A green mouse scurried along the edge of the sewer tunnel, doing it's best to stay out of the omnipresent, foul smelling muck. Letting out a prolonged, hissing squeak that could only be called a sigh, Beast Boy mulled over his thoughts whilst trying to ignore the indiscernible sludge that was seeping between the toes of his mouse form.
Among those thoughts were questions, as to why he had been made to go alone after who could be the most wantonly violent murderer Jump City had ever encountered? Would one of the other Titans find this person first? What had he just stepped in and did he really want to know? To him, the sewer had seemed to have become ridiculously cramped and unbearably dark, with only just enough light being reflected in the tunnel to show the more watery bits of the sewer muck. The oppressive atmosphere and echoing, almost childish giggling that permeated the humid, stale air of the sewer made Beast Boy's stomach twist in apprehension.
Traversing through the dank tunnel, the giggling was definitely getting louder, with the occasional word and half-sentence worming it's way into the fits of laughter. The occasional raspy, manic voice bouncing along with tunnels with the giggling did nothing for Beast Boy's growing discomfort, causing his mouse fur to bush up and stand on end. Silently praying that one of the groups of two would find the murderer first, Beast Boy was glad to see sewer grates leading to street level make a second appearance, allowing filtered light from streetlamps and passing cars to illuminate the gloomy shadows of the tunnel. Feeling the twisting in his stomach relax a bit with the welcomed lighting, Beast Boy opted for the form of a spider, scurrying quietly along the slick walls.
"Yesyesyes-heHAHAhehe-new trophy hehe gotta fill up this spot here yesyesye-hehehehahaHA-almost there now, gonna make the little skank scream, gonna watch her face, gonna laughlaughlaugh when big bad daddy falls down dead yesyesyes" A raspy voice echoed gleefully, stopping Beast Boy dead in his tiny spider tracks. Quickly morphing back to his human form, Beast Boy fumbled to take out his communicator and call the leader of the Titans.
"Robin? I think-" The green teen was cut off by his ears picking up the slightly damp slapping of footsteps in sewer muck coming in his direction, the muttering and giggling getting louder by the moment.
"Hold that thought." Shutting his communicator as quickly and quietly as he could, Beast Boy desperately scanned the narrow tunnel for somewhere to hide. Thinking quickly, the green Titan transformed into a fly and hid himself on the dark ceiling of the tunnel.
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"Beast Boy? Beast Boy answer me, where are you? What happened? Beast Boy!" With a growl and frustrated glare at the now blank communicator screen, Robin pressed a few buttons on the round device. Not two seconds later, Starfire and Cyborg's faces appeared on the tiny screen.
"Cyborg, track down Beast Boy's last position and give us the coordinates. I think he may have run into trouble. Raven and I will meet you both there as soon as we can." With a pair of nods and a quick "gotcha" from Cyborg, Robin slapped his communicator shut and sighed. Raven, floating quietly behind the Titan's leader, rolled her eyes a bit.
"Beast Boy will be fine. He's a Titan, and perfectly capable of handling himself if things get out of control, despite the fact that he rarely acts like he could." The hooded girl, ever the voice of reason, lifted Robins spirits slightly. A beeping from their communicators indicated that Cyborg had found and sent Beast Boy's coordinates, causing the two Titans to check the GPS system on the devices before making their way to their green teammate.
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"There we go, coordinates sent. Hope the little grass stain's okay." Muttered Cyborg, the back lit screen on his arm going dark as he started to make his way back. Starfire flew beside her teammate, a puzzled expression on her face.
"Something is wrong, but I cannot put my foot on it." The floating girl scratched her head as she said this, concern filling her eyes.
"Um, I think you mean you can't put your finger on it, and relax; I'm sure everything's fine." Cyborg replied as he trudged through some particularly thick sewer muck. The squelching and sucking noises of his footsteps echoed loudly in the dark tunnels, causing Starfire's eyes to widen as she came to a realization.
"Friend, did we not do the splitting up so that we could find the source of the scary giggling?" The redhead's tone betrayed her anxiety to her half-robot friend.
"Yeah, why? What's wrong Star?" Cyborg turned his head to face Starfire directly, his human eyebrow raised in concern.
"If we came down here looking for the source of the scary giggling, then why is it so quiet?" Cyborg's human eye widened at Starfire's statement.
"We should probably try moving a bit faster." Cyborg's sonic cannon primed itself, ready to fire at a moments notice.
"Agreed, let us make haste." The Tameranian princess proceeded to lift Cyborg up by his arms before flying down the tunnel at breakneck speed.
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Beast Boy was shocked. The silhouetted figure, hunched slightly in his posture while staring intently at a particular sewer grate, had only moments before been giggling and talking to himself. Now he had become dead silent. As the man had approached the sewer grate from the end of the tunnel, the green Titan had watched him grow progressively quieter, until even his footsteps had grown hard to hear in the accumulated sewer waste. Still a fly, Beast Boy tried buzzing his way all over the tunnel, trying to get a better view of the man. Much to the teen's annoyance, however, the light filtering through the grate was too dim for him to make out any fine details other than the slight glint of a knife in the man's right hand.
Suddenly straightening, as if reacting to a timer only he could see or hear, the man quickly scrambled up the wall, grabbing onto the grate that led to street level. Planting his feet and pulling, Beast Boy watched the man pull the grate out of its place and into the sewer. Landing with a splash and an unpleasant sounding thud, Beast Boy was surprised to hear the man chuckle slightly, as if rather than a heavy grate and hard landing he had received a poke to the ribs and been tickled. Beast Boy then proceeded to watch the man get back on his feet and quickly scramble up the tunnel wall again, this time climbing out of the hole the grate once covered. As the man climbed onto street level, the green fly on the opposite tunnel wall caught a glimpse of filth covered bare feet turning and running down the street. Taking this opportunity to turn back into his green self, Beast Boy flicked his communicator out again and called Robin.
"Dude! I'm pretty sure I found him, the guy just headed back up to the street." Beast Boy whispered quickly into the communicator, looking at Robin's determined face through the screen. He could see that Robin and Raven were on the move, and that the Boy Wonder was running whilst talking to him.
"Right, stay put Beast Boy. We're all heading to your location as fast as we can." Robin replied as he rounded a bend in the tunnel he was in.
"What? Stay put? Dude I'm pretty sure he's already picked someone out! If we don't do something now someone else could die!" Beast Boy was frantic, hero and animal instincts kicking into high gear. The hero side of him was urging towards rescuing whichever poor soul happened to be the next victim, while the animal side was much more basic, indicating that he needed to defend his territory.
"Beast Boy, we need you to stay put so we can make sure this guy goes down. We don't know how much he's capable of yet." Robin's stern voice came through a bit haggard, as the Boy Wonder was sprinting for all he was worth towards Beast Boy. Robin's reasoning forced Beast Boy to be a little more thoughtful, knowing that his leader was probably right.
"Fine Rob, I'll-" The green teen was cut off by a shrill terrified scream from street level. Instincts kicking in, Beast Boy had just enough time to hear Robin shout his name through the communicator before turning into a raven and tearing out of the sewers through the formerly grate covered hole.
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OKAY. After 4 or 5 essays and a bunch of other personal crap no one cares about, as well as 6 (count them, 6) rewrites of this, I've finally deemed this chapter "good enough". I know the pace is a bit slow, and I'm going to work on picking it up a bit in the next few chapters. Overall though, I'm going to be taking my time with this. While I promise nothing, I'll try to make sure that it never takes that long to update again. On one last note, the spellcheck for OpenOffice appears to be for decoration purposes only, so while I try my best to spell correctly, mistakes are probably going to worm their way in here. Remember readers, I'm here to improve. Criticism where it's needed please.