Brave New World: Stargirl

Chapter 6

The next morning, Courtney woke up feeling more well rested and refreshed than she had in months. It appeared that finding the staff had been what she needed to finally allow her to get some rest.

Anyways, after she got dressed, she headed downstairs to find Pat waiting for her.

"Sleep well Court?" Pat asked.

"Better than I have in awhile. Turns out when you finally answer a magic stick's call, it leaves you alone." Courtney said and Pat rolled his eyes.

"Come on. Eat breakfast and then I'll take you to my shop so that I can tell you what I meant about what you told me." Pat said and Courtney nodded.

"So, what is it that you wanted to show me?" Courtney asked Pat as they entered his shop.

"This." Pat said as he led her into the backroom of his shop and Courtney was very surprised to find the robot that she'd seen in her dreams standing there.

"What is that thing?" Courtney asked.

"That Courtney, is a robot I built before I met your mother." Pat said.

"You are way smarter than you look. How did you build that thing?" Courtney asked.

"I built it out of old car parts." Pat said.

"Why are you a mechanic when you could be a rocket scientist or something?" Courtney asked.

"For the same reason the JSA wore costumes. Misdirection. By hiding in plain sight, doing something that does not draw attention to myself, the bad guys can't figure out who I am." Pat explained.

"Makes sense. Speaking of costumes." Courtney began.

"We'll talk about that once your mom calms down a bit, since unlike her, I do realize that with the staff comes a desire to protect people. Sylvester felt it and so do you and while I'm not thrilled about you putting yourself in danger like that, I also know that I can't talk you out of it, so I might as well do my best to make sure that you don't get killed." Pat said.

"Honestly, I doubt that there's anything here that could kill me. Even if the staff chose me, I don't understand why it waited till we were here to become so insistent. It makes more sense for it to have shown up while we were living in LA." Courtney said.

"I don't know how the staff's mind works, since I know that it has one, but I think I may know why it activated here." Pat said as he led her over to a trunk in the garage.

"What's this?" Courtney asked.

"Everything I've gathered on the Injustice Society. Ever since the JSA was wiped out, I've been following the ISA's trail, trying to pick up their trail. That's the reason why I moved around so much and why we moved to Blue Valley." Pat said.

"Because the trail led you here." Courtney said and Pat nodded.

"The fact that staff became active all of sudden means that I was on the right track." Pat said.

"Where did you get all this stuff and what's with the robot?" Courtney asked.

"One member of the JSA survived the initial slaughter that night. Hourman. He became obsessed with hunting down the ISA and finding out what they were up to. He followed the trail across the US until he and his wife were killed in a car crash." Pat said.

"And then you decided to pick up the trail from there." Courtney said and Pat nodded.

"I built the robot because I thought that I could help Hourman, but he wanted to go in alone." Pat said.

"Pat, let me help you. If the ISA is here in Blue Valley, you're going to need all the help you can get." Courtney said.

"You'll get your chance Court, I promise, but not until after you show me that you can handle yourself both with the staff and without it, since Starman never solely depended on his weapon in a fight, since while the staff may be alive, it can't always be there." Pat said.