It took Beast Boy a while to wake Cyborg up and drag him out of the cathedral. But by the time he did, only three figures were waiting at the end of the courtyard: Raven, Timid and Rude.
"Dream team," Cyborg muttered under his breath, still trying to get his bearings.
"Dude, at least Rage isn't here."
The sunrise had almost completed and the sky was returning to its muted gray. The fire still burned in the middle of the courtyard, Brave lounging alongside it. She waved as they passed.
"Rather have her," Beast Boy said, tipping his head toward Brave.
Cyborg grinned. "Maybe if we left a trail of Doritos..."
They were still laughing when they got to Raven, who was waiting impatiently. Rude rolled her eyes at them and Timid tried to make herself invisible beside the stone wall surrounding the courtyard.
"Good morning, y'all!" Cyborg said heartily. "It's a beautiful day." He looked at the heavy clouds. "Well, actually it's not. So where we going?"
"We're waiting for Rage," Raven said, a rasp of fatigue in her voice. "She wanted to return her fire to her realm before we -"
The ground rumbled. Rude huffed. "Guess someone's decided to make a grand entrance."
A huge burst of red flame rolled up from the ground and Rage appeared beside the campfire, taller and even angrier than usual. Brave scrambled to her feet and backed away as Rage screamed, "You violated my altar! You and that damned sword -"
"My sword?" Brave said eagerly. "You found it?"
"It has broken my altar!" Rage paced toward Brave, who kept backing up (Brave, not stupid, Beast Boy thought, headed their way.) "I am within my rights to destroy you – this land will be better without your noise and your foolishness -"
"Hey hey hey hey." Cyborg caught up with them and stood in front of Brave, arms out. "No destroying. Seriously, think of the paperwork."
"I might have to write a report!" Beast Boy skittered around Rage, flickering in and out of animal shapes. "Dude, I hate reports."
Rage stopped and looked around at the three of them, snarling. "More foolishness. You will take the sword back -" she lunged forward and grabbed Brave - "And I will make you eat it!"
Cyborg wrapped his arms around Brave, trying to pull her away, and Beast Boy leaped at Rage. In another roll of scarlet fire, the four of them vanished.
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
"Did you have to make her angry?"
Beast Boy groaned and squinted his eyes open. Raven was kneeling beside him. "Dude," he said fuzzily, "She's always angry."
"Angrier, then." Raven got to her feet and helped Beast Boy stand. A few feet away, Rude and Timid were helping Cyborg up, Rude complaining the whole time.
"I don't think she can get any angrier... how did you find us?"
"Just followed you."
To Beast Boy's eyes it looked like some odd combination of a moonscape and the inside of a volcano. The ground was a powdery silver pocked with craters, with occasional white-hot seams running across it. Lava leaked from the seams at intervals. The air had a burned smell and the sky above was a flat black, though it was still light enough to see.
"Not good at stars," Beast Boy said, glancing up.
"No," Raven said dryly. "Not good at stars. Rage and Brave were gone by the time we got here. We're going to have to split up and look for Rage's altar. She's always been paranoid about letting us know where it is."
"I know where," came a half-whisper behind them.
Timid was there. She cringed when they looked at her, but repeated, "I know -"
Raven looked at her in disbelief. "You know?"
Timid twisted her fingers together and stared and the ground. "Sometimes I come here when I'm really scared. And she lets me follow her around. But sometimes..."
"Why would she let you -"
"Raven. I got this." Beast Boy asked Timid quietly, "You feel safer being around her, right?"
Timid nodded.
"But sometimes she gets mad – more mad – and even though it's not your fault – she takes it out on you."
Timid nodded again, not taking her eyes off the ground.
"Yeah." Beast Boy turned to Raven. "At a couple of the private schools I went to, before I got good at using my powers, the same thing happened to me." He grimaced. "The biggest gang in school would let me hang out with them. Felt like I belonged. It took me a long time to realize that they just let me so they'd have a target when they got bored."
Raven wasn't sure what to say. "That's – that's – "
"Hey, it's fine." Beast Boy laughed. "Then one day I turned into an elephant and sat on one of them and that was it for being a punching bag. Go get Cy, okay?"
Beast Boy watched her talking to Cyborg for a minute, then said to Timid, "I wish I could teach you how to be an elephant. But I promise, we won't let her hurt you. But we have to know where the altar is. Will you take us there?"
Timid didn't move for a moment, then she said tremulously, "Okay," and began walking away, picking her way across the bubbling lines on the ground. Beast Boy followed her, hearing the others behind him.
There were no mazes here, no clever traps or tricks. Probably just blasts anybody who shows up, thought Beast Boy. On the other hand the landscape didn't change either. Timid didn't seem to have any trouble figuring out her way, moving cautiously but steadily on.
They heard noises before they got to the altar. Two large cairns of rocks bracketed a path that led down a small hill to a clearing. There stood a structure that looked like it was shaped of hot lava and cooled suddenly. It sagged and loomed over the clearing, with a faint layer of that silvery dust blowing off it like smoke.
Rage was carelessly holding Brave's sword and stalking Brave, who was circling around the altar.
"Yo, asshole!" Rude yelled. "What about a fair fight?"
Rage ignored them and continued to go after Brave, who was doing some taunting of her own.
"Hey." Raven took Rude by the back of her hood and jerked her chin at Cyborg and Beast Boy. Beast Boy slung an arm around Timid and the five of them went into a huddle. "Get the sword away and we'll get out of here. This is Rage's realm and she's very strong. No fighting. All right? If she loses control we've had it. Just distract her and grab the sword if you get a chance. Timid, stay out of the way."
"One distraction, coming RIGHT up!" Cyborg's sonic cannon blasted down the path and into the dirt at Rage's feet. Rude and Raven took off while Beast Boy shifted into a monkey to add to the chaos.
Raven landed on the altar. "You've got your fire. Give Brave the sword back, and we'll leave. You'll have what you lost."
"I am tired of you," Rage hissed, eyes on Brave. "My fire has been stolen and you have invaded my realm. I will kill you all and restore my father to the legacy he deserves."
"Pretty much her only tune," Brave said to Raven casually from where stood behind the altar. "Kill us all, destroy the universe, yada."
"Even here we would be very hard to kill," Raven said. "You have your fire. It's enough for now. We can talk about the rest later."
"You are here now, and I will kill you, now." Rage raised her hands and the altar suddenly began to move, twisting like a living thing and trying to snap at Raven and Brave, who began fighting it. Rude stood by the cairn, throwing rocks and insults, while Cyborg dodged spurts of lava and tried to hit Rage with a blast strong enough to knock her off her feet, but not seriously injure her.
Beast Boy, still a monkey, danced behind Rage, tugging at her cloak and pulling at the sword. If he could just get hold of it -
Rage spun and moved so fast she was a blur. She grabbed Beast Boy by the throat in her left hand and lifted him in the air. He felt himself transforming back to human, then a relentless pounding began in his head as her fingers tightened.
"You are in my realm and you will be what I want you to be." Rage shook him, ignoring Raven's shouts and Cyborg's much stronger blasts. "And what I want you to be is dead. You have done more damage here than any, and it is fitting that I destroy you first."
What did I do? Beast Boy tried to kick Rage, to pry her fingers off him, but with the pressure on his neck it was getting harder to think, much less move. I can't even morph. If I die here it's gonna be really embarrassing...
A blur of gray flashed past and Rage stumbled. Her grip loosened enough that Beast Boy could get a lungful of air. Turning his head with difficulty, he saw Timid standing there, holding Brave's sword in two hands and trying to point it at Rage. She was shaking so hard the point of the sword was making small arabesques in the air.
"Let – let him go."