-We Honour Thee-
Gotham City
An alarm clock buzzed. It buzzed and buzzed, much to the annoyance of the alarm's target. A slender hand shot out of the bed covers beside the clock, and batted it on the ground. The hand then picked up a heavy weight, also on the clock's former perch, and unceremoniously dumped it on the now silent and destroyed device.
Then another sound cut through the momentarily peaceful morning.
"Melina" The voice was feminine, and would usually be considered kind, yet forceful. On this day, the voice's victim only found it to be loud and painful.
"Melina!" Now it was shouting, the sound muffled by the wooden door between, and the added anger of it's tone only served to further annoy 'Melina.'
"Dammit, Melina Drake Lance, you get your butt out here right now!" Finally, Melina pushed her covers off to reply "why?" The girl known as Melina Lance was young, only about eighteen, and had a currently mussed head of golden blonde hair.
"Because if you don't, we'll be late for the event!" The voice sounded like 'the event' was supposed to trigger some memory, instead it confused her.
"Okay..." This was mainly to get the voice off her back.
What event? Was there an event? The only thing Melina could think of was the big celebration for the Justice League of America saving Earth from... Oh no.
This 'event' was basically the biggest day of the year, when the president himself would thank and congratulate the Justice League, her aunt included, for saving Earth from the threat of a kryptonite meteor, and that was what scared her. Melina Lance was not only a young Gotham girl, but the niece and protege of the one and only Dinah Lance, better known as Black Canary, arguably the greatest martial artist in the world. Melina went by the name of 'Blackhawk' after a retired hero group from the early 1900's.
She kicked up off her bed and ran to her wardrobe where her black hooded costume hung, complete with no sleeves and the classic Blackhawk symbol, and slipped it on, only suffering two fumbles where she tripped over in her rush. Melina decided she didn't want to get her mother in trouble, so she ducked out of her room shortly, clad only in tights and a night-shirt.
"Mom?" She called downstairs.
"Are you ready?" The voice from earlier called back.
"Well, no, but you can go ahead now, I'll catch up soon"
"You know how I feel about that"
"Yeah, I know, but trust me... Please?" A beat passed.
"Fine, but don't be too late" good. Melina's mother was Sara Lance, older sister of Black Canary, and a damn good lawyer. She had argued against some of Gotham's darkest criminals, and never even broke a sweat, or shuddered in fear.
Melina finished pulling on her uniform, and grabbed her utility belt off her desk. In it's pouches sat several dozen sphere devices, each with various uses, some Canary Cry Bombs, or CCBs, palm-sized globes which simulate the sonic blast that was Black Canary's signature 'Canary Cry', and two collapsable batons that could be connected to form a bo staff.
Melina ran down the stairs, taking two at a time, and into the garage where her midnight black motorbike sat dormant.
She mounted the vehicle, and sped outside, going almost four times the speed limit to make it to Washington D.C in time.
Themyscira
The birds were chirping on the island of Themyscira, or Paradise Island to many, as the sun shone brightly in the skies. Themyscira was well renowned as the home of the great Amazonian warrior women.
A young girl of nineteen woke up in her chambers, expecting to spend her day sparring with Artemis, and training the younger warriors, not that they needed it. She was rather rudely, however, pulled out of these thoughts when the familiar clanging of armour, and the painful impact of metal into her lap sent the girl shooting up straight.
Standing over her was the princess of the island, Diana of Themyscira, known in man's realm as 'Wonder Woman'. She was clad in her ceremonial golden armour, her sword strapped to her side, and her famous lasso hung on her belt.
"Put it on Donna" she meant business. 'Donna' looked at her lap to see a chest-plate of identical design, only less detailed, and in a silver colour. As younger sister, technically mystic clone actually, of the princess, Donna Troy was expected to act proper, much in the same way Wonder Woman was. But Donna wasn't Wonder Woman, she was Wonder Girl.
"I am not putting on that stupid armour" she argued.
"You have no choice"
"I always have a choice"
"I've hidden your costume, so it's the armour, or your sleepwear" Donna hated these little tiffs they had.
"I'll find it"
"Fine then, and while you do that, I'll be at the event waiting. Don't be late"
What event? Was there an... Oh.
Donna jumped out of bed and rushed to check all of the usual hiding places, which lost her a great deal of time. The costume itself wasn't hard to don, but Diana was great at costing her sister time.
By the time Donna had put on her outfit, Bracers of Submission, and Lasso of Persuasion, it was far too late to make it in time. She flew down to the docks where the Zeta-tube exit stood, authorised for women and a select few men only, and zapped herself to Washington D.C.
Gotham City
Deep down below Gotham, in a cave known to all, but unseen to just as many, a girl was sparring with a training dummy. The stuffed enemy had been pounded on for almost two hours by this point, and it didn't look like the assailant was going to stop.
"Steph!" The girl turned around. Behind her, two young men, one in black kevlar with a blue design on his chest, and one in a brown coat with a red motorbike helmet by his side.
The girl in question was only seventeen, and her ashy-blonde hair was stuck to her forehead and neck with sweat. She often came down to the training area, always wishing to keep her figure, one she had built with late-night combat against criminals twice her size, several times a week.
"Why are you down here?" The one in kevlar asked, his name was Dick Grayson, or Nightwing, a former sidekick turned occasional partner of the World's Greatest Detective "and where's your suit?" The second was Jason Todd, or Red Hood. He was the Dark Knight's second protege turned colleague.
"Why would I need my suit?" She was confused. Bruce always left daytime patrols to the police.
"Duh, that big event's in like, an hour" Jason explained.
Stephanie was still confused... Oh wait, that event. Bruce was gonna kill her. Stephanie Brown was far more than your average high-school senior. By night, she was Batgirl, the crime-fighting sidekick to billionaire Bruce Wayne's alter ego, Batman.
"Oh god no!" She tore off her kick-boxing gloves and ran up the stairs to where her suit was waiting in it's case, right beside her predecessor. Speaking of whom.
"Your in trouble~" Barbara Gordon smirked, rolling by in her wheelchair. Before Stephanie was Batgirl, Barbara was, but that ended when the Joker crippled her in an effort to send her father (biological uncle), Commissioner Jim Gordon, insane. But Babs never let her handicap prevent her hero-work, and now acted as Oracle, somewhat of an information broker, but for heroes.
"Look, just tell Bruce that I'll catch up soon" she asked, and Barbara nodded. Steph pulled on her Batgirl suit a quick as possible, which was quite a feat due to it's skin-tight kevlar, and dozens of hidden tricks.
"Do try to be on time miss Stephanie" an old englishman said from his place at the Bat-computer.
"I promise I will Alfred" Alfred had been Bruce Wayne's butler and caretaker ever since his parents were tragically killed when he was a boy. If there was anybody the Batman cared about, it was Alfred.
Stephanie mounted a black motorcycle that was waiting for her by the exit from the cave, and sped out with reckless abandon, hoping to reach Washington D.C soon. She didn't want to be late.
Washington D.C
Blackhawk had been speeding down the freeway for a good hour now, and was quickly nearing her target. On the way, she had cutoff almost ten drivers, and given twice as many middle-fingers.
She drove down the freeway off-ramp into the city, and used every shortcut she could to reach the White House. The ceremony she was heading to was to be held on the Whit House front lawn, where the entire League, and whatever friends and family were safe from secret identity troubles, would be present, in addition to hundreds of reporters no doubt.
The closer she got, however, the more uneasy she felt. Where was the din of hundreds of heroes and reporters this turnout was sure to have?
She drove up to the lawn, and dismounted her bike to the site of hundreds of panicked people, only they were frozen in thick chunks of ice.
Blackhawk pulled the batons from her belt and extended them, in case the perp was still present of course. She carefully tread through the fields, passing many unknown faces, and one or two she did recognise.
The sound of a foot stepping into some snow stopped her. She closely listened out for another noise, but none came. She continued her trek, doubly careful, when the distinct sound of a cap flapping in the breeze caught her attention. She turned and lifted her batons up, only to find the noise came from a blonde girl in a tight-black kevlar suit. The golden bat on her chest speaking volumes.
"Jesus Batgirl, I was about to take you head off!" Melina breathed out.
"I know" Batgirl seemed uninterested "c'mon, we might find evidence of who did this further up" Red nodded, and the girls continued to quietly move towards the front of the frozen crowd. Now they were passing bigger names such as Black Lightning, Iris Allen-West, the Flash, Cat Grant, even Green Lantern was frozen solid. It was like a whole battle was preserved in time with thick ice.
"Who could've done this?" Hawk asked neither girl in particular.
"I don't know, but I have some ideas."
They were about to take another step, when a silver rope wrapped around them both, and pinned the girls together. A tall black-haired woman stepped out in front of them, a stern glare printed on her face. The frown softened into shock, however, when the assailant saw who she had caught.
"Batgirl? Blackhawk? Why are you here?"
"Same as you Wonder Girl. Late to the party, found the League frozen" Hawk explained. Wonder Girl slipped the lasso off them, and clasped it to her belt once more.
"Any ideas?" She asked the blondes.
"Well, this does have Mr. Freeze written all over it" Batgirl said.
"No. Freeze can't take on the while League and win. He had help" Melina disagreed.
"We'll find Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman. They're the heads of the League, they can help" Wonder Girl decided.
Hawk didn't like the idea of not saving her aunt yet, but she accepted the decision in stride.
They all power-walked to the stage that had been set up, to find a cluster of icy bodies where the president was frozen, his secret service protecting him. Beside the cluster, three distinct scratchy drag-marks were visible, where three very heavy object had been lugged off the stage.
"I'll analyse the scene. Won't be too long" Batgirl assured.
Melina looked out to the crowd, and almost immediately spotted her aunt. Black Canary had been frozen mid-cry, while her arm was tightly wrapped around Melina's mother. No doubt, had she been here on time, she'd be frozen right there too.
"Girls, come here" the three reconvened on the stage "I found where our perps went by checking the general direction of where these scrape marks are heading, and wherever can comfortably sustain a sub-zero climate in that direction." At their confused looks, she elaborated further "basically, our ice-man, or men, decided to drag the League heads to the 'Dairy-ère Ice Creamery-" the name elicited a snorting laugh from Melina "-in downtown D.C" they nodded, and set out to make it to the ice creamery before the perps could do anything too drastic.
Dairy-ère Ice Creamery
How did Wonder Girl end up in this position? Oh yeah, she refused to wear her ceremonial armour, and was now breaking into a large ice cream shop alongside Blackhawk and Batgirl to save the League, all because she could be a stubborn ass sometimes.
"The main freezer is located in the second basement, they'll be there" Batgirl read off her gps device.
Donna broke off a vent cover, and the girls braced themselves for the icy blast of wind about to hit them. This was the most covert way to get to the freezer.
They crawled through for a while, Batgirl first with her map, and Donna last due to size, but Blackhawk's butt was getting to be an annoying sight.
"How much further?" She called out to the front.
"Just a little more, I'm picking up vocal frequencies"
They moved further up and ended up over a large intersection of vents. It was wide enough for all three girls to comfortably face each other, and look down through the vent cover below.
Underneath, they could clearly see three men talking in a heavily frosted room.
"Now what?" One asked. He wore a light blue hooded jacket, and had a strange gun attached to his waist. Captain Cold
"Well, we froze the League, so nobody can stop us" an older man said. Icicle Sr.
"Which means now-" the last began. He wore a metallic power-suit, with a dome over his white, bald head. Mr. Freeze "-we live like kings"
Donna looked up and only saw Blackhawk. Batgirl had disappeared. The other girl noticed this disappearance too.
They looked back down to see her standing behind the ice villains "then allow me to be your Jaimie Lannister" she smirked, before throwing a gold batarang at them. It exploded into a cloud of smoke, which the other girls took advantage of to drop down as well.
Batgirl immediately jumped at Captain Cold, intending to disarm him, rendering the man helpless.
She tucked into a roll and kick herself out of it, into his gut. He recoiled in pain, but the gun held fast as he pulled it from it's holster. He fired at her, and she ducked each one, getting lower and lower to the floor. Cold stepped over her and aimed his gun at her head. She rolled backward, legs over head, as the beam of icy energy impacted the spot her head had been in a moment ago.
At she fought, Donna had moved to attack Freeze, by wrapping her lasso around his gun-arm, and tugging him into a punch. A heavily armoured hand shot out to stop the punch, and the two entered a struggle of power. Donna threw her arm out to the side, which in turn forced Freeze's arm, and threw a knee up to meet his gut. The impact was weakened by his armoured suit, but it had the same effect of knocking him back, so Donna could retract her arms to rethink her strategy.
During the other battles, Blackhawk had dropped directly onto the unsuspecting Icicle Sr. Sending his ice ray sliding across the icy floor. As Icicle hit the ground, her threw the girl off and onto the ground too. They looked up in sync, and saw the gun, before looking to each other. They each scrambled to reach it first, but. Icicle's natural connection to ice gave him the upper hand.
Batgirl was now jumping over, and ducking under Cold's ice blasts, the man never giving her an opening to attack. His many tussles with the Flash had made him used to fighting a fast opponent.
Wonder Girl was now trying to club Freeze with her fists, as her froze her arms. Each hit shattered the ice coating her limbs, but did little damage to the large man.
Blackhawk continued to dodge Icicle's shots too, but her lack of co-ordination one the slippery ice gave him an advantage. Every time she attempted to throw explosive pods at him, she would slip, and they'd miss by a significant margin.
"Girls!" Batgirl called "I'm having some trouble here, could use some help!"
"We're all having trouble!" Donna yelled back "these fights are too evenly matched!"
"Then we swap!" Blackhawk replied, stopping her avoidance of Icicle, so slide over at Freeze.
Batgirl somersaulted over another blast, and rolled to Icicle. Her acrobatic skill, mixed with his lack of experience against a speedy foe, had him easily outmatched. The girl dodged every ice blast easily, and without slipping, she threw a batarang at his firing-arm. The device exploded on contact, encasing his arm in a thick red foam, which hardened in moments.
Wonder Girl had turned to march at Cold, who fired icy blast after icy blast at her, each one adding to the frosted coat on her arms. She didn't even buckle under the wright growing on her arms, before she swung one at Cold. It hit him, and he flew at the wall, hitting it painfully. He looked back up, and the last ing he saw was her other arm rocketing forward at his face.
Blackhawk jumped onto Freezes back, and began hammering at the dome over it. She finally broke the do e open, and began to wail on his exposed skull. He quickly grabbed her, and threw her off himself, before freezing over the dome with his freeze-ray. She stood up, and smirked at him as a faint beeping could be heard. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small pod had been dropped in his helmet, seconds before detonating, and freezing his head inside it's own case.
The three girls, now having defeated the ice villains, turned simultaneously to an elevated platform at one end of the freezer. On it stood the three heads of the Justice League, each frozen in mid-attack.
Batgirl walked over to Batman and pulled out a small device. The ice began to heat up and melt.
"These are only single-use, but it should thaw Batman out soon" she explained.
"Well you'd better have a second for my sister" Donna replied.
Batgirl shook her head "only the one, sorry"
The other girls looked incredulous "but, what about the others!?"
"Calm down, Batman has more of these, and they're multi-use too, we'll get everyone thawed out."
"Superman has heat-vision though, and that's infinite-use!" Blackhawk argued.
"Superman's laser vision is incredibly high-powered, and way too risky" this was said in a 'don't argue' kind of tone.
A cracking and a thud behind them caught their attention. Where Batman was once frozen, he now knelt on the ground, panting.
"Batman!" Batgirl helped him to his feet.
"What happened?" He groggily demanded.
"Captain Cold, Mr. Freeze, and Icicle Sr. Froze the whole League. Don't worry though, we beat 'em" Blackhawk explained.
"All by yourselves?" He seemed dubious.
"Yes" Donna confirmed brusquely.
He stood up straight, and placed two more thawing devices on Superman and Wonder Woman.
Washington D.C
Once they had thawed all of the icy-trio's victims, and explained what happened to the president, the ceremony for thanking the League began again.
Stephanie sat front row, with Wonder Girl to her left, and Blackhawk leaning in between them.
"So, we should totally do this again, right?" Blackhawk suggested.
"Do what?" Wonder Girl asked.
"Duh, team up!" She whisper-shouted "we kicked butt today! She even referenced Game of Thrones!"
"Well we did win against three heavy-hitting criminals" Steph agreed.
"... And in addition to the Justice League's brave actions, I'd also like to personally thank three courageous girls for their actions today. Thanks to the efforts of Batgirl, Wonder Girl and Blackhawk, we have all been saved from the terror that threatened America on this day!" A booming applause followed, and the girls enjoyed the attention they received from it.
Later, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Black Canary caught up with their proteges.
"We're all very proud of what you did today, but that doesn't excuse that you were late" Canary scolded.
"But auntie Dinah!"
"No" Batman glared "she's right. You girls all had specific orders to be here on time, and you disobeyed them."
"And we saved your lives because of it!" Stephanie argued.
"It doesn't matter if you save our lives or not, you didn't listen to us" Wonder Woman continued.
"So what are you gonna do? Send us to our rooms?" Wonder Girl challenged.
The three Leaguers looked to each other, and back to the girls, before chorusing "you're grounded"