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Stone Prison
By: Demonabyss
Chapter 9: Preparations
Man, am I glad to be here, though you'd never hear me say that out loud. Slade may have been a double-crossing asshole, but he knew how to build a secret base and how to keep it stocked. Before I deep-fried his butt, this is where I stayed and trained. Considering I might one day have to return here, I secretly hid a number of supplies and weapons here from Slade, though I seriously doubted I'd ever use them until recently. If I've learned, anything from being on the run for so long it's that you must always cover your ass in case things backfire and more often then not, they do, especially for me. First things first though, redecorating. If I'm going to be spending any length of time down here, this place needs some serious renovations, Terra style.
I start sifting the rocks, dirt, and nearby magma veins to suit my tastes. My mind wanders as I relax into my true form once more. I'm still not completely used to shifting between my human form and my true form, but I'm getting there. The feeling of rock and stone replacing/covering your own flesh would take awhile for anyone to get used to I would hope. Once I'm in my natural form, I relax completely as I feel the earth around me already start to feed my body. It's a weird but not unpleasant sensation. It was like warm water flowing up from the ground, into, and around my body. In any case, my mind wanders to all the most recent events.
Back at the site of the second upheaval I caused, why was Raven still there but the others were long gone? Raven and I had never been on what one would call normal friendly terms. I mean, when I stayed at the tower she was nice enough but afterwards when she found out I was with Slade, she hated my guts, I think. I don't know she's hard to read at times even for me. Either way, it's probably best if I avoid her and the rest of the Titans, at least until I'm ready to deal with them, the League, the Government, the Hive, and whoever else wants a piece of me. Now if only I could get that damn whispering in the back of my head to shut up, it's starting to drive me up a wall!
(Normal POV)
Raven read through book after book, searching for an explanation. Ever since Terra's second upheaval, it got her thinking. Terra had always been powerful, everyone knew that, but the power she had been exhibiting recently was beyond what she had sensed when she first met the girl. Her power had grown dramatically in a rather short amount of time and Raven was sure it had to do with what happened at the volcano. Also, the abilities she had been displaying were much different then when she had first met Terra. 'Before she could just move rocks and fly on them. Now she's causing record-breaking sandstorms and swimming through the earth like a fish in water? Something doesn't add up. Terra, what are you?' the half-demon thought as she studied one book after another. She had to confirm one way or another, what Terra truly was.
'Damn it Terra, where are you?' Robin thought as he gazed over the various maps trying to figure where the geomancer had disappeared too. This was beyond frustrating for him, even more so then when he went after Slade. Slade at least left clues, cryptic messages, something for the boy wonder to go on as did other criminals. Terra on the other hand, left false clues if she ever left any at all. Unlike other criminals, who only hid until they could reveal some big time master plan, Terra's main goal was hiding for the most part, at least until she made her move. 'What are you planning?' he thought as he looked over everything once more to determine what the Titans' next move should be.
General Williams looked over the reports once more before taking off his glasses and massaging his temples. 'Who would've thought there'd be all this fuss over one little girl?' he thought tiredly. He was the one who had been assigned by the United States government to bring in the meta-human girl known as Terra. At first, he and most of the other high-ranking officials didn't think it was such a big issue, until that first upheaval. After that, it was a race to see who could capture the girl first, but it was proving to be more difficult then anyone could've imagined. The girl had just disappeared after that second upheaval. When the pilots had caught up to the aircraft she had captured, it had run out of fuel somewhere on the border between Oklahoma and Arkansas and was completely empty. The girl had given them the slip again. 'We have to find that girl before she causes another upheaval. So far, we've been lucky that she's been in the middle of nowhere when it happened, but if she causes one in the middle of a city. Good lord this could be even worse then 9/11!' he shuddered at the thought. He had seen what she had done at the second upheaval site and it was not pretty, even for a seasoned soldier like him. 'We have to bring her in, at any cost,' he thought darkly as he looked over the new plans for capturing this one girl.
The plans consisted of using a small army of cloned meta-humans to surround and subdue the girl with Galatea, AKA Powergirl at the lead. However, General Williams was sure that half of the force at least would die before they even got to her. 'This isn't a strategy, it's a slaughter waiting to happen,' he thought tiredly. Problem was that it had already been approved with the argument that a few soldiers lives were worth the cost to protect the citizenry from the potential threat of an upheaval in the middle of a city. Plus he had also reviewed the methods they were planning to use to contain and control the girl. Officially, they were humane but in his personal opinion, there was nothing humane about using an upgraded version of that control suit that Slade had used on a teenaged girl. It would cut off all voluntary control, including her powers, and give it to Powergirl, basically make Terra a prisoner in her own body. The tech boys had assured the higher ups that it would be able to contain and control her, but Williams wasn't so sure. 'I just know this is going to bite us in the ass, but what choice do we have,' he thought as he looked at a profile shot of Terra. 'I'm sorry.'
Superman stood at the observation deck, staring out at the Earth in deep thought. With his sensitive hearing, he could hear half of the Justice League talking about Terra. Most of them could hardly believe that one teenaged girl could have that kind of power. He could hardly believe it himself. This one girl could cause more damage in minutes then even Superman himself could. It had been mind blowing to say the least. Then to learn that not only was she powerful, but she was sharp as well. She had avoided almost everyone who had tried to capture her, even going so far as to fool Batman. It had surprised the League to no end.
Right now Batman was leading a search to locate her, but it seemed as if she had simply disappeared and it was irking Bruce to no end. He had never had this much trouble finding one person before, but like Terra her self had said as told by the Titans, "You don't know anything about me," and she was right. No one knew anything about her other then her powers, what she looked like, that she had a wicked mind, and that she called herself Terra. Other then those four things, no one knew any hard information about her. It boggled the Kryptonian's mind that one girl could cause so much trouble by just existing. Still, it was the League's duty to find and contain her before someone else got to her first or else the consequences would be disastrous.
Brother Blood looked over the readings they had obtained after the Hive's little skirmish with Terra, the military, and the other group. The red colored cyborg smiled at what he saw, power, large amounts of raw power. He had never seen any of his students, past or present, have that kind of potential. The mere thought of controlling that girl and her power made the man shudder. If he could get her under his control, not even the Titans would be able to stop him. However, there was one major problem he had discovered though common research and observation. The girl had a spirit and will even more durable then Cyborg's. While Cyborg's will was like iron, able to be bent to a certain point by others, Terra's was like a massive pillar of the most dense rock, unable to be crushed or moved unless she allowed it. During his first confrontation with her, he had tried to gain control of her using the equipment in his fortress to amplify his powers. Even the Titans would've succumbed to that much mental power. Terra on the other hand, hadn't seemed to notice it all and it angered him greatly. He had not anticipated the geomancer to have such a powerful mental defense. 'She will be part of my academy. Not only part, but also I swear to make her my top student!' he silently vowed as he reviewed the readings again, looking for a weakness.
Jinx watched quietly with Mammoth and Gizmo next to her as their Headmaster looked over the readings from that rock girl they had encountered. Now Jinx wasn't a coward by any means, but what she saw that day of the second upheaval, as everyone called it, was something that frightened her. Being a sorceress, she could sense things that her two idiot partners could not and what she had sensed that day from Terra wasn't human. When they had first encountered the blonde over a year ago, she had been with the Titans and had displayed amazing power with her geo-kinesis. However, at the time despite her power Jinx could still sense that the girl was human just like the rest of them, more or less anyway. Now though, the blonde didn't feel like a human to the pink haired enchantress and it scared her. What she did feel like was more akin to a force of nature, like a storm or possibly a natural earthquake. These made her suspicious and if her suspicions were correct then this attempt trying to capture and control her was going to be a huge mistake. She had warned Brother Blood of what she suspected but he wouldn't hear of it, saying that she was just a teenaged girl, a girl with incredible power for him to control, but a teenaged girl nonetheless. 'I hope you're right Headmaster, cause if you aren't it'll be all our butts,' she thought darkly as she went to make a few preparations just in case her suspicions turned out to be correct.
Terra worked silently on the computer in Slade's old fortress, obtaining any and all information on those after her. Articles, past fights, news coverage, anything that may contain information on the League, military, and or criminals that were after her. She already knew enough about the Titans to take them on and the Hive were barely a threat; it was everyone else she had to worry about. Right now, she was watching news reports of the League, observing their actions, their powers, their limitations, and more importantly their personalities. 'For all their power, they still have weaknesses. As anyone with half a brain knows, the greatest weakness of any power is the power itself, and I have the power to see them clearly,' she thought with an odd grin. 'Make no mistake; I'll come out on top of all this one way or another, for I'm the one making the biggest gamble in this whole thing. If I win, I gain my freedom and perhaps some peace of mind. If I lose, then I lose my freedom, my will, and control over my own fate once more and I refuse to let that happen again.' She then looked down at the communication device that the Question had given her as she glanced at the information he had sent her. 'Oh yes, out of the six current players in this game, I hold the most tricks up my sleeve,' she thought as she reviewed her plans once more.
Far away from Terra's location, a force/being smiled sadly to itself. 'No daughter, there aren't six players. There are seven.' With that, it went silent once more.