Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans.
Author's Note: Alrighty! Chapter twelve- and this time, it's not an April Fools' joke, or me going off to the wilderness!
It is fear that first brought gods into the world.
-Petronius Arbiter
A Moth to the Flame
"Beast Boy!" cried Hope. She flung her arms around the enormous wolf-thing in front of her, the pain of her recent concussion all but forgotten. She continued her embrace as he lapsed into unconsciousness, shrinking back into his human self.
Raven threw her hands in front of her, desperately willing the healing energy to flow through her into the broken body before her.
Nothing happened.
In the blasted lands of Nevermore, a small girl wept over the barely breathing form of Garfield Mark Logan, oblivious to the slow darkening of her garb.
Beast Boy felt the Beast recede from his mind, driven out by exhaustion and injury. Surprisingly though, that was all the changeling felt. Sitting up and rubbing the back of his head, he looked around for Hope. Instead of seeing the diminutive girl, however, he found himself staring at a never ending expanse of… nothing. Just inky blackness as far as the eye could see.
Wait… no, that wasn't true. Beast Boy saw a bright pinpoint of light off in the distance. Turning into a moth, he flew over to investigate this new development.
07:00
Warning! Warning! Intruder Alert! Warning! Warning!
Cyborg woke up immediately, the Tower's security system automatically rousing him from his slumber. Immediately, he plugged into the Tower's cameras to take a look at whoever was stupid enough to mess with the Titans.
To his horror, every camera in the Tower was offline… all but one, that is.
Without wasting another second, he was running as quickly as his legs could propel him towards the common room, and the destruction being wrought within.
Raven took a deep breath, desperately trying to calm herself.
Once more, she placed her hands on Beast Boy's barely moving form.
Once more, the empath tried to conjure up the healing energy her friend so desperately needed.
Once more, nothing happened.
Once more, Raven's right eye twitched.
Once more, Raven took a deep breath, desperately trying to calm herself.
A small child clung to Beast Boy's arm, her face buried into his mangled shoulder as her tiny body was wracked with sobs. Six slightly battered women stood behind her, silently watching the tragic scene taking place before them, each as helpless as the next to stop it.
Beast Boy's breathing continued to slow, Hope's cloak continued to blacken, and Raven's emotions stood by- unable to do anything but watch the oncoming train wreck.
The common room was a hurricane of flying furniture and black magic as Cyborg smashed through the broken doorway. At the center of the tempest was the couch, which was currently floating five feet off of the floor, its dreaming occupant oblivious to the havoc being wrought around her.
Ignoring the broken pieces of furniture bouncing off of his steel frame, Cyborg made his way towards Raven's sleeping form. A chair shattered over his head as he turned the couch to face him, looking down at the empath. The robotic hero was surprised to find no trace of turmoil evident on his friend's face- if it weren't for the obvious emotional chaos being loosed upon the Tower, he'd have never known anything was wrong.
Shaking his head, Cyborg decided upon a course of action.
"RAVEN, WAKE UP!" he shouted.
The empath remained undisturbed. Cyborg went for plan B.
"RAVEN, WAKE UP! I MADE WAFFLES!"
Hmm, that usually works… how about plan-
"Oh crap, Beast Boy's still in there!" he muttered under his breath, interrupting his own train of thought.
Suddenly the room stopped spinning, before submitting once more to the dictate of gravity.
Raven was sitting up on the couch, staring intently at Cyborg.
"Beast Boy is in Nevermore, isn't he?"
Cyborg nodded dumbly, still processing the unusual stimulus that aroused the half-demon.
Raven folded her legs under herself and began chanting, her eyes closed as she concentrated on her mantra.
Cyborg snapped out of his reverie and dashed madly back to his room… and to the mirror.
The green moth flitted about in the darkness, the bright light becoming less and less distant with every passing second.
As the light grew closer, Beast Boy began to hear a voice murmuring something quietly- too soft for him to understand. Soon, he heard another voice speaking. And another. And another yet, until there were too many voices to count, all of them softly speaking, none of them addressing him.
The little green moth flitted on, oblivious to the significance of the situation.
Raven's consciousness free-fell from the sky in her mind, making no attempt to work against gravity's pull until she was almost a demon pancake on the ground below. Landing with little of her usual grace, she broke into a dead sprint towards the location where she felt all… most… of her emotions gathered. One was off by itself, not too far away from the others, but she decided that the solitary doppelganger was a much lower priority than that which the other seven were gathering around.
Raven crested a hill, and her breath caught in her throat, her mind reeling at the sight of her friend's battered body. Twelve solemn eyes moved as one to stare pointedly at Raven, whose two wide eyes did their best to return the gaze.
Only having hesitated for a moment, she sprung into action, flying to Beast Boy's side. So absorbed was she in her friend's condition that she almost overlooked the seventh emotion present at the scene: a small girl, appearing no older than six years old, wearing a cloak that was so deep a shade of purple that at first Raven thought it was black. The girl's hood was drawn over her head, obscuring her face in the shadows of the garment.
Something about the girl bothered something deep inside Raven, else she would have continued to ignore her and tend to her friend. As it was, the half-demon addressed the darkly-clad emotion.
"Who are you?" Raven asked, never having been one to beat around the bush.
The violet hood moved imperceptibly as the girl answered the inquiry. "I have had many names. Once, I was known as Affection…"
Raven's eyes narrowed- something was very, very wrong here.
"..and for a short time I was even called 'Love,' but that didn't last very long…"
Raven's eyes narrowed until they were barely slits- the memory of Love's brief existence was not a pleasant one.
"… and for a long time since I was Affection once more, until recent events necessitated another change, and I became Hope…"
An expression of surprise replaced the suspicious look on Raven's face- the girl in her dream… Raven looked down at her unconscious friend's face, and noticed that his expression was contorted in pain, his labored breathing was accompanied by barely discernible grunts and moans. Placing her palm against his forehead, she closed her eyes and focused on withdrawing the pain as best she could. A soreness spread throughout her body, but she pushed it out of her mind and returned her attention to the girl beside her.
"You didn't answer my question- who are you now?" While the history lesson had been enlightening, it certainly didn't provide Raven with the answer she wanted.
The girl turned her face away from her inquisitor, looking down at Beast Boy. Raven studied her companion closely, noticing an almost imperceptible shaking of the girl's right side of her torso. Following the movement with her eyes, Raven traced down to the hem of the cloak, where a small feminine hand desperately clutched a much larger green one.
Raven stared at the two holding hands, and almost didn't hear the whispered response to her inquiry.
"I… don't know. Not yet."
Deciding that she had gotten everything out of the emotion that she would for some time yet, Raven turned her attention to Beast Boy's broken form. Her heart fell into the pit of her stomach as she realized the severity of his injuries put him in serious risk of not surviving whatever had attacked him.
Then it plummeted even further as she realized that "whatever" was probably herself, or some aspect thereof. Once more, she had come close to destroying her friend- and maybe even succeeded this time.
Finding herself in danger of becoming overwhelmed with emotion, Raven shoved all thoughts other than saving Beast Boy's life out of her head, to be dealt with later.
The left side of Raven's face twitched, but due to her intense concentration upon her team mate, it passed by unnoticed.
Anger sat on the wooden bed, legs curled to her chest, staring intently at the red concrete wall in front of her.
Her head began to turn to her left, her eyes absorbing every detail of her residence.
The chip the size of her hand.
That crack, which stretched from the floor to just shy of the ceiling.
A sink, inexplicably filthy.
A toilet, understandably filthy.
An iron bar.
Another iron bar.
A succession of iron bars.
A door, wide open.
Anger's eyes widened in sudden fear as she looked upon the open entry to her cell. Paling, she snapped her head back to face the wall straight in front of her. Eventually, though, her restraint failed her, and her gaze drifted to her right.
A barred window, outside which raged a perpetual thunderstorm.
A stain, which Anger couldn't explain and didn't know if she cared to try.
A picture frame, photo facing the wall.
Trembling slightly, Anger reached out with her powers and flipped the picture around for a split second- just long enough to see the blood spatter on his face, just long enough to remind herself of why even though the door was open, she was a prisoner in her own domain for the foreseeable future.
Hugging her knees tightly, Anger replaced the picture frame and began to silently rock back and forth.
Cyborg turned the corner without bothering to slow down, earning himself a rough jarring as his bulky frame smashed into the wall. Ignoring the damage done to himself and the building, he dashed down the hallway before coming to a screeching halt in front of his room.
Knocking down the door in a dramatic-yet-otherwise-pointless-gesture, Cyborg virtually flew to the mirror sitting on his computer console. Picking it up, he steeled his nerves and looked directly at his reflection.
Four red eyes glowed back at him, and a crimson claw caught him and began to pull.
The green moth fluttered at the light's edge, a clear demarcation between light and shadow etched into the nothingness that surrounded the insect.
An instant later, Beast Boy stood where the moth once had been, his eyes adjusting to the brilliant illuminating… whatever… in front of him.
Tentatively, he stretched a hand towards the light. Suddenly, all of the voices that he had failed to notice earlier stopped their chatter. The deafening silence startled the changeling, who jerked his hand back and looked around nervously. Failing to find the source of his surprise, he returned his attention to the whiteness.
His finger brushed the edge, and then all was light.
Raven was fighting a losing battle with Beast Boy's injuries. As soon as she focused on fixing one mortal wound, another injury would worsen and endanger her friend's life. So engrossed was she in her life and death game of whack-a-mole that she failed to notice his heart stop.
But the child-like emotion beside her did not. Her cloak made the final leap from dark violet to black as she let out a choked sob.
The sudden noise grabbed Raven's attention, and the half-demon raised her head just in time to see the child's face as she announced:
"I have a name now, Raven."
Raven raised her eyebrow questioningly, her expression showing plainly her confusion and annoyance at the interruption. She opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off as Nevermore lurched, throwing her to the ground. As she pulled herself back to her feet, Nevermore heaved once more, and she landed roughly on her face.
"Wha-" Raven's query was cut off as the landscape of her mind shattered, and she fell unconscious.
The diminutive emotion floated quietly beside the fragment of earth carrying Beast Boy, watching the empty shell of his body drift through Raven's broken mind.