Chapter 5

Roy stepped through the rest of the warehouse with caution. He had tried radioing the League but all he could hear was static. If whoever it was had been strong enough to take down the team, he knew he stood no chance alone.

"There you are young hero, we have been waiting for you to arrive here." He heard a female voice say. Roy swung his bow around to face his opponent. "Calm yourself, young hero. I mean you no harm."

"Queen Bee, what the hell are you doing out of Bialya?" Roy demanded. The woman smiled wickedly at him.

"We have come to find you. We sent the others on their merry way of course. I assume that like them, you'll be putting up a fight?"

"We?" Roy echoed nervously. He began backing away from the woman.

"Yes of course. Together we stand and all that." Lex Luthor stepped out of the shadows surrounded by small group of others. "Did you expect anyone else?"

"Where are they Luthor? What have you done to the team? You know the Justice League will never let you get away with hurting them right?" Roy demanded.

"Be calm hero. They are safer now than they were before. You will soon join them. As for the League, there is little they can do to help you now. Just accept your fate." Queen Bee cooed.

"Like hell." Roy fired one of his exploding arrows and turned to run. He had to get back to the League and warn them.

"The apples don't fall far from the super-trees do they?" Klarion the Witch Boy laughed maniacally. He raised his arms above his head and chanted a few magic words. "Hope I don't splinch you on your way out!" he cried.

Roy suddenly found himself engulfed in a bright, blinding red light. He felt his skin tearing and ripping, the warm stickiness of blood dripping down from freshly opened wounds.

"Give our regards to the others, hero. You'll be with them soon." Queen Bee's voice was growing faint. Roy felt like he was being forced through a tube, bright colors flashing before his eyes. He could feel his ears popping as the world disintegrated around him.

"Roy!"

"Do you mind sharing the space? We're hoping not to have an altercation." Superman asked. The League members were starting to get upset about having one of the training rooms locked up.

"Of course not. We don't mind. We just need a place to practice so we don't get out of shape. We can definitely share though." Robin looked to each of his team mates. They seemed to be in agreement.

"It is not burdensome at all." Aqualad assured the man in blue.

"Just tell them to play nice and so will we." Kid Flash nodded.

"Deal." Superman grinned. For kids, they were a heck of a lot more agreeable than most of the heroes and heroines in the League. "Come on in guys. We're open." He called.

Star Girl, Super Girl, Huntress, and Vigilante stepped into the room.

"Really, you closed the door for them? Need I remind you that one of them tried to kill you!" Kara wanted to choke her cousin.

"She wouldn't have killed me and yes, but seeing as we're so strapped for space, they've graciously decided to share the space with you all." Superman winked at the kids over his cousin's head.

M'gann couldn't help but giggle at him. She liked this Superman so much more.

"Now now, these ladies were jus' gettin' a little antsy." Vigilante held his hands up in surrender. "We don' mean no harm. If it helps, I was dragged here agains' my will."

"We're sharing? I don't want to have to tutor some kid on how to handle a fight." Star Girl scoffed.

"We don't need any tutoring." Artemis growled. She was growing agitated again.

"Easy Artemis." Aqualad attempted to calm her gently. "We should stop for a break any way. We have been going non-stop for an hour now." 'It may be easier to prevent bloodshed this way.' He thought to them.

'Just one arrow.'

'I say we let her.'

'Artemis, Superboy, we are not killing anyone.'

Vigilante studied the young ones carefully. He had heard Flash and Green Lantern talking about the team using a mental uplink. He wondered of that was why they had suddenly gotten so quiet. They were not in the least intimidated by the older heroes.

Artemis continued to ignore her team's leader's orders. "You know what. I don't need a break. Why don't you spar with me?" she nodded to Star Girl.

"Artemis!" Aqualad warned her.

"What? There's a lot I can learn from a master such as her. Please grace me with a showcase of your skills." Artemis stepped into the ring and stretched. "No staff, no bow. We fight hand to hand. Best woman wins." Artemis crossed her arms over her chest and smirked. "Scared?"

"Not even." Star Girl set her staff against the wall and stepped into the ring. "Time to teach you some manners little girl." She took her stance.

"Are you really about to do this?" Robin asked in an annoyed tone.

"Shut up. I'm not going to let you ruin this for me." Kid Flash looked pumped.

The two females circled each other, glaring daggers. Star Girl lunged forward, hoping to get the drop on then younger girl. Artemis couldn't help but smirk, so predictable. She easily dodged the woman's attack. Artemis grabbed the back of that dark blue outfit and yanked Star Girl forward into her fist.

"Artemis!" Aqualad shouted at the show of brutality.

"What, she's a big girl, she can handle it." Artemis released Star Girl and hopped back to the edge of the ring. "If that's what you're going to be teaching me, we may as well stop here. I don't want to look like an idiot in a fight." She taunted.

"Don't get cocky brat." Star Girl hissed while clutching her stomach. She hadn't expected the teen to be a good fighter.

"You droppin' out or are you gonna just stand there and stare?"

"Why you-"

The room was suddenly bathed in red light as a siren began to blare.

"What the...?" Kid Flash began.

"Something' wrong." Vigilante drew his gun. "The sirens only go off if there's an intruder in the Watch Tower.

"I think you need to see this." J'onn had phased through the wall in front of them. "You might understand this better than we do."

"What is it? What has happened?" Aqualad prodded.

"It is not something I can explain easily. You will just have to come and see for yourselves." J'onn said. "Come now." The team looked apprehensive but resolved to follow the Martian. "We moved him to the medical ward immediately."

The door slid open to reveal a bloody mess of gauze and butterfly tape.

"Roy!" Wally cried.

"Oh my god what happened to him?" M'gann asked in horror. Roy looked like he'd been through a warzone.

"You know him? Good, we were hoping he wasn't an enemy." Superman was standing over Roy's bed. "I assume you all are his friends."

"Define friends." Artemis snarked.

"We don't have time for that! Roy's hurt, something really bad must have happened to him. Don't you even care?" Wally snapped at her.

"Of course I do. But shouting at me about it isn't going to help him get any better!" she fired back.

"Both of you, that is enough!" Aqualad shut the both of them up. "What we need to concern ourselves with is how Red Arrow came to be in this dimension and why he is in such a state when we are not."

"Something strange must have happened to him on the other side." Robin assumed. "Who knows, maybe he didn't acquire those wounds during transport, maybe in the fight before hand."

"The only way to tell that for sure is for your friend to wake up and I don't think that's going to be happening anytime soon." Superman sighed. "I've forgotten, is he one of the partners too?"

"Former partner. Roy used to be Speedy, Ollie's first partner. He's Red Arrow now." Robin informed him.

"I replaced him." Artemis added.

"I see. If I recall, you said Green Arrow 'screwed him up'?" Superman looked confused.

"Yeah, but no more than usual." She shrugged.

"Ollie treated Roy like a kid so he finally broke away from him. The two have had rocky relationship ever since. It hasn't been good." Robin told him.

"Okay then. That's good to know. I'll be sure to keep Arrow far away from him when he wakes up."

"That's a really good idea. Roy gets kind of crazy when he's around Ollie." Wally said without emotion. He moved to sit on Roy's bed. "I've never seen him look this bad before. He's been in a lot of fights but…never like this."

"Don't worry. It looks a lot worse than it is. There's no internal damage, everything's pretty much cosmetic. We'll have him fixed up soon."

"If you can fix him, why won't he wake up?" M'gann inquired confusedly.

"Whatever happened to his mind happened during transport. He'll have to wake up on his own. There is little I can do to help him." J'onn said.

"No! There has to be something you can do! We can't just let him stay like this!" Wally yelped.

"Easy now. We're going to figure this out, okay? We're going to do all we can to help your friend. If he's anything like you guys, he's tough. He'll make it through this." Superman assured them. Still, it did little to quell their fears.

"I don't understand; why didn't we get hurt like that?" M'gann questioned.

"Now that you say that, what happened before we came here at all?" Robin asked. The team looked confused.

"I remember we were going to check out Cadmus. There had been some strange activity that Batman wanted us to look into. We got there and then…then it's all blank." Robin looked thoughtful. "There's more to this than we thought. We really need to get home fast. I have a feeling that the Justice League needs us. Now."

"If they need us, then they are trying to find us. Having Dr. Fate on this side and Zatara on the other gives me hope that we will find our way home soon." Aqualad said.

"For Roy's sake, I sure hope so."