I had three hollow-tipped, hyperkinetic rounds in my chest. I was lying in some jungle on who knows what planet, bleeding out in Beast Boy's arms while the underbrush burned around us. Cold shock seeped through my body, chasing out the wet jungle heat. Black ichor swamped my clothes and pooled in my lips. One breath emptied me.
Beast Boy screamed and clutched me to his chest. He stared horrified into dilating eyes, howling my name. Sharp green fingers swept back my matted hair as he sobbed and buried his face in mine, weeping uncontrollably.
It was very picturesque. Even a little sweet, in a disturbing sense. I floated over his shoulder and watched him cradle my body. I couldn't help but feel a little flattered. Even so, this was a battlefield, and so I shouted, "Run, you idiot!" even though I knew he couldn't hear me.
In case you were wondering, I wasn't dead. Demons are a notoriously difficult kind of monster to kill. They heal instantly from any wound that isn't magical, or holy, or silver, or decapitating. Even then, you have to destroy the head or the heart, or they'll just regenerate again. Physical punishment can slow lesser demons down, but not for long.
I'm half-demon. My father, a demon lord, gave me strength to spare. I heal like a demon does, but without the "instantly" part. What this means is that three bullets to the chest won't kill me, all appearances to the contrary, but they will ruin my day. Three bullets will make me wish I was dead, and give my sniper all the time in the world to wander by and take off my head.
I've learned trances that can expedite the process, but putting my guts back together from this mess would take time. Moreover, my body had kicked my spirit out to spare me the blindingly agonizing pain of physically "dying." Being spared from the pain meant I wouldn't go crazy. Yay. But there were downsides as well.
Beast Boy didn't have any of these luxuries. That's why it was my turn to scream his name when three more bullets ripped through his back and threw him to the ground.
Enraged, I flew at the source of the shots. A squat, rotund creature with a rifle trundled through the underbrush. He wore a scope over his eye and a smile on his upper mouth. His lower mouth chomped a cigar of some kind. Rage boiled through every part of me at the sight of his smug face. For once, I welcomed the rage. I grasped it, twisted it, and channeled every ounce of it into an incantation that would throw him into another time zone on this miserable planet. I hurled my rage into words: "Azarath! Metrion! Zinthos!"
The fat hunter walked through my spell. He walked through me, smiling merrily. In my anger, I'd forgotten the downside: an astral form can't affect the physical world. I could only watch as that extragalactic sleaze finished Beast Boy and took us both as prizes. Once he noticed my body slowly healing, he would try again, and keep trying until I stayed dead.
He kicked aside the smoldering boots that had been Celv'n's killers and walked right up to Beast Boy and my body. His gun jabbed Beast Boy in the back, checking for resistance. Beast Boy bled at him in a non-threatening manner. Satisfied, the hunter rolled him off of my body, and bent over the both of us.
"Such an ugly face," the hunter said, and brushed matted hair from my black eyes. Bodiless or not, I shuddered at his touch.
The air split with a roar so loud that it drowned out the entire jungle. Lizard-like birds leapt from the trees in droves, filling the canopy with panicked rustling. I looked around, afraid of some new predator come to make things worse. When I found nothing, I looked back at the hunter.
He gagged and paled beneath a green hand that disappeared into the fat around his throat. His face turned a rich shade of blue. Gargled pleas escaped both sets of swelling lips. He grasped at the hand and sank to his knees, coming face to face with his attacker, the last person on Earth or any other planet I would expect of such ruthless brutality.
Beast Boy choked the fight out of the hunter. "Beast Boy, no!" I cried, and reached through his hand. I couldn't stop him, and he wouldn't stop.
Trapped between worlds, I could only watch the little boy I knew and tolerated as his face twisted with apoplectic rage. The uglier part of me wanted him to keep going, to crush the hunter's larynx and leave him to burn in the fires. But more prominent was my horror at the leering, predatory hatred that Beast Boy's elfish features had become. His eyes glinted green-gold, slitted like those of a cat.
The hunter's struggle quelled. Standing, Beast Boy held the fat hunter at arm's length, and then threw him with a snarl. The hunter struck a tree at the black clearing's edge with a wet crunch. He did not get up again.
Beast Boy circled my body, sniffing. A whimper trickled from behind fangs that I swear weren't that big a second ago. With tears in his eyes, he picked my body up as if it weighed nothing, and then sprinted from the clearing on human legs that could outpace a Buick.
Through thick smoke and crackling fire, I watched a skinny, pathetic, immature boy in a grass skirt disappear into the bushes with the speed and grace of a jungle cat. I looked at the hunter he had hurled one-handed. I looked at the discarded gun that had pumped three rounds through Beast Boy's back to no effect.
It made sense…didn't it?
Beast Boy is a shapeshifter. He restructures his anatomy with a whim. Unless something blocks his thoughts—say, a bullet to the head—he should be able to heal from any injury just by thinking the wounds healthy again. I'd seen him do it before under dire duress with broken legs. Then again, I'd also seen him become a dragon under similar circumstances. But this was just a natural evolution of his powers. He was just reacting to the circumstances by realizing his potential. And the hunter, well…that was just self-defense. An ugly necessity.
These were the wonderful self-deceptions I clung to when I heard more rustling at the edge of the black clearing. When I turned, I felt a surge of hope. Tetramanus's bald, red face peered through the tall underbrush. He had heard the explosion and come back to help. Luck at last.
Then the brush parted for a gangly, long-eared hunter who carried a longer pike on his back. Tetramanus stared from the top of the pike, his scowl frozen in death. More hunters poured out after him, armed and eager for a piece of the action. And last, but highest on my furious list, came the Master of Games.
"What the frell happened here?" asked an avian hunter dressed in colorful fatigues.
The hunters spread and examined the clearing. They rolled Celv'n's rocky body, and yelped at Bug-Eyes' boots, and gasped in horror at the fat sack of meat their other hunter had become. You didn't need to be an empath to feel the confidence draining from those mighty hunters. Fear flourished deep in their black, withered hearts.
"Gentlemen, ladies, please," the Master pleaded. His showman's smile began to wilt. "This changes nothing. The hunt will continue as planned."
A fat felinoid screeched, "Are you mad? There have been at least three casualties, Gamesman! I paid for sport, not mortal danger!"
A chorus of agreement rang up from the throng. The Master looked around. I felt a small swell of panic behind his smile. All this death and that bastard worried about losing his clientele. Disgusting.
"I'm sorry," he said, eyes twinkling. "I must have been mistaken. I thought I had assembled the greatest hunters ever known. I thought hunters such as yourselves would appreciate true sport, a real contest! But if you would prefer a canned hunt instead, one can be arranged."
It was a cheap ploy. It also worked like a charm. "I'm no canned hunter, you bastard! Those filthy metas are mine!" bellowed a pale fish-face.
"The frell they are! They're mine!" the felinoid yowled.
The Master's grin resumed. I choked back choice words. They would have been wasted anyway. "Very good. I think you'll enjoy the remaining pair. They're a couple of young combatants I purchased from Earth, and I happen to know they're very resourceful," he said.
"Can't be too resourceful," Long-Ears called from the edge of the clearing. He stood beyond the dwindling brushfire. Long fronds danced at Long-Ears' push. He swiped a spattering of black bile from the frond, and said, "They've left a trail a kellicam wide. One of them's bleeding."
My blood. My body was still bleeding, and it would lead the hunters right to Beast Boy. Terrified, I flew through Long-Ears and straight into the forest. I had to find him before they did. I had to find some way to warn him. Maybe if I touched his mind directly, I could convey the thought to him. It ran the risk of overpowering me with his thoughts and feelings, but I was as good as dead anyway. I had to try.
One good thing about astral bodies is, they can really move. I sped through jungle terrain like it wasn't there, passing through tree and bush alike. The spattering of blood left an obvious trail. I would find him in minutes.
Or I might have, if the trail didn't end abruptly. A large smear of blood stained the jungle floor next to torn fronds and footprints. Beyond that point, I couldn't find a single trace of Beast Boy or myself. In retrospect, I felt stupid for not laying a simple trace spell on my body. It would still call me back as soon as it was done healing, but now I couldn't find it, and I couldn't do anything to speed the process along.
Stumped, I floated there until the hunters caught up. I moved much faster than they did. If they could reach the scene better than I, they could give me a direction to start looking for Beast Boy. But when they arrived, they were equally stymied. After minutes of contention, they decided to split up into three groups of five and spread from the scene in search of a new sign.
I left them to their hunt. Beast Boy moved more quickly than they, too, and he was apparently as traceless in the jungle as I. But I had my own methods for tracking him, methods that didn't rely on the physical.
The canopy predators couldn't harm me now. I flew through the treetops and into full sunlight. The jungle below me stirred in the wind like an ocean of color. Above me, a blue sky shone with three suns strung together like pearls. The jungle broke only for the majesty of a snow-capped mountain rising in the distance. The mountain's gray rock stood like a beacon among the nigh-endless jungle. I flew for it at once, welcoming the change.
Up and up I soared. The air grew chilled, which I noticed only by the lack of trees and sleeting winds that passed through me. A few gnarled plants clung to the mountainside as I left the jungle, and those, too, vanished as I neared the snowy apex. I hovered above the mountain, witnessing others like it to the distant south. There was no life here, and no noise, save for the tranquil murmur of wind against rock.
I repeated my incantation again, this time in peace. Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos. My anger stilled. My worry faded. With practiced meditation, I quelled the storm inside of me. I would need inner silence to match that of my surroundings. After a day like this, such silence didn't come easily or quickly.
Time passed. How much, I can't say. The sky above me never darkened. Whenever one sun would dip into the horizon, another would rise, keeping the world in perpetual noon. Without a body, I had no heartbeat to tick away the seconds, no hunger to remind me of hours, no sleep to end the day. It could have been weeks. I didn't know. I meditated until my distant emotions became but a speck in my spirit.
When I had stilled myself, I opened my mind fully to the world. My old psychic walls reluctantly lowered, and the ethereal noise of the jungle bathed me in life. From this far away, the teeming jungle felt like a distant din: a thousand-million different feelings all happening at once, moving, changing, and ebbing. Simple, bestial thoughts comprised the bulk of it. I settled in, stretching my consciousness, and waded through the simple tide in search of something more complex.
Gradually, I came to know the jungle by its denizens. Worker insects strived in the rotting leaves on the ground in service of their colonies. Great, graceful predators prowled the deepest thickets where the sunlight couldn't reach them. Lumbering grazers squeezed between trees, consuming whole bushes in a single bite. The symphony of life dazzled me in its entirety. It was a beautiful machine with innumerable parts all moving in harmony.
As I learned the jungle, I was better able to find that which did not belong. The complex thoughts of the hunters revealed themselves in the forest far below. I hovered for eons, tracking their pattern. They would circle larger and larger sections of jungle until their frustration succumbed to weariness. Then they would camp, resting and eating, laughing and trading good humor with one another, until they replenished their stamina and renewed their efforts.
Searching, I felt my own patience begin to fray. By now I could count the hunters individually. But I still hadn't found Beast Boy. His blaring emotions should have stood out among everything else. As simpleminded as he is, he was still an emotional, conflicted, and above all frightened little boy. I could only think of one reason why I couldn't find him, and it was too horrible for me to accept. So I stretched myself further and listened harder.
Attuned as I was, the violent burst of fear I felt shattered my quiet like a shot. My empathic ears rang with terror. Quickly, I raised my psychic walls and flew down into the jungle, hunting the source of the fear.
I swam through leaves and trunks until I found the fear. It emanated from two creatures huddled in the underbrush. Their trembling shook the leaves, spattering the blood that dripped from the brush. Four bodies littered the area in a literal way. They had been torn apart and lay strewn in a carpet of gore so thick that it was impossible to tell what each of them had looked like in life.
From the bushes stumbled Blackfire. Her skirt and blouse hung in shreds, and several scabbing cuts marred her silver bodysuit. Bruises mottled her face, which she twisted back at the bush. A long, thick chain trailed from a collar around her neck. Her hands and feet were bound in blinking shackles, probably to suppress her powers.
"You! Girl!" a quaking voice called from the bush. "Draw the creature out!" The barrel of a ray gun emerged between leaves.
Blackfire looked disgusted, but I could see deeper, and I knew how afraid she felt. She hid it well. "Come out, creature," she called listlessly, and waded into the gory remains of her other captors.
Entrails clung to her boots with each step. Even without a stomach, I felt sick.
"I'm so tasty," she called. "Please come out and eat me. Anything's better than staying with this little—" Her chain jerked, throwing her into the gore. She glared and sputtered. Blood covered her front, dripping from her chin, her hair, drizzling across her body. I could only imagine the smell. She looked ready to vomit.
A low, rumbling growl rolled above us. Blackfire and I looked up in unison, and screamed. Something furry and enormous crouched on a bough. Its yellow eyes stared through us. Teeth, thick and slavering, split wide for a howl that shook the forest. Flecks of fresh meat rained in its roar. It coiled and sprang before even I could react.
Startled, I listened for the creature's thoughts…and found none. I listened harder, searching for its emotions. Still, nothing. It was like the creature was a giant, walking empathic blind spot. My extra senses were useless against the creature, and that frightened me.
Blackfire collapsed with a bloodcurdling scream. She cowered on the ground, growing slick with hunters' blood. The creature landed before her and bathed her in another roar. Emerald quills frilled its back. Thick, black fur covered its enormous, powerful body. Claws like daggers tipped its fingers. Opposable claws on its feet wrung the flesh carpeting the ground—its handiwork, I had no doubt. Blackfire was as good as food to this predator.
But the creature pounced past her into the brush. The little ray gun barked a single shot that the creature easily avoided. Snarling, the creature dove into the bush. Screams of mortal terror arose within the thrashing leaves. Green ichor sprayed in every direction. Screams gave way to gurgling, and then one final, rattled breath. Still the ichor sprayed.
When at last the creature's grim work was finished, it peered from the bushes at Blackfire. All pretenses in her fled. She shook with terror, weeping silently, unable to muster more than a squeak as the creature stalked upon her. It studied her with cruel eyes, tasting her scent with its wide nostrils.
Then it grabbed her. It crushed her manacles with a gesture, and tore the chains off her legs with a twist of its foot-claw. Blackfire gaped in the face of the creature, forgetting that her powers were restored.
The creature snarled and kicked her. She flew through a tree, shattering its trunk in a spray of green wood. She kept flying on her own, screaming into the forest, trailing the long collar chain behind her. I've never seen a Tamaranian fly so fast.
The creature watched her go with a tilted head. Then it leapt back into the trees with a single push of its thick legs. I followed, horrified, fascinated by the black creature. Could it be one of the predators of the jungle? No. It had freed Blackfire. Then perhaps it was another one of the Master's victims? I sensed nothing from it as it swung from branch to branch. It was as though it kept every thought and feeling locked away. It was focused beyond anything even my mind could approach.
My curiosity got the better of me. I reached out and touched the creature's mind.
Rage. Rage unlike anything I had ever experienced. Even a demonic presence could not compare. A demon's rage is sinister and calculating. This creature was nothing but blind, animal hate. It knew only to hurt those that hurt it. It had killed those hunters out of hate, not hunger. It was no animal. This was a monster in the truest sense of the word.
The force of its mind catapulted me through the jungle. I saw only a swirl of colorful fronds and patches of sky before everything blurred into nothingness. My essence fragmented and spread.
It's hard to describe pulling your astral self back together. It isn't pleasant, I can tell you that much. It's like being everywhere at once, only there's less of you, so you feel diluted.
I had been unprepared for the force of the creature's mind, and it had cost me. By the time I had gathered enough of myself for time to have any real meaning, the creature was long gone. It left no discernable trail to follow, not even claw marks on the trees from which it swung. I couldn't track its focused mind, especially not in the ethereal noise of the jungle, and especially not after the jarring blow it had dealt my psyche. I left the trees and returned to the mountain.
As I flew, I thought of the creature. If it truly was one of the Master's victims, then I could understand its hatred. And loathe though I was to admit, I could see myself condoning its actions. This wasn't a city, with laws and authorities to keep the peace. This was a jungle. Jungle law, as the cliché goes, is kill or be killed. And this wasn't our choice to be there. This was the hunters' game. If they were losing, they had no one to blame but themselves.
Even as I repeated it, I felt disgusted. How could I condone killing? I had spent my entire life fighting that very attitude within myself. I dedicated my life to doing something good with my life, a life born from violence. My mother had crossed worlds and defied demons to give me that chance. Would I waste it by succumbing to killing? Wasn't there a better way?
I thought of timid, innocent Beast Boy, and how part of me had cheered him on when he choked and killed the fat hunter in the clearing. I felt spiteful at the being that had shot me, and saddened by his passing, and horrified for the little boy who had to kill him just to survive in this awful place.
I felt ashamed. Suddenly, the jungle didn't seem beautiful or harmonious. I wanted nothing more than to find Beast Boy and go home. Forget the jungle, forget the hunters, and forget that horrible, murderous creature. I settled my essence atop the quiet mountain again, and meditated until the tempest inside me stilled again.
It took a little longer this time.
By the time I had calmed myself and extended my empathic senses, I only confirmed my worst fears. Beast Boy was still nowhere to be found in the forest. His foghorn mind wasn't anywhere in those trees.
My stillness faltered. I grew desperate, and searched further and further. My essence stretched to dangerous lengths to find him below. I felt every last hunter in the forest as they banded together against a faceless terror in the trees. Creatures everywhere puked their mindless feelings into me, bombarding me with more emotion than I could handle. And still, I couldn't find Beast Boy.
Beast Boy and I have our differences. Anyone with an ounce of brains will tell you that immediately after meeting us both. In a lot of ways, he and I will never understand each other. We're too different. We'll never be close. I suppose that's mostly my fault. But in spite of it all, I admire him. He always seemed at ease with himself. He enjoyed his lot in life, and his uniqueness. He reveled in his immaturity, a fourteen year old that looks and acts like he's eleven.
Wait. It's past October. I guess he's fifteen now.
I combed the jungle in search of him. By now, my stillness had fractured completely against rocky desperation. Helpless, I picked the first complex thought I could find, and zoomed back into the forest to meet it, hoping against long odds.
Instead, I found more hunters. It wasn't hard to find them beneath the canopy. Their fear blared, making them easy to pinpoint in the endless trees. I wearily cobbled my defenses against their shrieking emotions as I descended upon them.
Six of them crept through the underbrush. They lurked beneath enormous roots and pushed through fronds as silently as they could. Each one of them had smeared mud over their glistening skin (or in one case, carapace), probably to mask their scent. Each one of them held a weapon. None of them looked entirely confident in their weapons' effectiveness.
"This is madness," a dog-eared hunter hissed to a companion of the same species ahead of him. When the companion shushed him, his whisper became insistent. "We should have the Gamesman send us home!"
The other Dog-Ear growled back, bearing sharp teeth from his muzzle. He charged his plasma cannon with a sharp jerk, and snarled, "Would you go home and admit defeat to a couple of primates? Would you have the mightiest hunters of Stt'kk be fetched back so easily?"
Something growled in the treetops, ending their quarrel. I recognized that growl. The hunters and I all looked hard into the boughs, searching for any glimpse of black fur or a yellow glare. The jungle was thick here, thick enough to cast real darkness in this world of perpetual sunlight. Darkness for the first time in so long jarred me. I knew it jarred the hunters, too. Their fear swamped me, masking the little sliver of fear I saved for myself.
The rolling growl led the hunters deeper into the pitch jungle. Those unlucky hunters below me couldn't feel the other eyes following them, eyes of crafty predators that watched them trundle through their forest. But those predators didn't stalk the hunters. They remained respectfully dormant, as though they could sense the creature that my ethereal senses were blind to.
Their eyes turned overhead, the hunters paid less attention to their drifting steps. The one in the lead, the fish-faced one I remember from before, set a light foot upon a seemingly harmless vine.
The vine snapped sprang into the brush from where it had been drawn taut. The bent sapling it had been holding back whipped out of the same brush. Its trunk had been hewn into a coarse axe, which smashed into Fish-Face's head before he could even scream. His skull split and sprayed beneath the sapling. Drunk on death, his body staggered and fell while the tree that had killed him swayed back upright.
Covered in his friend's carelessness, the next in line, Cowardly Dog-Ear, screamed furiously at the leafy ceiling high above. He started firing wildly into the jungle, filling the air with golden fire. Another hunter near the back, the fat Feline, lost her nerve and joined him. Their shots burned through the jungle to little effect. Creatures of the dark scampered from the glowing bolts, rustling the trees above us.
The other, braver Dog-Ear growled impatiently, hardly caring that his fishy companion had just been brutally bludgeoned. He shoved the other Dog-Ear, and snarled, "Stop that, you idiot!"
Cowardly Dog-Ear stumbled back and tripped over a root. He fell, and then kept falling, vanishing through large fronds strewn on the ground. His yelp ended in a squelch. I peered through the fronds before any of the other hunters had a chance to uncover the hole. I looked away just as quickly.
Sapling spikes protruded from the Dog-Ear. They had been sharpened and staked into a hole that had been clawed out of the dirt. Large fronds had covered the spike pit, making it impossible to distinguish from the rest of the jungle floor. The classic trap had done its job. Cowardly Dog-Ear twitched once, already gone. His eyes widened into two great abysses.
Feline hissed as she stared into the pit. "Traps! Farking traps!"
Brave Dog-Ear slapped her hard and snarled, "Who's stalking who here? Pull yourselves together! These are just animals, like any other prey, only more clever. This is what we paid for. Real sport! This is the first thrill I've felt in a long time, and you people are complaining? This is a hunt. Either be hunted, or be hunter, or go home, but stop meddling and stay out of my way regardless!"
Stirring words. And they were having a substantial impact on his comrades until a boulder the size of a van fell through the trees and crushed him into the ground. No trace of him remained as a flash of black fur landed on the boulder. The creature pounded its chest and roared furiously at the hunters.
They screamed. They panicked. I think Feline got a shot off before the creature tore her in its jaws. I can't be sure. I looked away so I wouldn't have to watch. As much as I hated these beings, I couldn't stand to see anyone die so horribly. No one deserved that. I wished I had eyes to close or ears to plug, so I could have hid from the horror of their deaths.
Their screams subsided. I looked down and felt my essence at the sight of the remains painting the creature's red jaws. It stared after the last hunter, another like Bug-Eyes, who ran through the jungle with clumsy fear. The creature stood there, watching, drinking in the scent of the scene. Fresh kill dripped from its fangs and claws. Something akin to a smile wrenched its face.
I wondered why it hadn't finished the last one, but knew the answer immediately. This thing was no animal. It was smart. It laid traps, and had led the hunters to exactly the spot it chose. It let the last one escape to let it run right into the arms of the other hunters. It wanted to finish its horrific task.
Sure enough, the creature took to the trees again. I followed fast, determined to stop it. If I could get into the creature's mind, I might be able to shut it down. I was essentially intending to bond myself to the creature's mind, and then kill it, thus killing myself, too. The very idea made me sick through and through, but I couldn't let it kill again. I couldn't bear to think of what it would do to those hunters, no matter if such vile beings deserved it or not. I had to save them, even if their lives were an utter waste.
This time I kept my defenses, and wedged them into a battering ram. The creature's rage blasted against my psyche again. I fought it every synapse along the way, pushing into its mind bit by bit. It sensed me and fought me, snapping at me with jaws of hate. In the end, my willpower prevailed by the thinnest of margins. I entered its mind. The creature and I became one.
Alone. I'm so alone. I lie on the ground in a camp, surrounded by Earth jungle. It's so cold. I had been lonely, and the green monkey wanted to play. I didn't know it would bite me. Now I feel alone and cold, and numb, and sick. Mommy and Daddy keep making sad faces at me while they fuss with their beakers and tubes.
They're back now. Blonde and beautiful, Mommy picks me up. I cling to her. Strong, smiling bravely, Daddy holds up a needle. I try to be brave too. It hurts. It really hurts! Something running through me, eating me up, taking me over. I scream, and feel a beast wrap around me.
It's later. I'm older, but not much. I stand on the bank of a river and stare at the spot where Mommy and Daddy disappeared with the boat. They can't turn their beast into a fish and swim like me, but they're strong. They have to be strong. They won't leave me alone with my beast, will they? It's been so long since they went under. They have to come back up. Any second now…
It's way later. I've gotten so good at keeping the beast down. Laughing helps a lot. Now I can look almost normal, even when I sleep! Mento and Elasti-Girl are proud. I wanna make them prouder. I'm gonna make the beast get bigger, but only when I want it to. I wonder what else I can turn him into.
I'm a Titan! How cool is it hanging out with Robin? I know we're gonna be best buds. Starfire and Cyborg are cool too. They like to laugh. Raven doesn't, though. She looks sad. She sounds sad, too. I bet if she laughed, she'd feel better. Laughing makes me better. Why not her?
God, Terra is so beautiful. She makes me smile so hard, I think my teeth'll start tap dancing. I'll never feel this way about anyone else. She loves me. I know she'll love me forever!
Why? Why did she go? Why didn't she stay? It's my fault. It's always my fault. She hates me. She left because of me. Raven was right. Terra's gone, and it's my fault.
No. Keep laughing.
Robin's gone. Cyborg's gone. Starfire's gone. Tek's gone. All I have left is Raven. Raven hates me.
Keep laughing. Keep smiling. Don't let it out.
Raven's gone.
Gone.
Gone.
GONE.
I fell out of its mind, barely able to keep my defenses intact. I stared numbly as it swung through the jungle after its prey. It seemed even larger, even stronger, than when I'd entered it. Its quills bristled, sharper. Its claws flexed, crushing entire boughs.
I prayed to Azar that I was wrong, even though I knew I wasn't.
Before I could give chase again, I felt something pulling me across the jungle. Helpless, I tumbled through endless trees, until finally I left the canopy. The unseen force dragged me to the side of the mountain. I fell into a small mound of rocks that had been carefully arranged. There, I found my body, weakened but restored, and wrapped it around myself.
With a gasp, I awoke inside the darkness of the rock. Cracks of light peered through the gaps. My breath steamed and danced in the slivers of light. I shivered and tried to clutch myself. There was no room to move, and it was freezing. I could feel frost clinging to my eyelashes.
I burst from the cairn with a thrust of my soul. Then I collapsed upon the scattering rocks, reorienting myself in the ways of flesh. Large leaves broke from around my body. They were brittle and covered in frozen black blood. I'd been mummified in them and laid to rest on a picturesque ledge overlooking the entire jungle. I was miles from where I'd been just a moment ago.
Up high, the air was as cold as I'd imagined it when I was an astral. I wrapped myself in a cloak of ether to quell my shivers. Behind me, the mountain climbed high into the clouds. Around me, the smaller rocks of my cairn mixed with large boulders, and fell into the cracks in the ledge. And on the ground next to me, a rumpled husk of flesh in a grass skirt lay half-buried in rock and snow.
The green skin glistened stickily. Its face stared back at me with empty sockets. This was the last glimpse I would ever have of Beast Boy as I knew him. It was like something had torn violently out his back and taken everything inside his skin with it. And just like that, I understood.
I flew. I flew faster than I ever had, heedless of the cold. My mind combed the forest for any trace of fear. That's where he would be.
The mountain cold gave way to wet heat from the jungle. I dove through the canopy. Gargantuan bird-lizards chased me, hungry for the delicious body I'd just gotten back. I twisted my soul into the boughs around me and slapped them away with their own trees. I was too worried to be afraid of them now.
Through boughs and brush I flew, until at last I came back to the small clearing where it had all began. The hunters had set up camp there, with collapsed chrome fabric tents around a scattered campfire. Trees had been uprooted and tossed into the clearing. I could see arms and legs sticking out from under the enormous trunks. Red smears spackled the leaves at my feet. The smell jerked my empty stomach up. I coughed and threw up, except nothing came out.
Only one hunter remained. It was the Master of Games. The creature loomed over him, covered in gore, dripping blood in long, hungry tendrils of saliva from its enormous teeth. Its claws raked the Master's chest, turning his gray fur red and pulling a shriek from his fangs. He saw me behind the creature and screamed, "Help me!"
The creature twisted with a grunt. It saw me, and its yellow scowl narrowed. I watched it taste my scent, sniffing the air. Something sparked in its eyes, but I couldn't tell what. It was still empathically invisible, focused beyond the point of reading. I tried to keep my knees from shaking.
The Master seized the distraction, and tried to run. He got one step before the creature whirled and grabbed his head in its claw. Roaring, the creature slammed the Master into the ground, kicking up leaves and dirt, and drawing more blood from where its claws creased the Master's sobbing face. The creature raised its other claw to plunge into the Master's throat. Its cruel nails came together into a crude spear. But its killing stroke bounced off a shield I'd culled from my soul to protect the Master.
I expanded my soul into a bubble that covered the Master. "That's enough, Garfield," I told the creature.
It roared again and raked my soul bubble. The creature howled and clawed at the cowering Master. Its attacks strained my barrier. Its hatred burst into my soul with each blow. As its frenzy grew, its hatred wearied me, but I kept the bubble intact.
I dropped to my knees. Blood trickled from my nose. I was tired. I hadn't eaten since who knew when. This vicious thing wanted to rip apart a creature that, honestly, I had little pity for. But one thought kept me going. "I won't let you kill him, Garfield. He's not a threat to you anymore," I told it.
Trapped beneath the sanctuary of my bubble, the Master mewled, "I'm not! I swear!"
"You have every right to be angry," I told it. "I know what you've been going through. And up until now, it's been kill-or-be-killed. But you've won. It's time to stop."
The Master shriveled from the bubble, which I contracted and condensed to keep intact as the creature wore it down. "I declare you the winner!" the Master sobbed. "C-congratulations!"
Furious, its thin patience spent, the creature threw itself from the bubble. Its eyes and jaws turned to me. Its leonine roar split the air. Then it charged, tearing apart the jungle floor as it raced upon me. I did nothing, and let the creature fall upon me. It knocked me to the ground and pinned me with his cutting claws. Its jaws descended, bathing me in the stink of the kill.
I opened myself. I dropped every last defense I had, and I let the entirety of the creature pour into me. Rage flooded my being. My father happily consumed the creature's rage and doubled it inside of me. It felt like a hurricane of pure anger tore through my mind, leaving everything that I was damaged and incomplete. But I held on. I stayed open, and took everything pouring out of it.
The creature felt its rage slipping away. It balked, and tried to leave, but I clutched its claws to my chest and held it fast. It slipped through, cutting me. I leapt upon it and held on, cinching my arms around its quilled back. My hands grew slick with my blood. My body rattled with the effort. Tears of pitch burned in my eyes. Still I held, ignoring the pain and the hate. "I'm here, Garfield!" I shouted above the storm in my head.
Its anger waned. It changed. Suddenly, I felt an overwhelming sense of loss replace everything inside of me, drowning out even my father's laughing voice. The only thing I had known, or would ever know, was the pain of losing someone I loved. Nobody stayed. People leave. Everyone I loved was gone. Gone. Gone
"I'm here, Garfield!" I shouted it into the creature's chest. I thought it into the creature's mind. I felt it into its soul. One thought, again and again, expressed in every way I knew how. I hugged it tight, and with every ounce of me I had left, I stayed with him.
Its grief boiled my soul. I trembled and exploded and felt myself dying in the torrent pouring out of him. My nails ran red with the strength of my grip. It sank to his knees. Its arms wrapped around me, and he hugged me back. Its fur and quills rolled off of his bloodied skin. Its roar became his sob.
Beast Boy fell upon me. He clung to me as if I would vanish the second he let go. Raw sobs wracked his throat and shook his naked body. He wept like a child, burying his face into my neck until all he could see was me.
I stroked his hair and hugged him back. Filthy, bleeding, exhausted, we knelt together on the jungle floor. His emotions still roiled against me, but they were human emotions again. Complex and suffering. Crying with him, I touched his mind through our link, placing him in a deep sleep. His sobs quelled. His tears stemmed.
As I lowered him to the ground, I studied what he had become. He had looked twelve when we first arrived at the jungle. Now he could have passed for seventeen with ease. When he stood, he would be more than a head taller than me. Strong, sculpted muscle lurked beneath his smooth green skin. With sharp cheekbones and otherworldly features, his face looked as though it had been plucked from a fairy tale. I peered deeper into his soul as our minds separated once more. From the safety of my defenses, I could see new scars inside of him, far beneath this new physical form he had manifested.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the Master of Games making a break for the edge of the clearing. I lurched to my feet and gave chase. With the very last of my strength, I ported myself in front of him, twisting the shadows themselves to block his retreat. It was all I could do to stay steady on my feet as I cowed him with a glare.
Some small morsel of courage must have returned to him in the wake of "the creature's" defeat. That and he probably wasn't impressed by a sorceress in hot pants and a crop top. "Well played, young champion," he said with a sneer. "Now, good luck in finding your way home. I'll see you next time."
Like I said, I had nothing left. Nothing except the double helping of rage and pain I had siphoned off of the darker parts of Beast Boy. All that excess emotion churned my gut into a sickening ball. I opened myself one last time, and twisted all of that rage and pain into fear. It isn't hard—they're all just permutations of one another, in the end.
Raw, pure fear crossed the space between us. My father felt me calling upon the anger, and fed more into me. I felt myself rise on ebony wings. The jungle around us crackled and froze, glistening with demonic cold that radiated from every shadow. My hair billowed with an ill wind that came from nowhere. My two eyes closed, and then my four eyes opened. The Master's last kernel of courage withered.
"You," I said. My father joined me, giving my voice unholy resonance. "You will send us home. You will send everyone home, and you will never do this again."
The Master of Games fell before the unbridled hatred of a true demon sorceress. He prostrated himself on his hands and knees, cowering from the blackness roiling beneath me. The stench of urine cut the cold air. "O-of course!" he said in a quaking tone.
"Pray to whatever gods will have you that I never see you again," I preached. "The next time we meet, I will make you beg for a quicker death." My eyes flashed.
He shrieked and snapped his fingers. Time and space went away again. I lost consciousness sometime after.
I suppose I could write about what happened after that, about how we woke up in Jump City. But that part doesn't really matter. Some guys in red robes found us in a dumpster, and I had to look at naked Beast Boy until I worked up the strength to port us to the Tower. After that, it was really all about finding new clothes and raiding our meager supplies for freeze dried rations and clothes until we felt something akin to "normal" again. The only other thing worth mentioning is what came after that.
I ate three MREs (whose acronym assuredly stands for "most revolting edibles," regardless of what the packaging says) and fell asleep on the ground, too tired to make it into my tent. When I woke up again, it was night, I had a fierce crick in my neck, and the tent next to mine was curiously empty. I listened, and heard that bottled foghorn I sought high above me atop the Tower.
A quick portal took me to the Tower's roof. It was a peaceful spot I used to use for meditation. The lapping of the waves and the twinkling lights of the city helped make up for the dull roar of emotion I felt across the bay. It made me feel almost human sometimes. Sometimes I need that. I guess Beast Boy needed it too.
He sat at the roof's edge with his long legs dangling over. His hands braced him while he leaned back and gazed at the city. The way he sat made it easy too see just how much he had changed. His old uniform fit his new body poorly, straining to cover his muscles and too short to cover his washboard stomach. I expected it wouldn't be long before staring in a mirror became his favorite pastime. But that wasn't then. That night, he gazed far past the city, past the stars, to a horrible jungle somewhere beyond. I wondered if he would ever leave the jungle at all.
Not a word passed between us as I sat next to him, arranging my cloak behind me and lowering my hood. I waited to see if he would speak first. He remained physically silent and emotionally deafening.
I drew two more packages of freeze-dried "food" from my cloak, and tossed one to him. The other I tore open for myself. Damn the calories, I was still hungry. "Eat," I told him. "You haven't yet. And don't bother telling me otherwise."
His new face fell with apology. His eyes were puffy and red. The pressurized spray of feelings worsened, chipping away at my tired defenses. "Sorry. My stomach still feels yucky," he said in his husky new voice.
("Yucky," by the way, sounds hilarious coming from someone whose looks were torn from a Calvin Klein catalogue. It's the closest I've ever come to laughing at something Beast Boy said, which still isn't very close.)
"I can still…taste it," he said.
His gaze sank into the ocean below us. I felt him drifting back into himself, where the other part of him prowled. I stopped eating, and for no reason I can remember, against every ounce of good sense I have, said, "I know what you're thinking right now. I've been there before, too." My mind screamed at me to stop talking, to reach into his mind and take back that little tidbit of my darkest secret. But I knew if it got him to talk, it would be worth it.
That brought him back at once. Even his feelings stilled for a brief instant, muffled by surprise. But then he absolutely shocked me by saying nothing. He returned his gaze to the ocean without a word. I couldn't believe it.
"You're not even going to ask?" I said.
Scoffing, he kicked his legs and said, "I don't want to talk about it. Why would you?"
"You didn't kill anyone, Beast Boy," I told him.
He still wouldn't look at me. He tapped his head, and said, "I've got a whole bunch of screaming faces rattling around in here that say otherwise."
I scooted closer. The tempest behind his eyes worsened. With concentration, I kept his feelings at bay, and sat shoulder to shoulder with him. The chill in the air made me shiver, but it didn't seem to bother him. "What do you remember?" I pressed.
"I dunno. Flashes. Screaming. Trees." His hand brushed his lips. "Blood."
"You remember bits and pieces because you weren't in control. It was."
"'It,' what?" he asked sullenly.
Then he blinked, and looked up. His eyes trailed slowly to mine, as though he dreaded meeting my gaze. I think he knew what I was going to say. "I know," I told him. "I know about your beast. It's been with you since you were a child."
He tried looking away. "That's just some nightmare I've had since I was little," he said.
"It's real, and it's inside of you. I felt it. I've seen it. It's an animal…maybe it's all the animals. It's what lets you morph. And when you lost control, when you were knocked out by those bullets, it took control. It inherited all of the bad feelings you were bottling up. That much complicated emotion drove it insane, until all it knew to do was hurt whatever made it feel that way."
"The hunters…" he murmured.
"—Were killed by the animal they were hunting," I insisted. "An animal inside of you that 'wasn't' you. It isn't you, Garfield. You were trapped inside of it. Now it's trapped back inside of you."
"…because you saved me," he said. His eyes glistened.
I faltered. This was rapidly heading down a mushy road I didn't want walk. "Well, you saved me. It seemed fair," I said.
I could see him waver. He looked unsure, and asked, "But how can you know for sure?"
"Because you can choose to look like anything, and you chose to look like this," I said, and gestured to his new form. "And because the thought of what you might have done is tearing you apart. You're a good man, Garfield Logan."
He looked down at himself, silent and pensive for a moment. "I tried, but I can't morph back into myself. Or, my old self. I don't know. I guess I'm stuck like this," he said. His lips quirked. "Not a bad bod to be stuck with, though, huh?"
The tension eased in his chest, if not in his soul. Even if he forgave himself for the death of those miserable hunters, I could still feel his emotions blasting from the cracks of his clumsy bottling. He gave me a tiny, completely contrived smile as he lapsed back into silence. I knew what I had to do to help him. I just hoped he could forgive me for it.
"Tara's gone, Garfield," I said.
He glanced over. For the first time, I noticed that his new eyes were slitted, like a cat's. They flashed with amber overlaying emerald as his brows knit. "Uh, yeah. I know," he said.
"She's gone, Garfield."
"I know," he said again with a confused look.
"It's not your fault," I said.
He looked around as if expecting the rest of a joke to appear. "Okay, this is weird," he said. "What are you—"
"Tara is gone, and it isn't your fault," I insisted.
Beast Boy scowled. "Raven, what are you doing?"
I looked him dead in his cat eyes, and I said in a calm voice, "Tara left you. She betrayed you, she abandoned you, and she's not coming back. Ever. And it isn't your fault. You couldn't have stopped it."
"Raven, I know that."
"It's not your fault."
"Seriously, stop—"
"It's not your fault."
"Raven, shut up."
"It's not your fault."
"Shut up."
"It's not—"
"Shut up!" he roared. He was on his feet faster than I could blink. Anger radiated from him in hot waves. His lips rose over sharp fangs. "Shut up, Raven! Why would you say that? Why would you rub that in my face? Why?"
I rose calmly, and met his glare with as much serenity as I could keep against his turmoil. I told him, "I'm trying to make you feel bad because you refuse to. You keep hiding behind these idiotic smiles and stupid jokes, and bottling everything up. It's what drove your beast insane. It's killing you. And that's killing me."
"I'm not…it's not like…" Beast Boy's frown faded until his face drew blank. I watched him stare into himself, and blink at the turmoil that I had felt in him for more than a month. All that hurt and anger he had been collecting spilled over in his eyes. He staggered, threatening to fall. I caught him by the arm.
"I want you to feel bad, Garfield. You need to let yourself feel bad," I said. "If you don't, you'll never be able to feel good again. Please."
Slowly, slowly, the tight ball of emotion behind his tearful eyes relaxed. It dimmed into the normal shout I knew and tolerated in him. It bellowed sadness into me, but at a volume my defenses could handle. With my help, he sank back onto the roof's edge, and cried silently. Watching his tears was harder than any jungle trek ever could be.
"You really don't think she left because of me?" he said, his voice a ghost.
Thinking back to the love and devotion I'd felt in him just a few months ago—a love that I envy more than a little—I said to him, "Not a chance." I bent down, trying to catch his eye. "Are you…are you okay?" I asked clumsily.
Beast Boy chuckled for real as he met my gaze. Azar help me, it was music to my ears. "No," he said, and shook his head. "But I think I will be. Thanks."
What the hell, he earned it. I gave him a tiny smile.
Beast Boy will survive what happened in that jungle. He'll survive what Terra did to him. I know he will. Just looking at him now, at what he's chosen to become, I know he's stronger than I ever imagined.
And I'll never be able to look at him and see that obnoxious little boy anymore. Not because of his picture-perfect shapeshifter looks, mind you. And I'm sure he'll still be obnoxious. But I saw something in Beast Boy that he has to live with every day. He fights for control of his own body with laughter and joy the same way I fight for mine with peace and tranquility. And he'll keep fighting, just like me, because neither one of us will accept that we have to be what our personal demons want us to be. An animal. A monster.
Maybe we aren't so different after all.
The En
Well…
I suppose for completion's sake that I should mention this last part. It's really nothing.
As I created another portal to leave the roof, I heard Beast Boy whisper my name. Even before he spoke, I felt a breath of quiet hope brush my back. I turned. He was still sitting on the roof's edge, twisted around, trying for all the world not to sound as desperate as I knew he felt.
"Raven," he said nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, "It's, uh, cool if you don't want to, and all, I would totally understand. But the thing is… If I promised to be really quiet, would you stay? Please?"
I knew he wouldn't keep quiet. But he was so earnest. And his smile was genuine for the first time in too long. What else could I do?
I stayed.