Return Chapter 9
Silena patted her leg "It's going to take him some time to open up completely. But right now I really need your help, and we don't have much time, how close are you to your sister Jade?"
"We talk once a week, why?" Artemis asked.
"We made need her help" Silena said.
"Before we drag my sister into this what exactly am I supposed to help you find?" Artemis asked.
Silena sighed "Talia ah Guhl's son Damian Wayne".
"Wait a minute here your telling me that Bruce Wayne has a son with Talia ah Guhl. Does he know about his?" Artemis asked completely shocked.
"Yes Bruce knows, she came to him a couple of weeks ago and told him but Bruce had to find him because he was with her father. Bruce was able to find his location, but he can't go get him because of the problems with the business. He's telling Dick now about all of this. It was actually his idea to ask you to join me in rescuing the little boy" Silena said.
Artemis snorted "There's no way Bruce or Batman came up with the idea to help find his son. We don't exactly get along".
"You two might not get along but he respects you as a hero Artemis, he knows what you're capable of and that you're my best help in getting his son out of the League of Shadows. Considering you were originally trained to be one" Silena said looking at her pointedly.
"We're gonna need more than the two of us to get this kid out of Ra's ah Guhl's hands" Artemis said.
"Which is why I was hoping you would talk your sister into helping us" Silena said smiling.
Artemis shook her head "No, I'm not getting Jade involved she left that life to take care of her family; I'm not getting her involved. We find someone else or you do this on your own" she said sternly.
"Ok fine we find someone else to help us, but who though?" Silena asked crossing her arms over chest.
"Barbara, she's a good detective and she's a good fighter. She's part of the bat family, she's going to find out about this kid anyway" Artemis said.
"Do you really think she's capable of this kind of thing? She can't go in as Batgirl, and you can't go in as Tigress. We'll be going in as civilians almost" Silena said.
"I have faith in Barbara I think she can do this. How old exactly is this kid?" Artemis asked as she walked towards her bedroom to get her weapons and such prepared.
"He's six and he's very lethal, he's been trained to kill since he was born, by Ra's personally" Silena said almost in warning.
"And I was trained by his mother and Sportsmaster, I'm not scared of this mission. I just don't want my sister involved. Has Bruce told Tim yet?" Artemis asked pulling her knives out.
"No Tim doesn't know yet, we wanted to wait until we successfully got Damian before we told him" Silena said "Can you hurry up please we still need to get Barbara on board?"
"Don't rush me" Artemis said stashing her crossbow, blowpipe, and knives in her boots and straps attached to her legs. "I feel weird not having my sword".
"Don't you feel weird not having your bow and arrows?" Silena asked.
"Of course it does and it always will but I'm not Artemis the hero anymore, I don't think I ever will be" Artemis said grabbing her leather jacket and sliding it on "Let's go to Barbara's and get her on board".
Silena nodded her head grabbing her jacket and following Artemis out of the door.
Artemis continuously knocked on the door knowing that Barbara was probably asleep, but she needed her awake.
"I swear to god if you don't stop knocking on my door I'm going to break your hand" Barbara said throwing the door open.
"I'd love to see you try Babs" Artemis said smirking at her.
"What the hell are you doing here Artemis, it's almost one o'clock in the morning" Barbara asked turning away from the door and going back into her apartment.
Artemis followed her and a silent Silena behind her "We need your help" Artemis said.
"Who's we?" Barbara asked going to the kitchen and grabbing a glass of water.
"That would be me" Silena said finally making her presence known to the younger girl.
"Okay seriously what do you two want I just did a twenty four hour mission with the team?" Barbara asked leaning against the counter.
Artemis stood in front of her "What we're doing you can never tell the team. This is completely one hundred percent undercover. We're sneaking into the League of Shadows".
Barbara snorted water out of her nose coughing she managed to get out "Are you insane? Why would we do that?"
"Because were rescuing Bruce's son Damian" Silena said.
"What…. Bruce…. He… what are you talking about?" Barbara finally managed to get out.
"He didn't know about him until a couple of weeks ago, he has a six year old son with Talia al Guhl" Silena said.
"Talia… Talia al Guhl is the mother of Bruce's son?" Barbara asked shocked.
"Yes and she gave him to her father to train but apparently she's had a change of heart and told Bruce about him knowing Bruce would do everything in his power to find him. Which is why he asked me to recruit Artemis since she was trained by the League of Shadows, I wanted to use her sister Jade but she insisted on recruiting you. If you go with us it's completely under the table you won't be going as Batgirl" Silena said.
Barbara took another drink of water before going to the cabinet under the sink and pulling out a secret safe were she started pulling out weapons. Pulling out knives, incendiary grenades, and pocket explosives she stood up. "I'm in, let me get dressed and we can go" she said heading down the hallway. A couple of minutes later she came out wearing dark jeans with black boots, and a white t-shirt with a black leather jacket over it. After storing her weapons and explosives she turned towards Silena and Artemis. "Alright how are we getting there?"
"I've got that covered" Silean said opening the door without another word and leaving the apartment.
"Are you sure about this Artemis, we could get killed for doing this?" Barbara asked as they followed Silena.
"I think that if we can't handle this we all know Bruce and Dick will come storming in" Artemis said "Of course I'm scared but no six year old kid deserves to grow up being raised to be an assassin. The kid deserves a fighting chance".
"Your right he does no matter who he is" Barbara said as they stepped outside and got into Silena's car.
The three women didn't talk for most of the ride to the private airplane but once they were in the air and on their way towards Infinity Island they talked about their plane.
"In order to go in undetected were gonna have to jump into the water and swim the rest of the way, I have a guy with a boat that will come and get us when I send him the signal. Any questions?" Silena asked.
Barbara and Artemis both shook their heads "Good, let's get ready to jump then" Silena said pulling on a wet suit over her clothes along with breathing devices similar to the ones Dick use to carry as Robin. Barbara and Artemis quickly followed her example pulling on the wet suits and equipment, patiently waiting for the pilot to tell them they were ready for the jump. Thankfully they didn't have to wait long before the pilot told them they were good to go.
"Ready ladies?" Silena asked.
"Of course I am, I just love jumping out of moving airplanes into freezing cold water" Artemis said sarcastically.
Barbara nodded her head "I'm with her".
Silena rolled her eyes opening the air plane door before turning around to face the two younger women, smiling at them she jumped back wards out of the plane. Rolling her eyes and shaking her head Artemis followed her lead "Crazy son of a bitch" she muttered on the way. Taking a deep breath she jumped from the plane bracing herself for the impact of the cold water. Popping her head out of the water she could see Infinity Island ahead of her along with Silena heading towards it.
"Jesus it's cold" Barbara said swimming up next to her.
Artemis nodded her head "Yeah it is come on let's catch up to her" she said swimming after Silena.
"Come on let's get in and out as fast as possible" Silena said stripping the wet suit off.
Artemis nodded her head pulling out her crossbow and making sure her blowpipe was at easy access. Once all three women were ready they headed towards the old creepy building. They didn't run into any guards thankfully but once they got inside was a completely different story. Since they had no idea where Damian was located they would have to find the control room where Barbara would hack the computers and hopefully be able to find where he's being held.
"It's to empty" Artemis said as they moved down the hallways.
Barbara nodded her head "This all feels to easy".
"I agree but I rather have this than anything else they might throw at us" Silena said looking around a corner.
"I hear buzzing which means the control room is around here" Barbara said.
"Told you bringing her was a good idea" Artemis said smirking at Silena.
Silena just glared at her as they followed Barbara down the hallway. "Here" Barbara said pointing at a door that just so happened to be on a dead end, which would make escaping a whole lot harder if they were caught.
"You have the sedative darts, you'll have to go in first" Silena said to Artemis "I'll open the door you step in shooting everyone with the darts".
Artemis nodded her head already loading the darts "On three then" she said stepping in front of the door ready to go.
Silena nodded her head using her fingers to count one….two….three throwing the door open Artemis stepped in quickly hit all three men in the room with sedative darts before they even had a chance to utter a single word.
"It's clear" she said walking around the room. Barbara quickly came in and started working on the computers something Artemis still didn't understand how all of the Bat family was that good on computers, or any technology for that matter. Silena shut the door behind them staying close to it in case someone came through. Artemis stood behind Barbara and watched as she filtered through different screens within seconds.
"Got it there keeping him on the third floor, looks like they've got Ubu along with some other lower end shadows guarding him inside and outside the room" Barbara said.
"Where is Ubu?" Silena asked.
"In the room with Damian, with three other guards. Six are outside in the hallway" Barbara said.
"Are there any air vents?" Silena asked.
"Yes there's one in this room actually that will lead you up to the third floor and to a vent dropping you into Damian's room" Barbara said scanning the rest of the map for more guards.
"Perfect I'll go through the vents, while you two take the guards outside. Once all of them are taken care of you burst through the doors and I'll drop down from the ceiling" Selina said already moving towards air vent. "Once we get Damian we run out back to where we came from the boat should be there waiting for us".
"Should be, what do you mean should be?" Artemis asked.
Selina shrugged "Poor choice of words he'll be there. I'll see you ladies in a couple of minutes".
"You think we really will be seeing her again?" Barbara asked as they replaced the cover.
Artemis shrugged "Who knows let's just get this kid out of here without getting killed".
After making sure everything was clear the two girls headed towards the third floor hoping Silena would be there as well, and not on her own agenda.