I do not own the Teen Titans
Chapter 3
Action & Danger, Ripped From the Headlines!
Harley Quinn leans back against the wall, the wall behind the bench she's occupying in the holding cell. Her legs are demurely crossed, and a notepad is laid across her knee. She taps the end of a pen against her cheek. "Zo, vhen didt you start to hate yor vater?"
I roll my eyes. "That's the best you can do?"
"Huh? But my puddin' loves my headshrinker gag."
"'Gag' is right. You couldn't psychoanalyze yourself out of a paper bag."
She nods her head hyperkinetically at me, and the bells on the ends of her harlequin hat jingle fiercely. "That's just what my puddin' says!"
"Whatever." I sit up on the bench I'm lounged across. "And stop interrupting. When you have a story, you can tell it, now shut up and let me tell mine." Ummmm... "Where'd I stop?"
"Beast Boy had just played ya like a fiddle."
I send evil thoughts across the cell to her. "Cut the editorial comments." I square my shoulders against the wall, and continue.
Once the ringing in my ears from the righteous andjust explosion fades, I hear a horrible moaning. Well, it's like a laughing, interspersed with horrible moaning. Kind of a 'ha ha ha ha owwww! Ha ha' kind of thing. And that doesn't help his case, let me tell you. "Show yourself, you poophead, so I can beat the crapout of you!"
"Ohh, ohhh, ha hah ho ha ha haa--"
"Dickweed!" I flip a hex in the general direction of his annoying chuckles, and am rewarded with a 'Yelp!!' That was a muchmore satisfying sound, but he starts laughing again. "What's so damned funny?!"
Out of the dark he answers. "Oh dude, your voice, your voice, you shoulda heard yourself. 'What? What? WHAT??!!'. Man, was that a hoot!" Then he starts laughing again. The pooper poophead.
"Shaddup!" I fling several hexes out to where I think he is, though it looks like I'm wrong this time, because there are no satisfying yelps or owwies or anything else. He must have moved fast, because the pinky glow of my hexes doesn't reveal squat.
Instead, he has the nerve to start making accusations, backed up by the facts. Can you believe the nerve? "Serves you right! You started it!"
"Now don't try to change the subject, which is 'you', and your and Stone's nasty, dirty, lecherous, chauvinist pig little minds!"
"Yeah, 'Starfire', that's what this is allll about."
Oh, yeah, I did do that. "Can't blame me for trying."
"Yes I can. And you can't blame me for trying back at you. You tricked me, I fooled you. We're even steven."
Bastard. I'd almost say he was right, except I got the short end of the stick on that 'even' exchange. Still, since I can't find him and kill him right now, I'll just put on my 'being reasonable' face and see what else I can find out. "Okay, you're right, Beastie." I dramatically sigh. "So Stone isn't a 'playah'?"
"Nah. Made it up."
"All of it?"
"Yup."
"And you and Raven...?"
"None of your business, HIVE girl."
"Really?" Pause, two, three, four. "That says a lot right there, Beastie."
He doesn't answer. Then... he still doesn't answer. Probably pouting. Let's try a different tack. "So what gave me away?"
Harley interrupts. Again. "Oh! Oh! I know! I know I know!" She throws her arm in the air and waves it frantically. "Pick me! I know!"
Ho boy... "Okay, Harley..."
"Ya dress like a proper lady. 'Cept for the scand'lously short skirt, I mean, really, do ya like flashing yer panties at everyone ya rob? It may be cute now, but trust me, I know - I've seen Cat Woman up close - what's cute and sexy when yer're sixteen is how-shall-we-del'cately-say-this 'slutty and worn' once ya reach the big three-oh--"
"You had a reason to interrupt, right?" I interrupt her right back; I'm adaptable.
"Aaaaah, right, it's because Starfire's free spirited."
"??"
"Yer waist, sweetie! Beast Boy patted down yer belly. He got a free grope, and he also felt yer clothes, not Starfire's nekkid belly." She pauses for a moment, then, "Yer're just pretending ya didn't know that, right?"
"Of course." And that's my story, and I'm going to stick to it.
So Beastie says, "I'm not telling you that. Geez dude, I'm not a moron."
"A girl can hope."
He guffaws back, and I expect suitable recognition from him of my verbal sparring skill, but there's just this pause, and after a little too long he growls. And he growls again. A really deep kind of thing, one of those rumblers that are all low-down bass, and hard to really figure out where they come from. It's really impressive, but I know his beastly tricks, so I plop one hand on my hip and flop the other one in his general direction. "Nice and scary there, Beastie. Now heel, or I'll whap your nose good with a newspaper."
Then a squeaky little voice sounds next to my shoulder. "I don't think he'll like that"
"Huh!?" And it sounds like, but it can't really be... "Beast Boy?"
"Umm, maybe we can call a truce?"
"But didn't you--" Then that growl happens again, and, sure as things that are sure, it isn't coming from around my left shoulder. "What's that?" I whisper.
"Don't you know?" he whispers back.
"I wouldn't have asked if I did, you little twerp." Honestly, the nerve of some people.
"Rein it in, lucky, you're the one working for Mumbo."
"Hold it right there, Sherlock," I snap right back, Loudly, and with Right on my side. "That's a lie, plain and simple. I was shanghaied just like you. I was walking down the street, minding my own business, and what did I get for being a peaceable, law-abiding citizen for once? I get knocked down, star bolted, shot at, and cycloned!"
"Well, I didn't know..."
"It's enough to drive one to... to a life of crime!"
I know I got him, because there's just the start of his answering laugh, when that growl happens again. Closer. A lot closer.
"Was that closer?" he asks.
What'd I tell you. "Yeah." I listen some more. I strain my eyes to pick up something - a darker dark, or a lighter dark, or a sense of motion or movement in the midnight blue around us, and get nothing. "Maybe..." Then I do sense something, something Not Good, and Beast Boy does too, because we both dive away from each other, immediately. Urgently.
THUMP A giant something whacks the floor where we stood, and the bad, bad monster-or-whatever knows it missed. It lets loose with a frustrated, shrill, bladder-emptying kind of shriek, one of those--
Harley can't resist an opening, and she starts right up with a "Did ya say 'bladder'? Ya wanna hear about..." I send her a particularly evil eye. "Uhhh, not going there, I guess...,"
I hear a "Jinx!" from not too far away, and I shout back, "Over here!" I get up and scramble toward where I think Beast Boy is, and we would have missed each other in the dark, too, if we hadn't knocked noggins together. "OWW!"
The Trying-To-Squish-Us Monster hears, too, and shouts out his own bellow. I feel Beasties' fingers quickly dance down my arm until they reach my hand, which they grab tight. "COME ON!" he shouts, and the wiry bastard practically tears my arm out of it's socket dragging me up while he starts running.
Where to? I haven't a clue, but I'm all in favor of the general idea when another too-close-for-comfort thump 'thumps' the spot we were just occupying seconds ago. "RUN!" he shouts. And in retrospect, it's kind of obvious advice, what with the roaring and shrieking and constant attempts to turn us both into moist, red, door mats. I don't quibble with his sentiment, either; I tighten my grip on him and start sprinting, too.
Not to bore you with the blow-by-blows, but we do a lot of dodging, and a lot of falling, and a lot of gettingthehelloutoftheway. But Beastie keeps his grip on me. "Oh dude," he huffs at me, "this Thing - just doesn't - let up."
I puff back at him. We've been running full bore for a little too long now. "The best defense - is a good - offense."
THUMP
"How do we - offense - what we can't - see?"
STUMP
He continues. "If Star - was here - we'd see - with her star bolts."
BLUMP
That set's me to some panicky thinking, which was not the best idea, because that itsy distraction causes me to almost stumble on a bad footfall, and only Beastie's grip keeps me from wiping out. Normally, I'd spend however long it took to subtly impress on him my complete contempt for his clumsy attempt to help me, which probably caused the problem to begin with, blah blah et cetera, but expediency won out, and I quickly distracted him with A Plan. "My hexes - glow. It'll be - enough."
"Okay - Then I - come out - swinging?"
STLUMP
"You - got it."
"Now?" Oooo, he's eager. Have to say that I do approve.
CRUMP!
"On - three - Beastie. One. Two. Three!" We stop dead and our hands release. I feel him running off somewhere. I sense the palpable bulk of the thing loom over me. I raise my arms together, summon all the bad luck I can muster, and swing my arms down as hard as I can, throwing all the ill will that I have.
The hex-bomb doesn't have to go far, and the bright bright from the explosion when it strikes illuminates a huge, beastly head, as wide across as I can stretch my arms. I see feral, hungry, hateful eyes, bloodshot and huge, surrounded by a coarse, mangy fur staring right at me, and a sloping snout falling down to a black maw, fronted by two, cracked and ragged teeth.
To tell you the truth, I freeze. Not for long, but long enough to keep it's attention... and have it lose concentration off to my right. In the quickly fading afterglow of my hex I catch the blurred shape of a dinosaur tackling the gruesome thing in front of me. I feel that an appropriately cheerleader-y shout out, along the lines of 'Go, Beastie!' or such, will work right now, when that dinosaur tail of his swings around, tracking straight at me. I just have time for an "Oops" to squeak out of me when it connects, hitting me into the outfield, a clear ground rule double.
I stop rolling when my head finds the only wall in this stupid place, but before I black out I see a gleaming light in the sable sky, and a hand hovering.
