FicWad

It had been a long trip, indeed; not especially in time (as it had only taken him three days), but definitely in distance. Steel City was farther from Jump City than Beast Boy remembered ever traveling, even on his way to Jump City. As a cheetah, he had run for most of the day to get as far as he could, even giving up two hours of sleep each day to keep running. It had also been difficult for him to keep his arduous journey up: He had allowed himself ten minutes of rest between each mile, but after several sprints at nearly seventy miles per hour, even the ten minutes he had given himself had felt not enough for his body.

Even as he looked on at Steel City from the outskirts, his goal so close, the exhaustion pounded in his heart and cut into and through his muscles. He would have liked nothing more than to just fall in the ground there, curl up, and sleep until the next day. Fortunately for him, his body made that decision for him; his four knees gave way and buckled, sending his cheetah form to the very cold and very wet ground. His eyelids closed, blocking the glimmering lights of the city at night from him.

And immediately opened again as soon as he realized just what he was lying on. "Snow?" He had not seen snow since he left his home a year ago; it had been far too warm for it to fall. "If it snowed, then that means it's winter," Beast Boy thought after transforming back into a human and pulling his face out of the snow. "And if it's winter," and excitement was building in him. He pushed himself to his feet and completed the thought, "then my parents'll be at home!" He took one renewed step towards the city.

And found himself back on the ground. His knees had buckled again; apparently his body still thought it would be the best idea to rest. It was far from him to defy the pain in his system a second time, though, and, transforming into a small wolf cub, curled up on the ground and resolved to spend the night.

-HG-

Sirens woke Beast Boy suddenly the next morning, but he recalled with a yawn that crime was a common problem in Steel City, which was the primary reason he began masquerading as Beast Boy in the first place, and paid the police little attention, though they did succeed in getting him off the ground. He rubbed his eyes from the sun's glare off the snow and, fully rested by now, trudged forward through the snow and into the city.

He pictured his destination clearly in his mind and despite being away for a year still remembered the address, which was his only thought, repeating endlessly: "800 East Fifth Street. 800 East Fifth Street." He barely noticed that the sirens were growing louder the closer he drew to that address, the address of his first house and his first home. And before he even realized it, he was there.

The white-trimmed, pale-brown house looked almost exactly the way he had left it, the only difference he noticed being a shattered window that at first glance he attributed to a local punk kid looking to cause some trouble. However, that was all he got to notice about the house before he noticed the pavement in front of the house and the six police cars surrounding it. The sirens were turned off by now, but the lights on all of the cars flashed red and blue across Beast Boy's disbelieving face. He ran up to an officer who was unrolling yellow police tape across the front of the scene and asked him, "What happened?"

Without looking back, the officer replied, "It looks like the work of the Brotherhood again. This house was broken into and the two people inside were found dead."

Beast Boy's jaw dropped. Soon he could no longer look at his house or anything around it clearly; the tears welling up blocked his sight. His parents were...killed. Murdered. Just after he had resolved to make things right with them, they were...gone. And he would never be able to tell them all the things he found to say while he was gone. And unlike him, they would never come back.

His voice had almost left him, but he still managed to eke out, "When?"

The officer said simply, "Last night."

Last night...last night, he had been just outside the city. He could have stopped it! He could have saved them! If only he had not decided to rest, he could have been in his old room with his parents safely nearby. That was the second reason he started crime fighting - to keep his parents safe. And he had failed at that, too! It was his fault that his parents were dead. Completely his fault. He had rushed to get home in time, and he still had not gotten home in time. He fell to his knees, trembling.

"...Hold it." Some part of rational thought still existed in his brain, though hidden under the anguish, the tears that he would not have wanted to hold back even if he could. And that one bit of rational thought saved him from breaking down completely.

"It's not your fault. You got here as quickly as you could. You were sprung from jail as soon as you had the opportunity, then you said goodbye and made your way here. You pushed your body to its limit and past it, and even then you didn't stop. There was nothing you could have done to stop this. You were already weakened; who's to say if you did try to stop it, you would still be alive right now?"

And for once, he was glad to hear that he had been weak, because the rational part of his brain was right. Of course, it was not for the best that he was too weak to have fought, but at least it meant that he could still exact revenge on...what had the officer said? The Brotherhood?

His voice still weak and trembling, he asked, "Who is the 'Brotherhood'?" He had every intent of hunting them down and avenging his parents for what had happened.

"Where have you been, kid? The Brotherhood of Evil is Steel City's biggest threat right now, and they have been for months. Almost around when Beast Boy left," the officer said, then walked off, all without looking at him.

"They started when the city was defenseless," Beast Boy realized. "That means... That means I really was keeping the city safe!" He had always thought that Steel City just never was important enough for a major supervillain group, but with the news of the Brotherhood of Evil's formation, he now knew that his superheroic patrols of the city had been keeping the entire city safe. The boost to his self-esteem was enough to bring him completely over the guilt he felt about his parents, and only made him more determined to stop the Brotherhood. He walked with a strong stride over to another police officer and, streaks still on his face from the tears, asked, "Where can I find the Brotherhood?"

This officer paid attention to the boy and looked him straight in the eye, though she did not appear to recognize him. "Why would you want to-oh," she deduced from Beast Boy's face and the situation. "Kid, don't go looking for the Brotherhood," she warned.

"But I have to," Beast Boy responded insistently and firmly.

"Don't go looking for them," she repeated, "because kid, they'll find /you/."

As soon as she said that, a senior officer walked up next to her and told her just to whom she was talking. "Adams, what are you doing? That's /Beast Boy/." And it hit him at the same time, like he did not even realize that yes, Beast Boy had returned. "That's Beast Boy...Beast Boy's back!" he shouted happily, as if all their problems were now solved. "Beast Boy's back!" The shouting drew the other officers to him, none of whom could believe their own eyes.

"Beast Boy! It's really him!"

"Where was he?"

"Why did he come back?"

The questions kept coming, but Beast Boy did not want to answer any of them. He instead asked the senior officer who had drawn the crowd the same question. "Where can I find the Brotherhood?"

"They've taken over a shipping station at the pier, on the other side of the city. Nobody's set foot near there since they moved in. But Beast Boy, I warn you," the officer added, his voice suddenly very serious, "they're tougher than you think. We haven't been able to stop them, even when they were just a fledgling group."

But Beast Boy had not paid the officer much attention once he knew where the Brotherhood of Evil's headquarters were. Without even a "goodbye" or a "thank you", he turned into a crow and took off for the pier.

-HG-

It had taken him the longest twenty minutes of his life to fly from one end of the city to the other, but once he landed on the old wooden planks of the pier he knew his vengeance would come soon. He had not taken ten steps before stepping in a small puddle of vaguely purple ooze, which seemed to do no harm to him other than severely grossing him out. He continued walking down the pier, looking for the largest and most obvious building, because if he had learned anything from past experiences it was that many powerful people took no delight in remaining well hidden once their power was known.

Just three warehouses short of the end of the pier, he knew he had found the right place. It was the largest building on the pier, to be sure, and though it was not particularly obvious, it did look very well kept for something that was supposed to be a worn-down and untouched area of the city. He shoved open one of the double doors in front of him and stormed in, only as a human because his battle forms would not have fit through the door.

The first sight he was met with was a woman in a blue, skintight uniform with a fishnet mesh on her arms and legs; in her hand she held a rapier ready. His eyes only stayed on that woman for a very brief period compared with the second thing he saw. On the far wall of the building, Terra was chained and unable to move, though she struggled, and approaching her quickly was a sliding wall of concrete set to crush her easily. He saw it press up against her and heard her scream of pure agony, and then he saw the two walls meet. His mouth screamed her name, but no sound came out, and his legs tried to run to her, but they did not move. The woman in blue laughed at him.

"Welcome back, Beast Boy."