I do not own Young Justice or any of the characters.


Lead

"The art of war says," Dick began dramatically, giving the same speech he gave every member of Batman Incorporated after Cassius, Rose, and Cassandra, "'Oh divine art of subtlety and secrecy, through you we learn to be invisible.' Tonight, you'll choose a word that will help you become invisible to our enemies. Tonight...you choose...your cryptonym...your nom de guerre."

Cassius rolled his eyes. They'd been training the new team for a month in earnest, and the three who weren't insects had gotten their costumes about a day ago, Otto and Brion's both being fireproof. Otto's was mostly black with dark red on the shoulders, elbows, knees, and feet. Halo's had a white torso, black arms, a black hood, black pants and boots, and lines on the arms and the edge of the hood in the various colors of her various auras as highlights. Brion's was black with dark green on the torso and arms as well as the piece that extended up behind his head then had a band across his forehead, then light green in a pair of circles on each shoulder and a large circle on his abdomen with a thick block of light green inside the top of the circle, then the rest black.

"Yeah," Artemis said sarcastically. "Those are Dick's fancy words for code name."

Brion chuckled. "Ah, yes. Our superhero names."

"It sounds a little silly, but you need one for our field comms to keep your identity secret from the bad guys," Connor explained.

"I'm Halo," Violet said instantly. "I-It was the first name you gave me and I like it. I'm Violet at home, I'm Halo during a mission. Halo."

"Halo is a beautiful name and describes your powers well," Brion said. "I will take a name that describes my powers, too." He raised a hand in front of his face. "From now on call me," he struck something like a combat pose, "Hot Lava!"

Cassius snorted, Rose, Artemis, and Dick all laughing.

"What?" Brion asked. "In my new form-fitting super suit I bring the hotness, do I not?" He laughed. "Hot Lava!"

"No," Rose said, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye as Artemis managed to stop herself laughing.

"I'm not calling you Hot Lava," Artemis agreed.

"Agreed," Connor nodded.

Brion chuckled. "Alright, alright. Seriously then. Dr. Jace had a name for the powers in my bloodline. She called it the...Geo-Force."

"Huh," Artemis mused. "Geo-Force. That's a bit less of a stripper name."

"Says the girl named Tigress," Dick said mockingly, then purred, pretending to claw at the air, until Artemis punched him in the kidney, shutting him up effectively.

"Says the guy who took his name from an eighties mullet rock band," Artemis countered.

Dick faked a laugh. "Not true."

"Otto, you're up," Ethan said.

"I'm already Plasmus," Otto said.

"Fair enough," Connor said. "Forager, what's your code name?"

"Um...Forager is...Forager," Forager said.

"If it ain't broke..." Artemis shrugged.

"Great," Dick said. "Names chosen, time for team maneuvers."

Forager ran off instantly and Brion bowed slightly, offering his hand to Halo. "Miss Halo."

"Thank you Mr. Geo-Force," Halo smiled, setting her hand on his for a moment and giggling before flying off, Brion running after her.

"Maneuver Seven, people!" Dick called out. "Go!"

Brion melted into the ground instantly, and Forager began to sprint before beginning to roll. Brion left the ground ahead of him and formed lava into a ramp that curved backward, slingshotting into the air and back at Violet. Violet formed a red shield for Forager to jump off of and as Forager fell, he threw a dropkick, crashing to the ground hard. They continued to run everyone through training drills, as well as sparring with Dick, Rose, Cassandra, and Cassius, for hours, until well past midnight. Then, finally, just as they were wrapping up, Artemis said it was time for smores, and in her excitement, Violet accidentally tapped into a green aura, creating half a dozen replicas of herself,

"Holograms?" Artemis asked.

"That's new," Connor said.

"Alright, everyone...uh...we're starting over," Dick sighed heavily, and the four heroes in training all sighed unhappily but agreed, starting from the top, though they skipped the sparring this time around.


"You keep the extras busy," Cassius said. "Artemis and I will go after Cheshire."

The others all nodded, not including Connor, as he was spending the day with Megan in order to make up for having spent all of his time with the team instead recently.

"Go!" Cassius hissed.

They all charged in, Cassius leading Artemis to the shadows off to the side. As the private jet began to take off, Brion melted the front tire into the ground and the others all split up to deal with Cheshire's three-person team. Mist, a young girl with short, snow-white hair who disliked fighting and was able to turn herself into mist, Livewire, a blue-skinned girl with blue hair and electricity powers, and Shade, a man wearing a black and grey body suit, a white mask, and the ability to control the darkness around him and transport things through it. Dick and Rose went to deal with Mist, Cassandra and Jeff headed for Livewire, and the other three went after Shade. Cassius reached the door of the jet first and pulled it open with his goo, walking onto it calmly with Artemis just behind him, holding a crossbow in her right hand.

"Get out of here!" the man patching up Cheshire after she'd been shot during her last job shouted. "You have no right t-"

"Shut up," Cassius said, backhanding him into the wall with his expanded go hand. "Hello again Cheshire."

Cheshire groaned. "Void. Typical. Hello, Artemis."

"I'm glad you're alive," Artemis sighed as Void walked over to inspect the doctor's work for Cheshire, who didn't bother to argue. "But I have one question and one statement. Where is Deathstroke running the League of Shadows from?"

"Santa Prisca," Cassius and Cheshire both said.

"How did you know?" Cheshire asked.

"I know Deathstroke," Cassius said.

"How's...How's Lian?" Cheshire asked.

"Oh, well that brings me to my statement," Artemis said, walking over and crossing her arms as she bent down in front of her. "Go see your kid!"

"Come on, sis," Cheshire said. "We both know she's better off without me."

"You're her mother!" Artemis snapped.

"But I'll always be Cheshire first," Cheshire said. She looked back at Cassius. "Mind giving me morphine before you dig in?"

"You're in luck," Cassius said. "I don't have to. You actually found a decent doctor this time."

"This time?" Artemis asked. "You've patched her up before?"

"A few months ago I had the wrong doctor patch me up," Cheshire said. "He'd been paid off by the Shadows to ensure there were competitions. Fortunately, I had caused a bit of trouble in Gotham that time, so Cassius found me before the doctor did anything irreversible and managed to patch me up."

"I guess I owe you thanks," Artemis said.

"I figured you'd want her alive," Cassius said.

"See you later, Sis," Cheshire said, standing and pulling her mask on. "Hug..." she groaned, holding a hand to her shoulder as shadows stretched up the wall behind her. "Hug Lian for me."

Then, she stepped past Shade into the shadows and Shade followed after her, the shadows fading behind them.

"Nightwing," Artemis said. "Cheshire and Shade escaped, but we have Dr. Moon and confirmation of the League of Shadows intel."

"Understood," Dick responded. "We have Mist and Livewire."

Cassius and Artemis walked out of the jet, finding Mist had been turned into ice, leaving her naked as her clothes weren't present when she was in her mist form, so they had a blanket draped over her to keep her covered, and Livewire was bound and kneeling on the ground beside Mist. They loaded the two of them up onto the bioship with Dr. Moon and left, heading for Belle Reve first to drop off Dr. Moon, then from there headed for Taos with Mist and Livewire. Once they were finished, they all headed back to Megan's house. A couple hours later, Dick, Megan, Cassius, Cassandra, and Rose all headed to the Batcave to report everything that had been going on with their teams to Wonder Woman. She was not pleased. She was glad they had stopped a Meta-trafficking ring, namely one run by a guy named Stagg through a string of subsidiary companies ending with Branchwater. However, she was angry that between the seven leaders, they were in charge of six separate teams that all had no idea they were working together. She was pleasantly surprised that Cassius had convinced Kaldur to consider telling them, but he hadn't made much progress deciding, so her positivity didn't last very long. Once the briefing was done, they all left for their homes, Cassius, Cassandra, and Rose all heading to bed.


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