Chapter Twenty Eight

Mount Justice Falls

March 23rd

Morgan really needed to talk to Nightwing. She'd tried to find him the night before, but he'd left before she had a chance to talk to him.

Her guilt was eating at her insides.

She knew that he knew that she was privately blaming him for Artemis' death.

But she didn't really anymore. After a few days had gone by and Morgan had managed to distance herself from the situation somewhat, she could see how absolutely unfair it was of her to blame him. Oh, she'd felt bad for blaming him since the beginning, but only now did she truly see that blaming him wasn't only making her feel worse, it was also damaging the friendship they'd worked incredibly hard on establishing.

It wasn't exactly a secret that they'd gotten off to a rocky start. And for months now, they'd spent most of their time together bickering and arguing. The only time they got along somewhat was when they were on patrol, and even then they'd just barely tolerated each other.

But something had drastically changed in the past few weeks. They'd been getting along pretty okay. They'd actually put effort into being friendly.

And a pretty good friendship had come out of it, if you asked Morgan. She found that she actually liked spending time with her mentor. She found that she trusted him above anyone else on the Team. She found that he was easy to talk to.

And she was not going to let all that go to waste because she blamed him for something that wasn't actually his fault.

So she'd approached him earlier that day and demanded that they talk.

And he'd told her he couldn't right now because he was busy.

And then Morgan had looked absolutely crestfallen and he'd looked guilty and they'd sort of had a guilt-off until Nightwing had relented and asked her to meet him in the Cave at nine PM and they'd go on patrol together where they could talk all she wanted.

She had eagerly agreed, mainly because they seemed to get along better when they were on patrol.

And so, there Morgan was, quarter to nine, dressed in her Sparrow costume, slipping her mask into place as she hopped onto the kitchen counter and peeled an orange. She felt kind of peckish and didn't want to fight criminals on an empty stomach.

Batman wouldn't approve, she jokingly thought.

She looked up when she sensed another presence, spotting Nightwing entering the kitchen.

Biting down on an orange slice, she smiled a close-lipped smile at her mentor, willing their relationship to return to normal as soon as possible.

Morgan almost heaved a sigh of relief when he responded with a small, friendly smile of his own.

"So what did you want to talk to me about?" He asked.

Morgan considered telling him to wait until they were on patrol already, but realized that whatever she had to say wouldn't really take very long, so she might as well say it now.

"I just.. uh." She swallowed her orange slice and pursed her lips, searching for the right words.

Deciding that, since the direct approach had always been her forte, she might as well go with that.

"I blamed you for Artemis' death. And I'm sorry for that." She shrugged half heartedly and put away the rest of her orange, her appetite shriveling up immediately at the sour topic. "It wasn't fair of me and I shouldn't have let my emotions rule me the way they did."

That was actually been easier than Morgan had expected.

Mask-covered eyes met mask-covered eyes as she waited for his response.

"I, uh.. I forgive you." He replied awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. "And I'm sorry as well. As your mentor, I should've been there to help you through the shock. You shouldn't have to deal with a death like that on your own, especially when it was your first time."

The way he said it made it sound like Team deaths happened often. And that she was supposed to get better at dealing with losing friends.

"It's okay." Morgan coughed behind a hand, hiding the distaste she felt at his phrasing. Besides, Artemis hadn't even been her friend, she'd been Nightwing's. If anything, Morgan should've been the one comforting him. "Besides, I wasn't alone. Connor talked to me."

Nightwing's brow furrowed. "Connor?"

Morgan shrugged again. "Yeah, he found me in that tree we ate pizza in that one time, and he talked with me. It helped a lot."

"Good." Nightwing slowly replied through gritted teeth that made it sound like it really wasn't good, his eyes narrowing slightly.

Morgan wondered what his deal was.

"So." She quickly went on, jumping off the counter and landing in front of her mentor. "Shall we patrol?"

"Let's go."

They reached the main room when the Zeta tube announced the arrival of Blue Beetle and Impulse.

"Hah!" Impulse cheered. "Left them in the dust!"

"Left who in the dust?" Nightwing immediately asked, the two older teenagers approached the boys. "And what is that?" he went on, pointing at something in Impulse's hand.

Morgan stepped forward from behind her mentor to better see what Impulse was holding.

It looked like a really high-tech TV remote in Morgan's opinion.

"Souvenir!" Impulse enthusiastically responded, holding the rectangular, electronic device up, point at it.

"Souvenirs are Beast Boy's thing, ese." Blue Beetle quickly corrected him.

"Oh, really?" Impulse asked, the team leader immediately forgotten as he turned his attention to the blue-clad teenager next to him. "I thought it was Kid Flash's-"

"Can we get to it?" Nightwing interrupted impatiently, clearly frustrated with the hyper youngster.

"Guys, focus." Morgan said at the same time, crossing her arms in front of her chest and rolling her eyes.

"Sorry, " Blue Beetle turned his attention back to his team leader. "Aqualad attacked us with Icicle Junior, the Terror Twins, and some ninja girl I haven't seen before."

"Aaaand this is how they tracked Blue." Impulse explained, motioning for the apparently-not-a-remote-but-a-tracking-device-thing in his hand. "I made sure he didn't do it again."

"By stealing it?" Morgan added. She was pretty new that the hero business herself, but even she could guess that bringing some unknown tech into the Cave was a stupid move.

Apparently Nightwing had thought the same thing. His mouth sagged into an angry line and his tone was clipped as he spoke. "So you brought foreign, possible alien tech into the Cave?"

Morgan winched at the glare on his face, expecting Impulse to get a proper lashing from their leader. She certainly knew she would've gotten a stern lecture.

"Rookie mistake!" He instead pointed out angrily and sighed harshly, running a hand through his hair.

His soft-looking, attractive hai – wait, stop.

Morgan shook her head to clear her thoughts.

"Alright, give it here." Nightwing held his hand out and Impulse gave up the device, looking appropriately sheepish at the reprimand.

Morgan leaned closer – not because her mentor smelled nice (though he totally did) – but because she wanted to get a closer look at the tracking-device too.

"I still think it looks like a fancy TV remote." She admitted.

"We'll find out what it really does." Nightwing answered and drew up the holographic computer. Morgan realized that their patrol was portably cancelled now.

The small box was physically scanned in a moment and the four teenagers gathered around the screens as the computer started the actually scanning process, a digital duplicate appearing on-screen, followed by information on what it contained and what it did.

Most of what it said on the screen sounded like gibberish to Morgan, but apparently Nightwing seemed to understand what it said.

A small but annoying beeping noise erupted from the computer suddenly and Nightwing's eyes narrowed behind his mask.

"Argh!" He groaned loudly, abruptly realizing something. "I'm an idiot!"

Drawing his two eskrima sticks from their thigh holster, he swiftly turned around.

Morgan, Blue Beetle and Impulse followed his movement, but none of the three teens had the time to react as their leader was felled by a flying, unconscious Superboy, the two of them skidding several feet across the floor, landing in a heap, with Nightwing at the bottom.

"Nightwing!" Morgan automatically cried, her first instinct to assist her friend.

Then her training kicked in and Morgan turned back around to face the threat.

On a platform above them, a hideous blue-skinned man with jagged, icicle-looking joints, started coating the floor of the room in a slippery sheet of ice.

Having heard Impulse mention their names earlier, Morgan could only assume this was Icicle Junior.

Impulse burst forward, heading straight for the ice-man, knocking him against the wall above them.

A huge building of a man, impossibly broad shouldered, clad in a white shirt and black pants with red suspenders, his white hair styled in a buzz-cut, stood at the entrance Morgan had Nightwing had only just walked out of five minutes ago.

A woman dressed in the exact same outfit, her long white hair in a ponytail, stepped through another entrance to the main room, carrying an unconscious Beast Boy on her shoulders.

Blue Beetle took to air immediately, engaging the male terror twin, but Morgan stayed down a little while longer. She was unwilling to leave Nightwing alone while he was still trapped underneath Connor's deadweight.

She wanted to attack the woman, but she didn't want to hurt Garfield.

Morgan trained her eyes onto the green boy and spread her hand out, yanking him out of her woman's grip before she had the time to react. Morgan had been lucky. Normally, it took her a few tries before she could get anything living to actually move.

Beast Boy landed a few meters away and Morgan finally had proper access to the woman.

Praying that her luck would hold, she tried for the same trick against the blonde.

Nothing happened.

"Guess I'll have to do this the hard way." She murmured to herself and made to charge against the other woman.

Morgan never got the chance to, because right at the moment, Impulse landed roughly on the floor next to her, letting out a pained groan.

"Impulse!" She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him up. "You alright?"

He had a dark-grey collar around his neck that got Morgan worried. Why would they palce collars on the heroes? What did the collars do?

"You need to get up high," He immediately said, pushing her away. "The collars. They turn off our powers."

Morgan's eyes widened as she took a few steps back before beating her wings powerfully, taking to the air immediately.

Part of her told her to stay on the ground and help her friends instead of fighting from a distance like a coward.

A much bigger part, a part that often sounded like Nightwing, logically reminded her that staying where the bad guys couldn't reach her would help her friends far better than if she tried to help them on the ground and got caught herself.

Once she'd reached an altitude that made her unreachable by her three opponents below, she tried for that telekinetic trick again.

Arm pointed at the woman, fingers spread, she threw her arm further out.

Satisfaction coursed through her mind when the woman was thrown back against the wall.

It barely did anything. She got up immediately, like Morgan's attack hadn't fazed her even a little bit.

Behind her, the second part of the twins cried out loud and Morgan turned in mid air to watch Blue Beetle use some sort of sonic attack that left the other man clutching her head in pain.

Below her, Nightwing pushed Superboy off of him and got up, finally back in the game. Morgan almost breathed a sigh of relief, but she hardly had time to before her mentor was kicked in the face and tripped to the ground by a dark-haired woman clad in an orange and black costume.

She slipped another of those collars into place around his neck, but he just smirked triumphantly at her. "Sorry, no powers for your collar to turn off." He quipped before swinging his legs around her neck from behind and throwing her off of him.

A move that, later, when Morgan wasn't in immediate danger and actually had the time to think about that kind of stuff, made her wonder just how flexible he was – in the dirtiest of implications possible – and how incredibly good-looking he was when he fought bad guys.

She didn't think about that at the moment however. Because right as her mentor had gotten to his feet again, the ninja woman pressed a button on a controller she had in her grasp, and he was electrocuted by the collar around his neck.

"Nightwing!" Morgan shout worriedly for the second time that night and almost flew down to help him, especially when he fell to his knees with a pained cry.

She stopped, firmly reminding herself that she was of more use to her friends up here where she couldn't get caught.

She grabbed mental hold on the ninja woman, using her fury at the sight of her mentor in pain, and was about to send her flying across the room in a move that would hopefully have rendered her unconscious, if not broken several bones, when a new voice demanded her attention.

"Stand down!" It ordered.

Morgan turned in the air, losing her mental hold on the woman, and felt her stomach drop.

Logically, she should've known he'd be here. Impulse had mentioned that Icicle Junior, the Terror Twins, some ninja woman and Aqualad had tried to attack them.

And yet, Morgan wasn't prepared to come face to face with the man she'd, less than a week ago, seen murder one of his old friends.

She felt like somebody had punched her in the gut.

"This battle is over." He spoke with confidence.

"I don't think so, traitor!" Blue Beetle raged, aiming his armed hands at the Atlantean. Morgan hovered in the air, clearly showing that she wasn't about to stand down either.

"Then re-think, Blue Beetle." Kaldur'ahm calmly responded.

He had a sportsbag slung over his shoulder and as he spoke, he set it down, pulling its contents out. "This is the same kind of bomb that obliterated Malina Island. I am holding down the dead man switch."

Once again, Morgan felt like somebody had punched her in the stomach and her heart climbed into her throat, beating twice as fast. She saw the small black tech in his hand, saw the red button he had his thumb on and knew he wasn't lying. He'd murdered Artemis only a few days ago, what would stop from him blow up the Cave and all of the people in it?

"If my thumb comes off this button. For. Any. Reason. At . All.." He spoke with such a calm voice, Morgan wondered how he could not be quaking with fear at the sight of the bomb as she was. "Mount Justice will fall."

Morgan could tell Blue Beetle was weighing his options in his head, processing Aqualad's words.

She didn't need to. She knew the only thing they could do was hand themselves over. There was the possibility that he was bluffing, but Morgan wasn't willing to take that risk. She couldn't afford to take that risk.

Morgan slowly floated to the ground and folded her wings against her back. She landed in a crouch next to Nightwing and placed a hand on his shoulder to make sure he was still okay.

She wasn't going to be the reason they were all killed.

He was on his hands and knees, breathing heavily from the electric shock he'd gotten a minute earlier, but he still looked up at her in a reassuring manner. Morgan could tell the electrocution had stung quite a lot.

She was forced to her feet roughly and clenched her eyes shut as a pair of hands slipped underneath her curly mane and clicked a collar into place. The weight was unfamiliar and restricting.

Immediately Morgan felt like part of her mind had been closed off from her. She didn't have to test it to know that her telekinesis was no longer working. The dark haired woman kept a firm grip on her upper arm.

She'd let them catch her. But that didn't mean she'd lost her spirit, Morgan decided as she opened her eyes and leveled a fierce glare at the leader of the company.

"Frickin' bag of dicks.." she hissed under her breath, biting down on her tongue to keep from starting a river of cursing.

Blue Beetle had landed himself on the ground too, holding his hands up in surrender. "We're standing down." He said in resignation as the tallest of the Terror Twins placed a collar around his neck as well.

"Wise choice." Aqualad said in that seemingly constant monotone of his.

Behind them, a jagged slide of ice appeared and Icicle Junior slid down it, joining the scene. "I'm fine, by the way." He complained, hurt that nobody had bothered to check on him.

Morgan felt like rolling her eyes, but she was too angry and scared to do it. The entire situation sent spike of anxiety and anger and worry through her body. It was the uncertainty of the situation that sent shivers down her spine. Also, the creepy and appreciative look Icicle Junior sent her was less than reassuring.

"Good." Aqaulad replied unconvincingly. "Escort Blue Beetle, Impulse, Beast Boy and Sparrow to the flyer."

"What about these two?" The ninja woman, who still had a strong grip on Morgan's arm, asked, motioning for Nightwing and the unconscious Superboy.

She began forcing Morgan forward. The winged girl's first instinct was to dig her feet into the ground and fight back, but she let herself get dragged along. She knew what would happen if she attempted to fight back.

"As hostages, they have value here." Kaldur'ahm explained. "But Nightwing is a normal human. Superboy a human-kryptonian hybrid clone. Neither category is of any interest to our partner."

Morgan stumbled ungracefully in sheer surprise at what he was saying. Her mind was reeling as she was figuring out what the man was saying.

He wasn't just capturing her and the three others for fun or to kill them.

They were taking them because the partner, the Light's partner, whom the Team had tried to discover for weeks now, wanted them for some reason.

Whatever they needed them for, Morgan was sure it wasn't pleasant.

Fear gripped her heart and pumped through her veins, rendering her completely fight-less, only able to stare at the traitor in shock and fear.

"Aqualad!" Nightwing had gotten to his feet and was shouting angrily. "You'll regret this!" He promised.

His former friend paused for a moment before casually walking towards Nightwing, delivering a painful punch to his stomach.

Morgan felt rage boil in her stomach at the sight of her mentor bending over, grunting in pain. The rage took over her body and flushed away any speck of fear.

She gritted her teeth and growled at Aqualad.

The blonde twin grabbed her from behind and started dragging her out as Morgan fought against her grip.

"I believe I have outgrown that name." Kaldur'ahm responded. "As well as anything resembling regret."

"I swear to god, when I get my hands on you, I'm going to rip those gills off of your stupid neck!" She yelled after Kaldur, struggling to wriggle out of the blonde woman's grip.

He paused once again and regarded her for a moment, as if only noticing her now. The icy cold look in his silver eyes made a shiver run down Morgan's spine, but she kept her defiant glare trained on his face.

The blonde pulled her out of the room, leaving Morgan to only just hear Aqualads ominous warning.

"I'll leave the bomb here with you. As a souvenir. Oh, and the dead man switch as a five mile range. Do not pursue."

Her blood ran cold when she realized that Nightwing was going to be left in there with the active bomb.

A bomb which a vengeful murderer only had to move his finger slightly to activate.

They were led out of the Cave through the garage. Morgan had quickly realized that her attempts to break loose from the woman's grip were futile, so she had stopped struggling when the woman had threatened to electrocute her.

Now she was walking by herself in front of the female twin, her glaring eyes staring straight ahead.

Here had to be some sort of way to get out of this. They couldn't just give up.

A little ways into the water, a large ship – flyer, had Aqualad called it? – waited for them to return.

"Move it, girly." The blonde behind her pushed her roughly forward and Morgan only just managed to catch herself before stumbling to the sand below.

Every muscle in her screamed to turn back, begged her to not let them leave Nightwing behind with that bomb. She felt angry tears well up in her eyes at the desperate need to aid her mentor combined with the helplessness she felt. She hadn't felt this helpless and useless since she'd run away from home.

Morgan tried to focus on something else, anything to keep her from crying – dammit, she refused to cry in front of these people – and in front of her she saw Blue Beetle, flanked by Icicle Junior.

"Not much of a choice, is there?" Blue angrily stated.

"None at all," Icicle Junior answered triumphantly, thought Morgan couldn't help but suspect the question hadn't been aimed at him.

There was a commotion suddenly when Blue Beetle's arms turned into two huge, round clubs with blunt spikes on them. "Wait, no!" Blue Beetle cried, like the sudden appearance of the weapons hadn't been voluntary. "You can't!"

He knocked Icicle Junior and the female twin to the ground and ran a few paces back before turning around to face the leader of their captors.

Morgan realized that this was the chance she'd hoped for. She looked to the fallen blonde by her feet and forced open her clenched fist.

Finding what she'd been looking for, Morgan grabbed the small remote that she knew controlled the collar around her neck.

Their collar had turned off her telekinesis, she knew.

But it couldn't turn off her wings.

With this in mind, Morgan spread her wings, and with a powerful beat of the feather-covered limbs, she was airborne.

Aqaulad, having noticed the disturbance, had turned and faced Blue Beetle, already prepared to fight back. Blue Beetle sent out what looked like a blast of blue laser at his opponent.

Aqualad barely had the time to form a small, round, blue shield, which took most of the brunt of the blast, sending him flying back towards a large outcropping of rock in the middle of the beach.

It felt like Morgan's heart had stopped beating altogether when she, as if in slowmotion, saw Aqualad smash against the flat rock behind him and loosen the grip he had on the dead man switch, the small thing falling into the sand next to him.

She held her breath for several moments, waiting for the mountain behind her to erupt in flame, killing everyone in and near it. She prepared herself to die in the wall of fire she was sure was coming.

"Nooo!" Blue Beetle cried, just as Morgan let out a strangled gasp.

The explosion never came.

"You were right!" The boy cried out in relief. "It was a bluff! Get him!"

He charged for Kaldur'ahm. Morgan wanted to go down and help him, she really did, but she found herself frozen in place, rendered useless by the paralyzing fear she'd felt at thinking they'd all die in the explosion.

Blue Beetle screamed in pain when Aqualad placed a flat hand on his chest and sent out a beam of what looked like blue electricity.

His painful cry shook her awake and she settled her nerves, preparing to charge in and help her friend as he stumbled back.

There was a large hole in the chest area of his suit, and as he stumbled around, the black haired woman landed in front of him and sent a tranquilizing shot into his chest.

Blue Beetle fell to the ground, unconscious,

"I was not certain that would work." Aqualad admitted. "But it seems that Blue Beetle is indeed vulnerable to mystic energy. And sedatives."

He looked at Icicle Junior. "Bring him aboard!"

The blue-skinned man pulled Beetle over his shoulder and dragged him away.

"What about her?" The ninja woman asked, pointing up at Morgan, who was still airborne.

Aqualad looked up and met Morgan's eyes.

"Bring her down." He ordered.

The woman pulled out another sedative and shot it after Morgan, but she swerved out of the way and flew up higher, out of reach.

"We have run out of time." She could hear Kaldur'ahm say. "Leave her. I believe the others will satisfy our partner sufficiently."

Morgan was stuck in a horrible dilemma. She wanted to save her friends, but if she got any closer, she'd be subdued immediately by their tranquilizers.

If their enemies had been any less trained, Morgan would've have engaged them immediately. As it were, she knew she'd never be able to take them all in a fight, even if she had her powers. Which she didn't because that collar was still around her neck.

She wanted to scream in frustration when she realized that all she could do was watch the flyer take off with her friends.

Her chance of saving them was slim to none.

"But I have to try anyway!" She ground out before taking off after the dark ship.

She wasn't even half a mile out over the water when she had to give up again. The ship was too fast for her to ever catch up to it and trying to would be a fool's errand.

She turned and looked at Mount Justice, grateful that it was still standing.

"Nightwing.." She gasped under her breath when she realized that her leader was still trapped with that bomb. Her curls whipped around her face as Morgan raced back towards the mountain as fast as she could.

She was only about two hundred feet from the island when, it suddenly exploded into a wall of fire and heat.

She was blasted out of the sky by the shockwave, propelled further into the forest that surrounded the mountain. The heat wave was unbearable and the boom rattled her bones as she soared through the sky, dropping head first towards the dark canopy of trees below her.

She must've blacked out for a moment because suddenly everything was dark and quiet.

I told ya'll this chapter would be explosive, didn't I?

I've been sick and miserable for two days straight, so I decided to post a chapter early to cheer myself up.

Fun fact: Morgan is like the least picky person when it comes to music. She'll listen to whatever's on the radio. If she absolutely had to chose her least favourite genre, she'd probably say rap, because she has a hard time understanding the words because it's so fast paced and thus gets annoyed. Her favourite music is probably instrumental, though. It makes for good background music.