What's this? A new chapter? Already? Boy I must be on a roll! That being said, here's to hoping you read, review, and enjoy! In this new chapter, a now very much calmed down and non Beast-ified Beast Boy manages to both look back on the unpleasant 'revelation' that led to the Beast's rampage from a less emotionally clouded perspective . . . and also become aware of a very real and dangerous trap that he has now unwittingly allowed Raven to enable herself to get caught in. Sound exciting? I certainly hope so! And that being said, onward with the fic!

A/N: But first, I'll just quickly remind you all again that I do not own Teen Titans. NOW onward with the fic!

Chapter 11:

The Perks of Eavesdropping

Beast Boy lay on the grassy ground within the small clearing in the forest, panting and gasping from exhaustion. At the current moment, he was back in his human form, and his suit was quite tattered from the result of the Beast wresting control to itself instead of Beast Boy willingly taking on its form. But unlike the previous two times in which the Beast had initiated the transformation during its first moments of surfacing from three years ago, this time Beast Boy had full memory of everything that had happened.

"Man," he thought to himself. "The Beast really was angry after last night; angrier then I thought." He weakly turned his head to face the direction that led towards the tower. "And boy this is gonna be a tough threshold to come back from." He sighed. "And today had been going so well to."

Beast Boy lowered his head to the ground, sighing heavily in exhaustion and regret. "Man, what does it take for me to have a 100% happy day on Valentine's Day anymore?" He turned his head towards the area directly in front of him. "And all because of some horridly gone wrong rendezvous last night . . ."

He sighed, and lowered his head so that it was touching the ground once more. For a long while, he remained positioned in this manner. "Boy my life sucks," he thought to himself.

Eventually, he managed to calm down to the point that he was able to start thinking on the matter particularly strongly, and he found himself raising his eyebrow in confusion at one of his own thoughts. "Did Raven really think that guy was her secret admirer?" Now that he thought about it, the very idea sounded ridiculous and quite uncharacteristically dumb on Raven's part.

"Now that I think about it," he thought to himself, his face dropping and ears drooping as he rather belatedly came to the realization that his four fellow founders had realized not too long ago. "I didn't even really hear anything they were actually talking about, or stick around long enough to really see enough to get the full picture." He hung his head, now feeling quite ashamed of himself. "What was I thinking?" he thought to himself. "Of course she didn't mistake that schmuck for her secret admirer. He was probably just someone she considered a friend among the civilian populace. And me being the drama prince I am, I completely jumped to the wrong conclusion."

Beast Boy slammed his face upon the ground. "And here I am getting annoyed and rankled whenever they call me an idiot," he grumbled to himself. "When even now I'm still making stupid mistakes like this one." He lifted up his clenched fists and slammed them down in annoyance. "God I'm such a brainless fool!"

The sound of rustling reached his ears from the undergrowth. His head snapped up, ears up and eyes widened and alert. "What was that?" he thought to himself.

He listened carefully. The rustling appeared again. He crouched forward, his eyes narrowed, and the rest of his body likewise on fully alert mode. He rose up so that he was standing on all fours, still glaring in the direction from which he'd heard the rustling, and morphed into a cougar. He silently crawled through the forest in his careful stalking of the unseen figure responsible for the rustling that had now alerted him to its presence.

After what felt like an eternity of carefully following the sound of the rustling, Beast Boy finally managed to overhear what sounded like someone talking, and he silently creeped up closer. He came to a stop behind a large tree standing before what looked like a sizeable clearing. It was from this clearing that the voice he was now hearing was coming from.

The green cougar remained crouched behind the tree, listening carefully to the voice . . . its eyes narrowed, make that voices that were now emanating from the clearing he was positioned by. Both of them indicated that the speakers were clearly men, and of the two, he could quite easily recognize one of them. His eyes narrowed upon recognition of said voice. It was the goth boy he'd caught Raven speaking to at the intended rendezvous point from the previous night. The other voice, however, he was not above admitting to have never once heard in his life.

"You're telling me this now?" the unfamiliar voice growled, clearly having heard something that he was not at all pleased to know about.

"I'm sorry," spoke the goth boy. "Look, I did what you asked ok? I worked to get things set up so that she would at least potentially drop by tonight so I could lead her into the trap. But hey, for the record, I did say that I didn't know for sure that she would actually be able to accompany me on a late night walk through the woods tonight. And clearly, judging by how half an hour has passed since the time I was originally planning to start the walk and I still haven't received the signal she promised to send in the event that she'd be able to join me tonight, then presumably, she got held up by scheduling conflicts and we'll just have to reschedule."

Beast Boy's cougar eyes narrowed, and he just barely managed to keep himself from letting out a low feline hiss. "So the Beast and I were half right," he thought to himself. "He can't be trusted."

The other figure snarled, clearly not happy. Then the figure appeared to take deep breaths and calm himself down. "I see," spoke the figure. "I will admit it was careless on my part to assume that the sorceress would be automatically guaranteed to show up to accompany you on a walk in this forest tonight. I should have made absolutely sure of that detail before I gave the all clear to my other hopeful subordinate to prepare himself for tonight's ambush." There was a brief pause. "I shall contact him soon to let him know of the setback. From there, we shall work out a proper time to reschedule the plan. For now, it's best that you . . ."

An unexpected electronic ringing split the air, very nearly startling Beast Boy into giving himself away and very clearly interrupting what the mysterious figure had been about to say. The figure in question could now be heard growling. "By his Malevolence, I hate this modern day technology."

Beast Boy's cougar eyes widened. "This guy works for the big shot downstairs," he thought to himself. He listened intently, desperate to see if he could gather any more useful intel.

The mysterious figure managed to activate the phone. "Who is this?"

"It's me."

The chartreuse yellow-green eyes of Beast Boy's cougar form widened again. This voice was another one he recognized; and this voice belonged to a person that he viewed with even stronger distaste then the goth boy. "Adonis," he thought to himself.

"Anderson," said the mysterious figure. "I was not expecting you to call."

"Well I'm sorry to disappoint," Adonis responded in a sarcastic manner. "But never mind that, I've caught sight of the witch."

Beast Boy's cougar eyes widened, and he tensed up in shock and horror. Judging by the silence coming from the clearing, the goth boy and the mysterious higher up were equally surprised.

"She's here?" asked the unfamiliar figure. "In the forest?"

"Well she's not, technically, in the forest," spoke the voice of Adonis. "But I can still see her hovering right above the trees in front of me right now; so yeah, she's here. And that's another reason I called. One, she's flying. And two, that schmuck you said would be walking with her and leading her to me, I don't see him anywhere. And I haven't caught any sign of him being anywhere in the area. Am I still good to go in spite of that? Or do I need to abort?"

"Abort, abort, abort," Beast Boy thought to himself desperately, even though he knew quite well how very unlikely the mysterious figure would be to abort the mission just as a result of him mentally willing the figure to do so without mind control powers.

"No need to worry," said the mysterious figure. "I will admit; the plan has unfolded somewhat differently from what was intended. But regardless, she's coming to the forest and shouldn't be airborne forever. And yes, I'm saying you're free to do your part in the plan, and thus attempt to fulfill your little test. Follow her from the ground as best as you can, and try your hardest not to lose sight of her. And that being said, make sure you are at a reasonably close distance from her when she lands."

With every word he heard, Beast Boy felt his heart sink deeper and deeper and his brain become increasingly icier from horror. "Oh no, no, no," the shapeshifter thought to himself. It took all his willpower not to growl in anger at his unwitting responsibility for the current situation. "Damnation!" he thought to himself. "She's on her way here to search for me and make sure I'm ok." He turned his head towards the direction of the clearing. "And now, all because of that, she's unwittingly flying right into a trap! God I'm an idiot!"

"And after she lands?"

"You still have that little secret weapon I gave you?"

Beast Boy's eyes widened again upon hearing this. "Secret weapon?" he thought to himself. "That can't be good."

"Yep," Adonis responded. "Still got it. Though I will admit, even in this casing, I can still smell it."

"Well at least you have the sense not to open the case and then smell it," said the voice of the mysterious higher up. "One direct whiff of that stuff, and you'd be paralyzed for an hour; and you're going to need that witch immobilized for a great deal longer than that if you want to bring her to me alive instead of dead."

"Definitely not good," Beast Boy thought to himself.

"But never mind that," said the 'boss' figure. "Once she's landed, and you're in a suitable position, you are to throw the case containing the liquid towards her. The casing is very fragile, and easily shattered if subjected to sufficient levels of force. Once the casing breaks, the resulting aftermath should be enough to get the sorceress out of commission; though I'd still recommend you try your hardest to avoid getting caught in the blast when it happens. Paralyzing the target will be of no use if you get yourself immobilized as well."

"Understood," replied Adonis. "And after she's immobilized?"

"Like I said yesterday," said the mysterious figure. "Feel free to do as you wish before meeting back up with me at that cave I showed you before sending you off to get ready; but only as long as you are able to make it back there by midnight. And for God's sake be prudent about it! Her teammates may yet drop by the forest themselves, and regardless of how high of a dosage she gets, the sorceress won't stay immobilized forever."

"Watch my time, got it," said Adonis. "Ok, she's still in my sight range so far, but that could easily change within the next couple minutes, so I'd better go now."

"Yes, go now," said the voice of the hidden boss figure. "I will be waiting for you at the rendezvous point. Good luck."

"Roger that." No sooner had Adonis made this response when another electronic beep split the air; this one signaling that the mysterious boss figure had now hung up the phone.

"Well then," said the hidden boss. "It seems there will no longer be any need to reschedule the plan."

"So there won't," responded the goth boy. "But even so, did you really have to let him get off the hook for calling me a schmuck?"

"That's hardly a reason for reprimanding someone boy," the hidden figure growled. "And regardless, it does not matter now. In any event, regardless of whether or not he succeeds in his test and proves himself worthy of joining my cause, I will make very much sure that you will have no need to worry about having to deal with his more disrespectful tendencies."

"If you say so," said the goth boy. A brief pause unfolded. "You know, about what you said just now about succeeding in assigned tasks, I do believe I also fulfilled my own little task you assigned me, technically speaking."

"So you did."

"Well in that case," the goth boy paused. "Forgive me if this sounds disrespectful in its own right, but I believe you promised me . . ."

"Oh yes, your reward," said the mysterious figure. "Fear not. I haven't forgotten about my promise; and you will get your reward as promised."

"Thank you."

"But not yet. For now, I need to focus on my hopeful recruit's current efforts, and I can't risk you getting caught with what I promised to give you outside your lair in your current form. Don't lose heart, I will keep to my end of the bargain, but not right now. There's too much at stake at the current moment."

"If you say so," responded the goth boy. "So what should I do now?"

"For now, I'd recommend you return to your home. The last thing I need is for the sorceress or one of the other Titans to catch you here in the same area as me and the hopeful recruit. I'll meet you at a later date. Got that?"

"Understood," said the goth boy.

"Good, now let's get out of here."

"Roger that."

At the sound of that, Beast Boy tensed up, crouching down so as to allow even less of himself to be easily seen. And as he remained thus hidden, he saw the goth boy run out of the clearing right past where he was positioned. About a minute after the goth boy's departure, he heard the distinctive sound he remembered always hearing whenever Raven summoned a shadow portal, and saw a glow of black light shining from the clearing from out of the corner of his eyes. When the black flash of light faded, he instantly knew that the mysterious figure who had been conversing with the goth boy and Adonis had departed from the clearing himself.

For about another 5-10 minutes, Beast Boy remained crouched and in hiding by the tree, just to be absolutely certain that it would be safe to get out of hiding. He straightened up out of his crouching mode and walked into position right in front of the clearing entrance that the goth boy had used to exit and enter the clearing.

"Finally they're gone," he thought to himself. Then he looked up towards the sky. "But

Raven's still in the area looking for me. And now, Adonis is after her." He growled, and crouched again as if about to pounce. "I've gotta find her," he thought to himself. "I've gotta warn her."

With a snarl, he leaped into the air, transforming into a great horned owl in the process. And with that, he flew into the air and started soaring around above the trees in search of Raven. "Where are you Raven?" he thought to himself as he carefully scanned the area around him with his exceptionally strong owl vision. "Where are you?" He looked around some more, letting out a small series of low hoots in the process. "Come on Garfield," he thought to himself. "You can do this. Raven's safety, her honor, and potentially even her life, depends on you." His eyes narrowed, and if his current form had allowed him the ability, he would have growled. "And there ain't no way I'm letting that nasty little vermin Adonis have his way with her. Not now, not back then, not ever."

And just like that, another chapter done! And wow, this chapter's even shorter than the previous one (and now that I think the next one after this, and potentially the one following that one, could very well end up pretty short as well). But regardless, here's to hoping you enjoyed reading this chapter and that you leave plenty of feedback! As per usual, I require at least one review (plus completion of the next chapter) for this chapter before I post the next chapter! Get it? Got it? Good! Again, hope you enjoyed! ^_^

Coming up Next: The trap is sprung!