Ghost stood on top of the building, taking in the crowded scene below her. People pushed past each other in the streets and honked their horns in their cars. Yells and curses could be heard for miles and miles throughout the city. This time of year was always busy regardless of where she was: everyone wanted to get Christmas gifts for family and friends, and they wanted to do it quickly.

    Just what she needed. Crowded streets made for better coverage, and in a city like Gotham, no one would even give her a second glance when she took out her target.

    Snow fell around her and a cold wind chilled her skin. She scanned the crowded streets for her target: Kathryn Reyn, a biochemist working at STAR Labs. What was she doing in Gotham at a time like this? She didn’t know, nor did she care.

    All that mattered was the job, and pleasing the people that employed her.

    She soon spotted the brunette biochemist coming out of a coffee shop, wearing a very expensive-looking jacket and talking on a phone. Ghost quickly and quietly jumped down from the top of the building and into the alleyway, catching herself on railings and fire escapes. She peeked around the corner of the alley to make sure that Reyn was still close by.

    During her second look, Ghost noticed that Reyn was not alone: there was a tall man with black hair walking next to her. She looked at the man closely and saw that his eyes were covered with a pair of dark sunglasses, despite the gloomy sky. However, she was still able to detect the small shifts in his face as his eyes darted around the street.

Ghost moved back into the alleyway and pressed her finger to the comm in her ear.

    “We’ve got a problem,” she reported to whoever was on the other line at the moment.

    “What kind of ‘problem’?” came the all-to-familiar growl of Cheshire.

    “Reyn has a bodyguard or some kind of protection,” Ghost explained, hoping Cheshire would give her some sort of guidance or an idea of what to do. “I won’t be able to get her away from him; he’s got his eyes trained on her like a hawk.” She peeked around the corner again to make sure the pair was still there.

    “Improvise. You were employed to do a job, I suggest you do it.” With that, Cheshire shut off her side of the comm, leaving Ghost to handle the situation on her own. She sighed and leaned her head against the rough brick wall behind her and racked her brain for any possible ideas.

    Since she couldn’t think of any plans, Ghost decided to do what Cheshire said in the first place: improvise.

    She hugged her jacket closer to her body and walked out of the alleyway, keeping a close tail on Reyn and her bodyguard, whom she decided to call ‘Sunglasses’. She followed them for a good three blocks, thankful that the streets were busy that day as it made it easier to follow them for longer.

    Ghost felt around in her pockets to see what she had on her. She had a small dart gun, a few smoke pellets, a regular gun strapped to one thigh, and a thin dagger strapped to the other.

    She thought about using her gun to take out Sunglasses and Reyn one by one, but she deemed it too risky in this crowd of people. Plus after firing one shot, it could miss or Reyn could have time to run away.

    Her mind wrapped around another idea, which involved her ability to shapeshift. If she could distract the bodyguard, or even take him out, she could shift into him and…

No that wouldn’t work, she would need another person to help her. Before she could think of another idea, she smacked into what felt like a wall.

    Groaning, she held her head and looked at what she ran into. Sunglasses. She mentally cursed herself for not paying attention.

    He turned around, reaching down to help Ghost up.

    “Sorry about that,” she said quickly, trying to make up a facade as fast as she could. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.” She was trying to play everything off smoothly but wasn’t sure if it was working.

    “Must not have been for a while,” Sunglasses said, his voice was somewhat familiar to her, but Ghost couldn’t focus on that over the sound of her heart beating loudly in her chest.

    “Hmm?” She said, trying to play dumb.

    “Well you’ve been following us for the past three blocks,” Sunglasses said, folding his arms over his chest.

    “Happen to believe in coincidences?” Ghost asked in a hopeful voice.

    “Nope.”

    “Awww, too bad,” Ghost replied, feigning sadness. She quickly punched him in the stomach and smiled when he doubled over. Grabbing her gun, she attempted to shoot him as well, but he recovered too fast and got the gun from her. A shot rang out as the gun hit the ground, causing the people around them to scream and run away.

    Before he could land a shot on her, Ghost flipped back towards where Reyn was, and pulled out her dagger and held it to Reyn’s neck. When the man started to come closer, Ghost shouted, “Stay back, or else!”

She began backing up into another alley, pulling Reyn along with her. The biochemist gave almost no resistance, most likely due to the fact that there was a knife very close to her neck.

Sunglasses raised his hands and started moving away from them. This would have been good, but Ghost felt like it was too easy.

She realized how right she was when an arrow struck the wall barely an inch away from her face.

The next few moments happened in what seemed like slow-motion.
First, she noticed Reyn’s form changing from a tall brunette into a green-skinned teen with red hair. Then, she phased right through Ghost’s arms and turned around, showing a pair of bright, glowing, green eyes. She realized too late that it was a trap set by the Junior Justice League.

Suddenly, a huge pain erupted in Ghost’s head, causing her to double over and yell out. She collapsed onto the ground, clutching her head as the pounding began to subside.

“Stay down, Ghost,” Nightwing said, standing over her. “Or else.”

“Rather not,” Ghost retorted, kicking her leg out and knocking him over. She had to roll back quickly to avoid an attack from Superboy, who left a crater where she once stood.

While in the process of dodging more attacks from the sidekicks, Ghost turned on her comm, and called Cheshire. “I could really use some help here,” she grunted into the earpiece, ducking to avoid an arrow. “Rude!” Ghost yelled at the archer, and she threw her dagger at Artemis.

She knew her dagger hit Artemis somewhere when she heard a small yelp coming from the archer. She also figured that was the case when a yellow blur shoved her against the brick wall, breaking a few bones in her back.

She grunted as her body rearranged the bones to their proper place and healed the damages. It wasn’t painless, but it allowed Ghost to continue through fights when she was injured.

She looked around and realized that Nightwing was missing from the alley and looked up at the rooftops for him. She just narrowly was able to jump back before he could attack her.

Ghost wasn’t, however, able to dodge an attack from behind from an unknown hero. She stumbled before regaining balance. Her eyes locked on her gun from earlier, which was a few feet away from her.

She knew that she wouldn’t be able to grab it before being stopped, so she turned around to face her new opponent. A boy no older than fourteen stood before her in the Robin costume, holding his fists up.

“Another Batbrat?,” Ghost jeered. She briefly saw irritation cross his face before being replaced with a blank slate. Ghost smirked and continued her mocks.

“Why the change?” she gibed as she circled around him. “You don’t seem as witty as your predecessor was. You also don’t seem to have the acrobatic abilities he did-”

“Shut up!” he yelled through gritted teeth.

Ghost was almost close enough to grab her weapon, but she needed to move over more. But she froze at the sound of his voice.
His voice… It was... familiar. She knew who he was, or at least, did. She racked her brain for how she knew it. Ghost knew he wasn’t with the Shadow’s, but there was no other way she would have known him. This was the first time she was face-to-face with the new Boy Wonder.

While she was distracted by her thoughts, she didn’t notice the rest of the Junior Justice League surround her. They watched in confusion as the assassin stood frozen in her thoughts. She vaguely noticed their hushed conversations as she remained shut down. Memories were starting to come back to her, though they were hazy.

***

A girl sat on the floor in a bedroom, and a boy was sitting across from her. He couldn’t have been more than five, and she no more than eleven. They were playing some sort of board game, and every time she won the boy would let out a loud sigh.

“I’m bored now,” he whined. “Can we play something else?”

“It’s not my fault you use the same strategy every time we play,” the girl giggled.

“Show me the thing,” he said excitedly, climbing into her lap. “With your skin. Make it colorful!” he added loudly.

“Shh!” the girl quickly said, putting a hand over the boys’ mouth. “You know I can’t, Jay. If your mom sees that, who knows what will happen.” Jays’ head drooped and he let out another sad sigh. The girl rolled her eyes and let out a sigh of her own. “Fine, but very quickly.”

“Yay!” he said loudly, then after he realized how loud he was, he repeated it softer. “Yay!”
The girl shook her head while chuckling, and held out her right hand. Her eyes closed tightly and her hand began to change colors. It went through the entire rainbow, changing fluidly from different shades of one color to the next.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” came a loud yell from the doorframe. Both Jay and the girl froze and looked over at the door. A middle-aged woman stood there, holding herself up with the frame. “You freak! Get out of my house!”

“Mom!” the little boy yelled. “Stop!”

    “Jason Peter Todd, get away from that freak!” the mother yelled again, grabbing her son from the other girl’s lap. As she pulled him out of the room, he twisted away from her grasp and yelled out.

“Shut up!”

* * * * * *

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God this chapter was long!

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