Person002: Hehe... So, funny story about the timestamps, actually... the timestamp on the official episode is actually June 22, but when you pointed it out, I went back and changed that, because apparently, the show staff never noticed. They did join the team before they trained with Constantine, but their joining was mostly a formal introduction and a night of bonding; they had at minimum one day of training before their first mission. And thanks for the advice on my writing!
Guest 1 and 2: Sorry the update didn't get out at the end of the month like I'd promised; I was on a family vacation and was not allowed to use my Dad's computer for this kind of thing while I was gone.
Disclaimer: The only characters I own in this work are the ones that were not originally present in the Young Justice Television series. All other characters belong to their respective owners.
"Jag tycker fortfarande att det här är en dålig idé," Mikael said to his sister, fixing his facial covering.
"Mick, English," Spirit said simply, stretching a bit.
"Sorry... But still... This seems like a really bad idea. And I should know bad ideas; I'm the king of bad ideas," the brunette said firmly, arms crossed as he followed behind his teammates.
"We're all clear," Robin said after peeking into the factory.
After moving further in, Spirit sighed as Kid Flash took off after Robin. "I swear, those two take the whole 'teen boys are immature' stereotype to levels I never thought possible."
"The closer two people are, the more they argue," Mikael said simply. "But geez, you guys seeing the size of this shipment?"
"Yeah, but they're only taking the new product off the line," Superboy pointed out, gesturing to the crate in front of them. "They're not touching this venom."
"Maybe freshness counts?" Miss M offered.
"Normally, I'd agree with that, since you're not supposed to ingest drugs past their expiration date, but this time, I think it's different," Mikael said honestly.
"What makes you say that?" Aqualad questioned.
"Spirits; loads of em," the brunette explained. Seeing the confused looks on his teammates' faces, he sighed. "The thing me and my sister have works one of two ways depending on your personality. Since I was bolder and more abrasive when we hit twelve, I got the communicative powers; I see and hear spirits. Spirits are attracted to dangerous objects; the more dangerous it is, the more spirits I'll see with it, and there's a hell of a lot more around the new product than the old. My guess is that something's different with the new product; something that makes it more dangerous."
Out of nowhere, Superboy's eyes widened. "Helicopter's coming."
His words caused the teens to turn their attention towards the sky, and Aqualad to press a finger to the comm-link in his ear. The Atlantean then groaned in irritation when he heard static. "I can't get through to Robin or Kid. Spirit, go find them, and Miss Martian, get us a visual on the supplier."
The pair simply nodded, Spirit turning invisible as Miss Martian went to camouflage before going off for their separate missions.
Mikael bit his lip, grabbing his sister's hand before she left. "Be careful."
He couldn't see her response, but he had a feeling she acknowledged his request.
Mikael sighed softly. "Man, I really wish I had that Scrying spell mastered. If I had, I think I'd be way more useful."
"You're doing your best," Aqualad said simply, closing his eyes. Mikael assumed this was to receive a telepathic message from Miss Martian. After a moment, the Atlantean's eyes went wide. "Sportsmaster? He is the buyer?"
Mikael frowned at that, instinctively pressing two fingers to the communication device in his ear before groaning in irritation. "I got static; can't get through to the League, and Spirit, Kid, and Robin are still MIA... Any ideas?"
"I have a plan," Bane said simply, dropping down to take out two of the Kobra cultists.
"What is he-oh crud!" Mikael exclaimed, noticing a large man with green skin and red hair descending on them through the broken window.
He quickly stepped between Superboy and Aqualad and raised one hand to the air while pressing the other to the runestone around his neck, a magic circle appearing in the air in front of his raised hand as he called out, "Beskytte!"
The clouded red dome that encircled them fended off the attack, but the sheer force of it still ended with the trio falling to the ground.
As Superboy took on the Behemoth, Aqualad put up a shield, which Nighthawk hid behind as well. "Don't suppose you mind me hiding back here while I wait for my runestone to recharge?"
"Not at all," the Atlantean said simply, using one water bearer to create a shield and the other to occasionally fire a small water blast at the enemy.
The mystic simply nodded, gazing at his stone in irritation. If he prepared his spell like he had with the tracking spell, then it usually didn't require him to do anything but channel his own energy through the stone, and the same went for minor attack spells. However, for any major spell that wasn't used with a circle, he had to use the energy tied to his runestone.
It was an irritating weakness that came with using runic magic and left him highly vulnerable to distanced attacks.
The brunette followed Aqualad behind a pillar, groaning as the light of the rune began returning to him, but much too slowly for his liking.
"Miss Martian, radio is jammed! Link us up!" Aqualad insisted loudly, trying to make his voice heard over the enemy fire.
Moments later, the brunette heard a high pitched whine in his mind, before the red-haired martian's voice crackled through. 'Everyone online?'
Superboy mentally sighed before saying, 'Yeah.'
'You know it beautiful,' Kid Flash responded from behind a pillar of his own.
'... I'm choosing to wait until after we're safe from enemy fire to ask,' Mikael decided, trying to keep himself from freaking out.
'This is so freaking weird, but yes,' Spirit jumped in from where she was attempting to overshadow one of the cultists.
'Good. We need to regroup,' Aqualad said firmly.
'Busy now,' Robin said-er, thought?- in a sing-song tone.
'... I'll grab the Boy Blunder and catch up,' the ghostly girl said simply.
Once Spirit located Robin, she sighed in relief. It didn't seem like he knew she was here, which meant an easy overshadowing. People were a lot easier to overshadow when they didn't know she was coming, and once she'd taken him over, his mind would basically go to sleep.
The girl quickly turned intangible before going into the raven's body and doing all she could to not shudder. She hated overshadowing males; it was so uncomfortable to take over a body that was so different compared to your own!
Still, she moved forward, taking a flash bomb from the Boy Wonder's belt and throwing it down before turning invisible the moment it went off, in order to find the rest of the team.
Once they were in the tunnels, she quickly moved out of him and sighed in relief, dropping down and shifting back to Emma in order to recover some energy.
"Superboy, the support beams!" Aqualad called out.
Without asking what he meant, the Kryptonian simply launched his fists into the beams, allowing the cave to collapse on itself.
"How could my first mission as leader go so wrong?" Robin questioned quietly, not even looking in the team's direction.
The girl didn't really blame him; overshadowing was as much of an extreme violation of privacy as unconsented telepathy.
Mikael sighed. "You have a lot of experience working in a team, but because that team is only you and the Bat, I think that's what leaves you so unprepared to lead this team."
"Indeed," Aqualad picked up. "Fighting alongside Batman, your roles are... defined; you two do not need to talk. But this team is new, and a leader must be clear, explicit. They cannot vanish and expect others to play a part in an unknown plan."
"So I'm supposed to hold everyone's hands?!" Robin demanded.
Nighthawk simply lowered the covering that hid the lower half of his face before kneeling down next to the Boy Wonder. "Actually, yeah. I don't know much about how superhero teams operate, but in any team sport, that's how it works; the leader has to think about everyone; their strengths and weaknesses, and where they'll do best in a given scenario. It's not an easy job, but leading a team means taking on a role that's very similar to that of a parent. We work together for a given outcome, and that requires a lot of communication."
Robin frowned, trying to keep up his pride, before sighing. "Ah, who am I kidding? You should lead us, Kaldur... You're the only one who can."
"And to keep Kid Idiot from saying something stupid... How about a vote? All in favor of Aqualad as leader?" Mikael questioned before raising his face covering again, as well as his hand.
Everyone chimed in with some form of 'aye', and Kaldur simply smiled.
"Very well. Then I accept this burden," he said, placing a hand on Robin's shoulder. "Until you are ready to lift it from my shoulders."
"Sportsmaster's the supplier/buyer, but it still doesn't track," Robin said honestly, looking at his holographic computer as the team ran towards the exit. "He doesn't have the juice to acquire the Blockbuster formula, or to get Kobra to do his dirty work."
"And neither of them have the chops to bond blockbuster with venom; that took some major nerdage," Wally agreed.
"I believe the expression is, tip of the iceberg," Aqualad said honestly, coming to a stop as he saw Bane right in front of them.
The large, muscular man then dropped some small bombs down between himself and the group of teens as he smirked. "Halt, Ninos. I'm feeling... explosive."
"You betrayed us," Aqualad said, feigning surprise as Spirit turned invisible from behind them, quietly flying up behind Bane to provide backup if needed. "Why?"
"I want my factory back," Bane said simply, while Aqualad instructed Kid to be ready to take a running start. "So I forced you into a situation where you'd either take down my enemies or die trying. If the latter, the Justice League would certainly have come to avenge their sidekicks, and when the smoke cleared, Santa Prisca would be mine once more. Blowing the tunnel with you inside should have the same effect."
Right before Bane could press the button on his trigger, Wally sped past and grabbed it from him.
"With what?" the speedster grinned. "This trigger thingy?"
Before the older man could land a punch on the redhead, Miss Martian telekinetically lifted him off the ground and turned him so he was facing the group in the tunnels
"Finally," Superboy grinned, ready to get his rage out. "Drop him."
As Kid Flash sped in and began taking down some of the Kobra cultists, Mikael dropped behind Sportsmaster with help from Spirit, in order to keep him away from Superboy and Miss Martian, taking turns firing small attacks at the assassin.
Nighthawk fired spell after spell at the man, trying to use minor ones in order to make his energy last longer, eyes going wide when he noticed that he'd depleted it rather quickly. "Spirit, I'm out! Buy me some time while I recharge!"
"You got it!" the white-haired girl said simply, dodging Sportsmaster's attack one by one until she was shot down thanks to a lack of backup, as was Mikael.
When the twins came to, the factory was on fire.
"Well... Pretty sure that was the opposite of a covert operation, but nobody got hurt, and we got some good intel... I call that a win," the brunette grinned, removing his hood and face covering.
"Uh, dude... you've got a bad burn on your arm from the laser guns, and a fair-sized bruise on your temple from when you were knocked out," Kid Flash pointed out.
"He has this habit of coming back from ghost hunts worse than this; trust me when I say that he'll be fine," Spirit said simply.
The team then turned their attention to Kaldur, who was gazing at the burning factory.
"We picked the right guy to lead. Automatically making you the right guy to explain this mess to Batman," Robin grinned before he began laughing.
Nighthawk sighed and went up to the Atlantean. "Hey... Keep in mind that a large part of this mess was because nobody was ready to figure out who should lead. And if you want a little backup, I'll help explain things," he promised.
Aqualad smiled, simply nodding at that.
They were in for a long lecture.
Mount Justice
August 4, 01:06 EDT
"A simple recon mission: observe and report," Batman pointed out, causing each of the teen's shoulders to slump. "You'll each receive a written evaluation detailing your many mistakes. Until then... Good job."
Everyone's eyes widened, and they immediately turned their gazes from the floor to the Bat.
"No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy," the Dark Knight said simply. "How you adjust to the unforeseen is what determines success, and how you choose who leads determines character."
Once the Bat was gone, they all fell out of the military style lineup they'd been placed into.
"Okay, after the stress of the past few hours, I think I'm ready to relax in the rec room," Mikael said softly, rubbing the back of his neck with his uninjured arm.
"But, Mom and Dad will be waiting for us," Emma pointed out, chewing on her necklace like she often did when nervous.
"I called when I was getting my arm treated. By the time we get back to Fawcett, it'll be way too late for us to get some rest, so they said we could hang out here for a while," the boy promised his little sister.
