The next morning was dark and wet, the nearly black clouds bringing constant rain. Stardust woke up and looked at her digital clock, which read 8:40 am. The alarm hadn't gone off at 7 o'clock like it was supposed to, and she had overslept somewhat. But she guessed it might actually be a good thing, since she and the rest of the team except for Angel had stayed up late watching a horror movie, which had scaered Talon to death. Stardust got up and put on jeans and a t-shirt instead of her regular uniform, not suspecting much villain activity for the day. Besides for Prince the day before, the Titans' work had been a little slow.

She walked into the kitchen and wasn't surprised to see that Rorek was already up, and it looked like he had been for hours. He usually got up before the sun rose, and now he looked up at her and smiled, also in civilian clothes. She smiled back and opened the refridgerator, accidentally pulling the door handle off again. She sighed and threw it to the side, too tired to worry about fixing it.

"You're up a little late," he said cheerfully.

"Yeah, and I still didn't sleep enough. Has anything been happening?"

"Not really."

"Is everybody else still asleep?"

"Talon is, but I think Angel left a few minutes ago."

Stardust sighed and sat down at the table. "He left again? I think something's up with him. He goes out and doesn't come back for hours, and I don't think he's hopping dimensions the whole time."

Rorek shrugged. "It's hard to tell."

"Well, I guess if he's not doing anything to harm the team, it's none of my business," she said.

Talon walked into the room, brushing her short black hair and holding an envelope in her free hand. She held it up and waved it. "Fan mail!"

Stardust took it from her and opened it, Rorek and Talon hovering over each shoulder to get a good look. Stardust cleared her throat and read. "Dear Teen Titans, I'm writing this on account of my five year-old sister, Lucy, who idolizes all of you. Her birthday is next week and all she asked for was to meet you, not wanting anything else. We all know you're busy with more important things, but if you could come to meet her, it'd make her really happy." It gave an address, then said, signed, Rusty. Stardust folded it and tossed it across the table. "We don't have the time. And besides, do you know how many people want to meet us personally? If we give in to this little kid, everyone will expect us to do it for them. So I say no." She looked up and met Talon and Rorek's pointed expressions. Rorek raised an eyebrow, and Stardust sighed defeatedly. "Oh, all right. We'll go see her today I guess."

"Good," Talon said, clapping her hands once. "I think it's really sweet that that kid likes us so much."

"I guess it's kind of touching," Stardust said. She tapped her knuckles on the table lightly. "We need to find Angel, or we'll just go without him."

Talon pulled out her communicator and searched for Angel's signal, which appeared in the tower. Stardust slammed a fist on the table. "He doesn't want us to know where he is. Something's up, I tell you. And he's done this just out of the blue a couple of months ago."

"Maybe he has a girlfriend," Talon said.

"But why would it be such a big secret?"

"Maybe he's embarassed."

Just as she said this, the door to the living room slid open and Angel walked in, oblivious to the conversation. He stopped when he saw Stardust's irritated look. "What?"

"Do you ever stay here for ten minutes?" she said, standing up from her chair. "We could have been called out to battle, and you're not even here to help us. What's up with you?"

"Hey, I'm a busy guy, I have other things to do too. And besides, I know when there's trouble; I have my communicator."

"How often? I know you leave it here sometimes."

"I might as well, it won't pick up in other dimensions anyway."

Stardust narrowed her eyes and was going to argue, but Rorek nudged her arm and shook his head slightly. She knew he wasn't one for confrontation, so she picked up the letter and handed it to Angel. "Read it, and you'll know where we're going."

Angel read it quickly, then glanced up at her. "Do we have to?"

"You don't, but the rest of us are going." Angel shrugged and walked away after handing the letter back to her. She frowned and mumbled, "I'm sure that kid doesn't even like you anyway."

After changing into their uniforms, the Titans headed off to the address that was so carefully written in the letter. Luckily for them, it had stopped raining at the moment, though the clouds were still thick and dark. Stardust flew down from the sky and walked between the other two Titans so she could talk to them better. "Now we have to be careful, as you already know. This could easily be a trap set up by some super villain, so let's not let our guard down."

After awhile more of walking, they left the city and came upon actual grass and houses, and Talon pointed to one of the mailboxes and stopped. "That's got to be it."

They went across the nicely cut lawn and Stardust knocked on the door. There was silence at first, but then the door was opened by a teenaged boy, who raised his eyebrows in shock of seeing them. Stardust held out the letter. "You wanted to see us?"

"Yeah," he said, still obviously surprised. "Hold on a second." He closed the door again, then returned with a blonde-haired, skinny little girl by his side, who screamed when she saw who was at her front door.

"It's the Teen Titans!" she yelled, and leaped forward and grabbed Stardust's leg in a hug.

Stardust, who usually wasn't that crazy about kids, now smiled at the sweetness of this one. She reached down and patted her on the back. "Yeah, you said you wanted to see us for your birthday. So, here we are."

"I can't believe it," the girl said, and pulled back to get a good look at all three of them. "Stardust, Rorek, Talon- where's Angel?"

Stardust hesitated. "He was really busy and couldn't come with us. But maybe you can meet him some other time."

She nodded, her mouth in a slight pout, but quickly brightened up again. "I still can't believe you're here! Look look, this is my big brother Rusty."

The teenage guy reached out and shook each of their hands. When he got to Stardust, she noticed how firm his grip was and wondered for a moment if he worked out, then threw the thought aside and concentrated on the task at hand. "You're sister's really sweet," she said.

"Yeah, she's been dying to meet you for months. I'm really glad you came."

Talon bent down to the girl's level and smiled. "So your name was Lucy, wasn't it?"

"Yep!" She stepped forward and whispered in Talon's ear, "You're my favorite, but don't tell the others. You're Rusty's favorite too."

Talon laughed, embarrassed, and put a hand to the back of her neck. "Well that's really sweet of you and your brother." She glanced up at Rusty, who was engaged in conversation with Stardust and Rorek. Talon stared at the boy for a moment and took in his features. He had brown hair, dark eyes, light skin, and he was fairly muscley in a natural way. He glanced down at her and smiled, showing his perfect teeth. Talon smiled back, too frozen at his good looks to even get up and talk to him.

Suddenly the ground shook slightly in the rhythm of heavy footsteps. Stardust took a few steps out into the yard and leveled her eyes in the direction of the sound, which seemed to be getting closer. Then came a huge figure from around the corner of a house, and Stardust gasped a little. Cinderblock! He hadn't been around for years, so why come out now? But she didn't have time to think on the matter, because the huge chunk of rock let out a roar and came pounding toward them.

She held out her hand in front of Rusty and Lucy. "You all better get back." Then she and the rest of the team shot forward, ready to meet the mass of rock head on.

Stardust was the first to come opon him, and she kicked him massively, sending him flying backwards away from the house. Good, she thought. Protecting Rusty and Lucy was the main mission right now, and trying to keep Cinderblock from smashing into other houses. She rained starbolts down onto him, and out of the corner of her eye saw that Lucy was in pure amazement. Stardust smiled, back backflipped quickly out of the way to dodge an oncoming blow from Cinderblock, who had gotten up and was coming towards them again. Rorek blasted him square in the chest, driving him back again, and Talon hit him with a wave of her power, actually hitting her mark this time.

Suddenly, Angel came down from the sky, planting his kick right to Cinderblock's face and knocking him to the ground with a tremendous crash.

"Angel!" Lucy cried out. Angel glanced at her and smiled, then flew out of the way to escape the huge rock's flying fists. But with one sweep of his arm, Cinderblock sent the Titans flying and smashing to the side uncontrolably. With them out of the way, he continued his walk forward, his eyes set on the two kids in front of him. He raised both fists above his head dangerously.

Stardust, who was still on the ground with the rest of team and was too far away to do anything about the oncoming attack on Rusty and Lucy, raised her hand and shouted, "No!" Why would Cinderblock want to attack those two innocent people for nothing? She aimed her fist and prepared a starbolt, but knew blasting him now wasn't going to help. Then the next things that happened went into motion so fast she could hardly blink.

Cinderblock's massive fists came down fast, but just as he was about to make contact Rusty raised his hands and the ground around him rose up into a pointed dome around himself and his sister. The structure shook violently, but luckily didn't break. Cinderblock stood there, puzzled at what had just happened. Then the rocks separated, and at the command of Rusty's hands, shot forward and hit Cinderblock hard, forcing him backwards. A rock emerged from the ground and Rusty jumped onto it, now using it as a stone hoverboard. He threw more boulders that each connected with their mark, then Cinderblock froze in mid-move and then was lifted into the air as Rusty lifted his hands. Cinderblock, who's body was now in the control of Rusty, was smashed back and forth onto the ground violently.

Lucy merely stood where Rusty had left her, and she did not look afraid at all, seemingly trusting that her brother would take care of her, as he probably had many times before. Then Cinderblock went flying so far that he landed way on the horizon and slammed into the water of the ocean, creating a huge splash.

Rusty jumped off his rock and let it fall gently to the ground, then turned to Lucy. "Are you okay?" She nodded.

The Titans were still laying on the ground a few yards away, in awe. They would have never guessed that Rusty had the power to control earth, and he had done a better job of defeating Cinderblock than they themselves had. He turned and looked down at them.

"You guys okay?" They nodded stupidly, and he put his hands on his hips and smiled down at them. "Come on, you're all superheroes. Haven't you ever seen anybody else with powers before?"

Stardust got to her feet, the rest of the team following her cue. "I just didn't expect it. For a minute there I thought you two were done for, and then I'd feel awful about that for the rest of my life..."

"Well don't feel bad now, it's over." He put his arm around his sister, who had come to stand beside him. "And truthfully, I kinda wanted to meet you just as much as Lucy did."

They all laughed. Stardust pulled out a spare communicator and held it out to him. "Our team is still growing, and your powers are impressive. Do you want to be our next member?"

Rusty stared at the device in Stardust's hand. Lucy patted his arm and smiled. "You should go with them, Mama won't care. It'll be awesome!"

Rusty smiled and took the communicator. "Sure."

Talon giggled. "We're glad you accepted. Now you should come to the tower with us!"

"I guess I should. But this is kind of short notice, so-"

"Go on, Rusty," Lucy said, shoving him a little. "You know Mama's always wanted you to be with them."

Rusty laughed. "I guess so." He patted Lucy's arm, then looked at the Titans. "Well, take me to this tower you were talkin' about."

"Now just plant your hand like that, and then-" Rusty threw Talon across the training room, and she slid across the floor harmlessly. "-you get that result. Nobody I've met yet can counter-act that move."

Talon stood up. "It was awesome. Can I try it on you?"

"Sure."

Rusty had been an official Titan for about a week now, complete with a mask and costume. Since he had come, Talon had been much more open to learning how to fight, and she was already improving in her martial arts moves, thanks to the training Rusty had given her. Now Stardust didn't have to train her, and she was quite glad. She had always been getting frustrated with Talon, and through all the arguing there was no learning going on.

Now Rusty flew across the room, but he twisted in the air and landed on his feet, laughing. "That was exactly how you do it. You're almost better than I am."

Talon put her hands on her hips and blew her bangs out of her face. "Well I couldn't have gotten better than you without you." They both laughed.

Outside the door of the training room, Stardust and Rorek and were spying in. Stardust looked at him and whispered, "Look how good she's gotten. She's so much more open to instruction now. I guess Rusty's just a better trainer than I am." She pretended to be sad about this, because she knew she would get compliments and sympathy from Rorek, and she felt like a brat.

"You were a great trainer." He reached out and touched the back of her hair. "I just believe she listens to him because he is a guy."

"That's probably true. But do you think I did something wrong when I tried? That maybe I was too bossy or harsh?"

"No, no. I don't believe that was the case at all. You did the best you could." His hand was still on the back of her neck, and he pulled her forward and kissed her passionately.

Talon came out of the training room, and Stardust and Rorek jumped back. Talon's eyebrows shot up. "Did I just see you two lip-locking?"

Stardust frowned, blushing. "You didn't see anything," she said threateningly.

Talon held up her hands. "Okay, I saw nothing. Well, uh, bye." She walked away quickly, and Rusty followed her.

Angel was downstairs on the first floor of the tower, preparing to leave to go see Miss Metal, when there was a slam outside, then the door burst in and blew to pieces, the alarm sounding. He gasped at what he saw and prepared himself to fight. This couldn't be happening, not now, not here...