"Alright Plasmus, you better be ready for a splat down, for you're going to go splat!" Nightwing proclaimed to the purple toxic ooz with many green eyes. It screeched as it tried to escape through the sewers.
"Ugh, this is going to take forever!" Beast complained with an eye roll. "He always goes into the sewers!"
"It's so smelly and gunky." Jinx agreed, appearing to get visibly nauseous from just thinking of going into the sewer.
"Wait, I've got a plan." Cyborg said as they all hustled together and discussed about a form of strategy.
"Good plan Cy. You three go. We'll go after Plasmus. Cyborg, Beast and Jinx went to the sports area of Jump City's football team, Jeans Stadium. It's been abandoned when, in a city filled with supervillains, the superstitious people believed that it was funded by Evil since it was an anagram of Levi. Which is why they attend the San Fransisco Miners games than the Jump City Leapfrogs. Going over to the abandoned stadium, the titans did everything to make the place against Plasmus as much as possible. Victor flooded the bathrooms by diverting too much water into its systems so that it can't drink out of the abandoned restrooms or escape through them, Jinx ran around using her powers to blow up anything filled with trash so that junk was either destroyed or so spread out it would be hard to consume something beyond a negligible amount, and Garfield ate all of the candy in the concessions stand. Sure, everything else went bad and the candy was somewhat more unhealthy than usual, but the sugar helped preserve much of the tastiness they still had, before turning into a dragon and burning all the unsalvageable food once all the candy was eaten.
"Water systems flooded and clean." Cyborg told the others via communicator.
"Trash has been trashed." Jinx told the boys.
"Food's been taken care of." Beast sighed happily before burping.
"Beast, gross!" The witch scolded him.
"What?! I only ate the long lasting candy!"
"Never mind Grass Stain's antics, we're ready." The mechanical titan said as he called up his leader. "We're ready."
"Good. Then it won't be long now." Richard said as he and the two other girls followed Plasmus, who's been gaining mass all this time. "Raven, we need you to get him there quickly."
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Sending out her Soul-Self, it moved like a cylinder shaped battering ram as it pushed Plasmus through certain pipes while giving it no chance to take any unwanted turns. After enough turns, the mass of purple sludge was then pushed up, forcing the villain out through the field, where it splattered into many pieces before reassembling into one monster. Seeing that there was no other escape route and no trash to be eaten, the titans had progressively whittled down the monster with explosives, energy blasts and claw slashes. Getting desperate, the monster started sucking things up like a vacuum cleaner. Miscellanious trash started hovering towards its mouth, and the only thing from the restrooms that it was able to consume from there were bottles of expired hair products. The titans were either able to anchor themselves to the floor or moved to hold onto something that was bolted down.
"Raven, Stafire, now!" Nightwing ordered. Starfire let go from her spot so that she formed a ball of starbolt energy, and threw it into the creature's mouth. Just before Plasmus exploded, using her soul-self, a black raven shot out of the sorceress as it phased into the creature. Plasmus exploded, and everyone got covered in gunk. But the worst of all was Starfire as she was hit completely back first and was sent screaming to splat against one of the walls, her body seen spreading out as sludge forced her body wide, before falling onto her back from the wall.
"Starfire!" Richard called out as he ran to his girlfriend. Raven made sure that within the crater that the man was safe and sound thanks to her soul-self. Picking Starfire up from the ground, he moved some of the sludge off her face, to which she opened her eyes. This brought back to mind a similar thing in Tokyo, and he smiled.
"Why are you smiling?" She asked, confused.
"You having gunk all over yourself. Do you remember how we were in a similar situation in Tokyo?"
"Against Brushogun?" She answered, smiling now too.
"Yeah. Only problem is, I can't remember what happened. Perhaps you can-"
"Robin?"
"Starfire?"
"Stop talking." She repeated the same words as before. Now, in the '03 universe according to the titans there, things were different in that they spent a considerable time in Tokyo and had a tough time dealing with both the villain situation and their relationship before everything got sorted out. In this dimension the whole thing was resolved much sooner, there were no relationship issues, and when Starfire said stop talking, everyone except Raven just laughed the remark off as they went on to get their rewards and all you can eat buffet. But here, it was more like the '03 titans in how they did it before proceeding to kiss.
"How is he not gagging from her lips that probably taste like whatever Plasmus ate?" Jinx whispered to the others.
"If he's not suffocating from the smell, then he's probably using the same control so that he doesn't hurt her feelings." Cyborg explained. "I'd kiss you even if your lips tasted like Grass Stain's underwear."
"Hey!" The changeling complained as he felt insulted, but the two dark girls just giggled at the put down.
"Easy for you since you can probably just turn off your taste buds, but I appreciate the gesture." Jinx said as she hugged her boyfriend.
"You'd kiss me if my lips were that bad, right Rae Rae?" Garfield asked his girlfriend, hoping she'd stick up for him.
"Yes." She replied, to which he smiled, until she continued. "But only after turning off my tastes too and then using a whole container of mouth wash once we're done." All he could do in response to that is sulk in a corner with a lot of tears streaming down his face sideways.
"Anyway, let's go home. We all could use a shower." The pink-haired witch suggested, to which the others agreed.
"I'll take him back to the authorities so he can be contained again." Nightwing volunteered. "You all go without me." The titans then went to the tower, where Raven, Jinx, Beast and Starfire each took turns in the shower, making it that the titans that need the least cleaning go first and finish faster. The latter two had so much hair it took an entire hour to clean themselves respectively. In the morning when Starfire woke up and did some stretches that she felt her hair felt off. Going to the mirror, she screamed for a second to find she had horrid bed hair. It was crazy and all over the place. It didn't seem to have lost any of the color, shine or overall health of its usual self, but her long pink hair felt unnatural and looked uncontrollable. Even when she tried combing her hair, all her brushes got stuck in it. Pulling her brushes out, The Tamaranean girl went to wash her hair again, but when she blow dried it, its volume was even bigger!
"What?!" The alien princess cried out. She showered again and this time dried it with simply a few towels, but it took up even more than before volume. "How can this be?!" She tried to leave the bathroom, but her hair was so big, the female titan couldn't fit her hair through the door frame. "Oh give me the break!" In the kitchen the titans were eating when they heard a loud noise that something in the house broke.
"What was that?" Beast asked.
"I don't know." Nightwing replied, wondering about that until they heard a thud around the kitchen door. The titans turned to see Starfire whom once again got her hair stuck in the doorframe.
"Whoa, what's up girl?!" Jinx asked her friend. "I've heard of bad hair days but that's crazy!"
"I believe it is more than just the bed messing with my hair." The Tamaranean said drearly as she used her strength to break the door frame off, now having two frames stuck around it. "I have showered my hair twice and this is what happened. Friends, I am afraid I might be the unwell. I have already said my hair on Tamaran represents good luck and good health, but this is the unnatural even for that. Cyborg, I ask for your help in examining my hair."
"Sure thing Star. Let me set up the necessary stuff first."
Using a microscope, Cyborg examined a piece of hair Starfire gave him. It was difficult to get because by then, Starfire accidentally broke the door frame of Victor's room and now had three door frames stuck around it. The mechanical titan whistled.
"Wow, your hair has way more than just your typical shampoo. It has a whole bunch of ingredients that are found in various hair products like thickening lotions, oils, sprays and other stuff. Add in the unknown variables of Plasmus's composition and you don't have just bad hair, you have the kind of hair that won't go away even with several washes. Now, all of this will go away in time on its own, three months tops, but because we don't want to replace every door frame you have walk through, I'll just give you the hair clips from when we were being ninjas.
"But the clips broke, do you not remember?"
"I took, fixed and improved them. Don't worry."
"Okay. Let me do it though. So far I have been the only one to move my hair around well and I don't want to risk your machines getting damaged due to its strength."
"We don't need machines. I can do it for you." He said as he brought out the stronger hair clips. "Just let me get those door frames off your hair first." Starfire tried to look at them, but the frames turned as she did and she could not get a visual on them. "Might want to stay still first." Turning his hand into a hammer, the metallic titan broke the frames off by tapping on the top middle sections, and then used his superhuman strength to get it into a good sized ponytail where he was able to get the clips in. "Whew, that was tougher than I thought but there we go."
"Oh thank you the so much friend Cyborg!" The alien girl cheered as she hopped up and down. However, the clips couldn't handle the strain and her hair exploded, both sending clip pieces into the wall and machines while Starfire herself was propelled into Cyborg, pushing him a few inches to his shock.
"Whoa, that's some crazy strong hair! Are you alright Star?"
"Ugh, I am the fine. But what am I supposed to do now? The villains will likely take advantages of my overly voluptuous hair." It was then that Jinx and Raven entered.
"Don't worry girl, your two best gal pals will help you." The witch told her Tamaranean friend.
"This is one of the reasons why I keep my hair short. It's a lot more manageable." Raven stated as she brushed her fingers through the right side.
"Ha, Raven with an afro. That's funny." Jinx giggled. Once that thought entered everyone's head they all snicked at the silly visual.
"Haha, imagine that; our Raven with an afro painting like Bob Ross."
"Who?" Starfire asked.
"1980's and 90's artist. He was literally the happiest painter in the world, saying to put a happy little thing on everything. Not literally happy like a smiling tree or anything, but he gave every stroke of the paintbrush the meaning and care it deserved. I own all 31 seasons, 403 episodes of "The Joy of Painting".
"That sounds like the lot of the paintings."
"Let's get back to focus here." Jinx said as she snapped her fingers. "Time to tame some crazy hair." In Starfire's room, the three girls began to try and tame this most stubborn hairball boulder attached to the Tamaranean's hair.
"These personal hair ties of mine were enchanted to keep my hair in the horseshoe shape it is. You think hair gel can keep them up? A light drizzle would add too much weight and they'd sag back down even if I put water resistant product in. Now Raven, if you could kindly straighten the hair so that I can put it on?" Manefesting two black construct hands, Raven tried to straighten out the hair, but found it much harder than she anticipated.
"Grr, sheesh Star, how strong is your hair?!" The sorceress growled as she tried taking half of the alien girl's hair to make an end small enough to put the hair band on.
"Let me assist." Starfire said as she took some of her hair and the combined effort help forced the hair to be compact enough for Jinx to put it on the end and slide it up a bit.
"Okay, now we just need more room." However, due to the strength of her hair, Raven couldn't maintain her concentration and the hair fully expanded, snapping the tie.
"Alright, how about this? Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Forming a black ring of energy, it was around Starfire's scalp before it elongated into a tube, forcing the hair to be all round into being straight. But cracks started to appear, and even when Raven fastened the cylinder with chains, the hair destroyed both as it went right back to full volume. Thankfully the energy didn't fly off like projectiles as they just dissipated.
"Looks like we're going to have to get it wet. Does that help, Starfire?" Jinx inquired.
"Yes, it helps keep it down." She then sighed sadly. "Though Cyborg says that due to the yesterday's products and bits of Plasmus in it, no amount of washing will make it any better." With that explaination though, Jinx's eyes lit up as she smiled.
"Ah, I see. If it's a chemical problem, then we probably have just the thing." Running to the bathroom for a second, Jinx came back with a bottle of shampoo and conditioner. "Raven, enchante this so that it doesn't just get rid of oil and grime, but anything considered foreign."
"Ah, good thinking. Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Raven enchanted the hair products. "The problem was were were trying to cure a symptom, not the cause. Use this stuff, and it should go back to normal."
"Thank you friends!" Starfire hugged the two dark girls, whom rolled their eyes together with a smile at her hug. They may not be known for being particularly huggy, but helping a friend out was always nice. After a couple of hours, Raven was watching Jinx and the boys play some video games while she read a book when Starfire entered the living room. "Joy! My hair is back to the way it should be!" And indeed, her hair was back to being completely down to ankle length, shining and flowed well with the air.
"Wow, that looks so good Star. You're so beautiful with it." Nightwing praised his girlfriend as he got up, causing her to giggle as she wrapped herself in such soft locks.
"Thank you, boyfriend Nightwing." The two then kissed once more once they were close enough.
"So what did you two do to get it back to normal?" Cyborg asked.
"Jinx had the idea to have me magically enchant the products so that it could get rid of anything foreign."
"Sweet." Beast nodded. "What I wonder is how come none of us got this kind of treatment, or ever like what Starfire had?"
"If I had to guess..." Raven thought about it. "...She was just hit with much more than what she typically gets covered it. Her hair must've been full of it instead of simply covered. And Plasmus normally doesn't consume hair products, so aside from superficial damage, our hair never really took any hits before."
"Oh, I get it now."
"Come, let us celebrate my hair's recovery with the pizza!" The Tamaranean suggested with glee. While the others wouldn't consider it celebration worthy, seeing their happy-go-lucky Starfire be so joyous was worth going out.