Alrighty, since this is the beginning of my new (and actually thought through) story I want to mention a few things before this gets started...

1) I got a review already saying how there are a lot of Nightwing/OC stories. Now i understand where you're coming from, and the suggestion of having Superboy as the romance instead was a good one, BUT once you read the story you'll understand why that wouldn't work out. Superboy's personality just doesn't fit right with this particular OC. That being said, it doesn't mean he is getting left out. I really like the M'gann/Superboy pairing so I want to bring that back. Also Wally/Artemis will be in here too. That being said, the pairings are OC/Blue Beetle; OC/Batgirl (though that is something we are still playing with, so it might change); and OC/Nightwing. Yes there are three different OC's.

2) I am working with, i guess you can say, a Beta reader (I think that's what they are called, still not too familiar with the terminology on this site). Anyway, Beast (my Beta) has recently gotten promoted and is a bit busy with work as of late. It actually depends on how the week is, but that's not the point. What I'm try to say is that sometimes it will take him a bit to actually read/edit the chapters I send. I want to make it clear that this fic will NOT be abandoned! However, that means I can't promise that chapters will come out on regular/scheduled times. Part of that also is I want to make sure this fic is done right and flows well. Beast is practically an expert when it comes to DC Comics and is helping a lot with this fic to make sure it works. Sometimes some chapters will take longer to get right, so I just wanted to warn you now.

3) I am really excited to get this story rolling. I wanted to at least have 3-4 chapters out before posting it, but I did promise I'd post it sometime during these past few weeks. I've got 2 chapters all done, edited, and ready to go. Beast still needs to edit the 3rd chapter, so I'll make sure to keep bugging him to do it so I can post it this coming up week.

Now that I've go those out of the way, I really hope you enjoy this story. I'm working really hard on this, so please no flames. If you want to point something out, give suggestions (which I am open to), or give constructive criticism then I am more than open to it. Feel free to send my a review.

Special shout out and lots of thanks to Beast! He is a HUGE help with the development of this story and I really couldn't do this with out him.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

- Panda

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Young Justice or DC Comics. I only claim the story itself and my own characters.

-xXXx-

Chapter 1: Selfless

Past (During Season 1, Episode 2)

The whole lab shook as the battle raged above them. Scientists were running, fleeing from the destruction of the lab. The Geno-Morphs were scrambling around as well, unsure what their orders were. The chaos had confused the alien-like clones, as they attempted to locate the escaped weapon and his would be rescuers. It was only a matter of time before the Justice League came for their young heroes. Each researcher working under Desmond was trying to flee before the heroes came so they wouldn't get caught.

Suddenly, the Geno-Morphs stopped, taking no command from their creators. A small mousey woman slipped into the burning room where the three intruders had been held. Most of the machines were ruined. The woman pushed her large glasses up her nose, set on retrieving any data she could salvage. If the weapon, the Superman clone, escaped there would need to be a backup plan. For years the woman had been Desmond's top assistant, and she had given up everything for this project. No, she wasn't going to leave without something to salvage. The Geno-Morphs were no longer under their control.

Carefully maneuvering around the fires, she reached the least damaged machine. That brat Robin had destroyed the blood pods, but hopefully didn't get the DNA samples they had taken before being placed in the pods. If nothing else, she could start from scratch. It would take longer without the pods, but at least there would be a chance.

The woman tucked some of her stray blond hair behind her ear as she rapidly typed. Three small tubes filled with blood ejected from the broken down machine. The woman sighed in relief, snatching up the samples and clipping them securely to her belt. Now she just needed to get out without being caught, and make it to one of the safe houses. There she could contact the higher ups of Cadmus and, with any luck, continue the research. 'Maybe' she mused, 'they'll fund my own projects.'

Another large boom rocked the bunker, a loud roar echoing down the elevator shaft. Desmond must have taken the serum. He was as good as dead to Cadmus now. The woman scoffed slightly to herself. He was a fool to go head on with the young heroes and risk more exposure. At least they'd have their hands full with Desmond allowing a perfect opportunity to escape.

The woman quickly headed down the hall, going the opposite direction of the others. She wasn't heading toward the elevators, which were most likely inoperable. Desmond had a secret escape route, which he could have used if he hadn't let his pride get in the way of his better judgment. The woman stumbled, using the wall for support. The battle up top seemed to be getting more intense.

"Eva, where you going?" The woman turned to see Rodney, another assistant who worked down in the labs. His chocolate brown eyes were wide with fear. The woman silently cursed at him. If he knew about the alternate escape route then he would want to join. No, he couldn't be allowed to know. It would only slow her down.

"I-I need to get my research notes." The woman stuttered trying to find a viable excuse. Rodney looked at her with a confused expression.

"Eva, this place is going down. The League will be here any moment. It's best if you leave now." He said glancing toward the hall to the elevators.

"NO! This is my life's work. I'm not leaving without it. You go, I-I'll catch up soon." The mousy woman, Eva, pushed her glasses up her soot covered face. Rodney hesitated, causing the woman to hold her breath. Time was running out.

"Alright, just hurry up. I'll wait as long as I can for you." Rodney sighed. With one last glance, he made his way down the hall. Eva sighed in relief before scurrying down the hall in the opposite direction.

In a matter of minutes the woman had made her way to Desmond's private office. She scrambled for the emergency button behind the wall compartment. Another shockwave shook the lab causing Eva to stagger. Another wall opened, revealing a small escape pod. She was about to climb in when she glanced at her bosses computer. With a small huff, she pulled out her own little flash drive, containing most of her own research, and plugged it into the machine. It felt like it took forever to hack in, but the small woman wasn't going to leave anything useful behind. She tapped her broken fingernail on the desk as the data downloaded. As soon as it finished, she yanked the drive out and made her way to the pod. If she remembered correctly she'd come out at an abandoned warehouse a few blocks down. The heroes might have hindered Cadmus today, but with all the things she managed to collect it wouldn't be long until they were up and running again. However, this time she would be running the show.

- line break -

Present (Season 2, Episode 20)

A blur of red and grey raced over the ocean. No creature on Earth could move so fast that it was able to walk on the water. No creature that is, except for a speedster. However, this blur wasn't Flash, Kid Flash, or Impulse. Those three were currently in the Arctic saving the world from destruction. This was someone else, someone who matched the speed of the fasted man alive.

Finally reaching solid ground, the figure stopped, revealing the runner to be young girl no older than eighteen. She wore a whole body suit, much like the speedster heroes did, except hers looked more mechanical. Her face was covered with a dark grey and black mechanical like mask. On either side of her head was a dark red lightning bolt, similar to the hero speedsters she so dearly looked up too. Her suit was a slightly darker grey with dark red lightning bolt patterns on her forearm. The insignia on her chest showed a large Q with the tail of the letter being the bottom of a jagged shaped S resembling a lightning bolt. This, too, was a dark red. Her fiery red hair was tied up in a ponytail, the top of her head uncovered by the mask. The girl placed a finger on the side of the mask, close to her ear.

"Okay, Vul. I'm here." She said, mask muffling her voice slightly. "You sure you're going to be alright? The Handler isn't going to go easy on you."

"I'll be fine." Came the reply. "Just get that to the League and we might just make it out. Now, with all the commotion going on around the Earth, most heroes will be busy with clean up and rescue. I've found a trace on some heroes, and they should be nearby."

"Yeah, but where? Even I'll have some difficulty searching the whole polar ice cap." The girl huffed. Suddenly a large boom sounded in the distance. The mystery girl looked over to see a huge tornado-like cloud off in the distance. An alien ship was flying toward it. "Never mind." The girl sighed. "I think I found them. Talk to you in a sec."

The girl closed the communications, and then sped toward the commotion. When she arrived, she hid behind a large ice formation, certain they couldn't see her. The sight that greeted her eyes shocked her. There were her idols, all three of them racing opposite of the tornados current. They must be trying to cancel it out. The fan girl inside caused the girl to stand there and gawk, lost in the moment.

The three speedsters ran with all their might, but Kid Flash wasn't as fast as the other two. Gasping, she watched as energy from the massive tornado hit the young hero. He was starting to fade. The girl knew what was happening; the energy hitting Kid was causing his molecules to shift in an unstable way. If he stayed in the vortex, its energy discharges would soon cause his molecules to disperse entirely. She could see his mouth moving.

Then he was gone. As the vortex disappeared entirely, the remaining speedsters stopped. The ship she saw earlier landed near them. Several heroes whom she was familiar with disembarked, and hurried to where Flash and Impulse were panting. She could see the lips of the archer hero Artemis move to form words. "Wait!" she yelled, "Where's Wally?"

"Artemis," Flash began, "he wanted me to tell you…"

"No…. No." Artemis cried.

"He loved you." Flash finished. She fell to her knees sobbing, as Miss Martian kneeled to hold her.

Only Kid Flash wasn't entirely gone. The speedster in hiding could still see him, however he was fading fast. The other speedsters probably would have been able to see him too if they weren't so drained. The red head glanced down at the injection gun hooked to her belt. The drug loaded into the contraption was her, and her families, ticket to freedom. They had been forced for so long to do Cadmus' dirty work. With this handed over to the League, maybe her and the others could live normal lives. But, at the same time this could be the only thing to save Kid Flash from disappearing. Without hesitation, the girl raced out to meet the heroes.

When she stopped in front of them, everyone blinked in surprise. No one had seen this girl before and both speedsters noticed right away she was like them.

"Who are you?" Nightwing demanded, tensing in case there was going to be a fight. The girl held up her hands to show she meant no harm. She glanced nervously at the still fading Kid Flash. He looked like he was frozen, body held in mid run.

"Hold your horse's cowboy, I'm here to help." The girl swallowed nervously. "Kid Flash isn't gone, yet. The energy that was hitting him made his already fast moving molecules unstable and he'll keep moving faster and faster until he's gone completely." The darkly dressed girl pulled out her injection gun. "Now, it just so happens I have something to help stabilize him. I'm going to vibrate to his frequency then inject him. He'll start to stabilize and slow down to our pace, but I gotta act fast."

"Then hurry and do it." Came the hoarse voice of Artemis. She wiped away her tears, hope shinning in her eyes. The girl looked at her for a moment, nodded, then raced over to where Kid was stuck. Praying she too wouldn't get stuck, the girl sucked in a breath and began to vibrate as quickly as she could. In a few seconds the eight heroes lost sight of her. Everyone was silent, each holding their breath. It felt like ages passed by as they all stared at the spot where the mystery girl once stood. Suddenly there was a blur of yellow, and Kid Flash collapsed on the ice. He was breathing heavily, emerald green eyes wide with shock. His body was still vibrating, but soon that subsided. Artemis ran over to the yellow speedster and practically tackled him.

"Hey, be careful. Vibrating like that tends to do a number on your body." The young hero tried to joke. Everyone smiled in relief that their friend was back safely. The archer girl punched him lightly in the arm, tears of happiness threatening to spill.

"Don't you EVER go and do something stupid like that again!" She practically yelled, then dropped her head into his chest adding in a whisper, "I don't think I can handle loosing you."

The mystery girl began to decelerate. Her shoulders sagged and breath came out in quick, yet labored breaths. She looked exhausted and in pain. Flash walked over to her, ready to help support her if need be. His forehead was knitted with worry. He knew it was to save his nephew, but to vibrate yourself that fast would be dangerous no matter how fast you could run.

"Thank you. Without your help I don't think we would've ever seen him again. I owe you, big time." The scarlet speedster said. The girl waved her hand as if to say it was no big deal. She was still too winded to talk.

"We all owe you." Aqualad said, stepping forward. The girl paused, looking closely at the dark skinned Atlantean, though it was hard to tell through the dark red glass that covered the eyes on her mask. She glanced over at Nightwing, who still looked wary.

"No, the pleasure is all mine." She said. "I'm just glad I was able to save one of the speedsters! You guys are great, cleaning up Central City with lightning fast speed and helping keep galactic peace. Oh man, Iwishicouldbelikeyouguysrushingintosavepeopleandstopthebadguys. Ah, now I'm blabbing. Man, first time meeting my idols and I act like a complete air head."

Flash smiled at the girl's enthusiasm. It reminded him so much of Wally when he first became Kid Flash. Despite her dark appearance, this girl seemed to be a bundle of energy. So much that she started vibrating again.

"This is so crash!" Impulse beamed looking at the girl. "I had no idea there was another speedster!"

"What's your name, kid?" Flash asked, hoping to learn more about her.

"An- Quick Step." The girl coughed almost giving out her name. Like it mattered much. Still, she liked to pretend she had a secret identity, just like the heroes. Looking at her hand, she noticed that the suit wasn't helping as much as she hoped it would. Cursing to herself, she looked back up at the hero she admired. Quick Step would have given anything to spend more time talking, but she could feel herself starting to fade. She pressed a few buttons on the forearm of her suit and a liquid began moving down the small tubes on her suit. Her vibrating subsided slightly, but it wouldn't last long. She needed to get back home to the base.

"Listen, I would love nothing more than to chat with you some more, but you might want to look at Kid. I gave him a stabilizer, but I'm not sure what that weird energy thing was that was hitting him. Might want to check him out to see if he's all good." Quick Step said as she began to walk off.

"Wait, we are you going?" Superboy asked, his famous scowl plastered to his face.

"I do want to ask you more questions." Flash added taking a step toward the mystery girl. Quick Step held up her hand in a wave. Barry imagined she had a grin behind her mask.

"Would love to tell ya more, but I can't." She said with a hint of sadness in her muffled tone. "I would say 'hope to see you soon,' but something tells me when next we meet, it won't be on pleasant terms. Tootals!" In an instant Quick Step was racing away leaving the group of heroes speechless.

"We going after her?" Bart asked coming up next to Barry. Starring after the girl, the older hero shook his head heavily.

"I don't think we could catch her in our condition. Wally needs medical attention and we both need some food." The scarlet speedster paused for a moment. "I'll have Bats see what he can dig up. Something tells me she's involved in something bad and I don't think a girl like her belongs in the shadows."

- line break -

Running back with only a few tiny doses of stabilizer to keep her molecules from going haywire was painful as well as scary. Quick Step had a few close calls in the past, but this was like walking on thin ice while the sun is out. Every step could break the fragile surface, and she was standing in the middle of the lake. It took her ten minutes to get back to the base, her home. It could have taken less time, but Quick Step was being careful not to go too fast. She hadn't had her injection for this week, using the substance to save Kid Flash instead.

Quick Step walked in, stumbling into a cabinet. She had begun to vibrate again, the suit running out of the temporary stabilizer. She quickly removed her metal mask revealing her face. Those emerald green eyes of hers were lined with fear. Faint traces of freckles dotted her pale cheeks.

"Ann! What happen?"

It was the same person she had talked to over the com-link. An older male with raven colored hair hurried over to support the ill speedster. He was in his costume, probably ready to leave this place once Quick Step had delivered the drug. He wore a dark brown domino mask that reach down the length of his nose, the tip of it hanging barely over the end of his nose. The light combat armor he wore was a dark brown with black details, darker brown feathers covered his shoulders slightly. A black silhouette vulture head stood out boldly on his chest. He didn't seem too much older than Quick Step, looking roughly 21.

"I-I'm sorry." The red haired girl sighed. "I didn't get it to the League. Kid Flash was in danger and I used it to help him." She held back a sob, hoping that the older male wouldn't hate her. "H-he was going to fade away and I couldn't let that happen. I'm sorry I couldn't free us. I'm so sorry Dominic."

Seeing the tired girl's distress, the raven haired man wrapped her in his strong arms. Disappointment and despair made his stomach roll, yet he wasn't mad at the girl. Dominic cherished her like a younger sister. It was in her nature to help others before herself and that was one of the things he loved about her. Still, even this was too close of a call for Dominic's comfort. The Handler would know that they tried to escape and he wouldn't just forgive them.

"It's alright Annie. We'll just try something else then. For now, let's see if we can't get you something to help you feel better." Dominic sighed helping the girl to her feet. He glanced over at the other person he considered a precious part of his family.

In the doorway stood a tall, dark skinned Atlantean girl. She looked maybe a year younger than Dominic. Her long bleach blonde hair was tied up in a side braid. Beautiful black tattoos spiraled down her arms. She wore Atlantean armor, the top piece being a dark blue while from the waist down was all black. Light armor covered her shins, forearms, and shoulders. Her feet were bare, like always. The suit did slightly cover them, leaving only her toes and heels uncovered. On her left hand was a thin, mechanized glove that enabled her to electrocute others. She had a round Atlantean water pack attached to her lower back, as well as a water bearer staff attached to it. Dark blue eyes stared right into Dominic as he helped Annie through to the next room.

"Keal'a, help me bring her into the med bay. I'll go speak to the Handler about the stabilizer." Dominic instructed. The woman nodded silently, taking a firm hold on the vibrating red head. The dark skinned woman easily carried Annie into the room.

Dominic quickly walked into a room with a large screen. He pressed the green button on the control panel and the silhouette of a man's head appeared on screen.

"What is it?" Handler asked in a deep tone. Dominic swallowed hoping his bluff would work.

"Quick Step's stabilizer was dropped by accident and the glass tube shattered. We need more or else she will fade." He tried, careful not to sound too anxious. He was good at masking his emotions, but Handler was attuned to them.

"Vulture, I am sure you are aware that I know of your plan to get help from the Justice League. I have studied you three subjects. I know you hacked into the system to open the doors. Due to your disobedience, I am denying your request for the stabilizer." Handler all but growled. Dominic cursed silently. He knew this would be their only chance and now it was gone. They were going to keep being puppets to Cadmus until another opportunity showed itself, which could take a while now that they would be more cautious.

"Our plan failed. The League didn't get a drop the stabilizer. Quick Step used it to save one of the heroes. I know you didn't want us to be known to the heroes, but at least they will be less suspicious of our intentions if they think we are good. If you allow Quick Step to vanish, they will begin to investigate where she went and this might lead them to us. Keeping her alive is a better option. Use this new gained trust." Dominic reasoned. There was a long pause.

"It would be inconvenient to lose the subject and start again. Permission granted for a dose of stabilizer. However, Quick Step isn't the only one we'll be punishing. You and Aquatic will also be put through re-correction. Don't disappoint, Vulture. There will not be a second chance. Handler out." The screen shut off and a small compartment opened up from the wall under the large screen. Dominic picked up the injector gun, looking at it with sad eyes. Their lives had just sunk a little deeper into hell.

-End Chapter-

A/N: There won't be a bunch of stuff before every chapter like this one. Hope you liked it. If you read my Chimera fic and was disappointed by my abandonment of the story, I am truly sorry.