In the end, they used a rope that Robin had somehow managed to hide in his unity belt to tie the goons on the nearby trees. The two groups were separated on their own little packages to minimize the start of a new fight that would surely catch the attention of the nearby factory.

As always, Robin was the one able to name the villain of the hour, the masked man or Bane, the most famous user of the Venom. The men in red, on the other hand, were clearly part of something else than the gang this particular villain had under his control.

"I recognize those uniforms," Robin told them, sounding a bit worried. "They belong to the cult of the Kobra."

Phantom tried not to grimace. The cults were never a good thing. Especially for ghosts. There was way too much summoning and messing with dead people involved.

"I'm sure Batman would have mentioned it if he knew a dangerous extremist was running Santa Prisca's Venom operation," Aqualad said, sounding rather serious as well.

"I'm not," Phantom piped in, earning annoyed glare from the said man's protégé.

"I agree with Aqualad." Robin nodded, "And since there's clearly no love lost between the cultist and those goons, I'm betting Kobra came in and tossed them out. That's why the normal supply lines have been cut off."

"We get it," KF cut in, sounding frustrated "Kobra wanted super cultists. Mystery solved. Radio Bats, and we'll be home in time for-"

"These cultists aren't on Venom" Robin interrupted. "Kobra's hoarding the stuff. We don't leave. Not until I know why"

And of course the redhead caught the boy's slip up immediately "Until you know why?" he asked, challengingly

"Uh-oh," Dani breathed out, a ghost of a smirk tugging on her lips as she crossed her arms and focused all her attention to follow the show starting to fold in front of her. On the corner of her eye, she could see Miss M turn her head towards Superboy, silently asking him what they should to do but the boy, being just as clueless as she was, just shrugged his shoulder.

"This team need a leader" Robin announced, straightening his back and trying to look bigger than he truly was.

"And it's you?" the older boy questioned, pointing his finger at Robin before moving close enough that the tips of the two boys' noses almost touched. "Dude, you are a 13-year-old kid who duked out on us without a word"

Robin just laughed out a loud. "And you're a mature 15? You blew our cover first chance you got." he mocked back, his words full of gibe.

Aqualad moved in, trying to get the arguing boys calm down. M'gann, who was standing between the two clones, turned to look at Superboy once again. "Don't you want to lead?" she asked, tilting her head towards the other boys.

The Kryptonian scoffed and shook his head, "No. You two?"

"After the Mr Twister fiasco?" she shook her head and made a face.

"You did all right." Superboy insisted and actually smiled for once, making the Martian to blush, which she tried to hide by turning her attention towards Dani.

"What about you, Phantom?"

She could not but snort, "That would be a disaster. I can't even babysit three under ten years olds and a dog without destroying something."

Miss M blinked "You babysit?" she asked, and Dani wondered if she should feel offended from the amount of surprise in the other girl's voice.

"Ghost kids mostly. Though I'm pretty sure that it'll be awhile till anyone asks me to do it again" she said, rubbing her neck sheepishly and M'gann giggled, only to be cut off when the volume of KF voice rose to new level.

"Yeah?! You don't even have superpowers!" the two boys were now walking away from the very tired looking Aqualad, who had probably decided to let the two youngest members just blow up their steam on their own.

"Neither does Batman!" Robin snapped back at him.

"Duh, you're not Batman" Kid pointed out sarcastically.

"Duh, the closest thing we got"

It took all Dani's will power not to facepalm.

Suddenly the masked man, Bane, tied on the tree started to chuckle, causing all six teens to freeze, surprised to find out he was already awake.

"Such clever ninos. But you only know half the story" The last part made Phantom to narrow her eyes and she floated closer. The man must have been listening them for a while. "Let me show you the rest. Get you in the factory via my secret entrance"

"There is a secret entrance," Miss Martian confirmed as she knelt in front of the man, bringing hand on her temple in means to try dig deeper in his mind. "But he is also hiding something"

From where Phantom was floating, she could see how her friend's eyes started to glow white, but Bane wasn't impressed.

"Ah, ah, aah, chica. Bane is not that easy," He smirked smugly, and Miss M lowered her hand with frustrated groan.

"He's mentally reciting football scores en Espanol," she explained, interestingly changing the language at the last word before turning to give an apologetic look at her teammates. "This might take a while"

"It's not complicated," Bane insisted, still as confident as ever, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

"Until he becomes my enemy again" Dani reminded darkly. "And we can find our way in even without your help."

"Ah, but will you get near enough to get the answers you want?" the man asked that cursed smile never leaving from his face. "The Kobra will notice soon his sheep haven't returned from patrol and rise an alarm. You want out here before it happens, don't you?"

Phantom gritted her teeth, hating the fact that the man was right. The teens shared a look, and Aqualad nodded his head, though reluctantly. Phantom floated forwards, taking a good grip on Bane's shirt and pulled him up, turning him intangible in the process which caused the ropes around him to fall on the ground.

Bane rolled his shoulders to get the blood move better in his veins after being tied up a relatively short time "Gracias, fantasma"

"You welcome, human" she scoffed, flying on Superboy's side, who kept glaring at the gang leader in the way that would make any sane person think twice before doing anything stupid.

True to his word, Bane started to lead them down to the road at the direction of the factory. The path ended at the edge of a cliff and Bane pointed towards the valley opening before them where they could clearly see the building they had been looking for.

Robin and Kid Flash activated their binocular and goggles to scout the area around it while others waited patiently, keeping a careful eye on their so-called guide and the forest around them.

"Look at all that product." Robin mumbled to Kid and probably Superboy too, since he was probably able to see what was happening near the factory with pare eye. "A buy is going down. But if Kobra's not selling to the usual suspects, then…"

While the young detective was musing with this new mystery, Bane walked back towards the forest, Phantom and Superboy's eyes following his every move.

"We need to identify that buyer," Aqualad finished Robin's thought.

"Just what I was thinking" Wally said, lifting his goggles back up, while his words made Robin to snort.

"Yeah, you're the thinker"

"Sarcasm? Dude. A real leader would focus on getting answers."

"Can you two be quiet for five minutes?" Phantom asked. The Bane's presence was already putting her on the toes and lose the humour in the two boys' childish bickering. When Bane picked up a huge boulder, she tensed -ready to blast it off from his hands if needed- but he only pushed it aside, revealing an old mine shaft entrance.

Bane gestured towards the entrance as if he had just revealed some impressive secret. "Answers are this way." He promised to them before walking inside. The young heroes stayed behind a moment, unsure if it was safe to follow the man in tunnel that could just as easily be a deadly trap.

"So, now El Luchador is our leader" KF scoffed, wincing when Robin smacked his shoulder when walking past the speedster after Bane.

The rest of the team followed them in silence, studying the worn looking wooden supports that were clearly starting to decay thanks to the eternal moisture of the tropical island. At least there was enough light coming for the small electric lamps for them to see where they were stepping, but the hastily made wiring reminded Dani a bit too much of the fire hazardous mess her grandparents had created in their old lab to feel completely comfortable.

Finally, their small group reached a metal door immersed on the tunnel's wall. Bane opened it by pushing a single button on it and giving them access in a room that seemed to be full of metal lockers, meaning it had to be a storage of short.

Robin looked at Phantom, pointing his head towards the door across the room and the halfa nodded, understanding what he wanted her to do. Turning her upper body invisible, she passed her head through the door's metal surface and started to scan the surroundings to see if it was safe to move in.

"All clear," she said after pulling her head back to the room and making herself visible again, opening the door for the others to go through. Robin was the first one to sprint out and by the time the others followed, he was already nowhere to be seen.

Bane frowned "Has that little fool already been caught?"

"No," Aqualad answered with tired sigh "He just does that."

"Stay put," Wally suddenly commanded and pulled his goggles down "I'll get our intel and be back before the Boy Wonder"

"Wait, Kid." Aqualad tried to stop him by grabbing hold on the boy, but the speedster was already disappeared between the machines.

"Great chain of command," Bane commented sarcastically, and the remaining teens looked at each other, slightly embarrassed that the villain was there to witness their chaotic teamwork.

"I could go and get them," Phantom offered but Aqualad shook his head.

"Let's not get separated any further. We move in and learn what we can. Robin and Kid will find us when they are ready."

The group moved closer towards the factory's main entrance where they could hear the sound of moving engines. They hid themselves behind large wooden boxes that Bane told them to contain the Venom his gang was supposed to sell weeks ago.

And yet, the cult didn't seem to be lacking from the product.

"It's a massive shipment" Aqualad sounded slightly bewildered by the amount of drugs the cult was moving around.

"Yeah," Superboy agreed. "But they're only taking the new product off the line. They're no touching this Venom"

"Maybe freshness counts?" Miss Martian offered, rather unsure.

"Or they are selling a completely different drug" Phantom threw in a guess of her own, just before Superboy glanced up, frowning.

"Helicopter is coming,"

The others turned their attention from the cultists towards the windows near the ceiling, those with sharper eyes only barely noticing the darker dot on the sky moving towards the factory.

Aqualad, being the best strategist out of four of them, was the first to form a plan of action.

"Phantom, Miss Martian. Turn invisible and move closer. We must identify the buyer as fast as possible."

"Roger that," Phantom smirked, before she disappeared from the sight of the others. Slowly, she started to fly towards the area where the cultists started to gather, trying her best not to cause air flows that could give up her presence. Just slightly on her right behind, the halfa was able to see the small mirage like disturbance following her, the only proof that Miss Martian was with her. She must be able to track Phantom's location thanks to her telepathic abilities, since she wasn't trying to form a mental link just yet.

As the copter landed, Phantom narrowed her eyes suspiciously. The vehicle was obviously a military model, something that normal drug dealers wouldn't get on their hands that easily or even want to use because of those being way too eye-catching compared to the smaller and sleeker ones that were much more common. Whoever the buyer was, they clearly had enough money and firepower behind their backs to make them unafraid of some extra attention.

Around them, Kobra and his little cultist started to gather around the landing site, the two closest of the leader sticking out from their red cloaked friends like shore thumbs. The first one was a thin woman with half shaved red hair and dark lipstick, the tattoo on the bald side of her head being the only implication towards her association with the Kobra's cult, while the other one was a large monster of a man. He was made entirely out of muscle and his unnaturally thick and grey skin had torn open on several places, revealing the muscles under it. He looked almost like some kind of ghost, but the lack of aura around his body and the silence of Phantom's ghost sense proved him to be a living being.

That realisation brought a strong feeling of wrongness with it, and Dani shuttered in disgust.

Before the engines had time to the stop, the helicopter's door opened, revealing a silhouette of a lone man. When he stepped on the moonlight, Phantom's eyes widened from recognition and her body stiffened. This was a bad.

"Lord Kobra" the masked Caucasian greeted the much paler man

"Sportmaster," the cult leader answered with sharp nod before signalling the woman on his side to move closer. She opened a small box on her hands, so the blonde could see its content. "The shipment is ready"

Sportsmaster picked up one of the dark blue vials, studying it with high interest. "The new Kobra Venom?"

"A complete success. Our friends won't be disappointed" Kobra confirmed, motioning towards the huge man at his side. Phantom didn't like at all what his words were implying. If the stuff they were creating was able to turn normal humans into those… things, then there was no way she was letting the well-known villain like Sportsmaster, who often worked for League of Shadows, to get his hands on it.

"This is a game-changer. Finally, we can go mano-a-mano with the Justice League."

Phantom hands curled into fists as she listened the man's bragging. Right now, she just really wanted to blast the vial on the villains' possession to millions of pieces, but she knew they needed to keep their covert. The cultists were already moving the first crates inside the helicopter and if she revealed herself now, someone would very likely manage to escape with at least part of the shipment.

"Aqualad says that the buyer is called Sportsmaster," Miss Martian's voice echoed inside her head and it was close that Phantom didn't yelp out a loud.

"M'gann!" she hissed back angrily, "Warn me next time you're going to do that"

"I'm sorry! I didn't realise-" The girl's almost panicking apology was cut short when the sound of gunfire from the factory got their and the bad guys' attention.

"It seems you have a pest problem," Sportsmaster commented dryly and halfa cursed loudly inside her head, probably teaching her Martian friend some new words in process.

"Bane has had a problem to stick in our agreement," Kobra answered just as coldly and pointed towards the factory. "Mammoth"

The beast grinned and jumped in the air, barely missing the two heroes spying them, closing the distance between him and the factory without touching the ground again before breaking through the window with loud crash.

With unsaid agreement, the girls hurried to help their friends. Superboy was taking the care of the Mammoth guy, while Aqualad was trying to protect himself from the cultists' fire with water shield he had created, occasionally shooting small blasts of water towards them to keep the cultists from coming closer.

And of course Kid, Robin and Bane were nowhere to be seen.

With pissed growl, Phantom dived down and grabbed hold on the nearest red-cloak, throwing the man in high arch on top of his friend before she dropped her invisibility. It would do nothing to hide her glowing hands when firing an ecto-blast anyway, therefore making invisibility waste of energy in situation like this.

Doing her best to lower the number of the cultists charging on Aqualad and Superboy -thought most of the cultists were smart enough to stay out of his and the beast way- but there were just too many of them and the halfa found herself more often dancing around the air as an untouchable distraction.

Then suddenly, there was a high whistle in her head, followed by a slightly uncomfortable feeling that was becoming more and more familiar every time M'gann used her abilities on Dani.

"Everyone online?"

"Yeah," Superboy was the first one to answer, sounding rather unhappy, but was soon followed by Kid's voice.

"You know it, beautiful."

"We have coms for this, you know," the halfa reminded while tackling a group of cultists down from the catwalk.

"Comms are jammed. We need to regroup," Aqualad commanded, but Robin seemed to have other ideas.

"Busy now," he announced, sounding rather annoyed.

"Robin, now!" this command was much sharper, and angrier, but it seemed to be just what they needed since the Boy Wonder gave almost immediate, but grumpy, 'fine' and soon Phantom could see him to rush towards them from outside the factory.

"Strategic retreat. Kid, clear a path."

"That's just another way to say we're running away," Phantom complained, still following the others when they rushed back towards the room where the entrance to the mines was hidden.

Superboy was the last one to get in. He slammed the large metal door shut, jamming it on its place, and Dani even cowered it with thick layer of ice for good measure, hoping that it would slow Mammoth down at least a bit longer.

The crash and rapid gunfire that followed them way too soon, told the halfa that her work had been for nothing.

"Superboy," Aqualad yelled once again, this time out a loud over his shoulder, "The support beams!"

The boy seemed to get what the older teen had in mind and hit the wooden beam down with all strength he had as he ran past it, repeating the process with the following one and sooner than they had prepared, the tunnel started to collapse.

Out of reflex, Phantom turned herself intangible to protect herself from being crushed by the falling stones and dirt. Trusting in her powers, she let her speed slow down till she knew she was holding the end of the line, ready to catch any of her teammates that were in danger of becoming a pancake. Luckily it didn't come to that. Miss Martian had caught Superboy in her telekinetic hold and was speeding two of them towards the exit way waster than the Kryptonian could have run in suck limited space.

Then the lights went off, leaving the teens to continue their escape in deep darkness until the booming sounds around them finally ended.

"I think we can stop now," Aqualad's voice called over the noise of their footsteps and everyone stopped. When getting close enough, Dani was able to make up the shapes of the others -being a halfa did come with an excellent night vision, but her eyes needed bit more time to adjust properly- and she was relieved to see that everyone was there and standing.

"Is everyone okay?" this time it was Miss Martian who spoke.

"Just peachy," Kid assured, sounding rather out of breath. His blood sugar must have gone low again.

"Still in one piece," Robin said, with surprisingly frustrated tone.

"And I was already dead, so you aren't going to get rid of me that easily," Dani tried to joke, but her attempt was ignored. Letting out a disappointed sigh, the halfa lifted her hand, ejecting enough ectoplasm on it to make it glow and lighting the tunnel with an eerie green light for the sake of the other's eyes.

Everyone seemed to be physically just fine. Maybe a bit shaken up, which was understandable since they had just managed to escape a real murder cult. Robin was the only one whose face she couldn't properly see, him standing back towards the group, studying the collapsed tunnel even before she had brought out the light.

"How could my first mission as a leader go so wrong?" the boy suddenly asked quietly, probably not even realising he was speaking out a loud.

Dani and Wally both raised their eyebrows at the words, but Aqualad managed to spoke up before either of them managed to comment the boy's self-promotion.

"You do have the most experience." Aqualad agreed "But perhaps that is exactly what has left you unprepared. Fighting alongside Batman, your roles are defined. You two do not need to talk. But this team is new. And the leader must be clear, explicit." he said, adding hint of sarcasm in the last part of his speech. "He cannot vanish and expect others to play parts in unknown plan."

"Oh, so I'm supposed to hold everyone's hands?" Robin snapped back, whirling around to face the others.

"Well, didn't Bats do the exactly same to you back then when you started to work together as partners?" Phantom asked, crossing her arms. "Or think us as a sport team, even if we all know how to play, we all have our own styles and it will take a while before we can win a game."

The youngest huffed and turned his gaze down to the ground, but after couple seconds of silence, his shoulders fell. "Ah, who am I kidding?" he said, sounding so defeated, before he lifted his head to look straight at Aqualad with wide grin. "You should lead us, Kaldur. You're the only one who can"

"Please," Wally scoffed, ready to continue the argument that had been going on the whole night. "I can run circles-"

"Wally, come on" Robin cut in "You know he's the one. We all do."

"Hello, Megan." M'gann laughed "It's so obvious"

"I could have told you" Superboy stated with smug smirk.

"Weren't you the one who was already leading us out there?" Dani asked, playing innocent.

That only left Wally as the one who hadn't said his opinion after his earlier opposing argument and the others turned to stare at him, the unsaid question clear in their eyes.

"Okay" the speedster grinned, finally admitting his defeat without any bitterness, probably realising that the others were speaking the truth.

Giving his friend a small, thankful smile, Kaldur turned back towards Robin and placed his hand on the younger boy's shoulder. "Then I accept the burden. Until you are ready to lift it from my shoulders." he promised to the boy whose smile seemed to widen from his newly named leader's words. "You were born to lead this team. Maybe not now, but soon"

"Alright," Kaldur turned to look at rest of them with more serious face. "Our first priority is preventing that shipment from leaving this island"

"Funny," Robin said, his smile turning to something more like a teasing smirk. "I had the same though"

As the team hurried towards the mine's entrance, Kid and Robin filled the others in with the information they had managed to gather from the computers while they had been gone. Apparently, the drug Sportsmaster had dubbed as a Kobra Venom, was a mixture of Bane's original Venom and Blockbuster formula that some crazy scientist had created and used on himself in Cadmus, turning him into that blue monster Dani had only seen from pictures Robin had showed her after the boys' little 'adventure'.

It made the user permanently three times stronger than those who used normal Venom, meaning they really needed to make sure to destroy every vial and copy of the drug's formula there was to avoid the catastrophe that surely would follow if the bad guys got a chance to use it to create an army.

"Sportsmaster is the supplier/buyer, but it still doesn't crack," Robin started to ponder out a loud. "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." Kid agreed. "That took some major nerdage."

"Kobra mentioned some 'common friend'. They might be the master mind behind all this. But it still doesn't explain why they bothered to see the trouble of taking over the Venom factory through Kobra instead of paying Bane to do the job." Phantom said as she flew over Robin, trying to read the information his holo-screen was showing.

"I believe the expression is 'the tip of the iceberg.' " Aqualad stated, halting when they reached the entrance and saw the man waiting them there. There was something metallic on the ground around his feet and the small device on his hand looked suspiciously like a detonator.

"Halt, ninos," Bane commanded with that infuriating smirk back on his face that made Dani to do nothing but want to punch it. "I'm feeling explosive"

A high-pitched beep came above their heads and the teen glanced up with shocked expressions, only now noticing the line of bombs above them. Dani knew she could create a shield to protect them from most of the damage if Bane decided to press the button, but there was a high chance that the explosion from this close distance would destroy her shield completely, leaving them to crushed by the falling dirt and stones.

"You betrayed us." Aqualad asked, sounding shocked and moving Dani's desire to punch Bane the need to hit the back of her friend's head for being so trusting towards a bad guy "Why?"

"I want my factory back," Bane stated as if it was obvious.

"Kid, you need a running start"

Ah, now she got it. He had made the bag guy monolog. Clever.

"So I forced you into a situation where you would 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."

Bane's smirk turned in something that Phantom would have described as sweet if there hadn't been murderous gleam in his eyes.

"Blowing the tunnel with you inside should have the same effect" he lifted the detonator above his head, ready to press it down. But only seconds before his finger hit the button, there was flash of black and red shooting past him and the object disappeared from the drug lord's and without him even noticing.

"With what?" Kid's smug voice came from behind the man where he was leaning against the nearby tree, playing with the detonator in his hand. "This trigger thingy?"

Bane roared in rage and tried to swing his huge fist on the speedster but was stopped by Miss Martian when she lifted him up in the air, leaving the man hang there like a harmless ragdoll.

"Finally," Superboy said as he walked bellow Bane, looking maybe a bit too happy about how the situation had ended. "Drop him"

With that cute little smile of hers, M'gann did just as he asked, sending Bane straight onto the waiting fist of Superboy.

"Let me guess." Dani asked as she watched the man fly through a tree or two before stopping lay unconsciously on the ground. "You heard him planning this with his men before we even made the deal and just didn't want to tell us about it."

Superboy turned to look at the others with an impish smirk.

"Of course"

The plan they had was simple and destructive, just like Dani liked them. Get in, distract the bad guys so Miss M could place the bombs that Bane had so generously donated to them, and blow the helicopter up and all existing Kobra Venom with it.

They hid in the near jungle growth, waiting the moment when they would finally manage to fix the little sabotage Robin had made before the team's earlier escape.

They didn't have to wait that long before they got their cue when the sound of activating helicopter filled the otherwise silent jungle. Aqualad gave Kid a nod and the boy lowered his googles once again before shooting out of their sight. It didn't take long before they could hear the tell-tale sound of gunfire.

Superboy was the second one to move in, distracting Mammoth just long enough for Phantom to break a pipe for Aqualad to use. His water-bearers glowed as the Atlantean harvested the water under his will and directing a strong blast to knock the mutated man away from the help of the cult.

"Sorry. Not the plan" the Kryptonian called after Mammoth and started to run towards the copter's entrance where he was supposed to give distraction and cover for Miss M.

Phantom herself dived after Aqualad, shielding him from the bullets and blasting away every cultist who tried to get a shot on her friend while he was focused controlling the water stream with his bearers. When they were far enough Phantom saw how Aqualad's tattoos started to glow, and he dropped one of his bearers. Using his now free hand, Aqualad placed his palm against the water stream, sending a shock through it and electrocuting the beast that had once been a man who let out a pained scream that mush have been heard through entire island. But it was enough, and Mammoth fell on the ground, unconscious.

Phantom and Aqualad hadn't much time to celebrate their small victory. While they had been distracted with the monster, the helicopter had managed to get up in the air, already flying over the tree tops towards the ocean. Someone was trying to escape with the shipment and the only thing they could really do was to hope that Miss Martian had managed to plant the bomb.

Then there was a loud bang and fire exploded out of the copter's metal hull. It made the pilot lose the control of the vesicle, sending it to spin towards the ground without control. And by some miracle, it landed straight at the top of the factory, creating a new and ten times bigger explosion, destroying both the building and vehicle completely.

"Wooo!" Phantom threw her hands up and cheered to the chaos they had managed to create by accident. Her fun has cut short though when she heard Aqualad call her name and the halfa turned to see Robin being pinned on ground by Kobra's ugly boot.

When Kobra saw them rush to the acrobat's help, he frowned, looking more annoyed than anything else.

"I am plagued by mosquitoes" he spat in disgust.

"Good," Robin growled, struggling to get the crazy cult leader's foot off his chest. " 'cause this mosquito is mighty concerted over your pain" the Boy Wonder spun his legs, managing to make Kobra to lose his balance enough for him to escape and jump to the others side, where the six teens determined glares challenged the man to dare and try fight them all at once.

Probably realising that the odds were against him, Kobra narrowed his eyes, starting to move backwards towards the jungle. "Another time, then" he stated calmly before disappearing into the bushes and the shadows on the jungle.

Surprised by the man's sudden decision to retreat, it took them a couple seconds too long to rush after him and by then, Kobra had already vanished.

Robin's shoulders dropped, and he let out a frustrated sigh, disappointed on himself for letting the man to get away so easily, before he walked back to the others. The teens studied the mess they had managed to create with varying expressions. Dani herself would have claimed the mission being a success, but the longer she looked the destruction around her, the surer she was that Batman wouldn't probably be that happy.

"We picked the right guy to lead," Robin said with wide smile walking to Aqualad's side "Automatically making you the right guy to explain this mess to Batman." he added with cackle and made Kaldur's lips press together in thin line when he realised what was waiting for him back in the cave.

"Robin, don't be mean to our Team Dad," Dani chuckled, swinging her arm over Kaldur's shoulder. The Atlantean lifted his brown, but she just gave him a teasing wink in return.

"The what?" Superboy asked, confused.

"Team Dad," she grinned back at him "He is the leader, oldest and the most mature. So yeah, Kaldur is clearly the dad figure of the team."

Kaldur gave her unimpressed look while others chuckled, but then Megan stopped to think something.

"But by that logic, wouldn't that make you the Team Mom?"

The horrified look on the halfa's face was enough to tell her opinion of the idea while Robin and Wally burst into laughter.

"Oh, yes. Dani is obviously the Team Mom. How we didn't see this before?"

"Is she going to pack us lunches for the missions? Kiss our boo-boos?"

Oh, if only the look could kill.

"If you two don't shut up this second, I'm gonna be the one who gives you the boo-boos"

"Okay, okay…" Wally snickered, whipping the tears out of his eyes "Mama Bear."

The only thing saving Kid from the ecto-beam she shot from her eyes was the superspeed he used to dodge the attack. Chopping Robin on his arms, the two of them disappearing into the jungle, loud cackles following their way.

It took them hours to tie up the awaking cultists and destroy the remaining Kobra Venom vials. Unfortunately, they didn't manage to find Sportsmaster, only the abandoned parachute the man had left to hand on the branches of a tree and the trail of footprints that lead to the sea. The only upside was that while searching the villain, Dani had managed to find the machine that was jamming their radio signal, so they could finally call the League in and report the results of their mission.

Needless to say, Batman wasn't happy.

"A simple recon mission. Observe and report" Batman lectured the teen heroes and Dani tried her best to mimic Kaldur's soldier like stance, keeping her expression blank despite her desire to argue back. It wouldn't do any good for anyone right now and she really didn't feel like getting an extra harsh punishment "You'll each receive a written evaluation detailing your many mistakes."

Dani grimaced mentally. Evaluations meant reading assignments and she just loved to get homework in the middle of the summer holidays.

"Until then. Good job"

Wait what?

Dumb stricken, the teens turned to look at the man with wide eyes, none of them believing for a second they had managed to get a compliment from the Bat himself after doing pretty much done the opposite he had told them to do.

"No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy" Batman explained, not losing his lecturing tone. "How you adjust to the unforeseen is what determines success. And how you choose who leads determines character"

For some reason it felt like the last one was meant mostly for Robin, but it might have been only Dani's own imagination.

"Now, return to your homes and get some rest. We'll send your evaluations in few days." Batman said before turning to leave "Robin, you have five minutes"

The youngest grinned widely but didn't say anything until his mentor had left the room.

"Can we all agree that Batman hit his head while we were gone?" Robin asked with joking tone "Because that was the longest compliment I've ever heard him to give."

"We are just so awesome" Wally teased back "So, does anyone feel like celebrating the successful end of our first mission? There is a great pizza place not that for from here"

"Pass," Superboy said and Dani echoed him after a long yawn.

"I think we all should to go sleep first," Megan agreed with apologetic smile. "But maybe tomorrow?"

The others let out various agreeing sounds before saying their short goodbyes, the half of the team retreating towards the living quarters, while Robin, Wally and Dani made their way towards the Zeta-Tubes to travel back to their home cities, joking with each other the whole way there.

This whole team thing. It had never felt better.

Later that day when Ellie was laying on her bed, stomach full of the celebration dinner her family had thrown after the girl had woken up from her nap, and hair still slightly damp after the earlier shower. She was tapping her phone, writing and deleting he same message over and over again, trying to figure out the right way to place her words. Satisfied to her end result, Ellie pressed the send button and then plugged her phone in the charger next to her bed before placing it on the nightstand. With final yawn the girl turned to her side and snuggled deeper under her blanket, knowing very well that she probably wouldn't get an answer for her message any time soon, if at all.

"Just returned from the first mission! Went St. Prisca to check why Venom was cut out, found Kobra and Sportsmaster making some new, even crazier juice. KF and R caused a lot trouble and A is now the leader! Blew everything up, but it went better than Twister thing. Compliments from the Bats!
Wish you had been there.
-D"

So there was this month's chapter. I hope you liked it.

Nothing else to say this time... Expect that the first snow is currently falling down from the sky while I write this. Too bad it's melting as soon as it touches the ground.

But back to the Mystery Kid game.

Hint 5: The canon Mystery Kid is a villain.

P.S. So I sometimes write scenes that I won't add in the chapters since Dani can't be part of them or they happened in the past (like Danny and Batman talking with Superman about Superboy or origin of Angel nickname KF has given to Dani) but will be mentioned/hinted through conservations. If you are interested to read them, would you prefer them as "new story", at the end of the chapter or as their own chapters (an most likely replace "normal chapter" of the month)?

I'll put a poll in my bio if you feel like answering to this.

Have a nice Autumn and remember to stay warm

Love

Kilppari