Wally's POV
We hadn't heard from Blair in a few days, so together Artemis and I called the falcons, it took a while for the call to go through and when it got picked up it seemed like 2 of them were arguing, it was a girl I'd never seen before and the girl whose features change when she's bored, the tablet was being pulled backwards and forwards between them so much it was making me feel seasick, it was obvious they'd answered by accident.
"Do not pick it up!" the changeling girl
"No, I think they can help."
"They won't be able to help the ginger guy didn't know she existed until a few days ago, we've known them their whole lives, if we can't find them, they sure as hell won't." Hurtful, I haven't even been in the same dimension, how would I have known? A sad expression must've crossed my face because Artemis put an arm around me.
"Girls-"Artemis tries to interrupt them.
"Kate?" the shorter girl says giving her a look
"Lacey?"The currently redheaded girl mocks looming over her.
"Girls!" Artemis yells.
"Shit." They both say eyes widening.
"What is going on?"
They start talking over each other rapidly, they look nervous.
"Lacey, Kate, I can't understand the pair of you when you do this one of you speak."
They both look down, then to each other, and then down again.
"Blair and Alaric have run off together?" she says more of a question than a statement.
"What? I thought she was with that MIA guy? When did she run away together with Alaric? This is some Shakespearean shit."
All three women look at me like I'm stupid, Artemis moves her arm upwards swiftly, smacking my head. What did I say?
"Is he really that stupid?"
Artemis nods, "Wally, Alaric, is Blair's best friend, and Lacey is his fiancée, and before you say anything, they've been in love with each other since age 5 Alaric has never so much even looked at another girl."
"Dear God no wonder Blair lost her mind." Lacey mutters
"Lacey." Kate chastises her.
"Girls, what's going on?" Artemis asks changing the subject
"Alaric is missing, we think he went after Blair."
"Well where's Blair?"
"She uh, Lacey, you want to continue this?"
"I hate you. Well basically Ric told everyone that he was taking Blair to Paris to distract her and no one thought anything of it, then he texted me telling me the truth, that Blair had run off after Nik or at least whatever's left of him, so he followed her because he thinks that she's his responsibility as her brother. But we haven't heard from him in a few days and I can't get a trace on his chip or with magic, something feels wrong. There's no way he wouldn't call me if he could."
"You lost her?" Artemis asks in dismay.
"Artemis, you know what she's like, even in this state if she puts her mind to something, she'll do it."
"Where is she know?"
"Austanburg."
"I hate Austanburg."
"There's more."
"More?"
"There have been a few suspicious goings on around there, that's why Nik was out there."
"What kind of suspicious goings on?"
Two days later…
Artemis's POV
We'd been all over Austanburg and so far no sign of any suspicious goings on, or Blair or Alaric, we've checked every hotel, every B&B and almost all rental buildings in the small country, so far nothing, nada, zilch, the watchtower is running facial recognition for this area but with her new powers she really could be anywhere.
And now I had monitor duty so I guess that means stopping for the day.
I Zeta'd up exhausted from having my molecules scrambled several times and then wondering around a small European country looking in every hotel room and every B&B, Wally'd done them all at super speed, but I'd talked to people and also he didn't really know how to recognise Blair.
"Hey Artemis. Any luck finding Blair yet?" my niece asks as I walk through the teams lounge.
"No." I tell her.
"Well, You'll find her, don't give up." She says patting my shoulder as she walks past, "Anyway, my dad wants me home, we're having dinner with mom tonight."
"Tell them hi." I wave as she heads towards the zeta.
Oh crud, I'm late for monitor duty.
I fell asleep on monitor duty and got yelled at by batman, the teams run off. God what is it with teenagers and running off at the moment. Now all the league's yelling at me, I lost their protégés, oh God, now they're telling me that I shouldn't spread myself so thin, so no monitor duty at least until we find Blair, which is fine by me because monitor duty was created by the devil, well not the devil because that would mean that bad things were going to happen, but it was created by Batman so really it's the same thing.
I was kind of zoning in and out of the conversation, we were bringing up the video feed of the teams lounge, we were watching from about lunch, they'd all been hanging out, I think it's great they still do that. I think back to the long afternoons we'd spend together, even when we didn't have training, the cave had been a home, at least before everything got complicated, before Kaldur faked going bad, before we pretended I was dead, before we all thought Wally was dead.
The teens had congregated around the table, a few of them were doing homework, some were playing on their phones and others were eating and yelling at the people doing homework trying to get them to write the wrong thing, a few profanities were shouted mostly by Artie and Gio, I had a feeling that their mentors were going to have a few words with them about their language.
We watched the tapes, I felt like we were invading their privacy, this was their private time, time off when they can just be teenagers, not teenagers who save the world all the time. Then robin popped in, he started talking telling them he had a lead on something, he said it too quickly for us to hear but they all got up looking excited and ran out of the room, saying 'let's go tell Lian'. And that's when they all ran out to the Zetas.
Obviously something got them excited, and that's why they ran out, but why'd they need Lian?
"Artemis, Wally you go talk to Roy. Ask him if the team interrupted their dinner. You guys okay to do that, I know you were going to go look for Blair but do you mind?" Dick asks.
"No it's fine, I want to see Roy anyway." Wally answers for us, looping and arm around my waist, he pulls me towards the zeta tube.
"We'll call if we find anything out." Wally calls over his shoulder as we disappear through the Zeta tube.
We knock on the Red door of Roy Harper's apartment. A nearly naked Roy answers the door, something that I've seen before but still makes me raise an eyebrow, especially as my sister is behind him wearing one of his shirts. He looks deflated.
"Oh, it's just you."
"Well what a warm and friendly welcome." I say dryly.
"We thought you might be Lian, her friends interrupted our dinner."
"Technically they interrupted our fight, which Lian looked kind of grateful for." Jade interrupts
"I see you're still solving your problems the way you did when you were in your 20's."
"Well if it ain't broke don't fix it." She says grinning.
"Anyway, we came to ask you if you'd seen the team, because they ran off, and now we can't find them."
"What?" Roy shouts, "Well where are they."
"What part of we can't find them don't you get, Roy, do you want me to repeat it in French or Vietnamese?"
"Jade, want to help find them?" Roy asks his wife.
"As worried as I am about Lian, she's not a baby, our little Kitten is a big girl who can take care of herself."
"Jade. What if they've done something stupid?"
"Well then we'll find out, let them have tonight. Seriously I know she's our kid but I doubt even Lian can find trouble that quickly."
"Let's hope you're right." I tell her. I don't think the league wants all their teenaged members to disappear.
I'm back people! Sorry I've been away so long, as I mentioned Friday when I published JTCTNW I had to catch up with all of the work I missed in the weeks I was off so I've had to do 3 big A3 pages of Dt coursework and a lot of science, maths and English. anyway this chapter is a bit of a filler as I get back into the swing of writing see you all next week.