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"Are you still having the flashbacks?" Mallory asked Conner three days later while they were in Metropolis running a patrol.
"Not as often as before, but yeah," he replied, slowing the supercycle so they could talk easier.
"Did you tell Megan about them?" she asked.
"No," he said.
Mallory sighed. She hated when he gave one word answers. "Why not?" she asked, trying to keep her irritation out of her voice. He didn't answer, just stared ahead and clenched his jaw. "Ok, well, if you're not going to talk to me, then I'm going to go back to the cave. I'm taking Brek to a nature reserve in an hour."
Conner scoffed. "So he's, what, your rebound guy or something?"
Mallory turned to face him, her irritation now plain on her face. "What is that supposed to mean?" she asked.
"You just broke up with your boyfriend three months ago, and you're already over it and ready to start going with the first guy you meet that isn't on the team."
"Ok, first of all, it's none of your business who I date, and second, I know you're just trying to pick a fight to get me to stop asking you if you're ok, and it's not going to work. I'll see you back at the cave." She jumped out of the supercycle and flew to the zeta tube.
When she was finished getting ready, Mallory walked over to Brek's room. The door was open, so she knocked on the doorframe to let him know she was there.
"You ready to go?" she asked.
Brek turned around and smiled. "Yeah. Do I look like I live in the twenty-first century?" he asked.
Mallory chuckled and looked him over. He was wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt that Mallory had helped him pick out, along with the tennis shoes and black cap. "Yep, you look like you were born here," she assured him.
They went to the zeta tube in the training room. "Where are we going?" Brek asked as the computer scanned them.
"Well, you seemed the most interested in the wild bird at the zoo, so I thought you would like going somewhere where every animal you see is wild."
The light sucked them away and brought them to a bunker underneath Yellowstone National Park.
"Where are we?" Brek asked as they found the stairs and started walking up to ground level.
"We're in Yellowstone. The team fought T.O. Morrow's Reds here a while ago. When the League confiscated the bunker, they installed a zeta tube in it." She opened a trap door and they climbed out into the sunshine. "Well, there you go," Mallory said, gesturing to a moose not far away. The animal was watching them, his ears flicking curiously.
"Schway," Brek breathed beside her, staring at the intimidating animal in fascination.
"Come on, you have to see the bison," she told him. She grabbed his wrist and started leading him through the walking paths until they were on a hill with a view of a plain. There were hundreds of bison dotting the land, some roaming around but most just staying in their area.
"Wow. They're all wild?" Brek asked, still staring at the plain.
"Every one of them," she replied.
"What are they?" he asked.
"Bison," she said.
"I saw one once. It was stuffed, but even dead it was a little scary to stand next to," Brek told her.
"It's so weird to think about the future like a solid place," Mallory mentioned, thinking about what it would be like to travel to the future. That made her think of something else, and she chuckled a little.
"What?" Brek asked.
"Oh, nothing. I was just thinking, when you're done with your mission, you'll be going back to the future."
"So?" Brek asked.
"So, that's a movie."
"Is it?" he asked.
Mallory stared at him in disbelief. "Oh, come on," she said, "don't tell me that you don't have Back to the Future in the future. It's a classic! How have you never heard of it?"
He shrugged. "I guess at some point people decided it wasn't very good and it just faded away."
Mallory rolled her eyes. "You have to watch them before you leave," she insisted.
Brek shrugged. "All right. It sounds interesting enough."
She sighed with playful frustration. "I'm starting to think the thirtieth century doesn't have anything on my time," she said.
"Oh, that's sad. You don't even know what you're saying," he replied with a smile.
She shook her head and grinned. "You know what? I think we might need to get back to the cave."
"Oh, come on. That's just petty," he said, returning the grin.
She shrugged. "So was World War 2, and look how that turned out."
Brek was about to respond when her comm clicked on. She turned to the side and pressed the button. "Inferno here," she said quietly.
"Inferno, return to the cave. There's a mission," Batman ordered.
Malory sighed and turned back to Brek. "Sorry, but we really do need to get back to the cave. I have a mission."
"No worries, I get it," he replied.
They started back to the bunker, walking quickly. The pace made Mallory's glass figure bounce around on it's chord, and she held it in place with her hand.
"What's that?" Brek asked, nodding toward the necklace. Mallory took it off and looked at it, feeling a little silly that she still wore it, and for some reason reluctant to tell Brek where she'd gotten it.
"It's a figure of a fire dancer," she told him, handing it to him so he could get a better look.
He looked it over, then turned it over and read the inscription on the back. "My Hero?" he read, but he said it like a question.
Mallory nodded. "Yeah, it was a gift," she explained.
"From who?" Brek asked, handing the figure back to her.
She put the cord securely around her neck before answering, "My ex."
"Oh," Brek said. She didn't know what to make of the word, and they didn't say anything else all the way back to the bunker.
By the time Mallory and Brek made it back to the cave, Batman was finished briefing the team and was on his way to the zeta tube. Mallory glanced at the hero, then moved past him to the team. When he disappeared, she said, "Ok, so what's the mission?"
"Ultra Humanite has three US senators held captive in the Republic of Congo in Africa. He's threatened to kill them and the 12 other hostages if the United States makes a move, which includes the League. The other hostages are African, so the United Nations has barred the US from moving. It's up to us to get the hostages and the senators out quietly," Robin explained.
Mallory nodded, absorbing the information. Gerard Shugel, the man inside the beast, had switched cities, and bodies, several times before settling in Metropolis and in the gorilla body he now possessed. Mallory had thought he was still in Belle Rev after the Injustice League had been taken down, but apparently he'd broken out.
"So, what's the plan?" she asked.
"We will need a distraction, which you and I will provide. Zatanna, Artemis, Robin, Miss Martian, and Kid will get the hostages out. Superboy, Rocket, you and I will be standing by in case he needs to be kept distracted for a longer period of time," Kalder told her.
"Great. When do we leave?" Mallory asked.
"As soon as everyone is ready," Kalder told her.
The team broke to get what they needed for the mission, and Brek hurried to catch up to her. "Any chance I can come?" he asked.
"Probably not. You know that you can't go out in public, at least not in your costume," she replied.
They got to her room and the doors slid open. "Oh, come on. I'm dying to get out in the field again," he said, sounding desperate.
Mallory gave him a sympathetic look. "I get that, but it's not my call."
She let the doors slide shut between them and immediately donned her costume. She clicked the triangle on her belt and the familiar orange was replaced with the black and red stealth suit. When she went back to the mission room, they were waiting on Robin, Artemis, and Wally. Kara, Brainy, and Sandy walked in from Mallory's training room.
"What's going on?" Kara asked.
"Mission," Conner replied.
Sandy walked over to Mallory and eyed her costume. "How come your suit is black?" she asked.
"It's stealth tech. This blends into darkness better than the orange," Mallory explained, lighting her hair so the dye would burn off and braiding it so it would be out of the way.
Kara turned to Kalder. "Do you need some help?" she asked the leader.
"No, I believe that the team will be able to handle this mission. Besides, you are not supposed to be seen outside the cave."
Kara sighed and nodded. "Yeah, I know, it's just hard to sit back and let other people take care of fights," she admitted.
Kalder nodded and the Legionaires went to the living area. Wally came in a moment later with a bag of freeze dried chicken wheezies in his hand. "I'm about ready," he told them.
"We're still waiting on Robin and Artemis," Zatanna told him.
"Nope," Artemis said from the doorway as she and the boy wonder came in, fully stocked with weapons.
"Right, well, let's go," Megan said, leading the way to the hangar.
Mallory fell into step with Zatanna and Rocket. "Does this feel a little off to y'all?" Raquel asked.
"What do you mean?" Zatanna asked.
"I mean, Ultra Humanite, he didn't make any demands. He's just holding all these people for no apparent reason. Why?"
Mallory tilted her head, thinking. She hadn't noticed the lack of demands, but now they were glaring her in the face.
"You don't think this is a trap, do you?" Zatanna asked quietly.
Mallory shrugged. "If Batman thought it was, he wouldn't be sending us in blind," she pointed out.
"Maybe, but he also didn't say why Humanite took these senators. He's smart, he wouldn't risk getting caught for nothing," Zatanna said.
They boarded the bioship, and Mallory sat in silence for a while, lost in thought. If Shugel was setting a trap, what could it be for? He'd warned the League to stay away, even gone to the trouble of making it an international incident if the League did intervene. So why kidnap the senators? The questions swam around in her brain until Megan announced their arrival in Congo.
"Megan, you'll need to stay in range to keep the shield around us. Without it, he'll be able to take control of us," Robin said.
Megan nodded and landed the bioship a few miles from the building the gorilla was using as a hostage center.
"All right, Aqualad, Inferno, you're up," Robin said, looking up from his wrist computer.
Mallory nodded, and she and Kalder exited the bioship. She waited for him to get near the small stream before gathering a fireball in her hands and throwing it into some nearby brush. When the fire was big enough, she pushed it over the sand to the next group of bushes. Kalder pulled his water bearers out and sent the water from the stream to the back door of the building. If Ultra stepped into that water, Kalder would electrify it and he would be down.
Mallory watched as the rest of the team took their positions, Rocket and Superboy concealed by rocks a few feet behind her and the rest of them on the roof, waiting for Shugel to step outside. Kalder nodded to her, and she raised her hands and the flames leapt ten feet in the air. In another moment, the front door opened and Ultra Humanite poked his big, ugly head out. Mallory immediately recognized the device on his chest that gave him his ability to talk.
"He's away from the hostages," Malllory reported to the team on the roof. She saw the team disappear into the building and turned her attention back to the gorilla. He was going somewhere around the building, and Mallory followed quietly. If she could give him a little push into the water, they could end this quickly and get the hostages home.
When he saw the flood at the back of the building, he looked around suspiciously. Mallory dove behind a stack of tires just before he saw her. He went closer to the water where there was a hose, and leaned over the flood to grab it. She snuck a little closer and was about to create a fire wall to force him into the water when he turned around, locking eyes with her.
"Hello, Inferno," he said.
Mallory's heart leapt to her throat. She tried to fly, but her body didn't respond to her commands. She stared at Shugel, dread seeping into her as she realized the truth. Ultra Humanite was controlling her now.
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