Jinx was beginning to get irritated now. When she woke up, Raven was gone. Starfire was in her room asleep, so obviously she didn't know where Raven was. Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Terra were playing videogames in the common room; they didn't know where she was either. Now she was looking for Robin. Where would he be, that is the question, Jinx thought comically.
"The training hall," she said out loud, to herself.
Jinx opened the door to the training room and shivered. It must have been below twenty! There was ice over several sections of the walls, creating a kind of otherworldly feel about it.
After the ice, the thing she noticed next was Robin. He was facing a training dummy, breathing hard and dressed in nothing more than what looked to be a light gi. She watched as his right fist struck out and hit the dummy at speed Jinx's eyes could barely keep up with. That portion of the figure froze over before his hand even made contact and shatter into hundreds of shards at the connection.
The applause that issued forth from Jinx caught the Boy Wonder off guard. He twisted around in a tight stance.
"Oh, sorry Jinx, what's up?"
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to get a grip on my powers. I can see why Raven and Terra have to work so hard. Did you want something?"
"Oh yeah, have you seen Raven?"
"She's on a mission." Came the mechanical reply.
Jinx pouted," why didn't she tell me?"
"It was last minute and top secret," Robin said, trying to ignore the hurt face Jinx was displaying.
"Can you at lest tell me where she went?"
"Sorry, but no."
"Aw, why not?" Jinx asked, pouting.
"Top secret," Robin repeated.
Jinx only growled and left Robin to his practice.
Kim came to her senses. The sight she awoke to wasn't a pleasant one. The first thing she noticed was that she was covered in blood that was her own. Next, her clothes were in tatters. Next, she had claws. This was where most people would faint, but Kim had been through one too many sets of genetic alteration to care that much.
Shego was next to her. She was in a similar state. "Stay calm, make a plan, stay calm." She told herself.
Another teen minutes later and both Kim and Shego were up, clean from using nothing short of a hose, and taking account of their bodies in Shego's room of the lair.
"Do we have a body count?" Kim asked worriedly as she moped on the bed.
"No Drakken or Amy, but at least fifteen of her 'babies.'" Shego groused. Kim could tell she was pissed off. Hell, she was too.
"You're growling," Shego said blandly.
Kim winced. It was bad enough she was stuck in this body, but growling? Kim glanced down at herself. Through the rips and tears of her mission clothes, a full body covering of red scales was visible. She hadn't seen a mirror yet, but she could get that her face had a matching coat. The scales were like a coat of armor; they ran down to her feet and hands where instead of digits and toes, there were sharp talons. If that didn't top it off, she knew what did: a tail and a set of wings. Wings! Before her body was fit, but know there was raw power surging through every muscle.
Shego looked to be in the same predicament, her tail was twitching side to side from nervous energy, her body had undergone like changes. Instead of the red color Kim was granted, Shego's scales were a deep black. Her wings and tail were like-wised colored.
"What are my parents going to say when they see me like this?" Kim pondered out loud.
"Red's your color?" Shego replied snidely.
"Not funny Shego. I'm going to call Wade and hope he can fix this," Kim said as she retrieved her ever-present Kimmunicator.
"Wade?" she said hesitantly.
"Hey Kim, I AAAAAAHHHHHH!" Wade screamed.
"Wade, calm down, it's me, Kim."
"Kim, you're looking...different, I was about to call. You don't usually take this long to deal with a villain even if it is Drakken and Amy."
"Things got...complicated. I was wondering if you could, well, turn me back to normal?"
"Let me do a quick scan...hold the Kimmunicator at arm's length," Wade asked as he started typing.
As she did a stream of light moved over her body. Wade studied the data for a moment before speaking," Okay Kim it looks like your body has been changed on a genetic level..."
"Amy already explained that part Wade, I just want to know if it's reversible or not," Kim asked.
"I'll have to look over it some more, but right now I can say that it would be dangerous to try. Your genetic material just underwent a change most people couldn't survive."
"Thanks Wade. Is there anything you have to at least make me look normal?"
"There should be an image synthesizer mode on the Kimmunicator."
"Is there anyway that you could do that for someone else?"
"Someone else? I thought Ron was hanging with Felix tonight. He couldn't have gotten hit by the whatever it was."
"It's not Ron. Its, well, Shego."
The villainess in question was sitting on a chair watching with an unreadable expression on her face. Why was Kim bothering to call in a favor for her? She shrugged. Kim was a good 'guy,' it was what they did. The real question was, did she want it to be more than that? Yes. It was an easy answer. She wanted Kim to like her. She wanted to do things for Kim; maybe she could actually have a 'normal' relationship for once.
"Shego?" Wade replied questioningly.
"It's a long story, Wade, but, for the time being at least, Shego's not a bad guy. She and Drakken had a...falling out."
"Well, Kim, I'll upload the data to the Kimmunicator. It should be able to cast a wide enough hologram that it will cover both you and Shego. I'll get to work on an image inducer in the mean time. One for you and one for Shego."
"Thanks Wade, I can't tell you how much this means to me."
"No problem Kim, just push the button when you want to turn the hologram on and off."
Kim put the Kimmunicator away wordlessly, and then a thought occurred to her, "Shego, where are you going to sleep tonight?"
Shego blinked. She didn't want to spend the night in the lair, not with it full of carcasses. "I think I'll make my way to one of the houses I own."
"Oh, well I was going to offer my house if you didn't have anywhere to go." Kim seemed mildly disappointed at the prospect of having to say 'good bye' to Shego.
"A night in the Possible household, something to brag about if nothing else," Shego mused, "I think that'd be nice. I accept."
"Are you sure there isn't another way home?" Kim asked warily.
"If you have wings, you were meant to fly," Shego responded and pushed Kim further towards the drop, "and besides, you should of asked the nerd for a ride if you didn't want to resort to a more natural means of transportation.
"You first," Kim ordered.
Shego sighed, "fine." She walked forward and flexed her wings; they responded to her every whim. She took one more step and jumped, wings spread. Kim gasped, but stared, wide-eyed as Shego flew back up to the balcony of Drakken's lair. She hung in mid-air, hovering by flapping her wings.
"Water's fine," she joked.
Kim gulped and spread her own wings and took that final step. The dizzying fall lasted but moments as newfound instincts rose and she was up! "This is fun!" Kim cried, amazed. There was an immediate difference between parachuting and bungee jumping. Flying, feeling the wind in your wings, it was like an indescribable high. To have total freedom of movement at your fingertips, it was exhilarating.
"Looks like someone's enjoying herself," Shego said wryly.
Kim mentally cursed herself for allowing a stupidly happy grin to slide across her face.
"I didn't know flying could be so fun," Kim defended.
Shego snorted," I just don't see how someone who regularly parachutes, ejects out of, and sky dives from planes can be chicken about using a pair of wings on her own back."
"I always have a safety line or something to guarantee my safety, just jumping off a cliff with nothing, but myself was never high on my list of priorities."
"I'll bet growing wings wasn't either," Shego amended.
"Fair enough," Kim admitted as they pulled away from the fortress. Shego would never admit it, but flying was fun; right up there with seeing Kim smile.
"Where am I?" Dream Clown asked herself. She looked around and found the rest of her team sitting, unconscious, inside the museum where they had been fighting…Brother Blood! The female hero looked around once again, but he wasn't there. That was another weird thing; there wasn't any damage. Dream Clown was sure that they had caused at least a little damage to the room the fight had taken place in.
That was when she noticed a small piece of paper on the floor next to her. It read simply:
Sorry about the mind control.
-X
"X," she whispered. So, it was a dream? That's right! She remembered a strange white light; at the time she hadn't thought anything of it. Then they were fighting Brother Blood. So that explained why she had dreamed about fighting Blood, but had never seen him in real life. This X person must have set up a scenario that they wouldn't question while he…
Stole something! The question was what? And why?
"Anyone get the number of that truck?" She heard a voice ask. It was Speedy. He seemed to come to his senses and asked, "Where'd Blood go!"
The next few minutes were taken to wake up all of the Titan's East team and explaining what had just happened to them.
"Wait one minute!" Aqua lad shouted. "Robin told me about Red X!"
"Red X?" Speedy asked questioningly.
"Yeah, he's supposed to be a master thief. He stole the Red X suit that Robin made out of a safe that Robin created." Aqua lad supplied.
"You're joking, right?" Bumblebee exclaimed. "I've seen Robin's security, it makes Fort Knocks look like a department store!"
"What did he take though?" Speedy asked.
"Aqui, Aqui," Mas y Menos yelled.
"The Cartography Tome," Aqua lad read from the now-empty case.
"What's cartography?" Speedy asked.
"It's the study of maps," Bumblebee supplied.
"Maps to what; that's the question," Aqua lad countered. Dream Clown took a look at the description. The book was a compilation of ancient maps, most of which had been discarded a few hundred years ago as nothing but nonsense. She pointed the plak out to her team.
"Why would X want a book of ancient maps though?" Aqua Lad asked.
"Cyborg, what are you up to," Jinx asked from the doorway.
"Oh, hey Jinx, what up?" The man-machine returned.
"Raven's out right now, so I'm kind of bored. What's this?" Jinx gestured to a large pile of parts and a half-constructed piece of machinery.
"That? That's kind of a hobby I've taken up. You probably remember Bumblebee, Right?" Jinx made a gesture in the affirmative. "Well, I'd like to, um, get to know her a little bit better and long-distance relationships never work out. So, I've been working on this baby. It's supposed to warp space. In essence, a teleportation machine."
"Cool!" Jinx said appreciatively. "Does it work?"
"That's the problem. I haven't been able to get enough time to actually work on it."
"Well, Raven not here and I am bored stiff, so…"
"Jinx that would be great! Would you really help me?"
Jinx spaced her legs apart, put one hand on her hip and the other in front of her face. In an all-too-melodramatic voice she proclaimed, "In the name of the moon and love, I will help you!"
After her declaration, both Cyborg and Jinx promptly fell on to the floor, rolling with laughter.