Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans or Beauty and the Beast
Author's note: I just want to say thank you all so much for reviewing! I really appreciate it! I hope you like this new chapter.
When they crossed the bridge a green dog came bounding up from the direction of the cottage, his slobbery tongue hanging out of his mouth.
"Hey, man, wait!" Victor said trying to step out of the dog's path, Robin made and 'ick' noise and backed away too, they needn't have bothered though, the dog came crashing down on Raven, knocking her to the ground. He stood on her chest, panting and dripping drool on her face.
"Ah, noerr, dog get off of me!" Raven said in a voice underlined in disgust. The dog merely barked and wagged his tail. Robin and Victor laughed.
"Don't give me this barking nonsense, it's not like anyone is here." Raven growled, as she pushed him off. "Gross." She said in a flat voice as she wiped slobber of her black dress.
"My apologies, mistress" the dog said graciously as the four of them approached the house.
"I was just so thrilled to see you." He gave her a dog-like smile and wagged his tail. Raven rolled her eyes, and then after a moments hesitation gave the dog a pat on the head. He looked very pleased.
Once inside the cottage, Robin and Victor began preparing traveling bags. Victor went off in search of another map, after of course he pretended to peck Robin with the old one, now a rubber chicken, and Robin began to prepare some food. Raven sat down and began to read her book, but something was eating at her.
"Robin, do you think I'm odd?" she inquired, with a very uncharacteristic expression on her face. Robin looked over his shoulder at her, he seemed taken aback by that hopeful look on her face. He smiled,
"My sister, odd? Huh! Where you get an idea like that?"
"Oh, I don't know. It's just that I'm not sure I fit in here. There's no one I can really talk to."
"What's wrong with us?" Robin said pretending to be offended.
"You know what I meant." Raven said flatly. Robin opened his mouth and then closed it, rethinking what he was about to say, and then he hung his head.
"Yeah, I did. I know how you feel; we all feel the same way. We're outsiders here. When they were alive it wasn't bad at all. But when they died it was right after you had an accident with your powers, and the people village jumped to conclusions. It just wasn't the same after that, you know, they don't trust us either."
It was true. Both Victor and Robin were quite strange themselves. Victor of course was a cyborg, and the human part of him that was left, also set him apart from everyone else in the village. Robin was ordinary to look at, but as a child he was very strange, his birth parents had been from the circus, acrobats, and something of seemed to stick with him. He would run along rooftops, doing flips, and cartwheels across clothing lines, wearing a black mask and a small cape. It terrified the over-excitable villagers. Even now, sometimes Raven would look out the window after her evening meditation and see Robin, in his mask and cape, swinging and flipping on a homemade trapeze. Something about hights just seemed to call to his blood. But while they didn't rust her brothers, they feared her.
"Then why don't we just leave?" she asked him, it was almost a plea, almost. Robin looked sadly at her, "You know why we can't Raven. Everything we have is here. They built this place for us, and now that they are gone we have to look after it."
"Yes, you're right" Raven admitted. Robin reached out and put a hand on Raven's shoulder, he made as is to say something but Victor strolled into the room.
"Come on Robin, let's go."
"Yeah," Robin nodded and they packed up.
Raven followed the boys out the door, and bid them good-byes as the two piled into Victor's car.
"Bye, take care," Raven said solemnly. Robin smiled happy to Raven acting like herself again.
"See ya Rav!" Victor called from the driver's seat.
"Be back tomorrow!" Robin shouted over the engine, "and dog, take care of Raven!"
Raven rolled her eyes; the dog wagged his tail,
"Of course master!" he said.
Raven stood outside the door waving until they disappeared into the distance. She sighed, and then retired into the house, to snuggle up with her book by the fire, the dog asleep by her feet.
Robin and Victor zoomed over the countryside, blasting the stereo. After they passed by the third farmer shaking a his fist at them angrily, Robin gave a suggestion,
"Uh, maybe we should turn the music down, I think we are being a disturbance"
"Nah, it's cool, my baby is sound proof, no one outside can here us." Victor said lovingly, stroking the dashboard. Victor had built the car from scratch and had put a lot of time and love into making it. The car was, in many ways, his baby.
"Is it now" Robin said skeptically as they passed by another enraged farmer. He sighed as Victor began whistling to the song playing. Robin laid back in his seat and after a while, closed his eyes and fell asleep.
He woke with a start to Victor shaking his shoulder and calling his name. The car was stopped and they were in a very dark and gloomy forest. Robin looked around.
"Where are we?" he looked at his watch, "We should be there by now!"
"Yeah, well" Victor said sheepishly, scratching his head, "I think I might have taken a wrong turn."
Robin raised an eyebrow, "What happened to your expert navigational system?"
"WellI either its busted or there is some sort of magnetic field around here making it go haywire, cause right now it says we are in New Zealand" Victor said as he fiddled with a screen on his robotic arm, which sparked at him.
Robin ahead, they were positioned right before a fork in the road; both sections were dark and dreary. At the center of the two paths was a tall signpost with a multitude of worn looking street and town names.
"Come on," Robin said gesturing to Victor, "Let's see if we can find any of those names on the map" And the two of them piled out of the car and walked over to the sign post. With both of their head crammed over it, they consulted the map.
"Look, here's that town"Robin said pointing to the map, victor shook his head and pointed at the sign.
"Look, see here that's a p not an o, so that town is over here"
"No, then that would mean it was behind us."
"Right, so then we're about. here." Victor said jabbing at the map with a mechanized finger.
"No, here!" Robin said pointing to a different spot. This banter continued for awhile as the two of the argued over their location. Finally the two of them came to a passive disagreement.
"Let's just get out of this forest" Robin exclaimed, "We can figure out what to do from there." Victor nodded as he folded the map,
"But which way?" he said staring at the foreboding paths ahead of them. Robin looked like he was concentrating; he stared down both paths,
"That one." He said finally, he pointed at the one to the right. Which in Victor's opinion was the slightly more scary of the two.
"Hey Rob, maybe we should go down that path." He said, gesturing eagerly towards the other one. Robin shook his head, set firmly in his decision,
"No, this one." He said stubbornly. Victor knew it was no use arguing with him and they trooped back into the car and began driving down the tree shadowed path, jarred every few seconds by tree roots under their wheels. Heading into the unknown.