Defiance

The suspended earth gave way into fragments of rock and soil beneath Terra's feet and she fell. The shock had stripped the fragile control she had held over her power from her mind. In this haze of dust and gravel she spiraled downward with the image that haunted her nightmares clinging to the front her minds eye, another woman in Beast Boy's arms. The woman had looked like her, but it couldn't have been so, it had been to many long years since she had felt his touch. The world around her felt like a cold lightless dream and all the same pains from that day so long ago in the forsaken and decaying carnival returned to haunt her. The loneliness and hopelessness was too much.

Then the cold and bitter word vanished and Terra was safe again, she was no longer falling but drifting peacefully downward. Warm strong arms wrapped around her in a shielding embrace. She no longer wanted to wake from her new dream, she wanted to stay here in those arms forever, but her eyes opened by them selves. The one she loved looked down into her teary blue eyes, and for an instant it was all worth it, all the pain and cruelty of the world was momentarily overwhelmed by the intensity of this one moment of bliss they found in each other. Beast Boy looked lost, confusion danced over his face; for he looked into the second pair of eyes that belonged to the girl he had lost long ago. Large green and black feathered wings that had grown from his shoulder blades, they carried them slowly to the earth. All she could do was stare with disbelief at the face that had filled her dreamed all those lonely cold nights under the stars. Beast Boys feet touched down upon the soft grass and the wings began to recede back into himself. Terra ran her hand across his chest to feel if he was truly holding her now, his flesh was warm apart from the cold black lifeless marks that striped his body. His hair flowed down past his shoulders and his eyes glowed white, but Terra saw her Boy in the Beast that held her. She studied one of the black blemishes on his green skin it felt hard and cold to the touch as she ran her finger across it.

"Beast Boy… what have they done to you?" She looked up to see his eyes again but he had averted them toward the ground in shame of what he'd become. She saw the cruel looking collar clinging to his neck and attempted to pull it free, but the metallic vice held fast. Beast Boy stooped and set Terra in the grass then turned back to the car.

Hunter was on his knees cradling his halved hand under his belly, he looked up as Beast Boy approached. He gritted his teeth and attempted to stand but faltered, collapsing down on to his one good hand. Two dark green bare feet stopped under his nose and turned to face him, Hunter looked up into glowing white eyes gleaming down at him. In an instant Hunter was off the ground and held aloft again, he dangled for a moment from his neck then plummeted down into the hood of the car he stood before. The metal bowed around the force of the blow and Hunter heard one of his ribs shatter under the intense pressure. A large, rippling, green arm held him down in the indentation he lay in. After a long moment of pain the firm grip of the hand about his neck reluctantly loosened. Hunter sucked in air, the coughed it out again mixed with blood.

"It takes every inch of my will to stop my self from tearing you apart." The body looming over him was in a constant state of change, small blades appeared and dissipated, mussels grew and shrank, and his hair waved as if alive; the pure abhorrence that the Beast gripping his neck held for him was replicated by his mortal shell. Hunter had the nerve to laugh at Beast Boy's malediction of hatred.

"No my boy, it takes all of your will to keep your own Body under the constraints of your free will. I know what you must be going through; your body aches to change, to release its rage, to transcend into madness. Why do you no just give in to the anger that is inside of you?" Hunter's eyes gleamed as if in awe of the destructive force hanging above his.

"Shut up! Some of us fight for a cause, not senseless hatred." Beast Boy pushed him down hard against the hood of the car and the metal creaked under the stress. "What did you do to us!" Hunter coughed blood again on to his clean uniform, then smiled as he responded,

"I set you free, both of you… cant you see that? You two where not like the other freaks hiding in that tower. There was power burning under your skin, and all I did was put it to use. It took a surprisingly little about of tampering with you to release your true potential. (cough) The collar is meant to keep you under my control, and I divided the girl simply because he was far too influential, but each of you has grown to the limit of my restraints, beautiful."

"How could you!" Type B screamed in blind rage, "How could you hurt my Beast Boy like this! You're a monster!" Terra stood and walked to Type B's side.

"How could I not?" it seemed as if Hunter derived no fear from starring the distraught green Beast into his glowing eyes, "My enemies unwittingly held in their hands a weapon of unimaginable capacity and all I had to do was unlock it. And you are mine, make no mistake of that."

As if the words where some kind of trigger the orange disks within the collar ignited into a blaze of color. Beast Boy convulsed as a shock of pain surged through his body. He staggered away from the car and fell into Type B's and Terra's waiting arms. Type B glared up at the man she had once called father along with her former nemesis at her side. Hunter propped himself up on the car and spoke out as if making an address to a waiting crowd of media, "Your leash will never be loosened Beast Boy, you may be to powerful to be kept in a cage but you will still serve me weather you want to or not. As for you my daughters, you will run from the one you love with the rest of them, you have out lived my curiosity."

Beast Boy staggered to his feet, ripping at his neck restraint. Terra attempted to stand and help, but Type B held her and shook her head. Beast Boy clawed against the collar, sending out sparks as black talons scrapped across silver metal. Hunter watched with sadistic glee as his experiment writhed in agony at his feet, the green mass bristled with newly sprouted back spines, wings formed and died, limbs grew then faded away, through it all could be heard the inhuman snarl of Beast Boy screams as he tour into his own flesh to grip at the thing that was to force his hand. Then the mass slowed and faded back into itself revealing the boy beneath, a boy who had two firm grips placed about the nightmarish restraint. The smirk melted away from Hunters face. Beast Boy roared at the sky as he wrenched at the collar, at first the thing held but then it slowly began to give way. Through his body, through blood and bone he ripped it free. Bones broke and melded back together, flesh ripped and healed, and past the screams a deep rumbling of the ground was beginning to grow. With a final tug and a spray of his own blood into the air, Beast Boy pulled the entire collar through the last few painful inches of his neck. His defiant screams echoed for a moment through the trees then faded away into the deep rumble of the earth as the last of the scars faded away.