Flip-Turn
(My bit)
To accurately convey how the raw, fucked up mess they were in was inescapable and completely out of control, the first thing that had to be understood was the longing and desperation that led up to The Incident.
Hitherto, The Incident shall be subtitled, Starfire's Madness.
Anyway, we must go back – way, way back – to the distant beginning. Maybe a week.
It began with a girl named Till, whose only mention shall be done quickly, now, before Starfire gets riled up.
You would think, the way Till did her business – plastering her image on the city's billboards, blasting her voice through speakers floating just above citizens' heads – that she had it in for Starfire. She did. Till openly taunted the alien teen. But that wasn't her primary goal. She wanted everyone to see her. Everyone. Most importantly, the Titans. Even more importantly, Robin.
Yes, the Titans cringed too, when they figured this out.
God, not another fangirl.
Robin valiantly strove to keep business as business. He ignored her as best he could. It came time, though, and the rest of the Titans backed him up, that he ought to put a stop to all of it, and let her down as gently as possible. Blunt, like he was – well things didn't go well. In fact, it was a disaster. Imagine – powerful, rich, fangirl throwing a hissy fit in the middle of a city. Now, imagine she had a robot army at her beck and call.
The Titans came to Robin's rescue, using their considerable strengths to pummel, crush, destroy, and generally subdue the robots. But somehow, the robots surged, and the battle that looked like it had been about to end, suddenly became the creature that never died. Till had caught Robin around the neck, a robot crushing his arms to his sides, as she leaned in slowly, trying to make the moment last, and kissed him full on the mouth.
A split instant later, Starfire had slammed into the slight girl with all the raging madness of a testosterone pumping linebacker. It was a good thing the girl's father had shown up after that, deactivating the remaining robots and picking his dazed daughter from the street by the collar of her blouse, and yanking her into a black SUV. Another moment and Starfire would have torn the girl's hair out, lit her on fire, broke her legs or something.
The father had apologized profusely, swearing that they wouldn't be seeing much of his daughter anymore (she was going to a strict boarding school – or at least, that's the polite term; it was more like a military/juvenile detention center) and he hopped in next to her, features set almost at the level of apocalyptically pissed-off as Starfire. They drove off, but not before Till got in her last shot at Starfire.
"At least I got a kiss!" she screeched. "You'll never get a kiss because you're not nor-mph!"
A hand descended over her mouth, pulling her head back into the car, the window rolled up, and the vehicle drove away.
(Back to story mode – btw, when in italics, it's a flashback and revolves around the girls)
There was a collective sigh of relief, and the air seemed to get a little cooler, the sun a little sunnier, when the black SUV had disappeared around a corner.
"That girl was…" Raven cocked her head to the side and frowned in distaste.
"Crazy," Beast Boy supplied, shaking his head.
"That's not the word I was looking for, but okay."
Cyborg stretched his arms above his head, working out a kink in his back. "I don't know which is the more dangerous anymore – evil, destructive bad guys, or Robin's fangirls."
"There's a difference?" said Raven, and Cyborg grinned as he rolled his shoulders.
"I'd rather face the evil, destructive bad guys than the lovey-dovey ones." Robin mumbled good-naturedly and the group erupted in laughter. Starfire joined in kind of late, but she'd laughed, and that was enough to quell the uneasy looks they'd been sending her way ever since Till had disappeared.
"Let us return to the Tower," Starfire said, cheerful as all hell, further obliterating everyone's worries that she had taken Till's comment badly. "The fight has gotten me very hungry."
At the mention of hunger, and the implication of food at the Tower, everyone hustled home, all but forgetting their worries and the deluded Till.
But Starfire didn't forget. No, she didn't forget…
They met in Cyborg's room. He'd pulled up the listings on his computer screen.
"Unfortunately, they haven't used the card. The last purchase was made three nights ago when we had Thai. Since they've had the card, it hasn't been used."
"Damn." Robin put his fist to his mouth. This wasn't good. So , they had no leads whatsoever. "Check farther back. That might give us some sort of clue."
"Alright, this is what we've got for the last two weeks."
They stared at the screen, looking through the purchases. Nothing stood out, though. There was nothing expensive, nothing obvious. Groceries, a book, bubble-gum, pizza, a video game (Robin glared at Beast Boy), a train ticket, an iTunes card for fifty dollars.
Robin squinted. "That's not right."
Cyborg highlighted the purchases. "Made five days ago. 10:00 a.m. for the train ticket. 10:45 for the iTunes card. Ticket was one-way, and just the one…"
"Where did the train go?" asked Beast Boy.
Cyborg tapped at the computer. "Next town over. The iTunes card was purchased here, in the city."
"So, one of them went somewhere, on a train when both of them could fly, came back, and bought money for music?"
"Looks like it."
"What does that mean?"
Beast Boy brightened. He left the room, and returned with a chrome-topped black laptop. "Raven's the only one who's got a computer," he said as he laid the laptop on Cyborgs' desk and lifted it open. "It must have been her!"
"Still an odd thing to do," said Cyborg. "Especially for Raven."
Robin powered up the computer and they waited while it started up. A screen popped up – the backdrop was blue with a smoky raven in the center. It was demanding a password, with a blinking cursor underneath. Cyborg quickly overcame this obstacle, praying all the while that the thing wasn't magically booby-trapped as well.
It wasn't. He let out a grateful breath.
"Nervous," asked Beast Boy teasingly.
Robin opened up the iTunes application. "Looks like we know where the money went."
Three new albums. The Frozen Gnomes. The first album had the picture of a gnome with a Rambo-esque bandana around its head, holding a bowie knife, with one of its eyes blacked out. The second had a kitten in mid-leap, about to pounce on a gnome that was walking down a sidewalk, holding an ice-cream cone. The last album had a gnome standing at the precipice of a large building, the illuminated city of Las Vegas providing the backdrop – that gnome was facing away, out to the city, naked except for the pointy hat.
The titles of the songs were short – "Ocho", "delete me", "brick-eyed", "fo-stah".
Robin double clicked on "Fo-Stah", but stopped the track after the lead singer started crooning about a "chain-toothed, nipple-flickin' crumpled paper doll goin' through the motions with a jagged hard-on for destruction."
"Creative," he muttered. "But not what Raven usually listens to, is it? What does this tell us?"
"That Rae's got a freak-ear when it comes to music?" Beast Boy offered to the silence in the room, then, relented and said, "Why don't you check her browsing history? See what's going on there."
While Robin checked, Cyborg stood straight, considering the far wall, then moved to his computer again. "I've got an idea. I'm going to check the phone records. There might be something there."
Robin brought up a few addresses and opened windows for them. A Google map. A music video of the Frozen Gnomes. The Frozen Gnomes website. The Zagg concert hall website. He sent printed the image of the map, and Beast Boy examined it.
"So, this must be where they went on the train."
"Looks like it."
"There's more," said Cyborg. "Seems one of them has been making calls to that same area code. Lots of calls over the two days before they left. And check it out – the name of the person they've been calling?"
The screen read Tenant-Ripley, Lou.
"No," breathed Beast Boy. Suddenly he hopped up, startling Robin, who'd been right next to him. "Tell me that's not -! Lou Tenant! Ripley! Lou Tenant-Ripley! Tell me you see this!"
"What are you saying?" said Robin, eyes narrowed, exasperated by Beast Boy's antics. Cyborg briefly put a hand over his eyes.
"Beast Boy's freakin' out because that's the name of the lady from Alien – Lieutenant Ripley."
"Alien?"
Beast Boy's squee sounded like the air coming out of a balloon. "You don't know Alien?" He put his fists to his forehead. "You don't know ALIEN? How are you our leader?"
Irked, Robin ignored Beast Boy. "Named after a movie character – could be a pseudo."
"I think so too."
"Well, we've got the address. Looks like we'll be paying Ripley a visit."
Beast Boy seemed to calm down at that, and stared solemnly at the map. "So, where do the Frozen Gnomes fit in?"
Robin shrugged. "Maybe they don't. Maybe it's just a coincidence and Raven wanted to listen to some new music. Whatever it is, they've got a three day head-start on us. They haven't got back to us by now, so we're going after them, and Lou Ripley is where we start."
Raven watched as Starfire snatched a pair of earphones out of her ears and stuffed them in between the couch cushions. All she'd done was walk into the TV room, thinking that she might go into town in the afternoon to buy a new book, and now she was looking down into Starfire's guilt-ridden wide, doe-eyes, wondering just how interesting this was going to be.
"What'cha got there, Star?"
"Oh…" The girl's eyes rolled around the room in a frenzied movement that seemed to leave her dizzy afterwards. "I…"
Raven raised an eyebrow and waited out the stammering and bumbling.
Finally, Starfire just sighed and brought out the device she had been tinkering with. "I just wanted to listen to the songs. I was going to return it right afterwards. I found it."
She looked so downcast. Was that it? She fought off a sigh.
"Star, it's fine. It's not like I'm going to crucify you for picking up an iPod." Raven left a beaming Starfire to head off to the kitchen. Five minutes later, she was showing Starfire how to maneuver with the device. Twenty minutes later, she heard Starfire trying to sing along as she passed her bedroom door. An hour later, Raven heard banging and crashing from Star's bedroom, which she surmised to be the girls' attempts at dancing. Five hours later, she was getting really into this one song, and was getting most of the words right. Twelve hours later, Star burst into Ravens' room, startling her out of REM sleep.
"Raven!"
Raven sat bolt-right up in bed and clutched her heart. "Hrgh – God!" She settled her frantic eyes on the intruder. "What the hell are you doing?"
Her tone was harsh, more surprised than angry, but still pretty ticked-off.
"Ah, um – eh-heh." Star twined her fingers together behind her back, suddenly unsure. "Oh. I shouldn't have come in here like that."
Raven grumbled her consent, hand still clutched over her racing heart.
"But," she went on, excited again. "I found out who this iPod device belongs to! See? Look here! There's a number and an address."
Raven didn't look, she stared at Starfire, torn between the decision to grab the iPod and toss it through the window or grab the iPod and jam it down her throat. Starfire went on talking, oblivious to her own impending peril.
"So, I called!" She said, as if it were the most amazing thing in the world. "I just pushed the numbers in the order here; see? And then this voice came on, and I asked, 'Who is this?' And then the voice asked ME, 'Who is this?' And I said, 'Oh, my name… well I asked you first.' And then HE said, 'Well you called me – you have to tell me your name first. Doy.'"
Star looked slightly distressed, and she leaned forward into Raven's space. "I didn't want to tell him my real name… I thought…. Well, I thought…" She trailed off, and leaned away.
For some reason, Raven thought this – her leaning away – was stranger than having the girl in her breathing room. She calmed a degree, wondering.
"So what did you say," she prompted.
Star's eyes went wide again – rebounding quickly. "I told him my name was Stephanie." She smiled. "It's a human name. Very common."
"Yes," Raven agreed. "Common." Somehow it was suiting. She'd seen a few girls named Stephanie, and though none of them could do Starfire justice, they'd certainly fit the image. Cute, bubbly. Rife with that urg-ness.
"So," Star went on, happily. "he told me, ' Okay, Stephanie, my name is Lou. Mind telling me why you called me at 1:00 in the morning?'"
Raven had to shake her head. Poor guy. He probably knew a few Stephanie's.
"I told him I found his iPod. He didn't seem real excited at first. He was really sleepy. Then, I told him that I liked this song I found on his iPod – it was called 'The Queen'. I thought he would be angry to learn I had tampered with his device, but he was different after that. He said, 'Really? You liked it?'"
"It was a song he made. He has a band, Raven. Isn't that incredible?"
Raven nodded. It figured, really. But my, wasn't this interesting. Star was acting strange, and Raven had an itching feeling that she knew what was going on. Still, she didn't want to venture any assumptions. The last time that happened…
"So we were talking, and he told me all about his band and his music. He was so nice, talking to me – I thought it was so interesting!"
Starfire's boundless enthusiasm – her kindness, her sparkly optimism… how could the guy resist?
"So what's his band called," she asked, not really interested.
"The Frozen Gnomes," Star said, grinning. "He said he would give me one of their T-shirts when I returned the iPod device. I can't wait. I'm going tomorrow."
At that, Raven frowned. "You're going over there?"
"Yes, he doesn't have a vehicle so he couldn't come here."
"I don't suppose you told him where we lived, did you?" There didn't seem any need to be paranoid, but with Starfire's naiveté, anything could go wrong. But then again, she hadn't even told him her real name.
"Of course not," Star said. "I told him out city, but not that we lived at the Tower. That would be too obvious."
"Yeah, way too obvious." Raven reclined back into her pillows, suddenly feeling her previous sleepiness reemerge. "Why did you come in here?"
"Oh," Star placed her hand on her knees, apologetic. "I'd hoped to acquire the use of your lap-top. I wanted to check the address."
Starfire using googlemaps. Oh, the world – what was it coming to? A part of Raven was infuriated by the fact that Star had come into her room to check out some dude's address – something that could have been done just as effectively at Cyborg's computer orRobin's computer (although they were boys, so she supposed it wasn't too hard to imagine why Star had come to her) – or at the very least waited until morning. The other part was worried, and still a bigger part of her was just sleepy and wanted Star satisfied and out of her room.
Raven waved her hand in the general direction she'd left it. "S'over there."
Her brow furrowed as she heard books crashing. She cracked an eye over in that direction and found Star bending over, reassembling the toppled piles. That was odd too. Those stacks were nearly impossible to maneuver. Star could have just flown over them.
"The password's 'Gombah'," Raven sighed. "Take it to your room, Star. I want to go to sleep."
"Okay," Starfire chirped, knocking over more books. "Thank you, Raven."
Raven mumbled.
She'd figure this out in the morning, when her brain was working.
Sorry it's taken such a long time. Gotta keep the grades up, you know.
If you've been reading my hints effectively, you'll know what's going on. And, yeah, it's gonna be like that. Deal with it.
I just realized this is going to be slightly Hangover-ish. That's frightening. I'll get the next chapter up soon.