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

A/N: Don't forget to review!

Chapter 07 – Willow West

"Here we go…" I murmured, staring at my reflection in the mirror.

It was the first day back at school after our midterm break in which Finn and Mari recovered from their injuries and Ryan went on a solo mission to some tiny village in the middle of the Texan desert.

Today, I had chosen a simple outfit so that I could blend into the background and not be noticed in the hustle and bustle of the high school.

"See you later, Dad," I said to the photo frame on my desk. "Wish me luck."

Pressing my fingers to the glass, I smiled at the man in his yellow superhero suit and showing a thumbs up at the camera. It was a photo that Nightwing had gifted to me from the archives. No one would miss it, so he let me keep it.

There was a knock at the door, Finn's voice called out to me from the other side. I grabbed my bag and History folder before heading out to meet him.

"Morning Finn."

"Morning Wills- you look, um… different…" Finn's brown eyes scanned me up and down. "Sorry- I mean different in a good way. I feel like we haven't worn casual clothes in months!" He pulled nervously at his long sleeved top that clung to his body.

"Stop being nervous. No one will notice the turtles…" I brushed past him, feeling the urgency of missing morning registration. "Come on, Finn!"

Finn caught up to me by the time we reached the base's garage – being one of the few people who resided in the base meant that we knew most of the ins and outs of the building.

I headed for the security door, looking forward to some natural sunlight and fresh air. There was something about the outside that was so calming to me. It made me forget about all my problems and worries.

"Willow, I've been meaning to ask you something." Finn started, gripping the strap of his rucksack to the point where his Atlantean skin looked pale. "There's something I wanted to know and it's been bothering me ever since."

"Ever since when?" I replied quickly, eager to know what he was curious about.

As I walked down the path to the main street, I noticed that there was even more security measures in place since it was broken into. Mari's little brother Max was keen to set up new firewalls and Nightwing added more CCTV cameras to the building's perimeter which meant that sneaking out after dark was going to be extremely difficult unless I was about to steal a bio-ship. Unlikely.

"Do you ever wonder what the deal with Jester is?"

I flinched slightly, nearly dropping my folder. None of us had properly spoken about Jester. His training methods were ruthless and he wasn't afraid to push us to breaking point – he didn't hesitate at making Mari cry during a training review. Something told me not to talk about Jester in a derogatory way – the fear was too much.

"Not really- he keeps to himself…" I asked calmly, hoping for the conversation to move on quickly.

"Oh. Okay. I just noticed some stuff on that security mission for Mr Jenson and I wanted to know what you thought."

Finn might know something, but I can't afford to make an enemy out of Jester- I could lose everything.

I shook my head. "It's probably just you overthinking, Finn." Looking up and down the street, I went to cross the road when something peculiar caught my eye.

It was a large black SUV pulled over at the side of the road. A man wearing a black top and trousers was on the phone. If it wasn't for the dark sunglasses he was wearing, I would have been sure he was watching us. It calmed my nerves when he nodded, cut of the call and drove off.

I couldn't help but follow the car with my eyes as it went past Finn and I. Rather than draw attention to it, I carried on walking in the direction of school, cutting across Bell Park to save time.

-o-

We reached the school at a peak drop off time. Even though Mari and Max were waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs, I almost walked straight past them. It still caught me off guard whenever I saw Mari in the open – she had to use this special spray or maybe it was contact lenses to hide her Tamaranean eyes and make them look 'normal'.

Mari seemed distracted by something over my shoulder after we had said hello. When I turned to look myself, I noticed it. Further along from us was Ryan. He was joking about with a group of the older guys in the school, but there was one younger girl there too, who Ryan had a muscular arm draped around.

She looked a little older than Mari, maybe even older than me, and she was the epitome of the popular girl. Dead straight brown hair that she was flicking back and forth as she tried to keep up with the group's boisterous conversation. An obnoxious high pitched laugh. Her outfit was definitely a girly girl's outfit. A floral print short dress, a washed out denim jacket, little pastel pink ballerina pumps and a sparkling silver ankle bracelet.

"Who's she?" Mari grumbled, watching the interaction between Ryan and the girl closely.

I half expected Max to crack a job about the blatantly obvious crush that Mari was trying to hide, but he didn't. Instead, he had his head hung low and seemed to almost withdraw into his body.

"Max?" I asked, leaning to one side to get a better look at him.

"Hey losers," Ryan said, barging past us with his companion in tow.

She looked over her shoulder at me, and as our eyes locked, I knew I had seen her somewhere before. I just couldn't remember or think where.

Unbeknownst to me, she was thinking the same.

Trying to work out where I knew her was distracting to say the least – I was staring into space in nearly all of my lessons wondering. Her face wasn't familiar, but her eyes were. The girl's eyes were a beautiful ice blue cyan colour – like the sea when it's hit by the sun's bright rays. It was annoying to say the least.

-o-

At the end of the day, I decided to follow Ryan and see who this girl was. They were definitely flirting and familiar with one another, but he had never mentioned a girl had even been on the scenes in the first place.

I headed towards Ryan's locker in the hope that I would be able to catch him. Sure enough, he was there. From behind, he looked so broad and would have made the perfect quarterback for the football team, if he could be bothered to deal with sports.

"Hey Ryan…" I said, tapping him on the shoulder.

"Oh- Will-oh!" he boomed like a hyperactive frat boy. "What can I do for you?" He put one hand on the locker just above my head, leaning against it and getting awkwardly close to my face.

"I was thinking that maybe me and you could…train tonight?"

"Ahh I wish I could Will-oh but I already have plans." Ryan backed away, cracking his knuckles. "Catch ya later."

My mouth opened and shut, trying to thread together a sentence. Instead, I grabbed Ryan's arm, weakly attempting to pull him back.

"Nightwing wants us to go on a mission together," I hissed at him. "I need training- you said so. And you need a perfect record with missions."

The way Ryan looked at me made my heart pound my chest and I forced my hand to retract from his arm. Whilst Ryan tried to act macho and strong, if you were able to speak his language then it really worked to your own benefit. Having asked for a private training session, I didn't really know how it would help me work out this girl's identity.

"Fine," Ryan growled. "But I got to make a call first. Follow behind me to the car, don't walk with me."

I obediently followed behind Ryan, trying to pull the hair back off my ears as he started to make his phone call.

"Hey babe… You know how we were meant to be erm- 'studying' tonight? I can't… I know, I know, but things came up… A thing with work… Come on, don't be like that… I promise I'll make it up to you. Of course we can go there for dinner… Oh tomorrow? Yeah sure tomorrow works- how about I pick you up at six?... You wear whatever the hell you want to wear, m'kay?" Ryan noticed I was earwigging at the last minute and cut the call. "Did you want to low down on what she said to me or something?"

"She's pretty…" I said, preparing to poke the theoretical bear.

"Yeah- desperate too," he mumbled quietly, thinking I wouldn't hear as he pulled out the keys to one of the cars that was normally in the garage at the base. "And yes I did take the car and no, I do not need a lecture about it- especially from you. Now get in."

Rather than argue with him, I submitted and went to climb in when I saw her again watching us closely. I got in the car and didn't say a word to Ryan.

"Is she- is she a super?" I asked outright. I assumed that if I had seen her somewhere, then the chances of it being whilst on a mission were incredibly high.

Flustered, Ryan let his instincts take over. "What? No. She couldn't even fire straight at ten feet."

He was lying.

"Interesting."

-o-

Later that night, I heard 'F zero one' echo on the monitor signalling someone with a designation had entered. It took me a while to realise that it was Max- Firewing and I decided that he would be the perfect cover to execute the plan to find the girl's identity.

"Max!" I called out, running towards the computer lab. "I thought it was you… I need your help."

Max looked up at me with blue eyes and smiled. "You want my help?"

"Of course!" I paused, seeing the purple bruise on the side of his face. "Max, what happened to your face?" I held his chin and closely inspected it. "Who hit you?"

"No one," Max snapped, jerking away. "It was just some boy in gym class."

"Yeah? Maybe next time you should learn to duck and dive…"

"Duck… and dive?"

"Yeah, like this. Come on stand up." I put my fists up. "Hit me, and don't start I'm not going to hit a girl nonsense."

Max swung a punch and I ducked, sidestepped and pushed him off balance. "Oh… Right. So like this…" He waited for me to throw a slow punch at which point he ducked, stepped around and pushed me in the back.

"You got it now…" I smiled, ruffling his dark hair. "Now you can do me a favour." I explained to Max that I had seen this girl that was hanging around with Ryan – maybe I should have called her his girlfriend, but Ryan's pretty touchy about that sort of thing. "So do you think you can do that?"

"I have the ability to do what you're asking, but I don't know if I really want to face the wrath of Jester if he finds out what I did."

"Why are you scared of him, Max?" I asked, crouching down beside him as he plugged away at the computer. "You know you can tell me- or Mari – anything you want to, right?"

"It's nothing." He turned away slightly.

"It doesn't feel like nothing, Max. Tell me what's happened?"

Because I was so engrossed in getting the scoop on Ryan, I didn't even notice Angel standing in the doorway of the computer lab wearing his white hero suit.

"Willow! That's enough! Max, why don't you get home now? I'm sure your dad wants to know where you have snuck off to so late at night… Don't let me catch you here this late again."

Max darted off down the corridor.

"I don't expect you to refuse to tell me what's going on Willow." Angel shut the door behind himself. "You've been off your game lately- distracted almost. I watched you training with Jester and to say the least, you were sloppier than before you completed your basic training."

"I can't talk about it Angel."

"Not going to- come on Willow. You just about went full on interrogation mode with Max- he's just a kid… You can't lose it like that. Something's bothering you and I'm not going to just let it slide…" Angel folded his arms, showing that he was not messing around anymore. "Tell me now or I will just ask Jester what the deal is."

Check and mate. He had me.

"I have… concerns for how Jester is managing the team and I think he knows more supers that he is not informing us about…"

Angel clicked his neck and frowned at me. He was waiting for me to give a tell, he and Green Canary were always telling me how I was terrible in interrogations, so I worked on it. Still, Angel was not satisfied enough. "I'm calling a meeting in the morning to discuss it with all of your fellow heroes."

"Fine," I snapped. "I'm leaving now."

"Be my guest." Angel stepped aside. "Don't worry about mentioning it to the others, we'll find out what the problem is."

Ignoring Angel, I made my way to my room and locked the door behind me. When I checked my phone, I saw that I had a message from Max containing a number that belonged to the girl. He said it was the only outbound call that Ryan made within the window of us leaving the school and getting in the car. This was it. I was about to find out who she was.

Then she didn't pick up when I called her.

"Looks like I'll have to try again in the tomorrow."

-o-

Although I didn't have to. She came to me. I was sat at one of the wooden benches in the courtyard, reading a build on survival techniques.

The girl dropped her textbooks onto the bench in front of me, sitting down opposite me. "Look, I don't know what your problem or what you are doing with Ryan, but it stops here."

"I'm sorry?" I asked nervously.

"You haven't stopped glaring at me and giving me dirty looks since I started at this school. I don't want to be rude, but I definitely think you should back off of Ryan."

"Ryan?"

"Yes Ryan- Ryan Conan. My boyfriend," she snapped aggressively, slamming her fist down with immense speed.

Speed. That was it. I had seen that speed before. Finn was on to something. I realised that she was the speedster that was trying to scare Mr Jenson and his family. My gaze was fixed on her hand and then I looked at her closely.

Her blue eyes widened. "What are you staring at me like that for? It's weird."

Behind her, I could see Finn walking around the building, on his way to the gymnasium when he noticed me and her. I nodded and he quickly joined us.

"It's Lola, isn't it?" Finn asked. "Hi- I'm Finn…" He held his hand out to her- she grudgingly shook it. "We know about you. About what you can do."

"I can't do whatever it is that you think I can!" Lola stuttered, gathering up her textbooks.

Finn lurched forwards, slamming a hand down on the books, about to send them tumbling to the floor. Lola was one step ahead and caught them as soon as they had left her hands.

Finn smirked at her. "I rest my case. You should come with us after school, and before you say you aren't going anywhere with us 'freaks', we're just like you."

"I'm nothing like you!" Lola squeaked. "Now leave me alone."

Before me and Finn could try and convince her to stay, she was gone. He looked at me reassuringly.

"Looks like I came here in the nick of time… I guess it confirms my suspicions. Ryan is keeping her a secret, most likely because of what she can do. She is a speedster. Faster than Kid Flash and Impulse-" He froze, realising he had mentioned my dad's hero name. "Sorry Wills, I didn't-"

"It's fine, I don't mind. I'd rather people spoke about him to be honest. To honour his memory more than anything." I smiled softly. "It's just that- well, Lola worries me."

"Everyone worries you- you worried about me and the Graysons at first, now look at us…" Finn reminded me.

It was true, I was always very sceptical of new people, and it took me a while to warm up to people. The whole drama with my mother made it harder to trust people.

-o-

That night, we trained. Me, Finn, Mari and Ryan. Diana, Fin, Nightstar and Jester. Angel was watching us closely, giving me the shivers at the thought of the impending questioning that was about to follow the training session.

"Okay team," Angel called out. "Let's call it a night now, because there's a new member who needs to be vetted. Jester, Diana- you two can help with the vetting."

Mari and Finn exchanged a look before wandering out of the training room leaving me and Jester waiting with Angel.

"Okay kids- we got ourselves a speedster. Curtesy of Blue Beetle and Impulse- her parents…"

Thoughts from AspiringWriterGirl = Yes! I could not wait to properly write Lola into the story, I've been waiting to write her and one other new character in since I started planning for this story