Tropic Thunder

by A-LionGleek

A simple search and report in Africa becomes far more dramatic than expected when the Titans receive word of Professor Chang having managed to create an even more deadly genetically modified version of an already lethal virus. But things get worse still when Beast Boy finds himself both struggling to control his more beastly side and facing his past...in more ways than one.

19. Epilogue

Hey everyone! Boy it's been forever ago since I last updated hasn't it? Well in all honesty, as much as there were a few other external factors involved, I hardly have much else to blame but myself here. Honestly, I was starting to lose my steam at one point or other while working on this here epilogue, and I eventually reached the point that I just needed to escape and take a break for a while. In the end, I think that decision really did me some serious good. After all, like Luz Noceda herself said in an episode of The Owl House in which she and King end up having an unpleasant experience with a book publisher who tries to enforce literal crunch time on the writers who work for him, the kind of approach to writing that I was starting to slowly take on more and more by the time I reached the point of needing to take the seriously long break I've currently ended up taking up till now is a very toxic way of thinking. At the end of the day, as much as I enjoy writing my fanfiction, it's really just that, something I do for fun. And I should never try too hard (if at all) to treat this like it's a life defining job or major obligation; otherwise I run the risk of completely ruining the enjoyment and fun and making the whole endeavor too exhausting to continue. But all that said, I hope you like what I have to offer here after the insanely long wait.

A/N: But first, in one last time for this particular story, I shall remind you that I do not own Teen Titans or anything else explicitly based in any of DC's productions or similar material. The only things I own are my OCs and maybe a couple more unique elements and twists. All that said, onward with the fic dudes!

Epilogue

Three hours later, the entirety of the Wildebeest Society lab evacuees were gathered at the outside border of the jungle. Immediately after the evacuation and subsequent destruction of the Wildebeest Society's upper Lamumban main lab facility, the local cops, plus a group of local paramedics, had been amongst the very first people the Titans had called to the scene. And at that moment, with most of the cops busy handling the now very much apprehended evacuated criminals and several of the higher-ranking ones searching the jungle to see if they could find Galtry, two of the high-ranking cops that remained in the area were currently busy questioning Dr. Rookwood and the five founding Titans.

At that particular moment, things were going relatively smoothly. For despite initial awkwardness that had ensued as a result of the exact nature of the Titans' first coming to the country in the first place, they'd been able to smooth things out via presenting of their passports and Robin even providing them with the number they'd need to potentially contact the Justice League via their US government liaison King Faraday for further discussions if necessary. The fact that they'd also helped both expose and subsequently take down multiple far more villainous trespassers to the country had certainly helped put the cops in the right mood for reasonable discussions as well. And at the current point in said discussions, they'd now reached the point of discussing the all-important flash drive.

"So you say that this contains all the information we'll need involving your organization and its activities?" One of the cops asked.

"That is correct," Rookwood responded, a firm look on her face. "Everything you'll need to know should be on that device."

"And this device, plus anything else you currently wish to say is what you plan to give as testimony?" Asked the other cop.

"Also correct."

Rookwood nodded her head. "And I can assure you, under oath if necessary, that everything said by me or these five young heroes present alongside me in response to anything you ask will be the full truth to the exact full extent of our knowledge."

The two cops nodded their heads. "And let me make sure I have this correct," said one of the cops. "In exchange for this testimony, you wish to have a lighter sentence?"

"Correct." Rookwood nodded her head once more. "And if at all possible, I wish to also be under US custody in the event that I am required to serve prison time and to have police protection while undergoing the necessary transport from here to America, as I wish to be absolutely certain that any potential efforts at retaliation against me by my former colleagues will be at the very least incredibly difficult to achieve success with."

"Those are requests I am certain we can discuss and hopefully arrange with agent Faraday."

The cop who'd just spoken drew out a notebook and a pencil. "But now, let us real quick go over a few additional details."

At the same time all this was happening, Wildebeest was lying upon a stretcher, resting from the treatment he'd been subjected to by the paramedics. He was also currently talking on his communicator to Pantha and Red Star, as Robin had very strongly suggested that he do so after everything that had happened. Naturally, both of Wildebeest's 'parents' were quite stunned to find him out of his ever so familiar powered-up mode. But thankfully, they were both perfectly willing to listen to Wildebeest's subsequent explanation as to what had happened.

"So you were stuck in that form all this time because of repressed negative emotions?" Red Star asked, making sure that he'd fully gotten the basic idea of what Wildebeest had just explained.

"Mm-hm," Wildebeest stated as he nodded his head. "Turns out, the rage I felt at the time I assumed my powered-up mode for the first time mixed in with the fear, sadness, and anger I'd already been feeling for a long time before I ever met mom. And as a result of just how deeply ingrained all those feelings were in my psyche, I became completely desensitized to their presence and also proved subsequently unable to fully calm myself down and get rid of them without help. Thus, why I ended up spending so many years stuck in my powered-up mode."

"But the reason why you felt that mixture of emotions beforehand," Pantha stated, clearly still concerned. "And still felt it even after you and I escaped from the Society in the first place. Why didn't you tell me about it?"

Wildebeest hung his head. "I thought I'd make myself look ungrateful if I did."

Pantha raised her eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Wildebeest sniffled, gritting his teeth and clenching the hand that wasn't holding his communicator into a fist as he struggled to maintain his composure. "Well," he managed to say, his eyes now on the verge of tears. "It's just that…well you were always there and kind to me the entire time we were together in the Society's custody…and even before the incident with the Brotherhood, you were still always making sure to do everything you could to take good care of me and protect me whenever you had sufficient time outside your matches…and then you also managed to make up for initially not being aware of my endangerment and capture by them by working with Beast Boy to try to help save me and the others from the Brotherhood…and then so much other good stuff has unfolded between us and dad since…especially after Cyborg designed the collar that now allows me to properly talk…"

He sniffled once more, his eyes now almost completely closed as tears started pouring from his eyes. "I…I'm…I'm sorry…"

"It's ok," said Pantha. She nodded her head, a concerned look on her face. "We can talk about this more once we're with you in person."

"Agreed," said Red Star. "And while we're at it, we'll come over to pick you up within the next few hours. And we can talk more once we're on our way back from Lamumba alongside you. Sound good?"

"Ok," Wildebeest responded, sniffling once more in the process. "But before you hang up, is it ok if I…ask you a couple questions?"

Pantha and Red Star looked at each other as if considering what their 'son' had just asked. Then they looked back at him.

"Of course…son," said Pantha.

"Fire away," said Red Star.

At the same time that Wildebeest was talking with his adoptive 'parents', the six Project Menagerie mutants were gathered in a circle in the area where the Titans had previously battled the leap of adolescent nundus. At that moment, all six of them were in deep thought about some information that had just come to light about them. For as it so happened, Juris had cast a memory altering spell on them sometime after their initial capture; a spell that had finally been undone upon his death. And as a result, with all their memories that had initially been suppressed by the memory spell now returned, they were now aware of how they actually hadn't been homeless street urchins at the time of their capture. In fact, they'd actually been walking home together from school on the day they'd been captured. And now they'd basically spent five years missing and separated from their families since.

"I wonder what our parents will think if they see us like this," said Rhinestone, his head hanging low to face the ground as he remembered how his parents had been planning to take him to see a football game in person for the very first time in his life on the weekend after the day he'd been taken by the Wildebeest Society.

"Forget what they'll think if they see us like this," said Grizzly Girl, her eyes on the verge of tears as she thought about her parents that she'd now finally regained memory of after several years of forcibly being deprived of awareness of their existence. Then her eyes became even more teary as she remembered how she'd been set to star in an important school play the night of the day she and her friends had been taken by the Wildebeest Society and how much her parents had been looking forward to seeing her perform. "Think of how they must have felt all these years without us…and all while we ourselves were unknowingly robbed of all memory of them to."

"I wonder how Camille must have felt all this time," Swamp Gator mournfully hissed, thinking about his newly remembered younger sister and how he'd promised to take her to visit a local zoo after getting home from school on the day of his capture.

"Or Sid," Night Howler whimpered as she thought about her own newly remembered younger brother, whom she herself had been supposed to be babysitting after getting home from school on the day of her capture.

"Indeed," said Ambush as she nodded her head, her yellow eyes narrowed in a faraway look of guilt and regret as she now remembered how the day she and her friends had been captured by the Wildebeest Society had just so happened to be her mother's birthday.

"Yeah," groaned Jungle Cat as he looked at his right wrist, which he now finally properly remembered had once been adorned with a watch his father had given him for his birthday the month before his capture and had been subsequently lost over the course of said capture. He shook his head side to side, a single manly tear slowly sliding down his cheek from his right eye. "It's not fair."

"You said it buddy," Rhinestone grumbled.

"No kidding," Swamp Gator snarled.

"Camille and Sid would probably be terrified of us if they saw us now," said Night Howler as she hung her head and let tears start to flow from her eyes.

"Well on the bright side," Ambush then stated as she drew out what turned out to be a T-Comm device. "At least we've been allowed a potential new 'family' to live and work with."

"I suppose that's true," said Jungle Cat as he and the four newly rescued members of their group likewise drew out similar devices.

"I'll admit, considering how easily I could be mistaken as being related to Killer Croc, it certainly feels nice to potentially become a superhero," said Swamp Gator as he inspected his newly gifted communicator in his left hand, rubbing his right hand through his fleshy blonde 'crest' in the process.

"I know exactly how you feel Owen," said Night Howler, a half joyful and half teary smile on her face as she examined her own newly gifted communicator, her black hair and fur seeming to shine in the light of the sun. "I mean, after everything we've gone through, it certainly would be amazing to have the ability to save other kids like us from going through similar experiences, if not from even worse ones."

"I suppose you can say that again," Rhinestone agreed as he nodded his head up and down while observing his communicator, his horns agleam in the light of the sun and dreadlocked brown hair lightly swaying side to side. "I mean, we may have had to wait a while, and the heroes who finally helped us sure as Hell aren't Superman, Batman, or anyone else in the Justice League. But the Titans sure did a damn good job at helping us once they finally came around to as much. And I daresay the world could perhaps use a few additional heroes."

"Couldn't agree more," said Grizzly Girl. She chuckled, her blue eyes agleam and snowy white platinum blonde hair billowing lightly in the breeze as she observed her own communicator. "And you know what? Maybe if George is successfully rescued over the course of the upcoming raid on the sister location, we can get him to receive membership as well."

Swamp Gator chuckled. "It sure would be nice to have him join alongside us." He nodded his head. "Have the whole gang back together, just like old times."

"Ain't that the truth?" Night Howler agreed.

"Got that right," said Rhinestone as he chuckled and affectionately patted his girlfriend on the head, much to her delight.

Jungle Cat and Ambush, however, were noticeably silent and glum as they listened to what their friends were now saying…something that was eventually noticed by Swamp Gator. The crocodile mutant promptly raised his eyebrow in confusion and suspicion. "Is something wrong?"

The two feline mutants gulped, looked nervously in each other's eyes, and then hung their heads while sighing. "It's time," they thought to themselves. They looked to their friends, looks on their furry faces that indicated clear guilt and sadness over what they were now about to say.

Night Howler promptly tensed up as if bracing herself for negative news. "Ok," she said nervously. "What's that look supposed to mean?"

Jungle Cat took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. "George…isn't going to be joining us."

"What do you mean?" Rhinestone asked, a wary tone to his voice.

"Yeah, what do you mean?" Grizzly Girl asked, noticeably concerned. "Why wouldn't he join us? He's been such a good friend to us."

"Yeah," Swamp Gator admitted, but not without hanging his head with a clear look of regret on his face. "Even when some of us haven't been nearly good enough friends to him in comparison."

"Well to put it simply," Ambush stated. She sighed, shook her head side to side, and then lifted her head to face her friends, her yellow eyes on the verge of tears as she slowly reached towards Dr. Morales's confiscated necklace around her neck, lifted it off, and extended it towards her four confused and formerly brainwashed friends before opening up the orb attached to the chain to reveal the ashes within. "He's right here. In this necklace."

For what felt like an eternity, the four formerly brainwashed mutants gaped silently at the two feline mutants in stunned and disbelieving silence.

"You're…," Rhinestone managed to say, a look on his face indicating that he had a very strong idea of what Ambush was implying but really didn't want to accept the possibility of said idea being true. "You're not saying…"

"You can't be," Grizzly Girl whimpered, now clearly on the verge of once again crying. "You…can't…be…"

Ambush shook her head. "When Leon and I escaped," she stated, making sure to refer to Jungle Cat by his old pre-mutation name to emphasize how serious she was being. "George escaped alongside us, and in fact had been the one who'd made it possible for us to escape in the first place. And he only failed to get the rest of you out because the scientists there managed to catch on in time to sound the alarm after he'd gotten Leon and I free."

"Indeed."

Jungle Cat nodded his head. "About a week after our escape last month, George went back to try to bust you guys out. But he got caught and presented to a visiting Arronax. And with just how defiant he acted over the course of it all…"

He hung his head. "Arronax shot him dead and had the workers at the sister location throw him into the incinerator."

Ambush nodded her head, stretching her right arm further towards the four devastated and incredulous looking additional mutants in front of her and Jungle Cat as if to further emphasize the presence of the opened jewelry orb full of ash lying upon her furry palm. "Simply put, this is all that's left of him."

Swamp Gator and Night Howler remained silent, gaping in teary eyed disbelief at the two feline mutants and the ashes that remained of the dead gorilla mutant that had been their good friend George Abrams, neither daring to speak. Rhinestone and Grizzly Girl, however, didn't take long to break their own silence.

"It's not true," Grizzly Girl whimpered, tears already starting to stream out of her blue eyes as she extended her right hand incredulously towards the remains of George. "Tell me it's…not…true…"

In that instant, as she proceeded to grab ahold of the ash filled jewelry orb and hold it in her furry hands, she truly wanted nothing more than for this to be a cruel joke, or maybe even a horrible nightmare that she could eventually wake up from. For as long as she could remember, George had been her friend and always been there for her and the rest of their friends. He couldn't be gone! He couldn't! Then her eyes became half closed and started releasing an even larger amount of tears at a swifter speed as she remembered how George had actually had a crush on her before their capture, only for her to have to amicably friendzone him due to her having already fallen for and started dating her current boyfriend Winston, aka Rhinestone.

Rhinestone himself seemed likewise despondent at the increasingly clear fact that George, whom he'd considered an honorary brother, was dead. George, the always dependable nerdy heart of their group, was now dead and reduced to ashes. And even though Rhinestone himself had ended up well aware of George's old crush on his girlfriend a good month or so before George had even told Grizzly Girl herself about it, he'd still trusted George enough to not let himself get jealous or territorial. After all, even after Ursula had herself finally been made aware of it and gently friend-zoned him, George had still been perfectly content with staying friends with her and Rhinestone. He sniffled, manly tears trickling in small streams from his black eyes. "No," he managed to whisper, his voice still just as much in disbelief as in despair. "George…no…"

Jungle Cat nodded his head, manly tears pouring from his own red eyes and down his furry cheeks. "I hate telling you this just as much as you hate hearing it Winston," he then said. "But as much as you may not like hearing this, Winston is gone."

"I'm really sorry Ursula," said Ambush, tears starting to pour from her own yellow eyes as she continued to hold the orb containing George's ashes in the bear mutant's direction. "But it's true. George is…" She gulped, seemingly struggling for a couple seconds to even speak the words she was now about to say. "He's dead."

Swamp Gator and Night Howler continued to gape blankly at Ambush and Jungle Cat, almost lifeless looks of sadness in their green and purple eyes as they slowly processed the full enormity of what they'd just heard. Rhinestone similarly gazed sadly at his two feline mutant friends while continuing to let manly tears slide down his cheeks. Grizzly Girl, however, sniffled, bit her lip, and just barely managed to pass the jewelry orb containing George's ashes back to Ambush before she then completely broke down. She wilted down onto her knees, her palms slammed down on the ground, and waterfalls' worth of tears poured from her eyes as she sobbed and wailed in complete despair over the death of her dear friend George.

"It's not fair," she whimpered, barely even able to understand herself from crying so much. "It's not fair. It isn't. It's…not…fair…" She collapsed onto the ground flat on her face, still sobbing her eyes out. "George," she squealed. "Why did you…why did you…have to…die?"

Rhinestone patted his girlfriend on the head, sniffling as tears of his own continued to come out of his own eyes in a much more slow and understated fashion. "There, there," he managed to say, managing to stay calm despite his own clear sadness. "It's ok. I'm here."

Grizzly Girl lifted her head up from the ground, her face absolutely soaked, and then looked at Rhinestone…at which point she snapped her arms around him in a tight embrace, slammed her face against his chest, and started weeping once more. "It wasn't supposed to be like this," she sobbed. "George…he was supposed to be here…with us…always…"

"I know," Rhinestone responded, now fighting to keep his composure and avoid breaking down like his girlfriend. "I know."

Ambush and Jungle Cat hung their heads, both of them feeling very regretful indeed once more about what had happened to George.

"Forgive us George," Ambush thought to herself. "If there were any way we could have saved you, we would have."

"Can I hold it for a little bit?"

Ambush looked to Night Howler, who was now holding her hands out towards her as if wishing to grab the orb containing George's ashes, a look on her face very similar to Rhinestone's as tears slowly sank down her cheeks. After about a minute, the tigress mutant nodded her head and handed the orb to the wolf mutant, tears still slowly sliding down her own cheeks. "Go ahead Claire," she managed to say while Jungle Cat nodded his head in agreement.

Night Howler accepted the orb, looking sadly down at it and the ashes as tears continued to slide down her furry face from her purple eyes. As this happened, she found herself bitterly remembering how the last time she'd ever seen George had involved her howling and raging at him for 'breaking his promise' of them successfully escaping from the Wildebeest Society on that one fateful failed breakout attempt mere moments before she'd been placed under cryogenic hibernation.

"YOU PROMISED WE'D ESCAPE!" She now remembered having shouted as she'd banged her fists against the glass of the dome she'd been placed in while seeing George being dragged the last few feet that had remained between him and his own cryogenic dome, her eyes dazzling with rage, her fangs bared, and her voice just barely avoiding devolving into an incoherent snarling in her anger. "YOU PROMISED!"

She sniffled. That had been the last thing she'd said before her cryogenic dome had been activated. And now George was dead and had in fact been killed over the course of a 3rd failed attempt at breaking her and the others out. And thus she now could never apologize to him. She closed her eyes, tears still flowing from them in the process. "George," she thought to herself, hoping like mad that his spirit was somehow listening from the afterlife. "I'm so sorry."

As this happened, she completely failed to notice that Swamp Gator had also been directing a glance towards George's ashes in her hands, a disbelieving look on his scaly face. In that instant, with his green eyes still widened, fanged teeth gritted, and scaly fists clenched, he was clearly struggling to maintain his composure. He'd spent the last few minutes almost entirely in denial, not even crying as he'd struggled to simultaneously process the news of George's death while also refusing to accept it. But now he was coming close to breaking point, and he hated the fact. He eventually looked away, snapping his hands in the orb's direction as he did so. "No," he snarled.

Night Howler and the other Project Menagerie mutants turned their heads towards Swamp Gator, all of them teary eyed and sympathetic. "Owen," said Night Howler.

"No," Swamp Gator hissed as stepped backwards up against a nearby tree, letting out a small gasp with his eyes widened before he then slowly slid down the surface of the tree and came to a stop on his backside. He slammed his left hand against the tree he was now seated against, the claws on that hand digging deep into the bark as he gritted his teeth in a mixture of sadness and rage.

In that instant, his mind flashed back to the moment he himself had been placed under cryogenic hibernation…or more specifically, just what he'd ended up saying to George immediately before said moment.

"YOU FILTHY LYING ERUDITE," he now remembered having roared, his words almost exactly as acidic as his spit as he'd yelled hatefully at the luckless gorilla mutant with narrowed eyes and his clawed fingers all but jabbing straight into the glass of the dome that had been containing him. "I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"

And now, just as his girlfriend and two of their other friends had now realized, George was dead. And even worse, even in spite of the despicable words he'd said, the gorilla mutant had been trying once again to save them at the moment he'd been caught and subsequently killed. And now he would never have the chance to apologize and make things right. And in that instant, with his eyes becoming half closed and swiftly overflowing with tears, a saddened half hiss and half sob bubbling out of his jaws, and his right hand clenching into a fist, he completely lost it.

"NO!" He roared. "NNNOOO! NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOO!"

Meanwhile, at the same time that the six Project Menagerie mutants were grieving over their lost friend, Dr. Rookwood and the five founding Titans were about to part ways. For now, with all the necessary information the cops had needed having been provided by her and the Titans, and one of the two high-ranking cops they'd talked to now in the midst of contacting Agent Faraday to see if Dr. Rookwood's requested accommodations could be arranged, it was time for the blonde Wildebeest Society chief scientist to be escorted to a transport separate from the arrested Wildebeest Society underlings, Chang goons, and Professor Chang with which she could subsequently be taken away to where she'd be kept under the Upper Lamumban cops' custody until such time that she'd hopefully be transported back to America to serve what would likewise hopefully be a fairly reduced prison term in a jail close to where her family lived. But for the sake of courtesy, the other high-ranking cop they'd been talking to had chosen to allow the scientist the chance to thank the Titans and say goodbye to them first.

"Thank you very much," said Dr. Rookwood, nodding her head in the process. She looked to Beast Boy. "Especially you."

"You're welcome." Beast Boy responded. "Though really, you still haven't been guaranteed that lighter sentence or being placed in an American jail separate from your former colleagues."

"I know."

Amanda nodded her head, a look of relief in her green eyes. "But even so, I'm free at least from the Society. And at the very least, I have the chance to finally reunite with my family again. And if it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have even had the courage to give you the information you asked of me that has allowed me to have that chance in the first place." She nodded her head once more, a small tear of relief coming down her cheek. "And for that, I truly am thankful." She directed her gaze to each of the five teen heroes one at a time before eventually settling her gaze back on Beast Boy once more. "The Justice League may get the most attention, but you're the ones who ultimately saved me. And for that, you have my respect, and my gratitude. And I'll make extra certain my family, but especially my children, are well aware of as much and share it." She bowed her head in respect. "Farewell."

At that, she turned around, nodded her head to the observing cop, and then walked away alongside him as she was escorted to her planned transport. As the duo walked away, Beast Boy at least was able to hear the cop whisper to Rookwood, "You've done the right thing ma'am. I have high hopes that Agent Faraday will allow your requested accommodations to be arranged to befall you. You have my word."

Cyborg looked to Robin once Rookwood and the cop were out of sight and hearing range. "What now?"

Before Robin could answer, another voice from behind the five teens said, "I take it that this is the end?"

The Titans turned around in time to see none other than Tawaba, Mumbyo, Nyota, and N'jobu standing right there behind them. Beast Boy smiled and nodded his head. "I'm afraid so this time. I mean, I'd love to stick around for a little while longer, especially for the sake of letting you get to know my rescued fellow Titans." He looked in the direction of the cops in the area that were even now still hard at work with their respective tasks. "But right now, as much as the cops have accepted our being here thanks to having our passports on us and up to date and are willing to let us stick around at least long enough to finish up what little bits of business we have left to do, I don't think they'll necessarily be all that keen on letting us stay in the country's borders too much longer then absolutely necessary."

"Pity," said Nyota, briefly wincing as her ankle flared up from the lingering pain of its earlier injury. "I was looking forward to talking with them." She looked towards Starfire, a wide grin of clear respect on her face. "Especially with her. After all, from what you've mentioned, she's a real warrior like me."

Starfire couldn't help but let a small smile come on her face and nod her head. "So I am," she said.

Mumbyo nodded his head. "Well nevertheless, I do hope we'll see you again…Garfield."

"Right back at you dude," said Beast Boy, a toothy grin appearing on his green face. "Can't promise you exactly when that time will be, but I'll come back someday I'm sure…and bring my friends with me."

Robin raised his eyebrow. "Normally I'd not be pleased with you volunteering us for stuff without asking my permission first." He looked to the four tribespeople, a small smile coming on his face despite himself. "Though in this case, I'll freely admit it might be interesting to get to know these people a little more."

Mumbyo smiled. "Right back at you."

"Aye."

N'jobu nodded his head, reached into a pouch he was carrying, and drew out the very same talisman that Beast Boy had earlier worn to temporarily ward off the effects of the Primetia virus before handing it over to him. "The fact that it was used on you for something it arguably wasn't properly designed for caused it to short out and lose its power. So I've since cast another charm on it to rejuvenate its power so that it can hopefully be properly used on someone with a condition it arguably is designed for."

"Ok then," Beast Boy said as he looked confusedly at the talisman. "But why are you giving it back to me?"

"Something tells me it might be of use to someone you know at some point or other," the shaman explained, his eyes surreptitiously managing to direct a brief glance in Raven's direction before he then looked fully back at Beast Boy. "And at the very least, it might make a nice souvenir to remember us by. Especially since I do believe you weren't lucky enough to have any such thing the last time you left us."

The other four Titans looked to the shapeshifter, who thought to himself before eventually nodding his head up and down. "I suppose that's fair," he admitted before he then reached his hand forward and gently took the talisman. He slipped into one of the pouches on his belt before looking back at N'jobu and nodding his head once more. "Thank you."

"You are most welcome friend," the shaman said. He bowed his head. "I look forward to someday seeing you again."

"Aye," Tawaba agreed. He nodded his head. "I am truly sorry that we must part ways again so soon after our reunion. But I will nonetheless be very happy when next we meet; and I wish you the best of fortune in the days to come."

"Indeed."

Beast Boy nodded his head. He then looked back at the chieftain king with a smile on his face. "Na bahati nzuri iwe nawe pia."

Tawaba, his children, and the shaman smiled, slammed their right fists against their chests, and bowed their heads. "Kwaheri," they said in unison.

Beast Boy chuckled, rammed his right fist against his own chest, and bowed his head to them. "Kwaheri," he said in response.

Tawaba smiled, nodded his head one more time, and then looked to his children and shaman. "Wacha tuondoke."

With this said, the four tribespeople turned around, giving a last farewell wave to Beast Boy in the process, and then scampered off into the jungle. And as they departed, the changeling also managed to overhear multiple other footsteps in tandem with those of the chieftain king, his children, and the shaman indicating that the rest of the warriors that had accompanied them on the raid that day were likewise running into the jungle to return home.

"So what now?"

At the sound of Raven's voice asking this question, Beast Boy turned around to face her, his earlier smile now replaced with a serious look that the sorceress knew from experience was never to be taken lightly. "We'll stay here long enough to finish taking care of things with the cops, find out what we'll need to do in regard to Wildebeest, and figure out how we're going to handle Jungle Cat, Ambush, and their four friends now that we've pretty much gotten them recruited as brand-new honorary Titans. And once we've done all that, we'll head home." He took a deep breath and exhaled heavily. "And as soon as we get the chance after getting home," he then continued, making sure to direct his firm gaze at all four of his fellow founding Titans. "It's high time you hear the full story about me."

. . . . .

Late afternoon the very next day, four of the founding Titans were gathered in the common room back at Titans Tower. For the rest of the previous day, they and Beast Boy had been busy with finishing up all the necessary tasks to be done in assisting the Upper Lamumban police, making necessary arrangements for the six Project Menagerie mutants that had now become the team's newest ancillary members, and staying with them and Wildebeest long enough to see them off when Red Star and the rest of Titans North, plus Pantha, arrived to take them back to the United States before finally heading home themselves. And up till this moment, they had subsequently been kept busy sleeping through the night, having meals, squeezing in a quick round of morning training, and putting a stop to a couple of minor crimes. But now, with nothing left to keep them otherwise occupied, the time had finally come for Beast Boy to give them the 'full story' he'd promised to them. And despite how they'd all made it clear that it wasn't an absolute requirement for him to do so if he didn't want to, particularly since they'd already gotten the basic gist from what the currently very much still unfound and likely at large Galtry had told them, Beast Boy had insisted that now was the time for him to explain to them in full about his past. And as a result, his four fellow founders were all sitting around in the common room while waiting for Beast Boy to finish what he'd claimed to be a very quick task he needed to do to prepare himself for what he was about to tell them.

"Tell me I'm not the only one who's wondering just what it is he's doing right now," Cyborg said from his position on the sofa, clearly confused as to just why he and the others now had to wait just the tiniest bit longer for what Beast Boy had promised to tell them about despite the four of them being perfectly willing to accept what Galtry had told them and avoid pressing him for additional details.

"We'll find out when he comes back," said Raven. She nodded her head, a firm look of solemn acceptance on her face as she sat on the sofa space a good couple feet to the right of Cyborg. "If whatever he's doing right now we'll help him with what he now plans to tell us, then I hardly see any problem."

"I'm still not sure if he even needs to do this," said Robin from where he currently sat on the chair closest to the keypad connected to the TV screen. "Or, more appropriately, whether or not he should do this right now."

"What do you mean?" Starfire asked, a confused look on her face as she stood directly next to Robin.

"I'm not saying he never should give his side of the story at all," Robin clarified. "But it's just that, right now it almost feels as if he's only willing to talk about it right now because he believes he has to."

"Well considering what Raven said a couple days ago about him bottling stuff up," said Cyborg. "It could very well be for the better he finally gets it all out of his system now. After all, Galtry's already told us a decent amount for him, and this could very well be the only chance we get of him willingly unloading the rest at all depending on how things go from here."

"I just don't want him to feel like he's being forced to talk about stuff he's uncomfortable with," said Robin. He hung his head and sighed. "I mean, I've already been hard enough on him more than once…all of us have really." He looked aside at nothing in particular, a grim and weary look on his face. "And considering what I've got waiting to befall me not too long after the end of this current year unless you guys manage to figure out a way to get me out without…well…"

In that instant, Cyborg and the girls looked helplessly into each other's eyes. With what their leader was now saying, they once again remembered all too well both just what sort of terrible sacrifice Robin had been forced to make for them the previous summer and the even more terrible price he was scheduled to pay within a single day after the end of the current year unless they figured out a way to get him out of making that payment that wouldn't result in his sacrifice being made pointless.

The Boy Wonder sighed and hung his head. "Well simply put, considering how we're all supposed to be good friends that are almost like family, there's still a lot of stuff from the past five years that I'd really like to make up for…just in case you know?"

Cyborg hung his head, Raven closed her eyes and sighed, and Starfire sniffled with her green eyes on the verge of tears.

"Sorry if I kept you waiting."

The four Titans looked towards the main exit from the common room in time to see Beast Boy walking in with a small box in his hands. The changeling nodded his head, seemingly oblivious to the confused looks on his friends' faces. "No matter how messy my room gets, I always make sure I'm able to find this."

Cyborg briefly considered making a joke about what Beast Boy had said, but soon thought better of it as he realized now wasn't the time for such behavior.

The changeling walked over to where his friends were gathered, taking a seat on the sofa in between Cyborg and Raven. With a deep breath, he opened the box, slowly lowering the lid onto the sofa pillow right next to him before he then reached into the box and proceeded, just as slowly as he'd opened the box and lowered the lid, to draw out what appeared to be a small photograph. He proceeded to spend a couple seconds silently gazing at it, a look of melancholy on his face.

Robin was about to ask the shapeshifter what it was he was looking at, only to promptly hold his tongue when he saw Raven direct a stern glare towards him as if silently saying, 'Be patient'.

With another sigh, Beast Boy hung his head, clearly not looking forward to what he was about to do. He sighed again, looked up with his eyes closed, and then opened his eyes to reveal them to now have a half determined and half exhausted look in them. "See this little dude here?" Beast Boy then said, flipping the photo around so that his friends could get a good look at it. The photo, as it turned out, showed a picture of a man and a woman walking through a grassy plain with a young boy in between them and holding their hands. All three of them had blue eyes, but the man's eyes were much brighter than those of the woman and boy. And while both the man and the young boy had golden blonde hair, the woman's hair was a very dark brown. All three of them were clearly happy, but the little boy seemed to be outright laughing in delight while the two adults settled for just smiling warmly at him. Beast Boy pointed at the boy. "This is me. Or at least, it's how I used to look before…well…"

He gestured at himself as if to indicate his green skin, pointy ears, and his sharp fang-like teeth and clawed fingernails. "Before this." He gritted his teeth, clenched his hand not holding the photograph into a fist, and shut his eyes tightly as if he were now fighting to keep himself calm. Raven looked at the changeling, a very concerned look now on her face.

Starfire, however, chose to focus on a different detail. "These people," she stated, an equally concerned, but much closer to tears, look on her own face as she pointed her finger towards the two adults in the photo. "Are they…?"

"Yes," Beast Boy responded, his voice tight and barely above a whisper's level of volume. "These are my parents." He hung his head. "Mark and Marie Logan, world class geneticists. Amazing people they were to. You would have loved to meet them."

Cyborg, noticing how strongly affected Beast Boy seemed to be, placed his hand comfortingly on his friend's shoulder. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to," he said.

"Thanks dude," Beast Boy managed to say. He sniffled. "But it's ok. I want to."

He looked back at Robin and Starfire, steeling himself up to continue. "I was born in Miami, Florida," he continued. "But due to the nature of my parents' work, I didn't really spend that much time living there." He let a brief smile come to his face. "We traveled to so many different cool and exciting places around the world. India, Kenya, Australia, Brazil…"

He nodded his head. "But we ended up spending an especially long amount of time living in Upper Lamumba. In fact, we lived there long enough for my family to end up becoming especially close friends with the local jungle tribe after my dad helped treat their leader Tawaba for a foot injury he'd received."

The other four Titans nodded their heads as they remembered the man in question from what they'd seen of him before their departure from Africa.

"But then it all changed not too long after my 8th birthday."

The other Titans all looked back to Beast Boy, who now had his earlier firm look back on his face. "I was running through the jungle…near my parents' camp…playing…"

. . . . .

(Upper Lamumba, Ten Years Prior)

Garfield Logan was having the time of his life as he rushed gleefully through the jungle, giggling with a joyful look on his face as he gazed excitedly ahead. "This is so much fun," he thought giddily to himself as he continued to run through the forest, occasionally jumping up and swinging on nearby low branches like a chimpanzee in his excitement. "The best place to live ever!"

For what felt like hours he ran through the jungle, laughing and likewise enjoying life. Eventually he tired, and he was still happy as a clam as he sat upon a log, panting and gasping in equal parts exhaustion and delight. "This is amazing," he thought to himself, not even caring in his childish glee how he'd had this very thought an untold number of times prior to this moment. His smile only widened further as he heard the sound of birds squawking and chirping, monkeys hooting and screeching, and even the occasional roar of a leopard, hiss of a snake, and trumpeting bellow of an elephant going off in the distance within the jungle around him. "So many awesome animals," he thought to himself.

An unexpected barking screech suddenly split the air from just a couple feet to the young boy's left, and he tensed up in shock. "What the?" Garfield thought to himself, equal parts startled and in awe. For he recognized this noise and had in fact heard it multiple times…from an animal that typically lived in the savannah, not the jungle. The sound split the air again, and Garfield got up from the log, curious as to why he was hearing this noise coming from an animal that shouldn't have naturally been dwelling within this specific environment.

His curiosity led him all the way to a nearby clearing. And much to his shock, there indeed was an animal present there that shouldn't have been there, but that he'd nonetheless come to suspect being present by recognizing its vocals…a baboon. But the fact that a baboon was even present in the area at all was, strangely enough, not what now surprised him the most. Rather, it was the fact that, very much unlike any ordinary baboon, this one was a dark olive green. At that moment, the unnaturally green monkey seemed to be in visible distress. It had its hands slammed against the sides of its head, its eyes clenched shut, and its mouth open as it viciously shook its head side to side and shrieked as if it were in terrible pain.

In a mixture of concern and intrigue, Garfield started to approach it, his right hand extending towards it. "Hey, it's alright," he said.

In a flash, the baboon snapped its head to face the boy, shrieking in seeming rage and fear with widened eyes and its teeth bared as it slammed its hands on the ground and curled its fingers into the ground. Garfield briefly faltered, eyes widened in surprise. But he otherwise stood his ground. And eventually, when the baboon proceeded to just stand where it was on all fours, snarling and slavering but otherwise not reacting to Garfield's presence, he resumed his slow approach towards the monkey, his hand still extended in its direction. A small part of his mind told him that this was not a good idea, but the boy was far too kind for his own good, and he'd always hated seeing the sight of an animal suffering; and this baboon certainly did appear to be suffering. And the parts of his mind that didn't feel fear or at least understand that approaching the baboon while it appeared to be in a state of rage wasn't quite the wisest idea were a mixture of awed at the sight of the creature, curious as to why it was green, and hopeful that his parents would be able to perhaps help it and that he'd be able to calm it down so as to be able to lead it to them. And besides, he was only eight-years old.

"It's ok dude," he stated, a calm and soothing tone to his voice as he spoke to the baboon. "You'll be alright. I'm not gonna hurt you."

The baboon tensed up, its eyes narrowing, but otherwise remained where it was. And after about a minute, Garfield found himself with only a couple feet between him and the monkey, smile still on his face and hand extended towards the still tensed up and angry looking baboon. "Easy," Garfield stated, still trying to sound as soothing as possible. "It's all going to be ok. I can help you. I'm not going to hurt you."

The baboon snarled but seemed to relax just the slightest bit. This was all that Garfield needed to see, and he confidently stepped the last few steps needed to allow his hand to successfully come into position against the creature's snout. "There, see? It's alright. You're a really cool animal you know…"

The baboon bit Garfield, its jaws snapping tightly against the boy's hand as its sharp teeth sank deep into his skin. It happened so swiftly that the boy didn't even fully realize what had happened until the pain, waves of it, suddenly erupted within his hand. "AH," he screamed, his eyes widened and mouth gaping open as the pain blazed in his hand where the baboon was biting him. He screamed again, and again, tears of pain and fear starting to swiftly build up in his eyes as he instinctively attempted to pull himself free, the baboon keeping its jaws locked tight against his hand and refusing to let go.

Eventually, after what felt like an eternity to the poor crying and in pain Garfield, the baboon finally let go, at which point the young boy fell to the ground on his back, still crying and screaming in pain and fear while clenching his left hand instinctively against his right hand, the baboon swiftly turning around and bounding off deeper into the jungle while barking and shrieking incessantly. And as Garfield lay there, hissing and weeping in agony, he suddenly felt the pain, already incredibly strong and difficult to bear when it was just from the bite on his hand, start to become worse as he suddenly felt it seemingly spread through the entire rest of his body. And at the same time, he heard his heart start to rapidly thump inside him, felt sweat start to rapidly build up and slip down his forehead, and seemingly saw what appeared to be the most subtle signs of his skin starting to turn green. Within seconds, the pain was so bad that he could barely even move.

"Help!" Garfield screamed, his eyes closed even as tears continued to pour from them. In that instant, all the joy and wonder he'd been feeling earlier was gone. All that remained was pain and fear. "Somebody! Anybody! Somebody please, help me!"

"Garfield!"

Garfield tensed up, half in pain and half in surprise, his eyes now open and tears briefly pausing. "Mom?" He whimpered, a half hopeful and half fearful tone to his voice.

"Garfield," said the voice. In that moment, it became clear that it was indeed his mother who'd spoken. "Sweetie? Is that you over there?"

"Mom!" Garfield yelled, the tears resuming their flow as the pain flared up once again. "Mom! Please! Help me!" In that instant, he didn't care what happened. All he wanted was to be in the comforting embrace of his mother. "I'm over here!" He screamed. "Right here mom! Right here! Help me!"

In an almost ludicrously short amount of time, the young boy heard rapidly approaching footsteps coming from in front of him. And within seconds, as the footsteps became especially loud, none other than Marie Logan herself came bursting out of the foliage, her blue eyes wide and dark hair rapidly whipping side to side from how fast she'd been running. Naturally, the already concerned look that had just so happened to be on her face became much more so at the sight of her son on the ground crying and in pain. "Garfield!" She yelled as she hurried over to him, clearly eager to help him and figure out what was going on. "Garfield what happened?!"

"There a was a monkey," Garfield explained, his teeth gritting, and eyes clenching shut for the briefest of instances as he felt pain flare up once more. "A green one. It bit me…on my hand."

Marie's eyes, already widened in concern, seemingly became even more so in visible horror upon hearing these words. And as if that weren't enough, she then soon noticed the signs of her son's skin turning green and promptly found herself feeling even more horrified then she'd already become. She placed her hands on her son's shoulders. "How do you feel?"

Garfield hissed, his eyes briefly closing as the pain flared up yet again. "It hurts! It hurts!" He burst into tears yet again. "It hurts mom! It hurts! Please! Help me!"

In that instant, Marie hurriedly slipped her arms around her son, lifted him up against her chest, and straightened back up to full height before then turning around and running back the way she'd come, carrying Garfield with her every step of the way. "It's ok Garfield," she said, barely managing to keep herself from breaking down as small tears of fear and motherly concern started to slowly trickle down her face. "Mommy's got you. Daddy and I will help you, I promise."

. . . . .

(Present Day)

Beast Boy sniffled, nodding his head slowly up and down with his eyes closed as he remembered the events he'd just described. "As you've probably guessed," he explained, "that monkey was infected with Sakutia. And it spread the virus to me when it bit my hand."

"Gar," Raven whispered, an unexpectedly saddened look on her face.

"By X'hal," said Starfire, a similarly saddened look on her face.

Robin and Cyborg likewise had clear sympathetic looks on their faces as they looked at their clearly strongly affected green shape shifter friend. "No one should have to go through something like that," Cyborg thought to himself. "No one."

Beast Boy hung his head. "It wasn't until after mom got me back to camp that I even figured out about it. Dad was very quick to explain what was going on, with help from mom of course. They were very quick to bring me to an area where they could lay me down and attempt to give me medical treatment. But of course, as you're all already aware from earlier discussions, there's no existing cure for Sakutia. Really, by conventional standards, I was doomed to die within the next three days after getting bitten." He shook his head side to side, small signs of tears starting to form in his eyes. "But my parents were desperate. They were not about to give up that easily. And as it so happened, they had just the unconventional thing available to try to use to help me."

"That serum your uncle mentioned," said Robin.

"Yes."

Beast Boy nodded his head. "It was their most recent project they were working on at the time. And it was arguably shaping up to be their biggest one yet." He looked directly at Robin. "It was intended to be used as a means to allow humans to develop the natural abilities found in animals. In particular, they figured it would be especially useful for medicinal purposes. I mean, just imagine a blind person having the ability to use echolocation like a bat or dolphin. Or a person who'd lost an arm being able to grow it back like a lizard or octopus."

Cyborg nodded his head, a look of approval on his face. "I can certainly see the appeal," he agreed.

Raven likewise nodded her head with a similar look of approval on her own face. "Your parents were very noble," she stated.

"Don't I know it," Beast Boy responded, a small tearful smile briefly coming on his face.

"And that's why they used it on you," said Robin. "Because of how animals are immune to the lethal side of the virus."

"That is correct. Now at any rate, the serum still wasn't fully complete. And even if it had been complete, it hadn't even been tested."

Beast Boy hung his head, a small tear sliding down his cheek from his right eye. "But like I said. My parents were desperate. And they were not going to let me die without trying their damnedest to save me. So they gave me the injection, and much to my luck and everyone's relief, it worked."

"It deadened the virus cells," said Cyborg, remembering what he'd seen in the images he'd brought up back in Africa involving Sakutia after Beast Boy's initial infection from the Primetia. "Made them unable to affect you in any way at all."

"Exactly."

Beast Boy nodded his head. "But as you can probably guess, it also mutated me. Caused my ears to go all pointy, my teeth to grow fangs…" He took a meaningful look at his gloved hands. "My fingernails to become claws." He looked back at his four friends. "And of course, I stayed green all over. But most importantly, thanks to the various animals whose DNA had been amongst the serum's ingredients and was now in my own bloodstream, I gained the power to turn into animals. In fact, I first discovered that particular bit when I accidentally turned myself into a mongoose in time to scare off a venomous local snake that had slithered into camp and was about to possibly bite mom and dad."

He took a deep breath, and then exhaled. He closed his eyes and allowed a small silence to hang in the air. Clearly, he was now at a point that he really didn't like having to talk about. Starfire noticed this. "Friend," she said, a look of sisterly concern on her face as she extended her hand towards him. "Please. You do not have to continue if you don't want to."

"I know." Beast Boy nodded his head. "I know." He looked the Tamaranean directly in the eye, his own green eyes, just the slightest bit darker than hers, filled with small tears. "But it's better I continue. Otherwise, I'm not sure if I'll ever have the courage to finish any other time." He took a deep breath, exhaled heavily, and then steeled himself before finally continuing.

"For a good couple weeks," he continued, grimacing a couple times as if in preparation for an especially unpleasant moment in the story he was telling. "We continued to live in the area near the Upper Lamumban jungle, maintaining good relations with Tawaba and the tribe, and working to see if at least the tiniest beginnings could be made on an effort to start over on the work to create the serum as it was intended." He hung his head. "But then, one day, well…"

He gulped, his eyes closing once more and a loud gurgling building up in his throat as he fought to keep his composure. "It ended up raining very heavily for a good couple days at one point. And eventually, it reached the point that…well…" He looked to his friends once more. "A flash flood occurred."

"By Azar," said Raven.

"How did you survive that?" Cyborg asked. "I mean, you couldn't have been that skilled with your powers yet…"

"We had a boat with us."

Cyborg promptly shut up, his gaze and those of the other three listening fellow founding Titans focused entirely on Beast Boy as he continued his story. "It was quite an experience, and not at all easy. But by sheer luck, we managed to ride the whole thing out. And after a while, when the storm finally wound down and the water became calmer, we found ourselves leisurely floating down a local river. But it wasn't until a good few minutes later that…well…"

. . . . .

(Upper Lamumba, Ten Years Prior)

"This is fun!"

"Glad you think so son."

Mark Logan chuckled, rubbing his hand through his blonde hair as he and his family sailed leisurely along on the river in their little boat. In that moment, considering the absolutely nightmarish flood they'd now been very luck to survive and successfully ride out, he felt both very relieved to be alive and happy to be on a fun and relaxing boat ride with his wife and son. Naturally, said wife and son felt the same way.

"We're very lucky to be alive," said Marie. She chuckled and rubbed her hand through her dark hair. "I mean, considering just how strong of a storm that was and how wild and crazy all that water we were riding through was earlier, it's nothing short of a miracle that we survived it all."

"Miraculous or not, we're alive." Mark nodded his head. "Granted, it will probably take a decent while to reacquire all that lost data."

"Sorry I couldn't get ahold of it in time dad," said Garfield.

Marie placed a hand on her son's shoulder. "Don't worry about that Gar," she said. "Your dad and I aren't in any particular hurry to get that serum finished. And besides, the fact that we're all alive right now is a lot more important."

"You can say that again Marie." Mark chuckled again. "And to think that the biggest thing I was worried about before that flood started was the fact that Nicholas had asked me for yet another favor."

"No kidding," said Marie, her voice becoming noticeably tight and her eyes narrowing and turning icy with annoyance at the mention of her brother-in-law. "A $50,000 one I might add."

"You know my brother," said Mark, half annoyed and half amused. "Always quick to spend."

Marie rolled her eyes. "That's one way to put it."

Garfield giggled. In all honesty, he didn't quite fully understand what his parents were talking about. He did know, however, that it involved his uncle Nicholas, and that it seemed to annoy his mother and leave his father equal parts annoyed and amused quite humorously.

"Well regardless," Mark continued. "I'll see what I can do about it once I get the chance." He looked towards the riverbank to his left. "And on another note, I do hope that Tawaba and the rest of the tribe are alright though."

"I'm sure they're fine Mark," said Marie. "They've lived in this land far longer than we have. And I'm sure they have their ways of taking shelter in the event of a flood like what we just now went through."

"True enough," Mark admitted. He nodded his head. "I'm sure we'll have quite the story to tell them next time we see them."

A lion's roar split the air far off in the distance, something that very quickly got Garfield's attention. "Ooh, you hear that? You hear that?"

"Oh we hear it son," said Mark, a smile on his face. "Just be glad it's very far away from us right now though."

"Ain't that the truth," Marie agreed. She then directed a meaningful look at the water around them. "Though honestly, where we are right now, I'd be a bit more worried about encountering a crocodile or hippo…"

She paused in her words, her eyes narrowing as if she were focusing on something. "Mark?" She eventually managed to say. "Is it just me, or is the water starting to feel like it's going a little faster than it was earlier?"

Mark examined the water, his eyebrow furrowed as he placed his hand inside the river. "I'll admit, it is starting to move a little faster. And the current feels a little stronger."

"What's that noise?"

Mark and Marie looked confusedly at their son.

"Noise?" Marie asked.

"What noise?" Mark asked.

Then they heard exactly what it was that Garfield had just asked them about. The sound appeared to be of rapidly flowing water…and it was coming from somewhere behind Mark. The two adults looked in the direction the noise was coming. Garfield, despite still having a smile on his face, still couldn't help but feel the slightest bit unnerved when he saw his parents suddenly tense up and widen their eyes. "Mom?" He asked, now sounding quite concerned. "Dad? What's going on?"

"Oh it's nothing," Mark replied, though in a tone of voice that indicated he didn't quite fully believe what he was saying. "Hey Garfield? Do you think you could turn into a bird and fly over there?" He pointed towards a spot between two trees on the nearby riverbank as he said this.

Garfield raised his eyebrow in confusion. "Um, I think so? Why?"

"Oh no reason sweetie," said Marie. "Just feel like now's probably a good chance to have you play around with your powers some more. We all know how much you like to use them."

"Um…ok," Garfield replied, still confused, yet also happy about the opportunity to turn into an animal once more. His mom was right. He'd come to really enjoy turning into animals ever since he'd discovered that he'd gained such powers over the course of getting cured. His smile then widened immensely, his green eyes agleam and early small bit of nervousness completely gone. "Sure!" He stood up from where he was seated in the center of the boat. "Here goes!" He turned into a bee-eater, let out the distinctive noise usually made by the species, and took off from the boat. As he flew, he felt the bird's mind inside him feeling almost the exact same kind of joy that he himself was feeling. After a couple minutes, he reached the location his father had asked him to fly to. He landed softly on the ground, let out the bee-eater form's distinctive call, and then reverted back to human form.

"I did it!" Garfield yelled, happy as ever. "I made it dad! Did you see me mom? I made it!" He snapped his head in his parents' direction, his green eyes agleam and green face likewise seemingly glowing with joy. "I…"

His eyes widened in horror, and his face turned a light shade of chartreuse. In that instant, he became all too aware of the real reason his parents had asked him to turn into a bird and fly away. For in that moment, he saw the boat, with his parents still on board, drifting dangerously close to the source of the noise he'd heard not too long ago…a massive waterfall. In that instant, he managed to look his parents in the eye from the still relatively short distance now between them. And in that instant, he managed to get an especially good look at his father's face, which now had an expression on it that seemed to simultaneously indicate 'goodbye', 'I love you son', and 'I'm so sorry you had to see this'.

Marie nodded her head, tears now starting to trickle down her face, and she lifted her hand to give a slow farewell wave. "Gar…"

"NO!"

Garfield jumped in his parents' direction, morphing without thinking into a cheetah in mid-air and bursting into a rapid sprint within seconds after his feet touched the ground. He rushed hurriedly in the direction of his parents, thinking of absolutely nothing else as he dashed furiously down the riverbank, snarling and growling in equal parts fear and despair. "I can do this," he thought to himself in his desperate rush. "I can do this! It's just a few inches, and cheetah's are the fastest land animals in the entire world! I can make it! I can make it! I can make it!"

But as he got closer and closer to his parents, he also noticed that the boat was also getting disturbingly closer and closer to the edge…just the slightest bit faster than he was currently running. "No…no…NO!" In one last desperate act, he lunged forward the last of the distance that remained between him and the edge of the cliff to the left of the waterfall's edge, a desperate snarl bursting from his mouth that morphed flawlessly into an equally desperate barking screech as he shifted in midair from cheetah form to baboon form. And in the process, he desperately extended his right hand forward towards his parents. Marie, seeing what her son was doing, managed to reflexively extend her own left hand towards him, grabbing Mark's own right hand with hers just in case.

But it was too late. For right as Garfield's hand was seconds away from clasping onto his mother's, the prow of the boat went over the edge of the waterfall; at which point the boat tipped over and went rocketing right over the edge, yanking both Mark and Marie down with it while the mighty green baboon landed painfully on his face and stomach on the ground inches away from the edge of the adjoining cliff.

For what felt like an eternity, Garfield lay there, unconsciously reverting back to human form while gasping and panting, not even feeling any pain and completely uncomprehending at first of what had just happened. But then the full magnitude of what had just happened hit him, and with it came the pain of his unpleasant landing. But he fought through it, gritting his teeth and letting the beginnings of small tears start to form in his eyes as he laboriously got back on his feet and walked over to the edge of the cliff.

As he stood there, gaping down over the edge, he quivered and sputtered at the sight of the massive shrouds of mist emanating from deep down, completely obscuring the bottom of the waterfall. Even now he still couldn't quite fully believe what had just happened. "No," he thought to himself. "No…" Still quivering, in denial, and now allowing tears to slowly start freely falling down his cheeks, he turned his head towards the jungle landscape behind him.

"HELP!" Garfield yelled, his voice shrill from horror and despair. "SOMEBODY! ANYBODY! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP!"

. . . . .

(Present Day)

Beast Boy sniffled once more, tears building up further in his eyes. "I had to wait an entire hour there before Tawaba and some of the other tribesmen accompanying him at the time finally heard me and came to where I was. I told him everything that had happened, and he was very quick to send some of his men off to go down to the bottom of the waterfall to see if they could find any sign of my parents down there. When they came back, they said that they were able to find what remained of the boat…but no sign of my parents." He hung his head. "Then again, considering how there turned out to be sharp rocks at the bottom, plus a float of crocodiles living within the vicinity of the falls, it's probably for the better that they didn't see any sign of them down there. Heck, even the possibility of them getting dashed to pieces on the rocks or eaten by crocodiles is probably being optimistic considering how they could have just as easily have ended up drowning depending on how high the water still was down there before the flood receded sufficiently enough for Tawaba and his men to investigate."

"Beast Boy," Starfire said, now visibly crying as she heard what her friend was saying. She knew all too well how he felt, as both of her own parents had died of grief. But in a way, he arguably had it worse than her. For not only had his own parents died in a much more comparatively violent fashion, but he himself had also been personally present to see them go over the edge of the waterfall to their deaths while she herself hadn't even known about their deaths until eventually being told about as much by her beloved K'norfka Galfore on the night of her almost wedding.

Cyborg sniffled, wiping his fist gently against his human eye as he felt small tears start to build up there himself. What was especially saddening to him was how close Beast Boy had evidently come to grabbing his mother's hand and saving her, for he now remembered all too well how his own mother had similarly died in far more gruesome fashion before his eyes. And the fact that they'd died in what was essentially a boating accident now painted the unexpectedly vicious way the changeling had behaved early on in their first full year as a team when he had teased him over 'being afraid of boats' when he'd refused to ride on the kiddy boat ride at the now closed down pier-based amusement park under an even harsher light. "No wonder he almost smashed and ripped out my power cell that time," he thought bitterly to himself. "I was unwittingly rubbing the trauma over his dead parents in his face and metaphorically flipping him the finger over it. God I was acting like a bigger ass that time than I thought!"

Robin and Raven, meanwhile, gazed silently at him, forlorn looks in their eyes despite a current lack of tears. Robin, in particular, felt a considerable twinge of sympathy for Beast Boy now that he'd heard about just what had happened to the changeling's parents, for he himself had similarly ended up helplessly watching from a young age as his own parents likewise plummeted to their deaths. "Beast Boy," the Boy Wonder thought to himself. "I'm so sorry."

Raven, however, now felt sadness and sympathy not only as a result of what Beast Boy had now revealed, but also over how she now realized a potential contributing factor to the rivalry the changeling had formed with Aqualad the first time the two had met. "Our near drowning that time," she thought to herself. "Did it remind him of his parents? Did he end up viewing Aqualad's saving us instead of him as a reflection of his own inadequacy? A reminder of his past failure to save his parents?"

Beast Boy eventually managed to resume his story. "I stayed with the tribe for a good few days or so after that." He lifted his head. "But eventually, lawyers from America arrived to take me back there. For by that point, word of my parents' death had somehow spread to the appropriate people. And as a result, I ended up under the care of my most immediately available next of kin." He grimaced, gritting his teeth and narrowing his eyes in equal parts anger and sadness at the memory of what he was now about to bring up. "My uncle Nicholas, whom you know quite well by now."

"Too true," Raven agreed, nodding her head with a half angered and half saddened look in her violet eyes.

Beast Boy nodded his own head before looking to Robin and resuming his story once more. "As I'm sure Galtry himself probably made fairly clear, it did not take long for him to prove himself an absolutely terrible parental figure. I mean, for starters, he was a crime lord. Secondly, he was seriously poor, not to mention jealous of my dad's success in life. And of course, as he definitely already told you, he also desperately wanted my dad's fortune. Problem is…"

He sighed. "Well, the fortune was already set to be inherited by me at the moment I turn 18. And that's…um…"

He drew out his communicator, quickly checking the calendar function on it, and then nodding his head before slipping the device back into his belt. "A couple weeks away." He shook his head side to side. "Naturally, this factor made my uncle especially displeased to have me under his care, and he already didn't seem to like me much anyway even before then. And as you can probably guess, he would often take his frustrations out on me; and rather violently to if I do say so myself. I still remember it all. The punches, the kicks, the belt lashes, the cattle prod jabs, the various objects he threw at me, the times he forced me scavenge for what few vegetables or similarly vegan friendly material I could find to eat…"

"And eventually, it reached the point that he started trying to kill you," said Cyborg.

"Yep." Beast Boy nodded his head. "So it did." He took a deep breath as if steeling himself to go on. "It all started, the attempts at killing me I mean, one dark night. Galtry had gotten extremely drunk. And this, combined with his anger over his lot in life compared to my dad and how I was in his way to inheriting the fortune, was enough to I guess make him just snap and decide that he didn't want to wait anymore. And naturally, that was the point where he subjected me to a beating that blew all the other beatings and abuse he'd put me through prior to that point clean out of the water."

The shapeshifter winced, subconsciously placing his hand against his head as if feeling the pain of an injury he'd suffered there during the beatdown he'd just now brought up. But eventually he was able to continue. "Quite frankly, I'm still surprised at times that I survived that. But I did, and I ended up going to the hospital, where I was successfully stabilized and healed. And while CPS ended up getting understandably suspicious towards Galtry, he was able to just barely pass it off as a drunken accident. But even so, they still put him on their watch list."

"Well that's good news," said Robin.

"Yeah, up to a point," Beast Boy grumbled. He rolled his eyes, a bitter look on his face. "Sure, he let me have an entire month's reprieve once I was released from the hospital. But that beatdown that got me hospitalized? That was only the beginning."

"You've got to be joking," said Cyborg, a half shocked and half disgusted look on his face.

"I wish." Beast Boy glowered at nothing in particular, his hands clenching into fists. "You see, my surviving his first attempt, plus CPS ending up on his ass, only taught Galtry one thing. That if he was to get rid of me, he'd have to do it in a way that wouldn't look like an obvious murder. More specifically, he decided to start trying to arrange an accident for me to fall victim to."

After another deep breath, followed by a very heavy exhalation, Beast Boy finally mustered up the strength to continue. "About a week after my 9th birthday, he tried to poison me. Fortunately, he got the amount wrong, and only succeeded in making me violently ill." He directed a wistful look towards the kitchen. "Even now, I still can't stand the sight of a bowl of chicken pot pie."

"Not even tofu chicken pot pie?" Cyborg asked.

"Not even tofu chicken pot pie," Beast Boy replied, shaking his head side to side in the process.

"And CPS didn't…do anything?" Robin asked, a half incredulous and half disgusted tone to his voice, his masked eyes narrowed, and teeth gritted in a disgusted snarl.

"They didn't know. I didn't know. I only found out about the poison later. I just thought at the time that the food had perhaps been spoiled. I was certainly lucky to be alive nonetheless afterwards. But I found out, or at least came to strongly suspect as much, after Galtry's second attempt at subjecting me to an arranged accident.

"You see, Galtry had at that point taken up a job as a construction worker, and at one point he brought me to the construction site he'd most recently started work at for a 'bring-your-relative-to-work day' or something. I was walking around the area halfway through my visit there when a large bunch of debris and other construction material suddenly fell and came to a very heavy landing not too far behind me. I got banged up a bit when I landed after the impact sent me flying due to how close it was to me when the stuff landed, but they didn't land on me as they'd been intended to do. And as I was starting to get up, I managed to notice Galtry leaning over near the area from which the debris had come from just in time to see him duck his head to try to avoid getting seen. And worse, I saw the look on his face. And that was when I knew for sure that Galtry had indeed been trying to kill me. I mean, you'd think that your own uncle would look pretty darned concerned if he'd just seen his own nephew narrowly avoid getting killed. But Galtry? He was furious."

Raven narrowed her eyes, fighting with all her willpower not to release power into the air and take on her more visibly demonic form. "That filthy piece of scum," she thought to herself. The other founding Titans felt similar anger mixed with sadness.

"His third attempt occurred about a month before my 10th birthday," Beast Boy continued. "We were going fishing on some local stream, and Galtry at one point told me to look at a very interesting fish that he claimed to have seen in the water. As it turned out, there was no such fish, or any fish period, to see; for it was all just an excuse to get me to look at the water and away from him at the moment he pushed me in."

"Saw that coming," Cyborg grumbled.

"And he didn't stop there. Immediately after I surfaced from that, Galtry extended his oar towards me. With the look he had on his face, I honestly thought at first that he was trying to help me get back in the boat. But then I found out very quickly the real reason he'd extended his oar towards me when he subsequently hit me with it."

The shapeshifter winced, subconsciously placing his hand upon his right shoulder as if feeling the pain of the injury he'd received there from his uncle's oar that day. His fellow founding Titans were horrified, but they stayed silent so as not to risk interrupting him.

"After three times in a row of getting hit by that thing," Beast Boy continued. "I did the sensible thing. Namely, I turned into a salmon and swam downstream a good distance before eventually getting out of the water and flying off to Galtry's house in one of my bird forms."

Beast Boy took a deep breath, and then exhaled. "That was the last serious attempt Galtry made to arrange an accident for me."

"The last serious one?" Robin asked, sounding slightly confused. "What do you mean?"

"The final four times he tried seemed more like he was testing me and my powers," Beast Boy explained. He placed his chin on his right hand, glowering as he remembered what he was now about to bring up. "Because honestly, in the months that followed that fishing trip, the 'accidents' he tried to arrange for me became increasingly likely to be viewed by the CPS as more like cases of serious negligence at best and arranged murders at worst. But of course, as I honestly get the feeling at this point he was likely starting to hope, I survived all four of his subsequent attempts at getting me killed after my surviving his attempt at forcing me to drown during that fishing trip. And after the final attempt at killing me off that also served as a testing of my powers, that's when he decided I'd apparently be of more use to him alive after all."

"Your uncle mentioned something about an arrangement involving you," Robin pointed out, remembering what Galtry had mentioned in his side of the story back at the Wildebeest Society lab.

"So that's how he put it?"

Beast Boy sighed and shook his head side to side. "Well the more accurate way to describe what he had me do was that he had me forced to work alongside him and his friends in crime."

"What did he have you do?" Starfire asked.

"Theft mostly. All the more serious crimes he committed were usually things he and his friends committed themselves while leaving me out to stand guard or serve as a distraction for the cops or potential witnesses and bystanders. But after a while, I eventually was able to grow a spine and resist enough to make him have to figure out another way to use my powers for his own ends."

"This is the part where those scientists Galtry knew got involved," said Raven. "The ones Galtry worked with before you escaped from him."

"He mentioned them to huh?"

Beast Boy nodded his head, a grim look on his face. "Well like I said, he needed a new way to use my powers for his own ends now that I was no longer willing to put up with the abuse he was putting me through in efforts to get me to keep working with him in crime. And the only reason he didn't immediately kill me once I started putting up such resistance was because the data my parents had saved on their computer had been destroyed in the flood and he didn't want to risk making my blood potentially useless to him in gaining my powers by killing me. So he took me to the laboratory run by some scientists under his payroll and gave them permission to experiment on me."

The changeling shuddered. "The things they did to me…I can barely even think about them without getting scared all over again…they were so messed up."

"How messed up are we talking here?" Cyborg asked, half curious and half fearful of what Beast Boy's answer would be.

Beast Boy sighed, shook his head, and then proceeded, as his four close friends watched, to slowly take off his gloves and roll up his sleeves. With just how slowly he did all this, plus the lighting of the area around them all, the other Titans managed to take a close enough look at his arms and hands to notice that his left arm was just the slightest shade lighter in color then his right arm…something they'd completely failed to notice until literally that very instant.

"You remember what I said back in Starro's lab last week?" Beast Boy asked. "About how starfish can regenerate their limbs after losing them?" He lifted up his left arm. "That's how I got this arm back."

Cyborg gaped at Beast Boy, his human eye widening and cybernetic eye turning completely scarlet. "Got it ba…?! Yo! You're saying…?!"

Beast Boy nodded his head 'yes'.

"By Azar," Raven whispered, her purple eyes widened and already pale gray face now even paler than usual. Starfire had her hands over her mouth and green eyes agape in horror. Even Robin couldn't help but gawk open-mouthed at Beast Boy in stunned silence.

Beast Boy rolled his sleeves back up and put his gloves back on, a now half weary and half tearful look on his face. "Like I said, the experiments they subjected me to were seriously messed up. I still have nightmares about them to this day. In fact…" He lifted his head to direct his partially teary gaze towards his friends. "As you've probably guessed at this point, the nightmare you woke me up from the night before we went to Upper Lamumba involved me undergoing the experiments. Or more specifically, it involved the electroshock treatments they'd give me every time they either thought I was moving around too much or Galtry decided to have them do it for no reason just so he could hear me screaming. And that's without considering all the painful stuff they injected me with; something that I'm sure you've noticed in the past has since caused me to develop a quite healthy sense of nervousness and fear of needles. And I've also become not exactly keen on getting hit by electrical bursts for that matter."

His friends could only stare helplessly at him, horrified by just how terrible an experience he'd had to go through, disgusted with Galtry for being so evil as to subject him to as much, and saddened at both the horrible experience he'd had to go through as well as how they now realized the now all but confirmed reason behind his usual happy go lucky jokester behavior. "Beast Boy," Raven thought to herself, a small tear slowly sliding down her cheek as she found herself guiltily thinking about all the times she'd yelled at him, insulted him, slapped him for acting like an idiot, vented her annoyance with him by putting him on the painful end of her powers, and similarly treated him in hardly the most ideal fashion. "I'm so sorry."

"I eventually managed to escape," Beast Boy managed to continue, sniffling in the process. "And I was on the run for a few days afterward before I was eventually found and taken in by the Doom Patrol."

"Definitely remember them," said Cyborg, the other Titans nodding in agreement.

Beast Boy nodded his head. "They were very nice people. In fact, they became almost like a family to me, with Robotman and Negative Man being like the uncles I wish I'd had instead of Galtry and Elastic Girl being like a second mom to me." He hung his head. "But you've met Mento as well. And let's just say that he was not exactly the most pleasant of people to have as a father figure."

The changeling clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, small tears starting to slide down his cheeks. "He wasn't abusive like Galtry," he snarled. "But he was certainly strict." He looked to Robin. "You think I complain too much about your leadership style? Mento is anal retentive enough to make you look laidback and carefree in comparison. He focused so much on battling and defeating the Brotherhood of Evil that he sometimes seemed even outside of battle to very rarely care that much about anything else."

Robin nodded his head with a look of somber understanding on his face. He could relate all too well with what the shapeshifter had now said, for the description that had just been given about Mento sounded not entirely that different from Batman, his own surrogate father figure who had himself often spent a lot of time overly consumed with focus on his personal crusade against crime in Gotham city just as much as Mento seemed overly focused at times on his own similar personal crusade against the Brotherhood of Evil.

"But as firm as he could be at times towards everyone else on the team, I was the one he was always the hardest and most strict on," Beast Boy continued, tears starting to swiftly build up more and more in his eyes as he remembered what he was now about to talk about. "He'd always keep yelling at me, pushing me to try harder at everything I did even when I was already tired, insisting that I do everything he said without question. More often than not, he had to be practically browbeaten into allowing me even a minute's worth of time to play and have a break from training and hero work. And as much as you guys may complain about my jokes, Mento had even less patience for them. To really put it simply, he didn't want me to be a kid. He wanted me to be a soldier. He wanted me to grow up." He closed his eyes. "There are times where I wish I could forget all the arguments he and I had, or all the times I'd spend afterward crying and being hugged by Elastic Girl, Negative Man, and Robot Man."

Beast Boy shook his head side to side. "But out of all the things he got annoyed with me over, the one thing that seemed to annoy him the most was how I always ended up costing the team what could have potentially been decisive, maybe even permanent, victories against the Brotherhood for the sake of saving them instead of letting them get sacrificed for the greater good. And eventually, after one such moment too many in Mento's eyes, we had what was arguably our worst and biggest argument yet. And at that point, since I was 13 and quite frankly had started feeling like I was having enough of his attitude, I just up and left. I flew all the way to California, where I lived on my own in the streets of Jump City for a while until one summer night in particular." He looked to his friends. "Three guesses what night I'm talking about."

The other Titans nodded their heads in agreement. It was indeed quite obvious that their shapeshifter friend was referring to the night they'd all first met each other and teamed up. "Simply put," the changeling then said, "all those jokes and other carefree jokester behaviors I've engaged in over the course of our time together have just been my coping mechanism. Even since my parents died I've been using it to try to fend off all the pain and sadness, and I've only found further reason to continue using it after all the other messed up stuff I ended up experiencing over the course of one shit storm after the next." He shook his head side to side. "Honestly, with all the trauma and grief I ended up going through in between the moment that stupid monkey bit me and I met and joined up with you guys, my only options were to laugh or cry; and I chose to laugh."

"Why didn't you ever tell us any of this stuff before?" Robin asked, sounding more curious then reproachful.

"The same reason Star didn't tell us that much about her past before our experiences with those shadow alien goons two weeks ago," Beast Boy responded. "And Raven waited so long before telling us the full truth about her father and being destined to destroy the world two years ago. It was just something about myself that I preferred to keep quiet about." He hung his head. "But at the same time, I also didn't want to be judged, pitied, or thought to look weak…or more accurately, any weaker than you guys already think I am."

"We do not think you're weak buddy," said Cyborg, genuinely stunned to have heard what Beast Boy had just said.

"Cyborg is the correct," said Starfire. "We do not think that you are weak."

"Don't lie to yourselves," Beast Boy grumbled. "You do. I mean seriously, we all know I'm the team punching bag. I'm always the one who gets his butt kicked the most. I'm always the one most likely to end up in need of saving or assistance. I'm always the one who gets the least respect."

"Beast Boy, you're exaggerating things," said Robin.

"Am I?" Beast Boy snarled, a twinge of angry bitterness now joining the sadness in his voice. "Last time I checked, I'm the one you were willing to throw into jail over circumstantial evidence."

"That's different," said Robin. "You were holding Raven in your teeth, and you'd also been acting very uncharacteristically angry and mean in the time leading up to that moment."

"So you're saying we should have immediately carted you off to jail whenever you got all tense and acted more like a jerk than usual during your obsessions over Slade and his plans? Or that time you all but threatened to kill us when you were under the effects of that hallucinogenic dust?"

"You and the others were all willing to accept the possibility of me being turned evil after your first battle against me while I was Slade's apprentice you know."

"Starfire wasn't," Beast Boy hissed. "And need I remind you how we spent a good hour or so afterwards trying to figure out some other explanation that would allow us to continue giving you the benefit of the doubt before everyone other than Star came to that conclusion? And even after that, we still ultimately didn't give up on you. And heck, that time you were acting like a borderline supervillain while suffering from that dust? We all knew something was wrong you by the time you'd threatened to kill us! Even I knew as much. And yet, the instant it so much as looked as if I'd attacked Raven as the Beast, you were all willing to assume the worst of me even after I'd made it clear that I didn't even fully remember what had happened and indicated that I hadn't been in full control. Heck, even now, despite it since being proven that Adonis was the one who'd attacked Raven that time, I can still count on one goddamn finger how many times I've transformed into the Beast and not ended up glared at, yelled at, or similarly reproached over it afterward."

"Beast Boy, that thing is dangerous," Robin growled. "We still hardly fully understand what it even is. Do you even want to think about much damage you could be at risk of causing or lives you could be at risk of endangering every time you lose control over it and turn into it?"

"Dude, I've only turned into that thing as a result of losing control over it twice! Well ok, maybe three times if you count that one little miniature tantrum I briefly ended up throwing as him last month. But every other time I've turned into him has been entirely willing just as much on my end as on his! And I've even been able to keep full control over him all the times I've willingly turned into him even despite efforts he's made at taking control. Does that matter to you? No! Because judging from the way you've acted every time I've turned into him that wasn't the time I briefly turned into him the night Raven destroyed the world, you've acted like I've lost control and gone on a mindless rampage, regardless of whether or that was actually what happened!"

"That doesn't mean you can't lose control of it…"

"And you're saying I'm the only one we should be concerned about possibly losing control?!"

He pointed at Cyborg. "Surely you're not saying I'm the only who remembers how much Cyborg's robot side seemed to be taking over when he was recklessly abusing the power of that temporary upgrade he got!"

"He wasn't actively risking the endangerment of innocent people Beast Boy," Robin hissed. "And even if he had been, he still ended up accidentally causing himself to temporarily shut down before he could fully lose his humanity…"

"And what about Raven?!"

The changeling pointed his finger at the sorceress, a half furious and half tearful glare on his face as he did so. "Remember how she can go all red-eyed, fanged, and shadowy tentacled whenever she loses her temper?! That thing she turns into is probably at least twice as dangerous as the Beast! Maybe even more so! But I certainly don't see you trying to recreate deleted contingency plan files and putting such plans into active construction after any of the times she turns into that thing! Let alone after the first time she did so!"

"That is beside the point Beast Boy," Raven said, her own eyes starting to narrow in annoyance similar to what Robin was feeling.

"IS IT?!"

Beast Boy snapped his head to face Raven as he made this snarl, teeth still gritted and tears still overflowing with tears as he directed this half angry and half saddened glare towards her that he'd previously been directing at Robin. "SERIOUSLY RAVEN! LOOK AT ALL THE TIMES YOU'VE LET YOUR DEMON SIDE TAKE OVER WHENEVER YOU'VE GOTTEN ANGRY ENOUGH! HAS ANYONE EVER GIVEN YOU A HARD TIME OVER IT?!"

Raven opened her mouth as if to respond…only to then pause for a couple minutes as if in thought. "Well," she eventually responded, a slightly guilty look slowly appearing on her face as she realized just what Beast Boy was getting at. "Not quite as much compared to you…"

"Exactly," Beast Boy hissed. "You go all four-eyed and bloodthirsty a million times, and we just either talk you down or let you vent your rage before then going all hunky-dory like nothing out of the ordinary happened for every single one of them. I turn into the Beast once after the night in which I turned into it for the first two times in my entire life and Robin at best gives me the stink eye and cold shoulder for a week and at worst loses his mind and starts work on building a machine designed to kill me while I'm in that form!" He directed his glare back at Robin. At that point, to the changeling's credit, the Boy Wonder did now look somewhat chastened over what he'd just heard. "Double standard much?" Beast Boy hissed.

Robin thought to himself carefully, considering what the changeling had said while also trying as hard as he could to think up an appropriate response. Then he sighed and hung his head. "I guess when you put it that way…"

"I rest my case."

Beast Boy nodded his head, his earlier anger evaporating as the sadness took full control. "Like I said, I'm the team punching bag." He looked to Robin. "The one you're always most likely to yell at." He looked to Starfire. "The one you're always most likely to call a mean Tamaranean name when I accidentally catch you in a prank intended for Cyborg." He looked to Cyborg. "The one you're always most likely to use as a fall guy whenever you try to snake Raven's meditation mirror out of her room as a prank."

Cyborg winced, directing a saddened look of regret towards the shapeshifter. "That only happened once man."

Beast Boy looked to Raven, seemingly ignoring his half robot best friend. "And the one you're always most likely to zap, physically hit, or similarly borderline go full Galtry on if I annoy you."

Raven stared sadly at Beast Boy, one small tear slowly trickling down each of her cheeks at the sound of Beast Boy's words. As relatively lowkey as she was currently acting in expressing as much, she now couldn't help but feel saddened by how she'd apparently managed to at times seemingly remind her shapeshifter friend of his heartless abusive uncle in the way she'd treated him while expressing annoyance with him compared to how she treated anyone else on the team who'd ever gotten on her nerves.

The changeling hung his head. "And even if you didn't already think I'm the weakest amongst us, there's still plenty of evidence for how weak I am in everything that's happened over the course of our time together. I mean really, for every group of people I successfully manage to personally save, there are God knows how many others that I've only managed to collectively save alongside the rest of you. Lord knows there's plenty of times where I've ended up having to be bailed out by you guys over the course of a battle in order to avoid getting seriously injured or killed, including a decent number of battles that I was previously fighting entirely on my own before your intervention." He sniffled. "And that's before I get into how I always fail to save the people I care about the most when it truly matters most." He directed a tearful look at the photo of him and his parents from before he'd gotten that fateful bite from the Sakutia infected monkey. "It's like my evil clone that Trigon summoned out of me two years ago said at one point when I was fighting him. I couldn't save my parents, I couldn't save Terra, I couldn't even save Raven." He nodded his head numbly. "Even the Beast wasn't enough to save her on the night she became the portal. And even after it turned out she was still alive afterwards, I still ended up having to step aside and let Robin be her knight in shining armor yet again."

He shook his head side to side and placed the photo back in its box. "To make a long story short, with every failure I make, I'm always reminded of my very first one. And no matter how many successes I have, the failures always make it clear how far away I still am even now from ever making up for it."

Robin raised his eyebrow. "Making up for it?"

"What do you mean making up for it?" Starfire asked.

The changeling only sighed and shook his head side to side in response. Raven, however, was very quick to connect the dots. "Your parents' deaths," she managed to say, her voice just barely above a whisper. "You blame yourself for it, don't you?"

The subsequent nod the shapeshifter made to indicate 'yes' was all the other Titans needed to see.

"Yo!" Cyborg gasped, an equal parts stunned and horrified look on his face. "Come on man! How can you blame yourself for something like that!?"

"They needed me to save them, and I failed," the changeling responded. "Simple as that."

"The Hell it's as simple as that!" Cyborg yelled. "Seriously man, what about the waterfall? Can't you just blame that?! That's what killed them!"

"Doesn't matter," Beast Boy whimpered. "They still needed my help, just like when they needed me to help save them from that snake I scared off as a mongoose. And I failed!" He hung his head, tears streaming down his face. "It's my…fault…"

"No. It's. Not."

Beast Boy looked to Raven, who nodded her head, a firm, but kind, look on her face. "I know you may not believe me right now, but it is not your fault. You were only a kid, and you had just gotten your powers not too long before that flood. You hadn't fully mastered them either."

"She's right," said Robin. He nodded his head. "Besides, like you said, your parents sent you out of the boat and towards that area they told you to fly off to so that they could save you and protect you from the waterfall. If you had stayed with them at that point, you could very well have just ended up dying as well."

"And that's the problem," Beast Boy hissed, his voice a mix between a sob and a snarl. "Even back then I was too weak."

"Beast Boy," said Raven.

"I'm serious." Beast Boy got to his feet, tears still slowly streaming down his face and teeth still gritted in a snarl of grief and despair as he clenched his fists. "I could have saved them!" He howled. "I could have saved my parents! I could have fought back against Galtry! I could have escaped from those scientists earlier! I could have gained proper respect from Mento! I could have been a better hero in general if I'd just been stronger, faster, smarter, tougher, or in any other way just…"

The changeling abruptly snapped his words to a halt, his eyes narrowed as yet more moisture built up there, his teeth remained clenched together in a silent sobbing snarl, and his fists remained clenched as he found himself fighting to keep himself from collapsing to his knees from sheer sadness. "Better," he managed to whimper.

For what felt like an eternity, the changeling stood where he was, his fists clenched, his eyes half closed and on the verge of an even stronger outburst of tears, and his teeth gritted as he seemingly fought to both remain standing and avoid completely breaking down altogether. The other Titans could only stare helplessly, completely uncertain as to what to do or say. Raven, however, despite not quite fully showing as much visibly, was feeling especially unhappy as her empathic powers allowed her to get a good look once again at his emotional state.

Ever since a certain important heart to heart she'd had with him on Valentine's Day week the previous month, his emotional output had increased to the point of being like a giant beacon. But while she'd managed to help him dispel a considerable amount of emotional darkness containing a sizable portion of bottled up lingering negative emotions at the time, she'd still noticed just the tiniest portion of additional empathic darkness inside him still remaining. And now, it seemed as if, even with the sadness he was already feeling at that particular moment, that one final portion of empathic darkness in him was finally showing signs of cracking and being at risk of being destroyed altogether.

She got up from the sofa, a determined poker-faced look on her face, and then she slowly walked up to the changeling. When the shapeshifter noticed her standing so close to him, he directed a slight look of confusion her way. Then she unexpectedly placed her hands on his shoulders.

Beast Boy tensed up, his eyes widening in surprise at this unexpected gesture from the sorceress. Raven kept her hands upon the changeling's shoulders, her purple eyes now closed as she stared into his eyes.

"I know you might not believe us right now," she said in a whisper just loud enough for the changeling to hear. "But what happened to your parents was not your fault."

"Yes. It. Is," Beast Boy sniveled, now struggling even harder to keep himself from breaking down as he stepped backwards a couple feet away from Raven.

"No. It's. Not."

"Yes. It. Is."

Beast Boy sniffled, his eyes now narrowed and just barely avoiding overflow of tears. "You and the others may not be willing to act like you believe as much this time, but it is. And even the universe itself seems to be actively punishing me for it."

He hung his head, taking a deep breath and exhaling in an almost spasmic motion. "I mean, if I had just saved them, my life wouldn't have been just one big fat stinking shit storm after another. And just think of how much happier I'd have been my entire life up till now."

Raven allowed a silence to hang in the air for a full minute after Beast Boy said this. But eventually, right as Beast Boy was once again in a particularly weak moment of his resistance, she finally spoke. "Maybe that's true," she said. "Maybe it's not." She leaned her head closer to Beast Boy's. "But at the same time, you might never have met us…never met me…"

Beast Boy gasped, now struggling even harder to maintain his composure than he'd already been. And in that moment, seeing that Beast Boy was truly on the breaking point for what remained of the inner emotional guard that she'd long since helped him destroy a sizable portion of back during Valentine's Day week finally being fully eradicated, Raven hugged him, laying her head on his shoulder. "Go ahead," she whispered to him. "Let it all out. Allow yourself to finally truly heal…and be capable of feeling truly happy again."

And that was when Beast Boy's composure finally broke. Hissing in despair, he collapsed to his knees and burst out sobbing, tears practically downpouring from his eyes as he spasmed and howled. As this happened, Raven felt an absolute tsunami of sadness from him blow up into her mind on her empathic radar, very nearly sending her staggering backwards. For that matter, it was a miracle she didn't end up losing consciousness or go catatonic altogether from the overwhelming amount of sadness that was now bursting into her empathic senses from Beast Boy. Quite frankly, the amount of sadness now emanating from the changeling was even bigger and stronger than the similarly massive amount that he'd managed to unleash upon her during Valentine's Day week the previous month, which was no small feat. But she gritted her teeth and practically forced herself to power through and walk up to Beast Boy before then wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug the instant she was once again at a close enough distance to him to physically touch him.

Beast Boy tensed up, widening his eyes and briefly halting his crying in shock at the unexpected contact from Raven. But then his sadness caught back up to him, moisture once again building up substantially in his eyes, and he returned Raven's embrace, sobbing and weeping from years of repressed grief, pain, and rage. And throughout it all, Raven maintained her embrace around the shapeshifter and fought with all her willpower to not let herself get overwhelmed; for she was determined to power through it all for the sake of her dear friend. And in the process, she thought just as much to herself as to the changeling, "Beast Boy, I'm so sorry."

Robin suddenly walked up to the chromatically challenged duo and added his own arms to the mixture, with Starfire and Cyborg joining in soon afterward as well. And for the next few minutes, the five friends remained locked together as the four other Titans worked together to comfort their crying changeling friend as he finally unloaded considerable years' worth of bottled-up sadness and mental torment. But even as Raven felt dangerously close to getting overwhelmed by the impossibly vast amount of negative emotions Beast Boy was now giving off in her empathic feed, she could also detect just the slightest bit of light within the changeling and the vast sea of emotional darkness to indicate more positive emotions finally starting to rise up from the depths as the healing could now finally have the chance to begin at long last.

Eventually, Beast Boy finally seemed to finish crying and successfully calm down and recover. "Thanks dudes," he managed to quietly say. "For everything."

His friends nodded, slightly sniffling themselves, and then parted from their mass embrace.

"Feeling better?" Starfire asked.

"Better than I was," Beast Boy stated.

"Would a movie help you feel even better?" Cyborg asked.

Beast Boy thought to himself, and then let a small smile come on his face. "I suppose there's only one way to find out."

"Well I suppose I've got you covered then!" Cyborg yelled as he abruptly zoomed off towards the DVD compartment and then equally abruptly returned holding two DVDs. "Ok, what are you feeling more in the mood for right now? Super Ninja Showdown 13: Revenge of the Oni? Or Maniac Fury: Primordial Panic?"

Beast Boy thought to himself, clearly both caught off guard by how quickly Cyborg had made the offering for him to pick between the two films and uncertain as to what to say. "Um…"

Robin put his hand on Cyborg's shoulder and shook his head. "Come on Cy, we all deserve something a little higher class after what we've just been through." He looked to Beast Boy. "How about something from Marvel? What with Infinity War on the horizon and the fact we just watched Black Panther earlier this month, might be a good idea to make sure we're all caught up."

"That movie's supposed to come out this year?" Cyborg asked, seemingly genuinely stunned. "Yo! It feels like yesterday when it was only just announced to be in development man!"

"Why not something animated?" Starfire asked. "I mean, with all the theatrics we've experienced lately, I'm honestly feeling within the mood for the feels the good magic of Disney."

"What about DreamWorks?" Cyborg asked. He pointed at Raven. "I mean, now could probably be as good of a time as ever to see if Raven's willing to give How to Train Your Dragon a shot."

Raven sighed, rolling her eyes in mild annoyance. "I am never going to live this down am I?"

"The odds are highly likely," Cyborg responded, a cheeky grin on his half metal face.

"Well to be completely honest…"

The other Titans looked to Beast Boy, who nodded his head. "I'm kinda feeling in the mood for Lion King."

Starfire squealed in delight, and Cyborg nodded his head. "Lion King it is then," said the latter as he headed off to retrieve the DVD in question.

Robin nodded his head. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt," he admitted. "It's certainly been a while since any of us have watched it."

Raven also nodded her head, keeping completely silent. But even though she said nothing aloud, she also felt very happy indeed that, with Beast Boy having at last unloaded the staggeringly high amount of emotional baggage and repressed grief he'd been keeping bottled up for so long, he was at last appearing to be well on the way to properly healing and being truly happy once again. And as much as the more realistic and somewhat cynical side of her had a very strong feeling that it was still highly possible that Galtry could yet still be out there somewhere, the more optimistic side of her couldn't help but hope that perhaps maybe the worst she, Beast Boy, and the other Titans could undergo in that regard was genuinely behind them at this point after all.

. . . . .

Tsetse the gangster was in a remarkably foul mood as he stormed through the Upper Lamumban capitol city that night. Just that afternoon, he had very narrowly avoided getting caught in the possession of a sizable amount of marijuana and various other drugs that he was planning on selling on the black market the very next week. And he had a very strong suspicion as to who the 'anonymous informant' the cops had mentioned during his encounter with them that afternoon actually was. "That filthy Okonkwo," he snarled under his breath. "It's bad enough he wants to split from my gang and go straight and claim my wife and son as his own; but now he's going so far as to try to get me sent to jail to enforce such an outcome for him? Well if he thinks it's gonna be that easy, that idiot's got a whole nother thing coming."

He drew out his gun, his eyes narrowed in determination and rage as he checked to make sure it was loaded and ready to be put to use when the time was right. "In fact, after what he just pulled on me today, I'll gladly make sure he's dead by the end of the week. And considering how it's entirely possible my wife and son were in on the whole thing, I'll gladly make sure to punish them to; just to make sure they stay in line after this whole mess." He nodded his head. Yes, already he could envision the truly vile death he now planned to subject the would-be deserter of his gang to, plus the immensely cruel way he planned to make his wife Ekwefi and son Nwoye suffer for their disloyalty to him.

But then he shook his head to clear his thoughts. "First things first," he whispered under his breath, putting the gun back on safety mode and slipping it back in its holster in the process. "I need to get the stash moved to another base before the cops have another chance at potentially finding it here if they do another search at its current location within the near future." And indeed he did. After all, despite how he'd managed to successfully get the cops off his back on the matter when they'd confronted him that afternoon, his instincts told him that the cops would be perfectly happy to make another investigation of the base they'd met him at now that they were aware of its existence and location. Therefore, the sooner he got the drugs he'd almost gotten arrested that day for possessing moved to one of his gang's other bases that the cops didn't yet know about, the better. Fortunately, this planned transfer was precisely the reason why he was currently out and about that night, for he had called all of his remaining loyal men earlier that afternoon to meet up with him this very evening so they could work to get the stash moved. And assuming nothing had gone wrong in the interim, they would all be waiting for him when he arrived.

Soon after he had this thought, he caught sight of his destination. From there, it took all his willpower not to burst out into a run as he calmly walked the last few yards that remained between him and the now ever so familiar warehouse base. He was that eager to finally get the incriminating drugs back into a reasonably secure state of hiding from the authorities before they got him on a way trip to jail. But he successfully managed to make it to the warehouse without engaging in any behavior that could attract attention from anyone who might take it as an excuse to call the police. "Just one more lousy night," Tsetse whispered under his breath as he carefully unlocked the door to the warehouse base and opened it up. "And this living nightmare will be over." He entered the warehouse, closing and locking the door behind him before reaching for the nearby light switch. "Alright boys," he said. "You all know why I've had you come here tonight."

On went the lights, and Tsetse's eyes widened incredulously at the sight of what lay before him. Much to his shock and horror, every single one of his men, with the exception of the all too noticeably absent Okonkwo, lay dead, with their blood and guts spread all over the floor around their horridly mutilated and torn up corpses. The areas that weren't covered with blood, guts, and corpses appeared heavily charred with soot and smelling like ozone, and there were multiple vicious looking gashes and similar forms of damage carved firmly into the walls and support beams. And as if all that weren't enough, it soon became all too clear from a quick look in the appropriate area that even the stash that had been planned to undergo transfer that night, plus all the gang's weapons and other equipment, hadn't been spared from the wrath of whatever was responsible for the horrifying assault that had just unfolded, with only large heaps of ashes remaining of them.

For what felt like an eternity, Tsetse remained standing where he was, gaping uncomprehendingly with widened eyes and his jaw dropped at the horrifying aftermath that now lay before him. "What the…how?!"

"You're about to find out."

Tsetse's eyes widened, and he hurriedly turned his head in the direction that this sudden voice had come from…just in time to scream in horror as a savage monster that looked vaguely like a blood red furred mix between a wolf, cat, and bear lunged right at him from out of the shadows. The creature's viciously sharp teeth were the last thing he ever saw.

By the time the cops subsequently dropped by to visit after responding to a call made reporting the screams and animalistic noises, Tsetse lay dead right there at the entrance to the warehouse, with the beast that had killed him and his men long gone back into the shadows…and plotting its eventual return to its original home country, where it had a strong score to settle indeed.

The End

And just like that, this story at last reaches its long delayed conclusion. I'll freely admit, it's been a long time coming, and there is a part of me that feels just as much relieved that this story's finally finished as the rest of me feels triumphant. Like I said, a lot of the energy I needed to continue work on this story honestly left me for a while due to general exhaustion that came with approaching the task from that rather toxic and ill-advised mentality I'd come to take over the course of efforts to not keep some of my readers who expressed serious hope that I wouldn't take too long to update waiting. Now in all fairness, there were some other external factors involved as well. To start, I do have a life outside my fanfiction, and there were multiple times where it quite simply either just got in the way or similarly busy or chaotic or whatever at the expense of my work on my fanfiction (and with just how chaotic life in general got for everyone else in the world alongside me over the past year and how much we're still working to move past it all this far in the current year, you can hardly blame me for feeling a little exhausted and in need of a break even BEFORE I went on the hiatus I've only just now ended). And the fact that at least two of my most regular and reliable readers/reviewers (who I shall not mention directly by name here so as to preserve feelings) appear to have left my work long before I began my little hiatus for other things didn't exactly help me feel additional motivation to continue either. But nevertheless, I do still hope to continue work on my fanfiction for a good long while to come yet. After all, a lot of ideas I have in mind I really do want to put out in a form that others can read and enjoy. But like I said, at the end of the day, as much as I enjoy and have fun with my work, the fact should still remain that I'm doing this for fun, not out of obligation or for money. And from now on, I'm going to try considerably harder than I had in the months leading up to my recent hiatus to remember as much so that I can hopefully avoid falling into the same toxic mentality as a writer that I fell into in said prior months leading up to the recent hiatus. Because really, all you readers, my stories, and I myself deserve better than for my fanfiction 'career' to come to a premature end because of exhaustion induced upon me by own efforts at keeping readers happy. And besides, its honestly better when you really think about it to take a long time to post a good quality product than to rush into spewing out a trash quality stinker of a product. So yeah, that's what I have to say on that. Even so, as much as I feel relieved as well as triumphant as to this story finally being done, I nonetheless still had a fair amount of fun writing it and I hope you all both enjoyed it while it was still in the writing process and enjoy this long awaited conclusion I have given to it. And here's to also hoping that, however long it takes, my next story (and the ones I have planned to follow that will hopefully also come to fruition) will similarly be enjoyed by you all. And with all that said, thank you for sticking with me for this long ride, and I hope you are willing to continue as much for the potentially long rides to come.

Next up on A-LionGleek's Teen Titans Season 6: At long last, the Titans finally discover the identity of the one who currently wears the Red-X mask and suit...only to not only find out it's someone that the Titans (or at least Raven in particular) thought could be trusted, but also that he's now come with a message from his current new employer; specifically, that Raven's old home of Azarath is in fact NOT in the ideal condition that she'd thought it would have immediately reverted back to after her father's defeat. And so, with her fellow Titans explicitly tagging along with her this time, Raven at last returns to Azarath once more; where it turns out, while the dimension itself is indeed no longer under the effects of her father's literally apocalypse inducing presence, the specific area in which she herself lived is currently being subjected to a horrifying different form of oppression that could yet make them all wish that Trigon's magic was still in effect against them.