Aiden’s Warehouse, Boston, 3:57 PM.

November 11th, 2010.

“The five fortresses have been making steady progress across North America,” Cat Grant said seriously, “Over an hour now since they first appeared, the temperatures continue to drop.”

Aiden glanced over at Byrna, who was uncharacteristically not working for once. Instead, she was fixated on the news report.

“They appear to be lining up across America, coast to coast in an attempt to freeze the country,” Cat continued, “This is the second simultaneous ice-based attack in the last six months—last time the culprits were all imprisoned in Belle Reve—we’ve inquired already, they are still in there cells, so just who is responsible for this mess? And so soon after the tragedy—”

The temperature was continuing to drop—it was already snowing in most cities. Aiden had just about reached the end of his tether with these fucking villains—the world was still reeling from the last attack.

“Byrna, I’m going to help,” Aiden admitted, standing up slowly. “It shouldn’t be too hard to break one of these things.”

Byrna shot up, heading for her suit, and he blinked.

“You’re coming with me?” Aiden guessed.

“Obviously,” Byrna said quickly, “I going to steal their designs—you’re going to need to get me into one of those fortresses. ”

Aiden rolled his eyes.

“How long is that going to take?” Aiden pressed. “I want these things gone.”

“Uh,” Byrna flapped her hand around for a bit, “Twenty minutes at a guess? I’ll just jack into the control center and yoink it.”

“That easy, huh?” Aiden mumbled. “Fine, get ready. We are leaving in ten minutes.”

Byrna started dragging her suit components on and sealing them together. She left the helmet off as she started messing with a small blue cube with several cables hanging off it. Aiden didn’t bother asking what it was. He doubted he would understand her explanation either way.

“How are you going to destroy it?” Byrna muttered, seemingly working on five different screens at once. “From a glance, it’s completely made of metal. It’s going to be more durable than normal.”

“I’m going to blow it up,” Aiden said easily. “How’s it staying in the air with all that weight?”

He hadn’t had much of a reason to use Ki-blasts in the past. They caused far too much destruction to the area struck, but he had used one on Divine in their battle—he doubted that the fortresses would stand up as well as a Kryptonian.

“Some kind of gravity effect based on temperature control most likely—I’ll find out when we steal it,” Byrna said gleefully, “Soon I’ll no longer be trapped on the ground! This is going to be awesome.”

“Glad there’s some positive to this situation,” Aiden muttered, squinting for a moment.

A familiar Ki-signature had just entered the city—moving fast. Kid Flash was in Boston—most likely to pick up that heart for that one chick. Aiden frowned. Hadn’t someone attacked him along the way? He couldn’t remember who it was, but he’d failed to delay the guy for more than a couple of minutes.

“Are you ready yet?” Aiden frowned, “The Justice League is going to attack the fortresses soon. You’re going to miss your chance if you take too long.”

Byrna yelped and made a few last moment adjustments to her little cube device before unplugging it and jamming her helmet on her head.

“Ready!” Byrna said quickly.

“Oh my god,” Byrna said weakly, “Why are we so high?”

Aiden rolled his eyes behind his mask, moving towards the growing spec in the distance—going by the news reports, this was the one they were calling ‘Ice-Fortress 2.’ A creative name for sure—nobody seemed to be attacking it yet, so he circled it wide for a moment taking in all of the turret placements.

“I’m going to take out the guns,” Aiden said easily, “I’ll drop you off near the middle. Get ready to dodge.”

“I’m ready!” Byrna said quickly, “Just put me down already!”

Aiden zipped forwards, slamming into the center of the fortress with a crack that shattered the metal, and Byrna skated away from him within seconds. The guns were already turning to target them, and he flashed forwards, striking the closest one and tearing straight through it on his way past. It exploded behind him, and he twisted around a slow-moving blast of blue light and front kicked the next one, shattering it into a million pieces.

He fired two weak Ki-blast at the more distant ones, disintegrating both in a wash of yellow energy and leaving behind small craters in the metal.

“This sides safe,” Aiden called out, and Byrna finished her rotation around the center, spinning to a stop next to him.

“There’s more on the other side,” Byrna said excitedly.

“Forget them, were on a timer here,” Aiden said easily, “There’s nobody inside that I can sense, any idea where the door is?”

Byrna pointed to an outline of a rectangle on the metal surface, barely visible. Aiden leaped forward, then surged downwards with a burst of Ksi, sending the metal hatch smashing downwards and out of sight.

“I’ll go first,” Aiden said easily, dropping down.

His hand flashed upwards and pulled his head to the side as a blast of blue energy shot past his face, connecting with the wall and leaving a circle of frost behind. He reached out and ripped the turret off the wall in a shower of sparks.

Aiden moved down the hallway towards the center of the fortressed, blocking the shots with the torn-up metal and destroying them as he passed by. Byrna followed behind him, slowly skating in a swerving pattern like she was at an ice rink and not a massive flying deathtrap in the sky.

The hallway eventually leads to a large metal door that was sent bouncing inside. The center of the fortressed was a massive circular room, with a series of monitors and consoles facing one side.

“Oh!” Byrna said happily, “My turn.”

Aiden studied the walls, looking for more turrets, but apparently, they hadn’t put any in here. He picked up the mass door and snapped it in half, leaving himself with a thick metal shield. He stabbed it into the ground next to her, facing the open doorway for some cover, before moving towards the other door.

“Ding me on comms if you need me,” Aiden said calmly, “I’m going to break the rest of these turrets.”

“Will do!” Byrna said cheerfully. “Have fun!”

By the time he’d clear two other hallways, he felt several Ki-signatures arrive from above the fortress. One of them he didn’t know, one of them he was pleased to see, and one immediately ruined his good mood.

“Of course, I picked the fucking fortress with Canary.” Aiden groaned, punching the wall in frustration.

The hallway shattered inwards under the force, and he sighed before heading back to where Byrna was. There was a loud noise and a vibration through the entire fortress, as something impacted it from above, but he ignored it.

“You done yet?” Aiden asked, “It’s time to go—the heroes are here.”

Byrna’s cube was jacked into five different ports, and she looked like she was trying to do about eight different things at once. No convenient progress bar for him to watch this time.

“Almost!” Byrna pleaded, “Five more minutes?”

“Ugh, are you trying to go back to sleep, or are you robbing a high-tech space fortress?” Aiden said, annoyed, “Hurry up before they bring it down while we’re still inside.”

“Yikes,” Byrna said, pouting, “Don’t tell me that—You’ll give me performance anxiety.”

“Everything gives you anxiety,” Aiden pointed out, “Remember when I told you how much sugar was in Honey Smacks—Aiden, it has honey in the name, isn’t it natural sugar? But I’ve been eating it for years!”

“Stop bringing it up!” Byrna cried indignantly. “I didn’t know the name was a lie—that’s just false advertising. I can’t trust anything anymore!”

“The whole world against you because of the sugar contents in cereal?” Aiden said, amused, “Makes sense to me.”

Another piercing sound washed over the fortresses, following by a much longer vibration, and Aiden could feel as a red-tinged wind suddenly started washing through the halls. That had to be Red Tornado—and someone he wanted to speak to.

“How long?” Aiden said slowly, staring up at the roof.

Byrna didn’t reply, but he could hear the rate of her typing pick up again. He couldn’t sense the robot, no Ki-source to speak of. How much would he know about Morrow? He’d been out of the man’s service for decades at this point and a hero for just as long. He wouldn’t know his current whereabouts, but he might have some kind of fundamental understanding that would be useful for finding Enkidu.

He’d been out of contact with the League since they’d tested the limits of his patience. They must have been waiting for him to cool down a bit—but he needed to know what they had found out about the situation.

Surely Red Tornado would be included in that mission—he was closer to the situation than Aiden was after all.

“Done!” Byrna said gleefully, “Hah, I can’t wait to get back to the warehouse—let’s go!”

“Not yet,” Aiden said firmly, “I’m going to talk to Red Tornado first—and destroy this thing as well, I suppose.”

Aiden scooped her up under the legs and took off down the hallway, moving at speed. Byrn yelped as the world blurred around her, and then he lept up out of the destroyed hatch. Conner stared at him from ten meters away, shocked. A giant white wolf sat next to him, growling.

“Yo,” Aiden said easily, “We beat you here, huh?”

Conner placed his finger to his ear, talking under his breath, and then Red Tornado touched down a moment later, with Black Canary.

“Aiden,” Black Canary said quietly.

“Red Tornado,” Aiden greeted, “I want to discuss Morrow and his androids with you. Can we talk?”

The robot seemed perfectly fine with having the conversation right there on the fortress.

“I understand that you have a comrade who is currently under the control of my creator,” Red Tornado said evenly, “I do not have any information that would be of aid to your quest, but I am willing to discuss with you my understanding of the man who created me.”

Fuck.

“Good enough for me,” Aiden said, nodding, “I just want to know if you think she’s dead or not—did he destroy his creations often?”

“No,” Red Tornado said seriously, “He was quite attached to everything he created. I have never seen him intentionally destroy one of us, disassemble perhaps—but according to the information you provided us—he has hidden many things from me, even back then.”

Aiden took some solace in that, but Red Tornado wasn’t finished.

“As you discovered—It is likely that the Morrow that was destroyed at Yellowstone was simply one of many,” Red Tornado said, nodding, “It is likely that each of those… Morrow instances—were kept separate from one another, and pursued diverging interests, the existence of Enkidu points to this being possible—or so Batman has theorized.”

Batman was still following through on the investigation—that took some of the stings out of their attack—it didn’t make it right.

“Aiden,” Black Canary said again, once the conversation has petered out. “I would like to apologize for our actions against you once again.”

Aiden turned to look at her for the first time, studying her—he was pretty sure she was genuine, but he was still pretty wary. He had been able to follow the chain of logic they’d taken—and how it had led to ganking him in the Watchtower. It didn’t make him any less pissed off, but he could understand it at least.

“What did you do while I was asleep?” Aiden said directly, “I still know all of your identities, so you didn’t wipe my mind. I suppose you could have changed my memory so that all of the names were wrong—”

“Nothing like that happened, Diana is completely against such things, but she isn’t alone in her opinion,” Black Canary said calmly, “We did have Martian Manhunter check if you had a mind that he could sense, which you did, and then we ran a series of physical scans on your body—”

“That wouldn’t have confirmed that I wasn’t a cyborg with a human brain,” Aiden pressed, “You didn’t mind wipe me—did you take a sample?”

“We took three millimeter thick samples that punctured the entire way through your body while you were asleep. They healed within an hour.” Black Canary admitted immediately, “There was no trace of micro-machinery inside your body, unlike when we performed the same test on the Morrow in Belle Reve.”

It was both less invasive than mind wiping him and more-so because they’d taken parts of his body without permission—regardless of how small they were.

“You could have asked me for that sample,” Aiden said without inflection. “I would have given it to you—I came to you for help.”

“We couldn’t risk it,” Black Canary said quietly, “There was a chance that the sudden reveal of so much information was a trick to gain further access to our organization. You had already been making suspicious attempts—”

“I told you he wasn’t trying to subvert me,” Conner said simply, sounding like it was an old argument. “He hasn’t asked me for anything—he was helping me get stronger.”

Evidently there sparring sessions hadn’t been as on the down-low as he had assumed—stupid of him in hindsight.

“May I finish?” Black Canary said simply.

Aiden waved her on impatiently. He squinted against the wind for a moment. They should really take this to a better location.

“The sparring sessions with Diana and Superboy,” Black Canary continued, “The interference in several missions, the disappearance of Emil Hamilton while he was researching you, the unexplainable knowledge of multiple villains schemes with no reason that you should know.”

Aiden kept his silence, thinking over all of the events that he’d been entangled with—he already connected all of this in his mind. It was all he had thought about since it had fucking happened.

“We also thought you might have been bringing us invaluable information, in order to establish yourself amongst us, and with the knowledge that Morrow has been kidnapping people—with powers or otherwise—and turning them into replica’s—with the knowledge that he’s tried exactly this thing before if under different circumstances.”

Red Tornado looked away from them for a moment. It seemed to be one of the man’s fixations, infiltrating the League, or establishing fake heroes in powerful positions.

Actually, this entire world seemed to be like that. That’s why Superboy had been created, right? With triggers to keep him at Lex’s beck and call. It seemed to be a reoccurring theme with this place, clones, and infiltrators. Those shadow dudes had even tried that with that other dude too, the archer guy whose name was stupid—

Oh, shit—he’d forgotten about the archer with the stupid name.

“There’s another infiltrator,” Aiden said suddenly, having déjà vu.

His mind surging to make connections he hadn’t thought about in over a decade—had this happened yet or not? The infiltrator ended up being a good guy, didn’t he? Or was he misremembering? Fucking capeshit!

“Another one!?” Conner said demanded.

“Who is it?” Black Canary said seriously.

“Hold on—” Aiden said, annoyed, “You sure you don’t want to get the Watchtower ready to gas me again? I can wait!

Black Canary flushed.

“I’m not talking about this here anyway—get off the fortress. I’m about to blow it out of the sky.” Aiden said evenly, “I’ll give you one minute.”

Aiden lifted Byrna back up, arm around her waist this time, and headed straight up above the massive machine.

“Wow,” Byrna said hesitantly before joking. “You’re not angry at all.”

He watched as Conner grabbed the wolf and lifted it off the ground, and Red Tornado lifted off with Canary at his shoulder. They moved up to a similar height moving closer until they were behind him.

“I’m furious,” Aiden admitted quietly, “I’m going to take that anger out on this fucking thing—hold on tight.”

“Uh, oh,” Byrna said nervously.

Aiden raised his hand up, palm pointed at the massive sky fortresses below, still gliding slowly on an arc away from them. He slowly built up Ki in front of his palm, taking his time and channeling all of his anger into the technique.

The Ki-blast grew larger, the yellow orb doubling in size before compressing down and then increasing once more—he’d never made one so strong before. It was many times stronger than the one he’d hit Divine with—there was no need to worry about collateral out here.

The orb flashed dangerously in the air for a moment, and then he fired.

Ice Fortress 2 vanished in a wave of energy as the ki-blast exploded, disintegrating everything in front of it in a wash of yellow light. The thick smoke was torn away by the wind pressure, and the dusting of metal that had survived the blast rained down to the empty fields below.

“Holy shit!” Byrna said in alarm.

“I don’t need to infiltrate your organization if I want to mess with you,” Aiden said seriously, glancing back at the other three. “I’ll just knock on your front door.”

“Message received,” Black Canary said evenly.

“We have another infiltrator to discuss,” Aiden said simply. “Have you guys got the rest of these things covered, or do we need to make a detour?”

Conner stared at where the fortress used to be before looking down at his own hand intently.