Hit or Miss
Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice or Young Justice: Invasion.
A/N: A HUGE thanks to those that reviewed! It's always risky starting a new story but I'm thrilled that so many of you have decided to give this a try! I can't tell you how much I appreciate your feedback. If you have any questions, please just leave me a review and I will do my best to respond.
With the wind whipping her long ponytail behind her, Artemis flashed through the streets of Gotham on her way to the theatre. The motorcycle was practically purring beneath her, a sleek little black number that she felt complimented her new garb perfectly. Alfred's sewn on bat was illuminated in forest green against the black stealth mode of her normal costume, leaving her altered but ultimately still Artemis the Archer. Not that many people knew who that was anyway though. Dick and Wally were always ragging on her for not being more protective of her 'secret identity,' but when your hero counterpart was as obscure as Artemis's was, there really wasn't much of a point.
Between the adrenaline rush from riding the new bike- Wayne didn't skimp on his machines- and the prospect of finally being an admitted member of the bat-club, Artemis was almost able to avoid thinking about what awaited her.
There were sirens blasting and police still arriving when Artemis came on the scene at Silverscreen Cinemas. She spotted detective Bullock and the same officer Montoya that had been assigned to babysit Dick, Barbara, and her during the Halloween nightmare formal. They seemed to be in charge and were ordering other officers to canvas the grounds and search for a way inside.
Artemis debated introducing herself as she watched several of the officers try various attempts to knock down the entrance doors to no avail. They were sealed shut with something obviously bolstering them from behind, but there was no light from inside so it was impossible to tell.
With her recognizable hair and eyes visible for all the world to see, it probably wasn't the smartest idea for her to try to win over the cops who had met her alter ego only a few weeks ago. So ultimately, Artemis decided to ditch the bat-bike in the bushes and sneak onto the roof.
Batman had taught her that the real secret to stealth was not in the way one moved, but rather in the timing of when one moved- to keep all variables and all targets in focus and to be as confident as possible in your decisions. Self-doubt, he told her, was a poison not even Bruce Wayne could afford.
But it was all easier said than done, and while Artemis was a fairly self-assured individual, she wasn't stupid enough to consider that her own meager degree of experience entitled her to trapeze into places with Batman's level of speed and accuracy. So Artemis wasted a great deal of time dodging the patrolling men and women in blue before she saw her opening and was able to send a grappling arrow up onto the roof.
Fortunately, there was roof access, but all the lights inside the theatre were off so she was forced to use one of the glow sticks procured from the Batcave. It cast eerie yellow-green shades along the walls as she navigated downward to the sound of murmured screaming. She shivered slightly and quickly put the breathing mask over her face.
The Commissioner had told them that the attacks had been reported from screen six, but when she finally reached the main lobby from where the different theatre entrances and exits led, she knew the problem had magnified. Through the dim glow provided by the skylights high above them, Artemis saw people everywhere running in different directions, cowering near walls under giant promotional posters, quietly whimpering to themselves as they hid beside arcade games and behind the concession counter, crying as they frantically clawed at each other, and generally not really aware of their surroundings.
She tried to stop one poor girl, probably around ten or eleven, as she wailed for her mother but the girl grew terrified when she saw Artemis's masks and began sobbing insensibly.
Artemis quickly backed away, not wanting the girl to hurt herself, but ran into another child who was running aimlessly in their direction, his attention focused behind him on some terror that only he could perceive.
Helping the child back to his feet only earned her a kick to the head and some shrieking, so Artemis abandoned the effort and instead shot a grappling line to the ceiling in order to swing above the crowd and get to the entrance doors. In mid-swing however, something shot out and cut the line- no easy task since the material was incredibly durable- and Artemis went tumbling into the sea of frightened masses.
She scanned left and right and saw a flash of calm in the chaos out of the corner of her eye. It was a dark figure, standing serenely near a cardboard cutout of the latest Victoria Verons action thriller.
Victoria Verons was the intrepid adventurer who used her archaeological background to discover amazing artifacts and look good while doing it. She also, coincidentally, always wore her long honey-colored hair in a ponytail much like Artemis's.
Artemis was already sprinting toward the figure when they pulled a katana from the shoulder scabbard across their back and sliced the smiling cardboard face of Victoria off her shoulders. Fifteen feet away, the figure turned back toward Artemis and gave a little shrug.
"Sequels get old. Quit while you're ahead goddess-girl, and maybe you'd live a little longer."
She coldly stared at the tightly woven burlap that molded with his angular face, imagined the icy blue eyes that were no doubt laughing behind the black slashes that crossed his mask, and said evenly through her ventilating mask, "I seem to recall that you were the one that fled the last time we met."
"That had more to do with Batman's arrival than your less than terrifying ability to writhe in fear before me." He inclined his head at the insignia on her chest and Artemis resisted the urge to cross her arms. "Does your little freshman pet know you're involved with an older man?"
Eying the now familiar image of the toxin contraption attached to the right sleeve of his black-fitted jumper, she adjusted her weight and smirked. "You shouldn't talk about Batman that way… especially when he's standing right behind you." As soon as Jon's head shot up and began to glance back sideways, Artemis lunged forward, using her bow as a blunt instrument to crack him across the jaw.
He reeled and almost lost his balance, but managed to sweep his blade out in an arch that would have reached Artemis's exposed abdomen if she hadn't jumped back in time. He recovered only to narrowly miss a barrage of sucker-punch arrows as Artemis lobbed them efficiently one after the other, steadily forcing him to retreat before her. Back against the wall, he unleashed a torrent of the yellow fear toxin at her face, but with the mask on there wasn't much danger to it.
Belatedly though, she realized that his motive had been to create a smokescreen, which he used to edge around her and duck into the nearest theatre.
Bow at the ready, she ran through the carpeted tunnel after him, forced to juggle the glowstick once more as the darkness thickened around her. She slowed and cautiously edged around the wall that divided the tunnel from the theatre, unable to see anything further than an arm's length away, and began padding up the stairs between the rows of seats. She sensed more than saw the blade as it flew toward her face. She reflexively jerked back in the knick of time, narrowly avoiding having her nose and lips slit and instead earned a deep laceration to the shoulder.
Through the pain as she clutched the wound, feeling the warm, sticky blood as it pooled around her fingers and dripped to the floor, she saw Jon loom above her, a slight hesitation staying his blade. "Why are you doing this?" she cried, unable to keep a little of the hurt she'd felt since the night at Callisto from seeping into her voice. The panic he probably heard was real enough as well.
Unreadable though his face was in the dark behind the scarecrow mask, she thought she detected a slight tremor of remorse as he softly replied, "I think Xander said it best."
Artemis knew better than to waste his indecision and wisely chose that moment to jump onto the nearest row of seats, once again avoiding his blade as it zinged through the air where she'd been standing the moment before. He was right on her tail however and she heard more than saw the destruction as he bit into the chairs as she leapt from them. She made her way, crisscrossing the theatre, to the top of the stairs, the wall opposite the screen at her back and Jon a mere dozen feet below her.
The glowstick had dropped when his steel had ripped into her, so it was just dimly that she could make out his lithe form as it neared. The only light reflecting off of him was the faint glint from his katana as it whispered in threat and called out to her pulsing heart the inevitability of her fall.
Artemis wasn't about to give in though, and clinching her teeth against the stabs of pain shooting up from her shoulder, drew several of the lethally sharp barbed arrows she always reserved in her quiver, notched, took a quick, steadying breath, and fired.
Jon must have had some sort of night vision built into his mask, because he was able to see the arrow in time and dodge behind a row of seats for cover. Nevertheless, the moment he popped back up from behind the chairs, Artemis was ready with another arrow; this one coming so close that it shaved his cheek before embedding itself in the large screen beyond him. She heard a very satisfying gasp of pain that let her know it has also nicked through the burlap to grace him with a tiny crimson kiss as well.
At an impasse but aware that his better vision would eventually tip the scales, Artemis seized one of her more unusual trick arrows and let it fly toward the ceiling in a high arch. Perplexed, Jon watched it go for a second before jumping clear of the row he'd been hiding behind and rushing up toward her. She didn't have enough time to withdraw another arrow, but knew she wouldn't need to as the flare arrow detonated, releasing a blinding flash that temporarily immobilized him.
"Ugh!" he screamed, shielding his face and thus unable to see as Artemis swung her bow once more and clocked him soundly on the side of the head. He fell to his knees, his blade clacking against the stairs as it skidded down. With one hand braced on the nearest seatback, he used the other the wrench the burlap mask from his face.
His aristocratic brown hair, normally gelled to an artful display, was in haphazard, sweaty locks that tumbled into his glacial eyes, which for once looked something rather than cold as he dazedly tried to focus on her.
"What's the League up to?" Artemis asked sharply, notching another barbed arrow and leveling its point at his throat.
Gaze still unfocused, his lips curled upward in a sneer before he laughed, "He told you I had a way of scaring off the things that interested me…" He leered up at her and she felt her resolve flicker as the terror he'd assaulted her with in the alleyway outside the club that night snaked up her spine. She tasted the beginning of bile in the back of her throat as she remembered being violated, her clothes shredded as rough hands groped and beat her, all while macabre images of her sister and father tried to kill her. "Little did we know then that you were the type of girl to enjoy it…" he reveled, lapping up her fear like it was nectar.
Artemis punched him with a right hook so hard she thought she heard her knuckles crack. "You don't scare me, Jonathan," she growled, waving her newly injured fist at him, "You disgust me." His smirk slipped from his face and his eyes lost their dazed quality, instead narrowing to frosty blue slits. "Now I'll ask again, what is the League doing in Gotham?"
"We're here for you of course."
Jade stepped out from the shadows she'd melded with only a few yards to Artemis's left. Before Artemis had a chance to react, Jade twirled a bow-staff in the archer's face with lightening-fast speed. She crashed against the wall below the projector with a bone-rattling force face first, her breathing mask shattered, creating a dozen new cuts that grazed her lips, cheeks, nose, and throbbing jaw.
The blurred image of her sister's mocking Cheshire smile floated hazily down to Artemis as she sank slowly to the floor. She had just enough time to think, 'Sorry, Dick…I don't have this," before the shadows spiraled her downward and finally engulfed her completely.