Culmination

by Molossus5572

Human beings have defined their nature through faith, love...and War. The Teen Titans know that the next battle is just on the horizon, and if they can not stop it, the human race will again be defined by war: for it will be its last. RBB, SFR.

21. Clash

I owe a great many of you an apology. The events of the last year have made my writing--as well as the process of writing--awkward, difficult, and tiresome. A great deal of drama has been infecting my life, and it has only recently eased off. I finally recovered my stolen PC, and managed to recover at least 75 percent of the corrupt data on it. I should be able to submit my chapters far more often now than I have been, and since I've had a few months to settle into my new apartment, that should make my writing all the smoother. Again, I apologize for the extensive leave; I will not ignore my writng any longer.

This is not the final chapter, though we are approaching the last three. I thank you for your continued patience, and hope you feel that the wait has been worth it. There will be no intoduction at the beginning of the next chapter, besides the usual disclaimer. As always, I hope you enjoy the reading, and review as much as possible. WARNING: Violence layeth within. You have been warned.

Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans, Disney, or any other brand name, including their products.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Chap 21: Clash

[Twenty Minutes Earlier...

"And you disgust me."

CRACK!

He had seen it. He had heard it. He had felt every physical sensation and every ounce of confusion, every drop of betrayal.

But he still couldn't believe it, and his chains held firm.

"How…could she?" whispered Garfield's high-pitched voice.

"Well, what did you expect?" came a distant, leering growl.

Whenever Garfield closed his 'eyes', he could see and feel everything that was going on in the physical world. Although he couldn't control any of his hosts' actions, he was able to witness every painful second of what BeastBoy was going through.

But he wasn't the only one. "I knew this would happen. I wasn't sure when, but I knew…"

The ever-present storm crackled above Garfield's head, the thunder and lightening a constant reminder of the desolation beyond his confinements. Although there was only one window in his 'cage', the flashes of light were still startling, however frequently they occurred. The thunder was distant, but it was still powerful enough to rattle the chains that hung heavily upon Garfield's small frame.

Garfield looked in the general direction of the Beasts' section of the cage. His view was obscured by the wall, of course, but, like any other part of BeastBoys' consciousness, he could still sense…him.

"You didn't know a thing." Garfield insisted.

"Oh, wake up!" The Beast snapped, his voice carrying slightly over the desolate land outside his cage. "Raven would have found a way to do this eventually, and you know it."

"She isn't like that," Garfield said back weakly, "no matter how angry we make her, she would never do this…"

"WE?" the Beast interrupted, rocking the cage back and forth with his indignation. "What's this 'WE', kid? Don't rope me in with all that namby-pamby, wishy-washy innocence nonsense that you use to get attention. She doesn't see enough of my influence to hate BeastBoy because of it."

"Well it isn't because of what I give to BeastBoy." Garfield argued. "I give him his laughter, his humor, his morality, his ability to reason…"

"You give him an excuse to act cowardly and hide behind false integrity." The Beast hissed, knowing he was right. "I may be savage, but I'm the only one who's honest with BeastBoy about all his hidden desires for respect and power. If it weren't for my brief exploits in the real world, BeastBoy would have been road-kill long ago."

"You goad, you taunt," Garfield said slowly, shifting his heavy restraints, "you bring BeastBoy nothing but hate."

"I also bring him the TRUTH about himself," the Beast countered viciously, "as opposed to deceiving him with hope that never existed. Without me, he would fall…and so would you."

Garfield, despite what he represented as part of BeastBoy's personality, was finding it more and more difficult to remain civil. "Of all the posturing, idiotic, self-serving, megalomaniacal tripe I've ever heard…!"

"Huh. Figures." The Beast scoffed. "It would make sense that you have a well developed vocabulary, since you have an underdeveloped spine."

"It is imperative that I provide BeastBoy with all the intelligence that I can," Garfield said with a quip of sarcasm, "since everything between your ears rotted away long ago."

"Why don't you grow a pair, and then maybe green-bean wouldn't be so apt to listen to me as often as he does, huh, brat?" the Beast suggested snidely, "What do you think it means when he chooses the personality of a monster over the personality of his human self? How do you rank, exactly, when he would rather destroy all that he has instead of preserving it?"

The Beast had been picking his teeth with a long femur bone during the entire conversation, raking his thresher-sized talons through his unkempt fur. In fact, he really hadn't looked up from what he was doing in his decrepit cell until the Titans in the physical world had begun to harangue his and Garfield's one commonality: BeastBoy. Both personalities had been remarkably quiet throughout the duration of the verbal assault, taking stock of everything that was happening while remaining silent themselves.

Which is why he found it rather surprising—and particularly annoying—when he heard Garfield begin to laugh.

"What's so funny, cockroach?" the Beast asked, leaning toward the wall to hear more clearly. "You find something entertaining about what I said, or are you laughin' just to cover up how scared you are?"

What Garfield said next almost made him snap the bone betwixt his fingers. "You really are a fake, aren't you?"

The Beast wasn't sure he had heard correctly, and his eyes narrowed sharply. "WHAT did you say?"

He could sense Garfield as he slowly got to his feet, his head still low, but his lips still curved in a small, knowing smile.

"I called you a fake." Garfield reiterated, this time more clearly. "A phony, a fraud, a bogus apparition."

"You'd better tread softly, shrimp." The Beast said quietly, as if he was telling Garfield a dark secret. "Your predecessors knew better than to cross me more than they ought."

"There you go again!" Garfield said, throwing up his hands as much as he could, despite the weight of his cuffs. "This whole brooding, hunched-over, evil creature thing that you try to pull off; I don't buy it! I haven't bought it since my manifestation appeared after Trigon was defeated, and I never will."

The Beast slammed his fist into the wall, the resulting bang causing Garfield to flinch with fear, falling on his rump.

"Funny. You still jump as if you're afraid of me." The Beast said after a minute or so, his smile toothy and growing. "You talk a good talk…for someone who's full of it."

Garfield slowed his breathing, trying to regain his composure. No matter how many times he did it, the Beast was still able to scare the daylights out of him by banging on their hallowed out confinement.

"Of course I'm afraid." he managed to say, "But not for the reasons you think."

"Then you are foolish." The Beast jeered, stretching his legs upon the masticated bed of bones strewn across the floor. "Because you have every need to fear me, and every reason not to tick me off."

Garfield held his arm at his side, staring at the floor. He didn't dare close his eyes again, for fear that he might witness some other horrible event occurring in the outside world. He looked at his wavy blond hair, and how it seemed to have lost its shine, now just hanging upon his head like dead straw, brittle and coarse. His small arms seemed to have withered and wrinkled in a very short time, and his shoulders slumped as if weighed down by something sticky and dense.

He knew that weight well. It was the weight of his memory.

"Do you remember…when Mom and Dad died?" Garfield asked in a scratchy voice.

The Beast seemed to be put off by the question, suddenly biting clean through bone upon which he had been gnawing. His eyes opened in a quizzical fashion, eyeing the left side of his cage. "Was that directed at me?"

"No, the other brutish creature in the next cell." Garfield quipped.

The Beast curled his claws as if he were lifting a dumbbell, spitting out the hunk of bone. He was thinking of some cutting remark he could make about the inadequacy of his mother's something-or-other…

Only, he couldn't. He couldn't think of anything, or recall anything for that matter.

Without meaning to, he answered the boy's question. "No…I don't."

Garfield shifted into a sitting position, crossing his legs beneath him despite his heavy shackles. He kept his arm at his side, holding it tightly, as if to spot the bleeding of a deep wound upon his flesh. His 'mind' began to wander, accessing old memories without any real destination or particular memory as his goal.

"I didn't think you would," Garfield continued, almost talking to himself, "since you weren't created until after they died."

At first, the Beast thought the boy was going to segue into some immature comment about how the he was the rightful incarnate-presence within BeastBoy's mind.

But something occurred to him. "I suppose you're implying that this was the point in time which you were created?"

Garfield didn't answer his question. He just kept his eyes on the floor, deep in thought, his mouth moving with every word that came to it.

"I kept him going…for a little while at least. I gave him the courage to seek out the Doom Patrol. I showed him how to get to Jump City after that."

"Great. Now he's gonna bore me with daydreams of yester-year." The Beast said, yawning deeply.

When Garfield spoke again, it was much more…erratically.

"But after a while, things changed…he didn't know what to do with himself…his body was fighting a disease…fighting the cure as well…didn't have anything…anyone to turn to…alone…he was alone…"

"I think the kid has lost it." The Beast said with a note of amusement, cocking a bushy brow.

But Garfield continued. "Wanted to change…needed to become something else…anything else…just to escape…to fight his pain…fight himself…"

The Beast stood, his patience with the child's' ramblings wearing thin. "Are you about done? My ears don't care for this kinda bunk."

"Find a place to hide…become something else…escape…escape the world he knew…become part of something else…don't let anyone near…block it out…block them all out…!"

"I'm warning you, kid." The Beast hissed, "you're tap-dancing on my last nerve, and you're gonna regret it…"

"Then BOOM!" Garfield yelled.

The small boys' exclamation happened to coincide with a very loud thunderclap from above, closing the Beast's mouth, widening his eyes and hunching his shoulders unexpectedly. The talons upon his feet had unexpectedly grasped at the metal floor, crushing several skeletons in the process, and his body had squared itself up, as if expecting an attack.

"Why did you do that just now?" Garfield asked, his voice placid again.

The Beast felt unsettled.

He hated feeling unsettled. "What's it to you, brat?"

Garfield allowed himself a wry smile, biting his bottom lip slightly. "It's OK. I already know the answer."

The Beast felt that familiar boiling sensation, rising from his feet to his gut. "Are you trying to test me, boy? Do you play with fire so recklessly?"

Garfield could feel the gaze of his fellow prisoner, despite the layers of metal that separated them. But still he spoke.

"It was instinct."

The Beast experienced his first double-take. He didn't enjoy that sense of confusion either.

"Come again?"

"You reacted that way out of instinct." Garfield said, as if he were reading from an encyclopedia. "Everything that contributed to your creation was based on a fundamental need to protect, be it yourself or others, from some kind of harm."

"I have no need to protect anyone but myself!" The Beast rebutted, his lungs filling with fire. "And that includes those walking bags of flesh that BeastBoy hangs with."

Garfield knew that the Beast knew better. "Your very existence is owed to the fact that BeastBoy instinctively needed to protect something, and it was something that I couldn't help him defend on my own, regardless of how much I wanted to."

"I agree. You were weak then, and you're weak now." The Beast huffed. "I never thought there would come a day when we would agree upon something so completely."

"I may be weak," Garfield said, his voice still eerily calm, "but at least I'm the original."

BANG! BANGBANG!

"Say that to my face, you impudent half-pint!" the Beast bellowed, gnashing his teeth and battering the walls of his cell. "Come on, punk! Show me how 'original' you can be!"

Despite how much Garfield's cage rattled and rocked, he paid no mind to the continued rants of his hunched adversary. The various obscenities went unanswered as well. Garfield knew it was best to just let the furry fiend yell himself hoarse, rather than try to get a word in edgewise. Like dealing with a child who throws a temper-tantrum, oftentimes it proves more effective to just let them tire out before attempting civil interaction.

"Say something! What'sa matter, small fry? Cat got your tongue? You too good to slug it out with me, huh? Or do you drop phrases to make yourself sound smart? Is that it? ANSWER ME!"

Garfield just kept staring. His eyes betrayed nothing of what he felt, and his hands clasped the frayed edge of his shirt, fiddling with the strings and torn fabric. He kept his voice low, his wording direct, so as to appear calm, in spite of how frightened he felt.

"You act tough, angry, evil and bloodthirsty," Garfield began, "But that isn't what you really are. You're only purpose is to provide shelter, an escape for BeastBoy's fear and sorrow. You are BeastBoy's chosen method of dealing with the world when it shuns or humiliates him, a shield against the hate that pierces him deeper than any gunshot. You're no more evil than a shot of adrenalin: fleeting, intoxicating, and ultimately deceptive."

The Beast's final blows, hallow and ringing, eventually subsided. Like the clanging of church bells, the reverberations from every strike continued to shake the structure, but the sound eventually gave way to the thunderous din above.

But the fire wasn't quite breathed out of the Beast. "SO WHAT? Maybe everything I do is short-lived, and maybe it only makes him more miserable."

"There's no 'Maybe' about it." Garfield corrected.

"I may be instinctual, crass, and violent," The Beast said curtly, "But I've never lied to him. I don't cushion the blow because the truth might hurt him. He won't lash back at others because he fears that they will abandon him, so I do it for him!"

"Without you, BeastBoy would be a better person!" Garfield finally yelled, his fists balled in his shirt.

"Without me, BeastBoy couldn't SURVIVE!" The Beast roared back. "And neither would his 'friends'!"

…SHALL WE TEST THAT THEORY?...

It was loud. Not just loud in the sense that it carried far over the desolate plane, but in that it surrounded…everything. Every breath of wind, every jagged stone, every corner of the huge prison, was filled with that loud, somewhat plaintive suggestion.

The voice that had made said suggestion was awfully familiar.

Garfield's ears twitched, his forehead wrinkled with curiosity. "It's you…isn't it?"

The Beast, having jumped to his full height (or at least the full height allowed by the cage) at the sound of the voice, covered his eyes with annoyance. "Aw, nuts…"

It was eerie, bordering on spooky. As soon as that consuming, almost omnipotent voice had spoken, everything had, literally, shut up. The thunder stopped rolling, the lightning flashes ceased, the wind died; even the ground fell still, as if a freight-train had come and gone in the span of a few minutes. The world within BeastBoy's mind was, for the moment, at peace.

This 'peace' didn't sit well with the Beast, or Garfield, for that matter. "Who are you?"

The Beast found it strange that the small-fry had spoken up first, but wasn't about to be upstaged. "Yea and what's this bunk about a 'theory'?"

There was no response, at least, not in the sense of verbal communication. Garfield sensed that something, although undefined, was hovering, or perhaps flying, over the top of their cage. It swooped in an out, up and down, much like a plastic bag caught in draft: directionless, wistful, and free.

The Beast's reaction was quite the opposite. The long, wire-like fur upon the back of his neck bristled, rising like the quills of a porcupine. The cold, foreboding feeling of approaching conflict crept into his gut, causing his talons to slowly unsheathe themselves from his furry fingertips. His nose huffed at the air steadily, waiting for any hint of scent, his tall, pointed ears stretched to their full width.

…THERE IS NO TRUST…

"Of course there isn't any trust! I don't trust anyone!" The Beast growled deeply, turning back and forth in his cage, looking for the source of the voice. "But you knew that already, didn't you?"

"Will you quit it? It might leave again without filling us in!" Garfield whispered fiercely, looking back towards the cage's ceiling.

"Whatever."

"What do you mean by 'Trust'?" Garfield asked the sky, his eyes wide. "What trust is lacking?"

When the voice again answered, it was a just as booming, but the tone was that of a parent talking to a child: patient, calm, almost patronizing.

…YOU HAVE NO TRUST…NO TRUST FOR THE OTHER…

"The other what?" Garfield asked, trying to keep his cool. "Raven? The Titans? What do you mean by 'The Other'?"

The Beast wasn't sure why he was allowing himself to entertain this specter, especially for as long as he had. "It doesn't matter what it is! Listen, either show yourself, or somehow make yourself known. Otherwise, leave! I've had enough riddles, and you're beginning to tick me off."

The silence that followed was only momentary. A few seconds after the Beast's demand, both prisoners noticed something…different, about the air around them. It felt stale and hot, almost as if it were about to storm again. But no thunder could be heard, and no rain was falling.

"I don't think you should have said that." Garfield said, his hands and feet sweaty and cold.

"What are you, my mother?" The Beast asked, watching the sky.

The increase in the wind was tremendous, and very sudden. It was if a steam-geyser had erupted beneath the cage. The updraft's strength rivaled that of a tornado, swirling and roaring with constant, seemingly bottomless power. It caused Garfield's medium length hair to stand straight up, and the Beast's matted and dirty pelt to ripple and whip. The Beast covered his sensitive ears, drowning out the ripping sound that followed, as well as the screams of the young boy across the way.

"What did you do, kid? Who did you piss off this time?" The Beast yelled accusingly over the noise.

"Stop this! Why are you doing this?" Garfield yelled at the angry gale.

RRRRRRRRRR-IP! SHLANG!

Neither of the two cell mates dared open their eyes, even though the wind had unexpectedly ceased. The ensuing silence felt caustic, and hung heavily upon their flesh. Garfield took steady, hesitant breaths, and the Beast kept his hands upon his ears, the only sound available being his slowly calming heartbeat.

The cool breeze felt good on Garfield's skin.

"Wait a minute…cool breeze?" Garfield said softly. He cautiously parted his fingertips just enough to glance through.

It was gone. The cage, the bars, the ceiling…gone. Garfield now beheld the vast expanse of land that he knew had always surrounded his prison, but had never actually seen for himself. The edges of where the walls of the cage should have been looked jagged and gnarled. It was as if the cage had been twisted away like a pop-can being twisted in two, leaving behind only half of what had once been a complete container. Where the other part of the cage had gone, Garfield wasn't sure. He was just thankful that the floor of the prison had not been lifted away as well.

Unfortunately, not everything had been swirled away when the cage had. "What the heck was that?"

He was bigger than Garfield remembered. Although the Beast's impressive nine and a half foot frame was daunting in its own right, everything just seemed bigger. The juggernaut shoulders and pile-driver arms were as menacing as ever, as were the wickedly curved claws jutting from his massive hands. His scraggly green fur seemed to have been fluffed by the wind, and the long mane of dark hair down his back ruffled like a small cape. The eyes, as hollow as those of the dead, gazed in every direction warily, still unsure of what had just transpired a few minutes earlier.

It was a shadow that Garfield had hoped he would never be caught in again.

"What the Sam-hill are you looking at?" The Beast snarled, his eyes finally resting upon the relatively diminutive child.

Garfield gulped back the bile that was building in his throat. The scent of decaying flesh had been released as soon as the cage had been ripped from its foundation, and whatever bones that still remained upon the ground only added to the noxious odor. Garfield did his best to look up and away from the graveyard of his predecessors, lying at the feet of the behemoth.

"I'm looking for the ceiling that used to be over my head." Garfield managed, standing as tall and straight as possible. "And for the wall that kept your face out of mine."

The Beast raised an eye-brow, and crossed his pillar-like arms. "You're no looker yourself, brat. I could have gone a lifetime without looking at your puckish face again."

Garfield felt hurt, but angry as well. "At least I'm not some repressed baby who has a cannibal fetish! I've done my best to make sure that BeastBoy has a good life, but you always-!"

"What's up with him?" The Beast said, cutting Garfield off with his craggily voice.

Garfield lowered his raised finger, and followed the Beast's gaze. At first, it had appeared as though the Beast were looking at Garfield directly. But now, his gaze seemed fixated upon something closer, more immediate.

The two personality extremes were not alone. "What's happening to him?"

BeastBoy sat betwixt the two entities, his legs folded beneath him, his eyes upward. Of course, he couldn't see or interact with either of the two halves of his personality, but they could certainly see and interact with him. The look on his face was one of pain, most definitely because of what had transpired less than ten minutes earlier in the real world. But his eyes held something different; the pupils were dilated and his face was tense, and although he seemed to sit calmly, there was nothing calm about his posture.

It looked like something was scaring the crap out of him. "I don't know. I don't think I've ever seen him this freaked out."

"Well how do we find out what's wrong? I can't get to him because of these stupid chains!" Garfield yelled, attempting to lift the cumbersome shackles.

Upon hearing his own statement, Garfield felt a ripple in the air. Not like wind, but more along the lines of a pulse, like a wave of heat or cold. It made his hair stand on end even more than the Beasts' presence.

…TOUCH AND SEE…

The voice was back, deep and rolling like thunder.

"What did it say?" The Beast asked, spitting a hunk of bone from his mouth.

CRACKLE-BOOOOOOOOOM…

Two strands of lightening, each curving from the sky as great white snakes of energy, descended upon the two bewildered individuals. They watched with macabre fascination as the whips of golden-white light streaked from the heavens and crashed to the ground. Garfield tried to cover his ears, but it was to no avail. The sound waves shook his 'flesh' and nearly caused him to pass out, the tremendous energy striking just two feet from where he stood.

When Garfield opened his eyes, he couldn't believe what he saw. The chains, and their connections to the foundation of the cage floor, had vanished. He felt his arms move about freely for the first time in ages, and his body felt lighter than a feather.

"I'm…I'm free…" Garfield whispered, before another feeling of dread began to creep across him. "But that means…"

"WOW, this feels GREAT!" The Beast snickered with delight, rubbing his wrists and neck. "I haven't been lose in so long, I…I almost forgot how good it felt!"

With that, the Beast leapt into the 'air', shooting nearly fifty feet above Garfield's head. He watched as the Beast slowly fell back, hitting the ground with a satisfying THUD. Small sparks skittered across the metal floor where his claws scratched it upon impact.

"Hey! Voice! I'm not sure why you did it, but you're OK by me, understand? You can keep messing with us all you like!" The Beast yowled to the sky. "As a matter of fact, could you do something about small fry over here? He's always been the wet blanket of this trio!"

Garfield wasn't sure if the Beast wanted a reply, but he certainly got one.

…TOUCH AND SEE…TOGETHER…

Garfield looked down again at the huddled form of his master. His position hadn't changed the entire time this was taking place, and the look of horror was still glued to his features.

The Beast looked cautiously at Garfield, then back to BeastBoy. "That voice didn't mean…"

"I'm afraid so." Garfield said, approaching the small green teenager. "Just…keep your distance, understand?"

"Kiss my tail." The Beast snarled, slowly approaching from his side of the boy.

Both entities slowly reached out with their right hand, and placed them upon the shoulder closest to them. When nothing happened upon touching the boy, Garfield took it to mean that they had to close their eyes. The Beast followed suit.

They could see everything now, at the same time. Garfield felt his gut tighten at the sight of Raven, her broken and battered body suspended nearly eight feet above the ice of the chasm floor beneath Antarctica. Her face was twisted with pain, and it was clear that Requiem, standing just a few feet ahead, was doing something to her with her unique abilities. Though her face seemed confused, she was still doing something horrible to Raven.

What Requiem said confused Garfield to the point of a double-take; he clearly had missed out on the majority of whatever conversation was taking place.

"I disagree."

"WHAT?" came a booming voice from somewhere behind and above BeastBoy.

While Garfield watched, bemused by this bizarre scene, he also let his guard down. He felt the Beast seize control of BeastBoy's vocal chords, too quickly for Garfield to stop him!

"Put her down!" BeastBoy/The Beast yelled, sharp and clear in BB's voice.

A split second later, Raven was released from whatever grip she had been in, and fell like a rag-doll to the icy floor. Garfield barely had any time to feel surprised by what he had heard the Beast say, but felt instant relief as soon as he saw that Raven was breathing normally. His 'body' filled with a calming, relaxing sensation, completely different than what he had felt a moment ago.

Imagine his surprise as he felt himself being forcefully pulled away from that scene, and ripped back into the subconscious world of his master. It was he who found himself dangling high above the ground, thick talons around his throat.

"COWARD!" roared the Beast, resisting the urge to snap the frail neck in his grasp. "How DARE you call me a scared child, when you yourself would watch as the most important person in the world to us is strangled to death?!"

Garfield could barely move, let alone speak. "I…I didn't…know what to…do."

"You never do, do you?" The Beast hissed violently, bringing the boys face mere inches from his own. "That's why you almost let her die on the cliffs! Your inaction nearly caused her death! AGAIN!"

"And what would…you have done?" Garfield managed, his small hands attempting to loosen the Beast's grip. "What would you have done if I had not been there to rein you in? Attacked Requiem head on? Gotten all of us killed by enraging someone so much more powerful than us? HUH?"

The Beast faltered, his fingers slackening. His eyes were still burning, but now he was looking at himself instead of at Garfield. The kid's words were having an effect.

"You're RIGHT! You do act more than I do! You're rash and irresponsible and hasty!" Garfield yelled as best he could. "But is that always the way to do it? How is attacking someone who ends up killing us, the Titans, AND Raven any better than simply NOT acting?"

…AS IT WAS SAID…THERE IS NO TRUST…

The Beast slowly lowered the struggling little boy, releasing him as soon as he was a foot from the ground. Both entities fell squarely upon their rumps, their hands folded in their laps. The Beast had all but breathed the last of the brimstone from his chest, and Garfield finally calmed his pulse.

"Fine. You made your point." Garfield said dejectedly. "There is no trust; not between us, anyway."

"So what now, that being said?" the Beast asked slowly.

…THE MOST POWERFUL…WHICH IS IT?…

"What?" Garfield asked the sky. "What do you mean by powerful?"

…THE STRONGEST…THE FASTEST…

"Of the two of us?" the Beast asked, looking slightly annoyed. "That would be me."

…THE MOST INTELLIGENT…THE KINDEST…WHICH IS IT?…

Although he hated to admit it, he gestured with his huge chin in Garfield's general direction. "That would be the pre-pubescent thorn-in-my-side over there."

Garfield could see where this was going, but he asked anyway. "We need to work together…don't we?"

The voice, still directionless and vast in size, seemed to descend closer to the two sulking figures on either side of BeastBoy's astral form. It was softer, more understanding, and almost feminine in quality.

…CAN THIS BEEN DONE?…

Garfield didn't like the look that the Beast was shooting him. Although he was about twenty feet away again, his facial expression was still clear as day.

It was one of victory. "Oh, it can be done alright. But only under certain…circumstances."

Garfield straightened, standing upon his newly freed legs, and looked to the sky, even though he had no idea where to look exactly. "Will we have an advantage? Enough of one to help Raven and the others?"

There was a pause, as if this omnipotent announcer needed time to consider.

…THERE IS NO WAY TO KNOW…

The Beast huffed. "Great. I guess spooky-voice DOESN'T have all the answers."

…THERE IS NO PROMISE…ONLY CHOICE…YOUR CHOICE…

A small wind ruffled the hair of both doppelgangers, and both looked at each other. They understood exactly what had to be done. It was one of those understandings that you know is for the best, but at the same time, your stomach tightens at the thought of going through with it.

Garfield felt sick. But he knew the sickness meant that he was prepared to do what was necessary. "Fine."

The Beast cocked a six-inch eye-brow. "Huh?"

Garfield hated repeating himself. "I said 'Fine', as in yes, I'll do it."

The Beast looked somewhat distrustful of what he was hearing. "You'll do this? With me? Willingly?"

"Oh for the love of…YES, OK? I'll put our other stuff aside so that we can help the others." Garfield said, taking several deep breaths. "Just so long as we have a chance."

The Beasts' smiles were usually horrible enough to peal paint, but in this case, his demeanor was much more appreciable as opposed to standoffish. He stood and approached the child, swaggering slightly with new confidence.

"Low and behold, the child takes the bull by the horns." The Beast growled softly. "I guess miracles and all that other Disney crud really can happen, huh?"

Garfield ignored the Beast's childishness, and faced the matter at hand, addressing the sky. "What must we do?"

The voice replied promptly.

…YOU MUST JOIN…ASSUME EACH OTHER…AND THE HOST…

"Could you BE more cryptic?" The Beast scoffed.

"She…he…IT means that we have to join bodies," Garfield clarified, "Otherwise we cannot exude full influence upon BeastBoy, and the only way we can do that is to…"

The Beast seemed to purr with hunger. "Oooh…"

Although it still had no form, the presence seemed to descend to the ground, sidling up next to both entities, making sure that they stayed in the moment.

…YOUR TIME IS SHORT…IT MUST BE DONE NOW…OR NOT AT ALL…

Garfield did his best not to scream as the Beast wrapped his enormous paw around Garfield's chest and arms. At the same time, he felt a sense of peace, knowing that, as painful and terrifying as the coming experience was sure to be, it had to be done in order to protect those that he, and the Beast, cared about. The Beast knew this too, even though he believed that his motivations were different. He probably still had something he had yet to cook up lurking within his huge skull, but for now, it was time to look past paranoia, and get the job done.

The Beast brought Garfield up to face level, his eyes as pale as the moon. "Last chance to back out."

"Just get it over with." Garfield said shakily.

As the Beast slowly, almost playfully opened his gaping jowls, Garfield felt a strange sensation. It felt as though his body were being injected with something, although he couldn't say what. It had a feeling very similar to what one experiences right as they breach the surface of the water after diving and your ears suddenly clear and pop, all the sound around you instantaneously more vivid and sharp. It felt liberating, although still strangely foreign.

Garfield took comfort in this, his eyes watching as the Beast's mouth loomed closer, his throat growling something sadistic just before Garfield was swallowed whole.

"You might feel a slight pinch."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

[Two Hours Later

"BEASTBOY! Come Back! Do not break the line!"

"Forget it! He's eight miles past crazy! Keep FIGHTING!"

Such were the last words spoken to BeastBoy before he had disappeared into the melee.

The situation was thoroughly FUBAR, to say the least. Any person who has ever witnessed or been a part of a major military or personal conflict knows exactly what that abbreviation means. The events taking place beneath the Antarctic, unbeknownst to the rest of the globe, would certainly have qualified.

Gunfire and blaster-report were a constant. The air was heavy with the concussive fluctuations of explosions, rapid-fire discharges and detonations. Although Brother Blood had long since vented the cavern of any remaining vaporized shielding-agent, the hanging fog of smoke and steam constricted the atmosphere horribly. There was no level ground. Anything that had once been flat and walk-able was now a mangled mass of ice and metal, very much resembling the desolate plain of a frozen volcano. The moonlight from above did little to cut the gloom of the scene, having been nearly extinguished from view a few hours ago. The smell of chemicals and burning debris gave the floor of the ice chamber an acrid, deathly odor, almost as if one were walking through a very cold rendering plant.

And in the middle of all this carnage, backed against a pile of discarded robot chassis's, were four ragged teenagers.

"Raven, on your right!"

"Azarath, Metrion, ZINTHOS!"

"Cy, check your six! Two of them!"

"I could use a hand, Star!"

"Get back, you gork-munching breedlesnits!"

"What she said!"

Robin ached. He had been in strenuous situations before, but at this point, after nearly five hours of combat, his body was starting to send him warning signals. It had started with his stomach, the abdominal muscles feeling stretched and torn. But then it grew, and migrated to his lower and middle back, stretching with tiny, pin-prickling fingers until it covered his shoulders and neck. By now, his chest was beginning to burn, the pectorals feeling battered and bruised. They, along with his stiffening biceps and week quadriceps, were trying to tell Robin something.

His body was going to give out.

And the drones just kept coming.

Robin glanced at Starfire, about twenty yards away, as a whole troop of Atlas's fell upon her. A second later, he watched as the pile suddenly levitated into the air, the surprised expression upon the drone's faces all but human. The pile began to spin, and suddenly, all the Atlas soldiers were thrown in various directions, but all of which were far from where the Titan's stood.

"Star! Are you alright?" Robin yelled while parrying a blow from another robot.

"I could use a 'vacation', as you might say," Starfire replied, wiping a small trickle of blood from her eye, "since this ordeal has proven quite taxing."

"Tell me about it!" Raven yelled from some distance away, splitting a drone lengthwise down the middle.

"I don't get it." Cyborg said, breathing hard as he briefly examined his dented knuckles before another drone appeared. "These guys are coming four or five at a time, but there must be over a thousand times that many out there."

"Indeed," Starfire said, using her heat-vision to sever a head from another drone, "Should we not have been overrun by now?"

Raven forced a wave of her own energy into a phalanx of spikes, sending them in all directions, puncturing any drone unlucky enough to still be standing nearby.

"Actually, I don't think it's strange at all." Raven said, resting upon the jagged ice for a few moments.

"Oh, no?" Robin asked, ducking another attack, "Why not?"

Raven looked south, towards the soldiers that were still approaching. She could see the line of warriors, still steadily approaching, somewhat hidden by the several mounds of destroyed robots that were lying all over the ruined ice. But their approach was strange; it looked lopsided. Anyone who was watching could tell that, despite the general direction of the wave upon wave of deadly machines, there was something less than linear about their path.

They seemed to be leaning slightly to the left, as if some huge object had diverted this massive river of metal and firepower, their footsteps thundering away on the frozen ground.

Something else was attracting this army's attention.

"Something tells me that we are not the primary target…at least, not yet." Raven said, her eyes suddenly worrisome.

Robin looked in Raven's direction, and followed her gaze. Both flinched slightly as they witnessed an Atlas drone fly several meters into the air, and crash with a thud several yards away.

"What was that?" Starfire asked, genuinely amazed at the sight of the flying robot.

Raven sighed deeply, dispatching another two attackers with a scion-blast as she answered Starfire's question.

"It's BeastBoy," Raven said slowly. "And he's having fun."

Raven had a talent for understatement in this case, as Cyborg would soon learn. He, and Starfire, managed enough of a reprieve to scope out BeastBoy, nearly three-hundred yards away, as he fought his own battle.

"MORE!" came a throaty, almost unintelligible voice, raking across Raven's ears even from far away. "BRING ME MORE!"

Raven watched a solitary figure leap high above the heads of the approaching Atlas onslaught. For its size, such an acrobatic feat would seem almost comical for such a brute: the sheer size of its chest and shoulders made the darkly silhouetted figure look top-heavy. And yet it soared, higher and higher into the air of the dome, only to crash loudly upon a group of well-armed automatons. The impact didn't seem to phase it: a moment latter, followed closely by the sound of ripping metal and detonating chemicals, the figure leapt again, seeking a new spot to conquer for itself.

The Beast was in full control of BeastBoy's body: of that much, Raven was certain. When BeastBoy was still mostly within his human form, he had leapt away, directly toward the approaching wall of drones, all but disappearing from sight. In her minds eye she could see with vivid clarity exactly what was taking place nearly two football-fields away from her. Even though her attention was diverted between her own brief conflicts and her spastic conversations with her other teammates, Raven still bore witness to everything BeastBoy did.

She didn't like what she was seeing.

"FIRE A VOLLEY!"

"IT'S TOO STRONG! FALL BACK!"

"AIM FOR THE HEAD AND CHEST! HEAD AND CHEST!"

Raven felt a twinge of mental fatigue as she telepathically witnessed a set of iron-black talons impale the reinforced armor-plating upon an Atlas's chest. The hooked weapons pierced the metal like tin-foil, curling upwards with sickening voracity. They then pulled free, dislodging, among other things, the central power core of the drone, discarding it like so much garbage. Sparks and hydraulic fluid spewed in every direction, before the shell of steel fell to one side, its eyes fading as its short, violent life came to an end. The final scene of carnage for Raven was witnessing the head of the Atlas drone suddenly shadow-over, only to be crushed like an egg-shell under the large, clawed foot of its attacker.

"Raven, snap out of it!" Cyborg yelled from somewhere far away, giving Raven a mental slap across the face.

Ker-CLANNNNGGG!

Raven reasserted herself just as Cyborg blocked a thunderous blow from the Atlas soldier standing over her. She could see Cyborg strain under the weight, blocking the one-ton fist with his fore arm, his feet being ground into the snow under the pressure. Gritting his teeth, Cyborg switched arms, and deployed his cannon.

"Get out'uh my FACE!" he yelled.

THHHHHHRRRRUUUUUUUMMMM!

The entirety of the drones' chest-cavity disintegrated in a flash of supercharged sound and energy. Having only a head and two lifeless arms left, Cyborg caught the sizzling metallic skull with his now free hand, and punted the chunk of metal as far as he could.

"Are you even paying attention?!" Cyborg hollered, turning on Raven. "You nearly got back-handed by a fist that weighs twice what I do! What the heck is with you?"

Raven stared blankly, not believing she had let her guard down so entirely. Before answering, Raven scowled in the direction of the Atlas soldiers, and whipped her arm in a sweeping motion towards them. A wall of black, unstable energy careened towards the wall of robots, detonating on impact like a cluster bomb. The debris caused collateral damage to the surrounding flanks, wiping out nearly one-hundred drones in one fell swoop.

"Suffice it to say, I have some fairly persistent issues on my mind. Alright?" Raven said with a corrosive undertone, her hair billowing in the wind caused by her own explosive attack.

Cyborg eyed the wreckage, and then his teammate. "Fair enough. But quick harpin' on BB. He'll be our problem soon enough: concentrate on the jerks trying to kill us NOW, alright?"

Raven sighed with frustration, but nodded regardless. She levitated into the air, and began a semi-assault on the drones to her right, keeping her head in the fight instead of every other event around her.

'I'll concentrate on the fight,' Raven thought to herself, conjuring another sphere of energy into her open palm, 'and make my way to BeastBoy in the process.'

A few kilometers away, comfortably seated atop a throne of stone, well beyond the range of the battle, sat a strangely calm man, surrounded by a handful of loyal cohorts. Raven could see the tiny circle of people perched atop the massive structure in the center of the great ice-chasm. Much as she would have loved to teleport right to that spot and end this battle at its source, she knew a one-on-one confrontation with that platinum-haired hellion would be suicide. Her best bet would be to wait it out, and help those she could until her opportunity presented itself: in this case, the person she felt responsible for harming, however unintentionally, involved in a kamikaze attack of his own.

'Please don't let me be too late…' Raven prayed.

Said circle of villains were indeed vulnerable at the moment, if by 'vulnerable' you mean 'completely exposed to attack by anyone foolish enough to ignore the vast army of robotic soldiers at their feet'. The seven individuals seemed almost at ease as they witnessed an ocean of mechanized firepower slowly begin to overpower the five persistent dots in the distance.

Control Freak slowly approached the stone seat that held his master, keeping his eyes on SLADE's new creation that hovered at his right hand. "My lord, if I may, I have a question."

SLADE's one visible eye lazily swiveled to look at the portly teen. "And that is…?"

"Well, my master," Control Freak stammered, "your order was to crush the titans in the most efficient way, hence the swarming robot blitzkrieg, correct?"

"Was that your question?" SLADE asked peevishly.

"Uh…er…no. I was just curious: why not just train five of the heavy energy cannons on them, one for each titan? There's no way they're faster than the speed of light, and even if we miscalculate their trajectory, the explosion would knock them out, long enough for a final shot. BOOM! No more Teen Titans!" Control Freak said with nervous vigor.

SLADE seemed almost bored, and showed it by actually leaning on one arm, as if tired or uninterested. He gestured to the girl standing by his side, indicating that he wanted her to answer the question.

"Are you this dumb because of some dominant chromosome? Or is it from all the TV?" Requiem asked sharply, indicating just how annoyed she was.

Control Freak studied the genetic amalgam. Her hand was encased in a pulsing, translucent apparatus that very much resembled the tentacles of an octopus. The arms of said cephalopod were wrapped tightly around Requiem's forearm, periodically unwrapping and rewrapping themselves around her pale flesh. The head of this device contained her hand, suspended in a bio-mimetic fluid that seeped into her every pore. Though the head of this contraction was primarily opaque, Control Freak could still make out the odd, somewhat sinister workings of the synthetic reconstruction plug.

The process couldn't have been comfortable. "Who you callin' dumb? As a matter of fact, you owe your memory processor and photo-reconstruction technology to me: without it, you'd never be able to consciously retrieve such vast amounts of information!"

"Perhaps the memory re-sequencing technology would have served you better," Requiem replied with a touch of malice, "since you've obviously forgotten that a discharge from any of those artillery batteries could rupture and negate the stability of the cavern floor. The Titan's would cease to exist, perhaps, but everything here would also sink to the ocean floor."

"Your failure to remember the methodical nature of this operation is growing tiresome, Control Freak," SLADE said, sitting up again, "so much so that I suggest you contemplate the competency of your questions before you ask them, from now on. Understood?"

Control Freak felt six inches tall, and slinked back behind the shadow of the tall throne. The fact that SLADE was in perfect control of Requiem, and demonstrated it by seizing control of her by force, was enough to make any man shake. He wouldn't be asking anything else.

Atlas…the original Atlas…stepped forward, dwarfing the throne, SLADE, and Requiem with his presence…but only in terms of size. "Perhaps a volley of concussion rockets would serve as a sufficient sneak attack, my lord? The sheer volume of drones will eventually overtake the titans, true. But such a drawn-out attack seems tedious when no risk is present in a direct circumvention."

"It won't be necessary," SLADE said, standing slowly and approaching the edge of the platform, Requiem at his heel, "since whatever drones we use can simply be recycled after these nuisances are taken care of. There's no reason to waste good artillery on an already guaranteed victory."

Atlas considered that, and nodded. "As you wish, my lord."

"Besides," SLADE continued, folding his arms behind his back, looking in the direction of the most significant combat, "one of these Titan's is having far too much fun for me to simply end the conflict so suddenly. And since it is his last bit of fun…"

Said Titan was indeed enjoying himself, much to Raven's chagrin. "Out of my WAY!"

SHLANG! POW!

The unlucky Atlas drone found himself disarmed, quite literally. Both his arms and legs fell away from his still hovering torso, leaving it with a perplexed look on its face as Raven flew past at top speed.

"THERE'S ANOTHER ONE! GET HER!" yelled another soldier.

Raven skimmed above the heads of the Atlas drones, ducking and weaving in and out of grasping hands. Every so often, one hand got lucky, and snatched her out of mid air, pulling her down into a claustrophobic fray of cold metal and fire-red eyes.

"WE'VE GOT HER!" they would shout with premature victory.

"You have got nothing!" sang another female voice, just before a blaze of green energy disintegrated the nearest robot.

"Thanks for the assist, Starfire," Raven said, "but I've got to get through this line! You should help the others, and your sister!"

"I am helping a friend, Raven." Starfire said, deflecting another blow from behind, giving Raven a knowing smile.

"But what about Robin and-?"

"I will assist you as far as I can, then I will return to help them. Blackfire is hidden beneath a hefty pile of drones, and so she will not be discovered for some time." Star said, standing firm.

"But Starfire…"

"I know how important it is that you reach him," Starfire interjected, zapping another drone in the face, "and so I will help you achieve that goal."

Raven inhaled a deep, chest-filling breath of air, and slowly let it escape. She wasn't accustomed to these new sensations of profound connection and gratitude for a friend, and so the tightness in her heart felt a bit uncomfortable. The look she gave Starfire said much more than words could have.

"Thank you," Raven said, "for helping me."

Starfire smiled warmly, before her eyes ignited the very armor of an approaching assailant. She never lost a beat.

Another twenty minutes of continuous combat earned both titans approximately two-hundred yards of covered ground. Raven knew that flying was an ultimately fruitless maneuver, since, every time she was forced to land, she would have to deal, not only with the approaching drones, but the ones she flew over as well. It became a World War One style of fighting: grabbing for every foot-hold, every extra yard, continuing to struggle for the right to even stand.

"BRING ME MORE!" came the sound-off of that guttural voice once again, this time much closer.

'We're almost there!' Raven thought with a growing feeling of both excitement and dread. "BeastBoy! I'm coming!"

"I shall depart now, Raven! Good luck!" Starfire said, sailing high into the air, and out of sight.

"You too, Star! And thank you again!" Raven said, looking up for a moment before charging on.

The skirmish was ongoing, no matter what Raven did. Regardless of how many heads she lopped off or bodies she melted, the ever-present smell and sound and sight of battle never left her senses. It filled every one of her pores, soaked her muscles with fatigue and congealed her blood into a fine sludge. The motions themselves were becoming so mechanical that she felt not too different from the brutes who so continuously tried to slay her.

'Keep pushing,' she told herself, back flipping into a small circle of drones that, of course, immediately turned on her, 'keep pushing and don't turn back!'

The seven robots suddenly found themselves compressed into spheres one-tenth of their original size, rolling and bobbing about like croquet balls. Raven's eyes glowed fiercely and, seizing her opportunity, moved on.

'Just a little further,' she thought again, the trickle of blood in her eye blinding her momentarily, 'a little further and you can set things right! You KNOW you can!'

It felt as if Raven were a bowl of clay in a kiln, slowly but surely hardening under intense heat and pressure. The simple movements of her hands became exhausting, and her boots, tattered and worn though they were, seemed to be filled with lead shot. The simplest of incantations blurred her vision and took a heavy toll on her flesh, since her physical body could barely withstand the mental exertion of her powers. The thought of simply lying upon the ice and taking a long nap became more and more appealing…

There! Just ahead! A tall figure with mangy, lime-green fur…

"Azarath, Metrion, ZINTHOS!"

Like a drained Olympic shot-putter, Raven threw her hands outwards to either side of her body, expelling a huge shock-wave of power with the last bit of muscle she had left. The result was an exponentially expanding phalanx of energy, surging outwards with enough force to blanket an area the size of a soccer field. Every drone instantly short-circuited or disassembled in mid-fight, scattering the ice with sizzling debris.

The pressure was too great. Raven fell to one battered knee, her arms still suspended in a crucifix fashion. Her breathing was deep but haggard, feeling as though each breath were forcing her ribs apart. She bowed her head in weariness, willing herself not to collapse under the weight of what her body commanded of her. It seemed as though her only true motivation to stay conscious was the realization that she had finally made it: the person that she had fought so desperately to reach was, at last, directly before her.

"BeastBoy, this has to stop!" Raven yelled, at first, not looking up at the tall figure standing over thirty feet away. "I've come to bring you back to the group! No matter what was said or what you might have heard, you can't just go off on some kind of vendetta-destruction spree! You have to realize…!"

GGRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrr……

Raven stiffened. The sound of gurgling tar and twisting metal within some kind of massive hollow structure prickled at her ears; only a very hostile throat could produce such a sound. The menacing tone crept over the now clear but jagged ice, scathing it with an even more reproachful texture.

Raven knew that growl all too well, but all the common sense in the world wouldn't keep her from looking at its source.

Ambient light created a silhouette around the creature, blocking out most of its frontal features. Deep lines of green besmirched by splotches of a black-red substance could be seen streaking over its gargantuan shoulders and thick neck. The chest, sporting several burns and lacerations, was also stained, covered in a thick layer of artificial lubricants and fuel. The tightly packed musculature, woven around the heavy bones like steel cable, showed little or no sign of serious injury, and merely heaved every time the creature took a deep, resonating breath.

Raven studied the creature as she slowly returned to her feet. It seemed to lean to one side, almost leisurely, resting upon its long feet and large forearms. As Raven got closer, she could see that one foot rested upon the ice, while the other rested upon a jagged outcropping, so far as Raven could tell from all the smoke. It did not hunch over, so much as stand with sloppy posture: something had gotten its attention, but not enough of it to square off and prepare for a fight.

The talons on the left hand gave Raven a general feeling of dread: not an easy thing to accomplish. Its hand was as black as pitch, drenched in some unknown liquid that dripped from the talons like blood. The drops stained the ice wherever they fell, rolling from the creatures palm like rainwater.

SCRAPESCRAPE! SCRAPE!

The high-pitched sound startled Raven for a moment, because she couldn't pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. It sounded like nails on a chalk-board, irritating and strained. A quick look to the Beast's feet revealed exactly what it was.

The drone was pinned with its back against the ice, both of its legs missing. The chest cavity was partially collapsed, crushed under the dead weight of the leaning creature. There was no panic in its one intact eye, since a drone really has no concept of fear. It looked at Raven with red indifference, grasping at the ice with mangled metal fingers. It looked as if it was trying to escape, or perhaps a subroutine was miss-feeding information to the appendages. Either way, it wasn't succeeding.

Raven felt unusually uncomfortable with the silence. "BeastBoy…can you hear me? Do you know who I am?"

Apparently, the eyes of this impressive creature had been closed the whole time Raven had been studying the situation. In split second of recognition, the Beast opened its eyes, bathing Raven in a chilling glow of blue-white light. The eyes narrowed into thin slits of scrutinizing, cold razors, sharp enough to stop Raven in her tracks.

"I know you can hear me," Raven stated, assuming a non-threatening but still firm tone, "no matter what form you are in, I know you can hear me. And I think you recognize me, too."

SNAP-RRRRIP!

She was barely five yards away when BeastBoy struck the drone with his right hand. It was so fast that Raven barely caught it, and only reacted about two seconds after the fact. She stumbled back several steps, trying to piece together what she had seen.

The Beast had raked its claws across the neck of the drone, severing its head with spurt of sparks. In the same gesture, it lifted the ottoman-sized object in his massive hand, and held it at eye level, just out of his line of vision. Raven watched as the red of the robot's optical sensor blinked brightly for a second, then dimmed away.

A second later, the Beast curled his hand into a fist, compressing the heavy steel into rough ball, its talons piercing and scaring the outer armor with ease. The CPU within whined under the pressure, before being folded in on itself, and dropped to the ice with a hollow clunking sound.

"Was that really necessary?" Raven asked, still unsettled by the side of the drones imploded face.

The Beast's smeared face gave a carnal grin, before he stomped his foot upon the opposite side of the drones lifeless body. The result was an impressive plume of shattered ice and snow, as well as the drone kick-flipping into the air like an elongated skateboard. The Beast caught the two-ton torso with his left hand and, as if tossing a piece of paper, hurled the body over the back of his head with little effort. It soared nearly fifty yards straight up before crashing into its comrades at the edge of Ravens shockwave circumference.

"No," responded the Beast, enjoying the astonished look upon Raven's face, "but it was fun"

Raven ignored her urge to hurl: the Beast's breath was just as rancid in reality as it had been in the world of the subconscious, only now it had a tofu chaser. "Why have you appeared? We didn't need your assistance. We want BeastBoy, not you."

The Beast leaned forward on his knuckles, bracing his weight so that he hovered only a few feet above Raven's head. His pupil-less eyes gave away nothing: no regret, no fear. Raven may as well have been staring into a set of bug-zappers.

"I told you, Raven: BeastBoy is gone. I'll be doing his share of the fighting…and then some." The Beast rumbled, jutting out his jaw in defiance.

"I swear, if you harmed that little boy…!" Raven warned.

The Beast looked incredulous. "Harmed? You think I did something to that pint-sized pain in order to escape?"

"You spelled it out for me, more or less: that's the ONLY way you can escape!" Raven said, getting up enough gusto to levitate into the air slightly. "Overpowering and devouring a helpless child is the only way you can break the cerebral bonds that held you, and her you are."

"HUH-HA HA HA HA HA!" The Beast bellowed with glee, throwing back his head with a wide open mouth. "If only it had been that much FUN! You haven't the faintest idea how easy it was for me to take control of this body, do you?"

In truth, Raven didn't know the specifics, other than what had transpired between them when her body had fallen under the control of the emotional sadist that lay within her own psyche. But she couldn't let him know that. Best to shift the conversation, while it lasted.

"Why are you fighting all these drones on your own?" Raven said, her eyes drifting to the scattered clumps of mangled machinery. "Have you been cooped up so long that all you want to do is kill things?"

"Sounds like a hoot and a half. But actually, I've been rather preoccupied with this nagging thought in the back of 'my' head." The Beast said, one eye narrowing with perplexing slowness, his smile growing. "Something about a duty, a promise, or a subject to that effect. Either way, it isn't loud enough to distract me from all the prey out here, or the fun I'm having."

Raven looked up at the dirty, slightly ravaged figure that had once been BeastBoy. In his place stood a mountain of muscle and malice, a composite of callousness and contempt. Yet even now, as she took in this manifestation, a certain familiar emotion that she should have been experiencing was not present.

It was cockiness; she couldn't few any cockiness.

"You're a fake." Raven said softly.

The Beast's smile vanished. His brow creased sharply, and his jaw clenched audibly. Raven could hear the strain on the molars, like a squeaky metal chair.

"What did you say?" he asked slowly.

"You're a fake. A fraud, a con." Raven said to the Beast's face, without flinching. "You aren't the tough, angry, loathsome creature you try to come across as. As a matter of fact, I'll bet the only reason you left the group was because you can't figure out what's going on with you. But whatever it is, it has you restless, agitated…running."

The Beast swept Raven into his right hand faster than Raven could blink. Her words rang with the same tone and accusation as the speech given to him by the kid. It set his nerves on fire at hearing the same basic blather all over again.

The subsequent lift into the air made Raven dizzy, so much so that it took her a moment to realize just how close the Beast was holding her to his face. The sudden proximity was unsettling, to say the least.

"You speak out of turn, girl. Even the kid had more common sense than to insult me to my face." The Beast hissed, never fully opening his mouth. "And I've acquired a lot more mobility since we last met."

His grip was tight and firm, constricting Raven's body with serpentine strength. His hand was almost as wide as Raven was tall, allowing only her head to protrude from between his thumb and forefinger. She could feel her shoulders being forced into her collar bone, the cartilage popping as it slid.

"You'd like nothing better…than to crush me, wouldn't you?" Raven asked, her eyes suddenly feeling puffy from all the pressure. "Compress me into a human kick-stand?"

"Half-human!" The Beast replied cruelly. Raven let it slide.

"Then…do it," Raven said through a choked breath, "and prove…you're as evil as you say!"

Raven vaguely witnessed the Beast as he raised his free arm, arching above his head a good fifteen feet in the air. Raven watched as his fist clenched tight, and his teeth peeked from between his lips, shiny and jagged. It became apparent that the Beast intended to crush Raven's head like an egg beneath brick, silencing her voice for good…

…but he stopped. Just as his fist had reached the apex of its height…he stopped. Just as his breathing had quickened to that pulsing, pressurized pace, similar to that of a blast-furnace…he stopped. Just as the muscles in his clenching fingers had all but halted the flow of blood through Raven's body…he stopped.

Raven didn't breath for a full sixty seconds. Not because of the pressure upon her body, but because it suddenly lessened. Not because of the claws burrowing into her flesh, but because they suddenly retracted. Not because of the knotted tension in the Beast's muscles, but because he suddenly relaxed.

Her eye's fixed upon the Beast's deep gaze. As his fingers slowly relinquished their hold upon her battered body, Raven witnessed, arguably, the most perplexing sight she had ever seen in her short, teenage life.

'What in the world…?' she thought.

They were huge and puffy. They seemed more subtle, less abrasive. Their arch became less menacing, and their intensity began to fade. Truly, the eyes of her assailant looked much different to Raven.

But it was the tears that momentarily ceased her breath.

"Garfield…?" Raven whispered.

It had to have been. Somehow, in spite of the terrible grip exerted upon BeastBoy's body by the Beast within him, Garfield seemed to be present as well. It was faint, and almost imperceptible, but it was there. On two separate occasions, she had seen this look in BeastBoy's eyes. The first had been upon that ruined glacial ridge a few days earlier, just after BeastBoy had confessed a horrible truth about his own uncertainty.

The second, and probably most memorable time, had been while both teens were imprisoned in that cold, dark cell within SLADE's fortress.

The fiery sensation of Hope rising within her body made Raven feel emboldened, and she spoke again, relishing the brief, fleeting instance of Garfield's control over the Beast.

"Garfield! I know that's you!" Raven yelled with her weakened voice. "You're doing it! You're breaking through!"

A flicker in his eyes; a brief flash of realization…

"Don't stop! Fight! You don't have to do what he tells you!" Raven said, as strong as was possible for her at the moment.

Another twitch…something trying to push its way through…

"Don't be afraid! You are the stronger!" Raven tried, clinging to the Beast's huge thumb in an effort to stay conscious. "He can't control you any more!"

The grip on Raven's body tightened violently. Raven felt the wind pushed from her chest, and the pain in her ribs was nearly enough to make her faint. Her wide, open eyes witnessed as the tears upon the Beast's cheeks were hastily pushed away, replaced once more by that icy glare. To her horror, Raven watched as the Beast bellowed a deep, resounding roar, and raised its free hand above its head once more.

As the world around her became blurry, Raven waited for the axe-chop of the Beast's fist, a blow that would certainly snuff her life out for good. Raven barely made out her surroundings: the dimming light…the sparkle of teeth…the seemingly planet-sized fist falling from the sky…

Ker-PLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooommmmmmm…

The sound waves from the strike did two things: firstly, Raven's eyes sprang open as if they had been propelled by large iron springs, and secondly, it forced air into her lungs, primarily out of the surprise that she wasn't dead.

HUFF…HUFF…HUFF…huff…huff…huff…

The Beast was breathing deeply and haggardly. Raven found that her own breath was in sync with the large creature, and finally tilted her head in the direction of his leveled forearm.

The force of the Beast's strike had literally driven the approaching Atlas drone into the ice. It had attempted to attack both of them whilst they were distracted, and would have succeeded, were it not for the carefully place strike of the Beast's fist. The drone's head was crumpled like a crushed pop-can, and the sheer force of the hit planted the drone up to his 'knees' in the seemingly frozen ground. No other drones had made it that far, and now, the others were keeping their distance.

Raven pushed the now slack fingers open, doing her best to avoid his carving-knife talons. "Garfield? Is that you?"

The Beast turned his head back to her, his eyes now distracted from the drone he had just inserted into the ground like a railroad-spike. The eyes were still puffy and unsure, but the malicious tone was very familiar.

"It's just part of the deal," the Beast rumbled, releasing Raven from his iron grasp and looking away, "the deal that lets me out. I have to help you…"

But Raven wasn't convinced. Even as she dropped to the ice, unable to even slow her descent, she knew there was more.

"Let you out?" Raven asked, rather quizzically in spite of her exhaustion. "Deal? What are you talking about? You can only get out if you nullify Garfield's persona within BeastBoy. He doesn't make deals, and neither do you."

The Beast slowly backed away, just a few feet at a time, until he was a few yards from the crumpled drone and Raven. "And I don't answer questions, either. Besides, it's not your concern…"

Raven summoned up a bit of her strength, and used it propel herself forward with unusual swiftness and silence. She was firmly in the Beast's face again. "It IS my concern. How did you do it? How did you get hold of Garfield? Tell me what set you loose."

"I owe NO explanation to you, or anyone else!" The Beast barked, still steadily backing his massive bulk in the opposite direction. "My reasons are my own!"

"If you harmed him, then you owe ME an explanation," Raven insisted with more vigor than she actually possessed, "and the fact that you're avoiding the subject and backing down so readily is proof of that."

Raven knew that the Beast could sense that he was being trapped, and couldn't find an escape route. The strange sensation of control, however small it might have been, was encouraging for Raven. It was the closest she had ever come to making headway with her friend, and the entities within him. She wasn't about to give up her shot now; his life, as well as her life and the life of her friends, may depend on it.

"I did what was necessary!" The Beast insisted, one of his clawed hands pressed to his swimming head in an attempt to stabilize his thoughts. "And I avoid nothing! You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Oh, but I think I do," Raven said, matching her staggered levitation to the pace of the Beast's withdrawal, "and what's more, I think you did something terrible to that little boy. I think you saw an opportunity, back when BeastBoy was being berated by the others and I, and seized it, just so you could poke out for a while and have some carnal fun."

"I seized no opportunity," the Beast continued, relenting somewhat, "but I created a means to an end; the benefit of freedom, combat, and destruction, all in pursuit of something…"

Raven noticed the hesitation. "What? Something what?"

The Beast began to grind his teeth in frustration of his own inability to control his thoughts and words, the words barely audible over the gravel-sharp sound. "Mutually beneficial."

Boom! Big puzzle piece. "Beneficial to whom? Who are you talking about?"

The growing conflict within the 'Beast's' head seemed to grow inexorably. The large creature bent to the ice, dug his tungsten-dense claws into the fractured ice-floor, and raked them like massive threshers over the cold surface. Small rooster-tails of flying debris skittered across whatever flat surfaces of the ice remained intact, the Beast's strength carving deep grooves all around his body.

Raven wouldn't let this temper-tantrum deter her. "You did make a deal, didn't you? How else could you have escaped your cell? BeastBoy wasn't unconscious, and he wasn't under Requiem's control. There must have been something else, something too valuable to pass up, that was being offered to you."

"NO…" the Beast denied.

"Who was it?" Raven demanded, getting steadily closer. "Who made you the deal?"

"I won't…"

"You will! Tell me who it was!" Raven practically yelled, getting as close as she dared. "Tell me who agreed to set you free!"

CROOMCROOM!

She had been distracted. Both of them had been. Raven had no idea how near the other drone was to their proximity, but it had obviously been pretty close. Raven had no time to react as the drone lowered his weapon, charged, and fired two heat-blasts directly at her back from only thirty feet behind her. The sound didn't even reach her ears before her slightly levitated form was silhouetted by the burning red energy, casting a blood-red shadow upon the ice.

Nor did she have time to react when the Beast suddenly front-flipped over Raven, landed, stood, and opened his arms wide.

Buh-BAM! BAM!

The draft from the blasts caused Raven's hair to clover her perplexed face. The discharged heat could be felt all over her exposed, battered skin, and the sound was similar to that of rocket-propelled grenade going off by her ear (she should know; after all, it had happened enough times in her career as a Titan).

Raven turned as quickly as she could, finding herself in the shadow of the tall creature. His arms looked as though they were nailed to a cross, his fingers and shoulders spread wide. The smell of burning meat was everywhere, pungent and acrid like carrion.

Raven soared over the Beast's head and landed just before him, facing the marching drone not fifteen feet away. Her eyes pulsed with energy.

"Azarath, Metrion, ZINTHOS!"

Raven clapped her hands as if she were trying to crush a fly before her face. The resulting collision of her palms produced an arrow-shaped bolt of highly-focused psychic power. The bolt traversed the distance between her and the drone at faster-than-light speeds, piercing the toughened armor like cheap-margarine. The drone bowed outwards from the building power-surge, and finally erupted in purple black flames.

"What happened?" Raven asked, turning back to the still outstretched Beast. "Can you move your arms? How did you know that that drone was-?"

"The Boy…" came a whisper.

Raven thought her ears were still ringing from the explosion. "What did you say?"

The Beasts' eyes were partially closed, and his brow was weak and slacked, but he still managed to speak. "The deal…was made…with the boy. We were given a choice…our choice…by…something…inside BeastBoy's head. Some kind of…"

Raven felt the answer before he said it. "A voice? A presence?"

The Beast could only nod, trying to breathe normally as his massive arms lowered to the ice. "No trust…it said there was no trust between us…no cooperation…"

Raven pieced things together as accurately as she could. "But something forced you two to reconcile…no, not reconcile, but find some common ground. Something that was…mutually beneficial."

The Beast's legs were very tired. He bent on one knee, trying to keep his face up. "Requiem…choking the life out of you……we had to act, or watch her destroy all of you…"

Raven could see the sequence of events in her head; the voice somehow showing both entities what was occurring in the outer-world, granting them both freedom, and giving them a choice as to what to do about it.

But something didn't fit. It would be obvious that BeastBoy and his younger persona Garfield would want to help in any way that they could. So why not allow Garfield to…

"I am the physically superior of the two…" The Beast said slowly, as if reading her mind, "so the brat relented…and I ATE him."

It made sense now, at least for the most part. But something still stuff in Raven's tired, injured head. "What's in it for you?"

The Beast looked mystified, as well as tired. "What?"

"What do you get out of this?" Raven asked, leaning forward slightly to tend to the Beast's injuries. "Garfield told me that I was important to him, so it makes sense that he would want to help. BeastBoy told me he would…protect me, no matter what it took, so that both of us…all five of us, could defeat SLADE and go home. Even while Requiem was pushing every conceivable button in my body that allowed me to insult and…hurt him, in the most horrible way possible, he still insisted on my better nature, and tried to remind me of that nature, even as I was attacking him."

The Beast stared at the dark girl, saying nothing.

"Garfield wouldn't put you in the driver's seat lightly. And BeastBoy fights for control over you at every turn," Raven continued, looking the Beast in his face as her frustration and anxiety grew, "so what gives? Garfield would never let anything happen to the people he cares about. If he could have saved his family, he would have, but he couldn't. Garfield, and BeastBoy, would never let anything happen to the Titans…to his new family. And BeastBoy would do anything to protect the people he cares about…that he would never let anything harm me, even though I'm not entirely sure why, so long as he had a breath in his body…that he wouldn't let anyone hurt me ever again…"

In the middle of her choked, sad, angry words, Raven suddenly stopped. Her eye's had slowly drifted from the Beast's primeval, surly face, to his chest.

The two heat-blasts had struck the Beast in both of his large pectoral muscles. The fur was, for the most part, burned away, exposing deeply scared and ravaged flesh. The blasts must have been fired from a rifled barrel of some sort, because the burns had left a slight spiral indentation in the thick muscle. Blood was slowly dripping from many ruptured veins and arteries all over the Beast's seared chest, slowly collecting and matting the remaining sizzling fur upon his abdomen. Every time the Beast drew a ragged breath, the wound would reopen all along his ribs, exposing more ruptured muscle and torn skin.

Even as Raven attempted to heal the garish injury, her mind and thoughts were elsewhere; her memories of the giant creature vaulting over her head, blocking the fiery blasts with his body, taking the brunt of the hit, never, even now, failing to stand and protect…

Protect…

Raven raised her beautiful, suddenly understanding eyes, to this Beast…this being…who had saved her life.

All trace of anger had long-since departed her deep, cool gaze.

"…and you won't either, will you?" she said, finishing her hanging sentence, not so much asking as confirming what she now knew to be true. "You have the same need…you want to keep the same promise."

When the Beast finally spoke again, after Raven had healed him as much as she could, his eyes were downcast and his voice was still gruff, cynical and peevish. But it also hummed great deal of reassurance.

"First the boy…then the Beast…" The Beast rumbled as he stood once more, slowly and deliberately facing Raven. "Two halves of the greater whole. BeastBoy never had a chance."

Raven wasn't sure what the Beast was getting at, but the large creature gave a wry smile, and opened his suddenly less-piercing eyes. "Though BeastBoy and Garfield wouldn't want me telling you this, it seems you conquered all three of us, Raven. I've never lost so thoroughly…nor have I ever felt so relieved to be defeated."

Raven felt a very small smile—of all things—begin to tug at the corners of her lips. In his offhanded and somewhat disparaging way, she felt as though he had paid her a compliment.

Of course, that didn't keep him from being snide, cocking his head to one side and scowling slightly at her. "Happy now?"

"Not yet..." came a response.

But it wasn't from Raven.

"What the he-?"

"FIRST LINE READYYYYYYY…FIRE!"

CROOMCROOM! CROOMCROOM!

T-SSSSSSSEEEEEEEW!

"Azarath, Metrion, ZINTHOS!"

The ice exploded into a billowing wall of flame and sorcery. The onslaught of over one-hundred concussion blasts and at least a dozen particle-beams was met by a twenty-foot wall of solid reflective energy, rooted into the ice but still violently vibrating from the combined attack. The other side of the wall lit up like New Years Eve, the spectacular release of power—on both sides—strong enough to rattle the very walls of the chamber. The effect was similar to ten bolts of lightening converging upon a single point, releasing all their collective force in a single devastating blast.

CRRRRACKA-BOOOOOOOOOM!

Raven again stood before the Beast, the tips of her fingers pointed towards her temples. Her eyes were closed, but her mouth was agape, heaving and panting from the effort it took to withstand the terrible attack. Her wall of dark, translucent energy stood firm, curved in a semi-circle around her and her larger friend. Raven watched as the shield rippled and swayed, but remained implanted in the ice, reminding her of the impressive battlements of Troy.

'Probably a bad analogy to use.' Raven thought to herself, looking through her shield at her surrounding aggressors some thirty yards off.

They stood together, bent on their knees, facing the shield. They formed a very impressive cul-de-sac around her wall, curved like the ocean around a peninsula. The drones, though kneeling, formed a coast, as it were, of over one-hundred soldiers, shoulder to shoulder. Behind them, standing equally close together but in greater numbers, were more enemies, standing upright, holding their weapons between the heads of their kneeling comrades. There were more soldiers further back, some of whom were standing upon the sides and platforms of no less then twenty armored assault vehicles. These platforms carried large amounts of armed personnel as well; nearly ten per vehicle. The large, heavy cannons of the assault-craft were lowered at Raven's energy-barrier, the tips of which twitched and hummed with primed, crimson energy.

Raven and the Beast were, essentially, looking down the barrels of nearly five-hundred loaded guns.

"How the blazes did they sneak up on us like that?" The Beast asked angrily, flanking Raven on her right.

"Interesting. I guess even the most primitive of minds can master speech." came the voice from before. The two titans behind the shield looked up.

He hovered upon a disk of silver metal, bobbing up and down in the air like a buoy at sea. His arms were folded behind his back, and his head leaned forward slightly. The dim glow from the roof of the chamber outlined his grim appearance vividly, but not so brightly that it hid the powerful glow of his one visible eye. The eyes of the slight, child-like figure that floated in mid-air beside him were significantly more piercing, as were the other pairs of fiery red glares belonging to five snickering cohorts in orbit around this duo.

"Ha! The pansy decided to show up." The Beast rumbled, balancing his weight upon his knuckles as he glared at SLADE and his entourage. "And about time, too. I thought I would be old and gray by the time SLADE decided to crawl out from under his rock."

"Watch your tongue, monster," Requiem warned softly, hovering beside Control Freak, Atlas, Brother Blood, Dr. Light and Dr. Chang, "or I'll pluck it from your jaw and feed it to you."

"Enough, Requiem," SLADE said, turning to face her, "there's no point in trying to communicate with the condemned, even if they persist in mouthing off to the living."

Raven knew a threat when she heard one, and wasn't taking too kindly to it. It had been nearly five days since she had eaten, slept, or successfully meditated. The exhaustion and constant state of peril were wearing thin on her already tired mind.

"Azarath, Metrion, ZINTHOS!"

A large bulge of energy pushed out from Raven's shield, shooting skyward as a spear of directed force. It screamed through the air faster than any of the drones could react, directly at the floating psychopath.

Sha-CLANG!

The sound resembled a bullet ricochet, and had vaguely the same effect. Raven watched as her attack reflected off of a large, crystal clear dome of energy that surrounded all the floating villains, to soar harmlessly to one side and out of sight.

"That's not possible, it was point-blank range!" Raven said with alarm, maintaining her shield.

Dr. Light, floating near the edge of the small troop of fiends, narrowed his crimson gaze, and shook his finger back and forth in a 'tisk-tisk' fashion, smiling like a jester. "Oh, come now, Raven. My photo-force fields are far too dense to be punctured by such a childish expulsion of power. I'm almost embarrassed that the automated sensor array deployed the field when you attempted to strike. Master SLADE could have batted your discharge away with the back of his hand."

"Indeed. But since it is your task to provide my army and I with superior defensive technology, you should consider yourself fortunate that the field did deploy as programmed," SLADE said, his voice laced with warning, "since it would be equally as simplistic for me to end your existence, should your usefulness prove to be lacking."

Dr. Light smiled nervously, and bowed in submission. "Yes, my lord."

To her surprise and disgust, SLADE addressed Raven directly. He leaned forward almost leisurely, and looked Raven in the eye through her large barrier.

"You must be tired, Raven. I can both see, and sense, your exhaustion. It seems to be surrounding your body like a poisonous vapor, constricting the life out of you. It must be painful." SLADE said, soft and patronizing.

"I'll show you just how much fight I have left in me," Raven responded, adding a little warning of her own, "but if you think I'm bluffing, why not take me on yourself? Find out if I'm really as toothless as you claim. I can promise you that BeastBoy certainly isn't!"

Although the Beast didn't necessarily like the idea of being referred to as that green teenager, he was still psyched by Raven's challenge. He grinned with approval. "The girl has a point. Why not try to take us, one on one? I'll even keep one hand behind my back."

T-FOOOSH!

He was gone!

SLADE had vanished before their eyes, as had his female minion. They seemed to have evaporated in a tenth of a second, leaving a hole in the air between SLADE's other assistants. Raven would have missed the whole thing if she had blinked even once.

It was there again; that prickling sensation. Raven saw the Beast spin on his heals, facing the opposite direction, his eyes shining white as he bared his fangs. Raven turned as well, keeping her concentration steady on the shield as she did, focusing on a shocking sight.

"As you can see, Raven," SLADE said, hovering comfortably within Raven's barrier, Requiem at his side, "I am able to circumvent your defenses at will. It is no longer a question of whether or not I can defeat you. The only question is 'how painful must your defeat be?'"

Raven felt a tremor of doubt. SLADE had overtaken her wall without her even sensing his movements. Surely Requiem had assisted in some way, but given the walls density and circumference, Raven could only estimate how fast SLADE had been traveling; too fast.

In spite of her apprehension, Raven felt a certain degree of security in the presence of BeastBoy's most combative persona, even if it was a very small degree. She watched as the Beast blustered and snarled deeply, his talons raked forward in a gesture of challenge. He looked and felt ready for a fight. The grimace upon his face and the tone of his voice was murderous.

"Threaten us all you want, jerk-off! Fancy tricks won't end our lives, or save yours!" The Beast barked.

Raven was ready for almost anything, excluding what SLADE did next. With Requiem at his side, SLADE reached, very slowly, into his utility belt. As Raven and the Beast braced themselves, they felt more than their fair share of confusion as they watched SLADE removed a few small pellets from a small pocket on his hip.

He seemed to be holding them out to the two titans, as if he were offering them candy.

"What are those?" Raven asked warily.

"Your last option." SLADE said quietly, holding the pellets out further.

"Looks more like rat-droppings." The Beast commented.

Raven kept her wall stable as she asked a question she wasn't sure she wanted the answer to. "What's in this 'last option'?"

"A potent but fast-acting concoction of sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride, compressed into a pill form. There is little or no pain—much to my displeasure—but the effect is the same." SLADE said, stating each chemical compound carefully.

If it wasn't seriously out-of-character for her, Raven would have laughed aloud. "A death-penalty lethal injection? As in suicide pills?"

"You can't be serious." The Beast smiled, catching Raven's drift. "How stupid do we look?"

"I advise you to consider the alternative," SLADE said, looking to left, "and to consider your friends as well."

Raven caught a glimpse of her friends far in the distance, nearly four hundred yards away. They, too, were caught in a circle of slowly encroaching drones. Her three fellow Titans were back to back to back, forming a powerful triangle of defense. But they were still outnumbered and out-gunned by nearly two-hundred to one. From what she could see, Starfire was practically nude from her torn and damaged clothing, doing her best to muster enough power to be considered a threat. Cyborg had both of his cannons deployed, but the look on his face suggested that he was on his last leg as well. Robin had only half of his bow-staff remaining, and though he brandished it with firm resolve, the lacerations upon his chest looked serious. Raven realized that one or more of his ribs were broken, making it painful for him to breath; his injuries were bright red beneath his shredded garments.

They weren't going to last much longer.

"Your choice is this:" SLADE began again, "take the pills, and die here, slowly but relatively painlessly, and no more suffering will come to you. I will give your friends the same option, since they, too, should recognize the futility of their pursuits. Having fought bravely in life, they should realize it would be better to die peacefully. As much as I would enjoy the tactile sensation of squeezing the life out of each and every one of you, I realize that my talents are better utilized elsewhere. These pills allow me to accomplish my goals and seal the fate of your friends. Their pain, at the very least, would cease…as would your own."

Raven stared blankly, unsure of how to respond. She looked to the Beast beside her, but could only see the same amount of anxiety and skepticism. She couldn't communicate directly to him, and even if she could, what would she say?

"Consider this, Titans," SLADE said impatiently, addressing both teens, "should you refuse my offer, I will use more direct means. When I give the order, every drone on the other side of your shield will open fire. Not only will you have to withstand the full assault of my advanced infantry, but you will have to deflect over one-million tons of artillery and concussive force. Your shield will be crushed, and your bodies will be torn asunder by flame and steel. The sheer volume of heat expelled by my army's assault will vaporize your flesh. There won't be any trace of you left to stain the ice."

'I'll bet he thinks he's being generous.' Raven thought bitterly.

"It's true, Titan pests!" Dr, Chang chimed in, hovering a little closer to the shield event-horizon. "My newly developed Xinothium Devastator canons are in position and loaded with an extra potent series of explosive rounds. The combined heat of such an attack, at its apex, will be ten times hotter than the radioactive fallout of the Chernobyl Disaster! HA!"

"So there you have it; two choices, one outcome. Either take my tremendously generous offer of a relatively quick and painless death, or stand your ground and be forcefully erased from the face of this earth." SLADE finished, moving forward slightly on his hovering discus. "Either way, the one thing you can be certain of, is that you…the five of you…will die, here, today. There is no avoiding it. In point of fact, I'm exceedingly tired of watching your small group wreak havoc upon my army. Though their numbers can easily be replenished, I am a very busy man, and face the daunting task of conquering the known world. This frivolous attempt to deplete my ranks will end now. More specifically, you will end now."

During SLADE's little speech, Raven never took her eyes off of her friends; they were so close, and yet, they were beyond any chance Raven had of reaching them. Even if she had the energy to expand her defenses around her friends, she wouldn't have been able to maintain it for long. The coming avalanche of raw power would make short work of a shield too thinly spread over too great a distance. It just wasn't possible.

"Your answer, and decision, Titans," SLADE said clearly, extending his filled palm further, "now."

As Raven opened her mouth, still unsure of what to say, she suddenly noticed how quickly and violently the Beast, standing at her side, suddenly grasped his own throat with both of his hands, his body convulsing and reeling from some hidden pain in his throat.

It looked as if he were choking. "HACK! COUGH! HOCK-HOCK!"

Requiem looked puzzled, the device on her hand glowing as it attempted to repair her soft-tissue injuries. "What's wrong with him?"

Raven didn't have the faintest clue either. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn that he had swallowed a car tire and accidentally lodged it in his throat, cutting off his air supply. The Beast made a horrible ruckus, grasping at his mouth and neck, seemingly attempting to will or claw the foreign object from his body. Every time he bent forward, he inched closer to where SLADE floated some fifteen feet ahead.

"This is a poor attempt at stalling the inevitable." SLADE said, assuming a peevish stance. "Give me your answer and be done with it; I have more important things to attend to."

Just as the Beast reach a distance of about seven or eight feet from where SLADE and Requiem waited and watched, Raven saw the Beast pull back, stand at his full height with his clawed hands about his throat…

…and smile.

"KA-HOCK! P-TOOEY!"

SPLAT!

For at least three seconds, Raven felt her shield begin to seriously destabilize. It was not because she was abhorred at what she saw; far from it. For a few seconds, Raven almost laughed herself silly. Since she couldn't actually laugh, a weird, squirmy smile appeared on her face, and her cheeks turned red from embarrassment as she tried to reassert her power; it had been that funny.

A gob of snot and spit, the size of Raven's fist, had hit SLADE square in the face. The Beast had spat in the face of the devil, and was now watching as the ball slowly slid down SLADE's mask. During the entire thirty seconds afterward, SLADE kept his head turned and his eye closed, reveling in the ghastly treatment he had just received.

Requiem, unfamiliar with this particular custom of disrespect, only stared at her master in wonder. She honestly had no idea of how to react.

"I think that about sums up how we feel about your 'tremendously generous offer'." The Beast said snidely, wiping the excess from around his jowls. "Any questions?"

FFFFWWWOOOOOOOMM!

As soon as Requiem witnessed her master's reaction to what the Beast had done, she understood exactly how he felt; as did everyone else within that chamber.

SLADE appeared to be enveloped in a cold, orange glow. It danced and hissed in an almost festive manor about his solid frame, coming to a fiery point above his head, swirling about his legs and melting the ice several feet beneath his floating body. Though comparatively diminutive to the hybrid he had created, whatever power SLADE still retained from his encounter with Trigon was still substantial enough to get his point across.

As he turned his head to face the two teens, Raven watched as the gob on his mask sizzled and popped like oil on a skillet. A second later, the sizeable wad had evaporated into the air. A few seconds after that, Raven saw the pills in SLADE's still outstretched palm begin to ignite, and finally vanish, incinerated by the burning energy that surrounded him.

Raven held her breath. The Beast, with all his bravado, appeared to tremor at the sight.

T-FOOOSH!

Raven, having fully reconstituted her shield and agreed, without saying anything, with what the Beast had insinuated, turned as SLADE and Requiem once again vanished from sight, only to reappear on the other side of the energy wall. The look on the faces of all his minions demonstrated both their fear and reverence for the still blazing image of their master, fuming and vibrating with power and unspoken rage.

Every Atlas drone on the ice looked at their leader, their eyes emotionless and unblinking.

Raven braced herself.

The Beast bristled.

SLADE clenched his fist.

"Wipe…them…out."

"A-TTAAAAAAAACK!"

Raven managed a short breath, focused her energy, and dug in her heals. She could do no more.

HHHHUUURRR-TSEEEEEEEW!

The sound of nearly ½ a thousand weapons discharging was deafening. Raven would have covered her ears, but to do so, she would have lost concentration, and both she and the Beast would have been vaporized in an instant.

CROOMCROOM!

WHAM! BOOOOOOM!

Ra-TATATATATATATAT!

Raven felt as though she were being lashed by a thousand bullwhips. Every impact bit her arms, legs and chest with needle-sharp teeth. Her muscles, fatigued and ragged to begin with, were being ripped from her skeleton one cell at a time (at least, that's how it felt). Her eyes remained squinted to prevent blindness in the dazzling light. She felt like she had roughly a week ago when the wave threatened Jump City, except in this instance, she held back not an ocean of water, but an ocean of hellfire.

"Azarath, Metrion…ZINTHOS!"

Raven conjured as much energy as she could, throwing her reserves into the fray. The wall broadened and thickened, but only slightly, covering both titans in a large hemisphere of protective energy. The edge of the barrier sunk into the icy floor, but the sheer number of impacts were like waves upon a rocky shore; eventually, something would have to give.

"Zinthos! Zinthos!" Raven yelled, draining her body of whatever was left, tapping into her life-source energy for more power. It felt as if her blood were being pumped from her heart into this wall.

'I…can't keep this up! I can feel my psychic connections beginning to crumble!' Raven thought, gritting her teeth. The wound upon her head began to bleed freely again, the salty liquid stinging her eyes. Any thought of a counterattack seemed impossible; everything she had was in that wall.

Raven looked to her right, watching the Beast as he slowly retreated with the shield. He could not join the fight, nor could he breech the wall in order to attack the drones directly. He was trapped.

'Not completely trapped.' Raven realized.

"Beast!" she yelled, shuddering from the effort of screaming over the melee, "BeastBoy!"

The Beast turned, eyeing her with a mix of confusion and fear.

"Get out of here!" Raven yelled, shaking her head to dislodge the blood in her face. "Take the back way out of the shield! Help the others!"

The Beast looked unsure, bewildered. He didn't understand—or couldn't believe—what was being asked of him.

"You heard me! I'll hold them off! Help our friends! There's nothing you can do here!" Raven yelled again.

Still no movement. The large creature hesitated. Raven felt like she was on the brink of collapse, both from exhaustion and disbelief.

"For once in your life, listen to me! GET OUT OF HERE!"

And then, he was gone.

At first, Raven couldn't believe it. He sped off behind her, running at flank speed, and disappeared from her line of sight. She was alone, her only defense fading like the evening dusk in front of her, facing down an armada of blood-thirsty drones.

She was on her own.

Raven allowed herself a small, rueful smile. 'I guess I'm glad,' she thought, staring down the onslaught of metal and flame, 'At least now he'll be able to-"

HUURRRRRR-RRRRROOOAARRR!

The sudden, ice-shattering roar spooked Raven from her revere. She turned just in time to see a massive blur as it loped across the ground on all fours towards her, raised its massive arms to its' sides, and slam into the curved inside of her shield like a giant linebacker.

Ker-POOOOOWWWW!

The slow but constant retreat of the shield stopped in mid recession. Raven felt a great deal of pressure ease from her arms and legs, like a car recovering from the inertia of slammed brakes. She stood up straight, and actually had enough psychic leverage to use one of her hands to wipe the blood from her brow, clearing her vision.

She brushed them clean twice, three times, but she still beheld the same unbelievable sight.

He was pushing! The Beast had his massive hands placed up against Raven's wall, digging his black claws into the psychically manifested material. His shoulders strained under the weight of each individual impact, his arms ridged and flexed. The combined attack of all the drones sent ripples of energy through the fur on his neck and forearms, like small waves upon a sea of green. The Beast's back bent forward sharply, throwing his considerable weight into holding back the blitzkrieg of explosions.

Raven felt both relieved and ticked at the same time, an emotional-combination she couldn't name and certainly wasn't used to dealing with. "I thought I told you to help the others! You need to get out of here or we'll both be crushed!"

The Beast's only response was to turn and stare at her, briefly, with bright, determined eyes. To Raven's astonishment, she witnessed the beginnings of a grin on that huge mug, covered in red light. It displayed a single fang, jutting boyishly up from his lower jaw.

It wasn't Garfield's childish smile. It wasn't the Beast's cocky leer. It was the combination of the two, one that had greeted Raven each day since she first arrived in Jump City.

BeastBoy; the one and only.

With that, he turned, faced the berserk scene beyond the shield he supported, and gouged ten very deep claw-grooves into the ice beneath him with his feet. With a flex of his strong legs, BeastBoy yet again pushed against the wall of energy, and held his ground.

"BRING IT ON!" he bellowed, igniting a very faint flicker of hope in Raven's heart. It was just enough for Raven to close her mouth and shake her head.

'He never listens.' She thought, digging deep into her subconscious, and throwing a whole new wave of power into the fray.

"Azarath, Metrion…ZINTHOS"

For nearly fifteen minutes, the bombardment persisted. The barrels of the various weapons deployed by SLADE's army were white hot, some needing to fall back for repair or recharging. But for every drone that left the front lines, another three took its place. The space between the soldiers and the shield surface crackled and sparked with ozone, the air as hot and un-breathable as the surface of Venus. A small moat of melted ice had formed around the wall, but the water looked polluted and black, speckled with bits of ash and thousands of shell-casings. Neither side was loosing or gaining any ground, and even then, there wasn't much ground left to fight over.

The fatigue in BeastBoy's body was palpable. Standing was a chore, and BeastBoy could feel his joints ache and scream. Raven, to her own amazement, remained conscious, but couldn't stand up straight anymore than she could throw a solid punch at the moment. The wounds upon her head and shoulders bled freely now, staining her pale skin as much as her leotard. She staggered on both knee's and one hand, breathing hard, trying to make the swirling, blurry objects in front of her face come into focus.

To her left, she was relieved to see the other three Titan's holding their own. Robin and Cyborg seemed to have erected a wall of their own, only this one created out of destroyed Atlas drones. It allowed them some reprieve, but not much of one. Raven knew that Cyborg and Starfire would be able to deliver many continuous offensive attacks, but Robin was running on empty. He had resorted to firing a discarded arm-blaster from one of the destroyed drones, firing off as many rounds as possible before discarding it and finding another weapon. The teenager never quit.

'Quit'. Raven thought softly, her eyelids heavy. 'What an excellent idea…'

"Snap out of it, Raven!" BeastBoy roared, punching the shield to jog both her mind and body. "You kicked my brain into gear, and now I have to repay the favor. Wake UP!"

Raven shook her head, and redoubled her efforts. The tension on both her psychological and physical mind was reaching its breaking point. She knew that her body would fail next, and with that, she would cease to exist.

"We need a plan!" Raven croaked, trying to communicate with her already thrashed voice. "Something to throw these guys off, maybe divert their attention so that we can make a break for the others!"

"RRRRRRAAARGH! I'm all ears!" BeastBoy said, clenching his bleeding jaw under the constant pressure.

"No," came a voice, "you're all dead."

CRRRRRRRRRRRR-AAAACK!

Raven felt the blood drain from her face and chest, her mouth slightly agape in horror. It had happened in an instant, but an instant that started far too abruptly and pulled itself out over what felt like days. Her eyes didn't know what hit them.

Requiem had her hand upon BeastBoy's lower back, having appeared out of nowhere within the shield. Her dainty fingers grasped the bulge where his back-bone met his hips, just above the tail. The cracking sound had come from a clean severe of the spinal-chord itself, having been twisted sharply to the right like a boney dial upon a speaker-system.

"B…Beast…BeastBoy…?" Raven stuttered, her arm reaching for her friend, her face contorted in disbelief as she watched him fall backwards. His legs had ceased to function; instant paralysis.

In a nanosecond, Requiem was beside Raven, bending over so that her silk-soft hair almost touched the matted, bloodied ruff that was Ravens'. She leaned close, and whispered, like the snake into the ear of Eve.

"My master sends his warmest regards to Trigon." Requiem murmured sweetly to Raven, her lips less than an inch away. "Be sure to convey them when you meet your father. I suspect you will see him soon."

SNAP!

At the very least, it had been painless. Raven felt a brief twitch as her vocal chords were crushed, but other than that, there was no pain. The vertebrae had snapped cleanly, and the numbness that ensued cut off all the pain she felt in the rest of her body. As she fell to the ice—too slowly, it seemed, to be real—Raven could see her shield flicker away like birthday candle as it was blown out. For the first time in what felt like forever, the firing ceased, and the world quieted.

Raven thought it strange that her friends, from so far away, seemed to be screaming, even though she could hear not a sound. It was also odd that Requiem seemed to be pulling a large amount of energy into her undamaged hand. After all, what more could be done? Raven knew, somewhere in the back of her quieted mind, that she was dieing, and that any further violation of her body was superfluous. But she witnessed what was happening all too soon.

The energy must have been significant, because it lit up the air for one brief flash, and then rocket up into the cavern above. Raven's eyes didn't even dilate in the harsh glow. They couldn't have, just as her ears were incapable of hearing the explosion that gently rocked the ground beneath her. Her eye's barely made out the large section of the chamber's dome-ceiling as it dislodged from the ice around it, and began to fall.

Although lying on her back at an odd angle, Raven could still see the Beast—BeastBoy—as he tried to reach her. She would have smiled for his effort if that were possible; BeastBoy so coveted the chance to make her smile. If she could have given him one as he clawed his broken body across the ice toward her, she would have. He had earned at least one; one gentle, honest smile, all for him.

Sleep was coming, she knew that. Without the connection between her body and brain, she couldn't control her breathing, or keep her heart beating. The steady, fading metronome was all she could make out now, as the last, futile impulses tried to keep that one important muscle from silencing.

'Such peace', Raven thought, her iris's widening of their own accord, 'I'm surprised it's so quiet. Everything before now was so loud…hot…dangerous. But now…I wish…'

Some time between this thought and one she couldn't recognize, Raven's mind lost all connection to reality. Her last images were that of Requiem, slowly waving goodbye, and of BeastBoy, his great, hulking arms gently cradling her against his tear-stained face, just as a seventy-ton slab of ice pulverized their frail bodies into nothingness.

SLADE provided the brief, subtle eulogy.

"And then there were three..."