Carefully making our way through the arrangement of tubes so as to not smash anything, we slowly but surely got closer to Speedy, the sight of the stored specimens not making things better.
If anything, it showed the two behind me Cadmus' true colors and what the entire program and its creators really thought about the work they did here. They didn't consider those they cloned people, just specimens, tools, and weapons.
Upon arrival at the tube that held our target, KF stepped closer to it and pressed his palm against it, peering at his friend with a mixture of darkening emotions.
My goal entirely different from his and my relationship with our target entirely nonexistent, I went around the pod and used the scanners in my mask and Tech-Adapting to sus out its secrets, getting all I needed in no time.
"Good, they can be moved without waking up the occupant," I said after a while. "KF, you need to step back."
He heeded me with reluctance and I went on one knee, opening a hatch at the bottom of the pod. I fished a multitool out of a pouch on my belt and used it to work the mechanism keeping the pod in place.
When I finished with the bottom portion, I repeated the same thing at the top and put the tool back before wrapping both arms around the pod. Gently and with just the right amount of strength, I twisted it and puffs of steam escaped the hatches I'd just opened.
"Superboy," I said after stepping back, "Carry him. Gently please. We don't want to crack or break the glass."
There were no complaints from him to my surprise. He simply nodded and stepped forward. Instead of trying to find out why though, I took it in stride and made my way out of the maze of pods into an open space.
Down on one knee again, I unslung the large backpack I wore and unzipped it. The portable teleporter came out and I placed it flat against the ground, just in time to catch the sight of Robin, Arrow and Aqualad entering the room.
I waved them over and checked the platform before stepping back and holding my watch. "Specialist to cave. We have Speedy. I'm calling over the larger platform now."
A second or two later, a column of yellow light appeared over the teleporter and disappeared in the same moment. The smaller platform was nowhere in sight, one three times its size now resting atop it.
"Superboy," I said and gestured at the freshly summoned teleporter.
He nodded and went forward, gently setting the pod on the center of the platform. When it thumped against the metal surface, I sent word to the cave and made to send it but paused suddenly.
Robin, Aqualad and Arrow had gone forward and were now gazing at our sleeping target.
"Speedy…" someone uttered. Red Arrow placed his hand against it for a brief moment before turning around.
"Send it," he said while looking at me. I gave him a nod and activated the platform, swallowing the pod in yellow light.
"That's it then?" Robin said. "We got what we came for."
Superboy frowned, and I stepped in before this could devolve into something unpleasant.
"Not yet. He's coming with us," I pointed my thumb at the angsty clone. "So is he," I directed my thumb elsewhere, to the center of the room, where a pod not unlike the one we found Superboy in had frosted over completely.
"Who is in there?"
"Someone you do not wish to fight," another voice said from way back at the entrance to this secret place.
We all spun around, me being the first to lay eyes on the new arrival due to Spider Sense prompting me of their presence even before they spoke. The others only recognized him due to the stuff I shared with them yesterday.
He was Dubbilex, the one who set everything in motion in the show by setting a simple fire.
"Dubbilex, right?"
"You know my name," he said matter-of-factly.
"Yes. I also know you wish to liberate your brothers and sisters, like Superboy here, and the other Genomorphs. We can help you. We're with the Justice League."
He looked away from me to Superboy. "Is this true brother?"
Our potential team member nodded, and Dubbilex turned his gaze to me. "How do you intend to do that?"
I countered with a question of my own. "How quickly can you get all of your people in one place?"
"If you leave with Superboy, I'll be forced to reveal my liberative efforts. A day should be enough."
"Do it—"
"What are you doing!" Robin said, interrupting me. "This is not part of the plan."
"I'm extending a helping hand," I said. "Also, I made the plan. I can change it when the situation calls for it."
Focusing back on Dubbilex, I retrieved something from my belt and tossed it to him. He caught it with telekinesis and I explained, "Once everything is in place, you can contact us with that."
He gave me a nod and I returned one before turning around. "Now, for this," I said with no small amount of hesitation. We couldn't leave Match here, however his pod wasn't like Speedy's.
The only way to get him out of here was to defrost and subdue him. And how did you subdue an eternally angry clone of Superman without dying or weakening him with kryptonite? It felt a bit corny to even think of the word, but: teamwork.
It made the dream work after all.
"You still intend to release Match?"
"Yes," I responded to Dubbilex without turning around. "We're not leaving without him."
"Then I will aid you."
"Much appreciated," I said, moving towards the station beside the unstable clone's pod. "Alright team, listen up. KF. Your role in the plan is unchanged. The rest of us will distract him while you take him down. Everyone ready?" I asked and looked around.
Kid Flash dashed forward and disappeared behind the pod while Robin and Arrow repositioned themselves on either side of the empty strip parting the room. Meanwhile, Superboy and Aqualad stood a ways away but remained right in line with the pod.
They each gave me nods and I pushed down the button, causing the enclosing panels keeping Match in stasis to move out of the way. I took a few steps back and readied myself, fingers on the trigger of my web shooters.
The condensation obscuring our eternally angry friend escaped with the pod's opening to reveal a twin of Superboy, asleep just like when we found him. That innocent visage changed in an instant when his eyes snapped open and his hands clenched with a crack.
Pure rage took center stage on his features and explained the reason for the near painful tingle in the back of my head urging me to move. Spider Sense had never triggered so strongly since I got these powers.
My reflexes primed and movement speed at its zenith due to the candle flame, I managed to react in time and fire off a couple of shots.
His charge and growl got cut off by globs of sticky webs entering his mouth and covering his eyes, nose and mouth, the fist he threw sailing inches away from my face.
Tapping my palms desperately like this was a game I was losing, I bounded backwards while Superbody and Aqualad rushed forward, only to meet the enraged smacks of Match as he tore the webs off his face and hit them faster than they could react.
He roared to the sky as the young powerhouses went flying through multiple pods, and in response, a slew of arrows and birdarangs exploded off of him.
His form morphing into a blur of white, he shot out of the smoke with another roar, charging Arrow with an intent that was all too clear. Having timed this perfectly, I kicked off the ground towards the site of the collision, the cracks I left behind all too clear to my sharpened senses.
Right before the collision no one wanted to see the results of, my right fist impacted the side of Match's face and launched him on his own bulldozing journey through the pods… the intact ones at least.
Before he could get very far or recover from the lovetap—lovetap because I'd broken my hand with that punch—I shot a line at his leg and grabbed it before spinning around and sending him through more pods.
That wasn't my real intent though.
Because right in his path was Aqualad, who met him with an enlarged hard water hammer strike to the face, the hit sending him right into the path of an airborne Superboy who spiked him, again, in the face, straight to the ground with a double fisted hammer strike.
Fwip! Fwip! Fwip! Fwip! Fwip! Fwip! Fwip! Fwip!
I practically emptied out the pellets in my shooters webbing him to the ground. To my and everyone else's collective relief, Kid skidded to a stop right beside the angry clone shaking his head to gather himself and clipped the inhibitor collar around his neck.
His effort to free himself halted in its tracks, Match growled and bit at Kid, who yelped and dashed back. "Hey! Watch it!"
After a few seconds of watching and waiting, I let out the breath I'd been holding when I confirmed that Match was down for good. I looked at Dubbilex and gave him a nod.
If he hadn't slowed down Match with his telekinesis, there was a good chance we would be ones eating dirt right now.
"It's done. Let's g—" I stopped and looked down at my vibrating watch. We had Speedy, we had Superboy, and we had Match. So who or what prompted the DWARFS to contact me?
"Team, the drones have found someone else," I said and tossed a small can to Robin before throwing my head toward Match. "You and Arrow secure him. Aqualad, Kid, with me."
Robin caught the canister and Arrow moved to join him. The Boy Wonder was smart, I didn't need to tell him what that spray can did. He'd figure it out on his own.
Quickly making my way to what the DWARFS had cornered, I looked at the feed on my holoscreen and saw nothing but a blanket covered in frost draped over something.
My teammates and I shared a frown.
"What is that?" KF asked.
I racked my memories for what this could possibly be and came up with nothing. "My search parameters were set to anything remotely human, but I'm picking brass, wood, glass and a bunch of unknown elements."
"Then why did the drones react?" Kaldur asked.
"Checking," I said, going through the logs and finding an audio file. What? I played it and turned up the volume so the others could hear.
"H–hello. Is anyone there?"
It was a woman's voice, sultry despite the thick desperation it was laced with and with an accent I'd never heard anywhere.
We stopped in our tracks and stared at each other. "You all heard that right?"
They nodded and Kaldur spoke up. "We should hurry. The more time we spend here, the higher the chance of things going wrong."
He didn't need to tell me twice. We hastened our steps to the location, a corner of the cavern we would have had no reason to seek out otherwise. There, the drones parted to give us way and we put eyes to the image they sent over.
Watching and listening for Spider Sense's warnings, I grabbed the frozen blanket and pulled it away, throwing it aside to reveal a mirror none of us could see our reflections in.
Occupying where our images would normally be was a woman, strikingly beautiful and exotic, and just not with regards to nationality concerning the last part.
A head of full purple hair flowed down her back, and her eyes were completely white with no visible pupils or irises.
Her lips were the same purple, and going even further down saw a peculiar tattoo covering most of her visible chest, right above the lower than normal neckline of her black dress.
Her most stand out feature of all, at least to me, was the sheer desperation oozing offer her features. I didn't know even eyes that were blank like hers could convey such emotion.
I was here on a mission though, and her presence was not in the list of possibilities I'd compiled over the preceding weeks. So I decided to rectify this gap in my knowledge right away.
"Who are you?" I asked and thought about how I'd dismissed installing the cyberpunk lie detector program into my HUD. While I intended to make it a part of my loadout in the future, this was a rescue mission. I didn't deem it important or necessary for our objectives here.
Lesson learned.
"Please, you have to help me," she said with both hands pressed against the glass, sounding so defeated it made me wonder why she wasn't crying. Maybe being trapped in a mirror meant she couldn't?
Considering the cloth I threw away was frozen solid, I'd say she's been here a while, and she likely hadn't eaten or even breathed in all that time. What a terrible way to live.
"Lady," I said and looked into her milky eyes. "You have two chances to prove you're not some kind of evil witch or sorceress who got this as a punishment. What is your name? What is your connection to Cadmus? And who did this to you?"
That seemed to get her attention and straighten her thoughts out.
"M-my name is Tala. I am a sorceress and an alchemist. I was Cadmus' expert on the possible application of magic in our developments. My master," she actually paused here, "...Felix Faust, tricked me into cloning a body for him to inhabit. This was my reward for giving him a second chance."
"What do you guys think?" I asked.
"Felix Faust is a known quantity," Kaldur said.
"Yeah. I've heard of him too. Had no idea he had a student though," KF added.
Kaldur nodded. "Same here," he said and looked away from her to me. "Is she coming with us?"
"Yeah," I said without hesitation. "If she's responsible for the magical side of Cadmus, which if she's not lying, actually exists, I think we've got whoever's responsible for hiding this place and Speedy from the League's magical experts."
Watching her like a hawk, I noticed a momentary flicker in the despondence draping Tala's face like a thick carpet and I knew I was right on the money. A new line of questioning had opened up, but we had overstayed our welcome.
Sending a quick message to the cave about this development and with said development in hand, the three of us made our way back to the rest of the guys and found Superboy holding up an unconscious Match, the clone bound and gagged.
"We're leaving," I breezed past the obvious question and waved at Arrow, Robin and Superboy onto the platform. They vanished in a cloud of fading particles and without even a prompt from me, Aqualad and Kid stepped on.
"See you guys soon," I said and passed the mirror to Kaldur before sending them off. Right after they left, I activated the smaller platform and sent the large one back before looking around for Dubbilex.
All this while he hadn't left. I waved at him and went closer, hoping to explain some things to him before leaving. Said things were mainly about the platform I'd be leaving behind and the dangers of tampering with it.
I made it explicitly clear that the liberation he sought depended on him keeping it not just safe and out of sight, but out of any undue hands. Thankfully, he took my words seriously and used telekinesis to move the platform deeper into this room, past it and into what I came to recall as Genomorph City.
This is where he hid with his brothers and sisters when Superboy first escaped from Cadmus. Its hidden nature and the sight of it set my mind at ease. I could finally leave.
Before I did though, I sent all ten of my drones to lodge themselves into various cracks and crevices in the cavern, the stealth tech in their outer shells allowing them to blend seamlessly into the environment.
Once that was all done, I stepped on the small platform and gave Dubbilex a thumbs up before hitting my watch.
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1-10 advanced chapters on: https://patreon.com/MasterReigen