Hey guys, it's been a couple months but I'm back with another chapter. Now that I'm on vacation from school for a little bit I've had time to update some stories. Hopefully you're all still following along as it'll get good, at least in my opinion. Anyways that's enough of that let's get on with the chapter.
"Report" Batman says. They were in the medical part of the hall of justice with the young justice team. They had been given a few days to recuperate from the last mission they went on, where the three had been injured by Speedy. Currently Robin was getting the stitches checked and his bandages changed.
"We went to the specified location and saw Copperhead and Shade enter S.T.A.R labs." Began Aqualad. "We made our way inside and proceeded to stop them, after we defeated them Speedy jumped down from the upper level. We didn't know he was in the building as well.
We asked him if he was there the whole time why didn't he help us. He said letting us do the work would make the job easier for him. He revealed to us that stopping them was his mission but also to take Copperhead with him. We knew he worked for Ashura so we couldn't let him have him." He explained. Batman nodded.
"Go on." He ordered.
"He beat all three of us." Said Robin as his bandages were tightened slightly. "With hardly any problems on his part." He said somewhat bitterly. "Before we were at least on the same level, but now… he's different. He's gotten a lot stronger." Robin said. It was a hard pill to swallow, he always prided himself on his martial arts being taught by the dark knight himself. To be taken down by his former friend so easily hurt his pride.
"We're going to review the footage from that night and we'll discuss how to prevent something like this from happening again. Get some rest for now." He said before leaving the room. He used the Zeta-tubes and left to the watchtower. He used the main computer and pulled up the security footage from that night. This drew the attention of a few of the heroes. Namely, Green Arrow, Black Canary, and the rest of the founding members. Some of the others also noticed but didn't seem too interested.
"This is the footage from star labs." Wonder woman said as she approached the dark knight.
"Yeah, I want to check something out." He replied. The rest of the heroes watched as the two villains entered the building followed by the young justice team. He pulled up another angle and they managed to see a part of Speedy's leg enter the building as well. He had gotten better at stealth it seemed. But still not good enough.
He pulls up footage from the inside and they watch as the two begin their search. Once it seemed they had what they were looking for they watched the team take them down.
"They've got good teamwork." Comments green lantern as he sees Robin and Aqualad coordinate their attacks.
"Indeed, they handled themselves pretty well against those two." Wonderwoman said as she watched them finish the job. It brought her joy to see the young ones grow out on the field. "Where did things go wrong for them?" She asked. She had only just returned from a mission and had missed when the team had returned.
She got her answer soon enough as they watched Speedy jump down and talk with his former teammates.
"He's more disciplined thats for sure." commented Lantern. "He waited for them to do the job for him rather than try and show them up. He would've rushed head first before."
"You don't train with the worlds greatest assassin and not learn discipline." Batman commented as they watched Speedy quickly shoot the arrow at Copperhead's knees.
"He's improved on his archery skills as well." Began Green Arrow. "That's one of Merlyns techniques, though to a lesser degree. The young ones never saw the slight tense in his arms to let them know he was going to shoot. That could've cost them." He said sadly. The fight progressed and the heroes could understand how their sidekicks lost.
"He's not wasting any movements." Said Canary "He's only striking when necessary and is using their own momentum against them."
"But how did he get fast enough to stop Kid Flash?" Asked Flash. No amount of training could give the boy the speed required to match them in such a short amount of time.
"He's not. Throughout the whole fight he's kept his eye on Kid Flash. He's known him for a while and knew his attack pattern. He waited for the sign of attack and purposely moved slower while fighting. When Kid Flash attacked he moved at his real speed. Kid Flash never noticed he was being watched the whole time.
Green Arrow watched the footage and allowed a solemn look to cross his face. Canary noticed and asked if he was alright.
"I don't know whether to be proud of how strong Roy has become, or angry at the fact that it's because of an assassin that he's gotten this far." Canary smiles sadly and takes his hand in her own as a sign of reassurance.
"His rate of growth is incredible, but after all that there's one question." Superman said. "what do they want with Copperhead?"
"I still can't believe he'd attack us." Said Kid Flash in frustration. They were in one of the private areas of the hall that tourists weren't allowed to visit.
"I can't believe how strong he's gotten so quickly." Said Robin.
"I'm saddened that he'd attack us as well." Said Aqualad "but in his eyes we were in the way. He had his mission and we had ours." He reasoned.
Not backing down Kid Flash answered "Yeah but unlike him we weren't aiming to maim him. He was brutal. He slammed his elbow into my neck, stomped on your head, and shot Robin in the bicep."
"Yeah, he had a completely different fighting style than we'd seen when he was with us." He said as he pulled up some windows on the computer nearby. He begins typing rapidly. Walking over to him the young atlantean asks what he's doing.
"You guys remember that photo, the one with the sternritter during the presidents announcement?" They both nodded curious as to where he was going with this. "He's close to Deathstroke. If there's anyone who knows what they want Copperhead for, it's gonna be him. I'm going to hack all the known computers he's used and try to find some information." He says as he begins plugging some stuff into the computer.
Meanwhile somewhere in gotham another conversation was taking place.
"Good work Speedy, any trouble?" Naruto asked as he looked at the bounded form of Copperhead. He had the arrows removed from his knees already but he'd hardly be walking on his own anytime soon.
"My old teammates showed up but they were taken care of." he says confidently.
"Excellent. I've already wired your pay to your account." He says. Speedy frowns. "Pay?"
"Ah yes, you were training with Merlyn at the time so you weren't informed. Every member of the Sternritter gets paid for every mission they do. You didn't think you were doing all of this for free did you?" He asked smiling. Speedy's eyebrows rose high, this just got better and better.
Composing himself he asked "So what do we need Copperhead for?"
"He's got the least amount of loyalty to Lex Luthor so he's the most likely to speak about what his plans are. Now let's wake our guest up." Naruto says as he lightly smack Copperhead until he stirs.
"Huh?" Copperhead croaks out as he blinks rapidly and looks around trying to figure out where he is. His vision clears and in front of him he sees Speedy, Ashura, and Deathstroke. Panicking he tries to stand and leave but feels agonizing pain in his knees and stops. It's at this point he notices he's also restrained heavily to a chair.
"I pierced your knees, you're not going anywhere." Speedy says looking down at him. He would have never been allowed to do things his way back with the team.
"You were doing a job for Lex Luthor. You were looking for something. What is he paying you to do and what is his plan?" Naruto asked.
"I don't know man." He says in between deep breathes. He knows now who's in front of him, he's heard stories. He knows he's in trouble. "We were just told to break into star labs and get some chip off of one of the computers there."
"Who's we?" The question came from Deathstroke who up until now had been content watching everything play out.
"Me and Shade. He had other jobs for the others too but we don't know what they are." He explained.
"Who else is working with Luthor?" Asked Naruto.
"Shade, Grundy, Grodd, Star Sapphire, and myself." He coughed out. Seeing them not say anything and continue look at him his panic increased. "Look, all I know is he's building something. He says its the key to taking down the Justice League." His chest was rising up and down rapidly at this point. Luckily for him any questions they might have asked were cut off by the sound of a computer beeping.
"Well what's this?" Asked Deathstroke with an amused tone as he leaned over the computer. "Someone's trying to hack into the system. They're trying to breach the firewall in my computer." He types in some commands and a black screen appears with hundreds of letters and numbers.
"Can you stop them?" Asked Naruto from his spot in front of Copperhead.
"Yeah, this person is good but not that good. Someone like Morrow could have done it without setting off any alarms in the system." He says as he begins typing once more. "Let's trace where you're coming from, now activate your webcam and see who you are." He murmurs and clicks a button. The moment he pressed the button the image of a shocked Robin appeared on the screen.
"Now what is the batman's sidekick doing trying to hack into my computer?" Asked Deathstroke to the young hero. Seeing who it was both Naruto and Speedy come into the frame.
"Hey Robin." Naruto says happily ignoring the scowl that comes across the boy wonder's face. "Did you find what you were looking for?" He asks rhetorically.
"Ashura, what have you done with Copperhead?" He asks angrily, this didn't go as he had expected it to.
"Nothing, he's right over here he's just a little preoccupied at the moment. How are you feeling though? I hope you and your friends weren't roughed up too bad." He says in concern. Robin doesn't know if it's genuine or not, but regardless it has the same effect of pissing him off.
He was about to retort when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking over he found the young atlantean shaking his head at him. "He's just getting into your head Robin." He looked into the camera and continued. "I'd like to know what you did to Speedy?" He says.
Naruto raised one eyebrow at the question. "What makes you think I did anything to him? He hasn't done anything he hasn't wanted to do. He could've refused the mission." He replied. He looked at the clock and turned back to them. "As much as I'd like to continue this talk we're going to have to cut this short. We have some work to do." He says before cutting the connection.
Speedy looked at the blank screen for a second before turning back to Naruto. "So what about him?" He says indicating to Copperhead.
"You said Luthor was building something." Naruto said picking up where they had left off.
"Yeah, it looks like some sort of laser gun. It's underneath the Lex Corp building. That's all I know I swear." He said hoping that was enough to let him keep his life. Naruto stares at him before closing his eyes and nodding.
"Alright, here's what's gonna happen. We're going to take you to Luthor." He says as he tells speedy to cut his bindings. "Speedy, continue your training. Should we need anything I'll give you guys a call." He says as he picks up Copperhead and leaves. It takes no time at all to arrive at Lexcorp. They floated above the building for a second while Naruto spoke.
"Alright, you're going to deliver a message to Lex for me. Tell him the Sternritter want to have a chat with him." He says as he puts the man down and leaves. He watches him crawl inside and flies away. " Frost should be back by now, I wonder if she brought our guest. " He thinks to himself reffering to Huntress.
Back at the base a few moments before Naruto dropped off Copperhead the former villainess was walking down the hall with Talia and their guest in tow. Huntress kept her eyes sharp taking in every detail of the place. She wondered exactly where they were taking her.
They take a turn and she sees that they arrived to a big room. Inside she sees the worst of the worst. There in the room was the yellow lantern Sinestro, Poison Ivy, Circe, Deadshot, Livewire, Black spider and some others.
Frost takes a seat in one of the open chairs and crosses her leg over the other and rests her head on her fist. "Well? Feel free to take a seat. Why do you look so stiff?" She asks, a smirk coming across her face, taking delight in watching the former hero look so on edge. This of course gets the attention of everyone else in the room.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Asked Sinestro floating over to them. Huntress was immediately on full battle mode. It was safe to say that almost everyone in this room didn't exactly have a high opinion of her.
"As fun as it would be to kill her," Began Frost as she watched how everyone was looking at her like prey "She's more than likely going to become a member so we need her alive."
"For someone who so righteously looked down upon us it looks like we're not too different after all." Deadshot comments as he turns the volume up on the TV. There was the news reporter talking about the brutality displayed by Huntress and speculation to whether or not she was indeed a member of the Sternritter. Huntress didn't have a chance to defend herself as Livewire spoke next.
"I still remember when you beat me one time and even as I was down you still decided to stomp on me a couple of times. Not a very good time." She comments. She turns to Frost and asks "You think Ashura would get mad if we roughed her up a bit? We won't kill her just a little payback." She says as some of the others sit a little straighter looking to the woman for an answer. Now Huntress had pulled a small blade out and was getting ready. Things weren't looking good.
"As much as I'm sure you'd enjoy that, I'm afraid that's going to be a no." Came the voice of Ashura who had just entered the room. Everyone relaxes and goes back to what they were doing but made sure to listen to what was being said.
"So she's good?" Asked Naruto to Frost as he walked towards her. The woman nods and points in the direction of the TV. "She's straight." She replied. He takes a seat next to her and the woman leans in slightly. Not enough to where people would think she's cuddling but enough to get a message across.
"Huntress." He began "It's been a while, how have you been? We haven't spoken since I tried hooking you up with Flash a while back." He says smiling as he remembers that day.
"I've been better." She replies, the day's been rough on her. Her future depends on how well this talk goes.
"Well I hope my subordinates at least made you feel welcome." At this the people around just smirked at the woman who narrowed her eyes. Looking back to him she noticed his smile was gone. Gone was the cheerful young man and in his place was the powerful leader of the Sternritter.
"So, word has it that you've been looking for me. Well here I am. Speak." He ordered. The way he spoke caused her to pause slightly, this was a completely different person than the one she had been around in the league. He spoke with authority, and had power to back it up. It became more clear to her how he could command the people in his group.
"I need your help. It's no secret you're a more brutal version of the League. You don't oppose killing and make the world a better place by getting rid of certain people. As much as people don't want to admit it crime has decreased because of you guys.
There's someone who needs to be taken care of, and only you can help me get him." She says. From the moment she said she needed his help he knew exactly what she was talking about.
"Mandragora." He states.
"The Justice League knows he's a corrupt individual. Knows he's a mob boss and what he does. Every time he's arrested he's released the same day. He gets away with a slap on the wrist." She says angrily.
"I'm aware." He says. That was one of the problems he had with the League as well.
"So what exactly is it you want? You've clearly showed you can kill a man. Just go off him." Asked Sinestro. Naruto didn't mind the interruption as that was going to be his next question.
"It's not offing him that's the problem. It's what comes after that." She says. "The Justice League will be on me the moment I do if they aren't already. I want to join you and ask that you let me kill Mandragora." She says with conviction.
"You realize you'll only have the backing of the Sternritter so long as you're a member right? If you kill him and then decide to leave we'll say you acted on your own and let the League deal with you. By all means feel free to leave once you kill him, but know that you'll be on your own." He says. "That sound fair to you?"
"Yeah, let me kill him and I'm in for good." She says, any idea she may have had of leaving left right then and there.
"Alright, I'll have him tracked down and I'll let you know when it's time. You can go ahead and stay here or live wherever you want. I'll have a Sternritter medallion for you soon." He said. He honestly expected her leave but she asked for a room. He told frost to take her and headed down to Morrow to pick up her medallion.
He picked it up and headed back to his room he'd hand it to her later. He laid down on his bed and relaxed. He heard the door open and didn't bother to look who it was as only one person could come in here. He felt the bed dip.
"Why the long face?" She asks.
"I'm gonna have a chat with Luthor tomorrow and I know it's gonna be stressful. I have a feeling." He says. She smirks at him before climbing onto him. "I know how I can help take a load off of you." She says "What do you say Ashura?"
As she was undoing his pants he spoke. "Naruto." She looked up. "What?"
"My name is Naruto. When we're alone you can call me by my actual name." He said surprising her. So that was his name.
"Louise" She replied before continuing what they were doing. She was right, he was going to feel better.
The next day up at the watchtower Superman gathered the members of the League to discuss something he thought was troubling.
"I'm telling you, Luthor is up to something. Lex Corp shut down over night. Lex isn't one to just stop what he's doing like this, he's plotting something." He says as he paces back and forth.
Batman pulls up articles on the internet, reporters already having gotten word of the sudden foreclosure and trying to get the scoop. There was images of furniture being removed from the building as well as a photo of Lex walking outside.
"He's fired all of his employees and already has the building for sale. No statements have been made yet." Reads Batman as he narrows his eyes. He agreed with the man of steel. This was out of character for someone like Luthor.
"Perhaps he's moving his base of operations out of Metropolis." Says wonderwoman as she reads through the article.
"Knowing how much he hates Superman, I highly doubt that." Batman replies. "If he did I'm sure he'd have still taken his staff with him."
"Something must have happened to him." Started Green Lantern. "Nobody just up and moves like that. Can we pull up the security footage from all day yesterday?" He asked. They did just that and watched as Ashura arrived on the scene.
He didn't do anything but drop off Copperhead. They watched as the snake crawled inside. A few hours later Lex put the for sale sign on the building. "Stop." Said lantern. "Look at his face." He looked troubled.
"Clearly our old friend Ashura has something to do with this. Now we know he didn't kill Copperhead." Said Superman. "The Young Justice team was certain he'd be killed. He's killed anyone who he's gone after, minus the Joker because of us."
"I think it was a message." Started Lantern. "Where I grew up the gangs would always let one person live as to send a message to their rivals. This is no doubt the same situation. They captured him, extracted information and dropped him to his employer to deliver a message. Luthor must either think, or know that they're coming after him now." He explains. It makes sense.
He's always been a criminal but up until now hasn't had anything to worry about besides a little jail time. Now though, he's at risk of losing his life.
"Perhaps we should ask Luthor ourselves. If lantern is right the Sternritter will try and kill him next." Says Superman. Everyone minus Flash and Hawkgirl were to go as they had a job to do in a different city.
They reached Metropolis in little time and were in luck as when they arrived they saw him walking to one of his cars. They noticed he had a look no one had seen him with before, genuine fear. His eyes were darting all over the place as if expecting death any minute.
"Have you guys ever actually seen him this scared?" Asked Wonderwoman. Her question would go unanswered as they got to business.
"Lex!" Calls superman. The man turns to him and scowls. "What? I'm a little busy." He says angrily before walking.
"Lex, what's going on? Why are you suddenly shutting down your business?" He tried again. "We can see you're shaken up, we can't help you if you don't tell us what's wrong."
Luthor turns to him and gets in his face. "You don't understand, you can't help me. They're coming for me, Ashura warned me once and now he's on his way for my head." He says angrily.
"Just relax." Says Lantern trying to defuse the situation. "Let's just go inside and talk, we'll make sure nothing happens. There's five of us here you'll be fine." He stared at them before nodding to the building. They walked inside and headed to where his office used to be.
"Alright so what's going on?" Green Lantern asked.
"Yesterday Copperhead came back to me after a failed robbery." He said not bothering lying, there was no point in his eyes anymore. "After Speedy took him to Ashura he said they asked him a few questions as to what he was doing and who he was working for. When he told them he was working for me Ashura brought him here and told him to tell me that we were going to be having a 'chat' very soon." He said putting quotations around the word chat.
"The only reason Copperhead is alive was to be able to tell me that. You asked why I was 'shaken up'" He said looking at superman "Let me ask you, of everyone the Sternritter has targeted have any of them survived? Because I can't seem to think of any." He says not knowing about the Joker's lucky day. If he had hair he'd be pulling it right now. Nothing more could be said as J'onn looked up, his eyes glowing amber.
"He's coming." Everyone turned to the door and waited as they heard the footsteps near. Sure enough the grandmaster of the Sternritter entered the room and set his eyes on Luthor.
Superman stepped forward but stopped as Ashura pulled out the same medallion he used to stop him the first time they met.
"I'd step away if I were you Superman." He said as he kept the medallion at eye level.
"Alright that's enough." Said Lantern walking a little closer than Superman was, though his ring was glowing green ready to attack if need be. "We can settle this without having to resort to violence every time we meet." He said. Ashura stares at him and slowly put his medallion back into his pocket.
Lanterns ring also dies down. Had it been anyone else he'd have kept it out but Lantern was one of those who even though he was young treated him like an adult. Despite his thoughts on how enemies were to be dealt with.
"Alright Lantern, what do you propose we do?" He asked curious as to how they planned on stopping him.
"Let us take Luthor in, and we'll head to the watchtower and discuss how we can coexist. We're all adults here, we can find a solution without resorting to fighting ever time." he says. The others looked like they were going to object but were stopped by Batman.
"I agree." He said earning raised eyebrows from his fellow members. "Lantern is right, we can save a lot of unnecessary fighting if we can come to an understanding." He says. In reality this would be a good way to get information about them. Specifically, how they were able to get government backing.
"I'll agree as long as I can bring three people with me." He says.
"Who?" Asked Superman.
"It doesn't matter who right now. I'm not going up there alone with all of you plus everyone else up there. This may not be a trap but I'm not going to risk it." he says.
"Very well" Replied batman.
"Good, we'll meet at the watchtower in an hour. We'll be waiting to be transported at my favorite teleportation station." He says before leaving. Luthor released a breath he didn't know he was holding. Looks like he'd live another day.
An hour later the group of Ashura, Speedy, Deathstroke, and Killer Frost were in the middle of a cornfield waiting to get transported.
"I'm curious to see what the place looks like." Killer Frost comments.
"Why are we in the middle of a cornfield?" Asked Speedy, he expected something different.
"Wait for it." Naruto replied. They all began to glow white before disappearing. They reappeared in the center of a well lit room. Looking around they saw that out of the windows was outer space.
Naruto looked around and noticed every hero in the tower were immediately on guard. He paid them no mind and motioned to the others to follow him. They walked down the steps and headed to where the founding members were waiting for them.
He looks at the flash who seems to be the only one happy to see him. "Flash, what's up man?" He asked as they do an elaborate handshake with over fifteen different combinations before taking a step back.
"Lead the way" He tells superman. He and the others all head into the meeting room. As they entered Superman spoke. "Speedy, why don't you wait for…" he didn't get to finish as Naruto cut him off.
"No, he's staying with us." and nodded inside. The boy did as he was told and went in. Superman looked like he was going to retort but a shake of the head from the dark knight and he let it drop. With a sigh he closed the door and went to sit besides his fellow heroes.
" Haven't been here in a while " Naruto thought to himself. "Alright, you wanted to discuss. Let's hear it." He began.
"Alright, to start, how about a compromise." Began the man of steel. "How about you let us have the petty thieves and the more dangerous ones we lock up in the special jail under the Hall of Justice."
"That's not a safe bet. I was able to take Sinestro from right under your noses." He said angering some of them. "Won't be too hard for someone else to break them out."
Wonder Woman was the next to speak, "I get the feeling you aren't going to go along with anything we say. I have to know, why are you so adamant on killing?"
All eyes turned to him as they waited for his answer. "Because that's the only way to guarantee that they won't try anything again. I'm sure I'm not the only one who knows that the Joker is most likely already plotting something. The next people he kills will be on your head for not letting me handle him when I had the opportunity." He says to them. He then sets his eyes on the Themysciran princess.
"You ask why I'm adamant to kill. Let me tell you something." He turns to Speedy. "If you were in the league and you caught a serial killer what would you do?"
He was somewhat surprised that he was to speak but answered anyways. "If I was with the league we'd apprehend him and turn him into the authorities.." Naruto nods.
"Right, now picture this, the same man escapes prison and kills someone else. You repeat the same pattern over and over again. Then one day a family asks you why that man is still out there." Everyone in the room agreed that this was getting too specific to be any form of rhetorical question. He continued, "Why you let him kill their child, why you lock him up knowing he'll only come back again.
That exact scenario happened to me one time when we caught the Joker in Gotham. We turned him over but a grief stricken mother managed to yell loud enough for me to hear her. She was yelling why that monster was only going back to the place where he escaped from." Everyone in the room was hanging on to every word he spoke. Even his own subordinates were paying rapt attention.
"I couldn't sleep for days after that. All I could hear when I was by myself was the sounds of a broken mother yelling for her dead child." He finished. Speedy was the most shocked, being the youngest one there he had only ever heard positive things about the heroes. He'd never heard anything like this. He didn't know how he'd react if he were the one in that situation.
"That is why we kill the scum of the Earth. To make sure that they and anyone thinking of doing something similar, it'll be the last thing they do." Flash was probably feeling the most guilty after hearing that story. He considered Ashura to be his best friend in the League. To think he had been having that on his head and he hadn't even known there was a problem made him feel like shit.
"Well that turned dark quickly." Killer Frost said. Batman was going to say something when an alarm went off throughout the whole watch tower. J'onn quickly ran to the computer to check what was going on when the room went dark.
"J'onn what's going on?" Superman asked.
"Look out the window and find out." Said Deathstroke. They followed his lead and their eyes widened as they saw hundreds of ships approaching Earth. An invasion had begun.
Alright so I'm going to stop it right there, I apologize for the wait but I hope this makes up for it. Next chapter the Sternritter and Justice League fight off the invaders. If you guys have anything you'd like to see, any suggestions or comments please leave them in a review or PM me. Later.