A/N: Sorry it took so long to post but real life is a bitch. Anyway, the Cadmus Story is going to be three chapters. I also wanted to see where Invasion was going with it's storyline Chapter three hopefully won't take as long so long as RL cooperates. Anyway enough with yaking, so with out further adue

Submitted for your approval...

Chapter 2: A Revealing Fire

July 4th

Hall of Justice

Authorized Personnel Area

0o0o0o0o0o

Marcus watched as Speedy stormed out of the room, he didn't understand why he was so upset. Did he honestly suspect to be made a full blown member of the League today? Marcus knew for a fact that entry into the Justice League required a nomination by multiple League members in good standing followed by a majority vote by all active members and/or proxies. If he believed the gossip, the vote to extend him an offer of membership passed by only one vote and Batman abstained.

Roy's little tantrum however was in no way helpful to anyone. He even joined Batman in glaring at Arrow when it was revealed he spilled the beans about the Watch Tower. The man should have known better, the Hall was a front and the Watch Tower kept secret for a reason. The Hall of Justice acted as a touchstone for the heroes so that the wouldn't loose that connection they had with those they protected and was in many ways more important then the orbiting space station. The Watch Tower however was a rally point for emergencies that potential enemies didn't know about or how to get to and needed to remain secrete to maintain that.

The thing that burned him most though was Roy's comment as he left. Who the hell was he to say that, he had half a mind to go out there and beat seven shades of shit out of him for what he said. But that strange sixth sense he developed kept him from acting and revenge was worthless if he missed something important. Besides he had a some friends to help.

"Hey, what does he know? So today was not what you expected, so you only get a small peek behind the curtain instead of the full blown back stage tour, but can of you honestly say you expected any more then that?" he asked looking at his friends. "Robin, how much training did Bats make you do before he even thought about letting you join him out on his patrols of Gotham?

"Thirteen months, two weeks, and five days, almost six" answered Robin.

"I bet it was the same for you Kid Flash?" asked Marcus as he turned towards the junior speedster.

"Yeah, it was nine months of nothing but training with Uncle Bar... I mean Flash. Learning how fast to run, how to maintain a normal pace, heck even just stopping took a month just to learn how to do. But what's your point?" asked Kid Flash now instead of feeling depressed, was just confused at where Marcus was going with this.

"My point is that, yeah while all of you might be in many way's full blown heroes in your own right, can any of you honestly say that you can work with the likes of Superman, or Green Lantern, or Wonder Woman without letting the shock and awe cloud your judgment?" asked Marcus. He didn't like having to ask a question like this but they needed to understand that this like anything else took time and patience and trust that when their mentors thought they were ready then it would happen.

Anything else that was going to be said was cut short when a transmission from Superman came through. "Superman to Justice League, there has been an explosion at Project Cadmus, it's on fire."

On the outside Marcus kept up a calm if somewhat perplexed facade but inside he was in knots. "Cadmus, why did it have to be them?" he thought to himself. Those guys caused more then enough problems in the Mainline DC universe. Now it seemed he would have to deal with this universe's version. He was especially concerned when Batman remarked that he had long had "suspicions" about them, indicating this was their first encounter with them. That in turn made things all the more complicated. At least until Zatara interrupted calling for help. Apparently Wotan was at it again, this time he was attempting to blot out the sun.

A small fire and the chance to investigate something that is most likely nothing or stopping an insane sorcerer from blocking out the sun, yeah he would have made the same call as Batman was about to until, "I'll look into Cadmus" he said shocking everyone including himself.

"Are you sure about that? You have made your views on joining or even interacting with the League quite clear?" asked Batman, giving him a calculated look trying to determine his motives.

"The League is needed to handle Wotan, and like Superman said it's a small fire that the local authorities already have it in hand. I should be more then enough to look into the cause. Chances are it's nothing but you yourself said that Project Cadmus needed to be checked out and what better chance then this" answered Marcus answering Bat's glare with a confident smile.

"He has a point, and Faiz has more then proved himself capable of operating alone" remarked Aquaman.

Batman's eyes narrowed considerately before he nodded. "Agreed, Faiz will go and assist local fire and EMT units and then investigate Project Cadmus. If you find anything you WILL contact the League."

"Yes dad" said Marcus playfully causing both KF and Robin to snicker and Aqualad to facepalm at how his friend liked to "tug on Batman's cape."

"The rest of you stay put while we deal with Wotan" said Batman to the other sidekicks.

"Why?"

Batman looked to his partner and behind his cowl he sighed "Like Faiz said you are not ready or trained for this team."

"There will be other missions guys, just need to get some more miles on ya first" said Flash reassuringly.

"Exactly but for now" Batman's eyes narrowed at the three, "STAY put." With that Batman, Flash, Aquaman, Green Arrow along with Red Tornado and Martian Manhunter left the room with Green Arrow remarking to Martian Manhunter that he should be glad he didn't bring someone along as the doors labled "Justice League Members Only" snapped shut.

Marcus sighed as he saw the forlorn and in Kid Flash's case slightly pissed off looks, Robin... was Robin and hard to read once the mask and uniform went on. He began to say something comforting to his friends when an idea crossed his mind that caused him to raise an eyebrow and a sly smile to creep across his face. Kid Flash was about blow his top when he noticed the look on the only "Hero" left in the room and gave him a cold look "And just what are you smiling at?"

Both Robin and Kaldur turned to look at their friend and groaned, they had each seen that look before and knew it meant trouble in even in the best of cases. "SO not whelmed, okay what crazy idea has crossed that thing you call a brain this time?" asked Robin teasingly.

"Well seeing as how you guys have nothing to do, I thought you might want to help me look into Project Cadmus?" The trio of sidekicks looked gobsmacked with Wally doing an impressive impression of a landed fish.

"But you said..." Marcus smiled at Wally as the confused speedster tried get his words out.

"I said you weren't ready to work with the League, with me and each other that is a different story. In your own right all three of you are heroes but you are not ready to work the likes of the League, that takes experience. But you can prove to them that you are more then just sidekicks and that you are ready for more responsibility."

"But Batman said for us to stay put, you would have us ignore direct orders from one of the Founding Seven?" asked Kaldur concernedly.

"He said to stay put for the Sun Blocking mission, this is something altogether different. Superman himself said that it was a small fire and the local Fire Dept. had it under control. We go in, make sure everyone is safe, check out the building, copy anything important or incriminating and head back. It's a couple hours max" said Robin with a smirk.

"So are you going? Cause if so, so am I" remarked Wally eagerly. The pair then looked to Kaldur with hopeful smiles.

He looked at the pair of them and then to one of his two surface dwelling best friends and then, in his typical fashion, asked the one question they should have started with, "What is Project Cadmus?"

"What say we find out" remarked Marcus as he moved to the computer console in the room and put in his user code.

"Allied User Code identified, require League member code for system access" chimed the computer as a second password box popped up on the monitor.

"One day Bats that paranoia of yours is gonna get you killed" he muttered to himself as the others joined him.

"Let me guess Bats has your passcode set to only work with another League members code?" asked Robin rhetorically.

"How did you guess?" retorted Marcus as he imputed two words into the second window.

"ACCESS DENIED!"

"What are you doing?" asked Kid Flash.

"Guessing Bat's passcode" he entered four words and got another denial.

"You really think you can do that? I know this system I can hack it in a few minutes" said Robin as his friend tapped his finger before smirking and entered another two words. The screen chimed and turned green.

"ACCESS GRANTED"

"Whoa, dudes a better hacker then you are Rob" remarked KF with an impressed whistle.

"Okay, how did you do that? It took me months to hack the Batcave computer system and this is nearly identical?" asked an astonished Robin.

"I didn't, I guessed his password. Remember I know things and have insights about him that you don't. If you did, you would have guessed his password" said Marcus with a smile as he brought up the Leagues intel on Project Cadmus.

"Oh and just what is his password then?" Marcus smiled at him and just as he brought up the data said two words.

"Grey Ghost."

Robin quickly facepalmed himself for not seeing it sooner. "Duh, that's like his all time favorite movie series. He's got original reels, memorabilia, heck even the original costume. I should have seen it."

"Yeah well you can kick yourself later, cause I found what we are looking for. Unfortunately it not a lot" he said as he began to read off the file. "Project Cadmus, genetics lab here in DC and privately funded by it's Board of Directors. That's it."

"You mean that is all the League knows, what about you?" asked Kaldur seriously.

Marcus only sighed, "Not enough to guess what they could be doing this early in the game, and what I do know I would rather not mention since it could draw us to the wrong conclusions."

"Okay am I the only one confused, why would he know more about Cadmus then the league? The guy has only been in this dimension for about a year" asked Wally sounding confused.

Marcus gave Robin a look, "Come on, why do I have to do it?"

"You have known him longest" remarked Kaldur.

"Explain and walk guys, the faster we get there the more evidence we can find" said Marcus as stood and made for the exit. Kaldur and Autovajin following behind him.

Robin merely gave a defeated sigh before turning to Wally. "Okay short version..."

0o0o0o0o0o

Washington DC

Project Cadmus

The fire at Project Cadmus was like Superman said, a small affair, two low level techs stuck on the second floor were rescued with little fuss thanks to Kid Flash and Aqualad. It wasn't until the fire was under control and they were investigating the computers that the interesting stuff started to happen.

It started when KF spotted a shadow that led to the express elevator that shouldn't be in a building that size. When Marcus got description of the shadow from the teenage speedster a very nervous feeling like someone just walked over his grave settled over his spine and stomach. "If that's who I think it is then Cadmus is further along then I thought. If they already created him then..." Marcus didn't want to say it, he could still be worried over nothing.

Those hopes were not confirmed once they breached the lower levels as the small group saw the huge gray creatures that looked the product of a drunken fling between a wooly mammoth and a gorilla and exposed to the same radiation that made Godzilla king of all monsters lumber pass them being guided by a smaller monkey like creature with glowing red eyes. "Oh this is so many forms of not good" he muttered to himself as they watched the creature move past them.

"I take it you recognize those things?" asked Aqualad as Marcus watched them retreat into the distance.

"Yeah, I don't know what they are called in this universe but I know those creatures as D. , they are cloned beings augmented with alien DNA, meta-human DNA or sometimes a combination thereof. If Cadmus is already far enough along to have created them then we are further along their timeline then I realized and our mission may be more important then I first thought" he answered with a heavy sigh and ran a hand through his hair. "Auto, Robin find us a power station, communication node, something that will give us access to their computers."

"Way ahead of you... I have a power station five hundred feet that way" said Robin point in the direction the creatures came from.

"Away from the walking bulldozers... good call the more time we don't spend dealing with them the better" said Faiz as Robin led them down the corridor. He didn't know why but this dimensions version of the D. put him heavily on edge.

He was so on edge that he didn't even realize they had something following them while Robin popped the lock and got them inside. "Okay, I'm officially whelmed."

The power station was two stories tall at least filled to the ceiling with shelves containing what appeared to be huge lightning bugs on steroids that seemed to be generating electricity. "That's how they do it" exclaimed Kid Flash. "This place is totally off the gird, upstairs is just a front, they draw all their power from these... whatever Faiz called them."

"Lets find out then, I'll take this terminal here. Can you have Auto jack-in and copy everything he can using that other one" said Robin and he pulled out a cable from his gauntlet and hooked into the computer system.

"You heard him Auto, do it" ordered Faiz.

"Understood" the mech moved to the console and raised his arm and twisted his fist causing it to split in half and pop out a long data spike. In one move he pierced the terminal and connected directly to the hard drive and server. Once his processors secured a handshake with the system he executed a system wide copy and download.

"Okay, apparently these things are called Genomorphs... whoa take a look at the stats on these things, super strength, telekinesis, tele... Faiz you may want to look at this" said Robin as he brought up a new window detailing the genetic code of a version 2.0 Genomorph called G-Gnomes.

Faiz quickly moved next to Robin to get a look at the image, and was quickly put into a state of shock. "That is not possible, Fox said all my test samples were destroyed. He showed me the footage himself."

"I know, Bats and I were there in person watching. But there it is" answered Robin as he highlighted a specific portion of the DNA sequence and blew it up to full size.

"Okay and for those of us just tuning in?" asked Kid Flash.

"In my world, humanity is in the midst of an evolutionary shift, 5/8 of the population are "normal" humans, the other 3/8 are what we call Orphnochs, they also have particular gene that is not found in this universe naturally outside of myself. Yet somehow these Genomorphs have... okay that is odd. These version 1.0 Genomorphs have an altered sequence" he said bringing up a second window on a G-Dwarf.

"That only occurs when a person has been turned into an Orphnoch right?" asked Aqualad.

"Yeah, their gene structure is still unstable and has to be treated with a special RNA Gene Therapy... which I gave copies to both STAR Labs and Wayne Medical for emergencies before I removed it from Auto's Memory Drive."

"That's not the only thing shady they have going on, there is this file labeled Project Kr. Triple encryption on already encrypted system, even Batman would say that's paranoid" said Robin as he brought it up on screen. "The only thing I got was that it's located on sub-level 26."

"Download completed sir" reported Auto as he retracted his data spike. "Recommend withdraw to the upper levels so that files may be transferred to a secure system."

"Agreed, we got what we came here for. Let scram before..."

"Before you get caught" said an older voice accompanied by a low growling noise. The situation was nicely summed up by Kid Flash.

"That doesn't sound good."

0o0o0o0o

A/N: And we call it there, I wanted to go longer but it seemed like a good point to stop.

Next Time: The team tries to ditch security as they make their way to Sub-Level 26 as Faiz's infamous sixth sense leads them to a secrete and a role our favorite Rider did not expect them to take.