Teen Titans: Villainy Chapter 4: Beyond The Grave, a teen titans fanfic

"There are no such things as true friends"

Somewhere in the back of… somewhere, they were the first words she heard, like the final truth of the universe when everything else had gone. The ultimate truth. The only thing left but that fact.

"You're right… you don't have any friends."

And I trusted… him? Who was he? I never had any friends?

But I had stood laughing again. Fully and without fear, and they were all around me, laughing WITH me, not at me. No running in fear.

Who were they? Were they even there?

No wait. Endless running. From them. I had laughed without fear more than once, and they were all around me more than once.

I had friends so many times, and then they suddenly all turned on me.

There are no such things as true friends?

"Seriously. Melodrama. Such a pain."

She turned around in the void. In front of her was man in loose clothes, a bandanna swathed about the upper half of his face, and eyeholes cut through to let white blank eyes that were somehow full of life…

"Who-who are you?"

He shot his hands into the air, "GOD! Okay, maybe not really. But I'm pretty awesome enough. I'm from some other place. A world within and without, that kinda jazz, ya know? But maybe you don't. You always had a more country-ish theme song…hmm…"

"Look, where am I? What do you want from me?"

"Hey, I'm writing a chapter here, and I like them to only be so long, ya know? I don't like writing epics 'n all that, yeah? And all that melodrama and stuff is wasting my words, and it's not moving the plot anywhere. So… WAKE UP ALREADY!"

GOD flicked her nose painfully

She shot up out of bed with a gasp.

Beyond The Grave

Valentine bounced with excitement, "It's here! It's so totally here! D'! Freezie! It's here!"

The other two were lost somewhere in the maze of crates that took up the space in observatory room, which was quickly turning into the preferred "living room" of sorts for the gang. They all called to each far away other, waiting for a response from the distant voices.

Devil Hand looked up and about him, "Yeah, I can sorta see that, Val', seein' that those delivery dudes sorta been stackin' these boxes for the past half-hour, yeh? So, what is it?"

"I said not to call me Val' until you're entitled to it! Bah… you guys see the mechanical harness in the center of the room?"

"Yeah?"

"I am unable at this point of time, as a crate marked for the heavy duty pins is blocking my line of sight. I recall what object you speak of though, Valentine." Mr. Freeze clarified.

"Yeah, yeah! Anyways, I ordered us a brand-spanking new high-powered TELESCOPE! So we can watch for potential for plots of evil from high above! All the really good bad guys have one."

"Interesting. I now understand what costs have absorbed the remainders of our funds. Meaning we will have to plan another heist of sorts in the near future…"

"Dude! You sure that scope holder can hold this scope?"

"Hey! Daijobou, the Japanese would say! I can get it to fit if it won't! I'm Valentine!"

"Granted, I have no immediate fear of that. But from our height, would the reflection of the lens from the sunlight notify the local crime-prevention agency of suspicious activity in a facility that is supposedly completely abandoned?"

"I solved that problem too! I've ordered an extra lens thingy that you can put on the front of the Telescope. It's a cover with a rectangular gap in it, so sunlight won't reflect off it, but the gap is large enough to see through without any trouble. I learned all this after playing MGS3."

"MGS3… Val' you mean Monkey Gone Sordid Three?"

"Yeah… Semi-Automatic Leopard was such a pain…."

Freeze's voice cut in sharply, "Excellent. When the conversation with Valentine moves off topic, which is a notification that all is in order, and my presence is no longer required. You two may continue doing whatever you wish."

Mr. Freeze's footsteps faded away into the sounds of the elevator bell.

Devil Hand piqued up again, "Boss must be checking on the lil' chicky."

"Pah. Achey-breaky is gonna be fine. I'm the one who fixed her up and removed the rock and the metal stuff that was stuck in her nerves, right?"

"Yeah… but Boss was right in some ways. You do work on dead people… and you had a meat cleaver and a kitchen knife in the operation…"

"Hey! I have a certified medical degree, okay? Shut up! I at least know to clean off the blood on the blades!"

The room full of metal made her uncomfortable. There was nothing wrong with it really, plus the cots did look kind of nice.

But, it was all stainless steel. Cut out. Uniform. Unnatural. Lifeless.

Where am I?

That drew a blank. In fact, it seemed that everything before she woke up was just drawing on a blank. Nothing at all. Nothing to tell her she never existed before she woke up.

I'm… I…I'm…I'm…I am…not supposed to be in here. I can't stay here.

Sheets tangled about her, and she tumbled out of bed with a yelp. Her pale legs and her pale arms and her pale neck sticking out of the white cotton gown felt stiff and unused. Muscles already aching with the barest of uses, bones groaning, lungs stretching painfully like new rubber bands…

She finally got herself stumbling into a lean against one of the walls of the room. Sliding across the room, she finally made it to the sliding door built into the wall.

It wasn't moving for her. Hissing, she slammed her palms against the metal, trying to make stainless steel budge.

I can't stay in here! I want to see what's out there! What am I out there? There's life out there! Where I belong! I can't stay in here!

Her breath was quickening, eyes dilating, the steel box around her becoming a world of death in a situation of survival. And suddenly the whole world turned gold like the sun…

Mr. Freeze exited the elevator into one of the corridors that snaked and wormed its way into a network about the innards of the mountainside. It was amazing that all of this was left alone for so long. None of it was newer than the time Freeze and Valentine first came here.

Freezing another cylinder in his mouth, the boy puffed onwards, pushing thoughts aside as he made his way to what Valentine had since assigned as a sort of informal infirmary. As the more sensible of the two founding members, he generally took it upon himself to check on the aftermath of any of his counterpart's mad plots, which in this case had been her haphazard operation on Terra to remove the exposed wires that were driven into her spinal cord and major nervous pathways.

She'd been unconscious, though stable for easily over 72 hours. But that still didn't ease any of Mr. Freeze's suspicions one bit. Valentine never had worked on live bodies before, even with all her training, and she played around too much. After injecting Terra's body with more adrenaline and morphine than imaginable, she took out a variety of large blades (including a new Hanzo Hattori, she claimed, "Hey, I gotta try it some time, right?"), and "Went to Town" as she so aptly put it.

Still, the fact that Valentine was so confident of herself assured Freeze in some strange way, but again, he always blamed it on the unpredictable nature of that sorcerer. Of course, there were also all those spells she claimed prevented scarring, ("I make sure all my projects, even the ones I don't like, turn out looking their best for presentation to the consumers! And I don't think achey-breaky looks good in scars").

Before he knew it, Mr. Freeze found himself in darkness, while standing in front of the infirmary doors.

The electricity supply must have gone out here. We need a more efficient method to maintain this.

He pulled out his cell phone and looked for the saved number for Valentine.

"Hallo, Freezie? Valentine Foundation here at your service!"

"Valentine, the electricity supply is inactive on floor three, corridor one. Activate standby, so I can enter the infirmary."

A few minutes later, the fluorescent lamps flickered to life once more.

"Anything else, Freezie?"

Mr. Freeze realized something was off, when he found the sliding door grating open wearily, sparks flying everywhere, and he suddenly found himself facing the clear inky night sky and open air.

"Yes. I think it would be advisable all members converge in on this location at once."

A few more minutes later, Devil Hand was gawking and Valentine was scratching at her knit cap head furiously.

"DUDE! The whole room's gone! The whole side of the mountain's gone!"

"Gagh! A few days ago she's throwing rocks everywhere, and now she's running around like this! Freezie, this is seriously too much trouble!"

"Perhaps she feels that she may find asylum at the headquarters of the local crime-prevention agency?"

Valentine snorted, "Unlikely."

"Uh, Val' I don't get why it's unlikely."

"Stop calling me that! I swear I'll… seriously, when a rock suddenly turns into a brain, is it going to have any memories in the past to work off of, other than just being rock?"

"You mean she don't have any memories with her?"

"Right now anyways, but since she got transmuted through magic, the residues of it will come back eventually. But not now."

"Now, she is most likely walking around confused in the center of Jump City at night. This Foundation has invested too much in her well being to expend her at this point. We will go and reacquisition her."

"Hey! Freezie! Who died and made you boss?"

"Mr. Phillis. I explained to you previously."

Valentine raised an eyebrow before reciting, just to be sure, "Locium, Vindai, Intar, Retos…. Oh, you're right."

Devil Hand scratched his head, as the three began to leave the door without a room, "Phillis? Who's Phillis?"

"That information is not privy to trial members. Valentine, you take your men and vehicles and-"

"I'm not going out there!"

They were at the observatory by then, and the two males turned around to their lone rebel. Mr. Freeze was unfazed as always.

"Clarify."

"I'm a lot more useful in here! I'll finish the telescope super fast, and I'll find her from up here!"

"I assume this will be from assistance of your magic arts? I believe it would be more effective to use your men and vehicles for a ground-"

"Boodoo People can't even talk or report to me if they find anything! Yeah, Freezie, let's have an army of violence inclined mindless ghouls rove around the city looking for an amnesiac! That'll sure put a good impression on her!"

"Dude, Val's got a point there, Boss."

"No worse an impression than a man dressed like a stereotypical image of a west American cow herder, a woman wearing a knit cap despite the three piece suit, and myself."

"Freezie! I'll find her from up here! Proooooomise! This is coming from a girl who doesn't even like her!"

"I will receive a productive call from you sometime tonight, or there will be consequences. Devil Hand, you are coming with me."

After the good couple of minutes required to get the shaking off after crawling out of the wreckage that arrived on the outskirts of the city, it didn't take long to find out from a discarded newspaper that she was in Jump City, which was in California, the date being November 23, 2004.

And that was it. It didn't mean enough for her. But here she was. The only thing left to do was to walk and see where she would end up.

Empty streets in the dead of night didn't tell her anything either, neither did the cold winds or the full moon in the sky.

Eventually, feet needing rest, she found herself on a bench, in a park, waiting for something.

The falcon soared across the cityscape, supposedly looking for any signs of trouble, before floating towards a rooftop and landing on human feet, which brought the rest of Beast Boy to over look the city with a sort of furious quiet. Starfire, who also volunteered for tonight's patrol, arrived shortly.

"Beast Boy? Are you sure it is all right to pass through the city so quickly? Robin said for us to thorough."

"Robin will call if there's something up! I've got to find Terra, before those guys do something to her…"

Starfired tried to console her friend, "Beast Boy, I know how much Terra meant to you. She is also my friend. But we cannot search any faster for the foundation of the Mr. Freeze and the Valentine."

"I know! But… I just can't sit here. I'll do whatever I can in the mean time and… Terra? TERRA!"

Starfire found the shape shifter frantically looking down at a park, where a familiar blonde girl in white was sitting by her lonesome.

Mr. Freeze turned a corner and found nothing again. For a girl who would probably be the only person awake at this time of night, it sure was taking more effort than he realized.

Valentine had better finish constructing that instrument soon…

The Hawaii Five-O theme started playing from his cell phone. For some reason, Devil Hand had chosen that as his identifying tune. (And lately Valentine had been increasingly dissatisfied with her ring tones, and kept moving from one to another incessantly. Now it was Groovin' Magic again, the same song she would not stop singing.)

Mr. Freeze brought the phone to his ear, another cylinder to his mouth, "Yes?"

"Duuude! We're late. There're like, two of those Titans talking to Ter' in the park!"

"Which park?"

"Some park!"

"…They will most likely attempt to refuge her in their headquarters. If they leave, delay them. But I do not want any combat. In this situation, Terra has no reason to trust either the crime-prevention agency, or our Foundation. I do not want to give her another reason not to trust us by being the aggressor. No slander either."

"What! Boss, I ain't exactly having a silver tongue here! And what if they attack me?"

"Then they are the aggressors, and you have the right to… defend yourself. A full effort, Devil Hand, if I can expect nothing else. I will attempt to locate you."

"Terra!"

She turned her head to the voice and found herself in a spine-shattering bear hug while watching a bird land on a ground nearby and turn back into a green skinned particular. Well, between the whole lungs collapsing and the sudden love, and everything, she wasn't sure how to start. So they did.

"Oh how glorious it is to know you're safe!" The girl with orange skin went.

"It's great! How did you get away from them?" The boy that was a bird went next.

"Get… off me!"

That seemed to shock the two of them off her. The orange girl had a look that seemed slightly reminiscent of a heart-wounded puppy.

"Terra, you do not remember us? It is your friends, Starfire and Beast Boy?"

"Yeah! You know, I was hilarious?"

"…No?"

"C'mon! You got to remember something?"

"Look! I'm sorry, but I just woke up one day in this weird metal room that suddenly flew through the sky, and that's the only memory I have right now!"

Starfire thought for a second, before coming up with the usual conclusion, "Perhaps Robin knows the secret behind this strange condition?"

"Yeah! Maybe even Raven! And Cyborg would wanna know you're back too! C'mon!"

And she suddenly found herself grabbed by the wrist before she knew it, and after she did, she found herself jerking it out of Beast Boy's grip.

"Hey! Back off!"

"Terra…?" Beast Boy gave a confused look, like he was more confused than she was herself.

"And stop calling me that! How do you even know that's my name! And what makes you think I'll go to some place with some guys I don't even know!"

"Dude! She's right!"

A cowboy in a red leather jacket with one sleeve suddenly burst out of the bushes, obviously blind since he was wearing sunglasses at night. He pointed indignantly at the patrolling Titans, "Ah ha! Caught you two guys in the act of kidnap! You ain't getting our teammate! She's OUR teammate!"

Beast Boy and Starfire immediately turned a glare onto him.

"Devil Hand!"

"She may be your teammate, but she is our friend!"

Devil Hand seemed to jerk his head back like it was a foreign concept, before turning to the girl with a tip of his hat, "Heya Terra! Just came to pick you up! We were all worried when you ran off by accident. And don't be listening to these two! They just probably like you because you can throw rocks at people!"

That last phrase, said so plainly, caught her off-guard, "…What?"

Beast Boy suddenly cut in, "Terra! Don't listen to him! He's the bad guy! He's probably the one that's only interested in your powers!"

"Dude! It's only my word against yours! Who's to say which one of us is worse?"

Devil Hand's indignant tone, and this hitch-up just when things were so close to being alright again, infuriated Beast Boy to no end, and his patience snapped, "ME!"

"Beast Boy, wait-"

A Bear was lunging its way towards Devil Hand in one moment. A Left-Handed one-inch punch found it flying into a tree in the other direction, bringing the dazed bear back into a boy.

"Hey! You attacked me first, so it's only fair that I defended myself! Though if you want the truth, I was raring for payback for you sitting on me!" Devil Hand cackled, as he thumbed his nose and fell into a rigid stance.

Beast Boy gritted his teeth as he kicked the bark off his body, "Starfire! Get Terra to a safe place! I'll distract Devil Hand!"

"Right!"

"Hey-wait!" The girl protested as she found herself being picked up by her shoulders and back of her knees and flying through the air all of a sudden.

Devil Hand gaped again from the ground, "Man, this seriously gotta stop happening to me-"

The pugilist swiveled about to dodge a green leopard that landed on the ground crouched, growling.

Devil Hand laughed a breath into his hand, and fell into an easier pose, "Fine, Heaven or Hell, let's rock, huh? Time to get to work."

This time on command, the tattoos on his left arm burned ember orange, and the smell of brimstone began to fill the air again.

"I am sorry, my dear friend who has also lost all previous recollection of our time together, but I cannot let you down any moment soon!" Starfire tried to explain to the thrashing blonde, whose sole command was to let her down.

And for good reason too, according to the alien's logic. For an average Tameranian, maybe a fall from flying meters into the air into the pavement might not be so threatening. But for a normal human?

"I don't care! Just put me down! I could trust you as far as I could throw you!"

"Perhaps, but I believe you can trust even less the man who says he has hands like those of this planet's local 'devils'. He is… not nice."

Distracted by the explanations, neither noticed down below a boy in blue blandly watching them approach, before he turned a fire hydrant nearby. Snapping open the lighter in his hand and sparking the flames alight, he waved a burst of the azure fire onto the red hydrant, instantly turning it to ice. Unable to hold the immense pressure that it could as steel, the iced hydrant exploded into a geyser that shot into the sky, finally alerting Starfire. But it was too late; Mr. Freeze already tossed his lighter into the vertical torrent, turning the water into frozen serpent that continued to grow. With both his hands, the boy had the ice twining through the air and slamming head on into the flying pair. While Starfire was smashed near the top of a building, and slowly trapped in a growing mass of ice, the blonde was tumbling through the air before she crashed onto the roof the Tameranian was below. As she finally smacked her head to clear off the dizziness, she found her legs stiff together in a crude block of ice.

Starfire's voice caught her attention from the edge of the roof, "Friend! Are you unharmed?"

Well, she wasn't exactly her friend, but she wasn't exactly not going to answer either, "Starfire, what about you?"

The little princess' voice called back, "I am… fine, though I am currently trapped in a thick layer of frozen water up to my neck. You must run! The Mr. Freeze must be coming to capture you too!"

The Mr. Freeze?

She looked over the roof, over where she found Starfire's head, and a whole column of ice starting from her and winding all the way down to where a fire hydrant was. There, a boy in a blue hooded winter jacket had just thrown his palm towards the ice, stopping its motion. Smashing a fist into the crystalline surface, the boy rummaged around a bit, before pulling out a sleeve covered in snow and gripping a lighter in his hand, which he used to light some sort of cigarette in his mouth.

He looked up.

The blonde shot back by the sheer bright blue in the boy's eye, like he could just stare a hole through her forehead.

"Terra! You must escape!"

The words snapped her back to reality, and for good reason, "How? He got my legs! I can't even stand!"

The boy rose a foot against the vertical ice, and then the other, and soon enough he was walking up the frozen pathway up like it was no problem. As the Mr. Freeze approached Starfire from atop the vertical bridge, the princess unveiled her last defense. A pair of green beams of energy poured itself out of Starfire's eyes at the boy. He retaliated with a burst of blue flame, which cause the interception to exploded in a shower of steam. Stafire continued to unleash her light of her eyes into the mist, until the ice under her chin suddenly started growing all over her face, leaving her completely submerged under frost.

And the little girl lost, just stared in a slightly growing horror as this… thing just paced its way out of the dissipating fog, stepped on the ice that was once Starfire's head and onto the roof, and just stared her forehead through with those practically blazing blue eyes-

"Excuse me. It was my intention to only incapacitate your companion, not assault you."

And she found him crouching over; palms on her frozen legs, and making the ice crumble off her skin that was cold white like her dress. She stumbled away and made sure to be a good couple of feet away from him.

"Who-who are you?"

"My current alias is Mr. Freeze. Male, age fifteen years, co-founder and currently member of the Friece and Valentine Foundation for Extraordinarily Talented Persons."

"What do you want from me?"

"You forcibly exited yourself from our facilities, despite only being in recovery. Our organization was concerned about the probability of your well being, your being alone at night while not having completely regaining your strength."

"Well, I'm fine! Go away!"

"I cannot. The others and I have an expressed responsibility over you, Terra."

The uttering of that name finally got her, "So… that's really my name?"

"It is."

"Wait- I was just talking to myself! Your word is just as good as any other! How am I supposed to trust you? You and the whole crazy lighter trick! You want me to go your place, and she wants me to go to her place, and I just woke up and everybody suddenly wants a piece of me!"

Mr. Freeze looked down at the tool in his hand for a second, before deciding, "I will disallow myself the use of my primary arm in your proximity, if that is your prerequisite of trust. If you do not wish to follow me, you may lead wherever you desire instead, and I will place our directions at your discretion. We have as long as you want. My only current preoccupation is your safety."

"B-but… she said you were one of the bad guys!"

"I use my powers to assist myself rather than others, that is true. It is only a profession. Worse examples of "bad people" tend to purposely harm others for the pleasure of it. In any matter, the female there is in my knowledge, generally prone to emotional outbursts, heavily biasing her opinion. Shall we go, Terra?"

There was seriously no way out this time for her. There was nobody left for these guys to get into fights with each other, and saying No probably was a death sentence, and she had quite a desire to stay alive for a lot longer than a few hours. Plus, he promised not to attack now…

"Fine! But you better stay where I can see you! No funny stuff!"

"After you."

Beast Boy Sparrow fluttered out of the way of a giant blade of amber energy that ploughed through the ground and incinerated a tree behind him.

"Hey man! You better be lucky this hot stuff just burns stuff away without leaving time to start a fire! With this park around us, we might have started an real cookout!" Devil Hand lectured, while his left arm lost its glow from the attack, until the next time.

"Dude! You're the one whose chucking around those crazy blasts, not me!" Beast Boy thus retorted while crouching on a tree branch, before leaping into the air and diving down at the cowboy as a giant gorilla. Devil Hand artfully back flipped from the giant fists that slammed onto his previous position, before leaping back forwards, a fury of boots and fists smashing into the changed young hero. The left arm glowed suddenly, and the next spinning roundhouse was suddenly bursting into azure flames, the force of the blow ripping into the gorilla's arms and blowing him through the air and against his back on another tree. Devil Hand immediately was spinning in place with his leading left arm, before in lashed out, a horizontal blade of energy discharging towards Beast Boy. The gorilla was suddenly a tortoise in its shell on the ground, while the decapitating blade smashed through the tree above him, and through several more behind it before it exploded in a shower of ash and orange.

"Hiding your head already, lil' green? Why don't ya just cut your losses and just run away as a dog with his tail between his legs! Last time was just a fluke, this time, Devil Hand's all at max!" The suddenly enhanced pugilist taunted as Beast Boy was back on his knees as a man.

"Stop talking! I'm not going to lose to a cowboy wannabe like you!"

"Hey! I dress like this because I like it, not because-"

Devil Hand smashed his glowing left fist into the ground ripping the ground in front of him into a blackened and burned crater, while the lion was blown away again onto his back.

"Seriously. Turn into whatever you want, this God Hand here can take it all."

"Oh yeah? How about this!"

And thus Devil Hand found a rampaging T-Rex on the warpath towards him. He just broke a grin, as he held his left arm in front of him, a halo of amber surrounding the open palm. "No sweat! Just gotta give a lil' yank on the leash here-"

A blast of energy ripped through time and space, and the T-Rex was suddenly suspended in time and in front of Devil Hand, where a glowing right sucker punch reverberated through the green dinosaur, knocking the breath out of its enormous frame. Falling off its feet and onto its behind, the dazed animal left its belly open to a pair of cracking knuckles.

In an instant, the red form blurred its fists with amber streaks as it pummeled its way into Beast Boy Dinosaur's gut, jerking him back and forth, before a Left-hand brought an upwards fist into the T-Rex's body, sending it sliding through and out of the park.

Devil Hand followed in his wake.

Mr. Freeze couldn't blame it on human emotions this time, since Terra was lacking any previous memory, and thus any emotional output that might have been related to it.

Still, he wondered why the girl had led them into an off-season and closed carnival ground. Perhaps it was that residual memory Valentine had mentioned of? If so, that meant this carnival had some sort of distinguishing place in Terra's memory?

"Ugh! I'm tired from all this walking!" She harrumphed as she sat on a cold wood bench.

"It is noticeable."

A silence as the two stood and sat. Small talk felt inevitable.

"Um… Freeze? How did you know about me? I don't even know myself."

"You are a fairly infamous figure in the recent history of Jump City."

This seemed to spark hope in the girl's face, "Really? What does it say about me?"

Mr. Freeze recited again, "Name, Terra. Former affiliations, the local crime-prevention agency dubbed 'Teen Titans', and a criminal known as Slade, as of this moment, deceased. Known for displaying high-level geokinesis, was instrumental for Slade's attempt to control the city, more than capable of handling each individual member of the crime-fighting agency, last recorded. Was considered deceased, given her unusual bodily condition until November 20, 2004, when reawakened by members of the Friece and Valentine Foundation for Extraordinarily Talented Persons."

"I was… dead? How?"

"I do not have the details, but on August 15, 2004, you incited an artificial volcanic eruption on the edge of the city, with obvious intention to flood the city with a magma flow. However, some point into your operation, you defected your loyalties from Slade to the Titans, which was resultant in his death. Afterwards you attempted to stop the magma flow on your own, the consequences, though the process unknown, resulted in your body being preserved in a physical state not unlike a total bodily conversion to rock matter. This form, lacking all inherent qualities of a living being, was thus considered deceased."

"Don't… don't tell me that… I couldn't have… I couldn't have actually wanted to kill people, right? I mean, I'm just a girl right? I couldn't really create a volcano, right? Right?" She tried to explain with a twisted smile didn't quite make all the facts slide off.

"I am afraid it isn't beyond my estimations. You seem to have a marked notoriety for possessing an advanced aptitude for geokinesis, the telekinetic relationship with all earthen matter. Hence, your known name and alias, Terra. Latin for 'earth'."

"But I don't remember any of it! There must be something good about me! I mean… you said I went to the Titans during that time, and Slade's a bad guy-"

"The inverse had occurred before that. My associate says you were affiliated with the Titans at first, but suddenly defected to Slade at a critical moment. She has a tendency to call your final defection a mere case of… 'achey-breaky heart', I believe."

"STOP TELLING ME THIS! I'M NOT BAD! I'M NOT BAD!" She was screaming to herself now, arms over the sides of her head. Mr. Freeze was indifferent to it all, though he knew she wouldn't be listening to any more mature, logical sense until she got herself out of this emotional tomfoolery. Thus, the boy gripped her wrist with his white hand harshly. She yelped in pain and yanked the offended limb away, and he grimaced.

"Ow! What did you do to me?" She practically yelled now, more concerned about the previous movement.

"I merely gave you something to distract you. My body temperature is… extremely low. If I held on for prolonged periods, normal human tissue would start to gain a consistency similar to frostbite. As for me…"

He held up his palm, which now had a deep throbbing red running across the center.

"Anything warm enough is unsuitable for my health."

"I… hurt you?"

"Warmth, which is only the fault of the human species, is what injured me. Now are you ready to discuss this without the incessant and irrelevant noise pertaining to likewise incessant and irrelevant grief?"

"Hey! I don't know about you, but I don't like suddenly being told that my entire life, all I did was betray and hurt people!" She hoarsely retorted through tearstained cheeks.

"It is the truth."

"And I'd rather forget all of it, then!"

Mr. Freeze didn't know whether or not it was wrong of him to think this way, but something Machiavellian awakened in his logic.

"If these prior recollections are so traumatizing, you may consider your amnesia a boon then. My Foundation and I would be more than willing to offer you a fresh start, with no need to remember you before the day we awakened you. You can start up however you wish, but our facilities are already open to you."

"B-but the Titans. They said I was their friend!"

"You may choose who you wish to go to, but if you wish to forget your old life so badly, why desire to return to people who wish to see the previous Terra? Why desire to return to people who would desire to only to remind you of your… less than appreciable choices in life?"

"I…I…"

Groovin' Magic suddenly came on. Mr. Freeze told her to hold that thought as he rummaged for his phone. He should have burned his left hand instead.

"Yes, Valentine?"

"Halllo! I have my eye the sky all ready to go!"

"No need for that now. I have located Terra."

"You should say that after you hear what I've seen!"

"Specify."

"I already saw you guys. You two are at that closed carnival right? Well guess who's coming to crash the party?"

"The local crime-prevention agency?"

"Somebody called in the whole freakin' cavalry. I see the whole car coming. I also see D' and the green guy on a warpath towards you, though I think that's just a coincidence. And the first to arrive is going to be that orange-skinned flying girl."

"Irritating. Valentine, I would appreciate if you reinforced us."

"You're very appreciated! I'll be there! Save a few tokens for the rides for me!"

Freeze shut his phone and turned back to her, "This location is about to become a battleground. It would be prudent for you to find a reinforced location to hide and take refuge in."

"You're just going to leave me to fend for myself?" She choked.

"You are much more capable than you realize. They will be preoccupied with me as well. Go hide now."

Starfire floated to an inch above the ground in the center of the carnival, where assorted inactive booths lay everywhere. Scanning around, she found no immediate sign of the pair, though she caught onto their trail not long after she freed herself from Mr. Freeze's frozen hold.

"I believe you were at one point referred to as the Starfire, correct?" Mr. Freeze's dull tone called as he rounded a stall into her view. She immediately busted out the glowing act with her hands and eyes.

"You! Where have you imprisoned my friend?"

Mr. Freeze shrugged, "I am unsure. I simply prompted Terra to find a place to hide for the ensuing battle."

"And why would she listen to a foul Clorbag Varblernelk such as yourself?" Starfire righteously accused.

With that Mr. Freeze pulled out his primary arms and flicked into a fire, "Because unlike you, I do not necessarily have to shout to validate my points."

Stafire launched herself upward to dodge the jet of frozen flame that consumed the entire alley of stalls beneath her. Empowered by more righteous fury than ever, the Tameranian princess hurled down an entire battery of starbolts down towards the boy in blue. Freeze merely lifted his lighted stream into the barrage, creating more explosive steam that covered each other from view. Starfire, trusting herself, continued to fire away into the smoke.

"You seem to be possessing a general ineptitude for basic strategy." Mr. Freeze observed from behind Starfire, raised into the air on a thick pedestal of ice. As she whirled around, she caught a face full of flamethrower, leaving her screaming towards the ground with burning frost attached to her face and body.

"One of which, I believe, is to always remain on the move." Freeze inputted finally as he manipulated the ice back towards the ground, casually observing the alien that pulled herself from the crater made in the boardwalks. Next thing, the orange berserker was flying in again with more bolts and blasts, Mr. Freeze skating about and away.

"You will return our friend!"

Freeze didn't answer as he escaped full pelt away from the entourage of green bolts, but quickly changed momentum as he suddenly was sculpting a path almost completely vertical into the sky by several meters, his skating starting to slow against gravity while the pursuing Titan kept chasing upwards with blasts. Eventually, Freeze swirled around and brought his fists down. The command onto the ice caused the entire tower in the sky to begin to collapse, large shards falling towards the shocked crime-fighter. Each blast only created smoke, while more shards fell, until she couldn't simply keep up, and was buried under the rubble down at the bottom. Freeze fell soon after, cushioned instead by a thick layer of flame-conjured snow.

Mr. Freeze rose from the snow, almost tut-tutting to the collapsed heap of ice, "You keep speaking of your friend. You should have been more concerned about attaining victory. Of course, as I suspected with all other beings, your emotions keep you from recognizing the reality of the situation."

A green bull ploughed through the metal gates, and through a booth, and then through metal railings, and then after than souvenir shop. All the while, Devil Hand was doing his best not to get gored by either of the points he was between, while he took the brunt of the missile ride through every breakable Beast Boy could find. Eventually, the bull screeched to a halt, letting the villain riding in front fly off and bounce across the boardwalk until he rolled to a stop, shaking his head dizzily.

"Seriously, D'. Gonna know this as the life when you did nothin' but meet with freaks…"

The bull charged again, hoping for a fresh impact. Devil Hand was more than prepared this time. Anticipating the raging beast, Devil Hand actually grabbed the Beast Boy by his lengthy horns, before driving a knee into his green snout, over and over and over and a furious rate. After the series of blows, the Texan reached forward and grabbed the beast by his neck, before lifting the whole animal put in a pile driver, headfirst.

"Dude. Seriously. We're gonna keep fighting and fighting and fighting until the light comes up and back down again. Can't you give it a break already?" Devil Hand groaned, as he backed away from the reverting shape-shifter, who gave a dark look back as he got to his knees.

"Not until you give Terra back!"

"We ain't even done anything to her!"

"Yeah, well I've had enough of people like you taking advantage of her! She's already gone through enough!"

"Tch. Are you even listening, ya twerp elf? We didn't do anything to her, I don't think I'd actually want to do anything to her, and 'sides, the rate things are going, it dun't matter at all. She doesn't even remember any time she got used."

"That's not an excuse!" Beast Boy raged, as he charged towards Devil Hand as an elephant. Seeing predictability, the man swirled around in another headslicing blade, hoping to cleave the giant beast in twain. In sudden response, the elephant was now low to the ground as leopard, the blade of amber flying overhead when Beast Boy shrieked and pounced. Catching a chest full of each other, the two struggled and rolled across the ground, avoiding each other's burning fist or bladed paw.

Kicking the leopard off him, Devil Hand quickly resumed an offensive, and grabbed the animal this time, charging onwards and crashing through breakables of his own, until they disappeared into the foundation and metal framework of the unmoving roller coaster.

Mr. Freeze skated backwards and upwards, the frozen ramp leading him into the geometric jungle that was the metal framework of the unmoving roller coaster. Pursuing him was the ever righteously furious Starfire, who was nonetheless, furious. With metal struts about him, Mr. Freeze was more than able to maneuver in midair, attaching his path to the steel bars about him, while the two traded fire and ice with each other. As Starfire exploded the path in front of Freeze, he was launched through the air before landing heavily atop another bar, and looked up indifferently at his adversary.

"I am curious. Was Terra that integral to the success of your organization's functions? You are expressing an absurd determination to reacquisition your former member. Most other organizations usually just refresh their roster with new members, seeing it is a far more economical process."

"You do not seem to realize, even though I keep saying that Terra remains our friend! We will not abandon her to someone like you!" Starfire growled.

"How naïve-"

Mr. Freeze rose into the air on a rising pillar of ice, while starbolts riddled the building structure as he dodged upwards. As one exploded near his feet, he flew into the air, falling heavily with both booted feet onto Starfire's chest, sending them both downward. Freeze showed no fear as he continued to lecture.

"-friendship and all other objects that seemingly transcend value are an illusion, created by emotional response-"

Freeze kicked off at last minute, leaving Starfire to smash into the ground, while his lighter froze a steep but controlled descent to the edge of the crater, where Stafire was crawling out wearily. As the wind whipped the hood back, ice-blue hair, frozen back like icicles were revealed, stiff and unmoving on the back of his head.

"And as all emotional response is subject to radical change, the value of friendship and all other objects are in a constant illusory state. You beings and your emotions… fickle and trite. The only true value and strength can be discerned with cold, impersonal, and unfeeling logic, without unpredictable variables such as emotion."

"Then I will prove… you are wrong!" Stafire raced low to the ground towards the still Freeze, who merely made a motion to pull his hood back up.

The old frozen path high above crashed atop the princess, as she was about to lay a burning punch.

"You cannot even see past your own haze of self-righteousness and pain. How can you hope to prove anything?"

Truly, if this organization if filled with such misfits, it would be much better for Terra to remain with our Foundation.

A Billy goat sailed over Freeze's head and crashed alongside the ruined frost, while Devil Hand leapt out from the shadows, hoping to pursue his quarry. The sight of Mr. Freeze, though had him stopping at his side in curiosity.

"Yeah, boss? How we doing?"

"Not very well. We are running short on time, and our opponents refuse to yield."

"And we're never going to give up." Robin's voice cut in.

Around and above them, the remaining trio of the Titans aimed down at them.

Cyborg adjusted his cannon, "Seriously, mess with Terra-"

Raven hovered; hands alight with dark energy, "-mess with our friends-"

Robin's fingers curled around blades, "-you just messed with the wrong team one too many times."

"Defeat appears imminent. Strategic withdrawal is the only alternative at this point" Freeze blandly stated, watching Starfire and Beast Boy recover, while the others closed in.

Devil Hand was far to stoked to let that hold him down, as he pointed back up cockily, "Dude! Five on two ain't scary! I took on a whole Mongol horde once-"

"Devil Hand."

"Yeah?"

"First, you were not alive at the time of the Mongol invasion, and second, the Mongolians did not posses shape shifting, telekinesis, flight, or self-projected particle attacks. Withdraw already."

"Dude! You don't know anything then!"

"Titans, GO!"

She seemed to posses a better sense of direction than she first expected, because at the dull noise of thudding explosions, she easily found her way back to the entrance of the funhouse, and peeked out of the corner of the rectangular open entrance.

It was a rather horrific sight to see everybody she knew in her short time, along with a few other notables, making mincemeat out of the carnival grounds.

Five people chasing down two men who were escaping, not even bothering to fight back…

It didn't seem awfully fair, good guys or bad guys and not.

The pair was back to back now, turning around to assess the situation surrounding them.

She couldn't leave them like that. It just wasn't fair. She had to do something-

"Hallo, gu-uys! Guess whose here!" A cheerful voice cackled in the breaking dawn. A girl in a suit appeared on the roof. The floating one with the cloak didn't seem too pleased at the sight of her.

"You..."

"Me! And you remembered! Hey guys! I heard there was a dull party going down here, so I called up some friends to live it up!"

A snap of the fingers. The blonde girl's eyes widened as she watched then a whole veritable army rise to the roofs surrounding the heroes that had surrounded the villains.

A real Mexican standoff.

"You're not getting away with Terra!" Beast Boy yelled.

"She deserves a better party than a self-absorbed, self-deluded, and self-righteous crime-prevention agency such as yourself." Mr. Freeze breathed back easily.

"Oh, you don't talk to us like that! You wanna say that again to my hand here?" The man in blue and silver metal retorted, his arm split into some glowing cannon-end.

"You do that, I'll put my fist through your mouth! Tin-can, you ain't even Alexander!" Devil Hand thumbed downward with his left arm.

"Try it, I dare you." The cloaked girl again shot back, quietly and viciously.

The girl in the suit grinned and raised her fingers, pressed together and raring to snap a thunder, "I double dare you! Even blink and I'll have you doing the lead dance!"

She was shivering at the sight of this. The tension was just waiting for any excuse to snap and blow each other away senseless.

Jeez! They're going to rip each other apart! And over me! I just can't… I won't…

"STOP!"

Everyone turned to the blonde girl in a white gown who appeared, panting heavily, neck and shoulders hunched, baby blue eyes glaring at everyone.

"Stop it. This fight is disgusting." She hissed.

There was an awkward silence, as the Titans as a whole seemed to finally see Terra again. Beast Boy tried to utter her name-

"No! I'm not! I'm not that Terra anymore. I've been told nothing ever good came out of that Terra, and apparently, she still isn't if this blood bath is going to happen."

She tromped over and stood defiantly between Devil Hand and Mr. Freeze, "I'm having a fresh start. Away from any stupidity the old Terra had."

"Terra!"

"No!"

"You can't trust them!"

"I can't trust you guys either." She pointedly shot back.

Beast Boy stuttered, "But… but we're your friends."

"You keep shoving that line down my throat! I'm not the Terra you know, Beast Boy. She may have been your friend, but I don't even remember you beyond tonight! Besides, I trust Freeze more."

"Why!"

"He's right. All you guys are full of yourselves. At least he didn't try to lead me on with the little, 'do I know you?' line. He gave the truth to me straight, and let me choose for myself"

"Terra, don't do this!" Robin intervened, "If you join with them, we won't be able to help but consider you the enemy."

"It doesn't matter! I'm Terra. I'm not a Teen Titan. You can't tell me what to do, and they can't either. I'll choose for myself."

The changeling tried to approach one more time, "Terra…"

"Back. Off. Beast Boy."

Her growled words elicited eyes that glowed gold like the sun, causing a small rift to rip between the geokinetic and the shapeshifter. The action seemed to startle both of them.

"Valentine. It would be prudent to facilitate our evacuation now."

"Got it, got it! Metrium Xaals Tryvase Peos!"

The transdimensional bus ripped through reality and came to a halt behind the Foundation members.

Devil Hand leapt up into the open door, "Dude! I am so freaking out of here!"

Mr. Freeze stepped in after, "That desire is seconded."

Valentine sneered as she stepped back into the vehicle, "Heya, heroes! So we didn't get away with achey-breaky, she decided to come with us! So you go what you want, and we got what we want! Isn't the universe so fun?"

Terra paused only for a second, before turning her back, "Good bye."

The bus flashed and streamed, and disappeared as it drove into nothingness, leaving the Titans alone in the rising day.

For each of them, they could remember distinctly the hollow brightness of that day, of the heat that radiated as the gold sun shined above.

Episode 5: "Queen of the Castle" – Valentine was never one for healthy obsessions. Between controlling her armies, practicing magic, and pacts with the God of Time, she's now seemed to have found a new source of unhealthy curiosity and entertainment. And it all derives from the Titan's own resident spell-caster.