A/N: Yay! I finally got a chance to post this! May is looking to be the most horrifying month of my entire 16 year old existence. It includes 4 gigantic school projects, exams, recitals, programs, a live audience performance (don't even get me started on that one unless you want to see me to soil myself, which isn't very amusing) more exams, and basically no free time whatsoever. If I don't update after June 1, you may officially give me up for dead. The stress is looking homicidal, so no, I'm not kidding (sighs gloomily, contemplating dismal future). Well, TGIF, so time for an update!
hermioneandterrastwin16: Aw, thanks (blushes, rubs back of head). It means a lot, since that is what I'm constantly aiming for.
Insanity 101: Tell me about it. Yeah, he is. Thanks! I try really hard to paint a picture in the reader's head of what's going on, TT is a TV show, so I try to portray it as such. Problem is,that leads to rather long and repetitive (not to mention lacking dialogue) constant descriptions of the surroundings. By the way, I was serious in my author's note, so if you notice that I stop reviewing, you better send flowers to my funeral or I'll haunt you! (that's even better than using a bazooka!) Yay, I hear ya! Thanks, I'll try.
Well, here goes:
Skree! Skree! Skree!
Red lights flashed around the tower. Starfire gasped, looking up. She zoomed over to her room's closet. She had gone there to change her galoshes, since they had become caked with mud. With many a flurried movement, she ripped off her sludge encrusted boots.
That hole of mud was filthier than the underside of a Zornian muck beetle, Starfire thought disgustedly. I sincerely hope Beast Boy will be more careful the next time he volleys the ball.
It had taken forever to find the volleyball amidst the sludge in a cluster of rocks at the base of Titans Tower. It had gotten there with yet another exaggerated serve by Beast Boy in gorilla mode. Starfire searched frantically for a fresh pair of boots.
Suddenly, she looked around. The red lights had stopped flashing, but the siren was still screaming it's head off. The alarm is not an urgent call…most likely another simple evildoer, Starfire thought, relaxing slightly.
The extraterrestrial returned to her former thoughts as she pulled on a pair of clean shoes, sitting on the floor. Ah yes, the ball in the mire. For some strange reason, Terra had refused to contribute to it's rescue. Starfire frowned slightly, remembering.
"Uhhh, that mud is too watery, there isn't enough earth…um…in it…to move it…" Terra mumbled when asked to find the ball, averting her eyes and rubbing the back of her head with a gloved hand.
The other Titans looked at her oddly. Robin frowned. "But you've moved mud before, didn't you do so in your fight with…"
"Dude, whatever," Beast Boy interrupted impatiently. "Let's just go get it."
"I shall volunteer to go and fetch the ball," Starfire had exclaimed cheerfully, and flew down to get it. Retrieving it, on the other hand, had been a messier task than it had looked like.
"Sheesh, where's Raven when you need her?" grumbled Beast Boy at the sight of a grime covered Starfire with an even grimier ball in hand.
Starfire's shoulders drooped. "I am afraid I was quite unable to convince her to join us."
Back in the present, Starfire's shoulders drooped similarly as she strode (er, flew) swiftly down the hall to the main room.
Raven had barely opened her door when Starfire had gone to ask if she wished to participate, and after offering a negative response to the query, slammed it in the alien girl's face.
Mentally shaking off the familiar feeling of rejection she usually got from the other female Titan, Starfire opened the main room doors. The others were crowded around Robin, who was communicating the mission coordinates.
"…on the corner of 9th Street. It looks like he took off for the forest, but he can't have gone too far, he took too many gold bars to be moving very fast. Looks like Cinderblock's been getting bored lately. This shouldn't take very long, so let's go and try to stop him quickly."
The Titans moved towards the door. All except for Terra. Beast Boy skidded to a stop just outside the door. He waved her over.
"Yo, Terra! Aren't you coming?"
Terra hesitated, then set her face grimly. "Yeah, sure." She ran to meet him at the door.
"Grooaaar!" Cinderblock growled angrily as he stomped off through the trees. The Titan's were gaining fast, and the humungous steel tank full of gold bars hoisted over his shoulder was slowing him down.
Cinderblock felt something insignificant peck his shoulder and lodge itself there on the outer layer of his thick skin. He looked dumbly at it; it was a birdarang. He turned just in time to see a steel rod slam into his rocky face.
"Grargh!"
With a roar of pain and confusion, Cinderblock dropped the tank of bars. They slammed to the ground, metal-upon-metal-upon-earth creating a grand amount of noise. Over the din could be heard Robin's angry exclamations and blasts from a sonic cannon.
Raven and Starfire flew overhead, both assaulting Cinderblock with green and shadowy black aerial attacks in combination. He held up his arm protectively, shielding his face.
Robin kicked him in every thinkable spot with steel-toed boots while Cyborg kept on blasting at the granite monster. "Booyah!"
Beast Boy and Terra brought up the rear. Beast Boy transformed into a Tyrannosaurus Rex and attempted to bulldoze the gravel foe.
Terra stopped, standing still, staring transfixed at the battle raging before her. Her time was up.
Terra swallowed nervously. She had feared this moment, ever since she had been freed from her horrid prison. The moment in which she would freeze up. The moment in which she would show the others just how cowardly she was. The moment she would be forced to, once again, use her powers.
Terra snapped out of her reverie as a wailing Beast Boy flew past her and crashed into a tree. With a grunt, he fell to the ground and lay still. Terra firmed her resolve. She had to do this.
Scrunching up her eyes, she stretched out her arm and animated the ground beneath her. A big block of earth came to life beneath her feet, as it had done so so many times before. Terra grinned, relief flowing through her. All right.
Terra soared over to where Cinderblock was still putting up a good fight. Stretching her arms before her like a zombie, she summoned mounds of dirt from the ground with a cry and hurled them like spears toward Cinderblock.
The earthy projectiles crashed into Cinderblock, causing him to lose his balance.
"Groaar!" With a mighty bellow, the granite monstrosity slipped over a relatively high crag and fell about 35 feet to the ground.
Cyborg rushed over to the edge to keep firing at him.
"C'mon guys, we got the leverage! Just keep wailing on him till he goes down!"
Blue streaks of sonic energy flashed through the air, exploding on Cinderblock's prone form on the ground. Then the villain did something nobody expected.
Cinderblock quickly recovered and, despite still being on the receiving end of several blasts, managed to grab one of the collapsed boulders and aim it at Cyborg. As it soared through the air, one of Cyborg's blasts made it break in two, and the lower half crashed into the cliff's border, causing it to collapse.
The other Titans could only watch, horrified, as Cyborg swayed unsteadily for a few seconds, arms flailing frantically in a vain attempt to regain his balance, before plummeting down, and landing face down with a sick thud at Cinderblock's feet, sprawling over the ground.
The other Titans ran close to the border of the precipice, and checked to see if Cyborg was OK. They watched in awe as Cinderblock stood up, and ran away from the cybernetic teen's motionless form. It only took a half second to realize why.
A distinct rumbling sound reached their ears. The rocks at their feet trembled visibly. The Titans hurriedly backed away as blocks of rock began to break off. An avalanche of rocks were heading straight for Cyborg!
"Terra!" Robin yelled, hands cupped over his mouth, trying to be heard over the rumbling of the rocks. "Get down there, stop the avalanche!"
Terra nodded quickly before plunging down amid the rocks, maintaining her balance on her own boulder. Feet planted firmly in front of Cyborg, with her back facing him, Terra summoned her powers. The earth-shifter managed to stop the rain of boulders with ease before the really big ones came down.
The Titan's sighed with relief.
"Now," said Robin, "we have to…"
But just what the Boy Wonder was going to order his team to do, they would never know. The familiar rumbling commenced again. Terra's firm hold over the threatening downpour of stone was now wavering. A few rocks broke loose and landed with threatening crashes near the earth-shifter and her fallen comrade.
"Terra!" Robin shouted alarmingly. "What's happening?"
Terra clenched her eyes shut, arms shaking from an overwhelming effort. "Can't…no...not…now…don't…"
Cyborg, groaning, rubbing his head gingerly, got to his feet, and noticed for the first time the very dangerous situation in which he was in.
"Say, what…?!" He quieted down when he heard Terra's terrified faltering murmurings.
"No! Don't lose control, don't lose control, don't…" Terra's eyes widened behind her blue goggles as she let out a gasp of pure terror. "No!"
The invisible wall that held the rocks back ceased to exist, and the boulders began to fall at an alarming rate. Cyborg rushed toward Terra, attempting to shield her from the oncoming onslaught of merciless stone. He wrapped his metallic arms around her. They both squeezed their eyes shut, bracing for impact.
Just when the rocks were about a foot from Cyborg's head, they became enshrouded with black energy. Cyborg slowly opened his normal eye, and gawked upwards. Raven was floating in the air, black energy rushing from her hands and circling the avalanche. The other Titan's gaped in wonder as they watched the pile of gravel hover precariously over the duo's heads.
Beads of sweat stung her narrowed white eyes. Gritting her teeth, Raven, with a large burst of effort, swung the large load to her right. A huge pile of boulders slammed into ground, causing tremors to run through the earth like chills up a person's spine.
Raven floated tiredly toward the ground and made her way towards Cyborg and Terra. Beast Boy flew down as a pterodactyl and morphed back into his original self as he landed on the soil. Starfire flew down carrying Robin.
"Cyborg, Terra, are you all right?" asked Raven emotionlessly. The other Titan's arrived breathlessly, and each began speaking at once.
"Are you two unharmed?"
"Please, friends, are you both undamaged?"
"Dudes! Are you guys OK?"
"Yeah, I think we're all right, man," said Cyborg. He glanced down at the petite body of the earth-shifting Titan. Terra looked fine, but she uttered nothing, staring at the ground, eyes shaded from view.
"Cinderblock ran away, but the gold is safe. If nobody's hurt, than I think we can just go home," said Robin, turning away, beckoning the other Titans to follow him as he sent a message to the city's law enforcement department with his yellow Titan communicator.
They did so, Raven striding right behind Robin without so much as a glance backwards, walking slowly from the crash site. No one spoke a word; a heaviness seemed to descend onto them as they moved along.
Starfire shivered as a cold wind blew through the trees while the Titans made their way back to Titan's Tower. She couldn't help but ask herself the same question she had voiced many a time before when things were grim: If the team had won, then why didn't it feel like a victory?
A/N: Well, there you go. I didn't think this chapter was going to be very good at first, but I had an awful lot of fun writing it, it was my first action/fighting/battle scene ever, so be gentle. For those of you who are interested, don't worry about Beast Boy the Torturer, I have the second chapter in the works. Toodles,
Jambey