Emergence 2.4 (Unbeta-ed Preview Draft) (Patreon)

Emergence 2.4

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Santa Prisca

July 22, 8:15 ECT

Seriously, Zeke thought to himself, a mental groan sounding off in his head, why am I the only one bringing up the fact that there are so many things wrong with this? His hands fell to his sides in utter frustration as he continued creeping forwards through the underbrush, eyes shifting from side to side as he tried to keep on the lookout for anyone that could sneak up on them.

Ability Learned: Stealth

Stealth Lv 1

It's so overt, it's covert.

This represents your ability to avoid being seen, allowing you to slip past foes or strike them from an unseen position. This skill does not cover hiding and moving silently. Increases critical damage of stealth attacks by .5% per level.

Oh. Shut up. Zeke didn't even glance up at the pop-up, too nervous to even waste a moment on it as the five of them found themselves entering the thick depths of the jungle once more. I swear to god, something's gonna go wrong. Stealth mission, they said. What do I know about stealth?

A quick search on the internet before they had even left for this mission had told him that the very concept of a stealth mission — at the very least, a covert operation with any positive chance of remaining such — relied on the fact that any team handling any covert mission would be focused, trained, and experienced enough to pull it off with minimal complications.

The thing was, as far as Zeke knew, his team as a whole possessed absolutely none of these qualities. Apart from Robin and maybe possibly Kaldur, none of them could be said to have any experience with covert “anything”. In fact, the only thing most of them had done in preparation for this mission that could really be called stealthy was altering the colors of their costumes, each of them replacing the main color of their outfits for a subdued black.

Truthfully, it wasn’t like that wasn’t a good idea in and of itself. Under the cover of night, his eye-catching blue and white jumpsuit would have stuck out like a sore thumb — a sore thumb covered in glow-in-the-dark paint, really — but all it took to fix that was spending a few minutes fiddling with his overcomplicated S.T.A.R. Labs-given tablet to change the color of the smart fabric from white to black and dulling the brightness of the blue. Past that, the only thing he knew about being stealthy was trying not to be seen.

Kaldur is so frickin’ lucky right now, he groused to himself.

The dark-skinned Atlanteans’ path had diverged from the remainder of the team early on, the blond Atlantean having leapt off the bioship as they neared the island to pull of some part of the mission that Zeke hadn’t quite exactly paid attention to. While the young warrior might not describe his own situation as lucky, Zeke couldn’t help but feel that it was far less of a death sentence than what he was doing right now. 

So far, everything had proceeded as planned. They had set up several mines in locations that either Batman or Robin had mapped out for them, Zeke honestly wasn’t sure which, and they were headed towards the surveyance point, some sort of cliff overlooking the factory. All well and good, but Zeke couldn’t help but feel anxious.

Especially with the quest still clear in his mind.

Still, Is it too much to ask that we get some stealth training or something? His frown only increased as they continued to stealth their way through the jungle, the younger boy flinching at every single fallen branch and leaf he stepped over. Unable to hold back his frustrations anymore, Zeke decided to voice his concerns again. 

“So… uh, guys,” Zeke whispered, eyes continuing to dart around him, “what’s the actual protocol for if we… uhh, you know, get seen, what’s the plan?”

“What else?” Kid Flash snorted, shooting the smaller boy an incredulous look with a raised eyebrow.. “We take them down, duh. What other plan do we need?”

“I’m just saying, there’s gonna be guys with guns. Guns,” he hissed. “I don’t know about you, but I can’t outrun guns.”

“Would you give it a rest already?” Kid Flash bit back, voice lowered to a hiss much like Zeke’s. “You’ve been whining this whole mission and nothing’s even happened yet.”

Something shouldn’t have to go wrong before I can point out that it could, Zeke thought back, annoyed. His mouth was held tightly in a thin scowl that might have almost crossed the line all the way to intimidating if he wasn’t only five feet tall and barely over a hundred pounds soaking wet. In reality, it was a very cute pout. “You wanna talk about whi-”

“Would you two stop it with the chit-chat?” This time, Robin was the one who responded, the boy in front actually bothering to turn around completely to shoot Zeke a direct glare as he hissed. “This is supposed to be a covert mission.”

“Yeah, I know that. But…” Zeke rolled his eyes at Wally, shaking his head a moment later, “I’m pretty sure we tipped that Jenga tower when Supey’s landing registered on the Richter scale.”

At this, Zeke shot a quick glance at the Boy of Steel behind him, both Robin and Wally following along with him. Superboy stared right back at the three of them with an uninterested expression, arms at his sides as M’gann floated over his shoulder. “I’m not apologizing.”

The boy in blue shook his head at Superboy’s aloof attitude, unable to fight the small smile growing on his face.

“Nobody expected you to, Big Guy.”