Avery quickly wiped the semi-panicked look off her face. She stayed quiet and listened to the messages going through the link. Beast Boy was down. Guardian went to help him from the relentless blows of Deathstroke and ended up taking a few himself.
The gym teacher whistled loudly, letting it reverberate through the locker room. "Alright ladies, there's a shelter-in-place going on now. You know not to leave the locker room. Feel free to talk, quietly."
Marilyn came over and sat next to Avery against the tiled wall. "So, I guess we're stuck here for a little while."
"Yeah," Avery muttered, half paying attention again. Her thoughts were racing. A drill where no one could leave the room they're in, where they can't notice if a deadly man is going through the halls, it was too perfect. Deathstroke did plan it, and he planned it well. Any student he wanted to use as a hostage and he'd know right where to find them.
"Are you okay?" Marilyn asked, brow furrowed. "You look like you're gonna be sick."
Avery faltered, "Fine." She glanced around and saw the doors to the bathroom. "I just have to use the bathroom real quick."
"Okay…" Marilyn stayed sitting on the ground with a confused look on her face.
Once in the bathroom, Avery leaned against the cold wall, trying to let the temperature relax her. The small light trickling in from a window high on the wall did little of anything but light up that one side of the room.
Over the link, Superboy called out, "We've got incomings."
Miss Martian answered back, "Who?"
"Looks like…Shadows," Superboy sounded confused, but no one questioned his judgment on who it was.
"Where are they headed?" Avery asked.
Knowing the layout of the high school, Superboy answered back the quickest, "A few are staying back to stall us. The rest are going towards the math hallway and the gym."
Avery froze up. David had math during second period and it was obvious enough who was in gym at that time. She had to compose herself once again when Marilyn walked into the bathroom.
"You've been in here a little while. Sure you're okay?"
"Not really. I need to get a little air," Avery's eyes flitted towards the window. It was high up, but she was confident she could fit through.
"Sneaking out, huh?" Marilyn smiled, perfectly accustomed to breaking the rules apparently. "I'll cover for you."
Avery smiled back, "Thank you, I will be back as soon as I can."
"Wait here for a second though." Marilyn left the bathroom, the door banging loudly behind her. Avery still did as she was told. In about a minute the red head arrived back, "Here, take these." In her hands were a container for contacts and a cheap white, full face mask that can be found in any party store. There was a messy streak of black paint going horizontally over the eyes. "I need the mask back for theatre next hour though."
"What is this for?" Avery took the two items. She recognized the contacts container as her own, "And how did you get my contacts. They were in my closed locker."
"Don't want you getting recognized by the staff, now do we? What fun would it be if you spent the rest of the day in the principal's office?" A smirk slid onto Marilyn's features at that point, "As for the whole locker conundrum… well, you're not the only one here from a big city."
"Thank you," Avery began putting in her contacts, and then slid the mask onto her face. She put her glasses into Marilyn's open hand and thanked her again.
Marilyn leaned against the wall, "If you need to blow off some steam the equipment locker is usually unlocked outside. Got a bunch of stuff in it like basketballs, lacrosse equipment, archery stuff."
Avery noted the presence of archery equipment. She may not be the best with a bow at that point, but she could still help. With a quick nod of recognition Avery jumped up on one of the sinks then used the momentum to reach the window. She pushed it open and slid though, landing on the ground below softly.
Originally, Avery wasn't supposed to leave the building. She was supposed to go through classes normally and wait for everyone else to fight the bad guys. But from what she's heard, this kind of stuff never actually goes to plan. "Where are they now?" Avery asked. She was currently on the south side of the gym, and didn't see a single person. Which was actually a good thing in the long run, considering the south side of the school was very visible to anyone walking by.
"We've stopped the ones going to the gym and diverted them to the football field. Nightwing went to go take down the ones going to the math hallway," Guardian answered back.
Math hallway it is, Avery decided to herself. She ran around the brick building she just jumped out of, rounding about towards the math hallway. A medium sized brick structure stood alone in her path. The white painted letters on the metal door clearly indicated it was the equipment locker. Hesitantly, as if hoping it would be unlocked like Marilyn said, Avery turned the handle. The satisfying click of the door opening sang to Avery's ears. Inside, there were bins and more bins of all types of equipment. Along the wall there were lacrosse sticks, and hallelujah, standard bows. Below the bows were small quivers, only holding a few arrows at a time. Upon further examination, the arrows just had rounded wooden tips. They wouldn't do much damage, but it was enough.
Without any more hesitation, Avery grabbed a bow and slung two quivers onto her back, loading as many arrows in as she could. As she was leaving she grabbed a tennis ball on instinct. It wouldn't hurt to have with her, and it didn't slow her down any.
After a half a minute of sprinting around the campus, Avery found herself at the gridlock. Nightwing was there fighting off a number of Shadows at once. He was protecting the one set of doors into the hallway from outside. Every time one made a move for the door, he'd stop them. Avery threw the tennis ball at the head of one of the Shadows at the back of the skirmish. He turned and charged Avery.
Avery had heard of how well trained the Shadows were. She dropped the bow and slid into a stance for the oncoming fight. The Shadow pulled out his nun chucks at the last second and attempted a hit at Avery's abdomen as he ran past. She quickly dodged and used the small moment he had his back to her to pick up her bow and get off a shot at the back of his legs, tripping him.
He recovered quickly, getting back up and pulling out small throwing knives. They were thrown in a way that Avery couldn't avoid all of them. One landed right in the crook of her left arm. The Shadow used the moment of surprise at getting hit to send a kick at Avery's abdomen. She was pushed back by the force of the kick, but remained on her feet. The Shadow wasted no time in attacking again. He sent a flurry of punches to various pressure points. Any hits that weren't blocked were recovered from quick enough due to Avery's healing.
One last punch was all the opening Avery needed. She grabbed the Shadow's arm and twisted, making him turn around. She used her foot to flick his discarded nun chucks up to her waiting and open hand. She used the traditionally longer chain to wrap around the Shadow's wrist once, then grabbing his other arm and wrapping it too. Once they were wrapped Avery grabbed the knife out of her arm and stuck it in between the chains, essentially locking them in place. With one sweep of her leg, she knocked the Shadow down face first onto the ground. The fall knocked him out, saving Avery that much more trouble.
She turned around to help Nightwing with the others. He already had half of them down, leaving two left. Avery ran towards the one that was giving Nightwing the most trouble and jumped up, using both legs to force the Shadow into the closed metal door. The force dazed him enough for Nightwing to knock him out completely, and then finish disabling the other.
Not even commenting about how Avery broke from the plan, Nightwing gave her a stiff nod of praise and explained what they needed to do next.
A/N: Yup, getting there ever so slowly. I swear everything will be explained in later chapters if you had any questions here. I really suck at doing fight scenes, so these next few chapters will be great practice. Sorry if you don't like my updating schedule as of late, but I've got stuff to do. Thank you to those of you that accept how horrible my schedule is and developed a nice trait called patience. On another note, the last chapter didn't get very many reviews, I was kinda disappointed. On a brighter note, an artist on deviantArt did a picture of Avery at my request. You can put in the regular deviantArt address then put this: /art/Requested-YJ-Character-381182516
To the guest ZAP~ I will answer your wonderful question in a few chapters. So don't worry too much.
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