Zephyr: A Young Justice OC fanfiction

Chapter 53: Being an Adult

Fast Forward A Year

"I'm finally free!" I squeal as I fly into and around the cave, holding my diploma. Megan appluaded loudly and I took a low bow mid-air

"Someone's happy to be graduating." Artemis smiles, high-fiving me mid-flight.

"Of course! I'm finished school!" I cheer excitedly. "And since my eighteenth birthday was two weeks ago: I am officially an adult!"

"Lucky." Conner smirks, but sends my a thumbs up.

"What about college?" Robin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"A friend of mine's family owns one of the best dance studios in France." I said, remembering the conversation Quinn and I had a month and a half ago. "He's offered me the position of lead youth dance instructor."

"Nice!" Rocket said, raising her hand which I slapped in another high-five.

"You think you could teach me?" Garfield, Megan's new adopted brother, asked. He used to live in Byalia on an animal reserve with his mom, who was really close to M'gann, but...Queen Bee made her drive her car off a cliff. Garfield survived, thanks to a blood transfusion from Megan (which was starting to turn him green).

I smiled and patted the boy on the head. "We'll see Gar."

I then felt an arm slide around my waist and I looked beside me to see Kaldur standing there, smiling.

"Congratulations." He says, kissing my temple and I blush.

"Eww! They're being cute again!" Wally groans and I find myself blushing even more.

"Like you're never showing PDA?" Robin laughs, earning a punch from his best friend and Artemis.

The friendly moment was interrupted by Batman stepping into the room. As per usual, all noise disappeared the moment Batman entered, but when he went to the computer and pulled up an image of a young girl, no older then thirteen, I grew curious. She was average height and had a little bit of body fat, long black hair, and probably from Aboriginal or Māori decent. But it wasn't any of these factors that caught my attention: it was her white eyes that reminded me of pearls.

"This is Maia Henare." Batman explained. "She's twelve years old and lives on a Māori reserve in New Zealand."

"Is she okay?" Garfield asked.

"We don't know." Batman explained. "What we do know is that she's causing huge waves of air to excel from her body and cause massive amounts of collateral damage."

I felt a few eyes on me and I furrowed my brows. "So she's like me?" I asked.

"The league has yet to figure that out." Batman admitted. "But we want you to see if you can help."

I pointed to myself, my eyes widening. "You want me to handle this? How? When my powers emerged I was in a coma: completely unaware of what was happening."

"Well she's awake, and we believe the panic she's feeling is only making the situation worse." Batman explained. "You may be out best hope."

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair, looking at the poor girl. She had no idea what was happening, and nobody knew how to help her, but now the responsibility was falling to me.

"I guess I can try to talk to her...but I'm going to need backup."

"We'll be in the bioship!" Megan said cheerfully.

"Ready if you need us." Kaldur added, placing a hand on my shoulder. I sighed again and nodded.

***

To say I was nervous would be the biggest understatement of the century.

This poor girl's health and sanity was being left in my hands and I had no idea what I was doing.

I was freaking terrified.

But nonetheless, I knew I couldn't let her down. So as I walked to the origin of all these ripples-like airwaves, forcing each one away, I pushed my fear and anxiety to the back of my head.

When I did finally get to the remains of what used to be a hut, I saw the girl from the photo Batman pulled up; only instead of a holographic image with her in a normal standing position, she was crouched to the ground in the fetal position, crying.

"I didn't mean to! I'm sorry!" She cried in a voice that broke my heart.

"Hey there, you're Maia right?" I asked and I went to step toward her, but was thrown back when another, stronger wave expanded from her figure.

"Don't come close! I'll hurt you!" She screamed.

"Maia, it's okay. I can help you." I said, standing back up and walking back toward her. This time, I was prepared for the strong wave and was able to blow it away. This made Maia perk up, 'looking' in my direction.

"How did you do that?" She asked. "You just...Moved it away?"

I felt the waves grow slightly weaker and I smiled.

"My name is Ze-Lina...I can help you." I said, kneeling down close to Maia.

"H-how?" She asked.

"You need to calm down, breathe deep breaths." I said, placing a hand on Maia's shoulder. Maia looked up at me, tears in her eyes but after a quick moment: she nodded and took a slow, deep breath. I smiled down at her an nodded, taking deep breaths of my own so she had something to go off of.

After a long minute of breathing when the waves finally began to slow down and weaken, and then eventually stop all together.

"There we go. See, you're all right." I said, placing a hand on Maia's head and gently petting her hair.

***

"You did good work with Maia." Batman said, catching me off-guard but making me smile nonetheless.

"Thanks." I paused, but then furrowed my brows. "Is she going to be okay? Where is she now?"

"The league is keeping her until things get a little more stable, that being said: Maia needs to learn to control her powers." Batman said and I raised my eyebrows and turned to Red.

"Are you going to take her on as a new protege?" I asked Red.

Red and I had collectively decided that I no longer needed to carry on as his protege. I was fully trained, and as an young adult; I no longer needed to have a mentor.

Red and Batman shared a look before turning back to me.

"If you feel up to the task, I feel you are prepared to take her on as your mentor." Red said. "You two seemed to have bonded, is the fact that she keeps asking for you is any indication."

I froze, my brain completely shutting down for a good ten seconds before I was able to regain my sanity.

"You're serious? This is a little blind girl! How am I supposed to help her?" I exclaim.

"You've had two different mentors, and have proven capable of handling youth in the past." Batman stated.

"I know, I'm pretty good with kids. People keep saying that." I said, running a hand through my hair. "But what if she gets hurt?"

"We all get hurt." Batman said. "It's your job to train her so that she can deal with that. She needs a mentor Zephyr, and you're the best-if not the only-candidate."

I sighed for a long moment before looking back up.

"Alright." I sighed. "I'll do it."