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I do not own Young Justice.

Chapter 8

The cargo ship CS Coyote pulled into the port of a busy city in early morning. The ship's crew breathed a sigh of relief, glad to see land after a particularly grueling voyage. Although they had expected the trip to last two and a half weeks, rough seas and a small problem with the navigation system had led to a three week journey.

As the ship was secured to dock, several companies arrived to receive their wares, fighting to get first in line. One such company, Tour Trips International, pushed to the very front. The nature of their wares was time sensitive, to say the least, and the pickup crew sincerely hoped they weren't too late.

The ship began unloading at 9:00 AM. The two vehicles, one large bus with the company logo and one smaller truck, which the company had rented, were loaded up completely by 10:00 AM. Once they were sure all wares were secured, the company drove out of the port and then directly south. After ten minutes, the smaller, nondescript truck broke and went east. After another 30 minutes of driving, the smaller truck pulled off the road into an isolated grove where a couple black vans were parked and began to unload there.

Dick's box was the third off the ship and most secured, having the smaller truck to himself due to the amount of paranoia attached to a billionaire's son. He would have tried to escape or make noise at the very least, but as CS Coyote was pulling into port early that morning, a device hidden near the top of his box broke open a smoke tablet and knocked him out with an extremely mild airborne sedative. The sedative was designed to last four hours, more or less, and would actually only make a healthy adult sleepy, so the company pick up crew had waited until the boat slowed and was tying up to activate it. The last thing they wanted was for the ware that had finally arrived to be eradicated when it was so close to pick up. The boss would have been furious, and probably would have shot the messenger, if the injuries of the few who'd gone in reporting the ship's tardiness were any indicator.

As it was, the truck reached the grove two and a half hours after the sedative had been applied. Working quickly, the driver and his partner pulled the medium container out of the back of the truck and placed it as gently as they could on the ground. With a crowbar and arm strength, they removed the top from the box and dropped it on the ground with a loud clatter. Reaching inside, the partner wrapped his arms around a skinny frame, and set it in a nearby chair.

The boy was cocooned in the blanket, fully unconscious. Even if the tablet had not activated, he probably still would have been helpless. The longer-than-expected journey had robbed him of all energy, and he had run out of food at least three days ago. While he had not completely run out of water—partially because he recycled it—he was dehydrated enough that it was impossible for him to raise his voice above a whisper, and difficult to speak at all. He had no energy to stand, much less walk, run, or fight.

The driver took the prisoner's pulse. Determining the pulse to be too weak, he pulled out a bottle of Gatorade—for hydration as well as calories—and tipped the Gatorade into his mouth. Once about half the bottle, the amount the driver believed the young teen's body could handle at the moment, was gone, the partner placed an oxygen mask over the kid's mouth and nose. Tucking the oxygen tank into the blanket cocoon, the partner picked the ware up and placed him into a crate that he just barely fit inside curled into a ball. Cramming the oxygen tank in next to the boy, the partner put the top on, and picked up the box.

The two men with cargo moved to one of the vans outside, placed the box in, and drove away from the grove. All this took place within the span of twenty minutes. They then added a few extra hours to their route to switch cars, and occasionally boxes for their cargo, in order to throw off potential pursuers. Whenever the two men would switch cars, they would switch drivers between the two of them. Whoever was not driving would climb into the back of whatever car they were using with the cargo, and take the top off whatever container they were using at the moment. He would check the body's pulse and the tank's oxygen levels, and then remove the mask briefly to give the boy some more Gatorade. They went through three bottles total over the trip. If there was another container to move the boy to, he would do so, and attach the oxygen mask to a new tank if the old one was running low on oxygen after the tank and boy were both crammed in. If there was not a new container, the mask would simply be reattached.

Three times during the journey, the car met up with other cars and added new cargo to the car exchange and switched out one of the men. By the end of the ride, there were five sacks of skin and bone in a van in addition to the two drivers.

Around the second switch/ first container switch, not including the one in the grove, Dick began to stir. The original driver had deemed that another sedative would do more harm than help and not truly improve his cooperativeness because of his current state of weakness. Rather than giving him one anyways, the men currently in charge of the boy rewrapped his blanket cocoon tighter, although no longer over his head, making sure it was tightest around his feet. They placed a cloth blindfold around his head, and left it at that. It was enough. Dick couldn't move a muscle when he awoke.

Dick knew the instant he was aware he was no longer in dreamland that he was off the ship. The rolling sensation was gone and replaced by the smooth drone of a car engine. Great. Moved while unconscious. He resisted the urge to sigh. He felt more cramped as well. When he tried to stretch out, he discovered that he was in a much smaller container, and that he had somehow been bound firmer, which was odd because he could only feel the scratchy, definitely-not-blood red blanket around him. The world spun when he shifted his head slightly, making him feel nauseous. The area was still dark, but he could feel something on his face. He assumed he had a blindfold on. The car sounds were soothing, and strangely comforting, and Dick was lulled back to sleep.

The next time Dick awoke, it was to the slamming of car doors and then to voices outside the car. The car was stopped for the moment. Rather than try to figure out what they were saying, like he might have earlier in his journey, Dick went back to sleep. He really didn't have enough energy for anything more.

The final time Dick awoke, it was when the truck arrived at its destination and the man driving went around and removed the oxygen tanks and shut them off. At this point, the wares were all in body bags. Some of the men who had been at the earlier stop exchanges had beat them there, and stood now to pick up a body bag or two each and carry them to what Dick would learn was officially called the "Special Processing Section," but was more commonly called the "Target Dump." Everybody who went there was either special order, special interest, or more trouble than the average subject.

While Dick couldn't see this happening, he did feel the air change, something being removed from his face, something hard and round being moved from his side, and then being picked up and carried somewhere. By about halfway through the boat voyage, he had stopped caring about his fate in favor of focusing on hunger and thirst, while attempting to keep a rational mind.

In the Target Dump, four boys and a girl were pulled from the body sacks. Their bindings were undone and blindfolds removed. The nurses gave them a quick wash and dressed them. Then, the kids were placed in hospital beds to recover from their ordeal, which only special subjects went through.

A/N

Short chapter, but an extremely important one. Things will pick up again next chapter... which takes place after another three week time skip, and will be long and introduce my favorite character, if I don't decide to do a chapter back with Batman and the team. Still debating that. Which one do you guys want first? Batman and the team or more Dick?

Anyhow, my competition is over- we got third place- so I will be working to put together the next few chapters. I'm about at the point where a lot of one side of the story is written, but the other side is not and I need to write a lot more before posting, rather than just editing like I did for the first eight or nine chapters, so updates won't be as fast as the first few.

Please review! Especially with anything you would like to see happen and any characters you would like to make an appearance. The plot is flexible at this point of the story as Dick meets a bunch of people and the Leagues investigate. :D

On another note, I didn't get any of the emails from guest reviews for the last chapter. I looked it up and fanfiction deletes URLs, so try the format email-at-serverlike'gmail'or'yahoo'. Thanks.