The Young Justice

17

Mount Justice
28/02/2016, 10:07 EST

Nightwing was decrypting the Krolotean intel they had stolen from Malina Island. Robin and Beast Boy appraoched from the other side, watching him.

"Decryption completed. Translation completed," announced the computer.

"Is that the Krolotean intel?" asked Robin.

Beast Boy looked up at Robin, confused. "What Krolotean intel?"

"The data files M'gann and J'onn recovered on Malina Island before it was destroyed," replied Nightwing.

"Ah, noted." Beast Boy did not look like he understood.

"Apparently, the Kroloteans were snatching humans to use as guinea pigs. They were hoping to find something. Something inside us," Nightwing said, almost as if speaking to himself, but he obviously wasn't. Instead, he was making sure to not let Storm know the reason or to not meet anymore Kroloteans.

"What?" Robin asked, drawing Nightwing out of his thoughts.

"There's no English word for it. The nearest translation is Meta-Gene." Nightwing turned to Robin as he answered.

"What's a Meta-Gene?"

Beast Boy lightly ebowed Robin's back with a grin. "Never meta Gene I didn't like."

And that was when Computer spoke. "Warning: unknown energy impulse detected."

Behind Nightwing was a large ball of electricity, crackling. The three heroes in the room were all in a ready stance.

The lightning stopped crackling and a dark grey machine appeared. It dropped to the ground with a dull thud, smoking. Some areas of the machine were glowing a light blue colour.

"Stand ready," Nightwing warned, pulling out his escrima sticks. Robin had his staff ready and Beast Boy was prepared to transform.

The hatch for the machine opened and a lot of smoke poured out. In the smoke, a vague outline of a human body was there. A red gloved hand came into focus first since it was reaching out.

The two hands held the sides of the open hatch and out jumped a...boy?

He landed in a crouch position.

He was in a beige coloured suit with red gloves and the middle of the suit was red. He had on red goggles with yellow protective glass. His shoes were red as well.

He had green eyes and a mop of brown hair combed pretty neatly.

The boy stood straight, spread his arms out, and grinned brightly.

"Ta-da!"

Nightwing narrowed his eyes.

"Intruder alert. Intruder alert."

"Computer, lock down Cave," Nightwing ordered.

Beast Boy went from shocked to serious very fast. "Well, I think we found our unknown energy impulse."

The kid was clearly excitable, very excitable. "Impulse? That's so crash! Catchy. Dramatic. One word." And then he started running like a red blur. "Like Nightwing. And Robin. And Beast Boy, except that's two words. Blue Beetle's two words. Hey, is he here too?" And the he ran to the tunnel that led to other areas of the Cave. "Never mind. Impulse can find that out for himself." He laughed a little crazily, then disappeared.

Nightwing watched him, annoyed. "You two, take him down. Now."

Beast Boy transformed into a cheetah, already ahead of Robin, who followed while his cape flowed behind him.