(A/N) Still no flames…maybe it's just me, but I kind of like the dissenting opinions. It shows me better what to work at and sometimes gives me a good laugh. Regrem Erutaerc thanks for the all the comic info. I didn't know that the rainbow brigade was in there too nor that they were much more clearly defined. As to your story ideas, some of them I already had, and the ones I didn't were good ones. But, I already know about how this is really going to go, so write the ideas into your own story, I'd like to see them done up.
Disclaimer – I don't own the Teen Titans, some guy with lots more money than me does. Lucky punk.
Tamed – Nine in One – An insight into a Raven's anatomy and an experiment involving Captain Fantabulous.
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"Thanks for doing the dishes last night, Beast Boy. I'll get the breakfast ones."
Beast Boy grinned. "Cool, thanks, Rae. When you get back I'll tell you what Robin wants us to do today."
She looked at his plate, the strange colors and textures of the food still there wasn't anything she recognized. "Why not just come with me and tell me while I'm cleaning this weird, brown stuff from your plate?"
"Hey, bean curd sausage is good!"
"How does sausage smear like it's oatmeal?"
"'Cause it's BEAN CURD, duh!" Beast Boy pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. "So, are we going, or are you gonna keep playing guess the stain?"
Raven laughed her light laugh. "Alright, let's get going." After she had started heading towards the sink she asked one of the questions that she had thought up during the night. "Did Robin give us any free time at all, or is it planned out hour by hour like I think?" His smile showed her that it wasn't even close to that bad.
"Nah, all we got for today is for us to tell each other how we're thinking of doing our training and giving ideas to the each other and, then it's just me reading some stuff some time today and you have to get through your first comic without holding back any emotions, even if you have to reread it." Raven drooping her arms as she walked showed just how much she was looking forward to that part of the day's activities. "Don't worry, I picked out all the comics. They're all my absolute favorites. Only the best!"
This made her smile, even though it wasn't reading the comics that made her fret, it was unlocking her emotions.
They had reached the sink and shower, which DID have hot water a relieved Raven had told Beast Boy earlier that morning. Raven soaped up the plates and scrubbed them off. As she handed them to Beast Boy so that he could dry them she asked, "So, what's your plan for your training?"
Beast Boy looked thoughtful as he spoke. "I'm gonna do stuff like give you a stack of cards and you'll call out some type of animal and I'll change into it as quick as I can. As soon as I'm the new form, you call out another. Just trying to get the changes to happen as fast as possible and keeping my mind ready to go into any animal. Then I'll try out the animals that I read about and try out the stuff they're supposed to be good at. Just that kind of stuff till Saturday. Saturdays are when I'm going to change into…into the beast." He stammered as they started walking back to their houses.
Raven may not have liked seeing Beast Boy that uncomfortable with something, but she knew it was for the best that he face it.
"Did you have any ideas about what else I could do?"
Beast Boy looked nervous about this too, like he thought that she might deem his ideas as stupid or childish and give the obvious answers that he had missed. "Not really. What you came up with sounds pretty solid." She took a good breath before she spoke again. "So I guess you want to know what I'm gonna do then?" He nodded. "Well…first I need to talk to all of my emotions…and…I want you to come with me when I do."
"Huh? Wha…Why?" Raven hadn't mentioned Beast Boy and Cyborg accidentally ending up in her mind since it had happened. The three of them just had an understanding between them that Raven didn't want to talk about it anymore after they had told Robin. "Why do you need me there?" They were just coming up on the huts.
She looked away from Beast Boy. "Because I don't want to back out. I know what I have to do, but it kinda scares me. And, if I need help for any reason, you've been there before." She looked back over her shoulder at him. He had stopped dead in his tracks. "What, what's wrong?" His actions were making her nervous.
"Nothing, it's just…well, you've never been this upfront before. It just hit me how hard you're already trying to keep your promise about not holding stuff in. It's cool." One of his fangs poked in-between his lips with the smile he let loose.
Her smile back at him was probably the biggest since they had defeated Trigon, though instead of being mostly relief at having over come such powerful evil this smile held nothing but gratitude. "Thanks. Uh, I need to meditate for a bit and then I'll get the mirror."
"Then I'll see you in an hour."
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Beast Boy had tried so hard to get through at least one animal in his zoology text that he almost wanted to tell Raven to come back after he had finished. Instead, at hearing her knock on his door, he had marked his place and walked straight outside. "Hey, Rae. You ready?"
"Not really, but if I was totally ready we wouldn't need to do this. Come on." She led him back to her house and sat down on the floor, he followed.
"I've only done this once, and it was on accident. What do we do?" It was weird for him to be inside any place Raven called hers. She was a bit territorial when it came to wherever she slept and went to get away from people.
"Well, you just grab my hand and you'll go in when I do." She left her hand open for him to grab while she put the mirror more evenly between them. He gripped her hand and she started concentrating. Beast Boy felt himself start to rise off the floor and then a sharp pulling feeling as he and Raven were swallowed into her mirror. He had gasped in spite of his best efforts to stay calm.
They landed softly in a landscape that Beast Boy hadn't seen the last time he was there. There were pictures of all the Titans in various poses and some of the pictures were of battles they had fought or of victory celebrations. There were some of people that Beast Boy didn't know, including some of a tall looking lady wearing a white robe like Raven's whole self. "Is this your mother?"
Raven's smile was touched with sadness. "Yeah, she died while I was little. She left me ways to talk to her and see her though. Some magic that she did so that she could always be there for me in some way." Raven smiled more at the picture as a tear fell. "She was the kindest person I've ever known."
Beast Boy watched Raven as she played these memories of her mother in her mind. He hated the idea of stopping her, so he decided to wait until she told him where they were going to go from here. While Raven walked to the next picture of her mother he stared around at all the ones of the Titans. Each one, he noticed, showed one of the Titans doing something nice for her or her doing something for one of them. He tried to figure out what that meant this place was, but the only thing he could come up with was that it was one of her emotions domains. They each had one, and it didn't look like the barren waste that seemed to separate each one, so it must be one of them. "Raven, where are we?"
"You are in my realm." A purple clad Raven strode up to them, a warm smile on her face in greeting.
"So, who are you? Wait, that doesn't make sense…uhm, which feeling do you stand for?" Beast Boy wasn't sure if that was the right way to put it, but at least it sounded better than asking a differently colored Raven her name.
"She's Affection. Well…all my emotions use one word as their names, but they really represent sets of emotions." Raven had walked over to the two of them after hearing Affection answer Beast Boy's question.
Affection smiled appreciatively at Raven. "Yes, I represent the warmth one feels towards friends, loved ones, and all things which are good in the world. Like the smell of old books." Raven smiled at the thought.
"So all these pictures are people that matter to Raven?" Beast Boy pondered.
"That, or times when people have done something she feels deep gratitude for."
"So how come there aren't any pictures of things like…her favorite pizza?"
This made Affection's smile turn a few shades softer. "Because affection is tied to people, places and things are only part of my realm if they serve to remind of those people." Beast Boy still looked confusedly at her. "To explain, the smell of old books reminds Raven of her mother who taught her to read in the ancient libraries of Azarath."
Beast Boy smiled when Raven broke into their little chat. "Affection, I need to hold a full meeting. I want to do it here so that I feel comfortable."
Affection's smile turned into one that matched a painting of Raven's mother. "Of course. I will bring seats while you call the others."
Raven smiled back at Affection as she left. Her eyes closed as she brought her hood up over her head. Concentrating firmly she rose slowly into the air. A breeze started to play at the edge of her cape when several other Ravens, each wearing a different cloak floated up from the floor. They had risen in a circle around Raven and each pair of eyes focused onto her, awaiting what they had been called for.
Raven touched down and opened her eyes to see Affection floating several floor cushions towards the group. As she joined the rest the black field she had around each split and carried a cushion to each person, including Beast Boy. Raven gestured for every one of her multicolored emotions to sit in front of her and for Beast Boy to sit just off to her side. All did as she wanted and when everyone was seated she spoke. "Before we begin, Beast Boy is here to help me if any of you gets out of hand." She eyed her red clad self while saying this, Anger merely glared right back. Turning towards Beast Boy, "The red one is Anger, orange is Crass, green is Bravery, yellow is Intelligence, grey is Timid, brown is Wisdom, and pink is Happy."
"Like in Snow White." Happy giggled out.
Beast Boy couldn't help himself, so he snickered. "Good one."
"Right. And, you just met Affection over there in purple." Affection did a small wave in greeting to Beast Boy that he returned.
"How come they each have a different color robe?"
"That happened because of stuff I read about certain colors being tied to certain emotions in some books I read with my mother. My mind thought the idea made sense, so when I split off all my emotions, I subconsciously gave them the color cloak that I thought fit them best."
"Cool."
Raven stared at Beast Boy for a bit as he looked at the little crowd of Ravens. "Anyway…I wanted you all here because there's going to be some rule changes." Several of the emotions groaned at this, catching Beast Boy off guard. She must give them new rules pretty regularly, or she was just strict and they all think it's about to get worse. "These won't be changes you'll dislike." Raven took a deep, steadying breath. "I'm getting rid of all your restrictions except…" The immediate noise of all the emotions talking at once cut her off. "Wait, I'm not done…" But no one listened as they started talking to each other about all the things they were each going to try.
"Quiet!"
Everyone turned to where Beast Boy was now standing. Raven was just as shocked as the rest of her emotions at the volume and commanding inflection he had used. His stern look got the gabbing colored Ravens all looking front and center…apparently they remembered that Beast Boy was there to help make sure they behaved, though Anger still grumbled under her breath and Bravery looked like she was sizing him up.
He turned to Raven, who gawked openly at him. "Uh…You said you wanted me to help with the crowd control." His sheepish smile and nervous chuckle giving away the fact that he had surprised himself too.
Raven cleared her throat as she turned back towards the sedate group. "OK, you still have a few restrictions. First, we aren't leaving this island till we figure out how to join back together permanently or at least whenever we want to. Second, when Beast Boy goes into his primal form it'll be up to us to make sure he stays on the island and that he either gets worn out or knocked out at the end of the day so that he changes back. Third, you aren't allowed to hurt each other, Beast Boy, or me. That's it. Everything else goes. Intelligence and Wisdom will tell you guys why this is happening and why knocking out Beast Boy's one transformation doesn't count as hurting him." Raven looked limp as she sat down.
They all just kept looking from Raven to Beast Boy and back again until Raven caught it. "What is it?"
Bravery spoke first. "Are we done then? Are we allowed to go?"
"Yeah, just…the new rules don't go in effect until Beast Boy and I are back on the outside. Oh, and Anger." She looked intently at her red robed self.
"What?" was all she threw back at Raven.
Raven's gaze never flinched in even the slightest. "Trigon is gone, you're free from him. Remember that, you are fully free of him, so you only get to act according to what's real. False anger means you get locked away again, even if it's only false annoyance. You are hereby bound to truth in your expression."
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Beast Boy found himself standing in the middle of Raven's room, holding her hand still when they had gotten back out of Nevermore. Raven had told him what she called the place her emotions lived at. "That was probably the biggest mind altering experience I've ever seen in my life and there weren't even any drugs!"
"Quit making jokes and get out of my room. I want to take a nap. It took a lot out of me to do that." She was already making her way to her bad.
"That's probably a good idea. I'll make lunch while you sleep." She mumbled a thank you as he went out the door, closing it behind him. She needs another feel good meal he thought to himself.
He grabbed up all the foods he thought she might like and separated out what looked like it would go well together. A good cup of tea, of course, some of her favorite potato chips, a couple of, "Ugh", hot dogs, and a nice big apple, just a granola bar for dessert though. It would have to do. He had just finished placing it on her tray when Raven opened up her door. He smiled at her as she came to her seat. It wasn't until he did a double take that he saw she had a black cloak on that matched her leotard. "When did you get that?"
"Get what? Thanks for making me something, this looks good." She had said just before starting in on the first of her hotdogs.
He turned to grab up his lunch of twelve different kinds of fruits and vegetables that Starfire had snuck into their food supply that wouldn't last much longer. "That cloak, it's different from your other ones." He was struggling to keep everything balanced as he walked back to his seat.
"I've had this one forever. I wear it all the time…This lunch is great. It's awesome that you remembered what my favorite chips were."
He had managed to get most of the food stacked onto his tray, but he couldn't figure out how to eat it without knocking everything over…they should have packed bigger trays. "Guess I never noticed before. What are you gonna do after lunch? I got out your first comic if you wanna try that. It's Captain Fantabulous versus The Lamer." He turned to her and froze.
"I don't know what I'll do, but it'll be something fun!" Her robe was pink.
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(A/N) And thus ends another page in the life of our dear acquaintances, Raven and Beast Boy. But, what does the pink clothing portend? Is our muse of the mystic portals a nut case? Maybe…but more than likely it's just a stage in her development. The struggle is the thing though. A butterfly wouldn't be nearly as long lived if it just popped right out of it's cocoon ten seconds after it decided it had baked enough. Let me know what you think.