A/N
Another chapter done and another month coming to a close, which is remarkable since it only seemed like yesterday the month had began. Time really does fly by - best to make as much use of it as possible.
Episode XIII: This War Of Ours, Part I
The main rule of war is to hit the enemy where they least expect it. Funnily enough, Robin finds hitting enemies exactly where they expect it is usually the more surprising; criminals who have become long accustomed to having their secret operations disrupting by the acts of one or more heroes tend to expect things to awry and plan as much, whereas the more secure places tend to be easiest to take down.
The Iceberg Lounge may be the main visible place in Gotham for the criminal underworld - as well as being the most heavily guarded - however it's unlikely they would expect to have it assaulted out of all the places a hero could possibly disrupt their business.
Batman has dared to go into the lounge and arrest Penguin on occasion, but the criminals tend to feel safe in their little retreat.
"Everyone good?" Robin questions the group, going over the plans one last time so everyone understands their role. "Remember, Bane is our goal. We've done absolutely everything to make him annoyed and in response, he's organised a meeting with Penguin. Knowing Bane, he's probably expecting someone to intervene."
"Not us though," Artemis smartly comments, "Batman. He's probably sat there thinking Batman has been doing this to him."
"Exactly Artemis - Bane is going to be in his little fortress waiting for the caped crusader to come sneaking in and ambush him. What he won't be expecting is a certain Kryptonian to come knocking at the doors," Robin gestures to Conner, who nods. "Conner can take Bane out physically, but no offence to you Conner but Bane is a lot trickier than that."
"Which is where the Kid Flash and Artemis come into play. We distract Bane by running him in circles and shooting arrows," Kid Flash repeats his orders, relaxing back into his chair.
"Great, but since Bane has pretty much an entire army surrounding him - and that army will likely be juiced to the gills on venom - we need this," Robin responds, moving back towards the table behind him and picking up a small vial. "Inside of this is the latest version of anti-venom which the Batcomputer made. Potent stuff, so a single drop should likely work against the thugs. Bane would require a much larger dose."
"What if the venom has been upgraded since? Won't that make this version ineffective?" Wally chimes in, unusually providing his scientific knowledge for once.
"That's a risk we have to take, unless you want to work on it," Zatanna answers for Robin. "But I'm guessing we don't have the equipment."
"I'm not going to lie guys, it is risky on multiple levels. Bane could have upgraded the current version of venom, but we won't know until we try this serum," Robin says, passing the vial over the Artemis, who flips the vial around a few times. "Coat some of your arrows with that. A graze from the arrow should be enough to let the serum enter their bloodstream."
"There's a lot of ifs with this plan," Conner inputs.
"Which is why there is a plan B," Robin counters, showing them another map of the Iceberg Lounge, the words 'Back-up plan in case something goes horrible wrong' inscribed at the top in bright red.
The team read the map but can't make anything of it, so Wally gestures for Robin to explain. The Boy Wonder smiles in return, taking a seat in front of the team.
"Since when do we have a Plan B?" the Boy Wonder chuckles, "we improvise as always."
The team exchange amused glances with each, finding the lighter side of the situation and Robin's briefing. After all, he has a serious point - the team's missions rarely go according to plan and they normally end up improvising their way through everything through sheer luck and determination.
Conner's strength, Wally's speed, Artemis' accuracy, M'gann's mind, Zatanna's magic, and Robin's leadership tends to mix together in an amazing concoction of both weirdness and effectiveness. Everyone compliments each other in some strange way, so improvisation ends up working better than the original plan.
"Zatanna's main job is to make sure that collar is slipping around Bane's neck after we arrest him, whilst M'gann takes the chance to incapacitate him."
"I can keep him down for only a short time - Bane has a very strong mind," the Martian states, referring back to previous instances the two met. "What about Kaldur? We can't leave him here alone."
"He'll be fine," Robin shrugs before looking beyond where the team is gathered, "isn't that right, Kaldur?"
Grunting, the Atlantean is seated in a relatively uncomfortable position behind the team, magical ropes keeping him tied up whilst lit candles surrounding him keeps his dry enough to weaken him significantly. The traitor watches them uncomfortably as he regularly shifts, attempting to gain some comfort from the situation.
"So... everyone know what they need to do?" Robin asks, standing up from his chair and waiting for any questions to be thrown his way. Satisfied that the team understands their role enough to keep their cool when things certainly go awry, the Boy Wonder begins his speech.
"This is it guys, one member of the Light ready for us to take them down. No-one thought we'd even be still together when we tried to get Kaldur, but here we are - arguably more angsty as ever, but together still the same. So, in true YJ fashion, we defy the odds and get one more little piece of ourselves back again. Bane isn't going to know what hit him."
The team listens in silence to Robin as he meets everyone of their gazes, and when the speech ends, Conner opens his mouth to respond.
"Bane's going down," Conner agrees, the ghost of a smile flashing across his face.
Entering the Iceberg Lounge was infinitely more difficult than initially expected, especially when the Boy Wonder has perhaps the most indiscreet team members trailing behind him. Conner and Wally attempt to match his steps through the Lounge, the clone regularly going off course and almost alerting the guards without the timely intervention of Robin.
Thankfully, the guards are relaxed enough to be easily dissuaded away from investigating through Robin throwing small rocks he collected in the area away from them. Confused, they tend to walk away as though it is above their paygrade to care about something so small.
You'd think the Penguin would have better guards for his club, Robin shakes his head with a cocky smile on his face.
Delving deeper into the Lounge with every step, Robin stops the group and checks his gauntlet map for the schematics of the building. Thankfully, they are close to the bar and have yet to destroy their element of surprise.
"That door over there," Robin points out the entrance to the bar. "When I give the go-ahead, it's all you Superboy."
"How loud?" the clone asks, preparing his fists like they were guns.
"Big boom," Robin answers, patting the clone on the shoulder. It's not often the clone gets to let loose so when he does, the Kryptonian enjoys it to the fullest extent. Smashing things is his forte, so it would be a bad tactical decision on Robin's part to the team member's specialty. "Wally, you had something to eat?" Robin adds on, looking back at the speedster.
Leaning against the wall and munching on a chocolate bar, the speedster gives Robin a quick thumbs up and wink.
"The rest of the team in position?" Wally asks, once again forgetting they have a telepathic link active. "Oh right," he smiles, remembering after as usual.
"Let us know when you are ready?" Robin says over the link, messing around with some of his gadgets whilst waiting for a response. Most of his reusable equipment is beginning to fall into disrepair, worn from repeated usage over such a short period of time. "I need Fox to take a look at these," the Boy Wonder mumbles under his breath.
"I have a game we can play: guess Robin's secret identity," the speedster finishes eating his bar and crouches beside the other two. "Although I have probably gone through half of Gotham's citizens by now, I feel like I'm getting close."
"What makes you think I live in Gotham?" Robin asks, attempting to throw off the speedster.
"No, no, no, no - I know what are trying to do Robin, and it won't work this time," the speedster chuckles. "I know you live in Gotham, it's just who you are which creeps me out. For all I know, we could have met in civvies... and you know who I am so... you probably played a prank on me."
Watching the speedster's brain whir in an attempt to pinpoint Robin's identity, the Boy Wonder places a hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing too loud.
"We might be a few extra minutes. Something has just come up."
Ensuring Robin receives her message, Miss Martian flies back to where Zatanna and Artemis are waiting for her to come back. Becoming visible once more, she floats back to solid ground and crouches beside them.
"How much anti-venom do we have spare?" M'gann asks the archer, who shakes her head.
"I've used all mine on the arrows, so only the ones you have. Why?" the archer responds.
"You know like Robin said that Bane's thugs are likely to be using the venom too? Turns out Bane decided to bring much more than a few bodyguards to the meeting, and by that, I mean quite a few," M'gann reports back what she saw to the two next to her. "And all of them have the venom-injecting facilities Robin told us to watch out for."
"That makes things a lot more difficult," Zatanna inputs, scratching her head. "How are we going to sabotage them?" she adds on.
Taking out the spare vial of anti-venom which is supposed to be used on Bane himself, M'gann examines the contents carefully. She's no scientist by any standard - human or martian - but the chances the amount can be used on the thugs and still be used on Bane are slim.
"It's all on you Artemis. I hope you've been practising because there's a lot of targets to hit," M'gann gives her only conclusion on the matter. The main trouble still remains on getting past the thugs and into the main lounge with starting trouble. "Any ideas on how to get past them?"
Clearly thinking, Artemis peeks over to where the thugs are gathered outside of the second entrance to the main area of the building and comes back down in thought.
"Here's the plan: M'gann is going to sneak ahead and confront Bane with the others. Once trouble kicks off, Bane's goons should come into the room and we can follow them in," Artemis plans, "with the element of surprise, we should be able to take a few out with my arrows before they notice."
Nodding, M'gann communicates the plan to Robin, Kid Flash and Superboy. "Guys, the plan has changed a little bit. A lot of Bane's bodyguards are guarding our entrance - all going to inject venom into themselves - we have a plan for it."
"Didn't take us long to improvise as usual," Robin responds.
"Everything is as normal... just watch out for some chaos," M'gann says.
"Cool. Superboy's going to enjoy this," Robin comments. "See you in a second."
Turning back to her accomplices, she temporarily waves goodbye before going invisible and flying over to the door. For a second, she forgets what the signal is to enter but then a large boom erupts through the building as though sheer metal has been sent crashing to the ground. On cue, the thugs look around in confusion before going into the room.
Doing so herself, M'gann is greeting by an interesting sight. Stood in the middle of the room casually is the muscly luchador himself, arms crossed and what is close to an amused smile on his face. Clearly, he finds the team more of a curiosity than a threat.
"You can show yourself now Martian," Bane chuckles, looking over in M'ganns direction. "I know you are there."
Showing herself, many of the thugs look up at her with even more confusion than a few seconds before. Instead of awkwardly waiting beneath the flying Martian, they surround Bane in a defensive formation, who looks at them and shakes his head, moving some of them aside roughly.
Superboy, Kid Flash and Robin are stood at their entrance in as much astonishment as the Martian.
"Finally, the children reveal themselves after destroying my business at the docks. Good work - I am impressed," Bane starts, looking between the flying Martian and the other three with unending amusement. "And the business at LexCorp, was that you lot as well? Lex Luthor was most annoyed at this, so when I asked him to provide me with his best motion sensors and thermal equipment, he was most helpful. You can tell the other two to come in now."
Motioning for M'gann to tell Artemis and Zatanna to join the conversation, Bane taps the side of his head mockingly.
"You guys need to get in here. Bane knew we were here."
Doing as Bane suggested, it takes only a few moments before the two hurry through the door and skid to a halt.
"Good. All of you are here."
"If you knew we were here, why wait until now?" Robin questions the villain, clearly annoyed.
"You know me by now little bird. I wanted to teach you this lesson in person," Bane responds, hand hovering over a large button on his body which is connected to several large tubes all around his back area. "I shame you will not be around to share this lesson with others."
Slamming down on the button, bright green liquid quickly rushes around the tubes from a central compartment, the drug pumping directly into his veins at a rapid rate. Grunting, Bane quickly swells in size, both in height and muscle mass. Watching him increase to an insanely large size over such a short period, the Martian understands why Robin was incredibly determined to bring as much anti-venom as possible.
Following the suit of their leader, the thugs each press their buttons in unison, likewise grunting and moaning themselves as they grow. Remarkably, they do not expand their size nearly as much as Bane did but still did to a large degree.
"You got that anti-venom?" Robin asks the Martian, to which she nods from across the room. "Good. We are going to need it."
A/N
Thanks for reading again guys, I hope you have enjoyed your weekend so far!