#Gotham City has a living spirit/soul/thing.... and she makes that everyone's problem. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thedcdunce · 6 years ago

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Secret

“I'm tired of having everybody be afraid of me and leaving me!!!” - Secret

Real Name: Greta Hayes

Aliases:

Suzie

Gender: Female

Height: 4′ 8″

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Blonde

Powers:

Warder Physiology

Weaknesses:

Electromagnetic Interference

Magic Interference

Universe: New Earth

Base of Operations:

Secret Sanctuary, Happy Harbor, Rhode Island

Catskill Mountain Hotel

Marital Status: Single

Occupation:

Student

Crime-fighter

Education: Elias School for Girls

First Appearance: Young Justice: The Secret#1 (June, 1998)

Last Appearance: Booster Gold Vol 2 #3 (December, 2007)

Powers

Warder Physiology: When Greta was killed by her brother, she was able to stay on the earthly plane as a warder, someone who guides spirits who have just died to the afterlife. She has an ethereal body with a unique power set.

Flight: As an ethereal being, Secret can levitate and fly through the air at will, although she seems to be able to allow herself to be subject to gravity.

Intangibility: Secret typically remains in an intangible state. Solid matter and some forms of energy have been able to pass through her body without causing her harm. Secret is, however, susceptible to electric and magic-based attacks, even though she is mostly intangible. Secret can actually make herself solid for up to a few minutes at a time, allowing her to physically interact with tangible matter.

Sublimation: Secret is visually comprised of a smoky, misty quasi-ethereal substance of unknown composition. She can turn her body partly or wholly into smoke. As smoke, Secret has complete control over herself, able to travel through the air as she desires. She can perceive her environment while in this smoke form, even though she often has no discernible eyes or ears or whatnot. She has forced her gaseous body into the air passageways of enemies to disallow them to breathe, making them pass out.

Smoke Construct Creation: Much like how she can make her normal-looking body solid for brief periods of time, Secret can make the smoke she produces/becomes form into solid constructs. She has made a cage before, and she has used her smoke to throw enemies and catch falling allies.

Metamorphosis: Secret can alter her form to look like whatever she wishes. She still retains the same color scheme, but the shape can be changed to make her look like other things. One of her favorite alternatives to her human form is a dragon-like monster with fangs and claws, but she has altered her appearance in other ways as well. Much like her normal form, Secret seems to be able to make herself solid while in these other shapes as well.

Superhuman Strength: When Secret shape-shifts parts of her body into shapes that give her strength. For example, she has shape-shifted her fists into large, stone-hard fists that were able to greatly crack the concrete she punched.

Superhuman Durability: Secret can shape-shift parts of her body into a denser form. She has once turned her hands into a wall to protect her teammate from danger.

Size Alteration: While altering her appearance, Secret can make herself larger than her standard human size. Her dragon-like monster form tends to be a quite large, and she has transformed herself to look like a several-stories-tall version of a certain politician.

Teleportation: Secret has the ability to "smoke jump," as she calls it. Using this ability, she can teleport herself and/or others in a puff of smoke. She has been able to travel considerable distances with her smoke jumps.

Dimensional Travel: In addition to her ability to teleport, Secret has the ability to bring others into a pocket dimension that only she has been shown to be able to access. Calling this place "the Abyss," Secret has brought in friends into her dimension to protect them from danger, and she has pulled enemies within the Abyss as a form of confinement. Inside the Abyss is pure darkness, unless Secret herself appears to communicate with her prisoners. The Abyss is somehow inside of Secret, part of her being.

Fear Projection: The pocket dimension known as the Abyss has the innate ability to create fear and other negative feelings within the people inside. She has accidentally almost traumatized her friends when she briefly pulled them inside to protect them, but she has also intentionally used this ability to scare enemies.

Magic/Supernatural Sense: Secret was able to detect the magical energy signature of Klarion and track him down. Furthermore, she can also see spectral entities that usually cannot be seen.

Death Sense: Secret can sense when death is about to happen, and she can sense when death has just occurred.

Self-Sustenance: Secret does not appear to require food, water or oxygen, claiming she "Missed the sensation of hunger", although she has been sleeping at times.

Clairvoyance: By turning into smoke and entering the body of the dying Kathy Sutton through her air passageways, Secret was able to "mingle" in a sense with Kathy's soul, which was preparing to leave and enter the afterlife. While the experience seemed like a dream, Secret was able to coax Kathy into staying among the living. Secret could presumably do this for others if she had the time and the person in question likewise had the realistic potential to stabilize.

Possession: By forcing herself into the air passageways of someone, Secret was able to control that person's body. Not only was she able to control the person's movements, she was able to speak through the person and was able to access that person's metahuman powers.

Weaknesses

Electromagnetic Interference

Magic Interference

History

The hero known as Secret was once an ordinary girl named Greta Hayes. She was murdered by her adoptive brother, Billy, who would later become the supervillain known as Harm. Because of the manner of her death, Greta remained stuck on this plane of existence, a gateway between the living and the dead.

In her first appearance, Secret was being held against her will by the DEO. Robin, Impulse, and Superboy helped her to escape, and were able to convince her to join their crimefighting team, "Young Justice," at the same time as Wonder Girl and Arrowette. Being incorporeal, Secret is able to take on a variety of appearances, and is referred to as "the mist girl" or "the bottle girl" by the various agents who pursue her throughout her career.

Her brother Billy assumed the villainous identity of Harm and attacked Young Justice, but died when his own father shot him. Billy returned during the events of "Day of Judgment," when the entirety of Hell had been evacuated. He again battled the team, using the substance of Secret.

Before her real name was known, Secret was often referred to as Suzie. Secret became good friends with the two girls, and was often portrayed as shy. For awhile she nursed a crush on Robin, and often defended his actions and followed his leadership unquestioningly. She also often expressed jealousy of Spoiler, Robin's girlfriend, to the point where the pair of them once had a full out battle across Gotham City, only stopped by the combined efforts of both Red Tornado and Robin.

During the Sins of Youth event, a temporarily adult Secret, with the aid of Deadman, chased down Klarion the Witch Boy's cat familiar Teekl, as Klarion had been overtly threatening them. Surprising her age-altered friends, she caused Klarion to back down by threatening to kill Teekl. When undoing everything he had done, Klarion insisted that it was everyone or nothing. Secret didn't want to change back to a kid, but was persuaded to by Robin, who promised to always be there for her. As predicted by Merry Pemberton, this would later cause many problems. Secret would even go so far as to physically threaten Spoiler.

At one point Hal Jordan, the Spectre, tried to mentor Secret. During this time, she visited her father in jail. Under the mental influence of "Billy," her father rejected her, leaving her more despondent than before.

Secret eventually gave in to the darkness in her nature at the behest of Darkseid, whom she mistakenly referred to as "Doug Side." During her time on Apokolips, Billy possessing her father, launched the body into one of the firepits, killing them both. Although Hal Jordan offered to step in and save Greta, as well as the world, the current Young Justice team advisor, Snapper Carr, rejected the offer, preferring that the kids use Secret turning evil as a "learning experience." Robin was eventually able to talk her down by himself. Towards the end of Young Justice, a disgusted Darkseid stripped Greta of her powers, and left her an ordinary, living girl, which was, ironically, just what she had always wanted to be.

Greta now attends the Saint Elias School for Girls, with schoolmates Cassie Sandsmark and Cissie King-Jones.

#secret #greta hayes #suzie #Young Justice #dc #DC comics #thedcdunce

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directorscutandsomeotherstuff · 8 years ago

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Jessie, City Of.

(I am vengeance... I am the night... actually, I’m neither of those things. This is Director’s Cut, the segment where we take old fanfictions from way back in the day, descend on them with our parachute capes, and take them out with kung fu and stuff because we’re soooo cool, you guys. And speaking of capes, let’s talk Batman.)

(I have boring tastes in comic book superheroes, in that I gravitate towards the one guy in the super team who has no powers to speak of. And the reason why isn’t really all that complicated: it all sort of boils down to what makes for compelling conflict. When Johnny Nobody finds himself face to face with Captain Burnyourface, and his standard tactic of giving his enemy a quick kick in the nuts fails him, he’s gotta find some other way of coming out on top, possibly by using his big boy superhero brain to solve the problem with problem solving. When Punchguy finds himself face to face with The Iron Septum, who thwarts his usual tack of punching guys in the nose, Punchguy’s usual answer to that problem boils down to “punch him in the nose again, but this time a little more.” Or he’ll use his big boy superhero brain to make it easier, for when he eventually gets around to punching him in the nose again. Either way, if Punchguy goes an issue without punching a guy, the writers go on strike.)

(All this torturous oversimplification of what is surely somebody else’s wheelhouse aside, Batman’s pretty popular. Obviously. Which leads us to tonight’s offering by an author by the name of The Raven Dark Angel. No, I did not just pull four random words off of the Evanescence discography, and I’m insulted you’d think that. Their entry into the venerable Batman series is called Jessie, City Of. I have no idea what that means. Let’s find out together, shall we?)

The usual disclaimer....enjoy this story. (The author disclaims all legal responsibility from you enjoying this story.) Reviews please...

Jessica and her father stood, side by side, on a rooftop, staring down at the glittering city of Gotham, keeping their silent vigil on the city. Father and daughter stood side by side. Vampire and Slayer stood side by side. (Cats and Dogs stood side by side. Tax accountants and Burlesque dancers stood side by side. Never before had Gotham seen such a display of side-standing solidarity.)

Angel cast a sidelong glance at his daughter, the only light of his life since Buffy Summers, the Vampire Slayer. (What?) His lover. (Wait... what?) Vividly, he could remember the scent of her hair, vanilla tinged with a light raspberry. Buffy had always smelt good. (Fuck. Hold on. I could have sworn this was filed under “Batman.” I wasn’t ready to talk about...) But now, she was gone, and Buffy had left him one reason to live on still. His daughter. Jessica Summers. (No, I checked. This is a Batman fanfic. I don’t...) His baby girl. The wind ruffled her silky blonde hair, tinged with the slightest bit of brown. Her duster flapped at her feet, like his had always done. (At least, like it had always done once he finally bought dusters that could be pushed around by the wind?)

Staring out into the horizon, Angel was pleasantly surprised that the city had changed. Drastically. Human technology had developed fast. Tall, modern buildings stood proud in the place of old ones. Hovercars and the like had taken place of normal cars. (Hover... so is this a Batman Beyond fic? Did Batman Beyond ever crossover with Buffy the Vampire...) Computers had taken place instead of books. But evil still lives on. The evil Jessie had to slay. To fight to the death with. And the battle between good and evil would go on, fighting endlessly for

eternity. (And now there’s awkward line breaks in the middle of sentences... what is happening?!) As the evil vampire Angelus, he had known what the evil ones felt, breaking down

the barrier between the Otherworld and the real world. He had reveled in the exquisite

beauty of chaos, the sweetness of pure, living, breathing, evil. His demonic side had sung

with joy as he had unleashed the vile evil to seep into the world. (Specifically, they sang fifties pop hits, the evilest and most demonic of all music.) And Buffy had killed him.

Shoved a sword to his abdomen and sent him straight to Hell to suffer. And suffer he did. He

had suffered in in fiery pits of Hell for five hundred Earth years, then, by some unseen

force, he had been sent back. (From Hell. Which he was sent to. By Buffy. With a sword. That she wielded. Ostensibly with her fingers...) Sent back to the world to be tormented yet again, this time,

in spirit. To have Buffy, and yet not to have her...for the love of Buffy, he would gladly

go to Hell for eternity. What was an eternity of Hell compared to a single precious moment

in her arms? (So, was Buffy a good girlfriend or what? She apparently killed you, so...)

But she had died, and part of his soul had gone with her to Paradise, to live there with

her forever. But his soul lived on. Buffy wasn't gone from his life. No. Not yet. Part of

her lived on in Angel. Her memories. Buffy's undying love for both him and their daughter. (WHY WAS THIS SUBMITTED AS A BATMAN FANFIC OH MY FUCKING GO-)

His undying love for his daughter. For Jessie, he thought, as he looked on at her almost

angelic face. I would kill. I would kill for her. Being a parent was like that. Being the

father of the Slayer was like that. (Particularly if the Slayer decided to bring home that no good neighborhood boy with the leather jacket and the beat up Camaro. Bad news, that one...) And in fact, Angel had killed for her. He had murdered

those who had tried to take her life. He had tortured those who had a part in taking away

her precious life. Now, he realized. Buffy's memories had stayed with him, but she was gone. (Buffy’s memories of grisly sword murder would forever paint Angel’s opinions on fatherhood, somehow. Despite the fact he was a demon who did evil things? Look, I’m sorry guys. I don’t know shit about Buffy, okay?)

But nothing had hurt more than a horrifying thought. The memories would fade. Slowly, but

surely.

A cold tear ran its way down his cheek. Jessie looked over, and saw it. Slipping her arm

into her father's cold one, she tugged at him gently. "Let's go home, dad."

**************************

Batman had caught sight of two people on a rooftop, not far from where he now stood. (Fuck! There! Good! Batman’s here. For a second, I thought I was going nuts.) One

was a blonde haired girl, and the other was a darkly handsome young man. (In fact, Batman thought, he was actually a bit of a hottie.) His advanced night

vision had told him that they both of them looked no older than twenty. Yet, the male stood

with a quiet confidence, both hands in his duster, gazing out into the city, as if guarding

the city. Although the man looked no older than him, the stance he had stood, the manner in

which he stared out, showed a long time of existence. (As everyone knows, you only learn to stand confidently with your hands in your pockets when you hit the age of thirty five and complete your bachelor’s degree in “Standing Around.”)

The girl, on the other hand, was no older than him, but she was dressed in a tight red

satin tank top and black miniskirt. (Which was unusual. Batman was used to seeing twenty something year old men wearing black miniskirts all the time.) A silver cross hung at her neck in choker style, and she

wore an almost identical black duster to the guy. Maybe they were an item or something, he

thought to himself.

"Gotta go," he said softly as he caught sight of a mugging near an alley. (The two love birds having a brood in his territory were really not all that important, in hindsight. Batman liked wasting time on patrol.)

********************************

That night, when Terry had finished his "patrol" of the city, (Holy crap, it is a Batman Beyond fanfiction! I guess the “usual disclaimer” includes a clause by default detailing the fact that the fanfic is a crossover Buffy/Batman Beyond situation. That’s the only reason I can think they didn’t bother mentioning that bit.) he entered Wayne Manor, a

house that he had come to know as his second home. Opening the door, he entered, almost

soundlessly. Antiques decorated the place, and yet, the room had seemed, alive or something. (Perhaps it was the spirit of the Necronomicon, Bruce Wayne’s most valuable antique, filling the place with the foreboding air that could only come from the colors out of space. Bruce called it a “conversation piece,” even though he never had guests over for whom conversation pieces would be necessary.)

Shaking his head, he entered the Batcave.

There was no sign of Bruce Wayne anywhere. He wasn't in his usual seat in front of the

Batcomputer. (Ever since Bruce downloaded The Sims on that thing, it’d been hard to get him out of the house.) Even Ace, the bloodhound who had made it perfectly clear that it didn't like

him whatsoever, wasn't there. The place was quiet.

Then, someone stepped out from the shadows. "Looking for Wayne?"

Whirling around, ready to fight, Terry demanded. "Who are you?"

The man had been the one that he had observed in the city earlier that evening, and Terry

was surprised that he had found the man there. At Bruce's place. And Bruce was missing. (Have I labored the point home, enough? I really need to drive the point home that a catastrophic security breach at a superhero’s secret base is serious business.)

"Where is Bruce?" Terry growled, worry and anger flashing in his eyes.

Before the handsome man could say anything, (with his devilishly handsome man lips,) Bruce hobbled down the staircase, flanked by

the girl he had seen. Behind them trailed Ace.

"Let go of my relative, McGinnis." Bruce's tone was sharp. Ace backed up his master's tone with a low growl.

Terry gasped in surprise. "He's your relative?"

The man smiled slightly, his soulful eyes gleaming gently. "Yeah."

The girl had taken off her duster and was now clad in only her top and skirt. Still, she looked fabulous. (Terry tried not to stare at the barefoot woman running around with no underwear.)

The girl shrugged. "And he's my father."

Terry gulped. "Father? But-"

"I'm a vampire." Angel told him. "Meet my daughter. Jessie."

Jessie shot Angel a pointed look, but said nothing.

Terry was stumped. He didn't know what to say. A vampire? A vampire-chick?

"You a vamp too, Jessie?" he asked, careful not to hurt her feelings. (Trust me on this, kids. Calling a young lady a “vamp” is a sure-fire way to not insult women or make unfortunate insinuations in any way whatsoever. Don’t even bother looking it up. Trust your Uncle DC.)

She shook her head. "Nope. Perfect human." She had conveniently left out the part that she was the Slayer. (Primarily because she was certain Terry wouldn’t understand a lick of this Slayer business.)

Bruce waved his hand to the computer and the Batcave. "Angel, I think you'd better stay

down here during the day. And Terry, Jessie's going to your school tomorrow."

Terry shrugged, his eyes locking with Jessie's for a moment. "Okay." A look passed between the Chosen One and the Dark Knight. Girl to boy. Then, she looked away.

"Um, Bruce, dad, I think I'd better go upstairs now. Given with the school and all." Jessie said.

Her father nodded, a faint smile on his lips. "Sweet dreams, honey."

Bruce turned to Terry. "Terry, go show our guest her room."

Terry turned to Jessie. "Come on, let's go."

As they reached the staircase of the Wayne Manor, Jessie caught sight of the large windows. "Hey," she said, stopping suddenly. "Wait."

Going over to the windows, she slowly opened it. The night breeze was refreshing as she

leaned outwards. A happy feeling rose in her, and she thought the better of it. She went up

to the ledge and sat on it.

"Hey, Terry," she said, combing her blonde hair back. "The wind's great here. Wanna join me?"

Amused, he crossed over to the girl's side. "You sure are different." (Now, see, that right there’s a diplomatic way to call a girl crazy, if ever there was one. And he thought calling a girl “vamp” was subtle, the silly little...)

She chuckled, her laugh as gentle as the breeze that caressed him. "Thanks for the compliment. I'm not like any other girl you know," she said, a little wistfully.

He raised an eyebrow as he sat on the ledge opposite her. The shadows played across her

features like a slow, sensual dance as the wind ruffled her hair. (She had to bring up a hand to slap the shadows after they decided to make too bold a move for her rear end.) Her perfect mouth curled

up gently in a dreamy smile as she gazed outside. The surroundings were shrouded in darkness

that had sometimes unnerved him. But with Jessie there, the darkness seemed harmless. Unable

to touch him. (Of course, as the Batman, he worked in shadows, and therefore had no reason to be scared of them in the first place, but...)

"Tonight is peaceful, isn't it?" he asked softly, studying her profile. She suddenly had seemed sad.

She nodded. "Yeah." she paused, tears glimmering in her eyes. "Do you have a mom?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Why?"

"How does it feel like to be loved by a mother?" she asked. Terry hesitated. Jessie seemed

so sincere and child-like.

"It's...different." he told her. "You feel safe and secure in your mother's warm arms,

knowing she'd be there for you. Why?"

"I lost my mother when I was just born." Jessie answered bitterly. In fact, her mother was

brutally killed by a demon when she was in labor. And when her mother had finally given

birth to her, the monster had killed her mother with a blow. (Fuck me. They even managed to slip in Mary Sue tendencies, when I wasn’t looking. This isn’t a shell game, they’re playing. This is David Copperfield levels of misdirection.)

"But you have your father." he answered, trying to comfort her.

She smiled faintly. "But a father's different from a mother. So, what does your father do?"

He wrenched his next words out with a pained expression. "My father is dead."

Her smile faded. "Oh. I'm sorry." she said quietly, looking away.

(Bruce’s voice trailed up from the Batcave, loud and annoyed. “Yeah?” he shouted “Well I watched both of my parents get brutally murdered, so the two of you can shove it with your pity pissing contest! Fuck me, young people today got no perspective...”)

Terry looked at Jessie. This girl was very...different from the girls he had known. He

somehow, seemed to feel totally at ease with the girl. Just then, she looked up, into his

ice blue eyes. Something connected between them as aquamarine gazed at ice blue. (The love story between Aquamarine and Ice Blue was a tale of alien love that spanned the cosmos, but sadly theirs was a story only relegated to filler chapters in a limited run of the comics, making it relatively unknown except to the most rabid of fanboys.) Something

in her eyes told him that she understood his pain. The pain he had hidden deep down before.

The pain of losing a loved one. They both understood what each had to go through. Still,

Terry thought. Having a father was better than having none at all. Jessie's mother had died

before Jessie could even see her face, and that was much worse. At least, he could remember

what his father looked like. (And since Terry’s trauma was more serious, he concluded that he had won the angst competition. It was a satisfying victory.)

"Is Bruce your relative or something?" Jessie asked suddenly, breaking the moment.

He blinked. "Nope. He's my employer."

Jessie raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Boss? What do you do for him?"

He shrugged, not wanting to tell her the truth, (especially not after she’d literally been in the Batcave, and all,) but feeling bad that she was being so honest with him, yet he wasn't so honest. "Running errands."

"It's hard work."

He smiled slightly. "Well, it's my responsibility."

She grinned at him. "You sure are big on the responsibility thing."

"Oh? No one had ever said that to me before." he said, half-joking.

She smiled wanly. "I'm the first." It sounded like a question. Then, she leaned forward, and whispered. "You're Batman."

He drew back, shocked. How'd she know that? "What?"

She smiled, a little smugly. "I noticed."

(Terry looked down, sheepishly grinning when he realized he never actually took off the costume.) "Keep it a secret, okay? The more people who know that, the more chance of me being totally annihilated in my sleep."

She grinned. "Sure. If you could keep mine."

He smiled at her, amused. "Okay. It's a deal."

"Deal. Let's shake on it."

They both shook hands, but their hands were joined for a second too long. Jessie looked up, surprised, when he kissed her softly and quickly on the mouth. "Good night, Jessie."

She nodded, dazed and surprised. "Yeah. Good night, Terry. I'll see you tomorrow."

Unknown to them, a creature of the night stood watching in the deep darkness of the surroundings. As it turned to go away, it only whispered one word. "Die."

(It then marched off, dramatically singing “You will curse the day you did not do! All that the Phantom asked of you!” DAAAAAAAH! Duh-duh-duh-duh daaaaaaaaaah ba-dah!)

#fanfiction #fanfic #fanfic commentary #batman #buffy the vampire slayer #crossover #crossover?#i guess it's a crossover #vampire #batman beyond

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