summary: What if hidden in Rachel's hometown is a secret vigilante, who's still learning the ropes and decides to help the bluenette after her mothers death.
pairing: Wei x Rachel
Rachel is sitting on the school bus, her black and blue hair concealed by her hoodie when the bus stops to pick up another kid and a teen two years older than her gets up from his seat and leans on the back of her seat, pulling back her hoodie, surprising her with the action.
"Come on what are you hiding from? I like freaks." The teen tells her.
"Leave her alone Kyle." Another boy, someone from the football team tells him.
"What's it to you? You better mind your own business Matt." Kyle warns him, walking over to the football player.
"Just leave..." Matt says, but doesn't finish his train of thought, when a dark dressed asian teen with a scar visible on his face, going across his left eye steps on the bus.
The tall teen walks down the bus's pathway when he's in front of Kyle, the bully steps aside to let him pass without saying a word.
The teen continues walking down the school bus and everyone assumes he'll take his usual seat at the back of the bus, to their surprise however he stops when he reaches Rachel's position and takes the empty seat behind her, pulling up her hoodie wordlessly with Rachel looking back at him surprised, but isn't able to read him like she does most others.
Later that day in the school hallway Rachel is putting away her books before she's going to head home and sees Matt walk past her with his football team.
"Hey Matt, thank..." she tries to thank him but the teen ignored her and continues on his way.
"You." She finishes sadly when Matt leaves her field of vision.
"Me what?" The asian teen from the bus asks, standing three lockers over, putting away his stuff.
"Uhhm, nothing. I'm sorry." Rachel apologizes nervously, having heard about the teen's story.
"Sorry about what?" He asks, closing his locker and looks directly at her with his good eye.
"Sorry about interrupting you..." Rachel replies worried about Tai's focus on her.
"You weren't interrupting me." He says and walks past her, stopping when he's right beside her.
"You don't need to hide yourself, you're beautiful as you are." He says seemingly to nobody, but Rachel knows he meant her.
'Weird, why is Tai being nice to anyone? Me especially? I don't know him more than what the rumors about him say, that he killed a gang of bikers who were robbed and killed his grandfather.' Rachel thinks surprised and heads home, assuming she'll forget about her encounter with the school's most feared student soon.
When Rachel enters her home after getting off the bus she asks "mom?" Walking through the house until she reaches the kitchen, where the fridge is left open. "Mom, I'm really sorry about this morning." Rachel apologizes, putting down her bag when she sees her mother walk around the corner.
"Rachel. That's what she calls you. But that's not who you are." A man tells her while he's leading her mother in front of him, with her looking mortified.
"Go head, tell her the truth." The bald man in a suit says.
"Rachel... It's true I'm not your mother but I do love you." She confesses to Rachel and the man shoots the woman through the head from behind.
"Nooo!" Rachel cries out, causing a shadowy presence of herself to fly out of her body and knock the man over while she grabs her bag and runs.
Hours later Rachel is at the bus station and randomly takes a bus to Detroit with her only money.
The next day Tai enters the bus as usual, expecting to see Rachel on her usual seat staring out the window. He quickly notices however, that Rachel is nowhere to be found on the bus.
When Tai doesn't see her during a class they share he gets worried and decides to check in with her.
That afternoon he arrives at her house and knocks on the front door only for it to open by his knocking.
"Hello? Anyone home?" He asks, entering the house while keeping his guard up.
When he reaches the kitchen, he can already see speckles of blood on the floor and rounds the corner, seeing the corpse of a middle aged woman in a nurse garb.
"Shit, that must be Rachel's mother." Tai curses and gets out hit phone, dialing the police while looking around the house for the girl. But Rachel is nowhere to be found.
Tai then waits for the police in front of the house, having picked up two pictures in the house, one of Rachel celebrating a birthday with her mother and the other being a school's picture.
He pockets the birthday picture, folding it in the middle, separating the two women with one on each half.
When the police arrives, he explains the situation to them, handing them the other picture of Rachel and informs them that she seems to be missing.
The police thanks him and sends him away.
"Something doesn't seem right about this." Tai says, walking home and looks at the picture of Rachel with wonder.
After 10 minutes or so he walks past the train station and sees a teen asking for a bus ticket.
"Can't hurt." Tai says shrugging his shoulders and goes to the station, getting out the picture of Rachel.
"Hey, excuse me. Do you know if this girl was here yesterday?" Tai asks, showing the woman behind the counter the picture.
"Ahh, yes. She was here. She got on a bus to Detroit." The woman says remembering Rachel.
"When does the next bus to Detroit leave?" Tai asks.
"2 hours." The woman replies.
"Great. I'd like a ticket then." Tai says, getting out his credit card.
"What's the deal with the girl? Runaway?" The woman asks while she starts to fill out his ticket.
"Something like this." Tai replies.
"Uhm. There has been a ticket to Detroit left for you already. Along with a letter." The woman says, fetching the both of them from under the counter.
"Thanks." Tai thanks her confused, accepting both.
"Who could it be from?" He asks himself quietly, walking to a nearby bench and opens the letter reluctantly.
In the letter is a phone and a small card with a black bat on it.
Turning around the card he reads 'I've kept my eyes on you for some time now.
With this cell you can reach an associate of mine. Rachel is in trouble and could use your help. Go to Detroit and find her!'
"This is rather fishy... but I need to at least try to help Rachel." Tai mumbles, pocketing everything while he heads for his home and fetches some stuff, a change of clothes, a katana that's been in the family for a long time and some prepacked food, stuffing everything in a backpack and a skier transport case for the katana. Once he has everything, he leaves to catch the bus to Detroit, where in the meantime Rachel has gotten arrested for throwing a rock at a cop car to escape a woman who tried to abduct her.
In the Detroit police station the girl meets detective Dick Grayson, who she has been having visions about for a while.
Dick however, doesn't believe her story of her mother being killed and her having something dark inside her and leaves to check the story with the police department back in Rachel and Tai's hometown.
When the officer on the other line informs him that Rachel is missing and her mother was killed Dick hurries back to the interrogation room where she was and sees her gone. Running over to the window he sees a cop drug Rachel and put her in his car.
Dick runs down to his car and starts to chase after them, having called in the tracking of the police car.
At the Detroit train station Tai steps out of the bus and hears the phone vibrating. He gets it out of his pocket and sees that a city map with a blinking dot saying Rachel is shown on it, as well as his own position.
Tai immediately starts to head to her apparent location.
"You've always been different, but you knew that didn't you?" A voice asks, waking Rachel, who looks around seeing that she's handcuffed to a chair, sitting in front of some kind of altar.
"I've been looking for you for so long." The man, who killed her mother says, walking into her line of view from behind her chair while carrying a large bowie knife.
"I will take your heart beside the heart of a beast and the heart of a simpleton and burn them all." The man tells her ominously, stabbing the two hearts each lying in their own bowl.
Dick has made his way inside of the building Rachel is in in the meantime, taking out the dirty cop who abducted her on his way.
"Rachel?!" Dick asks loudly.
"Ahh! Help!" She screams before the bald man stuffs a cloth in her mouth to gag her.
As Dick is carefully approaching the door to the room she's being held in her abductor hides behind the opened door with his knife at the ready.
When Dick is about to step through the door it suddenly shuts itself, curtesy of a shadowy figure of Rachel floating in the room.
After this the man attempts to go over to her to finish her off.
After two steps however the window behind him shatters and Tai comes crashing into the room, sliding to a halt next to the unconscious Rachel, whose shadowy figure turns towards him with interest.
"What did you do to her?" Tai growls at the man, seeing the altar as well as Rachel unconscious with what could be seen as her spirit floating around.
"Step aside, I need to save this world and kill that pest." The man says stepping closer to them.
The next thing the shadowy Rachel sees is Tai behind the man with a bloody katana, the man's head in his other hand.
"What's going on in there?" Dick shouts from outside the door, trying to bust it open.
Rachels spirit retreats in her body at this, seeing as the threat is dealt with.
"Tai?" Rachel asks freaking out, seeing her schoolmate next to the body of who attacked her while he pulls the cloth out of her mouth.
"Freeze!" Dick yells bursting into the room, firing at Tai when he sees the katana in his grasp next to a dead body.
Tai raises his katana and deflects the bullets flying at him.
"Stop!" Rachel shouts worriedly, stopping both men.
"He's a cop. And he just saved me." Rachel tells them, nodding at each one while Tai steps over to her, cutting through her handcuffs, freeing her.
"What happened?" Dick asks, looking at the two teens.
"I don't know." Rachel replies freaking out.
"Come on, let me take you home." Tai says, offering his hand to her.
"I have no more home. People are out to kill me." Rachel cries.
"Please help me!" She begs Dick, walking past Tai and slings her arms around the detective while Tai scoffs, swinging his sword in the air, flicking the blood on it off.
"Alright you two, follow me." Dick says, leading them out of the building and to his car.
"So, who are you anyways?" Dick asks.
"He goes to the same school as me." Rachel replies.
"I'm Tai." He introduces himself.
"Well what were you doing there?" Dick questions.
"This told me where to find Rachel." Tai replies, showing Dick the phone as well as the card.
Dick looks at the card with a scoff.
"Great." He says sarcastically.
"Do you know who it's from?" Tai questions.
"Yeah and believe me you don't want go know." Dick tells him bitterly.
"Anyways, who was that Rachel, did he kill your mom?" Tai questions.
"Yeah. I escaped but some dirty cop drugged me and handed me off to him." She informs her schoolmate.
"So what now?" Rachel asks, looking at Dick, who starts his car with Tai having squeezed himself in the back with some difficulty.
"I'm gonna take you two out of the city for one and after that I have something in mind..." Dick says.
"So, I can't help but wonder how you killed that guy so casually?" Dick asks the young teen sitting across from him and Rachel while they are sitting in a diner, Rachel and Dick are drinking coffee while Tai is sipping some water.
"Anything's easy if you practice." Tai says, surprising both Rachel and Dick.
"Practice? Are you a crazy psychopath like everyone at school said you are?" Rachel asks worried.
"Crazy? No. Psychopath... maybe." Tai says.
"What's keeping me from arresting you and turning you in right now then?" Dick asks.
"Your honor and my blade." Tai replies, shooting the man a look that meant he's serious.