And here is this week's chapter. Sorry for the delay.

Unfair Justice

Chapter Nine

Where nightmares are born

"Unbelievable…" mumbled the Young teen as he finally became aware of his surroundings. The light that had enveloped all of his senses had left a few spots floating in his sight, but the mere concept was ridiculous, for he was supposedly within somebody's mind, he shouldn't have real eyes to be affected by the light's aftereffects. And yet, he was seeing those dark spots as he observed his new environment, completely amazed by it.

A gust of cold wind went by and his skin prickled with the small ice flakes that were moved by the air. It was incredible how real things felt. But it was also very unnerving. It was a powerful reminder that death in here might signify death in the real word; something to keep in mind as they moved forward.

Bringing his hand to rub at his still slightly blurry eyes, the boy wonder noticed for the first time that something was different about him. Looking down, he noticed his uniform had been replaced by his normal civil outfit: jeans, blue jacket and a black T-shirt. It all seemed the same except for one thing: in the front of his normally plain shirt he had printed in blue the winged symbol of "The flying Graysons". He almost gasped as the memory of his father's costume came to mind. His hand slowly traced over the pattern, wondering why it was there…

Feeling the cold air touch his now slightly moist eyes he went to rub them clear, trying to distract himself from the strong nostalgic feeling that was growing inside of him. But once his hand touched his face he became painfully aware of the fact that he had nothing covering his eyes. Why? He wondered…

"Uh… my head…"mumbled Artemis as she slowly recovered from her fall into this mental plane. Robin, hearing her getting up, became nervous at the idea of his friend seeing him with nothing to cover his light blue eyes. Of course, part of him was aware that it was foolish for him to be nervous of his friends looking at his face directly without any kind of 'mask', but Bruce had ingrained the concept of secret identity so deeply into his mind that he actually felt naked without his domino mask or at least his glasses when he was in front of others and not posing as Wayne's little ward. Begging he would find something to safe him from his predicament, he franticly searched his clothes and around every pocket, keeping an ear on the sound of steps growing closer to him. With each step he heard he grew more and more flustered till the point in which he would have laughed at his own silliness. "Come on! I'm supposed to be always prepared!" He whined mentally as he continued his search, and fortunately for him, inside a hidden pocket in his jacket he found his old pair of sunglasses. Odd… he was sure he had already looked there…

Placing the glasses on, he sighed in relief and turned around to his friend, a bright smile on his face.

"Everything… is so white…" complained the girl as she rubbed her eyes. He took notice that the archer was still in the same civil clothing she had before entering, but this time, there was a leather strap hanging from her neck with two little pendants made of bone… or at least it appeared so. One was a small cat, the other the tip of an arrow. Artemis seemed to unconsciously reach to the pendants as her other hand tried to pacify the stinging sensation in her eyes.

"Yeah, I know," said the boy wonder turning back to admire the scenery. Ice and snow covered every inch of the land around them, while the sky over them was a huge blanket of grayish clouds. Winds blew creating small swirls of frozen air, dancing around the place. Surprisingly enough, they felt the cold but it didn't overwhelm them. It was more of a cool sensation rather than the Antarctic winter it appeared it would be at first sight.

"Are we really in his mind?" asked Artemis, as she tried to see as far as she could.

"Yes, and no," the voice coming from behind them made them turn to see Kaldur helping Megan up from where she had landed on the ground. The martian was wearing her battle outfit, cloak included, different from the civil clothes she had before entering, and the 'X' on her chest —normally red— had turned a stark white. On his part, the atlantean was in his normal hero outfit, but within his normally black tattoos where strange bluish symbols —that Robin recognized as atlantean letters— covering all the way up his arms.

"What do you mean Megan?" asked the leader, blinking slightly to clear his vision.

"We are in Phantom's outer mind. In the protective cover, a wall made to keep intruders at bay."

The teens' expressions turned bewildered as they looked at the vast expanse of icy earth. There were no visible beginnings or ends to this place.

"This… is a wall?" asked the boy wonder, dumbfounded by the idea as he tapped the floor with his left foot.

She nodded as she pulled the hood of her cloak down, hugging the soft material closer to her.

"At first, I used to believe this was his real mental plane, since this is where I've always come to after breaking through his conscious barriers. But last time, while everything came down around me, I noticed it wasn't the case. This is a second protective wall, one that Phantom himself is or rather was unaware of…" as she moved to the front of the group to take on the lead, she offered a piece of advice. "From now on, it's best we move carefully. We need to get to his inner mind's space, and for that we have to find a weakness in this barrier. Follow me."

The teens nodded to each other and silently began following the martian's guide.

So they walked and walked and walked, for a good while, the landscape never changing no matter how far they went, and nothing really helped them identify that they were moving at all. It was a frustrating sensation, and the silence made things a little more difficult… That's why Robin decided to break it by asking what he had been curious about for a while.

"Megan, I've been meaning to ask," said the boy wonder as his hand traced the symbol on his chest for the thousand time since they began following her.

"Yes?" she asked, never stopping once.

The boy gave a sheepish smile as he continued.

"Well, it's not really important, but why do we look different?"

It appears he wasn't the only one wishing to ask this, for the moment the question was out, each of the teens moved a hand to touch their 'differences' as if it was a subconscious reaction; which probably was, since they were basically mental representations of themselves.

Megan stopped for a second and turned around slowly to show she had a hand placed over the white 'x' on her chest as she contemplated it.

"The guiding memory… well… I was told that Phantom's mind hates lies with vehemence. He thinks lying is like cheating and you mustn't cheat… never unless it's for somebody else's good. Although, that still doesn't make it right…"

"Well… he surely seems to have his morals clear…" mumbled Artemis from behind.

"When you entered," continued the martian as if she hadn't heard her friend's comment. "His mind forced you to reveal a piece of who you are… perhaps a part you are not very comfortable with, something you would rather hide, but still an important piece. This reality is reflected through some kind of change in your appearance."

Suddenly, this differences made a lot more of sense in their heads.

Robin knew his marking was showing who he really was inside. He wasn't a Wayne and he wasn't completely a Robin, he was a Grayson, and deep within his heart, that part of him was still there, waiting for his chance to fly with his own wings.

Artemis saw in her collar the duality of her origins. The cat reminded her of her life with her sister and the training their father was placing them on, while the arrow's point about her new life as a heroine. It represented all the good that had happened since she joined the team, her friends, her new extended family… Wally…

Aqualad looked at the names written in his native language around his arms, his former family, his former friends… his former love… All the people that had made Atlantis feel like home and constantly made him homesick, even if the feeling had decreased with time.

Megan observed the white color of her mark. She hated how someone else had the power to influence her into showing such a private secret, but on his defense, Phantom didn't actually wish to know, things just worked like that in his head.

"Does that means that he now knows about our… 'secrets'?" asked Artemis, making them all flinch slightly. That was one unpleasant thought. Fortunately, Megan denied it quickly.

"No, he doesn't understand these changes at all. He just knows why they are, not what they mean."

"I don't get it… why make us change then?" asked the boy wonder.

"Well… when he explained it to me he said something like: 'before letting the enemy enter your home you make him take off his weapons… even if you don't know how he will use them'." She had a sheepish smile as she said this.

"Enemy?" asked the confused Atlantean. "He… he considers us enemies?"

"Wha—? No! no… no I… well… if we get to see the memory that guided me around… you'll probably understand… Phantom can be a little intense in a few things… and at the moment… perhaps more than a little unstable… The main idea though, is he wasn't really happy I was there." As a small blush appeared on her cheeks as she turned once more and started walking once more.

The others looked at each other questioning silently what she was going on about, but ended up shrugging in resignation. After all, she might explain herself better later.

In the Watch Tower

The martian looked forlornly at the show of lights that shone in space as he sighed once more.

"I really hope Megan doesn't get mad at me," he said to himself.

"J'onn," called a voice from behind him, making him turn almost startled to see Superman coming his way.

"Superman, is there something you require?" he asked trying to mask his upset demeanor.

Unfortunately for him, the Kryptonian's ears worked well enough to catch his silent comment about Megan.

"What are you doing here, I thought you would be on earth watching over this… um… what was it? A 'guest' the kids got in the cave?"

The martian couldn't help the small smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. He found it amusing how Batman would sometimes leave details out from the explanations he gave to Superman when he thought the man of steel would make an unnecessary scandal over things.

"Yes, I was there. But the boy's condition is quickly deteriorating. I'm afraid that he is going to die soon."

Superman could only frown; it was always a tragedy when a young life is lost. Worst was that he barely had any knowledge of the situation since he had been helping Green lantern get rid of a few meteorites that were getting slightly too close to earth's orbit. All he got from Batman was that the team had found a prisoner in their last mission and that the boy had been damaged beyond repair. He was aware his friend was holding information, because, in Batman's own words: "You allow emotions to cloud your judgment way too quickly sometimes." And sadly, the kryptonian hero knew his friend was right, he just wished he could help more with this case. But, perhaps he could at least help his friend.

"Losing a life is always hard J'onn, but I doubt that that is the only reason you seem so upset."

Looking at the genuine concerned expression on his burly friend, the Manhunter smiled softly at the comforting feeling of having someone in whom he could confide.

"You are right," he said as he looked back at the stars. "It's about Megan…"

"What happened to her?" asked the Kryptonian leaning on the railing close to him.

"It's just… she was so determined to help that boy she was borderline reckless. I couldn't risk her doing something imprudent… I didn't want to risk her well being… so… I forced her to fall into a deep slumber," explained the martian as he looked at his hands, with something akin to disgust in his expression. "I shouldn't have done that… I intruded on her mind in a moment in which she was really distressed, she probably hates me…"

The Martian felt a big hand being placed over his shoulder and turned to see his friend's understanding expression.

"J'onn, you shouldn't blame yourself so much about this. Look, if Robin or Kid were to do something reckless I'm sure that Batman and Flash would run all the way around the world to stop them, IF they were aware of their actions that is," he added, cause he knew those kids got away with almost anything because they acted behind their backs. "Megan is a very kind girl, I'm sure she'll forgive you after you explain your reasons." He said, making the martian feel slightly better. "You know, you should go back to the cave. It'll be easier if you are there when she wakes up."

The Manhunter looked slightly reluctant for a second.

"But… I'm supposed to take on guard duty at the tower after Flash."

Superman simply waved it off, and offered a smile.

"Don't worry about that J'onn, I'll cover for you. This is more important, you should be there."

Seeing his friend had no doubt on his words, the martian finally nodded in agreement.

"Thank you, Superman."

"You're welcome, J'onn." He said as the Manhunter began walking away toward the portal that would take him to Megan's side.

Back in the mental landscape…

"Megan… how long are we going to walk? We must have been hours in here already!" exclaimed the young archer, nervous by the feeling of time passing them by, wondering if the league had found them out.

"I doubt we've been in here even 10 minutes in the real world," said the martian as she continued her pace, looking at the clouded sky, feeling the uncertainty that came by not being able to tell the pass of time accurately.

"Are you sure? It feels like longer than that," commented the boy wonder as he tried to clean a little of the frost that had formed around his glasses' edges.

"Phantom's mind is in a coma situation. Time is irrelevant in here, since his mind has detached a lot from his body. Last time I was here, it felt like it took me days to leave," the others' eyes widened and Robin seemed to choke on air as he held onto his glasses so they didn't fall. Aqualad seemed to be wishing to tell her something but she raised a hand to stop him. "I know the concept of time seems relevant, but right now, within this mind, one second can extend to infinity, yet another can signify alls end. We may have to walk for what seems like hours, but each step must be taken as if we only had seconds…" her voice began decreasing as she gave a few more steps before suddenly coming to a halt.

"Megan?" asked Artemis.

"We are here," said the girl as she kneeled to touch the frozen ground. A small gasp escaped her as she stood up once more. "This point is a lot weaker than it should be… we really must hurry."

"Ok…" said the boy wonder getting closer, still confused on how they could 'hurry' without actual 'time'. "So what do we do now?"

"I'll phase us through the barrier and get into the inner layer." As the teens came closer to take each others' hands she gave them a warning. "Once inside, things can get pretty dangerous, please, don't separate yourselves from the others, and remember that anything you see is not truly real," the worry in her expression made them slightly uneasy as they connected hands.

A tingling sensation run over their bodies as Megan slowly made them phase through the cold barrier. And for a moment, they closed their eyes as the barrier passed them through, only opening them again once they felt their feet touch the ground. The atmosphere that surround them there was completely different from the one above.

A glacial cave. Walls covered in ice creating passages that extended far ahead and gave way to bifurcations giving the impression of a maze like structure. The soft hue of blue that darkened in the deepest parks but seemed to lighten around them should have made them feel relaxed, and they would have, had that been all there was to see.

"What the—" mumbled a stunned Artemis as they all observed their surroundings with wide eyes, everyone except for the young Martian who simply regarded the scene in front of her with a forlorn sense of pity.

The bluish walls gave ways to metal doors every few meters, each one marked with scratches that reminded them of a beast's claws. Darkness seemed to pour from every corner creating misshaped figures that lurked all around them. But the worse was the strange puddles of green glowing liquid mixed with dark crimson. Stains of the substance fell down from the walls, from the doors and over the otherwise clean icy floor; it left hand prints every now and then. Sometimes, those marks were awfully distorted and stretched, as if someone had dragged a bleeding corpse all over the floor. The air was packed with a musty smell that was eerily similar to that of fresh blood.

Robin's trembling hand touched one of the stains getting his bare fingers dirty with the sickening mix of toxic green and dark red.

"I-Is this… blood?" he asked, more than a little unnerved by the heavy feeling settling itself on his chest.

"It…well…it's a representation… but, yeah, it is blood," the martian's answer made the boy recoil and —disgusted— try to clean his digits against the icy rock of the wall. He was used to blood, painfully used, but this was making him feel so deeply upset, the atmosphere in this place was too heavy, oppressively trying to grasp on each one of them.

Trying to distract herself from her friends conversation about the 'blood' that covered the place and the small bout of nausea that came by the strong smell, Artemis looked anywhere in the tunnel that wasn't covered by the stains. It was because of this that her eyes fell upon one of the metal doors, one that seemed barely scratched and didn't have any weird liquids on it. Her eyes then fixed on the door's handle and almost in trance, the archer walked to it.

"What are these doors anyway?" she said in almost a whisper, but it was loud enough for Megan to turn to look at her in time to see her friend take a hold on the grey handle.

"ARTEMIS, NO!"

The martian girl tried to reach her friend but her scream took the archer by surprise making her turn around and accidently pull at the door's handle.

Everyone held their breaths for a few seconds as a loud clicking sound filled the room. They all watched in silence, waiting for something to happen. But once a minute went by with nothing, Megan let out a sigh of relief.

"OH… false alarm, everything is fine…" she said with a nervous smile. The other heroes looked at her carefully, unsure of what just happened.

"Megan… what the hell was that about?" exclaimed the slightly terrified archer, her hand now held against her chest as if the door had burned her after Megan screamed.

Looking at each of their expressions, the green faced girl sighed in resignation.

"I'm sorry… I really should have explained things better since the beginning. It's just that I still don't understand everything completely… But now I see that before we take any more steps around this place we must be on par with what we know." As she talked she signed them to come closer. "Ok… let me see if I can explain this. So… we are in Phantom's inner mind's layer. Over us you can see the protective wall we had been standing on," the three teens looked up to see a sturdy ice wall serving as the cave's ceiling. "This place is kind of a maze… not really sure why, but Phantom made it that way." The girl then pointed to one of the doors. "And those are repressed memories. Within each of these doors a memory is held captive. One per door." Looking at the long passage and all the doors that were visible in it they could only imagine how many doors there was in total. "But…" their attention turned back to the girl once they heard the nervous note in her voice. "Most of them are not good memories."

The teens looked nervously at the metal doors.

"Memories of what… exactly?" asked Aqualad, knowing where it was going but wishing he was wrong.

"Well… there was a long series of events before Phantom got to us for him to be in the state he is in…" there was no need to specify anymore.

Torture.

Experiments.

In other words… pain.

"I guess that also explains the bleeding walls." Said the boy wonder with a grimace.

"Yes, it does," Megan turned to Artemis with a serious frown. "These memories are very powerful, and Phantom must have been really disturbed by them. So he placed them behind these doors. But only some of them were successfully locked. Like the one you almost opened by accident." Artemis gulped loudly at the intense expression in her martian friend. "You were lucky, extremely lucky. But you might not be next time." The warning was clear in her voice, making the archer take a step backwards.

"Megan… what happens if we open a door?" asked the leader, startled by the harshness of the normally gentle girl.

The Martian only closed her eyes, her brows twitching as she remained still for a few seconds. Robin noticed her hands clenching a few times as she breathed in deeply. Then, she spoke with a soft voice.

"The memory will swallow you. You will be taken into its world… and… it's not going to be pretty…" the girl visibly shuddered before turning away from her friends. "That is why you mustn't touch any door in here."

The leader eyed warily each of the doors before placing a hand on Megan's shoulder.

"IF we don't open them, will we be safe from those memories?" he asked, somehow knowing there was more to it.

The girl silently shook her head, making her team realize things were worse than they had hoped.

"Memories are really difficult to repress, especially if they are bad. The worse they are, the more difficult it becomes to keep each door closed. Like flashbacks into nightmares, some of this doors will open at will, and if you are too close to them when that happens, you will be taken by them." At her words the three teens moved closer to the center of the hall, looking around them anxiously. Who would have thought that the doors could actually attack them, they were like mice surrounded by traps.

"So… we don't touch the doors and we don't get close to them. Alright… it seems pretty easy."Joked Artemis trying to break the ominous sensation that hang over their heads.

"Yeah…" chuckled the boy wonder. "And even if we got swallowed… well, we just have to find our way out, right?"

Megan turned to him with a grim expression, making him stop talking. "You won't be able to leave the memory till it's over. Believe me; you won't even be able to understand you are meant to leave it."

Kaldur looked at the teens interact and decided that the mission was going to be more difficult than he hoped, but they had to pull themselves together, there was not much time —in the real world at least— to go around fearfully. Taking a deep breath he relaxed his tightened muscles, marveling at how naturally his mind's body seemed to react to his anxiousness.

"It's a risk that we'll have to take," said the older with steel determination breaking the tense mood once more. "We came here to safe Phantom and we are going to do just that. We've taken missions with great risks before but we never back out. So let's move, we'll be extremely careful and try to respect the rules Megan has given us, but we must begin the search for Phantom's consciousness before it's too late."

Seeing the strength in the eyes of the atlantean warrior, the other three teens were reassured that they were going to fulfill their mission successfully. Megan allowed herself to smile, it was so much better to have her friends with her this time around.

"Ok, let's move." She said, once more determinated to continue.

"I can't tolerate that smell…" groaned Artemis after having walked for a long while. The smell of blood —that weird metallic smell— was causing her a headache.

By her side Robin allowed himself to chuckle slightly. He knew it was an annoying smell but after a few… hours perhaps? His nose seemed to have become immune to it, making him pity his dear friend. Looking to the side he noticed that Aqualad's brow was twitching once in a while, probably because his aquatic sense of smell was a little more acute than a human's and he was —more than likely— really bothered by now.

"I'm afraid that it can't be helped at the moment… the smell is part of a memory that Phantom wasn't really able to imprison, just like the blood," the martian's voice held sadness as she told them that.

Seeing that the moral of the group was in peril, Robin decided to take a different tangent on the conversation, one that was brought to mind by the two colored blood that surrounded them.

"Megan, did you ever found out why Phantom changed forms?" the question seemed to spike the interest of the other heroes, successfully braking their concentration in the disgusting smell.

"Oh… I didn't explain that either?" the girl smiled sheepishly to herself as she tapped her forehead with he hand. "Hello Megan… of course I didn't," her voice soft as she laughed to herself and her forgetful attitude towards her friends. "And here I was talking about being in a common ground… ok, let's see…"

The girl continued to walk as she looked at them by turning slightly.

"Well, this was perhaps the most interesting and weird thing I learned about him while I was here. You see, Phantom isn't a 'Meta' as in a Human with special powers… he's more like a 'hybrid'."

Captivated by the comment the atlantean nodded at her. "The mix of two kinds?"

"Yes," she said nodding back at him. "I don't know how that happened… but he somehow is."

"How that 'happened'? You mean he wasn't born like that?" asked a perplexed Robin.

"Wait, but that means you would have to fuse two beings or modify half of a living creature till the point it becomes something else. That's not possible without killing the subject!" she turned to the boy wonder and tapped his shoulder. "Is it?"

He looked at her with wide eyes. "Well… you can mutate someone's DNA structure till some point… like with cobra venom… but to actually make someone a hybrid? That… well, it would kill a person."

Megan offered a comprehensive smile.

"Yes, changing the essence of someone that far would kill them. But what if the purpose is to change that new half into something that is, supposedly, already 'dead'?"

They had to stop at that suggestion. They all refused to move for a second, before Robin —in a mixture of excitement and healthy skepticism— said: "You are talking about the ghost thing, aren't you?"

The girl nodded with a bright smile.

"Are you trying to say Phantom is a living creature that is half a dead one?" asked a startled Aqualad.

"A half… ghost?" said Artemis, tasting the sound of it but immediately finding the concept to sound terribly wrong.

The martian girl sighed, remembering when she was told that no one would actually believe her if she said it out loud. She had to smile a little; Phantom was terribly right on that one.

"As I said, I'm not really sure how that works either. All I know is that Phantom is the hybrid of a human boy and a ghost. Half of him became a ghost without dying… or something like that…" she had to muse over it; after all, the guides born from the memory didn't really know how to explain it to her either.

"Wow," said the boy wonder readjusting his glasses, before chuckling cheekily. "Gee, it's really good Wally isn't here, or he would have been running around having a huge tantrum."

Artemis had to laugh at the picture, yes, Wally would have. Even Kaldur had to hold his laugh.

Megan laughed internally, before looking once more at the wall that served as a ceiling to the passages.

"There is something else he did tell me," the others stopped their actions to look at her as soon as she said that. "It's about the protective wall…"

"What about it?" asked the archer.

"Well, it was—" yet before she could say anything more, the cave's walls began to shake. Soon the ground followed almost as if there was an earthquake going on. "Oh, no! this side is collapsing, we have to get out!" exclaimed the girl trying to keep her balance, but failing miserably.

"Megan!" called the atlantean pushing her out of the way as a piece of the huge icy wall fell down, almost squashing them both.

"This way, hurry!" called the boy wonder as he looked at the one passage that didn't have pieces of ceiling falling. Artemis went to help the two other heroes up and then run with them after Robin. The three teens run for their lives as part after part of the mental plane crashed around them, doors breaking as the ice hit them, the awful sound of screams and cries filled the air, although they were unintelligible.

They didn't know how far they run, but they had turned at least five times to the right in the maze before things began to calm down.

Finally able to catch their breaths, the team of four crashed on the snow covered ground, gasping loudly.

"Well… (pant)that (pant) was interesting (pant)" said Robin with a tired smile. It wasn't that they had run that much; it was that they had run without a real direction, with no way to know if the next corner would hold something worse than the last, and that took a toll of your mental strength.

"Interesting?! You really need to have therapy, did you know that?" asked Artemis, not finding the 'running blindly for our lives' situation in the least 'amusing'.

"Hehe, yeah, sorry," apologized the boy, receiving a small grunt in response. But looking up slightly he noticed something moving all the way up over his friend. "Artemis! Watch out!" he screamed, making the archer notice a piece of debris falling towards her. In a desperate attempt to escape her doom she jumped away from where she was hitting the wall as the huge ice rock smashed the place she had been in.

Everyone let out a sigh of relief, but when the girl tried to stand up, she felt something poke her in the back and move up with her.

"Artemis!"

The voices of her friends calling to her desperately and a loud click were the last things she heard before everything around her turned black.

Light…

There was a huge source of light that made her eyes sting.

Everything but the light seemed to be covered in darkness… like she was in the middle of it. Her head was pounding, feeling the beginning of a migraine. Her sight was blurry, as if she had woken forcefully from a deep slumber.

She wanted to groan, but found something covering her mouth. How weird, what was that?

And, where was she again? What was she doing before waking up?

Oh, the headache was growing so hard now, she wanted to rub her temple so bad to try and ease the pain, even if only a little. But when she tried it she found something holding her arm back. Opening her eyes immediately when she noticed she couldn't move she turned to her hands and saw strangely glowing metal cuffs that hold her in place against a metal slab. She knew it was metal because a cold sensation that was biting at her bare back.

Wait! What?!

Fearfully looking down from the vertical position she was being held in, she saw that someone had taken her shirt off. Fortunately, they hadn't taken her lower garments, but this sight made her begun struggling against her bindings. What was going on!?

Suddenly, the sound of voices reached her ears. She raised her eyes and searched around of her to notice for the first time that she was surrounded by seven people, four dressed in white lab coats and others in strangely pristine suits.

Why… why were they looking so… so… curiously at her?

Why was no one helping her?

Why was she even strapped? She didn't want to hurt them… or were they the enemy?

A woman got closer to her as her partner followed with a clipboard in hand. She was saying something, but all she could hear was a babbling sound, like in those old cartoons when they made the adults sound like they spoke gibberish. But as she spoke she pointed at the girl, making her squirm at the closeness of her finger to her chest. The woman didn't even look at her as she spoke to the others in the room, all the ones in coats moved to crowd around the girl like she was some sort of animal in a zoo.

Somehow, Artemis knew this was wrong. A feeling in her gut told her things would get worse pretty fast from here on. And those feelings were confirmed when the woman took out syringe, a bright red liquid glowing within it. A huge smile lit up her blank face.

Slowly, the woman brought the syringe close to the still struggling girl.

"No, please don't!" screamed the girl at the metal gag covering her mouth, but no sound escaped it, and somehow, she already knew no sound would. In desperation as the needle grew closer to her skin the girl pulled at her restrains, so hard and so strong that her wrists began to bleed from the pulled skin, causing her to hiss silently. It was then she knew there was no way to avoid it, and her body slumped in resignation, after all, this was always like that…

Artemis' eyes suddenly widened a little at the thought. Were they always like that? When? This was the first time an enemy got to trap her like this… wasn't it?

But she was woken from her musing by the small pricking sensation on her forearm. Turning she saw with horror as the smiling woman pressed that strange liquid into her system, before pulling the syringe away, no consideration at all.

She could only look at the single drop of blood that fell down her arm from where she was shot; wondering if that was all, somehow thinking that it was never so simple. And that thought was right…

Suddenly, her body arched against the metal slab, a horrible feeling spreading like fire, literal fire, through her veins. Each one of her muscles contracted in agony as it spread all the way to her heart, were things became overwhelming.

"Please! Please stop! It burns! I'm burning!" she screamed within her thoughts for she knew no one would hear her. Forcing one of her clenching eyes to open slightly she saw the group of people commenting between each other, smiles covering their faces as they spoke excitedly, taking notes, taking time. "WHY? Why are you doing this to me!?" she thought, as her heartbeat grew painfully loud, resounding in her ears making her think they were going to explode.

It hurt, it hurt so badly. Suddenly tears began falling from her eyes, she couldn't stop them anymore? She was so confused. And when she managed to open her eyes, she saw things tainted in red. She almost screamed. Her eyes… were they shedding tears, or were they bleeding?

"Hey, arrow girl, wake up!"

"Make it stop… make it stop… please…"Her sight became blurry and slowly, she felt small black spots cover her sight, a fresh sensation filling the back of her head. The last things she saw before everything turned black again was the smiling face of the people in white stained in the red that covered her eyes. And suddenly she hated them like she had never hated anyone in her life.

.

.

.

"You're going to be fine. Just listen to Megan."

Slowly, things begun to come back to her. First the cool sensation of the frozen floor washing the memory of the fire away, then the gentle arm that held her close giving her the sensation of safety, and finally the sounds filled her silence with coherent words.

"…eed to wake up."

"Artemis, let go …, it wasn't …ur memory, don't let it … control"

Blurry images danced in front of her eyes till she finally was able to distinguish three figures surrounding her. Blinking hard she tried to make her world go back into focus.

"She's awake," mumbled a gentle voice, a boy's voice.

"Thank goodness." Said a girl.

"Artemis, are you alright?" asked a male voice coming from above her. Turning her head to look at the person that had spoken, her sight was filled with red. Reacting in fear she bolted up and recoiled from this person's hands, gasping as she tried to make sense of everything around her.

The three friends looked at her alarmed by her trembling condition. The poor archer was almost hyperventilating (if that was even possible with a mental body). Her hands shook as they rubbed on her hair trying to bring some clearness into her foggy mind, constantly repeating as if it was a mantra: 'it burns'.

"Artemis?" asked the boy wonder, consternated by the way the archer was acting, she was acting like a victim from traumatic event only seconds after it happened. What had she even seen!? They had only seen her disappear in the light before reappearing unconscious by the now closed door.

With saddened eyes, the martian girl moved slowly to her terrified friend, stopping for a few seconds each time the girl flinched.

"Whatever it is you've seen Artemis, it was not you who was in pain," said Megan as she slowly reached to take the other girl's hand. "Think clearly, were things really the way you saw them? I'm sure if you try you'll see they were not like you think they were."

The archer looked up to the green face of her friend, looking deep into the martian's eyes. The weird voice she heard before came back to her mind: "You're going to be fine. Just listen to Megan."

And desperate for some sort of control over her emotions, she tried to do just that. She listened and concentrated and suddenly part of the memory she had came back to her, but this time it was different.

Her chest was completely bare, but it wasn't her chest… it was a male's chest… and it was covered in scars…

She noticed part of the light she thought she saw was coming from… her hair? There was hair in her face… white hair? Wait… no, she didn't have white hair… her hair was blond, not even that light…

That wasn't her body.

And the blood that covered her eyes… it was not red… it was green! Yes, it was green, it wasn't her blood! Hers was red, not green.

"My blood is red… not green," mumbled the scared girl, slowly disentangling her hand from her hair. "My hair is blond… not white…" she said as realization slowly fit in, and her eyes widened in understanding as she looked at her friend's sympathetic expression. "That memory wasn't mine… it was his…"

The martian nodded patiently as she slowly patted the girls head. The archer could only let a few tears flow as she mumble "his" a few times before flinging herself towards her friend, holding onto her with despair as she allowed herself to cry in silence. The other two teens looked at the scene, lost as to what was going on.

"I-it burned M-megan… it h-hurt so much… why… w-why wasn't anyone stopping it…" she said between sobs trying as hard as she could to control her raging emotions. But it wasn't easy, it didn't even seem possible, it was just SO UNFAIR! It HURT it really did! What kind of monster does that to another human being?! Regardless of how much of a hybrid they could be, Phantom was still a human being!

The martian simply rocked her friend, slightly regretting having brought her friends with her, she knew the memories were dangerous, and if Artemis had been too deep inside them she might have never been able to notice the differences between her and Phantom, making her belief it was her that had been tortured and possibly traumatizing her for life. But Megan had gone through a couple of these memories by herself already, and she truly hadn't wanted to be alone in here anymore, so she selfishly had allowed them to come.

"It's going to be alright, as long as you know it wasn't you, it's going to be alright," and that statement was so wrong and yet so right. How wrong it was of her to say it would be alright when Phantom did go through that, when they barely even scratched onto a memory, when the boy this mind belonged to had gone through each of these forsaken doors in real life? She almost felt disgusted by saying it would be alright… but for Artemis' sake, she did.

It would be minutes later that Artemis finally was able to pull herself together enough to let go of Megan, and it was in that moment that the martian girl explained to the others: if a memory swallowed you, you would live through the experience from Phantom's point of.

Things were now truly terrifying.

In the Bat cave…

The dark knight sighed in frustration as his eyes scanned the pictures of hundreds and hundreds of teenagers parading on the screen of his main computer. After he left Phantom's side he had wished to start his research, unfortunately, a few troubles arose and he had to go to the tower to help Flash with some mixed up data about a few strange movements in some laboratories around the states. But, since he came back, he had been looking at the missing children data base of the last five years to see if he could find a match with Phantom, and so far, there had been no luck. A lot of black haired and blue eyed boys had passed by, fewer white haired and green eyed ones came up, but neither was the one he searched for.

He was pretty sure he had seen the boy in one of his missing lists… was it another country's list? No, he doubt that, for some reason the boy didn't strike him as a foreigner… so… where?

The computer made a blipping sound announcing the end of the research, and its result. Batman could only frown at the huge letters reading 'no match found'.

What was he overlooking? What was getting past him?

And suddenly, one word came into mind. Ghost.

The vigilante wanted to smack himself in the head for not having thought of it before, slightly impressed as to how much this was affecting him to actually have allowed something so obvious to pass him by.

He had been looking through a missing child data base when he was looking for a 'dead' teenager.

Changing the search to another folder, he ran the scan once more, and this time, it only took the computer about ten minutes before coming up with one result. A match in facial structure and basic description. The picture came up with the profile on the side and looking at the kid's face Bruce felt the pleasing sensation of success.

Name: Daniel James Fenton

Age: 16

Appearance:

Caucasian / black hair / blue eyes / thin built / Height: 5'6´´

Declared missing in: 11 of November 2010

Last place he was seen in: Central Park, Amity Park

Last people to see him: Samantha Manson, Tucker Foley

Declared dead: 11 of January 2011

The teen in the picture was —without a doubt— the one he was looking for. The boy was looking at the camera with a nervous smile, as if he were uncomfortable of being there, overall he looked like your average nervous and slightly nerdy teenager, but those eyes, those bright blue eyes told a different story. The boy held himself in a silent but proud manner that mostly no one would notice, and his eyes were alert, ready for anything… what could this Daniel have been up to before taking that photo?

The dark knight leaned back on his chair and took a deep breath. His first emotional response after having finding the boy's identity was to call on the emergency number and inform the parents that their child was found, after all, they must have been looking for their son for almost three months before sadly having made the declaration of death… but… would it make them any good to find out that their son was dying? They had probably come to terms with his death in the past three months, telling them that he is alive only to tell them they will lose him again would be incredibly cruel.

But that wasn't the only thing bothering him. There was also the fact that the kid had been experimented on, and apparently had strange powers. Telling someone could lead the kidnappers back to their prey, and that wouldn't be wise. They still had to find out who did this to the boy. And there was the fact that Daniel was declared dead only three months after his disappearance. Normally, there was a period of six months before the data was changed from 'Missing' to 'Dead'. Unless there had been any reasons that would prove the kid was death… but what could have happened…

The last place he was seen in was the small city of Amity Park. And the boy had weird powers… and he said he was a ghost…

A ghost…

A boy…

A… ghost-boy?

The Batman could only groan as he finally —and reluctantly— allowed himself to accept this possibility. He had been trying to avoid digging up that particular skeleton from the graveyard of closed cases, but he, apparently, was left with no options. Sighing dejectedly, and leaving all his skepticism aside, he opened an old file in which he began the search for a few particular headlines of small tabloids that dated all over two years ago.

Back in the mental plane…

A couple of hours —were they even hours?— of walking found the group of four heroes going around another corner of that maze. Not knowing where they were going was getting old fast and did not help with the nervous atmosphere that seemed to follow them. After Artemis' experience, they had decided to shield her by making her walk in the middle of the group. The archer had felt a little embarrassed at first, but her fear of the doors was enough to let them do as they pleased. The shadows on each corner seemed to mock her for her weakness as they spread and retracted themselves into their distorted figures. The girl allowed another shiver to run down her spine.

"Artemis… are you alright?" asked the boy wonder, feeling slightly guilty of not being able to help his friend the last time and allowing her to hit that door.

The archer faked to rub her arms slightly. "Yeah, it's simply… that it's a little cold in here," she said trying to cover up her nervousness. But Robin saw right through it. The place wasn't really cold, it was just slightly cool, and there was the fact that suddenly, Artemis seemed to have forgotten all about the smell she had been so annoyed about, meaning the girl was constantly thinking of something else, something more overpowering to her mind than the smell. Artemis was scared.

"Yeah… it's really cold…" said the boy wonder, allowing her to continue her pretense if it was what she needed at the moment.

Both teens failed to notice the subtle gazes that the other two in front of them send in their way.

"Megan, do you know how far we are from the 'center'?" asked the leader, clearly worried about how the longer they stayed in there would affect them.

"I'm afraid I don't… this place is very confusing, and energies fluctuate all around the maze, changing constantly, I try to follow the center but it changes position to quickly… if only we could get a guide…" she said, mumbling the last part to herself.

"What about the memory that guided you before?"

"I'm not sure if they are still around… if the memory became too weak they might have already disappeared," she said as she sighed in frustration.

The leader frowned slightly at her words.

"They? Wasn't it one guide?" he asked confused.

The girl shook her head.

"It was one memory. But that memory created two guides."

"Wha—?"

Before Kaldur could continue his question, they all heard a rustling sound coming from one of the walls. Turning around they saw a door shaking strongly, as if it was trying to burst open. The heroes moved out of the way as fast as they could, but Artemis, still scared by the last door, could only stay in her place, frozen as she looked at the particularly nasty looking door as many scratches appeared in the front steel.

"ARTEMIS!" screamed the boy wonder, but the girl did not react, so taking action, he run to her at full speed, telling himself he would not allow it 'Not this time!'.

"ARTEMIS, ROBIN!" called Megan as everything happened in a matter of seconds.

The boy wonder pushed the dazed archer out of the way, but in that instant the door was flung open, allowing a huge ray of light to fill the place and engulf the figure of the young teenage boy, before everything disappeared.

His senses… were all muddled…

He couldn't feel… he couldn't see… he couldn't hear…

Everything was so eerily silent…

And for some reason, he was so glad it was that way…

The silence pacified him, made him feel safe… but it didn't last long…

It began with a simple sound, it was the sound of his own respiration and the young teen wondered why it sounded so… wrong…

Why was he breathing so… weirdly?

But he didn't mind, not much at least, he was in the middle of darkness and only in darkness could he sleep… why?... why could he not remember why?

Out of nowhere he felt a strange heaviness settle into his chest. Something heavy was resting on it… there was a pressure there… a bothering pressure… and a tugging sensation…

What was going on?

Was it his imagination? Perhaps he slept with his hand over his own chest… or something fell over him?... no… no it wasn't that…

Light.

There was a small spec of light appearing in front of him… his eyes were opening? Weren't they already open?

Everything was so blurry and bright…

There was a source of light shinning over him and it was making his eyes water. He tried to blink the blurriness away, but he was so freaking tired… he just wanted to sleep once more… but…

But the pressure in his chest was growing, growing so fast it was slowly becoming painful.

The boy wanted to rub his chest to mitigate the pain but found his hands wouldn't budge… perhaps because he was so tired… and he really didn't want to move…

A shadow passed over his line of sight…

His eyes focused —or tried to— on that shadow.

A person…? It was a person? No… there were two hovering above him… white clothed … with masks on their faces…

Hospital clothes…

Was he in the hospital? Oh man! ### would get so mad when ### found out he was in the hospital…

The boy wonder stopped for a second there. Who would get so mad when they found out he was on the hospital? And why would he be in the hospital… and what was that stinging feeling on his chest?

There were voices around him but he couldn't understand them at all.

Damn! Why was everything so freaking bright?!

His head lulled from side to side, trying to understand what was going on, till he finally moved his eyes towards his chest, trying to search for what was so wrong in there. It was difficult, cause something seemed to be covering his face, but after a few tries he was able to see it.

And at first all he saw was the 'doctor' touching him. He was moving his hands over his chest searching for something… perhaps that which was wrong?

But the pain intensified, it grew harder and stronger… and suddenly it was becoming too much. In a painful bout of agony, the boy's eyes finally cleared, and it all made some morbid kind of sense.

T-the… the hands…

The… the person's hands…

They weren't touching his chest…

They were IN his chest!

The hands were inside his chest, and blood, HIS BLOOD was coming out of a huge gapping whole in it.

He felt he couldn't' breath… he felt himself begin hyperventilating… he was so… so scared…

FOR GOD'S SAKE, SOMEBODY HAD HIS FREAKING HANDS INSIDE HIS CHEST!

He wanted to scream, he wanted to move, he wanted something, someone, anyone. Please take his hands of my chest!

Oh god, are those my ribs?

What is going on?

What is this person touching?!

Oh, it feels so wrong!

Hurts, hurts, HURTS!

STOPSOPTOPSTOPIT!

STOP IT! PLEASE!

DON'T TOUCH ME!

Enough!

PLEASEPLESPLAESPLEPLEASE

Hey, wake up bird boy.

Don't touch that, please don't touch that…

Relax, you've got to listen, this is not YOU in pain.

It Hurts so much… it hurts…please make it stop…

Ok, just answer this, what color is your blood?

W-w-wha… awha?

What color, focus here bird boy, I don't have all day!

B-blo…blood… blood… r-red…

Are you sure? Look again, but this time, truly observe things.

Confused and utterly terrified, Robin opened his closed eyes to look once more at the scene that he knew would bring his end, only to notice the blood oozing from his wounds was not red.

Green…

Time to wake up, dude.

There was a loud sound, a gasping sound, and everything was once again blurred up.

It took the boy wonder a few seconds to notice that it was his own breathing that he was hearing as his sight slowly cleared up. As his body moved slightly he felt hands over him and pushed against them away in terror, not noticing that by doing so he had punched Aqualad's chest. The atlantean could only watch startled as his normally calmed friend clutched furiously at his chest.

"T-they…they…" the teen couldn't even form a complete sentence as his lips trembled with every word forcing him to stop. His hands were now clawing strongly at his shirt and it was clear that if he continued, the boy would only hurt himself.

"Robin! Robin, you've got to pull yourself together," said Aqualad trying to wake his friend from his panic induced frenzy.

But the boy wonder couldn't even listen to him or to the voice of the martian that had joined Aqualad in trying to calm him down. With widen eyes, Robin pulled at his messed up shirt, ignoring even the fact that somewhere in his struggle he had lost his glasses, exposing his blue eyes. But nothing could matter to him more than proving this. Looking at the pale skin of his chest, the boy begun touching and feeling each muscle, each rib, in an obsessive way, looking at the reddening skin in morbid fascination as it became rawer by his frantic ministrations.

"ROBIN!" screamed Megan, worried he would actually draw 'blood', because this might not have been his real body, but a wound here would be interpreted as real, too much damage would leave mentally unstable.

But it was Artemis that got him to react.

"STOP IT!" yelled the girl as she swiftly slapped him in the face. The harsh sound of the skin making contact against skin finally snapped the boy from his neurotic trance. Moving his head up, Robin was finally able to see his friends and they got to see his eyes clearly, and they couldn't help but be taken aback by what they saw. It was the first time, even in Kaldur's memory, since meeting him, that they had seen Robin cry. Thin rivulets of tears streamed down his cheeks. Whatever he saw in that memory, it must have been really horrible to move Batman's ward into tears.

Artemis felt slightly guilty for having slapped her friend, but mostly, she was grateful that the boy's act had saved her from having to life through the nightmare Robin did. It was selfish, but she knew that after the memory she had to live through already, another one so soon would have probably killed any trace of sanity she had.

"M-my… my chest… it's complete…" mumbled the boy with a soft but relieved voice, apparently completely oblivious of the tears that were silently falling down his face. "I-I'm fine."

"Of course you are fine. Suggesting otherwise would be preposterous!" said a voice from behind the group of friends, making them turn around with startled expressions.

"Dude, like… we told you. That was not your pain."

Aqualad, Artemis, and even Robin —in his distraught condition— couldn't help but stop and stare at the two figures that looked at them with a curiosity and annoyance. In the awkward silence you could have heard a pin falling had there been a pin to fall in this huge maze of a mind.

"Phantom?" asked a confused Kaldur. "And… Phantom?"

Twin groans came from the two teens standing only about three doors away from them.

"No dude, you're making a mistake." moaned the boy with black hair, clearly ticked by the hero's mistake.

"I am Phantom," said the white haired teen.

"And I am Fenton!" declared his counterpart.

And then, with twin glares of blue and green eyes, they added:

"And you are trespassing on our head!"

And just when they thought things couldn't get more confusing than they already were.

R&R