Kim and Starfire walked into the locker room together, balancing several bags of Club Banana spoils between them. Kim stuffed hers into her locker, searched around for a minute, then pulled out an extra cheer uniform.
"For the real?" Starfire asked, barely containing her excitement.
"Hey, you asked to try it out," said Kim. "We've let people do this before. You said you wanted to see what it was like to be a cheerleader, so here's your shot."
"Um, no. There is no way. Period," said a familiar voice. Kim and Star looked in its direction and saw Bonnie, already changed into her uniform. "She hasn't even gone through try-outs. She'll just mess us up."
"Funny," Kim returned. "I remember a time when I had a certain famous actress shadowing me, and a certain someone was all for her joining the squad even though she'd never even been to a real high school before."
"That was just for practice!" Bonnie defended. "This is an actual game! People are watching here, Kim!"
Kim turned to Starfire. "Starfire, do you remember the routine I showed you this afternoon?"
"Yes," the alien replied.
"Well, there you go," Kim said to Bonnie. "Now, is this really about the lack of try-outs, or about the eye shadow explosion?"
Bonnie didn't answer. She just waltzed straight out of the locker without giving either of the redheads a look. Once she was gone, Starfire took the extra uniform from Kim. Star put down her shopping bags and changed into it.
"Magnificent!" she said, admiring herself in the mirror behind the locker room door. "Though it is unfortunate that Robin will be unable to observe it."
Kim, now also changed, asked, "You talked about him a lot at the mall. Are you two together?"
"Yes," she replied, though not as happily as Kim had expected. "We are the together. The misfortune is that after the return of the Slade, we have had few of the chances to be the together. Our missions create the interferences quite often. The result is that we have had none of the dates or even the time alone together. It makes things much more of the complicated."
Kim nodded knowingly. "Drama. That is the most normal thing in the world for a teenager to have. Come on, we need to get out there before the game starts." Before heading out the door, Kim took out a duffel bag and added to its contents her Kimmunicator and both of the Titans communicators, just in case they got a call during the game.
Starfire did remember the routine, and got on pretty well with the other cheerleaders, except for Bonnie of course, who still held a grudge about the exploding makeup. She picked up everything else really quickly. It was like she was born to be a cheerleader. Once word got around that she could fly, the girls begged their captain to let her do some super cool midair stunts during halftime.
"Oh, I don't know about that," Kim said. "Starfire's a natural, but she might not want the spotlight on her first time cheering…"
"Worry not, Kim!" Starfire instantly chimed in. "It would be the honor to fly during the halfway time." Really, she was so excited to be on the squad that she would have done anything they asked. Kim therefore had to rework the last bit of the halftime routine, but a couple run-throughs were all it took to bring the routine to perfection.
The spectators began to arrive and the cheerleaders took a break. Starfire heard a sound she recognized. It wasn't a car driving into the lot, but it was some kind of transportation device. She realized instantly what it was: the T-Ship!
The orange jet landed on the staff parking lot. Robin and Raven got out of their compartments. Seeing the blinding lights over the field and the bleachers starting to fill up, they knew that a football game was going on.
Raven couldn't help saying something sarcastic. "A football game. Soooo dangerous."
"Shut up," Robin muttered. He and Raven walked over to field, looking for any sign of Starfire. They were stopped at a table by the bleachers.
"Sorry, kids," the man sitting there said. "If you don't have a student ID, you've got to pay full price."
Starfire spotted her friends from where she was, grabbed Kim's hand, and sped straight over. "My friends!" Letting go of Kim, she gave Robin one of her famous hugs, though a little bit more affectionate and less circulation-stopping. She moved to do the same for Raven, but the cloaked girl backed away first, a bit uncomfortable with the usual gesture.
"Starfire?" Robin asked. "What are you doing here? And…why are you in a cheerleader uniform?"
She spun around. "Do you approve of it, Robin?"
Robin definitely approved of the yellow and purple crop top with matching skirt. She looked amazing. Robin was actually kind of stunned. "Y-yeah. I do."
She held up her hand so he could see her fingernails. They were painted Mad Dog colors. "Observe! Kim and I have gone to the mall of shopping, and we have decorated our nails of the fingers to match the colors of the school!" She held them up against her uniform to prove it.
While Starfire was modeling her nails, Kim jumped into the conversation. "So what are you two doing here? Did you hear any news?"
"No," said Robin, "we just wanted to check on Starfire." He hoped that didn't sound too creepy.
"I do not need the checking up," Starfire assured. "This afternoon was, I believe it's called 'the blast'! We visited the mall of shopping, and I sampled the coffee, and we purchased many clothing items at the club of bananas, and now Kim is allowing me to be a leader of the cheers for the day."
"That's great, Star," Robin said, relieved that everything was going fine.
"You know," Kim suggested, "as long as you're here, you could stay and watch the game. Ron's on the team, and I'll bet he'd go nuts if he saw you guys in the stands." Raven looked like she was about to refuse, but before she could, Kim turned to the man selling tickets. "Mr. O'Malley, would you mind if I call in a favor for my friends here? I'll pay for them later, if you want."
Mr. O'Malley smiled. "No problem, Kim. It's the least I can do after you saved my son from the avalanche last ski season."
"Oh, it's no big," she replied, guiding her friends past the ticket table and into the stadium.
"What was that all about?" Robin asked.
"When you save the world on a regular basis," Kim explained, "people are really happy to help you out. That's how I get transportation to most of my non-local missions. You can't drive everywhere."
Kim found Robin and Raven two seats in the front, near where the cheerleaders were. Raven was less than excited. She knew meditation would be impossible with all the screaming that was sure to occur, and she didn't have any of her books with her, not that that would have fared any better. She had never been into sports, and especially not football.
"So," she asked her team leader, "are we seriously just here to watch a high school football game?"
"Huh?" Robin replied, still staring at Starfire's cute cheerleader uniform.
Raven rolled her eyes. "I'm watching a football game surrounded by teenage hormones. Perfect. Just perfect. And I think I'm coming down with something. A-choo!" She sneezed the way she usually did when her feather allergies started acting up.
"G'lufnog!" Starfire said from where Kim had stationed her.
"Thanks," the dark girl muttered. She shut her eyes, crossed her legs, and repeated "Azarath Metrion Zinthos" softly in her futile attempt to meditate.
"Hey Raven!"
Raven cracked open one eye and saw a small, green boy with fangs and a purple and black uniform. "Beast Boy? I thought you were back at the Tower playing Mega Monkeys."
Beast Boy sat down next to her. "The game system was malfunctioning. Cyborg was still mad about what I apparently did to his car, so I thought I'd tag along with you guys. So, I transformed myself into a germ and hitched a ride on you."
"Whoa, whoa, back up," Raven said, opening her second eye. "You mean you could have helped Robin and me pilot the T-Ship, but instead chose to make me feel sick and scare me out of the blue as soon as I'd sneezed you out?"
"Yup. Your reaction just now was almost as entertaining as Mega Monkeys."
Raven just looked at him. Beast Boy expected some kind of response and waited anxiously for one. She neither did nor said anything for a few seconds. Then, she reached her hand out of her cloak and slapped his big pointed ear. She returned to reciting her mantra and shut her eyes.
"LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE MIDDLETON MAD DOGS!" the loudspeaker boomed.
"Ah!" She was shocked out of her meditation and had to put her hands on her seat to steady herself. Beast Boy laughed like he had seen the funniest thing in the world. She ignored him this time and shut her eyes again, repeating the magic words and taking deep breaths.
"YEAH!"
"MAD DOGS!"
"WHOO-HOO!"
"GO TEAM!"
The stands erupted with school spirit, breaking Raven's concentration so suddenly that she fell face-first onto the ground. She silently picked herself up and sat up in her seat, glaring at the closest person to her…Beast Boy.
"You've got something on your face, Rae," he snickered.
Her face was covered in a layer of dirt from the field. She wiped in off with her hand and muttered, "I hate football." Unfortunately for Raven, the game began. White jerseys with purple numbers slammed into black jerseys with red numbers. She tried to shut it all out, failed, gave up on the idea, and watched the players, pretending to care. Beast Boy slurped loudly on the slushy he had bought from the concessions stand.
Robin stopped admiring Starfire long enough to find the jersey labeled "Stoppable". Ron's admiration did feel a little bit creepy at times to the Teen Wonder, but he knew how much this would mean to him. Back when he did work with Batman, he would have jumped off a cliff if it meant he could get some praise from Bruce. Once he spotted him, it was hard to keep track of him in the sea of identical jerseys. There was one point when Ron got the ball and was immediately tackled by everybody on the other team, followed by everybody on his own team. Robin stood up, trying to see what happened. Kim rustled her pompoms nervously. Somehow, Ron was able to squeeze out of the mob without anyone noticing and ran for the other end of the field. By the time the pile of players broke up, he had crossed the final line of the field.
"TOUCHDOWN! THE MAD DOGS ARE BACK IN THE LEAD!"
Kim counted off the squad and led them in shouting, "V-I-C-T-O-R-Y! What does that spell? Victory! Go Mad Dogs!" She added in her own message at the end. "Way to go, Ron!"
Robin stood up and waved at Kim's sidekick. "Yeah! Way to go!"
Ron was so excited to be cheered on by his sidekick role model that he dropped the ball he had been holding in celebration. He waved back before hustling back to Coach Barkin.
Back in the parking lot, something green and black climbed noiselessly over the fence, bypassing all ticket sales. She wasn't here for the game. She pushed a button on a little disc in her ear that had a bright green "S" on it.
"Slade, I'm in," she said. "So is the T-Ship. You sure don't want me to just take them out now?"
"No," Slade replied through the microscopic speaker. "Just find a communicator."
"It would be easier…"
"It's not about easy, apprentice, it's about following instructions. Find a communicator and insert the bug. That is all."
"If you say so, Mr. Bossy Boots."
She stepped under the bleachers and turned around so she could see through the openings between the layers of seats. She saw Robin, Raven and Beast Boy sitting in the front. They would make easy targets, but it wouldn't be easy to get their communicators off of them. She hadn't seen Cyborg anywhere, but it didn't matter. From what Slade had told her, his communicator was built into his arm. No way could she bug that without him seeing it. The only other two to find were Kim and Starfire. Personally, she would have preferred to bug Kim, but either one would do. She could see they were leading cheers in front of the stands together. But where were their communicators…?
"Excuse me, miss, but what are you doing under here?" a small freshman boy asked, finding the presence of a green-skinned woman underneath the bleachers alone kind of suspicious.
Shego pointed one glowing finger at him. "You never saw me here," she said threateningly.
The little freshman backed up. "N-n-no, I never saw you here."
"Good." She looked through the bleachers again and spotted a duffel bag with Kim's initials on it. That had to be where the communicators were. "On second thought," she told the boy, "I need you to get up there by the cheerleaders and grab me the duffel bag that says 'KP' on it. Make it quick!" She held up her glowing hand to remind him of his incentive. Terrified, he ran out of the bleachers toward the cheerleaders. Kim was conveniently occupied with explaining to Starfire the meaning of halftime, which was coming up soon, so he was able to sneak off with the bag without her noticing.
"Thanks, kid," said Shego, snatching it from him and searching through it. The communicators were down at the bottom, so she had to sift through water bottles, makeup, extra hair ties, a bottle of mustard (Who brings their own mustard? she wondered), and other usual teen accessories first.
Raven suddenly tensed up. She sensed something wrong, something dark. "Robin," she said, "I feel something. It's near."
"What is?" he asked, remembering his earlier fear for Starfire.
"I don't know," she replied, "but I know I felt something like it at the villain convention. It's not Slade, but it's something bad. Or someone."
"ARE YOU READY FOR THE MIDDLETON MAD DOGS HALFTIME SHOW?!"
"Yeah we are!" Beast Boy shouted back.
"That's it," Raven decided. "I can't sense out anything with all these distractions. See you boys later." She transformed into her soul self, a dark force shaped like a raven, and disappeared from view.
"Looks like we're up," Kim told Starfire. "Just remember what we practiced. Try not to make a huge spectacle of yourself until the finale, though. Not that there's anything wrong with you," she quickly added, "it's just that we want it to be a surprise."
"All right," Starfire agreed, shaking her pompoms with a grin.
Back under the bleachers, Shego was getting very frustrated with the lack of organization in Kim's duffel bag. "A teen saves the world, you'd expect her to be less cluttered," she muttered, tossing out a bag of snacks.
"Um," the freshman boy said, reminding her of his presence, "I think that's Kim Possible's bag. I'm kind of friends with her brothers, so I don't really want her mad at me."
"Meaning?" Shego asked, looking up at him.
"Maybe I should…put it back?"
"You wish." Before he could protest further, she zapped him with enough green energy to knock him out cold. She returned to the bag. "Seriously, does this bag even have a bottom?"
The cheerleaders got into position on the field. Ron, taking a well-earned break, flipped on the music. The dance routine commenced. The crowd cheered.
Shego finally got her hands on a little yellow circle. It was either Kim's or Starfire's. That didn't really matter by this point. She unzipped the pocket on her boot and pulled out the tiny silver dot. Carefully, she stuck it onto the communicator. Slade was right. After only a couple of seconds, it blended in perfectly. Shego put everything back in the bag the way she'd found it. Suddenly, she heard a whoosh behind her.
"I don't believe that belongs to you," a monotone girl's voice said.
Shego looked in its direction and saw Raven floating just above the ground behind her, having resumed mortal form. "Oh," Shego replied, tucking in the last item and zipping it up, "you must be one of Kimmie's new friends. You want her stuff back? Here, take it!" She tossed the bag to Raven, who caught it with her powers, then set it on the ground. "Nothing in there worth stealing, trust me."
"Why are you here and what are you planning?" Raven demanded.
"Hey, I'm the sidekick here," she pointed out. "You want to know what's up? Ask the guy giving orders."
"Slade," Raven guessed. If she knew anything about Slade, it was that he hated to share power.
"Ooh, you're sharp," Shego teased. "If you weren't a good guy, I might actually like you." One of her hands lit up and she knocked Raven to the ground with a big green blast. "Or not!" She took off into the concessions crowd.
Raven called Robin on her communicator. "Shego's here," she said, "and she's heading for the concessions stand. We can't let her leave the game."
"We're on our way," he replied. "Beast Boy, Ron, let's go."
