All Fall Down (Young Justice FF)

1: Wally

It was supposed to be a training mission the day they found it. Just a look around after some suspicious activity in the area.

Then it was supposed to be a simple "catch the baddies and go home" sort of thing.

Then it wasn't.

It was a large facility and, much like Cadmus, stayed mostly off the electrical grid. Something like that was easy to miss. Except that it shouldn't have been.

The scientists seemed to have fled days ago, leaving locked doors and sub-par lighting. All of this was rectified when Robin hacked in, long before any of the League was involved. But when the first door opened, it became too difficult an issue for the Team.

Hundreds of wire dog cages lined the walls, stacked on top of each other in threes.

Each and every one had a child in them.

They should have noticed, they would say later.

A simple training mission for the Team turned into a full League investigation in less than thirty minutes.

It took two hours and every available League member to free them. Most were injured in one way or another. Some were barely hanging onto life. All of them had scars. Treating them required sedation, as most of them panicked at the sight of them.

By the end of the first day, they counted three hundred malnourished children within that facility. By the end of the second, about half remained. By the third, all but one of those hundred and fifty children were relocated to a building ten miles down the road. The hope was to find their families and support them.

Except, the one who wasn't transferred was alive.

She was very much alive and refused to move.

It was supposed to be a training mission that first day. Easy.

Wally would have prefered a training mission over this.

"Hey-" Wally ducked under the projectile --was that a knife?-- leveling his gaze with the girl crouched above him. "Would you stop that! I'm here to help!"

She'd managed to get on one of the swinging light fixtures five minutes after her initial release. In the chaos, they let her be unless she became an issue. Any attempt to get her down peacefully ended in violence and any effort to tranquilizer her failed. Out of the remaining children, she was both the oldest and the angriest. She couldn't have been younger than sixteen --most of the children were younger than ten-- but she was definitely shorter than five feet. Probably weighed seventy pounds soaking wet with how malnourished she was. She looked normal, for the most part. Y'know, if you ignored the glowing pink eyes and ragged facial scars. Her skin was dark enough that the dim lighting made it difficult to discern her features, though earlier one of the Leaguer members put a flashlight on her so they has a general idea. The other kids had seemed pretty human, but even if you ignored the eyes there was something off about her. Her aim was certainly abnormal. He wasn't sure where she was getting all the projectiles from, but she seemed intent on attacking anyone who came close.

So, since Wally healed fast and would be better at dodging, he was voted to get her down. After all, he was a challenging target to hit.

Pity she seemed to like a challenge.