Percy watched as Dr. Serling Roquette, a nanorobotics professor, typed away at a cheap out-of-date school computer in the late hours of the night.
The Team, plus their newest member Artemis, not the goddess, mind you, but a green-themed archer not unlike Green Arrow, were assigned to protect the Doctor at all costs as she fixed a little issue. It wasn't really a little issue at all. It was a big one.
"The Fog," as Dr. Roquette deemed it, was a concentrated swarm of nano-robots that devoured any material, organic or inorganic. Additionally, any form of data it would encounter would be consumed and uploaded back to The Fog's central processor.
Naturally, this is a problem for the world of tech conglomerates and advanced tech-based superpowers, and that is before you factor in the sensitive information stored digitally across the globe in secure sights. All of it could be stolen by an unending swarm of nano-drones.
Percy always thought that the day he had to deal with "The Fog," it would be a supernatural-mythological thing that turned a man into a monster or worse. That divinity would be biting back at man, but instead, it was man biting itself.
Either way, when Robin's friend, Speedy, now named Red Arrow, came to the Team with the mission to protect the Doctor from undoing the creation she made, Percy didn't blink twice. He had quickly changed out of his beach fit and into his all-black armor. He needed a distraction from the thoughts and the questions threatening to plague his mind from his earlier talks with Lord Poseidon.
However, he did blink twice at their newest teammate, Artemis, again not the same as the goddess he talked with on Olympus and made a deal with. This Artemis was an olived-skinned girl with notably long blonde hair done back in a perfect ponytail. She was drabbed in a dark green suit with a lighter green arrow embellished over her chest.
Even the dumbest of grunts would be able to tell her gimmick was archery if the name and quiver on her back weren't a giveaway. That is assuming she didn't take them out from afar.
Percy just did not feel comfortable calling her Artemis, though. That slot, as was the name Green Arrow, was already filled in his life. Additionally, she had taken offense to being called Arrowlet earlier in the day when they first met, so that was also off the table.
Thanks, Wally, for tripping over that discovery.
Thankfully, in a silent understanding of what it meant to be Batman's protégé, Robin had him covered on the front of what to call their newest teammate. The resident hacker had pulled from the League's database all there was on Artemis Crock and forwarded said packet to Percy's PDA. Conveniently translated into ancient Greek, too, just for him.
Crock had a peculiar background for an upcoming hero, but he wouldn't be the one to call her out about it. If Batman had it on file and didn't speak up, then things were already handled or being handled.
Percy glanced at the blonde. Crock was poking around the bookshelves of Happy High School library. Her hand drifted across the shelves of books with seemingly no particular aim before she would steal a moment to gaze at the individual members of the Team. Her father had probably taught her how to size anyone up, just as Batman taught him and Robin. She had profiled everyone on the Team so far but him, so it was only a matter of time before she would look upon his gaze, challenging her back.
"I must admit, this isn't what I expected for my first visit to an Earth school," Miss Martian communicated across the Team's mind link. "I had thought I would be here first as a student. Placing books in a locker as I listen to the gossip of my girlfriends."
"Yeah, well, school isn't all that great anyways," Kid Flash complained as he pulled a snack from a hidden compartment of his stealth suit. "Today, it dragged on while you guys were at the beach. I couldn't use my powers and had to get hit by a dodgeball! A dodgeball! I never get hit."
Robin laughed aloud, breaking the school's silence, "Yeah, you do. All the time."
"Shut it, Robin. That was one time and I had a sprained ankle."
"Why didn't you just dodge it like a normal person then?" Crock asked, her eyes lingered still on the books. "I mean, even us normal people can dodge a ball."
"There were ten of them at once! Normal people can't dodge that many."
Crock shrugged, "I could."
Kid Flash deflated, "Yeah, well, not everything is about you." He gave the blonde heroine a stink eye, but her gaze still roamed the bookshelves.
"Why are teens so insistent on talking all the time?" Dr. Roquette clenched her fingers as she snapped a glare at the red-headed speedster. "Can you children be quiet? It is hard enough to code software to disable The Fog on this computer with less ram than an old Gamestation. Now add your incessant bickering… The Fog will have wiped out half of society before I finish the next line."
"Sorry," Kid Flash fake-apologized as he glared at Crock. "We'll try to be quieter."
Crock remained unfazed and continued to ignore him as she pulled down a book. Her gaze flickered across the title before it met Percy's gaze.
Surprise and hesitance flashed in her eyes.
Percy couldn't fault her. She didn't know who he was yet. To her, he was just the silent one in all black, featureless beyond two glowing silver eyes and a utility belt.
He challenged her stare.
He wasn't sure what her lifestyle was before today, but he had a pretty good idea of what it was if she was so willingly donned a suit despite who her parents were. Not all heroes start on a path of nobleness; some start after a fall from grace.
Crock blinked slowly. The book and her hand fell to her side as she turned and focused on him in full.
"We?" Superboy mused to the group. "It is just you."
"Why couldn't I get the Justice League?" Roquette bemoaned and facepalmed.
We could just not protect you at all with that attitude and hope for the best, Percy thought, despite not being able to communicate the message to the rest.
Meanwhile, Percy's hand slithered to his utility belt as he maintained his stare down with Crock. He pulled free a Batarang and threw it up into the air before catching it before his face, allowing her to see what he had pulled free.
"The League is busy," Robin lied. "We are your best bet, whether you like it or not. So, instead of complaining, what can we do to help you get this done faster?"
Crock reached into her pocket from across the room and pulled out an arrowhead to match his Batarang. The sharpened point gleamed silver, almost subtly glowing in the dark of the room. She mimicked his action, throwing the arrowhead into the air before snatching it before her gaze. The silver metal danced around her fingers. A simple sleight-of-hand trick one would expect from a gambler with a poker chip.
The Doctor huffed from her side of the room, "Well, The Fog is a perfect machine, all things considered. However, due to the size of the robotics, they can only store so much data before needing to offload the information to be used again. The patch I am working on would be best served either uploaded to the hive where they offload data, and you corrupt the system from there, or you plant it where the robotics can consume it and spread it within the hive."
Robin nodded once before he began to type away on his PDA on his wrist.
"Right, so poison the beehive. Killer bee drones all die. Seems simple. How exactly do we do that, though?" Kid Flash rattled while he bit into a granola bar.
Separate from the planning, Percy took his Batarang and flicked it free from his hand. The sharpened blade of metal soared through the air before finding a new home in a book a few feet away from Crock's face.
She didn't flinch as the metal blade but into a book near her, nor did she break from their silent standoff to stare at where it embedded itself.
So, she was trained to keep her focus…
"The script I'm writing. It will contain an overwrite procedure for their code through a backdoor I designed into the systems when I was forced to create it. You just need to upload the data through a standard USB port into the hive or infect a device that the bots will consume."
Robin typed away some more, "And how long will it take you to finish the script?"
"With your questioning and bickering? Another three hours at least. Without either? An hour and a half. Two tops."
Robin frowned as he read back through the file he had created.
"How long does it take for the robots to destroy a building and offload the data?" He looked to the Doctor.
Crock closed her hand around her silver arrowhead before pocketing it. Her other arm blindly reached out to the Batarang he had thrown near her.
The silver arrowhead is a token, then, and not a weapon of choice, Percy processed as he watched Crock pry out his weapon from the unfortunate book.
"From fifteen minutes to an hour. Depends on how much they have to consume. Why?" the Doctor asked. "You should not wait for that to be your opening to take it down. That means it would have destroyed something by then. Possibly even killed someone."
"It already has." Robin projected a holographic satellite image of a ruined building. "Star Labs, Philly, was just demolished." He swiped his hand through the floating image, where it changed to show a loop of a swarm of drones entering a sliding door of a black van with a gold flower emblem over the passenger door. He swiped again, showing the same van driving out of the city. "Camera footage from nearby CCTV clocks the transport vehicle catching the connecting highway to Jeresy. They could be heading for Gotham or Star Labs in Metropolis next. Either way, we are on the clock."
Crock held the Batarang before her eyes as she balanced it on a finger. At first, it wobbled to the left before she shifted her point of contact to find its center of gravity.
Kaldur stepped closer to the feed, "We'll need to split up then. One team here to protect the Doctor, and the others will engage The Fog and take it down."
"I would then have to transmit the patch to the away team." Dr. Roquette frowned. "I might as well tell the world where they can find and kill me. That is suicide."
Crocked dropped the Batarang into her hand before she flung it back at him.
The metal glimmered as it caught a lone gleam of light from the skylight above. The infamous tool of Batman careened towards Percy.
Instead of moving or reacting to it, he held Crock's stare.
The metal clanged into the wall to the right of his ear before it clattered to the floor. Percy could see out of his periphery as Superboy glanced at him and the Batarang. However, the clone didn't say a word.
"Is there any other way to take it down?" Miss Martian interjected.
"Our other best bet is to wait offline and try to respond to where the bots go," Robin explained. "However, we would likely have to clean up from there."
"So, a gamble of risking being proactive with a chance of casualties, or being safe and risking all of the data and employees of Star Labs, a close associate of the League, to be possessed or worse by our enemies," Kaldur summarized.
The members of the Team, excluding Percy and Crock, met each other's gaze as a silent agreement danced before them to the dread of the Doctor.
Kaldur turned to the crestfallen woman, "It will be a risk, but it is the outcome we must arrive at no matter the risk. Our information cannot fall into the enemy's hands."
"They will send their best assassins," she hissed. "They'll kill me!"
"Then we shall protect you no matter the cost." Kaldur tried to assure the Doctor, his words soft despite the towering stature he imposed over the sitting woman. The Atlantean warrior ghosted his hand over her shoulder but refrained. Instead, he nodded to the screen before him and the Doctor, "You cannot fail to write this patch. More than just your life depends on it."
Percy lifted his chin and inhaled through his nose, his gaze still upon the huntress.
The silent game they had played had come to its closing mark. The test of intimidation passed on both ends. He may not know who she is as a person, yet, but he had a good feeling about her.
He could learn to trust her.
He let go of the breath and nodded to her.
She nodded back.
Together, they broke their standoff, eyes falling upon the rest of the Team, who were relatively oblivious to what had happened between the two.
The Doctor dropped her face into her hands. The white glow of the screen before her, the only light source in the room, cast her shadow to the wall behind her. A slumped shadow of a woman resigned to her fate.
Percy could see defeat in her eyes as she pulled her face away. Resignation to the fact she was going to die. She blinked away at the tears in her eyes as she reached for the glasses on her face. Her hands trembled as she took her glasses to her shirt and attempted to clean them.
His heart clenched to see it. The tears she refused to shed…
The willingess to die…
How do you tell someone things will be okay when you cannot utter a word?
Percy pushed off the wall he was perched against.
Everyone watched as he approached the woman at the computer. Her head was limp as her glasses were still off, clutched in an unsteady hand.
Percy pulled the table in front of the Doctor away. The wood scraped across the floor with a screech as he made space to crouch. The sullen woman watched him as he reached out and took her hand with the glasses, stilling it in his own. Gently, he pushed it to her face until she was all but forced to put her glasses back on.
Her irises glimmered in the glow of his eyes, and he tapped the side of his mask. A film slid down over his eyes, muting the glow as he took her now free hand back into his own. Incasing her smaller hand into his own, he balled her hand into a fist. The tremors in her limb ceased as they held each other's gaze.
How do you tell someone that they can do it? That they will be all right when they do not believe in it themselves?
Percy stood. Her gaze followed him along with everyone else in the room. He stepped behind her chair and pushed her forward to the desk. To close the moment, he nodded to her.
Her hands fell back to the keyboard, now firm once more. And she began to type as her eyes locked back in on the lines of script.
Percy could see it in her eye, a glint that was lacking before: The determination to finish her work no matter the cost.
Percy pulled away and nodded to Kaldur.
You can never tell someone things will be okay when words fail you. You can only show them that you will be there to give them the best you can. It was what it meant to be a hero.
He quietly went back to his corner of the library.
He could feel the stares of his teammates upon his back, but he ignored them. He doesn't return any of their stares, even as he glances around them. Yet, he does let his gaze rest on the archer's frown.
Why is she frowning?
He held her eye but with no challenge behind it this time.
What did I do to upset her?
Crock looked away first, her eyes back on the book loosely tethered to her hand. With a snap, she closed it and turned to face the Team. Percy mimicked her action as the rest of the Team glanced between the two. Albeit, Kid Flash did so between bites of another snack he had either snuck with him or found in the school.
"So, who is the protection detail, and who are the runners?" Crock broke the silence causing everyone to glance at one another. Everyone but the Doctor, who was too invested in her work. Her hands clacked away at keys as if there were no tomorrow.
Maybe she thought there would be no tomorrow for her… but Percy wouldn't let that happen.
"Kid Flash and Superboy are the fastest, physically. They would be best served chasing The Fog as needed. That or getting ahead of it. Robin is the most tech literate to handle downloading and uploading the information on the run. The three of them will be the runners." Kaldur nodded to the chosen before turning to the resident green alien. "Miss Martian needs to stay here to manage our communication on this end. With the rest of us acting as capable fighters to protect the Doctor."
"Sounds good to me," Superboy agreed first.
"Okay. Sounds like we got a broad plan, but what is the actual plan for the here and now?" Crock asked.
"Me and Miss Martian will roam the perimeter. Artemis, you will be on the roof, and Orpheus will be inside the library."
"How will Orpheus alert us if someone manages to get inside?" Miss Martian asked.
Kaldur frowned. He turned to look at Percy and around the room for a moment before he looked up at the roof.
"The skylight above us. If Orpheus can turn on the light, Artemis can see it and inform the rest of us."
Crock nodded, and half glanced at Percy, "And what if Orpheus isn't able to turn the light on before he gets incapacitated?"
Robin scoffed, "He can glow in the dark if needed. I have a feeling you'll see it when the library lights up."
Crock snuck a glance at the demigod, the question of how he could do that dancing in her eyes.
He simply held up his hand and forced the power in his blood to his fingertips. A calm silver light sprung forward like a lighter, and the flicker of a silver flame rippled as he wiggled his fingers before extinguishing the power.
"Right, is he a pyrotechnic then?" she asked through the mind link, turning to the others for an answer.
"The moon, actually. He hates fire," Robin corrected. "Anyways, we need to head out. Dr. Roquette, you'll find I have already uploaded a designated folder for you to upload the script to on your hard drive. When you finish, waste no time uploading it to my file."
The Doctor frowned as her typing paused, and she stared at Robin, "When did you hack me?"
"Within seconds of first introductions. 'The Batman Way.'"
"Right," she dragged out the word in their minds. "Because 'The Batman Way' gives you such freedoms."
Robin shrugged, "Just upload the script when you finish it. We need to get going." He turned to Miss Martain, "I assume we are taking the Bioship?"
"Of course," she thought back. "Bioship will heed your commands."
"That's so cool, babe." Percy turned to Kid Flash, who bit into an apple as he flirted. A different snack than the one he had moments ago. "Has anyone ever told you your ship is the second coolest thing after you?"
Crock pushed away from the bookshelf she had haunted, "Really? That's how you treat a girl? Gross."
Mid-bite, Kid Flash let his mouth drop open as he held a hand to his heart, "I won't stand to be criticized by the one who drove Spe-Red Arrow away."
"I didn't drive him away." Crock stepped forward, closing the gap. Her hand shot up as she pointed at the speedster drabbed in his black outfit. "The League did. Don't take that out on me just because you cannot handle the fact that your friend is having his own issues. You can't take that out on me. You. Have. No. Right."
"Yeah, well…" KF stuttered, stepping back from the approaching woman. "Well, what abo-"
"KF," Robin interrupted. "Let's just head to the bioship, all right? We are on a mission, after all. We can fight each other back at base."
"Thank you, Robin," Kaldur spoke up. "We hopefully will have a connection you can track here shortly after we form our own game plan."
The kid prodigy of Batman waved him off, "Don't rush it. No point tracking it if you cannot finish the code."
Kaldur nodded back to Robin. As his vision leveled, Percy could see the gleam in the sea-dweller's eyes and his heart's dedication, "We will protect her, and we will track The Fog."
Together, the Team nodded before they began to split apart. Percy, Kaldur, Crock, and Miss Martain stayed in the high school and watched as Robin, Kid Flash, and Superboy left the library into the halls of Happy High.
However, just because they could not see one another didn't mean the mind link was broken.
"She totally drove him away," Kid Flash communicated to Robin and, consequently, the rest, including the Doctor.
Miss Martian glanced nervously to Crock, who rolled her eyes, "We can still hear you, Kid Idiot."
"Gah! Get out of my head, woman!" Kid Flash all but screamed.
The piercing thoughts caused everyone to cringe and wince.
How to get a headache in one easy step…
"Dude, relax," Robin once again tried to talk down the kid speedster. "Plus, I'm more interested in talking about Orphie having a locker in one of these halls next to the cute girl from the beach earlier today. What was her name again, Orphie? Katie, was it?"
"What?" Miss Martian glanced at Percy. "A locker here? Are you joining me and Superboy?"
"There was a babe on the beach that I missed as well?" Kid Flash complained. "Man, I hate school."
:P LINEBREAK d:
Percy and Roquette were the only ones in the dark and quiet library.
The other three members tasked with protecting the VIP had spread out amongst the school and its property, but the only one Percy had to truly concern himself with was Crock. She was holding down the roof with her bow and a critical eye. For her, he was the lighthouse, lighting up to warn her of any dangers.
However, despite the threat of the situation, Percy wasn't worried just yet. Dr. Roquette had yet to reverse track The Fog, so her location had yet to be broadcasted to the League of Shadows. Therefore, Percy took his time to roam and haunt the library's bookshelves as he filtered out the mental conversation the rest of the Team was upkeeping. He didn't really care to hear how Crock was complimenting how Superboy looked.
Instead, his hand drifted across the spines of heroes, love, tragedy, and hope alike. Each book touched was a nonsense of words that he could not decipher. Titles that looked like a poor man's attempt at creating an alphabet, much less a word or string of them.
Perhaps I could get Dick to translate some books for me…
Percy paused in his step. His hand stilled upon a book.
He could read this word.
He could read it.
Natural.
The one word was surrounded by a barrage of other words and even a few numbers. His dyslexia had arranged the singular word to him. The first time a word longer than three letters had ever been so clear to read.
Natural.
He traced his finger of the letters like the blind reading brail. His finger appeared to disrupt whatever thing was happening to read the singular word. The letters began to blur and come undone. He pulled away before the word could redisperse amongst the proper title.
Natural stared at him. Watched him. Judged him.
He took it from its resting place on the shelves.
Percy flipped open to the middle of the book. The words that littered the pages fell apart and spun around. It was as if a hurricane was tearing through the book, and he looked down upon the clouds of letters. It was always like this with any language that wasn't based on Greek. His mind undid the spell of the authors that strung the words together.
He sighed.
He couldn't help but look back up at the books again. The anomaly that was the book in his hands could always be repeated if he looked hard enough. So, his eyes hunted. His prey, a single cohesive word.
Born.
Another book…
He grabbed it. The words inside spun around like planets orbiting the sun. The stray e acted as a comet to streak across the pattern only to smash against one of the word-ly bodies. He closed the book and hunted again.
Then he found something else amongst the books.
The one he had thrown a Batarang at earlier with Crock…
The maroon hardback was more or less ruined for anyone wanting to read whatever Aolce WIi nderdand was. He grabbed it regardless.
You break it. You buy it, after all.
Percy stared at the three books in his hand. Was this really the best way he could have been using his time? Not really, but neither was listening to Crock tell M'gann that she was also giving Superboy lovey-dovey eyes.
Percy looked back at the towering shelf of spines.
Killer.
He took the book from the shelf and added it to his stack. A cat licking its paw stared at him from the cover. Such an innocent cover for a book that spelled out killer.
He spent another two minutes glancing around for any words he could read amongst the mass of nonsense before him until he settled for the four books he already had.
He crossed the room to where the Doctor sat. She gave him half a glance before going back to her work. She made mention of almost being ready to the others, but he still filtered it out. Until her signal was lit, he could pander to the words he found.
Natural. Born. Killer.
The three books challenged him with their mystifying context.
Why could he read these words? What had the manifested words meant?
His fingers traced the words once more. The mirage of the rearranged letters blurred like rippling water.
"Do you read?" Dr. Roquette spoke aloud, startling him.
He shook his head at her.
"Bring them here. I can tell you what they are real quick."
He looked at her, his eyes flickered to the computer she should have been working on.
"One minute of my time won't change the outcome of when this finishes."
He slid the four books at her, and she grabbed the grey cat first. She brought the book to the screen light as she readjusted her glasses.
"Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes. Children's book, I assume. What made you grab this one?" She looked at him with a small smile.
Percy shrugged.
"You really don't talk much, do you?"
He shook his head.
The pleasant smile she faked faltered, "You can't, can you?"
No.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude." She grabbed another book. This time, it was the book that spelled out born. "On the Night You Were Born. Cute polar bears on the front." She flipped through a few of the pages. "Looks to be one of the books you give to someone who graduated high school. Something to put in a hope chest or the like. Something you keep with you as you grow up."
Percy shrugged.
Next, she reached for the ruined maroon book. Her eyes lingered on the tear in the cover as she glanced at him for a moment before returning to the book.
"Alice in Wonderland. A classic. Hate to see it damaged so badly. You'd think a school like this would take better care of it."
Thankfully, he had a full face mask to hide his blush.
She took the last book and frowned, "I read this one. Good read. It is about a mother and father who throw a party to mourn the death of their son some years before. The father is stuck reliving that night as he has to find out who killed his wife during the party. The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. I think my favorite quote went something along the lines of: Having too much information blinds you, but having little is just as blinding."
He frowned. Batman had always taught them to have all the information.
"Doctor. Robin needs the trace. Sooner than later," Aqualad spoke across the mind link.
Roquette slid the books back at him with a small smile.
"Try to find an audiobook. I recommend that last one."
Her hands fell back to the keyboard, "Tracking now. It looks like it is in Gotham. Heading downtown. The only thing there would be… the Wayne company."
"Robin will handle that. Finish the code. Everyone gives routine checkups every two minutes. The Shadows know where we are now. They will be coming for us."
"Right."
"Will do."
Percy stood from the desk, leaving the books and the cryptic words behind.
Natural born killer. Was this a message for me? A spell from some god?
The pen on his utility belt became an anchor as the thoughts drifted through his mind. His gloved hand reached for the weapon. With the flip of a cap, he could kill someone. This weapon went against everything Batman had taught him. However, it was the weapon of a demigod. The other half of who he was. The half Diana and his sister had tried to cultivate.
The half he had to prove himself in the eyes of the gods.
Natural born killer.
Something had manifested those words before his eyes. Whether it be the Fates or another deity playing tricks, seeing those words meant something for him. He knew it.
But he was a hero.
And heroes don't kill…
He stowed the pen-sword away. He would need to train with it soon. Diana would be willing, but would Batman be?
Percy checked the skylight. His eyes traced the rivets of metal that supported an opaque stained glass that refracted the pale moonlight. He could see the barest hints of Crock's shadow as she made her patrol.
"Team. Report."
"Nothing yet."
"I see nothing from the roof. It is pretty dark out here. Can't really see far."
I should be up there. I can see far in the barest of moonlight.
"Keep your eyes peeled. They could be here any minute."
"I am halfway done with the script. Assuming I have no errors."
"And if you do?"
"Then I will need more time to debug it."
"Then we must pray you get it right. Robin has camera feeds on the van. The Fog needs to be stopped soon."
"Yeah, well, I'm working on it."
A chill ran across Percy's spine.
Something was missing. Something had happened in that singular moment.
But what?
Percy peaked at the skylight. He could see Crock's shadow. Her very shadow as it began to fall back.
It began to fall back… into the glass.
The glass shattered under her weight and the force that had sent her through it.
She was mortal, non-empowered. A three-story fall onto her back could do untreatable damage.
He lept for her. His arms extended as his eyes locked onto the masked assassin standing over the hole in the glass. Her white and red mask burned itself into his mind. He had seen it before in the data banks of the Batcave.
He dove and collided with Crock. The two tumbled to the ground. He forced himself to roll her, so he could be on top. In a single motion, he threw a Batarang above the Doctor's head.
CLINK!
Metal blade met metal blade as the two deadly weapons negated one another.
He left Crock behind on the ground as he jumped to his feet. He threw three more Batarangs. Each clinked against tossed knives from the roof assassin, who stopped to stare at him.
The green huntress groaned from her spot on the floor. Glass crunched under her as she shifted. Orpheus spared her a single glance to watch as she found her footing. His eyes snapped back to the woman in green above.
"So I finally meet one of Batman's runts. To think I would get the silent one as well. It is no fun when I cannot hear you beg." She dropped from the roof into a three-point stance before she righted herself. "Who knows, maybe making you scream will be more fun?"
Percy lunged at her.
His spiked forearm gauntlets caught the initial strikes from her sais. Her blades only slightly cut into his armor as he thrashed his arms to try and disarm her.
However, she was better than that. She cartwheeled away, kunai thrown at him in her disengage as she landed on a table.
He grabbed his cape and forced it to cover his body. The thrown daggers fell to the floor after the velocity fled from them upon impact with the cape.
"Well trained." She backflipped away. An arrow whistled through the vicinity she had escaped. "For a child, that is. Although, you, Green, could use some more practice."
A fan of kunai burst forth upon the assassin's landing. One for him, one for Crock, and the last for the Doctor.
Orpheus tossed his last Batarang at the one for the Doctor as he shielded the one for him.
Where is everyone else?
Crock took the initiative as she swung the metal of her bow at the assassin in a close-range melee. Percy took that moment to assess the VIP.
"The mind talk thing isn't working." Roquette looked up at him, her head tucked under her arms as she cowered. "I tried calling out to the others since you were fighting, but it is like they aren't there."
Orpheus cocked his head to the side. She was right. That tingle at the back of his mind was gone. That meant they got to Miss Martian as well.
Multiple assassins, likely.
Percy nodded to her to show he understood before he pointed at the computer screen.
"You want me to keep working as someone is trying to kill me in this very room?" she cried out.
He nodded. What else can you do in this situation? Wait for things to fix themselves?
"I will come back from the dead and kill you if I die." Her hands fell back onto the keyboard.
He gave her a thumbs up.
"Ugh!" Crock groaned.
Orpheus turned to watch the girl fall. Her bow clattered upon the floor as the glass was scattered even more. The masked assassin turned to him as she stood from a crouch.
"One down. One to go."
He felt his heart begin to beat like a double kick in a metal song.
This is where the fun begins.
The woman darted towards him, and he fell to a crouch. A few kunai and Batarangs littered his feet, and he made good use of throwing them at the woman who was fast approaching.
She dodged and somersaulted to the side, avoiding his tosses, but that didn't matter. She had slowed down and taken to stalling her rush. Which meant he could take the fight back to her and push her away from Roquette.
He lunged once more.
Badump. Badump.
His fist met empty air, and her elbow found his padded ribs.
Now, his left hook found purchase in her stomach. He had been trained with his strength not to target mortal ribs. So, instead, he watched the breath flee from the woman as she staggered back and caught herself on a desk.
Badump. Badump.
"What does Batman feed you?" she coughed out. Her hand fell to her side as she stared him down. Her whole posture shifted as she restructured her style. "You hit harder than he does."
Percy stepped forward, arms raised in a traditional boxing stance.
"Give a girl a moment, will you?" she stepped away past a chair, creating more distance.
Badump. Badump.
He swung. Wood shattered everywhere as his fist broke the chair she used as a shield.
"The hard way then."
More kunai were launched at him. Each deflected or blocked by his armor. The following drop kick to his arm guard sent him back a step before he stomped forward, hoping to catch the woman in the brief moment she was on the floor.
He missed and was met with a sweeping kick that forced him to stumble to the side through the impact on his leg. His back showed to his opponent briefly as he turned with the momentum before he used it to swing out with a punch.
Crck!
They both heard it. The telltale sound of a bone breaking.
Badump. Badump.
The assassin cartwheeled away on one hand and vanished into the row of bookshelves.
"Good thing that was only two fingers you broke and not the whole hand!" she shouted from somewhere amongst the shelves.
"Orpheus," a voice whimpered, and he felt his heart skip a beat.
He turned to see his teammate. Her blonde hair was barely in the ponytail she had begun with, and her right eye had swelled shut. Her outfit had a couple of rips, likely from the broken glass on the floor.
"I can't get a hold of the others. My comms got broken, and the mind-speak-thing is not working." She limped to his side. Her grip on her bow was weak, and he took it from her setting it on the table. He forced her to sit in a chair.
One eye on the bookshelves, and the other on the task before him, he took one of the arrows still in her quiver and carefully broke the arrowhead off. He grabbed her chin softly, and she tried to pull away as she saw the broken arrowhead approach her eye. Yet, his grip remained as he used the other hand to pull the bottom of his mask down.
"Trust," he mouthed to her. "Trust."
She stilled as her single eye followed the arrowhead approach her swollen eye.
He cut a portion of her mask away around the wounded eye and revealed her eyebrow. Blood drained from a cut just above her eyelid and below the brow. He reached into the back of his belt, took a small pinch of avitene, a white powder, and smoothed it over the cut. It would help control the bleeding.
Next, he grabbed a cold pack from the same compartment on his belt that would react the moment he needed it to, which was now. He gave the pack a few squeezes and a shake for good measure before he applied it to Crock's swollen eye.
"Looks like we are both playing doctor," the assassin laughed from the shadows.
Percy grabbed Crock's arm and forced it to hold the cold pack as he stepped away from her and instead placed himself before the actual Doctor of Robotics, who snuck a glance at him before going back to typing.
"There was a rumor that you had a sewn shut mouth, you know?" the assassin's voice bounced off the walls. "I figured you were another of Cain's failed children, myself."
Orpheus took a half step back, closer to the Doctor, as his gaze swiveled around. The bookshelves covered a lot of the library. Go figure. The woman could have repositioned herself anywhere.
His eyes tracked from the left to the right, over the hallway door, the lounge chairs assembled around small tables, and the rows of books. He didn't see her.
His eyes drifted to his green dress-teammate. Crock had, too, found her feet, one hand cradling the cold pack to her face as the other held the run of her bow like a sword.
"I hope you know this wasn't personal." A kunai came from the dark right for him, and he used his armored arm to swat it from the air. "That was until you broke my fingers. So, how about we call this first fight a draw? We go lick our wounds in full and reconvene later. I do believe the Good Doctor still has quite a bit of work to do, and I am very patient."
Orpheus kneeled slowly and grabbed the fallen blade. He could see the lick of something on its shine, and it wasn't just the blade's metal.
Poison.
"I forget, you won't respond."
"Orpheus, what are we doing?" Crock whispered at his side.
What are we going to do? Neither Kaldur nor Miss Martian are about, and they could be hurt or worse elsewhere in the school. The lone assassin I do know of is offering a cease-fire, and my partner for the fight has already suffered a wound that would impair her fighting capability. If multiple assassins were in the building, could I fend off two or three of them at once for another twenty minutes?
He threw the weapon to the ground.
"I'll be in touch," the assassin spoke from the shadows.
A smoke bomb landed between his vision and the door to the hallway, but he didn't need to see so much as hear the door opening and closing behind the fleeing woman.
"You let her leave?" Crock hissed.
He simply pointed to the Doctor, who had stopped typing and looked at them.
"I don't understand," she continued to hiss from his side. "We could have had her. You had her on the ropes."
He shrugged. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. However, what he did have was more time for the Doctor to finish her work.
"Are you three okay?" Kaldur stumbled into the library. "I have only just now fought off my attacker."
"We are fine, for the most part. Where's the green m&m?" Crock asked.
"I have not found her yet. I came here to secure the VIP foremost."
"Well, we are fine. She's still working. We bested off the assassin that came for her. Somebody," she motioned to Orpheus, "even struck a truce with her for the next fifteen minutes."
"A truce?" Kaldur stroked his chin and raised a brow.
"Yeah. I don't know why, though. He could beat her. He was beating her."
"Hmm. We must use this time wisely, then. We need to regroup and plan a better path forward."
AN: Happy birthday Percy... even though the birthday chapter is not this one. oh well.
As always, please follow, favorite, and drop a review. Those are MASSIVE incentives for me to keep my writing streak going. When I see a story not get a response, it really slows down my process as I think too much about what I might have done wrong.
If you would like to get in touch with me or other FanFic authors, come join all of us in the Emerald Library on Discord. I have my own channel within the server under the PJO section where you can come chat with me and see a bit behind the scenes on my inspirations and what I am working on next. Just type " discord. gg / elibrary " into any URL browser or in Discord itself to join. (Remove the spaces and quotes) If you join the server from my story, let me know! My channel has been popping off lately with new story ideas that will be coming soon.
I will be attempting a genuine realistic Percy x Artemis that isn't cliché asf, so stay tuned for that.
That's about it.
-Manke
