You'll never take me alive writers block! Never! *dives into bunker as bomb explodes* IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT!

Part the Third: Shadows

Zillah

The girl slowly withdrew the x-ray binoculars from her eyes, placing them silently into the pouch strapped to her waist. A maleficent, melodious laugh escaped her lips as she jumped down form the rooftop she was perched on. Melting into the shadows as she hit the ground, she calmly made her way towards her prey.

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Dick was the first to awaken from the shock. Leaning down, he rested his elbows on his knees, and placed his palms over his eyes.

"Something was… wrong in that video," he thought dismally, "and not just what we 'did'. Something more, but what?"

Dick thought harder, removing his hands from his eyes and wiping then slowly up to his hair, moving them until they cupped around his neck. He replayed the video of them in his mind, searching with his mind eye for anything out of the ordinary.

"Shadows." Robin whispered.

"What?" a sick-sounding Conner asked, looking up at the younger (or older…) hero.

"The shadows!" Robin exclaimed, jumping to his feet. The rest of his team start up at him with dazed, confused expressions.

"On the video, when we left Wayne tech, we didn't have shadows!" Robin explained, hyper at the sudden revelation.

"Watch!"

Robin rewound the video until it showed them all looking at the camera. When they all turned to leave, he jabbed his finger at the screen, "There!" he exclaimed.

The rest of the team stood dumbfounded. They were flabbergasted that the Boy Wonder could have figured this out.

"But why could that be?" Red Arrow questioned, "The case has a shadow, so there's obviously light in the room."

"Plus," Robin continued, "Look at us. We're…uh…"

"Darker?" suggested Superboy.

"Yeah," Zatanna agreed, "Like a shadow is covering you all."

No sooner had the words left the magician's mouth then a melodious giggle was heard throughout the room. The team was instantly alert; Artemis and Red Arrow strung their bows, both turning to face the only entrance to the room, a lone stairway. Robin had bird-a-ranges in his hands looking instinctively to the roof, preparing for an attack from above. Zatanna mumbled something too soft to hear, and two bright balls of yellow plasma appeared in both of her hands. Miss Martian's eyes lit up green, and Superboy and Kid Flash balled their fists. Aqualad's hands practically leaped to his water bearers, a mace and a sword in his hands just as fast. They waited, the seconds ticked by like hours, but not another sound was heard.

"Superboy," Aqualad ordered quietly, "go upstairs and see if you can find anything."

Conner tensed involuntarily. "No." he stated quietly, the word coming out as a squeaky whisper. The team looked at him quizzically. Aqualad began to ask why, but was stopped by a look from Megan. She floated gently over to where Conner was standing, and gave him a small, if strained, smile.

"It's okay Conner." Megan said, picking up on Superboy's fear, "I promise that we'll all be here when you get back. There's probably nothing up there, it's just a precaution." She smiled at him, gently taking his hand in hers.

Conner mentally shook himself. "Don't let what Superman said get to you. He just said it to make you crack. If your friends wanted to get rid of you, they'd have done it already. I still don't wanna go… wait!"

"What's that?" Superboy asked, tilting his head in an attempt to focus his hearing. "Do you guys hear that?"

"No," Artemis replied, dragging out the word, "What was it?"

As Superboy opened his mouth to reply, a harmonious laugh once again rang in the building.

"That would probably be me." A girls voice answered from the shadows.

The team spun towards the noise, and saw the girl materialize from the shadows.

She was of average height, her black, long-sleeved shirt was covered in glistening, midnight blue scales arranged in curved patters* that ran all the way down her shirt, and continued to swirl around her left pant leg. Her right pant leg was partially covered by an extension of her shirt, and further hidden by the bottom of a grey pouch that peeked out of the extension. Both of her hands where covered in black and blue, fingerless, leather gloves. Dark black hair flowed down to her shoulders; the same blue of her outfit was streaked in flames that appeared to dance in her hair when she moved. Two small braids wrapped around her head like a tiara, blue strands mixing with the black ones in a beautiful yet ominous dance. She smiled, revealing two rows of sharp, feline-like teeth.

"Hello." she called cheerfully, extending her hand in greeting.

The eight heroes wasted no time in rushing towards her, but before even Kid Flash could get to her, she'd disappeared.

The girl re-appeared standing in another shadow across the room.

"Well that was rude." She scolded.

The heroes spun around, dumbfounded. Recovering from their shock quickly, Miss Martian linked up the team.

"Attack plan: Delta" Aqualad commanded.

The team moved into position, Kid Flash running forward first.

"Ohhh! Are we playing a game? How fun!" the girl exclaimed. A split second before Kid Flash would have hit her, the mystery girl melted into the shadow she was already standing in, then re-appeared in Kid's shadow.

"Easy there tiger." She taunted, leaning in close to his head.

Various members of the team then all attacked at once, Artemis and Red Arrow shooting foam-arrows, Robin launching his bird-a-rangs, Miss Martian threw a nearby chair.

Zatanna yelled "dleihs!" and a dark-gold barrier surrounded the puzzling girl. Aqualad shot waster out of both his water bearers, while Superboy rose his fist and ran. Kid, although briefly taken aback, spun around, sweeping his leg on the ground in an attempt to knock her off her feet.

The girl laughed and disappeared easily dodging all the simultaneous attacks.

"My turn!" she called playfully, rising from her original shadow.

"Be still!" she yelled, and the team felt their feet become glued to the floor.

"Turn!"

All seven teens, and the one adult, spun to face her.

The girl smiled a twisted smile, and the team noticed for the first time her piercing, violet eyes.**

"Capture."

The shadows of the team seemed to react to this command, and before the team new what was happening, the shadows literally leapt up and ensnared their owners.

Dick bit back a scream, his breath catching in his throat. He felt shocks run up and down his body, and drills going into his head. A bright red light flashed before his eyes, and he heard the echoing screams, screams that were all too familiar to him.

Wally felt his legs slowly begin to numb, and he began to panic. However, worse was yet to come. The numbness was rapidly replaced with sharp pain, like thousands of tiny needles stabbing into his legs over and over again. The pain spread slowly to the rest of his body, and despite himself he let out a scream of agony.

Artemis quickly drew in a breath and held it, hoping that putting her focus away from the pain she experienced. But the action only drew worse consequences, as the feeling of being crushed alive grew more intense. Silent tears fell from her eyes as a familiar low, mocking laugh assaulted her ears.

Kaldur stood up strait, like the solider he was trained to be. His resolve thinned, as the feeling of his skin drying slowly increased. He closed his eyes, imagining his skin shrivelling up, peeling away. His breath began to hitch, and he thought he could feel his lungs shrinking. Never in his life had he longed for water more than at that moment, and he doubted he would ever long for it this much again.

Conner bit his lip so hard it bled. Agonizing pain shot through his body every time he breathed, but when he tried to hold his breath, the pain increased. He tried to fight the hold, but it was too strong, even for him. The realization left him queasy.

Megan had never felt such heat. It swirled around her, lapping at her skin, each flame burning into her. She tried to look around, tried to escape, but she was rooted, nothing she did would free her, and in her haste to escape she reached out to her friends with a strangled mental cry of help. Regret instantly washed over her, as the combined pain of the entire team crashed into her like a wave, and she pulled back, her current pain feeling like a refuge from all the others.

The girl watched all of this and laughed, snapping her fingers sharply. At once, all the pain ceased, but six teens stood gasping for breath. Zatanna and Roy were horrified, being forced to watch their friends suffer at the hands of a girl no older than they (AN: Zatanna that is).

"You probably have many questions." The girl said, flicking her hand. A shadow floated up to where she pointed, and she jumped onto it, sitting cross-legged and looking down on them.

"I'm start with who I am. The name you may give to the person who inflicted that little number on you, is Zillah. If you're wondering, it comes from the Hebrew word meaning 'shade' or 'shadow'. I'm the one who was behind all this. Surprise!" Zillah spread her arms wide.

"Question two… well this isn't really a question, so much as me deciding to tell you what I've been doing. Ah well, potato, potato***. I'll answer that soon, but for now we've got places to go, people to kidnap. Come."

With that simple command, she walked up the stairs and out of the building.

All heroes, to their great surprise, followed, trailing her like awe-struck puppies. It made them all simultaneously sick.

As Zillah walked, down the streets of Gotham, she began to explain herself.

"So, I'm watching the news a few months ago, and I realize how much the Justice league has done for everyone. Made me sick, seeing how much good they do. So I decided to do something about it." She turned her head slightly to look back at them, "Now, I'm not nearly powerful enough to take control of them the way I took control of you, so I decided that I needed a different approach. I thought to myself 'Alright Zillah, how can you hurt the heroes without actually hurting them?' At that moment, I was struck by an epiphany. 'The sidekicks!' I thought, 'I'll hurt the sidekicks!'"

Zillah turned back to watch where she was going, occasionally glancing upwards. As the posse entered a complex series of ally-ways, her voice dropped to a whisper, "So, I hid in Robin's shadow for a few hours, and what did I know, he led me right to all of you, gathered in one place like plums in pudding! It was then I decided to not just hurt you, but make you hurt others, then let the league deal with you. Pretty brilliant huh?"

She stopped and turned to face her audience, and as she did, Roy spit on her.

"Ew." Zillah stated simply. "Well, since you were so kind as to let me know how you feel about me, you can go get the league, and lead them to your friends little endeavour. But, we don't know where or what that's going to be, do we? Ah well, that the fun part isn't it? Now go!"

Roy unwillingly turned, and ran feeling his feet take him to the nearest zeta-tube. He hoped he would be back before someone else got hurt.

"And do you know what the best part is?" Zillah continued, "The best part is, you couldn't ever prove it was me, and not you!" she began to laugh, "My powers allow me to control what you do, but not how you do it. So all of your memories, all of your moves, all your powers were used at full potential! Then, it was a simple matter of erasing your memories so that you didn't go cry like babies to your mentors. After all, that would ruin the fun!"

To say that the team was horrified would be an understatement. But they weren't given much time to reflect on this, as Zillah's head turned sharply to the left. Walking down the street, was a girl with brown shoulder length hair, wearing an "I love Aquaman" tee shirt.

"Her." Zillah commanded silently, "Follow, lure then capture. Go!"

The team crept silently towards the unsuspecting girl, praying that Roy would get the league before their shadow-controlled bodies did anything they'd regret.

I'm back! Reason I was gone? Well, long story short, Writers block got a new ally called "Life" and Life already had a lot of allied, and they all attacked me at the same time. Ya.

* Not sure if you noticed, but Toothless in How To Train Your Dragon has these grey designs all over his body. The same designs are on her shirt.

** I don't know about you, but when Strange girls form out of shadows, I don't immediately notice what colour her eyes are. Maybe it's just me.

*** Pronounced "Po-tae-to" and Po-tah-to" like the expression.

The "I love Aquaman" teeshirt girl is my friend Sally, who , when asked what her favorite justice leauge hero was replied "Aquaman all the way!" She owes me a cookie now.