(Three Years Ago)
He'd been alone for a while. But it was okay. If nobody was treating him like a person, well, at least Mento wasn't treating him like a chess piece. With no particular place to go and a little bit of money from his birth parents, Beast Boy made his way to Jump City. He'd heard it was a happening town with lots of cool things going on. He'd hope he could find someone to at least hang out with. Maybe he could get back into the showbiz! But there just weren't many roles for a 12-year old, green, pointy eared boy. He'd been on his way to find a pizza when he'd heard the meteoroid crash into the hills downtown. He'd been out of the biz for a while, but it was hard to let go of hero-training. When he arrived it was to discover a roaring fight underway.
But the first thing he noticed was a . . . scent. It was nice.
But then he saw a girl with glowing green eyes in a running fight with a guy in a cape. Hard to tell who the bad guy was, but the girl was obviously much stronger than the boy. His weapon shattered and she leapt up into the air, prepared to pile drive the boy into the pavement.
"Geepers," he thought. "If that lands, she'll splatter him like old tofu. "
Without pausing to consider further, Beast Boy morphed into a goat and head-butted the alien girl away from the young man. To his utter shock, it was Robin. The Robin. Batman's sidekick! "Wowzers!" Cyborg, the half-robot, had joined them almost immediately thereafter. Together, the three boys had just about been ready to lay a world-class beat down on the intruder when he'd smelled that scent again, and it had pulled his attention away. Acting on the advice of the new girl, Robin had made peace with the alien and the group had been about to split up. Casting around for the source of the scent, Beast Boy approached the small girl, Raven.
"You guys wanna get a pizza?"
"I shouldn't," Raven replied, and turned to walk away.
It was her. She was what smelled so . . . good. It was subtle. It wasn't a perfume or a soap. But it was fascinating. He sniffed again as she walked away. "Mmmmm."
(Two Years Ago)
"How," Beast Boy wondered, "did I get myself into this?"
He was standing on the martial arts mat across from Robin, possibly one of the most well-trained and dangerous martial artists in North America. He'd studied in Japan, China, Thailand, and Brazil. Hell, he used to spar with the freaking Batman. Beast boy, on the other hand, was a desultory student at best. He'd played around with all five animal styles of kung-fu, mostly out of curiosity. And Robin had taught him most of what he knew.
It had started at the end of a standard training session as they debriefed.
"How come you always want me shifted into something huge?" Beast Boy had asked.
"It's your best placement as an asset," said Robin, with a shrug.
"I'm more than just a shape shifter, you know."
Cyborg had snorted, "Like what?"
"A fighter," he replied.
Robin had raised an eyebrow.
"Fighting's not really where you shine best," he'd said. "You're great at turning into something small that can gather information for us, and turning into something large that can smash things, but your human form . . ." his voice trailed off.
"What about my human form?" asked Beast Boy, his voice rising.
"I think," Starfire had said carefully, "What Robin is trying to say is that when you are shifted into one of your large animal forms, you are less likely to get hurt and . . . "
