Transcend
Three dark figures proceeded downward through the deeply shadowed and rocky path, silence incasing the trio like a cage. The air they breathed was stagnating and bitter, it had been trapped beneath the wet grey stones for longer then man had walked the earth. Type B took the lead with her head held high defiantly looking into the darkness ahead of her. Beast Boy followed his head down, heavy with thoughts of self loathing and regret, the new form that had been forced upon him seemed to have brought forth the beast that slumbered within his chest. The collar had amplified its control over him, but the beast had always been there, apart of him. Last of all watched Terra, her blue deep eyes scanning the back of Beast Boys black hair in search of any sign to give her passage into his thoughts, she could feel his pain and could not help but see her part in creating it. Type B knew what lay at the end of this path, and Terra had a good idea about what lay ahead of them, but Beast Boy simply followed compliantly. He was still far too desolated from what had happened at the end of his confrontation with John to recognize where they where leading him. The walls still resonated with the heat of the burning earth, like a constant reminder of the evil that smoldered within the walls of Terra's heart. Type B walked silently and stubbornly onward without a glance backward, Terra knew why, she felt the same sense of lament burning through her as she did. This place did nothing but amplify the remorse of that day so long ago.
They passed the wreckage of the metallic door that had been torn to shreds by Beast Boy in order to save Terra from a fate she had bestowed upon herself. The windows of stained glass where broken inward and the colorful shards littered the ground like sharp teeth growing from earth. The glass crunched and cracked under Type B's shoes as she pushed past another of her painful memories. Beast Boy began to look around as his mind slowly wrapped around where he was and the place witch had haunted his nightmares each night sense Terra had gone from his side. Finally the narrow tunnel expanded outward into a great cavern, within its walls many sharp and tower like pillars of rock stretched upward to the black ceiling and a single narrow bridge leading from the entrance to the center of the expanse. The walls of the cavern where charred black and the smell of brimstone hung thick in the air, Type B stopped and starred at her feet, unable to bring her eyes upward. Beast Boy took a slow step past her and Type B glanced up at him, but his eyes where locked strait forward. At the heart of the room stood a single figure, an eternal monument to the pain and hatred that festers in the hearts of every human that calls earth home. The statue of the true Terra with her eyes still wide and staring stood unmoving and unchanged against the prolonged darkness.
Beast Boy blinked hard as the shock of what he saw overtook him, shaking his head slightly to clear it of what must have been an illusion he staggered slightly. Type B looked away from the sculpture that was the origin of her shame, she had know of its existence all her life and knew that she was not the true Terra, unlike her sister who had fallen to her knees next to her. Tears flowed from the eyes of girl on the floor to Type B's left and her grief stricken mouth was covered by both hands to mask her sorrow. All she had ever known or thought to have known was slipping through her fingers like so many grains of sand.
"She has always been here, I know not how Hunter found a trace of our genetic code but the true Terra remains untouched." Type B spoke to the wall next to her, she could not gather the will to meet Beast Boys eyes or look into the tear filled eyes of the girl kneeling on the ground next to her.
As if under a trance Beast Boy stepped forward, the girl crying upon the stone looked up at him but he seemed to not see her at his feet. Step after slow step he approached the center of the room. Type B forced her self to watch him go, and tears gathered in her eyes like that of her clone. Step after slow step Beast Bow drew himself across the slender bridge that spaced the darkness of the cavern, the eyes of the girls watching his back as he went. Beast Boy fell to his knees at the foot of the stone depiction of the girl he loves. He placed a single hand on the side of her leg as he looked up into the eyes of the child of stone. Both clones gasped as they felt his warm touch on their own legs, they glanced at one another then locked their eyes back to the tragedy unfolding before them. Beast Boy was silently starring upward into the blank eyes that he had spent days lost in the depths of. His hand lay on the cold stone that had once been beautiful warm flesh. The memories of the only girl who had ever truly loved him burned like embers in the back of his throat. Had it all been a dream? The last few days, the transformation he had gone through, and Terra returning to him… twice… all a dream? If so, then why was he here kneeling under the marble tomb of Terra, why was his body so vividly scarred, and why was he on the verge of tears? Reality seemed to be collapsing around him, his head spun and sanity came and went. He slumped against the side of the statue, and wrapped his arms about one of its legs and burying his face in to his shoulder.
Type B turned to leave but her sister grasped her hand, Type B turned back to look down into the tear covered face that looked so much like her own. They held each others gloved hands for a few seconds until the girl on the ground spoke,
"Where would we go, sister?" Type B didn't know so she only starred into the blue eyes looking back into hers in silence, then her clone looked away. "I tried to stay away from him, I knew I could only cause more pain… now the damage is done and all I can think to do is to run again. His body has been ravaged by our creator and he was deceived by artificial recreations of the woman he treasured yet he still has enough love left for Terra to he weep at the foot of our grave. Do we leave his side now that the scars have been inflicted? I don't think I could live with the self-loathing that would follow."
Type B stood unmoving as her sister spoke. The words rang more true than any other words she had ever heard and in that moment Type B realized that she and her sister where one and the same… no difference of good or evil, only separated into different bodies. Type B felt the same as the girl looking up into her eyes and she felt the same as her. The thought brought a moment of happiness into Type B's face, and she didn't feel quite as alone in her sorrow. Pulling on the hand that still grasped on to her own, Type B helped her sister to her feet, and together they timidly approached the green boy wrapping his arms about the figure that reflected their fetchers in perfect symmetry. Beast Boy did not move as they approached, not even as they drew within inches of his bare feet pressed against the cold stone. It was the girl who thought she had been Terra who spoke in a timid voice toward the green boy she loved,
"Beast Boy? I… we… there is nothing I can say that could…" As she spoke Beast Boy slowly dragged his body from the wet rock and stood. Terra stopped as he reached his full height in front of her, she knew he must be angered, his life had been torn to shreds then chaotically stitched together by the hand of genetics in order to save a girl who turned out not to be who he had hopped she would. But when he turned and looked at the twins standing side by side before the statue, she could only sorrow in his tear filled eyes.
"Terra… I don't know what to think any more." He fell forward, the clones reached out and let him fall into their arms and they held him together. Type B and her sister wrapped their arms about Beast Boy and squeezed him tight, tears of their own flickering at the tips of their eyelashes. The three grasped on to one another, sheltering themselves from the cold of the cave and of the world beyond it. The green and golden spec held out against the back of the shadows coating the great walls of the cavern, and they felt comfort together in their small world.
The cheek of Type B stoked ageist that of her sisters, and at first nothing happened, the trio held each other for several more treasured moments and then the golden light shone like a beacon in the black expanse. The disk placed within Type B's chest flickered once then died. Beast Boy was flung back away from the girls and to the foot of the statue by an unseen detonation. The girl's eyes gleamed a burning yellow as their hair flowed in some invisible force and their feet slowly levitated from the ground from which they had stood. The walls reflected the bright glow now issuing out from the connected link, and the black void erupted with glimmering sparkles of light like stars spacing the black of the night sky. Beast Boy felt the wind rush past him as the force gathering into the girls increased, then he recognized the feeling that reflected that which he had felt when Terra's power was unleashed so many years ago, and all he could do was watch in astonishment and the energy before him grew and grew. The girls raised higher in the air, their gloden locks intertwining and their now gloveless hands grasping together in a tight lock. Their faces blank with shock and their mouths slightly open, they where slaves to the power that slept within themselves. The ground in every direction was now crying out as if alive, responding to its old master's call. Chunks of the ceiling fell away and the great pillars of stone ripped themselves to pieces. Rock and stone began to slowly rotate through the giant circular room, and all that Beast Boy could do was watch as the walls of rock around him shattered as if made from glass. Light bursting from the double goddesses of stone now filled the once dark cave, and the only moving shadows where cast by great pillars of rotating granite twirling around the focal point of the power witch commanded them. Then in unison the girls looked down toward the boy they loved and reached out with their free hand toward him as if calling out to him for the last time, then a final explosion of golden light erupted and the room went a glaring white and Beast Boy was blinded. The final image of the two identical twins burned into his eyes for a moment then faded away, revealing another image floating where they had once been.
The pillars of rock where gone, and a single figure floated within a sea of glimmering crystals. It's long perfectly blond hair rippling from its own power, the metal that had once clung to its skin orbited its body like glimmering satellites, its eyes glowed in a solid wash of the purest gold, and each of its hands still held outstretched, reaching toward Beast Boy.