A/N

Hello again everyone! Hope you are having a nice week so far. I'm in the process of getting ready for the weekend and my upcoming holiday! Hopefully this should be done by then, so don't worry. If not, I'll try and prepare in advance so I can still upload for you.

Episode XII: Man Vs Child, Part II

"Are you sure Batman isn't going to come out of nowhere?"

Even though Robin has quite obviously already thought of the scenario where Batman would show up and stop them, it doesn't stop both Artemis and M'gann from constantly reminding him they are certainly inside of Gotham and run the risk of coming into contact with the city's hero.

Still, the rewards certainly outweigh the risks in this scenario as they continue to observe the docks from their heightened position.

Gotham's docks have been a hub of criminal imports for the better part of Batman's reign of terror, and the only thing which has changed is the amount of secrecy and discretion they do it with. Most of the time, Batman shows up to stop the fun so they have tended to become better at hiding their activities.

The criminals might have made their activities much more discreet but there are still here nonetheless, just in lesser numbers to attract less attention.

Bane's venom smuggling operations have always run out of the ports and as Kaldur politely informed them, quite a large shipment is being moved through here tonight. Large enough to cause some serious financial difficulties if it was to be destroyed, but it's not the money Bane would miss most. It's the respect lost from having his best operation shut down by a gang of teenagers.

Making a deal with Kaldur to provide them with information in exchange for his freedom when this is over was one of Wally's incredibly good ideas, although they never told Kaldur the deal wasn't in writing so not legally binding, which is certainly going to cause some stress when it comes to court day.

Taking down the Light's main operations one by one is the goal of their current missions, which has been carefully laid out by Robin to try and include as much chaos and destruction as possible. It's time to teach them a lesson in what a small bunch of annoyed teenagers can do when they want revenge, and not even Batman will come between them and this goal.

Strangely, the recent events have not only brought the team closer together than they ever had been but for some significant reason, they are actually listening to Robin for a change. They listened and nodded their approval without even giving a quiet mutter, which at least made Dick a little bit happier in his own life.

"Batman is not coming," Robin answers, gesturing over to where the goods are being unloaded. "I suspect he's busy trying to either track us down or track the Light down. Gotham can handle itself for a small amount of time, or at least it's what I hope he thinks."

"Bane certainly doesn't think so," Artemis swiftly quips, smiling.

Although is Bane is both smart and cunning, there's no denying the addicts also has his vices, from his abuse of the drug he sells to his own stubborn pride. Other criminals tend to avoid using the docks where they can to avoid Batman, but Bane uses it no matter what, too stubborn to admit he should take his business elsewhere.

Just like Bane's pride stops him from seeing how he should change to avoid confrontation with Batman, his pride will stop him from foreseeing the team taking down his single most profitable venture when it comes to his venom trade.

Venom has an insane street value for such an addictive and destructive drug, which makes it a top priority for both Batman and the GCPD to stop. It's been more than once where Robin has taken it upon himself to stop Bane where he can where Batman is busy with his other responsibilities, and now he's finally going to bring a more impactful end.

"Tell me more about this Bane," M'gann asks Robin, continuing his ongoing theme of learning more about the villains the other heroes face on a regular basis. Perhaps its the fact she doesn't have some of her own, but she is starting to get more and more interested about the battles between heroes and villains.

Answering, Robin moves his eyes away from the docks towards M'gann, "Bane is probably one of Batman's most respected enemies - Batman respects very few of the criminals in Gotham, but with Bane it's a given. He's power hungry, a glutton for respect, and violently addicted to venom, but he still has something left which is close to honour. He uses it whenever he chooses, but usually he sticks to his word when he says something. Usually."

"Have you ever thought about taking venom?" Artemis asks from the side.

"I'd be lying if I said no. There's been plenty of times - usually after I've been hurt by someone powerful - where I have sat there and wondering why I shouldn't use venom. You try and reason with the drug, saying you'll be strong enough to stop using, but as Batman always says, if Bane can fall to it, anyone can," Robin honestly responds, shrugging his shoulders at the end. "Don't take drugs kids. Especially ones which enhance your muscular structure at the expense of ruining your cognitive abilities."

"Heads up guys," Artemis suddenly states, gesturing for them to look over at the main loading facility of the docks. "We have movements and lots of it."

Being right, Robin uses some binoculars to examine the situation closer, taking into account the uniforms they are wearing. Most of them are wearing dull overalls, mainly with several good hiding places of weapons and they are all wearing the same coloured shoes, which normally wouldn't be something Robin would think twice about but with the current circumstances it's certainly suspicious.

These are definitely the guys they are looking for, and the odds are highly likely the goods being taken into the port is none other than venom - large amounts of it too, judging by the size of the containers its being held in.

"Showtime guys," Robin commands, nodding to M'gann.

As planned, she heads off towards the containers in order to assess what's inside. The general plan is to get the green light from M'gann before moving in, just incase it's all one big convenience and they end up beating innocent dock workers.

Leaping down from their raised position, Artemis and Robin make their way closer to the action, making sure they keep eye contact with the containers so they can find M'gann when she comes out. They manage to find a great position which is both concealed from the view of the workers but also in plain sight of the containers.

"Shouldn't we be doing recon? Finding out how many people we have to take down?" Artemis asks Robin, perhaps wondering why Robin is being so aggressive about the situation. The simple answer is that now is not the time for careful planning and preparation, now is the time to take action and solve the consequences later.

"Not today Artemis," Robin answers, awaiting the signal from M'gann. "I'm feeling like improvising."

"I wonder what Batman would say to that," Artemis cheekily comments.

"He'd have many things to say. I just guess I'm going to not listen to them for once," Robin responds, smiling at the archer. "Kind of feel like a rebel here."

"The Boy Wonder has never been a rebel?"

"Once or twice."

With that exchange, the two quietly sit back and wait for their moment to strike. M'gann takes forever come back out of the container and when she does, she gives perhaps the most relieving thumbs up Robin has experienced in his life.

Although he's not too concerned about what Batman has to say about this plan of his, he's certainly concerned about what the Dark Knight would think of him if Robin went around beating the daylights out of regular working citizens of Gotham. Criminals are always fair game in Batman's eyes, but to lay a finger on someone who hasn't committed a crime recently would mean immediate disciplinary action.

Though Robin has never been on the receiving end of such action, he dares to believe it wouldn't be a simple slap on the wrist.

Making sure Artemis noticed M'gann, he pulls out some of his gadgets and leaps forward, taking the fight to the Light. Finally, they get the chance to knock some respect into the supervillains and put a stop to some of their most powerful operations at the same time.

Lex-Corp is perhaps the most villainous, greedy corporation in the entire Earth let alone the United States of America. The company might have a relatively normal reputation but to the Justice League and most heroes, the company represents everything they are seeking to change.

If anything, it's a remarkable display of Lex Luthor's charisma and intelligence Lex-Corp is so popular. Even with Superman standing against the company at every turn, people still buy their products and attend it's seminars.

"Ready to stick a knife into your dad's back?" Kid Flash asks the Superboy, standing by his side with his usual cheesy grin on his face.

"Why not? He's been doing it to me every chance he got," the clone replies, trying his best to remain calm despite the situation he's facing at the moment. Even though it's not much of a choice to choose between siding with Superman or Lex Luthor, there's still some part of him which doesn't want to do this.

Maybe it's all the mental programming which has been placed into his mind whilst he was being educated, but there's something which feels quite wrong about going against Luthor as serious as this.

Lex-Corp has multiple engineering facilities all over the United States, but none are as important and huge as this one. To take out this facility would be the epitome of slapping Lex in the face, taking out both his pride and his finances at the same time.

During this time of night, only guards should be patrolling the facility at this point, which is a slight reprieve as Conner is fairly certain they have all performed dubious activities in the name of Lex Luthor.

"You know what the plan is right?" Wally questions the clone, carefully watching the Kryptonian for any sign he will blow up. Conner notices the way people look at him when they think he's about to explode and quite frankly, he finds it both annoying and entertaining at the same time.

"Burn it all to the ground?" Conner sarcastically retorts, folding his arms across his chest and waiting for the designated time to strike. "Lex can just rebuild this all in a few days time, so what's the point?"

"The fun of it, slapping Lex Luthor in the face, and potentially getting our hands on some sweet gear - there's plenty of reasons to give the Light something to think about," Wally responds, stretching his legs before retrieving some chocolate from his gauntlet. "Besides, the other option would be to guard Kaldur and Robin decided Zatanna is best for that."

"Probably."

There's plenty of reasons why Robin decided to remove Kaldur from their sights and assign Zatanna as his prison guard, but mainly being the amount of rage being built up from his mere presence. No-one in the team is invulnerable from the hatred they equally share for the Atlantean, which is something Conner never would have admitted until recently.

"Come on Conner, let's give Lex Luthor some free renovation," Wally gestures the Kryptonian to follow him as they make their way towards the main entrance to the facility. "Looking at the outside décor, it could sure use some."

The two casually stroll up to the front entrance as though they were on-site inspectors, knocking on the front door. After it unsurprisingly doesn't open after quite a few polite knocks, Wally nods to the clone and without hesitation he busts the huge door open with just a few more impolite knocks.

The activity inside of the facility is a lot quieter than they initially expected, the otherwise busy machines dormant and the structure free of any guards. Even when using his super hearing, he can't hear footsteps or noise anywhere.

"I don't like this," Kid Flash states, unconsciously moving closer to the Kryptonian.

"Lex is too smart to leave this place unguarded. We must have done something wrong," Conner responds, attempting to look for anything suspicious using the limited super sight powers he has, but nothing even comes close to drawing his attention. "I can't hear anything. Not even a whisper."

"Maybe he hasn't left the place unguarded," Wally mutters to himself, running around in search of something. Conner leaves the speedster to aimlessly sprint around whilst he makes his way deeper into the facility through the hallways leading to the main entrance. Although he cannot hear or see anything which draws suspicion, the clone cannot escape the feeling something is about to happen.

Walking through the empty hallways, Conner abruptly stops. He doesn't know what comes over him, but there's something screaming in the back of his mind to investigate a hunch. Striding up towards the nearest wall, the clone runs his fingers against the surface, feeling the material.

Solid. Not unusual.

Throwing a punch at the wall for no reason other he knows than pure instinct, he connects to the wall as normally as he would expect. Sighing, he retracts his fist from the surface and he examines the hidden hallway behind.

"Woah," Conner grunts to himself, shaking his head in confusion. "Wally!"

The instant the Kryptonian had finished his sentence, the speedster appears at his side, both panting and red-faced.

"Woah," the speedster repeats Conner's confusion as he looks at the hole. "We should have expected Lex to hide the real stuff.. behind lead. Must be the reason why you can't see or hear anything."

"That's probably against regulations," Conner jokes, smashing the remaining wall to pieces until he creates a large amount hole for the two to sneak into.

"I don't know about you Conner, but Lex Luthor has never struck me as the guy who really cares about breaking the law," Wally raises an eyebrow at Conner as he slips through the gap and into the hidden sections of the facility. "Bet we are going to see some weird stuff in here."

"Let's just make sure we destroy it all," Conner joins the speedster through the hole.

The two sneak carefully and slowly, not wanting to capture the attention of anyone serious before they understand what goes on behind closed doors inside of a Lex Luthor research and development facility, and it doesn't take long before they find what they were searching for. Unlike the fake front, the real work is being produced inside of this section as the sound of machines hard at work covers their movements.

Barely being able to hear each other at points, they are reduced to basic sign language to try and communicate with each other, more than once confusing each others signals and almost ruining their infiltration.

For once, Superboy enjoys sneaking, taking into consideration the end goal. Conner has always wondering what it was like to be Superman, but he'd be lying to himself if he also didn't think at times what it was like to be Lex Luthor. Genius, wealthy and popular, some could even say he's in a much more favourable position to Superman.

"Just a side note: if we run into more clones of you, they are not joining the team - one hothead is enough," Wally jokes once the noise dies down enough for them to speak with each other, carefully avoiding the patrol patterns of the guards and making their way to the epicentre of the noise.

"Okay," the Superboy bluntly replies, continuing to focus on making sure they get where they need to be without anyone noticing.

Eventually - after plenty of time wasted waiting and watching for guards to move out of the way - they reach the centre of the machine hive, observing what the machines are working on.

"Weapons, stealth tech, armoured vehicles, laser beams - it would be sweet if he wasn't a bad guy," Wally admires, looking at the clone with astounded eyes. "Imagine what we could do with this tech."

"Don't," Conner interrupts the speedsters imaginations. "We are here for one thing only: hit Lex where it hurts. What could hurt more than this?"

"It's a shame, but... I think Lex owes us something," Wally smiles, putting his goggles over his eyes.

"Revenge," Conner agrees, cracking his knuckles menacingly.

"Then let's make sure we got what we are owed."

A/N

Thanks for reading everyone, I hope you are enjoying so far. If there's anything which you need to ask me, don't be afraid to leave a review or shoot me a PM.