Words not Weapons.
Written and illustrated by Zman123.
Chapter 1: Day off
The young red haired woman sighed as she mounted the pavement and took slow step after step, savoring the brief moment of relative serenity for what it was worth. No bloodcurdling screams, nor explosions in the distance. The street was packed with cars as per usual for a sprawling metropolis of this size, but for once none were driving past the speed limit.
It was a beautiful day, or at least as beautiful a day one could expect from a messed up excuse for a city that was Gotham city.
The birds weren't singing, and the flowers weren't blooming and the sky the hazy grey it usually was as a result of all the smoke from the cheap factories that had not bothered to put filters onto their chimneys so that the dangerous fumes released from such buildings caused those unlucky enough to be stood near them to cough and gag. Yet it was days like these that made a once much more optimistic and less depressed Barbara Gordon happy to still be alive. Moments like these when she would close her eyes and think to herself that even if she didn't know what tomorrow meant, today at least she felt she had a million. A million blessings that was.
She was as close to being relaxed and calm as a vigilante in a city with next to no official enforcement teams could ever be. Happy and content despite knowing that for there to be a day like this most likely meant the criminals had chosen to lie low for a while, planning what would most likely be something big. Something that would take more than just her years upon years of combat training to prevent. But those were concerns for another time, she quickly told herself as she brushed her red hair away from her eyes as a strong breeze blew onto her face.
"Hi there, friend." came what sounded to be a familiar voice, and she whirled around cautiously.
She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was just the brown haired boy she had seen earlier.
"Thank you once again for helping me finish my maths homework. If it hadn't been for you, I would be dead meat by now." he said, almost choking on each word as he spoke. "Thank you..you're nice."
The boy's desperate request that someone help him finish a piece of very simple sheet of questions that he said was "impossible for him to even attempt." had taken quite a chunk out of what would have been a brief reprieve from all the action and violence that her lifestyle forced Barbara to endure. She had of course very nearly refused, but when the boy almost broke down in tears as he insisted his parents would give him a brutal thrashing this time when his work was not submitted with the highest marks.
He continued to beg that every bone in his body would most likely be broken if his old man got his paws around the boy's thin and fragile neck. And to prove his honesty as a "good boy who didn't lie like those nasty villains." he rolled up his sleeve and showed an already very disturbed Barbara several large and livid bruises and scrapes.
"Please help me." he pleaded once more, clearly using all his effort not to cry.
A brief flash of two very large and muscular blonde man and woman beating down on a crying blonde girl came before Barbara's eyes as without further delay, she snatched up the sheet of questions the boy held in his free hand. She had been a fairly well performing student back in her more carefree days in school, concentrating intently and taking notes carefully rather than falling asleep and drifting carelessly like much of the other classmates she was forced to be in contact with.
With a great deal of struggle, she finally answered every question on the paper with some difficulty, taking care to briefly explain how each answer had been arrived at so that next time the mean teacher presented him with something this unfair he might at least have a fighting chance.
He had run off almost instantly after she had passed the paper back to him, but not before the boy had shoved a well cleaned fifty cent coin into Barbara's hand. "It's nothing, really" she had called, but the boy had already got a great distance away from her even as she said those words.
"Thank you so much miss." he had shouted as he ran, clearly not at all eager to have his fifty cent coin back.
There was no doubt from his mild and shaking almost whisper like tones, that this was the same boy. He stood at no more than half her size in tallness, and his crystal blue eyes were much less moist now. The nervous smile was still very nervous and full of doubt but at least from how he was smiling now Barbara knew that he would not have every bone in his body broken.
"You've saved my life, and my old man says he's proud of me." said the boy looking at the very tired red haired heroine with a level of admiration that even her most die hard fans hadn't yet reached. More grateful than when she had saved a half blind elderly woman's only grandchild from a burning house was the expression on his still moist face. "But really it's all thanks to you. miss..."
"You're welcome. Really you are." Barbara managed to say eventually, getting more and more nervous with just how quickly this child's love for her seemed to be growing from such a tiny favor as doing ten slightly difficult questions which had taken her a mere thirty minutes to do at the park she had met him in "And please. you don't need to call me miss. My name's Barbara."
"Barbara..." tried the boy, placing a hand on his chest. "Barbara... That's a beautiful name for such a nice person."
"And what's your name?" Barbara quickly asked, trying her best to conceal her blush. She was not used to anyone's admiration for her developing so quickly even with her elite status as one of the city's only protectors.
The boy sighed very sadly. It was clear this question was not one he wanted to answer. "If I tell you. Will you promise you won't make fun of it?"
Barbara very nearly gasped at such a statement. First this boy was saying just how his "old man" would break every bone in his body if he failed to get full marks on what for a child of his age would be a near impossible set of questions since even she found them slightly puzzling.
And now he was saying that people insulted him for something as simple as his name which he did not choose.
She now saw just why he would be so grateful for her over such a small task, and just how wise her decision had been to spend her one day away from fighting crime helping him with his small dilemma instead.
"I promise." she declared, her voice strong and firm for the first time in this odd conversation.
The school uniform clad small boy smoothed his navy tie as he took a deep breath. "My name...is Dim."
No wonder others made fun of his name. His old man was practically asking for this poor lad to be abused by his mates. From the way he spoke and called his father his old man, she could see just how very shallow that man was and how very tolerant this young hero had been of the bad situations life threw him into.
"It was nice to meet you, Dim"
"And you too. I have to go now, my old man wants me back. But I hope I see you again... Barbara." And with those final sad words, the boy waved and very quickly began to dash away once more at a speed that would bring even the Flash to envy.
The day at the park hadn't gone the way Barbara would have hoped it to go at all, but if it meant that an innocent minor's bones stayed in one piece then she would have gladly spent all of her days off in this way. Some parents these days had no idea what being a parent really meant. No wonder her best friend was in the situation she was in right now. And how many other parents were even now acting the way Dim's old man was, she really preferred not to ponder.
Speaking of her friend, she still had two hours of time left before her day off was over and her own "old man" would call her back for what he would call round two. And round two was bound to be full of danger and violence again. Nothing she wasn't used to in her day to day life, but nothing to be taken lightly either. Until recently she wouldn't have minded as much, but meeting her best friend had changed her view of violence beyond redemption.
But at the very least, Barbara thought to herself. At least there were still two hours to salvage and make the most from. And she planned to spend it wisely.
Making a dash for a certain rundown apartment whose location she was sure even amnesia couldn't erase from her memory by now, she very quickly flung open the unlocked metal door that was the entrance into the building before rushing up a flight of stairs. She raced up step after step, until she had found herself by a large red three imprinted on a dusty grey wall signifying the third floor of the decrepit edifice she found herself inside. Not stopping to catch her breath since she didn't want to waste time she sprinted past door after door until she had reached a white door which had the number 337 imprinted in large gold writing over it. Still very weak and almost dizzy from her run she managed to gently knock on the door.
"Identify yourself please." came a young and frightened high pitched plea from the other end of the door, trying without success to sound unafraid and serious.
Barbara knew that if she said her own name to her best friend who was bound to be holding a weapon of some sort on the other side of the door, she would be asking for suicide and in the most stupid and dumb way possible.
Her friend may have been very young even by her old man's standards, but she was definitely not stupid. Old man Batman's team had no place for stupidity or recklessness and neither of those was even present in small quantities in the beautiful little girl Barbara had entrusted with her life.
Her old man would just have to live with the fact that there was one person she would trust over him in a life or death situation.
Remembering the last conversation she and good friend Stephanie had, she replied in a soft and gentle chant. "Fluttershy the Pony. The element of Kindness and Princess Twilight's best friend.".
A few long tense seconds passed as Barbara raised her hands so that she could show she was harmless when and if the door was opened.
It came as a shock to the still and trembling redhead when the door was eventually cautiously opened very slowly and standing there in the small apartment room was the beautiful blonde that Barbara had trained too well for her own good.
More beautiful than the way the blonde girl's hair streaked down to her shoulders in such a cute and adorable manner. More pretty than those big blue eyes she was now regarding Barbara with, was the way a sparkling grey pistol was being clutched in the hand that wasn't holding the handle of the door.
Stephanie had really taken the meaning of "don't trust anyone" and "you can't be too careful" a little too literally.
She really was taking her new duties very seriously and that was always good to see.
"I had to be sure it was you" whispered Stephanie apologetically, "I'm sorry if I scared you"
"That's fine. It's good to see that you're not letting your guard down so easily now." replied Barbara "You really never know when something's around the corner these days, what with all those villains getting more and more dangerous."
Stephanie nodded proudly as she tucked her pistol away and ran with arms outstretched towards her much older companion and mentor and they tenderly hugged, each as reluctant as the other to ever let go of this blissful embrace.
"You came just at the right time for our rendezvous." shouted Stephanie as they very sadly parted. "We still have two minutes before it starts."
"So hurry up turn the Television on then" yelled Barbara. "I'll go get the snacks"
Stephanie quickly nodded as she made a maddened jump for the television which was not very far away at all since the meager room she had for her abode was not at all roomy with how cheap the rent was. Barbara on the other hand quickly opened a nearby crate and managed in a rush to rummage out two bags of salty popcorn and two cans of Strawberry tinted Lemonade.
Stephanie refused coke and soda on the grounds that they were far too damaging for the sensitive enamel of the teeth. Then she charged for the floor near the television to sit beside Stephanie who was already seated on a mat with her eyes glued to the screen. A few more boring adverts of soaps and high sugar snacks skipped past the screen until eventually the words both girls had waited the entire long and boring day for came flashed past the screen.
"The crusades of Fluttershy the pony" flashed past a beautiful blue sky on the screen as a soothing and calming song sounded through the room. Soothing enough to put an insomniac who had drunk his weight in coffee into a deep and peaceful sleep from which he might never wake from without the help of a hammer to his head. It very nearly put the eagerly watching Barbara and Stephanie to sleep, but they managed with great force of will to shake the feeling away knowing they could not afford to miss a second of the beautiful movie that would be their only source of comfort and relaxation before whatever horrible battle awaited them on tonight's mission.
The opening scene rolled on a bit with the lovely music still playing introducing Fluttershy, a small yellow pony with wings, a pink mane and a love for the beauty of nature both flora and fauna which many other ponies even in the much better world that ponies lived in simply took for granted and neglected to care for.
"It's beautiful" sobbed Stephanie very quietly, as Barbara quickly put a arm around her much younger friend's shoulder which the blonde girl did not at all object to. Barbara knew how emotional her sensitive friend was stirred by the wonders of this incredibly well made cartoon that had managed to amaze and amuse even a matured teenager well past the age of being able to remotely giggle or cry when watching almost any film.
Even when the film was an adult one where every main character ended up brutally murdered and cut into tiny chunks with blood spraying all over the place, Barbara still felt nothing at all. The life that her so called old man had placed on her had hardened her heart until it felt like a stone crushing her ribs.
Until what was once a soft and vibrant part of her had become an unbreakable carapace that could feel no pain even if a bullet thudded into her chest.
But those thoughts of being a desensitized and shell shocked war veteran quickly vanished as a smile slowly made it's way onto Barbara's usually stoic expression upon seeing the lovely group of friends that Fluttersny despite her curse of being an incredibly shy introvert had managed to gather together to help support her cause of keeping the fragile peace of the land of ponies in tact.
The bookworm purple pony with a horn named Twilight Sparkle tried through reasoning and many hours of reading book after book to provide the most sensible solution to the many problems that even a near perfect nation had to withstand.
And the fun loving and zany pink pony with a much more messy and curly pink mane, aptly and affably nicknamed Pinkie trying too hard to make others smile and laugh with what she thought were the only three things that mattered. Songs, jokes and parties, none of which ever helped anyone since they were seldom the things those Pinkie tried to help had asked from her.
It was fun to see Fluttershy's friends try and fail to tackle today's "friendship problem" involving two pony's who had fallen out with each other after a prank gone horribly wrong causing one of them to end up with a black eye and bleeding nose.
"Pinkie, don't be silly. An injured person doesn't need a clown, they need a doctor." Stephanie crowed as she shook her head while smiling sarcastically.
"And a kid with a broken toy doesn't want cake or a party. He wants a repairman to fix his one of a kind toy for him so that he can play with his toy again" Barbara later added when Pinkie tried without success to tell jokes and sing a cheering up song to the other pony who showed a toy which his former friend had broken in anger over being pranked so sadistically.
Both girls left their popcorn and drinks completely untouched throughout the film as they eagerly waited for the one knowing pony Fluttershy to find a way to calmly resolve the entire problem without any further meanness.
"Not that you didn't at least try Twilight." both girls coolly remarked to each other as the episode neared it's closure and the ruler of the land, one Princess Celestia came to congratulate her student Twilight and the other ponies for another job well done. "But if you'd listened to Fluttershy sooner, this entire problem might have been avoided."
The credits then slowly came up on the screen, and the much sadder ending theme of the song played to darken the until now very upbeat mood of the two watchers. Stephanie who had sat as still as a statue throughout the entire film quickly made for the off switch of the cheap television with only three channels. She wanted to be rid of the horrid sound of the credits song wanting to hear it not. Knowing it was a knell that summoned her and her mentor to heaven or to hell.
And as sad and difficult as life had gotten for her ever since she discovered her father for the faker he really was. He certainly didn't deserve the title of "old man" after the atrocities he had committed. Even if he were to appear before his daughter this instant with gifts and flowers and make a vow to do nothing but what Stephanie asked of him for the remainder of his life, she still wouldn't call him her old man. Daddy was a title he might earn back if he genuinely made an effort to redeem for real, but never would he hear the words "my old man" when Stephanie spoke about him whether to his face or not. She couldn't exactly say that rich executive Bruce was everything she wanted but she guessed he was the closest she was going to get to being loved the way she wanted.
"That was a good episode, wasn't it?" said Stephanie as she glanced at the sky outside to see it was almost pitch black. "I'm so happy you could be here to enjoy it with me, Barbara."
"Don't mention it Steph. I wouldn't have missed these precious few minutes for anything."
"We should go now. Mr Batman will be expecting us won't he. And he doesn't like it when we're late." the last part of Stephanie's remark was laced with fear and doubt.
Barbara who had lost all sense of time during the film, quickly brought up the arm with her cheap wristwatch to reveal that she and Stephanie had but seconds to start making for that bourgeois Bruce's headquarters before he had any excuse to consider a punishment that he thought acceptable as leader and administrator over two of his underlings. Tardiness, was not an attractive or becoming quality in any enforcer seeking to keep Gotham safe, he would be bound to say to them both as his remaining student and minion Cassandra Cain stared at them both with a cold and icy glare that would make the joker's maniacal grin look tame in comparison.
And that was saying something, since no one liked the criminal called Joker.
The two girls looked at one another quickly as without another word, they dashed for the door and leaped out of the cheap apartment room Stephanie had to herself. Stephanie paused a brief second to lock the door but managed to catch up to her much older friend in a few steps. They needed to get to the meeting place quickly or risk the ice cold glare of Cain. The look of a badly abused orphan and mute who had until recently not been gifted the gift of speech, and so put the hurtful words she could not vocalize into her body language instead. Stephanie in particular, hated that look more than she hated a harsh verbal scolding. She would rather a hundred smashes of the cane crush her bones, than Cassandra's gorgon like expression of disapproval sear into her soul.
As the two girls ran down the stairs two steps at a time so that they very nearly broke their necks getting to the bottom before bolting out the door to this rusted set of flats, Stephanie gave the necklace she had been wearing around her neck for the past few weeks now a gentle touch.
A necklace in the shape of Fluttershy the pony sold for the low, low price of sixty cents at a car boots sale by a lazy eyed unsmiling man crying over the loss of his late daughter who was lost to a local group of bandits that Batman had not managed to catch in time.
"Take it for free if you so wish." sobbed the man "Just let me be rid of this cursed thing. Take away this never ending sorrow somebody. Please, please!"
Nobody had wanted to buy or even take the Fluttershy necklace on account of how stupid and childish the thing looked.
Realizing the trouble the man must have found himself in, Stephanie even attempted to haggle upwards eventually offering to give the man the full ten dollars she had saved for this occasion.
The man smiled, but would take no more than sixty cents. "This cursed thing isn't worth the precious ten dollars you offer me." he insisted fervently "And you've already done me a great service by giving me sixty cents"
"Why don't you just throw it away Sir" asked Stephanie, a quiet anger brewing in her usually chipper voice.
"It wouldn't feel right." was the sad reply. "To throw away my daughter's most prized treasure, would be like throwing my daughter away. And I can't have that. And my daughter told me that when she was gone, she wanted all her favorite toys to be handed over to someone who'd like them as much as she and who would take good care of them. So here I am trying to get rid of all the toys she left behind, but no one would take them even when I offered them for free. The only reason I tried to charge people to buy them in the first place is because I'm too poor to afford any food and will soon starve. But the sixty cents you've given me will get me a lovely bar of candy which is just the thing I need."
Stephanie nodded sadly to show she understood what he meant, and in the end ended up buying a Fluttershy plush for two dollars and a Fluttershy storybook for one dallar. After of course, promising she'd take good care of everything she bought and to treasure it all dearly.
"What a nice girl" the man sighed to himself as she bade him have a good day. "How I wish you and my daughter could have met."
Her finger on the Fluttershy part of the necklace, she silently gave a fervent prayer to Fluttershy asking for success and a nonviolent solution for whatever hideous battle awaited on tonight's "adventure". As well as begging for Fluttershy to watch over her dear companion and second mentor Cassandra and make it so that just once in her life Cassandra could smile a genuine and cheerful smile. Cassandra had never smiled once, since Stephanie first met her. And if what Barbara said held any grain of truth, then Barbara had never seen Cassandra happy either. That hurt, since everyone deserved to be happy. Even Mr Joker if it could be accomplished without harming innocent lives.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading my first attempt at a DC fic. I've never written something like this before, so do excuse me if some of the heroes seem out of character for your liking.
As one might have guessed by now, this is a tale where the three batgirls are all active at the same time, and are therefore able to interact with each other without any of them being "missing".
As a heads up though, if you like blood and seeing lots of villains being relentlessly smashed to death this isn't the comic for you, so turn elsewhere.
The next chapter will come out soon so please do comment to tell me what you think.
But for now, activity time. A new concept I came up with to make the whole experience more exciting.
1. Dim, the boy introduced in this chapter is often made fun off for his name. What connotations does his name bring with it and why do you think he was named this way?
2. We are told little about Dim's family or personal life. What details however can be deduced from Dim's brief descriptions about his upbringing and relatives?
3. The show "The crusades of Fluttershy the pony" is a well liked show by our two main characters as well as a parody to a certain other well known show that is actually real. What other show is this and do you find it in character for Stephanie to enjoy such a show so much? What parallels can be drawn between the show and the grim situation Stephanie finds herself in?
4. What role do you believe Dim will play later on or do you believe he is a simple one shot given a name to make us sympathize with him?