The Hunt

"As long as the ambassador refuses to allow an attack on the Justice meat guarding the key chamber the crystal key is useless" Black Beetle put the key in a case to keep it under lock "And the war world will never truly belong to The Reach" He walked toward a large compartment of containment units with the female scientist of the reach "Mongol is to blame by bringing the Warworld to earth he cost us half our fleet"

"67.3% actually"

Black Beetle growled "And alerted the human meat to our hidden invasion force"

"The ambassador has ways of handling the humans and though we have endured some setbacks the earth heroes have lost so much more" they stopped in front of 3 containment units holding some members of the team. One contained Gaurdian, Red Robin, Artemis and Beast boy. The second one contained Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Impulse. And the third one contained Superboy, Wolf and Batgirl inside all of them frozen inside "All considered things progress quite well except for one loose end"

"That loose end will soon be cut off"


Arsenal was running away from some Reach soldiers patrolling the Warworld while shooting at them with his artificial arm, he jumped behind a wall to gain cover from their blasters then pressed his com "Arsenal to team, come in code red, code red!" he didn't get a response so threw a smoke bomb at the soldiers and then launched a grappling hook from his artificial arm to a railing above him

He landed behind the walls of the railing as the soldiers kept shooting "Arsenal to Watchtower come in Justice League, Arsenal to anyone come in" he yelled as he ran down a hallway from the railing


"Anything?" Red Hood asked

Justice League members were flying across the Warworld looking for the missing members of the team along with Batman in the Batwing with Black Bat, Red Hood was flying the Bio-ship across the Warworld with M'gann while she tried to telepathically link to any members of the team

When Jason and Cassandra got back from their mission to Black Manta's M'gann had let it spill to Brice and Selina where they had gone and had received a scolding for going on such a dangerous mission alone. Jason and Cassandra has told them that they had found out Dick was alive on the mission but they already knew thanks to Zatanna so now the only members of their family that didn't know about Dick was Tim and Stephanie

Raquel had reported to them that the team had gone missing during their mission to infiltrate the Warworld from the inside, Blue Beetle put up an act that it was his fault this had happened but when he got back to earth had joined the Reach under their control so now they were looking for the missing heroes

"No" M'gann sighed "I'm sorry I can't sense any of them but the Warworld is so big they could easily be out of range"

"We've been flying the surface grid for hours and your exhausted…"

"I'm fine I can do this"

"Of course put there's no reason for you to overtax yourself so soon after your kidnapping, We still have Martian Manhunter trying to telepathically link with them too. We won't give up, we should try to start over where the team first disappeared to look for a new lead"

"Alright if you think it best"


'It's called Fatherbox" Lex Luthor was speaking to the runaways from Star Labs through a computer in an abandoned apartment that had been made for them "It can open a boom tube or gateway to the Warworld and back again it has also been programmed to locate Kryptonian DNA"

"Kryptonian?" Virgil asked "You mean you're sending us after Superman?!" he glared

"Superboy actually, one of 11 young heroes captured by the reach" Lex brought up images of each of the heroes that had gone missing

"Those guys saved us from the reach" Virgil recognized them

"Precisely care to return the favor and in the process strike a critical blow against The Reach"

"Dude" Tye spoke "Your asking us to go inside the Warworld and rescue superheroes if they got caught what chance do we have?" Eduardo and Sam both spoke in a different language at the idea

"I'm in" Virgil agreed the rest of the turned to him "There's no way the reach expects us with the element of surprise and our powers were the only ones who might actually stand a chance besides we owe them"

"My thoughts exactly"

Tye sighed "Fine"

"You had me at we owe them" Eduardo sighed

Sam picked up the small Fatherbox, she looked at it speaking in her native tongue then turned to Luthor "How does work please?"

"The Warworld's sheidling prevents from pinpointing superboy's exact location from earth but it can boom tube you within a few miles from it, once your inside it will lead you directly to superboy and the others then when you're ready it can bring you all home simply as asami and it will obey"

The 4 runaways looked at each other before Sam looked to the fatherbox "The Warworld please" the box lit up and a second later a large boom tube opened up underneath them taking them away. The boom tube reopened inside the Warworld and dropped them to the floor before it disappeared, they looked up to see some Reach soldiers surrounding them with their weapons armed

"Hello" Sam greeted once they got to their feet

One of the soldiers started walking towards them; vigil started panicking "We give up! We give up!" he but his knees on the ground with his hands over his head in front of the soldier "Please don't hurt us, it was stupid to come here, stupid, stupid, stupid! I knew this wouldn't work we are so sorry"

The other runaways joined him "He's right we don't want any trouble" Eduardo added "We just want to go home"

A soldier grabbed vigil by his collar and brought him up to his face, vigil smirked "Fooled you" he quickly got his sewer cover with his static and knocked it into the soldiers face to let him go. Eduardo teleported above another and kicked him to the ground while Sam used her power to push other soldiers towards a wall. Tye concentrated and made a large manifestation

Vigil cheered "Now you done gone and woke up the big man"

Tye turned to look at the soldiers, they began shooting at him with their weapons but it didn't seem to have any effect on his manifestation then knocked them into the wall with his hand while the rest of the runaways took out the others. Eduardo came to the last one taking hold of his weapon smirking at him "Adios" then teleported away with the weapon as Tye kicked the soldier away

A train came to a stop near them and the doors opened to reveal more soldiers coming at them

"Ed, Sam, Tye time to go!" Vigil yelled


Arsenal was recharging his artificial arm by connecting it to a computer he had found "Raw power now were talking the same language" he smirked until he heard some fighting going on behind one of the walls of the hallway he was in


Eduardo was skateboarding and teleporting to avoid the soldiers shooting at him from behind him but one of them managed to shoot his skateboard destroying it and making him fall down an opening between the different levels of the Warworld but he quickly teleported behind the soldiers and knocked them down the opening "And that's what you get for blasting my board!"

Arsenal watched the runaways come back together from his hidden spot and narrowed his eyes

"Dude did we know your long shadow was ..uh…laser proof?" Vigil asked Tye

"Ugh more like laser resistant" He held his chest "Those beams stung"

Sam took out the fatherbox "Superboy please" the box made a few sounds and the red got on it lit up, she then turned to their right "This way" and began walking in that direction with the other boys

Arsenal decided to follow them by shooting a grappling hook with his arm and swinging in their direction


Batman, Red Hood, Miss Martian, and Black Bat all met up at the place the team had disappeared to look for more clues of their disappearance, the bats scanned around with their holographic computers

"Haven't you already scanned every inch of this place?" M'gann asked

"Yeah but we are capable of missing obvious clues" Jason told her "We totally should have spotted the evidence of Blue Beetle's defection after Green Beetle 'fixed' his scarab"

"That's my fault" M'gann argued "Raquel asked me to scan Green's mind and I vouched for him without delving deep I was so afraid to use my powers after what I did to aqualad, I aloud Green Beetle and his scarab to feed me exactly what the reach wanted us to believe so Blue trusted Green and was turned by him and somehow abducted the team all on me"

"None of this is your fault Miss Martian" Batman assured her "You never would have been put in that position if Raquel or Zatanan could have trusted you with the deep cover mission, if any of could have learned of their plans earlier we could have informed the senior members of the team"

"But like Dick told us, if too many people found out somebody was bound to slip up" Jason retorted

"I think this Blame game has gone far enough, we have all made at least one mistake that led to this so right now our main priority is to save the team and then save Blue" Cassandra had enough of their guilt game

"When did you get so smart" Jason smirked

"Well Dick is my mentor" She shrugged until they heard some screeching noises from behind a locked storage unit so each of them got their weapons ready to fight until the bats Holocomputers went off with familiar beeping noises letting them drop their guard

The storage unit opened up to let Sphere out and roll towards them "Sphere!" Miss Martian smiled as she rolled to them and the girls hugged it "Can you take us to Superboy?" M'gann asked. Sphere's systems lit up then transformed into her Supercycle form

"We'll take that as a yes" Cassandra smiled


Tye opened up the large gate with his manifestation form that led to the containment units, the runaway walked into the large unit until they came to 3 specific units with the people they were looking for inside of them. Vigil stopped in front of them "Oh man, there they are"

"Looks like their frozen" Ed commented

"They're in stasis" Black Beetle walked into the unit behind them getting their attention , he grinned at their shocked expressions "And you will join them soon enough" he began walking towards them

"Guys I saw this freak take down all of these heroes back on the Reach ship" Vigil explained

"Please don't let that stop you from attacking me I could use the exercise" Tye was the first to attack by leaping into the air and trying to punch Black Beetle but he used his jetpack on his back to fly up and hit his chin knocking him to the ground. Black Beetle sent a sonic wave at Tye making him release his manifestation and knocked him unconscious

"Please tell me he did not just take out our big gun in 3 seconds flat" Ed asked

"Scatter!" Vigil yelled

Ed teleported away but while Vigil and Sam were trying to get away Black Beetle's sonic wave knocked into them and hit then against the containment units then fell to the ground "So much for exercise" Black Beetle thought then flew toward the units "Alright meat might as well teleport yourself into a stasis cell and save me the trouble"

Ed looked around the corner from his hiding spot to see Black Beetle flying around looking for him with his sonic wave blaster aimed up, behind him a gate opened up and a red laser shot past him hitting black Beetle's jetpack and making him fall to the ground. Ed turned around to see Arsenal

When he landed on the ground Arsenal headed for the gateway inside the containment units and closed it before any of the Reach's soldiers could come in, he then took two weapons he had taken from the solders from his back just as Ed teleported next to him "Gracias amigo…um who are you?"

"The guy who will save your buts if you listen carefully" he handed one of the weapons to Ed "You can't beat Black Beetle head on but keep him off balance and we might just stand a chance" Black Beetle got back up and repaired the damage done to his jetpack and flew towards them


Some of the Reach's soldiers were watching through security footage Black Beetle fight against arsenal and the runaways and he appeared to be on the losing end as he was knocked into a wall and fell to the ground. Black Beetle got back up and shot a sonic wave at Tye but they were distracted when a boom tube opened up behind them

Two lasso's shot out and tied around them before electrocuting them until they were unconscious, Deathstroke jumped out of the boom-tube and walked over to a case holding the crystal key. He took out a father box showing it to the case and lighting it up taking the shield down


Vigil launched one the cells towards Black Beetle but he simply destroyed it with his sonic wave then send spears at him out of his chest, vigil quickly used his sewer cover as cover from the spears, the spears went halfway through the cover though. Sam knocked herself into Black Beetle from behind then went down to avoid being hit as Ed teleported to a new location and shot Black Beetle with the blaster so when Black beetle turned to attack him Tye punched him to the ground

"I am starting to get annoyed" Black Beetle growled

Arsenal worked on a keypad controlling the stasis cells but it only gave him a alert sound "Ugh I really hate that sound"

Ed teleported behind him "Were doing everything we can desperado and were barely holding our own shouldn't we be freeing some of the good guys?"

"No" Arsenal jumped away from the panel and shot a laser at the cell holding Mongol inside. Mongol fell to the ground once he was released but he slowly began getting back up and saw Black Beetle fighting against the runaways

"Ah amigo" Ed asked Arsenal when they landed on the ground "You don't seem clear on who were here to rescue"

"Trust me I'm clear" Arsenal told him as they began backing away from Mongol

"Mongol!" Black Beetle growled turning his attention to him "This is all your fault!"

"Reach" Mongol growled at him as they both charged at each other and began fighting

"You guys free the team there's something else I need to get" Arsenal told the runaways as he ran towards another gate, he quickly pressed his hand on the panel beside the gate and armed himself as he rolled inside but found no soldiers so he turned to a case to find the crystal key was gone too but he looked up to another case and found the Bats utility belts, Wonder girls lasso and Guardians shield inside

Mongol threw Black Beetle into the wall and he fell to the ground before he got back up again and shot a laser out of his chest at Mongol

Arsenal ran back into the room with the Team's stuff and saw the villains were to occupied fighting each other so ran to the now freed team "Let's go move!" he ran to a gate with the others behind him "Ok get ready there's a squad of reach soldiers waiting for us" he opened the gate with them ready to attack but they found the soldiers all knocked out

Batman, Red Hood, Miss Martian and Black Bat had been the ones to attack the Reach's soldiers along with the Supercycle. Arsenal ran to Batman as the team helped support each other's weight. Wonder girl helped Superboy, Batgirl helped Red Robin and Bumble bee helped guardian

"Hey Dark Knight better late than never" Arsenal said

"Everyone safe?" Batman asked

Arsenal turned to them "For now"

"The crystal key?"

"Gone" They all heard a large bang and turned to see Black Beetle still fighting Mongol "And we better get gone too before one of them declares a winner"

"Right move out"


"All aboard were almost home free" Miss Martian helped all of the team into the Bio-ship

"I think a congratulations is in order, no training no guidance and yet you pulled it off" Red Hood commented to the runaways "How about when we get back after debrief there might be a place for all of you on the team"

"Wow really?" Vigil asked

"So now that we saved your butts your cool with us not being Star Labs guinea pigs" Tye huffed

"Dude chill" Vigil told him

"Before we head back we need to talk about Blue beetle" Arsenal walked up to Batman "He betrayed us"

"Look who's talking" Bumble bee huffed from the Bio-ships hatch "Last thing I remember is you blowing an airlock without warning nearly got us all killed and absolutely guaranteed our capture" Batman seemed surprised by this information

"Hey after 8 years on ice there was no way I was getting grabbed again and in case you hadn't noticed my escape resulted in you being freed now to stand here an complain! So how bout a thank you"

"Your right Arsenal thank you" Batman walked up to him after talking with Red Hood "And once were back on earth your off the team"

"Wait wait a minute!" Tye yelled

"If It wasn't for Arsenal we wouldn't have rescued anyone" Vigil argued

"That may be but Red Hood just explained to me that this is not the first time he's pulled this kind of stunt, intencially endangering the lives of the team in order to further his own agenda or guard against his own personal demons its unacceptable so under you prove yourself as a team player your have no place on this team" Batman walked up the batwing hatch where Black bat already was with Red Hood behind him

"Ok let's get aboard and get out of here we can discuss this further when were not behind enemy lines" Red Hood told them

The four Runaways looked at each other "Sounds like there's nothing left to discuss" Ed spoke

"See we don't need your help getting back to earth or your offer to join the team" Vigil glared "We have our own way of doing things"

"What do you say bro wanna ride with us?" Tye asked arsenal

"Sounds like a plan"

Sam took out the fatherbox from her pocket

Red Hood's eyes widened "Wait is that a—"

"Home please" Sam told it and a boom tube opened beneath the 5 of them teleporting them back to the abandoned apartment complex

To be continued

This chapter didn't have Dick in it because I wanted to do a chapter that focus a little more on the Bats and the Runaways this time, I planned for Tim and Stephanie to find out Dick was alive too by finding the letter he wrote to Bruce and Selina before he left then blabbing it to the rest of the team by showing them the letter