Author's Note: You know, what with summer vacation having started at all, you'd think I'd be quicker with my updates. But no. Anyway, this chapter's a bit of a departure from the storyline--a light break if you will. I've found that I really enjoy writing Cyborg and Beast Boy, especially when they're interacting with each other. I hope you'll enjoy reading them as much.
Another thing. I try to make this fic as close as I can to canon, but several people have pointed out my mistakes (thanks guys). In addition to this, there's the fact that Teen Titans is a continuing story, constantly evolving new facts that contradict the ones I've set up. Plus, I've missed several episodes. So there will be a few mistakes, the name of Raven's father being a big one. If this bothers anyone, feel free to consider it an AU fic. If it doesn't bother you, than feel free to ignore it. Thank you for your time.
6-The Adventures of Cyborg and Beast Boy
Cyborg hit the ground hard, on all fours. Immediately, his elbows buckled and his weight pushed his face into the dirt. "Definitely NOT the best way to travel," he said, spitting out dirt and pushing himself into a sitting position. "You know, Raven, you could have tried to make it a little more... Raven?"
He had suddenly realized that Raven was nowhere to be seen, and wherever he had landed, it did not look like a city.
He was surrounded by low, rolling hills, like waves of dirt and yellowed grass. There were mountains along the horizon far to his right, looming, purple-grey and wreathed with clouds. Ahead and to the left, Cyborg could see clusters of trees, miniature forests scattered across the plain.
The thought hit him; he was in the wrong place. Raven's scary black hole dropped him in the wrong place. He wasn't in Raven's City; he might not be in her world at all. That last thought scared him most. He could be lost in a strange dimension, with no hope of ever returning to his own. Lost and alone. Alone, except for...
"Beast Boy!"
Cyborg climbed to his feet and spun around. "Beast Boy!"
Then, he spotted him, a green squirrel perched on a nearby rock. "There you are! Come on, turn back, we gotta figure out what to do." The squirrel blinked at him.
"Come on, dog, turn back already."
Beast Boy turned and leapt off the rock in the opposite direction.
"Hey! Stop you little..." Cyborg jumped over the rock after the squirrel, causing it to streak off into the grass. Cyborg charged after. The squirrel darted back and forth, back and forth, a green flash through the yellow grass. It reached one of the clusters of tress and sprang at a grey-barked trunk, quickly flitting up and disappearing among the leaves.
Cyborg jumped, trying to catch it, and thunked his head on the underside of a branch. "Ugh," he groaned, clutching at his head. The pain was almost gone when her turned and saw, sitting on a fallen log among the trees, the emerald squirrel that was Beast Boy.
Cyborg glared at it. "Okay then. You be stubborn and refuse to turn into yourself and help me. Just sit there, looking all nice and squirrely, and I will just... PULL THAT STUPID TAIL OFF!"
Just as he began to lunge, something long, thin, and purple shot out of a nearby bush, wrapping around the squirrel. Cyborg's eyes grew wide.
"Beast Boy!" He threw himself forward and grabbed the purple thing. It was soft and wet between his fingers. A tongue.
"I've got you, Beast Boy! It's not gonna eat you! Not if Cyborg has anything to say about it."
The squirrel squeaked in panic, scrabbling for purchase with its small, green feet.
Cyborg continued his tug-a-war with whatever thing the tongue belonged to, but the squirrel had stopped moving, and its squeaks were becoming fainter and less frequent. The tongue was squeezing the breath out of its body. Cyborg gave one last pull with all his strength. The tongue snapped with a sound like a cracking whip, and the squirrel went flying, landing at Cyborg's feet with a thump.
"B-b-beast Boy," stammered Cyborg feebly, kneeling and taking the small body into his large, brown hands. It was limp and terribly still, its bushy tail hanging over his fingers and tickling his knuckles. As he stroked it with one finger, brushing its soft fur the wrong way, his one organic eye felt hot and stinging.
"You had a good run, buddy. Even though you were annoying some of the time... most of the time... all right, all the time, you were, well, you were a good guy. And... and...." A tear escaped his eye and ran down his cheek, warm and wet, "And you made green my favorite color!"
"Hey! Who you calling annoying!"
Cyborg dropped the squirrel and sprang to his feet. Beast Boy stood between two tress, hands on hips and smirk on face. Cyborg launched himself at his friend and swept him up into a mighty hug.
Beast Boy flailed his arms and squealed in a way that was very similar to the squirrel. "Erk! Erk! Air! Air!"
"Oh. Yeah." Remembering that beast Boy needed to breathe, Cyborg let go of him.
"The squirrel... It was sitting on the rock and being all green... it ran... and the tongue and... I thought..."
"Nope. Sorry to disappoint, but that's just a plain old ordinary every day green squirrel. Poor little dude. We should give him a proper burial."
"A proper burial? It's just a squirrel."
"You're the one who was crying over him a second ago."
Cyborg looked sheepish. "I'll dig the hole." And he did, bending down and scooping up a handful of dirt, leaving a more than squirrel-sized hole. After Beast Boy placed the squirrel inside, he dropped the dirt over it and patted it down.
Beast Boy plucked a red and white striped flower from a nearby bush. Laying it over the freshly dug grave, he said, "To the little dude who, for a little while, was mistaken for me. It was a compliment to the both of us, and I wish I could have known you better."
Cyborg opened his mouth to say that they should go now, but before he could speak, his smaller friend held up a hand to stop him. "A moment of silence, please."
It seemed to Cyborg that several long and uncomfortable moments of silence passed before Beast Boy signaled that he could speak again. "Uh, Beast Boy...we really should get out of here."
"Why? We don't know where we are, we don't know where we want to go, and this seems a perfectly nice spot to sit and wait."
"Wait? For what?"
"For...for..."
"For nothing. We're in the middle of nowhere, and no one knows where we are!" Cyborg threw his hands into the air in exasperation. "I say we get moving. We're bound to run into some sort of civilization eventually."
Beast Boy seemed to consider for a moment before climbing to his feet. "Okay, okay. I see your point. Lead the way, dog."
"Don't do that," said Cyborg striding out of the trees and into the open.
"Don't do what, dog?"
"Say that. Only I can say that. It's my thing. Not your thing. Your thing is stupid jokes."
"Oh, you mean dog?" With the last word, Beast Boy turned into a green dalmatian and then quickly back into himself, wheezing with laughter as he did.
"Not funny, dog."
"Sure it is, dog!" He turned, in quick procession, into a collie, a terrier, a lab, and was halfway through transforming into a greyhound when Cyborg lunged at him. Beast Boy shot off across the low hills of the plain with all his greyhound speed, yipping with doggish laughter all the way. Close behind was Cyborg, churning along on metallic legs, crushing the grass whenever his foot came down, and yelling his heart out at his friend.
-----
Beast Boy was woken by something poking him in the back."Ah, quit it Cyborg! You can stop gloating now; I know you won."
It had been nearly sunset the previous night when Beast Boy collapsed onto the ground in exhaustion from the long chase. Cyborg, who, though slower than Beast Boy's dog form, had much more endurance, soon caught up. The sun had long since set by the time he had finished proclaiming his victory and agreed to settle down for the night.
"Quiet, green one."
Beast Boy flinched. "That doesn't sound like Cyborg."
"Silence!" The voice was deep and thick, with a strange way of shortening the vowels and accenting each syllable that it made the yell sound even more aggressive. "Up." The thing poking Beast Boy's back was removed, allowing him to climb to his feet.
The first thing he noticed about the man was that he was pointing an extremely sharp-looking spear at Beast Boy's nose. The second was that the man was huge, almost as big as Cyborg. It was only then that Beast Boy began to notice other things. The man had pitch black skin, cherry-red hair that flowed in long, smooth braids down his back, and smoldering, slanted red eyes. He wore a dark red leather kilt–at the sight of which Beast Boy had to suppress a giggle–and his chest was bare except for a wide band of the same leather crossing from his shoulder to his waist. A circlet of white beads crossed his forehead–beads Beast Boy had a hunch were made of bone.
Despite the danger, he couldn't help wondering how many animals the man had to kill to create his wardrobe. "Savage," Beast Boy muttered.
"I said silence!" The man lashed out with his spear, twirling it around so that the butt hit Beast Boy squarely across the jaw and sent him staggering.
"Swift Spear! You are not to damage the captive."
"But you damaged the other one!"
The other speaker stepped into Beast Boy's range of vision. This new savage was a bit taller than the other, with a touch of grey in his red braids, and he wore a tall, peaked leather hat, obviously a symbol of authority. Despite these differences, Beast Boy found himself disliking this one just as much as the other.
"The other one would have made it difficult if we had not. This puny green thing is no threat."
It was only then that Beast Boy turned around. There were around seven or eight of the savages hanging about. Many of them were limping, bleeding, or seemed damaged in other ways. The source of these injuries was lying unconscious near by, bound up with so many leather cables it almost looked as if he'd been wound up in a cocoon. Cyborg.
Suddenly, the sight of his friend knocked out and tied up changed Beast Boy's shock into anger. He turned to face the savage in the peaked hat. "So I'm puny, am I?"
Beast Boy exploded upward and outward. Green fur sprouted, claws burst from his hands, his teeth sharpened. He found himself enjoying the savages' yells as they beheld the ten foot grizzly now towering above them. He dropped onto all fours and stepped forward.
The peaked hat savage was visibly shaking–tough guys were often like that; face them with any real firepower and they folded like a blanket. The savage threw himself to the ground, his hat falling off of his head and rolling through the dust. Beast Boy noticed that there were feathers tied to the ends of his braids. So they'd killed birds too? That made him even angrier. He raised one paw, ready to swipe it across the sprawled back... But then he noticed that the savage was saying something.
"Oh great Bestial! I shall die gladly by your most glorious paw, for we have threatened your most magnificent life and do not deserve ours! However, I humbly beg of you, please spare the life of one of my warriors, that he may escort you back to our village. The honor of feeding the Beastial from our own stores, of housing him in our own homes, of serving him with our own hands, would be remembered for generations to come!"
Beast Boy looked down at the back of the savages head. He blinked and pulled his paw back in. He blinked again. Then, his body seemed to collapse back in on itself until he was himself again.
"Well...that's different then."