The T-Car sped through the streets of Jump City, making a beeline for Wayne Enterprises. Robin held his communicator impatiently. "Come on, Starfire, pick up!" he muttered. "Just pick up!"
Beast Boy, in his pterodactyl shape, let go of the car roof and swooped over the roofs of nearby buildings. Something caught his eye in the near distance: a bright green explosion. Flying ahead a bit, he realized that it on the Wayne Enterprises building, and he could just barely make out Starfire's red hair and Shego's green-lined suit. Immediately, he dove down and tapped on the backseat window of the T-Car. Raven unrolled the window and he tumbled in, human once again.
"I saw them," he announced to the other passengers. "We were right. They're on the Wayne Enterprises rooftop. It looks like there's a fight going on."
"They're already fighting?" Robin said. "We'll never get there in time to save her!"
"Now hold on, y'all," Cyborg said calmly. "Starfire's a butt-kicking alien princess powerhouse. She can probably hold her own until we get there. At least I hope so," he added under his breath so as to keep Robin from hearing. The team leader was panicked enough as it was. He ordered, "Beast Boy, Raven, you two fly ahead to Wayne Enterprises. We'll catch up."
Raven nodded silently and wrapped her cloak around Beast Boy. The two of them disappeared in a black shadowy mass, then reappeared in the air above the car. Beast Boy, a pterodactyl once more, soared quickly over the roofs of Jump City. Raven balanced herself on a black circle of energy close behind him. They reached Wayne Enterprises in record time…but the roof was empty.
The two teammates landed and looked around. "This is…odd," said Raven. There was no sign of anyone else. The only evidence of a fight was a knocked over letter A. However, the rest of the roof was empty and untouched.
Beast Boy morphed back to his normal shape and scratched his head. "But I saw them, I swear!" he insisted.
Raven floated over to the fallen A and looked it over. "They were definitely here," she told her companion. "This letter has the same energy signature on it as Starfire's powers. One of them must have blasted it."
"So where did they go?" Beast Boy wondered.
Raven motioned for silence. "I'll try to find them," she said, closing her eyes. She crossed her legs and began levitating, focusing all her being into locating Starfire. Beast Boy transformed into a bloodhound and sniffed all over the roof, hoping to find clues. The scent of the two fighters was all over it, but there was no clear indicator of where they went after. Giving up, BB sat down on the edge of the roof and called Starfire on his communicator, though he tried to muffle the sound so as not to bother Raven.
The T-Car soon arrived in the alley below. With the assistance of some grappling hooks, the rest of the team quickly mounted the roof. "Where is she?" Robin asked immediately.
Raven opened her eyes and dropped down to the ground. "Nowhere in the building," she said. "I just searched every floor, even the basement. If Starfire's still with Shego, they're probably halfway to Slade by now."
"So you think Shego took her prisoner?" Kim asked.
"Most likely," Raven replied. "They were both here, and now they're both gone. If Shego had destroyed Starfire, then she would have ditched the body…"
Robin paled. Ron whispered, "Maybe a little less of the morbid would be good here for my man Robin, okay?"
"Sorry," the cloaked girl said, sounding like she really meant it this time. "What I meant was that Starfire isn't dead. Whether she went willingly or unwillingly, Shego took her somewhere. Odds are it's Slade's mysterious lair of sewage."
"Then we'd better get back on the ground," Kim suggested. "Maybe the entrance is close to the building. After all, they did disappear pretty quickly."
Robin looked down over the edge of the rooftop. "Wherever they are, I just hope Starfire's okay."
Ron put an arm around the spikey-haired boy's shoulder. "Trust me, we'll find her. Right, KP?"
"Totally," Kim replied comfortingly. "Ron and I have done hundreds of rescue missions like this."
"So have we," Robin countered, "but you've never dealt with Slade."
The team lowered themselves down through various means and met as a group in the alley beside the building. "All right, team," Cyborg said, "we're gonna split up and look around for clues. Any of y'all find an entrance to the sewage system that's big enough for Shego and Star to fit through, you call someone over. Kim and Ron, you two can go north. Raven, I think you and Robin should stick together, so you two can go south…"
Suddenly, Robin's communicator began to beep. Everyone froze and crowded around it, looking at the name of the sender. It was Kim's Titans communicator.
"Dude, it's Starfire!" Beast Boy exclaimed in excitement.
"Shh! Quiet!" Robin instructed. He took a deep breath, and opened it. "Robin here, come in Starfire," he said.
However, it was not Starfire's face appearing on the tiny circular screen. It was a woman with pale green skin, black hair, and a black and green suit in the same style as Kim's current blue and white outfit. "Hey, bird boy," she said.
"Shego," Robin stated, his eyes narrowing under his mask.
Shego rolled her eyes. "Do you always do that? Say the name of whatever villain you see all serious like that? It's kind of unnecessary. I mean, I think you all know who I am by now…"
"Where's Starfire?" the masked boy demanded, not even stopping to acknowledge Shego's miniature rant.
Shego glanced worriedly to the side, then looked back at Robin. "Look, not so loud, okay?" she said, her voice lower than before. "Some people are trying to sleep."
"So you knocked her unconscious then?" Robin guessed.
"Ooh, someone give him an award," Shego replied sarcastically. "Don't worry, kiddos, she's safe with me." She turned the camera so that the whole team could see Starfire. She was sleeping silently on the ground beside the green woman. "By the way, when she's out, she's really out," Shego continued, aiming the camera now at herself. "I haven't even had to tie her up or anything."
"What did you do to her?" Robin asked, raising his voice in anger.
"Seriously, turn down the volume!" Shego hissed back, looking suddenly uneasy. "Your pretty princess is in good hands. She should be conscious in less than an hour. I just messed with her powers a little bit, nothing that would really do damage."
"No games, Shego," Kim said, now sharing center frame with Robin. "Where are you and what do you want?"
"What I want doesn't matter at the moment," Shego answered. "What matters is what you want, which is Starfire. If you ever want to see her again, you'd better get your butts down here, and fast."
"And just where is here?" Cyborg asked from behind the two team leaders.
"That's your job to figure out, isn't it?" she retorted. "I can't do all the wor—" she was interrupted by static for a moment, then finished, "for you. This was all Slade's idea anyway. If it were up to me, I wouldn't give away anything."
"You still haven't given away anything," Kim pointed out.
"Yeah, I guess that is a little fishy," Shego said with a shrug. "Then again, maybe I've already given you more that I oughta and you just haven't see—" more static, this time lasting long enough to cover most of her sentence and the beginning of her next one, "—lying about this. I mean, I've got the unconscious girl right here, what more do you want?"
"Surrender would be nice," Robin told her, gritting his teeth.
"Yeah, it would, wouldn't it?" Some noise went off in the background that distracted Shego for a moment. She then returned to the call and said rapidly, "Well, you'd better hurry up and get down here because a certain somebody's life might depend on it. Bye!" The call ended.
Robin jammed his communicator back into its spot on his belt. "She shut off the signal," he said. "We can't track it anymore."
"Dude, she didn't even give us the clues she promised," Beast Boy complained.
"She's a bad guy. What did you expect?" Raven replied.
"Wait a second," Kim said. "Wait just a second. Shego might have given us just the clues we needed."
Ron squinted at his girlfriend, "KP, she literally told us nothing about Starfire's location."
"Yeah, I don't get it," Cyborg agreed.
"Think about it!" Kim explained. "Normally when there's static, the picture it messed up too, but when Shego's voice was covered by the static, the picture was fine. That sounds like she intentionally covered up the microphone in certain places to send us a message. Robin, can you play back the parts with static?"
Obediently, Robin opened his communicator again and turned on the previous message, finding the exact moment when the static had started. "I can't do all the wor…for you. This was all Slade's idea anyway. If it were up to me, I wouldn't give away anything…Yeah, I guess that is a little fishy. Then again, maybe I've already given you more than I oughta and you just haven't see…lying about this. I mean, I have the unconscious girl right here."
"Stop," Kim said. "There seems to be a common theme here. Listen to the words she's using. 'Fishy', and the last static part sounds more like 'sea lion' than 'see lying'."
"And she said 'oughta' kind of funny," Ron realized, "like the word 'otter'."
Something clicked in Robin's brain. "I get it!" he exclaimed with excitement. "The only place in Jump City where you could find fish, sea lions, and otters is Jump City Wharf. Wharf. Like when she said she can't do all the wor…f for us. She wants us to meet at the wharf!"
Cyborg shook his half-metal head. "I don't know, Robin. Something that obvious sounds like a trap to me."
"I don't care if it's a trap," Robin replied. "It's our only hope of getting Starfire back. If you don't trust it, that's your choice, but I'm heading to the wharf. Who's with me?"
Everyone looked at each other, then at Robin, then at Cyborg. Finally, he clicked the unlock button for the T-Car. "Okay, everybody," he sighed, "pile in."
(A/N: Hey everyone! I meant to update sooner, but this summer was so crazy busy. I really appreciate your patience. I assumed that Jump City has a wharf kind of like Fisherman's Wharf since it's loosely modeled after San Francisco, so if that helps you picture it, there you go. Also, the climax is only a few chapters away, so I'm sure I will update quicker this time. Thanks for reading!)
