Disclaimer: I do not own the existing characters that we know and love of Young Justice, although I do take ownership over the new characters i.e. The majority of the Team's children
Chapter 05 – Rosemary Grayson
It had been a couple of days since our first mission and things were beginning to return to normality, for the moment. Whilst there were no ongoing missions for the Justice Squad to deal with, it was back to school and indulging myself in general studies. That was the deal I had made with Dad. He said if I wanted to be included in the fight for justice, I had to keep up with my studies.
I woke up like it was any other day where I needed to go to school and grabbed my go-to school outfit. A black pleated skirt, a purple top, black boots and my necklace. The necklace used to belong to my mother, the superhero Starfire before she disappeared. It was a special Tamaranean stone on a silver chain that apparently brought good luck and protection to the wearer.
Dad always made sure that me and Max were driven to school by our driver. It was always a strange concept to be driven around by someone unrelated to me or any of the Justice league members. Our driver was nice enough, engaging in idle chit chat on occasion which sometimes made the journey drag a little as I tried to remain polite.
When we arrived at school, Max darted off to go and see his friend in the computer lab. His massive school bag bounced as he ran which made me laugh.
One thing I didn't like about normal school life was having to be normal – I had to wear contact lenses that made my eyes look like everyone else's. Normally, they were completely green with no pupil, similar to the Tamaraneans, but Dad said I had to wear these lenses that gave me a pupil. Then I wasn't allowed to fly and I had to walk everywhere, which was a total bore, although Max and I were working on getting a natural glide into my walk so that I could still be me.
"Miss Grayson. You'd better hurry up or you'll be late. I'm not covering for you if you get a detention, young lady," the driver said, leaning out of the window and tipping his hat to me.
I didn't say anything, but I started to walk into the school building instead. The lessons were boring, and at the end of the day, one of the popular girls sat down on the desk in front of me.
This was Ellie Winston – the girl that lots of the guys thought was the best looking girl in the school with her long, blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She was typically the epitome of the American girl in high school – on the cheerleading team, and president of insignificant clubs. But for Ellie to be approaching me, was something that was unheard of.
"Hey Rosemary- I was wondering…" she started, smiling sweetly.
"What were you wondering?" I asked, standing up and lifting my bag onto my shoulder. "I've got places to be so can we make it quick?"
Ellie flicked her hair over her shoulder. "Wow- um, okay. Basically, me and the girls were wondering if you would want to come to a little party that we're having tonight. It's just a small gathering of my girls and some of the guys, nothing majorly big. You seem cool enough, so I thought I should invite you along. Are you in?"
I scrunched up my face for a moment and then found her staring at me with an expectant look. "Oh I don't know, my dad is pretty strict and I don't think he would want me out late. Maybe another time." I started to make my way past her, but she grabbed my wrist. "Ellie?"
"Come on Rosemary, it'll be fun – we both know how much you like to break the rules so why don't you just break your curfew? What's the worst that could happen?"
I could have sworn that her perfectly manicured nails were slowly digging into my wrist.
Well Ellie, I can think of a lot of things that would be worse than being grounded for a week… Dad can get pretty imaginative and strict when it came to punishments for breaking curfew – and I did that a lot… I thought to myself, knowing that I had to shake Ellie off because tonight, I had planned to fit in a training session with Ryan once I had finished all my homework assignments.
"Sorry Ellie, not today." I ignored anything she could have said and darted out of the classroom. "What a day!" I sighed when I sat down in the car beside Max. "I know I'm late, I'm sorry…"
Max shrugged. "It's okay, are you still on for training with Jester this evening?"
"Only if I finish all my homework…"
-o-
Let's just say, there were a couple of science questions that I missed off from my homework before I made my way from home at Grayson Manor to the training room at the headquarters. I made sure that Dad did not notice me leaving the house – it was his day off and he was in his study going over some old articles and files.
At the headquarters, I changed into my Nightstar superhero suit ready for some intermediate training with Jester. I tried to avoid staring at Jester as he sat at a control panel, setting up a scenario for me to train for. He was like the cute guy in films that was unobtainable and I couldn't help but feel butterflies in my stomach when I saw him. Jester was so focused and driven when it came to training – he wanted to be the best hero and leader that the Justice Hall had ever seen, even better than my dad when he was our age.
"Nightstar, you're staring- are you okay?"
I didn't even realise I was doing the one thing I was trying to avoid, and the fact that my finger was practically knotted into my hair was twiddling it around in little circles. This was my giveaway when I liked a guy – I just hoped that no one had ever picked up on.
"Oh, yeah, sorry Rya- Jester. I'm ready when you are…" I mumbled, stumbling nervously over my words. "So… what's the scenario?"
Jester planted a hand to his face and just press a button to initiate the scenario. The way we trained was by using a virtual reality simulation that would test our abilities and skills. You still felt things lie pain and strength, but you were consciously aware that it technically wasn't real. The fact that Jester didn't tell me the scenario made me think he really as the jerk that I heard people say he was.
"Okay, come on Mari- let's analyse this scenario…"
I was in an old warehouse. Just by an exit. In the warehouse, it was like a maze of crates and stacked up boxes. I wondered what they were full of, but knew that I needed to work out what the point of the scenario was first before exploring the boxes' contents.
But finding out the purpose of this scenario was not an easy task. With no way of knowing what was going to happen, who the bad guys were, or what I was meant to do.
"Come on lady, tell us what we want to know!" a man called out.
I froze, pressing my back up close to the crate nearest to me in the hope that I couldn't be seen by whoever was in the warehouse. In my mind, my instincts were telling me that I was going against the clock as a lady was being interrogated and possibly tortured for information. That meant that I didn't have time to go about this in a dainty manner and collect all the information that I needed.
"Do I need to ask again?!" The man's voice sounded much more insistent and like his patience was diminishing. "Bring me the clamp…"
He was giving orders, so there was definitely somebody else there – maybe I could eliminate the person before they got the clamp? I crouched down, getting ready to peer around the box. There were a series of boxes that I could use as a shield, I darted about between boxes- occasionally rolling or gliding into safe spaces. It was hard to concentrate when I started to hear the woman's voice.
"No, please! I don't know what you're talking about! Please don't hurt me!"
Time was running out and I knew I didn't have long. To one side of the warehouse, there was a tall support beam that I knew would shield me from wherever the bad guys were. Having taken too long to explore the warehouse, I decided to change my initial plan and ran towards the support beam.
"What was that?" the guy called out.
I kicked gently off the floor and ascended up the beam, out of sight and placing my hands on the beam like I was climbing rather than flying. When I was nearly at the top, I stopped and checked on the warehouse below. I could see a woman strapped to a chair by tape and one man walking around her. There were two minions in total, one was fetching the clamp and the other was now searching the boxes where I once stood.
"I can't find nothing or nobody, boss…" the minion murmured, walking back towards his boss.
"Up there!" the boss shouted, pointing up at me. "Do something, you idiots!"
Having been spotted, I knew that I didn't have to go for subtlety, so I fired off some starbolts. I quickly shot off a few at the minions, who were struck and screamed out in pain as the heat singed their skin. Flying down, I charged at the boss who shot one of those catapult nets at me. The wind was knocked out of me as I was sent clattering into a crate, which practically disintegrated. The net was weighted so I was pinned down onto the splintered wood, the panic rising in me.
Then I remembered a trick that Max had developed with the starbolts. If I held back the power, it would be enough to burn through a metal bar, so what difference would some old rope make? As the boss was fast approaching me, I burnt through the rope and threw myself into him, barrelling across the ground. He kicked me off and out of nowhere pulled out a gun, firing at the hostage.
"No!" I screamed as the simulation failed.
The warehouse began to disintegrate into pixels, revealing the training room. I rolled over onto my back, unable to catch my breath.
"Why did you- why did you let that happen?" I asked, panting heavily. Using my abilities always took a lot of energy which is why Jester insisted on focusing on my physical strength when we were testing scenarios.
"You were clumsy, you didn't think properly-" Jester stopped mid-sentence, distracted by a notification that had come up on his phone. "I'll give Green Canary the debrief and she can go over the extensive lists of criticisms that I have when she's on duty tomorrow." He stood up and switched off the simulator, leaving the bright white lights to illuminate the already white room. "Don't forget that you're the last one here."
"Wait! Where are you going?" I asked, sitting up quickly. "It's not up to Green Canary to give feedback you know."
"What can I say?" he replied confidently. "I'd kill to have Green Canary give me feedback. Now I'm off to get me some- got to catch up on some work your dad gave me- is that a satisfactory answer for you, Nightstar?"
Jester didn't stop to hear my response – he was gone in a second. Sometimes he could be so nice, and other times he could be a right jerk.
As I switched off the lights in the training room, I noticed that Willow was standing at the other end of the corridor going out of the training room. She slouched into the wall when Jester strode past him, like she was scared and didn't want him to fully notice her.
"You okay, Willow?" I asked her once Jester was out of sight.
Willow nodded quickly, shaking his shoulders a little. "It's nothing. I'm just nervous about the whole superhero thing. Like how we can live-"
"Live up to the legacy our parents created…" I finished her sentence. "Do you maybe want to grab some food or something?"
She looked at me with a puzzled expression. "You want to- you want to get food with me?"
"Um- sure!" I smiled. "We've not done much together, and as the only girls on the Justice Squad, I think it is time we had a girl's night or something. Or we can check in on Fin'abarra?"
"I'd like that… He seemed to be okay when I saw him this morning." Willow looked nervously up and down the corridor, like she thought Ryan was going to come back.
"Listen- I'm going to go and get changed so I'll meet you in five?" I smiled at her politely and then disappeared into the small locker room that I shared with Willow.
It had a row of five high school lockers – admittedly Green Canary and Angel were being optimistic and hoping that more kids like us would join the Justice Squad. For now, it was nice to just be me and Willow for the girl's side.
When I came out, Willow was nowhere to be seen. It was strange, but I couldn't budge the feeling that she was unnecessarily intimidated by Ryan. I waited for what felt like ages and she still didn't appear, so I thought it would be best for me to go and check on Fin'abarra.
On the way to the infirmary, I checked my phone and saw a message from Dad. Where are you? I rolled my eyes and told him I was seeing Fin'abarra. He was incredibly insistent on knowing my nearly every move, which was unbelievably irritating but understandable.
"Relax Dad…" I whispered, walking through the infirmary towards Fin'abarra's room.
He still hadn't recovered from inhaling the toxic gas that had been released in the Jenson's home – Green Canary suspected that it was unfortunately harmful to Atlanteans. It was weird training and debriefing without Fin'abarra there because I had known him for as long as I could remember. Aqualad and my dad were close friends when they were our age, so it was only natural that me and Fin'abarra were friends.
I sat down in the chair beside Fin'abarra's bed. "Finley- can you wake up soon? It's so boring without you, and Ryan is driving us all crazy because you aren't here to kind of keep him in his place…"
My hand rested itself on his arm, just below his blue Atlantean turtle tattoo. The turtle was the animal that he summoned when he used his powers, and it was amazing to watch him control the turtle he created. The constant and stable beeping of the machines that were keeping him healthy was soothing to begin with, but I got frustrated by it quickly.
"Security breach… Initiate lockdown sequence – security breach. Lockdown sequence initiated."
"Oh crap…" I groaned, wondering what was going on.
The lockdown sequence was being initiated for a reason and I knew it wasn't going to be good. Someone was either trying to physically break in, or someone was trying to remote hack the system. Maybe the system itself was being hacked. Either way, I was going to need to stay put for the time being.
I pulled out my phone, ducking below the window that looked into the hospital room from the corridor, pulling the cord to close the blinds.
When I tried to phone Dad, the call wouldn't connect, and that's when I heard the next announcement.
"Unauthorised personnel – lockdown secured. Unauthorised personnel – lockdown secured."
Someone was inside of the headquarters, and no one was around to help me. How was I going to get out of this?
Thoughts from AspiringWriterGirl = What is Mari going to do now and what is up with Jester? I hope you are enjoying the story and don't forget to leave a review
