FicWad

"Te-!" Beast Boy's voice broke halfway through screaming the name of his newly lost maiden. She had been killed before his eyes - crushed underneath her own element with no ability to stop it. First his parents, then Terra, all within a half hour...his mind could barely handle the strain. His face twisted in pain, he doubled over, closed his eyes, and pressed his hands against his ears to try to block out the steady, sadistic laughter from the woman in blue in front of him. He wanted to cry, but the tears would not come; they were blocked by the shock and the stress. Through his hands, he heard a second female voice, higher than the first, join in the laughter, then the first woman stopped and said something indistinguishable to him.

"Wonderful. How did you know zat would work, Phobia?" the woman in blue asked.

"Plasmus really is an excellent spy," the second woman, clad in a green, black, and very spiky robe, replied. She saw a vaguely purplish goop ooze its way into the room from the corner of her eye and without looking away from Beast Boy, thanked it. "You never cease to amaze me, Plasmus."

The woman in blue looked at the slime, now in a humanoid form, and asked it, "Did you get ze sample to Houngan?" The physically hollow features of Plasmus's head moved up and down, though he himself did not actually nod. "Excellent. Now, Plasmus," and she jerked her head towards Beast Boy. "Detain 'im."

The slime did as he was told; his form slumped into a puddle and he slid across the wooden floor of the warehouse, then reformed behind Beast Boy and bound the teen hero with his malleable arms. Still in complete shock and terror, Beast Boy did nothing to stop it.

The woman who seemed to be in charge of the whole situation shot a quick glance into the shadow of several stacked boxes to Plasmus's right. "If you will, Monsieur," she requested, then walked off with the one she called Phobia towards a door in the back wall of the warehouse.

An ape of formidable size, though not much larger than the standard gorilla, emerged from his hiding place and approached Beast Boy, who was still willingly blind and deaf. "I am sorry to have to do this," the ape spoke quite eloquently, though he assumed Beast Boy could not hear him, and raised a fist to the back of the teen's head, then knocked him out cold.

-HG-

Beast Boy was slumped against the wall in a sectioned-off area of a large room, far too large for the warehouse to contain. He was actually underneath the warehouse, in the true lair of the Brotherhood of Evil, not just the warehouse forefront. Though he was unconscious, five people were very much aware and holding a conversation nearby, just behind a glass wall.

"Who was zat, anyway?" a female voice asked.

"His mind said it was a girl named Terra, and apparently he loved her," a second one, belonging to the green-clad woman, said. "He left her - and the other Teen Titans - to work for someone named Slade, but she got him to revert to his old ways."

"Ze Teen Titans? Is zat where he's been?"

"Oh?" the male voice of an ape commented. "It sounds like a horrible romance novel."

"Yes, well, these things often are, Mallah," Phobia said, amused. "Teen love and all that."

"That gives me an idea," a second male voice joined in. "Madame Rouge..."

"Already zere, Houngan," the first female voice, belonging to the woman in blue called Madame Rouge, said. She pressed open a door in the glass wall to enter Beast Boy's cell and began changing her entire body. Her fully adult stature shrunk by about two feet to more closely match the height of Beast Boy; what once were well-developed limbs thinned into arms and legs that were almost ropes. The jet-black hair that once adorned her head lightened in a second to bright blond and lengthened itself to the point that Rouge remembered from Phobia's illusion, and her distinctly black and narrow eyes grew wide, kind, and very blue. Her mouth, nose, eyebrows, and every other discernible feature metamorphosed from hers to the earth maiden's. Even her blue clothing changed with her into the black T-shirt and beige cargo shorts she had recalled seeing. She felt her vocal chords tighten to make her voice higher, to complete the illusion, and there was a distinctly odd feeling in her mouth and throat as she lost her French accent. The only thing that would have distinguished her from the original Terra at that point was a slightly more ample bosom, which she had intentionally left different from her memory so as to fit in with her plan.

The completely transformed woman - girl, now - looked back at the other four and said through the glass in Terra's voice, "Get out of sight. And Houngan, wake him up." When she saw that the four had gotten out of her field of vision, she turned towards Beast Boy and waited for Houngan to do his job.

The voodoo master Houngan pulled a small doll and a stylus from two pouches along his waist. Thanks to Plasmus's intervention and DNA collection on the pier, the doll looked exactly like a miniature replica of Beast Boy. Houngan tapped the top of the doll's head with the stylus, which he knew (as he had created the entire system) would deliver the same result to the actual Beast Boy.

-HG-

Something hit Beast Boy fairly hard on the head, and in his wooziness he did not consider looking for what had done it. Whatever it was, it had succeeded in waking him up. He looked up voluntarily for the first time in...how long had he been out, anyway? The last thing he remembered was...was Terra.

"Good morning, Beast Boy," a familiar voice said.

His head jerked up upon hearing it. It was Terra's voice! But...she had died; he had seen it. It just wasn't possible! And yet, there she was, standing in front of him, in the flesh. A bit more flesh than he had remembered, but he was in no state for bringing the matter up. "Terra! You're...alive! But how?"

"I never died, Beast Boy," she said with a laugh as she knelt down to his level. "I asked Robin to track down the enemies in Steel City," Rouge lied boldly, assuming that Beast Boy would have told the Titans about his hometown, "and he came up with the Brotherhood of Evil. One of them is named Phobia, and she can make your greatest fears come alive."

"So when I saw you die," Beast Boy started.

Madame Rouge finished, "It was Phobia. I'm perfectly safe. And now, so are you." Her voice was a comforting purr as she reassured him. "Robin and the others came with me, and they stopped the Brotherhood. He thought you couldn't handle them yourself, but I knew you could." She smiled with a hint of regret. "I guess I was wrong, but that wasn't your fault." And the regret was gone, and now her smile was pure and sweet, just like the original Terra's would have been in this situation. "But that doesn't matter. What matters is we're both safe now."

She lunged forward and wrapped her arms around him, and he suddenly found himself with newfound strength and did the same. Then, without warning, she brought her face closer and pressed her lips against his in the most passionate fake kiss she had ever given. Beast Boy's eyes widened at the start of the action, but he quickly accepted it and never resisted for a minute. Seeing that he was not resisting, Madame Rouge as Terra attempted to take it another step: She pushed her tongue out of her mouth and at Beast Boy's closed lips, only stopping to see if he would accept it even though she already knew he would, and let her tongue play in his mouth in an attempt to make him the happiest he had ever been.

Beast Boy, however, was hesitant; he had never tried anything like that before. He was surprised beyond his eyes widening when he felt her tongue against his lips, but again did not prevent it from happening and gave her free passage. Even though he knew she was beckoning him to do the same, something seemed off. Terra had never been this impulsive before, though she had never made it a secret that she liked him. He looked into her eyes as pure and clear as her smile and knew, though, that this had to be the real Terra, even if she were being more straightforward than she normally was. Cautiously, he accepted her offer and pushed his tongue into her mouth, as well.

When their tongues met and began playing with each other - Terra's more than Beast Boy's - the boy's heart rate increased and his body was overcome with pleasure. He had never known that something so simple ever could have felt so good, and especially to share it with the person he knew he loved. If it were up to him, he would have stayed there with Terra for eternity, but eventually she pulled away and let Beast Boy come up for air.

"Terra...that was amazing," was all he could say, smiling from pointed ear to pointed ear. "I really missed you." His tone of voice implied Thank you and also a sense of wanting more than the moment they had just shared to let each other know how they felt.

Rouge picked up on his tone of voice - as an actress by nature, she had been trained to recognize inflection of every type - and gave a naughty grin. "It doesn't have to stop there, you know," she said, looking down at her own chest. Unfortunately for her plan, that seemed to have struck the wrong chord with Beast Boy.

"Yeah, it does," he said, raising an eyebrow. "Terra, what's gotten into you? We can't be doing that. We're teenagers!"

Her naughty grin turned absolutely evil at the mention of their age. "Actually, I'm not, Beast Boy." To his very, very confused look, she began slowly transforming back. First her hair changed colour from blonde back to black. "You know, it's true what they say," she said as her limbs filled out and her eyes grew narrower. "What's the use in physical damage," her face returned to its original form, her vocal chords loosened, and her accent returned, "when psychological scarring is so much more permanent?" The last thing to change was her clothing, finally returning to the blue fishnet ensemble and completing her change to her original form. "Don't you agree, Beast Boy?"

He was dumbstruck for the second time that day. Terra was not dead, but that...that woman was not Terra. He had just been manipulated into kissing someone masquerading as his best friend. And what was worse: He had gone along with it; he had bought every last action as authentic. He had actually thought it was Terra.

The last time something like that had happened, he had doubled over and tried to block it all out. This time, he knew that he had to do something. The happiness that was only recently inside him had completely changed to anger, to hatred - at this impostor, and at himself. It filled him completely, and when it reached the point of overflowing, he knew exactly what he had to do.

He climbed to his feet, adrenaline coursing through him, and hissed, "You...you /bitch/!" With a roar so loud the glass wall actually vibrated in its casing, he transformed into a creature more deadly than even he knew he was capable of being: A savage, now-bloodthirsty half-beast capable of standing on two feet, delivering powerful blows with both its hands and feet, and gnashing and tearing with its horrible fangs, all of which he intended to show the woman in blue personally.

He pounced.