Second Chances: Stargirl - Rough Draft

Chapter 19

Cindy was currently in her room, punching the custom made punching bag she'd ordered using her dad's credit card, since honestly, one of the few perks of her otherwise asshole father. As long as she didn't blow the secret, he didn't care what she did. Hell, she could probably get herself arrested and he wouldn't care. Not that she'd ever test that theory, but still.

Anyways, the bag Cindy was punching was in the shape of none other than the one person she hated more than anyone else, besides her father that is. Courtney Whitmore. The main thing she hated about the girl was that she for some reason seemed to live in Cindy's head and consumed her thoughts for a time that was much more than she wanted. Which was ever. She hated the fact that she couldn't seem to stop thinking about Courtney, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get the image of her out of her head.

"Why do you continue to take up space in my head?" Cindy asked angrily as she continued wailing on the bag, trying really hard not to let her blades come out, since she did not want to risk destroying her bag. The more she thought about the other girl, the more confused she got and angrier she got.

"Why the hell can't I get you out of my head?" Cindy screamed as she continued wailing on the punching bag, wishing yet again that her real mom was still alive, since there was no way she'd ever consider talking about something like this with her stepmom Bobbi about this, since she was nothing more than one of her dad's slaves and there was no way in hell she would even think about talking something like this with her father, mainly because it would just be a waste of time and energy.

With that in mind, Cindy turned away from her bag to see the only possession in her room that she genuinely cared about. A photo of her mom, Suzanne Ito. If anyone even thought about messing with it, well, she didn't care if she'd end up facing her father's wrath for whatever it was she'd do to whoever it was who messed with it.

"I wish you were here mom. You could help me make sense of all of this." Cindy said, since she hated not being able to understand what was going through her head.

However, luckily, her thoughts were turned from the girl she hated to another topic that made her almost as angry. Her father. While it had taken her way too long to figure it out, Cindy had finally realized that her father had just been stringing her along about ever giving her a seat on the ISA. Especially since she was aware that the ISA didn't even like her father being a member of the team. So why would they give her a place in it? And honestly, she was getting tired of waiting for something that was never going to happen, since all it was doing was ruining her life, since she was so tired of feeling alone. She wished that the other ISA members would stop coddling their kids and tell them the truth so she could have some people to talk to about this with.

"What exactly are we waiting for?" Pat asked, since he, Courtney and Yolanda were honestly ready to go back to Blue Valley, but Jay was insisting on keeping them there.

"I thought you said you wanted to meet my son?" Jay asked and that immediately got their attention.

"Wait, so we're finally going to meet your son?" Courtney asked, since even though she knew that Jay's son would not be joining the JSA, since he had his own thing going on here in Central City, she was still eager to meet another JSA legacy.

"Yeah, he should be here any minute." Jay said, right as a young man who looked like he was in between the old JSA and the current JSA in age.

"Sorry I'm late, Tina was helping me get settled into Mercury Labs' meta research department." Barry said.

"You must be Jay's son Barry." Pat said as he held out his hand, which Barry shook.

"And you must be Stripesy." Barry said as he shook Pat's hand.

"Well, I'm Courtney and this is Yolanda." Courtney said, introducing herself.

"Starman's daughter." Barry said as he shook Courtney's hand.

"Your dad told you about that?" Courtney asked and Barry nodded.

"Yeah, he explained that to me when I asked him why your parents are letting teenagers run around being superheroes." Barry said, making it clear that he did not approve of kids taking up the mantles of adults.

"I know and believe me, I'm still not thrilled about it myself, but these kids have proven that they have what it takes. Besides, it's personal for Courtney." Pat said.

"I know, and I understand that, but at the same time, I'm still not sure it was a good idea, but I also know that it's not my decision to make." Barry said.

"Thank you." Courtney said.

"However, maybe I can offer you guys some help with finding the ISA, since dad mentioned that you couldn't find him with your limited resources. No offense." Barry said.

"None taken. But what do you mean you can help?" Pat asked.

"My dad showed me some pics of the ISA members and honestly, the way a couple of them keep their identities hidden is just sloppy." Barry said.

"What do you mean?" Pat asked, more just curious about what he was talking about.

"Here." Barry said as he held headshots of both Icicle and Tigress.

"Icicle and Tigress?" Courtney asked.

"Yeah. That one star on Tigress's face does do much to conceal her identity and Icicle's ice mask still leaves an outline of his face visible. At least the others have some decent form of identity concealment." Barry said.

"He's gotta point." Yolanda said, wondering how they'd never noticed that before.

"We've tried running them both through facial recognition software before, but their disguises were enough to keep our systems from identifying them." Pat said.

"Well, I think my tech guy could be able to modify these images so that you can find out exactly who they are, since you do that, you can find them and the rest of the ISA and go on the offensive." Barry said.

"That could help us out a lot." Courtney said.

"Still, you need to be careful. You can't just attack them in broad daylight. It's a good way to turn the public against you." Barry said.

"We'll keep that in mind, but let us know when you have something." Courtney said and Barry nodded in agreement.