Hey! Thanks to all who reviewed. Plus, theres a new person in the Teen Titans Today! HOO-RAY! Ok, here we go!
It is now night time. Inside the darkened operations center, the door opens at the far end and Beast Boy is silhouetted in the light from the other side. He is carrying a small bundle as he enters.
"Hey Terra." Beast Boy says quietly, apporaching the couch, "I…I thought you might want a blanket." Beast Boy looks at the couch and realizes theres no one there. "Terra?" He calls.
"She's outside." Beast Boy turned around, revelaing Laurie and Zoe. "Oh, okay, thanks guys." Beast Boy said, running out of the tower. "You know you shouldn't have told him where she was." Zoe says angrily at Laurie. "Hey, I'm just going by the show!" Laurie defended, flinching. Zoe glares at Laurie and Laurie then grabs out a churro, and throws it. "Go on! Get the churro!" She says, and Zoe jumps after it. Zoe catches it, and then turns around, "Maybe we should go spy." Laurie gives a look, saying that shes thinking about it.
At the surface of the bay, a stone flies into view and skips along; then another one of these floats up, and Terra was there, and has changed back into her usual outfit. A flash of her eyes sends the stone bouncing over the water. As she levitates another one, Beast Boy's voice interrupts; pull back on the next line to show him taking a seat next to her.
"So I'm guessing the couch was too lumpy?" Beast Boy asked, he grabs one rock and lets fly. It merely splashes in; she laughs and causes another to drop into his hand. This time he gets it right, and he laughs and flexes his muscles jokingly. She blows out a relieved little breath visibly; he responds with a loud raspberry.
Now she sticks out her tongue and pulls down on her face to distort it out of shape; he changes his head into that of a gorilla and snarls loudly. She promptly stretches her face as if it were a rubber mask; startling Beast Boy back into human form, and both laugh heartily for a moment. They cut themselves off sharply and stare into each other's eyes for a second before turning away nervously and blushing.
"I can't stay." Terra says finally. "Why not?" Beast Boy asks, upset. Terra hesitates before she answers. "Places to go, people to see." Beast Boy sighs and says, "Come on. You know you want to stay. We've got free cable, indoor plumbing, and all the tofu you can eat."
He counts these three items off on his fingers as he names them. When he finishes, he has the entire hand outstretched-one thumb and only three fingers, not four. He brings the missing one back with a little shake and smiles at the inadvertent joke he has made. She laughs.
"Tofu? You sure know how to charm a girl. I-I guess I could hang out for one more day." She concludes
Beast Boy jumps up, "Awesome! We're gonna have so much fun! And I can't wait to see what your powers do when you really cut 'em loose."
His last words ignite that same worry we saw while she was sleeping. Suddenly her eyes blaze and her hair is blown straight up as light shines over her. Beast Boy is lifted into the air on the rock he was using for a seat, then gets dumped back to the shore when it pulls itself out from under him. It hits the water with a huge splash, leaving him soaked and spitting out mouthfuls of water.
"Sorry! I'm sorry, I'm so stupid! Don't tell! Please don't tell!" She says, flustered. "Terra, it's okay. You can't totally control your powers. So what?" "Promise you won't tell anybody-ever!" Terra begs."
"Sure." Beast Boy says "Swear it!" Terra demands. "Okay! Okay! I promise. But really, it's no big deal. If my friends knew, they'd still like you."
She turns away from him on the end of this. "You just don't understand." She sighs. Laurie and Zoe look up from the bushes as she walks to the tower, Beast Boy following behind. Once they are out of sight, Laurie sighs. "Why do I suddenly feel sorry for her?" "Because shes misunderstood." Zoe answered. "Maybe we should be nice to her until it happens." Laurie suggests. Zoe shrugs. "But its tomorrow, isn't it?" "Yeah, so?" "Sounds ok to me..."
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Cyborg is running at top speed. It is now the next day. He is crossing a broad plain outside the Tower. Steel columns, each topped with a large fist, shoot up from the ground; he dodges one after another and jumps clear. Then, an outdoor control panel as Robin reaches into view to press a few buttons. In response, several laser cannons lock on target and begin to fire. Cyborg dashes, swerves, and jumps to avoid being hit; now Robin activates other controls on the panel. Next, an image comes up of a gateway with a large panel mounted in its top half. This descends like the blade of a guillotine.
Out on the plain, three such structures rise from the ground. Cyborg gets under the first two gates, but has to stop and catch the third before it can crush him. Straining mightily, he pushes it up on its track and is able to get clear before it crashes back down. Launchers rise from the tops of two rocks and fire a stream of disc-shaped projectiles and then from them to a third such device, also firing away. Cyborg has his sonic cannon ready and shoots down several while dodging the rest.
The timer display mounted in its front face. Robin and Raven are behind it, while Beast Boy, Starfire, Zoe, Laurie, and Terra cheer Cyborg on. He runs up, stops, and looks at the panel on his forearm; it shows a time of 2:17.
"Boo-yah! New course record!" Cyborg laughs. "Well, yeah. You're the first one to do the course." Raven reminds him, and Cyborg grunts, "Okay, Terra! Ready to show us what you can do?" Robin asks, Terra nods and steps out into the open. Terra mumbles something to herself and Beast Boy says something to her, as suddenly a portal shows up, scaring all the titans except for Zoe and Laurie. "Oh no, I thought almost nobody got sent into a portal!" Laurie sighed, and Zoe whistled nervously. All the titans look at Zoe, who looks nervous and says, "Alright! Alright! I asked ne of mine(and Laurie's) friend to join us. She's a master at karate and can fly...Her names Raven." Raven stepped out of the portal and smiled broadly. She had a blood red skirt and a blood red t-shirt on and looked to be about 13. "Hello all!" Raven smiled.
"I guess we have a new titan!" Laurie smiled. "Only if she can knock me out." Robin said, and at that, Raven walked up and punched Robin who hit the ground. He got up and shook his head, "Works for me..." He sighed. Robin walked back over to the computer. Laurie turns to Raven. "Yeah, uh, I'll just call you Rae since Raven is pretty much taken." Laurie shrugged.
"Countdown initiated! Good luck, Terra." Terra takes a few steps away and adjusts her gloves.
"Come on, Terra!" Beast Boy encourages, "You go, girl!" Cyborg smiles, "Onward to victory!" Starfire cheers. "Uh, what they said!" Rae yelled.
Terra clenches her fists, which glow yellow, and braces for action. Laser cannons spring out of the rocks and open up on her; she raises the spot she is standing on as a large column of stone, and the blasts strike it repeatedly. It is finally blasted apart, but she rides down on a large fragment. An even bigger one crashes down on the cannons and breaks them to scrap while throwing up a wall of dust. She rides into this. She coughs a bit and then panics, yelling and waving her arms frantically, to show the steel fists punching up from the ground directly in her path.
A glancing blow almost knocks her from her flying perch, but she digs in her fingers and keeps aloft. Another cry of terror as she flips onto one side to avoid the next fist, but it is no use; this one smashes the rock into gravel and sends her tumbling. Thinking quickly, she levitates several boulders and grabs hold of one big enough to carry her. A relieved little sigh gives way to more panic as she realizes she is heading for a crash landing; only a mighty effort to pull up the leading edge keeps her in the air. However, she grazes a rock formation in the process.
Robin and Raven observe from their seats behind the control panel, and Robin presses a button to trigger the next challenge. Beast Boy, Cyborg, Rae and Starfire cheer Terra on while Zoe and Laurie watch Terra rip through the obstacle course.
"You da man, Terra!…um, I mean, you're the..." Beast Boy catches himself quickly, "Way to go!" Barely in control of that boulder, and headed straight for the guillotine-like gates, Terra, at the last possible second, she brings up a snake of stone and causes it to punch through the upper panel of each gate. She jumps on to ride it across; it smashes the boulder to splinters.
"We're gonna need a new obstacle course." Raven says astounded. Robin moves over to her end and works a few controls. Now Terra, flung free from the stone snake, drops screaming toward a large pit that is opening in the earth. She brings one rock toward herself, cannot get hold of it, and has better luck with a second-but only temporarily. Sliding to the edge, she scrabbles for a fingerhold and is unable to get one before gravity drags her off. A couple of fist-sized stones fall after her; she and they drop, after which she rises back, holding one in each hand. She drops them after clearing the pit and jumps onto a larger rock to sail onward.
As Robin works the controls and Raven watches, the disc launchers pop out from the rocks. Terra, caught by surprise, pulls up the leading edge of her stone to shield herself. A quick sweep of her hand sends rock fragments of all sizes hurtling toward the projectiles and launchers; all are quickly put out of commission, and she comes in for a landing. The stone breaks when it hits the ground, throwing her ahead to skid to a very unsteady stop on her feet. As the dust clears, we see Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Starfire staring wide-eyed at her-and she straightens up into the sort of pose every gymnast tries to nail while landing after a routine. The three Titans break into wild cheering and Terra lowers her goggles. Beast Boy and Starfire zip over to her in time with their next lines.
"You rock!" Beast Boy grinned. "Magnificent success!" Starfire congratulates. "Wow." Rae smiles.
Cyborg looks at his timer, which shows 1:56-Terra has beaten him by over twenty seconds on her first try.
"Looks like we have a new course record." Raven says, "I musta softened it up for her." Cyborg shrugs.
"You were incredible!" Beast Boy smiles, and Terra hugs him. "I did it! You said I could do it, and you were right!" Terra yells happily. After she lets go, he staggers woozily backward before toppling to the ground.
"A little rough around the edges, but you've got some real talent there." Robin says, and Terra smiles.
"You think?" Terra asks. Robin nods, "With a little more training, you could-"
Before he can finish the thought, his communicator chimes in. He pulls it out and flips it open; then a slightly nonplussed Terra, who looks back at her three-person cheering section as the camera pans to them. The emergency signal in Starfire's neck piece begins to flash, as does the one on Laurie's, Zoe's, and Beast Boy's belt; he is back on his feet. Cyborg looks at his forearm panel as Raven floats down to join the group. The signal in her cloak's brooch is also flashing.
Annoyed; lock of hair falls over Terra's right eye. "Okay. Why is everybody blinking?" Rae nods in agreement.
"Slade." Robin says disguistedly. "He's back." The titans are back at the common room
Terra turns to Beast Boy, "Slade?" She asks. "Bad guy. Way bad." Beast Boy asnwers
A bit of typing causes the picture of Slade-now seen to be filling the window/screen-to shrink to a small box against a map of Jump City. An arrow points from it to a particular spot, which begins to flash.
"Got a fix on his location. Titans! Move out!" Robin demands
As Terra watches, hopelessly puzzled, they vacate the premises, but Beast Boy stops short before he gets to the door. He looks back; cut to the team's house guest, quite down in the mouth at the prospect of being left out.
"Hey!" Beast Boy calls to Terra, "You coming or what?"
She smiles broadly and runs out with him, arm in arm. Rae moves swiftly behind them. From here, they arrive at an underground mining excavation, with assorted earth-moving equipment parked among the cart tracks. Several men are at work, but a series of laser blasts throws them into chaos.
"Protect the diamonds!" A miner yells. More blasts fling them across the space as two of Slade's commando robots jump into the area, and many more arrive and open fire while the other miners scatter.
"Forget the rocks, they're taking over the entire mine!" Another miner yells. One of Robin's discs is flung into view, knocking the weapons from their hands; cut to the Titans at the mine's entrance and zoom in. "Tell your boss we'd like a word with him." Robin says, then the troops jump straight up. "Titans! Go!"
All six charge; Terra comes up behind them, puts on her goggles, and takes to the air on a boulder.
"You boys ready to rock?" She puns. Two robots jump on and grapple with her. At ground level, Robin engages one at close quarters and drives it back with a kick to the gut before jumping up toward the midair melee. The attackers are kicked to the ground, one at a time, and he jumps down after them. However, the sound of a weapon being primed stops him short, and he finds himself facing an entire squadron of reinforcements. Out comes his fighting staff, which he extends it to full length and begins to twirl. As they charge, he knocks them away one after another. Now he is lost at the bottom of a dogpile; one mighty effort throws all the robots clear and leaves him standing alone. One levels its weapon and is promptly plowed away by a boulder from Terra. Two others come up from behind; one is torn in half on a stone spike she raises while running off.
One robot has gained a high vantage point and is taking careful aim at Robin. Starfire flies past a load of steel girders held aloft by a crane-the shooter is perched among these. A second robot moves up to stop her, but she blows it away with a starbolt. The resulting explosion obscures the view but does not stop the shooter from pulling the trigger. Robin continues his fight with several others and is thrown clear when the shot hits them. "Robin!" Starfire screams.
She doubles back toward the load of steel girders, where two other robots have joined the shooter, and squeezes off more starbolts that send all three tumbling. They grab hold of her in midair and bear her struggling to the ground. Two more move in to lend a hand, but Cyborg seizes them and knocks their heads together. Breaking out his cannon, he runs into the fray. "Hang on, Star!" Cyborg yells
Now two other robots drop to ground level and charge in. A large drilling vehicle sits nearby; in short order, another has climbed into the driver's seat ad fired it up. It starts toward Cyborg, who gets his cannon going at full throttle; he dispatches several aggressors, including enough of the ones holding Starfire to allow her to free herself and fly up. A laser blast strikes the cannon and forces Cyborg to cease fire. As other shots flash past, he looks over at the shooters, then up at the overhead load of girders. A well-placed shot breaks the platform holding them up and dumps a few tons of steel on the opposition.
Cyborg, whose expression quickly changes to shock when he looks off to one side, toward the sound of the drill's engine. A cry of surprise escapes his lips; cut to his perspective-an extreme close-up of the whirling bit as it approaches. "No!" Cyborg yells
The tip starts to grind against the side of his head; he is slowly pushed back toward the wall of the excavation by the machine's momentum. Raven descends into view. "Azarath Metrion Zinthos!"
She levitates a cart and sends it flying toward the driver robot, which catches it upside the head. From here, cut to Beast Boy as he runs over.
"Raven, look out!" Beast Boy yells. Laurie, Rae, and Zoe run by as more robots chase them, shooting at them, and Laurie shrieks as shes hit in the butt. Zoe giggles but still runs while Rae grabs out some discs and throws it at the robots, blowing them up. She smiles.
Several robots have gathered around her. One fires, but she shields herself from the shot and lifts off as several other blasts lance toward her. She dodges the fusillade, after which Beast Boy leaps into the free-fire zone, a transformation already in progress. The shooters, who suddenly find themselves in a large growing shadow-and Beast Boy, as a stegosaurus, lands among them to send the lot scattering. They concentrate their fire and begin to drive him back toward the entrance of a mine tunnel, where Terra is dropping a piece of the ceiling on a robot. She stops several falling rocks in midair and launches them at the robots to end their laser fire. However, the effort is a genuine strain on her, judging from her groans and the flash of her eyes behind the goggles before she squeezes them shut. As in the scene on the shore, light has flared up around her, but now it is blinding white.
"Can't control it!" Terra stuggles.
The goggles' lenses shatter and there is a great flash. When the view clears, more of the ceiling begins to fall in. Beast Boy whips his tail around to repel the opposition, then returns to human form. Rocks crash down all around him due to Terra's overload. Cut to an overhead view; he looks up, his face goes slack, and he lets off a scared little whimper as the shadow of a descending slab grows over him. His perspective of the falling debris, which gives way an lands on him. "BEAST BOY!" Terra yells, and she, Zoe, and Laurie all run over to Beast Boy. "Look what you did!" Laurie yelled.
Robin's attention is drawn by her yell, as is that of Raven, Cyborg, and Starfire; the last gasps in sheer terror. Just behind Terra, the smashed robots lying among the rocks in front of her. One of them starts to crawl out-its bottom half is gone-and others get to their feet and advance as well. Her ruined goggles now hanging around her neck, she gathers herself for a mighty effort; once again her eyes and fists glow yellow, white light surrounds her, and columns of stone descend from the ceiling to crush every robot. The last spasm of movement is from a sparking hand. When it stops, she runs off into the tunnel.
Robin dashes to the cave-in site and starts to clear away the rock, which Laurie and Zoe are already trying to do. Starfire joins in the effort as Cyborg fires his cannon across the area to ward off the enemy. Raven arrives a moment before the pile rumbles and the largest slab is lifted away by Beast Boy, now in the form of a colossal Sasquatch. He throws it aside and rubs his head.
"You okay?" Robin asks, and Beast Boy nods and takes human form. "Where's Terra?" Beast Boy asks.
In the tunnel, pieces of rock are shaken loose by the force of her outburst; in the main excavation, one last robot is knocked backward to smash against the side of a crane, accompanied by a yell from Robin. He looks up as the place trembles and stones fall from above. Raven flies over.
"We need to get out of here." Raven says, as Cyborg, Zoe, Rae, and Laurie joins them. "Slade's trying to bring down the whole mine!" Cyborg says. "I'm not sure he's the one doing this." Robin sighs. Then, Starfire swoops down, "I cannot locate Terra or Beast Boy." "I know where they are." Says Zoe, and Laurie nods. "Come on." Rae says. They soon arrive where Terra and Beast Boy walk out, they then leave to the tower.
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In the exterior of the Tower that evening. Terra, inside at the door to the operations center. She is slinging up her backpack. "Well, guys, uh, it's been real." Terra says, then all the Titans are there save Cyborg. "Seriously, thanks for everything, but I should-"
She turns to leave on the end of this, but the door opens to reveal Cyborg blocking her exit. "Don't even think about it." Cyborg smiles "Okay. What's going on?" Terra asks.
"Well…" "…we talked it over, and…" "…we wish for you to stay here, with us!" Raven, Cyborg, and Starfire all say. "We think you'd make a great addition to our team."
"So…want to be a Titan?" Beast Boy asks. Robin gives her a communicator. "Me?" Terra says, flabbergasted. "Really?" Rae nods.
"Of course, you'll need more training." Robin smiles, "I know you have trouble controlling your powers, and we can help."
Terra drops the communicator and bounces away. Terra's expression shows the battle between disappointment and fury raging in her head. "You told him!" Terra shrieks, addressing Beast Boy.
Beast Boy's ears drop, "I didn't!" "You promised! You lied to me! You lied!" Terra yells, running off.
Zoe and Laurie exchange glances as Beast Boy runs off, chasing Terra. "Well, now I can officially start hating Terra." Laurie smiled, then walking off, Zoe and Rae right behind her.
"Okay, what are they talking about?" Raven asked. Cyborg and Starfire merely shrug.
Well, thats chapter...17 I think? Whatever. Please R&R!