Dudes and dudettes, I must admit I'm rather productive these days, that's why you already get a new short chapter. But I still don't own them, so enjoy and SMILE!
Chapter 5: Dark sides
"Stop."
Slade's voice droned over the whole room as the Slade-bots all fell to the ground at once, causing them to turn to him. They all froze and gasped at the scene that displayed in front of them.
A heavy bleeding Slade pointed a gun at Changeling who was panting but smiling and unharmed.
"Come on, Slade. Just admit that I had cornered you and smashed your little army. I deserve better than a simple bullet to the head," the green man joked.
Raven never knew where he took the stupid bravery from at such moments. She only could feel her heart beat faster as her fear and anger rose inside her.
"You know, I'd at least deserve a 'golden shot', but if you can't afford it, just get it over or the tension will kill us all first." He cracked one stupid joke, one pun after another, too high from all the adrenaline running through his body to be afraid. Apparently Slade didn't appreciate his jokes at all.
"You'll die as the fool you lived as. Watch carefully Robin…" Slade mocked Nightwing as he started to pull the trigger, "and say all goodbye to Beast Boy…"
That had just been enough to make Raven snap, not aware that Changeling already had changed into a mosquito. Everything turned red in her sight; black energy emerged everywhere, encircling Slade as well as the gun and the already flying bullet, hissing: "No one threatens my man!"
Nightwing, Starfire, Cyborg and BumbleBee helpless watched how Slade was dragged into darkness exactly as Doctor Light all these years ago. The gun and the bullet fell forgotten to the floor.
Changeling dropped out of the air right in front of his ravaging girlfriend calling out loud: "Stop it, Rae, I'm fine! Leave some parts for the judge and the jail!"
Then he approached her and hugged her saying: "Or do you want to be sent to the mental asylum in a card box?"
In mere seconds she shrank back to her normal self, leaning in Changelings comforting embrace she already dreaded to feel never again.
"There, there. You didn't have to worry at this extent, love," he said calmly while he stroke her head gently. Almost inaudible but clearly understandable to his enhanced hearing she whispered: "I thought I'd lose you for good…"
"Did you forget I learned to change in less than a second? Plus I knew you had my back."
He softly placed a kiss on her hooded head. As she didn't loosen her grip at his comforting he contented himself at looking over to his friends tying up a beaten up and clearly shaken Slade for arrestment. Nightwing made sure that they really captured the real one this time by disposing him of his mask (not that anyone would have believed him to be a robot after they had seen him bleed), revealing a middle aged, scar faced, one-eyed man.
"Booyah! Way to go team!" Cyborg shouted excited of their success, "We should have put your life at stake earlier, green bean, so Raven would have finished him off ages ago!" He hadn't let the last syllable drop out of his mouth as he already regretted it.
Raven, still in a rather unstable emotional state, had turned so quickly Changeling stood no chance to react. And to Cyborg's utter shock she was right back in demon-mode.
"NEVER. EVER. AGAIN. You won't suggest something that stupid never ever again or I'll rip your pieces into so small smithereens you'd need a vacuum cleaner to recollect them! Do you UNDERSTAND ME?"
"Yes, ma'am," a trembling Cyborg piped.
Changeling laid a hand on her arm and said calmly: "Let's go home, Rae!"
Once again she mysteriously calmed down in an instant, engulfing herself and her boyfriend in a black raven-shaped portal and disappeared along him.
"Seriously, Cyborg, you should know better than to tease her in such a state of mind," Nightwing scolded playful.
"But… but Gar did it too!" the half-robot pouted. It wasn't fair in his opinion.
"Indeed, friend Cyborg, but may I remind you how many times friend Changeling got punished in most unpleasant ways before friend Raven got used to him doing the teasing even in those fits of emotion?" Starfire asked with a smile. Pictures of Garfield being tossed out the window, smashed by heavy objects or disappearing in strange dimensions from where he came back shivering and shaking for days without being able to tell his friend of the horrors he had been through displayed in front of Cyborgs inner eye, causing him to shudder.
"You know, Sparky, for someone so smart, sometimes, you are behaving rather dumb,"Karen said softly while placing a peck on his cheek.
As if to confirm the words of his friends, Cyborg could hear Slade babbling: "Never enrage her… never threaten the Beast-One… never make her angry… too scary… too dark…"
"Seems like you've learned your lesion too, man," Victor answered him as he patted almost affectionate on the criminal's head and threw him over his shoulder to carry him to the next police station.
Back home at the tower Vic sat in the kitchen trying to repair the toaster, which had blown up this morning due to an argument between Raven and Garfield. He mused that he should have known that she was rather moody today. As Changeling made his entry joyfully whistling, a question popped into Cyborgs mind, that had bothered him for a while now but especially since the previous mission today.
"Hey Vic!"
"Yo, Gar! Can I ask you something?"
"Sure. Just shoot," the green man stated with a pun while he started preparing tea and soy-milk cookies for him and Raven.
"Tell me, how do you stand up to her in such moments?" Changeling looked quizzically at his cybernetic friend, not getting what the other wanted to know.
"Uhm, come again?"
"How come you're not freaking out anymore when Raven gets into her demon mode?"
Garfield still looked slightly confused; he shrugged, then said: "You know, I'm just trusting her that she won't really hurt me, not that badly actually. Plus this dark side has something, well, alluring to me. She still is completely freaking me out of my mind in the inside but in the same time I feel totally safe, you follow me?"
"Not… entirely…" Gar seemed to search for words.
"Look, it's… it's like the beast inside me! When Raven is in danger it comes out, it comes out all scary and stuff but it protects her and calms down when she asks it. Her demon-side is becoming quite the same. Like today it came out when I was in danger scaring everyone and protected me, but calmed down as I asked it to."
"So her demon-side is the equivalent to your beast?" Cyborg tried to simplify.
"Exactly!"
"But how is that making her alluring to you?" he pointed the part he didn't get.
"You have to admit she IS kind of sexy in those fits, radiating of raw energy, wild and untamed, doing what she really desires, what everyone else is afraid to do without regret… Well, maybe she just matches too well with my inner beast…" Changeling said dreamy.
"Urg… that was… a really weird statement," Victor said, "But I think I get it. Uhm, thanks' for the enlightenment."
"No problem, Vic!" Gar smiled and left with the tea and the cookies.
Cyborg thought again of a demon-mode Raven but shuddered and mumbled to himself: "Better you than me, dude, better you than me…" as he continued to fix the toaster.