Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans.

OK, sorry about the cliffie, but here's the next part so you can all stop wondering! Hopefully you like it.

Chapter 10: Intentions Revealed

Starfire opened her eyes and yawned, stretching in her bed. Gingerly pushing her warm sheets off herself, the young alien stood up on the soft carpet of her bedroom. She rubbed her eyes and shuffled across her room to open the purple curtains. Sunlight flooded her room and she brightened immediately. She walked over to her closet, pulling out one of her many purple uniforms. She continued her morning routine with happy thoughts of a certain masked leader.

She was in love. She was loved back. Things could not be better. Unexpectedly, Starfire snapped back to reality, remembering the case they were currently involved in. She knew it was getting serious. No one except the Titans had been really hurt so far, but she knew that strong sedatives in the wrong hands could be dangerous.

She sighed, as she finished brushing her vibrant red hair. She placed her brush back on her vanity and smiled into her mirror. Wasn't it always best to look on the bright side? On the bright side, she now knew that Robin loved her as much as she loved him. On the bright side, Beast Boy hadn't changed back into the Beast since the first break-in. On the bright side, she was positive that she had seen Beast Boy's hand reaching for Raven's the other night.

Starfire's smile grew wider. She loved seeing her friends happy. She had always thought it would be a glorious thing to see friends Raven and Beast Boy courting each other.

Starfire twirled happily around her room, before opening her door and floating down the hall to the kitchen. She stepped inside the large room and looked around. Cyborg was watching television and Robin was cooking a large batch of pancakes.

"Good morning, Robin!" she greeted happily, floating towards the cooking teen.

He turned and smiled at her before lightly kissing her on the lips and replying, "Morning, Star."

She blushed lightly, and looked down bashfully at her shoes. When she looked up again, there was a set determination that was both sweet and confident.

"Robin, I was hoping you would accompany me in the earthly courtship ritual, known as a 'date'," she smiled hopefully at him and he chuckled a bit.

"Of course. I'd love to—" Robin was interrupted by a loud cough behind them.

"If you two are done making goo-goo eyes, have either of you seen BB or Raven this morning?" asked Cyborg, grinning as they both turned crimson at his accusation. Starfire got over her embarrassment first, however.

"I have seen neither friend Beast Boy nor friend Raven all morning," she replied, tapping her index finger against her chin as she thought

"I haven't seen them either," added Robin. "I'm sure they're fine. Raven's probably holed up in her room, and Beast Boy can sleep through a hurricane."

"Yeah, but he can also smell pancakes from a mile away, and Raven usually come out of her bedroom around this time to get tea and yell at me and B," Cyborg retorted.

"Are you in fear for our friends' well-beings?" asked Starfire cautiously.

"No. I'm sure they're fine," Cyborg replied, although he looked uncertain "but it's just not normal for the tower to be this quiet, this late in the morning."

"That's true," said Robin, looking up from the pancakes. "Maybe you two should go and get them."

Cyborg and Starfire nodded and went to their friends' rooms; Starfire went to get Raven, and Cyborg went to wake Beast Boy.

"Hey BB! Breakfast is almost ready, so get your lazy butt out of bed!" Cyborg pounded on the door, yelling into the changeling's room. "If you don't come out right now, I'm coming in," he warned. Receiving no response, the metal man opened the door and walked over to the messy bed.

It was fairly easy getting to Beast Boy's bed; he still had somewhat of a path through the mess that led to his bed from a couple nights ago. Cyborg crept over to the lumps of sheets and pillows known as Beast Boy's bed and leaned in towards the lump he figured to be Beast Boy. Taking a deep breath Cyborg leaned in really close…

"WAKE UP YOU LITTLE GRASS STAIN!" he bellowed. Nothing happened.

Cyborg cautiously lifted the bed sheets and his eyes widened in surprise when he found nothing there.

'OK, nothing to worry about,' Cyborg tried to calm himself. 'He's probably just in the bathroom or on the roof or something,'

Cyborg searched the tower; looking anywhere he might have find Beast Boy, but found neither hind nor tail of Beast Boy. As he was looking once more through the empty hallways, he ran into Starfire, who also appeared to have lost something or someone.

"Have you seen Beast Boy?" he asked the girl, trying to keep his voice steady.

"I have not. Have you seen friend Raven?" Starfire asked. Cyborg shook his head.

"I haven't seen Raven all morning," he replied.

"Perhaps we should inform Robin," suggested Starfire.

Cyborg agreed and they ran back to the kitchen to tell Robin.

Beast Boy opened his eyes wearily. His head was pounding and his right leg felt a bit numb. He looked around, trying to take in his surroundings. He was in a large, dark room. It looked almost like an abandoned warehouse, but he couldn't be sure without more light. He closed his eyes tightly, and concentrated on the eyes of a nocturnal animal. Just the eyes. When he opened them again, they were pure white, but he could see as well as any night dwelling animal. It was a warehouse.

Beast Boy tried to stand up so he could take a closer look but soon realized that he couldn't. Ropes were bound around him tightly and he was in a big metal cage.

He turned as he heard someone groan beside him. Using his nocturnal eyes, he saw Raven lying beside him, also tied.

"Raven," he whispered. "Raven, wake up!"

The empath opened her eyes and he watched her face screw up from a headache like Beast Boy's.

"What's going on?" she groaned. "Where are we?"

"I don't know," replied Beast Boy.

Raven looked around quickly and took everything in.

"We've been captured," she said grimly.

"Yeah, but we can escape, right? You can still talk, so you can say your magic words and get us out or this place!" Beast Boy whispered. Raven nodded and closed her eyes in concentration.

"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" she chanted. Her eyes turned a glowing white and a thin tendril of energy wrapped itself around their ropes. They watched as the energy tugged at the bindings, but it was too weak to do anything that might help free them. The black energy disappeared and Raven's eyes turned back to their normal violet hue.

"What's wrong, Rae?" asked Beast Boy nervously. Raven ignored the nickname and answered through gritted teeth.

"I'm too tired. My powers can't work if I'm physically exhausted," she explained, bowing her head in shame.

Beast Boy noticed and inched over to her, resting his head on hers in an improvised hug.

"It's OK, it's not your fault," he told her comfortingly. "Besides, I can just turn into a gorilla or something."

Raven nodded and Beast Boy squirmed over a bit. Once he had enough room, he concentrated on the body of a gorilla. He quickly grew bigger and hair grew all over his body. Where Beast Boy had sat, now stood a slumped gorilla, still bound. The ropes seemed to have stretched around him. He transformed into a mouse and the bindings shrunk, shrinking to fit his small form.

He changed back into his human form and sighed in frustration.

"What the hell!" he cursed, stomping his tied up feet on the ground. He looked at Raven desperately. "Please tell me you know what's going on here?"

Raven was about to answer 'no', when a voice rang out through the empty warehouse.

"I do," said the voice, stepping closer to the cage they were in. As he stepped closer, they saw he was the masked man. The two trapped Titans' eyes narrowed. "Adjusting ropes. I made them just for you Beast Boy."

"Who are you?" snarled Raven.

"I am," he replied, turning on the warehouse lights, "the Frightful Combiner."

Raven would have scoffed at his lame pseudonym, but both the teens were distracted by the machines that had had been revealed when he turned on the lights.

Large computers lined the walls. Two large metal tables were connected to the computers by wires. Large laser-like devices were aimed at the tables. The technology could easily rival Cyborg's.

Raven was the first to find her voice,

"What are those machines for? How did you get passed the tower's security system? What—"

"Silly Raven, I can't tell you all my secrets at once, now can I?" the Combiner walked towards the cage and grabbed Raven's chin, forcing her to look up at him. He received a dangerous glare from Raven. Beast Boy growled under his breath. The Combiner smirked.

"My, my. Someone's a bit protective of our little Raven," he said slyly.

Beast Boy didn't reply, instead he just narrowed his eyes in a glare that was almost a scary as Raven's.

The Combiner seemed unfazed.

"I will, however, tell you a bit of my work. Perhaps it will answer some of your questions."

The teens watched him quietly, waiting for him to continue.

"You see," he began. "It all began when I was just a young boy. I had always loved stories of monsters, especially the ones that were like two separate creatures combined, like the sphinx. I used to dream about being one of those beasts. So I studied. I read books on biology, evolution, technology, medical procedures, and so many other things. Then, when I was only about twenty-five, I realized what I needed to do. I needed to turn myself into of the magical beasts I had loved as a child. Then I could rule the world, just like I had always dreamed—"

"I thought you said you had dreamed about being a monster… not ruling the world," interrupted Beast Boy.

"Shut up!" barked the Combiner. "As I was saying… I could rule the world. And so, I got DNA samples from the zoo. I built my machine and I used it on myself, and I was left with this…"

Pulling off his mask, the man revealed a face that was only part human. Underneath the nose and down was completely human, although now that they looked carefully they could see that the man had large, sharp teeth. The nose, however, was not human. Neither were the eyes, nor ears, which sat oddly high in his head. From the nose and up, the Combiner had the face of a lion.

Beast Boy and Raven both gave involuntary gasps as they looked at his strange face.

"Since then, I have stopped experimenting on myself," he continued stonily. "But I never stopped experimenting. I started small, combining a mouse and a crab. Then I started working on larger animals. Eventually I perfected my combining. Eventually, every time I combined a creature, I was able to use their strongest, most primal sides. Cats, for example, are naturally curious and have natural hunting abilities. I was able to harness that strength. Also, when I combine the animals, they grow bigger than their natural size. A puppy can grow to be the size of a wolf; a cub can be as big as a bear. A tabby cat can grow to be as big as a mountain lion; a bat might as well be a dragon. You see how it works?" he grinned at them maliciously through the bars of the cage.

"I still don't see what we have to do with all this!" exclaimed Beast Boy angrily.

"It's quite simple," Combiner replied. "I've read articles in the news paper about all of you. I've done some research and I've deduced that you two are the ones who would be most beneficial to my plan of world domination."

Raven's eyes widened in realization. Beast Boy looked slightly more frightened, but still did not seem to catch on.

"I don't get it," he said breathlessly.

"Beast Boy," Raven looked him in the eye. There was no annoyance in her voice, only fear. "He's going to combine us."

In the dark shadows of the warehouse, a mysterious figure watched all of this. She listened to his plan and she mentally slapped herself for not figuring it out sooner, after all, she had been there for almost five years now. She should have figured it out at some point and warned the Teen Titans before it was too late. Surely it was too late now.

The figure straitened and set her jaw firm. It may be too late, but she had to try anyway. Turning away from the scene unfolding, the girl ran out of the building to search for the Titans.

OK, there it is... hope it was good!