…
Mount Justice
"Unbelievable." The caped crusader said as he glared holes into the heads of Aqualad's team of protégé's. He had just finished listening to the team's debriefing after their arrival from China. He already knew the mission was a failure from the news reports and social media pages that had begun circulating before they arrived. Aqualad himself had his head slightly bowed in shame unable to form a response, M'gann also looked ashamed and intimidated while Wally was noticeably uncomfortable.
Their mission had been an utter and absolute disaster in every sense of the word. The culmination of their failure was quite aptly summarized by the hologram of the newspaper headline being projected behind Batman. It read in bold print. 'ALIEN ABDUCTION IN CHINESE PROVINCE. MARTIAN SUSPECTED.'
Despite having his face hidden, everyone could feel the glare he was sporting. "Your orders were clear. Prioritize stealth. Flee on sight. Do not engage. DO. NOT. ENGAGE." He stressed each word as he glared down on Aqualad specifically, the atlantean barely able to meet his glare.
Artemis looked on in pity, having been in a nearly identical position just a few weeks prior, she knew just how terrifying it was to be on Batman's bad side. Although comparatively speaking, she hadn't messed up quite to this level. This was bad, really bad.
She, Robin and Superboy stood in a line with the other members of the team, waiting for their own turn to be debriefed. Captain Marvel stood off to the side with the other members of the League that had shown up. The white caped hero looked slightly intimidated watching the exchange between Batman and Aqualad, as were they.
"We took precautions for stealth, and tried to remain undetected-"
"And yet photos of Miss Martian's spaceship are being plastered on every news network and social media site in China and around the world."
M'gann visibly flinched from that one, she had definitely screwed up big time. Even now she had no idea what had possessed her to do something that stupid. There had been no need to uncloak the ship like that. Considering her abilities, she had had a myriad of other better options that she could have taken to extract her teammates, so why had she decided on that one?
"It was an unexpected situation, he seemed to be aware of our presence and mission ahead of time, and had planned a trap for us. We were woefully unprepared." Aqualad admitted, attempting to stop his frustration showing. It didn't work and his hands balled tightly into fists.
"You should have planned on an exit strategy for the case when you did run into him. Or did you think you would just run away and he would let you go without a fight?" Batman inquired and watched as Aqualad's fists tightened even more.
"Wait Batman, you can't blame Aqualad for all of it. I screwed up more than any of us, if anything I should take the blame." M'gann said jumping to Aqualad's defense and causing Batman to round on her.
"I'm not absolving you of any blame Miss Martian, you are defiantly the one who made the most mistakes and worst judgement calls on the mission. Your irrational actions, nearly got all your identities discovered. Not only that but you singlehandedly managed to increase hostility and distrust against aliens across an entire foreign continent and then some, the same aliens who just so happen to make up a sizeable chunk of the Justice League, your uncle especially." Batman said gesturing to the rest of the Justice League, specifically Superman and the Martian Manhunter.
Superman stared seriously but also kindly at the girl, while J'onn had a complicated expression as he stared at his niece. Batman then brought focus back on him.
"I am well aware of your failures Miss Martian; I just hadn't gotten to you yet. As for whom to place the blame on, that responsibility still falls on Aqualad." He said finally turning away from glaring at M'gann, said girl having shrunk back from having her failure thrown at her.
"As team leader, you should have planned ahead for the eventualities so that things wouldn't have needed to go that far. A plan, a backup plan, an exit strategy for the absolute worst-case scenario, those are all things a leader should account for, things that would have been helpful in preventing this disaster."
Finally, he turned his attention to Wally. The ginger speedster had been silent through it all, even when Batman had been lecturing Aqualad and Miss Martian, he hadn't jumped in, because he knew that there was nothing he could say. The headline in front of them said it all, pretty clearly. All he could do now was to report their mission successes and hope the punishment wasn't too severe.
He still shrunk back and gulped a little when Batman focused his glare on him, and he silently gave props to Artemis, the glare was intimidating as hell. He should have been several times way too fast for Batman, but standing in front of the man right now, he felt like all his speed wouldn't help him against the Leaguer.
"Comparatively to Miss Martian, your actions are almost negligible, but that still doesn't excuse the fact that you disobeyed a direct order. You attacked him despite having been expressly ordered not to engage, thereby putting yourself and your teammates in danger, and putting your mission in jeopardy."
"Come on Batman, look on the bright side, now we've got some information on the guy, at least we know he's not a speedster." Flash inputted coming to the defense of his protégé.
"Yes, and that's all we know, because the device that contained the data that would have told us more ended up being stolen midway during a fight that shouldn't have happened. Miss Martian wasn't able to extract any useful information either, so that leaves us with barely any more information than what we already knew, valuable technology being lost to a possible enemy, and leaving us in a worse position with the Chinese government than we were."
Flash couldn't formulate a response to that, because Batman was right, things had gone really bad really quickly and the only thing they had to show for it was the confirmation of a suspicion that was inconsequential now, because even without being a speedster Mask, was still very fast and they had no idea of his limits.
"Be that as may, we can't keep focusing on the past. Things may have turned up pretty badly but we can't be too hard on them. They weren't ready." Aquaman stated, also trying to preserve some of his protégé's dignity.
"You're right." Aqualad and quite literally everyone else was stunned to hear Batman agree with him. The dark knight returning to complete stoicism as he added. "They aren't."
The entirety of Aqualad's team seemed ready to protest but managed to restrain themselves from doing so since Batman was still speaking. "Rest up, there won't be any missions for a while so take that time to reconsider your approach for the next mission. Learn from this failure. That goes for all of you. Captain Marvel!"
"Uhm- yeah, I-I mean y-yes, yes Batman…sir." Being the newest member of the League and having spent the least amount of time with Batman, Captain Marvel was left stuttering when Batman's attention suddenly shifted to him.
"How did things go on your end?" Batman questioned.
"O-Oh you know … good." Captain Marvel managed to get out. Batman narrowed his eyes expectantly. "Oh details … details yeah."
"Uhm well me and Robin figured out that the collars were what was making the animals act crazy and it wasn't just the gorillas, although they were the smartest ones, there was also the elephants, those guys were huge, and also the wolves and even a tiger … God it was so cool-" He got carried away and started to ramble, so Robin decided to cut in.
"Basically, we found out that the animals were being controlled by these collars." Robin interrupted, pulling out one of the collars they'd pulled off the animals, and handing it to Batman.
"I pulled that one off of one of the wolves that attacked us. I tried analyzing it beforehand, it doesn't seem to be that much different from the standard mind-control technology were used to, other than it being a bit more high-tech, thought you might want to look at it anyway.
Batman took the collar, staring at it carefully before tucking it away in his belt. He gave Robin a small nod of approval.
"I'm assuming you figured out who was behind it."
"Not us, me and Captain were a bit occupied flying around the entire forest trying to get collars off of EVERY SINGLE animal we could find." Robin replied enunciating his statement with a pointed glare at Captain Marvel, even with his smirk still plastered in place.
"Ahem, sorry." The red-clad hero apologized while sheepishly rubbing his neck from the look he was getting.
"Anyway, we ended up getting sidetracked by that and only arrived at the evil lair after the fight was done. Superboy and Artemis were the ones who shut down Brain." Robin said, indicating over his shoulder at the two who looked a bit uncomfortable at the sudden attention, before they straightened up.
"Wait, you guys fought the Brain, what was he doing all the way out in India?" Flash asked.
"To answer your first question, it turns out he was our mastermind, although we didn't fight him, Superboy and Artemis did. As for the second question, we don't know why he chose there, or the full extent of what he was planning. Our working theory is that he wanted someplace out of the way to test out his mind-control experiment with minimal League interference. Preferably in a place where Justice League members are actually forbidden from entering."
"Which as of right now is just about every eastern continent, because they hate us, great." Said Flash, sounding a bit defeated.
"The Flash is right; our enemies now have safe havens to conduct their nefarious purposes far outside the reach of the Justice League. They've taken advantage of the situation with Mask for their own purposes." Wonder Woman inputted, voicing her own concerns.
"Who's to say they didn't engineer the situation themselves in order to get this desired effect." Batman stated.
"You're saying that you think Mask is working with them?" Superman questioned, quickly understanding what Batman was implying.
"I'm saying that it's something I had considered, even more so now."
"If you'd considered that, then why did you want to recruit him to the team? That was your intention, wasn't it?" Green Lantern asked. The young team was understandably shocked since they hadn't had any clue as to Batman's intentions. Even Captain Marvel seemed shocked.
"It was, and for two reasons, the first being that up till recently, Mask's actions hadn't given me any reason to believe that he truly had any nefarious intentions. His methods were – are questionable, but they aren't all to different from what some of us did while we were still … misguided." Batman explained, and Green Arrow understood what he meant.
"The second reason is that in the case where he actually is a threat or is unwittingly being used by someone else, then it would be better for us to have him as close as possible, especially since we know so little about him. He would also make for a good ally."
"But you still suspect that he's working with the enemy." Martian Manhunter stated.
"It would be foolish not to, especially considering how large of a part he's playing in all this. Currently I believe he's being used in some grand plan without even knowing it, though it just as easily be the alternative. Either way, it's important we keep an eye on him."
"What about the problem with the east, I mean we can't just let the bad guys do whatever they want over there." Flash reminded.
"Agreed. The fact that they've tried to draw our attention away from there tells us that they're planning something, and by how things are going it's going to be big. We'd be playing right into their hands if we chose to ignore it. We'll need to intensify our focus there; the details will be discussed in the Watchtower." Batman stated, and was met with agreement from the rest of the League. 'Even though I can't shake the feeling that we're still playing into their hand by doing this.' He thought to himself.
"Perhaps we would get a better idea of their plans if we knew exactly what they encountered. Superboy, Artemis, you were the ones who encountered the Brain, it would be helpful if you told us everything that happened." Aquaman spoke directing his request to the two in question.
Artemis and Superboy shared a quick look that luckily went unnoticed by the others.
"You tell it." Connor grunted, stepping back a bit, making Wolf move as well to stand next to him.
"Alright." She responded. "After we split up from Robin's team, we searched the forest and found the lair. There was a forcefield around it and the whole thing was heavily armed, not to mention the troop of animal bodyguards. Superboy handled the animals while I found a way to take down the field. When we were done with that, we entered, fought more animals, including a huge one with a weird fashion sense."
"That would be Monsieur Mallah. He's French, him and Brain are usually a package deal." Flash chimed in.
"Good to know. Anyway, we managed to beat him, but by then Brain had already wiped most of the stuff on the computers and set the place to blow with us in it. We managed to get clear but the two had already escaped. What was left of the documents only contained some details about the experiments like the sample size and the effects of whatever drugs they were feeding them." Artemis purposefully fought the compulsion to glance over at Superboy, as she skillfully avoided any mention of encountering the masked blond male or his part in completing the mission, so as not to arouse Batman's suspicion.
The only other person who knew what actually happened was Superboy - unless one of the Martians were to perform a head dive but she doubted that would happen - and part of her worried over whether or not he would corroborate her story. She didn't let any of it show though for fear that one of the heroes watching her would notice.
"How about you Superboy, did you manage to get a glance at anything that could be helpful." Flash asked the cloned teen but he just shook his head.
"I was too preoccupied fighting the monkeys." He answered letting his distaste for the beret wearing gorilla bleed into his voice. Wolf growled as well, the white wolf sharing the same distaste as him, making everyone stare at him. "We were fighting the monkeys." Superboy corrected, getting a bark of agreement.
"Noted. I'll see what I can learn off the collar and we'll go from there. League members should reconvene in the Watchtower now. We have a lot to discuss, the rest of you are dismissed for now." Batman informed, ending the meeting and heading for the zeta-beams. Superman followed immediately after him, as did the other heroes who didn't have a protégé on the team.
Aquaman placed a comforting hand on Aqualad's shoulder to which the younger barely responded before leaving as well.
"Hey Wally, so you phased through a wall on your own, seems like you're getting better with your powers. I've gotta go now but we'll talk later and celebrate, my treat." Flash stated encouragingly, to cheer up the orange-haired teen.
"A-Alright, sounds good." Wally agreed trying to sound cheerful but it came out shaky and half-hearted. Luckily Flash didn't push and just zoomed away.
"Do not be sad my niece." Martian Manhunter stated to M'gann as he came to stand in front of her.
"I messed up big time Uncle J'onn. This mess is all my fault, I'm so sorry." She cried.
"What has happened has happened, you should not stress too much over your mistakes. Things will be better." He said pulling her into a one-armed hug which she immediately returned.
"You're not mad at me?" she asked hesitantly and hopefully.
"No. I am not." He answered with a small smile, retracting his arm and allowing her to step back. "I need to go now; we shall talk later M'gann." At her small nod, he flew off toward the zeta beams as well and in a flash of light he was gone.
As soon as all the Leaguers had cleared out, the awkwardness in the room seemed to intensify. The team seemed split into two conflicting moods. On one side was Robin's team who should be celebrating at a successfully completed mission, and on the other hand was Aqualad's team who were rightly dejected by their crushing defeat.
The awkwardness mounted until it finally forced Captain Marvel, who was placed on den duty for the time being to want to exit the room. "I-I'm gonna go see if there's anything to eat, if anyone needs me I'll be in the kitchen."
As soon as he left, Aqualad started to leave as well, only he was heading out of the den. "I'll be leaving now as well." No one move to stop him. They understood that he needed to be alone for now.
When he had gone Robin went up to Kid Flash tossing him a second collar he had brought back. "Brought you back a souvenir." He smirked.
"Nice. So, do we have a dog now or …" Kid replied walking off with Robin to the souvenir room as they chatted leaving Artemis, M'gann and Connor in the room.
Connor seemed torn between going to comfort M'gann and speaking to Artemis but he resolved that the latter was more important now and went to his blond teammate.
"We need to talk." He said gaining Artemis' attention. M'gann seemed a bit dejected but she pushed it aside and decided to give the two some space, leaving to help Captain Marvel in the kitchen.
Connor watched as M'gann left the room. When she was out of earshot, he whispered to Artemis. "You and I both know what really happened. I don't trust Mask." He stated. "I don't think you're his mole, not consciously at least but you're the only one who can keep an eye on him, so you're gonna be our mole."
"If he's as much of a danger as Batman says, we need to be able to monitor him, and so far, it seems he trusts you. For now, he's on our side, but if that changes, we'll need to have a way to take him down. Can I trust you with this?"
"First off, I'm no one's mole, no one's…" she emphasized. "…so, stop it with the tests. And second, I'll learn what I can about him, but I'm not telling you or anyone else anything I find unless he becomes a danger to us." Artemis glared defiantly at him, daring him to disagree.
He didn't. "Fine by me. As long as he doesn't do anything to hurt the team, I don't have a problem with that, but if he does-"
"Then he'll be our enemy, and we'll put him down." She stated clearly and got a nod in response. With his peace said, he left to go find M'gann, Wolf trailing after him.
Artemis watched him go, and she knew without being told that he was going to be watching her. That was fine by her, she knew she wasn't the mole, but she also knew as she suspected most of the team did by now, that it wasn't Red Tornado either, meaning they still had at least one mole to worry about and no shortage of suspects. Superboy being one of them.
The way he had acted just now, his paranoia, his continued small subtle tests, and his willingness to go behind the teams back were different from what Superboy was supposed to be like. Maybe it was a side of his Cadmus programming that had rarely shown itself, maybe it was there all along and she just never had a chance to notice it until now. What she did know was that the Connor she had just seen had had a sinister feel to him, though it was just for a moment and he didn't seem to be aware of it.
She thought back to his words. 'I don't think you're his mole, not consciously at least.' She realized, the same could be said about him. This little system of moles and mind games had started to get a bit more complex, and she'd need to step up in order to keep track of all of it.
'We're allies, so for now you can watch me, and I'll be watching Naruto and also you.' She resolved.
AN: Hey guys, so that was the latest chapter and no, you didn't read it out of order nor is there a chapter before this one. I know the mission storyline is still unfinished and I had most of it typed out, until I accidentally deleted it, and it was agonizing trying to rewrite the whole thing, especially since I wanted to move forward with the story already, so I'm postponing it for now. I'll try to include it in one of the next chapters as a flashback or something.
As for update times, I thought I'd be able to update at least once every month, but school threw that plan straight out the window. I'll try to update again in the next couple of days but after that I'm not sure how long it'll be before I can update again, especially since I need to work on my other stories. Hopefully you still stick with me till then.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to review. It's more helpful than you realize, and I might consider responding to them.
More chapters will be coming ... hopefully soon. Until then, stay safe everyone.