Danny watched on as the ring of twisters dissipated while Tornado hovered over the fallen team. The ground started shaking, however, as a new, buffer looking android came out of the ground on a growing mount of dirt. "Quite a performance, brother. But we both know that's all it was."

Oh that couldn't be good. Danny floated back to where Robin was laying as the new android broke Tornado's message out of the ground and levitated it up towards themselves. "I have all your memories, Tornado, plus a next-gen processor. I know your next move before you do." The entire slab of dirt was hovering behind him now. PLAY DEAD taunting both Red Tornado and the team as the plan had failed. The new android scoffed, "Blowing a message into the sand?" With a power Danny had yet to understand, the android crumbled the slab of dirt and started throwing pieces towards the team.

In an instant, they were all up and dodging the incoming earthy projectiles. One particularly big one was headed straight for Robin and Zatanna. Without even thinking about it, Danny flew straight towards it and punched it to pieces. The area below him was covered in dried dirt dust. Figuring it couldn't hurt any more than the rest of this mission had, Danny let himself become visible for just long enough to wave at Zatanna, who stared at him in shock, before he faded from view again.

"Zatanna?" Robin asked telepathically, not really sure how she was taking Danny's sudden appearance. A tense beat passed between them before she finally answered. "I'm good. But Red Tornado's getting away."

"Is he abandoning us?" Artemis asked as she sprinted to a better location.

"I don't believe that." M'gann answered as she too tried to get close for an attack.

Meanwhile, the android looked about as bored as his permanent scowl could allow. With ease, he punched away Kid Flash even though the boy was moving at superspeed. "You stand no chance against me, humans."

Clearly both M'gann and Superboy took offence to that, gearing up for a dual attack. "We're not human!"

Too bad for everybody involved, the android still didn't falter at all. As if he were showing off, he summoned two giant dirt hands to swat them out of the sky like bugs. "Apologies. I suppose the properly inclusive term is meat bags." Without any provocation, it then made a slicing move towards where Aqualad and Artemis were running, forcing the ground beneath them to collapse. Just in the nick of time, one of Artemis' grapple arrows pulled them out of the crevasse before it closed in on itself again.

From a newly formed peak, Robin threw out a few batarangs, mirrored by Danny who threw a frozen one of his own. Matching his throw near identical with Robin's created the illusion it was just him who had thrown multiple. The android caught all the batarangs, but it didn't matter. Upon the pressure of grabbing them, they exploded in a mix of fire and ghostly ice. Unfortunately it wasn't strong enough to cause any damage.

Good thing damage wasn't what they were looking for.

"Tornado's memory files and my superior processing speed allow me to anticipate your every move."

"Emoks emoceb a dlofdnilb!" Zatanna's spell used the smoke their explosions had caused and formed it into a thick band around the android's eyes. It seemed to be working great as the bot struggled to rip it off. "Tornado never knew any of my moves."

"And I bet you've got some good ones." Danny couldn't help it, his brother definitely deserved a smack over the head for that one. With a small chuckle and holding his hands up in surrender, Robin apologized. "Sorry. That may have come off a little too Wally."

"I don't mind." Zatanna reassured him, making Danny feel like he was unintentionally third wheeling the weirdest first date ever.

It seemed like Mr. Dirtbot didn't like the trick Zatanna pulled as an intense red light emerged from its eyes. Within seconds, one of the nearby hills erupted like a cola bottle with mentos as lava started flowing down towards them. Now armed with rocks dipped in liquid rocks, dodging the projectiles from the bot became even more risky.

"He's activating a stage two eruption." Kid Flash warned them between dodges. "It gets to stage three, kiss the hemisphere goodbye."

"Hit him from all sides." Aqualad ordered before jumping straight into the fight as well.

Danny felt utterly useless as he watched everybody launch attacks. He couldn't do much except for play support from the sidelines. Ice clearly didn't do anything against his armor and getting close enough to hit it is too risky. Shooting an ectoblast was even worse as it would see it coming from a mile away. Seeing no other choice, Danny pulled Robin slightly to the side. "I need you to throw this in his eye. Tech and ecto doesn't mix well, it might work." He whispered right in Robin's ear as he handed over an explosive Batarang Danny had cut his hand with, ecto laced blood covering the sharp metal.

Robin frowned at the sticky substance before turning to Zatanna. "We have an idea, but we need a distraction first and to get M'gann out of there."

"Kid, come here. I need you." Zatanna called out over the mind link, keeping a watchful eye on M'gann as she dangled unconsciously from Dirtbot's hand. Within the split of an eye, Kid Flash was in front of them. "Be the distraction Robin needs and get M'gann out." She gestured for him to crouch down as she focused all her energy. "Ekoms dna srorrim... Etaerc Dik Hsalf snoisulli!" An army of Kid Flash clones appeared from the smoke as they all sped towards the android. "I-I use a scaled down version when I want to sneak out of the house." She beamed, glancing over to where Robin and Danny were waiting for the right moment.

Now that the bot was fully focused on taking down the Kid Flash clones, Danny helped Robin sneak in close enough. With just a small touch of invisibility at the right places, he got in perfect range to throw the infused Batarang the moment Kid Flash grabbed M'gann. With practiced aim, Robin hit the android's right eye dead center before he felt his best friend rush him away too. Now from a safer distance, they watched as sparks flew from its eye before the Batarang exploded. It knocked the Dirtbot off balance for a moment but it wasn't enough to stop it.

Aqualad pulled out his water bearers, preparing for another attack when a giant wave of water formed behind him. Danny took his chance to be more useful while staying hidden and flew into the stream of water, freezing it from the inside before pulling out right before it collided with the malfunctioning bot.

"Nice hit!" Robin congratulated, probably suspecting Danny had interfered with the water. The cheering didn't last long as Aqualad was quick to deny his involvement in the attack. Just off to the side, another red android had appeared. Danny was already dreading having to fight this one before it launched another attack towards Dirtbot. Using the surrounding water as a makeshift cape, it lifted itself up for a higher viewpoint as it kept launching attacks.

Dirtbot didn't like his forced swim in the lava as it summoned another mount of dirt to lift himself out of it. With barely any warning, Red Tornado came down from the sky and flew straight into the growing mount. Dirtbot fell down, back into the pools of lava. Everybody watched on in confusion as now a third bot, a female one, appeared. She, too, kept launching attacks at Dirtbot as it tried to order them to stop.

In true sibling fight style, the water and female bot held Dirtbot under the lava waves as Red Tornado crashed down from above and helped push him down. They slowly watched the Leaguer sink down into the liquid abyss before Superboy decided to rush in and pull him out. The team watched on in horror as the volcano was starting to shake again, slowly being pushed into phase 3.

"Tornado, listen!" Kid Flash yelled over the rumble of the ground. "We're on the verge of a stage three super volcano eruption. There's no turning back from that." Danny flew over to Robin and carefully pushed up his arm. Taking the hint, Robin immediately started to analyze the volcanic mountain for pressure points. "We need to vent pressure fast but the ash cloud will bring on worldwide nuclear winter unless you divert it!" Kid Flash finished, waiting for Tornado's nod of acknowledgement.

Right on cue, three red dots appeared on the holomap. Without even needing to be asked, Artemis shot off explosive arrows at the exact locations Robin pointed out. Black clouds of toxic smoke started emitting from the newly created chimneys. Red Tornado tried to push himself up, molten legs sparking as only a small vortex appeared under him.

The damage to his body was too severe to generate the lift he needed to get up.

Danny cursed, figuring it was about time he tested his ability to not need air as he invisibly stepped in to help fly Red Tornado up into the stratosphere. "It's okay, sir, I got you. Please focus on the volcano." Danny really hoped he wasn't going to come to regret this as he watched the small vortex under Tornado's legs disappear. With all the power the Leaguer had left, he summoned a giant funnel as his eyes glowed a bright red. The funnel seemed to work wondrously as all the toxic smoke down below was sucked out into space where it couldn't affect anybody.

Once no more smoke was being pulled up, Red Tornado let the giant funnel dissipate. His broken legs sparked worse than before as Danny's hand had reopened and dripped onto the molten metal, stressing Danny out beyond belief. When the smaller vortex appeared around the android's legs again, Danny gladly took that as a sign to guide them both down again. With a little less grace than he should have managed, he transferred the broken android's body over to Superboy's waiting arms.

Shaking slightly, Danny immediately flew over to where Robin was worryingly looking over Red Tornado. Trying to steady his breathing to match his brother's, Danny slipped his hand into Robin's and rested his forehead on his shoulder. He could feel Robin squeezing his hand tightly in reassurance, hating how he couldn't do more with so many witnesses.

"You know," Kid Flash wondered out loud. "I bet there is a bunch of stuff down in Morrow's lab that Bats would want." Ah, sweet, sweet distraction. Not letting go of each other, they followed the others as Red Tornado guided them to the secret entrance while being levitated by M'gann. It didn't take them long to figure out something was wrong with his voice box. Reluctantly, Robin let go of his brother's hand to put all the pieces together with Kid Flash's help. The only comfort he had was the pressure of Danny's head between his shoulder blades, but it would have to do for now.

"There, that should do it." Robin called out, stepping away from the table and to the back of the group so he can grab onto Danny without being noticed.

"Yes, I can speak again." Red Tornado's voice cracked to life as he lowered down his face plate.

Aqualad stepped forward, face a mix of emotions as he addressed the wrongfully accused Leaguer. "You were willing to sacrifice yourself to save the planet."

"The planet would have survived." Tornado corrected. "It is humanity that was saved, though not by me." The twins held in a breath, fearing this would be the end of their whole mission to keep Danny hidden from everybody. Saving the world was definitely worth it, but they were looking at some major trouble with not only Batman but also the team and the League as a whole for breaking countless of rules and their trust.

"My sister and brother were the true heroes this day." Red Tornado continued, turning his head to look at the team but something about his steeled gaze felt like he was looking straight at the twins. Or at least, at Robin.

Aqualad placed a webbed hand on the android's shoulder. "My point is this, you were never the mole. Never a traitor." Danny looked up at that. The mole was a bit too specific for his liking. Was there a threat of a mole within the League? The team? And they just thought, you know what, let's take a runaway Homo Magi out for a trip while there is the threat of a mole? Oh Danny was going to have words with his brother once they were alone.

"No. I left to protect you from further attack and to find my creator, Morrow."

Kid Flash had started rummaging through some of the boxes of discarded bot pieces, pulling out a detached hand while happily announcing he found his souvenir. Robin, too, looked around. Intrigued by the various parts, he picked out a leg that looked comically gigantic next to his small frame. "Reddy, we can rebuild you. Better than you were before." The old nickname from years ago slipping out before he had even noticed. At least it seemed like none of the team noticed either.

"I do not believe I should be repaired."

An awkward silence fell over the group before Connor spoke up again. "Why'd you volunteer to become our den mother in the first place?"

It took Tornado a moment to answer. "I was the pragmatic choice. I do not require sleep. I have no secret identity or second life to live." All valid points, Danny had to agree. Who better to supervise a bunch of rowdy teens than somebody who can't physically get tired.

Kid Flash seemed to come to his own conclusions too as he played with the detached hand, lifting a finger for each point. "But you do have advanced A.I. programming designed to learn, adapt, evolve."

"Hello, M'gann. You wanted to become more human."

"And you couldn't do that with the league. They're stiffs."

"You're sure not gonna learn emotion from Batman. Trust me." Robin giggled silently with Danny as the team continued on. While he did share the sentiment, he also had so much more to worry about. A little stress laugh always helped. "Actually, guys. I don't mind staying back to fix up Tornado myself. You guys should get Zatanna home before Zatara and Canary come hunting us down."

M'gann and Kaldur shared a look while Wally just stared at him with a frown. "Are you sure, my friend?"

Robin smiled at the Atlantean, rubbing the back of his neck as he tried to laugh a little without sounding too awkward. "Yeah, don't worry. I already had a backpack with me on Bioship just in case."

"Oh, I'll go get it for you." Zatanna suggested, managing to pull most of the team with her. Everybody except Wally of course. The speedster walked over and pulled the younger boy off to the side so Tornado wouldn't be listening in.

"Dude, what's going on? You've been acting off, staying with Selina and now having a bag prepped and not coming back with us? You're making me worried here." Wally pulled down his mask so he could look more comfortably at his best friend. He grabbed Robin by the shoulder so the boy was at least somewhat forced to look at him.

Dick looked down, avoiding eye contact. "I- B's just being B again and we had a fight okay? I was going to ask to be dropped off before we got to Happy Harbor but I already let Alfie know and he sent a backup Jet that Batman won't miss." He shrugged, daring to look up to see Wally's frown had softened. "I just wanted some time alone, you know." At least it was worth slightly lying over. He would tell Alfie in a minute, after he was done here and called over the jet himself.

Wally gave him a one armed hug and ruffled Robin's hair slightly before stepping back again. "Okay, man. But you better call me the second something is off and when you get back to Selina's."

Robin smiled up at the 15 year old, thankful that he cared about him even when he figured the team wouldn't mind leaving him with Tornado. With a word of promise, Wally started to head out too when Zatanna returned with the bag. She held it out for him to grab before pulling away right as Robin tried to take it. "Nuh-uh, bird boy. You owe me something."

Robin blushed slightly before Danny smacked him upside the head for a second time that day. "Please don't make me witness that on top of everything else that already went wrong today."

"What about Tornado?" Robin asked stressed out about the Leaguer's reaction. Danny just shrugged, not caring too much as the android already knew Danny was there anyway.

"So," Zatanna cut in. "You're the spirit that's been stalking him." She eyed Danny, actually getting a good look this time. Danny felt a bit uncomfortable being so openly stared at, but he held back from hiding behind Robin again.

"I wouldn't really call it stalking. More like, ah, I didn't really have much of a choice."

Robin laughed, finally allowed to grab his bag. "I just asked him to come along to training and he kinda ended up in the same boat as you. Which, speaking of. How was your kidnapping."

"Actually, it was pretty fun. Lots of unexpected things, good things, but unexpected." Zatanna winked at Danny, still fascinated by the young ghost.

"First of many, I hope?"

Zatanna looked away, rubbing her elbow as she remembered the state she left in. "Yeah," she drew out uncertainly, "if my dad doesn't ground me for life, that is."

Robin cringed slightly as Danny floated up to rest his arms on his brother's head. "Well, if you're worried about not being allowed to come over, you could always give him your number." Danny laughed as another blush crept up Robin's face. He may or may not be enjoying this a little too much.

Zatanna rolled her eyes but handed over her phone without an issue. "Never thought I'd end up texting with the undead. Maybe we really can make the impossible happen." They shared a laugh before Robin sobered up again.

"Shoot. We still didn't get you a phone."

Danny blinked owlishly, remembering that he hasn't even had a phone for nearly two years now. He was totally not looking forward to catching up on every tech update he missed. "Worries for later." He dismissed with a wave of his hand. "You really should get back to the Bioship before the others come looking for you."

Zatanna sighed, not looking forward to facing her father. Still, the trio said their goodbyes.

Now left alone with Red Tornado, they had another issue to discuss.

"Hello again, sir." Danny greeted awkwardly as he floated over to get a good look at the damage done to his body. The entire thing had to come out up to the hip joint and that was just for the outside. Who knows how messed up the inside was and how far up the wiring went that needed replacing.

"Hello. I was not made aware that Batman had a second protégé." Tornado greeted, helping the boys by turning off power to the lower part of his body.

"About that." Robin picked through the tiny parts that connected the damaged leg to Tornado's torso. "Why didn't you tell the others about...you know." He nodded over to where Danny was sorting through parts to see which one were the best quality.

"I did not see the need to bring it up as there was another non team member on this mission. I am..." He paused for a second, watching along as the boys carefully worked on removing the damaged parts. "Thankful for the help I received and wished to return the favor."

"Honestly, I still don't get what you were thinking going up that high without a mask or rebreather." Robin grumbled to himself as he got some of the last few wires of the main connection separated.

Danny shrugged, testing out if the leg he chose worked properly. "It's not like I need to breathe anyway." As if his words didn't mean anything, Danny went back to connecting some wires to the spare wrist computer and seeing how the leg reacted to inputs.

Robin's hands slammed down on the table before reaching into his hair and groaning. "Since when do you not need to breathe?!" He looked like he was about two seconds away from having a conniption as Danny kept idly tinkering with the leg.

"Well, technically I just found out-"

"What do you mean you just found out?!"

"Yeah, well, Cujo doesn't have to breathe either, we just kinda do it out of habit."

"And you didn't think it would be important to test it out in a safe place first?"

"I mean, how much safer can it get with so many heroes around?"

"THAT IS NOT THE POINT!"

"Then where is it, because I don't see one."

"Boys." Red Tornado finally interrupted as the pair looked like they were about to have a sword fight with detached robotic legs. In an instant they snapped back to their previous spots with a soft "Sorry."

Before long, all the damaged parts, including some scratches, were fixed up or replaced. Bidding goodbye to the two, Red Tornado flew off, leaving them alone at last. They walked in a somewhat uncomfortable silence as they made their way to Alfred's plane.

"Look, I'm sorry for dragging you out here and risking so much trouble. I didn't really think it would end up getting this big." Dick sighed, finally taking off his mask for the first time in hours.

Danny looked back down to his brother, tearing his eyes off the beautiful night sky. "It's fine, actually. Sure it wasn't the best, but it felt...good to do stuff outside of just small crime patrol stuff." Danny floated over before letting himself fully switch back to just being a human again. "Plus, Zatanna doesn't seem that bad to hang out with." He wiggled his eyebrows while softly shoving an elbow in Dick's side. Dick cackled as he shoved Danny back a little.

"You know," he mused, "we could just camp out here tonight. No doubt Alfie has camping gear in the jet." Judging from the excited look on Danny's face, they'd definitely be spending the night stargazing.