Chapter 52: A Helping Hand

Authors Note: Hello everyone I hope you had a very wonderful and happy Easter and what not. And to celebrate I have a new chapter and the final crew member of the Shadow Warriors. I do want to say that I am sorry I never expected this to take so long especially to you Illusive Man because your story sounded so cool but a good finale arc for the Warriors. I promise though after this it will be awesome. Stonecold I hope your reading because it is finally your time to shine. Okay, the warriors are going to take a little trip down to Mexico this time. So stay tuned for all the glory that is the Shadow Warriors.

Also, I'm in pain guys. A few months ago my kitty had a tumor and then turned to cancer. She was still so full of life but her eye got so swollen that she started bleeding and she started to smell horrible. We had no choice but to put her to sleep. Then my big cat Sylvester, is still looking around the house as if he's trying to find her. I'm hurting real bad so that's why this chapter took so long. Okay, I bored you enough.

Winnie Warney 2002-2013

Disclaimer: I do not own Batman.

After the team was patched up after the attack by Johnson and his men and not to mention Cyrus, Jayden went back to the evidence gallery to see if there was anything to give him any details on where Cyrus was.

When he returned there he noticed that a few cases were smashed open and that they were empty. He walked over and read the tags.

'Knife of Phantom'

'Helmet of Bruticus'

'Sword of Blackbeard'

'Lotus's Kunai'

'Double J's Dagger'

Jayden raised an eyebrow at the empty trophy cases. Why would a man send in a group of military experiments, defected ones experiments, all for the soul purpose of stealing broken trophies.

There was also the fact that Thanatos and Theodosia. They were both strong enough to take out anyone who stood in their way, but the way they looked was as if Superman and Batman came in and thrashed them.

Was Thanatos telling the truth, did he really have Adonis in his veins?

(!)

In a secluded location in the Sahara Desert, a man sat in a large monitor room sipping red wine. He was watching camera footage on holographic screens on the fight between the Shadow Warriors and Acolytes from the cameras he had hacked. He watched with satisfaction at how well the warriors were progressing as he heard the doors to his chambers open. He turned off the monitors and turned to see Cyrus walk in with a large duffle bag. Cyrus placed his hand over his chest and bowed.

"I have returned light." Cyrus said. Light rolled his eyes and let out a heavy sigh as he walked over and greeted his friend.

"I told you Cyrus, you don't have to be so formal." Light chuckled.

"I'm sorry, Adrian." Cyrus said. "I have the items you requested. Also, I should inform you that Leonae is out. My scanners found him while I was flying over. He is working with Red Hood."

"It matters not, you did great." Adrian thanked while observing the items before him. Adrian set them all out on his desk and smiled. "Great work Cyrus. These items have a very vast amount of life force in them. Except for this."

Cyrus panicked when Adrian picked up the broken knife that once belonged to Phantom. He examined the blade and the handle with a questionable look on his face.

"I am sorry Adrian." Cyrus said. Adrian was broken from his thoughts and looked over at his friend.

"It's not your fault. The fact that this blade has a small trace of life force only means that he's still alive. I'll handle it." Adrian reassured.

"Mr. Gallagher."

Out of the darkness of the room Seth Gallagher walked in wearing his long black rain coat while twirling his small sickle around.

"You shouted your majesty? "Seth asked sarcastically. Cyrus gave him a deadly glare.

"You would do best to show respect you worm!" Cyrus shouted.

"Or what?" Seth grunted, now standing nose to nose with him.

"Gentlemen, calm down." Adrian said placing a hand on both their shoulders. "Look, I resurrected you because I need your help in my master plan, but I need followers. I need you to go to Gotham and find Logan Crow. His life force readings are weak but they are still active."

"Logan, I haven't seen him since that whole Hush fiasco. I'll get it done." Seth said.

"Good, as for you Cyrus I need you to tell Shadow Man to send Slade and Red Saber to my manufacturing plant down in Mexico." Adrian then pulled up a picture of a young twenty year old Mexican woman with long black hair and brown eyes. Her outfit was an all-black leather biker outfit with the name Mystico on the top of her file. "I have a feeling the Shadow Warriors will be involved real soon."

(!)

Three girls were whimpering in a corner while a group of thugs cornered them. They each eyed the girls with lust and hunger slowly approaching them.

"Get away from us!" One of the girls screamed.

"Aw, come on." The thug chuckled. "We'll have a lot of fun."

"When a girl say no she means no pendejo." A young feminine voice snarled.

Everyone turned to see a young Mexican girl in a jet black biker outfit with a pair of sunglasses and a skull cap hiding her face.

"Who the hell are you?" The main thug asked.

"Oh shit, look at her outfit!" A scrawny thug shouted. "She's one of those Shadow Warriors!"

"That's a load of crap." The main thug snorted. "She's just some dumb bitch, who's about to get killed."

The girl remained silent before holding her hands up, both clothed in black leather gloves, and charged up a surge of red energy.

"I am a Shadow Warrior." She shouted.

She waved her hands and the thugs suddenly turned to stone. The girl looked at the stone thugs and smiled admiring her work. The girls quickly ran away before anything could happen while saying their thanks as they left. She was about to leaved when a young woman with long black hair and dressed in a magician outfit blocked her path.

"You are just planning on leaving him like that?" She snapped.

The girl looked back casually and then turned back to her and nodded.

"Pretty much yeah," She shrugged, looking up and down at her outfit. "So…Circus in town?"

"My name is Zatanna," She said, now glaring at the girl. "I am here to oversee the Shadow Warriors activities."

"Hmm, that makes you a member of the Justice League right?" She asked. Zatanna nodded. "Well, I guess I have no choice then to let you live."

"Wait, what?" She asked, confused.

"Yeah, rumors have it that you and your team have a shaky truce with the warriors." She said. "So, since I am a member I can't kill you or turn you into stone or a puppy so you're lucky chica."

"I could just stop you right now." Zatanna held her hands out towards the girl. "dnib reh!"

Just then the girl's arms were tied in some chain from one of the thug's weaponry. She fell to the ground as the chains fastened around her legs and fastened her arms behind her back. The girl looked back up at Zatanna and growled.

"You have no Idea who you are messing with do you?" The woman grunted before cursing in Spanish.

"No, why don't you tell me?" She asked sarcastically.

"My name is Mystico and I and this world's greatest sorcerer." Just then her eyes glowed ghostly white.

The chains around Mystico's wrist and legs started to shrink in size going from heavy chains to small weak chains. She easily broke out of her restraints and pulled out a small white cloth.

"Now you see me…" She said throwing it up in the air." Now you don't."

Zatanna quickly ran over to Mystico as the small cloth turned into a white sheet and covered her. When she was completely covered, Zatanna ripped the sheet off only to see that the girl had disappeared into thin air. She would never admit it but Zatanna was impressed by her power.

She knew that that kind of power in a renegade such as Shadows hands was like giving a child a loaded gun. She once had respect for him when he was Sparrow, but those days had ling passed.

"I have to tell Nightwing and Batman." She said as she took her leave.

(!)

It had been a few nights since the attack at headquarters. The team spent the past few days fixing up the place, but thanks to Flynn's robot and the Jack A.I their second home was rebuilt good as new.

Jayden and Flynn were looking over their evidence and surveillance, but the bastard blew the cameras up before they could catch him doing anything serious. There wasn't anything on the fight between him and Thanatos and nothing on Thanatos's helmet cam.

"I tell you something my friends this guy is a fucking expert." Jayden grunted. "The attack on us wasn't the plan he wanted those trinkets we stole off of our former enemies."

"But why go all this way, risk all these men and cause all this madness just to steal some blades and a helmet?" Sam asked.

"Screw the evidence." Marcas snapped. "I want to know how the hell one man could take down a killer mech like Thomas and a Superman clone like Theresa without a tank and some kryptonite."

"I told you he had Adonis." Thomas said still bandaged up in a few places. "Theodosia and I saw that you guys were taking care of the Acolytes and those defected troopers and were about to help when we saw Cyrus run away from the fight."

"I saw this as well and decided to follow him as well." Theresa said. "When we had him cornered we thought it would be easy pickings, but all he did was smile and call us dogs who chewed on our leashes, you know because we we're government experiments."

"Theo took it personally and flew towards the bastard, but then his face lit up blue and before I knew it his sword had sliced her across her stomach. I went to help but he crushed my fist and sent the other one through my armor. I've never seen anything like it."

Jayden was confused on a ridiculous level. There was no way anyone had his power. How could he, he never manufactured a mass production and the formula was in his head. There was more to this, this was only going to get deeper.

"Okay, we need to keep on our toes, if one man has my power than someone created their own formula based on my power." Jayden said to his team. "I don't know how since Adonis is my power but someone had to manufacture an exact copy."

"But how, this guy tore these two apart." Hilary said. "I thought you said when you created those samples you limited the effects to prevent well…this."

"I destroyed those samples before anything could happen, I don't know how or where they are creating it, but it's our job to stop them." Jayden reassured.

"Great, then you can start right now, because I know where they are."

Everyone turned to see Mystico walking into the war room as if she owned the place. Everyone readied themselves as she approached Jayden.

"Who the hell are you?" Jayden grunted. The sorcerer just smiled and held out her hand.

"I am Mystico, but my real name is Maria Sanchez."

"Sanchez, what are you doing here?" He asked ignoring her hand.

"Well…I need your help obviously, idiota." She grumbled. "Look, my people are enslaved by a cruel man by the name of Javier Diego. He's been capturing people and using them as slaves for his drug cartel, but last month he's been working on something more…secret."

"What do you mean secret?" Blaze asked.

"I take it has something to do with our mystery guest?" Sarah said.

"Yes, and I need your help." She said. "I want you to help me kill Javier and destroy his facility."

Everyone just stood there dumbfounded before Mark walked up to her.

"Let me tell you something, we can't just go down to Mexico and nuke the hell out of a facility." He said. "We have our own problems here. We have to find out what happened to our friends and take care of this man."

"Not to mention our own government wants us dead." Marcas said. "We don't need the Mexican army getting involved with us they will want restitution for invading their land to kill a wanted killer."

"What?" Maria asked confused.

"It a political game you see." Jayden said slower for her to understand. "If a bunch of American super assassin's g down to Mexico and start shooting things up. Your government will notice and then those guys will blame our government and demand them to hand us over, then when they fail to hand us over to them there will be a lot of other political bullshit like you know war."

"So what you're saying is you won't help me because of some political BS?" She deadpanned.

"Probably also a bad time to mention that a lot of us hate politics to." Jayden said with some of his crew agreeing.

"But I fought that Zatanna chica just to get here you bastardo." She said going on another rant in Spanish. This caused everyone to glare at her.

"You fought a member of the Justice League, why?" Marcas snapped.

"I just got a call from Batman." Jayden grunted while throwing his phone away. "He said that you referred to yourself as a Shadow Warrior."

"I needed your help." She grunted.

"Yeah well now there's a chance Superman might bring the whole team to have us arrested." Marcas said.

"Just what I fucking need." Jayden grunted. "Just leave do me that kindness. You've stirred up enough shit for us."

Maria was a little hurt by this. Her people were suffering and they didn't care. Except for Ally, Jenny and Sarah they looked little concerned.

"C'mon kid." Hilary said taking her by the shoulder. "I'll take you home."

That's when an idea came to her head. If she couldn't persuade them to come, she would make them come with her.

"Okay, I'll just take my fox and go now." She muttered confusing Hilary as she took a quick look around.

"What fox?" She asked.

"This one."

She then grabbed Hilary by her wrist and placed a hand on the center of her chest. Hilary glowed orange while Maria's eyes glowed white. Everyone was stunned before a cloud of smoke blinded their vision.

When it cleared Hilary was gone and Maria was now holding a small fox. Everyone was dead silent as Maria petted Hilary.

"Okay, game change as you guys would call it." She said while Hilary struggled out of her hold. "You come down to Mexico and help me and I'll turn Hilary back okay?"

"You little-"

Jayden and Flynn quickly charged at Maria, who pulled out a small cloth and threw it over herself and Hilary. The two boys tackled her only to grab nothing but an empty sheet. They both had diapered leaving a small flash drive b behind.

"Hilary, no dammit how could she that bitch!" Flynn shouted.

"Can you blame her you guys treated her like crap." Ally snapped.

"What are you talking about?" Jayden asked.

"You guys practically told her to fuck off when she needed help." Ally snapped placing her hands on her hips.

"I don't want to bring any more trouble down on our house." He argued standing nose to nose with his girlfriend. "If I wanted to help her we would be implicated and the Justice League would attack us."

"Aren't we the Shadow Warriors, isn't it our job to insure peace. No matter and where ever it may be needed." She snapped back.

"With reason and I will not endanger my team for some crack factory. Leave it to the local government." He said.

"She said there was more to it." She argued. "Why are you, oh I know what this is about." She smiled.

"What?"

"You don't want to leave because now you have an excuse to fight Batman again." She grinned while Jayden looked tenser.

"He sent Z to spy on us like we're fucking dogs waiting to be put down if we step out of line." Jayden said. "I want retribution on this insult on us."

"So you'd sacrifice innocent lives just for a shot at Batman?" She asked.

Jayden didn't know what to say so he kept his mouth shut. He looked over at his team and both sides his and Ally's were giving him looks of disgust. He let out a heavy sigh and threw the flash drive at Thomas.

"Flynn Thomas, let's get to work and find out what we're up against." Jayden said.

"We're gonna get Hilary back right?" Jenny asked.

"Yeah we'll get her back." Jayden reassured.

"Damn right we will." Flynn said typing away on the computer. "She'll kill me if we just left her as a Fox in Mexico."

"Marcas, bring me my mac book, I want to look up Mystico she's gotta be black listed if the JLA didn't recruit her by now."

"On it." Marcas said leaving the room.

"Hey, I found this Javier Diego." Thomas said bringing up the file. He was a man in his late forties tanned skin and black hair which he kept slicked back. "Javier Diego, age forty-eight, was once a general in the Mexican army, known for being calculated and brutal. This is why he was dishonorably discharged. Afterwards he started up a cartel until he came across someone who could offer more."

Just then a picture of him shaking hands with Death stroke appeared.

"Slade," Marcas growled. "I also have the file on Mystico its said she is living in small farming village in some dirt poor part of Mexico. She usually uses her powers to entertain kids, but she kills anyone who tried to repossess their land. A lot of the villagers have a small rebellion against him, but they're failing fast."

"Okay, everyone pack your sunscreen, some shorts and a lot of guns. We're going to Mexico." Jayden said. "Marcas, a word please."

Once everyone scattered Marcas and Jayden were now alone.

"What's up?" Marcas asked.

"This."

Jayden pulled up the file on Marcas revealing that he was once a Justice League member who was let go.

"You wanna explain this to me?" Jayden asked calmly. Marcas let out a heavy sigh while running a hand through his hair.

"Look, when I was a boy I was abducted into this organization." He mumbled. "Slade was a part of that organization and he made me murder my two closes friends Andrei and Tasha. Question and a few other Justice League members assisted him in rescuing me. They made me a member and I started to lose it when they withheld information about Slade on me. I started to lose it and eventually attacked a few members of the league. I got set up with Dr. Fate afterwards and he showed me a vision of you. That's how I actually found you."

"Why didn't you tell me you were a part of the Justice League?" Jayden asked. "I was a young member."

"But you didn't remember that you were." He said. "You said Joker shot you in the head that night he crippled Barbra."

"Yeah," Jayden pouted. "Listen, I don't care alright. We'll help you take Slade down alright."

"Alright, I knew I made the right call in joining you." Marcas said slapping hands with Jayden.

"By the way, did you really grab Black Canary's ass?" Jayden asked.

"Yeah, why?" Marcas grinned.

"How did it feel?"

"Awesome."

"Nice." Jayden grinned.

(!)

"Hell of a first week huh newbie?" Sam said to Mark as the two started packing weapons into the Raven.

"Yeah, I met my sister, became a vigilante, killed my asshole leader and now I'm going to Mexico." Mark chuckled. "What about your girl there I heard she was new."

"Artemis," Sam said looking at the green clothed girl. "Yeah, I didn't ask, but how did you feel getting your feet wet?"

Artemis took her mask off revealing herself to be Kris, Sam's girlfriend. She ruffled her hair and smiled at her boyfriend.

"I feel, alive." She grinned. "I've never felt so much freedom in my entire life."

She walked over and wrapped her arms around Sam's neck and the two stared into each other's eyes.

"I still don't feel right about the outfit." She said looking at her wardrobe up and down.

"Hey, Jayden said the original Artemis quit due to Kid Flash's death." He said. "Artemis is back and she is better than ever."

The two were mere inches away from kissing when they heard something get thrown on the ground. They looked over to see Flynn sitting on a weapons crate with a grim expression on his face.

"Hey man, I don't know that girl, but she only did it to help her people." Sam said. "We'll get Hilary back."

"Yeah, I know I'm just having trouble accepting that." He said. "We'll get her back and we'll help her."

"Of course we will we're the Shadow Warriors nothing can stop us." Sam said reassuringly.

While Sam tried to reassure Flynn, Flynn was thinking about not just Hilary but that Cyrus guy and all the evidence he had stolen. Why did he have Adonis and why steal broken evidence. He knew that he and his team needed to be ready there was no room for mistakes later on. He turned to Sam and smiled.

"Yeah, we'll always win." Flynn reassured doubtfully.

Always…