightly-packed clothes and titanium restraints work very well at trapping people.
Now for the hardest ingredients. The souls of the Titans, probably the tiny wooden puppets. He had to find the Puppet King. Beast Boy shifted into a wolf and started sniffing around for the smell of old wood. He eventually found a trail in the main room, quite recent, only a few minutes ago. He also smelled... Hair gel?
Beast Boy quickly rolled out of the way as Robin's body dealt a flying kick from behind the couch. The green skinned joker swiftly turned into an octopus and lashed out at the agile body, trying to grab it. The misty-eyed ninja leapt forward and landed a solid punch on Beast Boy's head. The octopus turned back into a human, clutching his cranium. In the background he heard the faint sound of clapping.
"Bravo, bravo. Excellent performance. But the curtain must always fall; no show goes on forever." Said the Puppet King from the doorway to the main hall. "Time to join your friends. You're body will be mine, and it will protect me until I rise again next Halloween."
"Don't think so dude." Beast Boy hisses.
"You cannot win! Look at what has happened to your friends." He says, holding out four wooden puppets. The one that looks like Cyborg has it's left eye lit up, the one that looks like Robin has clenched fists. Starfire's has glowing green eyes, and Raven's was enveloped in a black aura.
The Puppet King had brought Beast Boy exactly what he needed.
With a laugh, Beast Boy transformed into a cheetah and snatched the puppets. He sprinted to Raven's room and dropped the wooden copies on the floor, ignoring their many complaints and orders. The changeling turned into a gorilla, picked up the bed, and smashed it against the doorway, blocking it off. He quickly got all the materials and put them all in place. Placing the tome in front of him and ignoring the beating on the bed from the Puppet King and Robin's body, he started the possession expulsion ritual, which worked perfectly well for soul stealing as well. He started chanting and painting the slips of paper in a very precise manner, he sprinkled some of the water over the crushed silver, and finally he held up the silver mound and cried out "AZARATH METRION ZINTHOS!"
There was a shockwave of black power originating from the magic circle. From the other side of the bed, a loud "NOOOOOO!" could be heard as the energy bestowed upon the Puppet King by Halloween dissipated. He returned to being just a puppet. The rest of the Titans found themselves is strange positions. Robin found himself outside Raven's room standing over the remains of the Puppet King, Starfire found herself strapped to a metal slab by titanium restraints, Cyborg found himself buried waist-deep in the ground outside the tower, and Raven found herself surrounded by the worst smelling clothing imaginable.
Once the four confused Titans had reassembled and freed Starfire from her restraints, (Raven just teleported out) they went to Raven's room and moved aside the bed to find Beast Boy sleeping on the floor, exhausted from his ordeal. Cyborg took him back to his room while the others repaired the generators, the window, the doors, and Raven's bed. They placed the Puppet King back in his spot with some protection spells around him to prevent another accident. They then all went to sleep, for they were also exhausted due to being captured.
The next morning Beast Boy woke up in fine spirits. He only remembered some of what happened the last night and wasn't sure it was real. He got dressed and walked into the kitchen to find the rest of the Titans waiting for him at the table, there was food already out.
"We were waiting for you to do the waking of the up friend Beast boy!" Exclaimed the joyful Tamarainien.
"Yeah man, you're tofu is getting cold." Said the meat lover.
"Uhh, thanks? I guess?" Said Beast Boy uncertainly, sitting down.
"You remember most of what happened last night?" Questioned the leader, smelling of fresh hair gel.
"Puppet King captured you all and I performed a magic-thingy and kicked his butt." Replied the changeling.
"I suppose that is the extremely short version." Stated the sorceress in a monotone. "Beast Boy?"
"Yeah Rae?"
"I forgive you for crushing my chalice." Raven said with a smile.
Beast Boy grinned as he finished his breakfast. "Who wants candy? I got enough to go around!"
And so the memory of the Puppet King was drowned out in a tide of chocolate, candy, and chips.
Complete. Holy crap, this took me a while to write. Totally worth it though. I tried to be a bit dramatic. Hopefully it worked.