Robin ran.
Foot over foot down the muddy bank, he spared every 5 seconds to glance over his shoulder in what could be described as pure terror. What he was afraid of though, he wasn't quite sure.
It was as if he'd taken a full dose of fear gas to the face, even with his last encounter with Scarecrow being months ago. The rest of the team was somewhere in the thick of the forest, but out of sight, sound and mind. He wasn't really looking where he was going either, so he was bound to run into something eventually.
"Ouff!"
Not a tree thankfully, but still just as solid as he fell back.
"…Robin?"
Superboy! Of Couse!
Robin was smiling to himself as he looked up to the clone, but grimacing as their eyes met. While the rational side of his mind said mud, the fear intoxicated side screamed blood, and he was off running parallel to the path he had made. He could barely hear Connor's confused shouts, focusing on the yelling of his knee, where he was sure the tip of a blade still resided.
Seconds passed and he landed mid-step, half pivoting to see if he was followed, only to trip on a knotted tree root. He expected the wet earth to come in contact with his torn up forearm, but his cape-less backside struck the invisible force first.
"Robin? What's going on?"
Miss Martian.
'Oh please dear god don't read my mind' was what he tried to say, but the moment his lips separated, a cackle to rival the Jokers monstrous laugh while, soaked in sorrow, escaped his chest. Twisting left and right there was no escape from her psychic hold, giving time for Connor to appear on scene, give one look at him, and begin questioning.
"Caught him?"
"What's going on?"
"Don't ask me. He came running at me out of no-where; it looks like something's gotten to him."
M'gann gave a sad frown at the boy wonders frantic and dishevelled state. "…maybe I should check his mind?"
He knew Megan was going to create the mind link, but 'No No No' sounded more like 'Che Che Che' of chattering teeth as protests fell short of escaping his mouth. But the Martian broke away when a scream came from further back within the forest, letting attention finally fall away the distressed boy.
The moments were slow as the sound drew closer, changing from screams to scared whimpers, before Aqualad and Artemis appeared from the scrub, pulling a squirming speedster behind them. The four heroes who weren't speaking gibberish exchanged looks.
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Both Robin and Wally were now strapped to the base of a tree with Megan's psychic power, though neither seemed to care about that, and focused more on trying to move away from one-another with jittering shrieks. The other four kept one eye on the captives and the other on each other, throwing around questions to figure out the situation.
"And KF just ran into you?"
"Same thing here."
"They were meant to scouting ahead."
"But obviously they got turned around for some reason."
"Maybe the person Batman sent us to find has something to do with this."
"Perhaps, but he informed us that the suspect was only known for trafficking counterfeit goods."
"Maybe they're moving some...mind meddling stuff or something."
There was a pause.
"…M'gann should check them."
Eyes when to the martian. The floating girl looked a tad nervous, not sure whether she wanted to delve into the possibly broken minds of the two boys, but the long stares made her realise that there was nothing much else to do. With a small sigh she moved towards Robin, who was leaning to the right and grinding his teeth. She could see the subtle shakes of his hair as his attention shifted between her and his fellow captive. With a single breath to steady her-self, she moved her hands towards the Boy Wonder.
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It was terrible. TERIBBLE. His green eyes winced as the aliens' hands moved towards his friend, mind setting everything in slow motion as he waited for her fingers to slip into his skull. Unfortunately the fact that M'gann would never do this, nor the fact that she was still unable to density shift, ever made it to the logical part of Wally's brain.
He had to do something. He judged his other friends; cringing at the angles Artemis' arms were bending, shivering at the sight of Kaldur's mottled flesh and positively squealing at the carved up muscle and bone that adorned Superboy's face. Scared was all he felt, so much that he didn't even realise he had begun vibrating into the tree, meaning that with each shaking breath blood dribbled from his nose onto his chin.
Megan made the connection, and instantly the backlash hit everyone, physically and mentally.
M'gann gave a shriek and fell back, breaking the psychic bonds and letting Robin and Wally roll away into the mud. Kaldur and Conner gripped their heads and stumbled away, while Artemis stood frozen on the spot.
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Everything was melting.
Around her everything suddenly melted away, from the trees and ground to her own flesh, mixing into a soup of distorted colours. Her blond hair clung to her back like tentacles, wriggling to get under her skin.
Artemis struggled to drag her legs forward through the molten ground, feeling as though they weight a few tone each. Two steps and her foot snared on the out stretched arm of the speedster. Looking down past her drooping eyelids she watched the red head pound his feet into the Boy wonders chest, forcing the younger deep under the slush. Wally's face was almost unrecognisable in liquid state, the upper half turning orange from his hair, and the lower a sickening brown/red.
Somewhere in her hand she could still barely feel the length of her bow, so with great difficulty she raised her gelatinous arm and brought it down into the flow creating a massive splash of red and green. The now river like flow of these colours began to move up hill, sweeping her off her feet and sending her into the mixing depths.
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Oh this was bad. Oh so very bad.
She hadn't even practiced her lines.
Not only that but the lighting was all wrong.
She quickly tried to think of her start position for filming, but found herself stumbling over bodies and slipping in mud. She looked down at herself before giving an upset sigh as the filth everyone was covered in.
How were they meant to film a professional TV show when everyone was rolling about in dirt and rain? Megan ran her fingers through her hair and tried desperately to remember her ques. The director and co-director were elsewhere, she could feel it, but her tongue lolled about in her mouth whenever she tried to call out.
She looked for her co-stars, but the only close figure she could see was the blur of a raging character in black and brown.
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His mind was overloaded, information that he was programmed with firing at random to create falsities and outrageous scenarios. He shook his head wildly to try clear it, but only managed to run into a tree containing distorted laugh.
He threw his head up, and with vision working overtime, spotted a figure high up on a branch comparable to the Cheshire cat. A wicked grin, disembodied head, spine bent in the opposite direction and lower organs dangling to and fro, all with a dash of rotting skin. Tiny ribbed maggots wriggled out from porous seem all over their face, to drip down on his. His rage bubbled up.
"Who are you?!"
"That's not important right now."
It didn't move, so feeling around Superboy pegged the first thing he got his hands on at the creature, which just happened to be Aqualad.
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A fish out of water and now off land, soaring though the leaves for reasons unknown to him. But he was no bird, and so what went up was going to quickly come down. Hard.
So with the little time he had he summoned what water he could to cushion the fall. Though when it came, it wasn't the ground but another body he collided with, and the body was barely more comfortable than the water. He heard the smack of a skull and felt the air rush from the body beneath, then nothing.
The forest was silent for all but the rain. Minutes passed.
The water felt cleansing on his tanned skin, and soon even the paralysing fog of his mind began to wash away.
Soon there was movement behind him. Someone was squelching through the mud towards his spot, and through flickering eye lids he saw a face peer down at him.
"I'm sorry for the inconvenience."
They moved back, before pulling something out from under his still sluggish body. There were a few moments of rustling as the other body was dragged away, until once again the rain was the only prevalent sound.
A little one-shot I just got around to finishing.