FicWad

He pounced right on top of Madame Rouge and bared his deadly claws and more-than-formidable fangs, making sure she had a good look at what he could offer her if she just cooperated with him. With her pinned under him, he just remained there for what seemed like hours, seething and panting with rage, hot saliva dribbling from his jaws down to his soon-to-be victim's skin and clothing. When it looked like he would not strike; when it looked almost safe for Madame Rouge...that was when he slammed down one powerful arm, claws extended, into the ground, where Rouge's head would have been had she not moved her head in the nick of time. His claws instead dug into the stone floor of his cell and became stuck there. With an absolutely furious snarl, he swiped his other claw across what he had hoped would have been Rouge's face, but she had been able to work her way free somewhat and he instead slashed her chest region deeply, letting blood stain her blue clothing purple.

In a panicked and desperate state, Madame Rouge screamed through the glass, "Houngan! Use ze doll!" The confusion of that statement made Beast Boy stop for a few precious seconds and allowed her to escape his grip. When he saw that she had, though, he sprung to his feet and rushed towards her with such force that her bleeding body pounded against the glass wall and left marks. He retracted his claws on one of his hands and clenched it into a fist, pulled back his arm...

And convulsed in pain. It felt as though someone were jabbing him too sharply with barbed swords in his arms, his legs, his face, and every pressure point on his body. He pulled his body back and let Madame Rouge slump to the floor, then barely noticed her scrabble out for the pain searing his body, almost rending him in two. And it only grew worse and more unbearable as it went on. He arched his back and howled at the ceiling in a plea to make it all end, but that drew no mercy from whatever was causing it. What had once felt like swords now could have been flaming bars of iron, almost burning him to the bone. His howl grew louder and louder, and the plea grew more and more obvious, but still no help came; no sweet release was given. Every part of his body screamed and burned, and no relief ever came.

The only time the pain actually stopped was when he passed out, face-down on the cold stone and unwillingly a human again. His body still twitched occasionally, remainders of the ordeal he had just gone through, though he eventually fell completely still, breathing jaggedly but very much unconscious. It was then that Houngan, Plasmus, Monsieur Mallah, and Phobia came out of where they had been hiding to tend to Madame Rouge.

"If we get her to the medical ward," the large gorilla said, "then Houngan should be able to heal her, correct?"

"Yes, Mallah, I can," came a reply from the man holding a miniature Beast Boy doll and wearing a crown of feathers on his head. "But we'll have to do it quickly; she can't hold on much longer."

"She is losing a lot of blood," Phobia noted even though it was quite obvious from the very large purple stains on the chest of her uniform. "Plasmus, can you stay here and make sure the little boy doesn't try anything?"

"Ja/! I do it /mit pleasure, Phobia!" the humanoid blob of goo said in an all-too-thick German accent that nearly rendered his speech unintelligible.

Madame Rouge, barely supporting herself with one hand pressed against the wall, coughed with her free hand before saying, "We do not mean 'arm 'im, Plasmus. Just watch 'im until we get back." The man nodded in acknowledgement. "Brotherhood, zis is clearly a more dangerous situation than we thought." She disregarded an accusatory stare from Phobia, but could not block out her telepathic message, reminding Rouge that it was her idea in the first place to go after Beast Boy. "Houngan, heal me. Then we will discuss what to do next."

-HG-

"You say he's a bigger threat than we thought," Phobia said to Madame Rouge at her bedside, "but how? He is nothing we can't handle ourselves, together."

Rouge's chest was now no longer bleeding, but her clothing was still slashed from her fight. Lying prone on the bed, the tears in her blue almost-bustier opened and closed every time her chest rose and fell; Houngan looked her in the face as he talked to her, trying his best not to focus on her exposed flesh. "That's the problem: he literally can be a bigger threat. If he wanted to, he could crush us under himself."

"But you can use ze doll to stop him from doing that beforehand, no?" Rouge asked, very aware and slightly disappointed that he was trying not to look at where her clothing had been shredded.

"No, Madame, I can't," Houngan confessed, and he saw her face twist into shock and surprise. "The sample will only work with him. If he transforms into a full animal, his DNA changes. I would need a sample from every one of his forms to have the doll work perfectly against him." The gorilla standing to his left, looking ready to contradict him, raised a finger, but Houngan ignored him and continued. "The only reason I was able to use the doll to save you was because he was still half-human and his DNA was still there." Monsieur Mallah looked satisfied with that explanation and lowered his protesting finger.

"So what do you propose we do, then, Madame?" Phobia asked her leader.

"I don't know. We could try to keep 'im a human as much as possible, but how well zat will work, I do not know," Rouge said. "As Houngan said, he could crush us if he wanted to; holding 'im down or anything like zat will not work for very long." She sighed and her chest heaved sharply. "Phobia, you have already done all you can," and with a nod towards Monsieur Mallah and Houngan, she added, "you two have, as well. It is my fault; I thought I could defeat 'im easily, but we have used everything we have."

"What if we pretend that we're no longer a threat?" Phobia suggested, but Rouge shook her head as if to say /I already tried zat/, and a frown fell over the face of the woman in green.

"Wait," Mallah said suddenly. "Does he know what you can do, Phobia? Does he know it was you who showed him this...'Terra' person being crushed?"

"Not to my knowledge, Mallah, but we can't use Terra against him any more. He's wise to it."

"Listen, though. We do not have to limit it to Terra. Surely he must have developed his own relationships with the other Teen Titans when he spent time with them." Monsieur Mallah left his idea incomplete, hoping that the others would pick up on it. Madame Rouge nodded as best she could after a few seconds of considering it, and Houngan and Phobia caught on soon after.

"It will be difficult for me to maintain it for that long, you know," Phobia reminded the gorilla.

"With luck, you will not have to hold it for that long. With luck, his own insecurities will get rid of him for us."

-HG-

"What do you /mean/, they only just noticed a jailbreak?"

On the other side of the country in a large T-shaped tower, the Boy Wonder was fuming over what he had just discovered on Good Morning Jump City, the local morning news program.

"They mean they only just noticed a jailbreak," Raven responded to him, very miffed that he was being so loud this early in the morning, and sipped her morning herbal tea.

"Not like it's new, man," Cyborg reminded as he pulled two waffles out of the toaster for Terra, who had not shown up yet but would soon enough, with Robin's yelling. "The police here aren't the best, if you haven't noticed. That's why we're here!"

"I thought we were here because this is where we live?" Starfire asked, misinterpreting Cyborg not for the first time.

"Uh, nevermind, Star."

The door slid open and Terra walked in, stretching one arm and rubbing an eye sleepily with the other. "Hey, guys." Stretching her other arm out, she yawned. "What's with all the noise?" She walked further into the room and graciously accepted a plate of waffles from Cyborg while she waited for her answer.

"The police just noticed today that two people broke out of Jump City Penitentiary /four days ago/," Robin lamented while walking over to the kitchen looking for a blend of tea that Raven had introduced him to recently. It was something to calm the nerves, she had said, and he needed the calm right now. No use starting the day angry and tense over the stupidity of the city's paid officials.

"Yeah, and?" Terra said through bites of waffles. "Not like it's new."

"Been there, Terra," Cyborg said to her in a low voice.

She swallowed heavily and started work on her second waffle. "Anyone know who they were?" She of course knew who one of them was; she kept his note with her at all times, hoping that he would come back soon.

"They haven't announced names yet, and it'd surprise me if they did. They don't want the citizens in an uproar or anything." His search having failed him, Robin settled for a cup of orange juice and walked out of the kitchen to get a better view of the television.

"Yeah, because the Teen Titans can't handle it," Raven shot back with trademark sarcasm, only a little happier that Robin had at least stopped yelling. "We put everyone who could have broken out in there in the first place."

Robin stopped paying attention to Raven and failed to catch her cutting remark, though, when the anchorman for Good Morning Jump City appeared on the screen again with the graphic of the corresponding story to his left. His dull voice gradually filled the room as Robin turned up the volume, eager not to miss any of the story.

"Good morning, I'm Walter Barbras, and this is Good Morning Jump City. We have for you breaking news on the jailbreak story: Two captives escaped four days ago from Jump City Penitentiary and are presumed still at large. The first is confirmed as a student of the prestigious training school the H.I.V.E. and is known only as Jinx." At that a picture of the pink-haired sorceress replaced the story graphic to the anchor's left. "She is known to have advanced psychokinetic powers and the ability to hex anything she comes across. She is confirmed to still be within Jump City's limits, so if any citizens see her, do not hesitate to call the Teen Titans.

"The second fugitive is already confirmed as having left the city, as there have been no reports of his appearance, and trust me, folks, you would notice him." The anchor laughed in a very obviously fake manner as the second fugitive's picture appeared to his left. "He is Steel City native and former Teen Titan, Beast Boy, real name Garfield Logan."

The anchor droned on, but Robin paid him no further attention, muting the television so he could be heard. "Beast Boy's escaped!" he shouted, but from the shocked looks on Cyborg's, Raven's, and Starfire's faces, he judged that they had heard. The only person who looked out of place was Terra, who had not stopped eating her breakfast when the announcement was made and now was being singled out. "Do you know anything about this, Terra?" Robin asked in a tone that was not intentionally accusatory.

"Me? No," she said after swallowing the last bit of waffle. "What, do you think I went there in the middle of the night and freed him myself?" Robin said nothing, but it was clear that that was one of his suspicions. "You're crazy! Come on," she protested. "I liked him, yeah, but that doesn't mean I got him out. I was sleeping when that happened." The Boy Wonder still did not look satisfied. "Oh, wow. You seriously think I did this. What's the matter, Robin? Don't you trust me?"

Robin opened his mouth to say something, but Cyborg cut him off. "Relax, Robin. If Terra says she didn't do it, then I fully believe her. Besides, she's been with us from the start. She knows not to let personal lives interfere with work," and with the last sentence his voice suggested very strongly Robin's relationship with Starfire; fortunately, the alien girl was oblivious to it.

"Terra would not do that, Robin. You know that," Starfire added as if Cyborg's argument were not enough. Robin stewed in place at the mention of how he felt for Starfire, and eventually just let the matter drop.

"Regardless," Robin started again once he had a greater control of his emotional range, "they both broke out and they need to be put back into jail. Jinx should be easy enough to find, but it's Beast Boy I worry about. If he's not in Jump City, then where could he be?"

Terra shrugged, picked up her plate, and stood up to bring it over to the sink. When she stood up, though, a pocket of her shorts got caught on the corner of the counter and a carefully-folded piece of white paper fell out. She did not notice at first, but Robin did, and he walked over, picked it up, and unfolded it.

"Terra," Robin asked, "when did you get this?" He indicated the note that had fallen out of her pocket, which was the very same one that Beast Boy had left for her four days prior. She looked at what he was holding, slapped a hand on her pocket, and when she felt nothing there, sighed in defeat.

"Four days ago. It fell from my curtains when I woke up and pulled them. Now give it back, Robin," she ordered more than asked and plucked it from his hands.

"Beast Boy contacted you before he left."

"Robin!" Now Terra was more than a little miffed. "He said goodbye to me! That's all!"

"'Goodbye'? And where did he go after that?"

"I don't know! I was asleep!"

"The anchor said," Cyborg jumped in, "that he was a Steel City native. Not to mention that he said it a couple times himself. He's probably there."

"He made it across the country in four days?"

"He can turn into any animal, Robin," Terra reminded him. "Not that hard, I'd think. So are we going there to 'hunt him down' now?" She hated to use that phrase against Beast Boy, so she did put it in air quotes as she said it. Beast Boy could be any animal, but he was no animal himself. He never deserved to be caged, and she preferred that he was running free.

"Looks that way. Titans," Robin decided, "get to the T-Ship. We're heading to Steel City."