I'd like to apologize ahead of time for the scene with the egg mascot. Look, it's 4/20 and I'm not sure what those fumes were that I inhaled. Nah, I'm just kidding.

Further more, I know it's pretty unoriginal of me to use a plot like this since the idea of a super hero taking care of some kind of child has been used so many times before, but I really wanted to give it a shot.

Egg Baby

It was another sunny Friday for the inhabitants of Jump City; summer vacation was just around the corner, after all. Of course, this was especially pleasing for the city's students. With the coming of summer meant three months of school-free vacation and the freedom to do whatever they pleased.

But such fantasies would have to wait.

As for right now, they would have to endure three more weeks of the evil education system of horrible doom known only to mortals as "school". But what was three mere weeks?

In a local school, Murakami High, anticipation hung in the air like the decayed and bloodied corpse of their principal on a twine noose. Ah, what a Halloween prank that was.

Even in the Home Economics class on the third floor, students were too lost in their dreams and personal conversations to pay attention to the teacher's important lecture.

"Was anybody listening?!" asked the Home Economics teacher, Mrs. Romano.

Immediately, the whole class turned their heads to the front of the class.

All but one.

In the front row, a particular blonde girl was lost in her thoughts of what joys awaited her after this school day ended, her lazy head resting in her hands propped up by both elbows on the desk. Everyone took notice of the dreamy look on her face and knew exactly what—or rather who—she was thinking of.

Somewhere where the sun was always shining, in an endless valley of green pastures, she and a green boy were having the time of their lives.

All it took to interrupt that fantasy was one grim and disturbing voice belonging to a grim and disturbing person.

"Miss Markov!" shouted Mrs. Romano in her stern voice.

Terra quickly awoke from her dreamland and noticed that the whole class was looking at her, all of them stifling laughter. Terra scanned the sea of faces all concentrated on her, embarrassment swelling up inside of her.

But her humiliation was quickly replaced by horror when she saw her frightening teacher standing right in front of her, a soul-shattering look in her eyes.

"Miss Markov, this is the third day in a row this has happened. You can visit your little boyfriend when class is over. Until then, I expect you to pay attention. Got it?"

Too frightened to respond, Terra simply nodded her head and replied with a weak "Y—yes, ma'am."

In the back of the class, a boy with dark red hair was witnessing the whole thing. Even with the bangs dipping past his eyes, he could see everything perfectly. He allowed himself to make a brief chuckle, as did everyone else in the room.

Ordinarily, it would be weird that a junior was in a sophomore class, but he needed to take this class in order to receive all his required credits to pass this year. And with the end rapidly approaching, he was in no position to argue. So he decided to simply accept the situation, despite his annoyance of the whole thing.

"Oh man, X, she did it again!" a mohawked boy sitting next to him whispered loudly, his voice tinted with laughter.

Zeke Lancaster, nicknamed "X" by his peers, continued his mild fit of laughter, unaware that everybody else had stopped and was looking at him now.

"Do you find something amusing, Mr. Lancaster?" the teacher asked, still in front of Terra's desk.

X quickly ceased his laughter. He couldn't help it; the humiliation of others always made him chuckle.

"No, ma'am." he replied.

"Good answer," Mrs. Romano said, "Now if everyone is done, there is an important project that I'll be assigning you."

The whole class groaned at the "exciting" news of yet another project.

"Glad to see you're all enthusiastic about it. Now, I assume that you're all planning on being parents one day?"

Silence.

That's what the whole class responded with. A couple students even had nervous looks on their faces. The silent fear spread throughout the room as if it were some contagious plague. They all knew where this was going…

"I'll take that as a 'yes'." The teacher said as she pulled a brown paper bag out from under her desk and placed it on top. Once she did this, she reached in and pulled out…an egg?

A rather large egg, to be more precise. It had to be at least the half the size of a two-liter soda bottle.

"This is called an egg baby. It's designed to have all the characteristics of a real human baby: including laughing, crying, vomiting, urinating—"

Everyone once again broke out in their own stifled laughter.

Mrs. Romano took a deep sigh at the immaturity of her students.

"Perhaps it would be easier for you to understand if you saw this…"

She pulled out a remote and aimed it at the projector at the center of the ceiling of the classroom. On cue, it sent out its properties to display on the white screen in front of the class as the movie started.

Oh great. It was another one of those stupid, hokey films created by the dinosaurs of the school board in some futile attempt to connect with today's youth.

"Howdy, kids! Wassup y'all?" a mascot in a giant smiling egg-suit clothed in a basketball jersey and decorated in "blingage" onscreen introduced.

Everybody groaned once again, this time at the degrading monstrosity that stood before them onscreen.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me." Terra moaned, head now buried in her hands.

After watching four hours of rap and hip-hop music videos the night before on a dare from Cyborg to see how long she could go without rock, this was the last thing she wanted to see.

"I'm Big Daddy Egg-meister! And I'm here to wise you all up about the newest, hippest, thing to ever happen, yo! Introducing, THE EGG BABY! Fo' shizzle!"

In the back of the room, X was rifling through his backpack, desperately searching for something.

"The new, hip, EGG BABY is just like a real baby! It cries, vomits, poops…"

He found it! A ballpoint pen! The red-haired boy brought the merciful ticket out of this world to the broadside of his neck and prepared to lunge it through his flesh. When it comes to hokeyness, suicide is everybody's friend.

"…whizzes, uses your razor to shave its 'fun-zone'…"

That caught everyone's attention. X immediately stopped what he was doing to see if he had heard what he thought he had just heard. The uproarious laughter in the room confirmed his suspicions.

The cameraman stepped into the picture, whispering something into the egg man's ear. Or, where there should've been an ear anyways. The cameraman ran off the screen and resumed his job, leaving "Big Daddy" to writhe in his huge slip-up.

Static flashed onscreen for a second or two, and then the egg monster was back in view.

"Uh…sorry about that, kiddies! Anyways, the super-hip EGG BABY will be assigned to all you young whipper-snappers in groups of two so you can take care of it just like real parents would! Isn't that off the heezy? Word. You will each have to take care of this little bundle of joy for one super-fly week without letting any harm come upon it. You can easily fail by dropping it on its head, running it over with your car, burying it alive, flushing it down the toilet, molest—"

The cameraman ran back to the "gangsta"-wannabe and whispered something in his ear. Something about the code of conduct on a "G" rated film. The egg man clearly didn't like this.

"Listen up, you piece of (beep), I'm having a very hard time with my life, and I don't need no (beep) from mother-(beep)ers like you to go and (beep) me off! So why don't you just go to (beep) and (beep) yourself!"

Proving its strong need for therapy, the egg man began strangling the unfortunate cameraman standing beside him. Gagging noises confirmed his life's ending.

"And I got something for you (beep)-(beep) mother-(beep)ers! SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FIREND!!!"

At that instant, the camera showed the egg monster wielding an AK-47 in his hands and he began firing wildly at everybody else on-set.

The horrified students all stared at the screen in shock as the reflected flashing of machine-gun fire illuminated the room. A few cries of bloody murder later, the words "Please Stand By" covered the screen. And with that, the film ended, leaving everyone with a sense of dread and terror beyond which any of them had ever experienced.

"Is it safe to look?" asked one student, hands covering her eyes.

"Dude! I'm gonna hurl!" another student cried.

"That was just…oh God…"

One student had wretched out the lunch which he had consumed only two and a half hours ago.

Even Terra, though not as frightened as everybody else due to seeing more than her fair share of dead bodies in the past, had turned pale from the whole sick experience.

"Huh. And I thought for sure this was the edited version." Mrs. Romano casually stated.

"Well, you get the basic idea." The teacher spoke again, "I'll be assigning you all into groups of two—one boy and one girl—to take care of your egg baby for one week. This assignment is meant to test your parenting skills. If you fail, you can kiss passing this year goodbye. Now pay attention while I assign you your partners."

Everyone seemed to overcome the queasiness pretty quickly and waited expectantly to see to whom they would be assigned to work with.

Soon enough, Mrs. Romano began reading off names and the selected students left their seats became acquainted with each other. Some pairs were more enthusiastic than others. And then, finally, the last pair was called out.

"Tara Markov and Zeke Lancaster."

This was sure to be interesting, or so Terra thought. She and X had nearly every class together (on account that Terra was smart enough to take junior classes) but they never actually talked. All she knew about him were just the cruel rumors everybody told behind his back. He was a drinker. A smoker. An overall bad person. But this was an opportunity to see him for what he really was; to see the Zeke Lancaster beyond all those mean rumors…whatever that may be.

X, on the other hand, wasn't exactly all that thrilled about his assigned partner. But then again, he didn't really like anybody that much. However, if she was an easy person to offend then this could actually be somewhat fun.

X, leaning lazily back in his seat against the back wall, saw looked past his mop of dark red hair partially covering his eyes and saw Markov approaching him, hands clasped behind her back. She seemed especially giddy to meet him.

Within seconds, like everybody else in the room was already doing, Terra stood by her "spouse's" desk.

"Hi, I'm Tara. My friends call me Terra." She said with a smile as she extended a hand to shake.

X wasn't sure what to make out of this at first; no one had ever been this nice to him. She would cease her optimistic feelings about him soon enough, though. Acknowledging her friendly gesture, X brought his hand to meet her own and introduced himself—except without the smile

"I'm Zeke. You can call me X."

A few minutes had passed. Terra had tried to strike conversation a few times to break the silence between the two of them, unlike everybody else who seemed to be getting along fine with their partners, but X insisted on staying quiet. He was beginning to annoy her already; the mission was going well, and that alone gave him a reason to smile a little bit.

"Now that you're all acquainted, come up and get your little bundles of joy." Mrs. Romano instructed.

Everyone left their current positions with their partners to the head of the class to pick out their egg babies. X, hands shoved in his blue short pockets and posture slouched, just lagged behind Terra the whole way, not really giving a care as to what happened. She could pick out a potato baby and he wouldn't care any less. Terra had made her way through the sea of uniformed students and looked into one of the paper bags to "adopt" a "child". She looked into it and saw eggs of many different colors. Green, pink, blue, etcetera.

Finally, she reached in and pulled out a plain white one. Holding it her arms like any mother would, she turned back to X to see what he thought of it. He simply shrugged, completely uncaring for the whole assignment.

Before both their eyes, the selected animatronic egg projected a little face of its own; two deep, young black eyes and an adorable baby-like smile. It was just like a little cartoon…one with a realistic, moving face.

"Like I said earlier," the teacher addressed her class, "It's just like a real baby. You need to feed it, bathe it, all that wonderful stuff."

"What do you think we should name him?" Terra asked her partner.

X's stomach growled. "How about 'lunch'?" he offered, a hungry look in his eyes.

Terra knew he would never do such a thing, but, maternal instincts taking over, she turned her back to him, keeping the unnamed egg baby out of reach.

"Why don't we name him 'Brion'?" Terra suggested.

"Why?" X asked, only half caring.

Terra simply shrugged, eyes fixated on the calm "baby" in her arms.

"It's my older brother's name. And I think it would make a great baby name."

X rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

Ignoring him, Terra turned her attention to the baby, "So what do you think, 'Little Brion'? Do you like your name?" Terra asked her baby as she tickled its belly with her index finger.

'Little Brion' answered with a cute little baby laugh, facial features syncing perfectly with that of a real laughing baby.

Minutes later, the final bell of the day rang. And with the arrival of the weekend sounded, the student body poured out into the hallways like a flood, chatting amongst themselves of what they would do over the weekend with their new "children".

But X was apathetic towards the whole thing. The only thing on his mind was getting home. He stopped by his locker and stuffed the necessary books in his backpack and prepared to leave. But his plans for leaving were cut short when he turned around and saw his lovely "wife" standing right in front of him, still wearing that friendly smile. Or maybe it wasn't so friendly…perhaps she had caught onto his little game and decided to try and get on his nerves too?

Nah.

…Did she?

"So who's going to take the first shift?" Terra asked, cradling the baby in her arms.

The mop head just strode right past her.

"I've got plans tonight." he replied curtly.

But Terra wasn't about to take no for an answer. She had learned a thing or two about annoying people into submission from Beast Boy. She followed her partner into the crowded halls and tried talking with him.

"Yeah, well so do I. So you're taking first shift."

"Like hell I am." X said, never facing her.

"What are you, scared of a little baby?"

"I told you. I have plans tonight."

Terra took an extra long step in front of him, cutting him off, and stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Now you have new plans." She said as she placed the baby into his arms, never losing her smile at the knowledge that she was winning in their conquest over each other's patience.

It took him a moment to realize that the egg baby was no longer in her arms, but rather his, but he quickly shoved it back in her grip and continued his walk for the front exit.

"I'll race you. Loser takes first shift." Terra challenged.

X stopped his tread through the halls at the mentioning of the ludicrous gamble and turned to face her.

"Are you serious?" he responded, sounding rather cocky.

"What's wrong? Afraid you're going to get beaten by a girl?" she replied, rivaling his cocky attitude with one of her own.

X scoffed a laugh at Terra's comment. But if this was the only way to get her off his back…

"Alright, fine. Where to?"

Terra smiled at her personal victory; she had accomplished two things. One, she had drawn first blood in their little game to pester the other by making him crack under pressure. And two, she had learned something very important about him—something that would surely bring future victories to her; X was sensitive towards his physical abilities and wouldn't turn down a challenge in order to protect his title…especially from her. With these two things in mind, this victory and those surely to come were in the bag.

***

Moments later, X and Terra were standing in the front lawn of the grand school, backpacks and 'Little Brion' placed safely on a nearby bench. Shoes discarded, Terra and X stood side-by-side next to the large flagpole next to them as they laid down the rules for their race.

"First one to run around the school and touch the flagpole wins." Terra instructed.

"Sounds fair enough. Just no crying when I beat you, okay?" X responded.

Terra answered that comment with a competitive scoff. She knew for sure she would win.

"On your mark…" she started the countdown.

"…get set…" X continued it.

Little Brion giggled happily at the sight of his parents having their first fight.

"…GO!"

And not a moment too soon, X and Terra were off.

Sprinting as hard as their surprisingly durable bodies allowed them, they cleared the front lawn in only a matter of seconds. Now they were maneuvering through the outside lunch tables, and they leaped over and under them with skill that neither believed the other capable of possessing.

X was surprised at his opponent's physical abilities; on the outside, she seemed like some malnourished girl who couldn't so much as do a push-up.

But Terra was more than met the eye. Her whole life had been the tragic one of a refugee; always running, always fighting for survival. Though seemingly frail on the outside, she was tough as nails—if not tougher.

The same for surprise could be said for Terra though; X, given his slim body, didn't seem like he was capable of much, yet he too greatly surpassed her expectations.

Basically, they had underestimated each other and were very much surprised by the results.

The tables were long behind them, now they were making their way past the back of the cafeteria and jumping the garbage bins and dumpsters. Both of them seemed to be growing a little weary.

"What's wrong? Running out of breath already?" X taunted, a cocky smirk on his face.

"Not even close!" Terra countered, picking up her pace.

X, ahead by a nose, planted one foot on the top of a tin garbage can, thus launching himself in the air—a fancy aerial somersault performed just to show off—and over the dumpster.

Seeing through the sweat-beaded hair falling over her face, Terra managed to dodge the mess of garbage bins X had purposely left just for her. Wasn't she special?

So X knew some tricks too, huh? Once they had nearly made it around the school and the flagpole was in view, Terra decided she would leave X a little gift of her own…

X could see the makeshift finish line only thirty yards away from him. The only thing pushing him to actually touch it was the fact that it would mean his partner would suffer the first day with that stupid egg.

The wet, dark red mop of hair interfering with his vision and his muscles over-working, X pushed himself just a little farther. He could almost—

Just as he thought he had victory in his grasp, a large puddle of mud that seemed to come out of nowhere appeared beneath his feet, causing him to slip and land flat on his back in the shallow, muddy pool. That damn geomancer.

To further his humiliation, said geomancer actually took the time to stop and rub it in his face.

"Aw, what's wrong X?" Terra gloated, leaning forward to look him the eye (which could've been a lot easier had it not been for their messy hair), "'Running out of breath already?'"

She would pay dearly for mocking him like this.

As Terra turned back to reach for the finish line, a cold piece of flesh with snake-like strength wrapped around her back leg and pulled her face-first into her own trap. Gasping from the surprise, she soon joined X in the large mud puddle.

It took her a second or two, but she finally lifted her head upwards, groaning from the humiliation. Preparing to pick herself up in a push-up-like position, X's hand firmly planted itself against the back of her skull and shoved her face back into the mud.

Leaning close to her, knees on either side of her torso, he whispered loudly into her ear with that signature confident tone of his "Not even close!"

Much to his surprise, Terra had weaseled her way out from under him with lightning speed and trapped him in a full-nelson, both of them still on their knees. X took this all seriously, but Terra seemed to be awfully playful.

"What the—? How did you—?" was all he managed to say before she pressed her whole body forward to make them fall forward. X landed face-first into the mud. An easy task considering the manipulative position she had him in.

And to express the wondrous joys of humiliating her partner, she let out a cry of laughter. This was just too much fun for her. As for X, this was the most degrading thing in the world.

With her whole body weight pressed directly against him—as measly as it was—getting up wasn't that easy a task. Yet his pride somehow managed to enable him to turn himself over on his back, causing Terra, in turn, to be crushed by his weight.

Oh great. She was on the bottom again. And her back was now sinking further in the mud.

X quickly repositioned himself and pinned down her arms on either side with both his hands against them and kept her steady by sitting on her, knees on parallel sides of her ribcage.

Ordinarily, this would be a victory and a personal celebration would be called for, but she had humiliated him one time too many. This was personal now.

Anger causing him to stoop down to her immature level, he mustered up all the saliva occupying his mouth to create a giant loogie dangling right above Terra's face. He would never be caught dead doing something like this, but this was an exception.

Terra squealed as the wad of spit drew nearer and nearer to her face. Desperate to keep it away, she squinted her eyes shut and pressed her head deeper into the mud.

A wave of mud suddenly flew out of nowhere and splashed itself right in his face, knocking him off of her, courtesy of Terra's powers. Whatever four-lettered-word X was trying to shout was muffled and cut off by the mud stuffed in his mouth (his mouth was wide-open when it plastered him).

It may have been smothered all over his eyes and mouth but his ears remained mud-free, allowing him to hear the continuous baby-laughter of Little Brion on the nearby bench. He had actually forgotten about it in all this confusion. He had the right mind to broil that thing right now. Better, he would smash it, scramble it—

"I win!" called a familiar voice.

Struck by the realization that he had also forgotten about the race, X quickly wiped as much mud off his face as one sweep of his hand would and saw that Terra was standing proudly in front of him, one hand leaning against the flagpole.

"You know what that means?" Terra asked him, already knowing the answer.

When she was greeted with silence and a dead-serious face from the sore-loser, still sitting on his bottom in the mud, she decided to answer for him…in song!

Doing a victory dance she had learned from Beast Boy, Terra chanted in a sing-song voice, "You take first shift! You take first shift! I get to have fun, but you…"

Terra stopped her childish chanting when she saw X stand up and slowly approach her wearing the face of a hardened serial killer.

"Oh sh—!" she started, half-turning away in a desperate attempt to make a break for it, but the enraged maniac jumped her and pinned her shoulders to the ground before she could even take a step.

They were on the grass now, so the mud didn't get in the way this time…well, aside from the mud still on them, their fight remained clean for the most part…in at least one of the definitions of the word.

One of them would pin the other to the ground, and then the other would roll over and do the same. And then the whole thing started all over again.

On the bench not too far away from them, Little Brion was having one of his cute little laughing fits at the sight of his parents rolling by and quarrelling so childishly. Actually, his mother seemed to be enjoying herself. It was his father who appeared to be mad beyond all reason.

The sound of her happy child and the fact that she was succeeding in humiliating X egging her on (bad pun -_-'), Terra continued the endless wrestling cycle that she and X were engaged in.

As of right now, it didn't matter who was on top or who was filthier, all that mattered was whose pride was hurt the most—and Terra was winning by far in that category.

Interrupting her personal victory was a strong, cold hand lifting her up from on top the boy by the back neck collar of her shirt, and the same fate soon befell X.

Both surprised and dangling in the air by an unknown force, Terra and X looked up to see who dared interrupt their tussle—and they were immediately filled with terror at the mere sight of that man. More so Terra, because she knew what evils he was capable of…

"You know, there's this new invention called a 'bed', have you heard of it?"

Dear God, why did it have to be Cyborg?

Terra and X's dread quickly transitioned to embarrassment at the realization of what it looked like they were just doing. Terra just hoped that Beast Boy never found out about this…

Well that sure turned out longer than I thought it would. Sorry about that.

I'm still kinda new to actually writing fan fiction (this is only my second story), so some criticism would really help me out.