This is a Revamped version of Blue Jay. There are many differences to the story line, although the main character does share the same name. You DO NOT NEED TO READ Blue Jay to understand this, neither do you need to read Blue Jay Journey. I've been working on fixing my problems with Blue Jay, but then I realized that it was basically a main plot point that had me, namely that, while Dick is a great older brother, he's just hard to write as a father.
Dick sat down next to me, and Bruce sat on the other side of me. We were watching a gymnastics not-meet (Dick had called it something special, but really he just meant it wasn't a competition) because Dick had volunteered to help couch them for this thing, and Wayne Enterprises was making a large contribution. Besides, Dick and Bruce were trying to 'repair their relationship'. Personally, I was just getting bored because none of the girls or guys at this things seemed like anything special.
Dick whispered, "Don't worry Jay, they're just saving the best for last."
I shrugged, wondering how impressive any of these kids would be to me, when I was Robin, the boy wonder, who could do more acrobatics in his sleep than these kids were doing, and I wasn't even close to being done with my acrobatics training.
It was winding down, and I still hadn't been impressed, when the last performer stepped up. She was wearing a huge smile, as if this was the best thing she could possibly be doing. Then the gun shot rang out. She looked shocked, even as she held a hand to her face. It had grazed her cheek, nothing more, but that just meant the shooter was either lucky or very good.
Bruce and Dick were already moving to intercept them, even as most of the people were panicking and running, so I ran towards the floor to check on the girl. She was young, very young. Maybe five or six at most, so the idea that she was the best gymnast there was sort of astounding, but I ignored that in favor of saving her life.
She looked scared, very scared, but she wasn't crying or even talking. That surprised me. Most little kids I knew wouldn't shut up. Maybe she couldn't talk. At the time, I was more worried about getting her to safety, which meant getting her into a dark corner to hide for the time being.
She flashed some sign language at me, and now I understood why Dick had made me learn it. I told her, responding to her question, "I'm Jason, and I'm trying to get you to safety, so that you won't get hurt again." She nodded at this, consenting to me lifting her up and getting her into the shadows of the arena. So she was most likely incapable of speech. At least that answered that question.
She started to sign something, but she couldn't figure out how. Eventually, she spelled out the question, "Who is fight the person do this?"
"Hopefully, Gotham's greatest heroes, but with my luck, its richest men," not that the richest man wasn't Gotham's greatest hero, but I was covering my bases for the secret ID thing.
She signed, these two she seemed to know quite well, as they were definitive, "You lie."
"Uh..." how do you respond to that without revealing your secret identity, easy, you do it and pretend like you're being sarcastic, "You're right, obviously the richest man in Gotham and its greatest hero are the same person."
She nodded, and I realized that understanding sarcasm greater than the one this girl seemed to have. Batman was going to kill me. More importantly, this girl was too smart for her own good, and definitely needed immediate evacuation.
Nightwing asked in my com, which I had put in when the trouble started, "Where are you Robin?"
Responding was dangerous, even if she didn't understand English.
"Do it," she told me, but oddly without ASL, while still getting the point across perfectly, and somehow, I wasn't entirely surprised she had figured out that I needed to do something.
I put my finger to my com, turning it on, and replied, "I've got the girl, since she seemed to be the primary target. We're hiding in the building, but I'll get her out if you can spot an opening for us."
"That might be hard as the entire League of Shadows seems to be converging on this location, including Deadshot, who was the one to shoot the kid," Nightwing told me.
That surprised me. What five-year old could be that important to the League of Shadows? Who was this girl?
She tilted her head to the side, her question clear.
"Just how those heroes are doing. We need to get out of here," I told her.
She tilted her head to the side again, clearly not entirely understanding.
I sighed, then tried again, figuring that maybe if I reworded it, it might work, "We have to leave."
Her head tilt went farther, and then her eyebrows furrowed.
I wanted to explain exactly what the League of Shadows was, but I got interrupted by some assassins. I shouted, "Just run!" Then, I went to do what I was trained against people that were probably better at fighting then I was, but might not be. Besides, I was Robin, killing me was against some type of code they had.
The first assassin ordered, "Give us the girl, and you will not be harmed."
"Not going to happen," I replied, preparing to fight.
The girl looked very confused, and she tilted her head to the side, surprisingly, the assassins seemed to understand she was asking a question.
The lot of them seemed shocked, so I figured it was as good a time as any to launch an offensive. After all, the kid obviously didn't know or belong to the assassins.
That is, I would have attacked them, if I wasn't preempted by someone else. This time, I noticed the girl shrinking back in fear, but not running. Why wouldn't she run? There had to be a good reason. She was relatively intelligent, so she had to be aware of the fact that people here were planning on taking her.
That was when the pair of assassins slipped up behind her. I moved to intercept them, but one of them held up her hands, telling me, "We will not harm her, nor shall we take her back. We merely wish to get her away from that thing."
Then they were doing just that, and I figured I'd roll with it, but make sure they were telling the truth, mainly because both of them seemed capable of killing me, and that was just what little they did to the other assassins in getting the girl to safety. They released her when they got outside, but then they both paused.
One turned to me and said, "Her name is Zara, and for you to protect her will save the world, to destroy her would be to destroy it. That is why we came back. Understand this Jason, and you will protect our time as well as your own." Then the other one kissed me, and they both disappeared. Apparently, they were from the future.
Zara looked about as shocked as I did.
"Any idea who those girls were?" I asked her.
She shook her head.
I replied, "Figures."
She tilted her head.
"I mean that it seems like something that would happen," I attempted to explain.
Her head tilted further.
"Because at least one of them seemed to like me, and therefore, she had to be from the future," I replied.
Her head tilted the other way, this time, the question was added to a face, one that clearly told me what exactly she was asking, "is that irony?" Although, it wasn't in so many words.
"Yeah," I told her.
She made a face, clearly telling me she didn't think it was funny.
"Never is," I replied.
She tilted her head to the side again. It was like she was using her body to communicate what she didn't know how to, which would explain a lot, like how she knew things without knowing everything. If she could project her body language like this, then she could doubtlessly read mine perfectly.
She nodded her agreement.
"Some people would be freaked out by that," I said.
She just shrugged, as if knowing I wasn't. This was going to be peachy.
Suddenly, Nightwing demanded, "Jason, are you and the girl alright?"
"We're fine," I reported, "Why?"
"There's a woman that just killed everyone else down there, and she seems to be looking for the girl. Get her home. We'll figure out the rest once we get there. B and I will try to stop the woman," Nightwing replied.
I told him, "Alright, I'll just do that." He probably forgot that I wouldn't turn sixteen for another seven months, but you know, he was a little busy. I did have the skills required. Alfred not grounding me until I was forty though required something else, therefore, I called the butler.
"Yes Master Jason?" he inquired.
I replied, "I need your help getting a girl to safety, preferably at the house."
"I will be there momentarily," which surprised me, since I knew Alfred had been at the house.
However, we walked about a block, and there he was, in one of the cars, the back door open. Zara and I hopped in the back.
Zara looked at me, her head tilted once more.
I told her, "this is Alfred."
"What is your name miss?" Alfred asked.
She used ASL, carefully spelling out the letters to me, and I told Alfred, "Her name is Zaraizabella," she added a couple of motions that I was getting better at interpreting, "but she prefers Zara." Zara was definitely a good nickname. How the girls from the future knew it was a great question. I had to figure out who they were, for more than one reason.
Alfred got us through town surprisingly swiftly, considering he was still following all traffic laws, but I ignored that in favor of doing some first aid on Zara's face. She didn't flinch, even when I got the salve on it that I knew had to sting. I was about to ask why when we pulled up to the house, and Zara got the awed expression that everyone seemed to the first time they saw the building.
I decided now wasn't the best time to ask a child that didn't speak English about an apparent immunity to pain, so I stuck a band-aid on her face, and decided to let Alfred worry about it when he actually patched her up.
Zara then looked at me, tilting her head to the side again, as if confused by the fact that I was treating her injury.
Alfred had gotten out of the car and was coming around to open the door, so I told her, "that should be fine until Alfred gets us inside."
Zara spelled out her question carefully, letting me get each word before carefully spelling the next, "People fix pain?"
Man, what do you do with that? Explain the whole health care is necessary thing and become a hypocrite, or tell her that most people get injuries treated, or what? Really, there was no safe way for me to answer that question except to say, "Yes."
Her eye brows furrowed, and somehow the way she did it made it seem like my answer was the craziest thing ever.
Alfred opened the door, and we both got out of the car.
Zara was looking at absolutely everything, and seemed just as stunned by it all as I would expect a girl her age to be.
If this goes on long enough, I will tell you who the two girls that fight like assassin are, but that's a long time in the future, which probably makes it awkward that one of them kissed Jason, but I liked it that way. I'm sure most of you have already correctly guessed who one of them is, but the other is a non-cannon character because I'm like that. After all, if you don't like OCs, there's a reason why this website has filters.
Anyway, I will post updates infrequently. If you've read my other stories, then you know I switch P.O.V.s a lot, but for this story every time I have a P.O.V. switch or a time jump I will start a new chapter that tells you whose point of view its in. Yes, Zara is way too smart for her age. That will be covered later. I promise. Unless, you know, this fizzles out like what happened to Blue Jay Journey. Don't worry though, I'm sure that sort of thing only happens every once and a while.
As a small warning, I may later include things having to do with Young Justice, even though I'm fairly sure current cannon for the comics is the Teen Titans for Dick.
A second warning, there will eventually be slashes that I support probably. I'll try to warn you.
-Zaraizabell
P.S. Reviews are greatly appreciated. Questions will be answered, unless I plan on revealing such things later, and then I'll still let you know. I might not respond to every compliment, but have some imaginary cheesecake and cookies for your trouble.