When Starfire woke up the next morning, Beast Boy was still breathing, albeit very shallowly. She knew that she must do something fast. She kept checking on Cyborg in his room but noticed that he was not charging. Realizing that something must have happened to the solar panels, she went to the gym and feverishly ran on the treadmill for several hours. That did the trick.
"How is he?" asked Starfire as Cyborg stitched up Beast Boy's wound.
"He's very weak, but I think he'll make it." Cyborg replied gravely.
"I'll go run on the treadmill now." Said Starfire as she turned to leave.
"No, Star. You can't." Cyborg grabbed her shoulder and stopped her from leaving.
"Why not?" she asked innocently.
"Even if ya worked out like mad, only a portion of that energy will actually get converted into electricity. You'll be tired and I will not have much power from it. And right now, the team needs you to be strong, since you're the only one that can actually fight now." Sighing, Cyborg turned back to Beast Boy, who was now heavily drugged and fast asleep. "He was right. I'm not a good leader. I've been in charge for just slightly over two months and look what's happened to us."
"Cyborg." Said Starfire in a soft, heartbroken voice that made him turn to look at her. "I cannot fight."
"Why not?" he asked curiously.
"Emotions do the controlling of my powers. For me to fly, I must feel unbridled joy. But without Robin and with Raven gone and with Beast Boy injured and with you with no power, I simply cannot feel happy. To use my strength, I must have boundless confidence but that I do not have because the team is so weak. I only can use my star bolts because righteous fury and anger are the only things I can feel now. But I am so confused because I do not know where Robin is. That makes my powers weak." The alien princess closed her eyes and left the room. Cyborg let her go. He knew that she needed time to be alone and to think.
Cyborg had plenty of things on his mind as well. As he tried to fix the solar panels that someone had mysteriously broken, he finally understood Slade's plan more completely. Slade was controlling the city's oil supplies specifically to take him down. With the city in a power crisis, Cyborg would be most badly affected and now that power supplies were cut off and the solar panels were broken, Cyborg would eventually become useless without power. Already, the STRIVE were only bringing in one oil tanker per week and sometimes none at all.
Cyborg also figured that Slade attacked several oilrigs at once to split them up and further weaken them, allowing him to capture Robin. Seeing how much Robin's departure affected Starfire, Cyborg could only conclude that Slade was targeting Starfire, who had already lost her ability to fly and her superhuman strength mostly due to that. Cyborg had no idea what Slade was doing to Robin, but if what he had surmised was Slade's plan, then it was working brilliantly.
Cyborg tried to fix the broken solar panels, but they were broken beyond repair. Realizing that he did not have enough power to make new ones, he returned to his room and wrote down everything he had concluded about Slade's plans in a notebook, along with instructions on how to care for Beast Boy and evidence he had collected that the STRIVE was actually the H.I.V.E. Then he slipped the notebook under Starfire's door before returning to his own room. Just as he lay down on his charging table, everything went black.
Starfire woke up about six hours later, having cried herself to sleep. Hastily, she jumped out of bed and dragged a comb through her long red hair. Noticing the notebook on the floor, she picked it up and leafed through it. Seeing its contents, she ran to the med bay and gave Beast Boy the medicine that Cyborg had told her to in the notebook.
After Beast Boy was taken care of, she returned to the book. In it, Cyborg had outlined to her Slade's plan and Starfire saw that Slade was taking Robin away specifically to hurt her. However, of all the members in the team, she was not exactly the most cunning strategist and despite spending hours racking her brains, she could not come up with a single plan to take down Slade. On top of that, the paparazzi had been notified of the titans' location and they now camped out on their lawn, waiting for someone to come out.
Starfire tried going online to order some solar panels, only to find that they were all out of stock. To make matters worse, no one would help her since she was a member of the team that failed the city. She wanted to work out to generate power for Cyborg, but she knew that the power would not last long and that after she was done she would be too tired to care for Beast Boy or to protect the other titans should someone invade their home. Starfire was at a loss as to what she should do, but Cyborg's revelation about Slade's plan gave her hope. Now that she knew a little bit about what Slade was up to, she felt a glimmer of hope grow within her. This glimmer grew steadily and quickly helped her to regain her ability to fly and her extraordinary strength.
"Beast Boy?" Starfire asked hopefully as she watched him open his eyes for the first time in days.
"Starfire?" he asked blinking several times.
"Cyborg says that you are not to move!" she said quickly when he tried to sit up. As pain stabbed his chest mercilessly, Beast Boy lay back down.
"What happened?" he groaned.
"You were shot." She replied simply.
"Why do I keep getting hurt?" he moaned. "I feel so useless."
"No, you are not." She replied. "I need you to help me do the storm of the brain."
"Me? Brainstorming?" asked Beast Boy, widening his eyes in surprise. It was rare for someone to want to brainstorm with him. "Shouldn't you do that with Cyborg?"
"Cyborg has no power left." Replied Starfire sadly.
"What?" cried Beast Boy in horror. "How did that happen?"
"He had little power but when someone did the shooting at the house he used his sonic cannon to get rid of them."
"Oh." Beast Boy said lowering his ears. He was humbled to think that Cyborg would do that for Starfire and himself. But Beast Boy did his best and listened attentively as Starfire told him about Slade and his plans. As she spoke, things gradually began to make sense.
"If only I knew how to get Slade to let Robin go without actually doing the fight with him." Starfire sighed. At this point she too knew that the team was too weak to fight Slade.
"Well," Beast Boy said as he grimaced for a second. The bullet had entered his right lung, making it very hard for him to talk. "If what Cyborg says about Slade wanting to hurt you is true, then if you show Slade that you aren't hurt by Robin going away, he might give him back."
"Why would he do that?" she asked, not quite understanding.
"Cuz he wants to hurt you more. He probably has brainwashed Robin by now so that when he does come back, he will probably be very different. Since you love the old Robin, you will feel sad when you meet the new Robin and you won't have your powers anymore." Beast Boy replied. When she finally understood what he said, she jumped up with a big smile. "Please don't hug me!" cried Beast Boy as he braced himself. Remembering that she could actually hurt him more, she restrained herself.
"Beast Boy, you are so geniusome!" She exclaimed before she left the room. Beast Boy laughed out loud and this time, it seriously hurt him to laugh. It was extremely rare for someone to call him a genius. If he had a penny for every time someone - usually Raven - called him a idiot, he would be a billionaire. However, if he had a dollar for every time someone called him a genius, he probably would be beyond bankrupt and broke because as Raven put it,
"'Beast Boy' and 'genius' are two words made to repel each other. It's called the order of the universe." Remembering her words and hearing her voice in his mind, Beast Boy could not help but smile. Her voice always had a calming effect on him, yes, even her insults. Raven was magical in more ways than one.
Now that she knew what Slade was up to, Starfire decided to go in search of food. Due to the lack of oil and gas and Slade's control of all shipping routes and highways, food imports no longer came to the city, so much so that those in the city center were beginning to starve. However, the titans were fortunate enough to be located at the edge of the city, near some farms. Starfire decided to make a trip there for some supplies. Thankfully, the journalists were still outside. When the oil crisis first hit, the newspaper companies were the first to get solar panels.
Starfire got a huge basket and went to Raven's room. Opening the window, she broke several branches that obstructed it. As the branches crashed to the ground, the entire group of journalists jumped up and grabbed their cameras. Taking the basket, Starfire flew out of the window and headed to the nearest farm, the journalists following her as though their lives depended on it. Any dirt on the disgraced titans would make waves everywhere.
Starfire arrived at the first farm and as she flew over the barn was shocked to see the farmer and his two sons standing outside their barn with guns in hand. Slowly closing in on them was a group of about two-dozen men dressed in plain, dark blue jumpsuits. They also carried guns.
"Give up your food supplies now!" yelled the leader of the men.
"You have no right to take our food from us!" retorted the farmer.
"Yes, we do!" roared the leader, incensed by such defiance. Starfire realized that they were extorting food supplies from the farmers. The titan in her resurfaced and she dropped the basket, scaring the life out of all of them.
"You leave them alone!" she screamed as she prepared a star bolt. Quickly taking aim, the leader fired at her only to have his bullet intercepted by a star bolt. Unknown to him, the journalists being unable to fly had taken the road and were now behind them shooting one picture after another.
"We have a right to take this food!" the leader yelled at her. "The government says so!"
"No, you do not!" she screamed in return. "You do not do the taking of food! You only do the buying of food!"
"The military needs it! In times like this people cannot be selfish!" roared the leader in reply.
"You are the ones who are the selfish!" She shouted. "You just take and do not do the caring of others!" The leader tried to shoot her again only miss as she ducked out of the way. The leader and his men quickly pointed their guns at the farmer and his sons.
"If you do not go away and mind your own business, we will shoot them!" yelled the leader, confident that their bulletproof vests would protect him and his men from the guns of the farmer and his sons. Realizing that he was serious, Starfire retreated and flew away. Grinning triumphantly, the leader and his men closed in on the farmer and his sons again, having watched her fly off into the horizon.
But Starfire was not planning to go anywhere. She flew as fast as she could away from the farm, then turned and flew back, this time making sure the group of men had their backs turned towards her. Without warning, she unleashed a flurry of star bolts and destroyed every single one of their guns. Having done so, she landed in front of the farmer and his son and prepared her star bolts. Without their guns, the men made a hasty retreat, only to be faced by an army of reporters.
"Don't report any of this!" yelled the leader as he tried to snatch a camera away. His men followed suit, but Starfire was not about to let them bully anyone else for that day. Screaming, she flew towards them again and this time, the leader and his men fled for their lives from the furious alien girl. A huge cheer erupted from the crowd. As she landed, the farmer and his sons came running towards her.
"Thank you so much!" he exclaimed, shaking her hand vigorously and taking off his hat.
"You are truly welcome." She replied happily. Flying back to her basket, she picked it up and turned back to the farmer. "I would like to do the purchasing of some food." She said as she took out some money.
"Don't worry about it!" cried farmer, pushing the money away before grabbing the very confused alien girl into his barn and filling her basket.
"We're more than happy to share food with the titans." Said the older son as he and his brother gaped at her. She tried repeatedly to pay them but they refused, so she took the basket and went home.
The next day, every newspaper in Jump City featured her on their headlines, which all read along the line of "Teen Titan Saves Farmer and Sons". While everyone hailed her as a hero, the government began to view her as a villain. They needed the food for the military, now that they had joined forces with the STRIVE to defeat the enemy whose name they did not even know. But because of Starfire, the people began looking at them as though they were the bad guys. And so in this way, the alien princess became an enemy of the government and of Slade, standing alone against armies of men, both robotic and human.