The Beast Within

PROLOGUE
(Opening shot: the full moon, shining between a few isolated clouds in the night sky. Tilt down to an ominous-looking installation of buildings protected by a chain-link fence; a "KEEP OUT" sign adorns the latter, and it is topped with barbed wire. The focus is initially on the structures, but it shifts to the fence after a moment as a clamor of animals starts up inside. Inside, the camera pans along a row of them in cages-this is a research facility-and stops to point down another aisle lined with them. A punch lands o.c, Beast Boy's yell is heard, and he slams up against a nearby computer. He bounces away and off the cages; pan to follow him across the laboratory to Robin, Cyborg, and Starfire. Sight gag: when he sits up, his eyes spin like slot-machine reels and stop to show the word TILT. On the next line he stands and pulls an X-ray screen in front of himself; two organs are highlighted as tears stream from his eyes.)

Beast Boy: I think my appendix and my spleen just switched places.

(The gag ends. Cut to a gigantic, muscular, male figure striding across the room. He wears red full-body armor with gray highlights, and a gray A is set in the breastplate. This is Adonis; when he speaks, he sounds like a California surfer dude. This is the one who laid out Beast Boy.)

Adonis: (cracking knuckles) You wimps think you can take down Adonis? (holding out hand, flicking fingers toward himself) Bring it on. (Raven joins the others.) Beast Boy: Dude, it is totally brunged!...branged! Raven: Ooh, bad grammar. That oughta scare him. (His forehead vein throbs on this line.) Robin: (rushing past) Titans! Go!

(He brings out his fighting staff as all five charge, then leaps toward the towering enemy with a yell. Adonis blocks his swing easily and knocks away Beast Boy in wolf form, but a three-way crossfire from Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire puts him off balance. Cut to a slow pan along the cages, the animals inside making enough racket to wake an entire neighborhood, then to Robin coming in for another hit. A brief tussle with Adonis ends when one armored hand closes around the staff and the other delivers a crashing jab that sends Robin all the way up to the ceiling. Tilt down as he tumbles to the floor, having lost the weapon; the two girls and Beast Boy, back in human form, regroup nearby.)

(Adonis raises the staff in both hands, then brings it down and bends it double as if it were a licorice stick. A beefy growl escapes his lips as he tosses the thing over his shoulder.)

Adonis: You're just making me more ripped!

(He promptly gets a few starbolts to the face and chest, and Starfire follows up by hoisting a cabinet to throw at him. Her perspective: she lets it fly with a yell. Close-up of one red-booted foot, which cracks the floor under the impact, then pull back. Adonis has dropped to his knees and caught the cabinet, balancing it on his back and groaning with effort.)

Adonis: No pain, no gain!

(He heaves the weight right back at Starfire, who catches it squarely in the face and is plowed backward. Now Raven moves in, extending her powers over the massive body to stop him cold; as he strains against the hold, she and Cyborg move in for the next go. Just then, Adonis wrenches himself free and the two Titans are flung backward in the black wash. In a heartbeat, he has her shoulders pinned to the floor.)

Raven: Let me go! Adonis: (purring amorously) You're feisty.

(He gives her a leering smile, to which she responds by disappearing; behind him, two large pieces of equipment rise under her control and he looks up with sudden concern for the welfare of his skull. Down they come, just barely missing him due to a last-second jump, and Cyborg comes in an instant later to rain punches on the over-muscled villain. They move across the lab.)

Cyborg: Come on, big man! Show me what you got! (His perspective.) Show me what you got!

(Adonis does so by seizing one bionic fist. Sparks fly from its chassis as he increases the pressure; back to Cyborg.)

Cyborg: (surprised) Well, okay, then.

(Tense pause, after which the camera cuts to another room in this place. Cyborg crashes in through the wall, having taken a haymaker from Adonis.)

Adonis: (flexing armored pectorals) Nobody out-muscles Adonis! Beast Boy: (from o.c.) Oh, yeah? (Pan slightly to frame him nearby.) Well, my muscles may be small and ropy, but they're not...I mean...

(A roar drowns him out as the jumbo dude rushes with fists raised. Skidding across the floor to avoid the strike, he quickly becomes a bull and charges again. Adonis plants both hands on the horns, stopping him cold for a moment before slinging him into a table. Dust flies everywhere; through it, a new silhouette hurtles forth-the Titan, now a screaming monkey, who promptly gets smacked down again. He thuds heavily against a wall and drops behind a table; an instant later, he smashes through all this gear as a tiger and returns to the free-for-all. Another punch, another knockdown, and he plows into a pile of equipment that collapses over him.)

Adonis: What's the matter, wuss? Don't you know how to fight like a man?

(Extreme close-up of one narrowed, green human eye, visible through an opening in the collapsed junk.)

Beast Boy: I'm not a man...I'm an animal!

(Pull back. The debris goes flying as he stands up and charges, having become a roaring Sasquatch. One colossal leap carries him all the way up to the ceiling; his intended target, however, neatly sidesteps and the two go at it. Beast Boy soon gains the upper hand, catching Adonis dead on with a rhinoceros charge and driving him into a wall. The dazed brawler lifts his head wearily just in time to get a green ankylosaurus tail across it; once he has rolled to a stop, the dinosaur becomes a lion and dashes in once more. The two face off, Adonis getting a set of claw marks slashed across his chest, and the lion changes into a huge grizzly bear and backs him across the floor. The other four finally get themselves together, physically and otherwise, and stare dumbstruck as the ursine Titan goes crazy on Adonis. Pan to a couple of large storage tanks that sit in one corner. Starfire gasps.)

Robin: Beast Boy, careful! (Close-up of one tank; he continues o.c.) The chemicals!

(Beast Boy slams Adonis into the vessel wall, rupturing it and releasing a flood of glowing green liquid and vapor. The contents gush over both of them, but the crazed hero does not let up one bit; cut to Adonis' perspective as the long claws rake back and forth repeatedly. One final slash, and the view changes to show Adonis stumbling backward, his armor ruined and sparking from the merciless abuse he has just taken. The fireworks culminate with a mighty burst of electricity that shatters the front of Adonis' armor, drops him to his knees, and dumps him onto his face.)

(The wipeout reveals him to be a fellow of ordinary proportions, perhaps a little on the skinny side, and clad in a red jumpsuit. The armor is actually a mechanical suit that gives its user greatly increased physical strength, with hand/foot-operated actuators controlling the movements. He hits the floor in front of Beast Boy, who resumes human form. The hero's voice takes on a new, fierce edge we have never heard to date.


 * All lines marked with a star are delivered in this manner. ***


 * Beast Boy: Who's the tough guy now?

(He strides off, passing his four completely bewildered teammates.)

Robin: Um...good job. Cyborg: Nice intensity. Raven: Yeah. Have any good freak-outs lately? (He gets in her face.)
 * Beast Boy: I just got sick of being pushed around.

(He wheels away, passing a cage that holds a growling wolf; it suddenly backs off with a frightened whimper as he goes. Without so much as a glance in its direction, he walks out of the lab and down a hall that runs past it. The other Titans' puzzlement at his violent mood swing is written all over their faces. Fade to black.)