Project Shikon

Chapter 2

Jason let out a tired sigh as he hunkered down on the roof of the building next to his apartment. In a little corner where he was sure there were no cameras he took off his red helmet and stuffed it into his backpack that he kept hidden there. A small smirk came to his face as he thought about his neighbors, they probably thought he was just the weird dude who liked to come into his house through the window. He took his notable jacket off and stuffed it into the same backpack. He put on a hoodie that he kept stashed with his backpack and put it on, flipping the hood up. He still had his domino mask on that he kept on under his helmet, you know just in case. He might not be Batman's fan at the moment, but his training was still in his head. He slung the backpack onto his back, not bothering to zip it up entirely as he was a few seconds from home, and jumped across to the gap to the fire escape to his building. He made his way to his window and opened it up entering his home.

He made a beeline straight for his bedroom, ready to just collapse for a few hours before doing actually doing something productive. With a tired sigh, he reached up and pushed the hoodie off of his head. The domino mask quickly followed as it got a bit itchy after wearing it for a while. As he looked up he noticed very quickly that there was something very wrong going on in his room. As there was a short, dirty little girl sitting on the edge of his bed.

"What in the hell?" he shouted out. He dropped his bag, his helmet rolling out of it.

He watched the little girl look at him, look down to the helmet, and then back up to him with large wide eyes. Shit! She knew, he couldn't just kick her out now... she had seen him take his mask off. What was he going to do?

As the girl shifted slightly Jason really took notice of her. She was wearing what was once a white dress. Now it was almost a light brown with how dirty it was, the bottom was completely ripped off. Jason's eyes went wide slightly as he realized her left side was red and the red was growing slightly. Just noticing the rips on the side of her dress where the blood was coming from.

Jason rushed forward and picked the girl up, barely noticing that she had no shoes on. He ignored her terrified look and brought her into his bathroom. He set her down on the floor and started getting some warm water running. He squatted down and started pulling her dress up to look at where she was hurt.

The girl's eyes went wide and instantly started trying to hold her dress down. Jason looked up to the girl's face only to see two very blue eyes glaring back at him, plus two fuzzy dog ears twitching angrily.

For a brief moment, his mind was stuck on the girl's blue eyes, they were so blue that they reminded him of Dickie's. Then his mind finally processed that she had dog ears, not human. He felt something brush up against his leg and he looked down quickly to see a bushy black tail whipping angrily on the floor. Just what had broken into his apartment? She had to be a meta-human of some kind, though he had never seen one quite like her before. She was baring her teeth angrily at him, trying to keep her dress down.

Jason let out a laugh despite the circumstances, "Relax kid, I'm not stripping you because I want to. I need to look at your injuries. If they are bleeding that much they can't be good. Trust me you don't want it to get infected."

She glared at him for a bit longer while holding what was left of her dress before a pout took place of her glare and she let go of her dress. Relinquishing the hold of her dress over to him. He pulled his medical kit from under the sink and got out the disinfectant and some bandages. He pushed the wrecked dress up and realized he needed both of his hands to fix her injuries. "Hey kid, I need you to hold your dress okay? You can understand me, right?" he had realized she had a foreign look about her, he would say Japanese.

She gave a nod, a pout still on her face as she grabbed the bottom of her dress and held it up to her chest.

Jason smirked slightly as he started unwrapping the previous wrappings. He realized that the wrappings were the bottom part of her dress. She must have done it herself. He quickly and efficiently cleaned and re-wrapped her wounds. The two gashes on her side were not good, they were pretty deep, not too deep to need stitches though. They were more long than deep. He kept the information in the back of his mind that there had been too much blood from that wound. He filed information away that she might have some accelerated healing.

"Alright kid we need to have a chat, but before that let's get you something different for you to wear." He grabbed her hand and dragged her back to his room. Now he really didn't have something that would fit her, not really. He wasn't like the golden boy that kept clothes handy at his house for the rest of his siblings. He knew for a fact that Dick had three different sets of clothes for the demon brat at his house. He dropped the girl's hand in the middle of his room and made his way to his dresser and started digging around for a sweater that wouldn't fall off her tiny frame. Finally, he found a turtleneck that would be able to stay on her body. He turned to give her the and found her in the exact spot he had dropped her hand. Before he handed her the shirt he gave her one more glance over. He really wanted to get a good look at the girl, he hadn't gotten a good look at her before. The surprise of her ears and tail were a great example of that.

Just like before her bright blue eyes were the first thing that he noticed. Upon closer inspection, he could see specks of gold scattered in them. She had long black hair that fell to her hips. Her hair was so dark that it almost had hints of dark blue highlights. Her ears were twitching so slightly, he almost didn't notice their movement. Her tail, which had been whipping angrily earlier was now simply hanging loosely behind her. He wasn't exactly sure how much actual control she had over the tail. Maybe it only reacted to her emotions? She looked to be about six, maybe even seven. Definitely young, way too young to have an injury as bad as she had. He knew that when he found out who did that to her they were going to be having a bad time, he did not forgive people that hurt kids. They were the worst of the worse. Beyond that though there was something else that drew his attention. His eyes traveled down her face to her throat. Jason's eyes went dark at what he saw. Sitting around her neck was a collar, a dog collar. Some sick freak had put a collar around this little kid like she was just some common mutt.

Jason let out a cold growl as he stalked forward, tossing the sweater to the ground. She looked up at him with cautious eyes. He knelt down in front of her and reached behind her to undo the latch of the collar. He practically ripped it off of her, but he made sure to not hurt her at all. He looked down at the collar and saw that there was a small name tag on it. Whoever did this was going to meet the ends of his guns. He read the tag; written in all caps was PROJECT SHIKON. He let out an angry sigh and stuffed the collar into his pocket and picked the sweater back up.

"Listen, kid, you're not going to wear that stupid collar. Ever again, got me?" he looked down at her. She nodded slowly, eyes wide. It was then that Jason realized that she hadn't uttered a single word, hadn't made a single sound since he had found her on his bed. "Can you talk kid?"

A frown appeared on her face and shook her head slowly. She averted her eyes and started staring at the floor. Jason frowned with her and then let out a sigh. Suddenly a loud growl permeated the air. Jason's frown disappeared as an amused smirk took its place.

Jason let out a small chuckle, "Are you hungry kid?" he asked amused.

A small blush flushed her face as she nodded her head. Jason shook his head and chucked the sweater at her, "Put that on and then come out. You can just throw that ripped piece of crap away."

Without waiting for an answer, knowing he wouldn't get one, he walked out and made his way to his kitchen. He wasn't sure what to make, he really didn't have all that much in his apartment. He made his way over to the fridge and looked in. Well, he had some pizza from the night before. He could heat some of that up, with how hungry she sounded she couldn't be too picky... right?