Starfire's lengthy legs poked out from the change room door first as she slinked into his vision like a ferret. Her lips scrunched into a pout as she posed against the door frame. "Does this say 'I want you in my bed'?"
He almost spit out the coke he was drinking. "Why the hell are you asking me this?" Beast Boy's face flushed as he recovered from his coughing fit.
"I thought you would be more understanding of my situation. I am still clueless about human males." Her empty eyes stared back at him, widening as she huffed. Gently sitting down next to him, Starfire gently tucked her ballerina dress under her legs. "I didn't bring you here to reject everything."
"Maybe if you chose something other than hot pink, you won't burn my eyes."
She heaved up, tucking the mass of her red hair behind her shoulder. "Fine, I'll go find something else. Watch my bag." Starfire dropped her shoulder bag onto his lap, smacking his phone in the face. "And don't move."
There was a cackling voice in his mind wondering if she was challenging them. Beast Boy wasn't planning on going anywhere that day. He had no obligations. There was absolutely no need to leave this tiny circle of space he nestled comfortably in. Starfire didn't even have to open her mouth; he was perfectly okay with staying put, hands tucked under his legs, and swaying back and forth on the cushiony chaise. His arms shuddered as he tilted back, and then forth, and then back to the wall, and then forth towards the dressing room door. He was just a steady little domino, on the brink of falling—but he'd obviously catch himself before he toppled over. Humming a ditty, Beast Boy was another reed in the wind. Roots firmly in the ground, he remained still as a statue.
It just irked him a teensy bit that Starfire wouldn't trust him to sit still. She knew he had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, or no one nice to see. That weird tickling feeling she gave off to him made him feel itchy and panicky like he wanted to fly the coup. Of course, that was just his inner bird of prey acting antsy.
Still, she wouldn't be back for another half hour. There was nothing else in this boutique except sundresses. Starfire could easily be searching hours, trying to find something flashy in her size.
Imagining Starfire buried underneath dresses made him want to check out a cool paper card stand around the corner. That cutout of a savannah got him giddy, and Beast Boy would love to play around with the folding cards for a few minutes. He would only be gone for a while, just to take a look at the small kiosk and play with the tiny trees.
The itty bitty rhinos and giraffes were so cute. Beast Boy would poke them all day if the lady running the stand wasn't staring him down. He did look awfully suspicious with a magenta bag over his shoulder; the lady must've never seen a green boy with a purple purse play with her paper sculptures.
Beast Boy looked over his shoulder, trying to see if there were any people staring behind him. He never knew how many creeps and criminals were lurking around the mall. There wasn't anyone around that he could see or hear, except for a maniacal laugh that approached him from the east end of the plaza. The voice grew louder and louder each second before Beast Boy caught the sight of an armoured alien aiming to rip off his shoulder.
He swiftly ducked to the side, letting the purple purse dangle next to his clenched fist.
"Long time no see, Beast Boy."
He had a difficult time mustering a breath as he itched to turn around to look at the seething alien behind him. Her knuckles cracked as she approached him, stepping over the exploded rubble. The urge to shift into anything large and snap her neck off was strong but his loyalty to his good friend was stronger.
"Get out of here, Blackfire."
"I thought we were past nicknames, Beast Boy. Why don't you call me Komand'r?" Her sickly sweet voice made him want to shrivel up on the inside. He tightened the strap on Starfire's purse as he swirled around and launched a leg toward's Blackfire. The daunting alien, briefly stunned, stepped back with a smile. Her crackly lips pursed as she said, "You remind me of my dear Dor'ion. He had such an affinity for the colour green."
"He has acquired taste, definitely." The changeling held his left forearm out, ready to block any sudden hits from his chest. He never managed to understand how Blackfire became the all-mighty queen of Tameran without a clear fighting technique. Even after the attack from Tameran that scared Starfire from returning, he could never tell when Komand'r would throw a bolt of fire or nick him in the shoulder. She was always a looming memory of his that he had no real affiliation with other than Starfire. There was no reason she would have such an effect on him. Regardless, Beast Boy stood stiffly and twitched underneath the stare of the murderous tyrant. "You shouldn't be here."
"And Dor'ion was a bit of a masochist too." She ignored him, choosing to play with one of her silver cuffs. "You don't give me enough sympathy, Beast Boy. Always assuming the side of Koriand'r. She's such a coward, turning her back on her own people."
"You drove her out. I don't blame her for leaving you and your sick family."
"Is that what you really think? She could've returned whenever she wanted, except she liked cosying up here on this disgusting planet." Her form began to rise as she launched a small flaming ball to Beast Boy's neck, causing him to shift into a gazelle. The fire singed the fur on his neck, leaving a patch of smoke in its place. "But I think I understand now why my sister loves it here."
"Less radiation?" Blackfire shot another bolt at his prancing form. "Sorry, bad joke."
"You know what I did to Dor'ion whenever he pestered me?" She rolled her eyes at his frightened expression as he rushed up a mannequin as a squirrel. "Do you take me for a savage? I don't kill unless necessary."
"I'll believe it when I see it."
"I do think I'm an honourable queen, don't you think so? You should see Tameran now; it's such a prosperous and strong nation. I'd never kill one of my own without true intentions," she exclaimed, shoving a display table in his direction. The green squirrel merely chirped as he dashed into a dark pink store, searching for high ground to launch himself off of.
"So what happened to Dor'ion, yo-your highness?" He didn't mean to sound so scared. Beast Boy's cocky, sarcastic voice was nowhere to be found at that exact moment Komand'r had him by the bushy tail.
"'Killed him off accidentally. I had to bury him myself in the middle of a forest with no one to mourn with me." For a brief moment, Beast Boy believed that underneath the sadistic and manipulative layers of Blackfire was Starfire's sister, naive to the horrors of Earth. Her angled eyebrows softened in his eyes as the bones in her jaw and cheek lowered, turning her into an uncanny doppelgänger of his friend. Blackfire, for a second, looked like the crippled and timid sister Starfire claimed she grew up with. The facade shook off as Blackfire looked up at Beast Boy with newfound determination. "Doesn't matter now. I just swung by to remind my sister who's on top."
"You made your message clear years ago."
Blackfire snorted, cocking her head towards the gleaming sun from the broken skylight to the shopping centre. "Still not over that aren't you? Did my Gordanians scare you?"
"They're all dead now, aren't they? Your entire army, crushed under the hands of the Teen Titans!"
"Beast Boy, I am not my sister. I am not a titan. I don't have time to care for my fallen foe, unlike you." Her hands began to curl into fists and her legs began to rise over his head. Blackfire, decked in her elaborate metal plates and jewels, levitated with elegance. The silver crown that nestled on her outgrown hair resembled the tiara Starfire wore when she first crashed on earth. The stern expression and tense posture felt eerily familiar to Beast Boy, reminding him of the wild Starfire he saw kill and thirst for blood. But instead of raw determination, there was a calming look of acceptance in Blackfire. Acceptance for what? He didn't know. All he knew was that as she rose up into the blaring sky, she said, "Say hi to my dear sister for me. Tell her that her elder sister dropped in for a visit, an excursion, to deliver a message—no, a warning."
Dressed in a flowing blue gown, Starfire knocked Beast Boy off his feet—literally. Her hands clutched onto his shoulders, nails biting into his sweating skin. "Where is she?", the flying girl asked, eyes bulged open.
Beast Boy wiped a bit of mascara running down her face. "Left a few minutes ago."
"With what? Did she take anyone? Anything? She didn't rip anything off, right?" Her hands patted on his two arms, his torso, and then his legs. "Oh, thank goodness you're fine. You should've called me anyways."
"She didn't do much, just broke the ceiling."
"I do not care, Beast Boy. You know I could rid of her easily."
Beast Boy began to panic as he saw her eyes water. Her hands twitched violently as her voice called Robin on the communicator, telling him to come to handle the press.
He guessed that she was angry with him. Her back was to his face and her face was to the destroyed lingère boutique. He wasn't familiar with angry Starfire; he wasn't familiar with angry girls in general.
Sometimes, he wondered how Starfire felt, wallowing up in her anger by herself. Who did she talk to when she argued with Robin? There was no one on her side when he and Cyborg watched the two go back and forth. Cyborg always went to calm Robin down, claiming he knew enough about the boy wonder to not make him go crazy. But whenever Starfire stormed up to her room with Silky tucked under her arm like a football, Beast Boy got out of her way. He'd always be under his blanket with his phone in his hands, sweaty from rubbing his heated screen. Those were the days he'd stay up hours, too scared to fall asleep.
But now, he wasn't locked in his bedroom; he was back to back with an angry, fiery teenage girl who could throw him into orbit if she wanted to.
So Beast Boy sat, elbows on his knees, waiting for his teammates to show up while the alien behind him seethed and cursed under her breath.
Someone at the back of his head guilted him as he sat at the foot of the hospital bed. Garfield could barely breathe with all the tubes, needles, and blood, but the half-dead woman was really the icing on top. Hearing from the nurse that she passed out from shock and not from the hundreds of glass shards in her skin didn't calm him much, leaving him alone in the hospital room.
He tried taking a few deep breaths. His right foot jittered to the beat of the air conditioning rattling. First, he imagined a tiny engine in the walls, shuddering under the air pressure. But that engine turned into an imaginary pacemaker that he swore he felt in his chest. The sound of his heart beating grew louder and louder until he swore he all that he could see was red.
The room suddenly was on fire. A girl and her doll sat on the floor, crying and screaming as flames engulfed her bedroom. Garfield with his clunky beast claws and heavy body tried picking up the doll as an attempt to comfort the child. Unfortunately, the more he tried lifting the doll, the more his nails scraped against the fabric, eventually tearing it until all the stuffing rolled out.
He wanted to cry so badly, but he was sweating most of the water in his body, leaving his eyes dry. All he could do with his clammy paws and chapped lips was watch as the girl was picked up by a tall woman, carrying nothing but a lasso at her waist.
"Sir? Can I get a Pokémon keychain?"
Beast Boy looked down at the small boy pulling on his finger. "You have a quarter for it?"
"I left my money in mommy's bag, but I really want the Charmander! If I don't get it now, someone else will steal it."
"Fine," he said as he pulled out his wallet, "but after this, I gotta get you back to the shelter."
As the boy turned the crank on the machine, fidgeting as one of the clear balls came tumbling down, Beast Boy wondered how the boy felt as his mother was body shielded him from the hundreds, maybe even thousands, of glass bits from the exploded store window. It felt kind of funny; it was 8 pm, his mother laid unconscious in the nearby hospital, and Beast Boy watched as the boy struggled to open the tiny plastic packaging preventing him from getting to the Bulbasaur.
This is the first chapter I'm publishing since cross-posting this story on archiveofourown! If you would like to read it from there, my name is CatisaOrsilla.
The reason I named this chapter this way (other than the fact that I didn't think of anything else at the time) was that originally when I planned this story three years ago, the story was supposed to be my version of a season six. Afterwards, I reread the prologue I wrote and realized that it made more sense to have this story be a season seven, since I referenced the plot in The New Titans where Komand'r takes over Tameran.
Do you all understand the references I make to the comics? I try not to add in details from other comics, but it's difficult when I can't differentiate what happened where.
-Catisa~Orsilla