Titans: Elemental

Chapter 60: Aftershock, Part 2

We see Cinderblock facing off against Dick in an open-pit mine, he has lifted a dump truck above his head. He hurls it at Dick, who fires a grappling hook and swings away on its line as the vehicle smashes down near him. What he has hooked is the overhead boom of a crane; he swings up and over it in a full circle, coming down for a flying kick at Cinderblock. This blow finds the stone behemoth's forehead and drives him back to the edge of the pit.

He shakes his head to clear it, roars, and charges back in. We see Dick, standing pat atop an earth-mover with Bryan jumping down beside him. As the approach continues, the Titans' leader and the winter soldier jump out of the way, revealing Starfire right behind them and flying in fast. Her sucker punch drops Cinderblock into a hard skid across the pit floor; he fetches up against a parked crane. Something creaks overhead, drawing his attention and snapping him back to full consciousness in a very big hurry. High above, the crane's load of steel girders has been set swinging by the crash. Down they come, squarely on him; in no time flat, though, he is back on his feet and hopping mad.

Cinderblock rips the boom loose and swings it across the pit, but Starfire hits it with a couple of well-timed shots that slice it apart. Those huge concrete hands wrap themselves around her, and drag her up to his truly annoyed face. This time, though, she does not smile or apologize for having to disappoint him. We see one violet-booted leg swinging back. The ensuing high kick gets her out of his grip and is followed by a disc flung into his face, and a laser blast at the same time; the diac bursts with a brilliant flash that dazzles him. His perspective: bright spots play across his retinas and obscure the double image of the incoming Dick and Bryan. The eyes focus themselves just before two steel boots crash into his face. Cinderblock is dumped onto his back again.

He slides across the pit to crash into a piece of equipment and then stands up. We see Bryan and Dick watching him from atop a vehicle, with Starfire floating nearby.

Starfire, "he is unquestionably persistent."

Dick, "but why? There's nothing to capture, nothing to steal. Why did Slade send him here?"

Bryan, "if I know that old psychopath, there's always a reason for what he does…."

Cinderblock charges back to the three Titans, who bail out before his rush.

….

Back to Overload, who has backed Raven up to the wall. She hits the area with a bit of telekinesis; the black power traces along a couple of conduits behind the plaster, and these break out to hose the electrical enemy with water.

Rose grabs a nearby hose and begins spraying him as Blackfire peppers him with starbolts.

He is driven back toward the floor platform as more pipes rupture and start to drench him, and gradually, his body subsides into the floor, leaving his circuit-board core lying by itself.

Raven steps to the center of the room with Rose and Blackfire; standing over the board.

Raven, "what is your mission? Why are you-?"

Suddenly, brown sludge emerges from the pipes and hits all three girls with facefuls of the stuff and knocks them all the way to the wall.

"Hel-lo?"

The apprentice's boots approach Overload's core, the mud receding around each footfall.

Terra, "does the word 'decoy' mean anything to you?"

Overload floats away.

Terra, "we had to find some way to coax you cowards out of hiding."

Raven and Blackfire warm up as Rose pulls out her fighting staff.

Raven, "Terra."

Terra, "Raven."

Raven, "Traitor."

Terra, "Witch."

Blackfire, "clorbag."

They all charge at one another.

Terra is riding up on a muddy wave and jumping free, Raven and Blackfire flying to meet her challenge as Rose uses a grappling hook to swing towards Terra. They struggle briefly before Raven plants a boot sole in the aforementioned traitor's face and sends her down into the muck.

When Terra sits up, she is just as filthy as her opponents, and her eyes start to glow with a new and fiercer light. She raises herself on a column of mud, then jumps off it and hits Raven with a flying tackle. Both tumble into the swamp that covers the floor.

The surface settles down and is dead still for a long, tense moment as Blackfire and Rose stand by, worried for their friend. First to stand up is Terra, who then reaches in and pulls Raven up by the hair, but a burst of telekinesis knocks her off her feet. In a flash, Raven has thrown herself at the former Titan and pushed her head below the surface in an attempt to drown her. A few bubbles break the surface, and then a very large one swells and bursts with enough force to throw Raven halfway across the room.

Terra stands up, still breathing on her own, and pushes the mire back from a large circle of floor around her.

Blackfire flies at her, eyes blazing, shooting countless starbolts at her!

Terra forms two shields of Earth to block them before sending a huge pillar at the angry Tamaranian, sending her flying to where Raven had landed!

Next is Rose, who jumps down and begins fist fighting Terra!

She yells, "how could you do this to us!? After we took you in?! You allied yourself with that monster!?"

Terra yelled back, "he believed in me! Saw my potential! Made me better! What would you know about him!"

Terra manages a lucky punch that knocks Rose's eye patch off.

Rose glares at Terra with her remaining eye and growls, "I know everything about him. He's my dad after all!"

Rose gets a lucky hit on Terra, giving her a bruise on her cheek before she summons a column of Earth to send Rose flying to the others!

At Terra's touch, the glutinous liquid boils and solidifies into small chunks of baked Earth, which she propels toward the ceiling.

Raven levitates a panel away from the wall, positions it to stop the volley heading to her, Rose and Blackfire, and sends it down at Terra. Now the mud forms into a tidal wave and is quickly cooked to make a stone wall that blocks the metal sheet.

The solid wave is smashed apart by the hit, but Terra gathers them together into a large hand. Balling this into a fist, she sends it toward the girls; Raven throws her own powers at the thing and slices it down the middle. Having avoided the biggest right jab ever thrown in recorded history, she focuses her energy on the overhead equipment and starts to bring it loose from the ceiling. As Terra looks up, the device comes free and sails toward her; she floats away on a stone platform she has created from the mud. She is thrown clear when the mass of metal explodes upon impact with the floor.

The three Titan's are shielding their eyes from the glare. After the view clears, they look across the room; a foot or more of mud covering the floor from wall to wall, smoking wreckage from this most recent offensive, and Terra nowhere in sight. A large shape starts to form in the ooze from a gushing pipe behind them; it becomes a mallet that whacks them all over the head, and down they go. However, the figure that immediately rises is not Raven but Terra, still on that rocky perch she created. The brown-tinted heroine gets partway up a moment later.

Terra, "you know, Raven, I never liked you."

Raven, "I never even wanted to know you", she stands up, "you may have fooled the others, but I always knew you were a liar."

Rose, "ever since you came back, we should have known."

Terra, "oh, really….", she cooks mud away from one arm, "is that why you let me live in your house and steal all your secrets and-"

Raven, "shut up!"

She forms the mud into a wave and drives it toward Terra, who parts it easily. The latter is now completely cleaned up, and she counters with three long tentacles that snake around the edges of the shield Raven has put up and plow her and the others away. Terra stands for a moment, a fist-sized mud ball floating in front of her face.

Slade, "good, Terra. You know her weakness. Exploit it to take all three of them down. Especially my traitorous daughter."

She rides her stone across the chamber, taking the ball with her; it circles her head as she stops near the girls.

Terra, "you're not getting mad, are you, Rae….", the ball stops, "oh, better be careful. Beast Boy told me all about your temper tantrums. And don't even get me started on Blackfire's ego or Rose's little sob story. Ugh."

In the end of this, the mud shapes itself into a fair likeness of Raven's head, with features set in a furious grimace. It then forms into Rose's head, giving an overly sad expression, and then Blalcfire's head, giving a really smug look, before turning back into Raven's head.

Raven, "anger is pointless. My emotions are under control."

Blackfire, "I don't think I'm better than anyone else."

Rose, "and you better not be mocking my story!"

The mud face becomes hideously distorted.

Terra, "nyah, nyah, nyah", makes flapping mouth with her hand; mud head follows suit, "anger is pointless. I'm not better. Don't mock me", the face is smoothed away, "and you're calling me a liar?"

Needled in just the wrong place, Raven gets to her feet and starts toward Terra, but is stopped by a mud hand that emerges to seize her ankle.

Blackfire and Rose try to help, but they're grabbed too!

They are dumped on their faces; as they sit up, the blond Earth-shaker floats a bit closer and brings up small stones to use as a staircase. She steps leisurely down toward ground level as she continues, with each stone falling away as she moves off it.

Terra, "come on. What stings the most….", she makes a small ridge and walks down it, "that I tricked you? That I nearly wiped out your team….", she kneels to the girls; stone spreading over them, "that everyone liked me better than any of you three? That they thought I was happier? That I was stronger?"

Raven, "stop it!"

Terra went for the throat.

Terra, "or is it that deep down inside, you really believed I was your friend? Or that…. Maybe Jack would like me more than you?"

Raven's eyes pop open. Not two, but four, glowing bright red, matching the red-cloaked angry/hateful side of her personality. Her powers flare up just behind the cloak's hem; with a feral roar, she grows to the same impossible height she attained while fighting Doctor Light.

Her voice echoes with a fearsome tone as Blackfire and Rose are pushed back from her power!

Raven, "I trusted you!"

She sends a hail of rocks down at Terra, who has to back up before them. Other items start flying at her as well.

Raven, "we trusted you! We gave you everything and you treated us like dirt!"

Blackfire tries to help by shooting her starbolts as Rose throws a knife at Terra, managing to slice the edge of her hair as she dodged it!

Now a piece of the balcony railing is wrapping itself around Terra's legs, but she hops clear and just avoids the supercomputer that slides her way next. She backs up before Raven's lunge, hits the wall, and forms a pair of mud arms that reach straight ahead. All ten fingers promptly wrap themselves around the gray throat and start squeezing; soon more arms reach up to pull her body in. By this point, the mud has deepened to the point where it is almost overflowing onto the balconies.

Blackfire and Rose, "RAVEN!"

They try to run and help her, but they too are grabbed by mud arms and dragged down with Raven!

Terra's face registers sudden shock at the brutality she and Slade have inflicted.

Slade, "finish them!"

These two words get her back on track. Raven and the others are about to go down for the third time, thanks to all the hands that have seized them; Terra floats over and lowers her stone platform until she is flush with the mud to watch the last stage of the struggle.

Terra, "who's in control now?"

But when she says this, there's a look in her eyes, as if she's second guessing what's she's doing….

Now Raven is the one who gets snapped back to the task at hand. With only her head breaking the surface, her eyes return to normal as she realizes that she has played right into Terra's trap. She has time enough for a last gasp and cough before being dragged wholly into the swamp.

Blackfire tries to reach into the air before she is pulled down as well!

Rose yells one last thing before she gets pulled down into the mud!

"I'll see you in He-"

But she didn't even get to finish that….

….

We see a patch of surging waves and tilt up to show them breaking against a high rock face. Cinderblock stands at the cliff's edge. Dick, Bryan and Starfire charge in, the boys on foot, she flying to get a grip on their wrists. At just the right moment, she yanks them up and slings thrm through a full circle as they both extend one leg for some flying kicks. The combination of muscle and momentum dumps Cinderblock back into the mining excavation.

Situated not far from Jump City Bay, evidently, and the two Titans move to the edge.

Starfire, "victory at last."

There is a tiny flash in the night sky, approaching fast.

Dick, "now we can concentrate on saving Ter-"

The flash resolves into a large boulder hurtling toward the site. Starfire notices it first and shoves Dick and Bryan out of the way, but gets the huge weight squarely across her back as a result. Ending up in the pit, they look back with a stunned gasp; at the cliff's edge, she tumbles senseless over it. Trying to grab her, the boys are a hair slow on the draw; they watch her plunge toward the jagged rocks hundreds of feet below.

Dick, "STARFIRE!"

Sinister laughter from Terra is heard. She has levitated Cinderblock himself and is standing on the unconscious creature's broad back, with the full moon shining behind her. The two float away.

….

Back inside the chemical plant. Plasmus' hands clap down flat on the floor, he is all fours and badly out of breath. Beast Boy, now a tiger, Jack with his hand ablaze and Vic are right in front of him, having gotten the upper hand. The big man breaks out his cannon, but the entire place starts shaking before he can fire a shot.

Vic, "huh?"

The floor starts to crack beneath Vic's, and this widens into a broad fissure. Free-falling into the depths, Vic launches his left hand upward to use as a grappling hook, and digs its fingers into the floor tiles. Five deep grooves are cut into the surface as it is dragged along, but a perpendicular fracture opens to break the hold entirely. We see Vic, still hanging on the end of his line, which suddenly goes slack as the hand drops into view. He vanishes screaming into the black abyss.

We see Beast Boy's tiger paw, holding on for dear life to a rock on the wall of one of these new gouges. It reverts to human form; and we see him just below floor level as Terra steps to the edge. He looks up with a shocked gasp.

Terra, "hope you're not expecting a goodbye kiss."

BB, "Terra, you can't."

Terra, eyes glowing, "watch me."

The sides of the fissure grind back toward one another.

BB, "Terra!"

The light from above is cut off.

Terra turns to see Jack standing atop a slab of floating Earth.

He growls, "you may control the Earth, but I have all the elements on my side!"

Jack shoots a blast of lightning at Terra! She quickly dodges and rises up on her own slab of Earth!

Jack forms an enormous ball of fire in his hand and throws it at Terra! She swerved as fast as she could away from it and raced towards Jack! Jack begins shooting huge gusts of air at Terra, but she keeps moving slowly but surely towards him! She grabs his staff as she lands on his slab, and the two begin playing tug of war with the staff!

Jack tries blasting ice into her face, making her hair fly around as frost litters her growling face and hair, but she keeps tugging at the staff!

Jack growled, "why Terra?! You were our friend! You were family! And you threw it all away for Slade!?"

Terra growled, "you don't know WHAT I've run from. What I've done. What Slade has given me a chance to do!"

Jack, "the past is the past! We accepted you! And you tossed us aside for a man who uses his kids as weapons! A man who mind controls people! Blackmails them! Kills them even!"

Jack tries to blast some water into her eyes, but she quickly throws some dirt into it, forming it into mud and tossing it aside! Jack can feel his grip slipping as he tries electrocuting her! Terra screams as the electricity courses through her, but she quickly headbutted Jack when he's not expecting it, stopping the surge of lighting and allowing her to pull the staff away from Jack! The Earth beneath them crumbles as Jack falls flat onto his back! Terra quickly forms another chasm, sending Jack plummeting down while screaming!

Once the screaming dies down, she tosses the staff down the chasm and closes it up.

She gives another torn look before steeling herself and walking towards the exit….

….

Slade looks over monitors showing the Titans each meeting their ends.

Slade, "excellent work, Terra. I couldn't have done it without you. But…. Our conquest is not yet complete."

….

We see the exterior of the chemical plant, then we see Terra walking away from it. There is an evilly satisfied smile on her face.

Terra, "I know. Seven Titans down, two to-"

She is cut off by the revving of the N-Cycle. We Dick in its driver's seat, Bryan sitting right behind him; the vehicle is hurtling over her head, and they jump clear for two flying tackles that lay her out flat. They struggle, but the boy's have the advantage of leverage and keep her pinned.

Dick, "do, not, move."

Terra, "what's the matter? Feeling lonely since I exterminated all your friends? You especially, Bryan. I took out your brother! Your girlfriend!"

Bryan, "that ain't gonna work Terra!"

Dick, "and they were your friends, too."

Terra, "I don't need any friends."

Bryan, "what did we ever do to make you hate us so much?"

Terra, "you were born."

Her eyes flare up. A fresh tremor cracks the ground, throwing them in opposite directions.

Dick, "I promised Beast Boy I'd give you one last chance, and this is it!"

Bryan, "this can still change Terra! Just stand down!"

With fresh roars, they both charge at her and start raining punches. She dodges the firsts, blocks all the others, and returns the favor; they avoid her blows and catch her off balance by throwing her away!

She sails away to land in a crouch, then brings up a chunk of rock and rides it back to deliver a high-speed flying kick that sends Dick reeling. She then sends a pillar of dirt into Bryan's chest, sending him flying to where Dick landed. Now they are the ones on the defensive before a storm of punches, but a black-gloved hand locks around an armored wrist and stops her cold. Bryan does the same when she tries to punch him, his robotic hand clenched around her wrist.

Her exposed left eye widens in shock as they fling her against a chain-link fence. She hits it face first and is pinned there, Dick not relaxing his grip on the arm he has twisted behind her back. Bryan points his gun at her so she doesn't try anything.

Dick, "look at yourself, Terra!"

A broken window shows the combatants' reflections.

Bryan, "is this really what you want to be?"

Terra gives a horrified look for a few seconds, before, in one swift motion, she reverses her position and Dick's.

Terra, "I'm just never gonna be good enough for you, am I?"

She sends a rock flying into Bryans gun, sending it flying away before he can attack!

Flipping his legs up the fence, Dick breaks her grip and somersaults away to Bryan. Terra raises herself on a tall stone column. The boys both look up wide-eyed as the shadow falls over them. The mass slides at them, throwing showers of earth and boulders everywhere and forcing them to run for it. A long leap gets them clear; Dick whips a disc up at her, and it explodes at her feet to throw her to the ground. The whole column crumbles into a thundering avalanche of fragments, but she brings these under her control, suspending them in midair, and stands up.

Dick, "you don't belong with Slade."

Terra, "you don't know anything about me."

Bryan, "why do I get the feeling she's said that a lot today..."

She sends the stones at them; in a heartbeat, Dick has his fighting staff out and twirling as he charges. Bryan quickly follows with his robotic arm poised to strike. One rock after another is crushed to gravel by Dick's powerful swings and Bryan's powerful punches, and they jump along the tops of others to drill two huge roundhouse kicks that skid Terra at least fifty yards downrange. As she starts to come around, the end of the staff pins her back.

Dick, "it doesn't have to be this way, Terra! I was Slade's apprentice once."

Bryan, "so was I. He mind-controlled me and turned me into this! He blackmailed Nightwing into working for him! But me and him got out. So can you!"

Terra, "I don't need you to save me."

Dick, "you can only save yourself."

Terra, "I don't need saving!"

Bryan, "keep telling yourself that, it's not true!"

She kicks them away, breaking the staff, and flips up to her feet. The boys leap away from the melee; the ground starts to tremble. Terra is striding toward them.

Terra, "I'm not some sad little girl who's waiting to be rescued."

Back to the boys. Rocky masses emerge from the earth and are followed by the opening of fissures that send up curtains of dust and wind.

Terra, "I wanted to be this way. I wanted to go with Slade. I wanted to annihilate you and your pathetic friends!"

Bryan, "is this all because you think Beast Boy told us you couldn't control your powers!? I was mind controlled for months, and you don't see me attacking my brother when he didn't find me!"

Terra once again flinched before she growls and shakes her head.

A flick of Terra's hand aims a boulder toward them. It crashes down just to one side, but the shock wave puts them down. As they struggle to rise, she continues her steady approach and directs two more stones; these ones also land short and knock them flat. They labor for breath after taking the one-two punch; she stands over them and raises both hands.

Terra, "and now, I never want to see your faces again."

The hands come down. We see a third boulder in view, floating above the boys, then dropping straight toward them!

….

Skidding into view to stop under a spotlight is a broken Titan's communicator. Slade reaches into view and picks it up. Terra and the three prison escapees are standing at a short distance. Overload has put his body back together since his fight with Raven.

Slade, "you see, my dear apprentice…. Now that you belong to me, the city belongs to us."

Terra keeps looking down, as if the weight of everything she's done is finally catching up with her….

….

We see the Tower, standing on its own….

….

We go through a cavern deep beneath it. Voices echo within it.

Vic, "no more chances."

Blackfire, "no more doubt."

Starfire, "no more trust."

Raven, "and no more mercy."

BB, "she's just another criminal."

Rose, "she's just like him."

Jack, "she needs to be stopped."

We see the silhouettes of the Titans at the far end of the cavern; they have all survived Terra's onslaughts, and one of Starfire's hands glows green as a torch. Blackfire does the same with her hand glowing purple, and Jack's hands glowing red with flames.

Bryan, "and we're going to stop her."

The others are in complete surprise at the sound of Bryan's voice. Raven, Blackfire and Rose have cleaned up nicely after her extended mud bath. Starfire, Blackfire and Jack raise their lit hands a bit higher; we see Bryan and Dick, eyebrows lowered in icy determination. They, too, are in one piece after getting bashed with that boulder, though their clothes are a bit torn.

Dick, "no matter what it takes…."

….

Reviews:

Bailey Radcliff: thanks. Glad you're dog is fine. I'm happy to inspire.

pokemonking092: glad you enjoyed the chapter so much.

Mrgamerandwatcher: true that.

Canadude2029: indeed. Things are gonna get tense.

raven 2012: glad you liked the chapter.

agolembiewskijedi99: couldn't have said it better myself.

Ushindi: It's okay. 1. The creators have gone on record saying it was the real Terra, and it was revealed in a tie in comic that Terra remembered everything, but she didn't wanna put her friends through aymore pain. 2.i thought it was okay. 3. Yes.

….

So I changed Terra's dialogue slightly, so her betrayal didn't go too far before she redeems herself.

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