-150 Follows Special!! A couple days late, but it's SSUUPPPEERR long.-
-very important announcement at the end!-
-illustration to come-
"I'll watch again." Black Canary volunteered. Everyone new this was unfair, since she had watched him well into the early morning, but no one else was likely to volunteer— except Diana, and she'd just got done a nine hour shift.
"Alright, you know the rules." Bats said briskly into the comm, he had to bring his kid to this meeting, there can be no hazards. "Don't engage, don't share information, be cautious during any interactions it initiates."
"Bats, You're sure Wally and the kids will be isolated away from... yknow." Barry asked.
"I'm certain. I wouldn't take this risk if I wasn't certain." Bats promised. He needed to watch Dick for the night, so the maybe-sidekick-in-training would have to come with him. Considering that Oliver had to keep an eye on both his own adopted kid, and the child of a disabled, ex-convict mother he was sponsoring. It was only fair to let him bring those kids. Arthur had to look after this kid— Black Manta's son— to keep him safe from his biological father's grasp. So obviously, that was another child.
Plus Barry Allen's nephew, who was a freak case of why you should never let children into justice league labs. As if an adult speedster wasn't bad enough....
So the children, who up until this point had only met in smaller clusters, would be having a playdate during the meeting.
With all of those babysitters available, theres no way this could go wrong.
——————————————————————————————-
"This is so unfair! Why do I have to stay out here with them?" Roy objected. "They're here for a playdate, but I'm thirteen: technically a teen!" He gawked in offense at the adults.
"It's Not a playdate! We're hanging out!" Wally disputed. "You're barely older than Kal!"
"But I'm still older! I'm a teenager!" Roy explained angrily. "That's basically an adult!" He argued to the very unimpressed trio of leaguers. "I should be allowed in on the meeting! I'm not some dumb kid who's gonna spill everything! I'm a teenager: I can keep secrets! Artemis sleeps with a stuffed animal and I never told anyone, AND IT WAS TEMPTING!"
"I do NOT sleep with a stuffie!" Artemis shouted.
"Yeah you do! You have a teddy bear. And I held that secret for almost two months, even when she was stealing my food and being winey and manipulative..."
"I'll be out in about half an hour to check up and bring you guys snacks." Barry said. "If you need anything, wait for a bit and knock."
"If it's an emergency, Black Canary is working a few halls down," Batman took over, still ignoring the stubborn little archer who barely reached his chest. "but just go to the stairs and yell, don't go down to where she is at all. And only if it's an emergency."
"You guys have fun, and try not to be too loud." Barry quickly added. "Wally, remember not to run?"
"I know."
"Kaldur'ahm, you will let us know right away if you feel like youre Drying out or having trouble breathing?"
Kaldur nodded mutely, watching his king with wide eyes.
"I'm sorry we're late. M'gann?" Ah yes, J'onn had recently been surprised by a runaway relative of his, who seemed about the same age in earth years... so that would be another child...
"Hello!" The kid wavered to the others excitedly. "I'm— hi Im M'gann!" She squealed with excitement from talking to people.
"We needed time for M'gann to get settled and practice shifting into a human child before attempting to leave the apartment." J'onn explained, watching the child weaved around the earthlings, trying to learn all of their names at once.
Barry barely held in an aww. "You guys have fun, we'll be out to check on you in thirty minutes."
"Hey! I'm old enough to-"
"Roy, don't be too loud." Arrow closed the door after them, and started apologizing for his ward's behaviour.
"Hey!" Filled with anger, Roy kicked the door and stormed ofer to the waiting room sofa, throwing himself down. "This is so stupid!" He shouted. "SO UNFAIR! I'm. A. Teenager!" He melted into a being of sometimes silent rage and offense.
"What are we supposed to do?" M'gann asked.
"Nothing." Roy huffed. "Play pretend or something stupid until the grownups are done!"
The children spent about half a minute trying to think of a solution, but found nothing.
"Maybe we can explore!" M'gann said. "I like exploring, but Uncle J'onn made me stay put until I could shape-shift to this!"
"What did you look like before?" Wally asked the green kid.
"More like a martian." She replied.
"King Orin told me to stay right here..." Kaldur said quietly, he wasn't very confident in his english yet.
"We'll come back before Flash brings us food." Artemis said. She was too old for the word 'snack'. "They won't even know!"
"But—"
"What's that?" The blonde made a grab for the device Kaldur was toying with.
"No!"
"Calm down! I've held Guns befo— AAAGH!" She dropped the device and stuck her finger in her mouth. "What the hell! It shocked me!"
Kaldur tried to explain, but his words came out indecipherable and shy.
"Guys! lets go!" Wally ran towards the door, quickly losing balance and smacking into the door, starting a nosebleed.
Artemis started laughing, almost biting her finger in the process.
"WHOA! You're so fast!" M'gann exclaimed, floating a few inches off the floor with excitement.
"It's a superpower." Wally said proudly, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. "I'm fast like the flash! That's why he's gonna make me his sidekick!"
"Hey! I'm gonna be a sidekick! Green Arrow has practically agreed to it!" Roy argued. "I even have a name picked out: Speedy!"
"Well I have a name picked out too!" Wally lied.
"Oh yeah? What?"
"...Kid Flsah!"
"Those are both dumb names! Green arrow's teaching me to shoot! When I'm his sidekick, I'll have a way cooler name!" Artemis claimed.
"Yeah, cause that will happen!" Roy scoffed. "He already has me!"
"I'm already a sidekick." Dick proclaimed.
"In training, cause you're tiny!" Roy argued. "You won't be a real sidekick until you're older, like me!"
"I have a name and a mask!" Dick said. "Robin isn't my real name, it's my hero name."
"Artemis is my hero name!"
"No it isn't! it's you're real name!" Roy rolled his eyes. "Let's get out of here!"
"But the door is locked." Wally said, trying to keep up with his nosebleed.
"There's no lock, it's electric." Roy observed, because he was so much smarter than them.
"Well, if I'm only a sidekick in training." Robin said bitterly. "Watch this!" He strode up to the door. "Boost?"
Wally boosted the eight-year-old up a couple feet to the keypad. "What're you gonna do?"
"Look What Batman's already taught me!" Dick pulled a single batarag from his pocket (batman old let him carry one, and it had filed down edges), and jammed it under the keypad, prying it off. "One goes to one, two goes to two..." there was a little beep. "It will close right away unless we jolt it open."
"Hey, you got that electric thing." Wally called. "I saw you accidentally shock Arty!"
"But... It's for emergencies..." Kaldur mumbled, holding his little gun-like tool.
"Oh don't be such a baby!" Roy rolled his eyes. "Think like this: it's an emergency cause if you don't use it, I'm either gonna die of boredom, or kill you out of boredom."
Nervously, Kaldur approached, and stood on his tip toes. He pressed the device to the area under the keypad (closest he could reach) and gave it a small shock.
With a satisfactory whirr, the door slid open half way.
"Whoa! Nice!" Wally exclaimed, forgetting his nosebleed all together. "Come on, guys!"
"We are not allow—" kaldur started.
"Half an hour is like, forever away!" Artemis objected, shoving him through the door.
"Yay! An Adventure!" M'gann grinned, flying a few feet ahead of the group.
——-
"Cmere, buddy. I won't hurt you..." she reached her fingers through the grate. "It's okay, I know its been a hard..." she Checked the time. "...Sixteen hours, but I promise you'll be okay, bub."
The child nervously shuffled towards her, curiously reaching for her fingers. He touched her nail and immediately recoiled. Carefully, he reached out again. Growing comfortable with the contact, he wrapped his hand around her finger.
"There you go. You don't have to be afraid of mama Dinah." She smiled, watching as the child clung to her finger through the grate like his life depended on it. "When the justice league sees this, they'll feel pretty bad for locking you up, won't they?"
She didn't know if the kid spoke, or even understood her, but he seemed comforted by her. "I'm gonna make you a snack, kiddo. You look hungry."
He didn't let go of her finger.
"I'll be back, sweetheart. I'm just going to bring you something to eat." She promised. "Look, I promise I'll be back." She slipped the hair tie off her wrist and passed it to the child. He took it, examining the object and looking confused. "Keep that safe until I'm back, okay?"
The Boy looked back down at the elastic, letting go of her, slowly, and inspecting it.
"I'll be right back." She promised, hurrying to the door, trying to ignore the huge blue eyes locked on her as she left.
——-
The Little League ventured further down hallway after hallway, chatting amongst themselves.
"Hey, FYI, I was just joking when I said I'd either die or kill you from boredom." Roy told the anxious looking atlantean.
"Yes?" Kaldur ensured. "Thank you." He had trouble adapting to jokes and sarcasm in english, and the context they had in human culture.
"Yeah, if I had to kill someone, it wouldn't be you. You're the most tolerable." Roy admitted . "And sorry for calling you a baby. If anyone here is a baby, it's totally Artemis..."
"What?" The Blonde asked, turning at the sound of her name.
"Shh!" The youngest kid hissed. Robin listened for a moment; just like his training sessions with bats... "hide!" He whispered, shooting into a half-open bathroom door.
"What?" M'gann asked, but she was swept up in the flood of kids rushing into the washrooms.
"Shh!" Dick told them. He turned off the light, and listened.
The faint clicking of high heels.
Dick leaned in the doorway, just in time to catch a glimpse of Black Canary rounding the top of the stairs, and heading in the opposite direction.
No one breathed until the sound of her shoes had faded.
"What was that about?" Roy ordered.
"Black Canary. She almost saw us!" Dick said.
"That was too close..." Wally sighed.
"Is Black Canary a hero?" M'gann asked, observing the nods the others gave her. "Why wasn't she in the meeting?"
Kaldur muttered something inaudible.
"What?" Ray asked.
"He said she was where we couldn't go." He explained as best he could. "Batman."
"Oh yeah, Bats said we could call for her during an emergency, but not to go down there." Roy recalled.
"So let's go!" Artemis exclaimed.
"Yeah! We need to see what she's doing!" Dick said, he was starting to wonder if this was an elaborate set up for one of Batman's tests.
Creeping off the bottom of the stairs, the children glanced around the identical, sterile, white-lit hallway. Kaldur joined Wally and Robin at the front, looking for whatever was of interest down here.
"Look!" Wally whispered, pointing to a door at the end of the hall. "The light's on..."
"That's the door." Dick swallowed hard. "Kal, you wanna go first? With me?"
Kaldur didn't, but didn't want to say that he didn't. He couldn't let the littlest go alone, even if they were both scared.
Robin on his heels, he approached the door. He reached out and accidentally let out a little static shock. The door whirred opened.
"It's not closed." He pointed out.
"She didn't lock." Robin continued.
"Which means she didn't plan to be gone long..." Roy said, suddenly.
"Lets take a peak and go back to get our snack." M'gann offered, she was very excited to try proper human food!
The kids crept to the door, and, frightened, Kaldur took the first step inside.
A pair of laser blue eyes locked on him.
Robin, then Wally, then the others followed him into the room. They froze, shocked and confused, observing the scene before them: a kid, only about Wally or M'gann age, standing in a grated-cage, staring at them.
He had very blue eyes, a flush of black hair, and was wearing some sort of all-white costume... And he had something in his hand.
"Who's that?" M'gann asked.
"I don't know." Roy replied.
Kaldur approached the cage a little more. "Who are you?"
The boy kept staring, refusing to answer.
"Hey? Dude? What's your name?" Wally asked.
"Maybe he doesn't know human language?" M'gann suggested. "I can try to go into his head, but usually uncle J'onn starts it, so I'm not very good yet..."
Dick approached the cage, staring at the boy. "Please talk? Try 'nd talk for me please." He requested. "Who are you?"
"Kr."
"He can talk human!" M'gann exclaimed.
"I dunno, he only said Kr." Artemis replied. "Kayarr could be a word in some other language..."
The boy turned a little and exposed the symbol embossed on his chest.
"Whoa..." Wally gasped. "You know superman?"
The boy's eyes widened even further. "Superman."
"Yeah, superman, you know, like on your chest."
For the first time, he broke eye contact and examined his chest. "I... am superman."
"No you aren't." Roy scoffed. "Superman is a MAN, and he's SUPER. Cages can't hold him." The boy in the cage started to look confused and upset. "Besides, his suit is blue."
"Why are you in there?" M'gann asked. "Did you do something bad? On tv people go to jail when they're bad."
He didn't seem to hear. "I'm... not superman...?"
"Mmnope! What's you're name, really?"
"Kr. But I'm meant to be... superman...?" He frowned in confusion, staring at the floor.
"Do you like that cage?" Wally asked. Kr shook his head a little, absently. "You... you want out?"
Kr swallowed and nodded vigorously.
"Please do not hurt us." Kaldur said, circulating the holding cell in search of a lock. "We're freeing you."
"I don't hurt. I'm Superman. I'm not superman?" He shut his eyes, thinking hard. "Why am I locked?!" He shouted, shocking them. "I don't want to be locked!"
With superhuman strength, Kr threw the wall to the cage off it's welding with a scrape, making a whole big enough to crawl out.
Dick realized they were set for trouble: that was loud, and how would they explain him to the league?
——-
"Without my consent! We don't know what he is yet, just that it was made from me, without my consent."
"But if it's cloned from you, to become you, you might be able to get it talking, and we can find out more about CADMUS."
"We found it hours ago. I'm not ready." Clark defended. "It's my dna, taken by violating my rights. Even if it isn't a weapon of the light, which we aren't sure of yet, its existence here violates my consent on principle."
"I respect that, Superman, but if it was made to hurt you, you trying to talk to it might be our best way to find out." Bruce argued.
"I— I can't. Not yet." Clark said.
"We don't know If Kr will try to hurt Superman, or any of us." Wonder Woman suggested. "He may have been developed to be a weapon, but he is only a child, he might not know any of that."
"If Project Kr. was only grown in ten-and-a-half weeks. It could be wholly controlled by the light, and just wearing the body of a child because it was taken out of its incubator too soon." J'onn suggested. "But we cannot risk treating it as a puppet incase it really is just a child."
"I mean, even if Kr. Is a weapon, he's like, Artemis' age! He can be trained out of it and become a normal-ish kid." Oliver said. He didn't Want to kill a kid, even if it was an evil puppet used by the light.
"Until we have more information, we will have to treat the situation as if Kr IS dangerous." Batman decided. "We will run biological tests and Martian manhunter will observe his mindscape to build more information."
"We should probably check on the kids." Barry said, mostly to relieve tension.
"Take a ten minute recess." Batman said. "We'll check on the kids and me and J'onn will see if we can make any progress with Kr."
"Yeah, good time for a break. I should see if Roy's still pouting." Arrow joined the other child-carers as they ventured out into the empty waiting room.
"Guys? Barry called. "Guys?"
"I thought the door was locked?" Arthur asked, a strike of worry for Kaldur.
"It WAS! I don't know how— OH MY GOD!" Barry shot across the room, ducking to the ground.
"What is it?" Batman ordered.
Barry turned, eyes wide. "There's blood over here!" He pointed at the base of the open door, were there were a few splattered spots of orange-ish, drying blood. "You don't think—"
"Black Canary would have told us." Batman said, though he sounded uncertain.
"We must find them." J'onn had just found out his niece was neglected when she stowed away in his ship last week. He had to protect her now she was in his care.
"Kaldur has never done anything to disobey me before. He's too afraid."
"I'm not surprised." Oliver lead the way into the hall. "Roy's leading a rebellion like the..." he sighed, and whispered to himself. "...like the little fuck he is..."
The four started down the hallway, they were starting to suspect the children had gotten into the rec room, and headed in that direction. If they got fed up waiting for their snack, they might have gone that way.
"I should have checked earlier, after their impatience.." Barry commented, unlocking the door, which immediately trilled open
Dinah turned from the sink and spotted her colleagues. "Oh, hi. I just thought I'd get some water and a snack to see if our friend was hungry."
Batman glanced at the others, and immediately, they were sprinting down to the holding cell. Just then, a gut wrenching groan rung out from the lower floor.
——-
"In here!" Roy yanked Artemis into the Men's room. He ducked back out and grabbed Dick and Wally. Kaldur and M'gann shooed their new companion in. Roy flicked off the light, and watched the children protectively.
"Are they going to find us?" M'gann asked.
"Shh!" He listened, ear to the door.
Kaldur noticed Kr had frozen up, staring into the mirror. Eyes wide, trembling lips... he staggered towards the mirror, fixated. He reached out and touched his reflection. "Superman."
"You're not superman." Wally said. Roy and Dick shushed him.
"...Why?" he murmured, turning his attention to the elastic in his fist.
"Shh." Dick slipped under Roy and pressed his ear to the door as well. "Footsteps."
Kr frowned. "Six." He said.
"Shh!"
Several sets of violent footsteps were now audible; thundering down the stairs. "Shit." Someone— Oliver— exclaimed. And the steps raced to what was previously Kr's prison. The swearing quickly uptook as they entered.
Roy covered Artemis' ears, stretching then to cover Dick's as well.
"He was just here! I was barely gone five minutes!" Dinah's voice cried through the walls.
"He got to the kids! Oh god, okay. Oh my god..." Barry panted.
"They couldn't have left the tower, split up." Batman ordered. Footsteps raced by the washroom again.
Roy let out an involuntary sigh. What now?
In silence, they waited, leaning over each other to listen against the door.
And they listened.
Not a sound.
Seconds ticked by in slow motion.
BAM
They were thrown backwards, off the door, landing in a pile against the cold tile floor.
The silhouette of the bat appeared above them, and the washroom filled with shrill shrieks of terror.
In an instant, Dick was swept off the ground, safely guarded in the Bat's arms. He kicked and struggled for freedom. Bats disregarded this and made haste gathering as many children as he could hold.
"Batman! You found them!"
"Uncle J'onn!" M'gann shot off the floor and into her uncles arms, latching on. She smudged her teary eyes into his shoulder. Batman was scary.
"WHAT? WALLY!" Barry skidded in behind them. "OHMYGOD—" he shouted, snatching Wally off the floor and drawing him sharply away from the former prisoner. He grabbed Kaldur too and gripped his hand until Arthur arrived and took his child. He fixed his eyes on Kr like the others.
"Wait! Guys stop!" Roy shouted. "It's not like that! It wasn't even thirty minutes!"
Martian Manhunter drew him away from Kr, much to the Tween's displeasure, and did the same with his blonde pseudo-sister.
In seconds, the other two had returned. Oliver swore and snatched Artemis to safety, then located Roy and— torn between hugging and strangling him— gripped the boy against himself. "Roy, oh my god! What the hell did you think you're doing?"
"Roy, Artemis, Are you okay?" Dinah began obsessing over the children, when a third caught his eyes. "How did he get out? How did he— are you hurt?"
The child left on the Bathroom floor spotted Dinah, and he shot upright., darting towards the leaguers. They turned to protect their children as a priority, allowing Kr to dart into the group and latched himself around Dinah's leg.
Everyone took a step back, eyes locked on the child.
He turned up to her with huge eyes, reaching up and wrapping his hand around her finger.
"Hey!" Oliver shouted, jerking his kids away and trying to free Dinah from the clone's grip.
"Don't touch him!" Roy exclaimed, thrashing against his father.
"Wait, wait! I can handle this! He likes me!" Dinah reasoned.
"Project Kr is not a child, it's a weapon!" Bats warned, clutching his squirming son against his chest. He would not let Dickie get hurt.
"Shh, hey kiddo. Lets get you back to your room until we find of put what happened.
"Don't be so nice! He could have killed them!" Oliver hugged Artemis and Roy.
"He didn't hurt us! WE freed HIM!" Roy shouted, being smothered.
"You WHAT?"
"YOU KEPT A KID IN A CAGE! Of course we freed him!" The redhead exclaimed.
"He tore the cage off the wall!"
"We told him too!" Artemis said, no longer as afraid.
"You—" Disappointed in and scared of both his kids, Oliver held them tightly.
Kaldur murmured something, half-hidden behind his king.
"Kaldur'ahm?"
"...He didn't like the room." He muttered shyly.
"Hey don't blame Kal! It was my idea!" Roy lied, it was M'gann's or Dick's if anything. "He's a normal guy! Why was he in there?"
"Kr is a two-month-old Clone of Superman."
"Let's just get him into another room and figure this out." Dinah said, sliding her finger out or his fist.
"No!" The boy shouted, startling the crowd.
"He can talk?" Barry asked.
"Yeah!" Wally replied.
"Why didn't you speak for me, baby?" Dinah actually was a little upset. Kr unclamped his other palm and passed her the worn hair elastic. She took it, feeling protective of the poor thing. "Let's get you and the other kids into the rec room while we sort this out."
"We can't let them in a room with it!" Batman exclaimed. "We're keeping them separate!"
Dinah held Kr protectively.
"No way! Tell us why you put him in a cage!" Dick shouted.
"Yeah, I could be a dangerous spy, but you've never put me in a cage!" Roy argued.
"No you couldn— we know you, we know we can trust you."
"We'll He's a clone!" Roy pointed out. "He actually thinks he is Superman. That's why he will not hurt us."
"Okay!" Bruce silenced the room. "Everyone separate your wards. We'll discuss this later. Manhunter, break up the meeting upstairs. We'll need a few days to discuss this."
"But—" Dick squealed.
"I need three days to consider." He cut his ward off, still clutching the boy against his chest like a teddy bear. "You will not be doing this again."
"Stop us!" Artemis protested. Oliver tightened his grip on the child firmly, making her squeal and shut up in discomfort.
"We need to do things if they help people..." Kaldur muttered. "...We had to save him..."
"Okay, we can talk about this, but I think you should all go home while we handle this." Arthur assured the boy.
"We can't be included in YOUR stuff, and now we can't be included in OUR stuff?" Roy pouted.
"I'm taking Robin home. You will do the same with your own." Bats said, dragging out the fussing preteen.
"Wait, what about him?" Dinah asked, leaning towards her boyfriend and his two equally difficult kids. "We can't put him back in the cell..."
"I've already got two— we've already got two." He replied.
"...he can sleep at my place..."
-SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!
My next trash book is:
"More Young Justice trash"!!!
This is a teaser, and it will be in the book, which will be up starting August 25th (maybe even earlier, ill let you know). But I want to finish this book first-