I am soooo brain dead on this chapter. I have zero inspiration and could really use some suggestions. Please put it in a review or PM me. I would be grateful for anything you can give.

Chapter 19

How is it that Wally says he has a friend that can find out if Jade is Tempest and then that night Robin says he needs to know where Jade lives. What kind of connections does this kid have?

I pondered this as I walked down the street to Jade's house. When I stepped up to her front door I paused for a moment. It's never easy talking to someone after you've argued with, especially if you are close to that person. When you're close with that person you have a lot more ammo to use against said person and it uglier, faster.

I rapped on the door with my fist and stepped back. Jades mom opened the door.

"Hi, Jamie. Let me get Jade," she said then turned around and yelled, "JADE! IT'S FOR YOU!"

I heard her responds of, "WHO IS IT?" coming from down the hall way.

"IT'S JAMIE!"

"TELL HER I'M NOT HOME!"

Well this just got awkward.

"I don't think she feels like talking right now."

"So I hear… I was hoping we could talk and clear some waters."

"You can't force her to listen. She's become very closed off when she's frustrated after last year," Mrs. Lebeau said with a sad look in her eyes.

"Last year? What happened last year?"

"Jade was… Jade was…. I have to go," Jade's mom turned away to hide the tears that were running down her face and closed the door.

:3( )~~

I was lying in bed, contemplating my ceiling fan when I felt my phone vibrate. I slid it open.

1 unread message from "unknown" it read.

I opened the message.

I have the answer to your question. Meet me by the swings at the park.

I rolled my eyes and responded with, Do you want me to wear a flower in my lapel so you know who you're supposed to be meeting, Wally?

I don't think that will be necessary, but do try to keep it on the down low. This is a stealth mission.

Yeah. Cause a stealthy ginger isn't an oxymoron at all.

Do you want your answer or not?

I'll be there in 5.

I grabbed my purse and headed out the door.

:3( )~~

"Okay, I'm here. What's the answer?" I asked.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, we haven't discussed the subject of payment," Wally said pumping his legs on the swing, making him go higher and higher.

I snapped my hand out and grabbed the chain of his swing, stopping the swing but letting Wally go flying off and face planting into the wood chips. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and spit out wood chips. I walked over and knelt down next to him. "Now let's try this again. What's the answer?"

"My source tells me that Jade is… Tempest."

"Jade is Tempest," I repeated. "And you are 100% sure about this?"

"I trust my source infinitely."

"Yeah, I would too," I muttered, thinking of Robin.

"What was that?" Wally asked cocking his head.

"Nothing, just thinking out loud."

"So what are you gonna do about it?" he asked, shaking his red hair to remove stray pieces of wood from his scalp.

"What am I supposed to do?"

"You could follow her and see where she goes."

"Or I could text her."

"And then you could corner her and be all 'I have your secret identity'."

"I've got her phone number."

"Fun sucker," He muttered, "Besides is it really a good idea to text her something like that?"

"Why not?"

"Don't her parents read her texts or something?"

"So I call her. You do realize that cell phones are capable of doing that these days, right?"

"Yes, Jamie, I know that phones can make phone calls," he said defensively.

"Hey, you can never tell with your type."

"My type? Is that another ginger slur?"

"You're a quick one, can't get nothin' past you."

There was a smile in his eyes, like he knew something else.

"Don't look at me in that tone of voice, Mouth, unless you have something else to tell me."

"We all have secrets, Jamie. That's what makes life so much fun; you never know when you will stumble on to the out skirts of some ones hidden life."

"Are you saying that I have tip toed on a secret of yours?"

"I said nothing of the sort." His wrist watch started beeping, like an alarm going off. "It's time for me to go."

I turned to walk back to my house when I hear him call out from behind me, "I owe you one for the wood chips, just so you know!"

I turned the corner and dug a piece of paper out of my purse and scrawled, "Come at me, bro." onto it, tucked my purse under a bush and turned into a black dog again, but this time I was a black lab.

With the paper held carefully in between my teeth, trying to keep it as slobber free as possible, I ran in the direction I had seen Wally go. When I saw him I head butted the back of his knees making him stumble a moment.

"What the-? Hi there!"

I pranced around him like my dogs had done so often to me, tossing my head, trying to get him to see the paper in my mouth. It worked.

"Whatcha got there? Come on, give it here," he said holding out his hand.

I spit out the paper and watched as he unfolded it.

" 'Come at me, Bro?' What, are you Jamie's dog? She's got you running messages for her?"

I just stood there and wagged.

Wally pulled a pen out of his pocket and wrote something on the back of the note.

"Give this back to Jamie, and tell her to wear something pretty," he said as he handed me the note.

I ran back to where I had hid my purse and changed back into a human and read what he wrote on the back of the note.

"Go to Prom with me and we'll call it even."

I smiled to myself but the smile kept growing bigger and bigger till I was dancing there on the sidewalk. Not only did I have a date to the prom but I had a date to the prom with Kid Flash. I knew he smelled familiar (you know as a dog I can tell these things) and now I know why. That night after guard practice, when I walked around as a dog I had met Kid Flash, and now I had the smell of Wally, they are the same. I have just figured out Kid Flash's secret identity and he just asked me to Prom!

I called Jade's cell phone as I skipped home. As I assumed, it went to voicemail. Some things you just can't keep to yourself.

"Hey, Jade, it's me. I know you don't want to talk to me right now but I had to tell you. I got a date to Prom! You would never believe who it is so I'll tell you at a later time when you are willing to talk. I'll see you tomorrow in class."

About a minute after I hung up, my phone was ringing.

"Hello?"

"Who is it? You've gotta tell me who it is," Jade spit out all in one breath.

I was about to tell her when I heard a scream from off to my left. I peeked down the alley way and say a group of about seven teenage boys pushing around a girl about the same age.

"Jade, I'm sorry but I'll have to tell you tomorrow."

"Don't you dare hang up that phone, Jamie! Don't you do it!"

"Sorry, gotta go." I hung up the phone.

I ran into the bushes and changed into my Shift costume and pulled on my mask that I had stashed in my purse just in case the need for it arose. I shifted into a rat and scurried my way up onto a dumpster and went back into human form. The group of guys had the girl backed against a wall so only she could see me appear out of what seemed like nowhere.

"Didn't your mothers teach you that you should play nice with other kids?" I said, crossing my legs.

The herd of testosterone all turned around as one.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" the biggest and ugliest guy asked.

"I am what you thing you see, what you think you is reality. I am the shapes that change in the shadow of the night; I am the black shadow that hides the truth. Believe what you see, unless what you see is me. I am Shift." By this time I was standing on top of the dumpster, towering over their heads.

"Shift? I don't know any one named Shift. You're just another freak in a costume."

"You haven't seen freaky." I leaped off the dumpster, over their heads and turned into a big black wolf, landing nimbly in the middle of their circle; with the girl they were terrorizing behind me.

"She's a shape shifter! "

"Wow, you're smarter than you look; that's not saying much but hey, at least it's something," I growled, before leaping at the closest guy. I pinned him to the ground with my scarred paws and snapped my teeth in his face, making sure I didn't actually get skin. He screamed his head off and curled into a ball. I checked him off my list of potential threats and moved on to Big Ugly Number 2.

This one held his ground when I rushed at him and ducked so that when I lept at him, I sailed over his head and into the trash bins behind him. I sat there in the pile of garbage for a moment, dazed. When I had my head on straight again I changed from a wolf into a rat. The change in size confused him long enough for me to run up his pant leg and use my tiny little claws and teeth to wreak havoc on his shins. He danced around, stomping his feet and swatting at his legs. One of his buddies ran over and tried to help but by that point I was already on to the next animal; a five foot long boa constrictor.

I wrapped my body around the guy's ankle and squeezed until I felt the bone snap. He dropped to the ground, moaning and holding his shattered ankle. His friend, Big Ugly Number 3 (who had come over to help him), reached down and grabbed me behind my neck and by the end of my tail; quite effectively preventing me from wrapping around his arms. If I shifted into something different then he would still have his hand wrapped around my neck, and that is something I would rather avoid. So I was stuck.

I was stuck until I saw a shadow pass over the face of the guy that held me. I twisted my head around so I could see who was coming. I can promise you right now, snakes can indeed smile. It was Tempest. Her uniform was the same as I remembered from before, grey shirt, black sleeves, black pants and a black mask covering the lower half of her face.

She blasted the first guy that rushed her (affectionately called Big Ugly Number 4) with a wave of water. He was washed down the alley with piles of trash. The guy holding me loosened his grip just enough for me to wriggle out of his hold and shift into my normal form. I swept the legs out of the guy that had been holding me a moment before and Tempest made the concrete he landed on wrap around his hands and legs, pinning him to the ground.

Big Ugly Number 5 finally got a clue and bolted, leaving us numbers 6 and 7.

"Launch me," I told Tempest as I ran at her. She knelt to the ground, lacing her fingers together as she did so. I stepped into her waiting hands and she pushed me up into the air. I shifted into a fiery phoenix and flew straight for the lumbering idiots rushing towards us. One of them swatted at me like I was just some annoying bug that had gotten into the house. He screamed as his hand caught on fire then ran over to a puddle and stuck his hand in it. As soon as the fire was out Big Ugly Number 6 was gone.

Leaving one. Tempest pulled a canister of some sort out and held it in front of her other hand that she had out. She sent a wave of green flames to the ground around the last guy's feet.

"Where did you get the Greek fire from?" I asked her after I had landed and shifted back.

"Believe in magic, you muggle!"

"Tempest, we don't want to roast the guy. Shouldn't you put out the fire?"

"Greek fire has the nasty habit of being water proof," Tempest replied, smiling at that fact.

"Well then I guess it's a good thing you can create a wind vortex to suck all of the oxygen out of the air around it. I'll get the bozo out of the way so he doesn't suffocate."

As turned into the same small dragon that I had with Robin and flew over the flames to the guy that was standing in the middle of the flaming green circle. I changed my wings so that they were big enough to bear the weight of both of us and lifted him up over the crackling flames. As soon as his feet touched the ground he was out of there, yelling something about flaming chickens.

"Okay, your turn."

Tempest sighed and created a funnel around the flame, sucking the oxygen out until there was nothing left of the fire.

I walked over to where the girl that those idiots were messing with was sitting, curled into a ball, sobbing her eyes out.

"Hey, it's okay. There gone now," I told her, putting a hand on her shaking shoulder.

"They were gonna…. They said they were going to…" she lapsed into another fit of sobs.

"But they didn't, and they won't. You're safe now.

"Thank you." I helped her to her feet.

"Do you want us to take you home?" Tempest asked her.

"No, that's alright. I don't live far."

"Suit yourself."

She walked out of the alley way and stopped before she turned the corner, heading for home, "You guys make a pretty good team by the way." She smiled then walked away.

"So," Tempest said turning to me, "Who are you?"

"I'm Shift." Funny, she doesn't recognize her best friend.

"Tempest. You haven't been around very long have you?

"Around the town, yes, but as a hero, well, this is the first time with a costume."

"You'll get the hang of it. And your power is pretty cool. Can you change into anything?"

"Everything I've tried so far."

"What about people?" Now that was one thing I hadn't tried. Could I?

"I don't know. I haven't tried turning into people."

"Always something to consider."

We stood there awkwardly for a moment. "Thanks," I said, breaking the silence.

"For what?"

"For coming and giving me a hand. Taking on seven was a little bit more of a hand full than I figured it would be."

"you live, you learn. And by the way, I would get that cut checked out."

"Cut? What cut?" She pointed her finger at my forehead. When I raised my gloved hand up to it I felt a lump and a gash about an inch and a half long. "Oh, that cut." I pulled off my glove and held it against my head, trying to stop the bleeding.

"Your hands are…" Tempest started, then her eyes got big.

I laughed and pulled off my mask. "Hi, Jade."

I have made Wally Jamie's prom date due to my lack of one. So I shall live vicariously through my story.