~I do not own young justice or supergirl, just Naya~ (Forgot to mention it's around season 2 of supergirl. I am not gonna be happy if they're like "let's make Lena evil" so Lena won't be evil in this story. I love her too much.)
Naya chewed on her necklace while she sat on the bus. The suburban neighborhood disappeared as the bus pulled onto the ramp headed for the city. The "National City- 5 Miles" sign hung above the ramp.
The field trip was for her English class. Cat Grant held a competition for one of the schools in the area to receive help for their current event papers. Naya decided to do her paper on Lena Luthor and her recent innovations. Lo and behold, Naya's school Sierra Academy won the competition. In addition to the field trip, the school also received a grant for the arts department which is helpful towards Naya's love of theatre.
The bus chugged along down the highway before taking the downtown exit. The buildings grew rapidly into skyscrapers. Of course, rush hour traffic was in effect complete with the incessant honking. This combined with the mild chatter on the bus made Naya regret leaving her headphones at home.
Finally, the CatCo entrance appeared and the bus pulled in front of the door. Mr. Russo stood at the front, handing out name tags as the students filed out of the bus. Naya was the last off, taking a name tag from Mr. Russo and joining the other kids.
One of the receptionists greeted the students as they wrote their names on the name tags. After everyone was properly named, the receptionist led them up to the top floor. Naya's ears popped on the ride up, adding on to the distress she was already experiencing. The receptionist let the students into Cat's office.
"Hello," Cat began. "Welcome to CatCo. Congratulations on winning the contest. I'm sure you're all excited to begin homework of all things. In a moment, you'll receive your 'mentor' for today."
---
After the introductory speech, the teens split off into groups of four and joined Kara Danvers, gathering around her desk.
"Hi everyone!" Kara greeted them. "I'm Kara and I'm excited to help you all today. Before we begin, how about we introduce ourselves?"
The other three, Cathy, Nelson, and Marianne introduced themselves.
"I'm Naya," she said, scanning over her paper. "Nice to meet you."
Cathy took the opportunity to lean down and whisper to Kara, "Naya's a little slow with things so she might need the most help."
Now, this statement wasn't true in the slightest. Naya could write a paper just like anyone else in class. Cathy just told Kara that because Cathy acts like she knows everything about autism all because her second cousin has it. It got annoying whenever Cathy would approach her in the cafeteria and ask why she wasn't eating with the other autistic kids.
"Oh, okay," Kara said, giving a slight look to Naya.
"Yeah, she's autistic," Cathy continued. Naya silently begged for someone to appear and slap a piece of tape over her mouth. "I always help her with her homework so we're like, best friends. Right, Naya?" She gave Naya a tight hug, making her tense up.
Cathy finally released her and Naya felt the room slightly chill. Via the ghost spoke up, "Naya, you're allowed to say no."
Naya swiped her hand at Via and her frankly reasonable comment.
"Well... anyway, let's begin," Kara said.
The group went around reading the paper aloud. Nelson did good on his sentence structure but needed help with his lack of descriptions. Marianne researched her topic well but had constant run-on's. Cathy had a whole slew of grammatical errors but did well on her transitions between paragraphs. When it came to Naya, she used lots of descriptive words and embedded quotes well, but needed help with some run-on sentences. Everyone had the same amount of problems to work on but Cathy was adamant that Naya had the most problems. It was always "you should have used that" and "why did you use that quote?", even Kara was frustrated with how many times Cathy pointed out meaningless corrections. She also shot down Naya's corrections on her own paper that everyone agreed with.
At the end, everyone's papers were consistently marked. The students and staff gathered in a conference room for a small party set up by CatCo. Naya sat in the corner, eating a cookie and drinking some pop. Kara took a seat next to her.
"Hi, again, Naya," Kara said.
"Hi..." Naya replied.
"I just wanted to say, I think your paper is great," Kara said.
"Thank you," Naya said, taking a sip from her pop.
"I wanna let you know, your friend's suggestions were a little nit-picky," she said. "If you ask me, just work on the run-on sentences. Everything else was great."
"Cathy isn't my friend," replied Naya bluntly. "She's just someone who pretends to be my friend to score popularity points."
"What do you mean by that?" Kara asked.
"I mean, she's the type of person that feels sorry for me," Naya replied. "She just pretends to be my friend because people will call her inspiring. She doesn't actually know anything about me except for my autism, and we've known each other for three years."
"Oh," Kara said. "Well, going back to your paper, what made you want to write about Lena Luthor?"
"I just liked the article about her most recent invention of emergency 911 bracelets." Naya said, fiddling with her bracelet. "It's a helpful invention and it works in areas without cell reception."
"Yeah, she did make a really cool product," said Kara.
The chill and Via returned, "Naya, you need to leave the building, now."
Naya shot an annoyed look at Via before turning to Kara, "is there a bathroom I can use?"
"Oh yes!" Kara said, jumping out of her chair. "Follow me."
Naya followed Kara to the bathroom where she locked herself in a stall.
"What do you want, Via?" Naya questioned.
Via apparated in front of Naya, "I saw Ridley entering the building. He's disguised as a security guard."
Ridley was like Naya. They were both apart of a group of people called the Spectators. They can see ghosts. Additionally, a ghost follows them. Via happened to follow Naya.
"I can't just leave, Via," Naya said. "What about the others?"
"You're right," Via said. "Is there anyway you can get them out in time?"
"What am I supposed to say?" Naya asked. "'Hey, guys, there's some weirdo who has a ghost friend with a vendetta against me. Let's get out of here!'"
"You could pull the fire alarm," Via suggested
"Why on earth would I pull the fire alarm?" Naya argued back. "As if I'm not having enough fun today. Let's add a panic attack into the mix!"
"Do you have any other suggestions on how to get them out?" Via asked.
"No, but there has to be something else other than pulling a fire alarm." She replied, unlocking the stall. "I have to go or else people will wonder where I am."
"Maybe there's someone you can ask for help?" She said.
"And who would that be?" Naya said before pushing the bathroom door open.
On the other side of the door, Kara waited with her hands behind her back. "Ready to go back?"
"Yeah," Naya replied, her voice cracking a little.
"Just one question," Kara said, putting her hand up. "Who were you talking to in there? The bathroom was empty."
"Oh, I had a... phone call," Naya replied.
Did she hear that entire thing? Even the part about pulling the fire alarm?
"A phone call involving the fire alarm?" said Kara. Shit. "Anything I should know?"
"Nope," Naya said, staring at the wall.
"Is there anyone in danger?" Kara asked.
Naya knew that she could not do this alone. And she couldn't find a way to answer these questions, "yes," she replied.
"Is it you or other people?"
"The entire building," Naya confessed. "Possibly. All I know is a dangerous person is here."
Kara pulled her back into the bathroom.
"What do you mean a dangerous person is here?" Kara asked. "How do you know this?"
"I can't tell you how I know," Naya said. "All I can tell you is they're disguised as a security guard."
Kara looked to the outside of the door, "you head on back to your classmates. I will see what I can do."
Naya nodded and rushed down the hall to the conference room. She tried to stay in the crowd. Ridley would expect her to be away from the crowd, in a corner or against a wall. He also knew her mannerisms so she had to copy other people to avoid detection. Her classmates would definitely find that weird. How could she hide in plain sight when she wore a neon sign? Could she go back to the bathroom and hide out there? No. People would wonder why she was hiding there.
Someone tapped on her shoulder and she knew it was too late at that point.
"Naya, been a long time, good to see you." Ridley said in a low voice. Naya began searching the conference room for an escape or at least someone to help. "We miss you back at... work."
Naya didn't reply. Instead, Cathy, dear Cathy, came to her rescue.
"Hey, Naya, we need one more person in this game." Cathy said. "Wanna join?"
Naya nodded, scurrying away with Cathy. She didn't really pay attention to the game, daring not to look over her shoulder at Ridley.
"Sorry I interrupted you, that guy was just creepy." Cathy said. "We should report him to HR."
"Yeah, thanks," Naya said. Maybe Cathy was good for something.
A short while later, everyone was lining up at the door to get to bus. Mr. Russo was leading everyone to the elevators when it was revealed...
they didn't work.
"Okay, I guess we'll need to take the stairs," Mr. Russo said, tugging on the stairwell door to find, yet again, it's locked.
Cat pushed her way to the front with the keys. She unlocked it and tried the door. Still locked.
"What's going on?" She said, trying the keys again.
Naya's head whipped around the room. Ridley was nowhere to be seen. She searched for Kara, also nowhere to be seen.
"Everyone, just remain calm." Mr. Russo said to the students.
"What's going on?" One of the students asked.
"I have no idea." Mr. Russo said.
"So how are we not supposed to panic?" Nelson said.
"You should panic," said Ridley, stepping around the corner and taking off his hat. "You're all hostages after all."
"What do you want from us?" One of the reporters said.
"Well, for one, I want all of you back in that conference room." Ridley said, pointing to the room at the end of the hall. "And two, there's only one thing that someone," he glanced towards Naya, "in this room can give me. So we'll have to wait for them to make a decision."
Everyone shuffled back into the conference room.
"Everyone, hand me your cellphones." Ridley said. Everyone handed in their phones until it got to the last guy.
"I'm not giving you my phone." The guy said.
"I'll give you one chance to comply," he said.'
The guy stood up and stood his ground. "No!"
Ridley's ghost Empyr firmly grasped his hand. Ridley ripped the phone out and shoved him to the ground.
"Thank you for demonstrating why you should all listen to me," Ridley smiled politely and dropped the phone in a bag. "We can sit here all day and while I'd love to, someone has something I need. The sooner it's given to me, the sooner you all may leave."
Naya knew what he was talking about. She debated giving him what he wanted but knew Via would be less than approving.
Everyone jumped when the door burst open to reveal Supergirl standing there.
"I know the party's fun but the kids gotta return to school," Supergirl said.
"Supergirl." Ridley said, glaring at her presence. "This isn't a matter for aliens. It's simply a matter of one specific person in here having something I want."
"Well, I don't know where you'll get it, but you won't get it here." Supergirl said before throwing a punch straight toward his face.
The punch threw Ridley into the wall outside of the conference room. She went for another throw but Empyr grabbed her hand and legs and threw her into the wall at the back of the conference room. Empyr ran towards her but was tackled by Via, which left a dent in the wall. This allowed Kara to recover and run towards Ridley. Ridley made a run for it, allowing the hostages to escape the conference room. Naya stuck around to help Via and Supergirl.
Empyr managed to break free from Via and approached Supergirl.
"Supergirl! Duck!" Naya called out.
Confused, Supergirl still ducked, causing Empyr to trip. Supergirl grabbed on to Ridley, holding his hands behind his back.
"I got him!" Supergirl said. "Go to the rest of your classmates. I think the police can handle it from here."
"He's not down yet, Supergirl!" Naya warned. "Watch out!"
Empyr grabbed hold of a vase and hurled it at Supergirl's head. Supergirl rolled out of the way.
"He's telekinetic?!" She yelled.
"No!" Naya said. "He has a ghost! I can take it him down but I need to get close! Just keep an eye on Ridley."
Naya ran past Supergirl and Ridley took the chance to grab her ankles. Naya fell flat on her face, almost in reach of Empyr who was head to head with Via. Naya army crawled towards Empyr, brushing the tips of her fingers on Empyr's foot. Empyr stiffened and fell to the ground.
In the meantime, Kara managed to restrain Ridley.
---
After everyone was released from the building, Kara approached Naya, who sat in the ambulance with a shock blanket. Naya looked up to see two other people standing on either side of her.
"Naya," Kara began. "We need to ask a few questions."
---
"Can you explain all of that to me again?" Hank Henshaw, director of the DEO, asked.
"Starting from where?" asked Naya.
"From the part about the ghosts." Hank replied.
"Oh, uh, yeah, I can see ghosts and so can that guy," Naya replied, hugging her sides.
"How?" Hank asked, pacing around the room.
"I don't know," Naya said. "We come from a type of humans called Spectators. We also get these ghosts that follow us around because they need help with something."
"Do you know what Ridley wanted?" Hank asked.
"He wanted Via," Naya said, pointing to Via, who appeared as an empty space to everyone else.
"And Via is your ghost?" Naya nodded. "Why does he want her?" Naya shrugged.
"Stay in here," commanded Hank. "Kara has something she wanted to say."
"Okay." Naya rocked in her chair.
A moment after Hank left, Kara entered.
"That was some good work you put in back there," Kara said. "I think you'd do well helping me out."
"With what?" Naya asked.
"Being my protege." Kara said