I know, i know! i should be solely focused on my Rose King series since i put Just Like You on hold. but this is not a focus. this is going to be full of disjointed chapters that will only connect if i write it like that. ill only post a new story if the idea comes to me and even you guys are welcome to giving me ideas, really ill take them.
this isn't my first story but its a first in this fandom. and this is something me and my brother can bond over since he and i really like young justice. enjoy!
disclaimer: i dont need to say it. if i owned it, there'd be a third, fourth, and fifth season by now. seriously...
The scent of a forest is stronger in the rain. The damp weather brings out the smells of earth, dirt, and plants; so strong that it forces its aromatic scent up the noses of the pack of young people dashing across the wet leaves and mud. Not that it bothered them; it was strangely therapeutic, calming their senses. A good thing, since the place they were running to held potential danger for them all.
Topping the crest of hill, the young runners slid down its other side, using the wet mud to their advantage. The forest was filled with the sound of gently falling rain and their panting as they kept up their fierce pace. They had to reach the destination before their quarry did.
The four teenagers powered up the last hill. At the top, the leader halted and slid into hiding behind a tree, his pack following suit. The rain had made the temperature drop and it was already early winter, so their breaths escaped as vapor from their mouths.
"Just down there will be the ambush site," the leader, Kaldur said. His silver eyes scanned the trees while he adjusted the twin swords strapped to his back, and brushed off the mud from his red shirt that had its sleeves cut off. To hide the color from watchful eyes, a dark blue cloak was draped across his shoulders, the hood up to shadow his face. "Wally should be back any minute now."
The words were barely out of his mouth when a yellow blur came speeding up the hill. A boy with bright green eyes and red hair materialized in front of them. Most people of the kingdom would be screaming and crossing themselves at the sight of a boy appearing in front of them with inhuman speed and a smile on his face, but for this group of young people, it was a normal occurrence and often, an annoying one.
"All clear," Wallace Rudolph West announced brightly. His boots were caked with mud from using his superspeed in wet terrain but surprisingly, his bright yellow tunic and red overvest did not have a spot of mud on them
"Good," Kaldur said simply.
"For once, you don't screw up a scouting mission," laughed a small, black-haired boy, wearing a mask over his eyes. He was dressed in a red tunic and black pants with black boots. A black-on-top, red-on-bottom cloak hung from his shoulders, the hood pulled up to protect himself from the rain. A wide leather belt rested on his slender torso, strapped with knives, two dirks, and various pouches filled with such a variety of tools and weapons that not even his fellow comrades knew the extent of his whole arsenal. The only protect the boy deigned to wear were leather and steal gauntlets on his arms.
"Thanks for the support, Rob, what are best friends for?" Wally replied sarcastically.
"Speaking of which, this job requires stealth," replied a snarky voice from a girl with long blonde hair tied into a pony tail. Her outfit had even less protection than Robin's. Tight green pants fitted her lean, muscled legs and soft boots of green leather clad her feet. She had green top that exposed her midriff with a hood and mask sewn into the neckline. The only weapons she carried was a sharp knife on her thigh and a quiver of a dozen arrows strapped on her shoulder. In her gloved hands was an elegantly carved long bow. Her gray, cat-eyes looked over Wally with disdain and irritation.
"Stealth meaning we can't be spotted until the ambush. So why are you wearing those bright colors, Baywatch?"
Wally replied hotly, "In case you've forgotten Artemis, I am the teenage speedster Kid Flash. This is my uniform that bad guys will fear!"
"Never trust a guy in yellow," Artemis muttered, rolling her eyes.
Kaldur interjected before they the pair could really get into an endless bicker session. "Still, Artemis has a valid point. Do you have a dark cloak you can over the suit?"
Wally pretended for a few seconds that he had not heard the question, opting to study his nails like they needed cleaning. It was clear that to the rest of them that he had not come prepared.
"He can have mine," offered the last of them, Connor. He was a tall, broad-shouldered youth with short black hair and steely, blue eyes. His face was usually set in a frown or an enraged scowl. He carried no weapons and only wore dark blue breeches with heavy black boots, and a black shirt on top. He slipped a brown cloak off his wide shoulders and handed it to Wally.
"Brown looks terrible against yellow," the red-head griped quietly as the rest ignored him.
"M,gann, Zatanna, we are at the ambush site. What is the position of the target?" Kaldur called out clearly in his mind. The other teenagers quieted down as the message rang out through their heads via the telepathic link that one of their witches, M'gann, had set up. Currently, M'gann and the other witch, Zatanna, were flying above their targets, out of sight and keeping an eye on them.
"The caravan is about a mile away but they're moving pretty fast," came the young witch's reply. "Neither of us have been able to tell who the leader is up front, since he's wearing a hood over his head."
"But his cloak has King Luthor's insignia, so we can rule out anybody working for Lord Savage and Queen Bee," Zatanna said, joining the conversation.
"Does it matter?" Connor growled irritably. "What matters is that we stop them before they reach the salt mines."
"And we will, my friend," Kaldur replied calmly, keeping the conversation in their heads. No one bothered Connor when he was in this kind of mood and no really wanted to. This particular mission was important to him.
"You all know your positions," Kaldur ordered. "Let's go."
Silently, they hurried off to their assigned strategic points. The hill sloped down and at the bottom curved a muddy road full of wagon ruts as it was often used. The hill itself was filled with hiding spots behind thick tree trunks and undergrowth. Kaldur and Wally hid behind the trees, the speedster checking that he had a clear path to run when it was time to break cover. On the other side of the road, the land dipped again into another steep hill that curved to the right. The ridge was enough to hide Connor, who lay flat in the wet grass.
Artemis hid behind a tree a little ways down so she could pick off any enemies from behind. Robin took a running leap and scaled the side of tall oak like a cat. In no time, he was hidden among the branches, disappearing with that "ninja stealth" as Wally called it. It would be Robin to signal the time of attack.
"We are ready," Kaldur relayed.
"They are almost there," M'gann reported.
Silence then reigned again in the forest, and the only sound was the soft patter of the rain and a fearful trill of a magpie. The young hunters waited, shifting only to relieve themselves of cramping muscles. Ears were strained to catch the approach of their quarry.
Over the rain, they heard it. The hoof beats and snorts of horses, the creak of wagon wheels. Down the road and progressing toward them was a guarded caravan. A hooded man on a huge gray horse led the way and Robin could see the bulk of his armor hidden by the cloak. Behind were more mounted guards flanking each sides of two wagons pulled by more horses. Robin counted the helmets; six on each side and he could just see two more in the back. Fourteen in all, not counting the leader. Most band of outlaws would turn tail at the sight of so many soldiers but this would be a piece of cake for these particular teenagers. The King could have assigned his entire army to these two wagons but even that would not make them run. They would never abandon this cargo.
Correction, Robin thought, mentally blocking his thoughts from broadcasting. We would never abandon these people.
The wagons were open on all sides and barred so the people inside had no protection from the rain or the wind. The interior wasn't more than ten feet long and six feet wide, yet there was about twenty people crammed inside. Some were forced to stand and sit on each others laps. They were all thinned from lack of proper nourishment, and filthy from being forced to sit in each others refuse. From what Robin could see, the oldest was a withered, pale man who wouldn't last more than three days in the salt mines. The youngest was a little girl no more than five.
It made the raven-haired boy sick. The King was not above slave trading to boost his economy. The same could be said of the men that worked for Luthor. Anything to fill their pockets. Despicable.
Robin shook his head. No use getting worked up. His mentor, the Dark Knight, had drilled into him that he should never go into battle with a temper and his head clouded with emotions. That kind mindset led you to do reckless things and take unnecessary risks. Through the mind link, he and the rest of the group could feel Connor's growing anger rising. No one blamed him; he was once a slave himself and just the sound of chains made him furious.
The wagon train creaked onward through the mud. The leader had just passed under Robin's perch, a branch that stretch above the road and was covered by leaves. No one would see him as long as he stay stilled, which was an easy feat for the acrobatic thief. Carefully, his hand slipped into one of his belt pouches and pulled out a sphere made of pottery clay.
The first wagon passed under him. "Not yet...almost," he thought aloud. The rest of the team tensed in preparation.
There was a small gap between the wagons where two guards rode close together. As they passed under him, Robin threw the clay sphere down with all his might. It smashed into pieces and the contents were exposed to the oxygen in the air. Immediately, a thick yellow smoke dispersed and rose into the soldiers' nostrils. They started choking, coughing, and wiping away tears that blinded them as the smoke burned their eyes.
The team wasted no time in catching the caravan off guard. Artemis swept from her hiding spot and fired off two arrows at the guards in the back. They screamed and fell off their horses, clutching their calves that had the shaft of arrows sticking out from them. Wally flashed out and pulled another guard off his horse, punching his lights out before the man could unsheathe his sword. Connor was next to break cover. He charged head on at the guards, roaring in rage, and slammed all his body weight into a horse's side. The poor animal toppled over with a neigh of fright and trapped its rider under its bulk. Another soldier swung his broadsword at Connor, thinking he could kill an unarmored, weaponless boy. No such luck. The muscled teen caught the blade right in his hand and jerked the man off his mount, delivering a swift kick to his jaw.
Kaldur pulled his swords from their sheaths on his back and proceeded to parry with the hooded leader. The man had dismounted from his horse and had unsheathed a heavy broadsword sword. A devastating weapon if one could yield it with enough strength. Its one disadvantage was its speed. Or lack of thereof. Knowing this, Kaldur flicked his wrists. With a shimmer of blue light, his swords shifted into dirks, long knives that could slip under the guard of a bigger weapon. Any other soldier would flee from a display of magic but this one continued fighting.
Robin dropped from his perch onto the roof of a slave wagon. The people were inside were no less scared to death, for they did not know if this ambush was to their benefit or destruction.
"Don't be afraid," the raven-haired boy assured them with a smile. "We're here to set you free and get you to safety." Kaldur had put him in charge of leading them out, probably because he was the youngest and people tended to trust his youthful face almost instinctively. It annoyed Robin some that he wouldn't get his part of the action but if that was sacrificed so that innocents could escape their unjust captivity, then he would not complain. Without further ado, he popped out his picks from his belt and proceeded to cajole the latch lock to open. The captured men and women inside encouraged him on, and he easily blocked out all the chaos to concentrate.
The others were quickly finishing off the guards. The leader and four men were all that were left, all on foot and bunched together. Kaldur, Connor, Wally, and Artemis prowled like wolves around a lost flock of sheep.
"Surrender peacefully and no harm will come to you," Kaldur commanded evenly, his dirks having shifted into a long, lethal javelin, poised at the leader's chest.
"Oh no, whatever shall we do?" the leader cried dramatically in a false falsetto voice. His men looked at him with one of two expressions: rolling-my-eyes exasperation or he's-finally-lost-it annoyance. Even the team audibly groaned.
"Seriously?" Artemis groused. "This has got to be a joke. What the hell are you doing here Nigma?"
Sir Edward Nigma, also known as the Riddler, notorious only because of his riddles, swept off his hood with a flourish, too joyful to be rid of it. The team had dealt with him before and each encounter was more annoying than the last. As he stood beaming at all of them, Robin successfully unlocked the first cart.
To a middle-aged man standing nearest to the door, Robin said. "Lead these people to the other side of the hill here and wait for my team at the bottom. We'll join you with the rest and take you somewhere safe."
Fortunately, the man nodded confidently. He hopped out first and quietly led the woman and children up the incline, keeping a wary eye on the soldiers. Robin assisted in helping the weaker folk down from the prison cart, giving quiet assurances to the old and warm smiles to the young. One elderly woman squeezed his hand and said tearfully, "God bless you, child."
"I'm surprised you're still working for his most royal shiny head," Kid Flash joked, trying to keep the Riddler's attention away from the slave carts. The last of the slaves had made it over the lip of the hill and Robin had already started on the second cart lock. "What with your incompetence in everything else. Was guard duty too hard for you?"
"His glorious Majesty, you bull-headed brat, is merciful to those who are willing to serve him in any way possible," the Riddler retorted. "And he will reward me greatly when I present all of your wanted bodies to him."
"Shut up!" Connor snapped, a vein bulging from his muscular neck. "You filthy slave traders have no right to defend your slimy king so quit talking before I make you!"
"Being a runaway slave yourself, you seem to have forgotten how to speak to your master."
Damn, Robin thought as he struggled with the rusty lock. Riddler is pathetically harmless once he loses his toys and body guards but he sure knows how to get under your skin. Oh well, his funeral...
Connor, overcome with anger, took a step to charge the Riddler. However, the man reached into his cloak and raised something into the air. "Stay where you are or I throw this at the cargo!"
Robin looked up from his work, his heart quickening. Riddler held a greek fire bomb. Enclosed in its terracotta shell was a highly flammable, very lethal powder substance that could easily kill caged people, when it was lit. However, Nigma and his men were directly in front of the wagons and therefore did not see that the first cart was already empty and that Robin was working faster on the last lock as quickly and as quietly as he could.
"Well that would be a problem," Kid Flash quipped. "If it was, ya know...on fire."
To that, the Riddler just laughed. "If only your brain was as fast as your feet! This is something of my own invention so it doesn't need fire! Now, you're all going to let us back on the wagons so we can sell our wares or I-"
Uh, sir?" one of the guards started meekly.
Nigma looked positively livid at the interruption to his villainous negotiation."What?"
"The wares have escaped or are already escaping."
At last, the Riddler realized that the first cart was empty and Robin had just opened the door of the last, the people needing no encouragement to hop out and run as fast as they could to where Robin was directing them to hide. Nigma literally roared like a furious lion, fixing the young outlaws around him with a hatred-filled glare. Before anyone could stop him, he roared again and threw the bomb down with all his force.
Time goes slower for Kid Flash than to other people, so several things happened at once in his speed. Robin, realizing what was about to happen had reached for a knife but had reacted too late. Artemis let loose her taunt arrow and Wally could see that it would strike Nigma in the shoulder but the bomb had already left his hand. The redhead began to run toward Artemis. One arm grabbed her around the waste and the other gripped Connor's shirt collar. Only wanting to get them safely away, he threw their bodies as far as he could (Artemis was easy enough but Connor was predictably heavy). Without waiting to see if they were alright, Wally tackled Kaldur and they rolled away just as the bomb was about to impact the ground.
Blood, adrenaline, and fear were roaring in the young outlaws' ears. Silence slammed into the like a stampede. On the ground, covering their ears or guarding their faces, they waited for the explosion but it never came. Confused, they looked up and their faces broke out into wide grins.
The terracotta sphere was hovering a mere inches above the damp ground, like it was held by a ghost. The faces of the Riddler's men were white with terror. Nigma could only stare at the bomb blankly while he clutched at the bloody shaft in his shoulder. But before any of them could react, a voice came from nowhere, chanting a strange language.
"Eit meht pu yleruces!" Ropes appeared out of thin air and bound the men. They screamed bloody murder at the witchcraft and one soldier fainted from absolute fright.
"Are you guys okay?" asked a different voice from the air. M'gann, floating above the heads of the captured men, pulled down her hood and shimmered into view, revealing light brown hair, strange green skin, and a concerned motherly look on her face.
"I'm perfect now that you're here, gorgeous," Wally said smoothly, ignoring Artemis's snort of annoyance. "But didn't you see me get everyone out the bomb's range? There was no need to stop it from falling."
"She did it to save the King's men, genius," Artemis replied scathingly, never one to avoid a moment when she can bring Wally's ego down a few pegs.
"A close call," Kaldur said gravely. "Good job Miss Martian." The girl curtsied in mid-air, smiling politely.
The Riddler, recovering from his shock, began shouting hysterically, heedless of his bleeding wound. "No, no! This is all wrong! It shouldn't have ended this way!"
"How was it supposed to end, Captain? The bomb would have killed us and you too!" To the teenagers' surprise, one of the guards was glaring fire at his superior, putting sarcastic stress into Nigma's rank. Any soldier in King Luthor's army would never think of talking like this to their commanding officer, lest they want their tongue cut out.
"That was the point!" Riddler whined, drawing disbelieving stares from his men that were still conscious. "We would all be dead so the King would never hear of my humiliation at the hands of these brats!"
"This is just getting more tiresome," Zatanna muttered. She still wore M'gann's invisibility shield for fear of exposing her identity, and was floating next to the green-skinned witch by way of telekinesis. "Gag meht."
Zatanna's magic casted gags on the captured men, effectively silencing Nigma's moaning. "That's better," she sighed with relief.
When Robin saw that the two witches had the situation under control, he ran to check that all the slaves had made it and were staying put. The Dark Knight had given his protege instructions concerning them. They had to be careful of releasing escaped slaves, because if left to fend for themselves, they would surely be recaptured and sold again. Some would have to start new identities in different villages with a different profession. Some would be employed as servants to trusted nobles that would take care of them and pay well. Tragically, others will have no choice but to flee to another country altogether and start new lives somewhere else. For now, Robin would lead them to a nearby farm with a kind family that will feed, clothe them, and tend to their injuries.
The acrobat was returning now to the main group. "Everyone's out and waiting to get to the safe point. We need to get moving while we still have daylight. A lot of the older folk are going to go slow."
Kaldur dipped his head. "Understood. Kid Flash, Superboy, take these prisoners to the League's headquarters and have Manhunter perform a show for them. The rest of us will take care of the slaves."
"They aren't slaves anymore," Connor groused. "They are free men and women."
"Well said, my friend."
Connor and Wally freed the harnesses of the draft horse pulling the carts and slung the men on their backs. The horse were so big, they only needed two. The last were led by Robin and Artemis to use as mounts for the people who couldn't walk. M'gann changed her green skin into a peach pink so she wouldn't scare the common folk and Zatanna borrowed Robin's cloak to hide her identity. It didn't matter to the boy since he wore a mask.
As they walked up the steep hill, Robin and Artemis fell into the rear since the draft horses were slow to follow them. The blonde archeress turned to the thief.
"I know we did good work today, and I'm sorry if this sounds cynical," she began. "But if you think about it, we didn't do much for the war. There will be many other slave caravans and auctions, and we won't be their to stop them all."
Robin did not reply to rebuke her. What she said was only a logical conclusion and Robin always preferred things to be logical (though that was stretching it since he was part of a team that had a speedster, two witches, a boy that could punch through castle wall, and a leader that wielded shape-shifting weapons). Stopping one caravan wouldn't stop the practice of slavery.
The young outlaws- sorry, heroes- reached the top of the hill to be met with applause. The forty odd mass of people were cheering them. The men roared approvingly and raised their fists, the women sang praises, and the children laughed, giggled, and smiled like children should. Robin returned their enthusiasm and looked at Artemis, grinning from ear to ear.
"This may have been a small battle. But its the unsung victories that are the most memorable."
so what did you think? good, bad, never try this again, or update as soon as possible? leave a review please and enjoy the rest of your day! or night if you're like me...