Hello everyone! This nekotenshi with a new chapter. I have a new reviewer: chinaluv, who I believe is new to fan-fics. I have to give a big shout out and thank you to chinaluv and Leaf Ranger for sending such encouragement! You guys are the best! This chap is for Beast Boy and Raven. Hope you like and please let me know what you think?
Chapter 16: Waves, Friends and Dreams
The day after Blood made the surprise visit to Slade and Kiara, the Titans were enjoying another day at the beach. With Blackfire home now everyone could relax, at last. Raven was even convinced to play volley-ball with her friends. Robin, Beast boy, and Cyborg were on one team and Raven, Terra, and Starfire on the other and Blackfire as the referee. Robin laughed as Beast boy dove for the ball and ended up with a mouthful of sand. Starfire cheered when the ball landed in-between Robin and Cyborg, but she apologized when they hit each other on the head trying to get it. Raven discovered she was good at serving the ball, but not so much when it came to returning the ball.
After the game they all decided to go for a swim. Raven denied and said, "I'd rather catch up on some reading. I just got to the part when Catniss enters the Hunger Games and she found Rue hiding in the tree. Maybe I will come in later." Terra surprised Raven by saying, "You'll like that part. I was on the edge of my seat reading it. I've read it about three times now. I want to start the second one but I haven't had time."
"I did not know you were reading The Hunger Games. Now I'm curious too," Blackfire said while stretching. Beast boy yelped about the water being cold. Cyborg wanted to sit out too but he promised to come in later. Starfire was about to ask what a Hunger Game is when she heard a familiar call. Turning their heads they saw black pigtails bobbing over the sand followed by Beast boy yelping from a small wave crashing on top of him. Robin smiled at his friends.
"You didn't say you were going to the beach," Cyborg called out. "Yeah, we wanted to surprise you again. Hope we don't run into any more trouble like last time. Hey Blackfire how did your thingy go? Did you talk to your dad the emperor?" Bumblebee asked panting for breath. Blackfire gave a quick summary for Titan's East. They had the same reaction to the guards beating her up and the touching speech Terra gave as the rest of them. Raven noticed that Aqua lad looked nice without his uniform, just navy blue shorts and a coral blue seashell necklace. Beast boy attempted to dunk Aqua lad for dumping the wave on him.
Menos and Mas congratulated Blackfire on her new freedom until they start arguing over which sister was prettier. Blackfire and Star laughed. Terra wanted to ask Bumblebee how they got here so fast when she saw Speedy walk up. Robin gave a friendly wave and said hello. Cyborg followed his example but Beast boy growled. Aqua lad placed a hand on his shoulder to hold him back.
Speedy decided to break the ice with an apology. "Listen to me everybody I am real, real, real sorry about the way I acted the last time. It was stupid and childish and I admit I was jealous of Beast boy and Terra. Bumblebee and Aqua lad chewed me out for it and threatened to kick me off the team if I didn't shape up. So can you ever forgive me?"
Robin and Raven noticed at the end Speedy was staring at Terra and Beast boy who was standing behind her. Terra gave a shy smile while BB grumbled and muttered, "I guess I can forgive you dude. Shouldn't you also apologize to Kiara too; I mean you did try to kill her too."
Speedy sighed in relief. Aqua lad challenged BB to a race and at first he refused. Terra said not to worry about her and have fun. If he wanted she could race too. This made Robin interested and Speedy could not resist the challenge. Blackfire held up her hand to say, "Ready, set, and go!" After swinging her hand down they took off.
Aqua lad was in the lead with BB a close second despite the fact he wasn't a dolphin or a sea lion. Terra tried to keep up when Aqua lad dove under the water and she said, "Hey that's cheating only two of us can breathe under water!"
The boys dove under and it looked like they might swim half way to Africa but they stop and come back. "What made you guys stop? You could have swum under us and taken the lead."
"Well, Speedy," Aqua lad said. "We could have but Terra is right that would be cheating and we saw a school of jellyfish in the way. We didn't want anybody to get stung so we asked them to move away. They agreed and I think it helped that Beast boy looked like a green jellyfish to help distract them from the weird human that speaks fish." Before they could say anymore they hear a whistling sound and then, "Cannonball!"
It was Bumblebee coming in. "You looked like you were having fun, so I wanted to drop in." They all chuckle while BB looks depressed. No one laughs at his jokes besides Terra. Cyborg, Menos and Mas took care of lunch. Traditional hot dogs, burgers, and a couple of trout for Aqua lad are cooking on a solar powered grill, with veggie-dogs for BB. Cyborg whistled to get the swimmers' attention but they were too far out. So he asked Robin if he could do it but it appeared he was taking a nap. Raven volunteered to get them and she agreed with BB the water was cold!
The others were busy splashing and diving off of Aqua lad's mini geysers. Raven called to them but they couldn't hear her. She got a little closer when a sharp pain stabs her right leg. Without warning Raven cramped up and the more she moved the more she hurt. She tried to call for help. Then she felt even more stabbing stings on her legs and she slipped under.
With her vision blurry she could just make out the see-through shapes of Box-jellyfish floating away in the current. The venomous jellyfish moved away from her friends but she was still surprised how quick that venom worked. It would be so easy to let her mind go blank. How easy would it be to go to sleep and welcome the comforting blackness? She had never felt so peaceful, for once in her life all her emotions were in true harmony and she even imagined meeting a special someone.
When that special someone turned into Beast boy she was quite shocked. Why would she be attracted to him? He still loved Terra. The thought of warm arms enfolding her reminded her of when Beast boy first became the beast to save her from Adonis. She never believed she could feel anything other than a comradeship for him, at the most a brother-sister relationship. To feel such warmth and peace at the thought of him made her smile. Her body started to burn and twist in an uncomfortable way, but then she felt cool fingers of pleasure all over her.
Raven did not want this feeling to end, even if it meant letting her guard down; around the boy who annoys the heck out of her and maybe even admitting…
Sunlight streams into her eyes making her squeeze them tight. The burning, twisting mix of pain and pleasure had not disappeared but she could think around it. Before long she heard voices, garbled and indistinct, but one voice was clearer than the others. His warm breath tickled her ear and his soft whisper soothed her dizzy mind. Raven did not want to wake up and so she let herself drift back into sleep. All of a sudden a deep menacing voice she wished to forget forever chuckles in the back of her mind. "It is not acceptable for you to have feelings for him. Know this, my dear, soon it won't matter because your world as you know it will come to an end."
The sinister laughing morphed into Slade's voice. He said the most shocking thing of all. Raven did not believe she could have heard him correctly.
"Don't listen to him Raven. He is an arrogant fool who knows nothing. I think you should open your heart to him, he's a good boy and he won't hurt you if you give him the chance. But don't be jealous if Kiara likes him too, I think you will always have a special place in his heart, so don't forget that."
Raven had no idea if these people were talking in her head or if she was hallucinating from the poison. When Raven could open her eyes without wincing in pain the first face to greet her was a sleeping Beast boy. She noticed the white sheet to the left of her, the white tiles on the floor, the beige wallpaper, and she knew she must be in hospital. Her neck creaked as she turned to the right in the chair was Terra and Blackfire at her feet, knocked out. Robin and Cyborg bobbed their heads now and then. She turned to Beast Boy he was a green dog sleeping at the foot of her bed.
Unfortunate for her, her mouth felt like wet clay and her throat felt like sandpaper. This made talking more difficult. She thought about touching his mind with her powers to let him know she was awake. He twitched in his sleep as she entered his mind. Raven was surprised to see grassland, scattered trees, and a bright sun shining down. "I must know this place it feels so familiar. Wait is that a giraffe?" A tall shadow passes in front of her blocking the sun and leaves rain down on her head. She stepped away following a herd of gazelle and wildebeest.
A water buffalo chewed on yellow-green grass. Raven heard the cries of birds she is pretty sure they were vultures. An unmistakable growl rumbled over the landscape freezing Raven to the spot. Using her powers here in Beast boy's mind could have devastating effects. The rumbling roar went off again. Raven was forced to turn toward the sound. To her shock a pride of lions were trotting in her direction. Raven wanted to phase into the ground and fly away from the hungry big cats but they soon surround her. Another surprising fact the male, the alpha lion, was not the tawny brown of most lions; he was pure white with a pale brown female beside him. White and brown cubs raced around her.
As if she could not be any more in awe, the cubs began talking. "Momma is this the one we've been waiting for? Because I thought we already found her but she left and now she's back but with no memories and we are so confused momma!" The cubs mewed and purred at Raven.
Their mother the pale brown female said, "Raven no need to be alarmed. As my cubs have said we have been waiting for you. It is time you saw what is underneath your comic friend Beast Boy." Raven wanted to ask what she was talking about when a gust of wind thrust them in the middle of a sandstorm. When Raven could open her eyes, the male and female lions were there, but now there was a wolf pack and two tigers coming.
"Why must they be meat-eaters? Why can't he send the fluffy bunnies or cuddly puppies? I know how much he loves to joke. So can some animal tell me why all my guides are carnivores?" The wolves and lions laughed at Raven's sarcasm, but the tigers gave her a serious glare. Raven held onto the lioness' tail for comfort.
The tigers' chuckled and said, "Relax visitor we mean you no harm. You are the first outsider to visit here and we were not expecting you. We tigers will allow our good friends the wolves to explain why you are here."
The female wolf touched Raven's hand with her nose. The male wolf licked her hand. "As you know our Alpha can transform into any animal on earth. Do you know why he has this ability?" Raven shook her head. Thinking it over; Raven did not know much about his past. The wolves strolled away into a thicker part of the forest. Raven followed curious about what she would see. She expected to see a comedy shop, a comic book store and then a video game store filled with every kind of game he could imagine.
Her mouth popped open at the beautiful river with more forest on the opposite bank, various birds darting overhead, the splash of fish, and behind her comforting sighs of her animal guides. "I never thought his mind could be so calm," Raven said. "Has it always been like this, did something happen to him?" The tigress purred and leapt into the river with a kitten-like squeal of joy. Her mate joined her dunking her underwater. The wolves did not go near the lake but told their visitor, "Please follow us you need to discover the truth of our alpha, Beast Boy as you call him."
Walking through Beast Boy's memories was the most bizarre experience Raven had ever been through. His early childhood was nice enough. She was surprised to learn that he was not always green with pointy ears and fangs. The vision of his parents sped through quicker than Raven would have liked. Instead his memories skipped ahead a few years to when he was an early teen. The lions join Raven by this point and here the memories begin to get darker. After Beast Boy and his parents left the United States, they moved to Africa to help rebuild a damaged wildlife preserve. Raven marveled at his energy, how he connected to all the animals, how ecstatic his parents were.
When she thought that maybe this was all a happy dream she was thrust into the darkest part of his memory. She expected the tigers to come back but instead a leopard couple came. Raven never expected to feel her friend's pain as a mysterious disease wreaked havoc on his body. She could feel his parents' constant concern and misery as their son's vulnerability hit them in rapid succession. The despair that their only son could die engulfed them with a frigid flame that threatened to consume them.
All medical knowledge both modern and local did not remedy his situation. Raven had to stop herself from crying in despair. She realized the longer she stayed in these particular memories, because of the potent emotional ties; she could forget who she was and never wake up.
Before Raven could call out to the leopards to get her out the area was filled with a lime green liquid so thick she felt certain it must be poison. However, when the sunlight became dim she found herself lying on a hospital bed. At first she believed she had woken up, but odd scents hit her nose, she saw through blurry eyes IVs sticking out her arms, and odd computers flashing through every animal on the planet and what she thought was her own DNA scan. Blinking her eyes she saw an indistinct shadow pass over her and her heart beat sped up in an instant.
The figure whispered to comrades in the room while holding up a syringe. Before Raven could protest in went the syringe and she blacked out. All of Beast Boy's emotions over his childhood and his mysterious illness leading to the bizarre surgery threatened to smother Raven forever. Her mind had surrendered to his memories and all they wanted now was relief. Without warning she was falling into more memories she was grateful to see. Familiar faces like Robin and Batman. Her relief sank when she saw an older team of crime fighters but she had no names to put to their faces. It seemed even Beast Boy did not want her know who these people.
Raven had never felt such joy when she saw her friends, for the first time. It was curious to see this event from Beast Boy's perspective. Beast Boy expressed admiration for Robin, his curiosity about Cyborg and Starfire, and then his faint stirrings of something else as Raven saw herself. Raven found herself blushing as she saw herself. More familiar memories came pulling her out of the depression. Before she went into the memory of Cyborg and Beast Boy entering her mind a voice whispered on the wind. Raven turned her head and stood still trying to catch whatever was whispering.
The voice whispered again as Raven demanded her friends to leave if they didn't want to be trapped forever. Raven strained to hear the voice. She was certain she'd need to remember this name later on but she couldn't hear it over the fear of seeing her father again. Time skipped ahead to Terra's arrival and eventual betrayal. Raven felt anger, guilt, and gratitude all over again having to relive these moments was painful she hoped he would move on.
Beast Boy jumped ahead lingering on memorable moments like the return of Mad Mod, meeting Titans East for the first time, going to Tamaran (both times), and of course Robin as Slade's apprentice. Raven felt her own anger and sorrow build to a breaking point until Beast Boy brought her to more recent events. Terra was still a tricky subject but Raven could feel that Beast Boy was happy for her.
She was confused, excited, and shocked by the next memory. The disastrous dinner came next and now Raven understood Beast Boy's anger. Speedy was jealous of Terra being Beast Boy's girlfriend. Then to have to see Terra with no memories and see how protective we were for Blackfire- was it any surprise he was so angry?
The real confusion came when Beast Boy shifted into Beast. This made her relive the moment when Beast first appeared, how the rest of their friends responded; the resulting fight with Adonis. Raven was shocked beyond belief and overwhelmed by the dual personalities merged together. Not just Kiara and Magnet but Raven had to deal with Beast and Beast boy's emotions too. Beast Boy lingered on these feelings and then Beast rumbled in the background. For the first time Raven felt Beast Boy's presence, his conscious mind, here and now. The green ones growled at each other and Raven thought she may have to break them up. To her shock the growls slowly formed words.
"Are you going to tell me what that was about? I had a dream of kissing her that night! Do you have any idea how weird that is with Raven and Terra here?" Beast Boy shouted. Beast rumbled again and charged at him. Raven shouted at the big green furry one who stumbled in his stride for a second and was then knocked aside by a green T-Rex.
Raven fell to her knees how could she stop them? They were part of the same person there was no reason to fight. Raven smacked herself in the head, "I am such a hypocrite. My telling him that now is redundant. He said the same thing to me in my mind! Darn it why can't I remember that name!"
The two beasts continued to fight and when Raven saw blood she lost it. She leapt in between them two hands on their chests. Beast Boy shifted from a raptor then a tiger and purrs. Beast also purred showing his neck.
"Thank you Raven for waking me up. You reminded me why I can't fight him like this. He is me and I am him. We're sorry we pulled you into this. You can wake up now Raven. I hope you feel better soon."
"Wait!" Raven said as her body began to fade away. "What was that name I've been hearing all day? Can you tell me your name, please?"
Beast rumbled to Beast Boy who shakes his head. Turning to Raven he said, "I don't need to tell you, you already know. But just in case my silly head tries to lock you in here, you tell me. What is my name Raven?"
At first Raven was confused. How could she speak a name she did not know? Raven focused with all her strength to recall the name. Just when she was about to disappear she whispered, "Garfield. Your name is Garfield." A trademark laugh followed Raven as she opened her eyes to bright lights, a crushing headache, and thankfully a room full of her friends.
"Friend Raven you are awake!" Starfire said. Robin, Cyborg, Terra and Blackfire woke up to smile at Raven. They all started talking at once about how they were worried, how glad they were that she was awake, and general chatter. Raven sighed to hear her friends' familiar chatter but when one voice did not come up she panicked. Robin noticed her horrified look he pointed to the end of her bed. Curled up in a green mound of fur was a young wolf. His eyes flickered in his sleep and his legs would twitch.
"He has been watching over you all day and night. He almost bit one of the doctors when she came in to check on you earlier. It was kind of sweet and funny and shocking all at once" Blackfire said while Terra giggled.
"Gar- I mean Beast Boy wake up," Raven whispered stuttering over his real name. The green wolf bolts up and then got Raven's face quite wet with an eager tongue. His tail thumped on the bed shaking it and the Titans laughed. Cyborg looked worried would Raven hit him or get mad? To their awe Raven laughed and hugged him as if she was afraid she'd never see him again.
"I am so relieved you are safe Garfield," Raven whispered in his ear. Her answer was a whimper and a happy bark. Raven had never felt so happy in her life not even when she fell for the Dragon-jerk and she hugged Beast Boy. Raven felt a surge of heat flood her and she could smell a bizarre tangy odor from Garfield despite the fact he was a wolf right now. She hugged him closer and passes out on the bed again. Terra whispered, "So when is the wedding?"