[A few weeks later]
[Titan Tower]
Edward had gotten a reply from Sol about his query regarding Raven's being affected by Edward's teleportation. He said that since she has her way of teleportation, that, it might be best to let her use it. He confirmed that she also has unique heritage: Her grandfather is also Oblaan as he sired the one being that makes even the strongest of the Dragons quake in fear...Alduin...Trigon the Terrible — Trigon the souleater. It was the demon that cannot tolerate that mode of teleportation. Yet, despite that Darkness, even Sol was impressed that she was making it work for the Light. He also said that Terra was likely not the Darkness that Earth had mentioned and to keep working with Solor as well as Terra (well, he was encouraging that side mission).
He did bring up that Maldriin was likely aiming for something more with him ... and that as his father, he would encourage Edward to follow his heart and when the time came, to approach the Circle for their blessings.
"Well," Edward muttered to himself, "This is interesting. Mally does, indeed, have at least a schoolgirl crush on me. Maybe the First is working to ease this particular hole in my heart. The team is certainly encouraging it to develop. Maybe I should ask her out. Worst she can do is tell me 'No', right?"
Meanwhile, since that night, Solor found himself acting very awkwardly around the empath. He couldn't stay in the same room, lest his heart beat loud enough for everyone to hear. Plus, he knew she could read his emotions, and was trying his best to keep them to himself. Especially since they would reveal his secret; that he was possibly falling for her.
Which, determined by the Circle, was a very very bad thing.
The question was, to him, why did he feel this way to her? Yeah, they were alike, but there had to be more than that. It had to be more than just a similarity or a simple act of kindness. Why, when he stuck to his guns for so long, did it take one girl to ruin his resolve?
He needed advice. And only one member of the team was alive longer than him.
He had to trust Edward to secrecy. It would not be easy, but, Edward seemed to have become the team's go-to guy to decompress and debrief after hard missions. Even Terra finally broke down and went to see Edward one on one. When Solor found out he merely smiled, realizing that if anyone could get through to her and abort her plans, it might be the older Dragon. She still thought it was really, really cool to have seen dragons, and, even found friendship with one of them.
So, Jason said one day after a training session, "Brother, I need to talk to you privately."
Edward said, "Of course, let's retire to my quarters." Solor followed Edward in and Edward offered his brother a drink, which was accepted.
"Edward," Solor began, "Can I ask you to keep this chat private? Not just from the team, but, the Circle as well?"
Edward raised an eyebrow, but, nodded, "Of course, brother. You know that if I am doing a counseling session, it's confidential. If this is your wish, consider it done."
"It is my wish," Solor said, "I have a problem...a Breed Traitor level problem. Please, don't get mad at the term."
Edward waved it off, "I'm OK with the usage of the phrase, Brother, especially with a family member. I take it you have developed at least a crush on someone here?"
Solor looked down, nodding. "Yes... I think I'm finding myself... attracted... to Raven." As he spoke, his voice got softer until he was only talking in a whisper, his confidence plummeting with every word. If Edward didn't have super hearing, he wouldn't have heard his brother. "So... I need advice."
"Oh boy," Edward said, "This is a problem, indeed. I am agreeing with Terra here in that we should be allowed to love who we want, even humans. Or in your case a part human, part demon and according to the last letter from Dad, a part Dragon as well. Yes, Raven does have some dragon blood in her veins. Oblann is her grandfather. She doesn't know that, yet.
"Her being part Dragon is a possible loophole in that ancient law. My advice is to see if she feels the same. I know that she is guarding her mind from my passive touches more. Come to think of it, she started blocking more the day Mally was first here. It was like a sudden rush of emotion that she quickly clamped down on before she went to talk to you.
"If she does feel the same, you will have to fully let her know what could happen. I know we touched on the lifetime exile with her, but, this decision would potentially rip you away from any possibility of going home. Father would be forced to select a new heir and we both know who that would be. But, let's leave Sosfil out of the equation. Personally...if there is a spark about to grow into a flame, as Grand Fire would aptly call it, I would support that, despite the risk to myself.
"If there is nothing, though, do not let yourself be discouraged, brother. I know that you are jealous of Terra and even myself ... don't be so surprised! You have no idea how jealous I would become seeing others getting their choice of mate and those I might have been interested in treating me like I had a case of the Rot. I'm not going to take that jealousy personally, brother."
"You said a risk to yourself?" Solor asked.
"My keeping this confidential would likely anger Grand Death and he would possibly accuse me of conspiracy to commit treason and conspiracy to being a Breed Traitor. Tough charges to refute," Edward said, "You know that old fart doesn't care for 'my kind' and would use any excuse to get me tossed out of Lair as well as you." He sighed, "It's a risk that should it not pan out, I will bear the punishment on my own."
Solor sighed. "So... I should tell her how I feel, and if she doesn't feel the same, then try to move on. And if she does... you think I should pursue her. That is a very tough choice for me to make." He looked at Edward, a morose expression on his face. "It's not fair that you should be punished for my sin... that puts even more pressure on me now."
Edward nodded. "I am sorry, I know it's not fair... but we can still try if you wish. I would be punished for not reporting everything...and remember that we haven't told the Circle that Raven and Terra know about us. I would refuse any order to kill the Titans."
The dragon shook his head. "I think I'll wait a little longer before I talk to Raven. I'm not even sure if what I feel is truly attraction or more. I just wished to speak to you for advice... I still don't know what I want." He then looked to Edward. "Do you mind if I ask you a personal question? Did you... did you take a mortal wife?"
Edward sighed as his memory went back to the mid 18th Century, "I never told the Circle this, and, they did not have as many infiltrators as today. Yes, I did take a mortal wife. Her name was Paula Nichols and she was a mutant. She could also shape shift, but, was limited to reptilian forms only. She was a true love, but, after she passed away, it felt as if a large chunk of my heart and soul went to the First with her. The generational curse prevented us from having kids, though. When she died, I swore I would wait and see if any of the dragonesses of Lair would overcome the prejudice against me."
"I think you found her," Jason said smiling, "Don't throw this away." He then looked down again, thinking a bit more. "Well... it's more of a risk now, since there's more infiltrators, but... I think I'll try to get closer to Raven. Maybe we can find common ground... and if she already does feel the same as me, we can find a way to start dating."
Edward sighed, "Be careful, brother."
"Don't worry", he said, smiling. "As long as Mally and, hopefully, the paparazzi don't find out, it should be no problem." He gave a thumbs up. "Thanks for talking to me. You helped me way more than I thought you would."
"That's what family is supposed to do, brother," Edward said with a smirk, "I would strongly advise on a different form, though, in case the newspapers get the bright idea to see who Raven is going out with...unless she ships them to some distant place. I hear Barrow's a nice place to chill out. Hehehe!"
Solor chuckled. "I wouldn't put it past her. I'm glad I've never been on the receiving end of that." He started heading out. "I'll go see what we're doing on our free time today. I'm assuming you're spending more time with Terra today?"
"I have to," Edward said, "I have to break whatever training or whatever that Slade implanted into her head. What makes me shudder the most...is if she and Slade ... mated."
That got a visible shudder out of Jason. "Ugh! Thanks for the mental image, brother. How are her sessions going...generally speaking. I know you can't go into detail."
"I think I am getting through to her," Edward said, "She'd have to be an Oscar award winning actress to get past Raven and I. And, I know she is not that good. I am going to talk to Cyborg and see if unauthorized communications are going out or anything that looks odd. If she is in contact with Slade, we can pin it down. Maybe see if she's been leaving at odd times, but, I don't want to break her trust without a good cause. I'm tempted to 'hitchhike' on one of her trips as something she won't suspect."
"I think the unauthorized communications would be the best plan. Or, check the tower security to see when she's been leaving, if she has been." He gave a sigh. "I think I've grown fond of the blonde. I'd hate for her to turn into an enemy."
"Then, brother, we need to be a team, do we not?" Edward said, "I have told her that I consider her to be a friend...almost family. You were there when I said that. I meant every word and I will KILL SLADE if he thinks he will corrupt such a pure hearted youngster. He will face the flame of the First's wrath...I swear it in the Name of the Light."
"Wow!" Solor said, "That's serious business, swearing an oath in the Name of the Light. I haven't heard you say that before."
Edward calmed himself and said, "Damn straight. I see how Beast Boy fawns over her, and, she is beginning to feel the same towards him. Tell me...do you want to see a heartbroken Beast Boy no matter how much he annoys you to the point you want to open an untargeted Tear?"
"That... would probably be worse than the annoying version", Solor said. "If you need my help to sway her or want to confront her... call on me, alright?" He headed out of the room, looking to find Robin or Raven.
Edward sighed and opened his word processor. It was time for another status report. This time, it would be some better news for Sol as Edward had been comparing notes with Raven and Solor was slowly getting out of his "selfish" mode. But, deep down, Edward knew that if there was a threat to her, Solor might break his cover to protect her and probably scare the hell out of the person being face to snout with an incredibly angry Solor in protective mode. Edward knew about how protective Dragons are of their close friends, family ... or mates.
He sat there for a while, thinking things over on wording. He left out any mention of Solor being interested in Raven.
After he was done with that task and printed the document, he went to find Cyborg.
That was easily done, though, as he was in his lab, working on some upgrades to the T-Car.
"Yo, Edward!" Cyborg said, "What's up?"
"I've got a project for you," Edward said, "Is there a way to detect any odd communications in the Tower to the outside. Like emails, for example?"
"Well, the mainframe here does keep a record of inbound and outbound e-mails. But, that's only for communications that come from our IP or to our IP. Why?" Cyborg said.
"I am curious," Edward said, "Also, I have reason to suspect someone on the team is acting against us and I need to have some proof. I think we have a mole. Can you give me access to those files? I do not want to divulge who I think is a mole, though. Also, I'm sure that you keep security logs, do you not? I'd like to go over those and see if someone's been leaving the Tower at odd times, like after the security systems have been disabled for the night and re-enabled later on."
Cyborg said, "Sure, I can do that. But, I hope this is a wild goose chase, as we're supposed to trust each other."
"I hope so as well," Edward said quietly.
He was also hoping that Terra wasn't that tech savvy to cover her tracks in the system.
Cyborg went over to his computer and punched in a higher access level for Edward. Edward thanked Cyborg and headed back to his room and actually locked the door.
He logged into the main network and started going through the emails sent by Terra. But, as he looked, they were all routine things. He didn't spot anything really odd there.
OK, there's nothing here. She may be leaving the tower to access a computer not linked into the Tower's internet. Or, she may be deleting those as soon as they are sent. Time to look at the security logs, he thought, Then, see if are any archived emails, since, knowing Cyborg, he would have things offloaded to another drive or backup up to cloud storage.
Edward did some digging and the backups were also a dead end. however, the security logs did show someone leaving the Tower in the middle of the night. They would leave within a couple hours of the team retiring for the evening and return within an hour then turning the security system back on. The system also recorded the communicator ident codes of who comes and goes. Needless to say, Terra had no clue that was being recorded. It was circumstantial evidence at best and not really something to use in court.
It was enough, though, for Edward to go to another phase of his plan. He really did not want to do it, but, he needed to be sure.
He really had to be sure as what he wanted to do would either chase her away or she'd lose trust in him. Then again, if Edward could flip her and make her a double agent, that would work well.
He decided to go to his smallest form possible and hitch a ride in her purse. That meant a mouse and hoping Terra didn't reach into it for more than her phone and staying out of reach.
It also meant trying to figure out if there was a pattern to her disappearing act.
Then again, there were owls in Jump City as well as bats. Bats have exceptional hearing due to their echolocation, but, poor eyesight. Owls also have good ears as well as excellent night vision. He decided not to risk discovery as a mouse hitchhiking, but as a small owl. That way, he could keep an eye on her and land in a tree near to where she would stop.
He headed back to Robin's room and knocked.
"Come in!" he heard.
"Hi, Robin," Edward said, "we need to talk."
"Oh?" he said, "What's going on?"
Edward spend the next 15 minutes filling Robin in on what he had discovered that backed his hunch about Terra. They also called Raven in and she confirmed what Edward had sensed that day.
In fact, when Edward was wrapping up, the entire team, sans Terra, was aware of the impending betrayal, including taking the risk that Beast Boy would spill the beans at some point. He was, of course, angry that Edward would dare to think that about Terra and yelled, "You LIAR!" only to see Edward glaring at him with glowing yellow eyes before he got his annoyance under control.
"Beast Boy," Raven said calmly, "Edward is telling the truth. Terra is planning on betraying us to Slade in the near future. She's probably been giving him information about us since she returned."
His ears drooped, knowing that Raven was not really able to lie...in fact, she was pretty bad about it.
"Beast Boy," Edward said, "I am so sorry, man. I really am. I have to get more concrete evidence that she is planning on something, and soon. I know that you care about her a lot and, well, I hope that what Raven and I sense she feels about you isn't an act. If I can confront her in a way that she isn't feeling threatened and turn her into a double agent, all the better."
"Go ahead and do what you gotta do," Robin said, "Titans, we cannot let Terra know that we know what she is going on. Cyborg, I want you to install a hidden camera trained on the front toor as well as install a hidden camera on the roof.
"We have to act like nothing's wrong. Hopefully, this is all for nothing, but my instinct tells me that this is for-real."
Edward got up and stared straight at the weakest link and said, "So help me, Beast Boy...if you think Solor's got a nasty temper ... if you even hint to Terra that we suspect she's a mole, you will see my temper. I keep that aspect of my personality under a far tighter leash them my younger brother, but, it doesn't mean I won't loosen the leash for a few moments. But, I know you will help us to help Terra.
"That said, I need to have my session with her. Generally speaking, she is coming along very well."
"Using that to confront her?" Robin asked.
"Not yet, I need to do this mission first," he said, "Then, think about the how. Hopefully, we can use BB's feelings towards her to help sway her."
"I'll do what I can," Beast Boy said.
With that, Edward headed over to his room and pulled his notes from the last couple "sessions" with Terra to see if he overlooked anything. He hadn't and created a new entry for today's session.
There was a knock and Edward said, "Come!"
Terra entered the room and sat down for their informal chat...
[Two nights later]
The Titans had all called it a night except for Edward who was waiting to see when Terra would make her next contact with Slade. As he was working on his computer a security alert popped up telling him that the alarm system had been disabled and that was enough to get Edward to start his plan.
He teleported to the ground floor in time to see Terra leaving. She was trying to be as quiet as possible. Edward formed a mouse to race towards the door as it started sliding closed. He got through just in time and watched as she got on a boulder and started heading into the city.
Edward went to his owl form and took to the air himself, rapidly gaining altitude yet keeping Terra in sight until she got to the mainland where she landed and took off at a brisk pace towards an all night fast food joint with free Wifi. However, she eventually went to the park, bypassing the food, and after getting the morning newspaper, sat down and started to read it. But, what she was doing was placing a booby trapped container with a USB stick underneath the bench. Then, a few minutes later, she placed the newspaper in a predetermined area to tell her contact that there was a package waiting.
Interesting...a dead drop, Edward thought, Somewhat clumsy in how she arranged her signal as anyone could duplicate this and fool her contact. I won't have much time to collect the container and see if I can retrieve the contents before her contact sees the signal and retrieves the package. Then again, I could merely wait until it is picked up and follow whoever it is to Slade's hideout, or intercept the package en route.
Terra moved away and Edward opted to stay where he was and see what transpired.
When Terra was out of sight, he landed and reformed a field mouse that would blend in with the shadows cast by the nearly light.
[Brother?] he called out, [Terra's heading back to the Tower, she's made contact via a dead drop with someone. I am waiting to see who arrives. I'm at Middle Park.]
[Be careful,] was the reply, [I'll let you know when she returns. Are we confronting her tonight?]
[That'd be a no,] Edward replied, [I need to see what she dropped off first.]
There was another human shaped shadow that arrived about 30 minutes later and the unknown contact reached down and retrieved the container, leaving another behind. Edward figured that Terra would return to collect this in a day or so. The pattern from the logs did indicate this.
So, with that in mind, Edward waited patiently for the woman to leave. She did and Edward scampered out. The woman was already about 30 yards away and walking briskly to a waiting vehicle. Edward formed a hawk and took to the skies again to follow the car. He'd need the higher speed a hawk could use.
As he flew, the car took several different turns in case someone was tailing them from another vehicle, as well as some additional measures.
This gal knows her craft, Edward thought, She is not going directly to the destination. She's making it pretty difficult for anyone to follow her on the ground, but from this vantage point...nope, I got her dead to rights.
Eventually, they arrived at their destination and Edward landed. He morphed to a small bee, which was pushing the limit for how small he could go and followed the woman in.
She went over to a man in a two tone mask and Edward recognized him as the one and only Slade Wilson, arch-enemy of the Teen Titans.
"Any problems, Rose?" he asked the woman.
"None at all, father," she replied.
"Excellent work," Slade said, "Now. Let's open this up and see what our mole has uncovered."
The container was carefully opened and even as a bee, Edward could see that the container was rigged to destroy the contents if it wasn't opened up the right way.
There was a USB storage device there that Slade inserted into his computer and pulled up the file. There was a video file with Terra giving a status update and that everything was going according to their plans. After Slade watched the file, he printed out a hard copy of her report. Since he thought that he was alone (as his daughter departed already), he removed the USB drive and put that into a desk drawer and left, probably to give Terra further instructions.
She made mention of Edward and Solor, but, she did keep out their true nature, in her report.
Edward buzzed around to look for cameras and didn't see any. He figured that since Slade was in a "secure" hideout that he didn't need cameras in his office.
Edward flew down and quickly going to his human form, opened the drawer and retrieved the USB stick and a few others that were there.
He didn't waste any time in casting a Tear of Oblivion and stepping through to emerge back at the Tower. He quickly copied the data on the 10 or so sticks he grabbed and after casting another tear, he stepped through and put the USB sticks back.
It was a good thing he did as he heard footsteps in the hallway. Edward jumped through the still open tear and it collapsed behind him a moment before Slade returned.
He then spent the next hour and a half going through the files he had retrieved. And his jaw hit the floor as he realized she was relaying almost everything she was learning, but, she was at least keeping her promise.
He had enough to confront her finally. In fact, had the files been submitted to a court, there was enough to convict Terra! The documents alone were a gold mine.
He checked the security logs and Terra was back and holding to her pattern, re-enabled the system.
Edward sat back, digesting what he had learned. Terra was being very through in her reports to Slade, even though she kept Edward and Jason being dragons out of it. That was an ace in the hole, for the time being.
However, Edward had an odd feeling about something and ran his high end (and expensive) virus, malware and keylogger detection programs and his jaw hit the floor! Instantly he was on the communicator and telling Cyborg to haul his shiny metal ass.
Cyborg was there 30 seconds later and Edward said, "We've been hacked. Looking at this, there's several phone home programs relaying our every keystroke. This is some programming. Several keyloggers that I've not heard of. But, we have to disable our links to the outside world for now.
"These are not 'in the wild,' either. The heuristic detection managed to pick up the common threads. I'm going to let the software send what it's found for analysis first."
Edward reached over to the network cable and unplugged it, disconnecting the computer from the Titan network as soon as the uploaded data was sent.
"Time to remove this crap," Edward said and rebooted his machine into safe mode.
First, he reran the program and told it to do some deep cleaning. But, it balked regardless, raising an eyebrow with Edward.
"Ok," he said, "let's try this..." he opened the System restore program and selected the day before Terra returned and was able to remove the program partially that way. He rebooted into normal mode and reran his software and this time, it removed the remnants of the malware.
Cyborg said, "How many licenses you got for that anti-virus program?"
"An enterprise license for unlimited usage or machines on the same network," Edward said smirking, "We need to run this on all devices in the tower."
Edward was silently thankful he had not mentioned what he truly is on his machine as he wrote down the license codes and handed those and after looking for a moment, the physical copy and said, "You'll have to do this same thing I did with my machine to totally deep clean the computers. I think that the virus is being filtered out of your systems. But, let's keep one machine sandboxed and see where the virus is trying to phone home to?"
"Way ahead of you," Cyborg said.
"Excellent," Edward said, "I wonder how it's getting through the firewall?"
"It won't be after 30 minutes," Cyborg said, "Once I have the IP CIDR range, the firewall will be adjusted to block those numbers, except for the sandboxed computer."
He left and went to his lab, where the in house server was maintained. The program that Edward handed off would work on Windows, Macs and linux. For the first time, he felt that it was money well spent. Slade would lose his access to the Titan mainframe and other machines.
He expected the passwords to be reset as well, but, that wouldn't be until the machines are purged. Edward would stay offline until then.
He decided that as it was very late to get some rest. The morning was a training day and he wanted to be fresh for it.
[Four Hours Later]
[Slade's HQ]
The criminal mastermind was concerned as the keyloggers and phone home software he got Terra to install on her computer that spread to the other machines in Titan Tower had gone dark. He tried a remote backdoor and slammed his fist into the table when he got nowhere fast...The firewall was blocking the IP access on all ports. Then, he found his way into the isolated machine that was set to mirror the data in the other machines...up to a point. From here on out, the isolated machine would have false flags inserted.
He had to amend his instructions to Terra, who was unaware that his agent was about to be turned.
He also had to assume that the access codes Terra had relayed were changed, so, until Terra relayed the new codes, the master plan would have to wait.
Slade was curious about the two newcomers as he reviewed the footage from his failed attack at the Tower. The footage was from various helicopters and he was impressed. He had expected to fail as the plan was to reintegrate Terra into the team, get them to trust her once more.
The Tower started to sink into the island as planned when it stopped a moment later and it slowly began to return to where it had been. Slade watched as Solor began to glow brightly and for a moment, Slade thought it was the sun reflecting off his scales as he grabbed the tower and was trying to pull it up at the same time before the tower was raised to its former location, then, Solor flew around the tower, using his light beam to fuse the tower back.
Then, he took a call and his eyes widened before diving into an odd tear in the fabric of reality.
About ten minutes later, the Tower shook slightly, indicating that Terra had used her powers to shore up the building before Slade saw Solor leaving and heading for home.
But, Slade knew that the Tower should have fallen further and hopefully it would have been fast enough to break the limbs of the building off.
Yet, it hadn't sank that far before stopping.
"Obviously, that other new person on the team is a lot stronger than he looks," Slade said, "I will have to draw them out of the Tower before the next assault that will overwhelm the Titans. But, where's Terra? She needs to make contact."
Little did Slade realize that his planning and scheming was about to go sideways...
[Titan's Tower Ops Center]
Edward had decided that it was time to confront the wayward geomancer. He had talked it over with the team, without her present (she was taking a swim in the Tower's pool).
They had all seen the evidence for themselves and voted to confront her gently and still allow her a place to live and her spot on the team was intact.
Robin secured the main doors of the tower and would secure the elevator when she returned. The plan was to allow her to dry off and get changed before Robin would ask her to come to ops with him.
In the preceding days, though, Edward had retrieved the other canister and between he and Cyborg, disarmed the little self-destruct device and copied the contents to Edward's laptop computer. That was also cleaned of the malware.
He would merely play the recent files and she would be offered a choice: Become a double-agent or she would be handed over to the FBI and charged with terrorism and using a weapon of mass destruction for the attempt to destroy the Tower.
Terra returned from her swim and as soon as she was out of sight of the elevator, Robin hit a few keys on the security interface and power to the elevator was turned off.
Robin waited five minutes and knocked on her door, "Terra, may I see you in ops?"
"Sure thing, Robin," she said, "Give me a moment."
Sure enough, she came out of the room and followed him to ops where she saw the rest of the team.
"Terra," Edward said, "Please, have a seat. We need to talk. All of us do."
"What is this?" she asked, "An intervention?"
"In a way," Edward said, "It is.
"You see, there's a mole on this team working for someone who has proven that he means to do us all harm. We have collected evidence of who this person is and instead of taking a very harsh route with this teammate, we want to help get this person out of the bind.
"Terra...I want you to look at the following videos and tell us who the mole is."
Terra's face paled as the video played. Edward had compiled several segments into one piece and she slumped.
"How did you get this?" she asked quietly.
"That's my secret to tell if we get the answers we seek," Edward said gently, "Terra, we're not mad at you and you're not in trouble with us, even though you should be."
"Tell us, T," Cyborg asked, "Why would you do this?"
"Because Slade told me to," she replied, "He needed as much information on the team as I could gather and would give me further instructions. This was to repay him for teaching me control. He offered to teach me."
"Like these?" Edward said, playing the most recent instructions from the man.
"Yeah," she said, "He also had me implant a virus..."
"We know," Edward said, "I discovered it on my personal computer and was able to remove it. It's been removed from the tower's computer network and the IPs that were on the 'phone home' aspect of your keylogger have been firewalled. In fact, Cyborg's logs will show an attempted inbound connection that was rerouted to a sandboxed computer that is isolated from the rest of the in-house network.. All access codes have been changed. How much information was stolen about us?"
"Pretty much everything," Terra said, "Everything that was put into the network was transferred as well as databases."
"And, what about our chat after the Tower was nearly destroyed?" Solor asked.
"I have kept my promise," Terra said honestly.
"Was the attack on the tower part of a grand plan?" Robin asked. He was not as gentle as Edward.
Terra nodded, "It was. The attack was expected to fail. It was supposed to get me back in your good graces. Slade was surprised seeing how quickly the tower was restored."
"And if you had succeeded in your mission, the Tower would have been destroyed!" Robin snarled.
"It was a chance Slade wanted to take!" Terra said.
"Terra," Edward said, motioning Robin to tone it down a few notches, "What did they do to you that made you want to hurt them?"
"Beast Boy told them that..." She started, only to see Edward put up a hand, heading off the inevitable objection.
"Actually, kid," Edward said, "Robin figured things out on his own. You cannot blame Beast Boy for that. When that mine almost collapsed when you lost it was the proof that he needed."
"When did you know I was helping Slade?" Terra asked.
"I'm an empath," Edward said, "Maybe close to Raven in skill, but, when I first shook your hand, I knew. When you brushed past Raven, she knew as well.
"Here's the deal, Terra: You become a double-agent. You continue working for Slade as if nothing's wrong. But, in reality, you are working for us as well, reporting back to the team just like you do with him. You do that and when we take him down for good, you're free and clear and we will not mention your involvement. You will be able to stay here as well.
"Refuse and you will be handed over to the FBI for Terrorism and using a weapon of mass destruction as well as federal conspiracy charges to commit an act of terrorism, attempted murder of the Teen Titans and whatever other charges that will stick and you'll be spending the next 40 to 125 years behind bars.
"Make the choice that gets you out of this situation and lets you have a family, Terra. I told you the day when we met Mally that I will have my friends and family's back.
"I'll be honest, guys...all of you. In the past few weeks, I have grown to consider you to have met a very high standard: That of being considered to be family. That includes you, Terra. Please, make the right choice."
Solor added, "Edward's right. I have, too, grown fond of you Terra. And, I think that someone else here has something to say."
Beast Boy said, "Terra, you are one of my best friends in the world. You laugh at my corny jokes, for one when the others here groan and I get sometimes tossed out the window by Raven. I know Solor tends to shoot me nasty glares and I think there are times that he wanted to open one of those tear thingies and send me to some distant time or some other realms.
"I have cared for you and about you since we met."
Terra's eyes glistened for real this time, "I care about you guys, too. Edward, I was going to tell you and the team anyway. I enjoy our talks and I want to continue those. I am tired of trying to convince myself that you all have hated me, but, I see nothing but seven very concerned faces instead of angry...well, Robin, you have a right to be really angry with me."
"I am angry," Robin said, "I won't lie to you about that or anything else. Yet, I will save my anger for Slade and I choose to forgive you." The others nodded.
"Terra, Solor and I trust you with a very important secret and we have done that despite knowing you're the mole. My biggest fault is trusting too much. Solor's the opposite. It's very difficult to gain his trust. Yet, you have."
"Oh, you simply must fill us in!" Starfire said.
Edward sighed, "While it is our secret to tell someday, doing so would put all of you in the gravest of danger. I will need to return to my true home to seek the permission of my government to tell you. I was forced to tell Terra and Raven out of necessity. In my human form like this or that winged scaled form Solor and I can morph into that looks a bit dragonlike, while I am still extremely strong, when the Tower started to fall, I could not have arrested the descent without breaking bones. I am immortal, yes, but, not invulnerable. I certainly am not like Superman or even Starfire for that matter. I would have ended up like Big Bad John...flattened under the weight of the building and the foundation there under. So I morphed into my true self and they are sworn to secrecy currently.
"I know you're all curious, but, for now, please don't ask what it is.
"But, back to the matter at hand. Terra? What is your decision?"
The blond had been thinking about it. Slade had threatened to have her killed...the Titans would merely put her in prison for most of her adult life where Slade's daughter could find her and kill her or someone on the inside with nothing else to lose would gladly take the contract.
That, along with the team being willing to forgive her treachery as well as her making friends with the two Dragons on the team swayed her.
"Given the alternatives presented and the fact that if I am in prison, Slade would be able to have me killed at his leisure, I will be your double-agent," she said with a sigh.
Edward grinned, "A smart move, Terra. We can set up an isolated computer with the malware in it and feed Slade some misinformation that way. If you do your part well enough, he should buy that you got instructions to get through the firewall. In fact, I want you to tell him that the first malware was found and disabled. If I am correct, he will then give you another USB stick with updated malware on it to install. You will do so on the sandboxed machine and we'll give him just enough information that will hold off his suspicions for a while and get him to start his planning.
"When is he supposed to implement phase 1?"
"In a couple of weeks," she said, "He will tell me a night to be out of the Tower and to leave the security system unlocked and to encrypt the access codes to lock everyone out to prevent the security system from being reenabled."
They spent the next few hours going over the plans Slade had for them. Meanwhile, Robin restored power to the elevators and unlocked the doors of the Tower.
When they were finished, Edward offered to walk Terra back to her room.
When they got there, he said quietly after looking around for a little green fly, just in case.
"I wanted to thank you for not telling the others or Slade about Jason and I," Edward said, "That is what spared you from a far harsher treatment. I will watch your back, as you have watched mine. Just remember when you eventually have to go over to his side who your real friends are and that in case we say we're disowning you as a friend and a Titan, that it's not true. We have to play the game so that Slade thinks we've turned against you. You did a good acting job to get Robin to let you back in ... but, that was mere Emmy Award level. You need to be 'Best Actress' level at the Oscars."
She responded with a hug, "Thank you for believing in me."
Edward returned the hug and said, "You're welcome. Tomorrow, I want you to beat the record time in the course."
"My record was beaten?" she asked.
"Yep," Edward said smirking, "I beat you by a tenth of a second a while ago."
"You're on, Scales," she said smiling, "Want to place a side wager?"
"What you got?" Edward asked, his curiosity piqued.
"My turn at the dishes for a month?" she offered.
Edward nodded, "That's a bet."
With the immediate problem taken care of, it was up to Terra to prove herself and her intentions with the team.
Meanwhile, Jason was pondering how to ask Raven out on a date...Then again, Edward was also pondering the same thing with Mally. It was becoming obvious to the older dragon that he was as attracted to her as she was to him. Granted that dragons typically did not go out on dates, Edward was willing to see if Mally would go along with the idea before approaching the Circle. His biggest worry was Grand Death in that respect. Neither really trusted the other one and Edward had to be ready for his racist views on hybrids. For all Edward knew, Grand Death would actively try to destroy Edward's chance at love or finding a mate at least.
Also, the more that Edward thought about Solor and Raven hooking up, the better he liked it. If she had any dragon DNA in her blood, that would be a loophole that Edward would throw into the Circle's faces if they tried to use the Breed Traitor law to exile his brother. Edward was certain that she did, given her lineage.
Edward pulled another recipe from his computer and smiled. It was for his special lasagna that he was going to make for dinner. He had a vegetarian version for Beast Boy to enjoy as well and printed that out as well.