It was Beast Boy's birthday, and pretty much everyone in the Tower knew about it.

Cyborg had started the day the way he did with anyone else's birthday: specially shaped waffles. For Robin's most recent celebration, they resembled his trademark birdarangs; for Raven's, her namesake bird. As for the others? He had absolutely no idea when Starfire's birthday was, and he let someone else prepare breakfast for him on his own. Terra hadn't yet been with the Titans long enough to celebrate hers.

After he had wolfed down, unsurprisingly, wolf waffles, the birthday boy had gone to the basketball court on the roof to challenge Robin to a game of one-on-one, which the Boy Wonder had come dangerously close to letting him win. In the last few seconds, though, an incredibly tricky shot made by Beast Boy and involving turning into an African swallow had given the changeling the legitimate win.

In the afternoon, he, Raven, and Starfire had gathered on the couch for the showing of a random horror flick that no doubt the girls had to have been coerced into watching. It had finished before nightfall, so nothing too creepy had had the chance to happen, but it had still left Beast Boy mildly jumpy when the other members of the Titans had come out of nowhere brandishing a large, green-frosted cake. Had it not been for Raven's quick thinking and powers, the cake would have been lost due to a very startled elephant.

After the dessert -- also prepared by Cyborg -- Beast Boy had retired to his room, where not long afterwards he had heard a familiar knock at his door. All too happily he had opened the door and let the blonde girl, who had been carrying a small green cupcake with a single candle in it, inside. After having placed the candle on his nightstand, he had split the cupcake in two: One half was for himself; the other, for Terra. The two of them had finished their respective halves at roughly the same time as each other, by no coincidence, and Beast Boy's birthday had ended that night with they two holding each other close for several seconds before parting again, to return to their respective rooms for a night of relatively peaceful sleep.


The Tower was empty, for the most part. The Titans were all off doing whatever they had felt like doing: Visiting the mall of shopping, waxing up the car, training off-site, or any of the other possibilities available to them in, around, and under Jump City.

Beneath the ground, gravel, and pavement of a certain part of the city was a curiosity: A similarly deserted cavern, for the most part. One strangely familiar rock formation, though, had a small lump of brown material that looked vaguely baked, with a green puddle of odd consistency topping it; the whole thing showed evidence of being sliced from the top down.

Firmly sticking up from the top was a single lit candle.