Chapter Six: Unwinding
It was towards lunchtime that Kana finally caught up to Speedy and managed to surprise him with a weak blow which would have done him little, if any, damage. He dodged it easily. The only reason she had found him was because Speedy had stopped briefly for lunch, being quite hungry, and been eating nutritional bar which had been found inside his pocket. By the time Kana sent a second blow with a fatally sharp dagger, Speedy had taken out his bow. She had surprised him, but he was prepared now.
Kana smiled slightly, her painted bone-white face stretching to allow the curve. She was weak compared to many others, but she was not given the name "Kana the Sharp" simply because of her honed blades. Her wits were honed, too, though at the expense of physical training. Before beginning with the surprise attack, she had arranged a series of traps around the eating hero, one of which he would inevitably stumble into if he tried to escape, unless he dove underground. And none of the data she had on him had indicated that he was able to instantaneously do so.
"Come out!" Speedy shouted strongly, with an arrow cocked to his bow.
The apprentice smiled and sent a needle flying past Speedy's arm. It imbedded itself in the trunk of a young tree. "Here I am!" she answered with a laugh in her voice. Of course, with her weaknesses, she would not dare give out her position. Luckily, ventriloquism was very useful. She twitched a finger. The string around it led to a branch, and the movement rustled the leaves where she had thrown her voice.
Speedy shot a normal arrow in the direction he had heard the voice come from, and then watched the movement of the leaves. He got hit by the next needle, which came from a completely unexpected angle. Was she able to teleport herself? The voice had definitely been female, so he assumed that his opponent was female. It seemed that this might be the person who desired Jade's magical sewing needles. "Show yourself!"
When the tip missed her, the apprentice's silver lips curved in amusement. This was an exercise in agility and precision. She was rather poor at it when hurried, but when she was in control of time, she did well. "I have," answered Kana as she moved position, rustling leaves in several places-- all of which she was not in-- at once. It was too risky to remain in her first position. She threw two needles this time, both dipped in paralysis poison, and quickly moved position again.
"What tricks are these?" Speedy complained as he dodged them both and shot an icy arrow where they had originated. Then, when three needles came at him, tips glistening with some liquid poison, he rolled out of the way. A fourth suddenly appeared, but he managed to block it with his bow. Then, he regained his footing and shot a flaming arrow where he judged the needles to have come from.
This time, it was Kana who barely dodged the attack. The ice had passed harmlessly, but the fire had burned. The strings attached to her fingers caught on fire, and she quickly cut the strings before the flames could trace her to her new hiding place. She jumped to another branch just as the one below her broke.
Speedy watched as five fiery lines, each attached to various places in the trees but all merging at one point, appeared above him and then fell limply, as though cut. He realized that she had used those strings to move the leaves and thus leave him unable to correctly guess where she was. "Your strings are gone!" he shouted as he shot the branch he thought she might be on. "Come out now."
Kana deeply wanted to retort something, but she knew better than to speak without reason before the foe was defeated. She lithely leapt down behind him, the sounds of branches he had shot cracking and falling, hiding the sound of her impact against the forest floor. He spun just a bit too slow, and she pushed a needle into his thigh. As paralysis overtook him, he stiffened and fell. With the opponent out of the battle, Kana felt that she could make her reply.
"My strings may be gone, but I am not."
While wandering about the island, Cheshire had come upon remains from the other two, less careful females. To be precise, she had found Kana's meditation circle in the sand and one of Jinx's footprints not washed away by the water. Being observant, Cheshire had immediately noticed both. While usually annoyed with lack of skill, she found herself thankful this time for more pieces to the puzzle. Kana and Jinx were both on the island. With this new piece of information in hand, she tried to come to a conclusion.
One possibility-- and the most likely-- was that Kana, who was fond of needles and imprecise when hurried if in long-range combat, had been after her to deliver a message and the Teen Titans had mistaken her intentions as being ill. To protect civilian Jade Nguyen, from possible interception by an unknown party, Speedy had been dispatched. To get Cheshire alone, Kana had disabled the helicopter. After that happened, Jinx had been instructed to come and look for the helicopter's missing passengers.
But where did magical sewing needles or Jinx's trumpeted plans for a vacation come in? There was no logical explanation. In fact, it seemed like an excuse--
That was it.
An excuse.
After reconsidering the situation, Cheshire decided to add Jinx at the beginning. The vacation plans had been true, but Jinx had invented the story of magical sewing needles being wanted by a needle-obsessed and weak-to-long-range entity in order to get Speedy assigned. Kana had been sent to distract and delay the imaginary villain from its goal and to communicate with Cheshire in some way. Jinx had been sent afterwards to look for Speedy and Cheshire.
That made sense.
Cheshire found that she was rather irritated with Jinx for causing the assassin to doubt her own abilities, but at the same time, Cheshire also found herself touched by the effort Jinx had put in.
Then, another, more urgent, thought came to mind: she had to find Kana before anyone else did. None of the others would be so interested in that young apprentice's safety, and Cheshire was not about to let her rather spectacular record be marred by the death of an ally of sorts.
At that moment, a fire caught her attention in the distance. It was unnatural, so at least one of the others had to be there. She raced towards it, her speed quickened by the thought of losing a perfect record-- or that was what she told herself.
Now that the prey was caught, Kana left him in the trapped area before leaving to look for Cheshire. If he attempted to escape after awaking, he would be, at least, caught and delayed. He had not been a particularly intelligent opponent, but his speed had almost forced her to deviate from her plan. She smiled weakly as the thought of how close she had come to failing before she collapsed, exhausted from her exertions. She had always been more of a scholar and strategist than a combatant.
To her surprise, instead of the deliberately chosen lee of a tree, someone caught her. "Kana the Sharp," said a voice.
Kana looked up to see a cat-like mask with a chillingly wide grin. "Elder Sister Cheshire," she answered in surprise, speaking in Mandarin Chinese. Then, feeling rather abashed over her failure and the fact that someone she respected had caught her, Kana turned rather red and looked down.
A demand broke through the air. "Tell me everything." The false smile on Cheshire's mask had never seemed so welcoming before.
The apprentice nodded to her elder and began speaking of everything she knew. Kana spoke of all that had happened thus far, such as why and how she had attacked their craft by targeting a weak point that seemed intentionally made so and of how she had left a meditation circle in the sand so that Cheshire would see and know it was her. The younger girl also spoke of the fact that she had been told not to permanently injure anyone. When Kana went as far to assure Cheshire that Speedy was left unharmed and merely temporarily paralyzed in a trapped area, Cheshire seemed to scoff.
"I knew he would be unharmed."
"How?" asked Kana, though she already knew why.
Cheshire seemed mildly disapproving as she looked down at her junior through the mask. Very simply, she answered, "You have not the will to kill." All assassins knew more than their own craft. Kana had been raised to be a benevolent figurehead, just as Cheshire had been raised to be a rather persuasive orator. The difference was that persuasiveness could allow violence, but benevolence preferred… well, an assassin should never have been trained that way, but even a loose association of assassins needed a quasi-benign apparent leader for political reasons. Unfortunately, this was what happened when an assassin was given false ideals to uphold: a failed mission. Almost like an afterthought, Cheshire added aloud, "Also, the meditative circle in the sand, while it works, is too obvious. It is out of place to see a calculatingly created form in the sand on a deserted island."
The apprentice lowered her head in shame at the blunt evaluation. "What… what about the craft's weak point?"
"I know who made the weak point in the craft, Little Sister Kana, and it was not an enemy," answered Cheshire. "In fact…" her voice trailed off as she heard someone near.
"Speedy has to find something, and then he will be coming over," announced Jinx to Kid Flash.
"You found him? Great!"
"And this is Miss Jade Nguyen. We need you to take her to Jump City first."
It was rather lucky for them that Kid Flash had not as excellent a memory as one would usually have. It was, Jinx had decided long ago, the effect of going through life so quickly that he saw more than usual. A brain only had so much space to keep information, and to live life faster than usual meant that more extraneous data had to be discarded than usual. Anyways, Kid Flash glanced at the girl in question before grinning in a friendly manner. "Of course, Jinx." Then, he extended a hand to the rather young girl. For just a moment, he thought that it was odd how Miss Nguyen seemed younger than he remembered… he had thought that she was about his age, but apparently not. Then again, Asian females tended to look younger-- including his beloved India-descended Jinx.
Jinx, feeling that Kid Flash deserved something for aiding in the trickery, whether he knew of his role or not, leaned over and added in a whisper, "Wally, would you come over for some tea tomorrow?" Although a smile could not really light up, Kid Flash's renewed grin came rather close to doing so.
The pink-haired witch waved as Kid Flash disappeared with the young girl and considered what had just happened. Jinx had been going to the see the fire when she had heard voices. Upon peeking, she had heard Cheshire and what seemed to be Cheshire's junior in… assassin apprenticeship, Jinx supposed. After ascertaining that the little Japanese-Chinese hybrid meant no harm-- it was a special talent of hers to be able discern most people's origins-- the three females had shared all the needed information they had amongst themselves freely.
It had been decided that Cheshire would return to Asia in Kana's craft after Cheshire had an opportunity to see Speedy, Kana would take Cheshire's place as Jade Nguyen, and Jinx would help the deception take place, as well as making sure that Speedy did not see the replacement-Jade. Although deceit was not quite approved of by the Heroes' Code, Jinx felt that this little bit would do no harm. She was neither hero nor villain, and therefore bound to the code of neither. She was more like a streak of grey in the black-and-white painting, so a bit of deceit was not against her morals. Besides, the young girl, Kana, would probably be out of the villain's life in a few years if Jinx's guess was right, and Cheshire… well, Cheshire had not done any crime this time, not to mention that she had practically been shot out of the sky. She deserved a rest.
Speedy had spent his many hours while trapped and paralyzed thinking about certain things in his life. Originally, he had thought about a certain assassin who always seemed to leave him behind, stunned, but he began to think of other things eventually, especially what had happened just before. The girl who had trapped him could not have been out of her early teens, if even in her teens at all, considering the high voice he heard during the battle and the small frame he had seen leaping away. Of course, he knew that Gizmo, who had left a lasting impression despite not having been seen in a while, had been scouted at six years of age, if not younger. Nonetheless, having such young agents alone out on the field was highly unusual, especially a tactician-type. Speedy had been undeceived by the girl's attempts to hide her weaknesses. Even Gizmo had his ability to invent and his machinery, but the girl had just used poorly aimed needles, a few strings, and a voice trick. It was ridiculous for someone of his experience to have lost to her.
But despite the unlikelihood of such happening, he had lost.
It was abashing, because he had been well on his way to defeating her when he had gotten overconfident, thinking that she was merely a child playing with things in a real arena. He hoped that no one would ever spread this story.
Speedy was drawn out of his thoughts when he suddenly heard the sounds of someone coming closer. There were soft twangs of string traps being dismantled and an occasional thump of something falling. The paralyzed youth attempted to speak, but he could not. Instead, he waited for his rescuer to say something. A rather familiar human hand, though he could not remember whose it was, rested on his arm, and Speedy rejoiced as he imagined freedom from the paralysis serum. He waited for something to be said.
Instead, Speedy felt something stab him in his right forearm. He mentally wondered why he was getting stabbed so many times. After he felt his body loosen, he realized that it had been an antidote to the poison. "Thank… you…" he whispered. Then, he looked into the face of his savior.
A smiling mask faced him. Behind it, a green-eyed assassin was smiling, too, though he could not know.
"Cheshire?!" he gasped in surprise. He attempted to sit up, but he fell back, the effects of the paralysis not yet gone.
"You are lucky. I designed this poison myself. " She had formulated this poison herself as an early experiment years ago, so she knew the necessary antidote to use. "You are so pitiful," her quiet voice remarked as she stroked his red hair with one hand, "that I think I can forgive you for your disastrous answers last time." She sounded strangely affectionate.
Speedy groaned as he felt the familiar rake of claws across his back that told him he was about to be injured. He had very vague memories of an incident a few weeks previous where he had answered some strange questions and gotten beaten for his undesirable replies. It appeared that those recollections which he had dismissed as his imagination had really happened. And if they really had--
It astonished him when she pulled him to her for a kiss.
