Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. I've rewritten this chapter about three times, which is unusual for me as I normally just write one draft and publish.

I also spent some time looking around for pictures that would most accurately represent my version of the Titans, but I could only find one for Star. Shame, but such is life.

CHANGELING

The scene in the park is a pleasant one. The bright green leaves shine bright in the summer sun; a light wind causes them to shimmer as the light bounces off them and provides a modicum of relief to the heat. There is the faint sound of birds chirping and and the rustle of squirrels running through the trees. A beautiful day by in a beautiful place all accounts.

It's a shame I'm too pissed off to actually notice it.

"-thinks she can just get away with that?!" I hiss, throwing my hands up into the air as I pace back and forth. "We're supposed to be a team right? A team! She can't just go off by herself like that! She can't play lone wolf! Wolves are supposed to hunt in a pack!"

I managed to keep together until we got to the park, smiling all the way, but once we got there I just let it all out. Shame too, I thought I was over my anger issues.

"Um-" Crow attempts to speak, but I cut him off.

"And that's not all!" I spin around to face my companion, who has been watching me from a bench for the last five minutes. "You should hear her when she talks about you! She thinks your some perfect role-model for a man or something! She doesn't even seem to notice that you need serious help! She's all like 'hey, aren't the mentally damaged great? All men should be like that!' How rude can you get?"

"D-Damaged?" He visibly wilts upon hearing this.

I catch myself before my rage spirals further out of control. "I mean you have some issues; and that's not unusual at all. We all have issues… You're are just a bit more severe."

"Oh." He sounds a bit relieved. I wish I could have worded that better though. "Happy was right…"

"Happy? Are those voices acting up again?" I latch on to this instantly, wanting to change the subject before I can be even more rude.

"They never really stopped." He murmurs. "But it's fine, there's been nothing extreme like before."

"Hmm…" I hum to myself, my face still contorted into a frown.

"A-Are you still mad…?"

"Yes."

"O-Oh." He murmurs dejectedly, "I thought I had helped."

It takes me a moment to get that he's referring to how he stopped me from blowing up at Robyn earlier. "You did help, but it doesn't mean I not mad at her. It wouldn't have been good for me to confront Robyn with my current attitude. If I'm angry, she's probably just going to ignore me." I sneer. "Not that being calm has made her listen any more…"

I return to my pacing, grumbling under my breath and glancing at everyone else around us. My anger is rising again, and I don't really care to stop it. As far as I'm concerned, it's totally justified for me to blow up at Robyn; I only stopped because Crow wanted me to, but his request is only going to hold me back so many times. Plus, I need time to brood before I see Robyn again, and I'm hardly at my best when I'm brooding, which is why I normally do it alone, but it would be rude to just ditch Crow, and Cyborg thinks we're out on the town.

Gah! What do I do?

I wish we had gone to the arcade or something, then I would have something to distract me… Hold up; I do have something here to distract me!

"Crow!" I say suddenly, turning to him again and causing him to jump.

"Y-Yes?"

"Distract me!" I say. "Please?" I add at the end, not wanting it to sound like an order.

"Uhh…" He falters, understandably confused. "How?"

"I don't care how!" I groan.

"Uhh-Ehh-Ahh-" He stammers, eyes darting around. Suddenly, he perks up. "I-I have an idea!" He stands up from the bench and scurries over to a small table a bit further down the path. "Sit!" He calls, taking a seat again and motioning to the chair across from him.

I comply with a huff, scowling at my feet with crossed arms as I do so.

"I apologize if the game is not familiar to you." He says whilst reaching down and pulling a gem off his belt. He places it in the center of the table and murmurs a quick incantation. "Azarath, Metrion, Bellum, Venatus, Zinthos!" The red gem glows for a moment before releasing black energy that forms itself into a eight by eight checkered game board. Small figurines are formed next. Some are familiar, resembling a king and queen in chess, while others depict things like mages, soldiers, and siege engines. "It's called 'chess', you-"

"We have that here on Earth." I interrupt. "Granted, the pieces look different, but I know how to play it."

"O-Oh." Crow stammers, surprised. "R-Right."

"Erm…" I pause, looking at the board. "Can you make one side a different color? It'll be hard to tell the difference between the two otherwise."

"O-Oh! M-My b-bad." He stutters. He waves his hand shakily and my pieces shift to a deep red color. Half of the squares on the board follow suit. "S-Should I go f-first?"

"White goes first." I say in a surly tone. "I presume that's me, considering you're black."

"S-Sorry…"

"It's fine." I snap. "Just… Grr…" My arm snaps out and sharply moves the king's pawn two spaces forward.

Crow swallows thickly and moves one of his knights.

The game goes on in silence for several minutes. Crow is clearly doing better than me, which isn't much of a surprise. I never really bothered to play that much chess. The battle quickly deteriorates into a slaughter as Crow's queen tears through my pieces.

One last move, and the word "Checkmate" seals my loss. We're both quiet for a minute, staring at the board. I'm still angry, my mind not having been focused on the game at all.

"I had hoped that would help, but apparently not." I grimace. "Getting distracted is not so simple, unless I want to use alcohol, but I don't, so I need another way."

"C-Changeling?"

"What?" I bark, raising my gaze up from the table to glare at Crow. He flinches as I do so.

"S-Sorry if it didn't work." He squeaks.

I snarl, looking down and away. "It's fine Crow."

"B-But I failed!" He protests.

"It's fine." I insist, growling. "I shouldn't have asked you in the first place."

It was supposed to be an admittance of my own stupidity, but, if the crushed look on his face is any indication, I'm fairly sure I just made him feel worse. I've heard it said that nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around, but I certainly don't feel any better after that.

I really need to leave before I fuck this up any more.

"I need to leave." I say, standing up so quickly that I knock over the chair I was standing on. I shift into a raven and fly off, not waiting for a response. I can feel the stares of everyone in the area on my back as I retreat back to the tower.

"What a great way to leave Maria, so much for not fucking anything else up."

ROBYN

"Okay, so what now? I've talked with Star, Cy never really had an issue with me, Crow I don't think I've really offended… or talked to at all, so that means I need to talk with Changeling." I muse, walking down the hall to my room. "Yeah. That's going to be ugly. It's not like she's very subtle about disliking my opinions, and I've already had one awkward conversation today soo… I'm just going to put that off 'till tomorrow. Maybe it looks cowardly on my part, but I know when to wait. I'll just hold off on my usual preaching for today if I see her." I blink, suddenly remembering something. My preaching, Niu, Feminism… I need to do some thinking, sort out my head on all this.

The door to my room hisses open and I stride to my computer and sit in the chair. I boot it up and type in my password.

So, Niu and Changeling, and maybe Cyborg, seem to be of the opinion that I'm taking this feminism thing way too far. "They're probably right." I murmur. "Amelia and Brianna always said I was rather headstrong, but I suppose Niu and such aren't necessarily completely right."

I take a calming breath and type in 'feminism' into the search bar. The usual generic news reports pop up, so I scroll down until I get the wikipedia page. Say what you want about wikipedia, but it's a lot more helpful than the scholarly blather you'll find on a more formal website.

"Let's see… Basic human rights stuff, controversial stuff… History… Not going to give me a useful definition huh? Multiple branches… Let's just scroll down… Aha! Patriarchy! So they do think that there is male dominance, good. Some are more extreme than others on the opinion… Hmm. Where do I lie on this matter? I know I've said in the past, multiple times, that men need to be put in their place, but I'll admit I was acting more on emotion than cold reason." I sit back, pondering. "So what do I think, now that I have a relatively calm head? I still think that there's an imbalance here, no doubt about it, and there's definitely some teaching to be done, but I really don't have any experience to go off. I've been sheltered my entire life, so I haven't really seen it in person yet." I sigh, muttering. "I really need to get out more."

I scroll down further. The 'men and masculinity' part gives me pause, I hadn't really considered that this whole masculinity thing might actually suck for them too… One issue at a time though, they still have it better for the most part.

"Okay… so with this in mind, (seeing as it's what I normally rant about) where do I stand on everything? I can understand that I might have taken it a bit too far, but I do honestly think that Niu and Changeling don't have the right idea. I think they're downplaying the weight of the issue. So what? Do I keep arguing my point? Should I just pay lip-service to their ideals?" I snort at that idea, muttering. "Nah, I could never manage that." Sighing, I decide that the best course of action is probably to agree to disagree, and maybe tone my ranting down a few notches. I wish we could agree, but I need to be realistic here. Besides, these are my friends, and I know they're not idiots; they are entitled to their opinions just as I am to mine.

I'm still going to have to talk to Changeling tomorrow to get this across though, and it's still going to suck.

"Now I know why I never had many friends." I grumble, shutting off my computer. "They make everything so much more complicated… and if that doesn't sound sad on my part, I don't know what does." Sighing, I trod over to my bed and flop on my back, sighing. "Well, at least I have friends now. Frustrating as they might be I'm still glad to know Changeling, and Crow, and Cy, and Star, and Niu…" I trail off, realizing something. "Oh god, I left Niu at Pizza Place and just disappeared on her! Shit, how do I explain that to her?"

I leap of my bed, which I had just lain down upon, and frantically boot up my computer again. My fingers rapidly fly across the keyboard as I scramble to my email.

Sure enough, in my inbox I find several increasingly frantic emails from Niu asking where the hell I am and if I'm safe. Cursing my bad memory, I decide it's best to not give details and type out a simple reply that basically says "Yes, I'm fine, don't worry. I went home; sorry for not telling you, I was a bit panicked." I reluctantly press the 'send' button, knowing the response will probably be Niu chewing me out over worrying her.

I'm touched though that she would worry so much about someone she knew for all of maybe half an hour, and I feel terrible for just up and abandoning her. Maybe this is why Brianna has no civilian allies that are unaware of her identity.

I need to rest again. This is getting tiring. I'll wait for Niu's response, and then go down to the kitchen. I need something to eat again. Or maybe I just want another distraction…

This chapter took much longer than I expected it to. I was making sure to avoid certain things which made it so much harder to write, so I needed to figure out how else the characters could possibly act.

A person: Some of the background was thought out before, but some just occurs to me as I write. One thing planned before was Starfire's knowledge of demons. I remember the normal Starfire (that is to say, main universe Starfire) knowing something about Trigon, so I figured it wouldn't be out of place for my Starfire to know about her. The gordainian half-demon thing was entirely made up on the spot because it seemed fitting; and yes, if politics is a medical operation, I simplified it to 'you cut people open and fix things'.

As for Crow specifically… I go by nurture over nature. That is, instinct can be (mostly) overcome by how you are raised. He's not good at controlling his emotions at all, he just wasn't raised in a place where any violent or even slightly aggressive tendencies from a boy would be tolerated. So, if he ever showed signs of aggression it was mercilessly beaten out of him by Azarathian culture. Either that, or he would have been trained out of it when he was young by his father, who feared what such an attitude would mean for a boy in Azarath.

Bigger bird: Info spews seem to be my specialty. You'll probably see quite a few more of them.

Origami Stars: I've always had a hard time writing for Robin/Robyn and Starfire, especially when it comes to their interactions with each other. The reason Robyn is so passionate and extreme is mostly just to make her easier to write. This is contrasted with Robin, who might be intense in certain moments, but is usually rather nuanced, making him difficult to write. For reference, see how I write Cyborg. She has much the same issue.

Yep, Crow is stuck like this forever. As for shipping… just hope Gizmo's accusations of pedophilia are accurate. (Though since being a pedophile requires you to be at least five years older than the object of attraction in terms of actual age and it denotes a preference for children rather than just accepting them as a possibility, Changeling is not technically a pedophile. If, however, you are using the term in meaning 'anyone who displays an attraction towards someone who looks like a child regardless of actual age' then yes, she is a pedophile. Do note as well that the term does not have any other negative connotation at all. Most people might imply other negative things when they say it, like that a pedophile is a stalker, rapist, child abuser, etc, but those things are not actually built into the definition, and therefore do not technically apply when the term 'pedophile' is used. This is sorta how Gizmo uses it as an insult; all she's technically accusing Changeling of is being attracted primarily to children, but Gizmo is also implying that Changeling is a creepy and immoral person for being so, which is not what the term actually means. I, on the other hand, am using the Wikipedia definition in this paragraph unless stated otherwise. This has been a Public Service Announcement by the Jump City Mental Health Board, we now return to your regularly scheduled programming.) Geeze, I meant that as a joke but it turned into a full on explanation of what 'pedophile' means. Should I take it out...? Nah, I'll keep it. After all, The More You Know...

Seriously though, don't worry. Since when has something such as appearance ever stopped a good ship? The main issue is more his mental state than his appearance anyways.

DimitraMitsos: That was kinda poorly worded, wasn't it? Sorry 'bout that. No, Crow's appearance will not change. He's stuck like that forever. The fifth criteria is 'a violent and/or hostile disposition' and unrelated to physical appearance. When I mentioned the fifth criteria was giving 'him' issues, I was actually referring to Starfire, and explaining why he does not act on his suspicions about Crow being half-demon. (Which is because Crow lacks the violent and/or hostile tendencies common to all other half-demons)

I hope that clears it up.