| Chapter Six: Nostalgia |

Jump City

July 9

"You're doing it again."

Fourteen blinked. He turned his attention away from the city's skyline, looking back to see Eight standing at the doorway. "Doing what?"

The younger snorted and walked towards Fourteen. He plopped down besides the elder of the two, dangling his legs off of the building's edge without care. "Y'know, moping around. Although I'm surprised Ten isn't out here doing some weird voodoo with you."

Fourteen rolled his eyes, playfully pushing Eight's shoulder. The younger scoffed and pushed him back. "First of all, Ten meditates—it has nothing to do with voodoo—and second, I'm not moping, I'm thinking. And I'm tired, I've been using too much energy lately."

"Then what're you thinking about?" Eight asked.

The oldest hummed to himself and trained his gaze back to the sky. The warehouse they had secured as their base was on the edge of town, close to the beach, and many of them would climb over to the roof and sit for hours to unwind. It was one of Fourteen's favorite places, with a light breeze that always smelled like palm trees and salt-water touching his skin and soothing away any stresses he had. Almost the whole city was on display at this very spot, and there was something therapeutic about watching the city go through the day normally. He probably came up here the most, but Ten was a close second with all the time she spent here to meditate in peace—and maybe Five at third, although as the youngest, everyone else made sure to keep an eye on her at all times.

He shrugged. "I don't know. A lot of things."

A second of silence passed. Eight's legs stopped swinging for a beat, and Fourteen could almost hear the younger thinking in that moment. He started swinging his legs again as soon as he stopped. "Is it about Project Kr?"

Fourteen shook his head. "Nah. Superboy's his own person. I'm totally whelmed with his decision to stay with the sidekicks." He looked at Eight, only to see his eyebrows scrunched.

"Dude, whelmed? What the hell does that mean?"

"Whelmed. Like, not overwhelmed or underwhelmed, you know?"

Eight snorted. "Okay, sure, whatever. What else is it then? Is it the sidekicks? One already has a stick up his ass about it."

"Where have you been learning all these bad words?" Fourteen asked jokingly, a sly grin on his lips. "Aren't you a little too young to be saying those things?"

The youngest glared up at him. "I hate you."

Fourteen smiled sickeningly sweet. "Aww, no you don't." He laughed as he dodged a punch sent his way. "Geez, calm down, E." The two ended up swatting and playfully pushing at each other for a few minutes, until eventually the irritated spark in Eight's eyes faded into a playful fire. They continued until Eight crossed his arms over his chest and looked back over the city, Fourteen following suit.

"…so it is the sidekicks, then?" Eight eventually asked.

Fourteen raised an eyebrow. "You've been getting too observant."

"It's a side effect of being stuck with you."

The oldest huffed a laugh. "Yeah…I guess it is. But it's nothing, really."

"What," Eight asked, "You think they're gonna blow this for us?"

No. The sidekicks were competent enough when Fourteen teamed up with them to help Superboy escape, but Aqualad and Kid Flash hadn't even questioned why everything around them was getting hacked into until Fourteen had flat out told them he had been the one behind it. They were smart to an extent, and he had no doubt that the Justice League would induct more members into whatever new team they formed to help balance out brawns and brains. The group might bud their heads into his business a few times if they ever crossed paths again, but Fourteen knew he could dance around them easily if he needed to.

But there was something almost…familiar about helping them escape from Cadmus. He had gotten used to working with a group, he fought along with his friends all the time, but there was something bordering on nostalgia when he worked with the sidekicks. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Something he didn't know the others would understand. Something he himself didn't understand.

Fourteen hummed in thought. "Maybe." He angled his head down to look at Eight. "But we'll take care of them. I always have tricks up my sleeve."

The youngest crossed his legs, quirking his lips to the side. "That's true. C'mon, let's go inside. You can stress about the junior heroes later, we've got other things to worry about right now."

"Yeah, yeah. When did you get so bossy?"

Eight glared at Fourteen. The younger rose from the floor and turned towards the roof's entrance. "You coming or what?"

Fourteen teasingly sighed and followed Eight's movements. He shook off all the thoughts about the junior heroes and the time he teamed up with them. He had more important things to worry about, and the heroes would only get in his way.

Watchtower

July 10

Superman set his lips in a firm line. "No."

Black Canary heaved a sigh, crossing her arms over her chest. "Superman," she began again, slowly, "I know it's…uncomfortable—and a little unorthodox, to keep Superboy around, but he didn't do anything wrong. And he needs a mentor to help him with his abilities."

The Man of Steel frowned stubbornly. They had been at this for hours, different members of the League trying to convince Superman to even talk to the new clone, but the hero wouldn't listen to reason. Even Zatara and Martian Manhunter tried to talk sense into the Kryptonian to no avail. At this point, Canary was seriously considering locking Superman in a room with kryptonite until he caved in to go talk to Superboy.

The clone had just officially moved into the cave earlier that day with Miss Martian, and one of the first things Superboy did after Canary dropped by was ask her about Superman. Despite how the clone only having seen the Man of Steel once, it was evident that Superboy knew he was being avoided, if the angry yet downcast expression on his face was anything to go by. Dinah had then told herself that she would pound some sense into Superman if it was the last thing she did.

Unfortunately, he had a stubborn streak that almost—almost rivaled Batman's. Superman had only repeatedly said that Superboy wasn't his responsibility, and that the clone would do perfectly fine without him.

"Look, we've been on this for too long, we need to move on to the next subject," Superman said tightly. He moved his gaze over to the Dark Knight, who watched the exchange silently from the other side of the table. "Batman, what do you have?"

Batman stayed silent for a few moments, white lenses boring into the Man of Steel. His mouth twitched, and Canary almost thought that Batman was going to snap at Superman for addressing him harshly or being a jerk in general, but he remained sitting stoic. Only after the Man of Steel squirmed uncomfortably in his chair did the Dark Knight move on.

He waved his hand up for the holographic screen to display in the center of the table and typed away on a keyboard the lit up right in front of him. "I've been looking into the hacker Kid Flash, Aqualad, and Superboy informed us about." On the screen, an imagine taken from the Cadmus security footage showed Kid Flash and Aqualad stuck in pods, Superboy on the the ground, and all three of them staring at the mystery hacker. The imagine only showed the kid's back, with the hood from his jacket thrown over his head to prevent even his hair to be shown on camera. Batman pushed a button on the keyboard, and suddenly the image turned into a video that showed the sidekicks and clone talking to the hacker. The video had no audio, but they all watched as scientists entered the room and the kid back flipped out of the frame. "This is all the footage I've been able to secure of him. Everything after this cuts off."

Wonder Woman tilted her head at the screen. "He is small, he can't be any older than Kid Flash."

"Sure, he's small," Flash injected, "but he's smart enough to apparently hack into not only Cadmus, but our own systems. Batman, have you figured out how the kid did that?"

The Dark Knight resumed typing. A new image popped up on the screen, this time a jumble of computer codes that probably only Batman understood displayed. "The hacker infected a section of our system with a Trojan Horse and he was able to gain backdoor access. I found the issue and reprogrammed the system accordingly, the hacker should now be sufficiently cleared from all systems."

"Do you have any idea what information he accessed?" Black Canary asked.

"He might have been good at hacking into our system, but it's easy to leave fingerprints behind if you don't know how it works. There's evidence that he looked at our information on Cadmus, and he looked into some current missions the League had been working on, but I reprogrammed everything before he could look farther."

"Well…" Green Arrow said, "that's good, I guess. What section of the system did he even infect?"

Batman angled his head to the archer, his stare blank yet somehow threatening. "Queen Estate in Star City."

Black Canary blinked, and she knew without even looking that Oliver probably had the same expression as she did on his face. The entirety of the League stared down the archer, who stared blankly at Batman, lips parted, as if he was waiting for Batman to say he was joking.

(Which they all knew wasn't coming. Batman never jokes. Especially about something like this.)

"What?" GA eventually breathed out. "Into the computer I have at my house? How the hell did the kid even—"

Batman held up a hand. Green Arrow was sufficiently silenced. "The first time the new presence was introduced was the first of this month. That night, you were—"

"Here," the Star City hero finished, realization blossoming on his face. "I was here, first for the meeting, and then for monitor duty."

"And Speedy?" Batman pressed. The whole League had basically avoided bringing up the now ex-sidekick around Green Arrow after the whole Independence Day fiasco. They knew it would only bring his spirit down, and well, only Black Canary herself knew about the drama that had now been going on with them since that day. But now, all feelings aside, they needed to get to the bottom of this hacker situation. "Was he not home? The hacker had to of broken in to your house to infect your computer."

"Speedy had gone out on patrol with Kid Flash," Green Arrow answered, for once looking more confused about the situation than sad about Roy. He looked over at Flash, who had the same look on his face. "They were both dealing with a murder situation in the city. They were out until about one in the morning."

"Then that gave the hacker plenty of time to break into your house."

"But…my security is top notch, it should have alerted me the minute anyone tries to break in—"

"This is someone who hacked the Justice League, GA," Hal Jordan spoke up, "your security is probably easy to break into compared to that."

Green Arrow still looked baffled—and Black Canary couldn't blame him. She knew as soon as this meeting was over, he was going to drag her back to Queen Estate and look over his security footage over and over again until he found something off. "But you all know I had upgraded it…a lot."

Hal rolled his eyes. "Your security. Justice League. There's a big difference."

"I recommend you go over your security footage," Batman finally spoke up again, his attention on the archer. "Since it has since become a problem, I will make a stop by sometime this week to strengthen your firewalls and rid any bugs. But now that the hacker has been flushed out, he knows we've found his presence in our system—it's highly doubtful he'll attempt to break into your Estate now that we are aware he has before."

Green Arrow didn't answer, only slumped back in his chair in defeat, falling into a contemplative silence.

"Are we sure this kid did it?" Flash finally asked. "I mean, he was at Cadmus, but why would a kid have any interest in Cadmus in the first place? I say he's working for someone, and the boss is silently pulling the strings."

Batman nodded. "It's possible. So are a million other things, but your nephew said that when his and Aqualad's DNA was being extracted, the hacker had somehow knocked out the scientists. And we saw the footage of his backflip. And he assisted with the fight against Blockbuster. He has been trained, the only question is who did and for what purpose."

Superman hummed thoughtfully. "There's no footage of the fight against Blockbuster?"

"The footage I showed is the only footage I could render. The hacker had cut off the rest with explosives to many of Cadmus' main power sources."

The entire League—excluding Batman and Martian Manhunter—slid back in the chairs in bafflement. This kid was smart, too smart…and they all had no idea who he was.

"And there's no clue about who this hacker might be?" Black Canary asked. "Do we know anyone who could do this?"

Something—something—flashed across Batman's face in less than a second, but it was gone before she could identify what it was. "No."

They all sat in silence for several seconds. It looked like they had a new person to add to their wanted list.

Jump City

July 12

Nineteen strolled silently down the alley, hood pulled up over her hair. It was well passed midnight now, with only drunks and criminals out in this side of town. No one had even glanced at her twice walking down the street in her dark attire.

She continued until she reached a dead end, almost wholly encased in shadows. The stench of alcohol and rotting trash filled the air, causing her to scrunch up her nose, but she remained firmly rooted in her spot.

"I know you're there," she called out into the night.

The answer she got was a chuckle. Out of the shadows stepped out a hulking mass of a man, head shaved completely and multiple tattoos of vines and snakes poking out from under his black shirt. He nodded in greeting, eyes raking her from head to toe.

In turn, she pushed off the hood and smiled mischievously. "I was told you had a job for me."

"Yes, I did tell you're two little friends that at the bar," he answered. "But I believe there might have to be more than one person for this."

Nineteen cocked her head curiously to the side. "And why is that?"

"It's a hard job. You and your friends will be compensated handsomely in return. Now tell me, have you ever been to Santa Prisca?"

Not gonna lie, this chapter is hella boring…but I had a lot of fun writing it. The plot is finally moving, guys!

…slowly, but it's moving!

I tried to throw in a few hints for who some of Project 7 could be, but more will be revealed later. I like to throw in all the information slowly, but soon enough it will be obvious who each person is.

I feel like we haven't had much of a chance to see into Fourteen's personality, and even though he has now obviously gone through some shit and changed drastically, I wanted to show he didn't undergo a complete 180 change. That was kind of the point of the beginning of this chapter.

I just recently started college classes, and I have no idea how busy I'll be in the near future, which is why I tried to update this now. I'm hoping that I can upload a new chapter by the time October rolls around, but no guarantee.

Disclaimer: I don't know what the fuck a Trojan Horse is. I'm not a computer science major. I read online that hackers can gain backdoor access using them, so I just kind of went with it. If any of you here are more familiar with them, please enlighten me.

Please leave a review or follow/favorite! It kind of motivates me to update…

-Chris