Strangers

Winter had died away and summer had resurrected from its ashes. Terra was sitting on a rock on a grass covered hill over looking a lush valley. She looked out on the beauty of the season and thought of Beast Boy. She had survived the unforgiving winter by creating a small cave to live in but her powers where still slowly returning. Her abilities coming back frightened Terra, she didn't think she had the extreme superiority at her command as before, she wasn't even sure if she had complete control. Ether way she wasn't safe to herself or others, so she avoided any and all human contact. If she was found there might be a chance that Beast Boy would find out she wasn't dead, she didn't want to break his heart again, when he learned that she wasn't the real thing. That she was a clone. She missed him, and she wanted nothing more then to go running back into his arms, but nothing but more pain would come of that. To hurt him again would destroy her. So she had run away again, and hidden in a place no one would find her.

Then she saw something in the valley below her. There where people walking, they looked young, almost her age. Terra was hiding in a restricted nature preserve. No human had even set foot on most of these mountains. Any signs of civilization where at least fifty miles away, how two teens with no packs could have gotten out here was beyond her. She stood and slowly crept closer. She crouched behind a tree half way up the hill, and looked down. As she neared, their faces and actions became easier to make out. They didn't seem to be in trouble, in fact they where smiling, she thought she heard a burst of laughter as if one of them had cracked a funny joke. One was a young man and the other was a girl. Terra suddenly lost interest, probably some rich young couple going on some overly priced eccentric vacation. Then the girl pulled something out of her pocket and tossed it into the air. The boy dropped on all fours and sprinted forward after the object. He leapt from the ground and caught it in his mouth. Terra was shocked, sure the kid had surprisingly large sideburns but he looked relatively human from here. As if the boy had heard Terra's thoughts the young man stood and looked directly at her. What looked like a stick dropped from his mouth and he started walking toward her. Frantically she got up to run, climbing up the hill was considerably harder then walking down it however, and Terra would dare not use her powers. She reached the top of the hill and twisted back to look at her pursuers. She only saw the girl, she was standing with her arms crossed looking up at her, it didn't even look as if she had taken a step from where she was when Terra had started to flee. The boy with the lard side burns was no where to be found however. Terra glanced left and right but the tree's where empty. Then the girl down in the valley cupped her hands around her mouth and called out,

"Torrent! Don't hurt her!" Terra looked directly up, and saw the boy was falling downward as if he had just crested an inconceivably large jump.

Terra turned to run again but the boy landed several feet away from her with a defining thud. He looked up and smiled at her. The smile was large and toothy, his teeth in fact where pointed and sharp looking. His eyes where a radiant amber color, like many of the leaves carpeting the ground. He whore tattered jeans and a shredded black t-shirt. Several metallic plates where crudely strapped to his right arm, small scars and scratches covered his body, it gave him an unkempt look. Slowly he stood from all fours and started to walk toward her on his two hind legs. Terra turned to try running back down the hill but was cut off by the girl. She floated down slowly from the sky and landed gently on the rock Terra had been sitting oh earlier. The girl smiled sweetly and said,

"Hello, my name's Ann Filler." She was inexplicably happy. Terra raised on eye brow subconsciously. "What's a young girl like you doing out here in the middle of nowhere, are you lost?" Terra slowly lowered her guard and stood up strait.

"Um, I was going to ask you guys the same thing. I guess your not with the government or anything then, Huh?" At the mention of government Ann's smile faded slightly,

"No, and I guess neither are you." Terra could tell these kids where just as unused to meeting people out here as she was. The girl she was talking to was about the same size as her but the other one was somewhere around six two, She had long blond hair tied up in a large pony tail and he had shaggy dirty blond hair, she was slim and he was muscular, Ann's eyes where a strange white color and the boy she called Torrent had bright amber eyes, and both of them had a disturbing habit of smiling continuously at her. The boy's smile scarred her though; he smiled the way a crocodile would smile. Torrent had metallic plates strapped down his right arm and Ann Filler had s small crystal implanted into the center of her forehead, strange kids.

"I'm Terra." Terra said hesitantly. Ann turned to the boy and said,

"Well? I taught you how to make someone's acquaintance, now's as good of a time as any to practice." The boy walked in front of Terra and smiled at her for several seconds, and then in a quick movement that made Terra jump he thrust out his right hand.

"Hello, my name it Torrent, how are you this afternoon?" His words where surprisingly well pronounced, though his grammar was a little off.

"Um, fine. Ann?" Terra peeked around Torrent and looked at the blond haired girl. "Why do you call him that?"

Instead of answering Ann floated over and pointed at one of the strange pieces of metal attached to Torrent's right shoulder. In faded black letters the words 'Project Torrent' where stamped on the gray mettle.

"Now that we've all introduced our selves we come to the question at hand, who are you, and who sent you to find us." Ann's smile disappeared and she looked serious.

"What? No one sent me here, and I wasn't spying on you! I was sitting up here minding my own business and you two came out of no where." Terra felt insulted, she'd ruined her life by spying and there was no way she would ever do it again.

"Ok, then what where you doing out here?" Wile Ann calmly interrogated Terra, Torrent stood silently off to the side, smiling to himself.

"Let's just say I'm avoiding contact with a curtain person. Why? What are you doing out here?" Terra crossed her arms,

"We also could go with out being discovered. In fact you're the only one we've met out here so far."

"Who are you running from?" Terra suddenly felt like the three of them had something in common, birds of a feather and such.

"Well... we don't really know, hence why you are a security hazard."

"Are you calling be a spy again?!"

"Lets gust say we'd like to keep track of you. The people where dealing with have ways of extracting information that we'd rather not have get out."

"What do you mean 'keep tabs'?" Terra raised her eye brow even higher,

"It's getting dark. We batter make camp, I suggest you come with us Terra. We can swap stories." Ann smiled and started to walk down the hill, Torrent waited for Terra to follow, then walked down himself.