I don't own anything in this story
To make a quick note, The Beast in my story Darkwings Rising is in fact Beast Boy of the Teen Titans. I will explain more on the transition from The Beast to Beast Boy later. This is the story of how The Beast came to Purgatory.
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"I want that boy out of here!" the priest shouted at the nun. "This is the fourth time we have caught him trying to run off to the villages and he still hasn't learned his lesson!" he screamed pointing at the pale blond boy at the nun's side.
"Please sir, try to understand" said the nun calmly. "He is just a boy. He wants to play with other children that are in the villages outside the church." The priest slammed his fist on the hard oak table.
"He is not here to play!" he shouted. "He is here because his good for nothing drunk parents put him in my care before they left Ireland for America. And he is here, in Ghana (Africa), to help us spread the good word and build up our church in this barren wasteland!" The priest got up out of his chair and grabbed the boy by the arm. "You are here to work for the lord boy! Stop wasting his time and spread his message!" He screamed at him shaking a finger in his face.
The blond boy opened his mouth and bit the finger in front on him. He bit it hard enough make a great gash in the priests skin, letting blood out. The priest let out a loud yell and tried to grab the boy. The blond boy ran out of the office and out of the church into the great plains, headed towards the villages nearby.
The young boy ran through the plains, his worn leather shoes making a clopping noise every time his heel hit the ground. He never looked back once. He kept running all the way until he reached the Ashanti village.
The priest had taken him there once before when he read the Bible to many of the tribesmen. While the priest read from the bible aloud to the tribesmen, who had no idea what he was saying, the young boy was put to work moving large stones to the area where they were building the new church in the middle of the village. The blond boy worked endlessly on his mason work, often watching the village children play soccer together or some of the elders sitting together playing Kikogo (African version of checkers, looks like backgammon board).
The boy stopped at the edge of the village panting heavily, trying to catch his breath. Villagers passed him, ignoring the small white child they assumed was a follower of that annoying priest.
"You run fast!" came a soft voice behind him. He turned around and saw the young Ashanti girl who often spoke to the priest. The twelve year old native girl was one of the few people in the village who knew how to speak English. She was the translator for the priest on days when he gave his masses. She often smiled at the young boy whenever their eyes met in the village and always said thank you to him after he finished his masonry for the day.
"I was in the field and I saw you coming." she said. "You are in quite a rush to get to work today huh?" she asked tilting her head to the side, making her small gold hoop earrings jingle slightly.
"I'm not moving anymore blocks." the young boy said. "I'm done with all that religious garbage." he told her while starting to walk through the village.
"Don't say that." said the girl, walking up behind him. "What is your name?" she asked him.
"Why does it matter?" he asked her back.
"My name is Quao (Ashanti name meaning Thursday, it is popular to give children names of the day they were born on.)." she told him, ignoring his question. "I don't think you have the right idea about religion. Having faith in something is great and wonderful." The boy scoffed as he stopped in the middle of the road and picked up a broken soccer ball.
"Religion is just an establishment set up by greedy people trying to milk everyone for every last cent claiming it is to help spread the worthy cause of enlightening the world. When it is just really an old corrupt priest yelling at me to build a gigantic freakin stone house for him to shout in and think he is important." said the boy trying to bounce the broken ball on his foot. "Why should I have any faith in religion? What has it done for me lately except make my hands rough and bloody from moving those damn blocks all day long in this blistering heat." He continued to try and kick the ball but each time it fell in the dirt.
The girl turned around and ran back through the village. The boy sighed at his returning loneliness and continued to try and play with the broken ball. He heard someone running up behind him and turned around to see the girl bouncing the ball expertly on her knees up into the air. She passed the ball to the boy and he began bouncing the ball just as she did.
"I disagree." she said. "What that guy has been making you do is not the act of a religious person. Religion is a noble establishment made to bring the best out in everyone by following rules made up of common knowledge and personal belief. Instead of following one religion strictly why not take the general knowledge of all religions and used those ideas to form a belief of your own on how to best serve God and your fellow man?"
The conversation between the two went on for hours. One bouncing a ball while the other made a suggestion or thought. The conversation ended around dusk when the sun began to set.
"I can't trust any words written down in a book over two thousand years ago by people I can't question." the boy said. "Your are right, some words of wisdom can be taken but I am not going to listen to what that jerk off priest has to say. And I am not going back there. I am sick of having to listen to that big mouth and those nagging old penguins." He bounced the ball back to the girl who caught it in her hands. She placed a hand on his shoulder and said,
"You don't need to go back there you know. You can stay here with me and my family. I don't have any brothers at home and my parents are talking about having another child to try and have one. You could save them that trouble and come live with us, or…" she paused. "You could be my husband. In a few years I will be able to marry and I am around the right age for an arranged marriage." A chill ran down the boy's spine at the word marriage. Being an average eight year old boy he still thought girls were icky, but he felt closer to Quao than he had with anyone else.
"You really think your parents would be ok with either of those?" he asked. He raised his pale hand up and held it up to hers. "I'm not like other guys here." he said motioning to the much taller, muscular boys in the village his own age. Quao smiled.
"My parents like you. They are always talking about all the work you do everyday on the church." she said. "Little things like that don't matter very much to them. Besides…" she said running a soft hand over his t-shirt, feeling the tight young muscles underneath. "I like you better than the other boys here. I am sure my parents would be happy to call you son or son-in-law. Which ever you are happier with."
He put a finger to his temple and thought. After a few seconds he put his hand down to his side and said,
"I don't like girls right now. But I think I might in a few years, then maybe I would like to get married then. Is that ok?" Quao smiled and nodded.
Quao reached her hands up and held the boy's head in her hands. Then she tilted her head down and kissed him on his lips. The cold chill the boy had before melted as a warm wave seeped through him as the girl's marsh mellow soft lips meshed with his own. The other children around them spotted the romantic scene and all responded. The boys making gagging noises and the girls letting out a long sigh, jealous of Quao's romance.
Quao broke the kiss and the boy stared in shock at his bride-to-be. The boy broke the silence.
"I think Thursday is my favorite day of the week now." Quao giggled and asked him,
"I just have one quick question before I take you to my parents. What is a jerk off?" A pale bandaged hand came out of nowhere and grabbed the boy by the wrist pulling him away from Quao.
"Aha!" said the priest. "So this is what you have been doing all day huh? Taking advantage of the local girls and teaching them to say dirty words to you? Well not anymore you're not!" The priest picked up the boy and stuffed him under his armpit.
"Put me down ass clown!" said the struggling little boy. Quao tried to help the boy but a nun held her back as the priest strapped the boy into the back seat of his jeep and drove away. "Turn back! Turn back!" demanded the blond child.
"No, I don't think so you little bastard!" shouted the priest. "Since you don't seem to like your work here I decided it would be better to send you somewhere where your work is needed more. Your going to a city in northern Japan called Shiretoko. They'll beat some manners into that thick skull of yours."
The blond youth continued kicking and screaming the entire ride to the airport, where the priest paid the airline security to secure him to his seat until they arrived in Japan where the church would pick him up.
The boy calmed down in the plane. He finished his plan mid-flight. He would arrive in Shiretoko, get some money and fly back to Ghana and be with Quao. The plan was fool proof and simple. He rested comfortably on the plane, knowing his stay in Shiretoko would be short and painless.
Little did he know what awaited for him in Shiretoko, better known to the locals as "The end of the world" or "Purgatory". He was adopted within a few days of staying at the orphanage by a scientist named Dr. Zaleno. Over the next three weeks the doctor stuck countless needles in him, removed and replaced his bones, and completely rearranged his genes.
At one point the boy got a chance to look in a mirror Dr. Zaleno had hung up. In the mirror he saw his horrid green bloody reflection. His skin was changed to a light green, Dr. Zaleno said it was a side effect, his teeth grew into large sharp fangs that stuck out of his mouth, his ears formed into large sharp points out of the side of his head. He was a freak. The green boy lay his head down and fell asleep.
He woke up later to the sound of the platform he was laying on being raised up. A bright light assaulted his face and a cold calm voice came on over the laboratory intercom,
"Why is he green?"
The green boy knew he could never show his face to Quao ever again.