Chapter 1:

A/N: Two Reviews, three Favorites, five Followers, and over a hundred views in almost two days. You guys got me so pumped, I decided to go ahead and post the first chapter. Not sure how the Review, Favorite, or Follower thing works per chapter, but I'll learn as I go.

I'll try to post responses at the bottom for any QCC (Questions, Comments, or Concerns)

All the same, thank you guys. It's made my week...and it's not even over yet.

I'd like to try and get a chapter posted per week, but I won't promise it. As my momma always said, "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans." Unfortunately, life has a way of making a mess of even the most carefully laid preparations. All the same, I'll try to get these chapters out as quickly and cleanly as possible (however long it takes)

Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans franchise, and I'm still too rough around my fanfic edges to have a good solid joke to demonstrate my displeasure at this fact.

Without further adieu. *Que the dimming of the lights*

Falling Apart:

Chapter 1-

*End Theme Song

The large T-shaped tower stood isolated from the rest of the city on its own island perch in the middle of the Bay, as much a monument to the Titans formation as it was their home. While blue skies were a regular occurrence in Jump City, the northern wind fronts were sending down a mild cloud cover upon the west coast, with about a forty percent chance of rain threatening the area if one bothered to listen to the Weather Channel.

Cyborg currently stood in the kitchen whistling his happy tune as the Waffle-o-Matic 3k Turbo launched six large waffles onto his plate, each delectable piece adorned with semi-melted golden squares of butter spread and smothered to perfection in the dark amber liquid that was syrup. Clearly proud of his newly tested toy, he walked over to the table, plate and utensils in hand.

"Celebrating?" a usual monotoned voice asked from the couch. Raven sat there, engrossed in a book on the theories of ancient tomb curses. Her midnight blue hood was drawn back, allowing her shoulder-length purple hair to flow freely onto the couches arm rest.

"Hell yeah!" Cyborg hooted. "We took down our first big baddie in two months! Well... big by current standards." He cleared his throat, looking inquisitively over at Raven. "But what gave it away?"

"The whistling, the six waffles, the fact you bought yourself another waffle maker." She glanced over at him, raising an eyebrow at the last part.

"The signs were pretty clear," she finished, returning to her book, but not before sipping on her cup of tea; the aromas of ginger, chamomile, spearmint, jasmine, and lemon lingering around her.

The commons room door hissed open, prompting curious eyes to look up from their otherwise pressing matters.

"Oh friends," Starfire stated with delight, her form seeming to glow just as bright as her smile as she entered the day-lit room, "have you seen the boyfriend that is Robin?"

"Probably down in the evidence room," Cyborg stated with a gesture of his fork. "Control Freak should have been safely on ice like all the other villains. He's probably trying to figure out how he got out in the first place. And probably checking to see if any other villains got out too."

"So he wishes for thee 'time of aloneness'?" she asked curiously, gently floating down in front of the dining table. "Oh, I wish he'd talk to his Ni'ena-kuper'fos."

Raven glanced at Cyborg, and shrugged. While the mixed cultural language that came with the Tamaranian was confusing, she figured it was best to let her figure it out rather than ask for a translation.

"Uh, Star," Cyborg interjected, gently aware of the meaning of her alien words, having studied the Tamaranian language while he was hyped on the Max-7 processor chip. "It's fine. Every now and again, your boy Robin just needs to think things over."

A thought came to mind as he noticed her mood wasn't improving. "Is he being a good boyfriend?"

Full green eyes looked at him, almost mortified that he would ask such a question. "Oh yes friend!" she responded. "Robin is a grand boyfriend. He is kind, and thee attentive, and strong, and…." She seemed to struggle to pronounce the word.

"…Courteous." She smiled with a far-off look on her face, gently holding one arm with the other. "Robin is more than I deserve."

Cy stuffed a waffle into his mouth, clearly not as fazed as the princess. "Then don't worry about it. Robin is just being Robin. He'll talk to his Gen'da'hen when he's ready."

She beamed at his words, even if no one else understood, and gently wrapped her arms around the seated Titan. "Thank you friend, you have done the soothing of my soul."

"Any time Star," he said, returning the hug while avoiding the fullness of it. His reasoning: His hands were messy, he'd already seen what happens when Starfire got syrup in her hair, and he wasn't looking for a repeat.

Raven just watched them, a small but eased smile playing her face. While the princess was still troubled, she could sense the relief that now settled on her friend. She would be fine once Robin came out of his 'Cave'.

As if marking the end of a moment, the door hissed open at the proximity of another of the Tower's occupants.

"Dew, WUTHUP?" Beast Boy yawned, clearly out of his time zone as he stepped through the threshold. He stopped and stared as their alien friend, who still had yet to separate from the larger Titan. "Uh, something happen?"

The redhead separated from her friend, floating over to the new addition with a bright smile. "Yes. Friend Cyborg has been giving me the good advice."

"It was about Robin again, wasn't it?" he asked, his tone marked with curiosity.

When she nodded her excitement at his understanding, he sighed. 'Only Tin-Man', he thought.

Still yawning, he walked past Starfire and into the kitchen, opening the fridge with a click as he attempted to find his meal for the day. Finding his soy milk of choice, he hazily jumbled over to the cupboards to grab a bowl and his marshmallow puff-bites box before sitting down.

One shake. Two shake. A puzzled look played out on his face as Beast Boy attempted to draw out the boxes contents into his bowl. He shook the box again. No rattle…no cereal. Befuddled, he glanced inside the box. He was suddenly awake, screaming internally at the sight. EMPTY! It was EMPTY!

"Um," he started, hiding the majority of his pressing thoughts. "Has anyone seen my cereal?" He glanced at the front of the box to make sure he got the right one. Yep, it was his.

"You sure you didn't eat it all B?" Cyborg asked innocently, chowing down on another waffle.

"Yes," Starfire agreed, "you are known to eat much of the sugared breakfast foods."

Beast Boy looked up in thought before deducing, "No, shopping was Saturday. So I couldn't have eaten it all. This was still a relatively new box. So…what happened to all of it?"

Raven risked a glance over, expecting the changeling to suddenly start interrogating someone over his lost breakfast. It's what he'd done for years when someone consumed or disposed of his food, but…. A wave of disappointment seemed to ooze from him as he sighed. Uncharacteristically, he just set down the box, got up, and walked back to the fridge, looking for something else to eat.

"You alright man?" Cyborg asked, clearly not expecting his buddy to give up so easily on his missing one of his only preferable breakfast foods. "Normally you'd be freaking out by now."

"I have my suspects," he said half-heartedly, rummaging around through the fridge before pulling out a pre-cut package of tofu. "No matter how I slice it at this point: it was either payback for something I did, or an accident. No use getting worked up about it, at least…not this early."

"Friend Beast Boy, you do not wish to engage in the yelling and the demanding of who has consumed your food?"

"Nah," he said with a small smile, pulling out his new meal. "I'll just get another box next shopping trip."

Raven did a double take, the last half of the sentence she'd just read completely forgotten. "You're not mad?" It should have been a statement, her being an empath and all, but it came out as a question.

"Oh, I'm plenty mad," he said reassuringly between chewed bites, "I'm just not in the mood to act on it."

She observed him again, gently sensing out those emotions flowing off of him.

There wasn't an ounce of anger in his entire being. Disappointment, yes; Worry, without a doubt; but as if in counter, some large orbs of Hope wisping in and out of his being like fireflies. But what stood out most was how the normally bright changeling now seemed to lack the hue he normally possessed. Even the night before, after facing off against Control Freak, she had taken a glance at his radiant aura. But today, he seemed so…dim; the only light in his aura coming from his Hopeful sprites. And none of it directed at his cereal.

"If it brings you closure," she said, absently sipping on her tea, "Cyborg turned your cereal into powder, and blended it into his waffle mix."

"Way to kill the payback Raven," Cyborg muttered, quickly stuffing another waffle into his mouth as if he could get rid of the evidence.

"Was this for replacing your bacon with tofu?"

Three sets of eyes fell on the Green One in disbelief.

"Uh, actually it was for eating the last of my grandma's homemade potato salad. She was even nice enough to make it vegan for you," Cyborg amended before muttering, "And Grandma Stone made it taste good with no bacon or eggs too." Noticing that Beast Boy hadn't made any attempt to comment, he raised his one eyebrow in observation. "Are you feeling alright BB? Normally, you and I would be bugging lil' miss grumpy over there with our arguing by now."

Raven had the decency to look peeved as he pointed to her with his thumb. But still she kept her eyes on Beast Boy, genuinely curious about why his aura would change so drastically overnight.

"I see its quiet this morning," Robin smiled unaware of his interruption, walking into the Commons with a more than pleased grin on his face. He looked at a clock hanging just above the fridge. He looked down, then looked back up. "Uh, Beast Boy…you do know it's before eleven o'clock…right?"

"And?"

Shrugging his shoulders with a somewhat disappointed look on his face, the Boy Wonder walked past them to the fridge. It didn't last long as a smile once more settled onto his face. "Well who would expect you to be up this early? I mean, we aren't even doing our monthly intense training workout today and I already feel like today is near perfect. Quiet morning…you're up early…and we might finally get some rain today." Just to name a few.

More than a few glances said that they took offense to his 'intense training' comment, clearly wondering how that constituted to a perfect day; but for the most part Beast Boy just sighed inwardly now that the attention was off of him. He glanced to the side, noting a particular Empath was giving him a quiet glare that said he wasn't out of the woods as far as she was concerned.

'Ah man,' he sighed inwardly.

"Any who," Cyborg grumbled, "did you find out anything about how Control Freak got out of deep freeze?"

The mood quickly tensed as all eyes turned inquisitively to their leader.

"Not much," Robin said, crossing his arms and leaning back as he closed the fridge empty-handed, his good mood slightly fouled. "I checked with the maximum-security prisons. Evidently, they blame us for not putting Control Freak on our 'Most Wanted' list."

"Which means?" Cyborg encouraged.

A frown on his face, Robin looked up, "They transferred him to a lower security facility, one that didn't have backup generators. He thawed out when they had a short power reboot."

"So how did he…escape?" Raven continued calmly, cautiously weighing Robin's reaction versus her word choices.

"He had an extra remote," Robin explained, wondering how the thought had never crossed his mind. "He was able to get out through the security cameras."

"Where did he hide it?" Beast Boy wondered aloud. "I mean sure he was frozen, but you'd think we'd have made sure he didn't have…." He cut himself off as the realization dawned on him. "Dude, that's just…nasty."

Realization also dawning on the other Titans, they each cringed to themselves.

"That is the…disgusting," Starfire acknowledged, shaking her head as she held her shivering body. "Let us talk no further on such…gross and unpleasant things. The matter is that he is returned to the prison, yes?"

Robin's sigh told everyone that this wasn't necessarily the case. "No. He's in the detention center."

"What!?" multiple voices cried, chairs falling backwards as the other male Titans suddenly stood up.

Raven sighed irritably, marking her page and closing her book before gently floating over. "There goes that silent morning," she muttered. The fallen seating utensils were encased in a black aura as they righted themselves, even as she pulled out another chair to seat herself. 'This outta be good.'

"What do you mean he's still in the Tower?" Cyborg demanded, his hand resting possessively on his chrome chest. "In my Tower? The detention center? Really, Robin?"

"Does that mean you made sure he didn't have an extra remote, this time?" Beast Boy asked. "It would suck if we caught him just so he could escape again."

"Yes. I was very…thorough this time." Even their leader had to shake off the unpleasantness of the thought. Starfire even made a show of gently floating behind Raven as a sign of revulsion, much to his chagrin.

Their point made, he continued. "They need time before they can set up another cell for him. With most of the villains frozen these past couple years, containment has been relatively easy."

"But whenever a new super-villain shows up or an old one thaws, they can't just put them on ice," Cyborg finished, his thoughts catching up with Robin's. "Only the Brotherhood and Doctor Chang had the kind of tech that could do that and keep them alive. And I'm assuming they haven't been able to reverse-engineer it."

"I could name a few big shot companies that would either love to have access to that technology, or already do. But it's rarely as…preserving as the Brotherhood's was," Robin confirmed. "The UN is still debating with France over how they allowed a criminal mastermind to hide directly under their nose. So no one has been authorized reverse-engineering until the hazing has stopped."

"I believe the term 'mastermind' explains 'how'," Beast Boy answered. "Besides, the Brain could have hidden just as well under Paris as anywhere else, although…." He took a moment to gather his thoughts. "…I guess France makes sense when ya think about it."

Four Titans glanced among each other before looking at him, Raven chiming up as their mutual spokesperson. "And what do you mean by that?"

"I mean the Brain is French, Malla is French, and Rouge is French," he said like it was a common knowledge. "So it makes sense that they'd hole up in the one place that has all the comforts of home for their big finale."

"Malla is a gorilla," Cyborg pointed out critically.

Unfazed, Beast Boy just looked at him. "He's a French gorilla. He's still French."

'Just because I thought about making French toast this morning, doesn't make it French cuisine,' the tin-man retorted mentally, consuming another waffle to keep his mouth shut, grumbling as he chewed.

"And you just thought of this now?" Raven asked, clearly irritated that so much trouble could have been avoided with such insight, albeit about two years too late.

"Uh...," he chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck with his normal half-goofy grin, "…hindsight is twenty-twenty? Besides, I only said it makes sense. We found him in friggin' South America the first time, and there's absolutely no reason for him to be there. I'm just saying that defeating him on his home turf was ironic."

"The only irony here is you using the word 'ironic'," the Empath jabbed sarcastically.

He just smiled at her, one of his usual goofy smiles that revealed his mild under-bite and pronounced lower canines, his pointed ears wiggling slightly in tease as if to say 'you know you like it'.

"Back on topic," Robin stated, refocusing his team. "Until they have a cell prepared for Control Freak, we're holding him here. And as far as they are concerned, they haven't had anyone else thaw out. Control Freak wasn't the first villain transferred to a lesser facility, but I bet they're transferring them back."

"I should hope so," Cyborg affirmed, "a blunder like that again, and we could end up with someone worse out and about, like that little circuit rat Gizmo." He clenched his fist, thinking about all the times that punk had messed with his systems in the past. Now he was more or less content that the little twerp had been MIA for the past couple years.

"Please friends," Starfire interjected gently, "let us not think on such terrible people. While there are many villains not thee accounted for, we have removed a great many from the theatre."

There was a moment of silence, earning a confused look from the otherwise sincere Tamaranian. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Um, it's 'play' Starfire," Robin corrected kindly. "We removed the bad guys from 'play'."

"Oh, yes. I see," she said with a smile. Even after all the years they had been together, her full grasp of the English language was still…innocently lacking.

"Speaking of removing from play," Cyborg smiled, wrapping a large arm around Beast Boy, "what was up with that last night? Three critical moves in one game, I'd almost be proud of you Grass Stain if I thought it would last."

"Um, three? Game?" Beast Boy asked trying to unwedge his head out from under Cyborg's massive arm. He already didn't like where this was going.

"Mmm-hmm," the tin-man said with a smile, using the robotic fingers of his free hand to count for emphasis. "That fight with Control Freak. First, you take away his remote with that stealthy little snatch'n'grab of yours. Second, you smashed his little toy. And third, you practically single-handedly whooped his ass. If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were holdin' back B."

Beast Boy attempted a laugh, but it felt about as fake as they came.

"Speaking of last night." Beast Boy swallowed as Robin clearly decided to shoot straight for the kill shot. "What was that last night Beast Boy? You were acting overly aggressive, and you took threatening him too far. And I did some research, there's no record of a snake like that."

'Of course, you did the research,' the changeling thought bitterly. He'd been doing everything in his power to avoid this, and now Cyborg had offered him up on a platinum studded diamond platter.

He tried to think of a way out. He could try bluffing, but Robin was in a 'no joke' mood judging from his tone. He didn't have an excuse prepared and he certainly didn't want to talk about it, but knowing Robin….

"It was nothing," he deflected, putting on his best smile as he pulled himself free of Cyborg's grasp, "just trying to scare him a little. Raven did it to Doctor Light, so I thought I'd give it a shot." He scratched behind his head with a nervous chuckle. "Was I convincing?"

'Of all the bull you could come up with,' Raven thought, starring foam daggers at the changeling; it may not have been killing intent, but they would still get the point across. He barely met her eyes before turning away quickly.

"Uh-huh?" Robin raised an eyebrow at the exchange, clearly unconvinced. "And the snake?"

"What snake?" he asked, doing his best to keep his nervousness from showing. "The one I turned into last night?"

Robin gave him the 'no-shit' stare.

"I think it was just a big Python or something," he said, realizing he was scratching the back of his head nervously. He quickly sat on his hands to keep from nervous fidgeting, but Robin seemed to notice. "Maybe an Anaconda?" he offered weakly.

"Last I checked Beast Boy," Robin said, moving a little closer than the green one felt comfortable with, "Anaconda's don't have venom dripping off their fangs, and there isn't a venomous snake alive that gets that large. And you should know what you turned into…so try again."

'Oh, so now he's a detective,' Beast Boy complained internally.

Beast Boy could feel the back of his neck sweat, the top of his head itching with nervousness. Robin only put pressure on people like this when he was in "interrogation mode", and it only made it worse that he was on the receiving end. He didn't have an answer, not one that would satisfy Robin, and it didn't help that he didn't know himself. It just sort of… became part of him. He changed without thinking. Instinctually. And the snake had just been the result.

"Is it that thing again?"

Beast Boy winced at Robin mentioning it, but he supposed it hurt more that he referred to it as a 'thing'. It wasn't his fault that no one knew what it was, much less himself, but…it wasn't bad from what he could tell. It wasn't for that 'thing', as Robin called it, Beast Boy wasn't sure Raven would be here with them.

He glanced up past Robin's face, meeting the Empath's eyes. Her face was a blank slate as usual, staring intently at him, as if also waiting for his answer. Still in thought with himself, he swore he caught it. The little ray of light he practically daydreamed about. It was faint, but he could have sworn he saw her eyes soften and her lip shift into a smile. It was a sharing of appreciation that only she could give, as if she understood what was going through his head… and knowing her, that was quite possible.

"What? That werewolf thingy?" Cyborg demanded, interrupting both Robin and Beast Boy. "Nah man, I gave him the antidote. And in case ya hadn't noticed, B isn't acting all carnivore. Plus, the only time it came out was with Adonis, so I stand by the results."

Beast Boy sighed inwardly, doing his best to shield his feelings from Raven as he thought back to that time. He supposed they had all been too busy going all out against an undead, demon-powered Slade and his army of flaming thralls to notice his second time transforming. He could remember that feeling of adrenaline pumping through him as he got angry at the inter-dimensional creatures. They had been there to take Raven away, take away his friend, and even now, that thought made him seethe.

'I'm not losing anyone else,' he thought forcefully, closing his eyes to quickly drown the memories that began to surface.

CRASH!

The sound forced him to open his eyes as he looked at the source of the noise. Two of the common room windows were shattered, a fading black aura disappearing from view as quickly as it had appeared.

Almost instinctively, everyone was turning to Raven, staring at her as she lowered her head, attempting to hide herself under her hood. Her cheeks were flush with embarrassment, as she quietly reined her emotions back under her control.

"Um, sorry," she said in a soft voice, her shoulders laxing beneath her cloak before they could tense.

"Is something wrong friend?" Starfire asked quickly. "It would seem you have become thee set of up."

Taking a deep breath once more, Raven raised her head, her eyes at least showing underneath her hood. "Beast Boy saved me," she stated firmly, earning her a more than baffled look from the changeling, "so stop calling him a 'thing'. If it wasn't for him, I-" She let the thought go unfinished. She knew they all did a lot for her sake, giving her space when she needed it, and overall respecting her desire to remain separate from them.

But deep down, if she had the desire to dig that deep within herself, she knew she owed him for a lot more than that. She was only sitting at the table right now because Beast Boy had drawn her out, sometimes irritably so, of her own isolation to feel mostly comfortable around people over the years. He respected her solitude, but that didn't mean he let her dwell in it.

Plus, she felt she owed him for his kind words the previous night.

The atmosphere was cooler as the open window blew in the scent of a possible rainstorm, almost sobering in tandem with Raven's words.

"Fine," Robin absolved, turning to leave before he realized he hadn't eaten yet, sagging his shoulders in mild defeat. "If Cyborg and Raven can both vouch for you, then I'll let it slide." He quickly turned back to Beast Boy, his stare intent. "But on one condition. If you feel anything is off or odd, you immediately get to Cyborg for a DNA scan. Otherwise, you know what happens. Do you hear me?"

If the oppressive feeling that fell on Beast Boy's shoulders was any heavier, he thought he might just lay down and never get back up. He knew what Robin meant. Everyone but Raven knew what Robin meant. He wasn't trying to be a jerk, just protective…in his own demeaning way…even if Beast Boy was always on the receiving end. Suddenly, the threat of getting kicked off the team and-slash-or imprisonment sounded mildly, if not depressingly, appealing; even if it was just a threat at this point.

"Yes sir," Beast Boy whispered, his ears drooping lower. He could sense the sorry looks from Cyborg and Starfire as Robin continued walking away, but more importantly…. He glanced up, his head still hung low, to look at Raven. She was making a habit of giving him that look, like she was trying to extract the answer from him with a silent inquiry. He didn't have a reply, so he opted to just looked back down in defeat.

"You alright B?" Cyborg asked in concern, staring down at the shapeshifter after Robin had disappeared. "I'm sorry man, he didn't have to go that far."

"No, he's right," Beast Boy amended, earning him looks from everyone, "I acted out of line last night, and I can see why he'd think 'it' was coming back out. I'm the one who should be sorry guys."

"But you did not do any thing wrong," Starfire pointed out, resting a hand on his shoulder. "You acted as in the right, even though it was without the permission. As friend Cyborg has said, you stole the Control Freak's remote and dealt a decided blow." Beast Boy looked up into those gentle green eyes, wondering how they were so encouraging after knowing what Robin had insinuated. "Perhaps your intent was not to harm the Control Freak, but truly to scare him."

Beast Boy only shook his head, the startled looks returning to everyone. "No, I know what I felt in my instincts, and it felt like I was gonna bite him."

Saying that felt sour on his tongue, like he could still taste the cheese-puffs, garlic potato chips, and sweat from Control Freaks space sword. It was like the guy never washed his hands, and it had taken Beast Boy four brushings to get the taste out of his mouth.

"And the venom?" Cyborg asked, looking at him intently.

He could only shrug. "I don't know. I didn't think about what I turned into, I just did it. But Robin was probably right about that too." Yeah, that taste wasn't coming off with a standard brushing.

It was silent longer than Beast Boy would have liked. They could make fun of his birth name right now, and he'd take it like a pro; it wasn't his fault he had the same name as a fat orange cat. Anything was better than them going quiet; almost anything anyway.

"Well don't sweat it man," Cyborg said suddenly cheerful, gently bumping his shoulder. "After we get those windows Raven busted cleaned up, you up for some Game Station, Grass Stain? I've got Rocket Racers 5 with some pedal to the metal."

Even Cyborg's competitive nickname for him and his mood change did little to rouse Beast Boy from his stupor. "Nah, I'll sit this one out. I think…I'll just go back to bed, since it'll probably be a slow day and all." He gave a mild attempt at a smile. "I'm up way too early anyway. Wake me if there's trouble. Or... you know, let the Alert do that."

Almost half-consciously, he put his soy milk and resealed tofu back in the fridge and returned his bowl to the cupboard, aware that he was watched every step of the way. Grabbing his empty cereal box, he tossed it in the trash right before he left with the hiss of a closing door behind him.

It was a slow and lonely trek back to his room. He didn't recall the hallways being this long before, but he guessed it was all in his head.

He sniffed, wiping away a stray itch in his nose.

'I guess I can't do anything right, huh', he thought in dejection, remembering Robin's words. A serrated pain shot into his left arm, bursting through his nerve endings up to the forefront of his cranium.

"Gaaah!" he cried, holding in his outburst in as he placed a hand over his eye, his head beginning to send the shooting pains all over his body.

His sharp inhale brought with it a flurry of sensations that immediately began rushing through him, categorizing and distinguishing themselves as powerful aromas. He could smell the ground, the overwhelming scent of long mopped dirt and mud mixed with powerful cleaning chemical that seemed to scratch at the front of his brain. He could smell his room, a scent that once kept him comfortable in its musky embrace, but now overpowered his nose in pungent disgust. He could smell the gasoline and oil of the T-car several floors below, their lingering scent almost as terrible as the cleaner on the floor.

He could smell his friends, each one of their scents stretching out in a unique fragrance that could almost be distinguished as individual colors. He could "see" where they had walked the night before, each scent unique and telling a different story; the biological chemicals of their beings playing out before him.

He steadied himself on the wall as his balance faltered, leaning into it as he clenched his eyes shut, not because of the pain, but because it was too bright. Bright white circles leaped about his vision, and even closed, left some dancing afterimages. His ears rang, his fingers brushing against the wall sounding like an earthquake. And that taste, that god-awful taste just lingered on his tongue.

Pathetic. Fool. Worthless.

He felt it in his left arm, the one that held him to the wall. A pain erupted, eating deep into his bones. Pulling, snapping, biting; he felt his arm shifting too quickly for him to grasp a solid shape. One second it felt like a paw, the next a pincer, the next a set of claws, the next a hoof, the next a sprout of tentacles. It wouldn't stop, it couldn't just be one or the other; it was like it had to be all of them at once.

It hurt, he couldn't feel his arm anymore, and yet it hurt so much.

'STOP IT!' he shrieked mentally, listening as it echoed all over his being soundlessly.

"CRACK!"

His senses rushing back to their original place, his green eyes staring lidlessly at nothing. With the rush of his overwhelmed senses returning to normal, he felt nausea like he'd never experienced before. He couldn't bend over, he couldn't heave, he could only stand there as it washed over him in a terrible drove.

He gained a little feeling in his neck and began to turn. He didn't know what was more terrifying: this experience, or what he was seeing now. Where his forearm had been, a strange shape had projected itself outward from the stump, moving in all directions like the spines of a sea urchin. It remained his colour of green, but it shined lightly like the carapace of a beetle, its spines piercing into the walls, the floor, and the ceiling.

Terrified, he tried to imagine it as it was, as a hand; as his hand. It didn't budge. Gasping lightly, and his heartbeat pounding like a war drum, he clenched his eyes shut as he forced the image of his desire upon the shape. He felt the spines slowly retreat, pulling themselves out of the Tower as easily as they had dug themselves in. It took all his effort, all his focus. Even morphing into something as big as a Tyrannosaurus had always taken less effort than this. He felt his arm slowly turn to a near formless state, shaping itself like putty until his hand sat reaching back at the wall gloves and all.

Terror gripped him, and his instincts took over. He ran…he ran as hard and as fast as he could manage. His door hissed open, but not fast enough. He jumped into his bed, burrowing himself silently into the sheets. Safe, he was safe, and yet he was scared.

He began sobbing. It hurt so much, but at the same time it was a bitter-sweet release. He felt his covers tremble with him as he pulled them tighter, unsure of what to do. He could feel his left-hand gripping tighter over his chest as he hugged it closer, trying to bite his lip to keep any tears falling. The taste of copper entered his mouth as his fangs bit a little too deep.

"What's happening to me?" he cried, but it came out little more than a sob, and he couldn't do anything more to stop the tears from falling when no one answered.

A/N: If there is anything that needs edited, or is connecting in a weird way for you guys, let me know and I'll try to clean up the text.

Also, just for future reference, if you guys ask questions and I write "Spoilers!", this will mean that I have the answer set in a later chapter (I have to keep you guys coming back some how ;) )

Again, constructive criticism is a must have, and I don't think I can grow as an author without it.

Tamaranian Translations (Original Translations):

Ni'ena-kuper'fos - "one who is close to the heart, but emotionally distant." This is not in correlation to the Rekmas.

Gen'da'hen - quiet literally: "one whose heart is shared"; lover; beloved; true love; soul-mate; used on Tamaran between two couples in a very deep, emotionally bonding and emotinally intimate relationship.

Anyhow, I'd like to respond to my first two Reviews in a show of thanks (I don't have any emoji's to put here, so I'll respond with this: *beaming happy face*). Please pardon if I seem to be rambling.

abbey290901: I've been writing on and off for almost a decade (aspiring novel author since I was a teen). This is just the first Fanfic that I felt good enough about to go ahead and join the Fanfiction community. As for Beast Boy: 5 seasons (still too soon), 1 movie, and two years of potential character growth. He's still Beast Boy, but no one stays the same. Things Change

Plutonimus: Thank you. I use a three-step grading process: 1. Edit as I write the chapter, 2. Edit after I finish the chapter, 3. Edit as I prepare to post. It's not a perfect system, but it helps

To both of you: I look forward to hearing from you guys on this chapter, and any further chapters I post (because there will be more).

Thank you for stepping out and being my first Reviewers

Hard Edit Update 4-14-2018

Translation Update 4-29-2018

Final Edit 10-14-2018