An Authors note: To anyone who was wondering how in the world Beast Boy could pick Raven up when he is shorter than her in the show…well let's just say he hit a growth spurt, okay? He's about Robin's height now.

Once again, I will be referencing Lovecraft again. I felt that the Uglies needed to worship a Lovecraft god. I choose Shub-Niggurath, The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, because the Uglies kind of resemble goats (but, no, they are not the Thousand Young, they just look like goats). Seemed logical to me.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Escape

Beast Boy ran down the hallway as fast as he could go while just a human. He mentally ran through a list of animals in head, trying to think of one that could carry Raven and run at the same time. He could not really think of any at the moment, but that could be because the smell of her blood was distracting him. He had always hated the smell of blood, because it both disgusted and made him hungry at the same time (in a food kind of way). He could not change the fact that he had about twenty different carnivores inside him, and they all loved the smell of blood, which disgusted not only his human side, but the poor herbivores inside him as well. Sometimes he wondered how in the world he stayed reasonably sane with all those different instincts inside of him.

"No," she moaned, her eyes closed. "Get out. Stop it."

Now worried that Raven was losing her mind, Beast Boy looked down at her.

"What's wrong?" He asked, wondering if she was delirious or something like that.

Raven opened her eyes and focused on Beast Boy. He took that as a good sign.

"Remember when I went into Robin's mind? That bond is still there. He's trying to use it. To find us."

"But, isn't that a good thing?" Beast Boy asked, trying really hard not to be jealous of Bird-Boy.

"Don't want people in my head like that…too much like…familiars." She muttered. Her eyes were starting to droop. She looked like she was going to faint again.

"Rae…" Beast Boy started, but she was unconscious again.

Beast Boy growled in frustration. This was going nowhere! He needed to find the others!

He needed something that could carry Raven safely, fight anyone in his way, and could track the others…wait a minute! The Beast! It could go on two or four legs, so it could carry Raven. It was tough and it had a good nose. He thought he could control it…he hoped.

He concentrated, and felt the green fur sprout. His muscles grew and his claws lengthened. He made sure that they did not accidentally scrape Raven as they sprouted. Soon the transformation was complete; in fact he seemed to be getting better and better at the whole Beast thing. He stared down at the young girl in his arms and suddenly he got a very strange urge. He leaned down and started licking the blood off of Raven's head. It took him five minuets to realize what he was doing and felt disgusted at himself. Maybe he didn't have as much control as he thought…but then most animals licked their, um, packmates when they were hurt. Right?

Right.

His long, dog like ears picked up the sounds of battle. Making sure that Raven was secure in one long arm he propelled himself forward, ready to fight anyone who got in his way.

In the distance he heard something, or someone, shouting.

"Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!"

The Beast snarled and braced himself for battle.

Robin growled and closed his eyes again, for what felt like the fifth time. He knew that Raven could tell that he was trying to contact her, but she kept trying to shake him off. He could feel her trying to shut him out, but he had no idea why. It was annoying, and it was frustrating him to no end.

"Why is trying to shut me out like this?" he growled aloud.

"How can you feel her in your mind?" Illeria asked. "Are you a physic? "

"Um, not exactly." Robin said. "One time she kind of went into my mind when I was, um, kind of having a nervous breakdown."

Illeria stopped in the middle of the hall and glared at Robin. She walked over to him and pointed a long claw in his face.

"Describe in more detail." She growled.

Robin tried to explain as best he could. He described what had happened and what she had done. He told them how now he could sometimes feel what Raven was feeling, even though it was weak and a bit on the shaky side.

"Sounds like a familiar bond." Winterwing growled.

"Huh?" Robin looked at the winged wolf in puzzlement.

"He means that when a magic user enters someone's mind like that, there is a strong chance that a familiar bond can be made between the two." Illeria said. "It does not happen that often, but if the two minds involved are very similar than a minor familiar bond will form. They are usually weak bonds, but still there."

"So…what does that mean?" Robin asked, still confused.

Jinx rolled her eyes. "Idiot, it means that you're basically Raven's familiar. Congratulations."

Robin was stunned "Is that possible, aren't familiar's supposed to be animals?"

Winterwing snorted. "Why are Deaf Ones so arrogant? You think that you are too special to bond to another? Familiar bonds between two humans are very possible, though it is rare when done in this manner."

"But, why didn't she tell me about this?" Robin asked.

Illeria shrugged. "Fear, probably. Familiars can tap into their wizard's powers and abilities, and since her powers are demonic in nature she probably wanted to keep you from tapping into them."

It made sense, but Robin still would have to talk to Raven as soon as he found her. He really hated to be left in the dark.

Robin shook off his frustration as they approached a likely looking door. It was big and gold and decorative. It probably led to the main part of the castle. He tightened his grip on Whistler, which was humming in what Robin supposed was frustration. He could somehow tell the sword didn't like him at all.

They bust through the doors and found a very…interesting sight. "Team Two" was fighting a group of guards in the middle of what looked like the main foyer or something like that. All around them their night horses were galloping about, crashing into priceless vases, kicking expensive portraits, bashing into the walls and basically causing chaos. Robin and his group spent at least ten seconds staring at the chaos with wide eyes. Suddenly, someone literally swooped down and gave Robin a bone-grinding hug.

"Oh, Robin, you are unharmed!" Starfire squealed, causing some harm of her own with her killer hugs.

"Star, I need to breath." He gasped out, and Starfire released him.

Robin looked around as the last of the guards were dispatched. "Okay." He said "Now we just have to find-"

He was interrupted by the loud howling of the Beast, who burst through a pair of doors at the top of some stairs. He had Raven in his arms, who was still out cold. Blood was running down the Beast's arms and back in little rivers, and the other's guessed that he must have been in a fight. The Beast paused and howled at them urgently, and waved the arm not holding Raven at them, as if trying to tell them to go away.

About five seconds later a herd of Uglies rushed in after the Beast, who leapt from the top of the stairs to the ground in front of the others. He snarled at them, and this time they got the message: Run!

"Let's go, forget the tunnel! Out the front door!" Robin bellowed, but it was too late. The Uglies had swarmed over the walls and the ceiling and even the doorways, and there was no way out.

Good lord, what is this? Custer's last stand? Robin thought, and that was what it felt like: the last stand of the Titans.

The Uglies snarled and drool and advanced, and few of them (the bigger ones) were even speaking. They were not speaking words that Robin understood; to him it was just a bunch of gibberish or a strange and different language:

"Iä!"

"Iä!"

"Shub-Niggurath!"

"Yig!"

"Ghatanothoa!"

"Rhan-Tegoth!"

"Nug!"

"Yeb!"

Robin really did not care what they meant, however. They could be singing the Star-Spangled Banner for all he cared. All he was worried about was whether or not he could use Whistler. He felt something large stand next to him and he looked over to find that Hotrod had come over and stood next to him, as if the night horse was trying to protect him. In fact, that was exactly what he was doing. Hotrod was not the only one, all of the Titan's night horses were coming over and standing next to their riders. All except Mithrah. Instead, he looked over at Raven with a pained expression, and then walked a couple of paces in front of Robin, facing the Uglies like a gunslinger facing off with the bandit band. He reared and screamed in defiance and anger, his hoofs flailing and his wings flapping. His horns sparked like mad and his lips were drawn completely over his teeth.

He was not a happy night horse.

As if this was a signal the Uglies lunged toward them all at once. Robin found himself slashing at them with Whistler, trying desperately not to be crushed by the mob of Uglies. They were everywhere, even above them in the air. Green flashes of light exploded everywhere as Starfire blasted Uglies to oblivion, not daring to fly into the thick flock of airborne Uglies. Cyborg was using both his sonic cannon and his huge fist at the same time, not even really bothering to aim. There were so many opponents to hit that he literally could not miss even if he had been blind. The same went for Illeria. She had pulled out a bow from somewhere and was shooting Uglies out of the air with a speed that none of the Titans had ever seen before. It was obvious that when it came to archery Illeria was even better than their fellow Titan Speedy. And she was accurate as well; every sharp arrow hit an eyeball without fail. Arcktos was only using his fists, but what he hit generally stayed down. While Jinxes hexes where not really deadly on there own she was using them to make quite a bit of the architecture fall down on top of Uglies, and within moments the place was almost entirely devoid of pretty portraits and the remaining vases and such. Sparks flew from the night horse's horns as they zapped Ugly after Ugly. The dwarfs were mowing through the Uglies with reckless abandon.

As for Beast Boy, he had put Raven down on the ground and was now standing over her, viciously slashing at any Ugly that came near him or her. He never moved once, even though he was badly hurt. He refused to let them come anywhere near Raven.

And that was how Raven finally woke up; the first thing she saw was a rather hairy green body standing over her. Of course, a certain emotion of hers decided to speak up.

"Isn't he wonderful?" Love said.

"Huh?" Was Raven's brilliant reply.

"Look at him. He's risking everything to save you. You know I-"

"Okay, stop right there! Don't even say it!"

"You really enjoy lying to yourself, don't you?" Love said, sounding amused.

"Why are you even bringing this up at a time like this?" Raven thought back, rather peeved that her strangely lovesick (well, naturally, she was Love after all), was sitting there ooing over Beast Boy while they were about to be slaughtered by monsters. Sometimes she wondered why her emotions had to be represented by living thinking clones of her that could endlessly bug her whenever they wanted. Gave a whole new meaning to arguing with yourself.

She tried to sit up, but was brought to a halt when pain jolted up the leg that Sanath had stomped on. Drat! It felt like it was broken, maybe badly.

Suddenly the green form above her descended, and Raven wondered what in the world Beast Boy was doing. Then she noticed the huge monster on his back, clawing and biting and tearing with all it's might. Beast Boy roared and flung it away, but still he could barely stay on his feet. He was hurt, and badly. He had a least a thousand bites and scratches, some of them very deep, and he was losing a lot of blood. He couldn't keep his form, and he shifted back to human. He could not even stand anymore, but he still was leaning over Raven, trying to protect her with his body.

"Beast Boy…" She whispered, and he looked down at her.

"Hey, Rae…" He was holding her now, and for some stupid reason he was grinning like an idiot. "I never told you this, but I might not get a chance later, so I'll just say it. Raven, I l-"

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" The familiar phrase made the other Titans pause, but it had not been Raven's voice. The voice was female, but deep and commanding. A ball of light streaked toward them from somewhere and hovered over the battlefield. It expanded to encompass the Titans and their allies, but pushed the Uglies away. The Titans found themselves in a bright golden shield similar to the black ones that Raven would sometimes use to protect them. They could see the Uglies lunging at the shield, but it was far too strong for them to break.

Standing in the middle of the shield was a…woman? She was defiantly female, but she had the lower body of a chestnut horse. She was wearing a white robe, so the Titans guessed she was a priestess, like Raven.

"Twainisa." Raven stared at the centaur, who gave her a brief, unreadable look. With a gesture she muttered the incitation again, and the Titans felt themselves being teleported away in a flash of gold.

Glare, who had finally managed to get out of the jail cell, really did not want to talk to Sanath at the moment. He knew perfectly well that there was something wrong with Sanath, but he did not know what to do. In truth he hated what they were doing, but he could not leave Sanath alone. Sanath had saved Glare's life once, and he did not want to just abandon him. He thought that if he tried hard enough he could find something to pull Sanath away from the brink, but so far nothing Glare had done had worked.

Glare sighed and opened the door to Sanath's room. Before the rat like Halfblood could say anything Sanath spoke.

"They are gone, aren't they?"

Glare paused. "Yes." He finally said. He looked into Sanath's eyes, and saw nothing but the insanity that had possessed his friend completely. In truth, Glare was glad that Raven was gone. Poor girl had enough problems without this.

"Find them. I want her back. And bring me the green one's head on a spike, while you are at it. And get the monsters ready. We are heading to the Nazlar kingdom now."

Glare really wanted to tell Sanath to get someone else to order about, but he didn't. He never did. He just could not seem to deny his crazy friend. Maybe he was a coward.

I hope that girl runs as far and as fast as she can. Glare thought.

Robin looked around at the place that the centaur lady had teleported them to. It looked like they were in the woods outside of the city. He quickly took an assement of the team. Almost none of them had come away unscathed. Even he had blood running down his arms where the Uglies had tried to rip them off at the roots. The worst off, however, was Beast Boy. It looked like he had been used for a dog toy. The female centaur was walking toward him, her hand encased in a strangely familiar bluish light. Robin remember that Raven had used that light to heal people, and his suspicions were confirmed when the centaur touched Beast Boy and he was healed almost instantly. She then went to the others, healing every one of them. Robin wondered how she did that so easily. She somehow seemed better at it than Raven had been before she lost her powers.

"Who are you?" he asked when the centaur was done.

"Her name is Twainisa." Raven said as she stood up. She walked over to the centaur and gave her an odd look. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving your hide." Twainisa replied with a smirk.

"Never thought that you would leave the library." Raven said with her own smirk.

"Well, I did." Twainisa replied.

"So, you're friends?" Cyborg looked at the two of them in confusion.

"Yes." Twainisa said "She's the only Biped I could ever stand. One of the few I've meet capable of complex thought patterns."

"Er…what now?" Beast Boy stared at the centaur, who just gave him a look that suggested that he was a bug.

"Considering the fact that I became a High Priestess before you did-" Raven said, but the centaur interrupted her.

"Like I said, the only one capable of complex thought patterns."

"I see you have not changed." Raven said.

"Hmmm, I'm a centaur, remember?"

"Given the fact that you remind me every four seconds it would be very hard to forget."

"If you two are done picking at each other, can we get back to the problem at hand?" Illeria said with a little grin.

"Illeria? When did you get here?" Raven had not noticed her foster sister until just now.

"I was looking for you, not to mention trying to figure out what happened to the Caninoids."

"Great, is this a reunion? Who else is going to show up?"

"ME!" A certain prince bellowed from behind Raven. She spun around and stared at her childhood friend. For a moment she forgot that she was supposed to be emotionless person.

"Arcktos!" she said, and threw her arms around him. Behind them, Beast Boy seethed.

"Hey!" Illeria shouted. "Why does drool face get the hug? What about your sister?"

Raven stared at her for about ten seconds, and then decided that she might as well. The other Titans were beginning to get a little freaked out by this. Sure, the reaction might be normal for most people, but this was Raven we were talking about. Raven, who seemed to be almost allergic to human touch.

Raven then turned to Twainisa , and smirked again. "What about you?"

Twainisa gave Raven a look and snorted in a horsy way. "I'm a centaur, you know we do not hug."

"Great, wonderful." Cores growled "Are we done now, we still have an emergency on our hands here."

"Right, so, did you find anything out, Raven?" Robin asked.

Raven told them what she had found out. It did not take long at all.

"The Nazlar have to be warned!" Arcktos growled.

"Right, but so should the priests as well." Raven said. "You know that Arucules will want to stop this, and I doubt the General will just stand around doing nothing."

"So, what do we do?" Cyborg asked.

"Is it not obvious?" Twainisa said in a condensing tone. "Some of us should return to the temple and inform Arucules and the General, while the rest of us should head for the Nazlar kingdom. Frankly, Raven, I believe that you should be one of the ones to go to the Nazlar kingdom. They might be more willing to listen to someone of their own blood."

"I…doubt they will listen to me." Raven said softly.

"I'll go." Arcktos said, to Beast Boy's frustration.

"Me as well." Winterwing growled.

"And me." Illeria said and grinned at Raven. "I have a lot of catching up to do with you, Raven."

"Super." Raven said her old monotony coming back full force as she rolled her eyes.

"Okay, I think that us Titans should go with Raven, so that just leaves you dwarfs and Twainisa to go back to the temple." Robin said, trying to take charge again.

"I don't need you to tell me what to do, boy." Twainisa said stiffly "I had every intention of going back home as soon as I was sure that Raven was safe. Goodbye" With that she teleported herself and the dwarfs away, leaving some very stunned Titans behind.

An Author's note: Okay, I just came up with that Raven and Robin familiar thing on the fly. I hope no one is offended, it is NOT a lame attempt at a Rob/Rae at all! It's just a plot twist I found fun.

And those words that the Uglies were chanting? Those were some Lovecraft god names associated with Shub-Niggurath. Fun, huh?