Polar PBJ

“Alright,” Danny muttered, grabbing the thermos of ectoplasm he’d been sharing with Adulf, the wulf he was with, “can you bring these kids to a school?”

The hulking ghost werewolf gave him a concerned glance when he grimaced and shuddered at the taste of ectoplasm.

“Esti zorgema. Doloras homoj se vi trinkas tro.”

“I know.” Danny did. He was already feeling the affects. “Go. I’ve got this.”

That was a little bit more debatable. At least going intangible meant he didn't have to worry about smoke inhalation.

There's probably three dozen heart beats and about half as many screams in his ears. Phantom looked up at the commie block with smoke curling out its windows and only let out a breath before flying upwards.

-

Jazz had her ears tuned to comms. There were periodical updates, from Frostbite and from Team Phantom. Some were good— like saving a large amount of kids— and others were bad, like choked up reports of finding bodies or not being able to save some.

Or injuries. Sam had a sprained wrist, Danny had gotten some bad burns on his hands and elbows. Tucker gave a terse report but hadn't mentioned injuries, so he either was unscathed or missing a limb.

Jazz is okay, minus some gnarly bruises, a few deep slices all across her body, and general exhaustion.

There's just the issue of not being able to give up.

All of them know that, of course.

You couldn't say "I can't do this" no matter what you saw. One body? Four? You'd be causing more by inaction.

Jazz knows this is going to leave permanent scars on everyone.

"Cherry," came the tense voice of Tucker, "do y'know how to speak Hebrew?"

There was a pause. "Uhhh. A bit, from my Gram."

"Great, because I need you."

"Let me guess, theres a crisis and they don't speak English."

"Yup." He popped the p.

-

"Hey, Sesame Street. Did you or Big Batsy steal my roommate by any chance?"

Duke paused. Looked from side to side in the empty room he was spending his free period in. Harper looked ticked through face time. "Um. No?"

"Funny. Because she just disappeared and O won't answer me. I don't really appreciate Steph getting yoinked into the great unknown on my day off."

"No, I really don't think Oracle knows. Let me comm her real quick." He buzzed his ear piece four times. Shook it. No response.

"Weird. She's not answering me either." Duke commented, frown beginning to form. "Is anyone answering?"

"Bruce didn't. Nor did Beefcake Boytoy, either."

Duke didn't have the state of mind to correct her on Clark's name anymore. A sigh as he stood. "I'll go find Dam—"

A call patched through as he accepted. Speak of the Devil.

Hah. Literally.

"Thomas. Row."

"Brat." Harper gave a nod, camera jostling as she was hopping down her apartment's stairs.

"I was just about to come get you. We can't get through to—"

"Any adult." The boy surmised, clinically enough that it raised his hairs on edge.

"...I was going to say Bruce and the rest of The Mystery Gang. Did your teacher disappear or something?"

"Affirmative."

"Fuck, then." Harper blew out a breath.

"Damian, call for Jon. Maybe it's only in Gotham. Uhh, I'll get to the basement. You should too, Harper." Duke began, well aware that there was a hidden motorbike in one of the Academy's shed, per Bruce.

He really hopes his driving with Jason measured to whatever shitshow they had just found themselves in.

Because nothing was good in Gotham if the kids were all they had left.

-

"Who are you?" Questioned a yellow-armored boy sharply, holding out what looked to be a hook-scythe-nunchuck thing.

"Who are you?" Replied Tucker, before pausing. "Wait, you're Signal, sorry, that's stupid. Uh. I'm your neighborhood... friendly... ghost tech man."

"Well, that inspires confidence."

"Yeah. Sorry, I found a kid— um, he only speaks Hebrew by the way— and brought him to the hospital, but I kind of have to go."

"Are you a backup vigilante? Some hero kid we've never heard about?" The daylight hero of Gotham questioned, and Tucker had already turned back to his wulf to hide his grimace.

"Yeeep, definitely, aha—" Tucker knew he was terrible at lying, but this was painfully bad, he'd admit, "—don't mind the yetis, they have a medical license from another plane of existence!"

He only heard a very sincere, "Yetis?! The fuck, kid?" before he was hopping through a tear in reality with a werewulf.

-

"Jazz, I need you." Sam's voice wobbles over the comms, and the ginger stops in her tracks, hand tightening on the leash of Cujo. They'd been letting people off of the dangerous rollercoaster rides for an hour.

The goth sounds wrecked. Tucker and Danny had immediately started to ask if she was safe, and she tells them that she's physically fine.

"Coming." She reported. It had to be bad if she'd dropped the vigilante names.

She pulled up the trackers and whispers "Find Sam!" to Cujo.

It takes a couple of minutes, but ultimately they arrive at an entrance of a school, somewhere in Germany. She thinks class ended a while ago, but she supposes its good that kids were listening to her instructions.

It's silent, except for her friend just... crying, squatted on the ground with her head in her hands.

Jazz only close her eyes grimly, before walking over to the girl and hoisting her so she was crying into the older girls shoulder. "It's okay. It's okay. What's going on, Cherry?"

She feels the sobs shake through her, the hiccups and gasps for breath. "I can't— I can't—"

"You can." Jazz urged, despite feeling the desire to just start crying as well. Today had been hell, literally and metaphorically.

"It's— T-there's a— another kid dead. This— this is the third this hour. I can't—"

"Breathe. Big inhale. Big inhale." The ginger repeated it however many times until she listened and started to breathe semi-normally.

"The— other k-kids say that it was an al-allergic reaction. Wulf 's inside keeping control for now, but how—? How do I—?"

Jazz bit down so hard she tasted blood on her tongue and an ache in her cheek. She'd run into the same problem. Sometimes she had blankets or pieces of cloth to cover up the body or face, but sometimes she just had to gag bile and apologize profusely in her head and continue.

"Okay. Drink some water, eat a protein bar, take a small breather. I'll go deal with it." She rubbed the goth's arm, trying to console her, and putting on a face she hoped looked brave.

(She thinks it just looks numb, now.)

Jazz can hear the crying before she even gets inside the school.

-

He and another boy— he's not sure of their name anymore; he's not sure of a lot lately— are tossing guns into a deep lake without blinking. The sun is beating down, and theres still a truck full of explosives and bullets that need to be disposed of.

He'd say it was a gift of God, but he doesn't know where his parents are either. He doesn't know if they're going to be alive, if he'll ever see them again.

He just knows that it's better to get rid of this weapon and hope that there isn't anything left. It would stop the destruction, for now.

Maybe for a long time if they can get rid of the grenades and rockets, too.

He swipes a bead of sweat from his forehead, and almost misses the other boy whispering something— a prayer?— quickly. He's frozen, and for a moment, the boy believes that this was all a dream and the soldiers had come back.

But no.

It's... Someone? A woman. Someone from the west, by the looks of her clothing, but she looks a lot like an alien. Like the Superman.

"Hey, punks."

The boy closes his eyes. Is this how he dies? From a woman with blue hair and an instrument strapped to her back? It feels ironic. Cruel, even.

"Need any help with those? I can give you a real light show."

The boy opens his eyes and stares up at the floating woman in the sun, and for the first time in what feels like weeks, smiles.

-

She watches the TV, along with the few other kids that aren't locked away in "their" rooms, and finally understand why there wasn't any customers or their keeper around.

"Holy shit," one of the other teens breathe.

"Does this mean...?"

For a moment, they're all frozen. What if this is a joke? A test that could be punished for? What if they come back halfway through? What if—

"Go," she says, almost automatically, "go. Get the others. I know where they keep all the tools to get out."

Most of the group is still frozen, watching the face of a girl their age or older, talking with confidence and freedom they don't have.

She doesn't care about the fucking system or what happens afterwards. She just wants to get out of this hellhole of a trafficking den.

"Go!" She says, finally standing up and rushing to the door, kicking at the knob to the supply room with the heel of her foot.

Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you, was all she could think.

-

Danny's humming something over the comms. No messages, not for the last hour, but it's his way of doing a life check.

"Are you listening to music right now? That's really freaking insensitive, Dan— Phantom." Sam snaps, voice thin and drained from over her line.

"No it's not." Tucker retorts, almost immediately. "We've been going at this for six straight hours, Cherry Bomb. If he needs music to get through today, then by all means, let him listen to Linkin Park."

There was a pause. Jazz debated piping up, but her overexerted lungs were burning as she hauled a sleeping kid out of a bus.

"I'm sorry," was what Sam said, eventually. "I... It's been a day. I shouldn't have snapped."

A weak laugh from Danny. "Yeah, you're kind of a jerk right now, Sam." A little pause. Jazz could almost hear him shrugging. "I guess we all have the right to be."

"Okay." Jazz says as she plopped the child with a teenager who had been ferrying other people back and forth with their electric bike. "Mandatory meeting at Amity. ASAP. We need to regroup and figure out the next hour. Or day."

She didn't want to think about anything more. The word weeks would send her spiraling more than usual.

There were grumbles of assent from across the line, and she tugged at Cujo once more. "Ready to go home, boy?"

God, she sure was. If only it was the end of today.

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