trans_9 | Meet N' Greet

She stepped into the new place a little weary. Things had been pretty weird already. Waking up in a puddle of slime, on the floor of a cavern full of pods, then talking to the living ship thing named Stacy. Sure it seemed like a right regular day in the Twilight Zone.

Now she just had to figure out if she knew any of the people here. The odds were good that she would, but they were even greater that she wouldn't.

And now her head hurt from trying to think about that.

There's a heavily scarred boy sitting at a . . . well, it functions as a table, even if it looks alive, eating gray goo out of a papery tray. He's tearing bits of the tray off to scoop the slop out with. He doesn't look thrilled about the activity.

"You're new," he says, sounding about as thrilled about her novelty as he looks about his food.

She turned her head at the voice, and frowned. One, it didn't make sense what he was doing eating what looked like slop. Two, she didn't know if he was trying to be cute, or annoying.

"Well how'd you figure that one out? Was it my blank stare? How I have no idea where I am? Or are you just Captain Obvious, with the power to state everything that's obviously obvious?" So she couldn't help it.

Oh, he's certainly not trying to be cute. Zuko doesn't do cute.

"I'm Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation."

Stacy - the great equalizer.

"Are you planning on being more polite after you get used to this place, or is this sort of conversation going to happen a lot?"

This is all delivered in the same deadpan with which he commented on her newness.

"It'll probably happen alot. It's just how I am. Not that you seem any politer." She narrowed her eyes just slightly. Well someone had gotten up on the wrong side of, whatever this place considered a bed.

"No idea what the Fire Nation is, and you don't look much like a prince to me. So I'm sticking with Zuko." She held out a hand and gave a sweet smile. Biting sarcasm aside, she could be friendly when she wanted to be.

"Name's Cissie."

He looks at her hand, under it, and then back at her.

"What do you want me to do with that?"

Now his usual "why am I here" tone has a tinge of confusion.

She tried very hard not to laugh, but it was nearly impossible. Did he seriously not know? She shook her head and gave a smile, biting into her bottom lip to prevent the bubbling laughter from erupting.

"You shake it. You put your hand in mine, and move it up and down. It's a friendly greeting. Didn't they have handshakes where you're from?"

"No. We bow, like this."

He puts his hands together, right hand in a fist with the thumb side up, left hand open at a 90 degree angle to his palm and resting on top of the fist. He lowers his head and back a few inches in a short, but respectful, bow. See, he DOES have manners! He's just a jerk.

"You remind me of my sister's friend Ty Lee."

It kind of just jumps out there.

Cissie was a bit shocked at the bow, and then smiled. She'd let her sarcasm rest for now. Zuko didn't seem like that bad of a guy. Plus, she was the one who had bit at him first. Foot in her mouth, what a great first impression.

"I don't know if that's a good thing or not." She gave him a smile and then pointed to what he was eating before. "So tell me you're eating that, cause of a dare or something."

"She's all right." She's not psychotic, which is a plus. She's not Mai, which is a minus.

He frowns at his slop. "All the Sensoriums were full. And believe it or not, this is Stacy's idea of fine dining."

He tears off another chunk of his tray and glares at it. "It's as bad as it looks."

"Stacy's got one hell of a great sense of humor." She shakes her head and tries not to gag at seeing him tear off the piece of the trey. "If that's fine dining, I don't want to know what she thinks is fast food."

Someone spots her through the crowd--and without the Obs Deck to spread the group across two rooms, it is a crowd.

"Holy crap!" Cissie hears and then there's the heavy-slam of a half-Kryptonian teenage boy's body into her own (though it's not as bad as it could be with his nearly-faded invulnerability) as she's practically lifted off the ground in a rowdy, brotherly hug.

Aside from being glad to see her since he's supposed to go and croak, he just hasn't seen her in ages, and hadn't before he got here.

Have a Kon, Cissie!

"CISSIE!" Kon calls to the others: "Hey guys, it's Cissie!"

She hadn't been expecting this. Maybe she was expecting, one of her friends to come up and find her. But Kon? She couldn't help blinking stupidly as she was swung around and hugged. He'd been dead, right? Her and Cassie had just been talking about her getting over his death. Did this place revive him, just to keep him here? That wouldn't make sense. But things rarely did when it came to life and death.

"K--Conner!" She finally wrapped her arms around her neck and sniffled once. She wasn't going to cry. She wasn't! "Warning..." She said softly before she squealed loudly and squealed him a little tighter.

"You're alive! You're here! Oh my god!"

"Eeeesh! Watch the super-hearing," he says of the squeal, squinting one eye closed as he winces.

He adds quietly, "And Ix-nay on the Onn-er-kay. There's practically no way to keep secret IDs here, so we're trying not to let the Ent-Kay name get around. I've been going by Kon."

He puts her down on her feet again, still holding her shoulders.

Then the expression grows a little more wistful and sober. He's not "back," so to speak. It's not as simple as that.

"Also, it's time travel, Cissie. I got pulled right before the big fight. I know--I know what's supposed to happen. In the fight against Prime."

"Oops sorry. Yeah secret identity thing. I so knew that." She covered her mouth with her hand and bit into her bottom lip. She'd gotten so excited from seeing him alive and well, that she had forgotten all about that. She shifted on her feet for a moment before she realized what he had said.

"Ack! Time travel gives me a headache." She tried to give him a bright smile, but it seemed more watery. She wasn't going to cry damn it! No way. "So you know about the fight... that seems like forever ago to me. I..." She shook her head and looked down at her feet. Her voice quite and small. "I just finished mourning Bart..."

Oh geez.

The way his face falls like that makes it abundantly clear that he had no idea.

"...something happens to Bart?"

Cissie's head snapped up. Oh man! Her and her big mouth. She shook her head and fought very hard against the tears. She hated being emotional about this, really she did.

"Yes. Kon, he's gone too. We lost you both." She shook her head rather hard, and let her hair fall in front of her face, hiding it completely from view. "We were just trying to get on with our lives after you, and then... It hurt so much. I can't even imagine what T.. Robin felt. Loosing the both of you so close together."

Kon just has this Look. He has a devastated look on his face.

What's the point of him croaking to save the world if it's not going to save one of his best friends?

She kept her head down, but the lack of a response from him was a bit unnerving. Why wasn't he telling her it was all okay? She shook her head again and forced her head up. Fine! If he wanted to be the downer, it was her job to cheer him up. Like it had been her job to help Cassie get over his death.

"Okay, enough of that! Nothing we can do about it here. So why don't you fill me in here. Not everyday a girl gets dumped out of some slimey pod thing onto a living ship."

Don't think about it. Don't think about it.

Maybe there's some way to fix it. There's a chance they could fix it for him, right? But even if not for him, since he had to, y'know, save everyone, maybe it'd be easier to save Bart.

"There's not much to tell. We're stuck, Stacy's in charge, but no one knows who's in charge of her--if anybody--she's grabbed people from different times and dimensions, and we've just been trying to stay alive long enough to figure out what's going on and to get back to our worlds and times. Kal's here, but he's from before he even met me, Rob and Cass are here, so are some new Titans, one of which showed up right around the Crisis, apparently--he's from the future. Nightwing and a few other people we know are here. There's a lot of people we don't know who are here, and they've been pretty cool about the whole working together thing."

She had to admit, this place for all it's weirdness, was starting to sound like just one big adventure.

Maybe this is what I needed. My life's been just one teenaged girl thing after then other for so long. Maybe it's time to really be someone again.

She shook her head and looked back up at Kon, a weary like smile on her face.

"I guess I could do with a few more friends. The ones I have keep disappearing on me. Saving the world, leading the Teen Titans, protecting their cities. I just can't keep up anymore."

Kon looks sad for a moment, and maybe, of all things, a touch guilty. How often had he seen Cissie since YJ broke apart?

"We never meant to leave you behind, Cissie. Hell, for a while there, nobody was talking to anybody, and then we got back together again in the Titans, but we were fighting like crazy with each other at first, and then just when it was starting to get like it used to be, things just got...brain wash-ey and Crisis-ey."

By the time they'd started pulling together, it'd all started falling apart again. And that's where the story ends for him.

"I'm not trying to guilt trip you Kon. I probably could have been a Titan if I wanted to. But I didn't. I gave that life up, remember? I nearly killed a man, and if you hadn't been there..." She shook her head and frowned. "Look because I wasn't a hero, I went and won a gold medal. I was on a hit TV series, and was able to get pretty good grades in school. Sure I didn't get to hang out with my friends as much, but I sure saved a hell of a lot on medical bills." She laughed and nudged his shoulder with her fist.

"Well somebody thinks you're a hero, 'cause you're here," says Kon. "Near as we can tell, the ship tends to grab people based on how awesome they are or how awesome they could potentially be. It's all heroes, soldiers, eggheads, and people with some kinda skills at something."

"So Stacy thinks I've got the skills to be an awesome hero? That's pretty cool, I guess." And it really could be worse. She could have been pulled there on accident. A complete mistake. Which would have been her luck.

Meet N' Greet

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