Chapter 14

"She can defiantly shape shift," Artemis reported back at the Watchtower.

"We've known that she can shape shift, is that all you learned?" Batman asked, lifting an unseen eyebrow beneath his cowl.

"Well, she knew that I was there somehow. I'm not sure how but she did. Like she has a 6th sense or something like that." Artemis paused for a moment and smiled mischievously, "Almost like a Bat."

Batman gave Artemis a Batglare. "No."

"Maybe more like a mini Bat then?"

Robin appeared out of nowhere and fixed her with a Batglare of his own. "No."

Artemis couldn't help but chuckle to herself. Nothing pissed off the Bat or his protégé like suggesting there could be other "bats" out there. They prided themselves in thinking they were the only people capable of doing what they did in the way that they did. They didn't have problems with other heroes but they did have problems with other heroes encroaching on their cave (or territory, whatever you want to call it).

"What did she say?"

"She asked how Robin's shoulder was," Artemis said coolly.

Robin's face turned bright red beneath his domino mask, and absent mindedly cradled his right arm.

"Robin? Did you forget to mention something in your report?"

"Must have slipped my mind."

"Yes, as slippery as your mind is –" Artemis quirked but stopped talking when she saw that Batman was towering over Robin.

"Arm," Batman demanded, holding out his hand. Then he turned to Artemis, "We will continue this at another time."

She left Robin and Batman to sort out their…. Family? Personal? Cavely? Well, whatever kinda problems those two have. There are no words to describe the relationship between Batman and Robin. I take that back, they are the Dynamic Duo. That is the only description they get, the only description possible.

"What happened?" Batman asked Robin after Artemis had left the room.

"I dislocated my shoulder the night I met Shift," Robin said honestly, knowing that there was no other way to deal with the situation.

"Why was this not put in the report?" he asked examining Robin's still pain-filled shoulder.

"I've had a ton of dislocated shoulders, Bats. You know from back in the old days," Robin said, referring to when he was an acrobat in the circus. With all the different things they did, dislocations were a common event. And the only way to fix it is to pop it back in and give it a rest. And in this particular line of work, resting isn't exactly an option.

"It is still relevant. We file everything. We gather information, we analyze that information and then we make decisions based off of that information. We cannot make a logical decision if we don't have all the information. As detectives this is vital to understand."

"How does knowing that Zeke dislocated my shoulder help us solve anything?" Robin asked in a exasperated voice.

"It tells us why you didn't go after him and some random shape shifter did. It gives us the reason for her sudden appearance; she was trying to save you."

"I was fine. I didn't need saving," Robin was suddenly very defensive.

"And yet it was Shift that tackled Zeke, took him to the ground, got back your utility belt and untied you. Clearly you did need help." Batman rotated the boy's shoulder then released his arm.

"Before you say anything, I know that I need to do the shoulder exercises. And I know that I am not going on any missions until it's healed."

"Right and wrong. Yes do the exercises but you will be going on one mission in particular. Back to talk with Shift. But you will take Kid Flash with you. When you find her, figure out a way to get her to Gotham. We will talk to her on top of Wayne Tower. Dismissed," Batman said. He watched Robin walk out of the room to go find Kid Flash before leaving himself.

~0~0~0~0~

"So what happened?" I asked Jade over the phone that night.

"He says the butt of the gun slipped off his shoulder from the recoil and pegged him in the face. I've shot the guns they were using to hunt with, neither of them have a strong enough recoil to do that. He's lying."

"What do you thing actually happened?"

"Don't know, don't care?"

"Humor me."

"Well," Jade thought for a moment then replied. "You see what happened was God called up his pal Doctor Fate to wreak some well-deserved vengeance with an obnoxiously huge production involving a semi-truck, a small herd of deer, a jack hammer and Batman's car."

"No seriously, what you think happened?" I asked, though I was unable to get the image of a deer driving the Batmobile in full Batman costume.

"He stole a leprechaun's gold."

"No, really."

"A dollop of fairy dust."

"Jade-"

"He ripped the tag off a mattress."

"JADE!"

"I don't know Jamie. He won't tell me anything and I'm to the point that I just don't care," she said exasperatedly.

The line was quiet for a few seconds before I could think of anything to say. "Did they notice the wall?"

"Nope," I could hear the smile back in her voice, "They just walked in and said my room looked clean."

"Point for us."

"Hey, did you do the English paper we are supposed to be working on?"

"I've stated it but haven't gotten very far."

"What topic are you doing it on?"

"Whether or not superheroes are good role models."

"Awesome. Mine is on gun control."

"Didn't you already write that paper on gun control?"

"What's your point?"

"Have none, just checking," I said smiling. This would be the third time she has turned in this paper and our teacher still hadn't noticed.

"Hey, what time is practice tomorrow morning?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Starts at 4:30 and ends at 6:30 after school."

"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow then."

"Okay, bye," I hung up the phone.

I set my phone on my night stand and picked up my book. It was about Fire Lizards, basically miniature dragons. A girl had nine of these mythological beasts. My brain roamed as I read, fantasizing about the winged creatures. It got me wondering. I had changed into real animals before but what about the mythological ones? Could I change into those too? I stood up from my bed, still holding the book in my hands. I studied drawing on the front cover of the fire lizards. Closing my eyes, I willed myself to take the shape of a fire lizard. When I opened my eyes back up and hummed softly. I crawled over to my mirror and saw that I was indeed a fire lizard.

This has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me. I can change into anything I can imagine. I shifted back into my normal human form and hurried over to my book shelf. I started pulling book after book of my shelf. Mythology. Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them. Beginners Guide to Hunting Monsters. Every book I had on mythological creatures.

I spent the rest of the night memorizing everything I could about these mythical beasts so I would have every beast possible on hand if I ever needed it. Life just keeps getting better and better.

~0~0~0~0~

"Now that we are here, care to tell me what your wondrous plan is?" Luke asked his twin as soon as they were in Gotham.

"What do you always hear about Gotham?"

"You mean besides the lovely breakfast pastries?" he asked sarcastically. Lilly just stared at him.

"That Batman keeps the rouges on the run or locked up."

"So we rally together all the rouges, starting in Gotham, to start a full out riot, too much for The Bat to handle and we have free rein of whatever we want in the city. But this isn't just limited to Gotham. We can go after Central City, Star City, whatever city we feel the need to terrorize."

Luke pondered her plan for a moment the narrowed his eyes at his sister, "How long have you been sitting on this plan?"

"How long had we been working for Haunt?" she answered his question with a question.

"Alright, then what's our first step?"

Lilly smiled at her brother in such a way that he felt the need to take half a step back. "How do you feel about orange jump suits?"

Yeah I had to put a little bit of Llamas with hats into my story. If you haven't heard of that and enjoy a good morbid laugh I highly suggest you look up Llamas with Hats on youtube. There are 4 of them but each has its own morbid humor. I love them. It will get to the point where you can quote all of them. *coughlikeicancough*

And also some lion king….

And the book I referenced is Dragonsinger. The whole humming thing is something that the fire lizards do a lot so I figured it would fit in nicely. It's by Anne McCaffrey and is the first book in one of my favorate series ever! Must read!

And those are also all books that I have. I like my mythological creatures :D

And just a little fun fact, the whole throwing knifes at the wall and painting over the holes with the wrong color first time around did actually happen. And I did say it looked like the wall had leprosy.