Growing Pains

[Batman POV]

“Were you able to identify anything about it?” Batman demanded.

The man dressed as a stage magician huffed and ran a hand through his hair. “You know this isn’t really my area of expertise, right? I focus mostly on my family’s branch of magic. You’d get better luck talking to an enchanter or someone like Dr. Fate.”

“Fate is offworld at the moment. And I’ve checked with three others already.” The fact Batman was still compiling a list of other magic users skilled enough to help wasn’t mentioned.

“Right,” Zatara huffed again. “Well I don’t know what I could tell you about this that they couldn’t but it’s a magical bronze mirror with a beaten silver face. Heavily enchanted.”

Batman knew that before he even went looking for subject experts. Unfortunately, despite his expectations the last three hadn’t been able to tell him anything more. “What else?”

“It’s some sort of gateway or portal. I’m not really familiar with how it works but I do recognize a bit of the style. Old Greek. That’s all I can tell you.” Zatara seemed regretful about that but Batman was glad to have another avenue to investigate. Having a specific region to investigate was much more manageable than trying to sift through every discipline on the planet.

-o-

“How’s the search going, Bruce?”

“I’m shifting through thousands of historical records and myths for any mention of a mirror matching the description of the one we found. It’s taking a while.” Batman sighed, rubbed at his tired eyes and turned to face his visitor. “What are you doing here, Clark?”

“Checking in. The League is hunting down leads but no one has heard from you in a week.” Clark was hovering there in his hero costume, arms crossed and a disapproving look on his face.

“I’ve been busy.”

“Looking for a way to get Califa back, we know. Everyone is pitching in.” Clark said. “But working yourself into the ground isn’t going to help anybody.”

“I’ve been taking breaks.”

“I wouldn’t call heading out into the city to deal with several criminals every night taking a break, Master Bruce. Some proper sleep would do some good.” Alfred, his ever loyal butler commented as he deposited a glass of water nearby and began collecting the empty or forgotten coffee cups. “And would our guest care for a drink? Coffee, tea?”

Clark smiled. “No thanks Alfred, I’m good.”

Batman resisted the urge to sigh again and locked down the computer. With both Clark and Alfred teaming up on him, he was unlikely to get back to work anytime soon.

And while he appreciated the two of them caring about his health, he couldn’t bring himself to rest until he knew what happened to Califa. The image of the Saiyan child vanishing in a flash of silver had haunted what little sleep he managed since the incident. It was only after meeting with Zatara and learning that she had likely been transported somewhere instead of being vaporized that he had managed to get back to something close to his normal schedule.

“But really, Bruce, you can take a break. We have people looking. We’ll get her back.”

“I can’t. I’m meeting Diana about a possible lead in a few hours. I’ll need to leave soon to make that.”

Annoyingly, Clark just smiled. “Great, just let me know where we’re going and hop in the Batjet. You can catch some sleep on the way there.”

The sigh Batman was holding back broke free, because with Clark tagging along Batman would have to sleep instead of working through the flight like he planned. If he didn’t Alfred would know and he wouldn’t hear the end of it for a few days.

“...fine.”

He just hoped wherever Califa was sent was safe enough she could survive until they found her.

-o-

[Califa POV]

“Anytime now Donna!”

“I’m working on it!”

“Hurry up!”

“Just wait a bit!”

I gaped at the audacity of that, which turned out to be a mistake. Because of course the second my mouth was open for more than a second was when the hydra head in the process of trying to eat me decided to breathe out…

“Ghhaaakch that reeks!” I gagged. “And I don’t have a bit, it’s trying to EAT ME!”

I heard a crash and the world shook and spun as the hydra went flying but not enough to dislodge me.

There was a wet tearing sound and then the jaws that had been in the process of trying to crush me slackened, allowing me to wriggle out of the hydra’s mouth and look around a bit.

Donna was hovering over the stump of the neck she had just ripped off. A stump that was starting to wriggle and grow. I put a stop to that with a Ki beam and waited to see what happened. This was the fifth time we did this, but it was the first time the hydra didn’t have any heads left. And it was clearly alive if it was trying to regrow more heads even then.

I didn’t have to worry though, because after about a minute the body just kinda tipped over.

Guess we won…woo…

Ugh, I couldn’t even pretend to be excited. I was covered in gross lizard saliva.

“You okay, Califa?”

I glared at the Amazon, who was still keeping a good distance between us.

“What do you think?”

“I mean, you didn’t have to fly into its mouth. We could’ve figured out another way to stop it from breathing poison.”

I scowled at her because at the time neither of us had the time to think of anything better, so I solved it by following my gut - physically holding the little flap that allowed the hydra to breathe a kind of poisonous mist closed while Donna ripped the head off. Also because every stupid monster in here seemed to breathe or have poison all of a sudden.

“But more seriously, are you okay? You didn’t breathe in any poison?”

I shrugged and rolled my shoulders a bit. “Nah, I feel fine. A little tired but fine to keep going.”

“Good. I think we are getting close to the end. I can’t imagine many things more dangerous than a hydra. Well, things that would be found in a small underground labyrinth anyway.”

“I hope so, I’m starving.” Even if I apparently didn’t need to eat in this weird place it didn’t stop me from wanting to. Which, now that I thought about it, must have been horrible for Donna.

I was holding off judging Wonder Woman until we got out because leaving someone trapped in a mirror didn’t seem like something she should do, but if she did abandon Donna here and just kinda forgot about her…I was going to help Donna beat her up.

“Nothing to do but keep moving forward then. I’m going first though - you kinda…smell.”

My eyebrow twitched.

Or maybe I would help Wonder Woman beat up Donna instead.

-o-

To my surprise, the next room we found didn’t have a monster for us to fight.

Instead we found something that looked a lot like one of the temples on Themyscira. If someone had emptied one of them out of everything including any reference to the god it was supposed to be honoring anyway.

“Oh, we found a rest area.” Donna commented, looking around interestedly but completely unsurprised.

“You know what this place is?”

“Kind of? Diana and I found them a few times when we got lost on the upper floors. They’re spaces that have useful tools for recovery. Things to make medicines or treat injuries, things to fix clothing or armor, and some other stuff that we needed to learn to do on our own. But I’m glad we found one because there is one room we desperately needed right about now.”

“A kitchen?” I asked hopefully.

She snorted. “No, a bath!” She replied, not hesitating a moment to crush my dreams. “And maybe the sewing room. Gods know we could both use a new outfit.”

I shrugged at that, not really caring beyond getting something that didn’t stink like hydra breath. But finding something that wasn’t covered in blood and grime would be nice too.

Would still have preferred a kitchen instead though.

Grumbling aside, the bath was actually pretty nice. It was more like a small swimming pool than a tub, which meant both of us could clean the smell from our last fight off us without waiting for the other person.

Donna took way longer than me though, since she actually wanted to use the little jars of oils we found instead of just getting clean. I didn’t complain though. After a quick check of the area I found there wasn’t exactly much to do here so I decided to just lounge in the water while she did her thing.

“So what do you think we’ll fight next?” I asked after it looked like we weren’t going anywhere for a while.

“I have no idea.” Donna muttered. “The last few monsters we faced were far more deadly than I would have thought we’d be allowed to face. This was supposed to be a training tool, not a death pit filled with things straight out of Tartarus.”

I perked up at that.

“Ooh, do you think we’ll find a cyclops in here? Those were supposed to be in Tartarus, and I heard they were pretty strong.”

“Gods, I hope not. At this point I just want to get to the end so we can leave and see the sun again. It’s not natural to spend this much time underground.”

I just hummed idly at that, making a mental note not to take Donna with me when I went to visit Mars. I was pretty sure that most of the inhabited areas were either underground or in a canyon or cavern or something like that. If just spending a day underground was getting to her, she probably wouldn’t enjoy sightseeing there.

Of course I could be wrong.

I’d have to talk to Martian Manhunter about it later.

The two of us finished with the bath and went digging through the rooms where we eventually found a sewing room complete with a bunch of extra fabric and what looked like basic half-finished clothes.

I would have been fine with that but Donna had higher standards and took the time to not only finish the outfits, but even made alterations to mine so my tail would fit through comfortably. By the end of it the both of us were in some comfortable close fitting pants and sleeveless shirts. Her in a nice red color and mine in a dark blue that was suspiciously close to the underlayer of my Sayian armor but not as durable or form fitting.

I tugged at part of my pant leg and was disappointed to find the material wasn’t nearly as stretchy as my other clothes either when I saw Donna gathering up the scraps of our other clothes.

“What are you going to do with those?”

“I’m going to burn them.”

I blinked at that. I hadn’t really pegged her as a pyromaniac so there was probably a reason I was missing.

“Why? Is that some kind of ritual or prayer I don’t know about?”

She stopped and stared at me. “Califa…these reek. I’m going to do the world a favor and purge them with fire.”

…okay then…

I really didn’t like the look in her eyes. It somehow looked both completely hollow and somewhat crazed. I also got the feeling that she might snap if I told her the smell wasn’t that bad, though that might just be because I was completely nose blind at this point.

I very carefully looked away and let her go about her business.