Lian Harper stood on the edge of a rooftop, one of Lex Corp's many corporate buildings in a quiet boulevard of Metropolis. With one hand she dusted off the dirt from having climbed the grimy ladder hidden in the back alley. Her uniform was similar to her father's: red from head to toe with a hood to match, an R emblem at her belt, and her torso laced with a darker shade of red. She traced the R, R for Red Arrow, her superhero namesake, as she watched below. She looked like a falcon, her eyes trained on the leader of the crooks that were loading packages - from what was supposed to be an empty warehouse.
"Bad guys stealing from bad guys?" She asked aloud. It wasn't entirely unusual, in fact it happened often. The oddity was the fact that they were stealing from Lex Luthor, the kingpin of the city. The billionaire, a façade of a philanthropist with an ace always up his sleeve along with a whole deck of cards. With one hand on the bow, her free hand pulled an arrow from her quiver, stepping one foot forward to study her surroundings. The streets were empty, eerily quiet.
"Hi boss!" Bubbly Nell, aka Gotham's newest Batgirl, was waving and smiling at her friend and teammate, completely unaware Lian was on a stakeout. Lian quickly put her hand over her friend's mouth, whispering hush as she pointed below. Nell shook her head, apologizing with hand gestures as she stepped closer to the edge. The two conversed briefly, Lian updating Nell on the current situation, both agreeing to lay back for the next few minutes.
"Once they head out I can put a tracking device!" Nell said clapping her hands. She'd been anxious to try out her stealth moves having just donned the mantle of Batgirl a few weeks ago. Her exploits had thus far been quite boring, saving kittens from trees and attempting to batglare litterbugs.
"Good idea, seems like they're not heading out anytime s-" Lian was interrupted by the sound of glass breaking against the tar of a road. One of the thieves had dropped a package, glass shards sticking out from the corners with a mysterious blue liquid oozing out. The leader of the thieves started yelling, at first profanities and then…
"Idiot! Now it's gonna burn a hole all the way to the inner core!" Lian could only assume the inner core was that of the Earth. That, or some sort of contraption below that would most likely explode by the touch of the ooze, either way it was a bad situation…
"Oh goodness, that can't be good," Nell said, putting her hand to her cheek. Lian drew an arrow from her bow again; she slowly pulled the string back, breathing in the scent of steel on the wire. Her eyes were trained on the tire of the van in which all the packages had been loaded to. It was a 50 foot shot. The frame of her mask folded slightly as her eyes refocused on her target.
"Better pull out that grappling hook Nelly," she said as her bow released from her hand, striking the tire directly, letting out the air and panicking all those around the vehicle.
"What the hell!" A thug screeched. Nell was already two steps ahead, swinging downwards with a dainty smile as her legs pushed together, her feet hitting his frame, knocking him to the ground.
"Hello everyone!" Nell exclaimed, pulling out a pair of batarangs from her utility belt, and throwing one at each of her assailants attempting to ambush her from behind. Her body twisted downwards as her weapons exploded in their faces, a sleeping gas pouring out. The two crooks inhaled and soon collapsed on the ground.
"Nice!" Lian said as her fist met the face of another thief. With her left foot she kicked an attacker headed to her left and with another bow she managed to strike the door of the warehouse, at the very top being an alarm. Sirens resounded in the air, frightening the thieves as they began to dart into different directions.
"Tag team!" Nell said as she ran forward, jumping against the van and side- stepping against it to add momentum to her speed increasing her velocity exponentially. Unfortunately, Nell's ability to calculate trajectory wasn't quite up to par. Two seconds later her body was hurtling to the ground, her hands reaching downwards to salvage herself with a backflip. The ground was wet from yesterday's rainfall, her wrists bent and slid across the road, her back hitting against the pavement.
"Ow." She said rubbing her fingers against the temples of her head and then the middle of her spine, now throbbing from the impact. From behind, another thief drew a knife, jumping towards her as she laid with her knees bent trying to draw up enough energy to rise.
"Batgirl!" Lian yelled, pulling another arrow from her quiver.
"I got this!" The voice of a speedster cut between the chaos and echoed off the walls along with a relieved sigh from Lian's lips. The sigh was followed by a smile and then the red hair of Irey West. She was a white and yellow blur as she practically flew across the knife wielding thief, pulling the knife from his hands.
"Impulse!" Nell said getting up off the ground, the two high fiving momentarily. They had little time for a proper greeting as more thieves rushed to attack, Nell quickly grabbed Irey, swinging her in a circle as the speedster's feet pulsated like bullets against the bodies of the crooks. One by one they fell, each matching the beat of Irey's laughter.
"Fun, fun, fun, fun!" She said as Nell placed her back on the ground. Irey jumped and twirled again with her arms held out like a bird; she made airplane noises, dancing in place. The girl was an abundance of energy, the green flecks in her eyes glowing under the moonlight.
"What now?" She exclaimed as she raced over to Lian's side. The leader of the gang had moved past them all, jumping into an escape car with his foot on the pedal. Just as he turned the engine, an arrow hit the windowpane, shooting through the glass and into his shoulder blade. It grazed the skin, pushing his shirt against the car seat where the arrow split through.
"Nell, do you mind babysitting him?" Lian asked, as she cracked her knuckles, searching for any other escapees.
"You got it boss!" Nell said as she skipped towards him, prancing about in her gleeful manner that was trademark Nell. Lian shrugged her shoulders, half smiling as she turned her attention to the broken package, where the blue substance continued to seep through. It burned a hole into the cardboard and the road, glowing brighter as she stepped closer.
"I wouldn't get too close to that Little Red." Above Lian's head floated the latest Green Lantern, Milagro Reyes, she too had a pair of pigtails and the classic green lantern garb, her whole body outlined in a green glow. Swiftly she landed next to her friends, placing a green aura with her ring over the blue liquid, lifting it off the ground.
"Glad you could finally join us." Lian said with a smirk, patting her old friend on the shoulder as Irey began to bounce off of buildings. Although the redhead was having fun zooming in and out from place to place, she was also listening for vibrations, for footsteps against the ground. Each tap, gesture and movement a person made would cut through the air and leave a trace of residual waves; waves that her feet could pick up with each step she took.
"I think someone's missing!" She yelled, coming to stop where the sound was coming from.
"Let me have this one! All I've done today is watch a marathon of NBC comedies, I need some action!" Milagro rose back into the sky, shining her light into the streets, her own eyes glowing green as the light shaped into a hand, reaching inside the area Irey pointed to, a giddy grin on her face. With a pluck, Milagro had pulled out another one of the thugs stealing from Lex Corp's items.
"Okay kid," Milagro began with an arrogant tone, her face changing to a semi serious one.
"I'm older than you." He said, confused and frightened by how high he was in the air.
"Silence, the all powerful Green Lantern is speaking, now what were you and your buddies up to, hmm?"
"Stealing! They were stealing blue goob!" Irey chimed in, her hands were on her hips as she tried a batglare on the man hovering in the air, Milagro holding him with the sheer willpower of her ring. The man began to sweat profusely, the color draining from his face as his legs dangled anxiously in the air.
"Don't tell them anything!" The boss screamed from his car. Nell shook her head in disapproval, holding a finger to her lips.
"People are sleeping!"
"We… we just wanted to make a quick buck on the mutant serum, that's all, I swear!"
"Liar, liar pants on fire!" Milagro said, just as she pulled back the light of her ring, the hand made of light disappearing, causing the man to free fall to the road, only to be stopped suddenly by another bound of green light from Milagro's ring. He bounced off it, landing on the sidewalk, banging his arm against it, a bone crack could be heard causing Nell and Irey to cringe, each touching their own arms to reassure the bone was still intact.
"Now what were you saying?" Lian said with her arrow pointing at his skull.
"LEX PAID US TO STEAL FROM HIM, HE WANTED US TO FRAME-" Before the man could finish the sentence his eyes rolled back, showing all white. His eyes covered in red veins bursting as if he were being choked. Nell watched from afar, shuddering as she heard the man choke on his last breath. She held her hands over her face to cover her eyes.
"Who's there!" Lian shouted, bending her knees in preparation for an attack. Her bow swung left and right up and down with Irey speeding across the sidewalks up and back the boulevard in search of the invisible assailant but to no avail.
"He's dead isn't he?" Milagro asked, shaking her head having already known the answer.
"Well we've got a mystery on our hands." Lian said with a nod, unfazed by the death, "Looks like this is gonna be a long night…"