 | ShatterStorm Productions
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| ShatterStorm Productions
|
I’m With You
++Ro++
It was never easy to come to a new city, and this was the biggest one outside of New York I’d ever been in. Like it’s predecessor, New Gotham was a bewildering contrast of light and dark, jaded and wide-eyed, brains and brawn. The heartbeat of this great organism of millions of lives was growing on me fast. Not to mention the endless supply of entertainment. Between the typical distractions of any city, there was an active nightlife, both literally and figuratively. The crime in New Gotham was unreal, like wild rats locked in too small of a space. There were swarms of them in the shadows, and the light scattered them like cockroaches. If it was this bad with superhero protection, then maybe we really should go introduce ourselves to lanky, dark and sexy over there.
“You’re broadcasting again. That libido of yours is coming in FM stereo.”
“Shut up,” I grumbled back silently via the telepathic link and my mentor chuckled softly between my ears. “You’ve seen her through my eyes. Can you blame me?”
“Nope,” Davie smirked and my half-hearted scowl turned into a long-suffering sigh. “But I’m not going to give you a break either, Leonardo m’boy.”
“What is it with you and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, anyway? Pain in my ass.”
With her familiar, distorted telepathic chuckle echoing softly in my thoughts, I refocused on my quarry. It was impossible to think of the woman known as Huntress as my prey, or anyone else’s for that matter. Not with every move like an alley cat who could survive anything. My pack and I had been in New Gotham almost a week now. It had taken me less than two nights to find her dancing across the rooftops to patrol her territory. But less than one night for me to pick up her scent in the heartbeat of this place and fall in love with the taste and smell of her. Describing my animal sensory input was nearly impossible, the barrage of smell and taste and body language a thousand times too intricate for any and all the languages of earth to describe. Davie always told Shan and me that sensing through us was a rush better than anything she’d ever experienced. Eyes as sensitive as any cat’s tracked the shadowy presence of the dark woman in the night. Born with sensory abilities that no mere human could dream of, and I still had a bitch of a time keeping track of Huntress.
Leather trench coat rippling out behind her like a banner, she was rapidly getting away from me. Saints, but she could move! An impossible leap like something out of The Matrix had her on a roof that even my eyes could barely make out. “Dammit,” I mumbled and concentrated.
As familiar as the sensations might be, it was a heady rush every damn time. With the deliberate appliance of a memory, and the variables of time of day/night and what the skies looked like in this weather, I was gone. There was a terrifying moment of nothing, absolutely nothing; no sensation of self or place while my body went from here to there. Then I was back, dropping lightly to the new location and shaking off the fatigue that teleporting always hit me with. It was a cool Metahuman power; even if it had some limitations that drove me crazy sometimes.
If Huntress kept on a relatively straight course, she would pass right by me and I could continue my superhero watching. Settling into absolute silence and stillness in deep shadow, I waited for the hunt to play out.
“Did you lose her?” Suddenly broke through the mental wanderings clogging my brain and I was immediately paying attention.
“Dunno. She should’ve passed by here already.”
“Odd. You better go check it out.”
Seized by a case of nerves, I was ashamed that even my head voice sounded whiny. “But what if she sees me?”
“We have to say howdy at some point, Ro.”
“Yeah, well,” I pouted and uncoiled from my hiding spot. “I don’t have to like it.”
Perching on the edge of the roof, I stretched out my senses and let the city talk to me. There was the usual hum of traffic, the babble of voices and a billion other sounds. Most of them were instantly discounted as background noise and I heard what I both wanted and dreaded. Muscles and tendons were uncoiling before I was consciously reacting. Millions of years of instincts spliced into my genes by modern technology did come in handy sometimes. There was no time to think while moving across this kind of territory at these kinds of speeds, only the burn of the primitive. Animal instinct got me to where I needed to be and then handed the reins back to the upper brain to deal with the threat.
There were fifteen of them, fifteen! And five were already sucking pavement. Someone was serious about getting the Huntress and didn’t care who was hurt in the process. Or killed apparently. The dull flash of a dozen guns had me reacting almost faster than I could keep up with. Gravity pulled my body to the ground and I did what I had to do.
++Dinah++
So much for a quiet night. I had been discretely following Helena around for so many weeks now that it was habit now. What worried me is that she honestly seemed to be clueless that I was doing it. Acting stupid all this time wasn’t in character for her. Had Helena known I was tailing her, she would have at least made a smartass remark, or more likely, gotten really pissed. But Helena was just going through the motions since Quinzel had turned all of our lives upside-down. Barbara hadn’t exactly been chatty lately either. Big shocker there, a psycho trusted by the person she trusts most killed her boyfriend. School was nearly as bad as home, what with everybody so shocked by Mr. Brixton’s death. I still felt weird calling him Wade, I mean he is… rather was a teacher at my school.
Barbara’s voice in my com distracted my mental wanderings. “Huntress? Huntress? Dammit! Canary!”
“On it,” I confirmed crisply and headed off in the direction Helena had just gone. That tone only came out when Barbara heard something truly bad over the com sets. I had to wonder if she ever sounded that frantic over me…
Part of me was frozen in horror at the scene. Bodies on the street, Helena dropping to her knees, blood pouring from her upper body, the flash of what looked like a hundred gun barrels. I was screaming denials even as a flash of black dropped from the fire escape below me. The mysterious figure draped all over Helena as the alley erupted into the deafening roar of gunfire.
I couldn’t move as smoke filled the alleyway and the figure in black flinched away from the bullets pummeling them, but remained protecting Helena with their own body. The sight steeled me and I moved to join the fray.
As quickly as it had begun, the noise stopped and my body reacted. With a batarang anchoring me, I was rappelling down to land heavily on two of the bastards who had shot at Helena. It wasn’t a landing to write home to Oracle about, but I didn’t fall, so I was satisfied. Red-eyed with rage at these bastards, I ignored the voice in my ears and laid into the assailants like a woman possessed. Feet, elbows and fists rocked and all, but my real weapon was my brain. Not only because I was smarter than these assholes, but because I knew something they didn’t.
“Get her!”
It would be the last thing he would say for a very long time. The power of my rage and genes smashed two of them back like rag dolls in a wave of fiery blue energy, another glare had two more eating wall nearby. It felt good to loose some of my pain and frustrations on these goons. There was no snappy patter, no enjoyment in this fight, only the need to make them hurt for attacking Helena. She might be dead, or bleeding to death only yards away and my anger rose higher.
It wasn’t until I started to calm down that I realized that three of them were running off in fear and one seemed really familiar. In the haze of adrenaline dump and physical exhaustion, I filed his face away and turned to face the still pile of black leather nearby. One of the goons stirred with a groan and I kicked him silent again. “Canary?! Are you okay? What the hell’s going on?”
“I’m checking on Huntress now,” I replied hastily and rushed over. “But there’s somebody here that helped her out and they’re both down.” When the stranger draped across Helena’s body suddenly made a soft sound and twitched, hope flooded through my body. Please, let me not be the only one wearing body armor…
There was a forest of scuff marks covering the expansive billows of the trench/cape wrapped around the stranger’s body. They were tall, slender and solid under heavy layers of what, thank God, looked like some kind of thick body armor. The stranger was trying to get up on one elbow as I carefully pulled out the pair of telescoping batons that Barbara had been teaching me to use and knelt down.
“Hey,” I said softly, trying not to startle the person who had pretty much saved the crumpled and shallow-breathing Helena. “I need to make sure my partner there’s okay.” Okay, the Darth Vader-esque headgear was a little creepy, but I refused to budge. It was a close-fitting helmet with bug-eyed goggles and a faceplate like the nose of a semi-truck. Up on their elbows, the stranger suddenly hissed in pain and collapsed, only half on top of Helena this time. “Dammit… Oracle, there’s blood everywhere and I can see Huntress has a nasty cut by her collarbone. I think at least one of those bullets nailed Robin Hood here.”
Then I felt someone behind me and the reflexes went into overdrive.
++Shan++
The curvy blonde in the leather and Kevlar was serious and I went defensive. I could smell Ro’s blood and almost feel the echo of her pain. It made me growl aggressively and the girl stiffened and dropped into an even tighter defensive stance. “Wait!”
Okay, neither of us had expected that. It was Ro, sprawled painfully beside the Huntress. “Found her, I see,” came from my mouth in a deceptively mild tone and the masked blonde cocked her head.
“You come in matching sets?”
She was a feisty one. I liked that in a woman. The tension was racked up again as Ro squirmed and moaned, “Blessed Saints, this hurts! Knock it off you two, before we bleed to death here!”
The blonde had her entire upper face covered and I had no clue as to her intent except that her jaw was set in a stubborn line. Considering that Ro and I were masked like sci-fi cartoon characters, I’m sure that the woman was reluctant to just trust us. “Listen,” I entreated after forcing down my hostility and pack instincts. “Just let me get her and get the hell out of here. The cops will be here any minute and I’d hate to try and explain this to yet another bank of drawn guns.”
There was the faintest wisp of sound… that voice that the Gotham girls kept reacting to. While the masked character wasn’t broadcasting, Huntress was, although it was really faint. “Mikey,” Davie’s voice prodded me in a tone that was growing urgent. “Quit flirting with the locals. Not all the police in New Gotham are eating donuts.”
“Give Sticks over here that same advice, Splinter,” I growled sarcastically and the girl’s head tilted curiously. “Dammit, that was supposed to be an inside thought.” The blonde grinned reluctantly and Davie gave me ‘you idiot’ vibes as I inched closer to Ro. The mentor could harass me later; right now I had more important things on my mind.
“Ro?” I begged softly, needing to hear her voice.
“Yeah,” she growled, all grumpy and tense with pain. Just hearing her voice made me feel better and I chose to ignore the nervous woman with the batons. Kneeling beside the only person I had ever loved with all my heart, I tugged Ro’s head onto my shoulder and prayed she would be okay. “Don’t get all mushy on me, Squeakers.”
“Bite me, Boo.”
Then the scream of sirens and squawking police washed over us with fear and bright white lights.
Shit.
++Dinah++
Don’t panic!
Oh right, don’t panic! That’s the freakin’ police! And we’re the costumed freaks surrounded by unconscious bodies. Oh, the cops will love this…
“Freeze! This is the police! Don’t move.”
I haven’t been paralyzed with fear since that train almost hit me when I was five years old. Every movie and cop show I’ve ever seen in my life was flashing across my eyes in counterpoint to the blinding searchlights. Barbara’s voice was buzzing in my ears and my entire body was icy cold in fear. What do I do!?!
Then a gentle hand gripped my arm from behind and the world went dark.
Not just dark, but total sensory blackout kinda dark. Absolute terror gripped me at the nothingness.
Just as quickly as it happened, the blackness was gone and I was surrounded by nice, normal New Gotham darkness. Whirling, I was just in time to catch the mysterious armored figure with the girlie voice and snappy patter. She was so heavy that I was driven down like someone dropped a load of bricks on me. Smacking my skull into the tarpaper roof, I blinked to clear the spots dancing around my vision. Between the cop’s nasty lights and the smackdown move, they were pretty spotty right about now.
“Canary? What the hell is going on?”
“Jeez-us Barbara, quit yelling,” I whined through the pounding in my skull.
“Are you alright?”
“Gimmie a second to inventory.”
There was a multitude of heavy bodies pinning me very effectively to a roof.
A roof.
A dark drafty roof.
Where I had been in a drafty and frighteningly bright alleyway just a moment ago.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Where are you?” Barbara coaxed gently, trying not to pressure me.
“I have no idea,” I realized quite quickly.
“Okay, don’t panic, let me see if I can track down your location.” I lay immobile and exhausted beneath my blanket of bodies and decided I’d try and find the energy to panic if one of them decided to stir. No sign of that yet. After months of bad sleep in a fortress of a home that no longer felt safe, training too hard and yet still trying to remain the all-American teen, I was wiped out. “How did you get way over to 5th and Jameson?” Hoping it was a rhetorical question, I remained silent and let Oracle do her magic. “Dinah? You’re only a few blocks from the tower; can you make it back here? You said Huntress was hurt and I’m worried about you two.”
I really loved it when she used that tone, the soft one that was the best kind of proof that she really cared about me, me and Helena both. Who, now that I really looked around, was crumpled awkwardly beside me as though she had been dropped there. That sight gave me the strength to push at the stone-heavy bodies pinning me. Abruptly, one of them tensed and grabbed my wrist. “Shit, Sticks, we gotta stop meeting like this.”
I couldn’t help myself; I started laughing.
She levered off me, but I could feel the trembling exhaustion in her muscles and the imprint of armored plates pressing in on my torso. There was some weird stuff going on, but as I watched one armored figure tenderly cradle the wounded one, I had a good feeling about them. “Oracle,” I beseeched quietly. “We can’t leave them out here to suffer like this. What do we do?”
Okay, that got her attention, the helmet’s faceplate swinging abruptly around to me. “Oracle? Shit! We’ve been trying to track her down for weeks. Tell her the Prophet is looking for her.”
“The Prophet?” I parroted, half deliberately so that Barbara could get the information and half because I was confused as hell. “Who’s the Prophet?”
“Our mentor. Dammit, where are you, Davie? Leo here needs medical attention. So does Huntress, but Sticks here is doing her job and being suspicious of us.”
It took a moment to realize that they weren’t talking to me, but rather communicating with someone the way I did with Oracle. There was a rip of Velcro and something small and white was tossed at me.
“It’s gauze. You better lean on that wound before Huntress bleeds much more,” my mysterious companion encouraged me. It was good advice and I pressed the clean dressing to the ugly wound gaping beneath Helena’s clavicle. Up close with the cowl’s low light goggles helping me, I could see that the collarbone looked quite spectacularly broken. Woo boy… life around the clocktower was gonna suck for awhile. I’d wager a couple of major organs that Helena was a horrible patient. Since she had no patience. The joke was dumb, but it made me snort with perverse humor.
“Canary?” The speaker in my cowl crackled to life. “I do have reference to a metahuman named the Prophet that’s worked with some of the underground cells along the east coast, including New Gotham on past occasions, but no mention of sidekicks.”
“Okay, now what? One of them has a bullet wound and not only does Huntress have a nasty knife wound, but her collarbone is busted. Hey, tall, dark and sarcastic,” I pitched my voice louder and the strange woman looked back at me again. “What’s your name?”
There was a pause where I could feel the conflict within her. “Shan,” she finally stated quietly and did something I really hadn’t expected. She reached up and pulled the helmet off.
“Wow,” I couldn’t help but breathe in awe. Now, I had seen some weird stuff working with Oracle and Huntress, but Shan was up there on the strangeness chart. Well into the top ten in fact. In the dim light, I could make out her pure white coloring and the arch of long, furry animal ears. She was damn good looking even with the wild critter ears and I smiled. The expression was returned, flashing a hint of canines that were never meant for the human mouth.
“We teleported you here,” Shan explained and carefully touched the figure beneath her gloved hands. “The effort’s gonna cost her.” The heartbreak in her tone made my own wince in sympathy. “You two maxed us out.”
“Canary,” I automatically supplied the name I had adopted the name from the mother I had barely known then lost. Shan cockled her head curiously and looked thoughtful.
“Like Black Canary?”
Well, it wasn’t as though I had chosen the name for subtlety. “Yeah, actually. Everybody needs a hero.”
Shan nodded. “I’ve heard the stories about her.” There was a strange look on her face, as though she was listening to some distant sound that only she could hear. “Prophet’s almost here,” she informed me and I began to wonder if this mysterious Prophet was a telepath. Woo boy, that would certainly complicate things…
“We gotta find someplace quiet and clean for Ro to recover. Can you move Huntress on your own?”
“I have no idea,” I tried to keep the quaver from my voice, but I was feeling the panic again. Worried moon-pale eyes stared into my soul and I felt the spark of connection with her. I suddenly understood something deep and profound. Sometimes, I was going to be required to take a dangerous and potentially stupid risk and trust a stranger. A memory of Doctor Quinzel flashed across my mind and I winced. Please, let this be different… “But we have a medical facility nearby. C’mon, I’ll take you there.”
The figure that suddenly joined us was a small woman dressed in a toned-down version of the two teleporters. She yanked the helmet off to reveal a pretty woman of Mediterranean descent. With barely a word, she checked both wounded and bullied me into helping her gather up Huntress’ limp body. She was so… light. With that big personality and incredible strength, I expected her to weigh more. Helena’s dark hair blended with the black suit that Barbara had passed down to me. It had been a terrifying thrill to inherit the Batgirl suit and modify it to my personality and codename.
Somehow Shan was carrying Ro by only a loose grip on the undamaged arm thrown over her shoulder. My brain couldn’t make any sense of it until Prophet gave me a tug and gestured at the ground near my feet with her chin. “Watch the tail.” Something had slithered loose from Ro’s coat, looking for all the world like a snake wrapped in black neoprene. It certainly hung from her body at the right angle for a tail, but…
Then I realized that Shan must have one too, and that’s how she was keeping Ro pressed to her back. Their mystery deepened with every realization. An effortless kick from Shan’s heavily booted foot had us in the confines of the filthy and dark building. Whatever it was. There were scattered sounds as we wound our way down what felt like hundreds of flights of stairs. I was feeling dizzy by the time we reached the decrepit lobby. The surrounding neighborhood wasn’t much better and some of the scarier denizens of the night slunk back into the shadows as we left the building. How I hated doing this without Helena’s moral support…
There was a screech of tires as a big vehicle took the nearby corner a bit fast. My new companions tensed, but I knew who it was. “That’s a friend,” I said reassuringly. “She’ll get these guys patched up.” The big Hummer H2 screeched to a halt and I yanked the door open to drag Helena and Prophet in with me. “Hi Barbara, thanks for the ride. This is Shan and the Prophet; the limp one is Ro. Barbara is a teacher at my school and my guardian, so she kinda got dragged into the life, y’know?” It was a lame cover story, but what the hell was I supposed to say? There was no response from Barbara except that shadowy, piercing stare. There was no dome light in the big car, to protect her from prying eyes. Then something shifted and the warmth I had been feeling with Shan cooled. She had paused halfway into the SUV and glanced from Barbara to Prophet to me. A heavily gloved hand reached out to cup my chin and I was shocked and thrilled at the intimate gesture. Especially when her thumb brushed over my lower lip.
“I’ll find you again, Pretty Bird,” she whispered and withdrew from the car. I was stunned by the rejection and my expression must have shown it, even with the upper half of my face covered. “I want to earn your trust on better terms than this.”
Prophet wriggled out from beneath Helena’s bulk and slipped from the Hummer to stand beside the tall white woman. There was a sense of relief from Barbara and an expression of regret on Shan’s face as the door automatically slid closed.
++Davie++
It had turned into a hell of a weird night. An uncharacteristically quiet Shan led me back into the shadows to return to our little hideout. Part of her behavior was because of her unconscious twin, but Ro’s breathing was normal, as was the background noise in her mind. She’d be weak and pissy, but she’d be fine. I was making a guess that it was Canary that had her so distracted. Ah, gotta love those teenage hormones… even if said hormones were nearly a decade late. They may have been early bloomers by doing the puberty dance when they had been only ten years old, but their emotions didn’t match up much of the time. My poor girls…
We said very little as we settled Ro onto her cot and stripped her down to the t-shirt. Shan did the same as I pulled out the transfusion kit and other medical supplies. A couple of careful needle pricks had crimson blood shifting from one body to the other while I cleaned out the bullet hole and stitched it up. “So,” I mumbled blandly to Ro’s damaged flesh. “Care to tell me what all that was about? She seemed to be willing to trust you.”
Shan snorted at me, the familiar sound of sarcasm still sounding like a dog after all this time. “I dunno,” she finally hedged in a hesitant voice that really wasn’t like her. She was always so bold, unless she had to deal with strangers, so I suppose I really wasn’t surprised. Looking the way they did, the twins got very little chance to interact with people. “I think her guardian was a bit… nervous.”
“Actually, she was wary. I managed to sneak a peek while she was concentrating on you. She seemed unfazed by the ears, but was tweaked about the idea of taking us home.”
“Territorial?”
No joke from her? Huh, she must be more unnerved than I had thought. “Probably. Don’t quote me, but I’d hazard a guess that we just met the famous Oracle.”
“Seriously?”
“As far as my contacts know, Oracle worked with only Huntress until recently. So, Canary was probably the new kid and I doubt they have much, if any, support staff, so to speak. Superheroes rarely do.”
“I get it. We know Oracle is a woman and the brains behind the brawn. So it was a good chance the mystery driver was her.” Finally, Shan flashed me her trademark toothy grin and I was relieved to see it. “Maybe we should have gone with them.”
Ro grumbled and twitched as I taped gauze over the entry and exit wounds. “That bullet must have been traveling incredibly fast to punch through her armor on both sides.”
“They were trying to kill Huntress,” Ro suddenly mumbled and Shan leaned down to affectionately rub their cheeks and noses together. “They would have done it too. And someone made a damn good shot to the weakest point in this armor.”
“Or just a lucky guess,” I added in and gave the unfocused violet gaze my best grin. “Armor’s always weakest at shoulders and hips for freedom of movement. The jacket protects your hips in layers. We’ll need to see if we can come up with some kind of shoulder pad or something.”
Both girls groaned and I was sympathetic. The suits were already bulky and heavy, exhausting to carry and even more so to teleport.
“By the way,” I began softly and they both perked up at the tone. “I’m proud of both of you. Not only did you save the life of a respected superhero tonight, you pulled off an amazing teleport. Four bodies with a bullet wound? That’s amazing. And Shan? You were awesome with Canary. That could have gotten a hell of a lot more confrontational and downright ugly.”
There was a pause before they smiled in absolute delight at me. This was one of things I loved in the sisters. They were unabashed and unrestrained in their emotions around the few people they trusted implicitly. I was one of those chosen few. They had so much to offer the world around them and I hated that people would only see the fur and tails. People would see only the freakish differences and not the beautiful souls underneath. Carefully removing the transfusion needles, I packed away my supplies and ruffled both of their white heads.
“Sleep now, I’ll keep watch.”
++Barbara++
“I’d ask what the hell you were thinking, but,” I began and my train of thought derailed. Dinah looked unnerved and more than a little stubborn. It was rare if ever that she glowered at me like that.
“Don’t you think I don’t know that I was out of line? I made a judgment call, isn’t that what you’ve been pressuring me to do for months?”
We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence as we stripped Helena’s shirt and cleaned up the nasty wound. It was deep and ugly, but quite clean. A few pints of whole blood, a few stitches and a couple of days of rest would set her right. Except the twisted and purpled bone under her skin that was going to cripple her for far longer. An x-ray showed two snaps in the clavicle and some research confirmed that there was very little I could do about it. All I could do really was bandage her up like a mummy and hope that she might actually listen to me once she was awake. Keeping the Huntress still was like caging a wild animal. With that done, I knew I had to talk to Dinah. My feelings were too involved here, my terror at yet someone else in my immediate territory. But I also wanted her to make her own decisions and couldn’t freak out on her every time she did.
She was on the deck in front of the clock face, staring at the rising dawn over the smoggy skyscrapers. It was still odd to see the familiar lines of my old costume clinging to her very different curves. Sure, she’d removed all the yellow and replaced the bat with a bird shape, but I still remembered the suit intimately. The cowl was bunched up at the back of her head, the goggles bugging out oddly. The plexi-compound half-rounds with their implanted low-light capabilities had been a brilliant modification. All the other stuff we’d since added was even better.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly and rubbed the bridge of my nose. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
That earned me a dirty look from the corner of blue eyes. “Well I sure as hell didn’t do anything right.”
Okay, I deserved that. “Dinah, our identities…”
“Aren’t as secret as we’d like them to be and you know it. Barbara, they weren’t anymore of a normal human than I am. You didn’t see Shan.”
“See her?”
“She’s got long ears and fur and a tail. Seriously. And they can teleport. Ro threw herself in front of hundreds of bullets to save Helena’s life. If they’re trying to earn our trust just to hurt us, there’s got to be a hell of a lot less painful ways to do it.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s just…”
Wade’s ghost clung to this place like a tangible entity. The memory of Harley’s treachery was in every shadow and hidden corner of the clocktower. Sighing in frustration, Dinah raked her fingers through her hair and stepped over to me. The heavy leather glove looked so strange on her delicate hand. In the confines of that suit, she was no seventeen-year-old girl trying to get through life. It transformed her as certainly as it had me once. It both thrilled and terrified me, that change.
“I’ll go back that roof tomorrow and hope Shan is there. She said she wanted to earn my trust, and I’d like to give her that chance.”
Swallowing my fear, I forced myself to meet her too-old eyes and nodded.
++Dinah++
Easy for me to say.
I had been unnerved enough by the evening to stand up to Barbara in ways that I never had before. It was a turning point and we both knew it. I wasn’t the new kid to her anymore, but had earned my place in the team. Helena had woken up briefly in the evening; I had heard Barbara talking tenderly to her. I was napping before sweep because I was wiped out from yet another sleepless night and the groggy complaints had woken me. Barbara had reassured the stupid-on-painkillers Helena that she was fine, I was fine, that everybody was fine. She had said that she was proud of me and that Helena should be too. There was nothing but a drunken snort in response, but I doubt that Helena really heard anything she was saying anyway and chose to bask in the warm fuzzies of Barbara’s complete acceptance.
Once night was growing ripe, Barbara had briefed me on the day’s events according to the police and sent me off with a calm ‘good luck’. After checking on the sites of a couple of robberies, I returned to the roof at the corner of 5th and Jameson. In fact, I’d been sitting there brooding long enough to grow cold, sleepy and a bit annoyed. Why the hell was I here anyway?
Then a flicker if movement caught my eye and I froze. For a breathless moment, I wondered if I’d imagined it, and then a familiar shape melted from the shadows. She moved like a cat, every movement sleek and deliberate. “You can come out,” Shan spoke clearly into the night, the helmet tilted up at my perch. “I don’t bite. Unless asked nicely.”
“Just admiring the view,” I sassed back and flushed in embarrassment. I had been hanging out with the cat-in-heat Huntress far too long. But Shan just reached up and pulled the helmet off to grin at me.
“What’s to admire?”
“Oh please,” I snorted at her question. “You move like a damn cat. You and Huntress both make me look like a clumsy oaf.”
“I saw you move yesterday and you were suitably scary. Seriously. It’s not just the outfit, though it helps.”
I chuckled and jumped down from my high perch. There was more moonlight out tonight and I took a crazy chance by pushing the cowl back and letting it fall away from my face.
“Hi, Pretty Bird,” Shan purred as I looked way up into her shadowed eyes. Not just kinda purred like some people could, but really had that low rumble beneath her words that sounded like the kitties I had always had as a girl. It sounded really amazing twining around words like a harmony. “I was hoping you’d come back here. Sorry to run out on you like that, but Oracle didn’t seem real happy with us being there.”
“We don’t get a lot of helping hands in this business.”
“Yeah, I know how that is,” Shan quietly agreed and we fell into a kind of awkward silence. It felt just like being around my newest crush at school. Not wanting to explore that train of thought too closely, I spoke up without thinking.
“Do you want to join me on patrol tonight?” She looked as shocked as I felt at the offer. “I don’t really like flying solo,” I admitted and earned that heart-stopping grin. God, Gabby would be so jealous… if I could tell her about my other life, which, of course I couldn’t. Even if I just knew my pal would be cool with all the weirdness, because she was so matter-of-fact about everything.
There was a chuckle in my ear. “Sounds kinky.”
For a moment I didn’t get it, but watched Shan’s grin deepen and embarrassment dance over her features. “Oracle, you’re nasty,” she sassed my distant mentor. “I like that in a Jiminy Cricket.” There was a splutter of surprised laughter and I couldn’t help but smile even if I was mortified. “Canary,” Shan reassured me, putting a gentle hand on my upper arm. “You don’t even want to know what Prophet said.”
That made me laugh in harmony with Barbara.
++Shan++
The girl might not have the inborn physical abilities I had, but she could move. I still didn’t believe her statement that she’d only had the suit and the toys for a few months. She moved like the whole ensemble was a part of her. When I’d made a comment, Canary had only grinned and said it was Huntress’ fault. The bantering stopped when she stiffened suddenly, but the wind sucked away Oracle’s voice from my ears.
“Burglary,” Canary said in a clipped tone even as she leaped to the next building and I scrambled to keep up. A crime to bust up would distract both of us from the gulf of the unknown between us. Ah, how I adored the look of shock on the face of the scum when they were faced by two menacing figures in black leather. I still missed the double dose that Ro and I made, but Canary was a great substitute.
“What the hell,” one of the punks muttered and the gun in his hand began to move in our direction. Only to go flying when the flash of a thrown silver disk nearly took his hand off.
“What’s the matter?” Canary sassed them sweetly. “Didn’t your mommies ever teach you to play nice?”
Okay, it was a lame line, but it succeeded in getting the punks to move. Two of them were airborne from whatever blue-tinged power the girl could throw even as I snarled and leapt at three more with the force of a hungry cougar. Some old fashioned head-busting was a great way to bond to my new pal. “Stay down,” I growled and kicked one for good measure before punching his buddy unconscious and letting the tail home-run another one right over the counter a dozen feet away. Something was probably broken from that last hit. Ooops. Someone shrieked in terror and caught my attention. “Damn. Canary! There must be an employee in the back!”
The girl was good and elbowed one more goon in the mouth as she rushed to my side. “What now?”
“The direct approach?” I teased suggestively and she grinned toothily.
“Go for it.”
That made me laugh as I dropped to all fours and leapt into the dark backroom in one move. Canary was right on my heels, faking left while I went right. There was a curse; a flash of gunfire and something thudded into my helmet, rocking my skull back. Bastard had gotten in a lucky shot, but Canary repaid him for me by doubling him over with a full-body kick that had him retching onto the tacky linoleum.
“She’s frisky,” Davie chuckled lightly as she tracked the fight through my eyes.
“Damn skippy,” I supplied in a rather more suggestive tone than I’d meant to and flushed.
“Are you okay?” Canary was asking the frantic employee while I shook off the stars from the impact to my head and stepped back into the main room. The two terrified patrons had bailed out, and I unceremoniously dragged the eight thugs into a pile. If one so much as moaned, he was thumped unconscious by the ever-helpful Slinky attached to my butt. Gotta love having a tail. Monkeys had nothing on me.
There was a sudden flash of lights in the storefront windows. “Shan! We gotta go!”
In an instant, I was obeying Canary’s yell and was hot on her heels out the fire door in the back. I grabbed her as we were swallowed up by the night and tossed her at the rickety fire escape balcony above. There was a girlie squeak of protest, but she gamely recovered and pulled herself over the railing before turning to make sure I’d made it up. We nearly cracked foreheads we were suddenly so close. Good thing I was in a full helmet and facemask, or she would have seen how embarrassed I was. “Up,” I croaked and ignored Davie’s amusement. Two uniforms crashed into the alley just as we tumbled over one another onto the roof. It was hard to stifle the giggles threatening to escape, but Canary smacked me on the arm and we slunk off into the night.
Far from the crime scene, Canary abruptly halted and doubled over. I worried for a moment until she straightened up with an explosion of laughter that rocked me back on my heels. We laughed and laughed until we were both sitting on the cold roof with tears rolling down our faces. Both helmet and cowl were lying by our feet, staring back like separate entities. Which, in a very real way, they were. The thought finally sobered me up enough to catch my breath and take stock of my surroundings. “God,” Canary hiccupped and scrubbed her face with gloved hands. “That was the most fun I’ve had in weeks, months, maybe ever. I’ve never been in charge before.”
“You know the city better than I do.”
“Still, you let me…” she trailed off, her expression a cute combination of happy and bewildered.
“What? Be in charge? No problem, I’m used to it. I’ve seen the boss’ job and I don’t want it. I don’t really enjoy fighting anyway, tonight the exception of course, because it’s too hard controlling too many animal instincts.”
She nodded sagely and leaned heavily against me, giving my arm a squeeze. “Yeah, I think Huntress is like that a lot too. You guys would like each other.”
“Cool,” was all I could think to say as we lapsed into a peaceful quiet.
++Barbara++
It had been surprisingly enjoyable listening to Dinah banter with the stranger she had tried to describe to me earlier. Dinah yawned hugely and the sound echoed softly around the clocktower. “Why do you call the Prophet, Splinter?”
I had been wondering the same thing and listened to Shan chuckle. The sound was very close to Dinah’s microphone and I could hear an odd purring quality to the sound. “It’s this silly cartoon she loves called the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that’s almost as old as she is.” After a pause, she chuckled again. “And now she’s bitching me out. Hates being teased about her age, you understand.”
Now I remembered why the name seemed vaguely familiar.
“Right. What kinda silly name is that for a cartoon?”
“Cartoon, comic, movies, the whole enchilada. They’re really fun. There’s this ninja teacher who’s a giant rat that gets these four turtles that are almost human and teaches them. I’m Michelangelo and Ro is Leonardo. Davie is Splinter.”
“They’re named after Renaissance artists? And the Prophet is Davie?”
“Yes and yes.”
“And you’re Shan or Michelangelo.”
“Or Mikey, that’s what the boss lady calls me.”
“’Kay. And Ro is Leo?”
“Right again.”
I was listening and remembering watching said silly cartoon as a kid. “Great show,” I murmured softly and heard Dinah make an almost startled sound.
“Hi Oracle,” Shan beseeched softly and I could almost picture a sheepish little wave. “How’s Huntress?”
As though conjured up by the question, said Huntress appeared at the railing upstairs wearing only a bathrobe and a grimace. It was a relief to see her up. “Awake and scowling.”
“Oh? I’ll stay out here where it’s safe then.”
Dinah snickered and yawned again. “You sound tired, kid,” Helena grumbled and flashed me a curious glance. “Who’s your friend?”
“Shan, meet Huntress. Good to hear you up and cranky.”
“Feels like I’ve been stabbed and broken. Go figure,” Helena snorted in mockingly irritation and her voice gentled. “Hey Shan, I hear that I owe you for a serious lack of bullet holes.”
“My sister,” Shan corrected softly and the pain in her voice was obvious. “She’s got that overdeveloped sense of duty thing going and really wanted to meet you.”
Helena smirked. “There’s easier ways to impress a girl.”
Shan’s delighted chuckle filled the clocktower. “Than taking a bullet or two? I can’t think of a one.”
We all cackled over that one, until Helena hissed in pain and leaned heavily against my chair. “Okay, no more comedy,” she hissed and coughed. It doubled her over in agony as the broken collarbone was jostled.
“Hel!” I barked in alarm as she began to collapse half across the chair. “Dammit. Canary, I think you’d better call it a night.”
“Need a hand?”
Yep, Shan had indeed asked me that and memories cascaded through me. First Darkstrike had turned out to be a metamorph and became his greatest enemy, then Harleen Quinzel had turned out to be Harley Quinn and poor Wade had died only feet from where my wheelchair was sitting. Even now his innocent blood wracked me with guilt. I was almost perversely glad for Helena’s weakness to distract me. She was hissing in pain, having jostled her wounded body to near-unconsciousness.
“My sister has some technology that can help heal that bone up fast.”
“Technology?” I questioned even as I scrounged in the little sack tied to the wheelchair. “What kind of technology?”
“Can I trust you?”
It was a loaded question.
But Dinah trusted her and I trusted my protégée’s judgment. Even with the whole Harley/Helena debacle, I still trusted. “I’ll see the whole gang of you ASAP.”
“Yes ma’am,” they chorused in stereo.
Between Dinah’s thumbs-up and the research I’d done into the wandering metahuman known as the Prophet, I was mostly prepared to have complete strangers in the clocktower. Helena didn’t even notice the prick of the hypodermic needle in her strong tricep, but relaxed as the morphine swamped over the obvious pain. “C’mere,” I encouraged her gently to climb into my lap. I had no idea what else to do with her. Alfred was out for the night and there was no way I could move Helena without aggravating her injuries. So I would wait for our new pals to help out. Helena snuggled into my body heat, growing limp and heavy with drugs and sleep. It was rare I had a chance to enjoy her like this, soft and calm and relaxed. Stroking her soft hair, I decided that New Gotham would have to care for itself tonight. My family needed me.
To Be Continued…
By Avril Lavigne
I’m standing on the bridge
I’m waiting in the dark
I thought that you’d be here by now
There’s nothing but the rain
No footsteps on the ground
I’m listening but there’s no sound
Isn’t anyone trying to find me?
Won’t somebody come take me home?
(Chorus)
It’s a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Won't you take me by the hand
Take me somewhere new
I don’t know who you are
But I, I’m with you
I’m with you
I’m looking for a place
I’m searching for a face
Is anybody here I know?
Cause nothing’s going right
And everything’s a mess
And no one likes to be alone
Isn’t anyone trying to find me?
Won’t somebody come take me home?
(Chorus)
Why is everything so confusing?
Maybe I’m just out of my mind
(Chorus)
Take me by the hand
Take me somewhere new
I don’t know who you are
But I, I’m with you
(Repeat)
