Growing Pains - Chapter 27

"I really missed this…" I sighed as I took another bite of my el Fuego Inferno Fire Burger.

Amazon cooking was great, but they had a severe lack of certain spices I had taken a liking too. So every time I left the island I made a point to stop at Central City and visit a local burger joint the Flash had taken me to a couple times.

They also didn't really do 'fried' foods very often…or even all that well. I blamed the lack of potatoes.

"Hey, Kid. Back from your tropical island vacation house?" A red blur whooshed into the other side of the booth which, unsurprisingly, turned out to be the Flash. Who immediately stole one of my fries.

"Hey! Those are mine!" I protested, doing my best to simultaneously cram the rest of my burger in my mouth, guard my fries, and glare at the evil speedster. Seriously, why were all the members of the Justice League secretly evil?!

"Didn't see your name on it." Flash said smugly, casually stealing another fry and ignoring my glare.

"Hah, serves you right for stealing my food all the time." his sidekick sniped from the side as he zipped over with two other platters of food.

"Shut up, Speedy!"

"It's Kid Flash! Kid. Flash. Why is that so hard to remember?!" the redhead complained but I just rolled my eyes at him. It was his fault for picking such a dumb name.

"Whatever. So what's up? Unless you just came by to steal my food." I directed my attention back to the Flash.

"What, I can't just swing by to say hello? What happened to the cute little alien girl that just wanted to play tag with me all day?" Flash faked a sniffle.

I just grumbled under my breath about cheating speedsters and their unfair amount of stamina. Yes, I was much faster thanks to my workouts with the Flash and his sidekick, but that didn't mean I was any closer to matching his speed without flying and even then he left me in the dust.

"Anyway," The Scarlet Speedster continued slightly more seriously. "We were on our way to grab a bite and I saw you in the window. You split with Wonder Woman for the day?"

I shrugged, casually scratching at my shins. They had been really bugging me lately along with some other places. "She has some sort of meeting between ambassadors going on so I decided to explore by myself for a few weeks."

"A few weeks? Wait, does that mean you aren't going back to Themyscira for a while?!" Kid Flash jumped in.

"Wasn't planning on it." Not that I actually had much planned for my trip away from the island. And most of the things I did have planned boiled down to 'go to X city and poke around for something interesting to do'.

"Cool, Rob's been waiting to surprise you for weeks. Let me know when you head to Gotham because I have to see the look on your face." Kid Flash said excitedly.

Birdbrain had a surprise for me? That was ominous.

But before I could interrogate ask him about that, Flash raised a hand to his ear as some kind of alert came in on what I assumed was an earbud under his mask.

In less than a blink of an eye Flash had gathered up his food and was out of his seat. "Sorry kids, there's a chemical fire on the other side of town. I've gotta run."

"Whoa, hold up!" Kid Flash cried. "What about me? I'll come too!"

"No way," Flash shook his head. "This is too dangerous to take kids into, your parents would kill me. But hey, if you're looking for something to do, a silent alarm just went off in a jewelry store on 4th and Jefferson. Think you can handle that? Yes? Cool, I'll meet up with you later. Catch you later, shortstuff."

And just like that he was gone.

I watched with amusement as Kid Flash slouched on the table and used superspeed just so he could keep pouting without taking a long time to finish his food.

Once he was done, he grabbed all the trash and started leaving. "Alright, I've gotta run. Bad guys to catch and all that. I'll see you around Cali."

"Ah! Wait!" I called after him, gathering up my own stuff. "I wanna play with you when you're done!"

For some reason he started moving faster when I said that.

-o-

In the end it didn't matter if Kid Flash ran off on me. I knew where he was going and I could fly while he had to run around buildings and cars and stuff. I ended up meeting him just as he showed up with a smug smile plastered on my face.

"I wiiin~" I taunted even as he ignored me and pretended to focus on the store.

"Looks like just one robber and no hostages." He said, mostly to himself. "Guess that means I'll have this taken care of in a flash."

"Boo." I complained at Kid Flash's pun. He tried ignoring me again and threw open the door to the store.

"Alright, hold it right there–" Kid Flash cut off and I floated over his shoulder to see why. Instead of a normal thief like either of us was probably expecting, there was a man in a weird green and orange suit. And I say weird because the orange parts were somehow translucent so you could see the shadows of the green parts right through him!

"– Mirror Master." KF finished, shifting position so he was ready to move in any direction.

"Well now, if it isn't the sidekick and the alien girl." Mirror Master drawled. "Is Flash running late?"

"Hah, I'm more than enough to take you down." Kid Flash boasted. "Besides, a jewelry store? Seems a little low end for you, Mirror Master. But I guess crime doesn't pay as well as it used to."

"I'm just tagging along." I added, not really paying attention to the whole thing. While Flash was fun to hang around, most of his villains tended to be on the 'techy and clever' side of things. They usually had some neat stuff, but a solid hit would put them down for the count like what happened with Captain Popsicle.

Since then I'd seen Flash fight the Trickster and Australiaman and neither one of them changed my mind about that. They had cool gadgets and skills…but were still just human.

"Crime pays very well actually." Mirror Master replied to KF. "But every once and a while you just have to respect the classics." Ah, another villain who paid attention to the type of job they did instead of something stupid like how big a payday they would get or how useful it was to them.I could respect that. "Of course I can never get enough diamond focusing lenses. So, two birds, one stone."

Ah, nevermind then.

Mirror Master took a step to the side and suddenly there were two of him. Then those took a step and there were four.

I blinked as the store was suddenly flooded with copies of the villain. That was actually pretty cool. I wished I could do that – wait! The multiform technique was a thing, I could do that! The only question was how…

"Sorry kids, I don't have time to play around. But hey, I'm a fair guy. I'll give you a chance to hit the real me. What do ya say?"

Kid Flash shifted to a more aggressive stance. "I say bring it on!" And then he rushed the first group of clones. Predictably his fist went through all of them before they faded to nothing.

"Oooh, sorry sidekick. Tough luck, maybe next time. Now it's my turn." Every clone said at once and pulled out a pair of high-tech looking pistols. Since Mirror Master's whole thing seemed to be holograms and stuff I was only expecting the two guns the real one had to actually do anything but as I watched Kid Flash duck and dive through an onslaught of laserbeams I was surprised to see every single beam did damage to what they hit.

Remembering the lessons Mel beat into me every chance she got, I made sure to dodge any beams that looked like they were going to hit me even though I was pretty sure I'd be fine even if they did and watched KF flail around at all the clones.

None of the Mirror Masters seemed concerned about what he was doing at all so I guessed he wasn't close to hitting the real one.

"Need to do better than that, sidekick." Mirror Master taunted as Kid Flash punched another clone. He must have been getting frustrated, cause he overcommitted to the punch and left himself open to a shot that hit him in the side, knocking him over and practically through a display stand.

"You okay, KF?" I couldn't help but call out. Yeah, he was a little annoying but I didn't want him dead or something.

"...Yeah…gonna feel that one in the morning." The redhead called back, flinching and holding his side as he tried to get back on his feet. "...A little help?"

"Oh, is it the alien girl's turn now?" The Mirror Masters all turned to face me. "Think you can find the real one when your friend couldn't?"

I shrugged. "Don't have to find the real one if I just hit all of them." I cupped my hands together in front of me and focused. A sphere of Ki formed and before any of the clones could react, I started shooting smaller Ki blasts at each of them like a machine gun.

"How's that?!" I cheered as the dust settled. None of the blasts were all that powerful, but that many had to have hit the real…one…

"...huh?"

I looked around at the empty store in confusion. I definitely hit all of them so how come…?

"That was dangerous…" My head snapped towards the side of the store where I saw Mirror Master casually sitting on what was left of a counter. Considering he looked completely fine and not even a little nervous about the fact I had shot a few hundred Ki blasts at him I was pretty sure this was another clone. "Still, it was better than what your friend tried, but I'm afraid I don't have time to play with you kids anymore. Who knows? Maybe next time you'll be good enough to play with the big leagues…"

I cut him off with another Ki blast through the chest and just like I thought it went right through him. I snarled as more clones appeared and began shooting at not only me, but Kid Flash as well.

Kid Flash was able to zip around dozens of lasers and punch out a few clones before running back to my side. I managed to dodge most of them but got hit with a couple when I slowed down to fire back at the copies. They didn't do much beyond burning some holes in my clothes, which was sure to get me in trouble with Wonder Woman later – I didn't have too many spares that weren't my armor and she preferred me to wear the outfits the Amazons gave me when out in public. Whatever, I'd deal with that later.

"This guy is a serious pain in the tail!" Another three copies faded to nothing, only to be replaced seconds later.

"Yeah, this would be a whole lot easier if we could just sense where the real one was." KF complained as he ducked another laser.

I froze in midair after he said that. A few more lasers hit me but I didn't react to them. I was too busy facepalming with embarrassment.

"STUPID!"

"Whaah!"

I ignored Kid Flash's shout of surprise and focused on my Ki sense that I hadn't been paying attention to like an idiot.

Unsurprisingly, there were a bunch of people in the area even though the fight had been going on for a few minutes now. I could ignore the ones in the surrounding buildings or too far away, but there were two Ki signatures nearby and one of them was Kid Flash.

The other one was right behind me, and even though I couldn't see anything I trusted my Ki sense and shot a blast at the seemingly empty area.

The little yellow orb exploded on something and another Mirror Master was thrown to the ground. It didn't take a genius to figure out this was the real one. It just took a stupid Saiyan that literally forgot she could sense people. Ugh, if anyone knew about this, I'd never live it down.

"Woah, you got him?!" KF exclaimed. "How'd you know he was there?"

"I don't wanna talk about it." I grumped. "C'mon let's tie him up and get going. You owe me a game of tag."

"You can't just leave me hanging like that, Cali. Come on, tell me! Cali? Cali!"

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