Flashing Lights and Lounds
By Jedi-and
Disclaimer: I do not own TT, nor do I own Mr. Noel Collins or Robert Candide but I DO own my own characters.
Authors note: I have adjusted Scalpel's age from 16, 17 this year to the age of 17, 18 this year. In English he is one year older now, just because I preferred that age bracket for him. Hey, I'm an author, I can work on whims if I so desire.
-------------------------------------------
Chapter 17: The Best Defence...
-------------------------------------------
I'm not quite sure the two thugs knew what they where getting themselves into when they finally decided to attack Scalpel.
Scalpel's sole occupation for a few years previous to joining the Titans was war, and how to survive it. We're talking dodging live ammo while he was trying to drag his fellow Blacktrinians off the front lines. As he has pointed out time and again, he was placed in some of the harshest environments on Tamaran in order to save lives, which also included his own. He knows how to survive, consciously and throughly.
Then our dear doctor joined the Titans and became a super hero. Let me explain something to you. Modern super heroes don't die of unnatural causes unless sacrificing themselves for the good of the planet. Much like when Tim Drake, or rather the current Robin, while he was fighting off the deadly Ebola mutation disease known as the Clench, lasting long enough for a Mr Valley, aka the now lost and possibly dead hero Azreal, to find the antidote while most people would have died in half the time, his memory forever imprinted by the disease but alive. Or Starfire, when she was given to an alien race in order to prevent another war, which was followed by six long years of slavery. She managed to escape and find her way to Earth, worse for wear but again, alive. Another example was Cyborg's origins, back when he was just plain old Victor Stone, a young man who nearly died because of an incident where a blob creature came from another dimension. As strange as it sounds it happened, and it killed his mother, Eleanor Stone, in the process and left him so injured that he needed a new body, one his father gave him. One he did not want at the time. He was bitter, but it made him who he is today. Alive.
I could go on and on about other examples of heroes surviving situations that were extraordinary in their life threatening degrees. The Final Night was such an example where diligence, endurance and determination managed to win over power, abilities and knowledge. Everything that has happened is a combination of luck and stamina. Even Scalpel's arrival in a damaged spacecraft that crashed while leaving him unharmed to join a super hero team just showed one thing: Super Heroes are natural survivors.
Add his super hero rating onto his innate survival ability given to him from a war and you have someone who can come out of any situation and still be on top.
In theory.
So picking on Scalpel was never the greatest of ideas, even in his current condition.
Still seeing stars from the painful blow that he was dealt before hand, the first man had managed to get up and threw a punch. The alien batted it down, stamped on his foot to keep it in place and thrust his own fist forward into the nose of the man, and since his foot was still under Scalpel's, the first thug couldn't move anywhere, giving a double whammy: the blow and the whip lash that followed. He fell to the ground in a groaning heap.
The second Thug managed to connect with a blow to the back of the hero's head, which sent him into the adjacent wall, but Scalpel decided to fight him with his own medicine. Reaching down and grabbing the leg of the previously fallen man, he turned and swung him over his head so he landed on his comrade, who was in slight awe of the Titan's strength, before his friend flattened him.
Thug from above anyone?
That was pretty much it: the ruffians were out cold. Feeling somewhat condescending Scalpel knelt down next to them, though he paused. There was something comforting that he was doing the right thing, yet at the same time it was a little distressing. It wasn't the fact that this was more of a back ally brawl than actually stopping a wrongdoing; after all he had been in street fights before. It was a feeling of cautious familiarity that you didn't want to tread into, in case something happened, almost as if you were working for a rental store but got your rented movies from somewhere else. Treading on someone else's toes. It was uncomfortable to be dealing with such villains again when he was, a week or so ago, doing it as a business, a business he had decided to get out of, and yet find himself now doing it almost it out of nostalgia.
But then again these were thugs, not like real villains. Slade Wilson, AKA Deathstroke the Terminator, had increased strength, reactions and it was rumoured that he could use ninety, yes nine-zero, percent of his brain, making him a master tactician and perhaps the most intellectual man on the planet. Robin had even mentioned that Batman was a little afraid of Slade, in a tactical sense anyway. Now that was a real threat. Villains were survivors too: a villain never seems to stay down, no matter how many times you harm them or send them up the river. He pondered before shaking his head to try and free him from such useless thoughts.
"I think that is all for today." He said quietly, about to go. Before he could say another word or take another step, he heard static coming from one of the fallen brutes. A small black device was attached to them.
Slowly, he picked it up.
-----------------------------------------
"Neil! Paul! What is going on? Did you get the deed?" Sophie's older brother Tony asked into his police style walkie-talkie. He had decided to go all out on this whole secret mission thing. I mean come on; it wasn't like it was his money he was spending.
"Neil?" Tony repeated. By this time he had dragged Sophie out of the store and into one of his cars via a body guard, and they were on their way towards her home, or as he thought, his home.
"Neil can not come to the phone right now, can I take a message?" He heard this cheerful voice at the other end of the line. Sophie grinned madly. Her Hero had saved the day. Even if he never helped her again, he had come through for her this one time.
"Who the hell is this?" Tony shouted into the radio. Nigel had obviously been taking lessons from Gauntlet in banter before he left.
"Good day sir, my name is Scalpel, and who may I ask is calling?"
Well, not really banter, as he was adapting Earth phone edict to taunt his unknown assailant. Tony's eyes went wide at the sound of that name. He had lived in Jump City for a while: it was, after all, a summer break and he was down from university. He had heard of Scalpel in action, and they said he was a real monster with a weakness to do the right thing, and from what Tony could recall, someone who couldn't be bought off either, which put him in a real position. He knew that being a Titan pretty much meant you couldn't bribe him. Robin had single-handedly weeded out all the corruption in the police department as well. For him the Titans were nothing but bad news, because he knew that money and power didn't affect them, unless someone in a gaudy costume tried to rob a bank, and then the Titans tended to affect THEM a lot more as they often ended up in jail while the Titans went back to their Tower and did whatever they did between people, city, and world savings.
"Good work Scalpel!" Sophie said as she suddenly grabbed Tony's hand and squeezed the button to speak.
"Thank you Miss Mathews!" He replied, in a light tone.
"You little..." Tony started; his eyes ablaze. "You knew I was coming didn't you?" He turned to his sister, anger seething in him..
"Sorry, you just came to me at the wrong time." Sophie said. A smirk worked its way onto her face: such a joy to see his carefully laid plans fall apart at the seams. She would have continued to gloat, if he hadn't slapped her across his limo so hard she nearly hit her head on the flanking seats. His goons helped her up, only to support her weight for the next hit.
"Why can't you understand?!" He bellowed at her, drawing back and hitting her across the face again and again. "Dad wanted all of this for ME! NOT YOU!" In his rage he had not let go of the button, and Scalpel heard everything. However because Sophie's brother still had his fingers on said button, Scalpel could say or do nothing. Though on the other end he was starting to get even madder then Tony, and unlike the spoiled, vicious punk, his was a righteous rage.
Unfortunately, Tony had some brains as well, as he realised this predicament Scalpel was in and had an idea. He may have been a spoiled brat, but he had his charms and one of them was being able to think on his feet. With a dark and menacing smile coming across his nonexistent lips, he brushed his light hair back and adjusted himself before he spoke.
"Okay Mr Scalpel, I'll do you a deal." He smiled to the alien voice on the other side, his own voice a lot calmer than before. "We won't touch a hair on Sophie's head, as long as you stay well away from my men." He knew what would happen next. Scalpel would do that deep growl he does when he is angry but uncertain, and then he would respond.
He could read people just by their voice. What could he say? It's a gift.
And Scalpel happily complied. With a growl and a pause he spoke again, but it wasn't quite what he was expecting.
"What coward would go after a defenceless person? If you want to prove a point, why not come here and show your face?"
"I am not stupid, I have seen your work." Tony laughed into the handset. "You're a true monster, but I know your only weakness." He grabbed the hair of Sophie and flashed his evil grin once again. "You're soft, you love to be the hero and you would even put yourself in the line of fire to do so." With each passing second, he threw his sister around by her soft brown hair, almost taunting, playing with the ex-hero. All he could do is hear the commotion. "So do what I say and nothing will happen."
Another growl echoed from the device. What should he do? Should he go along with this? She was in danger, but he wasn't someone he could trust. How did he know that was the real Sophie? It could have been someone else, an actress employed to help trick the young alien. Humans were complicated, tricky individuals.
People always seem to talk about an inner clock.
Tick.
Something to tell you when something is amiss, to tell you when the weather had changed.
Tock.
To tell you your own sense of time so you know when it's time to get up, or when it's time to get something. That little something inside you.
Tick.
That little something that always slows down when ever something big happens. Usually, it was only for when something life changing happened, but this was something that our young friend wasn't very good at.
.......
Negotiation. Every second counted. He could almost feel it, each strand of her hair being pulled and each gasping breath as she tried to regain her composure, trying not to give whoever was on the end the satisfaction of her pain.
Her fate could be in his hands. What was he prepared to do?
Tock.
"Fine, I'll stand back." He finally managed to say, his hand tightly clasping the device. He wasn't prepared to let Sophie get harmed for his bad luck and timing. He wasn't having the best of weeks, and he knew it. Everything he seemed to touch turned to turn against him, seemed to hurt him or others in some way or another.
What could he do if he kept on screwing up? He felt like he was making mistake after mistake, even though we all now know that his last big mistake wasn't actually his fault, but in his mind it was. Everyone said that it is a person' heart that makes them do stupid things, and they would mostly be right, however sometimes it helps you to do things that the ordinary person wouldn't do to make sure that you could protect the ones you love, the ones you trust. He wasn't going to let this go, he needed to do something, anything.
Anything.
Tony smirked to himself as he rested back into his seat, a smile that curled up at the ends. With each passing moment his smile grew broader and broader, his perfectly straight teeth glistening against a backdrop: it was a strange smile.
"See? All good things come to he who waits." He leaned close to his sister, her middle length hair gripped in the brutish hand of one of his degenerate bodyguards. He wanted her to fear, respect and...
Well the last thing didn't matter as it quickly faded from his mind. She'd just spat in his face.
Their faces became mirrored in the disgust they had for each other. The mutual hate and loathing that was only separated by the blob of spit that rolled down over his eye and onto his cheek. He lent back and pulled a napkin from his 30,000 dollar suit and wiped it off, his face reflecting a calm anger. Inside however, was a maelstrom, a pure whirlwind of emotion. In the Immortal style (well, maybe not) of the great Flea, who was of course Andrew Benjamin while using the H.E.R.O device, Rage and Humiliation were but some of the 32 flavours of emotions inside of him.
I don't know why, but the pure cheesiness behind the original quote makes this author laugh.
Back to the story. He didn't pull back to hit her, nor did he signal his 'friends' to do so. He just looked at her for a moment or two.
"Shall I tell you something?" He started, not a note of anger in his voice. "I doubt it will surprise you, but people like me rule the world." He laughed to himself. It was funny, in his opinion at any rate, that freaks like the Titans, metahumans with bad intentions, spend so much time and effort into trying to take over the world, or to steal precious items, or to do other things he couldn't much care about, and they would be beaten up, knocked around and thrown in jail until their next appearance with an even more outlandish plot to do the same thing, and again they would get thwarted. And yet... He didn't have any powers, he didn't have any abilities yet him, and people like him, ran the world.
"Without the corporate body, the world's economy would collapse within a few seconds. The world needs people like me. Oh sure, the poor folk complain that the chairmen and women are the cancers of this world, that we made the rich richer and the poor poorer and all that jazz. And you know something? They're right, but I also know that it is the way things should be. Those with money have power, and those who have power should govern those who don't. These 'special' freak show powers aren't real power, just some form of false gift, a way for fate to compensate those who was given a shitty deal in one way or another. And the people love them because they lived by a 'higher' code of ethics?" He laughed to himself.
"What a load of bullshit. I tried to buy Titan Tower once, when it was still just the labs created by Dr. Silas Stone. It was expensive to run, and even more so to buy the building, let alone the prime real estate it was on. And yet they don't have jobs, not one of them, not even a part time job of some description. They don't work, and yet they don't pay taxes either. No, the city pays for them to sit on their 'holier-than-thou' arses until the next fruitcake in a garish and absurd costume shows up so the Titans can deal with them with their even more ridiculous and even gaudier costumes. Jump City gladly pays them so they can come and ruin everything with more efficacy than an army of wrecking balls. And where does that come from? The lazy bastard in the doll office?" He shook his head as a scowl came across his face. Just so you know, the poor folk are those who live in any house valued under the thirty thousand dollar price bracket. I told you, he's rich. Maybe more so than Stephen Pierce of Light City, who some Titans would know of in the future, and maybe even bordering on the same level as the Maxwell family or the billionaire Bruce Wayne, but then again, their wealth seemed endless and no one ever knew how deep their pockets went. Sophie was about to reply, but they had heard a thump on the roof. "Driver! What was that?" He shouted into his intercom.
"Low branch sir." He replied. "The trees around her need sorting."
"Well brother, shall we continue? Let me guess who has to pay out for this? You?" She finally replied. "I guess it is hard living in poverty. I mean, who could possibly make a decent living on over two hundred thousand a year?" She spat at him, this time in a verbal sense rather than the physical sense she had used to show her disrespect last time. He glared at her once again.
"Closer to two hundred and fifty thousand actually." He replied, his tongue as sharp as a snake's fang. "But yes, I have to pay out every time those monstrosities decide to go ahead and blow something up in the name of good. So it's a little bit of a relief that I still have the power to make them back down." He smirked. "But spit at me again and you'll be gone. You'll just be a memory in my father's mind, wondering who the overweight woman with the brown hair was." He pointed a fully extended finger at her. She struggled a little before she was forced back down onto the floor. She felt the car slow down, slightly at first and then coming to a complete stop. "As for me, I am going to have a look at my new building, because at Twelve PM tonight, it will be mine." He laughed to himself as his chauffeur opened up the door and he stepped out, to meet his two other hired henchmen, who by now had recovered from the beating they had been given.
"Hey boss." One of them said, rubbing his neck lightly, trying to dull down the whiplash he was given earlier. He nodded to them and they turned to break down the door. It had been locked again, and they couldn't be bothered to reach in and unlock it. Besides, it's good to get some stress out. His other goon got out the car, holding both of Sophie's hands together with his giant one. His other hand had a surprisingly small pistol, for a man of his size. It was a cheap RG 14 Saturday night special, one of the poorer guns on the market. Shows you how tight Tony was when it came to actually spending his money, he could have bought him some sort of high powered rifle or at least a larger handgun.
"I hope you are enjoying the show sis, because you're homeless now. You'll HAVE to crawl back to Dad." Tony chuckled. She squirmed, trying to get out of the behemoth's hand. "Hold her fast, Warren." Warren smirked to himself as he almost manhandled her, shaking her like a rag doll to stop her moving. Eventually, he stopped and grinned again.
"Hey, I wouldn't do that." A voice came from behind him.
Warren had fair reflexes, as he turned and raised his pistol. Even if it was pretty much worthless at a distance, he could tell that whoever spoke to him was directly behind him.
But the fact is, he shouldn't have raised a gun at all, really, as in no time at all it had been knocked out of his hand and he got a fist to the jaw.
A fist we are all familiar with. Let me describe it to you: it has two metal talons and a thumb talon on a metal hand and palm. Going up past the permanent bracer that its owner had to help support such a fist, it went to grey and damaged skin, bandages covering it. Tony turned and tried to access several verbal expressions all at once. In such a jumble, a person tends to pick either the simplest or the first thing that comes to mind. And usually it turns out to be the same four letter word.
"Oh fuck."
"Good morning Vietnam!" Scalpel shouted as he leapt off the roof of the limo, buckling said roof slightly with the springboard action and taking out the other two goons. He turned to see Tony standing there. He laughed and started to dance around.
"I warn you, I was boxing champion at my college." The human said, as he raised his hands into a boxing pose, and started to jab at the air.
Having lived amongst humans for a long time, Nigel had managed to find a video of what was known as the Olympics, where athletes from all around the world came together in one month of games to prove who the better nation is in a peaceful manner (well, that was everyone's opinion except Noel, who found the whole idea laughable and said that the Olympics were cultural war, a way for countries to show each other up without actually getting in fights). Despite that cynical opinion, Nigel liked the idea and was familiar with the boxing as he and the other Titans were taking bets on it to see who would win, however the first time around the power in the tower went out just as the last round had started, and the next time the video became damaged just as the last fight started. Fate huh?
And so when Tony tried to intimidate the hero, all it did was leave him wide open for a beating. Not many people had seen Nigel's full strength, and no one on this planet had in any rate.
And so, stepping in blindly, Anthony Mathews threw his one and only punch at the young adult, only to have it sidestepped and receive what could only be described as a straight punch from hell that sent him reeling back and slamming into his car, hard. He was still conscious, but he now had a broken nose and a few teeth missing. The undertaker by this time had made her way past the fights and was next to her now broken door to inspect the damage.
"Got to love Karma." She smiled to herself.
Neil and Paul, the first two thugs, tried to take Scalpel out, again, however he just countered and threw one into the other... again. All the best laid plans of mice and men mean jack when you have a super hero on your side.
You're probably wondering what happened that allowed such an efficient attack. Well our alien friend, using his large pointed ears, pinpointed where the call was coming from and followed it. After the call was finished, he landed on the car just as they were passing beneath a large, over shadowing tree, making it seem like a branch had just hit the roof, rather than a Blacktrinian. He then stayed there until they came across the funeral director's house: when they had he switched his position to be above the door of the large limo-like car. After everyone got out, he sprung into action and hence left the devastation that had just occurred. Young Miss Mathews wasn't angry at the fact her personal protector had just destroyed her brother's face with one punch, she was grateful because that meant she didn't have to.
"Come on Hero, I'll get you some lunch." She smiled lightly, gesturing inside. This didn't last long unfortunately. as Mr Warren got back to his feet. Obviously Scalpel hadn't hit him hard enough, as he raised that pea shooter of a handgun and fired.
Scalpel dived out the way as Sophie ducked and covered her head. She had never much liked guns. Neither would you, after you have seen what it can do to a person on the receiving end. She has worked night and day on people who were shot to hell and back purely because the owner of the firearm thought that it was a good idea.
Soon the gunfire stopped as Scalpel ripped the gun from its previous owner's hand and threw it away. Unfortunately Scalpel was then caught by Warren, his large arms warping around his neck and upper body, and the gun managed to find it's way into the open hand of Paul aka Thug 1, who caught it and went to fire again, this time aiming true.
"Don't fire you moron!" Tony tried to shout, but it just came out as a drowning bloody mess, which was unfortunately what his face was like. His henchman didn't listen. He started to pull the trigger. Not wanting to die by the hands of a group of thugs and thieves, Nigel tried to think of something.
He quickly snapped out his foot and dragged over an outdoor rubbish bin which had somehow escaped the violence and then kicked it as hard as he could towards the gun wielding man. It was a plan, but regrettably a badly timed one. The man was indeed hit with the dustbin, but he was knocked back at the point of firing, meaning his aim, that was once true, was now facing at a different angle and hence at a different target.
A five foot four tall target with short brown hair and dark eyes, wearing a suit. Yes, it was heading straight towards Sophie. The bullet fired. Time almost seemed to slow down; the blood could be heard pumping through Scalpel's veins. In movies like the Matrix, it seemed like such shots could be dodged, but in reality, when you knew you were going to die there was only one thing to do. Stand there.
Unless you had a secret.
Before the bullet hit her, something happened. Something that no one could have predicted. She exploded. But not in flames like most people would, she burst into what could only be described as a whiff of dark cloud.
Until that cloud broke apart and made noise.
"Bats?!" Warren shouted, utterly stupefied at this sudden turn, to the point where he found himself letting go of the alien and trying to swat the creatures of the night away, with little or no effect. They spiralled up into the sky at the proverbial rate of knots, fluttering away, screeching and calling out to one another. The thugs could only scream in panic as some of the bats started to sink their fangs into their flesh, draining some of the blood that was in their precious arteries. Others went after Warren, who was now running around like a little girl trying to get the 'things' off of him. And Tony had now just crawled under his limo in the hopes that he wasn't seen, which, by all means possible, he wasn't. But he was heard and the bats got at him as well, taking chunks of flesh away with their teeth before all the bats became sated and flew away, away from the undertaker's.
Nigel, who had not been attacked by the bats at all, stood there and pondered for a few moments.
He concluded that he too had no idea what had just happened and decided life would answer it for him.
He then went inside, grabbed his things, and headed towards the one place he knew the bats would go: sufficed to say, the devastation that was left in their wake was tremendous. The only word to be uttered from anyone in the group was their boss.
"Bitch..."
-----------------------------------------
Alone on a bridge she now stood, her head in her hands and a trail of blood tracing down from her bottom lip towards her chin, cursing inwardly at everything. She didn't want things to be this way; she didn't want anything to be this way. Why does life hand her all the worst cards? Did fate hate her? What was she doing wrong?
"Sophie?" A voice came behind her and she bolted upright, not caring that a tear was streaming down her cheek and her lips were blood red, with her cheeks a little flushed.
"Leave me alone." She simply said, her voice soft, yet with a dark undertone. Nigel didn't go, he just walked forward and placed one clawed talon on her shoulder.
"I know what you're thinking." He said. He smiled towards her, but not his large goofy smile that he usually shone. This was a softer, more reassuring smile.
"Y-you do?" She asked herself. Looking back up to him, taking a napkin from her jacket pocket and wiping her eyes, trying to wipe the tears away. She was in the presence of a man who had been through a lot on this planet. She didn't even know about the stuff on the other planets he has lived his life on, and yet she was crying, crying over something that may just end up being completely trivial.
"You're thinking, why has this happened?" He said, leaning on the railing of the old bridge. "Why am I such an atrocious creature? Why can I not fit into a place so... normal?" He sighed lightly as she nodded. She knew it, she was a monster. What normal person could turn into bats and drink blood? She may have looked human, but she wasn't, at least in her mind. "You need not worry; the world is filled with people whose powers are different to humans, who think they are... what is that word?"
"Monsters?" She replied, having finally stopped crying.
"Yes. Monsters. But they are not. They are more human than many of the so-called humans who try and... err... undermine their confidence. It's not what they are or what they look like that makes the difference." He poked Sophie high on her chest, where the collarbones met in the middle. "It's, how you humans say, your heart that makes you who you are. You need not conform to the whims of others."
He stood up again and placed his talons on her shoulder once more. She quickly turned and buried her face into his chest and wrapped her arms around his torso, trying to gain comfort in the alien. Not quiet sure how to react, he just rubbed her back softly, somewhat confused by this turn of events.
After a little while they were sat down on the bridge, talking.
"So I'm guessing you want to know what happened?" She started, her knees tucked up to her chest and her fingers fiddling with the laces on her shoe. It was unusual for a woman to wear shoes with laces on, but she liked them and had them made specially. They looked neater.
"Pardon?"
"About how I became a flock of bats." She corrected herself.
"Ah, yes please." He replied, nodding towards her.
"Well a little while ago, I was asked to do a strange job by the police department." She shrugged and laughed lightly. "I sometimes wish I hadn't taken the job now, but it was work."
Walking down memory lane and crossing the boarder into flashback country, no passport required, she went back into her past to explain her unique gift.
"Good afternoon Ms Mathews." A police officer addressed her as she led them through to the mortuary, finally coming to the body of another victim of the crime in this city, or another city, it depended. From the smell she could tell that he had been floating in the river, maybe for some time.
"Afternoon officer." She moved around the top end of the table. "What do you require me for today?"
"We need you to examine a body." He stated plainly. She shook her head.
"I'm an Undertaker; I'm not a fully trained Pathologist." She smiled. The older gent shrugged and returned the smile.
"Our Pathologist is blind drunk again and was fired, alongside his entire staff. The body is still full of blood and water; we need you to sort it out. Besides, we are paying for part time pathology lessons."
She sighed inwardly, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. They made it sound as if she was going back to college to get an English degree. But it was true, although she was an undertaker; she still needed a medical degree in dealing with the dead in order to do more than just stuff corpses for a living. She didn't mind it actually, but in the back of her mind she wanted to be a little like those crime fighting super sleuths who had a look at the dead and jumped right into the thick of a mystery. Life as CSI showed it. She did have an advantage to most people as she had a sense about dead people; it just seemed to come naturally. Coincidentally, she now has that pathology degree, however in this time frame she didn't.
"So, why can't you put him on ice?" She pondered.
"Well he does have more then the average amount of blood in him." He simply replied, reaching up for the cloth that covered the cadaver.
"What is he officer? A vampire? If you have a point please make it! I have a lot of people waiting, including an order for the Teen Titans that has to be done this week." She said calmly. She didn't like giving orders, however sometimes she just needed to make her soft voice heard. Unfortunately, the order for the Titans was the remains of poor Latrisha Dryce, Cyborg's girlfriend. She remembered looking at the body and clenching her fists so hard she caused her hand to bleed. It was absolutely disgusting how someone could do such a thing to another person. Although she was cold towards the fact she was dead, she was a fire inside about how and why she died. It hurt her to the core so much that she would be attacked, tortured, murdered, because she had a different coloured skin. So angry with what another person did, she told the parents not to worry about the cost. Having to pay for a relative's death was painful and expensive, but having to pay for your own daughter's funeral after she had been 'sacrificed' to preserve racial purity and lure Cyborg into a trap was perverse and she refused to do it. She also tried to give them the best things she could offer, however they refused at first. "I hope those bastards get what they deserve." She hated to think of herself as a white woman at that point in time. Everything was so messed up with the world. Why did one girl who was the same age as her have to die because a group of racists came to Jump City to try and convert people. She had been physically sick that night, not because of the damage, but because of the thought of it all.
She had seen many atrocities in her short lifespan. People dying because of drugs overdose, strange murders and suicides, but this had to be the highest on the sick scale. The worrying thing is that in their minds they were convinced that they were doing the right thing. What they needed to do to survive in an age where it was okay to pick your friends because of who they are, not what they look like.
"Well to answer your question bluntly... Yes." The officer pulled back the sheet to revel the body of the deceased. To put it plainly he looked human like, but his entire body was covered in a light fur in the colour of dark brown. A few other things that struck the young woman were that his ears were larger and came to a rounded point. The last thing to be noticed was there was a light piece of skin between the torso and the arms. In other words, wings. Sophie just raised a brow.
"Okay... I wasn't expecting that."
"You probably haven't heard of Professor Kirk Langstrom. He was an expert in nocturnal mammals in Gotham City. He tried to create a serum to try and give deaf people sonar, like a bat's, however something went wrong when he tested it on himself and he mutated, literally becoming a man-like bat. Ironically, he was dealt with by Batman and cured...however some of the serum managed to get into the hands of others. We have found out that this man, who was a local scientist, was infected with a weak form of the chemical. He started to transform...however, to change this effect, he tried to change the nature of the chemical itself because he didn't know how to destroy it. It stopped the mutation, but his DNA didn't reverse itself. We think he was driven to suicide."
"Think?"
"Hey, we're cops, not geniuses. If we were, would we be in this profession?" He simply replied.
"Maybe." She simply stated, and removed her over jacket, leaving her in her white shirt and waistcoat. She quickly got to work and started to drain out the blood. While this long process was going on, Sophie worked on the other projects to try and get them done. She would not only have to work though the bank holidays but through the night to get this all done.
What she hadn't notice while working with this huge backlog of work was that the man-bat that had been brought in had filled the drainage pipe and a partial block of the pipe had meant that the blood had started to overflow, building up and up and over the table, slowly at first, dripping over the edge.
Right into the coffee that sat on the side, each drop mixing with the black liquid and sinking in through it, becoming indistinguishable and inseparable. Sophie hadn't noticed. She had now been working for 8 hours straight; her last break was at dinner, which wasn't very much anyway. It was roughly a small ham and cheese bake and a doughnut. It wasn't enough to keep a person going all night long. So who could blame her for not being completely aware of her surroundings...as she picked up the mug and took a sip...
She heard a small splat as she finished off a strange tasting gulp, almost like a tap had dripped onto a hard surface. Right in the coffee ring that was left on the desk at the end of the table was a blob of blood. Her eyes bugged out.
And then she didn't know what was happening to her. To start with she felt light headed and staggered around, knocking implements and tools off desks. Her breathing became laboured as her stomach started to churn, sending painful surges though her system, her fingers feeling numb and her arms feeling overly sensitive. Her mind was a jumble, she felt like she wanted to throw up but no matter how hard she tried she couldn't. She had just drunk blood, human blood. Perhaps he had Aids, or worse perhaps she had gotten the virus or whatever the officer was talking about. And with a scream, darkness came.
When she awoke she had found herself in the hospital, trying to figure out what was going on. They told her they found her in a park not too far away after she fell from a tree and gave a pair of late night lovers the fright of their lives. She had landed in an almost impossible position that would have done serious damage to a normal person, yet she was not harmed in the areas in which she should have been. Yet...she was hurt in other areas that could not have been affected by the fall.
Not sure herself, she just replied she may have been sleep walking and discharged herself that same day. She took herself home and started to make dinner, however when she was chopping she lost concentration. And no sooner had she done that then she looked down to find she had the knife in line with her wrist...but how?
Her hand and wrist had turned into bats and were floating there.
With a small shriek she had yanked back, and as soon as she removed the knife her arm brought itself back together, forming one whole human arm.
For a moment or two she tried to piece together the puzzle of what had actually happened to her. Things, strange things started to play across her mind like a late night B movie. She didn't like what she was seeing and her body, not sure how to take it any other way, blacked out.
---------------------------------
"Luckily I woke up in my kitchen, but after that I just kept experimenting. I found out that I could control all the bats as if they where extra limbs. I would just think to grab something with a right group of bats and I would do so, or I would fly in that direction with all of me. Things sort of became instinctual."
"Can you can control your bats?" Nigel asked, looking over slightly amused at the tale in which she had just fed him.
"Partly. Controlling a whole swarm of bats is alright, and controlling several little groups is hard but doable, but controlling just one bat? No, I have trouble with that."
The hero paused and looked at her.
"Well think of it this way, it's an all or nothing situation. I am either a group of bats, or I'm a human, there is very little in-between. Controlling one bat requires a lot of concentration, as not only do I have to guide that one bat around, I have to keep my body human which means I have to try and tell the rest of my body not to do anything. This tires me out." She shrugged and pulled her coat closer towards herself.
"Would you allow me to help train you?" He asked lightly. She smiled and shook her head.
"No, I don't think many people could help me. It's sometimes uncontrollable and I don't want a hero like you or the others of your group on the receiving end if something goes wrong." He scoffed slightly. "What's funny?"
"My apologies, While I was part of the Titans I heard of a girl who had trouble with her powers. I just wondered how that was any different from this. My answer was that she let us train her. From what I heard, she left the Titans after using all of her power in a controlled form."
Sophie's mind boggled slightly. Someone using their powers so much that they lost them?! Incredible. She had considered this option herself, however when she tried to do so, she just collapsed out of exhaustion. Obviously her powers were the type that if she used them too much she would and could kill herself before she lost them.
"What did she do? Kill a god?" She asked, her face in slight shock.
"I am not sure how she did it, but she moved the Earth itself."
If we were using sound effects, that would have been the perfect time for the 'smashing a light bulb with a hammer' sound as her eyes bugged out a little at the sheer power. Power? Or was it determination?
"Whoa..." Her mind had to recover from that a little before what she had done re-entered her thinking process. Able to build up a 3D picture in her mind from all the camera angles, she remembered that they had left her brother and his goons to do just what they wanted. She reached into her waistcoat pocket and pulled out a little gold pocket watch, a gift to her from her grandfather. "We HAVE to go!" She called grabbing Scalpel's wrist and trying to pull him up.
Let me point out that one of the reasons Blacktrinians are so strong is because they have to lug around their own body weight all day. Sophie, being a slightly unfit undertaker from earth, had no chance in hell of lifting the man, but he humoured her and got up quickly, following her back to the area of destruction.
Unfortunately it was all for naught. Something else she remembered was what he said. At the time, she had paid no attention to it as the giant grunt of a henchman had her in one of his huge hands, groping her with his eyes, but now she had a chance to think it over. He said PM. 12 PM was NOON not MIDNIGHT as he had said it to be! And it was 11:58 AM.
She ran, giving everything she had, digging deep into her centre to try and find the energy to save her business, her grandfather's legacy, his life's work.
Her life.
She got back to her home to see Tony, standing there holding a piece of paper and a folder of documents. He handed it over to a small, balding man. Scalpel jumped for the sheet; however the useless gun that never seemed to hit its target made contact. Though not with a bullet, it was just thrown by a henchman. It worked, however, as Scalpel fell out of the air like a ton of bricks. The balding man replaced the document with a set of keys. Sophie mustered the energy to dash down and reach for them, but in his condescending mannerism in which he conducted himself, just as she got within a few steps, Tony quickly sidestepped and stuck out his foot, making her land face first onto the ground below. The strange man shook his head quietly, and wandered off into the distance.
"Ooh, so close yet so very, very, very far away." He shook the keys lightly and wandered away. "I'll send your things to our parent's houses. I hope you don't mind." He laughed as he made it inside and locked the door. Scalpel jumped up onto his feet, drawing his glaive from the jacket in which he had placed over his shoulders. A slight gust of wind captured said jacket and blew it off his shoulders and onto the hard, wet concrete. He pressed a button and his glaive started to extend in his bandaged hand. He started to growl as his whole position drew back to leap at the closed oak door.
"Wait." A soft, defeated voice came from behind him. Turning, he saw her soft brown hair had fallen over her face, each strand clinging there, attached to her because of the tears that rolled down her soft cheeks, past her blood red lips and under her chin, where they dripped onto the hair. She pushed herself up to a kneeling posture and brushed the hair back. "He's won. I hope he's happy." She stood up and turned away, walking slowly as she tried to stop her tears. The Blacktrinian just followed her, walking away from one of the most important things in her life. They didn't try and break in, they didn't try and steal the keys, and they didn't try anything to get her home back.
Because it was against the law, and they were better than her brother who did anything he could to get what he wanted. No matter how much she may have wanted to, she would never go down to his level. For a little while, the pair just sat on the edge of the street, watching the world go by, trying to figure out what they where going to do next. Sophie had nothing left, and now neither did Nigel. Things seemed to be falling apart... again.
"I am sorry that I could not help you." He stated lightly, his eyes cast downwards at the road they were sat upon. He used his glaive as a rest, leaning against it as a person with a walking stick might, keeping him upright. Sophie didn't reply for a moment or two.
"You did your best." She finished wiping the tears from her eyes, making sure to get her hair out of her face. "I should never have brought you into this anyway. It was unfair of me to put you though that."
"You didn't bring me into anything. I opted to help, at my own risk if necessary. Unfortunately I seem to have failed in my duties again." The pair couldn't consol each other on the loss. And so they sat there as the rain came, washing away the pain, and the hate, and the failure, as the pair sat there, getting soaked through again with the summer showers, a figure made her way towards them, her cloak fluttering in the wind and the storm, her arm in a sling. Scalpel first saw the purple boots and then traced upwards to a familiar face, her hood up because of the present company that was Sophie. Nigel didn't say anything. He just looked back down at the ground. Sophie too, looked up, but mimicked the alien and looked away. Neither was in the mood for talking.
Raven didn't say anything; she just pulled her cloak around her and sat down next to them. For a moment or two, things where quiet amongst the trio. People walked past and questioned why they were there. Children stared a little before mothers dragged them away, everything stayed still for a moment in time.
"I was talking with Savior." Raven started, looking up at Titan Tower. Her rich eyes stared softly at the tall, imposing building. Her eyes were joined in the gaze by a pair of soft hazel eyes and a pair of demon's eyes.
"What did he say?" Nigel spoke, not caring about who said what, or who did what. But he was curious why Raven had come here. Had she, too, been thrown out of the Tower for making a mistake? Perhaps Robin thought she was useless with her bad arm and cut her off as a dead weight.
"He... has given Robin some time to think. He would like you back on the team."
The news sunk in, oh hell it did. On the inside Nigel was a storm of thoughts. Should he? Could he? Would the others allow it? On the outside, he acted as if it hadn't affected him at all.
"Oh." He replied just as calmly and emotionlessly as Raven while he lightly dragged his claw against the concrete. Another break in conversation occurred as he thought it over. "Very well. If he wishes my return, so be it." He nodded, somewhat solemnly. She just nodded and stood again. "However..." She turned, somewhat concerned that he might ask for something outrageous and something she could not understand in why he requested it. "Sophie here needs a place to stay, and seeing as she let me stay at hers I feel that she should be allowed to stay with me." The goth just nodded and walked away, fading away into nothingness. A little trick she learned to make a scene a little more... dramatic.
'Finally', he thought, 'I am going home.'
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jedi: Gah, sorry for that... That took a while because I was moving into Southampton Uni at the time! Again, real sorry! See you in chapter 18!