Young Justice: The Mimic Contingency (A Young Justice Fanfic)

Training With the League (Updated)

MOUNT JUSTICE - May 25th to July 27th

What was going to be waiting for him on the mountain?
The wave of worry quickly turned into a flood, reducing Desmond to a rattled bag of nerves in the process.
Who would be waiting there for him? Batman? Superman? Flash? Wonder Woman? God knows he didn't need that right now, especially after that fiasco last week...
Although now that he realised it, all the Justice League members had a reason to dislike him. Maybe beating Superman up wasn't the best idea after all..?
Before Desmond realised it, he had reached the top of the hill, just outside the Mount Justice hangar bay.
But no-one was there.
"Huh?" Desmond's head flicked back and forth, scanning the darkness for any kind of presence. But no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find anyone at all!
"Oh man. This is so eerie..."
With a deep breath, he took a hesitant step forward. But as soon as he put his foot down, a dull 'click' went off underneath his foot.
Suddenly, there was a loud 'clunk', followed by a hiss and a whirring. A few seconds later, a small patch of grass parted, just as a small, metal table rose from beneath the ground.
Desmond slowly moved towards it, glancing towards the trees for any signs that he was being watched.
The table was a deep, gleaming silver and no bigger than an accent table. The surface was polished to sparkling, but that wasn't the thing that caught Desmond's attention. In the table's centre, atop a white card, was a single, navy blue capsule.
"The hell?" Desmond mumbled. He picked the capsule up in his hands, examining it very carefully. It was very small, no bigger than a Malteaser ball and was decorated with a tiny Superman 'S'.
Was Superman his first coach or something?
He put the capsule down and picked up the card, which had two words printed on it:
"Eat Me." Desmond read, rolling his eyes. "What is this? Alice In Wonderland?"
It sounded corny. Desmond had always been told to never take candy from strange people, so God knows what the rules against strange tables that came out of the ground was...
But whoever set all this up had clearly gone to a lot of trouble. The least he could do was humour them, right?
Desmond picked the capsule up and looked at it anxiously. Bottoms up..!
And he swallowed it in a single gulp, immediately regretting his decision. The capsule was sweeter and fizzier than he expected, kind of like popping candy. But it also had a really bland and filling taste, like he had just swallowed a whole three-course dinner in one go. He cleared his throat and stuck out his tongue before looking around again.
"Okay." he said to himself. "Strange capsule eaten! Now what comes ne-?"
Another clicking sound went off under his foot.
Desmond groaned. What now? Was there another table or something?
But the icy chill running down his spine told Desmond that he was wrong. He began to step away from the table, like one would from a sleeping bear, just as a metallic clicking filled the air. It sounded familiar, like the sound of a rifle reloading on a Call Of Duty ga-
"Oh, sh-!"
And before he could take another step, five turrets burst from the ground, flanking the boy on all sides.
"CRAAAAPPPP!!!"
And they fired.
The barrels quickly spun into a deafening chorus of whining machinery and bursting rounds, each of them striking Desmond's ribs, back and chest with deadly precision. They were so unrelenting, it forced Desmond to crouch into a ball, helpless as they tore his hoodie and sweatpants to shreds.
And that was only the first day of his lessons, which went a little something like this:
Desmond would wake up each morning, a text notification alerting him as to who his teacher would be that day. After the message was received and/or the teacher was met, Desmond trained for the assigned time with designated rest breaks, with the duration of both depending on the teacher. For example, Green Lantern allowed two minute breaks every half hour, while Wonder Woman would let Desmond get a glass of water right before he passed out from exhaustion (some of the teachers clearly had bigger grudges than the others...)
When he had finished the training session, normally around three or five o'clock in the afternoon, he was given three hours to socially interact with the other Young Justice members, who often gave him insight, advice or even further training.
Besides this, the Team also entrusted Desmond with their identities, believing that him referring to them by their alias' was somewhat too formal (and annoying in a long conversation). He was shocked to find that his Dick, his long-time friend, was actually the sidekick of Batman and that he had been attending the same high school as Superboy, Miss Martian and Zatanna this whole time!
Speaking of school, he didn't have to deal with his ward Allen or his school asking where he was, since Allen was out of town for the for a company merger and someone (most likely Batman or the Justice League) told the teachers at his school that he was recovering from glandular fever.
From each of his teachers, Desmond learned how to control his powers more effectively, hand-to-hand combat (with fewer sexist insults), the sciences, computer hacking, survival (don't ask how that went...) and forensics. By the end of the three months, Desmond felt like a new person, that he could take any task in the world and complete it to the letter.
Fortunately, he got his wish at the end of July, when instead of a training session, he found the Young Justice waiting for him with Batman, who declared his training over.