Chapter 3: Departure and Arrival Finally Some Action!

The next day went by too quickly. It was already sunset by the time they were packed and ready to go. Time was delayed because of the many possessions some of the Titans wanted to take for the trip. Sunlight glittered into a room. Its rays flowed in waves on the carpet floor and little illusionary colors of the rainbow were all over when the light reflected against the glass of the windows.

The room was simple and very clean, with rosy pink curtains tied on each corner of the rectangular windows and walls painted in purple. A round shaped bed was near the corner, perfectly made with pink covers and fluffy pillows.

Starfire came out from her closet with a little pink backpack over her shoulder and a couple of items in her hands. She didn't come here with much and although she had many things later on, there weren't many she wanted to carry. She wanted to take back the things most important to her and wanted to treasure them for the rest of her life.

She cuddled it together in a pile and placed it on top of her bed. There were a few spectrums of clothing, a bottle of mustard, and her diary. But there was something missing. Starfire turned her head toward her dresser. She approached it and her eyes locked to a simple framed picture.

Starfire reached out her hand and grabbed it. The sunlight blocked a little of what the picture actually is, but she smiled anyway and traced a finger over it. It was a picture of the Titans on their first trip to the park together as friends and as a team.

They stood in front of a large tree on a perfect summer day. Cyborg was in the middle back because he was the tallest out of them all. Raven gave out a small simple smile which surprisingly wasn't forced or a fake, but a real but simple smile. Beast Boy though was right behind her with a pearly white smile and two fingers behind Raven's head.

Standing right of Cyborg was of course Robin. He had a rather sly smile on his face. His mask of course was covering his eyes and his hair was spiked in its spiky formation of black coal. She smiled and traced a finger over his handsome face. His face was flushed in scarlet red because Starfire had placed an arm around him and pulled him to her side, to get him closer to the group.

She sighed. Robin was the first person he had ever met. She remembered coming to Earth so well, it was like a flashbulb memory; she could remember every little detail on what had happened. And it was the happiest moment of her life, meeting her first friend; of course it was right below to her first kiss with the Boy Wonder.

For days she had wondered off all alone through the terrible, crippled streets of Jump City, at least the part of it she wasn't used to now. She didn't want to go into details of how terrified she was wondering off like that and having to face so many things her eyes would have been scarred for life.

But she was saved, by Robin and the Teen Titans. And they have become her first priority. They were the strength that made her keep trying, the heart to make her happy and to cheer wondrous things, and the group that she will never part from. "Together 'til the end," she remembered Robin saying when she first became a Teen Titan. That meant that forever more, Starfire was a Teen Titan and that's something that'll never change.

Starfire carried the picture to her bed and zipped her backpack open. She gently tucked in her clothes inside, her communicator, her bottle of mustard, and her diary. She held the picture high over her face and gave it a peck before she put it away. She had closed her backpack when light came on her back from the entrance to her room.

She turned her head as four shadows stood at her door, their eyes watching her kindly. "Ready Star?" Cyborg said as he swung his gym bag over his shoulder. Starfire nodded and grabbed her backpack. "So…how long are we in for Tamaran?" Beast Boy asked. "For as long as it takes." Robin replied and stared at Starfire still. "We are not going to loose a team member without a fight." He said with a smile.

"Thank you, Robin. And thank you, everyone for doing this for me. But are you certain that this is what you want?" "We're positive, Starfire." Raven answered quickly. "Wherever one of us goes, we all go." "Yeah! We're your baggage! You don't go anywhere without us!" Beast Boy shouted with a smile and it made Starfire giggle. "All right, let's go then!"

Days had gone by since the Teen Titans had left Earth. The coldness of space had numbed their bodies for some time, so now they were used to the cold. The stars were all around them, some blue and some red to represent the distance between the stars and themselves. They seemed so close to touch and yet to far to reach. That was the exact same thing for their journey to Tamaran; so close and yet so far.

The days were restless for them, their eyes opened for most of the night. Beast Boy couldn't understand how Robin was able to restrain the long days. They weren't so sure on when was daytime or nighttime, because in space, it was dark and the sun was too far away to warm them up with its glow.

Planets of different shapes and sizes passed them by as they fly on the T-Ship, the former submarine that was adjusted by Cyborg. The spaceship slowly glided through space, but actually they were going hundreds or maybe thousands of miles per hour if they were still on Earth. They were traveling by light-years.

Cyborg was in the center of the ship, because he was the one who knew how to control everything and was the master of weapons. Robin was on his right and Raven was on his life for navigation. And Beast Boy was above for natural resources; like oxygen, food, water, etc.

Starfire didn't ride with the others on the ship, because she didn't need oxygen to breathe. No Tamaranean ever needed air, or at least what Earthlings called 'air.' She flew through space in a stream of a green light in front of the T-Ship, to guide the others to her home.

There was no wind to blow her face and the smell of the ocean or flowers or anything to come to her nostrils. That was one of Earth's most wondrous things it had and she really was going to miss it. But she shook the sorrow away and started off at a faster pace. "Hey Starfire, slow down!" Cyborg said loudly in her ear. She was given a set of headphones to be able to communicate with the others while they were inside in the air-tight spaceship.

"This is so much fun!" Starfire shouted as she flew faster and faster like a comet. She performed flips and twirls. From the ship, Robin watched her closely. The lights from the buttons inside his cockpit made spots in front of his eyes, like the dots of sparkling lights of a disco ball. She was the Belle of the ball.

Her smile made him want to melt, her eyes almost blinded him for sure, the way she moved her arms and legs in such angles made his hands sweaty and his heart beat too fast to breathe properly. Robin had to pull his collar off of him for a second because suddenly to became hot.

"Robin?"
"What!" Robin's body shot up suddenly and his face hit the controls in front of him. "Ow…" "Ya alright, man?" Cyborg asked with a strange look on his face. "I'll live, but with a bump on my head. What's up?"

"Wanna get out of your fantasy, man?"
"Fantasy? I don't know what you're talking about?"
"You're sure? You were whispering kinda loud on the microphone."
"Yeah, I could hear you loud and clear." Beast Boy said with a chuckle.
"It almost sounded like you were moaning." Raven said from the other side of the connection.

Robin grunted and crossed his arms. He leaned back on his chair as more of their laughter echoed in his ear. "Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about." "Ah, we do, Robin. And it deals with—" "Starfire!" Robin shouted out suddenly.

Beast took out his headphone off and cleaned his ear from the scream Robin made right on the microphone. "Dude! Can you scream any louder?" "No! Starfire's in danger!" Robin pointed his finger to the outside.

Starfire was storming off in a flash of green light. Foreign spaceships were flying right after her, shooting their ammo at her with everything they had. Starfire screamed as she tried to dodge through them. Some went right between her legs and under her arms, but she didn't get hurt. Starfire shifted her body up, but the ships followed her still. Starfire looked down on them and her eyes were piercing green flames.

Her hands started to glow intensively and became orbs of light in her palms. She shot out her starbolts at the ships below her like a machine gun; one came right after the other. But the ships were fast and swiftly went through her blasts like they were nothing.

Starfire's teeth quivered with fear as she stopped her starbolts and continued to fly away. One ship was tailgating her very closely and was about to shot when suddenly a blue glow came in a distance and the next thing Starfire knew, the ship behind her exploded in a concentrated gulp of fire and metal. Starfire was able to get away with just a few scratches and a bruise on her arm, but all in all, she was alright.

She glanced up and saw the T-Ship overhead. She crossed a smile on her face. "Are you alright, Starfire?" Robin asked. "Yes, I am fine…Watch out!" Starfire's eyes bubbled with green light as she shot her lasers at the ship that hovered behind the T-Ship. But it was able to get away, it exploded and it forced the ship to tumble forward.

Starfire screamed and she started to glide to the ship when she saw a puff of smoke sizzling from the back wing of the ship, but one of the attacker ships came in front of her. The windows were tilted and she couldn't see who was inside. Starfire's face turned pale as the ship hovered closer and closer towards her, with their guns loaded and ready to blast her at any moment.

Starfire stood still, with her hands still glowing in lime green. But then whoever was inside that ship disregarded their guns and floating carefully and awfully close in front of Starfire. But then, a claw appeared from over the ship and it reached out toward Starfire. She screamed and tried to shoot her starbolts at them, but they seemed unaffected and they came right back at her.

Starfire moved back, her arms burning from her own blasts. She brushed her hair aside as the claw came at her and grabbed her. She screamed loudly and tried to break free, but each time she tried, the claw gripped her tighter and tighter. Starfire was suffocating and she couldn't breathe. She coughed and coughed to breathe, but nothing helped her. Her lungs were crushing against her ribs, dangerously close to death.

Starfire opened her eyes and they were glowing in flames. "I will no longer be the damsel in distress! Get off of me!" Her lasers shot out from her eyes and they blasted through the claw, melting it into ashes and they were dropped into the depths of space. Starfire tore off what was left of the claw and she zoomed toward the ship with her eyes glowing.

She threw starbolts at the ship and at that same moment, the T-Ship was blasting all of the other ships that kept coming at them. Clouds of smoke froze around them and were like icicles when the T-Ship zoomed through them like riding through a thunderstorm.

"Who are these people?" Beast Boy shouted as another spaceship came and blasted them from the rear. Beast Boy fell forward from the impact and red lights of alert flashed on all around him. He glanced up with a small scratch on his cheek and his forest green eyes widened in shock as he scanned through his computer. "Guys, we are running out of air! They had destroyed the oxygen tank! If we don't get outta here, we're gonna die! We're gonna die!"

"We're gonna die!" Beast Boy screamed out in panic and with the stress, he transformed into a small toad and then to a butterfly and then a rabbit; the list goes on. Raven scoffed. "We aren't going to die, Beast Boy." Cyborg's eyes narrowed as he turned the steering wheel around. "Hang on!"

The T-Ship to a very sharp 90 degree turn up high and higher through the stars and they seemed like lines all connected together in strings. Robin held onto his chair as they flew up at a tremendous rate and height, although in space that made no difference. The foreigner attackers came after them, one coming down on them and the one right at their tail.

They shot lasers of red and blue at them and a sum of the wings were falling apart. "Cyborg!" The Teen Titans cried. But Cyborg kept his hands together, his eyes watching and his mechanical mind calculating the right opporunity. "See ya!" He shouted and again made the T-Ship make a huge turn.

The two ships couldn't stop in time and they crashed into together and a bright flash of red light crossed the distance and gravity became stronger and it pushed the T-Ship even harder and harder. Their engines were on fire and in a matter of seconds, they were gone in a puff of smoke. The T-Ship started floating faster and faster and it went deeper into space and deeper into nowhere.

Beast Boy screamed. "AH! We're gonna die!"

But then, they heard metal scratching from the nose of the ship. Fingers dug into the ship and groans grew louder. Starfire levitated in front of the ship, her muscles pumping and straining to stop the ship. Her whole body caught in flames of green fire. "Starfire!" Starfire heard Robin's cry, but it seemed like he was mumbling in her ear, because she couldn't hear him well.

Everything appeared like an old television set; the voices weren't clear and the scenery was all black and white. Starfire was too concentrated and focused on her power. And as she pryed the ship to stop, memories flashed into her mind.

"Fight you little brat! Fight!" The whip came at her and crossed her back. Young Starfire screamed with pain and with a bleeding back that was filled with scars and old bruises from only months time.

Starfire tried to stand, but the whips just kept coming at her from the monsters that claimed her mind and body, but not her soul. A collar was around her neck, serving as a tool to keep her from using her Tamaranean gifts. Because if she were to use them, she would die a horrible death.

The poor little girl fought with her fists and her legs, forced to follow the command of people Tamaran had also feared. Her opponent came at her and pinned her to the ground. The monstrous creature stook out its tongue and licked her cheeks. Starfire wanted her eyes to glow, but then she remembered the rule and instead grabbed the creature by the legs and flipped it away from her.

The creature grabbed her collar before it fell back and it tore the contraption off of her, freeing her from her prisonment and her slavery. Before the guards were able to catch her, Starfire escaped in a flash of a green river and was swallowed by the darkness and dim light of the stars.

Starfire breathed heavily as the T-Ship came to a complete stop. Her face was streaming and beating with sweat. Her muscles were sore and her legs were shaking abruptly. "Whoo-hoo! Great job, Starfire!" Beast Boy shouted in victory. "Nice safe there, Star." Cyborg replied. "Are you okay?" Raven asked, her violet eyes glancing through the screen, seeing Starfire's weariness and how tired her eyes were. "I'm...well. And I'm glad that you all are as well."

"What's that over there?" Beast Boy pointed his finger toward something ahead. Starfire turned her head and a gentle smile crossed her face. "That is Tamaran, my home."

Starfire carried the T-Ship over her shoulders and slowly glided toward the planet. The planet was a perfect sphere of purple skies and clouds, an atmosphere of life that was unknown to the Teen Titans. Soon, they were entering its atmosphere and Starfire carried them through the skies, the clouds passing by them like cotton balls or simply a thick fog.

Robin gazed through his window as his masked eyes looked around in awe. Entering the planet, the color of the sky appeared to change into a light shade of orange and yellow, almost how the Earth would look during sunset. Alien birds chirped a weird sound and flew passed them, their loose feathers gracefully fell down and down to the ground.

Beast Boy chuckled at the strange faces of the birds and transformed into a green replica of them; since he can transform into ANY animal he wanted. Cyborg was paying more attention to the vehicles that were flying with the birds. It was almost like the pages of DaVinci's book, because they had the same sheets for the wings and wooden formation as the aircrafts DaVinci wanted to create; except these were made of metal that looked like the bark of an oak tree.

Some Tamaraneans instead of using that kind of transportation, they flew through the skies of the planet, their arms stretched out and their long hair blowing with the soft breeze. Raven was impressed by the tricks some of the people performed in the air and how they were able to do all of these with happy smiles and with ease.

Starfire landed on her feet on a flat platform and she carefully placed the T-Ship beside of her.

The T-Sub was sizzling with smoke and it thickened and raised higher and higher into the bright orange sky. The clouds they had went through faded and were gone and left a trail of enptiness in the sky. No grass or any sign of of green was on the ground. Buildings of a foreign archieture surrounded a large, tall and white palace.

There were no signs of birds chirping at that moment although it was only the midday and the sun was shining right over their heads in a pale-blonde color almost like the glow of the Earth's moon.

The T-Sub was almost completely destroyed. It was a wreck and probably would take a while to fix, although they might not be using it for a long time. Their things were safely inside the ship, suitcase after suitcase of their posessions; mostly Beast Boy's april-fool's kit.

The Teen Titans slowly arose from the ship and came out to stand next to their Tamaranean friend. Robin stood closely beside Starfire, giving her a comforting and warm smile. Starfire smiled back and she raised her arm up to reveal their surroundings. "Welcome to my home. Tamaran." She said.

The sound of a door swung opened and the Teen Titans turned their attention to the entrance of the palace. A dark, tall figure stood over the entrance. Her long almost black hair reached down her back. She wore a cloak of fur and a dress acustomed to Tamaranean traditions. Her indigo eyes glanced up and looked over the guests.

But there was something familiar about that stare. Like they had seen it before. Everything about her was too familiar. The figure took another step closer to the Teen Titans as they tensed with wonder of who is this person and why she seemed so familiar.

Welcoming them to Tamaran was none other than-