Chapter 6
[The next morning, after breakfast]

Edward had fixed the team a hearty breakfast of bacon, sausages and eggs with sourdough toast as he wanted to hear more of Terra's story. After that, he set up a table with a pitcher of ice water to continue.

He also reached out with his passive senses to discover that everyone slept pretty good the night before, so, he felt comfortable in letting Terra go on…then again, he figured she'd want to continue.

So, after breakfast and reminding Beast Boy it was his turn at the sink (he opted for his octopus form), the team sat down to let Terra continue.

"Well," she started, "Yesterday was the good times, for the most part. From here on, though, it gets rough. And, before anyone pipes up, yes, I do want to continue on regardless."

[August, 2007 – near St. Louis, MO]

Tara had been in the United States for over almost two years, having been sent to America to study. It was part of what her father had arranged when he needed to send her away in the fall of 2005. Tara was, of course, stunned when she was told that she needed to go there. Her father didn't come right out and say it at the time, but, as she got older, she realized that it was because of her powers.

Well, this particular evening in Missouri, Tara was walking with some new friends when they were confronted by some gang bangers who looked at the three teenagers like they were easy pickings.

"Look who we have here, boys," one of the gang members said, "A couple of girls walking through our hood and wearing the wrong passport to boot. What say we educate them on the dangers of walking through our turf without their passport?"

"We don't want any trouble," Tara said peacefully.

"Oh," the guy said, "It's too late for that, little girl." He pulled a blade and his buddies followed his lead, "Do as we say, and no one needs to get hurt."

The girls were frightened, but, they didn't know that they had just set in motion something that, had they known what was about to happen they would have left Tara and her friends alone.

The gang members forced the three into the nearest alley and the leader of the bunch ordered the girls to turn over their valuables. They complied, but, that's when they crossed the line and tried to strip one of Tara's friends, a girl named Jennifer. When she refused, a punk grabbed Tara and said, "Strip you little bitch, or I'll slit your friend's pretty little neck!"

Tara, already scared for her life, felt her powers start to activate. Her eyes started glowing yellow, her hands as well. The gang members didn't notice anything at first, but as Tara's friend was starting to remove her clothes, the ground shook a little bit.

"What was that?" the guy holding the knife asked.

"Just a truck passing by," the other guy said, holding his knife on Jennifer.

Don't lose control! Tara thought as her power built.

The ground shook again, much harder this time as cracks formed in the cement.

"Damn!" the guy holding the gun said, "That's no truck unless it crashed into the building!"

The guy holding the knife happened to see Tara's hands glowing and said, "Girl, what the hell is happening? Jim, look!"

The guy named Jim looked at Tara and saw the glow in her eyes and aimed his gun at her.

"What the ^(^&$ are you?" he asked.

"I could be your worst nightmare," Tara said as the ground quaked again, this time hard enough to knock the guys to the ground.

Focus, Tara thought. Chunks of pavement ripped themselves up as the gang bangers realized that the odds were no longer in their favor and started running. They were pelted heavily with the cement, but, what scared them the most was a slab of concrete ripping itself up in front of them and then they were falling into the hole.

Tara let her powers fade and the concrete fell back to the ground. The gang bangers were trapped anyway and would need to be rescued.

"You OK, Jen?" Tara asked.

The look of fright on Jennifer's face though was not what Tara wanted to see right before Jen said, "Stay away from me, you freak! Don't come any closer!"

Tara was stunned. She just saved her friends and for what? Jennifer and Sue ran off into the street and were almost hit by the emergency vehicles as they rolled past in response to the various alarms going off.

Tara also took off for where she was staying. She knew that if she hung around, some awfully hard questions might be asked. In fact, she knew that it would soon be time to try to slip away before people started to realize that she was causing the earthquakes. In the past few years, ever since the incident in Markovia, she was eyed with worried glances and in some cases, outright loathing.

Her powers were somewhat controllable, but, it was hit or miss with them. This evening, she got lucky in stomping those bad guys. But, deep down, the geomancer knew that it might be a matter of days before people would know. The look on Jennifer's face told the tale. She'd tell her friends and they'd turn against Tara.

[Tower]
[A/N: I'm mentioning a few characters from "Kung-Fu The Legend Continues". Out of respect for the late David Carradine, I am not using his best known character as alive.]

"I know that feeling all too well, Terra," Edward said.

"Same with me," Cyborg said. He had, of course, told the team a long time ago that people at first didn't like the thought of a half robotic man in their midst. When he first met the Titans, he was wearing a hoodie to hide his implants. But, for Cyborg, it was worse for a long time as he was not just half machine, but, his human half is that of an Afro-American, so, there was the racial prejudice that came with it.

So, on top of the hateful comments about his robotic side, he was also called various racial slurs.

Edward, having spent centuries hiding from those who would want to do more than just name call and taunt, knew Terra's inner struggle had caused a lot of damage as well. That was one reason Edward took Terra under his wing right away and mentored her the best he knew how.

It was a trait his friend Caine encouraged as well. Caine, of course, knew Edward's nature and offered Edward not just additional training in Kung Fu, but, a more precious gift: Wisdom. Caine would take the time to mentor those who needed it. Thus, when he had passed away, his funeral itself was a private Shaolin affair, his son, Peter, realized that there were a lot of people his "Pop" had helped and would need closure. Peter arranged for a public memorial service to allow the late Kwai Chang Caine's dearest friends and those he helped to say good-bye.

Edward reflected on that event for a moment, as he missed Caine. When he was told of the manner of the priest's death, he helped the local PD in capturing the killers. They weren't so tough facing an enraged Dragon when their safe house turned out to be not so safe after being destroyed. But, Edward then reverted to his human form and proceeded to use his Kung-Fu skills to defeat them.

He wanted to avenge Caine, but, he remembered that Caine would not want that as well as his own rule: Use only the force necessary to deal with the threat. So, he stepped back and allowed Kermit to put the cuffs on.

But, Edward didn't ponder that too long. He had to stay focused on the present.

"It was hard," Terra said, "I had already been forced to move over and over because of my powers causing too many problems. But, as I grew older, it became obvious that I had to move out here. With the earthquakes that tend to happen, it would have taken longer for people to suspect they were not natural quakes."

"That certainly bears up," Robin said, "There was an uptick in tremors in southern California that didn't really mean too much as they weren't that powerful."

"It was a smart move," Edward said in agreement, "But, the cost was just too high to pay after a while. The people looking at you funny because they know something's not quite 'right'. Terra, my dear, you had it lucky as if you were born in the 1700s, the first time your powers went out of control might have been the last. People back then were far more likely to hang you and ask questions later. I certainly know how you felt: Rejection, loneliness, not really knowing if you'd have to make a run for it on a moment's notice. Then, again, I eventually found the folks who showed me the one thing I had almost lost: Hope. Hope that someday mankind would grow out of the idea of killing on sight someone like me. It was an awesome relief when I showed those folks my true self and they didn't even bat an eye."

"Do you think that will really happen for me?" Terra asked softly.

Edward stood up slowly and walked over to Terra. When he got there he stood Terra up gently and said, "Tara Lyn Markov, you already know the answer to that. I'm so sorry that you went through the years of rejection. But, know this: It's already happened. You're more than a member of this group: You're family. Nothing going to change that, not in my eyes and not in my heart.

"I've lived through the worst of man's prejudice and, I hope that one day, we don't put lip service to 'tolerance' and live up to a higher standard. But, I know that day is a long time in coming.

"You think I would personally allow someone to call anyone on this team a 'freak', a 'monster', or, in Cyborg's case, a word that I will never use in his presence regardless of context? We weren't here when Starfire was called a troq…and she knows that, to me and the rest of the team that she is a somebody who deserves the love and caring that only an honor family can provide."

Terra's emotional control started to collapse. It was part of her mental issues, though, stuff that was slowly healing.

Edward held Terra as his empathic senses kicked into overdrive and he said through the link to Raven, [Shield yourself!]

Raven merely nodded her assent.

Beast Boy also stood up to comfort his girl. Terra had been rejected for so long, even by this very team, that it still was hard for her to grasp the depth of their forgiveness and their friendship.

She wept quietly and deep down, the resident Dragon's heart went out towards her once more. He knew that she needed to work a lot more on the healing aspect and that being there, with the Titans and especially Beast Boy was the best therapy for healing a shattered soul.

And, he knew that the damage was, in fact, so bad at one point, her soul was badly wounded. The petrification didn't help matters, but, for some reason, Terra's soul stayed within the stone. Edward's vast experience didn't have the answer to that question.

The here and now, though, demanded healing. So, Edward held Terra once more as she was finally able to let go of some of those negative feelings. He could almost sense her long shattered emotional state coming back together a little more by telling her story. But, he knew his work with her was not finished by a long shot.

Deep down, he knew that she had lived a highly condensed mini-version of his wanderings. The centuries he spent hiding his true self, only allowing himself to morph into birds and other creatures at night or when it was safe for him to be his Dragon self, as in far from prying eyes. Terra, though, didn't have the luxury of an immense lifespan to get used to the idea. In the space of a decade, her life was turned upside down over and over again.

He sensed that she still feared being rejected by the team at some point. What Terra didn't know, though, was that Edward would make sure that she was always welcome wherever he and Raven would end up. He knew that there would be a day when the team disbanded. It was inevitable, but, he hoped that when that day arrived that it would be by a mutual friendly choice. It would be best that way. Edward knew that the other couples in the Tower, if it came down to it, would choose to hang up their hero lifestyle if the need ever arose.

Terra eventually calmed herself down and said, "Thanks. I wish I wasn't so insecure at times. It's a royal pain."

"Why is that?" Beast Boy asked innocently.

"You always had a home, BB," Terra said, "or at least you were able to fend for yourself and had control over the animal forms you can do. After that incident in Markovia, I went from place to place, and never had a true home. I was struggling to survive when you found me the first time. That cave could have been my tomb, even before I was petrified. Had my powers gone out of control, it might have brought that cave down on me."

"You've always got a home, Terra," Edward said.

Terra looked at Edward strangly and asked, "What do you mean?"

Raven replied, "Because, there may be a day when the team disbands and goes our own way. Edward and I talked about it recently and should you ever find yourself needing a safe house, our door will always be open. That goes for any member of the team."

Terra smiled hearing that bit of news.

She sat back down and said, "The next part of the story is a few months later…"

[October, 2007 – Kansas City, KS]

After the incident in St. Louis, as Tara feared, her friends turned against her within 48 hours. Sadly, no one would listen to her attempts to cover her tracks as Jennifer throughly trashed Tara's reputation. It didn't matter that Tara's powers had saved Jennifer from being raped and possibly murdered in cold blood, nor, did it matter that there was no real explaining away why several buildings had sustained thousands of dollars in damage and why an alley looked like it was torn apart by a backhoe. Or why there were several wanted gangbangers at the bottom of a deep hole. At least Tara didn't bury them, and she had wanted to do just that.

Tara was asked to pack her things and leave by her sponsors a week after the incident and advised not to return. So, she slowly made her way across the state and had made it to Kansas City and a shelter there by the time the weather started getting colder.

But, it would not last as long as she had hoped.

One evening, as Tara was walking back to the shelter, she was again accosted by some guys who thought she might be easy pickings.

This time, Tara was alone when she was accosted by these folks and while there were five of them, they quickly discovered that a scared and/or angry Tara was capable of as they were dispatched with actually well placed clumps of rocks and stones.

She managed to avoid the earthquake issue that time, but, that night, Tara had a nightmare where she lost control and instead of just stunning bad guys, she would kill them. She woke up due to the tremors shaking the entire city! After she managed to calm down, she decided to run again and was able to hitch a ride on a train heading west.

After several "near misses" with railroad detectives trying to prevent stowaways on freight trains, she made it to the outlying areas of Jump City where she found a cave and set up shop there.

It wasn't easy, though, but, she had a roof over her head, blankets for the nighttime chill and food. Granted that the food was certainly NOT abundant, there was enough to sustain her for a while.

But, as the months passed, she grew thinner, going from 135 pounds to 100 pounds. It was getting harder for her to stay at her desired weight as the desert areas weren't exactly the best for the young geomancer. She would routinely practice control over her powers, but, several times, she'd trigger small to moderate earthquakes in the process. Luckily, even the USGS didn't put together that the earthquake swarm was manmade.

However, one of those practice sessions awoke a giant scorpion like creature who considered the rail thin Tara (who by then adopted the alias of Terra) to be a tasty snack.

Terra had already scoped out the landscape and knew that there were several areas she could lure the angry beast into, so as soon as Terra knew that she was in deep trouble, she took off running.

I have to lure this thing into a trap! She thought as she was running for her life as the scorpion gave chase. She didn't notice the shadows on the ground as a group of teenagers arrived.

By then, she had lost her butterfly hair piece. It was a gift from Brion before she left, so, there was a lot of value in that to her. But, she didn't have time to retrieve it as the monster was right on her heels.

Unknown to her, the alarm at Titans Tower had already sounded and the team was en route to help.

She headed for the end of a canyon and turned around to see that her plan actually worked as she activated her powers. Eyes glowing a fierce yellow as well as her hands, she focused on lifting the stone bridge above the creature and it tore away from the walls as easily as tearing a piece of paper. It was a strain on her powers, though as they threatened to go out of control.

She heard someone calling "Titans GO!" but, she couldn't let that distract her for a moment.

She let out a yell and used her abilities to push the stone into the creature's exoskeleton. With a sound of pain accompanied by the crunch of shell, the creature was killed.

She smiled at her work and raised a pillar underneath herself to rise to the top of the canyon wall. Then, she was introduced to the Teen Titans, who she had heard many stories about.

Beast Boy is kind of cute! Terra thought to herself, And he's really funny! It's been too long since anyone really made me laugh. But, Raven looks like she doesn't trust me. But, DAMN! Starfire almost broke my arms with that bear hug. Ouch!

Unknown to anyone, Slade Wilson had been watching Terra from afar and knew that with the right training, she would make a perfect apprentice. Even a criminal mastermind like his realizes that Terra would be very dangerous without meaning to be. Her powers were barely under her control and he had reasoned, correctly, that she was the cause of several unexplained earthquakes and avalanches where it was normally geographically stable.

"Don't get too attached to her, Titans," he said to himself, "I saw her first." He had to get under Terra's skin, undermine her new found friendship with the "good guys" somehow. But, he already had a few ideas on how to accomplish that and convince her to be his apprentice at the same time…

[Present time – Titan Tower Ops center]

Edward frowned and said, "This was the pivotal point here, but, there's still pieces missing. I knew about the St. Louis earthquake and the aftermath. It was just a little too 'neat' that some low level gang bangers happened to end up in a hole and nearly a million dollars in damages to buildings and the street.

"I was aware of a similar incident in Kansas City and that is far more stable than St. Louis but with similar results. Also, there were landslides that seemed to part in the middle, sparing buildings which should have been destroyed. I started to suspect a geomancer at that point, Titans.

"That said, though, and knowing that the source is this beautiful woman here in our midst tells me that, yes, she was trying to be good and saving people without hurting the bad guys. I gotta give Terra her prop here, that's for certain.

"But, a word of warning, what Terra is going to tell us after the misunderstanding with Robin is not going to be pretty. I've heard this part of the story in our sessions, but, it's for her to tell you. But, I will ask everyone here to not judge her too harshly when all is said and done."

He reached over to Terra who seemed to be struggling with her feelings once more. She leaned into him for strength and a few tears fell.

"I don't know if I can continue, Edward," she said, "The memories are so painful, and, I'm ashamed at some of the things the guys don't know about, except for you and Garfield to some degree."

"Tara," Edward replied, "You know you can stop at any time and the guys know the end results of what you went through. I know each one of the team well enough that they will try to understand what you went through. They all have their stories as well that they are not proud of. You think I've done things that I am not proud of, that I'm not ashamed of doing, either by choice or because I had no choice in the matter? Everyone on this planet has screwed up at one time or another and regretted it."

"I know," she said sadly, "You've been a great friend and saved me a couple of times, once when I didn't even know it and when Brion tried to tell me, I told him it wasn't possible for there to be dragons. The other when I was petrified."

Robin stood up and said, "Terra, whatever you've done, we won't judge you for it. That's in the past. When Edward felt your life force, I know I felt relief that we'd get a chance to right any wrongs we did to you and why it made you so angry at all of us, except Edward. You couldn't have known that after you shut down the volcano that the original core Titans sat down and we had a long conversation, probably the longest one we've had until now and we decided, as a family, that your sacrifice was your redemption. Not as a team, but, a close family. We didn't even know your fate until after that."

Edward and Raven were suddenly rocked by an outpouring of emotion from Beast Boy.

[Oh no!] Raven said, [I think something snapped in Beast Boy. You see, dearest, he went to the site first and discovered the statue Terra had become. He was utterly heartbroken.]

[Dang,] was all that Edward said as he erected some mental shields. Raven did the same in her mind.

Edward released Terra and went over to Beast Boy, "Garfield, my brother. You don't need to stay if you do not want to. No one will think less of you."

Beast Boy looked at Edward and replied, "If Terra's going to be my wife someday, I need to know everything she's comfortable telling us, right?"

Edward smiled, "Very true. Rae and I share space in each other's minds, so, she knows pretty much everything that her mind can handle, so, there are no secrets. I know as much about her as possible as well."

Beast Boy took a deep calming breath and let it out a moment later.

By then, it was mid-day and Edward called a break to fix some lunch for the team. As the team still had some leftovers from previous meals, it didn't take long for him to reheat and to get served.

But, Edward was worried as well. He knew Terra's story from when she met the team and he felt that while the team needed to know, the geomancer herself was afraid of what they'd think of her. The only two that knew what she did with Slade after she bolted were Beast Boy and himself and that enough that Terra would wonder what the others would think.

Raven's empathic senses also were working overtime, picking up Terra fears and the starting to re-open emotional scars Beast Boy still carried because of Terra's betrayal. He didn't get any counseling for it, save when Raven would set aside her own feelings towards Beast Boy and knock on his door or find him in "Terra's spot" by the bay, silently crying. That broke through even the tough shell Raven erected around herself.

So, in those times, she would allow him to cry on her shoulder … as she had when she was betrayed by Malchior and he held her. Despite their constant bickering before Edward joined the team, there was a mutual trust and respect there that was cemented over their respective broken hearts.

But, Beast Boy was still healing deep-down from what he had gone through and while a lot of it was healed when Terra returned from the stone prison and their relationship had blossomed in the meantime they had to confront the bitter past as well and either be able to really put it behind them or the relationship was doomed.

Edward didn't need his senses to know that there could be the ripping off of Beast Boy's inner emotional scars and it could get ugly. Edward hoped that he would not have to restrain Beast Boy if his primal instincts took over. If Beast Boy remained calm, all was good. If not, Edward might be forced into the position of stunning someone he considered a little brother.

Time would tell.

Hi, everyone!

With the muse being too quiet, it's been very difficult to work on this story to the point I didn't really think of anything until the last few days prior to posting this. I'm going to skip ahead next chapter to after Terra bolted the first time and was found by Slade and trained by him. I will NOT be writing sex scenes between her and Slade *Trying not to think about that one*.

I got the other stories still going as well so, hopefully, there will be updates sooner rather than later.

Please...read and review and give my inner muse something to cheer about. It's really not that difficult, is it? Sure, I ADDED to the team instead of creating new villains to cope with, but, does that REALLY require a cold shoulder? I see people who say "This is my first story" and they got a LOT of reviews. One writer I enjoy reading has nearly 1500 reviews and that gives her a ton of motivation to write more. It's really depressing to know that in all my stories there's a grand total of...57 reviews.

*sigh*.