Welcome to Part 1 of the Climax. The part we (Yes, me and Inky, too) have all been waiting for. Inky says "Hold on to your emotions, they're about to get a workout." For further enjoyment, pay special attention to the passage of time in the coming chapters. I put way too much thought into it. This whole story has an extremely specific timeline, but the climax gets down to minutes and even seconds.
As a reminder, I do not own Young Justice or Batkitty. Also, in case you forgot him, Charlie was Roy's roommate and the fifth instigator of the Escape Plot.
Enjoy
Chapter 26
Finding Neverland
Kaldur sighed. He and Wally had no luck in Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, or Germany. They were now in the capital city of Belgium, their last stop before heading to meet up with the others in Geneva. From checking in with the others, he knew no one had any luck in their countries. In fact, Superboy's team was already waiting in Geneva and Miss Martian's team was finishing up in the Netherlands. If they didn't find any kids here, they would be back to the drawing board. At least Batman and Blue Jay were fairly sure they were honing in on the tracker anklet signal.
Wally looked miserable. Kaldur could tell he was clinging to the little hope they had. If they couldn't find Dick, or worse, found his dead body, the downward spiral would probably get out of control. The searching was the only thing keeping Wally together. The embassies were keeping an eye out for the kids, but that was all they could do.
"Hello." Kaldur said in French to the gatekeeper of the embassy when they reached the gate. "My name is Aqualad, and this is Kid Flash." They were in civvies to remain incognito, so Kaldur felt the introduction was necessary. "We are looking for the missing kids."
"I thought the Justice League had stopped searching so as to not endanger the kids."
"The Justice League, as an entity, has but we are not a part of the League, merely related to a few of them."
"Hmm. Come in."
"Merci beaucoup."
The gate opened, and they went inside. The gatekeeper pointed them to the main building, where the ambassadors were. They had gone through the process several times now, so Kaldur walked with confidence to their destination. The layout was similar to the one in Germany, so he was not truly paying attention to his surroundings. That is why he was slightly surprised when Wally stopped him with a tug on sleeve and a whispered "Kaldur."
"Yes, Wally?" He asked.
"Look over there. Do you see what I see?" Kaldur looked.
"I do not know where you are going with this. It is merely a couple of… a couple of…"
"Kids." They breathed together. They both smiled. Wally made to speed over to them, but Kaldur stopped him.
"Let us go inside and talk to the ambassadors. We do not want to spook them. And they may not be the kids we are searching for."
"Alright." Wally threw one last look back at the kids, and then entered the room.
6 weeks ago
When Charlie had first been put in charge of food and supplies for the escape plot, he'd been upset, to say the least. All he saw was the danger in entering an area where there were certain to be bluemen. He didn't think about the dangerous jobs the other leaders of the plot were in charge of or about the extreme importance of having nutrition and water and disinfectant. When he complained, he didn't understand why Dick went silent, something unreadable flickering through his eyes.
"We need food and water." Dick said. He didn't speak again for the rest of the meal.
Later that day, when they were in their room, Roy turned to face his roommate. "Humans can only survive three days without water and three weeks without food in ideal circumstances. If we don't have water or food, we won't last long out there. If we don't have a lot of food, not even considering how many people we'll have to spread it between, we won't last long. You've got the most important job."
"And the most dangerous."
"No. I have the most dangerous job. I need to get the bluemen's attention entirely focused on me or none of you will succeed. Dick has to take out at least three bluemen to get to and take over the control room, and barricade it so he can have enough time to open the doors. Then, he has to make it out of there, with a four year old. Your job is dangerous, yes, but all of ours are. Even Alex's."
"How is Alex's job more dangerous than mine?"
"Well, I wouldn't say Alex's is more dangerous than yours, more like… equally dangerous. He has to be the last one out so he can take out anyone who comes after the kids at the back of the pack and help Dick and Dami blend in when they catch up. Plus, he has that book of names."
"Oh."
"Get the food, water, and, if you can, medical supplies, especially disinfectant, bandages, and fever reducers. You'll have people to help you, whoever you can grab and quickly convince. There's a door out in the kitchen. You'll be fine."
"I guess so." Charlie and Roy were quiet for a while, Roy actually working on some work his teachers had assigned, mostly for something to do, and Charlie thinking over the plan. It occurred to him, "Roy, how are you going to get out? You said you were planning to lead them downstairs into the labyrinth and it will be hard to escape from ALL the bluemen. You have a trick up your sleeve?"
Roy shifted uncomfortably. "I'm… I'm not getting out."
A pause.
"WHAT?"
"Shh." Roy listened anxiously for anyone outside. "With my arm missing, I'll be a liability."
"You still know more about the wild then most of us."
"Not necessarily. My memory is kind of foggy. I might mix up a safe plant with a highly poisonous one."
"Still closer than we'd get."
"I can do more good here. If I can get the bluemen away from the group, more kids will escape. Kids like Damian and Dick and Julie."
"Don't bring up Julie." Roy sighed and looked down.
"Look. Leaving me behind is the only option if the plan is to work. If they don't kill me for aiding in the escape attempt, I will survive until you can get help back here. Dick's days are numbered, you've seen the white in his hair, and it's impressive Damian's even lasted this long considering he's four. I don't know about Alex's chances for survival here, but he is not as good as a distraction and you need to get the food. I'm the only one who can really pull off the distraction."
"So, what? You're just giving in?"
"Not giving in. Being a hero. Sometimes, heroes have to make sacrifices so others can be saved."
"Sometimes, not always."
"But this time. Please, Charlie, promise me you'll let me do this."
Charlie sighed. "Fine. But I'm not happy about it. You'd better be here when I get back."
"Heh. Don't count on it. And take care of Dick and Damian. They're going to need it."
4 weeks ago
As soon as the bluemen's attention riveted to his roommate, Charlie slipped away down the hallway. He glanced back once, getting a good last look at his friend before turning the corner. "I'll be back, Roy. Just hang in there." He whispered. Bluemen rushed past him, not giving him a second glance as Roy kicked up a fuss. He grabbed a few kids as he ran down the hallway.
"What-?" One girl questioned, as he pulled her along. She obviously had not gotten the memo to be ready for change that Charlie and Roy had spread earlier in the day.
"No time. Follow me." Once he was sure she would come. He let go of her to use his hand to snag someone else to follow them. He took out one blueman on the way to the kitchens. Right before they got there, he spun to face the crowd of kids he'd gathered. Well, not really a crowd. There were ten people other than himself. "We're leaving. Everyone. We need to get as much food, water and medical supplies as we can carry or we won't survive long." He passed around makeshift bags Alex had made using spare clothes, mostly shirts, in the camera's blind spot when he could get away with it. Roy had made a few as well. There were more than enough for everyone currently present.
"Water is the most important, followed by food. If you see medical supplies, especially gentle disinfectants or fever reducers, grab those as well, but as an afterthought. If you don't see any, don't bother. We need to be out as quickly as possible. Ready?" Determined nods all around, "Let's go."
Storming the kitchen was by far one of the best moments of Charlie's life, looking back on it. Oh, it wasn't fun at the time, mildly terrifying actually. However, like a roller coaster, it was over quickly and he looked back thinking, did I just do that? The best part, of course, was knocking a large pot of creamy white chowder with chunks in it into the blueman cook so she couldn't follow them. He also slashed a spoonful of the chowder through the air, coating her partner. Then, he stuffed a gazillion baked potatoes, a jug of water, two boxes of protein bars, and three crushed loaves of bread into his pouch, carrying three more loaves. It was amazing how much could fit in a t-shirt and pants combo sewed together. Alex had done a good job.
Glancing around, Charlie saw the others had succeeded in ransacking the kitchen of everything they could reasonably carry. The door unlocked with a loud buzz. That was their cue. Thanks, Dick. Charlie thought. Now, get yourself out. He led the charge out the kitchen door and into the sunset. They ran into a nearby forest and looped around to catch up with the larger crowd of kids and then took off down the pathway, moving fast, but not too fast. Their endurance would have to last.
Eventually, the group slowed to a walk, and kept going. The older kids recognized the importance of continuing to move and helped the younger kids who were flagging and hungry. They had not gotten an abundance of exercise in the prison, so their long run had more to do with desperation than physical ability. As the night wore on, the path in the forest got darker, and some of the older kids, Charlie included, called for a rest and count. The second the order was communicated, half the group collapsed, rubbing aching feet and breathing heavily.
Charlie scanned the crowd. His heart sunk as he realized none of his friends were there. He wasn't surprised not to see Roy there, but Damian should have been easy to spot as everyone sat down with how tiny the kid was, and Dick would have been with him. He couldn't even see Alex. Crap. Roy had asked him to protect them. What was he supposed to do now? They were the real leaders of the escape. He was just the food guy, the milkman. He couldn't lead a crowd of kids who spoke many different languages to safety. How would he even communicate with them? And if all the others were left behind, they were probably dead or nearly dead! No way the bluemen hadn't recognized Dick Grayson taking out several of their own. And he was in the control room! They would KNOW he was an instigator, and his chances of survival were so low to start! And Damian was only four and so tiny and young. Whatever they were doing to him, the stress would get to him, especially without his big brother. This was bad. So bad. Alex at least should have made it out. What happened there?
"HEY!" SLAP.
Charlie snapped out of it to stare at the girl who had just slapped him. It was the kid he had grabbed earlier who had questioned what was going on.
"Finally. You stopped panicking. I've been trying to get your attention for a while. I have milk. It'll go bad before too long. What should I do?" Charlie rubbed his eyes with his fingers, forcing himself to focus on what he could make a difference on.
"Umm. Did anyone grab cups?"
As it turned out, another in the group in the kitchen had that forethought. The cups were small and plastic, but they were what they needed. Charlie carefully poured out a small, equal amount of the milk the girl had grabbed into each cup and the girl passed them out to all the kids. Eventually, just as he was almost out of milk—and some water for the lactose intolerant—she came back and told him bluntly "That's everyone but us. I'm Francine, by the way."
"Charlie." He said. "That's really everyone? I haven't even poured all the cups in the pack. There were 100 cups."
"Well. We don't have 100 people." Charlie looked to the cups and counted. 20 cups left.
"We should have more people. There were definitely more than one hundred people in the prison."
Francine shifted uncomfortably. "I guess they didn't make it." Charlie resisted the urge to curse. This was bad. He forced himself to stay calm. They'd have to make due. He stood up and climbed on top of the tree stump he'd been sitting on to pour the milk.
"HEY!" He called, grabbing everyone's attention. "Finish your milk and bring the cups to the nearest person with a white pouch for safe keeping. Has anyone seen Roy, Dick, or Alex?"
There was some murmuring in the crowd. "Who?" One kid asked.
"Roy, Dick, and Alex. 81, 169, and 187, I think were the numbers. They're the others who planned getting us all out of there." More murmuring.
"I don't think they made it." Another kid, older this time, said. Alex resisted the urge to curse again and rubbed his eyes with his fingers.
"Well, if you're 15 or older and are fairly responsible, come over here." Pause. "Please." Charlie hopped down from the stump and turned to face Francine. He picked up two of the loaves he'd picked up and handed them to Francine. "Can you divide these into 80 and pass them out? I think everyone could use a bite to eat while they're waiting." She nodded and grabbed two food carriers near her to help.
Charlie waited until it seemed that everyone old enough to help was in front of him. He wasn't sure all 14 teens were 15 or older, but beggars can't be choosers. "Okay. Umm. Well, I sort of expected most of the rest of the group to make it out so they could be in charge of getting everyone to safety. I was only supposed to make sure we had food. Umm. We're not prisoners anymore, and if we want to stay that way, we need to organize. From what I can tell from passing out drinks, there are 80 of us that got away. That's not as many as I hoped, but still good. We need to get to safety, to civilization, without anyone dying. Once we're there, we can get help and send someone back for everyone who didn't make it out.
"I think we should form eight groups of ten, each with its own leader and assistant leader. The leader and assistant leader would be in charge of making sure everyone in the group was safe and still with us. I had about ten people with me when we raided the kitchen. I can lead that group with Francine as my assistant," He glanced at her to make sure that was okay. She gave him a thumbs up. "Or we can split up the food between multiple groups. Either way, we need to be careful with our supplies. When we run out, we're out. We don't know when, or if, we'll be able to restock. Water is of the utmost importance. We run out of that, we have three days tops before everyone is dead, two if we keep moving. If you find a water source, we'll need to stop immediately and refill.
"There's fourteen of us here, so everyone grab a partner, someone you think you can work well with."
"Wait!" Francine stopped them before they could start talking. "You should decide if we want to split up the food carriers first. Advantages to keeping them all together are we have all the food in one place, which will make it easier to split it evenly. Disadvantage is the food is all in one place. Advantage to splitting them is we can split the food as well, but, disadvantage, that would be all the food you got for your group and some groups might go through food a bit faster unintentionally. Plus, we have ten carriers not including Charlie for eight groups. That means three groups would have two carriers that could split the load between them." They all looked at her, clearly considering it. "Hands up for splitting." 9 hands went up.
"Hang on." One of the kids said. "What if we gave each group a food carrier, but the rest would be in a group with Charlie and Francine in case of emergencies. That way, no group would have an advantage, and if something happened to one group's food, like a bear attack or something, we'd have extras, in a matter of speaking."
There were several murmurs of agreement, 'That could work's and 'Sounds Good's.
"All in favor." Charlie asked. Eleven hands went up. "Well, that's majority. Grab a partner, and then go find seven more people to join your group. If you speak another language, try to grab people who speak that language but have trouble with English so that you can communicate with them. Make sure to grab one or two of the younger kids as well. We should spread them out. Francine has people handing out bread. I'll grab the rest of the carriers and start sorting the food into eleven equal piles, three of which will be emergency piles for if a group gets mauled or something. If nothing happens, we can sort the food out once we run out normally. I'll send each group a carrier once that's sorted, and we'll resume moving after that."
"Isn't it kind of dark out?"
"Yes, but we need to put as much distance between us and them as we can before day break. We'll be easier to spot during the day than at night."
The next day couldn't come soon enough. Once it did, they kept trudging forward. Several of the younger kids had fallen asleep and needed to be carried, but the group system had worked wonders to keep anyone from being left behind as far as Charlie could tell. When evening came again, they made camp for the night. Charlie met with the leaders and they set watches. As it turned out, a few of the kids in the group had some experience with traps and so made makeshift snares not far from the camp to try to dredge up some more food for their stores. Every little bit would count.
The group of leaders, which the kids called the council, met when they made camp and talked about rations. Charlie had mentioned to the carriers before they split up that they would need to stick to only one meal a day until they had an idea of where they were going and how far away it was. Nobody had any idea where the prison was located, but some of the regular kids who had been bused in said they remembered turning into the woods a long time before reaching the prison. It could be a long journey ahead, even assuming they didn't get lost.
Also during the council meeting came another excellent surprise. One group's leader and assistant leader didn't come, and after an inquiry around the camp, a kid mentioned seeing a group near the back unanimously agree to rest and catch up. Another kid mentioned hearing screams hours ago. Unfortunately, as they would learn in the coming days, that group would never catch up. Charlie found himself hoping they'd picked up the main group's trail and would eventually catch up. Even being recaptured was better than the multitude of alternatives.
By the second day, three more people had disappeared by the evening count. "At least it wasn't an entire group this time," Charlie said to the rest of the council when the matter was brought to his attention. "We have to keep moving and hope they can catch up or were recaptured. There's hope for them that way." They reorganized to have frequent counts and check-ins and continued walking, putting more distance between them and the bluemen. This time, a couple people walked behind the group in rotating shifts and erased as much as they could of the group's tracks. The council communicated to the rest of the group to try to leave as little trace as possible.
It was a rough eighteen days. They ran across streams three times and managed to refill their jugs and make the water last. The food stretched out, but they still ran out at the two week mark. The amount of food they grabbed was a lot for eleven kids to grab, but not stretched across over 60 kids. Charlie didn't let anyone touch the berries that showed up unless they were absolutely sure they were blueberries, raspberries, or blackberries. That combined with a few measly trappings staved off the worst of their hunger the last few days of the hike. Warmth was an issue as well, and they put all claustrophobia and discomfort to the side to huddle for warmth when the sun set. It might not be winter any more, but it was still chilly at night under the tree canopy.
There were two noted deaths. One kid had simply collapsed after a week and a half of walking and wouldn't wake up. Charlie immediately sprang into action, but it was too late. The twelve year old was dead in minutes. The white streaks in his hair were way too telling for Charlie's comfort, although one of the kids swore the kid had a severe allergic reaction and no one had an epipen. Another girl had been mauled to death when a bear attacked a side of the camp when they'd been hanging up food for safekeeping. A couple others had been injured as well before they managed to scare the bear off. All the bandages were used up wrapping their wounds and several kids sacrificed strips of their shirts for fresh bandages when needed. Both of their losses were buried in makeshift graves with the most honor possible and improvised grave markers.
The first signs of civilization were a blessing. The sight of a bustling town made several of the kids stop and cry. While they regained their composure, a quarter of the council had split to find out where the nearest embassy was and beg for transportation. They had decided an embassy would ensure their safety the most. The remaining three quarters stayed to guard the group. Before they knew it, they were safe.
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