Hello everyone! This is nekotenshi-hime again with another chapter. I hope you all like it

Chapter 19: Caged Bird

Robin felt disoriented. He had no idea where he was. The past few days had become a blur. Where were his friends? The urge to see his surroundings and investigate made him open his eyes. Robin was greeted by darkness. In a panic Robin tried to leap off whatever he was resting on and find a door. Instead he ended up on the floor and the wind knocked out of him. Gasping for air and more disoriented than before Robin fought the urge to cry. Crying would not get answers. What he hoped was a room- or worst case scenario a cell. Someone must know a way out of here.

Crawling on his hands and feet was not dignified but if it led to a door or a window then Robin could care less. On occasion he bumped into wood, touching metal hooks and even spaced edges, told him this was a dresser. The next time he felt wood it was a smaller dresser by what he thought was the bed. Every time he hit something it gave him a better idea of the room's layout.

The first observation he realized: this was not a cell. The second observation scared him: this room had no windows. The third observation angered him: no light switch could be found and the lights did not seem to be automatic so as he moved around no lights turned on. The last observation made him feel despair and crushing loneliness: the door was locked.

With no lights Robin had no idea if he was under surveillance with hidden cameras. Robin stumbled back to the bed to sit and think. Not even the ticking of a clock could be heard so he was robbed of the ability to tell time. Sitting with his hands on his knees the realization hit him that someone had changed his clothes. Instead of his typical outfit now he wore a simple orange t-shirt and black khaki shorts that a person might wear if he or she were going to ride a bike. A sudden thought occurred to him maybe a trap door was underneath the bed! Robin almost slipped off the bed to be disappointed- no trap door, just smooth metal and a pair of boots with no shoelaces.

"What is this person afraid I will commit suicide otherwise?" Robin knew that talking out loud was not good. It meant the fear of not seeing another person for any length of time made him long to hear another voice. "Well the good news all thoughts of me being dead are out the window. Ironic that I just said that when this room has no windows and I always thought Heaven was brighter unless I am in… Hell? If the worst happens who is the last person I want to walk in that door? Top three people I do not want to walk through that door: number one- the Joker, number two- Slade, and number three- … Bruce."

The minutes and seconds ticked by without end, Robin began to scream. At first it felt good he did not feel so stressed. After a while the screaming seemed to be at a higher pitch. As more time passed Robin began counting invisible sheep in a feeble attempt to go to sleep. He remade the bed over ten times in the past hour he believed. Still no one came to the door or spoke on an intercom. Robin began ripping at the sheets, tossing his clothes out the dressers; he tore them to pieces with his teeth, he scratched at the door until his nails bruised black and purple.

The absolute worst was the voices. They would not shut up. All his friends in a constant loop criticizing him saying what a failure he was, asking what right did he have to be a hero, how disappointed they were in him when he pursued Slade as Red X, yet the worst was Bruce entering the room.

Bruce would stand in the door way look down on him and say, "You never should have come here. You were never ready for this responsibility. Have you learned nothing Richard? Do you know the trouble I had to go through to find you? I never should have taken you in; at least Barbara knew how to follow instructions unlike you. Who are you Dick Grayson? Who are you?"

The last question made Robin scream even more. He dug his bruised nails into his arms and legs, behind his knees and at his elbows. Bruce and his friends' questions repeated again and again for hours. When would this torment end? Why did they ask questions they knew he had no answer for? Robin began wishing the Joker would come in to end this. At least if it was the Joker he would die laughing. What if your jailer was Slade would that be worst? You know he doesn't want to kill you. He wants you think like him to call him teacher and master and worse- father!

On the brink of losing his grip on sanity a small mercy was given. The door that for days and days seemed to be locked opened at last. The resulting light blinded him. A figure stood in the door way and for a moment Robin was sure if it was not Slade, the Joker, or Bruce then it must be the Grim Reaper coming to take him away forever. Why did the Grim Reaper have such a soft voice and sound like it was intruding on him? That was not possible.

"Robin-kun can I come in," the sweet voice asked. "I apologize for not coming in sooner but Sensei told me to give you time to rest. You must feel like you've been in here for months! In truth it's been a week. Sensei had been watching you for the past week and he sounded worried as of late. You've been thrashing and screaming for the whole day. I came in to give you a welcome invitation to dinner tonight. My first ever cooking attempt if it tastes bad please spit it out and let me know. Do you want to come to dinner?"

This sweet Grim Reaper sounded too much like an angel. The angel gasped at the disarray of the room. She whimpered about the dark red stains on the destroyed wooden desk drawers. She stepped into the room and that was her fatal mistake. Robin's instincts took over and he lunged for the angel that meant to kill him with sweet words. The angel screamed and dodged to the right. Robin ran out of the room at full speed. He ignored the cries of the angel to come back and inquiries if he was okay.

Kiara asked Magnet what happened. "Well my guess is one week alone to rest was too long. He must feel he's been stuck in here for days. You better get Sensei we'll need help calming him down."

"Thanks Magnet now the question is how do we catch him?" Kiara asked scratching her head. She chose to trot after him and try to keep him from hurting himself. Robin ran into the training room with the computer monitors and the offline Slade-bots. Kiara stepped into the room as if she was being hunted by a starving lion or wolf. Has this room always been so weird and quiet? Before she could call out for him she saw stars as something hard collided with her knees.

Her teeth clenched to hold back her scream of pain. She touched her face and gasped as a sticky red liquid stained her fingers. "You know for someone who is so out of it he sure had the strength to lure us into a room with weapons to now beat us within an inch of our lives. I suggest we fly and scream while we can still see. Maybe Wintergreen will hear our screams of agony and get Sensei, so get flapping my sister!"

Focusing her aura on her wings Kiara soared in to the air as she just missed a well-timed swing of a metal staff to her ribcage. She hovered in the air reluctant of being within striking distance of her crazed roommate. Robin swung his staff, threw smoke bombs, and stabbed her legs with short daggers while she tried to avoid his hands. After about an hour of this Kiara swerved to the right to dodge a twist of a dagger but ended up with a staff in her back. Robin had leapt into the air to incapacitate her wings and force her to the ground; hard.

Before she hit the hard metal floor she spun in a rapid circle to throw him off and she shot out the door to crash in a feathery exhausted heap into her Sensei as he was running into the room. Kiara and Magnet were not afraid to admit they cried like babies. They had not been this happy to see Slade-sama since Blood tried his mind powers on them.

Slade was distraught over the state of his dear girl. Why did she look horrified? Why had she and Robin not come to the Dining Room to enjoy the loving meal she and Wintergreen surprised him with? And the biggest question yet: what was that blinding rainbow surrounding Robin?

"Kiara what is it? What's wrong?"

"Rainbow, Chaos, Rainbow, Chaos nothing but pain. Make it stop Sensei. Make it stop!"

"Kiara don't look at him. Look at me, look at me!" Slade hugged her close to his chest the steady thrum of his heart calms her down, but she can't help squeezing his right arm as Robin's shrieks grow louder. The sight of Slade pushed him over the edge and Kiara was suffering the pain of having to feel Robin's losing battle with his sanity. His emotions were so chaotic it felt like she was standing next to a furnace and then dumped inside an iceberg. Slade was at a loss for words as Wintergreen stepped up behind him.

"Wintergreen I want you to take Kiara to the seat and watch her for me. I need to have a word with that boy." Thus the beating and continual down spiral of Robin's mind began. At first Slade said nothing. Robin insulted him with how slow he was and how he didn't feel any of his punches; that was when he got serious.

In hindsight Slade knew this was what Robin wanted a verbal outlet for his plummeting emotions. Slade was reminded of how the girls had convinced Robin to break free of Blood's control- to submit to Slade's will. Kiara had explained in detail over the weeks that Robin was unconscious in his room what had happened.

Slade was almost certain if he made the boy believe he was serious then he could override his paranoia and delusions until Robin realized the only sense of stability and commitment he had at the moment was his teacher aka Slade. Robin was sent flying by a hard kick to his stomach. Slade lifted his leg to chop at Robin's back only for him to roll out of the way at the last second. Unsteady on his feet, Robin tried to retaliate with short thrusts and kicks. Slade dodged them all with ease.

"Really now Robin I haven't even broken a sweat," Slade taunted as he threw Robin over his shoulder. Robin managed to overcome his dizziness and hold himself on top of his enemy's shoulders. He leaped off somersaulting to a group of leavers and kicked off a leaver. Slade responded by pressing a hidden compartment on his sleeve and a small dagger pops out.

Hero and villain spar with the ferocity of an alpha wolf defending his pack from an upstart challenger. All the while Slade continued his taunts, "You've gotten soft my boy. I don't know where I went wrong, you've trained with the True Master and yet this is all I get?" Slade began to cut Robin's arms and legs as Robin struggled to maintain consciousness. His vision threatened to go black when Slade twisted his arms behind his back. Robin was sure he will pass out from the growing pressure.

"No, no, no my apprentice no sleep yet. Haven't you learned that you need more gratitude? I thought I taught you when you were first here, perhaps I am getting soft. I would have a harder time with Beast Boy than you right now. How sad it's pathetic really."

Kiara was not sure how to stop this fighting. Robin had for the most part lost his mind. Sensei was not pulling punches and he looked like he wanted to hurt him. On the other hand Robin had been fighting her with a thought to kill her; unlike how he fought Sensei as if he needed to kill Sensei. Then Wintergreen gave the suggestion to save the day. "Miss Kiara perhaps if you were to change into your gryphon that would make Robin pause long enough for Slade to calm him down."

"I would love to Wintergreen-san but I have no idea how I do that!?" Kiara said. Magnet ran through every scenario when the gryphon appeared. She suggested maybe it was a near death experience. Kiara agreed but she did not think that applied right now. She wished she could go into Robin's mind and give him a restart but she had not a clue how to do it.

Time was running out and sooner or later Sensei would have to go for more lethal moves considering Robin was trying to kill him out of an insane rage. Without warning Kiara stood up and ran into the middle of the fight. Of course Slade asked her what she was doing but she couldn't lose her focus right now.

Robin swung his staff to strike her head and he stopped seconds before impact. Kiara did not try to move in any way she just stood still. Slade relaxed out of his tense fighting stance to see where she was going with this. Robin swung again at her chest and again he stopped inches from her heart. Kiara trembled from the force of his chaotic rainbow however she did not move. Robin swung again at her eyes and he dropped the staff. A rippling wave of rainbow colors enveloped her as her body shifted into a mythical creature. The rippling rainbow covered her entire body while she purred and chirped at him.

He growled like a lion and attacked with a fury of blows. Kiara and Magnet would not attack or blow him away with wind or shock him with magnetic electricity. To Slade's amazement she was not hurt or bleeding or wobbling on shaken claws and paws. The girl walked up to him with the kindest smile and to everyone's confusion wrapped wings around him and just purred.

Robin thrashed and yelled at her, at Slade, at Batman, at his friends. Kiara and Magnet looked at the giant computer screens. It showed the Brotherhood of Evil's lair and all the Titans from around the world frozen solid. The girls understood one of the reasons he was so pissed off, he thought all his friends were dead. Magnet whispered comforting words in his ears. Kiara held him close to her heart with her forepaws. It felt like an eternity but Robin and Red X broke down and cried. Croaking, garbled, and strangled sobs made his whole body shake.

Slade asked Wintergreen to heat up the dinner and they would eat in here together. Before Wintergreen left he saw Slade, in slow motion; wrap his arms around the teens also whispering comforting words. Wintergreen chuckled Robin would figure out that his friends were alive; Slade had implied this when he noticed Beast boy not frozen, and he knew he'd get angry all over again. Perhaps he would understand why Slade did what he did and maybe just maybe he'd decide to stay.