Author's Note: I'm so sorry for the long absence, I was working on another fic of mine for the Big Hero 6 fandom. Now for part 4 of the Mary Sue arc!
"HELLOOOOOOO!" Ethel called out for the fiftieth time, "CAN ANYONE HEAR ME? I'VE BEEN IN THIS CELL FOR AWHILE, NOW!"
She paced around her cramped cell, sealed with a red, electric barrier where the door would be, huffing and whipping her head as if expecting someone to appear out of nowhere.
"Why am I here?" She whispered to herself. Why was the League afraid of her, all of a sudden? All she could remember was sparring with the Blue Beetle to test out her powers, and then, suddenly she found herself lying down on a hard bed, restrained by straps like an experiment. She didn't like the words that were thrown around, either.
Unstable.
Unbalanced.
Danger to herself and others.
Someone almost said the word, clone, too. Or at least, she thought someone was going to suggest she was a clone. Until someone else – Superman or Superboy, she couldn't tell, they sounded so much alike – cleared their throat and suggested not reaching that conclusion too quickly.
At least someone was on her side!
Why would she be a clone? She had powers that were unlike anybody she had ever seen or heard of before. Ever since she was little, Ethel's life could be consisted of each new hero coming into play, becoming an icon for those who were unable to defend themselves. She wanted to be like them so much that it made her want to cry. And she did.
And now she finally develops powers and wanted to use them for good. The first step, though, was getting the heroes' attention in the first place. She didn't know how, but she had managed to pinpoint possible locations that young heroes were rumored to have been stalking around due to the location being either isolated, heavily guarded or both. Judging from how members of Young Justice and the Justice League had reacted, she took that as a sign of respect that she was able to track a black-ops team.
Then again, the whole point of a black-ops team was to be covert, as Blue Beetle had been kind enough to tell her, so she was starting to think that maybe that was the reason they were so afraid of her now.
She managed to hear a conversation about some hostages and threw caution to the wind to rescue them before anything would happen to them. She didn't care about how much damage she would cause if it meant that the people abducted were safe, she'd have brought the whole place down if the Team had let her do it.
Burn the place down. Forget the hostages! I just wanted to see something blow UP!
Ethel blinked. Where did that thought come from? That didn't really sound…heroic.
The back of her head hit the pillow and she sighed. This wasn't fair! She had just found her long lost twin and she –
Ethel blinked again. Twin? She was an only child, where did that thought come from? And when did she find that twin?
She didn't look anything like Nightwing as far as she could tell.
Nightwing examined the data collected from Blue Beetle's analysis, getting a rather large headache from looking over the numbers again and again with no distinction.
This girl, there was no certain way of pinpointing her genetic make-up. It just seemed to…change. While her physical appearance would remain the same; her blood type and DNA matches would alter without warning. At one point, she was sharing at least a 99.99 percent match with his DNA.
The last thing he needed was for people to ask if she was his sister…
That thought made him shudder and his insides chill. Not the 'I almost got frostbite from fighting Mister Freeze in August and have to pass it off as the result of being somewhere cold during the summer' chill. More like a 'ew, gross! I don't want to think about it' chill.
"Any luck?" Kid Flash had dashed in, holding two mocha frappes in his hand. Nightwing took the one offered and shook his head. Kid Flash leaned against the wall, sighing, "That sucks. Don't you think you should take a break soon? You've been here for five hours, now."
Nightwing shook his head again and took a sip from his drink. He tasted sea-salt caramel in it, adding a bit of sweetness to what was already bitter.
"Aw, come on!" Kid Flash pushed against the wall and glared at his friend, "You aren't gonna find anything new if you aren't feeling your best. Just…what did you find out since you started?"
"Nothing," Nightwing turned to face him with a small scowl.
Kid Flash gestured to the screen, "Doesn't look like a whole lot of nothing."
"That's the thing," Nightwing continued, "The data keeps getting scrambled. The blood tissue keeps changing in blood type, origin and DNA. And we haven't found any connection between her powers and any other superhero or villain on this planet."
"Maybe she's from outer space and doesn't remember?" Kid Flash suggested.
Nightwing shook his head, "A possibility, but we don't have any conclusive evidence to work with. Miss M and Manhunter are prepared to do a mindreading as a last resort, but we shouldn't be getting any information out of this girl by force."
"Any idea when that last resort might happen?" Kid Flash asked.
Nightwing's head hung low and he sighed again, wishing that he didn't have to go through any research with a fine comb. He looked at his friend tiredly and said, "If I don't find anything by morning, I guess that's when."
"Just a day?" Kid Flash looked at him oddly, "That's a little quick."
"We're dealing with someone who could be the Rorschach of DNA, we shouldn't be taking any chances. The last time we did, the League was compromised, and we still haven't account for the 16 hours that 6 League members went missing."
"Well, then," Kid Flash said coolly, "I guess this means I'll have to kill you for discovering my plans, then."
He flashed a smile that slipped off when he saw Nightwing's glare.
"Okay, not funny," Kid Flash said. He winced a moment later after thinking, "Oof. Right, we almost got killed for finding out the bad guy's plans…what the hell was I thinking?"
"Don't worry, KF," Nightwing said, "I know you didn't mean it like that. Just…watch what you say in the future, okay?"
"You know, that makes me wonder what's really worse," Kid Flash continued slowly, "I mean, once you die, its over and done. At least until the universe resets itself or the Lazarus Pit is used. Now being alive is a lot of work."
"Of course, it is," Nighwing agreed, "It actually reminds me of something my dad used to say. 'Dying is easy, young man. Living is harder.' So we have to make each moment count. Like I'm doing now."
Kid Flash rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything else. He just hoped that whatever answer Nightwing could find, it would happen soon.
Ethel was starting to lose track of what was real and what was her imagination anymore. How long was that pink pony standing there with a tray of cupcakes? Did she just eat or was she hallucinating from hunger? Her stomach wasn't growling but Ethel didn't think that she would have been served something as delicious as beef wellington. And what did she do last night? Something about…sparring? No, she couldn't have, Ethel was better than that.
Oh, yes, a date. She was on a date with Blue Beetle.
No, she wasn't. It was testing her powers with him and then it got cut short for some reason…
Ethel bobbed up and down in the air before she realized she was floating and screamed. She dropped to the ground immediately and scooted against the wall in terror.
"I'm dreaming," Ethel whispered, fighting back tears, "I'm gonna wake up in my bed and everything will be fine."
She closed her eyes and almost believed it…
When Ethel opened them again, it didn't feel like much time had passed at all. But she noticed someone else in the cell with her and rubbed her eyes until they didn't see blurry blots around her. Ethel moaned as she pushed away from the wall, rubbing her back and making note to never sleep like that again.
The woman looked a lot like her. She seemed older, though. Ethel couldn't tell what her body type was. Her hair lacked the same blue streaks that Ethel did and was shorter, almost like it was chopped off with a butcher's knife.
Behind her were Batman and Superman doing the can-can in rhinestone high heels and matching Speedos. She ignored that.
"Who are you?" Ethel asked.
"Ya know, I could be asking you that question?" The woman phrased it like a question, but Ethel wasn't sure what she was asking.
Ethel looked away for a moment and saw her bedding floating three inches off the mattress. Then it fell back down just as quickly.
"Aw yeah!" The woman cheered, "The other powers are kicking in. Ya know, I thought fire breath would have been original, but ya hardly used it at all. I mean, what gives?!"
"Who the hell are you?" Ethel growled, fighting the urge to scream for help.
The woman smiled in a way that reminded Ethel of how she would do so in front of others. She said in a blank voice,
"I'm you."
Author's Note: Please don't hate me! I'm so sorry for the long absence. Again. From writing what I meant to write. This was hard to do and I somehow managed to pull it together. Will the last part be longer like I envisioned? Maybe by 1k words, I don't know. Thank you for taking the time to read this, please review to let me know if this was worth the wait.
Poor Ethel, though. She's definitely going to have a hard time in the next chapter.