Dick stood on the rooftop of the Wayne Enterprises building in Bludhaven, waiting for his guest. He'd called Wonder Girl on the communicator he'd given her. She'd confirmed she was on her way, but then, he wasn't sure how similar to Wonder Woman's her powers were, and by proxy, just how fast she could fly.
He sat down on the edge of the roof, looking out over the skyline. It was peaceful, almost serene. If he was honest, he'd just used the fact they were looking for Checkmate and needed help as an excuse; he hated to admit it, but Barbara was right. Dick did like to think he was irreplaceable, and he disliked that Bruce had already replaced him. More than that, he disliked that Barbara had known about it, presumably since before she left, and didn't tell him.
He couldn't decide which one he resented more. He'd always thought that, when he left, it'd just be Bruce and Barbara, then just Bruce. Maybe he'd go back to Gotham to help out from time to time if he was needed, but this Jason didn't sit right with him.
"You okay?" Came a voice from behind him, Dick looking around to see Wonder Girl stood there "Something up?"
"Girl trouble." He said as he stood "Or parent trouble or sibling trouble or... What do you call a guardian who's barely 10 years older than you?"
"That's a tough one." She said, moving over and holding out a hand with a smile "I didn't introduce myself the other night. Donna."
"I'm-" Dick began before hearing the sound of static in his ear "Ouch! I think I've got a call."
"You do." Came Barbara's voice "Reports of Checkmate troops at Chimtech. Wait... They've left that area, and they're heading... Dick, they're heading my way!"
"We're on it." Dick said, looking to Donna "Any chance you can give me a ride?"
...
Dick and Donna set down on the roof of Dick's apartment building. There was a Checkmate troop helicopter above, a group of soldiers in front of them, raising their guns.
"Freeze!" The lead soldier said "You gave us a hard time the other night. It won't happen again."
"Hey, it's Freddy the foot soldier." Dick quipped "How you doing, Freddy? Sorry I hit you so hard the other night, I just don't play well with others."
"Shut up!" The soldier said, clicking the safety off on his rifle "Or I'll fire."
"I'm sorry." Dick said with a small smirk "I thought you said 'fire.'"
Before the soldier could respond, he was sent flying by a wave of energy. Behind the troops stood Victor, in his full Cyborg armour. Dick moved past them, kicking the lead soldier in the ribs.
"Thanks for the help." He said, gesturing between Victor and Donna "Vic, Donna, Donna, Vic."
"We'll skip the whole 'secret identities are meant to be secret talk until later." Victor said, crossing his arms "What's the plan, mini-Batman?"
"Who you calling Batman... Or Mini... Not sure which one offends me more." Dick said "Donna, I need you to be ready to evac people from the building. Vic, you and I will go in and kick some butt."
"Just a thought?" Donna said, putting a hand up "Me and, sorry, Dick, was it?"
"No, that's him." Victor said, getting a glare from Dick "Oh, so it's fine when you expose my secret identity but not the other way round?"
"Anyway, boys, as I was saying, since, oh, Vic! Yeah, since Vic and I are the ones with super powers, we should be the ones doing the butt kicking." Donna said "You, Dick, can play rescue."
"I'm sorry, who's been doing this longest?" Dick asked, getting silence in response "That's what I thought!"
Dick began walking into the building. As he did, a sword was swung at him, Dick barely ducking in time. He looked up, seeing a man in a black bodysuit with a bandolier and an orange and gold mask on holding the sword.
"You must be the Bat's kid." The man said, swinging his sword again, Dick catching it in the blades on the side of his gauntlets, tossing it aside "Not bad, kid."
"You ain't seen nothing." Dick said, dropping down and sweeping his leg under the man, taking him to the floor and pinning him, putting on his best impression of Bruce's Batman voice "Where's Barbara Gordon?!"
Before the man could respond, there was a crash from below. Dick got off the man, running over to the edge of the roof and looking down, seeing Barbara hanging from the foot of a blonde woman in a cowl of the same design as the man's.
"Hang on!" Dick yelled, realising how bad the choice of words was "Donna, get down there!"
"On it." She said with a nod, diving off the roof.
"Deploy the power asset." The man in the mask said as he stood up, a red, white and blue streak going across the sky "Let me tell you a story, boys. Superman wasn't the first alien to reach Earth. We found another one. She's been kept in the stasis she was found in, but we found use for her cells."
As he finished talking, a figure set down on the roof. It was a woman slightly older than Dick, with blonde hair, in a white bodysuit, with a red cape, blue gloves and blue boots. The man in the mask approached, standing behind her.
"Gentlemen, meet Power Girl." He said with a small laugh "Power Girl, meet your targets. Let's call them, I don't know, the Teen Titans?"
"Not technically correct..." Victor muttered, Dick looking at him "What? We're not teenagers!"
Power Girl didn't wait for them to say more, instead charging at them, grabbing Victor by the throat and throwing him off the roof. As Donna came up, Power Girl's eyes glowed red, before firing a blast of heat at her, causing her to scream in pain as she plummeted to the ground below.
"Oh crap..." Dick said, charging at the man and grabbing him in a hold from behind "Call her off!"
"I would." The man said "But then she couldn't kill you."
Dick hesitated. That was all the man needed to get out of the grip, elbowing Dick in the ribs. The man held a hand up towards Power Girl.
"Stand down." The man said, pulling a staff from his back, the ends of it extending "Come on then, boy. Let's see what the Bat taught you."
Dick stood up straight, pulling his Escrima sticks before the man charged at him, Dick parrying the blow. The man swung again, this time his blow made contact with Dick's gut, staggering him. He needed another approach.
He quickly hit a control on his belt, the scanner mode on his mask engaging. The man's suit was heavily armoured. There were only two visible weak spots. The man's eyes.
Dick disengaged the scanner, charging the man, sliding under the swipe the man took with his staff, and jumping on the man's back, jamming on of his Escrima Sticks into the man's right eye.
The man screamed in pain, staggering back. He grabbed his mask, pulling it off and covering his eye, blood seeping between his fingers. The man was Caucasian had greying black hair and a goatee. Dick quickly pressed the control on his belt to snap a picture of the man for review later.
"Fall back." The man growled "This isn't over, boy!"
Power Girl quickly sped around, picking up the Checkmate operatives and flying them away. As she did, Donna slowly rose up, carrying both Victor and Barbara, setting them down. Barbara ran over to Dick, hugging him while Donna looked back and forth between Barbara's and her own body.
"I need you to leave." He said quietly, Barbara pulling away and looking at him, shocked "You're a distraction I can't have right now."
"Dick, I can take care of myself and we both know it!" She said "I can gear up and-"
"No!" Dick said "Get back to Gotham. I'm sure Bruce is missing your help with tech support. Now that we have access to the system, me and Vic can finish the research side."
Barbara looked like she was going to argue for a moment, her expression stern. Finally, it softened as she smiled.
"Okay." She said finally, putting her hand on his arm "Just be safe."
"Hey, it's me." Dick said with a grin, starting to walk inside "Come on, we'll get your bag packed and I'll give you a ride to the airport."
"Okay." Barbara said, turning to Victor "Cyborg, everything I've found is on the computer. You've just got to read it."
"Got it." Victor said with a nod, quickly hugging her "Nice seeing you again."
"You too, big guy." She said, smiling at Donna "Nice meeting you."
Dick led Barbara inside. As she did, Donna turned to Victor.
"Can I ask you a personal question?" She asked, Victor nodding "Who's hotter?"
"Uh..." Victor said, dumbstruck "I'll go get started on that data."
Victor walked inside, leaving Donna outside. She sighed, shaking her head.
"At least my outfit looks better than the librarian look..." She muttered to herself as she walked inside.
...
Victor sat at the computer terminal, Donna sat in an office chair behind him, spinning around in it, apparently bored. Victor could understand why; they'd been sat there for two hours whilst he went over files. It was a long, slow and boring job, but it had to be done.
"What've we got?" Dick said as he walked in, Victor being relieved someone else was there to take over the computer "Anything on Checkmate we can use?"
"Are you kidding?" Victor asked "There's tonnes here, references back to Chimtech, shady government experiments. Get this."
Victor pressed a control, brining up a file marked 'Project: Deathstroke' Dick took the controls from him, moving through the folder before spotting a familiar face.
He removed his mask, flipping the point that went over his nose down, revealing a USB adaptor. He plugged it into the computer, downloading everything from that evening. As he did, he moved through the images taken that evening, getting to the photo he'd taken of the man.
"There we go. A lead." Dick said, folding his arms across his chest "Colonel Slade Wilson. Sole surviving test subject of Project Deathstroke. Says here his strength, agility, durability and intelligence were augmented. Tactical genius. Certainly fits our guy."
"What's this?" Donna said, walking over and pointing at something in the corner "That folder there?"
"Military record." Dick said, clicking on it "Several commendations, and then a dishonourable discharge for assaulting a superior officer. Seems Mr. Deathstroke has a temper."
"What about family?" Victor asked "Or known associates?"
"Let's see." Dick said, clicking around the page "Oh boy."
"What is it?" Donna asked, looking at the screen and seeing a blonde girl "You know her?"
"Yeah." Dick said "Name's Rose, she was a secretary at Chimtech."
"I think we've found how he knew to hit the place." Victor said "I checked the police reports, it was a Doctor Westfield. Death by decapitation."
"My fault..." Dick said quietly to himself "If I hadn't asked her about Checkmate..."
"Dick?" Victor questioned, cocking his exposed eyebrow "What are you talking about?"
"I asked Rose Wilson to give me the information on Checkmate from Chimtech's records. She must've alerted them." Dick said, slamming his fist down on the metal frame of the computer "I should've seen a misdirect a mile away!"
"Cut yourself some slack." Donna said, standing up and putting a hand on his shoulder "I'm sure faced with a girl that looked like that, most guys would be a little distracted..."
"Yeah, that won't help." Victor said quietly "Better to just let him get on with it."
Dick stood up, moving towards the door. He turned back.
"Victor, keep analysing the data, Try to have a cliff note version by the time we get back." He said "Donna, come on."
"Where are we going?" Donna asked, looking between the two of them.
"Chimtech." Dick said "There's a crime scene, and I might not be the World's Greatest Detective, but I can give him a run for his money. Maybe there's something that'll give us a clue as to where they're holed up."
...
Maxwell Lord entered the lab beneath his building. It connected via a network of tunnels to various other installations throughout the city. His predecessor had had the idea to not station Checkmate in any one place, and his father, at the time the science director, had had the primary research facility placed beneath his company.
As he crossed the threshold into the main research area, he saw a scientist talking to a tall, muscular African American woman with short, black hair. The debate looked rather heated.
"What's going on here?" Lord asked, turning to the woman "Waller?"
"Doctor Danvers here seems to disagree with our approach." Waller replied "He says that our treatment of the girl is inhumane."
"Does he now?" Lord said, moving to Danvers and clapping a hand on his shoulder "Doctor, inhumane treatment only applies to Humans, not alien monstrosities. We have to defend ourselves from people like her. Otherwise, what's to stop her, Superman, The Martian and all those other threats from crushing us under foot?"
"Well, I-" Danvers began, pausing for a moment before saying "You're absolutely right. I'm sorry."
"Good." Lord said, slapping Danvers on the back "See, Amanda? Sometimes you just have to try talking politely to people. Shall we go and see the subject?"
"Of course." Waller said, gesturing for Lord to follow her.
They walked through a large set of double doors. Inside were people in hazmat suits, working with various pieces of equipment. Analysis machines were set up around the room. In the centre, hooked up to various devices, was a large, slim cylinder, an upside down red pentagon with an S and a yellow interior background at the base of it. Inside the cylinder, was a tall, slim blonde girl who looked to be in her late teens to early twenties, wearing a blue bodysuit with the same emblem as on the bottom of the cylinder.
"You know, if people knew about her, they'd call her a 'Supergirl'." Lord said "Shame no one ever will."
"You still want to eliminate her?" Waller asked "Max, we don't know that Power Girl will remain controllable forever. We may need her to make another."
"Well then, get all the samples you can." Lord replied, turning and beginning to walk out "The Kryptonite comes tomorrow."
...
So, here we go. There's one, maybe two more chapters left of this. R&R, please, no flames. B.