Teen Titans: "Fading"

Terra- The dream came again. I was on the beach shore, its waves coming closer and sinking into the sand. It seemed so quiet, I felt so calm. I looked to the sky while brushing away my bangs. I was not surprised when I saw the color of the sky, red; like blood; soft and gentle yet quick and sad. I know too much of that color to try and forget it. Aura and Niveus were right; my worst memory would really become more vivid, so much as to make me picture the distant color red. Next I'll remember that night that I've longed to forget. I will not care, as I have said, I will make this memory into an advantage. By gaining horror I will also gain strength. I will soon be strong enough to fight by Aura and Niveus's side. No longer will I be a burden to anyone anymore. I flip over on my bed and slowly close my eyes, this time inviting that dream in.

I felt someone shaking my shoulder. I turn to look them in the eyes. It was Aura; she was calmly staring down at me with a smile on her face. "Time to get up," She says to me. I crawl out of bed and yawn. She tosses me my disguise for when I go out to town; a grey cap and red sweatshirt.

"What do I need this for?" I ask her while putting the cap on.

"I have more than one training ground for you." She throws me a scarf. "Put that on also."

"So," I tie the scarf around my neck. "Where is this new training ground?"

She puts on her own scarf and gives me a look. "The city, duh."

I pause and stare at her in disbelief. "How can I train in the city where there are millions of people, including the Titans?!?"

"Relax, there's a place in the city that you are familiar with, a place that will also help you with your first DUO." She sighed when she told me this, thinking that I should already know.

"DUO?" I look to her curiously. "What is that?"

"Oh, right." she gives me a small smile. "I guess you don't know. Well it's too hard to explain so I'll just say this; it's your second power, but don't worry; earth has more than one family. I'm just taking you to one of them."

"Ok, I still don't get it."

She laughs and grabs my arm. "Come on, let's go already!" Then we both vanished and appeared all of a sudden in one of Jump City's streets.

"Whoa!" I say as I stare at the busy street up ahead. "How did we get here so quickly?"

Aura walked up to me; her hands in her coat pocket. "With one of my DUO's, just bend light a little bit and you can do almost anything."

"Is that your only, um, DUO?"

She laughs. "It's not even half of them." She looks off somewhere else and motions for me to follow her. "Come on, your training grounds are right over here." Then I follow her into an alleyway. The floor splits on us and we start falling down.

"AGH!" I scream as I got caught by surprise. Quickly I have some rock fly up and catch me. I look around, "Aura, hey where are you?"

"SHEESH," comes a voice from above me. I look to see Aura floating in mid-air. "Don't get so paranoid!" She walks down to me from the sky and hops onto my air-borne rock. She points below me. "Look," she says.

I lean over the edge of my rock and look down. There was a huge sea of het red gooey liquid. "Lava?" I ask.

She smiles. "Yep, lava, your first DUO," The she jumps off the rock and lands on air, right under the lava. "Now then," The lava floats up around her, its putrid smell disappearing as it circles and hovers above her ankles and up. "Let's get started!"

She didn't even give me a warning. I barely had enough time to dodge the barrage of deadly liquid that came barreling past me. "What the----." She tossed another wad at me. I shield it away from me with a nearby rock. "Hey!" I yell.

"Be cautious," she says to me. "I can kill you."

"But you won't right?" I ask jokingly. She gives me her small smile, but no answer to my question.

A wave of lava was now heading towards me. I held out my hand and tried to push it back with my small amount of DUO I had so far. For a while the wave retreated, but then it exploded towards me; swallowing me up. My skin was being burned; the extra clothes I was told to put on were keeping me from quickly turning into ash. Anger surged through me, "Get way!" I yelled. A huge wave of my own lava collided into the one attacking me. Both of them disappeared. I fell to the ground, blood seeping out of various cuts I had around my body.

Aura walked up to me, a smug look on her face. She held out her hand and helped me up. "That's enough for today. Let's go patch you up."

"Ha-Ha," I say angrily.

Niveus- I wasn't surprised when Aura came back with a bloody Terra. "So, how was your first DUO experience?"

Terra glared at me as she patched herself up. "None of you said that my life would be on the line."

Aura shrugged. "We just figured that you would know already."

Terra shot me an angry glare. "What about you, what's your DUO?"

I pretend to be flattered by her question. "Why, me? Oh, just this and that."

"This and that?" asks Terra.

"Just sissy powers." says Aura calmly while sitting down. Terra starts laughing.

"They are not!" I yell, but they were already lost in their own laughter. "Just forget it." I get up and leave the room that was now full of laughter. I lean on the hallway wall. Why is Aura even helping that beginner get stronger? I sigh and go into my room.

After turning on the lights and closing the door I jump onto my bed. I take off my goggles and set them down. I fish under my pillow and pull out a tattered photo. I hold the photo up to the light and look at it. I couldn't help but feel sad as I remembered my days when this photo was taken. Days before Aura became only about revenge, days when my brother was still alive, days before Aura started protecting Terra all because of a promise. Staring at this distant photo, the only picture I have of what my brother looked like. I do not like those two making fun of my DUO, because I sacrificed the memory of my brother's face in order to get a DUO. Kind of like how Aura sacrificed her memory of her mother's face in order to gain a DUO, and now Terra is joining in by getting rid of her memory of the Titans; all to gain a DUO. With a DUO comes power, but you need patience in order to master it.

(Hi, thanks for reading my story! It will get better; I'm just giving hints on upcoming arks! PLZ review!)

-FloatingDreamer