AN: Hello there! So this story was originally posted in Portuguese and I translated everything all by myself, so I apologise for any grammar errors that might occur. I will try my best to revise and make sure that everything is right, but if you find something wrong just tell me :)
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Chapter 1 - Melissa & Kevin
The night was quiet and the sound of the police sirens was not heard at the moment. That was a good sign to the residents of Gotham City, for that meant they could walk the streets without being hit by accident - or not - by a bullet or end up being killed in an alley. Above the old buildings of that part of the town, a shadow passed quickly jumping from roof to roof, being partially seen by a few people passing by on the streets. Everyone whose eyes had got a glimpse of it already knew who that was, or at least they thought they knew.
The shadow only stopped when arriving at a building that was almost collapsing, an empty orphanage that had been sold and would be demolished soon. In an alley near it, two men could be seen talking and the shadow kept observing them from afar. One of them was wearing a red coat and a black cap while the other wore a leather jacket and held a suitcase, their faces could barely be seen in the darkness and from that angle, but at least they could still be heard by the mysterious shadow.
"Is this really going to work?" the red coat guy asked.
"I assure you it will. You don't have to pay for it, but we'll soon need your services in return." the other replied, opening the case and handing a syringe with a green liquid to the man.
"What kind of services?" he took the syringe, a bit suspicious.
"Just use the serum, pal. We'll contact you when the time comes and then we'll answer all of your questions." he turned his back to the red coat guy, ready to leave.
Unluckily for him, something sharp hit his hand hard, knocking the suitcase down, causing them to turn to the direction from which the projectile had come. The two were astonished to see the shadow come down from the building and land right in front of them.
"Fuck, it's the Batman!" the man wearing the leather jacket took a gun from his belt and pointed it at the shadow. Before he pulled the trigger, he saw that the person standing before him wasn't the Dark Knight.
"Batman is off tonight, but I think if I were you I'd prefer he was here instead of me." her voice was cold and determined, without a glint of nervousness or anxiety, even with a gun aimed at her face.
Now with the young woman's proximity, the man could see what she was wearing, even in the dark alley; A kind of black elastic mesh covered in rigid kevlar armor, a golden utility belt stuck to her waist and a mask similar to the one Batman wore. Her physiognomy denounced that she was a young woman, as well as her long black hair that feels down her shoulders and outside the upper part of the suit.
She realized the man was going to pull the trigger and dodged sideways fast so she was out of the aim of the gun, and then punched him in the stomach, watching him release the gun and grunt in pain. She hit his jaw using her elbow and shoved him face first into the wall so fast that he only felt the pain of the blows after a few seconds had passed.
"What have you been selling in my city, scum?" she asked, her tone aggressive and intimidating. The man didn't answer, he simply smirked and spat some blood from his mouth. "Answer or you'll never be able to speak again. And don't think I wouldn't break your jaw, I've already done worse."
Before he could respond to the menace, they both heard the other man gasp and when she turned around to look at him, she saw that he had just injected the syringe needle into his arm. She let the guy she was threatening go and approached the red coat one, watching as his face began to turn red and his whole body slowly starts to catch on fire. The thing was, the fire didn't seem to hurt him at all.
Batgirl was in shock for a moment but managed to get out of the way when the man threw a flurry of flames at her. That was a complete accident, she thought, there was no way he knew how to control his new metahuman powers, but the fire was even more dangerous when out of control.
After that, he tried to punch her, but the heroine blocked the blow using the kevlar plates on her right arm. A few seconds passed before she could feel it burn right through the material and onto her pale skin. The man continued to attack her and even with Batgirl's great fighting ability, he was able to hold her left arm and throw her against the wall with force. The armor no longer protected her, the heat level was absurd. If she didn't find a way out of there, she would burn to death in no time.
With some difficulty caused by the pain and the heat, she gritted her teeth and took a small capsule from her belt using her right hand. She threw it in his face and watched him cry in pain and despair as the liquid came out of it and froze him in a matter of seconds. The heroine had never needed liquid nitrogen in any of her missions and mentally thanked her father for insisting she has it on her belt.
Of course, she would never admit to him he was right about something, but she learned that he could give some good advice sometimes.
"Melissa…! " thinking of the devil. "Melissa, what happened? Where are you? " asked the low, irritated voice on the other end of the line of her radio in the mask.
She rolled her eyes at the realization that it was her father.
"Nothing happened, I'm in Downtown and I'm fine. I just wanted to get out a little and keep working on my investigation" she said, eyeing the burn mark on her left arm and wincing slightly at the pain. It could have been a lot worse, she thought.
"I told you not to leave the Batcave! There have been more attacks in the past few days… "
"I'm in the middle of something important right now and I'm not a child anymore for you to lecture me about shit I do!" she cut him off. "I'm going to Metropolis tomorrow since I couldn't find anything here and the rates of attacks are higher there. Don't try to stop me."
"Melissa Wayne, you are not…! " he tried to yell at her, but she turned off the radio before he could.
Batgirl heard the sound of sirens and stepped away from the frozen man, heading toward her motorcycle that was parked a few blocks away. This had already been the third time a normal person had gained powers from one second to another by only injecting that serum. It was not logical, nor understandable, since meta-human DNA was very difficult to be recreated and even harder to fit into an ordinary human DNA.
As if it wasn't already difficult enough to be the new Batgirl, Melissa still had to put up with Bruce - also known as her father - giving her moral lesson and saying that she was still too young to start a life as a vigilante, even though she had been doing this for the past four years. Mel knew he didn't want her or her sister to follow his path, but the choice had been hers, no one would change her mind.
Now she would investigate the events in one of the largest cities in the country, and she wouldn't do it on her own. At least not when she could use the help of an almost indestructible friend.
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Kevin opened the door of the classroom and walked out of it with his classmates. He went to his locker at the end of the corridor crowded with students, carrying five books pretending they were heavy, even if that wasn't even one-third of what he could actually carry in one hand. When he reached his locker, he opened its door a bit clumsy for being with so many books and began to put them inside of it bit by bit.
He couldn't wait for the winter break, and then for the end of his last year in school. He wanted to go back to live with his parents in Smallville as soon as possible, and also help his grandmother with the Kent farm. It had been a long time since he was getting tired of the big city, but could only leave when he finished his studies.
Once he was done putting his books in his locker, Kevin heard someone call him out and that person didn't sound happy
"Kevin!" the voice was familiar and hysterical, he already knew with whom he would be dealing with and just sighed, turning around and seeing a relatively tall girl with red hair and green eyes standing in front of him with both hands resting on her thin waist.
"Hey, Cat. What's up?"
"Don't you 'what's up' me, Kent! Where were you?! My cheerleader test was five minutes ago and because of you I couldn't concentrate and wasn't able to perform my special moves!" the redhead yelled, visibly frustrated. "You're my boyfriend, you needed to be there to support me. What could possibly be more important than your girlfriend?"
"I was in class and I couldn't miss it, but I can take you to dinner tonight if that makes you feel better," he said, sincerely trying to calm her down.
"I don't want your cheap apologies! I want you to stop being selfish and start thinking about me. I can't date a guy that only thinks about useless things like studying."
Catherine was a spoiled and arrogant girl, many people didn't understand how Kevin was able to be her boyfriend for so long. He, however, seemed to be the only one who saw her good side. Most of the time people would tell him to break things up already and go find someone who deserved his kindness, but he was too nice to even to do it and hurt the girl.
"Okay, I was wrong and I'm sorry. Just stop yelling, please." Kevin, as usual, was calm and patient.
After receiving some more complaints from his girlfriend, he heard a commotion at the end of the hallway using his super hearing and soon realizing it was a fight.
"Are you listening even to me?!" Catherine asked, noticing his distant gaze.
"There's a fight going on, I think it's Brad and that bunch of his troglodyte friends" he frowned slightly, walking down the corridor to where he had heard the voices and ignored the girl next comment.
"Who cares? I'm more important than a stupid fight!" she yelled as she followed him.
Well, he cared. He always did his best to stay out of fights, but whenever Brad started a fight, some innocent kid would go to the infirmary.
When Kev arrived, he could see three guys that were his age - one blonde and two brown - intimidating a boy holding a book in one hand and a skateboard with the other. The other students around them kept yelling for them to start the fight already.
"You think you can play hero, save a nerd and get out of it without a black eye, Kurt?" the blonde guy inquired in a not so friendly tone.
His eyes were full of rage and his fists were clenched, it was only a matter of time until he would punch the poor guy's soul out of him.
"Stop being an idiot, Brad, the guy didn't do anything!" Kurt was a bit shaky and Kevin could see that he was terrified, but was brave enough not to show it completely.
"Okay, that's enough for today's show," Kevin said, moving closer to them and looking around to the crowd of students. "I bet you all have better things to do, like going into class."
Some of the students followed his advice and left, but others kept pointing their cellphones at them and waiting for Kurt to be beaten. The other thing that Kevin has successfully accomplished was to take Brad's attention from the boy and turn it to himself.
"Ohh, so weak boy Kent has come to get some too," he mocked, laughing with his friends as he watched the dark-haired young man approach.
The comment would make anyone who knew Kev well enough laugh since they knew he has never been weak in any sort of way.
"I know you like to get attention by showing that you're stronger than everyone else, but you're not going to get it by beating someone who did nothing wrong," he said, keeping his voice cool.
"He pissed me off and I punch those who piss me off." the blonde stepped forward and came face to face with Kevin. "But I can be happy by punching you instead, country bumpkin."
Brad smirked and pushed Kevin back with all his strength. Even though he could stand to be in the middle of a hurricane with no problem, the Kent pretended to lose his balance and slammed his back into one of the lockers on the wall, careful not to make it break. He then saw Brad's fist almost hit his face and knew that if that happened Brad would break every bone in his hand and that wouldn't be pretty. Quickly and without much effort, he dodged to the side and avoided the blow.
Before the blonde could do anything else, someone came and took one of his hands. He was surprised to see that who did it was a small dark-haired girl with bluish-green eyes.
"This fight is over," she said coolly. Before waiting for an answer she twisted his wrist and pushed him to his knees, causing the guy to scream in pain.
"You crazy bitch! " he shouted, getting up and away from her as he massaged his aching wrist.
"You haven't seen anything yet," she replied, watching him flee with his friends as well as the other students that left disappointed because the actual fight didn't happen. "You could have crushed them like insects."
"I know I could, that's why I didn't," Kevin said, smiling at her. "It's good to see you again, Mel. How's Bruce?"
"Paranoid and annoying. And how's Super?" she referred to Kevin's father.
"He's fine. Finally convinced my mother to move to Smallville. I only study here because it's my senior year, but when I'm over I'll go to college there."
"You are wasting talent living a normal life when you could be a great superhero."
"It's not a total waste, I still help people who are in need, I just don't wear a cape or a mask like you do."
Melissa rolled her eyes slightly and gave him a small smile.
"Everyday superhero cliché. To become a firefighter and go help people who are not annoying teenagers, and then I'll stop insisting on the subject."
"I want to be a lawyer, actually." he chuckled when she frowned and sighed.
The Wayne was about to start to talk to him about what she came for when a foreign voice to her ears echoed through the corridor.
"Kevin Kent!" he automatically sighed when heard Catherine's angry voice once again and prayed she wouldn't say anything to Melissa since his Wayne friend was rather temperamental. "Who is she?"
"Melissa Wayne, my childhood friend," he stared at the red-haired girl with a look that was telling her to behave. "Melissa, this is my girlfriend Catherine Still."
"Did you hear him? Girlfriend, so take your eyes off him before I kick your ass!" Cat said with a glint of annoyance in her voice.
Melissa merely raised an eyebrow and looked at Kevin, who was kind of embarrassed with the whole situation.
"Kevin is like a brother to me, you can rest easy about it," Melissa replied. "Now if you excuse us, I need to talk to your boyfriend in private." with that, she placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled him out of the school without waiting for the redhead's response. "I don't like her," she said indifferently as they walked down the street.
"I'm sure you didn't come here to talk about my relationship with Catherine." Kevin put his hands in his pockets and looked at her. "Are you in trouble again or-?"
She suddenly stopped walking and he did the same.
"Normal human beings are being turned into meta-humans. There is a serum circulating throughout the country and I followed the smuggler's trail to Metropolis. The last time I faced one of them, I almost didn't make it out alive. I'm not dumb, I know I have no powers and if I face another one that is powerful enough I might die, so I need your help."
Kevin had heard of this serum but didn't know if it was true. He would always leave the "hero work" to his father and his cousin, but upon hearing that Melissa almost died he became worried. She has always been like his big sister, Kevin would never deny helping her or any friend in need.
"Well, you can count me in," he said with a smile on his lips. "Where do we start?"
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In Gotham City, a woman was sitting behind a large table while listening to her employee's report. They had to be very successful at spreading the serum all over the US until Batgirl started to investigate them and ruin most deliveries.
"Another dose of the serum wasted!" the woman yelled, and stood up, hitting the table hard with her clenched fists.
His face was still sore after being aggressively pressed against a wall by Batgirl, and he didn't want anything but to put a bullet inside the heroine's head right now.
"It was not my fault if Batgirl froze him!"
"Then keep an eye on her so she will not be a problem anymore," the woman ordered, her voice as cold as ice.
"Why not just kill her at once? Batman wouldn't even know we were the ones who did it, he's too busy with the Justice League-"
"No one is going to kill Melissa Wayne, she may be very useful to our cause in the future." she smiled devilishly, forgetting her anger for a moment when remembering her plan. "I want you to keep her distracted, take her focus away from us, and when the time is right we'll have an army of meta-humans so powerful that not even the Justice League will be able to defeat them."