"Ugh, I can't believe this." Artemis grunted in frustration. "Why the hell aren't I- I mean we allowed to go on the mission with the others." The blond archer complained whilst angrily pacing back and forth in the cave.
By this point the others had already cleared out and we're probably en route to their destination leaving Artemis, Robin and Superboy alone in the cave.
"I agree, if this mission is as high risk as he made it out to be then we should have all gone together! What happens if something goes wrong and M'gann gets hurt out there. They'll have no one there to back them up."
Superboy decided to join in with Artemis in angrily expressing his frustration at the situation, though he was a bit more obvious with his personal motivations, not that the others with him paid that much attention to what he was saying, well Robin was, but Artemis was far too frustrated to do the same.
Speaking of the boy wonder, he was the only one who looked to have at least some semblance of calm despite the situation. Not to say he wasn't miffed, but he was more adept at keeping it together thanks to his training with Batman. Besides he was too occupied wondering about Batman's very out of character behavior. Batman never lost his cool, ever. That's what made him Batman. But for a moment, the dark knight had lost his composure.
Now while Batman had had outbursts like this before, they were usually minor and only happened when Batman was trying to make him take a mission seriously and even then he'd never shouted. But today his mentor and partner had snapped at him, in front of the entire team no less.
It had been vexing and even slightly humiliating, and Robin had never felt more like a child than at that moment.
Still he had more than enough presence of mind to be able to recognize that there was something that worried the Batman enough to make him lose himself like that, and Robin found himself both curious and dreadful of whatever that may be.
It was a tough but short battle between fear and curiosity, but considering the fact that he had been raised and trained by someone who was arguably considered to be the world's greatest detective, it seemed inevitable that his curiosity won out. And so he resolved to find out what worried the dark knight. Though there was a small childish part of him that couldn't help but wonder if Batman was just worried about the team generally or if he worried about him just a bit more.
He tried squashing those thoughts knowing that it was unlikely to end well, but it was too late and now the idea persistently lingered about in his head. It was dangerous but he couldn't deny that he felt slightly hopeful, though this was neither the time nor place to entertain such thoughts.
He decided to suspend that train of thought in favor of calming his teammates who looked to be just minutes away from either trashing the cave in anger or cussing out Batman. It's pretty easy to guess who'd be doing what.
Robin briefly considered how funny it'd be if Artemis accidentally ended up cussing Batman in the cave and quickly decided that it probably wouldn't be worth it. While it would definitely be amusing as hell, there was just the small matter of the caves having security cameras. Cameras that Batman regularly checked on a weekly basis and had become a pain to hack into since the Tornado incident, yeah it would probably be best to stop this now before it got out of hand.
"Guys calm down, I know were all a little frustrated at being forced to stay behind but at least we can use this time to cool down especially after the rough couple of days we've had. So let's calm down, take a break, maybe do some teamwork training." Robin said, pacifying them a little, as he saw them visibly calm.
"Uhm, actually, you guys kind of have a mission to do." came the voice of Captain Marvel spooking all of them as they hadn't realized that he had been in the cave with them.
"Captain Marvel, what are you doing here, we thought you left to find Red Tornado with the other Leaguers." Robin asked the question that was on all their minds, internally surprised that he hadn't realized that the Captain had been present in the cave with them.
"Actually I never really left, Batman was supposed to brief you guys about another mission that he wanted the four of us to go on together, but it seems like he forgot, which is kind of strange, but anyways you guys seemed a little angry so I thought I'd wait for you to calm down first."
"So…uhh, you saw all that before?" Artemis stated looking slightly embarrassed while Superboy looked like he didn't particularly care. Captain Marvel gave a small affirmative nod and Robin patted himself on the back internally at his decision to stop them. He also filed the fact that the excitable Leaguer also thought that Batman's behavior was strange to the back of his mind.
"You said you had a mission for us." Connor said trying to bring everyone back to the most important issue at hand, if he was being honest he was just excited to go on the mission.
Thankfully that was enough to bring everyone's focus back with Robin looking towards Captain Marvel inquiringly.
"So Captain Marvel, what exactly is the mission?" he asked a little excited for the mission himself regardless of what he'd said earlier. Besides, what better way was there to train and practice teamwork than with an actual mission. The white caped hero walked over to the central monitor as numerous holograms popped up around him.
"'Gotham Mayor attacked by guerilla gorilla'?" Artemis read out the news article out with a hint of distaste as her annoyance quickly returned. "Please tell me you're joking."
"Actually I'm not. Batman had been following this issue for a while now and he seemed pretty confident that there was something worth investigating there. It's actually really strange that he'd forget to brief you on it." The Captain responded looking really serious.
That didn't help Artemis' annoyance with the whole situation though and she couldn't keep herself from biting back, and unfortunately for Captain Marvel, he was the only Leaguer present to bear the brunt of her sarcasm. Luckily for him though Robin jumped in before she could start.
"Captain Marvel, you can't seriously be sending us on this joke of a wild goose chase." The boy wonder asked.
"It's not a joke, would I be going with you if it was?" the red, yellow and white suited hero asked with a slightly raised eyebrow, effectively killing off any response Robin could have formulated.
"According to the information we were able to gather, the last reported sighting of these hostile apes was in North India, so that's where were going." Captain Marvel informed, slightly nervous by the looks he was getting from the team, he let out an internal sigh of relief when he noticed Artemis calm down a bit.
Artemis calmed a bit when she realized that their mission would be taking them to Asia as well, and while it wouldn't be anywhere near where Naruto usually operated, and the chances that she would find out any new information about him were minimal at best, she could always ask Aqualad or Miss Martian for any information they found on their mission.
But still there was a slight chance that she might run into him, he was famous for patrolling the entirety of the continent after all, hopefully that included dense forests far away from most cities with only a few rural villages around. Anyways it was highly unlikely but also very possible for Asia's masked protector to be aware of this 'monkey business' going on. And even if she wasn't, all she had to do was use the 'kunai' he'd given her to call him.
In any other situation she would be concerned that her mood could be so affected just by whether or not she saw a single person, but she really couldn't bring herself to care because this wasn't any other situation. Instead she was just really impatient.
"Enough talking, let's just get this over with already!" It seemed Superboy was just as impatient, and he was already halfway to the hangar before he remembered that Aqualad's team had taken the Bioship with them.
"Not trying to state the obvious here but how are we going to get there without the Bioship?" Robin asked with a raised brow, causing Captain Marvel face to light up in a childish, excitable grin.
"You guys are going to love this."
Hours later with Naruto
Naruto was all costumed up and was about to start trailing the aircraft he'd detected previously when his scanner started blaring again. He headed for the monitor and the display informed him that what seemed to be a…submarine?...had just crossed the border and seemed to be heading towards India. The vessel seemed to be far more advanced than what the military of most countries were capable of producing, so he drew the conclusion that the Justice League had to be involved, perhaps even their young protégés.
He made a mental note of all the possible emergencies that would warrant the League sending a team to India especially with the not-yet-official but still very much enforced ban on their activities within the continent.
The only incidents that he believed would warrant their attention was the report on the murderous gorilla that had attacked Gotham's mayor, and had also killed a group of poachers a few weeks prior. Asides that, there was only the recent reports of super-sized, highly aggressive animals attacking anyone who ventured too deep into the forest. And he had a hunch that the two cases were related, and now was as good a time as any to address it.
So it seemed the League had sent two teams on two separate missions, one to China, and the other to India. He briefly considered which location the team Artemis was on was headed, or if she was even deployed on a mission at all.
Focusing on the beacon signal of Hiraishin kunai he'd given her he was quickly able to determine that she was on the team headed for India. He smiled lightly to himself. It seemed that was the team he was going after, though that didn't mean that he wasn't curious as to what the other team planned on doing in China, especially since the crime rate there was currently at an all-time low. The thought made him frown slightly. His clones were trailing them though and soon he'd have the answers to his questions.
In the meantime he'd go after the archer's group, after all it had been a while since they'd last seen face to face while in hero costume. The blond disappeared from the room a second later, and reappeared on the side of the submarine. He immediately regretted this decision however when he realized that he'd just teleported himself under water at depths that the human body wasn't built to withstand.
Even right now, the pressure of the water mixed with the vertigo that accompanied the Hiraishin was dizzying, and the darkness around him didn't help with that at all. He choked back a strangled cry of panic as air was forced out of his lungs, a memory of a similar situation briefly flashed through his mind. Infinite darkness surrounded him and he felt a sharp grating, perhaps even burning sensation in his lungs, like he was inhaling needles that had been set on fire.
Naruto's eyes shot open and in an instant he was gone, reappearing at one of his Hiraishin markers in India, close to the forest that Artemis was headed. He took deep breaths trying to calm himself, and fill his lungs with some much needed air. He sat down heavily on the muddy soil, dirtying his already heavily soaked costume but he didn't care about that for the moment. They'd dry eventually anyway.
'It happened again, what's going on with me lately? I went through a lot of training to be able to stay calm and think rationally in every situation. But every time she gets involved I end up throwing logic out the window and making foolish decisions like this one.' The blond thought berating himself slightly. 'But why did I react so bad like that, it's not like I haven't been underwater before, sure not at that depth or via teleportation but I shouldn't have reacted that bad.' He wondered staring at his hands as he slowly clenched and unclenched them into fists and back again.
'My whole body just froze up and I could barely even think, and what were those images that suddenly flashed through my head. Was it a vision, a memory or was I just hallucinating? Shit, I've suddenly got all these questions now and no answers to any of them. I guess answers are going to have to wait for a while, but I know one thing for sure.'
"I'm never ever doing that again." He stated decidedly to himself.
With Artemis
The blond archer was still as stunned as she was when she saw the submarine emerge for the first time, and while it looked smaller than she'd generally expected submarines to be, which was still very big mind you, she could easily tell that it was more advanced than just about anything she had ever piloted except the Bioship. Now that wasn't really saying much but you get the idea.
Her amazement only increased when she got in it, and Robin started listing off the various features, weapons, sensors and other technology the sub was capable of, plus it had really comfortable seats and a fully stocked mini-fridge. She couldn't wrap her head around the fact that Batman had something like this just sitting around and that he was actually willing to let them use it.
The 'Bat-Sub' as Robin had called it was Batman's prototype innovation for an underwater vehicle to allow him deal with any missions that might require him to spend extended periods of time underwater at depths well below sea-level, while the dark knight was still working solo. Upon the formation of the Justice League, that idea had been scrapped for a sleeker, sturdier, faster and more capable, orange and green themed one also known as Aquaman, but Batman had decided to keep the sub anyway…just in case.
Currently the vehicle was being piloted automatically as nobody currently on it could pilot it manually, not even Captain Marvel, though granted he'd never been in a position where he'd need to have that kind of knowledge, that and the fact that the wisdom of Solomon didn't seem to extend to futuristic tech. Superboy had some insight on how it was supposed to be operated due in no small part to his Cadmus programming but he was a bit hesitant to do so, especially since he didn't need to.
The same could be said for Robin, while the young hero was capable of piloting the sub if it ever came down to it, he was more than happy to sit back and let the autopilot handle that. And so with nothing else to do, and with the discovery that this sub unlike many others was outfitted with wide glass windows for some reason, the four superheroes found themselves staring out the windows of the sub at various species of fish and other aquatic life they passed.
Despite the limited light at the depth they were currently travelling, there was still just enough light for them to be able to see what the beautiful ecosystem right outside their window. More so for Connor and Captain Marvel, who both had enhanced sight and could see much farther and more clearly that she could.
Speaking of those two, Captain Marvel was currently displaying his more childish tendencies as he had his face pressed against the glass window as he stared with noticeable excitement at any fish that happened to enter his field of vision, and would let out shouts of excitement rather often.
'Honestly with how excited he is I'm surprised that he hasn't gone out there to get a closer look.' The archer thought but didn't dare voice that opinion, partly because she believed he might take it as a suggestion and actually do it. And this didn't feel like a particularly good time to find out if the white caped hero could breathe underwater, especially since there was no one aboard who might be able to recover him.
Superboy was also staring out the window but rather than Captain Marvel's palpable excitement, his stare was one of innocent curiosity and amazement. He was also very excited by the experience but tried restraining it to keep up his aloof air, but the small breaths of amazement he let out, and the way his head snapped to look at anything that swam past them and would trail it till it was out of sight only to snap back at the next, kind of gave it away.
She let out a small giggle at the thought before she continued staring out the window, and allowing her mind to drift off to thoughts of another blond whose lone eye was sure to be as blue as the ocean around her.
Her mind continued to ponder over the blond starting from clues to help her figure out his secret identity, to thoughts about what would happen when she found out, and from there her mind began to slowly devolve into more 'embarrassing' thoughts that brought a red dusting to her cheeks.
Snapping out of those thought she realized that it had become way too dark for her eyes to see out the window any longer. Robin seemed to have had the same problem as he was no longer staring out the window but was now looking over the controls and doing things that she could only pretend to understand.
With the realization that she had nothing else to do, she decided to turn in and get some sleep before they arrived. She bid goodnight to the others in the room, one of whom waved over his shoulder, while the others offered some sort of response without taking their eyes off the window they were staring out of, and with that done she headed to the sleeping quarters to get some rest.
She'd just placed her bow at the side of her bed and was about doing the same for the quiver when she noticed a faint light emanating from the holster on her thigh. She quickly pulled out the kunai she kept nestled there and watched as the symbols on it gave off a faint glow.
Now unfortunately, there were no windows in the cabin area, but if there were the blond archer might have seen the sudden appearance of the same blond she'd been thinking about just minutes ago, she might have seen him briefly struggle for air as he seemed to have a panic attack, and then she might have seen him disappear again.
But because there were no windows, all she saw was the faint glow of the characters on the tri-pronged knife before they eventually died down again, but that was enough, because at this moment that was all she needed to see to know that Naruto knew where she currently was, he probably even knew where she was going, and while that should have been even slightly frustrating, she could only feel anxious and excited to see him again.
With Aqualad
The team had just arrived in Tianjin, landing the Bioship in a nearby swamp before getting off it. They were all dressed in casual clothes and were all required to pose as tourists throughout their stay. Aqualad looked over the team once more and gave a small nod of satisfaction.
"Remember, stealth is our number one priority on this mission, we are all required to act with discretion, if you encounter any problems return here immediately." Seeing theirs nods of understanding he ordered them to move out. Each one going off to do what their mission entailed.
They didn't notice the lone blue eye staring at them from the shadows, neither did they notice two more figures identical to the first suddenly appearing, and they didn't notice as these three figures began to shadow them like ghosts.