Geez this was hard to write. I'm getting to the point where I am actually getting somewhere with the story, so now I have to start taking it seriously. Consider how the show was written, the personalities created for it and how my creation fits in to the universe. Also developing quirks, backgrounds and characterization for canon characters that didn't get a lot of screen time. Sure I've got something,(*cough*wikipedia*cough*) but it's still not going to fit everything perfectly. And now I'm just babbling.

Ah well...

Enjoy

"Italics" = Spoken in a languages other than English

Italics = Thoughts

Chapter 5

In Which I Get Help

Boston, MA

February 10th 2017, 14:35 EST

The playground was full of snow.

It was the uncomfortable, half ice kind that happens after a thaw freezes again. You could crack your skull on it if you weren't careful. But Miss Martian didn't have that problem. You generally don't when you're floating a few inches above the ground. Conner had been concerned about her going in alone. He had been very protective since she got out of therapy with Black Canary, with a warning that this was a one-strike-your-out deal concerning abuse of telepathy, trying to shield her from anything that would upset her. It was sweet, in a way, but she just wished he'd stop walking on eggshells around her. She told him as much, or something that was equivalent to it, on the way over here.

"Look, I just don't think you should go out alone." he grumped turning his chair around so he could address her directly. She rolled her eyes,

"But I won't BE alone. I'll have you and Robin for backup."

"Not NEXT to you. What happens if this mystery person lashes out?"

"Then I'll defend myself. But they won't lash out. Their just a scared and confused kid."

"A scared and confused kid that can wield superheated FLAMES. I don't see why Batgirl can't do it. You know how heat affects you."

"Top secret mission in Bialya remember? Besides, she can't incapacite a hostile without touching them. I can. And I am almost 100 percent certain I won't NEED to."

He scowled, but they had known each other for nearly seven years now and he knew when she put her foot down the matter was closed.

"I still don't like it." He grumbled as the camouflaged bioship alighted on top of the school building. She rolled her eyes.

"Connor, I'll be fine." she said, floating up and planting a quick kiss on his cheek.

"See you soon."

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"The John Adams Elementary Playground, Boston MA, 2:30. I'll wait for an hour. If you're not there by 3:30 I'm hitting the road."

"You're making it sound like you ransoming somebody." Robin had remarked over Batgirl's shoulder as his comrade tried desperately to trace the signal of the incoming call.

"Yep. Myself." The voice had said over the intercom. "We got a deal or what?"

Robin turned off the microphone.

"Batgirl, have you pinpointed the signal yet?"

She huffed a strand of red hair out of her eyes. "The best that I have is that it's from a payphone in Boston. Whoever we're talking to has a good grasp on adaptive security systems. Its almost like the damn program is alive. But I CAN run the voice through a recognition program."

The Boy Wonder sighed. "I guess it have to do." He flicked on the microphone again.

"All right Pyre. We have a deal."

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Miss Martian found her on the swing set. The bright red coat she had described hung loosely off her shoulders, wavy dark hair spilling out of the trilby hat that had been pulled low over the face. One boot drew an aimless pattern in the snow around it. Carefully, as not to startle her new companion, Miss Martian took a seat on the other unoccupied swing. The figure jerked slightly at the clink of the chain but otherwise showed no sign of acknowledging Miss Martian's presence.

"Hafsa Alia El-Amin?"

This time the figure froze, as if it had been struck. Then the shoulders sagged, the head drooped and a small voice from the depths of the hat asked,

"How did you know?"

Miss Martian smiled gently, though she wasn't sure if the girl could see it in the depths of the hat.

"Well, you got the untraceable call part of the supervillain M.O, but-"

"I'm not a supervillain!" the girl burst out, her emotions immediately snapping to the defensive, her mind closing in on itself like a steel trap.

"I'm not implying you are." Miss Martian said soothingly, trying to get the girl back from whatever cliff edge she had unwittingly pushed her too.

Hello Megan! Newsflash, this is why you leave lighting the mood to Gar!

"I was just trying to explain how we found you and trying to put you at ease. But you're right. That joke was tasteless and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

There was a tense moment which stretched out almost too long before a certain exhalation of breath and relaxation of the shoulders told M'gann that all had been forgiven, for now. Thank you Black Canary. Those negotiation tactics and basic psychology lessons where really paying off. She had to remember to get her a BIG box of chocolates from Le Petit Cygne when this was all over. She took a deep breath, (An unneeded habit really, the oxygen rich atmosphere of Earth was an embarrassment of riches compared to her native Mars) and began again.

"BUT if you wished to remain anonymous in future, you might want to try to disguise your voice."

There was silence once more, before a sheepish laugh issued from the depths of the hat.

"Yeah, guess I really didn't think that one through huh?" said Hafsa, reaching up and taking the trilby off her head.

The face was indeed the one that Batgirl had showed them in one of the towers monitors. A light brown face with deep-set green eyes and high cheekbones, a straight thin nose and full lips. But it was also clear that this face hadn't been having the best sleep lately. There were deep bags under the eyes and the whole demeanor suggested that Hafsa was one hour and a missed coffee away from dropping like a fly.

"It's not easy is it? Finding out that you can suddenly do things you never even considered a possibility before." It was a safe bet and as luck would have it, hit the bullseye. Hafsa slumped even further down in her seat and the sigh she emitted sounded like it had been dragged from the very depths of her being.

"I just don't know what to do…" She said in a small voice. "I can't go to a doctor, god knows they'll have no idea what to do, I don't want to be some lab's guinea pig, my parents won't let me near ANYBODY including my little brother and the worst part is I think they have a point! It's not that I'd ever want to hurt him it's just…"

"They're worried because, even though you would never intentionally harm him, or anyone around you for that matter, your powers are very unstable and apparently linked to your mental state. And if you experience high amounts of stress, anger, fear, even joy you could unintentionally harm someone with the backlash."

The girl nodded dejectedly before her eyebrows furrowed and she fixed the Martian with and unerringly intense stare.

"How did you know it's…" but M'gann's pointed look cut her off. She looked down.

Her boots were smoking and the center of a steadily increasing puddle of melted ice. She yelped and picked both feet off the ground, holding her legs out straight in front of her as if trying to keep them at a safe distance. At the same time the hiss and ping of cooling metal brought her attention to her hands. The chain links around them glowed red hot. She yelped again, let go, lost her balance on the seat and fell backward in to the puddle before M'gann could react. There was a heartfelt groan from the puddle and a muffled murmur of

"Shit."

3333333

If there was one good thing about that fiasco, (And believe me it was REALLY hard to find) it was that I was apparently my own clothes dryer. A bit of concentration and a few seconds was all it took to get my soaking wet rear dry again. Now I was sitting on a bench, praying to god I didn't burn it down and trying to process what the nice green martian lady was telling me.

"I have to WHAT?!"

"Let me examine your memories." She said, looking nearly as uncomfortable about the prospect as me. She sighed.

"Look I understand why you're uncomfortable about it. On Earth the mind is a very private thing, a fact I have recently re-learned in great detail. But there is protocall I have to follow before I can offer you anything other than the most basic assistance and I don't think that is going to help you current position in any way if you're not cleared for it. So I really do feel like I have to ask your permission to examine your recent memories."

A cold wave of panic rushed up my spine and sent my pulse in to overdrive. I did a dry swallow.

"How recent we talkin' here?" I asked, willing my voice not to shake. She considered this.

"About two weeks? A month and a half at the outside."

I let go of a breath I didn't know I was holding in. I could handle that. But stil…

"And there is no other way around this?" I asked, knowing with absolute and unfaltering certainty that there wasn't. She smiled again.

"Afraid not. May I?"

I sighed heavily and closed my eyes.

"Yeah, sure. Go ahead."

For a few seconds there was nothing but my own eyes staring at my closed lids. Then something brushed against my consciousness and it was like the time Humam and Jawdah had poured a bucket of ice cubes down the back of my shirt for a joke. I jumped and immediately stiffened. My jaw clenched, my hands balled in to fists and my arms locked at my sides. My spine snapped to rigid attention and I tried not to whimper at the odd sensation of being two people at once. The presence gently prodded about for a few seconds before sighing and withdrawing from my mind.

"Hafsa."

"Yes?" I cringed at how squeaky it sounded, but kept my eyes shut tight.

"I'm going to have to ask you relax. Right now I feel like you believe I would rip the information out of your mind and that's a unpleasant experience for me, not to mention you. I want you to focus on something other than me right now. Picture something that makes you happy or something that you can focus on intensely and it will be a lot easier for both of us. You think you can do that?"

I bit my lip. Hard. Somehow I doubted anything less than the most supreme joy could distract from the fact your mind was no longer just your own, however temporary. I shuffled through a few fond memories, but all of them either didn't have enough long time staying power or were too private to show to someone I had technically just met. Something I could focus on, something that took up a lot of brainpower and emotional space in my head. So fixing the Century or… programming. And programming was a much more mental exercise than surfing the web for car parts or using power tools. Plus it had the added bonus of being near incomprehensible to people who didn't spend a good chunk of their time immersing themselves in it. I took a deep breath, waited till the lines of code began burning their bright blue script on the back of my corneas and nodded.

I knew what to expect now but it still was a shock when the martians mind brushed against mine for the second time. I took another deep breath and dove in to possible solutions to solving HIM's faulty spyware. There were technically endless possibilities to this issue, but only about nine that could conceivably work effectively and efficiently in any sort of reasonable timeframe. In my mind I began running preliminary tests.

My recent memories floated somewhere in the background, passing at unnatural speeds and not subject to my own mental wims. I concentrated harder. I had eliminated all non-trojan solutions and was now checking their basic operating speeds and possible delivery systems.

The memories where slowing, gaining a detail and clarity of thought that I was sure had not been there in the original view of events. Tireless wheels, pink flames, a chemical smell in the air.

I discarded three trojans and began deep analysis on the remaining two for stability and subtlety of their delivered packages in the target system.

The memories were nearly stagnant now, each being poured over like a frame of film, detail by detail before being turned over and replaced by the next one. She had gotten to the alley now. I could almost feel the cold metal of the barrel pressed against my temple.

Only one solution remained now. I began to flesh out the code in detail.

Fire roared from my palms in a blinding wave of heat and power, it's trajectory missing the left side of the thugs face by nearly a foot. Nevertheless, his skin began to bubble and run like a pan of fat left too long on the stove. The memory speed up, became a blur of color and sensations, retracted, died.

The last line of code clicked into place.

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Watchtower, In Orbit

February 10th 2017, 16:20 CST

"So she's not a threat?" said Captain Atom studying the image of the self-dubbed 'Pyre' floating a few feet above his head. M'gann shook her head.

"Scared, untrained, volatile and potentially destructive powers but no, not a threat. At least not intentionally. I gave her the address of a safehouse in the area and told her to meet me there this Saturday for some basic training. I'd like to request Black Canary accompany me for the physiological side of the proceedings."

"Granted. You did tell her that it was classified information?"

"I did, but it was hardly necessary. I don't know what she's more afraid of, her powers or the possibility of someone finding out about them."

"Well that's one potential disaster averted. Thank you Miss Martian you are dismissed."

M'gann nodded and flew in the direction of the living quarters. Captain Atom continued to pour over a report of the chemical components of the new Reach soft drink.

"Do you need something Ms. Lance?" he asked, not looking around.

"I can't come see my newest patient?" joked Black Canary, stepping out of the door frame and walking in to the monitor womb. She studied the young woman floating along with all the information the League had been able to dredge up on her at short notice. Her eyebrows rose.

"Says here her family landed in August of 2006. I thought all the Bialyan refugees came over in the 70's."

"A few thousand, yes. Most of them ended up in Israel and Turkey, though I think about 11,000 ended up in France. But a couple hundred every four years or so turn up here and there. I understand there's a pretty active immigration routes in the desert."

Dinah eyebrows rose further. "Yes I read about that. And all of 38% make it out alive. Makes you wonder what was happening back then that made us ignore such a huge political upheaval."

"We had more pressing matters to attend to at the time."

Dinah's eyes narrowed but she decided against arguing. It would have been like trying to kickbox a brick wall. You might as well get yourself a cast and be done with it. She switched to a different topic.

"I guess it was only a matter of time. Almost all the major cities in the world are reporting some sort of metahuman activity. I'm amazed the Reach captured as many as they did. Static said they got to practically all the juvenile gang population of Dakota."

"You believe she was a runaway?"

Dinah studied the image again. "Somehow I doubt it. I'll ask her of course, but I'm willing to bet hard money it was something related to that chemical fire Arsenal started. Maybe the fumes kickstarted some dormant gene, or the man who captured her had residue on his hands. Either way we won't know anything until we can run some serious diagnostics on her and Miss Martian said she seemed pretty scared of the idea of playing guinea pig. We'll just have to wait and see."

I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!

Sorry guys, life has been crazy, what with car trips and school prep and family visiting. Also my brain going off and making side tangents to this story instead of focusing on the main plot. I know that my chapters are going very slow, but bear with me I promise it gets better.

Tell me what you think, because if I don't get feedback I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT!

Zoo Out, Peace!