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Year 8
3 months later
Mallory walked into the League's meeting room and immediately honed in on the green uniform across the room. She didn't even care who was in it: Hal, John, Guy, Kilowog even. It happened to be John, and he sighed heavily when he saw her approaching.
"I'm sorry, Inferno, but I don't have any updates for you," he said, handing Plastic Man the tablet they had been looking at. The former thief looked between them, then went towards the bridge before Mallory could show her annoyance. She and the rest of the team had been working with the League non stop since she figured out that the Light's partner was using boomtubes to get the trafficked children off world, and since the League's zeta shield didn't do anything to stop portals, it was basically useless.
"It's been weeks," she complained, spreading her arms and slapping them down on her thighs, more out of frustration than to make a point, but it worked either way.
"I know," John said calmly, "and we've all been doing everything we can to find out where the kids are being kept: on and off world."
She sighed. "I know. It's just…it's not enough."
The Green Lantern let the comment slide and tilted his head. "What about Vigilante?" he asked. "Has he come up with anything?"
She shook her head. Her little brother had been living as Megan and Conner's foster child in Happy Harbor for the last two and a half months, but so far he hadn't been approached, and he hadn't heard of any other kids being taken from his school. "I knew he should have gone to a bigger city," she said.
John gave her a sympathetic look. "I know you're tired of hearing it," he said, "but be patient. You can't fight every battle head on."
She nodded. "Yeah, thanks. That helps a lot," she replied, making an honest effort to curb the sarcasm from her tone. Judging from the way the Leaguer narrowed his eyes, she hadn't done a very good job. "Who else is up here?" she asked, trying to change the subject.
Her companion shrugged. "I think Hal and Guy are outside doing some repairs after that meteor tried to decommission the place," he said.
Mallory nodded, remembering the night half the heroes, herself included, almost died when a meteor crashed into the satellite unexpectedly due to a glitch in the monitoring system.
"Anyone else? Who's on monitor duty?" she asked.
He shrugged. "I saw Shaiera a few hours ago, other than that I don't know. I've been a little busy checking the system to make sure there aren't any more bugs in it."
"You making any improvements?" she asked.
He tilted his head in a half shrug. "Not really, we're just adding a reset code, so that if it crashes again it'll be easier to get up and running fast enough to respond to the disturbance."
She nodded. "Cool. I'm gonna go see if anyone from the team's here."
She had to pass the League's meeting room on her way to the lounge, and she peeked in when she saw the doors open. She smiled a little when she recognized Kaldur in his new suit standing tall, shoulder to shoulder with Barry, Bruce, Clark, and Dina. At the other side of the room Diana and Red Tornado were discussing something with Catherine, the PR agent. She walked over to the latter, not wanting to interrupt whatever the others were talking about.
"Catherine, hi," she said.
The woman half turned and smiled when she recognized her. "Inferno, it has been a while," she replied, extending a hand.
Mallory shook it and tilted her head. "Is there something wrong?"
Diana sighed. "Not really," she said, but her tone wasn't very convincing.
"There have been some attacks on the League's reputation recently," Tornado told her. "We were just discussing whether or not to address them."
"How bad?" she asked. She hadn't heard anything more than the normal isolated 'the Reach were right' campaigns lately.
"Well, that's just it, we don't know," Catherine admitted. "There is a group gaining a following online that is convinced that the League is a cover for illegal activity like smuggling and human trafficking. They talk a lot about the Watchtower and the zeta beams that only the League has access to."
Mallory sighed. She missed the old days when no one knew about the tech the League had access to. "So, what are the options?" she asked.
"Ignore it and hope that it passes, or address it and offer the leaders of the world to come to the Watchtower and show them that there is nothing going on up here," Diana explained.
Mallory bit her lip. She didn't love either option. "Well, you'll figure it out," she said, reminding herself that it wasn't her problem anymore. That was one thing she liked about being on the team and not the League. The only reputation she had to worry about was Inferno's.
Batman walked away from the group, signaling the end of any important talk, so she said goodbye to her group and made her way over to the others. Clark made room for her in the circle without turning around and she took the spot.
"Hey, what's up?" she asked after nodding a greeting to her former teammates.
"Nothing big, just discussing the repairs. We can't have the system going down again."
She nodded, and before anyone could continue, Barry put a finger to his ear, answering a comm call. He turned to the others. "There's a bank robbery in Central. I'll see you at the meeting." He zipped away, a gust of wind blowing Mallory's hair back.
Dina sighed and stretched her back. "I should go, too. I have to be at the office in half an hour for a session." She tilted her head a little and looked at Mallory. "You haven't been at training lately. I don't remember that becoming optional."
Mallory rolled her eyes and smiled. "Right, sorry, I've been busy. Besides, they don't need me to teach them when they have you, do they?"
She narrowed her eyes playfully. "Flattery doesn't work on me, Mallory. You should know that by now. I'll see you at five for training, and at seven for a special sparring session."
The pyrokinetic winced. "Right, yeah, I'll be there." Her former trainer walked out of the room, leaving Mallory, Kaldur, and Clark in the circle. "Did you look into the Intergang lead yet?" Mallory asked the Man of Steel, turning her attention back to her case.
He nodded. "Yes, but I didn't find anything. Chances are, if Intergang is involved–"
"They are. I know it," she interrupted forcefully.
He nodded. "Well, assuming you're right, they know they're being watched, and they're being careful. They haven't pulled a job in over a month. I'm sorry, but I think we're running out of things to go on."
She shook her head, and her mentor put a sympathetic hand on her shoulder before walking over to Wonder Woman and Red Tornado. Kaldur tilted his head. "What about Ugly and Whisper? Have they been meeting with anyone connected to the Light, or with the trafficking ring?" he asked.
She scoffed. "No, they've been sitting in the Manheim mansion playing checkers ever since the Quitters broke in and got caught."
Her friend chuckled. "It is funny how you say it, like you weren't on that team," he mentioned.
She huffed, the corners of her mouth twitching up in a half smile. "Whatever. It's just frustrating. Just watching them, you wouldn't know they're running Intergang. They're up to something."
"And it is not possible that they resigned after they found you in their base of operations?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No chance. When they recovered from their commas, the first thing they did was go pull a job. There is no Intergang without a Manheim to head it up."
He nodded thoughtfully. "I am sure you will figure something out. In the meantime, I am off for the afternoon. Were you on your way to find the team?"
"Yeah."
"I will come with you."
She smiled teasingly up at him. "Oh, are you sure, Aquaman? I mean, you really want to mingle with us ex-sidekicks? Might not look too good for a Leaguer like you."
He smiled and shook his head. "Nevermind all that. I believe I saw some of them going to the simulation room earlier."
They left the meeting room and walked side by side to the simulation room on the opposite side of the station. When they got there, they checked the log sheet to make sure it was the team inside and pressed the button to get in. As soon as the doors slid open, they ducked to avoid a bolt of lightning sailing towards them. Mallory scanned the room quickly and found Static not far away battling ten holograms at once. She lit a fireball and sent it at his opponents, taking out two. He finally noticed them and nodded a thanks before going back to his fight, trying to stay hand-to-hand as much as possible.
She and Kaldur walked over to the sidelines, taking in the fight. Her friend smiled and nodded to the far side of the room, where Peter, in civies, was fighting his own small army with nothing but his fists. Most of the team was there, with the exception of Conner, Jaime, and Cassie. And Gar.
She sighed, thinking about her friend's brother. He was still technically part of the team, but he'd moved to LA to work on his show, a sci fi thriller where he was the captain of a space ship fighting off aliens. He seemed to enjoy it, but they all missed him, especially Peter.
The fight ended abruptly, leaving the team panting and looking around for more opponents. Megan smiled when she saw Mallory and Kaldur and she looked over her shoulder at the rest of the team.
"That's enough for today. I'll call if there's a mission."
Artemis, Megan, and Peter started walking over to greet them, but Bart beat them to it, skidding to a stop in front of them. "Hey, Aqua…man! What's new, you know, with the big JL?"
The former leader smiled and looked at Megan. "You are doing a good job with the training, especially with Black Canary being so busy lately."
The Martian smiled and shrugged. "Thanks, but it doesn't take much to learn when you almost have a one to one ratio of teachers and students. The simulations don't hurt, either."
"Well, maybe not figuratively," Tim said, smiling a little and rubbing his side.
Cassie laughed. "They don't hurt if they don't hit you," she pointed out.
Her ex shook his head, the smile still on his face. "Not all of us can fly," he retorted. She just shrugged.
"Do you want to move this to the lounge?" Artemis asked, an empty water bottle in her hand now. "I'm starving."
The group agreed and started to walk out the room. Cassie and Virgil took off when they got to the bridge, heading for the zeta tubes, but the others managed to make it to the lounge and settled in after Artemis and Peter grabbed some snacks and waters from the kitchen area.
"So, how is undercover life treating you?" Kaldur asked when Peter plopped down beside him, a family-sized bag of chips in hand.
He shrugged. "It's not as exciting as I thought it would be. And living with Megan and Conner isn't the best." Megan rolled her eyes, playing along.
"Have you learned anything useful yet?" the Atlantian asked, moving on.
Peter shook his head. "No, nothing. The closest I've come to a kid disappearing was a girl in the grade below me moving to Central with her folks. I know I offered to do this and all, but I didn't think it would be this boring. Even my downtime's been dull."
"Hey, at least you can still be yourself at home, and you can still be Vigilante if you're careful," Artemis pointed out.
Kaldur nodded in agreement. "You have as good a situation as it can get. It is hard to be undercover for long periods of time under any circumstances, but it gets very lonely and difficult when you are the only person who knows that you are undercover."
The younger boy looked down, thinking about Kaldur and Artemis being undercover not that long ago. "Yeah, I guess I do have it pretty good." He smiled and added, "if only I could have gotten better foster parents…"
"All right, that does it. You're grounded, no more…um, TV?" Megan looked around for better suggestions, biting back a smile as she did.
Mallory nodded in approval. "Sounds good. I'll have to remember that so his real mom can use it." The next second she was ducking a fistful of potato chips that were launched at her head. Bart caught them all before they hit the floor and sat down to eat them, making them all laugh.
"You know, I was thinking about your theory about the boomtubes," Tim said, taking the pause in the conversation to jump in, "and if you isolate the frequency of the tube and do a wide scan with the League's computer, you could see every signature like it going back as far as you want. It wouldn't just show you the boom tubes used to take kids, but you might find a common location that could suggest a meeting place, or a transport location, or whatever."
The older heroes looked at each other, surprised even though they knew they shouldn't be. "That…is a really good idea," Mallory admitted, nodding as she continued to think about it. "Thanks. I'll see when I can use the computer, maybe it'll give us a lead to follow." The young detective nodded.
The doors to the lounge slid open, and Hal and Guy started to walk in but immediately Hal spun around and walked away when he saw the team. Mallory jumped to her feet, not explaining herself to her friends, and jogged after him.
"Hey, GL!" she called. He pretended not to hear her, and she narrowed her eyes and flamed up, flying in front of him. "Hal, wait," she said.
He stopped and gave her an innocent smile. "Oh, Inferno, hi, I didn't know you were up here," he said.
She crossed her arms. "Yeah, right." She glanced at his companion and nodded a greeting. "Guy."
"Well, Inferno, it's always great to see you," the other Lantern said, sarcasm lacing the words, "but I think I'll just be mozying on along."
She rolled her eyes, but she didn't say anything as he flew down the hall. She turned back to Hal. "I already asked John, and he said he didn't have any leads. I was hoping maybe you did?" It was a long shot, and she knew it, but it had become a habit to ask him every time she saw him.
He sighed. "No, nothing, sorry. I haven't even left the planet since two days ago when you asked."
"Well, are you going anytime soon?" she asked, her tone a little impatient. The last time she'd talked to Hal, he told her that he would look into some things the next time he went to space, but that seemed like a very long time ago.
"Yes, I'm going this week, as soon as I can arrange to have some time off from work," he replied. She shook her head, not saying anything, and he cocked his head to the side thoughtfully. "Hey, do you want to come along?" he asked. "You could poke around, maybe dig up some leads for yourself, and I actually have a job that you could help me with while we're there."
She scoffed. "What, another peace treaty?"
He shook his head. "No, I think we have a good understanding worked out now. We'll just keep on hating each other until another universal threat comes up, then we'll find a way to work together until we can stop it. It worked out great before. No, actually I'm being sent to a planet that's being evacuated because of the threat of a supervolcano eruption. If worse comes to worse, you're about the best person I can think of to help with emergency evacuation, and maybe holding off the eruption until we finish. What do you say?"
Mallory twisted her lips to the side, thinking about it for a moment. "Who else is going?" she asked.
Hal shrugged. "Well, Guy, and maybe John. That's it from Earth, but we'll be meeting up with a few other Greens, and maybe some other corps if they feel like helping out."
She nodded slowly. "All right, I'll go," she said. "If Zatanna can come too."
He tilted his head. "Why Zatanna?"
She shrugged. "Because I know she'll have my back and it'll be nice to have a friend with me," she said. "Besides," she added with a smile, "she can change the food to something edible."