Chapter Title: Cadmus 2
In a room with flesh-like walls, four pods each containing one of the four unconscious sidekicks were being intently watched by the Superman clone.
'Time runs short. You must awaken. You must awaken now!' yelled a voice in the minds of the four sidekicks causing them to simultaneously awaken.
As soon as Max awoke, he was assaulted by a pain that originated from all over his body caused by the clone tackling him into a wall. When he tried to move his hands to rub his eyes, he realized that he was locked up in a pod like the one they found the clone in.
The next thing he realized was that the aforementioned clone was staring to the right of him so he looked over and saw that his teammates were similarly locked in pods.
"What? What do you want?" asked Wally to the clone who continued to stare silently, "Quit staring. You're creeping me out."
"Uh, KF, how about we not tick off the guy who can fry us with a look?" said Robin taking the words right out of Max's mouth.
"We only sought to help you." said Kaldur.
"Yeah, we freed you, and you turn on us. How's that for grati-" said Kid Flash.
"He was being controlled, he wasn't in control of his actions." said Max, interrupting Wally.
"What if I? Hmm. What if I wasn't?" said the clone.
"He can talk?" said Wally with surprise clear in his tone.
"Yes, he can." said the clone, with some anger.
"What? Not like I said it." said Wally.
"What else did the Genomorphs teach you?" asked Max.
"They taught me much. I can read, and write. I know the names of things." he replied.
"But have you seen them? Have they ever actually let you see the sky or the sun?" asked Robin.
"Images are implanted in my mind, but no, I have not seen them." he said with some sadness in his voice.
"Do you know what you are? Who you are?" asked Kaldur.
"I am the Superboy. A Genomorph. A clone made from the DNA of the Superman. Created to replace him should he perish. To destroy him should he turn from the Light." said Superboy, causing the four to share glances.
"Trying to be like Superman is something everyone should try to be. But you are your own person. You should do what you want, not what Cadmus tells you." said Max.
"I live because of Cadmus. It is my home!" yelled Superboy.
"Your home is a test tube. We can show you the sun." said Robin.
"Uh, pretty sure it's after midnight but we can show you the moon." said Wally.
"We can show you. We can introduce you to Superman." said Kaldur, eliciting a reaction from Superboy.
"No, they can't." said the male scientist as he entered the room with Guardian and the female scientist, each with their own Genomorph-Gnome on their shoulder, "They'll be otherwise occupied. Activate the cloning process."
"Pass. Batcave's crowded enough." quipped Robin.
With what the scientist said, Max was going to spin the ring and try to free himself, but hearing the scientist's next words, he decided to wait, hoping that hearing the man's words would help Superboy make up his mind.
"And get the Weapon back in its pod." said the scientist.
"Hey, how come he gets to call Supey an it?" said Wally as Guardian walked up to Superboy and placed his hand on his shoulder.
"Help us." said Max to Superboy who brushed off Guardian's hand.
"Don't start thinking now." said the scientist as the Gnome hopped onto Superboy's shoulder causing him to develop a far-off look, "See, you're not a real boy. You're a weapon. And you belong to me. Well, to Cadmus. Same thing. Now get back to your pod."
With those words, Superboy turned around and began to walk away.
Seeing Superboy leave the room while the female scientist fiddled with a control panel, Max knew their time had run out. He spun the ring and when he saw the number 46, a smile appeared on his face.
'Thunder God's Rage: Adramelech'
The ring disappeared and turned into a pair of intricately crafted, gold-hued gauntlets with the surface of the gauntlets adorned with an elongated diamond with a dot in the middle. The gauntlets also featured a long cylindrical piece of metal that ran through the gauntlets, sticking out the back and the front.
"Where did that come from?! Stop him!" said the male scientist after seeing the gauntlets appear on Max's hands.
Before the bad guys could do anything, however, Max activated the gauntlets and flooded the machine with electricity, causing it to malfunction and shoot open. Robin being Batman's protege had already been working on unlocking his cuffs and with Max's opening, he too managed to escape.
Max shot electricity at Wally's and Kaldur's pods, freeing them before he shocked the bad guys with electricity just strong enough to stun them.
"Ugh, lucky Batman's not here. He would have my head for taking so long." said Robin as he exited the pod and rubbed his wrists.
"Seriously? That's what you're worried about? The whole League will have our heads after tonight." said Wally to Robin before turning to look at Max, "And couldn't you have done that earlier? I thought for sure we were going to get cloned."
"I took the chance to wait. Now Superboy can see that they do not consider him a person but a tool. Hopefully, he sees that he has the right to choose his own path." said Max.
SCREECH BOOM
A moment later, Superboy wrenched the doors open and stood in front of them.
"Looks like you made your choice." said Max to which Superboy nodded.
"I want to follow in Superman's footsteps."
"Good choice, but it won't be easy."
"You two finished? In case you forgot we're still deep below the ground and we have to fight our way out." said Wally.
"We must make haste." said Kaldur.
"Let's go." said Robin as the five of them ran out the door.
As the five ran out, the male scientist managed to regain his bearings while the humanoid Genomorph stepped out of the shadows.
"If you were there, why didn't you stop them?!" yelled the scientist.
"I would be useless." he responded.
"Whatever, just activate every genomorph in Cadmus!" he told him.
~
As the five entered the hallway leading to the elevators, their way forward was blocked by the giant genomorphs, forcing them to stop. In addition to the giant genomorphs, the sacks on the walls began to glow before they popped, releasing lithe genomorphs and blocking the way they came from.
"We go through them. The elevator's the only way out." Max said as he pointed the gauntlets toward the lithe genomorphs before shooting out two balls of electricity that collided, exploding and shocking all the genomorphs, taking them out.
While Max did that, Wally, Kaldur, and Robin nimbly danced through the giant genomorphs and ended up behind them. Superboy decided to uppercut one of them before being slammed by another.
He then pushed the one that slammed him away into the wall and started to repeatedly punch him, causing the hallway to shake from the force. This allowed an opening for Max to run through and join the others.
"Superboy. The goal is to escape, not to bury ourselves here." said Kaldur.
"You want escape?!" he yelled, grabbing one of the giant genomorphs by the arm before swinging him at the others, knocking them down.
"Nice. Let's move before more of them show up." said Max as they made their way to the elevator doors Kaldur forced open.
Robin used his grapple gun to ascend the elevator shaft with Wally. Max used Adramelech to surround himself with lightning and levitate himself up the shaft. Superboy grabbed onto Kaldur and jumped up to try to fly, but as Superboy reached the apex of his jump he began to fall back down.
"I-I'm falling." he said but before he could fall any further, Max similarly surrounded the two with lightning and brought them up to the others.
"Superman can fly. Why can't I fly?" he asked with confusion.
"Don't know. But you can still leap tall buildings in a single bound. Still cool." said Wally, in an attempt to cheer him up.
WHIR
Hearing a noise from above, Max looked up to see the elevator coming down the shaft and would collide with them any second.
"This is our exit." he said as he forced the doors open to the 15th floor and everyone quickly got in.
They were met with a three-way junction with genomorphs coming down from the middle and right hallway, forcing them to go down the left hallway.
"Left. Go left." said Superboy as they ran down the hallway, and came upon a split.
"Right." he said after coming upon another split, only for the group to be met with a wall with a vent.
"Great directions, Superboy." said Wally, "You trying to get us captured?"
"No, I don't understand." he said, holding his head.
"Don't apologize this is perfect." said Robin as he pointed at the vent which Kaldur quickly tore off allowing everyone to enter, but not before Max shot a ball of electricity at the rapidly approaching genomorphs.
They went through the vents until finally exiting in front of the staircase, where Robin quickly hacked the motion sensors to throw off their pursuers.
"I hacked the motion sensors." he said with a smirk.
"Sweet." said Wally.
"Still plenty of them between us and out." said Max.
"But I've finally got room to move." said Wally, lowering his goggles onto his eyes.
Before he could move, the gauntlets on Max's arms disappeared and the ring reappeared.
"Wait." said Max to Wally, ready to zoom up the stairs.
"You really have to tell us what your abilities are after this." said Wally while Max spun the ring, the number 18 showing soon after.
'Great Tremor: Heavy Pressure'
The ring disappeared and turned into a microphone with a cutesy cat face and small cat ears.
"Haha!" laughed Wally seeing the cutesy microphone while everyone also grinned.
"What can it do?" asked Kaldur, trying to control his grin.
"Think of it like Black Canary's ability." Max said, just a tad embarrassed at the mic's appearance.
"And it's a girl's ability, man you really aren't living this down." said Wally before he ran up the stairs while the rest followed behind him.
As Wally ran up the stairs, he ran through some lithe genomorphs, knocking them out.
"More behind us." said Robin.
"I got it." said Max as he stopped running before yelling into the mic which amplified his voice, turning it into ultrasonic waves that he directed at the stairs below him, breaking them and preventing any genomorphs from taking them.
Up the stairs they went until they reached Sub-Level One where as soon as they entered, the alarms began to blare and the hallway was cut off by a heavy-duty reinforced door.
"We're cut off." said Kaldur as he and Superboy tried to pry open the door but were unsuccessful.
"Can't hack this fast enough." said Robin.
From the direction the group came, giant genomorphs stumbled into the hallway.
"This way." said Max kicking open a door that led to another hallway, but unfortunately, that hallway was also chockful of all kinds of genomorphs.
Seeing their path blocked, Max was going to scream and use the Imperial Arm to clear a path but before he could, he felt something enter his mind, causing him and the rest of the group to fall and lay listless.
'Perhaps our brother Superboy should make up his own mind.' said the humanoid Genomorph to everyone's mind.
'It was you.' said Superboy looking at him.
'Yes, brother. I set the fire and lured your new friends down into Cadmus and woke them when they were in danger.'
'And guided me. Why?'
'Because you are our hope, the genomorph hero. You will blaze a trail for all our brothers, showing us the way to freedom.'
"Ugh, what's going on?" said Guardian as the Gnome hopped off his shoulder.
The four others were freed from their mental suggestion and stood up.
'What is your choice brother?'
"I choose freedom." said Superboy, staring at the humanoid.
"Feels like fog lifting." said Guardian as he held his head.
"Guardian?" asked Kaldur.
"Go. I'll deal with Desmond." he said.
"I think not." said Desmond as the genomorphs moved out of the way to reveal him, "Project Blockbuster will give me the power to restore order to Cadmus."
With those words, he downed a test tube full of bright blue liquid that caused him to groan in pain, transforming him from a man to a gray-hulking beast.
"Everyone, back." said Guardian as he rushed Desmon but was swatted away.
Superboy rushed him and started trading blows, but Desmond kept up with him and punched him hard enough to push him away. Superboy got back up and leaped at him but Desmond took the opportunity to intercept him in mid-air and break through the ceiling, onto the ground floor.
"Okay, that's one way to bust through the ceiling." said Robin.
"You think Lab Coat planned that." asked Wally as he held onto Robin who grappled out of the hole.
"I don't think he is planning anything, anymore." said Max who was helped by Kaldur to jump onto the ground floor.
The room that Superboy and Desmond had crashed through was a big empty hall with a lot of pillars throughout.
Desmond and Superboy were fighting in the center until Desmond threw Superboy away from him and towards the group who ducked to avoid colliding with Superboy. The group then ran back to where Superboy landed.
Wally ran at Desmond who swung down at him, hitting the ground while Wally slid under avoiding the fist and crouching right behind him, grabbing Desmond's attention. Kaldur and Superboy took his momentary distraction to simultaneously punch him in the head, making him stagger back and having him trip on Wally.
"Learned that one in kindergarten." he said as Robin jumped over him and threw birdarangs at Desmond who rolled over and let them hit his arm.
When Desmond rolled over to dodge the birdarangs, he came face first with Max who shouted into the mic and unleashed a torrent of ultrasonic waves that pushed Desmon back onto the ground while clutching his ears.
Unfortunately, Max could not use the highest output available with the mic afraid that much force would break the floor under them and endanger everybody.
As Max held Desmond in place, Robin noticed how many pillars were in the hall. A quick schematic search on his holographic computer and he saw that the pillars were holding up the hall and he came up with a plan.
"Guys, the pillars." he said showing them which pillars needed to be destroyed for the plan to work.
Glancing up at Robin, Max saw that he drew a big white X on the ground for where Desmond needed to be, and seeing the others breaking the pillars, Max quickly knew what Robin's plan was.
So he stopped screaming, which he would've had to do soon anyway since he was running out of breath, and backed up from Desmond who stood back up, enraged.
That's when Robin gave him the thumbs up and Max cranked the output on the mic to the max level and let out a quick scream that not only launched Desmond across the room and to the X but also nearly brought down the building.
"Move!" yelled Robin as they all started to run.
BOOM BOOM
The birdarangs that Robin had strategically placed had exploded and caused the hall to collapse, with a lot of debris falling on Desmond and pinning him down.
Meanwhile, the five huddled with Superboy covering Robin and Kid Flash with his body while Aqualad covered Max using water.
As the dust settled, a piece of debris was launched away revealing the five safe and sound but tired.
"Nice job, Robin." Max said with a slightly hoarse voice from screaming for an extended period.
"Was there ever any doubt?" he asked as he and Wally high-fived.
The five then walked over to see Desmond pinned beneath some rubble and unconscious.
"See? The moon." said Wally to Superboy as they all looked up to see the full moon.
As they all looked up at the moon, they noticed a figure flying at them, and when it got closer they realized that it was Superman.
"And Superman. Do we keep our promises or what?" said Wally as Superman landed in front of them.
It was not only Superman who had appeared but all of the Justice League. All the members of the Justice League that could fly landed while those who could not were being helped by Green Lantern, which included Batman.
Superman stared at Superboy, who after a few seconds decided to walk up to Superman, whose eyes narrowed. But when Superboy lifted his tattered solar suit to reveal the S that is symbolic of Superman, surprise appeared on his face before turning tense, though he wasn't the only one who got tense at the reveal.
"Is that what I think it is?" asked Batman.
"He doesn't like being called an it." said Wally.
"I'm Superman's clone." said Superboy, surprising everyone.
"Start talking." said Batman.
~
After a lengthy explanation of the events that unfolded, the two Green Lanterns, Hawkman, Hawkwoman, and Captain Atom, took Desmond and flew away with him. The rest of the League huddled up to discuss while the five teens did the same.
Superboy looked over at Superman talking with Wonder Woman and Martian Manhunter, who let Superman know that he was looking. Superman then walked over to Superboy.
"We'll, uh... We'll figure something out for you. The League will, I mean. For now, I'd better make sure they get that Blockbuster creature squared away." he said awkwardly before flying off.
"Cadmus will be investigated. All 52 levels. But let's make one thing clear." said Batman.
"You should have called." said Flash.
"End results aside, we are not happy. You hacked Justice League systems, disobeyed direct orders, and endangered lives. You will not be doing this again." said Batman, eyes narrowed.
"I am sorry, but we will." said Kaldur.
"Aqualad, stand down." said Aquaman.
"Apologies, my king. But no." he responded, eliciting an eyebrow raise from Aquaman, "We did good work here tonight. The work you trained us to do."
"Together, on our own, we forged something powerful, important." said Max.
"If this is about your treatment at the Hall, the four of you..." said Flash.
"The five of us and it's not." said Wally correcting Flash to include Superboy.
"Batman, we're ready to use what you taught us. Or why teach us at all?" said Robin.
"Why let them tell us what to do? It's simple: Get on board, or get out of the way." said Superboy, causing all five of them to stare down Batman.
"Give me three days." said Batman after a few seconds of tense silence.
~
Mount Justice
July 8, 08:04 EDT
In Happy Harbor, Rhode Island, there stood a mountain that sat on the coast. For all intents and purposes, the mountain was just a regular mountain, but in actuality, the mountain was hollowed out to be used as the Secret Sanctuary of the Justice League. It had been repurposed for the young heroes and renamed Mount Justice.
Upon entering the interior of Mount Justice, one is greeted by a sophisticated and high-tech environment. The central area/mission room of Mount Justice serves as a hub for team meetings and strategy sessions, featuring a large, high-tech holographic display that allows them to analyze missions, monitor global activities, and coordinate their efforts to combat threats as well as serve as a specialized training area using advanced holographic simulations.
Besides, the mission room, Mount Justice also had a fully stocked open kitchen and eating area, a lounge located in the same room as the kitchen with a couch and a large television, a multi-level hangar, a two-level library with reading tables and dozens of bookshelves, living quarters made up of several rooms fairly similar in design, locker rooms to change located between the workout room and the showers, a medical bay, and a lot more space.
In the central chamber stood the five young heroes along with Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Red Tornado, Black Canary, Hawkman, and Shazam.
"This cave was the original Secret Sanctuary of the Justice League. We're calling it into service again. Since you five are determined to stay together and fight the good fight you'll do it on League terms." said Batman, "Red Tornado volunteered to live here and be your supervisor. Black Canary's in charge of training. I will deploy you on missions."
"Real missions?" asked Robin.
"Yes, but covert."
"The League will still handle the obvious stuff. There's a reason we have these targets on our chests." said Flash.
"But Cadmus proves the bad guys are getting smarter. Batman needs a team that can operate on the sly." said Aquaman.
"The six of you will be that team." said Batman.
"Cool." said Robin.
"Six?" asked Max, wondering if Batman had messed up, before noticing that Batman was looking behind them.
Turning around the young heroes saw Martian Manhunter walking toward them but next to him was a red-haired, green-skinned girl that could only be another Martian.
"This is the Martian Manhunter's niece, Miss Martian." introduced Batman.
"Hi." she said, shyly.
"Liking this gig more every minute." whispered Wally to Robin before turning to Miss Martian, "Welcome aboard. I'm Kid Flash. That's Robin. Aqualad. Arsenal. Superboy. It's cool if you forget their names."
"I'm honored to be included." she said as Wally, Kaldur, and Robin walked up to her.
Meanwhile, Superboy was feeling left out and looked like he was going to leave, but was stopped by Max.
"Come on. Let's go introduce ourselves." he said, patting him on the shoulder before the two made their way to her.
As the two approached her, Miss Martian's clothes started to change from a white top with a red x and a blue cape, to a black top with a red x and no cape.
"I like your t-shirt." she said to Superboy, to which he responded with a smile.
Seeing that, Max teasingly elbowed him while Wally ran over to get in on the action.