A/N:- Still not my characters. No siree bob.
Tatsu's hand around her wrist was like a vice. No matter how harshly Laurel tugged against it, she could not shake the woman's grip.
Mouth dry, she turned eyes she knew must be wide and unbelieving towards Tatsu. "Let me go," she managed to croak, forcing the words out with effort. "That's my sister."
"There is someone who must speak to you first," Tatsu said. For all the force she used to hold Laurel, she did not look especially strained. Laurel had the distinct impression that were she to elevate her attempts to escape, Tatsu would meet her step by step, and surpass her at every one. She thought about shouting, calling Sara's name, attracting her sister somehow, but given the gravelly result of her last attempt to speak, she rather thought it might come out as little more than a squeal.
She gulped, forcing the lump in her throat down. "My sister," she pleaded again. The last time she had seen Sara was back in Ollie's foundry, laid out on a table, an arrow sticking out of her gut, and blank eyes staring at nothing. She remembered the cold clamminess of her sister's skin as she had carefully caressed her cheek, while numbness filled Laurel's gut. Dead. Dead and gone, and the light of the world gone with her.
It had been Sara's death that had first urged her to take up the mantle of the Canary. The last year had been a long struggle for Laurel, the rage she felt at the indignity of her sister's death – as little more than a pawn in Malcolm Merlyn and Ra's al Ghul's sick game of chess – threatening to overtake her at every step. But Laurel had persevered, survived, adapted. Found a new reason to wear Sara's jacket beyond simple revenge.
"How is she…?" she tried, but the words caught in her throat again. Wild eyes swivelled back to Sara, but her sister had moved from sight again. Laurel tried to move to follow, but Tatsu's grip increased.
"In time," Tatsu said. There was a hint of something in her voice, something that spoke of someone speaking to a child. No. Laurel amended that. A mother's sympathy, and patience. Tatsu had lost everything over the last few years; first her son, dead in her arms; then her husband, dead by her hand. Laurel imagined that she would crack if she had been forced through what the other woman survived. "There is someone you need to speak to first."
Laurel let Tatsu drag her away from the conference room, down the other short corridor, towards the plain door at the far end. On the other side was a small office, not much larger than her new one in the DA's office. A roughly oblong shape, one wall held a window with a view out onto the darkened streets of Keystone, where Laurel could see the high structures of Midtown dominating the landscape. A heavy oaken desk, varnished dark, stood near that window, with a flat screen monitor, keyboard, and a host of other office stationary upon it, while a high backed leather chair sat between the desk and the window. The right wall was lined high with row upon row of thick tomes – a quick glance told her these were mostly law books. She owned most of the ones here herself. Opposite the bookcase, and filling almost all of the other wall, was the largest TV screen Laurel had seen in her life, and she'd seen the TV's the Merlyn's and the Queen's owned!
The room was also, quite obviously, empty.
"So who is this person I need to speak to?" Laurel demanded, already turning back towards the door. Almost as soon as her words had finished, the large TV screen blinked into light. Streams of what looked like computer code, bright green against a black background, cascaded down the screen. A moment later something swelled inside the code, diverting its path, until what appeared to be a face swam into focus. It was a female face, heartshaped, but with blank eyes and a stillness that revealed it to be a mask – or at least, a representation of one.
"Greetings, Laurel," the face said through motionless lips; female, no doubt, but fed through a voice changer, not unlike the one Cisco had added to the device around Laurel's throat.
Laurel turned to the screen, her face hardening, and she crossed her arms across her chest. "How is my sister alive?" she demanded.
For all its static appearance, there was the slight impression that the mask smiled slightly. "Straight to the important questions," the mask said. "But perhaps not the best place to start. For that, I think we should start with who I am.
"You can call me Oracle. Over the last few months, I have… been forced to reassess the way I deal with my family business. There are many things I cannot do. But what I can do, better than probably anyone else, is offer support and overwatch to any number of costumed crime fighters the length and breadth of the city."
"Can't say I've ever heard of you," Laurel said. She realised she should feel silly, staring hot daggers at a TV screen that probably couldn't even see her, but that didn't stop her.
Again, that hint of an amused smile. "I work very exclusively. Some heroes don't need me; your friend Oliver Queen has the young Miss Smoak to fill many of the services I can offer."
"I don't understand," Laurel said, trying to put as much confusion into her voice as she could manage. "What's this about Ollie?"
"I already know that Oliver Queen is the Arrow," the mask – Oracle – replied casually.
Laurel rounded on Tatsu. "That was not your secret to tell," she hissed.
"It was not Tatsu," Oracle said. "I figured it out. Didn't take me long; when you're trained by the best, most mysteries aren't all that mysterious. Really puts a cramp on reading Agatha Christie, I'll tell you that."
There was a brief pause. "Anyway, from there, is was a short skip to figuring out that you, Miss Lance, were the Black Canary, and Roy Harper was Arsenal. I can't figure out who Mr Queen's new sidekick is, though. For a while I thought it might be Queen's half-sister, but that's just preposterous."
It took all of Laurel's effort to school her face to emotionless. She silently thanked her years at the bar – the legal one, not the other kind.
"Anyway, this place is one of my properties; I own several around the country, through several dummy companies. Usually, it's a place for those I assist to regroup, stay low, or put in any research they may require. When Ms Yamashiro chose Keystone City as her latest place to inhabit, I reached out. I needed some assistance in dealing with a few of the more unsavoury types that Keystone can attract, and Tatsu was more than willing to offer her assistance. What began as a onetime deal soon escalated. Unfortunately, Tatsu has something of a single mindedness towards crime fighting, and I could only ask for her assistance when the ends justified those means. So I was forced to look elsewhere."
"Wait a minute," Laurel exclaimed. "Are you trying to tell me that I only got my job with the DA's office so you could have a hero in Keystone!?"
"Of course not, Ms Lance," Oracle said, taken aback by the accusation. "You earned that job by yourself – apparently, you were even actively head hunted. I had not yet cultivated a contact I believed could be good for this city, but when I found out you were on your way here, I knew I could not pass up such a fortunate coincidence, and had been preparing to reach out after you had established yourself. Unfortunately, something happened just a few days ago that almost changed that schedule."
"My sister," Laurel breathed.
"I found her three nights ago," Tatsu said. "There was a disturbance, and Oracle asked me to investigate. When I arrived, I found Sara was the cause of the disturbance; she had taken down a gang of traffickers, freeing the women they had attempted to enslave. But she did not know me, barely knew herself."
"And she will not know you," Oracle added, and Laurel's heart dropped. "She knows her name is Sara, nothing more, though she has retained her fighting abilities, and her dedication that no woman should suffer at the hands of men. How she is alive, she does not know; she is not even aware she were ever dead."
"But I have to tell her," Laurel said, turning for the door. Tatsu moved, putting herself between Laurel and the doorway. "She'll remember me," she pleaded to the other woman. "She has to. If I tell her who she is, she'll remember."
"I'm afraid you can't do that," Oracle said. "We don't know what happened to her, but given who she used to ally herself with, it's highly likely a Lazarus Pit was involved. And we just don't know enough about that, what it does to a person. Especially a person who was all the way dead, like Sara was."
"Please, Laurel," Tatsu said. "Oracle has the right of this. We cannot know what effect the truth would do to Sara. Until we know, or until she remembers by herself, we must not tell her."
"The last time I kept something from someone I loved," Laurel spat, "it almost ruined our relationship forever."
"And you need to keep this secret for the same reason," Oracle said. "To protect your sister."
Laurel sagged. Her father's words swelled in her head, words he had spoken when she was only nine, and her sister a few years younger. They had been at the park, playing on the seesaw, and the bright sunlight glared above them. Look after your sister, Laurel, he'd said. Look after your sister.
"I don't like this," she muttered.
"I understand," Oracle said.
Laurel let out a long sigh. "So, if you want my help, why don't you tell me who you are?" she asked.
The emotionless mask barked a laugh. "Girl's gotta have some secrets," she said.
Sara looked up as the door to the conference room slid open, and the two women stepped inside. Laurel forced back the urge to run to her sister, to take her in her arms, to stroke her hair and tell her it was all going to be alright. It was the complete and total lack of recognition that halted her feet.
Her sister rose, and Laurel realised she wore a variation of the Canary outfit she had during life, only this one was a lot less brazen around the chest, and starkly white where the other had been black as night.
"Tatsu," Sara said brightly. "Who is your friend?"
Laurel interjected with her name, and Sara gave hers back. Just Sara, as Oracle had said.
"Are you a hero too?" Sara asked.
"Yes," Laurel replied, though she had never really connected that word with herself. What she did, she did because it was needed, not to be a hero. "They call me Black Canary."
Sara cocked her head to one side. "They…" she began, then flicked her eyes to Tatsu. "I have been called Ta-er al-Safar. It means Yellow Bird… a canary."
"You remember this?" Tatsu asked, but Sara shook her head.
"I don't… I don't know, it just popped into my head just then. But I know it as surely as I know my name." She turned back to Laurel. "I don't think I'm someone who believes in coincidence, and this is too big of one. And when you came in… you looked at me as if expecting me to know who you were?" There was a pleading to Sara's voice, and Laurel almost broke there. It was only Tatsu's upheld hand, out of Sara's sight, that stopped her.
"We have met," Laurel said, looking at Tatsu. She paused, choosing her words carefully, then looked back at her baby sister. "You saved me, once. I was at my lowest; I had lost so much, almost given up on everything, spiralling down and down and down, and then suddenly you were there. The Canary. The hero I needed. You saved me, Sara. Pulled me out of the darkness. So I became the Black Canary. For you, to honour you, who had saved me when I didn't really believe I deserved saving." Every word was the truth. But it was not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I can't tell her, Laurel thought, hating every second of it. It might kill her to know.
Sara grinned. "I think I like you Laurel," she said. Laurel smiled back, unable to find the words. She was saved by the large bank of monitors at the head of the table blinking into light, revealing the now familiar visage of Oracle.
"Oops," said Sara, sliding quickly into a chair. "Boss lady's here."
Laurel took a chair on the opposite side of the table, across from her sister. Tatsu remained standing, still, like a statue.
"If you've all finished introducing yourselves, I need your help," Oracle said. One of the monitors switched, to show silent footage of the news, replaying the story from earlier that morning. The flying woman who had saved the girl. "I'm sure everyone knows what happened in Keystone City this morning? This is the flying woman, the newest hero on the scene."
"Are you sure it's not Supergirl?" Laurel asked.
"No," Oracle replied. "I know who Supergirl is. This isn't her."
"You know who Supergirl is?" Laurel breathed, unable to keep the excitement from her voice.
"Yes, but this is not one of my secrets to tell."
Laurel fought the disappointment.
The monitor shifted again, this time to show a high angle of a rooftop. The footage was blurry, as if taken from a great distance, and zoomed in passed clarity. What was clear, though, was the young girl standing on the other side of the balustrade, ready to jump. As they all watched, another woman exited from the stairwell, moving close to the girl. There was a few moments as they spoke – there was no sound, so Laurel could only assume they spoke – then the newcomer turned and walked off. She was halfway to the door leading back into the building when she paused. The indecision was palpable even through the quality of the footage. A moment later she turned around and sprinted back towards the ledge even as the girl was throwing herself off. The woman dived after her, and wings appeared to sprout from her shoulder blades; large avian wings, all feathers and wingspan.
"Where did those come from?" That hoarse whisper came from Sara, who stared enraptured at the footage.
"No idea," said Oracle. "And I really don't like not knowing things. Anyway, here's some footage from earlier."
CCTV footage replaced the overhead shot, this time of a bustling side walk. The camera zoomed in on one woman, wearing the same ensemble as the flyer. She paused, like those around her, staring up at something high and out of shot. Then she glanced nervously around herself, and vanished into an alleyway.
"Shouldn't be too hard to figure out who she is," Sara said. "Just backtrack where she started from, simple as that."
"I already know who she is," Oracle said. "That's not why I asked you, Tatsu, and Laurel here."
"What is?" Tatsu asked. She had not moved, her face emotionless.
More footage, this time in what appeared to be a darkened warehouse. Laurel had been in enough of those over the last few months. A woman strode confidently into the middle of the floor space. She wore what appeared to be the breastplate of some ancient piece of armour, and a helmet with an obvious beak and plumes of feathers sweeping up like wings. Those were not the only wings she had; on her back, much like the flying woman before, were large feathered wings, folded up like a bird would when not in flight.
"Same woman?" Laurel asked.
"Same woman," Oracle confirmed. "Watch what happens next."
One the screen there was sudden movement, and a dozen or more black shapes, clearly human but swathed in darkness, spilled from the shadows towards the woman. There was a flash of light as multiple swords were drawn.
"Ninjas," Tatsu said, even as the battle was joined. The woman on screen fought back, clubbing at her attackers with a long handled weapon. Its head was a solid ball of metal, spiked dangerously. It collided with skulls and bones with a violence that could be felt even through the monitors.
"Wow," Laurel found herself saying. "They do say women should carry Mace to protect themselves."
Sara let out a snort of laughter, her face beaming, and once again Laurel reinforced her hatred for the man who had taken her light from the world.
The laughter was short lived, though, for on the screen the ninjas – with their superior numbers – soon overwhelmed the woman. She fought back valiantly, but was soon covered by a mass of black cloth, and slowly dragged away. The footage froze.
"And that's why I need you," Oracle said, over the image of the woman, screaming in defiance. "I need you to find this woman, and help her."