I do not own anything relating to the Teen Titans.
Opening the Closet Door a Crack – Chapter 24
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Several hours later, Raven came out of her mediation trance. Quickly looking around, she saw that Cyborg was still fast asleep in the corner. Extending her empathic senses towards him, she read that though the calm she had imposed in his conscious mind was still there, underneath, the chaotic turmoil was continuing to deepen. He was getting worse, losing his hold on this reality. She really did not have any idea of what to do. It was too late to reboot his computer memory, the psychic damage had been done. Magic was of little use in this situation. She could probably wipe his memory entirely, but that would remove anything and everything that had once been Victor Stone. If things got worse, that might be her only recourse.
She looked into the black energy bubble. Beast Boy was sitting there, watching her. From this distance, she could see in his eyes, although strained, that there was normal human intelligence. Well, normal for Beast Boy anyway. She quickly dissolved the bubble.
"Raven, what happened to Cyborg?" He began to run towards his friend.
"Beast Boy, don't go near him, please keep your voice down." He stopped and looked at her. "Let's see if we can go back through the portal. It's been a few hours and the temperature should be back up to at least freezing if Starfire and Robin have fixed the airlock."
The changeling looked puzzled at that. "Uhh, what happened? I don't remember anything after the LAST time we went through the portal. How'd I get in one of your energy bubbles? How did I get back in the ship?"
"Your animal instincts took over again. BIG time."
The green teen paused. "Last time that happened in the tower, I remembered it happening, but I couldn't make heads or tails what happened. I even had an inkling that it was going to happen. You're saying it happened all at once?"
"Yes, almost immediately after reemerging you lost complete control."
Beast Boy's eyes widened in fear. "Raven, I didn't do anything to Cy, did I? Is that why you had me in the bubble?" The fear, the guilt that exuded from her friend was nearly overwhelming.
"No, it wasn't you, not exactly." She paused, "This will take some explaining. I think it should be safe for you to go through now. Starfire was supposed to remove the thing that set you off." Beast Boy looked puzzled at that reference.
"Look, let's go back in and see if you're all right. I should be able to keep you from damaging anything." The two walked towards the portal and walked through.
The temperature on the other side was still extremely cold. Raven was wearing her winter gear, but Beast Boy, not having any, was still shivering. While not the bone-chilling frigid cold, it still wasn't above freezing. Looking around. Beast Boy seemed unconcerned.
"I really don't remember anything about this. Raven, what happened?"
Briefly, Raven went over the events of several hours ago. How Beast Boy lost control and attacked the unknown pillar that the others had assumed was merely decorative, the discovery that this was some type of winged creature. How that revelation drove Cyborg into a panic attack and Raven's discovery that Cyborg's mental state was precarious at the moment. She did NOT tell the teen what their leader had said about him, nor the terms he had used to describe him.
Beast Boy was quiet at these revelations. After a moment, he turned to Raven, "Thank you. Thank you for keeping me from hurting anyone or myself. This is getting to be a problem. If I can't control my instincts, I may become more dangerous than I'm worth."
"Wait a minute, what makes you think you're dangerous? So far, you've not attacked anything that isn't related to these Cthulhu followers. If anything, you've alerted us to these dangers, especially as we were completely unaware of them."
"Rae, it's not just you guys, it's others. I know I'd never deliberately harm any of you. But it's innocent bystanders, even the bad guys, I can't allow myself to hurt them." The concern, the self-disgust was evident on his face.
"Look, it's hard to fight your instincts when you're surprised. It seems like this caught everyone off guard. As it is, once out of its influence, you pretty rapidly came to yourself."
Beast Boy gave her a sad smile. "Nice try, but that still doesn't excuse a loss of control. I can just imagine what Robin said."
"No you can't." At that, the changeling's eyebrows rose, questioning.
"No, I'm NOT going to repeat it. But I give you fair warning, watch out for him. I'm not entirely certain that he hasn't been affected by our mission as well."
As if to emphasize this last statement, Robin and Starfire both came through the portal into the titan's base camp. Robin looked around and saw Beast Boy, his face hardened and he stormed over to the youngest titan.
"YOU! Give me ONE reason why I shouldn't throw you off the team. Or have you muzzled."
At the first statement, Beast Boy's head began to droop, as the guilt he had been laboring under was only confirmed by the titan leader. However, when Robin mentioned the muzzle, his head snapped up and there was anger in his eyes. Robin had hit the one area that Beast Boy was most sensitive about, his humanity.
"You two-bit dictator! How dare you treat me like an animal! What gives you the right to even HINT that I should be treated like a dog!"
"You behave like a wild animal. You can't control yourself, you cause trouble, you contribute NOTHING! Why you're even here is beyond me. If I could toss you now I would."
"ME USELESS? What the hell have you done on this mission you stuck up asshole? I translated the book, I infiltrated the Order's headquarters, I retrieved Carter's journal. Apparently, I even discovered that these..things…are dangerous and involved in this whole episode. WITHOUT ME NOTHING WOULD HAVE BEEN DONE! All YOU'VE done is complain and divert attention from YOUR uselessness."
"I'm in charge, I make the decisions!"
His eyes narrowing, in a very quiet voice, Beast Boy said, "Only as long as we let you."
With that, Robin let out a yell and threw a punch at the shapeshifter, who avoided it quickly by changing into a sparrow and ducking, flying a short distance from the boy wonder. Landing and morphing back to his human form, Beast Boy observed the boy wonder. "So, we're back to this. OK, bird brain, let's boogie."
With that, the fight that had occurred back in Arkham resumed. Again, the two were in a stalemate for several minutes as Robin used his martial arts to try to hit Beast Boy, who only morphed for defensive purposes. All the while, Starfire and Raven stood stupefied at the rapid deterioration in the behavior of the two male titans. Each looked at each other briefly and, with the instinctive awareness that only the female of the species possesses, both decide to finally let the two men have it out.
As with the first go round, neither Beast Boy nor Robin could lay a finger on the other. Beast Boy swinging at Robin, who acrobatically ducked every blow, and morphing whenever Robin returned to the attack. The battle could have gone on indefinitely, save for one change.
After a number of futile attempts to hit the shapeshifter, Robin took out one of his birdarangs. As Beast Boy flew away from a missed blow, Robin threw his razor sharp implement and nicked the changeling in the left wing. The shock of the injury caused Beast Boy to change back to human form and he fell roughly eight feet to the ground. He landed with a hard thud.
Both Raven and Starfire stared wide-eyed at the change in battle. Raven started for a moment towards the changeling, but Starfire, more perceptive in the ways of combat, held out her hand to restrain her.
"Wait," she said.
Robin stood there with a smirk on his face, convinced that he had finally shown his rival what he was facing. Beast Boy got to his knees and shook his head, clearing it. He stood up and reached with his right hand to his left arm. Drawing it away and examining the blood now covering his right hand from the wound in his left arm, Beast Boy gave a satisfied smile. A smile that held both anger and contempt. He said one word.
"Mistake"
With that, the changeling disappeared.
Both Starfire and Raven were stunned by this development. Robin, on the other hand, narrowed his eyes and circled round, looking, waiting for the next attack. Suddenly, from two feet above, a green bull ape appeared and swatted the boy wonder in the shoulder, knocking him several feet away. The ape immediately disappeared.
"What's going on?" asked Raven.
"Can you not tell?" informed Starfire. "Beast Boy is changing to either a very tiny insect or some type of single celled animal. He can disappear and reappear at will. I am afraid that for all Robin's tactical abilities and skills, he has seriously miscalculated. He is now fighting a foe who can disappear and reappear at will. And can take on any of your earthly animals. I should tell you, in all my travels, I have never seen such variety in animal life that I have seen on earth. For all his warrior abilities, I am not certain that Robin can defeat Beast Boy."
Raven looked with incredulity at the warrior from Tamaran. "Then why aren't you stopping this?"
"Robin has called this duel. It would be a dishonor to both him and to Beast Boy to stop it until the victor has been decided. It is still possible for Robin to win, although I don't see how. Still, he has surprised me on numerous occasions since I arrived on earth and, for an ordinary human, he is most formidable."
The purple-haired sorceress looked at her alien friend, "So you're going to let them beat each other up?"
Starfire looked at her girl friend, "Yes, honor demands it. I would suggest you stay out of it as well, since it concerns your own bracken de more."
"Excuse me, WHAT?"
"In your earthly terms, heart mate."
"HEART MATE? What are you talking about?"
Starfire gave a sad smile to Raven, "How little you really know about yourself my friend."
Robin, meanwhile, had regained his feet and was keeping a careful watch on the environment around him. Feeling the air to his right suddenly change, Robin twirled in that direction, throwing a haymaker at what he thought would be another ape. Instead, he hit a rhino in the side with full force. Grimacing with the pain that was extending through his, if not broken, severely injured hand, Robin then took a glancing blow from the rhino that knocked him several feet to the ground. Although on the ground, Robin extricated a number of explosive pellets from his utility belt and threw them in a wide arc in the area where Beast Boy had been.
The concussion momentarily stunned the shapeshifter and he morphed back to human form. Holding his right hand in his left, Robin rose to his feet. Beast Boy also got to his feet, shaking his head, attempting to regather his wits. Seeing his adversary momentarily dazed, Robin let loose another birdarang towards the changeling. Instinctively ducking, the weapon grazed his head, opening a cut above his right eye which started to bleed profusely.
Without even waiting to see the extent of his injuries, Robin extended his staff and, swinging in a wild arc, launched himself at the injured green teen. Just before hitting him, Beast Boy vanished again and the boy wonder landed hard on the ground. Cradling his right hand, he slowly turned around in a circle, looking for the next attack. It was not long in coming. Straight above him, an African bull elephant appeared, knocking him to the ground, rendering him senseless. The elephant then placed one leg on top of Robin's left arm and began to press.
Robin let out a scream of agony as the multi-ton weight was lowered, slowly onto his arm. Although he could hit the leg with his injured hand, it did no good to remove the weight. Furthermore, the injury prevented him from removing any weapons from his utility belt that might possible be of use against such a titanic foe.
A sharp crack was heard throughout the room.
Raven let out a cry, "Beast Boy, remember, you don't believe in hurting people. Please, don't make me stop you."
The green elephant immediately morphed into the familiar form of Beast Boy. He looked at Raven with a stunned expression, as if he couldn't believe what he had just done. Then, his face became stony. Turning towards his former friend, he bent down to face him.
"Remember this day. Remember, that I BEAT you. Remember, that no matter what, you're an ordinary human being. I'm not. I have all the powers of the animal kingdom on my side. I've been fighting for most of my life. I've fought villains you can't even imagine. If I wanted you dead, I could have changed to any number of poisonous animals. If I wanted you dead, I could have entered your body as an amoeba and morphed to a whale. If I wanted you dead, you would be. Never forget that."
With that, Beast Boy got up and left the area. He went back through the portal to the T-Jet.
The silence that fell upon the titans after Beast Boy left continued for several minutes. Finally, with a groan, Robin attempted to rise to his feet. Raven moved over to his side. Without comment, she used her blue healing powers to mend the broken bones in his right hand and his left arm. It took several minutes, as broken bones are more difficult to heal than normal wounds.
Leaving the boy wonder, Raven floated back to Starfire. "Well, they've had it out. Now what?"
Starfire looked at Raven. "I do not know."
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Wow, back to back chapters. I'm not usually that quick, but this battle has been sticking in my mind for several days now and I've been dying to get it out. Even so, there's more to come. The dynamics will get far deeper, and darker. We're on the downslope of the rollercoaster and there's no way to stop it. I can only go where the story is taking me.
Hopefully, not many of you will take pleasure in the breaking and humiliation of Robin. For all that he is arrogant and obnoxious, he IS a hero and a human being. No one should go through this kind of humiliation, regardless of whether or not you believe he deserves it. And, there are still more revelations to come. Some regarding Beast Boy, some regarding Robin, some regarding the other titans. I'm not done by any means.
With the rapid updating, I'm not even keeping track of the hits. Nonetheless, I will ALWAYS acknowledge my reviewers.
It's remarkable. I asked for feedback regarding length and duration of updates. My two colleagues in Ganguro both responded, each with the opposite advice. As I respect and admire both their works tremendously, I still have no answer. In that case, I leave it to the muses.
ForceIsStrongWithThisOne – Yes, something is DEFINITELY going on with Robin. We still have a number of revelations to come. I'm not even halfway through the third arc and you can see the titans splintering before your eyes. There's more to come.
Flood125 – Well, no, that's not what I have planned (as you can see). Still, I'm glad you are keeping abreast of the story. And there's more to come.
Hawkgirl90 – You know, this hatred (not yours, everyone's) of Robin is worrisome. I've never seen a major character so disliked. I have a reason for his behavior (ooops, gave something away there). Still, that's where the fun is. Meanwhile, glad to see you're doing your homework. By the by, what history are you specializing in?
Soulseekerthe13th – Glad you are enjoying the story. Believe me, I'm not done with the carcass of the Elder Thing in the other room. PLEASE post some excerpts as soon as you can.
Novus Ordo Seclorum – Ah, my friend, you are coming very close to the situation. Is he tired? Is he influenced? Is Beast Boy the main problem and Robin sees it where the others don't? I love multiple directions for a story. Keeps you guessing. My very inadequate thanks for your kind compliments regarding this work. Hopefully, I can continue to write in such a manner that will justify your kindness.
Until next time my friends, sleep well.