Kim, Shego, the Titans - save Cyborg; Bender, Fry, Amy, Leela, Hermes, and Professor Farnsworth walked outside. The sight of all the futuristic stuff was too much for even Robin. “Whoah…”
“C'mon,” said Amy – “We'll take the Tube System.”
“Tube System?” asked Ron. “Since when did America become British?”
“Ron?” Kim nudged him and pointed up to the actual tube transportation system laid out in the air above.
“Ah. Tube System. As in actual tubes. Gotcha. Alright. Yeah. Knew that!”
Kim just shook her head. She grabbed Ron so they could keep up with the others. “C’mon…”
An entrance to the Tube System was nearby. “Okay,” instructed Amy, “Everybody hold hands tightly, since we have some tourists here.”
Raven was the only one who didn’t do so. “‘Tourists’?”
“Just do it,” said Shego.
Raven finally took the outstretched Beast Boy's hand - very reluctantly. “Don't think this'll happen every day,” she scowled at him.
Amy stepped into the entrance. “Head Museum.”
Instantly, they were all sucked into the tube. As they zipped and zoomed through the twisted tubeways, everyone except Amy, Bender, Leela, Hermes, and Professor Farnsworth were screaming - though not all from fear. “WHOOOO-HOOOOOOO!” shouted Fry.
“Yeah!” exclaimed Shego. “Now THIS is transportation!”
“Are we there yet?” asked Raven.
“Almost!” called Bender.
Across the street from the Head Museum, the Tube System had a stop that faced a wall.
After a moment of silence, everyone came flying out of the tube – and promptly slammed into the wall.
“Amy!” Leela chastised as she picked herself.
“Oops - clumsy ol’ me.” Amy defended herself with a sheepish grin.
Ron escaped the clump of people in various ranges of pain. “That was so freakin’ BADICAL!” He looked back at Amy. “Can we do it again?” Rufus popped out of his pocket to add his chittering the equivalent of “Yeah, again, yeah!”
“Let’s not, please…” Kim said as she crawled out of the pile, her eyes spinning. “That is one reason I am so never taking public transportation…” As the spinning in her head faded and she regained herself, she immediately grabbed a green-gloved hand sticking out of the pile and pulled as hard as she could.
“Oof - thanks, Kimmie,” said Shego. Then she saw Kim’s complexion. “Hey, you alright, baby?”
Kim was now walking a little erratically. “Just a bit woozy from that, is all…” At that, she promptly fell backwards - but Shego caught her. The pale-skinned woman picked Kim up like a groom would pick up the bride after a wedding, winking at Kim. “C'mon. Let's get you inside someplace air-conditioned. That should help you,” she reassured her true love.
Kim gave a bright smile. “Yeah, like air conditioning is gonna help me from being dizzy.”
Everyone else was now up and moving – save Professor Farnsworth, whose body was lying on the sidewalk. “I’m going to be in extremely agonizing pain when my heart beats,” he muttered to himself. Bender returned, threw Farnsworth over his shoulder like a rag doll, and ran back to the group, using the piston engines in his legs to arrive much faster than he would’ve had he walked or run normally.
“C'mon!” Amy motioned. “It's Semi-Obscure Superheroes & Supervillains Week! We're missing out!”
Ron looked at the seemingly infinite number of steps on the stairs leading to the Head Museum’s front door. “Do they have a ramp?”
Finally, everyone reached the top of the stairs. They entered the museum.
As it was the Head Museum, there sat rows of shelves with many heads in jars on them – living heads.
Kim felt her stomach turn again, but managed a smile somehow. “Okay! That's…kinda cool, and…kinda creepy - all at the same time.”
Starfire nodded. “Yes, that is much my feeling.”
The only words Beast Boy could form were a gasp, then “Whoah…”
“Well, well, well…look at that.” The voice was one Starfire could never forget. She instantly turned around – to find the head of her sister, Blackfire, staring at her from a jar on a middle shelf. She gaped. Blackfire’s head gave the sneer Starfire knew was her favourite expression. “So that's where you disappeared too, little sister. How most convenient,” Blackfire’s head rambled on.
“Blackfire?” Starfire asked, still not believing she was truly looking at her sister’s head, alive in a jar.
“One thousand years later and I'm still better than you in every way possible,” Blackfire’s head cackled.
“Man, that Question guy is freakin’ crazy,” Ron remarked to no one in particular as he strode over. “Don’t ever ask him about toothpaste or shoelaces - Who's that?” he asked, seeing Blackfire’s head.
“My big sister.” Starfire started giggling. “Only she is not that big anymore!”
“Hey!” Blackfire’s head retorted.
“I don't believe it.” The voice made everyone’s - except Amy, Bender, Leela, Hermes, and Professor Farnsworth – spines tingle. They all looked in the direction the voice had come.
“No way…” said Beast Boy at the sight in front of him.
Robin arched an eyebrow. “Slade?”
Indeed, staring at them from in a jar on another middle shelf, was the head of Slade – the man with the orange-and-black mask that had eluded the Titans for ages and whose talent had been making everyone suffer as much as they could, while keeping his motives for his actions quite unclear. It was Slade who had come to Middleton and taken Shego – who had still been evil at the time - during the middle of one of her many brawls with Kim, and forced her to be his apprentice. That plan had eventually been foiled when he had held not only Kim’s twin brothers, but Shego’s brothers from Team Go – the superhero team Shego had been on before she nearly went insane from their constant perky do-goodness and decided to go evil - hostage along with everyone at Kim's high school. Slade’s move had sparked the resurgence of Shego’s good side, and with it, her realisation that she hadn’t been purring nicknames at Kim and constantly fighting her for 3 years because she wanted Kim dead – but rather, because she had wanted Kim badly and hadn’t wanted to accept that her feelings were truth. Slade’s apprenticeship tactics had forced her to examine those feelings – and the same had gone for Kim. When it turned out Kim had felt the same way, they then had teamed up with the Titans and rescued everyone Slade had threatened. But Slade had gotten away – like he always did, according to what they had heard. And even before that, it was Slade who had caused the Titans to claim the most painful victory they had ever taken against a foe, when he had caused the first official new member of the Titans - and Beast Boy’s first and only girlfriend, Terra - to sacrifice herself in order to save the Titans’ city from a impending underground volcano. Terra had used her geomancer powers so powerfully in that move, she had turned herself into a stone statue of herself. Now, nobody who had been in either of those situations would have guessed they would’ve seen the man who caused them and millions of other people pain and suffering to be in the position he was in now. Nobody.
Shego - who'd put Kim down a while ago - had to turn away to keep from embarrassing herself by pointing and laughing at Slade. She had been steaming for retribution after what Slade had done, but this? This had to be the best retribution she had ever received in her life. And she so wanted to rub his face in it. But she also didn’t want to look like a complete ass to everyone in the future.
“And Team Possible, too?” asked Slade’s head. “Wonderful.” His voice was dryly unamused. “And I was actually enjoying my retirement from the evil business.”
“Retirement?” Kim asked.
“Yes. Having people grovel to you for 50 years and not one of them defy you gets a little - how shall I say it – boring.”
Having regained herself, Shego did have one question for Slade that didn’t double as a jackass retort. “So, Slade - what made you do it?”
“…Do what?” asked Slade’s head.
“Uh - the whole evil dude thing - right?” Ron asked.
Shego nodded.
“Bad childhood,” said a female voice behind them.
Beast Boy whirled around – and his jaw dropped.
“Hey - let's see your mother forget to powder your dry baby ass every day and see how well you turn out, okay?” Slade snapped at the head of Terra – in a jar on the shelf behind them. It had been her who had just made the previous comment.
Beast Boy was stunned. “Terra? What-”
“Hey Beast Boy.”
Dr. Zoidberg raced out of the Planet Express Building. “Friends, help! I took a nap in the Professor’s lab and now everyone’s disappeared and I can’t frame anyone for breaking the Professor’s stuff!” But nobody was around. Zoidberg hung his head. “Aw…” Then something landed on the ground nearby. “What’s this?” Zoidberg looked down - and squealed instantly upon seeing what it was: Food and money – something of which he had neither. “Finally, I won’t be starving and poor anymore!” he shouted, and greedily bent down to snatch it up. But it jumped away from him, toward the alleyway close by. “Hey! I’m not letting the Earthican dream slip out of my claws that easily!” he said defiantly, and grabbed for the food and money again. But again it jumped away from him. Enraged, Zoidberg chased the food and money as it kept jumping away from him – until he had followed it into the corner of the alleyway. “Aha! Who’s cornered who now?” But when he knelt to take his prize, something hard slammed into the back of his head. He fell to the ground, instantly knocked out cold by the blow.
Inside the Planet Express building, Wade celebrated over the communicator’s video screen. “I think I got it!” he shouted happily to Cyborg.
“Yes!” Cyborg exclaimed. “Good job, Wade.” He looked up at the viewscreen. “Warp, you’re goin’ down…” he mumbled to himself.
“Just plug the communicator into that connection and your arm into that one there and I'll start the trace for Warp's whereabouts!” said Wade over the communicator.
“Gotcha.” Cyborg plugged in the components as told.
“Ok…” Wade was seen typing over the communicator’s screen. “Tracking - Wait! Something's-”
With a loud CRRRAAZAAACCKK, Cyborg was immediately shocked into oblivion.
Wade’s hands lifted off his keyboards on the video feed.
“Oh -- crap.”
With that, Cyborg's systems powered down. He now just stood blankly.
Back at the Head Museum, Hermes had entered into a conversation with Slade’s head. “So, what did you pay your henchman?”
“Henchman? Pfah!” blurted Slade’s head. “I used robots!”
“Ohh…So you were the CEO?”
“Well, if you put it that way…”
“The cloned heads are in place?”
A nod.
“Good. And that Zoidberg character fell for your hologram of food and money, just as you had planned it. Excellent. You serve me well-”
“-Apprentice.”
Wade nodded to Slade – the real Slade - in appreciation. He was communicating with him through a special time portal that was being maintained by Warp - who stood nearby, off to the side of Wade.
Slade continued. “Aviarius and I have neutralized the Possibles, Team Go, and all of Kim's other friends and allies - and her other foes are cooperating - all thanks to you. And you made sure Drakken and Blood returned first. Very good. With them, we will be able to take care of all the Titans’ friends and foes. Now, I don't wish to keep this communication portal open any longer than necessary, as they could still track it somehow. I will contact you again once the Cage has been completed. Let Warp know that when his part in this has been fulfilled - to one hundred percent, that is – he shall be rewarded with what he desires, and then he can return to his own time.”
“Master, one question - if I may?” Wade asked.
“Go on. But keep it short.”
“Why not just leave them in the future?”
Slade paused for a moment. “The thought had occurred to me - but by the time that I contact you again, Team Possible & the Titans will return to a world - where they will have no future.”
He nodded.
Wade nodded at Warp.
The communication portal closed.
END ACT THREE