Chapter Three: Alive

Beastboy was running.

He didn't know how he was running. The pain in his body was great, overwhelmingly great. But his muscles worked, his bones seemed to be whole and his blood replenished. He was capable of running.

So he ran.

It was what he had been doing before he had began fighting that damned monster and so it was what he was doing now. He didn't really know why he was running but it felt like the thing to do, so he did.

"Why the hell am I running?" He thought.

The question struck him as strange and it took another mile or two before he figured out why. It was the first conscious thought he had had in ages. Beastboy slid to a stop in the middle of a clearing, the claws on his hands digging into the soft ground.

"And since when do I have claws?" Beastboy wondered, sitting back on his haunches to examine the new additions to his hands.

"Where am I anyway?"

Up until now, he had had one goal: defeat the monster. All his attention had been focused on that objective and now without it, he was lost. Beastboy raised his eyes to the twilight sky, examining the waning red and darkening blue.

A rustle of leaves came from behind him and new scents filled his nose. Spinning around, Beastboy growled at the emerging figures, four in all.

Raven moved slowly out of the trees towards the tensed Beastboy; Starfire, Robin and Cyborg following carefully behind. She frowned as Beastboy's hackles went up, becoming even more hostile as the rest of the team joined Raven in the clearing, all of them shocked at seeing him close up for the first time along with being drenched in his own blood.

'What's going on in his head?' Raven wondered.

o - o - o - o - o

Beastboy was confused. And confused animals are dangerous.

He did not ease up out of his combat stance but cocked his head to the side like a dog as his feral eyes scanned the new arrivals and his nose sniffed the air, trying to determine whether they were a threat or not. Right now they were just standing there, staring at him. It made him nervous. But some deeply embedded knowledge came to his mind: they weren't dangerous. Better yet, he recognised their scent and appearance.

They were his pack. They would never hurt him.

But Beastboy was exhausted and in pain, not willing to take chances. With a final growl of warning, he turned his back on them and started away on all fours. He heard a twig snap behind him as Starfire stepped forward.

He spun around with a threatening snarl, his body language clear: leave me alone. Three titans took a frightened step back. One stood firm.

"Beastboy," Raven called, her voice soft.

His wild eyes snapped to hers and stayed there. So intense they seemed to pin her in place.

"It's okay. We're here." Her voice seemed to sooth him, the hairs on his back relaxing from their upright position and his body seemed to relax.

"Yes friend Beastboy, there is no need to fear." Beastboy's eyes leapt to Starfire's as her familiar voice washed over him. He did not notice, but his claws started to retract ever so slowly. He turned his head to Cyborg and Robin as they attempted to calm him as well.

"Hey man, it's all good. We gotcha."

"Relax Beastboy, it's just us."

He was gradually shrinking in size as his humanity began overpowering his animal side, his hair receding into his head sluggishly and his fangs shortening, bit by bit returning him to his most human form.

Robin turned and muttered to Cyborg, thinking the situation was in hand, saying "Do you think this had something to do with Terra?"

Beastboy's animal ears picked out one word and his partially reacquired humanity was suddenly confronted with the very thing that had forced the change in the first place.

Terra.

Beastboy flinched backwards as if struck, eyes widening as the emotional pain he had escaped from as a beast returned, more potent than ever. Tears forced themselves from his eyes as he fell to his knees clutching his head in his hands, desiring nothing else but escape from the torture of guilt and failure.

At least he knew how.

Throwing his head back, he screamed at the sky, as his body began to shift once again to his animalistic form. Talons sprouted, claws lengthened, muscles expanded, hair extended and eyes twisted into those of The Beast.

The titans were stunned. Watching the rapid degradation of his behaviour and the swift transformation back into his previous form, along with the obvious pain Beastboy was in left them shocked. Tears fell from Starfire's eyes as she observed Beastboy's howls of agony, wanting to help, but at the same time afraid of the creature in front of her. Cyborg had never seen his friend like this. When he was The Beast, he had been violent, yes, but he hadn't displayed any of the emotional turmoil and anguish he was now. It shocked him that his best friend could have held so much misery and torment inside him with him knowing. Robin was trying to suppress a wave of guilt rising up in him. He had been dead on. It did have something to do with Terra, Beastboy's reaction to the name was evidence enough of that. And he had just gone and inadvertently reminded Beastboy of whatever it was that triggered this to start with.

Being an empath, Raven was experiencing the general emotional atmosphere and was overcome by the sheer, debilitating anguish coming from Beastboy.

She felt weak at the knees but forced herself to focus in on his mind and examine his psychological state. She had to find out what was wrong.

Guilt was the most overwhelming sentiment coming off of him. There was shame, inadequacy, self-hatred and rejection mingling together as well. So much pain. But they were all dwarfed by the feelings of guilt and failure.

Closing her eyes to the disturbing sight, Raven extended a psychic probe towards him trying to get a better view of his spiritual situation to determine where exactly all this guiltiness was coming from. But she had to work fast. Beastboy's humanity and self-awareness was quickly disappearing underneath layers of animal instinct as he smothered his pain and along with it any recognisable train of thought. Focusing, Raven tried to see past the beast into his mind.

Terra was the focus of his attention. The magnitude of his guilt and remorse over pushing the geomancer away and ultimately dooming her was enough to make Raven fall to her knees. But she persevered, struggling forward through the maelstrom of desperate agony. Underneath Terra, Raven could sense something else. Something…bigger. She concentrated, physically squinting her eyes beneath their eyelids as she fought to see into Beastboy's rapidly disappearing consciousness.

Rushing water filled her ears.

Then nothing.

Raven opened her eyes to see to see the half-beast of Beastboy crouching in front of her, not ten feet away. The transformation of body and mind was complete. The eyes of The Beast shone at her.

Raven took a step forward, extending her hand, acting purely on instinct.

Unfortunately, Beastboy had just endured a considerable amount of pain. Emotional agony perhaps, but pain all the same and he was on edge, everything a threat. That was why he stepped forwards, filled his lungs at let loose the most inhuman, terrifying roar any of the titans had ever heard.

Raven stepped hastily back, the unholy wall of sound eliciting a primal fear and panic deep in her. The rest of the titans fared no better. Raven stared into the feral face of one her four friends in existence; spittle and blood flying from his serrated teeth, a savage look in his animal eyes as he unloaded all his anguish at her.

And she was devastated.

Raven, the gothic half-demon whose icy demeanour and untouchable emotions were bulletproof, felt like bursting into tears.

Raven closed her eyes and turned away from him, riding out the last of the roar, simply trying to stop tears from falling. When the barrage of sound finally stopped, she opened her eyes to find him gone once again.

Only this time, she felt like she didn't have any energy left at all to pursue him, she just stayed there on her knees, head bowed, as the rest of the team gave chase. It was not the physical toll of the earlier battle that grounded her, but the emotional turmoil inside that paralysed her so effectively. Never before had she been so shaken to her very core, her emotions spiked so intensely or her hard exterior broken so powerfully.

And all by Beastboy.

Then the shock ended. And an emotional tidal wave swamped her.

o - o - o - o - o

Beastboy was running again.

The only instinct in his primal consciousness was escape. The pain had returned. All that mattered was escaping the pain. The pain was bad. The pain hurt. He could not face the pain. So he ran. As his hands and feet pounded the ground, however, a new reason to run arose.

He was being chased.

Behind he could hear rapid, heavy footfalls, the smell of metal sharp in his nose. And twisting his head up, he could see an orange and purple figure flying above him matching his speed, holding another red and green form in its arms.

Beastboy's eyes narrowed, fear growing in his chest. It was fight or flight time and he was in no condition to fight. So flight it was.

Shifting quickly, he accelerated off in the form of a green cheetah, quickly losing the metallic man behind him, his scent growing fainter with each bound. After several seconds of full speed sprinting, though, the scent of the two creatures above him had not faded. This wasn't working.

Escape is one of the most fundamental instincts of any animal, a part of survival as natural as breathing. And this animal had part of a human intelligence working for it. Beastboy slowed, changing into the form of a bloodhound and drew a deep breath through his nose, searching. His head snapped to the right as he found what he was looking for and, shifting once again into a cheetah, he took off running.

Starfire and Robin were tracking Beastboy from the air. Star was having a hard time keeping up. She was exhausted and had injured her right leg in the fight with the monster. Her friend needed her, though, and that kept her going.

Robin was studying Beastboy's movements. His earlier speeding up must have meant he knew he was being followed and this sudden new turn of direction must be related to that. 'But how?' Robin wondered, his gaze wandering up to where they were going.

They came to rest on a cliff just over a mile away, the ocean beyond.

"Star, he's going for the ocean!" Robin exclaimed, "We have to catch him before then. We'll lose him!" Starfire nodded, Determination filling her eyes as she leaned forward and increased her speed.

"Restrain our friend please!" She replied voice strained as she flew lower, skimming the tops of the trees, Beastboy below and in front of her. Robin removed his grappling hook from his belt and took aim. He'd only have one shot at this, not having enough time to wind the rope back in before Beastboy made it to the cliff.

Robin took aim, secure in Starfire's arms, waited for clearing in the trees then pulled the trigger. The grappling hook launched along with the sharp sound of the pneumatic pump inside firing.

This was heard by Beastboy, the speed of sound somewhat faster that the speed of the grappling hook, and he had plenty of time to leap to his left under the cover of more trees as the hook embedded in the ground to his right. This only spurred him on faster as he approached the edge of the cliff and threw himself off.

Robin and Starfire watched as he flew through the air, falling as gravity took hold, despair filling them both as they knew there was nothing more they could do. Beastboy turned into a dolphin just before impacting the water, an animal too cheerful for the situation at hand, Robin bitterly reflected. The two titans watched as the green mammal disappeared from view.

It would be the last time they saw their teammate for a long while.

o - o - o - o - o

Cyborg cursed darkly as the green streak disappeared from view. Panting, he came to a stop, hands on knees, and glanced at him wrist monitor. He had taken quite a pounding in the earlier battle, damaging his left knee and arm. But even if he was running at %100, he doubted he could catch Beastboy in a forest. In a straight line? Maybe. But dodging around solid trees was more Beastboy's area while ploughing straight through them was Cyborg's.

'Man, we should totally have a race sometime,' he smiled to himself, before remembering the state his best friend was currently in. In a momentary fit of anger, Cyborg turned and threw his fist into a tree, cracking the trunk and sending it crashing to the ground.

"Dammit!" he yelled at the fallen tree. What the hell had Terra done to Beastboy to turn him in that… that thing? It had clearly been the mention of the blonde betrayer that had set him off again into the wails of agony that had shocked Cyborg to his core. He wanted to be angry at Robin, but that wouldn't accomplish anything. Besides, he had been wondering the same thing.

With a heavy sigh, he turned and started to trudge back towards the recycling factory. He doubted Starfire and Robin would do much better than him. There was a reason Beastboy had survived so long in his quest to draw Raven out of her shell – nobody could catch him.

Speaking of Raven…

Cyborg stopped in amazement as he came across a perfectly round circle of destruction. Nothing was standing in a twenty-foot radius. Trees had been uprooted and ripped to shreds; several bodies of small animals littered the ground, frozen in death's embrace. And at the centre of the demolition, on her knees with her head down was a female half demon that Cyborg had come to love like a sister.

Raven rose to her feet when she noticed Cyborg running towards her, obscuring her tear-stained face with her hood as she stood, only her bloodshot eyes visible.

"Raven, what happened?" Cyborg said, "Did that monster come back?" He had never seen Raven lose control like this before, not once. It scared him.

Hardening her voice into her signature monotone, Raven replied with a rehearsed answer while turning away, "No, I simply felt it best to express my emotions for a moment. Letting loose once in a while in a safe environment is essential to controlling my feelings and thus my powers. Meditation can only do so much." She paused for a moment, "I take it Beastboy escaped?"

Cyborg studied the back of her hooded head, not quite believing her entirely but deciding to let it slide. "From me, yeah. Hopefully, the other two will have more luck, but I doubt it."

"You're correct," Raven replied blandly, starting to walk away.

Cyborg opened his mouth to ask her what she meant but stopped when Robin and Starfire landed heavily beside him. They looked at him and shook their heads together. No words needed to be said.

"There's nothing more we can do tonight guys," Robin sighed, "Let's go home."

o - o - o - o - o

Beastboy was swimming.

He charged along at full tilt in the form of a green sailfish, traveling at 70mph. Fast as he could go. He couldn't stop. He couldn't stop because stopping would mean thinking and thinking would mean…

See, this is why he swam.

A paranoia of this pain gripped him. It was so intense, so personal, so completely and utterly obliterating that he couldn't bear to think about it, let alone face it. Fear spurred him on. Fear of the pain.

So he swam, as hard as he could go, never letting up.

Eventually he hit sand, so he transformed in the shallows of the beach and started running again. By now it was the middle of the night, the moon above lighting his way to nowhere, as he kept running.

His legs ached, still not fully recovered from their brutal breaking, so he morphed shapes again and flew.

Beating his wings as fast as he could he shot through the sky, never slowing, never thinking. Just moving.

His body was weakening, though, exhaustion setting in. But Beastboy did not stop. For stopping meant pain. The physical pain he was currently experiencing was numbed in his bestial form and was far preferable to what he had gone through earlier.

A light appeared on the horizon. His tired falcon eyes making it out to be a city and the moth in him was drawn to it.

He almost made it as well.

It was just outside the suburbs that his exhaustion finally got the better of him. Beastboy's vision darkened to black. With no energy to keep his bird form or his half-beast state, he reverted back to his most human form and dropped from the sky soundlessly.

Half a mile away, a shadow observed his fall from atop the roof of a gothic church, before detaching itself from the darkness and moving silently towards the edge of the city.

So the big action opening ends and the main meat of the story begins.

Thoughts so far?

Cheers,

CJB