Keystone City
1:35 AM

Wally is stirred awake in the middle of the night, when he hears a blood-curdling scream. He quickly jumps out of his recliner and stands next to the source of the scream. He sees that his "guest" is tossing and turning on the couch in front of him.

She is shouting in a foreign language. Vietnamese, to be exact. She is calling out for someone in here sleep--crying for him to come back.

"Wally!!!" she cries, painfully.

By now, Wally is starting to freak out. He notices that his friend, Dick Grayson, is standing on the other side of the couch; also awakened by the screaming. Wally looks toward his friend for what to do.

In response, Dick nervously states, "Don't look at me, man! I'm not the one she is shouting for."

Wally sighs and kneels down next to couch, placing a hand on her head. He brushes some of her hair away from her face. Immediately, she starts to settle down. Her eyes flutter.

"Wally...?" she questions quietly. "Baywatch...?"

Her face twists as she tries to squint to see his face.

After a few seconds of silent contemplation, Flash grimly replies, "Yes to the Wally. No to the...umm... Baywatch? I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Tigress apologies as she sits up and leans back on the couch. "It's my fault for letting my emotions get the best of me."

The archer and the speedster lock eyes for a few seconds.

"It's just that you look almost exactly like him, and my heart..." she starts as a few tears pool in her eyes. "And my hear--mind...my mind thought..."

She reaches out and places her hands on both sides of his face; drawing him in for a closer inspection in the dim lighting.

"You have his powers, his warmth, his fiery hair," she runs her hand through his fiery red curls, "his cute freckles..."

He smiles modestly at her compliments.

"...his cheeky smile," she chuckles softly.

She pauses as she squints at his eyes.
"But not his eyes. His ar--were--emerald. Yours are turquois."

She releases her grip on his face, sighing, "And your voice is, slightly, too deep. It's more like seeing a ghost, than a reflection."

Wally sits next to her as she leans back into the couch. Both of them are contemplating what to say next. As usual, the speedster breaks the silence.

"Who are you exactly?" the redhead asks boldly.

"Don't you guys recognize me?" she replied concerned.

"Yeah," Nightwing answers. "But I don't believe that you are the Tigress that we are familiar with... So spill. Full name, aliases, and affiliations."

Tigress sighs and confidently states, "My name is Artemis Lian Crock. Daughter of Lawrence Crock, the Sportsmaster, and Puala Nguyen, the former Huntress. I have one older sibling, Jade Nguyen-Harper also known as Cheshire..."

"Wait!" Wally exclaims in surprise. "Cheshire is your sister, and Arsenal is your brother-in-law?"

"Well, actually, that Roy goes by Red Arrow, and there's another one that goes by Arsenal," Artemis answers. In response to the confused faces that are staring at her, she sighs, "Look, it's a long story that involves cloning, mind control, and an obsessive immortal warlord bent on world domination. Why are you so surprised that I have a sister?"

"Your...umm...alternate didn't have a sister," Flash reveals grimmly. "You were an only child. Well, she was."

Nightwing takes note of this for later and asks her the big question: "Hero or Villian?"

"Hero... technically," she replies dimly, retreating into herself. She draws in here her legs and wraps her arms around them.

"Technically?" Nightwing presses.
Artemis clears her throat, "Well, I fight crime and I work alongside the Justice League. Oliver and Dinah might have been my mentors, but Dad taught me everything I know. And as of recently, there's been a lot more of him than GA in my handiwork. But I don't kill, if that's what you mean. It's just that I've been using the criminal scum as living punching bags, to unleash my pent-up emotions. I turn them into half-conscious pulp."

"You and Jason would get along perfectly," Nightwing chuckles.

"Yeah. We would have," Tigris returns grimmly.

"Jason is still dead?" Wally asks bluntly. "And what's this about me--well, my alternate--being dead?"

Tigress stares at him--first in confusion, then horror--, as she exclaims, "Jason came back from the DEAD!?!"

Her gazes switches back and forth between Nightwing and Flash, until Dick answers her question.

"Yeah, he did," he says sheepishly. "It's a long story that involves immortal monks and a Lazarus Pit."

Tigress chuckles, "Little Jaybird...back from the dead. Now I've heard everything."

She turns toward Flash and sighs, "I guess you deserve your answer, too."
She steels herself, dropping her legs to the floor.

"On my world, there is a cabal of supervillains lead by Vandal Savage called The Light," she starts strongly. "Their goal, as you can guess, is to rid the world of the Justice League. They worked in the shadows in secret. In response, the League created The Team: a collection of young heroes that are willing to do whatever it takes to protect the world...no matter the cost. I was one of the original members...I have a picture on my communicator. It... It's here somewhere..."

She starts padding her pockets, looking for her communicator. She pauses when she sees a hand holding it in front of her face. She follows the arm until her steely grey eyes meet ones that are turquois green...

They lock their gazes for a few seconds.

"Uhhh, thanks," she grunts, grasping her com unit from Flash's hand.

"Yeah," the speedster blushes nervously. "I...uhhh...kinda had to relieve you of your weapons and stuff earlier..."

Nightwing coughs, breaking the couple out of another starting contest.

Tigress presses a button, and a hologram of the Original Team is displayed. She lists off their names when Fl--Wally--asks about them: Aqualad (Kaldur) and Rocket (Raquel). Robin (Dick) and Zatanna. Superboy (Conner) and Miss Martian (M'gaan). Marine X (Joe) and Karma (Karen). And, finally, Kid Flash (Wally) and...

"Is that you in the green?" Wally asks compassionately.

"Yeah," Tigress smiles. "That was me. I went by Artemis."

"The color suits you."

Again, Nightwing has to break up their lustful gazes. This time asking, "So how did Flash die?"

Tigress sighs grimmly, "First, Barry is still the Flash. It's just that me and Kid Flash retired after seeing too many of our friends...our family...get hurt or...die. Then one day, Nightwing calls us up and starts talking about this plan to take down the Light. He has me and Kaldur go undercover to infiltrate their ranks. That's when I created Tigress, the assassin. I faked my death in order to do that. What we didn't expect was for the Light to be working with a race of alien conquerors called The Reach. But eventually we were successful. The Team split the Light in half and forced the Reach to leave. But there was no time for celebration, for the Reach enacted a failsafe...an endgame."

She takes a breath and continues, "You see, the Reach were so good at conquering other worlds that the Guardians of the Universe had a treaty: They could lay claim to a world that allowed them to stay. And they played their part perfectly until we--The Team--revealed their true intentions. That they were encroaching on our world long before they made contact with any world government.

"So as a way to destroy the evidence of their tampering, they unleashed devices that disrupted the Earth's magnetic field--causing widespread natural disasters that would tear the planet apart. If just one stabilized--went crysalis--, the world would be destroyed."

"I'm guessing one did," Nightwing states, fearing that Tigris might just be one of many more refugees that will try to break the barrier between dimensions to find a new home.

"We were able to stop all of them," she says grimmly. "All but one, that is. It was hidden from our sensors due to its proximity to the North Pole. Two speedsters, Flash and Impulse--Barry and Bart--, were ordered to run against the energy flow, in order to siphon off the energy with their speed. The reaction slowed, but it didn't stop. Not until..."

She tries to stay strong and hold back her tears.

"Not until you joined them," she says conflictedly as she stares at Flash. But she doesn't see Flash. She sees Wally...

Her Wally...