Chapter Thirty Five
A Rainbow of Beetles
April 9th
How could it be Rachel?
Morgan had found herself thinking that exact thought a thousand times in the last twenty four hours.
It had taken all of her self-restraint to not simply track the girl down immediately and demand answers.
Quite a feat, since Morgan didn't usually possess a lot of restraint.
But she hadn't because her wise and calm mentor – note the sarcasm – had told her to wait. After all, they didn't really know if Rachel actually knew anything about anything. For all they knew, the experiment had failed on the other girl – most likely since Morgan had seen her in a tank top before and there hadn't been any bulges to indicate that the other girl was sporting a pair of wings herself.
Not to say that wings were the only possible outcome of the experimenting thing. Maybe the other girl was sporting a tail or maybe she was hiding chicken feet underneath her pants.
Maybe she laid eggs.
Of course, Nightwing hadn't been particularly receptive towards her very logical reasoning and had told her to wait until they had some sort of evidence that Rachel knew anything about the experiments.
They needed some way to get close to Doctor Fathiya without it seeming suspicious. Nightwing had told her that he'd tried to find some dirt on the older woman, but there was partially nothing to find. They knew her name and family relations, plus where she worked. Other than that, there was nothing to find on the woman.
"We'll have to bide our time. Something will come up at some point. And if all else fails, we'll break into the building she works at and dig through her documents. But for now, you'll act as if nothing has changed at all around Rachel. We don't know who's side she's on yet." Nightwing had told her.
Morgan had wondered how he could be so sure she was even on a side. But like a good, obedient pupil, she'd heeded his words.
"I'm not very comfortable with this.." Miss Martian said, bringing Morgan back to the present.
All of them were standing in front of this new 'Green' Beetle. The Martian was sitting on a chair, the Team forming a semi circle in front of him, keeping to the walls as only a paranoid group of crime fighters could do. M'gann was standing in front of the other Martian voicing her reluctance with entering his mind.
Morgan was starting to wonder how many colored beetles there were. Personally, she'd thought one was enough. Especially when the second Beetle had turned out to be this big, unbeatable brute of a guy that was very much not on their side.
If Morgan understood the whole Beetle thing correctly – and she was pretty sure she did because she'd had Nightwing explain the whole thing thoroughly – this was how the situation looked currently:
The Reach was this annoying alien organization that had invented these Scarabs that liked to attach themselves to people's spine and give them wicked cool armor. Unfortunately, the armor also came with the catch of taking control of your body and making you a Reach soldier. And there was more than one of the Scarabs. So far, the group had encountered three. The Blue, the Green and the Black Scarab.
Blue Beetle was good – though there was something about Impulse traveling from the future just to make sure that Blue Beetle didn't betray the entire human race and making them Reach slaves so his continued goodness wasn't even a given.
The Black Beetle was a total douche nugget. And Reach's bitch.
And currently, they were trying to place Green Beetle on the spectrum between good and evil. He'd shown up out of nowhere and saved Robin, Blue Beetle, Impulse and Arsenal's asses from Black Beetle the other night, so Morgan supposed he couldn't be all bad.
Unless it was a decoy to make them all think he was on their side when in fact, he was also Reach's bitch.
Which would just suck.
So they needed to figure out whether they could trust him or not. And a mind meld was the perfect solution.
Except Miss Martian didn't seem to want to check out whether the guy was good or not. She was unusually hesitant about performing a mind meld. Morgan wondered why. Mind melds were practically second nature to the Martian, why did she suddenly not want to do it?
"Delving into your mind.. it is an intrusion." She elaborated, sounding almost sad?
Obviously, there was an untold story here. Something M'gann hadn't told her.
"You have my permission." The other Martian assured her calmly. Morgan found his voice unusually soothing, his entire presence appearing altogether friendly, relaxed and trustworthy. "We must be able to trust each other."
.. At least, he had seemed all of those things until he smiled widely at them. The smile was stiff and looked very strange on his face. Unsettling, even.
M'gann shared Morgan's sentiment, apparently, because she took a step back at the creepy sight.
"Does my smile displease?" The Green Beetle questioned at her visible distress, still bearing that joker-like grin on his face. "Is this not how humans convey friendship and put each other at ease?"
"It's doing the exact opposite of putting us at ease, that's for sure." Morgan mumbled as she unconsciously shifted her feet, widening her stance.
"There has to be another way." Connor suddenly spoke up, sounding just as angry with the idea of the mind meld as M'gann sounding worried.
"Look, I'm not sure what the 'Martian etiquette' is here," Nightwing sounded remarkably patient despite the lack of process they were making. Morgan was personally starting to get a tad antsy, wanting them to get this over with already so she could, like, go back to brooding about the her-classmate-is-the-daughter-of-the-scientist-that-experiemented-on-her-as-a-kid situation. "But Green Beetle is right. We need to trust each other, which means we need to confirm he is who he says he is."
He crossed his arms over his chest as he spoke, watching Lagoon Boy approach Miss Martian, who was still not doing any mind linking. "Which means Miss M. is our only option."
"Go for it Angelfish." M'gann's boyfriend urged her, placing his scaly hands on her shoulders. "Reading this guy will be a piece of crab cake."
"Please, proceed with the mind link." Green Beetle agreed.
M'gann sighed loudly and dramatically, squeezing her eyes shut. As she exhaled, she opened them again, revealing that they were no longer their usual brown, but completely green, glowing slightly.
Green Beetle's eyes glowed red in response.
The mind link was finally established.
Though no words were spoken out loud, Morgan knew they were having a conversation, because their facial expressions shifted and their body language indicated talking.
The link couldn't have lasted for more than thirty seconds when their eyes stopped glowing and returned to their normal colors. M'gann turned around and faced their team leader.
"Green Beetle is on our side." She declared.
"Great." Nightwing smiled at the Green armored Martian. "So tell us about their plans for Earth."
The guy sure wasted no time at all.
"What do you desire to know first?" The Martian complied.
Nightwing pulled out two small bottles of colorful liquid, one red and one yellow. "You can tell us what these are." He handed them over to the Martian, who studied the two flasks.
Morgan recognized them instantly. It was two samples of the new soda drink the Reach and Lex Corp had started producing.
The drink had the single most corny advertisement Morgan had ever been subjected to while channel surfing.
"This consumable contains the Reach's additive, which combines microscopic quantities of two chemicals. One is a dopamine polymerase, the other an adrenalin inhibitor." The Martian began to explain.
The entire thing sounded very complicated and Morgan honestly wasn't sure she understood exactly what he was saying.
"Taken over generations, they will slowly addict the entire population to Reach, and make the people of Earth placid, literally incapable of revolt." The Martian finished on a sinister note.
Okay, so that made more sense. The Reach was attempting to brainwash all the humans into becoming their cattle. The thought chilled her and she clenched her fists, more determined than ever to help make sure the alien organization got what was coming to them.
"That matched up exactly with Flash and Captain Atom's analysis of the additive sample acquired from Lex Corp." Nightwing confirmed.
"Ah, I see.." The Green Beetle looked almost sad. "Still I am.. tested."
"Look, we're sorry, but –" Nightwing began to explain, not really sounding sorry in Morgan's opinion, before he was cut off by the calm Martian.
"No, it is wise." He assured the teenager. "As they say on your world, 'All cards must be off the table.'"
"On the table," Blue Beetle instinctively corrected the Martian. "Uh, I mean.." He hesitated when everybody turned to look at him. "Never mind.. ignore me."
"On the table.." Green Beetle mused. "Yes.. that does make more sense."
Morgan bit her lower lip to keep an amused smile from growing on her lips. The alien was obviously older than them, but she couldn't help but find him strangely.. endearing. He spoke in such a formal manner, but with a touch of childish innocence and it made Morgan instantly warm up to him.
"Here, then, is my final card on the table," He went on, "My Scarab informs me that the additive also contain a mitochondrial marker which works as a meta gene tracer, allowing the Reach to identify and isolate potential superpowered individuals."
Nightwing's eyes widened and he straightened his posture at the news, obviously disturbed by it.
Morgan shared the sentiment. Not only were they planning on turning them into cattle, they were also planning to use humans as breeding animals for their precious meta gene.
"Making it easier to harvest and weaponize the meta gene!" Her mentor realized. "Our analysis didn't reveal that!" He looked at Green Beetle with gratitude. "Thank you."
"Can't we go public with this?" Blue asked Nightwing.
"I'll pass it on to Captain Atom," He responded, bringing a thoughtful hand up to his chin. "Unfortunately, the League's credibility is at a record low right now –"
"No thanks to G. Gordon the ass hat." Morgan grumpily put in.
"We'll probably have to bide our time." Nightwing went on, ignoring her comment.
Morgan couldn't help but note how that seemed to be his answer for everything right now.
Alien invasion? Bide your time.
Classmate might be involved in some illegal experiments? Bide your time.
She tried to not feel frustrated with him, especially because he was totally right – realistically, the only thing they could do right now was wait for further development.
Unfortunately, all of this waiting and biding was making her restless and annoyed.
"Good work, everyone." He said next. "Meeting adjourned."
People started slipping out of the room. Morgan paused just a little bit – too curious for her own good perhaps – watching as her mentor approached the tall Martian.
"Do you need a place to stay on earth?" He asked. Morgan was already resigning herself to bunking with another male. She wondered if Martians had smelly socks too.
"I will find a place near Taos and attempt to blend in." The Martian informed him as the shifted in front of their very eyes, a tall, skinny, dark haired, middle aged man standing in his place.
Morgan slipped out of the room slowly, listening in on the conversation between Lagoon Boy and Miss Martian with half an ear. The boy was asking his girlfriend of they could talk somewhere privately, M'gann offering to take him back to her uncle's apartment in Chicago.
M'gann's hesitant and tired voice made Morgan wonder if there was trouble in paradise. She didn't ponder it for long as she left the room and jogged up to Nightwing, the two of them and Connor heading for the Zeta tube back to the Warehouse.
"So does that mean I won't have to bunk with another guy?" She took long and quick steps to keep up with his long-legged stride, twisting her upper body so it was facing him.
"Looks like it." He confirmed as they reached the Zeta tube.
Connor stepped through it first, Morgan following right afterwards.
The two of them waited for Nightwing to appear before walking down the docks towards their temporary home.
The silence as they walked was stifling. Normally, Morgan could easily handle a tall, dark haired, silent and brooding guy with an amazing jaw line – she dealt with Nightwing all the time after all – but when there were two of them at once? And neither said anything as they kept up their annoyingly long strides? Yeah, no thanks.
"So." She began, wracking her brain for something to say, anything to break the silence. "Do you really think Green Beetle can be trusted?"
"Miss Martian read his mind and confirmed his intentions. I think we can trust him." Her mentor replied.
And then back to the silence.
"I like him." Morgan blurted out. "I mean.. he's nice."
The two boys looked at her with equally blank looks and she shrugged. "He seems really interesting and well mannered. Cute."
"Appearances can be deceiving." Nightwing cryptically answered.
Morgan crossed her arms in front of her and fixed him with a look. "What do you mean by that?"
He shrugged, "Nothing, just –" He suddenly stopped and pressed a hand to his ear, eyes narrowing behind his mask, somebody contacting him through the earpiece he had on him almost constantly. Both Connor and Morgan halted instantly, wearing identical frowns as they waited for him to respond to the other person and then tell them what was going on.
"Acknowledged." He turned and started running, Connor and Morgan immediately following after him. "We're three minutes from the nearest Zeta tube, but we're on our way!"
"What's going on?" Morgan asked Connor, knowing he would've heard the conversation with his super hearing.
"Lagoon Boy and Miss M. are under attack at the Chicago Zeta tube." He responded gravely, face set in a scowl.
Morgan felt a stab of worry in her gut, silently praying that her friends were okay as she did her best to keep up with the two males' fast pace.
They reached the Zeta tube in almost exactly three minutes, immediately cramming into the thing all at once.
The female voice that always accompanied Zeta travel rang in Morgan's ears as if to make up for the dead silence outside the small shed they were in.
"Recognized: Superboy B04, Nightwing B01, Sparrow B23"
The voice hadn't even finished announcing them when the three of them ran outside. They were in a junk yard, piles of old cars caging them in. There was fire burning a little ways off in a perfect circle and Morgan wondered if that had been used to deal with M'gann. She'd studied up on her fellow heroes and knew that Martians were vulnerable to fire. More so than humans.
There was no M'gann, no La'gaan, and no hostiles to see. The place was empty.
"La'gaan!" Superboy suddenly spoke up and pointed to their side.
Sure enough, the Atlantean was lying against the rusty leftovers of a car, unconscious. His leg was bent at an odd angle and the sight made Morgan cringe. It was obviously broken.
They jogged to him, the two boys picking him up, Nightwing keeping a steady and gentle grip on his broken leg, Connor slipping his hands underneath the Atlantean's armpits to lug his body off the ground.
"We need to get him to the nearest hospital." Morgan pointed out the obvious. Color drained from her face when the boy twitched and cried out in pain even in his sleep whenever Nightwing put too much pressure on the leg.
They hurriedly Zeta'ed to the biggest hospital in Chicago. Lagoon Boy was immediately swept away into a more private room upon their arrival. Nobody was interested in the public knowing about the injured hero.
The three of them waited outside as he was treated, preparing to enter the room as soon as he woke up. There was no doubt that the moment he came to, he'd want to jump up and go rescue his girlfriend, broken leg or not. They would need to restrain him.
The doctor that had treated him opened the door and left his room, waiting for the three heroes to approach him before he spoke. He was an elderly man with a gravelly voice, deep wrinkles around his eyes. "It's broken all right. We've reset the bone, but he'll need to rest." He fixed them all with a look like, you young people nowadays with your 'missions' and 'saving the world'.
"He'll wake up any moment now. You can enter."
After that, the elderly man nodded to them in goodbye before walking away.
The three of them shuffled into La'gaan's room. Morgan placed herself at the foot of his bed while Nightwing and Superboy flanked either side. The unconscious boy was slowly coming to, groaning groggily as he blinked slowly.
His entire body suddenly stiffened and his eyes flew open wide. "M'gann!" He cried, making to sit up immediately.
Superboy and Nightwing were on him instantly, holding him down to prevent the idiot from hurting himself further.
Morgan watched the entire thing in silence, arms crossed over her chest.
"Neptune's beard!" Lagoon Boy growled when they prevented his movement. "Let go of me!"
He tried to jump out of the bed again, only to be firmly pressed back into the pillow supporting his back.
"I've got to save M'gann!" He shouted desperately.
"La'gann, calm down." Nightwing spoke firmly, his grip on the boy's shoulder still tight. "There's nothing you can do for her in your condition!"
Morgan admired Lagoon Boy's fire, but not so much his logic. Did he really think he was going to hop elegantly off the bed and track down the kidnappers, rescuing his girlfriend like it was nothing? Did he plan to execute this idea on only one leg?
Lagoon Boy trained his furious red eyes onto Connor next. "Then what about him? Why isn't he rescuing her?"
Morgan cringed and bit her bottom lip, knowing absolutely nothing good was going to come out of this exchange.
"I know you dumped her, but do you really hate her that much?" He growled ferociously, accusation clear in his tone.
Superboy's eyes widened dangerously at La'gaan's words, his brows knitting together in his anger. "You have no idea what I feel for her!" He shouted back, just as visibly angry as La'gaan.
"Guys, are you really going to do this now?" Morgan firmly interrupted their little spat. She couldn't believe they were doing the whole boyfriend versus ex-boyfriend-who-isn't-over-girl-yet thing.
M'gann was gone. They should be focusing on that, not who 'loved' her the most.
"You're right. I don't." Lagoon boy completely ignored Morgan, his fiery eyes never leaving Connor's face. "I would never abandon her to Kaldur and his flunkies. Because that's who took her: Aqua-Traitor's personal ninja pal, Tigress!"
Wait.. Kaldur had been the one who kidnapped M'gann?
The thought actually comforted Morgan somewhat. She didn't know Aqualad personally, but she did know that he was on their side and that Nightwing trusted him fully. Surely M'gann wasn't in too much danger if she was close to Aqualad and Artemis.
"Enough!" Nightwing had finally had enough. At the authority in his voice, the two other men calmed down and turned to look at him. Morgan found him with her eyes as well, wondering how he was going to calm the boy down without telling him the truth about Aqualad. "I'm not supposed to tell you.. To tell anyone."
Wait, was he telling them what Morgan thought he was telling them?
"Aqualad is not a traitor." He admitted next. Morgan felt her insides cramp up quite suddenly. She didn't know how she was supposed to feel. On one hand, she was glad that he finally told the others, but on the other hand, she recognized his reasons for not telling anyone. She wasn't sure if he told them because he trusted them or because he felt it was the only way to calm Lagoon Boy down. She didn't want him to reveal the secret and bring them all in danger simply to calm their angry Atlantean.
.. Ugh, sound she sounded so much like Nightwing right now.
"What are you talking about?" Lagoon Boy sat up in his bed, his voice laced with disbelief. Connor straightened and crossed his arms over his chest, watching Nightwing with an intense and calculating look. "He killed Artemis!" La'gaan reminded Nightwing.
"No, he didn't." Nightwing firmly replied. He sighed and sunk into the wooden chair that resided next to Lagoon Boy's sick bed. Running a hand through his hair briefly, perhaps to gather his thoughts, he launched into his explanation. "Aqualad has been on a deep cover mission for months, infiltrating Black Manta's troops, the Light, and the Reach."
He ran a hand through his hair again and sat up straighter, looking straight ahead at nothing. Morgan wondered if he was afraid of looking the others in the eyes as he told them the truth.
She couldn't blame him. After all, the only other person he'd been confronted about the truth with had been her, and she'd slapped him and shouted at him like there was no tomorrow. Maybe he was expecting them to react along the same lines.
Then his eyes latched onto her, maybe finding it easier to talk when he was aiming his words as someone who already knew.
"We faked Artemis' death." He finally added. "She's alive. In fact, Artemis is Tigress. If she kidnapped Miss Martian, there has to be a good reason."
"Why am I only hearing this now?" Lagoon Boy was oozing with anger as he spoke in a low and dangerous tone. "I mourned Artemis! Neptune's beard, I tried to tear Kaldur limb from limb! You should've told me!"
"No." Connor spoke up, eerily calm. He was still standing ram rod straight, his arms crossed over his chest, eyes never straying from his leader's face. "Nightwing's our leader. We put our trust in him. I'm sure he didn't keep this from us.. from all of us.. without having his reasons." He frowned slightly as he finished, his look spelling trouble. He might've appeared calm on the outside, but inside, he was as angry as Lagoon Boy. There was a storm in his blue eyes and Morgan was personally glad that she wasn't the one who had to deal with him.
"Look, we will figure this out. Together." Nightwing assured La'gaan, placing a calming hand on the injured boy's shoulder. "In the meantime, get some rest."
La'gaan suddenly trained his angry eyes on Morgan. She winched inwardly, having hoped nobody was going to include her in this conversation. She didn't fancy admitting that she'd known for some time now already. That would only make the two men angrier.
"What about you?" He asked with hostility still in his voice. "Why aren't you angry?"
She swore under her breath when all eyes were suddenly on her. She met La'gaan's eyes first before glancing quickly at Superboy. Eventually, she locked gazes with Nightwing, mind reeling as she tried to figure out how to best approach this situation.
He gave a slight, barely noticeable nod of his head, letting her know it was okay to tell the truth.
She sighed and dropped her arms to her sides. "I already knew."
If she hadn't been staring at the bed post of La'gaan's sickbed, she'd have noticed his shock, and Connor's frown and sharp, narrowed eyes.
"What?" La'gaan seethed. He rounded on Nightwing. "So you're saying you told nobody on the Team about this, but your rookie of a little girlfriend was trustworthy enough?"
Morgan's brain froze for a second as his words registered. Then anger pooled into her stomach. "Excuse me?" She hissed out, jaw clenched.
"Morgan found out by accident." Nightwing immediately and sternly spoke up, drowning out the string of insults Morgan had been about to spew. He fixed Lagoon Boy with a withering look. "She confronted me about it and I had no choice but tell her. Don't assume anything when you have no idea what you're talking about."
He marched out the door afterwards, Connor following in his steps.
Morgan lingered for a moment, training her sharp grey eyes on La'gaan's face.
"I generally have a rule to never hit injured people." She lowly said, voice tense and dangerous. "But if you ever spout that sort of insulting nonsense again, your leg isn't going to be the only thing that's broken."
She turned on her heel and walked swiftly out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her. the burning in her cheeks let her know that her face was flushed with anger.
Nightwing spoke as soon as the door was closed. "Thanks for backing me up in there." He told Connor.
Connor immediately rounded on their leader. "You don't leave a guy a lot of options!" He growled, the anger Morgan had seen in his eyes finally seeping into his voice and body language. "You have no idea what your secrets have done to us!"
Nightwing frowned. "What does that–"
"M'gann believed Kaldur had killed Artemis, so when she found him on the Reach ship, she fried. His. Brain." Connor viciously went on.
Morgan's eyes widened at this new information. Truth be told, she hadn't even known M'gann could or would do something like that.
Nightwing took a startled step back, his mouth opening in shock and horror.
"That's got to be why Artemis grabbed her." Connor went on. "To try and save Kaldur's broken mind. But M'gann doesn't know how to do that. So Manta may just kill her and kill Tigress if she blows her cover trying to save her." He flailed his arms around as if trying to make Nightwing understand the magnitude of their problem. "And we'll have lost all three of them, because you thought it was a bad idea to share!"
Connor walked away angrily once he finished, his shoulders unbelievably tense, his strides jerky.
Morgan sighed at the narrow-eyed look on Nightwing's face.
He looked composed and angry right now, but she knew guilt was eating away at him from the inside. Three of his friends might die, and Connor had already placed the blame on him.
"I hate to say this.." She ventured, voice as calm as she could make it in spite of her anxious and stormy insides. "But Connor has a point."
He sighed and hand a hand over his face and through his hair. "Not you too.." He tiredly groaned.
She bit her lip as she contemplated what she was supposed to say. "Even so, we don't know if it'll come to that. I still think everything could work out in the end. You've been planning this for months.."
Apparently her try at encouragement wasn't particularly effective because her mentor sighed again and slumped where he stood. "I'm going to stay and keep an eye on La'gaan." He told her. "You should go."
Morgan nodded even though he wasn't facing her to witness the movement. "Don't beat yourself up over this." Was all she uttered before walking along the corridor herself, searching for the nearest exit. She got the feeling her words had been pointless. He was most probably going to beat himself up over this.
I just want you all to know that I've finished writing Feathers in the Night.
Like, completely done. And the sequel is looking really good so far! I wrote eleven and a half thousand words on it yesterday alone. I'm pretty sure that's a personal record for me.
Of course, the fact that I finished the story already also means that I can update faster.. With the right amount or persuasion, of course..
So get reviewin'!
(Also, I'm running out of fun facts, gimme something you want to know about)
Fun fact: Morgan sang in a choir until she turned ten. Then her dad left and her mom couldn't afford Morgan's lessons anymore.