Chapter One: The Machine
The room was completely dark except for the lone light in the center of the room. Under the light was a table long enough for a single person to lie down upon. Above the table was a creepy machine. The machine was large, silver, and covered in what looked to be needles. A load noise started from it as it began to warm up. It hummed with power, power that I controlled for my own needs. I would become the most powerful person in the world one day and I would use the power to rule. I looked up as the door across the room opened to reveal a tall, lanky boy in the door.
"Come in and have a seat upon the table. I do apologize for not having a chair for you to sit upon." The young man shrugged his shoulders and had a seat on the table. He looked up at me only to notice he couldn't see my face.
"Who are you, and what do you want with me?" I laughed at him as the bindings from the table shot up and tied him down to the table.
"There is no point in telling you my dear boy, because when you awake you will have no knowledge of what happened here. However, you will soon notice that you no longer have something you and other love about you." With another laugh the machine began to hum loudly again. The needle-like parts begin to lower towards the boy as he screamed. He begged and pleaded for me not to do this, though he had no knowledge of what this thing was doing. Soon his begging turned to screams of pure pain. He arched his back and soon he neither moved nor screamed. Above him was a single green light. It hovered there just above his chest where his heart would still be beating.
"There now, that wasn't too much of a trouble was it? I got what I wanted and now you'll return to your room none the wiser to what has been taken. That is till you go and use it. Sweet dreams till then, I look forward to using such a remarkable gift." The person began to laugh in such an evil way that it brought fear upon even herself.
Raven awoke in horror, and screamed out. She sat straight up in bed looking for the horrible machine that had taken something from a young man. She feared she had really done that to someone. That scared her more than the fact she was half demon and was supposed to destroy the world. It was only now, looking at her dark room in the tower, that she knew it had only been a nightmare.
Raven was still breathing hard when a knocked on the door made her scream out a little again. The door opened to reveal a scared but worried Beast Boy. Dressed only in his purple night pants looking wide eyed at Raven.
"Hey Rae, are you okay? I heard screaming and thought that maybe you were in trouble or having another nightmare." Raven smiled gently at the green boy, blushing a little bit at his bare chest. He had come several times after hearing her scream in the night. Always with the fear she was in trouble or having a nightmare.
"I'm fine Beast Boy, just the same nightmare as last time. Sorry to wake you and thanks for coming again." She looked up into his jade green eyes and gave him a small but genuine smile. He nodded at her but still stood in the door way.
"Do you want me to stay again? I'll sleep on one of your pillows on the floor again if you need me too." Raven smiled but shook her head no.
"No I'll be fine; thank you though it means a lot to me. Now back to bed with you we have training in the morning and it will do us no good if we both show up tired and late. We'll get Cyborg all in a state of gossip and Robin mad at us for no reason." Beast Boy laughed at the thought and turned to walk away.
"Night Rae, sleep well and sweet, and I mean so sweet you get cavities, dreams." Laughing at his own joke Beast Boy shut Ravens door and went to his room. As soon as he was out of ear shot Raven gave a small quite giggle. He was a little funny, if not corny at times. She was grateful he cared enough to make sure she was okay when he heard her nightmares. She'd have to remember not to be too hard on him tomorrow. After all no matter how much she may like him there was no way he'd like her back.
Raven gave a short sigh in annoyance at the fact she once again fell into a crush, if not blossomed into love again, before she rolled over and went back to sleep. Though this time she fell into a peaceful slumber and a small but noticeable smile graced her pale lips.
It wasn't long after that a loud and annoying buzzing was heard in her room. Her alarm clock was going off letting her know practice was in two hours' time. Raven groaned as she rolled over and turned off the alarm. Sitting up she decided today she would meditate first then take the shower she felt she needed after that nightmare. Her meditation started off normal enough her mind empty of all thoughts that is until a certain green Titan began to awake from the room next door. Her mind wondered off into Lala land before returning with a hard crash as one of her emotions spoke.
'Raven, you must face him and tell him how you feel.' The emotion had not left her alone since she admitted to herself she liked the green man.
'I will not inform him of this crush Affection. Telling him will do me no good; it would only bring me more pain. I refuse to deal with that pain a second time. Besides I brought the end of the world and I'm half demon what normal sane person would love me? No, I won't tell him and that is that.'
'Raven, please another emotion wishes to be born but cannot if you keep denying the truth she is even there. Please Raven I know best I assure you.'
Raven groaned out loud as she opened the door. Her emotions fought with her throughout the whole shower. She was already feeling the emotional drain from the day and she had hardly been up two hours. She would have just enough time to drink some tea before heading to the training room for practice.
'Just perfect anther day spent on fighting with emotions and training what could be better.' Raven mentally scolded herself as the always happy and chipper voice of Starfire reached her ears.
"Morning of goodness to you, my friends! Is it not a most glorious morning and beautiful day to train in the combat field outside?" The others groaned as they walked in at Starfire's suggestion of outdoor training.
"That sounds like an excellent idea Star. Alright so we'll go in this order then do pairs. First I want Cyborg, second Star, third Raven, fourth myself, and last Beast Boy. We'll take a fifteen minute break and then we'll do pairing except for Cyborg. Pairs will include…" He was cut off however by Beast Boy.
"We know Rob you do this enough it's like watching Scooby Doo in real life. You'll go with Star and I'll be paired with Raven." Robin looked at him in disbelieve at first then rubbed off the shock.
"Yes, well that is correct. Are there any objections?" Robin got no reply besides the shacking of heads. "We'll then, meet down at the course in ten minutes to begin." With that he walked out of the room and to the course. About five minutes later the rest of the team joined him.
The Titans all joined the boy wonder on the course, it was a little different than the last couple times they used it. The Justice League had started to take notice of the Titans after a while. They should since the Titans had grown to be just as big as the Justice League. They were world-wide now, not to mention the original five Titans went on missions across the universe now as well. What shocked the boy wonder the most however was the late night call from his mentor Batman. His mentor called to inform Robin that the Justice League was talking about asking Beast Boy to join them when he was older. That nearly blew Robins mind, however, after a little thought that made a lot of sense to him. Beast Boy in the last two, three years had really proven himself as a worthy fighter.
In the last couple years, Beast Boy led a rag tag team of teens who didn't know their powers that well to victory against the Brotherhood of Evil, he had taken down several villains by himself, Robin had recently discovered from Raven that Beast Boy had taken on Slade twice by himself and kick Slade's butt both times. Now that Robin really thought about it, it only made sense for Beast Boy to join the League he was after all one of the most determined people he knew.
"Alright Bird Boy, I'm ready when you are." Robin snapped out of his thoughts and looked down to see Cyborg ready to go.
"Alright Cyborg on the count of three. One, two, three!" Robin pressed the big red button that always got Beast Boy's attention and started the course. Robin turned to the others and sat on the bench to watch his half robot friend. Cyborg was running to beat his last time of five minutes. Robin was hoping he would beat it but didn't have much hope since the new course was a little more difficult than the last course. Six minutes later Cyborg stood at the opposite end breathing hard. Robin shouted down to Cyborg.
"Nice job Cy, your run was spot on. Don't worry about the extra minute it's a new course." Cyborg looked up and gave the thumbs up to the boy wonder. The same thing happened with all of them an extra minute to their time but it was nothing. If it had been the old course he would have been confident that they all would have surpassed their last run.
Beast Boy came back to the group taking in large breaths to calm himself down. He had changed a lot faster than he had meant to at the end and went sparling to the ground.
"Nice work, Beast Boy that was actually a really good run, only about thirty seconds over your last time." Beast Boy gave a weak smile to the boy wonder but stopped as he had a sting of pain shoot through him. "What's wrong BB?" Robin looked at the green teen in concern.
"Oh its nothing just changed too fast again. I went from cheetah to human without slowing down enough to do it. I whipped out after words, just stinging from the quick change." Robin nodded his head and turned to the others as Beast Boy stood up again hands behind his head.
"Alright team, take a fifteen minute break and be back ready to do the pair run. We'll do me and Star first and then Raven and BB." The others nodded and walked off to do their own thing for the break. Robin and Star walked over to the Tower to get some water, Cyborg back to the garage to get the video camera to record the team run. Raven sat back down on the bench and picked up her book to read. Beast Boy went to his rock to sit and think.
'It seems I've been getting faster with my transformations. Their coming easier and easier to me, I wonder if I'm repeating myself too much?' Beast Boy sat on his rock thinking and he really did look to be thinking hard. Raven looked up at the green boy and noticed this. Standing up she walked over to him to see what was wrong.
"Hey Beast Boy, is there something wrong?" Beast Boy snapped out of his thoughts and looked to Raven. He smiled and scooted over a little to allow her a seat. She took the silent offer and sat next to him.
"No nothing's wrong, I've just been thinking about my shifting. I've been getting better and faster at it lately. Like now I don't really think about it I just do it. Maybe I'm using the same stuff too much or something. I don't know maybe I'm just being overly thoughtful about it." Raven smiled he was truly worried he was just using the same stuff over and over.
"Beast Boy, you don't have to worry about that. Yes, you do use the same stuff a lot but they are what's best to face what we face every day. Why change something that works, when it stops working that is when you change it. You're really good a knowing when something stops working for us and you change it. Don't worry you'll be fine. As for it getting easier and faster what do you mean?" Beast Boy looked at Raven and gave a soft smile.
"You have to promise not to look at me or treat me different because of what I'm about to tell you." He looked over at her and she nodded in agreement. Satisfied she wouldn't change her outlook of him he took a deep calming breath. "When I first started to shift, it was to save my mother. It was easy and painless the very first time. After that however, it became slow and painful. The changes you see now are quick and flawless looking but sometimes I mess up. The changes are painful, so much so the first couple times I did it, when it was slow, I passed out form the pain. Now I'm just numb to it, like I'm prepared for the pain to come and my body goes numb. I had to work hard to make it look as easy as I do. The Doom Patrol almost didn't want me to shift because of how slow it was." He looked over to Raven and smiled he could see she was trying to imagine a slow transformation. He started to laugh a little at her and she looked at him annoyed.
"What's so funny?" He looked back at her and tried to compose himself.
"You're trying to imagine the slow transformation but I can tell it's not working to well. Here let me help you. When I transform I have to think of an animal any animal will do. Then I have to focus on it till I'm that animal. First, all the bones in my body start to break, for smaller animals this means that half my bones disappear form existence, for larger animals they expand and reform at the breaks. Then my body begins to transform and take shape of the animal as the bones are put into place to form the structure. The skin either tightens for loosens for this to happen. Organs are either grown or deformed, they are then place and rearranged to the proper place for that animal. All of this used to take me a little over a minute to do. I was in so much pain after I transformed into an animal I was useless. I would pass out and begin the slow process of turning back to a human."
"Beast Boy, Raven it's time to finish the course." They both looked up to see Robin back from the tower and ready to go.
"Guess we better get back there. Now remember you promised not to change around me so don't do that alright. It doesn't hurt anymore." He stood up and reached down a hand to help Raven up. She accepted it and stood as well. She smiled at him and began to walk back to the course where the others were waiting.
"On your mark, get set, Go!" Cyborg shouted and started the recording as Beast Boy got to push the big red button. Raven rolled her eyes but smiled a little all the same.
'It seems I've been smiling a lot more recently.'
'Why shouldn't you with someone like Beast Boy around.'
'Not now Affection.' Raven rolled her eyes again but looked back to the course watching Star and Robin preform tricks and acrobats that showed just how much they trusted each other.
'You know it is true Raven. Besides you trust Beast Boy just as much as Star and Robin trust each other.' Raven nodded to herself which caught Beast Boy's attention. He smiled knowing one of her emotions was talking to her.
"So who's talking to you now Rae?" Raven looked up startled by the sudden voice of Beast Boy in her ear.
"Huh? Oh, it was just Brave and Affection. Brave on how well the two work together and Affection cooing at how sweet they are. Don't call me Rae." Beast Boy nodded at her.
"Yeah seems they have gotten even better with their tricks and acrobats since Tokyo. Well, one thing is for sure I'm glad they are together it made us even stronger as a team. However, I think you and I are way better at working together then they are." Raven blinked before looking up at him he had stood up and started off to the beginning of the course. Raven got up to follow him; the other two Titans had just exited the course with a time of ten minutes. It was the new record for the course and by Beast Boy's look Raven could tell he wanted to beat it.
"Let's beat it." He looked down and smiled at her. Before they even got the chance to start the course, Robin yelled for them to stop.
"Stop, were getting a call from the Justice League!" Raven and Beast Boy groaned but ran off following the others to the ops room ready to hear what they had to say.