event: portal four | the mountain

[mayfield_mods]

The fourth portal, as might be expected, can be found atop the hill known as Makeout Point. The other side of the portal isn't altogether that much different from the side you're entering from, save for the thicker trees and somewhat darker lighting.

The other side of the portal is significantly colder than the Mayfield side; frost covers the ground, and although it's not quite freezing, you'll want to bundle up. A glance at the sky reveals what you might have been dreading: glitch holes, in varying size, litter the skyline. The sun is hidden behind a set of thick clouds, creating a melancholy atmosphere.

The landscape around you is relatively flat, and you can't see too far beyond the forest ahead of you. It isn't until you turn around, facing the portal that you entered from, that you see the rising slope of the ground. The mountain rises high, higher than you can see from its base. There's a rough, primitive path heading up its slope, and for now simply hiking will be sufficient. As you get further, however, simply walking won't be enough: you're going to have to climb...

Somewhere, closer than you might prefer, a single wolf howls, and is shortly joined by more.

Better get moving.

Comments

[thebeastwithout]

[They continue to pound down the slope in silence. ...Vocal silence, at least. He wishes, not for the first time, that he could speak without words. Tell her how dumb she was for following him. Tell her how losing her again would be more than he could bear.

But he hasn't got the means for it and there is no time, anyway. The lava is flowing faster than Beast Boy can run, and it's becoming pretty obvious. After another few hundred feet, he will, without warning, pop back to normal again.]

Gentarou! It's coming too fast! You've gotta take Terra and get back through the portal! And take this!

[He'll thrust the photograph towards the man.]

[forgotten_titan]

[Vocal silence works, because she can imagine that's exactly what Beast Boy would be saying to her now. Yet again she secretly feels blessed that she has someone who's caring for her so much. But when he drops the both of them and passes the other man his instructions, the word immediately bursts out:]

No! I'm not leaving without you!

[She runs and throws her arms around him, unwilling to let go.]

You can't make me!

[cosmicbond]

[Gen will scratch his head, pocketing the picture. He REALLY doesn't feel good about leaving BB behind, especially with Terra clinging to him like that.]

Can't you transform into somethin' small? That way I can get us all out?

[He's already started jogging in place. He wants to this moving too.]

[thebeastwithout]

...You can't run faster than I can! There's just no way...!

[There's no point standing here and frying, so Beast Boy will continue to tear down the slope at his human speed. Holding on to Terra as tightly as he can, of course.]

...Terra, I've got to try. All my wounds go away when I change - I'll be fine! But I can hold the lava off! Enough so that everyone can get off safe!

[There was no way he was changing back from what he had in mind, but there was no point in saying that.]

[forgotten_titan]

[And that's something they both share.]

But what about you? You deserve to go home too!

[Her hand holds his tightly, and he'll have to literally pry her off him if he thinks she'll let him run off on his own.]

[cosmicbond]

[Gen will grimace. It does sound like BB has a plan. And he feels useless, not being to help out his new friends. So, as they run, he'll reach over and grab at Terra's free hand.]

You go do what you need to. I'll do my best to protect her! You have my word!

[He'll pause.]

But you'd better come back ok...ya hear!?

[thebeastwithout]

[Before Gentarou can drag Terra away, Beast Boy will hesitate for a moment and lean in for a tight embrace.]

I'll be in right behind you. This is just a... 'seeya later'.

[His last words are almost inaudibly muttered.]

iloveyou

[Beast Boy breaks away and races up the slope a bit towards the oncoming lava. He takes a breath. And expands. The largest animal in the world weighed up to 190 tons and stretched 110 feet long. No matter how fast the lava was moving, it would have a hard time getting through the sheer mass of a blue whale.

He'd just have to hold the form long enough before he died.]

[forgotten_titan]

[She reciprocates, holding him tightly, hoping that somehow, she could keep him from carrying out his duties as a Teen Titan.]

But-

[And then she hears that mutter. Those three words that mean the world to her from a boy who believed in her when no one in the world did or had the reason to. It shocks her enough for her to accidentally loosen her grip, and that's when Beast Boy tears away from her to run up to the lava. It stuns her for a few precious seconds, before she screams.]

Beast Boy! Come back!!

[The other stranger had her hand in a firm grasp, but doesn't mean she won't stop struggling or trying to pry her hand off his.]

Let me go, I have to stop him! Let me go!!!

[But deep down, she knows he won't. It's panic, sheer panic that floods her as she looks back to her boyfriend expand into a whale in what is probably heroic self-sacrifice. People will probably survive because of what he's doing. They'll get to go back, and that's what Beast Boy would've wanted.

It doesn't lessen the sting of losing him.]

Beast Boy!!!!

[cosmicbond]

[Gen will keep his grip tight, even as she fights him, trying not to look back, knowing he might lose his resolve.]

Sorry. I promised. And I don't break a promise to my buds.

[Then he feels that thud. He'll glance back to see what happened. He can't help but feel an empathic sting.]

He'd make an amazing Rider...good luck.

[thebeastwithout]

[He is thankful that whales are not terribly expressive, nor are they capable of lacrimation. Because he'd be doing a lot of that right about now, even if he didn't know what that long word meant.

The love song he composed doesn't quite translate, but he would have to make do with what he had. Whalesong is only beautiful underwater, but the haunting quality seems somehow more poignant from a creature awaiting its imminent destruction.]

Sorry, Terra.

[forgotten_titan]

[She's reduced to a wreck as the lava approaches. Whether it's her feelings or the horrible flashes of memory that have started reappearing since she had first stepped foot on the mountain that's leading to her the pressure in her head and her chest, both are causing her to break down as she's dragged away from danger and from her boyfriend. Appealing to Beast Boy's friend will not save him, and even if he did oblige her there was no guarantee she could even do anything to rescue him, as close as he was to the lava.

There is nothing she can do.

Her fingers on her other hand clench in frustration. Why couldn't she use her powers? If she was really Terra, she would be able to control the earth they stood on! She could save everyone, save herself, save Beast Boy, the most important person in her life. Where was this power that she used to dominate the earth, to both help and hurt, to protect and destroy?

The tightness inside her intensifies till bursting point, and it is nearly suffocating. What she originally wrote off as ash and smoke making it difficult to breath turns out to be something else; that compression inside her, a build up of emotions and something else...

Blood turns to earth. Bones to stone. Flesh to rock. Her lungs conquered and transformed into the very earth she had commanded. The fear she felt as the heat that pressed against her faded into an unwelcome numbness. The pain in her own heart as the metamorphosis spread upwards from her feet and enclosing around her heart and right before that final heart beat she hears nothing but the roaring of earth and lava all around her...

And one toothy smile, an outstretched hand and a voice calling her name.

"Terra!"

Her eyes flash open, filled with a yellow glow that had not been seen for at least a year. Like a dam burst open her long dormant power, squashed by her own fears, insecurities, and guilt, floods out from within. The brilliant yellow light that seems to emanates from her very being shines bright, and her senses are suddenly assailed; the earth beneath her responds when her one hand snaps out and with one enraged scream Terra pulls. The earth explodes beneath her feet and she lashes out, willing it to slam against the incoming lava to protect Beast Boy.]

[cosmicbond]

[Gen keeps trying to pull her along, but that scream and the rumble in the ground makes him stop....and after a bit, stare in awe.]

W-what the...?

[thebeastwithout]

[Whales weren't terribly observant, either. It takes him more than a few seconds to realize he was overdue for being reduced to a steaming pile of pan-fried salmon, and when he turns back to normal, he wonders how he had missed the neatly stacked wall of rock between him and the flooding lava earlier.]

Whoa.

[Where one dam has burst, another has been erected. The realization hits him the same moment that a shard of rock does. The rock wall couldn't hit longer than a minute or two...]

Terra! You -- Did you...?!

[No time to talk! He tears it back down the hill towards Gentarou and Terra as the dam continues to rumble ominously above them.]

I think we can make it! Stop staring and start running!

[forgotten_titan]

[She barely hears what he's saying, she doesn't even know what she's doing. All she wants is to protect him, to prevent her own fate from befalling any other person. As she grabs more and more earth and rock from the ground to stem the tide of the lava, she's not even sure where she is; a stupid mountain from nowhere, or back underneath Jump City with Slade. She can only feel the roar of power that courses through her veins as she slams rock after rock down, letting out pent-up frustration, anger, fear and sadness that she had been holding back all this time.]

[cosmicbond]

Come on! You can do that while we run!

[Gen's not entirely sure what's going on...only that the small girl in front of him is moving the ground with her head. Or something. But he knows they have to use this opportunity to get the heck into the portal all safe and sound.

So that's why he'll attempt to pick her up while she's chucking more stone.]

[thebeastwithout]

[Beast Boy catches up to them soon enough and reaches out to grasp hold of Terra's hands. The excitement at seeing her regain her powers is quickly being tempered with the memory of what had happened the last time she had tried to control a volcanic eruption.]

Terra, it's OK! You did it! The lava's slowed down! ...You can stop, Terra!

[forgotten_titan]

[Feeling hands on her causes her to struggle again as she flashes back between her past and the present. Whichever it is, she has less control over her power, relying instead on raw emotion to smash rock and earth on the lava. A rock ends up smashing nearby the both of them as the yellow light starts to intensify. A familiar dull sensation creeps from her feet, one that accompanied a prison of stone. She should control her powers, use them with a calm mind and precision, not lashing out with anger and frustration. She knows its dangerous and she should stop, but now fear is what motivates her as her power slowly starts enveloping her again.

Until a pair of hands grasps hers.

Beast Boy's voice and presence comforts her, and she focuses on his voice. She can stop. She can do this. Beast Boy is OK.

The yellow glow slowly dims as she starts to calm down.]

[cosmicbond]

Good timing....

[That rock was TOO close. He had luckily let her go right afterward. He didn't feel like testing his durability today.

He'll turn to see the portal not too far away.]

We're almost there!

[thebeastwithout]

[He breathes a sigh of relief at seeing her begin to regain control of herself. Everything was too frenetic right now for him to really think; it was like viewing the scene remotely through a screen. All he wanted was to get them all back through that hole and back to Mayfield. Beast Boy leans forward and gives her a quick hug before releasing her with a soft whisper.]

You did great.

[Behind them, the rock dam cracks once again...]

C'mon. C'mon! ...We're gonna get the happy ending we deserve this time if it kills me.

[He glances towards Gentarou and nods as he begins to shepherd Terra back towards the portal.

...Everything was going to be just fine.]