Inside The Pentagon, a confidential room.
A group of high-ranking officials in various military uniforms gathered.
"Comrades, our existence may have been exposed."
"Is it news from the laboratory?
I received intelligence from Metropolis."
"Can you confirm who discovered the secret?"
"Evidence shows that the human investigating the laboratory in Metropolis that day was Batman of the Justice League!"
"It was him? But he should just be an ordinary person!"
Batman was also one of the few heroes in the Justice League who hadn't asked Dane to cast a confusion spell.
Mainly, Dane was worried that if his identity as the Wayne Family heir disappeared, he might genuinely be killed by villains who didn't know the truth.
Many people in this World could kill Batman, but they were unwilling to kill Bruce Wayne.
This identity as an ordinary person, to some extent, was also Batman's "get out of jail free card."
With this identity, people like Deathstroke and Lady Shiva, who had the ability to kill him, would think twice.
The general public didn't know who was behind Batman's mask because he was very mysterious.
But these people knew him very well; Batman's identity was almost transparent to Checkmate and the CIA, and they often even proactively helped Batman conceal his identity.
Many video accounts on Kuaishou that "revealed" Batman's true identity were official alt accounts spreading rumors to confuse the public.
"We underestimated Batman's strength; he is actually very strong."
"His battle suit possesses the power of magic, and our compatriots are not adept at dealing with that kind of energy."
"How far has he investigated?"
"Since he was able to find that laboratory, it proves he must know about the gene weapon, and we must accelerate our progress!"
"Then send someone to the Undersea World and see how powerful that weapon is."
"Let that squad go again this time; we have our people in it."
"Of course..."
That night, Amanda received an urgent order from The Pentagon, requiring her to reassemble Task Force X in the shortest possible time to investigate the operational status of the "weapon."
Amanda looked at the document with some surprise.
Why was the higher-up so eager for results?
The weapon had already been successfully deployed; couldn't they wait a little longer to check?
Moreover, doing too much only leads to more mistakes; they could just do nothing and wait for the reaction of the Undersea people.
If the weapon failed, the Atlanteans would come knocking sooner or later; if they didn't come, wouldn't that mean the plan was successful?
Amanda hadn't noticed that her attitude towards Atlantis was somewhat passive, which was because she implicitly acknowledged one thing deep down.
That was, as long as the Justice League was in the United States, the Surface World was impregnable.
However, the official document had been issued, and Amanda couldn't ignore the order, no matter how foolish she thought the people above were; what needed to be done still had to be done.
She pressed the office phone: "Amy, come here."
Because Harcourt had performed exceptionally well recently, she had been honorably promoted to the head of Task Force X's intelligence team and was qualified to select her preferred reserve members.
Before Harcourt came in, she guessed that Amanda's purpose in looking for her might be related to Task Force X.
Sure enough, as soon as she entered the door, she heard Amanda ask her: "Is Peacemaker able to go on a mission?"
Harcourt immediately replied: "No problem, he hasn't shown any stress symptoms."
After Peacemaker returned, Amanda, worried that he might develop any stress-related mental illnesses, arranged for several psychiatrists to examine him.
But aside from his existing psychological symptoms, Peacemaker showed no negative emotions about personally spreading a gene weapon to a race.
This made Amanda realize the value of this man; he was the sharpest blade Checkmate had ever dreamed of.
Hearing that Peacemaker could go on missions normally, Amanda nodded with satisfaction.
"Very good, there's a new mission below, still about that place..."
As she spoke, Amanda pointed downwards, indicating that that World was located on the Undersea.
Amanda was more cautious than General Lane; many things she wouldn't say aloud in places she deemed unsafe.
After all, walls have ears.
To this day, she still didn't understand how Vanguard Technology knew the truth about some things, and that intelligence was often more accurate than what Checkmate and the CIA received...
Harcourt saw her gesture and immediately understood that the mission content was related to the previous one.
She probed: "This time, do we need to recruit new personnel?"
Amanda thought for a moment; she couldn't just send Peacemaker alone, could she?
If there were indeed other situations underwater, he would need someone to support him, so she said:
"Let's reassemble a team.
This time, he will still be the core, do you understand?"
Harcourt nodded.
To build a new squad with Peacemaker as the core, they couldn't include people with strong leadership abilities like Deadshot or Rick Flag (the soldier who led the Suicide Squad in the movie) to contend for power with him.
Therefore, the chosen members must be able to obey Peacemaker's commands and preferably have some special skills.
Although the last mission was successful, the losses were also huge; only Peacemaker returned from the squad members.
Other members aside, it was a great pity that Polka-Dot Man and Shark King died there; their abilities were irreplaceable.
But fortunately, in recent years, the emergence of metahumans has begun to show an explosive trend, and many of those who posed little threat have been secretly imprisoned by Checkmate.
Now, governments around the World have also roughly figured out the situation of the Justice League.
Only when the World faces a destructive crisis will the Justice League gather all its members to act together... and most small crises are handled by members responsible for their respective cities.
Checkmate used this point to intercept many metahumans who had not yet had a chance to shine.
After receiving the mission, Harcourt immediately began selecting new members.
For the first member, she chose "White," a middle-aged man with completely White hair.
As his nickname suggested, White was a person with extremely meticulous logical thinking and outstanding computational abilities.
His combat ability was not strong, but he could provide constructive suggestions to the squad at critical moments.
Harcourt was fed up with a headless team; she strongly suspected that the near annihilation of the last X-Squad was due to everyone lacking brains.
So, her first priority was to unhesitatingly install a "brain" for the team.
For the second candidate, she chose "Katana" Tatsu Yamashiro.
This was a woman from a samurai family; she could skillfully use a Katana to harm enemies and also possessed impressive unarmed combat abilities.
She owned a Katana said to be able to "steal souls," which was also the origin of her name.
For the third candidate, she chose "Killer Frost."
She was born from an accidental scientific experiment; the experiment unexpectedly gave her an eternally frozen physique, allowing her to arbitrarily absorb others' body heat and release freezing rays through certain machines.
For the last candidate, Harcourt chose "Vixen" Mari McCabe.
She possessed a magic necklace that could grant her the abilities of various animals.
Vixen was not a criminal, but Checkmate held some leverage over her, so she had no choice but to obey Checkmate's orders.
For a reconnaissance team, this squad was already quite impressive.
After selecting the candidates, Harcourt swiftly began her "persuasion" campaign.
Her abilities were indeed outstanding, and with Checkmate's backing, it was nothing more than a combination of threats and inducements.
Soon, she had assembled a brand new Task Force X.
Peacemaker was still the same, standing proudly at the front of the team.
Among all the members, only Katana truly took this matter seriously.
White was just going through the motions, Killer Frost only wanted to reduce her sentence, and Vixen was very dissatisfied with Checkmate, having been completely forced to come.
Of course, Vixen was also the only one among everyone who had not been injected with a nano-bomb, because Checkmate believed that the leverage they held was enough to control her.
"This mission is to go to the Atlantic Ocean Undersea to investigate the situation of Atlantis."
She had already coordinated with Peacemaker not to tell the members that they had already been there once.
"What you need to do is find out exactly what the situation is in Atlantis, and it's best to bring back some useful intelligence."
Hearing that the destination was Atlantis, which was very popular on Kuaishou recently, the new members immediately started discussing.
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