Chapter Text
Disclaimer: (in case you need one) All characters and worlds in this work are the property of DC Comics; there are no original characters; however, the characters in this story may be altered from their original forms to fit the story I'm trying to tell. Please tell me if they're too OOC as to be recognizable.
I appreciate feedback, criticism, and all of the other messy stuff that helps writers grow, so comments of any kind are welcome.
Playful yet maniacal laughter rang out from the halls of HIVE Academy as their newest recruit gleefully showed off her newest weapons. She pulled out a razor-tipped Joker playing card and flung it at the machine firing at her. It exploded, taking the machine with it. Bits of metal and circuitry showered the other students, but she didn't seem to notice. Next, she pulled out what looked like bean bags and scattered them over the floor. A few of her classmates laughed at the childish effort. She playfully wagged her finger at them before pressing a button. They started to glow bright before exploding, taking a good portion of the arena with them.
When the smoke cleared, Duela was standing intact amidst a pile of rubble, a huge smile on her face. The instructor, however, was none so pleased. "What is the meaning of this?!" he demanded.
"This crazy girl almost took out half the school!" one of the HIVE students complained.
"I really know how to bring down the house," Duela quipped, motioning to the destruction she caused.
"You brought unpredictable homemade military-grade weaponry to this academy and just decided to set it off with no regard for lives of the people watching this sick display?" the instructor growled.
"Yeah!" she said confidently without hesitation. She was expecting the instructor to drop the act and tell her what a great villain-in-training she was being, but what he said instead shocked her.
"You are no longer welcome at HIVE Academy. I don't care whose daughter you claim to be! Your methods are unpredictable and dangerous, and if you can't control yourself on the battlefield, you are of no use to us!" the instructor growled.
"See? What did I tell you, I'm--" Duela stopped her canned acceptance speech. "Wait, repeat that one more time? It sounded like you said you were kicking me out? I'm sure I misunderstood?" Mocking laughter came from the uninjured members of the audience.
"No, Ms. Dent, I did not misspeak. You are no longer welcome here," the instructor said.
Duela froze at the mention of her "real name." Had they figured out she was a fake?
"Go collect your things and I'll have the guards escort you out," the instructor directed.
Duela turned and headed down the hallway, ignoring the jeers and laughter and bad jokes from her classmates. She'd messed up yet again. She was sure that disguising herself as the long lost daughter of the Joker, Gotham City's most infamous villain, would have made her a shoo-in for villain school. After all, who wouldn't want that kind of bad blood on their team? Her plan somehow went horribly wrong, though, because the instructor called her out as an impostor, using her fake "real name" to mock her.
She entered her room, a golden dorm-style industrial-looking set-up, and quickly collected her things. She looked at the name she wrote on her belongings "Lucy Napier," after the Joker's supposed real estranged daughter, in case anyone did any investigating. She wasn't sure Lucy even existed. All of the information she gathered from her stay in Gotham was mostly in the form of weird myths and urban legends. Some said the Joker had a daughter, others a son, and still others no children at all. She wouldn't have been bold enough to even take on his name had she not found a contact at Arkham who said they knew the Joker and thought he'd be okay with it, as long as she acted as a villain and not a hero; the clown hated heroes. That alone wasn't reassuring enough, though, so she wrote letters to the Joker's supposed address while she was at Arkham, and she still had the crumpled up sticky-note-style letter she finally got in response."That's hilarious, kiddo, have fun --J." It's not every day the Joker writes to someone and and gives them permission to steal his identity, so she treasured that crumpled up letter like most might treasure a piece of gold. She was supposed to become a villain, though, a real threat. That was the deal. She'd failed that task miserably and probably no longer had the right to refer to herself as "the Joker's Daughter."
As she was ruminating about her failure, her roommate walked in. "That's hilarious! So, you failed, didn't you, ghost girl?"
Duela quirked an eyebrow at the odd nickname. "The Napier family died in a mysterious fire shortly before the Joker appeared in Gotham," another girl filled in.
"Which means you're a fake," her roommate quipped dismissively.
"It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out," the other girl added.
"You should come up with better lies," her roommate quipped.
Duela reached for a hidden pocket on her uniform, trying to decide whether or not she wanted to throw a razor-tipped playing card at the girl for insulting her, but she ultimately decided that it wasn't worth it and backed down. The rules here made no sense anyway. They were training villains, not heroes. If they were going to have these strict rules, she might as well join the good guys. That's when she noticed what she thought was a HIVE communicator lying on the empty bed next to her pillow. She picked it up and examined it while the girls were chatting with each other about her. It had a large "T" etched on it. "No way," she said to herself as she pocketed the device. Everyone who knew what they were looking for knew that these were Teen Titan communication devices. It might have been a fake, but if it wasn't, maybe the universe was smiling upon her after all?
Once she finished packing her things, she unceremoniously walked out of the building, no fan fare, no threats. Her confidence in her ability to actually be anything more than a forgotten street orphan was again at rock bottom. Everywhere she went, it looked like she knew how to better make enemies than friends. She put her head down at the fading jeers and taunts from those who had watched her failure at tryouts and walked out into the unusually sunny weather, a bag housing the few items she brought with her hanging from her wrist like some kind of comically over-sized purse.
After walking for a while, she sat on a small park bench by a fountain.
"Um, hey, mind if I sit with you?" a monotone voice asked.
Duela looked up and saw a person about her age dressed in a funny-looking purple cape and hood. She fought the urge to make a joke about the outfit; judging from the expression on the girl's face, it wouldn't have gone over too well. "Sure," she replied instead.
"It's an awful day," the girl groaned.
"Tell me about it," Duela sighed.
"Heh. That's funny," the girl said, a thin smile gracing her lips.
"What's funny?" Duela asked.
"Most people would say something like 'but it's a beautiful day; why don't you just cheer up?" the girl said.
"Those people are insane," Duela quipped.
"Like the day should have anything to do with my mood," the girl said with a groan.
The two girls spent several minutes chatting with each other, Duela jokingly saying some harsh truth about life and making the other girl almost laugh. The clown girl quickly changed her mind about the strange goth girl. She was funny and nice to be around.
"I mean, it's like the entire universe is coming to an end, but they just want you to not think about it," the girl who introduced herself as Raven, remarked.
"Yeah, people are dumb sometimes. 'If we don't think about it, it won't affect us.'"
"Try that with a fire or flood or other kind of imminent disaster, though. Suddenly everyone is okay with focusing on it."
"I know, right? What's up with that? If my problem doesn't affect you, it's not important and I should just get over it, but if my problem does affect you, then it's real, but only then."
Raven let out a sigh. "Unfortunately, that's the way it is."
While the two were talking, Beast Boy and Cyborg walked up to them eating vegan chili dogs. "Hey, Rae, uhm, you should really try these meatless marvels," Beast Boy said, gulping down a piece of his hot dog. "Yeah, I don't know what i was expecting from non-meat meat, but this is delicious," Cyborg said. Raven and Duela watched in mild disgust as the two boys wolfed down the food in only a couple of bites.
"No thanks. I'm not really hungry," Raven said.
"Me neither," Duela said.
Noticing the new face, Beast Boy perked up. "Hey, who's your friend?"
"This is--I don't think you ever told me your name," Raven said.
"Oh? I'm uh..." Duela paused for a second, going over the laundry list of aliases she'd crafted for herself. Maybe she didn't need to pick just one. What would make more sense than an alias that was made of a bunch of other aliases? She had her new fake name. "Cipher."
"A what?" Cyborg asked.
"Isn't that a Pokemon?" Beast Boy asked.
"No, she said 'cipher,' as in a person who takes the identity of another," Raven corrected.
"Ohhh..." Beast Boy mused.
"It also means a means of encoding a message, as in 'the secret was written in a cipher,'" Cyborg added. "I'll admit, I had to Google that one," he added sheepishly.
"Pfft...boys, amirite?" Duela quipped.
"Hey! I just noticed. You've got a Titan's communicator! My sensors picked it up," Cyborg explained, pointing to a flashing light on one of his wrists.
"You're one of us!" Beast Boy shouted.
Duela involuntarily shivered in anticipation. This was it; they were taking the bait. They believed her lie. She thanked her stars for finding that little piece of metal. What happened next surprised her.
"Hey, do you wanna come back with us to the tower?" Beast Boy offered.
"I don't know if that would be such a good idea; you know how Robin feels about uninvited guests," Cyborg warned.
"Remember Terra?" Raven reminded.
The clown girl with many faces hung her head and put on an affected apologetic attitude. "Oh, sorry to intrude, I...guess I should be going, then," she said as she hurriedly got up from the park bench.
Duela walked away a little bit and silently started sobbing. This plan wasn't working out. She was a bad fake and a poor actor. Any superhero or master criminal who trusted her would inevitably be disappointed. "I might as well go back to the Narrows," she whispered to herself. Slowly, she started the long walk to one of the many abandoned buildings she was using as her safe house. Hey, at least it was private and it beat the homeless shelters.
She was only a few feet away from the park, though, when she felt a skinny hand touch her shoulder. She shivered at its cold touch and immediately feared the worst for some reason. Quickly, she whipped around expecting some sort of monster, but it was just the goth girl. "Heh heh," Duela gave a sheepish fake laugh to cover her fear.
"Hey, we've decided you can come with us," Raven said.