Teen Titans
Fragile Dreams
A/N Well, you guys wanted to hear what's going to happen with the real Terra. Here you go. Also, since this story is organized as episodes, I've been trying to figure out what should be the opening and closing theme for it. Anyone have any ideas? I hear one I like, I'll use it and give ya a shout out for it.
Disclaimer - Think about it. If I owned Teen Titans, I wouldn't need to be rewriting the show, now would I?
Fragile Dreams Chapter 12 – Terra
A blond girl was running through the desert outside of Bloodhaven desperately, chased by a giant scorpion. Unfortunately, the poor girl's canyon path had run into a dead end. She stopped under a stone archway above, and turned, backing up slowly towards the wall, her eyes never leaving her attacker. That's when the Titans showed up. "Teen Titans, GO!" Robin yelled, and Starfire flew into action, eyes glowing green as she powered up a starbolt in her hands.
The girl suddenly looked up, and her eyes blazed like fire with golden energy. She stretched out her arms, and ripped the overhanging archway free and brought it down on the Scorpion right below. Robin was in shock. "She wasn't in trouble," he said, belatedly.
"No," Raven agreed, "she was leading it into a trap. But who is she?"
The girl's long, blond hair swirled around her as a pillar of stone rose up and she stepped onto the ledge where the Titans stood. "Hey. I'm Terra."
Robin held out a hand to her. "And we're..."
"The Teen Titans!" Terra said with a smile. "Rock on!" She made a fist and punched Robin's hand as he clenched it as well. "You're Robin," she said, turning to point at each Titan in turn, "and you're Starfire, Cyborg, Raven, and..."
"Boy Beast! Errrr, Bat Boy! Errr..." the green changeling stuttered out, unable to think straight. Raven thought it was the funniest she'd seen Beast Boy act so far... He had only just met her, and he was already falling head over heels for the beautiful blond teen.
Terra just smiled at his antics. "Beast Boy?" she corrected him, voice tinged with amusement.
"Eeep!" Beast Boy turned into a tortoise in embarrassment, and tucked his head into the shell in a rather cute display.
Terra cracked up. "He's hilarious!" Raven gave her a disbelieving sideways glance, but stayed silent. In her eyes, anyone who thought BB hilarious was suspect.
Apparently, BB was as surprised as Raven. He popped his head out of the shell and returned to his normal form. "You think I'm funny?" Terra gave him a quick hug, and Beast Boy practically melted in her arms.
This whole time, Raven had noticed Starfire looking at Terra very strangely. As soon as she released BB, Star went up to her and pressed her face just inches from Terra's. She started speaking rapidly. "Please tell me. Where are you from, how did you get here what is your favorite color doyouwishtobemyfriend?"
Terra pushed her face backwards a little, bending backwards to give her a little room to breath. "Umm... Earth, walked, blue, and… sure?"
Starfire gave her a devastatingly tight hug. "Welcome, new friend!"
As Starfire, Beast Boy, and Cyborg started practically dragging Terra towards the tower, trying to make convince her to stay, Raven turned and looked at Robin. He was kneeling at the ledge where the blond shaman had come up. "Is there something wrong?"
Robin grabbed a handful of sand and let it sift between his gloved fingers. He looked at Raven. "I'm not sure," he said. "Keep an eye on her, ok?" Raven nodded, and they walked back to the tower, closer to each other than either realized.
Behind them, Slade emerged from the dark cave he had been hiding in. He had watched the entire encounter between the Titans and the super powered young girl, and he smiled behind his mask as he saw the ledge she had stepped on collapse. "Don't get too attached to her, Titans. I saw her first. And I know something you don't."
Several hours later, Tara was asleep on the couch, and the five Titans were sitting around the kitchen table discussing her. Starfire was strangely quiet. She didn't know what to think of Terra: She had a strong suspicion that she knew this girl. If she were to place a wager on it, she was all but certain that this was Tara. "Why can't she stay here?" Cyborg asked. "She could use a place to crash."
"She needs more than a place to crash, Cyborg." Robin responded, and Raven nodded. "She needs a home."
"Why not ours?" Beast Boy entered the conversation, looking up and meeting Robin's masked eyes. "She has powers… she could be a member of the team."
Robin was skeptical. "I don't know, Beast Boy…"
"Friends, I think friend Beast Boy is right." Starfire spoke up for the first time since Terra came into the Tower. "If you remember, I spoke of a girl named Tara 12 cycles of the sun ago? I believe this is her." All the Titans looked at each other, digesting this new bombshell Star had dropped on them.
Robin finally nodded curtly. "We'll let her stay for a few days, and see what happens. We'll train with her tomorrow." Looking around and seeing no disagreement, he stood and walked out of the room. No one else noticed, but Star saw him steal a quick glance at Raven before he left.
Beast Boy couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he thought about the new girl sleeping just seconds away in the den. He shivered. The tower was too big to heat very easily, and the island could get very cold at night. Terra had to be freezing. BB grabbed a blanket and walked out to the den.
"Terra?" He called out softly as he approached the couch. "I thought you might be cold, so I…" He stopped as he rounded the couch and found it empty except for Terra's CD player. 'Where did she go? Her stuff is still here, so she couldn't have left…' BB stared out the big bay window, down to the island below and out to sea.
Distance and the tower's walls silenced the surf beating against the rocks, but he could still hear it in his mind's eye. 'If I was a girl who could control the earth, loved nature, and spent the last year in a desert… that's where I would be.' He scanned the rocks, and thought he could make out a figure sitting on one of them on the east side of the island.
Terra was lost in her thought as she stared out to sea. The simply beauty of the desert had almost made her forget how lovely the ocean was… it's magnificent power. Terra loved nature: Through her connection to the Earth, she felt linked to everything on this planet. She didn't find it strange at all to love both all things natural and the luxury and technology the Tower had to offer… her mental argument was far more complex than that.
'I'm a danger to them,' she thought. 'I'm being selfish to stay. Every time I try to use my powers to help, I end up only destroying. I put the Titans at risk every moment I spend near them.' As she thought, her eyes started to glow and she absentmindedly lifted a rock and threw it out to see, using her control over the earth to make it skip. She repeated this process a few more times until a rock splashed into the water loudly instead of skipping.
The noise shook her out of her reverie, and she glanced back to see Beast Boy standing behind her. She gave him a little smile and levitated another rock into his hands. "Try it again." Beast Boy threw the stone, and Terra gently prodded it with her powers, forcing it to skip into the distance.
"Yeah!" he said, giving his fist a little pump and adopting a strongman pose. Terra glanced over at him, and then averted her eyes with a blush.
'He's actually cute...' she thought. She continued to look out to sea sadly. BB sat down near her, sliding down onto an adjacent rock to give her plenty of space. She sighed. "I can't stay."
"Why not? You have powers, your funny, you can fit in here! I... we all would love for you to stay." Terra noticed the slip, but said nothing. Instead, she turned from the ocean and met the changeling's eyes.
The warmth shining from those green orbs made her stomach flutter. He really did like her: he wasn't just acting to make her feel good. She gave in. "Well, I guess I could stay for a few days..."
"Yes!" BB said, smiling at her. "Everyone will be glad to hear it. We can chill out, and I can make you laugh more, and maybe you'll decide to stay! We're training tomorrow... I can't wait to see what your powers can do when you really cut loose."
Terra was becoming more and more uneasy as Beast Boy continued. Her control over her powers was tenuous at best: only constant focus and confidence allowed her to keep it inside her. The anxious feeling that had been growing as he spoke peaked when he mentioned her powers, and Terra lost her hold on them. Her blue corneas were flooded by golden energy, and the rock BB sat on bucked, throwing him to the ground, before going flying out to sea and landing with a loud splash.
Terra was over him in an instant, her power back under control. "Oh my god, I am so sorry! I didn't mean to... please don't tell!" The two pairs of eyes locked, as Terra knelt by Beast Boy and looked down on him.
BB started to sit up, rubbing his head a little. "Terra, it's cool. So you're not totally in control. It's no big deal."
As he tried to rise from the ground Terra grabbed him by the shoulders. "Promise me you won't tell!" she said in a panicked voice.
"Sure, I wo-" BB started lightly.
Terra cut him off with a little shake of his shoulders. "Promise me!" she begged, her azure eyes about to tear up.
"Ok, Ok!" Beast Boy said, rising to his knees and removing her hands from his shoulders, grasping them in his own. "I promise." Terra mumbled what might have been a thank you before burying her face in his shoulder. "It's ok, Terra. It's ok. Seriously, it isn't that big a deal. Everyone would still like you if they knew."
Terra lay in his arms for a good, long time, taking comfort in his presence as she let all the stress and worry out of her. 'It was so cold just a few minutes ago...' she thought. 'Why am I so warm now?'
Neither Terra nor Beast Boy noticed a pair of amethyst eyes watching them from the bay window of the tower. Raven, suspicious by nature, was less than pleased by the new girl's presence. It had taken her the last ten months to reach trust the other four Titans. She couldn't just summarily trust this new girl.
It would be a foolish empath who didn't know herself well enough to think that was the only reason for her unease. There was much more to it. Terra's appearance meant that the future Starfire had seen was on track so far. Fear certainly was a reason. Another was Robin's suspicion that all was not right with the girl. That suspicion was confirmed by the lack of control she had just witnessed.
Still, Robin was right. There was no harm in letting her stay a while. If she was dangerous, where better to keep her than near five superheroes? Raven couldn't help but think of her summary rejection from the Justice League because she might be dangerous. Terra deserved better than what Raven herself had received. 'We'll see how she does tomorrow. Then we'll talk.'
The next day, Robin and Raven stood by the control panel of the new obstacle course. Cyborg, the courses designer, took its maiden run. "Are you sure Terra can handle this?" Raven said to him, quiet enough that the three Titans below. "I don't think she has enough control to manage this."
Robin gave a little nod. "Perhaps she can, perhaps she can't. One way or the other, we need to know," he said as Cyborg finished the course.
"Boo Yah! 4:15! New course record!" He boasted, doing a little victory dance.
"Cyborg, your the first person to try the course." Raven coldly informed him, and he started rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.
"Terra, why don't you try it next?" Robin offered, his voice showing it was not a question. That was the last thing Terra wanted to hear... she was already in a nervous sweat. Hesitantly, she stepped up to the beginning of the course.
"You can do it, Terra. Don't worry about it," Beast Boy said to her quietly, "It's no big deal if you mess up. Not that I'm saying you will mess up, but-" he cut off as Terra gave him a warning glare. "Sorry. Shutting up now."
She pulled her goggles over her eyes and crouched at the start. "Don't loose control, don't loose control, don't loose control," she whispered to herself. She clenched her fists and her eyes pulsed once before regaining their blue hue.
"Go!" Robin yelled, and Terra ripped a hunk of rock up from beneath her and using it as a flying platform. Her flight wasn't smooth, but it was functional. A blast from one of the course's cannons hit the stone platform and it splintered, sending Terra tumbling off. The blonde teen caught herself with another rising slab of earth, sending the broken pieces back towards the offending turret and smashing it apart.
'Whew...' She thought, then looked ahead and screamed. The metal gateways she had to get through were just ahead. Terra had no time to dodge,and her eyesflashed goldas she summoned a pillar of stone to precede her. The arching column crashed through the gateways just ahead of her.
The force of impact from the metal shrapnel broke Terra's balance, and she toppled towards the pit beneath her. Terra desperately summoned platform after platform to her, but she couldn't get a grip on any of them and slid into the pit. Two small stones shot down after her, and she wrapped a hand around each. Terra smiled as she began to fly back upwards.
Terra used the leverage the floating rocks to throw herself upwards, flipping upwards and bringing a new floating platform directly underneath her. She saw a battery of the cannons ahead, and swirled a maelstrom of stone around her just in time to catch the projectiles. An inferno of concussive blasts erupted in front of her, but she remained untouched in the eye of the storm.
Stretching out her hands, Terra summoned missiles of stone and threw them towards the attacking turrets, crushing them. The diversion of her attention cost her the precarious grip her powers had on the platform, and it wobbled and quickly lost altitude. Terra managed to keep her balance during the shaking, but lost it when she crashed into the ground landing in a rolling tumble and coming up in a crouch at the end of the course, directly in front of the Titans.
Beast Boy, Starfire, and Cyborg all wore stunned expressions on their faces, and they stared at the girl. Terra nervously stared back. 'Uhh oh, that doesn't look good.' She stood, swallowed her anxiety, and adopted the pose of a gymnast presenting herself to the judges after a routine, smoke rising from the course behind her.
The three Titans cheered and ran up to her. "Yeah Terra!" Cyborg yelled, "That was incredible!"
"A fantastic job friend Tar... Terra."
BB was just opening his mouth to speak when the slim blonde girl practically tackled him with a hug, briefly brushing her lips against his before she buried her face against his neck. "You were right..." she said, so softly that even Beast Boy could hardly hear her. "You said I could do it, and you were right..."
Robin turned to the silent girl standing next to him. "What do you think?" Raven didn't move or look away from the embracing teens below, although she did let her breath out to show she had heard. Robin looked back down at where the two were still hugging, and fought back an urge to do the same to Raven. 'Bad idea, Robin.' Still, he inched a little closer to the dark teen, taking comfort in her closeness.
"I think," Raven said in an even tone, "that we need a new obstacle course."
Robin laughed. He loved Raven's cynical sense of humor... it was one of the many things that he was starting to adore about her. After he finished laughing, he sighed. One of the funniest things about a cynical joke was that it really never was a joke: Terra really had pretty much totaled the course.
Robin was also beginning to realize how much more Raven meant with what she said than anyone else on the team would guess. "In other words, she's dangerous."
Raven finally turned to look at him. "She has a lot of power, and not very good at controlling it. I controlled power is very dangerous, regardless of the intent of it's user."
"I guess you would know that best." Robin winced. That came out harsher than he intended for it to. Luckily, Raven didn't seem to be taking offense. Instead, she just turned back to Terra, her amethyst eyes boring into the girl.
"Yes, I would."
She looked so forlorn right then that Robin wanted to hold her in his arms and beg her to explain everything to him. Damaged innocence was the appropriate description for her: She carried herself like someone forced to grow up too quickly. Richard Grayson knew what it was like to have your childhood ripped away, but somehow he sensed that she had suffered through far worse than he.
The Titan's leader wanted to understand this girl more than anything. He already knew he could trust her completely, but he wanted more. The dark empath was a riddle, and somewhere beneath the enigma was a young girl Robin was slowly falling in love with. He was too busy thinking about the beautiful Titan to even realize the subject of his thoughts had noticed him staring.
'Why is he staring at me?' Raven wondered, holding back a little blush. 'Is there something on me? I don't have another one of Beast Boy's pranks on me, do I?'
'He likes you, Raven,' her gold cloaked Raven piqued up from Nevermore. This time Raven couldn't stop herself from blushing, and a nearby piece of shrapnel went flying.
'Why should I listen to you? You won't even tell me who you are! There's no chance I'll trust you."
'You should listen to her emotions more, Raven,' the young, gold Raven said. Raven was annoyed to notice Knowledge, Happiness, and Anger nodding in agreement. 'Don't you trust us?'
'Anger is one of my emotions, and I know I can't anything she says. She is little more than an extension of my father... how do I know you're not the same?' As Raven had this conversation, she realized that this Raven really did look very different from the rest of her emotions. It wasn't thatthe golden emotionlooked like a younger version of Raven, like she had first thought:It was more like the emotion was someone else who lookedsimilar to her. It was a mystery to the empath,and she figured her emotions wouldn't explain it to her.
The golden emotion seemed to pick up on her thoughts on appearance. She curiously looked down at herself, then pointed at her own face at the four eyes continence of Anger. "Form reflects function. Am I really so dangerous?"
Raven shook her head. "I'm done playing this game. If you want to talk to me, tell me who you are." The entire mental battle had only taken a moment, and Raven was back in the real world. She had to admit, it was sort of odd to see Robin looking at her that was. 'Don't do this to yourself. He doesn't feel that way about you, and he's better off that way.'
She was spared from needing to do anything about Robin by the alarm going off in the tower, summoning the team up to the control room right away. The Titans went, and Terra went with them.
Terra was surprised at her impulsive actions with Beast Boy. Her embrace and kiss were certainly heartfelt, but she could barely picture herself doing that now, only seconds after letting him go. She was also embarrassed at ruining the course, thrilled with her success and the Titans enthusiastic reaction, and anxious about what the problem calling for an alarm was. When the group entered the control room, the monitor was already on. It was a man wearing a suit made of some armor, and an orange and black mask split down the middle with only one eyehole. Terra didn't recognize him but the Titans obviously did.
"Slade." Robin said, clenching his fist at his sides. "So you didn't decide to pack up and leave for good. Pity for you."
"Pleased to see you again as well, Robin. Perhaps we should meet again?"
Robin was about to explode when Raven laid a soft hand land on his shoulder, and he called down immensely when he looked back and saw her. He let out his breath heavily, and let his anger go with it. "What do you want, Slade?"
"Why don't you come down and see for yourself? I'm at the diamond mine south of town." With those final words, Slade cut the connection and the screen desynchronized into static. Robin looked around at his teammates, and saw no disagreement in their faces. Without a word, He turned and ran out of the room with Raven following closely behind him. The other Titans turned and quickly followed the two through the door, leaving Terra standing all alone in the room.
Terra stared after the departed Titans, then turned and focused on the static-filled screen as it slowly faded to black. 'Guess they don't want me,' she thought. Terra couldn't really blame them: she wasn't really in control, and someone must have realized that at sometime during that practice run. Terra sighed. "Oh well," she said aloud, "there's always next time."
Suddenly, Beast Boy ran back into the room. "Hey Terra! You coming or what?"
Terra didn't know what to say. They did want her along? Speechless, she just gave her best friend a heart throbbing smile and ran to the door, following Beast Boy down to the basement.
As Robin expected, Slade's bots were waiting for them when the Titans arrived. The team and Terra were quickly engaged in a pitched battle against the mechanoids. The bots weren't doing a very good job of attacking the Titans, however. Robin felt like something was wrong. They were out numbered, with a seemingly never ending supply of reinforcing bots coming out of the mineshafts, but they weren't having any real trouble. In Robin's estimation, the bots weren't really supposed to pose a threat: just keep the Titans busy.
Suddenly, the room trembled a little, and fine gravel started to shake itself loose from the ceiling. Robin tensed and prepared to bolt, but the top of the cavern above him maintained its integrity. He turned back to fighting just as a deafening rumble of stone against stone erupted from behind him. "BEAST BOY!" Terra screamed out over the roar. Robin turned just in time to see the tunnel over BB collapse, burying him in seconds.
Terra couldn't believe what she had just seen. "No..." she said softly. 'Not him... the person that had been so nice to me...' This was all her fault. She had tried to help him, but she had lost control over her thrice damn powers again, and collapsed the ceiling on top of the one person she cared for. "Beast Boy..." she whispered, her voice cracking as she started to sob.
Terra's head shot up and she looked down the hallway as she heard rapid footsteps echoing in the now total silence. The man with the orange and black mask ran by her tunnel. "Slade..." she whispered darkly, and her eyes took on an angry glow. She ran after the masked madman.
"BB!" Robin yelled, running over to the rockslide. He started moving rocks off from the collapsed pile. Dimly, he noticed that the Slade Bots disappeared after the slide. "Raven, help me!"
Large chunks of earth went black as Raven took control of them and sent them flying across the cavern. As the other Titans joined in the efforts to move the collapse, it started to tremble. A green fist punched though the remains of the pile and a battered and cut but very much alive Beast Boy pulled himself out. Robin stepped up. "Are you alright?"
The changeling nodded. "Where's Terra?" The team looked around, noticing she was missing for the first time. BB turned back to the rocks. "She must have been trapped on the other side. We have to help-" BB was cut off as Slade's bots poured back into the room. The Titans scattered, and the last thing Robin saw before he leapt into the melee was BB running back for the rock pile.
Terra was chasing Slade through a maze of tunnels, always managing to catch a glimpse of him before he turned a corner. Terra's eyes beganto glow with the power of the earth as the blonde shaman raised her hands and brought the tunnel down in front of the escaping villain. "Now I have you!" She floated rocks up, forcing them to rotate her like electrons orbit an atom. She stared right at Slade as he continued to face away from her, daring him to move.
When Slade moved, it was faster than Terra had ever seen anyone move before. In a single, smooth motion, Slade spun about and hurled a stone at her. Terra reached out and reversed its direction, sending it spinning back towards him... or where he had been. The stone blocked her sight of the master villain for a split second, and in that single moment of blindness Slade moved. When Terra reversed the direction of the stone, the blind spot was removed and Terra saw, too late, Slade spinning under his projectile. His kick sharply knocked her legs out from under her, and she went down hard. A bomb detonated on the ceiling behind her, and both sides of the tunnel were blocked off now.
"On the contrary, Terra." Slade said in his smooth, sinister voice. "I have you."
End Chapter 13
Hope you enjoyed that. I have a pronouncement to make: If this fic breaks 150 reviews (I'm not even halfway done and it's at 90... odds are looking good), you get a sequel! Smile
Next time on Teen Titans: Fragile Dreams -
What does Slade want with Terra?
-Is Slade the only threat to Bloodhaven?
-Robin's lips end up just inches from Raven's
-And Terra's powers to their best to kill everyone
Next Episode: A Momentary Lapse of Control