Chapter 3
Melissa woke up on the couch in the Tower living room with everyone standing over her, and sat up. "Wha...what happened? How'd I do?" "Um...yeah, well...", Beast Boy started, laughing to himself embarrassed. He didn't know what to say to her. He thought to himself about how he didn't want to tell her she totally wiped out on the course and fainted. The other Titans started thinking of what they should say to her so she wouldn't feel bad as well. "Look, you guys, could you all stop talking at once. I'm getting a major headache here. Doesn't help that I had one to begin with.", Melissa longed to say. But she was afraid to hurt their feelings or anger them, afraid they'd reject her like every other person she'd ever met, outside of her family. So she kept her thoughts to herself like always, out of fear and shyness, and waited for someone else to say something. It didn't take long for Raven to bluntly state what had occurred. "You got onto the training course and you passed out. Then you started shaking. We brought you in here, and laid you on the couch till you came to. And now you don't seem to remember any of it, which is weird. Anyway, that's "how you did.""
"Oh." Melissa looked down into her lap dejectedly, thinking of what a sight she must've been, convulsing there on the ground, completely failing the course. She couldn't remember any of it; her memory was wiped out each time she had a seizure, but she could still envision the embarrassment. And was it really that apparent that she didn't remember anything? Everyone was staring at her, and it became obvious that she'd better say something. She tried to calm down, and think of what to say, then began speaking, stuttering at first. "I...um..I I'm sorry that I f..failed the course so bad. It won't happen again. I promise I'll do better next time. Just that, I, I had a seizure. I don't know why. I mean, I have them and all, I'm just not sure why it had to happen then. But I promise, it won't happen next time, really." Robin looked over at Raven, then back at the forlorn girl. "Uh..yeah, about next time...you know, maybe it's better if you just stay away from the course for a while. Until you work on your powers a bit more or something." Melissa could see where this was going. She shakily stood up. "Yeah, I understand. If you want me to go now... hell everyone else rejects me, why should you people be any different? I'm never good enough for anyone. I guess I'll go now.."
"No! Please do not!", Starfire said, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her back to her position on the couch. "Robin, we must not let her leave. She has no friends. We must be her friends, we must assist her!" Starfire said, then flying over to Robin's side, begging him to allow Melissa to stay. "Hey Star, I never said she had to leave. I just don't want her on that course again for a while, cause I don't want her having another seizure. Sorry we had you on that course Melissa, I didn't realize you were sick." Melissa looked down again at that word, "seizure", then got up once again facing Robin. "But I do have to leave. What will my parents say if they find out I've been abducted and brought to Philadelphia? They'll freak. I have to go. Thanks for everything, it was nice to meet you guys and all but-" "Why can't ya just call em' and tell em' that you're here with us? And that we're gonna help ya with your powers and all. I'm sure they'd let ya stay for at least the rest a' the weekend." Cyborg interjected. "Yeah, I'm sure they would- if they knew about these power things. But they don't. And I think I almost killed my brother about 4 days ago, so I'm not sure how they'd react." Melissa looked around at the teens, realizing that for once, someone actually wanted to be her friend; 5 someones in fact. Then she walked over to the phone, lying on a coffee table beside the couch, and picked it up. "But then, I guess it's worth a shot, huh?"
"No, really, I'm fine! And I'm not lying to you, really. These kids are gonna help me, please, just let me stay. Tell them at school that I've been sick or something if I'm gone into next week, please?" Melissa then paused, a distressed look on her face. "Wait, you're coming down here! Why? No! Really, I'm fine, and besides, you'll never find me. No, I'm not with some gang! Look, stop it! I'm staying and that's it. I don't care what you say, they want to help me, and I'm staying, so goodbye!", Melissa yelled, slamming the phone down hard onto the receiver and knocking it to the floor. Then she turned to the Titans, a resigned look on her face. "She didn't take it so well,... She thinks I'm lying and that I'm like taking drugs with some gang or something. I think I should go home...maybe not to stay, but at least to show her I'm telling the truth. I feel bad, I've never told her off like that. Can someone please bring me home?" They looked at each other then Raven stepped forward and said, "Sure, whatever. Let's go."
They landed at Melissa's house after flying in silence for almost half an hour. Melissa was rather perturbed by the fact that this girl hadn't said two words to her, and at first had thought her to just be shy, but now just had this feeling that she just didn't want to be bothered talking to her. Melissa knocked on the front door, and was greeted almost immediately by her mother. "Oh my God, where have you been! The police have been searching all over! We thought you might be dead! Thank God you're here!... And who's that freak that you're with?", She said, looking back at Raven in her strange attire. "I never thought that you would join a gang or cult, maybe your brother, but not you. Well, you get inside, right now.", she said, slamming the door almost in Raven's face. Raven then said to Melissa telepathically, I'll be waiting outside. Try not to take too long, okay. I'm not going to wait forever. Melissa retorted, Yeah, yeah, yeah, fine, hold your horses, okay? I have to calm my mother down, got it? She didn't even realize that she was talking to Raven telepathically. But Raven did. She sat down and tried to figure out why she hadn't sensed that Melissa was telepathic right from the start. She began to think that perhaps the girl had put up some kind of block to stop Raven from sensing all of her powers, and had just used this one this time without thinking. She decided that she'd have a little talk with Melissa when they got back to the Tower, but for now she wasn't going to say anything. Meanwhile, Melissa sat in the living room, wrapping and unwrapping Rich with her electromagnetic energy, then levitating objects around the room, such as the fish tank and the TV by using psychokinesis, while her mother and father looked on in awe and horror.Finally she got up, grabbed her medicine, and walked out the door, hoping Raven was still waiting for her to go back to Titan's Tower. She didn't say anything to her family as she left; she figured that they'd need some time to process what they'd just seen and decide what they thought of her later on. She called to Raven to wait a minute, and asked her the number of Titans Tower. Then she wrote it on a piece of paper she had taken from the house, stuck the paper in the doorjamb, and left, hoping her family would call her at some point.
When they arrived back at the Tower, everyone was getting ready to watch a movie, Wicked Scary 2. Melissa sat down on the couch between Beast Boy and Cyborg, eagerly anticipating the movie's start. As it began, Raven came up behind Melissa, tapping her on the shoulder, saying, "I need to talk to you. Privately. Now. So follow me." Melissa looked longingly at the television screen, but got upand followed. The other Titans looked at her go, puzzled, but soon the movie started, and they focused completely on their imminent terror.
Raven led Melissa up to a dusty, seemingly abandoned room, filled with junk, and using her powers, cleared a huge pile of it away, revealing a bed. "Sit." "Um...o...okay. Look,... Raven,... right? Um... is something wrong?" "I said sit. Then we'll talk." "Okay...um.. fine." Melissa hopped over piles of debris, finally making her way through the tumult to the bed, and sat down. Raven easily teleported from the doorway to the bedside, and stood there, staring silently at Melissa. Finally Melissa spoke up, "So come on, what's this all about?" "Why didn't you tell us you had more powers. And why couldn't I sense them. Did you block my powers somehow, so that I couldn't sense yours. And why. Are you trying to earn our trust, then betray us. Because I won't fall for it." "Huh! Are you high or something? N... No offense. But I don't know what you're talking about. Is this some kind of trick or something, cause it isn't very good, and you're scaring me." Raven could see that Melissa was frightened. "I want to know why you didn't tell us you were telepathic, and why I didn't sense it till this evening at your house." "I...I'm not. Telepathic! That's crazy! I'm not! Really! So stop it. Please..." Raven wasn't sure whether to trust her or not, but she figured she'd give her the benefit of the doubt for now, seeing as how Melissa said she had no idea what Raven was talking about. "Fine. I believe you. You can go." "Well, thanks. Now I'm scared out of my mind, and I probably missed about half the movie, but yeah, it was really great talking to ya." Melissa bolted from the room, hitting into many piles of junk as she went, knocking them to the floor and hurting herself. She didn't care though, as long as she was out of that dark, dusty room.
She sat down in her spot again, hyperventilating, and Beast Boy asked if she was okay. "Yeah, I'm fine. Raven just kinda freaked me out, that's all." "Ha, don't worry bout it. She kinda freaks out everyone. You just get used to it.", he laughed, as his attention focused back on the movie. Upstairs, Raven sat on Terra's bed, trying to figure out what the deal was with this girl, and how she "suddenly" had powers that neither of them had known about. After all, shouldn't Raven have sensed something? After sitting for about an hour like this, she turned off the lights, and went back to her own room. She had an idea of what might be going on, but she'd need to discuss it with Robin, and perhaps Melissa as well, and there was no way she'd be able to pull them away from the TV. She decided to talk to them in the morning, and went to bed.
The next morning, Raven finished meditating and headed downstairs just after sunrise. She made herself some tea and waited for the others to wake up. Gradually they trudged down the stairs to have breakfast. When Raven saw Robin coming down, she pulled him aside. "Look Robin, I want to talk to you about the new girl Melissa. I'm not sure whether we should trust her or not." "All right. After breakfast, we can go to my room and talk about it. But right now, I'm starving." Meanwhile, Melissa was getting dressed in the guest room they'd given her. She hadn't slept all night, thinking about why Raven had acted the way she had, and what she'd meant by the things she said. Melissa wasn't telepathic- that was crazy talk. But Raven had been so sure that she was... And she'd known about her other powers when these kids had first contacted her... Melissa didn't really know what was true anymore. She headed downstairs for breakfast. At first she got lost in the labyrinth of hallways and stairwells, but soon she found her way, and hungrily shoveled down about 10 of Cyborg's waffles. After they ate, Robin and Raven went upstairs and talked about Melissa. Soon they came back down and asked her to come up and talk with them. She didn't want to leave the waffles, but she reluctantly followed up to Robin's room. "So,... what's this all about? Am I in trouble for something?", Melissa asked apprehensively. "No, no, everything's fine. We just wanted to talk to you. About your powers. Raven told me that you have new ones and she couldn't figure out why. So we wanted to ask you a few questions, and see if our theory was correct. That's all. You don't have to get nervous.", Robin said. "Okay... so what did you want to know?" "Well, did anything happen around the time when you first got your powers. Anything significant, or out of the ordinary.", Raven stated. "Um...not really... Why? Well, wait, I had a seizure then, just like I did yesterday after trying to do that course. But when I had the seizure then, it was like two days before I got my powers, so that wouldn't have anything to do with it, right?" "I think it might. I think that somehow your seizures might be tied in to your powers, and that's why you suddenly got a new power after you got sick yesterday.", Robin said. He then turned to Raven. "See, she wasn't hiding anything from us. You shouldn't've worried so much." "I wasn't worried. Just a little concerned. After all, don't forget what happened the last time we trusted someone." "Yeah, I know, but I think we can trust her." Melissa looked at them as they talked back and forth, confused as to what they were talking about, and wanting to go get more waffles. "Um... well, now that you're done talking to me, can I go? I'm still kinda hungry." "Sure.", Robin answered smiling kindly at her. Melissa headed out the door to go downstairs, then turned back to Robin saying, "Oh, and I'm feeling lot's better today. I'd like to try that training course again, if that's okay?" "Yeah, we'll see. I'm not sure if I want you back on that course yet, but we'll see how you're feeling later."
Melissa walked downstairs, leaving Robin and Raven to talk more about her and whoever else they were discussing, and just as she sat at the table, an excruciatingly loud alarm went off, piercing her eardrums and resounding through the Tower. Robin and Raven ran down the stairs, and over to the TV, which had suddenly turned into some type of computer monitor, showing part of the city. Robin yelled, "It's Mumbo Jumbo. He's robbing a jewelry store, and he's got hostages. Titans go!" They all ran towards the door, while Melissa stood at the table, unsure of what to do. Finally, she decided to follow them out, not wanting to stay alone in the Tower, and wanting to see just what exactly they did each day.
They were gone in seconds, already across the water to the city when she finally made up her mind to follow them outside. She'd have to get across on her own. She straightened her arms, and pointed her hands towards the ground, attempting to levitate herself using her psychokinetic powers. After much effort, since she was just starting to get the hang of all this, she got up about10 feet into the air. Already, she could feel the wind thrashing her body, ripping at every inch of her being. But she didn't want to be alone here, so she ignored the pain, and concentrated on making herself levitate higher. The pain grew more intense with every inch, but she could tolerate it, after all, she'd been burned before, the worst pain she could possibly imagine. She finally got up to about 15 feet, and decided that was high enough, in case she fell, and since she was terrified of heights. Then she took her right hand and started moving it back and forth to try to get herself going, while she kept the other one still pointed down to try to ensure that she stayed up. She slowly crossed over the water, shaking uncontrollably with fear, and the second the first inch of land appeared she dropped to the ground, getting wet in the waves washing up along the shore. She pushed herself up and started walking around trying to find the jewelry store the Titans had proceeded to. As she walked around the city though, she became lost, and soon came upon a crowd of people. She walked over to see why so many had gathered around the outside of this bank, and immediately saw a gang of masked gunmen, holding bags of money they had stolen from the bank and holding about 7 people hostage, with guns to their heads, demanding all of their valuables immediately.
She stood there, on the fringes of the crowd that had gathered around the gunmen as they stood outside the bank with their guns to peoples' heads as they ordered them to empty their purses and wallets of all their money, as well as give them any and all credit and bank cards which they might be carrying. The hostages looked to the crowd in desperation and fear, but the crowd that had gathered was just as fearful of their own lives, and stood by, doing nothing to help. Melissa started to say something to them, in her weak, shy little voice, but it came out as a whisper that barely she could even hear. She didn't know what to do. She'd always lived a cloistered life in an upper class town, and had only even seen a gun once, when her brother had teased her with her father's old, rusted, and unusable shotgun, saying that it was now to become his. But now she was in the middle of a hostage situation, in which gang members less then 10 feet in front of her had stolen assault rifles thrust up against the unlucky hostages' heads. She started to walk forward, pushing through the crowd, thinking of how she could stop them since nobody else would, but then stopped herself thinking,"What are you, crazy! They have guns! They'll kill you in a second. You don't know how to deal with people like this! Just wait for the police to get here; they're professionals, they can take care of it." But then she heard the gunshot, and after the initial shock, all of the people gasp and scream in horror. She looked up and tried to see through the crowd, and what she saw was a person lying dead on the ground, with a bullet wound to the head. Not even stopping to think, she ran forward through the crowd.
"Stop...it..." Melissa said meekly as the gunmen turned towards her and started to laugh. "Hmmmm...yo boys, look what we got here. Look like someone else wanna die today, huh.", the gang leader said to the others. One had her by the neck before she even realized what was happening, and they put a gun to her head, demanding all her money. "I...Listen...I don't have any...Please, just let everyone go." The gang members laughed even harder this time, then shot another person, this time only a few feet in front of her. Seeing that, all of her fear and shyness were suddenly washed away, and she kicked the one holding her- hard. While he knelt on the ground, whimpering in pain, his comrades making fun of him, she held out her hands and shot out a burst of electromagnetic energy, wrapping all but one in it, almost crushing them to death. She was angry at the horror she'd just witnessed, and the hate in her caused an adrenaline rush that let out more power than she'd even believed she was capable of. But the gang member that she hadn't seized came up behind her and put a gun to her head. By this point, people had stopped standing around though, and piled onto the gunman. He shot at Melissa, but his shot hit her in the back instead of the head. She lost her concentration as she fell to the ground from the gunshot, and the other gang members were freed from her electromagnetic envelope, but they had been almost crushed to death, so fell to the ground as well, and laid there in pain.
The Titans took care of Mumbo pretty quicky, confiscating his wand and hat, and sending him off to jail. The went back to the Tower, but looked all over and couldn't find Melissa. They finally decided to go out and search for her.
Meanwhile, the police and paramedics had come to the scene of the shooting Melissa had been involved in at the bank. The paramedics had taken her, the gunmen, and one of the hostages who actually wasn't yet dead from their wounds, to the nearest hospital, while the police took testimonies from the witnesses. Everyone could guess that the girl must be a new Titan, even though they'd thought the Titans weren't accepting new members after the whole Terra escapade. Either that, or the girl was some new superhero that'd come into town, and was working on her own. After all, as the witnesses said to the police, she didn't seem to know what she was doing. At any rate, the treated Melissa immediately upon her arrival at the hospital, and after the surgery to remove the bullet, they put her on tons of painkillers, so that when she woke up in a few hours, she wouldn't feel a thing. Melissa would be fine. However, try as they might, they couldn't save the gunshot victim who'd been shot in the head. The person was pretty much a vegetable, but their family decided to keep them on life support should they ever possibly wake up. And as for the gangsters that Melissa had crushed; one of them died upon arrival at the hospital, due to his heart, liver, and pancreas all being crushed and ruptured, but the rest survived with only minor injuries.
The Titans split up and looked all over for Melissa, and finally Cyborg came upon the crowd still standing around the bank, being questioned by the police. "Yo, what happened?" One woman turned to him and answered, "Oh, it was terrible. These young hoodlums were holding people hostage and demanding their money. And after they'd just robbed the bank too! Oh, I thought I would faint. They had guns, and they shot some of those poor people, heaven help their souls. But then, this young girl ran up there, and she stopped them. She was like you Titans I suppose, and from what I could see, she crushed all those evil men, before they shot her. Then the police and the ambulance came, and they took them all away...And then.." "Uh, sorry lady, I gotta go. No offense. Thanks for all your help!" Cyborg said, as he cut off the old woman in mid- sentence, and ran off towards the nearest hospital, calling the other Titans on his communicator as he went, to let them know what had happened. They found Melissa at the hospital, and were there when she woke up. Raven healed her so that she could leave the hospital, and they went back to the Tower. When they got there, the Titans went into what seemed to be some sort of conference room. They stayed in there for at least an hour. Melissa was sure they were talking about her, and hoped they weren't angry for her stopping those gangsters all on her own, without consulting them first. "Boy, these people are weird", she thought. "I should just get outta here while I've got the chance." But something compelled her to stay. Something made her care that they were most likely talking about her in that room, care what they were saying. She wanted to impress them, wanted them to like her, even if she didn't know why. Maybe she felt like she'd finally found some people who might actually want to be her friends- who could understand her without being phony. But anyway, she was sure they'd tell her to go take a hike now. She tried to hear what they were saying, but couldn't, so fell asleep on the couch, watching TV and waiting for them to come out.