CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Beast Boy’s insides really ached as he finished his story, and he trying to hold in with all he had not to shed a tear or cry again. “That’s why I can’t stand changes. Every time life changed, it always affected me in the worst possible way.” He sighed softly, “And friendship could never really make it better… only worse.”
The others were positively heart-struck, and Cadance knew, with the aid of her magic, that Beast Boy’s heart was speaking the total truth.
Beast Boy continued to hold in his pain as much as he could, but it was Rainbow who burst out crying softly but hysterically.
“Oh, you poor, poor thing…” cried Fluttershy as she comforted Beast Boy. She began to cry softly. This made Rarity break into tears as well. “I can’t bear to see Fluttershy… cry!”
“It’s just… heart-wrenching!” sobbed Pinkie, and they walked over to huddle around Beast Boy, whom remained silent, still, and with a spiritless look on his face.
Applejack, she didn’t shed any tears, but she did feel awful for Beast Boy. “That’s like an apple with a mighty big worm inside it.” she said.
“I… I never thought someone could possibly have it so bad.” said Twilight “No wonder he doesn’t want to go back. It’s like he hasn’t really anything to go back to.”
“I can’t say I blame him.” said Spike “I don’t think even I’d want to go back if I were him.”
Beast Boy then asked to be excused, “I’d like to get some fresh air.”
“Okay, you go ahead.” said Twilight “And Beast Boy…”
He stopped to face her.
“…Don’t worry, if you don’t want to go back, even for a long time. You don’t have to.”
The others nodded. “You can trust us…” Cadance said.
As thankful as Beast Boy felt and wished he could show it more, he simply said “That’s what they all said.”
Then he was gone.
Shining Armor sighed, “I’ve never seen anyone so down in the dumps before. There’s got to be something we can do for him.”
None of the others had a clue, not even Twilight. She felt that it would take a lot more than just simple friendship to sort all this out. Even Cadance decided not to try using her love magic on him, feeling it was neither the right time nor the right thing to do-- forcing a guy to see the brighter side of things, especially through magic. It would make her hardly any different from the Titans.”
Speaking of the Titans, they were ready to beat themselves silly for being so hard on Beast Boy, now that they knew the full and complete story about him.
“It’s no wonder Beast Boy ran out on us.” said Robin. The others all felt so ashamed they could hardly speak. Beast Boy really did have it hard. While true, they all had their own hardships, the fact remained that they were able to overcome most of their obstacles and move on to better lives and better futures, while he was still struggling in the dark, and THEY were only making things worse with all their pressuring and bad attitudes.
Some people acting like He was undeserving of the Titans... but now it was clearly more like THEY were not deserving of him.
“So now you know.” said the first computer. “It looks like our job here is complete.”
“What?” snapped Cyborg “You can’t just go? How do we fix all this?”
“We only came to give you answers to why Beast Boy fled… and we’ve done that. This is your mess to clean up, not ours.” said another computer, “Besides, I’m not even so sure he would ever want to come back. Why should he?”
The Titans could find no argument to that.
“Well, good luck… and you’ll need every bit of it.” said the last computer. Then the spiritual forces faded away, and the computers were all normal again.
No one said a thing.
Jerome brought Terra back to the park. She had seen enough, and she never thought she would ever feel the same again. “Beast Boy…” she peeped.
Jerome placed his hand on her back, and she looked up at him. “Some people can get over and move on from their problems, but some people can’t, especially not when what you’re trying to get over keeps on happening to you, and worse… no one is being truly sympathetic or helpful.
…Kinda like you and your “Things Change” stuff. You sacrificed your moral principles for something material for yourself. You lost way more than what you gained.”
Terra couldn’t deny it, and didn’t even try to. The way her normal life was going wasn’t exactly what she had in mind-- doing bad in school, having arguments and fallouts with her new friends, and worst of all; always feeling intense guilt and remorse for Beast Boy. The pain only now felt insanely worse now that she had seen all the horrible things Beast Boy had been through and how she only made it really worse by brushing off… especially having regretted it deep down from the start.
“What am I going to do?” Terra asked “What can I do?”
“I can’t help you with that.” replied Jerome “I was just here to give you answers to why you think Beast Boy would have turned to crime.”
“What do you mean “I think” he turned to crime?”
Jerome sighed and shook his head. “Look, I gotta’ get goin’, but I can only tell you this much, and it’s the same lesson you just learned from everything I showed you:
…Things aren’t always as they seem.”
Everything slowly faded in a white flash…
…And Terra woke up, realizing she had been asleep the whole time. Though it was debatable if she had dreamed the whole thing; everything felt so real, including her feelings. She knew she was in love with Beast Boy, and that she had made a huge mistake.
It could not be just a mere dream, and fates way of showing her the answers she wanted…
…At least those answers.
“No!” she grumbled to herself as she got up and marched straight over to a garbage can “I’m not going to do this anymore!”
She then pulled off her entire school uniform and tossed those clothes into the trash. Mysterious still fully dressed… in her old super hero outfit-- Black shirt with a T. Yellow shorts, brown running boots, and she pulled her big gloves over her hands and fit her goggles across her forehead.
She then heard two somebodies gasp behind her; it was the Js. They saw her throw out her uniform and gawked at what she was wearing.
At first she felt a little embarrassed, but then she regathered her courage and levitated herself on a flying boulder, which surprised her former friends even more. “Tell the teachers I won’t be in school on Monday.” she called down to them, and then she flew off.
The Js were so shocked, that they fainted right over backwards.
As for Terra, her first plan, to start rectifying her own errors, was to find Beast Boy and hopefully try to talk to him about all these robberies and maybe work things out.
She didn’t feel she was ready to return to Titan’s Tower… not just yet. She only wanted to take it one step at a time. “I’ll search every inch of the city if I have to.” she said to herself.
Meanwhile, the Titans were still so distraught from their visions. “What should we do?” Starfire asked.
“Well, we could go try to find him and apologize.” suggested Cyborg.
“We can’t…” said Robin “At least not right now. We have a thief to track down. Look, I know how you all feel right now, but we can’t simply ignore the city’s troubles.”
“Besides, we don’t even know where to start looking.” added Raven “And we don’t know if he’ll even want to talk to us, let alone give us another chance.”
“…But I will.” said a familiar voice.
The Titans all turned and saw Beast Boy standing at the doorway-- unbeknownst it was actually Changeling making his move to infiltrate the tower.
“Beast Boy…?” said Robin.
“Friend, you have returned!” added Starfire
Changeling acted slyly and made himself seem a bit shy and awkward. “I couldn’t help but overhear everything. I’m glad you finally understand, and… well… I’ve done a lot of thinking. Maybe I haven’t exactly been enlightening either.”
“Totally…” Raven said, but she said it to herself not wanting to ruin what looked like would be a great reunion.
“So… maybe… we can all try again?” Changeling asked.
The others smiled warmly and proudly, “Aw, come here you!” Cyborg said, giving his little pal a big guy hug. Starfire then proceeded to nearly crush him in her own hugs. Robin bopped fists with him, and then it was down to Raven…
“Um… well… I… oh, what the heck!” and she hugged him warmly, like that time she did before when he helped her. “Welcome back.” that was all she said.
Changeling hugged her back softly while sinisterly thinking “Ooh, this feels wonderful, and soon things will get even deeper between you and me, my sweet.”