Conner slammed down on the holocomputer and gritted his teeth. If the table was any less durable, odds are it would've shattered into a million bits.

"Where are they?!" Both Wally and Artemis jumped at his outrage. Dick placed a hand on his shoulder to try and calm him down, but to no avail. The eerily familiar sound of Renegade's cackle wasn't exactly making it any easier.

"I'm sure Hunter and Nebulon are having their fun with those two. 'Course, if you can find them, you're more than welcome to take them back. But, uh…", his voice dropped to a taunting whisper, "between you and me, SB, there might not be much M'gann left when The Hunter's done with her."

Dick felt the rage practically radiating off Conner's body, but before he could get a chance to snap again, the former Boy Wonder stepped in front of him to address the mysterious villain.

"Who are you? What do you and your friends want?"

"Isn't it obvious? I mean, you are a detective, aren't you, Grayson?" A lowly growl escaped his lips, and Renegade chuckled. "You have the whole world on your side and you still can't figure it out. I wonder…what would Batman think of that?"

Conner slammed the table once again as Renegade hung up, this time shattering it into three pieces before roaring with anger and storming towards the exit. Wally got in front of him in a futile effort to stop him from leaving. "Kon, wait!"

"Get out of my way!" The enraged clone shoved Wally to the floor, and Dick ran up from behind to grab his shoulder, pinning him to the wall next to them by his shoulders.

"SB, calm down!" The raven's voice dropped to a tense whisper as he looked him dead in the eye, his brows arched upwards in worry. Conner's breathing grew rougher, almost as a warning to the Boy Wonder to get his hands off of him, but Dick didn't back down.

"Get your hands off me, now." The former Boy Wonder narrowed his eyes.

"You think I don't know what it's like to have someone you love in the hands of the enemy? Helpless to fight back, and all you can do is worry about them?"

A flicker of recognition passed through their eyes, and from behind them Wally and Artemis stared at one another in worry. "Well, I do. And I know there's nothing you can do for M'gann when you're like this. So for her sake, get a hold of yourself…please. We'll find them, I swear. But we need to be on the same page, or else all we're gonna do is get her even more hurt, or worse. So get traught."

The clone closed his eyes and nodded, his breathing coming to a calm resolution as Dick pulled his hands off and patted him on the shoulder.

"Okay, we need clues. Anything that could lead us to them. My tracer algorithm didn't work, so they've clearly got some high-end scrambling tech to mask their base of operations from our satellites. Ideas?" Wally perked up.

"Zatanna could try a locator spell. As much as it pains me to admit it, sometimes magic does trump science." Dick shook his head.

"No, the spell takes too long for Zee to prepare. By that time, they could already be killed. Besides, it's better for her to find some information we could use against them. Could come in handy later."

Artemis furrowed her brows. "Have you tried tracking Rocket's belt signature?" Dick crossed his arms and rubbed his chin in thought.

"I could try, but it doesn't really give off a strong signature at all. Besides, if they're able to block my signal trace then odds are they've got the girls somewhere heavily shielded."

"So let's start with where they were taken from. The distress call in Mission Creek." Dick patted Conner's shoulder and nodded.

"Good idea. Everyone get to Bioship. We leave now."


Wally came to a grinding halt in front of the trio as he wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead. "Ran around the whole perimeter three times. Nothing." Conner narrowed his eyes to focus in his infrared vision, dragging his gaze across the field to search for clues.

"I don't see anything. No trace of Chaos Magic, no residual heat in the atmosphere. These guys know how to clean up their tracks."

"That's what happens when you got a member of the League of Assassins on your team."

"What about you, 'Wing? You picking up anything on scanners?"

Nightwing tapped away on his wrist computer, humming in response to his best friend's query. "I think I got something. It's faint, but I'm picking up traces of Zeta beam radiation. Maybe that's how they managed to get the drop on the others."

"Probably thanks to that cyborg guy. Can you track it?" He shook his head.

"Sorry. Zeta radiation's a little outta my wheelhouse. Flash, can you run over to the STAR a couple miles out and get in contact with Eduardo Sr.? He'll probably be able to pinpoint wherever this signature leads." Wally nodded as he once again donned his goggles with a smirk.

"I'm on it. Be back in a flash!" Dick and Artemis rolled their eyes as he sped off, leaving a gust of wind and a surge of silver-blue lightning where he stood.

"I hate it when he says that."

"You hate it? I gotta live with that moron." Conner narrowed his eyes and started pacing the building in anticipation, and both Dick and Artemis jogged after him. Artemis placed a hand on his shoulder. "We'll get them back, I promise."

"And M'gann's tough. She can hold her own until we reach them." He halfheartedly nodded, and Dick patted his back supportingly. "Keep your chin up. You got something to stay whelmed about. After this is all over, it'll just be you two on a beach in Fiji finding a way to make Kryptonian-Martian hybrids." This forced a snort out of the clone as he curved his lips up into a smile.

"Thanks. I think I needed th-"

When he didn't finish his sentence, Artemis raised an eyebrow and gave his shoulder a squeeze. "You okay, Conner?"

"There's something coming." He took a step forward to focus on his hearing, and his eyes went wide as he flung his gaze onto the left wall. "Get down!"

His warning came a split-second too late, as the wall was already blown open and chunks of debris were sent flying towards the group. Superboy used himself to shield the other two, but a red laser pierced through the atmosphere to hit him directly in the torso, launching him into Nightwing and knocking them both to the floor. Tigress whipped out her crossbow and fired an arrow back at the source, but it did nothing to penetrate Stingray's armor.

The metal-clad menace stepped out of the shadows, followed by Talon, the League warrior, and Renegade. Artemis stepped back in a combative stance while Conner and Dick got back up to their feet to join her. "Where are they, Renegade?"

The man shrugged. "You tell me, detective."

"You won't win this." Tigress pulled out a second crossbow as Dick unsheathed his escrima sticks. Renegade cocked his head to the side.

"Have you not been paying attention? I've been winning at every turn you've taken."

"We'll stop you." The League assassin stepped forward and laughed, and Artemis aimed both her crossbows at the warrior as he brandished his sword.

"You'll stop us? Please. You can't even keep track of your own teammates."

"Miss Martian and Rocket can handle themselves."

"Oh, those two aren't who we're referring to." Stingray smirked from under his helmet. "Tell me, Nightwing, do you know where Zatanna is right this second?"

Though he tried to hide it, from under the mask Dick's eyes widened in fright. He let out a low growl and glared at the assailants before stepping back and pressing a finger to his ear. "Zatanna? Zee, are you there? Zee, this is Nightwing. Come in."

No response. Dick felt his heartbeat slow to a grinding halt.

If they got to her…

"Where is she?" His voice held an uncharacteristic cold rage, his knuckles turning pale white under the gauntlets as he tightened his grip around his sticks. Renegade just snickered, and Artemis fired both her crossbows at the man only for them to be body-blocked by Talon.

"Access: electrokinesis." The monotonic invader launched out a burst of yellow lightning from his fingertips, and Superboy groaned in pain as he attempted to shield his mortal teammates from the attack. The assassin lunged at Tigress, who flipped backwards and holstered her crossbows before whipping out her own sword to fight back. Stingray fired his eye beams at Nightwing, but he narrowly dodged out of the way before being met by Renegade's sabers in a weapon lock.

"Give it up, Grayson. You can't beat us."

Dick gritted his teeth and pushed Renegade back, his muscles tightening and his grasp on his sticks growing ever stronger. "Watch me." He finally broke the deadlock and surprised the villain with a kick to the stomach, sending him reeling backwards before he managed to narrowly dodge out of the way of Nightwing slamming his sticks down. From the side, Stingray aimed his optic cannons at Dick but was thrown off balance when Conner hurled Talon at him. Talon responded by standing up and flashing his eyes green as he looked over Conner's body.

"Not this time!" Conner leapt forward and interrupted the warrior's scan with a punch to the face, and Talon spun around before countering with a punch to the clone's gut.

"Access: magnokinesis." Talon raised his hand forward to generate a magnetic field around Conner's body, taking hold of the stray bits of metal on his clothing to lift him into the air and slam him on the ground hard. The hero found himself hurled into the side of the wall, groaning and coughing as he struggled to get up. Talon picked him up by the throat and pinned him to a wall, and while he did his best to struggle against the choke hold, Superboy soon passed out from lack of oxygen. Stingray crossed his arms.

"That was easier than expected." Talon made no response, but judging from the purple marks on Conner's neck the explanation was self-explanatory. "Get him out of here." The mindless drone nodded before emotionlessly stalking away with Conner's body, and from behind the blade of her assailant Artemis's eyes went wide.

"Nightwing, they've got Superboy!" Dick pushed back Renegade to run after Talon, but he didn't get very far before a red laser slammed into his side and knocked him into a wall. Artemis ran up to help him, but he'd burned his hip area pretty badly.

"Gah! D-don't touch it…ngh!" She got back up to her feet and raised her sword as a warning to the approaching Dark Wonders.

"Kinda need you in the fight, 'Wing."

"I-I-I don't know if I can stand." With incredible effort, Grayson prived himself wrong by propping his body up with his escrima sticks and getting to his feet, though his damaged side was quite literally burnt red and smoking from the blast. He'd definitely need Zatanna's help later, he thought.

The two powerless heroes eyed their opposition, knowing full well they were outmatched. Even if they weren't 2 vs 3, their opponents seemed to know their every move, and Dick's side was currently burning up a storm.

"Okay. Ngh…f-fuck…we need a plan." Dick and Artemis readied their weapons, but a familiar voice echoed through the facility before anyone could make a move.

"How's about this?"

A golden light materialized in front of the heroes, and both Dick and Artemis felt a hand reach out to grab them and pull them into it. The next thing they knew, they were standing on a far away rooftop, miles away from the prior conflict with a cold gust of wind stinging into Dick's wounded hip. He bit back a snarl as he dropped to one knee, Artemis propping him up gently from his non-injured side.

El Dorado stepped forward, and Dick nodded to him with an arm around Artemis's shoulders. "Thanks for the save, Ed."

"But how'd you know we needed you?" The teenage teleporter shrugged.

"Batman tried contacting your team but you weren't at the Premiere Building. He sent me to the Bioship's coordinates to find you."

Dick raised an eyebrow. "What about Wally?"

Eduardo shrugged. "What about him?"

"Didn't you get his message? I sent him to STAR to contact you and your dad earlier."

Ed's face quickly shifted into a worried expression as he looked from Artemis to Dick. "Nightwing…Wally never showed up."

Dick and Artemis locked eyes in terror.


Flash zoomed through the streets of California on his way to the resident STAR Labs, leaving a cyan hue of lightning in his impressive wake.

At this speed, it felt like nothing in the universe could lay a finger on him.

But much to his surprise, something did.

Out of seemingly nowhere, Wally was tackled by a red blur moving at hyperspeed, and the loss of balance meant he was helpless to fight against his captor as he dragged him to a nearby warehouse and dropped him to the floor hard. He groaned, rubbing his head and getting up to his knees to come face to face with none other than the scarlet-clad speedster he tussled with mere hours ago.

"You!"

"Surprised to see me? Good." The man punched Wally across the jaw with full force, causing the redhead to spit out blood and reel to the side, coughing and clenching his jaw in pain.

"Ow!"

"I hope you can take more than that, because the pain's only just beginning." Wally gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes as he stood back up, his silvery blue lightning radiating off of him as he glared at the man with anger practically sparking out of his eyes. The assaulting speedster balled his fists and flourished his shoulders. "I'm planning to give you as much hurt as you gave me, West. So buckle up."

"Okay, who are you?! And what the hell did I do to get you so pissed?!"

The man stayed silent for a minute, and Wally didn't think he was going to answer. But just as he was about to instigate the inevitable fight, the speedster brought his hands up to his helmet and slowly lifted it off his head, revealing an all-too-familiar face that left the speedster in shock, pain, and disbelief as he stared into a set of blue eyes that he'd known for over half his life.

"H-how?" His attacker flashed his signature smirk, though the glint in his eyes giving off a devilishly sinister agenda to it.

"Well, Wall Man, how about we start at the beginning."

Wally gulped and stepped back as Dick tucked his helmet under his armpit and cracked his knuckles.


I'm sorry for the longer than normal wait between chapters. With college starting up I'll probably have less time to work on this story, on top of having to balance between several other stories as well. But I hope you can stick around despite the inconsistent schedule. Rest assured, I have no plans to leave this unfinished. It'll just take a bit longer than I'd have liked to finish because of my own personal schedule and other stories I want to work on. I'd like to thank everyone who left ideas for a YJ S5 or a YJ What If story. Upon further consideration I think I'm going to proceed with the YJ What If story, but I may put S5 on hold for now simply because I have a lot of other projects to work on and I don't know if I'd have the time for it. But I'd like to thank you for the ideas regardless, and I hope you enjoy the rest of this story. Have a great day, everyone!