Previously:

As he was thinking these grim thoughts, he realized that the punch wasn't coming. He dared to open one eye, then the other. Blockbuster's fist was frozen mere centimetres from his face. Before Roy could wonder why, Blockbuster suddenly flew into air and hovered there. Behind him, Miss Martian stood with her hand raised and a green glow in her eyes.

Roy finally relaxed. Just a few seconds ago, he was quite sure that this is the end for him. With the heavy weight no longer on him, he quickly regained his cool, rose to his feet and brushed off some invisible piece of dust from his clothes. His other teammates were slowly regaining their composure too and were joining him, their attention turned towards their green Martian friend.

M'gann had had just enough. The beast in front of her had hurt her, her teammates and most importantly, it was probably behind the assault on her three friends that were missing as well. She never even considered going easy on him. She would make him feel the same pain he makes everyone else feel. No! Even worse! A lot worse! So he would never again think of doing something like this again!

With a slight snarl, the hand she held in a tight fist burst open and her eyes started glowing brighter. Blockbuster started to roar in immense agony. Everyone except for Miss Martian, who seemed to be in some sort of trance, instinctively crouched at the unearthly yell. The sound was making goose bumps appear on everybody's skin and sent chills down their spines as the sound continued to echo through the room, ripping at everyone's eardrums.

Blue-ish, shining liquid slowly oozed out from Blockbuster's eyes, nose and ears and began to form in a sphere in front of Miss Martian. Although the sound's intensity already seemed impossibly high, this caused Blockbuster to yell even louder. As the fluid left his body, he began to shrink down back to his original scientist form. His white coat and shirt were shredded to the point that it was unrecognizable to the concept clothes. The only thing left completely unchanged was his trousers. But what was worst were the scientist's muscles. The rapid increase and then decrease of their mass caused them to be shredded, leaving massive bleeding bruises all over his body.

Finally, after what seemed like hours of torture, all the liquid was outside of his body and the scientist collapsed to the ground, catatonic and bleeding profusely. The fluid was shaped into a little shining ball in front of Miss Martian, pulsing slightly. She made a subtle move with her hand that caused the ball to explode into hundreds of tiny droplets dispersing across the room, leaving a fairy dust-like trail behind them before colliding with the solid objects in the room. The whole scene looked like some bizarre paintball aftermath – bright reds, dark browns and luminescent blue.

M'gann's eyes finally stopped glowing and she put her hand down. Then she turned to her shocked teammates with a cheery smile. "He won't be bothering us anymore," she told them happily and walked back to the monitors. The others were slowly recovering from the initial shock and followed her warily.

Until this moment, none of them had realized how powerful M'gann actually was. It was terrifying to see someone being put down like this with little to no effort. Combined with M'gann's lack of knowledge about Earth's customs and culture, she may not even realize how severe a thing it was what she did. Superboy knelt down next to the scientist and looked into his empty eyes and drooling mouth. He decided that once they have some privacy, he would have to talk to M'gann about that.

Not because he felt something like pity towards the scientist. Definitely not. He had long ago developed a burning hate towards Cadmus after his short stay with them, but this just wasn't right. Sure, M'gann stuck with their no-kill policy - the man wasn't dead after all - but his current state wasn't that different from death. In fact, it was a lot worse of a punishment.

Red Arrow was already typing something into the central computer, carefully analysing the information. Fortunately, the power source and hardware were still intact and the central screen escaped with a few minor scratches and a hairline crack across its centre. The other screens hadn't been as lucky, but they were not of any importance.

Roy was fast with computers and by then, he had gathered all of the important data. The thought stung him when he realized that if Robin had been with them, they would have hacked and downloaded everything in no time, set up some clever troll viruses to the web, perhaps create a backdoor into Cadmus's systems and he would still have time left to mock Roy about how everything is taking him so long.

At least now they knew where their friends were last seen, Roy thought when he finally found the right frequency for the drones patrolling the area. There was nothing that could stop them now. Without waiting any further, all of them quickly left. The picture of a little abandoned lake was frozen on the screen when the last person shut the door behind them.

XXX

Robin was drifting in and out of consciousness. Every time he started fidgeting and tried to open his eyes, a firm bang to the head returned him to unconsciousness. Whoever was responsible for these trips to Lala-land clearly did not know the pure pig-headedness of the teenager. Robin was the master of being stubborn – he had to be if he wanted to deal with the likes of Batman. And of course, he learned from his mistakes.

This time, he was cautious. He focused on the sounds around him. From the slight rustling of leaves and the cacophony of chirps and whistles from birds and insects, he figured he was still in the jungle. But he had no idea who ambushed them. He tried to focus on that steady move under him. It was as if someone was carrying him and yet… it wasn't. Something about the movement felt off, just not normal.

He made his body completely limp and opened his eyes a tiny bit. He couldn't see much due to the fact that it was dark still (or dark again?) and he couldn't risk opening his eyes any more. He got a faint glimpse of a blonde ponytail a few meters before him and even further ahead he spotted a few tufts of orange hair.

His gaze started to clear and he could see better in the semi-dark. When the scene in front of him finally came into focus and his woozy brain puzzled the picture together, he couldn't quite stop the gasp and instinct to try to pull back. However minuscule the sound and tightening of muscles were, it didn't go unnoticed by his captors. They hit him once again, harder this time to make sure he didn't wake up for the rest of their journey.

XXX

The Team plus Roy minus Robin, Kid Flash and Artemis quickly got to the lake. They cautiously neared the seemingly peaceful scene. There was no obvious signs that anything had happened there. Well, no obvious signs to the untrained eye.

After a quick examination, Aqualad pointed out the drenched ground beside the lake and the bent grass next to it. It was quite obvious that someone or something had tried to smooth over the scene to cover their tracks. Somebody must have been in the lake and then continued on into the surrounding jungle.

Not wasting any time, Kaldur and Roy took point. There wasn't anything as evident like footprints to follow, but they lead the rest of the team along the bent grass and cracked twigs.

Superboy covered their backs, bringing up the rear. He couldn't help but wish they had brought Wolf with them. Things would have gone a lot faster then, but luckily the tracks were fresh, and none of them doubted that they would soon meet up with their teammates. Although everyone was silent, their hope-filled gazes spoke loud enough.

Then the tracks suddenly ended.