Hope you like this chapter. Next chapter will see them in the base. I really like the way the cult story turned out. I felt like Kobra was built up to seem like he would be more of a threat to the team in Drop Zone, but then he was never seen again, not even in the second or third seasons. Did it seem like that to anyone else? Please review!
Mallory stared at the necklaces in her hands. One was the concealed kryptonite, the other was the glass figure she always wore on a string. She put the kryptonite one in a box in her dresser, but she couldn't seem to bring herself to part with the figure. She sighed and put it back around her neck.
"You almost ready?" Zatanna asked from the doorway.
Mallory put a baseball cap over her black hair and shouldered the duffle bag she'd packed. "Ready," she said.
The girls went to the kitchen and ate some cereal and waited for the rest of the team to come. Conner and Megan joined them a moment later, then Robin, Wally, and Artemis.
While they ate, Zatanna said, "So, are we just going to use our real names? Cause mine might be a bit of a problem."
Robin shrugged. "Batman and I already took care of that. We make full backstories for each of us. If Kobra does background checks, we'll be clear." He pulled up a holographic screen and their profiles popped up. Robin was Justin Mead, Wally was Liam Smith, Zatanna was Jada White, and Mallory was Haley Moore. They were from Florida, and they all had records ranging from vandalism to hotwiring cars.
"Impressive," Zatanna commented.
They finished eating and went to the hangar. They were on their way to Mexico in no time. The four of them were in typical vacation clothes, shorts, T-shirts, and sandals/flip flops, and they all had sunglasses on so Robin's wouldn't stand out as much. Megan let them off just over the border, and they caught a rickety bus into the town of Nuevo Casas Grande. They went to the hotel and checked in, then found a cantina and walked in like they thought they were being brave. The bartender hardley glanced at them, just asked what they wanted in spanish. Megan translated over the link, and Wally answered him with some broken spanish. The bartender gave them the tequilas Wally had ordered and they found a table and sat down. Wally knocked his back immediately and let out a grunt as the burning liquid went down his throat. Robin glared at him, but he shrugged.
"You know I can't get drunk," he said over the link. "Besides, we have to keep up appearances."
"Yeah, I was going to turn the drinks into something else," Zatanna told him. She mumbled something, then knocked her drink back, too, and gave a convincing performance of feeling the drink go down.
Mallory took a breath and took the shot, hoping the new drink would at least taste good. Unfortunately, it tasted like cough syrup, and the face she made was completely involuntary. "What was that?" Mallory asked as Robin took his shot.
"It's a potion that acts as a translator. We might lose the link, but this way we'll still be able to understand whatever language is being spoken, just as if they were talking in english."
"Can we talk in the languages?" Wally asked.
"No," Zatanna said aloud. "Liam, you can't speak spanish. Stop trying to convince us you can."
"Hey, at least I know some. Where would you be if I wasn't here? At least I know the basics."
"Wow, you can order tequila, good for you," Mallory said loudly, rolling her eyes.
Wally shot her a pretty convincing glare. "Shut up, Haley. You sat through french for two years and you can even say hello."
Mallory smirked. "I was barely in the room. Yet I somehow still managed to pass, unlike someone," she said, turning her accusing gaze to Robin.
"You never would have passed if you hadn't gotten that dork to give you his answers."
Mallory snickered. "Yeah, the idiot. What was his name?"
"Wallace," Robin said.
"Right, Wallace," Mallory echoed, looking at Wally out of the corner of her eye. He rolled his eyes.
"You want another round or what?" he asked.
"Yeah," Zatanna said. Wally got up to get the drinks, and the three at the table continued the conversation.
"I thought you said this place was going to be fun," Zatanna complained to Robin.
He shrugged. "Sorry. It was supposed to have all kinds of ghosts and haunted places. Looks like the website was wrong."
Mallory leaned back in her chair. The heat was bad even for her. "We could still try the haunted stuff. Maybe we'll get lucky and find the real thing."
Her friends shrugged and Wally came back with the drinks. Zatanna turned Wally's into the potion, and the others into water. Four rounds later, they were acting drunk and loudly talking about wanting thrills and being invulnerable. A man of about twenty three came up to them. Mallory noticed a snake tattoo on his arm.
"You kids really looking for thrills?" He asked.
"Hey, who you calling kid?" Wally asked, slurring his words slightly.
The guy grinned. "I think I've got just the thing for you. Come to this address tonight after midnight. I just hope you're tough enough to take it."
Wally opened his mouth to shout a retort, but Robin laughed. "You can't argue with him when he's right," he told Wally, and on the link he said, "we got what we need, just let him leave."
They stayed in the bar for a few hours, then went to their hotel rooms. To keep up appearances, Mallory and Wally went in one room and Robin and Zatanna in the other. Mallory sat cross legged on the bed and sighed.
"That took forever. Too bad we couldn't have been doing something that was actually fun." Wally nodded and flopped down beside her. They had a good four hours before they had to start out, and they didn't have anything to do.
"What do we have to eat around here?" Wally asked suddenly, getting up to look through the bags.
"Nothing, remember? You ate all our food on the bus."
He groaned. "Why so I always do that?" he asked miserably.
Mallory stretched out on the bed and said, "I was thinking the same thing. Why don't you run down the that little market and get us something?"
He nodded. "Hey, Rob, Z, you two want anything from the market?" he asked over the link.
"Negative, stay put," Robin said. Wally groaned.
"Dude, I'm starving! No one's gonna care that I go get some food. It's a pretty normal thing to do."
"We only have an hour before we move out. If you leave, you won't get back in time."
Wally sighed and sat in a chair by the door.
Mallory sighed and curled up on the bed. "What if we can't stick together once we get inside the compound?" she asked, her thoughts starting to go to the mission.
"I don't think they'll separate us," Zatanna said, but they all knew it was just wishful thinking.
"Then we'll stay in touch on the link," Robin said.
"And if Megan can't stay in range for some reason?" Mallory asked.
"I'll go inside the compound camouflaged if I have to," Megan assured them.
"No, Megan. You stay with the others on the bioship. We can't have our cover blown. We have comms. If the link goes down, we'll just have to put the comms in and be more careful about talking to each other." Mallory rolled her eyes. Why was it that the youngest guy on the team was the most practical?
"Rob, it's getting pretty close to midnight. You should probably start going to the base," Conner mentioned.
"Yeah, all right. Z and I will come knock on your door in a minute. Be ready."
Mallory and Wally were ready. They wore jeans and T-shirts and tennis shoes, and Wally had two flashlights on the table by the door.
"So I'm guessing we don't have time to just grab a quick snack, then," Wally grumbled. Mallory shrugged. "You won't have to run for a good long while, you'll live until morning."
There was a knock on the door and Mallory hopped off the bed and followed Wally out. When they got to the desert, the four teens turned on their flashlights and went to the place the man had told them about. It was a small run-down shack set a few miles from anything else. They crept up to the door and Robin knocked quietly. Nothing.
"What if that guy was just putting us on?" Zatanna asked.
Robin knocked again, louder. Still nothing.
"I guess we might as well go, doesn't seem like anyone's here," he said.
"Let's go in and see," Wally suggested. They all agreed and crept into the shack like they were scared, in case they were being watched. It was completely empty. No furniture, no people.
Mallory let out a breath, letting the tension out of her shoulder. "Looks like it's deserted," she mentioned unnecessarily, just to have something to say.
Before any of them could say anything else, the door banged open with a thud and they all whirled around. Mallory fought the urge to flame up, and she saw the concentration on Robin's face as he struggled to push down his instincts of fight or flight.
"We've really got to stop saying that," Wally said over the link.
Three men walked in. One was the young guy from the cantina, the other two were big and held bags.
"So, you came after all. I'm glad, I thought you might chicken out."
The teens stared at him wide-eyed, waiting for him to get to the point.
"Well, are you in or what?" he asked.
"In? What are you talking about?" Wally asked.
"Well, I can't tell you until you give me an answer. Are you ready to leave your boring, pointless lives behind and join a collective body that serves a greater calling?"
Mallory looked at her friends, her face holding a curious expression, but her voice excited and nervous as she said, "Well, everyone ready to join a snake cult?!"
Robin grinned and took a step forward. "We're in," he said. The guy smiled strangely and took a few steps back. The other two guys came and put the black bags over their heads, then Mallory heard Wally grunt and fall to the floor with a thud.
"They're knocking us out! Stay close-" she managed to tell the team in the bioship before something struck the back of her head and she fell to the floor, unconscious.