Simon Ecks Laboratory, Gotham City, 2:01 PM.
September 22nd, 2010.
The night had passed without anything of note, followed immediately by most of the next day. Aiden was starting to think that either this Simon guy was just paranoid as heck or that he’d been spotted on arrival and the stalker had thrown in the towel.
It turned out to be neither.
A Ki-signature was slowly working its way across the city towards him-one that by now, he was more than familiar with. Aiden didn’t even bother assuming that this wasn’t her final destination.
“Simon, someone is approaching,” Aiden said calmly, “I’m going to go scare them off, stay inside, I’ll make sure nobody enters the building.”
“Really?” Simon said nervously, “Yes, of course, I’ll be right here; thank you, bubbles.”
Aiden just nodded to the man and stepped out of the room; he made his way to the building's staircase, taking his time. Simon apparently had a series of hidden cameras, so this might be a bit more tricky-actually; he had an idea. The signature was still two streets away, but the approach was direct; he crouched on the roof of the building, eyes locked on the opposite roof, tensed and ready.
The signature crested the roof, and Aiden locked eyes with Enkidu, whose own eyes went wide, as he flashed across the road, separating them and snatched her by the face-or at least tried to. Enkidu fell backward, planted a hand, and spun, kicking his reaching hand up into the air.
The hit connected with a significant amount of strength, more than he would have assumed she was capable of even after seeing what she could do. He darted forward with a burst of ki, and once again, she slipped away, somehow moving before he had even gotten within three feet of her.
Neither of them said anything.
Aiden didn’t want to reveal that he had a connection to her because of the hidden camera’s and Simon would find that suspicious as fuck-the person who he had hired to bodyguard him was actually in League with the stalker?
Yeah no.
Enkidu kept her own silence, for reasons he wasn’t aware of, but he was glad for it none-the-less; her clothing was different than the last time he’d seen her as well; she looked nothing like the hero ‘Enkidu’ right now. A dark flared hood, a thin and expensive looking black bodysuit that covered her from head to toe.
Aiden leaned forward and then immediately ducked to the side as her foot swiped through the air-she’d stepped forward the very second he had moved. He frowned beneath his own mask and jaunted forward after the kick had passed, just in time for the second kick in her apparent chain to turn his face to the side with a snap.
Goddammit, this was just as bad as sparring with Diana; Fine, if he couldn’t contend with her in skill, he was going to have to overwhelm her. Aiden let his Ki surge through him, bringing it as high as he could, and then stepped forward.
Enkidu’s punch landed against his cheek, barely turning it this time; he swiped at her arm and missed, and she spun under it; he kept walking forward as her second counter landed, an upwards heel strike to his chin. He forced his head down and sent a burst of ki behind him, propelling him suddenly within range of her, and he managed to get her into a clinch.
He felt a series of attacks land on him in rapid succession, too light to make it through his durability, and he hugged her close to him before flashing forward into the sky at his maximum speed. He flinched as her knee caught him in the groin, and the straight flight turned into a spinning tumble as she slipped his grip just as they reached the edge of the city.
Her leg hooked over his shoulder and around his neck before she threw herself downwards into an arc, dragging him further off course as he lost control, and barely a moment later, the two of them crashed into the ground, skating across the surface fast enough to crack two trees on collision.
Aiden, still unharmed, got back to his feet and started towards her; he lost sight of her immediately as she stepped behind a tree and went straight up. If he hadn’t been tracking her with his Ki-sense, he would have been chasing shadows here, as it was when she came in from the side, low to the ground and out of his sight-he spun at the last moment and reached for her once more.
Frustratingly enough, she slipped it again, and he was starting to realize that something else was going on here-even Diana didn’t start moving until he actually did something-and she had the benefit of still being faster than him. Enkidu wasn’t quite on his level physically, at least if this was her max, but she was handling him like she was significantly faster than she appeared.
It was pissing him off.
“Enkidu.” Aiden forced himself to say, coming to a stop.
She immediately stopped cold.
“How did you know it was me, Aiden?” Enkidu said quietly, watching him. “Why attack at all?”
He wasn’t going to tell her how he knew, so instead, he took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and he felt himself slowing growing calmer as he overcame the need to just keep throwing himself against her in combat.
“Look, we have a conflict of interest going on here,” Aiden said with forced calm. “I’m currently employed as Simon Ecks bodyguard-what is your purpose there.”
Enkidu slowly straightened up out of her ready position and reached up, drawing her hood back; she reached behind her head and unclipped something before dragging the bodysuits mask off and revealing her face for the first time since he had met her.
Blond hair cut short, in some kind of pixie cut, and light grey eyes.
“I’m investigating him, that’s all I can say,” Enkidu said quietly. “I don’t want to fight you.”
Aiden studied her for a long moment-revealing her appearance like this was a calculated move, not something a person would normally do right after a savage fight. It was her attempt to keep him on her side-he still was; he had every intention of figuring out her situation.
There was an opportunity here to put some more pressure on; he reached up and unclipped his own mask before revealing his own face.
“You’ve known my name for a while now, and my face,” Aiden said firmly. “Who are you?”
There was a moment where he thought he hadn’t put enough aggression into his voice-but his attempt to feign how tenuous the situation was seemed to work.
“Sarah King,” Sarah said quietly.
Aiden nodded to himself, success-now he had an actual name to start investigating.
“Sarah, I don’t care what you do after I get paid,” Aiden admitted seriously, “But I can’t let you near the guy for the duration of my job.”
“How long?” Sarah nodded slowly, gripping her shoulder with one hand; she looked uncomfortable.
“A week,” Aiden said firmly.
“Oh,” Sarah blinked, surprised, “I’ll go back to Boston and wait then.”
The tension broke with an inaudible snap, and he almost sighed at how easily the crisis had been avoided with a few minutes of conversation; if Simon hadn’t had the camera’s set up, he could have handled this without fighting in the first place-then again, he wouldn’t have gotten her name as easily, so maybe this was for the best.
He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but the fight had been exhilarating.
“You’re much, much stronger than I thought,” Aiden said curiously. “What are your powers anyway?”
Sarah scratched the back of her short hair sheepishly but didn’t respond, too close to the ‘control?’
“Doesn’t matter; I’m still on the job,” Aiden said easily, before pausing. “Sarah King, I’m looking into things-I’ll try not to keep you waiting for too long, alright? Stay safe.”
He lifted slowly off the ground as he clipped his mask back on.
“I’ll do my best to be patient,” Sarah said quietly, “Aiden Neve.”
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Gotham City, 5:01 PM.
September 26th, 2010.
The wind cut past his face as he left the city.
Aiden finished the task without any more issues. Enkidu hadn’t reappeared at any point, and no one else was discovered looking around the place. Simon was pleased and even tipped him for fighting off the ‘stalker.’
He felt a little bad that Enkidu was going to go straight back to stalking the guy afterward, but if you had a hero investigating you-well, maybe his instincts were right, and Simon was one of those evil scientist dudes. It might have been a little cold-blooded, but he had been paid to keep the guy safe for a week, not to care about the guy, so he wasn’t too concerned.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Speaking of weeks, it had been almost a full one since he’d seen Byrna-her workspace was likely fully set up by now, which meant he could finally put in a requisition for a proper mask; that would be one less thing for him to worry about.
If she could spare the time away from redesigning her own equipment anyway.
He was extraordinarily lucky his current mask hadn’t broken too badly during the fight, doubly so that he’d had the balaclava tucked away.
He’d missed his last appointment with Dinah as well, so he was already dreading the verbal ass-kicking he was going to get; he’d forgotten they had agreed to make the next few visits in person-heck he even had three missed calls on his phone.
Aiden had thought about ringing and apologizing for all of ten seconds before deciding he would just double down on the whole ‘too busy working’ thing; it was an argument winner if nothing else.
As if it knew he was thinking about it, his phone starting ringing a number he didn’t recognize again; he had to slow down as he put it up to his ear to actually hear anything over the wind.
“How can I help you?” Aiden said easily.
“Aiden?” Conner’s voice said shortly. “It’s Conner.”
“Hey buddy,” Aiden said, gliding slowly. “Good to see you got a phone; what's up?”
“A lot has happened in the last week-“ Conner managed, sounding annoyed, “I want to-can you check my progress? I want to fight too.”
Sounded like he needed to let off some steam.
“Rough week, huh?” Aiden said easily, “A fight and some training sounds good; where are you now?”
“Happy Harbor,” Conner said simply, after a long moment.
Aiden frowned, the name sounded familiar, but he wasn’t sure where it was on a map. He’d have to look it up on his phone.
“Alright, I’ll come to you; meet me outside of wherever the heck that is,” Aiden said, bemused. “Peace.”
“Alright,” Conner said before hanging up.
“Damn, kid,” Aiden said, annoyed, “At least say goodbye first.”
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Aiden recognized the city on sight as the one where most of the series took place and almost smacked himself in the face at having forgotten the name. It turned out that Happy Harbor was actually not too far from Boston, which made him both suspicious and curious. He’d been the one to choose Boston to live in, but it may have been a sneaky Batman ruse somehow to keep him within range of their teleporter thingies in case they needed to come to kick his ass.
He flew around for a few moments before he caught a signature far out of the city and made his way towards it.
“Aiden,” Conner said shortly.
He was definitely pissed off, interesting, an argument with his superhero buddies? There had been a few of those blow-outs in the show; he couldn’t remember any of the details, though.
“Alright, you look like you need to vent-so let's do that spar first,” Aiden said pleasantly and rolled his shoulders. “Rules; Have some fun and no sulking afterward-got it?”
“Yeah,” Conner said firmly.
Aiden dashed forwards without warning and launched a punch straight down the middle. Conner crossed his arms in a block, and the hit landed with a crack, sending him sliding back across the grass, twin trenches carved out of the ground beneath his feet.
Conner leaped forward, clearing the distance between them, and launched his own hit. Aiden copied the younger guy's block and was sent flipping backward before he managed to catch himself.
He started laughing, and Conner frowned.
“I didn’t think you’d be stronger than me; honestly, I think I might be a bit faster, though,” Aiden said, grinning, “This is fun.”
Conner smirked, the first sign of levity since he had arrived.
Aiden went back on the offensive, sending a series of jabs and punches-Conner mostly managed to block them all, taking absolutely no damage from anything that did slip by-fucking Kryptonians. On the other hand, Aiden knew he was going to be covered in bruises later; even with his ki surging up as high as he could go, the guy's punches hurt.
Conner had a bizarre fighting style; he seemed to prefer single overwhelming strikes more than anything, putting all his power into it and then leaping back within range. Aiden knew that if the kid ever sparred with Diana, he would probably get his ass kicked even worse than he had.
The strikes were telegraphed for all the world to see-not that it stopped them from landing; the speed difference wasn’t that big after all.
“You look like you’re having fun now!” Aiden laughed in between exchanges.
Conner didn’t reply, but he did have an expression that might have one day grown up to be a smile.
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Aiden’s Warehouse, Boston, 12:01 PM.
September 30th, 2010.
Aiden had spent his free time in the last few days looking into ‘Sarah King.’
He’d found more than he would have initially thought, given the type of people he thought he was dealing with. Sarah King, a girl from Central City, went missing years ago. Her family had vanished along with her, all except for the grandmother.
The grandmother, according to the articles written about the case, had been strangely unbothered by the disappearance of her entire living family, and the police had investigated her thoroughly on the assumption that she’d had something to do with it.
They’d found a substantial amount of money in one of her accounts, and she’d offered no explanation as to where it had come from. The funds had been traced back to a known trafficking ring-revealing that the grandmother had somehow managed to sell her entire family off for fifteen million dollars-a ridiculous amount.
“What the fuck?” Aiden muttered to himself, “This place is fucking insane, her own grandmother? Shit.”
The buyer hadn’t been located, and the family hadn’t reappeared; the reason for the stupidly high price wasn’t ever discovered. Whatever was special about them was never found, the case had gone cold, and soon the world had forgotten all about Sarah King.
So, she’d been sold into slavery, had some kind of control forced on her, and turned into some kind of superhuman operative or something for an organization that worked with the League of Shadows.
He was starting to understand the full picture here, but it didn’t help him determine who had been responsible for it in the first place, which meant he still didn’t have a target.
Who was the person behind Enkidu?
He’d considered going to Batman or Diana and putting them on the case, but he had plenty of experience with how they treated powered individuals they were wary of. He’d try to figure out the person's identity first; if he failed, he would just have to suck it up and ask for help.
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Aiden’s Apartment, Boston, 12:15 PM.
October 1st, 2010.
Aiden picked up his phone and checked the message-Enkidu, apparently still here in Boston warning him about-
“The fucking giant plants!” Aiden said incredulously, “How did I forget the god damned plant attack?”
Aiden dragged his costume on before dialing another number.
“Byrna, giant plants attacking half of America, you want to come to test out your new stuff?” Aiden said quickly, “Yeah? I’ll meet you at the warehouse in five minutes, be ready.”
He sent off another message to Enkidu and got an affirmative response barely a second later.
Aiden couldn’t remember how many plants attacked, but there had been at least one in each of the League’s home cities or something like that. He didn’t remember any of them attacking Boston, but then again, he couldn’t trust his memory of the series anyway; he hadn’t even remembered the plants in the first place.
Who’d been behind this? This had been the red herring that hid the real villain antagonists-Poison Ivy, Black Adam? The Joker had been there too! Some magic guy as well? It didn’t really matter; either way, he had no idea where that battle even took place-so he had no chance of participating in that one.
The heroes had solved that without too much trouble anyway, so he wouldn’t need to intervene there-he could focus on killing these damn plants, and judging by the increasing amount of noise he could hear in the distance, the attack had begun in earnest.