#SaveLucifer #PickUpLucifer #BringBackLucifer

I reach forward, for Damian, thinking of nothing else but getting us out of this alive. He looks to be preparing his own defence against the oncoming car. I latch onto his hand, skin-to-skin contact, activating something that has been dormant in me for the past few months.

The sensation of my powers returning and reverberating through my skin is so familiar it almost feels good. Damian can't see it beneath my sleeve but my tattoo has begun to move, coming back to life.

Amethyst the Purple Serpent isn't just me- it's my tattoo, a piece of science that was torture to apply, but well worth it. I was apprehensive at first but Amanda Waller was adamant that I would reap the rewards.

He certainly feels it wrap around him tightly. 

I try to brace both of us as the serpent provides invincibility, preventing the airbags from breaking our necks and the toss of the car from being too disorientating. Damian should have been impaled when the second vehicle hit us and caused us to roll, but he wasn't. I don't even have the mind to be smug about it.

It's a series of loud crunches as we roll sideways over the first vehicle. We get thrown around and my car caves in on itself, glass and shrapnel flying everywhere. It stops when we hit a building. Upside down, we skid across to the other side of the street.

We should both be dead as we come to a silent halt against the curb, wedged between seat and roof.

"Are you alright!?" I cough out immediately, trying to figure out what is where and see in the darkness. With my hand still holding his I unhook my belt. I'm already on my head, so only my legs fall, knocking the destroyed windscreen down.

"Why are you holding my hand!?" He responds in a voice a little too calm for my liking.

"Seriously? Seriously that's what you're worried about? I just saved your life brat!"

He opens his mouth to give one of his little snide remarks, but stops short the moment we hear a rumble in the distance. Cars- big, expensive sounding rovers and racers are approaching, pumping base-heavy songs with voices screaming in excitement.

I scramble over to Damian and unhook his belt.

"We need to get out of here."

"There are no escape routes," he says, seeming to be more level-headed as he lowers himself down to the flipped car roof. He eyes me suspiciously, "Was that you? Preventing the damage? Is that why you are cloying me?"

I let go of him with a glare, "No thanks necessary, brat." Headlights shine on the car, shadows approaching, "We've been targeted. Us, specifically."

"-tt, this is Gotham, Perich. Random acts of violence are a part of everyday life. What did you expect driving around in this spectacle?"

"Do you want to lecture my about your shit city or blow up this car and escape?"

Without letting him respond I grab his hands again and connect my invisibility to him. Barely able to control my powers, my arm burns where my tattoo is as I send out a surge of energy. The only way I can describe it is a forcefield made of little purple squares that pushes out from where we are huddled, destroying the rest of my car in the process and sending our attackers flying.

The low, buzzing blast my powers make is almost as satisfying as the noise of the attacking vehicles smashing into buildings. I have officially avenged my car.

"Let's go!" I snap, grabbing Damian's arm and jumping up into the air, effectively launching into the sky in a single bound. Hopefully everyone is either too dead, unconscious or disoriented to notice us disappearing into the night.

If Damian were any other kid, the kind who does not spend his nights swinging from a line between building, I'm sure he'd have a different reaction. Instead he is staring up at me as he dangles from my hand holding his arm.

We don't land until I've jumped three more times, putting us safely in Gotham North park. He's breathing hard as I land and drop him on the ground, having been unable to catch his breath so high in the air.

"You're fine," I wave it off, stepping back, "We should keep moving though. They might have gone to your house, or mine. My cats are there."

Damian shakes his head, speaking through his panting, "That was the remainder of the Sons gang. I think you just..." he trails off, straightening up from having his hands on his knees.

"Took 'em all out?" I respond.

He eyes me with caution. Or fear. I'd say caution, knowing him. Either way it's similar to the looks my team and I would get walking through villages.

"Look, kid. I'm just a science experiment. No need to freak out," I tell him, refusing to close the physical distance he has put between us, three yards or so. I don't know what to expect- Will he be afraid of me? Will he accuse me of something?

"Does Grayson know?"  He finally speaks, carefully remaining in what I can see is a stance. It isn't the direction I thought he'd take but I can work with it.

"No," I respond, "Not even my family knows."

His stare turns to a glare. I guess I can plead that way.

A burning on my arm snatches my attention. I hiss as I peel my sleeve back to see Amethyst winding tighter around me. She is in agony, woken up and used in ways she hasn't been for a long time.

"I'm not proud of these...gifts," I say, lowering my arm so that Damian can see it glowing, "That's why I haven't told anyone. They're violent. Are you going to spoil that for me, Damian?" I try. I don't need Dick finding out I have powers.

"If I ever perceive you as a threat," he says coldly, coming back to the boy he was before I picked him up from the manor, "I will."

It's a stoney few seconds of silence and stillness between us. This little brat seems to forget that to me he's just a little rich boy, not a high flying hero. So the normal reaction to his threat would be a laugh. 

Seeing as I want to get out of this with my secret intact, "I'll walk you home. Don't complain. But first I'm going to go and pick up any evidence that it was my car seeing as it's just debris now."

"Why?"

"I'm going to deal with it myself. Don't want cops, or the gang tracing it back to us. Maybe they'll just assume it was Batman. Either way, we need to distance ourselves. Stay."

Even if he runs, I'll catch up. I launch myself back into the air and head back to the crash site.

I land a few yards away. Some people seem injured, unconscious or running down the road as sirens sound in the distance. Knocking the few out that start to rouse as I pass them, I locate the number plates and my phone. The serial number on the engine and inner parts aren't tracked in private dealings for luxury vehicles like these, so it's relatively safe.

There aren't any cameras that I can see, so we should be safe there, unless the GCPD decide to scour the suburb for footage of the car specifically. My powers seem to have disintegrated a majority of the car body.

I watch the perps run down the street, knowing they are the ones who painted Dick's body purple when he came home late that night.

I make my decision then and there.

When I return to Damian, to my surprise, he hasn't moved far. He was probably edging towards leaving without me, then changing his mind, then changing it again.

"We're untraceable. Not a word, okay? C'mon, I'll walk you home."

"I am not a child," he grumbles, but he stills falls in step beside me as we head out of Gotham North park. 

"You are. And with your little chubby cheeks you'll get scooped up by some pedo if you're alone."

"Did you just imply that I am overweight?"

Of all the things to argue about in my sentence, I was not expecting that to be one, "Just your baby face."

We're about to reach the street and I can't help it- there's a bush to the side and I push him lightly, sending him tumbling into it as I had been doing earlier at the school.

"Perich!"

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"What was that? Who was that?"

The gang members who have managed to drag themselves back to Crime Alley, after being caught in the explosion of a car they hit, stumble into their hideout. The hotel turned gang base sits decaying and creaking on the edge of the river. Its residents are bleeding, dragging their friends to seats, bringing stolen bandages or heading straight for a case of guns to arm themselves.

"We attacked the wrong rich asshole, obviously." 

The leaders, Byron and Pace, affectionately known as the Sons of Penguin and Two-Face respectively, continue their argument as one bleeds from his head and the other limps.

"What are you talking about? As if the driver survived all those hits! The car exploded, dumbass!" Byron, the smaller of the two snaps.

Pace grabs him by the collar of his shirt, "I saw someone moving in the wreckage! Musta' been some kinda powered asshole!"

Byron slaps Pace's hands off of him, shoving a girl away at the same time who attempts to dab at his head wound.

"Then what do we do, huh? If I'm right, we killed some rich dick whose family's probably got a bunch of asshat lawyers behind them that can bring the heat- and if you're right, some crazy-ass powered superhero is probably on its way here to kill us!" 

As if by some frightening cue, the dim lights of the dilapidated lobby shut off with a loud snap.

Everything goes silent with the dark. Nothing but the moon streams through the cracks of boarded windows as everyone looks around at each other. Living in a bad neighbourhood, their power is naturally frigid, but something about this outage feels off. Particularly to Pace, who senses his long hair fan at the back of his neck, like friction.

"Actually," an unwavering voice says from right between him and Byron, "I'm already here. And I'm not a superhero. Just an angry wife."

In a familiar explosion of purple light, chaos reigns as a holographic snake the size of an 18-wheeler launches itself from behind the two leaders into the middle of the room. Everyone erupts in screams and desperately try to get out the door, but it won't open. At the same time, Byron is spun around, faced briefly by a woman with a mask and shining hair, then thrown back into the gun case across the lobby.

It falls over on top of him after he crashes into it, the heavy metal keeping him trapped. Some members try to help lift it off but the snake snaps them up and swallows them. They join the unconscious victims it has already consumed in its transparent belly, the number growing as it collects with ease. 

Byron watches through blood and tears from under the collapsed cabinet as the woman and the snake take the gang apart in seconds. The snakes fangs are as long as javelins, its cobra head moving as if bionic, hissing but sounding distorted and robotic. 

How can something that seems like a hologram be solid?

The woman is no less scary. She take bullets like they are nothing as those brave enough to face her fire off their weapons. She snaps the guns in half like toothpicks and tosses her victims to the side, where they fall unconscious. Byron can see her in the light the snake gives off; her boots, pants and shirt are all black, but the leather short jacket she has on over the top has dark purple panels, the same colour as her windshield-like mask and strange glistening hair.

He looks for any identifying marks, like a bat symbol or an S in a diamond, but nothing gives away her affiliation.

Wife? Had they killed her husband or something?

"Mr Penguin!" One of the stronger gang members who had become Byron's main guard shows up next to him. Byron tries to tell Miles to lift the cabinet off, but he can't get his voice out, not sure if it's the blood loss or the broken ribs.

Miles takes the initiative anyway. He throws the cabinet off with great difficulty, then holds his hand out to Byron. He pulls him to his feet.

"T-" He coughs out, putting his arm around Miles' shoulder, "Two-F-" He coughs again, this time blood into his hand which only rises his panic as gunshots and screams sound around them. The snake is distracted with something on the other side of the lobby, the woman having disappeared upstairs to hunt down those who ran into the rooms, allowing them to escape to the hallway.

"That bitch dragged him away. Think she's looking for someone specific? I don't know man."

The dark hallways are quieter, but it's not any better. They can still hear screams, but there are less, indicating just how many people have been eaten or knocked unconscious alredy.

 "She barricaded all the exits, trapped us in here like-"

They turn to head out the secret back door when Miles stops speaking abrutply. Byron, who had been resting his eyes, awakens to find the woman standing there, very still, Pace on his knees beside her.

"-rats," she finishes Miles' sentence. He holds up his gun and empties the clip at her. She just smirks as the bullets bounce off of her body, until Miles is left pulling a lame trigger. "Is this him? The last one?" She asks Pace, gesturing to the guard.

He nods weakly in her hold.

"Thanks a bunch." With a short tug of his arm, a sickening snap makes Miles drop Byron, turn and run. 

Pace is screaming in agony before he is knocked out. As the woman walks past Byron, she kicks him in the face, rendering him unconscious as well.

"Hey, Miles," she calls out as she follows the large, sweaty man into what must have been the restaurant, "You can run for miles, but I'm still going to catch you." He shoves the doors open, trips on the person laying limp there, before scrambling to his feet and heading back out into the lobby.

The snake is full up and almost unable to move it has eaten so many people. They look like something out of a horror movie, all trapped in it's stomach together. The room now silent and instead littered with bodies. Dead or not? Miles doesn't care to check. All he knows is that the snake is looking the other way, but it doesn't matter; there is no way he can escape her.

"P-Please!" He collapses, rolls over and crawls backwards, watches as she approaches her snake and pets it. Upon contact, something seems to ripple over its huge, bulging body. Immediately, it begins to regurgitate those it had eaten, one by one. 

They don't move once they hit the ground. Again, dead or alive, he doesn't know.

"Don't kill me, please," he begs, tears and snot pouring down his pale face. He has never begged in his life, but it sounds better than dying here. "Don't you want to leave one alive to tell the story? I can make you f-famous!"

The woman stops a few yards in front of him.

"What? One alive?"

He doesn't understand what she means by that, but she tosses her hair back and laughs, losing her mocking tone for an exasperated one.

"They're not dead moron! They are going to prison though. So are you," relief washes over him, followed by dread. A Gotham prison? Filled with rival gangs? "I just wanted a bit more fun with you. See 'cause I know you were looting a Wayne Tech display in a museum when your little gang decided to wreak havoc. And I know you and some of your buddies used a pair of prototype knuckle-busters to beat a certain someone black and blue."

Miles quakes when he realises this is revenge for his frenzy on Nightwing. 

She looms over him and the now-empty snake hovers behind her, hissing softly. It lowers its head under the tips of its lips brush by her hair. She smiles and pats it. Miles wonders if he's going to be the only one that dies- that the snake threw the others up so it could crush him alone in its insides.

"You wanted to tell the story?" She says softly, "The name's Amethyst, Miles. Make sure they all know." 

He sees her fist raise, then everything goes black.

Robin arrives at the scene when he hears sirens in the distance. In Gotham they could be heading anywhere, but he has a feeling that the old Viennna Hotel on the CA river bank is their destination.

That thought is confirmed when the doors open and his brother's wife, done up in her mask and costume, steps out into the street without looking like she just took down a gang of 200.

She rubs the arm where he knows her tattoo is and glances over her shoulder back into the hotel. He didn't see any of the battle, he could only see what what happening on his way over through the infrared in his mask. He also heard her make an anonymous call to the GCPD. It all seems very...out of character.

To avoid facing the cops, she turns around and starts to head down the alley towards the river. Just before she steps into the shadows, she stops. Her posture reads calm. Damian is anything but that, however, when she turns around and seems to look directly at him from behind that mask.

Cleo smirks, just briefly, before disappearing into the night.

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Hey everyone, I've obviously been gone awhile. I turned 19, I've been moving house and working really, really hard. So there's my explanation.

Do you like the new cover art? A reminder to check out Imagin-Aria on Deviantart because she is a CHAMPION artist and her work makes everything seem so much more real.

Anything else? uh...HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!!! <3 <3 <3 <3

*I have a Harry Potter fanfic (on Bill Weasley) coming out soon!!

Love you all,

Stay magical!

Be safe.

-Kaido xx