I''m still alive, if anyone's wondering.
I'm truly sorry I haven't updated earlier, but I was busy and [insert lame repeated excuse] well you know the story, I don't need to tell it to you do I?
Anyway! This is one damn long chapter! It's 3,000 words, as a sorry for me taking such a long time, and also a sorry for last chapter's shortness and a sorry for my really cranky AN last chapter . Not to mention a thanks for reading this story, even though the probabilities of this becoming a reality on the show are zilch.
And because this was mentioned by someone:
I am in Canada, and learned all my english here, ergo, I might have a different spelling here and there, so please take that into consideration...I'm not trying to mock the person who said this, since I think it's a valid point that should be clarified.
Soo, without further ado, I present to you this chapter! I hope you guys enjoy it! And please excuse my terrible fighting scenes. Please leave me a review!
Wheatieluv: Yeah, I was being annoying, but I was kind of mad. Well, I hope your day got better! I have updated and I hope you enjoy the chapter!
Ash Veran: Hmm, maybe not so much ;) But yeah, they probably wouldn't be happy with the truth, would they? Well, I hope you enjoy this one!
shesXsuperXfreaky: It's alright, I don't blame you, trust me, with all the stories I still need to read and review, I'm not much better :/ I hope you enjoy the chapter!
moonami95: Yeah, my aim is to make BC be the sarcastic and bluntly truthful adult here ;) Thanks! Yeah, I couldn't leave it out, so I'm glad you liked it! I know, I found that scene to be totally priceless! :D
Midnightarcher: Yep I did, thanks! And wow, you really want me to do a truth or dare fic don't you? I'll for sure be thinking about it! Meanwhile, enjoy the chapter!
Aperson-see if you get this: Thanks, I'm glad you liked it! Just to clarify, as I've stated above, practise is actually the correct spelling here in Canada, the same way that there exists neighbor and neighbour :D Well, I hope you like this one!
Twikadevra: Thanks! I'm glad you liked it so much! Hmm, they're not keeping it a secret, it's just not been focused on...yet ;) Thanks! Well, I hope this one makes it up for it,so enjoy!
clueless c: Thanks! Aww, I'm sorry your stories didn't get much attention :/ I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter so much! Yeah, Dinah's really becoming a comedic addition here :) Yeah, Ollie for sure wouldn't want to see Artemis dating, and Bruce, well he's the Batman, I'm sure he doesn't react to anything! ;) Thanks so much, and I'm happy that the two of you like it so much! It's alright, you did review, you told me what you liked about it, and your thoughts on it, that is a review in my books :D I won't get too mad, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!
Everyone else: Please enjoy, and leave me a review!
==League Of Shadows Headquarters, A Week Later
They were situated in a dojo, far away from prying eyes, preparing for another heist, one that would garner them lots of leverage against anyone, especially the Justice League.
Sensei was repulsed by the fact that those young sidekicks were actually proving to be a persistent pain to them. They had actually caused Cheshire to attack Ojo. Cheshire assured them that she was just pissed at Ojo for attacking her inadvertently and that was the only reason why she mauled him, but Sensei could tell that there was something else, something that she wasn't saying.
"Cheshire, whatever happened to your daughter?" Sensei asked, turning to the woman in question, who was training with a ninja.
"She's traveling, trying out new things." Cheshire blocked a punch, not losing focus.
Sensei chuckled internally, he knew that it would be hard to get Cheshire to tell the truth, and the woman could tell a lie like the best of them. Not to mention that her mask hid her emotions perfectly, you could barely see the eyes sometimes. "A minor, travelling alone? Or is she with someone?"
"Some friends." Cheshire replied noncommittally.
"I never saw Artemis with anyone. At least no one that she considered a friend." Sensei replied.
"She met them a couple of months ago." Cheshire shrugged.
"Right before she was about to be initiated to the League?" Sensei drove his point home.
Cheshire lost a bit of focus for the smallest fraction of a second, and the ninja moved in for the kill. Cheshire narrowed her eyes underneath her mask, and flipped the ninja and a crack was heard as the body thudded to the ground.
Cheshire straightened up and walked off as Sensei heard her mutter. "Let's just get going."
Sensei smirked evilly, and knew that Artemis wasn't travelling anywhere, but it would be wise to keep her in mind, since he could tell she wasn't that far away, and Sensei planned on recruiting her, one way or another.
==Underground Facility
The whole team was dispersed in this underground lab. It was a facility many miles below the ground. The outline of the building was simple. From the elevator, there was a hexagonal room, with three doors. Through each of those doors was a lab. There were, however, two separate hallways which connected two labs together. They knew that this place was a death trap, since the only way to exit was from that one elevator, and if someone destroyed the shaft, they would be screwed.
Miss Martian was by the entrance, invisible, waiting for the villains to come in. Wally, Kaldur and Robin were inside each of the labs, hiding behind desks, waiting for the right moment to attack. Artemis and Superboy were in a separate hallway each, looking left and right, even though they knew there was no direct entrance without passing the labs first, they were ready to help any of their teammates.
Artemis was in her hallway, and her eyes widened when she saw a couple of people materialize in there. Shadows Ninjas, great. She groaned internally. She then used the mental link set up by Megan. They're teleporting here! Artemis warned her teammates, starting to attack the ninjas.
Yeah, we noticed, they seem to have appeared all at the same time! Wally replied, fending off Cheshire and some of her ninjas.
They planned to take us by surprise it seems. Kaldur reasoned, fighting off his fair share of villains.
And they managed to do it. Robin growled, angry that their plan had gone up in shambles, again.
They're really pissing me off! Superboy angrily snarled.
Guys, you should get here! Megan panicked. They're trying to close us in!
Artemis was getting tired of fighting these two goofs, while at the same time, having to be in two places at once. Megan, we're kind of busy here!
I thought they were here for the experiments! Robin had managed to defeat one ninja, but it seemed that more were coming out of nowhere.
They are. Wally groaned. They're just kicking our butts while they're at it.
Everyone! Try to get rid of the ninjas and then help whoever's closest to you! Kaldur ordered, and everyone consented.
How about me? I'm dealing with Cheshire! Wally complained.
Keep your pants on! Artemis angrily replied. I'll help you as soon as I'm done here.
Artemis had been distracted for a second, and one of the ninjas had taken their blade and nearly mauled Artemis, but she moved out of the way, but still got a deep cut on her exposed abs. Artemis growled, and then took out her own knife from the sheath on her leg. The blade glinted maliciously as Artemis attacked.
==Sensei's Dojo.
Sensei had gotten one of the tech experts to rig the cameras in the lab, and saw how the green archer was attacking the ninjas. As they fell to the ground, no longer living, he grinned.
He now had the upper hand. He beckoned to some of the ninjas that had stayed back, and relayed orders to them, and as they teleported, he knew that whatever the outcome tonight, he would win.
=Back at the lab
Aqualad had managed to get out to help Megan, and Superboy was helping Robin. Meanwhile, Artemis entered the lab Wally was in, and the two surrounded Cheshire.
Wally had knocked the ninjas unconscious before Artemis had arrived, and was having a hell of a time fighting Cheshire.
"Two against one? That's hardly fair." Cheshire taunted them. She then turned towards Artemis and started to attack her.
"Because you're all about fairness." Artemis growled, trying to get a punch in.
"Touché. Takes one to know one." Cheshire chuckled, blocking all of Artemis' attacks, and wasn't very successful in getting her own attacks to come through.
Wally stepped back, seeing the two women dance as they fought. They seemed so concentrated and so angry at each other, that Wally wondered if they had some history. He was shaken out of his reverie by Robin's voice. Wally! Where are you? We could use your help!
Uh- Wally was entranced.
"Go help them!" Artemis was so into her fight she didn't even bother to use the link.
"But you-" Wally didn't want to leave Artemis alone with that assassin, and then he noticed the gash she had. "You're hurt!"
"I get hurt all the time Kid, this isn't any different. It's just a minor cut! I can handle her!" Artemis waved it off, using her bow to block Cheshire's blades. They were locked in their positions and neither wanted to move.
However, Cheshire looked down to Artemis' 'cut', and noticed that it was anything but minor. "Yeah Flash Boy, leave me be with your girlfriend." Cheshire taunted, wanting to look at that wound, without the pesky kid hovering over them.
Wally growled. "Why you-"
"GO!" Artemis enunciated, shoving Cheshire back, ending their deadlock.
"Fine, but if you need help, just call-"
"I will! Go!" Artemis was thrown against the wall by Cheshire's kick.
Wally looked one last time at the two women, and left to go help his friends.
As soon as Wally left, Cheshire dropped everything. "Let me take a look at that."
"Why?" Artemis was sceptical, and didn't relax her stance.
"Because some of the new recruits decide to overdose their weapons in poison, that's why." Cheshire sarcastically replied as she rolled her eyes. "If I wanted to kill you, I would've done it earlier."
"Suure." Artemis drawled, relaxing a bit.
"Sit." Cheshire ordered, and Artemis complied, sitting on the ground, with her legs sliding a bit in order for her to lean back on the wall, which in turn stretched her stomach, allowing her mother to have a closer look at her wound.
They were in a dark corner, and Artemis voiced it "Why did you pick the darkest corner ever?"
Cheshire laughed, and activated something in her mask, which made her eyes glow. "It allows me to see better."
Artemis rolled her eyes. "Of course."
Cheshire removed some bandages from somewhere, and started to patch her up.
Artemis was biting her lip, trying to not show that she was feeling any pain.
"Really' minor' cut." Cheshire prodded her. "On the bright side, you live to fight me another day."
"Because that's what I was worried about."
==On the other side of the lab room
The ninjas had teleported there, and were soundlessly making their way to the darkened corner, readying their weapons.
==Back with Artemis
Artemis and Cheshire were way too absorbed in their work to notice the ninjas approaching. Suddenly, a muffled boom was heard and both women looked up. Artemis, who was looking outward, saw the ninjas first. "Watch out!"
The ninjas must have been new, because the boom caught them off guard and they got trigger happy, and they all shot their weapons.
Cheshire had stood up at Artemis' warning, and got hit directly. She fell to the ground, and didn't move.
"No." Artemis breathed, not daring to believe what she feared. She crawled to where her mother had fell, and noticed that she was still breathing, but they were ragged breaths.
"AAAURGH!" Was Artemis' guttural cry as she took out her blade once again, as her eyes narrowed, and darkened.
The ninjas were frozen and their eyes widened as the incoming teen in green advanced, murder written all over her face.
==Outside the lab some minutes before.
The rest of the team was having a heck of a hard time fending off the ninjas. Wally had come but they weren't much more successful. The ninjas were unstoppable, and they overwhelmed the whole team with their numbers
Suddenly, there was an explosion from the elevator shaft, and they were all blown away, and thrown against the wall, with bits of the wall and metal blown at them.
Aqualad and Superboy managed to shake the debris off themselves, but Wally, Robin and Megan weren't so successful.
Aqualad was getting Robin out, while Superboy helped Megan, and then they heard a loud yell that came from one of the labs. The lab that Wally had just left.
"Artemis!" Wally exclaimed, redoubling his efforts to get out of the debris.
==Inside the lab
Artemis was huffing, from having exerted herself, on top of that, her costume was covered in blood, as she made her way back to her mother. She dropped to her knees, and looked through her mother's gadgets, knowing one of them would teleport them out of there. She found one of the trick smoke bombs, and threw it on the ground as they got swallowed up by the smoke, and taken out of there.
==Two seconds later
Wally burst in through the door, and the team followed, having managed to get each other out. They then saw a scene that revolted their stomach. There were four ninjas brutally murdered, and blood spattered all over the room.
"Artemis!" Wally called out, hoping that she was still here, alive.
"I- I can't sense her, Wally." Megan shook her head.
Wally refused to believe that, and ran around the whole room, and stopped at the dark corner that Artemis had left a short while ago. He saw the blood and dropped to his knees.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and saw Megan forcing a smile at him, though you could tell she was sad as well. "We'll find her Wally. But first, we should get out of here."
"How do we get out of here?" Superboy asked, turning to Robin.
"Easy, I'll get Batman to teleport us out of here." Robin replied, typing on his screen.
"But we're miles below the ground, you sure you're going to get any-" Wally started, but stopped as he felt the familiar sensation of teleportation.
"-Service?" He looked around him, and noticed he was back at the mountain. He then saw their mentors, none of them looking happy. Green Arrow stepped forward.
"Where's Artemis?"
==Gotham
Artemis put her mom on the couch of their home, and went to go find a first aid kit. She couldn't just take her mom to a hospital, and she sure didn't want to explain to anyone what she was doing with a well-known assassin, herself covered in blood.
As she was returning to the living room, Artemis suddenly felt her arms pinned to her sides by some rope substance, and saw Black Spider come out from his hiding spot, his web holding her still.
"What do you want?" Artemis snarled.
"Now, now Artemis, aren't you being a bit rude? After all, we're all like family here aren't we?" Sensei stepped out from the shadows, his grin rivalling that of her mother's.
"What do you want?' Artemis repeated, with more venom in her voice.
"What I want?" Sensei stated with mock surprise. "Merely to help your mother." He signalled to some helpers, who went to stand by Artemis' mother.
"Yeah right, you never help anyone." Artemis spat back. "At least, not without conditions."
"Quite true." Sensei sneered. "So I'll make you a deal Artemis," Sensei walked up to her, and grabbing her mask, he tore it away, throwing it to the ground. "I can either save your mother, or she dies."
Artemis narrowed her eyes. "I want the whole deal, not some half-baked compromise." She ordered.
Sensei chuckled. "You're a smart one. It's simple: you ditch those heroes, and your mother lives, or I let you go, and you can live with the guilt that you led your mother to her demise."
Artemis lowered her eyes, and started thinking.
==Mount Justice
"And when we came back, she was gone." Robin finished explaining.
The mentors weren't looking happy at all. Green Arrow spoke up. "I'm going to go search for her."
Wally exclaimed. "You know where she is?"
Green Arrow faltered for a moment. Batman explained. "No, but we can look."
"Then let us help too." Kaldur suggested.
"No. This is going beyond what this group was made for-" Batman started.
"So we can't help our friend?" Superboy growled.
"Not when you aren't prepared for this!" Flash retorted.
"Oh yeah? Then what do we need to know to be prepared?" Wally narrowed his eyes.
"Many things-" Black Canary replied.
"Like?" Megan insisted.
"This is League business, and I won't have you meddling in this." Batman finalized this. "Now go get some rest."
The team looked like they were about to contradict that order, but gave in. Green Arrow left, and the rest of the team went to the showers.
==Gotham
Ollie knew that Jade lived in Gotham now, and although his chances of finding Artemis here weren't likely, he was still going to try.
He went up to the door, and knocked. He waited for a couple of minutes, and when no one replied, he picked the lock and entered.
Turning on the light, he saw that the living room was empty. On a closer inspection, he saw that the couch was matted with fresh blood, and a first-aid kit lay strewn about the floor near the kitchen. He narrowed his eyes and went to contact Batman through his earpiece.
"Green Arrow to Batman." He stated.
"What did you find?" Batman replied.
"No one, but they must have left not too long ago. There's blood on the couch and a first aid kit thrown on the floor." Green Arrow relayed the information.
"I'm bringing you back to the Watchtower." Batman stated. "You might find your answers soon."
==Mount Justice
"How can they keep treating us like this!" Robin exclaimed, flopping down on the couch.
"We're back at square one. Sidekicks who have to watch from the sidelines." Wally added, sitting by the bar.
"We could just hack them again." Kaldur suggested.
"Except this time, I don't think they'll be too happy we disobeyed them." Superboy noted.
"But we need to help Artemis!" Megan insisted. Turning to Robin, she asked. "Can you hack them?"
Robin smirked. "Done." He got on his wrist computer and proceeded to hack into the system.
"Why would the Shadows want to take her?" Megan voiced what they were all thinking.
"I don't know, but when Artemis was fighting Cheshire, they seemed like they had met before." Wally explained.
"Well, they have fought before." Superboy pointed out.
"Yeah, but it wasn't that kind of familiarity." Wally shook his head.
"Maybe while Artemis was with Green Arrow?" Kaldur offered.
"Guys, we're going on a mission." Robin smirked, looking up from his computer.
==A Bank
"So the Shadows decided to attack twice today, and now it's a bank?" Wally exclaimed as they entered the bank.
"Even villains need money." A voice humorously replied.
"Where are you?" Aqualad took out his water-bearers and charged them up, while the rest of the team got into their stance.
"There!" Superboy pointed, having used his x-ray to see where the perp was. Whoever it was, they were standing by the shadow of a column.
"Dear me, I've been caught, whatever do I do?" The villain mocked stepping into the light.
The team saw a teen girl in a black suit, with purple accents all over. Her belt hung loosely over her waist, and her gloves were both of a purple , she was wearing a black cape with a hood covering her face.
"Who are you?" Wally asked, none too kindly.
"Name's Hecate. Not pleased to meet you." The figure replied.
"We're not in the mood for games." Aqualad stated, rushing over to the girl.
"Neither am I." She stated, stepping aside as to dodge Kaldur. She clearly didn't seem to want to fight, but the bag of money she was carrying wasn't going to leave this building if they had anything to do about it.
Wally gritted his teeth and rushed to the girl, and tried to grab her by her cape, only getting her hood, revealing luscious black hair, and a face covered by a mask, revealing only her eyes, nose and mouth. She turned around and elbowed him, and Wally saw deep purple eyes before he was knocked to the ground.
The rest of the team started to rush towards her, and she smirked. "Well, I must be leaving." And before the team could reach her, she threw a smoke bomb and disappeared. The smoke lingered, and the team started feeling dizzy.
"What- is that- what's going- oon-" Megan was the last to fall unconscious, so her question fell on deaf ears.
Soooo, what do you think?
I was going to cut it at the end of Robin saying that they were going on a mission, but I said that I was going to introduce Hecate, and I did!
Soo, who here can guess who Hecate is? If you have an idea, it's probably right ;)
Everything shall be explained in more detail in the next chapter. But if you're truly curious, and you want to do a Google search for Hecate, you might just find the answer!
Anyway, oh! One more thing:
To those that are interested, there's a new YouTube channel, called YJFanVids:
So I think it has happened to everyone that you want to see videos on your favorite YJ character, and maybe your favorite pairing, but can't find it, for some reason or another, or you don't have the patience to go through 10 pages to find a video.
Or you made a video, and want people to see it, but have no way of advertising it...
Well, that's what this channel is for!
Here, I'll put up ALL ORIGINAL videos, created by everyone, making this as a sort of repository for YJ fan videos :D
There will be NO exclusion of pairings or characters, the folders currently shown are just the ones that I know there are videos of, but more can and will be added!
That's their 'mission statement' for lack of better word, and they promise that they don't take any credit for the videos posted whatsoever, so check it out!
So please leave me a review, and the next YJ fic to be updated will be Behind It All!
Thanks for reading,
Hezpeller
