I do not own anything relating to the Teen Titans.

Opening the Closet Door a Crack – Chapter 22

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"STARFIRE! COME IN! WHERE ARE YOU?" Robin shouted over his headphone. While their portable headphones had reasonably good range, if Starfire flew off too far, she would be outside their range.

"I hear you Robin. But if you intend only to order me to return, I will not be doing so. I have attempted to tell you that the rise of Great Cthulhu is of the upmost importance and you still choose to delay. I will look around and see what can be determined. So far, I have found a number of discoveries. None of which leads us to R'yleh."

The other three titans looked at one another. "Starfire," Raven responded, "just what have you found?"

There was silence on the other end for a few moments. Then the warrior princess replied, "That this building is far larger than we suspected. If I am observing correctly, we entered the building on one of the upper floors."

"One of the UPPER floors?" Cyborg said, "How far down does this place go?"

"I am not sure. I have found a number of ramps and passages that go down. As well as some that go up. Right now, I am searching for a secluded area where we can set up camp. This time restriction that Robin has set up is too cumbersome for exploration."

"Starfire, the restriction is because humans can't SURVIVE in this cold. As it is, we need to turn back quickly if we are going to make it safely to the ship."

"Cannot Raven teleport us back?"

Robin looked at the sorceress. "Can you?"

She thought for a few moments. "I obviously couldn't teleport us here since I have no idea where we are. As for back….."she paused, considering. "I'm not sure. I'm not in visual sight of the ship and the wind and snow was a distraction outside. I don't care what anyone says, it's hard to focus my powers in this kind of weather. In here…." They waited which she continued thinking. "I might be able to do it. It's still cold and I'm shivering, but at least the wind isn't blowing through me. Let me give it a try."

While she couldn't seat herself in a lotus position because of the bulk of her thermal gear, the purple haired maiden closed her eyes and attempted to concentrate. "Azerath, Metrion, Zinthos." After a moment or so, a black disc appeared.

"All Right Raven!" shouted Cyborg. And he moved to enter the portal.

"Cyborg, don't go in!" Raven exclaimed. "I'm not sure it worked. I'm going through now to see if I'm where I think I'm supposed to be. If I've done it wrong, I could be anywhere. I'm more likely to be able to find my way back than you are. Wait here." Shining her flashlight ahead of her, Raven shuffled forward through the portal, bracing herself for what she might find on the other side.

"Friends, what is happening?"

"We don't know," answered Robin. "Raven just went through her portal. We're waiting to see what happens. If she doesn't come back soon, we're going to have to start walking back. We're on the edge of the safety margin right now. If we wait more than another two minutes, Cyborg and I could be in trouble."

The precious seconds ticked by. One minute passed. A second minute had almost been completed when Raven reappeared. "Sorry about that. I made a small miscalculation."

"What happened?" asked Robin. "Will this work? If not we need to leave RIGHT NOW."

"It will work. I just need to readjust the portal slightly. I ended up on top of the T-Jet, not inside. When I came out of the portal, I fell. Took me a moment to reorient myself and find the portal again. I dropped my flashlight when I fell and had to find it. Give me a moment." With that, Raven concentrated in front of the portal again. Then, without a word, she entered it again. Almost immediately, she returned.

"It's ok, I've oriented the portal on the galley in the lower hatches. Give me a moment or so and I'll be able to fix the position in my mind so I can reopen the portal to the galley later."

"This is wonderful news, friend Raven." Starfire's voice appeared over their headsets. "Now we may spend more time searching and Beast Boy will be able to join us."

"Well, we'll be able to spend more time searching, that's for certain," answered Robin. "But Beast Boy is still trapped. Just because we're out of the snow and wind doesn't mean the temperature is any better. Until we can set up a base camp and turn on some heat, he's confined. Starfire, do you see anything that we could use as a camp? An enclosed room or, better yet, a series of rooms."

"Oh yes, I have found a number of them. The entire building is full of various rooms. There is not much in the rooms themselves, but we will need to look at them thoroughly."

"OK, titans. Let's move forward and continue. We've got another half an hour before we need to teleport back." With that, Robin moved forward, continuing down the corridor. "Starfire, was the corridor we're in sound? Can we move freely or do we need to worry about crevices or holes?"

"No Robin, this entire complex is very sound. I see little deterioration in the building anywhere. I will come back now that you are willing to continue the search in a quicker manner."

The three remaining titans continued moving down the hallway in a more rapid fashion. After a few minutes, a light appeared in the distance, growing rapidly larger and brighter as Starfire approached. Finally, the Tamaranean rejoined the others. Landing in front of Robin, Starfire looked with deliberation at her leader.

"Are you ready to accept that our mission requires making with the haste to find R'yleh?"

"Starfire, we're still not certain there IS a R'yleh on earth. Still, we're here to see if there is any chance that R'yleh exists. But NOT at the cost of our lives."

"Robin, preventing the rise of Great Cthulhu is not only worth our lives, it is worth the lives of everyone on earth."

There was no answer to that. The heroes began to move forward again. After another five minutes of walking, they reached the end of the corridor.

It opened to a rather large, oddly shaped room with a high vaulted ceiling. The room vaguely resembled a star or pentagram shape, with five different paths leading out. They had entered through one. Around the perimeter of the room were various ramps leading down, and two leading up. They weren't stairs per se, but elongated paths leading out. The ceiling looked about fifty feet high. Without the swirling snow and ice, the titans high powered lights could make out the distant ceiling. Even so, the room had an odd, uncomfortable feeling for most of the titans. A nagging itch that there was something just out of sorts.

"Guys," Cyborg spoke up, "are we sure about this building? I know it's been here, like, forever, but that ceiling won't collapse due to the weight of ice and snow, will it? I'm not sure about the structural integrity of the place."

"Oh it will last several tens of million more years," said Starfire. The others looked at her with a rather surprised look on their faces.

"Being a little optimistic, aren't we?" intoned Raven.

"Don't you recognize the style? It is a standard classical 7th dimensional tesseract form. It has been one of the standards for millions of years. The ceiling beams are fixed in one of the sublevels and focused on a loci about, oh, three of your miles above the roof of the building. The interdimensional balances enable structural integrity for millions of years. It is generally used in regions of geological instability, enabling the structure to handle tectonic plate movements. Personally, I always found them old fashioned. On Tamaran, the favored structure is a neo-modern Kondra pentaconical 8th dimensional tesseract. It can be a little difficult to balance, but it enables a great deal more variety in form and provides considerable space both in and out of regular spacetime. The closets are wonderful."

The other three titans' mouths dropped and they looked bug-eyed at their friend.

"Interdimensional WHAT?" asked Cyborg.

"Kondra Pentaconical?" queried Robin.

Starfire looked confused. "But…these are basic geometrical forms? Do you not know them?"

The three slowly shook their heads. Then Robin spoke, "Our structures are basic three dimensional forms, we don't have the means for this kind of building."

"Oh, I thought you just didn't use them for cultural reasons. Like the Offeltonians of the High Andes do not make anything round for religious reasons. In their culture, to make anything round is a high crime and usually sentenced to hard labor."

Robin looked at the princess. "No, we don't really have the knowhow for that kind of architecture. Starfire shook her head and began to mutter something in her native language. She seemed to be doing this more and more throughout the mission as the shear backwardness of humans became more evident. While human beings were charming, kindhearted people, their ignorance was profound.

"Umm, Starfire, you said there were other rooms further in that we could use as a base camp?" Raven interrupted the princess's musings.

"Yes, we can either go around to the right and follow the first side passage, there are some six smaller interconnected rooms there that seem to lead off to other buildings, or we can move down another level to a larger area that seems to be set off."

"Let's stay on this level," Robin replied, "I'd rather explore one level at a time and not leave anything unknown above us." The titans moved into the room, making their way to the right hand star point and the doorway there.

"Psst, Raven," Cyborg whispered, "Did you understand any of that that she said."

"A little bit. Advanced geometry was not my area growing up." Cyborg looked surprised at this. "Look, Azerath is a floating city. It floats because the monks make use of advanced geometric concepts that enable it to float. Much more efficient than burning energy or using magic, which also takes a great deal of energy. I was just never very good at it. Best I can do it create portals."

"Portals?"

Raven looked at Cyborg with surprise. "Certainly, what do you think my portals are? I use my magic to create a multi-dimensional tesseract that bridges spacetime between one place and another. Some of the monks of Azerath can cross dimensions and time eras depending on their geometrical abilities. Even though I'm half-demon, my human half has difficulties with some of the concepts, so I can only handle a few of the basics. That's why I had such trouble retrieving you from the past that time you got stuck there. I needed to study the advanced geometry and the magic necessary to reach back and get you. A lot of the concepts are beyond me."

They wandered over the large room, which in our geometry measured about 75 feet across, when adding the star points, they seemed to be over 200 feet from point to point. As they made their way to the right hand corridor, Robin noticed a series of large mounds. They were seemed to be about six feet high and brown, with a thin layer of ice on top.

"Starfire, are those part of the architecture? Do you know what they are?"

She shook her head, "No, Robin. They remind me of something, but I cannot place it at the moment. They appear to be some odd decoration. There are many in this room and several scattered throughout the building. At least in the areas that I have looked at. In the rooms that I am taking you to, there are only a few."

Continuing past the miniature pillars, the titans made their way to the side alcove. All the while, Cyborg began to look around, staring at the roof, the walls. He seemed oddly nervous. There was an unpleasantness, an oddity regarding this structure. Once leaving the comparative normality of the corridor, these new designs were completely foreign to him and Robin. While Robin appeared to handle the building with his normal stoic aplomb, Cyborg, because of the electronic components of his brain, was always being fed the influences of this Cyclopean structure.

Exiting through the doorway, the titans entered into a smaller version of the larger room, this star shaped room was only about 15 feet across, with four additional doors at each remaining point. There was another of miniature pillars in the center of the room.

"Three of these doorways lead to individual rooms, that one," Starfire pointed to the one on their immediate right, "leads to another corridor."

"Does the corridor lead outside?" Robin asked.

"It does not seem to, I believe it leads to another building. I did not fly far in, but I did go far enough that I would have reached the outside. There was no sign of snow or ice in the corridor, so I do not believe it is connected."

"Well, in that case," Robin began, "it looks like we have a place to set up base camp. We can use this room as the main area and put in the heaters. Starfire and Raven can share that room." He pointed to the room to their immediate left. Cyborg, Beast Boy and I will share the next room and we can use that far room to store our equipment. Raven, can you get us from here to the T-Jet and back?"

The grey girl concentrated for a moment. "Yes."

"Good, then let's get back to the ship, warm up and then we can start setting up camp this afternoon."

With that, the purple haired sorceress closed her eyes and began to chant her mantra. After a few moments, a black energy portal appeared before them. Opening her eyes, Raven told the others to wait for a moment while she tested the portal. Quickly entering the disk, Raven saw that she had placed the other end in the T-Jet's lower gallery. Returning to her friends, she said, "It's in the T-Jet. Give me a few moments and I'll fix it in place for a while. At least until we're finished." With that, Raven reentered the portal and emerged in the T-Jet.

The other titans quickly followed her. Since the portal only provided transport between the two points, the frigid cold did not penetrate to their ship. Once back aboard ship, the titans removed their headsets and began on their thermal wear. While removing their clothes, a strange sound made its way to their ears.

"23 bottles of beer on the wall, 23 bottles of beeeer. If one of those bottles should happen to faaaalllll, 22 bottles of beer on the wall."

Raven looked around at the other titans. "Azar, please no."

"Ya know," pondered Cyborg. "Most people give up after about ten versus. For someone to get all the way down to the 20s shows determination."

"It shows someone who is not paying attention to the situation, who is TOO BUSY GOOFING AROUND!" snarled Robin.

"Excuse me, I do not understand the purpose of this action."

The titans looked at the Tamaranean warrior. "It's an extremely mindless rhyming song. Usually sung when there's nothing else to do," explained Raven. "Perfectly in keeping with Beast Boy's mentality."

"Oh, how many verses are there? On Tamaran we have a number of similar songs. Usually, there are anywhere from ten thousand to fifty thousand verses."

"Guess you folks are not easily bored," muttered Cyborg. Aloud, he replied, "On earth, we start at ninety-nine. YO, GRASS STAIN. We're Hoooomme! You can stop siiiiinnnggiiinnnng."

A green whirlwind came bouncing downstairs. "Hey guys, you're back early. I still had a few more verses to go. Made a bet with myself that I could get to zero before you'd get back."

"It took you over an hour to sing 99 verses?" asked Cyborg.

"Naw, started at a thousand."

The four titans, even Robin, looked at the teen with incredulity. "You couldn't find anything ELSE to do?" asked Raven.

The changeling looked at his teammate. "The systems are all working. There's no outside communication. You can't see ANYTHING outside. I've already beat MegeMonkeys 4. What else is there to do?"

Once again, the four titans stared at the shapeshifter. After a moment or so, Raven said, "If only he could use these powers for good. Or at least not to annoy me."

"So, what did you find? Did you find anything?"

While the other three titans resumed removing their thermal gear, Starfire explained the situation and that they would begin to construct a base camp within a few hours so that the investigation of the city could be conducted without the need to return to the T-Jet.

A longing look appeared on Beast Boy's face, "Guys, does that mean I can FINALLY get out of here?"

"Assuming we can get the temperature in the enclave up to a reasonable level," answered Robin, "yes."

"YEESSSS! When can you start? How can I help?"

While the other titan had not been exposed to the constant wind and swirling ice and snow for the past forty five minutes, they were still cold. It took them several hours to fully warm up. While Beast Boy could not actually go through the portal yet, the others could. Obviously, the first task was to set up the portable generators so that the heaters could be set up. This actually took several hours as the cold prohibited the removal of gloves. Things had to be assembled as much as possible inside the T-Jet and then transported through the portal. The key was to make the assembly in the city as simple as possible.

After setting up the systems inside their self imposed enclave, the titans waited. Although they had sealed off the two corridors to the outside with portable airlocks, that still left four good sized rooms that had to be heated sufficiently before the real work could begin. There was no point to working in sub-zero temperature when a few hours time could bring the air temperature, well, if not to normal room temperature, at least livable.

So the next morning, Starfire passed through the portal again. Returning to the others, she announced that the temperature was sufficient that the others could go through without their thermal gear, although it would be wise to bundle up as the temperature, while above freezing, was not really comfortable long term for habitation. It would take several hours to continue to warm up and, even then, most of them would wear their 'normal' winter clothing. They would bring their thermal gear just in case. The plan was to investigate the immediate area and, if possible, expand the zone of comfort beyond their immediate base.

Cyborg and Robin, being the most technologically able, went through first to check on the generators to ensure that they were operating properly. Starfire immediately after as the cold held no apparent discomfort for her.

That left Raven and Beast Boy waiting their turns. The green teen was practically bouncing off the ceiling. While Raven was annoyed, she tried to be understanding. Her friend had been cooped up for days now in a very confined space. While this new camp could not nearly be considered large, it was at least something different.

"I CAN'T WAIT! I've GOT to get out of here. Can we go now, Raven? PLEEESE?"

Releasing a sigh, Raven said, "All right, I can understand that you need to get out of here. But please contain yourself." They walked towards the portal.

"Don't worry, I'm cool, I'm so cool that I could fit right in with the penguins." And the two walked through.

"See Raven, I'mmmmm." He stopped and stiffened suddenly. Beast Boy hunched over and held his head in his hands. The hair on his head stood up and he let out a growl.

Then, the teen pounced on the miniature pillar near the center of the room, tearing at his with his hands and his teeth.

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I'm thrilled that not only have my hits increased substantially (which I attribute to the publication of Ganguro, which I have the undeserved honor to be a part writer of), but I've received more reviews for this last chapter than ever before.

Once quick hint (not about this story), it's probably not kosher, but I'll do it anyway. In Ganguro, Chapter 2 was written by yours truly. Unless you read this chapter, you won't know that. I'll also be posting Chapter 3 of Ganguro on Friday.

Back to the matter at hand, I've included a bit of levity here. Sorry to say, but from here on, there will be precious little levity. I give fair warning.

On to the reviewers, the first one is new to the story.

Stumblefoot – Hello and welcome. Glad you've joined us and I hope you are enjoying the story. If you like Starfire the anthropologist, here's Starfire the architect.

ForceIsStrongWithThisOne – Well, Beast Boy is now in the city. And there will be consequences as a result. Robin is…Robin. As always, there is more than meets the eye with him. The next three to four chapters will be crucial and revelatory. You know, I always just assumed the toilets were temporarily broken in 'Tokyo'. Otherwise, this would be a most uncomfortable expedition.

Flood125 – I read EVERYONE's review. I particularly enjoyed yours as it gave me a reason to delve into a little more of Beast Boy's abilities. Always fun.

Soulseekerthe13th – Well, there may be more to come with both the antenna AND the corridor. While the titans have reached the end of that corridor, there are plenty more in this abandoned (?) city. Please keep me updated on the book. I DEFINITELY want to take a look at it.

Novus Ordo Seclorum – Can you believe Force believes we're both elegant in writing styles? You definitely, me, say what? We are NOT done with the friction between Robin and Beast Boy. I guarantee it. Tensions, already high, will be building dramatically over the next couple of chapters leading to a major turning point in the story. (I love dropping hints that could go anywhere.)

Punk – As with Stumblefoot, thanks for joining me on my excursion through HP Lovecraft. I hope I will be able to keep you interested and entertained.

Emotionalpoemgirl – Glad you mentioned that the city was built on the original surface. I had actually forgotten I said that. Almost made a major mistake by having the building larger on the top levels than on the bottom ones. My most sincere thanks for keeping me honest.

Kenzie – Haven't seen you for a while. Glad you came back and I hope this update has lived up to your expectations. We still don't 'know' what lurks in the darkness of this forbidding city.

Hawkgirl90 – Wow, another voice from the past. Thanks for coming back. Although I can understand that you have a reading list for your internship (I'm a MAJOR history buff, one of my degrees is in history). Hopefully, BB's singing gave a small indication of how bored he is. He won't be bored for long.

Until next time my friends, sleep well.