Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans or any of these characters. Any similarities between this and the TV show/comic book are purely coincidental.
The waves beat almost silently against Titan Isle. It was a quiet, peaceful day. The sun was setting, but no birds were chirping. Even the sound of the city was almost nonexistent. There seemed to be no traffic in the city tonight, and it was odd because it was in the middle of rush hour. An almost eerie quietness filled even the city streets. There were no honking horns, no yelling at gas stations, no loud restaurants.
Even Titans Tower was quieter than usual. Raven was on the roof in her daily meditation. Robin had sat down with Prey and had been reading for two and a half hours. Cyborg was fooling around with his systems doing who-knows-what. Beast Boy was in his room doing the fill-in puzzles that he did when he was bored. He normally listened to music while doing the fill-ins, but tonight, he kept his stereo quiet. Starfire was just out walking around the tower not doing much of anything. And Terra was in the kitchen cooking dinner making very little sound.
Even though he appeared to be engrossed in his book, Robin had noticed how quiet it was around the tower. He felt it to be the proverbial calm before the storm. He thought for an instant that Slade might be planning an attack, but then dismissed the thought as mere professional paranoia.
He had some pretty bad memories of Slade. Slade had attempted to destroy the Titans time and time again. His first attempt was through the H.A.E.V.P., a group made up of Gizmo, Jynx, and Mammoth. Then he used muscles with Cinderblock and Plasmus. Slade had used Thunder and Lightning's ignorance in his favor by creating a fire monster that would have destroyed the city, had not Beast Boy been able to convince Thunder and Lightning to help them. He then attempted to obtain several data disks through a criminal known only as "Red X". Red X was Robin in disguise trying to figure out who Slade was, but he failed. Slade, fortunately, did not obtain the disks. Then Slade forced Robin into becoming his apprentice by threatening to kill the other Titans if he didn't help Slade. Then Slade had attacked when they first met Terra. He tried to get her to be his apprentice, but failed again. Finally, in their last meeting, Slade had tried to destroy Titan Tower, but he failed yet again. They had not heard from Slade in a long time.
He returned to reading his book for however long until Terra called them in for dinner. It smelled like meatloaf and baked potatoes. He wondered if she was any good at that.
Right as Robin moved his eyes back into his book, he heard Terra yell out, "Dinner is ready! I've got meatloaf, baked potatoes and corn." When she stopped yelling, she turned and looked at him, as if just noticing that he was there in the room. She said shyly, "Oh. Hi, Robin." Robin paused for a minute, not sure what to do. She then asked him, "Are you going to come and have dinner?"
"Oh, sure, yeah," he replied. "Sorry. My mind was kind of drifting there." She walked back into the kitchen. He closed his book and followed her, just a few seconds behind.
Cyborg was already in there waiting for everyone else. "That a good book, man? You've been sitting on that couch for two and a half hours."
"Yeah, it's good," Robin replied. "It's the best Michael Crichton book I've ever read."
"I thought you liked The Andromeda Strain really well."
"I do, but this book is better."
Starfire walked in the door. She looked hot. "I have been traversing through the entire tower," she said. She looked exhausted. "How large is this tower?"
Cyborg looked puzzled as he tried to remember the exact number of square feet. "I think it's about thirty thousand square feet."
"How can feet be square?" Star asked. Cyborg, Robin and Terra had to work VERY hard to keep from laughing their heads off. "What is wrong? I asked a simple question. How can feet be square?"
"Star, you do know what a foot is, in terms of measuring units, right?" Starfire nodded yes. "Well, when you multiply a foot times a foot, you get a square foot. Do you understand?" Robin asked.
"No."
Robin sighed in exasperation. "I give up."
Raven then walked in the room with a smile on her face. Everyone's jaw dropped to the floor. Raven looked at them, understood their unspoken question, and said, "Meatloaf, baked potatoes, and corn is my favorite meal."
"You have a favorite?" Terra asked.
"Doesn't everyone have a favorite food?" she asked. "Now who are we waiting for?"
Beast Boy ran in the door, slipping and nearly crashing into the cabinet. Robin had to stifle a laugh when Beast Boy came down the stairs.
He laughed sheepishly, and asked with great interest, "So, what's on for dinner?"
"I made baked potatoes, corn and meatloaf," Terra replied with a fun tone in her voice.
"You fixed meat?" Beast Boy asked in an extreme dumbfoundedness. "I do not eat meat."
"I didn't know that you don't eat meat," Terra said. She backed off as in preparation for a verbal attack from BB.
"Oh, never mind," he replied. "I'll go hungry." He walked off to who knows where, about to do who knows what. Robin heard a door slam.
"Why doesn't he eat meat?" Terra asked in honestness.
"His excuse is that he's been a lot of the animals that you would eat if you were eating meat," Cyborg replied. "I think that it's just some kind of ploy."
"What do you mean by 'ploy'? What would he be trying to get out of?" Terra asked.
"Haven't quite figured that part out yet. I'm sure there's something going on behind the scenes," Cyborg said. Robin had to suppress a laugh when he saw Cyborg's assurance in himself.
"May we please stop with whatever analyses you were engaged in and just eat?" Raven asked.
"I'm all for it," Robin said. He then added, "Why did you just say that like a technical freak? You could have just said, 'Let's shut up and eat.'"
"Let's dig in. I heard you say that you make some really good baked potatoes, Terra," Cyborg said.
"I like to think so," Terra replied, smiling and blushing slightly. "But that's my own personal opinion and everyone is biased for themselves."
That comment elicited a laugh from Cyborg, Robin, and Starfire. Raven, well . . . . she was just Raven. Very little emotion whatsoever. And the joke had not prompted her to laugh. No jokes ever did.
A loud beeping sound was suddenly emitted from the video-link phone in the main living area. Cyborg was the first person up and to the vid-screen. Beast Boy followed, then Robin, Star, Raven, and Terra. As Cyborg activated the vid-screen, nothing but static appeared on the screen. The normal kkkkkssssshhhhh of the static was silent, and yet the volume was on.
"Do you know what the heck is happening?" Beast Boy asked in an actually attentive manner.
"We're receiving an incoming transmission," Cyborg responded.
Beast Boy surveyed the static. "That guy needs to change his phone carrier company.
Robin looked at Beast Boy with a humored/scolding stare. "From where?"
"The carrier wave is isolated from the main bandwidth. Also, the caller ID itself is saying that the call is coming from this very video-link phone," Cyborg replied. It looked as though he honestly didn't know what was going on. And it was a big deal when Cyborg didn't know what was wrong with something technically.
"This link?" Star asked. "Is that not impossible?"
"Not necessarily. Some sort of E.M. interference could be screwing around with our phone connection and putting it through a feedback loop that begins and ends here," Cyborg responded.
While there was a somewhat group sigh of relief, Beast Boy halted Cyborg before he could say anymore. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down a sec. Can we get that explanation in plain English?"
"I'm saying that some solar wind is messing up the phone and making it call itself."
"Oh," Beast Boy replied. Blushing, he said, "I knew that."
Suddenly, the static began to clear. For a brief instant, a picture flickered on screen, but the screen then returned to the static that it had been playing.
"Hey, Cy," Robin asked. "Are you recording these phone calls?"
"Yeah. The phone log itself automatically records the conversation. Why?"
"Terminate the current call and replay the other call starting thirty seconds ago at one tenth of a second intervals," Robin commanded. He looked like he meant business.
"All right, all right." Cyborg began to push several buttons on the control panel. "Terminating call."
"Robin, just what are you looking for?" Raven asked. It was the first time she had spoken since they had all gotten to the vid-screen.
"I thought I saw something. It might have been a flicker of a picture. I'm not sure," Robin replied.
"I'm starting to play the intervals," Cyborg said. On the screen nothing but static appeared for several minutes. Then, suddenly, a picture showed up on screen. There was a collective gasp in which even Raven joined in. On the screen was a picture of Titan Tower and the city in the background. There was just one small problem. Everything was destroyed or burning. The bridge which separated the bay from the ocean was blown in half. The rust-reddish color of the bridge was gone, replaced by a depressing and shocking gray. Bayside Avenue was on fire, and in the still picture, there were several explosions in progress. Some of the tops of skyscrapers in the background were blown off or burning. The biggest shock of all was Titan Isle. The ground was scorched and burned. Any grass that remained was either charcoal black or a very dark and dead brown. The Tower itself was the stuff that made up nightmares. There was no "T" anymore. The top bar had been blown off and was laying on the front of the shore burning. In two pieces. Flames spewed out of the new sunroof in the Tower. The entire thing was a complete devastational scene out of a horror movie.
Robin was the first to speak. "Play the next several hundredths of a second. The burning city vanished, replaced by a message from Slade.
He spoke in his usual mysterious and enigmatic tone. "Hello, Titans. I've heard you've added a new team member to your ranks." Everyone turned to look at Terra. Before anyone could ask why Slade had mentioned her, Slade began to speak again. "I'd like you to figure out how I could do what you see in this image. But be warned." Everyone went on edge, if they could go on edge more than they were. "You don't have much time. When you run out of it, your precious little city becomes mine." The message ended, replaced by the silent static.
A grimace crossed Robin's face. This city would never exist except in the photographic world. Robin would make sure Slade was taken down. Whatever the cost. He stormed off through the door, making sure that it slammed behind him.
The silence remained in place for several minutes after that, but Beast Boy was the one to break the proverbial ice. His comment was not a joke, it was not glib, and it was not making fun of anything. It was merely a statement that needed to be said for it to sink in. "Slade's back."
Robin stood in his room looking at his personal video-link phone. He had downloaded the image of the destroyed city and was still surveying the damage. He had played the message from Slade over and over, looking for some weakness. It made no sense to Robin. How did Slade think the Titans would figure out this mystery? Robin just couldn't figure out why Slade would tell them something so specific about his plan, but there had to be an ulterior motive for sending such a shocking image.
Robin began running through the possibilities of what Slade's ulterior motive might be. It could be that Slade just wanted to psych them out and shock them so much that they wouldn't know what was coming next. Then again, it could be that Slade wanted to get them out searching for clues as to how Slade would get the kind of firepower to do the damage that was in the image, leaving Titan Tower vulnerable to attack. The possibilities were endless.
Slade could be up front at times, but he could also be so enigmatic that he wasn't even there and he communicated to you through a transmission that would drive you crazy with frustration. That was Slade's way. Mystery, deception, trickery, and traps were the most deadly things in his arsenal. It had been confirmed in their first meeting that one of Slade's endgame goals was to destroy the city. The motive had remained unclear, but Robin was hoping that this latest message from Slade would bring Slade out and show his motivations for destroying the Titans and the city.
Robin decided to study the picture again, just in case he missed something because of his anger and shock. He still saw the remains of the bridge, the burning skyline, the explosions on Bayside Avenue, the charcoal grass, the trashed Tower. But then, in the corner of his eye, Robin noticed something on Bayside Ave. Amidst all of the fires and explosions, Robin saw that some of the pavement was bent upwards at an odd angle. He also looked at the bridge and saw that the supports which held the bridge up were unnaturally bent and twisted. It almost looked like an earthquake had hit.
"How could an earthquake have hit with no fault lines around here?" Robin asked himself. "Unless . . . . ." A possibility began to dawn on him. It was one that he had not even considered. It was unlikely, but it could still be true. There could be a mole inside Titan Tower. And the person he suspected was none other than Terra.
Robin burst into the main living room. The other Titans had gone and only Raven remained, apparently continuing her daily meditation that she had been unable to finish.
Forgetting that Raven liked absolute silence while she was meditating, save for her own chants, Robin yelled out, "Raven!" She turned around with an angry look on her face. It kind of looked as though she was about to pulverize Robin. "Sorry. I didn't know you were meditating."
"How could you not know?" Raven asked. "I was sitting there chanting, so I know full well that you could see me."
"Look, I said I was sorry," Robin replied hastily. "Listen, I need you to help me find Cyborg, Star, and Beast Boy," he asked in a sort of repenting tone.
"What about Terra?" Raven asked. "Like it or not, and I know that you do, she is part of the team now. We have to include her in our briefings."
"I know, but it is vital that Terra not learn anything about this meeting."
"Why?"
"I'll delve into the details after we get everyone together," Robin said. "Now, will you help me or not?"
Ten minutes later, Beast Boy, Starfire, Cyborg, Robin and Raven were in a small room that was almost never used. Robin doubted that Terra even knew of its existence.
"Is there a problem, Robin?' Star asked. "Why is Terra not with us and why are we meeting in such a dark, cramped, and secluded room?"
"Yes, please explain what the heck is going on here." Beast Boy, of course.
"Alright, alright, I'll tell you what's going on before you all attack me," Robin said. He took a deep breath as he was about to explain the events that led up to his suspicions. "I was looking at the picture that Slade sent us. As I was looking at Bayside Avenue, I noticed that the pavement was bent upwards at an odd angle. Upon further examination, I noticed that the supports which held the bridge up were unnaturally bent and twisted."
"Couldn't that have been a bomb?" Cyborg asked.
"No. The scorching was minimal there. It looked like an earthquake had hit the city. As you know, no fault lines run anywhere near here. As a result, I can only come to the conclusion that—"
"Whoa," Beast Boy interrupted. "Hold on a second. You don't honestly think that Terra is a mole working for Slade, do you?"
"I have to confess that I have my suspicions," Robin replied. The group as a whole let out a shocked gasp.
"Well, what other evidence have you seen?" Raven asked.
"None. I just have my suspicions."
"No way I'm buying this whole mole stuff," Beast Boy said. He looked like he was about to attack Robin, cry, or do both. "There is no way that Terra is a mole."
"But if there's even the possibility—" Robin tried to respond.
"There isn't. You don't know what you're talking about." This time around, he looked like he was just going to attack Robin. "This whole meeting is pointless. I'm outta here." He opened the door and walked off.
"Do you think he will tell her of your suspicions?" Star asked with a look of concern for Beast Boy on her face.
"No. I knew he would take it the hardest," Robin said. "He doesn't want to believe it, but he knows that there is the chance possibility that she is a mole for Slade. That's why he reacted the way he did."
"So what do we do about Terra?" Cyborg asked.
"I think we should restrict her access on our main computer facilities," Raven answered.
"Agreed, but we have to do it discreetly and without her knowing. She'll tip Slade off if she knows that we suspect her," Robin replied.
"And otherwise?" Star asked. "How do we handle the chance that one of our friends is not really one of our friends?"
"We have to go about our daily business and act like nothing's wrong," he replied.
"But-" Cyborg tried to respond.
"No 'buts'. Act normal, or that picture may become reality." His last sentence was not a request. It was a command.
Next in Revelations: the Titans have individual thoughts on Terra as they try to cope with the news that she may be a mole.