Wayne Tech, Metropolis, 5:31 PM.

October 13th, 2010.

Conner arrived and looked around at the three of them warily before stepping out of the elevator.

Aiden finally broke his silence, having refused to say anything until they were all there.

“What is Project Match?” Conner said darkly.

“It was either the original attempt by Cadmus to clone Superman, or it was a clone of you, I can’t remember.” Aiden said honestly, “It’s in a hidden room inside Cadmus; there’s also a bunch of those mind reading things underneath the place as well, building a small city or something.”

“Genomorph’s.” Conner managed, explaining for the benefit of the others.

Aiden nodded.

“Two clones of Karen as well,” Clark said seriously, “As well as another clone of Conner or me. This is completely out of control.”

Conner’s eyes went wide, having not heard of the prior part, and turned to stare at Power Girl, and it managed to derail his hyperfocus for a second.

“Is cloning illegal?” Aiden asked, frowning, thinking of Emil.

He didn’t want to get the guy into trouble, especially after everything he had done for him.

“Without special dispensation, agreement from the donor, and depending on the intent,” Clark said, watching him. “You can do it legally, although the process is not a simple one.”

“Why are you asking about that?” Karen said curiously.

Emil had been completely at ease with having his assistant in front of him, despite the clone's appearance. Karen didn’t seem to have agreed to any donations of her DNA in order to create the clone and was unaware of either of them.

“Goddammit, man,” Aiden muttered before raising his voice. “Emil Hamilton has a clone of Karen, who introduced herself as Tea; working as his assistant.”

“Emil?” Clark said, astonished. “That’s—why would he—this doesn’t make any sense!”

“She was at my last appointment; I talked to her for like twenty minutes, she was very confident,” Aiden said evenly, “I didn’t realize who she looked like until I got a better look at the other one, and Karen today.”

Conner looked like he wanted to speak up again but was watching the expressions flash across Clark’s face.

“Dr. Sivana obviously didn’t go through that legal process either, given that the guy is a supervillain, and nobody asked me if I was okay with being cloned,” Karen said angrily. “Where are they now? I’m suddenly in the mood to punch somebody.”

“No,” Clark said seriously. “This is something the league will be handling, don’t go after any of them, Karen; we have no idea how dangerous they are, how strong they are, or if they are working together somehow.”

Karen looked like she wanted to speak to Superman’s manager, but before she could voice her complaint—Conner spoke up.

“What about Project Match?” Conner demanded, “We need to get him out of Cadmus! I’m not going to leave—”

Superman raised his hands and gestured for him to calm down.

“We aren’t going to leave him there, Conner,” Clark said reassuringly, voice still tight.

“He’s going to need some help afterward,” Aiden interjected steadily, “Whatever technique they used was unstable, he doesn’t really understand what’s going on around him, and he’s prone to attacking anything on sight.”

Conner looked furious at the news and clenched his hands by his side, unsure how to even address a problem that he couldn’t just hit.

“Aiden, I’m going to ask you to come with me when I explain this to the others,” Clark said seriously, “There’s going to be questions, the foremost being how you know all of this—”

“I’ll come with you,” Aiden interjected, “On the condition that these two be included in this, they have just as much stake in this as you do, and cutting them out is just going to piss them off or make them run off on there own to handle it.”

Clark looked distinctly unhappy with the idea, but unless he was going to physically drag me to his meeting—obviously something he would be capable of—but not something he would be inclined to do, so he was going to have to deal with it.

Nobody wanted a pyrrhic victory after all.

“We’re coming,” Conner said forcibly, and Karen nodded, stepping up beside him.

Wayne Tech, Metropolis, 6:47 PM.

October 13th, 2010.

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this at all,” Aiden said nervously, staring at the machine.

He really had no idea how this thing worked exactly, but the idea of being dematerialized and then put back together somewhere else wasn’t exactly a fun one. Would his stream of consciousness suddenly end—and another Aiden would step out of the other side, having no idea that he wasn’t the original?

“It’s perfectly safe,” Clark reassured, “If anything starts to go wrong, it will simply shut down—there’s plenty of safeguards.”

“Didn’t you fight a Kryptonian earlier?” Karen said, smirking, “Are you really scared of this of all things? We use them all the time!”

Conner didn’t say anything, but he had also turned his head away, likely to hide his amusement. Aiden huffed at the absolute betrayal; maybe he should have just left them out of it after all?

A light flashed out and scanned Clark, head to foot.

“Recognized,” A digitized female voice spoke, “Superman, 01.”

The hero vanished a moment later and left the three of them standing just out of range of the machine.

“Aiden,” Conner said quietly, “Thanks.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Aiden nodded before turning to look at the machine and shaking his head. “Alright, I’m going in.”

The light struck out at him.

“Recognized,” The same voice said calmly, “A04, Aiden Neve.”

Aiden frowned at the name before stepping out of the light and into a new room, wondering if he was still the same person or a new offshoot. Three large rings, not unlike the machine he has stood before mere moments ago, sat behind him, on a platform. He took a moment to study the room; it was large, mostly empty, and covered by massive glass panes instead of walls, only the structural supports visible.

Outside the window, he could see a sea of stars, and to the right-hand side, he could see the earth looming large. He stared out into the emptiness for a long moment before stepping down off the platform and onto the staircase.

Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman were all standing across from him, watching.

“Recognized,” The voice said, “B04, Superboy.”

Conner appeared, stepping out of the light and pausing to take in the room, much like he had.

“Recognized,” The voice repeated, “B06, Power Girl.”

Aiden took note of the different codes; his own had been A04, while there’s had been B04 and B06 respectively—Supermans hadn’t had a letter at all. What did the A denote, or the B? It probably didn’t matter to his current situation, but it was interesting never the less.

“Welcome to the Watchtower,” Superman said easily.

Aiden stepped off the staircase and moved towards them.

“I like it, it’s very—” Aiden smirked, “Spacious.”

Diana scrunched up her face at the terrible joke, and he could hear a groan of disappointment from behind him.

“Unfortunately, that isn’t the first time I’ve heard that,” Superman said dryly.

“Aiden,” Batman said suddenly, voice clear. “How did you come to know about Project Match?”

Well, his identity was well and truly gone now, even if it had been a paper-thin disguise after Clark had x-rayed him in retaliation for calling him by name. He reached up and pulled the damaged mask off his face, along with the black form-fitting padding that Byrna had made for him.

“Thanks for registering me as Aiden boys; I didn’t like having the anonymity anyway,” Aiden said, annoyed, “Real swell of you, Clark, Bruce.”

There was another intake of breath behind him from both of the younger heroes, but Batman didn’t make any move to retaliate, instead of waiting patiently for his answer. It had been a long time coming; either way, now was a good a time as any to address the situation.

“Same way I knew about all of your identities,” Aiden said simply, answering the initial question. “Nothings changed there; I’d actually forgotten about it entirely because I had only ever seen it mentioned once a very long time ago, and I put the pieces together recently—after I got my ass beat and started thinking about cloned Kryptonians.”

Technically true, it had been a single episode a very long time ago, and the sudden spark after he realized that they had cloned another Kryptonian had been like a lightning strike—he only wished it had hit him earlier.

“Where is it located?” Batman said seriously.

“Same place Conner here was, there’s a fake wall or something, might not have been the same room actually, not sure.” Aiden scratched his chin for a moment. “Nobody knows it’s there either, as far as I know, only the Genomorphs.”

“You said you saw it once, a long time ago,” Diana said pointedly, “How do you know the current state of things?”

“I don’t,” Aiden admitted, “I’m making predictions based on the information I’ve got in my head, where Match is now, could be right, could be wrong—but that’s where he was.”

He couldn’t remember exactly what had kick-started that plotline, but it had something to do with Lex Luthor—Oh!

“Lex Luthor is the other half of your donated DNA as well, Conner, if you care about that at all,” Aiden said, frowning. “Actually, I’m pretty sure the entire clone situation involved Conner and Match was a Luthor-made scenario.”

“Lex Luthor?” Conner said quietly.

“One of the primary subjects we had suspicions on,” Batman said simply, “How sure are you about Luthors involvement?”

“It was him, a hundred percent; just see if Conner wants to give you a sample, and you’ll see it’s a match,” Aiden said easily, “At the very least, that makes him an accomplice to creating him, unwillingly donated DNA or otherwise.”

“How bad is his condition?” Superman said hesitantly, “You said he was aggressive?”

Something twigged at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t quite grasp it, something to do with Luthor.

“Very aggressive, he will attack anyone with an ‘S’ on their chest, or that makes an aggressive move against him, he might just attack anyone nearby I’m not actually sure,” Aiden frowned, “I think that his body was starting to decline as well, before they froze him, so you’ll have to look into that as well.

“If he attacks everything nearby,” Diana interjected, “What was his intended purpose? A weapon? How did Luthor intend to control him?”

Conner shuffled at the sound of the word weapon, and Aiden felt that tickle in the back of his mind bloom into understanding as her last question burst the bubble.

“Shit. Luthor has mental commands or phrases that can make them do things,” Aiden said quickly, “I think Conner has some as well; I have no idea what they were, though.”

“What?” Conner said angrily, “So he can just use them whenever he feels like it? What do they do?”

Aiden racked his memory; it was that exact same episode; what had it done? Let Luthor getaway uncaptured somehow?

“I think one of them shuts you down,” Aiden said, frowning, “Like an off switch, just bam, suddenly sleeping, or unware of the passage of time.”

“How the hell do you know any of this?” Karen said bewildered, “Was this just written down somewhere? Or did you just overhear someone talking about it?”

“It’s a long story,” Aiden said seriously, “Four years ago, I met a man downtown, and he told me about a hidden shop, wedged between two alleyways. Rumors of an old lady that lived there, above her own shop, who could tell the future.”

Karen’s eyes widened, and nobody moved to interrupt me as I explained what they all wanted to know.

“I went there; how could I not? I had to know if it was true,” Aiden said determinedly, “I found the shop, exactly where he said it was, and the woman was real. I’ll never forget the things she told me that night—but one thing stood out above all of the others.”

Aiden turned and met everyone’s eyes before shaking his head sadly.

“The old lady leaned over and whispered in my ear,” Aiden leaned in, and stage whispered. “Everything I just said was complete bullshit, and I’m not telling any of you a damn thing.”

Karen flushed in anger and embarrassment before crossing her arms, and Clark coughed awkwardly to cover his own reaction to being caught up in the tale—but Batman didn’t even twitch.

“Moving past that fascinating tale,” Diana sighed, “Is there anything stopping us from simply going to Cadmus and retrieving him right now? Any dangers that you know of? Traps, or deceptions?”

“Other then the fake wall, the mind-controlling Genomorphs, and the very likely reality that he will attack as soon as you wake him up—nothing that I know of,” Aiden said seriously, “If you want my advice—keep him in the preservation thing when you save him—bring it with you if you can—see if you can’t heal him before you wake him up because he deserves at least an attempt at a normal life if you can give it to him.”

Conner had grown increasingly incensed as I suggested leaving him in the tank before he seemed to settle down by the end, understanding that I wasn’t implying that he was a lost cause.

“Very well,” Batman said evenly, “The clones of Power Girl?”

Aiden nodded at the subject divergence, and Karen stepped closer to listen.

“Dr. Sivana had a woman named Divine working as his bodyguard; I don’t know if he was the one who cloned her, or if he just paying for her service—either way, she’s a Kryptonian.” Aiden summarised, “A friend of mine was on a mission to capture Dr. Sivana and toss the guy in jail, and she got her ass kicked by Divine, so she called me in to help—then I got my ass kicked by Divine, and called you in to help.”

“Where is your ‘friend’ now?” Diana questioned, “Did she managed to complete her objective?”

“I got a text earlier; she succeeded in capturing Dr. Sivana and escape unharmed,” Aiden nodded, “No idea when she plans to turn him over though, she might be waiting for the bodyguard to lose interest in murdering her first.”

“The second is supposedly Emil Hamilton’s current assistant,” Superman said quietly. “I’ve never seen the man with her before, and he has never spoken to me about anything like this.”

Nobody spoke for a long moment before Batman stepped forward.

“Emil Hamilton has already vanished; he was last seen two days ago at his office in the Metropolis branch, STAR Labs.” Batman said evenly, “We have no idea of his current location or this ‘Tea.’”

Well, fuck.

How did Emil know he was going to be found out for cloning her two days ago? Before I even knew it was—No, he had deliberately brought Tea to that appointment almost a month ago now—and in public— seemingly without any attempt to hide her face at all at least that was the impression they had given him.

If anyone else seen Tea, they most likely would have recognized her immediately—was he trying to trick me into thinking that Tea was the real Power Girl’s civilian identity? Did Emil have an expectation for Aiden to figure out who she was on sight?

If that had been Emil’s goal, that meant he managed to fuck up whatever Emil’s plan was by the sheer luck of having not paid attention to what Power Girl looked like properly when he had first arrived in this insane place. Emil must have thought he was the dumbest motherfucker that had ever lived—and it wasn’t like he was even wrong in this instance.

Aiden ignored the flush that was rising up his neck at the realization of how ignorant he had been. He took a deep breath and let it out before refocusing his mind, ignoring everyone else in the room.

Emil had gone rogue, or had been playing the long game and was rogue all along—what did that mean for him?

This guy was apparently a person who Superman knew personally, at least that was the impression he was giving off. So they had hired a personal friend of supermans—or maybe Clarks—in order to be responsible for his monthly appointments.

Emil had been responsible for his medical checkups, tracking his physical progress to an extent, and he had even given the man a fucking sample! He told the man about Ki because they’d had a god damn bromance going on—the man managed to use all that information to hide his Ki as well, which vanished any chance he had of finding him with that method.

Now the guy had shown that he was capable of growing clones of fucking Kryptonians, and now he had a sample of Aiden’s DNA.

“Batman, you absolute motherfucker,” Aiden said with forced calm, drawing the man’s undivided attention, along with the rest of the room. “You hired a supervillain to play doctor for me, and now he has a sample of my DNA; he’s making clones of Superfam over here—am I going to be fighting off Aiden 2.0’s by Tuesday?”

“He’s not a supervillain!” Superman protested, before admitting his own culpability. “I was the one who suggested Emil for the job.”

Aiden couldn’t help but respect the man owning up to it without a shred of hesitation.

“Oh, well, that makes everything better,” Aiden said brightly, “You really had me going for a minute there! Thank god it wasn’t Batman that hired him, wow!”

Superman sighed.

“None of us were aware that he had begun taking such drastic actions, Aiden.” Diana said soothingly, “I vetted him myself; he had no ulterior motive when we asked him—I made sure of that.”

“You clearly didn’t ask him about anything substantial, like—oh, I don’t know, clones of Kryptonians? Activities that the league might disagree with?” Aiden said, annoyed. “That or your bondage of truth is broken.”

“We did ask him about his activities—I’m willing to show you the transcript of the conversation,” Diana said, tone unchanged.

Aiden could feel his anger dying; she wouldn’t have offered it so freely if she didn’t have it; she didn’t seem the type of lying so blatantly either. It didn’t negate the fact that Emil had apparently finessed his way past their questioning, or that they had simply asked the wrong questions. Now that he was thinking about it, hadn’t Emil said something about how the Justice League wasn’t omnipotent?

The bastard had been taunting him to his face.

“Fine, but you all suck,” Aiden snapped, “This is the second time since I made that deal with you that my shit has been stolen—Tell me you still have my ship at least? Or did you send that off with Emil as well?”