Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or any affiliated characters

Aquagirl groaned as she slowly woke up to find her hands and feet bound and herself looking through thick glass at Superman's clone.

"Let me just take a moment to say, I told you so," Speedy said from somewhere to her right and she saw that the other three were there as well; Batgirl on the far right, then Speedy, herself, and Aqualad.

"Shut up Speedy," Aqualad growled and she was pretty sure Speedy rolled his eyes before turning to face the clone.

"Hello, I know you can talk, I also know you're highly intelligent and your own person so how about introductions. I'm Speedy, to my right is Batgirl, to my left is Aquagirl, on her other side is Aqualad. What's your name all I know is your Project designation."

"I am Superboy," the clone says and she blinks, she honestly hadn't been expecting it to know how to speak.

"You can talk," Aqualad said in surprise and the clo…Superboy turned to glare at him.

"Yes I can."

"The geno-morphs taught you," Speedy continues and Superboy nods.

"They taught me much, I can read, write, I know the names of things," he says and Speedy shakes his head.

"Yeah, but have you ever seen them? Have you ever seen a sun-set over the city? Or felt a cool breeze off the ocean? Have you ever even been out of your pod before this?"

"No, why would I need to leave CADMUS?"

"Because CADMUS is keeping you prisoner here, what they're doing to you is wrong, they're turning you into a weapon for their own desires…"

"CADMUS is my home! I live because of CADMUS!" he yelled angrily.

"Over the past several years a friend has drilled it into my thick skull that a home is where people who love you eagerly await your return. If you left right here right now would anyone care? Would anyone care that you, Superboy, not Project Kr were gone, would anyone want you back because they like you? Or would they care that they had to start over on Project Kr. Would they want you back because they want to run more experiments and test on you. Tell me Superboy, can you honestly say that what I've said is false?"

There's silence for a moment as Superboy looks at him in shock but just as he's about to reply a man comes in.

"It doesn't matter what it thinks, it's just a weapon and why is it not back in its pod?"

"Think about it," Speedy whispers but Superboy hears him as Dr. Desmond yells for 'the weapon' to be put back in 'its' pod.

As Superboy walks out Dr. Desmond yells for them to begin the cloning process and to entitle it Project Sidekick.

"Oh honestly Doctor, can you not think of any original names? I mean seriously, someone already stopped both Projects Kr and Sidekick back when CADMUS was still PHOENIX and all you're going to do is restart them? Do you not think that maybe someone connected the dots between the two organizations? That maybe they already know about the first two clones and the Broken Arrow protocol," Speedy says and Desmond looks at him in horror and Speedy smirks, "the real Speedy says hello and he can't wait to meet you. He's really looking forward to kicking your ass along with Kr."

"You…you can't know about that!" Desmond yells, "Broken Arrow!"

"Oops, did I forget to mention that I had my little mole removed since the last time we met?"

"Speedy, what are you talking about?" Aquagirl hisses but he ignores her.

"Begin the process, NOW!"

Superboy listens to their screams as he walks down the hall, thinking over everything Speedy had said.

"Home," he whispers before stopping dead in the hallway.

Aquagirl screams as she feels the machine extract the DNA before it suddenly stops and she looks up to see Superboy ripping through the door. After a moment Speedy is out of his pod giving Superboy a smile.

"Thanks for the help Superboy, could you get Aquagirl out of her pod? I think Batgirl can get out on her own and I'll get Aqualad."

Superboy nods and walks over to Aquagirl's pod, breaking the glass before tearing the cuffs off.

"Thanks," she mutters, rubbing her wrists as Aqualad hops down and they all turn to Batgirl.

"Almost got it," she mutters and after a moment there's a click and she's free as well, "Batman's going to kill me for taking so long."

"RED!" someone yells and they all turn, postures ready for a fight to see a redhead with goggles standing there smiling at them, "DUDE! We've been looking for you everywhere!"

"Sorry," Speedy says making his way forward, "I was watching the sidekicks and they managed to get themselves captured, apparently none of them know the meaning of the word 'stealth'. This is Superboy by the way. Superboy I would like to introduce you to Velocity, a good friend of mine."

"'sup," Velocity says with a smile as he waves at Superboy, "nice ta meet ya'. Like he said, name's Velocity, I'm a speedster."

Superboy nods and Speedy turns to Velocity, "where's everyone else?"

"Fighting, someone woke up all the geno-morphs on every floor and Alley told me to run through and make sure you two were out. Robin hacked into the system and we were just on our way down to free Supey here when we found out they had captured you and the sidekicks."

"We're not sidekicks," Aqualad said with a glare and Velocity rolled his eyes.

"Yes you are, now, we don't want to take the elevator 'cuz we'll be bottlenecked at the top and there's only one set of stairs, Kr said he'd collapse 'em at each level so they couldn't chase us but once we reach Sub-level one the stairs stop and we'll have to create our own exit."

"Got it, Hood here?"

"Alley said no, said that someone needed to watch Stray and Tech and he wasn't ready yet to go up against supervillains."

"There aren't any villains here."

"They had to get the Boy Scout's DNA somehow."

Speedy thought for a moment, "Touché."

"That's what Hood said, now come on," Velocity turned to the sidekicks, "you three don't fight, Supey here can fight if he wants, do you?" he turns to Superboy who considers for a moment before nodding and Velocity turns back to the sidekicks, "as I was saying, you three stay out of the fight, we don't want you getting hurt so just dodge and make your way to the stairs and start climbing."

Aqualad bristles, "we can handle ourselves, you should stay out of the way amateur."

Velocity glares at him, "if you get yourselves killed I would like you to remember that I told you to run got it?"

With that he was gone and Speedy turned to them, "come on, and seriously, you three stay out of the fight, Superboy has impenetrable skin so he'll be fine but you three don't nor do you have the fighting skills of your mentors."

Aquagirl glares at him, "we can fight fine."

"I don't care, stay out of the fight, it wouldn't even be happening like this if you idiots hadn't gotten it in your heads that you needed to prove yourselves and now people could get hurt. Come on and stay out of the fight, Superboy, have fun."

Speedy turns and begins to run down the hallway towards the sounds of fighting, Superboy following and after the three share a glance they follow and find the creatures they had run past on their way down out of their pods in the hallway fighting what looked like an assortment of people their age.

They immediately jumped into the battle but whoever these people were they were good. Every time they turned to a new monster one of them jumped over and dispatched it quickly while they watched in irritation. Pretty soon the hallway was clear and they all stood for a moment to catch their breath, the sidekicks watching on in irritation.

"Who are you?" Aquagirl asked with a scowl and they all turned to her.

"None ya' little fish," a girl says and the raven-haired kid in the cape and the red-head from before snicker.

"Come on," a girl in a creepy cat mask says, "we need to get going before more of them show up."

The rest of them nod and a blur runs up to them before stopping and revealing a brunette kid with goggles.

"Stairs are thataway," he points and they all run off the sidekicks and Superboy following.

They run up the stairs, the guy they call Kr stomping at the top of each staircase and causing more and more debris and geno-morphs to join the rest down the bottom while Superboy watches curiously.

When they finally reach the top they all run out to find a giant door blocking their path and two of the others join the Aquakids and Superboy in trying to pull it open before the pale girl in the cloak stands in front of it for a moment though whatever was supposed to happen didn't.

"Looks like we need to make our own exit," cape-kid says before turning to Kr, "if you would do the honors."

He nods and jumps up; fist held high and creates a giant hole in the ceiling which they can see leads to the lobby of the above ground portion of CADMUS before suddenly everything goes dark.

When they wake up they see Kr standing and staring at the geno-morphs scientist and Superboy staring at him (Kr) in shock.

"You…you're like me?" he whispers and only Alley Cat and Kr can hear it.

"Yeah kid, I am, just like you, we're practically the same person though we found out about you sooner so physically I'm older than you," Kr replies with a small smile and Superboy hesitantly smiles back, "if anyone ever gives you a hard time because of what you are don't hesitate to find me okay? Everyone here will accept you as your own person, not just some cheap knock-off."

Suddenly Desmond shows up and they're fighting a monster and the side-kicks have no idea what to do because they've never worked with any of these people before and then cape-kid cackles and comes up with a plan none of them hear and they watch as the people work in perfect unison before the building collapses and the girl in the cloak they heard cape-kid call Girlhunter is keeping the building off their group with telekinesis.

"Totally feeling the aster!" cape-kid crows, high-fiving Velocity while the rest of them roll their eyes and work on digging their way out.

When they make their way out of the rubble they see the League fly down, under their own power or that of Green Lantern, and Superboy walks up to Superman while the League watches distrustfully. He shows off the 'S' and Batman glances at the others for a moment before the girl with cat-ears and a tail crosses her arms and huffs, left ear twitching and Batman glares at the sidekicks demanding an explanation.

They explain about how they went to CADMUS because Batman showed an interest in investigating them and how they had gotten captured trying to free Superboy. They mention Speedy's odd conversation and how he appears to know the kids who rescued them. They tell of the unknown plan and the building's collapse and after it's done they all turn to the other kids and Speedy before Green Arrow speaks.

"Speedy, what's going on, who are they?"

Cape-kid cackles and walks forwards, stopping just in front of the rest of the group, "We're the Renegades." And then there's darkness.

When they wake up Speedy and the Renegades are gone and Batman says they managed to knock them all out with what was probably a specially created variation of knock-out gas and how he just got his gas-mask up in time and watched as they rode away on motorcycles, the girl with the creepy cat mask sharing her bike with Speedy.

They all look at Green Arrow who looks downtrodden at the thought that his protégé could've betrayed them for someone else before everyone turns to Batman.

"Do you know who they are?" Superman asks, ignoring Superboy who glares at the ground as if he was trying to develop heat-vision.

"They're the Renegades, a group of street-children who lived in Gotham and managed to stay under my radar for several years while they fought crime. When I found out about them I attempted to confront them but they were prepared and used knock-out gas to knock me out and escaped before I woke up. They left Gotham and I haven't heard from them since."

They all stared in shock at the Bat before the Flash spoke up, "do you know anything else?"

"I know one of them is named Wally West," he growled before turning to Batgirl, "let's go."

Flash stood stock still, mouth open in shock as he watched the two Bats get in the Bat-mobile and drive away. He stood there and stared, eyes seemingly not seeing them as Batman's words repeated themselves in his head (something they knew after Martian Manhunter checked).

"Flash…?" Superman started and whatever spell the speedster was under was broken.

"I've gotta go, see you guys later," he said and then he was gone and Aquaman turned disapproving eyes on his protégés and Superman ignored Superboy.

They were all sitting down in the cave waiting for Bruce to arrive to explain how, exactly, their mission had turned so wrong and why the side-kicks were really there. It was only 30 minutes before he swept through the zeta-tubes and glared at Ray.

"What happened?" he growls out and Ray sighs.

"Mostly, it was like they said. They got curious of CADMUS after the Boy Scout mentioned it and Batgirl offered to hack the system to find out. I told them everything you put into the system and Aquagirl told me to take them there. I refused, ranted about the unfair treatment we get form the League and told them it was being handled by "the Boss's team" and implied he wasn't League. Then Batgirl finished hacking and they decided to go find out more information to "prove themselves to the League that they are mature and responsible young heroes."

"By throing a temper tantrum?" Dick puts in.

"THAT'S WHAT I SAID!"

"Okay..." Wally can't resist adding, "side-kicks are weird."

"Anyways Batgirl hacked the system, found the address and I went along to make sure they stayed out of trouble but they drew attention to themselves on the way down to rescue Superboy then managed to get us captured."

Dick and Wally snicker at his misfortune until Ray shuts them up with a glare.

"Shut up, anyways we got podded and I alerted the Light that we knew about the clones and mental suggestions through my taunting..."

"So you basically revealed we knew all about their plans? That was poorly thought through," Bruce interjects and Kat rolls her eyes.

"We never mentioned it before Boss, but there were two levels of mental suggestions, the second was a lot more subtle and would've promoted rebellion against those who appeared to see him as a child, his rant about how the mentors look down on the side-kicks will make them think it is still in place ut we think it was completely eradicated since he's mocking them about it. Not only that but he is firmly entrenched in an unknown group of teenage heroes under no suspicion as a mole. Telling the side-kicks about "Boss" and implying he isn't League takes all suspicion off you since we were once based in Gotham and is is something you would do...obviously. It would be rather suspicious if you didn't know anything about a bunch of kids but mysterious unknown benefactor makes it a possibility."

There's silence for a moment before Bruce sighs, "I concede to your logic, well done. I'll look through the files and alert J'onn to the possibility of a mental suggestion." He turns to leave but is stopped when Wally speaks up once again.

"Why'd you tell Uncle B?"

"About what?" he replies without turning around, "I tell Flash a lot of things."

"About me? You promised you wouldn't."

Bruce finally turns around and looks him straight in the eyes before speaking, making sure the full weight of his words are heard, "The Flash showed actual worry when you ran away, even enlisting my help. You need someone to help you with your powers, as much as I detest admitting it my knowledge and your experimentation are nothing compared to Barry's experience."

With that he sweeps back through the zeta-beam leaving them in silence.

A/N: I'm not dead! I apologize for taking so long, things just kept popping up over and over again and when I was finally about to post it I realized it was incomplete and it took me another week to finish the last part because things were still popping up but here we are so YAY! I hope you like it and please review, you have no idea how much it means to me when you do :)

~Miss Claw