Chapter Forty Four

Rookies Unite

Morgan led the way down the corridor they were in, trying her very best to remember when and where she'd seen that control panel.

"So I never actually asked what happened to the rest of the Team?" She suddenly realized.

Arsenal scowled and clenched his fists. "Blue Beetle betrayed us." He growled out.

Morgan froze. "What?"

"He stole the crystal key and knocked the rest of us out."

So what Impulse had warned them all about had come true. Blue had been taken by the Reach.

"Was he the one to let all the air out of the room?" Morgan remembered the horrible feeling of her throat closing up and her lungs screaming for air. It would make sense. He was the only one with a suit that could withstand outer space.

"No.." Arsenal sounded almost sheepish. If he hadn't sounded so angry also. "That was me."

She halted and watched the boy briefly. "You opened the airlock? What's wrong with you? Why would you do that?"

He fixed her with a mean glare. "I spent eight years of my life in captivity. I'm not going back to that. Nobody is ever going to lock me up again!"

"You realize you could've killed everyone on this team, right?" She shot back, crossing her arms over her chest in clear disapproval. She took two steps to the side, creating distance between them, as if to physically show her newfound reluctance to work with him.

"Hey, I never said I was proud of doing it." He retaliated quite fiercely. "It was a panic decision."

She kept looking sternly at him with her arms crossed. Studying his face briefly, she could tell that he was telling the truth. He knew that opening that airlock had been the wrong thing to do.

Morgan sighed and relaxed her stance, looking away. "Let's just work on getting out of here."

She wasn't in the mood to have a fight with the guy. He was too.. angry.

He kind of reminded hery of herself from her first few months on the Team. She'd been pretty nasty back then too.

But only towards Nightwing, she realized.

It was a wonder he could even look at her without wanting to kick her off of a tall building now. She'd certainly have deserved it.

But he was just patient and forgiving like that, she figured. Just another thing about him that was attractive.

Having a crush on somebody who was so incredibly out of your league was actually kind of hard. And absolutely horrible to your self esteem.

She pushed the thought away as they rounded another corner.

"Aha!" She cheered. "Knew I could find it!"

In the wide and dimly lit corridor, there was a small square pillar, roughly reaching her hip, a series of orange buttons and controls on top of it.

Arsenal smirked triumphantly as he marched over to the thing. "Nice work, doll."

"I swear, if you call me that one more time, I'll refer to you as Roy-Boy 'til the day you die."

Her threat didn't have the desired effect, as he only smirked wider, turning his attention onto the control board, studying it momentarily.

Morgan, having absolutely no idea what the thing even was or how to use it, settled against the wall and prepared to wait.

She was glad for the opportunity to relax for a moment. True, she'd just slept twelve hours, and while she wasn't mentally exhausted anymore, she still hadn't had anything to eat for a very long time now. Arsenal had a small flask of water which they'd been sharing, so her thirst wasthe n't as extreme as her hunger. But her hunger was extreme.

Several minutes went by as Arsenal worked on the control board, and Morgan started to grow restless and worried. She didn't like staying out in the open for a long period of time like this. She started going through the different compartments in her utility belt, simply to have something to occupy her mind with.

As she dug through the third pouch, she paused as she eyed the contents of the pouch.

"So remember when you asked if I had anything useful in my utility belt?" She spoke up.

Arsenal paused his work for long enough to make eye contact. She wordlessly pulled the two protein bars out, sharing a look with him.

"I swear I'd totally forgotten about them!" She defended as he raised a highly critical eyebrow at her.

She threw one of them at him and he caught it immediately, both of them wolfing their respective bar down in a matter of seconds.

It didn't help much, but it did take a bit of the edge off of her hunger.

They drank a small mouthful of Arsenal's water next, both feeling much refreshed already.

Morgan stood up to watch his work as the machine kept blaring out a sound that could only mean his attempts were unsuccessful.

"C'mon, c'mon you dumb machine!" Arsenal growled out as absolutely nothing happened, not matter which buttons he pushed. "Just give me an outside line to the Watchtower. The Warehouse. Anywhere!" He started talking to the machine as if trying to negotiate with it. Morgan didn't tell him that it probably wasn't helping much, as he was already in a bit of a foul mood.

Actually, foul mood seemed to be his standard mood.

Instead, she simply stood next to him and kept her eyes on the halls around them, acting the look out. The loud noise the machine kept making was going to alert someone soon enough.

When the machine had denied his request one time too many, Arsenal finally lost his temper and punched the control board for all he was worth. Sparks erupted from the now broken board, electrocuting him quite viciously.

To make matters worse, a door further down the dark corridor slid open, Reach guards piling out.

Morgan had known going undetected couldn't last forever. She'd just hoped to avoid their enemy for a small while longer.

"We've got company." She announced, gaining his attention.

"Great, and me basically out of ammo." He immediately complained.

"It's a good thing I can't run out of ammo, then." Morgan deadpanned, taking two steps towards the aliens. Her face was blank as she spread her arm out, pushing the first alien into the other two. It only took them a moment to regain their balance, and the aliens all opened fire immediately.

Morgan flattened herself against the wall, hiding behind a small outcropping.

Arsenal ducked down behind the machine they'd been using before. The control board was immediately blasted to bits, the square pillar suffering a large hole to its side.

"HA!" Arsenal said. "That's what you get!"

Morgan couldn't help but wonder if he was acting so weird because of the hunger. Maybe he'd start hallucinating her as a giant, talking, roasted turkey soon, or something.

The machine started lowering itself into the ground, Arsenal flattening himself against the floor to avoid being hit. He groaned at the treacherous control panel. "Now you're just being petty."

Morgan realized that, if she didn't do something soon, Arsenal was probably going to be hit.

And she was so not going to lug his stunned body around.

She groaned loudly when she realized that she'd left her stolen stun-staff in the supply closet.

"Guess we'll have to do this the old fashioned way.."

Jumping out from behind the small outcropping, she immediately focus on the closest alien, sending him flying into the one behind him, the two of them landing in a heap on the floor.

Arsenal jumped out and aimed a shot at the remaining Reach guard, knocking him backwards as well.

One of the two on the floor was getting on his feet again, aiming his staff at Arsenal. The teenager growled loudly and ran for the alien. Evading several shots, he jumped closer and kicked it in the face, knocking it out immediately.

Morgan had gotten closer as well, yanking a staff from one of the two unconscious aliens, stunning the third one before he had a chance to get up.

"I'm all out." Arsenal complained. "That was my last shot."

"Good thing these are pretty handy." Morgan waved her staff in her hand at his face. "I had one before, but I forgot it in the supply closet."

He grabbed onto the other two staffs, sending a crazy look at the three beaten aliens.

"You'll never pod me again!" He declared. Morgan took a startled step back, worried by his crazed tone. "NEVER!"

He obviously had some inner demons he needed to sort out.

They ran away from the scene, knowing it wouldn't take long until someone else noticed the three aliens on the floor.

May 30th

The surface of the War World was starting to become a very boring sight. Nightwing was sick of looking at it.

He leaned back in the pilot seat of the bio ship, closing his eyes and taking a deep, cleansing breath.

Three days now. Three stinking days his team had been missing.

At least he had M'gann now. Which he was very grateful for. He'd probably have gone crazy by now she hadn't showed up. It was weird how the world worked. He lost his team, and then suddenly M'gann, who'd been kidnapped for weeks now, was suddenly back.

It was strangely reassuring. Like it proved that he'd never be truly alone.

He reopened his eyes and scratched his chin as he focused on the backside of M'gann's head. She was sitting stock-still as she mentally scanned the War World for any sign of their team mates.

"Anything?" He asked quietly, wishing he didn't already know the answer. If she'd found them, she would've told him already.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his legs as the Martian let out a disappointed sigh.

"Nothing.. I'm sorry." She answered. "I can't sense any of them. But the War World is so big.. they could easily be out of range."

"We've been flying along the surface for hours," He admitted, scratching the back of his neck. He felt bad for making her work this hard when all he could do was sit at the helm and steer. "An-and you're exhausted."

"I'm fine!" M'gann immediately protested. "I can do this!"

He held his hands up in a pacifying manner. "Of course!" He said to let her know he wasn't doubting her abilities. "But there's no reason to overtax yourself so soon after your kidnapping. Besides, we're not giving up. We'll start over at the place the Team disappeared. Look for a new lead."

Not that Nightwing honestly believed there would be any. He'd spent hours at the docking bay, scanning every inch of the place. He'd be very surprised if they found anything.

"Alright." M'gann shrugged in defeat. "If you think that's best.."

"Haven't you already scanned every inch of this place?" M'gann tiredly asked as they stood in the now very familiar docking bay.

"Yeah, but I'm obviously capable of missing obvious clues." He responded, his voice betraying the utter frustration he felt with himself. "I totally should've spotted evidence of Blue Beetle's defection after Green Beetle 'fixed' him."

"That's my fault." M'gann protested, placing a hand on his shoulder as she came up to him. "You asked me to scan Green Beetle's mind, and I vouched for him without delving deep enough."

She frowned sadly. "I was so afraid of using my powers after what I did to Aqualad. I allowed Green Beetle's scarab to feed me exactly what the Reach wanted us to hear. And then Blue trusted Green. And was then turned by him. Which got the team abducted.. All on me."

Which was also his fault, Nightwing realized guiltily. M'gann couldn't blame herself for these things. She'd had no idea.

"Except you never would've been in that position if I'd trusted you with the secret of Aqualad's cover mission." He pointed out, wrapping his fingers around her upper arms to make sure she was paying attention. "I put you.. Aqulad.. Artemis.. the whole team in unacceptable danger."

She smiled in wry humor. "So.. this is our guilt off." She said gently. "I say I messed up. You say you messed up worse.. Dick, we both made mistakes. And we both need to get over ourselves. We need to save the Team. And then save Blue."

She raised an eyebrow at him, a small smile on her face. "As a certain thirteen year old was fond of saying; That's just what we do." She said, shrugging once.

Nightwing felt a smile on his own face as he briefly remembered back when the Team had first been founded. He'd been so young and full of enthusiasm.

He wanted to get back to that, if he still could.

The smile fell from his face when the airlock suddenly rattled loudly as something heavy smashed into it from outside.

His eskrima sticks were in his hands immediately as they both turned, prepared to defend themselves.

Then the very familiar sound of Sphere, sounding very annoyed that she was stuck outside, reach his ears, and he smiled widely up at the hovering M'gann.

Sphere could lead them to the Team. She always found Superboy.

A moment later, Sphere had been let inside and was now rolling towards the two heroes who were both overjoyed at seeing the team mascot.

"Sphere!" M'gann cheered, laughing happily as she landing in front of the ball and embraced is as best as she could.

Nightwing put away his eskrima sticks and patted the machine affectionately as M'gann positively flattened herself against its steel surface.

"Can you take us to Superboy?" She asked the machine. It beeped cheerily in confirmation, unfolding into its usual motorcycle formation.

"I think that's a yes." He smiled widely, hopping into the front seat.

"Let's go!" Nightwing said, feeling hope return to him.

Things had finally taken a turn for the better.

"Tell me again why we're following them from a distance instead of just approaching them?" Morgan sighed.

She and Arsenal were crouched in an air vent as they watched the group of four below them.

It had been by happy chance that the two heroes had stumbled upon the four teenagers. They'd been surrounded by Reach guards, and right when Morgan had been about to jump to their rescue, the four teenagers had taken the guards out themselves, as it was soon revealed that each of them had powers.

There was a guy dressed in blue who very obviously had some sort of electricity powers. A girl with a green headband did some sound wave thing, a Mexican guy who could teleport, and then, last but absolutely the opposite of least, a guy dressed in orange who could project some kind of huge, transparent form, which he used to pummel the guards.

Morgan recognized them.

Well, she didn't actually recognize them, because she'd never actually seen them before, but she recognized their powers. They were the teenagers that had been abducted by the Reach. The four that had developed powers by the experimenting, and had thus been stuck at Star Labs until they'd broken out.

Wait.. she probably had seen them then. After all, she'd been on the mission where they'd freed the abductees.

Anyway, she could recognize the different powers because she'd read a file on them.

Arsenal sighed. "We don't know what they're doing here. Or who they are."

"I already told you, I know who-"

"Yeah, but there's a difference between actually knowing someone, and recognizing them from a file."

Morgan huffed, but stayed put. She was so not enjoying taking orders from someone younger than her.

Not that she was taking orders. She was just not going against his suggestion. They were a team, which meant they didn't go against each other.

Besides, she begrudgingly admitted, despite being younger than her, he did have more field experience.

So, she did what he said.

They slipped after the four teenagers, Morgan taking to the air as Arsenal used a grapple gun to swing himself across the room.

It kind of reminded her of Nightwing. Though, personally, she thought her mentor looked better using one.

At least Arsenal had found a way to recharge his arm. Everything was so much easier when they both had weapons.

They'd actually been in the middle of getting his arm recharged, stealing the power from a machine that looked a lot like the one they'd unsuccessfully attempted to contact the Justice League on, when they'd heard the commotion that led them to the small team.

Morgan had to admit, she'd been impressed by the way they'd dealt with the guards. She could tell they weren't very experienced, but they did what they could with what they had. And that was enough.

And in a strange turn of events, the four had somehow been in possession of a box that was capable of tracking Superboy. Which probably meant they were here to attempt rescuing the Team.

At least, Morgan hoped so.

She'd nudged Arsenal in the side and the two of them had silently agreed that it would be in their best interest to follow after the teenagers.

That was half an hour ago, and Morgan still didn't see why hiding was necessary.

But she didn't complain. A lot.

By now, they'd reached a huge, metal door.

It appeared to be a dead end, if you asked Morgan – seriously, how were they going to get past that? – but the guy with the giant, see-through form, simply forced the door open, displaying quite a lot of strength.

She'd pay good money to see him and Connor arm wrestle.

The room beyond was huge and dark. It was filled with row upon row of horizontal belts, containing big, red containment pods.

Morgan took to the air again as Arsenal grappled from pod to pod, following closely behind the group, who had still to detect their presence.

If they'd been Nightwing, they would've noticed them immediately.

Morgan stopped her own train of thought, wondering when and why he'd suddenly become her definition of a perfect superhero.

This whole 'having a crush on your mentor' thing was annoying and sickeningly sweet. She had to snap out of it.

"Oh man.." The guy in the blue cap suddenly said. Morgan looked down at them from her perch on a pod nearby. "There they are.."

She looked up and felt her heart clench in relief when she spotted all of her team mates, looking unharmed though unconscious in the pods. They weren't moving at all.

"Looks like they're.. frozen." The teleporter added.

A deep, gravelly voice echoed out from behind them. "They're in stasis."

Morgan whirled around in her crouched position, instinctively batting her hair away from her eyes. She searched the room to find the source of the voice, heart already climbing into her throat.

Below, Black Beetle stood with a huge, evil smirk on his face. "And you will join them soon enough."

Her blood ran cold. This was the exact guy Morgan had wanted to avoid.

After what Impulse had told her about the circumstance around her own death.. Well, she'd hoped to never encounter Black Beetle again.

He started walking confidently towards the group, who were all starring wide-eyed back at him.

"Guys," The blue-clad boy said worriedly. "I saw this guy take down all of the heroes back on the Reach ship."

"Please," Black Beetle spoke up, "Don't let that stop you from attacking me. I could use the exercise."

The orange-clad boy, floating in the air in his giant form, ran for Black Beetle. Morgan barely even had time to blink before the alien had used a sound-wave canon to knock him out.

"Please tell me he did not just take out our big gun in three seconds flat." The teleporter said in disbelief.

"Scatter!" Shouted one of the others, the three of them immediately running in different directions.

Not that it helped. By the use of his sound-wave canon, he sent two of them flying harshly against some of the pods, falling to the floor below in pain.

Morgan, unable to watch the big bully beat on these poor kids anymore, floated to the ground and landed in a crouch next to the girl. She ignored her own fear at engaging Black Beetle, knowing she couldn't worry about herself right now. Part of her duty as a superhero was taking care of others over yourself.

The girl looked surprised to see Morgan, but the hero held a finger up to her lips to signal that she should stay quiet.

"Who're you?" The buy in the blue cap asked.

"I'm Sparrow."

"You're on the Team, aren't you?" He realized, probably recognizing her. She supposed her wings were kind of memorable. "Why aren't you locked up with the others?"

"I managed to escape. I've been here for days." She quickly explained. "Now listen up: We need to get the others out of their pods. We can't fight that guy on our own, but we might stand a chance if the others are with us."

Behind them, there was a sudden explosion, and Black Beetle cried out in pain.

Morgan turned and spotted Arsenal landing on the ground, running for the main entrance.

For a second, Morgan was afraid that he was running away, leaving them all, but then she saw what was going on.

A big squad of Reach soldiers were running towards the entrance, but were cut off when Arsenal pressed a button next to it, the metal door slamming shut.

The teleportation kid appeared next to him. "Gracias, Amigo." He said. "Uh, who are you?"

Arsenal handed one of his stun-staff's over to the boy. "I'm the guy who'll save your asses if you listen carefully."

Morgan offered a hand to help up the two teenagers on the floor, dearly hoping Arsenal had a plan. All she could think of was 'get the others out'. He'd had dealings with this particular enemy before so he would hopefully know a few good tricks.

"You can't beat Black Beetle head on. But keep him off balance, and we might just stand a chance!"

That was his plan? Keep Black Beetle off balance?

Morgan shrugged to herself. Okay then.

She immediately ran for the darkly clad alien, spreading her hand out towards him. Feeling her powers close in on him, she threw her hand roughly upwards and to the left, sending him crashing into a pod. The pod broke and fell to the ground, Black Beetle following it.

He stood up and growled out in annoyance – that was all she'd accomplished? Annoying him? – and aimed another one of his big, bad weapons at her.

"Out of the way!" She called frantically at the two teenagers behind her as she took to the air herself.

She was exhausted and beyond hungry, but as Morgan entered her Sparrow mindset, she noticed neither. All she focused on at that moment was to keep Black Beetle busy.

"Arsenal!" She called out.

The boy looked up at her. "We've got Black Beetle! You need to figure out a way to get the others out!"

He nodded at her and used his grapple gun to evade a shot aimed at him, and then ran for the pods behind them.

Morgan was so glad that he'd given the teleport kid another one of their stun-staff's, because he certainly put it to good use. Combined with his ability to disappear and reappear anywhere, Morgan could only guess he was downright infuriating Black Beetle as he kept stunning him, only to reappear from another angle and stun him again.

The boy with the orange headband had woken up again and promptly punched their enemy across the room, Black Beetle crash-landing by the huge metal door that was keeping the rest of the Reach soldiers out.

For a second Morgan was afraid he'd reopen the door, but the alien didn't think of that as he growled loudly and stood up.

She ran for him and used her powers to send him crashing into another pod before he could think to open the door.

Virgil – he'd introduced himself as Virgil right before they'd charged – used his electricity to wrench lose another pod, throwing it at the alien.

The girl used her sound waves – were they even sound waves? Morgan had absolutely no idea – to keep Black Beetle from regaining his balance.

The orange giant kicked at him, sending him on a painful-looking – and sounding – trip across the room as he crashed into every pod on his way.

Black Beetle landed on the floor and faced the five teenagers.

"I'm starting to get annoyed." He growled out.

Morgan worried her bottom lip as the Beetle made to charge at them again.

"We can't go on like this." Virgil pointed out.

Morgan shook her head no. "We're going to screw up at some point." She agreed.

"So, what do we do?" He asked as they all looked at her expectantly.

She was about to shrug and ask why he was even asking her that, she was a total rookie.

Then Morgan realized that, compared to these four, she wasn't. Out of the five of them, she was the one with the most experience. She was the one who'd had a mentor that had taught her how to fight. But not just that. He'd taken her on patrols to teach her how to work under pressure. He had taught her battle strategies and how to use her own strengths and her enemies weaknesses.

They hadn't had any of that.

So Morgan assuming control was the most logical thing.

Still scared the heck out of her, though.

For a small second, her brain short-circuited. Then all of that training Nightwing had drilled into her since day one kicked in.

She briefly eyed the alien approaching them and then made a split-second decision.

"Hey, teleporter kid!" She called out.

"My name's Ed." He told her.

"That's nice." She returned sarcastically, feeling too stressed out to worry about manners. "Please tell Arsenal to hurry his sorry ass up!"

He nodded and disappeared in a flash.

"Erh, giant guy-"

"Tye." He offered.

"Right. Please preoccupy Black Beetle for as long as you can. You and, uh, the girl."

"Asami." She introduced herself, her accent unfamiliar.

"Exactly. Go distract the big brute."

Black Beetle had just about reached them now, but before he could attempt to pummel any of them, Morgan aimed her powers at him and sent him flying back into a wall.

He left a decent sized hole in the wall as he fell to his knees and hands.

He growled and got up again, aiming a canon at them.

Tye brought his giant form out again as Asami ran towards their momentarily distracted enemy.

"What are we supposed to do?" Virgil asked, having obviously noted that Morgan hadn't included him in the order to attack Black Beetle.

"We're going to get him a nice little present." She smirked at him as she took to the air, the boy following close behind on his – was he flying on a trash can lid?

Morgan used her powers to wrench lose a pod and motioned for it. Clearly getting the hint, Virgil levitated it with his electricity. He continuously electrocuted the pod until it was crackling with energy and electricity.

Then Morgan grabbed mental hold of it again and sent it flying at Black Beetle with as much force as her exhausted mind and body could muster.

As the pod hit Black Beetle, he wasn't only knocked to the ground from the heavy pod, he was also electrocuted quite nastily.

Ed appeared by her side as they landed on the floor. "He says he's working on it."

Morgan was pretty sure Arsenal had said something a bit nastier, but she was grateful for the boy's more polite translation.

A huge, fast something suddenly charged past them with the likes of a bull, aiming straight for Black Beetle.

Morgan's eyes got impossibly large and her mouth dropped open, her shoulders sagging slightly in pure shock.

That wasn't anyone from the Team.

Arsenal had woken up Mongul.

Reunion next chapter! You guys excited?

I was having a really hard time naming this chapter. Just like the last one, it's a bit scattered, so I wasn't sure what to focus on for the title.

fun fact: After re-listening to some of the songs from the musical We Will Rock You, I realized that I've unconscioulsy drawn a lot of inspiration from Scaramuse when I created Morgan as a character