(Part of this post with older brother danyal al ghul)
...Okay, look. Sam knows she's staring. She knows very well that she is staring. And that if she doesn't stop staring it's gonna draw her unwanted attention, and that will only have to make her explain why she's staring. Which she doesn't want to do.
She's trying not to stare, which she thinks she should get brownie points for. She tries to look away, to find a spot on the wall to stare lifelessly at, maybe she can burn holes into some of these annoying socialites' heads. But eventually her eyes drift, and suddenly she's back to staring again.
Can you blame her though? Damian Wayne looks like a very close mini-me of her fucking best friend. Seriously, it's like looking into a mirror to the past. If that mirror to the past had green eyes rather than blue and a distinctive lack of a facial scar.
The first time she sees him when her parents drag her over to Bruce Wayne to butter up to him she has to do a doubletake. Then a triple take. Then a quadruple take, just for good measure that she was seeing what she was actually seeing. She was sure she looked like one of those stress toys that when squeezed had their eyes pop out comically like a Saturday morning cartoon, that's what she certainly felt like anyways.
Look, Danny's come a decent way from being that scowl-y, jerkish little ten year old she first met when he arrived like the wind to Amity Park five years ago (even if he was still occasionally scowl-y and jerkish), but one thing that's stayed the same is how reserved he is about his home life prior to being taken in by the Fentons.
He doesn't talk about it much, and Sam's come to know that he's very good at changing the subject when it gets brought up. Even after being friends for nearly four years, the only thing she and Tuck know for certain is that he has a little brother that he refers to as 'starlight', whom he cares a lot about but left on really bad terms with. And that he's never met his father, but wants to and knows who he is.
He's never told her or Tucker who he was though, and glancing at Bruce Wayne, Sam is realizing why. She can begrudgingly acknowledge all the good he's done for Gotham, but... well, if Danny told her that Bruce Wayne was his dad, she wouldn't have believed him at all.
But she's starting to see the resemblance, as subtle as it is.
And she sees the resemblance to Damian Wayne, her eyes dropping back down to him as he wears a very Danny-like scowl on his face, arms crossed behind his back as his eyes swept around the ballroom. He was five years younger than Danny, and god it was so, so weird.
His eyes turned on to her, and they locked gazes for a moment.
Involuntarily, Sam makes a startled noise and looks away. Fingers tap against her purse, black and purple and unfortunately a clutch that only held her phone and her wallet in it. She would have kept a knife on her, but her parents put their foot down and there was a security detail at the door. Only in Gotham.
Silently, she was hoping that the little Danny-me didn't say anything. Or at least, he hadn't noticed her staring. Which was a tall order if she ever heard one -- and unfortunately, her silent prayers went unanswered as her mother's eyes dropped down onto her.
"Did you say something, Samantha?" She asks in a sickeningly sweet voice, a sound that makes Sam's skin crawl. Her dad and Bruce Wayne's attention also turns onto her, and she glowers at her mom from the corner of her eye.
"I didn't say anything." Sam says, barely keeping her tone polite as she turned her head away. Her mother clucks her tongue, disapproving, but from her peripherals doesn't pester her more
Bruce Wayne, the bastard, takes that time to turn to Sam and grace her with his dime-a-dozen billboard smiles. "I've been talking with your parents this whole time, Miss Manson, you must be terribly bored. How is your schooling going?"
Sam eyes him up and down. On one hand, she immediately wants to be snarky. It's none of his business what her school life is like, she doesn't care for his fucking small talk.
On the other hand, this was Danny's whole father. Someone who she knows that Danny has wanted to meet for, what she's assuming, his whole life. He's never brought it up much, but she remembers that very quiet, solemn conversation she and Tucker had with him where he admits to having never met his dad. But god does he want to.
And... wait. Sam's eyes narrow, and she meets Bruce Wayne's eyes. Does this man even know Danny exists? She drops her gaze down to Damian, who was staring at her suspiciously, and then back up to Bruce, and she alternates between them.
Why was Damian living with Bruce, but not Danny? Why hasn't Bruce done anything to reach out to him - what was going on with Danny's biological family that Danny had to be separated from them, but not Damian? Danny's always been kinda mysterious, but now things weren't adding up.
Was Danny given up? Does Bruce just not want Danny, but wanted Damian? Why the fuck does Bruce Wayne know about Damian but not her best friend -- or does he know and just not care? He's fought for custody for his adoptive kids before, does he just not want to fight for his other biological son? Does he think Danny's not worth it?
She's never cared much about the Wayne family before, other than to hear about the advancements on WE's eco-friendly tech, but Sam thinks she's gonna have to look into why Damian Wayne was living with the Waynes.
Slowly, with a protective anger beginning to burn in her gut and crawl up her throat, a scowl slowly curls at the corner of her lip as she redirects her glare from her mother onto Bruce. "It's going fine," She says curtly, jutting her chin out defiantly. "Me and my friend Danny started a petition to fix the leaky faucets in the girls and boys' bathrooms in order to conserve more water for the rest of the city."
She eyes his face, waiting to see if anything like recognition flashes through it. And- and nothing. Sam breathes in slowly through her nose, trying to quell the red that's blurring the edge of her vision -- does he just, not know where Danny is?
Her parents however, make vaguely displeased expressions. "Our Samantha is... quite passionate about her pet projects." Her dad says, laughing low and nervously, "she's very vocal about silly things like that."
"Her friend Daniel is perhaps even worse than she is sometimes." Her mother adds on, fanning her face with her perfectly manicured hands with a sigh. "I swear, he's the one that keeps dragging her into these things."
Sam's anger turns on its head, and she whirls on her heel like a fire-breathing dragon. "It's Danyal." It rolls out like instinct. Danny's told them both that he hates the Americanized pronunciation of his name, but in a rare moment of restraint, puts up with it for reasons unknown to her. "And Danny doesn't make me do anything, it was my idea."
The name, Danyal, seems to ring some kind of bell in Brucie Wayne's head, because she sees him and Damian quietly perk up like two cats pricking up their ears. Her eyes flick onto him immediately, something dangerous rearing its head. So Bruce Wayne knows about Danny. And he's not reaching out to him. Is he? She's not sure.
She does know that she's gonna rip his throat out if she finds out that he's known about Danny this entire time and has been ignoring him while favoring his little brother. She'll hunt down Aragon herself and steal his dragon-shifting amulet and wreck house on Bruce Wayne if that's the case. Batman and his league of vigilantes be damned. Her parents don't notice her slowly turning head towards Bruce.
But Bruce does, and she makes direct eye contact with him. His smile doesn't falter, he just tilts his head like a curious puppy and looks at Sam's parents. She hopes Bruce can read minds, she hopes he can hear her threatening him.
"Danyal?" He asks, and Sam doesn't know if she hates the fact that he said it correctly or not. She just continues burning holes into him and hoping he might spontaneously combust.
Her mother waves her hand dismissively, tilting her nose up poshly into the air. "Our dear Samantha's little... foster friend from school," she says, not even bothering to hide her disdain, "a creepy little boy with the most garish scar on his face. He's a rude little thing, not good for polite company."
Scratch that, Sam mentally alternates between ripping into her parents and Bruce. She whirls on them. "Do not talk about Danny that way." She all but snarls, and they all but ignore her.
(She's tearing up the upholstery when she gets home. She's going to paint over the fine china. She's going to do something to make them pay for this.)
"Oh yes, he was taken in by that freaky Fenton family a few years ago." Her dad continues in lieu of her mom, and they both shake their heads disapprovingly. "It's just what our city needs, another menace."
"Danny is not a menace." Sam continues, raising her voice while her hands shake with rage. Her parents finally look at her, but she can already tell that they're going to scold her for raising her voice. She bulldozes over them and jabs her black-painted finger at them. "He's got a bigger heart than the both of you combined."
"Samantha, please." her mom says, exasperated. They both give her disapproving looks, Sam thinks about grabbing champagne off the tray of a nearby waiter and throwing it in their faces. "You defend that boy far too much. What do you actually know about him and his family?"
Sam sets her jaw, puffing herself up like a dragon protecting its hoard. She steps into her mom's space. "I know that he loves the stars; you can ask him anything about astronomy and he could give you an entire lecture on the formation, class types, and various gasses that stars are made up of. He can tell you how the Earth was formed, he can tell you about the visible light spectrum and about light curves, and a whole ton of other stuff that I don't really understand. But Danny loves talking about it."
Her face twists and scowls, "I know he cares a ton about the environment and about fixing light pollution, and preserving the forests and natural habitats of animals." She nearly jabs her finger into her mom's chest, "I know he loves dogs, and that there's one he feeds every day on the way to school that he calls Cujo, its a St. Bernard puppy and Danny carries him around whenever he sees him after school, and is in the middle of training him."
It's not a total lie, but it's not the whole truth either. Cujo doesn't need food, but Danny gives him it anyways. "I know he likes spicy food and loves movies but specifically only sci-fi and horror, and he hates most martial arts movies. His favorite superhero is the Martian Manhunter, but Batman comes in at a close second." For reasons to her that were pretty unknown, but it didn't matter.
"I know he loves wordplay and making puns, which I would have never expected from him when we first met, but it's so unbelievably Danny-like that I can't imagine him not making puns." And she smiles a little to herself, she remembers the first time Danny intentionally made a pun once and it got startled laughs out of both her and Tucker.
Her smile suddenly falters, and she swallows. Her lips purse up, wobbling, and she very quickly glances over to Damian Wayne, of whom is watching her with a vaguely bewildered expression alongside Bruce.
She turns her eyes back onto her parents. "And I know that he worries a lot, even if he has a shit way of showing it. I know he had a little brother that he hasn't seen since he was adopted by the Fentons, and he doesn't talk about him often but when he does he he calls him 'starlight'." From the corner of her eye, she sees Damian jerk.
"So- so, so what if he's not 'good for polite company'." Sam's voice, embarrassingly, cracks down the middle. But she's so angry over Danny's behalf that she doesn't really care. "Or that he can be mean, and critical, and stubborn. He's learning, and he's becoming kinder by the day. That's more than I can say about you."
(She remembers when Danny finally admitted to her and Tucker being his 'closest friends'. It was sometime before the portal incident, and it felt like a milestone because beforehand he only really referred to them as his companions or allies.)
(At the time, he'd looked unsure of himself. Skittish like a stray in the back of an alleyway, almost shy in his own way. It had come out stilted, slow, like an infant taking its first steps, and it would have been endearing if it hadn't been heartbreaking.)
Her parents rear back like she'd struck them, and her mother holds a hand against her chest in aghast. Sam doesn't care, she blinks the sting out of her eyes. "Samantha." Her mother starts.
Sam cuts her off, "I don't care what you have to say, you-- you pricks." she snaps, around her, there are gasps. Belatedly, she realizes she's grown an audience, but again she doesn't care. "Danny might be an asshole, but he cares. And I'd rather be around someone whose mean but cares, than someone whose nice but doesn't."
With that, she whirls on her foot and turns on Bruce Wayne, who has been silent the entire time with a surprised expression on his face. He starts to shake out of it when Sam turns to him, but she doesn't give him the chance to speak. "Enjoy your party." She snarls, and then stalks away.
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The New Gotham Rogue, Keeper Pt.1
So! When Danny was killed by the Portal, he was tossed into the Realms and the Portal collapsed behind him. All that was left was a small Spiral shaped Crack in Reality hanging in the Air, and a crater where the Portal had originally opened.
His Family and Friends assumed he was vaporized by the malfunctioning Portal and mourned his death, and Danny himself thought he was just Flat Out Killed by the Portal and became a normal Ghost.
Danny was stuck in the Ghost Zone for over a Month, coming to terms with his own Death, before something happened. The Portal Re-opened itself temporarily.
When Danny found it Open, he was Elated! He could finally go back home, explain what had happened to his Parents, maybe even find a way to live in the Human World as a Ghost!
Unfortunately, he wasn't the first one to find the Portal. Lunch Lady had reached it about an Hour before he did, and had begun attacking the students at his old school for changing the Lunch Menu she had concocted in her life.
Danny rushed to stop her, and eventually managed to beat her. Unfortunately, his Parents showed up and started attacking him too. Even after he explained that he was Danny, that he was their Son, they didn't stop. In fact, they got even more aggressive, saying that their son was dead and that he was just another Spook.
In the end, Danny had to run back into the Ghost Zone to escape his parents, dragging Lunch Lady with him.
After that, he decided that he had to become a Guardian of the Portal whenever it randomly Opened, to keep both the Humans and the Ghosts safe.
For over a year, he stopped almost every Ghost that attempted to pass through the Portal, fighting them back or stalling them until the Portal closed again. There were a few incidents where they managed to get passed him, like when Undergrowth mind controlled his old friend Sam, or when Hotep-Ra reawakened Tuckers memories from his pasts lives, but most of the time he had it under control.
Of course not all of them had to get past him, Natural Portals still existed after all, but every time they got to the Human Realm he would find them and drag them back.
Unfortunately, being the one thing standing between the Ghosts and the opportunity to fulfill their Obsessions earned him a lot of resentment.
Everybody he met hated him. He was seen as a Villain in the Zone, the one who prevented everybody from fulfilling their Purpose at every pass.
Danny was not in a good head space about it.
His mind was buckling under the pressure of it all. His duties as the Guardian of the Portal, the hatred the Denizens of the Realms held for him, the lonliness eating away at his Sanity, it was all too much. He felt his psyche cracking ever so slightly every day that passed like this.
It got better for a time in the 2nd year of his Afterlife. He had managed to befriend a few Ghosts, mainly the Leaders of certain Kingdoms who saw the necessity of his action, as well as a few others.
Frostbite, Pandora, and Dorathea were the Pillars upholding his sanity for that period of time. He finally had friends (or at least people who didn't harbor nothing but distain for him). But unfortunately, it couldn't last forever. They had Kingdoms to run, People to Lead, and they couldn't spend all their free time entertaining his selfish whims his need to talk to someone, anyone at all, so he forced himself to stop bothering them so much (they didn't think any of that)
And Guarding the Portal took most of his time as well. His Rouges had started attacking him between it's Openings, hoping to gain control of the Portal while it was inactive so they had first dibs when it did open. Danny was getting run ragged trying to keep them all away.
Eventually, he reached his second Death Day. It didn't really feel like 2 years had passed, in fact it felt like much, much longer than that, but he knew in his Core that it was his 2nd Death Day. Also, whenever he peeked through the Portal, it seemed like 2 years ago passed in the Living World, so he just went with that.
On that day, he discovered something. During a battle with Plasmius, (who was still enraged at him for blowing up his own, stable Portal), he felt something strange. A familiarity that he had never noticed before, which happened when Plasmius briefly turned Human to avoid his attacks.
After the Battle, Danny decided to investigate that feeling. It was a weird sensation, like pressure built up in his Chest that he had never noticed until that moment with Plasmius, the first time he had ever seen him Transform in person.
After focusing on it for a while, Danny felt it getting stronger and stronger until it Burst with a flash of light. And suddenly he was Human again. He was Alive again.
It was another few minutes of testing this ability out before he finally stopped and took it all in. He was a Human. even if he was half Ghost.
He was Human.
He was Alive.
A thought struck him. Did this mean he could go back home? Back to his Family? His friends? Mom and Dad? Jazz? Sam and Tucker?
In an instant he was up and running to the still Open Portal. It hadn't closed since he had beaten Plasmius, as it it felt his desire to return to the Human World.
It actually might have, considering it was a part of him. Clockwork had explained it after the whole, Dan situation. When he had first formed, a piece of his newly formed Core had broken off and become the Core of the Portal instead. It gave him a connection that allowed him to better Guard the Portal, knowing when it was Open or if somebody had used it.
Stopping at the edge of the Opening, Danny thought about all the things he would be able to do again. Hug his Parents, eat Human Food, talk to his friends. Oh God, it had been so long since he had actually talked to another person. None of his Rouges had bothered reciprocating his Quips in almost a year now, so he barely ever had anybody to talk to. Even somebody proclaiming their eternal hatred for him would be better than the endless silence.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped through the Portal with Hope in his Heart.
On the other side, he found un unfamiliar room.
It was much cleaner than his Parents Lab, with all the different Inventions placed perfectly in neat workstations. Multiple work stations. Had his parents hired some neat freak assistants? Why were there so many Work Stations?
Honestly that wasn't even the most eye catching detail he noticed. There was something else, something more noticeable.
It was the fact that everything in the entire Lab was White.
He heard a series of footsteps approaching the Lab, and before he knew it, the room was filled with GIW Agents and Scientists, all pointing their Weapons at him.
He tried to call out to them, to tell them that it was okay, that he was Human. But all that came out was the static sound of Ghost Speak. Why did that happen? He wanted to use Human Language! Why was he only using Ghost Speak? Had he...had be really forgotten how to speak?
Did he really forget the one thing basic for almost every human? How? Sure it had been a while since he spoke it, but were 2 years of not speaking English really enough for him to forget everything?
But, it hadn't been just 2 years, had it? Time moved strangely in the Ghost Zone, and it definitely felt like longer. How long had it actually been? How long had he been Dead?
Stuck in his own mind, he never saw the barage of attacks coming his way.
...
Danny was stuck in that Lab for over 6 months.
He was kept in that same room he was captured in, constantly being cut open and pulled apart before being left overnight to heal himself.
He tried to explain that he was human in any way possible, but without being able to talk it was hard. He tried writing out in his own blood at once point, but they just cut him opened even more after that, trying to figure out how the "Mindless Ghost" had managed to imitate human writing.
They never listened to him screaming in pain. In their eyes it was just a random Ghost trying to trick them into thinking he could Feel.
Every time he screamed in pain, they would berate him. "You can't feel, shut up!" "You aren't human, stop taking that form!" "You are a Ghost! You can't feel scared, get up!" "You are just a mindless blob of Ectoplasm!" "You would kill everybody here if given the chance!" "You aren't Human!" "You aren't real!" "You're just a Monster!"
"You aren't Alive!"
Even through all that Torment, he didn't stop fighting. He knew he was Human, that he was alive. There was nothing that would ever change that. Or so he thought.
Then they brought his Parents in.
They had previously mentioned them, praising them for their technical skills and cheering the fact that they had sold them the Portal, even if it had not turned back in since he came through. Then, they decided to bring them in to study the Ghost who kept imitating their dead son.
When they first walked in, Danny felt a spark of hope. Maybe they would save him, maybe they would see that he was alive, that he was real.
But they didn't. They just kept on with the same experiments as before, yelling the same things, but it hurt so much more coming from them.
He didn't last long under their study. He broke, and he didn't think he would ever put himself back together again.
...
It was at the 6 Month Mark that something new happened. As it turns out neither his, nor the Portal's absense had gone unnoticed in the Zone.
In his time trapped in that Lab, he had used his connection to the Portal to keep it from opening, using every ounce of his Willpower to force it to stay closed, no matter how much it struggled under his control.
When he was finally Broken by his Parents, he lost his grip on the Portal, and that night it opened for the first time in Months.
The first one to find him was, coincidentally, the Lunch Lady. The first ever Ghost he guarded the Portal from.
What she saw when she floated into that Room would forever Scar her memories. Danny in his Ghost Form laying strapped to an Operation Table, his organs out in the Air, his ribs spread out like an Eagle. At the center of his Chest sat his Core, exposed for the whole world to see, showing off all the damage it had received since the Scientists first found it all those months ago.
He looked up at her, and his eyes told her all she needed to know. Run.
She fled back through the Portal, horror stricken across her face. Danny managed to shut it down again after that.
Apparently news of what she had seen seen had spread around the Realms. Even when the Portal was active, nobody came through. The few times anybody did poke their head through, they saw him and left screaming in Terror.
Danny knew they would never save him. He was their Enemy, the Villain in their story, they would never risk themselves trying to help him.
And honestly he didn't know if he wanted to he helped. This was all his Fault. He was the one to open the Portal, he was the one who Guarded it for all that time, he was the one who got himself into this mess.
One time, he felt the Familiar Aura of Pandora approaching the Portal, and forced it closed before she could reach it. Her head managed to get through for a moment, but when she looked at him with those pleading eyes, begging to let her help him, he closed them as tight as he could and shut the Portal Closed, pushing her Back into the Realms.
She was trying to save him. But she didn't deserve to get hurt trying to help a waste of space like him.
He needed to get the Portal away from the Lab. It was only a matter of time before he lost any ability to close the Portal at all, before the Scientists managed to find a way to keep it open and invade the Realms. He needed to get it away from them, if only to protect the Ghosts on the other side.
He needed to do his Job, to guard the Portal. From either Side.
...
It took another month of conserving his strength before he managed to break out of his Shackles. It took a bit if trial and error, but eventually he found a way to draw the Portal into himself to transport it away.
It was technically a piece of his Core after all, he just had to slot it back into Place.
After that, he had to find a way out of the Lab. The Scientist he found wandering outside his room didn't have any Overshadowing Protection at the time, so he managed to get halfway to the Exits before the alarms sounded.
Then it was a mad dash of fighting off Guards and dodging the Security System to get to the Door. He dropped the Body when he reached the Doors.
It didn't get any easier after escaping the Building, but after several hours of chasing he eventually lost them.
He kept running though. He couldn't keep the Portal within him forever, and he needed a safe place to let it out. Hours of running eventually led him to somewhere that might work.
Gotham City.
...
Cass wasn't entirely sure that she was making the right call in this, but Croc's Body Language seemed to suggest that he was being genuine in his intentions, so she kept on following him.
In the past few Months, there had been a string of incidents where Government Agents in White Suits had incited fights and shootouts while "investigating" a supposed escaped Superpowered Prisoner. They had justified themselves by saying that the civilians they were attacking were actually Extra Dimensional Monsters known as Ecto-Entities, also known as Ghosts.
Of course a simple blood test always disproved them, but they were relentless in their "investigation". She used air quotes because they were some of the most Incompetent and Dimwitted morons the team had ever encountered, which was saying something. The only semi-competent ones where the pair of Scientists who commanded them, but even they were borderline insane, constantly ranting about how Evil Ghosts were and how they wanted to pull them apart molecule by molecule.
Unfortunately, there was nothing her Dad could do about them. They were a legitimate Government Agency, no matter how incompetent, and they hadn't been lucky enough to actually do any damage in their multitude of fights, so her Dad couldn't really force them to leave.
He had however started looking into the missing Ghost Prisoner they were chasing. If he could just find it, they could get the GIW out of the City and be done with them.
Her Dad and Tim's investigation had led him to a few short reports from a couple of months ago, describing a Humanoid figure covering in a glowing green liquid stalking the streets one night before disappearing all of a sudden. There wasn't much to work with, but the Team kept on the investigation in the hopes that they could get rid of the GIW sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately Cass, Damian, and Jason were exempt from the investigation, because for whatever reason whenever they came anywhere near the GIW, they started attacking them.
They had argued that they could take care of themselves, but Bruce had been adamant that they stay out of it. Damian had eventually relented, trusting the orders of his Father. Jason had flat out refused, but said that he would stay out of it just as long as the GIW stayed out of Crime Alley.
Cass however? She didn't want to be left out! She had more than proven that she could take care of herself, but her Dad was still too paranoid to even let her out of the House. She decided that she would undergo her own Investigation, and prove to her Dad that he shouldn't have ousted her from the Case like that.
She decided to take a different approach to the Investigation. Her Family was still combing through reports from the previous few months to see if there were any more mentions of the Figure, but she thought of something else.
After looking at the randomly reported sightings of the Entity that her family had collected, she noticed something. They were all set near Farners Markets, Grocery Stores, Restaurants.
The Entity was looking for Food.
She didn't think extra-dimensional Entities would be eating the same food as other Humans, but then again these things are supposedly impressions of Human Emotion that remain after death. Maybe it held onto the same Habits?
She decided to follow that potential lead.
Tracking stolen food across Gotham was tricky, because so many people were stealing food to survive. But eventually she got down a Pattern. It would strike at nighttime, stealing only Canned Food, and the Camera's would be covered in static for his duration in the store. Curiously, it would also take a few containers of Fudge whenever the store had it.
It was very steady for a while, and eventually she found that her list of locations matched up to the sightings the others had gathered had from the past few months.
On the day she was about to reveal the results of her investigation to her Dad, something changed.
The GIW had a major shootout, where they reported that they had found and injured the Prisoner, but it had Escaped.
The reports of stolen food matching it's M.O. stopped coming in after that. She thought that her Lead had been lost, and was mentally cursing the GIW in her head for days, before an offhand comment from one of her brother's caught her attention.
"Croc was seen stealing Canned Food recently. Didn't think he ate anything but Meat, but I guess he got a taste for Chocolate Fudge."
So, she investigated the Lead and found that Croc had taken up stealing the same type of food as the Entity did.
Quickly, she looked up the maps of every store that had been hit, as well as the Sewer Systems, and looked at them side by side. They matched up. At every single location where the Entity had stolen it's food, there was a Major Sewer Line.
And each of those Sewer Lines were in Killer Croc's territory. Killer Croc was harboring the Entity, he was feeding it.
She had solved it! The Ghost Entity was living in the Sewers!
She almost got up and ran to tell her father the news right then and there, but she paused. There were still unanswered questions, questions she wanted to figure out before telling her Dad.
Why was Croc feeding the Entity?
What connection did they have?
Why was the Entity in the City in the first place if the GIW was there as well, looking for it?
She needed all the answers before presenting it to her dad. She wanted to cover all of her Bases if she was going to admit that she went against her Dad's orders, not wanting to anger him. (She knew he wouldn't be mad at her, but old fears die hard.)
It took a while to find a way to sneak out of the House, but she managed it eventually. She roped Alfred into covering for her, saying she just needed some fresh air after being stuck in the house for almost a Month. Which was actually true.
After that it was just a matter of scoping out the spot where she had predicted Croc would be first, and waited.
It took a few tries to get the right location, but eventually she managed to find him. Croc was wary of her at first, and when she mentioned the food matching the MO of somebody else she was tracking, he flipped out!
He wouldn't let her get a word in, not that he was speaking very much, but still.
He calmed down after a few minutes of her not fighting back. She convinced him that she just wanted to talk to the one she was Tracking, whoever he was, so she could ask them for help in getting the GIW out of the City. Which was technically the truth.
After a bit more convincing, he caved and told her to follow him, before descending into the Sewers.
She was thankful that Croc was one of the more reasonable of the Rouges, and that she had a good enough reputation that he managed to trust her.
So here she was, following Croc through his Territory under Gotham, about to meet this Ghost Entity she had been tracking for over a Month now.
After a long walk, they emerged into a relatively large Room. It seemed to be an abandoned Sewer Reservoir, one of those large Rooms you see on TV that's like a giant Whirpool that characters are always getting sucked into (she hadn't had much to do while stuck in the house okay? She had been watching a lot of TV recently), except it was completely Dry.
There were a few places around that were obviously set up like different rooms in a house. A bedroom, a kitchen, an old couch and a box TV set up in front of it, and so on. This seemed to be one of Crocs more lived-in homes, which spoke to the trust he was placing in her not revealing this place to the other Bats. She felt slightly honored at that thought.
He led her to a section of the Base slightly off to the side, a room that wasn't entirely visible from the Enterance.
He stopped her at the door and called into it. "Hey Keeper, there's someone here to see you."
Without waiting for a reply, he turned around and ushered her into the Room.
It looked like a typical Bedroom, an old wardrobe was set off to the side, one of the door having fallen off. Inside there weren't that many items, just a few shirts and some pants. Closer to the center of the room, there was a Table covered with various empty cans and utensils. On three walls there were various posters and drawing featuring stars and constellations, seemingly placed haphazardly around the room with no real pattern. Most importantly, there was a Bed in the Corner.
And on that bed, was the Entity she had been tracking. And he was just a Kid.
He looked just like a normal teenager, about the same age as her, but he had White Hair and Green Eyes. He was sitting in an upright position, probably having sat up to get a better look at his visitor, and she could see the mess of bandages on his body.
The freshest ones were obviously for the wounds that had gotten him put on bed rest, a strip of clean bandages covering his stomach, with a bulge above his lower left stomach showing where he had gotten shot by the GIW.
But the rest of them, the older ones, they covered his entire main body. The bandages where old and slightly dirty, but it was obvious they had been placed in a hurry.
She was so busy studying his wounds that she almost missed Croc introducing her.
"Orphan, this is Keeper. Keeper, this is Orphan." He told the boy, "She says she wants to help get rid of the GIW."
The boy merely glanced at her before directing his gaze to Croc. A static-like sound seemed to Emit from his form, like a Trill, but against all logic she seemed to understand what it meant.
Discontent. Wariness.
Croc seemed to understand it too, and said, "Keeper, she can help get rid of the GIW. Don't you want them gone?"
Another Static Trill. Uninterest. Indifferent. Resigned.
"You can't just give up like that! If you won't fight back for yourself, at least fight back for the sake of protecting the P-", he was cut off by a wave of Static.
Anger. Displeasure. Stop.
Croc stuttered a bit. "I-sorry Keeper, I didn't mean to- I-" He was cut off again.
Displeasure. Leave.
They got the hint. Leaving the room, and walking to the exit.
Cass made one final glance behind her, meeting his eyes through the open doorway. They were cold and lifeless voids, as if he had cut himself off from all emotion.
"Sorry 'bout this Orphan. Keeper needs help, but he doesn't think he deserves it." He told her as they walked back to the surface. "He's not in a good head space right now, hasn't been since me n' Grundy found him wandering the Sewers all those months ago."
She made a questioning sound, and he picked up her meaning quickly. "Grundy is out finding more space themed stuff for his Room. Said somethin' about needing to fill an Obsession, but can't really explain it more than that."
She nodded in understanding as they reached the Sewer Drain where they had first decended into his Territory. She climbed out, but gave a final goodbye to Croc as she left.
She pointed at herself, and said, "I. Come. Back. Soon."
He gave her a slight Nod, and she leaped away.
By the time she got back to her Room in the Manor, her mind was a raving.
She was dumbfounded. Cass had originally tracked him down to make sure her theory was right before reporting it to her Dad, so that the GIW would take him before leaving and not coming back. She was dead set on getting the GIW out of the City by turning whatever entity they were chasing in.
But every intention of reporting him had left her the moment she had seem him in person. He was just a kid, a teenager like her. He was so hurt he couldn't get out of his Bed, his body was covered in bandages from presumably previous encounters with the GIW, and he was resigned to his fate.
He didn't care if he lived or died. He was just fine with letting the GIW capture him and injure him again, but there was something he was protecting that made him keep going on.
She wanted to help him.
But it wasn't because she pitied him. It was because Keeper had such a familair expression on his face when she left. One she had seen in the mirror a thousand times before her Dad had taken her in. And she swore she wouldn't let another kid keep that same expression as long as she could help it.
But there was also something else. When he was talking to Croc, and Croc mentioned that she wanted to help get rid of the GIW, she saw something flicker in his eyes. Just for a moment.
And she might be wrong, but she thought she saw a flicker of Hope.
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