Young Justice (IC)

[The Jeffinator]

I will update this first post periodically as a summary of the story. Each episode is basically the events that happen over five pages, or 125 posts. I will post the first summary after the first 125 posts.

Season 1

Episode 1: Independence Day

 

[The Jeffinator]

Wednesday, July 4th, 2012
Oberon County, New Mexico
11:59pm

It was a warm, clear night. The dry air was less than pleasant, eyes stinging and lips chapped. At least that's how Dick Grayson felt. As Robin, he was perched atop a large rock in the dry, sandy fields of New Mexico. Behind the boulder stood his bike, and he was wearing his helmet with the night-vision mode activated. He was a few hundred feet from a road, but it was empty at that time of night.

Down the road a bit from the rock was what appeared to be a fenced off military complex, with guards patrolling the grounds. To the general public, it was just an equipment storage facility, but Robin knew the truth – it was actually operated by Cadmus Labs, a subdivision of Luthor Industries, Inc. And not only that, apparently they were conducting illegal genetic experiments involving human cloning.

Earlier that morning, Batman brought Robin to the Hall of Justice in Washington DC. There were also Halls of Justice in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Moscow, London, Paris, Rome, and a number of other major cities, each with a transporter that teleported Leaguers to the UN Watchtower. Upon their arrival, Robin noticed a number of other sidekicks and young heroes there – they had been invited to an Independence Day celebration hosted by the Justice League. Since it was an American holiday, the party took place at the DC Hall instead of the Watchtower.

During the festivities, a rumor began circulating that the sidekicks were going to be promoted to full Justice League members. Robin hoped it was true, but it turned out not to be. The Council of Founders officially stated that they were not promoting anyone at that time. Many of the youngsters were outraged, and ultimately the party ended early as everyone stormed off.

Later that afternoon, Robin overheard a video call between Batman and Superman discussing an informant who made claims of illegal projects being performed at a Cadmus Labs facility in New Mexico. Ultimately they chose not to pursue it because Lex Luthor owned Cadmus, and he was a Senator based out of Metropolis, Maryland. With the JLI's celebrity status, the mission would be too risky, without any solid evidence.

Seeing an opportunity to prove themselves, Robin gathered some of the other heroes that had been denied JLI membership, and they headed straight for New Mexico via private jet. He had loaded up his bike and gear, suited up, and sped off towards the base. Now it was a few minutes after midnight as he stood perched on his rock, the other heroes spread out, all of them observing the base and watching the patrol of the guards.

“Hey Speedy,” Robin said, turning to his best friend. “If you fire a few arrows into the compound yard with these smoke pellets attached, it will create enough cover for us all to get inside.” He handed Speedy the pellets, and when the compound was full of smoke, Robin set his helmet on his bike and rushed towards the base, jumping over the fence and using his memory of observing the compound to secure entry into the main building.

 

[Remec]

Beast Boy

Wednesday, July 4th, 2012
Oberon County, New Mexico
11:59pm (or thereabouts)


The party had been pretty cool. Not the worse Gar had ever been to, at any rate, and if there was one advantage to being the ward/adopted son of Steve and Rita Dayton it was getting into some fairly outrageous parties from time to time.

But nothing quite in the same neighborhood as one where almost everyone present was either a superhero, training to be a superhero, or worked for a superhero as a support crewmember. And, while young starlets pondering how best to have their next 'wardrobe malfunction' and young-looking cougars on the prowl for a little something more than human had been interesting once he was old enough to do anything without the chance of scandal, nothing seemed to drive things as much as seeing the stars of his own special fantasies in the flesh--and full-on super costumes, be it cloth or kevlar or incredibly formfitting (Spandex wishes it was this cool) protective and enhancement garments.

He felt a little put out when the announcement from the Council had come down, but mostly for some of the other heroes his age that he knew were really deserving and seemed to want that extra recognition. Gar was satisfied with being who he was; although, some day, he would like the chance to be on one of the main team's rosters. For now, just having adventures, enjoying himself, and making a difference to mark the memory of Rita and Cliff and Larry---heck, even the Chief---was good enough.

Which is why he found himself agreeing to Robin's proposal and had come out to New Mexico rather than going home after the party. He had nodded during their briefing, but he knew he would just end up doing whatever anyways.

Always do. Maybe I just need more direct supervision...hmm...

Hours and hours later, after a nice long nap to be well rested, Gar had slipped a mamba head out of his hiding place and took in the sight and scent of the desert. Not good. Need to see better. He slithered out of the bag he had hidden in and found a perch at the very back of the bike and looked about with the large nocturnal eyes of some South American animal he saw on Discovery channel once.

Better. Much...oh, smoke...we're starting. He scampered to the front and jumped off the handlebars as Robin cleared the fence. Gar soared off into the night as a flying squirrel heading towards the roof of the main building.

"Booyah!" he called into the darkness with a grin.

~~~~~

 

[Sean Renaud]

Ben stood at the base of a mountain waiting impatiently for the signal that the mission had been officially started. Left to his own devices he would have been in and out half an hour ago but he wasn't in charge, this wasn't his team and while he'd done his best to keep it quiet it was probably obvious to everybody that he wasn't particularly happy to be here. It was to be honest a little difficult for a kid who transformed into dozen of aliens to be upset about genetic experiments but Luthor was one of the bad guys, even if he'd never personally caused Ben any trouble that was clear.

Smoke. So it's finally hero time.

A smug grin crossed Ben's face as he twisted the dial of his green watch until it was displaying the appropriate alien, in this case a four armed blue furred monkey, and slapped it. A warm feeling flooded his body as flesh mutated from human into Spidermonkey. The fence wasn't an obstacle so much as a prop for the agile Arachnichimp and with the smoke screen it was simple to get to what appeared to be the main building.

The moment he was inside he deactivated the Omnitrix returning to his human form watching the others for any cues aside from his main plan which involved smashing his way through anything important and being home in time for Sumo Smashers.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

Kara Zor-El had arrived alongside most of the senior members of the JLI, and even though she'd been added to their ranks she still felt like she wasn't taken seriously enough. She knew she shouldn't feel like she wasn't important, but the shadow looming over was pretty dark. She'd vented her frustrations to those that were closest to her, including Wonder Woman, who had helped train her when she resided on Themyscira, but even after those "discussions" she still felt a certain longing.

The Independence Day celebration had its charms, but the media was more interested in what the Founding members of the Justice League had to say, particularly on the rumors that their member base would be expanding. Kara raised an eyebrow at the whole ordeal, and sure enough her cousin reported that there wasn't any truth to the reports.

What started off as a party quickly turned into a circus as numerous superheroes left in a hurry, outraged that they'd be denied a place at the JLI. Not long after a majority of the younger superheroes left Kara flew off too, joining Superman at the Fortress until he received a video message from Batman regarding the Cadmus Labs in New Mexico. Although it was decided that the senior members couldn't get directly involved with whatever Luthor was up to (at least not without any solid evidence), that didn't mean that nothing couldn't be done about it.

Kara received a private message from the Batman, who instructed her to meet him in Gotham at the manor.

"You should go," Bruce said once the young Kryptonian arrived. "I don't trust what Luthor's up to. Robin's already left for New Mexico, and even though he's bringing some help I believe they could use some extra muscle."

"Does Kal know about this?"

"Consider this an unofficial mission," Bruce explained.

 

[NiteCrowe]

Speedy thought back to earlier in the day as he pulled back on his bow. He had arrived at the DC Hall for the celebrations, and along with his best friend Robin, had begun to have hopes that today was the day that they got to join the league.

They were wrong.

Speedy was furious

Which was why he had agreed vehemently to helping Robin, though to be honest, he would have helped anyway.

But that wasn't the case, and he was pissed.

He loosed the arrow, hitting his intended target. Without pause he quickly fired off 2 more of the shots.

"This is Speedy, Cover is a go."

And with that he zoomed after his friend.

 

[Remec]

Beast Boy

The echo of his shout as it reverberated between the buildings and briefly broke the silence of the night--well, the silence still unbroken by the sounds of motorcycles tearing through the desert sand--widened Beast Boy's grin into a full-blown smile. He landed on the rooftop with a laugh and a light giggle and became a coyote. A few quick sniffs of the night air and he loped off, switching into an owl after his first step, towards the lingering scent of tobacco and overly recirculated air.

Moments later, he became himself next to a door that showed signs of being propped open on more than one occasion and a small spread of flung cigarette filters off to one side of it. Alright...got the way in, now to actually get in...hmm... Gar dropped to his knees and reached carefully under the base of the door to feel for any clearance between it and the floor. It wasn't much, but he didn't need much, after all.

A couple tries with assorted really small and flat creatures finally ended up with him centipeding his way below the door and into a dimly landing of an even worse lit stairwell. An emerald lynx began going down the steps and then smiled as it felt the barest of drafts and realized what he had thought was some sort of junction box was an access panel to an elevator shaft.

Shall we?

Beast Boy's grin reappeared as he nodded to himself, stood upright, and slid the fingers of a gorilla's hand to the edge of the panel and ripped it open. He returned to a lemur and slipped inside and began half climbing, half dropping his way down to where the elevator car was sitting.

I knew I should have asked Robin to remnd me again of the rendezvous protocols. Not like I can carry a headset with me.

Gar shrugged in the dark and began examining the roof of the car for any small holes to crawl through.

We need a telepath, no question about it. Hmmm...

 

[The Jeffinator]

Once inside the building, Robin held the door open for the others, but noticed Beast Boy was not with them. I guess he found his own way in, he thought to himself. Then he tore off down the hallway, looking back to his teammates.

"Okay, our primary objective is to find proof of illegal activities here. Soon as we get that, we're out. Everyone split up to cover more ground, but keep in contact with the ear pieces." he explained. Then he slipped into a stairwell and rushed down several flights of stairs, popping out to check each floor. His goal was a security control room where they would have all the camera feeds of the compound. If there was proof, that was the best way to secure it.

Robin made it down several stories underground, and when he popped out of the stairwell, his feet skidded to a stop as he came face-to-chest with a giant gray-skinned troll-like creature. (if Beast Boy was with him, I could so see him saying something along the lines of, "Dude, I found our proof. I'll let you bag it and tag it," LMAO)

"Whoa!" he yelped out as a giant fist slammed down where he had been standing a second ago. Then two more trolls came running around a corner. "We got some big and uglies on B4! Uglies on B4! I need backup NOW!" Robin looked up as he was surrounded by the three brutes, then jumped and punched one hard in the jaw. "Ow! Dammit!" he cursed as he nearly broke his hand, trying to shake off the pain. He jumped to the side as he dodged another fist slam, grabbed the troll's arm for support and swung his foot around for a hard kick in the side of the head. That just made him angry.

The three trolls made several attempts to smash Robin into superhero jelly, but he was able to jump and flip around, dodging most of their attacks. He whipped out his extendable staff and began playing Whack-A-Troll while trying to stay out of harm's way. His blows had little effect, and soon he slipped up and was punched so hard it sent him flying down the hallway and crashing into a metal wall so hard it dented.

"Ahhh..." he groaned as he pushed himself to his feet. The three trolls were all running towards him, and at the last second, he jumped into the air, did a wall-flip and landed behind the trolls as they all slammed into the wall. Before they could recover, Robin grabbed several explosive shuriken from his utility belt and sent them flying at the monsters. After a series of explosions and a wall of smoke, the trolls were shaken but ultimately unharmed.

"Fuck!" he cursed, then tore off around a corner and down a different hallway. Once again he skidded to a halt as he was confronted by four horse-sized wolves. They growled at him and he turned to run back the other way, but the three trolls were rushing towards him. Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! he cursed to himself, looking back and forth. He was trapped.

 

[TearsoftheWorld]

[Short post during my lunch break. I didn't want to just jump right in, so feel free to get your feet wet before Kara arrives.]

~ ~ ~

As soon as preparations were made, Kara flew out of the Bat Cave and headed towards New Mexico. Although she would have been there within a matter of seconds, her incredible sense of hearing picked up numerous distress calls, some of which were being answered by other superheroes. Although she desperately wanted to assist her teammates, she decided that they could take care of themselves for a short while. Besides, they were only gathering intel, and she was asked to act as a support for the group.

A streak of red, blue and gold filled the sky as the young Kryptonian changed course, heading off for the western seaboard of the United States. Stormy weather had been causing problems for some of the smaller shipping vessels, and despite their best efforts the crewmen were having a hard time managing on their own.

Supergirl made several trips from the shore to the ships out at sea, rescuing sailors that had fallen overboard and then guiding the vessels to port.

Flying back up into the air, she waved goodbye and then headed southeast for the Cadmus Labs in New Mexico.

 

[Remec]

Beast Boy

Gar was just beginning his search of the elevator roof when Robin gave the group his reminder speech. Beast Boy cocked his head and looked about in the darkness, even shifting to assorted other creatures that were mostly nocturnal and saw well in the dark. "Earpieces?" he repeated to himself, then rolled his eyes. That's right, Robin had issued them to everyone while on the plane. It was special gear that adapted to whomever was wearing it, so that they wouldn't need special adjustments.

Before he could make the most of this realization, the elevator began moving and Gar hunkered down as an armadillo and grabbed a firm hold with his newly clawed paws. Shortly after stopping, the sound of combat could be just barely made out followed by Robin's call for help.

Ooh...calvary call, eh?

Beast Boy became an elephant calf and let loose a trumpeting sound, then jumped up as a kangaroo and crashed through the elevator roof as a full-sized elephant, becoming a chimney swift before hitting the floor. He sailed out into the hallway, following the sound of battle and cursing. He saw that the grey-skinned beings had his team leader pinned down, and he dropped behind them.

"Trolls, is it?" Gar said as he rose in the form of an enormous prehistoric beast that seemed to be a forerunner of a modern goat. "Time to go back under your bridges!" Beast Boy rushed forward, horns at the ready.

Hope everyone else is on their way.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Situational awareness wasn't actually one of Ben's strong suits and he was still taking in the room when Robin seemed to simply vanish. That wasn't exactly unexpected so aside from an empty spot where Ben was expecting a person he didn't react until there was a voice shouting in his ear."We got some big and uglies on B4! Uglies on B4! I need backup NOW!"

"Sounds like it's hero time!" Ben turned towards the elevator fully intending to use the device but it was trashed just before he could get there and it didn't really matter either since he dialed the omnitrix to Wrath and slapped it. "WRATH!" He shouted as he transformed into a humanoid tigerwith bone spur claws protruding from his wrists. Leaping through the hole where the elevator had once been he slammed into the ground and took a quick glance around.

Giant goat fighting uglies.

It took several seconds for that to properly sink in but then Wrath was fully immersed charging in and clotheslining one with an impact that seemd to turn the creature inside out when it's head bounced off the floor. "Let me tell you something grey skinned monster thing! Nobody messes with Wrath's team. NOBODY!" With one hand Wrath grabbed the creature by the arm and lifted it back to it's feet before slamming it up against the wall. "If you don't want Wrath using your intestines to string his new vio-"

A troll that Ben/Wrath decided it had heard enough of Wrath's speech and abruptly ended it with a fierce punch that sent the tiger tumbling sideways until the stairs were polite enough to halt his movement. "That was rude." Wrath grumbled pulling himself back to his feet.

 

[The Jeffinator]

While Beast Boy and Ben were in powerful forms at that moment and beating down some of the trolls and wolves, Robin wasn't havening as much luck. Punches, kicks, and staff swings did little to slow down the beasts. He reached into his utility belt as he dodged a charging wolf, turned, and flung a few shuriken, which winded through the air and hit the wolf on either side of its head, in the ears.

"Gotcha," he said quietly as the beast roared. He then unleashed a few more shuriken, this time with strings attached. He aimed them so they wrapped around the wolf's head, then pulled hard. As expected, the beast pulled back and Robin jumped forward with the motion, grabbed the neck fur of the wolf, and swung up onto its neck, using the string to keep his balance.

The wolf howled and tried to get Robin off, but he stayed firm and kept pulling as hard as he could on the strings, trying to cause this poor creature to pass out from lack of oxygen without having to kill it. But that didn't seem to be working very well. Robin just wasn't strong enough. Then he had an idea. He pulled back on the string, then reached one hand into his utility belt, grabbed another smoke pellet, leaned forward and shoved it down the wolf's throat.

As smoke began to pour out of the beast's mouth and nose, Robin quickly wrapped another string to clamp its mouth shut. With the smoke diluting the oxygen in its lungs, the wolf came crashing down to the floor, unconscious.

"Well, that's one down, now we --" before he could finish his sentence, one of the other wolves had rammed Robin into the wall. "Ow. Time for round two."

 

[Sean Renaud]

It wasn't so much that Wrath couldn't take it as well as he dished it out, it was just that sheer numbers were a bit of a problem and these things were almost as tough as he was. "Hey troll face thing! Wrath wants you to know he doesn't like your face!" He followed that by charging at one and delivering a devastating uppercut that broke it's jaw. Aesthetically it might not have been an improvement but it still brought a smirk to the feline's face.

After that it was back to wading through the hordes when he saw Robin backed up against a wall and from where Wrath was standing it didn't look much like the Boy Wonder was winning. If anything it looked like he was just barely holding on and he couldn't even seem to spot BB amongst the chaos. "Hey, Beast Boy, Bird Boy! Wrath has something to say and you'd better listen up. If you don't Wrath will make one of you into a fur coat and the other a feather duster! As much fun as beating these guys up is we might want to hu-" There was an loud audible power down followed by a flash of light and the suddenly the tiger was gone. "-rry this along before. . .MOTHER FUCKER!" Ben might not have the Boy Wonder's acrobatics skills but it was obvious that whatever combination of luck and skill that had kept him alive this far was fully intact as he managed to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge while growling angrily and fiddling with the Omnitrix. "No rush to find a defendable location, none at all!"

 

[Remec]

Beast Boy

Having had his Billy Goat Gruff fun, Beast Boy had realized quickly that the number of opponents was making it a little rough to be in a quadroped form. After a couple of variations--assorted bears and gorillas--Gar palmed his forehead with his current paw and shook his head with a sigh. He turned about after Robin went flying by and regarded the wolf that had sent the Boy Detective into the wall.

"Not nice," Gar said as he suddenly added several hundred pounds of solid muscle and doubled his height to become a bright green version of the troll things they were facing. "Not nice, at all." He lunged forward and scooped the creature off the ground by its throat. A quick flex of his arm slammed the wolf against the floor and the hallway echoed with the crack of its neck.

Wrath's approach and comment was just the interruption Gar needed to rein himself back in and he nodded to Ben as his teammate rushed to where he and Robin were. As Ben tried to get his device up and working once more, Gar motioned back down the hall where he had come from. "I think there are other elevators in the same location on the other side of the floor. And, maybe even escape stairs somewhere in between? If we need to defend somewhere, choosing the spot in front of the exit works for me."

 

[The Jeffinator]

_____

 

[The Jeffinator]

Robin and the others backtracked to the stairwell and made their way inside, using a few more smoke pellets to confuse the mutants. They knew for a fact now that there were illegal experiments going on, but they needed solid proof. So they went deeper. Running into various mutants along the way, they fought or escaped as necessary.

"Oh my god..." gasped Robin when they got to the bottom level -- dozens of clones floating in liquid-filled stasis pods covered the walls. Clones of people, of animals, of combinations and things they had never seen before. But what really drew Robin's eyes was the one right in front of him -- a clone of Superman, but a younger version, probably late teens. He was asleep like all the other clones, his nose and mouth connected to an oxygen mask.

"They cloned Superman," said Robin quietly, gently touching the glass. "We have to destroy these clones before they are unleashed on the world." No sooner than the words left his lips did the Kryptonian's eyes shoot open. He smashed out of the tube and back-handed Robin, sending him flying across the room and crashing into another stasis tank, smashing it and soaking himself.

"Aaahhh!! Graaah... Blargh.. Gyaaa!!!" the clone cried in gargled tones. Apparently he did not know how to speak or even understand what was going on. He just started attacking the team in all his naked glory. Over the next several minutes, higher cognitive capabilities came to him, but he was still very confused and uncontrolably angry. This and his lack of speaking ability at first were due to him awakening prematurely, or so Robin thought.

 

[Sean Renaud]

"Faster would be nice guys!" Ben shouted, he might have been making not being part of the floor look easy but it he was hanging on by a thread when he dove into the stair case. "Okay, we're lea. . ." He started to say that the way out clearly wasn't down but just shook his head, partially because he wasn't in charge but more importantly he was genuinely curious as to what was down there.

"Oh my God." Robin whispered looking into a vat of liquid with a nude teen suspended within. "They cloned Superman." Ben wasn't about to argue, there was a certain resemblence between the two but a clone? "We have to destroy these clones before they are unleashed on the world."

"Whoa, clones are li-" At least this time the interuption was someone else getting knocked half way across the room and that was definitely a plus. Still any discussion would have to wait until after well the raging Kryptonian was no longer raging.

"Ok Wrath, you wanted a good fight here's a good fight!" Ben again dialed in his current go to form and activated the Omnitrix bathing himself in a green light and a second later a four armed, eight eyed eyed midnight blue monkey appeared. "Spiiiider Monkeeeeeeey! Hey. . .wait, this isn't what I wanted. Stupid watch."

Leaping to the ceiling Ben approached the clone. "Hey calm down, nobody's trying to hurt you. We're trying to help-" The clone attempted to shut the chattering monkey by leaping and smashing it into the roof but dancing away from the first few blows was childs play for the arachnichimp. "You know, you should probably see a counselor about this anger issue you have. It's bad for your bloo-" the clone might not have had true super speed but he could certainly get going fast enough to catch Ben off guard and send him hurdling towards Robin.