Issue 6: "The Beast Within, Part Two"

Nightwing let out a pained moan and forced himself into a sitting position. Clouds of thick black smoke uncoiled around him, locking themselves around his throat and causing him to splutter wildly as he forced himself to his feet. There was an onyx flash and Raven was suddenly beside him, her torn and tattered cloak draping from one shoulder, the other side’s holding brooch shattered. A stream of blood was breaking through the mud that caked her cheeks.

“Raven? What the hell did he hit us with?” Nightwing demanded, his voice harsh. He pushed back a few stray hairs and pulled his hand back across his forehead, staining the glove with sweat.

Raven wearily pulled her hood up and over her head, casting a familiar shadow across her face “Some sort of energy blast. My powers seemed to be dimming. I can’t sense Donna…I can barely even sense you.”

“Oh, Teeny Titans!” a foreign voice interjected from afar. “Don’t tell me you’re all exhausted already?”

Nightwing winced as maniacal laughter filled the air, piercing his ears. Raven’s expression remained impassive as always. She glanced to Nightwing and brought a single finger to her lips in a silencing motion. Nightwing nodded in understanding and drew two small fighting staffs from the utility belt at his waist. He fell into a defensive stance and slipped back into the shadows. This was not good. They were trapped in an unknown terrain, facing several unknown metahumans, with one of their own missing and presumed incapacitated.

“King! I wanted to toy with them before we kill them!” a female voice hissed

A dejected King responded with a sullen “I didn’t hit ’em that hard.”

“Shut up! I think I’ve found them!” a dominant female tone stated. “They’re straight ahead…”

Raven cursed under her breath and her eyes narrowed in focus. Nightwing gestured with his hand and she was gone, teleporting across the battlefield and behind their advancing foes. A classic pincer strategy – perfect for situations like this. Nightwing remained completely silent and still, waiting for the message. He did not have to wait long.

Seven targets. One shadow-being. One energy manipulator projecting a field. Must be what hit us.

Understandably short, but that was all Nightwing needed to know. Inhaling deeply to calm himself inwardly, he launched himself outwards and into a somersault, landing in an elegant forward roll. He came up into a run and darted forward, his eyes roaming the seven absurdly-dressed villains before him. Then again, who am I to talk? he thought with a small smirk.

“Queeny, look! Batman-lite is coming at us alone!” the King yelped amusedly

The Queen let out a cold, hard chuckle. “Step back, King! Let everyone else have some fun!”

A female, Ace by her costume, turned. “There’s another one, behi - - argh!”

Nightwing was on her, one escrima stick pressed against her neck and his booted feet on Ace’s back. Nightwing pushed himself over, hooking the staff under Ace’s chin and propelling the metahuman forward…into a rocky wall. Ace slumped, motionless, to the ground.

“Hey!” the King protested in a dumbfounded tone. “He took Ace down!”

“Let’s face it,” a portly male spat, “it’s not that hard!”

Nightwing sprinted at them again. The King tossed a stream of energy out at him from his palm, but the Dark Squire slipped to the side and bounded ahead, tossing explosive disks with one hand and holstering his staff with the other. The shadow-being Raven had mentioned earlier cast out his hand, and darkness suddenly enveloped Nightwing. Nightwing paused, allowing the almost tangible shadows to grip him.

“Raven…” he called.

The shadows began to drain away, being drawn into…the torn navy blue shroud of a familiar teenager.

“Don’t worry, Nightwing,” Raven stated calmly. “Darkness is my thing.”

“Come on then, woman!” the shadow being, Five his designation, barked. His voice was harsh and unearthly. “Show me what you can do!”

“Gladly!” Raven hissed.

Donna Troy gently massaged her temples in a feeble effort to assail the throbbing ache that was assaulting her head. The heavy footfalls that seemed to be approaching at an alarming rate didn’t help a lot, either, but Donna knew that she had a job to do. Her lasso was no longer at her waist, having been blasted away when the King had assaulted them with an energy wave of some sort. She’d have to make do without it, for the moment.

“Hera knows where Dick and Raven are…” she mumbled under her breath. “Okay. Let’s get this over with.”

Donna stepped out from behind the rock cover, her hands balled into fists. The sinewy woman a few meters from her was, quite frankly, the ugliest woman Donna had ever seen. Tiny, beady eyes stared out from beneath an abnormally large brow. Her nose was twisted and blackened, no doubt from the countless brawls she had been involved in. Her mouth was twisted into a perpetual sneer.

“Hey, kid,” she greeted, her voice little more than a manly grunt. “You gonna surrender now, or am I gonna have to pick you apart the hard way?”

“Whoa. You’re really ugly,” Donna taunted. “Are you one of those girls who has issues ‘cause the other girls used to pull your pigtails in high school and call you a tomboy? I can’t imagine you having pigtails, actually…but the tomboy part fits.”

“You talk the talk, but can you walk the walk?”

Donna feigned a yawn and dashed forward. “What a cliché. You know, I usually - -”

The woman dodged Donna’s lunge with relative ease and dealt her a sharp jab to the ribs. There was a sharp rush of air as Donna stumbled back, winded.

“I’m Three,” her opponent hissed, effortlessly lifting Donna into the air. “How do you like me so far?”

“Let’s just say…” Donna began, her voice no more than a strangled rasp, “…that I understand why those girls pulled your pigtails.”

Donna kicked out viciously, her booted feet clipping Three’s jaw and sending her sprawling. Donna, released, launched herself backwards.

I’ve gotta find Dick before this wench mashes me into the rockface!

“Don’t think you’ve gotten away, girly!” Three retorted, taking pursuit. “I’m faster than I look!”

Starfire struggled to her feet as sounds of the battle reached her ear from the next chamber. The Gordanian pilot hit a switch. The screen before him lit up. Starfire’s eyes widened.

“He came to rescue me…”

Wally West tossed his jacket aside and plopped down on the sofa, reclining and shifting to make himself comfortable. His reddish-brown hair was messy and unkempt, distressed by the gusts outside, and he was forced to flick stray hairs back to their places “Barry!” he called. “Come turn on the TV!”

“Still lazy, huh?” Iris West entered the room, a wan smile spreading across her face. She set the tray she was carrying down on the coffee table and seated herself opposite to Wally.

Wally secured a mug of cocoa and clutched it in his hand. “I missed your cocoa,” he stated plainly.

Iris rose from her seat and ran her finger back through her nephew’s hair. “Wally…what are you doing back here? You seem…different.”

Wally’s expression became grave, and he turned his head away from her. “Nothing. I’m just taking a break, you know?”

Barry appeared in the doorway and pecked Iris on the cheek at his incredible, trademark speed. “Heatwaveiscausingtroubledowntowngottagoandtakecareofit!”

“Gotcha,” Iris responded, but all that was left was a stream of scarlet energy. She knelt beside Wally and gripped his arm reassuringly. “Wally? Please, talk to me. I hate seeing you without a smile.”

Wally exhaled slowly. “It’s just…the Titans. I don’t know why, really, but I feel like they’re falling apart. And that…that scares me, Aunt Iris. They’re my family. The only real friends I’ve got. If they go…”

Iris nodded in understanding. “I know what you mean, Wally. But you’ve got to understand that things change. You will change. They will change. Maybe one day, you won’t want to be a hero anymore.”

Wally snickered “Yeah. Sure.”

“I’m serious, Wally,” Iris shot back, a little irked. “I don’t want you in spandex all your life. Don’t spend all your life running when you don’t know where to go. Have a life outside of the Titans, outside of Kid Flash. Then, when that day comes, and it’s time for you to hang up the costume…it won’t hurt as much.”

Wally pondered her words.

Iris leaned over and laid a gentle kiss on his forehead. “Grow. Change. Live.”

She exited the room. Wally swung his legs over the side of the sofa and rose to his feet, darting into Barry’s bedroom. He pulled open the wardrobe and found a familiar uniform hanging inside. He reached for it…

Gar gulped as the Gordanian’s claw raked through the skin on his back, spraying a scarlet liquid across the crates. Trying his best to ignore the pain, he slipped to the side of another blow and shifted into the form of a tiger, leaping onto the armored alien. The Gordanian slammed his considerably large booted feet into Gar’s furred chest, and the tiger spun away. He slammed into the wall and fell with a pained whimper.

The Gordanian drew a pistol from his armor and locked it onto Gar’s head. “Thu m’ak tril yam’gree!”

Gar forced himself into an awkward sitting position. “Yadda, yadda, yadda…I wouldn’t quit the day job, you’re never gonna make it as a professional wrestler in that crap costume.”

Before the Gordanian could squeeze the trigger, Gar was in a rhino form. The Gordanian depressed said trigger, but the projectile released bounced harmlessly off Gar’s skin and dropped to the deck with a clang. The rhino snorted…and charged.

Wally admired his form in the mirror, a grin on his face. He was wearing the costume he had always dreamed of donning one day. The crimson-and-golden costume of the Flash. It seemed…perfect. It felt right. Iris was wrong, for once. He couldn’t give up being a hero. That was life. If he was to grow, to change, then that would be where he would do those things. One day, he would be the Flash. He promised himself that, at least.

And maybe, just maybe, that day was coming sooner than he thought

Epilogue

Raven was seated in Speedy’s apartment, her eyes locked onto the floor. Her mouth was turned down into a sneer, as if she was reliving a painful memory. And she was. She had told nobody how she had defeated the shadow being, and she didn’t plan to. She swallowed hard and pushed back the tears of shame.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured to herself.

From the next room, Raven rested her head against the wall. “Leave me alone…” she whispered. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

“I’m with you now, Raven. Trapped in your world,” the shadowy voice hissed. “I’m your ultimate punishment…”

“So what are you planning to do now?” Starfire asked gently. “You could return with me, and join the Titans.”

Gar bit his lip anxiously. “I’m not ready to be famous or anything. I think you were right, before. I think I am meant to be a hero. Replace my disgust with generosity. But I need to sort some personal issues out first.”

“I would still like to make you an honorary member,” Starfire said, and pressed a T-shaped communicator into his hand. She closed his fingers around it and took to the air. “Goodbye, Garfield, and thank you for your help.”

“You still owe me one,” Gar said jokingly, but his heart was not in the feeble attempt at humor. For his next task was going to be a lot more difficult “Mom, Dad…here I come.”