How Long is Forever?/Transcript

How Long is Forever?/Transcript
Season	2
Episode	1
Air date	January 10, 2004
Preceded By	Apprentice - Part 2/Transcript
Followed By	Every Dog Has His Day/Transcript

This is the transcript for the episode "How Long is Forever?".

Prologue

(Opening shot: the exterior of Titans Tower at night. As an alarm clock's ticking is heard, the sky pivots about the center of the horizon; the dark panorama rotates out of view and is replaced by the morning sun against wild blue yonder. The alarm begins to ring, and the camera cuts to an extreme close-up of the sleeping Starfire's closed eyes. She opens them with a gasp, then squeezes them shut excitedly on the next line.)

Starfire: The day has arrived!

(She looks off to one side; cut to the source of the ringing, an alarm clock shaped like the Amazing Mumbo that sits on her dresser. She reaches into view to shut it off, and we see a close-up of a drawer, which she opens to reveal a pile of toys and party favors. She sweeps up the lot and giggles o.c.; outside in the hall, her door opens and she peeks cautiously back and forth. More bubbly little laughs escape her as she zips out and starts to ease toward the corner, whisking from one wall to the other as she goes. Her armload jingles slightly. One item falls away when she ducks around the bend and out of sight, but she reaches back to pick it up.)

(Now she makes her way past the stairs. Cut to inside a closed door; it slides open to admit her, and she lowers her goodies to expose her beaming face. Hearts float up around it.)

Starfire: HAPPY BLORTHOG!! (A question mark pops up by her head.) Huh?

(Her perspective, looking into the operations center. Raven sits off to one side and reads, Robin stands before a boom box in the kitchen, and Beast Boy and Cyborg are playing GameStation; the racing game seen in "Sisters." A thundering hip-hop track drowns out all other sound at this point. Close-up of Robin, whose hair is being blown back by the wall of sound, then of Cyborg and Beast Boy. They are having a tug-of-war over the game controller.)

Cyborg: Come on, Beast Boy, gimme that thing!

Beast Boy: Dude! I'm in the middle of a game, Cyborg!

Cyborg: Yeah, my game, 'cause it's my turn! (Cut to the completely unflappable reader.)

Beast Boy: (from o.c.) Give me the controller!

Cyborg: (from o.c.) No! Let go! (She walks in.)

Beast Boy: (from o.c.) It is my turn!

Starfire: Friends! We must frolic and leap in glorious celebration, for today is Blorthog, the Tamaranean festival of friendship!

(Sight gag: roses bloom all around her head as she says this. When she finishes, she grins broadly for several seconds, and then the flowers fall away, to the sound of a mental car wreck, as she realizes that no one is paying the least attention. Disgruntled, she looks around the place and drops the items she has carried in, except for a few strands of jingling bells that hang from her wrists. Cyborg leans into view, still struggling with the o.c. Beast Boy, and she turns cheerfully to him.)

Starfire: Joyous greeting, friend! (as a tentacle snakes into view) I, Starfire, give you this tinnabula as a symbol of-- (It wraps around his neck; she gasps.)

Cyborg: (as he is yanked o.c.) You're gonna pay for that, you little grass stain!

(Sight gag: his eye implant hangs in the air a moment after he is pulled back, then zips after him. A few seconds later, there is yell and a camera-shaking crash from the two boys' direction, and Beast Boy hops into view as a frog, with the GameStation controller in his mouth. Reverting to human form, he laughs and starts playing again. Starfire holds a string of bells out to him.)

Starfire: Many blessings, friend. May your ears be filled with sugar candies and--

Cyborg: (from o.c., on the end of the previous) BEAST BOY!!

Beast Boy: (yelling over his shoulder) Look! I'll give you back the controller as soon as Raven gives back my nail clippers!

(There is a loud, furious growl from o.c., and Cyborg reaches into view to yank him away. Cut to Raven, still buried in her book, with the aforementioned pair of clippers floating nearby under her influence.)

Raven: Not gonna happen. How else am I supposed to keep your toenails off the coffee table? (Starfire holds the bells out to her.)

Starfire: Happiness and delight, friend. On this wondrous day, I wish you sunshine and bunny--

(Raven's eyebrow twitches as a skull pops up by her head; Starfire takes the hint and backs off with a nervous little laugh. Now a vein starts to throb on Raven's forehead on her next words.)

Raven: Robin, could the music be a little louder? I can still hear myself think.

(Pull back to frame him; Starfire makes as if to offer him the bells. As the free-for-all continues from the vicinity of the couch, Robin glares off toward it and one vein after another stands out below his hairline. Finally, he has had enough.)

Robin: I only turned the music up to DROWN OUT ALL THE YELLING!!

(Sight gag: his face goes red on the end of this line, his head swells, and he shouts with enough force to blow Starfire's hair back. Second gag: now she is seen, rather tired of this whole idiocy, in close-up against a red background and holding her bells. Robin's throbbing head is at top left, Raven's at top right, and a laughing Beast Boy runs past with the controller while Cyborg chases him. Both of these Titans are in "Super Deformed" style. A moment later, they back into view; Cyborg has put Beast Boy in a headlock with one hand and seized the device with the other.)

Cyborg: Whose turn is it now, tough guy? Whose turn is it now?

(They slide o.c. Sight gag: flames shoot from Robin's mouth on the next line.)

Robin: (calling after them) Knock it off! I can't work with you two acting like idiots!

Raven: Great, Robin. More yelling will definitely stop all the yelling.

(He turns to growl at her as Cyborg runs screaming across the screen; he has the controller, but Beast Boy has turned into a bear and is charging after him. The former runs back and perches on Starfire's bells, while the latter comes back in human form and tries to catch his breath.)

Starfire: Friends, please! (Cyborg laughs and waves it.) You must not, if we could simply, happy Blor- (The strand breaks.)

Cyborg: (dropping o.c.) Whoa!

(The bells fall loose and hit the floor in slow motion, bouncing all over the place. Starfire's disbelieving gaze turns down after them as Robin and Raven grimace at each other and Beast Boy stays half slumped over. The Tamaranean's shock gives way to fist-clenching anger, and she does her best to keep from blowing her top, but eventually, she loses the struggle, and the other three Titans retreat o.c. on her next word.)

Starfire: STTTTTOOOOOPPPPP!!

(All the sight gags end and the music cuts off. Pull back across the operations center at ground level; the broken bells lie near the camera, while the Titans are at a distance.)

Starfire: Friends must never behave this way, and especially not on Blorthog! Do you wish to invite the Rekmas?

Beast Boy: Gesundheit?

Starfire: (turning away) On my world, "Rekmas" means "the Drifting."

(Everything but the five teens' images fades to black, and all but Starfire slowly float o.c. in different directions.)

Starfire: The point at which close friends begin to drift apart, and their friendship begins to die.

(She fades away as well. Snap to Cyborg and Beast Boy.)

Cyborg: Aw, come on, Starfire.

Beast Boy: We are so not Rek-whatever-ing.

Raven: We're getting on each other's nerves a little. Big deal.

Robin: Yeah. This is just typical roommate stuff. We're not going to drift apart, Star. I promise. We'll all be friends forever.

Starfire: Forever?

(A beeping starts up and cuts off her pondering. The source is Robin's communicator, which he pulls out of his belt. As its show-theme ringtone goes off, the T on its outer casing flashes red.)

Robin: Titans! Trouble!

(All but Starfire follow him out of the operations center. Close-up of her; after a long moment, she flies out after them, and the camera tilts down to ground level, where the broken bells lie near a string she has dropped. Fade to black.)

OPENING THEME

Act One

(Opening shot: the exterior of a museum in Jump City. The sun has just barely begun to rise here. Inside, the camera pans across a gallery filled with ticking clocks from many historical periods, and it stops on a particular display case by the far wall to zoom in a bit. Next to this, a portal of white light opens up and turns black after a moment as if a second hand had just swept across it. Out steps a goateed man in black armor, with gold reinforcements at wrists and ankles; he also wears a gold breastplate and helmet that leaves his face exposed. This is Warp.)

(Close-up of the item in the case: a small clock in a cylindrical gold housing, with a glass hemisphere on top. Inside is an assembly of parts that could be a model of a galaxy. Warp's footsteps approach as his shadow falls over the case; pull back to frame him in front of it.)

Voice: Hey, stop!

(The sound of a weapon being cocked is heard with this. The intruder turns toward it, showing a small blue lens on the forehead of his helmet, and the camera cuts to behind him. The speaker is one of two armed guards who have moved in and are ready to fire.)

Warp: Stop yourselves!

(He waves a hand carelessly at them; an instant later both men are frozen in ice. Cut from them to him on the next line. He turns back to the case, showing his breastplate to have a larger blue lens set in it.)

Warp: I didn't journey back in time one hundred years to squabble, I came to steal. (His perspective of the timepiece.) The Clock of Eternity. (Back to him.) Valuable in the past, priceless in the future.

(He reaches for it, only to have his hand deflected by one of Robin's discs. Pull back to frame the Titans at the balcony railing; the projectile embeds itself in the floor near the camera.)

Robin: But for the present... (Close-up of them.) ...you'll keep your filthy hands off it.

Warp: The Teen Titans. This is a treat. (as a laser pops out of each shoulder) I read all about you in the historical archives. And now, you're all history! (He opens fire.)

Robin: Titans! Go!

(They are over the railing in a heartbeat to avoid the blasts. Warp pivots off to one side and fires again with a shout, aiming at Robin; the latter has his fighting staff out and extended to full length, and he parries the barrage with ease. The last shot, however, breaks the weapon in half and forces him to retreat. A starbolt blasts across the screen from behind, and Starfire flies in to take his place, followed by Beast Boy as a lion. Her beams carve a long double groove in the floor, closing in on Warp, but he effortlessly deflects when they reach him. One ricochet comes back at her and knocks her out of the air.)

(Extreme close-up of his face; he looks incuriously off to one side as Beast Boy's growl is heard. The big green jungle cat is charging, but up comes one gold glove, out pops a blaster from the back of it, and off goes a crackling blast. Pull back to show that he has immobilized Beast Boy in mid-leap. Cut to Raven in midair on the next line; she is levitating two grandfather clocks.)

Raven: Azarath Metrion Zinthos!

(The fixtures are hurled at him, only to go flying off to the side when he waves his arms. Now he fires a beam from his helmet that drives her to the ground. He is in the clear for only a moment, though; Cyborg's sonic cannon blast flashes in, connecting dead on and throwing up a cloud of dust. Cut to him.)

Cyborg: Boo-yah!...Huh?

(Pull back. As the view clears, we see that Warp has put up a force field to absorb the energy and is quite unharmed. Taking it down, he throws something at the camera; cut to Cyborg as it lands on his chest and sticks there. It is circular, resembling a kitchen timer, and the pointer turns a notch to send up sparks from every part of the bionic teen's body.)

Cyborg: (groans in pain) Draining my power cell!

Warp: (holds up a disc) You cannot defeat Warp. I am from the future.

(He scales it across the gallery toward the charging Robin, who throws a handful of his own discs. Warp's projectile, however, smashes cleanly through them, then doubles back and homes in again. Robin and Starfire dive aside as it sails the full length of the room and explodes at the other end.)

Warp: And you relics are one hundred years out of date.

(He turns away; close up of the case holding the Clock of Eternity. Warp reaches out, his hand passing through the glass, and removes it. Pull back; he takes a few steps across the gallery, stops, and presses the blue lens on his breastplate. It glows blinding white and emits a beam that forms into a portal identical to the one that brought him here. A little adjustment turns the passage black as before.)

Warp: Ta-ta, Titans. I have enjoyed our time together, but I've got a very bright future ahead of me.

(Cut to Starfire and Robin on the end of this, then back to him. He turns to make his exit, but before he can clear out, she roars in fury and flies straight at him. Surprised, he turns to look back with one foot out the door.)

Warp: What?

(She plows into him; her momentum carries both of them through the portal, which winks out behind them-an instant before Robin hurls himself across the screen in attempt to follow. He ends up sprawled on the floor. Long overhead shot of the gallery, pulling back slowly; there are four Titans, spread out and looking at the now-empty case, and the fifth nowhere in sight. Beast Boy has returned to human form. Pull back slowly.)

Robin: Starfire!

(Fade to black.)

(The view resolves into the center of a clock face, the point where the hands are attached, as the camera pulls back. It is advancing very quickly, and as the camera movement continues, other timepieces are seen in the background, all working at high speed. Starfire and Warp grapple in midair; pan to keep them in view. We are within the portal he opened.)

Warp: Let go! (Close-up.)

Starfire: You have endangered my friends and ruined Blorthog!

Warp: Stop! If you damage the suit before we reach my future-- (She gets hold of the chest lens.) No!

(She rips it away; there is a great flash of white, which clears to leave her floating alone. She gasps and covers her eyes as he drops screaming o.c. Cut to just above her; he falls away from the camera, the background blacking out as he goes. When he has receded from view entirely, a second white flash emanates from the immeasurable depths and washes out the screen. This clears to leave a black field and Starfire falling toward the camera from above. Fade to black, then immediately snap to a deep snowdrift, where she lands very hard and stands up after a moment. It is nighttime, and a bitter winter wind whistles over the landscape.)

Starfire: Huh? (shivers) What has happened? Why is it cold? And where are my...

(She turns her eyes upward on the end of this line. Cut to her perspective, looking straight at the base of the Tower, whose windows are all dark and drifted deep with snow at the sills. She gasps softly; tilt up to follow her gaze to the top floor, where the main window is broken. The entire impression is one of a building that has fallen into advanced disrepair.)

Starfire: ...friends?

(Dissolve to inside, near the ceiling of the top floor. A hole has been smashed here, allowing the snowflakes to enter. Tilt down to the unlit stairs as she mounts them slowly. The device she tore from Warp's armor is clipped to her belt.)

Starfire: Friends? Hello? Friends? Hello!

(Finding a set of closed doors in her path, she strains to push them open. Cut to the other side; one door is forced away, then the other, revealing her silhouette in the meager light from outside. She gasps in shock and advances slowly; pull back to reveal that she has entered the remains of the operations center. Walking through the kitchen, she looks left and right, not believing a bit of what she sees, and the camera cuts to floor level. Her boots pass the GameStation controller that sparked such a furor between Cyborg and Beast Boy, and nudge one of the bells she dropped, now badly rusted.)

(Her level again; the jingling causes her to stop and recoil in fear for a moment, and she stops and picks up a loose bell. She fixes it with a wide-eyed look of stunned sadness for a long second and watches it crumble on her palm. In the darkness off to one side, a spot of red light begins to glow as some machinery is heard; she gasps and looks toward this.)

Starfire: Cyborg!

(The red dot does not move, so she holds up one glowing hand to shed some light.)

Starfire: Oh, Cyborg, thank goodness you are--

(The illumination reaches the dark niche and exposes something that has Cyborg's approximate body shape, but is built entirely of mechanical parts. The source of the red spot is an electronic brain sitting in one side of the head. Starfire cries out in fear and throws a starbolt that blows the collection of circuitry away, only to be confronted by several spider-like robots that jump up from behind the shoulders. Each looks like the part she just destroyed. Now she tosses one shot after another to knock them out, but is interrupted by the arrival of a new figure at the entrance. The voice is that of Cyborg, but considerably older, and the outline has some wires hooked to it.)

Cyborg: Yo!

(He walks in, giving the camera a full view of himself. The face is lined, the armored panels that cover most of his body are damaged or missing, and the blue lights that used to glow in his circuitry have gone out. Thick cables are connected to his back, snaking out of view, and he has armed himself with a piece of pipe.)

Cyborg: Who's up here blasting my... (He stops, lowers the pipe, and stares dumbfounded.) Star?

(The bludgeon slides from his fingers and clatters to the floor, and he comes closer to look her over from head to toe. We now see that he has had to replace part of one leg with some random components.)

Cyborg: Starfire. I don't believe it. You...you haven't aged a day!

Starfire: Cyborg, what has happened? Why are...you...?

Cyborg: Old? (He smiles gently, then crosses the operations center.) Well, that's what happens to folks when you go away for twenty years.

Starfire: Twenty years?!

Cyborg: You disappeared, Star. (He slides some junk aside.) That battle with Warp, that was a long time ago. You fell through a wormhole, and...

(He looks out the cracked window; cut to the view from it. Across the frozen bay, the skyline of Jump City huddles under its blanket of snow and the cruel dark sky. It looks no different than Gotham City.)

Cyborg: (from o.c.) Welcome to the future.

Starfire: The future? But...

(She removes the lens from her belt and holds it up.)

Starfire: ...I damaged his technology. (He takes the thing and looks at it.)

Cyborg: Warp was planning to jump ahead one hundred years, right? Looks like you stopped him at twenty. (She takes it back.)

Starfire: Still, I am confused. Please, why are you in disrepair?

(He looks down at himself, then turns away.)

Cyborg: Let's just say things haven't gone so well since you left. (He approaches the windows; she follows.)

Starfire: But what of the other Titans? Where are our friends?

Cyborg: The Titans are history, Star. Your friends aren't friends anymore.

Starfire: No. You are wrong. This...everything is wrong! How could such terrible things...

(She looks at the lens in her hand.)

Starfire: Warp! His interference in the past must have changed our future.

Cyborg: Star, I don't think--

Starfire: He caused all this badness to happen. He made this technology, and he is the one who can make things right! (She flies over and lands by him.) We must find Warp. You will help me?

Cyborg: I wish I could.

(He looks off toward one corner; cut to a piece of equipment there. It resembles a gasoline-powered electric generator, and his cables are hooked up to it. Zoom in slowly.)

Cyborg: (from o.c.) My last power cell burned out years ago. (Back to the pair.) I've tried adapting this new stuff to my old circuits, but...I can't leave the Tower, Star. I'm obsolete.

(Silhouette view of them at the windows.)

Cyborg: Maybe one of the others can help.

(Cut to an extreme close-up of her eye and pull back to show her in flight.)

Cyborg: (voice over) I can tell you how to find BB and Raven.

Starfire: (voice over) And Robin?

Cyborg: (voice over) We lost touch a long time ago. If you're looking for him, (She disappears into the city skyline.) you're on your own.

(Fade to black.)

Act Two

(Opening shot: the interior of a stable or similar enclosure. As a circus calliope plays outside, a green seal pops up into view and barks; it can only be Beast Boy. He jumps onto a nearby crate and balances a ball on his nose. It bounces up, the camera following, and when we see him again, he becomes a frog and balances it again. Cut to two young boys outside, watching the exhibition; they are mostly bald except for small spikes of hair, and they wear pink visor/sunglasses that hide their eyes completely. One holds an ice cream cone, and neither is too impressed by the whole spectacle.)

(The sound of another transformation is heard; cut to behind the two. Beast Boy's enclosure is now revealed as a large cage. He has assumed panda form to keep that ball poised just so. Close-up of him, changing into a pig, but a snowball flung in knocks him over and sends the ball flying.)

Kid: You stink, pig!

(Laughing and jeering, both of them start throwing now; Beast Boy pokes his head out from behind the crate, but is quickly driven to the floor. Pull back to a long shot, revealing the cage to be a circus wagon. After one last salvo, the ice cream cone is thrown in and the two kids leave. The green porker sits dejectedly as the cone melts on his head; it slides off, and he looks down and sighs.)

(Starfire lands on the other side of the bars to peer in. Beast Boy returns to human form, bald on top, having gained a great deal of weight, and not wearing his belt. Defeat permeates every syllable of his voice.)

Beast Boy: No way! (He moves to the bars.) It's you. But how?

Starfire: I require your help.

Beast Boy: What kinda help?

Starfire: The future is not as it should be. We must find Warp. (warmsup her starbolts) I will free you from this--

Beast Boy: (panicked) This cage isn't to keep me in! It's to keep those maniacs out! (Starfire winds down and leans in closer.) Look. After the Titans broke up, I tried the whole solo-hero thing. Got my butt kicked, a lot. So now, well...

(He turns briefly into a squawking chicken to make the point.)

Beast Boy: (smiles weakly and chuckles) Besides, I'm in the showbiz now.

(Her eyes tell just how false this excuse rings with her. Cut to a long shot of the wagon and pan to a banner on lighted poles nearby: "The Amazing One Man Zoo-Freakish Wonder," showing a creature with the heads and body parts of many different animals. This is what passes for Beast Boy's life now.)

(Dissolve to Starfire's perspective, walking along a balcony in a broken-down building. At the far end, a single fluorescent tube flickers and throws its inadequate light onto a steel door. Close-up; she gets a hand to the knob and turns. The room inside is pure white, with no features of any kind visible. In the far corner, wearing a white cloak with the hood up, a short figure stands with its back to the camera and its head bowed. This is still Starfire's point of view.)

Starfire: Raven? (Close-up.) Raven, it is Starfire, your friend.

(She moves into the room. The white-cloaked figure does not turn from the corner; the voice is Raven's, but sounding as if the past twenty years have broken her mind and body entirely.)

Raven: No such thing.

Starfire: Please, Raven, I--

Raven: Just another figment. Don't even look.

Starfire: You must listen! I am here because-- (Camera shift: Raven seen head-on, still facing the wall, Starfire behind her.)

Raven: (suddenly furious) I'm never coming back! Go away!

(She half-walks, half-floats to another corner of the room.)

Raven: It has to go away. Just like before. Just like all the others.

Starfire: (from o.c.) Your mind. (Shift: both head-on again, and she approaches.) Without friends, you must have--

(As she is about to touch her former teammate's back, a shield pops up to block her and she gasps. Dropping her head, resignedly, she exits and closes the door behind her. Raven keeps her face to the wall and that black barrier up.)

(Cut to a patch of sky, seen from between several rooftops, and tilt down to ground level. Starfire plods through the snow that thickly covers the street, but a laser blast from o.c. knocks her backward. Cut to a long shot of a ledge, where Warp stands with his shoulder, mounted weapons deployed. Circuitry is visible through the hole where she pulled that lens away, and his voice reveals that he too has aged.)

Warp: What's the matter, dear? Have I come at a bad time?

(Close-up: his face is lined and drawn from the past two decades. He cuts loose with a fusillade that peppers the snow all around her; she stands for a moment, pinned down, and then gets clear of the ground. Flying past him and over the buildings, she dodges his shots and returns fire, but as in the museum, he puts up a force field to stop her starbolts. Now she floats down to his level and gets ready to lay a big one on him-but he merely waves a hand and encases her in ice, just as he did to those two guards. She drops to the street; the frozen layer shatters, and she is left twitching and groaning in a crater of snow. Warp steps close to her and soon finds himself on the receiving end of her angry glare. However, it gives way to bewilderment once she gets a good close look at him.)

Starfire: You have also become old.

Warp: That's what happens when someone steals my vortex regulator. (holds out his hand) The regulator, if you please. I really must get back to my future. (She stands and pulls it off her belt.)

Starfire: (menacingly) If you ever wish to see your future... (warms up a starbolt) ...you will repair the damage you have done to my past!

Warp: Damage? Silly girl. There's nothing wrong with your past. (Cut to her; he continues o.c.) One cannot damage history, because history cannot be changed. (Back to him, holding up the Clock, and zoom in slowly.) I went back in time to steal this because history says it disappeared. And history says it disappeared because I went back to steal it. Past, present, future. It's all written in stone, my dear.

(The minute hand advances, showing the time at 12:00. Starfire winds down the blast she was about to throw; he takes the lens, or regulator, from her hand.)

Warp: And nothing you do can ever change it.

(He raises one arm and extends a blaster from his wrist, ready to fire, but something hurtles into view and knocks him into an alley. Standing up, it is a black silhouette with long hair, and it throws Warp even farther down the way to bounce off a dead-end wall. The figure produces a couple of discs between its fingers and throws, revealing a gray utility belt and wrist guards; they explode in a fireball that engulfs the time traveler, and the thrower runs straight toward the blast zone for a jump. Flame and smoke clear to show that Warp has once again shielded himself with a force field. He lets it down and looks skyward to see this new figure dropping straight toward him.)

Warp: Another time, perhaps.

(He drops into the ground an instant before the leaping shadow lands there. Starfire moves cautiously into the alley as this person straightens up. No features can be seen, but the voice is unmistakable.)

Robin: It's good to see you again. (Her eyes pop.)

Starfire: Robin?

Robin: (in a shadow) I haven't used that name in a long time.

(He advances into the light. Skintight black uniform, with a large angular design of a blue hawk on the chest; black gloves and matching eye mask that angles down to cover his nose as well; the aforementioned long hair.)

Robin: Call me... Nightwing.

(Fade to black.)

Act Three

(Opening shot: a slow pan across the Jump City skyline. Machinery makes itself heard, and the view dissolves to a group of turning gears in a machine room. These part to reveal blackness beyond; zoom in through them, then fade in to an overhead shot of a large room. A bank of computers and control panels is on one side, with a chair in front, and two cylindrical storage containers are across from them. A walkway bisects the area.)

(Cut to just behind one of the containers. It is glass, and a part of Robin's old outfit is visible at the edge of the screen. Starfire walks into view and stops to look, wrapping her arms around her body for warmth; cut to a head-on shot. The costume, mask and all, has been placed on a faceless store-window dummy for display purposes. She sighs quietly and gets a blanket wrapped around her shoulders by Nightwing; this is his new base of operations.)

Nightwing: I heard you've been looking for help.

Starfire: There is nothing you can do. There is nothing anyone can do. The past cannot be repaired, the future cannot be altered, no matter how wrong it seems.

Nightwing: So, it's impossible. (walks to the computers) Good. If memory serves, we've done the impossible before.

(She cannot find any words for a moment, but her eyes tell enough about the hope that has sprung up in her mind.)

Nightwing: I held on to this... (Close-up of a panel; he presses a button and continues o.c.) ...just in case.

(The panel slides open, and up pops his old communicator. Starfire moves closer to make sure her eyes are not deceiving her. He picks it up and presses a button; instantly, its T starts to flash red, just as in the prologue. She is delighted to find that the black stones in her neck piece and wrist guards are coming to life in the same manner: an emergency signal built into them.)

(Cut to a long shot of Beast Boy's cage and zoom in. As a prairie dog, he is up on his hind legs and bouncing his ball on his snout; pan from here to his old belt, which hangs on a peg in the corner. Its buckle starts to flash, drawing his attention and making him forget the bouncing. Close-up of the red signal, then of him in human form; his jaw drops slightly open in surprise, then closes as he hangs his head sadly.)

(In the white room, Raven has not turned her face from the wall, though she has put down the shield she used to block Starfire. Red pulses issue from the area of her throat; close-up of her neck, where the brooch on her cloak is going off. She puts a hand up to cover it, revealing that she now wears white wrist guards rather than black.)

(Cut to a long shot of the Tower. Inside, Cyborg sits in the operations center and ponders the wreck his life has become. Suddenly, his eye implant flickers red, responding to the call. He gets to his feet and starts out the door, but the cables in his back pull taut and stop him. He gasps softly and looks back over his shoulder; pan to the power source that anchors him to this place.)

(Cut to the exterior of the former museum, whose sign out front now identifies it as Metro Art Technologies. Inside, two armed guards stand frozen in ice among the computer equipment. The very same guards Warp froze twenty years ago.)

Warp: (from o.c.) Tick-tock.

(Pull back. This used to be the gallery full of clocks; he is at the far end of it.)

Warp: Tick-tock. (Close-up; he is welding the regulator back onto his chest.) Just a few more seconds, and I shall finally--

(The sentence is cut off when a short staff flies into view and strikes the tool from his hand. Close-up of it in flight, returning nextly to Nightwing's hand. He and Starfire are at the balcony railing, and she has starbolts ready to go in both hands.)

Nightwing: The future will have to wait. (extends his staff) You just ran out of time.

(With a frustrated growl, Warp brings up his shoulder lasers and fires off a few rounds that send the two heroes diving away. Nightwing scales a handful of explosive discs at him, Starfire unloads a blast, and he uses a force field to stop their onslaught. The two come down to ground level as he drops the barrier and the smoke clears. Now he gives them both barrels; they rush in closer, and Starfire fires off a shot that he deflects just as he did twenty years earlier. This time, though, she gets out of the way of the ricochet.)

(Nightwing, meanwhile, is charging ahead through Warp's laser blasts. Silhouette view, slow motion: he is in mid-leap, bearing down on the time-jumping thief, and the end of his staff shatters one of the two lasers. Normal view, normal speed: the former Titan lands behind him, and Warp turns around only to get a starbolt in the back that bowls him over. He fires his remaining laser at Starfire, who leaps away, and then turns his attention back to Nightwing. The latter is jumping in again, staff at the ready, and he brings it down in a mighty overhead swing that just misses Warp. One laser blast after another is batted away without breaking the shaft this time; next, the black-clad fighter starts swinging for the fences, forcing Warp to back up as he blocks each strike.)

(Nightwing fights like a bojutsu master on speed, his staff flashing everywhere almost at once. One final roundhouse finds its mark and sends Warp to the ground; Nightwing and Starfire step up to him as she winds down her starbolts. The villain, however, just grins and adjusts the aim of his working laser. A shot goes straight up to the roof and blows a hole through it, dumping in a pile of snow and rubble that buries Starfire.)

Nightwing: Star!

(He is blasted away; cut to Warp, who has used his wrist weapon to do this job. He retracts it and runs across the place to pick up the welding torch that was knocked out of his hand. Before he can do any more repair work, though, a mighty blast from Cyborg's cannon connects squarely with his chest and launches him over the length of the place to slam down behind a cabinet. Starfire, having been dug out of the rubble, and Nightwing look confusedly back toward the source, and the camera cuts to the bionic man himself, on the scene and free of the wiring that had held him in place. His circuitry glows blue with life as he lowers the cannon.)

Cyborg: Boo-yah.

Starfire: Cyborg! (She flies over to him.) You are repaired! (Nightwing joins her.)

Nightwing: Glad you could make it.

Cyborg: Wouldn't have missed it. Now who said y'all could start without me?

(Pull back to ground level. Warp steps partway into view near the camera.)

Warp: (from o.c.) So sorry.

(Cut to him, holding up a timer device like the one he used to drain Cyborg's power cell back in the day.)

Warp: Perhaps I should finish you first!

(Beast Boy, as a lion, charges in and rakes his claws along the gold armor to send sparks up from it. Warp raises his arm and brings the blaster up from his wrist, but before he can use it, Raven's powers exert themselves over the hand, then the whole body, and he is flung back to the far wall. The four heroes look that way, completely at a loss, and see her "soul-self" materialize from the floor. It rises high into the air, and the black bird outline swirls to become the telekinetic former Titan. Under the cloak, her outfit is still black.)

Raven: Nobody hurts my friends.

(She backs up to join the others. Beast Boy, back in human form, looks up at Nightwing's full head of hair and rubs his own bald scalp enviously.)

Beast Boy: Dude, that is so unfair.

(Warp activates the regulator, now back on his chest, to open a wormhole and turn it black.)

Warp: It seems my time has come.

(Nightwing hurls something at him; he counters with one of his own. Close-up of the first weapon-a compact device with wings folded in by the body; these flick out after a moment to show the entire thing similar in design to Robin's birdarangs. Warp's disc moves into view, approaching, but is sliced neatly in half by one wing. The device slams into his regulator and cracks it; electricity crackles all over his body as he begins to grow younger before our eyes.)

Warp: Uh!?! No! Noooo! NOOOOOOO!!

(As he ages in reverse, his body shrinks and his outfit starts to flap emptily. In addition, the pitch of his voice goes higher and higher. Finally, the sparks stop spitting and the armored suit lies deflated on the floor; no head is visible in the helmet. With the other Titans watching, totally mystified, Beast Boy reaches down and pulls the breastplate away. Underneath, it is Warp, now a screaming baby.)

Beast Boy: Okay. I am not changing any diapers.

(Pan from them to the wormhole, which is starting to close.)

Cyborg: (to Starfire) We gotta get you home. Come on!

(He pulls the regulator free and fits it to the muzzle of his cannon. A sustained blast hits the wormhole, which is nearly closed, and forces it back to its original size.)

Cyborg: I'm redirecting the wormhole. (Cut to Starfire and Nightwing; he continues o.c.) Starfire, go!

(She steps uneasily toward it, but stops to look back pleadingly at her former friends.)

Starfire: Please, must this really be our future? (No answer.) Is there nothing I can do to change it? (Nightwing moves up to look her in the eye; close-up of both.)

Nightwing: I'm sorry, Star. There isn't time.

(He takes her hand and places the Clock in it; the artifact that started this whole mess two acts and two decades ago, and she lowers her head for a moment. Raising it as he puts a hand on her shoulder, she gives him a tender smile with her eyes full of tears. He takes a few steps back to join the rest of the old crew, the last thing she sees as she moves into the black gateway. It closes behind her and winks out.)

(A flash of white, and we are back in the time-traveling passage. A single clock, running backward, floats toward the camera until the center attachment point for its hands fills the screen with black. Now a second flash puts us back in the museum gallery at the present time. Warp is about to escape through the wormhole with the Clock.)

Warp: Ta-ta, Titans. I have enjoyed our time together, but I've got a very bright future ahead of me.

(Same camera movements and actions as before: he starts through, but she makes her leap straight at him.)

Warp: What?

(She plows into him; both go through the wormhole; Robin jumps after them but misses as it closes up. New cut: he lands near the camera, which is at ground level and pointing back toward Cyborg and Beast Boy.)

Robin: Starfire!

Beast Boy: Um, where did she--?

(A flash fills the gallery, followed by a second wormhole that opens behind him and Cyborg. Starfire is dumped out to land in a huddled kneeling position, cradling the Clock, and the three boys lean in.)

Beast Boy: Dude!

Cyborg: Whoa!

Robin: Star! What happened? (The wormhole closes.)

Starfire: History said it disappeared. (She straightens up, showing the Clock intact.) But history was wrong!

(They can only stare thunderstruck at this instant reversal of fortune and recorded evens. Dissolve to the exterior of the Tower. It is later in the day, that is, the modern day when this episode began.)

Starfire: (from inside) Then Nightwing handed me the Clock, (Cut to her in the operations center.) and I entered the vortex.

(Cut to behind her; she is addressing the other four Titans. Beast Boy's cheeks are streaked with tears. Long silence as they turn over the whole out-there account of future events in their minds.)

Raven: Whoa.

Beast Boy: Bald?! (tears out most of his hair) You're telling me I'm going to be bald?! (He whines a bit.)

Cyborg: Guess you were right about all that Rekmas stuff.

Robin: I don't want us to drift apart. Does it all have to happen? Isn't there anything we can--? (Cut to Starfire.)

Starfire: Our friendship has already changed Warp's past. I believe it can also change our future.

(One by one, the loose bells from the string that broke under Cyborg's feet float up in Raven's influence.)

Raven: (from o.c.) So... (Cut to her; they are reassembling themselves.) ...is it too late to do this festival-of-friendship thing?

Starfire: (ecstatically) Oh, it's never too late!

(Raven levitates strings down around Beast Boy's and Cyborg's necks; she is already wearing one of her own, and the shape-shifter's hairline has fixed itself.)

Cyborg: (in Raven's ear; her bells jingle) HAPPY BLORTHOG!!

Beast Boy: I thought it was "Blort-hog."

Raven: Okay, I feel like a wind chime.

(Starfire puts a string around Robin's neck; tilt up from it to his face.)

Robin: (cocks an eyebrow) So...Nightwing, huh?

(Dissolve to the exterior of the Tower and fade to black.)