Like an Acorn

Five swallowed hard as Aqualad placed the chipped terracotta pot upon the waist high marble slab. The very same table, Static had been shooting discs behind her first day at the headquarters. Beyond the gray solid surface was the disc tosser. It was a short, fat machine which held medium size clay discs no larger than a softball around. She couldn’t help but stare almost feverishly at it; the machine was obviously a modified form of a "trap house" used in Skeet. A bulky thing which was supposed to throw traditionally birds (clay or real) into the air to be shot down by a rifle. Static had proven the rifle was optional in this place. The use of discs instead of birds was questionable, perhaps they came in contact with killer discs more than birds or maybe it was seen as distasteful because of the amount of heroes named after birds? Either way knowing why wouldn’t help her much here.

"What do you want me to do?" She asked nervously, watching as Aqualad went over to the silent trap house, his back to her as he adjusted small black knobs on the side, his large toned arms setting the parameters to a rather unlucky turn of events. Standing against the desk Five pushed her elbows onto the hard surface, eyes monitoring his work, as her fingers softly rubbed one of the potted Kudzu's many leaves.

"This will be acceptable? I guessed a variety of vine would be most appropriate," Aqualad answered turning back around his expression changing as he saw the uneasiness upon her face. The change significant enough even Five was able to notice it.

"This test is meant to gauge your ability to control your powers as well as reflexes. Poison Ivy has demonstrated the ability to telepathically control her plants on more than one occasion; you can do so as well... Correct?" The boy asked watching her carefully, the light blue/green eyes checking for something she didn’t quite understand. Holding back the jitters she nodded, a bit too enthusiastically even, and she had no clue why. She was a horrible liar when she was talking to people she considered in a position of authority. This man with the slick wetsuit, and captivating gills was if everyone was correct the closest thing to an Amanda Waller as she was getting out of this place. He was team leader, he was in charge, and he was the person she would have to impress. Telling him she had absolutely no idea didn’t seem like a viable option.

If Poison Ivy-Red- could do something, she was expected to know how to do so as well; it was as simple as that really.

Five knew Ivy could control plants, Blue had shown her the video the base had on the woman before she’d gone through her simulation with Babs the day before. In theory she could control a plant, but as Conner had rudely pointed out Cadmus had not seen a reason for her to grow upon that power. Five truthfully wondered if it would have been cut out of the next clone’s DNA all together, if Ivy and the clown hadn’t destroyed everything. Five couldn’t help but feel slight bitterness at these thoughts, bitterness she didn’t like to dwell on. Whining thoughts wouldn’t get her out of this mess, she would just have to hit the ground running and hope for the best. The almost rhyme in her mind sent a small smile to her lips. This was possible; she had used the power once in the lab with a cactus. Given, it was a complete accident and she wasn’t allowed living plants after that fiasco, but it was something. Also her pride wouldn’t allow her to give up, not with Conner grinning as he leaned against the far wall. For once he seemed in a pleasant mood, of course this had to do with the fact he knew she was in deep water. Conner was too smug, and she could not back down now.

"Of course, I was um-- worried... The Kutzu doesn't like being held in the tight pot, they're invasive if you didn't know, actually the plant has been nicknamed: the vine that ate the South." Five blabbed rubbing her arm as she tried to think of what she was going to do. This was just like when Miss Waller visited too much talking and not enough displayed progress.

Reaching forward a few inches above the plant Five held her hands level and stiff as a board as she closed her eyes tightly trying to remember how Ivy had moved the plants in the video. Trying to visualize the certain way her body would shift as if in some hypnotizing dance or stay perfectly still as each command dictated it. Some clips had her shouting, some had her almost mute. Each clip had the plants grown to outrageous sizes traveling with more animation than a gold medal gymnast. Rarely did the small fractions of seconds show how she started…

Five’s head felt like it would explode, her eyes clinched, and face red as she concentrated taking almost a full minute for a leaf to reach up and brush her outstretched palm.

“Come to me, come to me, please!”she whispered calmly pleading with the plant to listen to her commands. Five felt the plant perk up at her words and thrown thoughts, gentle small actions as if it was reaching for her warmth, while sweet and impressive in her own mind, the Kudzu’s growth was nothing like she needed it to be. It wasn’t the same as Ivy’s displays. The original’s actions were easy, resulting in outrageously thick plants with booming speed. The Kudzu which reached towards her wasn’t thick enough to bat away a piece of paper let alone a flying disk.

This was not as easy as she thought it would be. Red had made it look so easy, how did she do it? What was the secret… Was this difficulty to do with her own genetics? Was she not supposed to be able morph vegetation because of complications with past clones, or was it something else? Static had mentioned training; he was exceptional at this test because of having a mentor who helped him… At least this was what he implied the other day. Now Five wished she’d asked him questions about how he actually channeled his powers instead of being preoccupied with his strange hair. Five doubted she’d win points by asking Aqualad about his gills.

This was bad, the discs hadn’t even started flying yet and she knew things were going to get embarrassing rather quickly. She wasn’t sure which was worse, the idea she would fail another person who expected great things out of her or that Conner was going to never let her forget it. She felt her upper lip twist at the thought. The plants controlled her more than she controlled them. Even though the Kudzu was well watered and healthy, she could still feel the nagging in the back of her mind as it grew, the desperation it felt to have more room to place its roots. Simulated plants didn’t have thoughts; they were just plants, added decorations in a virtual world where all she needed to think about was finishing the given mission. Even though real plants were not so silent Five had easily decided she didn’t mind. Five liked helping things, figuring out how pieces fit together as a whole, and how to improve their functions. Aiding life perform its wonders was a plus, also it calmed her. This forced work now was anything but.

As soon as the plant began to move (however feeble the attempt was) the machine started up. Five stared anxiously as the first disc went flying. The brown circle soaring high into the air before crashing against the ground—shattering upon impact into a thousand little pieces, the noise remarkably similar to the sound of knocked over pottery smashing against a hard surface.

"It takes time to gain synchronicity, please keep trying, there's no rush," Aqualad encouraged kindly, his voice traveling from behind her as he busily studied her actions, or lack of them.

Two more discs crashed to the ground in unison before Five grimaced. Her shoulders hunched close to her head as her face became serious.

Telepathic connection; yeah... How did this work again?

Five gave herself the familiar overused pep-talk she always did in these situations, the reassurance that everything would be fine, and she just needed to figure this out, and blah-blah-blah, while she tried a mixture of silent, verbal, hands, and no hand commands. None of them producing enough momentum to actually do much as she reminded herself: she totally had this, all she needed to do was concentrate and-

Turning sharply Five almost knocked the deep brown terracotta pot right off the table, as a sharp whistle rang through the room. The whistle was followed by half muffled catcalls as Blue tried to silence a chanting Bart who was yelling something about ‘crashing the mode…’ from his spot by the door. It only took a few seconds for Blue to pull the now silent boy next to him on the floor. Blue and Bart were not alone, as Mystery Sunglasses Boy came strolling in with an arm around Cassie’s shoulders. A bright smile implanted upon her face as she gave the clone a thumbs up. Static was trailing in behind them both his large dreadlocks the only thing visible behind his Chemistry 2 book.

“How very unlucky," she whispered feeling a blush rise to her cheeks; she really needed to complete this task now. It would be important to her position to do well on this test. This would give all the proof Five would need that she was ready to go outside. Her brain was running a mile a minute, as her hands urged the plant to work. Why wasn't it working??!

As the minutes passed and disc pieces started piling up against the floor, the excited murmuring from the group near the door gave way into silence, and only the awkward sound of Aqualad shuffling continued.

"Five," He began his voice humming over her name like the words he wanted to say were too uncomfortable and he was trying to think of something more polite to say instead.

"I got it, warming up," she lied poorly, knees knocking as her breath came out in shaky low gasps, trying to control the angry tears springing to the corners of her eyes which threatened to spill over at any second. Why wasn’t this working?!

"It is okay, we can try another test first if you would like," he offered kindly, his voice reserved as if trying to keep her from shame since there were others watching. He was giving her a way out, a quick way to move on save some face. Her pride wouldn’t let her do it though. The idea of others thoughts about her and the knowing grin on Conner’s face made that option impossible to the clone.

"No, give me another minute, it takes time to warm this up," she lied again, eyes darting back and forth between the broken plates and the ones now flying through the air.

She kept thinking over and over again: how had she gotten the cactus to attack? That had been real movement, not the slight twisting of a vine which was gingerly wrapped around her hand. The cactus had skipped a loving stage and gone straight to sending razor sharp needles an inch thick into the bulletin board behind her doctor’s head. Given the doctor had been trying to give her this nasty shot, but kept missing her vein and it had been the third try and it had been rather painful….

Five’s head snapped up as realization hit her. The shot, the doctor had been causing her pain; she was in ‘danger,’ or at least what the plant thought was danger. That was why it attacked!

Lightly unraveling the vine from around her arm Five took careful steps around the table, putting herself right in front of where the next disk was about to be flung. Seconds ticked by in what felt like hours as she focused much like she had on the doctor’s needle upon the disc spinning towards her head. If she was wrong about this, there would be a bruise in the morning to verify her stupidity. In her heart though, as corny as that may have sounded, she knew this was what she needed to do. Luckily she was paying attention because even though the plant did extend growing three or four times its thickness it also was seconds too slow. Five practically had to jump out of the way to avoid the clay disc from smacking her right on the nose. The second time though, the plant totally blocked it. Making her 1-for-12! But it was a well-deserved one, and really she liked to think it was two because the plant was totally making an effort on the 11th try. This was really all she could ask for.

"Alright! You saw that right? I hit one, and I dodged one so reflexively I think I passed with flying colors," She answered turning around a large smile planted on her face.

"Yeah……" Aqualad answered back with much less excitement.

"So I pass this test?" She asked again not understanding the body language behind his movements as he wrote down her scores on his clipboard.

"You prove you have a superpower," he said vaguely, before walking forward passing the board to her.

The sheet attached to the clipboard was very standard, her name was written at the top, spaces were left to the right for instructors, and down in a single file row was a bolded aptitude. Next to each aptitude were the words: None, Poorly, Below Average, Average, Above Average, and Expert. Spaces were left under each section for comments. Her sheet was practically bare except next to the one labeled, “Control of Powers,” which poorly was clearly circled twice, but on a plus note “Reflexes,” did have an average circled as well. Average was just fine in her book. The poorly though, that was more than a little embarrassing.

"Oh," she laughed awkwardly looking back out at the others who had a range of emotions on their faces.

“Don’t feel discouraged, some of us don’t even have powers, anyways that’s what training is for,” Mystery Sunglasses Boy spoke, his comment was unexpected, and enough to pull Five from her discouraging thoughts. The drawl of his syllables sounding instantly familiar.

“Thank you…. Robin?” She asked as if still questioning what she knew to be true; he was the same height, build, and even had the same hair as the boy from Cassie’s album. It was his voice which gave him away though, as it was the last thing the clone had heard before waking up in this place.

“Anytime,” he smiled waving lazily from his spot on the floor, his other hand busy drawing circles lightly on Cassie’s palm.

The first of many tests was out of the way, and even though she did poorly, Five couldn’t help but feel a small swell of hope as she saw the easy smiles on her new acquaintances faces.