Chapter Two
An Article of Advice
"What do you mean you won't print it!" Beast Boy shrieked.
"I mean, I'm not going to print it," a girl replied. "I can't print something like that. My boss would kill me."
"Yeah, but-"
"We said no," another girl cut him off.
"Pleeeeaaasseee! This may be the only chance I ever get to get back at him!"
"For what?"
Beast Boy started searching his mind for an answer. "Uh….stuff."
The second girl just stared at him with the utmost suspicion in her eyes.
"Hang on, Jessica," the first girl said. She took the Polaroid from the green shape-shifter's hand and looked at it. "I think I've got an idea."
"Oh, tell me, Nataley, what is your great plan this time?" Jessica replied. Nataley looked up at her and grinned. She then looked back at Beast Boy.
"We'll publish it," she said, her grin growing bigger every second. Beast Boy's eyes instantly lit up.
"You will!"
"We will!" Jessica didn't seem too happy about her friend's decision.
"We will," Nataley said. She looked at Beast Boy and said, "But don't tell him."
"You got it!" Beast Boy replied. He then set off out the door of he Jump City News company's doors.
"Are you crazy?" Jessica snarled at Nataley.
"No," Nataley replied as she started into the back room.
"Our boss is going to kill us if we publish that!"
"Not if he doesn't know who it is." Nataley smirked with her reply. Jessica still looked confused. Nataley glanced at her friend as she pulled her dark, green tipped hair out of her olive colored face. "Relax, Jess. Boss man will never know."
She started tinkering with a computer scanner and put the Polaroid onto the glass. After scanning the picture into the computer, she opened the image editing program and started pushing buttons.
"Okay, what exactly are you doing?" Jessica asked. Nataley ignored her and continued pushing buttons until Robin's face was completely blurred out.
"Now we take out the background…" Nataley explained. She deleted the orange walls of Robin's bedroom. "And replace it," replaced it with another background, "With a generic bedroom."
"Nice!" said Jessica. "Now, what are we gonna write about this picture?"
"Just a little advice article," Nataley flashed her friend another smile and opened her writing program.
"Please, Robin, why is it that you must find Beast Boy so hastily?" Starfire inquired her friend.
"I just do, Starfire," Robin replied as he continued walking down the corridor of Titans Tower in search for the green shape shifter.
"Well, that was a plausible answer," Raven drawled suspiciously. Robin looked back at her with a hinting glare.
"It doesn't matter why, I just need to find Beast Boy," he snidely replied.
Together the four Titans searched the Tower, Cyborg not daring to say anything to his friend. They had just finished searching the gym when a green boy came running into the room.
"Guess what guys!" he exclaimed. Robin turned on his heel abruptly and glared at the boy menacingly.
"BEAST BOY!"
Beast Boy suddenly looked as though he was going to be sick. "Hey, Robin…"
"Where is it?"
"Where's what?"
"You know what! Just tell me where it is!"
"I dunno what what you're talking about."
"Yes, you do! The pic-"
Robin remembered that the rest of his friend were listening in on his conversation and leaned closer to Beast boy to finish his sentence.
"The picture you took of me this morning."
Beast Boy analyzed what Robin had said. He then said with dawning apprehension, "Ooooooohhhhhh, that what! I gave it to some girls at the newspaper publishing place."
"YOU WHAT!" Robin screamed. Cyborg, Raven and Starfire all cowered at the sound of their friend's voice being raised to an all new level of rage.
"Yeah, they were really nice, and the one with blonde highlights was kinda hot…anyway, I gave them the picture and they said they would publish it."
Robin's jaw dropped. He glanced up at the clock mounted on the wall and put both his palms on his forehead. "It's 6:30 at night now. That place closes at 6."
"Heh heh… gues you won't be getting that picture back until tomorrow morning," Beast Boy tried to lighten Robin's mood.
"What picture are we talking about again?" Cyborg dared to finally speak.
"One that should never be mentioned again," Robin replied as he took a step out the door.
"Well, from the sound of it, if it gets into the newspaper tomorrow it's gonna be talked about for a while."
Robin paused to consider this. He had to get his hands on that picture. He didn't care how, he just had too. He turned to face Beast Boy again menacingly.
"Do you know these girls names?"
Beast Boy cowered under the harsh tone of Robin's voice.
"T-their name t-tags said N-Nataley and J-Jessica," he stuttered.
"Last names?"
"N-No."
"Nataley and…" Robin took a second to think about the second name, as though he had heard it somewhere. "And Jessica."
"There's gotta be at least ten people in this city with each of those names," Raven mused. "Why do their names matter?"
"We can narrow it down. They both work at the Newspaper Company, so someone's bound to know who they are," Robin replied thoughtfully.
"But why must we find them?" Starfire inquired. Robin started to get angry again, but the way he did things were still relatively new to his alien friend, so he resisted the urge to yell something sarcastic at her.
"We just need to get that picture back, Star."
"Hey, how come she gets the special treatment, and you just yell at me?" Beast Boy asked.
"Because, Beast Boy, she doesn't sneak into people's rooms."
He walked out the door and set off to the city, not bothering to inform his friend's where exactly he was going.