Chapter 35

A/N: hey guys, welcome back for the next chapter! Remember, I just own my OCs, that's it. YJ & JPS don't belong to me.

/comms/

Telepathy/flashbacks

Annopolis January 16, 00:38EDT

"A new security system General? Most impressive." The samurai threw out an arm, slapping M'gann across the face and knocking her to the floor where her hood fell off, revealing her. "Too bad I'll have to dismantle it."

"NEVER GONNA HAPPEN!" Conner snarled bursting through the wall. Lunging at the samurai, the man growled, swinging his blade across Superboy's chest. Stumbling back, the clone pressed a hand up to the wound, hissing as he felt something wet and sticky trickling over his fingers and soaking into his shirt. "I'm…I'm bleeding?"

"Superboy! You're cut!"

"What?! But I thought Kryptonians can't be cut?!"

"I'm going in."

Kid Flash sprinted forwards, leaping through the hole Conner made in the wall. He flipped in the air, vaulting off the samurai and causing him to stumble. The armored warrior turned towards the speedster, sword raised.

"Llup sih anatak tuo fo sih sdnah!"

The samurai looked up as his sword was pulled out of his grip. Spinning on his heel, he hurled several throwing stars in the direction of Zatanna as Robin tackled the witch aside.

Flying in, Onyx snatched the warrior's katana out of the air. Leaping at the attacker stomping towards M'gann, he swung down. Only his attack didn't go the way he planned. A hand reached out, grabbing the blade and Onyx gave a startled cry as it electrocuted him. A fist hit his jaw and he was slammed back into Conner and Wally.

"Ow."

"Come guys, get it together. Let's take him!"

They all lunged forwards and were barely saved by Raquel from something falling towards them. Letting the heroine lower he shield, Conner ripped the offending object aside revealing a doorway that was hidden by a tapestry that'd been previously been hanging there.

"We were caught off guard by a blanket," Wally grumbled. "This is so embarrassing, almost a comedy."

"It would be," Robin said standing in the door, "if Trang's corpse didn't scream tragedy."

-.-

Metropilis, 01:45EDT

"Kids today. They stay out til all hours and for what? So they can ignore each other in my diner!" Bibbo grumbled serving another customer as he glared at the group of ten teens on their phones.

"Has everyone downloaded the annotated photo we found in the dead woman's hand?" Robin asked.

"Yes."

"Yep."

"Yeah."

"Check."

"Superboy?" M'gann asked looking to her boyfriend.

"What? Oh, yeah. Got it."

"Is it your wound? Does it still hurt?"

"Sorry I couldn't do better, healing magic is something I'm still working on," Zatana apologized.

Conner gave her a wave of his hand, "It's fine. It's just a scratch, move on."

Onyx and Skylar looked at each other then back at their teammate. "Really? Dude, I know my wounds," Onyx stated, "that was more than a scratch. You're just lucky it didn't go any deeper."

"Anyways," Robin interrupted, "facial recognition software's IDed almost everyone in the photo, which we think was taken in 1968. The same year Adams was charged with murder."

"The only players not in the pic are Adams and General Eiling, whom sentenced Adams to life in prison, where he died and after which he married Adams' wife and raised his two kids."

"This boy…" M'gann spoke up zooming in on one figure in the photo, "could he be the assassin? The one Trang called Rako?"

"He did say he raised him since he was a child," Zatanna reminded.

"But didn't he say he was loyal to someone else?" Raquel asked. "Cause it didn't seem like he was too loyal to Trang back their."

"No kidding," Artemis agreed. "This photo's looking more and more like a hit list."

"And I can bet on who's in charge of it," Conner said, "our missing CIA Agent Alec Rois."

Onyx nodded, pulling up his stats, "Considering his resume has things like brainwashing," he growled a little at that, "I can take a guess on who Rako's working for."

"And somehow Rois and Rako found out we were investigating the Adams case and decided to tie up loose ends."

"Which means either Sgt Polk or Adams' old friend Yarrow are next," Zatanna frowned and Wally nodded,

"Yeah, if that's the case it's kinda our fault…"

"Doesn't matter right now. Yo Kaldur, what's our next move?"

All eyes turned to their leader as he looked up from his own phone. "We split up. Half of us go investigate Polk here in Metropolis, the other half heads to Vegas to protect Yarrow."

-.-

Las Vegas, 00:PDT

"Not too fancy, looks like Yarrow wasn't on the take like the others," Robin muttered as he, Conner, Wally, Onyx, Skylar crouched in the bushes near the former officer's house.

"I knew I liked the guy. We should get in there. Warn him he's in danger."

"Bad idea," Skylar spoke up. "We don't even know if he's on the list. If he's tipped off, then Rako and Rois will know we're on their trail and then they'll get rid of him. He's a liability."

The dark night suddenly became bright as an explosion knocked them on their backs. Scrambling to his feet, Wally began racing towards the house, "Yarrow was inside!" The speedster sprinted around the house, creating a vortex to pull air away from the fire, smothering it into dull embers.

"Fast work KF!" Robin called.

"Not fast enough," the redhead panted. "Yarrow's dead."

"You sure?"

"Judging from the smell, yes," Onyx answered. "Sure it's Yarrow? I don't know his scent."

Wally nodded, "Yeah. Recognized the tattoo."

"Damn!" Remix cursed.

"Here's what I don't get," Superboy spoke up, "Rako's MO was sword and shuriken."

"But Rois' was demolitions," Robin reminded. "Confirming that they're working together on the hit list."

"Let's hope the others had better luck than we did, otherwise I doubt we're cracking this case."

"They didn't have better luck," Wally sighed running a hand through his hair.

"Shit."

-.-

St. George, 03:26MDT

"This the place?"

"According to the intel, yeah," Robin nodded, putting his holoscreen away. "Onyx, you got anything?"

The hybrid sniffed the air, filtering through the scents of rust and decay. "Yeah. Rako's in there, along with two other people, I don't know who though."

Artemis sighed as they all began walking into the building, "Let's just get this over with."

"I agree."

Grabbing their weapons, the team turned to see Rako on their right, Rois to their left. "You're Rako, General Trang's protégé all grown up to become his murderer," Rocket greeted.

"Which means you must be CIA Agent Alec Rois," Artemis said.

"Alec Rois is dead."

"Good thing my mace is meant to help beat the shit outta spirits," Remix muttered twirling her weapon with a smirk.

"That just leaves the big boss," Robin said and they looked up, "Henry Yarrow."

The man on the platform above chuckled, "You don't seem surprised. Did you also guess you walked right into a trap?"

"It wasn't hard," Kid Flash deadpanned. "Though it's not like it's much considering there's ten on three."

"After forty years in the Adams game kid, let me give ya a little tip: quality trumps quantity," Henry smiled, "unless you're talking explosives. My friend there's holding a dead man's switch. If anything makes him unhappy, or causes him to let go, this whole hangar goes BOOM! Keep that in mind boys. I know that S and W, and can guess what they mean. Your little pals aren't invulnerable even if you two are."

Rako sneered, "Superbrat? Invulnerable? My sword proved otherwise, though I haven't had the chance to test it on Wonder Boy."

Onyx snickered, pulling a broadsword off his back and shifting into a fighting stance, "You'd have to beat me first."

"Rako!" Yarrow snapped as the samurai took a step forwards. "Remember, your sword was forged from X-ionizer. It could cut the real Superman."

"Aw, so he didn't prove anything at all," Onyx taunted.

"No sword stands against mine!"

Onyx smirked, "We'll see."

"Perhaps we can return to the matter at hand," Aqualad spoke up.

"Apologies, old men are so easily distract—wait a minute!" Henry gripped the railing with white knuckles. "Where's that flippin' Boy Wonder?!"

"Flippin' your way now!" Robin exclaimed springing from the shadows, kicking the man in the face. Yarrow fell back, a gun falling out from his shirt.

"Morfsnart s'Worray nug otni a ekans!" Zatanna cast. The pistol transformed causing the man to scramble back as the creature slithered towards him. Yarrow screamed as it leapt at him, wrapping around his body. "Eit mih pu!"

"ROIS! BLOW THIS POPSICLE STAND!" Yarrow shouted.

"GAG MIH!"

"I'M TRYING!" he cried out. "SOMETHING'S HOLDING DOWN MY THUMB!"

Artemis fired an arrow, and it exploded into a hardening polymer, encasing the Agent's arm. "GOT HIM!"

"NO!"

"YES!" Kid Flash disagreed flipping and vaulting off the man's chest.

Sparks flew off two blades as they collided violently, two different stream of electricity firing against each other as Nightmare and Rako stood off. "Not used to having an opponent who wan withstand a little lightning?"

"I have trained to defeat men, you shall lose against me child!"

"Please," Onyx scoffed, spinning around and using his tail to swipe Rako's legs out from under him. Grabbing his opponent's sword, the boy flew into the air. "AQUALAD!"

The samurai-assassin barely had time to react before a torrent of electrified water slammed into his face. Remix raced forwards, swinging her mace and sending him flying into one of Rocket's bubbles, containing him within.

"Man, this would've been a lot faster if they were on one side of the country," Rocket muttered lowering her containment bubble with the three prisoners.

"No kidding."

-.-

Mt. Justice, 11:57EDT

"Adams recovered evidence of a weapons smuggling ring, he brought intel of a weapons drop to his superior officer, General Lemar. Unfortunately Lemar was part of the smuggling operation and saw Adams' intel as an opportunity," M'gann informed. "He could use it to get rid of Adams and the head of the operation Henry Yarrow."

"Yarrow was only a lieutenant so taking orders from him didn't sit will with Lemar," Skylar added on. "So he tipped off their North Vietnamese contact General Trang. And Yarrow had just been told Trang wasn't supposed to go to the drop. In reality, Trang and Lemar agreed to ambush Yarrow's squad instead."

"All of them were meant to die, including Yarrow. He just didn't count on Adams saving both himself and Yarrow."

"Which left our dear lieutenant with two problems," Rocket counted on her fingers, "His incorruptible buddy Nate who knew Lemar was part of the ring; and Lemar himself, who tried to stage a coup."

"So to handle it he simply pitted them against each other. Probably wasn't too hard for him to rile Adams up against the General, and he probably had no trouble drugging his pal's drink either," Skylar said. "Allowing him to send Adams on his merry way to confront Lemar."

"The drug made sure Nate wouldn't remember," Robin added, "which allowed Polk to handle Lemar and frame Adams."

"And the trial that followed," Wally scoffed, "that was a joke. Almost everyone was involved in the ring; Yarrow, Mason, Polk, Blankly, all of them."

"What about Eiling? The judge?" Captain Atom questioned.

"He wasn't in on the conspiracy," Kaldur responded, "as far as we can tell he believed Adams was guilty."

"Did his psychic confession confirm it?"

"Basically," she nodded.

"As for the body in Yarrow's house, turns out it was Polk," Onyx spoke up. "They had the same tattoo, and I didn't know the difference between their scents since I hadn't met them. When the others searched Polk's place it was set up to make them think he was on the lamb."

"And when we found the intel among the debris tipping us to St. George's airfield, we knew it was a set up," Conner rolled his eyes.

"I'm impressed, you did good work."

"Too bad we were too late for Adams."

"But not to late for his kids," Captain Atom reassured. "Go tell them what kinda man their father really was."

-.-

Honolulu, 09:16HST

"Seems I misjudged you. Guess I really wanted to believe you were guilty, Captain Adams," Eiling spoke as he, Captain Atom, and Nate Adams sat in a dark car as the three young heroes in disguise spoke to Nate's kids.

The silver hero chuckled, "Yeah, well, I really wanted to believe you were dirty Eiling. Guess that makes us even then. Nate, now that your name's been cleared, let me go reintroduce you to your kids.

-.-

D.C January 17, 00:00EDT

"Took ya long enough," Eiling grumbled as a man entered his office. "Escaping from a jail in St. George Utah shouldn't be that hard for you Alec."

The former CIA agent shrugged, "Escaping was easy, but you should try hiding a seven-foot Cambodian sometime. How'd it go on your end?"

Eiling snofted, leaning back in his chair and lighting a cigar, "Yarrow took the fall for everything; the smuggling ring in '68, the murders this week."

Rois chuckled, "So no one suspects you were Yarrow's boss the whole time? The only reason you weren't in the picture is cause you took it?"

"You kidding," he snickered, "Captain Atom's my new best friend. Which should serve us well in the days ahead."

Rois laughed, "Wicked Wade. Very wicked indeed."