Growing Pains Novel Growing Pains - Chapter 50

With all the Gordanians unconscious on the floor there wasn’t actually a whole lot for Hawkie and her partner to actually do. Especially once Hawkman followed Alie off to her lab to secure whatever was still in there, leaving

and Hawkie alone so she could help patch up my injuries now that the fighting was over.

“Ow!”

“Quit squirming, kid.” Hawkie muttered as she tried dabbing sothing on my face again. “We don’t want any of these getting infected.”

“Why’s it gotta sting though!?” I complained, though it fell on deaf ears.

“Maybe next ti block with sothing other than your face then.”

I scowled at her uncaring criticism but at the sa ti, I couldn’t co up with a counter for it. So I changed the subject.

“So what are you gonna do with the lizard guys? Stick them in human jail? Hand them off to Green Lantern?”

“We’re going to transfer them to a Thanagarian military prison.” Hawkie said distractedly. “They were caught working on a weapon specifically ant to target us, so we choose how to deal with them.” She gave

a look. “Unless you have a different idea? You dealt with most of them so you have a claim. Or you can turn them over for a small bounty.”

I shook my head at her offer. I had no idea what to do with a bunch of alien lizards and I didn’t want to be responsible for figuring it out. Hawkie and her partner could deal with that ss.

As for the bounty…

“Any chance I can swap the money for food?” I asked. “Maybe a spar later? I was kinda looking for you to get one earlier and found these guys instead.”

“Maybe after we get you cleaned up and into so new clothes.” Hawkie huffed. “After we deal with all the paperwork this ss is going to generate too. Getting a prison escort all the way out here is going to be…” she trailed off into general grumbling.

But sothing she said bothered . What was wrong with my clothes?

Since Hawkie wasn’t poking at my face anymore I quickly looked down and was mildly devastated by what I saw.

I was fully expecting so damage because normal clothes didn’t usually survive fights where the wearer was thrown through walls unscathed. But I was not expecting my shirt to be little more than rags clinging to my body by literal threads.

And my pants! My glorious pocket filled pants were all torn up too!

One leg was completely missing and the other was so ripped that it was basically a bunch of cloth attached at my ankle. All those pockets…barely used and now lost forever.

“Okay, I’ll be right back. I need to murder the Supervisor real quick.” I said darkly and tried stomping towards the unconscious alien only to be held back by my shoulder by an unamused Hawkie.

“No abusing the prisoners.” She ordered. “And it’s just so clothes. It’s not a big deal.”

I glared at her but decided to let it go. My pockets would be avenged later.

A little while later Hawkie was done with first aid and her partner and Alie made it back from checking out the lab. The only thing left to do was actually secure the Gordanians and wait for whatever transport they needed, which I happily left to Hawkman while poking at Hawkie to take Alie ho so I could claim my reward. Served him right for stealing the end of my fight.

-o-

“So, food?” I asked as Hawkie finished talking with the police.

Against my expectations, we didn’t actually just drop Alie off at her ho and call it a day. Instead we ended up taking her to a police station so she could not only get the missing person notice resolved, but also talk to a few specialists about her experience being kidnapped by alien lizard people.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not ant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Which I probably should have expected since Hawkie was a proper superhero. I even got a change of clothes out of it so it wasn’t all that bad even if it took a while.

And it was worth it because it was hilarious to listen to a bunch of cops attempt to call the jacked, severe-looking bird lady ‘Hawkgirl’ with a straight face. One guy couldn’t quite hide a chuckle and when Hawkie glared at him and demanded to know what was so funny about her na I swore the guy was going to lt into a puddle!

The older woman just sighed and walked over to Alie. I followed along since I at least wanted to say goodbye to the grumpy scientist before I left.

“Did you need sothing else?” Alie asked a bit impatiently once she spotted us. “If so please make it quick, all I want to do is go ho and take the longest, hottest shower I can stand and sleep for a week.”

“Nothing in particular.” Hawkie replied. “But if you happen to rember anything else relevant to your work or the Gordainians, give us a call.” she said, handing over a business card.

“You could also join us for lunch.” I volunteered. “Hawkie’s paying so you don’t need to worry about money.”

I ignored the strangled sound the winged woman made at

victimizing her wallet, but the scientist ignored

entirely.

“I doubt I’ll rember anything I didn’t already go over, but I’ll keep it in mind. I’ll have sothing to brag about to my sister at least. ‘Virologists never do anything exciting’ my a–” she mumbled towards the end before cutting off entirely and giving

a look.

I just waved back.

“Right, anyway, I’ll keep you in mind.” She recovered smoothly.

Hawkie just nodded back and walked away to tell the police she was leaving. Not wanting to let my al ticket escape I just gave Alie another wave goodbye and so advice to not get kidnapped again, or to at least get in better shape for if she did.

I got a kick out of the irritated eye twitch she made hearing my advice and ignored the resulting glare. If she wanted to ignore good advice when she already got kidnapped by aliens, I wasn’t going to try convincing her otherwise.

-o-

After we finished our goodbyes and I finally managed to find a place for lunch. It was nothing special like what I did with the Flash or that one ti with Donna, but I wasn’t going to complain. Big Belly Burgers were pretty good for a chain restaurant and the triple-stacked bacon belly burster was big enough that I had to take my ti eating one.

Hawkie just got a normal sized al and was slowly making her way through it.

I got the feeling she didn’t exactly enjoy the overly greasy food.

She wasn’t like the Flash either, who would talk about random stuff for a while whenever we t up. Once she was done eating she went straight to business.

“Alright, what do you want?”

“Fight .” I imdiately replied, giving her puppy-dog eyes for good asure.

Unfortunately, those had been getting less effective as I got bigger and Hawkie had already been mostly immune. She just reached a hand out and painfully flicked my forehead. Right on one of the cuts I got too!

“Ow!”

“If that hurts you aren’t in any shape to be picking more fights.” She said rcilessly. “I don’t have the ti anyway. I have to get back and assist my partner with the cleanup of that outpost. If you want to fight soone, go bother soone else.”

On the one hand, that was fair and I couldn’t really bla her for doing her job. But on the other, that was totally unfair and I deserved more consideration for saving her species from a bioweapon! On a third, totally unrelated hand, I just rembered Superman owed

a full day of sparing I hadn’t collected on. And since I had already proved to Hawkie I was fine after the lab thing there was no reason to not go collect.

“Hey, I just rembered sothing, gottagoniceseeingyoubye!” I rushed out, grabbing the last of my food and downing it before flying out the door.

I had another hero to hunt down.

I looked down at my borrowed outfit…though I should probably go change into my combat uniform before I went looking for Superman. Human clothing tore too easily. If my last outfit didn’t last an hour in a full powered fight, there was no way anything I had would last a whole day even if I took it easy in the beginning.

-o-

Shayera Hol snorted in amusent as the Saiyan teenager ran off to get in more trouble despite literally raiding a hidden military outpost hours before.

She certainly didn’t lack energy. It would’ve been funnier if it wasn’t exhausting to deal with.

With that thought in mind she took out her communicator and pressed a button, “Hawkgirl to League, I found Califa. She ended up trashing a Gordanian outpost and hounding

for a spar. I turned her down but it looks like she rembered so kind of backup plan and ran off again.”

“Did she seem okay?” Superman’s voice answered. “I had my hands full after the lab incident and she seed pretty upset. She was gone before I could check up on her.”

“Seed fine to .” Shayera rolled her eyes. Sotis the level of pampering her associates did to their proteges was a little ridiculous. Sure, the kids needed a safety net in case they tried leaping into sothing before they were ready. But the rest of the League seed determined to hold their hands to prevent them from getting so much as a scratch.

Shayera didn’t even need to look too closely at the various sidekicks to realise they were chafing under their ntor’s restrictions.

She might not be interested in training a sidekick herself, but she knew that continuing to ignore them was going to be an issue soon. Especially with how intentionally blind so of the ntors seed to be acting to their complaints. It was why she was glad Califa was so easy to deal with. Either feed her, fight her, or give her a distraction and she was eager to listen.

“Did she give any indication where she was going?” Superman asked.

“No, but considering how fast she rushed out it wouldn’t surprise

if she was going straight to wherever she was thinking of. You didn’t promise to fight her or anything, did you?”

“ah…I don’t think so? Then again I was more focused on the clone situation the last ti I saw her, so I might have said sothing and forgot. But you’re sure she’s okay? Did she talk about the clone at all?”

Shayera huffed at the questions. The Kryptonian was a good person, but he just didn’t seem to get a more martial focused ntality. Unless soone went poking at Califa’s emotions specifically, the girl was likely as over the event as she was going to be. “Like I said, she seed fine. Nothing about the clone or the lab. You, on the other hand, better figure out if you promised sothing. She won’t hesitate to blast you out of the sky otherwise.”

She could hear his good-natured chuckle through the communicator. “Yeah, she probably would. Thanks for the heads up, I’ll keep an eye out. But if she circles back to you first can you tell her Wonder Woman was looking for her? Sothing about a friend on their island.”

“I’m not a ssenger girl.” Shayera grumbled, but both of them knew she wouldn’t say no.

Superman tried to keep so smalltalk going, but Shayera wasn’t kidding when she told Califa she had more work to do. After so halfhearted responses to Superman and a brief report about what they had found in the Rocky Mountains she ended the call, cleaned up their table, and got ready to deal with the most annoying part of her job.

Paperwork.