Mount Justice|
February 14th, 2016|
12:02 PM, EST|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~=YJ=~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It had been two days since Wally and Kaldur had been returned to their true selves. Wally and Artemis had begun to fully focus on their studies, their masks hung up for the time being. Zatanna had taken Raven in, being the only magician in the League who could. Currently, the two were in the cave's lounge, along with Dick, watching a movie. The idea was to better familiarize Raven with pop culture and they were working their way forwards. Classics, as far as Dick was concerned. At the moment, they were watching Snow White, and Dick was humming along with the Dwarves at work in the mine.
"What's the point of this film again?" Raven asked.
"Not everything is educational Rae," Dick said.
"Says the man teaching her pop culture," Zatanna said with a laugh.
They continued to watch in relative silence until the computers announced the arrival of Chokichi, Bankori, Caroline, Zemirah, and Chris. As the five walked into the lounge, the footage on screen broke into song once more:
'HI-HOOOOOOOOOO!'
Instantly, Bankori whirled at the sound, instinctively yelling in indignation.
"What'd' you call me?"
His shout momentarily stunned the entire room. The blond blinked and turned cherry red upon realizing his outburst had been in response to the movie. As soon as the shock left, Chris, Caroline, Chokichi, and Zemirah broke into fits of giggles. Caroline and Zemirah in particular were doubling over. Zatanna shook her head whilst Dick pressed his lips together to stifle his snickering. Raven merely blinked at them before turning her attention back to the movie.
"I bet you all think you're so funny, don't ya?" Bankori growled, still blushing bright red.
"You're the comedian, not us," Zemirah returned.
The comm suddenly came online and the control room came to life.
Watchtower to Mount Justice; please standby.
The notice came from an anxious-sounding Captain Atom. The group rushed into the control room and watched as the older hero popped up on screen. The team and Zatanna watched as the said hero filled the view screen.
"What's going on?" Dick asked, the strict tone of Nightwing slipping in.
The screen was filled with humanoid lizards in black, gold, and red armor. They chased a dark-skinned woman with flame-red hair in a dirtied, skintight, grey-and-white flight suit. Zemirah blinked as she realized that the woman's arms had been shackled with large cuffs that bound her forearms together. It did not stop her from picking up a crumpled car and flinging it at her pursuers- and that's when the footage stopped.
"That woman is an escaped prisoner. The other three are Gordanians. It seems that some of them did make it out of that wreck," Captain Atom said. "I have to call an emergency event, but the Lanterns are off securing the rest of the Sector and the Hawks are working on recreating some kind of weapon that will subdue them. Most of the others are either off-world or on other missions."
Zemirah saw it as great point of maturity that Nightwing did not voice the snide comment he was surely thinking.
"Who do we need?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~=YJ=~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jump City, California|
February 14th, 2016|
11:36 AM, GMT-8|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~=YJ=~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Bioship hovered over the city. Miss Martian, Rocket, Superboy, Aqualad, and Nightwing were readying themselves to deploy. From the view screen, they could see the woman who was holding her own against the three of them quite well, even while actively running away.
"Why do we even need to intervene?" Rocket asked. "Girl's giving those three a run for their money."
"She's shackled and she's been fending them off for who knows how long, Rock," Zatanna pointed out.
"Zee's right," Nightwing agreed. "Besides we can't just let her do our jobs."
The hatch opened and Aqualad and Superboy jumped down, immediately needing to dodge flying debris as soon as they hit the ground. Miss Martian dropped in next, easily deflecting blasts from her opponent's weapons. Rocket and Nightwing were the last to drop in, Rocket's kinetic shields perfectly stable under the barrage of battle. Nightwing headed off to the fight whilst Rocket made sure the street was empty.
Gordanians were a sturdy bunch. They withstood Aqualad and Superboy's combined might and seemed to be impervious to any psionics short of straight up telekinesis. The increased opposition drew all three from their chase and into the fray. Miss Martian ripped parts of the armor off two of them, while Aqualad and Superboy held off the other. Nightwing bounced between opponents as he tagged their exposed flesh. When he was through, he called for the others to back away and activated the tags. They were far enough away that the ensuing electrical charge did not affect them. However, it did stun their three combatants, the level of intensity even charring some flesh where the tags contacted skin. Two went down. The third struggled to stay on its feet.
Rocket finally doubled back, having cleared the area and joined them. Superboy was about to move in, when it suddenly jolted and fell forward. Standing behind it was the woman they had been chasing, glaring down at its prone form. She looked up at them and snarled.
"X'bago! Ige la, ige la!" she shouted.
Suddenly she began running at them. Before any one of them had a chance to act, she jumped, sailing over their heads. They watch as she moved, her interlocked fist gracefully connecting with another Gordanian's face. The force pushed it back, though it didn't go flying. The woman twisted through the air and landed on her feet. She struggled to maintain her balance upon landing, but remained standing. Her opponent let out a grotesque snarl, which she returned in kind.
"Glurdlslych," she growled. "Iglor X'hal and'r x'x'sha!"
"Troq," it said.
Her glower worsened and she spat at it. The action angered it and it lunged at her. She sidestepped it, snatching its spear-like weapon from its back with a quick roll. Though her forearms were locked together at an awkward angle, she seemed to have just enough freedom of movement to wield it. The Gordanian let out low-pitched shriek that grated on Superboy's sensitive ears. The sound only seemed to vex her more. It pulled out a device and pressed a button. Her cuffs made a hissing sound and the woman jolted in pain, yowling all the while. It let out another shriek, head lolling back. The woman howled in pain and used the weapon in her grasp in order to remain upright.
It was laughing.
Miss Martian took the moment of distraction to telekinetically snatch the device from its grasp. With a simple thought, the device was snapped in two. The broken remote sent another jolt of pain through the woman but she still stood, pressing most of her weight on the spear. With a few gasping breaths she recovered and moved so fast that no one had a chance to react.
With one quick movement, the sharp end of the weapon was embedded in the alien's neck. With a quick jump, just used the momentum of her descent to drive it further into its torso. The woman screamed all the while, whatever language she spoke guttural and peppered with clicking sounds. Her spectators could only imagine she was spewing curses at her victim. The sharp end poked through the other side of its body, the lower back, the weapon having pierced through flesh and armor alike, and the curved blade coated in a thick blue substance. With one last shove, the Gordanian fell to the ground in an undignified heap. Dead.
Rocket, Aqualad, Miss Martian, Rocket, and Nightwing all stared in silence as the woman slumped back and fell down as well, breathing heavily. The exertion of her exploits seemed to finally catch up to her. Nightwing was the first to approach he offered out a hand. He noted that her while her scleras were white, her irises and pupils were varying shades of green. Still heaving, she took it and stood to her feet. Miss Martian approached next. Rocket remained nearby, close enough to assist if needing, but not too close as to spook or overwhelm the woman. Meanwhile, Aqualad and Superboy began cleaning up the mess the battle had made. Miss Martian attempted to establish a telepathic connection with the woman and breach the language barrier, but blinked rapidly when she realized that it did not work.
"I- I can't read her mind," Miss Martian stuttered out in surprise.
The others all gave pause and made noises of astonishment, but were cut short by the arrival of a Green Lantern. Hal surveyed the damaged street and eyed the other felled Gordanians longest before turning to Nightwing.
"Are the others like that one?" he asked, pointing to the one with a spear sticking out of its corpse.
Nightwing furtively glanced at Aqualad —who merely smirked and raised a brow at him— before speaking.
"Nah, that's the only one."
"…And I suppose that the lady behind you is responsible for it?" Hal asked.
"Yep."
Hal touched down and approached the strange woman who sneered and stepped back swiftly, uncaring of trampling the carcass beneath her feet. Hal glanced at Miss Martian and she sighed forlornly.
"I can't establish a telepathic connection with her."
The lenses of Hal's mask widened.
"Huh, weird. No worries though."
He held out his ring but the woman growled at him, the string of words she had screamed at her now dead adversary returning. Nightwing eyed her before holding out a hand and stopping Hal.
"I don't think she trusts you very much."
"Her life was just saved," Hal said incredulously.
"Did you help save her life?" Nightwing questioned, the smirk he didn't wear evident in his voice.
Rocket coughed and made a noise to clear her throat while Miss Martian's lips pressed together and she slipped away to help the boys clean up. Hal only stared blankly at Nightwing, who by now was wearing a cheeky grin.
"Point made," Hal answered.
His lack of amusement was clear and Nightwing had to bite his cheek in order to keep from laughing. He calmed down quickly enough to speak again without cackling.
"How about you scan me first, and then her? Show her it's safe?"
Hal nodded and acquiesced. The Ring scanned Nightwing, a swathe of greenlight giving his form a once over.
Species: Human. Primary language: English. No translation required.
The clear announcement from the device seemed to draw the woman's attention and she took one small step forward. She turned to Nightwing who smiled sweetly at her.
"See?" He said. "I am perfectly fine."
He gestured to himself and then to Hal. She glanced at Hal, then back to Nightwing. She eyed him up and down, her gaze filled with curiosity before offering something else.
"Florg x'za moghi," she said.
She stepped forward and Nightwing turned back to Hal. He nodded and Hal held out his Ring once more. Nightwing watched as she woman flinched, but held herself still as the green light slowly washed over her, her face scrunching cutely when it passed over her face. Soon the light dissipated and the Ring flashed softly a few times before it beeped.
Species: unknown. Language: unknown. Unable to establish translation.
Nightwing blinked and stared at the woman in shock. Rocket gaped and did a double take, her voiced stalling for a few moments before she finally spoke.
"What?"