Night of the Living Terra

We enter on a desolate scene. The view slowly zooms in on the statue that serves as both Terra's memorial and grave, a wilted rose sitting on the plaque. A cold wind passes by, stirring up some leaves. As we go in closer, the two stone eyes start to glow with a yellow light...

As the two golden points started to shine brighter, cracks began to appear along the stone. Little pinpricks and seams of light manifested, growing brighter and spreading. On of the gloved hands broke free, and then soon the entire stone carapace was shattered. Swaying in the wind stood a gaunt, skeletal figure. Her blond hair was faded to almost white. Her clothes were colorless and dusty. She swayed in the wind, eyes still glowing, and slowly emerged into the moonlight to reveal a terrible face, with firey yellow burning in deep sockets, a face that was not so much as face as it was a skull.

The thing that was once called Terra was horryfying to behold. Its skeletal body was entirely devoid of flesh, its eye sockets glowed like some noxious chemical, and it smelt of clay and bone. It was a truly grim and ghastly exaggeration of the stick-thin figure it had possessed in life. It tilted its head up to the sky and let out a soul-rending shriek.

A short, pear-shaped man in a suit stumbled along across the street with half-empty bottle of vodka in his hand and a key in another smelling of alcohol and cabbage. As he wandered towards a parking lot, he felt a hand grip his shoulder and turned to see the half-living thing it was attached to. He ran, breaking free of the grip but raking his arm across the cruel bony claws in the process. Mud bubbled out of the ground and hardened on his legs, holding him fast as the skeleton rent his middle aged body to bloody chunks.

The thing that used to be Terra stared down at the bloody remains of the man it had slain with cold, unexpressive yellow glows that passed for eyes. "Flesh here...enough to...make me whole again."

Beast Boy looked out over the harbor and sight. "Terra..." His sad eyes gazed on longingly as he leaned against the railing, wind ruffling his hair. You lied to me. You betrayed me. You tried to kill me. But I still miss you. I love you Terra. I want you back more than anything in the world. He turned his head upward and gazed at a star. "I wish Terra was back."

Beast Boy felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned around to see Raven. "Oh...hi Raven," he said, forcing a smile. "You really miss her," Raven said in her best attempt at a soothign tone of voice.
"Yeah."
"Well-" but Raven was cut short by a familiar sound. "Titans, go!"

~*~

Teen Forensics

The Titans arrived to meet a greusome sight. Lying on the ground was a blood-stained human skeleton. Raven and Robin just looked on grimly, Cyborg cringed, and Beast Boy stumbled back. Starfire looked at it curiously. "What is this bizzare thing?"* she asked. "It was human. Now it's a skeleton." Starfire's face was crossed with first shock, horror, and then she turned away and became violently ill on the sidewalk. "What happened?" Beast Boy gasped. "That's what we're here to find out." Robin replied gravely.
"How could this body have been just lying out here for so long?" Robin postulated. "That's the thing, it hasn't." Cyborg said somewhat confused. "According to the scanners this corpse isn't more than a few hours old. Something took the flesh clean off."
"Acid?" Beast Boy suggested. "Can't be, the bones aren't evenly worn, and that wouldn't account for the blood." Raven leaned over for a look. "These have some kind of indentations, they look like teeth marks." The others digested this information for a bit. As starfire breifly recovered she asked "but what manner of creature on your planet would consume and entire human?"
Robin then gave a very somber look. "Not what, who. The bone is more crushed than peirced, the indentations, only human teeth leave marks like this."
"So we've got a Jeffrey Dhalmer on our hands?" Beast Boy said incredulously.
"Exactly."

_____________________________
*Under my theory of tameranian physiology, tameranians have caralige in lue of bones
A little footnote/elaboration: Raven comes from a hellish netherworld so a corpse is nothing frightening to her. Robin used to be batman's sidekick and they saw some pretty grim sites so he likewise is undistraught. Starfire is repulsed by the corpse having never seen a human in such a state. Beast Boy is not used to this at all so encountering his first dead body, and in such unusual and frightening circumstances is a traumatizing blow to his psyche.



While the others mused this morbid conundrum, Raven stared at the remains, deeper than the physical appearance, gazing on with her second sight. There was something about them, some residual hint of supernatural energy that was familiar yet, different, if only-
She was cut short by a scream from Beast Boy. He was near a pedestal with some rock shards scattered about it, rolling on the ground and laughing. "What do you find so hilarious at such a dreadful time?" Starfire asked him in an irked tone of voice. Beast Boy only continued laughing and writhing. It was almost more like a seziure than the genuine throngs of laughter, and while his face was contorted with laughing, his eyes blazed with pain. "Beast Boy, stop, snap out of it!" Raven shouted as she shook him with escalating urgency going on panic. She slapped him repeatedly, but he was either completely unaware or incapable of response. Cyborg and Robin had come over. Cyborg did a quick medical scan. "Nothing seems to be physicially wrong with him. Not even a trace of nitrous oxide. He must be in severe mental shock, but what could shake him up so much?" "That" said Raven, pointing to the name on the plaque which read "Terra".

The thing that called itself Terra stood and examined its new body. The flesh had been absorbed and fitted in to replace her own well. The body shape matched hers, although it was overall wider and larger due to the more abundant source from which it had been aquired. It was shaped as naturally as if she'd gained 140 pounds herself rather than stripping them from somebody else and consuming them. The flesh itself had a smooth texture, almost too smooth, like a scab. The coloring was a mixture of the pinkish tint of skin rubbed raw with streaks as dark and red as blood. Despite this it was well blended, with none of the choppy patched-together appearance of a classic Frankenstien's monster. One could have almost mistaken it for a living but badly burned human were it not for the eyes, still as harsh and hollow as ever.

I haaave flesh, it thought in its grotesque parody of a mind. But something is still missing. I need something...something...something... a brief flash of memory lapsed through its rotting skull, an image, running, running across the dusty wasteland, running from something or towards something...
And then it was gone again. The unholy thing disregarded it for more pressing matters. It must be flesh...not enough. Need more to...to be whole...again.
With that the grotesque parody of a very troubled blond girl walked off into the night in search of more prey.

Back at the tower, after a lot of comforting and some psychiatric drugs, beast boy managed to calm down.

"I'm sorry about that, it's just, the body, and then, seeing her destroyed like that, T-, Ter-" beast boy dissolved into sobs and starfire leaned over to give him a soothing embrace. "I...I think I'll just go and get some rest..." beast boy said and went off to his room trying to choke back the flow of tears.

"There's something I think I should tell you," Raven said. "The body, it had some residual supernatural aura. Part of it I can't quite place although it seems to be tied to the earth element. The other part was very clear though. Those bites were made by one of the Vitamorits, the living dead."

"Wait, you're saying a zombie ate this person?" Robin said incredulously. "No, not a zombie. Zombies are mindless playthings of powerful spellcasters, they have no need or desire to eat anything. It might have been a ghoul, but the signs of violent struggle and the intact marrow make me highly doubt that. It could be some unique form of undead creature created by the negative energy of death interacting with some other magical force, which I'm almost sure is the other power I detected."

"You can't be serious. I mean, dead bodies don't just come back to life and start eating people. It's impossible!" Cyborg said. "Riiight, just ignore the advice from the half-demon girl with supernatural powers of mental levatation." "Point taken."

The next morning Beast Boy was breifed on Raven's findings. "So no we have to fight a fucking ZOMBIE?!" "It's not a zombie, it's undead." Raven patiently clarified. "Same difference. The point is, it's dead, it's walking around, and it's eating people. How do we get rid of it?"
"No idea," Raven said coldly. "We haven't even actually seen it yet, so how can we know how to defeat it? It could be incorporeal, although I doubt that incorporeal creatures leave bite marks. It could be rolling glob of flesh immune to physical attacks, or it could be a tangled mass of bones and skulls. We can't figure out how to destroy it until we know what it is." Just then there was a familiar beeping.
"Looks like we're going to find out. Titans, go!"

The Titans arrived in a small part of town that looked as though it had been hastily deserted. The only person they saw was a girl in faded clothes and severly scarred skin bending over a bloody corpse.

Robin stepped forward. "This must be very hard on you, but could you please tell us what happened?" The girl did not answer. He finally grabbed her by the shoulder, and he recoiled in horror at the face he met.

The girl turned around to reveal the tell-tale peice of skin still hanging from her mouth, blood dripping down, proof of her grisly crime. But even worse than that was they eyes she stared at him with. They were cold and harsh, giving of yellow light like the glare of the desert sun, an inhuman glow.

"Flesh."

Robin backed away stunned as the mockery of unlife set to finishing its horrid meal. It then rose up in full view. Starfire was frightened. Cyborg was shocked. Raven looked on grimly. But beast boy saw only one thing in the eldritch, pseudobiotic shambler.

"Terra..."

"Terra!" he called again, and began running towards her. "NO!" Raven cried. "That's not Terra!" But he was deaf and blind to all the others, gazing through time, past the layers of dust, bone, and stolen flesh into the face of a troubled little blond girl.

As the thing looked at him, he embraced it with the mad delusion of love and trauma-induced insanity, clinging to her like drowning man to a peice of driftwood. At the words and the touch the cold blasphemey had a flash of memory, a wave of recollection. Her hair blowing in the wind, riding a rocky ridge, and that same green person, the name over and over, Terra, Terra, Terra.
"Terrrraaa," it said, dazed. "Terraa." It then shook its head, discharging some blood in the process, and leaned over placing its mouth over beast boy's shoulder, opening its jaw wide in preparation for a large, hard, bite.

Just as the human yet inhuman jaws started to close on beast boy the head was knocked back and spun 170 degrees by a blast of dark energy. "Run you moron!" Raven yelled. "Terra, are you okay?" asked a delirious Beast Boy. Ex-Terra rotated its head back into place exhorsist-style. She opened her jaws, supsending flecks of blood and saliva, and lunged forward only to have Beast Boy yanked out of reach by the black telekinetic force of Raven. The thing glared and snarled a gurlgling growl of anger at Raven. "DEATH!" it yelled at her, fruitlessly clawing at air.

The UnTerra seemed to glide across the ground after them at insane speeds. Finally when they seemed to have gained some distance the two landed in a grassy hill. As the clouds shifted, the full moon shone down on the tombs and gravestones surrounding them. "Terra wouldn't like it here, it's scary. Why did Terra leave? Why did you take me away from her?" Beast Boy asked. Raven felt a swirling mixture of intense pity and disgust. "SHE'S NOT TERRA! That, that, <b>thing</b> is just a shadow, a ghost, a left-over. You've got to understand! Get this threw your diseased head!"
"...I want to see Terra." Raven wasn't sure whether to scream, sigh, or weep. "Listen to me! Listen to me! Just please, come back to us! You've got to clear your head! You're not well!" Raven clutched beast boy's limp body in her arms, unintentionally smothering him in her chest. She heard a muffled "mmm, squishy" and then blushed deeply followed by a small explosion nearby and released Beast Boy. "What the hell is wrong with me!" he said, as the recent events suddenly flashed back through his head. He felt the fog in his brain lift. As he felt this, he felt the ground vibrate as the horror that was known as Terra stumbled into the graveyard.

UnTerra moved towards the above-ground tomb that held Raven. "Baaaad gurrrll..." it said, it's face contorted with a demented smile. With a sickening sound it worked its jaw loose, then dropped it to hang down several feet, dangling as it prepared to engulf it's prey, and then...BLAM!

The UnTerra's face was blasted off by a starbolt. At the same time Raven burst out of the tomb with a telekinetic blast. UnTerra then sucked in a little, and slowly as its waist and flesh receeded, blood flowed up and convered the bear bone where into condensed into flesh substance indistinguishable from the rest. Then a small green worm wriggled out of the pillar of earth that held beast boy and resumed its human shape. Beast Boy yelled out in anger before going Rino. The body of Terra was hit with another flashback. "How could you Terra? I trusted you!"
"You think you could try to destroy us and we'd just take it lying down?!"
"It's always been your choice!"
"He's right, you don't have any friends."
"Noooo..." it choked out huskly. "Dooonn't herrrt mee...sarrry..." Beast Boy froze, paralyzed by sorrow and guilt. "Terra?"
But then the thing let out another unholy scream, and in a spiral of dirt and stone vanished underground.

Beast Boy, Raven, Starfire, Robin, and Cyborg all sat in the Titan Tower with grim looks. "So...what are we going to do?" Beast Boy asked to knowbody in particular. "Simple. We have to find a weakness, and destroy her." Robin said gravely. "If by 'destroy', you mean 'turn back to normal, then I'm with you. Otherwise, no fucking way."
"We have to," Robin said. "She's eating people alive. We can't sacrifice the lives of everybody in the city just because this...this thing happens to be possessing the body of a friend. The thousands of lives of people living here matter more than her half-life."
"But there could be a cure. We could find some way to get her to normal."
Cyborg spoke up "Techinically speaking she's still dead, and nobody's ever found a cure for dead."
"But...we can't! Star, we can't hurt a friend!"
"I am sorry beast boy, but that is not my friend. Robin and Cyborg are right."
"No...no...no." Beast Boy trailed off into a whisper.
"There is one thing we can do. There's a spell that might return her too life."
"I don't like the sound of 'might'," Robin said firmly. "We can't afford to take that kind of a chance."
"We can't afford to lose Terra forever!" Beast Boy was flaring at the nostrils now. His eyes were bloodshot, he was literally seeing red. "I DON'T WANT ANY PART IN THIS! I WON'T LET YOU DO IT!" at those words his face hardened. His nose started stretching and twisting around like a worm. His ears split out as if a new layer of skin was being ripped from his skull. His canines curved and grew to grotesque proportions, shooting out the sides of his mouth. His sides exploded as his skin stretched and wrinkled into overlaping folds. His hands and feet bloated and melted into circular pads. He let loose a trumpet of rage, and Robin found himself facing down a charging bull elephant.

For those of you who don't understand what just happened (there was some confusion with the test audience), Beast Boy flipped out, turned into an elephant, and attacked Robin

Robin was paralyzed by shock. Just as he was about to be crushed underfoot, the charging green behemoth was engulfed in a black glow and hoisted into the air. "STOP!" Raven said in a commanding voice. She held beast boy in the air until he calmed down and changed back. Raven spoke.

"Alright, there's no point in running into battle without understanding an enemy, so I'll fill you in. From what I can garner this creature still has strong ties to the earth element, and although she can only manipulate earth-material in burial places such as tombstones and graveyard soil, it remains her greatest strength and weakness. Since she's undead, she should be powered by a combination of negative life force and earth elemental energy. The opposite then is a melding of positive life energy and air element, which corresponds to lightning."
"Well, that shouldn't be to difficult. We've got plenty of things that generate electric charges," Cyborg responded.
"Wrong. I said lightning, not just electricity. This is magic we're dealing with, and in magic the physical nature of a substance is insignificant compared to it's source of origin and it's symbolic powers. You need to find some way to produce an actual bolt of lightning."
"Now, time is an issue, but we don't want to lose a chance at getting Terra back. Me and Beast Boy will try to prepare a spell, while you, Cyborg, and Starfire will go and try to find some way to conjure up an authentic lightning bolt. We're all agreed then? Good."
The others, somewhat dazed by the sudden sense of order, went off to the difficult task. Raven flew off and telepathically grabbed Beast boy.
"I'm going to hate myself for this as long as I live," she muttered under her breath.

~**~

"So, what are we going to do, stick a lightning rod on it and weight for a stormy day?" Cyborg said bitterly. "It's simply really," Robin calmly replied. "We need lightning, so we'll just call him and ask for his help."

~***~

They had been flying around for some time before Beast Boy spoke. "So...what are we looking for?"
"A Rook"
"Can't we just grab one from a chess set?"
"It's a bird, and it has to be a live one, hence the arial search."
"Why exactly do we need a bird to bring Terra back to life?"
"Spell component. Many powerful spells with narrow effects require some physical object or substance to cast, such as goat entrails, human blood, powdered hen's teeth, eye of newt, etc."

~****~
The entity inhabiting Terra's mortal remains was deep in an approximation of thought. What are these flashes? What do they mean? Why do they happen? What does "Terra" mean, and how does it connect to me? What is the green flesh* that calls that word to me and sparks so many images? Why does it make me feel more whole, to see the green flesh, to touch it an be near it?
Perhaps consuming flesh will not make me whole. It makes me stronger and causes me to grow, but my bones still feel empty. Then what? How can I be whole again?

The flashes, in them I am whole. Perhaps the flashes are signals. The flashes are little whiffs of wholeness, and I must follow them to be complete again.
At that the UnTerra rose from the graveyard and began striding purposefully towards a place her flashes had shown so much, dominating the landscape, a massive T.

________________
*This is what the UnTerra calls beast boy


Starfire flew over to the dark cloud, carrying Robin and Cyborg and plopped them down gently. The surface was suprisingly firm and solid. "Lightning!" Robin called out. "We need your help!"
In a crackling flash the thin figure of lightning appeared. {c:yellow:}"Who summons the primal forces of nat-oh, it's you. What do you want?" he said curtly. "We need you to help us defeat a powerful enemy."
"And why should I concern myself with your troubles?" he asked in an annoyed tone. "Because this half-living thing is brutally murdering and devouring innocent people, and we have reason to believe that your powers are the only thing that can stop it." Lightning looked as if about to respond with an irritated rejection, when he heard a deep booming voice. {c:blue:}"BROTHER!" rumbled thunder as he strode in. {c:blue:}"I apologize for my brother's rudeness. He will be happy to help you," he said, glaring at lightning. Lightning frowned and crackled but said nothing.

~*****~

The UnTerra walked on impassively through the waters until it reached the titan tower. It walked in through the wall, barely even noticing the defense system as it pelted her with lazer fire and defense droids. She wandered around the place and found many strong flashes, but nowhere was the green flesh to be seen. She headed off for the location of another strong flash depicting the local pizza place.

~******~

"Pardon me, but how will we be finding the unliving terror thing of which you speak?"
There arouse a chorus of screams and a panicking crowd from the direction of the pizza parlor.
"Over there seems like a good place to start.

~*******~

"Alright, here's the tricky part. In order to recall the spirit and restore Terra, we'll need somebody to attract her back to her body for the spell. It needs to be somebody she was on good terms with, liked and/or loved. The stronger the desire for both parties, the soul and the spell deliverer, the more chance of success."
"What do I have to do?" Beast Boy asked eagerly

~********~

The unliving Terra reached the pizza parlor in time to watch people flee from her sight. A few were vaguely familiar, but nobody was there that she really remembered. She looked around and slowly five faces in her mind came shimmering into focus. It was then that she saw three of those five faces accelerating towards her...

"TITANS, and personifications of natural phenomena, GO!"
Ignoring the others, UnTerra turned towards lightning and let loose an unholy scream. Her eyes blazed a firey yellow as bright as the sun, and the earth began to rumble. As lightning charged up for an attack, he and the Titans stopped to gape in horror at the thing assaulting them. Rumbling through streets, buildings, and people alike, crushing everything in its path, was an entire cemetary. Mauoleums shaking, have-unearthed quasi-animate dead bodies flaling about from the earth like writhing worms, a massive slug-like mass of soil oozing across the ground at an unnerving speed with tombstones rippling and flappling like the spined back of some grotesque caterpillar.
Lightning fired a bolt at it but it had little effect, the small whole that it made seemlessly filling in. The mass rose up like some collassol predatory worm and engulfed lighting.
"FUCK!" Robin shouted.

~*********~

"Alright, plan B: we kill it by traditionally blowing the unliving hell out of it" Robin said.
Starfire and Cyborg just stood there.
"Well? What are you waiting for?! Attack!"
They just stared at him.
"Oh, right, Titans, go!" he yelled, and the immediately began their assault. Cyborg blew out the spot where UnTerra's heart should have been with a sonic blast, Starfire blasted at the limbs, and Robin used his stick to knock its head clean off.
"No...bad...BAAAD!!!" screamed the detached head. The various members that had been blown off glowed a deep red and flew back together, and then blood began to seep from the remaining flesh as it shrunk, and the blood soon caked and turned into new skin. "Replenish...restore..." it said, before leaping into a cocoon of graveyard. The mass then started systematically attacking buildings before yanking out several people, there screams quickly smothered by the dirt, and after some muffled yet still audible crunching and chewing noises, the mass of soil spat forth a pile of naked bones and reliquished a fully regrown UnTerra. "It's no good! When it gets hit it just patches itself together and ups its body count" Cyborg said with frustration. Starfire powered up a massive starblast in an attempt to cremate the walking corpse, and sent it crashing through a large building with an inhuman howl. There was the sound of some crashing and rubble settling. For several minutes the stood there watching. Then, just as they turned to leave...
"HREEEEEEEAAAUUUGH!"
The ghastly battle-cry informed them of their failure, but the three titans did not realise how great the error was until they read the sign on that building in which the creature lay.
HORMAN'S MEAT PACKING PLANT

~**********~

"Now, remember, you need a touch attack to deliver the spell. Physical contact isn't enough, you have to actually reach out and press your right arm against her with some force."
"Got it."

There arose a massive clamor of sounds from the meat packing plant. Chewing flesh, tendons tearing, blood spurting, organs dropping and messily splattering on the ground, followed by a strange churning and stretching sound that accompanied UnTerra's supernatural tissue integration.

The Roof of the building bulged upwards and cracked until finally a massive head with glowing yellow eyes burst through. The undead collosous let loose a roar of anger as it towered above them.
"Fuck" said Robin
"Motherfucker" said Cyborg
"Frelling Smeg Gnoft" said Starfire

~***********~
"WHERE IS THE GREEN FLESH? TELL ME NOW!!!" UnTerra roared down at the three Titans.

"WAAAAAH!" yelled Beast Boy as he hurtled in a telekinetic orb of black with purple glow in his hand. As soon as the Orb vanished beast boy shifted into hawk form and flew screaming towards UnTerra.
" I SAID-"
The massive monstrousity paused and looked at the figure hurtling towards it. "-it's you! B...b...beast boy!" it called out in a voice that was disturbingly like Terra's normal voice.
"Terrra!" Beast Boy called out as he soared towards her. Then he was stopped in midair and grasped by a gigantic gloved hand.

The gloved hand raised him towards her mouth. "I...need you...to be...whole...again." "I need you too Terra, just let me help you!" Beast Boy yelled as loud as he could.Whole...again...whole...again
The massive hand raised him as the cavernous jaws opened wide. It was only now dawning on Beast Boy just how she was going to use him to become "whole".
"NOOO! TERRA, IT'S ME! PLEASE!" He struggled futilly, hanging into an index finger twice as thick as he was, in his struggle stricking it hard with glowing hand that held the spell.
At the same time, a yellow figure burst out of the pile of grave dirt, and a bolt of lighting crackled towards the behemoth.

All was engulfed in a massive flash of light...

~***********~
When the flash cleared, there stood Terra. Her hair a waxy blond, skin smooth and peach colored, eyes blue, even her clothing restored. She was alive once more.
"Beast Boy!"
"Terra!"
Beast Boy and Terra engulfed each other in a passionate hug.
"I'm back! I'm me again! I'M ALIVE!" Terra yelled with joy.
"Say, how'd you guys get so small?" She said staring down at the other Titans. While she was alive, she was still roughly 77 feet tall.
"I'll work on a shrinking spell," said Raven sweatdropping.
"Take your time!" Beast Boy called. He had apparently been buried somewhere in Terra's normally small chest during the hug. Terra blushed and sweatdropped. There was an awkward silence that was broken by an enormous rumbling. Terra blushed again and rubbed her stomach. "Man, I'm hungry," she said. "That's going to present some...difficulties," said Raven. Terra looked at a large truck full of livestock and licked her lips. "Nooo!" the others shouted in unison, but she was too famished to care. She wolfed it down, although thankfully letting the driver escape. "I guess that'll have to tide me over till lunch," Terra said, and Raven, Cyborg, Robin, Lightning, and the Truck Driver stupidity falled. Terra just sweatdropped and Beast Boy remained in an elated daze resting on the front side of Terra's shirt. "Mmm, squishy."

THE END