Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans.

Ascension of the Beast

Chapter V

Passio Eius Pt. 1 — The Day That Changed Everything

The auditorium-style screening room had more seats than it would ever need. For a few minutes, Raven simply stood around waiting for one of the figments of Beast Boy's personality who had been accompanying her to direct her to her seat, but she ultimately realized from the lack of any such direct that she could sit anywhere she pleased. So, she chose to sit front and center. As she took her seat, Busara took the seat to her left, the Beast sat to her right, and Akili chose the seat directly behind hers.

Raven shrugged. 'Well, at least I won't be lonely,' she thought, sarcastically. In reality, she was feeling somewhat crowded, but chose not to voice her protest to them needlessly taking their seats so close to her. After all, she was in their world, and maybe they were staying this close as part of their mission to chaperon her here.

"What we're going to watch is something of a compilation of Beast Boy's memories, ranging in time between his very early childhood and the date he joined the Doom Patrol," Busara noted. "It's been edited in such a manner as to give you a look at the more important memories from that period, while also not using too much of your time. We recognize your vulnerability while your soul-self is separated from your body, and with Garfield asleep, we don't want to drag this on any longer than it needs to be. If there's anything you need to see which isn't presented here, you and Garfield could probably arrange for another visit." Busara took a moment to gauge Raven's reaction before continuing. "Are you ready?"

Raven nodded. "Yes." At that moment, the lights went out and a moment later the screen in front of them was bathed in the light of a projector. A title card appeared on the screen, which read simply "Upper Lamumba, Age 5 Years." As the title card faded, the clip opened on a young boy who she presumed was Garfield. She could not immediately be certain, however, as the boy was a Caucasian with blond hair and blue eyes. Regardless of the boy's identity, she quickly noticed that her empathy was picking up on the child's emotions, feelings and impulses. It was rather odd for her empathy to pick up anything more than vague emotional residue, but at the moment she was experiencing every feeling he felt as strongly as if she were feeling it herself.

The scene before her initially seemed happy enough. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the boy seemed to be happy enough playing around as young children typically do, apparently attempting to capture frogs. Raven could sense that the child harbored an intense curiosity about the natural world, especially with regard to the Animal Kingdom; forgetting for a moment what she was watching, she supposed the child could probably make a good veterinarian or even be a zoologist when he grew up. Soon enough, however, the boy's play was interrupted by the call of a stern, but feminine voice.

"Garfield Mark Logan!" the voice said in a tone which automatically made Raven assume the woman was Beast Boy's mother (and that he was probably in some sort of trouble). "How many times have your father and I told you not to wander so close to the forest by yourself?" Raven finally assessed the boy's surroundings—it appeared to be some sort of complex in a jungle clearing. There were multiple buildings, a sign in front of the largest of which reading "Upper Lamumba Research Center," with "Science and Technology Advanced Research Laboratories" printed in smaller text on the line below. She presumed that the larger building comprised the ULRC's main laboratory and office spaces, while the smaller buildings were residential spaces. She also noticed that, while focusing so much on trying to catch and observe the amphibians, Garfield had managed to unwittingly wander within three feet of the edge of the clearing.

"I'm sorry mama," the boy said in a sweet voice, apparently trying to charm himself out of trouble. "I didn't mean to! I was trying to catch the frogs, and I didn't even know I followed them here. Please don't be mad at me," Garfield added that last part a cute/sad voice, as his face took a form Raven had seen before—he was giving his mother the face. It wasn't quite as effective in human form as it would have been if he were, for example, a kitten, but Raven presumed the young boy did not yet have his morphing abilities, and he was nevertheless helped out by the unconditional love a mother has for her child. His mother dropped the pretense of anger; even as a five-year old, Beast Boy was a skillful manipulator.

"It's okay baby," the woman walked over to embrace her son. "Just please stay away from the forest. It's dangerous, and your father and I don't want you to get hurt." The woman took her son's hand and led him back toward the main building. As the two neared the larger building, a man who Raven could only presume to be Gar's father stepped out the door.

The man, like his wife and son, had blond hair and blue eyes. Raven noted that the man's jawline and facial structure heavily reminded her of her green friend, and made her realize for a moment how handsome she found the changeling to be. Gar's mother was herself quite beautiful, albeit in a realistic kind of way. Both had a warmth to them that was difficult to explain, although she was well acquainted with it as Garfield had inherited it in spades.

"Was he wandering too close to the forest again?" The man asked his wife—apparently Garfield was a repeat offender, though Raven of course knew enough of her friend's stubborn persistence that it was really no surprise. The boy's mother quietly nodded as her son frowned and hung his head. The man's gaze shifted to his son as he addressed him in a voice which betrayed that Garfield's parents were feeling deep concern over his tendency to wander off like that, but no anger. "Gar, you know that it's dangerous to go near the forest alone." The man winced for a fraction of a second, as if imagining terrible things which could befall his son; it was obvious to Raven by this point that Gar's parents loved him more than anything.

"Your mother and I have a lot of work to do," he continued in a tone which stated the matter without much chiding. "What would happen if you were to run into a dangerous animal and neither of us was there to protect you? Son, I love you more than life itself," the man's eyes seemed to be welling up slightly, "please don't ever go near the forest by yourself again. Your mother and I don't want anything bad to happen to you." The boy's face and posture demonstrated that he was sorry for having disobeyed his parents, and guilty for making them worry.

The woman placed her hand on her husband's shoulder. "I think he understands, Mark," she said as she cast a loving smile toward the man. "It doesn't seem like he intentionally went over there at any rate; from what he said, he was trying to catch frogs and they led him over there without his having realized where he was."

"Still, Marie," the man's voice faltered ever so slightly, "whether he's there intentionally or not, it's still dangerous." Mark thought for a moment and turned his eyes back in the direction of his son. "Gar, I want you to promise me something," the elder Logan male said in a calm, loving voice. "Promise me that you'll be more careful."

The young boy's reply was to be expected: "Okay baba, I promise I'll be more careful and not even go back by the forest again accidentally when I'm by myself," the five-year old said in a surprisingly articulate voice. Raven could feel that Garfield was making no attempts at deception; he meant his words as he made his promise to his father. A moment later, Mark and Marie returned to work, and Garfield was left to his own devices once again, quite bored with the lack of anything to hold his attention at the moment. Soon, however, he resumed his frog catching, albeit this time a little more careful to mind where he was and where he was going.

A while later, a Land Rover arrived at the compound, out of which a large man and two boys emerged. The man's clothing seemed to indicate he was an African tribesman of extremely high stature. As Garfield's parents addressed him as "Mfalme Tawaba," Raven instantly recognized that this was most likely the King Tawaba the news had reported disappeared on Tuesday. Suddenly she understood why Gar's obsession with the Lamumba situation had intensified that week; it appeared Tawaba was a friend of the Logan family. Raven presumed that the two boys were two of the King's sons.

Garfield, deeply immersed in his own activity, was initially only half-aware of the arrival of the King and his sons. That is, until the younger of the two—who appeared to be Garfield's age—approached him. "Hujambo, Garfield, haligani?" the boy greeted Garfield.

"Sijambo sana, Jelani, nawe?" Garfield's reply was the first element of the memory which truly shocked Raven. She had known that Dick, with Batman providing the finest education possible, was multilingual. She knew that Starfire could learn any language in the blink of an eye by merely kissing someone who spoke it. She herself was fluent in a multitude of languages, including English, German, Latin, Romanian, Classical and Modern Greek, Ancient Sumerian, Sanskrit, and Ancient and Coptic Egyptian. But never in her wildest of imaginative moments had she ever even remotely considered the possibility of Beast Boy of all people being fluent in any languages other than English. Indeed, if he had told her, she would have incredulously thought he was joking. But here, right before her, he was speaking a language that she didn't even know. Indeed, she couldn't even seem to positively identify it—she was certain it was a Bantu language and she suspected that it was Swahili, but she was not well enough versed in African languages to know for sure.

"Sijambo, asante. Unafanyaje?" the other boy, whose name she presumed was Jelani, replied. As her shock over the changeling having been multilingual at such a young age—or at all—wore off, Raven was beginning to become a little annoyed by the fact that she couldn't understand a word of what they were talking about.

"Ninanyaka vyura, lakini silifanikiwi," Garfield's face bore a frown as he replied. "Nilinyaka tu moja." Raven's annoyance at being unable to understand the two children's words was building gradually stronger as she could see that whatever Gar had said saddened him, and she didn't know what it was or why it did.

"Nitakusaidia!" replied Jelani, which put a smile back on Garfield's face. At this point, Raven's annoyance of sensing the sudden shifts in emotion without knowing a word of what was being said was getting pretty severe. Gar had gone from momentarily slightly self-conscious to content on the drop of a hat. Raven figured she wasn't going to miss much if her attention to this part of the memory wasn't full.

"What language are they speaking?" the empath asked the embodiment of her friend's wisdom. The question had been nagging at her long enough, and she figured now would be a better time than ever to get an answer.

"Kiswahili," Busara's reply confirmed Raven's initial suspicion. "Of course, English was Garfield's first language. His parents taught him Afrikaans, French and Swahili, in order to facilitate him living in Africa. He learned sign language in order to be able to communicate with some of the great apes who were held in the lab where his parents worked—his love for animals is not a result of his ability to morph into them, that trait has always been there in him. During his time with the Doom Patrol, Mento forced him to learn Latin and Spanish. He also took an interest in and learned Japanese after the Titans' excursion in Tokyo." Raven was shocked by the breadth of multilingualism Busara was freely describing. "Due to mutual intelligibility with languages he's fluent in, he is also capable of comprehending Galician and Romanian, as well as (to a more limited degree) Dutch and Portuguese. It would probably take very little effort for him to learn how to speak German and Italian as well—although he has not yet achieved anything near fluency in either of these languages, he does have a limited working understanding of them. Also, let's not forget his proficient capacity to communicate with animals when he takes their form. However, Arabic confuses him thoroughly; it is one language I do not anticipate him ever learning."

"Why hasn't he ever told anyone that he's multilingual, or let on about it in any way?" Raven was beginning to become more than a little frustrated with Garfield for having hidden his linguistic abilities.

"He has in a way—did you never notice that he was always fully able to understand everything Más and Menos said? Well, there he showed that he understands Spanish." Raven was visibly unsatisfied with Busara's explanation, as it did not explain why he never disclosed knowledge of the other seven languages and forms of human communication he was fluent in. Busara explained further in response. "Secondly, being underestimated has long been one of his greatest advantages—all of the Titans would probably be frozen right now if the Brain knew to consider Garfield a credible threat, and the reason the Brain did not consider him so was because the Brain was unaware of his full capacity..."

"Wait! You're telling me that Beast Boy, my Beast Boy, the Titans' Beast Boy—the same Beast Boy who once gave Cyborg a computer virus," Raven took a deep breath, "you're telling me that he's been hiding his full range of capabilities for a tactical advantage?!" Raven was in part incredulous of what Busara was telling her, while the part that did believe was becoming more than a little frustrated with the changeling's perceived lack of trust. "He could have told me! I'm not about to tell our enemies anything!"

"He does trust you, though. The tactical advantage of being underestimated was only ever the reason why he did not readily use his full ability in battle," Busara replied, attempting to help Raven understand. "As for why he hid his full capabilities from the team...he felt it was outside of his niche. For reasons which you will soon understand, Garfield is terrified of losing the people he cares about. He ended up figuring that if he didn't fit into a certain role, the team wouldn't have a purpose for him. Leadership was Robin's role, technical and medical expertise were Cyborg's roles, rational advice and supernatural expertise were your roles, and Starfire, in her sweet and naive nature, was the team's heart. Garfield figured his niche was that of comic relief, and he loves you and the other Titans more than anything—he didn't want to lose you."

Raven's eyes opened in a manner displaying full shock at what Busara was saying. "How could he possibly think we would have abandoned him just because he didn't have a specialized role? We weren't just a team, we were a family!"

"In a word," Busara began her reply quickly after Raven finished her question, "his experience in the Doom Patrol taught him that he was expendable; that if he didn't have some special role that no one else on the team could fulfill, there was no place for him on the team. It also taught him that there was no place for him on the team if he couldn't fulfill the team's expectations of him, which were always unattainably high in the Doom Patrol and impossibly low in the Titans. How much of a hurry Robin was to send him to jail during the whole incident with him," Busara pointed back at the Beast, "also didn't help matters."

While Raven and Busara were having their conversation, the older of Tawaba's sons, whose name Raven presumed was Mosi, had joined Garfield and Jelani in their game. However, soon after the completion of the conversation, Tawaba began to approach the boys. "Mosi! Jelani!" the King called to his sons, "njoo, tunaenda sasa."

"Baba," Jelani began his reply with an obviously sad look on his face, "naweza kubaki hapa?" Raven presumed from context that Tawaba was probably telling his sons it was time to leave, and Jelani was asking if he could stay longer.

"Si sasa," replied the King. "Unaweza kucheza na Garfield wakati ujao." The King then turned to Gar, and spoke with a soft look on his face that betrayed the fact that the King's friendly disposition toward the Doctors Logan extended to their son as well. "Samahani, Garfield. Wewe ni mtoto mzuri, lakini Jelani ina mambo yeye lazima kufanya leo." Based on the tone of the man's voice, it sounded like he wanted to make sure Garfield knew that he did not mean any offense to him by refusing to allow his son to stay and play longer.

After Garfield exchanged what Raven could only assume were parting salutations with the King and his sons, the boy proceeded to search for something else to do. He apparently decided it was a good time to see what his parents were doing, so he entered the lab building. Although this was the largest building in the compound, it was still a relatively small structure, which likely shortened Garfield's search considerably. When he entered the room where his parents were, they were experimenting on something or other; either way, it didn't really spark his attention so well and hence the memory really didn't show much of what they were doing.

Predictably, given his innate curiosity about animals, the boy made his way over to the animal cages. The one animal that most caught his eye was a green monkey—he had only heard about such a thing before, and this was the first one he'd seen with his own two eyes. As the boy drew closer to the caged animal, his father noticed. "Gar, get away from there NOW!" The man's voice was far more stern than the previous conversation and seemed to have an undertone of panic to it. Garfield immediately did as he was told, and his mother rushed over to escort him out of the room. Mark turned to his colleague, "sorry about that distraction, Sam."

As his mother was leading him out of the room, he overheard the other doctor's reply. "I wish I could say it was okay, Mark, but it's not. We have to maintain professional conditions here if we want to understand this virus, and having a child interrupting everything like that can't stand. Can't you and Marie send him back to the States or something?"

At this point, Gar was obviously hurt, as his parents' reaction of pushing him out of the lab and their colleague's words had made him feel unwanted. He found solace by a predictable means, however; humans might reject him, but animals almost never did. He proceeded to grab a bag of food and then, forgetting the promise he had made to his parents earlier that day, ventured into the woods to interact with the wildlife. Though he never went far into the forest—the research facility and the residential huts built around it were always visible—Raven knew this was a dangerous choice. But in Garfield's emotional state, he seemed to forget that. Raven couldn't help but see an analogue in how Garfield's sulking emotions on that day were leading him to be less aware of danger and the day, later in his life, when his sulking over having been left out by the Titans nearly led to him being press-ganged into serving as an alien's pet—deep in her heart, part of Raven actually still felt guilty about that.

Generally, his interactions with the animals were positive. He would give an animal a handful of food, and the animal would sit with him for a while, allowing him to pet it—Raven was quite surprised by how this young version of her friend was able to so easily gain the trust of wild animals. However, as the sun began threatening to dip beneath the horizon, things most decidedly took a turn for the worst. Garfield crossed paths with another green monkey, and this animal wasn't so apt to be friendly. Within seconds, the monkey bit into Garfield's shoulder. Thankfully, the animal fled soon after biting the boy, opting not to go as far as killing him on the spot, but this was little comfort for Garfield.

The boy was able to observe the spot where the animal had bitten him. A large piece of his shirt had been torn off, and the bite was bleeding quite a bit, but otherwise it was a small wound. The truly worrying part, however, was that the skin around the wound was beginning to take on a green tone. As the boy began to stumble back out into the clearing, he appeared visibly feverish. The quality of the memory at this point began to degrade quite rapidly, as the boy was apparently losing consciousness as his immune symptom attempted to battle this almost unnaturally fast-acting virus. His last words before he passed out half way to the research building were a desperate cry for his mother's help.

Garfield's consciousness barely flashed into being as his mother crouched over his body, a highly pronounced look of concern in her eyes. "GAR! Come on, talk to me baby! Please..." the woman's composure began to break down as she noticed the green discoloration surrounding her son's wound. "Please Gar, you have to tell me what happened," she said, with tears of worry beginning to stream from her eyes.

"I... green monkey," was all the boy could manage to say, but it was more than enough. The woman's cries suddenly became more frantic, backed now more by feelings of despair than by concern. Garfield seemed to fall back into unconsciousness with this view in sight.

"What happened to him?" Raven asked Busara, the concern in her own voice severely pronounced. "I mean, I know he was bit by the monkey, but why is he so sick, and why is his mother so..."

"Despondent?" Busara paused for a moment before explaining to Raven what happened. "That monkey was of a rare species of highly aggressive primates found only in Upper Lamumba, generally known as the Lamumban green macaque, or by the scientific classification Macaca viridis. They are the most common carriers of a virus called Sakutia, which, much like Rabies, is transmitted via contact between the host's saliva and the victim's circulatory system (i.e., the virus enters the bloodstream in saliva injected by bites). The virus causes an infectious disease called the Green Fever, or, less frequently, the Green Death. Both of these names are quite appropriate; a high fever is among the earliest symptoms and, prior to Garfield, the recorded lethality rate in humans was 100%—Garfield was the first human in recorded history to survive the disease."

"I'm gonna guess that wasn't luck," Raven responded, thoroughly interested in how Beast Boy could end up being the first person in history to survive this disease, without any of the Titans ever having learned about it.

"You know how stubbornly persistent he can be and how determined he is to ensure the safety of those he cares about?" Raven simply nodded in response to Busara's words. "Those were inherited traits. While Marie Logan was despondent, Mark Logan was determined to do anything he could to save his son's life. The Doctors Logan were in Lamumba because Dr. Samuel Register had recruited them to work on a S.T.A.R. Labs program studying Sakutia. Mark had a proficient understanding of the virus's mechanisms, which, combined with his desperation to save his son, resulted in a moment of absolute genius. The virus is latent in most animals other than humans, so what Mark did was create a serum by combining some mutagen—don't ask me what mutagen, because I only have access to information Garfield learned—with DNA from many different species from throughout the Animal Kingdom. The mutagen-DNA cocktail reacted with Garfield's own DNA, causing changes in his immune system which forced the virus into latency."

"So, he's still infected then?" Raven was suddenly worried about whether Garfield's saliva could kill someone.

"In a word, yes," Busara's reply was going to be complex, as appeared to be usual. "Some of his antibodies can kill the virus, but only before the virus infects the cells of the host. Since Garfield was already sick when he was given the serum, it could not eliminate the virus within him. However, it has made it impossible for him to transmit the disease to other humans, because at the same time he transmits the virus, he would also transmit the antibodies which kill the virus."

Author's Notes
I took a lot of artistic license for the finer details in this chapter, but the overall theme of Beast Boy's past is mostly canon, created from a composite of multiple sources. The rest of the Passio Eius arch will probably be the same way.

I was originally going to do Passio Eius as a single chapter, but the part about the day he was bitten kept running on so much that I was worried the chapter would be too long if I didn't split it up. I mean, as this chapter currently stands, it's nearly 4,800 words. But I'm also worried that I may have digressed too much with the dialogue and everything; I'm trying to walk a line between showing Raven learning increasingly more about how Garfield's personality works and why it's the way it is, on the one hand, versus not wanting to bring the story's plot momentum to a standstill, on the other.

Annatheavidreader-I'm trying to restrain myself a bit with the BBRae tension in part because I'm worried that if I end up writing too much sexual tension between them, I'll end up writing a lemon into the story somewhere, and I don't really think it'd be a good idea for me to write a lemon into my first story on the site. Nevertheless, don't be surprised if I end up having to change the rating.

JasonVUK-An anima/animus is an archetypal personification of the unconscious self, the concept of which originally having been conceived by the analytical psychologist Carl Jung in his theory of the collective unconscious. The unconscious self of a given individual will always be the opposite gender of that person's conscious self—so that's why Beast Boy, as a male, would have a feminine anima. Incidentally, Raven should have a masculine animus of her own, but she has never encountered 'him' yet (then again, I'm not even confirming that 'he' even exists at this point, but merely stating that 'he' should...so, consider Raven's animus to be sorta like a Schrödinger's cat for now).