Disclaimer: This is a fan work created at no profit and for entertainment purposes only. The author acknowledges that Teen Titans and related characters are property of Warner Entertainment.

Teen Titans – What Grows From Deception

Chapter 10 – Bad or Sad?

No one questioned Beast Boy riding with Cyborg to the scene of 'Aionor's' attack. Though he could transform into an animal that flew, he often rode with his best bud out of a combination of laziness and desire for conversation. This time, the conversation was a bit more specific in its topic.

"So..." Beast Boy started.

"I gotta admit, little dude, I didn't think you had it in you." Cyborg said, as the launched out of the garage and out over the ocean on the T-car's hover jets. "Nicely done." He gave his green friend a hearty thumbs up.

"Dude, what are you talking about? I totally choked!"

"That was choking?"

"Duh. I do the kitty-cat bit like all the time with the girls. Like when they're stressed, or just feeling down. Works better than jokes most of the time, let me tell ya. Plus, you know, petting feels good."

Cyborg tried hard not to take his eye off where he was going, but it was very hard. "You mean you've done that before? The whole thing, jumping up n their laps and all?"

Looking out at the bay, Beast Boy shrugged. "Come to think of it, Raven usually brushes me off to the side and pets me one handed while she reads. Star's cool with lap kitty though."

"You've been in Star's lap?"

"Yeah?"

"Does Robin know?"

Beast Boy looked at him askance for a moment before it finally clicked as to why Robin shouldn't know. Another moment brought to mind visions of a steel tipped boot rapidly approaching his head. "Oh no! I didn't... and... but I was a cat so it doesn't..." One more thing clicked in his head, namely Cyborg's earlier praise of his actions. His entire body froze. "And I just did that with Raven?"

Chuckling, Cyborg punched his friend lightly in the shoulder. "You bet you did, and this time you didn't get put off to the side, now did you?"

Words, many words died in the changeling's throat. Forgotten was the threat of a high speed kung-fu beatdown, or even his lingering fear of Raven splattering him over his unknowingly forward actions. She'd accepted it when before she rejected it.

"Yo, Earth to BB, you still in there man?" Somehow, when he wasn't looking, they've ended up cruising down Jump's surface streets instead of over its bay. Cyborg laughed again. "What's that word from the Disney movie? 'Twitterpainted'?"

Finally unfrozen, Beast Boy chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. Time to change the subject. "So, new villain. What do you think, Vic; bad or sad?"

Cyborg decided to play along. There would be plenty of time for teasing later. "I got a bad feeling that smart money's on 'bad'. The sad-sacks tend to just hit a bank and act goofy. This girl just whet bananas blasting at innocent people."

"Yeah, bad then." Beast Boy frowned. His ears perked up a second later. "Hey, if she's bad, maybe it's a chance to pull out some new material. You know, some morphs I don't use all that much?"

"You've doing it to try and impress Rae, ain't ya?"

"..."

"Come on..."

"Okay, yeah, I am."

"Heh. Well alright then, but first, let's go for something old school." He pointed dead ahead. They had arrived, just in time to see the mystery girl 'Raven' called Aionor stop blasting. "Looks like she's still on the second story."

Beast Boy grinned. "One Glide & Gun coming up. Got your anti-talkie thing ready?"

Cyborg reconfigured his free arm into a sonic cannon, but instead of firing, it just hummed shrilly. "The second she talks, nobody's gonna ear her."

It took a while before Raven realized that she wasn't being ripped to shreds and in fact, wasn't even in the cavern anymore. Afraid to let up on the electrical firestorm she'd called up, she cracked one eye to see what was going on. What she saw made her stop immediately.

The pizza parlor—the one she'd just been wishing she'd be able to visit again—was in ruins around her. The electrical blasts she'd meant for the gliders attacking her had instead burned, cracked, and melted the seating and fixtures and sent the clientele fleeing for their lives. The sight of it made her heart beat in her throat and her legs feel weak. She had no time to regret what she'd done because a very familiar voice shouted from somewhere to her left.

"Yo! This is our hangout. Get your own!" She looked to find a green pterodactyl lifting Cyborg up above the railing around the seating area. Both of his arms were converted to sonic cannons, but he fired only one, which she dodged only by the grace of her current body's athleticism.

She ended up performing a shoulder roll into the cover of an overturned table. "Wait!" She cried out, but when she tried to explain the situation, no sound came out. How was that even possible? There was no time to ponder this, as her ears picked up the unique sound of Starfire in flight. Looking up, she found the alien princess flying in low, carrying Robin under his arms.

The boy wonder dipped into his utility belt and came up with a trio of discs, which he hurled at her with expert precision.

Having seen them often enough to recognize them as explosives, she braced for pain. But her body had other ideas. Reflex took over and spheres of static ignited around her hands as she bought them up to fend off shrapnel. Instead, they did far more: namely, utterly destroying the discs before they even came close.

Beast Boy deposited Cyborg among the wrecked tables and resumed human form. "Whoa. She took out your disc thingies, Rob."

A frustrated growl was Robin's only response as he launched himself from Starfire's grasp, extending his bo staff even as he administered a flying kick. Raven only barely sidestepped, getting a good view of every tread on the sole of his boot as she did.

Robin landed and pivoted, bringing the staff down in a vertical strike that would have hit her if she wasn't already back-peddling from him. A quick jab caught her in the stomach and doubled her over, leaving her open for another downward stroke. Again, reflexive defense came into play. A hand blazing with electricity intercepted the titanium steel weapon, conducting a painful charge into its wielder. Robin screamed and went down convulsing.

A gasp from Raven was lost to Cyborg's invention, and out of reflex, she rushed to his side, which, in context, looked a lot more like moving to finish him off. She didn't even see the orange fist coming before she was sent flying against the railing, which bent and buckled around her.

"You will not harm Robin, or our beloved purveyor of cheese covered bread." Starfire said as she came to hover over her fallen boyfriend. Her fist was cocked back in a promise that she would enforce this mandate given half the chance.

Temporarily punch-drunk, Raven idly pondered the irony of Starfire complaining about damage to the pizza place. The haze cleared quickly though and her intelligence returned. She couldn't talk, but she could gesture. The others probably wouldn't listen, but Beast Boy would almost certainly jump to the conclusion that she was trying to play charades. At least that's what she hoped.

Still leaning against the dangerously unstable rail, she tried to wave her hands to tell them to stop, to parley.

"She's casting a spell! Get her!"

"Of all the times to have a moment of prescience, you choose this one?" She growled at Beast Boy even though he couldn't hear. He leapt into the air and transformed as he came, becoming a huge bird with a high crest, wings too small for flight, and two claws that could disembowel a wild board. A cassowary.

Some part of her brain, one that was still a little loopy from Star's punch, was impressed that he was finally showing some range beyond going immediately for wolf or gorilla form. The rest of her was occupied by desperately throwing herself back and away from the powerful beak about the chomp her nose.

Back and away, however, meant putting pressure on the railing, which after taking a glancing blow from the sonic cannon and the full force of a Starfire-launched Raven had had it. Metal groaned an instant before it snapped.

Panic gripped Raven and she fleetingly wished she was safe on the ground. A burst of static surrounded her body and she disappeared, appearing an instant later on the ground, at exactly the spot she'd been concentrating on.

"Well... that explains how I got to the pizza parlor." She groaned, still silenced to the rest of the world. A familiar, and now chilling pair of sounds filled the air and she fell into a perfect split, leaning forward so her chest touched the ground to minimize her profile just as a combined barrage of starbolts and a sonic burst demolished the storefront behind her.

A second later, she rolled to the side just to avoid a steel tipped boot, as it slammed into the ground where her shoulder had been. Knowing that Robin would never let her stand up as long as he was anywhere near him, Raven concentrated further down the street and willed herself to teleport.

It worked and she used muscle memory combined with combat training she never thought she'd find a use for the kip up. A bugling roar alerted her to a green pachycephalosaurus charging her. She leapt back and rolled over the hood of a car as Beast Boy slammed into it at speed. The impact partially wrapped the door around his bony, dome-like skull.

Raven landed on the other side and knelt down, trying to catch her breath. She had a new respect for their enemies, even jokes like Dr Light or Johnny Rancid: her friends were a terror to fight against. The only thing that could make it more terrifying would be...

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos." The car she was sheltering behind became sheathed in the dark aura of a soul-self. Her soul-self. It was all the warning she needed to take flight in a burst of flaring static. She was just in time too, as the car lurched violently sideways, colliding with a wall with enough force to crush it nearly flat.

"You." She snarled at her own ashen face, which wore a smirk that normally only appeared when it as accompanied by an extra set of red eyes. Rage filled her and called up a variable hell-storm of static arcs between her upraised hands.

"What was that?" Aionor asked, putting on her best Raven impression. "I couldn't hear you."

Snarling her frustration and rage, Raven poured more power into her hands and prepared to send the whole thing at Aionor. She didn't care how hurt her body, she could heal. All that mattered in this moment was making her pay. If she was still n her own body at the moment, she would have reverted to her full demonic form.

Starfire hit her from behind with a flying tackle. It made her back bow in an agonizing manner and what was worse, it made her lose control of the chaotic storm of energy she'd summoned. It came cascading down around them, but where Aionor's body was immune to her powers, Star's was now.

Never in all of her time with the team had Raven head Starfire scream like that. The vise-like grip around her waist loosened and Star fell way. Her hair was smoking as she spiraled toward the ground. Just before she hit the ground, Robin swung past, catching her and pulling her to safety behind a car.

At the same time, one hundred and fifty pounds of furious, green orangutan slamming into Raven, wrapping her in a crushing hug while dragging her from the sky. He made sure she hit the bed of the pickup truck they landed in first with all his weight on top of her and not for a second did he let up on the pressure around her midsection.

Her ribs compressed and it started to become hard to breath. "Beast Boy, please." She forced out, trying to form each word carefully and clearly on her lips. It was her last ditch hope that he knew how to read lips. Salvation came in the form of a creeping black aura that engulfed her, and mercifully limited the crushing force exerted on her.

"I'll deal with her, Beast Boy." Aionor informed him, floating down into the back of the truck with them. "Go check on Star."

Beast Boy let go and reverted to human. "Are you sure?"

"Mage versus mage. That's the only way it can end." Aionor droned. He frowned, but nodded before hopping off the back of the truck.

The moment he was gone, Aionor leered menacingly. "I just didn't want him to hurt my body too much. Besides, you and I? We need some alone time." Raven's eyes darted around for someone else and found them all tending to Starfire. The body-thief laughed. "You're right, Rae, this isn't very private at all. But don't worry, I know just the place—meet you there."

With that, she telekineticly hurled Raven high over the city with the speed of a humanoid javelin.

A/N: Thanks to beachgirl902, Xaphrin, and RascalKat for reviewing. Thanks for the kind words, especially about Aionor. There are still a few tricks up her sleeve and you'll just have to keep reading to find out! Also, Control Freak will return. I see a LOT of potential in the character.

This extra-long chapter brought to you by my love of complexly choreographed fight scenes. If you want more superheroic action, check out my website (in my profile), which is a huge archive of original superhero fiction, forming not just a series, but a full on comic book universe.

Next chapter: The end of Act 1 as Aionor and Raven meet face to face for the first time and Beast Boy discovers the horrible reality of the previous best day of his life. Stay tuned!