Chapter Text
Possibly Asia, maybe China
Jason didn't know where they were, somewhere in Asia at his last check, China maybe.
He needed to get help, at the very least he needed someone to take a look at Damian. The kid had taken a knife to the gut during their last scuffle with the League of Assassins, and while Jason had managed to stop the bleeding and suture the wound shut, thank you first aid training and unguarded hospitals, the kid needed a real doctor. Something they couldn't stop for when the Shadows seemed to be right behind him.
He had barely slept since they escaped the League, only getting power naps when they were hiding in trains or in the backs of trucks. Despite that he had at least tried to get Damian to sleep on something approaching a real sleep schedule. He was pretty sure he had failed horribly, but he did put in a genuine effort.
And then there was the other kid. Jason wasn't sure how long he'd been dead, but it was evidently long enough for Superman to have a kid. The kid, Jon, said he was only six years old, so Jason was putting his time dead at around six years. What the hell Superman's six year old kid was doing in the middle of what may or may not be Asia Jason didn't know, neither did the kid. He said that someone had came to the house and did some weird magic and he had fallen through a portal just as his dad burst into the room. Luckily Jason had been passing by the field that Jon had been taken to and took the kid with him.
And so a child assassin, a half alien hybrid, and a zombie ran away from an army of ninjas.
Unfortunately it looked like they had to make a stand. The Shadows had gotten too close, and Jason was running out of steam. So he decided to make his stand in an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of whatever country this was. The three of them walked, well Jason carried Damian, into the basement. He sat Damian, who was still recovering from being stabbed two days ago, down against the wall on some blankets, that looked filthier than the floor, that Jon scrounged up. That done he turned to Jon, grabbing the kid by the shoulders.
“Ok, I'm going up there to fight the bad guys, Ok?” Something he had learned on this little trip: using simpler words around the kids helped. He wasn't going to kill their pursuers, he was going to fight bad guys. They were young, and responded better to simple ideas.
“Ok.” Jason was thankful that Clark had allowed his son to be kidnapped, as horrible as the very thought was, if only because it meant that he didn't have to leave Damian alone in this basement while he went and killed people.
“Now, I need you to stay here and protect Damian, can you do that?” Jon gave a small, if determined, nod. “Good. Anyone that isn't me comes down here I want you to hit them as hard as you can. Got it?” Another nod and Jason was off.
The door to the basement led into a small stairway, which led up to another door. As Jason climbed the stairs he heard something behind him. Putting his ear to the bottom door he heard the sounds of things scraping along the floor: Jon making a makeshift barricade. There was some heavy stuff in that room, including what looked like the remains of a small pipe organ, so the door should hold for a while. Smart kids.
Jason managed to find a key for the door at the top of the stairway, sitting on a nearby side table, so he locked the door. That should slow them down a bit, assuming they got past Jason, and right now every second he could buy was more precious than gold.
That done he hunted about, trying to find anything useful.
The battle was swift.
The kill squad was made up of five assassins, each fully armed and mentally prepared. Jason was using whatever it was he could salvage and had barely slept in over a week. Needless to say, Jason liked those odds.
The first assassin died when Jason threw a knife, that he had found in the kitchen, into his eye. A dive under a sword swing Jason reclaimed his knife, driving it into the back of the second assassin's knee, bringing them low so that Jason could drive a sword, taken from the corpse of the first assassin, into his back and through his heart. The third wasn't even a factor, because they had triggered the explosive he had planted on the basement door, conveniently taking out the fourth in the blast.
The fifth actually put up a fight, a fight that ended with Jason being kicked down the stairs and crashing into a wall. That done the assassin ignored him and started breaking down the door to the room the boys were in. Jason would have rose to stop him, but his right leg was bent at a funny angle. He suspected that would hurt like hell when the adrenaline ran out. Oh well, problems for later, right now he had an assassin to deal with.
Jon stared at the door, wishing with all his might that he had his dad's x-ray vision. There was a lot of noise upstairs, including what sounded like an explosion, and someone was trying to break the door down, and Jason wasn't there to help them!
Finally the door, as well as the stuff he had stacked in front of it, gave way, and one of the people that had been chasing them walked in. The man didn't even seem to notice Jon, walking towards Damian and saying something that Jon didn't understand. The man moved forward, clearly intending to take Damian, like Jason said they would.
“Now, I need you to stay here and protect Damian, can you do that?” Jason and Damian were relying on him, he couldn't let this man take Damian while he had a chance to stop them. Moving in front of the bad guy Jon stood as tall as he could, putting his hands on his hips like his dad did sometimes. The man simply chuckled at him.
“Stand aside.” The villain's voice was funny, an accent his mum had called it. Calling up all his strength Jon remained as he was, refusing to let the man take Damian. The man rolled his eyes, moving forward again. Just as the man reached him, clearly intending to shove him aside and take Damian, the villain stopping for a moment, before falling over.
Standing behind the man, leaning against a wall and holding his ribs, was Jason. Turning his eyes down Jon saw that there was a small knife buried into the man's neck. Before he could think about that any more, before he could think about the fact that Jason killed someone, Jason fell over, letting out a small groan. Forgetting that there was a dead guy on the floor, a dead guy that Jason had killed, Jon moved forward to help him. It didn't take long to carefully move Jason so that he was sitting next to Damian.
“Good job, kid. You protected him.” Jason muttered, leaning against the wall next to Damian. Jon smiled at that, he had protected someone, just like a hero would. With that he sat down on Jason's other side, waiting for him to get his breath back. They'd continue on in the morning.
Another place, at much the same time
Aizawa Shota, known to some as the underground hero Eraserhead, was in a bit of a bind. Literally, he was tied up and hanging from the ceiling from some chains. It wouldn't be long before he was free, he had called for backup just as things took a turn for the worst.
In the centre of the large warehouse the villain, a small time crook with a Quirk that let him open portals between places, stood in the middle of what looked like some kind of ritualistic circle, intricately drawn sigils and runes drawn in chalk. Oh great, cultists. As if this wasn't bad enough now he had to deal with cultists. The villain in the circle began speaking, raising his voice so that all the other villains, not that there were many, could hear him.
“My brother and sister, it is finally time. We shall call forth the Old Gods, and they shall cleanse this world of its so called heroes and usher forth a new dawn! And we shall be rewarded! We shall rule over this world! FOREVER!” Not just cultists, but crazy cultists. Why did he always have to deal with this sort of thing? Just for once he'd like to hear about Endeavour dealing with crazy cultists. Wait, no, that would end horribly.
“And now, I call upon the Old Gods!” Blue energy built in the leader's palms, held together in a vague ball shape between his hands. One of the others, a larger man with a Quirk that bolstered the power of other Quirks, shot a beam of red into the leader's back, making the blue ball turn purple and expand. The last of the cultists, a blonde female with an unknown Quirk, knelt down and touched the chalk circle, which seemed to make it light up in green lightning, causing the ball to change colours again. Finally the leader threw the ball, using absolutely horrid technique, at the ceiling above. The ceiling rippled with the energy, forming a gateway above them. Shota absently noticed that the leader moved away as the energy built to a crescendo and three figures fell out of it.
The tallest of the figures, favouring one leg, checked on the other two, before turning his attention to the cultists. The lead cultist walked closer, some generic praises on his lips, and knelt before the tallest of the apparent 'Old Gods'. The figure, a teen boy that had dark hair with a white streak, looked around for a moment before standing up straighter, or at least as straight as someone with what looked like a broken leg could stand, and looked down at the cultist.
“And who, pray tell, are you supposed to be?” The boy's Japanese was near flawless, his accent being the only thing to give him away.
“I am your humble servant, my Master.” From where he hanging, and seriously where was his backup, Shota could all but see the gears turning in the boy's head, a plan coming together. Finally he turned his attention upwards, at Shota himself.
“And who is that miserable creature?” Shota had to give credit, for a kid that was making this up as he went he was doing a good job of selling the act.
“A hero, he sought to stop your arrival.” Ok, that wasn't entirely true. He had sought to stop them from committing any more theft. They had stolen thousands in jewellery, probably to offer to their gods.
“Bring him to me. Your pathetic summons nearly killed me. I need to feed, so that I may recover.” With that the leader, or former leader if he was stepping down for his 'god', threw a portal ball at the chain holding him up, severing the connection and making him fall. Luckily he wasn't too far up. At the boy's signal he was released from his chains and thrown to his feet before the apparent 'god', who lifted him up by his collar and pulled him close.
“The kid needs a hospital, he took a knife to the gut, something that falling from the ceiling probably didn't help with. I'm in no condition to fight, so I hope you can handle these guys.” He whispered. A moment of thought, quickly working out the order he would have to take them out, and he nodded. It didn't take long, without the element of surprise it was easy to deal with the three, before he was turning back to the boy, who was sitting on a nearby packing crate. He opened his mouth to ask who he was but was cut off.
“I have a broken leg, a head wound, what feels like a cracked rib, and I haven't slept in a week and a half. Right now I am holding myself up by sheer force of will, but that won't last. The kids are malnourished, we could barely stop for a snack these past few days, and the one on the floor took a knife to the gut, I did the best I could but he should get that checked.” The boy, who was looking a little pale, half rambled. Kneeling down a bit Shota looked at his eyes. He seemed unfocused, barely hanging on. The kids looked worried, the boy looked like he was about to fall over, and Shota wasn't sure what he'd do because the cultists took his phone and he couldn't leave them while he went and looked for it.
That was, of course, when Hizashi blew up the far wall.
Shota was in the hospital, waiting for the boy to wake up.
The younger boy didn't speak Japanese, and didn't look like he was in the mood for conversation even if they got a translator in, the older was asleep in his bed, having eaten some soup that the doctors has forced on them both before he was allowed to sleep, and the boy with the white streak in his hair had fallen into unconsciousness on the trip to the hospital, and as such there wasn't anyone to answer questions about where they were from.
It was as he was talking to some police, just finalising the details about the cultists before he sent in his official report, that it happened. From where he was, just around the corner from the boys, he saw a few doctors and nurses go running past. Following them, the police officers right behind him, revealed the empty bed of the oldest boy.
Following a hunch Shota walked down to the next room, where the younger two were, and found the older boy, half concussed and with his leg in a cast, crawling into an empty bed, the other two boys curled up together in the other.