Author's notes: I don't own any of the Justice League. I wish I did (especially the Question!). But there you go. Please don't sue me. Also, this is, if you didn't get it from the summary, a fic with an OC. Deal with it, or don't read! See Huntress: Cry for Blood to find out why it's not a Question/Huntress fic. Hope you enjoy anyhow. Thanks for reading, please R/R. Nothing M rated in this chapter, but there's more adult content to come in later chapters.
It was an accident–an utter, stupid accident. Foxglove dodged a fraction too slow. She berated herself bitterly for it, but the fact remained that Luthor's transporter device blew up and took her with it. She sat up, rubbing her head, and peered out through the eyes of her Japanese Fox mask. The green lenses analyzed her surroundings. The air was breathable–obviously. The terrain seemed rather Earth-like. Perhaps she hadn't gone far.
The dual suns put an end to that particular theory and she sighed, dusting off the sleeves of her long, black army-coat. Hell. Batman was going to kill her. She wasn't even part of the official strike force for that mission, she'd just been in the area on patrol and offered her help. Never volunteer for anything. Good advice from a friend; she wished she had listened. She found an elastic and tied back the fake hair that attached to the mask, swapping her short, wavy brown hair for long, stick-straight black. The mask would filter if it sensed anything amiss, and the eyes fed her information, so she didn't remove it. It was so much better than her original one, a simple kevlar affair. Batman and J'Onn had helped her with the tweaks, and she was grateful for them now more than ever. She sighed, shoving her hands in the pockets of her overcoat. Civilization . . . that was a thought. If she could find a Green Lantern member, everything would be golden. She wondered what her chances of that were. She hoped that the League hadn't written her off as atomized. It would be damned awkward to come back and find out they'd buried an empty casket and set her up a tombstone. They'd only just gotten around to dismantling Superman's memorial.
She sighed and started walking. The other possibility was that she'd get eaten by something on the planet. Or starve or thirst to death. The compass on her watch spun madly, and therefore was no help at all. Even the digital one hidden in her belt read blank. She frowned, and headed toward the more yellow of the setting suns, hoping the planet wasn't in some sort of insane orbit and that the direction was fairly constant. Either way it was uncomfortably warm, and she unbuttoned the coat, and even her Chinese-style shirt partway. She sweated under her mask, but tried to ignore it.
She'd known better than to get that close. But there was an opening in the guard's defense, and she'd rushed in, taking it. She hadn't been thinking of anything but the fight, to the exclusion of the machine that had a green arrow lodged in its workings. Someone had yelled . . . she thought it had been J'Onn, and she dodged, throwing the guard out of the way first . . . that was what slowed her down. He hadn't arrived with her, so she assumed he'd made it out of the explosion without being flung through the galaxy. It seemed she was the lucky winner in the transporter-roulette.
The terrain was disturbingly bare. She'd have preferred a forest, something with some cover. Being out in the open never sat well with her; she even tended to find a table in a corner in the League's cafeteria. She liked to have her back to the wall, and everyone around her in view. It wasn't even a trait instilled in her by hanging around Batman. She'd always been that way.
It was nearly three hours when the sun she was following started to dip below the horizon, and it began to cool down. She guessed that at a jog she'd covered nine or ten miles with nothing to show for it. She sighed, sitting on a rock for a moment. She'd picked an easily followed direction, but could be heading into open desert. Or, alternately, the whole damn planet could be open desert. Either way, she needed water if she hoped to survive long. No cover from the suns, no water, no plant life . . . things were looking rather grim. She hoped her accidental transport could have been tracked . . . though there was no telling how long it might take to travel here. And what was that annoying buzzing noise?
She was moving a split second later as the transport zoomed into view. The occupants of the dark vehicle didn't appear to be friendly or happy, and they bristled with weaponry. Still, one couldn't always judge, and she hesitated just long enough for a shot to ricochet off the rock she'd been sitting on. She deemed them hostile at that point, but there was nowhere to go. She ran, zigzagging, but a blast found her, nailing her in the back and sending her into an impromptu somersault. She landed on her back, dizzy, her body numb, and not obeying her attempts to move it. She heard the aliens muttering to one another as they approached, weapons pointed. Good tactic, she thought, dimly. They weren't assuming she was harmless after being hit once . . . They came cautiously into view. Humanoid, it seemed. Vaguely upswept faces, blueish gray skin, very bright amber eyes. Long limbs and fingers. They eyed her suspiciously, and one reached for her mask. She couldn't even muster the strength to speak and tell him it was a bad idea. The shock was painful, as was obvious by the look on his face, but not remotely harmful; one of Batman's contributions. Still, it was unwelcome, leading to a string of what sounded like cursing. His fellows laughed at him, moving to pick her up, and drag her onto the transport, dropping her roughly on her face, and cuffing her hands behind her. So much for 'I come in peace.'
They left her there on the floor of the transport for the duration of the ride, and no one spoke. She moved once, experimentally and was shot with another stunner. Things did not bode well. She wondered if she'd have been better off wandering the desert.
xXxXxXx
As was usual, Batman was the first to notice something was missing once the smoke cleared. Superman had Luthor, who was complaining bitterly and promising dire revenge. Flash was dusting himself off, Green Arrow was helping Black Canary up, J'Onn phased through the wall, untouched . . . Batman narrowed his eyes, moving closer to the broken transporter and examining the depression in the floor in front of it. There was no debris. He frowned. "Foxglove?" He called out. No reply. He frowned deeply as Flash skidded to a stop next to him.
"What's wrong . . . ?" He began, frowning at the wreckage and beginning to look worried. "Hey . . . Fox?" He looked at the wreckage of the machine, the gouge where the floor and presumably anything else in the way had vanished. "What . . . where is she . . . ?"
Batman ignored him and turned to the Martian. "J'Onn, can you contact her?"
J'Onn frowned, worriedly, and his eyes flashed orange for a long moment, his brow knitting. "I . . . cannot . . . " He said, slowly. He turned toward Luthor, who was looking on with a sort of detached interest. "Where would this transport have taken her?" He asked, calmly.
Lex smirked, shrugging cheerfully. "No idea." He practically chirped. "She was probably disintegrated." Superman's fingers tightened on Lex's shoulders.
Batman loomed nearer. "No debris. And it's a transporter. She went somewhere and I'm asking you nicely where." He growled.
It appeared Lex wasn't entirely unaffected by Batman, and he looked momentarily cowed before regaining his bravado. "There's no telling. Not with the arrow lodged in it." He looked significantly at Green Arrow, who narrowed his eyes.
Batman took another looming step forward. "Then you'll tell me how to track it." He said. It wasn't a question.
xXxXxXx
So far, Foxglove had told her interrogators her name, but the tone and angle of the questions they were barking at her disinclined her to tell them more than that, even that her arrival had been accidental.
She sat facing the blue-skinned military man across a table, staring at him through the green lenses of her mask. It was clear they weren't looking for information to help her get home; the questions centered on where she came from, military capabilities, and her 'faction', its members and their strengths and weaknesses. They'd searched her, taken her coat and belt, even her boots, leaving her in the black, mandarin-collar shirt and slacks she wore under her jacket. Unfortunately this put all her gear into their hands. They even found the lockpick kit she'd had up her sleeve.
"This is the final time I'll ask." Said her interrogator, angrily. "We know you came here from another planet. We monitored the disturbance that brought you. Where did you come from? What are the planet's defenses? What are their weaknesses?"
She stared at him, coolly. It sounded like they were looking to invade an easy target. Or make an easy target by knowing weaknesses. Either way they wouldn't be getting their information from her.
The interrogator sat back with a sigh, frowning. "All right. Allow us to convince you." He nodded to the guard at the door, who stepped over and grabbed her arm, stun gun at the ready. The interrogator nodded slightly. "Take her below. We haven't got time for games."
She didn't care for the sound of that. Below seemed never to be a good direction to go when in enemy hands. Usually worse than a tower. Indeed, the area they arrived in after she was dragged down the stairs was not at all welcoming. It was dark, close, and cold. They dumped her into a cell with her arms still cuffed behind her, and shut the windowless door, leaving her in pitch darkness. The mask adjusted as best it could, but there was nothing to look at but bare metal walls, a floor, and a ragged blanket in the corner. She frowned, leaning her back against the wall, and asked herself a very important question.
What would Batman do?