Mount Justice- October 31- 5:36 P.M-
Batgirl walked into the cave, she had been invited to the team's costume party so she decided to go as a red headed Wonder Woman. When she arrived though, she saw that everyone was wearing their usual suits and had a serious look on their faces.
"Well this is just embarrassing," she said walking up to them after spotting Batman's face in a screen.
"There was a change of plans," explained Zatanna before casting a spell that gave Batgirl her usual uniform.
"You will be escorting Doctor Will Magnus to a S.T.A.R Labs facility where he will pick up his research and then bring him to the Hall of Justice," he said just as the man walked up to them. He was wearing a white lab coat over a white shirt and a blue tie with khaki pants. His dark brown hair was neatly combed to one side and not a single hair could be seen out of place. "It has come to our attention that Doctor Magnus is being targeted by The Light, after working with Doctor Lawrence in a S.T.A.R Labs project. Zatanna, Aqualad and Rocket, you will be escorting him to S.T.A.R Labs, take Batgirl with you."
After giving out the order, Batman's face disappeared from the screen leaving the four teens alone with Doctor Magnus. "Where are the others?" asked Batgirl looking around the room.
"They were called for another mission, all of them but Robin, we haven't seen him today," answered Rocket.
"He's probably blowing off some steam somewhere, he and Batman had a fight," answered Batgirl. "It got ugly."
"Umm, hello. I'm Will Magnus," the doctor said, feeling the need to introduce himself to the team. They gave him a warm smile and took him to the hangar where they found their bikes ready. Without asking anything else, the team took off with Dr. Magnus. He rode in the back of Aqualad's bike, keeping his hands on the back of the bike. "Have you done this before?" he asked over the loud noise of the bike.
"Once, but we were escorting a machine, not a scientist," he answered.
"And how did that turn out?" the doctor asked, but he didn't receive and answer.
The ride to S.T.A.R. Labs went on without any major problems for the team. When they got there, Rocket and Zatanna stayed outside to keep watch while Batgirl and Aqualad accompanied the Doctor inside the facility. Neither one of them muttered a single word as they were too busy checking their surroundings to make small talk, thus the elevator ride was painfully awkward for Magnus which is why as soon as the doors opened, he darted out of the elevator and into his office.
While Doctor Magnus picked up his things, Aqualad and Batgirl examined the room to make sure they were alone. They were looking around the front of the room when they heard a loud bang coming from the back; Batgirl ran up to the Doctor while Aqualad looked for the source of the noise, he stopped right in front of a glass cell in the back of the room and looked right at Amazo.
"What is Amazo doing here?" he asked after Batgirl and Doctor Magnus joined him.
"The League sent it here to study, but up until now it had been inactive. I couldn't even get it to move," he said looking around the android. "I wonder what happened?" he asked.
"Doctor Magnus, with all due respect, I think it is time for us to leave," said Aqualad placing his hand on Magnus' shoulder and guiding him away from the glass cell. They hadn't even taken two steps away from the cell when they heard the familiar robot voice.
"Access Superman," said Amazo before shattering the glass with a single punch. "Access Flash," he said again and ran up to Aqualad and took Doctor Magnus from his hands. He didn't get far though since he ran directly into the smoke bombs laid out by Batgirl allowing her to take Magnus away from him. As soon as she had her hand on Magnus' arm, she used the other to throw some batarangs at Amazo.
"Access Martian Manhunter," he said right before the batarangs could hit him. Amazo then reached out to grab her, and threw her against the wall, forcing her to let go of Doctor Magnus. Almost immediately after that, energy blasts hit Amazo, followed by a spell that glued him in place. "Access Black Canary," he said right before releasing a painful canary cry that forced them all back. Rocket blasted him a few more times before her accessed Martian Manhunter again and her blasts started going right through.
"Why can't this thing just shut down already?" she asked in frustration.
"Access Nightshade," said Amazo.
"Please tell me I heard that wrong," said Batgirl right before Amazo surrounded the team with a fire barrier. The first one to fall to the ground was Aqualad before Zatanna cast a spell and put the fire out. Doctor Magnus stared at Amazo, he couldn't believe what he was seeing, all that power in a single android; he was distracted by a sequence of fireballs aimed at them. The team was feeling overwhelmed by the fire, with Aqualad feeling weaker from the heat and the others actively dodging or blocking the hits, there was not much time to check on Magnus.
"Access Flash," said Amazo and ran up to Magnus, took him and then ran out the door before the team had time to do anything else. Angered, Aqualad punched the wall next to him leaving a large hole in the concrete.
"Now what?" asked Batgirl looking in the direction Amazo had left.
"Now we tell the Justice League Amazo got away," he answered, obviously not happy about it.
Watchtower- 7:43 P.M-
"What happened?" asked Batman when he saw the team walk in without Doctor Magnus.
"Amazo took him," Aqualad explained, "he was suddenly activated and broke out of his cell. We tried to stop him, but he beat us," he continued, not breaking eye contact with Batman. The man didn't say anything, he just stared down at him, and somehow that was even worse than having him yell at them. In that moment, Black Canary and Huntress walked into the room with Lance and Skye right behind them.
"Did you say Amazo?" asked Huntress, "Nightshade asked me to help her escort the other parts of Amazo to S.T.A.R. Labs. He got activitaded for a while, but then we shot him down. Something happened?" she asked crossing her arms over her chest. Well, that explained how Amazo was able to access Nightshade's powers.
"He activated and took Doctor Magnus away with him," Batgirl explained.
"Wait, you failed with that?" asked Lance walking up to them with Skye. His smirk caught them a bit of guard which is why his question was met with glares.
"What he wanted to say was that we can help you get Doctor Magnus back," said Skye, pushing her brother out of the way.
"Why would you do that?" asked Rocket. After everything that had happened between them, it was only natural for her to be skeptical about their offer.
"Well for starters, escorting Dr. Magnus was originally Nightshade's mission. We have everything prepared for that mission, it would be a waste not to use that equipment, we even had something for the off chance they managed to take Magnus," said Lance, "well at least it was an off chance with Nightshade in charge," he finished. Huntress and Black Canary looked at each other before walking away from them, not wanting to know whether they would take them up on the offer. As soon as they left, Aqualad turned around to look at Lance in the eyes and then extended his hand.
"What do we do then?" he asked. The smirk returned to Lance's face as he shook Aqualad's hand.
"We're going to New York," he answered.
New York City- 9:00 P.M-
The siblings led the team to their apartment in New York City, though Rocket and Aqualad had already been inside before, this was the first time Batgirl and Zatanna had ever set foot in the place. They followed the siblings past the messy kitchen and the closed rooms to the one at the end of the hall. Lance walked in, turned on the light and placed his hand over a pad in the empty desk. As soon as the pad read his palm, monitors and shelves filled with weapons and other equipment started popping out into the room.
The team looked around in awe as the room put itself together; Lance ignored them and took a seat in front of the screens, his fingers quickly dancing over the keyboard until the footage from S.T.A.R. Labs was brought to the bigger screen. The footage played the team's fight with Amazo and how he took Dr. Magnus away, but just from that they wouldn't be able to figure out where he took him.
"Well this is not good," said Lance trying to find him in any other camera, but failing with all of them. "Do any of you know where he could have taken Dr. Magnus?" he asked looking back at them.
"I do," said Batgirl walking up to the computer and plugging in a USB. "I placed a tracker on Dr. Magnus and Amazo when one of my batarangs passed him by, it couldn't have fallen off because it stayed inside of him when he returned to his usual state. I checked," she answered pulling out s map of Metropolis that then closed in to a Lexcorp facility. Lance stared at Batgirl, honestly, he was impressed, he didn't think she was all that, but it seemed he was wrong.
"Lexcorp…" said Skye, "This is going to be harder that I thought," the girl grabbed a box she had put together with supplies, inside there were guns, bullets, knives and other gadgets at the bottom. Skye took out the weapons, "you're not going to need this, you don't use these things," she muttered as she kept pulling things out. Lance reached out into the box and pulled out small pellets.
"These are timed bombs, you press the trigger when you want them to explode, useful for when Amazo uses density shift," he said handing them to Batgirl, "this is just a prototype, so they should be last resource; the trigger only works at a close distance. It was alright for Nightshade because she's immune to heat or fire, but you're not," he explained. Rocket picked up one of the guns, it had a nice patter on the side and an N engraved at the bottom, she then noticed something that looked like a taser.
"What is this?" she asked.
"We put that together after Nightshade fought Amazo for the first time, it detects a weak spot and directs electricity to it which will cause a—"
"Short-circuit," Batgirl finished.
"Yeah…that," said Lance looking at her. "Anyway, since we have Aqualad, we don't really need that anymore."
"You want me to electrocute him?" he asked. "what if he accesses some power that makes him immune to electricity, like Black Lightning's powers or yours?" he asked looking at Skye.
"There's more to the plan," said Skye taking out a picture of Professor Ivo. "Amazo can only follow the orders of his master, so by silencing Ivo, Amazo will stop working. We know you won't be able to kill Ivy, so just distract Amazo by attacking Ivo and he should get his orders confused," she explained.
"Easier said than done. What if he's not there?" asked Zatanna, "we didn't see him last time."
"Just because you didn't see him, doesn't mean he wasn't there," said Lance showing them Professor Ivo talking to Amazo through a communicator in another room of S.T.A.R. Labs. Somehow, they had completely missed his presence in the building, even after checking everything. "My guess is that Professor Ivo needs to be close to Amazo for him to work, so if you beat the robot by going after his master," he explained.
"Okay, but how do you suggest we get to Amazo in the heavily guarded Lexcorp building?" asked Rocket pointing at the red dot shining on the screen.
"Leave that to me," said Lance typing something in the computer that granted him access to the cameras of the building and the blueprints of the place, "after all I'm something of an expert on all things Luthor," he said.
Metropolis, Lexcorp Facilities- 10:32 P.M-
Aqualad, Batgirl, Zatanna and Rocket arrived at the adjacent building to Lexcorp. Lance had given them an earpiece to communicate with them, so once Aqualad reported back to him, Lance told them which floor had less security. The team came inside through one of the windows on the sixth floor of the building, but had to hide immediately after a guard was passing by. They sneaked around the guy and knocked him out so they could walk around without having to worry about being spotted. Like that, they made their way to the third floor where they ran into a large group of guards.
"I have good news and bad news, which one do you want first?" asked Lance while the team hid in an empty room.
"Were you like this with Nightshade?" asked Rocket a little tired of the constant comments.
"Oh no, it was worse," he answered. "She actually indulged me,"
"What's the good news?" asked Batgirl.
"There's a back door that can give you a guard-free path to Dr. Magnus," he answered.
"But we have to get through those guards?" she asked already knowing the answer.
"Oh yeah," he told them. "Careful, they're armed."
Batgirl pulled out a couple of smoke pellets and threw them into the room. The smoke blinded the guards long enough for them to take them out. One of them, started shooting around the room; Rocket was forced to pull out a force field around them so the bullets would just bounce right off. She left Aqualad out of the force field, which allowed him to sneak around the guard and hit him in the back of the head. The team then moved to the back of the room and rushed down the flight of stairs. Once in front of the right door, they stepped inside, and as soon as they did, they heard the sound of an alarm going off.
"What's going on?" Asked Zatanna.
"Relax, that was me," said Lance, "I activated an intruder alert on the twelve floor, this will give you some time to get Dr. Magnus out, it won't be much, but I'm sure you can manage," he told them. The group ran deeper into the room where they found Dr. Magnus along with Dr. Lawrence in a lab separated by a thick glass. As soon as they spotted the team, the scientists ran up to the glass.
"Oh, thank god you're here!" said Magnus, "they are forcing us to rebuild our S.T.A.R. Labs satellite," he explained.
"Don't worry, we'll get you out of here," answered Zatanna before casting a spell to open the door to the lab.
"Get out of there, Amazo is on his way!" said Lance staring at the cameras, watching Amazo clear his way to the lab, "and Ivo is with him," he told them.
"Stall him!" Aqualad said trying to figure out a way to get out of the room, but the only way was the door they had come through.
"What the bloody hell do you think I've been doing, but that thing just breaks through every single barrier I place," he said, and as soon as he finished talking, Amazo broke the door to the lab. Rocket shoved both scientists back into the lab and turned around in time to dodge the heat vision laser.
"I knew you'd eventually get here," said Ivo, "though I have to be honest with you, I expecting to see Nightshade. After all, she had stopped us from taking two of the other S.T.A.R. Labs scientists," he said before ordering Amazo to attack the team.
"What is he talking about?" asked Aqualad.
"Oh, did I forget to mention that? He said. The team didn't have time to answer, because they had to dodge the lab equipment that Amazo was throwing at them.
"Access Black Canary," he said and released an ear-piercing scream, Aqualad moved to try and touch Amazo and shock him, but he released another scream that pushed him back. After realizing they wouldn't be able to get close to him, the team shifted their attention to Ivo. Rocket was the first one to launch a wave of energy blasts at Ivo, but Amazo accessed Flash and took the blasts for him causing a bit of damage to the android. Following the pattern, Aqualad launched an attack at Professor Ivo that had to be covered by Amazo, without giving him time to use any other power. Zatanna followed with a wind spell that pushed Professor Ivo back and when Amazo when to follow him, Batgirl threw a wave of explosive batarangs at him and then finished him off with one of the explosive bombs Lance had given him, but she only pressed the trigger after Rocket surrounded her with a force field that kept the blast away from her.
"Well, that's one way to do it," said Lance.
Watchtower- November 1st -2:25 A.M-
The team, plus the two scientists and the sibling, walked into the Watchtower much to Batman's surprise. He approached them after Flash and Martian Manhunter took the scientists out of the room and quietly stared at them. "Good job," he simply said. The team proudly looked at each other before turning around to look at the siblings.
"Thank you for the assistance," Aqualad was the first one to speak. He extended his hand, but Lance didn't take it, he just stared at it for a few seconds until Aqualad put it down.
"Yeah, so much for the untrustworthy criminals. Don't get confused, we only helped because we had the equipment ready; we're not interested in being your friends, or even your allies," he finished and he and Skye turned to leave. The girl gave them one last saddened look before following her brother.