Disclaimer: Everything and everyone mentioned in this fic is by no means my property.
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The Steel City prison.
It was located just out side the city limits near the northern mountain ranges. The road that connected the prison to the main highway was about a mile long. The area which the Prison itself occupied was about the equivalent of six football field laid in a three-by-two rectangle. Jagged mountains bordered the prison as a sort of natural fortification not so much as keeping threats away but more so on keeping those in prison inside.
The prison itself was a magnificent structure to behold. On the inside the massive facility was divided into four individual buildings which served as holding cells each four stories high. In the center was a tall tower that was the central control room and offices for the prison personnel.
On the outside a twenty-foot high, five-foot thick, reinforced concrete wall. Topping that wall was an array of electrified coils of barbed wire. That may seem a bit excessive but considering the kind of people they had coming into the prison, it was adequate. On the wall facing the city, there was a heavy, reinforced, iron gate that was the only access in and out.
Surrounding the entire compound was an array of hidden sensors designed to detect any form of escape. Truly this was an inescapable prison…for normal criminals at least. Then again not everybody in there was a 'normal' prisoner that was incapable of escape.
Case in point…
"Get out of my way!"
The front gate exploded outward onto the prison parking lot. The two pieces of the gate flew like playing cards to the wind. Along with the two pieces of the front gate were several rag doll bodies of specially armored security guards and a huge dust cloud. The gate and the guards sprawled all over the pavement. The guards were alive but they were writhing in agony.
The ground around them shook. Loud stomping noises could be heard echoing from within the walls of the prison. The stomping got louder and faster as it reached the outside parking lot. The stomping stopped momentarily in the middle of the dust cloud.
When the dust cleared, A huge figure clad in heavy industrial, yellow and black armor. The figure stood over twelve feet tall. His most unusual feature was that his two hands looked like two giant metal cylindrical drums. The half-man, half-machine looked essentially like a cross between a man and a certain heavy construction machine that gave him his namesake.
Steamroller.
The guards around Steamroller did their best to get away from him as fast as possible. Steam roller ignored them and looked towards the road, towards the city. He started to stomp his way towards the city, cracking the pavement with every step he took and sending a ripple of thunder through the ground. He suddenly felt slight stinging sensations from his backside.
He turned around. Near the entrance were even more specially armored guards armed with laser rifles shooting at him. The rifles were designed to shoot laser bolts that would stun a person, but to Steamroller, they barely made a tingle in his skin. He was getting very annoyed.
"Annoying little men!"
He noticed a parked car near him. He marched to it quickly, reeled up a fist and batted the car towards the gateway were the guards were still firing at him. The car flew up and came down on the guards who immediately scrambled out of the way. The car exploded upon impact and covered the gate area in flames.
Steamroller turned around again to face the city. That's when the prisons extra secrete security measures came on. Suddenly, two large, mechanical laser turrets pooped out of the ground on opposite corners of the parking lot and rose over twenty feet above it. The turrets on the top of the towers hummed to life, swivled about, and began firing on Steamroller. He felt the shots this time but still they had little effect other than ticking him off.
He made his way towards one of the towers and swung his large cylindrical drums to wards the base of the tower. His drum hands smashed right through the base of the tower causing it to topple to the ground. Steamroller now turned his attention to the second turret which was still constantly firing at him.
He raised both his arms. The two cylindrical drums he had for hands retracted a bit into his forearm to reveal two normal, albeit large, human hands. With his normal hands, Steamroller grabbed onto the fallen turret, ran with it to the second turret, and swung it like a bat towards the second turret.
"Aaaaaarrrrrggggh!"
The two turrets collide and explode into a heap of twisted metal. Steam roller stood over the two wrecked turrets unfazed. He ran towards the road once again. As he did, one last turret rose from the ground in the middle of the road ahead of him and began firing.
"You think that's gonna stop me!"
Steamroller clamped his two drum hands together to form one massive drum. He dropped the combined drum arm onto the ground and rushed towards the last turret. The turret met with Steamroller. The turret was flattened into the ground by Steamroller's combined drum roller. Steamroller separated his two hands and stood over the wrecked turret.
He stood there looking over his work. The entrance of the prison was ablaze and three turrets were flattened to the ground. That's probably over fifteen or so million dollars worth of damage right there. Not a bad job at all. Steamroller grinned devilishly. He turned his sights towards the city again and began marching.
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Titans Tower: East.
Terra has been in the tower for over three days now since the second time she woke up. She has become very familiar with tower and it's facilities thanks to a guided tour from the Titans East themselves. She had grown comfortable in her new surroundings and the Titans have grown quite accustomed to her as well.
Regarding other matters, The Titans have gone nowhere with regards to the new scheme being hatched up by Brother Blood and Professor Chang. They knew Terra was a link in the chain somewhere but they couldn't tell exactly where. They couldn't ask Terra either. She knew a heck of a lot less that they did. So they were forced to wait for something to pop-up.
It was just after lunch that day. Aqualad and the twins were on the couch playing on the Gamestation. Speedy was last seen heading towards the gym. Bumble Bee just entered the main room right in the middle of the boy's game. Aqualad was the only one of the three to be momentarily distracted by her. That small amount of time he took look away…
"Gooooooaaaaallllll!" screamed out the twins.
Aqualad looked annoyingly at the twins for a moment then towards Bumble Bee. "Hey there, Bee. What's happenin'?"
"Sorry about that," said Bumble Bee, "But I'm even more sorry about these results." Bumble Bee waved a few sheets of paper on her hand.
Aqualad handed his game controller to Más and he and Menos began a new game. Aqualad walked around the couch to where Bumble Bee was. She handed the sheets of paper to him and he browsed through the text. It took Aqualad about a half a minute to get the gist of the report and he was evidently unsatisfied.
"Still nothing huh?" Aqualad asked sarcastically.
"Nope, and I spent all of last night trying every last lead I had," said Bumble Bee, "Gotta admit, Blood is getting smarter. He's finding ways to elude us so that our usual methods of investigation don't amount to much in the long run."
"Guess that can be expected. The guy's crazy, but not incompetent. He'll only be a lot harder to deal with this second time around."
"How about you guys? Find anything interesting?"
"Nah. Speedy's been swinging around all over the city trying out almost all of our underworld leads. He says he's still got nothing on Blood or Chang other than that trade we busted some few days ago. I've been using my telepathy on the local fauna to see if anything unnatural was going on but nothing's going on."
"So were back to square one then."
"Back? I don't think we ever left it."
Bumble Bee sighed. "Yeah you're right…"
"And we still don't have any idea how Terra fits into all of this."
"Yeah there's that too."
Aqualad looked thoughtful for a moment. Bumble Bee noticed his silenced and wondered what he could be thinking about. She waited patiently for him to speak up again. Eventually he did.
"But somehow, even though we don't know the manner of her involvement, this kinda gives us a hold over Brother Blood."
"What do you mean?"
"Before we even knew that it was Terra in that package, Speedy's sources said that it was something vital to Blood's plans. I think the reason that those two guys never made a move in the past few days is simply because they don't have Terra."
"They need her to finish what ever they're planning. But as long as we have Terra in our hands we're all in some sort of stale mate."
"Exactly."
"Then that means we're gonna have to keep an extra close eye on her."
"And while doing so, were just gonna have to be patient until something else comes up."
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Somewhere else in the tower.
Speedy was walking the lonely halls whistling away a favorite tune, dressed in a sweaty T-shirt along with his regular pants and boots. He had just finished up a session in the gym and was done for the day. Now he was looking for other things to do. He wanted to get rid of all the adrenaline he built up during his regular work-out so he wanted to do something to help him relax.
Speedy thought about this for a moment. Eventually he came to a decision. He decided to go to the Zen garden on the ninth floor. He headed towards the nearest elevator. He pushed the call button and waited. He got on when the doors opened and pressed the button for the ninth floor.
A moment or two later the doors opened up into the ninth floor and Speedy made a bee-line for the garden entrance. As he got closer to the door, he started to notice a few pounding noises that were coming from behind the door. He stopped for a moment in the middle of the hall to get a better idea of the sound. He could definitely hear something from inside the garden.
He slowly walked up to the door, practically creeping up to it. He slowly, cautiously opened the door and entered the room. He saw the source of all the noise. It was Terra. Speedy was apparently unnoticed by her as she continued to do whatever she was doing, which was to lift random rocks into the air and set them down on seemingly random locations on the sandy ground.
Speedy watched her do this in silence and curiosity. Terra remained completely oblivious to his presence. She was fully engrossed in her work. Speedy stood there wondering until he just had to ask. He spoke up just as Terra was telekinetically lifting up a few stepping stones into the air.
"What are you doing?"
Terra shrieked and dropped the stepping stones. The stones plopped down into the sand. Making loud thuds. Terra took a moment to catch her breath and let her heart reset its rhythm. Speedy, in the back, was wincing and sweatdropping. That probably wasn't a good idea, now that he thought of it.
Once she was composed, Terra turned around to finally acknowledge Speedy who was looking nervously at her. She blushed, wondering how long he was there just watching her work. She wondered how she should apologize. She ended up babbling.
"Speedy! I…um…didn't see you there! Um…how long were you there? I'm sorry, were you gonna use this place? I just wanted to…you know…tidy up and stuff. I should have asked one of you guys about this, I knew it! I'm really sorry if you think I did anything wrong or anything like that. I'm so, so, so, sorr--!"
"Ok!" Speedy interrupted her, "ok, I get it! Stop apologizing, it's totally unnecessary."
"But…I…the rocks…sand and…you coming--!"
"Slow down, Terra! Breath!"
Terra stopped herself and took in a huge breath. She exhaled loudly and afterwards she was a lot calmer. Speedy breathed a sigh of relief himself. One problem down.
"Ok, now that we're all calm and cool," said Speedy, "can I ask again what were you doing here?"
Terra looked up at Speedy, still slightly flushed. "Um…I was just wandering around the tower and I kinda came back to this place. I saw how it was and I remembered what a mess I made the last time I was here so I…decided to try and clean up the place, ya' know? Fix it up new…"
"Oh, I see. Well that's perfectly fine with me and I'm pretty sure the others wouldn't mind so much either. Heck, you're probably doin' us a favor."
"Well you guys have been so nice to me that I…just wanted to pay you back somehow."
"Aww, don't sweat it…"
An awkward silence followed.
"Um…you came here for something?" Terra inquired.
"Huh? Oh! Yeah…um I just finished my work-out you see, and I wanted to come here to, ya' know, chill out and relax."
"Oh, I see….you want me to leave?"
"Well you can stay if you want to. Do you?"
"Me? I…well…sure?"
"Okay then. I say we go into the meditation house over there. It's way better a place to relax out here. Besides, It seems to me like you could use a little R-and-R yourself. It's pretty relaxing to meditate sometimes."
"Um thanks…lead the way."
Speedy walked ahead of her and she soon followed him over the wooden bridge and towards the small wooden meditation house on the far side of the space. Speedy slid open the door and walked inside. Terra soon followed. She has been here in the garden for over an hour fixing up the place but she has yet to see the inside of this particular structure.
In side was really nothing she would expect out of the ordinary. Shiny wooden panels made up the floor. There were regularly spaced wood columns to support the roof. There were a few mats on the floor for sitting on. In terms of decoration, there were a few Japanese scrolls that hung on the wall. Terra couldn't understand what was written but she guessed they were haikus or something.
Speedy went on ahead and sat down on one of the mats and made himself comfortable in a lotus position. Terra followed and sat down on a mat a couple of feet beside Speedy. After that…well, she didn't know what to do. She looked at Speedy, he was completely relaxed in a meditative state.
Terra just sat where she was in awkwardness. This went on for a few minutes of Terra not really doing anything she was suppose to be doing. She was watching Speedy the whole time wondering in awe how he could go into such a deep meditative state like that. She admired him for it. Speedy broke out of his trance long enough to check up on her.
"Hey, what's up?"
"Um…sorry but I don't really know how to meditate that well," said Terra.
"Hmm, well to tell you the truth, I don't know jack about this either."
Terra went a bit wide-eyed at that. "Huh? But you were…"
"Well, Aqualad is the real expert in this, him being psychic and all. He always tells me to try it out but, really, I can't get the hang of it and probably never will. But hey, it makes a good excuse to waste time."
Terra blushed. Speedy got up and went to a remote corner of the room and opened a hidden refrigerator door. He pulled out two canned beverages. He walks back to sit on his mat and offers one of the cans to Terra.
"Chilled herbal tea?" asked Speedy.
"…Sure," Terra answered rather shyly.
Terra took the cold can from Speedy and tried to red the label. It was in all in Japanese so she couldn't understand a word. Beside her Speedy popped open his can and drank from it. Terra hesitated before popping open her can and drinking from it as well. She thought it tasted just fine.
"Good?" inquired Speedy.
"Yeah," said Terra.
"Well, so much for meditation huh?"
"Yup, I guess we're not going into any higher planes today."
"Hehe, right. You know, I was hoping you knew how to do this stuff."
"Do what?"
"This meditation stuff. Never could get the hang of it myself so I thought I'd somehow follow your lead or something. Bad instincts on my part, I guess."
"Sorry to disappoint you then, Speedy. I'm only meta-human, you know."
"Guess that'll teach me to make hasty assumptions. Guess that has been a pretty big problem for me. Good thing I have all the other guys to keep me in check. Sorry if I assumed too much of you."
"It's okay, really. I guess it's just not really my thing, this meditating and all. I tried learning how to meditate myself in my travels around the world but never could get the hang of it too. Raven tried teaching me once or twice but eventually she also---"
Terra stopped her speech. Her smile fades away. Speedy looked towards her in concern. She had her head down. He tried to think of the best way to address her.
"You miss them, don't you?" he inquired with a softer tone of voice.
"…yeah I guess I still do."
"Terra…"
"I thought I'm over them, but… Something in me still wants to linger on those old memories, I guess. They taught me more about myself than anything else, even Slade. I can't believe I did such horrible things to them after they all they've done for me…"
"Look, Terra, if those guys are anything like I know them to be I'm sure they've forgiven you already."
"Maybe, Speedy. But even if they have forgiven me, I can never forgive myself. I was weak and because of that they suffered. Slade took advantage of me because I was weak. I could still be with them right now, but because of my mistakes, that'll never happen. God, I hate myself for it."
"…Well don't, not while I'm here."
Terra looked at Speedy directly.
"What do you mean?"
"You can feel sorry all you want but believe me it's never gonna help you, girl. I've been down that road before, you know. I once felt like I couldn't go on either, because some lousy mistakes I made. But I moved on eventually. That's all you have to do Terra, move on."
"You make it sound like it's that easy to just forget about the past."
"I'm not saying it's easy and I'm not telling you to forget your past. We can regret our mistakes but we can also learn from them, that's what they're for. I know what it's like having that haunting image wrack your mind reminding you of how much of a screw-up you were. It's hard, I know, constantly reliving those bad times and you really do end up hating yourself for not being better. You keep saying to your self: 'I should have done this' or 'Why didn't I do that?' or 'If only I…' But that's never the real solution."
"So what am I suppose to do then?"
"Give it time. You can't run away from those memories but they won't always be there, ya' know. Eventually, that image of your past will go away and you'll barely noticed it ever happened. Sometimes it will seem like a lifetime ago, other times it will feel like it just happened yesterday. But soon you'll realize that for most of the time…you're alright."
"…Most of the time."
"May not sound like much but it's still a life worth living for."
Terra was silent. She was in deep thought about what he said. Speedy simply remained silent and left her to think. He knew that she needed to sort stuff out for herself. As he waited he sipped on his can of chilled herbal tea. He just finished his beverage when Terra decided to speak up again.
"…You're right,"
Speedy smiled proudly. "I know…"
"Thanks, Speedy. You're not as tough and hardcore as you look."
"Well, gee thanks I…wait a minute, hey!"
Terra giggled. Speedy blushed slightly, scratching the back of his head.
At that precise moment, the quiet and tranquil atmosphere of the meditation house was broken as alarms started buzzing loudly. Terra and Speedy looked up at the same time as red sirens popped out of the ceiling and began blinking in bright red. Suddenly, Speedy's communicator started buzzing. He picked it up and it was Bumble Bee on the other line.
"Yo, Bee, what's going on?" Speedy asked into the communicator.
"Steamroller just broke out of jail and is rampaging downtown as we speak," replied Bumble Bee, "Get your gear and head on downtown. Got that?"
"Roger that, I'll be down there in three minutes."
"Hey, what about me?" Terra suddenly asked.
"Is that Terra with you, Speedy?" asked Bumble Bee.
"Yeah. What do you want her to do?"
"Terra, can I ask you to stay in the tower while we deal with this?"
"Uh, yeah sure."
"Thanks. Bumble Bee out."
With that, Bumble Bee's image disappeared fro the screen Speedy pocketed away his communicator and stood up. He turned to Terra who got up herself.
"You ought to be fine here for a few minutes without us," said Speedy, "Don't worry, we've beaten this guy before. This won't take that long."
"Ok, good luck!" said Terra.
"Thanks."
Speedy quickly ran out the door and left Terra behind. Although Speedy told her not to worry, she couldn't help felling a little concerned about the situation.
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A few minutes later, downtown.
People run in a mad panic down the street trying to get away from the incoming Steamroller. The giant cybernetic villain was stomping all the way down the street, crushing cars, bending lamps and tossing a few mailboxes here and there.
"Run away, you puny little insects!" he screamed out.
From ahead of him. Three police cars skidded to a stop in the middle of the road. The six police officers that were in those vehicles jumped out and aimed their handguns. They all yelled out the generic "Freeze!" towards the rampaging Steamroller but that did little to stop the thundering villain as he headed towards them.
The officers began firing their pistols. The bullets merely bounced off of Steamroller's hard armor shell. Steamroller brought his two drum hands together into one large drum which he dropped onto the road in the middle of his sprint. The large drum rolled towards the officers and their cars.
All six of the officers decided then and there that the smartest thing to do was to get the hell out of the way. And they did just that, diving out of Steamroller's path of destruction. Steamroller's charge flattened the middle car into the pavement while ramming the other two cars besides the first, flipping them on their roofs. Steamroller stopped and separated his hands again.
"Aaargghh! Worthless coppers!" he yelled out.
He turned around and ran to one of the flipped over police cars and slapped it with his drum hand. The wrecked car flew towards a building face and broke right through a third floor window. Steamroller went to the other flipped over police car. He retracted the drums on his hands to reveal his normal hands once again. He grabbed onto the car and flung it towards a nearby parked car. The impact caused both cars to explode and at the same time breaking a nearby fire hydrant which shot a high pressure stream of water high up into the air.
"Rrraaaarrrgghhh!" Steamroller yelled at the top of his lungs.
"¡Yo! ¡Tú con las latas de refresco extra grandes sobre sus manos!
That got Steamroller's attention. He turned around to see who it was that said that. Más and Menos stood just a few feet behind him. The twins stuck their tongues out and gave Steamroller a raspberry. Steamroller got annoyed and tried to smash the twins with one of his arms. By the time his hand reached the ground the twins were gone.
"¡Eso no estaba ni siquiera cerca!" said the twins from behind Steamroller.
Steamroller angrily swung around him in an attempt to hit the twins. Instead he got hit himself in the face with a strong electric bolt. He stumbled back a few feet but soon recovered. He looked ahead to see who had done that. It was Bumble Bee.
"Hey, why don't you pick on someone your own size!" said Bumble Bee, "Though I can kinda understand how difficult that might be."
"Then let's just trim this guy down a couple of notches!"
Steamroller looked up towards the source of the new voice. Speedy swung down from a grappling wire and stood next to Bumble Bee. Steamroller grumbled under his breath.
"You have a choice!" Aqualad's voice yelled out as he appeared walking towards the others. "You can surrender now or we send you to the cleaners."
Steamroller roared out loud. "Rrrrrggghhh!"
The giant of a man charged towards Aqualad.
"Cleaners it is then!"
Aqualad summoned a snake of water from the broken hydrant. He shot it towards Steamroller. The attack slowed down the charging villain a tad bit but not enough. Steamroller resisted the incoming stream of water and powered on through to Aqualad. The aquatic Titan jumped out of the way just as Steamroller smacked a drum onto the ground on which Aqualad was standing on.
Bumble Bee moved in and flew towards Steamroller, zapping away with her twin stingers. The shots were aimed at the villain's face in order to cause the most damage. Steamroller stumbled back a bit. Just as Bumble Bee came in close, Steamroller shielded his face and swung wildly.
Bumble Bee was almost swatted by large drum hands but she reacted quickly and shrunk herself to the size of a grain of rice and flew away and out of danger. The slightly bewildered Steamroller was vulnerable and the situation was taken advantage of by the twin speedsters, Más and Menos. The ran towards Steamroller. Unfortunately, the large villain, still swinging wildly, managed to hit the ground just as the twins were closing in.
The impact sent the twins flying into the air and sprawling over the road. Steamroller finally reoriented himself long enough to recognize the plight of the annoying twins in front of him. He retracted his drum hands and grabbed a nearby car with his normal hands. He lifted the empty car over his head and prepared to toss it right over the twins a few feet away.
As he was about to throw, He got an explosive arrow to the back of the head. The sudden explosion caused Steamroller to drop the car over his head. The car fell off of the villain and he rubbed his head. Steamroller quickly turned around and angrily looked at his attacker who was Speedy. Speedy mockingly gestured for Steamroller to come at him.
"C'mon big guy, show me what you got!"
Steamroller charged towards Speedy with a roar that could shake the whole city. Speedy began to launch as many arrows as he can towards the rampaging villain.
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Author's note: Expect more action continued in the next update. In the meantime: Pls. R&R!