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His thick feet padded against the tall grass of the Savannah. He’d been walking since he’d left the refugee of the Freedom Beast some thirteen hours ago. He didn’t keep track of time, however, so that was an approximate number.

As the sun beat down on him it occurred to him that he hadn’t yet stopped to rest. His mouth, and the fur around it, was thick with dried spittle and his lips were cracked and chapped. Flakes of skin tugged at the corners of his mouth as he sucked in the harsh, dry air. His brain managed to convince his body to stop, all the human elements crying out for him to find water. To find somewhere to rest, while the beast’s of the Savannah called and cooed. If they could cope with this, so could he. Humans had found ways to become more fragile and lazy in their ‘civilized’ time. Nature would provide. It always did.

His legs crumpled underneath him, fur thick with soil, insects and clumps of long grass. He paused for a moment, looking up above him and it seemed for a split second as though metaphor was the food of the day as shadows cast themselves from above, seemingly giving the wildebeest that supped at the waters before him wings.

The horns of the great, skittish bovid superimposed themselves over the top of neighbouring zebra, whose neighing filled Garfield’s hearing with sound. It appeared to him that amalgamation was more than just placing two animals together, genetically placing their physical attributes into a single form. It was a unification of more than just body and ‘abilities’.

It was a unification of content and the animals minds, as the disparate groups of organisms came together around the source of water to become a single herd, looking for each other. The worried looks of the huge eyes of gazelles filled his vision as they blended together, becoming a single herd, their movements one.

For every movement of the gazelle that wasn’t slow and calculated, such as gulping the water down or gently lapping water from a young ones fur, the other animals reacted.

Amalgamation wasn’t a foreign concept. It wasn’t something limited to super human powers. It’s what nature did when it came together like this.

Gar’s attention snapped up as something exploded from the water like a canon. He knew exactly what it was.

Crocodiles were ambush predators. They lay in the water, feeling the vibrations of the herd around them, waiting for the perfect moment as their protective eyelids prevented their keen eyes from seeing under the surface of the element they lived in.

Its jaws snapped upwards as the beast twisted a half turn in the air, sure that it had grabbed something in its gaping maw. However, the animal was wrong in its timing and had missed the baby wildebeest by a fraction of an inch.

Gar found it strange how he simultaneously felt fear for the wildebeest mother and calf, but also the disappointment of the crocodile. His human mind wondered how much he was anthropomorphising the creatures and giving them human emotions, or some sort of approximate. He slid his hands into the water as the heads of grazing animals bobbed around him, slowly cupping some of the liquid and bringing it to his mouth. He sipped gently before leaning back on his arms and watching the animals around him.

Slowly, he felt himself relax and, after minutes of silence allowing his mind to do nothing other than unfurl, his arms begin to change, ever so slightly at first. The joints on his right arm began to migrate and split as his fingers hardened and formed together leaving only a hoof, while his left arm began to stiffen and angle itself away from his body, his fingers forming into talons and his skin flattening and hardening into scales.

He stared at himself for a moment, realizing that being around this state of nature, and being aware of the concept of amalgamation had allowed him to unconsciously begin the process. He smiled to himself, as he attempted to repeat the process, concentrating on his right arm changing into that of a crocodiles and his left arm into a wildebeest hoof.

He felt the change begin but after a few seconds of intense concentration he realized that they had changed back to being normal, human arms. Or at least as normal as his arms could get. It was as though his body was teasing him, letting him know he was capable of the idea that had only just been loosed in his mind, but making sure he was unable to turn the idea into an action. He let loose a frustrated grunt, and crossed his arms in annoyance.

---

Across from Garfield, knelt down low beside a bush on the steep ledge of the embankment, crouched a familiar figure. Dominic Mndawe had been following and stalking the young man since he first left his stronghold within the rocky slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro.

He afforded himself a small smile as he watched in silence. He was beginning to get it, despite the fact it was more of a reflexive action. Garfield was beginning to understand the concept at least. Where the concept grew, understanding was sure to bloom.

Now, he had to do more than unify his body…he needed to unify his mind, and that was going to be the most difficult task of all.

---

After an hour of sitting in silence, attempting to force himself to change the way he had before, Garfield made no noise as he got to his feet. Frustrated and defeated, he allowed his body to unconsciously take the form of a bird, a large vulture, and take to the sky. The thermals carried him high into the sky, spiralling upwards on the heat of the plains below him. From his vantage point, with keen avian vision, he could see the small settlement of Zambesi before him. That was his destination.

It was the birthplace of Vixen, a member of the Justice League and, if Buddy Baker were to be believed, an Animal Master. Although Garfield rarely thought of his life before now, something of a conscious and unconscious action, his conversations with Animal Man stuck firmly in his mind. They were few and far between, but Garfield knew talking with him that he didn’t just know animals as a concept, as something to study. He knew what they wanted and what they thought.

Right now it was something Garfield longed for. He could lose himself in the form of a creature, but never quite lose his mind to it. He never became it fully and that left him feeling empty.

Altering the spread of the feathers across his limbs, he began to descend. Moving out of the thermals, he allowed himself to glide, occasionally catching half a thermal to slow his descent a little more. He landed with a few decreasingly violent hops in the long grass and shifted his form into that of a small lizard.

His feet rambling violently, he shot through the long grass, stopping stock still for every shadow. It wasn’t the lizard mind dictating that behavior but more Beast Boys own knowledge and fear. Despite appearing as a lizard, he could never know what the lizard’s instincts truly were. Scrambling across the bare, short grass and muddy sand that made up the edge of the village, he scuttled up the side of a small house and hung for a moment, taking in his surroundings.

The village itself wasn’t very large; at only twenty five houses, it was small by any standards, barely even a hamlet. However, it appeared to be a bustling of activity as women walking with baskets on their heads, collecting fruit, carrying water, food and wood for fires. Men went about building houses, banging metal together to create a makeshift shelter from the rain, wind and cold of the night.

What Garfield did take notice of was the strange collection of animals gathered around a small hut in the center of the village. It took him back for a moment as he made his way to the top of the hot, tin roof of the shack and transformed himself from lizard to bird as he perched on the hot edge of the corrugated metal. He watched, with both amazement and caution, as a lion made its way through the village. Much to his surprise the villagers paid very little attention to the huge carnivore as it strolled through the thin streets of the village and towards its center.

The former Titan’s heart practically stopped as the animals by the hut, all herbivores, all stopped and watched the Lion prowl towards them. They were all large and skittish creatures, from wildebeests with their calves, to zebra and antelope. Garfield cocked his head as he waited for the inevitable strike from the lion or the herbivores breaking into a frantic escape.

He waited and waited, but nothing happened. He watched in captivated amazement as the lion began to purr and brush it’s face against the side of a zebra, who responded with a quiet and strangely warm whinny.

Fluttering down from the roof, Beast Boy changed his form back to his original ‘human’ form. He stood for a few moments, naked aside from the shaggy hair that covered his private areas, staring at the animals through strands of green hair that hung from his head like thick dreads. He snorted and said nothing as he walked quietly and slowly towards the central hut.

This must be where he needed to be.

---

“Daaaaahling!” the Gorilla cooed as she wrapped her huge arms around Garfield’s form. He pulled his head away from hers and bore his teeth. She smiled, a sentiment returned as her sharp, white canines glinted in the midday sun.

“Off,” Garfield grunted as she released him dropping him onto the floor before the marble tablet, allowing the Titan to attempt to assess the situation.

“I don’t normally do this,” the Gorilla began, as she pulled something from behind her back. Beast Boy immediately assumed a defensive position, as the female gorilla’s face dropped. “No, no no!” she exclaimed, in an over the top theatrical manner. “I don’t want to hurt you, Dahling.” She produced a small book from her belt and offered it towards Gar. He took it slowly, eyeing her up and down cautiously.

Backing away from her, he opened the book slowly. The first page was a picture of the large ape with the Flash…it looked like Wally. He was looking particularly awkward. She had her arms slung over his shoulder and Gar fought back a laugh at the hunched hero.

The second page contained various signatures of Superman, Powergirl and Supergirl.

“Could you make it out to Primat?” she asked in a sing song voice.

Gar’s eyebrow quirked as he looked at her in disbelief. “Fangirl?” he asked in a guttural growl.

She flushed and waved a huge hand at her face. “Why, I would be insulted if it weren’t so preposterously true!” She placed the back of her hand against her forehead and pretended to swoon. “When I was just a small girl I witnessed something incredible: a battle in my native home between the Flash and that horrid Grodd. Ever since then I’ve been...shall we say…fanatical about humans and their heroes.” She blushed and checked her reflected arm bracer’s to make sure she had fresh lipstick and eye liner on her face. “You caught me by surprise, I must confess!”

“Grnf. Me too,” Gar admitted, opening his hand for a pen. She produced one, seemingly from nowhere, and handed it to the hero, who quickly squiggled on the page and handed her the book back.

Primat clutched it tightly and held it close to her chest, as though she were some star-crossed teenage lover. “I can hardly believe my day!” she sighed breathlessly. “First job in months and I meet Beast Boy in the same place.”

“Not Beast Boy,” Gar muttered under his breath as he made his way to the marble statue of the Saint. She was adopted in a typical saintly position, only instead of being upright she was laying on her back, the folds of her dress falling down the side of the plinth. Her eyes were closed, which was unusual for most Christian statues, as they were usually depicted in life as opposed to their after life. He stared for a moment, considering…the person who had made the statue had put as much of the life of America into it as they could. The carving of her face was soft and smooth and Gar was struck not only by how beautiful she was but how much she reminded him of Terra.

He looked away and rubbed the bridge of his nose, grunting to himself, and curling a lip into a half snarl at himself. He didn’t want to think about her. He didn’t want to think at all.

Why did it have to be so hard?

“Seems such a shame,” Primat began as she lifted a huge hammer in the air. It was made primarily from wood, but the ends were sheathed in metal. “Still, the Venus De Milo was more famous for its lack of arms. Maybe this will be infamous for its lack of structure!” she giggled to herself as she shot the hammer down toward the statues head.

The metal end of the hammer just missed its mark as Garfield, shifting his form into a big horn sheep, threw his head at the side of the gorilla. The connection, which was both quick and brutal, threw her off her feet and sent her flying sideways onto the ground.

“OOOWWW! For Grodd’s sakes, why did you do that?” she asked, getting to her feet and reaching for her hammer.

“Don’t,” Garfield said simply, gesturing to the effigy to the side of him.

“Art lover?” she asked with a slight grin that betrayed more than a little anger. Gar shook his head slowly. This was always how it began, a few trading blows and then banter before the big fight. “Typical. I thought better of you, Beast Boy,” she said as she charged forward, flinging the hammer at the statue. Moving quickly, Gar shifted his form into that of a raccoon and leapt through the air, grabbing the hammer hilt and twisting his body violently to focus the shot away.

Skimming and skipping off the side of the sleeping marble, both the hammer and Garfield’s green furry body clattered on the floor. She was on him before he managed to regain his footing, lifting him up into the air in her grip and squeezing tightly.

“I hate hurting famous people, Beast Boy, but business is business. Someone wants this point gone and I’m the one to do it. You understand, don’t you? Harmony isn’t something you can give away.”

Gar looked around. The animals that had mingled and groomed each other outside of the hut were now looking in through the windows or hanging in the rafters. They knew something was threatening their Saint, but there was nothing they could do. Or at least that’s what Garfield thought. His form quickly shifted again, green fur elongating and transforming into needle spines. Taking the form of a sea urchin, Garfield knew his time in this form would be extremely limited.

After a pained yelp, Primat dropped Garfield on the floor. He landed and immediately gained size and mass, transforming himself into a giraffe. With a powerful back kick, he landed both of his feet on her chest, sending her hurtling backwards into the far wall.

Mud and mortal cascaded down onto her fur as she tasted the metallic tang of blood in her mouth. Pressing her knuckles onto the ground to get herself up, Garfield was already there, foaming at the mouth as his green orangutan fists pummelled the side of her head.

He continued the barrage, his body shifting through different forms with each blow landed. The hooves of a shire horse, the claws and wide palm of a komodo dragon, the powerful wings of a mute swan, a slap of the tail from a thresher shark.

“GARFIELD! NO!” came a cry as Gar’s red mist flooded away, clearing his vision and revealing the savage scene before him. The uppercut from Freedom Beast knocked him clear from his next form, a tiger, and onto his back. Skidding a few feet on his bottom, he stared at the African hero in disbelief.

“Why?” he asked simply. Freedom Beast turned his back to him and knelt down slowly, touching the ruined Primat’s face. Her breathing was heavy and blood leaked from every feature and from cuts that scored their way over her face. Both her eyes were with filled with blood and were slowly swelling up.

“Me?” he asked, pressing a hand gingerly against his chest. He noticed that his body and his fists were drenched in her blood. Staring at his hands, Gar didn’t know how to react, how to defend his actions. There was no defence. He’d lost himself. He’d become a beast, in both body and mind. Something he’d longed for previously, but now in the cold light of reality, it was something he desperately wanted to retract.

“There is no excuse for this action,” the village elder said, stepping into view for the first time; a grizzled man holding a warped but thick tree branch, using it as a walking stick. His white beard clung to his face, as it appeared the rest of his skin wanted to drip free of it.

Garfield said nothing as Freedom Beast helped Primat to her feet and guided her towards the doorway.

“This is a place of worship…a Template of Harmony,” the Elder continued as others gathered around him, staring at Beast Boy. “Animals come here for peace and company. They come to be part of something other than themselves. This is where there is no such thing as a food chain or death. Lions live with wildebeest, and neither fear the others reprieve.” The Elder jabbed Gar in the shoulder with his stick.

Garfield felt more than just the power of the man’s weapon against his flesh; he felt something else as well. The stick wasn’t just an aid…it was a weapon, a weapon of the Green, and he could hear the mewling of the stick with his enhanced hearing. Hear its innards swirling and creaking with every movement.

Bearing his teeth, the green teenager gingerly got to his feet. “Sorry,” he said quietly, in guttural tones.

“Be gone. You are not welcome here and you certainly don’t belong,” the old man said, swiping at Garfield again with his staff. Gar offered an apologetic look to Freedom Beast and the old man before shifting himself into a camel spider and scuttling away from the scene.

---

Sitting in silence, stretched over the thin branches of an Acacia tree, Gar didn’t notice the silent slicing of air, as Vixen slowly landed before him. Her delicate feet touched the ground as she allowed the abilities of the eagle she’d borrowed to return to roost in the Red.

“Garfield,” she said in soft tones as the green-skinned Titan looked down at the beautiful African woman before him in the twilight of the Serengeti.

“Hrmph,” he offered, shifting into a small primate body, letting his arms hang slack and drop him down before her. He sat for a moment as the spider monkey, watching up into her big, beautiful brown eyes as she crouched down beside him and touched his green head.

“I heard about today,” she began, disappointment flushing through her features. Gar turned away from her and refused to look back as she tugged against his tiny shoulders. “I know it wasn’t your fault, she started it. You were protecting the statue, but…Gar, this anger, this violence…you were...brutal…animal,” she said, her tones hushed not with fear, but with sadness. “This isn’t you.”

“Nothing is me,” he offered in response, casting her an angry glance.

“I know something of loss, Gar. I think everyone knows what it’s like to lose something. Its part of what we do, you can’t think you’re different to everyone else because of it,” Mari said, running a hand through her short hair.

“The point?” Gar asked in a firm, stern tone.

Mari rolled her eyes and sighed loudly, letting her slender arms drop to the grass. “You know why what you did was so bad, don’t you?” she asked, sitting down softly in the grass, absentmindedly thumbing her Tantu totem that hung from her belt. Ever since she had gotten it back from Cheetah* she felt the need to constantly reassure herself it was there.


“We’ve never been a particularly Christian Village, Garfield,” Vixen began after a long period of silence from Beast Boy. “They tried to change us but we were too firmly entrenched in nature and the land to ever consider there might be a human god instead of Animal Gods.” She pushed her finger into the soft soil, slowly drawing a diagram in the sand; carving out a circle as the village, she drew tiny symbols all over.

Gar turned to watch, his tiny spider monkey frame’s huge eyes watching everything she did intently.

“We believed in the Lion Gods, the Zebra Goddess’ and so much more until Anna Marie Amica came to our village. She was a woman of the One God and she wanted to teach us the error of our ways, to give us clothes to hide our shame and modesty to make our way to God.” Mari moved her position and drew a simple figure in the sand.

“She did the opposite. We taught her of our ways and she fell in love. In the end, I guess we taught each other how to believe. There was something special about her...whether or not she had powers the way we do, I don’t know.”

Gar looked at the image in the sand as Vixen carved lines from her to the symbols for the animals.

“Ever since she came here, and ever since she died, animals have flocked from miles around to, I don’t know, visit her? Worship her? All we know is that they come from hundreds of miles away to stop and see her statute. And while they’re here they don’t fight. They don’t eat. There’s just perfect harmony.”

Vixen smiled and put her hands in her lap, watching Garfield’s reaction. “Dominic told me about his lesson to you,” she continued, after a few seconds of watching Gar’s eyes dart from symbol to symbol. “About your experience with the helmet.”

He snapped out of his stare and looked at her, eyes wide. “He knows?”

“Everything,” she said slowly. “That helmet is part of him now, Garfield. If it were a lesser man wouldn’t be surprised if he influenced what you saw in some way, but not Dominic.” She smiled fondly.

“Love?” Garfield asked, moving towards her and shifting, slowly, back to his human guise.

Vixen blushed and waved a hand at him dismissively. “Respect. I knew the first wielder of the helmet, I know what happened to him because of it, and I know that Dominic handles everything much better than Mike ever did.” Her voice was a little shaky as she relived those tense moments in which Mike died and she aided Buddy and Tristess in the creation of a universe.

“Some people say that Amica was more of a conduit of something that was already here,” Vixen began again, changing the subject quickly.

“Conduit?” Gar repeated.

She nodded slowly. “Zambesi has a long tradition of people inhabiting the bodies of nature. Our Shaman have long used tools of nature to conduct their business. My Totem was found in this village. The Elder’s stick? That was found on the outskirts of the village itself. There have been masks and symbols, chalk drawings, fruits and scents that have transformed ordinary villagers into something more than human,” she explained, holding her totem aloft.

“I am the first to take my powers to somewhere other than the Village. I am the first as well, to lose them to another.” As she spoke, shame broke through her tone and into her voice. She faltered for a moment and regained her confident tones. “That is why we speak of Amica not only as a Christian Saint but as something you’d understand as an Amalgam.” Mari continued. “She combined her religion of modesty and faith and peace, with our religion of worship of the land and animals and balance. She brought them together in mind and soul.”

“Amalgamation…Lesson…” Gar stuttered.

Mari nodded slowly. “She brought together the peace in her heart and made it a physical manifestation in our world, but if that were a normal person, it would have only extended to people,” Vixen continued, as Gar shifted uncomfortably, restlessly. He hated being lectured at, but he wasn’t really revelling in the speaking role currently.

“Her peace in herself, combined with Zambesi as a place, it joined together and became peace for everything. Every animal and every plant doesn’t just find a balance, it thrives and it grows and it lives longer simply from finding not only peace with itself here, but also peace in the world.” She sighed, as her eyes focused on something in the distance.

“It seems the only thing her peace didn’t work on was people from the outside world.” She paused for a moment, sadness over coming her she thought back to the conflict and hatred that her country had shown for every single person living on it.

She smiled after a few moments, a soft weak smile that grew in size and warmth and offered her hand to Gar. “Come back with me, Garfield. Come back and find peace with me in Zambesi. We can make you the way you were again.”

Gar narrowed his eyes and backed away from her slowly. “I don’t want to go back,” he said curtly. “I don’t want to become the Beast Boy again.” He put his hand against his chest and tugged on the green fur tightly. “Changeling now. There is nothing of Beast Boy or Garfield Logan left.” He practically coughed these words as his voice was aching and scratchy. He barely spoke like a human any more and his vocal chords rebelled against his tone and his speech.

“Please...” Mari began, as the green man turned his back on her, transforming his body into a long-horned gazelle and broke off toward the horizon.

She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “If you can’t be at peace, then at least be safe,” she said to him more than to herself, despite the fact there was no way he could hear her now.

---

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Next Issue: In Animal Man #3: The Tree of Life and a Certain Golden Ape...Also if you like Vixen, there will be more of her in the pages of Justice League Strike Force by Gavin Devlin. Check it out!

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