act one — chapter two.
( horrors of the world come knocking. )

The sun is setting in the cloudy sky of Washington by the time the group leave the Hall of Justice and make their way across the city. With a fully charged ring, Nell lands in some alleyway across the street from the burning Cadmus building.

The closer she gets, the stronger the smoke has become. The sirens wail louder than ever, and the screams for help are almost deafening. Robin and Aqualad land in the alley somewhere behind her, and Kid Flash comes sprinting over to their sides a few seconds later.

"Help!" Trapped on the second floor of the building, two scientists lean out of the window as they scream to capture the attention of the firefighters below. "Get us down!"

"Stay put!" The captain orders them, as his men try to combat the fire with gallons and gallons of water. "We will get you out." As soon as he says those words, an explosion rocks through the room and its force sends the scientists flying out the window.

Kid Flash, before either Nell or Aqualad could react with a construct or the water from the fire-trucks, darts out of the alleyway. With his goggles pulled down over his eyes, he races up the side of the building and catches the two scientists by the collars of their lab-coats. He throws them over the ledge of the building's roof right before his momentum slows down, and he begins to fall.

Quickly, his hands wrap around the edge of the open window to the second floor, and he's left hanging off the side of the building.

"It's– what's his name?" The fireman with the megaphone cheers as he, and the rest of his crew, stare up at the boy hanging from the window. "Flash Boy!"

Aqualad moves closer to the entrance of the alleyway, where Robin stands with an amused grin on his face as they watch their fellow hero dangle aimlessly from the window. "Does he always have to run ahead?" The Atlantean wonders. "We need a plan–"

As Aqualad closes his eyes in thought, Nell watches Robin sprint out of the alleyway and use his grappling-hook to jump from the top of the fire-truck and through the open window. "We– Robin?" Aqualad glances to his left, blinking in surprise when he notices the boy is no longer standing there.

With a sigh, Nell lifts herself off the ground and glances down at the hero below her. "Here's the plan," she says. "I'll rescue the scientists, while you follow Idiots One and Two into the building."

Aqualad nods his head, and the heroes take off towards the building as Robin pulls Kid Flash up through the window. Nell flies straight up to the rooftop, her lips curling into a kind smile as her arm stretches out in front of her. She imagines a platform and, in a matter of seconds, a glowing green one appears from her ring.

Without a second thought, the two teary-eyed scientists scramble onto the glowing construct. Quickly, but gently, Nell lowers the scientists back to the ground before she turns around and flies through the open window to join her friends inside.

Aqualad, using the water from the fire-trucks to propel himself up the side of the building and through the window, follows her inside a second later. "We appreciate the help," he tells the two boys sarcastically.

"You handled it," Robin answers with a grin. He stands behind the desk, all too happily hacking into the computer while Kid Flash rummages through the file cabinet behind him. "Besides, we're here to investigate. Poetic justice, remember?"

Nell lands on the carpeted floor, her hands resting on her hips as her eyes scan over the rather normal looking office they stand in. "What are we investigating, insurance fraud?" She questions jokingly as she plucks a clipboard off the desk.

Robin shoots her a teasing look without missing a beat, his fingers still flying across the keyboard. "This place stinks of something bigger than a little paperwork mishap."

"You sure that's not just the fire?" Nell quips. She holds her ring up, using its glowing light as a torch as she gently tosses the empty clipboard back onto the desk and instead crouches down next to the desk's drawers.

Aqualad wanders out into the hallway and Nell pauses, the drawer in front of her barely halfway open before she lets go of the handle and stands up to follow the boy out of the room. Kid moves on from his respective task, searching through the file cabinet, and silently follows Nell and the eldest sidekick out of the office when a loud beep echoes through the hall.

Aqualad's standing several feet ahead of them, his eyes trained on the elevator as the doors slid shut. "There was something in the–"

"Elevators should be locked down," Kid points out as he walks around the corner. Nell stands next to the speedster, her brows furrowed in confusion as she follows his and Aqualad's line of sight– Kid's right, in emergencies like this, fires and the like, elevators shouldn't be working. It was a safety hazard, though she doubts a place like this would care about that.

Robin comes sprinting around the corner. He runs into Nell's back, causing the girl to stumble forward slightly, her shoulder knocking against Kid's. "Are you serious?" She complains, glancing over her shoulder as her eyes narrow into a glare pointed at the Boy Wonder.

He doesn't seem to pay her much mind. Instead, much like his mentor, he makes a sound from the back of his throat as he steps around her and makes his way over to the elevator. "This is wrong." Crouching down beside the elevator, the gauntlet-like device connected to the back of his glove projects a holographic-like blueprint of the elevator in front of them. "Thought so. This is a high-speed express elevator. It doesn't belong in a two-story building."

"Neither does what I saw," Aqualad says with a grim tone. He walks past the team, and forces the elevator open with his bare hands. Robin ducks under his arm for a better look, while Nell floats over the two of them and into the elevator shaft.

The shaft stretches downward, far deeper than she expected. The dim emergency lights flicker weakly above, casting long shadows that seem to disappear into an abyss. Her glowing ring casts a faint green light across the sides of the shaft, but it doesn't reach the bottom. She blinks, her eyes trying to adjust to the darkness, and for a brief moment, she wonders if the elevator shaft goes on forever.

"And that's what they need the express elevator for," Robin breathes out as he stares down. The Boy Wonder swiftly fires his grappling-hook into the ceiling of the elevator shaft, then jumps down. Kid Flash and Aqualad grab hold of the grappling-hook's wire and slide down as Nell flies down the shaft.

It's around sub-level twenty-six that Robin reaches the end of his line. He jumps from the wire to a small ledge that would connect the elevator to the floor, and Nell lands carefully beside him as she watches the other two slow their descents. The Atlantean leaps from the wire to the ledge with ease, and Kid Flash reaches out for the hand Nell holds out to help pull him across.

"Bypassing security." Robin attaches wires from his gauntlet to the door. A second later, he glances up at Aqualad with a nod of his head. "Go." Just like before, the Atlantean forces the metal doors open with his hands and the group exits the elevator shaft one by one.

"Welcome to Project Cadmus," Robin says.

Sub-Level Twenty-Six is a long, dark hallway, tinted red by the dim ceiling lights along the sides of the hall. The air is heavy with the scent of sterile chemicals, a sharp contrast to the smoke still wafting from above. Robin's sharp eyes scan the hallway, and he raises a hand, signaling the group to stay quiet.

Kid Flash pulls his goggles back down over his face and, without a word to the three other heroes, takes off down the hallway in a blur of yellow and red. "Kid, wait!" Aqualad calls out, but he's too slow to stop the speedster.

When he reaches the end of the long hallway, Kid Flash skids to a stop with a muffled scream as his momentum forces him to fall and roll across the ground. He stops in the centre of the next hall over, his eyes widening in fear as the hoof of a large elephant-like monster comes barreling down.

"Kid, get out of the way!" Nell shouts. She lifts off the ground, quickly flying forward and through the hallway as the others run to catch up. Right before the monster can squish him, Kid Flash rolls to the right and dodges the monster.

He pushes himself back onto his feet and quickly weaves between the monsters, rejoining the rest of the team as they reach the end of the hallway. Nell slows, her hands falling to her side in shock as she lowers herself back onto the floor and watches as the herd passes by. "What the–"

"No," Aqualad whispers, his eyes trailing after the monsters, "Nothing odd going on here."

"Lantern, can you-?" Robin's eyes flicker back and forth between Nell and the monsters, and though there's a part of her that loathes the idea of following his orders, she nods her head.

"Right." Shaking herself out of her stupor, she raises her hand and points her ring at the monsters as they continue down the hallway. But her ring comes up with no answer; no hologram or information about their planet of origin.

The realisation hits Nell like a punch to the gut as she watches the creatures – massive, grotesque, and completely unfamiliar – march through the facility. Her ring should know what they are. It's supposed to know everything the Guardians know. But these things? Nothing. No data, no match, no record in the Lanterns database, and Nell knows it can only mean one thing.

Someone created them.

And Cadmus has something much more sinister going on beneath its surface than any of them could've ever thought.

The hallways of Cadmus are like a labyrinth to navigate through. With the herd having long-since passed by them, the group had trailed down the direction they came from; down long winding corridors, through twists and turns, until they came across a large metal door that's been locked remotely.

It doesn't take long for Robin to hack his way inside. "Okay," he says as the door slides open, revealing a large room filled from floor to ceiling with tubes carrying bug-like monsters. There were large cables connected to the tubes, cycling electricity from the bugs up into wires in the ceiling. "I'm officially whelmed."

Full of curiosity, Nell shoots off the ground to observe the tubes closer to the ceiling. Her lips twist into a frown as she stares at the motionless bug. "This must be how they keep this place hidden," she calls down to the boys. "No way they want this place showing up on the bills."

Kid Flash walks into the room, a few steps behind Robin. "The real Cadmus isn't on the grid," he realises. "This is– It has to be what they were bred for."

"Even the name is a clue," Aqualad points out. He stands in the centre of the room and, when Nell floats back so that she's hovering only a few inches above the ground by his side, he continues. "The Cadmus of myth created a new raven by sowing dragon's teeth into the Earth."

"And this Cadmus creates new life, too," Robin whispers.

"If you can even call it life," Nell scoffs, "They're being used like batteries."

With a smug grin plastered across his face, Robin glances at her as he walks past. "So let's find out why," he suggests, then connects his gauntlet to the nearby computers. Aqualad and Kid Flash gather around him, eagerly awaiting information on the creatures produced by the laboratory.

Nell crosses her arms for a moment, her fingers tapping the side of her arm impatiently before she floats over to join them by the console. "Find anything yet, Boy Wonder?"

Robin spares her a quick, narrowed glance, before turning back to the computer. "They call 'em Genomorphs." He gasps, "Whoa! Look at the stats on these things: super strength, telepathy, razor claws. These are living weapons."

"They're engineering an army," Kid breathes out shakily, "But for who?"

"Wait!" Nell leans closer to Robin, pointing at a file that pops up on the holographic screen of his gauntlet. "What's that? Project Kr?"

Robin begins typing again, his fingers pressing against each key. "The file's triple-encrypted," he complains, "I can't–"

"Don't move!" A loud voice rings through the room. A man stands blocking the entrance, with an array of tall, blue-skinned Genomorphs waiting behind him. Their red eyes are sharp and unsettling and, the longer Nell stares at the creatures, the more she thinks about how they look like something she'd see on a distant, hostile planet. Not on Earth, twenty-six levels beneath Washington and the Hall of Justice.

"Wait..." The man seems to freeze up as his eyes, blue and almost hidden under a golden helmet, scan over the four teenagers. "Robin, Aqualad, Green Lantern, Kid Flash?"

Robin, still attempting to hack in the computers, grins up at their speedster friend. "At least he got your name right." While Nell moves in front of him, shielding his actions from the newcomer, Kid Flash rolls his eyes, his arm gently knocking against Robin's.

"I know you." Aqualad takes a step forward, his head held high as he tries to keep the situation from escalating at all. "You're Guardian. You're a hero."

The man smiles, "I do my best."

"Then what are you doing here?" Kid Flash demands.

"I'm the chief of security. You're trespassing," Guardian tells the teens. "But we can call the Justice League and figure this out."

"And you just think the League will ignore what you're doing here?" Nell quips, her green eyes narrowing into a glare. "You're breeding living weapons, they'll never turn a blind eye on that."

Guardian's eyes widened. "Weapons? What are you-" he begins to trail off, "What have I-"

The horns of the tiny monster on his shoulder glow a bright red and Guardian's pupils dilate. "What have I–" He groans, grabbing his head as he sways where he stands. "–My head!" In a matter of seconds, he stands up straight, his expression hard and his glare sharp as he points at the teens. "Take them down. No mercy!"

The creatures around him growl as they each lunge forward.

With no time to waste, Robin leaps into action and throws a smoke-bomb on the ground. A thick fog-like smoke fills the room and, as Nell fires a bolt of green energy at one of the Genomorphs – forcing their body to go flying across the room – she can hear the sound of Robin's faint laugh echo through the room.

Planting her feet on the ground, she creates a baseball bat in her hand and spins around on her heels to hit one of the monsters who had somehow gotten behind her over the head with it before they could get any closer to her with their sharp claws. It crashes to the ground with a quiet whimper.

Kid Flash is a blur through the smoke, his movements lightning-fast as he dashes between the creatures, knocking them aside before they can get a hit in.

"Lantern!" Nell can hear Aqualad shout over the growling noises of the Genomorphs. "Clear a path!"

"I'm on it!" She bats another Genomorph out of her way and into the wall, before her baseball bat morphs into a large, glowing shield in her hands. She lunges forward in the direction of the doorway, using the shield to knock back several more of the attacking Genomorphs. Aqualad and Kid Flash immediately move through the opening she creates.

When they reach the hallway outside, Nell drops the shield and flies up into the air; Kid Flash sprints down the hallway, with Nell flying just slower than he runs and Aqualad following behind them. They race around the sharp corner, almost skidding around it, as Kid Flash leads them towards where Robin crouches in front of the elevator.

"Way to be a team player, Rob!" Kid snaps at the boy.

Robin glances up with a grin, "Weren't you right behind me?"

Landing on the ground behind them, Nell raises her hand and, right as Aqualad barrels around the corner with the creatures hot on his tail, she creates a large green wall with her ring to push the Genomorphs back. "Just get the door open," she tells Robin sharply. "We don't have all day."

"Yeah, yeah," he murmurs, almost sarcastically. The doors slide open a second later, and he and Kid Flash are the first to run inside the elevator.

The Genomorphs continue to bang and claw against the construct keeping them out, and Nell keeps her arm extended, trying to maintain the integrity of the wall. "Aqualad, you first!" Nell calls out through clenched teeth, feeling the boy's eyes lingering on her as she struggles to keep the growing crowd of enemies out. "I'm right behind you!"

With a nod of his head, Aqualad takes off for the elevator. Nell glances one last time at the surging Genomorphs, gritting her teeth. She feels the wall beginning to give way under the pressure, but she's already moving. With a final, determined push, she drops the construct entirely and rockets into the elevator, just as the first of the creatures claws at her heels.

The doors slide shut right behind her, and Nell slams headfirst into the back wall of the elevator with a harsh thud that has her crumpling to the ground. "Ow," she groans, clutching her head in both of her hands.

"You alright, Lantern?" Kid Flash asks, his voice full of concern as he and Aqualad gently take both of her arms and help lift her off the floor and back onto her feet. Still dazed from her collision with the wall, Nell rubs the back of her head as she regains her bearings.

"Yeah, yeah," Nell mutters, still wincing a bit as she stands up. "Just... headbutted the wall, no biggie."

Aqualad's eyes flicker from her to the number above the elevator doors that change with every floor they pass. "We're headed down?" He questions.

"Dude!" Kid Flash spins around to face Robin, who leans against the wall with his arms crossed. "Out is up!"

"Excuse me? Project Kr," he reminds them, "It's down, on sub-level fifty-two."

"This is out of control," Aqualad says, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration as he leans against the wall behind him. "Perhaps... Perhaps we should contact the League."

The suggestion of contacting the Justice League, the adults they've been trying so hard to prove themselves worthy of, feels like an admission of defeat. They've already come so far, dug into something far darker than any of them had anticipated. "We started this," Nell points out, her hand falling from the top of her head and back to her side as she glances at Aqualad. "Isn't it our job to finish it?"

Before any of them have the chance to speak again, the elevator lets out a ding and the doors slowly slide open. Aqualad and Robin both push off the walls they had been leaning against, already jumping into defensive positions, while Nell floated up into the air with her ring ready to act. Only, instead of the enemies they were expecting, the four heroes were instead greeted with another long, dark corridor.

A hollowed-out cave, Nell thinks to herself as she observes the way the lights reflect a red hue against the jagged rocks of the cavern's walls. Machinery and pods, ones similar to what they had seen in the room with the batteries, were scattered throughout the corridor.

Robin slips his birderangs back into his utility belt before he takes the first step out of the elevator, and then another, until he's running down the cave's hallway with the others following close behind him. The four of them stop at a fork in the road, and they quickly hide behind a row of containers as they observe their two options.

Aqualad glances down at the youngest of them. "Which way?" He asks Robin.

"Yeah, bizarre-looking hallway one? Or bizarre-looking hallway two?" The Boy Wonder's gaze flickers between the two paths.

"Halt!" A voice shouts. A tall, blue Genomorph steps out of the shadows on the left-most path, it was dressed in a white lab-coat and seemed far more intelligent than the others they had come across; it's horns glow red and it levitates two oil-drums into the air, before tossing them in the heroes direction. They explode the moment they hit the wall behind them.

Nell flinches at the explosion, lowering her head, as Robin leans over the containers to toss a birderang at the creature. The small weapon stops mid-air, then falls onto the ground lamely.

"Go!" Nell throws up a shield, blocking the next oil-drum from making contact with their hiding spot. With her free hand, she pushes Robin's shoulder, nudging him in the direction of Bizzare Hallway Two as the others start running.

As soon as the boys disappear around the corner, she takes off flying after them, leaving only a trail of green light behind her. It doesn't take long for her to catch up with the boys, flying straight past both Aqualad and Robin, and around the next corner where Kid Flash had run ahead.

A female scientist, more concerned with the clipboard in her hands than the two heroes zooming towards her, steps out of a room labelled Project Kr. Kid Flash, skidding across the cavern rocks, knocks the woman's feet out from under her and he slides through the closing doors of the room ahead while Nell holds the door open for the others.

As soon as Aqualad and Robin race inside, she slips through the small gap herself and lets her construct drop. The doors spring shut, locking with a quiet tick that leaves the Genomorphs trapped outside, only able to claw and scratch at the metal doors.

Robin immediately connects to the computer consoles, quickly hacking into the system before he grins up at the team. "I disabled the doors," he informs them. "We're safe."

"We're trapped," Aqualad corrects with a pointed look.

"Aqualad's right," Nell nods in agreement, as she wanders away from the closed doors and over to the console where the two boys are standing. She's been to dozens of alien planets since getting her ring, has fought in countless battles and seen things she couldn't even begin describing to the heroes around her– and yet, if it wasn't for the fact that Green Lanterns aren't afraid of anything, she's sure the thought of being trapped here would have her hands shaking.

With a deep breath, her hands clenched into fists as she glanced at Robin. "There's no way we're getting out of here without facing what's on the other-side of that door," she points out. "And now they know we're trapped."

"They don't know that," Robin defends himself. "And they won't risk whatever they're keeping down here just to get to us."

"Uh, guys?" Kid Flash calls out.

"They have a whole army out there!" Nell snaps. "The last I checked, there's only four of us against hundreds of them. I don't even believe in those odds."

"Guys!" Kid Flash raises his voice, drawing their attention to the centre of the room where he stands in front of a large pod. "You'll want to see this."

Nell's eyes flick back to Robin and, with a scoff, she pushes past him, her shoulder harshly knocking against his, before she floats over to where Kid Flash is standing. Aqualad soon joins them, followed by a seething Robin who has his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest.

Inside the pod there's a young man, no older than Aqualad and no younger than Robin, with dark hair and pale skin. His eyes are closed and, in small pods above him, there are three tiny creatures with glowing red horns similar to the thing they had seen sitting on Guardian's shoulder.

"Look." Kid Flash points at the symbol on the boy's white t-shirt. "Big K, little r. The atomic symbol for Kryptonite." His hands fall to his hips as he glances back at his teammates, looking back and forth between the three of them as his brows furrow. "Clone?"

"Robin, hack," Aqualad orders sternly.

"Right, right." Robin begins to furiously type into his gauntlet "Weapon designation: Superboy. A clone force grown in–" His eyes widened, "–Sixteen weeks?! With DNA acquired from Superman."

"Superboy?" Nell echoes, her voice tinged with disbelief. "They're creating clones... of Superman?" Her green eyes flicker to the pod again, taking in the young man suspended inside, looking so peaceful, so innocent.

Kid Flash tears his gaze away from the clone, and turns to face Robin. "What do you mean... acquired?"

"More like stolen," Aqualad states.

Nell crosses her arms, her stomach twisting into knots. "No way Big Blue knows about this," she whispers. Superman wouldn't, he'd never, allow his DNA to be used like this. He would never allow his DNA to be used for the creation of what she can only assume Cadmus intends to use as a weapon.

"His solar-suit allows him to absorb yellow sun radiation twenty-four-seven," Robin continues.

"And these creatures?" Aqualad points up at the three tiny creatures sitting above The Superboy's pod.

"Genomorph Gnomes," Robin answers. "Telepathically force-feeding him an education."

"And we can guess what else." Kid Flash lets out a breath, his expression softening as he turns around to face the pod once more. "They're making a slave out of, well, Superman's son."

"That's putting it lightly," Nell murmurs. She's been to countless planets, seen horrors in the form of warlords and mad scientists, but this– this feels like something else entirely. Cadmus is breeding living weapons, an entire army, for who knows what.

And with Superman's clone at the head of their army, they'd be impossible to stop.

"Now we contact the League," Aqualad decides. Kid Flash nods his head in agreement and, as he presses the lightning-bolt on the side of his head to activate his in-ear comms, Aqualad presses the symbol on his belt and Robin brings his communicator up to his mouth.

Each of them are met with the sound of static. "No signal," Robin announces, his brows furrowing as he tucks his communicator back into his utility belt.

"We're in too deep," Kid Flash sighs. "Literally."

With her lips twisted into a frown, Nell reaches out to place her hand against the glass of the pod. "Can we get him out?" She questions, then glances over her shoulder to meet the boy's gazes. "I mean, we can't just leave him here. He's Superman's son."

"Set him free." Aqualad agrees as he turns to Robin, "Do it."

With a nod of his head, Robin lowers two levers on his holographic gauntlet and the clone's pod slowly hisses open. Nell steps to the side, her arms crossing over her chest. For a moment, everything stills, until Superboy's eyes snap out and he races out of the pod like a speeding bullet, taking Aqualad with him.

He tackles the Atlantean to the ground, throwing punch after punch. Kid and Robin rush forward, grabbing hold of the clone's arms in an attempt to hold him back from hurting Aqualad.

"Hang on, Supey!" Kid grits his teeth, struggling to keep the clone from hitting Aqualad again. "We're on your side!" The Superboy growls and, as he breaks his arm out of Robin's grip, he lands a clean punch across Kid Flash's jaw with enough force to send him hurtling back towards the pod. He crashes through the chamber, the glass shattering as soon as he makes contact, as he hits the ground, he rolls across the floor until he's limp and unconscious.

Robin lunges forward, grabbing onto the boy's arm again even as he struggles against him. "I don't want to do this!" Robin reaches forward to place a gas-bomb in his mouth.

Aqualad raises his foot and kicks at Superboy's chest, sending the clone flying back into the consoles behind him. Robin fires his taser, the two-prongs sticking to Superboy; the clone ignores the electric current flying through the wires and, grabbing hold of them, he tugs harshly to pull Robin towards him. As soon as the boy is within reach, Superboy grabs him by the front of his costume and slams him against the ground, pressing his foot against the struggling boy's chest.

Nell imagines a large hammer, something strong enough to keep the Man of Steel's clone down long enough for them to regroup, and when she feels the weight of its handle in her grip, she flies forward. She swings it through the air, the weight of it making a resounding whoosh. The massive hammer connects with Superboy's side with a loud crack, sending him flying across the room and into the nearby wall with a bone-shaking impact.

Superboy slumps to the ground, dazed but still conscious, his breathing heavy as he lifts his head slowly. His blue eyes burn with anger. His gaze locks onto Nell, his eyes narrowed, chest heaving as he rises from the ground with surprising speed.

Before she can react, he's on her, throwing a punch that she narrowly dodges, but not fast enough to avoid the impact of his elbow to her side. She grunts in pain, stumbling back. Her ring burns against her finger as she clenches her fist, but before she can react, Superboy is on her again. His fist comes down in a crushing arc.

Nell throws up a shield just in time, the blow rattling through her construct as Superboy's strength crashes against it. He takes a step back, as if reassessing the situation for a moment, then he charges again. She twists in the air, dodging the initial strike and summoning a chain of glowing green energy from her ring. It wraps around Superboy's legs, pulling him off balance. He crashes to the floor with a grunt, but he's on his feet again in an instant.

His eyes snap up to her with a growl and he lunges at her in a blink of an eye.

Nell's eyes widen as she tries to form another construct, but this time she's too slow. Superboy tackles her mid-air, sending her crashing into the wall. The wind is knocked from her lungs as he slams her against the wall once, then twice, her head spinning. His hand locks around her throat.

She struggles under Superboy's grip, gasping for air as his hand tightens around her throat. With her fingers frantically clawing at his wrist, her vision begins to blur, and the edges of her sight darken.

Before she can summon the strength to act, the pressure around her throat shifts. Superboy is pulled off her, and she gasps for air as she slumps forward. Across the room, Aqualad and Superboy are battling it out but as Nell falls to her knees, and everything spins around her, she's not sure of the outcome. She's not sure of anything, because the second she falls forward and hits the ground, everything goes black.

AUTHOR'S NOTES.

   ✶     Welcome back to the adventures of Lightbulb and Bird Boy. And to Ali's scheduled yapping session in the author note, as I do in all of my fics, I just can't help myself. It's a bit funny, I think, that I actually was beginning to hate Nightlight (the Watchtower discord server can confirm this) but now that the first chapter is over, they're all I want to write for.

   ✶     Nell and Dick's relationship, while always intended to start with them annoying each other, was never meant to progress to something like this; them (especially nell) essentially hating the other. But I find it quite funny that it's turned out this way, and I'm so excited to see how they progress as I write more of them. It's certainly different from the typical friends-to-lovers I am used to writing in my Wally West fanfic, Pink in The Night.

   ✶     I've been aiming, at least for these first few chapters, to reach a 6k word count. With Young Justice having a two-part pilot with a lot happening in them, I wanted to seperate the events over a few chapters as I tend to do with most of my Young Justice fanfics so that they don't get too long. This chapter didn't quite reach the 6k mark, and I know the next one will very likely go over it, as I start heading into a "One Episode = One Chapter" structure.