Chapter Five: Starfire's Insanity, Volume I

Cyborg studied the jumble of calculations scrawled across the monitor, trying to determine what was ailing Starfire.

"Have you found anything out?" Robin inquired, peering over the edge of the rut he had dug out with his pacing back and forth for the past half hour.

"Dude!" Beastboy exclaimed, "You don't need to ask every 10 seconds!"

"Hate to admit it, Robin, but Beastboy is right." Raven stated.

"I know…" Robin said dejectedly as Beastboy grinned madly, doing a victory dance for having earned a tidbit of praise from Raven.

"Don't get too full of yourself, it was a once-in-a-puny-lifetime thing, or rather a miracle if you believe that kind of thing." Raven hastened to add, thinking the sight of Beastboy's dance just a little disturbing, especially when he started chanting:

'Go Beastboy! Yeah, Beastboy! It's your birthday! It's your birthday!'

Beastboy replied with a grunt, choosing to let it slide since Raven still wasn't 100% recovered. Instead he just crossed his arms and sat back on the couch next to Raven as she sat calmly reading her book.

Raven just shrugged and looked up from her reading to observe Robin's pacing once again.

"Ya know," Raven began, "You should stop pacing before…"

"ARGHHH!"

"…Before you make a hole to the next floor." Raven finished in a monotone voice.

Beastboy fell over laughing, gasping a comment to Raven in between giggles, "Perfect –HAHA!- timing R- HEEHAHA— Rae!".

"Maybe you should help me back up there instead of laughing." Robin said with an annoyed edge to his voice, crossing his arms and tapping his foot to let Beastboy know just how annoyed he was.

Beastboy refrained from laughing long enough to change into a pterodactyl and retrieve Robin from the floor below. Robin uttered a hurried thanks before resuming his pacing just a few feet away from his newly-formed passageway to the floor below. The other titans sighed, not knowing how to get Robin to stop worrying.

"Yo Robin," Cyborg started, "just chill, I'm sure I'll find something soo- Booyah!"

"WHAT! What is it!" Robin inquired, jumping out of his new ditch-in-the-making.

"I think I've discovered what caused her condition." Cyborg proclaimed, triumph written across his face. "Starfire's already a high energy girl with those star bolts of hers. Add to that the reaction her embarrassment to our teasing and the extra fuel from the Mountain Dew, and you've got an overheated engine just waiting to happen!" Cyborg announced.

Robin just stared in silence, unwilling to believe that he had, in part, caused Starfire's condition.

"So…" Beastboy said, breaking the dead silence, "can I have an English translation please?"

Cyborg just gave him an exasperated glance before continuing, "Starfire has enough energy already, and because she drank the mountain dew, it reacted with her existing energy and caused her to overheat and pass out."

Beastboy still looked just as confused and Cyborg took the hint and explained again, saying, "Starfire already a hot head. We make Starfire even more heated with teasing. Starfire have soda that make Starfire go 'boom'." Relapsing out of 'Me Tarzan, you Jane'-speak, Cy continued his analysis in terms most normal people could understand, "Maybe she acquired this ailment, or maybe she was born with it…"

"OR MAYBE IT'S MAYBELINE!" Beastboy interrupted, comprehension dawning on his face, "I GET IT NOW!"

"Uh, yeah, sure." Cyborg answered.

"Look, she's waking up!" Robin exclaimed and immediately rushed to her bedside.

[Scene Break]

Starfire stirred, feeling rather…strange. She opened her eyes a tiny bit, and saw a shadowy figure rush to her side. Hoping she was right in her guess, she asked, "Robin?"

"Yes, it's me, Star, you're gonna be okay, just relax." She heard him reply. Starfire let a moan escape her lips as she felt an odd sensation tingling throughout her whole body, filling her with warmth and energy, she felt as though she couldn't sit still any longer, and then...

[Scene Break]

"Starfire, what are you doing?" Robin asked as Starfire leaped out of the hospital bed and tore across the room at lightning speed. She looked like a purple and orange Kid Flash as she zoomed around the room, up the wall, across the ceiling, and in front of the stunned titans like a bullet.

"Um, I'm guessing she's not completely cured yet." Raven declared as her eyes followed Starfire's movements.

"DUDE! She's like, gone haywire or something! She's making me dizzy!" Beastboy exclaimed, his neck untwisting itself after he had tried to follow Starfire's path with his eyes.

Robin made the same mistake, trying to follow Starfire with his eyes, which took on a hypnotic swirling pattern before he collapsed on the floor from his dizziness.

Cyborg leaned over him, asking him, "Yo Robin, how many fingers am I holding up?"

"Um, three?" Robin replied, regaining his feet.

"What!" Cyborg exclaimed, "I'm holding up no fingers! Just robotic digits! He's gone mad!"

"But there are three 'robotic digits' so technically, he's just fine." Raven commented.

"Oh, Right…" Cyborg answered with a sheepish grin.

"Come on, Star, you've got to calm dow- OMMPH!" Robin said before being knocked to the floor by a speeding Starfire.

Robin got himself back up yet again and was attempting to chase Starfire when the alarm rang.

[Chapter End]

Uh-oh, how will Starfire slow down? Will she be able to help the titans with the villain? WILL BEASTBOY FIND HIS MAYBELINE SKIN CARE PRODUCTS! I dunno, I guess you'll have to find out next chapter…