Young Justice: Damnation
Arc One – Tigress
Chapter One – Wounded
There was a dream that kept returning to Artemis for months after the end of the Reach invasion—after Wally West had donned the Kid Flash uniform for the last time and given his life to save the world. This dream saw Artemis running after him, bow and arrow in hand, clearing the way for Wally as he took on increasingly overwhelming odds. The longer the dream went, the more hopeless the fight seemed, until finally, Artemis missed, or ran out of arrows, or snapped her string. The reason was always different, but the result was the same—Wally disintegrated before her eyes. She was powerless to save him. A clinical psychologist had told her it was textbook survivor's guilt, that it wasn't her fault.
Of course that psychologist was Harleen Quinzel, an Arkham Asylum therapist who had fallen head-over-heels in love with the Joker of all villains and transformed herself into the Joker's partner in crime, Harley Quinn. The fact that the villain's advice had made so much sense to Artemis had made her—undercover at the time—question her own mental stability. But eventually Artemis subconscious realized what her conscious mind had already known: it wasn't her fault. There was nothing she could have done differently that would have made Wally any less heroic or brave. And that that was what she had loved about him more than anything else.
It was about then she'd started dating again. Another sexy red-head began popping up in her dreams, and for the first time in a while, those dreams were pleasant.
BZZT BZZT BZZT!
The alarm clock jolted Artemis out of a pleasant scene. She rolled over beneath the silk sheets of the swanky apartment she usually shared with Kate and smacked at the clock to get it to shut up. She hadn't gotten nearly enough sleep, and felt sticky from the night patrol's sweat. Unlike her namesake big cat, this Tigress preferred to get clean in a shower.
"Six A.M.?" she breathed. "You've gotta be shitting me."
Bright light from the open bathroom cascaded in, stinging Artemis' eyes a bit and illuminating a black cape and cowl and long red wig draped over a hat rack by the dresser. A set of reinforced body armor with a deep crimson Bat insignia on the chest lay crumpled in the floor beside it. The shower was already occupied, damn it.
"Kate? Are you up already?" Artemis sat up in bed. "I hope you didn't sleep in your armor."
"Sorry, Arte. Can't hear you," Kate called from the bathroom.
A few moments of impatient waiting later, Kate Kane stepped out of the shower. Artemis felt a tingle start in her fingers and creep up her arms. Kate—Batwoman—was so damn beautiful. Her new sexy red-head, though different from Wally in so many ways. Gender not the least of which; but more, where Wally was science-minded, skeptical, and hard to convince of anything, Kate was borderline superstitious, Jewish by faith, and open to new ideas when it came to crime fighting—among other things.
She wore her hair very short, always dressed in fashionable clothes, and had skin so preternaturally pale that Artemis wondered if Kate were a vampire when they first met out-of-costume. Her alabaster-white skin was only interrupted by tattoos; one on her arm, a Green Beret symbol, and a vivid red and black nautical star across her upper back.
Kate pulled on a pair of gray briefs, the band of which stopped well below her navel. "I was just surprised you were already awake," Artemis said.
Kate pulled on a light T-shirt that matched the briefs and began applying deodorant.
"Already awake?" Kate chuckled. "I haven't even been to bed. Who could sleep after a night like that one."
"Well I could, for one." Artemis rubbed the back of her neck. She didn't remember taking a blow there, but it ached like she'd hurt it somehow.
"Sorry, Arte. If you want to stay in bed a bit longer," she said, kneeling down so they could see eye to eye, "then I think we could find a way to work off some of my adrenaline."
Artemis smiled sadly. "Sorry, babe. I have to meet Kaldur for a mission."
"Oh well. It can't be helped." Kate leaned into a kiss.
Artemis closed her eyes and reciprocated. The tingling from before now affected every inch of her skin.
When they finally broke off, Artemis sighed.
"I'll make it up to you later, babe. I promise."
A quick shower later, Artemis stood in a crowded Gotham subway car, gripping the pole as the tin can clacked along the tracks. Seeing the Team again was always nice on some level, but she'd sensed a bit of tension lately. None of them knew—as far as Artemis knew anyway—that Kate Kane was Batwoman. To them, Artemis dating outside the team was a potential security risk. Her identity as Tigress could be compromised and thus put the rest of the Team at risk.
Never mind that every supervillain worth their salt already knew who Tigress was.
The funny thing was, it was the Team who had set her up with Kate, in a sense. Artemis had met her during a drug-ring bust that Nightwing and Troia had organized—though Kate's presence there was not something Dick had planned. Batwoman had been pursuing the ring as part of her own investigation, and was more than a little pissed that Nightwing's operation had derailed her own.
Despite sharing a name and insignia, Batwoman was not really affiliated with Batman, and Dick had confessed (or perhaps lied) that he didn't even know who she was. Artemis, for her part, took Nightwing's remark as a challenge to figure it out—partly because even with the cowl, she could tell Kate was hot.
Artemis smiled. She had realized she was bisexual as a teenager, but never really had a chance to explore that side of herself because she and Wally had caught fire so young and managed to stay together despite all the danger and destruction they faced together—or perhaps because of it. The fact that the rest of the Team didn't approve of her new love life wasn't going to stop her.
When her stop came up, Artemis hopped off the train with her duffle bag, and made her way out of the subway and to a back alley. The alley wasn't far from where she had once lived with her mother, back in the early days of the Team, and it hadn't changed much. The only difference was an old out of order Soder Cola machine rusting in a back corner.
Or that's what it appeared to be. Artemis thumped a finger against the machine.
"Now what was the code again?" she muttered. "Oh right."
Artemis began tapping the drink buttons on the cola machine in a specific order, each of them not reacting, until finally the entire front of the machine popped off and slid to the side. Inside a concealed Zeta Tube rested. Artemis stepped into it and lightning sparked and flashed around her, the entire world warping until it was gone; a new scene began to resolve.
"Recognized: B-Zero-Seven, Tigress," chimed a familiar digitized voice.
Artemis stepped off the Zeta pad access ramp as her vision began to resolve.
"Hey guys I'm—"
In front of Artemis, eight other members of the team stood, staring at the Zeta tube. At the front was Beast Boy with his arms folded over his chest. Behind him stood Robin and Batgirl, with Spoiler by Barbara's side. Wonder Girl hovered over Robin resting an arm on his shoulder, while Bumblebee fluttered about beside them. At the back of the group, Conner and Megan stood, seeming more interested in their private telepathic conversation than Artemis' arrival.
Artemis had known them long enough to tell when they were doing that, even if she wasn't part of the link.
"…here," Artemis said flatly. "Why is everyone staring at the Zeta Tube?"
"You're late," said Beast Boy.
"And we were about to use it," Robin said, actually answering her question.
At the far end of the room, by the port hole that looked out onto what Artemis believed was the Great Barrier Reef, Aqualad stood, speaking into a communicator. Nightwing's sabbaticals from the team kept getting longer and longer. At this point Kaldur was more the leader than Dick was.
"I was patrolling until four in the morning," Artemis said. "Give me a break."
Beast Boy smirked. "No can do. In fact there was a bet on how late you'd be. Which reminds me."
Beast Boy extended a hand over to Batgirl. "Pay up, Babsy."
Batgirl smacked his hand aside, drawing a snicker from Spoiler.
"It's not a bet unless both parties agree to it," Batgirl said.
A rush of wind and a poke on her shoulder startled Artemis. She didn't even hveto see the red-and-yellow streak to know what was going on.
"Jesus, Bart!" she gasped.
"I bet she wasn't even on patrol. I bet she was just up all night with her wealthy new girlfriend. Did you pop the question yet? Don't let all that wealth slip out of your fingers, Artie!"
Bart was suddenly on the opposite side of her. "Kate Kane won't wait forever, especially since she's like twice your age."
Bart stumbled over Artemis' duffle bag.
"Crash!' he exclaimed. "Is this yours? It's at your feet of course it is. Let me take it to your room. Okay, done."
Bart had blasted into her room and back again before Artemis even knew he was gone, the bag vanishing from her sight in a red streak. Artemis sighed, waiting for Bart's customary flurry of pokes, and when it came on schedule, she flicked her hand out and caught Bart's wrist. Even with her superior strength, it was all she could do to thwart Bart's momentum, the friction making her hand uncomfortably hot.
"Ack!" Bart said. Finally still for a moment, Artemis grinned. It was amazing how Bart Allen, once Impulse, had grown into Wally's shoes as Kid Flash. It wasn't really a name that had suited Wally anymore anyway. "How do you do that?"
"Because your speed can't make up for the fact you're predictable," Artemis said. "It's a good thing you don't see the same supervillains every day or they'd figure out your patterns."
Artemis let his wrist go.
"And Kate is not twice my age. She's 28. I'm 22."
She cast a glance over at Conner and Megan. "We have other members of this team with a bigger age gap than that."
Conner looked at her crossly and red patches appeared on Megan's cheeks in imitation of human blushing.
Artemis made her way over to Aqualad as Beta Squad—Beast Boy, Bumblebee, Superboy, and Kid Flash—entered the Zeta Tube.
"So what's my mission, Kaldur?"
Aqualad sighed and gave an exasperated glare at the reflection in the submarine's window that Artemis sensed wasn't directed at her so much as things beyond either of their control. "Your briefing is a bit more sensitive. You'll be briefed in your room."
Artemis studied Aqualad's face. At 25 the Atlantean seemed to have hardly aged since she'd met him, but his face was so changed by the scar. An underling of Black Manta, stinging from the Aqualad's infiltration and blaming him for Black Manta falling out of favor with Savage and the Light, had sought revenge on Kaldur. She hadn't managed to kill him, but her blade had taken Kaldur's left eye. Now in its place rested a mystic replacement conjured by Tempest, a shimmering water-sphere that gave Kaldur his depth perception back.
"You're upset," said Artemis. "Is it because today marks two years since you 'killed' me?"
Aqualad's natural eye widened. "Actually I had forgotten that grim anniversary."
"Then what's wrong?" Artemis rested a hand on Kaldur's shoulder.
"Now isn't the time," he said. "I can't divide my focus when we have four squads on a simultaneous mission."
Artemis nodded and moved towards her room. Kaldur had changed too much. His face may have looked the same, eye notwithstanding, but seven years battling the Light came with plenty of other sorts of scars.
"She's not wrong, Kaldur." Miss Martian hovered near Aqualad. "I'm not prying into your thoughts, but it doesn't take a psychic to sense how on-edge you are. Is this about Nightwing?"
"It can wait," Kaldur said, pressing the button to reprogram the Zeta Tube coordinates to the orbital hangar where Megan's bioship rested. After the fall of Mount Justice, a single base always seemed too vulnerable. That was the reason their current headquarters was a repurposed sub from Black Manta's fleet: mobility.
"Just because it can wait doesn't mean it should. We don't have to hash it all out now, but just say what's on your mind." Megan landed beside him. "Confessing it is the first step to dealing with it."
Aqualad exhaled, finishing the coordinates for the bioship hangar and turning on the tube with the smash of his fist. He'd thumped the button harder than he'd meant to and hoped it didn't break.
"Artemis and Dick were the two closest people on this team to Wally," he said. "His girlfriend and his best friend. And they're the two that keep taking on these dangerous undercover missions, who keep risking their necks without the rest of the Team to back them up."
"I think that's just their way of coping," Megan said. "Wally's death hit us all hard, but they—"
"They're not coping, M'gann." Aqualad turned to her. "They're avoiding us. They want to stay on the Team without really being part of the Team. If being around us is too painful for them…"
Miss Martian nodded. "We have to let them work through their grief at their own pace, Kal. You were so devastated when Tula died that many of your best friends believed that you'd honestly given up the fight and joined your father. Maybe it will just take Artemis and Dick longer to work through their pain than it took you."
"Perhaps," said Kaldur, frowning. "I just hope it doesn't get them killed in the process."
Artemis opened the bulkhead that lead to her room, lamenting how Spartan it was compared to the personal touch of her old room at Mount Justice, or the opulence of Kate Kane's penthouse. She had little time for this, however, when she noticed that next to the red duffle that Kid Flash had deposited, a figure clad in black sat on her bed, a blue chevron striped across his chest.
"Nightwing?" Artemis said, smiling and struggling to stay mad at him. "Oh my god. It's been forever, Dick. You dick."
"Just since September," he said. "Oolong Island."
"That was six months ago. You've been so busy with Bludhaven, college, whatever else it is you do." Artemis sat down. "And no wonder Aqualad was in a bad mood if you're briefing me."
"He did approve this mission," Nightwing said. He handed her a manila folder with 'For Artemis' scribbled across the front of it in his handwriting. "But it will take you off the table for a while once it gets properly started."
Artemis looked up at him. "How far off the table. You know I'm seeing someone right?"
Dick grimaced. "If I tell you, you'll want out before you even know what the mission is."
"Fuck you," Artemis said, only half playfully. She extended her hand. "Lemme see the folder."
Dick handed it to her and Artemis thumbed through the contents. Police documents revolving around missing persons cases made up the bulk of the folder. Human trafficking or serial murder suspected; both options made her skin crawl. It didn't help that sometimes she still felt as though Spoiler were judging her for helping the Reach kidnap her, even if it was for the purpose of rescuing all the missing teens.
"How on Earth did you get this stuff, Dick? You have some dirt on Batgirl's dad?"
"Of course not. Jim Gordon is a good cop." Dick stood up and pulled what Artemis took to be a wallet from one of his belt pouches. "And now so am I."
Nightwing flipped open the leather fold to reveal a badge and a Bludhaven police department identification card.
Officer Richard John Grayson, it read. Metacrimes Division
"You're a cop?" said Artemis. "No way."
"Way." Dick sat back down. "Of course giving you all this stuff was technically illegal so keep it on the down low. I just got this job in December."
"Who would I tell anyway?" Artemis said absently. Then, something in the folder caught her eye: not another police report but a newspaper article by Lois Lane.
G. GORDON GODFATHER? The former political pundit's not-so-charitable philanthropy.
"G. Gordon Godfrey?" Artemis said. "What does that washed-up old bastard have to do with metacrime?"
Artemis remembered just two years ago when Godfrey was at the height of his popularity, disparaging Superman and the Martian race while talking up the 'peaceful' Reach invaders who were anything but. Even though Godfrey had turned on them when they revealed their fleet in their attack on War World, it didn't take long before the embarrassment over his earlier remarks on the Reach and an aggressive campaign against his advertisers led by Wayne Enterprises had put him out of a job on TV.
This article by Lois Lane was pursuing him even further: tracking donations to charities with poor reputations, his support for an ethically dubious pro-wrestling promotion, and even possible ties to metacriminal rehabilitation center that had eventually been revealed to be a scam founded by Hugo Strange prior to his coup at Belle Reve.
"If he had ties to super-crime," Nightwing observed, "then it would make his hostility the Justice League a lot more understandable. And mean he was working in the Light's favor, if not actually for them."
"And you think he has something to do with all these missing person cases?" Artemis thumbed through them again. There wasn't much in common between them; race, sex, and religion varied all over the place. The connecting tissue was minimal. They were all fairly young, between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, and they all lived in the general vicinity of a major east coast city: Gotham, Metropolis, New York, Boston.
"The common thread is something not noted in the police files," Nightwing said. He pulled a slip from the back of the folder out and held it up to Artemis' face. "All of the disappearances occurred shortly before or after an event."
The sheet displayed a shirtless strong man in a fanciful mask, cotton candy blue and pink. A logo with gold and silver text read: GLORIOUS GODZ Professional Wrestling. Presenting our East Coast Extravaganza 2018.
Dates and cities followed, promises of a spectacle and wonder.
"Pro-wrestling?" Artemis laughed. "Really?"
"How much do you know about it?"
"Well I know it's fake, for one," Artemis said. "It has a reputation for shadiness, like pumping wrestlers full of steroids and not taking enough safety precautions. Never heard about it being linked with super-crime though."
"Fake is an interesting word," Dick said. "It's fixed of course. It's like a big soap opera about combat sports, but it's performed live. No wires, no stunt doubles. But I think you'd get a chilly response if you used the word 'fake' within earshot of someone who just took a bad tumble off the top rope."
"Okay," Artemis said. "I can respect that. I know what it's like to take a blow. I guess I'm surprised you know much about it. It always seemed like a lot of macho bullshit to me."
"It can be," said Dick. "As for knowing about it, pro wrestling got started in traveling carnivals and circuses. There's sort of a shared DNA there. Mr. Haly had a lot of stories about when his father ran the circus."
"So if you know that much about it, then why aren't you the one doing this?" Artemis handed the folder back to him. She thought of Kate and the cost of an undercover mission on their relationship. It would be difficult, especially depending on how deep the cover would have to be and how long it would take.
"I have a job now. I'm investigating other leads, not to mention extra-curriculars. Plus, you're good at it." Nightwing stood up. "If you want to take some time to talk it over with Kate, or anyone else, then that's okay. But I need an answer soon."
"Tell my girlfriend that I'm doing secret undercover superhero work?" Artemis scowled.
"Ah, see that's what I mean. You almost fooled me with that," Nightwing smiled. "But I kind of figured out that Kate Kane was Batwoman when you started dating her. Red-heads in spandex is kind of your weakness."
Artemis thought about muttering that it wasn't spandex, but given that Dick had seen Batwoman take several mobster's bullets to the chest without flinching, she figured he knew that.
Belle Reve looked even gloomier than usual as the cold March rain poured down around the prison. M'gann began to wonder if criminals really were a superstitious and cowardly lot; the storm itself, its turns and crescendos, its thunderclaps, sent psychic pangs of jitteriness and paranoia through the compound. M'gann was in the unfortunate position of having to intercept them. There had been a threat delivered to the prison that morning regarding the cell of an inmate there: Arthur Brown, also known as the Cluemaster.
He happened to be Spoiler's father. That's why Spoiler was on Alpha Squad today, along with Miss Martian, Robin, and Batgirl. Spoiler's costume covered her head-to-toe, a black helmet and faceplate hiding her blond hair and blue eyes, and a bulky violet shaded cloak (Spoiler called it 'eggplant') hid her frame. There was little chance, rationally speaking, that Cluemaster would recognize his daughter in her superhero costume, yet Stephanie Brown's mind was still fluttering with a buzzing anxiety. This would be the first time she was anywhere near her father since his arrest.
But Spoiler needed to be there because short of a forcible mind-probe—not somewhere M'gann wanted to go if she could help it—Stephanie was the best qualified to gauge her father, tell when he was lying, when he was playing word games, and when he was dropping clues. Like a third-rate knockoff of the Riddler, Arthur Brown felt compelled to leave clues to his crimes, though rarely with the wit or dramatic flair of Edward Nigma. It wasn't a coincidence that Brown's crimes had never gotten him enough credibility to work with the Light.
Which is what made the nature of the threat so perplexing: a bomb threat sent simultaneously via snail-mail and email, naming nobody as a target, just Brown's cell number. And included to back it up, a sliver of weapons-grade Kryptonite. No small timer or prankster would have access to munitions like that.
Alpha Squad approached the questioning room, the two guards outside awaited alongside Amanda Waller, temporarily reinstated as the warden after Hugo Strange was revealed to be a conspirator. Though she was now national security director for President Suarez, Waller kept a close eye on the prison and the new Warden, Cameron Chase.
"Secretary Waller," M'gann said diplomatically. "I didn't expect to see you here today."
"This facility holds some of the most dangerous criminals in the United States," said Waller. In the years since the breakout attempt thwarted by M'gann and Conner, her thick Louisana accent had faded to the edge of perceptibility. "The President insisted that I oversee every step of dealing with this threat."
"Has Cluemaster said anything?" asked Robin. "Does he know who sent the threat?"
"Inmate Brown," Waller corrected. "He claims to have no idea. Suggested the sender wrote the wrong cell number down. Then he thought a moment and blamed his wife."
A grunt that M'gann wasn't sure signaled amusement, outrage, or some mixture of the two escaped from behind Spoiler's faceplate.
Stephanie, he's just taunting them, said M'gann to her through the Link.
I know, Spoiler responded. Still, where does he get off to blame my mom for it? Bastard.
"We'd like to speak with him," M'gann said. "But I don't want him to know there's a telepath present or he may be more guarded with his thoughts. Would it be… acceptable for me to assume another form?"
"If you're worried about his civil rights," said Waller, "then I'll have you know his rights end where the integrity of this facility begins. I'll not have a repeat of seven years ago."
Man, I don't like this lady, Stephanie said. Even if my dad's an asshole.
Tell me about it, echoed Batgirl. Batman isn't too fond of her either
M'gann took it that Waller was done talking and began shifting her density and appearance until she resembled a prison guard—Caucasian and nondescript, someone Brown would likely pay no notice. When they had the go-ahead, M'gann allowed Robin and Batgirl to take the point, while she assumed the guard's typical position in the corner. Spoiler waited outside the room, listening in on the conversation telepathically.
"So could Batman not take time off his busy schedule to come interrogate me himself?" Cluemaster laughed. "Sending his lackeys out for the legwork. Well I'll tell you the same thing I told Chase and Waller and every other god-forsaken stiff in this prison: I've got no idea who sent the threat, and don't know anybody but my idiot-and-soon-to-be-ex-wife who'd even want to do me in."
Fuck you, dad. Stephanie thought.
"I don't think Crystal Brown has access to Kryptonite," said Batgirl. She leaned forward placing her gloved hands down on the table. Arthur Brown was not a particularly handsome man, and his eyes betrayed a sort of cruelty and desperation, but his jaw and face were set in a way that it gave him a bit of roguish charm. He was easy with a smile and a joke, which may have explained how a nurse like Crystal Brown had fallen in with a sleazy crook like Arthur.
Cluemaster shrugged. "You'd be surprised what you can find on Cragislist these days."
"Robin," said Batgirl. "Are you sure this is the Cluemaster? Because he's sure as hell acting like the Joker."
"The Joker is occasionally funny," said Robin.
Cluemaster at back in his chair, the chain of his shackles clanking as it fell from the table.
"So we can both agree this farce isn't funny," Cluemsaster said. "Think, Boy Wonder. Why would I be in on a plan to blow up my own cell? You think I want to be pasted or irradiated? Maybe talk to that Hungarian jerk in the cell next to me. You think a former Count don't have the clout to arrange a bomb?"
"Hungarian?" Robin said. "Wait, does he mean—"
"Count Vertigo," Batgirl confirmed. "He's been held here since his diplomatic immunity was revoked because Vlatava refused to extradite him."
"I swear you made that country up," Cluemaster said.
M'gann reached out with her empathic senses, finding the mental pattern of Vertigo elsewhere in the building. She found him in his cell… asleep. She didn't buy it. After years of failed appeals, Vertigo's lawyer had successfully argued insanity. He would soon be transferred to an asylum for the criminally insane in Opal City, where he'd have a much better chance of escaping than Belle Reve.
I don't think he's lying about this, Spoiler said. He couldn't maintain a poker face like this to save his life. He's only this cool when he's telling the truth.
M'gann skimmed his surface thoughts, but realized he was only having fantasies of leaping across the table and attacking Batgirl and Robin. She retreated a moment. Filling one's mind with images the psychic would find unpleasant was a technique some people used to resist psychic interrogation, but Arthur was not supposed to know that M'gann was in the room. The attack wasn't particularly gruesome, not enough to disturb her really. Probably it was just Cluemaster trying to work out his anger. Probably.
What if we have this wrong? Batgirl thought after a moment. This may not be about killing anyone or assisting an escape. What if this is a distraction?
But what for? Robin said.
Smuggle something into the prison? Spoiler offered. The prison is on orange alert. What changes when that happens?
"Oh no," said Batgirl, out loud, with sudden realization. Before she gave away the psychic link, she grabbed Robin's arm. "What if getting Brown out of his cell was the plan all along?"
"Of course," Tim said. Then, he added mentally. Actually I'm not following.
Batgirl stood and glanced to Megan and then to the real guard on the other end of the room. "We're done here."
The three filed out and made their way into the observation room, where Waller and Chase awaited them. Whereas Waller was aptly nicknamed The Wall, a huge imposing middle-aged woman, Cameron Chase was her opposite in every way. A slight and disarmingly pretty blonde, Chase somehow managed to be nearly as imposing as Waller in spite of the huge difference in stature.
Chase stood as the four entered the room. Waller gave M'gann a nod and the Martian shifted back into her default Miss Martian form. Chase grimaced upon seeing M'gann shapeshift.
"I didn't know you'd invited an alien in here, Waller," said Chase.
Waller smirked. "This alien helped prevent the attempted breakout seven years ago, Warden Chase. If not for her there might not be a Belle Reve anymore."
Chase sighed. "Noted. Now what was this revelation you had in the interrogation room, Batgirl?"
M'gann stepped forward. "It was Spoiler's idea, actually, Warden Chase. Batgirl was covering for us to not expose our telepathic conversation to the Cluemaster."
"Spoiler suggested that this might simply be an excuse to get something in to prison," Batgirl interjected, "And then I remembered something from a case file. Six months ago we were investigating the disappearance of a metahuman, Todd Rice."
"I'm familiar with the Oolong Island incident," Chase said. "Some of the supercriminals involved in that disaster have cells waiting for them here once the extradition is complete. Todd Rice, also known as Obsidian was once a member of Infinity Inc—until he allegedly went insane and attempted to kill his father, Alan Scott."
"That name sounds familiar," said Spoiler.
"The original Green Lantern," Robin said. "His power ring was damaged when he found it and affected his physiology. And consequently, his kids inherited some strange quirks."
"What does any of this have to do with the bomb threat or Cluemaster?" Chase said. "Todd Rice was killed on Oolong Island was he not?
"Traces of Rice's DNA was found in one of the destroyed labs," Batgirl said, "his body was never recovered. Warden Chase, remind me what standard procedure in the event of a bomb threat is?"
"A sweep with bomb sniffing dogs. Spectroanalyis looking for radiation or chemical traces…" Chase blinked. "Which requires minimal electromagnetic interference including the damned lights. Son of a bitch."
Waller stood up. "Obsidian could be in any dark corner of this prison. Assuming you're right, how would we even search for someone like that?"
"I could scan telepathically," Miss Martian said. "But Obsidian's abilities would make it easy to hide from that. The only way to be sure would be to have a Green Lantern scan the facility."
Waller swore and turned to Chase. "Warden, I would suggest you contact the Justice League immediately."
"So how long would you be gone?"
Artemis eyes went from blurry, hazily looking toward a bright speck on the ceiling, to focusing on Kate's chin and lips as she talked. Artemis' head rested on Kate's lap, a porcelain-colored trio of fingers combing through Artemis' hair.
"What?" said Artemis. "I was thinking."
"How long would this one be, Arte?" Kate's other hand moved to lift Artemis' off the bed, squeeze it tightly as if clinging to a damsel just tossed from a bridge, as if she were afraid to let go. "I don't want to be clingy. I know the mission comes first—"
"Kate—"
But she ignored the interruption.
"I just mean we've got a good thing going here, and going into deep cover means you won't even be able to contact me. Unless you're infiltrating the dumbest bunch of criminals on the planet."
"You think you'll lose me because that's how Renee and you grew apart?" Artemis only knew what Kate had told her of the former GCPD detective Renee Montoya, but it was partly the periods of separation required by Renee's job that had done their romance in.
"I guess. I just don't want to repeat that part of my life. Or the drunken stupor that came after it."
Artemis rolled her eyes, flipped over, and kissed her way up from Kate's exposed belly, just above the single button in the middle of her vest, then to her chin, then her lips, staying locked in the kiss until Kate reciprocated.
"Katherine Rebecca Kane," she said in a low voice. "You're not going to lose me just because I go undercover for a bit. I won't even be in deep cover for a week or so yet, and Nightwing said the actual incommunicado part won't take long."
"He actually said that?" Kate said. "Or was he just being optimistic?"
"'She won't even miss you, Tigress'. That's what he said."
"I can already tell he's lying," Kate said leaning back and pulling Artemis down with her until the archer pinned the heiress to be bed, the space between their bodies heating up. "Or he doesn't know me very well."
Artemis had trained in a lot of things over the years: archery, hand-to-hand combat, espionage and stealth. She'd studied acting under Batman's butler and Atlantean language at university. Training in professional wrestling though, that was something she never imagined she'd have to do. She took enough bumps—not to mention cuts, abrasions, bone breaks, and the odd bullet wound—from real supervillains to ever really consider letting some oiled-up Hulk Hogan or Total Diva throw her around. But this was where Nightwing's investigation was taking him, so this was where she was going.
The drive from Gotham City to Hoboken was surprisingly traffic-free, possibly because nobody in their right mind would want to travel to either city if they could avoid it. Tucked away in a cul-de-sac a few roads off Main Street, an unassuming brownstone building bore a sign with a stylized WWA logo, below it reading Williams Wrestling Academy.
She saw Dick's motorcycle parked out front and pulled her own car up beside it, carrying her things including the falsified identification that Nightwing had provided her. Artemis Crock who? She was Tegan Lee, twenty-four, from Napa, California, raised by a single mother (half true), father dead (she wished), no siblings. Moved to Bludhaven a few years ago for University and was now on the police force.
Artemis had taken a lot of care to memorize the details of her cover identity, so it would be a shame to accidentally show the damn wrestling school her real driver's license. She moved through the door, the old building hitting her with a musty smell tinged with gym sweat. The large room off to the side housed two wrestling rings but no people, while an office at the far end was open, Nightwing sitting in plainclothes talking to someone Artemis couldn't see.
As she moved to the office, she passed by a rather large poster on the wall from an old wrestling event.
"BATMAN vs THE NATURE BOY" the poster read.
Batman? It certainly wasn't the Justice League's dour grimacer, crusading caped guy, mentor of Nightwing. The man in the picture was dressed in a huge furry bat-costume, complete with a horrific headpiece that could not have been easy to see out of. Though the poster was in black and white, it also appeared that the man in the costume was African American.
"Lee!" came the voice of Nightwing. "Stay whelmed and get in here."
Artemis broke her gaze off from the poster and moved into the office.
"I'm here, Grayson," she said as she crossed the threshold. "What's the deal with that poster out there with the big goofy Batman costume?"
"That would be me."
The voice came from the man at the desk: a huge, muscular black guy who even in a buttoned-up dress shirt seemed more than capable of pile-driving a guy into the canvas. He was a bit aged now, but the grin on his face was familiar. The man in the poster.
"Oh! I'm sorry," said Artemis. "You are?"
"Geezus, how well did Officer Grayson explain things to you?" the man said. "I'm Wayne Williams, the owner of this fine school. I'm going to be your trainer on this pro-wrestling crash course."
"Like I mentioned before," said Nightwing. "Officer Lee has the physical conditioning down already, and she's a hell of a fighter. I'm sure she could kick your ass, in fact."
"Are you now?" Williams laughed. "Well I've had my ass kicked enough by smaller guys than me to know it's not worth testing that theory. But if she doesn't even know about the Great Batman then I'm not sure I can have her ready for this little undercover operation you have for her such a short time."
"I'm a quick study," Artemis said. "But really, Batman?"
"It was, oh, fifteen years ago now, I guess." Williams leaned back. "I was just some two-bit jobber working his way up the ranks, and then Gotham City started this talk about a giant Bat-Man that swooped down and took out the crooks. I was looking for a gimmick, so that's the gimmick I took. I didn't know the urban legend from Gotham would go onto be a member of the Justice League."
"Wow. And how did you meet Dick?" Artemis bit her lip. "Officer Grayson."
"Relax, Tegan," Nightwing said. "We only just met really. But I remembered seeing him on TV as a kid, and well, his dad's picture is on the wall back at the precinct. I put two and two together."
Artemis nodded, wishing so hard that Megan were there to set up a telepathic link so they could talk about these things. She took his meaning though: Williams' father was a cop, a Bludhaven cop, killed in the line of duty.
That must be why Dick trusted him to help him out and why Williams had agreed to it.
"Oh my god," she said. "That Williams."
Wayne nodded grimly. "That Williams."
"Anyway," Wayne said. "I look forward to seeing what you can do in the ring. I'll just need you to fill out the releases, emergency contacts, etc. Class starts this afternoon at three."
After filling out the papers, Artemis grabbed her bag and started to head back out to her car. It was almost noon. She had time to grab some lunch and kill a few hours till she needed to be back at the studio, though she had no idea how to navigate Hoboken and would probably waste at least one of them getting lost. She stuffed her things into a locker, snapped it shut, and headed outside.
Before she reached her car, Nightwing flagged her down from beside his motorcycle and called her over.
"Tegan, there's been a bit of a development."
"What's up?" she eyed him suspiciously.
Nightwing pulled his phone from his pocket and held it up to her face, leaning over to her so that their heads cast a combined shadow on the screen and made the display more visible. The picture on the screen was a zoomed in shot of a wrestling match. The shot showed two wrestlers, one of them putting the other in a submission hold.
"Notice anything?"
"That's poor form for a choke hold," Artemis said.
"Not the wrestlers, the guy next to them, with his arms folded."
Artemis scanned the man's face. Oh. His hair was darker than usual but it was definitely him.
"Edward Nigma. Riddler." Artemis frowned. "He's encountered the Team before. He's worked with the Light."
"And he has an eidetic memory," Nightwing said. "He'll remember your face. And you know after you infiltrated Black Manta's cartel they'll be on the lookout for you."
"So I wear a glamour again?" Artemis said, already thinking of several reasons why that wouldn't work for this job.
"Ra's saw through it then," said Dick, naming one of them. "And he'll have told the Light what to look for. I knew all this going in, so I've got a contingency for it. I just didn't want to go that far. It's… drastic."
"How drastic?" Artemis said.
"Let's just say it's more complicated than a charmed necklace. I'll tell you more when there's a safe place to do the ritual."
Artemis blinked. "Ritual? I'm really not going to like this."
Outside Belle Reve, the rain had stopped and the afternoon languished on, though storm clouds on the southwest horizon made it seem much later, blocking light from the gulf coast sun. M'gann silently beseeched H'ronmeer, God of The Sky, for clear skies until they departed: Aqualad said the Light always monitored the prison, even when they didn't have an inside man, because so many of their agents were locked away. It would be easier to target and track her if rain was beating down on the hull.
"Green Lantern has been searching for more than an hour," Batgirl said. "If he were going to find something, you think he'd have found it by now."
"I'm in telepathic contact with him," M'gann said. "Or at least with his ring."
"Digital telepathy," observed Batgirl. "Neat."
"And?" said Robin. "What did he find?"
M'gann sighed. "He's searched the prison twice and found nothing. He's been arguing with Waller that there's nothing more he can do. But she wants him to triple check."
"Wait," said Spoiler. "If he hasn't found anything then why are still here? Nobody's trying to blow my dad up after all."
"Waiting for his all-clear," M'gann said, not quite able to hide her own exasperation.
"I've been analyzing the message," Barbara said. "In addition to the physical package with the Kryptonite, which is post-marked Knoxville, it was also sent via email. Nothing on the account to identify the sender. It was created an accessed from a series of public IP addresses at internet cafés in Dallas, Hub City, and Paris. All the metadata has been scrubbed from the file."
"So a world traveler who isn't completely computer illiterate," Robin said.
"That narrows it down to, what, a billion people," said Spoiler. "And definitely rules out my dad, because he'd intentionally leave a clue. All this is getting us nowhere. I'd feel better if I had a problem that was punchable."
"Well it might have gotten us somewhere if any of the computers he used had webcams, but our guy was either lucky, or smart enough to think of that."
"What about CCTV?" Robin said.
"Operative words: closed circuit. I'd have to actually go to each café to view their security feeds in the long shot that I could identify the perp off one of them." Batgirl took a deep breath.
"I know that," said Robin. "But it's a start. We run it by Aqualad and he can send us to the four cities. Speaking of, how's your French, Stephanie?"
"Muy malo," Spoiler replied.
"You get Dallas, then," Robin said.
Wayne Williams paced back and forth across the wrestling ring, soft boots on the canvas. Artemis was faring better than most of the other students after the drills, practicing the rolls, the bumps, the cardio. Superhero fitness was no joke, especially for those without powers like herself and Nightwing. She had worked up a fair sweat, but several of the other students were drenched.
"You've worked hard today," Williams said. "But the day is far from over. There's more to wrestling than the physical part."
He tapped his head with his index finger. "There's the stuff up here. There's the mentality."
He spun around; one of the other students took it as cue to lean on the ropes while Wayne had his back turned, but if he meant to do it stealthily he failed.
"Tell me," said Wayne. "Who is your favorite wrestler? The one you cheer for when his or her theme music begins. Who always gets you pumped? Who inspired you to join this school?"
He spun around and pointed at someone by the door of the classroom, holding a bottle of water.
"You, Derek." Williams paused. "And don't you dare say it's me, because I'll know that's bullshit."
Derek twisted the cap back on his water bottle. "Ric Flair, sir. WOO!"
"Sarah?" said Wayne.
"A.J. Lee."
Wayne nodded, then moved to the guy next to Artemis. "Carlos?"
"Trish Stratus!" he called out.
Wayne moved his gaze to Artemis. "How about you, Tegan?"
"Big fan of the Nature Boy," Artemis said, improvising. She had no idea who that was, but—
"Another one," Wayne said with an even tone, and quickly moved on.
What did he mean by that?
He went on down the line, asking the other four students. When one shouted 'SU-PER DRA-GON!' in the meter of a chant, it looked as though Wayne would leap across the ring and fling the boy face-first into the mat, but the instructor settled for a stomp on the ground.
"This isn't a joke, son," Wayne barked.
"Okay, in all seriousness, it's Sumie Sakai," he said.
Wayne backed off. "Better. Now notice the names I didn't hear: Cena, Lesnar, Big Show."
He paused, and then practically sneered.
"Roman Reigns. What all the wrestlers you told me have in common is that they're not just good athletes; they're consummate performers. They get in the ring and they don't just sell their bumps. They sell themselves. You buy them as a person, as a warrior, as a character. And that's one of the big things we'll be working on over the next few classes: getting down the basics of your character, your in-ring persona. Something bigger than your stage name or whether you're a face or a heel, something that will shine through whatever lame-ass gimmick that creative wants to saddle you with."
"What if we already have ideas?" asked the A.J. Lee fan, Sarah.
"Then I'll help you refine and implement them," Wayne said. "The big thing you need to be figuring out how you are unique. How the person that you are will shine through in the ring. So who are you?"
Artemis looked at the address on her card. A safe house here in Hoboken that Dick had procured with Batman's bottomless pocketbook, and where Dick was supposed to meet her tonight. She flung her red duffle bag over her left shoulder—the right one still ached from when she and Carlos had botched a reversal they were practicing—and slammed the door to her truck perhaps more forcefully than necessary.
It had taken a lot of willpower to fight her instincts and not waylay the poor guy, but blowing her cover wasn't worth it. In actual combat she could out-fight any of the people at the wrestling school, including Wayne, easily, but when it came to pro-wrestling she was greener than the rest.
Up three short flights of stairs that were nevertheless torturous in her condition, she found the door and knocked. A moment later Nightwing let her in. The place was plainly furnished with new but not-especially-high-end stuff. Grayson was not in uniform—cop or superhero—and said little to her as he had his phone pressed to his ear. She sat down at the kitchen table adjacent to him, dropping her bag on the floor.
A raspy voice on the other end of the line continued to talk, with Nightwing intermittently interrupting with a yes or no response. Finally, he ended the call.
"So that was about our solution to your Riddler problem."
"Can it wait? I'm exhausted. And Wayne gave me homework." Artemis unzipped her duffle and pulled out a small stack of DVDs and began studying the covers. "Wait so Ric Flair and the Nature Boy are the same person?"
"It can wait, yeah," Nightwing said. "In fact it will have to. I'm not sure how this spell interacts with aliases like Tegan Lee."
"That voice definitely wasn't Zatanna. Who exactly are you getting to cast this spell on me?" Artemis tapped her fingers against the kitchen table to the beat of Doctor Who's opening theme, a habit she had picked up from Squire during a mission in England that seemed to annoy her mentor The Knight to no end.
"You wouldn't know her," Dick said. "Someone I met via Troia, but she's trustworthy."
"Methinks the Nightwing doth protest too much," said Artemis.
"Or I just know what you're thinking," Nightwing said. "It's hard to trust anyone and we get caught up and second guessing everything. Even when we exposed The Light's alliance with The Reach, they turned it around on us and stole the War World."
"You think that was Savage's plan all along?" said Artemis.
"Maybe not." Nightwing sat up. "But you have to wonder."
"The man's fifty thousand years old," Artemis said. "He could rightly call Ra's al Ghul a child. The fact that we've been able to stay within a couple steps of his plans means he's not nearly as infallible as he'd like us to believe."
Nightwing nodded. "True. It's hard to stay whelmed when there's so much on your shoulders. You know I used to think I wanted to be Batman when I grew up. Now I can't fathom why anybody would."
"I always figured it was revenge for his parents," Artemis said. "And don't give me that look. Everyone on the Team figured out who Batman was when Jason died. But then, when we lost Wally, I realized it's really not about revenge, as much as I hate the Light for bringing the Reach to Earth in the first place. It's about doing everything in your power to stop it from happening to someone else."
"Getting a bit existential here aren't we, Officer Lee?"
"Maybe, but you started it." Artemis punched Nightwing's arm. "Now get out of here. I need to shower and then sleep for a day. I haven't had a good night's sleep since I don't know when."
"You realize there are showers at Wayne's gym, right?" Dick said, opening the front door.
"Four girls in line ahead of me, and I sure as hell wasn't going to double up. I got scars that would raise questions."
Nightwing smirked. "We all do."
And he was gone, leaving Artemis with her DVDs and her thoughts.
Arthur Brown lay back on his prison cot thinking—hoping—that he'd be able to get to sleep before King Shark started snoring. How a guy with lungs and gills could have so much trouble breathing, he had no idea. That Green Lantern jerk had kept Arthur in the interrogation room so long that he had gotten used to the relative peace and quiet. Of course in Belle Reve the quiet was always over fairly quickly. Not long after he'd got back to his cell Count Vertigo had started retching into his toilet and been taken to the infirmary. It was hard enough to—
"Good evening, Mr. Brown."
The voice was low and heavy and seemed to be coming from right behind him—even though his head and back were flat against the cot.
Arthur jerked up, so quickly he almost fell out of bed, and tried to speak. But as he did so he felt something clamp down on his jaw, keeping it shut. A stab of white-hot terror ran through him. The threat was against him after all. Even Batman hadn't terrified him so much. As much as he craned his head, he couldn't see anyone; yet he was distinctly being held down.
"I hope you didn't mind the theatrics earlier, but I had to get the lights down low so I could sneak in here. You can talk, by the way. Just think it. I'll hear you."
So the rumors were true—the guard-informant had said something about a psychic shadow-man being the possible infiltrator.
Arthur struggled not to blast mental obscenities at the assailant. "Who are you? Are you that-that Obsidian guy Green Lantern was here for? You want to murder me like you tried to murder your old man?"
"Oh, I'm not Todd Rice, though I do owe my talents to him." A pause. "You can call me Shadow Thief. And relax: I'm not here to kill you."
"Then what are you here for?" Arthur grimaced. "And how did you hide from Green Lantern?"
"He didn't think to look inside one of the inmates," Shadow Thief said. "Now you'd better appreciate the fact I just spent two hours in Count Vertigo's stomach to get you this message. You've been chosen by the Calculator as our strategist."
"Calculator?" Arthur blanched. "That's an actual guy's codename?"
"What, not quite as clever as Cluemaster, the guy who leaves clues to his crimes?" An eerie laugh echoed through every part of Arthur's skull, so loud it was like his head was being used as a subwoofer. "Personally I don't get what the man sees in you. I guess he's settling since the Light got Nigma."
"The Light?" Arthur said. "Vandal Savage's Injustice League?"
"Yes," said Shadow Thief. "And Calculator wants to take them on! I thought he was insane too at first, but… well, spoilers."
"Don't say that word around me," Arthur said. If he ever found out who that purple-caped little bitch was, he swore he'd send her parents an explosive Christmas present.
"I'm enjoying some irony right now like you don't even know," Shadow Thief said. "But I digress. We need to talk about getting you out of here."
"To see this Calculator?" Arthur said.
"To join us in The Dark," said the voice. "And snuff out The Light."
Author's Note: So yes on the off chance that you've seen my deviantart account then you know that I started a fancomic along these lines a while back. But, well, I'm not much of an artist. I still wanted to tell this story so I decided to convert it to prose, something I actually went to school for.