Sorry, I took a lot longer than I intended to update, but I had a lot of trouble writing these next couple of chapters. I thought about taking them out altogether, but in the end I decided to keep them. Hope you don't hate them, let me know in the reviews!
Lightning shot through the air. Mallory felt the energy reaching towards her like strange fingers, something she could feel but not touch, not direct. Fire wouldn't help block the electricity coming towards her, so she dove to the ground, rolling under the stream just in time to avoid the punch. She shot fire from her position on the ground, forcing her opponent to go higher in the air. She bit back a smile, seeing an opening, and raised the heat, adjusting her angle just a touch. The metal disk beneath Static's feet melted at the heat and he yelped, hopping off the now red-hot metal. She took advantage of his distraction, leaping to her feet and tackling him the second his boots hit the training floor, raising her arm and pausing just before she hit the pressure point in the back of his neck.
"That's not fair! What's the disk got to do with sparring?" the teen complained, looking at his destroyed transportation.
She chuckled, rolling to her feet and offering him a hand up. "You're too reliant on that disk. I'm just trying to help."
"Some help," he muttered, but he wasn't really mad. Well, maybe just a little.
"Never get so high that you can't abandon ship," she advised, leading him off the training floor, "and don't leave yourself so open from the bottom."
He nodded, letting her notes sink in as they looked at the rest of the team still fighting in pairs, their powers and ability levels mixed. Brion was fighting Jinx, Artemis was up against Cassie, Conner was paired with V'lana, Megan and Cameron, and Jaime and Bart were…sort of sparring. Mallory shook her head at Bart's exaggerated attacks and Jaime's held back defenses. One by one the fights ended, all except Bart and Jaime, who had never really been fighting to begin with.
"KF, what are you doing? Hit him already!" Jinx called, rolling her eyes in exasperation.
Megan shook her head. "No, it's fine. They'll just be here later than anyone else, when Black Canary gets off monitor duty." The boys stopped fighting, but they just grinned at the threat. An alarm went off on Megan's phone, and she tilted her head. "Everyone ready?"
They'd been waiting for it to be night in the middle east for their mission. Megan had brought the mission to them, explaining how the League's satellite had flagged the site of a metahuman manufacturing plant in Bialiya, where the League wasn't able to intervene. They would be in three squads. Gamma squad was Jinx, Geoforce, Kid Flash, and Superboy, and they would remain on the Bioship out of range of psychic intervention or technology detection in case the others ran into trouble and needed backup. Beta, made up of Wonder Girl, Static, Blue Beetle, and Miss Martian, would slip inside the base and take whatever information they could find from the mainframe while also finding a way to slow down the security measures so that Alpha, Icicle Jr, Nautica, Inferno, and Tigress, wouldn't run into any trouble once they freed the meta kids and started moving them to the exit.
Everyone did a final suit check and made sure they had everything they needed, then they went to the hangar and loaded onto the Bioship. Megan took her seat and started waking the ship up, and everyone else settled in for the long flight.
It took almost two hours to make it to the outskirts of the base, but finally Megan stopped the Bioship behind a sand dune and Alpha and Beta squads stood and stretched, getting ready to go.
"Here," Conner said, handing each squad member a device not much bigger than a comm. "Radio silence, so if you run into trouble, hit the beacon and we'll come find you."
"Same to you," Megan told him, securing the device in her pocket. "Don't let your guard down just because you're not going into the thick of it."
"Don't worry about us. Don't take too long, either. I'm giving you three hours, then we're coming in for you." She nodded and opened the hatch, letting the two squads file out.
Virgil groaned when he sunk into the sand with his first step. "Man, I hate this place already."
"Let's hope the worst we have to deal with is the sand," Megan said, setting up the link so they wouldn't have to talk out loud. "Remember, we don't know if Simon is here or not, so only use the link as a last resort, you'll be able to talk to me, but not to each other. I want to keep the connections as weak as possible in case he tries to use it against us."
Cameron winced, rubbing the side of his head like he was remembering what that felt like. Artemis tilted her head. "You were on his side, why did he hit you?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Keep us in line I guess. Let's just hope he's not here. I'd rather not have that reunion today."
The link died, and they split up into their squads, Alpha heading to the side of the mountain, right where Megan had told them to go. The only thing marking the entrance was the slight shift in the sand, like something had pushed it away in a sort of semi circle. A quick scan of the rocks revealed the mechanism that released the stone, and the four heroes slipped inside without a problem, the alarms already disabled thanks to Static.
The hallway that led them deeper into the mountain was lit up by small lights along the floor. The deeper into the base they went, the more uneasy Mallory became, thinking of all the weight above their heads. She'd never liked small spaces, but this felt worse, with the rock seeming to push in on her from all sides. She felt someone's hand graze her arm and nearly jumped away, narrowly avoiding hitting her head on the ceiling.
"Sorry," Cameron murmured, his whisper seeming to echo much louder than it had been. He dropped his voice even more. "You ok?"
"Fine. Just don't like caves."
"You lived in one," Artemis pointed out, looking over her shoulder to offer her friend a teasing smile.
Mallory huffed, the corners of her mouth lifting a little. "That was different. That was…home. This is enemy territory, and not enough room to fight back."
"Do not worry, we should be getting to the end of this hallway soon," V'lana offered from the back of their single file line.
Mallory nodded, rolling her shoulders to let out the tension that had built. "I hope so."
It took longer than they expected for the hallway to finally start to widen. Eventually, the ceiling began to rise, then it opened into a huge, cavern-like room without ceremony. It looked like the entire mountain had been hollowed out, just like Mount Justice. The familiarity of it took the senior members' breath away. That familiarity dissolved, however, when they saw the pins lined up along the wall, each with at least ten kids inside.
Cameron's eyes narrowed grimly. "Guess we're up," he muttered.
Artemis nodded, leading the way to the cages. Mallory kept a silent count of the people on her side, wincing as it crossed over fifty. She looked at her teammates, shaking her head. They still had more rooms to go through, but they couldn't leave these kids here, and they couldn't take them with them for the rest of the mission. Nautica tapped her chest and pointed, telling them that she would bring this first group back to the bioship, and Artemis nodded, signaling for Inferno and Icicle to follow her further into the base. They flanked her, their footsteps silent as they jogged down the connecting hallway, going further into the mountain.
Eventually they came to stairs, which brought them up to another level of the plant, where transformation pods were set up in rows of twelve, nearly as many rows completing the block. Three pods were above them, all with wires feeding out of them and into the main power block that connected to all of the other pods. Icicle winced, his eyes following the cords.
"Well, I guess that's how they've managed to stay off the grid," he muttered. Artemis nodded, and Mallory wondered how many kids with electrical powers they'd gone through trying to feed their entire base. Or maybe it was just the same kids. She could only hope that they were smart enough to keep them healthy, even if it was just to keep using them. At least then they would have a chance to rescue them today.
"Come on," Artemis said, pushing past the empty pods.
"Why is it so empty?" Cameron asked, looking around. "Something doesn't feel right about this."
"Well, Beta came in front of us, guess they just did a really good job," the squad leader suggested.
Cameron shook his head. "Too good. You really think they could take out an entire base?"
"With the right conditions and a little luck, yeah."
"Uh oh," Mallory put in, her tone balancing between concern and cautious humor. "You know our luck."
"You mean your luck, don't you? I happen to have great luck," Tigress shot back, her voice no more than a whisper as they pushed on to the next level.
"Sure, blame me for everything. Not like there were plenty of things going wrong before I joined the team or anything." The blonde rolled her eyes, but Mallory caught the smirk she tried to hide.
"You're so mean to her," Jr mentioned, easing between them.
"Don't worry about it," Mallory told him. "Mean is her love language."
Artemis shot her a glare around Jr, earning a pointed grin from the pyrokinetic, and Cameron nodded. "Oh, I see. So when you yelled at me for interrupting your alone time in the lounge, you really wanted me to stay."
She shook her head. "Absolutely not. Now shut up and keep moving, before you get us caught." She lengthened her stride, but Cameron held back a pace with Mallory.
"I think I have a shot," he said, making sure his voice was just loud enough for Tigress to hear. Mallory watched Artemis's back stiffen and bit back a laugh, but she didn't say anything. She wasn't going to get on her friend's bad side with this one.
A few minutes later, they came to the last level, freezing in the doorway. One side of the room was completely filled with stasis pods, each one of them holding a newly minted meta teen. Mallory touched her mask, zooming in, and her stomach tightened when she saw that each pod was labeled with the kids' age, background, and new ability, and each one was assigned a number and a price.
She felt a nudge at her side and looked at Tigress, who nodded to the other side of the floor, where workers were pushing select pods to an empty area, arranging them precisely in three separate groups.
"Looks like a transport," Icicle murmured, and Mallory nodded absently, her eyes scanning the area, looking for something, zeta tubes, a hangar door, an elevator platform, but she couldn't find anything indicating the transportation method. Another nudge brought her attention back to her friends, and Artemis took control.
"I count ten. You take the ones by the kids, Jr and I'll take the ones on the clear half. Give a distraction?"
Mallory nodded and glanced around until she spotted some wooden crates close to them, and with one swift move, she sent a fireball to them, helping the flame take purchase on the wood. Shouts erupted immediately, and half the workers rushed over to start putting the fire out, giving the heroes a chance to get into their positions. Three seconds later, the room had erupted in chaos.
Mallory had barely started fighting her five goons when someone managed to hit an alarm, and in seconds a river of backup poured in. The doors were shut behind them, leaving the three heroes alone in a room with close to a hundred opponents. On top of that, while Mallory was across the room and Artemis and Jr were back to back and holding their own against the new rush, someone else managed to get away from the fighting, and three boom tubes opened up beneath the three groups of pods they'd seen the workers moving when they came in.
"No!"
The heroes' voices merged into one as they all dove towards the swirling holes of light in the floor, but it was too late. The pods were gone, and another thunder-like boom, and the tubes closed up, leaving nothing but the hard floor to catch Artemis at the bottom of her dive. Ten people were on top of her in an instant, and though she fought like a caged tiger, there was only so much she could do. Cameron and Mallory were doing a little better, managing to move until they were back to back and keeping a small separation between them and the encroaching enemies, but even they couldn't take all of them. Not without killing, and not with the dozens of pods filled with kids in the room.
"So, I guess now would be a good time to–" Cameron started, but Mallory had already brought her hand to her jacket pocket, pulling out the beacon.
"We got your signal," Megan's psychic touch had never felt so good, "Beta's ETA is two minutes, and Gamma is on the way."
"You get the message?" Mallory asked.
"Yep. What do you think, fireworks or acid rain?"
"Fireworks, you'll still need to cover me," she replied.
He nodded and she flamed up, lifting herself in the air. One goon pulled a gun and tried to shoot her, but her shield was up before she heard the shot, the bullet melting on contact and dripping down on someone else in the crowded room. She didn't give them another chance to aim. She spread her arms out, making a T with her body, and spread her fire out over the ceiling. In seconds, chunks of the paneling peeled off, falling into the crowd below and scattering them. A few jackets caught on fire as the burning rubble rained down, but they didn't have long to recuperate.
The doors burst open, and Beat squad rushed in, electricity crackling and fists thudding as they rushed in. Jaime met Mallory at the ceiling, and she cut the flames so that Megan could join the fight. Bart entered the fight with a gush of wind and a string of goons tied up in the corner. Mallory nodded and flew down to where Artemis had gained the upper hand in her own fight, kicking the last of her captors square in the chest and shooting another one in the arm with her crossbow.
"We need an exit," the former archer yelled over the fighting. "We have to get the pods out, now!"
Mallory looked back at the pods to see four of them sinking into another boomtube. Wondergirl appeared out of nowhere, grabbing one of them and managing to pull it back to their side before the tube closed, but they didn't have long before another one would open.
Inferno turned to the walls, spinning as her mask took in the dimensions. She found just the place when the rest of Gama ran in. "BB, WG, with me!" she yelled, and somehow they managed to catch her words in the din. They followed her up, flying to the top of the ceiling, and Jaime took out his sonic cannon while the girls used brute force, punching through the paneling and right through the rock shell of the mountain. Mallory's hands stung, and when she looked at them, the skin at her knuckles was cracked and bleeding, but she didn't stop. Boulders fell from where they were working, but they couldn't worry about people dodging that. They were almost through, but that was when they felt the link established and Conner called them off.
"Don't bother, we have a better way out of here."
They looked down, and he was holding up a fatherbox, the goon that previously had possession of it now limp in the hero's other hand. "What about–" Bart started, but then the last bit of rock crashed down and Bioship flew in, and he grinned and shrugged. "Ok, let's go."
"Give me a few minutes to get the pods to Taos."
"Hurry up," Brion complained, ducking behind a hastily built shield to avoid a slew of bullets. "I do not enjoy being fired at."
Mallory chuckled and threw a fire ball down in front of the shield, earning a glare from her protege. "What? Just giving you a hand," she said innocently.
She and the others flew back down to the fight. The plant workers were thinning out, but not without a price. Jinx and Static were sporting minor injuries, and the entire team was getting tired. Mallory managed to take out five of their opponents with her landing, and Brion returned the favor by throwing hardened lava over her shoulder, taking out a particularly muscular woman with a dagger.
"Ok, load up!" Conner ordered, and the team did just that, the stronger members staying behind last to cover the others. Mallory backed up, until she was close to the door where they'd first come in, keeping a wall of fire between her and Brion and the goons still attempting to get to them.
"I can hold them off, go to the Bioship," Brion told her, starting to build a lava shield.
Mallory turned her head, about to argue with him, but her eyes caught on the crate that she'd first lit on fire, a familiar shape poking out of the charred wood. "Yeah," she told him, "go ahead." He seemed a little surprised, but he took over the shield, and she walked back over to the crate, pulling one of the goggles out and turning it over in her hand.
"Inferno, get over here!"
She looked up at her name being shouted across the space and nodded, sprinting for the Bioship and loading up just in front of Brion. As soon as the door closed, Megan had the ship lifted, and Conner opened the boom tube in front of them, getting them out of the mountain and back to the safety of Qurac. The kids that Nautica had brought to the ship were deposited at a refugee camp in the country, and they flew to the zeta tube from there, everyone talking at once as they recounted the mission to each other as if they all hadn't been on it only moments before.
Happy summer!