This is a bit of a shorter chapter for a fight scene than I'm used to. But I hope I still managed to make it just right.

My college finals are over. I plan on posting the rest of this fic before the next semester starts in January. So, uh, don't expect an upload schedule. Just expect this to be done by early January.


Chapter Fifty-Eight: Demoness Vs. The Beast


The fight going on was epic to behold. A one-on-one battle between two freaks of nature in a landscape where they could go all out with nothing to restrain them.

One of them was using all the magical power at her disposal, and the other was unleashing the full epitome of what the animal kingdom had to offer.

It was too bad no one could actually be there to witness this epic clash. They were all too busy fighting in the real world to watch what was going on in here.

BOOM! KCHCHCHCHCH!

Then again, seeing how that blast of energy from Rage caused a whole mountain to collapse, it was probably a good thing no one else was around to witness this battle.

They would have definitely been caught up in the collateral damage of all the attacks.

"Ahahahaha!"

Dark ethereal energy balls were thrown by many of the clawed hands surrounding Rage as she cackled. The attacks flew through the air toward the Beast.

The large burly creature dodged left and right on the ground, moving so quickly he left a series of after images in his wake. Rage's attacks held enough power to tear up the surrounding landscape and level mountains, yet nothing seemed to land on the Beast himself.

"Come on Beastie-Poo! Is that the best you can do!?"

Boom!

Another energy attack from Rage destroyed an entire mountain. The Beast, who'd been on it, weaved and launched himself through the falling debris.

Pow!... Boom!

And then, as the Beast jumped off a falling boulder, his burly fists slammed into the side of another large falling boulder. The large rock split into pieces, flying into the crimson-red wings that surrounded Rage like a flowing defensive shield. The shockwave of the attack sounded right after.

The attack had been that fast. Yet his mate had still managed to deflect it.

Rage grinned with malice as her many hands grabbed large chunks of rock out of the air and launched them at the Beast in retaliation. None of them hit their target.

Overall, this was nothing more than a bloody brawl between two individuals. A battle that wouldn't end until the other admitted defeat… or died.

You know, whichever came first.

The Beast landed on the ground again. He quickly turned around to face his mate, who was floating in the air.

"Holding back against me isn't going to save your mate! Fight like the Beast you are!" Rage cackled as she sent another volley of energy toward her mate.

"Release mate!"

The Beast howled as it morphed into a large lithe cheetah. With speeds that no normal cheetah could have ever achieved, it weaved nimbly through the array of energy attacks.

He bounded amongst the debris of destroyed mountains, almost easily dodging all the attacks in the area. As he cleared the last of the energy volley, he morphed back into the Beast, landed on all fours, and then launched himself off the ground so hard that the rock beneath him cracked from the pressure.

With that much power, the Beast should have easily closed the distance between himself and his mate before she could have had a chance to react.

Just before the Beast could completely close the distance between them though, one of her wings snatched him out of the air and wrapped around him tighter than any steel beam in the real world.

Ahahahaha! Too bad Beastie-Poo!"

Rage squeezed her hand, tightening the huge bond around the Beast. It looked like she'd already won this battle.

"Awhooooooo!"

The Beast howled again, and she cruelly smiled as she thought it was from pain.

Kch!

However, the muscles in the Beast's body bulked out, and then her energy wing shattered.

He dropped onto the ground on all fours once more. Battle frenzy filled his eyes.

All Rage did was frown in response.

"Strange. You shouldn't be capable of breaking my magic that easily."

"Release mate!"

The Beast burst upwards once again, and Rage disappeared into a portal to avoid him this time.

She came out of it a fair distance from the Beast, who changed into a giant bird to change his upward momentum and speed toward her. The energy wing reformed on her back though, and she picked up more of the environment around her to pound the Beast with. Forcing him back to the ground to weave and dodge across the landscape as he tried to approach her again.

The speed at which this was happening was extremely fast. It was likely only people like the Flash and Superman could have kept up with it.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Many of the energy balls the Beast avoided blasted columns of sand in the air and left craters in the rock underneath as they exploded with the force of TNT. A single attack went on to hit the side of a mountain and blast a portion of it off.

The Beast realized only after seeing one ball of energy accomplish that in his peripheral vision that Master's idea of bringing the two of them into their mate's mind had been the smart thing to do.

Had this been in the real world, the fallout of their fight could have brought down the whole cave. If not the entire mountain range.

Boom!

One of the energy blasts finally landed, and the Beast's clawed paws dug through the sand into the ground beneath it as it stopped itself from flying back too far. He was missing a patch of fur on his side where the attack had landed.

"Durable I see, but let's see how you handle hundreds of these!" The demoness mocked darkly as she prepared another volley again.

The Beast's arms clenched, and then it threw itself forward with blazing speed.

Boom!

A loud boom sounded, though this time, it came from the Beast breaking the sound barrier several times over. Rage's eyes widened in surprise as she blinked and his fist appeared right in front of her face.

Pow!

The giant furry hand slammed into her, rocketing her back through the air toward a mountain.

But before she impacted against it, a portal formed behind her, and she came out above the Beast whose fist was still outstretched. Far from being angry, she was laughing jovially.

"Now that's more like it!"

An ethereal clawed fist slammed down on the Beast's back, but he changed into a large eagle midair. Swerving to the side so the rest of the strike went past it before changing back. He then grabbed the beam of energy and used it to propel himself up to punch her again.

Pow!

His punch landed against both of Rage's crimson red wings. Rage's eyes glinted wildly behind them.

"Release mate!" The Beast roared.

"That's it! Show me all you've got, Beastie!" The fake personality howled with glee.

The shockwave from the hit launched the pair back from each other. But then Rage closed the distance with another portal, and the two traded more blows as fierce as the ones from the start while in the air. All while still trying to pelt him with energy attacks from all around.

More columns of sand and rock rained down due to the force of their hits. Be it the Beast's fists or back feet, or Rage's energy hands or wings.

On particularly heavy hits, shockwaves of power sent one or the other flying in random directions.

Yet this didn't slow down the fight in the slightest, as one portal or one jump closed the distance between them over and over again faster than the speed of sound. The multiple booms weren't just from shockwaves of power, but also the speed of their respective attacks.

It felt like only a minute had passed since the fight started, but the hellish landscape they'd been fighting in had already become even scarier than before. Parts of the ground were turning red from the heat of the various attacks landing on or around them.

Pow!

And then, after a particularly heavy blow that the Beast managed to land, his mate slammed into the side of a mountain. The demoness, instead of escaping, covered herself with a dome of energy.

The Beast howled victoriously as it sped through the air as a bird of prey, changing back into his form to burst through the wall of energy and punch the strange boy's influence out of mate once and for all.

Slash!

Only, he suddenly had a very bad feeling. Be it gut instinct, or the Beast fearing a trap, his back paws dug into the hellish rock and swerved his body to the side… just in time to avoid being skewered on a black energy sword.

"Hmmm?" The Beast moved quickly to the side and darted around to face mate once again. Despite the speed of his reflexes there, the incredibly sharp blade had still managed to shave off some of the hair on his left arm.

Rage stood still for a moment. Strange, even now, her body had hesitated to make the killing blow.

Had she been too slow? It couldn't be that. Her magic was boosting her reflexes and speed to around the Beast's level. So what was it?…

The surprise of the attack must have shown on his face, as Rage darkly chuckled.

"Did you think I would just keep it to mere blunt blows? How naive.

"I am trying to kill you, you mangy furball! I will do whatever it takes to accomplish that!"

Slash!

She portaled in front of him and slashed with the energy blade again. This time, however, the Beast caught it with his claws, much to her surprise.

"Release, mate!" He howled in her face again.

"Is that all you know how to say?"

Rage formed a second energy sword in her other hand, as well as more balls of energy in the air around her.

Slash! Boom! Boom! Slash! Boom!

She unleashed a wave of offensive attacks on the Beast unlike the ones from before, forcing him back on the defensive. While he twisted and dodged some of the balls of energy, he caught others in his large paws and threw them away. Or used them to block Rage's attacks with her blades.

Rage scowled the first time this happened, and tried to dissipate the energy he was holding. Only, it didn't dissipate, and the Beast kept a firm grip on her attacks every time he caught them until he threw them at her or the other attacks she launched at him.

How was that possible? The mangy creature wasn't supposed to have any affinity for magic!

"You're really starting to aggravate me." Rage muttered darkly as her twin swords narrowly missed digging into the Beast's flesh once again.

Slash! Slash!

Boom! Slash!

"And you are… going to release… mate." The Beast's voice seemed to become a bit clearer with each sentence it said as the energy balls it'd grabbed before collided with Rage's wings, getting rid of both of them momentarily and allowing him to put on an offensive of his own while they reformed.

It was so strange trying to use human words to talk out loud. He'd only done that once before while facing Superman.

He hoped mate would appreciate it after he beat Klarion's spell out of her. He didn't quite like the idea of talking as an animal.

Any further thoughts were disrupted as Rage's wings reformed and she pushed him back with her blades. Then, with a loud Scree! from her, her wings flapped forward, and a wave of sharp red feathers flew at the Beast.

The Beast's mind went into overdrive as it moved and twisted itself through the barrage. Some of the feathers still cut into its arms and face though, leaving small bleeding gashes in their wake.

The way his mate continued to evolve with her attacks surprised him... yet also made him feel proud to be her mate.

"Ahahahaha!" Rage laughed as, this time, swords of energy appeared in her ethereal hands instead of balls.

Though he would have appreciated it if his mate really wasn't trying to kill him right now.

Rage suddenly stopped laughing and became pained. Some of the energy swords shimmered in the air. "N-No, I don't want-"

"SILENCE!" The energy swords came down all around the Beast as she chucked them at the spot the Beast had been standing one after another.

KaPow!

Imagine her surprise when the Beast appeared right behind her, his back foot slamming into her right shoulder with a force greater than a charging T. Rex.

The brief distraction Rage had inflicted on herself had not only given him the opportunity to move, but it'd only reignited his anger once again.

"RELEASE MATE!" He angrily demanded.

Rage's portal formed just in time to keep her from hitting the ground, and she came flying out of it directly at the Beast to slash with her swords. "NEVER!"

Their fight moved across the air and the ground once again.

The Beast avoided her strikes and struck back. Rage became more creative with her attacks.

The Beast jumped back to avoid a blade, only to dig an arm into the ground and hurl itself sideways as the blade lengthened immensely, spearing through the center of a mountain.

She launched another volley of sharp red feathers from her wings which the Beast managed to dodge this time, but then the feathers curved midair and he was forced to dodge towards the ground instead of launching another attack against mate.

"I grow tired of you resisting, Beastie-Poo!" Rage yelled furiously when none of her attacks managed to land.

"Awhoooooo!" The Beast howled as it grabbed the hilts of two energy swords out of the air and swung the flats of the blades at her.

Rage blocked with more of her own blades when she failed to dissipate the two blades.

Again, why couldn't she dispel her magic around the damn thing? This was so damn frustrating!

She could only assume it was because of her resistance to wanting to kill her mate. Yet Klarion's orders were absolute. She had to see them through.

So why…

The Beast propelled itself forward, and Rage moved to slash at him again with every single blade surrounding her.

Slash!

Only, the Beast's insane speed proved itself once again. She had not only missed entirely, but a gash had appeared on her face.

At least a hundred blades against two... and he'd been the one to land a hit on her.

Her hand rested against the gash in shock.

"Release, mate! Release mate!" The Beast roared over and over again as he turned around to face her.

"Stop with your puny tricks! Release our mate, now!"

Rage began to tremble.

How… how was he so strong? How was he so fast? How could he keep a hold on the magic she sent his way and still manage to hurt her despite all of her power!?

It wasn't fair… it wasn't fair!

IT WASN'T FAIR!

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The demoness shrieked in RAGE as a massive wave of energy came off her form all around her.

The Beast's eyes widened at the massive display of power. "Meep!" He quickly jumped back, just barely avoiding the wave as it tore into the ground where he'd been standing just a few milliseconds prior.

Boom!

However, the wave of power exploded outward with the force of a nuke. The shockwave sent the Beast flying back, eventually slamming him into the side of a mountain where he just barely avoided being impaled on a spiked boulder.

His ribs felt sore and his ears were ringing, but besides that, he was fine... somehow.

Looking behind himself, he barely saw a cushion of black energy before it disappeared from view entirely.

...

The Beast turned back around to face his mate.

Where Rage had been standing before, a large crater had been left in the landscape. Rage hovered over the center of it, eyes bright red with malice.

"I WILL DESTROY YOU!" Bright red energy covered the gash on Rage's face, healing the cut he'd inflicted. More energy came off the crimson wings on her back, solidifying them and almost making them look real. At least a hundred ethereal clawed hands surrounded her form. All of them began to form either balls of energy, swords, or other weapons to attack with.

Rage's own two hands sent a beam of energy toward the Beast. One which he barely launched himself to the side to avoid.

BOOM!

The entire section of the mountain that'd been behind him was erased from existence.

There wasn't any debris left. It'd been entirely disintegrated. And the ground beneath it was red hot.

Had there been any doubts before, there weren't now.

Putting themselves in here had been the worst idea his Master had come up with since tofu taco Tuesday.

"DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

With all the animals in him crying out in terror, the Beast fled into the mountains away from his mate.


The battle didn't just simply stop.

Rather, it'd become a chase scene.

Well, not one with those metal cases on wheels mind you.

The Beast also doubted they were supposed to include mountains being torn from their bases, or large giant blasts of energy that left his ears ringing and which turned parts of the landscape into molten lava.

BOOM!

"STOP RUNNING AND FIGHT ME YOU COWARD!"

BOOM!

The Beast sped out from under a mountain and crashed into the ground. He morphed into a peregrine falcon to recover from his misstep and took advantage of its smaller size and speed to zigzag its way through the spiked valley between mountains. Despite the risk of impalement, he was desperately trying to lose the demoness pursuing him.

Rage brought her hands together, and the peregrine falcon shrieked as it swerved up out of the valley just in time to avoid the two valley walls squeezing it between them like one of those waffles that mate loved to eat. Though this made him prey to all the swords and other attacks mate sent his way to try and kill him.

"STOP DODGING EVERYTHING AND JUST DIE ALREADY!" Rage shrieked again.

The Beast wasn't simply running away. Rather, he'd determined that trying to face the demoness head-on while she was this pissed off would be tantamount to suicide.

So instead of that, he was trying to get off Rage's radar so he could land a sneak attack on her instead.

It was one of the only options he could think of at this point. Punching her around simply wasn't enough. He had to pin her to the ground and cut off her voice so she couldn't use magic if he wanted to stand a chance. She'd just portal herself otherwise and come at him with another attack.

And with how pissed she was right now…

BOOM!

You know. His mate's bloodlust was hot, not gonna lie. But now wasn't exactly the time for these kinds of thoughts. Especially as the peregrine falcon had to avoid the cascade of sharp spikes Rage had carved out of an entire mountain just for him.

"STOP RUNNING FROM ME BEASTIE!"

Two more mountains came hurtling down towards the large green peregrine falcon from above. His eyes widened in shock.

Had his mate managed to portal two pieces of rock thousands of feet tall over him at the same time?!

With a loud screech, the bird of prey swerved down into another narrow spiked valley between mountains. Shrapnel rained down on it from above as the landscape folded under sheer pressure.

Ash and dust filled the air. Areas became so hot that they turned into liquid magma.

Yet the falcon flew out the other end with only a few knicks on its wings.

Rage howled furiously as she ripped apart more of the landscape trying to get at her mate.

Nevermore didn't seem to end. No matter how far the Beast flew, the mountains, the desert, and the hellish landscape itself seemed to go on further than any forest on Earth.

There were no other lifeforms to disguise itself amongst as Master did during the earlier battle. Nothing to give it the advantage it needed.

This place was nothing but death.

"DIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" And Rage wasn't letting off with any of her attacks either. It was as if her supply of energy was limitless.

The minutes passed. Yet the Beast's situation only seemed to grow worse by the minute. Even though he was focused entirely on defense, he was getting exhausted trying to stay one step ahead of his mate's many multi-pronged attacks. He'd lost count of the amount of mountains mate had thrown at him at this point.

It'd definitely been far more than what his mate had thrown at his master before now.

There was no escape, he hadn't come across the portal out of mate's mind. And there was nowhere to hide within his mate's mind…

All around, there was nothing but death. And unless he came up with a strategy quickly, his death was all but...

All of a sudden, the Beast had an idea almost as crazy as the ones that Master came up with.

Of course! There were plenty of animals that used thanatosis to escape their predators! He could fake his death and then land a sneak attack on mate right after that…

But mate was an empath too. Simply slowing his heart rate and exuding a foul smell wasn't going to be enough to fool her.

He'd have to make it convincing. Instead of just slowing down his heart rate, he'd also have to cease brain activity and all other functions long enough to convince his mate he'd died. Then he'd have to resurge fast enough for a quick and effective strike.

It'd also have to be during an attack that'd be convincing enough to make mate assume he was definitely dead.

As the Beast fled and weaved amongst the terrain, still avoiding a screaming Rage, he went through all the animals of the animal kingdom that he could use. Then, after he selected one, he thought of which traits he'd inject into it to give it the best chance of survival against attacks and which would allow him to grow from 0 to 100 as fast as possible.

"I'M GROWING TIRED OF YOUR RUNNING BEASTIE!"

The Beast flew out of another valley, and he spotted a cave at the bottom of one of the hellish mountains.

He'd obviously avoided trapping himself like this before now, but now that he had a plan in mind, he sped himself straight into it in a series of afterimages.

"Now you're resulting to hiding?! PATHETIC!"

A dome of energy covered the entire mountain. Extending down underneath in a perfect sphere.

"DIEEEEEEEE!"

Rage squeezed her hands together like she was crushing a melon. And the sphere of energy crushed in on itself too.

It was horrific. The mountain of rock was crushed together in the shrinking sphere. Tightening and compacting under pressure while becoming hotter and hotter.

The sounds were too horrific to describe. Any living being nearby would have covered their ears and howled at the sounds assaulting their eardrums.

Yet Rage kept squeezing. The sphere kept shrinking. Where a tall edifice had been before, a crater was left in the ground with a several hundred-foot diameter sphere of liquid hot magma hovering in the center of it.

Finally, at last, Rage dropped it, letting out a deep, tired breath. Rocky magma splashed all over the ground of the crater. A smaller, dozen-by-dozen rocky sphere landed in the center of the mass, glowing bright red from the heat and pressure that'd been contained on it. Yet, slowly, it cooled off just like the magma around it.

No movement or anything came from the landscape all around.

...

Rage probed the rocky sphere and the area around her for signs of life. As unlikely as it was, her mate could have somehow survived. Or he could have escaped before the sphere had formed, or her magic could have failed again and he could have gotten through the barrier, or…

She didn't detect any life around her.

There wasn't even a shred of it left to attach an emotion to.

Rage cruelly smiled, letting out a sigh of relief. At last, it was finally over. The last obstacle in his way had been eliminated.

"Goodbye, Beastie Poo. I'll certainly miss you." The fake personality cackled with glee.

Rage turned around and began to fly off back towards the portal out of her mind. To rejoin her master in the fight against the other Heroes.

"Awhooooo!"

Rage sharply turned at the howl. There was no way, how?! It'd come straight from the sphere of hot molten rock she'd formed-

The Beast appeared behind her.

He hadn't been in the rock.

No, it would have been the height of foolishness for him to hide in a cave, seeing how his mate had been ripping entire mountains off the ground. Instead, while his after-image had sped into it, he'd swerved to the side and dug deep down into the ground as a mole, getting below Rage's sphere of energy just before it formed, then he dug out a ways from there before surfacing and changing into a rare species of turtle and ceasing all of his functions and brain activity. Leaving only his sense of smell intact.

Shutting off his brain hadn't been that hard, to be honest.

Master had shown him how to cease brain activity plenty of times before that whenever mate was involved.

The Beast hadn't relied on sight or any of his other senses besides smell. He could catch the whiff of Rage's bloodlust lessening, allowing him to know she'd dropped her guard. He could also smell when her scent grew weaker, indicating she was moving away.

Lastly, just to make sure he got the drop on her, he used ventriloquism to make mate think he had somehow survived the boiling rock. Which, he had no idea if he could have done it or not.

Maybe another time, as an experiment, if they all survived this mess. And if Rage was capable of pulling off the same feat again.

The Beast pulled his hairy fist back midair, wind buffeting his hair as he appeared in front of mate just as she turned around to face him.

POW!

Yet she had no chance to react, as said fist then punched her down into the ground without a moment's hesitation.

KA-BOOM!

A shockwave rang out from the point of impact.

Blood splurted out of Rage's mouth as sand and stones flew out all around her from the monstrous crater she'd just made.

Her eyes stared up at the sky above in shock.

How… she'd probed the rock and the landscape. How… how had he fooled her so perfectly?

Had it just been the Beast, had Beast Boy himself been assisting there, or…

Had some part of herself resisted Klarion just long enough to allow this to happen?

Thinking over the previous interactions of their battle, that seemed to be the only thing that made sense. Despite putting Rage completely in control of this body and forcing her via this spell to act against her will and even planting a fake personality to intervene when her resistance grew, the other parts of Raven were still resisting.

How bothersome.

The Beast fell on top of her. Rage's four red eyes focused on him, and despite the damage she'd just taken, she still tried to raise a fist to smack the Beast away with a blade of energy.

One of his large burly fists grabbed her throat, however, preventing her from speaking. Energy fizzled in her hands, but she couldn't move her arms under the massive Beast's weight.

The Beast was choking her. Her mate…

"Yield." The Beast spoke above her.

She was at his mercy. All it would take was him flexing his claws inwards.

She tried to move, but her body could only shake its head.

"Yield!" The Beast roared.

"I… too… too strong…" Rage barely whispered out.

Even now. Even with her life on the line…

She just couldn't resist.

Rage couldn't throw off the oath she'd been forced to make with Klarion. She couldn't break free.

"Yield!" He roared again.

But if he killed her, then... Raven would be free. She and the others weren't bound to Klarion, only her.

"K... Kill me..." Rage choked out. "S... Save Raven..."

"YIELD!" The Beast roared again, this time with desperation.

She couldn't. She was doomed. And…

It'd be better for her mate to end her.

It wasn't like she'd ever liked herself that much anyway.

Tears fell from his eyes. The Beast raised its other fist into the air.

Rage closed her eyes, accepting the fate given to her. To die at the hands of her mate.

Rage softly smiled.

As short as it'd been… she'd loved her time with her precious Beastie-Poo.

Pow!

The Beast's fist collided...


Author's Notes:

I'm not sure how satisfied I am with this just yet. Again, this was shorter than what I'm used to.

Then again, I'm carrying out with cliffhangers all the way to the end. So you all got that to look forward too :P.

Till Next Time

Allen