Chapter 25 - Anomaly

552 20 10
                                    

Adam was in trouble. But he enjoyed every minute of it. He finally had his powers back and was already out and about kicking crime in the kisser. He had gotten himself into a sticky situation. The night had started out quietly. He was trailing a vertigo trafficker, hoping he would lead him to the main lab. Good news: he did. Bad news: It was heavily guarded. Lots of men with guns. No back up. On a normal day, Adam would have called in the Team; but this was the first bit of action he'd gotten since he lost his powers, and he was eager to punch stuff. He was way more excited for this than he should have been. He threw a fireball at a storage unit, and the vertigo exploded. He had gotten their attention. He smiled and engaged the men. No fire. No lightning. No swords. Just fist to face contact. And it was fun. It was years of training his reflexes that saved his life. A sword had been swung at him, but he had managed to materialize one of his own swords to parry it. He found himself face to face, looking into the deep blue eyes of a beautiful white haired girl. He tried to say something clever, like: 'What's a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?' , but it just came out as: "Ah, duh, bluh...". She saw his weakness and elbowed him in the face and following it up with a roundhouse kick, sending him spinning and unto the ground.
"Hot damn."thought Adam. 'Am I losing a fight with this girl because I think she's pretty?'
He got up and materialized his other sword.
"Who are you?" She asked.
"In these 'ere parts, they call me Burnout." He managed to say.
"Well Burnout, I'm sheriff around here, and I plan to rustle up any outlaws who start wildfires."
Did she just carry on his joke?
"So can we save this for high noon and we'll both be on our way?" Asked Adam, while smiling.
"Not a chance, bucko."
"Bucko? Is that even cowboy-talk?"
"Shut up and let me kill you, Okay?"
She charged at him with her sword. He dodged and parried her first few strikes. It had been a long time since he had fought sword on sword and it reminded him of the good old days with his mentor.
He pushed her away and fired a lightning bolt at her, planning to catch her by surprise, but she dodged and struck him the ankles. He fell down and she tried to stab him, so he flipped out of the way.
"How did you know I was going to shoot lightning at you?" Asked Adam.
She smirked." I have pre-cognitive abilities. I can see your attacks coming before you even do them." Her smile melted away/, and she face palmed. "Annnnd I just told you my powers." She sighed about her carelessness and threw a shuriken at him. He dodged it.
"'Pre-cognitive abilities'" said Adam, putting them in air quotes. "Who the hell talks like that?"
"The girl who's been kicking your ass for the last 20 minutes." She replied.
"I never did get your name."
"It's Ravager. Remember that. It's good to know the name of the person who put you in the grave."
She ran at him again, engaging him hard. He was forced to go into a defensive stance. Even though he was the one with the swords. She was that good.
"Looks like the little boy can't keep up."
She disarmed one of his swords and he was forced to fight with the other one only. That just made Adam more attracted to her. But she got sloppy. Overconfident. She didn't time her attack well and Adam threw a kick at her stomach. But she expected it. It was part of her plan. She ducked and swept out his legs and he fell flat on his back.
"Damn, dude. You've just been totally owned." She bragged.
Adam tried to get up, but he couldn't. He realized that the vertigo he had blown up earlier had created a sticky fluid. She had noticed that and lured him here. Now she was going to kill him.
"Is there anyway I could convince you to give up a life of crime and, maybe, join my team before you kill me?" Adam asked.
"It's not crime. It's just...you wouldn't understand." She shrugged.
"Try me."
Before she could say anything, the bioship flew into the vicinity.
"Your team, I presume?" Asked Ravager.
"I would nod if my head wasn't stuck to the floor, but yeah, it is."
"Well then, it's been fun." She said. She kissed him on the cheek.
"See ya later, blondie."she said as she jogged away. Adam was at a loss for words. He couldn't think of any witty comebacks to that, so he stared at the sky as the bioship landed beside him. The Team came out and helped him out.
"Why didn't you call for backup?" Asked Robin.
"It doesn't matter." Said Aqualad. "We still have the main source and storage here to destroy, thanks to Adam."
"Why thanks Kaldur."
"What's at the back of your hoodie?" Asked Artemis. Adam took it off and found the word 'owned' spray painted on his hoodie
He said out loud. "When did she even do that?"
----------------------------------------------
They destroyed the remainder of the lab and flew back to the cave. Adam went straight to bed.
"Who was that girl?" He thought. He decided that he would look her up on the supercomputer in the morning. But for now....sleep.
------------------------------------------------
Zatanna had slept well. Maybe it was because of the pair of arms wrapped around her waist. She turned around, smiling to look at the person next to her.
"Mornin' Zee..." Said Adam, still half asleep.
"Hey Adam..... WAIT, ADAM!!!! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE!"
She quickly got up from the bed.
"Wait, wait.... I can explain..."
Before he could say anything, she had kicked him, between the legs. He sprawled to the ground, in pain, with his pupils rolled up.
"I....have no idea...how I got here." He managed to say.
Superboy, Mgann, Kaldur and Astrid had watched the whole thing. They were trying to hide their smiles, until Astrid burst with laughter. The others followed, while rolling on the floor.
"Adam, are you a sleepwalker?" Asked Astrid, while she wiped the laughter tears out of her eyes.
"What? No! I'm serious, I have no idea how I got here."
"We can check the cameras?" Suggested Kaldur.
"There are cameras in our rooms?" Asked M'gann. She looked at Superboy nervously.
"Robin's paranoid."
"Okay. So can you guys, like you know, go out of my room now?" Said Zatanna.
"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed." Said Adam.
Zatanna glared at him.
"Too soon?" He asked awkwardly.
"Just get out."
He left and poked his head through the door again.
"Oh. And nice bunny jammies. They really make you look intimidating."
She threw her comb at him, but he ducked out of the room.
-------------------------------------------------
Zatanna had come out of her room and saw her teammates gawking at the big screen. She had changed out of her PJ's to avoid any of Adam's teasing.
"He was there...then..." Stuttered Superboy.
Zatanna looked at the recording playing over and over again on the big screen. Adam was in his room at 1am. Then in a poof of orange smoke, he was in Zatanna's room.
"Teleportation, Adam!" Said Zatanna.
"That's awesome! I guess I wasn't the only one who got affected by Trigon." Said Astrid.
"I'm going to meditate. See if I can control it." Adam went to his room.
Superboy and M'gann went away, leaving Astrid and Zatanna.
"You know, magic works by thought. So the only way Adam was able to teleport to you was because he was dreaming about you." Astrid said. Astrid winked at her and walked toward the Zeta tubes.
"Where you going?" Asked Zatanna
"Out with Robin."
"Ooohhh."
"Don't even do that. It's nothing like that." She zetaed out.
--------------------------------------------
Adam was having trouble meditating. He couldn't concentrate. Couldn't get that white haired girl out of his mind. 'Ravager' was her name. Adam closed his eyes and concentrated, until he felt energy surging through his body. His skin tingled. He opened his eyes and for the second time in less than 24 hours, he found himself face to face, looking into the deep blue eyes of a beautiful white haired girl.
-------------------------------------------
Hey guys! I'm so happyyyyy!!! 1.5k reads. You guys are the best. Now we have TWO comments that are not from me. Please keep em coming.
I really enjoyed writing this chapter. It's my favourite so far.
Well, bye.
(I have no outro thingy that I do every chapter. Sorry if you're into that kind of thing.)

Justice League: VertigoWhere stories live. Discover now