mattchew: Ok.
Rowlingfan: Thanks for all the support! I'm glad you are enjoying the story, and I hope you'll continue reading despite the long delay. I've tried to keep everyone in character, as well as making the psuedo-OCs Ashley and Shawna act like real people. In any case, thanks for the review, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.
Terra Rock: You're right on the "Ter-uh... Rose" part. I didn't even think of that. Good eye. I'm glad you are enjoying the fic.
Kayasuri-n: I'm not sure that's a compliment, but hey, enjoy this chapter also.
TerraRox: Glad you liked it. Hope this one is as good.
Dr. Evil 99: Raven and Terra do have an odd sort of relationship in this, but I think it works well. We've spoken at length elsewhere, however, and I won't take too much space here. If you chance to read this again, enjoy it.
A/N: Well, last update was 7.17 or so, and the current date is 10/3. I'd say that's way too long between posts. I will endeavor to make the wait for the next chapter shorter, but I've said that before. Enjoy this chapter anyway.
Rose woke up slowly, staring up at the stars above her bed. She sat up groggily, rubbing her eyes, and looking around the room. The morning light was shining under the curtain, and the room seemed untouched during the night. Apparently the Titans had respected her privacy. Rose turned, slipping off of the bed and standing up. She felt gross, not having showered for two days running.
She looked around, spotting a nearby door that didn't lead to the hallway. She walked over to it and pressed the switch. The door opened to reveal a moderately appointed bathroom. There was a note on the counter. The handwriting was very loopy and girlish, and the "i"s were dotted with hearts.
"I have allowed you to borrow my shampoo, if you accept Raven's invitation. It smells like roses, perhaps you will enjoy that. - Starfire"
Rose smiled. Something about Starfire was inherently adorable. She picked up the small bottle of shampoo and uncapped it. It was lightly perfumed, and it wasn't unpleasant at all. Rose saw fresh towels sitting on the toilet seat as well. She pressed the switch on the door again, closing it, and locking it from the inside.
The shower felt nice, cleansing both the physical dirt and the mental strain of the past few days. After toweling herself off, Rose didn't want to wear the same dirty clothes as she had been. Holding the towel tightly around herself, Rose opened the bathroom door again.
The room was still empty, and Rose breathed a sigh of relief. She walked over to what she assumed to be the closet, feeling exposed in the unfamiliar room, and keeping her eyes on the door to the hallway. She fumbled for the latch, then opened the wardrobe door, smiling despite her nervousness at the row of identical costumes.
They were all about her size, maybe a bit small for her, and they fit Terra's description of the costume that Slade had given her. Black top, with an encircled yellow "T" in the middle, and bright yellow shorts. No belt, but Rose assumed that Terra hadn't needed more than one belt. Rose opened the dresser portion of the wardrobe, and found underwear, but realized that she didn't want to wear Terra's underwear, even if they might be the same person. Sighing, she walked back to the bathroom, putting her old underwear back on, and cringing slightly, as she didn't like to wear clothes more than once without washing them.
Dressing herself the rest of the way in one of Terra's uniforms, Rose looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair fell down over the right side of her face, as it had an annoying habit of doing when she was trying to look in the mirror. Something about seeing herself in Terra's clothes bothered her a great deal. Rose frowned. That wasn't the only problem. The clothes had been designed as a superhero outfit, which meant that they were tight. Terra had apparently been a bit smaller than Rose, and the costume was undersized. It was slightly too narrow for her shoulders, as well as a bit tight in general. The shorts hugged her hips too closely as well. Not tight enough to be physically restraining, as the material stretched pretty easily, but she felt weird wearing clothes that didn't hide her body very well. That, and the shirt didn't come down to her waist, which showed her midriff far too obviously for her taste. Rose tended to dress more conservatively.
Rose snatched up Terra's old goggles from the night table where she'd left them, and put them on, tilting them up to her forehead to hold back her hair away from her face. Rose sighed heavily. Time to leave the quiet little room here and go face the loud and annoying Titans. She never knew what to expect when dealing with them.
The door opened with a whoosh of air, and Rose stepped through it, into the silent hallway. The hallway wasn't dark, but it wasn't terribly well lit either. Rose turned towards the common room, hoping that everyone would be in there. She looked at Raven's door as she passed, and considered knocking, just for some companionship, but decided against it. After a short walk, she pressed the switch to open the door to the large room.
Rose let out her breath in relief, as she saw the Titans sitting around the table, waiting on Cyborg to finish cooking what smelled like eggs, sausage, and bacon. Beastboy already had food in front of him, whitish eggs and a block of what Rose assumed was tofu, though she had never had any. Everyone looked up as she entered. She felt a little strange, and knew that she must look strange as well, stepping in with Terra's old costume on.
Robin spoke first. "Uh, hi Rose. Did you sleep well?"
Rose smiled. "Yes, but I didn't have anything to dress in besides this. I... hope you guys don't mind."
Raven looked at her, but something in her eyes was different. Rose felt a chill move through her. Starfire suddenly filled her view as she came flying quickly across the table to hug her. "Oh, we do not mind at all! It is surprising to see you in your old clothes!"
Rose corrected her, her voice a little more irritated than she intended. "Terra's old clothes, you mean."
Starfire was still smiling despite the irritation in her friend's voice. "They are Terra's old clothes. They fit you well, yes?"
Beastboy grinned at Rose from his place at the table. "Well duh, of course they do, she looks exactly the same. But the costume is tighter now than it was then."
Rose suddenly felt self-conscious, covering her chest with her left arm. "Hey! Don't look at me like that!"
Starfire smiled. "You may borrow one of my costumes if you wish. I am taller than Terra was, and my muscles are larger as well. Perhaps it would fit you better?"
Beastboy shook his head. "Star, you're too tall for her. Maybe she could borrow one of Raven's-"
"No." Raven's denial of the suggestion was curt and icy.
Cyborg stepped in as he started doling out food to everyone's plate, from his frying pan. "We'll get you a new costume if you end up stayin', Rose. You can always go home and get your normal clothes anyway. Want any eggs?"
"She most certainly does want some of the eggs!" Rose allowed herself to be pulled across the room by Starfire, though she couldn't have done much to stop her, judging by the strength in the girl's grip. Starfire put her in the seat that Starfire had been sitting in last night. "You will take my chair today."
Rose smiled at Cyborg as he handed her the plate of food. "Um, thanks. So, do you guys take turns cooking, or what?"
Beastboy laughed. "Yeah, except Raven, because she can't cook."
Raven completely ignored him, sitting sideways in her chair and reading a large book, bound in ancient looking leather.
Rose watched as everyone got their food, feeling a little too nervous to just start eating. Raven didn't take any, apparently content with just the cup of tea in front of her, and Beastboy was already eating his tofu eggs, which Rose could only guess they were. Starfire held her plate in her hand, but didn't eat much, as she was busy talking.
"Are you going to join us in combat training this morning, Friend?" Rose assumed 'friend' referred to her, since Starfire was looking at her. The girl was so trusting that it was hard to remind herself that they weren't friends.
"Um, I might try. I mean, I need to get used to it. Metahumans don't get much time to just sit around, I guess." Rose tried the eggs. They were normal eggs. She didn't really know what she'd expected.
Cyborg spoke next. Rose tried to ignore how weird the guy looked with all the metal attached to him. He seemed nice, and she didn't want to mention it. "Girl, we sit around all the time. Have you seen the number of video games over there?"
"Hey, Yeah!" Beastboy spoke with a mouthful of tofu, which bits of sputtered out. He stopped a second, and swallowed, as Raven brushed a white speck off the cover of her book. "Yeah! After training we can play Mega Monkey Challenge! It was your favorite!"
Rose decided to take Raven's example and ignore Beastboy, since he apparently couldn't stop thinking of her as Terra anyway. "Um, Robin, what is the training like? It's not... I mean, I won't get hurt, right?"
Robin nodded, pushing away his now empty plate. "It's dangerous, but we'll turn it down to the lowest level for you. The course won't hurt you, but could fall and hurt yourself. Don't worry though, Raven can heal you if you get injured, and we have an Amazonian healing ray in the medical room, if you are too injured for her to deal with."
Rose gave Robin a skeptical look. "Amazonian heali-"
"She won't get hurt! She did it like a pro the last time she did it for the first time!" Beastboy grinned widely.
Rose sighed. "Whatever. I'll watch one of you guys do it first, I guess."
The morning sun was warm, but not hot, and there was a nice salty breeze blowing across the island. Rose was still feeling very out of place with the group of loud and boisterous teenagers, but she had to admit that the weather was nice. At the moment however, the weather wasn't her main concern. She was watching as Robin ran through the obstacle course that the Titans were using.
Robin wasn't on the lowest setting, like they had promised Rose would use, and so the course was a lot more proactive. In between the acrobatic maneuvers that Robin used to move along the path, he had to keep an eye out for fired projectiles and low-energy laser cannons. Rose couldn't help but be impressed at the boy's skill.
Robin finished the course with practiced ease, however, and it had only taken him a little over a minute. He looked over at Rose, and smiled. "Ready to give it a try?"
Rose shrugged, uncomfortable with running the course, but not really wanting to say no in front of everyone. It really wasn't much different than school. She didn't have much time for musing on similarities, however, as she walked to the start of the course and pulled down her goggles.
The other Titans yelled reassurances to her as Robin adjusted the control panel for the course. Rose tugged at her costume, hoping it wouldn't restrain her too much during the course. The course was resetting itself, the large panels that had dropped in Robin's way were pulling themselves back into position, and the laser turrets were lowering the stone caps on themselves again.
"Ok, Rose, the lasers are still going to fire, but they aren't going to be anything more than lights. I'll make sure all the physical traps activate far enough ahead of you that they won't hurt you. Just try to get through as fast as you can." Robin pressed a switch on the control console, and the timer on the front started ticking down from ten.
Rose bounced a little on the balls of her feet, feeling slightly crazy to be even attempting this. The countdown completed, and Rose's eyes widened as the laser turrets popped up immediately.
Deciding to act as if the lasers were actually capable of hurting her, Rose focused, pulling herself up into the air on a stone. The laser bolts flew past her on both sides, only narrowly missing her as she swerved uncontrollably on the rock. She raised her arms, tearing a slab of stone upwards from the ground in front of the turrets, blocking all their shots.
Flying forwards along the path, she saw one of the more nonsensical obstacles that she'd seen Robin dodge, the large steel fists coming up from the ground. She pulled upwards on the stone she was riding, rising high above the upthrust pylons. Sailing high over the panels that had dropped onto Robin, Rose noticed that he didn't even bother dropping them underneath her.
Rose felt confident, flying above all the dangers. Just as she began to think that she had outsmarted the course, she saw a laser turret raise and fire one shot, destroying the rock she was riding on. She dropped from the air, barely having time enough to pull another stone from the ground and latch on to it.
Rose frowned, angry at Robin for having used a potentially deadly weapon. She focused again, pulling the metal in the laser turret into the air, and grinning as the ruined machinery crashed into the ground behind her. She looked ahead again just in time to see the disc launchers begin firing dozens of clay discs at her. Without time for dignity, Rose crashed the stone she was on into the ground, and quickly erected a stone wall in front of her, hearing the satisfying crash of the discs on the other side.
Knowing that the disc launchers were the last obstacle, Rose quickly ran forwards, crossing the finish line in one piece. She smiled and took a mock bow, as Beastboy, Starfire, and Cyborg cheered her survival. Raven was watching her with interest, and Robin was working to reset the course.
"You did great! I told you it'd be fine!" Beastboy ran up and hugged Rose in his excitement, but let go as she pushed him away.
"Wonderful! You did very well for your first time!" Starfire was smiling, as usual.
Rose smiled back, feeling really confident with her powers after beating the obstacle course. "Thanks! How long did I take?"
Cyborg looked at the computer screen on his arm. "Two minutes and ten seconds. Not bad for a beginner."
"Better than your first run, Cyborg." Raven's voice was dryly sarcastic.
Robin walked up to Rose, holding out his hand. "Good work, Rose. Sorry about shooting that rock out from under you, but I needed to make sure you could improvise."
Rose shook his hand, not really sure what else to do. She smiled to show she wasn't mad. "It's ok. It was sort of fun to be shot at and have to use my powers. Sort of a rush, you know?"
Suddenly, Rose electronic melody play from Robin's belt. He pulled his communicator from a compartment, and frowned. "Looks like you might get that rush again. The Hive Five are raiding the mall downtown. We've got to go. You want in?"
Beastboy looked excited. "Yeah, come with us! We won't let you get hurt, and you'll see how fun it is to be a superhero! The Hive Five are easy!"
Rose looked over towards Raven. "What do you think?"
Raven shrugged. "It's dangerous, but we will beat them anyway."
Rose, deciding to throw caution to the wind for a while, nodded. "Ok, let's go."
The front doors of the mall's jewelry store quivered and exploded, arcs of pink energy flying from the debris. Ignoring the panicked clerk and manager running for their lives, a gray-skinned girl waved her hand nonchalantly at the locked cases. The locks all simply failed, allowing the doors to fall open. Jinx smiled as she collected the gold and silver rings and necklaces, the gems sparkling in her eyes.
Outside the shop, in the walkway, the demonstration monitors on the kiosk flickered and failed, as a short, bald, odd-looking boy removed the computer from the compartment beneath the desk, aided by a cyclopean, lanky guy. Gizmo laughed. "We can take whatever we want, and the scuzz-munching Titans aren't even here to stop us!"
Chewing on a burger from the nearby food court, an enormous, red-haired man walked nearby, kicking over a candy stand just for fun, then swallowing the burger in one gulp. "Yeah, as long as we get outta here soon, 'dey won't even see us!"
Another teenager, with blue-tinted gray skin, walking with six copies of the same mildly stupid looking skinny teen with a red costume, simply pointed upwards, to the balcony above.
Wasting no time on words, Robin jumped down from the balcony, landing with a powerful kick, knocking a copy of Billy Numerous across the room. "Titans, go!"
Stepping out of the ruined store, Jinx shouted out to her own teammates. "Hive Five! Beta maneuver!"
Rose stayed back from the fight, her confidence from the obstacle course having long faded. She peered down from the balcony, watching the chaos from above.
Several things happened at once. Robin pulled his staff from his belt, and, expanding it, swept it low to the ground, knocking the feet out from under all of the Billy Numerous clones. Starfire flew quickly in from above, firing a green starbolt at Mammoth, throwing him powerfully backwards, and into an ice cream counter. Gizmo reacted more quickly, firing the thrusters on his backpack and launching himself above Cyborg's direct assault, and firing a dozen explosive missiles wildly at the floor, covering the area in smoke. Cyborg soon came falling out of the smoke cloud, having been blasted with a barrage of what looked like eyeballs. Beastboy ran after Jinx, changing into a bull along the way, but tripping over the floor that suddenly broke underneath him, in a splash of pink hexes. Raven glowed black as she formed a bubble of her power around Kyd Wykkyd, blocking his teleporting abilities.
Rose, not wanting to see Cyborg get hurt, focused her powers, lifting a stone wall from the tiled floor, shielding Cyborg from the two villains. Gizmo and Seemore, not expecting the wall, hesitated just a second from confusion, giving Cyborg the chance he needed. A blue beam of sonic energy streaked across the room, colliding with Seemore and smashing him against the nearby computer monitors, leaving him dazed. Gizmo just flew upwards again, looking around for the source of the sudden wall, and spotting Rose, her hands still glowing from her power usage.
"Hey crud-munchers! Who's the new girl?" Without waiting for an answer, Gizmo launched another missile towards Rose, right before being blasted from the air by another shot from Cyborg's sonic cannon.
Rose ducked, hiding behind an instinctively created shield of floor tiling. She felt the floor shiver as the missile collided with the shield, and then stood up to look over it, and back at the combat below.
Seemore and Gizmo were being tied up together by Cyborg, while Raven was smacking Kyd Wykkyd into the floor, apparently hoping to knock him unconscious. Robin was fighting with Mammoth, though basically it looked like he was focusing more on not getting hit than doing any real attacking himself. Beastboy, in the form of a huge ape, was throwing the dozens of copies of Billy Numerous around, but didn't really seem to be accomplishing anything.
Rose didn't want to call attention to herself, and so she ducked down behind her small wall and turned around, only to find herself looking up a the pink-haired girl from before. Rose's eyes widened and she tried to back away, but found herself blocked by her shield. The girl smiled down at her.
"You don't look like much of a superhero. What are you even doing here?" Jinx had her arms crossed over her chest, looking down at Rose smugly.
Rose decided that she might as well stand up and try to look like she knew what she was doing. She stood up, sidestepping slightly so that she could run away if she needed to. "I... I'm with the Titans! Y-You can't scare me!"
Jinx's voice had an odd sound to it, and she was using a very mocking tone. Her expression remained an inscrutable smile. "With the Titans? We fight them every couple days. You aren't a Titan."
Rose backed up as Jinx stepped forwards. "Well I'm going to be! I think. Besides, I've got powers! You can't scare me!"
"Powers?" Jinx's eyes glowed brightly pink. "We all have powers. What are yours?"
Rose kept backing away as Jinx kept walking towards her. She was trying to keep up a brave front, but she knew she couldn't fight a supervillain. She wasn't a superhero! She wasn't supposed to be here!
Rose suddenly fell backwards, as the tiles beneath her feet seemed to buckle by themselves. Jinx stood over her, smiling down smugly. Rose scattered backwards on her hands and feet, and found herself running up to a wall behind her. She could feel her powers activating, but she couldn't even try to stop them right now. "St-stop! I can't... I can't control..."
Jinx kept advancing, apparently enjoying her malicious little game. "Can't control what? I bet yo-"
Jinx stopped talking as Rose's hands began to glow yellow. Rose looked down at her hands, eyes eyes glowing as well. The floor was shaking, and Rose suddenly became very aware that she was on the second story. Jinx looked down at the floor, then back at Rose, and grinned.
"Earthquakes, huh? Well, I can't have you trapping me in rubble." Jinx held out her hands, and Rose panicked as she saw the pink bolt of energy fly towards her. Suddenly, a stone spike erupted from the floor, blocking the shot.
Jinx's eyes widened. "Oh, not just earthquakes then." She grinned again. "Well, this will be fu-"
Jinx was cut off another spike tore through the flooring underneath her, knocking her backwards. Rose shook her head quickly, looking at Jinx. "I- I'm sorry! I'm not doing it!"
The entire mall was shaking violently now, and bits of plaster and ceiling dust were falling through the air. Rose was suddenly aware of Beastboy next to her, holding her arm. "Terra! Calm down!"
"I can't!" Rose could barely see through the yellow haze in her vision. Beastboy suddenly pulled her arm sharply, and her along with it, pulling bother of them to the ground, and barely getting her away from the falling chunk of masonry that smashed into the floor. Rose got up quickly, pulling herself away from Beastboy. She could dimly see Robin and Cyborg arresting the defeated looking Jinx. Rose turned and ran down the mall walkway, trying to get away from the chaos her powers were causing.
Rose felt herself fall suddenly, as the walkway supports crumpled and collapsed. Rose clutched at a falling stone, and felt her powers activate on it, holding her up, hanging by one hand above a twenty foot drop to a concrete floor.
Rose's body suddenly felt strangely cold, and she saw Raven hovering nearby, her eyes glowing bright white. Rose felt Raven's presence in her mind, and tried to let her in. Rose felt her emotions calm quickly, from Raven's help. The earthquake slowed and stopped, and Rose sunk to the floor, sobbing desperately. She felt a hand rest lightly on her shoulder, and looked up to see Raven looking at her with a strange mixture of pity and irritation on her face. Rose looked down the walkway, and saw the other Titans running towards them, carrying the unconscious Hive Five with them. Rose quickly wiped her eyes on her sleeve, feeling stupid for crying in front of so many people. She took Raven's hand, and Raven helped her stand up.
Beastboy ran up first, looking her over quickly. "Are you ok? Did you get hurt?"
Rose forced a smile, but knew it looked weak. "I'm fine, I just sorta... I lost control."
"It's my fault for bringing you along. I keep forgetting that you aren't Terra; you don't have the training she had." Robin was dragging Gizmo and Seemore behind him, wrapped and tied tightly with the cord from his grappling hook.
"It is not your fault, Rose. Perhaps you need more training to learn to control it, yes? It will only take time." Any other time, Rose would have felt surprise at seeing the relatively small girl carrying the huge Mammoth with one arm, but she was still recovering from her own problems.
"I can't... I shouldn't stay in the city... I can't control it." Rose looked at the ground, trying to force her voice to sound normal instead of cracking from her crying.
Cyborg smiled at her, Jinx unconscious over his right shoulder and Kid Wykkyd over his left. He was holding what Rose guessed to be the 'real' Billy Numerous in his left hand. "Don't worry about it. We got the bad guys and no one got hurt. We won't bring you along on any more missions until you can control it, but don't act like you have to run away from everyone."
Rose nodded, smiling weakly. She realized that she'd been worried that the Titans would drag her to prison for damaging the mall, but they seemed nothing but sympathetic. She looked over at Robin and saw him pulling something out of Gizmo's pocket. It was a small, yellow-orange electronic device, with a hexagon shape. It looked very similar the to Titan's communicators.
"Let's find out who they were working with." Robin pressed a switch on the communicator, and held it up, turning his back to the other Titans, so they could watch over his shoulder. Rose worked at getting the grit from the dust floating in the air out of her eyes, blinking and rubbing them with her hands. Suddenly, she heard a voice that made her skin crawl.
"Hello Robin. I see you beat my little team."
Robin's voice came out as almost a growl. "Slade."
It was her father's voice. It was her father's voice. It was her father's voice.
"Of course, I didn't hire them to steal trinkets. I already have what I needed. As always, you are completely predictable, Robin."
"It was a trap." Cyborg's voice carried the sudden realization that they'd all been fooled.
"It was a distraction, and we were distracted." Starfire seemed ashamed that she hadn't seen it sooner.
Rose shook her head slowly. It couldn't be her father. It was just a slow, creepy voice. It was just a guy trying to sound tough. It couldn't be her father. Rose crept towards the Titans, wanting to see the screen, to see that it was just some other guy who sounded similar.
"I don't care what you stole, or where you are! I will find you, and I will make you pay!" Robin's anger seemed to be disconcerting to the other Titans, but Rose wasn't really paying attention to that.
"Pay for what, Robin? Once again you are completely in the dark as to my plans."
Rose finally got behind Cyborg, and moved her head so she could see. That mask!
The man on the screen suddenly stopped speaking, a rare moment of surprise in his voice. "Rose?"
Rose reeled away from the Titans, holding her head. She felt sick. That mask... it was so familiar... Her head was pounding with pain, and images were flashing in front of her eyes, with no cohesion. She saw herself flying on a stone, over a field of wheat, in what looked like the Midwest. She saw her hands, looking like a small child's, with blood on them. Slade. She saw Jump City, but empty and gray, devoid of life. The mask. She saw her friends, Ashley and Shawna, laughing at the lunch table. Her father training. She saw Beastboy looking up at her with pleading eyes, as the earth closed over his head. She saw herself fighting Slade, on a huge column of stone. She saw fire, she saw molten rock, she saw that mask--
"AAAAAAAGH!" Rose screamed as the images overwhelmed her. She could hear the Titans calling her, but they sounded miles away. Her powers activated instinctively, and she felt herself flying upwards through the shattered skylights of the mall, into the air, held steady by the stone she'd raised. Gritting her teeth, Rose took control of her powers, and accelerated the stone, tearing through the sky and across the city.
She could see Starfire and Beastboy fly out of the mall in pursuit, but Starfire turned suddenly, as if she'd been called back. Beastboy simply couldn't fly fast enough to follow her, and quickly was out of sight. Rose banked her sharp turns as she flew through the city as fast as she could, twice scraping the bottom of her stone against buildings as she clumsily navigated. She saw her apartment ahead of her, and slowed herself. She landed the stone behind the building, and ran quickly around to the front, ignoring the surprised doorman, and rushing into an open elevator.
She pressed the button for her floor, and felt the elevator begin to move. Suddenly, she found herself in a situation where she couldn't rush, and she could no longer avoid thinking. Rose leaned her back up against the wall of the elevator, and sank slowly to the floor, staring blankly ahead of her. Terra. Rose. Slade. Her father.
For a few seconds, her mind was a complete blank, as she shut out the world and just existed. The electronic 'ping' of the elevator arriving at her floor shook her from her trance, and she stood shakily, suddenly feeling exhausted. She walked slowly down her hallway, though she felt out of place in it now. The door to her apartment had police tape across it, but was closed and locked. Rose tore the police tape away absent-absentmindedly, then found that she'd left her key in her clothes back at Titan's Tower. Frowning, Rose tore the lock apart with her powers, and the door slowly creaked open.
Rose stepped into the apartment, pushing the door closed, though the doorknob was laying in pieces on the ground. Rose moved the nearby trashcan with her foot, pushing it in front of the door so that it wouldn't just fall open. The lights were off in the apartment, but light filtered through the window blinds. Rose walked slowly towards her room, unsure of what she'd really expected to happen once she got here. Stopping suddenly, she opened the door to her father's training room.
Everything seemed normal, though she rarely bothered to come in here. Rose walked across the room quickly, and opened the door to her father's equipment closet. She looked over the various martial training equipment, as well as the swords and other melee weapons. Nothing unusual. Rose turned quickly, heading out to the hallway, and opening the door to her father's room.
It was exactly as always, immaculately clean, his bed looking as if he never slept there, no clothes on the floor, not a single thing out of place. Rose walked to his closet, and opened it. Normal clothes, no Slade costumes, no masks. Rose reached up, pulling a box from the shelf in the top of the closet, and letting it fall to the floor. She opened it. Clothes. She pulled another box. Clothes. Clean clothes, that she'd never seen her father wear.
Sighing, Rose gave up the search for evidence, and walked back to her own room, sitting on her floor and staring blankly forward. She idly reached over and picked up the stuffed animal her father had given her on her birthday, a small brown bear. She smiled slightly as she held it.
Suddenly, a thought passed her mind. No longer smiling, she carefully placed the bear on her nightstand, and then opened her closet. It was exactly as she'd left it, her clothes hanging on hangers and her shoes on the floor. Her new shoes. Her new clothes. Rose looked up, pulling the box of her old things from the top of the closet. She set the box on her bed, and opened it. These were the clothes she had from when her memories started. Some pink rabbits and other stuffed animals as well. She pushed the box aside, and looked back to the top shelf. Nothing else there.
Nothing older than her memories.
Rose ran quickly back to her father's room, then looked again at his closet. Something was different. The apartment was designed to have three bedrooms, each equal in size and shape. She had one, one was her fathers, and the other had become his training room. His closet was different than hers. It was... bigger. Not side to side, but deeper.
Rose quickly ran back to her room, and looked at her closet again. Yes! Yes, her father's closet was larger! Frowning, Rose closed her eyes, and used her powers again, reaching out. She felt the cinder block walls of the building, and the steel skeleton of it as well. She felt her lamp, and her small video game system on the floor. What caught her mind, however, was the metal she could sense behind her closet. Hundreds of separate parts of metal. The back wall of her closet was also metal. Rose gnashed her teeth, and pulled with her powers. The back wall of her closet first buckled outwards, then tore from the rest of the wall. Rose tossed it to the floor of her room, and looked at the boxes of robotics that were sitting behind the false wall.
Slade, in his civilian clothes, walked down the hallway to the apartment quickly. The police tape was gone, and the doorknob was in pieces. Not a good sign.
Slade pushed the door open, hearing the trashcan scrape along the floor behind it. Slade stepped through, ignoring the door staying open, and looked around the apartment cautiously. The lights were off, and everything seemed normal, except that light was shining out from under Rose's door.
Walking forward nearly silently, Slade approached the door, and hesitated a moment before opening it. Deciding against acting too unusual, he knocked quietly. There was no response from the other side. Slade reached down and turned the doorknob, opening the door.
Rose was sitting in the middle of her floor, wearing her Terra uniform, holding a small teddy bear, and surrounded by robotics equipment. The false wall from her closet was casually tossed on the floor, bent and buckled as if she'd used her powers on it. Slade kept his voice nonconfrontational. "Rose?"
Rose looked up at him, her eyes slightly glistening with tears. She opened her mouth as if to talk, but hesitated a moment. "... Daddy?"
"what are you doing, Rose?"
Rose looked around at the robotic parts, and then at the box at her feet. Her vulnerable expression faded, and she set the teddy bear down carefully nearby. When she looked back up at him, her eyes were angry. "Where is it, 'daddy'?"
The inflection on 'daddy' was heavy, and full of contempt. Slade stayed silent, not certain what she was asking.
"Where is my old stuff, 'daddy'? Didn't I have clothes when I was a little girl? What about toys? Did I have a doll house? Where is it?" Rose stood, looking at Slade with fierce eyes. Her voice was thick with accusation.
Slade furrowed his eyebrows, angry at her insolent tone. "Of course you did. We didn't need it when we moved here. It was left behind."
Rose looked at him, staring into his eye. A few moments passed in silence. Rose turned away, looking down at the box again. "So I was right. You don't have it. I didn't have anything then."
"It's in storage, in our old town. Give me a day or tw-"
"I don't believe you, daddy." Rose's voice was quiet, and she was no longer placing emphasis on 'daddy'. She knelt down, and picked something up from the box, looking at it. Slade couldn't see it from where he was standing.
"I can't believe you anymore." Rose turned around quickly, and tossed the orange and black robot faceplate to the floor. It skittered across the carpet for a foot or two, and rested at Slade's feet.
A/N: I will try to get the next chapter out before three more months pass! Thanks for bearing with me to the few who are reading this story. Hope you liked the chapter, please review!