Young Justice - Ep. 6 Artemis Through the Looking Glass

Bruce had been trying to track the Joker down for the past week. He had left a message for Batman to find him before his finger slipped again. Under the note was a young man shot dead in the head.

Bruce, realizing the severity of the situation, called everyone. Dick came back from Blüdhaven and Tim plus Stephanie took a leave of absence from Young Justice to help. Barbara worked solely in Gotham so she was already present and ready to help.

"The Joker is planning something, left a body and a note saying to stop him before he pulls the trigger again. We have to find out where he is." Bruce said as he told the others what he knew. He kept his cowl off as he pointed to the picture of the crime scene. Evelyn decided she wasn't going to look at it.

"Has he done anything since then?" Dick asked. Bruce shook his head in denial.

"He must be planning something big. He usually strikes quick to knock us off balance. This isn't like him at all." Tim adds in as the others nod in agreement.

He was right, the Joker was never one to wait and give Batman time to figure out his plans. He acted quickly and spontaneously, Batman and Robin usually have to be ready at all times solely because of the Joker's unorganized rhythm.

"He likes to make a scene whenever he does something. Is there anything going on today?" Barbara directed the question to Evelyn. The woman was quick to start researching. As far as Evelyn could find, no there was nothing happening today.

"Okay, what about tomorrow? Sometimes he sets it up for the next day. Like the bombs." Dick thinks out loud. Evelyn nodded and started looking for events coming up in Gotham.

Although the city of Gotham was riddled with crime and violence, Evelyn had to hand it to the city council. They did a wonderful job of posting all events being held in Gotham on the city website. Evelyn did suppose that criminals also used this site to plan out their attacks but a person can't win them all.

"A new theater opened and a dance recital is being held there tomorrow. It's the only thing that's happening for the next week." Bruce nodded and pulled his cowl over his face. A cold look overcomes his features as he moved to the Batmobile. The others are quick to follow suit in their own modes of transport.

———

Evelyn watched the video on Bruce's feed. She had recently installed micro cameras in each of their suits to allow Evelyn to help more. It also was a lot easier to know what they needed when she could see what they saw.

The team had found hidden bombs, the Joker clearly had an unhealthy obsession with the explosives, and were disabling them before they could even turn on. All was going well until a cackle was heard from the stage.

Evelyn watched as Bruce straightened up to see the Joker laughing in glee. He stood on the stage and was holding his stomach as if seeing them disable his bombs was funny.

"You are no fun! Ruining my surprise for tomorrow!" The Joker said with a painted red smile. Evelyn thought the man was creepy as hell with his painted white face, bright purple suit and green hair. It unsettled her greatly and that didn't even cover his personality. He was the definition of a psychopath.

"You didn't invite us! Call us petty." Nightwing smirked back as he approached the stage, escrima sticks out. Batman, Robin, Spoiler and Batgirl all started to close on around the clown when a puff of smoke clouded their vision.

"What the fuck?" Evelyn whispered as she started to hack into the theaters cameras. She didn't do it before thinking she wouldn't need to as she could see through the team's cameras.

No one threw down a smoke bomb though which meant only one thing.

Someone else was there.

The team scrambled to find the Joker as his craze laughter echoed in the theater. The smoke was thick caused the team to lose control of the situation. Evelyn just hoped they regained it before someone got hurt.

Gunshots rang out and Evelyn felt her heart speed up. If one of those hit her family...

The smoke cleared and revealed a young girl, barely a teen, fighting the Joker. She pulled out a blade and started to fight with the weapon. Bruce and the others jumped to stop the girl and get the situation under control but the girl wasn't going down easy.

It took the whole team to stop her and even then the girl managed to defeat Steph, Tim and Dick. The only ones left standing on stage were the girl, the Joker, Batman and Batgirl. The girl had a gun pointed at the Joker and neither of the bats were close enough to grab it before it fired.

Evelyn watched with bated breath as the young girl just stood frozen. Her finger lied on the trigger but never moved to pull it.

Barbara could see the look of hesitation in the young girls eyes, the knowledge of knowing what she was doing was wrong. She couldn't let someone go down this path if she could stop it.

"You don't have to do it. I can see you don't want too. It's okay to want to be different from them. To do what you want." Barbara didn't know who the them were but a kid this young could not be as skilled as she was without someone training her.

The girl blinked slowly before lowering the gun to the ground. She didn't want to kill someone, she knew how precious life could be and to take it from another even if they were the worst of the worst? It felt wrong.

Everyone relaxed as they felt the problem was solved. Batgirl approached the young girl with a smile and motioned to give her the gun. The girl was hesitant it handed it over after a moment.

"Fine! I'll take care of the brat myself!" The Joker whipped out a gun from his inside jacket pocket. Evelyn felt her eyes widen as a gunshot sounded and Bruce tackled the Joker.

"No!" Dick screamed as he raced up to Barbara's side. She was bleeding, heavily. Yet she managed to muster up the strength to turn to the girl and send a proud smile.

———

Evelyn was at the hospital outside of Babs room. Barbara had to get emergency surgery to remove the bullet. While the bullet was removed and her back stitched up her walking abilities were gone. The bullet that hit her destroyed one of her vertebrae and there was no surgery in the world that could fix it. The others crowded in Babs room and while Evelyn wanted to check on the girl, she also knew about the other young girl who waited outside Babs room quietly.

It was the girl from the theater and she had been sitting outside the room since Babs got placed inside. She didn't move or talk— but Evelyn assumed that had something to do with the jagged scar running across her neck more than choice. Evelyn just sat next to her patiently as the doctors came in and left Barbara's room.

"I'm Evelyn. It's nice to meet you." Evelyn smiled gently towards the girl. Now that Evelyn wasn't worrying about her families safety, she could see the young girl had short cropped black hair and brown eyes. The girl only nodded in greeting never meeting Evelyn's eyes.

"It takes a lot of courage to do what you did." The girl looked up to Evelyn. Her face remained neutral and cold. Evelyn didn't know what the girl was thinking but continued on with what she was saying.

"You should be proud of yourself. I know Barbara is." The girl just moved her eyes back to the opposite wall. Evelyn tapped the wooden arm of her chair before standing up. She looked down the girl and sent as comforting a smile she could muster.

"Don't blame yourself for something you can't control. Babs chose to jump in front of you. Use this opportunity to find who you are. Be someone who you can be proud of." Evelyn left the girl sitting there as she walked into Barbara's room a warm smile on her face.

She was glad Barbara was alive and while it may take time for Barbara to adjust to her new life, Evelyn and the others would be there to help every step of the way.