Tempest: Chapter Sixty-Nine: Beyond Reach
AN: The finale of season one has officially begun! Get ready for feels and pain galore!
Christmas, exciting, absolutely, you know, as long as no one tried to kill each other, then it would be a total success, right?
It was only when Pamela and Harley showed up at the Garricks' house that Amara actually began to relax, because, it seemed, that despite the crimes Pamela had committed as Poison Ivy (and the ones Harley was still committing), they were willing to overlook them for Amara's sake.
Amara wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
She let her moms kiss her cheek before she helped Wally take the food into the kitchen while the adults mingled. There was a distinct awkwardness in the air that she wasn't entirely sure had anything to do with Pamela and Harley…and Wally was being suspiciously quiet.
"Hey, what's going on?" she bumped his shoulder as he set out the devilled eggs that were his mother's specialty. "You seem kinda down…is it Artemis?"
"What? No, of course not, Artemis is great, she's amazing!" His eyes drifted out of focus with a fond expression overtaking his face. The real irony was that it was the look that he used to wear whenever M'gann was in the room. "No, it's…it's my parents."
They both looked over to where Rudy and Mary were standing. Now that Amara thought about it, it did seem like they were a bit indifferent to each other, not really seeming to notice that the other one was there.
"Mom had a divorce attorney's card in her purse when I was looking for her keys last week," Wally confided quietly and Amara couldn't really think of anything to say. She knew things had been a bit strained with Wally fighting villains with Barry, Wally had spent too many nights at the West-Allens for his home life to not be occasionally awkward.
Amara's eyes softened and she leaned up on her tip-toes to wind her arms tightly around his shoulders, enveloping him in the biggest hug she could.
She could imagine where his thoughts were going; blaming yourself was always a good option when your parents fell apart. But she didn't speak, just rested her head against his shoulder.
"Oh! Am I interrupting anything?"
Wally and Amara pulled away and Amara gave Harley a sheepish smile. "Don't worry about it, Wally's just trying to make me feel better; my dreams have been sucking lately."
Harley's expression was one of understanding but behind Amara Wally was equal parts relieved that he didn't have to explain anything and so utterly fond that Amara would take the fall, figuratively, for him. "Want a hug from your favorite blonde?"
Amara laughed as she hugged the woman. "I think Dinah or Artemis might take offense to that."
Harley reached over to Wally with one hand, dropping it onto his shoulder and she winked. "Chin up, kiddo."
Wally wasn't like Amara, who still occasionally flinched if people moved too fast, and he was startled to find that he'd actually gotten used to the idea of Harley and Pamela as his cousin's mothers.
"Anyways," Harley drew back with a jaunty grin, "time to come and mingle with us adults!"
She tugged Amara lightly by the hand and Wally around the shoulder, calling over to the group in the living room. "Well, you won't believe where these two were hiding out!"
Everyone was jumbled around the room and Amara was pleased to see that Iris and Pamela were sitting side by side, talking amicably, while Jay had coaxed Joan into a sort of dance to the song on the radio, with Rudy and Barry laughing about something that happened at their respective works.
It seemed like she'd come so far in the past year. Her family had grown so much and Amara was so much better for it, even if it had happened in some ways she hadn't expected.
"Was it at the food?" Barry guessed with a grin.
"Wally!"
Wally was shameless in the face of his mother's exasperation and Amara laughed until Jay roped her into a dance that had Joan laughing with the rest of their family.
Pamela definitely got it on camera.
"Jay! I can't dance!" That was true, Amara was tripping over her feet as it was.
"Oh, come on!" How he was still so spry and sure-footed in his age was a miracle, if you asked Amara. "You leap across buildings in your spare time!"
"Only sometimes," Amara said petulantly, pouting as laughter exploded around her.
"Go easy on her, Jay," Mary laughed. "Or we'll never get her to dance again!"
"You're all the worst!" Amara swore.
It was easy to get swept up in the Christmas mood, it really was, and Amara found herself relaxing a bit more as the night wore on. Surprisingly, it seemed that her fears for how the night was going to go were unfounded.
The gloom that had settled over her since she and Wonder Woman found Steve Trevor was finally starting to fade. The man still hadn't woken up yet, but it had only been ten days since then, and he was severely malnourished, so it wasn't entirely unexpected. On the other hand, Amara was sleeping less and less.
Dinah was under the impression that what she'd seen in Europa Industries had been a triggering episode for her, which Amara thought was ridiculous; she'd seen dead bodies before, though Mardon hadn't ever bothered with leaving dead bodies in her wake.
And, to that, Dinah had said they didn't have to; emotional distress was unique to person experiencing it. Maybe it had been the smell hanging in the air, or the way the lights had flickered, or the way the bodies had seemed so helpless, but it was something, something that made her flashback to when she'd still been with Mardon.
Amara shoved those thoughts out of her mind. Let her enjoy this day, just this once.
Raquel Ervin, otherwise known as Rocket the partner to Icon, was a new addition to the Team, and she was all for it. Icon only let her do so much, even though she was the one that had convinced him to get into heroing in the first place.
She really liked Storm Chaser -Amy-, especially since she was the one that really paved the way for female sidekicks. She was badass, flirty, and she didn't pull her punches, which Raquel was all for, but she'd never done a mission with her.
"Don't worry about it," M'gann had assured her. "Amy's just on probation right now."
"Probation?" Raquel quirked an eyebrow. "What'd she do?"
"Well, she kinda ran off to Russia after finding out that Poison Ivy was her mom," came Dick's voice as he spoke slightly over the voiceover to the image he was projecting holographically before them.
"Poison Ivy's her mom?" Raquel's voice rose and every single member of the Team shushed her furiously. "What? Is it a secret?"
"No," Conner grunted. He wasn't much of a talker, Raquel gathered. "But she hasn't been sleeping well and she's over there trying to get some shut-eye." He jerked his thumb towards the couch and Raquel could just barely make out a head of grey hair.
Raquel took a few steps closer to the couch in front of the TV to see Amy fast asleep under a few blankets, her eyes twitching behind her eyelids. She looked smaller, younger, definitely not like someone who'd gone toe-to-toe with Weather Wizard fearlessly months ago.
Raquel shook her thoughts off as the commercial ended and the program started, displaying the image of the Hall of Justice, with varying members of the League on either side of the podium that Superman stood at, addressing the people and reporters gathered around them.
"The Justice League was formed for two reasons," Superman spoke with certainty. "First, as an acknowledgement that no single individual, no matter how powerful, can solve all the world's problems alone. And second, to uphold the values of Truth, Liberty and Justice." He paused to give a faint grin. "That last one's even in the name."
Conner grunted in disdain. His relationship with Superman was as complicated as ever and it wasn't likely to change anytime soon unless one side gave.
Superman turned to his left where the new members were standing at attention: Icon, Doctor Fate, the Atom, Plastic Man, and Red Arrow.
"These five heroes have sworn to uphold those values."
Reporter Cat Grant appeared on the screen as it zoomed out to focus on her with the League clearly in the background. "You are watching live coverage of the Justice League's induction of its five newest members. Looks like the entire League showed up to welcome the new blood." The camera panned over where the Leaguers were standing. "Everyone, from Batman to Captain Marvel."
"I'm glad they didn't kick Billy out," Wally said around a bite of apple. "And I love the fact that there's a 10-year-old on the League."
"There is?" Raquel was surprised.
Robin elbowed Wally in the stomach. "Ow!"
"Way to keep a secret, genius!"
"Hey, she's on the Team now, right?" Wally scowled at his friend while rubbing his side, turning his wounded eyes on Artemis, but she just sniggered to herself.
"Superman is now handing out official League membership cards. Starting with Doctor Fate—" Robin took Zatanna's hand, squeezing it as her head bowed forward to hide her eyes. "—the Atom, Plastic Man, and Icon."
"You know, I was the one who convinced Icon to become a hero in the first place," Raquel complained. "I should be out there, celebrating with him. Not hidden away in here!"
"Welcome to our world," Kaldur said simply.
"Finally, Green Arrow welcomes his former protégé, Speedy, now known as Red Arrow, to this roster of heroes."
"Way to go, Roy!" Wally cheered, though going through some painstaking effort to keep quiet enough to not disturb the sleeping girl.
"At last he has his wish," Kaldur smiled.
"The first of us to make it! No one will call him a sidekick anymore." Robin couldn't help but be proud.
"Wait, since when is being a sidekick a bad thing?" Raquel demanded. "You sidekicks were my inspiration."
"Well, see, six months ago we kinda rebelled against the heroes and went off on our own and—" Dick scratched his cheek awkwardly. "It's a long story, really."
"So, there you have it," Cat said into the camera. "The world's officially a safer place."
The holographic projector shut off.
"So, you get your powers from your belt?" Artemis was the first to leap into asking Raquel, because even though they'd met before that day, they still knew very little about one another. "How does that work?"
"Well, I'm not much of a scientist." Raquel winked and the group laughed. "I just know that it gives me the power of flight and I can make bubbles of kinetic energy, and that's good enough for me."
She'd seen them all on TV before, so she was familiar with their powers, though not as much with Zatanna; she wasn't out as much.
"How long have all the sidekicks been working together anyways?"
"About six months," Dick said. "Well, we picked up Artemis a few weeks after we started, and Zatanna's been with us for a month or so."
"So, I'm not totally a newbie, good to hear." A grin painted across Raquel's lips as they migrated into the kitchen.
Conner knocked into a few pots and pans that M'gann had out and they fell to the ground with a sound not unlike a crack of thunder.
"You're such a klutz!" Wally was laughing as M'gann helped him collect them from the ground. If any of them had glanced back to where Amy had been sleeping, they would've seen her bolt upright, with startled fear splashed upon her face, but the next second, she was gone.
There were a lot of things that Roy appreciated in life, and one of them happened to be that Amy waited to have a panic attack until he got back from the Watchtower, which sounded really terrible now that he thought about it. Amy wasn't self-absorbed, or anything like that, and it wasn't like her to have panic attacks, they were kind of out of nowhere.
The first time he'd seen it happen was when he caused it himself. He'd yelled at her and she'd practically recoiled, flinching hard like she was waiting to be hit.
"Healing isn't linear," was something that Dinah liked to say.
Generally, Amy seemed pretty well-adjusted despite her…unique upbringing. There were some times where she stared at her feet and had to be reminded that she could walk, and there were times when sudden movements and noises set her off.
Sometimes she loved storms, sometimes she hated them.
Roy stopped outside her room in the Cave like the rest of the Team had to crash in after missions that went too late (barring Zatanna, M'gann, and Conner who all lived there full-time), entering her code into the keypad next to the door. He'd done his best not to tip off the Team about how Amy was feeling; she didn't like being seen as weak.
The door shifted open and shut behind him as he entered. "Amy?" he called carefully into the semi-dark room. "It's me."
He didn't have to look hard to find her. She was sitting on the bed with her hands clamped tight over her ears, her lips moving but with no sound parting from them.
"Amy." He spoke her name carefully and gently, far gently than he ever spoke to anyone, even Jade; Jade wasn't delicate like Amy sometimes was. He knelt in front of her bed, reaching out slowly to touch her arm.
She barely flinched, which was a good thing.
He gently pried her hands away from her ears. "Hey, it's okay, you know that, right? You're okay." He could see a muscle jumping in her jaw. "Take a breath."
Amy took a shuddering one, and then another.
"Tell me what's going on, Storm Warning."
She pressed a hand to her brow, her eyes wet and so very, very green. "It shouldn't've set me off, but they dropped these pans and it sounded like—"
"Thunder?" Roy surmised and Amy winced. His hands slid from her shoulders to hold her hands and he gave them a light tug. "C'mere."
Amy stood, unyielding as he pulled her into a standing position and wound his arms around her. He was still so much taller than her, but she wasn't short as she'd been. She was still young, a kid, a traumatized kid.
He pressed a hand against the back of her head and she pressed her face into his chest. "It's okay to have a freak out every once in a while…people don't exactly shake off something like what happened to you, you know that, right?"
Amy didn't say anything, not that she could've said much with her face buried in his chest. Then she leaned back. "Do you ever think that maybe people break and you can't fix them? You just try to put yourself back together but it doesn't completely work, so you put patches over the cracks and—"
"You're not broken," Roy said sharply, flicking her ear with a finger that made her scowl in annoyance. "Mardon doesn't have what it takes to break you. You're Amara Isley-Allen, you're tougher than steel. And I wouldn't say that if I didn't believe it."
Her eyes were still shining and she looked away from him, flushed and embarrassed but also pleased.
"C'mon, get your stuff." He said, pulling away from her and Amy blinked in confusion. "We're gonna get you some raspberries and then get you try to get some decent sleep in your own bed, all right?"
Amy undoubtedly recognized that it wasn't really a suggestion, but a faint smile lit her face, nonetheless as she took his hand.
Amy's room was open and the light was on what Barry got back from work that day, even though the house was remarkably quiet. He took to the steps quietly to check on her after taking off his shoes and looping his winter coat on the hook, but when he peered into the room he had to smile.
Because Amy was fast asleep, and looking rather peaceful for once, wound up in a bunch of blankets, curled up against Roy who was resting his cheek on the top of her head. Even with the difference in their hair colors, you would think them siblings, at the very least (and he'd heard by now that Roy had listed her as his sister in his next of kin for his hospital records; Iris had thought that was adorable).
Barry never had to worry with Roy, Roy would never hurt Amy.
He took a picture with his phone for dexterity, ready to send it off to Ollie at a moment's notice, before stepping silently away from the doorway to head back down the stairs, leaving his daughter and her partner to their sleep.
Sometimes Amara's atmokinesis really sucked, or, specifically, her electrokinesis. Today Amara had the whole Cave to herself -Kaldur was visiting his parents in Atlantis, Wally and Artemis were triple-dating with Conner and M'gann and Zatanna and Dick, while Raquel was helping out Icon. The six that were dating felt a bit bad about leaving Amara on her own, but she didn't mind, she was trying to work out some kinks with her electrokinesis, so them being gone meant there were no distractions.
Amara brought her hands together, electricity sparking off her fingers until it thickened and strengthened into a tiny ball of lightning between her hands, pulsing with life.
Relief and delight made Amara's face glow.
It was easy to shoot out bolts of lightning or generate a shock through metal, but altering the shape of her lightning, now that was a bit trickier and required a bit more focus.
She didn't even notice when someone was coming up behind her.
But she did notice the sharp pain ripping through her abdomen and she did feel it when an inhibitor collar was locked into place around her throat, her lightning shorting out as her meta-human gifts were forcibly suppressed.
She looked down at the gathering splotch of blood against her stomach and then to the red arrow that had been shot through her, embedding in the floor not too far away.
Her knees hit the ground as she fell, her abdomen aching as she tried to look at the person who had shot her with growing horror.
Red Arrow walked past her to the display table that had a computer set up, typing out a few times. "R-Roy?"
He gave no indication that he'd noticed her, let alone heard her and Amara's face went positively white when the zeta-tube rang out: "Recognize: A04 -Vandal Savage."
It was even worse seeing him in person, scarred face and broad shoulders, the face of the League's staunchest enemy.
Vandal Savage gave a thick bag to Roy and he took it without question as Amara tried to stand, only to be knocked back to the ground by a kick to the small of her spine and then flipped over so she facing him instead.
Roy was gone and Amara's throat was so tight she felt that she could barely breathe.
"So, this is the famous Oracle I've heard so much about…not very impressive when you're not behind a screen, are you?" His heel pressed down against her injury and Amara tried to choke down a scream.
"What-did you do-to Roy?" she seethed through her pain.
"Oh, that," Vandal Savage smirked and it warped the scars on his face. "That's some kind of high-tech implant Lex Luthor had placed in your friend's brain a few years ago, who doesn't love some good mind-control."
That was simultaneously better and worse, if Amara was going to be perfectly honest. Better in that Roy wasn't acting on his own wishes and worse because someone was making him do something he didn't want.
"In a few minutes your little Cave here won't be more than a pile of rubble."
Amara's heart stopped and then he brought down his foot and she felt her leg snap and she yelled in pain.
"This wasn't actually part of my plan," Vandal Savage informed her almost conversationally. "Unfortunately, I'm not strong enough to take on the whole Justice League in my state…those clones didn't do it, so killing your friend and consuming his organs won't either."
Amara was in a lot of pain, but the startled realization burned through. The last person he'd tried that with had been a distant relative of his…was Roy—?
"But I am prepared to cause as much chaos as possible." He bared his teeth, catching her arm when she aimed a vicious punch at him. The bone broke under his hand and Amara screamed.
"I'm going to release every super-powered villain from Belle Reve and watch them flounder as their cities burn…burning the Cave to the ground with you inside it is an…insurance for your little friend, Roy…what better way to break his spirit than have him play a part in your death."
"Wha—?" Amar choked as two hands wrapped around her throat, tight enough to constrict air and keep it from getting through. The leg that remained unbroken flopped uselessly and her good arm clawed it his hands.
She couldn't see his eyes behind the domino mask, but she could imagine the tortured horror. This was the boy who was barely a man who gave her raspberries when she was feeling down and went through the painstaking effort of teaching her how to use the bow in case he was injured.
Her sight was going fuzzy, she couldn't keep this up for long.
Her eyes rolled back in her head and her hand dropped to the floor beside her.
She could've only blacked out for a few seconds, because she awoke suddenly to the sound of the zeta-tube whirring as it took them away and her throat felt like it was on fire, but Amara had no time for that.
Her phone, where was her phone?
She caught sight of it on the display table and started to crawl, with difficulty with only one functioning arm and leg. Amara cried out as she forced herself to her knees, tears pricking her eyes as she clutched at the button that lowered the display table.
"Storm Chaser, override 0178559-beta, initiate lockdown," Amara said hollowly into the microphone.
"Initiating lockdown," the voice overhead echoed with the dulled sound of the Cave effectively being shut off from the outside world. That was what you were supposed to do with a fire, right? Contain it?
Her fingers were bloodied and shaking as she swiped through her contacts until she found the right one.
"Amara?" Bruce Wayne's voice was surprised on the other end. "This is unusual."
"You need to get to Belle Reve, get everyone to Belle Reve," Amara coughed and that made everything worse. "There's -there's going to be a mass breakout."
"Amy? Are you certain?" His voice had gone from confused to serious in one second flat.
"Yes, don't let Flash get distracted." Her words had become throaty, close to sobs. The bombs Roy had set had to be on a short timer.
"What?"
"The Cave is compromised. Don't worry about me, those -those criminals, you've got to get to them first." Amara couldn't bear it if something like her getting caught in an explosion led to Mark Mardon's escape. "I repeat: The Cave is compromised, Vandal Savage—"
And then everything exploded in fiery light and smoke and Amara knew nothing.
AN: Talk about a cliffhanger, right?
As always: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW!
