Ten minutes into the drive, we were getting closer to the tower. The road that Cyborg took was near a cliff that was cut off from the road with a metal railing, with the ocean directly below the dropoff. Looking ahead I saw a fork in the road about another ten minutes forward. Turn right to get to the tower, and left to continue along the rocky coastline.

Though they were all in the car, down below I could still hear Cyborg and his companions. The dynamics they all had with each other and the roles they all had in their little team were becoming very apparent. There was Robin, the legendary boy wonder and former apprentice of the equally, if not more, legendary Batman. He was the leader of the team and seemed to carry himself as such in everything he did.

Cyborg, the mechanical menace was most likely the weapons and tech expert of the team, and probably doubled as the team's muscle. Nobody could accuse him of favoring either brawn or brains over the other.

Then you've got Starfire, the Tamaranian Princess who's name alone says it all. Despite her looks, her physical strength alone is nothing to take lightly, and she can have a hothead temper to match.

Beast Boy, the clear underdog and little brother of the team, made apparent via his self-appointed role as comic relief. Like several members of his team, his name says it all, the boy with the ability to turn into any animal he chooses. However, as black and white as his powers may seemed, I saw several questions that they presented. For instance, how did he come about to have such power? Was he born that way? Or did something happen to him?

Speaking for animagi, though most of us go our entire lives Changing into one and only one animal, it's not unheard of for some individuals to be able to Change into two or more. Hell, look at me, in the short time since I had arrived to Jump City I had Changed into three different animals. Well two really, but in three different forms. Bottom line though, sometimes animagi can Change into several animals, but it's usually due to external influence.

For instance, about three years ago, three of my sisters, along with several other high school animagi were abducted and experimented on. They were periodically being injected with a substance we later discovered was called primordial ooze. Basically it's an amber-colored liquidy substance that was first discovered in dinosaur bones, and they had been chemically duplicating it, with the crazy idea of bringing dinosaurs back to life to wipe out mankind. Though their idea was ridiculous and ultimately failed, their experiments more or less were successful. Though they weren't turned into dinosaurs per-say, after learning to control their newly acquired powers, my sisters now have the option of "going dino" in addition to Changing to the regular animal forms if the situation calls for it.

Beast Boy seemed to have no limit to how many animals he could Change into, and on an interesting side note, when in animal form, he seemed to lack the ability to speak human speech, as apposed to other animagi. No matter which animal we decided to Change into, my sisters and I had never had a problem with speaking both animal and human speech in either form, nor had we ever met an animagus who did. The only exceptions to this rule were werewolves, and that's only because certain breeds cannot speak human speech in wolf form. It's because of that that I originally thought Beast Boy might be a werewolf.

There's a breed of werewolves known as Kashubian Shapeshifters, werewolves with the ability to Change into any animal they wish. However there were two conflicts with that theory. The first is the issue of human speech. I once met a Kashubian as a child. He too was just a child and struggled to control his powers at the time. However, despite him being unable to control when he Changed, he still kept his conscious when he did and maintained his ability to speak human speech, whereas Beast Boy apparently couldn't. Also, Kashubians' shapeshifting powers are limited to animals they've come into physical contact with. They had to have met and touched an animal before being able to Change into it, and I highly doubted that as young as Beast Boy was, he's traveled around the world that much. On second thought I was being a bit too unfair, I didn't know Beast Boy or his origins. Since meeting him, I had witnessed him morph into a total of nine animals so far, most of which you don't just stumble upon. I needed more information, because his lack of a limit to his abilities was making me question if he was even an animagus. He was the most intriguing of the group, well second most.

The most intriguing by far was Raven. Upon thinking about Raven I noticed her heartbeat just as I did when I first met her, and just like before, my heartbeat staggered hers. Though I was able to correctly guess her name, observation-wise I had very little information about her at all. Starfire and Robin I was aware of prior to meeting them, and Beast Boy and Cyborg weren't too hard to get a read on. Raven on the other hand was in a class of her own. I was asleep, exhausted and tired from nearly drowning when I first sensed her, and when I did it was like she was calling out to me, or at least her powers were. Had I not sensed her, I very well would've probably ignored the tower, or at least would've had no desire to try and scale it.

Powers aside, I was more interested in her as a person. Something about her appearance was hard to look away from. For instance, it's quite clear her true strength lied in her mind via her dark powers, yet her body was sculpted like that of a fighter. Then there was her cloak. What purpose did it serve? Was she merely self-conscious about herself? If so, that wasn't made apparent at the pizza joint. Her hood was down and she could be seen by all. I was also curious about her bindi as well as the jewels on her belt and cloak. Normally one would associate a bindi with Indian culture, except that Raven's jewelry looked like it was non-human, like it was not from Earth, which brought me to her skin. It was one thing for her skin to have been pale, but hers was also a shade of gray. In the places I've lived, that would've be an immediate red flag to the human community, but that didn't seem to be the case here.

This fivesome consisted of two humans, a mutant, an alien, and a girl who I was assuming, at least at that point, was also a mutant. The three non-human members had gray, orange, and green skin, and as for the two human members, one was quite literally a cyborg and the other was the former apprentice of Batman, a man who not only had a secret identity, but came out only at night to fight crime and evil, whereas his former apprentice seemed to just walk around town with no regard to who saw him or not. Not to mention they drove around in a one-of-a-kind car modeled after the cyborg, lived in a tower on their own private island that's as clear as day and can easily be accessed and located, and the tower itself was in the shape of the letter "T", and everybody in this city seemed to be okay with this. Whenever an alien landed on Earth back in Germany, granted it only happened twice, the entire country went ballistic. When Starfire and Blackfire wreaked havoc in South Dakota, they were both deemed wanted criminals for the next two years. Here, they all just walked around town like normal citizens. Though I applauded the humans of Jump City for being open-minded and accepting of people that would've been considered "freaks" where I was from, I still couldn't help but feel that there was more to it than that. Who were these people to this city? And more importantly, how did Raven play into all of this?

Wait, what, I thought to myself as I managed to unintentionally focus on Raven again. I thought about when we met and how impressed I was by her powers. I thought about how embarrassing it was for her to see me act like a clutz when I dropped from the light post and look at how filthy I was after being jumped and ambushed earlier. And I thought about her violet eyes, and how deep and hypnotic they were, and how they were pretty to look at and…. Oh, my God! What's happening to me? When I came back from my daydreaming I found myself with my tail wagging, my heart was racing at what felt like 100 mph, and my face starting having this weird warm sensation. Ho-ly shit! I really was blushing! That's impossible! Black people don't blush, do they, I asked myself as I wasn't sure whether it was that black people didn't blush, or I just never experienced blushing before. I panicked again a little as I noticed that although it was still staggering my heartbeat, Raven's heart was still racing just as quickly as mine was, and I could still hear it. Oh, God. Can she hear mine? Can she sense me, too? She must be able to, how else could she have met me the way she did?

My pitiful whining came to a halt when I noticed a familiar scent. I closed my eyes for a moment so my nose could focus. It smelt like ash, and upon pinpointing what the smell was, I heard a familiar sound. It was the revving of the engine from before. Whoever mugged me was nearby. Upon realizing this I snarled as I darted my head all over the place looking for the source of the scent. It was then that the wind picked up and gusted by me. The smell was stronger now. We were downwind from its source, and it was getting closer.

Payback time, I thought to myself as I took a dive to my right towards the water. I heard the T-Car screech to a halt as I overheard Beast Boy comment on my manuever. As I dove I wheeled back around and flew straight towards the rocky wall made by the cliff. I had an idea for a sneak attack and I figured now was as good a time as any to see if I could pull it off. If Raven can do it, then so can I, I thought as my purple eyes burned an even brighter purple as I created a portal of my own, which I immediately flew into. Once through the portal, my vision was altered dramatically. It wasn't a matter of seeing through my eyes anymore, I saw through my mind. My eyes usually limited me to whatever I saw right in front of them. In this dimension of shadows I created, my mind allowed me to see everything, and I do mean everything. From the tower that was still a few minutes away, to the pizza joint from before, to the alleyway where I ate that rat, I could see it all. I could also see the motorcycle rider as he approached.

A rather built, but still very skinny guy. His bike, helmet, and gear were all pitch-black. The face-shield for his helmet was open because in his right hand, tucked between his fingers, was a lit cigar, one of those beefy cheap ones that reek like an ashtray. I looked at his wrist, and there was my watch. That had to be him, I was sure of it. I waited until he passed the T-Car, Robin and the others had stepped out of the car at that point, and when he was close enough I opened another portal to his left and lunged at him with a roar rushing out of my jaws. My left paw didn't connect with anything, but my right paw caught his back as it clawed across his shoulder blades. When my paws passed him I wrapped them around him as the force of my lung brought me close enough to sink my teeth into his left shoulder. The force of my attack was more than enough to cause him to lose balance and fall over, crashing the bike. As we rolled one over the other I eventually opened my wings and backed off from him for a moment to escape road rash as he continued to roll for a few more feet. When he stopped I flew back down to him and pinned him to the ground with my right paw, he was lying on his stomach. I sniffed his torso to confirm if it was him, in case I had accidentally attacked an innocent bystander. I found several traces of my scent as well as my blood. It was him. I positioned myself towards his legs and I tear off his rider pants with my teeth. I was about to search his jeans when I heard a familiar voice.

"Titans, go!" I took to the air just in time to dodge another cannon blast from Cyborg. His blast not only missed me, but it also almost struck the man I attacked. This started some concern for me. I attacked him, yes, but I did so so that the damage I inflicted could've been survived. I didn't inject him with my venom, so he wouldn't Turn, and my intention was just to take back what he stole from me and get even with him. If Cyborg blasted him, he might not have been able to get back up afterwards. My concern only got worse as Starfire joined in with a barrage of star bolts. For each one I dodged, a small explosion appeared on the street, which at that point was apparently a battlefield. One of her star bolts landed close enough to the rider that the explosion caused him to fly a few more feet and roll onto his back.

"Starfire, stop", I shouted trying to reason with her. I should've expected it wouldn't work, she already didn't like me. Her assault continued, as did Cyborg's. Since they were targeting me, I moved away from the rider and circled towards them. I positioned myself to where they were in front of me and the natural rock wall was behind me. They fired their attacks at me and I dodged, causing several large rocks to break off and hurl towards them.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos", shouted Raven. I turn back to see the same rocks now being hurled at me, only now surrounded by black aura. My trap had backfired. I managed to dodge the rocks, only to be sucker punched by another display of Beast Boy's powers. One second he was a hummingbird again, zipping through the flying rocks as he got closer to me, and in the next second, once he got close enough, he's a gorilla as he punches me in the back of the head and I fall to the ground. Before I have the chance to recover Robin throws one of his signature birdarangs at me. It breaks open to reveal that there was a pair of bolas inside as they tie my wings together, causing me to crash. Before I can even think about breaking free or even moving, Cyborg is standing over me with his cannon pointed at my face. Starfire hovers behind him as backup. And to top that off, though I couldn't see them, Gorilla Beast Boy and Robin were standing behind me anticipating a counterattack.

"That right there, that wasn't a smart move", said a confident Cyborg. I was about to explain what was going on when I noticed Raven walking over to the unconscious man. As she looked him over, I noticed his toe move, but he wasn't responding to her voice. So I read his mind, he was planning a trap.

"Get away from him", I shouted. It was too late, she was too close for him to miss. The man jumps to his feet, sweeping Raven's legs in the process.

"Raven", yelled Robin in concern. This caused the others to look away for a split second, giving me enough time to teleport. I used the teleport to switch places with Raven, making me the new target of his assault. He swung his fist at me and I caught it in my paw.

"You don't know when to quit, do you", he asked me.

"Apparently neither do you", I said as I snapped my jaws at him.

"Oh I haven't even started yet." He swung his other fist at me and I caught it as well. He just smiled. Something was up. Next thing I knew, what looked like red electricity sparked from his hands. Before I could pull away I felt something hurting me, but I couldn't figure out what it was at first. I look back at my opponent, and what I saw shocked me, both literally and figuratively. The shocks from his hands were draining me of strength, and all of it was being transferred to him. I watched in shock as the skinny man, morphed into a much more muscular man. This one was shirtless and had red, spiky hair that was the same color as the energy shocks he was using to drain me. His skin was a slightly lighter shade of gray than Raven's, and the strange red energy surged throughout his body. I tried letting his hands go, but something about that energy he was using prevented me from moving my paws. He ended up draining so much of my energy from me that I ended up reverting back to my human form. I squirmed and struggled trying to break free. It was at that moment he said, "now I have the pleasure of doing what that old fool couldn't".

His mentioning of Doctor Light made me angry. This was the second person to come after me, and they seemed to be in on a much bigger picture. Not only that, I still didn't know where Taiyo was or the other Elementals for that matter. And not only that, Raven was watching the two of us as we were locked hand in hand. That settled it, I refused to lose to this guy. Since I couldn't use my hands, I decided to use my feet. I pulled back as hard as I could. He assumed that I was still trying to pull away, so he pushed into me with an evil grin as we backed into the rocky wall behind me. When I was close enough to it, I kicked both my legs back to the wall, and then proceeded to launch myself off the wall straight at my opponent. Upon doing so, I managed to get close enough to headbutt him. After losing his balance, he fell back and our connection was broken, freeing me from his powers. I rest on one knee for a moment as I catch my breath. I look back at the others.

"You know any time you wish to help would be nice." Without hesitation Cyborg fired his cannon at the red-haired man, still dizzy from my headbutt. I know I was. Despite that, he managed to dodge, but at the cost of his bike, which Cyborg easily destroyed. He tucked and rolled and fired blasts of red energy from his hands, which Starfire made quick work of as she intercepted each one with a star bolt. Through the cloud of smoke caused by the explosions, Beast Boy morphed into a rhino and tackled him. Raven then uses her magic to immobolize our opponent long enough for Robin to restrain his arms with another pair of bolas. Having regained enough of my power back, I Change back into my regular wolf form and charge at him. He leaps to his feet and heads for the railing. When he gets there, he dives head first over the side towards the water. As he dove, the world slowed down again. In his back pocket, the right one, I could see a bulge. That's gotta be it. I just know it. I dove after him. I used my tail to hang onto the railing as I dove and before he was out of range I clamped my jaws on his right ass cheek. He shrieked in pain. I doubt he saw it coming, because I sure as Hell didn't plan on it.

My little treatment to his rear must've really ticked him off, because he then proceeds to flail his legs at me even though I have him in my jaws. He eventually manages to accidentally Hail Mary my right eye with his heel. I shut my eyes and jerk my head in response to the pain, as a result there was a loud ripping sound, followed by a scream. I waited there hanging with my eyes closed expecting to hear a splash, but none came. Robin and the others were also very quiet. He was gone. I didn't know where or how, but he was gone. In his place, still clamped between my jaws, I tasted fabric and felt something large and made of leather. I couldn't tell what exactly I was biting into, and I couldn't see.

Truth be told, I lacked the ability to wink my right eye, so since it was the one that got kicked, I was unable to open my left eye without opening the right one as well, and the last thing I wanted to do was open my right eye. It wasn't just stinging from pain, it was bleeding. I could feel it. That mugger put a lot of force into that one lucky blow, and with my powers still on the fritz, probably moreso at that point after the stunt he tried to pull, I was still unable to heal at will, leaving me temporarily blind for the time being. I didn't want the others to see me like this. I just willingly bit a man's ass, he managed to escape, despite him escaping he did manage to ding me up fairly bad, and I was already burdening myself onto these guys, not to mention the fact that I was constantly on edge whenever I was around either Starfire or Raven, though it was for completely different reasons between the two. Instead of facing them in my current condition, I decided it was time for some smoke and mirrors. I cloaked myself with my aura and enchanted it. I call it the "forced beholder". It forces anyone who sees whatever I cloaked to see whatever it is I want them to see. It also manipulates the other senses as well, such as hearing and touch, when necessary.

I then swing from my tail and rejoin the others. They commented and gave me props for how I handled myself and apologized for attacking me. They explained to me that the guy was someone called Johnny Rancid and that like Doctor Light, he was another lawbreaker they ran into from time to time. As the conversation went on, as far as the others knew they were just talking to me like normal. In their eyes, they saw me just as they remembered me, in human form with both eyes open and undamaged, with my mouth moving as I spoke to them like I would in any other conversation. Little did they know that in actuality I was in wolf form with my eyes closed and my jaws still tightly clenched on whatever the Hell I ripped from Johnny's jeans. I was putting all my faith in my ears as I attempted to tune into everyone just as I would if my eyes were open. As for the voice they were hearing as I spoke to them, I was speaking to them telepathically, but projecting it out loud so they all could hear. We all stood there for a few minutes chit-chatting when Beast Boy spoke out again.

"Alright, for real now, can we get this guy a shower, please?"

"I'll go on ahead and take him. Save us some time", suggested Raven, much to my surprise.

"Good idea, Raven. I'm sure our friend here is exhausted and I'm also pretty sure Cyborg isn't willing to give him a ride", said Robin.

"You are absolutely right. I'm sorry, dude, but BB contributes enough smells to my car as it is." This of course caused Beast Boy to feel obligated to respond, which in turn baited Cyborg into an argument, which then caused Robin to try to step in and break it up, blah blah blah, argue argue argue.

"Yeah, we're gonna go now", said Raven as she drags me into another portal. A few moments later we arrive at our destination. This was where I got a little worried. My spell was still in effect, but I still couldn't see, and now I didn't know where I was. I moved my head back and forth as I pretended to look around the building.

"Nice place y'all got here."

"Thanks. The yellow wallpaper was my idea."

"It's a nice touch." She chuckled to herself a little. Then she grabs my paw, sending chills up my spine as I felt her smooth skin against the scruffiness of my fur, and she leads me to a chair in what I assumed was the living room of the place based on the chair I was sitting in.

"You can stop the charade now."

"What do you mean", I asked her as I tried desperately not to sound defensive.

"Do I really seem like the type of person to suggest yellow wallpaper?" I sat there awkwardly without a response. She set me up for a trap, and I had walked right into it. "There's no need to waste your energy. Let me see." She was right. My spell required a lot of concentration and mental stamina, and although I had no intention of expressing it, I was becoming even more exhausted. Seeing as how I was caught and none of the others were around, I broke my spell. I spit out whatever it was that was in my jaws onto my lap and revert back to human form. My heart started to race again when she didn't say anything about my injury or about what was in my mouth. My right eye shifted under my eyelid, and a single drop of blood trailed down my cheek, it's sharp and loud smell filled my nostrils, and the sad part was it was currently one of my better smells. "Hold still", she says as she puts one of her hands over my injured eye. She goes quiet again as she covers my eye with some of her aura, but this one felt different than her usual aura. Her black aura was cold and dark. This one felt warm, and once my eye had healed enough for me to move it, I caught a glimpse of a white light. The white aura vanished as quickly as it appeared as my eye felt better than it did before. I blink a few times as my eyes adust to reveal the image of Raven as she's only inches away from my face. I gulp nervously as I struggled to keep calm.

"Um, *clears throat, thanks."

"Can't wink your right eye, can you?"

"Was it that obvious?"

"Not really. I took a shot in the dark, turns out I was correct. I guess you could call it a lucky guess." I couldn't help but smile a little. "Go down this hall and turn left. The bathrooms are the last door on the left", she said as she pointed towards my right. "The boys have their own bathroom. We have extra towels in the top cabinet, just avoid using any of the red, green, or blue ones."

"Thank you." I didn't know what else to say without sounding awkward or too forward. Without another word Raven went down the hallway first. I originally planned to wait in my seat for a moment so it didn't look like I was following her, but then I thought that it'd probably look weirder for me to just sit there waiting for her to round the corner. Before standing up, I look down at my lap to see what I was biting into. As I had hoped, it was my wallet that was in Johnny's pocket. However there was some unpleasant news as well. Also in my lap were two large pieces of fabric. The first was denim, from Johnny's jeans, but the other one made me a bit sick to my stomach. It was pink and frilly, and the piece that I managed to rip off had little red hearts all over it. It was a piece of Johnny's underwear. I stick out my tongue and shiver in disgust in response to learning what was just in my mouth. Not sure whether I should shower first, or brush my teeth. I then stand up and follow behind her, slowly.

We walk past the first door on the left with the words "Beast Boy" written on it. She opens the second door and walks inside, closing the door behind her. I walk past the closed door as I notice the word "Raven" written on it.

Guess that's her room. Feeling relieved that I was no longer following her, I continue to the third door, which had the word "Bathroom" written on it. I open it and find a small corridor with two more doors in it. The left was the boys' bathroom, and the girls' was on the right, and the wallpaper around both doors were painted the cliche colors blue and pink. I open the blue door on the left and walk inside to find that the bathroom was built like a high school locker room, only without the lockers. There were three bathroom stalls, three urinals, and another door leading to a room that had three shower stalls. Considering all that I went through that day, I had never been more happy to see a shower in my life. It's so beautiful, I could just cry, I thought to myself as I undressed and hurried to the shower as quickly as I could.