First story on this account, first YJ story ever. Sorry I don't know a lot about the DC fandom but I will be mixing in a lot of elements from other universes and the like (maybe). Ummm... yeah, critiques would be awesome I guess, same as just normal comments or ideas, and this will eventually veer off canon (cuz I've never seen YJ: Invasion).
This story will have dark themes.
Chapter One: She Met Them As Strangers
August 26, 2010
Gotham City, Narrows
04:16 hours
The Narrows wasn't her home—that lovely title went to Bludhaven—but even she knew a quiet Narrows was a dangerous Narrows, and it was dead silent at the moment. The only thing was, the danger hiding within the hush was none other than her and her partner, and as long as no one got in their way, no one would get hurt. She hoped at least.
Climbing through another shattered window and onto a rusted fire escape, she noticed the dark blur in her peripherals jump to the next rooftop above her. He didn't bother looking to see if she'd follow, she always would somehow or another. If she didn't, they might as well count her as dead.
"How can he jump around with that shit on his back," she grumbled out petulantly, shifting the heavy bag on her back. The metal canister had started jabbing her just under her T8 vertebrae, and she could admit honestly that it was as painful as it was hefty. And the thing was pretty hefty.
She groaned and stopped her foot lightly, jumping at the rattle in surprise.
She brushed back her hair with a blush in a momentary reprieve before mounting atop the safety railing. The girl thanked her lucky stars that it was sturdy before launching herself off to a ledge opposite her with a grunt, hands finding place on a crumbling window sill. Kicking against the wall, her back arched and her feet sailed above her and into another decrepit apartment. The rest of her body followed smoothly.
There were two children huddling there, but neither spared her a glance as she darted through. This was the Narrows, they knew that if the person vaulting through their window had wanted them dead—or worse—there was nothing they could do about it, so why waste the energy?
A slip of pale gold hair twisted in from of her face. Skidding around a corner and towards another dilapidated window to another dilapidated building, the girl huffed and attempted to tuck it into her headgear. It was unsuccessful as always, and the tresses danced playfully at her jaw and neck once again.
This time she didn't pause to readjust, leaping to a less than sturdy railing before vaulting off it and into the next apartment. An echoing clang from the fallen metal behind her raced at her heels as she sprinted off.
A tiny beep interrupted her run just enough for her to look at the screen attached to her wrist. The red dot was pulsing just in front of her on the map, unmoving. She pouted. What did the bastard want now?
The next window wasn't a window at all, but instead a crumbling hole in the wall. No fire escape and no opposing entrance. But that was fine with her, she knew she didn't need to go forward, but rather up. Licking her lips and grimacing at the plastic taste of lipstick, the blonde girl grappled up and scaled the building.
When her fingers found rest at the roof, she swung the bag up above her before hauling herself up after it. Puffing lightly at the exercise, she bit out, "What do you want now?" She grabbed at her arm to stop it from trembling with strain.
The daunting figure in front of her dwarfed her small frame, even while crouching. She could vaguely see the ripple of muscles on his back in the dark of the city. Whether it was because of amusement or anger, she didn't know and she didn't think she wanted to.
Instead of answering, a large arm swung out and pointed downwards. That's when she heard it: voices. Loud chatter and confident laughs. There were only two types of people who had the gall to act like that in places like these, and one type was looming in front of her menacingly.
Had the League picked up on their movements? She didn't know that their job would even hit their radar, being a simple courier mission. Moving some random mud from one place to another seemed innocent enough, though she guessed with all the hush-hush about who their client was and where their target-point was it could be something darker. She wouldn't know. She didn't want to know the horrible things she had sold her soul to and he never obliged her ghost of curiosity.
Growling in annoyance, the girl walked to the edge of the roof, steps lost in the light hum of a breeze. As she brushed by the man encased in black, his rumbling voice wafted into her ear: "Kill them. I'll finish the drop off."
It took all her restraint not to falter at his words, and it took even more than that not to flinch away from the hand that nabbed the heavy bag from her grip. She attempted to cover it up with a sneer, but knew it wasn't nearly as solid as she needed it to be.
"I'm not killing anyone for you," she hissed, stopping next to him to follow his finger. However, all protective anger flashed away and her eyes widened in horror at what she saw. Her breath caught. All snarky retorts and angry jabs at him fluttered away, leaving raw fear.
She was naked when he laughed, more of a snarl really, and pushed back the pesky clump of silver-gold hair to bare her ear, to bare her neck in dominance. His hand was bigger than her entire, prepubescent face. It could easily snap her neck with barely a squeeze of his super-sterioded muscles. "We made a deal, girl," he mumbled. "When I say jump, you jump. When I say bark, you bark. When I say bite…"
She shuddered against the feel of his calloused fingers brushing against her jugular.
"You bite."
One of the children wearing bright yellow below her—he couldn't be older than fifteen, she swore—tripped and landed on his face to the laughter of those around him.
"But… but they're just kids, I can't do it!" the girl cried in a whisper, frantically scanning the faces of those who were soon to pass beneath her, unsuspecting. She rubbed her thumb nervously on the side of her index finger before suddenly switching the movement to fixing a pocket on her cargo pants. When that was done, she returned to rubbing her finger.
She let out a great breath she didn't know was jailed up in her lungs when the man's hand returned to him and he leaned away.
"You're thirteen yourself, girl, yet you have killed. Doesn't that make you an adult?" The absolute monotone of the voice chilled her to the bone. Sure, she had lied before, stolen before, hell she had killed before… but that was survival. She had thought that life was behind her. He had never asked her to kill for him before.
These kids, smirking, laughing, and bright eyed with happiness, they were in front of her. And they didn't even know that death lurked above them, watching from the fire escape. Her thumb's fingernail bit into her skin, drawing blood. She just couldn't do it. She wouldn't.
She growled, roots of her hair growing out and angry red with a tingle in her scalp. "But our job is to deliver the package, not attack a bunch of children," she barked, sending the stink eye over to the unaffected man. "Besides, it was my choice to become a killer, and an adult. These kids look so-"
"Stranger." Immediately she stopped talking, flickering wide eyes to her handler. They were wide with fear. "They were no longer kids the moment they donned those masks. And you do as I say."
She gulped, a nervous gulp that tore down her amazingly dry throat. An attempt at licking her lips ended with more discomfort, so the muscle jumped back into her worrying mouth.
That was it. It was final. With the masks and suits that protected them from the general populace they had signed their death certificate and she couldn't refuse; she owed him that. She promised him that. No matter what she wanted, it didn't matter in this moment.
Unclenching her hands in resignation, her heart steeled. I'm sorry, but you guys really shouldn't have walked by here today, she thought morosely—no, emotionlessly—while she glanced down at her prey. Totally oblivious, they were chatting away in their uniforms so early in the morning. Maybe celebrating a job well done, stopping a theft or another murder on the streets. It wasn't implausible, she knew the character of these types of streets well, after all.
One spoke up, the girl with green skin, and worry laced her tone. It reflected in the nervous padding of her fingers against her thigh. "Do you think Artemis will be alright, being in jail and all?"
The girl's ears twitched at the familiar name, even though her handler didn't budge at the words. His face was still turned downwards, waiting. The man always knew when she was attempting to stall in a gamble to change her orders. It obviously wasn't working any better that night than it did any other night.
Rule number two: orders were God.
"Come on, it's not like she's in Gotham's jail. It's Star City we're talking about. Besides, the Green Arrow won't let anything happen to her," the shortest of them reasoned. His smirking mouth was happily munching on an apple, blissfully unaware.
"Now, girl," rumbled the man beside her, hulking form shifting from neutral to violent. Looked like her stalling was over.
Rule number one: your own survival came before others'.
A sad sigh escaped from her lips.
They wouldn't know what hit them.
And with one last quiet breath released into the world, she dropped without a sound, pushing a solid kick into the face of a teenager wearing a bright yellow suit. His red hair dyed even richer as blood seeped into it after he smacked into the concrete.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, wasting only enough time to say the words before springing away on her hands. Her eyes slowly crawled away from the unmoving boy on the ground—hopefully he was knocked out cold, maybe she could get away with saying she thought she had killed him—to latch onto bright blue eyes set in the countenance of a young Superman. The teen was charging at her with fist pulled back for a punch. She would have snorted at the obvious intentions if the situation were any different; as it was though, if she did her job right that boy would be bleeding out on the ground in no time.
She paled, but never hesitated. He taught her what happened when she hesitated. Instead, she smoothly stepped out of the way of the bull-like teen just in time to get smashed in the face by an invisible force and thrown into the air.
She closed her eyes against the pain, focusing on it in an attempt to stop the spinning. She didn't want to fight them, let alone kill them, but she was given her orders and she couldn't refuse. Not anymore. Biting her lip ferociously, the girl forced back the self-pity bubbling in her chest and locked it down. She was but a weapon right now. If they didn't die, she did.
Snapping her eyes open, she quickly twisted mid-air to barely brush past another heavy swing of the miniature Superman's fist before her toes kissed the ground and she stumbled backwards. The girl barely had time to roll back and onto her feet when a distortion passed an inch from her nose.
Swaying for a moment before shaking her head, her eyes quickly took in her odds. A smoldering black haired teen with anger issues, black T-shirt with a red Superman logo: Superboy. A green skinned girl with freckles and red hair who shimmered into her vision, cape fluttering behind a white shirt with a red x: Miss Martian, niece of Martian Manhunter. A dark-skinned boy with pale blue eyes and close cut blonde hair, glowing black tattoos twirling down his arms: Aqualad, apprentice of Aquaman.
Then her eyes flickered to the ground. Kid Flash: down for the count.
"One down, four to… go… shit! Shit shit!" she cussed out, deflecting another heavy blow from Superboy before jumping backwards away from the follow up by Aqualad, water knives singing through the air. Where had the boy wonder gone? He definitely didn't have the profile to run from a fight, tricky deceptive fighting skills aside.
Her eyes scanned the rooftops of the crumbling and scummy high-rises about her, yet no shadow passed through her line of sight. Her handler had disappeared as well, and all she wanted to do was open her mouth to let loose another string of curses, but her tirade was cut off before it even began.
"Oof!" she grunted, flying back towards Superboy's fist as a lid of a nearby trachcan hovering in the air slammed into her back. With a narrow-eyed glare at Miss Martian, whose eyes were glowing ominously green, she hastily shifted to take the hit to her right shoulder before pirouetting into the angry teen's guard.
Latching onto his arm with both of hers, she planted her feet into the ground and focused all her attention to her limbs before flinging him over her shoulder and into a panicked green alien girl flying their way. The two slammed into a building wall, leaving a decently sized crater. With barely a flick of the wrist, two daggers flew in their direction, finding home with the slick sound of cutting flesh.
Don't flinch.
Hopefully that would be that with those two.
Don't. Flinch.
A tired frown found its way onto her face, a bit of sweat dripping from her hairline to get trapped into her headband, following its edges down the side of her face and to her jaw where the drop finally broke free and fell to the murky ground. Luckily the small confines of the alley had narrowed their attacking range. Coordinated assault was limited for them.
Now, though, she really needed to stop that last one before the stupid bird-
The hairs on the back of her neck standing on end was the only warning she received before sharp slash behind her tore into her shirt. She assumed the gift was from Aqualad's water blades.
Before she could recover, she was pulled by an invisible force to another punch of a not dead Superboy, this time connecting with her cheek as a loud crack resounded through the alley.
Spiraling towards the ground, unseen bindings wrapped around her body, holding her arms tight to her sides and preventing her from catching herself during the fall. Instead, momentum dragged her across the ground and through the garbage littering the concrete. Only when she stopped moving was there a reprieve. She could feel the blood seeping from the wound and the burn of road rash.
Well, they weren't as dead as she thought. She didn't know whether to feel frustrated or relieved.
"Aqualad! Kid is fine, he's just out for now!" The relief in the naïve Martian's voice poured into her own veins, burning away a certain degree of anxiety plaguing there. She hated herself for that anxiety and hated herself more for wishing it wasn't present.
The girl mumbled something intelligible against the protest of her most-likely broken jaw and released a sigh, squeezing her eyes shut.
"Good," Aqualad commented. The bound girl heard the light shuffling of footsteps and allowed a slit of light to enter her retinas. She could see dark-skinned feet, bare and dirty from battle. "Who are you and what was your purpose of attacking us?"
Muscles tensing, she focused on agony in her jaw, feeling the sensation intensifying into a shattering and burning pain. She didn't answer the young sidekick or hero or whatever they were calling themselves now. She couldn't, really, in her state.
"He asked you a question," the lower voice of Superboy threatened. Finally, the pain in her jaw subsided and she opened it and clapped it shut experimentally. It would do for now.
"Why should I tell you that, wannabe?"
"What was-!"
Her eyes narrowed into slits when the Kryptonian boy suddenly shut his mouth, choosing instead to glare at Miss Martian before crossing his arms and stalking away in anger. She switched her attention between the two aliens before catching the green one's gaze flicking to Aqualad for a meaningful second. Said Atlantean looked troubled for a moment before he sighed, shook his head, and turned back to her as Miss Martian smiled lightly and followed after her partner.
The confusion of the wordless exchange swirled in her groggy mind before her thoughts were broken into by Aqualad's voice though, face draining at his comment: "Robin is already tracking your partner; they will be apprehended soon and either you or they will speak."
Stupid stupid! She should have taken out the leader first, so they couldn't regroup or order the damned sidekick to possibly find him. If Robin found him, then the boy would definitely die a terrible death, not the swift one she was planning to give him.
Her handler wasn't known to be a nice guy.
She ignored the light glare from the Atlantean and the way his body crouched down to her level. She concentrated instead how his ice blue eyes searched her face with a sternness that promised consequence if she didn't answer and she wanted to laugh at it. No matter what they did to her, she was far beyond trained for it. He might think that she was shivering and quaking underneath his look, but no. She was shivering and quaking for his teammate.
"You need to let me out," she said solemnly, averting her eyes with a deep frown.
"And why, may I inquire, would I listen to you?" Aqualad asked coolly. She didn't need to look up to see his face morphed into one of disbelief. Apparently her side wasn't prone to asking for what they wanted, not that it surprised her in the least.
"Your teammate," she opened with, obviously getting the teen leader's attention, "he won't win against mine. Mine is cruel with the strength and skill to back it up." She paused, allowing the info to sink in before adding, "If you don't let me stop him, you won't see your little birdy again."
Obviously, if he let her go she wasn't planning on letting them see their teammate again either, but that was her prerogative. Besides, the young justice didn't heed the warning, instead scoffing with a confidence only someone who hadn't faced a stronger opponent by themselves with such sincere fear could have. But her handler was the master of fear.
"I trust Robin's skill. You will find him more than capable."
But no, he wasn't. And no, she wouldn't lay here with the knowledge that more suffering would be on her hands. She grinded her teeth in annoyed exasperation. They didn't know what she knew.
She was shimmying her shoulders in an attempt to escape Miss Martian's binding, but they held fast to her as if she were tied with rope. Her eyes brightened. With a long intake of air and a violent jerk, she dislocated her shoulder and quickly wormed out of the invisible bindings Miss Martian had tied her in.
Hastily, before Aqualad could attack her again, she dove at his feet, knocking him to the ground, and scrambled up to run. Jumping atop a dumpster and taking a few steps up the building wall, she latched onto the fire escape railing. With the barest of glances behind her, she shattered the window in front of her and leapt into the building, scampering off.
She'd come back for them later.
_B_R_E_A_K_
Now that Robin thought about it, while he was the better choice to send out in the case of fighting and experience, Kal should have sent Superboy or something. Someone who could better track a person in the deserted city around him, even if it was his home turf. There were truly too many areas in the Narrows that a shifty character could be hiding; he knew, he already found a couple.
Heat vision like the Kryptonian's definitely would have sped things up.
But with one of their team already out—his eyes narrowed at the memory of Wally on the ground, bleeding, but trusted the guy's thick skull to keep him safe—they couldn't afford to separate much. Besides, unless he was with Batman, he worked better alone.
A glint of gold flashed in his peripheries for barely a second, but his eyes honed in to the movement. It was the first possible sign of another adversary since he had left the group five minutes ago, and he was losing his patience. He was the supposed ninja, according to Wally, and should have been able to track down most of the villains out there with ease. After all, subtlety wasn't really their art. However, said tracking and defeating was proving to be more difficult than he thought.
He turned towards the sliver of light and entered the room as quietly as he could through the window, leaving the rooftops. As he made to sneak towards a door hanging open on barely solid hinges, Aqualad's voice burst into his mind, searing the words into his brain: "Robin, they're heading towards you!"
Then there was a slight whistle, one that could have been a light breeze passing by an open window.
In a show of his famed acrobatics, Robin sprung back onto his hands and twisted in the air, throwing a couple birdarangs towards where he was previously standing. The figure who had descended upon his position swatted them down and useless with their arm, the weapons landing in a worn out sofa to the side. Robin flinched when he heard no clang of metal upon contact to the limb, just the squelching of cut flesh.
"I can't allow you to go any further, Robin," said the figure in an apathetic voice. It was decidedly female, he deduced, and pretty rough as well, almost grating. How old was she?
"I don't suppose you'd let me through if I asked?" he said cheekily, fingering some smoke bombs at his belt. His smile was wide and toothy, prepared for some fun. Maybe he could finish this up before the others got there.
"If you did…" the voice came again, figure lowering into what he knew as a fighting stance. So, a close range fighter. He could deal with that. "If you did, I would have to say you were delusional."
She sprung towards him, a roundhouse kick towards his head, but he was quicker. Slamming a smoke bomb to the ground, he leapt up into the smoke and laughed, the sound echoing in the apartment. Robin watched as her shadow tensed in the smoke, but remained still.
"Delusional? Are you sure you don't mean lusional? Why can't I be lusional?" he joked mischievously, flinging more birdarangs at his enemy. Suddenly, her head turned towards his position and after quickly dodging his projectiles, she charged over to the room's corner with the intent of punching him. Only, he wasn't there. Instead, three beeping birdarangs sat snuggly in the wall.
She didn't have much of a chance to jump away before the explosion hit in a blast of hellfire and debris the apartment partially gone with the detonation.
Robin strode carefully out from the closet a couple feet over from where his recording played, a frown set on his face. It was the first time he truly saw who he was fighting, as the dark and smoke and speed of battle had distracted him otherwise, and the boy didn't really feel comfortable with what he had seen.
She appeared to be young, maybe even his age, though she was at least two inches taller. And while he knew it would come off hypocritically as he had been in the business since he was nine, Robin had trouble stomaching the idea that the villains had gotten their hands on someone so young.
A flash of a something dark in the smolder was his warning when the girl burst out, skintight black shirt singed and cargo pants torn to shreds. Instead of wearing a mask, everywhere from her cheeks up appeared to be darkened with black face, highlighting light grey eyes and pale skin. A long mane of wavy blonde hair trailed behind her and twisted in the momentum, only held back by a pseudo-helmet-headband that ran down to her jawline, baring her entire face. In fact, said face was scrunched in pain and what he thought appeared to be remorse, but that couldn't be right.
When she launched her punch, Robin grasped her shoulders to tumble over her and flank her, but instead was met with a dirtied shoe to the chin and he flew back and into a table, the wood cracking under the force. Robin watched warily as she completed her handspring, the punch only being a decoy.
So she knew some of his moves. Aww man, Batman was sure to kill him if he ever found out that they had figured out his moves. Robin pouted for a moment before a wide grin split his face. Well, if anything, this was sure to be interesting.
"Who are you? You're not too bad," Robin chuckled amicably, rubbing at a sore neck and doing a light stretch. He watched as the girl flinched back, shaken by his words for a moment. He watched the conflict flicker in her steel eyes. His own thoughts raced at her body language.
"I," she began, voice trembling for a moment, then it turned ice cold, "I have to end this here." Her entire body went on lockdown and Robin sighed. Well, he couldn't truly be upset, she was pretty fun to fight after all.
Regaining his bearings, Robin's cape fluttered behind him as he began his assault, twisting and jumping around several punches and kicks and elbows, landing a couple of blows on the stoic girl and flipping or twisting out of the way of hers. Little by little, the girl's brows lowered and lowered until nothing separated her eye brows other than an annoyed wrinkle. Robin almost snickered when she bit her lip, telegraphing a heel kick as a result. He did laugh when her boot flew past his nose.
The sudden sharpness of her gaze with an equally sharp smile should have given warning, yet Robin was completely caught off guard when her other leg soared through the air and smashed him in the pelvis.
The girl's grey eyes brightened in achievement, and for a moment while Robin was skidding backwards from the blow, he could have sworn she wanted to say something, cheer for her victory. But then her face hardened once again.
He blinked once, twice, and then Robin giggled, the sound bouncing against the walls of their battleground, and he could see the confusion in his opponent's eyes, even as her mouth turned down in a frown. The cheeky smile alit on his face spread wider, continuing when there was a furious red flush travelling up the girl's neck.
"This is fun," Robin chirped happily, whipping a foot to her face. And Robin wasn't lying. It was fun, though he also thought jumping across rooftops and beating up crazed clowns and aliens was fun.
The girl's eyes flashed as she grappled his leg mid-kick and pulled him off balance and towards her ready fist.
"I'm not here for fun," she spat out, her voice deep and growling, and Robin thought she looked pained. Smirking at her distraction, Robin twirled in her grip and kicked off her chest. As she stumbled back, he threw another two exploding birdarangs at her for good measure, destroying more of the building in the process.
Batman would definitely have his head for that, too. Lack of subtly would be a ten point deduction. Honestly though, at the moment Robin couldn't find it in himself to care all that much.
"Robin, approaching your position. Keep her distracted and we will neutralize her as a team."
Pouting, Robin nodded despite Aqualad being unable to see the gesture, but the boy was sure his teammate knew of his acquiescence. It was just how telepathy worked. So instead of slipping into another cranny unseen for another round of guerilla tactics, Robin stayed where he was, prepared to continue to play.
He got his wish when the blonde zipped from the cloud of debris and threw another punch at his face, instead just scraping by his ear. Her eyes were narrowed, but shining with life and determination and excitement.
When, to Robin's surprise, the arm that threw the missed punch wrapped around his neck in a tight hold, he swore he saw an upward lilt of her lips. He stumbled in pain against her knee, releasing a light grunt, before flipping away to build distance. Recovering into his stance, Robin's eyes widened when he realized: she was smiling!
He sent the girl a wide grin of his own and rolled away just as a torrent of electrified water encased her body.
With a yelp and a brief struggle, her eyes flickered to Robin, her mouth open in silent accusation. She looked betrayed, Robin grasped, as her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she fell limp. Her drenched body was carefully laid down on the ground by Aqualad, who had been standing behind her back with tattoos glowing. The water flowed back to him.
Robin opened his mouth to say something before snapping it shut in a guilty frown.
"Who is she, Robin?"
"Huh?" he answered intelligently. The masked boy wonder turned to his teammates, all of whom sent their searching gazes onto their enemy. Now that he looked closer, he could see the roots of her hair were an angry, vivacious red. Weird fashion choice, he supposed, but then again he was the one wearing a spandex suit.
"Honestly, I don't know," he replied, glancing back over to his friends. His frown deepened just a second before it transmuted in a bright smile when landing upon something canary yellow. "How was the nap, KF?" The boy wonder snickered at his best friend's comical look of betrayal, stumbling over his words instead of his feet for once.
Robin snickered again.
"I… I was caught off guard, Rob!" he wailed, looking towards Megan and Kaldur for backup. Only, the two heroes were both smiling mischievously, laughter in their eyes. Kid Flash's mouth dropped open in disbelief, turning to his last resort. "Superboy?"
Snorting, said boy had to fight to keep the smile off his face. He lost that battle when he saw Kid's face after saying in an attempt to appear nonchalant, "She must have hit you really hard to get through that skull of yours."
And then they were all laughing at Kid Flash's betrayed face, pouting and falling to his knees dramatically.
"Believe me, she hits hard," Robin quipped, rubbing his stomach with a flash of mischief in eyes.
Swiping a glance at the one who knocked him out, he took a double take. "Uh guys, isn't she kind of young to be in cahoots with villainous tyrants trying to take over the world?"
The laughing stopped and the rest of the Team's gaze followed his. The girl looked almost peaceful, if not for the occasional twitch of her muscles flowing with a jolt. Her face hadn't complete lost all its baby fat, leaving her with an almost cherubic visage if not for the dark red lipstick and darkly lined eyes. Robin remembered his thoughts during their altercation, thinking the same thing. She had to be around his age.
"We're young," murmured Kaldur, looking at Robin for a moment. Said boy frowned at the implication, but he knew it to be true. Instead of getting annoyed by the jab at his age, Robin decided to check out the girl they had caught for anything that might give him info.
"But we're heroes!" Kid said proudly, back on his feet and splaying his hands out towards all of the Team. Robin rolled his eyes at his friend's ignorance. For a genius, he could really overlook the stupidest things.
Apparently Superboy agreed with him, scoffing to counter, "And she's a villain." If it could go one way it could go both ways. The Superman clone bared his arm as if to prove his point. There were two deep gashes with blood freely flowing out of it. Megan hastily descended on the injury with a bunch of bandages.
Robin grimaced as he pushed the girl onto her back carefully. She had no identification on her outfit, which really didn't match most of the flair villains and heroes had in almost every case. She just wore a black long-sleeved shirt and cargo pants. The girl didn't even have a utility belt, a must have for someone who didn't have powers like him, but she had one empty dagger sheath on each hip. He even did a quick pat down to be thorough, but all her pant pockets were empty despite there being a multitude of them. He couldn't find any hidden compartments either.
It made him question, was she really the protégé of some evildoer? They knew better than to just send an operative without gear or powers. Surely they didn't underestimate their Team that much.
And that look she gave him before passing out. She had appeared as if she were accusing him of betraying her, yet she had attempted to murder his team.
Scowling and annoyed, Robin felt behind the unconscious girl's head to unlatch her headband, taking it off and throwing it behind him. He wiped his sleeve across the girl's face in an attempt to clear away the black face, but only mascara came away. The darkness still clung to her as if it were her skin. Whatever was painted on apparently stayed on well.
Vaguely he heard Wally yell out, "Cool, souvenir!"
Nothing was extremely special of telling on her face either.
"Well, what do we do with her now?" It was the first time Megan spoke up since arriving, catching Robin's attention. Glancing at Kaldur who was looking back at him, the black haired kid shrugged, standing up.
With another glimpse at the girl on the floor, Robin said, "Take her back to the cave I guess."
Kaldur nodded his assent, making it official. Looks like they were going to have a guest for a while.
"You know, she's kind of cute. Too bad she's with the baddies…" Wally rambled with his hands behind his neck. Flashing a peep at a chuckling Megan, he quickly amended, "Not that she has anything on you, gorgeous!"
Robin smiled at his best friend's antics, stepping away so someone else could pick the blonde girl up. However, as soon as he took his third step, a blinding flash tore at their retinas and a loud ringing replaced all other sense. The team collapsed to the ground, holding their heads in pain. Superboy roared.
Robin supposed it sucked sometimes to have super hearing and for the first time in a while he was glad to be a human with no powers.
Flinging his eyes open, Robin fought against the brightness to stand next to where the girl had laid not two seconds ago, but Kal was already there, staring at an empty floor.
As the effects of the flash bang wore off, Robin mumbled, "Well Aqualad, you were right about the partner thing."
_B_R_E_A_K_
Gasping, she came to with a nose full of smelling salts and a face full of dirty floorboards. Pushing away the gloved hand hovering, the girl could only be thankful the man hadn't thrown her into the harbor or something; it seemed a lot more likely.
"You lost."
She put all her will into holding back a flinch. Instead she clenched her teeth, idly noting the pain still nesting in her jaw. Pain that would be a bug bite compared to what he would do to her if she didn't play this carefully.
Maybe he hadn't flung her into the harbor simply because he had something worse for her after she vomited out worthless excuses. He could be sadistic like that.
"There were six of them," she stated blandly, struggling to get out from under her handler. Really, there was only just one that she could think about, though the girl hastily shoved the thoughts away. She felt too exposed, vulnerable, like her handler were know her every thought. His heavy hand held her shoulder to the floor with iron strength. She wasn't going anywhere until he was done, and his gaze told her that he still expected more. "Not only that, but they had a way a way communicating without words."
She paused, waiting for him to react. Surprise, shock, anything. But he didn't budge; he only stared nonchalantly into her defiant eyes.
"Either they worked out a code or the Martian girl has developed telepathy like her uncle," she iterated, wishing the man would just let go of her. He was crushing her clavicle with the pressure.
"The Martian has powers of telepathy, yes," he supplied and her face grew red with anger in seconds. She punched him, or at least attempted to. It was getting a little hard for her to breath with his death grip.
"You bastard," she seethed, vibrant red hair growing again from her skull. She ignored the pricking pain and the throbbing in her temples as her eyes watered. Hastily she blinked out the tears in an attempt to prove to the man they weren't tears shed crying, but rather of anger. The girl supposed the angry red irises that resulted would get the message across.
He had sent her into this skirmish so that she would lose! He hadn't expected her to succeed in the first place; how could she when she was outnumbered five-to-one and they could read each other's minds? That filthy ass was probably sitting there, watching her struggle, and chalking it up as a training exercise.
Well getting slashed in the back and breaking her jaw wasn't a training exercise!
And they still had a damned package to deliver!
"You should have assumed her powers matched those of her kin, maybe even more" was all he said in excuse, but she felt that didn't cut it. He definitely held it from her on purpose.
She knew in the back of her mind that he was sporting a crazed grin at her spitting. She must seem like an angry kitten to him, scratching and clawing but completely at his mercy. Probably turned him on in some fucked up way.
If he was smiling or feeling any of those things, it didn't translate into his tone when he ordered, "Report."
Still sneering at him, but giving up the struggle in favor of possibly saving her shoulder, she jeered, "I didn't see much of Kid Flash, but Aqualad and Robin pretty much matched our data, though the former appears to be the leader instead of the boy wonder." A pause and her anger melted into the background as consternation took over.
Fighting the little birdie had been… different. He made it easy to forget that she was supposed to kill him and pretty much convinced her to enjoy the blows, the adrenaline, the exhilaration of just moving and fighting. It was almost as if he was having fun and she was almost having fun with him. For a moment.
She shook her head of the thoughts and frowned, her mentor's gaze still hewing into her.
"Superman's clone… he doesn't appear to have the man's full strength and abilities," she continued slightly more subdued. With a snort she adds, "Though he does have some major anger. Maybe Cadmus messed up with the genetics? I could check out his DNA sequencing if you'd-"
"Why didn't you kill him." With this man it was always less of a question and more of an order or demand, something she personally hated, but that annoyance didn't stop her from freezing like a deer in headlights. Normally she would have yelled at whoever kept cutting her off, especially with the shit he pulled earlier, but her pride was a lot less important than her survival and with him yelling was a surefire way to get punished.
Yelling consisted of insubordination which only led to them having to bleed it out.
"We went over this already," she growled out, a soft hum of anger broiling in the back of her throat to mask her nerves. The man's grip loosened for just a second, the only sign of amusement he let through. Probably laughing at her attempt to come off as intimidating. She knew better than anyone she was at his mercy at any time. She also knew that she was the one who asked for that position. "There was no way I was gonna be able to kill any of them. I was outnumbered and most likely outclassed, I didn't even have any gear, let alone a warning!"
She knew her handler liked her fierceness and her biting tone. He liked how she fought back as if she had morals to abide to and as if she had a conscience unlike the rest of them. She was quick to retort and even quicker to anger, but that was something he nurtured almost, and she knew there was that slight sliver of fondness. However, she also knew how he liked to see her squirm and hated to be disobeyed.
She could tell none of that demented fondness was in his voice at his next words.
"I meant Kid Flash. You had the element of surprise and had him at your mercy from the beginning. Why didn't you kill him."
She stayed silent. She knew why she hadn't killed him; she had faltered. But telling that to him? Signing her death certificate.
"I ordered their deaths, yet you didn't follow it through," he iterated. When there was no answer, he sighed a gruff and sharp sigh before lecturing her a condescending voice, as if she were a child, "If you had killed one of them early on, their moral would have been ruined and their dynamics would fall through. They would be distracted and it would have been easier to take them apart."
It didn't matter that she wasn't meant to succeed. Orders were orders and defeat should have been a death.
She averted her eyes, finding the dusty floor extremely interesting. She just noticed that they were in another abandoned apartment, though a scruffy in the blanket told of a recent squatter. The needles told of a druggie. That was all it took for her to realize she was most likely still in the Narrows. It never took her long to wake up to the aches and pains.
Upon detecting that she was dodging his gaze, the man leaned more weight into her. The girl hissed as the shoulder she had previously dislocated and pushed back in to escape once again popped out of its socket.
"Understand?" He asked the question now in a sick version of giving her a choice, but she knew there really wasn't a choice at all. The second she agreed to be taken in and trained, that choice was ripped from her: obey. Simple as that.
She nodded hastily when she felt as if her bone was going to shatter. Only then did he get off her, laughing as she scrambled backwards. Her eyes narrowed into angry slits that eyed him warily as he approached.
As she roughly jammed the ball of arm back into its socket, he began to speak.
"Package was delivered successfully, the mission is finished," he uttered smugly, heavy combat boots thudding into the wooden floor. "We're to report back to Ra's al Gul tonight, so let's get going." His heavy glance passed over her face.
"Have a question, Stranger?"
He must have noticed the confusion sitting heavily upon her face, the way it scrunched in between her brows and nibbled on her lip. The girl hastily rectified this and her face went blank. She gave too much to this man and to his superiors. She had to protect as much of herself that she had left.
Seeing the transformation, the man smiled. Or at least she assumed so, his mask always blocked his entire face, leaving only a hole for one eye. Sportsman once told her that his wife shot it out of his head. Well, ex-wife now, she'd assumed. Kobra laughed at the story and said that his eye had been taken by none other than Batman, mortal flesh unable to withstand the assault and all.
But Kobra was bat-shit crazy and Sportsman simply untrustworthy to the nth degree.
She never had the guts to ask him what had actually happened, and he never offered it up to her. But just like she kept her questions to herself then, she kept her question about the mysterious package and to whom it was delivered to herself. Sometimes it was just better not to know.
"No questions here, Deathstroke," she murmured.
She knew he smirked by the crinkling of his one visible eye, and as he passed Deathstroke ruffled her long and messy hair in twisted affection. He knew that she hated to be touched by him.
"Good, now let's go Stranger. There's always more work to be done."
She growled low in her throat, but the man just chuckled at her before leaving through the window she guessed he broke on his way in. When he was out of sight, she paused just a moment, relishing in the loneliness that meant freedom. It was only then she realized her headband was gone, though the sadness quickly dissipated.
"I'm not Stranger," she rumbled to herself, before following him out into the streets.
Best not keep the beast waiting.
Thank you for reading! Koby out.
