Justice League:Sins of the Children
Chapter 1
Vinnie paced around against the wall of the warehouse. After ten years in the slammer he was seeing his first criminal action and he was quite nervous about it. Louie, an old cellmate of his had helped him get in with a new arms dealer in Gotham. The guy dealt in advanced weapons that were copied from the technology of another dimension. Vinnie found everything the dealer had amazing. It was all certainly a lot different from what he had to work with when he had been on the street previously.
Vinnie looked down at the weapon in his hand. He felt uncomfortable wielding it. They hadn't let him test fire the thing at all and he wondered how well he could aim it. Everyone told him it had no recoil, but he would have loved to have tried it out and seen whether or not that was true.
He watched the dealer he was working for make his sales pitch to several of the gang leaders that had come to buy weapons. His boss was going over several things his friends had gone over with him just hours before. He was pointing out the intense firepower the weapon had, including its ability to blow holes into walls. It was all talk though, there were no demonstrations.
His boss's description of the weapon made Vinnie scared about what he was holding. He was afraid the reactor inside it, or whatever its power source was, would blow up on him at any moment. He kept his hand far away from the trigger so he wouldn't accidentally fire it.
His friend Louie came over to talk to him as he watched the deal being made. "You look scared holding that thing," his friend said to him.
"Of course I'm scared holding this," he replied. "I have a weapon with enough firepower to destroy the city."
"It's not that powerful, so stop looking scared," Louie replied. "Our job is to fire on the gang leaders if they try to steal the merchandise and bust their way out of here. If you look scared, they might think you won't be able to do your job, and that might tempt them to actually try something."
Vinnie tried to toughen up and stop looking scared. He glanced over at his friend to see how he looked and noticed Louie was looking all around the warehouse instead of watching the gang leaders. He wondered what the guy was doing.
"What are you looking for?" he asked Louie.
"I'm keeping my eyes peeled for Batman," he told Vinnie. "He has a tendency to appear out of nowhere."
"Yeah, I know how he works," Vinnie replied. He wasn't joking when he said he knew Batman's M.O. He had gone to jail after Batman had captured him.
Louie chuckled for a moment at what Vinnie said. "I guess you would know all about being caught by Batman."
"I would," Vinnie affirmed. "I'm not too afraid of him now, though. He's got to be what, in his fifties. He was getting slow back when he caught me, and he has only aged since then."
"I haven't seen him recently, but I've heard others say he's not what he used to be," Louie replied. "But you've been in the slammer since he got his new Robin. She's supposed to be a superhuman, picks up his slack real well from what they say."
Vinnie had heard a few stories about this new Robin when he was in prison. She was supposed to have started with Batman six years ago. According to what he heard, she looked to be all of twelve years old at that time. Any inmates who got caught by her had a hard time talking about her and admitting they had been beat by a tween girl. Vinnie always wondered if that was how the rumors of her being superhuman started. While Batman was a member of the Justice League with all its superhumans, Gotham had always had vigilantes who had no powers but their gumption. A superhuman in Gotham just seemed out of place.
Vinnine heard some yelling and looked at his boss arguing with the mobsters. One of the Russian's was yelling something about wanting an exclusive agreement with him so only his force would have the weapons. Louie raised his gun ready to fire if necessary. Vinnie did the same even though the weapon was shaking in his hand.
A roaring sound rang out in the warehouse. The sound came from the roof and Vinnie looked up to see a huge hole had been torn in the metal structure. He saw Batman fall through the hole. The superhero looked a bit different from the image Vinnie had of him. In Vinnie's day, the vigilante had worn a black and gray costume with a cowl that left the lower half of his face visible. He now had on a slightly different variation of it. The suit he was wearing was one single color, jet black. It covered every inch of his skin, including his face. There was a large red bat insignia on his chest and the cape was gone. As he fell, he threw things out from his utility belt.
He was followed through the hole in the roof by Robin. It was the first time Vinnie had ever laid eyes on the girl and while he should have been raising his gun to attack her, he was momentarily frozen. For a split second he was mesmerized by the beauty of the young woman. She was clearly no longer the twelve year old he had first heard about. She was a tall woman and with her legs bare she was just showing off how high up they went. Most of her head was covered by a bandana that had eye holes cut out of it, with her long black hair fluttering out. It was obvious to Vinnie she must have been gorgeous underneath it.
Vinnie was broken out of his trance by a Batarang hitting his gun. Robin had thrown it so hard it tore all the way through the barrel. It stopped right before it hit the fingers he had wrapped around the gun. Vinnie looked up at Robin, but she had momentarily turned her attentions away from him. Batman had thrown Batarangs at the men on the other side of the warehouse, but some of them had missed their mark. Robin covered for him and threw Batarangs that tore through the weapons they were holding.
The gang leaders at the center where the two superheroes landed tried to take out their weapons to defend themselves. They didn't get a chance as Batman and Robin turned their attention on them quickly. Robin quickly took out each man who tried to fight her. Batman, on the other hand, needed several punches to knock out each man he attacked.
Vinnie saw the carnage before him and immediately ran for the exit after dropping his worthless weapon. Louie followed him and the two henchmen on the other side of the warehouse did the same. When Robin saw their attempted escape she leapt high in the air and came down on the two henchmen opposite Vinnie and Louie. She knocked them out with ease and then leaped in Vinnie and Louie's direction. She made a big roundhouse kick and knocked out Louie. She then swung her leg at Vinnie and he was able to maneuver his shoulder so it took the brunt of the blow. The kick caused him to feel a level of pain he had never felt before, but he was able to stay silent. He hit the ground and pretended to be unconscious. He kept one eye open so he could see what was happening, though.
Batman was struggling with the group of men he had taken on. Robin jumped over to him and started taking out everybody one by one. There were soon just two men left, one who was wrestling with Batman and one who tried to run away from Robin. He didn't make it far as Robin jumped over and knocked him out with a kick before she landed on the ground.
While Batman was finishing up with his man, Vinnie noticed something reflecting light from behind a stack of crates. He saw a gun barrel coming out between two boxes, aimed right at Batman.
Robin saw it and screamed out as she jumped in front of Batman. Vinnie couldn't be sure, but he thought she yelled out "Dad" when she screamed. The laser blast hit her in the back and she howled in pain and slumped into Batman. Vinnie was amazed that the blast didn't completely disintegrate the superhero.
The laser kept firing and blasts kept hitting Robin in the back. Batman threw a Batarang at the gun. It stuck in the barrel and the thing blew, taking out the boxes around it and apparently killing the henchman. When the blasts stopped hitting her Robin collapsed to the ground.
Vinnie was astounded she was still alive. The laser should have disintegrated her, although it did tear up her back pretty well. Her costume had been torn to shreds and Vinnie could see her bare back. It was burned and blackened. She was wincing in pain as Batman knelt down to tend to her. He said something to her that Vinnie couldn't make out. She nodded her head and then he helped her to her feet. He fired a grappling hook at the ceiling and the two of them were pulled up. They disappeared through the hole in the roof they had put there a minute earlier.
J'onn J'onnz looked over the monitors at the control center. From the looks of things, the League was having a quiet night. J'onn had a second to stare out the glass dome of the control room and admire the landscape of the moon and the view of Earth in the background.
"You can go and enjoy yourself," he heard Diana say behind him. "I'm relieving you of duty a little early."
"You really don't have to do that, Diana. I can complete my shift."
Diana stood next to J'onn expecting him to get out of the way, but he didn't budge. "I know we've had this conversation before, but you really spend too much time at that console," Diana told him. It's been a long time since you've really gotten out. I'm worried you might have forgotten again what it's like to live."
Diana had made a big point of this with him almost two decades ago. She had just gotten married and wanted everyone to experience the same joy she had. He had reluctantly listened to her advice and was glad he had done so. He had found a relationship with an older woman he felt a connection with. She helped him learn about human relationships and he took care of her as she grew old and weak. Since she died he had gone back to his life of isolation, though he didn't see it that way.
J'onn knew there was some truth to what Diana said, but he felt she needed to be reminded that she should follow her own advice. "You should get out more too," he began. "After all, you've haven't been on a date since you and. . ."
J'onn didn't need to see Diana or read her mind to know he had said the wrong thing. An icy chill emanated from her body and forced him to shut up. He wanted to transform to a snake and slink away, but knew that would look bad. As he was thinking about what to do he was saved by the voice of Batman coming through the speaker.
"J'onn, this is Batman. I need some information on how to handle a particular wound. Tell me what to do for being hit by a class 6 blaster from Apokolips."
"Technically, I'm still on duty," J'onn tried to tell Diana as he reached for the TALK button to reply to Batman. He was thrown from his spot by Diana. He flew halfway across the command center before he righted himself. He flew back to the monitor station so he could make sure Diana didn't destroy anything in anger.
"What happened to Helena?" she screamed into the microphone. Everyone else in the command room stopped what they were doing and looked in her direction.
There was a pause before anything came through the speaker. "It's not that bad, Mom," Helena tried to plead. From the strain in her voice it was obvious she was in a good amount of pain.
"Are you guys in the Batcave?" she asked them.
"We're flying in right now," Helena answered. She was trying to protect her father by answering all of her mother's questions.
"Do you have any clay from Themyscira left?" she asked.
"Probably not enough," Helena answered. Her voice was quavering from the pain.
Diana flew to the transporter platform. "Beam me to Themyscira," she commanded J'onn to do. He was all too happy to do so as he didn't want to face her wrath.
When she was gone he looked around at all the heroes who had their eyes fixated on him. "We might want to get a room ready in the hospital ward," he announced.
"Do you think they will have to bring Helena up here?" Starwoman asked him.
"Helena isn't the one I'm worried about," he confessed.
"Honestly, I can't understand what you guys were thinking," Diana said as she rubbed the clay from Themyscira onto her daughter's back. "Your father was just going to leave you here in pain while he took the Batwing to Themyscira to get some more. All so it would take me a little longer to find out what had happened."
Helena winced as her mother worked the clay into her burned skin. Her mother shared a connection with the island of Themyscira. Part of that connection was the clay of the island had the ability to heal her. It was a trait she had passed on to her daughter.
It was a little difficult for Helena to talk, but she had to answer her mother. "It wouldn't have taken Dad long. The short time I would have had to deal with the pain would not have been as bad as the unpleasantness I'm going through now."
Helena's back looked horrific, and it hurt Diana to hear her daughter would have rather put up with that pain then deal with her mother. She tried to put the thought out of her head. In just a few minutes of applying the clay Diana could already see some improvement.
"Knock knock," Diana heard Alfred say from the other side of the tent. The tent the two woman were in had been set up in the Batcave ten years ago as a hospital room when Bruce started suffering more injuries. It was nearly a fully equipped hospital by itself. All of the equipment was pushed to the sides as Helena didn't need any of it.
"You can come in here," Helena told him. She was wearing nothing but the hot pants of her costume, but with lying on her stomach on the hospital bed, she wasn't exactly showing anything. Even if she had been showing something she wouldn't have thought much of an old man like Alfred seeing anything.
Alfred walked in with a dress shirt and stuck it on one of the pieces of unused equipment. "I brought down one of Connor's dress shirts that was in your closet, Miss Helena," he said to her. "It should be loose fitting enough so as to not bother the clay. Is there any food or beverage I can prepare for you?" he said to Helena.
"I don't really think I could eat or drink anything," Helena answered. There was still a strain in her voice from the pain.
"What about you, Miss Diana?" he asked Wonder Woman.
"No thanks, Alfred," she replied. She was amazed how Alfred still got around for being a man in his nineties. He never retired as he claimed he would never know what to do with himself.
"I am sure Miss Helena is aware she has a charity fashion show tomorrow where she is scheduled to model such clothes as a backless dress," Alfred reminded them. The fashion show wasn't exactly trivial as Helena needed to take part in such events to keep up the secret identity of a rich heiress. Just as her father kept up the image of a playboy lifestyle to prevent the public from thinking he could ever be a superhero, Helena took on the image of a spoiled heiress who only cared about partying and clubbing.
"I'll be fine by tomorrow morning," Helena replied. The strain in her voice was disappearing as the clay's healing effects started to work. She tried to close her eyes and relax and let the clay do its thing.
"Your bed is prepared for you," Alfred said to her right before he left. Helena had wished he would have stayed around as she thought with his presence her mother might go a little easier in her questioning.
"I'm done," she announced with a tone of anger. Helena sat up with little pain. Diana handed her the dress shirt and she put it on. As Alfred said, it was loose fitting enough that it didn't cause her any discomfort.
The shirt belonged to her boyfriend Connor Queen, the oldest child of Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance. He was currently acting as his father's sidekick, Speedy, but was slated to take over the Green Arrow mantle any day now. They had been together since they were tweens, and while they were not officially engaged, they both knew they were going to be married to each other one day. They both wanted to be established in their line of "work" before they married, though.
"Would you mind telling me how this happened?" her mother asked her as Helena buttoned up her shirt. This was what she had been dreading.
"We took on some thugs with advanced weaponry and I got hit," she replied. "There's nothing more to it than that."
"So what, someone snuck up on without you noticing and lit up your back?" Her mother had her arms crossed in a pose of skepticism. She was glaring at Helena and trying to look stern.
Helena wasn't happy with this line of questioning and knew exactly where her mother was trying to lead her. She understood the truth would save a lot of hassle and quicken the end of this grating conversation.
"Dad found himself with a gun pointed at him. I rushed to block him and took a couple good hits in the back. It had nothing to do with the fact. . ."
"That your father's old and slowing down," Diana finished her daughter's sentence for her.
"There was a henchman hidden from view," Helena protested. "It could have happened to anyone."
"What was your father doing that caused him to miss this?" Diana asked.
"He was tussling with someone," Helena answered, almost inaudible. "He had trouble taking them down.
"Just as I thought," Diana said. "He's slowed down and he is only going to get worse."
Both women were trying hard to keep their voices down so Bruce couldn't hear. He was sitting at the Batcomputer and there was only the sheet and a short distance separating them from him. Neither wanted him to know they were talking about him, even though they were both sure he knew they were talking about him.
"Well if you want to tell him to give it up, he's right outside. You can go and force him to retire. Maybe you could even break one of his legs to help force him to quit."
Helena knew her mother had no real gumption to tell her father to quit. She often pushed Helena to try and do it, like she was now. It was all a passive-aggressive way to get done what she was unwilling to do herself.
"I'll talk with him later," Diana tried to assure her. "Now's not a good time." Helena believed her mother wasn't exactly being truthful, but was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
"I'm sorry if I said anything to upset you," Diana confessed to her daughter. "I just worry about the two of you."
"I know Mom," Helena replied.
Diana embraced her daughter as she said good-bye. She walked out of the tent and flew out of the Batcave through the same hole that Bruce had fallen through as a child when he discovered the cave.
With her mother gone Helena walked out to see what her father was doing. He seemed completely lost in his work at the Batcomputer. As she walked up to him she wondered if he heard her at all.
"Did your mother work her magic?" he asked her, indicating he wasn't so out of it he couldn't sense her.
"Yeah, I'm going to be fine. There won't be a mark on me in the morning."
"Good," he replied. "You need to look normal for the fashion show tomorrow. You need to keep up appearances if our secret identities are going to remain secret. You can't give any indication you were out busting criminals."
Helena rolled her eyes at what her father told her. He was talking as if she was completely new at this. She didn't need any reminders on how to act as a civilian. What really got to Helena was with this event she wasn't going to have to work so hard at her cover. The show was organized by Dinah Queen, Connor's mother. Olivia, Connor's sister and Helena's good friend, was in the show as well. The two of them always watched out for each other, along with her BFF Maril Grayson, the daughter of her father's former protégé. Maril had been scheduled to be in the show, but she was currently on Tamaran seeing her boyfriend off as he took a trip to Thanagar.
Helena finally looked at what her father was working on and saw he had taken the gun apart and placed all the pieces on the computer's scanners. He was looking over every detail of the guns they had confiscated. The only thing he wasn't paying attention to were the gun grips, which were all laid out on a table behind him. To Helena, they all looked identical. She picked one up and started inspecting it.
"These guns are well constructed," her father told her. "A lot of the knock-offs of Apokolips weapons are sloppy and barely work, but these are almost flawless clones. They were made to pack quite a punch."
"They certainly were," Helena remarked in reference to the pounding she had taken from one of them.
"You wouldn't have been hit if you had used a Batarang to destroy the gun instead of using yourself as a shield," her father said to her.
Her father was always critiquing her abilities with out of the blue statements like that. Helena was so mad at being chastised for what she did she squeezed the grip in her hand and crushed it. "I didn't fire a Batarang because the gun was between two boxes and I didn't have a clear shot."
"The shot you had wasn't any worse than what I had, and I made it," he reminded her.
She couldn't believe what her father was saying to her considering how slow he had become and how that was the reason she ended up in the situation he was referencing. In a short time Helena had been chastised by both her mother and father and she didn't feel like taking any more. "I'm going to bed," she said as she threw the crushed gun grip to the ground. She began to storm off but halted when her father told her to wait.
"You didn't give me a chance to say thanks," he said in a truly heartfelt voice. "I would be dead if it wasn't for you."
Her old man could ride her like no one else, but it was just the way he tried to train her and prepare her to survive anything. Thanking her was the highest praise she could have received, the first Robin could have readily attested to that.
Her father kept his attention engrossed in his work as she walked up behind him. She put one arm around his neck and pushed her long hair back with the other as she gave him a kiss on the cheek. He stayed unmoved as she did it.
"I'm going to bed to get some sleep, which you should to. You have a board meeting in the morning. Remember, if we lose too much money we won't be able to afford things like the scanner you're using right now. I love you," she said as she gave him another kiss before she headed up the stairs to the Manor.