A/N: Hey! So, this is my first but not only Young Justice story I'm posting to the site! I'm excited. x)
Hopefully you guys like her!
Edit: Okay, so upon receiving a review informing me that Dinah is 24 (not my assumed, like, 29/30) in 2010, the start of this show, I've decided that instead of GA and Black Canary, it'll be Wildcat and Black Canary. Yaaay for misinterpreting the shooooww...
I'm changing the timeline I had originally set up, and will be editing for a little bit to fix this little dose of ignorance I've displayed. :\
Dinah'll be 16 when she and Wildcat come in in this chapter, so, there. Reference point.
Louise was born an orphan.
Her mother had had no intention of keeping her, but also had been forbidden to abort.
The only thing she stuck around to do, was to stall in the hospital to "recover" and waive her father's wrath.
Louise's mother was sixteen.
Every nurse at the hospital hated to see the lonely hazel-eyed baby cry, grasping at the sky for something she couldn't even fathom, yet somehow knew was missing.
When social services picked up the baby days later, they each had said their goodbyes.
Living in an orphanage in New York wasn't a bad life. It was decent.
But a life waiting, is no life at all.
At five years old, Louise was transferred from New York to Star City for an unknown reason.
Star City, although a sunny city, had its underbelly.
Coincidently, where the orphanage was located.
At seven, Louise was the fifth girl among four others kidnapped from the neighborhood surrounding the orphanage.
After two months, there was finally hope.
Louise watched in awe as two people in costumes burst through the gang's hideout, beating the men that had preyed on the group of girls.
One with whiskers, and the other with fishnet stockings.
The two broke apart, the young woman running for the dog cages the girls had called home for months now, and the man continuing to punch his way through the crowd with relentless fists.
The young woman's face unmarred by a mask, unlike the man, her clear blue eyes roved over all of the crying and screaming girls worriedly, until they settled on Louise's wide hazel ones.
Louise was silent, tear-less and bravely in the front of the cage as she had been since the beginning. Louise had placed herself there. She was the protector. She could make the sacrifice. After all, she was the only orphan of the group.
The young woman seemed to recognize the girl's protective stance and her features twisted with empathy. Snatching a crowbar from the filthy floor, the young woman in fishnet stockings struck against the lock until it broke off, speaking soothing words and shushing cries as she did so.
The moment it broke, the young woman was off again, letting loose a ear-piercing screech that didn't even seem human, rumbling the ground and knocking down barricades set up by the thugs.
As the girls around her clutched their ears and added screams of their own, Louise just laughed with glee.
The woman made her way through the last of the thugs, making the man's punches seem like pokes in comparison as she plowed her elbows and knees respectively into each of the bodies before her.
When she reached the lone thug standing, she kicked his legs from under him, expertly locked him in a head lock and snarled something no one could hear.
The man, decisively not like the other thugs, laughed coolly in her face. "See, that's where you're wrong. We have succeeded, kid."
The duo shared a wide-eyed glance before both looking at the girls' place in the corner.
There laid four small, bloody bodies, the fifth was missing.
Listlessly remaining still; that was her life now.
If you moved, they'd hurt you.
If you spoke, they'd mock you.
If you wept, they'd laugh at you.
Staying still was key.
Waiting was survival.
But then again, a life of waiting is no life at all.
And she was desperately waiting for something.
"Dinah..." Theodore broke her from her revere gently. "Dinah, it's been a year. Maybe the kid's-"
"-Ted," Dinah interrupted, almost pleadingly adding, "Don't say it."
Ted sighed roughly and rubbed his forehead, half in exasperation, half in desperation. Dinah's persistence was admirable, but a year had gone by. "Dinah," he started gruffly. "I'm being realistic. Which is what you need to be, kid."
Dinah glared slightly, her head cocked to the side in slight offence. He hadn't called her that for a long time. Getting up from her mess of potential leads and dead-ends before her, she stalked towards her old mentor.
"I have to find her, Ted," her voice was soft, despite the offence she had previously shown, taking Ted by mild surprise.
She looked tired. Hell, she must have been... Tired of the elusiveness of this unknown criminal circle, tired of looking for a nameless kid in a sea of ambiguity.
She was tired of the golden brown hazel eyes that haunted her dreams.
The rims of her iris, a dark green. The middle of the iris, a light hew of brown.
The area around the pupil, speckled a golden green.
The eyes were never happy.
Always wide, and afraid.
She had to find her.
"Good. Now raise your hand."
She did.
"Flex your fingers."
She did.
"Exhale slowly through your nose and allow the currents to flow through your fingers."
She did. And it hurt.
"Silence, child! I'm not in the mood for your sniveling today."
Silence... barring the crackling of the rod touching her skin.
"Good... Now try again."
This time it hurt even more.
"Damn it!"
Smack!
"I haven't gone this far to have you be so weak!"
Smack!
"You've been exposed as much as I dare, and you're still-"
Smack!
"Too-!"
Smack!
"Weak!"
Crack! She cried out as instead of a hand striking her, the rod that was on her extended arm struck her temple.
And stayed there.
She felt the two sharp prongs on the end digging further into her temple, and she let out a scream.
Her scream increased in volume the longer it stayed on her head, reaching an almost inhuman decibel, the man in front of her taking no notice of his glasses and various glass items around them shattering.
Any one else would have died by now, she was sure, but instead of dying, instead of returning to the pitch black of unconsciousness, she felt something snap like a dry twig inside of her.
Instead of passing out, like she had in previous successful sessions, her scream changed somehow in pitch from pain to alarm as the current of electricity wasn't hurting anymore.
It felt... good.
Not like someone scratching your back soothingly, or an embrace, but an uncomfortable... good.
The feeling baffled her, as she felt it grow, panicking as an iridescent golden yellow haze blocked out her sight.
She couldn't hear her own scream anymore.
She was sure the man's growl had become a scream before her vision had blurred out, but she couldn't hear him anymore either.
Nothing made any sense around her, and the odd mixture of good and uncomfortable faded.
It was painful again.
Really painful.
And then it abruptly stopped.
The stark whiteness of the lab, though... was black. Charred were the surfaces that were once a stark white. The tables that were closest to where she was laid were smoking piles of twisted, scorched metal.
She was gasping for breath, throat raw from her scream. She was limply hanging forward from her place underneath the unbreakable metal bonds that held her slight frame against the vertically inclined examination table.
She no longer saw the man.
She vaguely wondered where he went.
Suddenly there was a click and and flare of a microphone over the remnants of the speaker above the far door.
"Well done," an impressed voice practically crooned. It sounded farther off when it continued. "Make preparations to move her to my facility. And clean up Dr. Fores."