Chapter Thirty-Eight: Cry Hard.
Whenever there was an arrival of one of the most prestigious families in the world, it was a huge event. The event of the Evans family arriving to Gotham City, for one of the biggest charity events of the year wasn't any different. The royal treatment had been given to one of the favorite families of the United Kingdom and there was a lot of excitement. Their three daughters were there.
Petunia was the oldest daughter at eleven years old, Lily was eight years old, and their youngest, Rose, was four years old. Rose and Lily were half-sisters to Petunia, given that her birth mother died an extremely young age.
Audrey Evans could see her husband slam on the breaks. She turned towards Herb, who was balding, with blonde hair, and he looked over with a frown. "Why are we stopping?"
Herb pointed out towards a truck that had pulled out in front of it. There was a truck that blocked their way.
Audrey frowned, already she didn't like this. Her husband started to back off, but there was another truck that pulled behind it, and another truck that pulled in front of it as well.
"What is going on?" Audrey asked.
Suddenly, there was a group of stylishly dressed gangsters that exited the vehicle. All of them wielded guns and one of them smashed the driver side window.
"Get out of the fucking car!" one of the gangsters yelled, holding the gun. "Let the children out, or we'll shoot them."
Audrey could see her husband get knocked down as one of them tried to break his way through the driver's side door and reach for her throat. Never one to take anyone's shit, Audrey Evans picked up a weapon and started to fire it at the gangsters.
There was a loud pop when one of the gangsters had been knocked back from the impact.
Audrey looked like she could be the older sister to her two biological daughters. She slammed the passenger's side door into the ribs of one of the gangster and grabbed him by the tie, before slamming him head first into the side of the vehicle.
"Pop that bitch off!" one of the gangsters yelled. Several more got out of the truck, and prepared to get in.
The Louie the Lilac Gang made their way in to snatch the brats, and Audrey was giving as good as she got. Her daughters sat in the back seat, completely and utterly terrified with what was going on.
"Come on, we got to get out of here," Lily said, grabbing her older sister's shoulder.
"Are you crazy?" Petunia asked her. The girl's eyes locked onto Lily's.
Audrey was pushed down onto the ground and the gangsters were about ready to take her out. Lily was about ready to make her way out, but there were two gangsters blocking her exit.
"Back in the car, you little brat," the gangster growled underneath his breath. He pushed Lily back and she gave him a furious sneer when she tried to break on free.
Audrey was down on the ground and fighting. This situation was going from bad to worse, when she could see a woman approach her, with a daunting look in her eyes.
She recognized that type of stare. It was the one that was through her eyes many times in the past. The Evans female tried to push herself to her feet, but felt her legs crumple out from underneath her. No matter how hard Audrey tried to get up, the woman just kept pushed down onto the ground.
There was a large hand that grabbed around the top of her head and yanked her up to her feet and hurled her off to the side. There was a loud crack when Audrey was thrown off to the side like she was nothing.
The next thing Audrey saw was a very familiar blur that punched out the woman and hoisted her up onto the air.
Audrey had some problems though, with the gangsters closing in on her. She prepared to fight them. The only problem was that there was no chance.
The Black Canary turned up and there was a loud crunch one of the gangsters were taken down.
Audrey turned around and she could see her husband drop to the ground. He had been shot several times. She tried not to scream. Instead, she assisted the Black Canary in taking down the gangsters.
"You need to leave," The Black Canary warned her.
"My daughters," Audrey said and sure enough, the limo had been commandeered by some of Louie's men.
Black Canary looked up and saw that help was in fact on the way. That allowed her to be free and clear in her attempt to engage the goon squad. She picked up the pace, running as quickly as she could.
Gwen and Harry showed up to assist Audrey. Harry took his aggression out on the gangsters, and frustration didn't even begin to describe what he felt. He was too late, much too late, and he was going to take it out on these goon squad members.
Another boom tube opened up and Audrey's eyes widened.
"Let's hope Black Canary can get your daughters, because we've got some bigger problems," Harry said. Another group of Furies exited the portal.
Harry would have thought that Granny would have been smart enough not to use female minions to attack him, but then again, perhaps he was wrong.
Black Canary was nearly on top of the limo with the Evans daughters. She didn't have to go too far, all she had to do was follow their screams and she would be right on top of them. She kept rushing.
Another car moved in and Black Canary was fired at. She dodged the barrage of bullets.
The other car sped off and she had lost track of the limo.
Black Canary checked to see if the tracker was still active. Much to her agitation, it had been busted. This was most certainly not her day.
Barda was not too happy about being hurled off to the side like a piece of garbage. She looked up to see the blonde female about ready to launch herself at her like a bottle rocket.
She blocked the blonde's attack and Kara forced her arm back. Kara remembered how tough Barda was before and this pretty much cemented the fact.
"Look, I don't want to hurt you," Kara said. She figured that wasn't going to really go over that well.
"I don't think that you understand," Barda said. She tried to nail Kara, but Kara ducked and she put a hole right through a wall.
Kara used her super breath and knocked Barda head over heels onto the ground .She flipped over onto her back.
"Yes, believe me, I understand what you're going through more than you think," Kara said. She could see Barda quickly get up to her feet. The blonde spun her fist and knocked her down onto the ground.
Barda was down, but not out. Jean appeared right beside Kara.
'Sleep,' Jean thought urgently. Barda's knees went rigid and she went to sleep. That caused Kara to look over her shoulder to Jean with surprise. Kara frowned when she was about ready to protest Jean's intrusion. To her credit, Jean managed to maneuver her way in towards Kara. 'You know, the two of you were just going to cause a lot of property damage and nothing else, if I didn't jump in.'
Kara opened her mouth one more time to protest. Jean shook her head firmly and Kara deflated, her arms folded over her chest. She was about ready to say that she could have had Barda and she really thought that she could have as well.
'So, do you think that she's going to stay to sleep for long?' Kara asked.
Jean could feel a twinge of a headache appear over her eyes. She shook her head and tried to push herself into the mind of Barda. 'You know, as much as I would have liked to see her calm down, you know that she isn't going to be happy when she snaps out of it, and that will be soon.'
'Just bring her on the other side, we can't leave her out and about,' Selene said.
'Aren't you concerned about having someone that dangerous in the church?' Rosalina asked.
Selene shook her head and decided to enlighten her fellow Hellfire Club member on some certain truths. 'It's a risk that is worth taking.'
Rosalina was about ready to open her mouth, but she didn't really say anything. She knew that Selene knew best and it would not be a good idea to question her in a situation like this.
Barda was wrapped up nice and tightly. Jean closed her eyes and transported them to the Church.
"And it seems like Granny brainwashed this latest set a bit better," Morgan said. She only had to look at Barda for a few seconds to determine that. There was a second where Jean and Kara were about ready to fire off explanations.
It turned out that there were no explanations needed, rather the malicious tone of Loki chimed on through. "Oh, that doesn't matter, I enjoy a challenge."
'So, we've got almost good news and bad news,' Gwen reported.
'Oh, my two favorite kinds of news,' Kara said. She was pretty sarcastic at what she said. She took a moment to clear her throat. 'What's the almost good news?'
'Well, the Furies were in long enough to cause a stir, but they got away without any casualties,' Harry thought. He thought that was about as much as they could expect. 'The bad news is that Louie the Lilac and his gang managed to get away, and with my mother as well.'
'So, what exactly is going on here?' Kara asked.
'Well we know what Darkseid is up to, that much is transparent,' Harry thought. 'What I can't figure is what Louie's angle is?'
'Well, three girls named after flowers, that would present a target, wouldn't it?' Kitty thought. She thought that she was just stabbing in the dark right now.
'We're going to see if we can track down the Black Canary, she might have a lead on them all,' Harry thought. 'And I'm sending my grandparents to the Church right now. Audrey's fine, but my grandfather is in pretty bad shape. I don't think that he's going to make it.'
'Another man in the church?' Selene thought. 'I don't know about this, Har…..but I think that I can see what I can do at the halfway point. But, do you think that things look pretty grim.'
'Yes, he got shot several times and I just want to make sure his last few hours are comfortable, but if there's any chance….take it,' Harry thought. 'Audrey has accepted what's going to happen to him, even though I don't think she cares much for it.'
Black Canary was on the rooftop in Gotham City. This was about as far as she was going to get. She could feel her pulse racing. It was obvious that after she went around the city a couple of times, the tracker was compromised. She was pretty sure it hadn't been found out, but it was most certainly not working as she thought.
"I'm going to need back up, now," Black Canary said. She waited for the person on the other end to respond. What her contact said. "Are you….are you sure? Yeah, I know….in about an hour….we don't have an hour…..I understand there are other crises elsewhere. But I thought that I could get the help. We're so close to bringing in the Lilac."
Black Canary heard a few choice words and they were not to her liking. There wasn't much else that she could do other than sigh and stew. More stew than anything. The woman lowered the staff and tried not to be too frustrated.
There was some crisis that hit that demanded the attention of the rest of the JSA. Dinah just had to deal with it, no matter how much that she didn't like it. The nearest person wouldn't be available for around an hour.
She speculated that it wasn't really a coincidence that the rest of them were distracted away from Gotham, but she couldn't really prove it. There was a lot of oddities that were popping up and it was far beyond the Lilac and his business.
That one was really personal for Dinah, she wasn't going to lie.
She spun around and saw a young man with dark hair and green eyes standing behind here.
"You know, sneaking up behind people is a good way to get yourself injured," she replied.
Harry raised his eyebrow, with a smile. The two of them had a tense stare down with each other and neither side backed down from the other. It was obvious that neither side wanted to be the side that would crack first.
"You know that the safe return of the Evans sisters is vital," Harry told her.
"Oh, do you have a stake in this?" Dinah asked. She looked into the eyes and recognized the same shade of green that was of Audrey Evans.
"Don't worry, I'm here to help," Harry replied to her.
He could tell that that the intense crime fighting nature and not taking any shit was something that ran through the family. The woman lifted her arms and folded them underneath her chest.
"As I said, returning the Evans sisters to where they should be is extremely vital," Harry said. He blinked when he looked at her. "Trust me on that."
Black Canary didn't trust that easily, at least this one didn't. Her partnership with the JSA was a tense one at best half of the time. She trusted many of the members of the team, but their scope was far wider than Gotham City. She was fighting what appeared to be a cold war against the criminal elements of the city.
It was a battle that was never ending and with the recent rash of gang related violence, things were getting worse. There were a few parties like the Waynes that were a bloom in the garbage scowl that was Gotham City, and Dinah hoped that Thomas and Martha Wayne would be around for years to come.
Petunia Evans was beginning to freak out. She breathed, she breathed out, she breathed in, and breathed out. All of those freaks around her were causing her to have a bit of a panic attack and things were getting even more worse.
"Hey, hey, hey, can't you grab ahold of one little girl," one of the gangsters said.
Lily tried to get away. The feisty eight year old planted her elbow into the stomach of the man who tried to grab her and she scrambled away.
Another big man blocked the door. Lily's eyes widened and the gangster grabbed her. The gangster was about four or five times her size.
"Let me go!" she demanded. The gangster really was pushing her back.
Eventually all three girls were secured to the chair.
"What the hell was going on out there?"
Louie showed up at this point and went to face his men. His eyes locked onto them.
"Well, we had some trouble, there were some other people after the brats," one of the gangsters said.
"Good, that means that they're in high demand," Louie said. He was feeling good about himself that he was able to grab onto the Evans brats before anyone else could. The Lilac was feeling extremely good about himself. "And is there anything else?"
"Yeah, old man Evans looks like he isn't going to make it," one of the gangsters said. That caused Louie to reach forward and it was almost like he was going to punch him.
"You know, you're fucking lucky that I'm a man of peace and love, otherwise I'd strangle your stupid ass," Louie said in a practical growl. "The first rule of a kidnapping attempt is to never leave everyone alive, do you hear me?"
"Yeah, I hear you, loud and clear, um, boss," the gang member replied. He was getting extremely nervous with what he was hearing and he was not in really good spirits all things considered.
"Dead men can't fucking pay the ransom, dumb ass," Louie continued. His eyes were raging and he was taking a deep breath. He reached into the crate and picked up a white flower. He inhaled the scent and that put him into an extremely blissful state. "Please tell me that you left the mother alive."
"Yeah, but the bitch is crazy, she tried to take a shot at us, I don't know why," one of the gangsters said.
Louie wasn't too concerned about that. If any of their dumb asses were stupid enough to get shot. He was going to move off and prepare to make his ransom demands.
"Oh, and the Black Canary got involved in our business."
The words that Louie was saying were not words that should be heard by younger ears, so it was pretty fortunate that it was said in the next room.
Rose was in near tears after what happened. The girl was about ready to freak out. One might argue that she was holding things together pretty well for being a pre-school age child, but the fact of the matter was that she was too close to losing her mind and all sense of herself. Her heart starts to beat.
"Rose, it's going to be okay," Lily whispered to her younger sister in a reassuring voice.
Petunia's eyes snapped to her sister. "We're kidnapped Lily, by these weird mobsters. It's not going to be okay."
"Shut up, Tuney," Lily said firmly. "We're going to be okay, because the Traveler is going to find us and save us."
"Oh come on, he's not real," Petunia said.
"Shut your mouth, Petunia," Lily snapped, a little shortly.
"Well if he was so good….." Petunia said. She was suddenly shut up and unable to speak, because Lily would not hear a word against the Traveler. Her mother told her stories about this hero for as long as she could remember.
Petunia wasn't in the best state of mind, granted. Her biological mother was shot before her very eyes when she was young. And now the fact that her father would have been shot as well made her extremely nervous.
There were mobsters in that other room, ready to do things to them. Things Lily and Rose were too young to understand about. They were going to have some really bad things done to them and there was really nothing that Petunia or any of them could do to stop it.
One of the gangsters stood in the doorway and Lily gave him a look that if she was able to set him on fire with her mind, she could.
And she almost could, but her concentration wasn't really that up to snuff, which was really fortunate for the mobsters.
Black Canary could not help, but whistle at the base of operations. Her stoic demeanor returned a few seconds later.
Harry chuckled in amusement when he lead her inside the Church. The two of them flashed inside.
"Dinah, you don't have to pull the act with me, I know that you're impressed," Harry said to her.
The fact he dropped her secret identity so casually and out of the blue raised a lot of interesting questions for Dinah. There were many questions, and questions that didn't have answers as well. The woman was completely flummoxed and for good reason.
The two of them arrived, and Harry met up with Selene, and to their surprise, Audrey. Audrey had been calmed down, although she was more focused than anything.
"I trust you didn't have any luck," Audrey said.
"The girls would be right behind me if I did," Harry said. He reached forward and consoled her with a slight hug. "How's your husband?"
"The last few hours will be comfortable, there's a slight chance that he could turn around, but we've done everything for him that we can," Audrey said. She was preparing herself for this inevitability. Herb was fairly mortal, even though his bloodline had some extraordinary people in it. He didn't quite have the gifts.
Audrey, on the other hand, was fairly long lived and she would live to see things that many people would not believe. The woman smiled at the thought of some of the things that she would get to live to see before her time was over.
"Barda is ready to talk," Selene informed Harry. "I'd like to say that Kara's punch knocked some sense into her, but…"
"She already might have had her misgivings," Audrey said. Her greatest regret was that she couldn't say them all. There were some girls with bright futures that were damaged by Granny. "So, what do we do next?"
Harry had to appreciate Audrey and her ability to get down to the point, where it really mattered. That was a great quality to have if Harry had to say so himself. He frowned when he thought about it.
"The tracker on the Lilac's shipment might lead us straight to the girls," Black Canary admitted. She could foresee just one small problem with all of this. "But the tracker, it was damaged."
Harry snapped his fingers and looked into her eyes. "Where there's a will, there's a way, my dear Canary."
She was going to look at him. "Do you mind explaining that?"
Harry snickered in amusement. While he always liked to keep women guessing, this was one of those circumstances where he needed to tell people what was going on.
"Why don't I show you instead."
Harry cracked open the doors which sent dust flying everywhere. There was choking clouds of dust and there was a set of stairs.
"Place could use a bit of a cleanup, don't you think?" Audrey asked. She could almost feel Harry's burning gaze, even if he was turned around. "Not that I'm complaining, but….."
Selene placed her hands on the shoulder of Audrey. "Just watch, we're going to get your daughters back safely to you soon."
Audrey smiled, that was really all that she was hoping for. Her daughters back with her safe and sound. She watched Harry lift his hand and a portal of dust circled around. It settled on the wall and created a bit of a gateway for him to enter.
That was something that she never thought that she'd ever see in her life. A dust gateway and they entered a room.
This room was spotless and for good reason. There were numerous pieces of high tech equipment around them.
"And that's a lot of…..where did you get some of these things?" Dinah asked. She was rather impressed.
Harry speculated that she was impressed.
"Oh, all over time and space, and I take the spoils from my enemies," Harry informed her. Dinah turned around and nodded. "And can I have that tracker device?"
She handed to him, along with a warning. "I'm not really sure what you're going to do with it. The tracker is busted, and I don't think that it's going to work all that well."
"If any part of the tracker is functional, then I should be able to get a signal that we can follow," Harry replied. He hooked up the tracker remote to one of his many overly large pieces of equipment. "The person I took this from, I don't remember who it was, but they were obviously compensating for something."
"I can tell," Dinah said dryly. She wasn't even sure this was going to work.
The damaged tracker was being reached out and touched. And Dinah was going to be proven wrong, but she was happy about that.
To Be Continued on April 28th, 2015.