Here is Chapter 7!
I just want to take this spot, for people who actually read this, to thank everyone who has kept reading this story because I honestly didn't think it would get this far!
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Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice or DC Universe.
-The Missing X
Nerve racking would be the word to describe her emotions right now. On her arrival into the place her mum had sent her, she had been found by none other than Nightwing, the very hero she had spent a week researching.
But before she could get a word out to explain her situation, her vision was cut off, and so was her consciousness. Blacked out completely and unable to defend herself against some force penetrating her mind she fought back with all her will, but to no avail.
Every memory had been ripped out of hiding and played, like a movie in the cinema. She relived every up and down, every comment, every bully, every achievement, every emotionally scarring memory, everything, was taken for her.
She couldn't defend herself, she was a helpless ten year old in this situation, and she hated it. She didn't have control on what was going on in her mind, she didn't have control over what memories were taken from her, and se had no control over when to stop the criminal from breaking into her mind.
Then it was like floating among the clouds, flying with the birds, flowing in the wind and walking on air. Everything she had ever dreamed of, but she couldn't help but feel something wasn't right, so when she had pinched herself hard enough and woken up, she was shocked to find herself in a completely whitewashed cell.
Picking herself up she found she was still in her uniform, with the cardigan seams fraying a bit more than the last time she had checked, hair still in the ponytail. Surveying the room she could see it the walls were tiled, and the large mirror in the middle of one room was obviously a one way glass, used for monitoring interviews and prisoners, but the door was what intrigued her the most. It was a plain looking door with an ordinary lock. How stupid were they to put a padlock on a cell door? Honestly, people needed to understand that just because someone looked small and innocent didn't mean that their mum had a contingency plan for everything, absolutely everything.
She had been taught to escape handcuffs using her pinky, untie ropes with her teeth, and pick a lock.
She looked to the mirror, knowing that someone would be behind the wall, rolled her eyes and gave them her best death glare. Mary then walked over to the door and took the lock in her hands, checking that it was in fact locked; she pulled out a bobby pin from her hair and proceeded to pick the lock easily.
Walking out and shutting the door again she waited for someone to come and get her. No way was she having her head invaded again.
Just as she thought, the door next to her cell's door opened and out came a green lady, in a superhero costume. She looked like Martian Manhunter, who had hair and eyebrows. Miss Martian just stared at her with a frown, like she was thinking about something very important. Mary narrowed her midnight blue eyes to challenge the Martian's stare. Somehow she was able to work her magic because the green skinned woman looked away awkwardly.
"Batman wants to talk to you." She curtly said,
"Great, is this an interview to be the next Robin?" Mary replied sarcastically, "I don't even know who you are, what makes you think I'm going to trust you?"
"The fact that you invaded our base, and we don't know who you are." A voice stonily said from behind, she turned her head back to find an emotionless Nightwing walking towards the green lady.
"Batman's waiting." Miss Martian said quickly before anything escalated beyond their control.
"Fine, but I want food." Mary said stubbornly following the floating Martian, but not before giving Nightwing a glare over her shoulder.
But she had no idea what power her glare held.
Inside the interrogation room it was cold, the cement walls looked damp and overall the place looked like a jail cell, not that she had been inside one. The walls were gray, stains visible in the dim light, one single light hanging from the ceiling. Guess it's true what they say, she thought, he really is the Dark Knight.
"Who are you?" He asked as soon as the door closed, and was locked.
Deciding not to tick off the man with various weapons she replied, "Mary."
"Last name." He said gruffly,
"Arataz." She said on the same tone as he spoke on.
"What are you doing here?" He asked.
She paused, she had sworn she had heard that voice before, and even then the build looked familiar. Honing her mind on specific things she searched through memories like a filing cabinet. Build…voice…familiar…pitch…tone…secret…but connecting the dots...
She had something,
"Wayne." She whispered out to herself, eyes narrowed in concentration, that was the closest connection she had gotten, but it didn't make sense, unless the Batman was the billionaire, or she was just off.
"Excuse me?" Batman said giving her a full on glare, one that was made to make common criminals cry for their mothers.
But Mary decided to ignore this and continue on her tangent of thought, whispering under her breath she squeezed her eyes shut and kept thinking out loud.
"Same build… tone…voice pitch…if Wayne's Batman… means…Nightwing means Grayson… dead Robin is Todd…Red Robin has to be Drake…Robin now is smaller… dark hair… connect it...family…Wayne… son…Damian."
"Stop." Nightwing called out, entering the interrogation room to help his adoptive father. Slamming the door after him, making the loud sound echo of the walls, hurting her ears slightly.
"Sorry what?" Mary said louder, snapping out of her thoughts.
"What did you just say?" Batman said menacingly, but in reality he was genuinely curious about Mary.
"What do you mean?" Mary asked confused for a second.
"You went off about Wayne and voice pitch." Batman answered,
"Oh right," Mary said sheepishly, "Sorry about that, I get carried away sometimes."
"But what did you think of?" Batman pressed,
"Just from your voice and pitch that you sound like Bruce Wayne, you both have the same build, like your jaw line is similar. But if your Wayne that makes Nightwing, first Robin, Dick Grayson the former circus acrobat. The second Robin, who died, Jason Todd, the street kid Wayne adopted, Red Robin, formerly Robin Tim Drake, a family friend who you adopted after he became orphaned, although that may not fit, and the current Robin, Damian Wayne, who is Bruce Wayne's biological son, but it's only theory." Mary finished, mainly going over facts for her sake.
"We need to discuss something, Mary, Miss Martian will take you to the kitchen. We'll be a while." Batman said, void of emotion.
She nodded and walked out. Leaving the two heroes wondering what in the world to do.
It had been a few minutes since Mary had left the interrogation room, both Nightwing and Batman had immediately turned on the security cameras in the kitchen to see if she was trouble. But all they saw was a small girl sitting on the chair with her legs swinging. She wasn't trouble, but she was.
"How?" Nightwing asked relaying what he had been monitoring from the other side of the glass,
"I don't know, she either knew before to see our reactions or she is extremely inquisitive." Batman sighed, leaning back his chair and crossing his arms.
"She looks exactly like her." The younger man whispered sadly,
"I know, they may be related." Batman said raising an eyebrow underneath the cowl.
"You'd think she would have told us if she had a relative other than her dad?" Nightwing shot back,
"She's been missing for eleven years, we may not even know her anymore." Batman said in full seriousness.
"I know, but it's just weird." Nightwing concluded, shutting off that particular path before it turned into a windy road. After a long silence the man of bats finally spoke up,
"We still don't know why she's come here." Batman said, sensing Nightwing's tenseness.
"I know, I cut off an important investigation. But how did she figure that out so fast, and she said herself it was only a theory?"
"We'll have to call her back in."
The room was silent, the only sound echoing off the walls were the crunching of peanuts in Mary's mouth, she hadn't had food since interval and she was starving.
"Miss Martian?" Mary said testing out the name on her tongue, leaning over the table towards the green skinned girl.
"Yes?" Miss Martian replied coming back out of her trance.
"What do you know about Zatanna?" Mary asked, voice small, feeling a tad awkward having to talk about her mum like she didn't know her.
"Where is this coming from?" M'gann asked, she found herself becoming increasingly uncomfortable talking about her old friend to a girl who like she could be a twin.
"I read about her, just wanted to get your opinion, you know, since you might have known her." Mary fluffed off with a shrug of her shoulder.
"Well," Miss Martian said with a frown on her face, remembering all the good memories, and the pain of loss when she disappeared.
"Zatanna was one of my first ever friends arriving on earth, and she was like a sister. Superboy and I used to go on double dates with her and her boyfriend. Then she disappeared, we looked for so many years, but then we just gave up. Wherever she was we wanted her to be happy, even if she was dead. You look a lot like her, actually, just your eyes and hair. She had straight hair and crystal blue eyes."
Mary looked away awkwardly, jaw locked in position not allowing her to talk,
"I just," The younger girl finally said, "I've been told I look like her, like a lot. But I also look like my mum, it's must be weird genetics then."
"You do, but do you know her?" M'gann asked curiously, while trying to get into the girls head without alerting her to the intrusion.
"I need your help about that actually." Mary admitted sheepishly, she had to tell someone why and how she was here. And the more seconds that ticked by it was another second she didn't have her mum.
"Oh?" Miss Martian cooed softly, cocking her head to the side.
"Um, do you have a way of tracking magic users?" She said biting her lip, bringing out the puppy dog face that had gotten her out of trouble for so many years.
"We don't at the moment, but even if we did now you would have to have an extremely good reason for tracking one down."
"Um, it's bec-"
"Mary, Batman will continue the interrogation." Nightwing said interrupting Mary's tell-all session with the martian.
"Sorry Miss Martian, but Batman wants to interrogate a ten year old girl." Mary said politely, so innocently that M'gann could help but giggle a little.
"Full name." Batman said as soon as she entered the room.
Mary rolled her eyes and sat down across from him, leaning on the table with a smile on her face.
"Mary Arataz." She answered.
"Full name." He repeated again, putting an emphasis on the full.
"Mary-Aster Sindella Arataz." She grudgingly replied, nothing could get away from the Dark Knight.
"You're related to Zatanna." He said, not a question but a statement.
"Congratulations what was it that tipped you off, the face, the name, or the fact that my last name is Zatara switched around?" Mary said clapping slowly and sarcastically; she couldn't help it if she had a different humor to everyone else.
"You're middle name, Sindella, is Zatanna's mum's name." He replied, ignoring the annoyed vibes that flowed off her, "But your first name?"
"Mary-Aster." She said, repeating it for the second time,
"How did you get Mary-Aster?" Batman asked leaning forward, for once playing good cop.
"Don't know how mum got Mary, but she said aster was an old friends favourite flowers, although she never talks about her past." Mary said nonchalantly.
"Do you have a father?" Batman asked, finally this was getting somewhere, thought Nightwing on the other side of the glass, monitoring the conversation.
Mary froze up at the question, eyes hardening, gaining a steel-like form, jaw locked and tensed, and her hands curled up into fists, her knuckles going white from the amount of pressure she was putting on. Jen's words flowing through her mind like a tidal wave, unloved, freak, goody-good, creep, ugly...
"No." She finally replied, a snarl about to escape her lips,
"Do you know who he is?" Batman pressed on, obviously curious at the reaction she was giving.
"No." She stonily asked, "What does my heritage have anything to do with this?" She snapped, having a look Nightwing thought no ten year old should have.
"I have a hunch on who your father is, but it's only a theory." Batman said with a smirk.
"I don't have time for this. He hasn't been there my whole life, and there is no reason I don't need him now." She said looking away, she just wanted to go home.
"How did you do it before?" Batman asked now, off topic, but he was curious.
"Do what?" She said getting really annoyed at him.
"Find out who I was." He said, he was taking a huge risk in trusting this girl, but if his hunch was right she would know him anyway.
"You mean I was right?" She asked shocked, her brain slowly making the connection between Bruce Wayne and Batman.
"How did you do it?" He asked again.
Mary looked at him weirdly before answering slowly,
"We were given an assignment in Social Studies, rich and famous people, I got Bruce Wayne and did a two month study and overlook. Interviews, work, charity, red carpets, family, backstory, basically everything. When I heard you speak, as Batman, the pitch of voice was the same, then I went over facts, facial features, build, your jaw line is the same, so is your build, but you can't really hide that one. Then I looked at the partners the Batman has had and the adopted children Bruce Wayne has had, the number matches and so do the dates." She said, pursing her lips together.
"Do you mind if I get a blood sample? For DNA purposes and clarifying your identity." He amended, he still wanted to see if he was right.
"Sure, but I didn't just drop in here for no reason." Mary said, turning serious, shifting in her seat to make herself look taller, didn't really work.
"Why are you here then?" Batman asked, now getting to the main point.
"Mum sent me here, well her figure did, I'm guessing it's magic. But anyway, mum-the figure- said to scan the necklace on a screen in a broken phone box, and to trust the people that are there. But she-the figure- said the whole reason I was being sent here was because she was taken or something and I needed to be safe. So do you have some way of tracking a homo magi?" She asked for the second time that day, this time without interruptions.
Batman was silent for a few seconds, having no clue on what to say to Mary, Nightwing's eyes were wide behind his mask, the lenses adjusting to the position showing his surprise and shock on the outside as well.
But Batman just walked over to her and pulled a needle out to take the blood sample from her, she winced when the needle broke through her skin, but relaxed when she realized he was just taking blood.
"You are free to go now, we will look in on Zatanna. Nightwing will show you to a room at the cave and I would appreciate it if you stayed there until you are called by either myself or Nightwing." Batman said staring down at Mary, who now had a scowl on her face.
Zatanna woke up in a strange place surrounded by forest. Green consumed her sight as the light came streaming down from above. The soft chime of the leaves flowing through the wind and the chirping of the birds made her calm down somewhat, but she couldn't help the questions swirling around her head.
How did she get here? Why was she here? And why in the world was she dressed like Snow White? She pulled herself up to inspect her new costume further.
"Welcome to the Enchanted Forest princess." A loud voice boomed out through the trees.
"Who's there?" She cried out circling around her position on the grass.
"Well Zatanna Zatara, you are now in a world of Fantasy. This is my kingdom and you are the hunted."
"Tropelet ot wen kroy" Zatanna chanted, trying to get herself out of wherever she was.
"Ah, ah, ah." The voice mocked, "You can't escape until you've seen the story through."
"What do you mean 'see the whole story through'?" Zatanna asked, getting more worried by the second.
"My darling," the voice cooed, "welcome to the world of Snow White, and guess who you are in this."
"Snow White." Zatanna deadpanned,
"Correct, and no magic can help you here. Everything will be seen to the end."
There it is... Leave a review and suggestions, until next time!
-The Missing X
