Yes, I do- in fact- own Teen Titans. Not only that, the word 'gullible' has been typed on the veeeerrry bottom of the page. Go ahead, take a look.

"'Fair and foul are near of kin,
And fair needs foul,' I cried.
'My friends are gone, but that's a truth
Nor grave nor bed denied.'"

-William Butler Yeats, "Crazy Jane Talks With The Bishop"


Day Owls?

At first he thought it was a bad case of insomnia, lying on his bedroom floor cushioned by wrinkled piles of clothes as he stared up at the ceiling during the deeper hours of the night. It was only after Robin berated a green-haired cat for sleeping through the entire afternoon's training sessions did Beast Boy start wondering if there was something wrong. Maybe some of his nocturnal animal instincts were boiling to the surface; it would certainly explain why the changeling finally gave up trying to sleep and restlessly wandered around the tower at three a.m.

Beast Boy was becoming a night-owl. Or was it a raccoon? Or a fox, or a flying squirrel, or a possum…no wait- a Whippoorwill!

The Titans slowly turned their heads the changeling's direction, who was still giggling to himself on the couch.

"Uh…you okay there BB?" Cyborg asked.

"Hey…Robin, hey Robin…check this out: 'Whippoorwill'! heheheheheheheh…"

or maybe a Lumholtz tree-climbing kangaroos hopping native to the Australian Rain Rorest!

No…wait…owl, he was pretty sure it was night-owl. Why did they call it 'night owl' anyways? There's no such things as 'day owls'… that's a…what did Raven call those things?

Raven shook her head as she returned to her book. "Moron."

An Ox-Moron! Oxy-Mormons. Stupid Day owls…

"Hey! I'm no Mormon!"

"Please, what is this 'Poor-whipping-will' Friend Beast Boy speaks of?"

"Are sure you're feeling okay, Beast Boy?" Robin said warily.

Him? Oh he fine! Great, even! Just like that funny Tiger on the cereal boxes. GREEEAAT! Man, those things really hit the spot.

Robin was afraid to ask. "What things?"

Oh, you know, those energy drinks they sell right next to the cappuccinos and the big plastic bottles of pop. Now Robin couldn't yell at him anymore for sleeping through training or Titan alerts 'cause he was GREA- y'know, those corn flakes with the frosting on them sure would be tasty right now…

Raven blinked as Beast Boy shifted into a Tiger and pounced onto the kitchen counter, sniffing the cabinets for food. "I think we may have a problem here…"


Mild Misanthropy

There were moments when Raven truly hated living in this realm.

Christmas, for instance.

Pressing her back hard against the wall to prevent being trampled, Raven cast a glance at Robin. "Why didn't you warn me about this?"

"What, you mean frantic holiday shopping the day after Thanksgiving?"

The sorceress snarled between clenched teeth. "Yes."

Smiling crookedly, Robin hunched his shoulders and hid buried his hands in his pockets. "Live and learn, Raven. Yousaid you wanted to 'get your Christmas shopping over with.'"

"You know I don't like crowds."

"Hey, I'm carrying your bags for you, aren't I?" he replied, making a show of hefting the collection of various shopping bags gathered over the day. Privately, Robin admitted to himself he could have warned Raven how hectic the city was on Black Friday, but Raven had asked him to help with her shopping, and he hadn't the heart to correct her.

At least they didn't look like Titans at first glance; Raven was reluctant to change clothes, but the last thing they needed was the needless attention piled the insanity of the season. Robin had been cruising around the city that day in a red sweater, gray cargo pants, wraparound sunglasses to replace his mask, and- just because he missed his cape- a black trenchcoat.

"Come on Rae, just one last present, then we'll go out for coffee and head home, deal?"

Raven debated weaving threads of black magick into a tapestry of mind-bending suffering and horrible hair…but realized she was far too tired to do anything but finish her shopping so she could barricade herself in her room with a cup of tea.

To spite her protests, Raven agreed in the end to play incognito while they were at the mall. Since her wardrobe lacked variety, Raven had to borrow a faded pair of jeans from Robin to wear over her leotard and managed to dig a black hooded poncho from her closet.

Taking a deep breath, the dark girl reluctantly followed Robin back into the crowd. Cramped and uneasy, Raven tried to close her third eye as her empathic senses felt the haphazard, residual emotions from the thousands clogging the mall.

There was a reason why she didn't like crowds. Or people, really. It was so much easier back on Azarath. The elegant city, small as it was, had plenty of room for the handful of several hundred monks residing in its walls. Reared their entire lives by the teachings of Azar, they were passively detached from the world around them. It was a society of wisdom and intellect, everyone's minds closed and their emotions properly disciplined.

Being an empath on Earth was a little harder.

Still, there was one person she trusted with this mild demophobia. Someone understanding enough to stand in the overcrowded lines instead and bought her things for her at the register.

"Robin?" she asked warily; he held her hand and confidently guided her through the crowd.

She almost caught the eyes hiding behind the sunglasses. "Yeah?"

"…..thanks."


Playing Hero

Why do people bother walking into dark alleys these days? Seriously: bad part of town, dead of night, cute girl with her purse hanging off a spaghetti-string strap? It was all numbers tallying up to an easy target; that idiot girl was practically paying them to give her trouble.

A ghost's shadow lurked off the roof's edge looking down into the alley. Two black-cap amateurs with knives pressed threateningly on the girl from both sides.

He shook his head. This wasn't his problem. If that blond was thick enough to walk alone down the street dressed up for a night club, she deserved it.

"Just give us your money!"

"Somebody help me, please!"

"Shut her up!"

Although…

Well, she was pretty cute.

Growling with irritation, Red-X muttered "I just know I'm gonna regret this…"

Diving from the roof, X twisted nimbly in mid-air like a black wisp of air. Cutting off his four story freefall short, the thief caught the rails of a fire escape to shave off his momentum before somersaulting and landing behind the thugs in a low crouch.

Alerted only by the rattle of the overhead fire escape, the muggers scarcely had time to turn before X sprung to the left, batting one thug's knife aside and landing a heavy palm on his chest. The breath pounded straight out of his lungs, the first attacker crashed into a clutter of garbage behind him- giving no indication of picking himself up in the near future. Bending deftly beneath arc of the second knife, X swept his leg across the other mugger's ankle, bringing him down hard onto the pavement so X could disable him with a strike to the throat.

Hardly grateful, the girl cringed as X stood. It was hardly an improvement: two large men wielding knives replaced by a thin, skull-faced figure that looked like an aspiring grim reaper.

"Relax," X chagrined her with that sharp electric voice. "I'm not the bad guy here." Seconds passed before X retracted himself clumsily. "Well, I guess I kinda am…but I'm not the kind that steals purses…I mean, I steal stuff all the time, but I nobody actually sees…it…"

The burglar's caped shoulders slumped as he vented frustration through his mask.

"Who are you?" she whispered fearfully.

X's awkward hesitation faded with a skeletal grin; he couldn't resist this after going through the trouble of playing hero.

Spreading his arms with a theatrical flair of his cape, Red-X declared, "I am an Xtractor of the Xotic, Xploring the oft Xcluded luXuries of the Xecutive. I make no Xcuses, my Xcursions have earned me Xile, but I am Xempt from your everyday Xchanges- for I am an Xtraordinary Xample free to Xecute and Xpress my…..uh…." Half breathless from his speech, X stuttered as his train of thought ran out of track. "Sorry, kinda running outta words with 'x' in it. Oh don't give me that look, how about you try, huh?"

No less fearful, the blonde girl stared at X with wide-eyes. "Are you, like, some kind of whacko or something?"

"Yeah," he scoffed. "'Or something'. Knew I was going to regret this. Screw it, I'm outers. Go call the cops 'or something', and get yourself some common sense while you're at it." Skipping off the far wall, X rebounded back onto the fire escape before teleporting away in a blurry flicker.

Eyes still locked with the empty spot of air X occupied just seconds ago, the blonde girl realized her shoulder was curiously light.

"Hey, where'd my purse go?"


"I'm waaaaiting…"

Tapping her foot impatiently, Raven stalked back and forth across the bathroom door as she had been doing for the past half house before her patience squeezed out its last drop. "Who's in there?" she pounded. "Other people in this tower need to bathroom too!"

A voice Raven often associated with pure aggravation spoke up meekly. "Sorry Rae…just…uh…taking a bath…why don't you use the one upstairs?"

Raven crossed her arms, redundant considering Beast Boy couldn't see her. "I would be using that bathroom if somebody wasn't trying to make his home-made eggnog in the bathtub!"

"Apologies, Friend Raven," Starfire's voice joining in. "Could you please come back later, perhaps?"

Beast Boy and Starfire in the bathroom…the sorceress' brows rose a pitch. "Beast Boy, is Starfire in there with you?"

"Uh...no?..."

"That's it, you two better open this door right now before I phase myself through it."

"Okay, okay…" the changeling sounded defeated.

The bathroom door slid open reluctantly.

Ears drooping, Beast Boy stood dejected in from of Raven in his swimming trunks, his fur a messy mix of green, blue, and cyan.

Spying over Beast Boy's shoulders, Raven noted the bathtub was filled with blue water.

"You got into Robin's chemistry set again, didn't you?"

Starfire, the skin of her usually orange hands tinged blue, giggled nervously.

"We were attempting for Beast Boy to be The Hedgehog of Sonic?"


Hubbert's Law

Cyborg was never one to believe in 'hell' or 'the devil'. To a man whose mind was half-wired to a computer, God, divine punishment, the afterlife; it really wasn't something he bothered himself with. Still, if there really was a hell, he had a feeling is exactly how it would look.

Jump City's tall, serene towers of glass were now sculptures of twisted metal. Cars were rusted husks, tree were skeletal and blackened, Titan's Tower was a ruin surrounded by a sea of lava, and every living person was petrified to stone.

So when he stumbled into Beast Boy, alive and unharmed, he was relieved in a way no one can grasp until they almost loose something dear to them.

I mean, Cyborg didn't even love his car that much.

The green changeling stared up at a red sky as clouds like smoke sprinkled volcanic ash on the city like hell's own snowflakes.

"Yo grass stain," Cyborg spoke up. "Remember when you snuck into Raven's room 'cause you wanted to find out more about her."

Beast Boy's smile was sadly wistful. "Yeah, and then we got sucked into her mind through that creepy mirror."

Trigon came instantly to Cyborg's mind; that extra-dimension demon using his own daughter as a door to wreak havoc on their home. If it were possible for him to have goosebumps, they'd been prickling every inch of his skin. "Betch'ya wishin' you didn't know all this right about her now, aren't you?"

"Nah."

Cyborg perked his head at his green buddy, who was still staring up at the smoldering crimson sky. "All this; her destiny, her dad- it's all a part of her too. A part of her she's been scared of her entire life. I'm glad I'm Raven's friend, 'cause I'm gonna be by her side for this whole thing, and we'll make through, together!"

Framed the hellish sky behind him, Beast Boy clench his gloved fist in grim determination.

For the first time since the End of the World started, Cyborg had a hopeful smile. "You have your moments sometimes, BB."

"Hey, if Rae's dad is like this, what do you think her mom was like?"

"I dunno, but if Big, Red, and Horny is any indication, I'm gonna hafta guess she takes after her."


"A friend is the person who knows all about you and still loves you."

-Elbert Hubbert


Hope you enjoyed the second chapter folks, more will be on the way eventually; but it's finals time at my college, and I have my future and stuff to think about…but, whatever. Anywhoo, this chappy (hell, the whole damn mess of stories) is dedicated to the true King of the Craft: Guardiansaiyoko. Yeah, I can admit Sai's the better writer.

'Gullible'

Ha-ha! You looked!