Can you believe it? i kept a promise! Here's the next chapter!
Vic slid into the cool metal chair, readying himself for a long six hours. He was one of the few members of the Justice League who was allowed to do monitor duty by himself. The official reason was that he was able to do the all the work himself, hence negating the necessity of having a second person on monitor duty with him. The unofficial reason was that spending six hours listening to the Question sing bubble gum pop under his breath was enough to drive most people insane. Vic scanned the three large screens in front of him. One displayed a list of active missions and those involved in them, the other displayed a map of Earth which showed possible threats and dangers. The final screen displayed profiles on members of the league and listed those who were available to go on missions, should the need arise. It was always fascinating to look through each member's profile. The profiles had started off as plain old profiles with generic information to assist the person on monitor duty in selecting members to go on missions. As time progressed however, they became more colourful as easily distracted members of the League who were on monitor duty and had forgotten to bring another means of entertainment turned their attentions to the poor, hapless profiles. It was practically a ritual to check your own profile each time you were on monitor duty just to see what new piece of information had been added. Once Booster Gold had walked in on Batman checking his own profile page. And people thought heroes were serious all the time. Before Vic had time to check his profile, the last time he'd seen it, it had featured the use of the words crackpot, crazed lunatic and just plain weird extensively, the centre screen started beeping. There were red dots on the map of the Earth showing threats to humanity. Vic sighed, time for actual work.
Helena's day was getting worse and worse. Breakfast had gone down spectacularly. Having every man in the room stare at her whilst every woman in the room glared at her was just ever so fun. The breakfast went way over time, due to a large, suspicious looking box that had somehow made its way into the breakfast hall. It belonged to no one in the hall and none of the catering staff had recognised it either. Security had been called in and the whole place had gone into lockdown. The box had turned out to be completely empty. After spending the longest afternoon in her life taking Yuri on a tour of Gotham, Helena was once again in a formal dress at a formal event surrounded by people she didn't know. It was the final event for this visit, a huge, extravagant dinner which was attended by major political figures of the US and of Russia and hordes of semi-famous hanger-ons from all over the country, including Bruce Wayne.
'That's odd,' thought Huntress, 'you'd think he'd at least tell me before he barges in here. This is my mission. Freaking uptight, pedantic, un-trusting loner who dresses up like an oversized bat every night and doesn't even trust people he's worked with for years...'
Vic was fuming. Why did people not take his aglets theory seriously? Someone, and he strongly suspected Stargirl, had written: 'Note: League member known for vandalism of property. Justifies his actions with the argument that our shoelaces will kill us all if we are not careful :P,' on his profile. He was about to edit it when the damned beeping interrupted him, again. He sighed, and turned his attention to the map of the Earth where there was a single red dot, hovering over a city that meant a lot to certain members of the League. Gotham City. Vic clicked on the red dot and scanned through the details of the situation. An unmarked, apparently harmless cardboard box had somehow made its way through close to a hundred security guards and packs of guard dogs to get into the hall where the Russian and US presidents were breakfasting. The relatively harmless incident sent alarm bells ringing through Vic's head. It was obviously a warning of some sort. If someone could get such a large box through security without anyone having seen it, then they could get other, more sinister things through too. Vic heard a barely audible rustle behind him. Someone else was thinking the same way too.
'Hello Batman.'
'Question. I've got this situation handled. Nobody else needs to be there. Gotham is my city. See to it that the other League members don't interfere.' With that, he was gone.
A few hours ago
Batman stared at the screen of his Bat Computer and ran a weary hand through his hair. His cowl lay on the ground beside him; he'd ripped it off in frustration after the third time he'd ran the samples he'd collected from the cardboard box through the computer. Minute traces of compounds used in the Joker's Joker venom. This was not good. The Batman did not believe in coincidences. Tonight's dinner was meant to be the climax of the Russians' visit to the US, it was the perfect time for the Joker to strike. He reached for his comm. link:
'Batman to Huntress, come in Huntress.' All he heard was static. 'Damn it.' There was no way this would be enough to call off the whole dinner. If the police wwere informed the most that would happen was extra security and that would tip off the Joker and let him know that they were onto him. 'Alfred! Prepare a tux and a limo, Bruce Wayne is going out tonight.'
'Very good Master Bruce, will you be in contact with that charming young man who goes by the Joker? If so I'll prepare one of your older tuxedos. It amazes me how you damage your clothes when you change into your batsuit. Why last time, you ripped the sleeve clean off your shirt!'
Helena nonchalantly approached Bruce, hoping that her reason for doing so wouldn't be too suspicious. As she did, she was waylayed by a man who was the splitting image of Yuri, except for his hair which he'd grown out to shoulder length. It was greasy and looked as though there were living things making it their home. Was there not a single normal person in that family?
'Valerie? Hello, I am Anton, Yuri's brother. Yuri has told me so much about you! You have to meet my girlfriend Hayley...'
'I'm sorry, I just have to go see my cousin, Bruce Wayne. We haven't seen each other in forever!' Helena scooted away as quickly as she could and dashed as quickly as she could in a floor length dress towards Bruce.
'Valerie! How good to see you!' Bruce said in his amiable Bruce voice. It was so different from his gruff, abrupt Batman voice. 'This is Valerie, my second cousin thrice removed. Or maybe my third cousin twice removed, I can never get it straight.' Bruce and the man he was speaking to both burst out laughing. Helena forced herself to laugh too. Damn whoever came up with her alias. She was going to hunt them down and make them pay for making her related to Batman.
'It's good to see you too Bruce. I wasn't expecting to see you tonight though. '
'Well, I wasn't planning oncoming but something came up and I found it suddenly quite necessary to come.' The look in his eyes told her he was in Batman mode. 'My beautiful cousin was going to be in town!' And Bruce Wayne mode was back. He leaned in to kiss Helena on the cheek. 'I suspect the Joker will strike tonight but I haven't got enough evidence.' Helena groaned inwardly. She'd been hoping for a relatively quiet night, though that was impossible considering the fact that they were in Gotham. She nodded almost imperceptibly and walked away to do a round of the room.
'Val-Val, there you are! Come, my brother tells me you have already met.' As the words came, an arm slid around Helena's waist and pulled her towards his brother. A blonde woman in a red and black dress was standing next to Anton.
'Ah Valerie, I'd like you to meet my gorgeous girlfriend. Valerie, this is Hayley, Hayley Queen.' Hayley looked at Helena through big, blue eyes.
'Pleased ter meet cha, Val. I think we're gonna be the best of friends. Don't you?' Hayley smiled at her creepily.
Cliff hanger, kind of. SORRY.
I became semi-obsessed with Batman over the past few weeks. i think batman has the best villains and i had to incorporate a few of them in here. Anyway, please review!