Xia, Max, and Terry are heading out as the school day is over.

"Uh-oh, the GAT scores are in," Terry speaks up, looking at the large computer beside them.

"Who cares?" Xia scoffs.

"Anyone who wants to pass?" Terry replies, looking to her. "You're not interested in what you got?"

"I already know what I got without even looking," Xia replies. "Perfect score."

"How do you know that?" Terry replies.

"If you really are curious," Xia replies, entering her I.D. into the computer. The score flashes up on the screen. "2400. Like I said."

"How?"

"I'm smart. Duh."

Max types in her I.D. next. 2400 also appears on the screen.

"A perfect score!" Terry exclaims face agape. "How are the two people I'm around have the highest scores of the school?"

"Yeah, well, it's just a number. It doesn't mean anything. Believe me, Terry, you're just as smart as I am," Max shrugs off.

Xia laughs. "Think so, huh? Let's see what he got." She enters his I.D.

"How do you know my I.D.?" Terry asks.

Xia doesn't answer but gives him a smirk. "Incomplete? How do you get an incomplete on the GAT's?"

"Some emergency. I had to leave before the test was over," Terry excuses.

"Sometimes I get the feeling you arrange for these emergencies," Max says.

He gives a little grin and the group heads out to leave the school. A few seconds later someone's footsteps are rushing towards them. Xia immediately moves to the side and slaps the hand of the person away.

"Don't touch me," Xia scoffs at the boy.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

"You didn't."

He coughs awkwardly. "Well uh, anyway, congrats you two on the top score!"

"No big whoop," Max replies. "It's just a test."

"Oh, don't be so modest, Max. Judging by your GAT's, I-I'd say you both could give Carter here a run for valedictorian if you wanted," Terry replies.

They wave Carter bye and head to the computer lab as Max needed to print something off.

"What's that?" Xia asks, noticing Batman on the paper.

"The results of a compiler program I've written," Max answers, handing the paper to Terry.

Xia looks over his shoulder to read it.

"About Batman?" Terry asks.

"Yeah, I needed a hobby, and it beats macrame. I hacked my I.D. so that I can stay after hours to work on it. The program searches the grid for specific information about Batman."

Xia takes the data from Terry. "He's between 5'6 and 6 feet, between 16 and 36. How can he be that young, if he's been around for so long?" Xia asks, questionably watching Terry's expression look wary.

"I figure the guy that's been around lately is a brand-new bat."

"A lot of people would fit this description," Xia remarks, finishing reading the info and handing it back to Max.

"Maybe. But every day, another bit of data helps narrow it down. Eventually, I'll have the guy pegged," Max smirks.

"If it is a guy," Terry says.

"He's a guy, and he's connected to our school. I'm sure of it."

"You know things like this will put a target on your back, Max," Xia says.

"That's why I do it secretly."

"Things like this no matter how secret you try, never remain a secret," Xia replies. "Just... if you're going to work on things like this, make sure you aren't alone."

"What is this?" Max questions coyly. "Is the Kyukon secretly telling me to keep her by my side?"

Xia glares at her as her tails flicker, making Max gulp slightly. "Just tell me when you're going to stay here late at night. I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you."

"Well, if you want to protect me or whatever," Max says with a shrug. "I won't deny you."

...

Turns out last night the Jokerz seemed to target and trash the school. School was still in session of course though.

"I hear they jolted all the vidscreens," Xia speaks up.

"Jokerz," Max growls. "Stupid, random destruction."

"Not so random. Look at the damage. They were picking their targets," Terry says.

"You're saying they're students here?" Max asks as they all walk up to their lockers.

Bruce managed for Xia to get her locker right next to Terry's which also meant she was right beside Max.

"At least one of them is," Terry says, swiping his card in front of his locker scanner to open it.

Max thinks. "Maybe I could rewrite my Batman search program to look for the students most likely to be Jokerz."

"So you'd stop looking for Batman?" Terry asks almost too happily.

"And you really wanna put a bigger target on your back?" Xia questions. "Batman likely will just warn you to stop. The Jokerz will take a different initiative."

Max swipes her card and an explosion sounds off then a pie with a brick inside is sprung from her locker almost hitting Max. "I am now," she growls.

Xia looks to her locker, smelling gunpowder in her locker too. "They didn't do it to just your locker either." She moves out of the way from her locker and swipes her card. It springs open and triggers the same thing that happened in Max's. "I'll join you."

~~~

Night falls and Xia remains behind with Max. Terry had to run some errands for Bruce, so he couldn't join.

"You really didn't have to join me, Xia," Max says with a yawn and stretches.

Sinister chuckling begins to ring off from out in the hallway.

Xia looks to Max. "I think I did."

"Hello? Anybody there?" Max asks, standing up.

The laughter continues.

Xia smacks her forehead. "Are you stupid? You just gave away our location. Come on." She grabs Max's wrist and heads out into the hallway.

Laughing continues as the door closes behind them. Images of a skeleton painted mouth appears on all the screens of the school.

"Query: How many custodians does it take to clean a school? Answer: None, twips. It's all done by machines. Just a squirt of oil and a recharge, and they keep the place spotless. And cleanliness is so important, don't you think? That's why I've replaced the standard cleaning fluid with something a little stronger..." The machines coming towards the two spurts out. Xia pulls them both out the way from getting melted. "Acid!"

The two girls dodge each spurt of acid aimed at them until they're surrounded. Xia growls and moves to kick one away when Batman crashes down from the window above, grabs them both, jumps out of the way, sets them down, then runs off.

"Batman, wait!" Max calls out, standing up.

"Ugh! Asshole! I was handling it!" Xia shouts with an annoyed stomp.

They search for him, but he's gone then they return to the computer lab. Max begins to collect her stuff. Xia turns to the door defensively as she hears footsteps heading their way. She quickly recognizes the footsteps as Terry's.

Terry bursts into the computer lab. "Xia! Max! Are you all right? The hallway's a mess of goo!"

"Yeah, one of us must have accidentally tripped some kind of joker trap," Max answers for them.

"It was no accident. This trap wasn't meant for just anyone. The jokerz are after you two. More specifically you Max."

"What? Why?"

"Your search program, Max. You've gotta shut it down, for your own safety! Please, just trust me on this one, ok?"

"Ok," Max nods.

He turns around. "I'm gonna go make sure there's no one else in the building."

Max heads back to the computer to shut off the program. "Drag program 'Max joker 1' to trash and empty."

"Transferring program. Transferring completed, datafile," the computer voices back.

"Complete? No, wait! Cancel delete command!" Max shouts.

"Recover data! Do you wish a printout of students whose records match your parameters?" the computer asks.

Xia walks over closer.

"You bet I do!" Max answers, enabling the computer to print the results. Xia and Max read off the data. "My God, I don't believe it! Terry! A joker?"

"Terry? No, I don't think so. If he was, GGB would know and definitely not hire him," Xia says.

...

It's the next school day and Xia is looking for Terry, knowing Max might say something to him that she shouldn't if they're alone.

She finds him talking to Max a little further from herself. "Chore boy, you coming or not? You're the one who said you need to make sure I stay out of trouble," Xia says, pulling on his arm in annoyance. "I need to check some dumb book out from the library."

"Hang on," he tells her, looking to Max. "We'll talk later, ok, Max?"

"I suppose I owe you that much."

Xia looks at Max, knowing what she means.

"But, I–"

~~~

Later in the computer lab, Xia manages to get away from Terry for a bit, saying Max will be with her.

"I don't think this is a good idea, Max," Xia tells her. "You've been friends with Terry for years. Doing something like this could ruin your friendship. Not that I care cause I don't exactly like either of you funsuckers."

"I'm doing it, Xia. 'Terry, meet me at the Gotham park water fountain at 8:00 tonight to talk, or I blow your secret wide open.' There that should get his attention."

Xia rolls her eyes then grins. "I'm going with you. Maybe I could let off some steam on some Jokerz."

~~~

8:00 rolls around and Xia ends up following Max to the water fountain. Max arrives first, hearing something behind her and turning around.

"Terry?" Behind her are four Jokerz. "I should have known."

"Looky, looky. It's one of the miss perfect 2400s. The luckiest girl on the face of the planet, until now." He shoots a lazer gun at her that just misses her. "That's right, Maxine. I know who you are," the skeleton painted man says.

"I know who you are, too, Terry!"

"McGinnis? Ha ha ha! She thinks I'm McGinnis."

They all laugh.

"I know he's one of you! He told you I'd be here!"

"No one told us anything. We've been following you. To finish off what we started."

"Because of this?"

"Aghht! Wrong again! I don't care about your data-crunching. I have a more personal reason for wanting you gone."

"Who are you?"

"Me, I'm the best." He aims his gun at her and that's when Xia makes an appearance.

"Back off you ugly Jack Skellington ripoff!" Xia shouts, running up with her accelerated speed and punches him in the face. He is thrown across the park about 20 feet into the fountain, dropping the gun at the same time. Xia smirks. "That... felt really fucking good. Alright, who's next?"

The other three Jokerz snap out of their awed and surprised trance and rush at her. She easily evades each throw or kick or swing of a weapon at her, flicking them in the face with one of her tails when she can. Batman at some point joins in. Together the two quickly take down the small gang of Jokerz.

Xia turns to the skeleton joker in the fountain seeing him weakly look up. Xia scoffs recognizing him. "I knew something was sketchy about you."

"Carter? Carter Wilson?!" Max exclaims.

Xia turns to Batman. "Took you long enough."

Batman visibly winces at the large bruise forming on Carter's face. "Nice right hook."

Xia grins, her fangs showing. "I've learned from the best." She brings around one of her tails to brush out the dirt with her fingers. "Helps that I have enhanced strength too."

"I can trust you to take her back home? I can take care of these guys."

"Yeah, whatever," Xia scoffs. "Max, let's go troublemaker."

"That's funny coming from the girl who's been kicked out of 10 different schools."

Xia glares. "Did Terry tell you that? I'm gonna kill him."

Max smirks back at Batman. "I can't wait to see that."