Thanks for the reviews guys. Decided to put up the next chapter for ya'. Hope you enjoy it.
Chapter Two
Starfire continued to stare dumbfounded at the tiny infant in her arms, who likewise looked up at the much-larger Tamaranean, with wide eyes. Robin looked over her shoulder, trying to figure out what had happened. He then raised his index finger, slowly moving it in towards the baby. Robin held the outstretched finger right above the baby's head, about to touch it and see if it was really who he thought it to be. Suddenly, a tiny grey hand came out of the cloak folds, grabbing onto the finger.
Robin immediately pulled away, as if the touch by the baby was poison. Starfire looked over curiously at him even as she continued to cradle the small infant in her arms. She then turned her own head from Robin, who was breathing heavily, as if having escaped the clutches of Death itself, back to the small child. She looked into its eyes, the baby again returning a curious stare of her own. She looked like a miniature version of Raven, only a bit younger than even that. Her hair was shorter on the sides, and the chakra seemed almost too big for the child's head. Her eyes were softer, and seemingly like the chakra, a bit larger than they should be for her head. Starfire moved the baby in her arms back and forth a little bit, just to see the reaction. The infant giggled appreciatively, as any young one would. Starfire's face lit up in happiness.
"You... are..." she began slowly, continuing to look at the baby with large eyes.
"ADORABLE!" Starfire then exclaimed, pulling the baby close to her chest in a hug. She then lowered Raven back down to her previous position, already floating off to Robin and Cyborg.
"Oh friends! Is this miniaturized version of our friend Raven not the most adorable thing you have ever seen in your years of life?" Robin nodded nervously, not wanting to challenge her opinion. Cyborg, however, was a bit more concerned than just upsetting Starfire in the current predicament. Primarily, he was more worried about Raven.
"Uhh...Star? You know that's Raven, right?" Cyborg stated to her, his voice easily showing the confusion that was thick in both of the two boy's mind. What had just happened? They had heard Beastboy scream, and then turn up with a baby that looked just like Raven? No, a baby that was Raven. What had happened?
"Wait... you wish to tell me that this baby is not just a baby but is indeed our friend Raven somehow shrunken back into an infant status and now seemingly stuck there for an unknown period of time with us to take care of her every need and want?" Starfire's quick assessment of the entire situation gained only meek nods from both of the others. She then smiled, hugging the baby close to her body while rocking it.
"Then that makes you even more adorable!" she said, with her eyes closed. Raven giggled appreciatively of the continued-anew rocking, waving her short, little, grey arms in the air, as if seeming to try to grab it. Cyborg and Robin both cocked eyebrows at the baby's laughter, not so sure anymore that it might be Raven shrunken down... or whatever Starfire had said.
"Uhh.. Star?" Cyborg finally spoke up, stopping Starfire from playing Raven. She looked over at her teammate.
"Yes, friend Cyborg?" she asked, wondering why he would have stopped her from her activity.
"Shouldn't we sort of... be finding out how Raven got turned into a baby?" he said empathetically. Starfire pondered on the thought for several moments, moving one of her hands up to her mouth, the other arm keeping Raven close to her body, who wiggled uncomfortably with only one arm for support.
"Perhaps.. but would you not perfer to keep friend Raven the way she is now?" Starfire asked smiling a huge grin, grabbing Raven under the arms and holding her out in front of the other two boys. However, she had not grabbed onto the cloak that had been clothing the babe. Her swift motion with Raven only sped up the reaction, the cloak quickly slipping away from the baby's body, landing on the floor in a neat pile. Robin and Cyborg immediately lurched away from the sight of the nude child, covering their eyes with their hands just for added measure. Starfire blushed quickly and ducked to the floor, grabbing the clothing and readministering it to baby Raven, who merely stared forward, not seeming to be at all bothered by her de-clothing. After a few seconds of shifting the cloak back onto the baby, and Starfire promising the boys it would not happen again, both Robin and Cyborg looked up warily at their friends.
"Ok, how about we find out what happened to Raven and how we can help her after we get her some clothing that fits her?" Robin said, giving Starfire a slightly reapproving glare. Starfire nodded, walking up closer to him.
"Agreed, and since we have nothing of that kind present in our home at the moment, then I shall be required to go to the 'mall of shopping' to purchase such."
"Yeah, but-" Robin tried to argue, seeing where this was heading already. He tried to back away, causing Starfire to only move forward even moreso.
"Which means you shall have to watch baby Raven while I go!" Starfire said cheerfully, shoving the small child into Robin's unwanting arms. Robin looked down at the baby that was his friend, who stared back up at him with a blank stare, her mouth opening and closing slowly, making small sounds. He felt a small finger jab at his stomach from under the cloak. Robin turned back to Starfire, the jabbing continuing. He tried to smile, the facial expression looking more like a twisted grin than anything else.
"We-well... she is sort of... cute..." Robin said through partially clenched teeth, the annoyance growing with every jab. Why in the world was Starfire leaving him with Raven! What did he know about taking care of babies! Granted, the others probably knew even less, but still... he could probably run down to the mall while Starfire stayed at the Tower with Raven, and gotten anything they might need for Raven. And who even knew how long this was going to last? They didn't even know it started for cripe's sake!
And there was only one person in the room who could currently answer that question. Robin craned his neck over at the green teen sitting dejectedly on the couch, flipping through channels as if nothing had happened. Starfire, however, seemed not to notice.
"Joyous!" she exclaimed, clasping her hands together and putting them next to her chin. "I shall be only a few minutes with 'the shopping', so that I may come back and properly dress friend Raven!"
Robin watched then as Starfire turned and flew off for the door leading out of the room. In only a few moments, she was already going down the hallway, impossible to catch up to. He sighed, looking back at the teammate in his arms, who's continued poking of his stomach was seriously starting to annoy him now. He moved over to the couch, with Cyborg following him close behind. His face betrayed no feeling, except for that of agitation. He quickly took a seat next to Beastboy, placing Raven next to him on the couch. Cyborg took the seat on the opposite side, boxing the changeling in. It took several seconds for Beastboy to register the two being there, being that he was seemingly glued to the televison set.
"Hey Beastboy..." Robin started, turning from Raven to him, after making sure the latter was secured in her cloak on the couch. Beastboy continued to look at the T.V., zoned in on it.
"Yo B..." Cyborg tried next, calling his friend by his nickname. It still didn't work. Beastboy was obviously trying to ignore them, perhaps even ignore the problem that now laid at their feet, well... next to them on the couch to be more specific. Robin lifted an eyebrow at the blatant ignoral. Chances were Beastboy had been doing something at the time of when whatever had happened to Raven, had "happened", and was now trying to avoid answering for it. Robin sighed and pulled out the spare remote for the T.V. he had had Cyborg build for them, just for Beastboy's personal safety should he ever get too involved in the television set. The blinking out of the T.V. screen finally seemed to do the trick, Beastboy immediately swung his head to his leader.
"Hey, I was watching that!" he said, annoyed.
"Dude, you're not going to get to watch anything for a long time if you don't tell us what you did to Raven." Cyborg countered back, leaning in closely to his friend, one of his large arms lying on the back of the couchhead behind Beastboy. It was a bit menacingly, to be sure.
"What makes you think I did do anything to her?" Beastboy asked slyly, trying to throw off suspicion. It wasn't working, considering that he was the one who had brought Raven like this to them. Robin and Cyborg both gave him disbelieving stares.
"Beastboy, we're not going to be mad if you tell us. But we need to know what happened, in order to get Raven back." Robin said to his friend, sounding a bit desperate. Beastboy may have been a prankster, but he doubted he wasn't going to help them help Raven. He couldn't be that much of a clown.
"Well..." Beastboy started off, shifting a bit in his seat. "You see, I was kinda'... wanting to see what Raven had in her room and-"
"So you went into Raven's room?" Robin asked, disbelievingly. No, he shouldn't disbelieve such, all the times Beastboy had spied on them all in different animal forms, it wasn't suprising at all anymore. But still...
"So that's why you made that extra pot of tea, to distract her? BB, you know that wasn't even fair, the girl's addicted to that stuff." Cyborg said, a bit disapprovingly, though impressed at the thought Beastboy had put into it, even if it was for a negative cause.
"Well, it worked, didn't it?" Both of the other boys shook their heads sadly at this last comment. Robin was the first to pick his up however, and the first to start back up the line of questions.
"Let's not think about that right now. Beastboy, we needto know how Raven turned into a... baby." Robin finished the sentence a bit oddly. He turned back over to look at the child on the couch who was supposed to be his friend. He still couldn't believe that something like this could've happened, regardless of all the weird things that went on in their daily lives. This simply took the cake in his mind, demonic fathers and Brains in jars withstanding.
Well, when I was kind of Raven's bedroom, I found this book of hers, with all these weird pictures and words in it." Robin sighed, so he had found what was obviously a spellbook. He could already guess what had happened next.
"So I was reading from the one page, but the words were all weird, like what Raven always says when she uses her powers. And I was just at the bottom of the page when Raven came barging in-"
"To her room." Cyborg interrupted his friend, adding in his part. Beastboy glanced an annoyed look but continued on.
"And so like I was saying, I'm at the bottom of the page and she comes and starts screaming, and I'm still reading, and I look up and go 'RAVEN!' while still reading the spell. And I guess... I sorta' casted it on her..." Robin put his face in his hands, hearing the "goo's" and "gahs" coming from Raven on the couch next to him, completely unaware of her current situation. So it was just as he had feared, a spell. Robin, however, had a plan for such a situation.
"Beastboy, where is the spellbook that changed Raven into a... baby?"
"Uhh... back in her room?" Beastboy answered, not catching on.
"Go get it, however we're going to transform Raven back is going to be in there." Robin ordered back. Beastboy nodded and got up from the couch, leaving the lobby room quickly and running through the hallway. Robin then sighed and leaned back into the couch, wondering what to really do. Sure, get the spellbook, find the the spell that overrid the original, and get back a very angry Raven who was probably going to beat Beastboy into the ground with the book. But how were they going to read what was in the book? Most of Raven's spell tomes weren't written a language any of them could probably understand, so how was it supposed to help them if they couldn't even tell what it read? Robin turned to look at the baby of his friend, who was now preoccupied by the shining lights in the cieling, trying to reach up fruitlessly and touch them. He couldn't help but smile a little bit, especially when he considered how Raven would take it once she found out what she had been doing as a baby thus far.
Perhaps it wasn't the best idea to tell her.
"She is kinda' cute, in a little shriveled-up kind of way." Cyborg interjected. Robin looked at him strangely, who then shrugged and returned to sitting back on the couch, waiting for Beastboy to return. After several more minutes of such, the changeling finally returned, carrying the blue-lining book in his arms. He came over to the couch, plopping back down inbetween them both. He then opened the book, finding the page he had been on before. Both of the boys leaned in close, then were repelled by the images as he had before.
"UGH! Man, couldn't you have like, warned us about that!" Cyborg said, turning back slowly. Robin glanced back over at baby Raven before turning back to the others, having a hard time imagining that something like that could have ever looked like it did in the book. He then forced his neck back towards making his face the page, still disturbed by it. They all then turned to the weirdly-written words on the opposite page, trying to decipher it.
"Uhh, can any of you read it?" Cyborg asked the other two, who shook their heads. Beastboy tried to trace his fingers down the lines, hoping that would help them.
"I can make the sounds of them they make... sorta'..." Cyborg reached over and took the book from Beastboy, looking at the words.
"Language doesn't match any of my readings. Far as I can tell, these words aren't from Earth." Cyborg then lowered the book slightly, his nose starting to get wrinkled. The other boys didn't notice it at first, but the horrible stench soon came to their nostrils as well. They slowly moved away from the fourth occupant of the couch, who clapped her hands together as if completing a mission of some bizarre sort.
"Uhh, dudes, you smell that?" Beastboy asked, needing not to have. They nodded, all the while continuing to slide away from the baby.
"Anyone... know how to... change?" Robin asked the other two, who shook their heads uncomfortably. Robin turned back to the baby on the couch, who continued to celebrate whatever she deemed to be a success.
"Man BB, this is all your fault for making all that extra tea that she drank!" Cyborg yelled, already getting up to run away.
"Hehehe... how soon did Star say she was going to get back?"
End of Chapter 2