Hooray for speedy updates! I'm pretty much psyched about this story again—I was mad at it for a while. And just to let you know, that was purely Robin's fault—that annoying little…ehem…anyway…well, I was having some trouble writing him last chapter—so I decided to take out that part altogether and just make a mean comment about him instead. But that has absolutely nothing to do with this chapter, so I guess I'll just shut up.
Oh, did anyone watch the JLU episode with Speedy? He was so completely adorable…and he got thrown on a car! It was amazing…all two minutes of his screen time.
I don't exactly feel like writing an author's note today. So…I guess you can just go ahead and read the chapter, because I'm sure you'll skip the disclaimer. This chapter is pretty long, at least compared to some of the others.
DISCLAIMER—Let's just make things simple—I don't own Teen Titans--duh. If I did, it would probably air during Adult Swim, because most of my stories would scar the Y7 audience. James is mine, along with all of his dead victims.
Porphyria
Chapter Eight – Chasing
The creature didn't leave Beast Boy with much time to feel like a pawn—within a moment, it was advancing. Beast Boy shifted to a cheetah and bolted, but the twisting, pitch-black mass was faster and soon gaining ground.
Even without the slightest idea of what was pursuing him, Beast Boy knew he couldn't take it on by himself. Slade wouldn't have lured him here to fight a battle he could win—the dream had told him as much. Somehow Beast Boy knew that if the creature killed him, it wouldn't waste any time tracking down the rest of his team. He'd have to call the other Titans after all, and hope that together they could bring it down.
Unless the creature caught him before he got the chance. Lightning forked across the forbidding sky as Beast Boy shot past a pile of haphazardly strewn debris. A surge of ghastly memories threatened to overwhelm him, but he couldn't slow down just for a few painful flashbacks.
A moment later he was out of the vulnerable open field, darting between ramshackle buildings, on a chase that was hauntingly familiar. Suddenly, two buildings behind him were literally consumed by the creature, violently exploding seconds later. A shower of metal and wooden debris rained upon Beast Boy's retreating figure, some slicing into his flesh—and the creature continued to gain on him. Aware that his chances of winning a foot race were next to nothing, Beast Boy shifted to hawk form and took to the skies.
A feeling of triumph welled up inside Beast Boy as he rose above the hulking creature—it was at least the size of a three-story building, maybe even taller. Just as Beast Boy began to relish his escape, an inky tendril shot up from the creature, straight towards him. He managed to dodge it, but three more vaulted towards him. So the skies weren't safe, either.
Desperate now, Beast Boy swooped into a dive, aiming for a nearby window. He ignored the unforgiving shards of glass that cut into his skin as he blasted through the window and collided forcefully with the concrete floor. It was a warehouse—he hated warehouses. Quickly Beast Boy returned to human form, ignoring the cuts and bruises that covered his body as he fished his communicator from his pocket. He only had a minute before the creature would find him—already he could hear at least three nearby buildings explode.
"Robin!"
His leader's face appeared on the tiny screen, scowling deeply.
"I know. We'll be there in five minutes."
The screen went blank just as the walls of the building trembled with the creature's approach. How in the world did he already know? Then in clicked—the Titans were tracking Beast Boy—they didn't trust him to keep himself out of trouble.
Well, he mused as he transformed back to a cheetah and escaped the building only a moment before it exploded, maybe he was being a little too critical. Only a little, though.
Beast Boy skidded into a turn and faced the creature, trying to discern the best way to fight it. Touching it wasn't exactly an option, unless he wanted to be blown to bits, much like half of the abandoned sector of town. Running wasn't working out too well, either.
But his train of thought was interrupted as a blue beam shot through the creature's chest, followed by another, green one, and it howled in anger A quick glance to the creature's right revealed the T-Car, and the rest of the Titans. One of Robin's bombs exploded at the creature's foot—the creature swiveled and shot out a tendril at the teens, who scattered.
Beast Boy bolted for Robin, the nearest of his friends, shifting to his human form once he was only a few feet away.
"Don't touch it!" the shape-shifter shouted, eliciting a curious expression from his leader.
"What?"
Robin got his answer an instant later, when the creature, shrieking under a barrage of star bolts, stumbled into a two-story building, which consequentially exploded.
"See?" Beast Boy didn't wait for a response, shifting to a pterodactyl. He swooped towards Cyborg, snatching his teammate into his claws and lifting them both into the stormy sky. As soon as they gained enough height, Beast Boy dove, and Cyborg shot off a few blasts from his sonic cannon, straight through the creature's left shoulder. At the last moment they rolled in midair to avoid a tendril.
A succession of three bombs collided with the creature next—the howls tore at Beast Boy's sensitive ears. But suddenly, it stopped. With a violent, ripping sound, the creature folded in on itself, and then shot off into the sky, disappearing amidst the storm clouds.
Beast Boy deposited Cyborg safely on the ground, and quickly returned to his human form. The four Titans gathered in a tight circle near the T-Car, each scanning the skies nervously, on edge and expecting another attack.
"Somebody wanna tell me what that thing was?" Cyborg asked finally, gaze still cast upwards.
"That's a good question." Robin caught Beast Boy's eyes. "Do you know?"
"Why would I?" Beast Boy asked, narrowing his eyes.
"What were you doing here?" Robin demanded. "Of all the places to go, why here?"
Beast Boy suddenly noticed that they were uncomfortably close to the pile of debris he'd noticed earlier. He shifted nervously.
"I had to come back," he said quietly.
"Why?" Starfire questioned, also obviously upset by their surroundings. Nobody wanted to be here, Beast Boy least of all, but that didn't change the fact that he'd triggered the events.
"I just did," Beast Boy explained angrily. "You didn't have to come."
"You called us," Cyborg pointed out.
"But you were already on your way here," Beast Boy countered. "How'd you know where I was?"
Robin sighed. "We tracked your communicator."
"Why?"
"It matters not." Starfire's voice was firm, but with tinges of concern. "You required our assistance to fight that monstrous creature."
Beast Boy was weary—he hadn't slept, and the chase had taken more out of him than he thought. Still, he was compelled to argue his case. "Yeah, but--" he was stopped by a sudden pain in his side.
"Look, let's just go home," Cyborg cut in. "You're bleeding everywhere, and you probably broke something else." Gently, Cyborg put a hand on his friend's shoulder and guided him towards the car—Starfire quickly opened a side door—Beast Boy climbed inside and dozed off before the door even shut.
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The afternoon sun did little to ease the autumn cool, so the two girls pulled their jackets about themselves a little tighter. To any outside observer they would have seemed to be typical teenagers, laughing and talking quietly as they picked their way across a forest path. One girl was pale, with a heart-shaped face and lilac hair that fell just short of her shoulders—the second's hair was longer and blonde, her complexion a few shades darker, and her eyes an icy blue.
Lucy treasured her visits with Tabitha, make no mistake, but she couldn't help but sense a rift. Perhaps they'd had a falling out prior to Lucy's illness, and Tabitha had merely felt bound to forgive her out of loyalty, based on a past friendship. Whatever the reason, her friend's words and actions were guarded, and obviously so.
But at least Tabitha wasn't as commanding as James. Neither had ever spoken of the past, but Tabitha alone seemed uneasy about it. Lucy sensed that with enough wheedling, cajoling, and maybe even downright begging, she might force the girl to crack. Since James was no where in sight, it was probably the best time to make her move.
"Tabitha?"
"Hmm?"
Instead of dancing around the subject, Lucy got straight to the point. "Tell me about the others."
Tabitha didn't even try to hide her shock. "What?"
"James told me that out of all my friends, you're the only one who stuck around. What were the others like? Who were they?"
"You're not supposed to ask these kind of questions," Tabitha said dismissively. "This could make things harder on you—much harder than they need to be."
Lucy stepped in Tabitha's path, stopping the girl in her tracks. "I need to know. Come on Tabitha, you two can't keep things like this from me. It's my life, I deserve to know."
"It's not your life anymore." Tabitha stepped around Lucy and continued, dead leaves crunching with every determined footstep. Lucy remained rooted to her spot.
"Well it was."
"They abandoned you, Lucy," Tabitha glanced back, but kept her pace. "What else do you need to know?"
Resignedly, Lucy followed Tabitha, but her interrogation was relentless.
"I want to understand why. What made them give up on me?"
"Believe me, you weren't the first one." Tabitha's tone was surprisingly bitter.
"What do you mean?"
Tabitha sighed. "James wouldn't like this."
"I don't care."
Another sigh escaped Tabitha's lips. "There were six of us, counting you and me." She paused.
"Yes?"
"Why do you even care?" Tabitha asked in exasperation. "What am I supposed to tell you?"
"Everything," Lucy said, without missing a beat.
"Look, they were your friends first—you knew them better." Tabitha was clearly agitated, but Lucy pressed on.
"Except I don't remember them, so now you know them best," Lucy pointed out. "What did you mean, I'm not the first one they gave up on."
"They abandoned me, too," Tabitha explained quietly.
Lucy could honestly say that she hadn't expected that. "Why?" she asked, after a moment of silence.
When Tabitha spoke again, she was obviously struggling to control some deep-rooted anger, maybe even pain. "Because they didn't believe in me. They didn't care enough."
Another moment passed quietly. "Did I abandon you, too?" she asked finally.
"We don't' have to go there," Tabitha said quickly.
"Yes, we do."
"It isn't important." Tabitha's tone said that the conversation was over, but Lucy paid it little heed.
"Why are you here if I didn't believe in you when you needed me to?" Lucy questioned.
Tabitha heaved yet another great sigh. "Okay, let me put it this way, Lucy. We weren't exactly the best of friends back then. But now circumstances out of our control have brought us both here, and there's nothing either of us can do about it. We have a lot more in common now, so we've got to stick together."
As confusing as that explanation was, it cleared a few things up. One, there definitely had been some bad blood in the past, and two, Tabitha was unhappy with her current situation—and as a third point, she didn't seem exactly thrilled about Lucy's either.
"Anyway, we're here," Tabitha said suddenly, snapping Lucy back to reality.
They'd arrived at the shore of a small, secluded pond, ringed by towering tress that cast the surface in a cool shadow. Their faces were reflected in the blue-green water, which lapped against the bank tenderly and cautiously. The wood was silent, save for the tittering voices of the unseen forest creatures, and the gentle cascade of the waterfall that fed the pond.
Lucy knelt and dipped her hand into the chilly water, amazed as one of the silky, smooth fish brushed against her fingers. There were about twenty goldfish in all, speckled white, red, and orange—each at least a foot long, except for their young, which darted between the elders.
"They're not afraid," Lucy said, slightly surprised by the boldness of the small creatures.
Tabitha reached in hesitantly, but the fish darted off the instant her flesh made contact with the water. The blonde pulled her hand back just as quickly.
"I guess they like you," she told Lucy, shrugging the moment off.
Lucy frowned, giving Tabitha a serious stare. "Alright, so what else?" she asked her friend suddenly, catching her off guard.
"I've told you enough," Tabitha said with a scowl. "Stop asking questions."
"Why shouldn't I ask them?" Lucy demanded.
"Have you been taking your medicine?" Tabitha shot back.
Lucy rolled her eyes, sick and tired of that question. "That has nothing to do with this."
"You're sick, Lucy," Tabitha said seriously. "I know you've gotten better, but you've still got a while to go. You need that medicine. And who knows—maybe your memories will come back once you're well again."
"James doesn't think so." Lucy stared at the water despondently.
"Well, maybe he's wrong," Tabitha suggested.
Lucy looked up, hope evident in her expression. "Really?"
Tabitha smiled and nodded. "Just stay on the medicine, okay? There's no telling what might go wrong if you don't."
TBC
Beast Boy just got tossed around a little bit, so that can't count as me being mean. I could have, like, had the creature eat him or something, but no, I was kind…for once. And that was officially the longest scene that Raven/Lucy has been in all story. I really enjoyed writing that bit between Raven/Lucy and Tabitha…but the good times are still to come.
My goldfish made an appearance in this chapter—there are actually eighteen of them, and we've had them for about 4 years now. They live in a pond in our yard in the winter, and in a tub in the garage in the winter. And yes, they do let you pet them, and the babies give fishy kisses. The big ones are all "rescued" feeder fish from the store, but the rest were all born in our pond.
So…I gave you a long chapter, and an update just a week after the last one. I am now officially a good person…or something like that.
As always, please review—you know by now that I absolutely LOVE hearing from you, and I'll respond if you're signed.
Cross your fingers in hopes of another speedy update.
Child of a Pineapple