Chapter 12

Her eyes widened at the thought. "My stalker…" Ahn let the words roll around slowly on her tongue with a countenance of absolute distaste. "He is going to be in for it." She growled to herself. Ahn ran after the retreating figure. She would make him talk and if he did end up being her stalker…she balled her hand up into a fist - She always needed more martial arts practice.

Unfortunately, he had, perhaps purposely, walked into a large crowd of people, and she couldn't see him anywhere.

Fuming, Ahn milled around the area for a chance of spotting him. Her fantasies of what she would do when she caught him increasingly became more elaborate. Maybe, I should pin him on the wall with my shuriken. He would then be helpless to runaway from my fury. Then I can interrogate him - force him to tell me how he knows me. I can entice him into talking; threaten to hold him over a cliff! That would do it. Tempted, Ahn fingered a hidden pocket full of shuriken in her cute outfit, but remembered her identity. Can't have the past chasing me, can I? So saying, she resolutely scouted the area once again; the shuriken remained untouched. The crowd slowly dispersed, and her target was nowhere in sight. She walked away, disappointed, back to the grandstand. Seeing Wally preoccupied, she let out an irritated huff. It was going to be a long day. Not only that, she apparently wasn't missed. I might as well pack and go home, with how I'm doing on this date.

Her gloom worsened when she discovered her fries had gone.

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"You're right Jade, maybe this bachelor show isn't all that it's cut out to be." Ahn mumbled into her pillow miserably. "Even though he's cute, adorable, funny, and with great red hair, not to mention rich and…"

"Ahn…stop." Although Jade really put an effort into trying to be concerned for her friend, her annoyance was getting greater by the second. Hearing more mumbling, and a heartfelt sigh, Jade rolled her eyes, and tried to comfort Ahn. "But you said you didn't like him, so suck it up." Ahn looked up at Jade. Some comforter. "Besides," Jade continued on reassuringly, "I'm sure you won't get cut this round - there are girls worse in both personality and looks." Ahn grinned.

"But you know…" Ahn stopped, hesitant. "There was this guy…" She stopped again.

"A guy!" Jade's eyes popped open, as she jumped in the air, and landed with a loud thunk on the bed. Her pink eyes gleaming with curiosity, she looked at Ahn intently. When Ahn refused to answer, Jade decided to provoke her. "An ex-lov-er?" She grinned slyly, carefully enunciating each syllable.

"No!" Ahn threw a pillow at Jade. Her eyes glazed over. "But it was weird," she continued slowly, "He knew who I was, he knew Vietnamese, but…I have no idea who he is."

Jade frowned slightly. When she looked up again, she met Ahn's eyes. Two black eyes stared at her evenly, not worried, but puzzled at what had happened. "Do you suppose," the black eyes didn't blink, "he's a stalker?" Ahn shook her head, dismissing her words, as soon as she had heard them. Nobody would dare.

Jade rolled over on the bed. "Yeah. I doubt it too." She grinned at the thought of the imaginary stalker. Poor guy, if he only knew that she was Cheshire…Even she knew, that defeating Ahn would be a challenge, although she wouldn't readily admit it. Jade mused. The only chance the guy would have if he went face to face with Ahn would be if he had "special abilities". Superpowers. Suddenly, Jade froze. Ahn immediately picked up on her tenseness. "What is it?" she asked softly.

"You're not social." Ahn shrugged. A little random, if harmless, question.

"I like to work alone."

"Not a lot of people know you?" Ahn nodded. "Then who does?"

"Clients…for both my jobs." Jade rolled her eyes. Assassin and lawyer. Jeez. "That would be," Ahn counted off on her fingers, "about fifty people."

"Fifty people in the last ten years!"

"A good assassin must remain secretive."

"It does make this simpler…" Jade announced. Ahn caught on.

"Out of the fifty, only two match the guy's height, weight, and build. Neither is the guy." When Jade gave a pointed look, Ahn was exasperated. "One stuttered, the other would never dress in an outfit under two thousand dollars."

"Gaudy?"

"Definitely." Ahn's eyes widened. "That would mean that the guy must be an old acquaintance, from then."

Then was said in reverence. Then was said with a slight wistfulness and longing. Then was the time when one could truly release the talents they were born with. Back then.

Heroes. Villains. The Titans. The Brotherhood. The most logical conclusion was: the guy at the baseball stadium was from then.

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Who knew that the course on Vietnamese would prove to be helpful? Roy had taken the class because a girl he was interested in was Vietnamese. He had planned to pursue her with romantic sayings from her native language; it was foolproof. Unfortunately, he discovered she was actually from Bangladesh, making the course useless, until now of course.

He had first watched her because of the way she moved. She didn't simply walk. She had glided. A second later, Roy cringed. He had made it sound as if he worshiped her. No, he corrected himself. She had walked, differently. He nodded at himself in approval. Considering it even more, he decided she moved like a shadow. Visible, tangible, ungraspable. Like someone else he knew. He probed his brain carefully for the distant, far-off memory. He knew it was important. If he had been drawn to her movement now, he would have then, and he would have remembered.

There. Click. Photographic image from the past.

Roy sucked in his breath. No way. The girl's height, weight, and build matched. Her eyes matched. Her origin matched, maybe. Now, only one way to make sure, but how to make her acquaintance casually?

He watched her as she made her way to the french fry stand. He watched her place a bill on the counter. He watched her annoyance as she rummaged through her purse. Perfect. He took out his sunglasses. He put them on. He took two quarters, and placed them on the counter. Clang. The quarters sounded as they landed on the surface. Fate, they cried out. Nobody heard. (After all, they are only quarters.)

"Who are you?" The voice was laced with wariness and some other quality he couldn't guess. He shrugged and forced his feet to move away. She would call him back; at least, he hoped. 3...2...1 He was pulled back roughly by the girl. He winced. So strong. She demanded again, "Who are you?" Uh oh. Change the subject, change the subject…

He had almost not been able to pull it off. He had been panicking with her interrogation, although he admitted 'who are you' was a perfectly reasonable question. He had tipped the tables quickly. Using his small amount of Vietnamese to astound her, and her name, to shock her, he used the moment to make his getaway, although, he carefully listened to her reply.

"How do you know I'm Vietnamese?" A pause. "How do you know my name?" Bingo.

So the girl was Cheshire after all.

Roy had made certain that he would be able to disappear without a trace. An angry Ahn, no, an angry Cheshire was very very dangerous. However, Roy sneaked one more glance at the green-clad girl before he mixed with the crowd. She was different from when he had last seen her, for example, her new outfit revealed she had a figure, unlike her costume when she was a full-time assassin.

Roy smirked. He hadn't been lying when he said she had gotten prettier. Well, perhaps. He had never actually seen her, but even during the time of the Titans and the Brotherhood, she had intrigued him. He had come to know her true name through extensive research, bribery, and threats on his part, although he claimed to never pay much attention to the assassin at all, except to heed the common warning: don't cross her, which actually intrigued him all the more. However, he dropped it. After all, she was a villain, he was a hero, and they were enemies. And Robin would flip.

But now…he, Roy Harper, would personally exert himself to meet her again. The way he figured it, he wasn't Speedy, she wasn't Cheshire, and they weren't enemies.

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Ahn's mysterious guy was on one of two long lists. The good guys. The bad guys. The search had slightly narrowed. "He" could not be Mammoth (height difference), Billy Numerous (accent), Dr. Light (age), Beast Boy (skin color), or Monsieur Mallah and Wildebeest (for obvious reasons). And between Jade and Ahn, their reasoning crossed out many more possible guys from then.

Unfortunately, there were more that matched "him", for guys with superpowers tended to be tall, thin, and muscular - the product of working out and eating multivitamins. Kyd Wykkyd, Aqualad, Gizmo and Mas y Menos (Gizmo and the twins would have grown, and Mas y Menos were young enough to learn to speak English without an accent), Robin, Speedy, Jericho, Red X, and the list seemed to keep going and going and going.

Even more unfortunately, Jade and Ahn were interrupted in their vastly important discussion with the announcement that the third group date with Wally would begin in a mere hour. The shrieking and the panic that followed made it impossible to continue on, although the walls were supposedly soundproof. They needed a break anyway. Jade and Ahn went out to greet the commotion in the halls, made mostly by the ditzy Lina, and sat back to enjoy the entertainment it provided.

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It was one long hour before the girls finally came to meet Wally West in front of the botanical gardens. Or he so believed. To the girls, the hour had been a nightmare of blow-drying, applying make-up, and trying out literally hundreds of outfits between the three of them. Lina: 370 outfits. Clarissa: 450 outfits. Mara: 2. This was because Mara knew what she looked good in, and she knew what she wanted to wear. For the most part. In the end, it was Mara that looked the best out of the three. It wasn't too much of a surprise to any of them.

"Lina, Clarissa, Mara." Wally West greeted them with his trademark grin.

"Hello," said Lina.

"Hi Wally," said Clarissa.

"Hey you." Mara sidled up to the bachelor; ignoring the hate looks the girls were throwing at her.

"Hey you." Wally countered smoothly. He was pleasantly surprised she had decided to make her move so quickly.

"I have something for you." Mara looked up at him coyly. "Want it?"

"Sure." He made a mental note to keep her during the next elimination. "What is it?"

She looked up at him, smiling as a cobra smiles, dangerous yet entrancing.

"A kiss."