Some Truths - August 28th
Twisted Shorts August Fic-a-Day Challenge - Day 28
Title: Some Truths
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/Batman/DC
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Batman/DC people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Athena explains what she knows, and realizes she doesn’t know enough.
Notes: Part 6 of Athena Follows Bruce
Word Count: 2170
Bruce’s mind whirled. After the attack he and Athena had continued walking as she softly explained as much as she knew about the supernatural world. And she admitted to very little knowledge. Her strokes were broad, covering some history, a bit of lore, and a lot about her own title: Slayer.
As they finished the Queen’s Walk, Athena had stopped talking. There was something she was holding back…
“You said you died,” he stated, having gotten stuck on it when she mentioned the short lifespans of Slayers.
“I did, in October. My heart stopped. Clark used CPR to bring me back.”
“And that was enough to pass on the powers?”
“It Called the next Slayer but I still retain all of the powers and abilities I had before. And from what I know, Slayers grow with time. The older I get the more things I may find I’m able to do.”
He blinked. “We should grab something to eat.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
They chose a restaurant at random. Neither really paid attention to what they ordered. As they waited for their food, Bruce tried to ask another question.
Athena shook her head. “We can’t discuss it here.”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain when we’re outside again.”
He frowned but eventually nodded.
Dinner was eaten in silence, the check paid with little delay. Once they were back out on the street, he looked at her and waited.
Athena started moving along the street. “I told you about the Council, right?”
“The Watchers who oversee Slayers.”
“That’s a really tame description of their part in the saga of Slayers. They are based out of London. And they would haul me off for ‘my own good’ or the ‘good of the world’ in order to train me to their standards.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“Slayers in the last two hundred years last - on average - one year.”
“Why is it so short?”
“My speculation - the journal’s speculation - is that the interference of the Council, the isolation they raise and train Slayers in, may be detrimental to their will to live.”
“They kill themselves?”
“No! No…it’s more that they don’t try as hard as Slayers who are free to have personal lives, relationships outside of their Watchers. Something besides demons and darkness and vampires to study, fight, or evaluate all the time.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know, while Smallville did not have vampires or demons because of the meteor strike years ago, there were a lot of strange things.” She considered. “I didn’t necessarily seek confrontation, but I did jump in without thinking about it for more than a nanosecond.”
“What about Clark?”
“He kept my secrets.”
They walked for a time, not going any particular direction. Athena was waiting to see what the next question would be. Bruce was incorporating this into the answers - and non-answers - he had gotten from her about joining him.
“Why did you leave?” Bruce asked, “If Smallville needed you…”
“Smallville is protected,” she replied. “My brother, my friends, they don’t n-” She gestured, waving the words away. “In truth, since I died a few months ago, I’ve felt restless. Being the Slayer was one of the biggest reasons I survived, no mortal could have.”
“What happened?”
“Unbeknownst to me, the first cold snap of the year, there was a guy who started to freeze to death. He had to draw energy - heat - from batteries, the power grid, anything. Finally he realized people were a stopgap, incredibly inefficient, but would do in a pinch. I was at this boring party…I’d snuck away to do some homework. I was talking to a friend when we saw a truck crash outside of the gates. I ran down and started pulling this other classmate out. The cold guy walked up behind me. I don’t think he touched me for more than an instant…but it was long enough to induce rapid hypothermia and stop my heart. The Kents and Lex saved me.”
Bruce did not respond.
“The world is a dangerous place,” she said. “And while I’m not supposed to live another year…maybe finding out more about Slayers, about magic and demons will keep me alive longer.”
He nodded slowly. “What does that entail?”
“I don’t know. The journal is really all I have. I could call Angel, but that….is so weird.”
“Angel is the one who gave you the journal.”
“Yes. But he…I think he believes I was supposed to be someone specific to him. It makes things awkward.”
“Would he tell anyone in Smallville?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She exhaled sharply through her nose.
“That’s why you came here - to London - the first day of class. Why you changed your hair.”
“Maybe. I wanted a book on one of the languages we talked about.” She put a hand to her hair. “I needed to not look like Athena Luthor in case someone came looking for me.”
He nodded. “We should head back to Cambridge.”
88888888
Athena watched as Bruce entered the kitchen, he had a class in less than an hour.
“Do you have the journal here?” Bruce asked.
“Yes. I took everything I didn’t want Lex to find.”
“Can I read it?”
“Sure. I’ll leave it on the counter for you.”
“Are you heading back to London?”
“Next week. I want to see what Angel knows about the Council - for all I know he has the address.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know what I could one day go up against.”
Bruce slowly nodded. “Okay.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll leave you to call him.”
Athena watched him leave before retreating to her bedroom. She opened the bottom drawer and muttered a small spell that made her little shoebox become visible. It contained several very useful things. Her cellphones, their batteries, and the journal Angel had given her. Carefully she removed the box and sat on her bed. She put the battery in the burner phone and set it aside to boot up.
She pulled the journal from the box and studied it. The reason she needed time was to take out several small sticky notes she had used during her research. Some of them had notes, others questions written in her shorthand. She slowly flipped through the journal, removing each note and stacking it in the shoebox.
When she finished, there was no putting it off. She pressed and held ‘2’ on the cell phone. It rang for a moment before being picked up.
“Hello?” Angel said.
“Hey, it’s Athena.”
“Athena? Were you kidnapped by the Watchers Council?”
She blinked. “Why would you think that?”
“Your family reported you missing,” he explained. There was the sound of a paper. “Lionel Luthor reported you missing almost two weeks ago.” She could tell he was reading something, giving her bullet points. “He blames Lex for not reporting you missing sooner. There has been no signs of foul play and your note to Clark Kent seems to have been taken at face value. You were deemed a runaway, but I thought maybe the Council found out about you.”
“Really?”
“I called the Kents when I first saw the paper. Apparently the school paper’s Mr. Giles left abruptly a week after you did. Since he was British…”
“You thought he might have been a Watcher chasing the possibility I was the Slayer since I was technically the only one for six weeks.”
“Yes.”
“No. I left.”
“Chasing something?”
“A bit. I’m…traveling around Europe.”
“Just stay out of London,” he ordered sharply.
“Why?” She worked hard to keep from bristling at his tone.
“Not only does London have a high concentration of Watchers, there are also more vampires and magic-users. There are covens all over Europe who work for the Council.” He made a short growling noise. “This was really stupid of you.”
“You aren’t my father or my brother,” she snapped. She took a deep breath. “I decide what I do. If I was to go to London, where is the Watchers Council’s headquarters?”
“I don’t know exactly. There were some clues in the journal, but I was never interested in testing them.”
“You wrote the journal?”
“No. Someone else did, he was obsessed with Slayers.”
“So the answer may be right in front of me,” she said softly, looking through the journal again. “What about learning about demons, magic, Slayers. Anyone besides Watchers follow that kind of stuff?”
Angel went quiet for so long she thought he hung up. Reluctantly he admitted, “There are shops in the older parts of the city. Most will be fake, but a Slayer would tip a true magic-user off.”
“So just stepping into a shop should be enough?”
“Maybe.”
88888888
Bruce put down the journal, closing it before sitting back in his chair.
Athena sat across from him, a book on Mandarin in hand. A pot of tea had grown tepid between them.
He stared into space for a long time before his gaze moved to her. She had one foot up on the seat of her chair, her knee supported most of the weight of her book. She had the pad of her thumb pressed to the tip of her chin. Her lips moved as she read each phrase. Her brows furrowed over words she was having a harder time on. The corner of her mouth turned up when she understood something.
“You’re the Slayer,” he finally said.
Her eyes continued across the page, but it was clear she wasn’t reading. She stopped, placed her bookmark, and closed the book. Carefully, she set it on the table. “I am.”
“Journal mentions a set of baseline power.”
“Strength, agility, speed, reaction time, hard to kill, and quick to heal.”
“You have all of these?”
“Yes.”
“What about the more subtle powers?”
“Premonition, sensing, a vague feeling that something is wrong.” She shrugged. “I’ve only ever sensed one thing before. As far as premonition…only a few times, it comes in dreams and it’s not much more than the flash of a picture. The feeling that something is wrong comes from there always being something wrong in Smallville.” She dropped her foot down and sat forward, resting her forearms on the table. “There’s also something…demonic about the Slayer. The journal alludes to the source as an unknown power beyond humans.”
He nodded as he processed this information. “Made of the very thing she was made to fight.”
“Yes.”
“Do you train?”
“Often. I used to move things around at the Kents’ to test it. Do chores…”
“Get into fights.”
“A lot of fights.”
“Have you sparred with anyone?”
“Clark - he was big, strong. Lex, sometimes, he’s well-trained and very athletic.”
“Did Lex know?”
“No. I didn’t tell him. At first we weren’t that close, later it was that it would put what amounted to an egg-timer on my life, which seemed cruel.”
“Just waiting to die and surprise him?”
She glared at him then sighed. “Like leaving, I thought it was what I was supposed to do.”
“Now you’re not so sure.”
“I’m never sure, I’m just determined.”
Bruce shifted. “Why did you leave? Why did you show up in Gotham?”
“Because I had this strange sinking feeling…like if I stayed in Smallville something awful was going to happen.”
“A Slayer feeling?”
Athena gestured into the air helplessly. “I don’t know. I figured…everything for a reason, right?”
He nodded. “I think so.” He sat forward, hunching his shoulders. “I think I need to tell you what the plan is…”
Her head tilted. “This have something to do with that comment about dying when your parents did?”
“I plan to learn and train with the best around the world.”
“The best at what?”
“Everything.”
“And it starts with a degree at Cambridge?”
“No, that’s partly a lie. I’m auditing some classes, mostly I’m using the library to learn. Questioning the faculty when I need clarification.”
“O…kay”
“And I’m probably done in a few weeks.”
“Then you move on. To the next task or skill.”
“Yes.”
“So whatever answers I want in London, I better get before then.”
“You don’t have to come with…what I’m trying to do - I don’t know that it has an end, or a true goal. It just exists in an anger that I can’t describe or leave behind.”
“Maybe,” she acknowledged as she reached out and touched the corner of the journal. “But maybe…I’m a conduit of darkness and I feel an intense need for violence and justice in the world. I have the power to become something good or something bad.” She pulled the journal towards her. “This book gives me so much and so little about what I am, about the potential I have. And it makes me desperately question who I am - who I want to be.”
“And who do you think you want to be?”
“I want to be the Slayer, the best version. I want to protect people and destroy those who would feed on humanity.”
“You’re one person,” he pointed out.
“That’s all it takes, right?”
Title: Some Truths
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/Batman/DC
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Batman/DC people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Athena explains what she knows, and realizes she doesn’t know enough.
Notes: Part 6 of Athena Follows Bruce
Word Count: 2170
Bruce’s mind whirled. After the attack he and Athena had continued walking as she softly explained as much as she knew about the supernatural world. And she admitted to very little knowledge. Her strokes were broad, covering some history, a bit of lore, and a lot about her own title: Slayer.
As they finished the Queen’s Walk, Athena had stopped talking. There was something she was holding back…
“You said you died,” he stated, having gotten stuck on it when she mentioned the short lifespans of Slayers.
“I did, in October. My heart stopped. Clark used CPR to bring me back.”
“And that was enough to pass on the powers?”
“It Called the next Slayer but I still retain all of the powers and abilities I had before. And from what I know, Slayers grow with time. The older I get the more things I may find I’m able to do.”
He blinked. “We should grab something to eat.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
They chose a restaurant at random. Neither really paid attention to what they ordered. As they waited for their food, Bruce tried to ask another question.
Athena shook her head. “We can’t discuss it here.”
“Why?”
“I’ll explain when we’re outside again.”
He frowned but eventually nodded.
Dinner was eaten in silence, the check paid with little delay. Once they were back out on the street, he looked at her and waited.
Athena started moving along the street. “I told you about the Council, right?”
“The Watchers who oversee Slayers.”
“That’s a really tame description of their part in the saga of Slayers. They are based out of London. And they would haul me off for ‘my own good’ or the ‘good of the world’ in order to train me to their standards.”
“Why is that a problem?”
“Slayers in the last two hundred years last - on average - one year.”
“Why is it so short?”
“My speculation - the journal’s speculation - is that the interference of the Council, the isolation they raise and train Slayers in, may be detrimental to their will to live.”
“They kill themselves?”
“No! No…it’s more that they don’t try as hard as Slayers who are free to have personal lives, relationships outside of their Watchers. Something besides demons and darkness and vampires to study, fight, or evaluate all the time.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know, while Smallville did not have vampires or demons because of the meteor strike years ago, there were a lot of strange things.” She considered. “I didn’t necessarily seek confrontation, but I did jump in without thinking about it for more than a nanosecond.”
“What about Clark?”
“He kept my secrets.”
They walked for a time, not going any particular direction. Athena was waiting to see what the next question would be. Bruce was incorporating this into the answers - and non-answers - he had gotten from her about joining him.
“Why did you leave?” Bruce asked, “If Smallville needed you…”
“Smallville is protected,” she replied. “My brother, my friends, they don’t n-” She gestured, waving the words away. “In truth, since I died a few months ago, I’ve felt restless. Being the Slayer was one of the biggest reasons I survived, no mortal could have.”
“What happened?”
“Unbeknownst to me, the first cold snap of the year, there was a guy who started to freeze to death. He had to draw energy - heat - from batteries, the power grid, anything. Finally he realized people were a stopgap, incredibly inefficient, but would do in a pinch. I was at this boring party…I’d snuck away to do some homework. I was talking to a friend when we saw a truck crash outside of the gates. I ran down and started pulling this other classmate out. The cold guy walked up behind me. I don’t think he touched me for more than an instant…but it was long enough to induce rapid hypothermia and stop my heart. The Kents and Lex saved me.”
Bruce did not respond.
“The world is a dangerous place,” she said. “And while I’m not supposed to live another year…maybe finding out more about Slayers, about magic and demons will keep me alive longer.”
He nodded slowly. “What does that entail?”
“I don’t know. The journal is really all I have. I could call Angel, but that….is so weird.”
“Angel is the one who gave you the journal.”
“Yes. But he…I think he believes I was supposed to be someone specific to him. It makes things awkward.”
“Would he tell anyone in Smallville?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She exhaled sharply through her nose.
“That’s why you came here - to London - the first day of class. Why you changed your hair.”
“Maybe. I wanted a book on one of the languages we talked about.” She put a hand to her hair. “I needed to not look like Athena Luthor in case someone came looking for me.”
He nodded. “We should head back to Cambridge.”
88888888
Athena watched as Bruce entered the kitchen, he had a class in less than an hour.
“Do you have the journal here?” Bruce asked.
“Yes. I took everything I didn’t want Lex to find.”
“Can I read it?”
“Sure. I’ll leave it on the counter for you.”
“Are you heading back to London?”
“Next week. I want to see what Angel knows about the Council - for all I know he has the address.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know what I could one day go up against.”
Bruce slowly nodded. “Okay.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll leave you to call him.”
Athena watched him leave before retreating to her bedroom. She opened the bottom drawer and muttered a small spell that made her little shoebox become visible. It contained several very useful things. Her cellphones, their batteries, and the journal Angel had given her. Carefully she removed the box and sat on her bed. She put the battery in the burner phone and set it aside to boot up.
She pulled the journal from the box and studied it. The reason she needed time was to take out several small sticky notes she had used during her research. Some of them had notes, others questions written in her shorthand. She slowly flipped through the journal, removing each note and stacking it in the shoebox.
When she finished, there was no putting it off. She pressed and held ‘2’ on the cell phone. It rang for a moment before being picked up.
“Hello?” Angel said.
“Hey, it’s Athena.”
“Athena? Were you kidnapped by the Watchers Council?”
She blinked. “Why would you think that?”
“Your family reported you missing,” he explained. There was the sound of a paper. “Lionel Luthor reported you missing almost two weeks ago.” She could tell he was reading something, giving her bullet points. “He blames Lex for not reporting you missing sooner. There has been no signs of foul play and your note to Clark Kent seems to have been taken at face value. You were deemed a runaway, but I thought maybe the Council found out about you.”
“Really?”
“I called the Kents when I first saw the paper. Apparently the school paper’s Mr. Giles left abruptly a week after you did. Since he was British…”
“You thought he might have been a Watcher chasing the possibility I was the Slayer since I was technically the only one for six weeks.”
“Yes.”
“No. I left.”
“Chasing something?”
“A bit. I’m…traveling around Europe.”
“Just stay out of London,” he ordered sharply.
“Why?” She worked hard to keep from bristling at his tone.
“Not only does London have a high concentration of Watchers, there are also more vampires and magic-users. There are covens all over Europe who work for the Council.” He made a short growling noise. “This was really stupid of you.”
“You aren’t my father or my brother,” she snapped. She took a deep breath. “I decide what I do. If I was to go to London, where is the Watchers Council’s headquarters?”
“I don’t know exactly. There were some clues in the journal, but I was never interested in testing them.”
“You wrote the journal?”
“No. Someone else did, he was obsessed with Slayers.”
“So the answer may be right in front of me,” she said softly, looking through the journal again. “What about learning about demons, magic, Slayers. Anyone besides Watchers follow that kind of stuff?”
Angel went quiet for so long she thought he hung up. Reluctantly he admitted, “There are shops in the older parts of the city. Most will be fake, but a Slayer would tip a true magic-user off.”
“So just stepping into a shop should be enough?”
“Maybe.”
88888888
Bruce put down the journal, closing it before sitting back in his chair.
Athena sat across from him, a book on Mandarin in hand. A pot of tea had grown tepid between them.
He stared into space for a long time before his gaze moved to her. She had one foot up on the seat of her chair, her knee supported most of the weight of her book. She had the pad of her thumb pressed to the tip of her chin. Her lips moved as she read each phrase. Her brows furrowed over words she was having a harder time on. The corner of her mouth turned up when she understood something.
“You’re the Slayer,” he finally said.
Her eyes continued across the page, but it was clear she wasn’t reading. She stopped, placed her bookmark, and closed the book. Carefully, she set it on the table. “I am.”
“Journal mentions a set of baseline power.”
“Strength, agility, speed, reaction time, hard to kill, and quick to heal.”
“You have all of these?”
“Yes.”
“What about the more subtle powers?”
“Premonition, sensing, a vague feeling that something is wrong.” She shrugged. “I’ve only ever sensed one thing before. As far as premonition…only a few times, it comes in dreams and it’s not much more than the flash of a picture. The feeling that something is wrong comes from there always being something wrong in Smallville.” She dropped her foot down and sat forward, resting her forearms on the table. “There’s also something…demonic about the Slayer. The journal alludes to the source as an unknown power beyond humans.”
He nodded as he processed this information. “Made of the very thing she was made to fight.”
“Yes.”
“Do you train?”
“Often. I used to move things around at the Kents’ to test it. Do chores…”
“Get into fights.”
“A lot of fights.”
“Have you sparred with anyone?”
“Clark - he was big, strong. Lex, sometimes, he’s well-trained and very athletic.”
“Did Lex know?”
“No. I didn’t tell him. At first we weren’t that close, later it was that it would put what amounted to an egg-timer on my life, which seemed cruel.”
“Just waiting to die and surprise him?”
She glared at him then sighed. “Like leaving, I thought it was what I was supposed to do.”
“Now you’re not so sure.”
“I’m never sure, I’m just determined.”
Bruce shifted. “Why did you leave? Why did you show up in Gotham?”
“Because I had this strange sinking feeling…like if I stayed in Smallville something awful was going to happen.”
“A Slayer feeling?”
Athena gestured into the air helplessly. “I don’t know. I figured…everything for a reason, right?”
He nodded. “I think so.” He sat forward, hunching his shoulders. “I think I need to tell you what the plan is…”
Her head tilted. “This have something to do with that comment about dying when your parents did?”
“I plan to learn and train with the best around the world.”
“The best at what?”
“Everything.”
“And it starts with a degree at Cambridge?”
“No, that’s partly a lie. I’m auditing some classes, mostly I’m using the library to learn. Questioning the faculty when I need clarification.”
“O…kay”
“And I’m probably done in a few weeks.”
“Then you move on. To the next task or skill.”
“Yes.”
“So whatever answers I want in London, I better get before then.”
“You don’t have to come with…what I’m trying to do - I don’t know that it has an end, or a true goal. It just exists in an anger that I can’t describe or leave behind.”
“Maybe,” she acknowledged as she reached out and touched the corner of the journal. “But maybe…I’m a conduit of darkness and I feel an intense need for violence and justice in the world. I have the power to become something good or something bad.” She pulled the journal towards her. “This book gives me so much and so little about what I am, about the potential I have. And it makes me desperately question who I am - who I want to be.”
“And who do you think you want to be?”
“I want to be the Slayer, the best version. I want to protect people and destroy those who would feed on humanity.”
“You’re one person,” he pointed out.
“That’s all it takes, right?”