Fire and Lightning (Book One) [Young Justice fanfic]

Chapter Four- Empowered

August 26, 2010. 13:54

Mount Justice

"What's going on? Who are you? Where am I?" The blind girl asked Superboy as he gently set her down on her bed.

"It's okay, we're gonna get you cleaned up," Superboy said, looking around for a washcloth or something that could help him. 

"Let me take care of this, Superboy," Black Canary said gently. She shooed him out of the room and helped their mystery girl out of her thin, sticky suit, wash herself off, and get into a fresh outfit, even if it was a hospital gown a bit on the large side. 

By then, Martian Manhunter had arrived, answering Red Tornado's call, and the rest of the team had gathered outside the cave's medical wing to discuss the girl Superboy had brought in and a bit of frightening news from Robin.

J'onn J'onzz sat next to the bed and took the girl's unusually warm hand in his large, green one.

"Excuse me, young one, could you tell us your name?" Manhunter asked, Canary hovering at his shoulder like a nervous mother bird.

The girl opened he mouth to answer, and then realized that she couldn't, "I...I don't remember..." She almost whispered terrified at the thought.

Manhunter nodded gravely, even though she couldn't see.

"Would you mind if I did a telepathic scan of your mind? Just as a precaution?"

"And how are you gonna do that? Are you psychic or something?" She asked rudely. Canary was impressed at her gumption. Someone in her condition must need it.

J'onn remained patient. "Yes, as a matter of fact I am."

That seemed to quiet her down. She stayed very still, but even so Manhunter only took less than a minute to read her mind.

"She truly cannot remember. She appears to have amnesia, but how she got it I do not know," Manhunter told Black Canary and Red Tornado. By then, the team had trickled into the room, bursting with teenage curiosity

"Where did you find her?" Red Tornado asked Superboy.

"In a flaming bush," He answered simply.

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here!" The girl demanded. 

Black Canary sat on the bed next to her, holding her hand. "How is it that you don't have any burns?" She asked gently.

The blind girl scrunched up her face in concentration, "I don't know, really. But...I think I caused the fire."

Canary urged her to continue, but was interrupted when M'gann let out a scream. A ball of fire had formed around the blind girl's fist, and started to burn the sheets of the bed she was laying on. Cool as a cucumber, Canary grabbed a handful of the cloth sheets and smothered the flames in less than a second.

"I guess that tells us why you weren't burned," She said.

Blind girl nodded, having felt the heat from the flame, "That's happened twice before. I burned most of my clothes because they smelled bad, and I really hated the smell. Then, when I was hiding in the bush, I just kept thinking about how I couldn't see, and...I guess I got a little scared...and the next thing I knew, the only thing I could smell was smoke. And then Superboy found me." She finished.

Canary nodded, forgetting that the girl couldn't see her, "It appears that you have pyro-kinesis, in other words, the ability to control fire."

"Could we have her on the team?" Kid Flash asked excitedly. They were scarcely a month old, but it was exciting to see how fast they were growing.

"She'll have to stay here for a while and we'll see if we can get rid of her blindness. And then, we'll have to see what Batman says about you," Canary stated, including the girl in the conversation. The promise in her voice made Kid confident that Batman wouldn't have much of a choice to resist.

"See what Batman says about what?" Asked the Dark Knight himself, appearing in the doorway with Robin at his side and Finch in his arms.

"A new team member," Canary told him quickly. Everyone stepped aside to let Batman lay his oldest protege on the second bed that had been prepared.

Dinah Lance pulled the curtain around their mystery girl's bed, "Sorry for the noise, try to get some sleep, alright?" She smiled at the girl before remembering that she could not see.

"She's stable for now, and I don't think any-" Batman was interrupted as the computers monitoring Finch's vitals went on the fritz. They crackled with deep blue electricity that came from some sort of unseen source, then just as soon as it started, it stopped.

Finch woke up, blinked a couple times in the light, and looked over at her teammates' shocked faces.

"What happened?" She asked at last.

"Everyone out." Batman ordered. Even Tornado and Manhunter didn't question it, but Robin had other ideas up his sleeves than following his mentor's instructions.

"Batman, what's going to happen to me?" She asked, hugging herself

"What do you mean?" Batman asked, looking at the girl he had all but adopted.

"I mean, Bruce, that you keep saying that I'm going to be okay, but you don't sound so convinced, and I don't feel okay. I feel...like there's something inside me, trying to get out...something eating me..."

"Anything else?" 

Emma thought for a moment, taking inventory.

"Well, it's especially concentrated in my chest, like there's more there than it should be. And my shoulders feel really cramped, like someone tied a hundred knots in my muscles, why?"

"Let's get you a chest x-ray."

Bruce examined the stills on the computer without a word. He didn't even look up at Emma. That did nothing to ease her nerves. 

She stared at the curtained bed on the other side of the room. Who was there? Had another one of her teammates been injured?

"Let me see something in your reflexes." He said holding out a doctor's hammer. But instead of going for her knees, he went around to her back.

Batman used the hammer to tap her spine at the base of her neck and two spots on her back shoulders. She let out a shuddering sigh of relief.

"Feel better?" Batman asked.

"Yeah," Finch told him, "What happened?"

"You need a mirror." He told her.

She jumped off the bed and ran to the full-length mirror at the other end of the room.

A pair of golden wings sprouted from her back.