"Are toi sure?" houx asked, slipping on her boots.

"No choice." Sam growled. houx had noticed the Black Hero was back to his normal dark, brooding self. He continued slipping on his body armor.

"Well what about me?" Becca asked, placing her hands on her hips.

"Stay here." Revenge said.

Becca was shell-shocked for a moment before becoming enraged. "Why not?"

"It's too dangerous."

"Says you."

"It's at a highly unstable nuclear power plant!"

"So?"

"So it leaks radiation like a bottle with holes in it!"

"My body can handle radiation!"

"This radiation is higher than Chernobyl!"

Becca paused for a second. "I'm sensing there is something else here."

Sam sighed and held his mask in his hands. "My suit is built for war in the most alien and hostile terrains. It could stand up to a nuclear winter, it has oxygen, food, and water for weeks, medical kits, pressure regulators."

"But..." houx said, sensing what was coming.

"But neither of toi two have that." Sam a dit roughly. "You're not protected against radiation ou anything else."

"So this is a matter of keeping us safe?" Becca asked.

"Yes."

The two girls stood for a moment in silence.

"Besides," Sam said, grinning. "Do toi know what Nightwing would do to me if something happened to you?"

"Kill toi several times to start with." Becca smiled weakly back.

"Exactly." Sam replied, pulling on is mask. "So stay here. If I don't come back, New York City is added to the protection of Bats and Associates." Sam said. He walked out the door and hopped on his motorcycle, revving it up. He looked back one final time before driving off.

"We're not staying, are we?" houx asked.

Becca started to shake her head with a devilish grin when her comm buzzed. She turned to answer it. When she turned back around, houx was gone. She was about to follow the blonde girl, but her comm buzzed again.

"Princess, get on the computer."

Revenge leaped from his motorcycle and landed in a crouch. He looked up and walked towards the nuclear power plant. A flashback halted him.

"Hey!" another officer said. "We've got forty hostages inside?"

"Right." Revenge said, stepping towards the bank. As soon as he got to the door, the building exploded. Completely. The windows shattered and melted in the air. The supports gave out and the building fell in on itself, feu engulfing the area, scorching the police vehicles black. Those in front of the cars were burned alive. Revenge was thrown a block and a half away from the site and lay unmoving, his suit burnt and his armor smoking.

Revenge shook it out of his system and looked at the power plant. He set his suit to scan for any traps that may be waiting.

"Scanning, scanning, scanning. Anomaly found. seconde anomaly found."

Revenge looked at his HUD as plus and plus explosives, tripwires, and various forms of traps were detected.

"Uh-huh." he said. "Not going to work!"

No reply.

"Come out here and face me like a man!"

Still no reply.

"Becca, I need toi to disarm the following bombs using the computers." Becca confirmed she could from the other side.

"Good. Hurry too, I wanna knock this guy into ICU."

"Revenge, there's something toi need to know."

"Not now, Shade! Revenge out!"

"Damn stubborn boy." Becca muttered.

Holly's veste flapped in the wind. We hadn't had enough time to change into her hero costume before leaving the base, so she was still in jeans, boots, a white chemise and black jacket. Plus her mask. She always had her mask on her.

"Holly!"

"I'm not coming back, Becca!" houx yelled over the wind.

"That reactor is booby-trapped with explosives!" Becca's distant voice came over the com.

"Then deactivate them!"

"I am! But this guy is a professional! Keep an eye on Grant's back!"

"Like I wasn't going to." houx muttered, flooring it and speeding even faster toward the outer limits of the city. She reached in the back compartment of her green motorbike and took out a bulletproof vest, sliding it on over her shirt.

She continued to speed down the highway, weaving in and out of traffic. She turned off-road and towards the power plant. She screeched the bike to a halt as Revenge was getting ready to walk in.

"What happened to stay behind?" Revenge growled.

"Do I look stupid?" houx asked.

"Yes,"

houx shot him a death glare. Revenge ignored it and walked inside the building. Gunfire rang out and he ducked behind the wall. The gunfire stopped.

"Flash!" houx exclaimed, pointing at a canister on the ground. It exploded white and seven shots fired off. When houx could see again, Revenge had seven .50 calibers in his neck. He ripped them out and stood up, growling.

"C'mere toi bastard." he growled, tossing a few daggers of his own in. They exploded and Revenge rushed inside, houx behind him. Three rounds of gunfire hit her in the vest. She responded with an "oof!".

"Multiply that times five and that's what it felt like when toi shot me." Revenge said, throwing her behind cover.

"You aren't still going on about that, are you?" houx exclaimed.

"No." Revenge replied.

plus gunfire rang out and houx cringed.

"Infrared." Revenge said. His suit began scanning the building in infrared. He found the men and fired a volley of daggers at them. Kaboom. When the smoke cleared, the men were nowhere to be seen.

"Where the hell is he?!" Revenge exclaimed.

After five minutes of scanning with every "vision" he had, Revenge gave up and returned to his motorcycle, driving off.

"So you're really leaving in the middle of all this?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, sorry." Becca said, adjusting her bourse, sac à main and wiping her dark hair out of her face. "Nightwing needs me."

Sam raised an eyebrow.

"For a mission." Becca said, rolling her eyes. Sam smirked.

"Don't be late, princess." he called after her.

"I'm gonna kill toi for that." Becca replied.

Revenge grinned.

"You saw him!" Sam said, walking out of the college with Holly. "It's the only way I can take him down!"

"But a gun?" houx asked. "That could kill him!"

"See any other way?" Sam asked.

Before houx could reply, three guys walked in the gate and everything slowed to slow-motion.

She knew from the site of them they were up to no good: Black suits, ties, pants, hats, and sunglasses. She especially knew something was up when they pulled three tommy pistolets out of their coats. While everyone ran and screamed, Sam leaped in front of her as the men's fingers squeezed the triggers. Bullets hit Sam in the chest and he fell, blood trickling out of his wounds.

"Sam!" houx yelled, catching the man as he fell. She laid him carefully on the ground.

"Call an ambulance!" she yelled. She bent down and listened for a heartbeat. "No no no no no no no!" we exclaimed. She pulled out one of her hidden projectiles and set it for the largest amount of electricity before slamming it on his chest. He lurched, but no heartbeat. Again. Again. Still nothing.

"No, no, no toi stupid idiot!" houx exclaimed, tears flowing freely as she lay her head on his chest. "Damn you."

A silent thump sounded and she opened her eyes in shock even as sirens wailed. Sam groaned slowly, but didn't move.

The ambulances came, took Sam to the hospital, and left houx in the waiting room for a stressful three hours. A few people came by. Artemis, Robin. Bruce Wayne hired guards and Ravager slipped in his window to check on him.

Artemis, the dear, she would've stayed with Holly, but the doctors wouldn't allow it and Artemis couldn't explain she was the sister to the richest man in the world because his mother cheated on her husband with a super-criminal. So she merely hugged houx and asked for news.

He would be okay. At least, that's what the doctors said. He'd taken almost thirty bullets to the chest and no one had any clue how he survived. Not until houx examined the bullets. Rubber. Virtually non-lethal. However, hundreds fired in one target area would kill someone.

She was asleep in the hospital chair when a nurse woke her up.

"He can take one visitor now." she said.

"Is he-" houx asked as she walked back into CCU.

"Yes." the doctor said. "But there's a small chance he might not remember you. At all. Are toi sure-"

houx took a deep breath and nodded. The nurse opened the door and houx walked in.

TO BE CONTINUED...



This fan fiction was dedicated to my grandfather. May he rest in peace.