OKAYSSSSSSS……. The second chapter repeats some conversations, but maybe it will just refresh your memories. Hopefully.
Chapter 2
It was a stressful time for the Legion. Multiple villains had escaped from the high security prison, and everyone depended on the Legion for protection constantly. The most frequent battles happened against the Fatal Five, and they were the most hazardous at the moment. For instance last week they had wrecked an entire block, including the local library and Superman's favorite ice-cream shop. Superman sighed. He hadn't had anytime for himself lately, and the condition of the injured kid kept his thoughts away from his daily tasks. He DID catch her, but he could not help but wonder if things would have been different if he had been paying more attention at the time. They didn't even know her name, let alone how to contact her parents. After walking down the long hallway, he finally reached the hospital ward's door. Trying not to look too downtrodden, he opened the creaky door and stepped in.
"Hey guys. How is she doing?" He asked the minute he walked in. Some of his friends were already inside standing around the girl's bed. Lightning Lad nodded to Saturn Girl before walking over to greet Superman. " 'Sup 'Supes. I don't know how to say this, but she hasn't shown any sign of waking yet…" he trailed off, giving a glance at the child. She looked really frail, probably around 10 or 11. Her blonde hair was wavy and barely past her shoulders. She was found wearing a normal tan tunic, common for low-class citizens in New Metropolis. The only thing that really stood out was a necklace, which was an aqua blue pendant the shape of a six-point star attached on a silver chain.
"Garth!" Phantom Girl said, adding quickly "it's okay Superman, I'm sure she'll be fine! Have you found anything on who she is yet?"
This only made Superman feel worse. He and Brainy had searched every citizen record and transportation ticket over the past few days, and they had not gotten anywhere. After explaining this to his friends, Lightning Lad raised an eyebrow.
"Hmmmmm…..really? That's weird. Maybe she's on vacation?"
"I don't think so….." Saturn Girl cut in, "I mean, a kid like her shouldn't be roaming around the streets so early without a parent-" she froze. What was that sound? "Did you hear that?!" Lightning Lad quickly whipped around to look at the kid.
"HEY 'SUPES! She's awake!"
At that, Superman turned his attention to the small figure in the oversized bed. Sure enough, she had her eyes open, and was staring at his friend with wide blue eyes. He watched as she sat up, and continued to stare at the Legionaries while blinking rapidly. Superman wondered if she had ever even seen a superhero before. She probably wasn't even from around here. Hey, maybe after she feels safe, we can find out who she is and where she's from. That would be best. Then he noticed Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad were at it again, and now Phantom Girl was beginning to get involved. He looked over at the quiet girl. After five seconds or so, she slowly turned her head towards him, fixing her eyes on his. At least she's awake now….. he thought silently and walked to the bed, giving the kid a smile. At that, she seemed to relax a little, and smiled back.
"Hey, you finally woke up. You feeling any better?" he asked quietly. She nodded, and pointed to the IV plug in her arm.
"Can I take this out?"
Superman was surprised. Her voice was so calm, not showing any signs of waking up in a strange place after being in a coma for a week. "Ummmm….. I don't know. I'm not a doctor, so you should probably ask one of them. You were asleep for a long time so-"
"For a week." It was not a question, but a statement.
"Yes," he said, not being able to keep the surprise from his face. How much did she already know about what happened? "Anyways, I wouldn't take that out until you know what it does-What are you doing??" the girl was taking the IV out as he spoke. Before he could stop her, it was out and on the table beside her bed. He could only stare in horror as he waited for something terrible to happen. When nothing did, he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"Why did you do that??"
"I didn't like it in my arm. It was creepy."
Superman shook his head for a minute before remembering something important. "Oh yeah. Can you please tell me your name? There wasn't any ID on you, so we weren't able to find were you live or contact your parents-"
"Of course not."
"What do you mean?" Superman was thoroughly confused.
"I mean, it is quite impossible to reach the dead."
"Oh." Superman said, feeling completely guilty for not considering that the girl was an orphan. "I am so sorry. Who is your guardian then? That person is going to be worried about you, you know?" At this, the girl looked down at her hands and started pulling at a bandage on her finger. After a while he asked cautiously, "do you have a guardian?" The blonde head shook back and forth before he heard her speak again. "I-I just came here recently. I know that….that I shouldn't be here on my own, but it would be the same anywhere else."
Good God. This child lives all on her own, with nobody to support or take care of her.
"We can help you get adopted. That way-"
"It's ok. I would rather be on my own," she added quickly. "Actually, I'll leave right now. I am so sorry for causing you all this trouble." She then began to take off the white sheets and step out of the crinkly bed. Suddenly the others stopped arguing and turned to Superman and the leaving girl. "What's going on?" Lightning Lad said. At that, the girl took a step, stumbled a bit, and then proceeded to walk towards the door. "Hey…where are you going??" Lightning Lad said confusedly, "I thought she was injured!" He put his hand on the small girl's shoulder, but it quickly slipped off when she took off out the door, shutting it behind her.
"What in the name of……WHATS GOING ON??"
"Well, what do we do now?" Phantom Girl asked Superman. They had obviously not heard the conversation he had with the kid.
"We got to go after her. She doesn't have a family of any kind. We need to get her somewhere safer than the streets." Superman knew he would feel guilty if anything happened to her if he just left her alone.
"Well then, let the chase begin," Lightning Lad said with a smile and grabbed the door handle. The door didn't budge. Frowning, he jiggled the handle with growing frustration and finally gave up.
"The door's stuck."
"Really," Saturn Girl said with a sigh, after trying to open it herself, "you'd think they'd build a hospital better. It's rusted shut."
"Well how are we going to get out," Lightning Lad asked. "Should we brake the door down or crash through the window-"
"WE ARE IN A HOSPITAL! You can't just burst through the windows of a hospital," Phantom Girl exclaimed. "Anyways, I'm going ahead." With that she phased to a ghost and walked through the door.
"Thanks for the help," Lightning Lad mumbled. "If we can't go through the windows or crash through a wall, how are we going to catch up to that kid?" Silence followed for a moment.
"Oh, wait! I could do that!"
"Do what? What can you do without causing a huge commotion-"
Before Lightning Lad could finish his question, Superman had melted the door handle with his laser-eyes-of-death.
"…Or you could do that."
With that, the three Legionnaires took off to catch up to their teammate and the escapee. After getting to the entrance of the hospital, Superman (slightly ahead of the others) found Phantom Girl standing in the middle of the concrete with the runaway child nowhere in sight.
"Where did she go?"
"Don't know. By the time I got out here she was already gone."
As Phantom Girl and the others started giving suggestions to where the girl might have run off to, Superman began to sweep the area using his x-ray vision. People in hover-cars, toddlers in strollers, there was not much to see. Brown was definitely not the easiest color to be looking for. Either that girl was extremely fast or…… an idea popped into his mind. Maybe she was just clever. His eyes came across trees and benches next to a winding footpath. The New-Metropolis Central Park. He then saw the girl running across the grass next to the lake.
"Bingo!" His friends turned to him in surprise.
"That means I found-"
"We know."
"Right. Well, she's running by Central Park's lake. We should probably head out there now." The three nodded in agreement and they all flew off with Superman in the lead. He went much faster than the rest, so he arrived there before the others had a chance to catch up. The running girl was looking behind her so when he landed right in front of her she bounced off of him and landed on her rear. Frowning, she pushed herself up and placed her hands behind her on the ground.
"Why are you following me," she said not bothering to look up.
"You just can't be on your own out here!"
"Why?"
"It's dangerous! Look, either you need to go back to the hospital, or we can take you to the closest orphanage. Anything's better than the streets!"
"I am not homeless, and besides, there is nothing dangerous-" she was cut off as the person she was talking to was thrust back into the nearest tree by a beam of green light. Superman crashed through the tree, along with five others on the way. Standing up, he turned to face the attacker. It was none other than the Emerald Empress.
"Well well, what do we have here," the evil leader asked with a chuckle. "The Man of Steel is all alone with nowhere to run." Superman looked around. He couldn't see the child or any of his friends. What was taking them so long to catch up?
"I wouldn't hold your breath," she said as if reading his mind. "Your friends are very busy trying to fend off some of my boys. Mono and I here thought it would be more fun to play with you though."
"Two on one? Shows how low you've dropped, Empress."
"You mean that child doesn't count? What I pity, I've seem to overlooked the fact that she's useless." At this Superman looked behind her to see that Mono had picked up the small girl with one hand and the other was glowing menacingly. The girl looked surprised that she was not on the ground anymore and was staring at the empty hand that was glowing a foot away from her face.
"Put her down Empress."
"Tsk tsk," she said shaking her head, "you should be more polite. Try anything funny and this kid won't have a face." Taking one of her hands off of her hips she put a closed fist up in the air.
"I'm giving you till the count of three to surrender before Mono gives the girl a makeover. That's awfully nice of me right? One……." She stuck one finger in the air. Superman's mind raced to figure out a better plan. Think, Superman, think. If I shoot Mono with my laser vision there won't be enough time to defend myself from an attack from the Emerald Empress.
"Two…….." The second finger went up. Time was short. I could attack the Empress first and then take out Mono…. But he knew that the villains would not hesitate to harm or even kill an unarmed civilian. He could not risk a person's life. He decided to surrender until backup arrived.
"ThreeAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Before the last finger could rise and Superman claim to surrender, a giant wave of lake water crashed down on the unsuspecting villains, hostage and all. Superman flew up away from the crashing wave and stared in amazement. This was certainly strange.
"What on earth happened here?!"
Superman turned and found himself looking at Saturn Girl, Lightning Lad, and Phantom Girl. They all were also staring at the choppy waves beneath them.
"Sorry we were late, but we were held up by three of those Fatal Five goons," Phantom Girl said without taking her eyes off the water. "Can you tell us why the lake isn't where it's supposed to be?"
"Yeah, and where did the kid go," Lighting Lad asked while taking a look around, "I thought you had her." It was like someone had smacked Superman in the gut with kryptonite. The girl. What if she did not know how to swim? She could be drowned because he had forgotten. He searched the water with his eyes as swiftly as he could. Then he saw her.
"Is that her standing in the middle of the water?"
It was. Standing in, no, on the water was a small blonde girl in brown. Superman immediately sped over to her, noting that the water was receding back into the lake. Hovering just over the water, he placed a hand on her shoulder. Strange, it's completely dry. Pushing the thought aside, he asked if she was alright.
Nodding her head, he heard a barely audible "of course" before Lightning Lad appeared behind Superman, carrying an unconscious and soaked Empress.
"What the heck was that??"
"That," the girl said with a blank face, "was me."
TEN MINUTES LATER……….
Brainiac 5 was extremely bored. Of course he was busy, but lately it was all tiresome busywork. Plan effective patrols, record and evaluate the Scavenger's movements, finish building a better communicator, and he still could not find anything about the girl Superman was obsessing over. There was a 94 chance they never would find anything about her. Sighing, he propped his head on his hand and shifted his feet. Currently he was finishing a compiled report on the Scavenger's movements, objectives, possible targets, so on and so on. He had already shortened it by at least half, and it was exactly 132 pages long. Of course, he suspected his fellow legionnaires would complain, but hopefully they would actually read it this time. Honestly, sometimes their neglect to pay attention made him feel so… unappreciated. At least Superman tried to look like he was paying attention. Speaking of which, Superman should be back by now. It has been 52 and a half minutes and the friendly kryptonian never spent that much time visiting the girl in the hospital. Why anyone would want to visit a person in an unresponsive coma, he would never understand. Brainiac 5 was about to comm him when he heard the door hiss open.
"About time. Superman, I need your opinion on the order of the places we go sightseeing on our next patrol..."
"Never mind that, Brainy! Look who finally rolled out of bed!"
That was Lightning Lad's voice. Turning his hover chair around, Brainiac 5 saw Superman and his teammates walk in accompanied by the coma-girl. She was definitely out of her coma, but she seemed to be having trouble walking straight. A common side effect of being immobile in a bed for a week. Brainy noted that she did not notice Superman's steadying hand on her shoulder that kept her from falling, but instead was staring at the room she was in. She seemed either very observant or very distracted.
"Okay, I understand she is awake, but why did you bring a common citizen into Legionnaire Headquarters??"
"Chill Brainy," Phantom Girl said exasperatedly. "Don't freak out until you hear what just happened.
"Besides," Saturn Girl added, "she's not just some common citizen."
"I was not 'freaking out'," the small android mumbled. "Alright, then what did happen that caused you to be so late for patrol?"
"The Fatal Five attacked us! It was a complete ambush!"
"That is impossible. If the had, I would have known about it." He kept tabs on every police scan and super-villain. That is how the Legion was always able to save the day in time. There was almost never a distress signal that got past Brainiac 5's notice.
"Well, I'm not sure why, but they were able to surprise us. We didn't get so much as a warning," Phantom Girl said, along with waving her hands in the air to show their 'surprise'. "Anyhow, you'll be happy to know that we were able to handle ourselves."
"Evidently, or you wouldn't be here." Brainy shifted his feet again. He was becoming agitated. "That still does not explain why you brought her with you back here." At that the girl snapped out of whatever she was thinking and stopped staring at the huge windows. Her eyes then drifted to the boy sitting at a giant screen of Computo. Her face did not portray any emotion, just a blank stare. Unsettled, Brainy turned his attention back to Superman.
"Brainy," Superman said, "fact is, we wouldn't have been able to do it if she hadn't been there." The girl's eyes darted to Superman behind her for a second before returning to Brainy. "She probably helped the most."
"She has powers too!" squealed Phantom Girl.
"So we decided to take her in," Saturn Girl explained, "with her having superpowers, she can join the Legion." Lightning Lad closed his eyes and nodded, and Phantom Girl just squealed again. Superman seemed busy trying to get the small girl to stop staring at Brainiac 5.
"It is against the rules to recruit a Legionnaire member without holding a proper audition," Brainy stated. "Besides, she's quite young to be fighting evil villains like the Emerald Empress and such."
"Look who's talking," Lightning Lad mumbled. Brainiac 5 gave him a sharp glare.
"Well then, I'm going to show her her room and get her a better set of clothes," Saturn girl said cheerily while taking the girl's hand and walking towards another door. "In the mean time, you guys handle this. I'll be right back." With that, Saturn Girl walked out of the room. The child gave one last look at Superman before following after Saturn Girl. The door hissed shut, and Superman crossed his arms over his chest.
"Look, she's staying whether she's a Legionnaire or not," Superman said matter-o-factly with a serious face.
Brainy felt like he was missing something. "Pardon, but I believe I need to be filled in on what exactly happened 50 minutes ago."
After hearing about the girl's awaking and the battle with the Fatal Five, Brainiac 5 still had a lot of questions.
"I understand your concerns. But just because she is an orphan and can control water does not mean we can simply allow her to join the Legion. You don't even know her name."
"Her name is Momi," Saturn Girl said tensely as she walked back into the room. "I talked to her, and even though she doesn't talk much, I do know that she's been living on her own for quite some time now and that although she has no problems with joining the Legion, she will not stay if others are against it." Saturn Girl directed the last part towards Brainiac 5. She had one of those if-you-piss-me-off-you're-dead faces on. Brainiac 5 knew what happened the last time Lightning Lad angered Saturn Girl. It was quite a mess afterwards and now Lightning Lad always ran from the room if that face was directed at him.
"Fine. Even though it is against protocol and regulations, this can be an exception-"
"GREAT! I want to help pick out her outfit!" Phantom Girl interrupted happily and began to float out the door.
"Um, Phantom Girl? I think she's asleep. At least she was when I left her," Saturn Girl informed Phantom Girl.
"That won't stop me from taking her measurements!" Brainy could have sworn he saw an evil glint in Phantom Girl's eye as she floated out the door. It must have been his optical sensors malfunctioning.
"Poor girl," Lightning Lad said as he shook his head. "Her future in the Legion is doomed if she lets Phantom Girl choose her outfit." No one enjoyed talking about their first superhero costume if Phantom Girl was the one who made it. Everyone was letting the thought sink in when Superman spoke up.
"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I think it's time for me and Brainy to go on patrol and you and Lightning Lad need to help escort the Fatal Five to jail."
"Sure," Saturn Girl responded, "You go on ahead; I'm sure Phantom Girl will 'take care' of Momi." She grabbed Lightning Lad's hand and rushed him out the door. Superman scratched his head and looked back at Brainy.
"You ready to go?"
"Naturally." Then Brainy activated his flight ring, stepped out of his hover-chair, and followed Superman out of the exit.