Shoutout to EX3451 for providing much needed encouragement.

Chapter 6: Propane Nightmares

Beastboy opened his eyes.

He was standing before a very odd sight. It captivated him.

Small bushes and shrubs grew close to him on grass and beyond them were sparse, short trees and other vegetation which grew into a small forest further away from him. Feeling an irresistible urge to see beyond, Beastboy shifted into the form of a hummingbird and raised himself straight up into the air to see past it. The forest thickened and became denser further away and beyond that deepened and became more jungle like. There was less light the father Beastboy looked away, darkness growing as the jungle became wilder and the trees larger, eventually obscuring his vision completely over the most wild terrain yet.

It was a progression of nature, starting small but eventually becoming larger and more dominating.

The sight did not trouble Beastboy in the least. In fact, he felt like it was the most natural thing in the word. Drifting down, he morphed back to himself before alighting softly in front of the evolution of the wild. It was at this time, he realised he was naked.

Again, he was completely at ease with this.

'Must be the animal in me,' he chuckled to himself before stopping suddenly. 'Animal in me. Why does that ring a bell?' He cocked his head, looking up at the sky, which really wasn't the sky as it was a sheet of pure white, again not fazing him in the least. Shaking his head, he pushed the thought from his head and turned around.

The sight before him was exactly the same, but completely different.

In the far distance, Beastboy made out a towering city full of huge skyscrapers, all appearing to be neatly aligned. Drifting his eyes down, he saw that the buildings shrunk down into blocks of apartments, from there down to houses and from there to bungalows. Eventually the buildings closest were nothing more than knee high huts, still in neat rows like the rest of the structures behind them.

Beastboy turned around again, confronting the mess of nature then turning back to the organised man made world. After several needless spins, he found himself standing sideways, one scene on his left and the other on his right. On one side of him was chaotic, primitive nature. On the other was systematic, civilised humanity. Reason on one side versus instinct on the other. Tame versus untamed.

Man versus animal.

As Beastboy was considering all this, a shape appeared shrouded in fog between two bungalows and he turned in order to see it better. He watched as the shape grew more defined in the mist and revealed itself to be shaped like a person. He felt no fear, just curiosity with an ominous undertone of worry. As the figure stepped nearer, Beastboy realised it was a feminine shape with long hair and a slim body. The worrying feeling becoming more pronounced inside him, he could only watch, frozen in place as the mist finally receded completely revealing a bowed head of blond hair atop a figure wearing a black shirt and yellow shorts.

Beastboy watched mouth open and dread in his chest as the figure raised its head exposing piercing blue eyes that he knew all too well. He clenched as fresh guilt and pain sprouted inside him, consuming his chest with fiery venom.

He had a choice to make. He could stand and face his pain. Or he could bury it and run.

Stumbling backwards, Beastboy passed by shrubs, emerald eyes still fixed on blue ones. The pain was too great. He needed escape. So he ran, turning his back on the girl and the humanity beyond and sprinting past ever growing trees and plants towards the darkness of the jungle afar, burying the image of her with the wilderness.

Dressed in dark blue sweat pants and a simple black t-shirt, Cassie glanced at the only clock in the hospital bay; a stark white room packed with some of the most advanced medical equipment there was including some items that were entirely unique, all surrounding 6 beds. The sight of the hour and minute hand aligned on the 10 of the clock prompted a yawn from the teenage heroine, who had been up all night on patrol and had only returned at sunrise for a shower, breakfast and change of clothes before coming straight to the room she was currently in.

She had found the rest of the night to pass slower than usual as her thoughts had not entirely been on the job at hand. Instead, they had frequently wandered to the green boy she had last seen being gently placed into the back of a specially renovated minivan, one of many owned by her adopted father. Her last glimpse of his face had been obscured by the oxygen mask coving his nose and mouth, before the back doors had been closed by one of her best friends in the world; Alfred Pennyworth, personal butler to the Dark Knight. He had assured her in his fantastically English accent that the young man would be treated as soon as possible.

Batman had been unavailable.

Now the object of her many thoughts lay before her and she was able to examine his rather round face closer. His head was topped with coarse, dark green hair, a strand of which fell across one of his closed eyes that she had yet to see. Two pointed, elfin ears reached up and out from his head. Between them was a small, sharp nose above a large mouth, out of which a single fang protruded upwards from the left side of his lower lip. The rest of his body was obscured by a white medical gown, under which she knew most of his thin body was bandaged. Over the top of him were three industrial grade straps. She still felt uneasy about restraining him, but knew that Batman would be most displeased if she failed to take that precaution.

In any case, he looked sufficiently recovered at the moment to give escaping them a try. In the 8 hours between seeing him, the boy had undergone an astonishing recovery. Alfred had informed her of the mysterious stranger's condition the moment she had returned from patrol in the batcave.

'After collecting him I radioed ahead to have Barbara prepare the surgery for he was in obvious need of immediate operation.' The tall borderline father of Bruce Wayne had addressed her with warm, bright eyes. 'However, upon removing the young man from our emergency vehicle, I observed that the eighth thoracic vertebrae which had previously punctured the skin no longer did so. A more thorough examination showed that the injuries he had sustained were no longer life threatening. The boy clearly has some regenerative abilities. Once I was sure there was nothing more I could do for him, I addressed his injuries as best I could to help aid his healing process. While still far from perfect, he is in much better condition, although he is showing signs of extreme exhaustion and overexertion.'

Cassie had been fatigued, hungry and wanted out of her skin tight costume, but couldn't let her curiosity go at Alfred's slightly turned shoulder, marginally lowered head and faintly raised eyes.

'Know something else. What?' she communicated, her grasp of language still basic.

Alfred didn't bother with surprise at the girl's ability to read him; he was well used to it. 'I believe I have some idea of who this person is.' He revealed, watching the girl from the corner of his eye and judging her reaction for himself. She had leaned forward slightly, a clear sign of interest. Alfred allowed himself a small smile before turning back to address her. 'I like to keep up to date with the birds that have left our cosy nest here. Although contact with Master Grayson has been somewhat lacking over the past years, I have endeavoured to keep tabs on him. Thus, I am fairly sure the individual now residing in the hospital bay is a member of the team he has formed. If memory serves, our green guest goes by the name…'

"Beastboy," Cassie whispered to herself. Alfred had confirmed his suspicion later on, with a full colour magazine spread he had obtained from Jump City some time ago detailing the Titan team with full length photos. Further internet research had confirmed this and offered more info on the green hero. His powers were most interesting and Cassie wondered how he had received them.

Looking down at the lime green boy's face, she felt something completely foreign stir within her. It was a kind of desire she decided, a desire to talk to him, to get to know him, to interact with him. For the thousandth time she cursed her father for denying her the right to feel emotions. Even raising her eyebrows had been a punishable offense in his eyes. She felt certain this fluttering in her stomach was a feeling she should have experience with and resolved to ask Alfred, her unofficial teacher on all things emotional, about it later.

It was a nice face, Cassie decided as her eyes tried in vain to read his completely relaxed expression; strong, cute. Again, she had to resist the urge to reach out and stroke one of his long ears; there was something quite attractive about them. She had no idea what, but the feeling remained anyways.

A new sound joined the beeping of the heart rate monitor beside her. Following the two wires attached to pads at his temples upwards, she examined the newly formed brainwaves appearing on the screen of the neuro-activity apparatus. The waves were too consistently small to indicate his awakening, instead suggesting that he was dreaming.

Turning her eyes back to his face, Cassie wondered what this Beastboy person must be dreaming about. 'Perhaps girlfriend?' she thought with a spark of…something. The teenager visibly started, eyes widening. Where had that thought come from? And that emotion? Such things never occurred within her.

Cassie shook her head, it had been a long night and she needed sleep. With a final glance at his face, she turned to walk away.

She had turned the handle before noticing the slight increase in the speed of the heart rate monitor, which kept on slowly speeding up. Walking back to his bedside, she was struck by the expression on his face. Jaw clenched, brow lowered, skin tightened around the eyes, nostrils wrinkling: all tell-tale signs of physical pain. But he shouldn't be in any pain, Cassie confusedly thought. It was then she noticed his spiking brainwaves accompanied by another increase in heart rate. Most likely a nightmare.

'Probably not girlfriend then,' Cassie thought, completely oblivious to any sarcasm in the comment.

Her examination of the brainwave monitor was interrupted by a deep growling. Her head snapped down to observe another change in the boy's face. Classic signs of anger: Eyebrows lowered and pulled together, tensed and straightened lower eyelids, upper lip raised… what?

In all her time reading people's body as a substitute for language and expression, Cassie had never come across baring ones teeth in such a fashion before. It reminded her of an aggressive wolf.

She had no time to ponder this however, as things started to move very fast.

The beeping of the heart rate monitor was almost an incessant hum it was going so fast and the brain activity levels had spiked massively. It was at this point that the rather gangly green male on the bed in front of her began to transform.

The growl deepened in his throat as his body began to bulge, evident even under the loose hospital gown he wore. Cassie heard tearing as the bandages wrapped around his torso strained then ripped under the sudden influx of mass beneath them. It was at this point, as his fingernails grew into claws that astonishment gave way to a lifetime of discipline and Batgirl sprang into action.

Turning to a white cabinet beside her, she quickly opened the doors and scanned the ready filled syringes stacked neatly within, each with a clearly written label. Glancing at the still expanding boy in the bed, whose hair had almost doubled in length and who was starting to strain at the straps restraining him, she decided that it was better not to take chances. She wasn't sure what was going on: he wasn't turning into any recognisable animal and his expression of intense pain followed by anger suggested his mental state wasn't great. Grabbing the strongest sleeping drug they had, she turned and wondered how best to administer it, trying in vain to block out the pained cries from the boy as he grew. She shook her head and focused.

The most effective way would be to the neck, straight into the carotid artery, but she didn't like the look of those newly enlarged and serrated teeth that continuously snapped at invisible foes. The forearm was the next logical choice as an injection directly into a vein was also an efficient way of getting the drug circulating around the body. However, there was little chance of hitting a vein as he was thrashing wildly and his arms continued to expand. The thigh was therefore the easiest and safest place for injection.

Acting quickly, she stabbed the syringe down through thin fabric of the hospital gown into his thigh and began pushing the plunger down, injecting the powerful liquid into his body. A snarl of discomfort sounded to her left but she focused on the job at hand, knowing that this was the best thing for him.

The large amount of tranquiliser was three quarters gone when the resistance to the needle disappeared and Cassie found herself administering sedative to the bed. The boy was gone.

Whirling around into a combat stance, Cassie's eyes swept the room. There was no one there, yet the door remained locked and it was the only way in. Remembering his powers, she swept the room again, more carefully this time looking for any sign of an animal. Had she been fresh and her mind sharp, she might had thought to look directly beneath her, where a tiny green ant sat, waiting to strike.

In a silent and very fast transformation, Beastboy materialised behind Cassie. She never felt the savage blow to the back of her head.

Changeling's bright green eyes surveyed the cage he was in as the woman fell to the floor. White and metal was everywhere. For some reason it scared him. This place was bad, painful, and dangerous. He needed escape, needed out of this prison. Shifting quickly, a green Indian bison prepared to smash through the door to freedom.

It had been a long night for the Batman as well. An encounter with the Joker had taken up most of the night, and it had all been for nothing as the cursed clown had gotten away. The Dark Knight angrily yanked the wheel in an uncommon display of emotion as he navigated the batmobile through a concealed underground passageway, one of the many ways into the batcave. He did not accept failure.

The night, however, had taken a decidedly more pleasant turn when he had run into Catwoman atop the natural history museum. Needless to say, she had been atop something else before the night was over. This was the reason for his lateness. He still had to file a report on the night's proceedings (omitting a certain hotel room experience) and get a report from Batgirl.

Batman sighed in a rare moment of strain. He had been tracking the Joker for the past month, following up countless false trails like mass disappearances of toxic waste or one of the many break ins to candy stores all over Gotham, most of the time narrowly escaping with his life. All that work, effort and time wasted in tonight's loss. It was enough to put a load on anyone's shoulders; even the Batman. Moments with Selina helped break the pressure but these encounters were few and far between, the last 'meeting' with her being more than six months ago.

As he skilfully manoeuvred the batmobile around a stray rock without a second thought, Batman idly reflected on Alfred's latest attempt to force him into some form relaxation. 'A hobby is what you need Master Wayne,' he had said as he served hot, black coffee to the Dark Knight at four in the morning. 'Something to take your mind off the job periodically. It could be related to crime-fighting, heavens know it would have to be, but indirectly.' Batman had actually given it quite a bit of thought. He was well aware of the importance of downtime, a strained body and soul made for ineffectiveness, but he had always considered sleep his time for idleness. The problem was he couldn't think of anything that could engage him sufficiently that wasn't a waste of time. He'd give it more thought later.

After entering a long series of numbers into the console beside him, a section of the supposedly solid rock floor lowered some way in front of him, creating a ramp downwards. Gunning the throttle, Batman shot the batmobile down it, winding up on the real road to the batcave. The trail he had just left led only to an advanced array of scanners and an eventual trap.

As the tunnel opened up into an open area, the batcave came into view. It was an impressive place. Thick, perforated steel plates anchored in the jagged and uneven rocks below formed walkways and floors, fitting the contours of the cave as naturally as possible, providing a surprisingly spacious floor area. Towards the very bottom of the cave was a reinforced bomb shelter which housed the cave's power source; a hydrogen generator which allowed the cave to function completely off the grid.

The large superstructure was designed to be able to function even if a nuclear war was to break out with supercomputer, kitchen, training area with gym, beds, living area, medical bay, lavatories, crime lab and shooting range. It even included a well-stocked library. While practical, the batcave was also quite personal to the Bat. Behind concealed doors lay a trophy room, a costume vault and workstation where the majority of his inventing and remodelling took place.

The main floor housed most of the living arrangements, but possessed no walls. The kitchen consisted of a worktop, fridge and cooker lined up against one wall of rock with a table and chairs in front. There was nothing to separate it from the rest of the cave. It was like this with the training area, library and everything else in the main area. Batman preferred it open plan. He could see everything. The exception was the bathroom and the medical bay, one for obvious reasons and the other required a sterile environment.

Batman stopped the batmobile on its turntable and pressed another button activating the hydraulics, which raised the platform up into a circular landing platform level with the rest of the cave. Batman jumped out of the car and strode between the batplane, jet, copter, and other mobiles all arranged neatly on the disc, ready to go at a moment's notice.

As eager as he was for food and a shower, Batman neglected these needs until his work was done. But first he intended on paying their guest a visit. He had heard the message from Alfred about the possible hero Batgirl had seen drop from the sky but had been too busy to respond. His butler had been sparse on his description of the situation and the person in question, being more intent on saving their life than talking. As usual, Batman was suspicious.

He was twenty feet from the door of the medical bay when it exploded outwards.

I'd call that a pretty solid cliffhanger, wouldn't you?
Any comments on the portrayal of Batman and Alfred would be greatly appreciated. I've never really watched much of the animated show so I'd appreciate feedback on how to improve them.

Review Responses:
EX3451 – Thanks man, you're right about reviews – They're are like the writing equivalent of espressos, warm you up and give you the energy to keep going Any and all future criticisms and feedback is greatly appreciated!

FF8Cerberus – I've got a little more establishing of Robin's character to do. And then his comeuppance shall commence!

Tsk91 – I aim to please

Shugokage – I'll try to get the next chapter out quickly. Probably be a short one though.

Thanks for stopping by.
See you next time,
CJB