Chapter 46: Yellowstone National Park

(General P.O.V)

T.O. Morrow's hands caressed the rectangular box like object, fused to a large machine. A gift of sorts from Luthor. Morrow had been skeptical about the whole deal. His idea had been to pack things up and leave for another of his numerous labs but Luthor had presented another alternative. Abandoning his lab but leaving… something behind. But never in Morrow's mind, had he thought that what he was leaving behind was this…this thing.
"What do you think Brom, this...incredible technology…it's clearly not human in nature."

The device seemed unassuming but Morrow had attempted to do some tests on it to sate his curiosity, however, the device was unhackable. It registered weirdly to any energy probes he tried. After countless hours along with a dwindling timeline, Morrow decided to put Luthor's proposed plan in motion.

He activated the machine and used the strange device as the core of the whole setup. There was a hum of energy as the whole thing lit up like a Christmas tree followed closely by a discharge of energy that was emitted from the machi…no, it was a technological miracle. Before their eyes, the metal framework and circuitry acting as an energy conduit realigned themselves into a streamlined unit that encased the whole device. Morrow took a few steps backwards and watched in wonder as the Fatherbox run Morrow's own complex equations through it's systems efficiently.

"Do you…have any idea what this means, Brom?"
The mad scientist asked his quiet assistant who was similarly watching the whole thing. Morrow took a few calming breaths while closing his eyes. He opened them and inside a new resolve shone through.
"Get everything loaded up. The children will be here momentarily and if this thing will work the way I know it will, we do not want to be here."

Brom nodded and left for a huge mechanized exosuit. The hatch to the bipedal vehicle opened and he jumped and strapped himself in. Brom controlled the exosuit to load out the bodies of the androids, leaving T.O. morrow behind, still looking starstruck at the machine he had co-created.
"Forget Ivo, forget Luthor, forget the Justice League. All that seems so…far away now. unimportant to this raw potential."

Talk of the devil. A prompt appeared on his screen and he pressed a key on his keyboard, accepting the call. Luthor's face appeared.
"Well professor, it's time for the extraction. How goes our project?"
The man asked while slightly smiling. 'The snide bastard, T.O. Morrow thought. He knew what Luthor had done. Luthor had him trapped, hook, line and sinker. It would be a simple matter for Morrow to disappear upon leaving here and there would be nothing Luthor could about it. But the man had given him a taste. A taste of how far he could advance his creations.

Morrow's eyes had been opened. He'd achieved so much while working with basic - at least on terms of what the device was - materials, if so what could he do with better technology, equipment, material and metal? This was why Morrow was cursing Luthor in his mind. He'd lured him in and there was no turning back.
"The machine is up and running. Just like we agreed."
Morrow kept his true thoughts quiet and instead answered the dangerous man. There was a reason why Lex Luthor was Superman's greatest arch enemy. Despite possessing no powers himself, Luthor was one cunning man.

"Good, get ready for departure Professor."
Luthor advised.

The screen went dark and Morrow begun to gather up his things. His eyes caught a glimpse of Brom pushing out his bed-ridden biological self and Morrow did nothing to hide his distate. If only his programming did not allow him to directly or indirectly cause harm to the real Morrow...

He shook his head and consoled himself. Atleast he would get some satisfaction from knowing he'd paid back the league for their annoying interference in his work.

(Aden's P.O.V)

The visor fell over my eyes as I got ready for the mission. I flew out of my room towards the bio-ship where everyone else was gathered.
"Good. Maelstrom is here. Let's deploy."
Aqualad nodded at me.

We all entered the Bio-ship and secured ourselves in our seats.
"Computer, open the hangar doors. Authorization B - 06."
Miss Martian requested.
The ship flew through the mountain and out into the open space.

Her eyes glowed as she steered the ship.
"ETA in an hour."
"Good. Just to remind you all, stay on task. Our mission is to do recon. Any signs of combat and we fall back and regroup. The League is backing us up."
Aqualad informed all of us again.
"It's okay Kaldur. You're stressing out. Stay whelmed."
Boy Wonder spoke up.

"Guys, Robin is right. And how cool is it that the League is our back up? Right? It's our first team up."
Wally looked excited at the prospect and his words sounded freshly optimistic. Hate to burst his bubble.
"Not exactly right, Kid. We're just the opening move. I doubt the league would allow us to fight alongside them. Otherwise, we wouldn't be the first pick for scouting. That would be the Lanterns, Flash and Batman himself."

Kid shook his head.
"It's definitely a team up dude."
"Technically, Kid isn't wrong. If you ask me, it's a team up at best and an alliance at worst."
Artemis added her own opinion.
"Alliance? You make it seem as if we're two diverse groups. We're still heroes, just you know, in the shadows. That makes us nobler than the Justice League. They're seen while doing it and get the credit whilst we never get recognized and still do the same thing. Some might even say, better."
Robin countered.

"Hell yeah dude. Up top."

Wally high-fived him.

"Until when? When are they going to stop coddling us and allow us to fight alongside them as true equals?"
Connor's question quickly killed the mood. We stayed like that for a few minutes before I asked a question that had been bugging me.
"Guys where is Red Tornado?"

The one who answered was M'gann. And the answer itself sent warning bells ringing in my mind.
"Something came up and Tornado had to leave. We're going to rendezvous with Captain Marvel at the sight. He's our overseer for this mission."
"Which begs the question of why need an Overseer in the first place. This is not the first recon mission we've been on."
Connor ground out.
"I had the same questions too. Which is why, I urge everyone to be cautious."
I agreed with both Connor and Aqualad's statements. The sentiments behind it mostly. Something was fishy about this whole deal.

"We're approaching Teton county."
"Miss Martian, turn the bio-ship invisible. We're taking no chance."
Our leader ordered.
"Affirmative. Going dark, energy readings masked. It's done."

"Thank you. Robin pull up a map of the area."
"Already on it."
Boy Wonder answered and a layout of the park appeared, hovering above us. Aqualad gestured and maximized the map, then flipped it to show the grid horizontally.
"We're going to focus our search in these key zones. Batman has already narrowed down the section for us. 3 teams will be deployed in each area and we'll coordinate our movements while advancing inwards. There is reason to suspect that the base is underground but I still want us to do a wide sweep to make sure we don't miss anything."

He stopped to see if we were listening.

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"Miss Martian will be our eyes in the air. Morrow is a dangerous and brilliant scientist, he will definitely have some countermeasures to deal with anyone who gets close to the entrance of his base. To that effect, we will be linked telepathically. We don't want him to hack our comm signals. Are we clear?"

"Crystal."
Kid Flash told him while the rest of us nodded.
"Good. The first drop zone…"
Before Kaldur could finish that thought, Miss Martian gasped and the Bio-ship tried to do a certain turn. We were violently lurched to the right but luckily the seatbelts kept us from getting thrown away.
"What…"
"Look!"
Artemis shouted out at us.

A huge energy wave was spreading out quickly. At that rate we would be swallowed by it unless we did a hasty retreat.
"Miss M get us out of here now!"
"On it."
The bio-ship completed the loop and started flying away back to where we came from. M'gann kicked it up to gear but before we could leave the zone, the wave of red energy caught up to the bio-ship and washed through us.

I screamed in pain as I felt my whole being become undone, cell by cell. The others were also suffering the same fate but all their distress and agonizing cries seemed so far away…darkness claimed me and my last thought was how I was the lamest Avatar in history. I had died even before mastering 2 elements.

(Watchtower)

Batman was quickly typing on the console of the computer. Most of the members of the Justice League barring some who were on other missions were behind him.

"Something is actively interfering with the satellite feed. I cannot get any visual reading on the Yellowstone national park."

Batman informed the rest.

"What about Captain Marvel's Comms, have you had any luck in reaching him?"

Wonder Woman asked.

"Negative. We lost contact with him, a few seconds before The Team went silent."

"I don't like this Bats. Especially considering that Red Tornado is missing."

Flash looked serious as he spoke up.

"You think they're connected."

Hal, one of the two Justice League green Lanterns enquired.

"Without a shadow of the doubt. T. O. Morrow created Red Tornado. And just before we raided his base, Tornado goes missing without a word. It's staring us right on our faces."

Green Arrow gave voice to what Flash and a few others were thinking.

"Stop it Ollie, Red Tornado is still a valuable member of not only the Justice League but the Justice Society. He pre-dates most of us. Let us not be quick to judge him."

Black Canary reminded the rest.

"She's right. We will deal with Tornado once we find him. Right now we should focus on finding out what happened to The Team and Captain Marvel."

Batman narrowed his eyes at the screen. The situation confirmed Batman's suspicions. There was a mole on the team.

"Team Alpha, get ready to move. Gamma hold down the fort and beta will be deployed to search for Red Tornado's whereabouts."

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