Training had been… interesting, to say the least. Dinah had indeed worked on their reactions and reflexes. She had the teens stand in a straight line and she would randomly throw a ball for one to avoid. No powers allowed. Needless to say, they were all covered in bruises by the end.

During training, however, Aspen quickly noticed that Dinah would rock forward slightly in the direction of a person before throwing the ball at them, so she knew to prepare when she saw Dinah rocking towards her. Soon, it seemed that Nightwing and Robin had picked up on it too, as they were avoiding more and more of the balls.

The rest of the Team wasn’t as fast on picking up the subtle movement, although by the end it seemed as though everyone was dodging most of the balls. Once she seemed satisfied that everyone was dodging more than getting hit, she said they were done.

Everyone hit the showers. She was happy to see that the bruises she did get were already going down thanks to her healing abilities. When she finished, she changed into a pair of jeans and a black shirt. Aspen had originally put on a short-sleeved shirt, but Zatanna took one look at her and immediately saw Aspen’s light shivering. 

"Here, come borrow one of my shirts," she offered, motioning for Aspen to follow her. 

"You don’t have to do that," Aspen said. "I'll be fine!"

"It’s the middle of winter in Rhode Island and you live in California." Zatanna raised her eyebrows and smirked. "I can see how bad you're shivering right now."

Aspen gave in and followed Zatanna into her room, where she pulled out a long-sleeved black shirt from a drawer.

"I hope it fits," Zatanna said. "I think we’re the same size but I can’t be sure.” Zatanna turned around so Aspen could change. After she switched her shirt, Zatanna turned back. “It’s a little tight. I can see if I have anything bigger if you want,” Zatanna said as she began to reopen the drawer.

“No, it’s fine! It’s an easy fix!” Aspen exclaimed. She shifted her body to be a little thinner, and the shirt soon fit perfectly. “See?”

“I wish I could do that!” Zatanna said after letting out a small laugh. “Go on out, I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Aspen thanked Zatanna once again and made her way into the lounge and joined Artemis, Wally, Robin, and Nightwing.

Plopping down on an armchair across from Artemis and Wally, Aspen checked her phone and saw almost 20 new message notifications. She quickly unlocked her phone and looked to see who they were from.

They weren’t text messages, but instead from the old chat room that she found all of the messages from her friends earlier. And almost all of them were from the same friend: Margret. Aspen wasn’t sure if she wanted to open them.

“What’s that face for?” Artemis asked, pulling Aspen’s attention away from the screen. She looked up to see the blonde smirking at her.

“Oh, nothing,” she replied, shaking her head. “I think one of my friends saw the press conference yesterday and is freaking out.” Aspen let out a slight laugh. “I haven’t talked to any of my friends since I got back. 

“Oh yeah, that’s a pretty good reason to freak out,” Artemis said, letting out a laugh as well.

"What are you guys talking about?” Zatanna asked as she and Rocket walked into the room.

“Nothing, really,” Aspen replied as the two girls sat down. The room fell into silence.

“So… Aspen,” Rocket started. “Zee and I don’t really know much about you, other than the basics. So how did you become Black Canary’s protege?”

Aspen remembered that day perfectly. It was easily the best day of her life.

“Oh. Well, I had just arrived in Star City that morning and I was just walking around, exploring the city.” Aspen smiled. 

The warm Californian sun shined brightly as Aspen walked through the streets. It has been almost a week since her aunt kicked her out after finding out about her abilities. She snuck onto bus after bus to get from Gotham to Star City, which had taken a toll on her abilities as people were more likely to question an older woman than a pre-teen.

So here she was, finally free. No more needles. No more experiments.

Everyone seemed so friendly here. Aspen was back to looking like her actual age, and while a few people gave her odd looks, she received mostly smiles from the few she made eye contact with. One woman asked her if she was lost, and even offered to take her to the police station, but Aspen denied, making up a lie that she was meeting her parents at a random cafe she spotted across the street.

As she was walking, she suddenly heard screams and shouts, and people were pointing at a rooftop.

“Then all of a sudden I heard shouting and everyone was pointing at one of the rooftops.”

She wasn’t able to get a good view, but she could just make out three people fighting on the rooftop. Aspen had heard the stories of Star City’s heroes: Green Arrow and Black Canary.

“It was GA and Canary, and I later found out that they were fighting Merlyn.”

Aspen pushed to the front of the crowd and saw one figure punch another, and the third let out a high-pitched scream that made everyone cover their eyes. That same figure punched them as well, and Aspen knew that the heroes needed help.

Her eyes darted around and she finally saw a ladder leading up to the roof. She slipped away from the crowd and made her way up the ladder. When she reached the roof, Aspen quickly hid behind a generator. Aspen saw the two heroes still trying to fight the other man, but now she saw that they also had a few other assailants to deal with as well.
 
“I knew that I needed to help them.”

Aspen felt her body grow taller and stretch to match Black Canary, and she stepped out from behind the generator.

“Hey!” she yelled, grabbing the attention of the dark archer. Her legs felt slightly wobbly, but Aspen stood tall. The man stood shocked, looking between the semi-conscious Black Canary laying in front of him and the disguised Aspen.

“What kind of trick is this, Queen?” the other archer sneered. He turned around to see what Green Arrow was doing, but Aspen’s distraction had given him enough time to grab his bow and he had an arrow aimed at the other man. Green Arrow aimed down at the mans’ feet and released the arrow, and the arrow exploded into a substance that instantly hardened around his feet.

“What’s wrong, Merlyn? I thought you liked tricks,” he grinned as the man tried to break out of the substance. Green Arrow’s smirk faded as he turned and looked at Aspen with a serious face. “Thank you for helping us.” He held out his hand, which Aspen went to shake but she was suddenly overcome with a feeling of dizziness.

She fell to her knees and felt her body shift. A sudden gasp from Green Arrow caused her to look down at her hands. She saw that not only had she shifted out of her Black Canary disguise, but she was in her natural, purple-skinned form. She was more worn out than she originally thought.

Her mind felt clouded and fuzzy, and despite her best efforts to hear what the green archer was saying, Aspen couldn’t understand him. Black spots danced across the edges of her vision.

“I passed out and woke up a few hours later in the Arrowcave. Ollie and Dinah asked me some questions and when they found out that I ran away from home, they tried to convince me to go back.”

“Listen, Aspen, I’m sure your parents are worried sick,” Dinah had said to her. “Why don’t you tell us their names so we can try and contact them.”

Aspen shook her head fervently, absolutely refusing to go back to them.

“Why not?”

Hesitantly, Aspen rolled up the sleeves of her shirt and showed Dinah her arms, which were riddled with needle scars and bruises. “I’m sure you saw them earlier.”

“These are from your parents?” Dinah asked as she took Aspen’s arm and looked at the marks.

“Most of them. Some are from other people, but they were all working for my parents.”

“After hearing about that, they both immediately refused to let me go back there and Ollie adopted me a few weeks later. From there they tried to keep me away from the vigilante-stuff as much as they could, but they caved in a little and I was running comms for about a year or two. Then Spe—” Aspen caught herself, “sorry, Red Arrow, came along. They finally gave in and Dinah took me on as her protege.”

"Wait, how old were you during all of this?" Rocket asked.

"About 10 or 11, I think.”

“Wait, your parents experimented on you?” The five other teens groaned at Wally.

“Out of everything that Aspen said, that’s what you're focused on?" Robin said harshly. Aspen was stunned. Why was he so invested in this? Her mind wandered back to last time she was here when Robin somehow knew exactly what to with her Syntheprosyn needle. And then she remembered Nightwings’ awkward reaction when Aspen mentioned Jason’s name.

‘It couldn’t be, right? There’s no way Jay’s Robin.’ But the more Aspen looked at him the more she saw Jason’s features. And she was now almost certain that the glasses he was wearing were the same pair she got for his birthday a few years ago.

“What? It's an honest concern!" Aspen was pulled back in to the ongoing conversation by Wally’s yelling.

"Do you really think she wants to talk about that?" Robin said in a harsher tone.

Aspen fidgeted nervously with her hands. “It’s fine, Robin.” She waited until he looked like he had cooled down a little bit, then continued. “And yes, Wally, my parents were not good people. They thought it would be a good idea to use their unborn child as a test subject for their genetic experiments, and then regretted it once I was born.” Aspen felt her nails digging into the palms of her hands. Her parents were the reason for her powers, and her powers were the reason for her poor childhood—if she would even call it that.

“Woah, cool hair!" Aspen looked behind her to see Raene walking in. "Red's always a really cool color!"

"Red?" Aspen repeated as she grabbed a small bit of hair. "What are you—" Raene was right, her hair had hints of red in it now and it was a couple of inches longer.

“Does that normally happen?” Zatanna asked.

“Not normally, no. I think it’s happened once or twice before, but I have to be really emotional about something for it to happen.”

“So you didn’t intentionally make your hair red?”

“No,” Aspen said. She concentrated on her hair and changed it back to its’ usual color and length.

“I wish I could do that. My mom won’t even let me temporarily dye my hair. Magari!”

The room fell into an awkward silence, and Aspen pulled out her phone. She opened the chatroom and started to type out a message to Margaret, trying to figure out the best way to tell her what happened.

As she was typing she heard someone turn on the TV. The familiar voice of Cat Grant soon turned into the annoying voice of one G. Gordon Godfrey. Aspen looked up at the TV.

“As we all saw from yesterday’s surprising press conference, Mr. Queen’s adopted daughter, Aspen LaFont, has been found. But was she really kidnapped, as Mr. Queen suggested? Or did she run away?

We all know that Ms. LaFont never had a liking for the spotlight, so what's to say that she ran away from it? I mean just look at how uncomfortable she is on the stage!"

The screen showed a clip of Aspen walking out to the mic at the press conference.

Aspen grabbed the remote. "And that," she said as she turned the TV off, "is why G. Gordon has no credibility in my eyes."

"Did he ever?" Nightwing laughed.

"Did I seriously come off that uncomfortable?" Aspen asked. "I mean, I was, but I thought I was better at hiding it." Aspen laughed as well.

“No, you did amazing!” Zatanna reassured. "G. Gordon just takes things completely out of context to get more views."

“Wait, that was you?” Raene asked. Aspen looked over to see a shocked expression on the girls face.

“You didn’t know that?”

“No? Was I the only one that didn’t know?” Aspen watched the girl look at the faces around the room. “And no one thought to tell me?”

“No one told you I was Black Canary’s protege? Or GA’s daughter?” Aspen asked. She was almost certain that part was apparent by this point. Then again, Raene had missed the whole backstory conversation

“Yeah, they did. But how does that relate to you being Oliver Queen’s daughter?” The room went silent. Aspen held back a laugh as she waited for Raene to figure it out. “Why is everyone staring at me?”

“Repeat what you just said,” Aspen said, suppressing a smile, “but slower.”

Raene’s face scrunched up, but she repeated her words nonetheless. “How does that relate to you being Oliv—WAIT!” Aspen saw the sudden realization flash across her face and she shot up from her seat on the couch. “Green Arrow is Oliver Queen? And none of you told me?”

“It’s not exactly something that comes up in normal conversation, Rae,” Nightwing explained. “We knew you were bound to find out sooner or later.”

"I honestly thought everyone knew the identities of the League members," Aspen said. Ollie or Dinah always told her who the League members were before she met them. "Except for Batman, of course."

"Most of us do, but Raene is still new to the Team—”

“Main point!” Raene said, interrupting M’gann. She was standing in front of Aspen now, pointing a finger in her face. “You’re famous!”

“I mean, yeah, but—”

“And you’re a conspiracy theory!” Raene continued. A collective groan came from the group.

“Please don’t get her started on conspiracy theories,” Wally sighed, slumping down into the couch.

“Why not? Conspiracies are awesome!” Raene replied, smirking at Wally.

“Recognized: Batman, A02.” The attention suddenly switched as everyone got up and went into the mission room.

When they got there, he was already standing at the holo-screen, looking at a picture of a run-down building. “There has been an increase in energy levels from an abandoned genetics lab in Rochester, New York.”

“Do you think it’s Cadmus again?”

Batman turned back to the screen and typed something. Three pictures of people popped up. “Geneticists Ila Fenri and Luca Johnson, as well as the biologist Henry Warren all have a history with Cadmus.”

“Cadmus was working on genetic stuff, right?” Aspen whispered to Artemis. “Like cloning?” She vaguely remembered reading something like that in one of the files, but she wasn’t completely sure.

Artemis nodded. “They did, at least. They shut down experiments almost a year ago.”

Aspen mouthed ‘thank you’, and tuned back in to the conversation.

“We have reason to believe that they are secretly restarting old Cadmus experiments, however, the League can’t go in unless we have concrete evidence. I highly stress that this mission is to stay covert. Do not take any unnecessary risks that could blow your cover.”

“Understood,” Kaldur said. With a curt nod, Batman left the Cave just as quickly as he arrived.

----

‘Alpha Squad,’ Aqualad’s voice echoed through Aspen’s mind, ‘are you in position?’

‘Alpha Squad ready and awaiting your signal, Aqualad,’ Miss Martian replied.

Aspen and Miss Martian stood on a rooftop across from the lab. Already shifted into one of the people that should be leaving soon, Dr. Fenri, and given some basic information about her from Miss Martian’s telepathic abilities, Aspen felt like she was going to explode. 

She was always a little nervous during fights or patrol, but this was her first time working with a team of this size. Normally she only had to worry about one or two other people, but now she had to be conscious of the rest of Alpha squad—which was herself, Miss Martian, and the batboys. She had gone on a few covert missions Canary, but none that matched this scale.

‘Good. You may proceed.’

‘Are you ready?’ Miss Martian asked.

Aspen let out a nervous chuckle. ‘As I’ll ever be.’

Miss Martian levitated the two down to the ground and then promptly turned herself invisible. From another rooftop, Aspen saw two shadows flip across onto another: Robin and Nightwing.

‘Nightwing to Miss Martian and Enigma: Dr. Fenri has left the area.’

‘And Dr. Warren?’ Miss Martian asked.

‘Not yet. We’ll tell you when he leaves, but continue with the plan.’

Aspen continued walking towards the building and reached the front doors. As she walked in, a figure caught her attention. 

"Is everything alright, Dr. Fenri?" Aspen looked up at the masked man and remembered the alibi they made.

"Not exactly," Aspen said. "I believe I left my bag in the lab."

"Okay, then. ID please." The man held out his hand. Aspen internally panicked, she didn't know they needed one.

"My ID is in my bag," Aspen lied, hoping that he would buy it.

"Sorry, Dr. Fenri, you know the rules. I— what the he—"

Miss Martian suddenly appeared next to Aspen, her eyes glowing a bright green. She and the guard stood there in silence for a few moments before Miss Martian turned back invisible.

"You're clear, Dr. Fenri," the man said, moving his arm down so Aspen could pass.

"Thank you." She quickly went into the building to avoid any other possible altercations with their plan. 

As she walked through the doors of the lab she did a quick look around. Only a few other scientists were still here, and one or two of them nodded in Aspens’ direction as a form of greeting. She continued down the hallway.

‘Any idea what we’re looking for?’ she asked.

‘Not sure. Last time Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad found the Cadmus lab through an elevator, but they’re probably not stupid enough to retry that.’

“You sure about that?’ Aspen walked as she stopped in front of a suspicious-looking elevator. Miss Martian suddenly appeared next to her, and she inspected the door. ‘What do you think, Nightwing?’

'According to the floor plans, yes,' he said. ‘This building should have an elevator. Three floors and a basement.'

Aspen raised an eyebrow at Miss Martian. 'Back to the drawing board then.' The Martian turned invisible once again and the two continued walking around through the halls.

Some of the doors were open, and Aspen was able to sneak a peek inside. Others were closed, and, upon further investigation, locked as well. Most of the open ones were empty, but the last one they stopped at was full of scientists working.

'Nightwing, I think we've got evidence.'

‘What? What’s in there?’

The room had four pods, each with an alien-looking organism in it. There were a few scientists around each pod, taking notes on clipboards. Other scientists were typing away at computers. Aspen walked into the room, taking in the strange sight.

Standing in the corner of the room were two women: one clad in a short, green kimono and a Cheshire cat mask, and the other in a black uniform. The one in black tossed a knife up in the air and caught it by the hilt, then repeated the process.

‘Chesire and Ghost: two assassins from the League of Shadows.’

‘If they’re here,’ Nightwing said, ‘then that means Batman was right. Plan’s being modified: you two are going to have to get the files downloaded. We can’t risk being seen. They can’t know we’re on to them.’’

"Dr. Fenri," Cheshire said. Her voice sent a shiver down Aspen’s spine. Despite never meeting the assassin before in person, Aspen could have sworn she had. "I thought you left for the night."

"I forgot my bag."

'Say you last had it before the trial run.’

‘Trial run?’

‘That’s her last memory of you in this room, just do it.’

“I think I left it in here after the trial run.” Aspen held her breath as the assassin stared at her from behind the unsettling mask.

“Fine. Get your bag and go.”

Aspen nodded and pretended to look around the room for the bag while looking for a place to plug in her flash drive. The flash drive would allow her to download important files to prove that this lab was doing illegal stuff, but she needed more time.

‘Any chance one of you can distract the assassins?’

An alarm suddenly sounded on one of the monitors, and Ghost went over to the screen. 

“Something tripped the motion sensors in the basement. I’ll go—” Another alarm sounded. “The roof one was just triggered as well.”

“I’ll take the roof, you check the basement.”

Aspen pretended to knock over an empty cup on one of the desks and quickly plugged in the flash drive. She checked over her shoulder and watched as Ghost and Cheshire both left the room.

‘That should buy you a few minutes.’

‘Thank you.’

Aspen scrolled through the files on the computer and skimmed through a few of them that seemed important, adding them to the list to copy. One of them was labeled ‘Project-Zeta’. As she skimmed the reports, Aspen’s heart stopped. This was the experiment that gave Raene her powers. Aspen quickly closed out of it and continued her search. She didn’t need to invade Rae’s privacy like that, but she added it to the list. Other files were full of similar reports: experiments with abilities and something called the “Meta-Gene”.

‘Enigma,” Nightwing said, ‘Cheshire and Ghost are headed back your way. Finish it up.’

Another file caught her eye: ‘LF-LongTerm’. Aspen went to open it, but footsteps from outside the door caused her to panic. She looked at the progress bar for the flash drive and saw that it was only at 75%.

‘Aspen get out of there!’ Robin yelled through the mind-link.

‘I can’t, the files aren’t done downloading.’

‘Enigma, go!’ Miss Martian said. ‘I’ll get the drive!’

Reluctantly, Aspen left the flash drive. She made sure none of the other scientists were watching her and walked towards the door. She opened it and came face-to-face with Cheshire. The masked assassin looked at Aspen’s empty hands.

“I see you didn’t find your bag, Dr. Fenri. How unfortunate.”

“Yes,” Aspen’s voice was shaky, so she cleared her throat and continued. “I must have left it somewhere else.”

“Why don’t you go home? I’m sure you will want to be well-rested for tomorrow.”

“Of course.” Aspen began walking down the hallway. “See you tomorrow.”

* * * * * *

I just want to do a shout out for my friends. Literally I'll text them at all hours of the night and if they're up they'll help me in any way they can.

I need a last name for a background character? *Heres 3 in case you need more.* Can't decide what to do in a chapter? *doesn't really know the context but heres a random idea*

I just love my friends so much.

I'm also working on getting into a better writing schedule, so this will be Enigma's update, then next week will be a Phantom update, then Enigma the week after, and so on.

I have 2 study halls this semester, so I will most likely have more time than I did last semester to write.

So! What did you think of the chapter? Like I said there are a few references sprinkled throughout this chapter(I know I put at least 2, but I can only remember 1😅) if you can find them, leave a comment!

Also sorry this is so long.... it's like 3,000 words... but I also havent updated in a while and there was a lot going on this chapter.

Next chapter is already being started, so I'll see you guys in two weeks!

Thank you for reading and don't forget to vote and comment!

See ya!