SEL Chapter 41

Barbara stumbles and snatches up the fallen microphone. It’s not a Batarang, but it’s heavy enough for an accurate throw. It bounces off Summer’s skull and she drops in a heap as a bullet punches through the podium where her head just was.

Viti starts to run for the curtain, but she doesn’t understand the timing when someone like Deadshot is in play. Barbara tackles her around the middle and takes her to the floor as another bullet zips past. Barbara winces as a bullet strikes her, and does her best to shield Viti with her body.

SEL

Deadshot lands with grace that makes Steph envious, and this is the perfect opportunity for her to express her feelings about that. She flings a Batarang at his head and a gooparang at his feet as she somersaults through the air to land among the fleeing spectators.

Deadshot predictably shoots the Batarang before it can reach him, and the gooparang only partially connects with his left boot. He stumbles as he pulls himself free, and Steph is on top of him. He can fight, but he’s not ready for the ferocity that he is faced with. Steph lands several blows and kicks before one of the panicked spectators bumps into her and knocks her off balance. Deadshot sees his chance and shoves her away, sending her tumbling to the ground. That buys him the space that he needs.

Steph rolls to her feet, but she’s ten feet away and staring down the barrel of Deadshot’s wrist gun even as he swings his other wrist toward the stage.

A slender arm wraps around his neck and he finds himself in a chokehold. It’s Kate in civilian clothes. But she’s still hardly bigger than Steph against a full-sized man who has plenty of muscle. Deadshot doesn’t need muscle; he points his wrist gun at Kate’s head, only for his arm to be grabbed by another civilian. Another one joins, and a fourth person kicks Deadshot in the groin. They drag him to the ground and more pile on.

Steph realizes that these aren’t civilians at all: they’re Kate’s trainee and cop friends; they all wear dorky T-shirts that show Barbara in a bikini from that TV appearance that she did after testing the Seed cure. The shirts all say VOTE GORDON on the back.

Steph dashes forward and cuffs Deadshot, then slams a sedative into his neck. He groans and slumps over.

“We gotta figure out how to get these guns off him. Spoiler, get Gordon!” Kate orders.

Steph isn’t even mad about being bossed around; she thought she was a goner for a second. She vaults up to the stage, where Viti Saxena is bent over a bleeding Barbara. Viti has pressure on the wound.

“Please help her,” she says tearfully to Steph.

“I’ll remember this if your policies about costumed vigilantes ever get on my nerves,” Steph warns, taking over for her. “Ms. Gordon? You’re gonna be OK. This isn’t arterial bleeding.” It does look bad, though. She needs a hospital. Steph cringes. Really bad.

“Jesus!” Viti looks away as Steph uses a hemostatic plunger.

“What’s she doing out of her chair?” Steph asks.

Viti only shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

Steph looks over her shoulder at the cops struggling with Deadshot, the hole in the ceiling, and the devastation left by the hasty evacuation. Only in Gotham.

[ This is “The End” of SEL, but there will be several more chapters to show how various things ended up. We’re going to do those as dailies this week instead of FF1 because it would take another month as weeklies. There is also some stuff on the blog. ]