"Recognized: Blue Beetle, B25. Impulse, B27."

Phantom and Greta are hanging in the living room on their Nintendos with Wolf sleeping beside them. The only other people in the cave are Garfield, who's in his room, and Nightwing, who's in the mission room along with the two newcomers that just arrived. Wolf looks up suddenly, causing Phantom to tense. He quickly grabs Greta and disappears.

"He–" Greta begins to complain only for Phantom to smack a hand over her mouth and fly them up closer to the ceiling.

The two watch as a black haired woman appears and puts an inhibitor collar on Wolf.

Phantom immediately recognizes her soul and widens his eyes. "Artemis?" he whispers.

"Artemis?" Greta whispers confused by what he said. "Artemis has blonde hair."

They watch as she slinks off elsewhere.

"What the hell?" Phantom mutters, tucking his nintendo into his bag. "Greta, I want you to go to each person's room in the cave and cover it with an invisible force field. Something is wrong. Do not engage in battle if you see someone. Stay invisible."

She nods and disappears to follow his orders. Phantom moves off to the souvenir room, knowing some powerful artifacts are inside. He surrounds the room with his own force field before teleporting to the mission room.

"Arrgh. I'm an idiot!" Nightwing says, suddenly turning and pulling out his eskrisma sticks only to get punched to the floor by Icicle Jr's ice.

Phantom appears as Icicle Jr begins to cover the floor in ice.

"Oh, this one's a classic. Ice over the floor and the speedster can't get traction, right?" Impulse speaks, running up the wall and sucker punching Icicle Jr to the floor. "Wrong. That worked so nice I'll try it twice." He rushes up to Tuppence Terror only to bounce off of her right into Tommy Terrors arms. Impulse begins to speed punch him only to get hurt. "Ah! My hands! What are you made of?"

"Snips and snails and puppy dog tails," Tommy answers, placing an inhibitor collar on him.

"Uh, nice try. But I'll just vibrate right out of this–Uh-oh. No speed. I'm moded, aren't I?"

Tommy punches Impulse across the room. Phantom rushes towards Tuppence to knock her down, making her drop Beast Boy.

"Sorry. No super-powers for your collar to turn off," Nightwing tells the black haired Artemis and flicks her off of him only to get electrocuted by the collar. He crumples to the floor.

Phantom flies above with Blue Beetle as he lets out a sonic blast at Tommy.

"Stand down!" Kaldur shouts, entering the room.

"Good guys included? No thanks," Blue Beetle talks to himself. He looks to Phantom.

"This battle is over," Kaldur says.

"I don't think so, traitor!" Blue Beetle shouts, aiming both hand blasters at Kaldur.

Phantom powers up his ectobeams.

"Then rethink, Beetle, Phantom." Kaldur reveals what he's carrying inside his bag. "This is the same type of bomb that obliterated Malina Island. I am holding down the dead man's switch. If my thumb comes off this button for any reason Mount Justice falls," Kaldur threatens.

Phantom's eyes narrow. "You're lying. You would never blow the cave up."

"Do you want to take that chance?"

"Do you want to die as well?" Phantom asks. "Cause I know I'll survive. As will my friends. That's the best power of mine."

Kaldur's eyes narrow, unspokeningly telling him to trust him. "A risk I'm willing to take."

Phantom's eyes narrow as minutes pass between Kaldur and himself, talking with their eyes. Phantom sighs. "We're standing down."

"What?!" Beetle huffs.

"We're standing down," Phantom emphasizes, narrowing his eyes fiercely.

Beetle sighs, powering down. The two fly to the floor with their arms raised.

"Wise choice," Kaldur says.

The terror twins place inhibitor collars on the two.

"I'm fine, by the way," Icicle Jr huffs, rubbing his jaw.

"Good. Escort Beetle, Impulse, Phantom, and Beast Boy to the flyer," Kaldur commands.

"What about him?" Artemis asks, talking about Nightwing.

"As a hostage here, he has value. But Nightwing is an ordinary human. A category not of any interest to our partner," Kaldur says.

"Aqualad!" Nightwing shouts, standing up. "You'll regret this!"

Kaldur moves over and punches Nightwing in the stomach, before turning to leave. "I believe I have outgrown the name Aqualad, as well as anything resembling regret. I'll leave the bomb with you. As a souvenir. Oh, and the dead man's switch has a five mile range. Do not pursue."

Tommy picks up Impulse, Tuppence gets Beast Boy, and the two heroes follow with the remaining two villains behind them. They all exit the cave, heading to Kaldur's manta ship.

"Move it, bug!" Icicle Jr says, shoving Beetle forward.

"Not much choice, is there?" Beetle grumbles to himself.

"None at all," Jr answers.

"And risk Aqualad blowing up the cave? I don't think so." Beetle's collar is suddenly fried, and he powers up. "What? No! You can't!" He knocks down Jr and the Artemis imposter.

Phantom phases through his collar and the two blast Kaldur together. The switch is released from Kaldur's hand as he smacks into a boulder.

"No!" Phantom calls out, waiting for the cave to blow but it doesn't come. Phantom teleports into the cave to grab Nightwing along with Sphere and Wolf, trusting Greta to uphold her force field. He teleports out of the cave right before the bomb explodes, decimating the whole mountain. "No..."

The sound of a motorcycle pulls up nearby, and Phantom levitates everyone down to where he heard it to discover Mal.

"Phantom!" Mal calls out, rushing to them. "What happened?"

"Kaldur attacked. He took Beetle, Impulse, and Beast Boy," Phantom breathes. "I had to get these guys out and couldn't save the others from Kaldur's clutches."

"What about Greta?" Mal asks.

"I'm here," she says, appearing with all the protected items from everyone's rooms.

"Damn, I was hoping the force field would protect anyone who was inside," Phantom sighs. "But I guess their things are a good save too since the mountain is gone..." He whips his hand out and pulls it to him, causing the souvenir room to be pulled from the fire. "Managed to salvage this too."

~~~

"Recognized: Kid Flash, B03. Spook, B07."

"What. Happened?" Wally growls out.

"It was necessary," Nightwing immediately answers.

"It better have been. Spill," Wally huffs.

It's 3:12 am and the two arrived at the Hall of Justice to talk about what happened.

"Aqualad needed to find a way to help us rescue Lagoon Boy. He had already injected a microscopic tag into La'gaan's bloodstream. And he used the raid on the cave to pass essential intel. A flash drive with, among other things, tracking software that can locate the tag," Nightwing says.

"Like that's all he did," Wally growls.

"Wally, he had to make it look good."

"He put inhibitor collars on you!" Vanessa huffs.

"But he knew I'd get us out of them," Nightwing says.

"He took three more hostages! Members of your team!" Wally exclaims, pointing at him.

"And we'll rescue them when we rescue Lagoon Boy."

Wally grabs Nightwing by his uniform, bringing him closer to his face. "Dick, he blew up the cave! You guys almost died!"

Nightwing grabs his wrists and gently pulls him off. "No, it's all on the flash drive. He knew I'd have to pursue to make it look legit, and that's exactly what happened. He gave us time to get out."

"Do you even hear yourself? What if Greta and Rai weren't there? Huh? Why take that risk? Why go to such extremes?" Wally yells as Nightwing walks away from him.

"The drive explains that too." Nightwing turns to him, leaning against the table behind him. "He-he needed to cement his position with the Light and the Light's partner," Nightwing says.

"Wasn't that why he 'murdered' Artemis?"

"I guess it didn't convince everyone."

"You guess!"

"The cave is–Was just a place! Worth sacrificing if it helps us stop the invasion. Look, I'm sorry you lost all your souvenirs!"

"My brother managed to save those..." Vanessa mutters.

"Are you serious?!" Wally says, roughly shoving Nightwing angrily into the chair he was sitting in before. "I don't care about that junk! I'm worried about Artemis. Terrified for her. You put her right into his hands!"

"Wally, we're talking about Kaldur here."

"I know. Kaldur. Our friend. Who, in the space of a few months, lost the love of his life and found out Black Manta was his father. Isn't it possible Aqualad might actually be a traitor? A triple agent? He's supposed to be playing them. But are you absolutely sure he isn't playing you?"

Vanessa powers up an ectofist and slams it into Wally's cheek. "Don't." He falls to the floor holding his cheek in surprise as he looks up at her. "Don't you ever say that again. Kaldur is our friend. Just because the love of his life died and his father is a villain doesn't mean he's turned to the dark side! You guys chose me to help you with this. If Kaldur or any of you ever became evil, I would know. When someone becomes evil, their soul becomes tainted. You can't hide that. Even the most powerful villain in the world can't hide it. Kaldur's soul is still good. Don't you ever say something negative about Kaldur again. I understand that you're worried about Artemis, but I know the two of them will be fine."

"Of course you don't have to worry," Wally spits, picking himself off the floor. "The love of your life is with you and he has powers."

Vanessa's eyes become a blazing blue color in anger as flames lick her body. The large table nearby splits in half and blasts its way across the room with a loud crash. She clenches her fists to try and convince herself to not kill him. "That doesn't mean he's immortal." She turns to Dick. "Trying to take my brother was not part of the deal," Vanessa huffs. "Do you know that he showed up at my house telling me that Artemis is still alive and she's working for Kaldur now? He's my brother, Dick, he can sense a soul just as I can. We are the children of Hades after all."

"Recognized: Phantom, B08."

"Yeah, it seems you all know what's going on," Rai says as he enters. "I have a right to know why Artemis is not Artemis. I could have easily saved Garfield, Bart, and Jaime, but I saw with Kaldur's eyes telling me to trust him."

"Dick," Vanessa calls out as she finally powers down. "We can't hide this from him."

"I agree," Nightwing says, standing up from the chair he was shoved in. "Rai needs to be updated on what's going on." He sighs before he gets into the story, telling Rai everything he needs to know.

"Why didn't you ever tell me any of this?" he huffs.

"Well, we didn't want you involved because you were going through a tough time with... Megan and whatever..." Vanessa says.

His face distorts to anger and annoyance before finally becoming understanding. "Alright, that's... fair."

"You can't tell anyone else," Nightwing says. "We don't want anyone faking punches. It needs to be convincing."

Vanessa sighs. "Where is everyone staying?"

"I'm getting a place set up in Blüdhaven for the team who lived in the cave," Nightwing says.

"Good," she says. "Fratello, you can have a room at my place."

"Thanks, sorella."

Vanessa moves over and gives Wally a hug to his surprise. "I know Artemis will be safe. Don't be such a worrywart." She releases him, patting him on the shoulder. "I know Kaldur won't let anything bad happen to her." She turns and pulls her brother away. "Let's get going. I need a bit more sleep. Goodnight, Dick, Wally."

"Goodnight," the two respond.

The twins enter the zeta tube out to Metropolis.

"Recognized: Spook, B07. Phantom, B08."