I think I might may have missed last week, if I did I'm sorry, I've been busy. This semester is rough, and I'm just tired. I have managed to stock up a few chapters, so I'll be fine posting once a week, hopefully I'll be able to go back to twice a week soon. Anyway, hope you like the chapter, please review! My views counter hasn't been working for the last two months, so reviews and pms are the only way I can see your support right now. Plus, they make me so happy, and I could use that right now. Let me know your thoughts, suggestions, favorite chapters/characters, etc.
Three days later, Mallory, Artemis, and V'lana showed up at the house to train at the request of the former Boy Wonder, who had contacted the girls and Conner the night before to tell them that he was upping the stakes with their training. When they got there, however, he hadn't shown up yet, and they decided to start the training session like normal in case he ended up not showing. "Wouldn't be the first time," Artemis had pointed out, slightly annoyed that their friend had been so absent lately.
"So, how's the training with Megan been going?" Mallory asked the Atlantian as they crossed the yard.
"Very well, actually. Megan has been quite helpful in coaching me."
Mallory nodded. "She's a good teacher. You'll be passing her up in no time if she has anything to do with it."
The girl chuckled. "Hardly. Miss Martian's abilities are more than impressive. Mine, well, I can have limited psychic suggestivity over a single person at close range, honestly I have not found a practical use for it yet."
Artemis shrugged. "Sounds like a really good tool to have," she mentioned. "You could disarm someone without a fight, get information, let your team sneak past someone. Maybe I'm just projecting Megan onto you, but I can think of dozens of ways to use that power set."
V'lana ducked her head to hide her smile and Mallory pushed the door open, looking around the living room. Megan looked up from the desk, where she had papers spread out in front of her. "Oh, hey, is it time already?" she asked, tapping her phone to check.
"Yeah, where're the boys?" Artemis asked.
"Brion is in his room, I think Conner's in the garage."
"I will go get Brion," V'lana offered.
The girls nodded and Mallory straddled the chair opposite the Martian while they waited. "Dick hasn't been here today, has he?" she asked, grabbing a handful of oreos out of the open pack in front of her.
Her friend looked up from her work, not even looking at the theft. "No, why?"
She shrugged. "He told us he was going to come to training today to 'raise the stakes', whatever that means. I just thought he might have actually kept his word this time, that's all."
"Mal, that's kind of harsh," Artemis scolded, leaning over the pyrokinetic to grab a cookie for herself.
She nodded, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, I know, he's just being so aggravating right now. Like, if there was something going on, like a crime wave, or family stuff, or they were understaffed at work, I wouldn't even bring it up, but none of that is happening and he's just flaking on us way more than usual. It just makes me think he's trying not to get too involved with this…I don't know, team? Ops?"
Megan shrugged. "From what you've told me, he's been pretty busy with looking for Terra. You know how involved he gets when he goes down a rabbit hole."
"Yeah," Artemis conceded, "but Mal has a point, he has been off lately, and he's not showing his usual rabbit hole signs. But, I guess he did come up with the Shadows tip, so he must be doing something."
Megan nodded, looking back down at her work. "Yes," she agreed. V'lana and Brion walked out the back door and Mallory got up, snagging two more oreos before following Artemis out the door.
"So, are you going to insist that I work on my reaction time again today?" Brion asked, looking at Mallory with annoyance.
She glanced back at the shed, making sure that Dick wasn't coming, and shrugged. "Well…"
The shot came out of nowhere, and Brion yelled in pain and dropped at her side. Mallory, Artemis, and Vlana got into attack positions, and Conner and Sphere came out of the garage, looking around. Artemis spotted the perpetrator first and nudged her friend, nodding to the roof, where Dick was shouldering a gun. The pyrokinetic swallowed a chuckle and looked at the prince, swearing under his breath as he rubbed his shoulder, looking for a wound. She spotted the rubber bullet a few feet away and kicked it to her pupil.
"Relax," she said. "Looks like we are working on reaction again, and you failed." He glared at her, opening his mouth to curse her out no doubt, but she smiled and nodded up to the roof, where Dick was climbing down. "What, you said you wanted to train with props."
"Props, not real bullets!" he snapped.
She shrugged. "And I thought you wanted to learn the shield."
Recognition flickered in his face. "Wait, you are increasing my training?" he asked hesitantly.
Dick joined them on the ground and nodded. "Yeah. Now that you're going out in the field, you need to train for anything. So, today we're going to stage a gunman attack and you're going to plan a strategy to deal with it. Pair up and let's get started."
Mallory and Brion set up shop on the side of the yard that was already scarred with the prince's lava marks, and V'lana, Artemis, and Conner went to the other side with Dick in the center, waiting to begin.
Mallory looked at her pupil. "Creating a shield is about stamina and control. Know exactly how big you need to make it and make sure that it doesn't exceed the size in your mind. If you need to make it bigger, you can, but start small for now."
"I know," he muttered under his breath. He covered his arms in lava and pulled a wave of it up over his head, protecting his entire body but also heating the air around him to about 300 degrees.
Mallory shook her head, glad she'd had the foresight to separate him before trying this out for the first time. "Another reason to keep your shields as small as possible, you don't want to melt your peoples' skin off. Make it smaller." He lowered it a little, but it was still too big to be practical in the field. "Here, like this," she said, and she crossed her arms, a fire shield roaring to life in front of her. She had it burning hot enough to melt metal on contact, but it was only large enough to protect her torso. "Any bigger than this and you need to make sure you're away from anyone who might be vulnerable to it," she said. "Oh," she added quickly, remembering her own fails, "and even with the bad guys, make sure they're far enough away that they won't get burned too bad when you put it up. That happened to me once, the guy had to get a whole new face grafted on."
Brion stared at her, both intrigued and horrified. "You say it so casually," he said, his tone balancing between accusing and impressed.
She twisted her lips, trying to think of how to explain her apparent apathy. "He would have killed me if I hadn't reacted on instinct, and it's not that I don't care, I still feel sick when I think about it, but I can't let that affect my performance, so sometimes you have to detach yourself from your experiences."
"That sounds difficult."
She shrugged. "It's not, once you've had some practice." She saw the look of doubt on his face and added, "but that's why I'm here, to make sure you don't make the same mistakes I have. So, when I say keep your shields small, there's a reason for that."
They practiced for a half and hour before the groups got together to start the exercise, with Dick stationed on a rock with the gun and Brion and V'lana teamed up against him. "Ok, remember, work together to take me down. You won't be able to knock me off the rocks, but that's the goal here."
The teens exchanged a challenging look and Brion cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, really? Well, perhaps you would like to place a wager then. If we can take you off the rocks, you must…" he looked at his partner and she shrugged.
"Perhaps a day without training?" V'lana suggested.
Brion shook his head. "It must be better," he said. He looked at the older heroes and smiled challengingly. "If we knock you off the rock, we want a place to stay that isn't someone's guest room." He looked at Conner and tilted his head unapologetically. "No offense intended, of course."
Conner shrugged. "None taken, considering you're going to lose."
Dick looked at the others. "I think we can take that deal," he said. "But if you can't knock me off, then you have to stay two extra hours for training every day this week." Mallory shot her friend a glare at his terms. She didn't want to stay two extra hours, and they all knew that the teens didn't stand a chance to win. Dick grinned at her and added, "of course, you'll have to do it by yourselves. We're busy people." Mallory relaxed, nodding her agreement to the terms, and the teens looked at each other.
"Deal," V'lana said.
They went to the starting spot and got ready, planning out their strategy to make it through the exercise. Mallory, Artemis, and Conner stood on the sidelines, watching as the teens worked together to block the rubber bullets and make ground towards the rock. Brion got shot quickly the first time, Dick's bullets finding their mark easily. The three had just started to make their own side bets on the outcome of the exercise when Mallory's phone buzzed in her pocket, and when she pulled it out, the caller ID read blocked. She turned away from her friends, raising it to her ear. "Hello?"
"Inferno? This is Dr. Jace."
The pyrokinetic rolled her eyes, stalking a few steps away from her friends. "What do you need?" she asked, not even trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice.
"I know you said that you would contact me with any updates, and I do appreciate the few that you have given me, I am very proud of Brion for choosing to become the hero he wanted to be at the start of all of this, but it has been months, and I still have not been permitted to see him once."
"That's by Brion's choice, Doctor, not mine. You said that you would be understanding of his decision, and he asked me not to try to force him to see you."
"Please, Inferno, Mallory. You have to let me see him."
"I told you before, we are not comfortable having you come to the site he is staying in, just like I told you I wasn't comfortable with you using my name over the phone, or in person."
"Oh, yes, my apologies, Havu. But, if you do not want me to come to you, at least bring him to me."
"I can't bring him to Metropolis and risk him getting recognized, I'm sorry."
She was about to hang up when the doctor's urgent voice came over the phone. "Wait! Then arrange a neutral meeting place, somewhere that it won't matter if it is compromised, and he won't be recognized. Please, Inferno. You must do this for me."
Mallory clenched her jaw, grinding her teeth to keep from charring her phone in her hand. Why was it so hard to understand a simple concept like a secret identity? "Fine," she said, "I'll talk to Brion about it, ok? That's all I can do, but if he doesn't want to see you, I'm not going to force him to. It's not important enough to make him relive memories he isn't ready to face."
"Thank you, thank you so much."
Mallory hung up, ending the gush of gratitude. When she turned back to her friends, they were staring at her, ignoring the training session still going on behind them. "You're still getting calls from Jace?" Artemis asked.
"Apparently," Mallory replied, shoving her phone deep in her pocket.
"I thought Dick fixed it so she wouldn't be able to get through anymore," Conner mentioned.
"Yeah, well, I guess he's losing his touch," the pyrokinetic muttered.
"What did she want?" the clone asked.
"What she always wants, to see Brion. I don't know why she won't just take the hint and leave the kid alone. She helped his uncle kidnap and turn his sister, then she turned him into a meta without his consent. If I was her, I'd just be counting my blessings that he didn't kill me when he had the chance, not trying to set up more contact with him."
They heard a thud from the side of the yard and looked over to see Dick kneeling on the rock, smiling down at Brion and V'lana, but lying in heaps on the ground. "Go again?" the former leader asked, clearly enjoying himself.
Brion grunted angrily, a stormy look coming to his face as he pushed himself to his feet and glared at Dick. "This is pointless!" he yelled. "I don't see why we are wasting our time with this play when we should be out searching for my sister! Why are we not following up on your lead to Santa Prisca?!"
Dick didn't even blink at the complete 180 of Brion's mood. He just stood, and hopped off the rocks, narrowing his eyes slightly as he adopted his Bat personality. "What makes you think that lead hasn't already been followed up on?" he asked. Mallory, Artemis, and Conner exchanged a look, not sure what their friend was talking about. He didn't look away from Brion as he continued, "Batman took a squad to Santa Prisca to investigate any activity that was going on out there. They got back last night with some intel, which is why I called you to this special training session today."
Mallory kept her face blank, but under the surface she didn't know how to feel. Dick hadn't told them that Batman got any intel, he hadn't even told them that he passed the lead on to his former partner. She hadn't felt so out of the loop since she was working solo and pushing everyone away. "Why didn't you tell me this sooner?!" Brion yelled, voicing Mallory's thoughts exactly.
Dick held his gaze. "I'm telling you now. They didn't find Terra on the island, but she was there. We have something to go on now, I'm working on that as we speak, but I want to make sure that when we have something solid to go on, you're going to be ready to have our backs. But maybe I was getting ahead of myself, You either trust me, or you don;t, and if you don't then there's no point in going any further."
Brion stared at him for a moment, holding his glare. Conner was about to step towards them when their comms went off.
"All available team members report to the Watchtower in ten for a mission briefing," Tornado announced.
Artemis looked at Dick. "We have to go," she told him.
He didn't look away from the glaring contest he and Brion had going. "Fine, I'll catch up with you later. V'lana, why don't you go inside, maybe Megan can spare an hour to help you with your head training. Brion," the prince didn't blink, and Dick arched an eyebrow, shouldering the gun, "hit the shower, I'm going to see how the intel is coming along." He turned away from the teen, walking back towards the shed.
Anger flashed on Brion's face and he took a step forward, clearly intending to follow him, but Mallory was at his side in a second, grabbing his arm tightly and holding him in place. "Calm down, Prince," she said quietly, looking at him hard. He huffed, jerking his arm out of her grip and storming back up to the house.
Artemis and Conner exchanged a look with her, none of them wanting to leave things the way they were, but then their comms clicked on again, reminding them that the team needed them in the Watchtower, and they sighed and went to the zeta tube to prepare for the mission.
A few hours later, Inferno, Tigress, and Superboy zetaed back to the house after the mission, tired after the strain of fighting Ivo's robots. They were halfway through the yard when they saw Dick and Brion standing face to face. There was a scorch mark behind them, closer to the house than they allowed him to train. They exchanged a look.
"Everything ok?" Conner asked cautiously, looking between them. Mallory scanned the boys thoroughly. Brion's sleeves were burned off up to the elbows, and Dick looked a little tense, like he always did when he was recovering from an adrenaline rush. They had definitely fought, and Brion had definitely used his powers.
"Yeah, we're good," Dick said easily, and he offered the prince a small smile. "Right?"
"Yes," Brion agreed, though he didn't return the smile. "I will see you tomorrow for training. I believe an extra two hours is waiting for me, so I had better get some rest."
When he was out of earshot, the three team members closed the distance between them and their friend. "What happened?" Mallory asked.
Dick shrugged. "Nothing, we just had a talk," he said dismissively.
"Some talk. Megan's really getting tired of all the damage to the lawn, by the way," Conner said, nudging the hardened lava with the toe of his boot.
"Yeah, sorry about that, but really, it's fine. He was upset about being kept out of the loop."
"Yeah, that's going around," Mallory muttered. Nightwing raised an eyebrow, and she rolled her eyes. "Why didn't you tell us the real reason you wanted to step up their training? Or, for that matter, that you had passed on the intel and already sent Batman to investigate? Doesn't that seem like something you should be sharing with your team."
"This isn't a team, Mal," he said.
"Ok, then, doesn't that seem like something you should have told your friends? We have just as much of a stake in this as you do," Artemis pointed out.
He sighed. "Look, I'm sorry, I messed up. It's just that there hasn't been much to go off of so far. I was waiting until I could find something concrete, maybe for the intel to pile up a little instead of bringing it to you in dribbles. I won't do it again."
"Good," Conner said.
Mallory nodded. "I've left behind too many teams because I didn't like the atmosphere. I don't want this one to be one of them."
