So here it is! Sorry for the late upload, but I had family stuff. Enjoy!
Part the First: Captured
Escape- Act Two
The team stalked silently through the hallways of the watchtower, letting their stealth training flow in their movements; they were silent silhouettes in the shadows. Robin led the small pack of teens, motioning ever so often-in one direction or the other with a gloved hand. Artemis fell in step behind him, an arrow strung in her bow. Kid Flash crouched beside her, matching every one of his footfalls to hers, struggling to keep from running ahead. M'gann and Superboy walked silently behind them, Superboy listening to see if they were being followed, M'gann using her telepathy to make sure no one was up ahead. Aqualad brought up the rear, water-bearers in his hands but not activated.
Robin wordlessly turned a corner, and stopped suddenly. The other protégés stopped as well, confusion lining their features.
"What's wrong Robin?" Kid Flash asked his best friend through the mind link they had established after escaping their cells.
"Look." was the cryptic reply he received. The younger hero tilted his head in the direction before him.
Artemis and Kid Flash peered over the young bird's shoulder, while the remaining teens silently tiptoed to the other wall to get a better view. M'gann took a shark intake of breath, looking out into the room before her.
In the long, open, room tall windows graced every wall. The barren floors held nothing that would conceal the fugitives from the sunlight that streamed in from the windows. The entire room was empty, save for the security cameras in every corner.
"Can you disable them Robin? Or stop the stream?" Aqualad asked calmly.
"Not without altering whoever is on security." was the grim reply. "The sun is rising, and after we all crossed the room and after I put the cameras back on, the sun will be in a different position. Instant give away.
"Is there another way to the evidence room?" Artemis inquired nervously.
"Yes, but it's longer and we'd have to go back a ways."
"Well we don't have much of a choice, do we?" Superboy reasoned sharply.
Robin nodded, and all six heroes turned around, quickly re-forming into their previous positions. With every step, each member felt the other's apprehension grow through the mind link*.
"How far is it till we get there?" Kid Flash whined.
"Not that much farther, we need to take the first right, than the second left, then we'll be there!" Robin replied, his patience growing thin.
Three tight turns later, and the team found themselves gazing up in awe at the dark room. It was a simple room, medium size, and a long table in the middle, a smaller table stacked with beakers and test tubes, and a door across from where the protégés stood. What surprised them, however, were the cabinets. Stacked up against all four walls, sat large, grey cabinets. Some walls had two cabinets stacked up on top of each other, and all the cabinets had a tight, high-tech, lock on the front of each drawer.
"Where do we start?" breathed M'gann quietly.
"Fist things first M'gann," Aqualad whispered, "Superboy, guard this door. I will guard the other one. Everyone M'gann, Kid Flash, and Artemis will look for our evidence, while Robin works on disabling the camera's and the locks. Everyone agree?"
Nods of union met the question.
"Good."
Minuets of tense silence passed, and no one knew how long it would be until the older heroes came back. So, it was a huge relief when a certain young speedster gave the soft call of:
"I found it!"
Robin scurried over to where his best friend was crouching, and pulled up his hollo-computer. A few quick taps on his keyboard, and the lock deftly opened up. Robin pulled out the folder with shaking hands, and the rest of the team reverently walked over to him.
The rest of the team, except Superboy, who leaned carefully against the door, a look of intense concentration etched onto his face. His eye's widened in terror when he realized exactly what he was hearing.
"Someone's coming!" he cried, turning away from the door and running to his panic-stricken teammates.
Robin was the first to shake off the feeling of impending doom.
"Hide!" he commanded his friends urgently. He took a moment to close the open evidence drawer, before climbing on top of the nearest cabinet and curling into a ball with his cape draped around him. Kid Flash sped over to the far side of the table, sat down, and activated his cameo-suit**. He was vibrating from apprehension. Aqualad followed him and sat next to the vibrating teen. M'gann simply flew to the top of the room and turned invisible, while Artemis hid behind the smaller table. Superboy looked around wildly, not knowing where to hide and beginning to panic. M'gann quickly dove down and picked him up, floating back to the ceiling and turning them both invisible***.
There they waited, the seconds ticking by like minuets, the tension in the room growing faster that the Flash runs. Until, slowly, as if to taunt them, a thin stream of light entered the room. It grew, and from his perch, Robin could see two figures step into the doorframe.
Flash and Batman.
The team all but stopped breathing, not knowing what the two founding members would do. Batman simply looked at Flash, and nodded.
"Crud." the thought was heard through the mind-link, although no one really knew who thought it.
Kid Flash didn't blink, he knew that the second he did he gave up every chance of escaping the combined wrath of his mentor and Batman.
Batman walked into the room, flowed closely by Flash, his eyes never leaving the long tabletop. When they were across from Kid Flash and Kaldur, they stopped and waited. Second flew by, the urge to jump and run flowed uncontrollably through all the teens, and became harder and harder to resist. Finally, something snapped.
Robin watched in horror as Batman threw two, small balls at the spot where M'gann and Superboy were. The balls exploded into a small fireball that instantly sent them both crashing down, only to be caught by Aqualad. Before most of the team knew what happened, they were again in handcuffs and were being chained together. Kid Flash slowly crept around the table, and approached his confused teammates. But Batman was instantly in front of him, and with a quick movement, had the young hero down on his back and in shackles. Artemis drew an arrow from her quiver, but before she could string it, she was picked up. She blinked, and found herself standing next to her chained friends, bound once again. Robin took out his bird-erangs and tossed them at Batman. Batman deflected them easily, and in a blur of red, Robin found himself in chains again. Batman and Flash appeared in front of the line of teens, and each grabbed one end of the connecting chain. The small procession then made their way into the hallway, back to the cells from which the young heroes had just escaped.
"Well, I thought we'd have to deal with some sort of escape attempt, but trying to get the evidence was fool-hardy." Batman scolded as they walked down the hallways. The team, for their part, was still too ashamed to speak, but M'gann kept the mind-link open.
"Batman's right," Flash started, "if you hadn't detoured, you would be home free right now. Well, you'd be on the run right now."
"I'm almost surprised that we were right." Batman mused to Flash.
"About the placing? I figured Robin, at least, would have figured it out."
"What?" the prisoners asked in bewilderment.
"We placed you in a certain order, according to what each of you would do in the event that you escaped." Flash explained.
"M'gann was closest to the zeta-beams, because she was the most likely to want to rescues the others before leaving." Batman clarified, "Superboy was next, for the same reason. Then Aqualad, Artemis, Kid Flash and Robin."
"So, what you're saying is that in the event that I escaped, you thought I would leave my team behind?" Robin huffed angrily.
"No," Batman snapped, "what we're saying, is that you'd be the most likely person to go get help from the outside. You could get in from almost all of the zeta-tubes, and you would come back after you'd convinced other heroes to come and help you free the others."
"But now, we'll have to tighten security around your cells, when we get you in them." Flash said sadly.
"Unless you manage to escape from us." Batman prodded.
"Most likely through the use of force." Flash continued.
"Then you'd have to confine us in a cell, make sure we couldn't get out, then leave." Batman finished.
"The league wouldn't believe that." Artemis scoffed.
"Robin took out six of the seven founding members by himself when he was nine, so I think that they would believe that an entire team of trained partners could take out two." Flash corrected. (that thought courtesy of Elyograg's story: A Father's comfort.)
The small caravan continued their walk in silence, the teens communicating telepathically, until they came to Robin's cell. Then the team exploded.
M'gann used her telepathy to break the chains and handcuffs, followed immediately by Kid Flash running around the older heroes. Flash took a step out to try and catch him, but tripped over a cluster of marbles. Superboy and Aqualad tackled Batman to the ground, and Robin removed the pocket that kept Batman's personal supply of kryptonite. Kid Flash and Artemis held down Flash, while M'gann wrapped chains around both men's hands and feet.
Quickly, Aqualad and Superboy gently dragged the two heroes to Kid Flash's cell, where they placed them sitting back to back in the middle of the room. Robin intensified the gravity lamps slightly once the two partners left.
"Just to make sure they stay there." he reasoned. "Now, Wally, where did you say that safe-haven was?"
"Blue Valley, Nebraska." Kid Flash whispered, "It's where I grew up. I have a little cabin that I used as a kid. It should hold all of us temporarily, and no one on earth, or anywhere else, knows about it."
"You sure?" Artemis inquired, grabbing his wrist.
"Positive."
"Then away we go!" M'gann squealed.
"One sec." Robin commanded, pulling up his computer again, "I want to erase our conversation. Can't have the league be suspicious of our those two. Plus, we don't want this conversation to have ever happened."
A few second of intense waiting later, and the zeta tubes powered up. Superboy went first, since he was carrying the food, then Aqualad, who carried the rest of the supplies, then Artemis, M'gann, Kid Flash and finally, Robin.
…
"I thought you said it was a small cabin!" Conner exclaimed, walking into the cabin. The team had just reached the place that they would call home for the immediate future and were surprised to say the least.
The cabin was more of a glorified lean-to, thin logs stacked up on top of one another so high it was shoulder length to Kaldur. It was long enough to hold a small family quite comfortably, and it was fully wind-proof. It also blended well with the woods around it, making it almost invisible unless someone was to look for it.
"Welcome home!" Wally yelled.
"Wally, be quiet!" Artemis scolded, "It's, like, ten o clock at night! People are probably sleeping!"
"Oops."
"Guy's," a weary Megan cried softly, sitting down on the hard dirt, "we left the evidence at the watchtower!"
"Crud!" Artemis spat, sitting down beside her.
"How do we clear our names without even knowing what we did?" Conner whined.
"Fear not!" Robin laughed, "I have the evidence right here!"
"Really?" Wally piped up.
"I don not see how that is possible." Kaldur said, walking over to the young bird.
"I put it in a secret pocket in my cape before I hid." He pulled out the folder, "It's been safely there ever since. Now gather round, and we'll see what we've been accused of."
Robin sat in the middle of the room, and tossed the folder onto the ground in front of him. The rest of the team huddled around it, and when they were all seated, Robin opened up the folder.
It's contents made all six teens gasp in horror.
I'M EVIL! Cookies to anyone who guesses correctly why I changed their name's from Super to Normal and back again.
* and ***: Not sure if this is possible, but whatever.
**: Any one know how to spell the abbreviated form of "camouflage?" 'cause I don't think that's it.
REVIEW AND VOTE PLEASE!