Bart and Jaime told Zatanna about what had happened in the past night when the following morning came around.

They showed her the map Wally gave them.

"So we're going to go to the locations listed here." Jaime concluded.

There were six in total, all throughout the west.

"Who's gonna stay back and watch the tribe?" Zatanna asked.

"None of us. We're all going. We're all facing The Outlaws. Three versus three. Fair game." Jaime insisted. "Besides, the Longshadows aren't babies. They can protect themselves. And Valor can watch over them, like he did last night." Jaime gestured to the cog bird perching on a branch.

"He did kill a couple of coyotes last night…" Zatanna said, then sighed. "I'm just nervous about leaving them behind. This is our home, Jaime. This is the place that took us when we were shunned by everybody else. I really care about these people."

"I know." Jaime put a hand on her shoulder, "I don't want to leave them, either. But if we want any chance at saving our land, we have to leave."

"And Windland won't attack while we're gone?" Zatanna asked.

Bart pitched in. "Nah," he said, his mouth full of chicken. "He shook Lex Luthor up real good. He won't send anybody out here."

"Alright," Zatanna sighed, "When do we leave?"

"After lunch." Jaime informed.

x

They ate their lunch and said their goodbyes. Some of the women of the tribe weeped over Bart's departure, and Bart honestly had trouble saying temporarily saying goodbye to Valor- he couldn't imagine how difficult it was for Tim do such a thing permanently.

Bart could see Jaime hugging Tye, and Tye saying "Be safe, my brother." before letting him go.

Zatanna cast a spell so that she could fly, and they all took off to the first location. It was a town called Rattlesnake.

x

They arrived to Rattlesnake by evening, and it looked abandoned. There were few buildings. Tumbleweeds scattered everywhere, and the only noise made was from some old wind chimes. There was a railroad track that was severely rusted out, and a steam engine which was so damaged that it was to never be repaired.

As they walked down the dirt road of Rattlesnake, a strong gust of wind blew past, making a howling noise.

"I can see why they'd have a base here." Zatanna commented. "Let's try this building up here."

It was a saloon, and one of its doors was attached to only one hinge. The other was on the floor. They walked inside, the floors creaking and groaning as they did. "Thgil gnirb." Zatanna uttered, and a swish was heard before the chandelier attached to the ceiling ignited all of its candles. Bart found it kind of eerie.

With the light, they could see broken stools, broken bottles, an old and slightly broken piano, and a set of stairs that twirled onto a balcony. Jaime walked over to the old piano. He pressed a key. It played just fine. He continued to play the non-broken keys, all sounding in-tune. "There's something in this piano."

"Huh? What?" Bart asked.

"I don't know." Jaime admitted, "But Khaji Da is going nuts." he lifted the top of the piano, and inside it was a key and a gun, both silver and shining like new.

"What's the key to?" Zatanna asked.

"Not sure. Bart, take the gun. It's loaded." Jaime insisted. Bart went over and grabbed it, while Jaime grabbed the key and sent it over his back, and the scarab seemingly ate it.

They went to the next building. Nothing. Then the next. They stumbled across a skeleton with torn clothes leaning against a wall, and according to Jaime, it was an around forty year old human male, and he'd been sitting there for about ten years.

Bart was beginning to get freaked out. "Can't we just move on to the next town?"

"Not yet." Zatanna said, going up the stairs to the building they were in. The upstairs was a bedroom, and in the bedroom, many items were scattered. Empty cans, ripped bags, and cigarettes. There was also a bed with lots of stains on it. Bart and Jaime joined her upstairs.

The scarab scanned the stain bed without Jaime even knowing. "Oh?" Jaime suddenly asked, almost looking amused.

"What'd it find?" Zatanna asked.

"Semen."

Bart snorted.

"Lovely." Zatanna commented.

"But this is good." Jaime said, "He's saying the, uh- multiple stains of semen came from the same man. Meaning this could've been one of The Outlaw's beds that he regularly slept in."

"Gross." Bart chuckled. He then got serious. "It's probably Jason's- he seems to be in a relationship with Starfire."

"So let's keep looking throughout the room," Zatanna said.

They didn't find anything that necessarily struck them. They moved on to the next and last building, where they finally found something significant.

A message in a bottle. Jaime smashed the bottle and read the message.

"It's an undelivered message to Wally." Jaime looked over to Bart. Bart sped up to him. "Look, it's from Roy."

March 12th, 1872

Dear Wally West,

I know I hadn't been able to convince you last time, but I really do want you to join Jason and I.

We recently rescued a girl. She's not a human, she's an alien named Koriand'r, but prefers to be called Starfire. She claims she came here due to get away from her sister, Blackfire, on a planet called Tamaran.

Starfire is powerful. She can fly, she can shoot beams, and she is strong. Soon enough, Starfire will allow us to conquer the entire west, have it be ours.

Wouldn't you want that, Wally? Your entire life, you've been expected to be a good West man, to conform to the rigid rules and sophisticated lifestyle that was condemned on you from the day you were born.

You are my best friend, Wally. I want you to be free, be free with Jason and I. Run and be free and don't feel a need to stick to any rules.

We are currently in a town called Rattlesnake. We killed all of its inhabitants that refused to run away, and took all of their food and alcohol for ourselves. We had fun getting pissed, but in the back of my mind, I thought about how you could be there.

We loved drinking together, didn't we?

Why not let it happen again?

Sincerely,

Roy

"So they've obviously moved on from Rattlesnake." Zatanna observed. "I guess we've gotta get a move on."

x

The next town was Jesterson. Much like Rattlesnake, Jesterson had no inhabitants. The base they came across was in the library, which was locked. Jaime pulled out the key he grabbed and unlocked the door. The library had no books; it was loaded to the brim with an arsenal and food supply. There was a note hammered to the inside of the library door.

LAST STOCK PUT-IN: April 19th, 1883.

WHAT WAS PUT-IN: 12 arrows, 3 bags of potato chips.

LAST STOCK REMOVAL: April 22nd, 1883.

WHAT WAS REMOVED: 4 pistols + 12 rounds of ammo, 6 arrows, 5 cans of beans.

"Recent." Bart noticed.

"So this is where they got everything throughout the years." Zatanna's fingers slid across one of the many arrows that were held in a wooden box.

"And I'm sure it isn't the only one." Jaime insisted.

"Can we eat?" Bart's stomach growled as he looked at the beans and chips that were nearby.

"Sure." Jaime said, and Bart dove right into the food. They all took a moment to just relax, sit back, and enjoy the food. They didn't have any water to wash it down with, only liquor. Luckily, Zatanna was like a reverse-Jesus, and turned the liquor into some fresh water. They finished eating.

"If we want to efficiently take down The Outlaws," Jaime said, "We have to take out their arsenal. So let's grab the rest of the food and get out of here. I'm going to blow up the library after we finish exploring the rest of this town."

They did explore, and found nothing significant except some bloodstains, to which Khaji Da scanned and saved the DNA from.

Zatanna encased herself and Bart into a protective bubble, and Jaime used both of his arms to form one large cannon which shot at the library, making it go up in blue flames. Bart could hear the sounds of unused bullets going off inside the library underneath the roaring fire.

They were all beginning to get tired, so they traveled a bit longer, found a stream, and laid down by it. For a few minutes, they stared up at the stars, and just talked.

"Do you think The Outlaws are still in Windland?" Zatanna asked.

"Definitely." Jaime said, "Or at least near it. But by destroying where they have to run off to, they'll soon have no place to hide."

"Starfire's an alien." Bart commented out of the blue.

The other two looked at him, confused as to why he suddenly brought it up.

"Starfire's an alien." Bart repeated, then continued, "For the first fifteen years of my life, I never thought of anything as really 'alien'." he said, "But only two months into my sixteenth, I've already seen three things. The first was the green gem in Barry's lab. The second was Khaji Da. Now the third is Starfire. All of those came from up in the sky, and people assume- or in the gem's case, would assume- they're from down below, as in Hell. Has anybody, even just one person, ever thought, 'Maybe I'm looking in only one direction'? They're looking at the Hell when they don't even know the sky exists." Bart said. "And I feel like this is where a lot of this is stemmed from. The whites trying to conquer the land of the Natives. Have they ever considered why Natives live the way they do? Have Natives ever considered the whites live the way they do? Surely there has to be benefits and disadvantages to both, but it seems like neither side is considering the other side's reasoning, they're only looking at their one direction and saying that's that." Bart took a breath, "In a way that medicine developed by laboratories couldn't harm a Native, a few less buildings couldn't harm a white man."

"Are you saying we shouldn't even bother saving the Longshadows?" Zatanna asked.

"No, of course not." Bart insisted, "I'm saying that even though we might get our land back for now, it won't be that way forever. Eventually there has to be a compromise somewhere. What will this place look like in a hundred years? Two hundred years? Has anybody ever even thought that far ahead?"

"I don't know." Zatanna admitted.

"Khaji Da has a prediction for a hundred years." Jaime informed.

"Really? What does he think?" Bart asked.

"He thinks with the way things are going, the whites will take over ninety-five percent of the land and use it to set up their way of life, but there'll be a select few acres of land left for the Natives to live peacefully. That's the five percent. So there's hardly a compromise there." Jaime said.

"Well, none of us are going to be here in a hundred years." Zatanna said, "So we'll never really know."

"He will." Jaime said, "He's had different hosts before me, thousands of years before me, and he'll continue after my body dies. He's seen a lot of stuff."

They talked for a few more minutes before deciding to head off to bed. It was a colder night, so Bart and Zatanna huddled together for warmth while Jaime kept his armor on, yet again sleeping like a dog.

x

The next morning, they ate some of their food before heading to the third location, Belleville.

Belleville wasn't abandoned, and seemed to have a similar population and business to Windland. They couldn't really do anything about it due to that, and moved onto the next town.

x

"The Cove" didn't exist.

Well, what was left of it was simply piles of rubble.

x

The fourth town, Greenland, was abandoned in itself, though there was a nearby farm to where they could see people working in the fields. They found a few unloaded guns that were similar in models to the one inside the piano in Rattlesnake, but that was it.

x

The last town, Old York City, was abandoned and judging by how it only had two buildings, never had a population over 12. It didn't even have a railroad.

But of course, with this little town came a big arsenal. One that was destroyed soon after upon discovery, and the note that was on the inside of its door was even more recent than the one in Jesterson- apparently, the last time something had been taken out was three weeks ago.

"Now what?" Bart asked. "All we found were some weapons, food, and a letter from Roy to Wally."

"We've destroyed two arsenals and that's good." Jaime insisted. "But we haven't found The Outlaws themselves. I get a feeling they're going to be coming back here real soon, as this arsenal is closer to Windland than the one in Jesterson."

"And they probably have more than two." Zatanna said. "Well, we've done what we needed to do. Let's head back to the Longshadows."

x

All three were very relieved to find out that nothing bad had happened to the tribe during their two day trip. A few teenagers from Windland had tried to scare the tribe, but before they could even enter the camp, Valor sent them running.

The trio decided that they'd spend disguise themselves as people of Windland, so that they could be there if and when The Outlaws attacked again.

Zatanna cast a spell on all of them, and they suddenly looked like triplets- light skin with bright blue eyes and hair so blonde it was nearly yellow. Zatanna summoned money to rent a hotel room, telling the clerk about how they were brothers and sister, travelers from Germany.

Their room was small with only two beds. Bart immediately jumped in the nearest one and mumbled about how much he missed sleeping in a bed.

They kept their blinds open to look out into the streets of Windland. Nothing. Now they just needed to occupy themselves.

Like the money, Zatanna summoned cards, and they played games for a few hours. Later that night, they decided to go out to the saloon and drink. It was a pretty cheery atmosphere, and the music roared throughout the building. As Bart and Jaime were in the middle of laughing about how Zatanna broke a fellow's fingers when he wouldn't back off on his advancements towards her, the doors swung open, and everything seemed to stop at once. The laughter stopped. The talking stopped. The walking stopped. The music stopped. The pouring of drinks stopped.

Everything stopped at the sight of The Outlaws entering.

Jason moved up to the bartender.

"Sorry we're late to the party. We had to freshen up a little." he then took out a gun and pointed it at the clerk. "Give us all of your booze."

The bartender didn't hesitate, stacking up bottles on the counter. Bart, Jaime, and Zatanna all looked at each other.

Bart ran, and he grabbed Jason's gun from his hand and unloading it before throwing it out the window, shattering the glass. Both Jason and the bartender stood in shock.

"That fucker again!" he yelled, and turned around. "He's here! Star, I thought you killed him!"

"I did!" Starfire exclaimed, and suddenly Zatanna yelled.

"Taolf meht ekam!"

Starfire, Red Arrow, and Red Hood all began to hover in the air, and couldn't get back down. The men in the saloon saw this as an opportunity to pull out their guns and shoot the bandits, but as Roy hovered, he shot an explosive arrow at them, killing a few. The survivors ran out of the building within seconds.

Bart, Jaime, and Zatanna all had their disguises poof away like dust, and Roy shot whatever arrows he could at them. Starfire joined, shooting orbs. Jason pulled a second gun out of his leather coat and joined in.

"Don't you have some sort of paralysing spell?" Bart yelled as he barely avoided a goo arrow.

"I do, but I have to-" Zatanna yelped as an orb exploded behind her, "-concentrate!"

"The buildings gonna come down!" Jaime yelled above all of the noise. Zatanna yelled the same spell she used for her protective bubble back in Jesterson, and as the ceiling in the saloon began to cave in, Jaime jumped on top of Bart.

He coughed as he removed the pieces of wood above him and looked out into the sky. He grabbed Bart and pulled him up. He seemed disoriented, but unscathed.

Starfire had burst up from the rubble suddenly, seemingly enraged. Her hair looked as if it were on fire, her teeth were bared, and she had pulsing green orbs in her hands.

"The spell broke. Zatanna's unconscious." was all Jaime could say before he was struck by the orb.

Bart ran around like a maniac avoiding Starfire's orbs. The only thing he could think in his head was "Not again, not again, not again, not again!"

Jaime got up and threw a plasma blast at her, which threw her off balance, but didn't take her down.

Jaime then tried his sonic cannon, which had no effect on the alien girl. Bart stood and watched as Jaime and Starfire battled it out, unsure what to do next. Rescue Zatanna? Help Jaime? But by the time he was about to make a decision, he heard a whistling, and he barely avoided an arrow to the back of his head. His ear was bleeding, though. He turned around, ran up to Roy, and savagely attacked him with all of his might. Punching him, kicking him, breaking his arrows and bow, and with how fast he was doing it, Roy didn't have time to react.

It was over within a matter of seconds.

Roy Harper had been beaten to death.

Bart gasped for air, and looked over to how Jaime was doing. He was getting tired, he knew, and Zatanna still needed to be rescued. He went to go get her, when he saw Jason emerging from the rubble.

He saw his dead friend, and looked at Bart, who was still catching his breath.

"You!" he yelled.

Bart let him run to him. Bart smiled at him. "You're next."

"What? You think I'm gonna try and kill you?" Jason asked, and he began to walk closer. "I didn't want you dead last time. Why would I want you dead now?"

"I beat your friend to death."

"Sure you did, but shit happens." Jason got close. So close that their noses were almost touching. Bart didn't flinch. "I'm not going to kill you." he reassured. He then brought up his gun to Bart's leg and pulled the trigger. Bart cried out in pain and fell to the ground. Jason leaned down, and whispered into Bart's ear. "I'm just gonna make it so you wish you were dead." Jason shot Bart again, once in his three remaining limbs. Bart yelped as he was picked up.

"Jaime! Zatanna!" he screamed. "Help!"

But Jaime was too preoccupied with Starfire to notice, and Zatanna was still unconscious.

Bart didn't black out this time, but he sure wished he did.

x

Jason brought him to a base that wasn't on the map that Wally gave him. It was underground, and its entrance was hidden by shrubs. Jason threw Bart on the ground. Bart snarled at him, and Jason kicked him in the face. "Shut up."

"What benefit will keeping me alive have to you?" Bart challenged.

Jason just smirked. "Because you're Bart Allen."

"What?"

"Don't think I don't know what happened with you in New York, Allen." Jason said, and he took off his helmet, placing it on the same dusty shelf he took a bottle of liquor out of. He opened it. "If you think about it, we're not too different."

"Fuck off. I'm not a witch and I didn't mean to scare anybody." Bart sneered.

"Oh, I know you're not." Jason relaxed in a chair. "I'm Jason Todd, but you've probably figured that out."

Bart nodded.

Jason continued to speak. "I worked at STAR Labs too, once, y'know. I'm honestly not surprised something freaky like you was bound to happen because of it. Let me guess. Something in Barry's lab?"

Bart looked down. "Yes. But why do you care?"

"Hated that fucker." Jason took a swig of his drink. "I don't think it's just a coincidence that we both worked at STAR and ended up in the same place in the west. I think we were meant to be a team."

"What?"

"In a way, I'm kind of glad you killed Roy." Jason admitted, "The guy was good with his arrows, but outside of battle, it was constantly this- 'O Wally! How I wish you were here, my Wallace. I miss you and must reunite. Jason, may we please allow him in? May I please just try to convince my Wally one more time to join us?' The man was such a fucking queer. For years and years, he just went on about Wally, how badly he wanted Wally to be there."

He smiled and took another swig. "But now Roy's gone. You fucking killed him. And I think you'd be a nice replacement."

"No." Bart groaned.

"Why not? How much money is Lex Luthor even paying you, anyways? Because as far as I'm concerned, no amount of money is worth all of the freedom you'd have rolling with me."

"It's not about money. He's not paying me in money." Bart said.

"Oh?" Jason smirked at him, "What's going on, then?"

"I need to do it. To protect the Longshadows. The tribe that took me in. I need to do it for my friends who love the tribe so much." Bart explained. "Lex Luthor said that if we killed you all, he'd leave the tribe alone. He'd stop trying to take the land they owned."

Jason almost choked on his vodka because he was laughing so hard. "Holy shit, are you that fucking dumb? Are you really taking that fatass's word for it? You're his proxy! He's gonna have you and your friends kill me and my friends, and then he's gonna have his big boys take you out. Think about it! The joke's gonna be on you!"

Bart seemed embarrassed and didn't respond.

"Come run with me, Bart. I'll tell you what. Me, you, and your friends, we'll destroy the town of Windland together, united. And then your tribe will have all of the land they want. You don't have to take unnecessary measures just to get what you want." Jason insisted.

"Really?" Bart began to laugh, and he noticed his wounds were healing. "What I want? I want to be back in Chicago, with my alive parents." he sighed. "I was so ungrateful. Complaining about having to marry this girl I didn't want to marry. At least I had a secure life ahead. Now it seems like I've got an array of problems."

"Tell me about it." Jason encouraged.

"I almost killed myself when my grandpa Barry knocked on my door." Bart explained, "I'm not joking. I had the gun in my mouth, about to pull the trigger, and the next thing I know, grandpa Barry is knocking on my door, and I answered him. I should've ignored his knocking and pulled it anyways. I regret it. I regret it more than arguing with my dad hours before his death."

"Sounds like you've had a tough time, kiddo." Jason nodded. "I get it. I get it." he pulled out one of his guns and tossed it to Bart, who was now leaning against the wall. "Well, there's your gun. If you want to shoot yourself, go ahead. I won't judge you."

Bart looked at the pistol next to him. "I can't." he said, "It's too late."

"It's never too late." Jason insisted.

"It is." Bart argued, "I can't kill myself now. I have to be there for the tribe, for Jaime and Zatanna."

"Jaime? That's Blue Beetle's name?" Jason asked. Bart nodded.

"Well, Bart, it seems like we've connected in some way. So, what do you think about the destruction of Windland?" Jason asked.

"I'd be up to it." Bart admitted, "But getting the other two on board, I'm not sure about."

The base door opened, and a very tired and injured Starfire entered. "I can't kill him." she grumbled, "His armor won't let me. Blorgnaf!"

Bart didn't know what the word meant, but by the way she said it, he guessed it was some sort of Tamaranian cuss. She gasped at the sight of Bart.

"Hello, darling. Bart and I were just having a lovely conversation." Jason said, his green eyes meeting hers.

"Why is he alive?!" she yelled.

"Cool it, Starfire. Everything's gonna be fine." Jason promised, "Come, take a seat. Bart's a nice guy." he then looked at Bart, a confused expression coming across his face. "You know Dick Grayson, right?"

"Yeah, he was my best friend." Bart said.

Jason snorted. "And that's where we differ." he sighed, "You see, Bart, if Barry or Dick have ever mentioned me to you-"

"They have." Bart interrupted.

"-they probably made me out to be some evil little Satan spawn, a do-no-good. Well, you see, I wasn't very happy at STAR." Jason explained, "I hated the repetitive schedule of it. I hated the organization, the uptightness about it. Everything was so formal and had the be top-notch all of the time, and it was getting old. When I was sent off to boarding school, I took my chance, and escaped that. I continued to live my life, but one with adventure and liberty. Not with fucking steam bullshit."

"I liked STAR." Bart insisted, "I liked being there. I liked working there."

"You were only there for how long? A month, maybe? I was there for years." Jason growled, "It breaks a man. It really does." he sighed, "You're lucky you got out when you did. Had you been trapped in a place like New York City with all of that speed, you would've gone insane. The west is free, full of open space, great for running. What happened to you was a happy accident."

"It wasn't!" Bart seemed offended, "I lost everything I had!"

"Really? Everything?"

"Well, no, I-" Bart paused, "A lot. I lost a lot."

"You lost a lot in exchange for free will." Jason pulled out a cigar and lit it.

"And that, my friend, is something you can never put a price on."