Prisoner

An inky darkness filled each secluded corner in his mind. He could feel neither his body nor his mind. Everything was gone, but somehow still a small piece of him was still conscious within that black void. When his eyes snapped open and Beast Boy was fully awake, he saw bubbles rising around him in the green liquid he was immersed in. Outside the liquid and through the glass, everything was blurred beyond recognition. He thought he saw what looked like a man in a white lab coat looking back at him through the glass. Then the darkness took his mind again. All was quite and still. A burning feeling on the sides of his neck and down his spine pulled him back in to the real world and away from the void. He was no longer in the silent tube filled with water and bubbles. Now, alarms where screaming like small frantic animals from every direction. Their shrill screech burned into his ears, and he was forced to cover them with his hands. The occasional flicker of a damaged florescent light overhead was the only source of light. He looked down and saw all the bodies and blood at his feet and along the walls, he stood knee deep in the dead. Ahead of him was a light. He ran out through the broken door out into the bright desert sun. The endless wail of the siren died away and he could hear only the sound of the flames as the building burned behind him. Out side was only more death flung across the landscape. What ever had killed these people had made sure it had completed its job before moving on. Then he felt the warm desert wind of his face. It felt good as it gently caressed his entire body. The fact the he wasn't wearing any clothes seemed not to be important to him right now. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, glad to be free of the cold interior of that mass tomb. Opening his eyes, he looked down at his hands. Dark blood stained every inch of his deep green skin, he began to scream but the blackness overpowered him and he was lost within its depths once again. He floated in the sea of ink for what seemed like hours. Then it released him for a final time. The black faded away from his eyes to give way to the morning sun. Beast Boy felt like he was awaking from a deep dream had been too horrific to fully recollect.

He was lying on a soft bed of leaves and grass, he still wore no clothes but he did feel the pang of cold metal against the side of his neck. There was the sound of a roaring waterfall to his right. The echo of the water pummeling rock was deafening but somehow soothing. His hands where clean of blood but they still carried its foul odor. After sitting up he grabbed at the thing around his neck. It was made from some kind of metal that encircled his entire neck and snaked down half of his spine. He gripped the strange collar and pulled to try to remove it, but the metal held fast to his skin. When he touched the collar with his hand he felt his finger through the metal as well as he did on his bare skin. It was as if the thing had grown out of, and was a part of, his body. Beast Boy did not give in to the mounting panic that attempted to over take him, his thoughts clicked into place and he pulled a conclusion from his memories. This was the same type of devise that had been attached to Terra, it was integrated into his skin and there was no way to remove it. He looked down at the collar and his suspicions where confirmed. Three familiar orange disks had been placed directly above his chest within the collar, but the memorable S was not at their center. Instead a similar looking H was in its place. Confused by this Beast Boy realized how dry his throat was. He stood slowly on wobbly legs and staggered toward the flowing stream near by. He found a still spot between two rocks and bent to take a drink. Beat Boy stopped mid way with his cupped hands hovering inches above the slightly flowing surfaced of the reflecting water.

He had changed, his face and hair where no longer his own. His ears had grown and become even move sharp, his skin had deepened in color and his hair now flowed down past his shoulders. It was black now, as black as the black in the lifeless trance he had been placed under only moments ago. Equally dark stripes had formed along his jaw line. Even more stripes appeared on each side of his neck and more continued periodically down his arms, chest, back, and legs. He felt at the black sections with his bloodless hands, but when the tips of his fingers touched the surface of his skin he felt nothing. It was as if pieces of him had died, and still clung to him. Even the artificial metal that was grafted to his neck felt more alive then these parts of his own body.

Beast Boy's ears twitched, the faint sound of distant radio chatter touched his ears, even over the deep rumble of the waterfalls. He surveyed his surroundings quickly and dropped down into a crouching position. He could see nothing around him, except the waterfall to his left and the trees in every direction. The noise was coming from his right. He would have to get higher to see who was using the radio. The strangeness of what was happening suddenly occurred to him. The sound of the falls next to him was deafening, all but the most earsplitting cries would have been audible over its resonance. Against all reason he had still picked up the slight noise of radio static within that sea of noise. Beast Boy leapt on to and quickly scrambled up the cliff that the falls descended over. What ever was causing this sudden enhancement in his hearing abilities had obviously improved his climbing skills. He cleared the tops of the trees and turned to peer out over the tops of the pines. After several hundred yards the trees stopped and a road began. Beast Boy was just in time to see a line of three black armored cars pull up and stop parallel to the forest. He was shocked of the distance he could see, the cars where a good half a mile off and he could read their license plates, they where government issue vehicles. Two of the cars opened their doors and released six men. The other sat and did nothing. The men had been a mile away and inside an armored vehicle and Beast Boy had heard them over the falls; he began to marvel at what he had become. He could even hear what they where saying. The leader was briefing the others about what their mission was as they walked into the trees. He spoke of how the target was most likely unconscious next to the waterfall; also his green body would make identifying him in the thick undergrowth difficult. Beast Boy blinked in surprise, they were talking about him.

Beast Boy leapt from his perch to the ground, he glanced around quickly looking for a place to hide. His eyes saw a small cave hidden behind the waterfall and he leapt through the waters. The cave was shallow and empty, his long ears twitched and he realized he could still hear the soldiers beyond the falls. Their voices had stopped but their noisy foot steps across the cluttered forest floor where more then enough to allow BB to keep tabs on their position.

The leader reached the stream and halted. He glanced around then clicked a com button on the side of his technical looking helmet. Over the radio he told whoever was on the other end that the subject's body was not to be found at the anticipated location and that a sweep of the immediate area was in progress. He turned to the rest and made several exaggerated hand gestures to signal the men to search the area, several of them nodded and each spread out to inspect the area. Beast Boy was thinking of a way to get out of this when the metal collar around his neck began to hum softly.

He looked down at it and the three disks and its center began to glow a bright orange. There was a sting of pain at the base of his neck and Beast Boy roared in pain and fell to his knees. The short hairs at the base of his neck bristled outward and his K-9 teeth elongated to a remarkably length. He felt something primal snap awake from deep within his mind, that primeval under-consciousness that has been apart of all of us ever sense the moment of creation. The new mind over took him and his eyes turned into white glowing pits in his face. They looked down at his hands; the black stripes had been growing and had now almost completely engulfed the small bits of dark green that where still showing. The fingers slowly seemed to be melding together and extending outwards. Then Beast Boy realized what his arms where trying to become, they where forming into blades. He willed the change and his forearms instantly replaced themselves with long, gagged, black weapons. Other black edges erupted out from the stripes on his back and along his shoulders. His legs began to morph separately from the rest of his body into what looked like large, hairy wolf legs. This newly found ability to transform individual parts of him self was not expected but somehow felt natural. His white eyes looked upward from his changing body and out past the water.

The leader of the group stood on the other side of the moving sheet of liquid, through the transparent barrier the man looked like a moving oil panging. One of the soldiers must have heard Beast Boy scream when the collar had unleashed the primitive mind within him, because all the men past the wall of mist where starring into the falls. The primal rage within him burned a little hotter and Beast Boy smiled.