Chapter 41

It didn’t take much time to get picked up, and have Beast Boy checked in to an actual hospital. Which wasn’t really even necessary, as they released him pretty quickly. Seems the tree sap did the trick on him.

Despite the hospital staff not really needing to do much, they still decided to charge us through the nose for their services. At first, I had thought they had been joking, before realizing how much of a racket this place was. So, I decided to pass the bill onto the Justice League. As well as look into purchasing some of these private hospitals as well…

What? Just because it would barely affect my wallet, I should pay for Beast Boy’s bills? Fuck that. Besides, he already owed me a great deal. Not to mention he STILL owes me twelve bucks. If he couldn’t pay me back that much for months, there’s no way I’d see even a penny back for his seventeen grand bill.

Fortunately, Beast Boy was the only one really wounded in that encounter. Robin and Raven came out of it with only a few bruises. Apparently, they had ‘met’ the guy, who called himself Deathstroke. A name I remember being brought up earlier by Robin.

I say they met the guy, but apparently it had been some sort of robot version of the guy. That self-detonated upon being demasked.

Well…he had style, if nothing else.

The rest of the Titans had handled the Man-Bats pretty easily. Especially after they had funneled into the house, as that made them easy to group together and take out in one hit. It was also nice to note that there hadn’t been any Man-Bat appearances for a few days.

It was an overwhelmingly victory on our part.

Or at least, that’s how I saw it. Robin on the other hand felt the exact opposite. That this had all been a complete bust. A failure. Which lead to him angrily brooding in his room as he attempted to locate Deathstroke on his own.

He had been interested in the girl we had run into, so he asked Beast Boy to tell him the story. A story that was…greatly embellished and constantly changing. Causing Robin to lose interest.

Beast Boy however wanted to tell it to whoever was listening. Going so far as to explain it as the two of us valiantly fighting her together for over an hour before she got the upper hand on us. Or rather, she got the upper hand on me. To which Beast Boy decided to throw himself into the attack in order to save my life.

Personally, I found it quite amusing. Especially whenever the other Titans would ask questions only for Beast Boy to change the narrative in order to fit better for them.

If he had been doing it out of malice or with intent to downplay my contribution it would be one thing. But I knew Beast Boy well. He wasn’t the type to think like that. No, he was only trying to build himself up for all the other Titans. Because he was the youngest member, and likely thought that he had something to prove.

Besides, it didn’t really matter. I didn’t take any sort of pride in fighting, nor in any sort of heroic justice. The only thing that really mattered was that I had helped Beast Boy, and that he felt further indebted towards me. What more could I really ask for?

“And then she desiccated me!”

Beast Boy stated dramatically. Putting both hands over his wound as his stuck out his tongue and fell back into the couch. Cyborg laughed, Starfire gasped in shock, and Raven simply quirked an eyebrow.

“…You mean dissected.”

Beast Boy’s impression of playing dead was ruined by Raven’s words. As he pushed his upper body up to stare at her. Waving his hand back and forth.

“Dissected, desecrated, what’s the difference?”

Raven gave him a look that was one half pitiable and the other half annoyed. But in that special almost emotionless way that only Raven could pull off. Cyborg continued to laugh as if Beast Boy was performing stand up comedy. Wiping a tear from his eye.

“You tell her BB!”

Beast Boy looked back at him before reenacting the ‘scene’ again.

“Anyway…then she dis…dessa…she ravaged my insides!”

This time Cyborg’s laughter echoed across the room loudly. His hand coming down hard on the couch seat next to him. Even I unexpectedly choked up on my soda at Beast Boy’s words. Raven simply gave Cyborg a flat stare as Starfire and Beast Boy looked around the room in confusion.

“What? What’s so funny?”

Beast Boy asked, only for Cyborg to shake his head in lieu of a response. He looked over to me, but I made sure to not seem like I noticed it. That was not something I wanted to talk to Beast Boy about.

“Wow! That’s…That’s a good one. We’re totally calling her that now.”

“What? The Ravager?”

I asked, only for Cyborg to crack a smirk and look to be close to busting out laughing once again. After a few seconds of collecting himself, he instead nodded.

“Yeah. Why not?”

I shrugged. It was a lame name, but then again who the hell was going to give cool names to the enemies? Besides, the news was likely to give them a better and catchier name.

After the thirteenth iteration of Beast Boy’s story, I decided to head to bed. We had practice tomorrow, and Beast Boy’s story was starting to get a bit old.

*~o~*

Black Canary PoV

Was it weird to put on make up before meeting the Titans? Or to put on makeup before working up a sweat and training them how to fight? I didn’t think so. That’s just how I was. I wanted to kick ass, and look good while doing so.

Even if the only ones around would be teens.

Teaching them felt pretty great. Seeing them develop their own fighting style, or just getting better and adopting my own. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was that I was having an effect on them. Nurturing their talents and pushing them to another level.

I wonder…if this is what my dad felt like when he trained me and other kids in his dojo?

That being said, I definitely wasn’t on some mom craze. This was a lot different than wanting kids, something that I was WAY too young for. I was still in the prime of my life, thank you very much.

If I became a mom, I’d probably have to give up crimefighting altogether. While staying in a nice big mansion with servants sounded nice, it also sounded really boring.

And what was life without some excitement?

Beast Boy was the only Titan not part of the exercise. Having to take it easy due to his recent injury in the line of duty. Poor thing. It was also a bit disappointing as I had gotten very interested in watching him develop his own animal transforming fighting style.

While it was normally amusingly bad, it also had a lot of actual merit to it.

Some of the other Titans didn’t take after any of my moves at all. Instead, either trying to pave their own way, or further honing their own understanding of what they were already taught. Such as Aqualad and Robin.

I couldn’t really blame either of them in that case. I knew for a fact that Batman’s techniques were in a league of their own, and Aqualad’s came from military training in Atlantis. They did things differently down there, he just needed to adapt those moves to the surface.

And then there were the ones who had trouble learning anything. Each for a different reason. Starfire was an alien who had her own fighting style that incorporated her ability to fly, as well as her enhanced strength.

Galatea could also fly, but she fought more like a human and on the ground. But the thing about her was that she just hit so damn hard. At that point you didn’t really need a style when you could just level the entire building. Not that that would stop her from trying.

Victor was…kind of a sad situation. Due to his new body, he had trouble learning different ways to fight. His muscle memory was a bit…awkward. And was more than a bit difficult to get him to learn anything new without him looking it up in his head.

It wasn’t hard to see that it got to him sometimes.

Kid Flash? There wasn’t really anything stopping him from getting better. The only problem he had was his complete inability to stop focusing on my ass or legs or…everything really.

I thought that giving him some tough love would help, but if anything, that only made it worse. I guess boys would be boys…

The two students who showed the most dramatic improvements were also the ones I took the most pride in. Law and Raven. Neither of them had any sort of real fighting style before me. They were too used to just using their powers in order to defeat their opponents.

Especially Law. As his methods of ‘fighting’ without his powers was just to gouge out the eyes of his opponents, kicking them in the dick, or to go for the throat. All of which told me all I needed to know about how Gotham had changed since I was a kid.

That is to say, not a whole lot.

While Raven was definitely not to be underestimated and had potential, it was Law who was the most impressive of the two. I wasn’t sure if it was because my style of fighting was a good match for him, that I was a great teacher, or if it was all just natural talent. But either way he took practically everything I showed him.

He remembered moves that I had only done once three weeks ago. He probably wouldn’t get the move down exactly unless I guided him through it, but once I did? He wouldn’t ever mess up the same move.

It was like he was adsorbing everything I was teaching him like a sponge. Honestly, I was almost thankful that he didn’t go to school. If he learned there like he did from me, he wouldn’t have made a cure for the deaf. No, he’d have already made the cure for cancer.

The kid was smart. Not smart enough to not juice up with his power, but whatever. At this point I was pretty sure he’d only stop once it backfired on him. Something I hope would never come to pass.

So far at least there hadn’t been any negative changes. At least from what I could see. He was definitely becoming stronger physically. To an impressive degree that I’ve only seen from guys like Batman and Ollie.

His body had changed pretty dramatically too, but he didn’t really show it off. It helped that he was always wearing loose fitting clothes even at the start of when I was training him when he had just been a string bean.

Which meant the only time when I could see his actual body was when he was struggling with someone and his shirt gets caught, or when he’s using the bottom of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

And damn did he look toned. His abs were nice and defined, but not rugged or overly hairy like a gorilla. Not to mention that v cut below that…

Er…it was a bit strange to admire him like that, but I didn’t mean to do it in a sexual way. It was more like I could recognize his attractiveness in a totally platonic way. Like a girl complimenting another girl.

I mean, he was MUCH younger than me. That kind of thing would just be weird. I had like…eight? Nine maybe? Years on him.

Jeez. I was probably only having these thoughts because Ollie’s been busy for a few days. When did I get so desperate all of a sudden?

It wouldn’t really matter. Especially if he accepts and gets taken under my wing. Honestly, I quite liked Ollie’s new little protégé, and if he hadn’t been the one to scoop her up, I just might have. Though that would have required me knowing about her before she even became Ollie’s ‘niece’.

Then again…she could be a bit…difficult. In which case I probably got the better pick. All that was really needed now was for him to accept and for me to take him on a few missions. Teach him how to really kick some ass and look good doing it.

…It was the least I could do. Especially for someone in his shoes.

Because I knew what it was like to wear those shoes all too well.