A/N: Soooo sorry that it's been so long, but I have been super busy! So, as an apology, I put a lot of effort into this chapter and gave you all something exciting: someone else is going to find out about Kori's secret. Actually it's two people, but I don't want to give anything away, so...yeah! But one more thing, I am extending the joke contest from last weeks chapter to give people more opportunities to submit. Plus, I am also allowing comebacks as submissions (like the one Kori makes in this chapter) because I think they are more clever than jokes. And feel free to make more than one entry.

Also, anyone reading my other stories and wondering why I haven't really been updating often, it's because I've been focused on this one. I just have more of a plan for this one. Think of it like this: my stories are streets and I can see the end of this road, while with the other stories, they're all very twisty-turny roads so it's taking me longer to work out what I want in them.

That being said...Read on!

-Ana

Thirty minutes after Beast Boy's promise of adventure, Kori wanted to tell the monkey in her head to just end it; for god's sake, just end this cruel life quickly.

And she was pretty sure the monkey was on speed.

Two hours after Beast Boy's promise of adventure, she wanted to go home and die. Immediately. Because nothing, and she means nothing is worse than spending two and a half freakin' hours at a public library with nothing to do. Believe it or not, Kori was capable of reading. Enjoying reading is a completely different action, one that Kori couldn't wrap her mind around. Who would want to stare at a solitary page for hours at a time, squinting to see itsy bitsy little black type? Not Kori, that's for damn sure.

Not to mention she had to hide in a deserted section because everyone in the library kept whispering and pointing as if they would never expect Kori Anders to be in a library.

Okay, so maybe that was warranted. But it was still rude.

After the first ten minutes of sitting on the floor of the deserted section between two ceiling-high bookshelves, Kori named her private section the Shits.

Why? No, not because the content of the books was shit (though that may be questionable), but because they were treated like shit. Every single spine was cracked and warped from water damage or over-use. The dust caked the pages like the ground after the first snowfall. When Kori actually cracked one of those bad-boys, so much dust got shot into her face that she almost died. Almost.

But when the dust settled, she noticed doodles in the margins of the books and crudely drawn pictures of… well, human genitals… drawn on the inside cover pages. Text had been highlighted or circled or underlined to the point of illegibility, and Kori had to literally press her nose into the book in order to read it.

She felt sympathy towards the books in the Shits. They might've been good books if people hadn't defiled them with scribbles and abused them. She started leafing through the books, and whenever she found a doodle or a marking, she made up a story in her head about what that person was doing when they made that mark.

A girl in college named Brianna had spilled coffee on her copy of A Winter's Tale upon sighting her old tormentor, Mark, from high school in her favorite coffee shop, miles and miles from their hometown. Then they fell in love.

Daniella was calmly reading her favorite book, To Kill A Mockingbird, when her boyfriend came up and proposed, and she ripped the page in surprise. Their wedding was a theme wedding, and she looked lovely, if you were wondering. They honeymooned in Siesta Key.

Phoebe had been carrying her books through the hallway when she and the new kid collided and her books, including her school-assigned copy of Girl With A Pearl Earring, which got kicked into a locker that scuffed the first few letters off of the cover. Ben, the new kid, helped her pick them up, and their hands met over the newly damaged –l With A Pearl Earring. They fell in love. You know what he got her for Valentine's Day? Pearl earrings.

Treasure Island had been one of the books on the Titanic with Jack and Rose. Someone picked it up out of the water, damaged but still usable, and it had somehow found its way to Gotham.

The Great Gatsby had been given to a boy by his girlfriend and they were happy until this slut came in and framed the girl for something she didn't do and the boyfriend believed the slut and called his girlfriend mean names and the girl ran away because she never wanted to see the boy again—

"YOU BASTARD!" Kori thought; but no, she hadn't thought it, she had yelled it aloud in the middle of the Shits, glaring at the book her nose was buried in. People were staring.

Kori glared and the monkey chattered and clapped his cymbals, taunting her. The people looked away.

Okay, so say, hypothetically, that Kori was a tiny bit bitter. Not, like, a lot, but… yeah. She would have a right, right? I mean, this is all hypothetical of course, but wouldn't that bitterness, if it were the case, be justified?

"I'm afraid we've interrupted something, Raven. Perhaps we should give Kori and her book some time to talk things out."

Kori snapped her head up. Beast Boy and Raven were desperately trying to hold in laughs, obviously having witnessed her verbal assault on the poor defenseless bastard book. Well, Kori had to defend herself.

"He was cheating on me with that slut Romeo and Juliet."

"Shame on him." Raven said this in her trademark monotone.

Kori smiled faintly as Raven took a longer look. "Kori, are you actually reading?"

Now she was slightly offended. "God, no. Reading is so boring. It's just staring at one thing for hours and hours…"

Beast Boy laughed. "Come on, I once saw a walrus stare at one thing for two hours."

Kori whipped her head around and smirked. "Oh yeah? Did you say good job, Mom?"

Raven snorted. Beast Boy stared slack-jawed and defeated. "I am going to use that come-back for my own purposes one of these days and it will be all your fault."

Kori smirked again as she sat up and brushed the dust off of her jeans. "I'm shaking in my boots."

Raven gestured to the door. "I've got everything that I need, so let's get out of here."

"You never even told me why you needed to be here?"

"Bruce wanted us out of the house so they could plan your party uninterrupted."

Beast Boy and Kori both yelled at Raven at the same time.

"Raven! You weren't supposed to tell her!" Beast Boy gasped, scandalized.

"AND YOU DECIDED TO TAKE ME HERE? WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT I WOULD ENJOY THIS EVEN A LITTLE BIT?"

Raven shot Kori a pointed look as people yet again turned to stare.

"I didn't think you would like it. But, I did. Beast Boy, she already knew."

Beast Boy didn't look comforted. "But still…" He whisper shouted this in a high pitched voice, which made Kori feel a little bit entertained, but it was by no means enough to completely lift her spirits.

"Shut up Beast Boy."

"No, I am not going home yet. I am going to make up this time we just wasted at this horrid place if it's the last thing that I do. Come on, we're going on a real adventure and I'm driving."

Kori stood up and booked it (see the pun?) out the library door and into the bright July sunshine.

She found her car, which had come back from the shop; it was a sleek red old-fashioned convertible Thunderbird, similar to Dani's. It was her baby, and she had so missed it…

She slid into the luxurious leather seats and rolled the top down, letting the sun dance on her black hair as the dark color attracted the rays. As she watched Raven and Beast Boy step out of the library and look around for Kori, she wondered if Beast Boy could see through her disguise. Her hair was blacker than ink. Her eyes were bluer than ice. She wasn't even a reflection of her former self. But maybe it wouldn't be so bad if Beast Boy knew.

Raven seemed to understand.

She would have to think about it more later, because they were opening the doors and sliding in.

Kori pulled out of the parking lot, and, sliding on her sunglasses, pulled away from the desolate library and towards the highway. Raven looked out from the side of her eyes as Kori pulled onto the highway, the opposite direction of both Wayne Manor and the Gotham mall.

In fact, Kori seemed to be leaving Gotham completely.

"Uhhhhh Kori, not to judge you or anything, but do you actually know where you're going?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell us?"

"It's an adventure, Beast Boy. Remember?"

The monkey in Kori's head had been quiet for almost ten minutes, so driving wasn't as bad as it would've been earlier, when Raven had seized the car saying that Kori was unfit to drive.

Now it was her turn.

After about two hours of driving, they reached the outskirts of a small beach town. She pulled through the town, full of tourists, until she reached the boardwalk.

The sun was high in the sky, and it glinted on the top of the gigantic iron Ferris wheel, the carts all decorated in pastel colors. Kori drew in a breath and let the swirling smells of fried dough and greasy hot dogs. Hundreds of carnival games were scattered around on the dirt ground, and wooden docks with benches and a few ice cream stands stretched onto the crystal waves like sprawling insects. Kori smiled. She loved it here.

They got out of the car and Beast Boy dashed off to some food stand or other, while Raven and Kori followed, slowly walking side by side.

"So, how did you know about this place?"

Kori smiled. "I stopped here to rest on my way out of Jump City. I spent the night on the purple car of the Ferris wheel. There's an old man who works here. When he found me in the wheel car that day, he fed me and introduced me to the workers here. He knows I can fly. How else would I have gotten into the cart, which was at the very top? Luckily, this is a carnival, and there are plenty of freaks here. Follow me."

Kori weaved toward the giant wheel through throngs of people. She stopped in front of an abandoned alley between a pizzeria and a hardware store. She led Raven and Beast Boy, who had returned with a plate of fried dough, down the alley and into the dark.

Beast Boy was complaining, but Kori walked deeper into the dark. She stopped at a metal door to a slim building at the end of the alley. She knocked on it, three quick knocks and two long ones, and the door opened as if on its own.

Kori stepped inside, unafraid, and breathed in the heavy scent of beeswax dripping from lit candles.

The candles were everywhere in the circular room. The lined the walls, sat on stacks of books and winked from sconces placed sporadically around the wall. Heavy purple drapes blocked the windows and hung around the room, creating a cubicle in the very center of the eerie place. Beast Boy squeaked at the sight of a skull resting on a stack of old, dusty, leather-bound books in strange languages he'd never seen, the titles written in ornate golden typeface.

Black beads hung from a break in the curtains, and Kori pushed her way through them. The hidden room was warm from the heat of a standing oven, the coals alighted and red. A worn chestnut table sat in the center, books stacked around it, and a heavy plush purple armchair propped next to it. In the chair, a woman sat. The woman was ageless; she may have been sixty, but she may have also been twenty. She had no wrinkles or crow's feet. Her eyes were wide, black as ink, and heavily lined, and her hair was wrapped into an emerald green scarf on top of her head. Her skin was a rich chocolate, and her wrists were weighed down with bracelets and ropes and beads. When her owl eyes landed on Kori, the corners of her mouth twitched into the semblance of a grin.

"Madame Zinnia." Kori nodded at the woman, whose eyes looked past Kori and to Raven and Beast Boy, who were standing at the entrance of the anteroom.

"You have returned, Koriand'r. And not just to the carnival, I see." Madame Zinnia spoke with an indecipherable accent, with touches of French and a Caribbean undertone. Her voice was low and sultry, velvet on the ears, but Kori wished that she wouldn't hint at her identity.

"Oh, her name's Kori Anders, not Kori Ander." Beast Boy spoke matter-of-factly, despite the creepiness emanating from every bit of the place.

"I know what I said, changeling."

Beast Boy's eyebrows rose to his hairline. "How did you—"?

Madame Zinnia's eyes glinted. "I am no stranger to the supernatural, boy. There is a great deal of power in this room. There is indeed a great deal of potential. Take, for example, a daughter of hell's fires. Ah… yes, a daughter of evil working for good. You disobey your father and you deny thy nature."

Raven stepped closer to the table and sat in a wooden chair next to Kori. Beast Boy did the same.

"And then of course, Koriand'r, you have the potential to be everything that you once were. But patience was never the strong suit of beings from your planet. If you continue to push yourself, you will die."

Beast Boy was scratching his head at Madame Zinnia's words, while Kori and Raven had blanched at the fortuneteller's revealing words. Kori turned to see realization dawn on Beast Boy's face.

"Kori…you have powers? What is she talking about?"

Kori stared at Madame Zinnia, trying to convey her confusion as to why she would reveal her secret.

Madame Zinnia held her palms, her skin like ice. Her owl eyes bore into Kori's contact lenses.

"Koriand'r, my knowledge is a gift you may not want, but it is a gift that you need. You hide behind a disguise, but it is not as strong as you assume. The demon daughter already knows whom you are and whom you were; where you came from. The closer you get to these people you promised to hate, the more you risk yourself. This one has a good heart."

Beast Boy swallowed and stood up, leaving the room. Kori and Raven chased after him and met him in the sunshine just outside the open door. The darkness in the fortune-teller's lair was so complete that her eyes burned from the return to the sun.

Beast Boy was standing with his arms crossed, looking at them suspiciously and a bit angrily. "Someone has to tell me what is going on. Kori you apparently have powers, and what was that about you and people from your planet? This is freaky and weird and I want answers now!"

Kori sighed and walked towards Beast Boy, who skittered backwards as if afraid of her.

"Beast Boy, I didn't want you to find out this way…. Actually, I didn't want you to find out at all because of what you might think of me. But... I'm not who you, uh, well, I'm not who you think I am."

Beast Boy snorted. "Yeah, I got that."

Kori ran a finger through her hair. She didn't know how to say this. "Okay, Beast Boy, look into my face and tell me that you don't recognize me."

Beast Boy stared intently at her face. "I don't recognize you. Sorry."

"It's me! Starfire!"

Beast Boy blanched, if a green boy can blanch, and then glared at her and Raven. "If this is supposed to be funny, it's not. It's sick and cruel. Starfire is millions of miles away on her planet."

"Yes! My planet!" But he wasn't listening to her.

"Besides, Starfire has red hair and green eyes."

Kori turned quickly. "Give me two seconds." She stuck her fingers in her eyes and removed her contacts.

Her eyes were now completely green, and Beast Boy sucked in a breath.

"No way. No way. This-This just isn't possible. How did you get here? Why didn't you go back to Tameran? Oh, I don't care!"

Beast Boy threw his arms around her and squeezed the life nearly out of her.

"Did you hear that Raven? This is Starfire!"

But their joy was interrupted by a sultry voice seeping through the still ajar iron door to the dark room.

A pair of shining black eyes floated just inside the door, keeping inside the dark, where owls ought to be.

"But beware, Koriand'r. There are enemies hiding in the dark. They seek to know your identity. Beware of giving this information away for free. Your fall will be at the hands of the one you loved the most. See now how their spy runs."

Kori whipped around just in time to see a foot and a leg disappear from the corner of the alley.

Madame Zinnia continued. "Beware the candles, young alien, for when they are extinguished, it will be the end of Korina Anders."

A/N: Well well well look what we have here: it's a cliffhanger. How great are cliffhangers, I mean really? They're my favorites. So now Beast Boy knows that Koriand'r, Kori Anders, and Starfire are all the same person, and he reacted as expected: kind of angry when the notion was first brought up, then ridiculously happy when he found out it was true. Now, I will try to update as soon as I can, but I have a rather busy life with school and theater every single day. Tomorrow I have rehearsal from 12 noon to 5 in the evening and that's just crazy ridiculous. Ah well, c'est la vie.

xoxo,

Ana