A/N: And here's Chapter 3! Woot! I didn't think I'd be able to finish it so quickly, but here it is. Thanks a bunch also for the reviews/comments. I'm glad you like this! ^_^ I'm having fun trying to describe all the different things in Raven's head, so there may be a few wordy bits tangled up in this installment, but enjoy the read!
Disclaimer: Uh...
Robin: Now-
Me: See first chapter.
Robin: ...
Me: Don't look at me. You're not even in this chapter. :P
A whirlpool of Raven's signature black energy glowed to life as it spat out Beast Boy and Cyborg into a new realm. They were deposited on a flat, floating chunk of rock where nothing made any sense at all. There was rich ceiling of stars—red stars, of course—and a few large asteroids. The titans turned in time to see the portal that had delivered them closing up into nothingness.
For a moment, neither of them said anything. The shock of the new surroundings was more than just a change of scenery. There was nothing vaguely normal about this new place. Twisted wood-like sculptures formed archways at various points, the nearest one having been an anchor for the portal.
"Oh, man!" Cyborg gaped, staring overhead as another asteroid streaked by. There wasn't even a pathway out, just more floating rocks. This was bad. This was really bad. "Now you've done it. I told you we shouldn't have gone in her room." He tapped his forearm controls, fiddling with the buttons and interface. "Man…this can't be right."
"What can't be?" Beast Boy turned in a complete circle. "Dude, where are we?" He took a few steps in one direction, then turned and traced them back in the other side.
"You're asking the wrong robot. My sensors must be on the blink, 'cause they're saying we're in Titans Tower." Cyborg waved the arm around and then fiddled with it some more. It was disconcerting enough to be dumped in a place covered in weirdness, but it was ten times worse when he realized that his own systems weren't functioning properly—at least, at the moment.
"Right." Beast Boy said, slowly. "So how do we get back?" He cast a glance at the cyborg still scowling at his own arm. He'd prefer to follow Cyborg's idea over his own, since the easy-going titan generally had decent plans for getting out of trouble.
Cyborg shrugged. "I guess we start walking." He surveyed the closest floating rock. It wouldn't be that hard to jump over. Even if he fell short, he could count on the green titan to morph into something with wings and keep them in the air for the necessary few seconds.
"Come on. I'm serious. We're on a rock in the middle of nowhere, it's not like we'll-" Beast Boy stopped in mid-whine as the fragments of floating rocks began to rearrange themselves into a cracked, but useful pathway. A very welcome, useful pathway. "O-kay."
Cyborg was the first to move, starting out. He inspected the pathway with a faint air of suspicion, ignoring the strangeness of it for the moment, based on the sheer fact that it was the only pathway before them and therefore the most logical course of action. "Feels solid." He continued further out. "Come on, B."
Beast Boy grunted, falling into step beside them. "If sending us to Weirdsville's Raven's idea of a joke, I am so not laughing." He cast a glance around to see an old withered tree in the foreground with a curious raven perched on one gnarled branch. "Definitely not laughing." He grumbled.
"Hey, she didn't send us here. You're the one who went snooping in her room and popping zits in her magic mirror." Cyborg sighed. "You shouldn't have done that."
The raven on the gnarled branch eyed them curious, its red eyes flaring faintly as the two titans continued on.
"But, Cy, who booby-traps a mirror?"
Cyborg grunted. "Maybe it wasn't a trap. Maybe it's Raven's way home. Maybe this is where she's from." He suppressed a shudder. It wasn't a very inviting kind of homeland. If he came from here too, then he'd definitely be like the mysterious purple-haired girl.
"Maybe. Definitely creepy enough." Beast Boy shifted closer, his shoulders hunching up towards his ears. "Creeptacular, in fact." He shivered.
A wispy, child-like voice broke the awkward silence in the mysterious void. "Turn back." There was the faintest feminine hint to it. "Turn back."
Both titans whirled around to look behind them. Beast Boy stood half-behind Cyborg, his eyes wide. "L-like I was saying..." He licked his lips.
"Turn back." The voice intoned.
The titans twisted to see and on a rocky archway over the makeshift path, there were three small black birds, each with a pair of glowing red eyes. "Turn back. Turn back." They chorused together. "Turn back."
"Sweet!" Beast Boy exclaimed. "Betcha they can tell us how to get home. Finally." He streaked away from Cyborg and dashed over to the archway, grinning up at them, pausing for a moment to think of what to ask.
"Careful." Cyborg said, wearily. "How do we know they're not a threat?" But his words were duly ignored as the green boy approached the raven trio. "BB…"
"Hel-lo? Remember me? Beast Boy? If they were dangerous, I'd know." Beast Boy puffed out his chest with pride. "It's kind of-"
"Uh-huh." Cyborg rolled his eye. Beast Boy knowing how to talk to animals might be a given, but the way he'd go about it was probably on par with his ability to properly apologize to Raven. He sighed. If the green boy had simply used his head in the first place, then they probably wouldn't have been in this place to begin with. Then again, Cyborg stifled a groan—he probably should've stopped the idiot in the first place.
Beast Boy, of course, was ignoring the cyborg as usual as he approached the raven trio, tempering his voice to a soothing coo. "Hey, little guys. My buddy and I were wondering if you could help us-" He blinked up at the archway. The raven trio was gone. Beast Boy blinked and then stared down at his feet. There were now five ravens there with glowing red eyes and they were chanting the same mantra over and over again.
"Turn back. Turn baaaccckk." The warning building up to a crescendo as the birds' beaks suddenly grew longer and sprouted a row of shiny, sharp teeth. "Turn back!" Each eye split in half to form another, the appearance now of Raven's traditional four-eyes.
"Aie!" Beast Boy jerked back in surprise, whirling and running smack into Cyborg. They tumbled to the pathway in a tangle of arms and legs.
The birds now multiplied into a flock of ravens, zooming past Cyborg and zeroing in on the scrambling shape-shifting green specimen. Beast Boy's eyes bugged out as he hurriedly morphed into a hippopotamus and opened his mouth wide to capture three of them on his tongue. Snapping his mouth shut with a self-satisfied smirk, the expression turned teary when the prey squirmed and fought inside his mouth. Opening his mouth, Beast Boy tried to shake them off only to see that the trio had latched onto his tongue with their sharp-toothed beaks.
Cyborg wasn't faring any better as the birds dive-bombed him, beating against his cyborg shell with their angry wings and biting everywhere they could with their sharp-toothed beaks. "Get 'em off me! Get 'em off me!" Cyborg shouted, waving his arms as he ran along the pathway. Running was useless because the birds immediately followed him. "Cut it out already!" He aimed his cannon and fired a shot. "Take that, huh? How'd you like that?"
And back and forth they went.
First Beast Boy morphed into an ostrich followed by Cyborg, then the flock streaked after him. Cyborg hitched a ride on the ostrich-turned-llama, blasting the creatures back with his sonic cannon shot. One of the toothed birds swooped wildly past them, drawing the Cyborg's fire.
"No, you do not!" Cyborg growled, taking aim and firing off several round bolts. At one point, the bird flew straight towards them, aiming low. "I gotcha." Cyborg twisted to the side and fired down.
It registered a moment too late, what exactly it was that he'd done. There was barely time to see Beast Boy's panic-stricken expression as his ears folded backwards and they plummeted downwards.
Oh no-!
Cyborg grabbed for the jagged edge of the broken path, holding steady with one hand while nearly throttling the green llama with the other in an attempt to get a better hold on the kid. He was starting to haul them both back up topside when a new voice caught his ears.
"Hey guys!"
Beast Boy stopped squirming as Cyborg turned to see. He couldn't believe his ears and when he did see who was speaking, he couldn't believe his eyes either. Raven was standing just a few feet away, grinning merrily one hand extended in a slight wave.
She was standing upside down.
Upside down without the slightest problem—even her cloak was falling perfectly in line. The second shock that registered was the fact that the cloak wasn't her usual purple-ish blue hue, but a bright, vibrant pink. Her smile was still visible and she didn't seem to be the least bit put off by the strange surroundings.
"What's up?"
Cyborg blinked. "I don't know anymore." The words came out as an almost whine. He tried to twist his head only to have Beast Boy slam right into him as they tumbled to the new 'ground'. They were no longer falling up, but down. "Whoa!" He yelped.
Raven giggled, not even making the slightest attempt to hide the fact that she'd actually just giggled.
Beast Boy's llama form melted away as he took on his human appearance once more. He looked around from the ground to Cyborg and then to the Pink Raven. His head shook, his mind boggling at what he was seeing before him contrasting with what he knew inside of his little green brain. "Raven?" He sputtered. "How did-where are-what just-" He definitely couldn't think straight at all, which was probably why the only question that made it past his lips wasn't really a sensible one at all. "-why are you wearing pink?"
The pink Raven giggled again. "'Cause it's my favorite color?" She shrugged as if the answer was obvious.
"It is?" Beast Boy stared at her. That was something he didn't think he could fit his head around—ever. Raven liked Pink? He slapped his head.
It didn't help.
Cyborg slowly stood up, dusting himself off. "Look, I'd love to talk fashion, but I don't suppose you know how to get home, do you?" He poked at the controls on his cyborg arm.
"The Forbidden Door." Pink Raven said, matter-of-factly. She pointed with one pink banded arm towards the rest of the path extending beyond several other arches before stopping at the end on one distant asteroid rock. "It's the only way out, but you don't want to go there." She flashed a grin. "Not now, anyway."
Beast Boy and Cyborg exchanged a glance, then turned back to her. "Uh...yeah, we do." They chorused.
"Fine." Pink Raven shrugged. "But don't say I didn't warn you." Stretching out her arms like wings, she began to make airplane sounds, running down the pathway towards the next arch. There was a hop and a skip in her step, a degree of happiness that was almost surreal.
Cyborg gaped openly before turning to the green boy beside him. "Have you ever seen her this happy?" He started after her.
Beast Boy shrugged, hurrying after him. "Dude, I didn't even know Raven could do happy." He watched her skipping off and a faint pang in his chest made him tuck the feeling away for later thought.
They strolled through the archway and everything faded into weirdness.
"Oh man." Cyborg groaned. Beast Boy didn't know what to say. They'd walked out of one problem and right into another one.
A peaceful looking landscape was stretched out before them. A bright yellow sky, stone arch springs stretched over head and there were other happy-girlish things adorning their new surroundings. It was relaxing and terrifying in the same moment.
"Now where are we?" Cyborg tapped his arm again.
The path continued on, threading through the next arch and there was a huge meadow split in half by the pathway itself, showing pink grass and pink trees. A cheerful, happy and peaceful landscape—set in pink.
They definitely weren't getting anywhere anytime soon.
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