Ron stood up with Raven's help. Kim ran over and hugged him. "I'm glad you're okay," she said once she let go. "I was really worried for a second there."
"Stoppable! Possible!" Mr. Barkin yelled, coming over. "Look at this place!"
They did. The field had burnt brown spots all over it, the snack shack had a gaping hole in the back, many of the bleachers were dented, and the football players were cowering like babies.
"I guess there's no third quarter," Ron said, trying to get a laugh out of his stoic teacher and coach.
"It'll be weeks before we get all this cleaned up!" Mr. Barkin stormed. "I don't know what just happened here to cause this, but I know that your names are written all over it, so start talking."
"Well, Mr. Barkin," Kim began, "it started when Raven sensed my arch nemesis's sidekick hiding under the bleachers, and then she and Ron and some of the Teen Titans started chasing Shego, and Beast Boy's superpower is transforming into animals, so he became an elephant, and Robin and I started fighting Shego on the field, but it looks like she blew up at least a fourth of the total surface area, and something freaky just happened with Starfire and Shego, so now she got away and I honestly have no clue what she wanted with us in the first place."
Mr. Barkin looked down as though he was analyzing a lab specimen. "I don't understand one word you just said," he told her, "but if you help me clean up this mess, I'll spare you the detentions."
"Yes!" Ron exclaimed with a fist pump. "That makes a whole month detention free for the Ronster!" Kim handed him a broom and his smile faded. "Clean up. Right."
"And who are you people supposed to be?" Mr. Barkin asked Raven and Beast Boy, who had also joined the group.
"I'm Raven," the blue girl said, "and the green one is Beast Boy. We're superheroes from Jump City. I assume you're familiar with Kim Possible's crime fighting?"
"Unfortunately," the teacher said.
"Her arch nemesis teamed up with ours," Raven explained. "That's why we're here. I would strongly advise you to avoid standing in the way of our mission, Mr. Barkin, for the fate of the world's sake."
"I've heard that one before," Mr. Barkin said skeptically.
Raven stood there silently, staring at Mr. Barkin for a few moments. She wasn't sensing any major negative vibes from him, so she could determine he wasn't a real threat. Still, she couldn't afford letting him delay the mission with late night clean up duty. She snapped her head to the side, looking at the football lying on the ground. It turned black, lifted up off the ground, and flew through the air until it hit Mr. Barkin in the chest with enough force to make him stumble back a couple of steps.
"Okay, that one's new," he admitted. "Fine. Stoppable, Possible, you're off clean up duty, but I've got my eye on you."
"Thanks, Raven," Kim said as she and Ron handed off their brooms to two other nearby students.
"Don't thank me yet," Raven told her. "We need to find out what happened tonight, and I doubt it's going to be pretty. Beast Boy, where's Robin?" No answer. The three teens looked around. He was nowhere. "Beast Boy?" Raven repeated. She finally spotted him running back toward the other cheerleaders. "Beast Boy!"
Beast Boy didn't hear her. All of his senses were focused on a head that was turned away from him. He couldn't see the face, but the hair was long, blonde, and beautiful. It had to be her. "Terra!" he called, skidding to a stop behind her. "Terra, it's you!"
She turned around. "Yeah, I'm Tara. Do I know you?"
He was wrong. Her face was not Terra's face. Looking at her now, he realized how blind he must have been to think she had been Terra in the first place. She was too tall, and her hair was a lighter shade of blonde. He must have been missing her so much that he thought he had seen her.
"Oh, no, wait, no," he stuttered awkwardly. "No, you're not…you're…sorry, it's not you…I mean…no, you're not Terra."
She giggled. Her laugh did sound a little bit like Terra's. "Yes I am, silly. My name's Tara. I go here. Who are you exactly?"
"Uh, I'm Boy Beast! I mean, Beast Boo! I mean, uh, hey, I'm Beast Boy." He tried to look cool by stretching out his arm to lean on a pole, but it turned out that there was no pole and he fell right over. Embarrassed, he transformed into a turtle and hid in his shell.
She giggled again. "You're kind of funny, Beast Boy."
He stuck his head out and turned back into human form. "You…you think I'm funny?" His eyes sparkled with joy.
"Sure," she said, brushing aside a strand of pale blonde hair. "But I still don't think we've met. Unless…we're not in English together are we? I always totally forget who's in that class."
"Well, no," he explained. "We've never met. From the back, you kind of looked like someone else I knew named Terra. She was, well, really cool. Awesome even. I haven't seen her in a long time, and when I saw you I thought I'd found her again."
Tara replied, "Aw, that is the cutest pickup line I have ever heard!" She quickly added, "Not like I fall for guys that quickly, but it was still adorable."
"What? No!" Beast Boy said. "I wasn't hitting on you. I honestly had a friend named Terra who kind of looks like you. She could move the earth with her powers. We thought she died, but then she came back, but she didn't remember anything and she had lost her super powers. I tried to bring her back into the team, but she didn't want to, and I haven't seen her since. It's true, I swear!"
Tara stopped giggling. "Wait, so you're, like, serious?" Beast Boy nodded. "Aw, that is so sad! Are you okay?"
"I guess," he shrugged. "I'm still getting used to it."
Bonnie could not help noticing that one of her closest followers, friend being not quite the right word, was getting friendly with the second green-skinned person seen at the game that night. This was not okay. Not okay at all. She strutted over and stood behind Tara, arms crossed and leaning back with an attitude.
"Tara," Bonnie said, "what are you doing?"
"I'm talking to Beast Boy," Tara replied with an innocent smile.
"Aren't you going out with Jason Morgan?" Bonnie asked.
"Not anymore," Tara explained. "We broke up, like, a few weeks ago. It was mutual. It just didn't work out. No big."
Bonnie tried to ignore that her right-hand girl had just used a Kim-ism. "That's…great, Tara, but Jason was the basketball star forward. Are you seriously trading down for this guy? I mean, he's green, he has fangs, and his ears are pointed. That's not even counting that he's friends with Kim Possible, of all people."
Tara looked down submissively, then looked back up and made eye contact with Bonnie. "We're not dating, just talking. He's actually kind of funny."
To prove it, Beast Boy turned himself into a platypus, chased his beaver tail, then transformed into a bear and gave Bonnie a big bear hug before returning to normal.
"Ew!" Bonnie brushed green fur off her purple and yellow uniform. She looked disapprovingly at the green boy standing next to Tara. "Fine, do whatever. He's still a loser." She tossed her head as she walked away, too put off by the bear encounter to make a reasonable comeback.
Robin wasted no time in running the rest of the length of the field and hopping the fence to Starfire's location. "Starfire!" he called, climbing down. "Star, what was that? What happened?"
She was still holding onto the chain-link fence. She breathed heavily, trying to catch her breath. Her eyes were glowing bright green as though the battle was still going on. Her mind was still repeating the recent encounter with her past. She heard Robin's voice, but didn't recognize it as his. Instead, she let go of the fence, yelled something in Tamaranian, and held up a starbolt, prepared to throw it at whoever had approached her.
Robin held up his hands and stepped back. "Starfire, what's wrong with you? She's gone. It's just me." Her face showed no reaction. It was as if she didn't understand what he was saying. She stepped forward and yelled something else in Tamaranian. Robin was honestly feeling a little bit scared. "Star, I'm not going to hurt you. It's me. It's Robin."
"Robin?" she repeated, still prepared to shoot her green energy bolt at him. A sudden change came over her. Her starbolt faded and her arm dropped. Her eyes stopped glowing and looked almost afraid. She sank down onto her knees in the grass and covered her face with her hands so he couldn't see the two small tears escaping her eyes. "I…apologize," she stammered.
Robin sat down too and put his arms around her and held her close in an attempt to comfort her. He really had no idea what to say, since he had no idea why his girlfriend had almost turned on him, or why she seemed so traumatized. "It's okay," he said softly. "I'm here. I've got you. You're safe now."
She uncovered her face and held onto him, letting her tears fall onto his shoulder. They sat there for a few moments until she let go, prompting Robin to help her back up onto her feet. "Robin," she said, once she was standing up, "something very strange has occurred. There is something about the Shego's powers. She…" Starfire cut off abruptly. The mental wall she had built around the memories of her torture stopped her. She had never told her teammates much more about her past than had been revealed at their first meeting. In fact, it wasn't until she was sent home to be married that they found out she was of royal birth. She had always tried to forget her life as a prisoner and an experiment. Now she wasn't sure how to forget it again.
Sensing that Starfire wasn't going to elaborate on her statement, Robin took her hand and led her back to the field. "You don't have to tell me right now, Star," he said. "What matters is that you're all right." He called out to the others, "Titans and Team Possible! Team meeting on the bleachers!"
Raven, Ron, and Kim hurried over to the meeting location. Beast Boy wasn't listening. He was too busy telling Tara some of his famous, or infamous, jokes. "Okay, so why did the aardvark cross the road?" he asked.
"I don't know. Why?" she replied.
Before he could answer, Raven grabbed him by the ear and dragged him back to the rest of the team despite his futile resistance.
"Team," Robin said, addressing them all, "Shego had to have had a reason to come here tonight. My best guess is she's after us, or something we have. Kim, she's your villain. What do you think?"
"I don't know," Kim answered. "It didn't look like she'd stolen anything, and she seemed like she was in a hurry to leave. Raven, what was she doing when you found her?"
"She was looking through your duffel bag," Raven told her, "but I didn't notice her taking anything out. What do you have in there?"
"Just the usual accessories," Kim replied. "Nothing she would have wanted."
"Ooh," someone moaned nearby, "what happened?"
Kim got up and walked over to the sound of the voice. It was one of the freshmen lying on the ground. She thought she could recall him hanging out with the tweebs a couple of times. "Joey?" she asked, helping him up. "That's your name right?"
"Yeah, that's me," he said, rubbing his head where Shego had shocked him. "Ow, geez, that woman is crazy."
"That woman?" Kim parroted. "Was she wearing green and black and super sarcastic?"
"Y-y-yeah," he stuttered, "but she said not to tell."
"Not to tell what?" Joey didn't answer. "Joey, I need to know. She's a criminal. Trust me, she isn't in this for you. She could care less if you told."
He hesitated for a second, then looked Kim in the eyes. "She made me steal your duffel bag. She was looking for something. She knocked me out before she could find it, but it was something at the bottom. She was all frustrated because everything else was on top of it."
"Hm…" Kim thought, trying to remember what was at the bottom of her bag. Usually smaller items drifted down there under the bigger items. "Thanks for the help, Joey," she said as she walked back over to her teammates.
"Anytime, Kim!" he replied.
She picked up her bag and brought it over, sitting down on the bleachers. The rest of the teens stood in a circle around her. "Shego was after something at the bottom of this bag," she said as she unzipped it and proceeded to take her stuff out. Her hand brushed the bottom of the bag, then hit something small, hard and circular. She pulled it out. It was a Titans communicator. Next to it was a second one. She pulled that out too. "I wonder what Shego would have wanted with these."
The Teen Titans exchanged worried looks. "We know what she wanted," Beast Boy said. "Our communicators can locate any other Titan or honorary Titan."
"So she's trying to track us," Kim concluded.
"Exactly," said Robin. "It isn't the first time someone's tried to tamper with our communicators for that purpose. Last time it happened, we were nearly eliminated."
"Wow," Kim commented. "This is pretty serious stuff, then."
"The good news is she didn't take any of the communicators," Robin continued. "The bad news is that this means Slade is watching us. He knew we would be at the football game, or at least one of us would. He's trying to keep track of our locations. We have to be careful."
"But both communicators are right here," Ron pointed out. "We're safe, right?"
Robin shook his head. "You can never be too sure with Slade. From now on, we have to stick together. No more separating. If Slade somehow does find a way to track our movements, he'll know when we're alone and therefore more vulnerable."
"How's that going to work?" Beast Boy asked. "They're over here in Middleton while we live in Jump City."
Robin gave the matter some thought. By now, he was pretty sure Kim Possible was a trustworthy person, even if she was an average teenager. She had proven extremely helpful, and actually not so hard to get along with, once they had stopped being at each other's throats, that is. After the incident with Terra, he was reluctant to invite anybody he didn't know much about into Titans Tower. By now, he figured he knew enough about Kim to trust her.
"Beast Boy's right," he said, turning to Kim and Ron. "We can't very well stick together if we're this far away from each other. Kim, Ron, how would you like to spend some time with us at Titans Tower in Jump City?"
The Titans waited anxiously for a reply. Ron spoke first, excited being belief. "You mean we get to hang with real superheroes in a real superhero headquarters with all the cool gadgets and computers and blinking lights?"
"Don't forget the game system," Beast Boy added.
That was all Ron needed. "Booyah! I am so ready for this! What about you, KP?"
Kim was a little bit uneasy. "I don't know. My dad will freak if I'm out too late."
"We can call him from the tower," Robin suggested. "He seems like a reasonable guy. I think he'd understand."
"Come on, KP," Ron said, giving her a friendly nudge. "You fly halfway around the world on five minutes' notice almost every week. What's Jump City for one night?"
"Well," Kim admitted, "it is a Friday." She finally caved. "All right, I'm in. How are we getting there?"
"The T-Ship of course!" Beast Boy said. "Cyborg's not here, so you can ride in his seat, and I can turn into something small enough to carry so Ron can use mine."
"Just as long as you're not a germ again," Raven muttered.
"Sounds good," said Kim. "First, Starfire and I need to get our stuff out of the locker room. Star?"
Starfire, who had been strangely silent during this whole conversation, looked as if she had just woken up from a trance. "Yes? Oh! Of course! The room of lockers. Yes, let us go."
The two redheads walked away from the field, into the school building, through the halls, and into the locker room in complete silence. The closed the door behind them and opened up Kim's locker and the spare one Starfire had borrowed. As they were changing, Kim asked, "Hey, Starfire, are you okay?"
"What?"
"I asked if you're okay. Something freaky happened between you and Shego tonight. Do you have any idea what happened?"
Starfire turned her back and shook her head. "I do not."
Kim sighed. "Well, that's one more mystery to add to the list then. Another one is what's going on with Dr. Drakken. I've seen a lot of Shego, and from what Robin's saying I think Slade is pretty heavily involved here, but I haven't seen any evidence for Drakken's involvement. That's really odd."
Starfire was barely listening to her friend's rambling. It was true that she didn't understand what had happened, but there was one thing about it that was clear: Shego's powers were the same as her own. She couldn't understand why, how she got them, or how it was possible, but she knew a starbolt when she saw one. This was not the first instance either. At the chemical factory, she had thought Shego's energy blasts felt similar to her own. She had tried to inform Ron, but in the chaos that followed it had slipped her mind. Now that she had felt Shego's energy actually enter her skin, she knew that it had to be the same. The only time she could remember feeling that kind of energy entering her system was when she first got her starbolts. But then how was this possible? The only other one who had received the same torture was Blackfire. The thought of Blackfire and torture brought back unfriendly memories. She shut her eyes and tried to think about something happy. Mustard, Silkie, flowers, springtime, the mall, watching the sunrise with Robin. Yes, she could ignore those thoughts for now.
However, she knew the truth would come out soon enough. It had to. What she had discovered could be useful information. Even if it wasn't, she knew it would be a little while before that mental wall was fully rebuilt again. She hated to remember her past, but now that there was a connection between her and Shego, she had no choice. Still, she knew if she told her story now, she'd just break down into a sobbing mess, and that would be the exact opposite of helpful. I must tell Robin, she decided, but not quite yet.
