Note to self: do not ever say that upates will be frequent, because Madame Fortuna is always waiting around the corner with a grim smile and a frying pan. I'll just get on with it, shall I?
Robin blinked. "Telepaths? None, Star. On this planet telepathy is considered a power, it's not a regular occurrence."
"Yeah," Cyborg cut in. "There's been some evidence of neurological activity in some mammals that could indicate telepathic possibilities, but so far -"
He stopped so abruptly that Raven, who had been idly watching the vital signs monitor, looked at him to see what was wrong. Cyborg was standing stock still, stunned. Then he slowly grinned and turned to Starfire. "Star, you're a genius."
"I am?" Starfire asked, delighted.
"Yes. Even if I'm wrong about this you're a genius – it flew right past me." Cyborg raised his voice. "JEEVES!"
A flat, metallic voice with an English accent came from the speakers in the ceiling – the computer's voice interface. "Yes?"
"Search video index, combat, date minus 30. Results infirmary monitor one."
"Target?"
"Beast Boy."
"Tracking activity?"
"Power manifest."
"Level specific?"
"Uh..." Cyborg drummed his fingers on the monitor console. "Family."
"Stand by."
Still smiling, Cyborg leaned over and high-fived Robin where he waited, leaning against the wall. "Had no idea that it would come in handy this quick, did you?"
Robin grinned himself. "Nope." He turned to Raven and Starfire. "Cyborg and I built a search system for our combat footage. We can get a log of whenever someone manifests their powers. We figured it would come in useful if someone gets hurt, suddenly loses control..."
"Starts doing the same moves over and over and lets their tactics get too obvious," Cyborg added.
"Wait a minute," Raven said. "Robin, you don't have powers like the rest of us. How is it tracking you?"
Robin coughed, his face a little pink. Cyborg smirked. "We set the performance of Olympics-level decathletes as a baseline. Whenever Robin beats that either through his vitals or activity, he's manifesting powers to the indexer."
Raven raised her eyebrows. "And this would be how often?"
"About seventy-five percent of a given engagement, which is about how often the rest of us use our powers. That's how we settled on it."
"How wonderful!" Starfire exclaimed. "Robin, you must show me your decathlete performance before our next combat."
Robin's cough now sounded more like he was strangling, and Raven was grateful when the voice of the computer said, "Index complete. List to monitor one, infirmary."
Immediately the screen started filling up with text so fast that it flashed by in a blur, too quickly for Raven to follow. Cyborg, however, whistled as he followed the lines flashing by on the screen. "Wow. Jeeves, Beast Boy manifest summary, family and genus, date minus 30."
The text on the screen vanished and was replaced by one large block. Cyborg scanned it. "Jeeves, Beast Boy manifest comparison, order primate, date minus 30 versus date minus 365."
Now numbers filled the screen. Cyborg turned back to Robin. "Look at that, man."
Robin nodded, not able to read the text as quickly as Cyborg but getting the gist of it. "I can't believe I missed it."
Impatiently Raven said, "I'm sure Starfire and I would be very impressed if we had any idea what you were talking about."
"Star tipped me off," Cyborg said, distracted, still looking at the screen. "Good question about telepathic animals. It made me wonder if B was shifting into animals that would disrupt him neurologically."
He pointed at the monitor. "The manifest index for the last 30 days shows an unusually high number of shifts to primates and other forms of mammals with more complex brains. In fact, it's an increase of forty percent compared with the way he's used his power over the last year."
Robin frowned. "That's odd. I wonder if shifting to those forms more frequently means he's getting more used to The Beast?"
"Why not just turn into The Beast, then?"
"He's never felt comfortable using that shape – he's never felt like he had control. Changing to these great apes might be his way of trying -"
"Excuse me," Raven said, in her driest, most toneless, I-Am-Going-To-Start-Blasting-Things-Any-Second voice, "You were explaining."
"Sorry," Cyborg said, straightening and turning away from the monitor. "Basically, Beast Boy's been turning into a lot of higher-order animals with complicated brains. What we could be seeing is hyper neural development – his physiology reacting to the changes he's put it through."
Starfire asked, "Beast Boy is telepathic?"
Robin exchanged glances with Cyborg. "That's one possibility – that the large number of shifts have stimulated his brain development such that he's developing a rudimentary telepathic ability. He's hearing 'chatter' all around him that he can't shut out. Or he could be hearing 'echoes' from his overactive neural pathways, and he can't shut that out either. Functional neuroimaging should confirm the hyperdevelopment, but not whether he's telepathic or not."
Raven tried to imagine a telepathic Beast Boy. It didn't work. "Is this permanent?"
"If Cyborg is right, probably not," Robin said. "If he stops using his powers for a while, the neural over-activity should stop by itself. In the meantime, we have two choices." He looked at Beast Boy, still sunk deep in Raven-induced unconsciousness. "We leave him in a coma until his brain activity has calmed enough for him to be functional."
Cyborg shook his head. "I don't like that. It could be weeks, or months. We'd have to have someone guarding him every time we have to leave. That would cripple the team."
"Then there's option two," Robin said. "He gets emergency training from someone to control what's going on inside his head. He might not be able to participate in missions with us, but nobody would have to stay to guard him."
Starfire, Robin, and Cyborg all looked at Raven.
