Legendary Scorpio

Chapter 1: A Powerful Enemy

Two months have passed since The Team rescued the Justice League from the control of the Light. Scorpio has been pretty unneeded lately, which was actually nicer than I thought it'd be. Five years of fighting crime and saving the city, the crime rate's been low, and the cops would handle the small crimes, catching pursejackers and the like, while the rest of the Justice League would fight the bigger villains. I loved it! Knowing the city's okay, it just feels good. Although, I do miss fighting, I don't mind it. I needed a break.

I helped Eric out with his witness protection problem, and we both got jobs right back at the Daily Planet. We were doing our typical jobs, until we got called up to Perry's office. "Nobody's ever gotten called up to Perry's office without it ever being good news." I looked at Eric with a concerned look on my face. "Don't be that way. It could be good." "Jake… I've been dead for four and a half years and you've been busy with Scorpio." The elevator dropped us off at Perry's floor. Eric and I walked into his office fully expecting a pink slip for the both of us. "Jake…" Eric started with a surprised look on his face. "And Eric…" I chimed in with equal surprise. "Yes. Are getting a promotion.

"Instead of correcting news lines, you'll be writing and reporting. Eric, you'll be a field reporter. Jake, you can write the headlines. You are both great employees here at the Planet, and an office just so happened to open up three floors below us. Looks like you'll have to fight over it." Perry finished with a chuckle. He lost me at promotion, but Eric snapped me out of it.

We eventually found ourselves three floors below Perry's office. I was carrying two boxes of our stuff after getting our desks up to the office. There was no need to fight, we agreed to share the office. "How is it that we get to work together on some awesome assignments?" Eric said after I set our stuff down on our desks. I made a hammock out of webbing for the two of us to lay down in. "This may be exciting, but you're working on mysterious museum robberies and I'm supposed to be looking for Scorpio." I said. My brain was hurting. "Dude… I got an idea." I looked right at him and cocked an eyebrow. "We set up a stakeout. First, we scope out the museums that got attacked, right?" I have him an understanding nod. "We ask around, building a pattern. We'll have to ask for your dad's help." "He and Martha are on vacation in Europe," I asked. "Won't be back til the end of next week." I hopped up in my hammock… and Eric pushed me right out of it. "Come on, Perry wants it done ASAP." "Oh come on, can't we relax first? Scorpio's retired." I whined and pouted. "Hey, when you work for a newspaper, you get deadlines. "Fine… let's go."

"So this is my plan: Perry wants a story on Scorpio, right?" I nodded. "And he also wants a story on those museum robberies." I nodded again. "Well, why don't we work together?" I looked at him. "Scorpio helps me out with the museum robberies." I was about to say something, until I saw Batman in the first museum. "Okay… I'll be back."

I ducked into an alley and crawled up a wall while changing into my costume and swung in. "Batman!" I called to him; he didn't even turn around and he called me over to him. "Hello Scorpio. Late again." I rolled my eyes. "Typical Batman." Eric walked up to me and got my attention. "Scorpio! Eric Murphy, Daily Planet." I crossed my arms. "Yeah, I've heard of you. I've read your little news stories." He gave me a look that said we should change the subject. "What's the Daily Planet want from me?" I had to feign innocence to keep up appearances. "My boss, Mr. Perry White, wanted me and my partner to ask some questions about these museum robberies." I looked at Batman. "And you've already collected evidence, right?" I scanned around, hoping to catch anything the World's Greatest Detective might've missed. "Go ahead and ask away, Mr. Murphy." Batman interrupted him and handed me an SD card. "Here," he said in his usual tone, quiet so nobody could hear him. "Everything I've collected is here. I came in early while the museum was closed and collected evidence." Well that just sucked the fun out of using my mask's new function.

Although, looking around anyway, I saw a pair of white flashes appear and disappear. I walked over and used my mask's infrared to track those footprints. "Picking anything up Scorpio?" Eric asked me. "Yeah… I'll be back…" I followed the footprints and walked outside to behind the museum. The person I saw in the museum gave me a slip of paper. "Wanna know more? Come to this address in 20 minutes. Come alone. Bring anyone else, or if we see anyone with you, we snap their necks." Next thing I know, he's gone. I catapulted myself up into the air and swung over to the address marked I the slip of paper.

"Glad you came, Scorpio." That same voice I heard suddenly appeared behind me and made me jump. "Alone as well. You are a true hero." Another female voice said. "How many of you are there?" I asked the woman. "Five. You can think of us as the Furious Five." Three other figures stepped out of the shadows, they were all wearing cloaks so I couldn't tell what they looked like. "You see… our boss doesn't like you. He's hired us to kill you." I gulped out of nervousness. "Oh don't worry, we're not monsters. We're not going to kill you… yet." A different voice came from behind me. "We'll give you a choice. Stop your little heroic act. Let us have free reign of the city. Get in our way, and we will kill you." My head buzzed, but I was too quick to react before I started feeling lightheaded and dizzy. Before I knew what was going on…

…I had woken up in my bed. "That's weird… if that was a weird dream, my head sure feels fuzzy." I looked to my alarm clock which showed 7:30. 'I don't even have to get to work for another hour.'

When I got to the office at the Planet, Eric ran up to me. "Dude! What happened to you? You disappear on me and Batman and we haven't heard from you since then." My eyes got wide. "That's not good!" Eric looked confused. "I had a dream where I was threatened by five people calling themselves the Furious Five." Eric made a mad dash to his computer and I jumped up on my hammock. "This is not good… the Furious Five is a group of insane martial artists. Their leader used to be a martial arts master who taught them the five animal styles of karate: crane, snake, praying mantis, monkey, and tiger…" His explanation was interrupted by the police scanner talking about someone using karate to terrorize downtown.

I ran to the stairs with Eric hot on my heels. Once we got inside the elevator, it was safe to talk. "Come on, man, don't do this. You don't know what you're up against." "Yes I do, Eric." I said sternly. We got to the top floor, so we had to run to the roof. "No, you actually don't. Even though you took karate when we were kids, you said it was too painful and quit after two weeks." Boy, do I regret quitting now. "Batman's usually the first on scene to anything. If he hadn't taken them out, it's up to me. I took my clothes off, revealing my costume, then stuck my mask on. "If my dream wasn't a dream and I woke up without my costume on inside my dad's place, then they know my secret." I walked over to the edge of the roof. "I'll be back real soon." I jumped off the roof swung over to downtown. When I got there, there were flipped over cars, police cars strewn all over the place, and unconscious people everywhere. "What's going on?"

The buzz in my head warned me to duck, and I ducked in time to avoid getting kicked in the head by one of those cloaked people from my dream. "Hey… you're the woman from my dream… how are you here?" I asked confused. "Oh… we are very real." She threw off her cloak and did some weird contortionist things with her body, getting slimmer, growing a tail, and turning her face into a snake. Besides not losing her limbs, she turned herself into a snake. "And very, very deadly." I just stood there, partly freaked out, partly grossed out, mostly confused. Before I could react, she wrapped herself around my body like a boa constrictor, then looked me right in the face. "You ever take biology, Scorpio?" I didn't say anything, I was too busy concentrating on not struggling. "When a boa constrictor wraps itself around its prey, then you better learn how to balance like a crane." She started putting the squeeze on me, and I could already feel the pressure on my chest. "Weight loss centers would love you." Was all I could get out until I noticed someone was driving a truck right towards us. I was able to turn around and put her into the path of the truck. "And weird karate women who can transform themselves into snakes should watch their surroundings!" She looked away, and was off guard for me to headbutt her. That loosened her grip enough for me to jump out of the way, and only she got hit.

I back flip jumped out of the way then somebody got out and ran to her. "What did you do?" It was really hard to breathe, but I saw hair all over the guys face along with stripes. "You're… you're one of them, aren't you?" "You killed her!" I looked her over with the x-ray setting, but it looks like she turned back into a human after she got hit. "She's okay. There's a hospital an hour away. You take her there now and she'll survive." He growled at me, but complied and drove over there with her.

"Eric… meet me on the roof of the Planet…" After who knows how long I've been swinging, I eventually made it back to the roof of the Daily Planet after calling Eric. My ribs were killing me, so I handed him my mask and he checked me out. "Yeah, let's get you to the hospital." He put my mask back on me then we got to the hospital in my street clothes.

The doctor came in an hour later with some X-Ray images. "Well Mr. Smith, you took quite a beating, but you managed to survive. The thing is, your injury isn't consistent with your claims." I gulped and managed to avoid answering. "Well, I don't want to freak you out about this anymore than you already are," I nodded as he said that. "Two of your ribs are slightly cracked and three are bruised, and you dislocated your shoulder." He got up and took my arm… "So I'll need to relocate it back into the joint. Now… you might feel a slight pinch." He pulled hard on my arm…

…and about a minute of trying not to scream later, my shoulder felt better. "Thanks doc." I said as he got up. "One more thing, I noticed you had a scar on your chest. You must be pretty strong, because it healed up real well underneath." I giggled nervously, and manage to avoid responding again. "Before I get your release papers, Mr. Smith, I hope you enjoy company, cause you'll have a roommate." I shrugged and said I didn't mind, so he brought my roommate in… which turned out to be the snake lady I encountered this morning. "Eric… you might want to leave." He looked at me with a curious look and I pointed to the back of my head. "Alright, I'll see you out in the hall."

The big guy looked at me with an angry look. "So… thank you… for helping me saving her." I started listening to music waiting for the doc to release me. "Hey!" That guy drowned out my music. "Can I help you?" "Yeah, you can give me your attention while I'm thanking for you for helping me save her." I looked at the snake lady then back at the guy. Then it hit me. "I have no idea what you're talking about sir, I just got jumped and needed to come here for help." "Don't play dumb with me Scorpio." I started feigning innocence at his assumption. "I can smell it on your scent," he got up close to me. "I can hear it in your voice. It's hard to say, but thank you for saving my sister." Whoa. "Nobody else knows." He grew fur and whiskers on his face and fangs in his mouth. "Get in our way again, and you will know my wrath." The doctor came in before I was able to give the tiger man my ultimatum and gave me my clearance papers and I rushed out of there with Eric.

"What was all that?" He asked me when we got back to our office. I was pacing back and forth and pretty much ignored his question. I went over to his computer since it was already on and looked up the five animal karate styles. "Jake, what're you looking up?" "After the scanner picked up the incident this afternoon, I got there in time to see a lady that could transform herself into a snake, then her 'brother' transformed into a tiger." I said to Eric. "Those were two of the five animal karate styles that you told me about this morning." The result was too general. "Try karate and transformations." I did what Eric suggested, but still it was too general. "Animal… karate… transformations…" I typed in. "Here we go!" I clicked on the first result.

"'About 3,000 years ago, mystics and magic were very prominent. One strong form was bestowing a cursed tattoo upon 5 people, and turning them into the karate animal of said tattoo. But it had to be an exact drawing passed down from generation to generation. Once applied, the tattoo can completely rewrite the person's personality.' That is scary." I said out loud. "What do we do?" Eric asked me. "Well one, don't get anymore tattoos Eric." "Well can't you get your Justice League friends to take care of them?" I shook my head. "They're taking care of all the big guys. I can't always go to them to bail me out. Batman taught me that. No, I'm taking care of this on my own." "You're retired though, man… you told me so yourself when you helped me with my problems. You almost died…" I simply stared at the computer monitor and put a hand over my chest. "I can't just let these guys do whatever they want. I have to stop them or who knows what they're gonna do."

Hello readers, Michael-Z here. I hope you had as much fun reading the first chapter of the second season of my fanfic as I had writing it. If you'd like to help out with original ideas, I'd be more than happy to write a chapter for it and to give you credit for it. If you want to write your own chapter, be my guest. I'd be happy to have guest writers. This season's gonna be more original than the first. What I did with the first is I would take different stories and edit them to where they fit for Jake's point of view, but if we can come up with original chapters, we can make this a good season. Happy writing!