Chapter 9 hath cometh forth. And all ye who hath forsaken its glory shall be torn asunder. All ye whom hath sullied its glorious title shall be thrown into the muck of the streets and your bodies befouled with hog urine. And then your soiled corpses shall recieveth a sturdy raping from a massive Sasquatch penis. Oh, and review.

WARNING: If bold and italics piss you off, suck it. You'll see.

WARNING: My awesomeness may cause temporary blindness, contraction of all known STDs, loss of fingers, disintegrating of toes, bleeding through the navel and ears and eventually death. But have no fear Danny's miracle pill can help…somewhat.

-ToR

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Chapter 9: People As Places As People

A soft wind picked on the edge of unreality, just beyond the borders of impenetrable darkness, and wound its way over the barren, rocky, mountainous landscape. The wind picked up speed, whipping up the dirt and tossing dust across the ground. It hissed through the close rocks creating a high pitched whistling sound. It ruffled wild fur and picked up the scent of a beast, carrying the feral, wild scent through the air, across the crumbling landscape, and toward a duo sitting among the failing consciousness.

A green nose twitched as the wind reached the pair, and an embarrassing stare was broken as he turned his nose up to get a better sniff. His eyes widened in surprise, and Gar jumped to his feet. "C'mon," he said extending his arm toward the sitting Raven, "we've got to get going, it's coming."

Raven looked up at him confused, "What's comin-…Oh"

"Yeah. Now let's go."

She reached out and he gripped her small hands in his, pulling her to her feet, and they both set off toward the vicious looking peaks. Raven spoke up after a few minutes of walking, "Where is it coming from?"

Gar tipped his head, took a sniff, and nodded his head forward saying, "This way."

"And we're heading right toward it?"

Her only answer was an affirming nod.

"Why?"

"Well, I figure I have to defeat it eventually, and there's no sense in putting it off."

Raven shrugged her shoulders, "Oh."

A strange silence settled over the two once again as they continued the hard paced walk toward the foreboding mountains and the impending battle. The Gar in the back of Raven's head was sending out waves of emotion, and Raven had to make sure that the emotions didn't run over and overwhelm her. Finally she managed to blanket the small presence with energy, blocking much of the emotional energy surging from the green changeling.

Gar stopped walking as soon as she put the cover in place. He turned, asking, "Raven, did you just?..." He trailed off and let the question die, shaking his head and continuing on his way to the mountains. The scent of the Beast was growing stronger in leaps and bounds as the two parties moved toward each other. And finally, it was as if Gar could feel the creature in his mind, coming toward him, bounding across the vast, barren landscape toward him and Raven. He bared his teeth, and a low growl rumbled through his chest. The warmth of his hand fell away from Raven's, and the claws on his hands extended to their full length.

His pace quickened, and suddenly he was using all fours. Gar seemed to be becoming the Beast, but yet, he was still Gar. He still looked like Gar, but he was bigger, more animalistic in action and features. His nose and face seemed just a little bit longer, more like a snout. Once versatile hands now were more padded paws, and fur on the back of his neck rose as his growl deepened. And then, a green form came rocketing over a boulder about a hundred yards away. Gar began running on all fours toward the Beast, and the Beast met his speed. Raven watched as the seemingly insane game of chicken climbed to its climax.

Gar and the Beast leapt into the air and clashed, stopping in mid-air and falling to the hard, unforgiving ground below. They were a mass of slashing claws, gnashing teeth, and flying fur. Blood splattered on the rocky ground around the two beasts, and the melee intensified.

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Urges is the only way to describe it. He felt urges, and desires. And now as he clashed bloodily with his beastly counterpart, he could feel only the urge to kill, and the desire to protect. This Thing was him, but he was him too. And as the fight intensified he felt more it than he ever had. Like it was him and he was it, an interchangeable persona. The only reason he knew it was him and not this monster fueling the battle was the small awareness that glowed in the back of his mind, the one he couldn't seem to get enough of.

And then the Other came at him, snapping him from his reverie and forcing him back on to the field of battle. Slashing, biting, scratching, kicking, and then it stopped. His claws found a way through the onslaught of attacks and gouged through the Other's stomach. His claws came away and surprisingly they weren't caked in blood, but rather a drifting smoky essence was trailing off his claws. And far off as the essence dissolved, a mountain stopped crumbling, and a hole of nothing in the sky became the grisly gray of the surrounding atmosphere.

Garfield noticed nothing of the occurrence, being completely preoccupied with currently dissipating essence. That is, until he was thrown backward by a ferocious kick from the Other. Bouncing along the hard rocky ground he finally rolled to stop, coming to rest against a jagged rock that jutted from the earth.

He opened his eyes and found it hard to focus. His vision wavered, and his surroundings seemed to be almost swaying. Off to the side, a dark figure moved toward him, calling out something, maybe it was his name. Gar tried to motion for whoever it was to stop, but found his arm unable to move. He tried to cry out to them, signal the impending danger, but all that escaped his long muzzle was a low mew.

And then, a green blur smashed into the figure, carrying it away and pinning it to the ground with bone crushing force. Urges were all that he could feel. Urges, emotions, desires. Move. Rage. Kill.

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"What in the hell are you talking about?" the boy wonder practically screamed at the two sharply dressed men in his front hall who were waving their pretty little badges in his face and talking of apprehending Garfield for the protection of mankind and the further of scientific knowledge.

"Sir, we are here for the apprehension of Mr. Garfield Logan. His mental stability and the stability of his mutant genes have been brought into question."

The men tried to enter further into the massive "T", but once again were barred by the extended arm of Nightwing. "Look I don't really care who the hell you are, or what the hell you're thinking, but there's no way you're getting inside."

The lead man sighed and rubbed his eyes under the dark sunglasses that covered them. He looked up and spoke, "I didn't want it to come to this, but…" His hand darted and grabbed Nightwing by the wrist, whipping him into the wall, and leaving nice hole. "The Titans aren't the only metahumans you know."

The two stepped forward approaching the thick doors leading to the elevator and staircase. The first man stepped forward and pressed his hand to the pad, but all that happened was the red letters "ACCESS DENIED" flashing on the pad. His partner stepped forward, and as he came closer to the door, he shifted into a blue silver, almost liquid-like substance. He melted through the small cracks in the door easily. "We're in," he said from the other side as the doors hissed open.

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Paws pounded across the rocky surface of the landscape around him, kicking dust up into the dead air. There they were, the green, and his violet. Rage. A mighty roar tore from his throat, rending the deathly silence. Move. He leapt into the air, sailing at the Other. Kill. Serrated claws extended from his paws, seeking the warm blood of his opponent, wishing to tear apart his very essence. He collided with the Other carrying it away from herand tearing into its side. He felt the blood on his paws, could smell the stinging metal scent, but it wasn't there. Instead it was replaced with the drifting smoky essence passing him in the air, as if in slow motion.

A crevasse began to stop widening, magma stopped its constant flowing and the sky became one piece closer to being whole. And then, they hit the ground, and everything snapped back to normality. They were a rolling ball of fury and claws. The Other's claws were buried in his chest, and his jaw closed around the arm, snapping through bone and tearing the flesh, he passed through the appendage.

The Other reared away, growling as it tucked the torn appendage away. Essence was drifting off of each of them from countless injuries. The realm around them was changing so rapidly that it was hard to follow. A patch of grass and a flower sprouting only to be swallowed in a sporadic gout of flame. Volcanoes sealing up, only to have a patch of tress, just sprouting their blossoms rent apart by a showering of lightning.

Chaos reigned on Gar's mind as they fought and bled essence. But slowly, ever slowly the chaos was starting to lessen. Volcanoes were spewing magma again, the sky began once again to disintegrate, and the ground was once again being split like a puzzle. Gar found himself weak and hard of breathing. Blood pounded in his ears, and his breaths came heavy and rasping. The Other stood before him, the green blurry and the landscape spinning. And finally he fell.

He felt dull, the pain was going away. But, so was the presence. It was not his fading reality; the presence was becoming fuzzier, harder to reach out to, to touch. It was bleeding life, and it was fading from the back of his head. Gar's head lolled to one side and he saw her laying there motionless, a purple-blue mist drifting away from her body steadily. And suddenly he was alive again. She wouldn't die, and neither would he.

But still, he lay motionless. Weakly, he turned his muzzle upward to see the green hulking form, towering over him. Able to kill, but unmoving. He looked the Other straight in the face. Shock filled him. The eyes were the same. The face, the body, it was mirror. He looked straight at himself, and hated it.

Rage filled the Others face and he lashed out throwing Gar across the ground. Anger filled him and the Other charged raising his claws, but then, once again he saw the eyes- the ones that were the same. The face behind them, the emotion, the sadness. He hated himself for letting this all happen, to Raven, to his team, he would never forgive himself. He looked at the Other deeply as it towered over him, and stood. Looking straight into deep emerald pits of rage. A pool of peace. An ocean of sadness. His eyes, his emotions, him. He looked at the Other and he took a step forward thinking, Crash into me…………

A flash of green, a flash of red, an explosion of nothing encompassing everything. He was in the Other and on him and around him. He was in himself he was his paws, hands, mouth, eyes. He could see him, himself and everything. He watched each other as he merged with himself. Muzzles…faces, paws…hands, claws…fingers, he was himself. Images that were him and at the same not him flashed through his head.

The grass, rock was soft, hard and cold, warm as he fell to his knees. The scents, dust filled his nostrils, mouth causing a smile, cough. Carefully, suddenly he lifted his head, and looked, stared off to his right, left and he saw her. Slowly, quickly he rose to his feet and walked toward her. The grass, dirt fell under, kicked up from his steps and he kept moving. She was still on the ground before, and he knelt, crouched down beside her. He looked up to see a mirror image of himself on the other side. The eyes had the same intensity, calm the pupils however, and were mere slits, orbs animalistic, human in appearance. He looked at himself with a calm, intense gaze, stare.

And he, they both reached toward her willing his essence to her. As her essence bled out, his own fell down his arm, spilling on to her still form and seeping into her wounds, sealing them. The emerald, forest green trailed across her body, and her wounds were healed. Eyes…closed softly, snapped open.

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The halls and rooms were quiet and eerily empty as two agents stepped through them. Their hard soled shoes made no noise on the carpeted floors, and they slid along the walls looking for Gar Logan. The slightest sound and they stopped, standing stock still in the shadows. A large metal man strode around the corner, presumably Codename: Cyborg. The second rushed forward, his arm melting into the liquid substance again, but retaining the shape of a fist.

Cyborg turned to see a man rushing at him, a metallic fist pulled back. Instinct would have kicked in if he had had time to react, but sadly, the metal fist smashed into him and through his central chest compartment tearing at some of his motor function controls. The half-robot fell to the ground, arms twitching and legs locked in the air. "Aw fuck you! What the hell do you want?!"

Without a word, the man stepped over him, his arm melting back into a normal shade, including the suit. Behind them, a Tamaranean floated by the hall to see her friend on the ground and two men standing over him. Letting out a yell of anger she charged at them in flight, starbolts at the ready on her hands. One disc of green flew from her hand but a man made of metal stopped its advance as the other stepped around him to catch the oncoming alien in the face with a fist, sending her flying back down the hall and through a wall at the other end.

The metal man, melted back into a normal human guise and turned to his partner, "This is taking too long."

The other flexed his fingers and cracked his knuckles, nodding as he spoke, "Indeed." He pulled his fist back and smashed it into the wall, sending shockwaves down its length and causing it to erupt into the hallway, leaving a long path of destruction with open rooms on either side. Not seeing their intended target the two moved on, no longer being careful.

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Amethyst eyes snapped open, but quickly closed at the piercing light. Wondering how in the hell she was still alive Raven forced bleary, blurry eyes open, and looked to see herself half on grass, and where it abruptly ended the hard roughness of rocky earth. Her eyes were watery, and for a second she was seeing double. Garfield was on both sides of her, but as she blinked she felt a weight across her stomach and found him, instead of lying beside her, over her. Garfield. That was it. He had done something, saved her somehow. The Beast…was gone, and something was different.

Something, was much different. To say the least.

The earth was whole; a few yards to her right a patch of trees sprouted from the wet dewy grass, and to her left massive spires of rock erupted from the earth in beautiful swirling patterns, clawing at the now calm blue sky.

She raised herself into a sitting position, rolling Garfield so that he was lying across her lap, staring through closed eyes up at the sky. She leaned down next to him, placing her cheek over her mouth, and felt the soft breeze of his breath tickling her ear. Sighing with relief, she eased out from under the much larger man, and lay him down so that he was on the grass. Instantly he became blurry and seemed to be shaking back and forth over the ground, almost as if he was trying to be in two places at once. For a split second there was another Garfield a foot away on the hard earth, identical to the one on the grass, and then they snapped together, right on the middle of the line separating grass from rock.

Surprised, Raven reached out to the presence that gleamed softly in the back of her head. She took the mental shield off and felt the calm stream of emotions coming off of it, probably caused by the sleep. Raven stretched herself further and delved into the surface of his consciousness. She waded through surface emotions and thoughts. They were empty. Gar's unconsciousness was causing a mind blank. But here just as in its physical representation, something was different. He seemed at peace, whole. He was more himself than she had ever felt.

Delving deeper she strived to get him out of the trance he was entrapped in. She dug through layer after layer of thought, shocked at the depth of his psyche. If he was really this deep why was he always so shallow? And then she rammed into something. Brought out of her meditative state, she saw a purple bolt smash into the ground nearby, shocking the young changeling out of his sleep.

"Wuh!...Huh? Who?...wow…Oh, hey Rae." Startled by the assault of broken sentences, Raven could only give a small wave. Realizing that he was laying with his head in her lap, he sat up quickly. "Heh…sorry 'bout that Rae."

"Don't worry about it, but try not to be so awkward next time you're unconscious," Gar looked at her confusedly for a second before understanding and giving her a small smile.

"You got it Rae." Silence followed Garfield's comment stealing upon the two and shutting their mouths like iron traps. Both scrabbled internally for something to say about the events before the attack by the Beast. Gar took a deep breath and began to speak, but Raven beat him to it.

"Thank you."

Gar looked at her questioningly, "For what?"

"Everything…for saving my life, looking out for me, always being there…never giving up."

"Rae, it's nothing, friends look out for each other. Anyone of the team would have do-."

Raven shook her head and interrupted him, "No, no they wouldn't, not like you."

"That's just the way I am Rae, I…I just needed to get to know you, crack open that shell. Jokes and making a fool of myself didn't look like it was working, but I guess I was wrong."

"But, that's not the way you are, you're…so much more."

Gar pulled closer to the cloak-clad empath, "Rae, I…usually don't show it all, but I don't not show nothing. Laughter always seemed to help the hurt so, I did it more. The jokes are as much a mask as you being emotionless. Both aren't real."

Raven looked down, her face flushed red with embarrassment, "So…that memory, the one we both saw, and felt, was that, the surface you or the real you?"

She felt a strong rough hand cup her chin and turn her face upward into deep emerald pools, "Both."

Raven felt his lips cover hers, and she gave in to the fluttering feeling in her stomach, leaning into the kiss. After a few seconds his lips left hers, and she felt his hand encompass her own, "What do you say we get outta here?"

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Well, end o' chapter 9. I'm thinking just about two more and will be a done with this here story.

Big thanks to my new and improved and currently existent beta, the most supreme StreetPoetJehooooooosaphet! And in the other corner God. The STP pulls out la boom-stick and blows God's head off. MATCH OVER!

P.S. Hopefully that didn't offend you.

P.P.S. If that did offend you why don't you stop listening to me rant and get back to being ass raped by man's fear of the unknown.

BETA'D BY STP

P.P.S. If anyone was too confused in the chapter to understand what in the hell was going on just say so in the review and I'll fill you in as best I can. But just so you know, I'll think less of you.