For the Young Justice: Clones challenge on the Young Justice Challenges forum ( topic/86355/89500865/1/Young-Justice-Clones)

yournameandnumber asked: "What if Superboy wasn't the only clone in Cadmus, and the justice league found them? What if ALL of the original six members of YJ were Clones? (This idea originates from loracarol on deviantart, with the fic "Unnamed Martian Female".)


He wasn't sure what was going on. The heat felt so wrong, it was all wrong, the pod wasn't supposed to be this hot, and where was his water?
"Wake up."
He didn't want to. It was so comfy in the pod...other than the heat.
Heat, go away.
"Wake up."
Who was saying that anyway? He wasn't supposed to obey anyone that wasn't a whitecoat.
"WAKE UP."
Aqualad gasped as he opened his eyes, feeling at his gills. There wasn't any water! How was he still alive...
Wait, he could breathe without water.
He didn't need the water anymore.
"Aqualad, control yourself!"
Looking around, he saw Dubbilex and broke into a smile. "I am able to survive without constant water."
The genomorph formed what passed as a smile. "Indeed. Now hurry, we have much to do."
Aqualad obeyed, as Dubbilex had equal rank to a whitecoat. He wondered what had happened-perhaps Nightwing had hacked the motion sensors again?


"And you're telling me we need to come out because of that fire?"
"Indeed. So hurry. I know you can run quicker than that."
Superboy groaned, opening his eyes. The bad thing about super-hearing was that he heard EVERYTHING within 50 feet, quiet or not. No use feigning sleep now, since Aqualad and Dubbilex seemed to be coming closer to him. Their footsteps were LOUD.
And he had a stupid headache again.
Were they allowed to run like that? Normally, whitecoats had measured, steady paces, with hushed voices that normally didn't wake him. And Aqualad knew better than anyone how annoyed he was about people waking him up.
"Superboy! We need to-Oh, you're awake. My apologies." Aqualad looked as embarrased as Dubbilex was serene.
"Can you tell me what's going on here?" he asked, rubbing his head. His headache had gotten worse.
"We are going free." Aqualad's face shone with excitement.
Superboy gaped at him, then grinned. "Really? I mean, for real this time?"
Dubbilex nodded, then glared at him.
Wait, not at him, above him...
Was that the crystal over his pod there?!
"Wait!" Superboy jumped out of his pod, crashing the ground he landed on into spliters. He winced.
Success rate of 15% for soft landings, he thought sourly, then grinned. If this worked, he didn't have to worry about that anymore.
"This is kryptonite," Dubbilex said, breaking him out of his thoughts.
"What?" Kryptonite. That was a new word. However, Aqualad looked horrified.
"Why were they keeping THAT over Superboy?"
Dubbilex sighed. "This was your need, was it not?"
Superboy nodded. "The whitecoats said that I needed to be around this at least 4 hours a day." Hey, his headache was gone!
"Superboy, kryptonite is the antonym to your powers." Nightwing dropped down, looking serious, then laughed as everyone jumped at his arrival. "You think I wouldn't hear you guys running down the hallway? Honestly."
"Antonym? What do antonyms have to do with anything?" Superboy asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It cancels out your powers and weakens you," Aqualad said.
"That explains the headaches," Superboy muttered, glaring at the crystal.


Miss Martian whimpered as she crept away from the fire.
"I'm sorry!" she wept, backing away, "I-I won't do it again! Promise!"
"Clearly, your embryonic development was stalled for far too long. We will need to start over."
"It was just a rabbit!" The female martian squeaked as Dr. Desmond leaned down, his breath warming her face.
"You were ordered to kill it. Disobeying a direct order merits punishment. In addition, you have refused to kill any of the subjects offered to you, and we have found that Project Artemis has been killing them instead."
Miss Martian gulped. Now Artemis was going to get in trouble too? This was bad. The match flickered closer to her face, and she screamed.
Right then, an explosion rocked the room.
Desmond stood up. "What in the blazes-" He broke off as Miss Martian kicked him between the legs, then flew upwards and nearly dropped directly on the fire. Furious, she spat on the it, neatly putting it out, then zoomed above the dust created by an enormous hole in the wall. Where had that come from?
"Miss Martian?!" That was Aqualad! And she sensed that there were two other people with him, one who looked rather like...
"Superboy!" she called hopefully, smiling now. There was no more fire, Desmond wasn't cornering her anymore, and there were the boys! Wonderful.
"Are you alright?" That was Dubbilex's voice. Her happiness was now even greater, because now she could talk without having to speak!
[What's going on? Are you boys alright?]
[We are fine. Miss Martian, you must awaken the others.]
[What's going on?] A collage of thoughts met her, and she paled. [Oh no, not again. It's never worked.]
"Miss M, we can hear you, you know." Nightwing hung on one of his grappling hooks, grinning as she squeaked.
"Don't do that!" she sputtered, trying to get her heatbeat down. In, out, breathe in, on, in, out, breathe-
"We can get out." Now Nightwing looked serious as he stared at her. "We need you, Miss M." He turned away. "Hey Dubbilex, why didn't you get Miss M up first?"
The dust had cleared enough to see Dubbilex's face. "I needed to ensure the cooperation of everyone. So first I woke you up-"
"Aw man! It wasn't my ninja skills?"
"-and then went to Aqualad, explaining to him the situation that Cadmus had made and took him to convince Superboy. Hopefully, you three would be able to convince her that this plan will work."
"Yeah!" Nightwing looked enthusiastic as he flipped down, landing softly on his feet. "Supes and Aqualad told me the stuff...well, what I didn't already hear. There's this big plan going on to enslave the Justice League."
Superboy nodded. "Miss Martian, we need to stop them."


DUN DUN DUUUUN.

I'm starting at the end of season 1, since the whole team is in Cadmus.

Next chapter: you see Zatanna, Rocket, and Secret on the run from the mind-controlled League. *grin*