Well continuing from where I left off...

Terra has a determined expression, then she sweeps one gloved hand through the air with a yell. A large hunk of pavement breaks loose and starts to rise; she has brought up many such pieces to form a floating staircase. Robin bounds from one to the next, dodging laser blasts that blow the steps into dust behind him, and goes into a long leap accompanied by a handful of grenades flung forward.

The projectiles sail toward the open mouth, into the darkness of the throat. Robin drops out of his leap and is caught and carried away by Starfire; a string of internal explosions bulges out the monster's sides and sends smoke belching from the mouth. Robin's weapons have just given it the world's worst case of indigestion. After Starfire tows him to a safe distance, Beast Boy-now a pterodactyl-flies in with Cyborg in his grip. The latter unloads a salvo of cannon fire that leaves the worm reeling; it recovers and shoots back, but the two Titans easily avoid the beam.

Now Starfire carries Robin in again, so low that his chest barely clears a rooftop; she lets go and peels out, leaving him to drop into a dead run toward the worm. As another cannon shot slams into the metal body and distracts its attention, he pulls out a birdarang/grappling hook, leaps over the edge, and fires. The line wraps around the body, allowing him to swing down and stay just ahead of the laser beam that slashes through the pavement behind him.

Robin's momentum carries him to the upper surface, where he lands behind the head and brings out his fighting staff for a quick twirl. Extending it to full length, he jams one end under the edge of a panel and leans with all his weight to try and lever it up, only to have the shaft break in his hands. The worm rears up and thrashes about in an attempt to buck him off; here come Cyborg and Beast Boy to street level. The latter becomes a charging triceratops, while the former leaps onto his back, and horns and cannon blast hit he hide together. They stagger backward, stunned briefly by the collision, and Cyborg gets his cannon going again once he comes to his senses.

Terra jumps in behind them and starts to lift a piece of pavement. This chunk covers the full width of the street. Raven looks over and gasps. Laurie, Rae, and Zoe all watch as she throws her powers over the mass to keep Terra from chucking it at the worm.

"No!" Raven yells; as Terra glares at her. "What are you doing?" Terra asks. "Ooh; conflict." Laurie coments.

:It's too dangerous. Someone could get hurt." Says Raven, pulling it toward herself. "I know what I'm doing! Trust me!" Terra says. "There going to explode." Zoe predicts.

Now the stone bulk moves toward her again. Raven's straining faceis the same as Terra's, slowly shifting the rock. Laurie, Zoe, and Rae all run away from the two; careful not to hit anything which might slow them down. . The sheer magnitude of their opposing forces causes fractures in the pavement. An overhead view of it and the two girls as the breaks spread all over.

Cyborg, still mounted on Beast Boy's reptilian back, keeps a steady stream of fire trained upward as Robin lands behind them. The worm rears up and prepares a laser shot.

"Look out!" Yells Robin.

The blast rips into the crumbling pavement piece, blowing it to gravel and hurling Terra, Rae, Zoe, Laurie, and Raven backward in opposite directions. A wave of energy radiates out from the site and sends the worm crashing to the ground. When it subsides, Raven, Rae, Laurie, Zoe, and Terra sit up from the sidewalk and Raven and Terra get in each other's faces. Both of them are boiling mad.

"Way to go." Terra and Raven both say angrily. "Come on! It's getting away!" Robin interferes.

The tail disappears under the road surface as Robin, Cyborg, Laurie, Zoe, and Starfire rush after it. As they stand at the lip of its escape burrow and stare into the blackness, the other three Titans and Terra move up to them and a beeping draws Robin's attention. He pulls out his communicator and flips it open. In his perspective of the device, Slade's face is shown on its screen along with some static.

"Slade." Robin growls.

"Robin. Good to see you again. I do hope I haven't called at a bad time." Slade says.

"The worm! What are you planning?" Robin demands.

"Well, now, Robin." Slade starts, "If you're so very curious, why don't you come down here and find out?"

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

A stretch of a long circular tunnel. All lines spoken down here echo in the emptiness; the first three are heard from around a bend and ring out much more prominently.

"That evil worm has left a very long trail." States Starfire. "This tunnel continues for at least two more plinthorgs."

"And we're more than three hundred meters below sea level." Cyborg adds.

"What's it doing down here?" Rae asks.

"Whatever Slade tells it to." Robin answers.

"So, sorry about our little tug-of-war back there. You know I wouldn't have let anybody get hurt." Terra apologizes to Raven.

"Whatever." Raven says angrily.

"Okay, look. I don't know what your problem is, but get over it. If I'm gonna be a part of this team, we have to get along." Terra says. They both stop walking.

"You're not part of this team-not yet! And if you endanger my friends again, you never will be! The next time I tell you something's too dangerous, take my word for it!" Raven yells; walking on angrily.

As Raven stalks away, Beast Boy steps in to stare after her.
"Um, why does she hate me?" Terra asks. "Ahh, she kinda hates everybody. It'll be fine. Raven just needs time to get used to you. I think she's still getting used to me." Beast Boy smiles.

On another part of the tunnel, the group proceeding along cautiously. Soon hitting a room that leads to nowhere. "Dead end." Raven coments. "Yeah, now what?" Rae asks. Robin steps across, communicator out and beeping. "Not necessarily." Robin smiles.

He approaches a wall and is rewarded with faster beeps. On the next line, Cyborg comes over and adjusts his eye implant.

"I'm picking up a signal from deep inside the rock." Robin says. "Way deep." Cyborg says, "Electronics-and a heartbeat!"

"Slade." Robin says, gritting his teeth.

"How about we dig down there and see what's up?" Terra says. She warms up her hands and prepares to start moving bits of the floor, only to stop with a gasp when the whole place rumbles. Rock fragments fall from the ceiling; Terra and Raven back away as the shaking dies down, after which the Titan fires a very nasty glare at the wannabe.

"Are you gonna give me that look every time there's an earthquake?" Terra says to Raven. Soon the worm's drill cuts up through the floor. "Whoa!" Terra, Zoe, and Rae all gasp.

Elsewhere, Starfire eases cautiously away, ready to throw a Tamaranean slider, but stops and gasps as another drilling worm breaks the surface nearby. Soon a third one comes up for air.

"Titans! Ready!" Robin yells; as the titans group together.

The metal monsters are off in a heartbeat-but instead of attacking, they charge at an empty patch of wall and dig through it to clear out. Beast Boy looks after them and waves his arms.

"Hel-lo? The good guys are over here!" Beast Boy says. Laurie giggles.

"Dude, we got snubbed!"

"Because we are not their target." Says Starfire.

"Three of those worms together could wreck anything in the city." Cyborg states.

"We have to stop 'em!" Terra says. "We have to stop Slade." Raven corrects.

"Split up." Says Robin, "Cyborg, Starfire, Laurie, Zoe, Rae, and Beast Boy - go after the worms. Terra and Raven, we're going after Slade."

"Star, Laurie, Zoe, Rae, BB, let's move!" Cyborg comands.

It takes this teens no time to set off in pursuit. Robin stares intently at the wall he and Cyborg checked out.

"I can make a tunnel on my own." Terra looks at Raven, "Shouldn't she go with-"

"No. Raven's almost as good at moving earth as you are. We're digging through solid rock. I'm going to need you both." Raven throws back a hard glance; he checks his communicator.

"Nice try." Raven smiles.

"I've got a fix on the signal. Forty degrees down, six hundred meters deep." Robin says. "No problem." The girls say; warming up.

Their combined powers hit the stone face and send up masses of dust and fragments. "Is that as fast as you can go?" Terra mocks. "Not even close." Raven challenges.

"Careful." Robin says, "This rock isn't stable. Just take it a little…" Too late. They are already at least a hundred yards downrange and still going strong. "…slow."

He stares incredulously and starts into the bore.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

The whirling drills of two worms break through an expanse of stone. After a moment's grinding, the metal diggers emerge fully and pass like a pair of onrushing subway trains. Soon the third worm is alongside them, and Cyborg, Laurie, Rae, Zoe, Starfire, and Beast Boy-as a leopard-give chase.

The worms proceed steadily on and one turns upward; when the dusty haze from this move clears, the view has dissolved to a shot of their three tunnels, the two level courses diverging from center. Up come the 6 Titans, who examine the scene in the light from Cyborg's sweeping beam for a moment.

"Me and Laurie'll take the ugly one. Teen Titans! Go!" Cyborg yells.

Everyone heads off along a tunnel. Beast Boy with Zoe, Laurie with Cyborg, and Starfire with Rae.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Cyborg and Laurie barrel after the worm. Cyborg raises his left arm with a yell. A panel flips open to expose a small launcher loaded with a clamp/suction cup device. This is fired forward, trailing a long line, and attaches itself to the worm's rear end. Laurie jumps atop Cyborg as they are both being hauled on the line with all their strength. Cyborg's feet strike sparks from the tunnel floor as they are dragged along. Suddenly their faces register great surprise-and a second later, the metal leviathan angles sharply downward and drags them both screaming into the depths. "Ooh boy..." Laurie groans.

The sudden change in momentum throws Cyborg and Laurie off balance and dumps them onto the ground; more sparks fly up from the contact, and they end up spitting out a mouthful of gravel. "That's gonna leave a mark the size of a tree!" Laurie says.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

The worm breaks through the tunnel floor and continues upward, and Starfire (carrying Rae) fly after it. She tosses off a couple of starbolts to destroy falling rocks before unloading an eye blast. This melts a ring of stone around the end, welding the body to the tunnel walls to stop it cold. Starfire stares and giggles at her work and Rae smiles. "Great job." Rae coments. However, before she can answer, the worm quickly breaks loose and bores its way upward. Once the debris has cleared, she charges off after it.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Another group of rock. It shatters entirely under the advance of the third worm, which Beast Boy and Zoe are chasing. They catch up to the beast and they launches thenmselves at it, Beast Boy transforming into a wolverine on the way down and digging his long claws into the metal hide. Unable to get a firm grip, he and Zoe slide back and are dumped to the tunnel floor as the prey thunders into the distance. After a surprised look at claws that have been ground down to nubs, Beast Boy returns to human form. Zoe gets up and runs towards Beast Boy. "You okay?" She asks.

"Guess I won't need to cut my fingernails for a few years." Beast Boy says in pain.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

A rock face with part of a steel framework visible in front of it. The material shatters from the other side to reveal Raven and Terra, who have excavated their way in, and Robin still behind them. The two girls stare as he shoulders past them.

A huge underground expanse whose walls are lined with those steel members. Sitting at its center is a cylindrical computer console, with keyboards spaced at regular intervals around its perimeter. A broad beam of green light emanates upward from the middle of this rig and generates a holographic image. They are in a truly gargantuan vertical shaft; the computer stands on a platform that has walkways connecting it to the walls, and the hologram is an image of the Tower and its island.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Three worms are seen-joined to form a circle, oriented horizontally and spinning near the ceiling.

Cyborg and Laurie have reeled themselves in and climbed aboard, and they are now crawling toward the head. They stop and look up in alarm, and a large chunk of stone breaks away from the tunnel. It plows into Cyborg's face, throwing him off his perch into Laurie and then and leaving them to watch the monster continue its headlong rush. Standing up, Cyborg checks his forearm panel, which shows one worm tunneling straight up, and the other two soon join it on converging paths as all head for fresh air.

"Guys! We're getting close to the surface!" Cyborg says. "Whatever their target is, they're about to hit it with everything they've got." Laurie groans.

A patch of ground at surface level. One by one, the three worms break through and rise into the air with the help of small rocket thrusters mounted along the body lengths. Tilt up as they fly in different directions, then Cyborg and Laurie emerge from underground. Starfire and Rae do likewise, then Beast Boy in gopher form, and Zoe with a shovel. Then up above, the giant drill bits retract into the segmented bodies. Two free ends hook up. Now all three worms have joined into a ring that matches the one spinning in the underground chamber. It is suspended directly above the Tower, on whose island the worms surfaced.

As Starfire, Zoe, Rae, and again-human Beast Boy stand frozen in shock, Cyborg and Laurie both move closer and stares popeyed. That emitter comes to life, firing a laser beam straight down to cut a circular incision into the earth. Two other beams have started up, one on each worm, and at ground level the Titans are forced to make a run for it as one of them rips toward them. Once the dust has cleared, Cyborg stands up and addresses his onboard communicator.

"Robin! It's the Tower! They're attacking Titans Tower!" Cyborg yells into his communicator.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

The worms down here have started firing beams of their own, but up instead of down to chew through that rock from two directions at once. Close-up of the holographic Tower image, now with a cylinder marked around it and a flashing red arrow pointing downward from the bottom end to show the structure's intended movement. Pull back to show Robin, Raven and Terra at the computer console.

"It's not just under attack." Robin answers, "It's about to be underground."

"Our home!" Starfire yells. "Slade's trying to sink it." Beast Boy adds. "Great." Laurie and Zoe say sarcastically. "One drill going up and another going down. If either of 'em break through, we're gonna need a new place to live!" Cyborg says. "I like where we live!" Starfire says icily.

She takes off, while Beast Boy becomes a pterodactyl and hoists Cyborg up. Laurie, Zoe, and Rae can only watch as starbolts and cannon are brought into play against the wreckers; tilt down through the earth to an overhead view of the up-drilling ring. Robin whips a birdarang at it without effect, and Raven's black shots do no damage either. As the latter keeps shooting, Terra warms up and looks toward the wall; she brings two large boulders out and projects them at the worms, but even these missiles have no discernible effect.

"Not even a scratch!" Robin says. All run to the console, he to a keyboard. "If we can't break the drill, hacking this computer is our only shot at shutting it down!"

The green-gloved fingers flying on the keys. Slade then entered and charged straight at Robin, and with a furious roar he launches a flying kick.

The blow drives the Boy Wonder past Raven and Terra to dump him on the walkway behind. The masked criminal rushes at him, and as Robin sits up to rub his shoulder, another steel boot zeroes in on his head. He rolls away just in the nick of time, and in a long silhouetted shot, the two take a few pokes at each other without connecting as they work their way toward the shaft wall.

"Robin! Hang on!" Yells Terra.

"Forget about me!" Robin says; dodging a hit, "Shut down the drill!"

"Good, Robin. Now I have you all to myself." Slade grins. Hitting a button, it brings up a waist-high gate-the sort often used on lifts.

"Looks like it's just you and me." Terra says looking at the elevator. "We have to hack in." Raven says, runninh toward the computer; Terra warms up. "Why hack when you can smash?" Terra grins.

On the end of this line, she propels a boulder toward the hardware, but Raven stops it as she exerts her powers. "No!" Raven yells. "We don't know how this thing works. Destroy the controls and we might never be able to stop it."

"Or we might stop it sooner and save our home." Terra fights. She puts more effort into trying to move the weight on the end of this line, Raven increases the resistance, and small fragments fall around them as a result of the strain. "Why can't you just trust me?" Terra asks.

"'Cause you don't deserve it!" Raven yells. "I have to meditate every day to keep my powers under control. And I'm supposed to believe that you can just suddenly control yours? Trust is something you have to earn!"

"How? How do I earn it?" Terra asks desperatley. "You can start by trusting me."

Terra turns this over nine or ten times in the space of one second-and then relaxes her hold on the stone. Raven does likewise, allowing it to crash down onto the walkway, and both turn to the console. The rock ceiling, being sliced by the drilling laser beam once more, and a second later, a gigantic piece of stone falls from above and crushes the system to scrap. Sparks fly everywhere as the two girls are thrown backward from the impact. One emitter, which starts to glow much more intensely and put out a wider beam, breaking away the ceiling at a greatly accelerated rate. Soon all three lasers behaving in this manner-put into overdrive by the literal system crash. Then Raven and Terra get to their feet.

Terra smiles nervously. "Okay. Maybe smashing the computer was a bad idea."

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Starfire carries Cyborg up toward the rotating wreckers, and Beast Boy-now a hawk-flies up alongside them. The two boys drop onto the upper surface, Beast Boy as an octopus, and Cyborg converts his hand into a drill and puts it to work on the metal skin. Blinding sparks play over the spot and his face.

"Beast Boy! Go!" Cyborg yells.

The octopus flips him a salute with one tentacle, becomes a mouse, and scampers to the newly bored hole. In he goes; cut to within the worm to show bundles of wiring running along its length. Beast Boy chews on one, then another, and the crackling arcs testify to the circuits he has broken or shorted. Outside, the worms' bodies bulge from a series of internal explosions before blowing apart. One blast throws the shape-shifter clear; he has transformed into a turtle, but soon resumes hawk form and wings away.

The worms are now completely separated from each other, fall in three different directions toward the bay and splash in. On the shore, Cyborg, Laurie, Zoe, Rae, and Starfire cheer wildly as Beast Boy lands and takes human form. Close-up of Cyborg.

"Robin, we did it!" He says, activating his communicator, "We took out the drill!…Robin?"

A laser beam erupts from below the water-issuing from the subterranean drill-and starts to trace around the shore. All 6 Titans are thrown down with a yell due to the accompanying tremor. Sure enough, all three lasers have pierced the bedrock, and after a long moment the entire island begins to sink into Jump City Bay. They all quickly scramble to their feet.

"Go!" Cyborg yells.

Starfire and Beast Boy gasp. The former lifts off, carrying Cyborg with her, and the latter again becomes a hawk to fly up with the. "How come we can't help?" Laurie asks Rae and Zoe; who merely shrug.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Underground, the sliding mass of rock is about to hit the drill. Raven and Terra watch it.

"We have to go! There's nothing we can do now!" Raven yellds. Terra's eyes start to glow. "Yes, there is! Trust me!" Terra says.

Down it comes. The glow has shifted from her eyes to her hands, and it manifests itself in a pair of wide-angle beams as she raises them with a savage yell. The energy strikes the lower face of the monolith, which smashes the drill apart as it stops and the worms crash down all around her. After several seconds in midair, the sheer weight of this formation proves too much for her and it starts to drop again. As her knees buckle, Raven steps up next to her with both hands loaded for bear.

"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Raven yells.

Terra straightens up. Ever so slowly, the combined force of the two girls' powers begins to push the collapsed rock back up the way it came. Surface level: Cyborg, Laurie, Rae, Zoe, Starfire, and Beast Boy-in human form-stand on the shore of Jump City Bay. The 5 sadly regard the site of the Titans' lost home, but Starfire cannot bring herself to look. "No way." Beast Boy gasps. "Starfire, look!" Cyborg says.

"I cannot." Sighs Starfire, she does raise her eyes a bit. "Our home is…"

The rumbling marked the rise of the Tower, which is now emerging from the waters of the bay to stand as tall as it did when the Titans were playing volleyball on its roof. "…saved!"

"But how?" Cyborg says dumbfounded. Beast Boy turns smug, "Terra."

Cyborg lifts his forearm; close-up of its communicator panel, which shows Robin.

"And Raven. Working together." Robin smiles.

The 6 heroes watch as the island and structure are pushed up the last few feet, back into proper position.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Raven and Terra are walking along. The blonde's goggles, which have been propped on her forehead since she wrapped up her stunt on the roof, hang around her neck again.

"So…friends?" Terra asks, "Close enough." Raven smiles.

"Sorry we kinda got off to a rocky start." Terra jokes. They stop at a door. "Actually, I thought things went pretty well." Raven states, "Took me a year to stop hating Beast Boy."

Both laugh. Snap to black, against which a shaft of light is thrown as the door is heard opening. This place is on the other side of the door they stopped at. Terra's boots advance and are followed by Raven's. Raven turns toward the wall as Terra steps forward, puzzled. "Um…where are we?" Terra asks. "Your room."

She flips a light switch. Across the area-walls painted to show a mountain landscape under a starry night sky, big green bed at the far wall, a cactus next to this, bookshelves, a large couch and coffee table facing the window. The other 7 Titans are here.

"SURPRISE!" Everyone; even Laurie and Zoe yell. "You guys did all this…for me?" Terra asks, flabbergasted. "Yeah, since you helped save our home and all-" Beast Boy says, sliding to her, blushing, cocking eyebrows "-we thought you deserved your own room."

"You also deserve one of these." Robin says holding out a communicator, and she takes it and looks wonderingly down at it in her palm. "So I'm-"

"-a Teen Titan." Robin grins. "Glad to have you on the team."

"Aw, yeah! Very nice!" Cyborg smiles. "This is the best thing that's ever happened to me." Beast Boy smiles. "Welcome, new Titan!" Starfire grins. Zoe groans, and Laurie elbows her. "Congratulations, Terra." Raven smiles. "You earned it."

The newest teammate gives her a gratified smile.

"All right. There's only one way to commemorate such a momentous occasion." Cyborg smiles. "Waffles!"

"Mmm!" Robin and Rae smile. "Perfect!" Adds Starfire. "Can they be non-dairy waffles?" Beast Boy asks.

"Sounds good. I'll catch up in a minute, okay?" Terra smiles; as the others leave her room. "Oh boy, can I hate her now?" Zoe asks. "After you finish your damn waffles..." Laurie smiles, and Rae laughs.

Well that was the end on my story; be sure to read the sequal when it comes out! Later! Oh, and please R&R!