TWO.
The Puppet Show / 5 July, 2010
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If someone was to tell Mi-rae Noe that on the humid night of 2010's Fourth of July - and in the early hours of the following morning - that she would watch as a building caves in around her; she would have just stayed in bed. Complaining about some debilitating ailment to her boss, and ignored the outside world for a week.

As she walked through the main hall of the over-the-top mansion she'd lived in for over four years of her life, she found herself remembering every detail. Every step, path and dead end she'd come across. Every face, masked or not, of the people she'd temporarily allied herself to.

Her mind was an almost perfect re-enactment of everything that happened. Every single thing.

The place she lived in was just how you'd expect an extravagant mansion to look. Money was never a hindrance to her benefactor, somehow his business behind the mask was always thriving, even if she didn't exactly know what he did. She'd stopped asking at thirteen, and he'd still refused to tell her. A good work ethic is when you do nothing but your work, keep your head down, and stay out of other people's stuff.

As she came to a stop at the grand staircase, that split halfway up and branched in two opposite directions, with its spotless red carpet, she was looked down by Sicarius' usual masked glare. The taller woman stood where she always did, centre stage beside His Self-declared Majesty Lord Zephyr.

Putting Mi-rae in her place. Reminding her what she was; always a rabbit. That's what they had been all along, all six of them. Puppets, in someone else's show.

Who the Puppeteer was, was something they still didn't know.

"So," Zephyr asked nonchalantly from beneath the decorative mask that covered his entire face; as if he was capable of ever being calm, even if it was two in the morning, "how did it go?" Eyes stalked her from around the room, Zephyr's guards lurking on the upper level, Sicarius' death stare, and common thugs he occasionally hired out swarming every door.

A breath. That's all it took for her to collect her thoughts, disconnect fact from fiction, and calm her irregular heartbeat.

No kid should have a life spent hidden in the dark. Not even her.

Four hours earlier.

"Do you have a plan, or are we just going to run around like headless chickens?" The child Mi-rae had 'kidnapped' queried.

She wasn't wrong though, Mi-rae had absolutely no idea where they were going, and the thing the kid was so adamant about bringing along was creeping her out. Especially since this girl was insistent on having it perch on her shoulder.

Its non-blinking bug eyes were disturbing.

"Do you have one?" She bit back. They'd been trying to stay as hidden from sight as possible; crouch, crawl, walk. Except they had no destination. "Because I'm sorry if I'm drawing a blank here!"

It had been a complete surprise when the girl had agreed to help her in the first place. She'd put on an old oversized lab coat and told her to lead the way, with strange blue eyes glistening directly at her.

What an odd kid she was proving to be; even odder company too.

   "Sublevel 52." She mentioned casually, bare feet slapping against the hard floor beneath them.

   "Sub? Sub!" She abruptly stopped, making the kid involuntarily bump into her side. "Oh, no way am I going any further down this place!"

However, before they could even get to the elevator, a voice interrupted their little debate.

"C1 what are you doing out of your room?" A female voice asked, leaving the express elevator. "And who is this?" Her voice went darker and more authoritative.

She had dark skin, with short dark-brown hair and wore a pristine lab coat that just screamed they were in heaps of trouble. She held a small technological device in her hand, but Mi-rae couldn't tell what it did from the distance. Except she didn't have to threaten for too long, because the kid speeded into action like she'd planned every possible contingency.

"Oni!" The kid quickly ordered; her 'pet' following her command and immediately jumped from Mi-rae's shoulder over to the darker woman's. "Sorry Amanda, but we need your access code."

"Do you even know what you're doing? You're like ten!"

"I'm thirteen," she countered, guiding a hypnotised Amanda back towards the express elevator, and they waited for the doors to open once again, "and kind of."

"What do you mean kind of?"

"I've seen heists in movies," she defended calmly as all four of them flocked into the elevator, she pressed the furthest on the call button list, sublevel 52 and they waited for the decline.

"You just mind-controlled your doctor!" Mi-rae declared exasperatedly, already regretting her choices. "And you're justifying that plan with movies!"

She shrugged, "it won't hurt her. Her mind is less complicated than yours."

"You're too calm kid, way too calm."

"And yet you're still following me instead of just leaving on your own, why?"

Amanda stood behind them with a dazed expression that was beyond creepy, and the idea of getting lost in this building, with the possibility of never getting out was concerning her. Except she just couldn't go, not when she had a promise to fulfil.

"You need a responsible adult escorting you so I guess that's me," she said as casually as she could, "against my better judgment."

"Are you even an adult?" The kid questioned, "or responsible?"

"I can put you back in that room."

That seemed to unsettle her, as what looked like fear settled onto her soft, childlike features, "please don't," she pleaded, and instantly Mi-rae regretted ever saying such a stupid thing.

"I won't," she replied, looking anywhere but the kid who was staring ahead at the metal doors.

"And she's not my doctor."

The descent into hell was easy because that's what it felt like. As if they were taking an express elevator all the way down to the centre of the Earth. When the doors finally opened at the bottom, it wasn't too big of a stretch either.

The solid constructed floor of the upper tunnels was replaced with some type of organic material Mi-rae refused to acknowledge, for fear of freaking out. They were truly walking into the belly of the beast.

Amanda, still disillusioned with what she was doing, went down a specific hallway as if she knew exactly where she was going. Completely avoiding the other tunnel that went on to whatever else was in this disgusting place. Eventually coming up to a high security door which she pushed a few buttons to unlock.

They were so busy following along that they hadn't even noticed the blue-skinned male figure that lurked in the shadows of the other hall. Or the smile on his face as he watched them go past. Not knowing that his plan was coming together perfectly.

"Are you sure about this?" The teenager whispered although she wasn't exactly sure why.

"Yes," the girl said, a sense of false bravado washing over in waves, "If I'm getting out, as you promised, he is too."

The door began to slowly pull away from the lock, revealing nothing of what awaited them inside.

"Then who is he?" Her question escaped into the void once they stepped foot inside the "room" and the lights all turned on when Amanda touched the controls. There inside a tank was a man, no, a boy, wearing the symbol most people only get a glimpse of beyond that of a news tabloid. The atomic symbol, Kr, printed onto the glass of the doors. Not leaving a lot of room for imagination.

The symbol of an S. The symbol of one of Earth's greatest heroes. The symbol, of Superman.

Only the suit he wore wasn't blue with red accents; no cape hung from his shoulders. Just a white body suit moulded to a muscular body. The S the only colour difference; it being a vibrant red.

They had a Kryptonian stuffed inside a large test tube; buried in the basement.

He looked peaceful - at least she thought it was a he, she wasn't sure what to think anymore - resting in an upright position. There didn't seem to be any apparent pain or discomfort on his face. There were even three of the gnome creatures that resembled the kid's pet that sat dormant, suspended in smaller tanks, above his head.

"He's my brother," the little girl said confidently, standing in front of the tank, a hand held against the thick glass.

That is where Mi-rae's world, understandably, fell apart.

  "Your brother?" Mi-rae exclaimed quizzically, not understanding a single moment of this.

What didn't help was the movement Amanda was making towards the door, as suddenly the small pale creature leapt once again back onto Mi-rae's shoulder as the scientist went to leave the room.

Was she going to alert someone? Had she been conscious of everything this whole time? Then the questions in her mind slipped further and deeper, leaving an empty pit inside her stomach. Had someone noticed that the girl wasn't in her room? Or had those meddling kids, who didn't know the meaning of stealth, messed up something on the upper sublevel?

"In a manner of speaking, yes he is," Mi-rae's new sidekick responded, breaking her out of her mini panic attack, "and we're getting him out. Good work, Oni." She went over to the controls and began looking for anything she could use to help them.

While the older of the two was just about ready to have a panic attack.

"Uh...what...what do we need to do?" Simply because there was nothing else she could think of to do. She couldn't just walk away, not now.

However, the sciencey stuff the kid was sprouting out about protocols and procedures was confusing at best. Fortunately, she'd noticed and dumbed it down for her, "We need to find the off switch for the tank doors."

Now that she could do.

Quickly as she could - ignoring her anxiety as Amanda subconsciously entered the door passkey and waited for the doors to open - she moved over to the controls and began her work on the program. Making sure the kid didn't see her slip a wired connection to a drive hidden in her pocket, and hoping the gnome on her shoulder was oblivious because the damn thing refused to move.

'Don't worry,' she found herself thinking, 'I promise I'll get you out. I just need a little longer.'

She was so busy trying to download the data, that the process of bypassing the security system on the tank doors was on the back burner. Mi-rae knew it was selfish. To promise help but to take her time with it.

Except this is what she needed. A clear ocean of information, waiting to be given to her boss. A way for her to pay back her debt to him and eventually be free herself.

She could sacrifice a little bit of time. For her future freedom.

However just when the download was at 97%, she found herself pulled away into a corner. The wire pulled hard until the USB snapped out of the control panel and recoiled back to her. The momentum forced it to whip at her thigh, causing her to release a light cuss at the sharp feeling.

Just as she was going to yell at her grabber, she was silenced with a hand over her mouth. The kid held up a finger to her own lips to provide adequate evidence as to why this was being done.

In the process, Oni had been displaced and sat in front, looking up at them while they hid behind a few crates.

When the kid pointed towards where they'd just stood though, everything was made clear. There were the meddling kids who were way too naive for her liking. They thought that just because they were sidekicks to members of the League, that meant they could do whatever they wanted and crash through everything.

"I disabled the door," the childlike voice from before spoke up, "we're safe."

"We're trapped." The deeper voice corrected.

"I told you, we're gonna be stuck down here until they break down that door and then, we're dead." The girl from before said calmly. This time Mi-rae could get a good look at her, at all of them.

There was Robin, Aqualad, Kiddy Flash or whatever, and Wonder Girl. All in their uniforms like they had been when she'd done her tour through the Hall. No Speedy Arrow though, so he must've stormed out for good since his friends hadn't pulled him back.

"Uh, guys." Kid said to get the attention of the others, "You'll want to see this."

It hadn't even occurred to her that the kid had turned off the lights in the tank, not until they were activated again by the four newbie heroes. All of them were just as perplexed as she was with the person inside.

The sidekicks were taking it about as well as she had to be honest; not very well. But she didn't blame them, this whole thing was bonkers crazy. It was a sticky situation they were all in.

The speedster and Wonder Girl decided to get closer until they could see themselves reflected in the glass.

"Big 'K', little 'r'," the boy spoke aloud, finally understanding the magnitude of the situation, "the atomic symbol for Krypton."

Then came the big question, "Clone?" he asked, turning to the others at the controls.

All the while the dark-haired girl was more focused on the symbol he wore upon his chest, then moved her gaze up to his face. "Do you think he's really sleeping?"

However, no one was paying attention to her out-of-the-blue question and moved on to the task at hand. Which was finding out as much information as they could and then figuring a way out of there.

"Robin, hack." The Atlantean commanded, and they all watched as he got to work.

If only they knew that Mi-rae could've saved them a whole lot of trouble; if she felt like sharing, which she didn't. They would snatch it away and so too the hope of ever being in Zephyr's good graces. Even if he had promised her more than he'd ever asked of her, and taught her things she would never have known elsewhere, this wasn't a life she wanted to retire from in her sixties. She wanted out while she was still living at all.

So she stayed exactly where she was, with the kid deciding to keep her hands to herself and eavesdrop with her. Hopefully, the four would get caught, escape, and run off to tell the League. Leaving ample amount of time for Mi-rae, her two hostages, and a sleeping Superman clone to sneak out the back; avoiding any problems.

If only real life could be as simple as that.

"Weapon designation: Superboy, a clone force-grown in...16 weeks?" Boy Wonder decoded, shocking everyone but the kid and her bug-eyed friend. Mi-rae had been so busy downloading the data, that she didn't waste a second to actually look at it then and there. "From DNA acquired from Superman."

"Stolen from Superman," the Atlantean corrected.

Beside her in a mutual crouched position, the shaven-haired brunette looked as stiff as a lamppost; fists clenched at her sides. So to ensure she was calm - and that they weren't caught - she subconsciously placed a hand over one of her fists, bringing their eyes to level.

'Don't,' she whispered in her mind, except with the pasty thing at her feet and not perched on the shoulder, it was never received.

Now she probably just looked like a crazy person.

"No way the big guy knows about this." Kid declared, addressing his mutual sidekicks, his friends.

"Solar suit allows him to absorb yellow sun radiation twenty-four/seven." Robin read from the computer system as he hacked.

   "And these, creatures?" Aqualad queries; pointing at the three jars that were suspended above the clone.

   "Genomorph gnomes," Robin answered, his fingers never leaving the electronic keyboard that appeared over his glove, "telepathic; force-feeding him an education."

   "And we can guess what else," Kid finished.

   "His heartbeat's regular," Deianira chimed in, focusing her ears on the sounds most people weren't able to, "no sign of fear, anger, or discomfort. I don't think he even knows what they're doing to him."

She was so focused on the body inside the pod and the creatures above it; that she hadn't even considered the three extra heartbeats she could just about hear right of the door. They just blended in with the plethora of others currently forming around the metal structure.

   "They're making a slave out of, well, Superman's son." Kid said, hitting a nerve deep within a child none of them could see or knew to care about.

So, behind the boxes, the kid was almost ready to jump out, having had enough of watching and listening to people judge the boy in the pod. He was her brother, in the only ways that mattered, which meant that her palms were littered with red crescent moon-shaped indents, keeping her grounded and less likely to cause a panic.

Mi-rae put her hand over one of the child's open palms; she wasn't going to go anywhere without her and the clone, and she needed her to know that. She wasn't giving up or running away this time, she was done being a coward.

   "Now we contact the League," Aqualad ordered.

   "No signal," was Robin's reply, and he wasn't the only one having trouble connecting a call.

   "We're in too deep," Kid joked humourlessly, "literally."

   "So what do we do now?" Deianira questioned, her ears focusing yet again, but on the metal door, specifically the growling and clicking noises coming from the other side of it. There was arguing, a voice raised higher than the others.

   "They're still trying to unlock the door," she mentioned casually, hoping not to cause any of the others to stress. "I don't think they're close to breaking in yet, but they might have a trick up their sleeve." She thought back to those giant creatures they'd seen on the upper level, some of those could destroy a heavy-duty door like that, without a doubt in her mind.

   "This is wrong." Kid said, standing his ground.

   "We can't leave him like this." His close friend agreed, saying what they all thought.

   "Set him free," Aqualad ordered again, sounding ever the leader they desperately needed in the situation they'd got themselves in, "do it."

Robin makes quick work of the security clearances, unlocking the doors in record time. Mi-rae felt a lump form in her windpipe as a result of a guilty conscious as the kid looked at her in confusion. She wasn't as good a hacker as Boy Wonder, but it wouldn't have taken her long if she'd been solely focused on getting the doors open, not her own agenda.

As the glass pod ascended over the sleeping form of Superman's clone, the others watched, even Mi-rae and the kid had a back-row seat to the show. Except you didn't need super-hearing to notice the sound of knuckles cracking. The horns of three gnome creatures above him lighting up red; whatever they were communicating to him, couldn't be good.

As soon as the clone opened his eyes, it was like that same red was fuelling his vision, because he immediately chose a violent approach to his would-be rescuers. Jumping straight towards the Atlantean, to repeatedly punch him in the face.

   "Aqualad!" Deianira shouts; the three left standing springing into action to take down the opposing force, as harmlessly as they could.

"Whoa! Hang on, Supey." Kid tries to reason, his arms holding the clone's dominant one, hoping to cease the amount of damage that could be done to the Atlantean's face.

The boys worked as a team to hold him back while Deianira was waiting for the moment she was needed. Whether that was to help her friend get up or help her friends put the clone down. Except the Kryptonian clone was proving to be too strong for just the two of them; which was to be expected when considering whose DNA he was constructed from.

"We're on your side," Robin argues, only his voice is strained due to the force needed from his thirteen-year-old arms. His body was made for a trapeze, not an arm wrestle with Superman's clone.

However, just as Deianira was inches away from helping Robin keep him down on the left-hand side of the clone's body, their opponent soon gained the upper hand. Him punching Kid so hard that the sound of the glass tank smashing echoed in everyone's ears.

Wonder Girl went straight to work replacing the downed speedster and held his arm back. Even her superior strength was struggling to compete with the Kryptonian, she knew that at any second she'd end up just like Kid and her unconscious body would decorate the floor like a rug.

   "I don't want to do this." Robin pleads but ultimately decides a physically defensive approach is needed. With a nod to Deianira, they both disengage as the boy shoves a compact gas disk towards Superboy's mouth that opens on impact, forcing him to inhale the fumes.

Using this as a sign to move and get the upper hand, Aqualad kicks up at him, getting upright just as the clone slams into the control panel, tearing it apart.

It was at this moment the girl had had enough - seeing her brother get hurt was too painful to watch - so she attempted to run between the fighting, but Mi-rae's arms seemed to work on their own as they rooted her small body back to the same spot. Those sad doe eyes were hard to ignore, but she'd made a promise.

She could hate her for it later.

Just as the clone got upright, Robin was ready and electrocutes him, Deianira running towards him to keep his arms behind his back. But it all went wrong when she tried concentrating on his heartbeat and found the two others from before hidden behind boxes in the corner; inevitably losing her grip. With one arm he pulled on the wires, while with the other he yanked on her own, pulling and pushing her and Robin together.

Knowing what was coming, once she felt the cold hard ground beneath her, she readied to push herself away just in time. Instead, her side begins to throb as she harshly rolls away, Robin having used whatever remaining strength he had to shove her away just seconds before the clone steps on his chest.

With two of their makeshift team out of commission and one having trouble keeping conscious, Aqualad gets up once again. Manifesting a hammer made entirely of water which knocked his opponent back. "Enough!" He shouts as the sounds of metal bending and snapping fill the room; the clone slams back into the base of the pod.

The Atlantean rushes over to the Boy Wonder just as he faints, while Deianira looks over, eyes blurred and vision spotty. Kid was somewhere across the room, the only thing she could concentrate on was the colours of his super suit.

Moments later she too slips into the darkness that clouds her mind, cursing at herself as she envelopes into an induced slumber.

   "We are trying to help you." Aqualad tries once again to convince him not to attack but it's to no avail. Superboy leaps towards him and starts fighting as if his mind is completely shut off from anything else. Only this time, after a few rounds of punching and kicking and almost caving in the entire tunnel, the Atlantean can get the upper hand, electrocuting him from behind, forcing him to scream out.

Now that was the final straw.

Mi-rae felt a strange force pushing her back and releasing the girl from her arms. Giving her just enough space to run out from behind the crates and get as close to the two fighting boys as she dared. "Superboy!" She shouts just as said boy repeatedly jumps into the air and crashes the other's body into the ceiling. Coming to a stop when she's beside him.

Not wasting any time she tries to pull Superboy's arm over towards the crates, trying to get him to hide with them just as she'd planned, until the right moment. "We need to go, we need to leave," she says, tugging and tugging but there was no give, he wouldn't move, "come on!"

As if that finally snapped him out of his daze he stares down at her, but a calmness overcoming his facial features. Uneasing her as he begins to walk over to the door, her hands still around his arm.

   "You know me, right?" She queries, wishing, just wishing he'd say something, anything. She'd only ever heard him in her head, but she didn't even imagine the horrible possibility that he couldn't even talk. That they'd purposely made him that way.

Mi-rae didn't dare to move, or breathe, or think. Of course, she'd wanted to help, but she couldn't. There wasn't a cure for being a coward and no one knew that as well as she did. Even the gnome/goblin creature seemed to know it. Like she smelled of it, all the way deep into her soul.

All she could do was watch as the clone stalked closer and closer to the deadlocked door, hands able to tear through the metal as he began to pull it open, piece by piece, with bare strength alone.

   "No, Superboy! Please!" The girl begs as she pulls on the arms of the solar suit with all the strength her frail body contains, but it still isn't enough. "We need to go!"

Finally, the door rips free without any real effort and Superboy clenches a hand around the girl's arm pulling her away from himself and towards the awaiting Dr Desmond, Dubbilex, Amanda, Guardian. With a whole load of Genomorphs close behind.

Without any struggle or discontent, or anything remotely tied to emotions, he stands at attention, hand slightly loosening.

Desmond goes to check on what's left behind, seeing the state of damage the room is left in, with all four "heroes" unconscious on the ground, smiling. Then flicks his attention down at the girl before him, who shrinks at his gaze.

   "Attaboy." He says, gripping tight on the kid's other arm, focusing her attention solely on him, "You on the other hand, are in a whole lot of trouble. Perhaps another visit to the tank is needed. And where is your g-gnome?"

His question is met with silence, by her and everyone else. The three other adults looked anywhere but at the child's fragile face as guilt seeped into every pore of their skin. No one says anything as he goes to pull her away, no one does anything. Except Superboy's hand remains tight around her wrist, his eyes blank.

   "You can let go now, she's in safe hands." Desmond placates, his tone an uneasy type of calm, just like Superboy's face had been only moments before. Now it was held in a permanent state of orderly rage, just as designed.

With Desmond's words and well-coded commands, the hand slowly releases and drops to his side. Almost lifeless.

   "It's time for you to be back where you belong," the Doctor says as he takes control of navigating the path back to the girl's room, not caring as she squirms at how his hand is clamped so tight it pinches her skin. "And Guardian, get those four in pods!"

Amanda and Dubbilex tilt their heads as the girl they've grown to care deeply for is pulled away. All while Superboy controls his super-hearing on the breathing he's been able to hear by the crate the entire time, listening to it as it fell into an anxious rhythm.

Getting out of bed that morning was definitely a stupid thing to do. And if Mi-rae ever did get to go home at the end of all this, she would sleep soundly, undisturbed for a week.

𖤍               A shorter chapter this time, mostly because I didn't want to shove it all into two parts, and it's difficult to keep things short when you have multiple povs in one. The next chapter should hopefully conclude the two episode pilot as it'll be them all coming together and more fast paced.
     And the little moments when it's obvious Superboy's questioning his orders when it comes to the right people will be such a big thing for the first act. Him learning about friendship and love from Mi-rae and Cass is my favourite thing in the world, he would tear the world apart for the two of them and it's so beautiful, he definitely has overprotective big brother vibes just like he has overprotective bf vibes. I love him so much. /  word count. 4779

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Thanks for reading <3