Authors' Note: Computer troubles aren't our friends, but here we are, back again.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans.
Alright, brain, I don't like you and you don't like me- so let's just do this and I'll get back to killing you with beer.
- Homer Simpson
Raven's hands were covered in Beast Boy's blood again- this time, the real Beast Boy's blood. Ignoring the pain and fatigue tearing at her concentration, she poured her power into the changeling's gaping wound, doing her very best to ignore the horrible gurgling of his labored breathing as his punctured lung filled up with blood. Slowly, the holes where the rebar had travelled through his body began to seal themselves, and the river of red flowing from the green boy's body slowed down to a trickle, before finally ceasing altogether.
Raven leaned back onto her heels and breathed out a sigh of relief- the boy was unlikely to bleed out on the pavement of this desolate dream world, at least. He wasn't out of danger yet- there was still internal bleeding to take care of- but he was safe for the moment, and she could rest for a short time before reengaging his wounds.
Wiping beads of sweat from her brow, the sorceress leaned back over her patient and laid her hands once more upon his chest. She hadn't even begun healing his internal injuries when a terrible dizziness struck her. Toppling onto her side, she landed next to Beast Boy, and then everything flashed a brilliant and blinding white.
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Robin and Starfire walked exhaustedly back into the Tower. Control Freak wasn't exactly tough, but he was certainly tiring. The pair had followed the voluminous villain from one electronics store to the next, constantly fighting wave after wave of animated… things. The insanity had only stopped when Control Freak, passing by a hotdog stand, animated a bottle of mustard. Starfire's subsequent… subduing… of the rogue condiment had stilled the walking stereotype long enough for Robin to deliver him his own ass on a silver platter.
Thusly victorious, the two Titans tiredly trudged upwards through the Tower. They hadn't even made it halfway up when the alarm went off once again- this time, for four different incidents.
Robin let out a weary sigh. "Star, I think it's high time we called in a little back up."
Starfire nodded in agreement. "Perhaps the Titans East may come to our aid?"
"Good idea- I'll call them right now." Moments later, the pair were standing in the common room in front of the giant monitor, which had Bumblebee's smiling face upon it.
"Sure, we'll pop right on over! Steel City's been pretty quiet lately- we could use the excitement from a few of Jump City's finest nutjobs." She paused a second and looked back, "And we could probably use the exercise, the guys have been hitting the junk food a bit too hard lately…"
"How long do you think it'll take for you to get here?" asked Robin. Bee's smile widened.
"Oh, I dunno… maybe-"
The sound of a trumpet rang out from behind the Boy Wonder, and he spun around to find Titans East- and Herald- standing behind him.
"I was in the neighborhood," said Herald, grinning as Bumblebee hugged his arm. "Just visitin' my pretty little Bee."
Robin raised an eyebrow behind his mask at the display of affection between the two heroes, but said nothing of it. It was their business- not his. "We've got four- as you were- five alarms going off in the city. Doctor Light is hitting a power plant, Mad Mod has hypnotized everyone at the stadium into playing cricket, Adonis is just wrecking things at random on 22nd Street, Johnny Rancid is attacking the Auto Show, and… oh God… Kitten is-"
"I shall deal with the Kitten," Starfire announced, cutting him off in a voice that allowed no argument.
"Heh, right. Everyone else, here are your assignments…"
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Beast Boy coughed and looked around. The sky was blue again, the city not in ruins- must be another dream. He glanced down at his chest and saw a small hole in his uniform where the rebar had punched through him. He certainly didn't feel like he was on death's doorstep... perhaps injuries didn't persist between dreams, then? He shook his head to clear it. Theoretical mumbo-jumbo was more Raven's forte, anyways. He'd stick to zombies and gerbil commandos.
"Do you give up now?" asked a bored-sounding voice. Beast Boy spun around to see Raven standing over a shaking Doctor Light. Realization hit him like a thunderbolt, but before he could cry out a warning, a flash of red erupted from the villain's palm and struck Raven directly in the chest. She flew straight back, landing on Beast Boy and knocking him to the ground. Immediately, he felt the weight lifted off of him as his teammates rushed to her rescue.
"God, no…"
Beast Boy sat up straight, the sound of Doctor Light gloating in the background as he celebrated the… no, she couldn't be! He looked over at the half-demon, and saw just what the blast had done to her.
She was.
Suddenly, everything came sharply into focus. He could see the faintest wisps of smoke coming off of Raven's body. He heard the thudding heartbeats of pack as they came to grips with the loss of their friend. He smelled the charred flesh of mate. He felt the slick wetness of enemy. He tasted the warm flesh of prey. His mind was blank. There was nothing, simply feeling, and he didn't know what was going on, and didn't care.
Beast Boy shook his head, feeling suddenly very dizzy. He sank to his knees (when had he stood up?) and closed his eyes. His hand hit something rough and cylindrical, and he held onto it not knowing what it was. In the back of his mind, he heard a whining electrical noise…it was… Cyborg's sonic cannon charging up? Something was said by someone… were they talking to him? He shook his head again, knocking loose the cobwebs clouding his mind.
"-make me do this, BB."
Puzzled, Beast Boy opened his eyes, and immediately regretted it. Doctor Light's mangled corpse was spread in front of him, and his hand was currently where the villain's abdomen used to be, gripping his spine.
It'snotrealjustadreamjustadreamnoneofitrealnotamurderernotananimalnotrealnotrealno-
Something stung him in the neck- a tranquilizer dart- and he felt himself going under…
…before everything came sharply into focus once again.
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She was embarrassed to admit it, but Raven was lost. In a city she had lived in for years.
"Everything looks different from the air," she justified to herself. Something was interfering with her powers- she couldn't fly, couldn't teleport, couldn't even feel out Beast Boy with her empathy… assuming he survived. Banishing that thought from her mind, she quickened her pace, before abandoning all pretense and breaking into a run.
Above the din of a city, she heard a vaguely familiar noise- half howl, half roar. It was Beast Boy, she knew, but whatever creature made that particular cry was unknown to her. Still- it sounded pained, and she pushed her legs harder to carry her towards her best guess of the sound's origin.
Minutes later, a panting Raven found herself staring down at what was left of Doctor Light, and the wrecked T-Car nearby. Pushing away the nausea induced by the villain's mangled remains; she looked around for any signs of her friends. An explosion down the street provided a handy indicator of their likely position, and she ran in that direction...
…and tripped over her own corpse.
Raven stared at her own smoking remains for a few seconds; the sheer stunning event of stumbling upon your own body doesn't exactly happen every day, but a millisecond later she was knocked from her stupor by another howling roar. Scrambling back to her feet, she dashed towards the sound- much closer than when she had last heard it.
Reaching an intersection, she turned to corner to find complete and utter chaos.
The smashed walls of countless buildings were scattered across the wreckage of burning cars and horribly cracked pavement. Those facades that had managed to remain standing all had their windows broken, with shards of glass strewn across the sidewalks, glinting from the added firelight and the intense midday sun hanging high overhead.
Standing in the middle of the apparent warzone, three tattered teenagers faced off against a very angry-looking creature she had never seen before- Raven could only assume it was the Beast. It seemed as if she had arrived at a sudden lull in the fighting, as both sides were staring intently at each other, chests all rising and falling heavily. Rivulets of blood trickled down the Titans' bodies from varying minor wounds, but the Beast- though slightly winded- had barely more than ruffled fur.
As she ran towards her friends, they leapt back into the fray- shooting, blasting, kicking, clawing, biting, and generally doing their best to grievously injure one another.
That is, until she was spotted.
She had never seen Robin go slack-jawed before, and found herself wishing for a camera before remembering that only Beast Boy was actually real, and therefore it didn't count.
"Friend! You are alive!"
"R-Raven? What in the-"
"H-how? Doctor Light's blast-"
Ignoring the three stammering Titans, she stomped over to the shocked Beast and grabbed his ear roughly. "If you'll excuse us, I have to speak with idiot-boy here in private." Dragging him into a nearby alley, she prepared to launch into a long series of questions. All thoughts of interrogation left her, however, when the hulking creature leaned down, sniffed her a few times, and licked her cheek!
Blinking in surprise, she absent-mindedly reached up and laid her hand on his head. "What the hell is wrong with you, Beast Boy?" she gently asked. The Beast's eyes widened, and suddenly were replaced by the changeling's human ones.
"Raven!" shouted the green boy, before leaping forward and catching the surprised empath in a bear hug. "You're not dead!"
"Not… yet…" gasped Raven. She gulped in a breath of precious oxygen as Beast Boy released her, still grinning from ear to ear. "And I'm happy to see that merely punching a hole in your chest isn't nearly enough to bring you down." He chuckled, before frowning as he remembered Doctor Light.
"Raven, I-"
"Shh..." she said, knowing what he was about to say. Surprising both of them, she reached out and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him in for a hug. "I know."
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If Cyborg had more sweat glands, he would have been drenched in perspiration. As it was, he didn't, and he wasn't. The only visible sign the strain of keeping Beast Boy alive was having on him was the furrow in his brow and the slight shake in his left hand. Dashing between monitors and his friend, the resident medical expert worked tirelessly to keep Beast Boy's head above water.
Behind him, he heard a tired moan. Looking quickly over his shoulder, he saw Raven sit up, holding her hand to her forehead and wincing. "What… happened?" she asked.
Unable to spare the concentration for a detailed reply, Cyborg spit out a very condensed response. "You got blasted, and a brick wall fell on you- shit!"
The sudden expletive got Raven's attention- she and Robin had embarked on a long and merciless campaign to eliminate swearing from the Tower, and therefore Starfire's vocabulary- and she looked over to where Cyborg was standing. Her already pallid complexion paled further as she saw him strapping down a convulsing Beast Boy. Cyborg swiftly grabbed something off of one of the shelves and stuffed it into the changeling's mouth to keep him from biting off his own tongue.
"C'mon, little dude, you've got this! Don't you dare quit on me now!"
Raven swung her legs off the hospital bed and stood, intending to rush over and help Cyborg, but as soon she tried to put weight on her feet, her legs crumpled beneath her and she fell painfully to the cold, tiled floor.
Just as she struggled to hold herself up on the bed between the two Titans, she saw Cyborg must have gotten the situation under control.
Raven let out a sigh of relief as Beast Boy's struggling limbs calmed down, but stiffened once more as her ears registered a horrible, terrible noise.
One long, drawn out, high-pitched beep.
"Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit!"
Raven was inclined to agree.
