"Raven! Wake up wake up wake up!"
Raven shifted just enough to grab another pillow and jam it over her head. "Go 'way."
"C'mon! You said today!"
She woke up enough to realize the voice was Beast Boy's. He continued happily, "You said I could change today and it's seven already! I can't wait!"
What was he doing in here? What was he doing standing next to her bed?
"Beast Boy," she growled, getting more and more irritated as she came awake fully, "what are you doing-" she sat up, scattering the pillows – "in my room?"
There was no one there.
Raven looked around wildly for a moment, then realized. The last two weeks she had spent monitoring her teammate almost constantly. Now that the Beast's energy had been at least partially subdued, her brain was easily and automatically tuning in to Radio Beast Boy. She reached out. He was awake and anxious to change – but he was also halfway across the Tower in the common room. He hadn't meant to bother her at all.
Raven sat up and rested her elbows on her bent knees, rubbing her hands across her face and shaking her head wryly. Two weeks teaching him and I get caught out like a half-trained neophyte. She calmed herself, and checked the Tower and its occupants to make sure everything was fine. It was. Whispering a chant, she raised her shields completely for the first time in two weeks, desperately grateful for what seemed like the deepest, most peaceful silence after all the close mind contact with Beast Boy.
She savored the peace all through her meditation on the roof, her shower, and getting dressed. It was just what she needed to recharge. It wouldn't last – she had to walk Beast Boy through a series of changes to make sure his power was still working properly – but it was wonderful nonetheless.
She was almost smiling as she entered the common room. Beast Boy was sitting on the couch channel surfing while the other Titans had breakfast. Raven fixed tea and toast and sat at the table.
Beast Boy bounced over. "Raven! You said I could change today!"
She nodded, chewing toast.
"Well, when? Now? Can I start now? Dude, I can't wait –"
"Give it a rest, B. Girl hasn't even had her breakfast yet." Cyborg got up from the table. "Let her finish eating. That should be long enough for me to beat you in MegaFight – oh, fifty times." He grabbed Beast Boy and frog-marched him toward the couch, winking at Raven as he passed.
Blessed silence and she was going to get to finish her food without being pestered for half an hour. This was turning out to be a great morning.
Robin leaned across the table, keeping his voice down even though Cyborg and Beast Boy were in the middle of one of their innumerable loud fighting games. "Has he got it under control?"
"I can't be sure without testing him, but – I think so." Raven explained what she had seen in Beast Boy's last meditation session. "He has learned to shield himself enough and focus enough to subvert the energy. We know he can do it. What happens when he's under stress, or in combat – I don't know. He needs more practice."
"You can help him with that," Robin said, satisfied.
Just the thought of another fourteen days like the ones she'd just gone through was enough to make her tense all over and almost lose her toast. "Yes. I can. But, Robin, I really – I want to –" in a rush she finished, "I'd like to rest first. This was – difficult - and I'd like to rest. Just a few days."
Robin, who had been watching her with increasing concern, laughed, relieved. "Sure. You've more than earned it. I know I can't understand how your powers work – but teaching Beast Boy how to hold still for more than thirty seconds at a time would be tough on anybody."
After breakfast Raven put her dishes away and went back to her usual spot on the couch to wait until the game was finished. Sighing inwardly she lowered her shields, wincing as all the stray thoughts and psychic noise took up a steady buzz in the back of her head, punctuated by occasional bursts of energy from Beast Boy.
At last the game was finished and Cyborg shut down the television and left them alone. Raven steeled herself. "Are you ready?"
Beast Boy was almost jumping out of his skin. "Dude, I've been ready for days! I'm going to morph into -"
"- into what I tell you," Raven interrupted. "We want to see if your changing disrupts your concentration enough that it endangers you. I want you to start chanting. I'm going to tell you an animal. You change, but keep the chant in your mind. I'll wait thirty seconds and give you another animal. We'll do that until the energy signature of the Beast appears or you stay focused for as long as you did yesterday. All right?"
"Okay. As long as I get to morph."
"Start chanting."
He started. Raven gave him a few minutes, then said quietly, "Mouse."
He immediately shifted. A green mouse stood still on the carpet. This was the part that worried Raven. Beast Boy was able to maintain his concentration by going into his pre-morphing state. What would happen after he actually changed?
As it happened, nothing. Raven watched as his energy dissipated as he shifted, then immediately reformed again. His concentration wasn't broken. "Cat."
A green cat sat on the carpet.
A few minutes later. "Eagle."
A green eagle appeared and couldn't resist flying around the common room. But the steady glow of Beast Boy's energy never changed.
"Ostrich."
"Ram."
"Horse."
"Elepha-"
The alarms went off.
Robin ran into the common room. "Raven, it's Dr. Light. Come on."
Beast Boy changed back into his human form. "Robin, let me go!"
"No way," Robin said tersely. "We don't know that it's safe."
"Robin, please! I'm going nuts around here! I haven't been on a mission in over two weeks and I've been busting my – Raven, tell him!"
Robin looked at her. "Did you see any problems?"
"No," Raven said reluctantly. "But we didn't finish before the alarm."
Robin eyed Beast Boy, who stood there trying to look trustworthy and completely healed. Slowly Robin said. "You stay in the car. You do not leave the car. Is that understood?"
Beast Boy couldn't suppress a broad grin. "Yes sir!"
"And don't call me sir... c'mon..."
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
They were all in the T-Car, headed downtown to where Dr. Light was robbing a bank.
"Why do supervillians even bother to rob banks anymore?" Raven groused. "Why don't they break into computers and drain accounts like normal criminals?"
"So that we can more easily protect and serve the good people of Jump City," Cyborg said, pseudo-primly.
Rude said something Raven didn't bother to repeat.
Cyborg parked sideways across the street, blocking one potential getaway for Dr. Light, and the team headed toward the bank, except for Beast Boy, who tried one last time as Robin unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car.
"Robin, can't I -"
"No," Robin said over his shoulder as he ran.
Light himself was coming out of the doorway carrying a heavy briefcase, which looked incongruous with his garish black and white uniform. "The Titans," he said pleasantly. "I did so hope I would attract your attention."
Raven stepped forward. It had worked once before... "Remember me?"
Light's eyes gleamed. "Oh yes. I wanted to see you most of all." He reached into a pouch at his waist and took out a small silver sphere, holding it out to her. "I brought you a gift."
Raven levitated and gathered dark energy. "I don't want anything from you. Azarath Metrion Zinthos -"
As soon as she started "Zinthos," Light released the sphere. It hovered in the air and turned, and as she finished the word a small portal slid open in it and wrapped her in a blanket of blinding white lights which began flashing in a strobe pattern. Raven shut her eyes tightly and shook her head, disoriented.
"Isn't it nice?" Light asked. "I had Gizmo make it for me. It's calibrated to your voice patterns. Speak your little magic words and you get your own personal light show. And fifteen seconds after that – lights out."
Starfire, Cyborg, and Robin were closing on Dr. Light but it was too late; a massive concussive force aimed at Raven exploded out of the sphere, knocking her backwards through the air. She managed to block some of it but fatigue had slowed her reflexes; she hit the ground only partially-shielded, slid ten feet across the pavement, and rolled into a crumpled heap.
Struggling to rise, Raven vaguely heard a car door slam and running feet. "Raven? Are you okay?"
"Get in the car," she muttered, stunned, "Stay in the car..." The side of her her head felt like it was on fire. Beast Boy helped her sit up. Her cloak and hood were shredded from the long slide across the pavement. Raven pressed her fingers to her cheek and grimaced when they came away tacky with blood and covered with grit. The pain and the hard landing had left her dizzy. Was she concussed? One shoulder didn't feel right, her arm wasn't working... "Beast Boy, get in the car. We can take care of Dr. Light."
He knelt beside her, one arm across her shoulders, staring. His nostrils flared as he smelled her blood and she saw his mouth tighten.
"Beast Boy," she said again, through the pain that was breaking over her head in waves, "Get in the car."
Carefully Beast Boy unhooked the clasp on her ruined cloak and rolled it into a bundle, then slid it gently under her head as he helped Raven lay back. "The car," she said, trying to both sound stern and stay conscious.
He gently touched her face and smiled, then started to rise.
"You'll get in the car –" she murmured, as things started to fade.
"No," he said, turning back to her with that same smile, and she saw too late that his whole body was surrounded with a pulsing red light. "I'm going to kill him."
