Tempest: Chapter Eighteen: Training With an Assassin
"What was it like there?" Amara asked once to Oliver when she stayed over at the Queen Manor after a particularly long patrol.
"Cold some days, warm others," Oliver said simply. "And very lonely."
The waves swept over the shore, soaking through Amara's shoes as she landed lightly on the rocky sand.
The island was more impressive that Oliver had ever described it to be, with high-reaching mountains and thick trees as far as the eye could see.
"You took your time," came a familiar coquettish tone and Amara scowled, jabbing a finger in the direction of the assassin.
Jade wasn't dressed in her usual, her green kimono and skintight black jumpsuit were gone, instead she wore a simple black shirt and loose dark green trousers.
"Do you have any idea how long it takes to get to Fiji from the US, Jade?" Amara demanded, exhausted from exerting herself to fly the last bit of the way to Starfish Island. "It's a damn long way! Why don't you try it manipulating the air the whole way with only small breaks?"
Cheshire sniggered at her response, clearly unfazed by the younger girl's fire. "At least you're smart enough to not take a commercial flight."
She swept forward to grasp Amara's bag, ignoring her outraged expression (did she know how exhausting it was to manipulate the air around her for hours on end? Of course not!) that Amara tossed in her direction. "C'mon, I'll drop your stuff off and we can get started."
"No rest?" Amara asked weakly; she was so close to being dead on her feet that it wasn't even funny.
Jade's eyes narrowed. "We'll exchange information and then we'll get to work."
"Get to work?" Amara's eyebrows rose. "What are you talking about?" Amara hadn't even known the exact coordinates to Starfish Island until she'd reached it…she had just thought the coordinates led to a safe house of Jade's where she could cool her heels and contemplate her next move.
But Jade gave no answer and Amara supposed that that was about as good as she was going to get, so she sighed and accepted her fate.
"It's a bit of a hike," Jade added over her shoulder with a vicious laugh at Amara's answering moan of complaint, but she still followed after her like an overexerted puppy.
The walk passed for the most part in silence while Amara took in her surroundings, tripping over her feet a few times during her distraction, but it was easy to find yourself distracted by the beauty of the island, even knowing how it had forged Oliver into the Green Arrow.
"How did you even come across Starfish Island?" Amara asked curiously, ducking under a branch.
"It was an old League of Assassins stronghold decades ago," Jade told her, "before Oliver Queen was shipwrecked here…I came across it completely by accident but it had the kinds of things I needed…solitude and safety."
Amara's gaze focused on the dark of Jade's wild dark hair.
"Isn't it lonely?" she asked quietly.
"Sometimes," Cheshire responded, unconcerned, "but it's my choice and there were times in my life where that wasn't the option."
Amara thought about Cheshire's father, Sportsmaster. She knew from the file on him that the League had that he was a rather uncaring individual who cared very little for weakness.
"I've been running around with your sister," Amara informed her, "she's got a good aim."
That drew Jade up short and the assassin turned to face Amara and she could detect a faint glimmer of pride in her grey eyes. "Does she?"
"When was the last time you spoke with your sister?" Amara asked her curiously, tilting her head to the side, and just like that, it was as though a switch had been flipped and emotion had been effortlessly blanked.
"A long time ago," she said forcefully, "come on, we've still got a way to go."
The meta-human half-expected them to hike up a mountain, but they didn't, instead they moved deeper and deeper into the thick forest until they came to…nothing.
"You can't see it, can you?" Jade asked her, just a little too smug for Amara's liking.
"Exactly what am I supposed to be seeing?" Amara asked dryly, crossing her arms before Jade gripped one, jerking her lightly to the side.
"See it now?"
Amara blinked, taking in the area that Jade was referring to. She couldn't believe she'd missed it, but there was gaping opening into a cave that was clear against the base of the mountain.
"Don't worry," Jade sniggered, "most people miss it if they're not looking for it."
"Probably makes it pretty ideal for an assassin," Amara conceded grudgingly as she watched Cheshire toss her bag into the cave. "Hey! My stuff's in there!"
Cheshire gave her a look that clearly said that that was rather clear to her (and she didn't care). "That's only where we sleep, we've still got some walking to do."
"I swear this is some kind of punishment," Amara declared in exasperation. She just wished that she had enough cowardice in her to give up right then, but she didn't and Amara couldn't take on Weather Wizard the way she was now, barely considered completely healed from Merlyn's attack all the previous months ago. And she could only assume that Jade had chosen herself to beat Amara into shape.
"Aw, Storm, wanna give up already?" Cheshire purred, her eyes glittering as she leaned forward. "And the fun hasn't even begun!"
"Your fun and my fun are two very different things," Amara felt the need to point out, turning faintly pink at the flirtatious wink that was thrown in her direction. "Besides, I think it's probably safe to say that you're going to run me into the ground."
Cheshire, after all, had the strength enough to last against super-powered individuals; she was cunning and ruthless and right now cunning and ruthless were probably the best Amara was going to get. Cunning and ruthless was going to be the thing that kept her alive.
The assassin took her to what appeared to be the remnants of a crashed plane, which was possibly the strangest thing she'd seen since she landed. There were leaves and vines curling up the remnants of the plane's hull.
There were a few boxes piled up towards the front of the broken hull, along with a piece of exercise equipment that Amara recognized from when she beat her batons against her own back in the Cave, as well as a salmon ladder that she knew she didn't had the strength to pull herself up (the only person she'd seen do it was Oliver and only for a bet with Dinah).
"Did you use the gun?" Jade asked, tossing her a canteen of water from within one of the crates and Amara gulped at it greedily.
"Unfortunately," Amara said, a cold shudder running down her spine as she recalled her would-be kidnapper's cold dead eyes. "I got myself injected with some subcutaneous microtrackers, but I'm jamming the transmitters with this." She held up her wrist where the thick black bracelet was bound. "Then I left a decaying corpse in my room and left Central City. You could say that I'm having a fabulous day."
The dry sarcasm couldn't have been missed.
"Guess darling Daddy really wants to find you," Jade snorted, and Amara chose to ignore her in favor of taking a few more swigs of water.
"A first time for everything," Amara muttered.
"There's a story behind that," Cheshire probed but Amara didn't bother to answer. "You hate him, don't you?"
"Of course." The scowl on her lips brooked no argument of that fact. "It isn't like he hasn't tried to kill me before."
"He also needs a wand to use his powers." Jade arched an eyebrow. "You don't…but you still ran away."
Amara swallowed the last of her water, screwing the cap back on the canteen. "Maybe I'm just a coward."
Cheshire snorted. "You're a lot of things, Storm, but I'm pretty sure that cowardly doesn't even make the list."
"So what am I, then?"
"I think you were scared, sure," Cheshire said with a shrug, "but you've also seen me fight." She leaned forward against her crate, her eyes glittering and Amara eyed her oddly.
"And?" she asked.
"I know you're not that dim, Storm." Cheshire's lip curled slightly in disdain. "We both know you're in need of some serious training."
Amara flopped onto her back, gazing up towards the top of the hull. "Because I hadn't already been getting any training from Black Canary."
"Black Canary is your mentor, she is only willing to push you so far as she thinks you can handle…I can push you past your breaking point."
Amara sat up in order to look on her companion.
She wasn't wrong about Dinah; Amara knew she'd been holding back, ever since she'd been able to stand on her own feet for any length of time after the accident. Maybe it was because she felt a bit guilty, seeing as it had been her decision to send Amara to Queen Industries that fateful night, maybe it was because she worried if she pushed Amara too far she would break.
But Amara wasn't delicate, and she never had been.
"Why?" Amara asked her. "Why help me? Why train me? What do you get out of it?"
Jade's smile was just this side of coy. "You know me, Storm, I'm all about protecting my assets."
Amara gave her a dubious stare in return, clearly not believing her for two seconds. "And just how many favors am I going to owe you for this?"
"Zero."
"Jade! Now you're just full of crap!" Amara snapped, green eyes blazing.
"I am not," Jade insisted with a smirk, "your debt's already been paid in full."
The meta-human's eye twitched at the mention of her so-called 'debt', though she didn't really see how she could have possibly considered Amara to owe her a debt, especially since Amara hadn't really asked her to do anything for her.
"Paid in full?" Amara repeated, spluttering just slightly. "By who?"
"Your mother was very generous," Cheshire said simply.
"My mother?" the meta-human positively gaped at her. "What are you talking about? Iris paid you?"
"Not that mother," Jade said slyly, watching her reaction with interest.
Startled surprise overtook Amara's face, coloring her eyes and for a moment Jade could swear that fair complexion of her skin had taken on a greenish tint, reminding her of the day she had first been approached by Poison Ivy herself…
"You can come out of the shadows," Cheshire spoke silkily, her sais clenched tightly in her hands, her eyes narrowed behind her mask, "I know you're there."
"I suppose it would be a bit difficult to sneak up on an assassin," a musing voice responded and Cheshire had to stare as the speaker came into the light.
The soft green of her skin gave her away first, but the red of her hair and the green of her eyes only added to the image; there was no one else the woman could possibly be than Poison Ivy, the famed eco-terrorist from Gotham City…but what was she doing in Central City?
Stranger still, Poison Ivy was dressed in normal clothes; a jacket patterned with tulips and comfortable jeans.
Poison Ivy had gone nearly completely silent for the past few months, only making herself known a few times, and never making enough noise to draw the attention of the Justice League; it was as though she was going through painstaking effort to avoid them.
"Yes, it is," Cheshire said, not relaxing her grip on her sais.
"I believe you are an associate of my daughter's," the woman added and behind her mask, Cheshire arched an eyebrow.
"Your daughter?" she parroted. She was sure that she would have heard if Poison Ivy had a kid.
"Oracle," Poison Ivy said shortly and that made Cheshire's eyes widen…but it also made a bit of sense. She could see Storm had inherited the shape and color of her eyes from her mother, as well as her smile.
"W-o-w," Cheshire said, "who would've thought Flash's little girl had two big bads for parents."
Poison Ivy ignored that comment. "I'm sure you're aware her father is out of prison and—"
"And is looking for her? Yeah, I might've been made aware of it," Cheshire replaced her sais in the straps across her back. "Why?"
Poison Ivy's eyes narrowed slightly and she looked a little like Storm when she was regarding Cheshire suspiciously. "You know where she lives," the woman pointed out, "you could have told him how to find her."
Cheshire's lips thinned into a line, even though the expression could not be seen. "That's not really my style."
"Thank you," Poison Ivy said sincerely.
"I'm guessing she doesn't have any idea about you," Cheshire surmised. Storm certainly hadn't mentioned her birth-mother before to Cheshire.
"No," Poison Ivy said, a small grimace forming on her lips before she blanked her expression. "But I am not here to make small talk…I have a business proposition for you."
"Oh?" Cheshire's interest couldn't help but be piqued at that. A request from Poison Ivy? Storm had to be involved.
"As I'm sure you're aware," Poison Ivy said smoothly, drawing her hands into her pockets, "one day Weather Wizard might send someone after my daughter."
"I've already covered that front," Cheshire said, crossing her arms and leaning on her left leg.
"You also know that she was benched from active duty after the…accident." Cheshire noticed how the word hissed through her teeth as though rolling off a serpent's tongue.
"Yes." Cheshire's brow furrowed slightly. "Are you saying that you want me to train Oracle if and when she finds herself on the run from Weather Wizard and his associates? That's a high demand and I'm not cheap."
But there was no denying that Storm could benefit from hand-to-hand combat with a trained assassin; the girl needed some serious instruction in using all that she could and pushing her limits.
"I know," Poison Ivy said, and out of her pocket she drew an envelope, extending it to her and Cheshire moved forward to take it, whistling lowly at the amount listed. "I presume this is enough."
"Quite," Cheshire responded with a bit of interest, "it's an awful lot of money to train someone."
"I take my daughter's safety very seriously," Poison Ivy intoned. "There is no price too high for that."
"Why did you ask me, then?"
Poison Ivy arched an eyebrow. "She trusts you well enough and you know a thing or two about using your strength wisely."
And then she strode past Cheshire, disappearing out of the darkened alley, leaving Cheshire to contemplate what she was getting herself into.
"My…my biological mother?" Amara asked weakly, hardly daring to believe the words passing from her lips. She had known that her mother knew who she was, obviously, how could she not? Amara still had the bracelet that she'd been given for her twelfth birthday from the elusive mother. "She asked you to do this for me?"
Amara wouldn't lie; she'd often wondered about her biological mother's true feelings about her existence. Weather Wizard certainly had found her to be an irritation and an aggravation, but one that must be controlled…but if her mother had gone to Cheshire with a request to train her…then it was clear that she must have at least cared about Amara's safety, right?
"More like paid me, but semantics," Jade said with a shrug. "So, ready to sweat and bleed, Storm?"
Amara eyed the hand Cheshire had extended to her, considering her options briefly –they weren't all that great given her situation– and, knowing how much Jade was going to kick her ass, Amara couldn't help but grasp the hand and pull herself upright before tumbling back down with a pained thump that came on from Jade tossing a pair of lead pipes at her.
"What the f—" Amara swore loudly. "What was that for? I've got my own batons!"
"I know," Jade said in an unimpressed voice, "they may have cut it before, but you're training with me, Storm Chaser."
"And lead pipes are supposed to help me…how?" Amara asked, flummoxed as she hefted them in her hands. They were much heavier than the batons, weighing her down.
Cheshire gave a loud put-upon sigh. "C'mon, Storm, get it together, if you practice with something that's heavier it'll make your movements faster with a weapon that's lighter."
Amara could feel a flush of embarrassment creeping up her neck at that comment. "Oh, right."
Then Cheshire grabbed her arm, jerking her out of the old plane's broken hull and into the bright sunlight, before releasing her grip and twisting her own sais in her hands, a lethal smirk on her lips. "I believe in training that risks your life, let's see how well you do!"
And then she lunged forward and Amara barely had time to block, and she didn't apply nearly enough strength to keep Jade back, and the assassin overpowered her with ease, forcing her onto her back before making a downwards slice with her sai that Amara just barely missed by rolling away, kicking out one of Jade's legs before leaping to her feet, heart beating wildly in her chest.
"You're really trying to kill me, aren't you?" she gasped.
"That's the idea!"
Metal collided with metal and Amara swiped at Jade's face only to end up bruising her own. "Goddammit!"
Cheshire gave a laugh, aiming for her heart this time.
Amara's bout with Jade lasted more than three hours before Jade called it quits, allowing Amara to collapse into an exhaustive puddle of bruises and cuts that barely managed to drag itself to the cave to flop down onto the sleeping bag.
"I hate you," Amara proclaimed into the darkness only to hear a dark chuckle from the opposite side of the cavern.
"We'll see," Jade said.
Pamela Isley hummed a soft tune as she cut the stalks on some blue irises before binding them in a tight bouquet.
Amara had been gone hardly a day and Pamela couldn't help but marvel how the girl's father managed to explain away her disappearance (on a trip abroad for a school project? Unlikely but highly plausible, given the nature of Amara's education) but she could see the worry lines on Barry's face when he'd arrived at the shop to postpone Amara's job there until she returned from the trip.
Most employers wouldn't be nearly as understanding or considerate as Sandra, but the woman did have a soft spot for Amara, for which Pamela was grateful.
But she was also grateful that the Justice League cared enough about her daughter's secret identity to keep the attack on her at the house quiet (yes, Pamela knew about that, she did have her own way of gathering information). It wasn't as though they could very well say that an agent of the Weather Wizard had tried to kidnap his biological daughter, who was once the sidekick known as Storm Chaser and under the current name of Oracle, who was also the adoptive daughter of the Flash…
Pamela smiled to herself, pleased that her daughter was at least, for the time, out of danger and training to combat against it.
"You're going to run around the island until I say stop."
Amara knew that Cheshire was sadistic, the past two days had taught her that much, but she would have thought that the assassin had an off switch, but as time went on, Cheshire seemed to get more and more sadistic with ways in which to train Amara and Amara wasn't sure if she was even going to last a week at this rate (very doubtful, Amara thought).
"You're joking," Amara said, the blood draining from her face as she gaped at Jade who was drinking her damn tea like Amara wasn't having a heart attack right in front of her, and make no mistake, that was most certainly happening. "Please tell me you're joking."
"Aw, Storm~," Jade purred, "you know me better than that."
"I hate you," Amara managed through gritted teeth, her hands balling at her sides.
"We'll see," Jade replied as she always did when Amara informed her of her hatred of her before shooing her towards the beach.
The problem was Starfish Island's beach all the way around the island was quite a trek; Amara had never made it the whole way before and there was so much of the island that she hadn't seen yet.
So Amara started off at a light jog until Jade called behind her: "Book it, Storm! I don't have time for your half-assed jogging!"
Amara growled, just feeling a vein throbbing on her forehead at the words, but she still picked up speed, per Cheshire's request (demand), her shoes lodging in the wet sand, kicking it up as she launched herself forward, her legs beating furiously.
It didn't take long at all for Amara to start to feel the burn under her skin, in her muscles, from the rapid action, burning through her energy at a startlingly fast rate.
Amara opted to swear rapidly under her breath, using curses that she was sure her mother would disapprove of and her father would find himself laughing over, but it was better to distract herself with the curses than to focus on the wrenching pain in her legs as she moved them furiously.
She almost tripped over her feet twice, but Amara didn't stop running, she couldn't, not with Cheshire's words reverberating in her skull: "Black Canary is your mentor, she is only willing to push you so far as she thinks you can handle…I can push you past your breaking point."
Amara was going to hit her breaking point and then she was going to fire right past it.
Black Canary was definitely going to kill her.
