Part 12
The smell of acid filled the air. A symphony of dirt, gravel, monoxide, propane, coal, diesel and gas fumes filled the industrial part of town. Crows hailed agonizing screams and flies and gnats flew with no purpose. Beast Boy – or what was once Beast Boy could sense all these things. He could sense them so well that a normal person would've gone insane, but Garfield Logan was anything then normal. He was just a lost monster looking to destroy what it could, jumping from factory rooftop to factory rooftop, being lost in the black smoke that hailed above the buildings.
He perched himself along the edge of a brick roof, and sniffed the air proudly. He then showed his fangs and gave a silent nod to the satisfaction of the atmosphere around him.
--
"How? What? How?" Cyborg looked to and fro and then back at Raven, "what do you mean?"
Raven gave a long drawn out sigh, "I don't know Cyborg, well at least I think I don't knjow. Well I mean you see it began when you know I needed to be around him, you know when I was trying to figure him out, you know?" She was embarrassed at her own pontificating but it was the only way to get out what she was feeling, "Actually the feeling has always kinda been here, his jokes, his wanting for me to laugh, his whole goofy persona it's so unlike my own that," she shook her head, "I don't know it's just something I long and yearn for, and through him I can kinda have a feeling of all those things, does that make sense?"
Cyborg blinked trying to compute everything she just said, "I guess?" he held his hands up, "This is all kind of sudden, I mean now we can't even find Beast Boy."
She bit her bottom lip, hard. "I know! That's what has me so worried, why the heck else do you think I'd be talking about this to you if I weren't worried? I'm terrified, but you know that I can't show it. Ugh just the thought of that green furball going and doing who knows what, I swear if he ends up causing some sort of …"
"Raven you need to calm down!"
Raven looked around her to see her temperament was having its havoc on different objects in her room. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Soon everything was placed gently in their proper place. She walked weakly over to the edge of her bed and sat down. She held her head within her hands and muffled a cry, but quickly wiped it away and looked up at Cyborg, "I don't know what's wrong with me," she fought back the tears, "I have a million voices telling me a million different things, I have so many feelings, it's just, they're too overwhelming! And the worst part is I don't understand really why I'm having half of them." She took a deep breath, "All I know is that I need Beast Boy back here, I need him, I don't know why but I do. Oh it's all my dumb fault," she began to ramble," If I wasn't so mean to him back there, trying to put up this fake façade he would not have left. Why did I have to do that? To prove there was nothing going on between us? And then look at me I then go tell you! Real smart Raven," she smacked her forehead with her palm.
"First of Raven I don't understand what you're going through but you got to keep your mind on two things. The first is that we are going to find BB and everything is going to be okay, I promise. The second is that it's not your fault, he left because he's a flake, has been and always will be, but I wouldn't worry he's probably just being a spaz somewhere," Cyborg placed a hand on Raven's shoulder.
She looked up at him, "And if he's turned into the manifestation of evil that is within him?"
Cyborg shrugged, "He'll be easier to track because he'll set off the…" Suddenly the alarm sounded throughout Titan Tower. "The alarm," Cyborg said in a long exasperated tone.
"I'm not going," Raven quickly replied.
"What do you mean you're not coming? You may be the only one of us who can stop him if well…. You know."
"I DON'T WANT TO SEE HIM!" She screamed, "I don't want to see what I may have turned him into," she whispered and looked away, "I don't want to remember him as a monster."
"You're saying it as though it'll be the last time you ever see him."
She covered her face with her hands as she bent her hand down within them, "I just have a feeling Cyborg, a sickening feeling, I'm not going and that's that."
--
"What do you mean she's not coming?" Robin did a double take.
"I mean she's not coming, she's not feeling well," Cyborg lied.
"But she has been working with Beast Boy to stop him from turning bad," Starfire tried to reason.
Cyborg sighed, "I know but she's not coming, and that's that, so let's go and stop him!"
--
Starfire flew overhead and looked downward at the destruction brought upon the empty warehouses. Something didn't feel right, something was off, but she couldn't exactly place it, "Why would Beast Boy attack an empty building?" She asked over the comm. unit.
It took a few moments but Robin responded, "Because part of Beast Boy is still there, and it's that part we have to get in contact with so he changes back."
"How do you suppose we do that?" Cyborg drove the T-Car down the highway, looking at Robin's R-Cycle in front of him.
"I don't know but we have to try," Was Robin's reply and then the comm. was silent.
--
They will come after us you know, try to destroy us just see, they will try to eliminate us, make us cease to be. Let them come I will make them yell for I am the Beast, the Beast from hell!
The Green Beast threw a support beam aside and ran across the floor as the building began to topple behind him. He snarled and clawed all that was around him with reckless abandonment.
He looked up at the sky and howled. He also spotted Starfire staring down at him. Good they come.
--
Raven sat again for the third time, come on… you can do this!
She closed her eyes and began chanting, "Azerath Metri…" Her brain shut down as feelings abrupt her train of thought and consumed her soul. She couldn't meditate like this.
She began to pace back and forth across her room. What else was she to do? She couldn't admit to herself that she was painfully worried. She couldn't tell herself that she wanted to be out there, that she needed to save him! No she couldn't tell herself and admit to herself that she made a mistake.
Cyborg said it was Beast Boy's fault, then it was Beast Boy's fault, not hers! It was his fault that he left, his fault that he didn't – but he did care, he cared a lot.
"Ugh!" Raven grabbed her head and sat at the edge of her bed – again. "I can't take this!"
"What is wrong with me?"
--
Robin quickly back-flipped away from a swing, and then crouched down upon his knee to dodge a kick. He kept backing up trying his best to stay out of reach of the green monster – his once teammate – his friend. "Beast Boy I don't want to fight you!"
All he got in return was a snarl and he just barely missed a blow to a face, but Cyborg came in and shoulder tackled the Beast onto the ground, he then got up and quickly pointed his sonic cannon straight at the creature, "Beast Boy I'm only going to warn you once! Stop this, turn back into your old self!"
The Beast rolled aside, and Cyborg followed late. Starfire began throwing starbolts from above, but all they were doing was hitting rubble as the creature on all fours galloping was too fast for the beams of energy.
"We're not getting anywhere!" Robin said the painfully obvious.
"What can we do?" Starfire fired her last starbolt and then hovered beside him, "He will not listen."
"He may not listen but Beast Boy may," Robin moved his hands around his mouth and began to yell, "BEAST BOY WE ARE YOUR FRIENDS! CHANGE BACK!"
All that did was catch the Beast's attention, and he turned around and now began to charge at Robin and Starfire.
Cyborg rattled his brain for a solution. Blasting him wasn't going to help anything, keep fighting was pointless, there was only one goal and that was to get him back the way he was. After all he promised Raven that – Raven! "BEAST BOY CHANGE BACK FOR RAVEN!"
The Beast immediately stopped and turned its head toward Cyborg. He cocked his head like a dog and his ears went up in interest.
"YES FRIEND FOR RAVEN!" Starfire called out and then she was receiving the awkward glance.
"FOR RAVEN?" Robin called out confused. What did Raven have to do with this? And why would he change for her? What was going on? Wasn't it Raven's powers that turned Beast Boy back? With her not here what was yelling about her going to solve anything?
But it did solve something, a big something. The Green humongous Beast slowly began to lose its forms. Its arms began to shrink and his head began to lower, his fangs began to disappear and his fur seemed to dissipate as well. In mere moments the creature that was once terrorizing the industrial part of town changed over into a green exhausted teenager who fell to the ground with a thundering thud.
--
Beast Boy awoke with a moan. He found himself in a gown. He looked to his left to see several wires escaping the gown and feeding into a machine. He painfully turned to the right and was awed by what he saw. There sat a sleeping Raven, hood down, arms and head lying on a counter next to him. He would've pondered on why he was in the medical bay but all he could do was stare at her. She was so beautiful, so elegant. She was like the light from a glowing moon cascading itself upon a calm pond.
And yet while she was so close. So close that he could notice every little detail on her face. The very soft shade of eyeliner, the touch of lovely scent, and while at the moment they were so ever close, in reality they were so ever distant.
He was green she was grey. He was outgoing, she was an introvert, he liked soda, she liked herbal tea, he liked commotion and noise, she liked peace and quiet, he liked video games, and she liked books, they were so ever distant, too distant for anything sincere and true to ever come from them being together.
"But if you gave me the chance," he said in a hoarse tone, his throat sore. He struggled to get on his side and weakly reached his arm over and gingerly rubbed his hand through her hair, "I would love you forever."
-end of part 12