When Robin woke up, he knew immediately something was very wrong. He was inside a glass container in a plant that looked familiar to him. He was feeling groggy and disoriented, so he couldn't piece together where he was at the moment. He looked to his left and to his right and saw that the other five members of his team were also trapped inside glass containers as well. He tried punching at the glass, but it didn't make a dent. As his grogginess faded, he punched the glass a few more times, but it was clearly too thick to penetrate. He reached for a weapon from his utility belt only to find that he no longer had it on him.

"You can forget breaking out of these containers," a voice called from what sounded like a speakerphone. Robin identified the voice as coming from Red X. "They're designed to be impenetrable, and they negate the powers of anyone trapped within them. They can't stop you from using your gadgets, which is why I had to confiscate your utility belt. I also gotta say, your belt looks pretty dated. The one he gave me was a lot nicer."

Robin screamed and slammed his fists against the glass one more time, but all that did was make his hands start throbbing in pain. "What do you want with us?" Robin cried.

"We needed you do-gooders out of the way," Red X said. "You probably think I'm gonna reveal my master plan to you because I think you can't possibly escape and stop me. Unfortunately for you, I'm not that dumb."

"I think I already know what you're planning," Robin said. "I recognize where we are now. This is Dr. Chang's old Zynothium plant. You want to make it operational to start producing more weapons. It's not going to work. When we find a way out of here—"

"You can save the hero's speech," Red X said. "You're not going to change any minds here."

"Who's helping you?" Robin asked. "Is it Slade? It has to be. No other villain has the resources or the capability of pulling this off."

"Whether or not I'm working for Slade doesn't matter," Red X said, which all but confirmed to Robin that his guess was correct. "All that matters is I'm getting all the Zynothium I want, and there's no possible way you can stop me."

That was the last thing Robin heard from the loudspeaker. He called out to Red X, but there was no longer a response. He hit the glass one more time to vent his remaining frustration and then slumped down to the floor.

"Robin!" Beast Boy yelled. "How are we going to get out of here? Red X wasn't bluffing about these containers. Every time I try to morph, I can't actually pull it off. It's like my mind wants to do something but my body can't handle it."

"I'm having the same problem," Raven said. "It's like my mental pathways have all been blocked. I have no way to use my powers."

"What about Cyborg?" Robin asked. "He has more gadgets than I do. Can he do anything to break himself out?"

"Cyborg is still unresponsive," Starfire said. Robin looked towards her and Cyborg on his right side. While the other Titans had awoken, Cyborg was still powered down. None of his blue lighting was active, and his human eye was closed.

"Of course. Red X powered him down when he ambushed us," Robin said. "With my belt gone and Cyborg deactivated, nobody has any way of breaking out of this glass." Robin took a moment to try to come up with an alternative plan. "Does anyone have their communicators on them? Mine is stored in my utility belt."

"Red X confiscated them all," Jinx replied. "There's no way to call out for help."

Robin groaned. It was clear that Red X and Slade had planned this ambush perfectly. With no means of breaking out of their glass prisons and no way to call for reinforcements, there was nothing else Robin could think to try.

Suddenly, a loud humming started, as if a large generator had just been started. The mess of conveyor belts that the Titans could see from their pods began moving. Materials were being funnelled down the conveyor belts, which split off into many separate assembly lines. The Zynothium plant was producing weapons again, and there was nothing the Teen Titans could do to stop it.

Robin let out a yell of frustration. It wasn't often that he felt utterly powerless to change anything, so with that feeling now settling in, his anger came to a boil. Starfire took notice of this.

"I am sure we will find a way out of this predicament," she said.
"How?" Robin asked, snapping his head in her direction with a scowl on his face. "If you have any practical ideas that I haven't already tried, I would love to hear them."

"I have no such ideas at the moment," Starfire responded, a frown forming on her face, "but I refuse to give up hope."

"Hope? Hope is meaningless," Robin said. "Without any pragmatic solutions, what good does hope do anybody? When you're done being a cheerleader and actually have a game plan, let me know. Otherwise keep your hope to yourself."

"Dude, not cool," Beast Boy said. "Star's just trying to make the best of a bad situation. You don't have to harp on her like that."

"Great," Robin muttered, "the one person with less of a chance of coming up with a solution chooses to speak up."

"Hey!" Raven shouted. "This bickering is getting us nowhere. I get that you're frustrated. We all are. But if we don't keep that anger in check, all this arguing will accomplish is putting a rift between us. That won't help anybody."

Raven's words managed to cool Robin's temper just enough for him to stop lashing out at his teammates. He rubbed his temple with his pointer finger and thumb, as he was starting to get a headache. Now that he was calmer, he was able to start thinking of any possible way to break out of these glass containers and go after Red X and Slade.

"If Red X and Slade had wanted us dead," Robin said, "they would have killed us already. That means eventually they'll have to let us go or at the very least bring us food and water. If they do decide to feed us, that will be the only chance we have to break out of here."

"I like where this is going," Beast Boy said, "but we literally just pigged out on pizza a couple hours ago. We're not gonna need to be fed for at least, like, five hours from now."

"Five hours is better than nothing," Robin said. "The problem is that's at least five hours Red X can use to stock up on enough Zynothium weapons to last him for weeks. There has to be another option that we're not seeing."

It was Beast Boy's turn to start thinking. "Um...I might actually have an idea."

"Go ahead," Robin said. "I'm stumped."

"I've been checking in with Terra pretty frequently. She might figure out there's something wrong if I'm not answering her calls."

Robin perked his head up. Beast Boy was actually onto something. "Does Terra know how to run a trace on her communicator? She can find the coordinates of our communicators and come to investigate what happened. Then she could find us and figure out a way to break us out of these pods."

"You taught her how to do that when she was first instated on the team," Raven said. "She just had her memories restored, so it's possible she remembers how to do that and she can locate us."

"Yeah, but that's only if she realizes something's wrong," Beast Boy said. "Do you think she still even cares enough to check in?"

"You tell me," Robin said. "How often have you two been in contact?"

"Every night," Beast Boy said. "We try to check in for at least a few minutes. Sometimes one of us is busy so we have to keep it short, but when we're both free we can talk for hours. She would know something's wrong if I wasn't calling her or responding."

"Odds are pretty good that she'll realize there's a problem," Robin said. "I guess the only thing we can do now is hope she comes to the rescue."

Tara had finished her homework for the night. She was now lying on her bed, fiddling with the communicator that the Titans had given to her recently. It was nearly eleven o'clock, and she hadn't heard from Beast Boy yet. Even if he was in the middle of a fight, he would at least give her a courtesy call to tell her he couldn't talk at the moment. Hearing nothing from him indicated to her that there was something wrong.

Tara tried calling Beast Boy herself, but there was no response on the other end. She remembered enough to know that the communicator would have at least rung on his end if it was powered on, so she knew that his communicator had been turned off, which meant there was a serious problem.

She had a faint memory of Robin teaching her about the communicators the Teen Titans used when she was first made a member. It had been years ago, long before she had even been turned to stone, but because of the memory adjustments Psimon had made, Tara was able to remember a procedure she could activate to ping Beast Boy's communicator and find its location.

On the back of the communicator was a small hole. Tara grabbed a pen from the desk in her room and pushed it into the hole, holding it for five seconds. The communicator vibrated, and when she turned it around and opened the display, she saw a menu of codes that corresponded to every other communicator in the Titans' network. She scrolled through, looking for a code that would trigger her memory, and then she found it. The code "Green Epsilon" corresponded to Beast Boy. She selected it, and the coordinates of his communicator were revealed. It looked as though they had originated from the middle of a large forest on the outskirts of Jump City. Tara had no idea what was out there.

She backed out to the first menu and looked for another code that stood out as familiar. She found another one called "Red Alpha," which she remembered belonged to Robin. She selected that one as well, and the coordinates were in the exact same location.

Tara didn't need any more information to reasonably conclude that her friends needed help. Reluctant as she had been to return to hero work, the stakes had changed now that she knew her friends were in trouble. She would have to sneak out of her house to investigate the forest and figure out what had happened to the Titans. She knew her parents would already be asleep by now, but she would have to let Ashley know what was happening. She quietly went to her room and knocked on the door.

"Come in," Ashley said. Tara snuck in and shut the door carefully behind her.

"Ashley, I think there's something wrong with the Teen Titans," Tara said. "I need to head to the forest out of town to figure out what's going on. Can you cover for me?"

"Um...yeah, I guess, but I thought you were done with that stuff."

"Normally, that would be true, but I have reason to think my friends are in danger. I just need you to make sure our parents don't find out. I can explain everything to them later."

"Okay, okay, get going," Ashley said. "I'll do what I can to keep them in the dark, but you better make it quick."

"I'll be back as soon as I can," Terra said. "Thank you, Ashley."

"No problem."

Terra went back to her room, threw on a sweatshirt over her pajamas, and left the house. She ran a few blocks down, out of earshot, and then used her powers to lift up a rocky surface underneath her. It had been a few weeks since she had used her powers, but she was still able to ride the rock in the direction she needed to go.

Her flight pattern was haphazard at first, but as she became reacquainted with her powers, she felt more comfortable steering the rock as she balanced on it. It took her about ten minutes to get to the forest, after which she had to fly more slowly so as not to slam into any trees. She kept an eye on her communicator, and once she was close enough, she could immediately tell where her friends were.

Terra could now see a giant factory that stood in the middle of a clearing in the forest. The factory was humming, so it was clearly operational, but Terra had no idea why it was being used. She stepped off of the boulder she had been riding on and slammed it into the ground, breaking it up into smaller pieces of rock she could use for ammunition. She scoped out the area to try to find a way into the factory, and she was able to find an entrance, but it was being guarded by two robotic drones that could only belong to Slade. "I should've known he was behind this," she muttered to herself.

There was no time to come up with a better plan. She would have to go in with boulders blazing and hope the element of surprise was enough to help her break in. She launched two of her large rocks at the two drones. The first one was a clean hit, but the second one veered too far to the left. The drone turned and spotted Terra immediately and started operating an earpiece. Terra reacted quickly and lifted a rocky surface directly underneath the second drone. The drone was thrown upward and broke apart when it hit the roof hanging over the entrance.

Hoping that drone hadn't called in reinforcements, Terra tried to open the door, but it was locked shut. Looking down, she saw that the door was sitting on a rocky foundation. Her hands glowing yellow, she strained with her powers for a few seconds and was able to collapse the rock beneath the door enough to make a hole large enough for her to slip inside. She had to abandon her other rocky projectiles to fit through, but she was now inside the factory.

Terra had to navigate through the labyrinthine halls of the factory to try to locate the communicators. All the while, she also kept an eye on her surroundings in case she ran into the Teen Titans. There were more of Slade's robotic drones operating certain machines within the factory, but Terra was able to stay out of sight for the time being.

At last, she found a way to locate the room where the communicators were being stored. The door was, of course, locked, and there were no rocky surfaces nearby that she could use to gain access. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone running towards her, but she was then hit in the face and thrown to the floor.

Terra looked up to see who had accosted her, and her heart skipped a beat. "Slade!" she shouted.

"I should have realized you would come here," Slade said. "I should have also realized you would be too stubborn to wait for reinforcements. You're here alone, aren't you?"

"What have you done to my friends?" Terra asked.

"Your friends? I didn't think you even still cared enough about them, but since you are here, I have to admit that I was mistaken. No matter, it won't be a mistake I make twice."

Slade leapt into the air and aimed his foot at Terra's head. She rolled out of the way. Slade's foot slammed into the floor, leaving a dent. He then swept his other foot to the side, catching Terra in the stomach. She gasped for air, as the wind had been knocked out of her. Slade tried to kick her again, but Terra rolled out of the way. She then grabbed at his leg as he tried to attack again. Slade stumbled, but managed to keep his footing and lean up against the wall.

"There are no geological materials in this part of the factory," Slade said. "You have no possible way of beating me in a fight."

"That doesn't mean I can't try!" Terra yelled. She rose to her feet and charged towards Slade. He grabbed her shoulders, spun, and threw her into the wall. He then pinned her there with his left arm and hit her in the back with his knee. He hit her again and again, slammed her head into the wall, and threw her onto the floor. Before Terra could recover, Slade punched her in the head, and she was knocked unconscious.

With Terra incapacitated, Slade made a call to Red X. "We've had an intruder, but I have subdued her for the time being. I believe she came alone."

"Who else even knew we were here?" Red X asked.

"Terra did," Slade replied. "The fool thought she could find her friends and free them, but she didn't anticipate my presence here. It wasn't hard to subdue her. Clearly she's out of practice."

"I assume you want me to set up another inhibition chamber."

"Not just yet," Slade said. "If we hold her here, her family will report her missing and likely involve the police. Once that happens, the other Titans around the globe will quickly catch on, and we do not have the resources to hold all of them at bay. We need to try something else."

"What did you have in mind?"

"I need to put a word out to Psimon again. It will take him a few hours to get here, but he has the ability to modify Terra's memories so that she has no recollection of her friends at all. If she does not know they are here, she won't try to rescue them again or report them missing. We can then return her to her family so that they, too, will not raise any alarms."

"Psimon will have to get here pretty fast for that to work. Where do we keep Terra in the meantime?"

"Get that inhibition chamber ready," Slade said, "but bring it out to me, away from the other Titans. They cannot know that she came to rescue them."

"Understood," Red X said. Slade took another look at Terra's unconscious body. Having known her for so long, he was neither surprised by her foolhardy attempt to free her friends nor her stubborn attempt to rescue them herself without calling for backup first. The girl was as dense and steadfast as the rocks she controlled. He made a call to Psimon. It rang a few times, but he did not respond. Slade made a few more attempts, but there was no answer. He then dialed Red X again.

"We have a problem," Slade said. "Psimon is not responding to my attempts to communicate with him. We're going to need a different plan."

"Why isn't he picking up?" Red X asked.

"I don't know. Perhaps he has run into trouble, but there isn't enough time to figure that out at the moment."

"So what are you going to do?"

Slade gave the idea some serious thought. "We need to fall back on my nanobots. If we reinject them into Terra's bloodstream, we can control her. She can then return home herself and act as though nothing is wrong. That will buy us time until we can discover what happened to Psimon."

"How do we monitor Terra once she's no longer at the facility?"

"I'll have to keep an open line of communication with her. I've done it before, so it should work temporarily at least. It's the only plan I can think of in such a short time."

"Roger that."

"We won't need the inhibition chamber then," Slade said. "Get my nanobot machine up and running instead. I'll meet you there with the girl in tow."

"Okay," Red X said.

Slade lifted Terra off the ground and draped her body over his shoulder. As he ran off to reunite with Red X, he could only hope that his plan to subdue Terra would work for the time being. The rest of his plans relied on the Titans being incapacitated. If keeping Terra on a tight leash didn't work, everything else had a chance to fall apart. Slade was determined to make sure that wouldn't happen.