Bluejay: The Protégé of Black Canary

Coffee and Books

I awoke in a cold sweat, my eyelids heavy and my hearing muffled. A headache thrummed behind my skull, pulsing painfully against my forehead. I felt disoriented, like I'd been dropped down the stairs in a hamster ball. I could heard faint voices speaking all around me, but I remained still. I was about to drift off back to sleep again to get away from the pain when my last memory resurfaced into my brain.

I stiffened. The aliens. The invasion! I was shot by one of them, and teleported to some remote location that served as the alien's holding facility. Dinah and Artemis had to be here too! I fought to awake my other senses without notifying my captors of my consciousness.

"She hasn't woken up yet?" I heard a voice say.

Footsteps began to approach me. I knew I had to act quickly before these aliens did whatever freaky experiment they were planning for me. I knew that the Team was coming for me, but I couldn't just wait around for them! I had to find my other friends. When I sensed the figure next to me, my eyes shot open, my first already flying. But where I expected an ugly alien, there was... Captain Marvel? My fist collided with his jaw, but it was like punching a brick wall. I let out a cry of pain.

"Jackie! Slow down!" The Captain said, unaffected by my blow.

He went to touch my shoulder, but I jerked away. What was going on? I slid off the table, cradling my bruised fist. Breathing heavily, my eyes darted around my surroundings. But the adrenaline in my body began to slow as confusion overtook me. I was in... the Cave? My whole Team and I were in the training room, all hunched over white tables.

A flood of relief went through my system as I registered Artemis's blonde hair. She was alive! My eyes swept the room in search of Robin next, who was leaning over on his table, his face covered in a sheen of sweat. We were all in the same condition- exhausted and confused.

"What's going on?" I asked, gasping.

"What happened in there?" Batman asked, his deep voice rumbling like thunder.

He supported The Martian Manhunter on his feet while he winced and clutched at his head. As much as I wanted to run to my teammates and embrace them, my feet were glued in place. How were we all here? This didn't make any sense.

"The exercise. It all went wrong." The Martian told us, his speech slow.

"Exercise?" Robin repeated.

"Try to remember. What you experienced was a training exercise." Batan said.

No... it couldn't have been. Everything was so real.

"Manhunter psychically linked the seven of you within an artificial reality. You all knew this going in, what you didn't know was that it was a trained-for-failure exercise. No matter what the Team accomplished, the scenario was designed to grow worse. Still, you were aware nothing was real, including the deaths of the entire Justice League." Batman continued to explain.

We all seemed to digest this information. Something tickled at the base of my skull as he spoke. A memory?

"That was why you hardly grieved, even when Wolf was disintegrated in front of your very eyes. But all that changed when Artemis died. Though consciously, Miss Martian knew it was not real, her subconscious mind could not make that distinction. She forgot it was only an exercise and her subconscious took control, making all of you forget too." Martian Manhunter said.

It all came flooding back to me. I remembered going inside the exercise, and I remembered the moment that it had all been wiped away. I looked at M'gann, who stood there with her hands clasped over her heart, shame and regret written on every one of her features.