Title: City of Spitfire
Rating: T
Word Count:
Summary: When Wally West stumbles upon a group of teenagers killing a man,he gets yanked into the world of Shadowhunters. What happens when of the Shadowhunters, Artemis, gets hurt during a fight? Can Wally put aside his firm beliefs in science and the ridiculousness of magic to save her? For Spitfire week
A/N: I have found a new love for The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices series by Cassandra Clare, and couldn't wait to put Spitfire in them. I have only just finished City of Ashes and started reading City of Glass after finishing the Infernal Devices Series. So sorry if something's incorrect because it wasn't explained until later books and please don't ruin the rest of the series for me. Anyways, enjoy! :D
Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable in here.
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"Okay, what- how- but you just—you can't- did you seriously just kill that guy?" spluttered Wally as he stared at the fresh black blood on the wood paneled floor in his school's deserted gym, the only remaining proof of the group of teens' crime.
When Wally had seen a teen girl around his age with flowing blonde hair in a pony tail that flew behind her when she ran past him, enter the locked down school at night with a huge hulking guy right on her heels, he immediately followed them to try to save her. It was just part of his character, to be the good guy and help out others. By now, his parents were used to seeing him a little scraped up after one of his adventures, whether it was saving a cat stuck in a tree or a boy getting bullied. While this situation looked a little more serious, he was still confident in his "every day hero" abilities. And after he saved the day, he and the damsel in distress would go out for Chinese food while she fawned over his bravery, intelligence, speed, and strength.
Imagine his surprise as he ran after them into his own high school's gym and the girl whipped out a crossbow and fired at the goonie. Wally tripped over his own feet, his tennis shoes squeaking against the floor as he watched the man growl, mutter gibberish angrily, and pulled the glowing arrow out of his shoulder . The noise from Wally's shoes made the girl glance in his direction with confusion and anger evident in her body language. That split second loss of concentration gave the man an opportunity to lunge at the girl and knock her to the ground, sending her cross bow skittering across the gym and out of reach.
Wally started to run into the scramble and help her, not that he didn't notice the guy getting scraped up by the small knife the girl was wielding in her hands. But the sight of a glowing blade ramming in the other guy's ribs stopped him from getting too close. Three shadowy figures moved in from the bleachers and far dark walls as their victim rolled off the girl, cursing violently.
For a quick second, the man seemed to shimmer and Wally caught himself staring at a disturbing sight: bright green flames roaring in the man's eyes sockets instead of eyes, a large blubbery mass with six appendages sticking out, and a sneering mouth with multiple fangs extending over his lips. What attracted Wally's gaze the most was the man creature's flickering scorpion tail. Then, just as suddenly as the illusion appeared, it was gone and the man was holding a gun and aiming at the dark figures.
"Dirty Nephilim! Should've known. Come out of hiding, you brats! I'll take you all down! I ain't afraid of you!" He aimed at one of the moving shadows and fired. The man was quickly rushed on all sides, and although he put up a decent fight, found himself lying on the floor with his arms bound to his side and ankles bound together by silver ropes. When the scuffle had ended, Wally realized that all of the people standing over the mysterious man were teenagers, appearing to be around his age. He silently approached their group, and the other teens, who were all dressed in strange black clothes save for the blonde girl from earlier who was dressed in normal street clothes, didn't notice his presence.
"Where's Valentine?" angrily asked a boy with golden hair that seemed to glow even in the darkness.
The man laughed, an ugly guttural sound that chilled Wally's bones. "How should I know? Didn't you brilliant Shadowhunters take care of him yet?"
The blonde boy muttered "Forcas" and pointed another glowing blade near the man's neck, his tone threatening, "Don't lie. We know he's still calling demons to him to build his army. You're either in it, or you must have information. Either way, you know something. Spill."
"And if I refuse? He's a very powerful man, not one who I plan to cross. And after all, you'll just end up killing me anyway"
"Then you'll see some family resemblance," the boy growled and stepped forward, but a girl with fiery red hair put his arm out to stop him.
"Jace," she said, her voice worried and warning at the same time. "Breathe."
Another boy, with raven black hair, stood across from the couple and shot them a worried look. "Remember what you're saying, Jace. You are not him."
Wally found himself gazing in the blonde girl's direction, who was watching her companions warily. Out of the corner of his eye, he again saw the man's stinger, but now it twitched in the girl's direction. The man grinned devilishly. Before Wally knew what was happening, he had thrown himself in the blonde girl's direction, sending them both sprawling away from the goon as his stinger cracked the place she had been standing only milliseconds before.
Wally stared at the girl beneath him, noticing faint white scars running across her skin that interlacing with strange black tattoos on her arms and neck. He took in her brilliant blonde hair, not golden like the other boy, but more as if the sun had rained down on her head and painted her hair in its likeness; even with some dirt coating her locks, it looked unbearably soft and silky and he resisted the urge to run his fingers through it. Her plump lips were slightly open with surprise, allowing the boy to catch a glimpse of pearly white teeth and left him wondering what it would take to see her smile. Lastly, his emerald green eyes met her steely grey ones; they reflected surprise and determination in their stormy depths and some other hidden emotion Wally was determined to discover. The girl licked her lips suddenly, eyes breaking contact with his as she tried to orient herself to the latest predictament.
"Don't worry, babe. The Wall-man's gotch ya," comforted Wally and he noticed a faint blush warm the girl's face as her eyes snapped back to his; then her eyes became flints and her mouth twisted into a sneer as she fully realized their position.
"Get. Off. Of. Me!" she growled and pushed him off her to stand up and help her friends. When Wally rolled to his feet, he turned to see the other teens surrounding the now bloodier man.
The world seemed to slow down as Wally saw Jace raise his strange glowing blade to stab the goon in the heart. Wally ran with incredible speed to try to tackle the boy, but was yanked back just short of his goal by the blonde girl and dark haired boy. "Let me go! Stop! You can't just kill him!" cried Wally, but it didn't matter as he watched the blade hit its mark and the man choke on his own blood that sputtered to his lips before disappearing in thin air.
"Okay, what- how- but you just—you can't. Did you seriously just kill that guy?" cried Wally, waving his hands around and breaking free of the other teen's constraints.
"Nice going, Artemis. You just had to attract a mundane, didn't you?" snapped the dark haired boy as Jace wiped off his sword on his pants.
"Hey, I didn't know he was following me. It's not my fault he saw through the glamour, Alec!" snapped Artemis.
"She's got a point. That's how I found you and Jace," reminded the girl with fiery hair. "He's probably one of us."
Wally spun to face the teens that were staring at him with various appraising expressions. He pointed an angry finger at each of them in turn as if it was a small pocket knife, even though he knew it was significantly less dangerous than their weapons, and said in his angriest voice, "I am nothing like you. You kill people. Yeah, he was a bad guy, but that's what jails are for. You can't just go around killing everybody. I'm going to report you to the police. You know, because I'm actually a good human being."
Jace broke out into laughter and Artemis smirked slightly.
"The Wall-man, huh? Going to rat us out to the people who won't even be able to see any evidence?"
"Oh, knock it off, you guys! He doesn't understand, yet," said the other girl as she punched Jace in the shoulder.
"Sorry, Clary" Jace snorted, not sounding sorry at all. " But he's worse than you were."
Artemis sighed tiredly. "Ignore Jace, he's moody today. Listen, that thing wasn't human. It was a demon."
Now it was Wally's turn to fight a laugh. "A-a demon? Wowwwww," he drawled. "You people are crazy. What, are there witches and vampires that go bump in the night? And let me guess your little swords glow because they're covered in pixie dust?"
Now Alec rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous, mundane. There are warlocks, not witches and the fair folk don't want anything to do with us, and pixie dust is just a myth mundanes came up with somehow. Our blades glow with the power of the angels, not whatever other stupid reasons your mind comes up with."
"I'm not stupid," Wally shot back, going red in the face. "I happen to be the smartest kid in my advanced biology class."
"Geek," Artemis coughed, earning a glare from him.
"And magic. Does. Not. Exist!" he argued hotly.
Jace groaned. "It's not magic! We don't use magic. Why is that so hard to believe?"
"Do you really believe that?" Clary asked, ignoring Jace. "That none of this exists? That we're crazy or lying? Think about what you saw tonight. Not what you think you saw or what you fooled yourself into thinking. What you actually saw."
Wally sighed. "I think it's late, and you're all ridiculous. How about you and your little magic tricks leave me alone and I won't tell my uncle, who works with the cops, about you guys?" He started to walk away from their group, shaking his head at the bizarreness of it all.
The shadowhunters shared small smiles. "Again, it's not magic. Do you really think anyone would believe you? No one else saw Artemis and the demon running down the street and no one else would've seen the fight if they were here, but you did. They'll just think you're crazy."
Wally stopped at Jace's smug reply. "You don't know my Uncle Barry." He thought of his uncle who was always so proud of Wally's achievements and for his little heroic adventures. Barry was always there for Wally, almost like another father to him. Even though Wally could be a prankster and over exaggerate his stories, surely he could prove to his uncle that he wasn't lying.
This made the other teens pause. Alec was the first to speak, "You don't mean Barry Allen, do you?" Because honestly, there weren't that many Barrys in the city and even fewer in the Shadowhunting business. If Barry Allen was his uncle, that would explain the boy's fast reflexes and ability to see beyond the glamour.
Wally glared at them suspiciously. "How do you know my uncle?"
Artemis stepped closer to him, hesitantly as if he were an animal that might pounce and attack or skitter rapidly away. "He- well, we can talk to him now if you want. He's at the Institute."
Wally raised an eye brow. "My uncle's not a professor." These people are really insane. They can't know anything about me or my family… but how do they know Uncle Barry? Have they run into trouble with the law before? Theories kept running through the amateur scientist's mind but none seemed entirely plausible.
"I know," she sighed, blowing some wayward hairs out of her face. "Just come with us, he should be able to explain everything."
"I hope so," muttered Jace. "Are there any other hidden shadowhunters walking around New York that we should know about? We should make a pamphlet to give out." He, Clary, and Alec walked towards the exit. Alec was shaking his head tiredly and Clary was fighting a smile.
Artemis began following them before turning around to look at a confused and hesitant Wally. He was torn between running home to take a shower and wash away all of the craziness of the past twenty minutes or to take a chance and follow the Shadowhunters into their illogical world of vampires, and warlocks, and demons. He felt prickles of fear on the back of his neck as he remembered them killing a man or demon or whatever it was. But he was a scientist, and it was duty as a scientist to create a hypothesis, experiment, analyze, and conclude. His hypothesis: they were all nut jobs, but there was an air of truth lingering in their conversations and he was curious about their connection to Barry. Now, it was time for him to take the step and see all the data for himself.
"Are you coming or what?" Artemis barked.
Wally met her eyes again, a twinkle of amusement in hers and he returned her question with a confident smile.
"I'm ready."
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"Artemis!" cried Wally from across the run down park as he saw her get sprayed by a Spider Demon that had snuck up behind her.
She dodged, missing the brunt of the attack but still getting poison spattered on her left arm. She her cried out, falling to the ground and tried to scramble away from the demon. Luckily, Isabelle wasn't too far away and her whip flew towards the Spider demon before choking it and sending it crashing into an Oni demon she was fighting. But Isabelle still couldn't get to Artemis who was desperately tearing off the sleeve to get rid of some of the poison covering her.
Wally quickly stabbed the demon he had been locked in a struggle with and made his way through the chaos caused by the small Shadowhunter group plus Simon and the demons. They had been exploring a tip, given to them by an outcast fairy of an old friend of Jocelyn's when they had been ambushed.
A couple weeks ago, Wally would never had imagined his life turning into some teen fantasy novel with heroes, demons, shadow hunters, vampires, werewolves, warlocks, faries, and legends existing becoming a part of his life. When he had met Artemis, Jace, Clary, and Alec in the gym, they hadn't disappointed him by lying.
In fact, he had been quite shocked to learn that his Uncle Barry was a Shadowhunter himself and quite a good one at that. His police work didn't necessarily involve using crime scene data to arrest and hunt down common criminals but to find and arrest down Downworlders or who broke the rules set by the Accords, or more recently to help find Valentine. In fact, his whole family had been a part of the business but his parents had stepped away from the life to keep Wally safe. They had encouraged his interest in science, hoping his steadfast belief in it would glamour the fantastical world; and it had worked for the most part, save for rare instances where he saw the other world out of the corner of his eyes. He had always brushed it off as his mind playing tricks or an over active imagination as his parents had reassured him, but now he knew better. While hesitant to believe that everything he knew was a lie and angry that he was kept in the dark for so long, he finally took Barry's offer to train to become a Shadowhunter.
Despite his long time refusal to believe in magic and fantasy, Wally still couldn't resist the temptation to do good in the world, to save people and other creatures from evil, to fight side by side by his family and friends, and the thrill of taking down a baddie. He couldn't escape it, didn't want to escape it. He'd wanted to be a hero his whole life and now he had a chance to improve his abilities and more beneficial opportunities. That's how he ended up in the park with his friends, using some of the limited training his uncle had given him and using techniques he'd seen in movies to take down demons and get to this fallen teammate, the most infuriatingly stubborn and sarcastic yet the most intelligent, witty, tough, and beautiful girl he ever met.
When he finally reached her, he grabbed her arm, quickly inspecting it. There was poison and burnt skin all over her upper arm and shoulder. "Jeese Artemis, I warned you."
"Yeah, right as he was attacking, thanks for that!" she coughed, and Wally noticed her skin becoming paler.
"No, no, no, no, no. Stay with me, Artemis. We're going to get you to the Institute so Magnus can heal you." Wally started to pick her up, but she struggled against him.
"No. The others need our help. We have to take out the rest of these demons," she argued angrily. "Put me down, West. I still have one good arm, a couple of seraph blades and my crossbow. I'm not leaving this fight until it's over."
Wally groaned. "That poison is going to go through your veins faster because your blood's pumping faster, and you won't be much use with that much pain slowing you down."
They glared at each other, attempting to persuade the other to back down and agree with them, but neither one was willing to cave in. Their staring contest was over when Artemis used her crossbow and shot a demon in the throat that had come up behind Wally. She raised an eyebrow, daring him to challenger her usefulness again.
"Fine," Wally growled. "But you sit and shoot while I'm on the move." Artemis nodded her agreement and they worked as a team to take out the surrounding demons; Artemis called out warnings to Wally and shot the ones that he couldn't get to fast enough while he protected her from ones that came too close. Eventually, the last demon in their vicinity had finally been taken down due to several arrows and stab wounds from the duo. Artemis lay weakly against the tree and Wally ran to her side, rechecking her arm.
"We make a good team," she whispered tiredly, eyes half lidded as she struggled to stay awake. Artemis frowned suddenly."You have blood on your face." She reached out her hand and let her fingers graze across his temple where he had hit his head after a particularly nasty blow sent him to the ground; blood came away on her finger tips.
Wally rubbed at it a bit with his sleeve, wincing as the cut stung. Her frowned deepened, but he waved off any protest. "Don't worry about it, beautiful. Let's get you home." With that, he put his arms under her and lifted her bridal style. Artemis let her head rest against his chest, smiling slightly and Wally tried to ignore his jumping heart and focus on getting her to help. It's just adrenaline from the fight, he reasoned stubbornly. Jace, Clary, Isabelle, Alec and Simon came over, having finished off their demons as well.
"How's she holding up?" Isabelle asked, quickly winding up her whip.
"Not to good," replied Wally before turning to Alec. "Call Magnus and tell him to meet us at the Institute right away."
"Look at who's throwing orders around now," remarked Jace as Alec made the phone call. "A couple weeks ago you didn't even know all this existed." Clary whacked him in the arm.
Isabelle snorted. "How much is our bill now? I'm pretty sure Magnus just keeps us on a tab."
"I'm a fast learner. It doesn't matter how much he costs if we need him. Now let's go before Artemis dies," barked Wally as he hugged her protectively to her chest and quickly made his way to Simon's van, the others right next to him. Wally suddenly felt a hard slap against his chest and looked down to see Artemis's glower.
"What?" he asked confused.
"You're such a drama queen Wally. I'm not going to die," she said resolutely, knowing that in a couple of days she'd be up and about, taking on more demons, teaching him some new techniques, and bantering with him until he felt he'd go crazy.
"You're right, because I'm not going to let you," he replied, and gently laid her down in the van before sitting next to her, holding her hand. "If you do, I'll never forgive you."
"Because that's motivation," Artemis remarked with another small smile. By now, the others had climbed into their seats and were speeding towards the Institute where Magnus was waiting. Now, the boy who hadn't believed in magic his whole life, was hoping that he and his shadowhunting friends could get to the warlock in time before the girl he had feelings for died after just fighting demons in the park with him. He had first joined the Shadowhunting group on a whim, to get data to see if they and their world actually existed. It was data he had never dreamed of finding, and when he analyzed it he realized it was all true. Then, this experiment led him to the conclusion that he wanted to be part of it, that he was a part of it, and he was okay with that conclusion.
He looked down at the blonde archer, who was fighting the effects of the poison. Just like the night they had first seen each other, their eyes met. Her silver eyes glinted with determination and softness as she stared into his. She would live, they both knew it, everyone knew it. Magnus would help. Everything would turn out fine, for now. Then, they would go on more missions and adventures and the whole cycle would start all over again.
She gave his hand a reassuring a squeeze, which he returned, holding her gaze.
Yeah, I could get used to being a Shadowhunter.
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