Scarlet Justice: Identity - Young Justice Fanfiction

Divide and Conquer

Dick's Pov

My arms were still crossed and I desperately just wanted to get out of here. I felt very unsettled, frazzled, and maybe overwhelmed. I didn't necessarily want to be doing this Team exercise. I mean it's not like we didn't have one a few weeks ago.

Bruce had finished his new project in the Tower and had randomly decided to have us test run it. There was a full room just dedicated to team training. He had installed several thousand programs, hundreds of robots and weaponry meant to get under our skin. And in the case of people like Cassie and Conner, maybe literally.

"Try not to break each other, but go all out on the machines. Remember, this room was built for teamwork. Work together," She said for what had to be the millionth time.

She nodded and then stepped past the door. I watched the doors close in front of her and the last thing we saw was her smiling at us.

"Program 675. Protect target," A pillar started to rise from the floor. "Outnumbered. Go."

Great. Just absolutely brilliant.

I gripped my escrima sticks, and the rest of us formed a circle around the pillar. I wasn't entirely sure this was going to work, but I just hoped Bruce was having fun up in his little booth. We better not be doing this for nothing.

"Keep the circle tight," Artemis shouted. Panels in the walls were starting to open up, but the room was still empty except for us.

"And whatever you do, don't get surrounded, or else you'll be on your own," Artemis sent me a look from across the circle, but I ignored it. I knew that didn't help, but this was supposed to be teamwork, right? They needed to learn how to keep the formation. That was teamwork.

The moment I finished speaking the bots followed. They were sphere shaped things with sharp spikes holding who knows what. Some had fire spewing from them, some had knives, some had separate parts just to attack you.

I sighed deeply and got to work.

I sprung from my crouched position and completed a roundhouse kick, knocking out two bots. Landing on the ground, I stabbed my stick into another bot that had tried to get past me by flying low.

I dodged a knife and barely watched as it bounced to a stop when it hit the wall. The knives protruding from its shell were no small thing I could weave around so I jumped up and slapped a small explosive onto the sphere. An explosion blasted a satisfying wave of heat on my back.

I stepped back on my foot, trying to keep my focus on the million little objects flying all around the room. Above Cassie, Gar, M'gann, and Blue Beetle were trying their best to hold of the flying buggers, but it was hard enough to see them, let alone hit them.

I returned my gaze to the ground just in time to see Kaldur's water-bearer slice right through a bot that had almost slammed right into my face. I gave him a half thankful look and continued.

"Program 548. Protect target. Land attack."

The bots paused for two seconds and flew straight back through the panels of the walls. At first, it was quiet and I turned to Kaldur ready to ask a question. But that was when the thundering started. Larger, more life-sized panels slid down to the floor and everything was covered in a red glaze.

"Please don't tell-"

I didn't even get to finish my sentence. What had to be hundreds of robots were rushing us all at once on all sides and boy did they move fast. They weren't completely invincible, in fact, they were more easy to tear apart. I could tell by the way a bot head flew past mine from the general direction of Conner.