Author's Note: This is technically a crossover between 'Young Justice' and 'His Dark Materials', but more accurately, this is a re-imagining of the YJ universe with daemons, and very little knowledge of the other series is needed to understand this story.
If you are unfamiliar with the concept of daemons, let me briefly explain. Daemons are manifestations of the human soul in animal form. Daemons are closely linked with their human; except in very rare cases, another person cannot touch them, and being separated from one another causes extreme pain or death. As children, daemons can take on any animal form they so choose, but as people grow up, their daemon will eventually settle upon a form representative of that person's personality.
Chapter 1: Teamwork
Kaldur'ahm and his daemon are truly beginning to reconsider the decision to investigate the fire at Cadmus.
From the beginning they had been hesitant to go behind their mentors' backs. It was not a particularly respectful thing to do, even if they did believe them to be in the wrong on this occasion. Yet Kaldur had allowed himself to be swayed by his friends' arguments- that it would merely be aiding the over-worked Justice League, that it would be a simple reconnaissance mission, that it might finally prove to the their teachers the true extent of their skills.
More and more, that reasoning is beginning to seem truly foolish. This was not, and could not, be a simple reconnaissance mission. The secrets Cadmus Laboratories held were too great and too dangerous for that. Strange creatures- genomorphs- lurk around every corner, armed with a deadly array of supernatural abilities. The organization clearly has some kind of telepathic mind control at their disposal, one which has already grabbed the mind of at least one other hero. They are miles below ground and utterly surrounded. None of their allies know of their whereabouts.
"This is out of control. Perhaps...perhaps we should contact the League," Kaldur hazards.
His comrades' daemons are on too high alert to pay his words any mind, but Kid Flash and Robin themselves clearly have registered them. They both glance away. When the elevator they are riding reaches its destination moments later-43 levels below ground- Robin and Imza take off immediately. Kid Flash and Lolace, at least, both stop to share their opinion- now that they're here, they may as well investigate- but speed away before the Atlantean can say anything in response.
From his back-sling Genor says, "What choice do we have?"
Aqualad sighs. "None."
The young man and turtle daemon catch up with the others just in time to be attacked by a genomorphs. There's no time to discuss before a mind-controlled Guardian and a swarm of other creatures come from behind, and they're forced to run off again. Sooner or later they will have to fight, unless...
...unless they come across a reinforced metal door they can hind behind.
A door which is rapidly closing
Kid Flash, who had run ahead with his super speed, is on his knees next to a pair of toppled scientists, glancing between his friends and the closing doorway. His raccoon daemon, Lolace, shows no such hesitancy, immediately rushing to the set canisters standing in neat rows nearby. The canisters aren't large, but they're too heavy for her to handle herself. She hisses at her human; "A little help would be nice!"
The speedster clambers over, picks up the canister with both arms and hefts it towards the door. As he works to block it, Lolace speeds backwards and forwards nervously, a yellow blur in her suit. Even as Kid Flash urges them to hurry, Robin and Aqualad arrive. The first two side-kicks immediately dive through the door. Kaldur hesitates, then follows. Once he's through, he stands parallel to the door, letting Genor glance through to see how close their pursuers truly are. Kaldur has no choice but to kick the canister; the metal buckles, explodes outwards, and the door shuts with a loud clang, green light switching to red.
"I've disabled the door," Robin explains from a computer terminal. "We're safe."
"We're trapped," Kaldur corrects, solemn. The chamber is dark. Impenetrable. The soldier allows himself a brief pang of longing for the open sea. Robin's expression remains unreadable behind the mask, but on his shoulder Imza flickers from bird shape to the warm, reassuring form of a squirrel.
That's when Kid Flash interrupts. "Uh, guys? You'll want to see this."
He presses buttons. A light flickers on, and for a moment they can all only stare, wide-eyed, at what it reveals.
Two large glass chambers. In one, a person. In the other, a dog. And though looking notably younger, both are instantly recognizable by the red symbol they wear.
Superman and Krypto.
oOo
Awaken, a voice says in his head, and Wally does.
It's a terrible, invasive feeling, and it sets him struggling immediately. The movement causes pain to explode- his whole body is battered and bruised, clearly having suffered one of the worst beatings of his life. Its no use, anyway; both his legs and arms are bound tight by metal restraints, no give at all. A quick glance shows that he's not the only one. Aqualad and Robin are in the same positions. Imza must be in that small, opaque black box on the ground, one designed to prevent the escape of unsettled daemons. His own raccoon needs no such precautions, and instead has been placed in a larger cage nearby, though she gets the bonus of electronic shackles around her clever forepaws. Genor doesn't get either, their captors having merely left him lying upside down on the back of his shell. Through the fear and rage Wally feels a brief burst of anger on Kaldur's behalf, for having to see his sea-turtle daemon disrespected like that.
He's getting over the disorientation now, and the memories are all flooding back. He remembers Cadmus, the creepy genomorph things, the Superman clone. The Superman clone which, apparently, has zero of the original's morals, and is basically an unstoppable juggernaut of pain.
The Superman clone which, by the by, is standing just a couple feet in front of him. Staring.
He wishes desperately that Lolace, at least, was free, instead of caged, shackled and kept just at the edge of their range. Even if she couldn't get him out, it would be so nice to feel her fur against his skin.
She'd probably say something like, "what would really be nice is if we could actuallyvibrate our molecules through solid matter," but then, she's always been the practical one of the pair. That's why she's keeping her muzzle shut while he's the one yelling his mouth off at the evil clone that got them into this mess in the first place.
"What do you want?!" he yells. Not-Superman and Not-Kypto just stand there, utterly still, eyes locked onto him. "Quit staring! You're freaking me out!"
Robin tells him to stop antagonizing the guy with eye-beams, which,yeah, fair point, but it's not like things could get much worse.
"We only sought to help you," Aqualad tells super-clone.
"Yeah, we free you, and you turn on us. How's that for gratitude?"
"Kid, please," Kaldur interrupts. "Be quiet now."
Then Genor says, "I believe our new friend was not in full control of his actions."
Genor doesn't eve seemto see the irony of saying that while he's rocking back on forth on his shell, unable to do anything more than flail his flippers helplessly. (Is the term irony? Wally's not sure. English class isn't really his strength).
The clone opens his mouth, says something indecipherable, grunts, then tries again. "What if I wasn't?"
Wally gapes. "He can talk?"
"Yes, we can," the large white dog daemon next to him says, baring her teeth.
After a glance to his friends, Wally figures he should be going into placation mode. "It's not like I said 'it'."
oOo
It's it the sloppiest escape Robin has made in years.
It took a painfully long time for him to manage to cut through the restraints with the electric file hidden in his sleeve, and even then, he still probably wouldn't have managed to escape if Superboy hadn't had a change of heart strong enough to cut through the telepathic control and busted them out.
Once out of his pod, the first thing Robin does is find the correct controls to open the latches of KF's and Aqualad's pods. He orders Superboy to go help them get down (an order which his daemon does nottake kindly), then moves to find the correct sequence to unlock their daemons. His heart soars when he does so; Imza comes gliding out, chirping wildly, and by the time she reaches him she's an hanuman monkey, perfectly shaped to wrap him in a hug. It's never comfortable to be forcibly kept apart from your daemon, and even more so when you can't see one another.
There's not a lot of time for chit-chat, but Robin can't help but ask in a low voice, "You okay? That box was pretty small."
"Fine," she whispers back. "I just turned into a beetle. At that size, it was practically the Batcave."
She's shivering a little, so he knows she's lying, but its only a small lie. He grins.
The super-clone is still freeing the others, but his daemon is watching them, ears pulled back. "I hate monkeys," she says, and it's nearly a snarl.
Robin really wants to tell her to deal with it, but that wouldn't exactly be helpful, so he just ignores the comment. Imza does the same, quickly making her way past the dog to Genor, who's still lying on his back. She flips him right side up just as Aqualad lands beside him. Lolace snuffles Wally protectively while Imza helps Genor into his back-sling. (Robin has often wondered why bad guys never bother to steal their gear when they're unconscious. Aqualad would be so less effective if he had to carry his daemon in his arms).
As soon as its clear that everyone is in two pieces they take off, Robin only sparing a couple seconds to throw back a couple birdarangs and destroy that rather delicate apparatus the villains have going on there.
Things get...tough, after that. Dozens of more genomorphs come out of the very walls; these ones being huge, monstrous, troll-like things that rival even Superboy in strength. Fighting them all would be a terrible idea, and for a moment it looks like Supey is going to just that- but thankfully, he and his dog are just holding them off long enough to clear a path to the elevator. Robin shoots a grappling hook up the shaft, and once Kid Flash grips his shoulders, the two of them going soaring up; Izma, meanwhile, turns into an eagle, and grips Lolace by the back of her uniform to follow. There are horrible grunting and crashing sounds from below, but when he glances back, his companions are fine. Aqualad's arm is slung around Superboy's shoulders, and both him and his dog have leapt into the air; within seconds they've even managed to speed past them, just narrowly avoiding Izma's wings.
Except, after a second, they're not flying at all; they're falling.
Robin shoots another grappling hook down, and Aqualad manages to catch it; but there's no-one, no-one to grab Superboy's daemon. Instead, she's going to keep falling- falling long past her range-nobody can survive that kind of separation-
But then, something happens. As the giant white dog falls, whining, one of her flailing paws catch one of the bars lining the shaft- and then, all of a sudden, it's not a paw at all, but a hand. A large, hairy, orange hand. And connected to it isn't a dog at all, but an orangutan.
Both clone and daemon look too stunned to think. Superboy appears to be muttering about his surprising inability to fly, while the now-orangutan is staring at her hand in mute horror.
Kid Flash consoles Superboy on the whole 'not flying' thing, but they've got bigger problems- the elevator is approaching from above, and fast.
"Guys, this will have to be our exit," Robin shouts.
The others jolt into action, but Superboy's poor daemon is just hanging onto the wall in orangutan form, looking utterly lost. If she stays there, she'll be a pancake "Yo!" Lolace yells up at him. "You're unsettled. Go bird!"
For a terrible millisecond, Robin's afraid that the daemon won't- but then, suddenly, she's a falcon, and her powerful wings are carrying her to the same exit that Superboy is in the process of ripping apart.
There's a chase after that, followed by a trip in the good old air-vent. They have to pause, momentarily, to remind Superboy's daemon to take something that crawls better than a falcon (she goes for a snake, following Izma's lead), and even then, they're stuck at a painfully slow crawl. Thankfully, the goons that run the place were too arrogant to realize he'd hacked the motion censors, so they lose their pursuers without much difficulty. They drop out of the vent, Superboy's daemon returning to the dog-shape so similar to Krypto's, Izma taking wing as the robin which is her human's namesake.
After that there's more running, a whole bunch of stairs- all good, all good- then there's warning lights and giant lock-out doors, not good, but manageable-
-and thenthere's dozens upon dozens of genomorphs, blocking off every escape path. No where to run. No way to fight.
No chanceto fight. All the creatures' horns begin to glow, and Robin can do nothing as he feels a telepathic presence press against his mind. His body sags, collapses, Izma crashes to the ground beside him, and finally, consciousness is pulled from their grasp.
oOo
Superboy falls to the ground. His arms feel like lead- no, like something far, far heavier. His daemons paws are planted on the ground. Neither can move.
And yet- they are not unconscious. Not like the others. Why?
Perhaps for the sake of our fellow genomorphs, our brother Superboy should make up his own mind.
The sensation- the presence of something else, someone else, in his mind- is familiar. Familiar, and after his brief taste of freedom, cloying.
However, it does not seem to press against his thoughts, not like it did before. He can still feel himself. He stares at the genomorph standing in front of him- taller, lankier, more humanoid than any of the others. A name suddenly fills his head: Dubbilex.
It was you?he asks.
Yes, Dubbilex agrees. The genomorph explains. Explains how he orchestrated all of this; the fire, the discovery, their continued survival. When Superboy asks why, he says:
Because you our are hope. The genomorph hero. You will blaze a trail for all our brothers, showing us the way to freedom.
The other are waking- or rather, being allowed to wake. The genomorph's attention, however, does not waver from Superboy and his daemon. What is your choice, brother, sister?
Cadmus created him. Cadmus taught him everything. Cadmus kept him safe. That's what he's been told. But as his daemon swishes her tail angrily, he realizes that its not what he believes. They created him, but only as a weapon, and now they wish to imprison him. They wish to deny him of anything he could want, even his own thoughts.
These genomorphs want a hero. Somebody to save them. Perhaps, one day, he will. But it is not for their sakes' Superboy is thinking about when his daemon opens her muzzle and says, "We choose freedom."
It causes a flare of emotion in his chest, something sweet and bright and beautiful.
The emotion is short-lived, for just moments later the scientist, Desmond and his gecko daemon, the one who has kept them trapped here, appears. He rants, and raves, and before anybody can think to stop him, he downs a clear vial filled with some sort of chemical. Immediately his body begins to bulge and stretch, horribly enlarged muscles erupting like tumours, breaking through the skin itself.
Superboy does not have many memories, but his mind is filled with many things. And he is sure that there is nothingin head as disgusting as the scientist's skin falling away.
He is proven wrong the moment he notices Desmond's daemon.
The gecko had been curled around the man's neck, and as the neck had expanded, the daemon hadsunk intothe flesh, its yellow scales turning dull grey to match. With his razor sharp eyesight, Superboy is able to see the painful detail as the gecko's digits loose their distinction, then entire limbs and tail, then body itself. Within seconds the daemon is just an oddly shaped lump on Desmond's neck with two dots for eyes; eventually even those are consumed. And then the daemon's...gone.
It's...horrifying. Wrong. Superboy and the others can only stare.
It's his daemon who cuts through their astonishment and makes the first move, jumping towards the creature (for surely, that's allit is now), and digging her teeth into its flesh. Superboy follows her with a punch to the goliath's face. The creature which was once Desmond screams, and with a single flail of one mighty arm, flings Superboy to the ground. The clone hardly feels it, and a second later, jumps high above the mutated monster's face. The monster sees the opening, and uses it a chance to punch him in the gut, propelling him straight through the ceiling.
For a moment there's this terrible tugging, then a tearing, as if he can feel something- as if he can feel her- being pulled right out of him. But then she must jump to follow, because it's alright, and the pain lessens, even if it leaves him grasping for breath in a way that that being thrown through three floors to land heavily on the ground does not.
The subsequent battle is...difficult. The warped being that Desmond has become is truly strong, having sacrificed all its intelligent for brute strength. In one sense, they have some advantage in the fact that their daemons can attack the creature directly- Desmond is no longer a true person, and so daemons do not need to avoid his touch; in practice, however, it just means that the humans have to be even more careful not to accidentally bump into another's daemon in the melee.
(That is something Superboy knows, as well as he knows the beauty of the sun-that one must never touch another's daemon.)
Superboy punches, and punches, and punches, his daemon clawing, biting and tearing. If they get flung off, they simply shake away the damage and jump back into the fray. The fast one, which his memory banks tell him is called Kid Flash, weaves in and out, only occasionally landing a punch, and avoiding being hit himself; he is not always successful. The one called Aqualad fights not just with his muscles, but with magic, summoning large whips of glowing water which Desmond hardly seems to feel. At one point the monster nearly manages to beat Aqualad straight into a pillar, forcing Superboy to come to his rescue. The little one (Robin), stays out of reach for the most part, throwing all manner of projectiles. It's the boy's daemon which does all the close range fighting, flickering from shape to shape with dizzying speed- one moment a cat, another a bird, the next a cockroach, then an ox. If he wasn't so busy being pummelled, Superboy thinks he might feel ill watching it- he could never imagine his daemon own switching from form to form so easily.
(He can still scarcely imagine his daemon being anything but a large white dog; that's what she's meantto be. The fact that she's unsettled just seems wrong, almost as wrong as his inability to fly).
There's this glorious joy in being able to let loose. He has spent his entire life asleep. In a pod. And now, for the first time, he and his daemon are discovering just what they are capable of. It feels amazing.
It's also, he realizes, not enough.
They are strong, but the creature which was Desmond is stronger. He will keep fighting, and fighting, and fighting. Superboy could keep fighting, too, he thinks, but he doesn't want to- he's getting tired. And the others, Robin and Aqualad and Kid Flash, they are even more exhausted, and by this point, severely hurt. Desmond could kill them, and Superboy realizes that he doesn't want that.
But while the other three may be weak, they are clever. While Superboy is still busy fighting, Robin comes up with a plan, a way of defeating the monster and escaping at the same time. They can provoke Desmond into weakening the supporting pillars, and bring the building down on top of them.
It's mathematics, and architecture, and tactics, and all these other things which Superboy knows about in his head but doesn't know how to do, but it all comes so naturally to these heroes.
Their plan goes well. Kid Flash antagonizes the monster into attacking each pillar; Robin marks key points; Aqualad makes the floor slick with water and ice. Superboy and his daemon provide the muscle, pummelling Desmond into the ground, long enough for him to be electrified and for Robin to plant explosives in each pillar. Then the boy is shouting for the to move, and there is a high-pitched whining, and then a roaring, both from the explosion and the monster, and Superboy moves on instinct, jumping on top of the the humans, trying to protect them as the building crashes down around them...
Superboy punches his way out of the rubble, his daemon lifting a large slab of concrete on her back. The others follow behind him, breathing heavily. Out of the corner of his eye, Superboy spots the little raccoon, clad in yellow, scramble up the debris, while a tiny little cockroach climbs up Robin's leg.
His attention isn't on any of that, however. Instead, he's breathing in the cold air, filled with dust but still so much sharper than anything he's breathed before. He feels a breeze against his face, sees how it gently tugs at his daemon's thick white fur. They're outside. For the first time in their lives, they are outside.
Together, they go to look at the unconscious form of Desmond, unsure of what to make of the huge, hulking figure that was once a scientist. Before they can think much about it, however, a voice interrupts them, and Kid Flash says, "See? The moon."
The two of them stare up at the sky. The moon hangs there, more beautiful than either of them could have ever imagined.
And then Superman and Krypto appears.
It seems as though they have appeared from the moon itself, though of course that is only a trick of perspective. Superboy stands straighter, and his daemon pricks her ears. Their eyes are locked on the pair descending towards them; blue suit, red cape, white fur, and the symbol, the same one they themselves wear. Even as the rest of the Justice League arrives, in their many colourful costumes, with daemons in a dozen forms, from dogs to doves, from peagsi to puma, they cannot pull their gaze away.
It becomes apparent however, moments later, that Superman and his daemon can.