Teen Titans East – Thicker Than Water
Chapter Four: Young BloodThe city was strangely quite at this time of the night, the rooftop battle between Arsenal, Aqualad, and the assassin Shrike going completely unnoticed by anyone save the participants…
Well, almost…
Shrike charged forward, swinging his sword first at Arsenal, then reversing and swinging it at Aqualad. Both Titans dove away from his blade, and Garth responded by lunging forwards and slamming his shoulder into Shrike's solar plexus. The assassin grunted, stepping back as Aqualad made contact and then sidestepping, throwing the Atlantean teen to the ground. Garth rolled over as Shrike stabbed down at his face, and then tried to kick the sword from Shrike's hand. The kick made contact, but Shrike maintained his grip on the blade, then swung it down with one hand. It glanced off the back of Aqualad's leg as the youth rolled backwards, digging a few millimeters into his tough skin. If Shrike's grip on the sword had been more solid or Aqualad been a normal human, the damage would have been much worse, but it still stung like crazy.
Aqualad forced himself to stand, charging forward, hoping to punch the assassin. Shrike simply jumped atop Garth's back, rolling over towards Arsenal….
Who had drawn his lethal gun full of real bullets.
Amazingly, even as Roy fired the first shot, Shrike had followed the tip of the gun to where it would hit on his body, and the assassin's immensely sharp sword was there, deflecting the bullet. That's how good Shrike was, and that was why Roy had felt the need to use lethal force. He didn't get a second chance, though, as Shrike quickly disabled the gun hand and hurled the weapon off the rooftop into the street below, then brought the sword back to plunge it into Arsenal's neck. Fortunately, Aqualad got there and grabbed Shrike, pulling him away from Roy by literally throwing himself backwards.
"What?" Shrike muttered. "You get to use lethal toys, don't I get the honor too?" Shrike easily broke the hold despite Garth's Atlantean strength and threw him to the ground behind him, whirling his swords around to slice into the fish-boy's head…
Suddenly he was staggered forward when Arsenal kicked him hard in the back. Shrike rolled forwards, but landed badly and lost his sword as he rolled. Garth grabbed the blade and threw it across the rooftop and off the top of the building.
"That was a mistake," Shrike barked at Aqualad.
Garth rolled backwards again and stood up. "Yeah, whatever." He charged forward, letting his fists do the talking. Shrike was a far superior martial artist, but Aqualad had greater physical strength and had been trained in some techniques by Arsenal—though, to be honest, Arsenal wasn't the best teacher—and could mostly hold his own against someone like Shrike. That is, if the fight remained hand-to-hand only.
Shrike had different ideas, immediately grabbing a pair of tonfa from his belt and began using them to pummel Aqualad into submission, even as Roy hastily reloaded his trick gun with a fresh set of bullets….
With a single powerful kick, the bruised Aqualad was knocked half silly, falling to the ground with a groan. Shrike then turned to attack Arsenal, bringing his pair of tonfa upward to smash the marksman's head in. Roy backpedaled quickly, putting distance between him and Shrike before firing three times in rapid succession. Three blue electric bullets slammed into Shrike's chest, driving him back slightly… And then came the voltage. Normally it would have been enough to put a man down thee times over. But through Shrike's armor, he barely felt five volts.
Even as the next two rounds—rubber bullets—bounced off his chest harmlessly… And then, click click click.. Roy's gun was empty, and his face showed his panic as he staggered backwards…
Shrike raised his sword and let out a kiyah, bringing it down across Arsenal's neck, severing the teen's head…
Or at least, that was his plan. The best laid plans of mice and men, however. Roy raised his gun once more, and with perfect aim characteristic of his mentor's relentless training, Roy blasted one more round, directly between Shrike's eye. The bullet exploded in Shrike's face, even as Roy put a massive distance between himself and Shrike… and then the assassin began retching.
"Heh," Roy laughed. "The old 'remove three rounds to fake an empty chamber' trick. Even the great Shrike is not immune to it."
The assassin, spat and coughed, eyes full of anger. "What did you do to me?" he demanded. Then he coughed some more, and lost his lunch on the rooftop.
"Laboratory creation," Roy said. "Scientifically determined to be the worst smell on Earth—a mixture of rotten eggs, decaying flesh, skunk spray, and human sweat. You just got a face full of it."
Shrike spat again, his eyes welling up with tears from what had gotten in his eyes even through the mask, and his face twisted into a mask of rage. He lunged forward, slamming his shoulder into Roy's stomach and driving him backwards, then locking his injured arm up in a joint lock. Roy screamed as pure agony wracked his entire body, his only though to get free…
Suddenly, Garth was there, jerking Shrike away and pummeling the assassin with a flurry of blows. A punch sent a stream of blood flying from Shrike's mouth, even as the assassin keeled over… Then immediately changed directions, whirling a no-longer-concealed blade forwards and stabbing it into Garth's abdomen. The Atlantean gasped, more shocked than hurt at first, and then staggered back a bit, before falling over, the pain in his abdomen making it impossible to move.
And worse, if he pulled it out, the blood would come… Unless…
Shrike paid no more mind to Garth, turning back to Roy, who slammed a new trick clip into his pistol—Shrike's eyes narrowed. "How did your arm get back into that sling!"
"A little birdie helped me!" Roy shouted, jumping forward and slamming his foot into Shrike's solar plexus. The criminal skidded backwards and..
Suddenly found himself on the receiving end of an Atlantean kick…
He glanced back to see Aqualad, standing, though grimacing from the pain. He realized the kid had torn a strip of cloth off his unitard leggings and wrapped it around his stomach as a tourniquet…
And was now holding the knife he'd been stabbed with. "I think this is yours!" Garth shouted, slashing with the knife. His form was bad, but Shrike was still reeling from the horrible smell that filled his nostrils with every breath, so he wasn't able to properly disarm the blade. Instead he lunged for a killing strike, hoping to crush Garth's trachea with a finger-jab to the throat…
He didn't get there, as Garth brought his arms up and smashed them together against Shrike's forearm, breaking radius and ulna alike. Shrike growled due to the pain, even as he leapt away from the Atlantean. Then he pressed a button on his belt, and the fabric of his suit suddenly tightened beyond belief, jerking his arm back into place as a makeshift cast…
"Is it just me, or did that seem familiar?" Garth asked through his pain…
"Just like Crazy-88…" he returned… "You think there is a connection?"
"Crazy-88," shouted Shrike, "was a disgrace to the League. He relied too much on his technology and not enough on his skill."
"He got farther than you did!" Garth shouted. "You've disabled one of us, and caused us some pain. He almost killed all five of us."
Angered, Shrike charged forward, drawing what appeared to be a pair of whips from his belt… Until he turned on the electric current. The metallic chords that had appeared to be whips suddenly shot straight out, becoming perfectly straight and rigid… not to mention electrified…
Shrike attacked, the fight becoming a flurry of punches and kicks, blocks and dodges, all the while the two injured Titans dodging the electrified swords of the nauseous assassin…
Garth rolled under and swept out his legs, and Roy kicked him in the face. Shrike went with the blow as best he could, rolling through a puddle and almost giving himself a zap when his face barely left the water before he plunged the blade in for balance… But he couldn't keep up, and Roy and Garth were suddenly on top of him again.. and then Garth brought out the knife, and stabbed it right into Shrike's leg… The assassin staggered back with a gasp, even as Roy managed to finally disarm one of Shrike's swords… And then jammed the blade end into Shrike's half-open mouth…
The electricity coursed through Shrike's head, causing the assassin to convulse and jerk before finally collapsing face first onto the wet rooftop…
The fight was unquestionably over.
"How did you get your arm back into that sling?" Garth asked after a beat…
Roy glanced over into some shadows by the roof entrance to the building, smirking. "It's over. You can come out now…"
Garth gasped when suddenly someone he didn't even realize was there popped out of the shadows. She was female, that much was obvious. And she was, by human standards, quite attractive. Her blond hair was tied back with a red headband, and her costume was a mix of red and other warms shades, with a very dark red cape around her shoulders. The cape was still just bright enough to make her earlier invisibility very impressive.
"Who… are you?" Garth said, approaching the girl… He was still quite confused.
"I'm Flamebird," the girl said. "My boss sent me to spy on Carmen Vasquez, and on my way back to our temporary base, I saw you guys fighting… And I thought maybe you could use some help. But I realized who it was, and.. Let's just say me and Shrike have some bad history. So I helped by putting Speedy's arm back in the sling…"
"I'm Arsenal now," 'Speedy' said.
"Oh, right… then why does your costume still have an S on it?" Flamebird's question was asked without a hint of 'smart' in her voice.
Arsenal sweatdropped. "Honestly, I just haven't got around to changing it yet."
"Oh," said Flamebird… "Also, I got you this." She handed Arsenal the gun that Shrike had knocked off the roof. "I doubt my boss would approve but.."
"Who exactly is your boss?" Garth asked, still clutching his wounded abdomen.
Flamebird frowned. "I don't really think I'm supposed to tell anybody that yet. He likes his secrecy, just like his old boss."
"Huh?" Garth blinked.
"Forget it," said Roy. "She doesn't have to tell us if she doesn't want to." He began dragging the cold unmoving body of Shrike over to where the others were, and then brought the assassin's hands behind his back… "Man, I wish we had some handcuffs."
"Here."
Roy reached out and took the cuffs then bend over and latched them on Shrike's back… Then he blinked… Who…? Arsenal turned to his right to see a familiar figure standing in front of him—a totally black body suit with a sky-blue avian on the front, with wings that extended all the way across his shoulders and ended in a stripe that ran down his forearms…
Nightwing. The original Robin, now his own hero.
"Holy crap!" Arsenal exclaimed. "Night…wing… What brings you to Steel City?"
Dick Grayson smirked. "Lots of things," he said. "Shrike is one of them. The League of Shadows and League of Assassins has been doing some infighting, and as a result, the leadership is preoccupied. Certain members are slipping through the cracks and taking odd jobs all across the East Coast. Flamebird and I were tracking them."
Flamebird agreed. "We're afraid that the Great Wall syndicate will back the League of Assassins, and then some other crime syndicate will back the League of Shadows. Then we'll have a full-fledge gang war all across the coast, except all the soldiers will be like better than green berets!"
"Wait…" Roy said. "You're like, Nightwing's sidekick?"
Flamebird's eyes narrowed. "I'm not a sidekick! We're partners."
"Yeah, partners. Right," Roy's smirk was only half genuine, considering he would have said the same thing about himself and Ollie.
Nightwing amended. "I'm training her to be a fighter and a detective. But if my experience with the original Titans taught me anything, you need more than an adult who knows what's right and wrong. You need a group of peers—people who you can make mistakes with and learn with as well as learn from."
"Wait, are you saying…?" Roy began.
"I want Flamebird to join the Titans East, at least on a part-time basis," Nightwing confirmed…
"Oh really!" Flamebird blurted. "That would be like so cool! Omigosh!"
Arsenal and Aqualad both glanced at Flamebird following that outburst and promptly facevautled.
"Look, Nightwing," Roy said. "It's not anything personal, cause you rule and all… But this really isn't my decisions… It's… Oh no! Karen!"
Garth goggled—how could they have both forgotten Bumblebee..? They both scanned the rooftop and realized she was no where to be found..
"It's okay," Flamebird said. "I moved her out of the way to another rooftop so she didn't get stomped on."
Roy looked at her. "Dang, you are good."
Nightwing put his hand on the girl's shoulder. "She's been trained by the best. Anyhow, what do you say we drop off 'Shriek' here at the police HQ, and then get some rest?"
As the sun rose and the adrenaline faded, the Titans East and Nightwing finally got settled in at the East Tower, a strong sense of fatigue washing over everyone in the building. Bumble Bee had come to on the way back to the tower, and had been more than a little surprised to find Nightwing there with them. Now she was making notes in her log book even as Nightwing and Flamebird talked of their intentions in Steel City.
"I learned of the brewing war between the League of Shadows and League of Assassins from Shrike himself," Nightwing said. "Not that he'd be so careless. I saw some guys in black ninja outfits trying to kill Shrike while he was trying to kill the police commissioner of Bludhaven." Nightwing was referring to the city from which he worked since leaving Gotham years ago. "They were about evenly matched, even when it was two against one. I figured there was some connection."
"So what led you here?" Karen asked.
"Well, I'm not going into all the gory details, but with help from Batman, I found out that the Ra's al Ghul's League of Assassins made a vie for power sometime after Ra's' apparent death at the hands of Batman ten years ago. The Society of Shadows threw them out of the 'club' and renamed themselves the League of Shadows; both groups declared themselves the true torch-bearer's of Ra's' agenda."
Arsenal, knowing the next part of the story, piped up. "And then when Ra's showed up again, he sided with the League of Shadows, right?"
"Yeah," said Flamebird. "The League of Assassins is lead by some ice-queen called Lady Shiva. Apparently she's ordered an open war on the League of Shadows in retaliation for their 'betrayal' of Ra's al Ghul's 'principles'. Di… Nightwing thinks that she wants to take down Ra's himself and become ruler of both League's."
Garth shook his head groggily. "Ugh, League of this, Society of that. Enough to give an Atlantean a headache. What does any of this have to do with us?" It was clearly taxing on him to stay awake.
Flamebird stood up at started berating him. "Well, duh, they're in your town. We can't just leave Bludhaven forever. What we really need to know is why Vasquez and Great Wall were working together, and why the League of Shadows wanted to kill them all…"
"Carmen Vasquez has no ties to anyone," Bumblebee said. "He's a small fish in a pond that's way too big for him. We think he's working for someone else… Someone behind the scenes."
"He is!" blurted Flamebird. "I was listening to his phone—I tapped it after Nightwing showed me how—and I found out he's working for a guy called Taylor."
"Taylor what?" Arsenal asked, his eyes lighting up.
"He didn't give any other name, just 'Mr. Taylor.'" Flamebird's eyes sunk down. "He didn't hear, me, but he just hung up before it went any farther than that. I'm sorry it's not much…"
"It will have to be enough," Nightwing said.
Arsenal nodded, walking across the room and placing a hand on Flamebird's shoulder. "It's more than we had before. It's a start."
Bumble Bee yawned, stretching out her legs and arms and rubbing the bruises Shrike had given her. "We have a name finally. Now we need to put a face with it. But we're all exhausted. It can wait till we all get some rest, can't it?"
Karen glanced over at Garth, who had already nodded off.
"Looks like it will have to," Nightwing said with a smirk. "Alright… Mind if I crash here for a while?" He indicated the couch on which he was sitting. "I won't be sleeping long anyway, but if I try to make it back to our mobile HQ I'll probably pass out."
"Be our guest," Karen said, picking up Garth's legs. She fluttered her wing-armor for a minute and then began dragging the sleeping teen out of the room and towards his own.
Six weary teenagers and the man who calls the Dark Knight his mentor departed the meeting room and soon found themselves sleeping off the hellish night comfortably, finally attaining some well-deserved rest.
"Real name?" asked Bumble Bee.
"Er, well, my birth certificate says Mary Elizabeth Kane. I normally go by Bette." The girl's answer was rather anxious, but not disrespectful.
"Age?" Karen asked.
"Sixteen. I'll be Seventeen in March..." Suddenly she went off subject… again… "Hey, seriously, what's with Aqualad. He's been giving me a cold shoulder for the past five days."
Bumble Bee sighed. "We're not talking about Aqualad now. We're trying to get all your info in our secure database. What is your parentage?"
"My parents were murdered," she said sadly. "I was raised by my grandparents at their mansion… they mean well, but they're always off doing things that don't interest me. Nightwing—he saw me playing tennis one day and, I always wanted to meet him and…"
Bette's rambling explanation stopped short when she looked up to see Karen glaring at her, not hiding her annoyance. "What were their names?"
"My parents were Debra and Gary. I was young when they died… I guess even though my grandparents raised me, they weren't as much an influence on me as my Aunt Kathy. She always pushed me into the Tennis tournaments and the beauty pageants… Years ago I went to Gotham for one, and saw Nightwing—back when he was Robin—I'd always wanted to meet him…"
"You already said that, Bette. Please, stay focused. You're going to get yourself killed in this line of work if you can't keep you mind on what you're doing." Karen hated to be so harsh on the girl, but considering her mental performance so far, she was beginning to question Nightwing's sanity. Still, the girl was certainly cut out for it physically. She want overly muscular, but the muscles that were visible were well toned, and despite her rather absent-minded attitude she had a strong athletic build and a large degree of physical confidence. The results of her being a tennis player, Karen assumed.
Nightwing and the boys, minus Menos and Mas, had been digging in and doing a lot of research throughout the past five days. Unfortunately, the number of Taylor's in the state of Pennsylvania did not make their task an easy one. There were several thousand in Steel City alone, though Karen sensed that this threat was something… a bit less local…
Finally, Bette spoke up and drove Karen out of her contemplation. "Anything else?"
"Um, yeah, I need to know anything you can tell me about your medical history… Just in case."
Bette sighed. "Right… well…"
Meanwhile, Roy, Dick, and Garth were in the East Tower ops room, searching every database they had access to for information about any possible lead to their elusive Mr. Taylor…
And drawing a blank.
"Well, we've searched the records of everyone in Steel City who has connections with Vasquez or his company," sad Garth. "Either we've missed something important, or we need to be widening our circle."
"Says the kid from the ocean," Roy barked, pounding his fist on the computer table. "Our world isn't as big as yours, Garth. We have to find something…"
"Wait…" Nightwing said, leaning forward… "What is this?"
"Huh?" Roy followed Dick's finger to the screen, where it showed that Vasquez's company Nautitech had been recently purchased and merged with a major conglomerate from Pittsburgh. "You think this is important? Why would a Pittsburgh criminal be interested in an Eerie County toxic chemical violation?"
"Well, someone is trying to kill you all for snooping, and this is our best lead so far," Nightwing said. "This company that bought Vasquez's company is run by a man named Anderson Taylor. If this isn't the right guy, then we're back to square one. It's worth a look."
Suddenly, a female voice came in from the other room. "But who's going to go check it out?" asked Bumble Bee. "We're understaffed as it is; we can't afford to run off to Pittsburg."
"You could go, right?" Arsenal asked, indicating Nightwing.
But Dick shook his head. "No, I have to get back to Bludhaven. I've been gone too long as it is…"
"I'll go," announced Flamebird as she followed Karen into the room. "Come on, it's about time I learned to fly solo, Nightwing."
"Bette," Nightwing said. "I don't think this is a good idea… If Anderson Taylor is willing to send League assassins after teenagers, then he's not going to forgive you if you're caught."
"Vasquez didn't catch me!" Bette shot back.
"Vasquez is nothing compared to the type of man we suspect Taylor of being, Bette. You can't just expect everything here to be easy…"
"What if I go with her?" Karen asked. "I'll keep her safe, and Arsenal can lead the team while we're gone."
"But…" Roy started to object.
"That's an order," Karen said. "If Nightwing agrees to it, of course."
Dick Grayson chuckled. "I don't really like the idea, but nobody said having a sidekick would be easy."
"Partner," Bette corrected.
"Yeah," Nightwing said with a smirk. "I never learn, do I?"
Disclaimer: Anderson Taylor is loosely based on the villain James Taylor from the classic film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.