Chapter 52

Beast Boy PoV

The overall mood of everyone was pretty low. What with what happened to shark b-Aqualad, Deathstroke getting a massive w, and Aquaman treating us like children.  Everyone was either depressed or tense.

Robin never left his room. Even moreso than usual. At least we’d see him during meals. But now? Nothing. Starfire stopped flying around as much. Raven was…Raven, so it was pretty hard to say if there was a difference or not. Cyborg wasn’t ever in the mood to play a game of stinkball. And Law was more irritable.

Though that was probably mostly due to his new black eye. I don’t know what was up with Galatea, but she just seemed to be bursting with energy. Like she had just mixed several cans of Red Bull and Monster together and drank it.

Man, that’s the good stuff.

The stress has probably gotten a bit to Galatea, because she’s just been training nonstop. Which meant that Law was going to get absolutely flattened when he sparred against her. Like, he didn’t stand a chance before, but now she was just absolutely crushing-

“Yes, Beast Boy. I’m quite aware, but thanks for the reminder.”

Whoop. Didn’t mean to say all that out loud. I’m getting too used to just saying whatever was on my mind due to recording new videos for m-the Titans youtube channel.

Speaking of the channel, maybe I should start recording Galatea during her workouts? A lot of motivational videos have been getting popular lately, and I definitely get more pumped up when she’s excited.

Though she did stop exercising for an entire day after Starfire hit her in the ribs. That was pretty crazy. I didn’t even think Galatea had a weakspot, though it makes sense. She already felt like some sort of final boss character. It made sense that she needed some sort of nerf in order for the player to be able to take her out.

“…What are you even talking about…”

Eh, I can just worry about the channel another day. What’s most important right now was the Titans. Someone had to pick them back up. To lift up their spirits. To carry the team to the finish line. To put a smile on everyone’s face.

And that someone was me.

The Chief Executive of Entertainment™.

“That’s not a title recognized by the Titans in any capacity.”

As the Chief Executive of Entertainment™, I had a duty to my fellow Titans. To make sure that the entertainment that they consumed was awesome. Something that didn’t fail to lift their spirits.

It was my burden…and a curse.

“I think you meant a gift and a curse. Or a gift and a burden. Either work.”

And if I was going to live up to my title, some changes needed to be made around here. Starting with the monthly talent show. At first, we only started doing it just to showoff all the different animals form I could turn into, but eventually it because an event where everyone just showed off different things they could do.

Robin with his gymnastics, Starfire with her yodeling, Raven with her poetry, Cyborg showing us a bunch of his new features on his body, Law with his magic tricks, Shar-Aqualad with his water tricks, and Kid Flash with his souvenir collection.

Galatea used to join in but she could pretty much just do everything already. Which is pretty boring.

Instead of it being monthly, we should change it to weekly!

“Interesting idea, but I imagine it’ll be a hard sell with Raven.”

“…You imagine correctly.”

…Which is why I’ll make it mandatory!

“One, you don’t have the authority to do that. Two, would anyone really be having fun if they’re forced to be there?”

…Yes?

“…”

…Alright, so maybe bi-weekly.

“Hmm, well, it’s certainly a lot more doable…”

And then next I’d work on movie night. We usually vote on the genre of movie we’re supposed to watch. From action, to horror, to comedy, to drama. Sometimes people aren’t satisfied with the movie that plays, and some are.

So, I shall understand everyone’s taste in movies. With that information, I will be able to select only the movies that will satisfy everyone. As well as trying to get them to extend their tastes to other genres that they don’t like.

The bigger the target area for me to hit, the more movies that will align with everyone’s interest. And the person I will start with…

Will be Kid Flash!

*~o~*

“So…you’re saying that there’s no fight scenes?”

I shook my head, and KF frowned.

“What about like…guns?”

“Nope, no guns.”

“Explosions. Just…just tell me there’s some explosions. I’ll settle for even just one.”

I rubbed the back of my head as KF continued to plead with me. Practically forcing himself to look at the TV with resignation in his eyes.

Explaining to him what a drama was didn’t seem to really help anything. He didn’t really seem to care much for the interconnected relationships of characters, only about how cool they were. Which…was a pretty big part of Dramas.

And I thought he was going to be the easiest problem to tackle. If I’m having this much difficulty with him, I can’t even imagine what I’ll go through with the others.

Was it…really hopeless?

Suddenly KF sat up. His eyes immediately focusing on the scene in front of him as he got a more serious look on his face.

“BB…who’s that?”

Huh? I turned to see who had gotten his attention. On the screen a new character had just appeared. She hadn’t been introduced yet, but she was the main characters best friend a long time ago, though he didn’t remember her. After a few episodes, she’d become a part of the main cast.

“Oh, that’s Sara. She’s going to be an important character later on.”

“We get to see more of her!? Hell yes!”

Huh? Why was he so pumped? She hadn’t done anything so far. Heck, she hadn’t even said anything. All she did was watch the main character in the rain mysteriously before disappearing.

…Hmm…mysterious girls huh? I could use that…

*~o~*

Galatea was a hard nut to crack. She didn’t like action movies. At all. Se said it’s because they’re so weak and it’s annoying to see them struggle so much to do even the simplest of actions…

Yeah, Galatea even talks like a final boss.

However, now that I knew that, I could plan around her dislikes. If she didn’t like action movies because they were too realistic, then I just had to show her a fight that was out of the realm of possibility.

A fight that threatened to destroy entire planets.

“…They scream a lot.”

“That’s how you know they’re powering up, and really giving it their all.”

Galatea hummed at that, while crossing her arms. She didn’t react much to the show, but she was actually watching it. Which definitely made it seem like she had some sort of interest in it.

She wasn’t like Law or Starfire. If she didn’t like a movie, she’d just walk away. Not sparing anyone’s feelings or folding to any amount of begging.

“He’s just letting him transform? Why?”

“He’s cocky, overconfident. He thinks he can handle whatever is thrown at him.”

Galatea nodded at my explanation.

“Makes sense.”

From there the main character got a large power boost. Allowing him to just barely overpower the evil alien and put an end to him once and for all. And by doing so, he saved the entire universe.

I looked over to see Galatea’s reaction only to see her nodding along with a…somewhat pleased expression on her face.

“Did you…like it?”

I asked tentatively.

“Yeah, I did. This one wasn’t bad.”

Aha! I was able to do it yet again! I was on a roll with these!

“Though I think the alien should have won.”

…W-what!?

*~o~*

Horror movies.

They draw out the fear in us all. Bubbling it to the surface and making us panic. Forcing adrenaline through our veins as our hearts start to beat louder and louder. It wasn’t a stretch to say that horror movies were practically the go-to for any movie night.

Though it would be wrong of me not to take note in the recent…decline of the genre. A lot of the new horror movies just sucked. Really, really badly. Like Starfire and a bottle of mustard badly.

Thankfully there was no end to the classics in the horror genre. The movies that not only stood the test of time, but also inspire the love of horror in the hearts of anyone.

“Why does he wear a mask?”

Anyone it seems, except Law.

Law wasn’t easily spooked by these kinds of movies. In fact, he seemed almost confused by them. He was also one of the few who would actually ask questions out loud during the movie itself.

Which was a very, very annoying trait to have…to some people. Personally, I kind of liked explaining stuff to him. It was almost like our identities had shifted, and I was the one explaining everything to him.

It was…nice.

“There’s four of them, and only one of him. Why don’t they just jump him?”

“Because they’re scared of him. And one of them is just a kid.”

I explained, only for Law to hum.

“Don’t be so quick to underestimate a child. They have a tendency to surprise you in the most inconvenient of moments.”

…He…hasn’t already seen this movie, has he? Because that’s actually exactly what happens later on, and the kid is the one who saves the last remaining adult and indirectly kills the serial killer.

“By the way…isn’t Jeremy part of a biker gang?”

“Hmm? Uh, yeah.”

He was, but it wasn’t really important to the overall story. More of an explanation of why he was there in the first place.

“Why doesn’t he just call his gang to help him?”

“There’s no signal in this part of the forest, remember?”

“The last time they checked was a few hours ago. Shouldn’t he keep checking to see if he’s gotten a signal by now?”

“I think the whole forest and abandoned town doesn’t have a signal anywhere.”

“…well, that’s awfully convenient.”

He…had a point. To an extent at least. I mean, there does need to be some level of believability to a movie, but there also needs to be a level of suspension of disbelief. If you’re looking for complete rationality from a movie you probably won’t find it. But then, the same thing could be said for the real world, couldn’t it?

Truth be told the real problem was in the fact that these really good horror movies were quite awhile ago. Where phones were still relatively new. At least mobile ones at any rate.

Not to mention what’s scary to most people back then isn’t really as scary as what people are afraid of now. Sure, a lot of people are still scared of maniacs in masks, but in the real world those guys are usually just lackeys for the real villains. Ones who are strong and have real power.

Seems like this movie is a dud. Alright, then that just means I have to try harder!

*~o~*

“…Why is his face burnt?”

“They’ll talk about it later.”

“She just woke up. Then that means…it was only a dream? But she was still scratched…”

I nodded as Law started to get the jist of this movie.

“Yep, the bad guy haunts them through their dreams!”

Law frowned.

“…l don’t like this movie.”

“Eh?”

“Next.”

Oookay…

*~o~*

“Oh, the serial killer is two people.”

The popcorn fell out of my mouth at Law’s words. It seemed like everything had been going good at first, and Law was even mostly silent during the movie. Observing what he could, until finally he spoke up.

And…he had indeed guessed the big twist at the end. Damn.

“…How did you know!?”

“One has the motive, the other the means. Is it not a normal guess that they’re covering for each other?”

I don’t think so? Maybe?

Ugh…what did I have next?

*~o~*

We had blown through quite a few horror movies by this point. A lot of them only lasting for the first twenty minutes before switching to the next one. I was starting to think that Law was only doing this in order to get me to give up first.

That way I wouldn’t pester him and keep asking for another chance. He was pretty sneaky like that.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much classic horror movies left. Nothing that I had actually intended to use for today at least. So at this point I was just taking shots in the dark.

I didn’t have high hopes for this one, but I didn’t have many other options.

It had a slow start. An agonizingly slow start, but the buildup was definitely worth it. Unfortunately, not a lot of people could sit through it until that point as it really was a bit boring in the beginning.

Yet strangely, Law seemed to continue to watch it. He wasn’t completely absorbed in it, but he was at least paying attention. Then eventually the build up to the actual horror part started to happen.

“Ah…I see. The girl is possessed.”

I nodded my head. It was pretty obvious at this point that something was wrong with her, so it wasn’t much of a spoiler.

“Yep. And the other guy is going to need to perform an exorcism on her.”

“Ah…I see. He values the life of the child, so he can’t immediately put the demon down. So, he has to go about it in a roundabout manner. Interesting.”

He said it was interesting. That’s probably the most praise a movie has garnered so far…

After an hour and a half later, the movie concluded. Law humming to himself while nodding his head.

“So? How did you feel about it?”

“I don’t know about scary, but it was definitely good. It definitely leaves you guessing whether or not the girl will survive by the end. Not to mention the threat they faced was something more…ethereal.”

Ah…so he was more into the supernatural kind of horror? Well, not quite. He didn’t seem to like the one where a girl had supernatural powers, or the one where the killer seemed to be unstoppable.

So there had to be a high level of supernatural influence for him to be scared or at least interested. I could definitely work with that.

*~o~*

Raven grimaced again as what was easily one of the top three best jokes of the movie was told. She wasn’t really one for comedy. Obviously, otherwise she’d actually laugh at some of my jokes.

So, I needed to change that for her. Or at least find out what makes her laugh.

Fart jokes? Poop jokes? Slapstick? Clever wordplays?

Which appealed to Raven?

To figure this out, I picked out a movie that went just about everywhere with its comedy. Dipping its toes into every kind of humor. Which….also means that it wasn’t really a good movie.

…Oh wow. It was so much worse than I remember. I actively had to keep Raven from leaving several times. Forcing me to even beg and offer to do her chores for a week.

…Law would probably go easy on me if I explained I was covering Raven, right?

I grimaced as the downer side character joked about getting killed by her own abusive dad. Yikes…this movie definitely went places. I doubt-

“…heh.”

What. What was that? I did a double take of Raven’s face. She wasn’t currently looking in my direction, but she also wasn’t completely immersed into the movie. Simply continuing to watch it passively and with disinterest.

But…she had just made a noise. A noise that definitely sounded like a laugh. Or at least amusement.

And she laughed…about something so messed up.

So, uh…that was her type of humor, huh?

On retrospect, I should have probably guessed as much. Well…at least I have something to work with?

Yeah, let’s go with that.

The ultimate movie night was almost within my grasp…