I.

The sun woke me up almost a full hour before my alarm would. I wasn't too disappointed, it's not like I could sleep anyway. It's colder in my room than usual, and as I swing my feet off the edge of my bed onto the hard metal floor of my quarters I catch the edge of the sun peeking over the side of the earth. In these chilly, metallic barracks the sun still manages to shine a warm and inviting glow. I take a minute or two to soak it in, closing my eyes and breathing in through my nose. Today's gonna be a long day.

I have a quick military shower, dry off, and throw on a pair of athletic shorts and a long sleeve workout shirt. Waynewear, of course. The white "W" on the high collar of the shirt bounces up and down as I do a quick jog around the Ladies' quarters. I haven't jogged in what seems like forever and who knows when I'll get a chance to have some time to myself next, the next couple days are going to be crazy with a capital "C". it's a quick lap past all the other girls' rooms and I decide that I don't want to wake any of them before their alarms go off at 8 (Dick is letting us sleep in a full hour earlier than usual today because of this momentous occasion.) there aren't that many rooms in the girls wing so it takes me a grand total of 3 minutes to reach the common area, without using my powers. Just before the common room window there's a large portrait window. I linger on the window, and look down on what used to be Europe. It looks the same as it does in all the history books, although maybe a little greyer than usual.

A couple minutes later I've slap slap slapped my way over to the gym area in all my barefooted glory. Complete with every work out machine you can imagine, as well as a basketball court encased in glass in one side, this training area is where we spent so many hours and hours competing, training, and also just fooling around. I remember when one time, the alpha team was playing basketball and Jon elbowed Jason right in the face, and the two of them started wrestling right there in the middle of the court! The rest of us couldn't stop laughing.

I catch myself smiling in a nearby mirror and turn away from it. Those memories are nice and all, but we're not kids anymore. We're warriors. Born and raised to defend the planet at any cost.

I continue my jog. I decide that maybe the boy's quarters might be a more interesting run. It turns out the only thing more interesting about it is the amount of snoring you can hear coming from Rob's cabin. The dumbass was probably up until 2 again playing dumb videogames or something. If he kept Alfie or anyone else up like he usually does I'm gonna personally kick his ass during our inevitable sparring session today. All the names on the small whiteboards on every cabin's door bring up so many memories, so many good times. I'm not sure I'm ready for all this to change.

I walk through the botanical gardens, one of my favourite parts of our home. There are seven main "pods", or farms as we like to call them. There's seven in total because there's one for each continent, as well as about an acre of pure farming space. The gardens are one of the biggest areas on the ship, so it takes me about half an hour to run around the whole thing. Part way through I stop to take a drink from a water fountain that's right next to this big, gnarly oak tree standing tall and proud in the North American Pod. Once, again, memories come flooding back.

I remember Jason and I, sitting under this very oak about 3 years ago watching a meteor shower go by. A couple of the others came with us. Li, Rex, and Helena came for a bit but they didn't stay for long, and the twins came for a couple of minutes but went to go play with Helena. That left just me and him. The smell of the trees in the artificial atmosphere, the meteors shooting across the vastness of space thousands and thousands of miles away, his hand on mine…

The thought is almost enough to make me tear up. Almost. I shrug off the bittersweet memory and continued my barefooted jog around the gardens. Just as I'm passing the pod for Asia, I notice Li doing yoga. She notices me without even looking up, a skill learned after years of martial arts training I suppose.

"Morning Cap." She says, not even moving from her downward dog position. "Couldn't sleep either?"

"Nah, I got too much on my mind I guess." I turn my attention to the sun rising over the horizon on the planet below and take another moment to myself, just to breathe it in. "it's gonna be a long day."

"That it is" Li replies, perfectly shifting from downward dog into a crossed legged seat on the blanket she brought with her. I recognize it as the one her mother, Tatsu, made for her when she was just a baby. It's also the same one she sat on for that meteor shower all those years ago.

"Hey Roxy, I know you have a lot on your mind, but if you want to you could join me for some tea and we could just chill for a bit before the others are up?" she looks up at me and smiles, offering me a small cup of green tea. "You know, there aren't a lot of girls our age anymore. I've always considered you like a sister to me." The one brown eye that is visible underneath her dark-brown-almost black hair starts to glisten. She's always been sappy and I've always found it adorable in times like these.

"You're a sister to me too LI. You're family. But I think I'm just gonna finish my jog before anyone else wakes up" I flash her a smile and she flashes one back.

"More for me then. I'll see you at lecture today." You can tell there's a hint of disappointment in her voice but I give her a quick smile again and I continue my jog.

There aren't many jog worthy places left, and I should probably be at lecture a couple minutes early. Dick always says the team leader should be the first one there. I hit up the pools but that's a mistake, it just brings up more bad memories that I can't afford to feel; not today. I go past the armory, the docking bay, the senior's quarters, and the med bay. Like usual, when I peak my head in I see Dick fast asleep at the foot of the old butler's bed. His breathing almost in sync with the beep-beep-beep of the old man's heart monitor.

I decide to take the last legs of my jog through the hall of heroes. It's one of my least favourite places to be in the whole station, but it's also necessary. I slow it down to a walk so I can see all of the past heroes before me. Row upon row of holograms look stoically dead ahead, almost into space. There are more than one hundred, and all of their names I have memorized off by heart. There are some that I hardly know, some I met when I was younger, and others I've known all my life. There's two heroes that I really need to see, however.

I know exactly where my father's memorial is. I make my way to it with an almost graceful approach. When I get there, I decide that a little use of my powers isn't going to hurt. I feel a sinking feeling in my stomach, something I've gotten used to over the years, and I float up so that I'm eye to eye with the 10-foot-tall hologram of my father. He's handsome, like always, and wearing his pilot's formal wear. Army green, with a formal pilot's hat under his left arm. His right arm is in a salute which comes to just over his blue eyes, with crow's feet around both of them from laughing so much. He was an amazing pilot, a great man, an amazing father, and I'm proud to call myself his daughter.

My mother was one of the founding members, and therefore instead has a colossal statue at the far end of the room with the other 6 founding members. My uncle Clark stands first and foremost, broad chested with a massive S on the front of his suit. My uncle Bruce, Helena's grouchy dad, stands to his right, in between him and grace's dad Barry. Jason's dad stands on his left, trident in hand. Far to my Uncle Clark's left side, my Uncles J'onn and Hal stand equally heroically as the rest.

Directly to Superman's left stands princess Diana of Themyscira, known to the world as Wonder Woman.

I knew her simply as "Mom".

II.

My civilian name is Alfred Thomas Drake. My Field name is Redwing.

I am a master martial artist, proficient in 6 different forms of martial combat, I speak 4 different languages, I have an IQ of 178 which is 50 points north of genius, my weapon of choice is a metal bo staff forged by my own two hands from 6 different minerals and alloys, and I also carry an assortment of other weapons and self-defence items on me at all times.

And Nightwing refuses to let me go back to the ground with Alpha team.

It's an outrage! I've been trained my entire life to lead this team and yet Nightwing has no idea what he is talking about.

I can feel the rage building up in my chest and spreading down to my hands, which are balled into fists. Calm down Alfie, you don't want mom seeing you like this.

I gather my thoughts and walk to my washroom and turn on the light. My alarm won't go off for another 20 minutes. That means I have 20 minutes to calm the hell down.

My father was Tim Drake. A.K.A. Red Robin, or Robin III. He was a full-fledged member of the justice league before zero hour. I'm often told by the elders that I resemble him strongly. I have blue eyes, but they're not super blue. I'm shorter than I should be for my age, 16, and my hair would probably be the same color as my father's if I didn't shave it off two months ago.

I'm often told that I also inherited skills from my parents. For instance, my mother is Barbara Gordon; A.K.A Batgirl, Oracle, and I'm sure there's a couple other names my sister and I don't know about. She is a whiz with computers, and that's why my friends often times say I get along with computers better than I do with people. They're not wrong.

I tidy myself up, have a quick shower in cold water and get dressed in my uniform for the day: Waynewear training pants and a t shirt with a crew collar. Most Waynewear comes in all black, or if you want to spice up your life you can also get most of the gear in dark grey. My pants and shirt are a mix of both, accented with red wings on my shoulders and knees. My own design of course.

I get on my hands and knees and reach under my bed, groping around for the wooden box that holds my bo staff. Until I find it. Empty. Shit.

The only people that have access to my room are my sister Alex and Helena, my God sister. They'd both be immature enough to steal my most prized possession on such a monumentous day but I won't let it get to me. I'm already too rattled from Dick being a dick as it is.

I don't have to go far though, as soon as I open my door to leave my room Alex, my twin sister, leans against the wall opposite me with my staff in hand and a wide, Cheshire-cat-esque grin on her face.

"Alex come on, today isn't the day for this."

"You're no fun anymore Alfie!" She pouted, and lobbed the staff underhand to me. "Where's my twin bro that used to build pillowforts with me and call them the robin cave and make fun of Jason and Roxy with me?"

"I guess he grew up." I press a small button on the side of the staff and it compacts so that it's roughly a foot long, and shines like polished steel in the sunlight of the Watchtower. I start walking towards lecture hall A and Alex follows.

"Should we go wake up Leo? Or Helena?" Alex is in her training gear too, although hers is accented with a deep midnight blue as opposed to my red. She also has her twin batons crossed in an X behind her back, like a ninja.

"Nah. Hel is a Wayne, she never sleeps more than 6 hours and frankly I would be surprised if she wasn't awake already and trying to spar with someone!" Maybe I am still fun after all, I think with admittedly a bit of a smile.

"What about Leo? I mean other than me he's your best friend, and you're like his only friend other than Dawn!" She gives me an elbow.

"Nah, Leo deserves to sleep in. I mean, alpha and beta in the same place? You know how that's going to end." I have to admit I'm worried. I mean, the rest of us are all kids of full league members. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman. Hell even our father and oracle were/are leaguers! Leo's a bit different though. His folks weren't the most popular people around these parts.

We turn a corner and we're in a little couched in area. A "Chill zone" as some of the younger leaguers used to call it. It's pretty much just a coffee table and an L-shaped couch with board games underneath to play. But it's just one of the little things the Watchtower does to make us feel at home.

"Remember when you beat Jason at cards and he almost impaled you?" Alex asks me, her brown hair is swirled around her face like a maniac. She may be my twin, but we are nothing alike.

"Good times." I make the executive decision to keep moving. I walk about another 10 feet before someone bumps into me coming out of the med bay.

"Alfie, Alex what are you-" Dick Grayson, A.K.A. Nightwing, yawns halfway through his sentence like he usually does in the mornings. "What are you guys doing up so early? Don't you have a couple more hours to sleep in?"

"It's almost 8 Dick. We're about 5 minutes early." I say, purposely putting a moody edge on my voice. He should know I'm upset because he should know taking me out of the field is a mistake.

"Oh shit, I better get changed then." He yawns again, and then starts a half-walk half-jog towards the men's living quarters. He fell asleep at the foot of Alfred's bed again. Like he has since Alfred got sick.

"Poor Dick. Alfred was like a grandfather to him." My sister, always the humble.

When we get to Lecture Hall A, there is already a surprising number of seats filled. Athena Roxanne Trevor-Prince, A.K.A Fury, and Li Yamashiro, A.K.A. Oni are sitting in two chairs side by side near the front of the room, talking about something in hushed tones. Jon and Kat (A.K.A Superboy and Supergirl respectively) are closer to the door, and us, at the back of the room. He has a cup of black coffee in one hand and his other arm is around his little sister, who is snoring into his shoulder. Both of them are wearing training gear with large S's emblazoned on the fronts of them. Jimmy Olson, one of our teachers, is at the front of the room writing something on the whiteboard that sits on the wall there. The room has seats in an 8x8 grid, with a teacher's desk at the front. It's slanted like a college lecture all, so that ideally all 64 members of a class could see.

Roxy turns our way, sees me and smiles and waves me over. I smile back and walk over to her with Alex in tow.

"Hey Alfie, hey Alex. You guys couldn't sleep?" She asks. Her dyed blond hair is pulled back in a harsh ponytail, and the bright blue eyes she inherited from her father Steve Trevor seem to glisten despite the obvious lack of sleep. She, like Jon, has a cup of coffee in one hand. Li is drinking what looks like green tea. "Still bummed about not being OK'd for the mission?"

I shift uneasily. Roxy is so pretty and really the only girl I feel super comfortable around other than Alex is Helena, who is nowhere to be seen. "Yeah, I guess."

"It's no biggie man." She says, and shoots a reassuring smile my way, "in a couple years you'll be leading alpha team!"

The reason there are 2 different groups made sense when we were younger, when we were children, but it's obsolete now. Alpha's members are between 17-19 years old, whereas beta has members between the ages of 14-16, and those who aren't deemed ready for combat. The thing is, Athena and I had a top secret meeting with Nightwing, Oracle, and a couple of the other civilians that live here and maintain the Watchtower. Only the two of us were invited because we are each a team leader. She leads Alpha, I lead Beta. We know something the other's don't. We know where we're going.

After a couple minutes of talking to just Athena and Li the others drift in, either in groups or one at a time. Helena and Jason walk in, having a laugh about some hilarious but most likely stupid inside joke. Rex walks in a few steps behind, wearing his dark grey and forest green training gear. Even from this distance, his piercing green eyes are almost enough to distract from the giant, feathery wings coming out the back of his shirt or dangerous looking morning star hanging at his belt.

Pretty much everyone on the team is pretty tight. Vikki walks in, seemingly fully charged from a goodnight's sleep. And I mean that literally, because she is half robot. Her one red cybernetic eye scans the room, and fixates on the coffee machine at the front left of it, which she dismisses with a sigh. Behind her, Leo and Dawn walk in side by side as usual, and his naturally cold facial expression seems to thaw a bit when he sees me. He waves, I wave him over.

"Thank God you guys are here already. I don't know what I would do if I had to sit through even like 2 minutes of dick measuring contests from the junior justice league." The three of us laugh, and he cracks a smile. Leo's my best friend for a number of reasons, chief among them is that I'm calculating and he is cold, literally. He is a cryomancer, we're the perfect team. He's also one of the only guys my age in the watchtower, save maybe a couple of civvies. But he's a chill guy. And Dawn is like his adopted big sister, and the two of them go everywhere together. It's weird, her dad was Barry Allen, A.K.A The Flash, and his dad was a petty thief with a cheap gimmick. Who would have known?

While I get caught up with Leo and Dawn and we talk about some stupid stuff, the rest of the team files into the room. . Jenny Jones, green skin and all just like her father J'onn, A.K.A the Manhunter from Mars, phases through the wall three feet to the left of the door. Robert Queen II, A.K.A. Ballista, walks in in his all black training gear, bow and quiver slung casually over his shoulder. He sits down in a seat at the farthest possible seat from the front and immediately nods off. Definitely not the biggest show the second-last member of Alpha team could have put on walking in. William Logan, A.K.A Nightmare, is the final. He seems to be totally unaware of the fact that he walks into the room in the form of a giant, black, demonic wolf. Non-shalontly, he curls up in a ball just beside the door and nods off again.

Anissa Pierce, A.K.A. Thunder, and Melanie Kord A.K.A Blue Beetle IV walk in and take seats to the left of Alex in our row. The last three to walk in are the final three members of beta team: Donnie Markov, A.K.A Quake, Zatanno, and Teddy Grant Jr. A.K.A Wildcat (Who, unlike his father, actually had a number of low level Metahuman abilities). They all take their seats.

After a few minutes of complaining about being up early, excited chatter about the big news, and some famous Watchtower gossip, Nightwing walks in. As soon as he does, the whole room falls silent. Each clique or loner has their own seat. Jason, Jon, Jenny, Helena and Rob sit together, with Jon still holding his arm around his younger sister Kat (who happens to be the youngest of all of us, at 14 years of age.) Will has his own seat in the far corner of the room, mainly because no one wants to go near him. All of Beta except for the little Kryptonian girl sit together in the middle of the lecture hall, all nine of us in our coffee fueled glory (Thank God they have a massive number of coffee trees in the gardens.) Athena, Li, Vikki, and Rex sit front and centre, ready for the mission briefing.

Nightwing walks up to the front of the room and pauses. Batman always loved theatrics and I guess it makes sense that his protégé's do too. And then all at once he lets loose the biggest announcement of all of our young lives.

"4 days from now, we will send a drop ship down with Alpha Team fully prepared for a mission. Today's the day you guys. Today is the day we start our campaign to retake the Earth."