Tag: drake

League of Justice #1.7: “A Weary Life”

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Little Dinah loved the smell of cookies baking on a rainy evening. Somehow the damp air inside the efficiency apartment made the smell carry farther, not that there was all that much space. Anyway, it made the apartment smell like love, because Dinah always knew her mother loved her as she baked cookies. The Drake family never had much money, and things like cookies were a luxury, at least the store bought premium cookies. But when her mother splurged food stamps on chocolate chips and made cookies, Dinah felt that something extra special was happening.

Even at 15, Dinah still loved the smell of chocolate chip cookies. Her mom was in the kitchen baking, and Dinah was doing her homework.

Suddenly the door to the apartment slammed open, the door jamb splintering under sudden assault.

“Where are you, whore?!” A massive white man with a thin mustache and slicked-back hair charged into the apartment. Behind him were two bald, white thugs with shiny hand guns. Dinah’s mother ran from the kitchen.

“Not here, Marko. For God’s sake, my daughter is here!”

“Shove it. Bitch aught to know what a whore her mother is. You busted up my friend.”

“He tried to rape me.”

Marko laughed, too loud and too long. “How can you rape a whore? Isn’t that what they are for?” His thugs chuckled. “Bitch, I sent you a premium client and you scratch up his face? Ain’t good for business.”

“Fuck you, Marko. He wasn’t following the rules.”

“Goddamnit, bitch. My rules. My friend. You are as stupid as you are ugly.”

Finally, Dinah had enough. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She thought her mom worked as a waitress, but apparently she had a side business as a two-dollar darling.

“Shut up! You can’t talk to my mom like that! Get out of here!”

Marko responded with a vicious backhand that sent Dinah sprawling. Before anyone could react, he pulled a small pistol and shot Dinah’s mother through the eye. Blood and brains splattered the living room wall. It was then Dinah found her voice. She screamed.

The sound was piercing, loud, and powerful. Glass everywhere in the apartment shattered, the thugs grabbed their heads, and Marko’s ears started to bleed. Dinah stood up and screamed again. Marko sank to the floor and lost his grip on his gun. In that moment, Dinah moved. She grabbed the gun and pulled the trigger again and again and again and again until she emptied the drum magazine. Blowback from what was left of Marko’s face had splashed all over Dinah’s face and shirt. He crumpled to the floor, his head a mass of blood and bone.

Dinah screamed again, this time the thugs just ran, wiping blood from their ears. Dinah fell to the floor sobbing. From the kitchen she could smell chocolate chip cookies burning in the oven. Dinah vomited.

Ten years later…

Dinah sat on her motorcycle as it idled at a stop light. Next to her a bakery was baking fresh chocolate chip cookies. Dinah could smell the cookies baking on the breeze. It made her sick to her stomach. She hated the smell of chocolate chip cookies. As soon as the light turned green, she revved her engine and sped through the intersection. She couldn’t wait to get out of Gotham.

After crying for what seemed like forever that day, Dinah had left the apartment. She never bothered to turn off the oven and discovered the next day that the apartment had burned down and she was presumed dead. The news suited her just fine. From that day, she lived on the streets, bound to nowhere and no one. She even left her name behind, calling herself the Black Canary.

Her mother had always called her that, because ever since Dinah was a tiny girl, she could sing with a beauty that brought tears to her mother’s eyes. “You are my little black canary bird,” her mom would say as Dinah sang and her mother braided her hair. “Sing for me some more, my black canary.” And Dinah would.

For reasons she didn’t understand her larynx could emit sounds at a higher frequency and power than any other she had ever heard of. She made her voice her weapon, as it could incapacitate people with ease, or at a close range, shatter glass, brick or concrete. She could even send resonant waves through metal. The Canary’s Cry she called it.

And so Dinah died, and Black Canary wandered the world, from Metropolis to Gotham and all points in between, and wherever she saw women being taken advantage of, or hurt, or under threat, she made a stand and usually left blood and death and a survivor in her wake.

Dinah never imagined living a life of a vigilante outlaw killer, but then, she never thought she would hate chocolate chip cookies.

Violence changed everything in her life forever.

Finally she reached a highway on ramp leading away from Gotham. Dinah wanted to hole up somewhere quiet and small town-ish for a while. She saw a sign for Metropolis and headed that way, but her destination was a city just outside Metropolis called Smallville. She had heard of a country fair there once, and thought they had a singing competition. Maybe she would enter.

She gunned the engine of her motorcycle and sped off into the brightening day. The storm was past, and a new time was shining through the clouds. Miles raced beneath her wheels and the highway sang a song of peace.

For a rare moment, Dinah smiled beneath her helmet.

League of Justice 1.2: “We End the Heartache”

Gotham City

Rain was simultaneously beautiful and hideous when it fell on Gotham City. It was beautiful in the parts of the grand metropolis that still regained a facade of the respectable and the upright. It cleansed such structures and streets of the grime and filth of Gotham’s crime. It was hideous everywhere else. It overran gutters, flushing sewage down crumbling avenues. It liquified the grit and broken concrete, covering everything in a film of slime and oily ooze. Everything stank worse in the rain, and stuck to your clothes and hands and face.

Even so, Gotham in the rain was better than some places Dinah Drake had seen in the sun. When all you have are bad choices… Dinah mused. She was thankful for her tough motorcycle boots and armored leather. It gave her a layer of protection from Gotham’s muck. It didn’t make her smell any better, but it might reduce the number of showers she would need later. She wished she were astride her motorcycle, then at least she could also wear a helmet, but she needed stealth for this particular job, and her several hundred horses weren’t exactly quiet.

Taking advantage of her dark skin and black leather, Dinah moved from shadow to pool of darkness and back to shadow. Dinah had no idea who her father was, but he must have been of a lighter race than her mother. While still “black” to most people, Dinah was much lighter than her mother. Her mother’s blacker than night skin was velvety smooth, and as a child, Dinah had loved nothing more than resting on her mother’s chest, and staring into her deep, brown eyes. Moments of peace were hard to find in the Drake apartment.

Dinah pushed these thoughts from her mind, and concentrated. Up ahead was her target: Gotham Auto Loan and Pawn. No doubt another vulture picking over the down and out and nearly dead of the last of Gotham’s innocent, but poor, community. Who would be so desperate to remain in Gotham that they would put up their only way out as collateral on bad loans with such an obvious lack of a way to pay?

Dinah looked up and down the street. No one was in sight. This was the time. Closing the distance with quick strides that sent mini walls of water rushing away from her boots, Dinah rushed the door. Without breaking stride she kicked down the door and pulled a sawn off shotgun from beneath her jacket. Pumping a shell into the chamber, she barked at the geezer behind the counter.

“The cash. Now! In the bag!” She tossed a leather saddle bag at him. Going slowly, he fumbled with the keys to the drawer beneath the counter that held the larger bundles of money. The register, as Dinah knew, only held petty cash. “Move faster, old man.” Dinah spared a glance out the door, but still saw no one. Damnit! Where are they? A place such as this should be guarded by mob muscle. That they hadn’t shown was slightly more disturbing than if they had.

Finally the bag was filled. The man behind the counter slid it over to Dinah. She grabbed it, lowering her shotgun while doing so.

“Freeze, bitch.” The words were quiet, but dripping with menace. She felt the cold circle of a gun barrel press into her neck, tight against her spine. “One move and I’m raping a headless corpse. I’d do it to, cuts down on the struggling.” Where do all of these sickos come from? Gotham seemed to have more than its fair share of psychotic criminals. “What now?” Dinah kept her voice even.

“Hand the howitzer to Gerald.” Dinah held out her gun. The old man took it and aimed it at her. She gun at her neck backed away. “Spread em, bitch.” Dinah was spun around and shoved up against the wall. She saw then a doorway that she neglected to see when she busted into the place. Rookie mistake. You know better, girl! Her captor, whom she still hadn’t seen, patted along her arms and shoulders, down her back, and then, much more slowly, down her front, making absolutely sure she hadn’t hidden an armored tank division in her bra. Dinah endured the violation. She’d had worse, surprisingly, give this particular creep’s apparent taste. The hands reached her waist. He clicked his tongue.

“Too bad about the leather. I like me some smooth black skin.” Her penchant for jeans didn’t stop him from taking his time making sure she hadn’t stuffed an aircraft carrier down either side of her panties. He moved on to her legs. “Sorry, I left the fishnets and high heels at home, dick.” She took a risk with the insult, but the man just gave a grunting chuckle and finished his assault. “You are one stupid bitch. Now, you’re gonna scream for me.” He shoved himself against her, apparently not caring that he had a witness behind the counter. Still, Dinah obliged. She screamed.

An astoundingly loud and piercing sonic blast emitted from her mouth. The force of it snapped her head backwards and into the creep’s nose. It cracked audibly. In front of her the wall crumbled, cracking outwards from what looked like an impact crater from a non-existent projectile. Spinning, she savagely slammed a knee into the creep’s crotch and while he was sagging to the ground, Dinah screamed again, but with a lower volume and a higher pitch. In fact most of this scream was ultrasonic. The old man groaned and clutched his head. Blood trickled from his nose, ears, and eyes. Every bit of glass in the place shattered. He dropped the shotgun with a clatter onto the counter. Moving quickly, Dinah grabbed the bag of cash and her gun. She stabbed the barrel down into the creep’s face where it moaned from the floor. “Fuck this.” She pulled the trigger. The concussive blast shook the walls and counter. Dinah spun on her heel and ran out into the rain.

Death was nothing new to her, and besides, she felt less remorse than when she crushed a cockroach. Some breathers didn’t deserve the breath. Besides, living a desperate life had moved her past simple morals and quaint righteousness. A long time ago she had been left to fend for herself at the worst possible time in her life. A few years of selling everything and ruining her life out of survivalist necessity had hardened her to the choices she made. When all you have a bad choices, you choose the least worst option. Robbing thieves and murdering murders wasn’t even a bad choice in Dinah’s worldview. This was practically a good day.

A few blocks down the street, she arrived where she had hidden her bike. Securing the saddlebag, she revved the engine. Now that silence was unnecessary, she relished the roar. With a spin of the rear wheel, she shot off down the road. Water cascaded in crystal sheets. With the sun peaking out of the clouds behind her, ahead all she saw were shimmering rainbows.

For a second, the bleak dark world seemed to be a magical place.