Location: Oklahoma City, OK
Date: Oct 31st
Time: 16:04
Emmy dove to avoid a long, orange tentacle. It had a million aqua blue spikes on it and was thicker than most of the tree trunks in Scissortail Park. She threw a protective bubble around a group of ninjas and fairies. According to a sign she saw after arriving to handle the Code, the park was in the middle of the Annual Halloween Costume Contest. There were hundreds of people dressed as everything from Wonder Woman to Ketchup bottles, and they were all getting in Emmy's way. Two stray tentacles crushed one of the news vans sent to report on the contest; the camera crew and newscaster shrieked. A giant squid, she supposed it would still qualify as a squid even though it had over thirty tentacles, was lounging on the Scissortail bridge, swiping at the cars beneath. There were twenty smaller squids, larger than her Camaro but not nearly as massive as the one on the bridge, causing chaos. The monster squid was larger than the massive Scissortail sculpture on the bridge, but Emmy was capturing the smaller ones first because they were trying to eat the park goers. The gist of the story was that a scientist at a now partially destroyed laboratory had gotten a little too carried away with genetic modifications and had created a small army of man-eating squids that followed the commands of the largest calamari.
She tackled a smaller squid away from a homemade, quaking Justice League and threw it into the nearby lake. Emmy landed next to a vomiting Batman and took a second to survey the problem. Most of the people were successfully running away from the squids, avoiding the ink waves, and getting to their cars. There were four squids destroying the empty roller rink to her left, one eating the leaves off a tree, and the other fifteen were chasing after the citizens. She threw up a barrier 200 meters to her right to stop the squids from getting a group of teenagers. Emmy cocked her head to the left a few inches. She needed all the small squids in a structure first, and then she could deal with the giant one on the bridge. She would have to be careful not to startle the big one because she did not want the park to be flooded with its ink. The smaller ones had already shot out an alarming amount of violet purple ink that was trapping people in place like spiders on a glue board. The orange one would periodically scream, and the aqua squids would all simultaneously squirt their ink. Emmy squinted at the beast. It had a cut over the eye facing the part of the bridge leading toward an empty field, so she was betting it could only see well out of its right eye, the one facing the squid attack in the park. She would fly behind and attack from the left. Emmy moved to start running when a body knocked her onto the ground.
"Ay, sorry, Kid!" A jovial voice with a Maryland accent hit her ears as a large hand tugged Emmy back to her feet.
She glanced at the man. He was half a foot taller than her with cropped red hair and green eyes. He must have been in the costume competition because he was wearing a version of a Lantern suit that she had never seen before. He didn't have a mask, but he was in black pants, black fingerless gloves, and a black and green sleeveless shirt with a lantern logo on the chest.
"Hey, it's always nice to meet a fan." He grinned down at her. "The costume is a little too fake looking though."
She frowned at him in confusion, "A fan?" Is this guy crazy? Does he actually think he's a GL or something?
The fake lantern grabbed a sharpie from a pocket, gripped her shoulder, and scribbled on her uniform. Emmy gaped at him.
"Don't worry," he rolled his shoulders back with a cocky grin, "I'd be speechless if I met me, too. But do me a favor and get out of here, Kid. Leave this to the professional."
He flew off toward the squids at the roller rink as Emmy sputtered. She had a million questions, but they died on her lips when she glanced at her left shoulder. The asshole had scrawled what looked like "Day Gardener" on her uniform in thick, black sharpie right on a green section where it was visible. She scrubbed at it with her thumb, but it didn't budge.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Emmy snapped to no one in particular as panicked civilians continued to run past her.
She flew toward the random man crashing her Code. He had three massive maces swinging down at the squids destroying the roller rink.
She landed next to him with an arm out. "Wait! Don't kill them, they'll-"
Her warning was cut off as a wave of purple ink hit her knees and almost knocked her over again. Emmy threw a structure over the entire park and moved everyone running and screaming down the street half a mile. When they were all on the ground safely, she raced back to the park to find most of the smaller squids exploded around the grass and purple sludge oozing into the lakes.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" She snapped at the interloper.
The redhead blinked at her in shock, clearly recognizing her from earlier. "You're a Lantern?"
"Yeah," Emmy threw a dome around a squid trying to attack the man and frowned again. "I am, and this is my Code that you're currently fucking up, so I'll ask again: who the hell do you think you are?"
The lantern snorted and flew to kill the squid still trying to eat the tree. "I signed your uniform, so that should tell you if you're even old enough to read yet."
"You wrote Day Gardener," Emmy deadpanned and trapped the tree squid in a structure before the dumbass could send another avalanche of ink toward her.
"It's Guy Gardner," the man corrected with his first frown of the evening.
Emmy trapped the three remaining squids and sent them into a single structure floating in the center of the lake.
"Well, then, Guy," Emmy glared. "Get the hell out of my Code. I've got this under control."
He snorted again. "Are you kidding? You had only killed one of them."
"Because they explode two tons of ink when they die so I decided to adapt, Dipshit!" Emmy snapped at him.
"You're not adapting!" He screamed back. "You're running away from a fight!"
"Hey, I don't need attitude from some meathead newbie!" She flew into his face and pressed a finger into his chest.
"Newbie?" He scoffed and pushed her finger away. "I've been doing this since you were in diapers."
"Diapers?" Emmy put her hands on her hips. "How young do you think I am?" She shook her head and refocused. "And that's ridiculous. I've been a lantern since February, and I've never seen you before, so clearly you're Earth's newest one."
"February?" He gritted his teeth. "Newest? I've been doing this since 2003, Punk!"
A shadow interrupted Emmy's confusion, and the two arguing lanterns barely managed to dodge a tentacle the size of an oak tree. Emmy cursed. The orange leader had seen the captures and deaths of its companions and abandoned its post on the bridge in a vengeful rage. She would have noticed that if Day Gardener over here hadn't distracted her. Day sliced off three of the tentacles and six more grew back in their place.
"Did you even listen to the Code details, Day?" Emmy glowered at the man. "Their limbs regenerate like a hydra when cut."
"I was busy with a dame," He grunted and used giant hands to punch the squid's eyes. "And it's Guy!"
"Gross, and what do you mean '2003'?" She scowled at the man invading her mission.
She had been planning to keep the squids calm, capture them, and get them back to the lab so the scientists could reverse whatever they did or at least tell her how to dispose of the creatures safely. But then Day showed up and ruined everything. The squid was slapping things so quickly and violently that slicing the tentacles as they came at you was almost your only option. Almost being the operative word there, she though to herself while glowering at the other lantern.
"2003. You know, the year I joined the Corps?" Guy asked in disbelief while slicing more tentacles. "I'm Guy Gardner. Earth's second Lantern. Hal's GL 000, I'm 001, and John's 002 which I guess makes you 003."
Emmy scrunched her eyebrows. She was Green Lantern 003 of Sector 2814. She tried to think if she had ever heard Hal report his full title. Was he 000 instead of 001? Did they start a sector's lantern count at zero instead of one? That didn't seem right. She punched the squid back a few feet.
"Alright, Day, I'll play along for a minute. If you're actually Earth's second lantern," she sent him a suspicious glare, "then how come I've never heard of you?"
Guy got an extremely offended look on his face, "Never heard of me? Never heard of me?"
He used an oversized pair of scissors to chop a dozen tentacles coming at his face.
"Would you stop doing that?" Emmy snapped, exasperated, and yelling over the mutant squid's roars. "We need this thing calm enough for-"
"How could you have not heard of me?" Guy rambled in a frenzy. "Sure, I was only a lantern for a few months before I went into a coma. But that coma was the result of my heroic sacrifice to save the fucking world! Have you met Hal and John?"
He didn't give her a chance to reply before he continued, "Of course you have. You met those bastards, and they didn't even mention anything about me? At all? I was in a coma! A fucking coma for seven years that I didn't wake up from until this shit-damn March, and they have the fucking gall not to mention me to the noob? I mean, yeah, I went back to Oa until the first of this month to make sure I was really fine, but damn, where's the respect?"
Emmy dodged tentacles and blocked some from hitting him while he let his guard down and ranted. Her eyebrows went up as she absorbed the new information. Now that she thought about it, no one had specifically told her she was Earth's third GL. She had just assumed she was because her title had the number three in it, but evidently the ancient alien technology that gave her powers also had a weird numbering system. She felt kind of bad for him. She hadn't spent that much time with Hal and John, (they tended to work on Codes separately unless they really needed backup, and she wasn't a member of the League like they were), but still, they had had plenty of time to reveal that one of the evidently four lanterns in their sector was in a coma. She bit her lip. If he had gone to Oa after waking up in March, then they had been on the planet at the same time for three months and no one had thought to say, "Hey, Emerald, why don't you come meet Earth's second Lantern who just recently woke up from a seven-year coma?" She wasn't good at being sympathetic to anyone other than her kids and maybe her teammates, but she decided to give it a shot.
"Damn," Emmy offered as she blocked another swipe from the squid. "That's messed up."
"Yeah," Guy's woeful eyes met hers and abruptly switched to invigorated determination. "Yeah, it is! Fuck 'em! Thanks, Kid." He swatted away the squid's face as it tried to eat his head. "What do I call yah?"
"Uh, Three," Emmy offered her hand for him to shake. She didn't feel like screaming her real name in the middle of a park while in uniform. Especially since she was pretty sure she saw the news crews running after her when she dropped the park goers down the street, and she did not want to get caught on camera. "But yeah, fuck 'em."
"Nice to meet yah, Three," he smirked and shook her hand harder than necessary. He glowered at the snarling squid. "If the Corps wants to pretend that I don't exist, then maybe it's time I remind them why I was chosen in the first place."
Emmy nodded and turned to the calamari. She'd thrown it behind a barrier while she and Guy shook hands, but the squid was rapidly climbing over it. They would need to act quickly to trap it successfully. She was thinking they could work together to make a colossal barrier, throw the three smaller squids she had on the lake inside with the orange one, and go from there.
"I think we should-" she moved to tell Guy her plan only to see that he had dropped to the ground, was propped up on his knees in a lunge, and had the largest bazooka gun structure she had ever seen thrown over his right shoulder. "Oh, no. Oh, shit."
Her stomach flipped. "Wait, wait, wait!" She flew down toward him. "Don't-"
"Geronimo!" He roared and sent the rocket into the center of the squid's right eye.
…
Emmy slid over the top of the hexagonal skyscraper she'd thrown around the three of them as the purple ink from the orange squid's corpse filled the structure and oozed out the top like red baking soda lava falling down the sides of a papier-mâché volcano. She slowly slipped down the pyramid of thick sludge for a thousand feet before she slumped onto the grass on her back. Guy surfed down the side of the ink pyramid whooping and hollering.
He landed next to Emmy and beamed at her.
"That is what I am talking about! Second and Fourth for the win!" He screamed and shook his surfboard structure over his head in victory.
The news crew was just outside of the ink perimeter and was already yelling questions to the two lanterns. Emmy sat up slowly and surveyed the damage. The park and lake were entirely covered in eight inches of ink, and it was all over her uniform, hair, and face. She could even feel some in her left ear canal. This is so much worse than the afterbirth. Guy was standing next to her and kissing his biceps for the camera.
"I hate you so much," Emmy exhaled before collapsing back into the ink. "This is why no one talks about you."
"Harsh," Guy grunted, amused, and tugged her to her feet again. "Well, I gotta jet back to my dame. Clean this up for me? Thanks, Three, you're the best, byeeeee."
He flew away before she could finish wiping the ink out of her eyes.
"Bastard," Emmy hissed.
Location: Mount Justice
Date: Oct 31st
Time: 19:35
Emmy checked her hands and arms for any last traces of ink as she walked down the hallway. Megan had telekinetically removed most of it when Emmy got back from cleaning the park, but she still felt like there were phantom smudges and fish miasma on her even after her second shower. Sage put Emmy's hair in a bun to go with her Halloween costume, but that just made Emmy feel like she had ink all over her neck. She was a little concerned about the kids' reactions to her when she got back after the park. Sage had laughed until she turned bright red and needed an inhaler, and Hunter kept trying to eat the sludge because he insisted it would 'taste like grape'. Emmy huffed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Those two would be the death of her.
She was excited to go trick-or-treating with them tonight though. Halloween was the East's favorite holiday, and they were going to Zeta to Manhattan and get full sized candy bars on the map she had researched. The kids were going to the bathroom and putting their 'personal finishing touches' on their costumes, so Emmy left to find her teammates. She heard voices and found Megs and Connor sitting on some boxes by the Zeta Tubes.
"Hey Lovebirds," she grinned at them. "You're rocking the zombie bride look, Megs."
"Thank you," Megan beamed. "You look so good in your costume!" The green girl cocked her hips and placed her hands on them while turning to Connor with a raised eyebrow, "If only someone would put in some effort like Emmy and me."
Emmy chuckled. Connor was in his typical jeans and Superman t-shirt ensemble, but he had a few rounds of gauze wrapped on his chest and arms. Megan appeared to be in the middle of trying to convince him to let her wrap some around his head. A breeze hit Emmy's back, and Wally was standing next to Connor and looking at Megan while popping grapes into his mouth.
"Stop torturing him, Megan," Wally wiggled his eyebrows, "It will already be awkward enough for him to be the third wheel on our date."
"I invited the entire team to the dance, Wally," Megan smirked in exasperated amusement. "Zatanna, too."
Emmy's choked chortle interrupted the speedster's reply and he whipped toward her, noticing her presence for the first time. He was in black leather pants, a red metallic tank top, those weird shoes where each toe has its own compartment in an attempt to mimic being barefoot, and had gills drawn onto his neck with makeup.
Emmy held her palms out toward him with an elated grin, "What am I looking at here?"
Wally thrusted a thumb to the center of his chest, "The one and only Aqualad, baby."
Emmy snorted loudly.
"Is Kaldur dressed as you?" Emmy grinned.
"No, he got Robin actually. We had a bet going with Roy, and we lost. I'm Aqualad, Rob is running around Gotham tonight as the illustrious KF, and Kaldur is swimming about with Robin's cape billowing behind him," Wally informed her while counting off on his fingers.
"Damnit," Emmy turned to Megan, "we should have had the girls go as each other for Halloween!"
The Zeta Tube announced Artemis' and Zatanna's arrivals in the background. Emmy turned to wave and inform them of their grievous mistake.
Wally took her distraction to take in her costume. Her hair was in a bun. She was wearing a painfully short, shiny green dress with spiky ends, tan fishnets, black combat boots, and sparkly green wings. She looked good, and it was a struggle to keep his eyes from gluing themselves to her body.
"Tinkerbell, huh?" He leaned toward her, distracting her from the new arrivals. "You want me to be your Peter, don't you?"
Emmy rolled her eyes, "I don't need a Peter, Aquaboy."
"Ah, already have a redhead then?" He raised an eyebrow. "Going to do a couple's costume with Guy? You two seemed to have some chemistry today."
Emmy grimaced, "The only chemistry involved was his stupidity being the acid to the squid ink's base because that shit reacted and went everywhere."
Wally smiled a little at her rebuttal. He had a Google alert for everyone on the team, and he had watched her squid battle earlier. He wasn't a huge fan of how snappy the two had been with each other before shaking hands. You couldn't make out what they were saying in the video, but it was definitely an argument, and Wally knew from Uncle Barry's League stories that their love-hate relationships tend to be passionate and hot. Also, Guy was way too old for Emmy, and Wally needed to know if a certain, nameless breeze needed to drown Guy into a river anytime soon.
"-and another thing," Emmy frowned, and Wally realized he'd missed part of her rant, "the asshole makes the mess, and then leaves me to deal with it alone. Next time I see him I'm going to take the nearest table, break off a leg, and ram it so far up his ass that he'll be pulling splinters out of his tongue for a month."
Wally laughed at her violent threat. She definitely didn't have a crush on Coma Lantern then.
"Wait, you called him Guy?" Emmy tilted her head a little.
"Yeah, that's his name, Heidi," Wally replied.
"Did everyone know there was another lantern except me?" Emmy threw her hands up in the air, ignoring Wally's latest name guess. Her dress rode up her thigh a half inch. Wally's eyes followed the motion until a small rock hit the back of his head. He winced and whirled around to see a simpering Artemis and Zatanna. He stuck his tongue out at them.
"You didn't know there was a fourth Lantern?" He asked Emmy. "They didn't tell you about Guy?"
Emmy crossed her arms with a pout, "No."
"Are you pouting?" Wally smiled teasingly.
"No," she glared at him.
"Turn that frown, upside- my grapes!" Wally shrieked as Emmy stole his bowl.
Zatanna giggled, "So, Artemis. How long have there been two couples on the team?"
"Ha!" Artemis barked. "Couples? No, they're not…" She trailed off as she observed her friends.
Emmy was running around the room throwing grapes at Wally who was chasing her at normal human speed. Connor was sitting on a box with Megan between his legs wrapping gauze around his head while he smirked and told her she was 'so making this up to him later'. Wally caught Emmy's waist from behind and twirled her in a circle. The lantern squealed and tried to keep the grapes out of his grasp to no avail. Wally jokingly offered a Lady and the Tramp situation by putting one of the larger grapes in between his teeth, but his cheeks turned pink when Emmy stood on her tiptoes and bit half the grape off, only missing his lips with her own by a few millimeters. Artemis frowned. Were they both…? Were Connor and Megan dating? The Martian and Kryptonian definitely had the body language of people who had kissed, and now that she was looking, Wally and Emmy had it too.
"What the hell?" Artemis muttered to herself.
How had she missed this? Her gut tugged with jealousy and a little hurt. She knew Megan liked Connor, but Artemis had not been shy about her own attraction to the clone and she had (falsely) assumed that neither girl would go after him in a gesture of solidarity. The issue with Emmy and Wally hurt in an entirely different way. She knew that she met Emmy after Megan had, but Artemis felt like all three girls were equally close now. But then she found out about Emmy having to share custody of the kids from Wally of all people, and Megan and Connor had both sighed with the knowledge of people who already knew while Rob and Kaldur shared a sympathetic look, and it irked Artemis that she was the only one Emmy hadn't told herself. She thought that she and Emmy had a special bond of sorts. She couldn't explain it, but she felt an odd pull to Emmy, and the lantern had been standing up for her since before they knew each other's names. Artemis felt like she should have been the person Emmy talked to about her feelings, (who knew about siblings leaving better than Artemis?), but instead she poured her guts to fucking Wally. Baywatch. Flirty geek boy who is still hitting on Megan even though he acts like he likes Emmy sometimes. Artemis spun away and folded her arms with a snarl.
She had her secrets, of course, but she had told Emmy things she hadn't told anyone else on the team, like her ever-so-slight and inexplicable annoyance when Zatanna showed up for the first time and Rob lost his mind for a few hours, for example. Artemis had actually opened up to Emmy, even calling her a sister, and here she was finding out that Emmy had most likely kissed Wally from Zatanna's casual body language deduction. When would they have even done that? Emmy told her and Megan about that Trent whore planting one on her a couple months ago the day of, so why would Wally be a secret? Artemis' frown deepened when it occurred to her that Emmy had told Megan about Trent, and the Martian had had been the one to drag the archer into the fray. Artemis gave up her sleep Monday night last week to go to Bludhaven with Emmy, and they spent the whole patrol in amicable silence. The archer liked it at the time. She wasn't always in the mood to speak, and she enjoyed knowing that Emmy felt the same way, but now she was wondering if Emmy had spent the next night chatting nonstop with Megan, and it was making her gut twist more than the idea of Connor being attracted to Megan over her.
There was no way in hell that she was going to the Halloween party with the 'couples' now, but she also didn't want to stay home with her mom. Zatanna's suggestion of a girl's night out was just what she needed, and the two disappeared with a flash of light.
Emmy wriggled her way out of Wally's grasp and chuckled when he ate the grape she threw at him. She saw a flash of light and turned to find the other girls gone.
She frowned a little, "Where did Artemis and Zatanna go?"
Wally stole the bowl back while Megs shrugged and suggested that maybe they weren't in a partying mood anymore.
"Are you going to be able to party in that dress?" The fake Aqualad raised an eyebrow and gave her a once over. "Looks like it might not survive on the dancefloor."
Emmy bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. She put her hands on her hips and stepped closer to him with a lowered voice, "Would you rather see it not survive on your bedroom floor?"
Wally choked on a grape, and Connor coughed to hide his surprised laugh next to a slightly confused and concerned Megan. Emmy was a little embarrassed he heard that. She and Wally had their specific brand of…interacting and other people usually didn't witness it. She did not want Connor, or anyone else on the team, thinking that she was trying to get with Wally. Even if he had been incredibly teasing and debatably flirty since she "allegedly" hit Stacy with a piece of cake a few days ago. Emmy enjoyed the banter, and it was harmless enough as long as neither of them did anything foolish. The last thing she needed in her life right now was more drama, but she didn't see a reason to change their dynamic.
"Trust me," Wally leaned down further, "it wouldn't survive long enough to hit my bedroom floor."
His slanted green eyes were making alarmingly constant eye contact. Emmy gulped. She usually flustered him enough that he wasn't able to reply, and then she didn't have to deal with any consequences of her taunting. She chuckled uncomfortably and took a step back. Wally's eyebrows scrunched for a second, but then he exited her personal space and returned to throwing grapes into the air to catch with his mouth. Emmy heard footsteps and turned to see her siblings joining the group. She beamed at them. Sage was dressed as Persephone in a pink Grecian draping dress and a crown made of fake pomegranates. She and four of her friends had agreed to dress up as different goddesses. Hunter was dressed in a tiny, Green Lantern costume with padded muscles. He looked so cute that Emmy melted.
"You look beautiful, Persephone," Emmy smiled at Sage and fixed a curl that was flipping in the wrong direction.
She dropped to her knees in front of Hunter and failed to control her cooing.
"You look so cute," Emmy signed quickly. "My little mini-me! You are officially an honorary member of the Green Lantern Corps."
"I am not cute," Hunter replied out loud with his hoarse, still-learning voice. He put his hands on his hips and looked into the distance, "I am an agent of dweath and destwuction."
Emmy raised an eyebrow and responded verbally, "That is not what Green Lanterns stand for, young man."
He squirmed sheepishly and started reciting the GL oath. He had long ago learned that saying it to his oldest sister almost always got him out of trouble.
"Wait, wait," Emmy scrambled to remember which boot she stuck her phone in, "Let me record it."
Sage snorted inelegantly, "You are such a soccer mom."
Emmy frowned at her and sent Wally a threatening glare over her shoulder when she heard him laugh behind her. He held his hands up in surrender and moved back toward Megs and Connor.
"We're heading to the party," Megan pointed at the Zeta Tubes. "Feel free to join us after you go trick-or-treating."
"Bring me back some of the good King Size stuff," Wally called as the trio headed to the Bioship hangar.
Emmy waved and noticed Sage shift awkwardly in her peripheral vision.
"Are you telling me you want to start soccer?" Emmy smirked. "I'll come cheer at all of your games."
Sage grimaced and shook her hands, "No, no, none of that. I'm good. Running is the worst."
Emmy chuckled and fist-bumped her in agreement. She stood back up to her full height, "So, are you two ready to go? I have my map of all the best candy neighborhoods in Manhattan."
Sage shifted again and rocked from her heels to her toes. Two sets of grey eyes shared a look as Hunter bit a hangnail on his right index finger.
"What?" Emmy cocked her head to the side. "I know it's cold, but I'll hold the coats while you trick-or-treat, and you can put them back on between houses."
Another look.
"They're really big houses and neighborhoods, so in-between-house-coats are a good choice," She finished.
"So," Sage rocked on her heels again, "Uh, we would like to make a Wise Appeal."
Emmy raised an eyebrow. Canary had taught the kids about the Wise Appeal in one of their earlier therapy sessions. It was a method of calmly asking for something you wanted, but this was the first time they were using it.
"Okay?"
"Great, so," Sage fiddled with the glass pomegranate seed bracelet on her wrist, "as you know, I am just one goddess in a group of five, and Hunter here is the Green Lantern in an elementary school version of the Justice League."
Emmy nodded.
"Well, uhm," Sage nudged Hunter forward slightly, "we feel that it would make the most sense for us to trick-or-treat with our friends in Central City so that we can have our full group costumes make sense."
"Yeah, no problem," Emmy shrugged. "You don't need to use a Wise Appeal for that. I can text Wally and ask which places give out the full size in Central."
"Right, well, uh, that's not the Wise Appeal part," Sage continued.
Emmy made a gesture for her to continue. Sage nudged Hunter again.
"We would like to formalwy and respectfulwy ask that you allow us to spend the night in Central City because we will be out late getting candies and will then sort it with our fwiends," Hunter said.
"…So, you want to stay at the Todd's tonight and not come back to the mountain?" Emmy asked.
Grey eyes glanced at each other. "Yes," Sage continued, "and we would also like to trick-or-trick with just our friends."
"Well, you need some supervision, Sage," Emmy put one hand on her hip. "You're both way too young to run around alone at night."
"We won't be unsupervised," Sage rushed. "We'll just be supervised by the Todd's."
Emmy's eyebrows raised, "Oh. So…you don't want me to come tonight?"
Well, that hurt. The Easts had gone trick-or-treating together every Halloween since Emmy was eleven regardless of weather, sickness, and her fighting schedule.
"We just want to spend time with our friends without having to explain why they have their parents around and we have a random teenage girl," Sage explained swiftly.
"Random teenage girl?" Emmy's right eye and jaw both twitched a little.
"To complete the Wise Appeal," Sage held her hands up and had a look of regret on her face at her last comment, "Hunter and I are prepared to stay with you for the entirety of the first week of November without staying at the Todd's at all."
Emmy blinked and took a deep breath. Her kids were using time with her like a bargaining chip? How had that happened? She briefly wished that they were still in their crappy Bludhaven apartment and she had never betrayed Bobby.
"I think it would be good for us, Emmy," Sage added softly. "Babysitting trick-or-treaters is a parent's job, and I think it would help us become more normal siblings if you let the Todd's watch us while we hang out with our friends and you go to the party with your friends."
Hunter smiled up at Emmy with his loose front teeth, and she knew she would agree with whatever kept that smile in place.
"Okay," Emmy beamed in what she hoped was a natural way, "I'll drop you guys off in Central and then I'll head to Megan's school dance. You two call me if you need anything though."
They hugged her tightly.
"We won't. Don't worry!" Sage yelled happily into Emmy's ribcage. "If we need anything the Todd's will help us. You're off the clock for the night."
Location: Happy Harbor High
Date: Oct 31st
Time: 21:02
Emmy grumbled to herself while she stomped toward the front entrance of the high school. She had dropped the kids off at the Todd's house, and secretly trailed the quartet as they moved to join Sage's and Hunter's school friends on a different street. The group quickly grew to twelve kids with six sets of parents falling behind as they went from house to house. Emmy was planning to follow them until they went back to the Todd's to organize their candy, but then she made the mistake of getting within earshot of the group.
Sage ran up to Sam and Delilah, "Would it be okay if I spent the night at Katie's house with the other girls?"
"Oh, I don't know about that, Sage," chortled Sam. "We don't know Katie's parents at all, and we promised your sister you would be safe at home with us tonight."
"Please! Please! Please!" Sage begged with her hands clasped under her chin. She turned to Delilah, "Please, Mom? I really want to go. And I'll text you her parents' numbers."
Emmy snarled as she watched Delilah swoon over Sage's word choice and consent to letting her spend the night at Katie's house. Hunter came running back to the duo with a bulging pillowcase of candy.
Sam swung Hunter onto his shoulders with a laugh, "Wow, buddy. That is a lot of candy! It must be heavy."
"It is," Hunter whined. "Can we go empty it at home and then go out again?"
Emmy scowled. "'Please, Mom? I really want to go'," she imitated the kids in a squeaky voice. "'Let's go empty my pillowcase at home and sign the final adoption papers and put Emmy's heart in a shredder.'"
Emmy scoffed and kicked an empty soda can as hard as she could, "That'll be fun for them!"
A thud followed by one groan of pain and a few giggles sounded from her left. Emmy traced the source of the noise to a circle of four teenagers in store-bought costumes hiding behind a bush.
"Whassup, Can-Kicker?" A lanky dragon asked her loudly and slowly.
"Shh, Brad," giggled a Japanese Kim Possible to his right, "You'll get us in troubles."
The four giggled again. Emmy scoffed at the obviously drunk morons and was about to turn to leave when knockoff Hermione Granger held out a flask.
"You want some, Tonkerbell? ...Stonkersmell? Thinkersbell? …Stinkerbell?" The girl frowned to herself and tried one last time. "Tinkserbell?"
"That one was pretty close," Emmy shrugged.
She glanced at the flask. ...The kids are with Mommy and Daddy tonight... The last five hours of her day had been rough, and she was 'off the clock' responsibility wise according to Sage. Emmy ran a hand down her face with a sigh, grabbed the flask, and gulped until it was empty.
"Dayummm, Stinkersmell," laughed the guy dressed as a spoon whose right cheek had a circular mark from the can hitting him. "You know how to part-tay."
Emmy rolled her eyes and handed the flask back to Hermione. The flavor and burn were familiar, so she guessed it was vodka. The flask was not particularly large and was already half-way empty when it got to her, so she doubted it would do much. She was not interested in getting trashed like these morons, but she wasn't opposed to a little numbness.
"Thanks, Spoon," she deadpanned.
The quartet giggled again before immediately shushing each other.
"Ugh," Emmy groaned and snagged some of their beers and a flask that seemed to be full. "This is the worst Halloween ever. Fuck me."
She downed the five beers, which tasted like disgusting, carbonated bread-water, slid the flask into the boot not housing her phone, and trekked inside. She followed the "Party" signs down the empty, eerie hallways until she reached the double doors of a gymnasium. The gym was massive, dimly lit, and covered in balloons and teenagers. Emmy blinked a few times as a wave of slight dizziness hit her. She was still aware of all her thoughts and movements, but she did feel more relaxed, and if she moved her head too quickly the environment kept moving for a second after she stabilized.
"Hmm," she mused. "Weird."
Emmy scanned the crowd for a minute but couldn't find her friends. "Ay, Supey," she called in a low mutter, "I'm by the punch table when you have a minute." She tugged the flask out and downed the second one.
"Calling Peter Pan?" A voice called from her left.
Emmy turned and saw a disheveled but cute Han Solo with dark skin, black hair, and brown eyes smoldering at her.
"Something like that," Emmy smirked.
"I don't think I've seen you around here before," Han leaned closer. "Where do you go to school?"
"Neverland," Emmy deadpanned.
Han just grinned, "I'm Nathan. My younger brother goes here, so I thought I'd popped by before heading to my frat's Halloween bash. You want to come with?" He nodded at the empty flask she'd tossed onto the table behind the large bowl of pink punch. "Seems like you'd enjoy it."
Emmy leaned against the punch table. She felt a little dazed, but was normal otherwise, "Don't you need to find a Leia?"
He chuckled and slid an arm around her waist. She raised an eyebrow. "I prefer fairies to princesses." He grabbed her ass roughly.
"Okay," Emmy interjected. "Get your-"
A figure cut from the right and roughly shoved the guy a couple feet away from Emmy.
"And I prefer my Han Solo's alive instead of dead so you might want to head out, Bud," Wally threatened lowly.
Han vanished into the crowd and Emmy chuckled.
"That's not the first time Aqualad's saved me from a fight," she took a step toward Wally but stumbled and almost fell.
"Woah," Wally caught her elbows, "Did you slip on…" He trailed off and sniffed the air around her.
Emmy's eyes were slightly glazed, and her head was lulling a little too far to the right. She sent him an oversized grin.
He frowned, "Wait. Are you drunk right now?"
"No," Emmy scoffed. "Possibly tipsy though."
"I thought you didn't drink," Wally propped her back onto her feet.
"If you're going to lecture me, you shouldn't have told me about your keg stand," Emmy sent him a pointed look.
Wally frowned again. Their favorite zombie bride and mummy joined them at the punch table.
"Emmy! Hi!" Megan yelled over the music and gave the lantern a bear hug. "I was so happy when Connor said you were here. Where are the kids? Back at the cave?"
"Nah, they're off making a Christmas card with their new family," Emmy's smile was a little too bright, her voice a little too cheery.
Connor shared a look with Wally, but Megan tilted her head in confusion.
"What to you mean?" The Martian asked.
Emmy shrugged, "Forget it. Let's say hi to Wendy?"
Megan clapped and tugged her toward her cheer friends. The boys stayed by the punch with varying looks of uncertainty. Emmy had met most of the girls already at the football games she had attended, but it was nice to see them again. The girls fawned over each other's costumes for a few minutes, and they filled Emmy in on Kyle's failed Martian attack prank earlier in the evening.
"Damn, girl," a cheerleader named Lily dressed up as Vixen winked at Emmy, "I wish you went to this school so you could join the team. You look like you have experience picking up girls."
Emmy threw her head back laughing and experienced an unpleasant spinning when she righted herself. She put her pointer fingers to her temples and rubbed lightly. Aquaboy popped up out of nowhere with a solo cup of water.
"Why don't we sit you down for a minute, Em?" Wally muttered in her ear.
Emmy gulped at the water and nodded. Lily booed and mentioned something about 'the good ones liking boytoys'. A minute later they were sitting at an empty table near the edge of the gym. The speakers were on the opposite side, so it was a little quieter. Emmy felt her dizziness dissipate with three more cups of water and fifteen minutes of relative silence.
"Well," Wally smirked, "you're no speedster, but you do appear to have a decent tolerance."
Emmy snorted, "I didn't drink that much, Wally. I was just a little dizzy."
He looked down his nose at her, "Uh-huh. Yeah, no, you look totally lucid."
Emmy flicked a few drops of water at him.
"Jokes on you, Tinkerbell," Wally yanked his cardboard water-bearers off his back. "Water only makes Aqualad stronger."
Her lips twitched, and she couldn't stop her laughter when he stood up and did a few dramatic moves that were straight out of Kaldur's rotation.
"You're actually pretty good at that," Emmy grinned. "If the speed thing doesn't work out you could get a gill transplant and join Kaldur."
Wally plopped down in the chair and chuckled, "I don't know if that's a thing, but I think I'll keep my feet on land where they belong."
Emmy shrugged and observed the crowd. Megan had coerced Connor onto the dancefloor for a slow dance to Rihanna's 'Love on the Brain'. He looked incredibly uncomfortable, but he was swaying slightly and smiling at Megan with a softness she had never seen from him before. She smiled a little. They were very sweet. Connor was the polar opposite of Akio. Wally watched as she dragged her fingertip across the top of her plastic cup.
"Why'd you decide to take a foray into the world of lawbreaking teens?" He finally asked. "I didn't think you'd sacrifice your underage drinking high ground."
Emmy sighed and took the last sip of her water. She lined up her shot and sent the crushed cup into a trash can a few tables away. "I just," she paused, "I don't know. I liked the idea of being numb for a little bit."
Wally furrowed his brows. He didn't like that answer, "Everything alright?"
Emmy looked at him and sent him a half-smile, "It will be. I don't care for the dizziness, so I won't be doing that again. Just have to deal with my anger the old-fashioned way and hit the punching bag."
He squeezed the hand she had on the table twice. Emmy used a finger to absentmindedly trace the scar he had on the back of his hand from a cracked Erlenmeyer flask in middle school.
"It will be fine as soon as I see Guy again, that is," Emmy frowned and crossed her arms. "My ring made me hand-clean the uniform because she thought it was funny, and it took me forty-five minutes to get that damn sharpie out."
Wally chuckled at her carping.
"Who the hell signs someone else's uniform?" Emmy snarled. "When I see him, I'm going to find the nearest table, break off a leg, and-"
"And shove it so far up his ass he's pulling splinters out of his tongue for a month," Wally interrupted, "Yes, I know, Dear. You've said it three times since you got here. Alcohol makes you repetitive."
Emmy harrumphed and flipped him off. "You wanna get on the table leg list too, Sunset?"
"Could we start with your finger and work our way up to the table leg?" Wally winked at her and grinned triumphantly when she cackled.
"You surprise me sometimes, West," Emmy admitted fondly.
"You surprise me most of the time, East," Wally leaned back into his chair cockily.
Emmy subtly tracked his exposed arms as they flexed behind his head. If she hadn't sobered up some, she might have told him to cut the arms off his Kid Flash uniform. She snorted to herself. That would have been humiliating.
"What?" He asked.
"Nothing," Emmy sing-songed.
A familiar beat shot through the speaker system. Emmy jolted to her feet.
"What are you doing?" Wally quirked an eyebrow.
"Holy shit, I love this song," she grabbed his hand and yanked him into the crowd.
He followed with an amused smirk and realized it was 'Your Love (Déjà vu)' by Glass Animals. Emmy started bobbing to the beat and singing the lyrics. He spun her around with the hand she was still gripping, and Emmy beamed at him. Wally started doing a poor imitation of the salsa with her while they cracked up and sang along. Someone on the opposite side of the room started the wave, and Wally snorted so hard his throat hurt when Emmy frowned in confusion at the crowd's motion and messed up the timing on her arms. She signed something aggressive at him, and he was glad he couldn't understand what it was. The dancing turned into jumping and sassy head movements with the occasional spin. The songs changed, but they stayed in the center of the crowd, singing, laughing, and dancing like idiots. They made their way over to Megs and Connor for a few songs. Emmy did her best to get the Kryptonian moving while Wally winced through Megan's frequent steps on his feet. Wally called timeout for water and dragged Emmy with him.
"Next time," he breathed into her hair over the music, "you dance with Megan, and I'll take Connor."
Emmy chuckled, "As long as I get to watch." She waggled her eyebrows at him.
"Pervert."
"Hypocrite."
"Drunk."
"Hypocrite again," Emmy elbowed him and pulled him back into the crowd of sweaty, rowdy teenagers before he could attempt a rebuttal.
Their dancing had been primarily playful and ridiculous, but then another song change occurred. Emmy and Wally smirked at each other as the beat continued. He leaned down to whisper in her ear, his hands sliding on her hips to keep them from getting jostled in the crowd and certainly nothing else, "You want a minute to stretch?"
Emmy grinned at the reference, "I don't need warmups. Fun fact about being a speedster: I'm always hot."
"Oh, you're a speedster now?" He asked innocently.
"Hey, you quote me, I'll quote you," Emmy slid her arms around his neck and lowly sang the intro to 'Do I wanna know?' by Arctic Monkeys.
They swayed like two koi fish in a pond. Their eyes rarely left each other as they sang, and their dancing kept constant electrifying contact between their bare skin. Emmy brushed against him in a figure eight motion, and he gripped her hips and tugged her back against his chest.
"I can't tell if I like fighting or dancing with you to this song more," Wally murmured in her ear.
Emmy smirked, a little breathless from their spinning about and certainly nothing else, "Really? I have a favorite."
"Which one?" He asked, trying to downplay his curiosity.
Their hips moved to the beat together and she draped her arms behind his neck again. She cocked her head to the side with faux innocence, "Why would I tell you that?"
"Pretty please?" He fluttered his eyelashes at her.
"I'm not that shallow, Wally. The attractiveness of the please won't make a difference."
Wally laughed, and she smiled at his signature, shameless snickers.
"I'll get it out of you, Sunrise. Even if I have to tickle you to do it," the speedster threatened playfully.
"If you even think about trying something, I'll lick your gill makeup off," Emmy quirked an eyebrow at him and tugged at his collar once.
"Is that a promise or a threat?" His hands went an inch lower on her hips.
Emmy gave him a quick once over with half-lidded eyes, "Try something and find out."
Wally's eyes darkened. His right hand moved to the middle of her lower back and his left one slipped between her shoulder blades. The room was already scorching from the hundreds of teens dancing, but Wally's body was a radiator. She could smell the fruit punch on his breath and see the two sweat droplets rolling down the center column of his throat. Emmy slid her hands up to play with the hair at the nape of his neck. He glanced at her light pink, sparkly lips. They had a pineapple scent, he wondered if they would taste like that too. Emmy moved her hands down to his triceps and Wally grinned at her cheekily.
He leaned to whisper in her ear, "You're a miscreant."
"What are you going to do about it?" Emmy challenged.
Wally pulled his face from her ear, tightened his hold on her, brushed a hair behind her ear, let his fingers tilt her chin up, and was hit square in the back. He lurched forward, but Emmy untangled herself fast enough to avoid getting headbutted. She looked behind him and saw a blushing and gawky Kid Flash apologizing for the interference.
"I am so sorry, Man," Kid Flash rambled, "I am so bad at dancing, and I did not mean to hit you. I'm so sorry."
"It's cool, Dude," Wally grinned despite his frustration, "I could never be mad at someone in such a badass costume."
Emmy let out a noise between a scoff and a snort, and he elbowed her. Fake Kid Flash disappeared. They watched him go.
Emmy chuckled, "If only he knew."
Wally opened his mouth to say something he didn't know yet, but Megan interrupted with Connor in tow.
"Hey, guys! We were wondering where you were. A group of us are going to go get milkshakes at a diner down the road. Will you come?"
Wally and Emmy made eye contact, the spell was officially broken, and they took a half-step away from each other while agreeing to join. Wally walked ahead with Connor while Emmy and Megan locked elbows and chatted about the dance and possible ice cream flavors to get. The frigid October night coupled with the skimpy costumes dispersed the last remnants of alcohol and dampened the hormonal fires fanned in the sweltering gym. Emmy worried her bottom lip between her teeth. Now that her head was completely clear, she could recognize just how close she got to doing something stupid that could jeopardize a myriad of things. She shook it off. It was fine. Nothing happened. It was just harmless dance flirting. Everyone was doing it. She took a deep breath of almost painfully cold air and her lungs burned pleasantly.
Emmy watched Wally's ass sway as he walked and smirked to herself. She would never tell him but fighting won. He wasn't shirtless when they danced.
Shoutout to KirikaAndo and admiral809 for reviewing! I heard the people cry out for Guy, and I answered lol.
Until Next Time,
TheDarkAbyss
P.S. Anyone notice how I made the Halloween ep the 31st chapter? ;P