Betrayal always hurts.
A/N: Find me if you can, and then review! …Oh! And I do Not own anything from Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein! Sorry it took so long for me to get this out here… I wanted to get all the details just right!
Kikyo was in the basement when she got a dark-zap from Raven. It immediately got her attention and Raven opened her side of the communicator first, allowing Kikyo's end to beep in signal. While Raven allowed the communicator to view what was starting with the rest of their teammates, she still kept the communicator hidden in the folds of her cloak. With the communicator open, Miko was able to see Terra's whole demonstration, and even from the base of the Tower, Kikyo hid a shudder. It wasn't a cold and slimy feeling, but it definitely gave Miko a sense of impending… Something.
Kagome, when the rest of the Teen Titans were gone, crept downstairs, sand entered, using her passcode and via her miko-ki, dismantled her training course. It was a fail-safe that Shippo and Sesshoumaru had decided that it was an important thing to have as a preventative measure.
While she was down there, she placed her ki over the evidence they'd collected and used her power like the villain Luminous, did. She used her power to create a hard light illusion over all of everything that her team had gathered. Confident that their hard work would be saved and no one could capitalize on their expense, Kagome returned upstairs and upon hearing voices in the multi-purpose room, crept around it and headed up to her room, which was just off of the sick-bay. It was necessary to retain her cover.
Kagome sat back on her bed with a frown. There was something off about the girl Terra. To leave like she did and then come back some time later with her powers completely under control? It didn't add up. She fingered the communicator turning it around in her hand, and she contemplated talking to Robin about her issues with Terra. Kagome bit her lip and put down the communicator. She didn't have any concrete evidence as of yet, but there was something about Terra's appearance, that made her see warning signs, no alarm bells yet, but definitely warning signs.
Being bored with knitting, she crept into Robin's room and stole/borrowed his ultra-secure laptop. If she was going to be stuck here, she could at least be productive and gather more intel on the foes that the Justice League went up against on a regular basis. When she got to the Teen Titans' villains, Kagome was fighting a blistering headache; sure each Superhero had his or her own set of villains, but then there were the times there was a Super Villain Team-up, group, League, or what-have-you. She had gotten to the point where she had just cut and paste from the League's site and upon finding that the coast was clear, went to a console and typing in a command, printed the 152 page document.
She then left the Tower for a time, in disguise of course, and headed to Shippo's compound in Beach City. Once there, she went into her creativity-room that she had barely even used and using a few balls of different colored yarn, a pair of scissors, several packs of push-pins, and many different colored markers, started pulling together a spider-web/tie-in set. She had three sub sets: Manipulators, Followers, and Grunts.
Each villain was marked with ancient kanji as to which Superhero's rogue's gallery each villain belonged to. The colored yarn was to show who teamed up with whom.
Within the next several hours, and the background notation of an Earthquake in Jump City, Kagome still wasn't complete. But she was seeing a picture and she wasn't sure that she liked the look of the outcome. When she looked up again it was evening and she sat back in her rolley-chair and leaned back to pop her back. As she leaned back further making her balance on the rolley-chair precarious at best, she noted to herself that she needed to add a possible, most-likely probable connection of the Emerald Empress to Klarion. When she leaned back, she was not expecting to see Robin's mentor, Batman standing directly behind her; and as such, she was completely surprised and she lost the precarious balance she'd attained on two of the chair's rollers, and fell bass-ackwards into Batman's shins.
"This is some collection." Batman said, "we could have saved you some time if you had come to us for help."
Kagome climbed to her feet, groaning.
"Yeah- well, we tried that and everyone at the JLU Rush Tower brushed us off, with our concerns, we tried also to get ahold of you, but you were busy on a case."
"You spoke with Jason." Batman stated.
"We also spoke with his Demon, Etrigan." Kagome nodded.
"What intel do you have?" Batman asked.
Kagome looked into the lit hallway and turned back to glance at the ground, it was Batman she was speaking with. His shadow matched his outline, and in retrospect Kagome had detected residual traces of Batman's aura interlaced with Robin's. Clearly, Batman was more of a father than Robin's real father, or there would have been the father's aura entwined where Batman's was.
Kagome wasn't sure, but she had the notion that a clone didn't share the exact aura as its predecessor did; she was taking this information off of her experience that occurred between Kikyo and herself back in Sengoku Jidai. It wasn't a full-proof theory, but it was hard to get one over on her. Just in case however, she noted everything he said and did, to ask Robin about when he came to visit sick Kagome in the Tower later.
"We know several things:" Kagome said and she quoted from memory:
"A) Comms were hacked to prevent SOS' from getting out…
B) Teeps were knocked out and transported so they couldn't contact allies, collars were used to dampen their abilities. (We know this because of the footage I was able to recover, but we don't know who placed the collars on the users and then later removed them…)
C) Magic users had a magic 'block' placed on them, and were then knocked out
D) So far Lt. Carmine is the only known Leaguer dead…"
"And Lt. Carmine's was a Blocker" Batman stated.
Kagome nodded. "Also, we've got a possible major baddie cross-timeline team-up thing going on. The JLU minus Jason, Fate and you, won't believe us about a foothold situation for the JLU, oceans were glowing green and its life is nada, and usual communication channels are nonfunctional in the back-up sense…"
Batman looked contemplative. "This is good intel, Higurashi…" She wasn't surprised that he knew her name; Batman had most likely looked up Robin's teammates, as soon as the team had been formed, and no doubt knew all connections of who with whom knew what.
"Will you help us?" She asked, relieved that a member of the original seven believed her.
"A foothold in the League is serious, and I don't want any of you to get hurt. However, your team seems to have this under observational-control, continue with what you've been doing, but keep me apprised." He turned to leave the room, but glanced back at her. "Maintain your image of sickness, it's a good cover." He glanced her over, "make sure you eat something; and remember your contacts."
Kagome growled at herself having forgotten a key piece of her guise, but promised she would- to an empty room (So that was where Robin got the dramatic entrances and silent exits from!) and seeing that it was now nine at night, went into Shippo's kitchen to raid the fridge. She opened the door cautiously, the last time she'd opened the fridge, a toy frog jumped towards her face, seriously freaking her out. Luckily the fridge was free of pranks, unfortunately, the freezer wasn't, and Kagome ended up looking into the face of a live penguin.
That night Kagome was sleeping in Kagome's room in the tower, and reliving what had occurred with Sesshoumaru earlier in the month.
She told Sesshoumaru her suspicions about the Emerald Empress and possibly "Klarion Bum-bum-bum; The Witch Boy!" from a week before she left Japan for Jump, so she made a request of him and his people to investigate the problems in Kyushu.
Sesshoumaru handed her a folder, "Inside is the information you need. Kagura is investigating a similar matter which is occurring just outside of Happy Harbor, where the Justice League's Headquarters, Mount Justice is situated. She will come with more information…"
Miko thankfully acknowledged his attentiveness, "But that isn't all… there's something is even more 'off', it's situated about six ri south-southwest from Jump…" She tried to explain precisely where if not what the occurrence was.
Sesshoumaru noted it in a book. "This Sesshoumaru shall send Shippo to investigate the occurrence, in the general vicinity of the 'off-ness' that you have felt." He said using her lack of proper adjectives. "Keep in mind Miko: This may need a different perspective than the one that you currently use," Sesshoumaru warned. "This one suggests that you dissolve the shikigami and take its place for a short while…"
Kagome awoke and shook her head, trying to get her bearings. Next to her was a large cooler, which she opened, and the penguin popped its head out, inside the cooler was lined with thin slabs of ice. Rolling her eyes, Kagome closed the lid to the cooler, and called out for Shippo's kids to get their sorry behinds back and return the penguin, or else there would be no gifts from her for the rest of their lives.
After breakfast, and the report from Shippo that his miscreant children had returned the penguin to the Beach City Zoo, Kagome returned to the Tower, with contacts in, and covertly studied her teammates and the returned Terra… She shouldn't have returned, not acting the way she was. Certainly not in full control of her powers, if Terra couldn't get full control of her powers in all the time before she ran from them, why did she have full control now, who taught her, and why wasn't she willing to reveal how she'd mastered her powers?
These were all questions that Kagome was mulling around inside her head. Then there was also the fact that there seemed to be two sides to Terra; the side that had full control over her powers and was confident in them, and then there was the side of her that wasn't in control and was just a teenaged girl wanting the support of her peers and the boy she liked.
Oh yes, Kagome had noticed the attraction between Terra and her cousin, Beast Boy.
Had she worn a cape, at that moment, Kagome would have emulated Batman as she stalked from the sickbay, only for Robin to push Kagome back inside and confront her, demanding to know why she was doing what she was.
"What are you seeing that I'm not?!" He demanded.
Kagome bit her lip and asked to speak to him in his Slade room. He was startled, but agreed. Making good use of Robin's stealth skills, they avoided the cameras in the Tower as well as their other teammates, and eventually made it to Robin's Slade quarters.
Once they were inside, Kagome created a barrier that deadened sound, and divulged her thoughts including why she had done what she had, in creating the illusion that Miko was back in Japan, trying to find a cure.
Robin seemed to take her explanation in stride, and then asked what she had done about it.
Kagome explained the hard-light illusion she'd placed in the basement, her speaking to his mentor at Shippo's place about the foothold situation, she paused in her explanation and looked around the room, trepidation of being around a person with an ulterior motive. She described as best she could the feeling she got from being around Terra, and her concerns about Terra's sudden control over her powers.
Then upon her explanation, Robin demanded that Miko come back; he wanted the entire team to be on hand. Kagome frowned and using the voice which meant she was getting very serious, they decided to keep Miko's thoughts to themselves. There was still the chance that they could turn Terra back to their side, and away from whomever she worked for.
So, the next day, Robin told the team that Miko had contacted him and had some information to give the team about a possible treatment for Kagome's condition. Robin himself went back to Japan with Kagome hiding, thanks to the use of one of Shippo's invisibility charms and with the T-ship, flew to Japan, stayed the night and then the next day, Robin returned to the Tower with Miko in the ship with him. Shikigami-Kagome was back and smiled at seeing her healer back, and greeted her with a hug.
Later the day, Miko came into the multi-purpose room looking slightly concerned and confused.
"Hey Miko! Good to have you back!" Was what Terra declared from her position on the couch next to Beast Boy who was playing a video game and trying to beat Cyborg's score.
Miko's confusion became evident to the rest of the team, minus Cyborg who had yet to come in from getting the mail; when Miko went into the kitchen made herself a cup of hot tea, and instead of grabbing the carton of fresh milk that Robin had bought the other day, she grabbed the wasabi.
She almost put it in her tea if it weren't for Raven looking out for her and using her soul powers to remove the wasabi and replace it with the milk. Miko didn't even notice the difference, that was how out of it she was.
"Alright Miko, what's the problem?" Robin said, tapping Miko on the shoulder.
She startled, but didn't slosh her tea. "Wha?! Oh, Robin… Well- nothing is the problem yet, but…" She set her tea down in front of her.
"But…" Raven prompted.
"I just got a call from a Mr. Wolf F. Mann… He said that the bodies of Frankenstein and Dracula are being sent to the Jump City House of Horrors, and to not let them rise.(A/N: Nope, not here) He's flying in to Gotham International Airport tonight, from Romania, and he said to not worry about being turned into a werewolf, because the moon won't be full till tomorrow night…"
"Is this someone's idea of a practical joke?!" Robin demanded.
"That was what I thought too, until I had the Tower computer trace the call… It was from an international flight from Romania and the call was paid by the credit card of Wolf F. Mann, and it even provided a photograph…"
Miko pulled the printed picture from her sleeve.
"Huh… He looks like an Italian Bruce Wayne…" Robin said, noting the man's darker complexion.
"Hey guys; not a lot of mail today, just this…." Cyborg said as he entered the multi-purpose room.
Cyborg handed a large flat envelope to Robin.
"A note came with it…"
"Did you read it?" Robin asked him, noting that the envelope was addressed to the leader of the teen titans, curiously enough, the writing was all in lower case letters and seemed as if a child, learning how to write had written the address and addressee on both the envelope and note.
"Well- the note said 'To whom it may concern', and since I was, I did." Cyborg admitted.
"What does it say Robin?" Star-Fire asked .
Behind his mask Robin frowned. "The tales from legends are steeped in truth, to find their missing bodies, be the amateur sleuth."
"Whose missing bodies?" Miko asked.
"I'm guessing that's the information that's in this envelope." Robin said as he opened it. Inside there was merely a brochure for the House of Horrors just outside Jump City, and the featured attractions were the bodies of Dracula and Frankenstein.
"So is finding the bodies of Dracula and Frankenstein supposed to be a challenge?" Terra asked their fearless leader, scoffing.
Robin merely shared a wicked grin with his teammates. "Between the call that Miko received and these papers, we're going hunting for the world's most notorious boogie-men!"
"What?!" Beast Boy freaked out at that news and promptly crashed his car in the video game.
The next evening at the House of Horror's just outside Jump City.
~~~~~~~~~~~Oh, Not only that but it was Halloween night.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cyborg and Youkai were back at the tower with Raven and Terra, while Starfire, Robin, Miko and Beast Boy are out solving the issue of the Horror in the House of Horrors.
According to Raven, the phone-call and the brochure, the JCHoH, the acronym for the Jump City House of Horrors, would actually have the bodies of two of the legendary boogie-men: Dracula and Frankenstein. What was interesting, was the fact that the House of Horrors was on the face of a cliff that extended over the ocean, and that manor was the hub of many ghost stories and haunted legends. Raven had wanted to come, but Robin said it was better to have someone with powers of purity and light instead of Raven's powers. Raven wasn't appeased until Miko had promised to buy her a book of legends from the place.
Actually it was the fact that the bodies of Frankenstein and Dracula were reported missing that the Teen Titans were officially called in. The rest of the Titans were to remain in the city, as who knows what would occur if all the Teen Titans left to investigate the JCHoH.
They arrived on the scene and Robin quickly was able to get them into the service entrance of the locked building.
"I just know, I'm not gonna like this." Beast Boy said quietly to Miko. They were already getting pelted by sheets of rain, and the thunder and lightning from the freak storm weren't making the best ambiance to search a House of Horrors with.
"You and me both." Come to think of it, a huge storm and a House of Horrors made the perfect match.
"Come on you guys!" Robin called to the cousins as Star-Fire floated into the building after her team leader. "Are you going to make me do all the work?"
The building was large, having six stories including a basement, they were currently on the second floor, which interestingly enough was at entry ground-level, the first floor and basement seemed to switch, as according to Raven was one of the key attractions. But since the disappearance and the fact that Halloween was tomorrow night, the land-lord/manager wasn't taking any chances.
The odd thing was, the coffin for Dracula was there, though loosely chained and padlocked, as was the exhibit of Frankenstein.
"Someone's gone to a lot of trouble to get us here…" Miko said, only jumping slightly as she examined the Frankenstein exhibit.
"But why were we called out here if the reason why is still here?"
"Perhaps it is some sort of elaborate prank?" Star-Fire offered.
"YIPE!" Beast Boy yelped as he turned into a dog and hid behind Miko's legs temporarily.
"Beast Boy, what is it?" Robin asked, concerned.
Beast Boy turned back into his human form, though he was still taking cover behind his cousin. "Frankenstein's bolts just sparked and he blinked!"
Robin looked at the exhibit doubtfully, before shaking his head. "Okay, you guys look around this room, I'll check the others for clues. There's gotta be some reason why we were dragged out here for missing exhibits that aren't missing!""
'"I've got just two words for you' Robin." Beast Boy said, raising a finger to make the point, looking gruff and tough.
"'Oh yeah?"' Robin asked raising an eyebrow in skepticism.
'"Hurry back."' Beast Boy said fearfully, as lightning and thunder crashed hugely above their heads.
Star-fire is investigating the guillotine on the far side of the room, while BB in dog form was sniffing the skeleton in the cage near the entrance. Robin was investigating another room of the House of Horrors; but he had told the rest of the team, that if there was anything out of their ordinary, to call him.
The storm outside was raging, but that didn't really bother the Titans (minus Beast Boy), sure being in a House of Horrors during a colossal storm wasn't high on their list of things to do, but it did make for an interesting (a/n: read- Creepy) time… (A/N: You're getting warmer!) When the power cut out suddenly, all three of the Titans in the room made for their communicators, but they didn't power up. Star-Fire lit her hand with a star-bolt as Robin raced into the room.
"Communicators are out! Is everyone okay?!"
"We are slightly fearful, but nothing to be overly concerned of friend-Robin…" Star-Fire said.
"But you wouldn't happen to have any matches or something, would you?" Miko asked.
Robin glanced around the green-lit room and spied a few candles scattered here and there. He nodded and with a handy mini-blow torch, lit the candles in record time, and told them to keep an eye out, as he left for the other room.
Miko had just started reading the description card of the Dracula Legend aloud to Beast Boy and Star-Fire when the coffin connected to the legend, that she was next to, started opening. Hearing it start opening, Miko blanched. Star-fire, and BB noted her distress, but weren't able to calm her; having heard the noise themselves.
'"Robin! Robin!'" Miko yelled, freaking out.
'"What is it?!"' Robin said rushing back into the room.
'"Well- I was reading this sign, it says 'Dracula's Coffin' and all of a sudden I heard a 'Creeeeaak'"' she said imitating the groaning noise it made.
'"That's the wind!'" Robin said, brushing off her concern. After all there was a huge storm going on outside; it was Robin's opinion, that Miko was taking the situation too seriously
'"..It should get oiled.'" She said after a pause, only slightly accepting her leader's explanation. Robin gave her a deprecating glance and left the room to continue his investigation.
Kagome had seen a lot of weird things back in Sengoku Jidai, but she learned to take all the odd noises to heart; which meant at the tender re-age of fifteen, Kagome had had no less than fifty-three heart attacks.
Miko left the display of Dracula's coffin to look at the Bloody Mary exhibit, and Star-fire stayed near her. The Bloody Mary in the mirror looked incredibly realistic, she was even splashed with blood across her face and her reaching hands. Miko looked and hid a shudder as best she could.
"Why is it that you did not fear the movie of the Wicked Scary, but you do fear the figures of wax and the structures of wood and metal?" Star-Fire asked her, as she stayed close.
"I've seen way too many things that were of inanimate nature come to life." Miko said, shuddering. Star-fire suppressed a shiver herself, and glanced around the room in anxious anticipation. Had she had a Klarnpoxian Ratherzorp to wager with, she would have sworn that the Bloody Mary in the exhibit just blinked and came closer to the mirror's surface; nearly touching it with a silent horrible scream. In the background behind the Bloody Mary, looked to be a shadow resembling herself, pounding on a- Star-Fire shook her head and squeezed her eyes closed for a second, in that second, the Bloody Mary was back to her original position and merely reaching, as she was when the team entered the room. Star-Fire eeped and grabbed the back of Miko's uniform, away from the creepy currently unanimated being in the mirror.
Standing near the candle so as to continue reading the sign aloud, Beast Boy started, for his female teammates; '"'Dracula can change himself at will, into a vampire bat; flying about the countryside.' Flying…"' Beast Boy changed into a bat himself for a second before changing back into himself, '"Oooh…'" He said creepily until he looked down to see the partially opened coffin with a hand lightly grasping the edge.
"Wah!" BB yelled, and Miko and Star-Fire raced to his side. "Robin! Robin!" BB screamed, freaking out.
'"Listen, you're making enough noise to wake the dead!'" Robin said stomping back to his teammate. He knew that BB was a scaredy-cat, thanks to the Wicked Scary night they had thanks to Raven's impromptu haunted house, but Miko? And what was going on with Star-Fire? The girl could shoot bolts of energy from her hands, and she was clutching the back of Miko's uniform in trepidation?!
'"I don't have to wake him up, he's up!'" Beast Boy said gesturing wildly. '"I saw a hand!"'
'"You saw a hand? Where?"' Robin, since the EMP had knocked out the electronics, picked up the candle next to BB and Miko .
'"Right over there."' BB said pointing at the coffin.
'"Let me see it.'" Robin scoffed and picking up the candle, looked in the area where Beast Boy indicated and saw nothing. '"Where is it?"'
Beast Boy smacked the padlocked coffin slightly with his own hand. '"I saw a hand there!"' BB insisted to his team leader.
'"You don't know what you're talking about! You're all excited reading about this legend!"' Robin declared irritably. Robin set the candle on the lid of the coffin and stormed back out of the room.
Beast Boy looked concernedly at Miko and moved to the café area of the House of Horrors to get himself a glass of water.
Star-Fire picked up the card to set it back in its stand when another part of the description card was exposed to the candle-light.
'"'He keeps himself alive, by drinking the blood-'"' Star-Fire paused in her reading aloud when the coffin started slowly opening and the candle started sliding toward the hinges of the coffin, only for the coffin to quickly close again.
She looked up with wild eyes at Miko and couldn't seem to get the words out loudly enough. "Robin… Robin…!" It took her several tries, but eventually she was able to get out a pitiful yell for Robin. Which was barely heard over a huge crash of thunder which followed a painfully bright streak of lightning.
Robin didn't come but Miko and Beast Boy did, and they gave themselves a pep-talk, telling themselves that candles can't move, even though this one had. Beast Boy even moved the candle back to its starting point and with a fearing glance, went back to the café. Maybe he should have a cup of coffee instead… Miko glanced around the room and followed Beast Boy back to the café, and decided that coffee wasn't the best thing to have so she settled on a cup of tea.
Star-Fire in the meantime, re-read the passage. '"'He keeps himself alive by drinking the blood of his victims.' Hm… 'Count Dracula must return to his coffin by sunrise… Where he-'"' She stalled herself when once again the coffin started opening and the candle slid toward its hinges.
Getting their confidence, the girls told themselves that a house of horror was like a haunted house and there were always trick-gags, with that in mind as well as a couple kicks to the coffin, not enough to damage it, but enough to boost their confidence.
They looked toward Beast Boy and told him that they would meet he and Robin in a quarter of an hour, and together, with the aid of a candle and the wavering green light of a star-bolt and the pale pink light of Miko's purity-arrow, they walked upstairs.
The girls had been gone for over a quarter of an hour before Robin made the decision to search the rest of the House of Horrors.
"SO this is a six story place right?" Robin clarified with BB, as the girls had gone to investigate the mysterious phone call they'd gotten from a 'Wolf F. Mann'.
"Right, including the basement."
'"Great. I'm going to prove how crazy you three and that Wolf Mann really are! We're going to search this place from top to bottom starting with the basement!'" Robin said clasping Beast Boy on his shoulder.
Beast Boy seemed to think about the situation before saying: '"Look, Robin… We'll search it."'
'"That's right."'
'"You and I together."' Beast Boy said looking slightly more confident.
'"Now we're talkin'!"'
'"Okay- you search the basement and I'll search the outside."' Beast Boy declared.
'"Oooh-No you don't!"' Robin said shaking his head and stopping Beast Boy from moving towards the exit.
'"All right, then I'll search on the outside and you search in the basement!"' Beast Boy said, changing tactics.
'"That's different!"' Robin said cheerfully, grinning at the spirit BB was putting into tracking down their missing female teammates in the creepy storm-surrounded House of Horror, and with that in mind, Robin raced off, leaving BB behind.
Beast Boy giggled. '"It worked!"' clapping his hands together, only for Robin to swiftly return and drag him off by the collar.
'"Come on!"' Robin growled.
They went into the basement only to see that it had a long flight of stairs leading to a small dock. On one of the landings, there was a rock wall, which when Beast Boy leaned against, swung around, pulling him and Robin through to the other side.
Miko met them in the hall on the other side of the rock wall from the basement.
"What's going on Miko?" Robin asked; she was looking at them oddly, like Cyborg when he sees a thick, juicy steak. The fact that her skin was now a pale grey and she had canines that were elongated beyond the usual human means bothered Robin as well.
"Kikyo?" Beast Boy asked his cousin. But just as he stepped toward his cousin, an un-coordinated Star-Fire leapt out of the shadows and rolling, tackled him into another set of shadows.
With the use of her powers giving extra-strength to her muscles, Miko was able to pull her team leader into the shadows which Star-Fire had leapt from.
All that was seen from the shadows was a slight spurt of a bright-red slightly viscous fluid, that hit the wall in the torch-light, accompanied by two yells for help.
"Best Halloween prank ever." Terra said, grinning, as she pushed through the cellophane mirror in its elaborate wooden frame.
Youkai opened the lid to Dracula's coffin, slicing through the padlock as he did so, letting the chains fall heavily to the floor, and stepped out bedecked in Dracula attire. "The talent Humans have to scare one-another is quite juvenile."
"Admit it!" Terra said, dressed as Bloody Mary wig and all, elbowing the non-human earthling of their scare-troupe. "You enjoyed scaring the tar out of those three!"
"Did you see the look on Beast Boy's face when he saw the bolts in my neck shooting out bits of electricity?!" Cyborg demanded as he rose partially from the operating table he was strapped onto. He looked like Frankenstein, and with his holo-projection it made the illusion even more realistic.
Raven teleported into the room. "The localized EMP worked well… too well. All communicators and non-EMP hardened electronics are out." She said as with a wave of her hand, she freed Cyborg from his bonds.
"Thanks for the help with the creepy mirror background." Terra said with a gruesome grin, "How did you wrangle the storm?" Terra then asked the half-demon.
"I didn't; this is a real storm." Raven said blandly.
"Boy! Can we scare them or can we scare them?!" Cyborg demanded of his scare-troupe.
"Now- let's cue up the footage that we got from the cameras we set up!"
All four members of the scare-troupe grouped around Cyborg, as he access his holo-projector and initiated the play-back sequence.
They snickered as they saw their trio of teammates get scared, while their team leader was in another room. They chuckled as they saw Miko and Star-Fire kick the coffin and then head upstairs, only to split off, Kagome going to the third floor, Star-Fire going to the fourth, as Beast Boy followed Robin into the ghastly 'dining-hall.
Raven leaned forward and looked closer as the footage played. "Where did Miko go?"
"Hold on, I'll back up." Cyborg said as he rewound. All members looked closer to see Miko investigating a room in the third story of the building, only to get grabbed by a bone white and black clawed hand and pulled into the deep shadows. They saw her powers flash, and heard a blood-curdling scream, but the room that she was investigating was a sound-proofed room for the insane-asylum theme, so no sound escaped.
"What just happened?" Terra asked her cohorts.
Moments later, Miko fell partially out of the shadows, her skin a pale grey with deep punctures on the visible side of her neck. There was no movement in her body, and there was no way that the footage had been faked. Kikyo appeared to be dead.
The cohorts looked on in shock as moments later, the body rose and arched its head back revealing two elongated canines that hadn't been there moments ago. The bone color wrist was offered from the depths of the shadows and Kikyo plunged her new fangs into it, holding it close to her face as if it offered a precious liquid, which she drank greedily.
Which if the footage was to be believed meant that Miko was now a creature of the night. Even more than the Batman, it meant that she was now, and ultimately, a vampire.
"No way…" Cyborg uttered.
"Way." Was the answer he received from his Halloween-prank cohorts.
The footage continued to play, as Cyborg switched views from Miko to Star-Fire.
Star-Fire was on the fourth floor, it seemed to be a warehouse space, filled with the wax cauldron and the metal frames used to fashion the horrors of the wax museum into. But she was fighting hand-to-hand, and in the dim light from between the boards covering up the widows, they could see that Star-Fire was steadily losing ground against her attackers.
"Why isn't she flying or accessing her alien strength?" Terra asked as she watched in horror as her teammate was fighting for her life against zombies.
"Star-Fire must feel joy for flight and boundless confidence for her alien strength." Raven said, fear creeping into her voice.
"So that means…" Youkai started to ask but dared not finish his question as he saw his alien teammate quickly be overrun by the zombies, and let out a horrified scream.
In desperation they flicked to the footage watching Robin and Beast Boy, to see them in well enough shape, even bickering slightly before they went to search for their missing female teammates. (A/N: Come find me!) The only problem was that their footage didn't cover the basement.
With candles in hand, they decided to look for their teammates. Every candle had an identifying band around, Cyborg's was blue, Youkai's was red, Terra's was yellow and Raven's was black.
As Terra walked around the second-floor towards the room where Robin started searching, Terra tried ignoring the storm she heard around the House of Horrors.
"Bloody Mary." Terra heard whispered, and she turned around looking for the voice. She almost didn't make it out over the sound of thunder.
"Someone there?" She asked out loud. When she got no reply, she turned and continued walking.
"Bloody Mary." Terra heard whispered again.
"Hello?" Terra asked stopping in her tracks. "Raven if this is you, it isn't funny!"
"Bloody Mary."
The candle she held fell to the ground as suddenly Terra was jerked around in so many different directions, which thanks to the lack of light adding to her disconcertion; she felt like she was in a rip-tide.
Just as suddenly all movement stopped and she was in a dark room, looking through a glass oval set in a pretty frame.
As she looked out she saw a young girl, maybe around her age, standing in front of the glass oval. She was dressed in an old-fashioned nightgown, the only light in the bathroom was the single candle seated just below the mirror.
Horribly, it dawned on Terra what was happening, and she pounded on the glass trying to get out. The girl on the other side screamed and fell over as she backed away from the mirror.
Then Terra heard it again: "Bloody Mary."
Not long after, Youkai and Cyborg were walking down the hall that Terra had been in previously. When Cyborg's foot hit something cylindrical, he bent down and held his candle near to look at the object.
"That's-" Youkai said, looking down at the candle that had a bright yellow band around it, which meant that Terra had been its owner before she disappeared.
"Terra's candle." Cyborg said, kneeling down to pick it up.
Raven on the other hand was on the sixth story of the building. She'd just finished attaching an extremely large antenna to the roof and was connecting wires to an extremely elaborate laboratory set-up.
"Did they buy it?" Came Miko's voice behind her.
"Oh, they bought it." Raven said with a wicked grin, her teeth suspiciously sharp.
The four other Titans came into the bright light of the lab. Miko was a pale grey, with the punctures on her neck standing out an almost vibrant shade of purple, her elongated canines protruding just enough as she spoke.
Star-Fire was right behind her, her uniform was torn and bloodied in several places. She had bruising and bite marks around her shoulders, neck and face; her right eye appeared to be gone and her left arm was hanging uselessly at her side.
Beast Boy was next to her in a similar fashion, but he appeared to be even more viciously gnawed, in fact, it seemed as if part of his scalp had been torn open, in an attempt to eat his brains. His throat was viciously torn open, revealing the muscles and tendons.
Robin was closest to Miko, and while it would have been cool for the stealthiest hero to be a vampire, he was in a half-transformed state. On the right shoulder through his uniform was bite-mark that appeared to be still bleeding sluggishly; he was a werewolf. His face was elongated, wolf-like and the left lens of his mask had popped out revealing a golden yellow wolf-eye. Claws were extended from the tips of his gloves, and what visible skin there was, seemed to be growing fur.
"Good." Robin said, his wolf-mouth opening as it would with regular speech. "Then let the real House of Horror begin… It's time to show the Titans why monsters rule on Halloween."
"Are you with us Raven?" Miko asked, the eyes of her mask taking on an almost fire-red quality behind the lenses.
Raven allowed her father's heritage to shine through, her teeth becoming even more sharply vicious, and having four eyes instead of her humanoid two. "Of course."
The shadows of the hallway seemed to swallow Youkai and Cyborg up despite the light from their candles. As they walked they saw the small form of Beast Boy in the hallway in front of them, so they jogged to reach his side.
"Yo man, where's Robin?" Cyborg asked as he patted Beast Boy heavily on the shoulder.
Youkai's keen senses detected the smell of blood, quite near them. "Are you injured Beast Boy?"
All they got in response was a gargling growl, and they looked at one another in concern, before Cyborg dropped the electronic illusion surrounding his form and shined a light on his best friend, as Youkai grasped BB's shoulder to turn him.
Cyborg and Youkai gasped as they saw what Beast Boy looked like; Cyborg turned green, and then very pale.
"Yo man! BB! Tell me who did this to you!" Cyborg demanded as he shook Beast Boy.
Beast Boy's glazed eyes focused on Cyborg's form, and stumbled towards him, his arms grasping for Cyborg and Youkai who backed away in trepidation. A gargling sound escaped BB's throat and as if summoned, the gruesome form of Star-Fire appeared, and she too looked like she had been mauled; which she had, by Zombies.
As she stumbled closer to her former teammates, she moaned in what could only be described as hunger.
In abject horror, Youkai and Cyborg felt their mouths hang open, but couldn't bring themselves to close them.(A/N: come find me!) As Star-Fire and Beast Boy approached, they noted that their teeth seemed to be covered in a brownish red substance, their minds processed their friends' appearance as zombies that had just eaten human flesh.
With a yell, Cyborg grabbed youkai by the arm and sprinted away from their teammates, candles left behind them, sputtering in the hall. As Cyborg dragged Youkai behind him, he paid no attention to where they were going, but they were relieved when they saw Robin crouched in the corner of the insanity room where Miko had been turned earlier.
"Robin, that you man?" Cyborg asked as they approached. As if anyone else would be wearing Robin's colors or match his characteristics.
Youkai grabbed Cyborg's arm and pulled him back slightly. "Wait, something's not right."
"Come on man, this is Robin, the one-man-army here, nothing can take him down!" Cyborg protested.
"He's right Cyborg; you'd better stay where you are." There was an odd tone to Robin's voice; it almost sounded gravelly.
"Come on man, I admit it: the rest of the team and I decided to play a Halloween prank on you guys… But the fun's over now. Something is seriously wrong with BB and Star."
Again Youkai smelled something that was off, it took his mind a second to process, but it came up with 'wolf'. "Cyborg, we need to leave. Now."
"He's right Cyborg. It's not safe around me, not right now… Not when the moon's full." Robin said as he slowly stood up, still facing the corner of the room.
"Full moon? What are you talking about Robin?" Cyborg asked as he ignored the warnings of his teammates to step closer to Robin. "There's a huge storm going on, there's no way there's a full-" Cyborg stopped himself as his onboard computer did confirm that tonight, the 31st of October, Halloween was a full-moon night.
"I mean: I'm not safe! You need to leave! NOW!" Robin barked out, his form ridged.
"Man- I'm not leaving-!"
Robin barked and whirled around to face his teammate, interrupting his gallant rant.
"Oh… Man." Cyborg said as he clumped backwards. "Robin?"
"I told you… to leave…" Robin said haltingly.
Then as if he could no longer control himself, Robin leapt forward and was tackled backwards by Youkai, who yelled at his teammate:
"Cyborg! Get out of here! I'LL HOLD OFF-!" But he couldn't finish his statement as from the shadows Miko emerged. With a wave of her hand, Youkai was forced off of Robin, who darted to her side and stood in a crouch next to her.
"I don't think so." Miko said, her eyes glowing a wicked fire-red behind her mask, causing Youkai to yell as one-by-one his limbs were pulled into the thick wall that held the window.
With a yell, Cyborg forwent the downstairs and headed up. Once up there he was thrilled to see Raven, acting normal, well- for Raven.
"Raven! We've got to get out of here!" Cyborg yelled at her. "The whole place, our whole team have turned into monsters!"
"What did you expect Cyborg? It's Halloween." Came Raven's droll voice.
"You don't understand! The whole team! They're gone! Terra! Miko, Robin, Beast Boy, Star-Fire! They're all monsters! Practically the whole team are monsters!"
Raven seemed to think on it. "I know. When I saw the footage of Miko and Star-Fire, I came up here to try to find a way to save you."
"Save me?!" Cyborg demanded, his voice hitting a squeak. "What about you?!"
"I should be safe…" Raven said. "After-all, I'm a half-demon; I shouldn't be bothered by the monsters this place has created."
"What do I do then?!" Cyborg demanded. He noted that her hood was pulled lower on her face, but the room was pretty bright, and Raven never did enjoy such things, so Cyborg pushed the odd feeling off to the side.
"In only a short time-span, I've had to cobble together this equipment in order to save you." Raven said. "Get up on the table, the procedure shouldn't last long."
Cyborg was a little weirded out by the calmness his teammate was projecting; but this was Raven! Almost nothing fazed her! So, Cyborg climbed up on the table and watched as Raven strapped down his arms.
"Wait- what are you going to do?" Cyborg asked.
Cyborg heard a shuffling noise as Raven strapped his legs down with a heavy metal bar.
Raven exuded a creepy smile as she moved to the side of the room and turned on the generator.
"That's simple-" she said as she flipped another switch. "In order to save you from the monsters…" She said, allowing her hood to fall back from her face, revealing her four blood-red eyes and horrifically sharp smile. "We're going-"
"We?!" Cyborg demanded, now starting to struggle with his trappings.
"Yes." Came a voice from the corner of the room. "We." Cyborg craned he head around to see Miko and Robin standing near one another, a mirror portraying Terra's terrified Bloody Mary image held easily in one of Miko's pale grey hands.
There was a scuffle behind them, and Miko and Robin turned to see Star-Fire and Beast Boy dragging the dismembered body of Youkai between them.
"You're going to become one of us." Raven said simultaneously with Miko.
"No! No! NOOOOO!" Cyborg screamed as the ceiling opened to reveal the large antenna that was cabled into one of the generators. Rain drenched him as he yelled in terror as lightning hit the antenna, and then he blacked out.
When he woke, he was no longer strapped to the table and he saw his monster friends, formally the Teen Titans grouped at the foot of the table.
Raven and Miko each placed a comforting hand on his knees. "We have just one thing to say to you friend…" Miko said a serene smile highlighted by her wicked fangs.
"PSYCHE!" The four former Halloween-prank victims shouted.
"NO! Let Me Out of Here! Please Let Me Out of HERE! LET ME OU-OW!" Terra screamed, panicking just as a panel opened and she fell into the brightly lit faux-laboratory. Werewolf Robin released the lever he had pulled and the panel slid shut again.
In the same moment Youkai was pulled by a Raven up from the floor below, still in one piece, but completely discombobulated.
"Wha-?" Cyborg asked, his sensor sparking in confusion.
"I found out ahead of time what you were planning, so I started getting some things together…" Robin said. "I even got Raven to work with me on it…"
"I know people." Raven said with a shrug, now looking like her normal self.
"You- You… You…" Cyborg couldn't even get a full sentence out.
Beast Boy giggled as he pulled off the detached scalp. "Awesome Haunted House though, huh?"
Youkai was flabbergasted, but nodded. Terra shared his incomprehension, and just followed his lead.
"I thought you decided not to ultimately make a haunted house…" Cyborg said, gaining his bearings.
"I did; but then Robin and Miko approached me about making a House of Horrors instead."
"Couldn't wait to out prank us?" Cyborg asked, a slightly worn-out smirk lanced across his face.
"More like get even." Raven said. "I'm half demon, meaning that as a demon, I take revenge very seriously."
Cyborg gulped and nodded, making note to never include Raven in the scheme of any pranks ever again.
Several Days Later
It was evening, and the rest of the Titans minus Youkai and Miko had just come back from a fight in the park. Robin called Miko in from attending Kagome and they settled in for a dinner of pizza.
While the other Titans were fooling around trying to decide who got the last slice of cheese pizza, Kikyo was finishing her homemade Okonamiyaki. Terra ended up winning the last slice, by way of 'spin the slice' and Cyborg acted like it was the winning goal of the Super Bowl.
Terra brushed off the praise that she got from the rest of the team and looked at Miko in askance.
"I wasn't there for your battle, but presumably, you did well." Miko said with a nod.
"What's with her?" Terra asked as Miko walked calmly, but briskly from the room.
"Her patient, BB's friend, still hasn't gotten better, no matter what treatment she tries…" Raven said. "Miko thinks that someone is attacking Kagome's spirit, making her worse from the inside-out…"
"She's had several extremely contagious diseases, all easily communicable." Robin said, frustration evident in his voice.
"She hasn't found a way to treat Kagome?" Terra asked, thinking of the sick girl she'd made friends with that was a close friend of Beast Boy's.
"No…" Beast Boy said, his ears dropping in despondence. "Kikyo said it's like someone separating a piece of you and dragging it through filth, only to abandon it and move on to another piece of you."
"That, and the treatment that Kikyo brought back with her that was supposed to treat Kagome, was a failure; in fact it appears that Kagome's condition has altered from what Miko first thought it was." Raven said; she'd been there when Miko had treated Kagome, the mixture smelled horrible, but it didn't even alarm the sick Kagome.
Terra's eyes widened in concern, and then narrowed only so slightly in consideration. She'd popped her head in to see Kagome and chat with her, but when she was about to enter the room she saw Miko and Raven sitting alongside of the bed of the sick girl, who was unconscious on the medical-bed with a high-fever, and hives.
Cyborg headed for the wall and pressed his hand to the security sensor, activating the alarms for the Tower.
'"All right y'all; Titan's Tower's locked up and Cyborg's shuttin' down."' Cyborg said with a yawn.
'"Cyborg's right; we should all get some sleep… We may have stopped Slade tonight, but we need to figure out what his real target was and what he's planning tomorrow."' Robin said to Star-Fire and Raven, and soon followed after Cyborg and Miko. He noticed Terra was acting more suspicious and knew that something was going down soon. He wanted to alert his teammates, but Kikyo made him promise to tell only Youkai.
As soon as he got to his room, Robin opened the private comm system that they'd developed in the basement for the JLU foothold situation, it was a recent make, so only Miko, he and Youkai had one. He alerted Youkai to his suspicions about Terra, and was told that Miko had been escorted to his home but would return in the next quarter-hour.
Robin nodded and signed off; waiting for Miko to show up with her report. In the meantime, Robin re-filled the gadgets in his belt and brushed his teeth and was contemplating brushing the gel out of his hair when there was a quiet tapping on his door that signaled Miko's arrival.
Robin opened the door and stood to the side in order for her to enter.
"Shippo brought back the info we wanted, about Kyushu." Kikyo said, handing Robin a small packet of papers. Which he opened and immediately read, as he read Miko gave a short summary: "The energy is of Chaos magic's; so Klarion is definitely involved. Shippo's also got reports of a large green eye being seen in the area of Kyushu in the last two weeks; so our hypothesis about the Emerald Empress is accurate."
"I take it Youkai already knows?"
"He does, Shippo was there to fill he and I in. The report you hold in your hand is only a copy, I've got the real report in the basement."
"Anything else?" Robin asked as he used his mini- blow torch to destroy the report.
"There's something happening on the edge of Jump, but Shippo just got back from his Nippon investigation, and had to deal with his kids before he got started on that." Miko said frowning in consideration.
"So, you're waiting for confirmation?"
"Correct, also: Whatever is going on with Terra will happen soon."
"I agree, but how large are we talking about?"
Miko didn't say anything, but put her right hand to the right side of her face, covering her right eye.
"You're probably right." Robin grumbled. "Night Miko."
Miko knew she was dismissed, and with a glance at her troubled team leader, left his personal rooms.
She returned to her own and had just finished brushing her teeth and hair after a quick shower (it was a pain to re-braid the symbols back into her hair, but they were there for a reason after all), and was sliding into the covers of her bed when Cyborg sent out the alarm within the Tower, by way of explosion.
The Titans were under attack. By Slade.
Immersed in the fight, Miko tried to contact her cousin, but got no reply. The same was true from Robin.
Youkai was currently in Steel City, with Totosai and would be there for the rest of the night, as he was working on something to elevate his status in his father's eyes.
She slammed her communicator away and shoved her foot into one Slade-bot and shot an arrow through the head of another, just as the one she'd kicked away attacked her again, severing its arm as her foot crashed through its shoulder. As she raced through their blasts and headed into the area where her teammates her fox-holed.
'"Someone wanna explain how two hundred armed robots got past my security?!"' Cyborg demanded even though the Titans knew that there was only one way for that to happen. He opened up the door panel and tried to access the small computer with his finger drive and got jolted with volts of electricity. '"Augh! Can't even access the computer; we're locked out!"' He declared to his team being completely frustrated with the situation.
'"They are too numerous to fight. What shall we do?"' Starfire asked Robin as she blasted another Slade-bot.
Robin looked at each member of his available teammates before he steeled himself in determination for the fight ahead and all around them.
'"Fight anyways; Titans, Go!"' Robin declared as he flipped into the hallway to engage the Slade-bots.
Miko was used to fighting someone stronger than she was, after all she had trained under Sesshoumaru and his trusted Generals. But this onslaught of robots was something that she didn't like.
She raced after Robin and used her training to the max. She used her Tessen primarily, as it was a fantastic offensive-defensive close-quarters weapon.
This whole situation meant that the Teen Titans were three members short. BB wasn't available, neither was Youkai, and Terra had betrayed them to Slade.
With what seemed like hours of hard-won fighting later, had the Teen Titans grouped in what used to be the multi-purpose room. The lights were out, the windows were broken, their furniture was smashed and slashed and definitely broken; and all around them were the pieces of the bodies of the Slade-bots which were littered throughout the trashed Tower.
'"Well, it looks like we won."' Cyborg stated semi-deprecatingly.
The Tower, their home was wrecked.
'"Then why does it not feel like a victory?"' Starfire asked quietly while looking to Cyborg with discouraged eyes, which matched her demeanor.
'"I knew it, I knew it. We never should have trusted her,"' Raven snarled, far beyond peeved; that someone she considered close would do such a thing to her- to them.
'"But we did, we all did…"'
'"I've regained access to the computer, security codes and encryptions strings have all been reset."' Cyborg said, touching a few buttons on the screen in his arm.
'"And all enemy surveillance technology has been located and destroyed,"' Starfire added from her position. Robin nodded slightly as he glared sightlessly out the broken window.
Raven's amethyst eyes turned fierce and she held her arms severely-straight to her body in an effort to keep her emotions on lockdown and not lash out, her hands in white-knuckled fists. '"The problem is Terra gave Slade more than secret codes and hidden cameras... She gave him us."' The team turned to face her, accepting her statement as truth, hard-ugly truth. '"She gave him our flaws, our weaknesses; everything he'd ever need to know…"'
Robin's fists clenched as he turned back to glare out the window, '"It doesn't matter. When Slade makes his next move, we'll be ready…"'
The only good thing that came from this disaster was that neither Slade and his robots nor Terra was able to get any of the information that they had gathered (covertly in the last few weeks) concerning the JLU foothold situation in the Vault JLU Tower.
Cyborg, concerned about his green heart-hurt friend, asked the room in general, "And Beastboy?"
'"He will… be alright?"' Starfire asked of her teammates, looking for hope.
'"He just needs a little time."' Robin answered. Leaving the 'We all do', left unsaid.
In Terra's room was Beast Boy in dog form curled around the silver heart shaped box that he had gifted Terra with, at his side was Kikyo sans her mask. She silently offered comfort to her distraught cousin, tears dribbling down her face at the heart-ache that Garfield was feeling, which the entire team had gotten a bitter taste of.
In the sick-bay was the Kagome-shikigami, and she was just as much emotionally wrought as the rest of the Titans were, her emotions emulating the one whose form she was based on; tears trickling down her face as she clutched a pillow to her chest.
It was weeks later, after Terra's betrayal. Beast Boy had somewhat recovered from his heart-break, and the Tower was almost completely put to rights. Robin had also recovered from his bout with the 'Larry' incident as well- though Miko and Cyborg were sure to heckle him about the whole incident.
The rest of the Titans were driving to meet Miko and Youkai, down in China-town in Jump City; and BB was trying and failing to tell jokes. Unfortunately for him, his jokes just weren't funny and the joke about the duck was just lame… Star-Fire tried to get the joke, but when you have to explain a joke, it loses its potency.
The Titans were at a stoplight, with China-town just down the street when they got caught in a T-Bone, slamming them onto the sidewalk. Star-Fire blasted her door off just as the hood of the T-car blew off; Robin, Raven, and BB got out on one side while Cyborg and Star-Fire clambered out to access the damage. When Cyborg put a hand to his car-door, the door fell off.
'"Terra?"' Beast Boy asked, looking at her new duds, stainless steel capping most of her joints while the rest of her body was covered with shiny white bandages. She also had two stainless steel caps on either side of her head, which from a distance resembled bows.
That was when they saw Terra standing perpendicular to the T-car. Out of the corner of his eye, Robin saw Miko and Youkai run in their direction. Youkai had his whip out and Miko was armed and ready with her Tessen. Robin knew that the Tessen was a calculated move, that Terra hadn't seen but once; as Miko primarily used her bow and arrows in their usual battles. It wasn't much as Terra seemed to have fully embraced the bad-side, but it was something.
'"Hey guys,"' Terra said, a vindictive look on her face, '"Miss me?"' She then pulled her hands up and using her powers started using the rocks around her as projectiles. The Titans quickly fled the scene, less they became casualties themselves. The T-car was smashed to smithereens.
Youkai and Miko were finally close enough to the rest of the team for them to regroup. "Titans. Go!" Robin declared as they raced to engage their former friend.
Terra quickly caused the earth to split as she flew towards those who had abandoned her. Cyborg and Robin double-teamed Terra. When that didn't work Star-Fire and Raven were up to bat.
But there was no stopping a vendetta. And Terra was way too mad at them to even take pity, she only took revenge. Cyborg and Robin were blasted onto two different buildings Cyborg actually crashed through his and into the desk of an office worker. Miko took off after Robin, quickly healing his wounds so they could rejoin the fight. Youkai stayed on the street to give his teammates an edge if he could, but he was under orders from his father to not use his full-demonic form.
The team regrouped opposite Terra, ready for battle.
But Terra seemed to have anticipated this and flexing her powers, used them to crack the street and create street monsters.
'"That's a new trick."' Raven said as they stared incredulously at Terra and her creations.
They didn't have time to stare though, as Terra once again, flexed her powers and allowed them to soak into the street. Her monsters disappeared, but they didn't stay disappeared. They popped out of the ground like gophers with no residual tunnel-like affects. The Titans were hard pressed to predict their moves.
Miko was relying on her bow and arrows, but her powers did nothing to the dirt and rock, unless you count the dirt looking less polluted as her powers working against their enemy. So she put away her bow and arrows and relied on hand-to-hand combat. It wasn't working, but Youkai's whip was.(A/N: Found Me! Please Review!) It cut through the dirt and rock like wet rice-paper; but even that wasn't working like it would on a living being. The creature disappeared as soon as it hit the ground and reappeared fully formed again.
Robin looked around at the luck they were having against Terra and her creations and made a command decision.
'"Titans! Fall Back!'" He said throwing his explosive smoke bombs at Terra. The exploded in the air around her sending her into a coughing fit.
'"Can't see."' Terra complained through the smoke.
Terra's creations of her power usage crumbled without the use of her eyes to continue the fight.
'"You heard me! Fall Back."' Robin declared, mad that they had to resort to this. He threw a large smoke bomb at his feet to give them cover just as Terra used her powers to raise a platform of rock two-stories above the smoke that had surrounded her.
She narrowed her eyes as she saw the smoke covering the area where she had last seen the Titans; her fists still glowing yellow, meaning that her powers were still ready to rock.
The smoke slowly cleared revealing Beast Boy looking up in apprehension at the girl that he had liked, before backing into the smoke and running away.
The Titans were in the foyer of the Tower; sulking, brooding, and berating themselves.
'"I should've blast her when I had the chance."' Cyborg growled.
'"I should have hit her with everything I've got."' Raven said scowling.
'"Why did I permit her to fool me again?"' Star-Fire asked herself.
'"Why couldn't we take her down just like any other criminal?"' Robin demanded of himself, emulating his mentor.
'"Because, she's not just another criminal; she's Terra..."' Beast Boy said.
Youkai seated himself on the coffee table in front of Cyborg and helped him remove the rest of the rock splinters before using his acid to seal the areas where the rocks had breached.
'"She was a Titan… She was…."' Beast Boy continued, '"our friend."'
Miko leaned her head against the pillar she was sitting against to shake her head, she hated knowing things ahead of time, especially when they turned out to happen to people she cared for.
'"Terra was never our friend! She was a liar and a spy, trained by Slade and sent to destroy us. She's evil. Always has been, always will be."' Raven said determination and anger coloring her words, even if not truly being expressed by her.
'"You don't know what you're talking about, okay Raven?!"' Beast Boy shouted back. Miko let out a breath and stood and approached her cousin, putting a placating hand on his shoulder; but Beast Boy shook her off. '"She's made some serious mistakes, but she's not-"'
Cyborg cut him off as Youkai finished sealing the breaches in his circuitry. '"Hey man, the girl wrecked my car; seems pretty evil to me."' Youkai looked at Beast Boy and moved to to Miko's side seeing as BB wanted to make a point.
Beast Boy lifted and threw aside the coffee table standing between him and Cyborg to look him in the face. '"This isn't a joke. I knew her better than anyone. I know all the terrible things she's done and I know exactly how messed up she is. But she's not evil! We can't just give up on her."'
Miko and Youkai shared a look with Raven, who frowned but silently acquiesced. Terra might not be completely evil, but she was seriously misguided and pissed off. The whole situation reminded Miko of the issue she and Inuyasha had with Sango and even Kouga.
'"Beast Boy…. She's working for Slade."' Robin said, trying to get his teammate to see reason. He, like Miko had known ahead of time that something involving Terra and more than likely, Slade; was going to happen and happen soon, they just didn't know that it was going to be this soon.
Beast Boy turned on his team leader. '"When you were working for Slade, did we give up on you?!"'
Robin said nothing for a moment; acknowledging BB's argument. '"She gets one last chance. One."' Robin acquiesced. '"We have to break Slade's grip on her. We have to try to get Terra back."' Robin declared to the rest of the team just as the Tower alarms went off.
'"Trouble!"' Star-Fire exclaimed.
The Titans split up to take care of Plasmus, Overload, and Cinderblock; the three criminals that escaped from incarceration. Star-Fire and Robin went one way after Cinderblock, Raven went after Overload, BB and Cyborg went after Plasmus and Miko and Youkai went looking for Terra.
Miko and Youkai rescued Shippo from an enormous load of paperwork and grabbed his eldest kid to help. They separated into three groups.
Miko went after Cyborg and her cousin, with the aid of Shippo's daughter Ria. With Ria in the balloon-form Shippo was so fond of when he was a kit, Miko cast an illusion just as Cyborg fell into what looked like an abyss, Terra closed the pit just as BB begged her not to; both were caught on Ria's bouncy-surface.
Youkai went after Star-Fire rescuing her from a watery cliff-grave, and light-flashed them away; just as Robin raced toward the edge to see Star-Fire's imminent demise.
Shippo went after Raven as she was sucked under by the mud and had her teleport them out of the situation.
Robin took his motorcycle and raced after Terra, already knowing her next location. With his team gone, her remembered his promise to Beast Boy about giving Terra her one last chance. He still had hope that Miko and Youkai had gotten to his teammates in time, and had saved them.
Terra floated over the a separating chain-link fence on her floating earth platform and heard the road of a motorcycle making a jump. As his motorcycle hit the height of its jump, Robin leapt off and tackled Terra to the ground. '"Do. Not. Move."'
'"What's the matter Robin?!" Terra demanded. '"Feeling lonely since I exterminated all your friends?"' Terra asked.
Robin pushed her closer to the ground in an effort to subdue her. '"They were your friends too!"'
'"I don't need any friends!"' Terra vindictively said pushing back.
Robin pushed harder. '"What did we ever do to make you hate us so much?!"' Robin demanded of her.
'"You were born."' Terra said accessing her power, and exploding the ground beneath her.
'"I promised Beast Boy I'd give you one last chance! And this is it!"' Robin told Terra, just before he raced toward her, hoping that she'd give up; allow them to see that she really wasn't beyond all hope.
They were soon engaged in hand-to-hand until Robin had her against a chain-link fence to look in the reflective glass of a window. '"Look at yourself Terra! Is this really what you wanna be?!" Robin demanded.
Using a move Slade taught her, Terra quickly reversed their positions. '"I'm just never going to be good enough for you, am I?!"'
Robin escaped her grip as she raised a platform of earth two stories above Robin.
'"You don't belong with Slade."' Robin said, trying to get through to her.
'"You don't know anything about me."' Terra said anger still fueling her hatred, she said as she threw large hunks of rock at Robin, who smashed them with his bo-staff and jumped on the rest of them getting close enough to smash her across the chest and to the ground.
'"It doesn't have to be this way Terra! I was Slade's apprentice once; I got out, so can you!"'
'"I don't need you to save me."' Terra sneered back.
'"You can only save yourself." Robin agreed.
'"I. Don't. Need. Saving!"' Terra declared, thrusting Robin away with her feet in his chest. '"I'm not some sad little girl who's waiting to be rescued." Terra said, hatred filling her body making the ground quake with the force in which she felt it. The ground opened up fissures around them. '"I wanted to be this way. I wanted to go with Slade. I wanted to Annihilate you and your Pathetic friends!"'
She sent boulder after boulder into Robin until he was too tired to dodge. '"And now, I never want to see your face again."'
Robin groaned in horror as he saw a boulder aiming for his head, knocking him out and apparently dead. At the last second Robin felt a hand on his shoulder, denoting help. A sideways glance revealed nothing, but when then felt a gloved hand remove his 'R' emblem, then Robin lost full consciousness.
In the tunnels that Slade had so kindly hollowed out beneath the T-Tower, the Titans recuperated.
'"No more chances."' Cyborg said, decidedly.
'"No more trust."' Star-Fire agreed in the same tone.
'"No more mercy."' Raven snarled, a fact that was shared by Youkai.
'"She's just another criminal."' Beast Boy growled in the shadows, their only light was provided by Star-Fire and Youkai's energy.
'"And we're going to stop her."' Robin said, as he and Miko joining the group; to which Miko agreed whole-heartedly. Miko had just finished healing Robin's head and hand a fresh uniform ready to hand him; but he was in no mood for a wardrobe change. '"No matter what it takes!"' Robin declared as the rest of the team looked at him startled.
A/N: Okay folks! What did you think? Glad you found me, and I hope you enjoyed this latest chapter of Teen Titans Meet Time Traveler.
-JoWashington