8 August 2010
Mount Justice, Happy Harbour
As July bled into August and the start of the school year crept ever closer, Rachel was glad that she attended an English-style boarding school that didn't start until September. Because that meant she got to enjoy beautiful sunny days like this one. The sun shone brightly overhead, seagulls played in the strands of wispy clouds, sailboats were already cluttering the horizon line and the waves lapped gently against the shore. It promised to be a good day and it had barely begun.
"Hello Megan!" M'gann beamed, running down the beach in naught but a golden bikini and a red boogey-board under her arm. She was quickly joined by the others who each wore their own swimsuits and carried various beach accessories."We should hit the beach, like, everyday!"
"First, a moment of silence for our…absent comrade" Robin teased as he bowed his head in fake remembrance, just barely jostling his sunglasses as hand met forehead. It might've appeared earnest, had his own lips not been twitching upwards into a mischievous grin.
"Poor Wally" Rachel agreed, just as solemn, bowing her head slightly as one of her hands moved to de-wedge the purple one piece which had ridden up slightly.
Central City High School, which had returned to the scholastic year a month earlier than the rest of them, was Wally's school of choice. Which meant that on such a glorious day like this, he was stuck inside the "…four-walled prison of academic hell" (his words, not hers). At the very least, the first day back usually consisted of reorientating yourself to the academic mindset and going over different syllabuses for each class, so it wasn't like it was super important, at least in Rachel's experience. But, then again, high school was probably different than primary school.
As for the rest of the Team, both private school attendees—Rachel & Robin, respectively—wouldn't return until halfway through September. The dates differed slightly depending on the school, but they were more or less the same. Gotham Academy, it turned out, had easily recovered from their altercation with Amazo (after a hefty donation from Wayne Enterprises), and they were already reconstructing the gymnasium they'd destroyed. Though that didn't seem to faze the school because it barely broken the front page; but she supposed for a school that housed Gotham legacies—trust fund kids, the rich & famous and the occasional scholarship kid—that kind of thing might've been the norm.
As for Kaldur, he took a combination of online classes and atlantean classes that allowed him to keep up with both worlds. His time was usually split between training sessions up on land in the Cave with the rest of the Team or down below, in the deep blue of Atlantis. Which just left M'gann & Conner. Those two had been enrolled into the local public school, Happy Harbour High School, but that wasn't supposed to start until sometime in early September. M'gann seemed to be the most excited at the chance to experience further human culture, whilst Conner appeared to be dreading it. Most likely because of all the horror stories Wally had fed him in the lead up to his own scholastic year.
Shaking off her dull thoughts, Rachel dumped the towels down next to both of the chilly bins and the other things that they'd bought out with them before chasing after Robin into the water. Sure, they might've only been a few feet from the Cave's back door, but that didn't mean they particularly wanted to keeping going back & forth to get everything they'd missed. Also, Red Tornado had warned against tracking sand in through the mountain.
Rachel's teacher, Azar, had been the one to teach her to swim back on Azarath, before it was destroyed. They didn't have big expanses of open water like this and she wasn't one to leave the temples often, but that didn't matter. She was young & small, which meant that learning in the baths and pools typically meant for prayer, baptisms and other such teachings, worked just as well.
Goggles strapped tightly over her eyes, Rachel barely had time to dive beneath the glistening blue surface—only just catching the excess of Robin's splashes against her disappearing legs—as M'gann soon joined them. Riding out over the gentle waves on her boogey-board, the martian quickly joined in on the game of Splash-Tag with Kaldur quickly coming up behind. He was, of course, the master of this game being the only atlantean on the Team. At least until Conner decided to join in with a kryptonian-powered cannonball that had them all bobbing away in his wake. It was fun, anyhow.
Together, they whittled away the day just having fun at the beach. The morning was filled with hours just flouncing about the water, spying different creatures in the rock pools, performing strange acrobatic tricks under the water, building sandcastles along the shoreline as they raced against the tide that threatened to knock them down and poking at Kaldur to show them some 'atlantean magic'.
When lunch eventually rolled around, both Conner and Kaldur found themselves designated to be the grill men, because this was a manly venture and Robin (though likely a better griller than either of them) was deemed to young to handle the equipment. They did, however, deem him old enough to divvy out the cold sodas from the chilly bin on which he sat. Not that it mattered in the end; the slightly charred hot dogs still tasted as good. Particularly as they were wrapped in slightly squished buns and slathered in an array of mustard and tomato sauce.
After lunch, M'gann turned to sunbathing whilst Conner made the mistake of taking a nap on the beach. It was through no fault of their own that the kryptonian quickly found himself buried beneath mounds of sand. Although he did make a brilliant mermaid—complete with sculpted breasts and seashell bra. Then as the sun began to set, Robin threw down the challenge of volleyball which Kaldur, Conner & M'gann eagerly took up. In the meantime, Rachel retreated to the safety of the umbrellas, where they'd set up camp earlier in the day, and to the confines of that German tome which had been calling to her for months.
And then before they knew it, evening had fallen and they were trudging back to the showers to wash sand out of every orifice it had crept into. A light dinner of sandwiches and leftover hot dogs later, they found themselves back in the Cave where they would meet their new teammate. A blonde archer by the name of Artemis (much more appropriately named than Speedy, in Rachel's opinion), who turned out to be Green Arrow's newest protégée whom he had taken on in Speedy's had barely made it through introductions when Wally had appeared, dressed for the beach day he had missed out on. Nevermind the fact that it was far too late to go swimming now.
"Recognised: Kid Flash B-03" Chirped the computer, thankfully breaking through any awkward and menial introductions.
"The Wall-man is here! Now let's get this party star—" Wally greeted with arms full of beach supplies, golden shorts hung precariously from his hips and a strip of zinc brushed across the bridge of his nose. He'd barely zetaed into the Cave before he found himself eating asphalt and made a complete fool of himself in the process. Rachel winced as a wave of secondhand cringe washed over her. "—ted?"
"Wall-man, huh?" Artemis smirked as she stepped out in front of Batman's glare & Red Tornado's stoic gaze. "Wow, love the uniform. What exactly are your powers?"
"Uh, who's this?" Wally asked, pulling himself to his feet and joined the others. He, at least, seemed to have no trouble getting over the fact that he'd just made a complete and utter fool of himself in front of his peers and several Leaguers.
"Artemis" She replied smartly, "Your new teammate"
"Kid Flash. Never heard of you" The comment seemed to have stung a little, if that empathic ping off of the blonde was anything to go by.
"Uh, she's my new protégée" Green Arrow stepped up, as Artemis looked to be biting back another scathing remark.
"Wha—what happened to your old one?!"
"Recognised: Speedy B-06"
"Well, for starters he doesn't go by Speedy anymore" Speedy greeted cooly as he stepped into the Cave. His gaze swept over his old comrades for a moment, lingering on Artemis and Green Arrow as distaste curled his lips. "Call me Red Arrow"
"Roy…" Green Arrow breathed. This was likely the first time the two had seen each other since the inauguration how ever many months ago, back when the young archer had decided to go solo. "You look—"
"—Replaceable" Red Arrow huffed, striding forward through the crowd. Baring no resemblance to the teenager they had once known, the redhead now looked less like a Robin Hood cosplayer and more like a mercenary-for-hire.
"It's not like that—! You told me you were going solo"
"So why waste time finding a sub? Can she even use that bow?"
"Yes" Artemis stepped forward. "She can"
"Who are you?!" Wally exclaimed.
"I'm his niece—"
"—She's my niece" The two green archers chorused, sounding almost practised in their reply.
"Another niece?" Robin scoffed, eyeing up his mentor's reaction or lack thereof.
"But she is not your replacement" Kaldur soothed, sparing a look that promised later words towards the bird "We have always wanted you on the Team and we have no quota on archers"
"And if we did, you know who we'd pick" Wally added.
"Whatever Baywatch" Artemis snarked, a little ticked off that her possibly one chance at joining the Team was riding on whether or not the older archer—who had scorned the idea from the beginning—would be joining as well. "I'm here to stay"
"Why are you here, Roy?" Rachel asked curiously. It wasn't that she was trying to redirect the conversation towards something less volatile, but they hadn't seen hide nor hair of the archer in months and he just suddenly shows up out of the blue? No word or warning? It was strange, especially for him.
"Yeah, a reason named 'Doctor Serling Roquette" Red Arrow stiffly replied.
"The nano-robotics genius and claytronics expert at Royal University in Star City!" Robin brightly beamed, quickly bringing up the doctor's entire bio and rap sheet for all to see. "Vanished two weeks ago—"
"—Abducted two weeks ago" Red Arrow amended. "By the League of Shadows"
"Whoa!" Wally breathed, eyes blowing wide in awe.
"You want us to rescue her from the League of Shadows?" Robin added, just as intrigued.
"Hard core!"
"Already rescued her" Red Arrow quickly shut that down as he moved to show them what he actually wanted them to do. "Only one problem, the Shadows had already coerced her into creating a weapon. Doc calls it 'The Fog' Composed of millions of microscopic nano-bots; nano-tech infiltrators that're capable of disintegrating anything in their path—concrete, steel, flesh. But it's true purpose isn't in the destruction, it's theft. The infiltrators even store raw data from any computer system and deliver the stolen intel to the Shadows. Providing them access to weapons, strategic defence, cutting-edge science and tech"
"Perfect for extortion, manipulation, power-broking—" Artemis agreed, "Yeah, sounds like the Shadows"
"Like you know anything about the Shadows!" Wally scoffed in disbelief.
"Hm" Artemis merely smirked in reply, agitating the speedster even further.
"Who are you?!"
"Roquette's working on a virus to render The Fog inert" Red Arrow continued, cutting through any further squabbling.
"But if the Shadows know she can do that…?" Robin breathed, his tone tinged with worry.
"They'll target her" The archer agreed, "Right now she's off the grid. Stashed her at the local high school's computer lab"
"You left her alone?" Green Arrow chastised.
"She's safe enough, for now" Red Arrow rebuked.
"Then let's, you and I, keep her that way—"
"—You and I? Don't you wanna take your new protégée?" He spat back in kind, his tone turning acrid at the mention of the younger archer. Rachel winced at the interaction; you could feel the tension in the room and she had no doubt that you could cut it with a butter knife.
Thankfully, before it could go any further, Batman silently butted in and gestured for Green Arrow to calm down. You could tell just by watching them, that they knew each other well enough to communicate without the need for words because Green Arrow heaved a sigh at the hand on his shoulder. But he still drew himself up, shoulders set back and looked Red Arrow dead in the eye with a certain sense of calm that he wasn't showing before.
"You brought this to the Team" Green Arrow stated, "It's their mission, which means it's hers now too"
"Tch!" Red Arrow scoffed derisively as he retreated to the zeta tubes, with a swagger in his step, "Then my job's done"
"Recognised: Speedy—"
"—That's Red Arrow B-06" The archer corrected the computer as the zeta tube came online. "Update"
And still Artemis and Wally refused to look one another in the eye as waves of irritation and indignation rolled off of the pair. Rachel sighed heavily through her nose, she just knew that this mission was not going to be easy and it wasn't going to be because of their adversaries.