Chapter 4. Password

"I really hope we're helping the good guys right now." Green Arrow whispered to Black Canary as they quietly ran through the rubble. "Cause if we were helping the bad guys then that would seriously suck, and put a black card on my record as a hero. You know?"

"It's Robin" she replied; lost in thought.

"Yeah, I get that. But the Robin we know wouldn't wear a skull mask or carry guns and swords. I mean, he shot a little girl, Canary!"

"Who then turned into a deadly mutant that tried to kill him." She said glancing back at him. There was a road block of broken down cars in their way but they promptly vaulted over it.

"He was totally prepared to kill us, Dinah. The only reason he didn't was because it would inconvenient him somehow. I don't even really get why he's working with us right now!"

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." She explained.

"But that doesn't instantly mean that Robin is the good guy of this situation. The Robin we know is a true blood hero, but this isn't Robin; it's 'X', or whatever his name was! I'm just saying that I think we somehow landed ourselves into the middle of a war and picked a side before we had any knowledge of what's going on." He finished somberly.

"You're right but the seeds have been sowed already and we won't have a chance reap them, let alone question our choice of planting location, until we're somewhere safe and quiet enough to think."

The continued on for a few moments of silence before they reached the building.

"To be honest I'm a bit surprised to hear this all coming from you, Arrow." Canary said with a quirked eye brow.

Green Arrow just shrugged. "What can I say? I may not take many things seriously, but I do care about those kids, no matter how shitty of a 'mentor' I am. But we can't help them get back to normal if we have no idea what's going on."

"In that case, we should hurry." Canary snarked, pointing her hand to Green Arrow's legs which were moving at barely a slow jog.

"Oh shit! Sorry! I can't think and run at the same time." He joked.

Canary just rolled her eyes with a smile. "You remember the sequence right?"

"Uh, yeah? Tap 3 times, pause for 5 seconds the tap 6 times, code W.S.G.D., level blue. Right?"

"Just had to make sure. Well, here's the place. Start heading up, I'll cover you."

"You sure Canary? You could go first and I could follow. You know;" he eyed her up and down. "enjoying the view."

She scoffed. "Don't even try that you-" she stopped dead in her tracks.

"Canary? You ok?"

"DUCK!" In a sudden dash, she grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled the both down.

Over their heads leaped one of the creatures. It landed in a spin but caught traction on the ground with its claws. Their only warning was a growl as it began barreling toward them.

"Well, fuck." Green Arrow said under his breath.

"Get to the roof! I'll stall!"

"Right." Ollie set to scaling the collapsed building, trying to tune out the canary cry and other noises from down below.

When he reached the top he glanced down to the ground. Canary was shrieking at the creature but it didn't seem to have any effect. The being continued to slowly gain ground until eventually one of its arms shot out; grabbed Dinah's face and threw her at the concrete.

Ollie took a quick intake of breath and vaulted over the top ledge of the building. There in the center was a piece of rock carved to look like an X, just as 'X' said.

He jumped to it and hit the center 3 times.

1) The creature launched to the top of the building, grabbed Green Arrow's leg and tried to throw him over the roof.

2) Ollie grabbed an arrow out of his still full quiver and pulled himself back up.

3) He stabbed the creature in one of its eyes and ran back to the rock

4) The arrow exploded, throwing the creature off the structure and green arrow further away from his destination

5) He stumbled to his feet and sprinted back to the cross.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 taps.

Green Arrow was blinded by light.

Green Arrow blinked the light out of his eyes. When they were clear he gawked at the figure before him.

"What's the password?!" she said happily.

"Zatanna?" Ollie made out past his shock.

"Nope! That's most certainly not it!" she snickered and lifted her hand. Without another word or spell passing her lips her hand began to glow. The pieces of rock and rubble surrounding them levitated into the air. The objects were molded into a razor sharp point and held aloft in Green Arrow's direction; a clear threat. "Try again." She spoke menacingly. One spire pricked against the back of his neck.

"Whoa, whoa whoa! Whoa. Hold off with the trigger happy tendencies! It's me, Zatanna; Green Arrow!"

he looked unamused. The spike dug in deeper.

"Okay, okay! Chill out! Robi- 'X' said to tell you code W.S.G.D., level blue! Please don't hurt me!" he begged.

Zatanna's whole body relaxed. She waved her hand and the threatening objects returned to where they were; as if never having been touched in the first place.

Zatanna was- unsurprisingly- dressed in a black cat suit, but this time the X was on her forehead, silver in color; shining like a third eye. She had a rounded black cape trimmed with silver the connected to rings of silver around her wrists and again at her shoulders. Her hair was loose, wavy, and much cleaner than the other two people they've met since suddenly appearing in this strange place.

"Well, why didn't you just say so?" she giggled. She strutted past him and stepped to balance on the ledge. "Oops! It's not dead. My bad." A ball of fire ignited in her cupped hand and she hurled it so fast at the beast it became a laser. "The blond a friend of yours?"

"What?" Green Arrow asked before his brain caught up with him a second later. "CANARY!" he ran to the edge. The portion of the roof he was standing on cracked and collapsed. He would have fallen too if a purple glowing platform didn't appear for him to land on.

"Relax, before you get yourself killed, Guy." Zatanna mocked, jumping off the building to land in a crouch next to the scorched monster.

"How come you don't need to say anything to preform your magic?" Green Arrow asked as the platform was slowly lowered to ground level.

Zatanna scoffed as if he just insulted her. "What do I look like to you?" she demanded. "Some sort of novice? It's been long since I've needed to actually chant a spell to cast it."

"Um, sorry?"

As soon as the platform was low enough Ollie shot off like a bullet to kneel by Dinah's side. He checked her pulse. It was steady, and her breathing was deep and even, so she was fine, just unconscious.

"Step back, Green Bean, so I can send Blondie to the infirmary."

Ollie held Dinah closer to his person.

Zatanna smiled comfortingly at him. "Don't worry; she'll be taken good care of. Trust me." she said her eyes imploring.

He, shakily, stepped back. Zatanna pulled out another one of those jewels and blew on it, but this time the dust swirled around and took Black Canary.

"What was that thing?" Ollie finally asked.

"Which thing? The gem or the monster that almost tore you limb from limb?"

"I think the monster is the more pressing issue?" he said gesturing towards the creature.

"That, my dear Guy, is a Zite."

"Zite?"

"Short for Zitemal. A species of shape shifting bug aliens from some far off galaxy or whatever."

Green Arrow frowned. "What are they doing here?"

Zatanna simply shrugged. "Beats me, but they've been here for a long while, at least a few generations." She sighed and looked around, stopping when she faced the direction they came from.

"Is that fighting I hear?" she asked.

"Probably. My team and that 'X' kid were fighting were dealing with a lot of those 'Zite' things to buy us enough time to get to you.

She hummed in response. "Well come on Guy, let's go find X and your team. Then we can meet back up with your female companion. She held out her hand to him.

He took it and felt a pulling sensation as the world swirled out of focus.

_Line Break_ end of chapter

sorry guys. i don't know what when wrong but i think i fixed it

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