Chapter One
"You don't meet people by accident.
There's always a reason.
A lesson or a blessing"
- Unknown Author
The Justice League and Young Justice
Happy Harbor, The Cave
December 31, 2012 23:45 EDT
"This is nice." M'gann levitated over to her friends with drinks floating beside her. She passed a cup to each of the senior members of the Young Justice team with a smile. "I think this is the first New Years, since we became a team, that we weren't fighting crime."
"I must agree, my friend." Kalder smiled, taking a sip from the punch that the Martian brought over. "But it is also strange that the villains have gone quiet, especially the Light."
Kid Flash groaned loudly, leaning on his girlfriend dramatically. This action caused Artemis to roll her eyes and look to the Batfamily for some kind of help from the first Robin, now Nightwing. He wasn't looking their way, instead, he smirked and rubbed the 2nd Robin's hair who swatted at him. Batgirl also seemed to be teasing the youngest member. For once, the Batfamily seemed to be enjoying themselves and Artemis was glad that Beast Boy brought up the idea of having a party for the New Year. And it seemed that the other original members, along with the JLA agreed as they looked upon the Batfamily. It was also the first time in a while since they all saw Nightwing.
"Let us hope you didn't jinx us, Kalder." Zatanna giggled, and as if she had just spoken one of her spells, the Cave's computer flickered to life. The Joker's malicious smile filled the screen and his crazy chuckle echoed around the room.
"Happy New Year, World!" The mad clown chuckled as he spun around with the camera. "Well I'm 10 minutes early, but we are planning to draw this new year in with a bang! Literally."
The camera turned and showed an image of the President tied to a chair, a jack-in-the-box bomb near his feet. He struggled against his restraints and tried to talk around the gag in his mouth. His eyes were filled with fear, alerting the heroes that this was no joke. Other villains surrounded the President, so even if he did, by some chance, get free, he would never escape.
The camera turned back to the Joker who seemed to put it down or give it to a henchman. He moved back, and closer to the President before doing a little dance and ruffling the man's hair. "Of course, the Injustice League and I are very merciful people." The Joker laughed as if he had said the funniest joke ever. "Maybe Mr. President will survive into the New Year if our demands are met."
"Please tell us your diabolic plans, it really strikes fear in everyone's hearts when we know what you're up to." A voice said from the shadows and behind the camera. Clearly, a henchman had the camera because the video swung to the shadows. "And really? The Injustice League? Couldn't come up anything more original?"
A figure dropped from the rafters, landed gracefully on their feet and faced the villains with a smirk spreading across their lips. Although their features were concealed by a red domino mask, it was clear that the newcomer was a teenage girl no older than fifteen. She was lean and had a fit build, her skin was tan, olive-colored almost; clearly mixed heritage of some sort.
She wore a red and black kimono that had rips at the shoulder of her elbow length sleeves and the length of the kimono reached to just above her knees. The outfit was tied at the waist with leather bindings. She wore Kevlar enforced leggings under her kimono and there was a silver cylinder strapped to her right thigh; on her left thigh was a tan leather pouch. On her left arm was a glove that reached up to her elbow and had a holo-computer connected to it, a red ribbon was wrapped around her right wrist. A thin katana was strapped to her back and she wore dark combat boots. Finally, her hair was braided over her should with red ribbon.
"Oh! A new hero to play with!" Joker laughed, moving away from the president.
"Not really." The girl said, crossing her arms over her chest. "I was just passing by when I heard the commotion."
"Well, Uncle J must give new heroes a welcoming gift, especially the little ones." Without any more warning, Joker threw a yellow, smiley face grenade to the girl. To her credit, her eyes only widened slightly before she tossed the weapon back. The members of the Injustice League backed away from the Joker who just laughed.
"No thanks. I couldn't."
"I insist." Joker tossed the grenade back.
"I really couldn't." The young girl hurried to throw back the grenade once more. "I have nothing to give you if return."
"It is fine. Uncle J does this for all his new kiddies."
This time, as the grenade was in the air in front of the masked vigilante, it exploded, spreading smoke all around the girl. The Joker laughed manically, and the Justice League and the Young Justice watched the video in complete shock and despair. A young girl lost to the word because she was copying the things that they had started.
"Well, wasn't that present just the bomb!?"
Red throwing star soared out of the smoke that had begun to clear. One landed by Joker's feet, causing him to jump and fall back, and the other got stuck in a green wire hanging from the bomb at the President's feet. The bomb seemed to silence whatever ticking it might have had, which was only evident by the President relaxing slightly.
"Yeah… It was a real blast."
The girl flew out of the smoke next, feet first, and rammed into Black Adam, who actually fell backwards as if this girl's strength could match even a quarter of his. And the girl didn't even stop long enough for Poison Ivy's vines to have any impact against her. She pulled her Katana from its sheath at her back and sliced the incoming vines in half. They laid limply on the ground and Poison Ivy gasped crying out for her "babies".
The girl then used a throwing star to knock Count Vertigo's "vertigo effect" headgear from his head before he could use it against her. She then flipped back next to the President's chair and crouched beside him. She messed with something on her wrist computer and then electricity flowed from little glowing red machines on the ground that no one had really noticed besides Batman and Nightwing when the girl had thrown them with the first two throwing stars. Electricity rolled up the villains' bodies and they fell to the ground limp, the camera falling to the ground too indicting that the henchman was also taken out.
The President sighed against his bindings and the girl then helped undo them. There were sirens rolling in from a distance that the camera had just begun picking up. When the President was free, he began thanking his savior profusely, but she had moved on to begin restraining all the villains.
"You should be fine now, Mr. President." The camera was still able to pick up everything that was happening even as it lay abandon on its side. "I called the cops before I burst in and it sounds like they will be here shortly. I suggest you go outside though; I don't know whether or not there are any more bombs in the building; I didn't have the time to check."
"Who are you?" The President couldn't help but ask, and everyone watching this broadcast were also wondering the same thing.
"Here?" The girl began, disappearing into the shadows. When she spoke once more, she said, "Just call me Nox."
Nightwing, Robin II, Artemis, Kaldur, M'gann, Wally, Conner
Gotham, A Local Diner
January 02, 2013 15:30 EDT
For the second day in a row, the Galaxy Broadcasting System ran the video of the young hero, Nox, saving the president. Even though the two Bat Boys had seen the video multiple times with their mentor, they could not pinpoint who exactly this Nox was and they had seen her a couple times over the last two days. If she wasn't taking out villains at the pier, she was stealing things from those villains. No one on the Team could catch her, and the Justice League was growing wary with all the media attention.
Now here the original members of the Team, plus the new Robin, sat in civilian clothes in a local diner in Gotham, watching the news and Iris West as she spoke about the video. The President wanted to personally thank the girl for saving his life, but the girl had not replied to his invitation nor the invitation that the Justice League had offered up.
"Who does this girl think she is?" Robin II growled, clearly glaring from behind his shades. "You can't just show up, take out some big-name villains, and just disappear. People are going to want to know as much as they can about you."
Nightwing laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Calm down, Little Wing. Not everyone wants to be front and center. Also, remember why we are here."
"Yes, my friend." Kaldur said quietly as he looked over the menu belong to the diner. "We must remember we are here to follow up on an anonymous tip. We cannot lose our heads."
Robin just grumbled. Then the door opened behind their booth, letting in the cold Gotham winter air. A girl with long dark hair, wearing jeans and a blue flannel walked in. A black bookbag hung from one of her shoulders. She looked around the diner quickly before her eyes settled on the older woman behind the counter, the one that told the Team she'd be back to take their order once she finished up the coffee.
"Fellyra!" The older woman cried happily, and an older man peeked out from the kitchen with a grin. "Thank God you're here. I thought, maybe, with all this snow we just got that you'd be late after classes."
"Nope." The girl laughed. "Made it just on time and the snow was no problem at all."
As the girl moved closer to the older woman, the older woman gasped. She hurried around the counter and let her fingers linger on Fellyra's jaw. The Team snuck a peek to see what was going on and saw that the girl had a large bruise on her jaw, one that she tried to hide, so it seems.
"What happened?" The older woman asked.
"I fell." The girl said, using one of the oldest excuses in the book.
"Fell? Are you sure?"
"Yes…" The girl looked around the room once more to see how many people were in the diner, but only found the Team since the diner had yet to get their rush for the day. "Can we not talk about this right now?"
"Why not now? Will you tell me that you didn't fall later?"
"No." The girl rubbed the bruise on her jaw. "Because I fell."
The older woman put her hand on her hips, giving the girl a disappointed look. "Those people are supposed to be taking care of you, not hurting you. The city gives them money to make sure your safe and healthy, not for them to shove up their nose."
The girl raised an eyebrow at the short rant she just got, before saying, "I really don't know what your talking about." The girl moved around the counter and dropped her bag behind it before grabbing an apron to wrap around her waist.
"Fellyra!" The older lady groaned. "They are your foster parents and they signed up to take care of children. Yet, every time you come in here you have some kind of bruise or look like you haven't eaten in days. It is not healthy to keep living with these people."
Fellyra just rolled her eyes. "Better than Juvie. There's not a lot of places in Gotham that can take in someone like me." The dark-haired girl moved around the counter and rested a hand on the older woman's shoulder, who in turn allowed her shoulders slump. Fellyra just smiled, one that didn't quite reach her golden-green eyes. "Don't worry about it. I just fell."
Fellyra moved around the older woman and walked up to the Team's table. "Sorry 'bout the wait. My name is Fellyra and I'll take your orders if your ready. Better yet, I can take your drink orders first."
The Team's eyes focused in on the bruise on the girl's jaw. It was very pronounced now that they could see it better. Artemis could empathize with the girl and Robin could spot someone trying to hide abusive parents from anywhere. His mother hadn't been a particularly abusive woman, but the men she brought home could be brutes. The waitress, Fellyra, reminded him of himself when he had bothered his mother and whatever man came home with her. And he had lied too, if it meant protecting his mother and staying with her.
"I'll just take a water, if you could." Robin's brother's voice broke him out of his thoughts. He looked to Nightwing who was grinning at the girl, but he was clearly trying to get everyone to stop staring at the girl. Robin looked back to the girl who was rubbing subconsciously at her bruise. Everyone else agreed to have water too but Robin frown looking down at his menu once more.
"What's the best milkshake here? You've got a lot here." Robin asked and the girl smiled softly.
"Our best seller is the cookies and cream one. But the Ol' Man has been trying out this new one. It's coffee and mocha chip. It's really good."
"Can I get that?"
"Sure, coming right up." Fellyra walked away to put their orders in and the Team gave the new Robin a look.
"What? I wanted a milkshake. You guys made it a little too obvious you were staring at her bruise and that you were trying to change the subject by just ordering water." Robin chuckled. Everyone snuck a peek at the girl once more, who was grabbing their water and preparing Robin's shake. She wasn't too small of a thing, a bit taller than Robin II, but it was clear that she wasn't fed well. It wasn't that she was skinny per se; she was fit but her eyes were dark with malnourishment and lack of sleep. Her olive skin tone was ashen.
Fellyra came to the table with the waters and the milkshake; she placed it down in front of them and smiled. "Ready to order? Or do you need more time?"
"Can we get more time?" Nightwing asked for the group. And Fellyra shrugged and made to move away. Artemis stopped her though with a wave of her hand.
"May I ask you something, since you work here, and you probably see a lot?" Fellyra just shrugged before nodding, waving her hand to gesture for Artemis to continue. Artemis looked at her friends before continuing, "We've heard that there are some weird things going on in the area. We have yet to see anything that—validates the rumor."
"This is Gotham." The girl chuckled. "Everything is weird, all together backwards, here. I'm not sure what you are trying to ask."
"Well weirder."
"Weirder than that new hero showing their face around here." She pointed at the TV running another news special on the vigilante calling themself "Nox".
"Yes. Weirder."
Fellyra thought for a moment and then looked out into the snowstorm raging just beyond the window. Her eyes narrowed before she turned back to the group. "The weather has been a bit abnormal, but it is winter, so rain and snow is to be expected. Ummm, other than that, a lot of the lowly criminals have been getting a little braver with a bit more crimes than usual."
"Do you know why?" Kaldur asked.
Fellyra raised an eyebrow. "No. But I can suspect that they have something planned. Probably nothing good is happening if criminals in Gotham are gathering and working together." She paused and then looked back at the older woman and the man in the kitchen, she subconsciously rubbed at her jaw again. "Actually, I didn't tell you this—and if you tell the cops, I'll deny it—but my foster father is a part of this group that is more or less doing criminal stuff, and he's been coming home lately and weird hours. I heard him and my foster mother talking about some escape plan involving Arkam and Belle Reve. When they found out that I had overheard them, they weren't quite happy about it."
M'gann gasped. "Did they hit you because you overheard their conversation?"
Fellyra glared before looking out the window over their shoulders. "Foster Care isn't all sunshine and rainbows. You learn to deal with what they give you; not everyone can be so lucky as to have the billionaire, Bruce Wayne, take them in. The system has no money and there are a lot of kids that get stuck in shitty situations, some worse than mine." The waitress looked back at the group, her eyes lingering on Nightwing and Robin for a split second. "I don't know if my foster parents are involved with the prison break, but rumors are trickle down in this community and its worth looking into."
"Are you suggesting that if we relay this information to anyone, that we leave your foster parents out of it?" Robin asked. He could understand why she didn't want her foster parents involved; they would get arrested and Fellyra would be left alone. It wasn't about love for the people taking care of her, it was about survival. But if this prison break was true and it was stopped, her foster parents could possibly kill her.
"They are despicable humans, but they are the only thing keeping me out of juvie; which is the only place that apparently has room for someone like me." The girl raised an eyebrow and cocked her head slightly. "My social worker's words, not mine."