Bluejay: The Protégé of Black Canary

The Swamp

The wind was knocked out of my lungs for several long moments, and all I could do was lay there in shock from the impact. My ears were ringing and the ceiling was spinning, but I swear I heard something. From my spot on the ground with the vine still tangled around my waist, I tilted my head and tried to look down the hallway. A pair of figures stood between a doorway. 

They had gray shirts and green cargo pants. They wore ski masks too, which I thought was painfully conspicuous. One of them carried a duffle bag. With a start, I realized those must have been the people the officer and the doctor saw. But the most obvious thing about them was that they each carried a gun with red marking racing along the sides of them. 

They were Intergang. 

My brain, although feeling mushy and slow, was able to process a couple things. The Intergang? Here? In Star City? My blood began to boil with hatred. For a second I wondered if they'd managed to track me from Gotham city, and paranoia crept into my bones. Were they after my dad? No, that couldn't be it. If they wanted to hurt him, they would have already done so during the initial chaos by the plant creatures. Besides, the black duffle bag slung over the shoulders of one indicated they'd stolen something. 

"Hey! They're like Swampfire in Ben 10!" I heard one of them gleefully cackle. 

"I'm quitting! I swear it..." The other one declared. 

Despite the deadly plants, neither one sounded too worried as they shot away at the vines with their guns. Surprisingly, the plants withered instantly the moment a red beam from their guns made contact. I blinked from my spot on the floor, utterly unnoticed with glass all in my hair and with blood leaking from the corner of my mouth. I probably looked dead. I watched as one vine broke the ranks, heading straight for one of the Intergang thieves. 

It hit him in the chest and sent him temporarily hurling for the wall, but the other quickly blasted it with their gun. It was almost like slow motion in my eyes as I saw the contents of the man's pocket spill out from the impact. A pack of gum fell towards the floor, followed by a bottle opener- my eyes widened- then a wallet and a cell phone. 

He swore, adjusted the duffle bag on his shoulder and got to his feet. I thought about going after them. There are only two of them, right? I could take them...maybe. I tried to move, but it was like my limbs were swimming through wet cement and my head was in a spinning teacup ride. 

They left as quickly as they came, shooting their way through monstrous vines that wanted to strangle them. You can do this. In one great heaving effort, I managed to roll onto my stomach in hopes I could crawl to my fallen knife before the vine noticed I was still alive.

It noticed. 

I was ripped away from the floor, held upside down like a piece of meat hanging in a butcher window. I yelled and struggled in its grasp, trying to think of any way I could escape. I tried searching for anything useful in my jacket, but sadly I wasn't stocked in gardening sheers or weed killer at the moment. A red flower reared itself at me, ready to rip me to bits when a piercing voice rang through the hallway, screaming the lyrics of a Nick Jonas song. 

"I'LL TAKE A CHAINSAW TO THE SOFA WHERE I HELD YOUR BODY CLOSE FOR SO LONG!" 

I automatically assumed the Joker Venom must have gotten to me when I saw a floating green chainsaw fly down the hallway, tearing its way through the plants like butter. Oh I'm definitely hallucinating, I thought. I felt the vine tangled around my body go slack, and I landed on the floor like a sack of potatoes. I groaned, peeling my eyelids open. 

"Come on kid, get up." A fuzzy voice said. 

I briefly registered someone shaking my shoulder and untangling the vine from my body. He was no longer singing, which I was grateful for. I blinked. Standing in front of me was a Green Lantern, only I didn't recognize him. He had a green hourglass on his chest, wide shoulders, and cropped red hair. He wore no mask. The man smiled and offered me his hand. I warily took it, and he helped me to my feet.