Disclaimer: I still do not own the Teen Titans.

Ascension of the Beast

Chapter VI

Passio Eius Pt. 2 — The Ostracized Mongoose

As Garfield's memories continued, Raven noticed that Garfield's parents had begun to treat every day with him as though it were a second change following his horrifically close brush with death. They spent a lot more time with him after the incident, although a large part of that could have been that Mark's desperate drive to save his son's life actually expedited the completion of much of their work. Dr. Register only needed Marie on rare occasions now, and the remaining workload was light enough that Mark could work normal hours.

Garfield now looked like the familiar Beast Boy that Raven knew and...well, didn't hate. His blond hair, blue eyes and ivory skin had now turned various shades of green. Raven observed that the combination of his green features and trademark pointy ears, together with the diminutive stature of his five-year old form, made Garfield look even more like an elf than he did when he was in his young teens. Raven would tease him about that from time to time, but in all honesty she always found it to be somehow endearing; well, at least until he'd say something about the ladies not being able to resist his pointy ears.

The title card for this reel noted that Gar was now about six months older, though the setting was still in Upper Lamumba. It was another sunny day, and the young boy was enjoying quality time spent with his mother. Gar and Marie were in a field of what appeared to be sugarcane, picking the canes and chewing on them in order to enjoy the cane juice locked within. Raven figured this was probably the closest thing to candy that was available to Garfield under the circumstances.

Eventually the boy's sugar tooth was satisfied and he approached his mother. "Mama," his words caused her to immediately look at him with an inquisitive, yet very loving look. "Can we go to the village? I want to play with the other kids." Garfield had not been to the village since before the incident, and during the interceding months he'd only had Tawaba's sons for playmates during their irregular visits to the compound.

Marie hesitated before answering her son's request. She seemed to be in deep thought, but Raven could guess what she was thinking about—her son's happiness. On the one hand, Marie could say no, but that would leave Garfield with no friends to play with. On the other hand, she could say yes, but...well, how the other village children would react to a green boy was something to worry about. Marie was obviously caught between a rock and a hard place; she wanted her son to be happy, but either one of the options before her could lead to great unhappiness. "Okay, Gar, we'll go to the village," the woman presented a smile to her son, but her eyes betrayed her misgivings.

The two began walking and the scene transitioned to their arrival in the village. Garfield was initially excited to be around other children, but the other children looked at him with fear. Tawaba was a progressive leader who sought to establish greater justice among his people, but there had been longstanding superstitions about physical abnormalities in the local culture, and many of the people in the tribe were not so tolerant. Garfield soon noticed the frightened stares, but that was not the thing that hurt the worst.

As his mother visited with the King and his wife, the boy located Jelani. Garfield wanted to play, but Jelani was playing with other children from the tribe, and these children began to make fun of the poor boy. Hurtfully, Jelani quickly caved to the peer pressure and rejected the boy who had previously been his best friend. To say that Garfield was hurt would be an extreme understatement—Raven herself began to cry from the emotions the memory was feeding her. A mix of sorrow and a strong feeling of betrayal were dominant in an overpowering form. Garfield began to break down and ran away, finding a hiding spot among some bushes in an effort to escape the torment.

After a while, Mosi discovered the crying boy. The older boy asked Garfield a question that Raven could not understand, though she presumed he was asking the younger boy what was wrong. Raven guessed from the fact that Jelani's name was mentioned in his response, that Garfield was telling Mosi what happened. The older boy showed no signs of malice or fear toward Gar, but instead sat next to the boy and sympathetically placed a hand on his shoulder. Mosi spoke in a supportive, conciliatory tone, which seemed to calm the green boy. As the older boy stood and offered his hand to help Garfield up, he said something else in a humorous tone, which caused Gar to crack up laughing as he got to his feet.

Mosi and Garfield walked back to Tawaba's home, and upon their arrival the King's older son apparently told his father what Jelani had done. Tawaba seemed angry, which would seem to be a natural reaction. A King's son is supposed to be a leader to his community, and Tawaba seemed to live by the wisdom that a leader's role is to help protect the unfortunate and the weak. A leader, in such a view, does not bully others and surely must never give in to peer pressure on matters pertinent to moral character. It was fairly clear that Jelani was not going to have a happy evening.

As Garfield and Marie left the village, Raven thought the memory from that day was over—she was wrong. When the clip didn't end, she looked confusingly at Busara, as if to ask the unspoken question "what next?"

Busara apparently understood the unspoken question. "No one—not Garfield, not Mark, not Marie—had any idea he could..."

At that moment, the memory showed Marie and Gar getting into no small degree of trouble. The black mamba is quite possibly the most feared snake on the African continent. Normally, when threatened, the snake will use its impressive (for a snake) speed to try to evade the threat, but they will attack when cornered. If it comes to the point of an attack, the results are typically not good for whatever animal the snake attacked—the venom of a black mamba can kill an adult human in the span of about 20 minutes, generally meaning there will not be time to get anti-venom.

Unfortunately, Marie and Gar accidentally cornered a black mamba while they were walking home. The snake took a defensive posture, raising its head and exposing its black mouth while exposing a neck flap and hissing at Marie. The snake was trying to scare them away, and Marie (being a zoologist) should have known to grab Gar and run, but fear paralyzed her as she forgot everything she new about the black mamba.

Raven could feel Garfield's emotions from the moment, and until the snake lunged in Marie's direction, the dominant feeling was shear terror. But then a different emotion took over little more than a fraction of a second before a green blur shot from where Garfield had been standing—a powerful determination to protect his loved ones. The snake bite that Mare had been expecting was never delivered. Fearing the absolute worst case—that the snake had bitten her son instead—Marie looked to where Gar had been standing a moment earlier, and he wasn't there. She then looked to where the snake had been and was shocked to find a green mongoose consuming the body of the now-dead snake.

After apparently searching her memory of zoology, it appeared that Marie could not recall a species of mongoose that was green. In fact, the only mammals in the entire country which were green were the green macaque and her own son. Her confusion only seemed to deepen as she apparently remembered the green blur. The woman looked back and forth between the spot where her son had been standing and the green mongoose, seemingly afraid she had gone insane for what conclusion her mind was drawing. The woman looked at the mongoose. "Gar?" she asked in a voice as sweet and maternal as it was confused and afraid. The clip ended as the mongoose responded to the name.

Busara decided to directly tell Raven what had happened, in order to save the time that would have been consumed by watching other memories from when Gar was a mongoose. "Marie almost fainted in the moment after the clip ended. Garfield had indeed morphed into a mongoose and, in the first act of heroism in his young life, saved his mother from a bite which almost certainly would have killed her." Raven was listening intently.

"But the story's not that simple, is it?" Raven asked, knowing the answer to her question. Busara shook her head in confirmation.

"You know how Garfield was unable to really control himself when he took the form of the Beast?" Raven nodded in response to Busara's question. "His first morph was rather similar in principle. Although his memory stored the information and some basic parts of his conscious mind were operational, he did not have control of his powers at the time. Heck, he didn't even know about his powers. He didn't return to human form until the next time he fell asleep—maintaining an animal form while sleeping is something he can only consciously do." Busara paused for a moment to allow Raven to digest the information before continuing. "His parents being scientists, obviously wanted to figure out what happened. They ended up settling on the hypothesis that the serum which saved his life also imbued him with metamorphic powers. They found that he was able to morph into any animal which was lesser than or equal to his size—no one would realize he could morph into animals larger than himself until he was in the Doom Patrol. But, being parents, Mark and Marie also recognized that Garfield's morphing abilities could be beneficial to him in under some circumstances, and that he needed to be able to control them regardless, so for the next seven months they worked with him to help him gain greater control of his powers."

"Seven months? Why did they stop?" Raven at this point knew that she probably wasn't going to like the answer, and Busara's depressed sigh and frown confirmed that it probably wasn't going to be pleasant, but she needed to know. "What happened?"

Author's Notes
I'm not quite as satisfied with this chapter as I was with the previous chapter. I feel like the beginning of the chapter—dealing with the initial ostracism directed at Garfield—was a failure, but I didn't really know how to re-write it and I felt like it needed to be there. That part also lacks in dialogue, but translating it to English wouldn't make sense because Raven can't understand them (whereas an English translation would suggest that she could), and figuring out what these phrases would be in Swahili was getting tiresome.

I wanted to wrap up the Passio Eius arch with this chapter, but again things ended up going longer than I expected. I'm hoping the next chapter will wrap it up so I can continue with the rest of the story.

Annatheavidreader-I wasn't thinking there would be a lemon anytime soon at any rate—it would seem very unnatural for their relationship to take that kind of sudden leap, unless alcohol was involved, in which case the aftermath would probably destroy it. If there is going to be a lemon, it'll be in the second half of the fic; but my issue is that my cautious side is worried about even the remotest possibility of censorship, while my creative side feels like there should be a lemon somewhere toward the end of the story, which would feed into the plot of the sequel (I already have the most basic skeletons of plot lines for a few sequels in my mind; given the reaction to this fic so far, there's a fairly good chance I'll actually write them). I like that you liked the part about Busara explaining things like that—I envisioned Busara's objective in the interaction with Raven while she's in Garfield's mindscape would be to act as a sort of guide to help Raven better understand what she's seeing.

I Tear Paper For Fun-Well, not everything I'm writing is canon (some of which being because the canon can be really vague and conflicting, but I'm also taking some purely artistic license in some cases), but as far as the things that are canon go, I try and I'm glad you appreciate my research. I already have most of Gar's emoticlones figured out, and they will eventually make appearances, though most likely not during Raven's current visit to BB's mindscape. I also intend for there to be more extensive explorations of both Garfield's mindscape and Nevermore at some point, which will be moderately important to the plot.