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"I have never been so embarrassed in my whole life," Dick said, piloting the Pequot in curt turns.

"And he wore short-pants."

"Shut up, Roy."

"He attacked me," Indigo said defensively.

"He gave you a high-five!"

"It hurt," Indigo said, very small.

Shift flowed out of his seatbelt and solidified behind her. He leaned down and placed a hand on her collarbone, fingers comfortingly running up and down. "Lay off her. She doesn't know any better. And we've been blindsided so many times, she's right to be suspicious."

"She punched out the President of Nebaria!"

"I said I was sorry."

Dick forced himself to stop squeezing the joystick. It might break. A perfectly good mission scrubbed because of a communications foul-up. He poured on the speed and watched the clouds blur even more. One didn't. It stayed constantly, a long red tail of smoke that sent Dick into a fit of nostalgia. He hit the afterburners, followed the contrail, and finally caught up with Kory.

She led the Pequot to a clearing chosen because it was near a watering hole. When they went out to meet her, Kory was drinking from cupped hands and dipping her feet into the water. Leaving wet footprints behind her, Kory approached him.

"Dick. It is good to see you again," Kory said formally.

Just when Dick thought they had skipped the hug, she threw her arms around him.

"So good to see you!!"

Her breasts were pressed against his chest. "It's good to see you too," he said, although feeling her was much better. God, please don't let Babs be commission of the Thought Police yet. "What brings you here?"

"Her."

Kory was pointing at Indigo, who was giggling when the crocs nibbled at her steel-hard skin. Shift was pulling a big daddy croc away by the tail and Roy was grabbing crocodile teeth from Indigo's legs to shove them in his pocket. Meanwhile, Grace and Thunder were not having sex. They didn't have sex harder than some people did.

"The Justice League is concerned with outsiders, no pun intended, assimilating to 21st century society. Superman in particular is worried about them feeling alienated… you know, weird."

"Harper the croc slayer!" Roy cheered, now wearing a bowstring necklace of crocodile teeth. "Ooh, Lian'll want one…"

Dick considered warning him against it, but instead looked into Kory's pure green eyes. "Yes, I would hate for one of my team to come off as weird. So you're teaching a… remedial course for humanity?"

"Yes. First lesson: If you want consequence-free kisses anytime you like, just say you need to learn the language."

"Oh, that old gag?"

***

Kory and Indigo ran through the plains of Africa, occasionally leaping through the air to see how high they could get without flying.

"This is fun!" Kory enthused.

"Acknowledged."

"No, I mean… you know what fun is?"

"Yes."

"Good. And I take it you have no questions about love?"

"No. However, I do have questions about sex."

"I have knowledge in that field," Kory said seriously.

"If one's sex partner is an off-shoot of another potential sex partner, how does one go about convincing both of them to have sex with me?"

"If I knew that, Batman would've been much more important to my relationship with Nightwing. However, when I brought up the possibility, Nightwing became violently ill. It later became apparent he had contracted botulism from a can of chicken noodle soup. However, I am certain my suggestion did not help."

Indigo stared at her, her head swiveled at the neck so as not to affect her running. "Although I am not programmed to, I find the thought of Batman having sexual intercourse with one of his sidekicks… 'just plain freaky'."

"Good. You wouldn't want to go to those chatrooms anyway."

There was a whirling dervish up ahead. Kory jumped, took flight, flew around it until she had plucked out a two white halves separated by a stripe of red. A boy with his absurdly large shoes still treadmilling.

Bart noticed he was being held at arm's length by Kory. He looked up and down her scantily-clad body.

"My pants are tingling."

"I get that a lot." She lowered herself to the ground and dropped Bart in front of Indigo.

"Indigo, this is your classmate."

Indigo scanned Bart. And his pants. "Sex ed?"

"I got my sexual education from 30th century hentai games. Tentacles give me funny feelings. So do panties. Even when it's just Kon wearing Cassie's on his head while Cissie shoots a tentacle-arrow at him. That was a weird day for me. What were we talking about?"

"That time I fought a giant octopus in my panties," Kory said.

Bart sat down on a rock and quickly crossed his legs.

"How did the cephalopod get in your panties?" Indigo asked.

"The usual way: Bought me a drink."

***

Starlight was fifteen years old, with golden skin and a mop of curly hair stop her head. She piled mustard onto her hot dog bun.

"That's our third student?" Bart asked.

"She's my niece; Ryand'r's daughter."

"Are you sure she's not a clone?" Bart coughed. "I mean, maybe Lex Luthor or someone cloned you."

"Nonsense! Is Little Barda a clone of Big Barda? Is Zatara a clone of Zatanna? Is Superboy a clone of Superman?"

"Yes to the last one," Indigo said.

"I just think they could be a bit more original than just copying what's gone before. Look at me!" Impulse snapped imaginary suspenders. "I'm my own man! I'm blazing my own trail, not just following in Wally's footsteps! Who'd want to read my stories if I were just a kiddiefied Flash?"

"Your stories?"

"Yeah, I drew them on the way here." He pulled a sheaf of crayon drawings from his pants. "Here's you, and here's me, and here's Indy-Girl…"

"Can you draw one of me?" Starlight asked, having been watching over Bart's shoulder for quite some time now. Not that hard, as her slim body was at least a head taller than Bart's… not counting hair, which added prodigiously to Bart's height. "I am told I am pretty as the picture."

"My name is not Indy-Girl." Indigo looked at Starlight's mustard dog. "And should not your buns have a wiener in them?"

Kory made a time-out sign. "That, children, is a double entrende. Since wiener is an euphemism for penis" Bart chortled "and buns is another word for the buttocks "Bart snickered "you should be careful what you say unless someone desperately immature finds it funny."

Bart was slapping his knees as he laughed. "I gotta tell Gar about this!"

"If you buy me another mustard, I will help reenact it."

Bart nodded, still laughing too hard to talk. Finally, he wiped the tears from his eyes and turned seriously to Kory.

"Your clone's nice."

"She wears panties."

"Oh, there goes Mr. Lightning Bolt again."

***

"This is how you learn humanity!" Kory cried as she walked through the streets of New York. The robot, pint-size speedster, supermodel, and tiny alien princess garnered little attention. Except for Kory, but she got that a lot. "You must dive into its pools, drink it in, splash around in it! That is just a metaphor, though, you should never drink pool water."

"Man, you couldn't have told me that before Robin and Superboy took me to the YMCA?" Bart groused.

"Are Robin and Superboy oriented toward the appreciation of male eroticism?" Indigo asked.

"Depends on the Robin," Kory said, blushing a little.

"Aunt Koriand'r, are you talking about boy-girl stuff again?"

"Yes. But if you have any further questions on that, you can ask… Batman. Now we will cross the street!"

They had arrived at a busy intersection. Kory tapped the walk button and waited until the light flashed red, then crossed.

"You must always check both ways before you cross the street. If you were to step out in front of someone, they might be harmed." Kory scratched at her chin. "I'm not sure what else there is to teach. So much has become second nature to me… did we already cover public restrooms?"

"Never, ever, ever," her students quoted faithfully.

"Very good. Oh! Table manners. Bart, as a strapping young man, this should be particularly important to you."

"Pull my finger."

"No."

Following Kory, they made their way into the nearest sit-down restaurant. Kory conferred quickly with the maitre'd, then led them to their table.

"My database shows that this restaurant cannot be perused without a prior reservation."

"I told them I was Power Girl," Kory said.

"Your hair is completely different."

"A wig."

"And your faces are nothing alike."

"Like anyone looks at our faces."

"Who has a face now?" Bart asked. "Because Max has a bunch of wrinkles on his face. Are you gonna get wrinkles on your face, Kory? Because you look nice with your skin so smooth. Can I touch it?"

Kory held out her arm. Bart felt it.

"Wow. You have a bunch of muscles. Do you work out?"

"I work out," Starbright said. "Do you need any help with your napkin?"

"No. I can make a bird out of it, though."

Kory tapped her spoon against her glass. "Everyone, please choose what you intend to order."

"I am not hungry," Indigo said. "I am never hungry."

"I ate five seconds ago when you were blinking. How long will it take for the food to get here after we order?"

"I do not see mustard on the menu. Is it one of the items in French? Do I have to kiss a Frenchman to understand it? Mr. West said the French are cheese-eating surrender monkeys; would their breath smell like cheese? I don't want to kiss anyone with cheese breath!"

"No one is going to make you kiss a cheese-breather!" Kory assured her niece. "Bart, help Starbright order."

"Okay, what do you want?"

"More of the mustard, please!"

"How ironic," Bart said, "we go to a high-priced restaurant which caters to the most sophisticated of tastes, and yet all Starbright desires is a simple condiment. Which she can't get."

"What's irony?" Starbright asked.

"Irony is…" Kory thought about it. "It's like rain on your wedding day. It's a free ride when you've already paid. It's the good advice that you just didn't take."

"That is incorrect," Indigo said. "Although your misrepresentation of irony may, in itself, be ironic."

"Huh?"

"Don't look at me, I've gone cross-eyed," Bart said to Starbright. "You might've gone cross-eyed too, I wouldn't be able to tell."

"Listen to me, everyone. Irony is a discrepancy between the expected meaning of something and what it really means. For instance, on Earth, sometimes bad… means good."

"Words meaning something… other than their commonly accepted meaning?" Starbright hissed. "This is madness!"

"Madness? THIS IS EARTH!" Kory calmed. "For instance, Indigo, I hear you don't like cherries."

"No. I choked on a pit once. Despite the fact that I don't need to breathe. It was very confusing."

"Therefore, it would be ironic if I were to say 'Indigo likes cherries'. More specifically, it would be sarcasm. I said the opposite of what was real for a humorous discrepancy."

"But…" Indigo's lip quivered. "But you said…"

"I know what I said. I was being sarcastic."

"I think you were way out of line there," Bart said.

"Panties."

"Excuse me."

He sped off.

"Why'd you say that Kory?" Indigo pressed. "Why? You're a hero. And you say something dirty. Like industrial waste. Industrial waste mouth. I hate you, Princess Koriand'r, I hate you!"

"I don't see what the big deal is. I mean, you do like strawberries and they're almost the same thing."

Indigo seemed to swell up, various mechanisms swiveling out of her body and aiming at Kory. "YOU WILL PAY FOR YOUR INSOLENCE, PUNY FLESHLING!"

***

"So, then she tried to kill you," Cyborg said.

"Yes. We only barely managed to restrain her."

Indigo pounded against the forcefield that imprisoned her.

"CHERRIES! HATE CHERRIES!"

Bart made a face at her until Starbright twisted his ear.

Cyborg scrutinized Indigo's scan. He came across a small switch, flicked down.

"Yup, here's your problem. Someone set this thing to Evil."

"My bad," Shift said, rushing in. "We were fooling around and she told me to flick her button and I just thought…"

"Silly Shift, 'the button' is an euphemism for the clitoris," Kory explained. "It looks like Shift needed an education too… in safe sex!"

They all laughed merrily.

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