Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Teen Titans: Future Storm ❯ Side Story 2: Nature of the Beast ( One-Shot )

 

“Teen Titans: Future Storm”

Side Story 2: “Nature of the Beast”

Disclaimer: The concept of Teen Titans does not belong to me. Nightstar, Mercury, and the Zookeeper do not belong to me. Everyone else, except for anyone you might recognize from DC comic or animated canon, belongs to me.

Author's note: It's Beast Girl's turn for the spotlight this time. If you're wondering why Beast Girl can morph into “hybrid” forms when her father never exhibited such abilities, you'll find out in this side story, as it will explain her past. Also, you'll get a deeper insight into her character.

It was happening again. The nightmare had come to her again.

“No . . .” she moaned as she twisted and turned in the sheets of her bed. “No . . . stay back. Stay back . . . Don't touch me . . . don't . . . please . . .”

Her pleas went unheard by the figure in her nightmare as he advanced on her.

“No . . . stop . . . stop . . . STOP!” she screamed.

Instantly, her door opened and a figure sped inside. He found her in her bed, twisting and turning. He rushed to her side and grabbed her shoulders. She began to struggle against him, screaming, “Let go! Let go of me!”

“Terri!” the figure shouted. “Terri! It's me! It's Peter!”

“Pe . . . ter?” Terri asked softly as she started to awaken from her nightmare. She looked into the face of her childhood friend and saw his amber eyes in the darkness. They glimmered with worry . . . for her.

“Yeah, it's me,” Peter confirmed.

Terri was grateful that Peter couldn't see in the darkness, otherwise he'd know her dirty little secret, the secret she'd kept ever since those horrible few weeks four years ago. Hopefully, he would be so absorbed in his worry for her that he wouldn't notice that when he touched her, he wasn't exactly touching skin.

“What happened?” Peter inquired softly. “I heard you scream.”

“It was nothing,” Terri answered just as softly. “Just a nightmare. That's all it was.”

“It must have been a pretty bad one,” Peter commented.

“Yeah, but it's over now,” Terri responded. “I'll be ok. You'd better go back to sleep.”

“Actually, I've done all the sleeping I'm going to do,” Peter contradicted. “I don't need to sleep as long as most people do, so I'm gonna go for a quick run around the world. See you around.” A split second later, he was in his Mercury costume, and another fraction of a second later, he was gone.

Terri lay back in her bed and attempted to sleep. As it turned out, her efforts were in vain, as the figure in her nightmare haunted her too much to allow her to sleep.

In the morning, Terri rose from bed and entered the bathroom, brushing her teeth with her electric toothbrush. Samara soon followed, dressed in a diaphanous black nightgown. Terri internally sighed with envy, as Samara carried a certain aura of gothic elegance in addition to her forbiddingly dark beauty. Somehow, she always felt awkward in the older girl's presence.

“Bad dream?” Samara asked.

“How did you know?” Terri asked.

“Bags under your eyes,” Samara replied simply. “You only get those when you don't sleep, and the only way you wouldn't sleep would be if you had a really bad dream.”

“It's nothing, Samara,” Terri said. “I'm fine.”

Samara reached out and gently touched the younger girl's shoulder. “I can help.”

“Don't touch me,” Terri murmured. “Please . . . don't touch me.”

Samara withdrew her hand. “As you wish.”

When the two girls arrived at the breakfast table, they saw Mercury - in costume but with the mask lowered like a hood - chomping on a bagel. Inferno was calmly eating waffles, Raziel was eating cereal, and Nightstar was reading the paper. Bladefire sat to the side, casually peeking over his twin's shoulder to see what she was reading. Samara prepared her herbal tea and Beast Girl prepared her tofu bacon and eggs.

“So how did you all sleep?” Nightstar asked.

Bladefire glanced at her briefly before responding in his most blasé voice, “Fine.”

“I only got a few hours, but I think I'll be ok,” Inferno interjected.

“What were you doing that you only slept for a few hours?” Samara asked.

“I was working on a counter to that flame retardant Ravager used on me,” Inferno replied.

“Ok, but you shouldn't stay up so late,” Samara cautioned.

“We're superheroes, Sam,” Inferno said. “Getting a full eight hours of sleep is not in the job description.”

“I know, but I don't want you staying up later than you have to,” Samara insisted.

Mercury snickered.

“What the hell is so funny?” Inferno asked crossly.

“You and Samara,” Mercury answered with a grin. “If I didn't know better, I'd say she was like your wife or your mother or somewhere in between.”

“You're a pain in the ass, you know that?” Inferno asked.

Mercury laughed before finishing his bagel. “Yeah, I'm a pain in somebody's ass, all right,” he quipped with a wink in Beast Girl's direction.

Beast Girl growled. “Quit being such a pervert, Mercury.”

Mercury looked at her askance. “What's your problem?”

“Enough, you two,” Raziel spoke softly. “I'm trying to eat my breakfast and I can't do that if you two are arguing.”

“Sorry,” Beast Girl grumbled.

After breakfast was finished, Mercury slipped on rubber dishwasher gloves over his normal fingerless gloves and began washing the plates and bowls.

“So do you intend to go to school dressed like that?” Nightstar remarked.

“Nope,” Mercury replied, quick-changing into a blue hoodie and jeans.

The Titans went to school and to their separate classes.

“So what can you tell me about Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan not once, but twice?” Mr. Johns, the American History teacher for Mercury and Beast Girl, asked.

“That it was wrong?” Mercury replied. “That it wasn't even about ending the war quickly but about making an example out of Japan? About telling the rest of the world, `This is what awaits you if you even dream of messing with the U.S.'?”

“Interesting points,” Johns remarked. “Does anyone have anything else to add to that?”

“Yeah,” a boy dressed in khaki and chinos replied. “If Truman hadn't dropped the bomb on Japan, the war would have gone on even longer and more people would have died. Hell, if Johnson or Nixon had dropped the bomb on Vietnam, that war wouldn't have lasted ten years. Not saying it was right, because I doubt we needed to kill off that many people, but I'm saying that it kept even more people from dying.”

“A sad but true point,” Johns stated. “In the course of history, many leaders during wars have taken the position `Better them than us.' America is no different. Whenever we have been involved in a war, we have made it a point that more casualties should be suffered on the enemy's side than on our own. During the intervention in Iraq, many U.S. soldiers died, but far more Iraqis died than our own forces.”

“You do realize that most of those Iraqis were civilians, right?” Beast Girl piped up.

“Yeah, but a lot of them were insurgents, too,” another student chimed in.

“Truthfully, we shouldn't have been there at all,” Mercury added. “The intelligence was faulty and we were arrogant enough to assume that the people there wouldn't think we were just after their resources.”

“We're getting a little off-topic,” Johns interjected. “May I steer this conversation back to World War II before we start getting violent?” A grin formed on his face. “Almost thirty years and that war still elicits strong emotions from people.” A short chuckle followed before he went on.

After class was over, Beast Girl was at her locker taking out her cyber-books for her next class. While there, she noticed a shadow obscure her vision.

“You're in my light,” she growled. “Mind getting out of it?”

“Whoa, babe, chill out,” a deep, masculine voice replied. Beast Girl looked up at the source of the voice and saw a tall redheaded boy who, if one judged by appearance alone, had more muscles than brains. The white-and-blue jacket with the letter W emblazoned on the left breast identified him as a player for the Wolverines, Jump City High's football team.

“Don't call me babe,” Beast Girl snarled.

“Man, why do you gotta be like that?” the boy asked. “I'm just trying to chat, start a little conversation, make a little connection. You know?”

“You're in my light and I have to get to class,” Beast Girl hissed. “So please stop bothering me.”

“If that's the way you wanna play it,” the boy answered with a cocky edge to his voice. “Just one question and I'm gone.”

“And what would that question be?” Beast Girl asked.

“Are you green all over?” the boy asked.

“PERVERT!” Beast Girl yelled and slapped him, her sharpened nails raking across his skin, eliciting a very satisfying cry of pain from him.

“Bitch, what the hell was that?” the boy asked, his tone indicating that he found the slap quite offensive.

“I don't like perverts,” Beast Girl growled.

“I'm suing you,” the boy declared. “I'm going to sue the pants off you!”

“What makes you think I'd give you my pants?” Beast Girl asked nastily.

“Just you wait,” the boy stated. “Just you wait.” He fled into the halls of Jump City High, leaving Beast Girl to pick up her books and walk to her next class.

At lunch, Beast Girl calmly ate her tofu lunch. A soft breeze blowing by her indicated that a familiar speedster had arrived.

“So what's this I hear about you making Carl Kless bleed?” he asked, his voice devoid of its normal levity and cockiness.

“He was being a pervert,” Beast Girl replied evenly. “Just like you, but less charming.”

“You find me charming?” Mercury asked in shock. He shook his head as though trying to ward off demons and looked back into Beast Girl's golden eyes with his amber orbs. “Please don't distract me. What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong,” Beast Girl answered simply. “Carl was just being a pervert.”

“So that warrants you slapping him?” Mercury asked. “And why haven't you ever slapped me for my remarks?”

“One: You're too fast for me to slap,” the shape-shifter-slash-geomancer replied. “Two: You somehow manage to be cute when you're being a pervert. Carl is just a sleazebag, so he deserved it.”

“Won't argue with that,” Mercury conceded. “But that's a little out of character for you.”

Beast Girl's eyes narrowed dangerously. “And what, Mercury, makes you think you know me so well?”

“Nothing except for the small fact that you and I grew up together,” Mercury replied.

At that moment, the other Titans arrived at the table.

“The principal wants to see you,” Nightstar told Beast Girl. “And the rest of us as well.”

“Why the rest of us?” Samara asked. “Terri was the one that slapped him.”

The seven Titans all found themselves sitting in the office of Principal Elizabeth Alderman.

“Do you understand the magnitude of what you've done?” Alderman asked, peering at the green-skinned girl through her large glasses.

“I slapped one pervert,” Beast Girl answered unrepentantly. “No big deal.”

“Oh, it is a very big deal, you arrogant child,” Alderman declared. “The only reason the seven of you are allowed to attend this school at all is that historically, the Titans have had very good standing with the city. In addition, the antidiscrimination laws prevented me from denying you lot the `right' to an education just because you're metahumans. However, I do have the right to ensure the safety of the normal humans attending and working at this school, meaning I can still suspend or expel metahumans who prove themselves a threat to those humans.”

“So what does that mean?” Nightstar inquired, although she had the sinking feeling she knew the answer already. The chilling smirk on Alderman's face told them all they needed to know.

“You're suspended, Theresa Logan,” Alderman stated. “Finish your lunch, then get your things and leave. I don't want to see you for another two weeks.”

“You - this - it's . . .” Beast Girl tried to speak but couldn't string together a sentence. She rose from her seat and dashed out of Alderman's office.

“You bitch,” Mercury spat, his voice filled with venom that no one who knew him would suspect he had.

“You want to join your little girlfriend, Peter Allen?” Alderman inquired, that same unnerving smirk still on her face.

Mercury stared right into the face of that smirk. “You're enjoying this, aren't you? Making us suffer. Picking on us just for being born different from everyone else.”

“Keep talking, Mr. Allen,” Alderman encouraged sarcastically. “You're just giving me more and more rope to hang you with.”

Mercury just glared at her before speeding out of the principal's office.

“You're not supposed to use your metahuman powers in this school, boy!” Alderman shouted after him.

“Does this satisfy you, Principal Alderman?” a disturbingly wintry voice asked her.

Principal Alderman turned to the source of that voice. “Mr. Crestmore, if indeed that is your real name, what presumption have you decided to volley at me?”

“I make no presumptions,” Uriel answered. “I only state the facts, the facts being that you hate us. You hate our kind. And why? You fear us for what we can do, for any one of us could easily avenge Theresa on this travesty of a school . . . and on you.”

“Is that a threat, Mr. Crestmore?” Alderman asked. “If so, I can have you suspended along with Miss Logan.”

“And what would that prove?” Uriel asked. “That you're a creature led by your base prejudices.” He leaned forward into his seat, meeting her unnerving smirk with his eerily arctic expression.

“How dare you talk to me like that!” Alderman exclaimed, her face twisting in outrage. “I am merely attempting to ensure the safety of the people who attend and work at this school!”

“So you say,” Uriel sneered. “So you say.”

Alderman's face settled into an eerie calm. “You five - along with Peter Allen - are free to leave and continue with your classes for the rest of the day. If I hear about any more disturbances involving you, I will suspend you just like I did Miss Logan.”

The five Titans exited the principal's office without another word.

At her locker, Beast Girl wept silent bitter tears.

“It's not fair,” she murmured. “I didn't ask for this.”

She felt someone turn her around gently and wrap their arms around her. Instinctively, Beast Girl started to pull out of that person's embrace. A brief inhalation of the scents around her let her know who that person was, allowing her to relax slightly.

“Peter . . .” she murmured.

Mercury stroked her flaxen locks gently. “It's ok, Terri. It's ok . . . I'll take you home and keep you company, ok?”

“S-sure,” Beast Girl answered shakily.

Back at Titans Tower, Mercury breezed through the mail, reading it at super-speed.

“You know you're not supposed to read everybody's mail, right?” Beast Girl asked.

Mercury grinned. “I can't help it. I just like reading, especially . . .” He trailed off, gazing intently at an envelope. His voice turned severe and lowered by a few octaves. “It's for you.”

Beast Girl took the envelope and looked at the return address, zeroing in on the name at the top. “Dr. Samuel Register . . .” she murmured. “No . . . how did he find me?”

“Register?” Mercury asked. “Who's that?”

“No one you need to worry about,” Beast Girl answered hastily. “I'd like to be alone now, if you don't mind.”

“Sure,” Mercury uttered hesitantly before speeding out of the common room.

Beast Girl opened the envelope with her nail and removed the letter from it, unfolding it and beginning to read.

“To my sweet Theresa,

“It's been such a long time since we last had the opportunity to speak. I've been watching you and I must say that you are everything I ever hoped for and more. Meet me on top of Silver Tower tonight at 8. I'd advise you to come alone, as bringing your friends - particularly the speed brat - could be very dangerous . . . for both you and them.

“I'll see you soon.

“Signed,

Dr. Samuel Register”

Beast Girl crumpled up the letter, her eyes filled with angry tears.

“Eleven years old . . .” she muttered. “I was only a child and he still has me marked.”

“You should talk to her.”

“I would, except I don't know what to say.”

“Peter Allen, haven't you learned yet that sometimes you can give comfort better when you're not running your mouth?”

The amber-eyed speedster glanced at the silver-haired psychic. “Good point.” A blur of blue and white later and he was at Beast Girl's door. “Terri?” He knocked rapidly yet gently. “You want me to come in?”

There was no answer, which worried Mercury deeply. It just wasn't like Beast Girl not to answer him at all.

“Maybe she's napping and I shouldn't bother her,” he muttered. He turned to walk away, only to bump into Samara. “Sorry.”

“All right,” Samara said. “What are you doing outside Beast Girl's door?”

“I wanted to talk to her,” Mercury replied.

“She's going through a rough day,” Samara stated. “That nightmare, that pervert, that bitch Alderman taking her hate for metahumans out on her . . . if you're going to act like your usual idiotic self, you're not going through that door.”

“Speaking of Alderman, why didn't you do anything?” Mercury asked angrily. “Why didn't Mar'i do anything about her?”

“We couldn't,” Samara replied simply.

“Why not?” Mercury asked sharply.

“Because as much as we hate it, Alderman is a legitimately recognized authority figure,” Samara answered. “Unless she blatantly steps outside the bounds of her authority, we can't do anything.”

“But she suspended Terri just for slapping that pervert Kless!” Mercury yelled. “Can you honestly say that a normal human girl wouldn't have received the same punishment?”

“Normal human girls are the kind that fall over themselves for someone like Kless,” Samara answered with a cruel sneer. “As for your question, she would have just gotten detention. We can argue all we want that Alderman's actions were excessive, but she didn't actually step outside the bounds of her authority.”

“Well, we'll just sue the school!” Mercury asserted. “Bring the ACLU in; tell them that Terri's rights are being violated just because she's a meta!”

“Your dedication to her is truly awe-inspiring,” Samara complimented with a soft smile. “All right, we'll see Terri together.” She looked intently at the door, her eyes flashing white. “She's gone.”

“Gone?” Mercury echoed. “Gone? How the hell can she be gone?”

“If she flew out the window as a bird or a harpy,” Samara answered harshly, giving him one of her patented “You're a goddamn moron and I ought to kill you for it” stares.

Mercury vibrated through the door and looked around Beast Girl's room. There was no trace of her, save for a message on her laptop. He sped to the laptop and read the message.

“I have to go now. I don't know if I'll come back. For your sakes as well as mine, don't follow me.”

Mercury noticed a crumpled piece of paper on the floor of Beast Girl's room, which wasn't that tidy. He picked it up and un-crumpled it, speeding through the message.

“Damn it,” he snarled and vibrated through the door again, entering the hallway. “She got a letter, before you and the others got back from school.”

“Did you find out who it was from?” Samara asked.

“Someone named Dr. Samuel Register,” Mercury replied. “I have the message here.” He handed it to her.

“This sick bastard sounds like he knows her,” Samara said. “We have to tell the other Titans.”

Meanwhile, Beast Girl landed on top of Silver Tower as a harpy. Upon landing, she reverted to human form.

“Now, Theresa, I know that that's not the real you,” a slithery, morbidly soothing voice greeted from within the darkness. “Come on and show Daddy what you really look like.”

“You're not my father,” Beast Girl hissed. “And don't call me Theresa.”

“I'll call you whatever I like,” the voice stated, hardening. It softened when it spoke again. “Please, Theresa. I did not call you here so we could fight. I called you here so we could talk.”

“Talk about what, you sick son of a bitch?” Beast Girl asked. “You violated me, turned me inside out for a science project.”

“Yes and look at how you've benefited,” the voice added. “You can tap into the power of the animal kingdom without having to completely abandon your human form, a skill that I myself have yet to master.”

“And look what you've done to me!” Beast Girl screamed, her body growing a light coat of green fur. Her hands and feet grew, coming to resemble cat's paws with clawed human fingers and toes attached. A green tail sprouted from her backside as her ears migrated to the top of her head and shifted into cat's ears.

The owner of the voice stepped out of the shadows, revealing the scaly purple features of Dr. Samuel Register . . . the Zookeeper.

“You are absolutely beautiful,” the Zookeeper uttered. “Even more so than four years ago.”

“I should kill you,” Beast Girl snarled. “I should kill you for what you did to me.”

“But you won't,” the Zookeeper declared confidently. “Hero's code, remember?”

Beast Girl lunged at the Zookeeper, her claws aimed for his throat. The Zookeeper morphed into a purple serpent and evaded her attack, coming at her as a tiger and slashing at her. Beast Girl evaded the slash and retaliated with a swipe of her claws. The Zookeeper morphed into a rhinoceros, using his new form's thick hide to bear the brunt of his younger counterpart's attack. Beast Girl aimed a vicious claw strike to the Zookeeper's eye, but he eluded it by becoming a monkey and leaping out of her way.

The Zookeeper jumped off Silver Tower, landing on the street as an elephant and crushing any cars unlucky enough to be directly below him. Beast Girl jumped after him, morphing into a harpy and landing on him with her talons extended. The Zookeeper shifted into a lion and slashed at Beast Girl, who flew out of the range of his claws before zipping in and ramming him with her head.

The purple shape-changer morphed into a stegosaurus and lashed at Beast Girl with his tail. However, the blonde shape-changer jumped over his tail and kicked him viciously in his side. Unfortunately, the kick barely fazed him.

The Zookeeper changed into a jaguar and dashed at Beast Girl, who charged at him as a cheetah. The two uniquely colored felines collided and proceeded to scratch and tear at each other.

As the fight went on, the normal citizens fled in ever-increasing numbers. Even those that had initially stuck around to see the fight, as they thought superhero/super-villain fights were something exciting, were now trying to get away from the scene.

It was this same scene that the other six Titans happened upon.

“I warned you, Theresa!” the Zookeeper roared as he changed back to his human form. “I warned you that the consequences wouldn't be pleasant if your friends showed up!”

Beast Girl had shifted back to her human form as well with a distressed look on her face. “You shouldn't have come here!”

“Titan Rule #1, Beast Girl,” Mercury said. “A Titan will not stand by while another Titan is in danger.”

“Ah, so you're the boy that has stolen my Theresa's heart,” the Zookeeper hissed.

“I don't know what you're talking about, you sicko, but you're not touching her,” Mercury declared.

The Zookeeper morphed into a boa constrictor and slithered at Mercury, intending to choke the young speedster. The result was that Mercury grabbed him and twisted him into a bow. While Mercury was grinning widely at his accomplishment, the Zookeeper shifted into a smaller cobra and lunged at his arm, only to be stopped by a small needle puncturing his scales like a bullet. The Zookeeper reverted to a profusely bleeding human form.

“You're a sick man, Dr. Register,” Raziel remarked. “A child . . . a child. Monster.”

“You may think me such, boy, but I am close,” the Zookeeper murmured as he bled. “So close . . .”

“Should we take him to a hospital?” Inferno asked.

“Why?” Beast Girl asked. “He's a monster. A sick, twisted bastard. I say we let him bleed.”

“We can't do that, Ter,” Mercury answered. “If we do, we end up as bad as he is.”

“You do realize that you could be using this time to get him to a hospital, don't you?” Samara interjected.

“I don't think it'd be a good idea,” Nightstar spoke up.

“Does that mean you agree with Beast Girl?” Bladefire asked.

“No, but we'd have to put him in the prison ward of the hospital and I doubt that'd be able to hold him,” Nightstar answered.

While the Titans debated the fate of the Zookeeper, Samara walked over to him and placed her glowing lavender hand on his wound. The blood flowed back into the wound as it closed. Catching the confused and/or discontented looks on the other Titans' faces, she simply said, “When we became Titans, we took an oath to save lives. Nowhere in that oath did it say that we didn't have to save the people we find repulsive.”

The Titans regrouped at the Tower.

“What did Register do to you?” Inferno asked softly.

“Remember when I disappeared for two weeks when I was eleven?” Beast Girl asked.

“Yeah,” Mercury replied. “We were all really worried.”

“Register kidnapped me,” Beast Girl explained. “Claimed that he was an old friend from my dad's side of the family and that he was gonna take me home for him. I was so naïve that I fell for it. Next thing I knew, I was strapped to a lab table.

“He wanted to unlock the secrets of the animal kingdom. He believed I was the key to that since `the future lies with the children' and all that. So he unraveled my DNA again and again and kept putting it back together in all kinds of patterns. By the time he was through, I could barely recognize myself.

“My parents, as well as yours, managed to save me from him but the damage was already done. My powers were changed . . . that's why I can take hybrid forms instead of shifting all the way into animal form. Also, this isn't what I really look like anymore.”

“What do you really look like, then?” Mercury asked.

“You'll think I'm a monster,” Beast Girl replied. “I certainly do.”

“It's all right,” Nightstar said. “We're all monsters in our own way, anyway.”

Beast Girl's human form melted away, replaced by an anthropomorphic green feline. She blushed and turned away in shame, only to feel a hand gently reach under her chin and turn her face toward the person attached to it.

“I don't think you're a monster,” Mercury whispered softly, embracing Beast Girl's furry form.

End Notes: Ok, so that was a sappy way to end this one-shot. However, the sap was necessary after the nigh-relentless angst to which I subjected you lot.

First, Dr. Samuel Register, alias the Zookeeper, is a creation of the recent Teen Titans comics. The basic story is that he was a friend of Mark and Marie Logan (Beast Boy's parents) and that when he saw what Beast Boy could do, he became determined to unlock the secrets of the animal kingdom through him. In the process, he infected himself with Sakutia, the same disease that had made Beast Boy what he was, and ended up spreading it to the local children, who couldn't control their newfound animal-shifting abilities the way Beast Boy could. In this storyline, Beast Boy was temporarily cured of Sakutia and restored to his former human appearance, but he infected himself again to stop Register.

Second, Elizabeth Alderman is a creation of the Titans comics as well, specifically the New Titans period. In those comics, she was a councilwoman with ambitions of becoming mayor . . . and she ran on an anti-Titans platform. Remembering what X-Men: Evolution did to a certain senator of X-Men lore, I made Alderman the metahuman-hating principal of the Titans' school.

That's it out of me. Feel free to tell me what you thought of this story, both good and bad.