Tempest: Chapter Sixty-Eight: Worse Truths

AN: There appears to be some confusion here…Tempest is not ending anytime soon. The YJ season 1 finale is coming up in-fic, next chapter to be exact, but this fic will be continuing, don't worry, Amy's tale is far from told.

Season 2 is not happening because I'm vastly changing what happens in the finale and I hated season 2, so there's that.

I warn there is some gore in this chapter, but this fic isn't rated T for nothing.


It was the middle of December now and nothing disastrous had happened, which was the biggest upside, if you asked Amara. The Team had found out about Artemis and Wally dating -which Amara took complete credit for- almost immediately; Wally couldn't keep a secret to save his life. So now Kaldur and Amara were the only single members on the Team (Amara had patted his cheek fondly and informed him he wasn't her type and Kaldur had laughed so loud).

"Does it bother you?" Kaldur asked her one day when they were eating lunch after a workout. Sweat clung to them both and Amara could feel a few bruises forming under her shirt, over her ribs, but she wasn't concerned, they'd heal up before she left the Cave for the day. "Being alone?"

"My track-record with romantic relationships isn't exactly the best," Amara winced before taking a bite out of her sandwich, chewing viciously and swallowing. "Soothsayer was a train wreck, and I mean that literally, besides, I'm okay with not dating, right now or forever, I guess…unless someone catches my eye."

Kaldur couldn't help but admire how she didn't mind being singled out, literally.

"What about you?" she probed, her smile light. "Ever think about dating anyone?"

"I did," Kaldur said, thinking of his friend Tula who was with Garth now. He'd lost his chance. "Maybe being alone is a fate you and I will share."

Amara's eyes softened as she considered him. It was a look he'd seen so often on her face when she was with Roy or Wally; he was unaccustomed to having it directed at himself.

"You'll find someone," she spoke with certainty. "You're cute, you're sweet, and you're a complete badass, every girl's dream."

Kaldur laughed. "Every girl?" He cast a significant stare towards Amara, whose eyes had gleamed, finding a small bowl of raspberries in the fridge, throwing two in her mouth immediately. Kaldur would never understand her fascination with the fruit.

"I'm kinda high-maintenance," Amara informed him around the fruit.

"I'm not sure that's it." Kaldur's lips twitched all the same. "But how are things at home?"

She waved a finger towards him. "I caught that! That was the worst segue on the planet!" But she still complied, which amused him. "Everything's crash, like usual. Mom and Dad like me being home, but its not like Mom and Harley are holding me hostage or anything…everyone's getting along a bit better, which I'm all for."

Kaldur smiled as she gesticulated wildly.

"Christmas is gonna be a little weird, I think, because Jay and Joan always have Christmas at their place with my parents and Wally's parents—"

"I thought your mother had a sister?" Kaldur was impressed he remembered such a small detail.

"Oh, she does, Charlotte is kinda estranged from Mom and Uncle Rudy." Amara frowned. "I think I met her once, right after I was adopted, but she spent the whole time we were in her presence talking down to us, so we ran off to play by ourselves." There had been something said along the lines of Iris' difficulty in conceiving a child, and how there were other options before adopting. Iris had turned white and Barry had become rather strained. Wally said things were always like that when Charlotte was around.

"But, anyways," Amara said before she could get too lost in thought, "Joan and Jay want to meet Mom and Harley…which is gonna be weird since Harley still goes out and beats people up, but Mom's pretty much out of the game, like Jay…" Amara shrugged. "Well, it'll be interesting, to say the least."

Kaldur shook his head fondly and swallowed his food. "Is that what matters the most? It being interesting?"

"Life would be boring if it wasn't interesting, Kelpie."

And it was at that moment that they heard laughter and giggling.

"I swear," Amara grumbled, "everyone we know is in the honey-moon phase of dating…wanna go for a walk, Kelpie?"

"In the middle of December?"

"Better than watching our friends suck face," Amara pointed out and Kaldur tilted is head to the side, consideringly.

"You might have a point," he decided as they both replaced their sandwiches in the fridge to grab a quick shower and then put on their coats as Amara dragged him towards the hangar doors with a beaming grin.

"Going back to Atlantis for the holiday?" Amara asked him once they were outside the Cave, her gloved fingers warm in his. Kaldur had never minded the cold as much as he had the heat, but it was cold enough now that he was wearing boots so his feet wouldn't freeze.

"We don't really have a Christmas, actually," Kaldur explained, "but I think I will go back to see my parents…my mother, well, she worries a lot."

Amara's eyes glittered as she smiled but then it faltered, her eyes growing distant. Kaldur recognized the look. "Worried about Roy?"

"I'm always worried about that idiot," Amara grumbled, "you know the day after the girls and I went to the Theatre I went by his place to see if he wanted to do lunch and I found him passed out by the door…you wanna know what his excuse was?" Her eyes were hard and unimpressed. "He said he must've been too tired to make it more than a few steps inside his fucking apartment."

If there was one thing that got Amara riled up like no one would believe, it was Roy Harper and his inability to take care of himself. Kaldur thought Amara was rather the same, but he thought it was better to not voice that out loud, though, as the pair went, he thought Roy was more likely to get himself killed; Amara could break a leg and walk it off in two hours.

"He's avoiding missions with me now," Amara remarked flatly and she turned her head to fix him with an unnerving green stare. "You'll keep an eye on him?"

"I promise," Kaldur said and she relaxed, leaving him to wonder just what about Roy was bothering her so much.


Amara didn't explode much online anymore, well, recently. Her twitter follower count was growing steadily, but there wasn't an explosion again until she posted the self-defense video she'd finally coaxed Artemis into doing with her. Amara decided to call it something ridiculous like: What to do when a bad case of stolen identity leads to an assassination attempt. It was long but Amara didn't care, people seemed to find the title humorous, especially given how Amara became known as StarWarsGirl in the first place.

That was what got #ArtsAbs trending, which had Amara howling as she told Artemis. Apparently, they were really obvious in the video. Wally had turned red when Artemis had asked him archly if he'd watched the video.

"The title was hilarious," Sabine's voice came out over Amara's speaker-phone as she typed out on her laptop. She was done with her schoolwork for the day, but that didn't mean Oracle's work was done. "Ohmigod, we were cracking up so hard!"

"I aim to please," Amara preened before her laptop gave a ding to indicate a message. She glanced it over with a frown before shooting off a response just as fast. "My cousin's girlfriend was my partner in the video and he lost his mind when he saw it."

"'Cuz of the abs, right?" Sabine chortled on the other end. "That girl must train daily! She is so fit it's ridiculous!"

"What about me?" Amara demanded petulantly.

"Oh, come on, girl! You've kicked ass from day one! We knew you had to be fit!"

Amara laughed. Her friends were terrible. "So, you guys doing anything over break?" There was a Christmas break for the GCB like there was for normal kids in school, or else they'd work themselves raw.

"Well, my family doesn't celebrate Christmas, you know." Amara did indeed know. "But Nadira and Adara are going home to spend time with family, so its just gonna be me and Sofia sticking around…so I was wondering if you wanted to do something with us, just the three of us, but you might be doing something with your family, I guess…"

"Yeah, first Christmas since finding out about my biological mother…sure to be awkward," Amara said in a tone that reflected that.

"There's a story there."

Amara thought about telling Sabine about the mess that was her family, but it was harder to explain to someone who didn't know that she was Storm Chaser or that her biological parents were Weather Wizard and Poison Ivy.

"Another time," Amara decided with a laugh, hearing a knock at the door on the first level. "My family's a bit…complicated."

"Dad and Mom have a bad divorce?"

Amara had a sudden image of Barry and Pamela dressed for a wedding and she couldn't help but gag. "No way!"

"Hey, Amy!" Her father called up to her room. "Diana's here, she said to put on something nice and to bring your laptop!"

"Okay!" Amara called back. "Sorry, looks like I've gotta go."

"See ya, girl!"

Diana Prince needing her to wear something nice and bring her laptop must mean that she'd gotten permission for Amara to look around Steve Trevor's office, which meant Amara might actually get somewhere with figuring out the reason for his disappearance and where he was now.


"Has anyone ever told you you're a little too suspicious about everything?"

Master-Chief Trevor's office was a mess and Amara honestly couldn't tell if the chaos had been staged or if an attack had occurred and the chaos was from the abduction itself. Amara had taken one look around before dancing between the mess to reach Steve Trevor's desk, setting herself in his seat and trying to get the computer to work while turning on a frequency jammer in case there were any listening devices in the room.

Amara grinned widely. "Suspiciousness saves lives," she told Diana, considering the desk as the computer booted up, a crack on the monitor. Amara reached over and lifted the frame that was facing down.

Steve Trevor's smile was bright and Diana's was even brighter, wrapped in his arms like she belonged there.

Amara returned the picture to the desk, clearing her throat. "Do you have any idea what he was looking into before he went missing?" He couldn't have been doing anything else.

Diana's lips twisted. She looked rather ordinary in her pressed pants and suit jacket, you almost wouldn't think she was Wonder Woman, except that she had a rather distinct aura of power about her when she walked. "The irony is…he wasn't looking into anything League related."

Amara pulled out her own laptop and set it up beside the monitor.

"Steve's parents died when he was younger and he's always been curious about his family." Diana smiled fondly then. "He wanted to know more about them and where he came from…he didn't really have time to do that kind of research when he was Guardian."

Amara had read that little detail in his file in a bit of surprise. He'd served as Guardian for a few years, succeeding the previous Guardian -known only as Michael, now there was a guy good at keeping his identity hidden- before resigning and fading into obscurity.

"Did he ever say if he'd found anything?"

"He…he was excited the last time I heard from him," Diana admitted, her eyes drifting out of focus with the memory of the day. "I thought he was just looking forward to seeing me." She wasn't embarrassed to admit it, coming around to stand just behind Amara as she began tapping on the keys in earnest. "Is there anything there?"

Amara hummed softly as an answer. "Most of this looks normal…but he does have one encrypted file that the Navy must've missed in their sweep, probably because they thought it was personal."

"Why would they do that?" Diana leaned down.

The proximity made Amara flush, but she pushed it down. She was doing her job, that's what she was here for. "Well, he named the file 'Diana' so that might've helped."

Diana's cheeks flushed and Amara's glanced towards the door. "How much time did you say we had?"

"A few minutes, why?"

"It'll take me too long to break this encryption -I really wanna know where your boy got this code because damn it is tough- the best I can do is download it to my laptop and try to crack it from the Cave." She hooked up the computers to one another and started the download before pulling a rectangular device from her bag.

"Do I want to know what that is?" Diana asked archly as Amara stood, banging it on the desk once to get it working.

"Oh, well, after dear old sperm donor's kidnapping attempt I thought maybe he'd plant listening devices in my room, because, you know, he's a fucking creep," Amara informed her conversationally and Diana coughed to hide her amusement. "Robin whipped this up for me to find them…I found two and Dad was not happy…it doesn't work all the time, but I'm guessing someone had to be spying on Trevor to disappear him so effectively."

The device gave a beep as it turned on and Amara spun slowly in a circle. She took a few steps forward and the beeping continued until she reached the lamp on Trevor's desk. Amara set the device down to lift the lamp and turn it upside down.

Diana's mouth tightened as Amara pried the small square-shaped listening device from the bottom of the lamp, bringing it up to her eyes and she rifling around in her bag to tuck it away in some box.

"Now, we might actually have something," Amara grinned widely and Diana admired her resolve and determination.

"Gimme a few days and we'll be golden."


"Oh, fuck," Amara said two days later with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.


"So, there's good news and bad news," Amara said, twisting her chair around in what was now collectively termed the 'Oracle Cave', the screens illuminating her face oddly and making her eyes almost seem to glow. "The good news is that the listening device was on a frequency I could track."

She beckoned Diana forward, now dressed in her gear as Wonder Woman and eagerly awaiting what Amara had found.

"That's great!" Diana didn't work too hard to keep the excitement out of her voice. "Where is it?"

"If you'd believe it…Scotland." Amara tapped her fingers out against the keyboard, zooming into what looked like a box on the screen. "Welcome to Europa Industries, now we're in deep, because you remember when Roy went missing on an assignment a few years ago?"

Diana nodded, pulling herself into a chair now that it seemed that the Amara was going to be talking for a long time.

"I found him in a building that belonged to Europa Industries, but it had been shut down a long time ago, and the same was with this building." Amara jerked her thumb towards the screen. "But you won't believe when it started up again."

"Right around the time Steve went missing," Diana surmised.

Amara grinned. "Bingo! I did a lot of digging into Europa and it looks like they were the first Project Cadmus, though it looks like their focus was more on bioweaponry than genetics and cloning…this is when we head into the rabbit hole of no return…the bad news."

"Lay it on me." Diana's stare was flat and Amara couldn't help but admire that.

"You were right about Trevor looking into his family…but he went all the way back, and well." Amara coughed uncomfortably. "I'm sure you're very familiar with Vandal Savage."

Diana's eyes widened. Everyone in the Justice League knew of Vandal Savage, if they hadn't met him at one point in time. He'd been their longest-running enemy, having battles with them since before the Justice League was the Justice League, back when it was merely the Justice Society of America. He'd been alive for more than a millennium, far more, but he preferred to act in the shadows than in the front lines.

He prized strength above all else, survival of the fittest and what it entailed, and he'd taken many names over the centuries, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Blackbeard the Pirate…great conquerors that had always fallen a bit short in conquering that spanned the whole planet.

And if there was one thing he enjoyed, it was causing a mess for the Justice League to clean up, because if there was one group he hated, it was them.

"You're saying…Steve is descended from Vandal Savage?" Diana asked bleakly.

"Yeah, which probably doubled his importance," Amara skated over her stunned shock. "I mean the Justice League liaison that just so happens to be related to Vandal Savage? What are the chances of that?...Which brings me to my 'you're probably not going to like this' news."

"Oh, there's more?" Diana couldn't have looked any more tired than she already did.

"Sneaking around is kinda my job," Amara ignored her comment. "So, I want to check out this base in Scotland."

That earned her a sharp look from Diana. "No, this is a League responsibility."

"Lady, no offense, but if this was a League responsibility, you wouldn't have come to me, I operate in the incredibly grey areas of the law." Amara's eyes were icy now and Diana was briefly thrown off.

Then she chuckled. "I can see the Poison Ivy in you."

That was evidently the wrong thing to say, because Amara full-on glowered. "If you're trying to say something about Mom, you can—"

"No, no," Diana said quickly, "that's not it...but say I agreed to…an undercover operation…what would be your plan?"

Amara's anger faded into a grin as she pressed a few keys and directed Diana's attention. "All right, so here's the plan…"


Zatanna was nestled comfortably with her head on Robin's shoulder, her eyes shut as the dull sound of the movie lulled her almost to sleep. She liked being with Robin, he was sweet and never pushy and his kisses were great, but sometimes she felt like he was holding back, like only a few people actually got to know the real him, like—

"Amy!" His voice jolted her eyes open and she found herself blinking as Amy plopped herself down on the coffee table in front of the pair of them.

"Hi, little bird," Amy's eyes only flicked towards Robin once, settling almost exclusively on Zatanna, who couldn't help but blush under her intense stare. "I need to borrow the Dark Magician Girl's brain."

Zatanna leaned her head back, furrowing her brow in confusion at the nickname, but she supposed it was better than Replacement. "About what?"

"Is there magic that sort of morphs you into someone else?"

Zatanna paused, thinking intently, trying not to focus on the feel of Robin's arm around her shoulders. "You mean like a glamor? Yeah, it's possible, its really advanced for me, though…but I could whip something up that that's like a glamor to everyone but the people in the room when its put on…it's a physiomorphic charm, not so complicated."

"Can you make two?" Amy asked seriously.

"Definitely, and they'll only take me a few hours." Zatanna smiled. "Do you need them soon?"

"The sooner, the better, but whenever you can get them to me is great, thanks." Amy gave her a smile and wave before disappearing off to the zeta-tube.

"I'm probably not gonna want to know why she needs those," Robin decided when she was gone.

"Probably not," Zatanna agreed.

Indeed, it was a solid week before anything came of it, and by that time Robin had managed to convince some of the Team to go on a mission for the sake of Haly's Circus, the very circus he'd once been a part of when his family had been alive. There were a string of robberies coinciding with performances from the circus and Robin wanted to prove Jack Haly was clean, because he was certain he was.

Robin had capitalized on the absence of Wally, Zatanna, Amy, and Kaldur, though Roy's sudden appearance had been surprising. Then again, he was back on the mole train and was certain one member of the Team was it, so maybe it wasn't all that surprising.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Amy's voice blared as everyone entered the Bioship. She was dressed completely in black and so was Wonder Woman across from where Amy had settled her motorcycle next to a dark bag. "I called the Bioship! I called it!"

Then she saw the circus outfits and she was howling, and taking pictures with her phone that wasted a few minutes, though Robin amused himself at the look on Roy's face as he pushed her out of the way. "Oh, come on, Arrowhead, you need to lighten up."

"Where're you taking the Bioship, anyways?" M'gann asked, prompting Amy to turn towards her.

Amy glanced towards Wonder Woman, but spoke for them both. "Checking out a lead on the missing League liaison in Scotland…think you can drop us off? Where're you guys heading anyways?"

"Bruges," Robin said. "Batman's sending us off to investigate the robberies of several advanced weapons tech that coincides with performances by the Haly's Circus."

He knew that would catch her interest. She knew his history, after all.

Amy paused and looked at him, green eyes soft. "Need any backup?"

"No, I think we've got this sorted," he managed to force out. He didn't need her or Wally around questioning his objectivity in this case.

She patted his arm kindly, smelling impossibly of flowers.

"We'll drop you off," M'gann grinned, preparing the Bioship for take-off. Robin watched Amy hand a necklace with a yellow gem to Wonder Woman before putting on her own. That must've been the glamor that Zatanna cooked up for her.

"Do I want to know how you convinced your dad to let you go off on your own?" Roy asked Amy archly as the Bioship whipped through the air.

Amy's lips twisted but Robin wasn't sure if it was a smile. "Please, babe, Wonder Woman is easily the strongest of the League, I couldn't be safer!"

Wonder Woman chuckled, shaking her head fondly as Amara pushed Roy's head back.

The time between take-off and when they passed through Scotland was passed in complete silence, and Robin was beginning to believe that was because they were in the presence of a Leaguer. Wonder Woman inspired awe no matter what outfit she wore.

"Don't bother touching down, Chameleon," Amara called over to the Martian, fitting her helmet over her head and shifting one leg over the motorcycle and revving it up as Wonder Woman slid into place behind her. "Just drop a ramp."

M'gann complied and then Amara was speeding out with barely a bump as she hit the ground.

"How does she always get the better missions?" Artemis muttered and Robin smiled.


The Europa Industries building was a good hour drive from their drop site, but Amara and Diana made it without too much trouble, hiding the motorcycle in the snow before finding a good vantage point to assess the security of the building.

"The good news is it looks very low tech," Amara informed Diana with a frown, "which is also…kinda weird."

Diana had to agree with her there. If someone went through the trouble of kidnapping Steve, she would've thought that there would be a bit more security around where it was probably incredibly likely that he was secured.

"He might not be here," Diana said, her heart dropping into her stomach. "But there's only one way to find out…grab your laptop, Amy."

Amara saluted, tightening her grip on the small laptop before taking off after the Leaguer, stepping into her footprints in the snow, practically hobbling after her and almost running into her when she stopped suddenly, jerking them back suddenly. "Camera," she said tersely and Amara carefully checked around the corner.

Now that was weird. "It's not working. Looks like it's been unplugged." Lucky day or was there some other reason? The look she shared with Diana told her that the Amazon was thinking much the same thing. "But…the last time I broke into a Europa Industries building it was wired to explode…"

She tilted her head back, looking for an air duct and she found one. "Gimme a couple seconds," she told the Leaguer, handing over the laptop and shooting into the air duct. Retrospectively, she could've slowed down just a little, but Amara had been on this case for weeks upon weeks, Steve Trevor was literally making her antsy.

Well, she hadn't been wrong, she supposed, because as soon as she came out of the airduct, she found herself staring at the main doors wired with explosives. The good news was that this time around, Amara had actually figured out how to disarm bombs.

So, in no time Diana had entered and that was when the day got even weirder, because the building was abandoned from the outside in and Amara didn't understand it at all by the time Diana found her a computer to hook up into.

"I don't understand," Amara muttered to Diana, careful to keep her voice low in case there was actually someone wandering around. "The tech in Trevor's office was advanced enough…everything else here just…isn't…" Her eyes slid out of focus.

"You stick to the information gathering, I'll scout ahead," Diana told her and Amara bobbed her head in agreement, her mind racing.

When Roy had gone missing it hadn't had anything to do with Vandal Savage, though, he'd been investigating Lex Luthor…could they really be two entirely separate incidents tied to the same company? There was a slim chance, she supposed, but there was only one way to find out.

The information on the hard-drives wasn't much, but it was clearly focused on only one person, one man, someone the files called Patient Y. It listed off his information and that all matched up with what Amara had gathered on Steve Trevor.

Then Amara found the file connected to Patient Y, and it was a collection of files, all with different numbers attached after the Y. "What the hell?" she muttered to herself.

"What is it?" Diana asked quietly in her ear through the comm-set.

"Okay…he was brought here to be cloned, but it looks like they had a bit of difficulty replicating his blood down to the cellular level, the first two failed and then they cracked it somehow and started making clones that took about a week each to fully mature, like multiple clones."

"I could see someone trying to get intel on the League by sending a clone back in his place, but there wouldn't be a need for multiple clones." Diana's voice was carefully controlled.

"And those clones it looks like were terminated almost immediately." Amara scowled. "I can't imagine why anyone would do that…"

There was a long, stilted silence followed by a sharp intake of breath and Diana saying hollowly: "You're going to want to come down here."

"What is it?" Amara asked, apprehensively.

"I'm looking at at least seven bodies that are identical to Steve only they're drained of blood and missing a few vital organs."

Amara drew up short at that, her mouth gaping. "I-what?" But she was rushing off with her laptop, nearly crashing into Diana for the second time. Diana was as white as the snow outside a door that had been slid open and Amara thought he'd seen it all; clearly not.

Bile rose in her throat and the sightless eyes, the chest cavities ripped open, the slashes across—

Amara squeezed her eyes shut, breathed out sharply, forced herself to focus and then opened her eyes.

"Okay," she said, forced calm, "so if these are the clones then that means it's likely that the real one—"

"What are you doing here?" A terrified voice spoke behind them and both whipped around to see a weaselly man, thin and scared with wide darting eyes and a lab coat that hung off his frame. "No one, no one is supposed to know about this!"

Diana flicked her wrist and her lasso shot through the air to lock around the man's arm. "What is this?" she demanded.

The man choked over his tongue in explaining. The Lasso of Truth was handy. "He came to me a few months ago, it was about genetic cloning…I told him Project Cadmus had better resources, but he said Cadmus was a failure…that was when he brought me here and forced me to clone some-some man, someone tied to the Justice League."

Diana and Amara shared a glance.

"He-he called it blood sacrifice."

That made Diana's eyes widened. "You're sure of that? Blood sacrifice?"

"What, like sacrificing someone to the gods?" Even if that had been a thing once upon a time, certainly trying that in today's society was a bit frowned upon.

"Not quite," Diana said stiffly. "It's a rather outdated practice, the consumption of blood and organs to increase your strength."

Amara could feel the bile rising in her throat. "Like a vampire? That's too gross…this guy…ate parts of the clones?"

"Where's the real one?" Diana forced her voice to remain calm. "Is he still alive?"

"Down the hall." The man jerked his head back.

"I've got this guy," Amara said and Diana took off to check that lead before the girl turned her attention back to the man. "The man who forced you to do all this…what'd he look like?"

The man before her was startled. "Tall and broad…three scars on his face like a claw."

Amara paled. The idea that Vandal Savage, the one that Steve Trevor had been apparently related to had been the one to clone him and literally eat those clones…it turned her stomach.

"SC, get over here!" Diana called and Amara raced down the hall without a second thought to the man to see her Diana stepping out of a room, a malnourished form limp in her arms, her face relieved that he was alive and tensed at how bad off he was. "We need to get him medical attention, now. I need your sturdiest cloud."

Amara gritted her teeth. "You got it."


"So, your unsanctioned missions were productive?"

If Amara had a hundred dollars for how many times Batman pissed her off…she'd probably never have to steal again, but it wouldn't really change her situation.

Dick shifted awkwardly beside her, fiddling with his sunglasses, while Amara stood, staring blankly before her, unashamed.

"Amara."

She shifted her eyes to the lenses in Batman's cowl.

"You'll be pleased to know that Steve Trevor is recovering, though he remains in a coma…is there anything you'd like to amend in Wonder Woman's report?" he asked, handing her the tablet.

Amara had looked it over briefly while the doctors hooked Trevor up to machines and an IV pole. She handed it back. "Shortly after we left the building blew up. I don't know if the man we spoke to tripped a wire or if Savage did it himself. I recovered some files from their computer's hand-drive. Apparently, a few weeks ago was the last time Trevor was cloned and apparently his blood and organs didn't have any affect on increasing his strength the way he'd hoped. He told the man we spoke with that he was going to have to change his plans…apart from that, Wonder Woman got everything else."

Batman considered her and then he nodded seriously. "Well done."

"I-what?" Amara was too startled to say anything else.

Batman's lips twitched. "You do excellent work, Amy."

Amara's brain couldn't compute that, she just leaned towards Dick to stage-whisper: "Is he being serious or is he trying to get on my good side?"

That made Batman actually chuckle and Amara thought she was in the Twilight Zone, this was unreal! "We'll keep a closer eye on Savage's aliases…and I think the Navy will be glad to learn that their Master-Chief is safe and sound due to the actions of Storm Chaser and Wonder Woman."

Amara scratched her cheek awkwardly as he left them, his cape fluttering behind him.

"So," Dick drawled out, grinning at her, letting her catch a flash of blue over his sunglasses before they were hidden again -quite unfortunately, because Amara rather liked the color-, "rescuing the League liaison…that's kinda a big deal."

But Amara could still remember the bodies thrown into that room like they were discarded tools that had seen their last use, death stale on the air.

"It wasn't that big of a deal," she said instead, walking with him back to the zeta-tube. "Did Haly recognize you right away?"

Dick rubbed at the back of his head. "Recognized my trapeze style, actually."

Amara's smile was soft and his stomach twisted into knots and he felt the way he did a few weeks ago when he and Zatanna had started dating, like he was being pulled in two directions.

"Tell Zatanna thanks for the necklaces," Amara called over her shoulder as she ran through first, leaving Dick alone.

He was so utterly fucked.


AN: Dick likes Z, Dick likes Amy, Dick has fucking problems, but that's nothing new. Finale begins in the next chapter, and it will be more than one chapter :)

Blood sacrifice is a thing Vandal Savage actually does in the DC comics, I just tweaked it in this fic to suit my needs for why Trevor was missing. Making Trevor Guardian before he retired was kind of spur of the moment, based off Jim Harper, Roy's genetic clone in YJ, but he doesn't exist in this one, so I switched a few things around.

I knew I was going to have to get through all of this in one chapter, so its extra long, but I hope you guys liked it!

As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!