"So, Ryan, would you care to tell us exactly what happened on Santa Prisca?" Black Canary asked politely. We were sitting opposite each other in large overstuffed green chairs, and there was a durable stainless steel coffee table in between us. Now, strictly speaking, this was a counseling session, so I could theoretically get up and leave at any time. In reality, however, this whole situation really felt more like mandatory psychiatric care. I mean, Wonder Woman as sitting next to me, ostensibly to provide moral support and emotional stability, but her grip on my shoulder seemed suspiciously firm.
"But... don't you already know? I mean, the others wouldn't shut up about it," I asked, pretending to be confused. I was onto their game! Of course, Black Canary and Wonder Woman were both smiling, so I couldn't be in that much trouble, could I?
"Well yes, but we'd like to hear your side of the story," Black Canary replied. Ah, that actually made sense, except for the part where Black Canary and Wonder Woman were here instead of Batman. He was usually the one who handled debriefings.
"Oh, okay then." I shrugged and took a deep breath. "So, there we were, in Miss Martian's bioship..."
***********
I mentally reviewed our objectives as I hooked into the fast rope line that had grown from the roof of the bioship. Reconnoiter Isla Santa Prisca, find out why Bane's venom operation had stopped shipping its product despite the factory chugging along at max capacity, and then report back to Batman. Run the mission, don't get seen, save the world, you know, the standard fare. I was going by the call sign Realis, and I even had my own superhero suit. It was mostly dark gray with a few red highlights on my shoulders, knuckles, and knees. It was made of a bulletproof hex-weave aramid fibers with a hardened impact absorbent coltan-titanium mesh layered over my arms, legs, and torso in segmented sections to maintain flexibility. My mask covered my full face and had built in filters to remove approximately 99% of all known toxins. There were still some things that could get through, but if any of those ever came into play, I'd have bigger problems than getting sick or poisoned. Unfortunately, I didn't have any weapons because Batman, the hypocrite, said I was "too dangerous" and "couldn't be trusted" to use any of his weapons or gadgets responsibly. Fucking killjoy. He gave Robin lethal weapons and that kid was like twelve.
I fast roped down and landed in absolute silence on the soft jungle floor alongside Robin, Kid Flash, and Miss Martian. Barely a second later, Superboy landed with a crash that rattled my teeth and left a knee deep crater in the jungle floor.
"Hah, knew I didn't need a line." The tall black haired clone smiled triumphantly.
"You're right, and your desperate need to prove yourself just announced our presence to the whole damn world, fuckwit," I growled. Fucking amateurs, as far as the eye could see.
"Dude!" Kid Flash threw his hands up and glared at me as Superboy made an odd face, somewhere between a furious glare and a kicked puppy.
"I'll be scouting ahead, don't blow our cover," I instructed before vanishing into the underbrush.
**********
"Wait wait wait wait! You just stomped all over Superboy's insecurities in front of the entire team?" Black Canary asked flatly.
"What? His little stunt damn near ended the mission before it had even started," I objected. I failed to see the problem here. Hopefully next time he'd think twice before doing something stupid.
"Ryan, you can't just verbally lambaste your teammates in the middle of a mission. Instead, you should bring the problem up later with your team leader during the debriefing," Wonder Woman offered.
"You mean the team leader we didn't have? Oh, and by the way, remind me to let Batman know just how fucking stupid that idea was. World's greatest detective my ass! Booster Gold could've detected that there would be problems if you sent a team of teenagers into the field with no clear command structure!" I threw my arms up in exasperation, earning me a disapproving look from Wonder Woman and a brief snort of amusement from Black Canary before she regained her composure.
"Okay, okay, tell us what happened next..."
***********
A group of Kobra Cultists had gotten into a firefight with Bane and some of his foot soldiers, and that shouldn't have been a problem at all. I mean, Robin and I were damned near undetectable without advanced sensors, and the rest of the team had super senses which would allow them to effortlessly maneuver around the two groups. Then, all of a sudden, the gunfire stopped and I heard a familiar voice chuckle nervously and sheepishly say,
"Heh heh, so much for the covert." I quickly ghosted towards the firefight as the gunfire resumed, this time with Kid Flash as the target. Superboy was getting stuck in with Bane, who was pretty handily holding his own against the young Kryptonian. And wasn't that just embarrassing? Jesus Superboy, get your shit together. Robin threw two bat-a-rangs at a pair of cultists while Kid Flash zipped about punching people in the face. Miss Martian threw two men headfirst into a tree, and I heard a wet crack as something fractured.
For my part, I stepped out of the jungle behind a cultist and snapped his neck before grabbing the man's assault rifle out of his hand and gunning down two of bane's foot soldiers who were trying to flee. I was about to tag the final fleeing cultist when Aqualad tased into unconsciousness with his Water Bearers. Nobody had looked at me yet, so I dropped the gun onto the cultist's body, which had conveniently fallen into some thick bushes, and pocketed the man's combat knife and pistol. Fuck you Batman, you can't stop me from picking up weapons in the field!
"Jesus fucking Christ Kid Flash! You had one job to do! One!" I yelled at him as Miss Martian started tying the survivor's to trees.
"Yep, I already covered that," Robin huffed as he glared at the soul-less ginger who claimed to be a competent hero.
"Oh god, these two are dead!" Miss Martian gasped in horrified shock and jolted back as she stumbled upon the two men I'd shot. Figuratively stumbled, of course, since she was flying right then.
"Well obviously. They were in a firefight," I offered with a sigh.
"No, no I know that, it's just... they're dead," M'gann whispered in shock.
"Again, duh," I offered my valuable insight on the topic of bodies.
"There is something seriously wrong with you," Robin informed me somberly.
"Nah," I shrugged, "I'm just not bothered by dead people."
"What does it matter? Realis is a psycho, we already knew that. And now we know that the Kobra Cult has hijacked Bane's operation, which is why the Venom supplies have been cut off. Job done, let's go home," Kid Flash blurted out, throwing his hands up in exasperation.
"Uh, no, that's not all because these guys aren't on Venom, and Kobra's hording the stuff. I need to know why," Robin argued, frowning and rubbing his chin as he stared at the restrained cultists.
"Oh, you need to find out? Who went and made you leader? Dude, you're thirteen," Kid Flash scoffed.
"Well somebody has to be," Robin replied, crossing his arms over his chest. While they were having their little pissing match, Miss Martian looked at Superboy.
"Do you want to be leader?" she whispered.
"No, you?" Superboy snorted and shook his head.
"After the Mister Twister fiasco?" Miss Martian asked rhetorically.
"You did alright," he reassured her before turning to me and cocking an eyebrow. I just shrugged and said,
"The only reason I haven't ditched all of you yet is because Miss Martian is my ride out of here." Then, growing bored of Robin and Kid Flash's little spat, I walked over to our prisoners. I'd just heard two of them talking, so I knew they were waking up.
"Okay! So, since I just heard two of you talking, I'm going to go ahead and assume you're all awake now. Does anybody have any useful tidbits they'd like to share with the class?" I asked cheerfully as I bent down to pick up a discarded assault rifle.
"Well aren't you a clever niño?" Bane chuckled confidently, "but only know half the story. Let me show you the rest. I can get you into the factory via my secret entrance."
"He does have a secret entrance, I can confirm that much," Miss Martian said, kneeling down and frowning as she tried to concentrate on Bane's mindscape. "I'm sorry, I can't get anymore, he's reciting futbol scores to protect his thoughts." Huh, I could help with that. Aiming the rifle, I discharged a single bullet into the stomach of a nearby Kobra cultist, causing the man to scream and writhe in pain.
"What the fuck?!" the man next to the unfortunate cultist screamed in shock. Unfortunately, Miss Martian was too startled by the sudden gunshot to properly take advantage of Bane's sudden lapse in concentration.
***********
"So, you just up and shot a man? In the stomach? Hours away from any form of medical attention?" Black Canary interrupted me again.
"Oh don't give me that, he was a cultist. Everybody knows they don't count," I waved her off.
"You condemned a man to agonizing death, just to try and help your teammate mind rape another human being!" Black Canary objected, her voice nearing a shout.
"Hey, I didn't kill him, the acids leaking from his ruptured stomach did. And besides, it was a totally valid tactic," I huffed.
"You tortured him!" Black Canary yelled.
"No, I... well okay, kinda, but he was a doomsday cultist," I explained. How was torturing some asshole who actively tried to end the world a bad thing?
"That doesn't justify torture, what's wrong with you?" Black Canary yelled.
"I dunno, I thought figuring that out was your job," I pointed out. Black Canary just let out groan of frustration and massaged her temples.
"Just... just continue," she groaned.
"Okay, fine. So, there we were, following Bane back to his secret entrance..."
************
And once again, Robin had just up and fucked off without bothering to let anybody know what he was doing. I... I was going to kill him. And then kill Batman for failing to instill proper values, like common sense, in his protege. Although, I was expecting common sense from a man who dressed up like a bat and punched crazy people in the face, which actually seemed like kind of a tall order.
"Where the fuck has the little puta gone? Has he already been caught?" Bane growled as we silently made our way through the vast warehouse that contained the main Venom production plant.
"I'll go find him!" Kid Flash volunteered and zipped off before Aqualad could tell him to wait.
"Great chain of command," Bane grumbled.
"Fucking tell me about it, right? I mean, who the fuck sends a bunch of goddamn teenagers on a mission and says 'eh, I'm sure you'll solve your issues responsibly and on the fly in a high pressure situation?'" I bitched, causing Bane to nod in commiseration and the rest of the team to try and murder me with their Atlantean, Martian, and heat vision respectively.
"Hmm, their transporting tons of new product to the helipad for the buy, but they're not touching this old stuff," Aqualad pointed out as we crouched behind some barrels of venom.
"I hear a helicopter," Superboy warned.
"Miss Martian, cloak yourself and head for the helipad, the rest of you follow me," Aqualad instructed before making his way towards the shadowed gantries that crisscrossed the large warehouse's rafters.
Soon enough, the helicopter landed and some tool in a hockey mask exited the vehicle.
"It's Sportsmaster, he's the one making the buy! Red Tornado..." Aqualad tried to radio the our headquarters to update Red Tornado, our minder. Unfortunately, all he got was static.
"Comms are jammed. We can't raise Robin or Kid Flash, and we don't have a plan," Aqualad growled.
"Orrrr, we could just have Miss Martian link us up. Idiot," I helpfully offered.
"I have a plan," Bane volunteered right before he dropped down onto two cultists.
"Ah, the classic 'kill 'em all.' I like this plan," I agreed happily before vanishing into the shadows.
"Oh Poseidon dammit!" Aqualad cursed.
For my part, I was more interested in snapping necks and taking grenades as the warehouse erupted into violence. I snapped off two shots with my stolen pistol, splattering two cultist's brains across the warehouse wall before leaning sideways and causing a third panicked cultist to miss me. A retaliatory bullet put him out of my misery, and then I was deafened by a roar as some dog faced monstrosity smashed into Superboy and Aqualad's position. It's skin was gray and torn open in places, exposing the wet strands of swollen muscle that powered its bulky frame. To my delight, King Kobra, his juvenile female "underling," and Sportsmaster all decided that the best move they could make was to come closer to me. Awww, it was so adorable how they thought I wouldn't kill them.
"Kill them!" King Kobra literally hissed as his cultists rushed past him and into punching range. How positively cooperative of him. I responded with a large belt of grenades, sans pins of course.
"Oh shit!" Sportsmaster yelled and dove to the side right before the grenades went off at his feet.
"I'd have used smoke grenades, but they said I was too violent to be trusted with them," I joked as I casually flicked a sharp chunk of rock through some nameless cultist's eye.
**********
"Uhhh, hey, Wonder Woman? Just because I can reset my shoulder doesn't mean I like too. So, if you could, y'know..." I tapped her hand, which was squeezing my shoulder hard enough to make my bones creak.
"Oh, right. Sorry." She didn't really sound that sorry.
"Ahem, anyways, there I was, making sure a bunch of terrorists got properly dead..."
*********
I really didn't see how Sportsmaster got to be such a big name in the assassination game. I mean, he didn't even have armor protecting his neck. That was why he was currently dying from blood loss thanks to all the shrapnel lodged in his throat. He probably felt super stupid about that right now. King Kobra and his ladyboy follower were dead too, which didn't surprise me at all. Goddamn people, if you're not bulletproof then wear some armor.
The Down's Syndrome Super Dog roared at me and charged, now that he was done using Superboy like a speed-bag. See, now this guy could get away with wearing a pair of ripped pants and nothing else.
"Aww, fuck me," I danced sideways to avoid Down's-Dog's sloppy overhead strike and then slid between his legs. I frowned as my knife's blade skated across the bastard's exposed muscles. I'd expected that, but it was still annoying. Tossing the knife aside, I dodged around the beefy bastard's wild swings and stuck the barrel of my pistol in his face. I pulled the trigger right before one of the monster's torso sized forearms smashed into my chest, crushing my ribs and snapping my spine. To my delight, the bullet punched through the giant monster's squishy eyeball and ricocheted around its cranium.
"Holy fuck! Realis... dude..." Kid Flash gasped as beheld the carnage I'd wrought.
"Yeah, I'm awesome," I wheezed as I painfully sat up and twisted, causing my spine to click and pop as my vertebrae slid back into place.
*********
"And that's it," I concluded.
"And now I understand why Batman had to go lie down for a bit," Wonder Woman sighed. "Ryan, listen," she continued, "you can't just slaughter your way through your enemies, what kind of example does that set?"
"Ummm... a good one? Cause then they'll be dead, and everybody else will know not to fuck with me," I reasoned. "Plus, now those scum won't be running around killing people. It's proactive crime prevention." I smiled triumphantly, feeling very proud of my logic.
"That's... okay, listen... we need to have a long talk," Black Canary sighed and leaned forward. I wriggled a bit to try and get comfortable. She sounded quite serious.