Chapter 5: Disadvantages

"Okay, so what are we doing here again?"

Aqualad hardly acknowledged Kid Flash's question. He stood silently, staring at what appeared to be just a giant heap of rock in the ground. It was dimly lit, but not because it was nighttime- - dark gray clouds covered the atmosphere above and threatened a storm. They came randomly and unexpectedly, though thankfully any rain was holding off… for now.

"Aqualad," Artemis interrupted the Atlantean's thoughts. "I think your team deserves to know what is going on."

Aqualad turned to face his four teammates. "We're here to get answers. In the duration our last mission, I saw something that seemed… out of place. That is, out of place for salt miners." He paused as if thinking of the best way to tell them the rest. "When I went back for Robin, the suspects ran at the first sight of my presence… however they left something behind." He opened his right fist to reveal a jagged white rock, one that appeared to have absolutely no significance to it whatsoever.

The teenagers stared at the rock intently before slowly moving their gazes back to Aqualad. "Halite, dude?" Kid Flash stated, his voice thick with a dumbfounded tone.

Aqualad's eyelids fell slightly and he held the halite up for them all to see closely. Peering in the team began to understand what the deal was all about; if they squinted just right they would be able to detect small markings in the side of them, markings that were not natural and formed some type of wording.

"Wow! For a fish you've got sharp eyes, Aqualad," Kid Flash joked and he sped to snatch the halite out of his leader's hand. "What's it say?"

"Give that back, you dingus," Artemis snapped and she quipped it out of his grasp, handing it back to a cross Aqualad. Said person dipped his head and dropped his tone to one of sincerity.

"What I made out of it did not make much sense, but after looking into Robin's hacked file records I discovered where we could find out more about it." He was about to face the heap of rock again when Superboy interrupted.

"Wait. Are you saying you led us back to the salt miners?" he asked in disbelief.

Artemis immediately took his side. "Yeah, what are you thinking, Aqualad? Don't you remember that we're looking for a Butch Reynolds? Superboy himself said they worked for a Roster!"

M'gann levitated several inches off the ground, a look of concern featuring her expression. "Does this mean Robin didn't make a mistake after all?"

"No, it means Aqualad's lost his mind," Artemis corrected, scowling as she paced back and forth restlessly.

"Quiet," Aqualad commanded. Without saying a word he stepped towards the rock pile, unsheathing his water bearers and pointing them forward, his head dipped and eyes shut as he concentrated hard. His arms shaking from the strain, his bearers started to draw water out the sides of the rock, and a low rumbling somewhere deep below them all started to sound. The more water he drew in the more intense it became, and eventually the stones were starting to crack apart. Aqualad's entire body shook as he screamed to get down before the entire face of the rock wall burst open with water streaming from all sides, and as quick as Flash could run Aqualad made a shield of water circle around himself and his team to protect them from the merciless onslaught of falling stones. For what seemed like forever rocks and water poured on down and around them, finally settling down after an agony of suspense. Aqualad waited to make sure it was completely quiet before weakly dropping his water bearers and falling to his knees in exhaustion, the former water shield limply showering over him and his teammates. Aside from any protests about being drenched, M'gann, Kid Flash, Artemis and Superboy found themselves unharmed and quickly ran up to check on their drained leader, who was panting from how much effort he put into his work.

"This," Aqualad breathed, "is what we came here for."

Looking up, the team saw what they probably should have seen coming. The newly made hole in the rock pile exposed a tunnel that led underground to depths unknown, so far back that the darkness concealed even Superboy's vision to determine whether or not there was an end. A cold breeze seemed to wash over them all at that moment, contrasting well with the slow and ominous water drops falling rhythmically from the cave walls. When Aqualad had caught what he needed of breath he took no hesitation to walk inside. "Let's go," he commanded, and the remaining four followed more reluctantly and cautiously.

Once darkness engulfed them, Aqualad's water-bearers glowed in a soft teal color to give them some form of vision. The ominous atmosphere grew thicker the further the team went through the tunnel, cold wind swirling around their figures presenting chills. The silence between the teenagers made it worse for especially Kid Flash, whose heart rate was beating a gazillion times faster than normal. A drop of water from a stalactite above dropped on the speedster's nose, and his squeal of terror made everyone freeze in their steps and stare at him. Artemis slapped Kid Flash's arm and glared at him hard, making the boy grin sheepishly and apologetically. The team, realizing it was just Wally being Wally, continued on their path with a more positive feel to themselves; unfortunately this mood turned back into an edgy and foreboding one when the amusing moment was forgotten in the shadows. After further tense time had passed, the five supers finally managed to get some relief at the sight of light up ahead, and upon seeing it all but Aqualad started to move a little faster forward to reach it. Their leader, already knowing what to expect, hissed a warning almost too late as the other four came upon the end of the road, the tunnel disappearing before them and leaving nothing but a hole in the side of a much bigger rock face on all sides- - however even with the small light source that they discovered was a lit torch on the wall it was impossible to tell what else lied in front of them with the lack of lighting. Unsurprisingly Kid Flash nearly fell over the cliff, but Superboy merely grabbed the back of his suit and threw him back on the ground.

Artemis was the first one to speak since they entered the tunnels. "Aqualad…" she breathed through the cold air, trying in vain to make out what was ahead, above, and below the cliff face, "Where have you taken us?"

However Aqualad didn't respond directly. Instead he unsheathed his water-bearers and summoned all the water he could from the cave walls, and with a quick and easy thrust of his arms the water shot forward a few hundred feet into the cavern where it finally laid to rest on the opposite wall of the enormous space. The cool liquid filled up a divot in the ground which immediately started to glow like Aqualad's water-bearers often did, except considering how large the pool of water made itself as, this particular glow made a fantastic blue light that spread throughout the entire cavern, giving every team member a chance to see what was lying before them. The teenagers fell silent in awe; the sight of rock walls, slick with water and sharp in stone, being seen in all directions except down and stretching hundreds and hundreds of feet away to fill up an enormous pit untouched by sunlight was just incredible.

"I didn't know you could do that, Aqualad," M'gann whispered, glancing in fascination at the bluely lit pool in the distance.

Aqualad dipped his head, admiring the scenery with formal eyes. "I suppose we still have yet to learn each other," he murmured lowly before getting down to business. He faced his teammates. "I did not bring you all down here just to enjoy the fascinating view… this is not any normal cave in the world. These are the very mines where "Roster" and his crew have been working in after all this time."

Kid Flash interrupted with a confused expression on his face. "You know something we don't about these miners. You know they aren't just a bunch of salt-freaks… cor-rect?"

"I am not positive. But I do know now that Roster is in affiliation with Butch Reynolds," he explained in a low voice, pausing to expect more questions from the four.

"How?" M'gann asked innocently without any sign of scorn.

Aqualad's gaze lifted upwards, looking far above the glowing pool of water he had made before. "Those markings look exactly like the ones on the halite."

Everyone followed his eyes and fell stunned at the sight of huge indents into the opposite cave wall that spelled out strange markings, nearly identical to what they saw on the halite just as Aqualad said. Once several moments of tense silence passed Wally exclaimed, "How did we not see that?"

"So Robin was right all along," M'gann concluded slowly. "And we just pushed him away."

Aqualad shook his head in disagreement. "I do not believe Robin knew about this… he was quite accurately just as surprised as we were to have made a 'mistake.' The only thing we have uncovered now was it was not at all a mistake… it was something to keep us busy."

"Well, we gotta go find them, then!" Kid Flash declared.

M'gann looked solemn. "But where? We don't know where they could have gone…"

While the four young heroes conversed about their next move Superboy stiffened to stillness, tuning out their voices and straining his ears to listen. He heard something happening… something big was coming their way. After moments longer of concentrating the pieces suddenly flew together in the Kryptonean's mind- - the enemy intended for them to come here.

"They've tricked us!" Superboy howled a warning too late when people wearing air filtered masks swung into the tunnel from the cavern, guns pointed and spewing gas grenades thrown.

Shocked from the arrival the team made misconfigured attempts to fend for themselves; M'gann tried to confuse the minds of her opponents but was distracted when one of them blew a blow-torch her way. Gasping in fear and surprise, M'gann inhaled too much of the smoke bombs' fuse and felt herself drifting. Superboy ran to save her fall but was turned away by a dark masks' firing bullets, which bounced off of his impenetrable skin and flung back at the enemy who disengaged to dodge his own gunshots. Superboy summed up more adrenaline with a rage-filled growl and bowled the man over, ultimately throwing him off the side of the cliff. The man was lucky enough to have grabbed onto a ledge further down, but he now remained out of the way. Superboy attended his anger towards the rest of the dark masks but stiffened when an odd dart shot into his heel, injecting him with something unexplainable. With a low groan the clone fell, unresponsive.

Artemis and Kid Flash gritted their teeth, both shouting "No!" at the same moment. Together they charged, the archer flinging an arrow which exploded upon impact and the speedster making a tornado. Aqualad, although busy washing his opposers away sharply shouted at Kid Flash to stop, sensing with eyes and ears that any more strain against the rocks could make the gradually unstable tunnel collapse overtop all of them. Kid Flash paused to stare at Aqualad, a bad move on his part when the enemy took advantage of his uncommon hesitation to inject a dart in his body like they had Superboy and cross a sickeningly solid punch past his jaw. Dizzy, Kid Flash managed to avoid any other punches but slowly felt his body start to fatigue. The poison they dosed him, along with the gas intermingling amidst the oxygen, finally started to catch up to his fast metabolism, resulting with the boy in a limp state.

Aqualad realized they didn't have a chance to victory; he too was feeling the effects of the gas take its toll on him. The last thing he saw was Artemis fall to the ground beside the rest of his friend's motionless bodies, and the last thing he heard was the enemy's incoherent shouts of triumph.

A/N: Yes, I haven't died; I was just on extreme hiatus for what, 5 months? But I'm back now, so that makes inexplicably abandoning all of you for so long okay. :) Even though I can't say I deserve it, reviews would be great! They help keep me going. I won't try to leave you guys hanging for so long again, but I am not making any promises!