Part 39: Together/Apart

"They're going to come for the necklace." The foreign man advised Lila.

She watched him carefully trying to figure out exactly what he wanted. He did not seem to care about the necklace or the woman she'd stolen it from. "Do you want it?"

"No." His smile spelled danger. Lila unconsciously kept her distance from him. Survival instincts kicking in. "I'm just warning you that she has friends and they'll come for it." He turned to leave.

Lila frowned. "You're not one of her friends." Then she glanced at the door. "You have something they want as well."

"Quite the opposite, I assure you," he smiled again. "But I'm fixing that and by the way thank you for your help."

"What?" Lila opened her mouth but shut it again as two speeding men appeared. She vaguely remembered the taller one as the man who'd scared her away from her first attempt.

The man with the accent frowned. "Well, I'll leave them to you." He flicked his wrist and both men flew into the nearest wall, but were up in the fraction of a second it took for the European to disappear.

Concentrating Lila set a course and began to disappear but she felt two hands on her arm as she opened the portal. Groaning inside, Lila pulled the runners into the portal with her and took them.

Victor and AC showed up in time to watch the assassin and then the red head disappear with their friends. "Watchtower, we have a problem."

"You found Clark and Bart," Chloe responded, but hesitated as two of the locaters disappear.

Victor walked into the room and checked it out. "No, more like we lost them along with the teleporters."

"Didn't Artemis say he adopts powers? Is the tailor really a teleporter or is he borrowing the rock star's power?" AC asked as he searched through Lila's things. He found a bag full of jewelry and cash. "She's quite the little thief."

Victor glanced into the bag. "There's not much here."

"Well have to speak to her in person. That will be left up to Clark and Bart," Chloe responded as she watched the two dots disappeared from Tokyo and reappeared in Sydney then vanished again only to show up in England.

Oliver raised an eyebrow. "What's going on?"

"He and Victor are alone at the hotel and it looks like the rock star is tying to lose Bart and Clark. She'll eventually figure out that they're too fast for her."

"Wait, they are both with her?" Dinah asked suddenly curious about the conversation.

Chloe nodded. "Looks like it, if they were each with a teleporter, then they'd probably split up." As she finished speaking, Chloe glanced up and saw the assassin standing before her.

He didn't speak only closed the laptop before her. She'd almost made a move, but he raised a finger and clicked his tongue in a negative. Then Chloe found that she couldn't move. She couldn't even speak. Not that it mattered because Oliver had already noticed the newcomer and grabbed his bow. Unfortunately he wasn't fast enough, the assassin raised his hand. He toyed with Oliver moving first the arrow then the bow from Queen's fingertips before he threw the archer into the wall behind him. He made the mistake of thinking Canary incapable of defending herself.

Dinah screamed her Canary Cry which threw the assassin backwards out the window behind him. She then ran to Oliver, who slid down the wall and landed in a heap on the floor. He groaned as she searched him for any wounds. When she didn't find any, Dinah made a move to grab his weapon, but Oliver reached out a hand to stop her. Still sitting on the floor Oliver kissed Dinah.

It only took a moment for the assassin to disappear from the shattered glass that fell from the building with him and reappear in the penthouse. When he arrived the hero was stealing a kiss. Remembering the vision he'd seen during his brief encounter with Omen's powers, the assassin paused and let them finish their embrace. After all they'd never see each other again.

What he hadn't remembered was the short blonde with the computer. She came at him with the arrow he'd been previously threatened with. The arrow went through the soft tissue in his shoulder. He hadn't wanted to hurt the girl, but now he mentally pushed her into the back wall with as great a force as his pain caused.

Noticing the encounter, Dinah and Oliver broke apart. She made a move to scream again, but the assassin paralyzed her vocal cords. "Let's try this again." He wasn't used to the pain throbbing through his shoulder. "You stay," he said holding up a hand and preventing Oliver from moving. Chloe was still unconscious and Dinah couldn't use her power.

But again the assassin was underestimating them. Dinah came at him from the side and aimed her fist at his head. The assassin caught her hand with his and teleported her away, but he couldn't slow down her momentum. The last sight Oliver had of Dinah was her fist connecting with the side of the assassin's face.

-x-

Lila was tiring and the two tailing her had no difficulty keeping up. Annoyed she finally gave up and dropped all of them in the middle of the Glastonbury Abbey. Alright why are you two following me?"

"You stole something from a friend of ours," Bart glanced at the rock star. "We'd like it back." He held out a hand.

"Sorry, I can't do that." Lila shook her head. "That was on commission. I turned over the necklace right after I got it. It was hard enough getting it. I wasn't about to lose it."

"Fine." Clark frowned. "Who commissioned the theft?"

"A man named Spyder. He's a foreign business man. He likes unique items. Apparently there was something special about that stone, because he really wanted it."

"How so?" Clark was curious.

Lila sighed. "He was willing to wipe my debt over it."

"Your debt?"

"I owed him and more than any ordinary necklace is worth, and he is not willing to take a loss. Therefore that necklace is more than it appears to be. Anyway, you're welcome for the ride." Lila winked and disappeared from sight this time before they caught on.

"Should we?" Bart asked as she began to disintegrate.

Clark shook his head. "We have what we came for. She's a thief, but she didn't really hurt Maya. After all Dreamer probably doesn't even notice the missing necklace." They began to walk out from under the crumbing stone.

"Hey, Clark, look. It says this is the burial place of King Arthur."

Clark called over the comm. "Ah... Chloe, where are we?"

"You're in western England." Oliver answered sounding both worried and amused.

"What happened?" Clark tried not to sound so demanding. "Where's Chloe?"

"Chloe's unconscious. You two should get to Liverpool. I'm booking you tickets back to Metropolis."

"What's going on?" AC asked also on his comm in the SUV as Cyborg drove.

Oliver took a deep breath and sighed. "He got Dinah. We need to get her back."

Without responding, Victor pressed down on the gas and swerved between traffic. AC glanced at him. "So what do you know that we don't?"

"Those bodies in the food plant were part of an experiment on people with powers," Victor responded gravely.

"What happened to them?" Oliver asked in response to this news. "What was the experiment? How did they die?"

"I don't know everything. I was just helping Artemis translate the files. The only one we looked at was Abin Sur, who was killed by some sort of last resort drug."

"What came before the last resort?" Oliver pressed.

Clark could see this wasn't going to end well. "You don't want to know Oliver. Just concentrate on finding her not on what's happening to her."

"Artemis would be able to tell you more," Victor added.

"She is not going to be happy." Bart almost found the prospect amusing.

"Yeah, not it," AC added.

"She'll be more displeased if we don't call her now," Victor redirected the conversation.

"Either way she's going to kill the messenger, more displeased death isn't going to make much of a difference."

Clark actually felt the need to come to Artemis's defense. "She wouldn't kill you."

Bart laughed, "Maim maybe."

"Hit, probably," AC added.

"Yell, definitely," Victor almost smiled, "But you'll live. Unless?"

Oliver was tempted to let Cyborg make the call, after all in the group he was the closest to friends with Artemis, but he knew better. This was his fault. He had to tell Artemis himself. "No, thanks, I'll take care of it."

He opened his phone and was about to call, when he noticed a news bulletin scrolling across the bottom of Chloe's screen. "Yup, Artemis is going to kill someone."

-x-

The bat dropped her off at the apartment building and drove off in his half-tank/half-car. Artemis was tempted to take off, but her clothes and weapons were up in the penthouse and she didn't relish wearing this dress any longer.

So she headed inside. The guard's eyes widened, but he didn't say anything as she headed for the elevator. The doors opened to reveal Alfred. "Glad you returned." He gave Artemis a smile that even Cyborg would return.

"Is Mr. Wayne here?" Artemis asked with very little contempt as she found herself worried that Batman had been incorrect as to the safety of her charge.

"He'll be out to greet you in a moment." Alfred made the inevitable confrontation sound like a good thing.

Artemis simply nodded and walked into the living room. She had to admit the man had a good view. Watching the city scurry below her, Artemis didn't turn around when Bruce entered. He walked up beside her. "Fun night?"

"Yup, getting kidnapped was the highlight of my week," Artemis joked before realizing who she was talking to. They each turned and Artemis narrowed her eyes searching the face of Bruce Wayne half in shadow, half-light. "Tell your friend thank you."

He nodded. "He'll probably never want to see you here again."

"Because your city is so welcoming?" She looked back out the window. Silence fell over them as a phone began ringing. Artemis frowned. It was the ring tone of the assassin's phone. Heading back to her things, Artemis opened the phone.

"Artemis?" Oliver spoke on the other end.

Surprised, Artemis remembered that her phone was taken from her by the Serbians and Chloe must have saved the number of the assassin's burn phone. "What is it, Oliver?" The leader of the justice league wouldn't have taken such measures to contact her unless it was important.

"You should probably sit," Oliver started.

Artemis interjected warningly, "Oliver, tell me."

"The assassin took Dinah." He didn't mince words or even try to defend himself, which was a bad sign. "He set up a trap. He knew exactly who would play what parts."

"Alright, we'll just find her and bring her back." Artemis sounded more certain than she felt and Bruce was way too interested in her conversation.

She moved to hang up but was stopped by Oliver's voice saying. "There's more."

"What else?" Artemis didn't hide the irritation from her voice.

"Turn on the news."

Artemis looked over a Bruce. "Do you have a television?" Together they headed into a den where Alfred was. "The news."

A large screen television lit to life with several channels displayed at once. Artemis didn't need to ask which news station. She pointed to the channel where the assassin stood talking to a reporter. Sound added to the picture but Artemis's mind was so cluttered that she couldn't focus on translating the English. "Words?" was all she could say to convey her meaning.

Alfred seemed understand her. He turned on the captions and changed the language setting to Arabic. Trying to focus, Artemis read the words floating up the screen. "She saved my life," the assassin was claiming. "If anyone sees her, I would like to thank her in person."

"Wow, that's so touching," the newscaster responded. "So if anyone sees this woman, please contact the number at the bottom of the screen." The picture changed to a draw image. "She's a craftswoman specializing in ancient weaponry who goes by the name of Artemis and saved a club full of people from a knife-wielding hit man." The screen returned to the assassin and the newswoman who seemed rather infatuated with him.

Artemis rolled her eyes and hung up on Oliver without a goodbye. "I need to get back to Metropolis."

"Gladly." Bruce's response escaped Artemis due to preoccupation with mentally killing both the assassin and Oliver. "We'll take you to the airport."

The archer did not seem to be paying much attention. Alfred calmly spoke to Bruce. "Perhaps I should just take her."

"No," Bruce disagreed. "This is the first time we've had the opportunity to see the goddess with her defenses down. I'm curious how she'll handle this."

They left for the airport as soon as Artemis gathered her things. "I have booked you a return flight to Metropolis."

"Happy to be rid of me?" The humor might have been there if it wasn't for the emotionless tone to her voice. The ride to the airport was one of silence. Once at the airport, Alfred went ahead with the bags leaving Bruce to walk Artemis through. She should have expected something to go wrong, but too wrapped up in her thoughts, Artemis didn't notice the commotion around her. Bruce paid attention and looked over at the group of people pointing.

"Artemis?" He touched her arm to wake her from her thoughts. Startled Artemis opened her mouth to object but snapped it shut as she looked up at the television screens posted around the waiting area and saw a black and white version of herself staring off into space.

The shuffling of the crowd continued and grew louder until a hushed silence fell over the airport. Artemis closed her eyes momentarily apprehensive to turn. But she did and took a deep breath. The crowd had parted so the assassin could 'thank' his savior. Artemis took their location, his current powers and her lack of weapons into account and decided on the best course of action. She took a step before Bruce's arm stopped her; she glared at the offending appendage.

"You're not going to cause a scene?" His tone noted that there was little chance she wouldn't.

Artemis smiled as sweetly as she was able. "I'm sure there will be a scene, but I promise no bloodshed." Bruce had started to object but Artemis wasn't about to listen to him this time. Walking around the business man, the amazon faced off against the assassin. Not two warriors on the field of battle with only their skill to defend them. No, a pawn and a rook on white and black squares. But it was yet to be decided who was the rook.

The assassin was set to fight her, the airport and its patrons be damned. But a moment before Artemis reached him he relaxed; Artemis smiled and threw her arms around him. She winced momentarily in pain as his shoulder struck her still sore arm. In his ear she whispered, "Where is she?"

The assassin answered telepathically, "She's making new friends."

Trying to school her features, Artemis leaned her forehead against his shoulder so no one could see her angry, frustrated emotions. "Someday we will meet again. And I will hurt you."

"Perhaps, but not today," he answered in her head. Aloud he said, "Thank you so much for accepting my gratitude." The people who overheard clapped, some cried.

Pulling her arms back her arm twinged again and Artemis had a fleeting thought that it might be broken before she turned from the assassin. "Goodbye, Artemis," he grinned at her.

Instead of rolling her eyes, Artemis gave him a small smile. "I look forward to seeing you again, Joseph."