From East to West

Location: Bludhaven

Date: Feb 14th, 2010

Time: 1:34

Her lungs were screaming like a knife was ripping them to shreds. Her legs were lead pistons barely responding to her. Her arms were jelly under the weight of the duffle bag that held her future. Sure, the $350,000 was mainly in 100's with a few 20's thrown in, so the bag only weighed about 9 pounds, but after the week she'd just had it felt like 700 pounds to her worn out body.

Her sneakers slapped against the cold, slick Bludhaven streets as she headed toward her drop site: the trashcan behind the "Adult Media" shop on 11th street. She told Mr. Ramirez to pick it up at 1:45am, so she only had 11 minutes to get there, hide the cash, and lure the morons following her away from the store. She could hear their distant yells and figured she only had about 70 seconds on them.

She was getting ahead of herself; here is a little introduction. Her name was Emerald East. Her 5-year-old brother and 10-year-old sister called her Emmy. They had been on their own for almost five years now. She would turn 16 on June 1st. She had just tricked Bobby Sparks out of 350,000 dollars. And if she didn't start running faster, she was about to be royally screwed.

She rounded a corner and the duffle bag slammed into the building.

"Shit!" She hissed to herself, fixing the zipper back into place while running down 9th street. She was almost at the rendezvous point and then she'd be home free.

A gun went off a half mile behind her and she cut through a back alley. She hadn't meant to double cross Bobby, but after five years of small fights and small bets, the opportunity to go against a heavy hitter was too great to miss. And when she found out how much money she could make by screwing Bobby over, it just seemed ridiculous not to get 350 grand.

She turned left and roughly slid into a building through a fresh puddle. Her bare arm scraped against the brick and she winced. It must have rained during her match. She had just decided a few days ago that she was going to get the money. After tucking Hunter and Sage into bed tonight, she'd told Mr. Ramirez when and where to go to find it, and to not expect her back until the heat had cooled down in a month or two.

Emerald was not a total idiot, despite how the current situation may have portrayed her. She knew how imbecilic it was to betray the king of Bludhaven's underground fighting and drug smuggling ring. But she had two mouths to feed, not including her own, and she'd been fighting for the bastard since she was 11. After 45 broken bones, 16 stabbings, and 30 matches where the 'roided up assholes just didn't care at all about fighting fair, she was thoroughly and overwhelmingly tired.

After being, let's go ahead and call it "orphaned", a month before her 11th birthday, entering the fight club had seemed like the only logical way to feed her and her siblings while staying hidden. They'd had to leave Gotham, and Bludhaven was close enough that she knew who was in charge of the underground but didn't have to worry about him finding them. Emerald had refused to become a child prostitute, and thanks to Daddy Dearest she knew that she could take a beating. She'd done the math once. She did her first match on her 11th birthday. It had lasted a whopping 63 seconds before her opponent, a 34-year-old man who went by "The Shredder", knocked her unconscious.

Emerald woke up in a sketchy infirmary an hour later with $2000 in her pocket and a new job. The crowd of sadists had gone wild for the little girl who could take a punch with the best of them and couldn't wait to make bets on how long she would last in her next fight. The matches happened every other weekend, and Emerald usually fought on Fridays and Saturdays. So, two rounds each weekend over the course of 4.5 years with no break comes out to about 216 matches.

Now that number wasn't perfect. Once she hit 14 and had some real muscle mass on her, the bets stopped being about how long she could last and started being about how long it would take her to win. And once she was able to win more consistently, she had less injuries and would sometimes do 4-6 matches a weekend. But there were discrepancies on the other end too. She had missed all of December of 2006 after "Goliath" broke 7 ribs on her left side. She had missed July-Sept of 2007 when "Python Whip" had fractured her L5 vertebrae, and there were a few other similar instances over the years. Overall, by her calculations, she had been in 256 illegal fights since her 11th birthday. And to be honest, Emerald was fucking tired of it.

She was tired of her body constantly aching. She was tired of being a commodity for the rich. She was tired of scaring her brother and sister every time she left for "work" because despite their youth, they knew as well as she did that at some point along this path she wouldn't be coming home.

But Emerald really didn't have another choice. They needed a place to live, food to eat, books to read, clothes to wear, and money to bribe doctors into giving appointments to three kids with no official papers without calling social services. Bludhaven was corrupt enough to give Emerald the freedom she needed to hide from the authorities, social services, and him while still being a sort-of-safe-enough place to raise her siblings. After her 285th match two weeks ago, Bobby had called her into his office for a talk.

She had won 14 fights in a row, and he had a proposition for her. He wanted her to be the main Sunday fight against "Yellow Fever", a heavy hitter, and unsurprisingly racist guy, from Metropolis riding the high of an unprecedented 59-match win streak. "Yellow Fever" would let her last until the seventh round, she would pretend to go unconscious (if she weren't already) and have $60,000 in cash afterward to congratulate her for her hard work.

It wasn't new for Bobby to fix her matches. Emerald didn't care if her record or ego took a hit when she needed extra money, like when Hunter got meningitis and went deaf at 13 months and required some serious medical care, but this was an offer of a different caliber. She had never made more than $10,000 off a match before, and she had never been offered a Sunday fighting spot. Fridays were lightweight fights that ended with scratches and sprains. Saturdays were for people who liked seeing longer and more violent fights that ended with broken bones and dislocated joints. But Sundays, well, Sundays were the main event. Sundays were for people who wanted to bet serious money on serious fighters. Almost half of all Sunday matches ended when one of the fighters died. It was the most dangerous night of the weekend, but it was also the best opportunity to make money. Lasting to round seven would be a whole new kind of pain, but at least Emerald had a guarantee that "Yellow Fever" would not kill her. And with three constantly growing kids under one roof it felt like every dollar bill was gone before it even touched her fingers.

Bobby's offer meant that after 4 and a half years, she had finally proven herself to be a real threat. "The Little Nightmare" was now a big enough name to be the main fight of the night. (Give her a break, she was 11 when she chose her ring name and the commentator had thrown in the word "little" to emphasize the fact that she was a child). $60,000 would have made a huge difference in her family's life, but she was tired of the way she was living, and $350,000 was a prettier number.

That's why she told Mr. Ramirez, her landlord and one of the only two adults on this planet she almost trusts, where he could find the duffle bag of her winnings and promised him $50,000 of it as long as he used the rest of it to take care of Sage and Hunter during the months she would need to go off the grid. It was a last-minute decision, but Emmy didn't know when or if the chance to get over a quarter million dollars would ever come her way again.

Over the past week, she scratched together the second riskiest plan of her life and figured out how to steal $350 grand from Bludhaven's King. Regardless of what Bobby told her, "The Little Nightmare" would knock out "Yellow Fever" in the third round. It had to be during or before the third round because Bobby would come out of his office to watch after the fourth round when it was getting closer to his pay out. Emmy had seen how the betting system worked for years, and she knew its most vulnerable point. All bets under 500 grand had to be cash, one of Bobby's own rules, which meant that the 350,000 dollars he was dropping on her match would be in a duffle bag in a pile at the betting station. The betting station was a large hut with a bullet proof glass window where observers made their guesses about who would win the matches of the night. All the money people bet would slide into the bullet proof structure where it would stay until the fight was officially called, and the winners in the crowd would trample each other trying to get their payout, after Bobby took his 15% fee, of course. All the money was kept in the hut, except for Bobby's. He distrusted the other bettors and always wanted to keep his cash separate. That was why his betting cash was kept in a duffel bag to the left of the hut surrounded by six of his most-trusted hired guns.

Bobby's extra precautions were the very thing that would make her rich. Emerald had thrown on a black wig, stuffed all the cash she had into a duffle bag similar to Bobby's typical one, and made a bet on her own fight earlier in the night. However, on her way to make her bets, she dropped a small electro-bomb onto Bobby's bag. In four hours, the bomb would go off, shocking the guards around it, and she could swoop in to swipe the bag.

Emerald had never been more stressed before a match. Not even the terror of uncertainty before her very first match could compare to the churning of her stomach as she stretched out and kept Bobby's bag in her sightline. She had a plan, but it involved multiple steps that had to be timed almost perfectly. She had taken a single, calming breath, and prepared for her final match. She would never be welcomed back here again. The last fight of the night had finally come, and "Yellow Fever" was unconscious with a broken jaw before the bell that signaled the beginning of the first round had stopped ringing.

The second his jaw crunched underneath the metal knuckles she had painted to match her skin tone (she cheated, so what?), and he fell to the ground the crowd was in an uproar. The main matches never ended that quickly and Bobby had let certain "friends" know what bet to make. In the clamor and confusion, no one noticed the six men guarding Bobby's stash get electrocuted, and Emerald had swiped the duffle bag and was out the door in seconds.

And that's why she was currently running for her life at 1:38AM on a made-up holiday under a sky which clearly promised a storm. She had given Bobby a three-minute window to realize he'd been swindled before he sent some of his goons after her, but unfortunately it had only taken him 2 minutes. The missing minute and the lack of sleep she had gotten this week were rapidly working against Emerald's exhausted muscles and maxed out adrenal glands.

The red light of the neon naked woman sign flashed to the right of her as the porn shop came into view. "Oh, thank God," she muttered as she raced behind the building, threw the bag into the sleazy dumpster, and grabbed the decoy duffle she had planted behind the dumpster earlier that morning. The clock on the bail bonds shop across from her read 1:40AM. She would have time to lure Bobby's men away from the spot before Mr. Ramirez got there to get the stolen money, but not much. She had to make sure they took the bait and followed her. She cursed at her racing heart. "Okay, it's fine. You got this." She took one deep breath and raced out of the alley with the dark purple decoy duffle on her shoulder.

Emerald bounced on the balls of her feet as she listened for the oncoming lackeys intent on shooting her and removing her kneecaps at the boss's command. One bounce. Two bounce. The smell in the air changed and the icy rain started to fall. The yells were getting loud enough that she could clearly hear some of the violent curses being thrown her way. Emerald slowly started to jog away from the porn store looking over her shoulder. "Wait for it...wait for it..."

The first head of a gang banger peaked around a corner and a bullet whizzed past her, cutting a slight parabola through the misting raindrops. Lightning hit a building that was far too close for comfort and startled Emerald into tripping in a puddle. She swore and bolted up lugging the waterlogged duffle bag behind her.

The fall cost her a few extra second of lead time on the gang behind her and she pushed her legs and arms as hard as she could to regain a position far away from the gaining murderers. She could hear the roar of their footsteps over the blanket of mist turning everything silver, and she deeply regretted the lack of sleep she had gotten over the past three days. Planning to steal a quarter mill' was more stressful than she had expected.

But the idiots were all following her. A quick glance back confirmed that not a single one had stopped to look at the dumpster next to the flashing boob sign. The money was safe. She had made the drop in time. Now she just needed to get away from the mob.

Emerald quickly scaled the bakery on 15th street. It was made entirely of brick and had a design which afforded plenty of great climbing holds even in the rain. Plus 15th street was crowded which meant she could jump from roof to roof easily. Thunder crashed deafeningly but the rain was still a light mist so her view of where and when to jump wasn't obscured.

"The bitch is on the roof!" Came a cry from below followed by three gunshots.

Emerald sped up. She had to time this perfectly to get the plan to work. The Italian delivery place, a pathetic front for a mobster cash cleaning operation, always made a "fresh produce" trip to the bank at 2AM on Sundays. She could see the pizza shaped sign up ahead and heard the starting of an engine. She had to speed up even more to make it.

Emerald jumped across to the roof right in front of the produce truck. Six of Bobby's men had managed to make it onto the roof after her and the other 17 were still on the ground. The truck rounded the corner. Emerald threw the duffle bag off her shoulder, made eye contact with the closest gun-for-hire, and dropped it on top of the thin layer of tomatoes which sort of covered the boxes of money in the truck bed.

"The money's in the truck! The money's in the truck!"

The battle cry had shifted from breaking her knees to scrambling after the cash, and Emmy slid down a fire escape to the ground and kept running. At this pace she was 8 minutes from her desired destination: the docks. Everyone knew that Batman had cameras hidden somewhere along the beach to make sure no shipments of people, drugs, or anything else came into Bludhaven. If Emmy had had any energy to spare, she would have scoffed at the fact that a small stretch of one mile was the only part of Bludhaven any so-called-hero seemed to care about. Her second wave of adrenaline hit her, and she doubled her efforts to get to the safety of the docks. Every villain and criminal in this town refused to get within two miles of the beach for fear of getting themselves on the radar of the Big Bad Bat.

The rain was falling more steadily now, and the frigid February air sent Emmy's breaths into opaque clouds immediately dissipated by the girl barreling through them. She saw the waterline coming up and smiled savagely in the moonlight. Within a minute she had passed the last building and was on the sands of safety. She ran to the battered wooden dock and ducked behind one of the thick support beams digging into the beach. She waited, frosted breath baited. One minute: no sign of being followed. Two minutes: no sounds of Bobby's boys anywhere. Ten minutes of waiting and Emmy's breathing had returned to its normal calm, and the only sound was the rain picking up speed on the dock overhead. A stream of icy water was leaking through a crack in the dock and hitting the center of her skull, careening down onto her forehead at haphazard angles, but she kept her position steady and her eyes fixed on the building line. She had no idea what was happening in her city and she had no idea if Ramirez had gotten the real bag or not. Had the lackeys taken the tomato truck bait? Or were they still coming after her? Had one of them managed to follow her? A buzz from inside her sports bra took her attention elsewhere.

Emerald yanked out her phone and saw the most beautiful message in history.

Ramirez:

I got your message. The wife and I will be happy to water and sing to your plants during your trip. The rain is hitting every part of the city so find some shelter. See you when the storm dies down.

Translation:

I got the money. We'll take care of the kids until you get back and tell them you love them. Bobby's men are still looking for you everywhere so leave town for a while.

Emerald's knees shook and she fell to the beach with a humorless laugh. She did it! The kids had money that would make their lives so much better and they would be staying with a sweet old couple that had known them for years. They would be better off without her for a month or two and then they could regroup as a family with a real future and not as a deaf 6-year-old, isolated 11-year-old, and beaten up 15-year-old. Emerald laid down on the soggy sand and threw an elbow over her eyes. Masochistic chuckles still leaving her mouth, "Fuck you, Bobby. Who's the boss now?"

She smiled a relaxed smile for the first time in years. She could take the kids to a real city. Somewhere with good schools and neighborhood kids to play with, and she would get a job as an ASL interpreter or something like that and they would have a better and safer life. She had told the Ramirez's they could take $50k for their troubles so even with $300k leftover Emerald could change her family's life for the better. Fuck the Superheroes and their false promises. She would save herself. She'd been doing it her whole life anyway.

Justice league. More like Just-us league. They didn't come save real people like her younger siblings. They helped rich people not go bankrupt and sent the same 50 criminals back into the same broken prison systems over and over and nothing ever changed.

They'd let her father run free for years but got a guy who had been running a Ponzi scheme on a bank after a week? What a joke. The news painted them as heroes of all people, but they weren't. They were just a symbol of hope that taught people learned helplessness and made the world dependent upon a small group who would probably never come. Not for people like her anyway.

Emerald removed her arm and looked at the leaky wood above her head. Another crack of thunder breaking her train of thought. Sure, she had done terrible things. But at least she admitted to it. At least she loved and protected her siblings. Did she deserve to go to jail? Maybe. But she had two people who depended on her and she could not let them down. That's more than the JustAss league could say.

Emerald smirked at the underside of the dock darkly. She may be a criminal, but at least she wasn't a spineless "hero" who got cats out of trees for a photo-op. At least she knew who she was, and she had a code that would never be broken.

"I take care of Sage, Hunter, and myself. That's it."

A flash of green momentarily blinded her and a robotic screech grew in its crescendo. Emerald crawled out from under the dock and looked to the sky. A comet was careening straight for the ocean at her feet. She scrambled back just in time to see that the comet was actually a small metal pod with a green fire surrounding it. It slammed into the water a dozen meters from shore and the power of the blast sent a sheet of angry water slamming onto her. She went flying into the abandoned building on the edge of the beach. She fell to the ground as the impact wave receded. She coughed up the sea water in her lungs as she saw something she never thought she would ever see.

The silver ball was an escape pod, and something was moving inside. The rain obscured her vision. She threw a hand above her eyes and squinted. There was a limb of some kind trying to break the glass from inside the ship. She had just witnessed an alien crash-landing.