40: Artemis

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(General P.O.V)

"The mission was a complete failure and we all know who to blame."

A voice came out of the left most terminal.

"Speak your mind woman. Do not prance about what you mean to say."

A different voice, this time from the right end of the screens responded gruffly.

There was a brief silence.

"Talia Al Ghul, is your daughter, is she not, Demon's Head?"

The female voice countered with a question.

"Yes. She is. And she takes after her father. Smart, ambitious and dangerous."

Lex Luthor finally deigned to speak, leaning back in his chair as his assistant hovered next to him.

"She has cost us much. Batman knows his secret identity is no longer so...hidden."

This time the voice had a heavy french accent.

"The League will be even more cautious. Especially if you add in the Davian Mabuz Fiasco."

"I understand."

Ra's Al Ghul told them.

"And I have prepared the necessary... reparations for the unforeseen circumstances. A package has been delivered to each of you."

His terminal went dark.

"Ho ho ho...I gotta say, I like old beard's style. Come Teekl, this put me in the mood to kill something."

Another terminal went dark.

One by one the members of the Light left the meeting until finally only one screen remained lit up before Lex.

"The boy."

The voice from the other end was much deeper than any of the others.

"I have people watching him."

Lex replied.

"Without the CryoGen Crystals, we might need to look for other solutions. I was thinking, a certain factory in Santa Prisca."

"I see."

The voice hummed.

"Can you still stabilize the formula enough so the benefits outweigh the side effects?"

Lex was ready with an answer.

"No."

He steepled his fingers together.

"However, we have Deathstroke. The mirakuru within him..."

"No."

The voice immediately refused.

"Deathstroke is still of major use to us. We cannot blow his Leviathan cover. His children on the other hand..."

Lex smiled at the implication.

"Yes, I can see it working."

The bald supervillain nodded, then switched gears.

"When should we move in on the boy?"

"The Justice League will be suspicious after the recent activities. Let him think he's safe."

Lex touched a pad on his desktop. Amanda Waller's image appeared on the screen.

"We're not the only ones after him either."

"She is of no consequence. Our man on the inside assures me that Waller will not be an issue."

The voice concluded. Then without another word, the terminal went dark.

"Sir, a package has arrived for you."

Mercy Graves, his assistant spoke up from the side. Lex turned his attention to the brown box she had placed on the desk.

Mercy lifted the cover to reveal...Kobra's severed head.

"Mmmh, seems like I got the head of the snake."

He mused, getting up.

"Put it on the private display."

He waved his hand, buttoning his tux while smiling devilishly.

"I hope I'm not late for the Wayne fundraising Party."

(Davian's P.O.V)

The snow wasn't letting up it seems. Gotham in the almost wee hours of the morning looked...bleak.

"I know you're there."

Artemis said without looking back.

"I wasn't trying to hide."

I replied, pushing off the wall to the entrance of the roof. She was dressed as she always did, green costume with a mask that covered the upper portion of her face.

"Where is..."

She started but I interrupted.

"Not here. Let's talk somewhere else."

I told her before using Shunpo to leave the rooftop.

"Wait!"

I felt something stab onto the roof of the building I was on and slowed down. She wasn't like Raven who could fly after all.

And so we went, I led her around a few city blocks just to make sure no one was tailing us. The run in with Brick showed me that we needed to be more careful. We also couldn't trust Artemis as much as we thought we could.

Finally, after ensuring no one was coming after us, I led her to the underside of the Crown point Bridge that connected Downtown to Tricorner Island.

The river was frozen and a hazy mist hid the other side of the bridge from view. Things were also quiet as most of the homeless had left for further inland to escape the cold.

I pulled on my Reiryoku to keep myself warm just as Artemis swung down from the bridge, landing before me.

Immediately, she notched an arrow and aimed it at my face.

"That's not going to work."

I told her easily.

"Yeah well, I'll take my chances."

She replied, muscles tensing in preparation.

"What exactly do you think this is?"

I asked her, my eyebrows raised. Artemis clenched her jaw as I walked closer to her. The end of the arrow was pointed at my neck.

The Archer had to look up to stare at me.

"You brought me here."

She answered.

"To a secluded bridge with no witnesses. Either you want to kill me, in which case good luck or...you sold out and are working for someone who hired you to take me in."

I couldn't help it, I laughed.

"That's quite the imagination."

"You wouldn't be the first person to go dirty."

She answered in a strange tone. I could see her subtly glancing around at us, probably looking for an escape route.

"We were followed?"

I asked.

"What?"

Artemis looked at me in confusion.

"No, we're good."

Raven was the one who answered, coming in from behind Artemis. The latter immediately turned around, ready to fight. Then she blinked.

"Wait..."

Artemis lowered her bow slightly.

"What's going on here?"

She asked, looking in between the two of us.

"The info you gave us was wrong. It was supposed to be the usual, beat up some goons, get the money and leave the drugs for the cops."

I answered, pulsing out my Reiryoku to make sure that no one was around, along with training the skill.

The range of the Reikaku had steadily been growing and now I could sense spirit power in a zone of 100 meters. It wasn't precise though, most humans possessed spirit energy that was basically undetectable due to how low it was.

That said, I had noticed that peak humans contained a bit more spirit energy that weakly registered in my senses.

Superhumans like Brick had slightly higher reserves but still not enough to see ghosts, let alone awaken spirit powers.

"She's freezing."

Chase' said from my inner world. I raised an eyebrow.

"I'm surprised you care."

The Zanpakuto spirit snorted but said nothing else. Weird.

"We should go."

Raven told us, her soul self, in the form of a massive Raven, rising up like a cloud from the ground. Artemis stumbled back in surprise, looking ready to book it or fight.

"Chill."

I told her from the side.

"Raven is only going to portal us somewhere a bit more...private."

The young Archer closed her eyes, exhaling. Then to my surprise she agreed with a small nod. The Soul Self engulfed us and a second later, spat us out into the Junkyard.

The only other option was the storage unit and that was our base for the moment. I still wasn't sure that we could trust Artemis.

Raven snapped her fingers at me, motioning at my coat. I narrowed my eyes. What exactly is she trying to pull?

"She's shivering."

My friend/partner in crime insisted. First Chase and now Raven.

I rolled my eyes, removing the coat before trying to place it around Artemis. She backed away with caution, making me raise my eyebrows.

"If we wanted to harm you, why go to all this trouble?"

"I don't know. Why do people do anything? We literally have a supervillain whose superpower is flying on a kite."

She snarkly replied.

"I like her. Can we keep her?"

Chase asked but I ignored him.

"You have a point."

I conceded, throwing the coat over to her. She draped it over her shoulder, before copying Raven and finding a perch to sit on.

As for me, I leaned on my target practice, the tire stacks from two days ago. This place really had no visitors if the thing was still standing with the marks from my Kido spells.

"You gave us the wrong information."

Raven immediately accused. Her monotonous voice rang out dryly in the space between Artemis and us.

"I didn't!"

The Archer vehemently refused, almost getting up from her position. That's when I saw it. She had winced. It was almost unnoticeable but for someone like me who was used to such injuries, I could see that she was hurt.

"What happened?"

All traces of humor were gone from my voice.

Artemis wrestled with indecision, her eyes averted to the side.

"There's a friend of mine missing. I ran into some trouble while looking for him."

She answered.

Raven and I looked at each other.

"Okay. Not to sound like a dick but what does that have to do with Brick?"

At my question, Artemis sighed.

"The info I gave you? I got it from him. He's..."

She trailed off, shaking her head.

The cold Gotham wind blew across the junkyard.

"He's a street kid."

She finally replied.

"Fuck."

I cursed out, anger rising within me.

"Why the hell would you drag a kid into this shit?!"

Artemis stiffened at my tone. Even Raven seemed surprised.

"I..."

"No. There's no excuse for that. You wanna go out and play hero? Then that's your choice. Your life on the line, but pulling in a kid? That's low."

At my words, Artemis stood up, shaking with fury.

"You think I don't know that! You think I don't blame myself?! But Jason is stubborn! At least with me I could stop him from jumping into the more dangerous stuff!"

She yelled back.

Wait. Did she say Jason?

"Jason?"

Raven asked before I could.

"Yeah, Jason Todd. I saw the Brick thing on the news and figured something had gone wrong. I tried to find him but..." She shook her head.

"Someone took him and a couple more kids. I tried to ask around and got my ribs bruised as a result. That's when I knew I needed help."

She told us.

"Our help."

Raven concluded.

The name Jason Todd changed things. If he was the same kid that would become Robin and then Red Hood... maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to help out. Having someone like that owe you a favor wasn't a bad thing.

Plus, he was a kid. Just like I'd been when my life changed. I couldn't allow things to go down the way they did with me.

"Okay. Let's do this. Let's go save him."

I decided.

Raven said nothing but I could see a small smile at the corner of her lips.