welcome to the justice lounge

There was, Ollie couldn’t deny it, a tiny voice in the back of his mind telling him that the boat would be gone, unmoored and scuttled when they made it back to the drop point. That they’d be stuck here, the three of them, and maybe for longer this time and with higher stakes than one less dissolute, useless boy billionaire in the world. But as the three Arrows made it up onto the southern beachfront of Starfish Island, Ollie took a deep breath. Took a good look at his two kids flanking him, scrubby red-brown head and wet sleek blonde, and forced his mind back to the present. They weren’t here floundering this time; they had a plan.

“So if my source is on the money – and there’s no reason to think she ain’t – we’re gonna be working our way up into that crater to find where Tak’s being kept.” Ollie pointed up the rising cliffside, shaking sea water from his arms. “There’s a road coming down the north face of the slope, but it’s well-guarded so it’s a no-go if we wanna hit ‘em by surprise. Lucky for you kids, we’ve got some climbing gear.” Ollie picked through his quiver and tugged out one of his line arrows, grinning at Mia and Roy. “Last time, I had to do it with my fingernails and bare feet.”

"Oh, so we’re even going to be doing ‘back in my day’ things here?" Mia asked throwing a smirk over at Ollie as they trudged through the sand. She imagined it was probably weird for him to be back here. She was aware of his aversion to island in the first place and this particular one? The blonde looked around curiously trying to imagine what it must have been like to be here all alone — well mostly alone back when he didn’t even really have any sort of survival skills at all. Scary probably.

Mia fixed her ponytail squeezing excess water out of it. “So, how long do you think it’ll take? Do you think we’ll be attacked? We should stay on our guard anyway, right?” She didn’t mean to ask so many questions that there were probably not definite answers to. But it was better that then going in with no estimation of information at all.

"Two days at the very most, yes we’ll probably do some fighting no matter how stealthy we are, and no, there’s no need to stay on our guard. I think we should break for a rousing game of charades."

( they grow a new arm if they lose one )

Mia hadn’t known them for very long but they’d been really nice. Nice enough that they took her in without even really questioning it. And they weren’t even creeps. Mia wasn’t sure how long Kyle had known Connor but they seemed like they were really good friends. She’d only known the guy about a week and she was already pretty much in love with him. Kyle seemed like an okay guy, even if he was a little on the annoying side. But Connor was the one who seemed like he’d had it all together. He was the one who seemed like he did most of the work.

So, she could understand not just the sadness, but also the hopeless feeling Kyle was letting off.

She decided to let him sit there for a while as she turned around and took out the Walkers that had appeared from the woods after the commotion. After she pulled the arrows out of their heads and cleaned them off on the ground, Mia turned around to see Kyle finally standing back up and turning to look at her.

Apparently it was just them now.

Kyle slowly made his way across the few acres of grass that separated them. “We need to do something.”

"What?"

"Connor wanted to find his father, that’s what we were trying to do…"

"Where is he?"

"I don’t know."

If it had been anyone but Connor who was just the nicest guy in the world Mia probably would have said fuck it. There was no way they’d ever be able to find some random guy they didn’t even know, if they didn’t even know where he was. But it was Connor. So, she’d humor Kyle for a moment. “Who is he?”

"Oliver Queen."

"Oliver Queen?" Kyle nodded. "The billionaire?" Kyle nodded again. "Is his father?" More nodding. Mia rolled her eyes and nodded her head turning to head back to their camp. "Fine. Yeah. Okay. Lets find this guy even though we have no clue where he is, and he probably has the means to be like… on some deserted island by this point. Lets do it."

Kyle stayed still for a moment before he ran a couple steps to catch up with Mia. “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.” Mia sent him a flat look, and Kyle raised his hands. “Okayy… So, wait are we?”

“Yes!" Mia said a little more harsh then she actually meant to, but Kyle didn’t seem really too phased by it. It took a lot to phase people now-a-days and this guy had just killed his best friend… So, she figured it’d take a little more than her snapping to bother him.

Titans/Justice League mission alert: Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Hawaii. Coordinates as follows. Partial remains of an unidentified Psion (alien, Vega System) space ship has crash landed.

WARNING: LIFEFORMS STILL ABOARD. USE CAUTION.
Zee arrives at the Canyon with her usual flair, a quick crack sounding through the air around her new position. The crash site resting nearby.

Cupping her hands over her eyes like a visor, she survey’s the crash from a distance. Otherworldly things have never been her area of expertise. Had there been a magical related crash though she’d be all over it.

"Well I don’t see anything moving now…" Zee mumbles, in no particular hurry to poke at the ruins of what she imagines to be a hive of alien like creatures waiting to swarm her.

"Hey Zee!" Mia called as she beamed down to the crash site. She made her way over towards the other woman with her bow in hand. Just in case something jumped out. Even though all seemed calm at the moment, that could change quickly.

She looked at the wreckage of whatever it was that had landed. “Soo. What are we supposed to do?” She asked glancing over at Zatanna.



Inside the ship, a Psion returns to consciousness. He is injured, but he can still move.

( 321 contact )

[OLLIE TXT] It’s terribly sad when you have to waste a good outfit. But! I’m coming home now so then it won’t be! Am at QT, so it’ll just be a minute on the zetas

[mia txt] ok see you in a minute

[mia txt] oh be careful, don’t trip over kiki she’s taken to sleeping right in front of the door idk.

Naturally, Ollie tripped over Kiki when he got home.

Fortunately due to Mia’s warning, he’d been half-expecting it (just not the uncanny ability of dogs to position themselves in the most uncannily unavoidable way possible), so he was able to catch himself against the wall before pitching over and doing more damage to his bum leg.

"Mia?" Ollie hollered once he’d righted himself. "I tripped over your dog!" Kiki looked mournfully up at him and Ollie sighed, stooping to ruffle the dog’s ears. "I know, girl," he said "Sometimes you just can’t help being in everyone’s way."

"Oh no." Mia said and came into the room hitching her bag over her shoulder and crouching down to kiss Kiki on the head. "He’s so mean isn’t he? What an ass. I know. I’ll get him back for you later, it’s ok." She kissed her again and straightened up smiling at Ollie. "She’s just being a guard dog, Ollie. It’s in her nature. I saw that on animal planet."

She leaned over and hugged Ollie before exiting the penthouse and calling over her shoulder. “Lets go, we have like an hour-ish drive to go, and I made sandwiches. Oh and use the bathroom now if you have to. I know how hard it is for old people to hold it in.”

"What? Who?" Ollie turned in a circle as Mia talked and moved around him, finally calling out to him from the entranceway. He trotted after her, closing up the house behind them and joining her at the elevator down to the garage.

"No, I don’t have to go to the bathroom, thank you. I can manage on an hour-long car trip." Ollie ran through in his head the places that were about an hour’s drive from their house, but finally gave up. He didn’t want to spoil the surprise, anyhow.

"So," he said once they were in the car and Mia was pulling out into the sunshine, "…what kinds of sandwiches?"

( lord, you play a hard game )

You find yourself in a library, within which are archived an overwhelming number of books, as well as everything else from stone tablets and papyrus scrolls, to CD-ROMs and floppy disks, to flash drives and laptops. You are among nine people: Oliver Queen, Mia Dearden, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Steph Brown, Zatanna Zatara, Zach Zatara, Kate Spencer and Jason Blood

Your injuries have been fully healed.

There is an owl and a raven perched on the bower of an open doorway, and they seem to be bickering at each other and ignoring you and your group. Eventually they quiet and still when a figure steps into the room.

He is tall and robed, his face hidden in the shadows of the hood. He carries in one hand a large book and in the other a shepherd’s crook.

"Welcome. You may call me Destiny. First I shall assure you that everyone you care about is safe. Some have been restored to their homes on Earth. I will explain this situation." Destiny goes on to explain:

"Your path homewards is through this door, and you may each go through and speak your confession. Once you go through to the next room, you will be in the realm of the beings. We will not protect you. Fight and you will die. Speak the truth and you will live. Your destiny awaits. You must leave.” Destiny points towards the doorway and the owl and raven each sound out their birdcall, which echoes in the great library.

"Now go."

( whatever will be will be )

Mia sits on the front porch of her bungalow on the edge of the little town filing her nails, and singing to herself absently.

Bruce descends from the Persian, his expression hard and dark and moves from there to the Longhouse, passing Mia on the porch. He stops in front of the larger building, shifting to look around the camp for anyone else. Bruce looks over at Mia. “Have you seen Clark or Oliver?”

Kyle trots down from the bunkhouse and looks up in the sky. Sure enough, it’s still there. He grins and nods at Bruce. “The warehouse in the Persian is trashed,” Kyle tells the older man. It’ll be his greeting for today, he decides. He goes over to Mia. “Morning. Wanna go get some apples with me?”

Bruce ‘s eyes narrow. “I saw that. What happened?” He looks between Mia and Kyle.

"I haven’t seen anyone." Mia lifts her head and looks between them shrugging her shoulders continuing to file her nails. Bruce looks to Kyle, his expression darkening. Mia looks over at Kyle as well shaking her head, "I don’t like apples."

Kyle looks surprised and looks at Bruce. “Uh.” He weighs his options. Why hadn’t he anticipated that people would ask him directly what happened? It’s not like he wanted them to discover it by surprise, though; although obviously Bruce already has. And Connor was not around to tell, before everyone came asking. He looks up at the sky again and figures if they’re gonna get out of here, they’ll need to start acting like the League again. Even if Mia hates him until forever. “When I got up there last night, Mia was stuck inside the warehouse. A shelf was blocking it she said. I eventually convinced her to move the shelf and come out, because I didn’t think it was good to leave her there all night. I dunno where Queen was, probably with Roy. She got out and when I looked inside the warehouse all the shelves were domino’d.”

Bruce slowly brings his gaze to Mia, his expression levellng out. “Did you see what happened, Mia?”

Mia nods her head slowly “I knocked everything over.”

Bruce inhales quickly and exhales slowly. “Why did you knock everything over?”

Mia shrugs her shoulders, “Because. I felt like it. Why not? I was mad. Something attacked me. What answer do you want to hear?”

( spit it out )

Mari digs her fingers deeper into the dark cool dirt, ignoring the wiggle of worms fleeing her grasp. The roots from the mutant veggies she’s already pulled up are still deep down, squirming and spreading out further and further into the ground. She’s been digging at them almost non-stop for the last day, working methodically to remove every trace of the plants, only to have ten more roots to reveal themselves when she thinks she’s finally done. She doesn’t dare touch the pumpkinberry mound.

Zee smirks, chalking Mia tossing the doll into the woods over the creepiness of the plaything, and less to do with her feelings towards Lian, “Well at least you got her back?” trying to look on the bright things with this doll, it’s slow schluching eyes already starting to weird her out more than she remembered, “Have you found any other toys here Lian?”

Lian shakes her head exaggeratedly, her plaits bouncing against her head. “Papa made me a doll from sticks, but I gave it to Ramsey. I—” Lian sees periperhal movement in the garden of their bungalow and turns to look. It almost looks like the doll’s head is turning that way too. “Auntie Mar’i!! Our garden!!” Lian yells passionately, despite her almost complete disinterest in tending the garden, now she feels some sort of ownership. She grabs Zee’s hand and drags her over to where Mar’i is.

Zee is led by Lian, her hair brushing into her face as they move towards the dismembered garden, “Oh no…” she whispers, but the phrase feels undecided as she’s not sure if she’s upset over Lian’s apparent love for the garden, or the realization that they will have to explain to the young girl why these plants were removed. “Oh no.” the words continue to exhale from her as they try to pick a side.

Oliver comes out of Bungalow 2 wearing sunglasses and heads towards the longhouse at a wandering pace. He notices Mar’i working away at her garden and aims himself in that direction, picking up his pace when he notices Zee and Lian.

( remove the beam )

Mia sits on one of the uncomfortable pool chairs by the now covered pool, lounging again in the old bikini she found sunglasses perched on her nose as she read one of the books from the longhouse. It was as good of time as any to get some sun, wasn’t it?

Oliver checks on the stockpile of bows he’s made, stripping some down of their string and re-stringing them with gut from the deer that Roy bagged, checking the seasoning of the wood, generally refining them all into items with more beauty than their initial utilitarian use. There’s longbows, there’s shortbows, there’s ones especially made for the children. When he feels pleased with his bowyer work, he collects his box of feathers and a knife, set on cutting some fletching. Mia’s blonde head is out by the pool, so Ollie makes his way there and sits on one of the other pool chairs, putting his box on the ground. “Hey there, honeybunch,” he says cheerily. “Didn’t feel like going to the mall?”

Mia lets out a small laugh and turns her head smiling sweetly, “Not without your credit card, Ollie.”

Oliver laughs as well, delighted that she’s playing along with him. Everybody else is so damn grim all the time. He picks up a long black feather — there’s shitloads of crows that hang around Raven Terminal, go figure — and starts splitting it into sections. “You’ve been doing a lot of running around and organizing, might as well slow down for a while. This breakneck anxiety everybody’s going at is so pointless.”

Mia keeps smiling though when she turns her head away it becomes vacant and almost plastic, but it slips off her face and she laughs mirthlessly when he uses the term ‘everybody’. “Right. This pace ‘Everybody’ has been going at. Sure.” she says sarcastically lifting up her book.

Oliver fusses at the feather for a while. “Well, I mean — they’re in a tizzy about how to leave, that kind of shit. And goddamn Rayner racing around isn’t doing anything to help people keep a level head.” He squints and Mia. “Hey, whatcha reading? I noticed Ramsey’s making his way through a bunch of Hardy Boys and Mar’i’s got some book she totes around with her. I cracked into The Shining myself the other day…”

"Well Kyle’s crazy. You should make sure to try and keep Connor away from him" She says glancing over at Ollie briefly, "He hasn’t been around in a while so he doesn’t understand… y’know everything." Smirks a little when he asks what she’s, "The Shining, huh? I haven’t read it. The movie was pretty funny though." Turns towards him showing him the cover of the book "Lolita" that she was currently reading. "We read it in school but I didn’t really like it so I didn’t pay attention. But I -think- I’ve changed my mind…"

Oliver literally recoils when Mia holds up her book — it instantly turns the entire scene into some awful parody, her in her bikini and peculiar smile to go along with it — and his knife slips against the ball of his hand. It’s not a deep wound, just a line of thin blood, but Ollie curses anyhow. “It’s a hard book to like,” he says, trying to sound neutral. “People mistake it for an endorsement of Humbert’s behaviour, and it’s not. It’s an indictment.”

Mia takes a sharp intake of breath when she notices Ollie cutting himself, “Ow. Are you ok?” She asks giving a slight grimace. But she shrugs her shoulders in a light way, “That’s one way to look at it. Y’know when we were reading it in class I was looking up like… opinions and stuff about it on the internet. And I think it was on wikipedia where I read that some critic said something about how it seemed to be more of a book about a manipulative girl taking advantage of a naive older man and his feelings for her, then the other way around… I of course disregarded that. But… I it’s also another way to look at it.”

"That’s the wrong way to look at it," Ollie says sharply, then shakes his hand, getting the blood flowing through the cut. "It’s fine, it’s just a scratch." He’s quiet for a bit, then says, "I know this place is making people a little bit … off, Mia. Is that what this is about? You reading that book? Are you feeling all right?"

( sticky cherry candy )

Mari moves towards the group. “I was actually thinking we could try making bigger meals, for the entire group like Mia did that first day,” she chimes in. “We could save on canned vegetables if we combined it with fresh meat, like a stew that everyone can eat instead of taking whatever we want for ourselves.” She doesn’t look at Damian as she says this. “It’s also…it’s really weird, Lian and I planted some vegetables the other day and they’re already half-grown.”

Dickiebird cocks his head. “Maybe there’s something in the soil? That’s weird.” He holds back the number of unpleasant things that could be. Steph brows shoot up. “Do they look healthy aside from growing quickly?”

"That could work… as long as everyone stops expecting me to be the one in charge of meals and stuff." Mia frowns a bit, "I’m not going to be eating any freaky vegetables that can’t be safe…"

Mari sighs and leans against the counter. “Well, with that logic we shouldn’t be eating anything honestly.” She turns her eyes to Steph, still frowning. “They seem fine,” she says simply, not taking her eyes off her. Steph shrugs. “Maybe we can it in small doses, and if no one gets sick we eat more of the hyper veggies?” she suggested, feeling Mar’i’s stare on her. “Everything here is unknown, we’ve been eating from cans. I don’t see how quick growing plants are any worse.”

Mia shakes her head slightly. “I guess…”

Mari looks at Steph for a long time, then turns towards the stove. She pulls out a large cooking pot, then a much smaller one. “Your brother doesn’t eat meat, right?” she asks Mia. “Thankfully we’ve got enough of that after yesterday. Shouldn’t be going into the woods far if we can avoid it.” She finds a few cans of canned vegetables, nothing absolutely more than necessary, and begins looking for the canned tomato juice. “We need to have another meeting as soon as possible. We’re all running around willy-nilly, we’re getting ourselves and each other hurt and we’re no closer to a solution.” Her hand absentmindedly rubs against the bandage wrapped around where her leg meets her ass.

Damian goes to the window to see if he can spot the mutant plants from here. “Perhaps consuming these quick-growing plants will make us grow quickly too or develop some kind of power. I’ll try them.”

"He’s completely Vegan. Like completely." Laughs a little over at Damian, "If that’s what they do I’ll have some too then…"

Dickiebird nods. “It’d be good to have a meeting with everyone there, Kyle especially. Then maybe he can tell us all what’s been going on.”

( of the evening )

Mia is happy to find powdered pancake mix in the warehouse and spends the morning making pancakes. Sadly not from scratch but it’s better then nothing, right? When she’s done she uses her fingers to tear hers apart and eat them slowly thinking over everything Kyle had said to her the day before, and is honestly still debating whether she should go attempt to find his ring in the forest or not.

Zach drags himself out of bed, not hungover at all, and he totally didn’t steal the bottle of tequila or anything. He trudges his way through the camp to the longhouse and sitting down on one of the stools with a yawn. “Is there coffee?”

"Nope." Mia pulls a pot out to start the coffee with and looks over at him. "Are you ok?"

Zach looks at her. “I’m not a morning person.”

"I hadn’t noticed." sets a couple pancakes in front of him and goes back to pour some coffee for both of them. "I think we’re going to end up running out of coffee before anything else…"

Zach grumbles something under his breath taking his cup of coffee from her, “Then stop drinking so much of it.”

Mia sighs and shrugs her shoulders, “I’m not drinking that much of it. I’m drinking juice most days you all can make your own god damn coffee if you’re so bothered by it. Jesus Christ.” She’s quiet for almost a second before she starts talking again. “Actually you know what you can all make your own god damn breakfasts ok? I’m sick of it. I’m sick of everyone. Just leave me alone.” grabs her pancake in her hand, and her cup of coffee exiting the longhouse with a half cooked pancake in the pan.

Zach watches her walk out of the longhouse and goes back to his pancakes glancing over, repeatedly, at the pan on the stove. It’s a few minutes before he smells it burning and sighs walking over to flip it over messily and lets it finish cooking before he turns it off. Because he doesn’t cook. Unless everyone wants to get poisoned.

Lian prances in after a hard days work of being Dad’s and Mia’s cheerleader while they set up the archery stuff. She passes her Aunt on the way. “Hi Auntie!!” Oliver also prances in and passes Mia. “Hi, Aunt!” he echoes Lian cheerfully, lengthening his steps so he can scoop the little girl up.

Mia mumbles something indiscernible flinging her hand over her shoulder in a wave as she passes them. Oliver pauses, then jogs after her, Lian still in his arms. “Honey? Mia, what’s up? More rats?”

"Eiw I don’t like rats." Lian hits her grampa’s neck for emphasis, smack smack smack against the thick band of muscle.

"You mean more rats then the ones that are going to naturally be running around in the wilderness? No. None that I’ve seen." Shrugs her shoulders, "Nothing is up."

Oliver trots around her, jiggling Lian. “Okay. I noticed you and Roy got some targets set up and wrapped some more arrows, that’s great. You two are —” he stops, in Mia’s path. “You’ve been a real goddamn help in all this, Mia. You’ve been Getting Shit Done.” The capitalization on the words is evident in his voice, and that’s high Green Arrow praise. A person who Gets Shit Done is, in his eyes, one of the most worthwhile of people.

"I know I have been."

Oliver stands there, smiling slightly, obviously expecting some kind of elaboration on this statement.

( in the thickening of fear )