The Darkest of Knights

Karmy sat curled up against the wall, Casey's bag still clutched tight in her stinging hands. She watched the battle, trying her best to keep her mouth shut so she wouldn't open anymore portals. A small "Eeep" escaped her lips when Mr. Freeze started to approach her. Even though she wasn't too scared of him, Karmy's 5 year old mind could at least comprehend that she was in danger right now. So, reaching into Casey's bag, she did what any 5 year old would do. She pulled out a can of silly string, aimed it at Mr. Freeze's helmet visor, yelled "Thranger danger!" and sprayed it in the face.

Zero flitted about, panicking as soon as Batgirl and Karmy vanished. "What we do, what we gonna do!?!" He said, freaking out. "What we gonna DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!?!" With that last freak, a pulse of red light shot out of his body, returning everyone back to their full-grown selves. Needless to say, with his normal wings and body now, Zero sailed face first into a wall, and Cyrah became heavy enough that she fell off the fridge.

Slade was in thought. Oh yes, there was no doubt he could do the job- he faced the previous batgirl a few years ago, he could certaintly handle this one. But therein was a different question; this was a whole new breed of Bat he was facing. They were NEVER alone anymore. Even Batman, once the Robin that frothed at the mouth to hunt him down alone, didn't face him without a full squad to back him up last time.

He had to get Bet girl alone, but........ how? He snapped out of this mental tangent and turned to Thorne. "Yes, I'll take the job...." He said, still pondering just how thew heck he was going to go about this.....

"Huh, that time of year already..." Cassius said, clearly in deep thought as he scoured the house.

"What the heck just happened?!" Ivy blinked, vaguely recalling what happened when she was a child. She noticed the ice vase, I used to that when I was little... she thought, melting the ice off. "When I was little....." The realization came swiftly and shockingly, just as the rest of the memories did.

"Somebody please tell me it was a dream, we were not kids, and Batgirl didn't just fall through a portal." She muttered halfheartedly, they'd better go help Batgirl soon.

Mr. Freeze wiped the silly string off his face. "Believe me," Mr. Freeze said grabbing Karmy by her shirt collar, "this is just the tip of the iceberg." He coiled his gun back to its rightful position and aimed it at Karmy's head. "No!" Batgirl cried as she got up and ran over to Freeze and grabbed Karmy out of the way and out of Freeze's grip, she landed on the floor as Freeze recovered from the attack.

Karmy opened her eyes to find that she was back to normal, well, as normal as Karmy could get. "Thweetnethh!" she slapped herself in the face, "I mean sweetness!" she jumped up with a cheer. "How did I get here?" she looked around and saw Barbara. "Oh yeah.. uh." before she could talk, she remembered Mr. Freeze. " well crap.."

Batgirl looked up at Karmy, a sigh of relief found her, "Karmy get us outta here pronto!" Batgirl ordered as Mr. Freeze charged his gun again. "Its going to get COLD in here!" He said. "That one doesn't even make sense!"
"Shut up!"

Karmy looked down at her busted hands and back at Batgirl. "Even if I could, I wouldn't leave you to fight this creep!" she shouted and reached into her bag and pulled out a burlap sack. Running up behind Mr. Freeze, she jumped on top of him and shoved the bag over his head. "Look whos snow blind now!" she tried out her own cheesy pun. Fail

Somewhere, somehow, Zero sould sense enough bad puns that would make Adam west green with envy. And that meant a fight was going down somewhere. He pressed the button on his headpeice as he got up. "Hey, Batgirl, Karmy, everything ok? Where are you two?" He asked.

"Its Freeze!" Batgirl said through her communicator, dodging a blast from Mr. Freeze, though he successfully froze a bush and tree. He dropped his gun and grabbed Karmy behind him, he then had a firm grasp of her and threw her across the ice riddled streets.

Karmy landed hard on her back and slid to a stop into a wall. "Dammit." she hissed and looked down at her hand. The cold was making them shake even more but they had stopped bleeding for the moment. She looked back at the battle and tried to think of something to do- "Oh right!" she reached into her bag, pulled out a bat, clicked her tongue and portaled above Mr. Freeze. As she fell, she swung the wooden bat right at his head.

Mr. Freeze took the hit to the head, a small crack went into the plexiglass dome, immediately, he grabbed onto Karmy's shirt as she was still in midair and flung her to the hard cold floor. Batgirl threw several Batarangs at Mr. Freeze who knocked those away and shot a powershot at Batgirl, she landed on her back encased in a thin film of ice. Breaking it away she called to Karmy, "Hey are you alright?!"

"Go on, lead the way!" Batman pressured The Red Queen, his daughter still in his arms.

"Can't we track her from the communicator?" Ivy inquired, taking her communicator out as she said so. A few seconds of scattered typing got her a lock on Karmy and Batgirl's location. "Got 'em. Let's go!"
---
Astro hovered for a few moments, before hearing an insane ruckus. Lowering himself closer to Gotham's grounds, he saw Batgirl and Karm, though they may not have seen him. If they did, he was a mere shimmer of light. That didn't matter at the moment, they need help. he realized. If he was going to start apologizing for being on the wrong side, now was a good start.

A weak chi blast went soaring towards Mr.Freeze.

"I'm alright.." Karmy staggered up, ignoring the searing pain in her back and hands. Reaching into her bag again she withdrew a spray can and a flare. "We're getting into the heat of battle now." she ran behind Freeze, lit the flare, and fired at him

Batman shot his hand through one of the bars and clasped his hands around her neck squeezing firmly, in his other arm Robin lay quiet. Batman drew The Red Queen in so fast her head rattled against the bars. "Wanna try anything else?" He asked. "Cassius, take down bars." He said still keeping a tight grip on her.

Mr. Freeze was being attacked from left and right, too much, he couldn't even recognize which attacks were coming from where. He pulled out a small device, "Time for all of you to freeze." He punned. Yes; punned. He crouched down and a flash coated the entire streets with a large coat of ice, when they came to, Mr. Freeze was gone. "Aw sh*t! He got away..." She seethed walking over to ground zero to investigate. "Hey what's... This?" She asked picking up the discarded device. It looked like an egg, grenade-like.

"Hell if I know." Karmy walked up to Barbara, shaking from head to toe. The damn ice had soaked her clothes which, unlike everyone else uniforms, weren't exactly specially made to be thermal or anything. "Didn't know Frosty could lay eggs." she leaned forward to examine it closer.

With further inspection Batgirl noticed what it was and she laughed at Karmy's comment. "Ha ha, its a grenade!" She laughed. "I'm sure Alice would like to add that into her collection if we figure out how it works." Batgirl speculated looking at it a bit more. "Hey speaking of, we should get back; if you turned back to normal I want to know if everyone else did too." Batgirl said with concern. "Plus let's get out of here before the sun comes up." They looked at the skyline, the sun was peeking at the edges. The rest of the sky turning a purplish-gray.

Batman squeezed harder. "You do anything to piss me off I'll snap your neck, you hear me? You play with me, you f*ck up my daughter, I will kill you hear me?! I. Will. Kill you!" He threatened. Batman was not in the mood for joking, and he was completely serious, he could get Cassius to knock over the bars and save the antidote if she did destroy it. He was ready to kill. This was his daughter and possibly one of the few things keeping his sanity; if she died he himself would snap like a twig.

(O_o... Yeah, I don't like Dick.)

"Ha yeah, she'll totally love it!" Karmy laughed as they headed back to the mansion. She kept her shaking hands close to her body. "Man I really do hope they're back to normal, I can't snap my fingers with my hands like this." she winced as the wind blew over them and caused them to sting more. "Gah dammit... So uh... You're child?" she looked questionably over to Batgirl.

Batgirl snapped her head to Karmy and slowly took off her mask—it gave the same feel one would give when taking off their glasses. Narrowing her eyes at her and looking at her suspiciously, she said "Uhm... lets not ever talk about this to anyone. Ever." She put her cowl back on. "Plus; you were a cute little child, how could I not take care of you?"

Batman released The Red Queen. "No tricks Queen, we have to get back to our business. Make it quick and I promise you only two life time services in Arkham." Batman said plainly.

Karmy tensed up slightly. "Oh wow.. Cathey- I mean Casey used to say that all the time." she remembered sadly. For some reason, she no longer felt any resentment towards Barbara anymore, well she knew the reason, and now she felt guilty. Now it was time to stop acting childish and be an adult "Hey Barbara, I'm uh.. Sorry for the way I've been acting towards you." she said shyly. "I guess I was just like, yeah.."

"Oh don't worry about it Karmy, I just don't want anyone to get hurt really; and I know Alice would have been upset with me if I hadn't." She said trying to justify herself, though she did want to make sure she wasn't seriously injured. "So Cathey is your brother? Arh—look what you have me doing! I mean Casey is your brother?"

"Yeah." Karmy said shifting his bag slightly on her should. "This is his bag actually. Its.." she looked down at the old thing, though over the years, it never became worn or faded. It was still the same bright olive green color when Casey had it. "Special. I'm surprised Alice hasn't told any of this."

"She mentioned it once." Batgirl said pacing a little faster, wanting to get back to the batcave before the sun came up. "I remember. She said your bag belonged to him, we were having coffee in Bruce's Study. Also talked about your past a bit. Nothing too revealing." She smirked. "Hey you're really cold, its like 51º out right now." Batgirl said. She knew how cold each degree would sound individually. She had been trained and gifted with a photographic memory and a detective sense of noticing her surroundings. "I can't be waltzing around in this costume... unless you want to break in a coat store and I can leave the pay on the counter." she continued to muse.

"Oh pffttt! Nah I'm fine." Karmy waved her off. "I've been through worse, like this one time I was trying to portal to Sydney when I accidentally portaled to Antarctica! It was like, instant pneumonia and hypothermia." she hid her shaking hands behind her back. "Oh! But you know something that would warm me up? Coffee!" she had hoped that Alice had kept her mouth shut about that.

Unfortunately Alice knew that Barbara and Karmy meeting was inevitable and had warned her about all the dangers about Karmy and Coffee. "Uhh nah, lets go for some tea." Batgirl suggested.

"Here, drink up..." Batman said compassionately to Robin as he put the antidote to her lips. The huge contrast in his tone was completely different from how he dealt with The Red Queen, he glared at her. Suddenly several of The Red Queen's guards came crashing through the room. Explosives flew out of the opposite room. What was going on?

(Damn XD!)

Karmy thought about it for a moment, considering all the different teas that could give her a similar caffeine rush that coffee gave her. She needed another rush.. "Sure! Black tea should... Warm me up just fine." she grinned and pulled out gauze and medical tape to wrap her hands. "Where were you thinking of going? You're more geographically inclined here than I am." she asked as she patched herself up.