…
The Batcave
Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's most trusted confidant and long-time guardian walked into the Batcave to find the Batman still at his computer, like he had been for the past eleven hours.
"Dinner's ready Master Bruce, shall I have it brought here or will you be coming upstairs?"
"No thanks, Alfred. I'll eat it later." That was the short reply as the dark knight continued to type away furiously at the keyboard. Alfred walked a bit closer to the screen as he tried to make out what Batman was doing.
"Master Bruce, I realize that paranoia is now second nature to you, but I do believe that Wayne Enterprises Technologies security is well equipped to handle most if not all cyber-attacks. Surely updating your security systems can wait till after dinner." Alfred chided.
"No, it can't." At Batman's answer, Alfred's expression became a bit graver.
"Has someone managed to gain access to your systems?" he asked.
"No, not any of the more important ones anyway. Not yet at least. But it's only a matter of time."
"Could it be one of your business competitors? Or perhaps one of the Batman's more nefarious adversaries?" Alfred asked with both curiosity and concern.
"Neither. They wouldn't be able to gain access into the systems in the first place, especially since we integrated alien technology, and even if they did, it would be almost impossible for them to navigate, much less find what they're looking for without some intimate knowledge of Wayne Enterprises computer systems." Bruce explained, never once looking away from the screen or pausing in his typing.
"So, you're saying it's an inside job then." No response. "I'm assuming you know who it is?" Alfred asked.
"It's Robin."
"Master Dick?" Alfred asked incredulously as his brows shot up in surprise. He quickly schooled his features though. "Surely there must be some misunderstanding, doesn't Master Dick have unrestricted access to all WayneTech's systems? Why would he need to breach the security systems, and behind your back no less?"
Batman paused in his typing but didn't turn around. "That's because he doesn't have unrestricted access. There is a part of the system dedicated to a WayneTech project that even he doesn't have access to."
"And that would be?"
"The Watchtower."
India
He ran as fast as his legs could carry him, occasionally looking back to see if it was still following. It was, its red eyes were focused on him, unwilling to lose him for even a second. And in the few cases when he slipped out of its sight, it simply switched to tracking him by smell.
Robin smirked as he weaved between trees and through bushes. He pulled out his grappling hook, shot it at a tree and swung his body forward just barely avoiding the sharp claws lunging at him.
Landing safely in a tree he taunted the animal. "Come on, you're being too predictable! You're gonna need to do better than that if you wanna catch me!"
He laughed when it growled in anger seeming to understand the mocking words. He saw it tense his hind legs as it prepared to lunge up at him. He was hardly intimidated, and just took out a smoke pellet, and started counting down in his head. 'Three. Two.'
It lunged straight for the tree, its powerful legs allowing it to clear the distance between them very quickly. Mouth open and claws poised to kill.
'One.' He tossed the smoke bomb right at it, watching it detonate in its face. It hadn't brought it down; in fact, it had only seemed to make it even angrier that before. But the intention was never to put it down, but rather to distract it, and to that effect it had succeeded.
The beast seemed disoriented as it tried to get the remnants of smoke out of his eyes. When he chuckled at its misery, it let out a snarl and howled.
Soon multiple pairs of red eyes were glaring at him from the darkness of the surrounding brush. Now it was time to run again. He let out another laugh as he grappled to another tree, and they gave chase after him.
He kept grappling from one tree to another, deciding that it was much safer than running on the ground. The caped hero kept this up for a while until he spotted a clearing from his spot on a particularly tall tree. It wasn't far and it didn't seem too big. That could work.
He kept leading them towards the clearing, making sure to keep himself just out of their reach. Seeing his destination just up ahead, he swung forward once more. His pursuers having spotted the circle clearing as well, ran ahead and formed a circle in an attempt to corner him when he landed in the centre.
Except he didn't. Instead of the dark-haired boy, small canisters that matched the young hero's colour scheme were tossed into their makeshift circle. The canisters popped open with a hiss, expelling a gas that brought them all to unconsciousness in a matter of seconds.
When he was sure that they wouldn't be awake for a while, Robin walked into the clearing, wiping off imaginary dust from his hands.
"And that takes care of that. Now where's Captain Marvel?" He was interrupted from his musings by a loud screech and glanced up to see a huge vulture, diving straight at him.
He reached into his utility belt and pulled out an exploding birdarang, and within seconds had it at the right angle to throw. Just as he was about to throw the projectile, a loud 'No!' stopped him in his tracks.
He saw Captain Marvel flying down slightly behind the ever-nearing bird. In a burst of speed that had him feeling slightly jealous, the white caped hero was standing in front of him with his back turned, halting the bird's descent in its entirety with a single hand. He used his other hand to deliver a small flick at the bird's skull which knocked it out instantly.
"Remind me why we're going easy on these things again." The teen hero asked folding his arms after returning his birdarang to his belt.
"Because they're not in control of themselves. Something or someone did something to them to make them like this, they can't help it."
"Um … no offense Captain but I'm pretty sure they'd try to kill us anyway, even if they weren't on some serious steroids." Robin said slightly indicating to the small pack of carnivorous wolves he'd just finished dealing with.
Captain Marvel had the decency to look sheepish. He looked like he was about to say something when a loud trumpeting sound drew both their attentions. Barely a moment later, an absurdly large elephant came charging into the clearing, intent on crushing them as well as anything else in its path, as evidenced by the bloody smears that used to be unconscious wolves.
"NO!" Captain Marvel yelled flying forward and delivering a heavy punch to the creature's head that sent it flying back several feet. The caped hero made good use of his speed as he flew the rest of the unconscious wolf pack out of the clearing to avoid them getting crushed as the others were.
He returned a few moments later to find Robin throwing exploding birdarang after exploding birdarang after exploding birdarang at the huge creature, but it didn't seem to be having much of an effect other than aggravating the large creature. As if that wasn't enough, yet another massive elephant came charging out of the treeline at Robin.
He acted quickly grabbing the first elephant by its massive trunk and tossing it into the second elephant knocking them both back a fair distance, and giving Robin some much needed breathing room. The boy wonder regarded him with a relieved expression before he turned his attention back to the elephants that had started to right themselves again, having regained their bearings.
"I don't think we can afford to go easy on these guys." the masked hero stated to the Leaguer.
Captain Marvel adopted a steely expression that looked somewhat out of place on the usually jovial hero. "We're not going to." He said as he charged the two elephants.
Artemis retrieved another arrow from her quiver, and nocked it against her bow before letting it fly. With marksmanship worthy of her goddess namesake, the arrow struck its target delivering a heathy dosage of electricity that knocked out the last of the small pack of oversized and highly aggressive wild dogs that had been pursuing her.
She let out a breath of slight relief, enjoying the brief respite from all the fighting she'd been doing. Unfortunately for her this forest seemed to be full of predators, one of which seemingly just appeared out of the woodwork. It was a tiger; one that seemed to be several sizes larger than it should be, evidenced by the rips in its hide which exposed the powerful red muscle underneath.
Bow at the ready, she slowly backed away from the large animal to put some distance between them even as it stalked forwards towards her. Her hands went to her quiver and she drew another arrow, but before she could aim it properly, a large mass suddenly burst out of the lake behind her, knocking her into the air and snatching her with its powerful jaws before descending into the water, dragging her to the bottom in an attempt to drown her while she struggled helplessly in its grasp.
Artemis retrieved the three-pronged knife she kept in her thigh holster and tried cutting away the quiver clasp from her body, as that was thankfully the only thing the crocodile had managed to latch on to, as opposed to an actual part of her body. However due to panic or maybe her newly realized aquaphobia, and the reptile's constant thrashing as it dragged her down to the bottom of the lake, she was unable to free herself, and she was quickly running out of air.
A part of her morbidly wondered if this was how she would die: drowned and then eaten by an overgrown lizard on the other side of the world. Another fresh wave of panic swept through her as that thought crossed her mind. She didn't want to die.
'Superboy, Robin, Batman, Mom … Jade … Dad … somebody! Help!'
At this point she noticed something appear seemingly in an instant right in front of her. Relief flooded her features as she recognized the familiar blond hair, apathetic blue eye and black cloth mask. He was here.
He grabbed hold of the knife and used it to cut away the quiver, freeing her from the crocodile's grasp and pulled her close to himself. The crocodile crushed the quiver in its powerful jaws before swimming around them looking for the perfect opportunity to attack.
It had a bit of a territorial advantage in the water, and it took full advantage of this as it swam in circles around them, forcing them to have to keep turning so as not to lose sight of it. Artemis wouldn't be able to hold her breath for much longer, and Naruto wasn't big on the idea of fighting in the water anyway, so he teleported them both out onto the bank of the lake.
As soon as she realized they were on land again Artemis fell to the ground taking in several deep breaths of air.
Meanwhile Naruto stood staring into the water at the quickly growing shadow, he put his arm to his side and pulled out his throwing axe, slightly unwinding the cord as he waited.
He didn't need to wait long as the crocodile burst out of the water, reaching a rather impressive height as it tried to snatch the dark clothed teen in a similar manner as before. Artemis instinctively turned around the second she heard it splash out of the water. Her bow was instantly in front of her and she was already reaching for an arrow when she remembered that the crocodile had eaten her quiver.
She needn't have bothered, because as soon as the creature leapt out of the water, Naruto had taken a step back, completely evading its lunge. With practiced ease, the axe flew out of his hand and struck the large reptile in the head.
The creature's scales were a bit more resistant than he'd expected, but it hardly mattered. The axe buried itself in the crocodile's head, killing it instantly. In that same moment, he sensed a burst of negative emotion behind him as the tiger he'd ignored in favour of saving Artemis from drowning tried to ambush him from behind.
He pulled back his wrist and spun around, dislodging the axe from the crocodile's head and sending it flying at the tiger. The steel weapon struck the side of the tiger's neck, burying itself into the metal collar it was wearing.
The collar broke off and fell to the ground, and as soon as it did, the aggressiveness the animal had displayed faded away. The large cat gave them a measuring look before it turned and stalked off into the jungle.
"It's the collars. That's what's making them act so crazy." Artemis breathed in realization.
Naruto wound up the coil around his axe and placed it back in its spot on his belt. He walked to the collar and picked it up in order to inspect it. From looks alone, the blond could tell that the device was incredibly complex and very high tech. "So, somebody is controlling these animals through these collars, that explains why they seem more bloodthirsty."
Artemis nodded in agreement. "Thanks for saving me again by the way."
"You're welcome, although I'd recommend you look into getting some scuba gear the next time you go swimming with the crocodiles." He answered with a slight hint of amusement in his voice.
"I'm actually considering it. Nearly drowning once was terrifying enough, but twice is just ridiculous." The young archer complained and the black and yellow clad blond silently agreed, having nearly drowned just a few hours earlier himself.
He stared at the blond girl as she examined herself. She had a few cuts and scrapes, her suit was slightly torn in some places, and she was also very wet. He also noted that she was now unarmed.
"Do you have another weapon on you?"
"No. I have a backup bow and quiver, but I left it at home, didn't think I'd need it." Artemis answered though she couldn't help but feel slightly embarrassed for some reason.
Naruto gave her back the kunai he'd used to save her before he suddenly disappeared. She was left alone in the forest for a few moments before he reappeared in front of her again, holding her spare quiver, her crossbow and bolts, and her spare uniform.
"Did you just teleport to my house?"
"Yes."
"I thought you could only teleport wherever this knife is." She said holding up the kunai he'd given her.
"I can, but that's not the only kunai I have. I left another one in your bedroom." He answered matter-of-factly.
"So, you're telling me that you can just teleport into my bedroom at any moment? That is a massive invasion of privacy." A thought suddenly struck her and she eyed him with a suspicious look. "You don't watch me sleep, do you?"
"No, I don't." Artemis let out a breath. "After all there are much more interesting things to do like reading your diary, and going through your underwear drawer." The cover of darkness and his mask were the only things keeping her from seeing the large grin on his face, but even they were doing a poor job at hiding his snickers.
Artemis looked positively mortified at the thought. This mortification was quickly turning to anger though, and she was in the process trying to decide whether to beat him with her fists or shoot him with her arrow: he'd probably survive. She was interrupted by the sound of laughter coming from the masked boy.
With a reddened face, she realized that her fellow blond had been making a joke at her expense.
"You were joking, right?" she said half asking, half threatening.
Naruto took a few moments to catch his breath before trying to put up his impassive look.
"Yes, I was, and for your peace of mind I'll also have you know that I don't teleport into your room any time I feel like it either. The kunai is only there in case of emergencies, like this one."
"You'd better not." She said giving him a threatening glare, but the other blond didn't seem intimidated by it though he did give a nod of agreement.
Her attention was then drawn back to the spare uniform he'd given her.
"Not trying to point out the obvious here but you brought my spare uniform. Don't know if you noticed but I'm kinda dressed already."
"You're also very wet, I thought you might need a change of clothes so you don't catch a cold."
"And where exactly am I supposed to get changed, look around, we're in the middle of a jungle."
Naruto said nothing and just simply quirked a brow at her, as if he didn't understand her point. On seeing the look, she gained a disbelieving look.
"You're not seriously expecting me to get dressed out here, right in front of you?"
"You've done it before." He bluntly stated and Artemis flushed bright red at the reminder.
"That was under totally different circumstances!"
"Would it help if I turned around or I could just leave for a bit to give you some privacy?"
"Me not being able to see you doesn't mean that you can't see me. Just stand right there and turn around."
Naruto didn't say anything and just turned around as he was instructed. Now that the blond had his back turned, Artemis was internally debating whether or not she could actually do this. She was just changing her clothes but somehow the stakes seemed a lot higher than it should. She felt nervous and anxious and slightly insecure, and she was pretty sure it was all due to the boy who was standing almost protectively just a few feet in front of her.
The almost complete silence was giving her too much room to think, and the more she thought about it, the more awkward she felt. Glancing at the back of the masked boy gave her no clue as to whether or not he felt as nervous as she did.
'Why would he be, he's not the one changing his clothes in the middle of the jungle.'
Still, it would be nice for him to say something to distract her from thinking too much abo–
"Are you almost done yet; we still need to find your teammate."
It was almost like he had read her mind. Artemis decided to take advantage of the conversation to distract herself as she started to undress. "Which one?" she asked.
"The angry dark haired one with the red 'S' on his shirt, you know, the one you were paired with."
"Superboy?" she supplied and she saw him nod. "Just how long have you been following us?"
"Since you first got here, I was tailing your entire team at first, and then I followed your group when you split up, before I decided to follow you when you and Superboy got separated, the last time I saw him he was fighting off a pack of wolves."
"You didn't help him?"
"He seemed to have it handled, and I got the feeling that he'd sooner punch me in the face if I just randomly jumped in to help."
Artemis could understand that, it did sound like something Superboy would do. By now she was already dressed, and was now in the process of equipping her weapons, while slipping the kunai back into her thigh holster.
"You can turn around now." She said and Naruto turned around to find a fully dressed Artemis staring at him with her arms crossed in front of her. Her hair was still slightly wet but that didn't matter much. He collected the damp uniform from her before teleporting away and returning back again.
"Okay, now that that's done, let's go find Superboy. Where was the last place you saw him?"
Naruto was about to point in a direction when he felt it, a sudden burst of negative emotion, he recognized it as anger and fear, and it was heading this way at ridiculous speeds. He trained his eyes on an object he saw bursting out of the tree cover and into the sky and his eyes widened considerably.
"We don't need to find him, he's found us."
The words had hardly left his mouth when a black clad object landed in the space between him and Artemis, kicking up a lot of dust.
When the dust cleared up, the blue-eyed blond found himself staring into the angry black eyes of Superboy.
The dark-haired clone glared hard at the unfamiliar blond as he stood protectively in front of his teammate. He eyed up the masked teen that in front of him. Blond hair, emotionless blue eye, dark cloth mask, black clothes, yellow shirt, spiral symbol. He recognized these features from when Artemis had described the vigilante she'd met in Japan. The same person that M'gann and the others had gone to China to investigate.
"Mask." He growled.
Said individual simply quirked a brow at the name before Superboy attacked.