So as far as changes from the show, I don't think it really makes sense that Kaldur would be running the League, like as much as I love Kaldur I just don't think it would happen when all of the other members have been on the League since he was a kid. I also don't think Katana and Batwoman would join just because from what I know of the characters, they're kind of loners unless they have to step in to help someone else. I could be wrong about them, but that's just the way I see them. And the whole Black Lightning thing isn't going to be in the story. I didn't really have a problem with that one, I just feel like it doesn't fit as well into my story. I also cut Thirteen for a reason that I think at least some of you will like, I guess we'll see in the next few chapters. Other than all that, hope you like it, please review!
Three days later, the League and team got word that the Justice League was on its way back to Earth. Mallory made sure she was at the Watchtower on the day the Leaguers were supposed to arrive, ready to welcome them back and tell Clark that he needed to add a front door to the Fortress of Solitude if he expected her to house-sit again. The core team and most of the other Leaguers were already there, including the newest member still on Earth, Steel. Mallory nodded a greeting to the newest addition to Metropolis's roster before finding her place with Zatanna and Raquel, who had been back in action after taking two months off for the baby.
"How far out are they?" she asked.
"They're docking now," the new mom replied.
Mallory couldn't contain her grin, practically bouncing on her toes as she waited for the Leaguers to get to the bridge. They came in one at a time, Clark coming first, and she had to force herself to wait for him to come to her instead of running over to greet him. When he finally did make it to the group, she slipped through the small crowd, standing to the side as he gave a brief mission report to Batman and Canary. She could tell that something was wrong, but when he turned and saw her, he managed a smile, opening his arms, and she gave him a quick hug.
"Welcome back, Superman," she said. "I think your pets will be glad you're back."
"They didn't give you a hard time, did they?" he asked. Some of the others that had been on the mission started to file in. Ice, Fire, Wonder Woman, Kye Rayner, and finally Black Lightning. The energy in the room shifted, and Mallory looked up at Clark, her eyebrows coming together with concern.
"What happened?" she asked, seeing the weight that all of the away team was carrying.
He sighed heavily and shook his head. "Not now," was all he said before he turned and followed some of the Leaguers, including Kaldur, to the conference room.
Mallory exchanged a confused look with her friends, but Zatanna nodded across the room where Conner, Artemis, and Megan were talking with Kyle. They crossed the room, murmuring greetings to the others as they passed. When they got to the group, they were already about to leave.
"Not here," Kyle told them.
"We were planning on going to Roy's, some of the others will be there too," Zatanna suggested.
He nodded and the group went to the zeta tube. They came out in Star city and Zatanna put them in civies before they started walking down the street. They made it to Roy's and let themselves in. Dick, Donna, Garth, Karen, and Mal were in the living room. Roy came in from setting Lian up with some things to do, and they all greeted the people they hadn't seen in a while before the large group settled in, most of them on the arms of chairs or the floor. Roy looked around from his spot on the floor, leaning against the sofa, and sighed.
"I'm going to need to get some more chairs if we keep using my place for family meetings," he complained lightheartedly.
Raquel ignored his quip, honing in on Kyle. "What happened out there?" she asked. The half that hadn't been in the Watchtower tilted their heads, realizing that this wasn't just the reunion they were expecting.
Kyle sighed, rubbing the side of his face as he thought about how to tell them. "We ran into the trafficking again," he said quietly.
Mallory's heart skipped a beat. It had been months since they'd had a good lead on the metahuman trafficking. "Where?" she asked.
"On Rann," he said quietly. He hung his head and added, "Lightning killed a fourteen year old girl in the battle."
The group froze, the room turning absolutely silent as they digested the statement. "What happened?" Megan asked softly, the first of them to recover their voice.
Kyle sighed, shaking his head. "It wasn't his fault, I mean, she was unrecognizable, just a lava creature. She was about to kill Ice, and he took a shot. He only meant to stun her, but she had a bad heart." There were tears in his eyes and his voice got even quieter as he said, "Whoever was using her was controlling her with a chip in her neck. She never even had a choice."
Donna put a hand on his shoulder, rubbing a slow circle over his back. He was the newest at this, and even the original sidekicks were having trouble with the news. They couldn't even imagine what Black Lightning was going through.
"So…what's going to happen now?" Karen asked quietly, lacing her fingers through Mal's.
The Green Lantern shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted. "They were going to have a meeting about it when we got back. I didn't really want to stick around for it."
They nodded, understanding that completely. Mallory closed her eyes, setting the tragedy they were talking about aside for a moment to take a practical look at the situation. They had run into metahuman trafficking in a part of the galaxy that they weren't expecting at all. They had come across a few labs on the planet in the last few months, but that was mostly the Quitter's work now, with the League and, by extension, the team, being more and more limited by Luthor's suggestions of putting restrictions on them. There had to be a way for them to stop the flow of kids going off world.
"Mal?"
She looked up at her name, seeing Dick and Donna looking at her intently. She sighed. "Sorry, spaced out for a sec."
"More than that," Raquel said, raising an eyebrow expectantly.
She shook her head. "I was just thinking about how hard it's getting for us to do anything. We run into something like this, but what can we do about it? We've been fighting this for so long, and who knows how many other kids we've come across in our fights without even knowing about it? If that girl hadn't had a bad heart, we might not have known that she was from Earth at all."
Roy bumped her shoulder with his. "We'll figure it out," he said confidently.
She shook her head, but she glanced at Kyle and bit her lip. He didn't need to hear all this right after what he'd seen.
"Well, I believe there is some food in the kitchen. Would anyone else like something while I'm up?" Donna asked, giving Kyle's shoulder one more squeeze before standing up. There were some nods and murmurs as the group tried to rally. "Dick, would you give me a hand, please?" she asked. The youngest of the group got to his feet and followed her into the kitchen, and Megan cleared her throat and linked the team.
"Well, Karen, how's your research going?" the Martian asked, trying to bring the group to an easier topic. This brought the team to catching up with Karen, Mal, Garth, and Donna, and vice versa. Eventually they were back in their easy, comfortable flow, but the beginning of the conversation still weighed on the group through the rest of the evening.
At the end of the visit, the group started to leave in small groups. Karen and Mal were the first to leave with Conner and Megan. Zatanna left soon after them, then Raquel and Garth. Mallory was about to leave with Donna and Kyle, but Dick said, "Hey, Mal, hang on a sec."
She gave him a confused look, but she gave Donna and Kyle quick hugs, saying, "hang in there. Roy's right, we'll make this count for something." He gave her a small smile, but she could tell she hadn't convinced him any more than she'd convinced herself.
When the door closed behind them, she turned back to the living room, looking at Dick, Roy, and Artemis, the only ones left. "What?" she asked, sitting across from the former Boy Wonder along with Roy and Artemis.
"Donna told me something when we were getting the food," he told them. They immediately perked up, looking at him expectantly. "There's a rumor that someone in the UN is directly associated with the metahuman trafficking. She and Garth have been trying to find out who, but all they were able to come up with is a location. One location that is supposed to be the largest center for metahuman production in the world. The only problem is it's overseas, so she can't bring it to the League or they'll just get blocked and give the group time to move locations. We only have one shot to shut this down. So, what do you say, Mal. You ready to be a Quitter again?"
She smiled. "Always."
He looked at Artemis. "What about you? We could use the extra help."
She shrugged. "Yeah, sounds good."
"Hold on," Roy said, leaning forward. "Where exactly is this?"
"Moscow," Dick replied, holding up a flashdrive. "All the coordinates and info are on here."
Roy shook his head slowly. "Sorry, but I'm out on this one."
"What? Roy, no, we need the extra help," Dick said pleadingly.
Roy shook his head again, staying firm. "Sorry, but no. I'm semi-retired, remember? I can't go overseas and leave Lian. If something happens to me, she doesn't have anyone left."
"That's not true," Artemis said.
"You know what I mean," he said. "She already lost Jade this year. I can't risk making her lose me, too. I'm sorry, but I'm out." He stood and started to pick up, leaving the three original team members to look at each other.
"Well, if Roy's out, then who do we get to fill in for him?"
"Well any public figures are out," Artemis reasoned, "so that only leaves Megan and Conner, unless you want to go into the newer members."
"Not really. This is too big. If something goes wrong, I don't want that on my conscience."
"Well, Megan's out, too," Mallory said. "She's the leader of the team. She needs to be here in case something else goes down. Besides, there's probably going to be plenty of fire."
"Ok, so that leaves Conner," Dick said. "That all right?" Mallory nodded immediately. There was no one she'd rather have by her side in a firefight than Conner. Dick nodded in agreement. "All right, I'll go talk to him in the morning. Get your things together, but no recognizable costumes. I'll drop some gear at your places at some point tomorrow morning. We'll meet at the Centennial park tube tomorrow night at ten. Thanks for coming."
They nodded, and Mallory and Dick rose to leave. "Tell Roy bye for me," Mallory requested. Artemis said she would, and the two left the house, heading to the zeta tube. Even with all of the uncertainty of how the meeting at the Watchtower was going, Mallory couldn't help but feel a little lighthearted as she watched her friend zeta off and stepped in to be scanned. After all this time, they had finally found a way to deal a major blow the the metahuman trafficking ring, and by this time the next night, it would be done.
The next night, there seemed to be an urgency in their mission that hadn't been there before. They'd gotten the word that day that Batman had staged a walkout with some of the others, on both the League and the team. Black Lightning had quit too, feeling like it was irresponsible to continue to fight when he was still feeling so guilty about what had happened on Rann.
Mallory made it to the zeta tube right on time, finding that Dick and Conner were already there. "Where's Artemis?" she asked.
"Here," the archer announced.
Dick checked the small group. They were all in black and gray, unmarked suits similar to what they were used to wearing in combat, and all of them had strap-on masks that covered their faces from the nose down, complete with gas masks and rebreathers and ready for whatever the night may hold.
Mallory smiled a little when she saw Dick. "Wow, you're going out with the blues on full display?" she asked teasingly. "Scandalous."
He chuckled. "Yeah, well, they'll never expect it. Might just be the best disguise I have. I see you got the note, too."
She flipped her black hair over her shoulder. "Yeah, well, if I'm not allowed to use my powers, I figured it might be my best disguise. Besides, you guys will never know the struggle of hiding in the dark with practically glow-in-the-dark hair."
"All right, let's get going," Conner suggested. "We don't want to be out all night."
The others nodded and went to the zeta tube, allowing Dick to punch in their coordinates and getting sucked into the tube, coming out in the closest tube in Russia. It was only a short distance from the tube to the warehouse they were going to as the crow flies, so they ran along the roofs, stopping on top of one and looking down from the skylight. There were pods all around the room, and computers and levers in the center of the room. There were also crates at the far end of the huge room, and at least fifty men and women either standing guard or getting ready for the next procedure.
They didn't need to say a word to be in sync, eight full years of fighting and living side by side allowing them to know exactly what part each of them would play in the unspoken plan. Conner crashed through the room first, followed by the other three. Mallory, Conner and Artemis spread out in the room, clearing the center for Dick to do his thing on the computers. Without her fire, Mallory settled for tapping into her strength a little, allowing her to take down the goons and scientists with more efficiency. She threw them into each other, knocked them down, and kicked them into pods. She heard the grunts and crashing around her and knew that her friends were doing the same. Towards the end of the fight, Dick appeared at her side, helping her with the three men she was fighting.
"Time to finish up," he told her, loud enough for the others to hear on the comm. She nodded and threw one of the men she was fighting into the wall, allowing Dick to take the last one out with a roundhouse kick to the jaw. They heard one more grunt followed by a crash and looked over their shoulders to see Artemis had kicked the last of the goons straight through one of the pods. "Easy, there," Dick said. "We still have to get these guys out." She shrugged, and Dick pointed to the crates across the room. "Check those, I have one more thing to do."
The three went over and looked into crate after crate, every one of them containing frightened children ranging from about eight to fifteen. Mallory had never felt the specific mixture of rage and compassion that swept through her at the sight of the kids, and the only thing she knew to do with it was grab a metal pole off the ground and slam it into the lock with all her natural strength, breaking the lock and setting the kids free. Conner and Artemis followed her lead, breaking open crate after crate until they were all open and the kids were all on their way out the building.
"Is that everyone?" Artemis asked.
Conner surveyed the room full of unconscious goons. "Not really," he said.
Mallory narrowed her eyes. "It would serve them right if we just left them to die," she said darkly, but she immediately grabbed the arm of the nearest goon and started to drag her out of the building.
They kept working until the warehouse was empty, then Dick pulled out his exploding disks. He threw them at the pods and the group ran out of the warehouse for the last time. The place erupted seconds after they made it out, and they regrouped on the roof opposite of the ruined base.
"Well, they won't be recovering anything from that," Conner said optimistically.
"No, but that doesn't mean this is over," Dick said slowly, looking off into space.
"Ok, so what did the files say?" Artemis asked.
"Nothing that I saw, I didn't take the time to go through them."
"What about Oracle?" Mallory asked.
He raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"
"Please, you never go anywhere without those contacts," Conner said with a snort. "Your eyes have been glowing all night."
Dick smiled a little. "I must be losing my touch."
"More like we know you too well for you to hide something from us," Mallory replied. "What does she have to say?"
He paused for a moment, then smiled. "Well, first, she says hi and your maneuver three needs some work," he said, looking at Mallory. She rolled her eyes. "And second, pack it up. We're going to Markovia."