FicWad

Princess Tutu and the Madrigal: Terra Rising: (Secret Six III)



Introduction



Okay, I know that there would be some out there that would ask me, "Why are you doing a third story when it has not had a lot of readership?"

Well, I can only answer that by saying that an artist has to create what is on his heart no matter who sees it. There are a few fans of this saga, and for them I write. This is the third adventure for our art school crew who has now expanded into a super-team of nine, consisting of the Secret Six, and the Shadow Force. Because of the story's locale, this will cut out some characters. However, for what I do here, this is better, because it is easier to do a story when you do this. It is hard enough to read about several characters, imagine what it is like writing it? Anyway, the team is going to San Francisco to mind things in Titans Tower while the team is off somewhere taking care of a foe. They will be aided by one Titan, and a few former ones, and this will be as the first: several smaller adventures with part or all of the crew, with one central theme. Thus, whether you like it, or even if you don't, prepare for another adventure.



Prologue



Deep inside the heart of who many think is just a mere teen in private school, a thread of thought unknown to her ensues...

My name is Terra, and I am locked away in a heart that will not acknowledge me. I guess I could understand, because a long time ago, I did some terrible things. I was once a Teen Titan, and a trusted friend. I thought I was an outcast, and that no one wanted me, and they-out of the kindness of their hearts-took me in without judgment, and gave me everything. I betrayed them. There was even one boy that gave his heart to me, because he didn't care about things of my past, he just took me for who I was. I betrayed him most of all. Despite all that had been done for me, I still felt like I was odd...that I could not control my powers, or stop being an outcast because of them. I let that be weapons against me, because I let Slade, better known as Deathstroke, convince me that all my fears were true, and that he was the only one that understood. I wanted to belong so bad, I gave myself over to him completely...and I do mean "completely!" With him, we ran /San Francisco/ ragged; and despite all that-though they fought me-they STILL wanted to try to rescue me from myself. Once I realized the error of my ways, I turned on Slade, though at the cost of my own life. I petrified myself as a result, and my old friends STILL made a memorial out of it to me. They even put a plaque on it that read, "Terra: a Teen Titian-a trusted friend."



That should have been the end of the story, but it is not.



I was indeed headed for a place of bliss, but just before that could happen, Ifound myself here. Yet, the instant I was, I was put into this mental prison by my own subconscious. I don't know how this happened, or how I got here, but I want out. However, she...I...has such a tight grip on me, I don't know if I will ever get free. When Beast Boy found me, it made my heart leap. He noticed, because the power that was latent in she who contains me went active for the briefest moment, being that she was near the scene of a Teen Titans activity. He tried so hard to get her to remember who she was, but she resisted with everything she had. She still resists, and denies who she truly is. Iscreamed and yelled for release. I wanted to hug and kiss Beast Boy so badly. I guess I am now suffering in my own personal Hell for the crimes I had done. I must keep pushing. Even now, she has us in a concert hall, watching the Pas De Six perform their art. I don't know if I care for ballet, but I do like their music, and it's not so bad. I only wish I could tap her emotions as she watches so I could come to the surface. Oh God, can anyone set me free?



Chapter 1



The Brain sat in his container, watching his new headquarters being built. He was so grateful to have had Deathstroke imprisoned with him, in that, between the two of them, they managed to break out the entirety of the Brotherhood of Evil. This included Monsieur Mallah, Madame Rouge, and General Immortus. Now he had Deathstroke on his side as his prime lieutenant. He was such that he only answered to the Brain, despite the protests of the others, not liking this outsider being with them. This was written off by the Brain as he explained to them that, if it had not been for Mr. Slade, they would still be rotting in the Prison of Super-villains. They started right away in their schemes, as the Brain took Slade's suggestion to go back to his old lab to retrieve a special vial that had been kept in a deep freeze. Deathstroke was thankful that the containment grid managed to survive the police's ravaging of his laboratory when they sought to seek for as much evidence against him in court as they could. In that vial contained some special stem cells extracted from the body of his best apprentice. It was too bad that she had turned on him, but he figured that he could recreate her body and bend the girl's mind to his will. The powers would still be there, but whoever she was would not be there anymore. Soon, it would be time to retrieve her. Both he and Brain did much to manipulate the system to get her into the private school that they had to let her learn how to interact with society, and to learn how it functioned. They had to pull some major strings in the underworld to give her a full identity and interject her into the system, considering that he had been genetically engineered as a teen and placed into the system. They looked over the history of Terra prime and discussed the matter. "Have there been any problems, Slade?" asked the Brain in his tinny, computer synthesized voice.

"Nothing really to fear, Brain," answered Deathstroke, "There was a bit of asnag, but between me and her, we managed to snuff out the possibility of aproblem."

"You may think that the problem is gone, Slade," responded the Brain in return,"and while I admire your intelligence-almost on par with my own-any kind of force or person that could divert her course could put in latent things that may put a fly in the ointment, so to speak. Please, tell me what it was that you faced."

"That pest, Beast Boy, from the Titans, tried to get in the way."

"Beast boy, you say? That could prove to be difficult."

"He is a mindless fool."

"He is far more than that, Slade. Do not underestimate what he can do. He may seem like a scatterbrained youth, but where he lacks intelligence, he makes up with wisdom. He was trained by the Doom Patrol, so I know for a fact that he is powerful."

"Believe me, he has moved past her. The robot I sent indeed has deterred him from ever trying to disrupt things again. She even rejected him. Since she has no clue to her own past, it was an obvious outcome. I will admit that he had at least enough wisdom to back off, lest he be accused of being a stalker. Even the Titans forgot her. It is not an issue."

"I would not be so sure. If you awaken her to her powers, even if she is essentially a completely different person than the original, the ones that now currently make up the Teen Titans my try to win her over. That would put ahuge snag into things."

"True, but we can only cross that bridge when we come to it. There is one thing that disturbs me, though."

"And what would that be, Slade?"

"The statue that had been the original Terra is no longer there. There is no evidence of it having been broken off, taken, or moved. It was there, and now it is not. I fear what happened, and I am not even sure what it means."

"That is of no consequence. A petrified corpse is nothing to fear. Once we have her. We can both exact our revenge, and then go on to global conquest, starting with the Titans, and the JLA itself. There will be none to stop us."

They then stood quiet again as they went over their plans again in quiet, not knowing of the storm that was brewing.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The Sumin Ballet in San Francisco just had to have the Pas De Six be the first stop on their west coast summer tour. Since their troupe was unique in their approach to the art form of ballet, wanting to ruffle the purists and the ballet snobs, the Pas De Six fit right in. The audience was packed with the fans of both, and both troupes electrified the crowd. However, one certain fan was not so enthused as she sat in the front row, but she began to get in as things began to gain in energy.



"Come on, Gaia," said the girl to her left, "You have to admit that this was agood idea!"

"I guess so," she said, "I have to admit this is different."

"You do like their music," said the girl to her right.

"Well, who doesn't?" Gaia retorted.

"Hey, no one does what they do!" said the first girl.

"Well, I guess they did surprise me," admitted Gaia, "I mean, I didn't think ballet could be this.

Just as she said that, they began to hear the tones of an electric piano, and the song "Shake a Tail Feather" began. In it, the two troupes were doing ballet combined with all the different dances that were mentioned in the song, with the Pas De Six front and center. Soon, even Gaia was beginning to bob her head a bit to the music as a smile curled over her lips. However, inside her heart, Terra was immensely enjoying the performance, and she was saying to herself that even Garfield, (Beast Boy,) would enjoy this. Yet, out of the blue, (and because of her location,) she began to feel another presence with her, as if someone were trying to reach out and touch her. She focused herself, and did what she could to try to see out of the eyes of her host in hopes to find out what was trying to contact her. Meanwhile, as the song was winding down, Mytho began to feel a touch stronger than all the emotions that were flowing around her. In truth, he had long ago been able to push behind him all the emotions that surrounded him as if it were just white noise, being able to put his mind on just one when the need called for it. However, in this case, instead of him trying to focus on one, it seemed there was one trying to focus on him. It caused him to misstep a bit, and he caught an odd look from Rue as that happened. He shook it off and finished the number, but he kept sensing a strong motion of desperation, and a want of release. As they took their bows for that number, he began to scan the audience for the source of what he sensed. Finally, he was able to focus on a blonde teenage girl. She was applauding with everyone else, and her face gave no indication of what he sense, and yet, from her, it was screaming at him: please, yes, that's me! Help me! Get me out of here! Help her to remember who she is! By this point, everyone was beginning to leave as the next number was about to start, but he just stood there. Rue saw this, as did Fakir, and they both took his arms and guided him off the stage. "Hey, snap out of it, baby," scolded Rue, but she could not help but see the confused look on his face.

"Keep your focus, Mytho," said Fakir, "We still have a third of the show to go."

"That blonde in the front row," said Mytho, "She was calling out to me."

Rue got a look in her eye and said, "HEY! Remember, you're married?" with atint of jealousy in the tone.

"Everyone was calling out to you," said Fakir, "You're the band heartthrob, remember?"

"No, it's not that," he said, shaking himself into more sensibility, "I mean, something in her mind called out to me, and it was a plea for help."

The two of them looked at him oddly, but they both also remembered his empathic abilities, and asked, "Do you think someone's in trouble?"

"I can't tell," answered Mytho, "Her face was one of the typical teen, but her mind-her heart-told me something else."

"Well, shake it off, snow head," said Fakir, "We have a show to finish."



The show went well, but all through the show, the call kept coming back. When they came to take their bows, the call became more desperate, but he could not move at that instant. At the same time, Gaia could not help but feel that the white-haired one was staring at her through most of the second act. She did enjoy herself, but the staring was freaking her out. Once the bows were taken, she looked at her friends and said, "Let's go, okay?"

"Aw, come on!" snapped the girl to her right, "We have a chance to meet the act after the show, and I don't want to miss that!"

"You go ahead, I'm going home," answered Gaia.

The other two looked at her, but they just shrugged their shoulders and let her go. Meanwhile, Mytho was watching the audience begin to break up, and the blonde disappeared into the mass of bodies. He went backstage, but he could not help but have his thoughts gnaw at him, wondering if there was going to be some sad thing that they would be reading about the next day in the newspapers. Terra, on the other hand, was screaming. She was begging and pleading for Gaia to go with her friends, but it was futile. Gaia either didn't know she was there, or didn't want to know. If a soul could have shed tears, she would have been bawling.



Gaia went home, and her situation was such that she lived by herself. Her memories were as such that said she had lived alone for a time, seeing that her parents had been dead, and she had no family to care for her. She wondered how she didn't wind up in the foster system, and wondered how the state would allow her to live on her own. All she knew was that there was a big inheritance that she was living off, and all her needs were met. She entered the empty house, feeling alone. The images of the one they called Mytho Schmidt staring at her were running through her mind. As she looked about, she began to really feel lonely. Granted, she felt that she had overcome this kind of thing, and had gotten used to it, but that night, she felt so incomplete. She suddenly felt the urge to cry, but she did not know why. What she didn't realize was that Terra, still in her remorse, was beginning to surface, even if only slightly. She turned on the stereo to drown out her thoughts and got herself ready for bed. Even though she was on summer break, she, for the first time, actually wished to have some homework to do, even if just to get her mind off things. She decided to go to the beach the next day: maybe that would take her mind off things.



At the hotel, the crew that made up the six and their entourage were packing their bags and preparing to go to their summer lodgings the next day. In truth, the reason for the west coast tour was that the now sitting Teen Titans were on a distant mission that they knew would take a while to resolve. They therefore asked the Madrigal to "mind the shop" while they were away. As they packed, however, Mytho looked distracted. Rue, now more understanding to the situation, came up to him and began to rub his shoulders. She then said, "Is that girl still bugging you?"

"I have never had anyone's soul actually reach out to me like that," he said,"It is so disturbing. What if she is in trouble?"

Rue sighed and said, "Baby, she slipped away. How would you be able find her out of the millions that live here? I know it stinks, but you know what Billy said. You can't help everyone, but you help who you can."

He grunted a bit, but conceded the point. Besides, what could he do, even if he had found her? What it would take was Princess Tutu, and even then, he would have had to be certain that she was indeed in trouble. He just prayed to the powers that be that somehow, in their time there, they would find her again. In the meantime, he had to get focused. There was the tour, and the main reason for being there. Rue, beginning to feel frisky, looked at him and said, "I know what will get your mind off things."

With that, she kissed him, and they embraced. They then began to entangle as one, knowing that this might be the only night for a while that they got to enjoy each other's company, considering how busy they would be. She knew that it would be an interesting summer indeed.