Batgirl heard shots ring out. She immediately headed in the direction they came from. She spotted a boy and an armed man from a nearby rooftop.
“No, too far away.” she thought. It would take her ages to get in close enough range, to throw a rang to disarm the killer.
 Several shots had been fired at the boy at close range. Miraculously the bullets struck brick wall of the building behind him, sending shards of rubble flying outwards.
The boy calmly turned to his assailant, who had been running toward him. Now he was mere feet away.  The scruffy assassin pointed an old revolver squarely in his direction. He smiled broadly.
“Your neck is worth a cool 25 million to me kid. Finally after all this time, I’ve been handed a break.” He squeezed the trigger.  There was a loud bang as the poorly constructed gun blew up in his hand. An instant later a batarang passed through the area were the gun hand had been. The would be assassin, stared in horror at his mangled hand.
The boy calmly said. “No, but you did break your hand.”
Batgirl swung down from the building she had been perched on, kicking the scruffy assassin unconscious as she descended.
She landed turning to the boy. He was dressed oddly wearing a pure white robe. A woman came running up to them, she was wearing a robe similar to the one the boy wore, yet its shade was a darker off white, she was greatly panicked. “Your highness, are you all right? “
The boy turned to her. He had not been shaken by the events in the slightest, he was completely at peace. “Yes”, with that he turned and walked toward a nearby building.
Batgirl stood there pondering, had she heard right? A bounty of 25 million on such an easy target?
The worried woman, looked toward Batgirl and the unconscious man. Then ran hurriedly to catch up with the boy.
Batgirl, thought for a while as she bound the unconscious hit man in cuffs. There would be a lot more like him after the boy, chances are they would be much better at their jobs than him. She ran into the building after the boy.
 

The boy and woman had entered a large office on one of the upper floors of the building. They were seated in slick leather chairs before a large oak desk. Behind it sat very well dressed, fat, gray haired and mustached man he was seated in a huge leather chair. Batgirl sat in the corner of the office unnoticed by all it seemed.
“Well if it isn’t our clients from the country of Markden. It appears you are in errors.”
The woman spoke, “Yes, Mr. president.”
“You don’t have to call me Mr. President. I’m only president of the bank not the country.”
“Yes Mr. bank president. I’m afraid we are broke. The national treasury has been wiped clean.”
“So you’re saying you won’t be able to pay us back.”
“No we will pay you back,” said the boy.
The woman hurriedly interrupted the boy, “I’m afraid Your Highness hasn’t been feeling well lately, he is… under a good deal of stress, it’s understandable when there is a bounty on you head. You see, his evil uncle has stolen the funds that our country borrowed from you and put it up as reward for his nephew’s life. “
“Yes, yes,” the bank president interrupted. “You third world countries and your politics. Right now, I’m more concerned about the money.”
“We will pay you back, I have had a vision…” the boy interrupted
Again, the woman cut him off. “You must excuse the boy, he’s been a wreck. Constant worry, you understand, makes him delirious.”
The fat man took out a cigar and cut the tip off it. He looked at the boy, who was sitting there serenely. “He looks fine to me.”
The boy spoke, the woman finally gave up trying stop him she simply shook her head.
“Our country will soon know prosperity we have near known. We shall have more than enough money to pay you back.”
“That sounds a bit optimistic, when we agreed to lend you the 50 million dollars, 3 months ago, we assumed that being the monarch of a country, that you would have some assets, so we didn’t look all that closely at the application. When its turns out that not only is the government such as it is, completely broke, but that that the country is this barren wasteland high up in the mountains, that you have no natural resources to speak of.  You people aren’t even living in the twentieth century, no electricity, no running water,”
“We have mountain streams.” the boy interrupted.
“How exactly are you going to pay us back? We did a survey; most of the population lists their occupation as Sheppard. Sheppard? How much tax can you collect from a Sheppard?”
The boy asked the woman beside him, “What is tax?”
The woman waved him off.
The boy stood from the leather chair he was in. ”I have had a vision, the ghost of my father came and spoke to me. He said that my uncle had murdered him, so that he could take his place as king.”
 “Uh huh” said the bank president, ”I suppose he took the Prince of Markden’s mother for queen then.”
“I should hope not,” said the boy, she died giving birth to me.” He continued, ”I can not claim the thrown from my uncle until my birthday.”
“Still if your uncle is king now, shouldn’t we be talking to him.”
“My birthday is tomorrow, on that day I shall then return home reclaim my thrown and save my people.“ He smiled reassured. ”The price of my life is pittance to what the country will be paid, when I pay a visit to and promise to payback he who pays to kill me. I shall find the one who is like still water, and find the flaming hare of the Deeps. I need only follow the blackness that comes too late for death. It is my destiny” he said then he walked over to where Batgirl was hidden in the corner. She was shocked to have been noticed. She slowly rose.
He said, ”I’m ready to go with you now.”
 

Batgirl entered the clock tower in her street cloths. “Oracle,” she called out.
“She’s not here,” called out an unseen voice. She followed it to it’s source, where Robin was. He had cut into a section of wall. He was poking large diameter wires, through a tube he had installed.
She bent over him as he answered her unasked question, “Just stepping up the voltage in this place a few stages. I’m almost finished actually.”
“Robin,” she said, “I have a problem.”  She opened the door she had entered through and pulled inside two people in white robes. Their faces were completely covered up, bandaged over with pieces from Batgirl’s costumes. Their hands were bond behind them.
“What are these bad guys?” asked Robin.
“No.”
“Um… hostages?”
She gave him a sharp look. “A prince… with a bounty… of 25 Million.”
“Wow, that is one hell of a lot of cash. A lot of heavy players are going to wade into this one.“ He pointed to the prince. ”We might have a lot of trouble trying to protect him.” He pointed to their head coverings that shielded their ears and their eyes, “I guess you did that to protect us.”
Suddenly one of them started trying to speak in a muffled voice. Robin hurriedly pushed on his mask and removed the veil. He jumped back, astonished at what he saw.  “You?” he said. “Is this your idea of a joke?”
“Joke?” said the prince, his eyebrows furled slightly.
Robin looked at him. “Brilliant disguise. Like you could fool me by wearing a set of contact lenses to change you eye color. If you want to fool me, don’t do it by making your brown eyes blue. “
“My eyes are blue.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said as he pulled out a penlight, prepared to forcibly remove the contacts from his eyes. He took his fingers spread his eye open. “Your eyes are not… Omigod your eyes are blue. You’re not him. But you look exactly like him except for the eyes. This is unbelievable.” He sat right down and put his fingers to his chin. ”Hmm… Batgirl I just got a great idea. We’re going on a trip. We might even bag us a few major assassins in the process.”
 

“Hi guys I’ve got a few people I’d like you to meet,” he walked into the Young Justice rec. room. Inside were some of the members of Young Justice, and one person who wasn’t a member of Young Justice. They were watching an animated feature. He raised an eyebrow.
 Cissie announced, “Well, we’re doing this Mark Twain novel in school and I figure I might as well rent the movie, and I’d rather watch it over here, on your big screen TV, ok.”
“Actually it’s somewhat fitting considering who I’d like you guys to meet, this is prince Trab of Markden. “
Impulse immediately shouted. “An evil twin, whoopee! I’ve got an evil twin!” He raised his hands in the air and jumped for joy. “Ha, ha. In your face Kon, told you I’d get an evil twin too.”
“I am not evil.”
“Maybe you should try wearing a goatee.”
 Trab approached Impulse calmly, “You,” he said gripping him by the shoulders. “You are the one who is like still water.” He embraced Impulse.
“Like still water, that definitely doesn’t sound like Bart,” said Kon.
“This is kind of spooky,” said Secret as she looked at Bart and Trab together.
“An evil Twain, perhaps?” Cissie also noted the resemblance. ”He’s really a prince?” she asked.
“Of some a tiny bankrupt nation, he’s got a bounty on his head for 25 mil. It’s an open contract, which means every assassin around is going to be gunning for him, he has no money for bodyguards, his county doesn’t even have any sort of army, from what I’ve heard nobody would even want to conquer it, it’s in some isolated spot, completely surrounded by mountains. You’ll see it soon enough were going to be going there.”
“You mean we’re going to be the prince’s secret service,” said Kon.
“What service is Secret going to do?” asked Bart,
“Sort of” said Robin, a woman in an off white robe walked in, she was thin and gray haired, “This is the price’s adjutant Maxine.”
“Hey, there’s something familiar about you. Have we met before?” said Bart.
“It almost seems like I’ve known you all my life. My god, it’s true! The likeness is uncanny,”
“No, that’s the X-men,” replied Bart.
“Were going to use Bart’s resemblance to the prince to our advantage. Bart is going to fill in for the prince. When an attempt is made on his life, Bart is fast enough to avoid the bullets and we’ll be there to catch the bad guys. We’ll take a lot of big cannons off the streets, with 25 mil at stake. To help us with that end is someone else I’d like you guys to meet. Bart, meet your new bodyguard.”
Batgirl stepped into the room.
Bart started jumping up and down. “Yahoo Batgirl! An evil twin and Batgirl! This is the best day of my life!”
Cissie whispered to Cassie, “I don’t know why Bart’s so enthralled with Batgirl. I mean did you see his room here, it’s filled with Batgirl stuff. What is the big deal about Batgirl?”
Bart ran up to Batgirl and gabbed her hand in his, so quickly she couldn’t avoid him, he shook it up and down vigorously. “ Wow! Batgirl! You are the coolest. You’re so dark and mysterious so… so… well I don’t know anything about you, because you’re so dark and mysterious.”
“Well here’s one thing you should know, she’s got good eyes, she’ll spot anybody likely to try and kill you, she’ll point them out and we’ll round them up.”
“Hey, I’ve got good eyes!” Cissie protested.
Robin clarified, “Yes Cissie, but Batgirl can see what people are going to do before they do it, plus she’s an expert at the combat arts.”
“Let’s face it Cissie,” said Bart waving her off. “You’re no Batgirl.”
“Come on to the conference room I’ll tell you my plan.” Robin walked through the door.
They left to go. As they walked away, Bart noticed that Batgirl’s cape dragged on the ground behind her. He knelt down and picked it up and carried it as he walked behind her. “Wouldn’t want it to get dirty.“
“Isn’t she the cutest thing.” Cissie commented sarcastically to Cassie as they walked away.
 

They sat around an array of chairs in the conference room.
“His uncle is currently in control of the country. The prince and adjutant escaped three months ago, they’ve been traveling ever since to get here. According to ritual he can’t become king until he becomes a man. That’s a pretty young age considering he becomes a man tomorrow, that’s his birthday. We go to Markden tonight, take down his uncle, then put out the word that he has escaped and that the bounty still exists. Then we display Bart publicly and wait for the assassins to show up.”
“All right no problem,” said Cissie from the doorway. “That sounds easy enough.”
“What?” said Cassie. “I thought you didn’t want to be Arrowette anymore.”
“Who said anything about Arrowette. You need people to look out for assassins. I can do that. I’m a marksman, I can spot a marksman.”
Batgirl asked, “Are you… a good shot?”
“Damn strait! I’m a good shot, I can hit anything that moves.”
Batgirl smiled. “Not me.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Robin clarified, “Batgirl can dodge bullets.”
Impulse was awestruck. “Wow! That’s so cool. I wanna see.”
In the next instant, he was standing beside Cissie, with a bow and a quiver of arrows. “Cissie, could you shoot at Batgirl for me?”
“I’m not going to shoot at Batgirl.” Cissie stepped away from the bow and arrows.
Noticing the fear in her reaction, Batgirl asked, “Think you’ll miss?”
Angered, Cissie went over to Impulse and grabbed the bow and arrows from him. She strung an arrow and pointed it at Batgirl.
Cassie seemed aghast. “Can she really dodge bullets?”
Robin replied, “I’ve seen her do it.”
Cissie kept her arrow trained squarely on Batgirl. What was she doing, she thought to herself, isn’t this what she was trying to avoid, taking out her frustrations on people while armed with deadly weaponry? Batgirl started to move around in front of her.
She kept her arrow squarely trained on her. She could feel her heart beat out of her chest.
Then she released the arrow.
To everyone’s surprise, the arrow went directly through Batgirl. Batgirl dropped to her knees. She felt at the area the arrow had past through. Blood was smeared over her gloved hand. Everyone gasped in astonishment.
Impulse immediately ran over to Batgirl. “Batgirl, are you ok?”
“Yes,” said Batgirl, “but she isn’t.” She pointed over to an unconscious Cissie.
Cassie ran over to Cissie, her breathing was rapidly accelerated and her heart was racing. “She’s having a panic attack.”
Robin commanded, “Get her down to the sick bay quick! Perhaps you’d better go too Batgirl. What happened anyway? Why didn’t you dodge?”
“Didn’t know… she was going… to release arrow. She… didn’t want to… passed out… did it… unwilling … unwillingly. Ok… Good shot. Good place to get shot… been shot there… a million times… bullet passes through… no damage... arrow even better.”
 

“Well, glad to see you feeling better,” said Cassie to Cissie, as they flew altogether in the supercycle. “I couldn’t believe it when you shot Batgirl.”
Cissie leaned over and whispered to her privately. “Yes well, I really didn’t mean to shoot her you know. No matter how much I would have wanted too.”
Batgirl bent over to where Cassie and Cissie were seated. They both seemed to be surprised being approached by Batgirl. “Yes,” said Batgirl. She thumped Cissie on the chest in the area of her heart. “In here panic, loss of control.” Then she grabbed Cissie’s hands. “Out here concentration, focus, aim.” She sat back in her seat on the cycle. “Good shot… Bad nerves.” She crossed her arms. “Good training.”
Cissie replied, “You had to say that, didn’t you?”
The gang flew over some desolate mountaintops. “Here we are, the country of Markden. Our destination the capital and only city Hagencopen, is just beyond that ridge.” He pointed in the distance.
“It is more of a town or village.” Maxine interrupted.
“The country sure looks nice from up here. Maybe you could get your economy moving with some tourism. I mean, look at Iceland who’d figure anybody would want to go there, but they have neat hot springs. You don’t have anything like that around here do you,” asked Cass.
“What’s that big crater over there?” Superboy asked pointing.
“It is the Deeps, it is where we will go, I will show it too you.” Trab replied.
“Is it ok if we check it out Rob?”
“It’s probably best if we didn’t have the real prince fly in with us just in case we run into trouble, so sure, feel free.”
“Hey I’d like to see it too,” said Cass. “Might be just the thing to attract tourists.”
Superboy picked Trab up and flew off with him, Cass followed behind him.
The gang flew over the ridge, behind it there were a few rickety houses, and there along the side of the mountain, was a huge modern structure. It looked very out of place among its surroundings.
Robin gasped, “My god, that place looks just like Wha… a manor house I’m familiar with.”
“That was not there before,” Maxine announced. “We lived in the royal hut.”
“The royal hut? Why not the royal shed or the royal bathroom for that matter?” said Anita
“Royal bathroom, kind of appropriate, since that’s where they keep the thrown,” said Cissie.
“All right people prepare to hit em. If we do it nice and sneaky, Uncle Skrewdge will never see it coming.”
 

“Damn he’s gone he must’ve known we were coming,” cursed Anita.
“Robin to Oracle.” Robin tapped his intercom.
Oracle beeped in. “Ready for stage one of your plan?”
 “Well looks like we might not have to spread the word that he’s escaped, because he really has. We’ll do it anyway I suppose. I’ll search for clues to where he might have gone. Thanks a lot big O.”
“What’s that for? Big time operator, Oracle out.”
A dejected Impulse approached Robin. “Gee Robin. What am I doing wrong? Batgirl hasn’t said one word to me.“
“Well maybe you should stop asking her all the questions, and quit tugging on her cape all the time. You don’t do that kind of stuff, it can get kind of annoying. I know it bugs the hell out of me. Just mellow out, I know that’s asking a lot but…”
 
 

Meanwhile, at the edge of the large crater.
Cassie stared down into it. “Wow. This pace is huge, and ugly, I mean it’s like totally gross. Do you see that brown shaggy moss all down along its inside?”
Cassie looked around to see that Superboy had a small can of spray paint in his hand. he was shaking it up and down vigorously. He was eyeing one of the sloped mountain walls nearby.
“Oh no Kon, you can’t mean to deface this beautiful scenery with graffiti. What were you thinking of brightening the landscape with… Kon Rules.”
“Hey that’s good,” said Kon as he began to spray. He had just depressed the button when Cassie attempted to knock the spray can out of his hands. In the process, a rabbit, that was at that moment happening by, hopped directly in front of the now spraying spray can. It was coated in the fiery orange paint. Startled, it hopped in the direction of the canyon, plunging off into it’s depths.
Trab yelled as the rabbit jumped into the crater. “The flaming hare of the deeps,” and proceeded to jump into the pit after it.
Both Cassie and Kon flew off to rescue Trab.
“I got him Kon,” Cassie yelled. Kon proceeded to try and speed by her. She elbowed him forcefully in the stomach without even looking, “I said I got him, you gotta learn not to move to your right all the time, you’re so predicable.” She picked up speed grabbed Trab, and noticed too late the ledge in front on them. She tried to slow down but knew she would still strike it fairly hard. She twirled so she would land on her back and cushion Trab. She landed hard. A sharp pain came from her leg. Trab climbed off of her, he was completely uninjured.
“You’ve got him huh?” said Kon from above her.
Suddenly Cass’s intercom beeped, “You guys can come on now, the coast is clear here.”
“We’ll be there when we get there! We’re doing a little exploring ok. What, do you think we’re going to screw up and injure ourselves or something?”
“I never said anything. Take your time. Robin out.”
 

 “Robin, in here.” Anita shouted from one of the large rooms of the big mansion. In it was a large four-post bed. Expensive furniture lined the room. ”Look what I found in the drawer of this bedside table,” She handed him black leather bound date book, ”Look inside it on the last page.”
“Hmm… Those look like they could be account numbers. We just might be able to find Uncle Skrewdge by tracing the money trail.” He tapped his intercom. “Robin to Oracle.”
“Oracle here, unless this is a life and death matter, I’m going to have to let you go, I’ve got my hands full right now.”
“It’s nothing that can’t wait. Robin out,” he paused looking over the account numbers. “Damn, this can’t wait, every second we delay gives Uncle Skrewdge the opportunity to withdraw the money from and close off these accounts.“
“If only we knew someone who had access to that kind of information,” said Anita.
Robin simply smiled at her.
“Wait. You’re not thinking? No, that’ll never work, he’ll never agree to help us.”
“Maybe if you ask him nicely.”
“Hmm… actually Robin if you asked him nicely too he might listen to us, at least he respects you. Well sort of.”
“Ok then let’s go,” He turned to Cissie, “Tell Cass, when she gets back, that she’s in charge of things till I get back.” He put his fingers to his lips and whistled. The supercycle followed, both Anita and Robin hopped inside and roared off.
 

“So anyway, I told the governor that Alabama was too long it would be much more cool if they could change it to Bama, or even Utah,”
Batgirl once again got up and moved to a different chair, away from Bart.
Bart hung his head down and slowly trudged past Cissie, who was smiling broadly. He clicked on the huge screen TV in front of him and was immediately overjoyed. “It’s on! It’s on!”
Cissie came over to him, “You’re going to watch this?  Bart, this is a small children’s show.”
“What are you talking about Ciss? It has the Muppets in it. How can you call anything that has the Muppets it, a children’s show?”
Ciss turned up her eyes and walked away. ”I just don’t get you Bart”
“Oh wow, I love this one,” said Impulse, noticing a new skit had come on. He started to sing along to the music.
“You take a G that’s guh, and an E, T, et. You put em all together and that spells get, that’s get, G, E, T, get.”
Batgirl who was been sitting in a chair in the corner, got up and approached the TV tentatively, intrigued by what she saw on the screen. She may be very skilled, but the ability to read was one skill she didn’t have. What she saw now, before her on the screen, made the task look not only fairly simple, but fun too.
So engrossed was Bart in the program that he did not notice as Batgirl sat beside him on the floor. He continued to sing along to the music, “You take a W… wha... and an E, T…”
“Et” interrupted Batgirl, Bart turned surprised to see her. He seemed overjoyed to be no longer shunned by her.
Bart continued, “You put em all together and that spells…”
“Wet.” Batgirl supplied.
“That’s wet, W, E, T...wet.”
“Oh this is just great,” thought Cissie watching them, “they've found a common interest.”
 

Superboy flew an injured Cass and Trab under his arm as they headed out of the crevice, “Why did you jump in the bottomless pit after the rabbit, Alice.”
“It is the flaming hare of the Deeps, the ghost of my murdered father said it would bring salvation to our nation, we must go back after it.”
“The ghost of your dead father huh? Robin never told us you were insane, and I thought Bart was bad.”
“Bad? No, that would be me,” said a voice on top of them.
Kon halted his flight as there, above them, waiting at the edge of the crater was Deathstoke: the Terminator.
“You super people with your heart’s on your sleeve and “s”’s on your chests.”
Kon handed Trab over to Cass and flung them away from him into the air.
Deathstoke continued, his rifle pointed squarely at Superboy. “You caused me some trouble, so I’m going to cause you some trouble. In fact, I’ll trouble to point out to you that right now I have a kryptonite bullet loaded in the chamber. Cost me a fortune, but that’s ok, cuz me, I cost a fortune too. Make your move… Boy.”
Kon rushed out to tackle him, he had just started to move to him right, when he caught a kick to his midsection. “Kon no!” yelled Cass.
Deathstoke fired, in the area where Kon would have been. The bullet grazed through Superboy’s leg. He started to fly toward Deathstoke, then his world collapsed in blackness.
Cass flew down to catch him, she had just caught him in her arms and was slowing their decent, when she was hit by this strange kind of energy from behind, and suddenly lost her ability to fly. Seconds later they hit the ground with a loud thud.
 
 

“Cassie, come in. Darn, she’s not answering. Robin told me she seemed pretty ticked off when he tried calling her before. She’s out there practically alone with Kon, what could be the matter?” Secret asked.
“Oh, I can think of a few things. “ Cissie intruded, ”Maybe we should start all this without her. We should be able to handle this.”
Batgirl stood “I’m ready.”
Bart sat watching a program on the TV, “…and that’s how you make knishes…”
Maxine came into the room;  “There is a large audience, wishing to greet his royal highness upon his return.”
Batgirl started heading toward the reception area where the people were waiting.
Cissie and Secret followed behind. Secret asked, “Your abilities will really help us identify anybody who means Bart harm?”
“Yes,“ Batgirl replied.
They entered the audience room, they were shocked by what they saw, most of the audience consisted of men dressed in camouflage and brandishing large knives and guns behind their back.
 Cissie scoffed. “Special abilities? Ha. Like this isn’t something I couldn’t do.”
 

Cassie took out a small penlight she kept with her. She shined it on the area where the bullet had grazed Superboy. It had bit into him deeply and the kryptonite impacting the flesh didn’t compress and deform like a bullet would but shattered. Small glass like shards remained in Superboy’s leg. Cass tried frantically to pick as many out as she could, but there were too many, and the longer they remained in the wound the sicker Superboy got. Right now he was completely unconscious but his shade was changing from a pale white to a green. She needled something besides her fingers to work with. The quickest and easiest way to get rid of the kryptonite was to cut it out of the wound. It didn’t mater how deep or messy the cut was, because as soon as the kryptonite was out of and away from his system Superboy would start to heal. There was only one problem she didn’t have a knife.” What do I do? What do I do?”
Trab stood next to her, “You must look to yourself for answers.”
“What kind of stupid advice is that, the last time anything remotely like this happened to me I was bit by this snake-like… hey wait…” Inspired, Cass bent down and used her teeth to suck and bite out the pieces of kryptonite.
 

 Unconscious Bodies were stacked along the sides of the audience room. One person who was dressed in an off white robe remained seated on the floor.  “May I now speak to our good King Trab?”
Bart entered the room, looking at the array of unconscious hit men. “Wow! Did Superman drop by?”
“Your new pal took them out,” said Cissie pointing at Batgirl, “Float like a butterfly…”
 “String like a gee,” said Bart.
“Um... Bart”
“Good and wise King Trab your people suffer,” said the man in the robe. “A drought plagues the land.  Your people starve, while you live in such a grand dwelling.”
“The loyal subject objected,” said Cissie.
“Really?” said Impulse.
“Come, I will show you”
 

Cass leaned on Trab to take the pressure off her injured leg as she dragged an unconscious Kon behind her. “Just my luck that our communicators would be smashed when we landed. Good thing it’s dark down here, and there are lots of tunnels. Hopefully we can hide out here until Kon gets enough strength to fly us out of here. All we have to do is avoid Deathstoke until that time. That’s it. No big deal.”
Then Cass seemed to notice that where she had been dragging Kon, the shaggy moss that coated the walls ands floors was stripped away. Leaving a surely identifiable trail if there ever was one. “Oh no” she thought, she went back over the area that they had just dragged Kon through. “I wonder if there’s a way we can cover those bare patches up.” Then she bent down and looked at one of the scrapped patches, ”Hmm… that’s strange. New moss is growing on it already, almost like it’s seeping out of the rock.”
She went back to Kon, picked him up again and began to drag him further into the cavern. She seemed surprised when Kon seemed to momentarily awaken, he looked around half dazed, then turned to Cassie and squinted “Cassie? It’s really nice of you dragging me like this. You’re a queen. You’re a drag, queen.” Then he slumped his head back and passed out again.
 

Bart and the gang stepped into the small doorway. The man in the white robe motioned to his surroundings, “My name is Jabah, welcome to my hut.”
“Wow! These guys are poor. Look at that, he doesn’t even have a bed, just a cot on the floor,” said Cissie.
“This is my wife and son, Petesa and Tuthriefor.”
Cissie looked around, “Boy, is this place ever small, all three of you live here?”
“Of course not.”
“I was going to say,” Cissie, in fact, did say.
“Petesa’s parents and mine live with us as well. We would not expect them to sleep out in the cold.”
“Talk about living in a shoe.”
“Yes and we are starving.” Petesa threw open the small kitchen cupboard. “See it’s bare. Help us, King Trab, help your subjects.”
Bart slumped down. “I have so many starving subjects, I don’t know what to do.”
 

Bart sat on the thrown in his mansion. “Here I am, king of a country, I have this houseful of cool stuff, stuff I’ve always wanted, and I can’t enjoy it at all. I keep feeling guilty about having so much. Darn this guilt. I guess you wouldn’t know much about that huh, Batgirl?”
Batgirl simply bowed her head.
I mean here I am surrounded by all this stuff, stuff that back home would be worth… Hey yeah! That’s a great idea.” Immediately Impulse rushed off.
Things began disappearing randomly at the mansion, the silver wear, the furniture, and the curtains. Soon there was nothing left in the giant mansion, it was stripped completely. Cissie saw the room she had chosen. Her room was empty save for a single cot on the floor. “Hmm...” she thought.
 

“Hmm…” said agent Fite contemplatively, “Let me get this strait, you want access to private international banking records, and you want me to help you. I'm just supposed to hand over ultra secret information to a couple of kids?”
“Yes that’s right.” Robin handed him a photograph. “His life might depend upon it, sir.”
“Hmm…” He looked briefly at the photograph. “A chance to protect Impulse. How is this sweetening the pot?”
“That’s not Impulse, look at the eyes, that’s prince Trab of Markden. He’s got a bounty of 25 million on his head, money that you could help us track down.”
“I’m sorry I’m sure you have the best intentions but that would mean breaking department regulation and that’s something I can’t do. I’ll see if we can get our own people on it however. Let me see the numbers.” Robin hand him the leather bound book. ”Hey wait, these are very familiar numbers, Hmm…” He rubbed his bearded chin, “What I’m about to tell you, I tell you as Anita’s dad, not special agent Fite. This is personal knowledge not secret information, but those type of numbers are the ones found when you try to buy a large amount of gold.”
“Gold, if he converted it all to gold that means… Come on Anita, we’ve got to get back to Markden.”
 

Cass bumped into a wall behind her, she shone her penlight in a tight ark, in the area they were in. “Oh no, a dead end.”
She bent in front of Kon, his breathing was labored but the color had started to return to his face.
Then she heard it in the distance, footsteps, and they were headed her way quickly. Then she saw the flame. A blue flame was fired from the tunnel into the small exit less area, Cass ducked down out its way. The hot blue flame struck the wall behind her.  She could feel a large wave of searing heat from above her.
Kon picked that moment to awaken, his half closed eyes looked at Cass as she had her back toward the wall. “Cass, wow did I ever have a weird dream, I got shot by Deathstoke.”
Trab sat in the corner completely at peace.
“Well, well, three wounded animals. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to put you all out of your misery. Now I don’t have any spare kryptonite bullets handy, but I hear you’re quite vulnerable to flame.” He pointed his flamethrower at Superboy.
Cass tore at her hair in desperation, funny thing was it didn’t hurt nearly as much as when she had previously pulled at her hair in desperation. Then she realized it wasn’t her hair that she was pulling at but the shaggy moss behind her. The same shaggy moss that moments before had been hit with a flamethrower. ”Oh wait it’s not the flaming hare of the Deeps, it’s the flaming hair of the Deeps.” Suddenly Cass spoke up addressing Deathstoke, ”Mr. Deathstoke sir, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but how hot does that flamethrower of yours get?”
Still weakened, Kon turned to her, “Cass don’t make nice with the bad guy, help me.”
Deathstoke pointed the flamethrower at Cass. “Do you really want to find out how hot it is? You’ll find out the degrees of pain, several thousand of degrees in fact.  It’ll be worth it to toast you two even if there’s no bounty on your head.”
“Um…that’s why you’re doing this right Mr. Deathstoke? You’re a hired assassin right, if I had enough money I could hire you right.”
“Cass you’re not really thinking of hiring an assassin? Have you gone nuts?”
“I’m afraid I’m a bit out of your price range, little girl.”
“But not out of his,” she said pointing to Trab.
“You’re kidding right? He’s the leader of what got to be the poorest nation on earth.”
“Yes but he’s monarch and therefore holds the rights to this land’s natural resources”
“What natural resources? Sheep?”
 “No this!” she pointed to the shaggy moss. “You hit it with your flamethrower and it isn’t even singed, in fact it’s still cool to the touch. The hair is soft and pliable and will make an excellent substitute for, another fire resistant material that is expensive and unsafe, asbestos. And this resource is renewable, it seems like it grows out of the very rock. Do you realize what kind of demand there’s going to be for this product?”
Deathstoke stopped and contemplated this. Then he reached into his pocket and withdrew a slip of paper, he went over to where Trab was seated, and handed it to him. “I want 50 million dollars deposited into this account by this date next year. A word of warning, don’t try and double cross me or I’ll come looking for you, and next time I’ll bring more green bullets,” with that he left.
 

Cissie sat around the bare mansion, Cass, Kon and Trab came into the door looking the worse for wear.
“What happened to you guys you think you ran into Deathstoke, the terminator or something with how late you are?”
“We did run into Deathstoke, he was about to kill us all, but then we bought him off with 50 million dollars.”
“Oh,” said Ciss.
At that moment they saw, through the windows of the mansion, that the supercycle descending. Robin and Anita came running into the mansion. Robin was carrying a strange device that looked sort of like a small handheld satellite dish.
Robin pointed this device at different sections of the walls. “The money was converted into gold. That’s something that can be transported very easily, I wonder if it possibly might still be hidden here, in the house. By the way, what happened to it? It looks like it’s stripped bare.”
“Robin, I’ve been over every inch of this house, let me tell you there’s no gold bars.” Bart entered the room.
“Bart you’re back what have you been up to, what happened to all the stuff from the house?” asked Cissie.
“I’ve been giving my subjects a little sunshine in my reign.”
Suddenly they heard shouts from the street.
They ran outside, one man jumped up and down outside his hut. “Rejoice! Behold my pantry is full and in my stone hearth oven bakes a loaf of bread, along with a few knishes. Loaves and knishes! It’s a miracle!”
Robin smiled, “I take this is your doing Bart.”
“Yup, I went to Alabama and hawked all the stuff from the mansion, then brought groceries with the rest. I think the state of Alabama is out of flour. 25 million in gold buys a lot.”
“25 million in gold, but I thought you said there was no gold.”
“There isn’t any. I sold it all, to by money for food. “
“You mean all across the country you’ve filled peoples cupboards with food?”
Trab embraced Impulse. “Indeed you are the one who is like still water, you quiet the rumblings of hunger in my people.”
“Like still water I still don’t get it, that is so not Bart.” Superboy turned and looked to the shallow pool beside him, and quietly reflected on things.
 

“Where exactly was the twenty-five million?” Robin lowered the device he was scanning the walls with.
“It was Downstairs behind the secret door, with a dead guy. C’mon I’ll show you.” They headed off downstairs.
Kon faced Anita. “How did you guys find out about the gold, did you go to the world’s greatest detective.”
“Sherlock Hemlock?” said Impulse and Batgirl together.
“Who?” Robin was puzzled.
“You know, -It is I, Sherlock Hemlock, the world’s greatest detective-,”
“I’m sorry Bart.” Robin shrugged his shoulders.
Impulse sighed, “Some people have no culture.”
The gang followed Bart downstairs. Impulse pointed at one of the walls. “The dead guy is behind this wall, I phased through it.”
Robin felt along the wall until he found a seem with his fingertips. He pried on the seem slightly. The entire section of wall began to slide sideways. “Looks like it’s on rollers.”
Behind the wall was an elderly figure. He wore thick round glasses on the end of his nose, and he had thick sideburns, the stiff figure was clutching at a large chest, which had been opened. “The gold bars were in that.” Bart pointed at the chest. “ In case you were wondering where Uncle Skrewdge’s money been.”
“It is indeed my uncle,” Trab said.
“He looks like he’s been frightened to death, almost like he’d seen a ghost.” Robin examined the body.
“Perhaps my evil Uncle Skrewdge passed away, when he was presented with the image of my ghostly father. The ghost who told me the future. A marvelous future it is thanks to you. How can I repay you?”
“Hey, can we be knighted.” Kon asked.
“I wanna be dark knighted.” Impulse said enthusiastically.
“You wish to be ignited, but you just recently avoided that?”
“No knighted. You know, I dub thee Sir. Kon, and then you bring your sword down my shoulder.”
“You seem to keep wishing to be injured. I’m afraid I can’t help you, perhaps a good physiatrist.”
“We don’t need any reward, that’s not the reason we do what we do.” Robin announced.
“Well you are always welcome here, among my people. I officially make you citizens of Markden, Maxine.”
Maxine begin to tie blindfolds around the eyes of the members of Young Justice.
“What’s the deal with the blindfolds.” Anita demanded.
“It is our custom.”
The gang could feel what seemed like sacks being pulled over them. Their blindfolds where removed. They opened there eyes to see, that they were now wearing robes of an off white color, that all off the citizens of Markden wore.
“Hmm… It’s your custom to robe us blind then,” said Cass.
“Looks like our work here is done.” Kon crossed his arms.
Bart turned to Batgirl. “Ya know Batgirl, it’s nice to meet someone who, like myself, is pretty innocent. I keep thinking about those assassins upstairs, what drives em to do what they do, I can’t even begin to understand them. I guess people like you and me, we’ll never really understand people like that, huh?”
Batgirl turned to him. “Yes… never really… understand.”

“The Proper Pauper Prince’s Prophecy of Prosperity.” m

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