CHAPTER ELEVEN
GREEN
Trigger warnings: This chapter contains what might be considered trigger warnings for animal death, assault, and body horror. Also mentions of blood.
When they entered the laboratory, Beast Boy's nose curled.
Like the first time, that stinging smell of sulphur set his every nerve on edge; pricked him with memories of bleach-stained clinics, needles spearing septic veins. Memories he would much rather forget.
With his team at his back, Robin ventured on through the building's gaping mouth. An iron door creaked shut behind them, sealing out the brisk night air. Overhead, a fluorescent bulb doused the lab in noxious green, dwindling to shadow at the solitary corners.
When they walked, their footsteps clapped on tile floor, spotted with iodine spills that in the dim light looked unnervingly like blood.
And it was quiet.
It was bleak, and crawling, and cold.
If the Titans had to guess, they would say he was back for a chemical raid. Enough time in Whitewood's vaults could rattle any man, and Adonis, with a mind already fractured from the start, had easily fallen prey to the whispers of those walls.
Once a meagre fraud boasting synthetic strength through a suit, the criminal was now a recognised threat.
Brotherhood affiliate. Level Six detainee. Host to a ravenous beast.
How much a year and a half could change a person.
When Adonis tried to remember that pathetic worm hiding inside his armour, he wanted to retch. The chemicals had slaughtered that man, and thank God for it. He had deserved no less, and what a glorious way to go; burned to extinction in acid atonement, made to shrivel away so rebirth could take hold.
A colossus rising from the pool, with a roar that could deafen and teeth that could kill.
It needed no suit.
Its power was real.
"You sure this is the place?" Cyborg asked as they warily weaved through cabinets and shelves. Robin didn't bother to look back.
"Positive."
The report had been anonymous; a group of teens up to no good, a night of roaming the outskirts of town that soon became a dare to explore the abandoned facility. What they hadn't known was its history - that when in use, the site had been a base for illegal operations. Black Market manufacturing, toxins and drugs and experimentation.
They had scaled the barbed fencing and stumbled through the entrance with giddy hearts. One of the boys had just spewed about the place being haunted when a loud clink echoed around them. What followed was the rumble of something unnamed, hunched and lurking in the desolate dark.
The instant they saw it, they ran.
Starfire grew concerned at the sight of a pigeon watching them all from the ledge of a barred window.
"Perhaps he fled the building once he was discovered," she said, hovering at the centre of her friends. She had one arm lifted, a neon flare surrounding her hand. Robin only narrowed his mask.
"Adonis isn't the type to retreat."
He turned another corner that opened into a wider space, still steeped in that hazy wash of green.
The ceiling was rife with exposed cables and vents. On the far left were benchtops cluttered with discarded equipment; alcohol burners, rusted tongs, soiled beakers. Massive propane tanks smothered the right.
Robin noted a light switch protruding from the wall, reached out and flicked it up.
Dead.
He frowned.
Though the Titans didn't know it yet, the commissioner's suspicions of a Brotherhood mole in the prisons had been very much on the mark. In Adonis' case, this was to say that the newly-appointed practitioner set to administer his antidote hadn't been doing so for the past four weeks straight. A brilliant play by the Brain, for virtually no suspicion would be roused, and by the time the wardens recognised any change in their inmate, it would be far too late to act.
In the end, Adonis got himself out.
After restless days of pacing his cell, feeling that itch tingle in his blood and shake his atoms loose, the withdrawal drew to a predictable head. All according to plan. And for the first time since the battle, the Beast was released.
God, it had felt good.
Crushing that guard's skull beneath his claws. Slashing those prison walls to shreds. Letting the full moon soak into his fur.
He had felt alive again.
From that night, somewhere in the cracks of his brain, a morbid curiosity began to stir in Adonis.
What more could these forbidden chemicals bring him? What new strength might he gain beyond the limitations of his buried human self?
He had had a taste of true power with the Brotherhood. So as with all things, the creature had set out to satiate his fill.
Beast Boy tailed the back of the group, passed another steel vat, then froze. The putrid whiff of death spiked the air, tore up his spine and stood his hairs on end. He turned, catching sight of rat remains swallowed in a void where the floor met the wall.
The shifter gulped. At his sides, his fingers flexed out, but when no one else stopped, he set his brows low and carried on, leaving the sordid scene behind him.
From the depths of her hood, Raven shrewdly scanned their surroundings. She measured her breath as her powers unfurled, reaching out to every distant space in search of a presence that didn't belong. In the same moment Cyborg spoke, her senses reeled to life.
"I don't know, Robin. Maybe Starfire's—" His words ceased when Robin stopped at the front of the group, a hand raised to signal that they all do the same.
They obeyed and followed his line of sight, dead ahead. There was a patch of movement in the furthest corner, bathed in the murky shadows.
The sheen of lime light on coarse black hair. A tapered fang. A low snarl.
It was only when that face lifted out of the dark that they could see the pigeon carcass crushed in his hand, its severed head dangling from his mouth.
Adonis didn't look like Adonis. But he didn't look like the Beast either.
He looked like something halfway. Something mangled between monster and man.
His eyes were blackened, sunken into their sockets. All his limbs were bloated, swollen and large, with thumping veins. At either side of his spine, his shoulder blades jutted out, drawing his front forward to reveal his crooked, bloodied jaw.
And when his pupils flashed, clocking his company, he smiled.
"Titans."
His voice was hot and sodden in his mouth. Slowly, he rose from his crouch, swallowed the last of the bird's skull with one gruesome crunch, then tossed the rest of it aside.
"What happened…" Robin uttered.
From the report's description, they had been expecting the Beast. But seeing the villain like this - this twisted, ragged, ruined thing - the heroes couldn't decide whether what they had encountered was somehow worse.
Adonis stood to full height and stepped into the light, looking sullied and rogue. Like he might have spent the days since his escape feasting on raw flesh in the forests beyond the city.
Even rooted to one spot, their foe couldn't seem to keep still. His arms and fingers twitched out like stalks. His shoulders sat high on his neck. His head jerked when he spoke.
He looked like he was ticking down.
"Wicked, huh?" Adonis smirked, heaving his chest out like there was something to be proud of. Beast Boy couldn't quell his cringe. "Was hopin' for a top-up, but looks like they're out." He twitched again.
Somewhere inside him, an animal felt cornered. He had a wall at his back and five enemies at his front, but by the fiendish curl of his lip, it was clear that this all thrilled the man more than fazed him.
Cyborg was the first to step forward.
"Hey, man." His tone was controlled. Calm. The Titans had received no statements from Whitewood that this is what had become of their inmate, which meant it had likely occurred post-breakout; perhaps even worsened with each day that passed by without his booster. "You don't need more of that stuff, okay? What you need is some help."
Adonis had to scowl at that.
"You mean back at that hell hole?"
"You were there for a reason," Robin said. It was the wrong answer.
Adonis leered, letting another bead of blood trickle down his chin and drop to the floor.
"Try saying that when you're the one thrown in a cage." His voice came leaking out of him from the back of his throat, lower than it had ever been, thick and coarse like soured milk.
From the edge of the group, Raven glowered - a gesture that did not slip his keen eye, for it eagerly snapped in her direction. Adonis grinned.
"Definitely missed the sight of you in there…" His gaze raked down her body and openly lingered at her legs. The tip of his tongue lolled out to wet his lips, and it wasn't the same pathetic purr he had tried in the past.
There was something else in it this time. Sinister.
Garfield quaked with unchecked ire, felt his beast thrumming somewhere deep. His teeth trapped the gum of his cheek and his fingers twisted into his hands. Even through his gloves, he could feel his nails digging in hard, pressing crescent-moons into his skin.
"Funny. I can't say the same," Raven bit back, her words chipped out like frost. Her skin burned when Adonis only chuckled in response.
He took his time peeling his hungry gaze from her, then raised his arms with palms facing out.
"So what now, Titans?" he smiled down at them, baiting. "You gonna stop me like the good old days?"
It was Robin's call. He gave a moment's pause, thinking on how best to approach the matter. At the very least, their foe had not been able to seize any more chemicals. But he was still at large, still a wanted criminal - dangerous and unstable.
As another trill of ruby red fell from his lips, Robin had to wonder what might end up as his next meal should he remain unleashed. An image of a name flashed in his mind, printed in black ink at the top of a medical record.
He tightened his jaw, squared his shoulders and took one cautious step closer. If they could avoid a fight, they would.
"Callum, listen to me," the Titan began, but was cut off with all the sting of a swinging blade.
"Don't call me that!" His eyes burst open. His nostrils flared. "That's not my name!"
For a moment, the Titans felt like maybe they were looking at something more creature than human.
Fighting all his instincts, all his hatred and contempt, Beast Boy reminded himself that he was a hero first, and that his team needed this to go well.
"Okay, Adonis," he called out, assisting Robin's plight.
Adonis' pupils shifted from Robin to Beast Boy.
His whole face pitched down. His vision darkened.
"Adonis?" he echoed, the sound a foreign slur on his tongue. There was a beat of silence. "Adonis is dead."
Gar tried not to flinch when that stare didn't leave him, when he smelt a shift in the air between the villain and himself.
"What use do things like us have for names anymore?"
Things like us.
Things.
Animals.
Beast Boy didn't like that. Beast Boy hated that.
He felt the eyes of his teammates on him, let his chest rise as he inhaled the thought, then huffed it back out on a weighted breath.
"We are not the same," he said, forcibly calm. And he thought that, should he too abstain from his weekly injections, he might also become the mess he saw before him. And his mind might crumble, and his voice might curdle in his lungs.
But Beast Boy would never want that. He would never welcome it, and bask in it, and go foraging in abandoned labs for more ways to spit on his human roots.
Still Adonis stood there like the two shared in something special, and spoke as if their DNA unravelling itself was a thing to be rejoiced and not a giant stain on Beast Boy's name that he could never wipe away.
The villain let loose a guttural laugh.
"That what you told yourself when you attacked your own team?"
For the first time, Beast Boy showed his teeth.
"Please, we do not wish to fight," he heard Starfire say behind him - a desperate attempt to maintain peace. Beast Boy couldn't help but resent her for it. "We merely wish to help you."
"I don't want your antidotes! I don't want your help!" Adonis looked feral again, shoulders rising and fists clamping shut.
The team stiffened, bracing for a fight that they had failed to prevent.
"Don't you get it?! When people fear you, they respect you. They don't walk all over you!"
It was all bleeding out of him now. The insecurities of that weak, weedy man who had wanted the world at his feet. The existence of the suit. The resentment against humanity and all who had undermined him.
It was bleeding out like venom.
"You should embrace that, runt." His eyes shot back to Beast Boy, and Beast Boy grimaced at the name. It was only okay when Cliff called him that, and no one else. "But you're weak. This gift is wasted on you."
Cyborg took another step forward and spoke with a voice as firm as his face.
"This isn't a gift. You're not well," he said slowly, trying to explain in a way that he might be understood. Gar's jaw clenched, struck with mutterings of his own genetics falling apart. "You need to—"
"Was I talkin' to you? Huh?!" Adonis bristled. Something wild was in his eyes, a primal flicker in that furious black. "I'm talkin' to him."
Beast Boy was pinned again, crushed beneath the weight of that depraved stare. He felt his blood surge, his heart quicken in his chest, the heat of adrenaline rush forth in waves.
Some sick part of him liked it.
"You think that thing is on your side." It was clear in his voice that he was clinging to those last dregs of restraint. "But it's not."
"That thing is what got me out of the cage."
"It's what put you in there."
"Wrong!" This time, Adonis shrieked. He hurled himself forward and felt his muscles throb, canines bared in his jowl. "That was you!"
And he didn't say it to the Titans.
He said it to Beast Boy.
"Which is why we got unfinished business," he spat, drawing back to punch a fist into his opposite hand. This was the Titans' cue to steel themselves, and almost in unison, all five dipped their chins and bent at their knees.
"If you want Beast Boy, you'll have to get through us," Robin warned.
Adonis just smirked. He let that poison pulse inside him, stream from the circuits in his brain to the points of his toes.
It was true that he had come for the chemicals, but now the brute was thirsting for a fight.
"Works for me."
He lunged.
He came barrelling down that narrow passage into the wider space, fast and ferocious. The Titans moved to block Adonis from his target, but Beast Boy offered himself up, running at the man with just as much fire until his two feet became four paws.
The green lion raised on its hind legs and slashed out a pair of vicious claws. Adonis managed to back step away, barely out of reach.
Frustrated to have only ripped into air, Gar morphed again, this time into something with hands. Because God, after this morning, after how he'd woken up to then deal only weak hits in the gym, the boy just really needed to punch something.
Adonis stared down the silverback as it appeared before him. His nose scrunched and legs tensed, and Beast Boy moved again.
Perhaps it was the villain's cockiness, but this time he was slow, and Gar landed two solid punches - one to the left cheek, one to the right. His body rippled at the slam of knuckles to flesh, as he saw Adonis' neck snap like a whip.
But on the third throw, Adonis caught him by the wrist and twisted it back. In that trice of pain he was able to gain the upper hand, using the moment where Gar yelped to toss him into a wall.
It was a demonstration. A demonstration that, despite his partial transformation, the man still possessed strength far beyond that of any human's.
Adonis took off again, eyes set on his mark, but just as he picked up speed, his ankles were slung together and he was planting bodily to the floor.
He cringed and glanced down to see a wire sling coiled about his legs, weighted on either end. He glared at it with gritted teeth just before meeting with the man who'd thrown it.
Robin was running at him in attack, determined to keep him from his teammate. Overhead, starlight rained down in a fiery storm, and he could only raise his arms to act as a makeshift shield against the solar burns.
Adonis growled deep in his throat before pulling his legs apart until the rope snapped, freeing him of its bonds. As he was getting to his feet, Starfire swooped low to take Robin's arms, already stretched out for her. In perfect sync, she swooped back up until her leader had gained enough height to land an effective flying-kick to their enemy's chest.
The metal boot knocked the wind out of him. Adonis stumbled, but then was raising his head to catch something purple hovering inches from his face. He lunged out to snatch it from the air, and there was a high yelp as Starfire felt that strong hand coil around her ankle.
In the next moment she was being hurled out of flight, with only a workbench to break her fall. She skidded heavily across it, sending beakers smashing to the floor, shards and liquids painting tile.
Robin wasted no time in avenging her. He whipped out his bo staff as a wielding fist was coming his way, and it unsheathed just in time to block against the hit. When more fists followed, he ensured they too only met with titanium steel.
Robin's grunts littered the air as he expertly weaved to and fro. He saw an open and took it, grasping both hands around the base of his staff. The boy braced, heels digging into the ground, then landed a flurry of swings that sent Adonis reeling back.
The criminal snarled, but he wasn't done. His gums peeled to bare his upper teeth, and he came racing forward again, swinging his arms in wild abandon.
Robin was forced to withdraw, performing a double handspring to create some space between them. As Adonis was distracted by bright colours flipping away, Cyborg barrelled into him like a runaway bus.
Or train.
The mighty force plunged him away with one raucous cry. His back jolted when it hit against a stack of wooden crates and he promptly collapsed to his knees. Of course, it wasn't long before Adonis was finding his feet again. Bloodshot eyes rose to see the bionic man now aiming a sonic cannon at him.
"Should've just come quietly," he said.
There was a gap wherein the weapon whirred, collecting its power, and just before it fired, Adonis made a great leap out of the way. Cyborg frowned as he watched his cannon blast open all the crates, sending splinters into the air.
Through the wreckage, Adonis appeared again, rampaging toward his new foe. On arrival, Cyborg greeted him with a volley of punches, and for a short time, the villain could only dodge and weather the hits, grunting against the hero's assault.
It only took the smallest falter for him to find his fight, securing his own potent blow to the bridge of Cyborg's nose.
The Titan cried out and careened back. Adonis latched onto him and raised him above his head before leaning into his back leg and swinging him like a discus across the lab.
Cyborg bowled away and Adonis stood tall. It was only when black matter began to smear his frame that he flinched again, eyes dropping down to observe this change. The instant he understood, he scowled.
His head lifted to the sight of a cloaked girl floating inches above ground. Her eyes were ablaze and her hand was splayed out towards him. It glowed deathly black, just like the shadows that had him trapped, and with that cold gaze, Raven clenched all her fingers into a fist.
"Argh!" Adonis griped, suddenly squeezed by the grip of her magic. A predictable pain. Not entirely unwelcome, either. If anyone was going to crush him, he felt it only right to be her.
Still, he didn't plan on being too emasculated tonight. He could only let her get away with so much before she'd have to be put back in her place.
Without a word, Raven swiped her arm out, and Adonis went flying with it, straight for the nearest wall.
He pounded into brick on the left. He pounded into brick on the right. Then she flung him at the wall opposite.
But this time, there was no satisfying crash.
Instead, he had flipped his body in the last second till his feet were pressing off from the surface and he was propelling at her instead.
Raven cursed herself for releasing her magic too soon. She felt her skin grow cold as she prepared to vanish from the spot, but Adonis hurled into her before she could leave.
Not good. Raven was a long-range attacker, and ideally she would keep as far away from this scumbag as possible.
Nothing about him getting the chance to touch her was ideal.
And he did.
His beastly arms fastened around her in the moment they collided, and Raven was thrown backwards. They rolled, a pained noise leaving her every time his mammoth weight dropped down, then in a flash, she was being torn from the floor by the hood of her cloak.
Raven could only blink before she felt her cheekbone crack into metal with force.
"Agh!"
She hated that she cried out like that. Hated the pleasure it would bring him. But it was like her brain had just been slammed against the inside of her skull. Her teeth ground together as she noted that her face was now up against the cold surface of a vat.
At her tailbone, she felt both her wrists locked in an iron grip. It only tightened when she squirmed against it. At the back of her head was a pressure, with long fingers hooked to the shape of her scalp. The hand pressed her cheek harder into the vat.
Raven felt him lean in close - sickeningly close - with his front lined up flush to the shape of her spine. There was the swelter of breath in her ear, humid and foul.
Though his mouth was out of sight, she could hear the smirk that coated it. Could sense how the press of their bodies only served to whet his appetite, to place vivid pictures into his fucked-up mind.
"Let. Go," she seethed.
The weight at her scalp released, but only to find purchase at the front of her thigh. Like knife-points, those nails began a slow drag over her flesh, starting low but impatiently crawling higher...
Higher...
Adonis leaned in and let his dripping smile graze her cheek. When he spoke, it was like those same nails were being raked down a chalkboard.
"Don't pretend this kind of power doesn't turn you—"
The last of his words were punched back into him as he was blasted fifteen feet by an industrial engine.
Raven hoped it hurt. She hoped it bruised all his bones black and that the pain lingered on. She heard the smack of his body, heard the howl that erupted from him. It sounded like justice, but it didn't help.
It didn't fucking help.
She ripped herself from the wall with blackened fists, and her white eyes fell to the lowlife squirming against the pain she had wrought.
Good.
Obsidian light crackled at her nail beds. The fury was staggering, burning blinding hot in her soul.
Red was ensnaring her like a thousand stinging vines.
She wanted to drown him in it.
A gorgeous, crimson grave.
( Breathe. )
Raven froze mid-air.
( He isn't worth it. Stay in control. )
Pale hands quivered at her sides, and suddenly, terribly, those vines felt less like an embrace and much more like a noose.
The girl recognised the tempest brewing inside, and just like the voice had told her, she breathed.
Though the skin of Raven's thighs still crawled, she was able to take her rage in her hands, twist it and ring it out into something less heavy.
She only wished she could have achieved this sooner.
In the time it took for all of that red to fade from her eyes, Adonis had shaken off the last of Raven's hit. He had taken the same engine she'd thrown at him and hurled it back in her direction.
It landed, and Raven went down.
Adonis stretched to full height again, but didn't even manage one step from the wall. Out of nowhere, a forest green yeti was unleashing on him.
Its eyes were aflame as he knocked the brute back down with a violent punch. He towered tall and mighty above the figure, and made no hesitation to land another three succinct blows to his face.
Adonis bellowed again. Beast Boy was sure he saw a tooth go flying, and felt his heart sing with delight.
The changeling didn't know Adonis had the strength to lurch up until it was already happening. With a hand suddenly latched to his shoulder, he was heaved several steps back.
Adonis stood just before his face turned to the side to spit out some blood. He felt his teeth grow sharper in his mouth as it stretched into another vile grin.
"Felt good, huh?"
Beast Boy already wanted to punch him again.
He watched Adonis curl his hands in towards his chest - a beckoning sign.
"C'mon." His chin dropped. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours?"
Asshole.
He wanted to coax the Beast out of him. He wanted a rematch. To prove a point.
The yeti's eyes went cold. A single huff left it. And in answer, it ran forward.
Adonis echoed the run and the two tackled each other. In their scramble, Beast Boy desperately tried to shun the scent of another alpha so close to his nose. Tried to, but couldn't.
Like blood in the water, that explicit stench of fight sent his beast roaring. The delicious thrill of it licked his senses wide open.
Let me tear this fucker apart, it urged. And he wanted to. God, he wanted to.
He had seen what happened in the moments before he could cross the lab to Raven, and he would've loved nothing more than to just give in.
But Beast Boy knew how his monster worked.
It took his lifetime of stifled aggression - his parents' deaths, Galtry's abuse, every time he had smiled when he'd wanted to scream - and it released.
This was why he had to resist it.
If given half the chance, his Beast likely would tear Adonis apart. And as much as Gar yearned for this to be allowed, it simply wasn't.
Because heroes didn't do that. Because Titans didn't do that.
Not even to cretins who definitely deserved it.
He grasped a fist into Adonis' hair and drove the back of his head into a tankard. The steel surface shuddered on impact, and when the villain looked up, he saw knuckles aiming right for his face.
So he ducked.
The bastard ducked, and Beast Boy's fist went plunging into the tankard instead. It landed with such force that it punctured right through the steel, and when his arm drew back, a smog-grey gas came pouring out of the hole.
It smothered the four walls in a thick, dense cloud.
It swallowed up his teammates.
It swallowed up Adonis.
Beast Boy reverted to his human form and backed up, eyes darting to search through the veil.
"Guys?!" he called, a small shake in his voice from that residue rage. His ear twitched when he heard what might've been a muffled call back, and he zoned in on it, not noticing the figure drawing closer in the mist behind him.
Footsteps. And they were running.
But.. they were bare…
Gar's brows jumped in the moment before a mangled hand tore through the smoke. It latched at his throat then was lobbing him off to one side.
Beast Boy crashed to the ground but turned it into a roll till he was back on his feet. And there was Adonis, appearing again like a ghost emerging from the fog.
"Guess again," he smirked, cracking his knuckles.
Adonis sprinted with a new kind of zeal, and Beast Boy morphed, this time into a water buffalo. Hands grasped onto one of his horns, but he used his broad neck to toss his head till Adonis' grip slipped away.
The felon vaulted some feet across the lab but managed to catch his fall, heels sliding him to a complete stop.
Beast Boy lunged again through the smoke to grab at Adonis, this time as a grizzly bear. But Adonis did the same, and their palms clashed in the middle - a relentless struggle of raw strength. The changeling felt nails wrap around his knuckles. He felt their hands push together and saw their wrists tremble beneath each other's force, neither willing to yield.
From inches away, Adonis huffed through his nose, his mouth twisting up at the edge.
"It wants out, kid," he needled. He wasn't wrong. "I can smell it. What's stopping you?"
In the next second, Beast Boy was thrown from that grip at his hands, his full weight crashing into the floor and cracking the tile in half. He winced, clenching his teeth. Adonis loomed over him as he was still digesting the ache, then was dragging him up by the scruff of his neck and landing a brutal kick to his side.
His insides screamed. A wail tore from his throat as he shrunk back into himself, and he was mercilessly hurled into another tank across the room. The metal dented on impact. Beast Boy's eyes welded shut at that jolt against the bridge of his spine, and he dropped to the floor in a solid heap.
"Why choose to be weak when you can claim whatever you want?!"
Adonis was over him again, sneering down, driving his heel into those human ribs until the boy jerked up in pain.
"Aaugh!"
Beast Boy was ripped from the ground by the front of his collar. His eyes seared and, on instinct, his hands grappled at the wrists that held him up. Beneath him, his feet dangled in a frivolous bid to reach the floor.
"Glory. Power. Women," Adonis spat, squinting down at his foe with all the malice he held for his former self. His eyes burned into Beast Boy's face. He brought him closer, watched him writhe, blood beginning to leak from his nose.
With great effort, Gar cracked one eye open and saw a wild stare, blistered skin.
The slow splitting of sanity.
A weak groan reached out from somewhere off to the side.
Beast Boy watched that stare leave him to trail the sound through the fog, like a leopard tracking down its next meal.
Across the room was Raven, appearing first as a silhouette before her details slowly surfaced. She had her eyes closed and a hand pressed to her temple. Her brows knit against the thumping in her skull and she began to sit up from the floor amidst the thinning smoke.
An awful noise came with Adonis' smirk. Beast Boy saw saliva gather at the rim of his mouth, sticky and hot. That wet tongue rolled out again.
"I'd bet she could take a beast's—"
"Shut up," he snapped. Snapped like the jaws of a bear trap driving into flesh.
And Adonis saw his pupils shrink. Watched his fangs grow. Felt gloves become claws at his wrists.
The stench of possession and disgust came flooding from Beast Boy's pores, and for just a moment, Adonis froze.
… Oh.
A low chuckle gurgled inside him, then spilled out like acid from his mouth.
Adonis leaned in close, moving his lips right up to that pointed ear.
"Bingo."
Then he was gone.
Not a second after hitting ground, Beast Boy felt his stomach turn.
"No!" He released a dreadful scream.
Helpless, he witnessed that inevitable shift of flesh to fur, the hideous stretch of muscle and bone. As if it were breaking, Adonis' jaw unhinged, adorning a jowl dense with razor-sharp fangs.
But Beast Boy wasn't helpless.
( Knowing when to let it out… )
No.
Beast Boy was not helpless.
Raven raised her head at the cry, just in time to see the last wisps of smoke part, a figure slicing its way through. Hoarse growls slid down the walls, and she had but a second to gasp at the familiar sight coming straight at her. A nightmare from many months passed.
Her eyes grew large. Her chest clenched.
She felt her arm rise to summon a shield, knowing it wouldn't come in time. And in that last second when the feral beast was mere inches from her face, its double leapt out from the fog and sent it hurtling away with one fierce strike.
A wounded cry rang out. A metallic clash shook the room. But all Raven could see was green.
She latched onto the creature that had dealt the blow, now looming its full weight above her. Its massive paws sat at either side of her head. Its shaggy chest heaved with every ragged breath.
It stared down at Raven and Raven stared back up, blinking through their moment of stillness.
There was a pause where she couldn't possibly know if she was seconds away from being mauled. All her muscles were paralysed, her eyes searching for the man inside of this animal.
She swallowed before releasing a breath she couldn't remember holding.
"Beast Boy?..."
The creature inhaled. Then, like a house cat, this great Goliath bowed down to the girl beneath it. It pressed its forehead lightly to her own, a rumble lining its throat.
It's me, he was saying. You're safe.
Raven relaxed. Her startled gaze ebbed away, her limbs sank into the tile.
It was very easy to forget that, whilst her team had fought with this beast - alongside this beast - Raven had seen it only once.
She had seen it once, at night, in a moment of panic.
She had seen it in Beast Boy's room - a few brief flashes - one and a half years ago. And then she had blacked out. When she awoke, it was to a white ceiling, to the quiet of the Med Bay in the shelter of her home.
He had been brought back to the tower that night with a severed suit and gaping wounds, but he was himself.
Himself, like who he had been when she left with Slade four months ago. When she had told them all goodbye, not even knowing that minutes before, he had handed his body over to this beast a second time to protect her from harm.
So now, in this abandoned laboratory, Raven could see the thing that haunted Beast Boy's dreams up close. She could let her eyes stagger over its face. Could feel the fire roaring in its heart.
A part of Raven wondered, in the small moment that they had, whether he could see her right now too. Whether Beast Boy could see everything the way she saw everything when her demon prevailed.
Just as she was taking him in, a vengeful hand clawed her saviour away.
She snapped from her thoughts like a rubber band, shooting upright with hands pressed into the floor.
Ahead of her, two monsters brawled with hunched spines and flying fists.
The gas had completely dispersed by the time Raven moved to her knees, and at opposite ends of the lab, her teammates were slowly revealed. Starfire was the first to spot her.
"Raven!" she called, soaring to her sister's side. With a strong arm, she helped her to her feet, growing steadily aware that her attention was drawn away. The alien followed her line of sight until she too landed on the scene.
She gasped.
Heavy footsteps were soon approaching, with Cyborg appearing and Robin hot on his tail.
"Yo! You guys seen—"
There was a vicious growl, and all four looked to the fight.
"Oh no…" The words left Cyborg in one cold breath. Robin's gaze hardened.
Adonis threw out a punch just for Beast Boy to skirt it and chomp down. His teeth sank into the meat of his forearm. He tasted rust on his tongue and plunged his fangs in deeper, drawing a wail from his rival that sent his heart racing.
Perhaps the Beast's host wasn't an animal.
But the Beast was.
Adonis used his mighty leg to swipe Beast Boy to the ground. It worked. His jaw released, and no sooner had he fallen, a monstrous pressure was at his chest and a claw was raised to return the pain.
From across the room, the Titans gaped.
One of these creatures should have been black. But beneath that fluorescent bulb, like everything else in this lab, they both glowed toxic green.
A mirror image, duelling it out.
"Which is our friend?" Starfire asked, brows turned up in distress.
"You tell me," Cyborg threw back. Across the room, the captured beast took one slash across the cheek before breaking free through sheer force of will. He got even, sweeping the other up from the floor and flinging him into the Titans' path.
"Look out!" Robin yelled. He lunged for Starfire, breaking her fall with his arms then setting her down where they landed. Raven and Cyborg swerved as well, and Adonis went barrelling into the wall behind them.
His hulking body shattered the brick and he skidded into a new part of the lab, leaving a wide, jagged hole in his wake.
"We have to do something," said Raven, lifting off from the ground as though restless to intervene. For the moment, they could merely watch from the side lines, the second beast sprinting past them in mad pursuit of its prey.
"Cyborg, do you have it?" Robin looked to his comrade, taking in Raven's words. She was right. They couldn't just stand by.
Fortunately they had a backup plan, just in case this scenario went down. Lodged in Cyborg's mechanical arm was a dart of tranquilliser laced with antidote that could be fired on Adonis through his cannon.
"Great idea Robin," Cyborg said, a tad too chipper, "except that I can't use the damn thing!"
Shit. He was also right. At least, they couldn't use it without risking shooting Beast Boy instead. And if Beast Boy couldn't defend himself, Adonis might kill him.
That, or their foe would turn on the Titans. And if in the past they couldn't handle the changeling's beast - sweet, selfless angel that he was - they would surely struggle that much more with this psychopath's.
Neither scenario could be risked.
Just as Robin was racking his brain for a solution, a twin howl coursed through the building. When they peered through that hole in the wall, they saw the two monsters at war.
In this form, Beast Boy was blinded with rage.
Adonis had crossed a line. He had crossed a line the moment he thought he could look at Raven. The moment he had hatched even one thought about her.
But then this scumbag had laid his filthy hands on her. And he had used her to bring out Beast Boy's darkness.
Now he would use that darkness to make him regret it.
Amidst their mindless thrashing, Beast Boy got a grasp of Adonis' face in his paw. He raked in his claws to better crush what sat inside it, and just as blood was drawn, he was booted into his exposed stomach by a relentless kick.
It was Beast Boy's turn to land on his back. With eyes squeezed shut, he almost missed the mass that hurled itself into the air, intent to pound him ten feet into the ground. With but a second to spare, he back-rolled out the line of attack.
Adonis landed on nothing. Enraged, he ripped the closest thing to a weapon - an iron cogwheel - off the wall and threw it. In this same moment, the Titans had just scrambled through that hole into the second part of the lab, and seeing the scene unfold, Robin hurled one of his explosives out to blast the cog before it could reach its mark.
It erupted in a loud bang and blasted shrapnel into the air. Some large metal scraps flew at Raven, who easily cast out a protective shield around her. But by the time her shield dropped, all that black fell away to reveal an animal's back, guarding her against the worst of the blow.
Her hands hovered in front of her. Her lips parted as she stared up at the thing that had needlessly put itself at risk. There was a glint of movement in the corner of her eye, and behind all that shroud of fur, she saw Cyborg make a steady move forward.
Don't, she thought as she noted his metal hand tic. The prickled spine bent before her, looming forward to give the robot warning.
Then Beast Boy growled.
Growled at his best friend.
Cyborg drew to a halt.
He studied the scene, and came to the conclusion that it looked far too familiar.
If he'd had the time, he might have mused on the idea that without the presence of a greater threat - a rivalling beast, an underworld army - this animal would still see the Titans as the next danger to the thing it was clearly trying to protect.
But Cyborg didn't have the time. What he had was an opportunity.
"Think I found Beast Boy," he thought aloud before turning to the other creature with his cannon at the ready. He was too late. Adonis had already crossed the room, and at the sight of a weapon pointed his way, he made one clean swipe that sent the robot soaring.
With his obstacle abolished, Adonis' sights landed back on the changeling, still guarding Raven with his hackles raised. Their inky eyes met and Beast Boy growled again, this time longer and lower, like an engine revving to life.
Instead of wait for Adonis to attack, Beast Boy did first.
He sprung out on four feet. Adrenaline possessed him, pumping loud in his ears. The two clashed like an atom bomb in the room's centre, shaking the walls and whipping the air, and it was once again impossible to tell the creatures apart.
Raven had still been staring, putting the past few moments together, when she heard Robin call to her.
"Raven!"
She turned.
"We need to put an end to this. Can't you sense which one is him?"
Her lips pressed together and face firmed as she shook her head no.
"His mind isn't his own right now," the sibyl explained. "I'd only recognise Beast Boy's presence. This one is… skewed."
Robin cursed beneath his breath, and Raven felt a sharp pang. She should have targeted Adonis when Beast Boy was guarding her, instead of staring immobile in the way that she had.
Idiot.
Another crash shook her from her thoughts. Already on edge, feeling helpless and irked, all of the heroes rose their heads to the scene.
One of the beasts had the other in a chokehold. Then the restrained beast threw his arms back till his claws were plunging into the other's shoulders, and from there, he hurled his opponent over his head.
Relishing this freedom, the beast swallowed up a great rush of air, arms hanging limp at his sides.
The beast that was thrown thwacked into a workbench and sat for a moment in the rubble. A snarl fled out of him.
Then he did something none of the Titans thought these creatures smart enough to do. He snatched up a tool that had fallen to the floor. A large Bunsen burner.
The rivalling beast came for him again, and with one twist, he ignited the flame. It was swiped through the air - a jet of orange light - and his enemy was forced to back away from the sudden heat skimming past his face.
Once the tool had fulfilled its purpose, it was discarded to one side. Still burning.
It only took landing on one of the earlier chemical spills for an inferno to rush up like a whirlwind from the floor.
It thrived in the contained space, spreading in long, sweeping curls that blazed throughout the room. In seconds, all that had been dark and fuzzy was now gleaming bright, and the cold air was steaming, too warm and too muggy to breathe.
The beasts went on, blind to it all. They let the heat fuel their rage, let it bubble their blood thick in their veins.
Some of the flames followed the spills along the tile till they reached the shattered crates, and in one gulp, the wooden mass was consumed, birthing a wildfire.
It all seemed to happen in an instant.
Robin gauged his surroundings, felt the cresting heat spike the skin of his arms.
Then he winced, and looked again at the beasts.
The fire. That intense, radiant light. It conquered the green bulb.
He could tell them apart.
"Hey, Robin! We got trouble!"
Stuck on this realisation, Robin was slow to address his friend. But once he'd tracked the source of Cyborg's alarm, his mask stretched wide.
There, about fifteen feet from the encroaching flames, stood a lone vat with a label stretched across it.
AMMONIUM NITRATE.
Shit.
Robin flew into action.
"Raven, Starfire!" They pried their eyes from the fight to look at him. "Contain the fire!"
They too spotted the vat and nodded without question. With a new sense of urgency, the girls touched off from the ground, heading straight for the blaze.
Raven engulfed what she could of the flames in a dark sphere, hoping that in shrinking the ball, they might suffocate and die. Starfire's powers were less equipped for this element, more often than not encouraging it. But she still persevered, using her strength and flight to grab a heavy tarp from a dusty corner and dampen the worst of the fire with it.
Cyborg could only watch as his leader then fell into a determined run, heading straight for the brawling beasts.
"What are you doing?!" he yelled, but only received a quick shout over the shoulder.
"They'll just keep going!"
Like some kind of Kamikaze, Robin dove between the two creatures.
"Beast Boy!"
He immediately had to dodge a swipe not meant for him. After ducking with precision, Robin straightened again to try and seize his friend's attention.
"Beast Boy, listen—!"
Dodge. Feint.
Cyborg watched what his leader was doing, and like a bullet to the brain, it hit him.
Within that searing, orange glow, he could now see that there was a green beast, and there was a black beast.
Robin managed to gain some height by leaping onto a counter, then he made the ultimate risk by throwing himself at the green creature's back.
Gloved hands weaved into the thick pelt of fur. His elbows locked. He shouted right into Beast Boy's ear.
"This place is going to— GYAH!"
Black talons reached past Beast Boy and sank deep into Robin's thigh, tearing through tendon and flesh. Like a rag doll, the Titan was torn from his friend's back and tossed up to the ceiling.
Of course. Robin had no part in this reckoning. He was just in Adonis' way.
Cyborg cringed at the sound of his leader's cry. With a sickening crack, he crashed into an exposed vent, sending some loose ceiling panels cascading down. Not a second later, he followed them.
"Robin!" Starfire cried with a glance behind her. Her arms lowered to turn to him, but then the fire flared again and she frowned, knowing her duties lay right where she was.
Cyborg ran to his aid in her place. He noted how Robin's face was twisted in pain, his palm pressing firm into the lesion at his thigh. Cyborg could see thick rills of blood oozing out of the gaps between his fingers, could hear his leader's laden pants and see how his chest shook with every breath.
Probably a fractured rib or two. Dammit.
Around them, both the battle and the fire raged on. Their time was running short.
"Argh…" Robin ground his teeth, felt the warm, sticky mess spread out over his glove.
"Reckless," Cyborg muttered, kneeling to look him over. A steady film of smoke began to crawl past the pair, low to the ground but rising fast.
Starfire coughed from where she hovered much too close to the blaze.
"It is spreading too quickly…" she said, hacking up the cloud in her lungs. Beside her, Raven's eyes squinted, bleary from the fumes. She now had a pipeline ripped out of the wall, dousing the fire with water, but it wasn't enough. It just kept coming.
"We have to leave," she said with a turn of her head. It wasn't a suggestion.
Like the hot-head that he was, Robin moved to one knee then forced himself to stand, trembling the whole way.
"Do you have a clear hit?" He had to push the words out of himself.
If they could knock out Adonis, Beast Boy might finally recognise his new threat and leave with them. He might even change back. Starfire could carry the unconscious villain to safety, and they could all be far from the lab by the time it exploded.
Cyborg knew this. But as his arm stretched out to take aim, he also knew that the two animals were moving fast - lightning fast - and they were now tangled into one feral web of limbs and teeth.
So no. He didn't have a clear hit.
"Don't rush me, man," he said gravely. "I got one shot of this. If BB goes down, we're toast."
"If that vat is breached, that won't matter. Take the shot."
Cyborg's breath stilled inside of him. Just when he thought he could fire, black fur became green again. His heart ached at the sight of his best friend losing steam, enduring blow after blow then aimlessly lashing back out.
In one lucky move, Adonis secured a solid welt to his rival's chin.
He was losing. Shit, Beast Boy was losing.
Behind him, Cyborg could hear the girls' struggle, heat wrapping around their throats. A line of sweat trickled down his temple.
"Cyborg!" Robin roared.
His human eye narrowed, preparing to shoot. Then it snapped open as he watched a long claw spear through Beast Boy's gut.
Raven felt her heart skip at the sound of a harrowing scream, just before the green beast dropped.
Garfield felt numb.
His face was pressed into something cold, and hard. The stifling smoke was invading his head, slowing his heartbeat in his chest.
He heard the echo of his name.
A cannon blast.
A howl that wasn't his.
Then the world went black.
Author's Note:
i am so sorry for the wait. idk if it was me putting pressure on myself or what (cos this was an important chapter for me) but this chapter just did not want to be written. at all.
to be fair, it has also been an IMMENSELY busy two months for me. like, the busiest i've had in a long time, so that definitely didn't help. my brain has just been fried.
ahem, anyway... in the show, cyborg gives bb an antidote. but this antidote doesn't 'get rid' of the beast, cos we see bb transform into it during 'the end' arc too. right? so it's kind of my head canon that, rather than /eliminate/ the beast, the antidote serves to /quell/ the beast's impulses so bb can live a 'normal' life and just generally have more control over the beast.
but yes, both beast boy and adonis have to take this antidote regularly to keep the impulses at bay, in the same way a diabetic has to take insulin regularly, or in the same way Raven has to meditate regularly etc. i'm implying in this chapter that they need it like once a week. i can't see it being realistic that a single shot cured bb of all his medical issues relating to the chemicals for life.
thank you for sticking with me. i'll try not to take so long for the next update!
Reviews:
as previously stated, i'm just replying to guest reviews as i reply to users privately! :)
anonymoose: i promise, the slow burn in this story is INTENDED to kill you. it's getting really painful for me too. but i'm glad you're enjoying so far! your patience will pay off!
eris: thank you! like i said, my head canon is that, for the 2003 show's version of raven, she can simply sense presences. kind of like how we have a sixth sense for if someone is watching us or nearby, except hers is much stronger and more accurate. we've only really seen evidence of her being able to sense people in this way in the show, and i like to be as accurate to canon as possible. :)
LW: same, i hadn't been ill in forever and suddenly that happened. :'(
ch 9 - thanks so much! i'm glad it read well as i really couldn't tell by the time i'd finished it (same goes for this chapter tbh LOL). it's very important to me that readers can have a clear mental image of what's going on. you're dead-on with your interpretation of gar's reaction!
ch 10 - i think it's one of the most tragic things about her too. speaking as someone who is quite expressive and gets a lot of comfort from being able to let emotions out, i can't imagine how hard it must be for her. and for a child, no less. she had to be essentially indoctrinated into linking expression with trauma and my heart hurts.
so glad you're still enjoying and thank you for once again leaving a detailed review, it makes my day every time!