Here's another chapter!
&&&&
Chapter Three:
The Titans stared in shock at the team's shapeshifter.
Finally, Robin voiced what they all must have been thinking. "You were… a thief?" Beast Boy nodded grimly. "Why?" Boy Wonder asked without thought.
"It's not easy being on your own at age seven." Beast Boy shook his head gloomily. "There's no where you can go but the orphanage, and, at the time, I didn't know where places like that were. I found out 'bout dogs an' cats, and learned to turn into them too. So, I hid in the alleyways and dead-end streets that nobody paid any attention to, and came out when I got hungry. But most of the time I was running from the dogcatchers. It was like that for about three months, until the rainy season came."
"I was searching for shelter, ya see. And I stumbled into a part of town I'd never seen before." Beast Boy grimaced slightly. "I saw an old warehouse on the corner. It looked like it might fall down any second, but I was over being picky after living in a dirty city for a while. I started towards it."
------
Garfield slumped against a wall of a tiny shop. He was cold, and tired. He was starting to think he'd never be out of the rain, when he looked up and spied—what looked to be—an old, abandoned warehouse. Oh, thank you! Thank you so much! he prayed gratefully as ran towards it.
Garfield slowed down as he approached the squat building, and, as he took a closer look at his sanctuary, stopped all together. There was something wrong with the structure. It didn't look right for some odd reason. He walked over to the storage house and touched it. And the wall jiggled, like jello! Gar jumped away. He'd seen some weird things since he moved to the big place, but this went beyond the beyond!
As he stood in the rain, puzzling out what was with the building, he saw the front door slide open and three people and a machine come out. Two had the appearance of guards, and were dressed in strange suits of leather and metal. The third was as big as a gorilla and Gar could just make out the form of an ammunition belt through the gloomy rain; it was slung over the guy's left shoulder. The machine looked like half of a giant gel capsule, and had a skull-like design tattooed on it.
Gar became a tabby cat to slink away, but the enlarged gel capsule saw him morph. That was when the green lad saw the warehouse for what it was, a giant metal structure with dishes and eyes covering every inch of it. "Retrieve him!" the machine spoke articulately as Gar turned and ran for it. The guard-guys ran after him.
The men were catching up to him quickly as the emerald cat darted down an alley. Uh oh, dead end, Garfield thought as he stared up at the brick wall blocking his escape. A cat can't jump that high. He reverted back to his human form and started climbing. "There he is!" came a shout from behind him. The young shapeshifter dropped to the ground and returned to running.
Suddenly, there was a great explosion. He swiveled around and stared at the rubble pile the eight-foot high wall had become. The leatherettes charged through the dust, both waving dangerous-looking weapons. The boy didn't need a second demonstration of the blasters' power.
Gar led the men up dead-ends, down dirty alleys, and around in circles in hope of shaking them off. But they were always a few yards behind him. Then he swerved to the left abruptly, and skidded to a stop right before he collided into a wall thrice the size of the last one. He whirled around rapidly, but one guard grabbed him by his throat and threw him into the cement block wall.
"Should we kill 'im, Rex?" the second guard asked the first.
"That's what The Brain wanted, Mac" Rex responded, lifting Gar by his neck until the two were eye-level.
"Lemme do it!" Mac cried, waving his weapon above his head.
"Put that down!" Rex hissed angrily as he knocked his idiot partner on the head. It was just a small, fluid movement but that was all Gar needed. The small boy kicked out at his captor, knocking him down with a surprising amount of strength. He rapidly morphed into a dog, and managed to nip at Rex's ankles before he was forced to let go of the shape. "Arrg!" the man growled as drew back his fist. "You're gonna regret that!"
Gar ran for the exit, but was blocked by the laughing Mac. He dodged Rex's muscular arms and jumped on the wall. He managed to scale halfway up it when he felt himself wrenched from the wall and thrown to the ground.
He looked up shivering in the rain and spitting gravel from his mouth. The guards encircled him, a buzzing sound coming from their weapons. Bigger, Garfield managed to think through the hullabaloo. Fiercer, stronger. In his mind's eye the picture of a grey wolf formed, and then he felt the change take place.
The raw instincts of the great canine were too powerful for Gar to grasp, and he attacked with all the strength and fury of a wild beast. He managed to sink his fangs into Rex's left arm and tear a gigantic hunk out of the shoulder, cracking the bone and exposing the marrow. But then Mac caught the green creature by the neck and squeezed tight, breaking Garfield's intense concentration.
The child struggled to breath, but his futile attempts only caused the stronger man constrict his steel grasp even more. Gradually, the world around him began to grow darker. Then, in the couple of seconds before he blacked out, Gar heard three words: "Doom Patrol, advance!"
------
"And that's how I met the Doom Patrol", Beast Boy finished. "And you know the rest."
"No, we don't", Jinx said coolly, crossing her arms across her chest. "That's what we want to know."
Beast Boy sighed, "Fine, fine". He pasted a playful scowl on his green face. "Here's what happened during the time I lived with Steve, Rita, Larry, and Cliff."