Night's Shadow || Dick Grayson x Ariana Wayne

Chapter 6

They arrived to see the fire truck trying to battle the flames. There was an explosion inside the building that sent two formerly trapped scientists flying out of a broken window. Kid Flash sped over and caught the men and put them on the ceiling before losing momentum and falling. He was able to catch himself on a ledge.

"Does he always run on ahead?" Aqualad questioned. "We need a plan." He turned to where Robin had been but was now gone. He looked to Shadow. "Where did Robin go?"

Shadow pointed to the fire ladder where the signature Boy Wonder's laugh came from. He swung over and helped Kid Flash into the building. "If you can help combat the flames, I'll go rescue the scientists." Aqualad nodded and Shadow extended her wings and with a few flaps took to the air to go get the men and bring them down to the ground. As she did that, Aqualad 'borrowed' the water from the hoses after activating his water bearers to create a more powerful water blast to fight the flames.

Landing on the ground, Shadow Hawk released the scientists and walked over to Aqualad. "Need a lift?" He gave a smile and accepted the hand she held out to him. She wrapped his arms around her waist. "Hold on tight," was her only warning before flapping hr wings and flying up to the floor that their teammates were on.

"Thanks for the help," Aqualad's tone was sarcastic as he addressed Robin, but took Shadow Hawk's hand and kissed the back of her knuckles, his gray eyes giving an honest thanks.

Robin was typing away furiously to hack into the mainframe. "You handled it" he said with a shrug. His jaw tightened when he heard Shadow giggle softly and tell Aqualad it was a pleasure to help. "We're here to investigate remember?" He snapped and continued to smack at the keys of the computer a bit harder than necessary.

Aqualad decided to go look out in the halls for any sort of evidence of what was going on. A dinging brought his attention to an elevator that was starting to close. A strange looking silhouette was visible in the light from inside the elevator before the doors closed.

The sound brought Kid and Shadow running to join Aqualad. "The elevators should be locked down. That's he proper fire protocol anyway."

Robin came running and pulled out his wrist holo-computer. "I thought so. This is a high speed express elevator. It doesn't belong in a two story building."

"Neither does what I saw," commented Aqualad as he walked over to the elevator doors and forced them open. A large shaft led down into the darkness.

"And that's why they need an express elevator." Robin shot his grappling hook into one of the girders then wrapped an arm around Shadow's waist.

"Can't you just fly down?" Kid asked.

Shadow shook her head and wrapped her arms around Robin's neck. "Not enough room," was her response as she and the boy wonder descended into the depths of shadows.

The grappling hook ran out of rope on the 26th floor. "End of my rope," said Robin as he carefully tossed Shadow to the ledge before swinging over and jumping to the ledge as well. Shadow Hawk reached out to grab him and pull him to her. They both blushed at how close they were to one another. The sound of the others sliding down the rope had Robin pulling back and sitting on the ledge to hack into the security and disable it.

When he'd gotten through Aqualad forced the doors open to let them all out onto a floor and not be cramped onto a tiny spot. Kid Flash raced ahead to go scout out what was going on.

A procession of massive creatures nearly trampled Kid Flash, but he was able to get out of the way. "No... Nothing odd going on here." Aqualad had a look of disbelief while the other three were just shocked. The group continued to look around and came across strange creatures in containers that looked to be producing their own electricity and providing power to the entire building.

Robin hacked into the system and found out these things were called Genomorphs and were created for various uses, none of them good. He then saw a file on something called Project Kr. Trying to access the file proved futile due to a triple encryption, so he decided to download it where his system could decipher it far quicker. It was then that Guardian came running into the room with several Genomorphs. "Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, and... uh...?"

"Shadow Hawk. Used to be Batgirl. So how'd you get a job working for people mass producing living weapons?" Guardian was shocked by that information but before he could react, the small creature on his shoulder used some sort of mind control on him. Guardian then gave an order to attack. Robin threw down a smoke bomb and grappled away. Kid Flash used his speed to out maneuver the creatures while Aqualad was left to fight them and Guardian off. Shadow Hawk grabbed Aqualad's arm and shadow jumped over to where Robin was.

Kid Flash leaned against the wall and stared at Robin who was hacking into the computers again. "Way to be a team player Rob!"

"Weren't you right behind me?" Robin asked with a smug look on his face.

"Are you guys okay?" Shadow checked over her teammates for injuries while Robin called the elevator for them. The doors opened and the four of them rushed inside, barely escaping the creatures that had been told to show them no mercy.

Once inside the elevator, Aqualad and Kid Flash noticed that they were going down not up. "Uh Rob, out is up."

"Project Kr is down. Sub-level 52 to be exact." He was convinced they needed to check it out. Even when the others weren't sure about this. They were getting in over their heads. Even Shadow Hawk was starting to doubt her friend's line of thinking.

The elevator doors opened to reveal an odd looking corridor that looked more like it was the inside of some sort of beast. The four exited and started going down the corridor until the path split into two parts. They were discussing which way to go when a being with great telekinetic powers chased them down the path that happened to lead down to where Project Kr was located. The four of them just barely got inside the room and Robin engaged the emergency lock.

"Hey guys, you'll want to see this!" Kid Flash called out, drawing attention to a strange pod in the middle of the room. "Big K little r. The atomic symbol for Krypton!"

Shadow went to the computer console to check out what exactly was going on. "Apparently this is a clone made from DNA obtained from Superman and force grown in 16 weeks." Her eye lenses widened then narrowed as she moved over to let Robin go looking for more information. Meanwhile Aqualad and Kid Flash tried to contact the League but the signal was jammed.

"We cannot just leave him prisoner. Release him." Commanded Aqualad as he looked at Robin. The pod was opened and almost instantly the clone, designated as Superboy, attacked. Robin and Kid Flash fell to Superboy very quickly. Aqualad and Shadow Hawk were able to last a bit longer, but they too were rendered unconscious.