Disclaimer: Again, I own nothing.

Ascension of the Beast

Chapter XVIII

Lights Out

From the moment Arthur Light closed that trunk, he felt the second greatest fear he'd ever in his life experienced. He had always believed that thing to be a lie made up by Adonis to legitimize his defeat at the hands of Beast Boy and proliferated by the Titans as a means of psychological warfare, but now he knew better. The perverse so-called man barely escaped the Batcave with his life, the only thing keeping that Beast from getting him being a well-timed use of his light-based powers to blind him. But with the Beast's insanely-high healing factor, all that did was buy the villain enough time to get in his vehicle and get a head start.

"Gar, no!" Dick Grayson called as the werebeast began running in pursuit of the vehicle. Dick, together with Zatanna, Vic and Kori had rushed down to the Batcave as soon as Zatanna made the troubling discovery that Lock-Up had been hired by Doctor Light and that, since Light's intelligence seemed to have recovered, it was apparent that the partial lobotomy she'd given in order to make him less dangerous following the incident with Sue Dibny no-longer held. Still, Dick did not trust Gar's werebeast form—he knew too well that Gar's higher cognitive functions were not in control when he was in that form. The Boy Wonder could not readily predict how a feral beast would act and react, and as such, although he had learned to trust Gar's higher functions, he could not bring himself to trust the Beast.

The Beast, however, paid this no mind, as he was in hot pursuit of the getaway car. But Light was beginning to calm. As the car left the Batcave, the Beast was just fifty yards behind. As the vehicle accelerated, the distance between them grew. By the time Light reached the end of the ramp leading outside, the car was doing 80 miles per hour and did a small jump as it exited. Unfortunately for the trunk's inhabitant, this would throw her upward with enough force that she lost consciousness when her head hit the trunk lid, but for Light it was going well indeed.

Soon the distance between Beast and car was pushing 250 yards, but the Beast was nevertheless exceeding the maximum speed record for a land animal by nearly twenty miles per hour. The Beast soon began to dig his claws into the ground with each stride, increasing his traction on the ground and thereby providing a further boost to his speed. At the same time, a desperate command was sent to the werebeast's muscles: "we need more power." Five miles into the pursuit, the Beast was now closing the distance. After another mile it was down to a hundred yards. At the next mile marker after that, the Beast was only fifty yards away from the speeding car. Light was beginning to become nervous again, but at the eighth mile marker he felt a sudden wave of relief as he looked into the rear-view mirror and saw that the Beast was no longer there.

The villain's relief was suddenly wiped away by shock as the roof over the rear half of the vehicle's cabin collapsed at the ninth mile marker. As it turned out, the road was running next to a forest, and the werebeast decided he'd gain ground more quickly swinging and jumping through the trees. The impact as the Beast leaped onto the car was so forceful that it entirely flattened the vehicle's rear suspension and brought the rear wheel wells down to a level where they were actually acting as breaks, providing resistance against the rotation of the rear wheels. All three of the concerned individuals were actually quite lucky the rear axle didn't snap, as Light was was just barely able to retain control of the vehicle with the sudden rear drag and misalignment of the vehicle's rear wheels.

Wasting not a moment, the werebeast pierced the trunk lid with his large, sharp claws and tore it open with enough force to tear the lid off its hinges as well as shatter the lock. He was not even going to bother with the villain at this point—rescuing Raven was the supreme imperative. Lifting the unconscious woman, the werebeast cradled her in his arms as he jumped from the vehicle, which was now barely going ten miles per hour. Still feeling that Raven was in danger, and especially concerned that she was unconscious, the Beast quickly took her away in search of a more secure and easily-defensible location.

Considering what just happened to his vehicle, Light made the wise choice to just let it go. The werebeast had done more damage to the car than a collision with a semi-truck probably would have, and the villain could not be certain of what kind of damage this primal creature could do to him. He was not in a mood to find out, so he instead chose to simply keep driving.

"Batman," Jim Gordon's voice said over the phone. The commissioner sped to GCPD headquarters almost as soon as the attack on Wayne Manor occurred, and was now in the field. "I believe we've found the vehicle Arthur Light was using. Same model and make as the vehicle that was on the security footage and the partial on the plates matches."

"Do you have any indication of where Light or Raven might be?" the Dark Knight asked, tapping his greatest source of information within the police department.

"Well, that's the thing," Gordon responded. "It's in a parking lot at Gotham International, but I'm not even sure how he drove it hear. The roof is collapsed, the rear suspension is pancaked, and an officer who knows a lot about mechanics told me that the wheel alignment is probably shot. The car ended up getting reported when a tow truck that was going to remove it because there was no parking permit wasn't able to move it—the rear wheels are apparently locked completely. There are what appear to be claw marks all over the rear half of the vehicle's body, and the trunk lid is missing."

"Thank you, Jim. Call me if you find anything else."

"Will do," the commissioner said as he hanged up.

"What is the werebeast's top running speed?" the great detective asked a now fully-costumed Nightwing.

"Not sure," Nightwing responded. "We never had an opportunity to clock it, but if I had to bet, I wouldn't hesitate to say it could outrun a cheetah. Why?"

"Something very big attacked Light's car, yet the vehicle was going highway speed when it left the ramp," the cowl hid most of the Dark Knight's facial reaction, but his voice expressed a sense of surprise. "Apparently, the vehicle is covered in large claw marks and the trunk lid is missing. Combined with the fact that Light apparently escaped Gotham on a commercial flight, I have to deduce that Garfield Logan's werebeast form was successful in rescuing Raven from Light."

"Good," Nightwing snarked, "now all we have to do is rescue Raven from Gar."

"Have you never actually paid attention to the information at hand?" Batman inquired, with more than a little disappointment apparent in his voice. "Everything in the reports of the werebeast's actions from the past suggest its behavior follows the pattern of an animal protecting someone very close to it—be that a pack member, a cub, or a mate. Even the way you yourself described how the werebeast carried her in your first encounter with it resembles the way a cat carries its kittens. On top of that, the League actually interviewed Raven herself on the subject after we found out about the werebeast, and what she said is very important on this matter. Quote 'I did not feel at all threatened by the Beast. In fact, if anything, I felt more safe in its presence, as it's mission seemed to be to protect me from Adonis,' end quote. It should take no great leap of reasoning to realize the werebeast is not a threat to her."

Nightwing was shocked into muteness. First Raven had defended the werebeast immediately after she woke up that first night. Then she convinced Cyborg, and eventually even Starfire seemed to lean toward their position. Now not only was Batman, of all people, defending that thing, but he was doing it in a manner which allowed Nightwing no counterpoints. Well, none except for one. "Then why would he have attacked us?"

"Nightwing, you are not this dense," the Dark Knight was now doing absolutely nothing to hide his disappointment in his former sidekick's detective skills.

"He attacked because you attacked him," said a fully-costumed Tim Drake, who now finally had a monopoly on the title of Robin. "How do you expect a wild animal to react to hostility? Especially when it's already engaged in defending someone it cares deeply for. What do you think is going to happen if you walk up to a mother bear and punch it in its face when it has a cub in the vicinity? Feral animals only have two reactions to hostility: fight or flight. And they're not going to go with flight when they also have to protect something or someone they'd give their lives for."

"Judging by the size of that thing, it isn't going to go with flight anyway," Nightwing noted, "but I get your point now. But then what do we do?"

"Nothing," the Dark Knight replied. "From all of the information that we have, I would have to deduce that it would be best if we allowed the werebeast some space." Batman paused for a moment. "However, Nightwing, I want you to take Robin, Spoiler, Batgirl, Starfire and Cyborg and keep an eye out. Do not let anyone get too close. Ad above all, do not attempt to engage it." The information that the Titans had shared in the swap with the Justice League was proving invaluable to the Dark Knight in making decisions as to how to handle the situation. That said, he probably would have handled the original situation much better than Dick had as well; Dick did have a tendency to jump to conclusions quicker than Bruce liked, while Bruce, with all of his experience, knew not to rush so quickly to battle without knowing the facts first. It was the ultimate difference between a thinker and a feeler: Bruce led with his head, Dick led with his gut.

That said, if Bruce had wanted any of the people who had theretofore held the title of Robin to be in a leadership position, Dick would certainly be the first in mind. Jason Todd—who Talia had recently informed him had been resurrected years earlier—was always too hotheaded, by far given more to irrational impulses than the other two. Tim Drake, the current Robin, had an amazing intellect and a natural disposition toward thinking things through rationally, but he lacked the practical experience Dick had. Still, he hoped that Tim's mind would be a good asset for Dick during their mission that night.

"What about the GCPD?" Nightwing inquired.

"Jim'll keep the GCPD out of your hair, but be advised that if they cross city limits, I'm not sure what, if anything, I can do about the Gotham County Sheriff's Department."

"I thought you had an in with Sheriff Smith."

"I do—or rather, Robin and Commissioner Gordon do—but he is presently away on vacation."

"There's always Sissy Chambers," Robin pointed out.

"Who's she?" Nightwing responded. Having spent the past half decade living outside of Gotham had left him somewhat out of the know when it came to Gotham's law enforcement scene.

"Deputy Chambers is Sheriff Smith's number two. She's pretty much in charge while he's gone. What I worry about is the National Guard, though—we don't have any ins with them at all."

The mention of the National Guard disturbed Nyssa Raatko. The two daughters of Ra's al-Ghul had been eavesdropping on the conversation out of unspecified interest. Nyssa quickly pulled her sister aside so the two would not be heard.

"Perhaps your husband needs additional motivation to work harder to ensure the survival of everyone important," Nyssa said. "Perhaps you should tell him. I mean, if anything were to happen to..."

"No, sister," Talia cut her sister off. "You know what father said: no one is to know anything until the appointed time. And even then, it is best that they find out on their own. To tell them anything would be to risk everything. Would you prefer that father to go back to the old way?"

"Of course not!" Nyssa exclaimed. She had been in opposition to her father's democidal strategy to begin with, and that hadn't changed. "But if either the changeling or the demoness is..."

"We both should know very well that nothing is going to happen to them, so long as we do our part by holding our tongues until the correct moment comes."

"But earlier, the KGBeast nearly killed Logan. If not for your intervention, he would have succeeded."

"You know very well that the fight in question was supposed to happen and I was supposed to intervene as I did. I know you have much invested in this, but I assure you that National Guardsmen with itchy trigger fingers will not be a problem."

As Raven awoke, she quickly became aware of two peculiar sensations. First of all, she was lying cradled in something that felt as though it was covered in a soft layer of a downy or furry material, superimposed over a firmer foundation. She actually found herself so comfortable in this position that she neither made an attempt to open her eyes nor recall the events which had transpired earlier in the night. She simply rolled over onto her side, until she found her face buried in a similar material. She was far too comfortable to care, however, and merely nuzzled herself closer, content with the odd warmth emanating from the surface.

The second sensation, however, would wrest her from her slumber with great effect. The feeling was really difficult to describe with the context she had at the moment. It felt kind of like wet sandpaper rubbing the side of her face and her ear, only it was really elastic, almost as if it were made of flesh. Unable to return to her unconscious state, she suddenly remembered what had happened earlier and her eyes immediately shot open in panic.

She immediately realized, for one thing, that she could see again. What she did see, however, took all of the fear away from her: a wall of green fur. 'Gar must have saved me,' she thought. 'But if I'm staring at a huge wall of fur right now, that means...' she looked up just as the werebeast's tongue made another pass, this time licking her face instead of the side of her head. "Ow!" she said as the cat-like tongue of the Beast traversed the skin of her face. The exposition of pain caused the Beast to cease the licking.

"Do you ever get tired of rescuing me?" Raven inquired as she looked up at the Beast's face. For the first time ever (in its corporeal manifestation, at least), the Beast demonstrated the level of intelligence Raven had seen it exhibit while she was inside of Gar's mind. The Beast shook its head in the negative. It never tired of rescuing her.

"As much as I really am comfortable just laying here, cradled in your arms, do you think you can let your master have control of his body back?" Raven asked. Once again, the Beast shook his head to say no. "Why not?" the empath asked, only for the Beast to raise the arm that was not cradling her and point outward. She immediately realized that the werebeast must sense some sort of potential threat in the direction he was pointing, but she could see nothing in the darkness; especially considering that, as she found out, they were apparently deep enough in a forest that the leaf-less trees still were able to block out direct sight of the lights of Gotham. She could tell from the light-tinged color of the clouds that they were close to the city, however.

Taking out her T-Communicator, she immediately looked at what time it was. '23:30. It was like 9 PM when the reception got raided, so I figure we've been out here for around two hours. The others are probably worried sick.' She immediately selected Cyborg from the contact list. "Hey, I just thought I should let you guys know that I'm alright. Gar transformed into the Beast and rescued me, though for some reason he won't go back. I think the Beast thinks I'm still in danger."

"We know you're safe," the half robot responded, "Nightwing, Starfire, Robin (as in Batman's current Robin), Spoiler, Batgirl and I have been observing ya'll for like an hour now. We're about a hundred yards away from your position."

"Nightwing?" she was initially confused, before she remembered what Starfire had said after she returned from the future following that run-in with Warp. "Oh! So he finally changed his codename, huh? Well, I have a hunch that your presence might be the reason why the Beast won't let Gar through right now, but I can't say for sure. Do you guys have any word on where Light ran off to?"

"Light apparently skipped town" Cyborg replied. "Parked his car—which apparently the Beast did quite a number on—at the airport, though we can't know for sure because the GCPD still can't find him in any of the airport's security footage."

"Well, either the Beast is afraid that you guys are a threat, or there's someone else in the area," Raven responded.

"I have no idea how he would know this, but Robin says that Batman is telling him that the only living animals within a mile of this general vicinity are ya'll, us, a doe and two fawns," Cyborg reported back.

"How far away from Wayne Manor are we?"

"Wayne manor is approximately 10 kilometers to the east of your location, as the crow flies."

"You guys should head back," she replied. "I'm pretty sure the Beast isn't afraid of a few deer. I'll try to bring him out of this and we'll probably be back at Wayne Manor in less than an hour."

"Raven, we're not going back," Nightwing responded. "Not when he's still in the form of that monster." This almost made Raven explode. Not only was Nightwing second-guessing Gar, but he was distrusting her ability to judge the situation that she—not he—was in. She could tell that it was by no means uncontroversial on the other side, however, as she could hear the argument that Cyborg, Robin, and Spoiler were having with Nightwing even without a communicator. The silence of Starfire and Batgirl did not surprise her at all, however—Koriand'r was hesitant to conflict with her fiancé, but also did not give him direct support when she knew he was being unfair. Cassie Cain, meanwhile, was usually pretty quiet to begin with. Raven could identify voices, but not particularly discern what they were saying, except for a brief blurb of Nightwing shouting about how Gar doesn't have any control over the Beast. Raven was, however, both pleased and relieved when the argument suddenly ended.

"Sorry 'bout that, Rae," Cyborg's voice came over the T-Communicator. "We'll be heading back to Wayne Manor now. Give us a holler if anything goes wrong." What he didn't comment on was how that particular argument was resolved. When Raven and Gar returned to Wayne Manor, she was told about how Batgirl got fed up with all of the shouting and knocked Nightwing out cold. Apparently, Batman had given Robin, Spoiler and Batgirl orders to do so should something like that occur—Batman's ability to foresee people's reactions would never cease to amaze Raven (or Gar, or anyone else for that matter). Luckily for everyone involved, Dick didn't seem to take it too personally when he woke up, and was glad that both Raven and Gar were alright—he'd at least learned part of his lesson from the first time he dealt with the Beast.

"They're leaving leaving now," Raven noted, as she got out of the bed the Beast's arm had formed. "You can let him change back," she said while reaching up to stroke the Beast's furry face, "it'll all be okay. I'm safe." That last sentence seemed to be the key, as the Beast almost immediately transformed back into the form of the young man after she said that. "Gar, you..."

"I know," he said, in a voice that revealed a degree of shock. "I was conscious the whole time, this time. I mean, I could see, hear, smell, feel, sense everything the Beast could. I just couldn't control anything."

"Hmm," she thought for a moment. "Maybe you're beginning to become accustomed to that form."

"I sure as hell hope not," he replied.

"Well, just because you can't control it now doesn't mean that you'll never be able to control it," she reasoned. "I remember from when I was in your mind, the first time you transformed—when you became that mongoose to save your mother—you had no control. Maybe this is like that."

"Maybe you're right," he said, before pondering further on the subject. "But still, if I was to hone in my control, I'd need to train the form. But the Beast is too dangerous." The young man yawned. "Maybe it's something to think about, but we should get back. Best case scenarion, Batman's probably gonna want to debrief us. And I'm getting pretty tired; I'd like to get back to Wayne Manor and get that taken care of, so we can get home before I pass out." Luckily, Steve had let Gar use one of the company jets (complete with pilot), so they would be able to fly directly from Gotham back to East Hampton.

In reality, Arthur Light did not take a flight from Gotham International Airport that night. Knowing how conspicuous his car now was, he left it at Gotham International Airport to throw the police off his trail. Instead, he ended up at the Hall of Doom, in rural Gotham County, where he confronted by a very angry Lex Luthor and an observably contemptuous Barbara Minerva.

"Uh, hello Mockingbird," the perverted villain said, shoulders hunched. "Ch-cheetah." The famous Doctor Light was trembling—he knew he was in deep shit. The Injustice League was headed by a troika consisting of the Joker, Luthor and Minerva. The Joker was, surprisingly, the most forgiving of the three leaders—largely because of the Clown Prince of Crime's insanity. The Joker could tolerate failure if he could see humor in it. Unfortunately for Light, Luthor could not tolerate failure at all, and, on top of a similar intolerance for failure, Minerva had a deep-seated contempt for perverts. "H-how are y-you two this evening?"

"I'll be the one to ask questions, Light," the bald man replied. If there was any question as to how deep in shit he was before, it was gone now. "Why is the Shadow Thief in jail and why don't you have the flash drive of information I wanted?"

"I-I had a chance to get revenge," Doctor Light responded. "If you'd been constantly embarrassed by a group of teenage wannabe heroes, wouldn't you be burning with such a will for vengeance that it drove your every action?"

"I sent you and the Shadow Thief with two direct imperatives," the bald man said, the anger in his voice almost condensating. "You were to download the information we wanted onto that flash drive, and you were not under any circumstances to engage anyone! Yet you come back to me with no flash drive, and the Shadow Thief is sitting in jail, simply because you were too much of an idiot to follow orders!"

"How exactly did you seek revenge, and against whom?" Minerva had a sinking suspicion about the answer to the first clause of that question. It was no secret among the Injustice League that Doctor Light was a serial rapist, and Cheetah had been almost impatiently waiting for him to screw up just so she might have an opportunity to, at the very least, castrate him.

"It was, uh, Raven, the Titan," he replied. "She embarrassed me s-so much that I c-couldn't resist the opportunity..."

"Since when have you ever been able to resist the opportunity to violate some defenseless woman?" the very dangerous female replied, glaring daggers through him. She knew who Raven was, and the thought of this geriatric deviant violating her in that way sickened the woman. 'That girl is barely 19 years old!' she thought. She would have had no problem with someone killing one of the Titans, but in her intolerance for rapists she also felt that the young heroes should especially be off limits to the sexual advances of...things like Light. "What did you do to her?"

"N-nothing," Light answered honestly, but still trembling. He knew why Cheetah was asking these questions. "The green one rescued her before I could do anything."

"So, you failed to follow orders because you wanted to rape a teenage girl?" Luthor inquired. "Do you not realize just how bad you fucked up? We're never going to have another opportunity to get that information now—Batman is probably already setting up security systems to protect against invisible intruders. And your incompetence lost us one of our best field assets; I'd much rather see you dead than the Shadow Thief behind bars. Do you not see that without that information, our operations in Africa are going to be nearly indefensible? What if the Justice League or the Titans decide to intervene?"

Truthfully, the information that Light was sent to retrieve actually was quite vital. For years, Batman had been compiling information on the heroes of the Justice League, the Titans, the Doom Patrol and many other groups, seeking to formulate contingency plans in case any of them were to go rogue. Some things they already knew: expose Kryptonians to kryptonite, counter Martians with fire, deny Atlanteans access to bodies of water, etc. However, there were a lot of heroes whose weaknesses they really had no idea of, and they also had no idea how to deal with the Titans, who had somehow defeated an expanded Brotherhood of Evil without even sustaining a single life-threatening injury. They could somewhat expect that the JLA would not become involved—the Justice League had made it a point to maintain neutrality as best they could in regard to terrestrial geopolitics—but the same could not be said about the Titans. And if the Titans were going to step up against the Injustice League, they were likely going to do so with their full strength. Luthor needed to know how to counter them.

"I-I-I-I'm s-sorry," Light was trembling so violently that speech was becoming something he could barely manage.

"Yes," Luthor replied, "yes you are." Luthor was looking at the man with such contempt—he couldn't even trust him to perform missions. Light was of no use to him anymore. "Cheetah, he's all yours," the bald man said as he walked out the door, leaving Light and Cheetah alone in the room.

"So," Cheetah said as she approached Light, "you like to dominate and abuse poor girls?" As he nodded, she casually move her hand to his genital region, before using her claws to cut the fabric of his uniform. "I bet you'd love a blowjob, wouldn't you?" she asked while moving her hand inward to grasp his penis. Light was by now severely confused, but nodded honestly. As he nodded, the villainess suddenly used her claws to completely sever his phallus and proceeded to shove it in his mouth as he began to bleed out. "Blow yourself," she said, immediately before stepping out of the room, leaving the villain to die from which ever came first between blood loss and choking.

"What were you gonna say?" Garfield asked Raven as the two walked the hall toward their rooms at Dayton Manor. The plane ride wasn't a long one by any means, but Gar fell asleep about five minutes after take off and Raven decided to teleport them the rest of the way after waking him up. This would be his last opportunity of the night to ask her the question.

"What do you mean?" she asked, dishonestly. She exactly what he was talking about, but she didn't really feel like the present was the right moment to reveal it. She had actually already settled on telling him the next day as she was left alone to her thoughts during the plane ride.

"When we were dancing," he said, "you were gonna say something but then the attack stopped you. What were you gonna say?" His heart fluttered as he asked; he had an idea of what she was going to say, but he desperately wanted confirmation.

"I think I'd rather wait to talk about it after we've both had some time to rest," she replied, before faking a yawn. She knew he needed the sleep, but she also knew that he wouldn't let his own fatigue get in the way right now. What she was betting on, however, was that if he sensed that she was tired, he'd drop the subject until the next day.

"Okay," he said in an understanding tone. "I think I'm gonna hit the hay now," he noted as they approached the door to his bedroom. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," she responded as he descended into his bedroom. In all honesty, she wished she could tell him now, but she wanted the moment to be right. Walking into her room, she had no intention of sleeping quite yet. During the plane ride she decided that if the moment wasn't right, she needed something to make it right. However, getting that something would likely take the rest of the night and all of the morning, seeing as it was already 3 AM. Undaunted by the time, she almost casually opened a portal and stepped through.

Garfield fell back to sleep pretty much the very instant his face made contact with his pillow. The events of the previous night played over again in his dreams. Being commended by both Steve and Bruce was a giant boost to his self-confidence, and he felt good knowing that he later saved Raven from what could have been a very traumatic experience. But he could not get his mind off from what she was going to say—if he didn't know better than to make assumptions, he could almost swear she was going to tell him she loved him.

However, an hour into his slumber, his sleep was disturbed. He suddenly felt the presence of another male in his room, but he initially decided to scoff it off as his mind playing tricks on him because of his tired state. Nevertheless, it was enough to bring him back to consciousness. He continued to pretend to be asleep as an ominous and unemotional, yet eerily calming, voice spoke to him.

"Hello Beast Boy. I know you're awake."

'NO!' Gar thought, instantly recognizing the voice although he had not heard it for years. 'That's impossible. It couldn't be. Please don't be...'

Author's Notes
This is another one of those chapters with sudden scene shifts that are gonna mess up the pacing, but it was necessary because of everything that's going on. Anyhow, Raven's okay, Doctor Light died a rather anticlimactic but suitably undignified death (first death in the fic, incidentally), and now looking forward into the next couple chapters we have some new questions. Where did Raven go and what is that 'something' she is going to get? Who is the owner of the voice in Gar's room, and why is he there? Will Nightwing ever get over his paranoid phobia of the Beast? (Well, okay, that last one is probably not going to be answered in this fic.) Also, what the hell were Talia and Nyssa talking about?

As a side note, I posted the prologue to the RobStar companion piece to this story, The Violet Revolution, a few days ago. I'm planning on writing the stories at the same time, since they occur parallel to each other in the larger timeline of the series they belong to.

the missing link- Here it is. I hope I didn't keep everyone waiting too long.

pikachewy1- I'm actually considering sticking with that style for action scenes, now that I think about it. The thing is, intense action scenes aren't really that necessary to this story anyway. Rather, the adventure that the story will (eventually) take the characters on, the romantic plot, and the intrigue subplots are really more what's it's going to be all about, so I'm starting to ponder whether I could get away with keeping the action scenes relatively tame—albeit, there will still be a few tearjerker moments, some horrific situations and a plural number of character deaths ahead. The one thing that I am kinda regretting, though, is that characters other than Gar and Rae aren't getting a lot of focus within the story—I mean, I meant for them to be the main characters anyway, but I wonder if I'm failing with supporting character development. That's probably something I'll have to work on—I'm considering doing some development with the relationship between the Wilson siblings, for example.

GarLogan676- I've already spoiled that Mar'i Grayson will factor into the future sequels within this continuity, so I might as well spoil that yes, Damian Wayne will indeed exist within the continuity of the series of fics that this fic inaugurates.

fusiontech45- I actually appreciate long reviews as they give me a better glimpse of the thoughts of readers. Yeah, I don't think that would be a stunt Gar would survive again either—if it wasn't for Talia stabbing KGBeast, he'd be dead.

As for why the others didn't trust Gar's instincts about the Batcave, you have to remember that the Batcave has better security systems than pretty much everywhere else, so it would not be unreasonable to dismiss a theory that someone was there if no alarms were tripped (which, the alarms weren't tripped because the Shadow Thief can literally turn into a shadow and Doctor Light can manipulate light to make himself invisible both to the eye and to lasers), and Gar really had nothing to show for evidence behind his instinctual hunch. Also, the other Titans didn't really trust his instincts in Trouble in Tokyo and Things Change, which were both set after the Brotherhood of Evil arc ended, so there's not really a great degree of trust in his instincts other than just being something to take into consideration with other evidence.

As for why Raven didn't unleash Rage/her demon form, that's usually something that only happens when she is feeling a lot of anger (specifically anger, no other emotion will make it happen); for example, when she was fighting Terra, although Terra was very much intending to kill her, Raven actively restrained herself from letting Rage out of the bottle until Terra said enough things to get her angry enough, which was actually a strategic move on Terra's part because bloodlust robs Raven of one of her most important assets: her reason. In the case in the last chapter, what happened was that Raven was initially underestimating Light (which, is really natural considering how easily she's beaten him in all their past encounters), which made her feel something more along the lines of contempt, and then her emotions went into the timidity/fear spectrum as she realized she'd underestimated him.

Anyhow, I wasn't about to let Light succeed here, both because the werebeast was entirely capable of retrieving Raven and because it would have actually done a disservice to the plot progression. Unfortunately, Gar's werebeast was more interested in saving Raven than smiting Light, but Light does get what's coming to him at the hands of Cheetah, who, despite also being a member of the Injustice League, absolutely despises rapists. I did that mainly to show how twisted of a character Light is—his perversion extends so far that even other villains can't stomach him and would just as soon kill him themselves the moment he stops being useful to them. It also helps that Cheetah actually did turn on Doctor Light once in the comics specifically because she hates rapists.

Green Bunny- I do find I am a 'learn as you go' kind of guy anyway. Instruction never really worked that well for me, I learned best either when I would get interested in something and studied it on my own or when I did it myself.

newboy- Well, the Beast did come out to save Raven, but was too focused on getting Raven someplace safe to focus on destroying Doctor Light. Works out either way, though, since Gar gets to stay on clean moral ground (for now, at least) while Doctor Light still gets dispatched by a different animorph.

SimplyaCritic- Okay. Thanks for the reviews at any rate.

shugokage- Well, BB didn't get him, but BB still saved Raven and Light still got dispatched by an animorph.

JasonVUK- Yeah. My rule of thumb at this point is that if the character is more difficult to kill than Superman under a yellow sun, the character's power needs to be toned down. Superman is pretty much max for how invulnerable a character can be before becoming boring, IMO.

Hairul The Nightrage Beast- He had the license to do so, but his priorities ended up being (1) rescue Raven, and (2) tear Light apart. Unfortunately, the situation did not allow him to get to priority #2 without sacrificing priority #1, but at least Light still got what was coming to him nonetheless.

tsk91- It's a timing thing. The best point to drop the action in is when you're emotionally invested, and character development gets you emotionally invested. That said, I do not plan on dragging on the 'will they or won't they' subplot for much longer; everything will be settled after Beast Boy has a conversation with the mystery person in his room and Raven gets back from where she went.

McDiggity- Thanks. By the way, I enjoy your stories Titans Return and Problem Child. You're doing good work and I can't wait to read more.