Raven and Dog reached the edge of Orangutan's territory, and as before, in a blink the forest was gone. The temperature was more mild, and a damp plain stretched out before them, dotted with rocks and clusters of trees.

"This is Turtle's place," Dog said. He glanced at her, then at the setting sun. "It's getting late. Sure you don't want to stop for the day — maybe wait for tomorrow?" He looked at her again, a hint of worry creeping in.

She appreciated his concern, but didn't want to stay overnight if she didn't have to. She had an exit to reach. "Let's get this over with," she said. They walked together for some time.

"Dog?" she asked, questions rolling around in her mind. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"How many Aspects does Beast Boy have?"

"I don't know. Probably a lot." He gave her a sheepish look. "I think Orangutan's the only one that knows all of us."

Raven thought for a second. "Is there one for each animal he can turn into?"

Dog looked horrified. "I hope not. There's, like, a million species of insects, alone. Can you imagine how crowded it'd be in here?"

Once his initial horror faded away, Dog started mentally tallying each of the Aspects he did know. He wondered if he should introduce her to them, since she seemed so curious, but dismissed them all in turn. Lovebird had not been seen since Terra… left. Goat was probably busy climbing an impossible mountain or something. Packrat never left his trash pile. Cat loved attention, but Raven didn't. And Whip-poor-will existed purely to whistle the guitar solo from "Freebird" at godforsaken hours of the night. Besides, it would take too long to meet them all, and she wanted to leave as soon as possible.

They kept walking in silence, and eventually reached a small knoll.

Dog stopped. His hackles raised.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"Turtle is missing. And I smell Rex," Dog said.

"Who's Rex?" she asked, and a shadow broke over them.

Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Raven tried to give the dinosaur an unconcerned look as it bared its teeth threateningly at her, but was caught off-guard by —

He roared. "I am Tyrannosaurus Rex! The TYRANT KING! And I am not. Happy." Raven considered and frowned; "not happy" said with that many teeth covered a lot of things — none of them good.

"You walk around like you fucking own the place! Trespasser!" Tyrannosaurus was most definitely not happy. Dog growled and barked at the dinosaur.

Raven drew herself up, and lectured back. "If you — Beast Boy — hadn't trespassed into my room and betrayed my trust by messing with my mirror — the thing most capable of harming me if mishandled — then I wouldn't be here."

She conveniently left out that safeguards made it impossible for others to open the mirror into her mind. The one time the safeguards failed had been when Rage pulled Beast Boy and Cyborg in, hoping to distract Raven while he attempted to, yet again, take over her mind. She was only in Beast Boy's mind right now because he was an idiot.

Tyrannosaurus did not look mollified. The dinosaur growled — or rather, breathed deep, raspy, and menacingly — before countering sarcastically, "Then, as the responsible, god-like psychic that you are, I suggest you find a way out."

"That's what I'm doing."

"Oh, really? 'Cause it seems to me like you're fucking around. Hummingbird's a spaz, Dog is pathetic, Snake is a coward, and Orangutan is content to fart around all day, but I — I — will not put up with your bullshit."

Dog ignored the insult and barked at him, ready to defend her. "Rex, she's not —"

"I'm not —" Raven started.

"Of course you're 'not.' You're always busy 'not,'" the dinosaur interrupted, "'Not' caring, 'not' feeling.

"You seem to do a pretty good job of doing what you need to do when you give a shit. Rage, Malchior, Trigon — you go into God-mode when it counts. You always know just what object to move, spell to cast, or mind to sense when it matters to you — so what's the matter now? Does Beast Boy's mind not matter enough for you to bother?"

At some point during the conversation, Tyrannosaurus had closed the distance between them, his words seeming more of a threat than the rest of him. He loomed too close for comfort, fearsome maw poised to strike, but letting his fangs fall short where his words did not.

He continued, "I'm hardly surprised. Beast Boy only considers you a friend, but you don't seem to realize what that entails. Even if you did — there's no difference between not caring, and acting like you don't care."

Raven was stunned, mouth hanging open, wondering where Beast Boy had learned how to be an asshole. The Tyrant King paused, considering her harshly for a moment.

"You may not value Beast Boy, but, for his sake, I hope you value yourself. So…"

He roared again. "Get —" he lunged forward enough to scare her, "The fuck —" snapped his jaws, "Out " and twisted his neck, as if to mime ripping her apart, "!"

"Azarath —" but he was too close and she would never finish the chant in time. But Dog was also close — close enough to leap onto Tyrannosaur's head, scraping him in the eye with one paw. He roared and shook his head instinctively at the irritation, giving Raven time to finish her chant and slam a massive clod of earth into the reptile's side. She raised herself into the air and focused her powers, breathing in for the chant, when —

Tyrannosaurus kicked Dog, clawed foot impacting fur, eliciting a yelp of pain. The reptile charged in the direction of the flung mammal.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" and a tree, shrouded in black, slammed into the Tyrant King's side, swaying him in his pursuit of the hound. He wheeled around, and Raven found herself wishing she'd attacked him from a greater distance, because now he was close too damn close, and those great teeth grazed her flesh as she hurled herself into the sky faster than she ever had before. She fled in terror in the direction Dog had been kicked, only she kept flying and flying far past where he would've landed.

And in the growing distance, she heard a sound of thunder — the roar of the mightiest predator to ever roam the land.


The first hurt was from the monster's teeth. She could heal that in a few minutes.

The second hurt was from Beast Boy, that part of his mind was just fine with killing her. That would take one long night to heal.

Raven landed in a forest. She didn't know if it was Orangutan's or Turtle's. Sinking down to the ground, she pulled her knees to her chest, healed her leg, and told herself that her ragged breaths were absolutely nothing like sobbing.

After some time, she found a third hurt. She had abandoned the part of Beast Boy most loyal to her. Guilt and regret seeped through her, bleeding from a wound that would take far longer than a single night to heal. Dog had fought for her, and she had left him behind.

A warm body approached her. "Hello, Rae," said Dog quietly.

She started, lifting her head from her knees to look at him. "—ven. Sorry. Rae-ven," he corrected himself. "Didn't I tell you I'd always be there for you?" he said, subdued but hopeful.

"Yes. You did," she choked, and awkwardly, Raven reached out to Dog, adjusting herself to better hug him. He almost froze at the unexpected contact, grey hands pressing into his fur, surprised with her insistence but readily yielding to it. He moved forward and let her bury her face in his fur, resting his muzzle against her neck as she still refused to cry.


Author's Notes:

The title and line "A Sound of Thunder" come from the classic science fiction short story of the same name.

This is actually the first chapter of this story that I wrote. I wanted to put this out there so badly, I started writing the rest of it. (Fortunately, the rest of the story developed enough that this chapter was no longer the sole reason for putting it up. If a story exists to showcase a single scene, it's probably not a very good story.)

Making Rage responsible for sabotaging Raven's mirror was my way of addressing a glaring problem in the show: why on earth would Raven leave something so incredibly dangerous and magically potent as her mirror lying around, without any wards on it? It still doesn't answer the question of how Beast Boy was able to sabotage her mirror so easily (beyond "the author wanted it to happen, so it happened" :-)).

As always: if I suck, tell me so I can fix it.