For the past couple of months, the team had been taking Nightshade along for every single mission, not allowing her to refuse. Though every time they went on a mission, usually one or two of them would stay behind to stakeout Nightshade's apartment. During this time, Shellcase had been quiet and with Whip locked up in Blackgate Prison, no one was showing up anywhere near the apartment.
After a while of this, Nightshade had gotten suspicious, especially after seeing someone that looked like Miss Martian flying over her place one night. She had asked Lance to look into what the team was doing, but he covered up for them in an attempt to keep Nightshade in the dark about what was really going on. After Lance's warning, the team started being more careful about where they held the stakeout.
Gotham City- November 20th- 10:24 P.M-
The team had taken Nightshade on a mission to Gotham's sewage system, following Killer Croc's trail.
"This is gross," Artemis complained as they splashed around in the waters.
"Come on, it's not that bad," Zatanna told her.
"Why don't you come down here and try it then?" Superboy asked looking up at Zatanna who was flying over them. The girl checked the green colored waters from a safe distance, they looked dirty and for a second, she could have sworn something moved under there.
"I think I'm good," she answered flying ahead of the team. The team kept walking until they heard loud splashing coming from in front of them, it was Kid Flash who had been sent ahead to search the sewers.
"Found him!" he yelled as he ran towards them and hid behind Nightshade. The two of them had barely enough time to take a few steps back before Superboy intercepted Killer Croc holding his jaws open right before they could reach them and punching him right in the face. "I think we need to rethink this plan," said Kid Flash before picking up Nightshade and moving her away from them as the girl shot Killer Croc in the chest, getting only his attention since the bullets just bounced from his thick skin. When Croc started following them, they led him up to the trip wires Artemis had set for him, he managed to avoid the first one, but that led him right into the second one.
"Maybe not," said Nightshade watching Killer Croc stumble and splash hard into the water. Aqualad got ready to attack Croc when he received a call from Rocket who had been staking out Nightshade's apartment with Robin.
"Shellcase broke into the apartment," she told him. Aqualad could hear the sound of a gun firing in the background.
"Is everyone safe?" he asked, glancing over at Nightshade who he found was staring back at him.
"We're holding on, but I don't know for how long," Rocket answered.
"What the fuck are you doing? Batgirl had to cover for you," said Nightshade after making her way to him, "what happened to the plan?" she wondered, trying to get Aqualad to look at her, but he was too busy looking at the rest of the team who had their hands full with Croc.
"Shellcase and Whip had been staking out your apartment for a few months, we sent Rocket and Robin there, but it seems Shellcase made a move…" Aqualad wasn't allowed to finish as he was interrupted by Nightshade punching him in the stomach before running away from the sewers. "Nightshade's heading your way," he informed Rocket, right as Killer Croc was running towards him.
Manhattan, New York City- 11:54 P.M-
Nightshade Made her way through the streets, dodging cars and swerving through traffic, not caring about the cars that she was scratching or the people she almost ran over on her bike. As she got closer to the apartment, she could hear the sound of Shellcase's gun. When she got to the apartment, she ditched her bike ran all the way up the stairs towards her place. Without hesitating she burst the door open just in time to see Shellcase, kicking Skye into the wall. Nightshade dropped her things at the door and got in between the two of them lighting her hand on fire. When she ran past the hallway, she caught a glimpse of Rocket laying on the ground facedown.
"Glad you could finally join us!" he said.
"What are you doing here?" yelled Skye while clutching her stomach and gasping for air. Honestly, she wasn't making a convincing argument with that face. Nightshade didn't answer, she just threw a fireball at him, but he dodged and it hit the wall, that was when she noticed Lance on the ground, half conscious. Angered, the girl launched herself at him and threw a couple of punches at him, followed by a kick which unleashed a full-blown attack that ended in Shellcase hitting the wall next to Lance. He gave her a smirk as he stood up and dust himself off; with a quick hand movement, he pulled out one of his guns and started shooting at the girl who created a blue-fire shield that melted the bullets as soon as they touched it. Shellcase ran out of bullets and dropped the gun to the side, forcing the girl to lower the shield.
"Are you done?" she said, her voice reflecting her anger. Nightshade looked back at Skye, she had been beaten up by Shellcase, it didn't look that serious, but she was fragile, she had always been fragile. She had seen Rocket and Lance, but Aqualad had said that Robin was with Rocket, so where the hell was he? She wondered. While she was distracted, Shellcase had managed to get close enough to her to grab her by the arm and lift her up and throw her against the wall. While she was on the floor, she saw Robin come out from the hallway, run over to Shellcase and punch him across the face before the man.
"You shouldn't have done that," he said leaning down just as Robin was going to kick him, he then turned around and grabbed the kid's leg, he held him up in the air and punched him in the stomach before dropping him on the ground. At that point, Nightshade was the only conscious person left in the room, she slowly got up from the ground and threw a knife at him that brushed his cheek. Shellcase lifted his mask to wipe the blood from his face, a smile plastered across his face. "I see you still got some fight in you."
"What did you say? I couldn't hear you over all that blood in your mouth," Nightshade said pulling out some more knives from her belt. She threw them at him, but Shellcase dodged them all, every knife she threw was dodged or grabbed and thrown back at her. She was caught off guard and some of the knives managed to hit her, so she chose a different approach. Nightshade pulled them out and lit her fist on fire, she started shooting fireballs at him and dodging as he pulled out another gun and started firing at her again. Some of the bullets grazed her skin, but it wasn't until one of them got dangerously close to her face that she put up a shield again. Unable to see through the flames, she lowered it as soon as she heard a grunting sound. Somewhere during the fight, Skye had gotten up and was electrocuting him. She was on the brink of losing control when Lance Jumped on top of Shellcase and released a red energy beam right in his face forcing him against the wall, but Shellcase took him along and Lance hit the wall hard. Skye had stop her lightning, but it had left her exhausted.
"I think we need more privacy," Shellcase told her, looking out the window. Nightshade followed his gaze, to where Aqualad and the rest of the team was coming. She looked back at him, a sharp pain ran through her side and after drawing her hand to touch the wound, she noticed that none of the wounds the bullets had caused were healing. Shellcase laughed and threw a grenade that blew up the wall that looked over to the street. "See you later, Nightshade," he told her and jumped out the hole in the wall. Nightshade stood in her living room watching him land intact on the ground, missing the team for a few seconds.
"Jade, don't go," said Lance, almost losing consciousness. The rest of the team made their way into the apartment in time to see Lance pass out.
"Where is Shellcase?" asked Aqualad making his way towards Nightshade.
"He got away," she said putting away her gun and knives. Nightshade glared at him and took a step back from him. "You knew, didn't you?" Nightshade asked them. "Why didn't you fucking tell me that there were two assassins stalking my apartment?!" She yelled.
"Jade, we thought we could handle it quietly," Batgirl answered.
"Well that turned out fucking great, didn't it?" she said, pointing at the unconscious people in her living room floor. Silence filled the room as Nightshade rubbed her forehead, she took a few deep breaths and took her time examining the room and the whole situation.
"Are you alright?" asked Aqualad, Nightshade stood there completely silent.
"Ask me again later," she said walking towards the door and bringing her hand to her ear over the comm. "Batman, I need a favor," she said before grabbing a black bag from behind the kitchen counter and storming out of the room.
"I told you we should have said something," a now conscious Rocket said while leaning against the wall. Aqualad stared down at the others before telling Superboy, Kid Flash and Miss Martian to take them back to the cave.
November 27th – 5:15 P.M-
It had been days since the team had last heard of Nightshade, they had been looking for her while keeping Lance and Skye safe in the cave, but there had been no luck. The Justice League had also been informed about the situation, apparently Nightshade had called Batman asking him to keep the siblings away until everything died down. After hearing what she had done, the team tried to trace her communicator, but it seemed that Nightshade had destroyed it.
"She has to be somewhere, people don't just vanish," said Kid Flash while Batgirl went through some security cameras in New York City.
"Jade does," Lance told them, he was sitting down next to Batgirl going through other footage of the city. "I mean she knows a lot of people, one of them could be helping her," he told them before finally giving up and leaning back on the chair.
"I thought most people hated Nightshade," Robin cut into the conversation.
"I never said they would help her because they wanted to. If anyone is, it's probably someone that owes her a favor," Lance clarified.
"That should narrow the list of people we could talk to, right?" Miss Martian asked looking over at Skye, who in the past few days, had been in a permanent state of shock.
"Not really, she…used to do a lot of favors for people," Skye answered, her eyes fixated on the wall right in front of her. As Batgirl and Lance went back to looking at the cameras, Aqualad and Superboy rushed into the room, getting everyone's attention.
"We have a problem," said Superboy.
"Whip escaped from Blackgate," Aqualad finished.
New York City- December 3rd – 2:48 A.M-
After days of looking for Shellcase, Nightshade had finally found him in a vacant office building in downtown New York City, she was completely certain that it was a trap, yet she walked into the building. The first thing she saw in the reception was a note taped to the elevator that read 'see you on the twelfth floor'. Nightshade ripped the paper off and pressed the button to the elevator that was already on the first floor. The ride up was slow, but when the elevator finally made it, she found herself staring down the barrel of a gun. The girl was given just a few seconds to move away before Shellcase pressed the trigger. The bullet hit the mirror and shattered it, leaving Nightshade with a disturbed image of what was in that floor.
"Fuck it," she said before running out the elevator, pushing Shellcase away from her giving her enough space to run deeper into the room. It was completely empty except for a few boxes and crates that were scattered across the room; it didn't even have a carpet, it was just hard concrete floor. The girl hid behind one of the columns when she heard the sound of a shot gun.
"Come on Nightshade, just make this easier for the both of us," he told her.
"Wow, I'm convinced. Do you also need help digging my grave?" she asked poking her head out of the column to look at Shellcase. He shot again aiming at her head, but the girl managed to hide at the last second. "Is that's a no?" she asked finally jumping out from behind her cover and shooting at Shellcase right in the shoulder forcing him to let go of his gun. To her surprise, Shellcase pulled out a grenade from his jacket and threw it right at her collapsing the two columns she was standing between taking the roof down with them.
When the dust cleared, Shellcase walked up to the debris holding his shotgun, ready to shoot at anything that moved, but when that didn't happen, he pushed away a piece of roof with his foot. "Well this is kind of disappointing," he said when he saw Nightshade laying face down on the ground surrounded by a small pool of blood. He aimed his shotgun at her, but she lifted her hand and blue flames surrounded his shotgun, melting it; Shellcase let go of it when the melted gun first touched his skin.
"I get that a lot," Nightshade got up from the ground and surrounded Shellcase in a blue-fire circle that kept him in place while also allowing Nightshade some room to recover. She started closing the circle around him when she felt a sharp pain in her back and a strong push that sent her against the wall. Nightshade looked back to see Whip standing behind her, her leather weapon in hand and ready to strike again. "I had forgotten about you," she said, pushing herself away from the wall at the same time as she reached down for a knife. The girl threw it at Whip, but she hit it and sent it away before it could reach her.
"You're going to need something better," said Whip, hitting Nightshade in the leg and pulling her towards her where she pressed down her neck with her heel, "way better." Nightshade grabbed the woman's leg as soon as she felt the heel was starting to penetrate her skin and lit her leg on fire just enough to force her away.
"Something like that?" she asked, getting up from the ground and reaching for her neck to wipe off some of the blood. The woman wrapped her whip around Nightshade's arm, but before she could pull it, Nightshade did it first and drew Whip towards her, disarming her. Whip struggled to get her weapon back, but Nightshade ended up pushing her to the ground and wrapping her whip around the woman's neck. "Really, it's as if they told you nothing about me before sending you here."
Nightshade held Whip on the ground with her foot while the woman struggled for air. The girl tightened the whip around her neck until the woman finally stopped struggling and went limp. Nightshade let go of the whip and relaxed for a moment only to feel the pain of a bullet entering her back. Shit, she thought. She had completely forgotten about Shellcase. Bleeding, she fell to the floor and crawled her way towards the nearest wall feeling Shellcase right behind her. He reached to grab her shoulder, but Nightshade turned around and punched him in the face. After that she barely gave him some space to counterattack, it was kick after kick, punch after punch until Nightshade threw a round-house kick knocking him to the ground, she sat on top of him and kept throwing punches. Finally, Shellcase found some room to stab her with the knife Whip had thrown away, it caused her to spit out some blood onto his mask, but the man didn't even flinch.
He pushed her away and her back hit the wall, she lifted up her gaze to see Shellcase walking her way with a smug look on his face. "They told me enough." Nightshade reached down for her gun, she tried using her last three bullets on him, but the man just dodged every single one of them.
"Figures," she said throwing away her gun. This guy was seriously trying to kill her, and since she couldn't harm him the outcome was obvious. Shellcase lifted her up by the arm, so the girl lit her arm on fire, managing to burn his hand and forcing him to throw her against the wall. On the ground, Nightshade stretched out her hand and created a fire that spread to where he was standing, Shellcase moved away from the fire but it just followed him, slowly getting a blue hue until it completely exploded into a wildfire. Nightshade was too injured to notice Shellcase showing up behind her, the man kicked her in the stomach all the way to the window that looked over to the street.
The girl was now lying face down on the ground trying not to look out the window. Shellcase walked closer to her and kicked her on the side again and again hoping to hear the girl's painful groan. He stopped hitting Nightshade and finally took out his gun and aimed it at Nightshade. "You could have made this so much easier on the both of us," he loaded the gun slowly, letting Nightshade hear every single click that was soon muffled by her agonizing scream as he shot her in the back one more time. Shellcase started walking away when he felt a hand grab his ankle. He turned around and looked down at Nightshade, she was breathing slower and her grip was weak.
"It's not over yet," she said in between pants. Shellcase released a mocking laughter as he kicked her hand away from him and stepped on it.
"I think you're in no condition to say that," he said shooting her one more time before disappearing into the darkness. Nightshade clutched the fist that was once holding Shellcase and took a few deep breaths, she could feel her consciousness slipping away as every drop of blood left her body, but a few seconds later, a yellow blur appeared before her. It was Kid Flash, he was initially taken back by the scene, blood was everywhere, and Nightshade had her arm stretched out in front of her, not to mention the dead woman on the other side of the room. He looked around before leaning down next to her.
"Hey, hey I'm here," he said, "let's get you out of this place," he tried picking her up but the moment he touched her, she let out a painful scream. "Okay, this will hurt…a lot," he said before quickly picking her up in his arms. He placed her arms around his neck and started to run towards the cave. "Sorry. Sorry," he apologized over and over as every move he made hurt her. "Just think of this as ripping a Band-Aid, quick and painless,"
"What are you doing here?" she asked, panting. Kid Flash ignored her question as he tried to go faster. "KF, I don't think this is going to work," her grip on his shoulder was loosening as she spoke. Kid Flash kept going, they were only a couple of minutes away from the cave, and he knew he could make it in time.
"So? What do you want me to do? Leave you here to die? No way. I delivered a heart under worse conditions, I'm sure you'll be fine…you have to be," he said pulling her close to his chest staining his suit with her blood as he felt her grip tightening around his neck. "Besides, you're the only one that laughs at my jokes," he said.
"Right." He could fell the muscles of her cheeks tense up against his face and he just knew that had pulled a smile out of her.
"Did we just have a moment?" he asked. Nightshade let out a soft and weak laugh.
"Not even close," she said with a trembling voice. He smiled at her, just a few more minutes he thought trying to pick up the pace. Kid Flash looked down at the girl, she was shivering. Actually, she had been shivering for quite some time, but he could already see the cave, so he took a short cut through the water. Suddenly her grip loosened completely, and her arms fell to her sides, she was unconscious, but her heart rate was rapidly decreasing.
"No, no! Jade, don't do this to me. Dammit!" he said just before entering the cave where the team was waiting for them along with Batman, Huntress and surprisingly, Black Canary. Kid Flash took her directly to the infirmary and laid her on the bed, a few seconds later Batman walked inside. He turned around to see the team standing outside the room trying to get inside but Huntress and Black Canary kept them out to make way for Doctor Leslie Thompkins.
"What the hell happened?" they heard Dr. Thompkins ask just before the door closed. The team moved away from the door and into the living room, no one said a word until Kid Flash walked in and they saw his blood-stained suit for the first time.
"Oh my god," said Miss Martian covering her mouth with both hands trying to hide her shock. Kid Flash looked down at his suit, he hadn't realized how bad it was up until that moment. The front part of his suit was completely covered in her blood, it was much more than just a small stain. He wanted to take it off, but there was nothing he could change into and waking around half naked wasn't an option, so he simply sat down next to Artemis and slid down. "That's a lot of blood for just one person, how was she?" she asked looking at Kid Flash
"Unconscious. She took quite a beating," he answered.
"Was she shot?" asked Lance. Kid Flash nodded.
"Where did he shoot her?" asked Rocket holding Skye as she cried.
"In the back, somewhere around the waist, and in her stomach," he explained.
"Wally, how did you know where she was?" asked Artemis, running her hand down his back. No one had asked, but Kid Flash had suddenly run out of the cave saying that he knew where Nightshade was. Before Kid Flash could answer, they heard some footsteps making their way towards them. The team looked up to see no one other Richard Grayson in a black suit that had a blue bird symbol in the chest, he had ditched the cape, but had kept his utility belt and added two escrima sticks that hung from his back.
"Grayson," said Robin, staring directly at the symbol on his chest.
"It's Nightwing now. How's Jade?" he asked. The team didn't answer, they knew nothing about the situation.
"What are you doing here?" asked Zatanna trying to change the topic, "I'm not complaining, just curious," suddenly everyone was looking at Dick waiting for an answer.
"He's the one that told me where Jade was," answered Kid Flash.