April 24 (Barely)
Mood: Sleepy and Jet-Lagged
Music: Blessed, Blessed Silence
Okay, everyone bought their DVDs now? Excellent. Now, where was I...
Oh, right, so Barbara'd just invited me to join her on a trip to Moscow. I said sure (what else was I gonna say?) and she excused herself for a minute to 'make some calls.' Five minutes later, the Birds (some of them, at least) began to trickle in.
Huntress arrives first - I don't know much about her, but there's an air about her...this woman is very deadly, I think. Then the pilot - Zinda Blake. I've only got eyes for Barbara, but I've never seen anyone fill out a miniskirt quite that well before. She's a bit anachronistic, but I guess being brought forward in time from 1959 will do that to a person. It's her jet, apparently, the Aerie One, that we'll be taking to Moscow. The last one to arrive is Black Canary - I can't help a pang of jealousy at the friendliness of the greeting she and Barbara share, but I fight it down.
There are introductions all around, and Zinda makes great ceremony of presenting me with a black leather jacket with a stylised emblem on the back. Before we get too far into planning, though, I get Barbara's attention.
"I need a new nickname."
"What's wrong with Scorpion?" Barbara asks. Beside her, Huntress snorts.
"See? She thinks it's lame too."
Barbara rolls her eyes. "Fine. What is it you want to be called?"
"Um...I hadn't thought that far ahead." The Birds laugh, and I even join them - it was rather silly of me to ask if I didn't have something else in mind. When the giggles die off, Huntress looks me up and down.
"So...tell me all about your illustrious crime-fighting career, and let's see if we can't figure out what to call you."
I give her my pedigree and run through my very brief experiences, relishing the drop of her jaw when I tell her I'm Batwoman's daughter.
"Great - the bats are breeding now. Just what Gotham needed."
Black Canary - Dinah - cuffs her on the back of the head. "Be nice, Helena."
Ignoring her, Helena goes on. "So, what to call you...you're a bat's daughter, you're working with the Birds...Robin's taken, so's Nightwing. We've already got a Blackhawk," Zinda grins, "so what shall we call you? Anybody feel like jumping in here?"
Dinah smiles. "I suppose just calling you 'Rookie' is out?"
"Yes."
"I thought so. How about Raptor?"
We toss the name around a bit, and after some discussion it seems to hold up. "I like it - until I come up with something permanent, of course."
"Of course," Dinah agrees.
"Well, now that we got that decided, can we get this show on the road?" Huntress bounces impatiently. "I've got some travelling music all picked out."
So that's how I got here - sitting next to Barbara, praying that the Aerie's sound system will spontaneously combust or something. Helena's idea of "travelling music" is apparently some rather horrid electronica, and I have no idea where the songs end or start - we've been in the air for three hours, and it feels like the same track's been playing the entire time. Barbara looks at me and offers a sympathetic grin.
"I'm sorry - I should have warned you."
"Oh, that's okay - maybe the cabin'll lose air pressure and I'll pass out or something. That'd be nice." She laughs.
Dinah leans across the aisle with a glint in her eye, brushing her blonde hair back from her face. "Babs, why don't you just kiss her already?"
Barbara shoots her a glare, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. "Dinah..." she warns.
"What, Babs? You're obviously into each other, and as fast as this plane is, we've got three more hours to fly. Would you rather spend it going over those notes in your lap or with her in your lap? I know what I'd pick..."
I'm blushing furiously now, and doing my best to disappear - why don't I have any powers? Invisibility would be great right about now. Are we really that obvious? I mean, we haven't even had a date so far - at least, not one that didn't end with me getting shot. Is the way I feel about her obvious to everyone, or is it just because Dinah's such a close friend of hers? I abandon that line of thinking before it drives me crazy. Dinah must see the blush in my cheeks - how could she not, really? - and has mercy on me. "Relax, kid," she laughs. "I'm just teasing." I start to reply, but it's cut off when she speaks again, "I'm sure you'll do her good and proper in your own good time - Babs was always a little slow with that sort of thing." She leans back in her seat, chuckling at her own joke. Barbara and I share a couple of furtive glances, but we can't keep each other's eye without blushing and looking away.
The tension's broken when Helena emerges from the cockpit, the music having gone mercifully silent a moment before. "So," she asks casually, draping herself over the seat in front of us, "who do I hit when we get there?"
"Preferably no one," Barbara replies archly. "I'd prefer that we find out what we're dealing with before you start beating people. We're going to the apartment I rented so I can get some equipment set up."
"Boring. New girl - want to go clubbing?"
"Uh..." I glance at Barbara, who gives me a barely perceptible nod. "Sure."
Apparently the nod was visible, though, because Helena bursts out laughing. "That's so cute how Babs has you whipped. Do you need to clear your wardrobe choice with her before we go out? OW!" she cries as Dinah's shoe connects with the side of her head. "Don't be throwing those things around - that heel could put my eye out!"
"Well then, leave her alone and I won't have to throw the other one at you."
"How about you let the kid defend herself? OW! DAMMIT!" she cries as I hit her with my shoe.
"How's that?" I ask sweetly. Helena scowls and stomps back into the cockpit. A minute later the music starts again, louder than before. Across the aisle, Dinah's giggling.
"Well done."
"Thanks. Are you coming clubbing too?"
"Nah. Someone's gotta keep the redhead company. I'm sure Zinda could be talked into it, though. Probably what Helena's doing right now."
"You sure you don't mind?" I ask Barbara in a low voice.
"Of course not," she smiles. "If you're going to be in the field with my Birds, you should get to know them. Besides, it'd be pretty boring to stay at the apartment - I'll just be setting things up."
"Can I bring you back a souvenir or anything?"
"No, I'm good, thank you." Dinah crosses the aisle and folds one of the seats in front of us down flat before sitting in the other.
"In the spirit of getting to know one another, how about some poker?" She produces a worn deck of cards. At the mere mention of gambling, the music stops and Helena bounds from the cockpit.
By the time the game's done, we all owe Helena a hundred dollars - even Zinda owes, somehow, which is odd given that she wasn't playing.
We're landing now, so I'm going to stow the journal. Stay tuned, future readers - more to come!
Date Unknown
Mood: Lost
Music: None.
I'm scribbling this on some scrap paper I liberated from an office supply store - I'll add it to the journal proper when I get back home - if I ever get back home. If there's even a home to get back to. The last day has been more confusing, emotional, and difficult than anything I've experienced for a long while. I want to write it all down before I forget...
Oh, and a quick history lesson for any inattentive children in the audience - regarding the Green Lantern Corps. I'll give you the ten second history, just to save you a trip to the exhibit down the hall when the time comes. The Green Lantern Corps was established by a group of beings called the Guardians. They distributed green power rings to the Green Lanterns, who were each responsible for patrolling one of three thousand some sectors of space. These rings were powered by a sort of giant cosmic battery, and their powers were nearly limitless - assuming that the bearer had the will to operate them. They did have the disadvantage of needing to be recharged from time to time, though. Okay - that should be all you need to know. For further information, see the tribute to Hal Jordan down the hall.
So, we land in Moscow and Zinda taxis the Aerie to a stop a fair way from the terminal, as directed by the tower. We disembark and hop a shuttle to the main building. We reach Russian customs, where we present the visas that Barbara acquired for us. One of the customs agents looks Helena up and down and barks at her in Russian.
"What was that?"
"Open your jacket," Barbara translates.
Helena does, and the agent takes a long look to make sure there are no hidden pockets in it.
I catch a glimpse of movement from the corner of my eye, and I whirl around to get a better look. There's a short, balding man pointing something that resembles a hairdryer at us. Before I can scream out a warning, there's a blinding flash from its barrel...
When the blazing light finally dies out, I find myself on an empty sidewalk standing next to Barbara - who is, to both of our surprise, standing beside me. She's dressed in her Batgirl costume and as I let my eyes roam appreciatively, the look in her eyes as she stares back prompts me to look down at myself. I'm dressed in a skin-tight outfit of purple and black, with a violet starburst symbol I can't identify over my left breast. My knee-high black boots set off the outfit nicely, I think to myself - and then my mind catches up to the situation and I realise there's something on my face. I reach up with both hands and feel it - it's a small mask, a...what do you call those things...domino masks? I think that's it...anyway, it's like the one Hal Jordan wears...or Robin, for that matter. Then I notice the ring on my hand.
At first I think of Hal Jordan again - but this ring isn't green. It's purple. The symbol on it is the same as the one on my breast, but I still don't know what it is. I can't begin to figure out what the hell it is, so I turn my attention back to Barbara, who's still staring at me. "Uh...what in the bluest of blue hells just happened?"
That shakes her out of her reverie. "Uh...not a clue." She lifts her right leg, and the pure joy in her eyes as it responds to her thoughts is enough to make me tear up a little. "But...no, I have no idea. Alternate universe, maybe? Delusion? I have no idea what he hit us with, or what it did."
"Well." I look up and down the deserted street, scanning for landmarks, but nothing looks familiar. "Do you know where we are, at least?"
"Looks like..." she turns in a full circle, scanning the skyline, "Metropolis."
"Metropolis? Why would we-" I bite back the question, knowing Barbara doesn't know any better than I do. We both stand there silently for a few minutes, thinking. Then I spot the newspaper box on the corner. I jog over and grab a paper - the box was sitting there open, fortunately - and stare blankly at the headline. WAR, it screams in black and white. The accompanying pictures make no sense at all - heroes and villains, many of whom I've never seen, fighting each other, fighting amongst themselves, civilians running for cover. The city in the background - Coast City, according to the caption - is in flames, its buildings smoking ruins. It's a stark contrast to the utterly deserted cityscape we're standing in - suddenly the date in the top right catches my eye. My legs start to wobble under me and I sit carefully down on the curb. Barbara's there in a heartbeat.
"Jessie?"
"Look at the date," I murmur.
"Son of a..." she takes a seat beside me. "Eight years? How is that possible? Who are all these people in this picture? This can't be our future - if it was, how would I be walking? None of this makes any sense."
"Tell me about it."
There's a piercing whistle that splits the air, and I look up in time to see a massive piece of masonry, broken off from one of the nearby buildings, hurtling toward us. Barbara screams, and my only thought is to try and keep her safe. With no time to push her out of the way I raise my hands in a futile attempt to stop it...
"My god. How..."
Cracking open one of my closed eyes, I see the piece of masonry suspended above us in a pair of giant hands formed of violet energy. I look at my ring and see that it's projecting the hands somehow. I back away from the piece of masonry and pull Barbara away with me, and then I picture the hands letting go. They disappear and the masonry falls to the ground in front of us with a crash.
"Okay," I begin hesitantly. "What the hell is going on?"
We walk the city - I keep lookout as Barbara skims the paper. It turns out it's probably been longer than eight years - the paper is yellowed throughout, and it was written while Metropolis was still...well, populated. We've covered better than ten blocks before she's done reading, and there's not a single sign of life.
"It was him." Barbara's voice is loud in the utter silence, and we both wince a bit. "It was Ivanovich. It must have been - it all started with him."
I stop walking. "What did?"
"Everything -all of this. This article has a timeline in it - about a year after we disappeared from Moscow, if that's what happened, all kinds of superpowered bad guys started appearing. They took Gotham first - there was too many of them, and Ivanovich must have perfected the Juice, because apparently their powers didn't wear off. Once Gotham was taken, the Juice has to have been distributed country-wide - criminals everywhere started developing powers. The country was torn apart by the battles between them and the heroes. Metropolis was going to be the heroes' last stand..."
"But then why isn't it destroyed? The buildings are standing, they're just...deserted."
"I don't know," Barbara's frustration spills over, and she kicks a stone down the street. "None of this makes sense! How could he send us to the future? Why would getting rid of us - if it was just the two of us - make this much difference? Why can I feel my legs? Are you some sort of...well, you're not a Green Lantern, but a Violet Lantern? Since when was there a Violet Lantern Corps? What do they do?"
"Is there any mention of Helena or the others in that article?"
"No. But this is from fairly late - they may have...well, they were probably some of the first in the fight."
"I need to go to Gotham." I blurt it out without thinking.
"Jessie, we can't. It was ground zero - there's nothing left, according to this."
"But mom..."
"Maybe she got out, honey, I don't know - but I think it's safe to say she's not in Gotham anymore, one way or the other."
"Please," I beg her, tears standing in my eyes. "I need...Barbara, please."
She looks at her feet. "I was kind of hoping you could talk me into it - I'd like to see if Dad...if he made it. And Bruce and the rest. I'd like to stop by Bludhaven, too, if we could."
"Of course. Uh...how are we going to get there? I doubt there are any airlines flying anymore, and it'd take a while to drive, even if we could find a car."
"Well, you have a power ring - you should be able to fly us there."
"I don't know how it works! I didn't even know it did anything until I stopped that masonry."
She rubs her chin thoughtfully - it's incredibly endearing, and I lean over and kiss her before I can stop myself. She smiles. "What were you thinking when you stopped the masonry?"
I try to remember. Barbara - I was thinking of Barbara. How I thought I might love her, and how I wanted to keep her safe. The Green Lanterns' rings are powered by willpower - could this purple ring be...I focus as best I can on that feeling, and what I want to do with it. I squeeze my eyes shut - and then open them again to find myself floating three feet off the ground. I rejoice inside - but I've stopped focussing, and I crash back to the ground.
"Damn it. That's a lot of work." I feel a little bit drained, even from that brief attempt. "I don't know if I can do that long enough to carry us there."
"What do you need to do? What powers that ring?"
I blush. "Love, I think. I need to...concentrate on how much I care about you, to make it work."
Her eyes shine behind her mask. "Will this help?" she offers quietly, and steps into my arms to plant a searing kiss on me. Fly, I think to myself, and sure enough we're away. "I should keep helping you focus," she whispers, and kisses me again. She pulls away for a second to point out the direction we should be going in, as opposed to the one we are going in, and then she moulds her body to mine again. She kisses me again, her lips warm and soft, and suddenly staying in the air isn't a problem - coming down is going to be the hard part.
We don't see a single person on the flight from Metropolis - I can't decide whether that's a good sign or not. We can see Gotham long before we arrive - it's a burned-out ruin, with the damage visible for miles around. Unbelievably, in the middle of all the destruction the Clock Tower is still standing. As we approach, the ring on my hand speaks in a soft feminine voice. "Power level approaching 0.0 percent."
"Well, that can't be good. I'm going to try and take us down." We make it to within four feet of the ground before the ring powers out and we drop to the concrete. "Damn. That could have been a better landing, couldn't it?"
Barbara gives me a wan smile. "At least I can still feel my legs." It's not even a good joke, but the stress is piling up on us and we both collapse into hysterical laughter. It takes a few minutes before we can collect ourselves. When we do, we make a beeline for the Tower. Someone's changed the codes for the entrance, so Barbara has to hack her way in. We reach the top of the stairs and push the door open with some trepidation, but the room looks just like it did when we left, with the exception of a note stuck to one of the computer monitors.
Barbara, it reads. Wherever you are, if you come back someday then I hope you find this. We're in Keystone. Tell Jessie that Kate and Renee send their love. Meet us there if you can. Signed H, Z and D.
I clap a hand to my mouth, and I can feel the tears dripping from my eyes and rolling down my cheeks. Barbara pulls me close. "Don't get your hopes up too high, honey. We don't know how long ago this note is from."
I can see the dust that's gathered on the white paper, and I know that she's right. That's not enough to stop the irrational hope that they're all still okay, though. Barbara looks me up and down. "Jessie, why don't you get some sleep? I'm going to poke around, see if the computers are still working. I'll wake you in a few hours. Don't argue!" she cuts me off as I open my mouth. "You haven't slept in...well, better than twenty-four hours. And whatever's happening here, you'll need some sleep."
"Okay," I agree grudgingly. "But wake me in time for you to get some rest too, okay?" She waffles a bit, and I pin her with a look.
"Fine. I promise. Now go, sleep."
I find my way to her bed and fall in fully clothed. I've stayed up long enough to write all of this down, and now I'm going to sleep. I really hope I wake up in my own bed - but I have a feeling I'll still be here.
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