Rain waits outside of the Zeta tube's entrance, bouncing on his heels, wearing civilian clothes and a smile. His fashion choices are simple and pretty nondescript; a solid black t-shirt and charcoal grey cargo pants, tucked into heavy looking boots.

"Rain!"

Within half a second, Kid Flash is plastered against Rain's side with an arm slung around him. He's in civilian clothes today, a red shirt over a faded band t-shirt and scruffy jeans. 

"Good to see you, buddy. Where've you been?"

Eee!

Correction: Kid Flash is now scooped up in a gleeful bear hug. Despite his strength, Rain is very gentle. He will absolutely not squish his friend.

"Hi! Good to see you, too! Shadowcrest Manor, mostly. It's a magic house!"

"Aw, man, we - eep!"  Kid Flash was not expecting a bear-hug. 

"Yeah, uh, we've been getting lectured by Bat-dad for the last three days, it sucked...wait, magic house?"

Bat-dad.

...Robin will just be over here cracking up. 

Since Batman won't let him reveal his secret identity to the others, his outfit for the day includes a pair of dark glasses along with a green hoodie.

"Magic house! It moves to different places sometimes, and I needed to get a spell put on me so I could reliably see it, and it's got doors that go to different places and there's one to here now, and it's cool! Also it comes with parents and a sister, I have those now, having those is pretty great."

"You got adopted?" Robin translates.

"Cool! By who?"

"Eventide! And his wife. I like them, they're nice. Though I'm probably not going to have a secret identity, so we're not going to call attention to the fact that Eventide's my dad now to the public. But he said it was fine to talk about it to you guys, so I can actually tell you."

"It is good to know that you are in safe hands, my friend," Aqualad says. 

He's in civvies like the others, a blue and black tracksuit with a high collar. The outfit was clearly designed to hide his gills and tattoos. 

"I look forward to working with you once again." 

"Yeah, I can't believe we're gonna be an actual team! And we get a secret base and everything!" 

Having extracted himself from hug, Kid Flash is racing around pushing buttons to see what they do. 

"Oh, man, I hope Speedy's joining us." 

"Yeah. It sounds like I should meet him." Bounce. "Oh, speaking of meetings - my sister's here fixing the appliances, do you want to meet her before Batman's all gruff and serious at us?"

"Sure!" Kid Flash skids to a halt in front of Rain. 

"Lead the way!" 

"Sounds like fun," Robin agrees. 

"Also, I think you meant Bat-dad," he says with a shit-eating grin, nudging Kid Flash. 

"Oh man, did I - did I really say that?" 

Robin just cackles.

"Shut up!" He's blushing, which only makes Robin laugh harder. 

Rain giggles, but doesn't comment. Best to save Kid Flash by providing something else for them to talk about. He leads the way to the kitchen.

A voice echoes around the corner.

"Who's a good microwave? You are! Yes you are, you're not going to make weird cold pockets in food, are you? No, you're not -"

.... This does not help with his giggling. This really does not help with his giggling. Since he's too busy giggling to talk, he waves expressively towards the kitchen in lieu of an introduction.

Where a redheaded girl of about fourteen sits on the floor, sweet talking a microwave. The microwave is glowing a misty silver.

"- and you will clean yourself up and save everyone so much work, because you are a good microwave. You won't be like the oven and give me trouble, no you won't..."

The microwave stops glowing, and she smiles and pats it.

Robin had almost managed to stop laughing before they walked in, but gets another brief gigglefit at this little speech.

"Rain's new sister, I presume?" 

"Hm?" She looks up from the appliance on her lap. She blinks, considers her audience, then she starts slowly turning pink.

"Um."

"Yeah! Hi, did you fix the microwave?"

"Yes, yes it is so fixed now. With my, uh, definitely very necessary magical incantation, yep."

She coughs, then stands and awkwardly returns the microwave to its place on the countertop. She is so very busy being concerned about plugging it in, it's clearly such an important thing to do that requires her total and complete attention.

Kid Flash is suddenly leaning on the counter next to her. "Hi, I'm Kid Flash! And this is Robin, and that's Aqualad."

He smiles. "What's your name?" 

She jumps a little at the casual display of superspeed, but she returns his smile.

"Um, Yvette. Hi. Or - did you mean superhero name, because I don't, er, have one of those..."

"No, no, it's fine, you're not a superhero," Kid Flash babbles. 

"I'll tell you my civilian name if you like..." 

Aqualad shakes his head at Kid Flash. He steps forward and bows, placing his hand on his chest. 

"It is an honour to meet you, Yvette. I am Kaldur'ahm, known on the surface as Aqualad." 

Oh goodness this is a large number of people her age all focused on her at once, eep.

"Honor to meet you too," she says politely to Kaldur, then looks at Kid Flash again. "Uh - whichever you like? It's your secret identity, I'm not going to demand it of you."

"Well, if Aqualad's doing it - hey, nice name by the way," he tells Kaldur.

"I guess you guys can call me Nate." 

"Don't call him Nathaniel," Robin contributes. 

"I'd jump on the bandwagon, but Batman won't let me tell anyone my secret identity." 

Blink.

"Uh, okay. Nice to meet you all."

Can he celebrate this with a hug? Because he'd like to! Hmmm, but who to hug...

Eenie, meenie, miney... sister!

"Eep," says the sister in question, then she snorts.

"This is my penance for teaching you about hugs, isn't it."

"Yes," agrees Rain, sagely.

Robin hops up onto the kitchen table and sits there swinging his legs. 

"So, what were you doing with the microwave?" he asks Yvette.

"Oh, it's magic now. Well, partially. Self cleaning, will try not to leave weird cold spots in your food, won't turn on if you put a cat in it, that sort of thing."

"A necessity I'm sure won't be tested," says Batman, showing up out of nowhere as Batman is wont to do. He looks at Robin. "Is that a chair?"

"...no?" 

Pouting, Robin pushes himself off the table and drops back down to the floor. It looks less impressive than usual without his cape flaring behind him. 

"Thank you."

He looks to the others and motions for them to follow.

They all obediently follow him back through to the main room.

Nate and Robin whisper together as they walk, speculating about what might be about to happen. 

What looks like half the Justice League seems to have congregated in the main room. Some of them were there when the kids arrived, or came with them, but others have zeta-ed in while they were gone. 

Flash and Aquaman are there, as mentors to two of the team, but so are Black Canary, Red Tornado, Hawkman, and Captain Marvel. Martian Manhunter is standing by the zeta tube, having clearly just arrived. 

The two Green Lanterns are flying around the ridiculously high ceiling, moving heavy objects into position. 

"This cave was the original secret sanctuary of the Justice League. We're calling it into service again to serve as your base of operations. Red Tornado volunteered to live here and be your supervisor. Black Canary's in charge of training. I will deploy you on missions."

"Real missions?"

Robin looks dubious, possibly from experience. 

Batman looks a little bit like he just swallowed a lemon.

"Yes," he allows, "but covert."

"The League'll still handle the obvious stuff," Flash adds.

"There's a reason we have these big targets on our chests." He taps his lightning bolt insignia with a self-deprecating grin. 

"But Cadmus proves the bad guys are getting smarter."

Aquaman looks about as happy as Batman with this state of affairs.

"Batman needs a team that can operate on the sly."

"The five of you will be that team."

"Cool!" is Nate's verdict.

"...wait, five?" There are only four of them - Rain, Aqualad, Robin and Kid Flash.

"Is Yvette gonna be joining us?" 

"Not currently. Joining you will be Martian Manhunter's niece, Miss Martian." He motions behind them.

A smaller figure who has been hiding behind Martian Manhunter now steps out from the safety of his shadow. 

Like her uncle, she is green-skinned, and dressed in a costume with a red X over the chest. She also seems to have copied the high-collared blue cloak, although the costume under it is blue and white, rather than black. The most obvious difference between them, though, is her long, curly ginger hair. 

Other than the green, she looks exactly like a human sixteen-year-old.

She smiles shyly at her new team. 

"Liking this gig more every minute," Nate mutters to Robin.

He steps forward to greet Miss Martian, grinning broadly.

"Welcome aboard, Miss M! I'm Kid Flash, but you can call me Nate." 

...he thinks she's pretty. She wasn't deliberately trying to read his thoughts—Uncle J'onn told her that's considered rude on Earth—but that one's about her and it's kind of hard to ignore.

And now he's waiting for her to say something. Time to test out the American accent she's been practicing. 

"Hi...it's nice to meet you." Oh, right, handshakes are a thing, they work like this...she's got this. Totally. 

!!!!

She's Martian, and Martians are telepaths! He has ever used telepathy in his life, he doesn't have it, but he can definitely project friendliness and 'hi you can come talk to me' mentally. He does that. He so does that.

Hi!! / Wow you came a really long way to be here! / Are there things you're confused about / Can I help? / Hi!!!!! It's so great to meet you!!!! / ~Telepathy!!! telepathy!!! telepathy!!!~ / I'll give you space if this is too much! New things can often be a lot! / I just want you to be safe and happy and be somewhere you like!

It would be impossible to fake this much sincerity. He is very sincere.

!!!

Hi! she replies gleefully. It's good to meet you too! I wasn't expecting anyone on Earth to be this comfortable with telepathy!  'Comfortable' seems like an understatement. He really likes telepathy!

She sends him her current mood: a little bit overwhelmed by all the new things, but relieved to be using a familiar means of communication. This is definitely helping.

I was raised/grown/taught with telepathy! I miss it, and I'm really really really glad I can talk to you with it! It's nice! And I'm glad that this is helping - do you want context and explanation for all of the new things, I can just send you mine if that wouldn't be too much?

He has not moved since he saw her, in favor of standing right where he is with the biggest smile on his face. He's forgotten that walking up to say hi to her in meatspace is a thing that matters, he's busy saying hi to her.

Robin and Kaldur have gone over to greet Miss Martian and welcome her to the team. 

It's hard to tell, because he's so quiet by default, but Kaldur is maybe a little distracted. He's staring off into space with a vaguely mopey expression. 

Robin, by contrast, is perfectly chipper. 

"Hey Rain, come meet Miss M!" he calls over his shoulder when he notices the other boy hasn't joined them. 

..? That's what he's doing...?

Oh, right. Meatspace. Yeah, okay, sure. He bounces over to aim his brilliant smile at her instead of just aiming his thoughts at her.

...

Batman had a whole 'this is what you will be doing' speech prepared. It has now been sidetracked. In retrospect, this was predictable.

He's just going to wait until they're done.

I think I'll manage, Miss Martian says to Rain, but it's sweet of you to ask.

Smiling! That is the thing humans do when they're happy! It's easier to make the connection when she has Rain right in front of her, smiling and projecting 'happy' at the same time. Learning human body language from television was hard without that sort of cue. 

"Hi," she says out loud, mostly for the benefit of everyone she isn't talking to telepathically. 

"If you don't want to call me Miss Martian, I'd prefer 'M'kel' to 'Miss M'," she tells Robin and Nate. "M'kel M'orzz." 

"You got it," says Nate.

He takes his best shot at pronouncing "Muh-kel. Wow, that has...too many consonants or something." 

Robin snorts. "Wow, rude." 

He grins at M'kel. "Just ignore Nate, you'll get used to him."

Ignoring Nate's indignant spluttering, he leads her over to where Batman and the other mentors are waiting with varied levels of patience. Kaldur follows, as does a pouting Nate. 

Okay! Let me know if there's anything you need!

Rain bounces over to Batman and the other mentors. He's feeling very bouncy, today. Bounce, bounce, bounce.

Awwww. 

Batman begins explaining what will be expected of them; they have a supervisor, but their own organizational structure will be up to them. If they want to have a person in charge, they'll need to pick them. The League will provide them with supplies and equipment; if there's anything they feel they need, they can make a request. Mount Justice will serve as their base of operations and a home-away-from-home for any members that need (or want) it.

And then: security procedures. Such security procedures. Since they'll be working through the Justice League Zeta-Tube network, they will be expected to uphold Justice League security standards. Mount Justice is in the process of being placed under a glamour, so as not to draw attention that it's being called into use again; they should try not to compromise that. Here are the procedures they should follow for trying not to compromise that. Here is where they can find the procedures they should follow for trying not to compromise that later, should they ever feel that they don't know the procedures well enough. They should know the procedures well enough. Ahem.

Batman has a talent for sucking all of the fun out of things, and he definitely deploys it here. This is serious business, they will conduct themselves as such. Fun is not unauthorized, but fun does not come at the cost of their safety. Ever.

After the seriousness of the whole affair is good and impressed upon them, Batman finally releases them. Mount Justice is still being set up for their use, but they can do what they like.

"Yes! Time to go exploring," Nate declares, stretching. Judging by the way his foot has been tapping for the last fifteen minutes, he's more than ready to move. 

"Rain, did you find anything cool yet?" 

"Depends on the definition of cool! There's a waterfall in one room, and a big library, and there's a - cave place... thing... Plus there are a lot of, uh..." He waves his hand awkwardly, trying to figure out his words. To M'kel, he sends an impression of a network of caves and passages and corridors, some of them secret and hidden. This quality is approximately his favorite of the entire base; it's tricky to learn, and there are downsides to it, but it gives them a home advantage in case this place gets attacked. They could run circles around anyone that didn't know the area so well. This helps him coalesce his thoughts, and he explains to everyone else: "Secret passages and corridors and convenient air ducts. It'd take hours to learn them all, I think they're neat."

"I know what we should do."

Robin has a massive grin on his face, which is either promising or worrying. 

Kaldur is opting for 'worried'. 

"...what." 

"We should play Hide and Seek!" 

... Rain bounces, grinning. He doesn't precisely know what Hide and Seek is, but from the name, he can hazard a guess. He's pretty sure that it's going to be ludicrous amounts of fun.

"Okay! What are the rules and how do we play?"

"We should be certain all of us are playing by the same rules, since we all come from different backgrounds," Kaldur agrees.

"The version played in Atlantis involves one person waiting for a set time while all the others hide, then heading out in search of them. The players can move between hiding places, or stay in one spot and trust that they have chosen well. Those who are found first help to search for the rest." 

"Sounds great!" Nate says. Robin nods immediately.

"Who wants to count first? Oh—and we should totally invite Yvette to play, right guys?" 

"Yvette?"

That sounds almost like a Martian name, but Uncle J'onn would know if there were any other Martians affiliated with the Justice League. They're probably a human. 

A team member she hasn't met? A League member her uncle didn't mention? Perhaps a servant of some kind? 

"My sister!" He sends an explanation. He's a clone and was made in a test tube and recently had a divorce from his creators of the violent variety. So his parents (the concept is still a bit new to him, but he's positive about it) decided to adopt him to help him adjust to the world, and also to give him a set of parents. Maybe other parents might suck, but his are great, and Yvette is therefore his adopted sister! She's also really great! She's not on the team, but she's associated with it and maybe-eventually-might-join. This is because she's Eventide's daughter (oh, right, by the way - Eventide: his dad, but that's not public knowledge) and therefore knows magic. She's here upgrading the base with magic. Rain isn't sure how she'd be good at Hide and Seek, but he's pretty sure she's going to be fantastic at it.

"We should definitely invite Yvette to play," agrees Rain.

"Oh, okay." I have sisters and parents too! Well, not sisters exactly, Martians don't really do gender, but siblings. Twenty-nine of them. None of them are as great as Yvette sounds. 

And while she remembers, they should probably tell everyone else that telepathic conversations are a thing that's happening.

"Um, Rain is helping me out by telepathically sending me things? If anyone else wants to do the same, that would be helpful, but you don't have to. I know telepathy isn't normal on Earth—and I'm not reading anyone's mind unless they give me permission," she hurries to add.

"I was a bright neon bundle of 'Hi come speak telepathically to me!' Which is why I forgot to walk up to her; I'd already said hi. It was the first thing I did."

Nate looks mildly uncomfortable. "Yeah, if you could...keep. Not reading my mind. That'd be awesome."

He gives M'kel a thumbs-up and a fake grin. 

"What he means is," Kaldur adds, "we appreciate you telling us." He was briefly startled, but recovered quickly and schooled his face back to neutrality. 

"As you say, reading the thoughts of others is not customary on Earth, and most of those you meet will be incapable of doing so. I would suggest you warn people before engaging in telepathic conversations with them." 

She nods seriously.

"My apologies for not telling you sooner. I was, uh, distracted." 

"Wait, did you guys not know?" Robin asks Nate and Kaldur. 

"I thought everyone knew Martians were telepaths! Batman taught me how to shield my mind when I was eleven." 

"Hey, not all of us were fighting crime in grade school, Boy Wonder," Nate points out.

"Some of us haven't had time to learn this stuff." 

Rain studiously does not bring up the fact that he's still not technically old enough for grade school.

"That's what today's for!" he says instead, because that seems like it'll make the conflict — not. "I bet we all have weird tricks the rest of us aren't aware of that we'll learn over time. Speaking of; can I be the first one to seek? And can we get Yvette?"

"Sure! I'll fetch her."

Before anyone has a chance to contradict him, Nate zips off, heading for the last place he saw her.

Does the kitchen still contain an Yvette? 

Nope! But she's nearby, in the living room, drawing on the television in some kind of glowing blue marker.

He'll grab a snack while he's here, anyway, and wander through to join her.

"Hey," he says between bites of his apple. "What'cha doin'? We're gonna play hide-n-seek, wanna join?" 

She doesn't jump at his entrance this time! Progress!

"Hi," she says, not looking up from carefully drawing on the television. "Stealing cable. ... That's facetious, it's legally sourced, just you probably don't want anyone to know that you're in here so it's not like you can have any good—" Blink. "—Hide and Seek? Uh." She considers the scope of a game of Hide and Seek with a bunch of superpowered teenagers. "Yes absolutely."

"Great! Now? Or do you need to finish doing your...thing...first."

He gestures vaguely at the glowy drawings. 

"I'd like to finish doing my thing first, one moment, almost done." Draw, draw, draw, aaand —

"Hocus pocus, cable and whatnot," she says, casually poking the very top of the television. The glowing drawings brighten, the television glows a faint orange, and there's a faint energy to the room. Then the energy fades, both the television and the drawings cease to glow, and the drawings go one step further and cease to be, fading away into nothingness. The television looks completely mundane.

"Done!"

Nate, watching from across the room, snorts at the decidedly irreverent incantation. 

"Well, that was...cute," he says once she's finished. "Let's—go find the others."

He turns to lead the way without waiting for her answer, fortunately staying at normal-human speed. 

"Sure," she agrees, deflating slightly. Well now she's self conscious about the decidedly irreverent incantation. Did she do something wrong...? She probably shouldn't worry about it. And yet.

She follows after him.

Oh great he made it awkward time to start babbling about something completely unrelated.

"So uh we convinced Kaldur our version of hide-and-seek was the same as his version which involves a bunch of moving between hiding spots, and if you could—not contradict us—that'd be great 'cause it sounds way more fun—" 

"Oh! No, that sounds amazing. And way more balanced, really, considering everyone's power and skill sets. Though I maybe need to get some supplies, if it's going to be a game of cat and mouse throughout Mount Justice."

"Sure," he agrees easily.

"Or, I mean, I could fetch stuff for you. As long as it isn't more complicated to explain than to do it yourself, or whatever." 

"No, but thank you, though. I just need to, um. Scribble on the floor in marker, give me a bit?"

"Oookay, you do that, I'll just—" he points in the direction they were going.

"Go tell everyone you're on your way." 

"Um. Okay," she agrees, a little awkwardly. She looks like she wants to ask a question but isn't quite brave enough.

"What?" he snaps, with a touch of impatience. 

Why does everyone move so much slower than him, they're wasting time...

She flinches, wincing.

"Um. Areyouokaywithmagicyouseemlikeyou'renot."

"Oh! No, no, I love magic, magic's great, it's awesome, gottagobye—" 

Aaand he's gone. 

"—Um, okay," says Yvette, to the empty air.

She guesses she'll just — go get magic supplies, then??

Smooth, thinks the member of the team with super-hearing. Who of course heard all of that.

"Where's Yvette?" he wonders, innocently. "I thought you were getting her."

M'kel, who is still reading Rain's mind, is glad she doesn't automatically display her emotions on her face yet. 

Rain can hear her mentally giggling, though. 

"Yeah no she's, uh, getting some stuff. From a place," Nate attempts to explain.

"She'll be here in a minute, I just thought I'd come and let you guys know what was taking so long." 

"Probably getting magic supplies from home," says Rain, sagely. "Shouldn't take long, the house is also magic, but thanks for letting us know."

He says this with an impressively straight face. The hint of a smile is perfectly natural, in these circumstances, where he's about to play Hide and Seek. But on the inside: yep, he's definitely also giggling. Just hiding it very well. Nate wouldn't appreciate being laughed at, even if this is pretty funny. They're just so charmingly awkward. Maybe if they keep it up he'll try and help fix it, but he's comfortably sure that Nate and Yvette will get on like a house on fire once they get past their mutual awkward. They have a similar sort of style. So it's fine to take advantage of the brief time of awkward and giggle. Quietly.

But all right, he had his fun, now to quietly disarm the remaining awkward:

"So no one else wants to seek first, right?" he confirms, bouncing because he wants to and because it'll change the context of his smile.

"You are welcome to be the first," Kaldur confirms, returning the smile with no idea of its true meaning.

"Although we should first decide how high the count needs to be." 

"Five hundred!" Robin pipes up immediately. 

"Cool it, Boy Wonder." Nate looks like he's stifling giggles, though, which is an improvement on hiding mild discomfort. 

"That is way too long. Fifty?"

"One hundred's probably enough for everybody. It's a big place, even you need some time to figure out the lay of the land."

This isn't the real reason he's suggesting it. Fifty's a bit short, but they could probably all make it work. They're all pretty decisive people. A hundred is just long enough that everyone will have time to figure out where they'll go, and then get nice and bored. This is by design. He'd like them to be bored, it will make them easier to find as they awkwardly shuffle in their hiding places.

He's already figuring out everyone's tactics. Kaldur is definitely going to go somewhere strange in the underwater sections of the base; Rain's pretty sure he'll have ideas about where to hide that none of the people more familiar with the surface will think of. Nate is going to stay mobile. Robin's going straight into the vent system where Rain absolutely cannot follow him. Yvette's going to do something clever with magic. He's going to need to be very deliberate about the order in which he finds people, he thinks. Some of their power and skill sets counter each other more readily than others.

... Mysteriously, he has no thoughts towards M'kel's possible tactics. Just a calm, playful certainty that he's up to the task.

And here is Yvette, with a small satchel slung over her shoulder.

"Hi," she says, a little shyly.

How mysterious. (He's adorable. She sends this.)  

"Hi! I'm M'kel. You must be Rain's sister." 

"I am! I'm Yvette, nice to meet you."

"Likewise!" Meeting new people is great. Well, meeting new people who are genuinely happy to meet her is great. 

Speaking of which... "Um, I'm a telepath? I won't read your mind without permission; Rain's letting me read his." And being inexplicably adorable about it!

"Oh good! I'm glad he has someone to telepath at, he was getting kind of lonely," she says, sincerely.

You see why I like her, thinks Rain, a little smugly. About that, and about being adorable. (Yes. Yes he is.)

"Thank you for not reading my mind without my permission! Welcome to Earth, um. Welcome to the team that I am not a part of? I am probably not qualified for that one..."

Nate snorts.

He seems to be pretty much comfortable around Yvette again, for now. He's leaning casually against a wall, giving absolutely no indication that he's ready to start running at a moment's notice whenever Rain begins the count. 

"Thanks!" Wow M'kel is smiling a lot today. She thinks she's smiled more in the last hour than she has in the entire rest of her life, and only mostly because Martians don't tend to express emotion through facial expressions. 

Yeah, she seems nice. 

"I feel very welcomed." And now they can start playing, right? She's never played this game before, and it sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun.

Rain beams.

"So, are we ready to play? There are no objections to counting to a hundred?"

"I mean, if it doesn't work we can change the count next round," Robin says.

"—hey, that's a point, who counts next? Is it the first person to be caught or the last one?" 

Kaldur frowns, trying to think back to when he last played this game.

"...the last," he decides. "And now, I think, we are ready." He nods at Rain. 

Obligingly, Rain closes his eyes.

"One, two, three..."

Nate is gone before he's finished counting to two.

Robin takes off in the opposite direction.

A little way down the corridor, he pops the cover off an air vent and disappears inside, pulling it back in place after him. 

Yvette turns and dashes down a hall, smiling. She knows precisely where she's going, but she wants to get in just a bit of setup first.

M'kel pulls up the hood of her blue cloak, and the colours of the wall behind her ripple across it. In a matter of moments, she is almost perfectly camouflaged. 

The fact that she can fly means even Rain's hearing won't be able to pick up her footsteps. Hovering telekinetically a few inches above the floor, she glides out of the room. 

Kaldur heads back towards the hangar, which contains the underwater entrance to the mountain. He won't leave the cave—that wouldn't be fair—but he can sit underwater next to the bay doors which lead out into the Pacific Ocean. If he picks the right spot, he won't be visible from the surface. 

Batman glances up from his work updating the hangar's security systems. He notes the speed at which Aqualad is moving.

"Trouble?"

Kaldur slows from the military jog he had unconsciously fallen into.

"Ah—no. I am merely participating in...an important team-building exercise," he explains, straight-faced and with only a little hesitation. "My apologies for disturbing your work."

He heads over to the ramp that leads down to the water, hoping Rain wasn't paying enough attention to overhear that conversation. 

Ah. That kind of training exercise. Sounds like an excellent idea, really. They'll introduce themselves to each other and familiarize themselves with their teammates' tactics, skills, and personality.

And Robin is definitely going to win.

"No apology necessary. Carry on."

Rain started paying attention to that conversation when he heard Kaldur's voice. Yep, there's the splash, called it.

Are there any other clues Rain can pick up from listening while everyone hides?

Nate isn't exactly the quietest when he's running this fast, especially since he had to dodge a few Leaguers himself while he was racing through the corridors. 

Judging by the volume and the echoes, he's somewhere on the far side of the mountain by the time he slows down. 

M'kel is barely making a sound. Floating off the ground means there are no footsteps to give her away, and if she's invisible then she won't give away her position by needing to talk to an adult like Kaldur just did. 

When Rain turns his attention to her, she holds her breath and stretches her control of her physiology to slow down and muffle her heartbeat, just for a moment or two until he focuses on someone else. 

Robin has found a hiding place and is currently holding very still.

He's practising a breathing exercise Batman taught him to slow down his heartbeat. Unlike M'kel, he'll be able to sustain this level of quiet for a while. 

Yvette's footsteps are ordinary, and she has to awkwardly stammer through some explanations to confused members of the Justice League on her way to her hiding place—

—And then they disappear. Her footsteps, her breathing, her heartbeat. Gone. Probably by magic.

"One hundred," says Rain, very quietly. He's smiling.

Kaldur first, then. He's closer and he knows (in a general sense) where he is. To the hangar!

Kaldur hasn't moved by the time Rain gets there. He's not immediately visible, having found a corner to hide behind, but his heartbeat is probably audible even through the water.

The problem will be reaching him, as he's picked one of the deepest points he could find without leaving the cavern. 

Mhm. Mhm. Yes, he sees.

If Kaldur isn't visible to Rain, then Rain isn't visible to Kaldur. So he can take a minute, remove his shoes, take off his shirt...

... and then, once all that's done, he looks at Batman. He smiles brightly.

"You have an underwater breathing thingy, right? Can I borrow it?"

"... I'll be expecting it back," says Batman, but he hands over the 'underwater breathing thingy.' "Undamaged."

"Yep!" agrees Rain, brightly.

He judges where precisely he needs to aim towards to land right on Kaldur. Yeah, he can make that jump. This decided, he takes a few deep breaths, expels all of the air from his lungs, puts in the underwater breathing thingy, and leaps. His aim is very good.

No oxygen in his lungs means no buoyancy, which means that even without an advantage in water, he is sinking like a stone. Right towards Kaldur.

Kaldur spent two years in the Shayeris military and has the reflexes to prove it.

His instinctive reaction to something dropping on him from above, even in a context where he isn't expecting an attack, is to hit it. Fortunately for Rain, he doesn't have his Water-Bearers to hand at the moment, so he's only punching with bare fists. Less fortunately, since Rain decided to dive feet-first, his blind swing connects with...a rather sensitive area. 

Ow, that's pain, that's sure some pain, ow ow ow ow ow—

—he has the presence of mind to lightly tap Kaldur before he shuts down entirely, and then ow he really doesn't have the presence of mind to make it back to the surface, ow ow ow ow ow.

He's sure glad he got that breathing thingy from Batman, because at least he is allowed to curl up and be pain itself for a while without having to worry about not being able to breathe underwater. Mhm. Yep. That was a good plan. Not that he can really tell right now. In case it wasn't clear: ow.

Kaldur recognises Rain after less than half a second and relaxes out of full alert.

It only takes him another half-second to remember that Rain can't breathe underwater on his own, which sends him right back into panic mode again until he notices the rebreather. Even with that, though, he should probably help his friend get to the surface. 

Rather than outright grabbing the person he just punched, he taps Rain lightly on the arm to get his attention. 

Rain's a little busy right now being agony itself, but - yeah, fine, hi Kaldur. He knows you're there. Good job. He makes a little thumbs up that could either mean 'I'm fine' or 'please get me to the surface.' It's not actually very clear.

(Elsewhere, M'kel finds Rain's commentary on the situation utterly hilarious.

But, ow, that was painful. Now she gets why Earth television always made such a big deal out of men getting hit there.) 

Kaldur decides to call that good enough; if he gets punched trying to help at this point, it'll only be fair.

He takes Rain's arm and starts towing him gently in the right direction. Not straight up—even with the water helping he doesn't want to try lifting a clone of Superman one-handed—but drifting upwards and in the direction of the ramp. 

Rain cooperates with this ferrying. Things slowly stop being entirely agony. By the time they reach the surface, he can think real actual person thoughts again.

He removes the rebreather, then coughs, "Good reflexes."

"My apologies," Kaldur says, holding out a hand to help him up. 

"I did not see you, and I simply reacted on instinct." 

"S'fine," he says, sincerely. He waves the rebreather at Kaldur in lieu of accepting the hand and getting up, though. "Return this to Batman for me please?"

Batman, for his part, is still updating the hangar's security systems. He looks to all the world like everything happening in this hangar is of utmost importance and is deathly serious about all of it.

Kaldur waits patiently for him to reach a stopping point, rather than interrupting. 

He doesn't know enough about technology to understand what Batman's doing, but it's interesting to watch all the same. Plus, this gives Rain a chance to get his breath back without making it obvious that Kaldur is waiting for him. 

"The grotto would have been better," says Batman, without looking up.

Kaldur blinks. He's not sure what he was expecting Batman to say, but it wasn't that. 

"...sir?"

Now Batman looks up. He looks at Kaldur, and enters Instructor Mode.

"Your opponent was trying to locate you through auditory perception, and unfortunately for you, water conducts sound. In a more open aquatic environment, like the ocean floor, this could have been used to your advantage to confuse where your location might be. But you didn't have one of those available. You had two major sources of water to hide in. This one is open, and as you noticed, consequentially open to ambush from above. The grotto is not. Furthermore, it's smaller, and has better acoustics."

Batman pauses, to see if Kaldur sees the implication. 'Better acoustics' seems like a terrible set of words when dealing with an opponent that tracks by auditory perception, but realistically, there isn't a way for Kaldur to have hidden from Rain's superhearing without better equipment and training. Instead, it would have been possible to go in the complete opposite direction, and create so much sound in an enclosed space that Rain couldn't detect where in the room Kaldur was. It probably wouldn't work either, Kaldur is sort of at a major disadvantage here, but it would have given him more room to work with.

"Thank you for the advice," Kaldur replies, looking thoughtful. Acoustics...Rain's enhanced hearing could leave him more vulnerable to deafness, or noisy distractions. This game is already proving its worth for their development as a team: it's useful to know a teammate's weaknesses so that one can compensate for them. 

He holds out the rebreather. "I believe this is yours?" 

"It's what I'm here for. Yes, it is, thank you." He then goes right back to what he was doing.

With utmost seriousness and gravitas, he adds: "Keep up the good work, both of you."

Rain smiles, then clears his throat and decides that it is time to just casually carry on as if he did not get punched somewhere sensitive.

"Can you use magic to find my sister?" he asks Kaldur, brightly.

"That...depends on how thoroughly she is hiding," Kaldur replies. "I am far from a master of sorcery."

This is probably not the best time to admit that he dropped out of his sorcery training to become Aqualad. 

"Better than I am! And she might not have thought to hide from you. After all, I'm the one seeking."

"True. Since you are not a sorcerer, she may not have thought to hide her magical presence."

Kaldur closes his eyes and focuses. The tattoos on his arms glow blue through the sleeves of his tracksuit as he reaches out with his sorcery, searching for Yvette. 

There are the subtle patterns of carefully woven magic over the whole base, distinguishable only because he's on the correct side of the magic hiding them from outside view...

... And almost directly above them, a bright and burning aura of active magic.

He's surprised enough that he loses concentration and drops the threads of magic. Laughing, he tilts his head back to look up at the ceiling.

"Can you jump that high?" he asks Rain. "Or should I give you a ride?" 

"Ride!" asserts Rain, grinning. "I can probably jump that high, but you know where she is and I don't."

—Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, why didn't she think of that? Of course she doesn't know how to disguise herself from other magic users yet! There are approximately no magic users to disguise herself from up here! Why didn't she take that into account, she even hid in the same room as Kaldur! That's just upsetting, if she gets eliminated second despite her best efforts she is going to be so annoyed.

Luckily, just standing on the ceiling inaudibly invisible is not the entirety of her bag of tricks. She already has her chalk out and is drawing.

The tattoos light up again as Kaldur pulls out his Water-Bearers and starts drawing water from the convenient pool right next to them. 

As the water builds up beneath his and Rain's feet, they are lifted towards Yvette on a platform that's a lot sturdier than it looks, and rising by the second. 

The ceiling is tall enough that she has some time. She draws a door to match the one she set up before she hid here, then decides that having easy access to a very tall ceiling is worth the time investment, and draws a second rectangle in magic chalk.

Then she activates the first door and climbs through it to arrive in a completely different part of the base. Hey, fair's fair, right? The two of them may have a front row seat to a chalk rectangle changing into a doorway to another part of the base.

She closes it behind her. A second, inert rectangle sits beside the first.

He sees it, speeds up—but not enough to catch her before the door closes.

"She's gone," he reports to Rain, who probably guessed already. "That was a portal of some kind." 

Since they no longer need to be near the ceiling—he doesn't think he can re-open the portal—he starts letting the water recede back into a more natural configuration. 

"Yeah," Rain agrees, thoughtfully. "Hold on, don't put us down yet—she didn't just go through the portal. She drew another rectangle first." He points. There are two rectangles on the ceiling; one in grey, one blue. The grey one had been the portal. "I bet she had a good reason, otherwise why waste her time and risk getting caught?"

Squint.

"I believe it is the first half of an inactive portal—useless until the second half is drawn. We cannot use it to follow her...but if we destroy it, she will no longer be able to use it either." 

...he flicks a stream of water up at the blue rectangle, aiming to make a gap in one of the edges so it's no longer a complete shape. Hopefully the chalk isn't water-resistant. (The grey rectangle, now it's been used, doesn't look like it would work again; he leaves it alone rather than wasting water and effort.) 

It is not water-resistant! It washes away easily.

"Yeah. Good idea. This is a bad spot for the other half of a portal. Too hard for one of us to stay up here to ambush her when she comes through. Maybe we can with others, though. I bet she's going to do this again."

...Kaldur blinks, then grins.

"That is not a strategy I had considered," he admits. "It could prove fruitful." 

Now, where might Yvette have ended up...

The answer is: invisibly looking for another spot to draw out portals. Clearly she can't hole up on the ceiling somewhere again, Kaldur can sense her magic (which feels very unfair, but isn't), so it's instead time to play keep away. If she has her way, she's going to have portals absolutely everywhere. But getting them spread out is hard, she's drawing all of these out herself and that involves a lot of running around. She predicts she's going to be very tired by the end of this; running is not her forte.

She vaguely regrets not putting more effort into PE or picking up some kind of sporty thing that would have made this easier, and jogs down a hallway, looking for places to hide portals as she goes.

There's a red blur streaking down the corridor—

—and then Nate runs straight into her, knocking them both to the floor. 

"Ow! What the hell?" 

She yelps as she goes down.

"Ow," she mumbles. Still invisible. "Hi, Nate."

Nate sits up, rubbing his head.

"...Yvette? What the—whoa, are you invisible? How does that work, are you refracting the light waves around yourself somehow—" 

"Sort of, it's actually a bit more complicated than that, because if I just did that then I couldn't see anything, because the light would bend around my eyes and I'd be blind, so there's a—actually you know what this might be a bad time."

"—right, yeah, maybe."

He gets to his feet, trying not to step on invisible-Yvette. 

"So, your strategy was to run around invisible? Am I the only person who's run into you?" 

She assists with not being stepped on! In that she scoots away and then also stands.

"No, my strategy was to invisibly hang out on the ceiling under a sound baffle playing bejeweled, but my brother enlisted Kaldur who could tell that there was magic happening, so now I am on plan B. Plan B is draw chalk portals everywhere and play keep away—" Something occurs to her. It sure would be nice to have someone with superspeed who's good at running to put down portals everywhere. "—actually. I don't need to be the one to draw them. And you're already playing keep away—do you want to team up?"

"You mean, do I want to run around drawing magic portals everywhere instead of running around doing nothing in particular?" 

He considers it. 

"What do these portals even look like, anyway? 'Cause if you need the drawing talent of, like, a fourth grader, you might be out of luck." 

"Oh, no, nothing fancy. Just rectangles. Admittedly they need to be around the same size, otherwise the portal might end up kind of unstable. Here, let me show you." She quickly draws two portal rectangles on the wall, then activates one. Demonstrably, she waves a hand through it. Then she realizes that she's still invisible and that he can't see it, and awkwardly removes her hand, coughing. It's sure useful that she's invisible and he didn't see that. "I need to be on one end to activate them, though."

"Huh, okay." He pokes the active portal. 

"So if you don't need to draw it yourself, and there's nothing special about the shape, where does the magic part come from? The chalk?"

"The chalk, and also me. I can't do this with just any chalk, and not just anyone could use it to make a portal. Which is why I can't just make a lot of magic chalk, sell it to the world, make millions, and retire at the tender age of fourteen."

He snorts.

"Pity. But you can give me some of your chalk, and I can run around drawing rectangles on the wall and you can turn them into portals?" 

"Yep! And I can probably set up a magic radio thing so we can talk to each other and coordinate, so if you get cornered you can draw a portal and I can give you an exit. My brother will be able to hear us, but."

He can, in fact, hear them right now, and therefore so can the telepath listening in on his mind. 

M'kel could offer to create a telepathic link between the three of them, to help them coordinate without Rain listening in, but she's not close enough to the other two that they could hear her without telepathy and she doesn't want to suddenly start talking in their minds without an invitation. She'll wait; maybe an opportunity will come up later. 

"Sounds good...wait, you think he can hear us right now? Should we be standing around talking?" 

"He absolutely can hear us right now, and uh. No, probably not. I bought some time with portals but we are maybe running out of it. Hold out your hand? I'll give you chalk so you can go draw a portal far away, and I can rig up a magic radio in the meantime and meet up with you to hand it to you."

"Right, okay."

He holds out his hand. 

A single stick of blue chalk materializes out of the air and drops into his hand. It feels... strange. Not dry and dusty like ordinary chalk. Instead it's kind of fizzly, like a carbonated drink, but also strangely smooth. It bears more resemblance to something like crayon or oil pastel than chalk.

Another rectangle begins drawing itself onto the wall.

"I'll notice when you draw the other end and step through immediately. Uh, with the superpowered brother closing in, please don't take—"

And he's gone. 

Hmm, down this corridor, skid around the corner and along this one, dodging the occasional confused adult...and now he's on the other side of the base and one floor up, and he drops back to normal speed to draw a rectangle on the wall with the...weird fizzy chalk? Weird fizzy chalk. Sure. 

"—too long," she finishes, to the empty air. Feeling kind of silly. Well. That was predictable.

She doesn't actually finish rigging up the magic radio before he draws the portal. She activates it and steps through anyway.

"Hi, I'm here, almost done."

"Should I do another one?" 

In his head, he's already putting together a map from what he's explored of the base, trying to figure out the optimal placement of portals to keep them as far ahead of Rain—and, apparently, Kaldur—as possible. They can't go back to where they just came from because the seekers will be almost there, so he'll have to pick somewhere reasonably distant from their starting point...

"Yeah!" she agrees, brightly. Oh, this is great, teaming up with a speedster was a fantastic idea.

Nate is starting to think the same about teaming up with a magician. At least now he has a reason to be dashing madly around the mountain. 

He places another portal-outline, somewhere sufficiently far away from his best prediction of Rain's location. 

It opens immediately again, and Yvette happily hops through.

"Finished! Hold out your hand?"

This sure is a day for being handed things by invisible people. 

It sure is! A small ball of sticky play-dough drops into his hand.

"I didn't have a mic or headset or anything," Yvette explains, a little awkwardly. "But if you pretend it's a little microphone and stick it to the collar of your shirt it'll work, and we'll be able to talk to each other."

He does that.

"So what now? Do we just keep doing the same thing, only now we can talk to each other, or...?" 

"Oh, I was going to drown the base in magic noisemakers. Want to help?"

He gives her a blinding Cheshire-cat grin. 

"Hell yes." 

She grins back, but of course, he still can't see the smile.

"So," Rain says conversationally, "we're in trouble."

Kaldur, who has been focusing on tracking Yvette through her random blips all over the base, snaps immediately into alertness.

"Of what kind?" 

"Not only is she working with Nate now, but they are going to put magic noisemakers. All over the base." He sounds faintly proud, despite himself.

"That would explain the rate at which she is making new portals."

Kaldur is already starting to get a headache—the base is full of Eventide's magic as well as the bright flickers of Yvette's doors. "If we do not catch them soon, we will lose the advantage of my magic sense." 

He's been trying to spot a pattern in the door placement, but if there is one he hasn't figured it out yet. 

"They're going to run out of supplies eventually," says Rain, thoughtfully. "Yvette needs materials for a lot of her magic. But that'll take a while." He hums thoughtfully. "I think we need Robin. For the base's security systems, so we can cut off Nate's mobility and shut down my sister's portals."

Kaldur nods and drops his hold on the magic since it's not currently needed. The tattoos on his arms stop glowing, returning to their usual black.

"I think you are right, but he will not be easy to find." 

"Or reach if we do find him. He's not exactly a big guy, if I were him I'd crawl into the smallest, tightest, most frustratingly out of the way place possible. Where you and I would have trouble fitting into to follow. Which is why I wanted Yvette next."

"No plan survives contact with the enemy." Kaldur gives the saying a slight American accent, as though he's imitating someone in particular.

"Do you have any idea where we might find Robin?" 

"He's hard to hear, I think he's got some kind of muffle or training for keeping quiet." Because he's the best, clearly. "But if I were him, with his specializations, I'd want to be in a little annoying crawly hole that's near something that can connect into the base's systems. That way there's a way to cause trouble to people trying to get to him, or keep an eye on everything, or something. So we find a spot that offers that, and is annoyingly out of the way. And watch for traps, I doubt there's anything that could hurt us, but if I were him, I'd set up early warning mechanisms so I can bolt if people are onto me."

M'kel, who is still listening in to Rain's thoughts, forgets to restrain her giggle at his performative annoyance. 

She immediately claps a hand over her mouth, but the damage is done. Stupid human-shaped body and its instinctive noises. 

Rain doesn't stop to think—just a flash of recognition and then he's leaping towards the source of the giggle, arms outstretched to catch M'kel in a bear hug.

M'kel is tackle-hugged, which makes her lose concentration on the invisibility. It also does nothing to stop the giggling. 

Hugs are great. 

You caught me! she says to Rain, sending it telepathically because her mouth is busy laughing. She doesn't sound too upset about it. 

I did! he agrees, giggling. He picks her up in the hug and twirls her around, then sets her gently back down.

It's a good thing he caught her, too, because he had no plan for how to counter the invisible mindreader that was still reading his mind. It was, approximately, 'Not think too much about it and wait for an opening.' With a pinch of 'Yeah I can totally do this' as bravado. Which worked! He's so proud.

"Hey, M'kel! Want to help us find Robin?" he asks brightly, out loud for Kaldur's benefit.

"Sure!" she agrees. "I'm not reading his mind, so I can't tell where he is, but if you find which small space he's wedged himself into, I can fit in there and get him out?" 

"Yeah, that'd be great!" he says, bouncing on his toes. "So now we just need to figure out where he is. Let's see if we can find blueprints of the place, so we can narrow down possible locations."

"To ask one of the League feels like it would be cheating," Kaldur says thoughtfully. 

"Rain, did you see anything when you were exploring earlier that might be useful?" 

"That would really depend on the situation the things might be useful for. There are a couple computer consoles that might have blueprints on them? It's not on a map on any of the walls, that would be silly. If I had to guess I'd say he's near the central power system, in one of the billion little annoying cubby holes around there, where he can monitor what's going on via a technogadget he's probably got because he is really well prepared all the time."

M'kel giggles. 

"Computers seem like a good place to start?" she contributes. 

"I agree. I remember seeing some back this way." 

Kaldur starts moving in that direction; they've been standing around far too long already.

"Okay!" agrees Rain, bouncing along after Kaldur. He doesn't have very much idea of how to use a computer, he hasn't had much chance to over the past couple of days, but how hard can it be, right?

.... It's probably going to be byzantine and confusing and strange, isn't it. For the three least qualified people on this team.

It takes them about five minutes of searching to find an unattended console. 

Kaldur frowns at it. 

"Do either of you know how to use this." 

"Nope!" he says, just as cheerfully as before. "We are the three least qualified team members for this. Are there any labelled buttons to press?"

M'kel hovers a little so she can peer over Kaldur's shoulder. 

"How about this one?" 

They can figure this out, right? Right? 

Well, they're not getting anywhere fast. 

They really, really aren't!

Rain gamely attempts pressing labelled buttons, but yeah, they very clearly have no idea what they're doing, at all. There are lots of pictures of things? A lot of them aren't actually labelled???

".... So I think we'd have better luck just looking around central computery systems with lots of crawl spaces. And maybe look for Yvette's portals and erase as we go, or something."

"That...sounds like a better plan, yes," Kaldur concedes. 

Time to wander around aimlessly, in the best tradition of hide-and-seek! 

Well, not precisely aimlessly. Rain stays on the lookout for chalk portals to erase, at the very least.

"Can we get something that might be able to catch Nate? Like, putting up some hard to see string thing that he could run into and then get knocked down by. Is that a thing we can do?"

"It would be if we had any string." 

Nate zips around a corner ahead of them.

He skids to a halt for a fraction of a second, then books it back the way he came. 

"—Kaldur, left then forward down the corridor." M'kel, turn invisible and fly above me and try to ambush, he might not have noticed you yet.

He chases after Nate to try to steer him to where he wants the speedster to go. Nate is fast, but Rain knows this place better, maybe he can trick him into a dead end and ambush him with superior numbers.

Run run skiiiidddd run ru—oops dead end. Where's the chalk there's the chalk. 

"YvetteIneedaportalNOW!" 

There is an affirmative sounding squeak, followed by a brief pause as she tries to locate where she needs to open the other side at—

"Kaldur, smudge the—"

—Nope too late, there's already a portal!

"Ah, darn," sighs Rain.

They're just in time to see Nate disappear through a chalk rectangle on the wall. 

Magic is great. 

"Well. We almost caught him." 

"Yep. Good try, though, and good reflexes, both of you," says Rain, watching the chalk portal disappear into a dull grey rectangle. "We've got them both in the long run, anyway, neither of them are particularly good at endurance. It just would have been nice to grab Nate and keep Yvette from vworping all over everywhere."

Kaldur nods. "That was quick thinking on your part, too." 

M'kel makes herself visible again.

"So what now?" 

Rain hums thoughtfully.

"I think we're coming at this from the wrong direction. Reacting instead of acting. Trying to catch Nate while he's got magic escape routes available would be like bashing our heads against the wall, so let's stop. Yvette needs to be on one side of the portals she opens. Which means that if we channel them into a known portal, one of our members," he looks at M'kel, and beams, "can wait hidden by it until it opens, sneak through to the other side, and grab our wayward witch. Thus shutting down the whole portal operation."

"Sounds like a plan! Shall we split up and look for chalk drawings? Oh—if I make a telepathic link between all three of us, we can coordinate our search," M'kel suggests.

"That'd be great! If Kaldur would also be comfortable with it? If not, you and I can be linked and talk and he and I can go together, so we can still coordinate."

"We can cover more ground if we separate. It is fine." 

"Great!" 

Hi! Testing, one two three—

It takes him a moment, but: Yes, I hear you. Rain?

Hi! I can hear you both! This is super convenient and has lots of neat tactical applications, I'm excited about it, because telepathy is great!

It's so convenient! I don't know how anyone manages without it. 

And now they can start hunting for portals drawn on the walls. 

They can!

While many are hidden, they're numerous enough that it's not very hard to find at least one. Finding all of them is a bit harder, but they don't actually need to do that; they just need to weed out enough so that the trapped portal comes into play. Rain makes a note that he and Kaldur should move away from where M'kel's hidden, so that Nate and Yvette think it's safe to send the speedster into the seemingly empty area.

It's really only a matter of time until they get a chance to spring their trap.

Eventually Nate takes the bait, dashing past a camouflaged M'kel and through the portal she's staking out. M'kel pounces, grabbing blindly for Yvette because Nate is too fast to catch.

Her hand latches onto an invisible arm. "Got you!" she sings out.

"But—what—that's—I've been out invisibled!" laughs Yvette.

M'kel becomes visible, also laughing. I got Yvette! she reports gleefully.

"Your invisibility is better! I only got you because I knew where you'd be." 

Yay!

Yvette decides that, yeah, she should probably drop her invisibility too, even if it'll last another couple of minutes on its own. Just out of politeness. She casts the quick counterspell that'll screw up the invisibility spell's thing, and summarily becomes visible.

"I don't know if I'd say better, mine doesn't last forever, requires actual materials, takes time to set up, and is apparently completely detectable to anyone accustomed to finding stuff with magic, so it seems like it's really more of a different set of trade-offs. How did you know I was—oh, you knew where I'd be because I need to be on one side of a portal. Oh. Oh of course that's an excellent way to find me, augh why didn't I think of that."

Is M'kel going to stop laughing any time soon? Probably not. 

"It was Rain's idea!"

Rain is so good. She tells him so.

Thanks!!

He also thinks M'kel is pretty great, but he sort of feels like that's the kind of thing that shouldn't be broadcasted to Kaldur as well as to M'kel, so he just lets that bubble happily in the back of his mind instead of directly stating it over the link. He hopes she can notice.

"Of course it was. I've had a brother for three days and he's already foiling my plans, augh."

Heee.

"Now you can help us foil Nate and Robin's plans! We've been using my telepathy to coordinate; can I add you to the mental link?" 

"Oh! Uh, yyyes if you only get things I mean to send? Will I not, uh, accidentally bleed whatever I'm thinking to everyone else in the link?"

"I've been using telepathy since I was a baby," M'kel says, "so I'm not sure how hard it is to learn, but Kaldur and Rain haven't shared anything accidentally yet? And I'm not looking for things you don't send, that would be rude." 

"Oh, uh, okay. Let's see how it goes and we'll see how I do with not sharing things by accident? I'd hate to expose you guys to my brain without consent or, uh, some kind of warning label or something. Oh, speaking of." She finds the little magical communicator on her collar and brings it up for speaking through it.

"Hey, Nate, I got out-played and caught and am summarily now working against you! Sorry about that. I recommend putting the magic chalk and communicator down so they can't be used to track you. Good luck, kindly give us massive headaches!"

Giggle. 

Yvette's in the link now! she sends to all three of her allies. 

Good work, M'kel, Kaldur sends. And Yvette, welcome. People's mental voices apparently 'sound' much like their real voices, so it's easy to tell who's speaking. 

Hi! sends Yvette, wondering if she's doing this right. Thanks!

Hi, sis! Okay so Nate next, he's easy now that he doesn't have portals and we do. Robin's harder and I think Nate knows him best of all of us, plus I think he'll take a while to find.

We still might get lucky, but yeah. M'kel starts walking down the corridor, then stops and lets Yvette take the lead when she realises she has no idea where they are.

Should we try herding him into a trap again, only with Yvette to spring it instead of me? 

Or something, yeah. Yvette, can you turn off your noisemakers so I can get a good idea of where he is?

Uhh. I can disarm the ones I come across, and probably show Kaldur how to do it too, but they have no long range magical off switch equivalent. Sorry-not-sorry.

Bah. Okay, where did you last portal him to, and can you get us there pretty quickly?

Sure. I'll get M'kel and myself there and then make portals for you and Kaldur. You're going to have to find other unused portal rectangles that you haven't broken. For me to bring you through.

... Ah. Yeah. Rain briefly reflects on the future applications of leaving his enemy's infrastructure intact while beating them, so he can properly harness their resources after having won. He'll have to think of ways to more neatly do that in the future; this is good practice, he likes it, he's learning so many important things!

Meanwhile, Nate, having anticipated something like this, is nowhere near the place Yvette portaled him to. 

He stops to catch his breath and grab an energy bar from his pocket. He's been doing a lot of running in the last fifteen minutes. 

Kaldur finds one of Yvette's noisemakers. 

What should I do with this? 

The proper way is— and then she sends a magical signature, approximately the magical equivalent of 'smash it,' —so nothing particularly fancy. There are probably other ways to disarm it, but I hacked this together so I don't know all of the proper countermeasures. Just smashing it will not work, that will make it make an awful high pitched dog whistle sound because I am mean and crafty, but smashing it and then otherwise disrupting it by, uh, I dunno, maybe setting it on fire or something? That might work. But: high pitched dog whistle sound that will torment my brother if you smash and then can't disarm, so. Don't do that.

You set it up to torment me? Thanks.

If you smashed it, yes! Yes I was. Until you figured out how to disrupt the magical chemical bonds present in the noisemaker, which probably would have taken five minutes if you were sufficiently motivated. You broke my clever plan and I was mad.

Noisemaker, meet the magical equivalent of a baseball bat. Goodbye, noisemaker—only another fifty-something to go. He 'smashes' a few more on the way to meet up with the others.