I do not own the Teen Titans. The story, however, is mine.
No Matter What It Takes
"Waagh! Polly wanna cracker! WAAAGH!"
"You must learn ze wordz first, mon ami, if you want ze precious treat."
"Waaagh!"
"Heh heh. You can do better, monsieur parrot. Once more, and zis time, with ze feeling: 'Whorl' Domination'. Eh? Now, you may try." He watched the bird shuffling on it's perch. "You must speak to get your delicious morsel, monsieur parrot."
"Waa-waagh! Wor' Dominaiii--, naish, naish, Cracker!"
"Whorl' Domination."
"Wor', waa... Pieces of Eight! Pieces of Eight!"
The great ape smirked at the bird on it's perch, almost indulgently, almost amused, but with an edge and with determination. He continued to relentlessly coax words out of the parrot, syllable by syllable, a sound at a time. He either didn't hear, or chose not to hear, the door sliding open behind him, and the sound of treads on the metallic floor. But he wouldn't ignore the metallic voice which soon sounded.
"You - are - to - be - commended - for - your - persistence - Monsieur - Mallah -, but - I - fear - your - goal - is - futile."
The ape looked over his shoulder at his visitor, then turned with a delicacy and grace belied by his hulking, muscular body. "Master?"
"Your - existence - between - beast - and - man - is - unique -, Mallah -, a - true - sui - generis -. You - will - not - find - another - to - share - that - limbo-. Your - efforts - here - are - futile -: the - bird - imitates - without - comprehension -.
Mallah looked unflinchingly at Brain, but only briefly, then respectfully bowed his head. "Oui," he answered, his voice a deep rumble of agreement.
"When - we - leave - the - cradle - we - also - leave - our - childish - notions - behind -. It - is - time - to - rid - yourself - of - the - last - of - your - childish - fixations -."
The gorilla reached and softly took the parrot into his hands, then loped out of the room. He wended his way through a claustrophobic maze of passages, some seeming to be no more than glorified access ways to pipes and conduits, until, in dramatic contrast, he reached a cavernous space, smooth gray walls of concrete and metal rising high into the shadows He passed through a large door and was soon in amongst the dark jungle, the quarter moon in the sky hiding behind the leaves of the rain forest.
With a long look, but no words, he held the parrot in his hands, then tossed it quickly into the air. The parrot squawked a protest, and circled over his head, watching Mallah as intently as the great ape watched him. Then without any more of a parting Mallah turned his back and loped back into the passage leading deep into the cliff.
The parrot sat on a perch, waiting, watching the cave entrance, and becoming increasingly fidgety. Sometimes it would squawk and mutter to itself, in between chewing on an itch under it's wing. But the gorilla never returned. Eventually it cawed an exasperated "Waaagh!", looked around at the darkened forest with nervousness, and closed it's eyes to sleep.
The night in the rainforest was damp, and dripping. A storm rolled through, dumping waterfalls of rain onto the tree tops. The parrot eventually awoke as a stream of rainwater flowed right onto it's head, breaking across it's beak. "Waagh!!" It shuffled along the branch and angrily eyed the offending flow. "Waa, da - da- Da-Uuude!" Then motion on the forest floor caught it's eye, and it froze.
Four figures, crouched and cautious, crept through the brush. A wrapped hand reached from between the leaves to silence the branches in their shaking. The parrot's eyes narrowed. With a curious grunt it flapped off of it's resting spot and glided to the rain-slick floor beneath the jungle canopy. It kept looking at the place where it saw the hand, looking askance at it, slowly sidling up to there, it's gaze searching, searching the brush. Absentmindedly it began to chatter to itself, soft and gutteral, working out the puzzle to itself. The hand shooting out of nearby bushes surprised the feathers off of it.
"WAAGH!!"
The "Shhhhh" issuing from the mouth belonging to the hand that held the bird by it's neck certainly got it's attention. The parrot exaggerratedly swallowed, then squeaked out, "Polly wanna, wanna cracker? Waagh?"
Four shapes emerged from the bushes: one hulking and metallic; another feminine though hardly soft; the third swaddled and hidden; the fourth confident and commanding. It was the fourth figure who held the parrot. His eyes narrowed, and he almost frowned at the bird. "Report!" he ordered.
The parrot saluted. "Sir, yes - waagh! - sir! The quantum ge-ge-ge-waagh!-tor is not inside the base. I was unable to asc-asc-asc-waagh!-ertain it's location-waagh, sir!"
"Unacceptable," Mento snapped.
Elasti-girl stood exasperated in front of him. "Steve!"
"The survival of the world depends on learning the location of that evil device. Now we must waste a precious portion of our surprise searching for clues to it's whereabouts before the self-destruct is initiated. And too many of Brain's henchmen will be able to escape our net, to cause havoc yet again. If every team member did their job as poorly as he then we would all be dead!"
Rita was about to snap an equally caustic response when she saw the parrot saluting smartly. "Permish-, mish mish-, per-waagh!-tion to transform, sir!" Mento nodded, and let the parrot go. While still holding it's salute, he morphed from a green bird into his green elfin self: Beast Boy. "Brain and Mallah are at this base. And I have obtained the personal access code for Monsieur Mallah, sir!"
"Hmmmm." Mento rubbed his chin. "That will eliminate the chance that our hacking into the security locks will be detected."
Negative Man spoke up. "You mean the sixty eight percent chance we'd be detected?"
"Hmm, yes..." He nodded once. "We can salvage something, Beast Boy. If Brain and Mallah can be apprehended, that is. Larry, we'll need to change our intrusion method and put you on point, then..." Mento drew Negative Man to the side to discuss the new tactics.
Robot Man walked up to Beast Boy, a large robotic grin on his face. "Good goin' squirt!. We were gettin' worried about you. Mento had to move up the timetable by two days when you missed your reports." He slapped the boy on the back. "Say, what were you doin' out here?"
"Getting rained on, Cliff."
"Okay, green bean, I get it - enough with the questions. You can fill me in after we're done here." He smiled, and headed over to Mento and Negative Man.
At his back, Beast Boy felt the eyes of the fourth Patroller on him. He sucked in a large breath, and turned to face her. "I was fine. It wasn't such a big deal."
She walked closer, and knelt down on one knee in front of him. "How did you get the code, Garfield?"
He looked down at the ground. "The alarm had gone off, and they were closing in on me, and I, I panicked and changed into a parrot just before they saw me. I should have done something smaller, harder to see, like a bug or something, then I could continue spying, looking for clues on where the quantum generator was located, but I just didn't think of it when the crunch came. I freaked, and turned into a stupid parrot." He stood there, stiff shouldered, and mad at himself.
Rita ran her hand over the mask covering his head. "It still worked."
"Yeah, well, I guess they figured it was a false alarm, but Mallah kind of adopted me as his, uh, pet." She nodded. "I wasn't allowed more than a few feet away from him for almost two weeks."
"That's how you got his code."
"Yeah."
"That was very brave, Garfield."
He scrunched his brow and harshly replied. "I'm supposed to be brave, Mento says! I'm in the Doom Patrol!" Then he swallowed, and shakily drew in a breath.
"Do you know what 'brave' really is, Garfield?" He looked confusedly at her, not sure where she was going with her question. "It's when you're scared to death, but do what you have to do anyway." He nodded. "So tell me - were you 'brave' in there?"
He nodded again, silently, then suddenly he closed the gap with her, clinging for dear life to her, burying his head in her shoulder. She held him tightly, wordlessly, not drawing attention to him, letting him be the kid he really was for just a few moments, a kid thrown into adult responsibilities much too soon.
Mento walked up through the bush, but stopped short when he saw them, and with a look from Elasti-Girl he kept quiet, too. He frowned - a little - but with a nod sent back to her he quietly retreated.
She let Beast Boy hold onto her for a few moments more, but duty, in it's cliched best, was calling. She took his shoulders and broke his hug, then looked at his face. Tears had snuck out from beneath his mask, and made two tiny, wet smudges on his cheeks. She wiped his face with her thumb. "It looks to me like you've got something in your eye."
"Uhh, yeah," he wiped the tears out of his eyes, "I do." He sniffled once, then said, "Thanks. Uh, for getting the thing out of my eye."
"You're welcome." She stood and looked toward the silent silhouettes of their teammates in the dim night. "Ready, Garfield? It'll be a hard fight in there, with Brain and Mallah inside."
"Yeah, I'm ready. 'No matter what it takes', right? I swore it, too." And a shade of a smile came to his lips. "I gotta get even with Mallah for all those stale crackers." Rita smiled back at him, and nodded. He fixed his mask, then sprinted to Mento with a salute. "Ready for the next phase, sir!"