Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. But I did come up with this one location.
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On the outskirts of Steel City.
There is a mountainous region just outside the city borders to the west. Nothing but rock as far as the eye could see. It was one of the more prettier sights within the territory of Steel City. Great place to take postcard photos. But the story is not happening anywhere on or above the mountains. Instead, the real story was happening underneath them.
Near the center of the vast mountain range was the tallest peak, False Vulcan. Named after the roman god of fire. Why the unusual adage in the name? It's because during its first discovery the mountain was named Vulcan's Peak because it looked like and was thought to be a volcano (it had a big crater at the top). Later findings discovered that the mountain was not a volcano, it just looked like one.
Nobody is really sure how it got that look. The most popular theory is that a cave near the top must have collapsed which caused a sinkhole to form at the peak and centuries of erosion have since expanded it. Because of this, it was renamed to False Vulcan, one who imitates the fire god. It became sort of like a landmark for explorers to visit.
This location is supposedly dead, geologically and volcanically speaking. But the truth is it was very active indeed. Deep within the mountain's base, hundreds of meters underground, something evil was brewing. Inside the mountain was a gigantic underground facility. Where hundreds of men worked to create a new weapon to literally bring the world to its knees.
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Inside the massive facility itself.
Brother Blood was walking down one of the many maze-like corridors than ran all through-out the facility. He was currently walking towards the center of the facility. The hallway he was walking on ended in pair of double doors. Brother Blood didn't even slowdown as he approached and as he finally reached the end the doors automatically opened up for him.
It opened into a walkway with a railing. As Blood reached the edge of the walkway he looked down into a truly massive space. The walkway Blood was standing was raised closest to the ceiling that was a hundred feet above the walk way itself and circled around the whole space. The gigantic space itself was circular, like a tube. It was big enough that one could probably fit Buckingham Palace in here.
The whole space wasn't empty though, far from it. It was filled walkways and other platforms jutting out of the walls where there were computer terminals, robotic construction arms, and lots of men working. Blood looked down on the men. There a lot wasp soldiers and a lot of drones even some white-suited henchmen all working together.
Blood looked away from below him to directly in front of him. Jutting out of the ceiling pointing downwards was a gigantic needle of some kind. Think something like the top of one of Taiwan's Patroness Towers only upside down. The needle was pointing down a hole in the ground directly below it. The hole in the ground was a tubular pit that ran for more than a mile into the earth.
Brother Blood stared at all in front of him with a hidden sense of pride. This was his brainchild. His latest arsenal in his goal for world domination and all that. It took him quite a while to conjure it up but all the effort will pay off big time once the weapon itself was fully operational.
GeoHammer. That was the designation they gave it. With the combined efforts of himself and Professor Chang they managed to bring this concept to life. In the concept, the weapon had the ability to directly manipulate the Earth's internal mechanics to create pinpoint geological anomalies on any designated location by the user's will.
In short, it makes earthquakes wherever and whenever the user wants it. It didn't stop there however. Having direct control over the Earth's geological mechanics may also allow the user to manipulate meteorological events. That means whoever holds this weapon can have complete control over global ecology.
Brother Blood knew the vast potential of such weapon like GeoHammer. With it, he could hold the world hostage and demand absolute power. With what he was wielding, he knew no-one would dare challenge him. No-one could. Once the weapon fully operational, the world would be his oyster.
But there was a problem.
The weapon could not be completed just yet. While it is possible to finish the construction of the weapon itself, it can't operate without the key element. Blood knew what that was and he knew what happened to it. Chang did a wonderful job of preparing it but as soon as it was suppose to come in Blood's custody, they both lost it to the Titans East.
Because of that little incident, they were forced at a halt with nothing to do. Blood hated this thought as much as he hated the Titans themselves. But he couldn't argue with the logic Chang had provided for him. He said they needed patience and he was right. They had to wait for an opportunity.
Blood turned around and walked back towards the double doors and back into the hallway he was walking earlier. As he did, his train of though focused on his new partner, Professor Chang.
Chang was an unusual character to say the least. Blood has used his help before, albeit unwillingly on Chang's part. But now they were mutual partners in this latest scheme. Blood needed Chang's genius to bring his concept of a weapon to fruition. Chang needed Blood's resources to fuel his efforts.
Blood had little respect for Chang as a friend but he did respect and revere the man's genius. He knew Chang's ultimate goal was not world domination like him. He just wanted to build weapons that he can show-off to the world so he could prove just how dangerous he really is. That's just fine for Blood and their arrangement. Chang would build weapons and Blood would use them to hold power.
Together, they will rule this world. But there is one last obstacle standing in their way. Blood swore to himself that that obstacle will be the first of many that he will crush into the earth.
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Titans' Tower: East.
Bumble Bee walked down the hallway. She seemed deep in thought with her arms crossed and a hand under her chin. She wasn't particularly paying attention to where she was going or in what direction she was going in. All she was thinking about is how whack this day is turning out to be.
She was just leaving the medical ward. After the events of last night, it was a unanimous choice that Bumble Bee would be the idle person to handle the new guest resident considering the nature of said guest's…'wardrobe', Bumble Bee was the best, and only, choice for the task. God knows none of the guys volunteered.
"Well I guess I really shouldn't be surprised by this so much," she said to herself. "When I signed up for this gig, I never really expected for a normal day, did I?"
It was then that she actually remembered where she was supposed to be going. Everyone else was in the main room waiting for her to make a report about their new guest.
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In the tower's main room.
The morning sunrise was just breaking the horizon coloring the ocean and the tower a brilliant gold sheen. Inside, the Titans were lounging in the main room. The sun's rays were just penetrating their front window bathing the room in a nice golden hue.
Speedy was sitting on the couch near the wall examining one of his arrows. Aqualad was in the pool idly floating on his back. Más and Menos were at a nearby coffee table playing checkers. They were all silent and waiting.
They all seemed to have a feel of anxiousness around them as if they were simply waiting for something to happen. They hadn't gotten much in terms of sleep and they haven't even eaten breakfast yet. After the events of last night, they couldn't bare to even go to bed. What would have been a routine bust started to turn into something bigger.
Eventually a mechanical hissing sound was heard and all four boys immediately sprang from their relaxed places and looked towards the source. Bumble Bee had just walked in through the door leading into the main room. Almost instantaneously, the twin speedsters, Más and Menos, were at her feet inquiring in Spanish.
"¿Cómo está? ¿Está lastimada? ¿Se ha despertado? ¿Qué debemos hacer ahora que está aquí?" they said really fast.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on there little guys," said Bumble Bee, even trying a little Spanish that she knows. "Don't be in such a rush, a'ight? Umm…No sé tan apresurado."
"Yeah guys, chill already," said Aqualad walking up to them.
"Still, I too would like a good helping of answers right about now myself," said Speedy also walking up to the group, "How is she now, by the way?"
"She's still asleep. I got her down to the medical ward and she seems fine. No external injuries, or signs of illness, none I could detect, anyways. Generally she's in good health."
"So tell us, Bee, is she really who we think she is?"
Bumble Bee nods. "Yup, biometrics confirmed it. She is Terra, former member of the Teen Titans. I compared her initial profile with picture file we have in the database then I started to compare fingerprints and DNA samples. All of the test pointed in the same conclusion."
"…Well I guess it's safe to say this case just got a whole lot bigger."
"¿Qué representas junto a eso tú?" inquired the twins
"Speedy's right," said Aqualad, "I mean, this raises a whole new set of questions. And this case was already unusual to start with."
"Yeah, it was," agreed Bumble Bee, "For instance, we know Blood had escaped from jail about a month ago and has a new set-up now."
"And he has this new partner, Professor Chang was it?" continued Speedy, "and we can surmise that their both up to something big and were not sure exactly what at the moment."
"Well, she was under the custody of Blood and Chang when we found her," pointed out Aqualad, "You guys think she is involved with this somehow?"
"Sí, eso es correcto. ¿Pero es una cómplice a ellos?" asked Más.
"¿Quién oye hablar de tales cosas, mi hermano?" said Menos.
Bumble Bee understands the twins' inquiry. "They're right. What exactly is Terra to Blood and Chang."
"Are you asking whether she is a victim or a… you know?" inquired Aqualad.
There was a moment of silence as the team contemplated this question. They all knew some facts about Terra. Facts that are usually not known by the public. The official story received by the public is that Terra was brainwashed by Slade and forced to work for her until she finally broke free of his control and sacrificed herself. The people seemed to want to believe that story better. But the Titans knew some of the painful truth.
Speedy broke the silence. "C'mon guys!" everyone turned their attention to him, "We all know that this girl has a particularly…colorful history, that much is given. But try to remember what she did in the end. Can we really be suspicious of her under such pretences we barely know anything about this latest scheme of Blood's, much less her involvement in all this. We have to give her the benefit of the doubt. We can't blame her for a crime we don't know she's committed."
The others took a long and quiet moment to think about what Speedy said.
Aqualad spoke up. "I think Speedy has a point. We can't jump to any conclusions just yet. We need more time and more evidence before we can paint a clear picture. Plus, we can spend all day asking questions about Terra, but we really won't get anywhere unless we can ask her ourselves."
"Pero si no sabe nada mismo? Empezaríamos de la nada otra vez y no nos gusta esa idea," said the twins.
"Well, if that's the case then we'll just have to roll with punches," replied Bumble Bee, "Don't worry so much fellas, we've been there before, we always manage to pull off something. Who knows, she might actually turn out to be a big help to us."
"It what manner?" asked Speedy, "Like an informant or maybe even a…team member?"
"Ummm… let's not get our hopes up for anything at the moment. We usually end up with mud on our faces if we rush on anything."
"So, since we can't do anything at the moment, what should we do now?"
There was a moment of silence.
Then the twins broke the silence with: "¡Desayuna!"
Speedy looked at the two, then he smirked. "Breakfast it is then! Who wants waffles?"
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In the recluse of her dreams.
"You have had doubts in the past, made mistakes."
She hovered over the prison courtyard. She knew where her targets were waiting. She lifted both arms into the air. Instantly, three pillars of earth break through from the three towers of the outer wall. On the pillars stood her three targets: Plasmus, Cinderblock, and Overload. She hovered down at their level and tossed a small disk to each of them. The disks attached immediately and whatever minds these monsters possessed were now under remote control. She smiled in satisfaction.
" But all that is behind you, isn't it?"
Raven charged at her with four glowing red eyes trying to ensnare her with random objects. She has her back to the wall as the Raven nearly reached her. She summoned streams of mud from below them to form into two giant hands which grabbed onto Raven's cloak and started to pull down. Raven resisted all she can. She summoned even more streams of mud to form into arms, grab at Raven and pulled her down. She watched satisfyingly as Raven finally disappeared below the mud with one last desperate gasp for air.
"You belong to me now don't you?"
She was waiting from above, watching as Robin and Starfire combated Cinderblock. The two Titans managed to push the behemoth into the pit below. Now was her chance. She threw down the gigantic rock she was telekinetically carrying with her down upon the oblivious Titans. As she descended, Starfire notices at the last second and pushed Robin out of the way. The brave act had cost Starfire and she received the attack, was knocked-out, and fell to the sea. She floated away on the unconscious Cinderblock, laughing as she heard Robin scream out Starfire's name.
"From this day forward, will you serve me and me only?"
Beast Boy and Cyborg had just finished off Plasmus and had the mutant on its knees. She chose that moment to strike. With her powers, she caused a huge crack in the earth to form underneath the two Titans. They were taken by surprise. Cyborg fell first and managed to shoot out his hand with a grappling wire. Cyborg's hand managed to grip the edge of the floor but soon lost that grip. He fell into the abyss with a scream.
"Will you obey my every command?"
Beast Boy was hanging on to a ledge along the wall of the impromptu ravine. Beast Boy looked up and saw her. He begged for her to stop her actions but she couldn't care any less about him at the moment. Her eyes glowed bright gold and the chasm started to close around Beast Boy forcing him to let go of his grim and fall into the void of the earth.
"Will you fight at my side forever?"
Robin did his best against her, trying to convince her of the wrong in her actions. But she didn't have an ear for anything that he said. Robin was at his knees worn out and unable to continue fighting. She was just toying with him now. She would throw a boulder at Robin but would intentionally miss by a hair's width. Robin would do his best to jump away wasting more of his energy. She has had enough with him now. She stood over him, declared her hate for him, and dropped a boulder on top of him.
"And, will you destroy the Teen Titans?"
"I thought you'd never ask," she replied.
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In the medical ward.
"Aaaaahhh!"
The blanket that was coving her flew into the air as Terra shot out from her bed with a scream, eyes wide as dinner plates and panting heavily. She was instantly sitting up on whatever bed she was lying on a while ago. Beads of sweat were running down her forehead. Her heart rate must be at least two hundred and fifty beats per minute right then.
Terra allowed her self a moment to recover. She eases herself as best she can. She forces her breathing to slow and her pulse to go down. She clutches her head and shuts her eyes as she lets all tension subside into nothing. Slowly but surely, her calm managed to come back to her and the initial shock of waking up like she did was disappearing. The dream she had was already fading away.
Terra let out one last long and heavy breath as if to exhale all her anxiety out of her. She blinked once or twice to restore her vision. She ran a hand through her long blonde hair in order to fix its tangled strands. She finally got her calm back. But just as she was clearing away one anxiety, another started to come upon her.
Terra looked around and everything was unusually…white. She first inspected her self in detail. She didn't recognize the cloths the was wearing. She saw that all she had underneath was a simple pair of shorts and all that was covering her was a hospital gown without a backside.
Terra looked down from where she was sitting up from. It was a bed, that much was clear. It was a plain white spring mattress on a steel frame just like what is usually used in hospitals and other medical facilities. Around her, she could recognize various medical tools but they don't seem to be that of standard medical equipment.
The girl then concluded that she was in some kind of clinic or something so she inspected herself more closely. She felt around her body doing a primary survey. No external injuries as it would seem. She didn't feel any pain either. She was alright for now.
Terra tried to search her memory for a reason why she's here. The last thing she remembered was the cave. The volcano was about to erupt, Slade fell into the molten pit, Everything was crumbling to pieces and the Earth was shaking madly, The Titans were running out and Beast Boy was---
"Aargh!"
All those memories caused her migraine to come back momentarily. She clutched her temples with both arms again. She forced the thoughts out of her mind and regained her composure. She let out her anxieties with another long sigh.
After she recomposed herself, Terra put her mind back at the present situation. Her natural curiousness took over as she tried to explore her surroundings again. Taking a bold step, she got out of her bed and stood on the floor. Only then she remembered that she was barefoot as the cold floor sent a chill up her legs and spine. She shook it off quickly. Slowly she walked to the door
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Outside the medical ward.
The door slid open and Terra walked out into a really big hallway. As she walked out of the hospital type room, Terra knew that she was in no place that was familiar to her. The walls, the floor, the ceiling were not giving away anything that allowed her to recognize them out of memory. Immediately she was overcome by a very familiar fear, something she had been used to by now: The fear of being lost.
She managed to push down that fear into the deep parts of her mind so it would not hinder her in anyway. She proceeded down the wide hallway. Unsure as she was she knew that she wouldn't end any better if she just stayed where she were.
She was already uncomfortable as it was but the situation with her peripherals was not helping any. She was in a plane white hospital gown and nothing underneath but a pair of shorts plus she was walking on a metal floor with bare feet. The hall was very cold and she found herself shivering. She hugged her self and rubbed her hands together every now and then trying to keep as warm as possible.
The hall was moderately lit which made her easy to find her way. But she knew that it meant the building she was in was in use…by occupants. What would she do if she ran into somebody while wandering aimlessly like she was? She didn't want to worry herself so much so she pushed away those thoughts away along with the fear. She pressed on.
She passed hall after hall taking random turns where she found them and took caution to make sure she was not spotted by any surveillance cameras though she found none. She took caution with every door she came across not knowing what or who was on the other side. Almost all the doors she saw would lead to the same kind of room she was in awhile ago. Other rooms seemed to serve other purposes like storage. She tried her best to try and remember where she was but nothing rang a bell. Besides, whenever she tried to remember anything, all she saw was that cave where she---
She didn't finish the thought. She didn't want to.
All that wandering around and she still hasn't found anybody yet. She doesn't know whether she should be delighted or even more worried. Along with other people, she has yet to find an exit, which was her top priority at the moment. Eventually she stumbles onto something that is familiar: An elevator door. She lingers in front of it for about a minute or so. Terra made up her mind and pushed the call button to the side.
Moments later the elevator opens. She doesn't go in immediately. She peeks inside to see if there are any surveillance cameras. There were none she could see. She walked in holding the side of the door as she did. Her hand slipped as the doors suddenly started to close and she accidentally pushed one of the floor buttons. When the doors closed the elevator started moving. She looked to see which button she pressed. It was the 'R' button which entailed 'roof'. She was going up.
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The elevator doors opened after a few moments. Immediately after the doors often, Terra was greeted by a high wind that slapped her in the face. She quickly covered her head with her arms. The wind died down after a while and Terra was able to go outside. She is momentarily blinded by the morning sun but the sun soon hided behind some clouds.
The first thing that Terra saw made her eyes grew wide. Directly in front of her was the vast ocean that stretched into the horizon. Nothing but water in the direction of the rising sun. Terra stepped forward and closer to the edge of whatever building she was on. She looked over the edge and found out she was at least a dozen or so stories above the ground.
She turned around. She saw the face of a cliff a couple hundred feet away from the opposite edge and rising about a hundred feet above the building's peak. Over the cliff, she saw the city. The city was nothing she recognized. There were dozens of smokestacks, high rises, and loud sounds of factories and mills. She couldn't help but ask the obvious question.
"Where the hell am I?" she asked into the wind.
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Author's Note. Firstly, a big thanks to all those who reviewed me. I never expected to get so much just for the first chapter. Secondly, I'd like all you people to note that this takes place after the fifth season's final episode 'Things Change'. If things seem confusing, don't worry. Everything will become clear in much later chapters.
I've also decided to change the rating of this story from 'K+' to 'T' due to planned story developments. As always, Please R&R.