Second chapter! And thank you Nurse Steggy for my first review! I appreciate it! :D
Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice sadly.
Robin's POV
I kept running and running. I knew I wasn't crazy! Someone was trying to tell me that we hadn't killed the monster, and I had to listen. It would've helped to remember where I was going. All I could see was…leaf…moss…tree…flower…more moss. I caught a glance behind me to see if the others had heard the voices too and followed suit. But I was alone.
'I've been told not to wander off before…' I thought to myself. It's something I do subconsciously, not totally my fault.
Soon enough, I had to stop running and take a breath. I leaned up against a tree to rest for a few seconds. And just as I stood upright to continue looking for the monster, I heard it. I saw several trees being knocked down from a distance, and wild animals of all sorts running my way to escape from the beast.
'Ok, so it's still alive. But…who's voice was that?'
I got closer to the tree, ready to attack. And I, um…miscalculated my footing…and fell down. I jumped right back up and dusted myself off, thankful that no one was around to see that.
'Batman can jump from buildings and I can hardly walk on flat surfaces.'
I'm not that much of a klutz, so I had to look behind me to see if I actually had tripped on something, like a rock. And I did. Only, it was a girl.
She looked unconscious and fragile. Her wavy, bleach blonde hair that reached down to her shoulder blades was spread across the mossy floors. Her skin was one step away from being tan, and she was wearing a white dress that reached the top of her knees. No shoes. All I could think was:
'God dammit. Why is there always a catch to these missions?'
I was annoyed by the fact that we now had another problem on our hands. I just wanted to go home. Threw my head back and let out a wail of frustration. And when I looked back at the tree, I saw that it had gotten bigger than when we last knocked it down. C'mooooon!
It began swinging its limbs all around. I don't know what it was trying to achieve. Was it looking for something? From the way that it was clearing out the area, that's what I assumed. But isn't it killing its…brethren…?
And sure enough, one of its 'siblings' came falling down right where I was. It was no problem for me to dodge, but I looked behind me and remembered the girl on the ground. I couldn't just leave her there, so I scooped her up and ran outta there. The killed tree came to a large crash. Ran and crouched down behind a large rock nearby to avoid any further predicaments. I looked down at the girl I had just rescued. She had scratches and bruises all over her body. She looked so…broken. So bluntly, I thought:
'…Who is she and why does she look dead?'
Normal POV
Florose slowly and quietly opened her eyes to consciousness. She felt dizzy and was badly hurt from her fall. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she looked at what or who was in front of her. All she could see was the Boy Wonder hovering over her, but she couldn't remember him from before. Her memory was fuzzy. Her immediate reaction was to get up and yell.
"AHH!"
"Agh! What!?" Robin jumped back in confusion. Did he do something wrong?
"Wh-who are you!?" She said defensively.
"I should be asking you that! Where do you get off to almost dying in the forest!? People have to save you ya know! It's a bother!"
They just met each other and they were already arguing.
"Y-you better stand back! I'm warning you!"
"Oh please! I just saved your ungrateful ass from a collapsing tree!"
"W-what?"
Florose looked around her to see a tree, alive, and destroying. That much she remembered.
"NO!" She cried as it knocked down another tree while crushing rare flowers, "STOP! STOP!"
"What is your deal…?" Robin asked her. She was getting way too bent out of shape over a tree and some flowers.
"IT'S KILLING EVERYTHING! STOP IT!"
"…It's just a tree."
Florose turned to him with ferocious eyes.
"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!"
This strange girl was starting to scare him. But all of a sudden, she got up from behind the rock and began running towards the terrorizing tree as if she was about to do something big.
"Hey! Get back here! What are you doing!?" Robin wasn't aware of what he was about to see. He just thought this was some strange environmentalist. But either way, she was about to get hurt, so he had to run in and stop her.
Florose began trying to punch at the tree, but then again, she wasn't the strongest. So one of its many roots whipped her 50 yards back like she was nothing. She was about to get hurt even further, but Robin ran in to catch her mid-air. They both tumbled back. She tried to wiggle out of his grasp.
"Let go of me!"
They kept struggling until Robin was able to pin her down.
"Would you stop that!?" He lectured her.
"Let me up! It's killing my friends!"
"Your friends…? They're just trees."
"So!? Trees give you oxygen! You wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the trees!"
What was she going on about!? Did any of this information matter? This girl was really starting to get on Robin's nerves. She managed to push him off of her, run over to the tree, and try to fight it. Now he had to stop this girl, again. But as soon as Robin turned around, he looked up to see sharp, pointed leaves, shooting out of the girl's hands.
'Well, I should've saw this one coming.' He thought.
But whatever he was seeing didn't matter. Her powers were no match for the beast. She was once again flung across the terrain. This time, her body knocked hard against the trunk of another tree. She fell down, unconscious again.
"What the hell!?" Robin yelled out loud. He ran towards where the girl had fell. Just as he was running, his teammates came from the depths of the forest into the open area he was in, where trees used to fill.
"Thanks for informing us of your sudden inspiration, Rob!" Kid sarcastically said to Robin.
"This thing is still alive? I could've sworn we-" Miss Martian was cut off.
"I figured. We were too busy yapping to actually focus on destroying the beast." Aqualad firmly said while staring at the tree.
"You guys! That girl over there! She's badly hurt! She needs help!" Robin told them in-between their constant remarks.
"What girl? What are you talking about?" Kid Flash asked him
"That one! You see over there!?" Robin pointed out the blonde-haired girl to his best friend, "She's badly hurt and needs some help!"
"Aqualad and I will go help her. You guys finish the job that should've been finished half an hour ago!" Miss Martian said, suddenly taking over.
"You say that as if it's only our faults." Kid Flash muttered.
"Let's get this done now. I don't wanna miss my stories." Superboy said bluntly with no emotion as he charged for the tree. Robin and Kid Flash knew not to question him, even though it was killing them to know what exactly he meant by 'his stories'.
While the others were fending off the tree and making progress, Aqualad and Miss Martian were kneeling down on opposite sides of the unconscious girl. Thousands of questions started formulating in their minds. Who is this girl? What happened? Why is she even here? Aqualad examined her and came to his conclusions.
"She has several cuts, probably infected, and a few bruises. She might have fractured her arm, and this welt on her head suggests a concussion. She needs to be cared for."
"But why on earth is she out here? Of all places. The tip of South America? And the fact that she looks American..."
"She probably is, but that's not important. She should be in medical care immediately. We don't know how long she's been out here. She could be infested with all sorts of unknown diseases."
"Would we be aloud to bring her back to Mount Justice?"
"Well, we do help citizens, but the hospital is our safest bet. I'm not sure that the League would be too thrilled about bringing a nature girl into headquarters. We don't know anything about her."
"But she needs to be questioned! We can't put her in a hospital and be done with it. I think she should come back to base with us."
Aqualad looked at Miss Martian and wondered why she was pressing so hard for this. He realized that the underlying reasons could be that Miss Martian was just itching to have another girl around at HQ. She couldn't take the masculine conversations, attitudes, or aromas alone anymore.
"I-it's not really my place to decide. We should talk to Batman and-"
Aqualad couldn't even finish his sentence before two more teenage girls burst out of the heavy woods. One had long, wavy, light brown hair that ran down to the middle of her back. She wore white jean shorts and a t-shirt, both very dirty, and some run down sandals. The other girl had shoulder-length light blue hair. She was wearing a white tank top and capris, with no shoes.
The two girls' heads scanned the ground as if they were in search of something. When they found two people crowded around a body that lay on the ground, they immediately started running towards it.
"Florose!" The one with blue hair screamed. She thought her friend was dead when she knelt down next to her.
Aqualad didn't know what to make of two more mysterious girls in his presence, but he adjusted to the situation quickly. "Don't worry. She's just unconscious. She'll be fine." Aqualad reassured them. They took it the wrong way. The brunette looked to Aqualad and Miss Martian, then back to Aqualad, then back to Miss Martian.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?"
"Wh-what!? No! We didn't do anything!" Miss Martian told them.
"THAT'S A LIE! TELL ME NOW!"
"Blaze, calm down. She's still alive. I don't think it was these people." The blue-haired one said. She looked up to the Atlantean who was staring down at her. She turned away with a blush, telling herself that now was definitely not the time.
"Are you two her friends? Can you tell us what you're doing here?" Aqualad asked a simple question.
"…No…" The brunette said looking down, whose name was apparently Blaze, Miss Martian caught.
Meanwhile, still in their sight, the beastly tree was beginning to give Robin, Kid Flash, and Superboy a hard time. It was almost as if it were growing right before their eyes. Superboy was obviously frustrated by the way he continued to bang his arms against the bark. He, like the unconscious girl, was flung back by its roots. He got up and pounded at the ground.
"Agh! Why is this so hard!? It's just a tree!" He yelled in anger and frustration. He was about to charge for the tree, but it turned around and started heading for Aqualad, Miss Martian, and the three mysterious girls.
"AQUALAD! MISS M! LOOK OUT!" Robin called out to them. The group turned around to see the monster coming closer and closer. It looked as if a limb was getting bigger and bigger in perspective, which it was.
"Go!" The blue-haired one told Miss Martian and Aqualad.
"What!?" Miss M asked in confusion.
"GO!" She called out to them again, this time with an arm motion as if to shoo them away. But with this motion, a strong force of air and wind blew the Atlantean and the Martian thirty feet back from where they were originally standing. The blue haired girl picked up the unconscious one and flew the opposite way, leaving the brunette called Blaze.
"BLAZE! C'MON!" The blue-haired one screamed. But Blaze didn't move a muscle. She looked paralyzed. Kid Flash saw this from a distance, and ran to the rescue. He picked her up and continued running. Just as he escaped, the falling branch landed in his place.
"Not quite the right time to space out." Kid Flash was still running. He stopped and set the girl down to continue defeating the beast, which frankly, was getting annoying.
The girl he just left was standing in confusion, as if the past two minutes of her life were a complete shock. She looked beside her to see her resting friend, and she looked up to see the blue-haired one.
"Cryochill!? What are you doing!?" She called to her. But the girl named Cryochill was in a trans. She looked so focused, ready to convert her energy into something important. Blaze only wished she could do such a thing. Seconds later, Cryochill unleashed powerful bursts of wind onto the tree from her forearms. It seemed to be taking affect on the beast.
The covert group of teenagers were still fighting the monster, too. And when they saw the girl flying and blasting ice-cold winds from her hands, they all thought the same thing:
'Should've seen that coming.'
The only problem was that she wasn't directing her shots in any particular way, so the blasts were having an affect on them too.
Aqualad thought he heard her name correctly as he said, "Cryochill! Redirect your shots! They're not being controlled well!"
She heard his demand, and took note. Then, it looked as if she was hit with sudden inspiration. She looked down to her friend Blaze, who was looking up at her with a look of worry on her face. "BLAZE! IF THIS IS A TREE, A FLAMMABLE TREE, THEN USE YOUR POWERS TO TAKE IT DOWN!"
Robin tuned in to the conversation. 'What the hell is going on?', he thought. Everything was happening so fast, he lost track of the people he was actually familiar with.
"I…I…" Blaze was backing up into a tree. She couldn't use her power. She promised herself.
"C'MON BLAZE! WE NEED YOUR HELP!" Cryochill insisted.
"…We don't even know these people! Let's just get out of here!"
"BLAZE!"
The girl contemplated the possible outcome of what she was about to do, but she looked like she was taking stance. She was ready to go, until she had a strong flashback. She dropped to her knees, tears in her eyes.
"I CAN'T!"
As soon as she said that, Superboy went into a trans of his own. Throwing himself at the tree with kicks, punches, and head-butts. He was angry, and the anger was overtaking him. But at least he was defeating the beast.
"GET OUT OF HERE!" He screamed at the monster while throwing one last and final punch. The power in his punch was unimaginable, for it was almost as if the tree had shattered. It broke into thousands of pieces right then and there. Superboy was on his knees, panting. Miss Martian quickly came to his aid and started comforting him. He quickly calmed down by her touch.
The cleared out area was silent. No one spoke for a good two minutes, and it felt like eternity. Robin was staring at the one they called Florose, who was still unconscious, Kid Flash was sitting down, picking at the dirt and grass, and Aqualad stood firm, ready to take any questions. Cryochill was standing still, a little less ready than Aqualad, and Blaze was sitting with her legs pulled in close to her chest, her head resting on her knees. She looked destroyed.
"So…can we go home now?" Kid Flash broke the silence.
"KF. Seriously." Robin looked at him.
Aqualad looked at everyone who was in the area, searching for whoever seemed to be ready to talk. "Well, since you seem to be the only stable one, do you care to tell us what just happened here?" He directed towards Cryochill.
"I…can you please…just help us…"
"Hey. Creepy, flying, wind chick. We don't even know you. Could you just tell us what's going on?" Kid Flash said as he stood up.
"We've been out here for two months. And we don't know what to do…we just…I don't know…"
"Two months? Do you not have families to return to?" Miss Martian chimed in. An awkward wind passed. Cryochill looked down slightly, and Blaze buried her face in her knees. Had she buried it any further, she wouldn't have been able to breathe.
"…Please…" Cryochill asked again.
This League didn't know what to do. They aren't supposed to make these decisions. But they couldn't leave three teenage girls in a rainforest who claim that they've been there for two months.
"…Ok…but straight to medical care." Aqualad decided. Cryochill's shoulders were put at rest. She picked up Florose and began to follow the team. But a presence was missing. She turned around and saw Blaze still on the ground, crying her eyes out. She couldn't help her if she was carrying Florose at the same time.
"Um…could someone please help…?" She said ever so softly. Since Superboy seemed to be ignoring everything at that moment, Kid Flash heard her and turned around, "M-my friend over there, Blaze. She's upset. I don't know why she's not following us."
"I'll go get her." Kid Flash said generously. He ran back to the girl who was crying into her knees on the ground. He knelt down next to her and said, "Hey. Uh, we're leaving right now. And it might be a good idea if you joined us."
Blaze was still crying. Kid Flash didn't know what to do. He hardly knew her. How could he even make her feel better?
"…Why are you so upset anyway?"
The girl slowly looked beside her at who was talking to her, "Leave me alone."
Kid Flash knew he couldn't do what she had requested. So he stood up, and put a hand out to her. "Ok, but you still might want to come with me."
Blaze looked at this stranger's hand. She didn't know what to expect. She didn't tune into the conversation they were all having before. Had she missed something? What comes next? But he looked like he meant no harm, so she took his hand. It felt warm and comforting in hers. As the speedster guided her to the ship, she didn't let go.
Second chapter! I'm REALLY sorry if anyone got confused during this one. I was editing this one and the first one so much that even I got lost. But more chapters are definitely to come!
-GC
