"Tell me why I'm here again?" Beast Boy complained while toppling over the macaroni sofa. It had only been an hour since Starfire woke him up and unfortunately, he was not a morning beast.
Letting his head fall into the frilly teal cushions, he inhaled the scent of the floral essential oils Starfire added weeks ago. For a fifteen year old, he could only imagine how horrifying it would be once Starfire got her hands on a suggestive magazine. The large T tower was decorated, head to toe with palm leaves and geometric paintings - her excuse for bedazzling the residence was all the hype around botany on her Life magazines.
"Because friend, Robin has requested our presence. You wouldn't want to delay like the last time we planned a vacation to the flourishing Bahamas, do you?" Starfire appeared at his side, already changed into her latex suit. Her light auburn cascaded off the edge of the couch. Being the only female original Titans, Beast Boy could only wonder how she got around everyday with the paparazzi on her oblivious tail.
As she mentioned the Bahamas, he immediately recalled the two hour delay because someone misplaced his ticket. Had he not search the underside of the T-Car, Beast Boy could still be sitting on a lawn chair, sipping on a pitiful virgin colada.
His summer full of pranks and painless fights with old enemies and new ones was over.
Even Starfire's overly hyperactive enthusiasm couldn't bring him up. The sun was barely out, looking like an ultra violet sky. The air in the common room was dense, feeling like a cold breeze as Cyborg had left the air condition on.
Just as the room became silent, a very focused Robin alongside a very excited Cyborg entered, the metal doors sliding closed behind him. What caught Beast Boy's eye was not the extendable pointer stick wrapped in the Boy Wonder's hand but the inconspicuous tray carried by the robot man.
An astound look was replaced with boredom as soon as he caught the sight of hids leader clapping his hands.
"Titans! As you may know, Cyborg and I have been busy at work on this upcoming mission." Robin began, swiftly tapping a few keys on the control board as if he had rehearsed this one too many times. The screen lit up teal for a split second before entering into a loading page.
"I wouldn't exactly call attending school a missio-"
"Not now Beast Boy, it's not the time for jokes." Robin was hasty to continue. From the looks of it, the leader had gone over the top again. A pre-made slideshow filled the giant screen as the title MISSION #5903. "As I was saying, Cyborg and I have been devoting months of organizing and planning in order to enroll us into school legally. Yessiree folks, we get the chance of a lifetime to graduate from high school."
"You speak as if this high school was some dream out of one of those catalogues Star read on our road trip." Beast Boy spoke sarcastically, obviously not content with the entire plan.
It had been Robin's top conversation topic for the past eight months. After Cyborg's seventeenth birthday bash at the local pizzeria, Robin had started conversing with 'someone' about being able to experience school before the team decided whether or not to split.
Beast Boy knew how hard it was to organize four enrolments. Birth certificates had to be mailed, health cards were collected and new candid shots were taken for the teens. It was no wonder Robin went all out on being normal teenagers for once. None of the quartet had ever been in a public school since they got their powers. Starfire was living on a different planet, Robin was trained privately, Beast Boy was homeschool and Cyborg dropped out dramatically due to his prothesis.
"And how are on earth are we going to get past the students? You might been fine but not everyone has human coloured skin," He pointed at himself and Starfire, "and half their other body parts."
"Which is why we are going in disguised."
"Excuse me but no amount of Dermacol foundation is covering this." Beast Boy then pointed to his body. The last run-in they had with Control Freak, Beast Boy was the 'lucky' one that had to go in as an anime character.
A freakishly pale anime character.
Shuddering at the thought of being covered with non-set foundation and contour, Beast Boy sounded dismissive at the fact that they would have to be costumed.
"Exactly why we have these bad boys!" Butting into the argument, Cyborg eagerly pulled off the flimsy metal lid covering the tray.
Dazzling right in the center was a line of minuscule pearls, glittering all sorts of different colours.
Starfire was in a daze. Her hands plucked one of the pink pearls up and held it to her eye, "Oh, these remind me greatly of the bumgops Komand'r used to don at those parties."
"Careful with that Star! Took me eight weeks to gather the materials and I'm not planning to order another shipment of calistite." He warned her.
Before they knew it, an ecstatic Starfire was replaced with a rather ordinary brunette, no taller then Robin.
"W-what happened to my appearance?" Star's voice came out of the new girl as she looked down at her body.
"Give that to me!" Cyborg ripped the small bead from her hands, quickly pressing a censor on it. Her skin melted back into a bright orange hue and her milky grey irises were back to green. "They aren't customized to your standards yet so I can't control the randomizer."
"Then how exactly are we supposed be able to keep a single look the entire time we are there?" Beast Boy asked, gently holding the bead between his forefingers. Tucked under his arm was an inch thick instruction manual, perhaps from Cyborg.
"That's why we are here now."
"I never knew you two skeezers had a computer lab. I could eleven matches of Emperor Zut's Den down here." The group entered into a heated room with padding covering the normally grey walls. Pairs of elevating chairs and thin-as-paper computers sat on the desks, similar to a school computer lab.
"That's because you never ask. Besides, do you actually think I trust someone who has malfunctioned my masterboard thrice to be wandering down here?" Cyborg motioned Robin who then flicked a switch to reveal dim lights.
Minutes later and the team had been busy at work, two figuring out how to set up the program. According to Cyborg, once one has entered into the application there should be a panel labeled 'customize' where one could change skin tone, hair and height with a click of a button or a scroll of a cursor.
"Don't these fancy programs usually use codes to create colours?"
"Yes they do. I had to add a separate app so all idiots that can't tell the difference between a hashtag and an asterisk can use this as well." Muttering an incoherent come back, Beast Boy returned to adjusting the hair colour.
Mom was a brunette but dad was blonde
Dragging the arrow downwards, he smiled in triumph at the hair colour.
Should I keep my preset eyes or change it up?
Beast Boy kept the colour of his emerald eyes as they reminded him a bit of his powers.
Fiddling with the skin tone, he finally settled for a medium tone as it went well with his dark blonde hair. A fluke of the program, Beast Boy made a mental note to ask Cyborg to add a modelling feature where the user could see the results before actually trying the bead on.
"I'm done!" He sang off-key, dragging out the word done. Kicking his legs out, his chair swerved across the alleyway, gliding next to a focused Robin.
"Good, so am I." He said plainly, diverting his attention back to the flappy bird game on the screen, "Did you fill in a name yet? It'll help with mixups."
"I'm supposed to put a name?"
"Yes."
Pushing the chair back to his respected computer, Beast Boy typed out an old name he hadn't seen in a decade.
"Garfield? Seriously?" Cyborg emphasized in a teasing tone.
"What, have a thing against fat orange cats?"
"No, it's just that don't you think that name is kinda dorky? I mean, who would actually name their son Garfield?"
"Why don't you tell that to Mark Logan, the guy who let his half asleep wife sign the certificate?" He rolled his eyes, "Besides, I wouldn't be talking Victor Stone."
"Kori Anders, at your service friends!" Starfire had figured how to tilt the chair backwards as she was nearly hanging upside down, wearing a wink of her face.
"Well hello there Kori. The name's Richard Grayson but you can call me Dick." Robin tipped an imaginary hat as Kori giggled.
"Aren't you gonna introduce yourself dork?" Victor ruffled his wavy hair, petting him like a cat. The rest of the group watched in fake anticipation, awaiting a certain person,s introduction.
"The names Logan," A quizzed expression appeared on Richard's face, "Garfield Logan. Middle name Mark."
"Oh, isn't this just wonderful! Come along Richard, I want to try out my new over-heated look."
"You mean hot?"
"Oh Dick, you think I'm hot? I'm so flattered." A blushing Richard was soon dragged out by Kori as her loud voice faded away into the halls.
"They make such a cute couple."
"Hm?"
"Kori and Dick."
"Oh, yeah." A hint of distraction in Garfield's voice, he held up an open book. "The manual said there are twelve pearls in total, in assort colours white, red, pink, silver, purple, black, blue, navy, magenta, orange, aqua and green. I only counted eleven on the tray."
"Sneaky and sly," Victor murmured under his breath, "You are right, there is supposed to be twelve."
"What do you mean by 'supposed'? The black pearl is missing."
"It's not necessarily a problem. When I created these years ago, I made sure to have chosen colours for each close members to us. Bright pink for Starfire, magenta for Jinx, Red for Kid Flash, green for you, navy for Robin, orange for Speedy, aqua for Aqualad, and blue for me. White, silver and black are spares but you decided to choose the silver pearl instead of green."
"What about purple?" He pointed out.
"We all know what the purple one was for." Garfield remained oblivious but pretended to understand. "But somehow, I managed to misplaced the black one when I was doing a test run."
A peak of silence came before them as the two best friends stared at the ground aimlessly. It wasn't common for an awkward silence to commence before them as Victor was talkative and Garfield couldn't stand silence.
"We should be heading up now." Raising an eyebrow, Victor looked at him impatiently before sighing, "Just take an extra if you need. You lost eighty six dollars last time you left me to do your laundry. I know how you always forget to empty out the pockets."
"Thanks dude." Victor walked out, almost too fast to hear leaving Garfield with the tray of beads. Grabbing another cautiously, he took a quick look at the corners of the walls for any security cameras. The only one was currently shut off to his surprise. Before Richard could get a chance to yell at him for being late, Garfield rushed out and ran back up the fire exit stairs.
Laying on the tray was only magenta, red, yellow, green, orange, white and aqua.
I can't wait to get to the romance part of this story next chapter. I'm one of those annoying authors that only can write ten thousand words on feelings.
-Catisa~Orsilla