Author's Note: I was just thinking about something. I suppose it doesn't matter too much in this story, but this story takes place shortly after Slade's rebirth. It doesn't matter that much for this fanfic, but it will matter a lot for the sequel. Yes, the sequel. Well, it's not really a sequel so much as a story which just so happens to occur after this one. Yeah, I betcha some people are cheering about this one. Also, Part II of this fanfic is more than twice as long as Part I. Just thought I'd warn you in advance. I think Part III will be somewhere between the two.

Forever Changed: Part II

The Titans, minus Beast Boy, were gathered around in the grand living room of the tower, reclining on the couches in assorted positions. Everyone was waiting for somebody else to say something. Finally, Robin spoke up, "So, what are we going to do?"

"What do you mean, 'What do we do?'" Cyborg nearly yelled, "We have to try and get Beast Boy back to normal."

Robin sighed. He really didn't want to be the one the bad guy, but they had to make plans, "What if we can't? I don't mean to be pessimistic, but it's really a long shot to think we can restore his powers. What are we going to do if he is stuck as a wolf forever? I don't want to risk him being harmed, but I think it would be bad for his health to let him stay in tower. He's a wild animal, and needs the outdoors."

Raven stared down at her feet, "I've never really liked Beast Boy very much. I mean, he got on my nerves more than anything else, but still, I don't know. I guess I feel sorry for him."

"We all do Raven, but-"

"No, not like that, let me finish. I've always been alone; my powers are too dangerous for me to ever become to close to people. If I ever got to close to somebody, I might let loose my control on my emotions, and then that person would be dead. I know what it's like to be alienated. Now Beast Boy is going to go through something similar. Nobody can ever hope to understand what is going through his mind right now. He is alone in the world, unable to communicate with his friends. But still, I feel like I am the one most able to understand what is going on for him. We cannot force him to leave."

"I didn't mean that-"

"Let me finish!" She stood up straight, glaring at Robin. Responding to her release of emotion, shadows swirled up around her, the cry of the darkness ringing in the air as it was forced to coexist with the light. Robin stopped talking immediately, as Raven forced herself to calm and sit back down. "And, let's say we let him go, to try and live out the rest of his life as a wolf. You know, let him find a nice wolf pack, and settle down and have a family. It would be a different life, but it wouldn't be so bad."

Raven took a deep breath and continued, "But what if he's not accepted by a pack? What if he is forced to wander alone? Wolves are a social species, and as you know some of the animal's instincts always talk to Beast Boy's mind. If he is left alone, he will be plagued not only by his own sadness, but the sadness of the wolf mind. I would not be surprised if he died of misery.

"Another thing, have we ever seen him speak to an animal when he was transformed? I know I haven't. How can we be sure he even has the ability to communicate with the animal he becomes? He may have some of the animal's instincts, but I know that with humans at least, language is a learned talent. He may not even have to capacity to live with other wolves even if he wanted to.

"I don't know, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Maybe Beast Boy could talk with other wolves, and would like to go live a normal wolf life. Maybe he wouldn't. But what I do know is this. We are his friends. We should treat him like a friend, not like some wild animal we can just push around. But we can't treat him like a pet either. Underneath his exterior, he is still the human. He has feelings. We shouldn't be trying to plan what to do with his life. It is his life, he should be able to do with it what he wants. And I think, that as his friends, if he wants to live with us, we should do nothing to discourage it and do everything we can to make him comfortable." She stared at every person in turn, then, satisfied that she had made her point, nodded to Robin to continue.

Robin considered his words carefully, "You have many good points there. But, what if he wants to continue to be a Titan?"

Cyborg spoke up this time, "He's a Titan through and through. We can't just strip him of the title."

"Of course not. What I mean is, what if he wants to continue fighting alongside us?"

Starfire floated over to Robin, "Why can't he? I do not know Earth animals well, but a wolf is a dangerous animal, yes? I think it looks strong."

"It's not that he isn't strong." Robin sighed, this was going to be harder than he thought, "But Beast Boy's strength in battle wasn't the power of the animal that he becomes. Starfire, you are stronger than any creature Beast Boy has ever become. But your power is limited by the ways you can output your power, which are restricted to raw strength and your star-bolts. A foe can become used to the way you fight, and thus be able to defeat you even if you are stronger. A foe can never get used to the way Beast Boy fights, and, if he keeps his head in battle, he can defeat someone stronger than him by outsmarting them. His true strength was the ability to adapt, to keep his foes on the edge by changing shape so that they couldn't easily combat him. His true weapon and his strongest weapon is adaptation, not shape shifting. He can't change in battle anymore, and he is substantially weaker because of it. Do you understand?"

"I think we should give him at least one chance to prove he can still fight. We may need him for when we go fight Slade," Raven said, to which Cyborg and Starfire nodded.

Robin's voice turned angry, "Are you just that willing to risk his life? What if he died out there? He doesn't have the strength anymore that he used to. I don't want to be responsible for his death, but I can't stop all of you. If he is hurt or killed, remember, I said not to let him go. Nobody had better try to blame me for his death. I am washing my hands of any responsibility for his safety as of now. His death will be on your heads, not mine. My conscious is clean."

He paused, took a breath and turned to business, "Cyborg, have you made the necessary adjustments to your optical sensors?"

"Well, it wasn't easy. The forest is strung up with those tiny electrical wires, and combined, they generate massive electromagnetic field blanketing the entire forest. That electromagnetic field completely scrambled my optical sensors. There was absolutely nothing I could do to fix that problem, so I designed a temporary replacement optical sensors. Now, I can not only navigate the forest, but I can now see the electrical current running through the wires, which is very good considering they are so fine that the naked human eye has intense difficulty seeing them. The new optical sensors are not has perfectly tuned as my normal one, so my vision is somewhat impaired outside of this specific purpose, but for what we need now, there is nothing better. You see, the trick to it was-"

"Yes Cyborg, that's enough. We don't need to hear the technical details of how you achieved that feat. So, since you three don't want to listen to my advice when it comes to Beast Boy, maybe you'd like to hear my plans for fighting Slade?" Robin waited angrily to see if anyone was going to object, "I suggest we attack first thing tomorrow morning. Here is what we are going to do..."

Beast Boy wandered through the halls of the tower. For a while, he had sat in the room, trying to reach for the power even though he knew it wasn't there. Eventually though, he finally told himself anguishing over his loss wasn't going to do any good, and that he really ought to get out and try to get his spirits up. He had struggled with getting the door of the informatory opened; it wasn't easy without thumbs.

What he needed to do most right now was talk to someone, maybe crack a bad joke or two, to help him feel more like normal. Too bad that was one of the things which was made nearly impossible as a wolf. He was effectively mute, able to do little more than bark or use facial expressions and odd wolfish gestures to communicate with people.

He smelled Raven coming long before he saw her. He didn't really want to see her right now, to have her belittle him like she normally did. The kind mood she had been in that had caused her to treat him so nicely before had surely perished by now. But then again, the dark mood which was starting to settle over him wasn't making him exactly care enough to try and avoid her anyway. Maybe he could get along with Raven right now, dark moods were her specialty after all.

Raven stopped when she saw Beast Boy. Slowly, she walked towards him. "Hey, are you feeling a little better?" He shrugged, a gesture which looked odd coming from a wolf. "Not really sure? Would you like somebody to talk to? I'd be more than willing."

How did she know? Beast Boy was simply shocked. Again she seemingly read his mind, knowing what was bothering him most and then responding to it. He stared at her with no real intent to hid it.

She knelt down in front of him, so he could look at her without craning his neck upwards, "No, I can't read your mind. But I can read your face, because I see in your face what I've seen in the mirror everyday of my life. Right now, you are thinking an awful lot like me and it shows. And I know that, if I was in your situation, I would want nothing more than to be able to talk to somebody. Thing is, nobody has ever offered me a simple conversation before when I was feeling lonely. I figured the least I could do was offer it to you."

Raven smiled warmly at him, something Beast Boy had never seen before, "So what do you say?" He nodded back at her, and then she did something unexpected. Raven placed her hands around his head and scratched him behind the ears. He sighed in pleasure; it really did feel wonderful. Beast Boy was somewhat sad when she stopped.

"Why don't you come to my room and meditate with me? There is enough time for a session before dinner. I meditate so that I can help keep my powers under my control. I don't want to get your hopes up, but maybe, just maybe, if you seriously meditate, without joking around, you could reteach yourself to use your powers." Beast Boy didn't think that even Raven believed what she was saying, but he appreciated what she was doing. He followed her, thankful to know that he had a deeper friend in Raven than he had thought previously.

After their meditation session, thoroughly unsuccessful in reuniting Beast Boy of his power as he had expected, they parted ways. Raven said that she was going to clean up before dinner. She managed, once again, to ask exactly the right questions to figure out that Beast Boy was very hungry, having not eaten in the past few days, and that he intended to go to eat right away.

In the kitchen, Beast Boy scrambled up into a chair and sat at the table awaiting the serving of his food. It was Robin's day to cook, and he was grilling up some steaks. Beast Boy regretted having such a powerful sense of smell. It would be a while before he would be able to get the stench of cooking meat out of his head. He wondered if Robin was making him a tofu steak. It would be a nice treat, something that Beast Boy hadn't had in a long time, but he would be satisfied with practically anything that wasn't meat.

Finally, Robin brought him a plate and sat it down before him. There was a steak smack dab in the middle of it's own juices on the plate. Beast Boy nudged the plate towards Robin with his nose, whimpering slightly.

Robin sighed, "I know you are a vegan Beast Boy, but the wolf isn't. Wolves are carnivores. You can't digest a vegan diet anymore, it would make you horribly sick to try. Even still, the cooked meat is probably going to give you some nasty indigestion, but I couldn't stand to give you the raw meat that your body was designed to eat. It just wouldn't be right. Sorry Beast Boy, it's the only food you will be getting from me."

Beast Boy whimpered as he nudged the plate again. He was so hungry. The wolf inside him had no qualms about eating the meat. He gritted down, trying to ignore the wave of nausea that rushed over him at the thought of what he was going to do. He let himself fall deep into the wolf's mind, let it take over his thoughts. As he did, the meat began to look more and more appealing. He gnawed at the steak with his teeth then bit out a chunk and swallowed it. Somewhere in the back of his head, Beast Boy felt horribly sick as he ate, but he let the wolf continue. Bite by bite, it was all he could do to keep it down. The taste was repulsive to him, and it didn't help that even the wolf itself wasn't too happy about the flavor; it preferred meat that was still bloody. When he had finished, Beast Boy did his best to push out of his mind what he had just done, and let himself be contented with having a full belly.