Dear diary,
No, that's stupid. I'm not calling this a diary. Diaries are for little girls in pink, frilly dresses who play with dolls, and have tea parties, and will one day grow up to be well-adjusted. I'm none of those things. Let's try this again.
Journal,
No. Just no. You need to trek across unknown lands with a native guide, pack mules, diseases for indigenous peoples, and a sextant before you can keep a journal. Either that, or you need a newspaper in a city where the suffixes "times," "chronicle," and "bugle" are already taken.
This is stupid. I'm starting to regret ever getting you.
I'm writing in you because I need to make sense of what happened. Everything is changing so quickly, and I can't get a handle on what my life—our lives—have become. "Our" meaning the few people I have left in my life. Not you. You're a book. I'm writing in you because I need perspective. I need to take stock.
Okay. Let's start from the beginning. I spent four days in the hospital after closing the blast crater that was Red Robin's chest. You probably read about him, and Slade's attack on Jump City, in the newspaper. The spell transferred his pain into me, which put my body into shock. Robin, in his overwhelming gratitude, ran away before I ever woke up.
Did I choose wrong?
It was another week before the doctors would let me go. The whole week, sitting in a wheelchair or lying in a bed, I had nothing to do but think about the friend I hadn't chosen. I tried meditating on the quandary. I write "tried" because a certain niggling detail wouldn't give me a moment's peace while we were stuck there. If I'd known what was about to happen, maybe I would have tried to be nicer to him. Then again, if I could see into the future, I would never have let him become…
This is getting me nowhere. I'd better start being specific.
We were just walking out of S.T.A.R. Labs, having been discharged moments ago, and having said goodbye to Tek, the last of Robin's albatrosses hanging around our collective neck. The doors were just a moment's walk away, shining with the first real daylight I had seen in a week. I was looking forward to a little breathing room and fresh air, to say the least. Even the daylight seemed inviting compared to the fluorescents buzzing overhead.
It would have been uplifting if Beast Boy hadn't been walking next to me as physically close as possible without climbing on and demanding a piggyback ride. He talked like we were going on vacation. "Man," he said with sickening cheer, "it'll be good to finally get out of this place. Where should we go?"
You have to understand something about Beast Boy. He's insufferable. He feels. All. The. Time. Whereas most people regulate their feelings, controlling them and thus their reactions, Beast Boy does not. His emotions are undiluted, like an infant only beginning to understand the difference between "happy" and "sad," except with a much broader range of possibilities. Joyous, or depressed, or irritated, or angry, or moody, or anything—his feelings are always turned up to "full." This isn't a problem for the majority of people, but for an empath, it's a guaranteed headache.
I gritted my teeth as his simple question dumped emotion all over my psyche. After two weeks of that, I was ready for a break. "Back to the Tower," I told him tersely.
He smiled that same smile he had been touting all week. It made me want to run for the exit. "What's the rush? We can't do much without Vic, and he's still in pieces. Why don't we get something to eat, or go to the mall, or something?" he asked.
The empathic backlash had gotten worse in the last few weeks, if you can believe it. Instead of just spewing his feelings everywhere, it was like they were escaping in these little bursts, as though he was trying to hold everything back. Try to imagine a fire hose turned directly on your brain with simultaneously the coldest and hottest water you've ever felt. It scours everything inside of you, leaving it raw and scraped, and then clings to you, soaks through you, chills you and burns you all at the same time. It was a wonder I can even remember it enough to write it down here.
"I think a little privacy is in order," I said, hinting with all the subtlety I had left.
He laughed without an ounce of real humor. His gait drifted closer to mine. I wanted to run, to slip between worlds and port away. "I hear that," he said, missing the point entirely. "After all that rubber-gloving and turn-your-head-and-coughing, we could use some time off. How about a movie? Or we could go to that creepy…uh, 'indie' coffee place you like. Sky's the limit!"
I rubbed my temples, wondering if my migraine would at least pay rent if it planned on staying so long. "I need to meditate," I told him.
His poorly bottled emotions grew louder—dear Azar, they grew louder—as he smiled that stupid smile again. My barriers cracked under the strain. Fleeting feelings wisped through, which my father's distant influence devoured and regurgitated into my soul as pure rage. As my vision flashed red, I heard Beast Boy insist, "C'mon, Raven. Let's live a little!"
I staggered through the door of the Labs. Sunlight poured over me, helping me suppress my demon half. A deep breath calmed the rage tightening my chest. I concentrated, and my barriers became whole again, sealing their cracks. But Beast Boy was right behind me, carrying with him his pressurized emotional spray.
This wasn't working. I needed to meditate in the worst way. I needed quiet, or things would become very bad in short order. Beast Boy felt lonely. I could appreciate that. But enough, as they say, was enough.
"Beast Boy," I began.
Right then, space and time twisted around us in a flash of light. First we were, and then we weren't. It felt like something had grabbed my stomach and dragged it through a hole the size of a dime, and the rest of my body followed out of courtesy.
I fell through pure light, which I couldn't see because my eyes were somewhere else. I fell for either a second or a hundred million years. Then, just as suddenly, I found time and space again, as well as myself, which was mercifully intact.
My surroundings had changed entirely. A second (or a hundred million years) ago, I had been staring at S.T.A.R. Labs sprawling parking lot. Now, an expanse of green trees wove together as far as I could see, and spread a canopy of colorful leaves above me. The air smelled sweet, and felt sweltering and heavy, making me sweat almost the instant I arrived. Rotting leaves carpeted the ground with every color I could imagine between crisscrossing roots the size of busses. Something in the distant treetops crowed.
The emotional foghorn behind me made me feel Beast Boy before I turned and saw him. He wasn't sweating a drop, which irritated me a little. He crouched low, scraping his fingers to the ground as he circled the small clearing we had arrived in. Mounting panic joined the foghorn. "Where are we? Some kind of jungle?" he asked.
Before I could sarcasm a proper reply, Beast Boy got tackled by a dark shape from the underbrush. He squirmed beneath the curves of a girl dressed in black and silver, with long, dark hair and burnished gold skin. She held a glowing lavender bolt in her palm just inches from Beast Boy's nose, and snarled, "Why did you kidnap me?"
He recognized her an instant before I did. "Blackfire?" he gasped with her hand around his throat. "Dude, what are you talking about? What's going on?"
"Don't play games with me, Snot-Boy!" she snarled, and lowered her blackbolt.
The incantation flew from my lips: "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!" I pushed my soul into the fallen leaves around them. Blackened leaves mummified Blackfire and tossed her across the small clearing. She struck a tree, cracking its green trunk, and then burst from the leaves. My wayward soul trickled back to me through the ether. I gathered it in my palms, ready to knock her all through the forest.
Lucky for her, Beast Boy stood and bounded between us, holding out his hands to stop us both. "Will you two cool it?" he shouted.
Blackfire paused, glaring at us. Then something clicked behind her predatory eyes. She relaxed, and lowered her shout into an arrogant purr. "Oh. It's you two. Koriand'r's friends."
I pulled my soul back, but kept it ready near the surface. "Blackfire," I greeted her frostily. "From the looks of things, I'm guessing you're as lost as we are."
She rolled her eyes and leaned back on the cracked trunk. Suddenly she cared about looking cool. "No one could be as lost as you Earthlings," she said in a bored tone. "But yes, I have no idea where I am or how I got here. Someone must have caught me in a trans-dimensional tunnel, from the feel of it."
I nodded. It made sense. But Beast Boy scratched his head, and said, "You guys wanna translate that?"
He grew up with the Doom Patrol. He was Cyborg's best friend for two years. There's no way he can be this clueless about meta-science and still call himself a "super hero.". I dumbed it down as much as I could: "Someone grabbed us and pulled us outside of the universe for a second. We could be anywhere, in any time period."
"Not anywhere good," Beast Boy muttered, and eyed Blackfire with distaste. I couldn't disagree.
Then his ears twitched, and he looked to the edge of the clearing. I felt it a second later: a presence approaching through the trees. Fronds blackened and crumbled for a tall figure with red, rock-like skin. Veins of reddish white heat ran through his naked body. A perpetual flame flickered atop his head.
When the flaming creature saw us, his ember eyes widened, and his glowing hands rose. "Easy," he said. Heat shimmered from his mouth when he spoke. "Don't shoot!"
Looking down, I saw my hands filled with roiling soul. Blackfire held bolts at the ready, and Beast Boy's skin buzzed like he could barely contain the zoo inside of him. I guess we were a frightening sight to run into if you were lost. Extinguishing my hands, I relaxed my posture and approached him. "You're not here by choice either," I guessed.
The flame-hair danced as he shook his head. "Not my first choice in vacation spots. My name's Celv'n. I just got here a few clicks ago." He hugged himself, shivering. "Why would anyone drag me somewhere so cold?"
I didn't sense anything but genuine confusion from him. Of course, the foghorn walking up behind me might have thrown me off a little. "I'm Beast Boy. This is Raven, and that's Blackfire," my foghorn said.
Blackfire still had her bolts cradled. She snuffed them when she saw Celv'n shivering. "Great. More dead weight. Why don't you three wander out and see if this jungle has predators?" she said smarmily.
More leaves rustled. This time we held ourselves in check to see who came out of the forest. It wasn't hard to spot the first one: he stood almost twice as tall as the rest of us, with bright red skin stretched over some impressive muscle. Four thick arms tensed at his sides. Four yellow eyes narrowed at the sight of us. "More shorties?" he rumbled.
Some kind of amphibian creature scampered out from behind the red giant. He looked like he would have been more at home in the deepest parts of the ocean, far from light and air. Glazed white eyes flickered over the clearing. He opened his needle-toothed mouth and gasped, "Strangers?"
Like before, posturing happened, names were exchanged, and we all agreed that we had no idea where we were or why we had been forced there. Tetramanus, the red giant, and his friend, Bellafin, came from a world I'd never heard of, a world that had never heard of Earth. Celv'n was likewise clueless about us, and hailed from a planet that didn't have a solid crust above its magma. He looked the most lost of us all. Only icy Blackfire seemed unconcerned, maybe even annoyed, at the cosmic kidnapping.
But we didn't have to wait long for answers. Moments after we traded stories, the air crackled and flashed. By the time we could see again, a row of twenty-something new creatures stood at the clearing's edge. Large and slight, fat and frail, insectoid and reptilian, no two creatures were alike. The only thing I did know for certain was that none of them were from Earth, and that was no comfort.
Then one of them stepped forward. This one I recognized. He looked like a transition between man and ape, with thick gray fur all over his body. Intelligent eyes darted between us as his yellowing fangs split in a grin. "Welcome, champions!" he greeted us.
Beast Boy said what I was thinking. "It's the Master of Games!"
"Not this yahoo again," Tetramanus grunted.
I suppose Earth wasn't the only place the Master had tried his Tournament of Heroes. The boys had told their tale of fighting in his little games. Not being idiots, Starfire and I had rallied the other girls in his "Tournament of Heroines" to force him to send us home about thirty seconds after he'd kidnapped us. It looked like the Master was back to his old tricks.
But it was so much worse than that.
Celv'n stepped forward. His flames grew brighter, his veins glowed hotter, and his voice rose. "Listen up, meat sack," he shouted. "Nobody here is interested in fighting for your hokey prizes. So take your freak show of spectators and get out of here!"
"And send us home!" Beast Boy thought to add as he stepped next to Celv'n.
"Yeah, that too!" Celv'n shouted, spitting brimstone in his excitement.
The Master of Games spread his arms entreatingly. I sensed from him a malevolent glee that chilled me to the bone, sweltering heat notwithstanding. We hadn't been accidental choices of his new game, I knew. This was personal. "You misunderstand me, young heroes. This time, there is no tournament. You won't be fighting at all."
Bloodlust simmered in Blackfire's soul, and leaked from her eyes in lavender wisps. "Don't count on that, fuzzy," she muttered. Loathe though I was to agree, I echoed the sentiment.
"Behind me," the Master said with a gesture, "stand the greatest hunters in the universe. These gentlemen, and ladies, and assorted other genders, dedicate their time and their exorbitant funds to besting the most dangerous game known to biped. And they have honored me with the task of arranging the greatest hunt ever conceived.
Our little group of kidnappees fell silent. I could feel their collective despair settling over me like a thick fog. Except for Beast Boy, who remained the pressurized spray of emotions he had been all along. "I don't get it," he said loudly.
The alien hunters behind the Master produced an array of weaponry the likes of which I'd never seen. Some of the weapons resembled guns in a passing fashion. Others looked like blades made from smoke. Still others were metal staffs that glowed at the ends. The only commonality between the hunters' weapons was their targets.
"They're hunting us," I explained to Beast Boy.
His awareness came in stages. "Oh. Ohhhh. Oh! Dude, that is sick!" he spat at the Master.
Tetramanus flexed his arms, unimpressed. Given the chance, I'm betting his four-handed grip could have broken our hairy captor in half. "Yeah, yeah," he rumbled. "Big bad hunters are going to chase us around the forest until they get bored or crunched. So how do we win?"
The Master's smile widened. His joy filled me with a rage that, for once, was completely my own. "You don't," he said. "Each of you will be hunted until none of you remain. Theirs is the contest. You will have the honor of being prey."
Only Blackfire could speak by that point. "This garfles takflub," she snorted. "You don't seriously think we'll just run like frightened little Arthax, do you?"
"Yeah!" Bellafin gargled, emboldened by her defiance. "Why not just kick you in the gills and make you—?"
Gore sprayed from the back of Bellafin's head. He flopped on the ground, dead before he ever landed. I shut my third eye. I've "seen" death before, and I never want to "see" it again. The last breath of essence leaving a body…it's beautiful, and unspeakably sad.
The Master of Games looked back at one of the hunters, a bug-eyed little insectoid who held a smoking sci-fi rifle. I burned his cretinous face into my memory, and vowed to wipe the smile off his proboscis personally. "Excellent shot, Lord Xxxyzx," proclaimed the Master.
A long-eared, furry hunter shouldered his glimmering staff and snorted derisively while I swam in the fear of our little group. "I didn't pay you to shoot fish in a barrel, Gamesman. I want sport!" he groused.
Tetramanus knelt and cradled his friend's body in his lower arms. Thick mucus drizzled from his eyes, which burned at the Master and the hunters. "I'll make you pay," he whispered, quivering with rage that boiled into me. "You'll pay for…"
"Yes, absolutely," the Master said, clapping. He announced to us, "We'll give you all a half-day's head start. You're free to go wherever you like."
"How long is a day here?" a crystalline hunter asked.
"You know, I've never actually seen night fall here. I've never seen the sun through the upper canopy, for that matter," the Master mused. He grinned at us. It took everything I had not to reach through the ether and pluck the hearts I felt beating in his chest. Father would have been proud, which was reason enough to stay my hand, if only just. "I suppose we'll just wait until we become bored," he told us. "Good luck."
We all wanted to fight. I could feel it, pressing all around me, and even inside of me. But there were too many, too well armed, in too good a position to cut us down before we threw even one punch.
I should amend: Blackfire didn't want to fight. She took off like a shot, flying straight up, and disappeared into the endless sea of leaves above us. "Yeah, good luck!" she called down mockingly.
There was a beat, and then she reappeared from the leaves half a length ahead of a flying predator that dwarfed any of Beast Boy's dinosaurs. The leathery creature flapped after Blackfire. Its cry quaked the jungle. It snapped at her lavender contrail, chasing the screaming Tamaranian through the highest boughs of the jungle.
The Master and his hunters chuckled as Blackfire and the predator disappeared into the forest. "Take care," the Master said. "We aren't the only things hunting you."
His cackle followed us out of the clearing. I lingered to herd Beast Boy behind Celv'n, who burned a path through thick underbrush. For a second, I thought Tetramanus wouldn't come. He glared at the Master, shaking with rage. But he picked up Bellafin and followed us. Beneath his rage burned intolerable sadness. I floated closer to Beast Boy, and for once was glad for his deafening storm of emotion.
We buried Bellafin ten miles away. It was mostly symbolic, since the hunters would probably find him and dig him up as a prize anyway. The thought twisted my stomach, but his body was slowing us down. I'd wanted to drop him sooner, but I said nothing of it to Tetramanus, and I was second behind Beast Boy to offer my help in laying him to rest. We placed him beneath the root of a skyscraping tree, and left the red giant to mourn over the grave for as long as we dared.
I packed a mound of dirt beneath the root with my soul. Sweat soaked my shirt into a heavy, soggy, miserable mess. Tetramanus's clothes were likewise soaked in the wet jungle heat. Celv'n and Beast Boy still apparently didn't notice it in the slightest. If anything, Celv'n looked dimmer than he had when we first met, and his shivering had worsened.
Brushing his blackened hands, Beast Boy stood from the dirt, and said, "Okay, Raven. I've had enough of this freaked-up vacation. Do your thing."
I mopped my brow with my sleeve. "What 'thing' is that?" I asked snappishly.
"You know," he said, gesticulating, "teleporting. Call upon the Wand of Watoomb, or whatever, and get us home."
That idiot instantly made me the center of attention. Celv'n's ember sockets blazed with shock. I thought Tetramanus would strike me down with his glare alone. The ground shook as he stomped up to me and roared, "You can teleport? You could have sent us all home? You can get us out of here?"
"Please, save us!" Celv'n begged.
Strictly speaking, I don't teleport. My soul is a living nexus of gateways, a curiosity of my birth that will probably one day bring about the apoc… You know what? It's complicated. Sufficed to say, I can transport myself to corresponding points between different dimensions, but not within the same dimension.
The trick lies in the fact that not all universes are the same size, but they all possess corresponding points. Some are large, like ours, and some are very old and very tiny. I open a gateway to the tiny universe, create a short tunnel to a new point, and then gateway back to the original universe, whose new corresponding point is much further away. Thus, it looks like I teleport. And it's easier to let other people call it that than to explain the mess I just wrote.
We had arrived via technology, not magic. Not that they could tell the difference. For me, it was like being dropped in the middle of nowhere, blindfolded. Yes, I could port us, but there was no way of knowing from where or to where. And since I didn't feel that dumping us into the vacuum of space would improve our situation, I said, "I can't. If I could, I would have—"
Tetramanus had a grip like iron, and all four of them closed around me. He lifted me up and shook me hard. Rattling, I heard him bellow, "You could have saved Bellafin?"
Tetramanus was big. He made Cyborg look small, and Cyborg could probably fit me in his chest cavity if he took out all those vital electronics. I almost vanished inside Tetramanus's grip. It's important that you realize how big he was, because Beast Boy laid him out. Not a green gorilla. Not a green dinosaur. Beast Boy.
The skinny green twerp jumped and decked Tetramanus across the jaw. Tetramanus staggered back as if struck by a pile driver. All of his eyes lolled in different directions. He dropped me. Beast Boy had hardly landed before he drove his bony shoulder through Tetramanus's middle. The giant sprawled on the ground, and then grunted when Beast Boy pounced on his chest.
"Don't you touch her," Beast Boy snarled. His hackles rose, and his lips curled to reveal canines sharper than I remembered. His eyes glimmered, slitted like a cat's, flashing bright green in the filtered light. His hands gathered fistfuls of Tetramanus's shirt as he growled in the face of the giant.
The hairs on my neck bristled as something new emerged from the raging storm of Beast Boy's emotions. I only caught a glimpse of it before I pulled him off Tetramanus with my soul, careful to grab him only by the clothes. I definitely did not want to touch him physically or ethereally. "Enough," I snapped, setting Beast Boy aside. "I can't get us out of here. We're going to have to work together and figure something out."
Tetramanus glared down at Beast Boy, who shook his head as if dazed. "What's to figure?" the red giant said bitterly. "Those hunters are going to track us down and kill us. Especially with this flaming idiot dragging at our heels."
We all looked at Celv'n. The heat from his body made the wet jungle floor smolder. He had left a trail of browning plant matter wherever he walked. He looked down at the burning leaves, hugging himself, and said, "I can't help it. All this stuff keeps toasting whenever I touch it."
Accidental or otherwise, Celv'n had left a trail that even an idiot could follow, much less two dozen experienced hunters. "We need to stay calm and keep moving," I said.
Tetramanus waved his lower arms and folded his upper arms. "To frell with that," he snapped. "I saw we turn around and take the fight to them."
Apparently, male stupidity isn't Earth-exclusive. "They're armed and equipped, and ready for us. And if we don't find water in a few hours, I'll have sweated myself into a mummy. And Celv'n looks like he'll be hypothermic well before then. If we work together, we increase our chances of staying alive until the situation changes. We have to wait for an opportunity. Charging them is suicide."
"Fark you, shortie," he snarled. "If you want to scamper, I won't stop you. But I bet the real heroes here know what needs to be done. Right, guys?"
Beast Boy finally snapped out of wherever his mind had gone. He looked up at Tetramanus, leaning back to do so. "Dude, why does it sound like you're speaking English? That's not even possible," he said.
Celv'n just shivered.
Rolling his top eyes, Tetramanus turned and stomped away. "Fine. Enjoy being hunted. I'm going to do something about this mess. See you at the end, if you're lucky." The green trunks bent as he pushed through and vanished into the underbrush.
I watched him go until sweat blurred my vision. Then, unable to take it anymore, I summoned my soul into a short sickle. I hacked the sleeves from my sweatshirt, and then sheared it as high as I could before self-consciousness made me stop. Next went the legs of my jeans. By the time I was done, I had a pair of cutoffs and a sleeveless shirt that ended at my ribs. I'm not Starfire, and my navel isn't for display, but it was too damn hot. At least I wasn't like Beast Boy.
"What are you doing?" I asked him, averting my eyes.
He stood in the underbrush, blocked by colorful fronds. His clothes hung from a branch. His shoes lay discarded under a root. "These duds can't morph with me," he said, rustling the leaves with activity into which I dared not delve deeper. "So…
A skirt of leaves swished around his waist when he exited the brush. He had chosen the leaves carefully to match his complexion. His spoon-chest puffed as he turned and modeled the new apparel. "Well? Is this worth a 'ta-da,' or what?"
Playful in the face of death, I am not. I led us out of there quickly to stop myself from yelling at him.
Beast Boy flew point in the feathers of an eagle. The leaf skirt fluttered from his beak. He kept well below the canopy to avoid predators like the one that had chased Blackfire. He would move ahead, brushing the limits of my visibility, and then circle back.
I flew much lower, but kept my sneakers above the jungle floor. Celv'n floated behind me in a bubble of my soul. This not only kept him from burning a trail, but also kept him insulated in his own body heat. His searing temperature didn't bother the black ethereal matter of my other self, but the direct contact made his emotions ring that much louder. He felt afraid, almost uncontrollably so, and confused by his surroundings. I sensed his outsides tremble and his insides wail, and felt sorry for him. Obviously, the Master of Games had made some glaring oversights when selecting his formidable prey.
The jungle watched us while we flew. I could feel eyes follow us from all around. The primal feelings behind those eyes ranged from curiosity, to fear, to outright hunger. I just kept my eyes, ears, and empathy peeled, and thought apex predator thoughts.
Steep incline seeped gradually into the ground underneath us. The jungle rose with the hill, forcing us higher. Without being able to see our surroundings beyond the trees, I could only guess, but it felt like we were approaching foothills of some kind. If a mountain was nearby, its perspective could give us the lay of the land, and thus, better options.
Finally, we found a watering hole nestled in a thick clump of trees, and stopped to rest. Beast Boy morphed back into his skirt while I set Celv'n on a mossy rock near the water. The moss withered at once.
I made a cup from my soul and drank, forcing myself not to think of the alien microbes living in the water. I had never been sick a day in my life, and wasn't sure if I could get sick, but this would be a horrible day to find out. The water tasted indescribably foul. I couldn't drink fast enough.
Celv'n just stared at the crystal water. "Aren't you thirsty?" I asked him, and offered him my soul cup.
He eyed the water distrustfully. "What's 'thirsty?' And what is that?" he asked.
Beast Boy had already shed his skin for that of a gazelle. He splashed in the water, watching three-eyed fish scurry from his hooves. Even I couldn't help myself, and removed my shoes to dip my toes in the water. A wonderfully cool sensation engulfed my feet and spread. I sighed, and splashed my face, and forgot for a moment that awful day in my rippling reflection.
Something emerged from the trees on the other side of the pond. I tensed, but then relaxed. It was some kind of herbivore, judging by its teeth. The antlered creature dipped its long face into the water for a drink. Its beady black eyes watched us with disinterest. That's when I had an idea to gain a little insight into our surroundings.
I rose slowly, levitating so that my toes skirted the pond's surface. The water felt good, but more importantly, I wanted the creature to notice me coming as much as possible. It would see the ripples I made, and hear the water rustle. The more it focused on me, the easier this would be.
"What are you doing?" Beast Boy asked, human again, and hiding his lower half in the water (that I could no longer bring myself to drink, thank you so much).
I waved him silent. Explaining would take too long, and he wouldn't get it anyway. As I floated toward the animal, it looked up. Its legs tensed to run. I projected my essence over the creature. I lowered my psychic defenses and bathed the creature in a practiced, meditated calm. It wasn't easy to do, and I didn't like it, but the effects were instant and undeniable.
The animal whinnied. It stayed. I hovered in front of it, concentrating on the cool sensation of my toes in the water, drawing on that feeling, pouring it into the creature. If I could keep it calm, I could touch its mind. Whatever it knew about the forest, I would know. I would learn the animal's habitat in an instant. Its emotions were still dangerous, but less so than a human's. Its emotions were simple and few. I could handle it.
I got lucky: my mind hadn't reached the animal's when its head erupted with burgundy brain matter. The animal collapsed, splashing dead in the water. I tracked the cause of its death by looking opposite the brain spray. Metal glinted in the trees. I moved, and felt my hair jerk at a projectile's passing. My soul dove into the water and tore up a wave that broke the sniper's line of sight.
The situation couldn't get much worse, but at least these "greatest hunters" were terrible shots.
My psychic walls wrapped back around my mind while I flew across the pond. "Run!" I yelled. My wake sprayed the green gazelle with leaves around its neck, which turned into a leopard that bounded back to land. Celv'n had a head start on both of us. He burned through the underbrush.
Beast Boy's sharp eyes spotted something I could not. He morphed human again and tripped over his skirt. Spitting up dirt, he cried, "Celv'n, wait!"
Celv'n stumbled over a wire strung between two trunks. The jungle rocked with an explosion that threw me into the brush. My head rang inside and out. My vision went black as I tried to straighten the shooting pain my body had become. I found up again, and pulled my face out of rotting plant matter.
Two hunters stood over what remained of Celv'n. The fiery boy lay in the brush, bleeding magma from where his left half used to be. Smoke poured from beneath his body. He reached out drunkenly for one of the hunters—that bastard, Bug-Eyes, who waved a machete through the waning flame atop Celv'n's head. Bug-Eyes' faceted stare fell on me (too?) as his proboscis spread. "Four for four," he buzzed.
"No fair," the other hunter whined.
Celv'n's remaining hand erupted. More fire than I'd ever seen filled the jungle. The sweltering air sizzled in a cone of conflagration that consumed whole trees. Every last drop of humidity turned into dry, rasping heat. The world vanished into fire.
I shielded my eyes until the flare dimmed. Heat seared my lungs as I looked up. An entire section of the jungle had turned to ash. Brushfire licked the edge of the black clearing. I saw two sets of smoldering boots next to the cold, lifeless lump of rock that had been Celv'n. His reddish glow was gone, as was the flame on his head. His sockets were dark.
A blast like that would attract every hunter in the jungle. Still blind with heat, I called, "Beast Boy! Beast Boy!" I sensed, and found a tight ball of emotion a few feet away. I felt around and brushed against his bare leg. The brief contact sent a psychic shock through me that almost put me in a coma. Hissing, I scooped up a handful of peat and tossed it at him.
Through watering eyes, I saw him rise from the bushes. He looked lost. The chaotic emotions in him shifted to fear and dread. "Raven?" he moaned. Blood dribbled down his brow. He'd hit his head. "We're dead?" he asked.
We only had seconds at best. "We're not dead. Get up," I said.
His gaze wandered to the dark lump that had been Celv'n. "We're gonna die," he mumbled around a thick tongue.
I threw more peat in his face. He sputtered, and I yelled, "We are not dying, you idiot. We are getting out of this. So—"
Thunder cracked. I felt impact, and a blinding wave of pain. Then, cold. Black blood leapt from my chest in three fountains. The jungle turned on its side and slammed into my head. Everything around me dimmed. The sweet air grew sticky in my throat. The crackle of the fire faded.
Maybe the hunters weren't such rotten shots after all.