Red took a seat to play in Julian's chess match.  At first he was somewhat nervous that the senior member had an alterior motive in pulling him into line over some new sleight or broken rule that he unwittingly committed, but as he saw the red headed team leader's focus never leave the pieces whilst he set the board, it put the larger youth more at ease.

He'd been teaching him chess for a while now.  A strategic game, which could test his ability to learn and grow his tactical abilities.  When he first told him how all of the pieces move individually, the two irregular moves and conditions of en passant and castling, and then showed him the set up of the board, Julian was impressed to hear Red accurately repeat everything he'd just learned without any need for correction on the first run through.

As for his first game though, that had been less than impressive.  The first few games Red was satisfied with merely mirroring Luthor.  Figuring that with Julian having a good understanding of the game, he would limit his mistakes.  After quickly losing the first few it became apparent that this was not conducive to success.  All he was doing was playing follower, being reactive to Julian, who would control the board and look to put him in check without fear of Red making any unique aggressive moves.  Once he did that, the match would be entirely defensive and based on self preservation for Red, and Julian would dominate the remainder of those games.

So if mirroring wasn't the answer, that meant the game would call for the opposite - creativity.  Which so far had not proven to be a strong suit for Red.  It had started to yield results though.  Occasionally he'd see Julian furrow his brow, or seem confounded by something he did which would seem unusual.  He still was yet to beat him, but their matches now seemed more varied.  Sometimes his creativity wouldn't pay off and he'd get quickly defeated, but others would last much longer.  Either way, he was always learning.  The large man seemingly always growing.

This time he went with something he'd heard Julian refer to as "The Sicilian Opening", apparently all of these early moves had names - which Red didn't find too strange, after all there were only 20 different potential opening moves each for both black and white.  The game didn't really settle into a unique situation until later.  The pair moved and countered fairly quickly early on, but the game started to slow as more thought came in... until it came to a complete stop entirely after the sudden entrance of a small golden robotic drone of some kind.

Red watched as Julian rushed over and attempted to communicate and run a diagnostic scan on the small drone.  Morrow's natural curiosity ran wild over "Skeets".  If he was right it seemed the golden robot was powered by a form of nuclear fusion that was completely new to him, and was coated in some kind of golden alloy that he couldn't distinguish... and since he held the understanding that came from reading the notes and journals of his father, a world leader in robotics and cybernetics, this was no mean feat.

Apparently this was the robotic support for a Justice League member called "Booster Gold".  This was someone who quite a few others were familiar with - and judging by Gabi's reaction, not entirely positive.  He decided that he should ask her why later, maybe this Booster Gold and his actions might have something to do with his father's negative sentiments towards the Justice League.  He had very little knowledge and experience dealing with... well, any superpowered people - thus far Julian seemed to want to be developing their teamwork slow, and putting themselves on the radar of the Justice League, Titans, or anybody those groups see as an adversary was counterproductive.  This meant that as far as he knew his teammates only came in with their knowledge of these types from the outside world, tv and internet media.

Red's "outside knowledge" was barely a couple of weeks.  Technically, Red could look famous superpowered people up online in the new smartphone Julian had provided him.  But there was so much new to discover, he hadn't really found a way to discover new things in any organised way - the world was just so loud with new experiences, that he could barely take everything in at once.

Overhearing the conversation, he could tell this lack of experience shouldn't be directly relevant on this occasion however.  Apparently they were dealing with a half dozen unknown superhumans, each far stronger than he was.  Strong enough to "rip the door off of the bank vault".  Red had never seen a bank, but they were where people kept their money, so he was pretty sure they were built strong enough that you shouldn't be able to do that.  They had also beaten up this "Booster Gold".  Which again, he knew nothing about other than being in the Justice League.  But knowing how difficult it had been for his father, he assumed they were all extremely hardy.

Some of his teammates disappeared to get prepared.  Red had no need.  He owned very few items of clothing, and what he owned was mostly provided by Julian.  As a result he generally wore what he was meant to "in the field" anyway.  He quite liked the pair of cargo pants he was provided and was slowly getting used to the shirt.  Made from a kevlar weave, which Julian then had painted with a shiny gloss red paint on Morrow's request, it largely formed his uniform - in that it was generally all he ever wore, if he wore anything at all.  He found the shirt particularly tight and uncomfortable, but that was supposedly the point.  Kevlar is supposedly bullet and knife resistant to some degree, and it's because it takes an enormous amount of energy just to stretch the fibres a little, making it very difficult to penetrate.  Several layers of the fabric weave spread taut across a thin underlay of cotton and nylon to reduce chafing provide him with some physical protection, but it's hardly comfortable - particularly for someone who doesn't find clothing particularly comfortable in the best of circumstances.

One of his teammates, Vincent, seemed to be having quite a bit of fun at Julian's expense.  Red could see he was being a source of irritation, but wasn't certain whether he should intercede - whether this was one of those 'joking'/'general ribbing' moments or if it was something more serious.  He didn't want to be the cause of a poor team dynamic by attempting to break up something that was 'nothing'.  Well, not again.  So instead he just vaguely lent support, before the atmosphere became too negative.

[color=red]"We [b]are[/b] many more than just one, or even six.  And at this point it's uncertain what exactly they are prepared to deal with."[/color]

Then a quote came to him.  One of many that were piped through his classical virtual education recordings.

[color=red]"And as for being stronger, Archimedes said 'Give me the place to stand and with a lever I shall move the world!'"[/color]

And despite his best attempts at a confident smile, which came across as appearing somewhat constipated, his choice of classical quote did little to stir emotions and raise spirits.

Perhaps it was a poor choice of lever...