Chapter 9: Derezzed

Beastboy's conscience started to struggle from the darkness of sleep to the light of reality like a whale rising sluggishly through the ocean towards the surface. As he came closer to breaking through to the real world, he tried to grasp hold of the strange dream that had pervaded his slumber.

It had started with him lazily opening his eyes to find himself staring at a silver ceiling.

It was a nice ceiling, he decided.

With bleary eyes, he reached up to touch it, only to find he couldn't. In mild curiosity Beastboy looked at his chest seeing he was wearing a pretty white hospital gown. Underneath was naked.

He giggled to himself.

Overcoming his mirth, he took a closer look down at himself and observed with minor interest that three broad, leather straps held him to the comfortable bed he was lying in. 'I appear to be restrained,' he noted. 'How odd. No matter! I am Beastboy, none can hold me!' he attempted to courageously shout in his best medieval accent. What actually came out was a drunken "Nome atteri! Meastboin, ninican choldne!"

He stopped in surprise at his garbled words, only to collapse into another laughing fit.

Eventually sobering and focusing his considerably impaired brain, Beastboy morphed slowly into a rat, ending up underneath his robe. As soon as the transformation was complete. He was struck by an intense tickling sensation all over his new body and opened his small mouth to squeak in a relentless, high pitched laugh. Struggling to move through his mirth, Beastboy crawled to the edge of the bed before heroically falling off, landing gracefully on his back with a thump. He reverted back to his normal form, unfortunately upside down, laughing his head off. Eventually the tickling faded and he was able to close his mouth.

His muscles were slow to respond to the commands he was sending and so it took a while for him to manoeuvre himself into sitting up, leaning back against the bed to examine his surroundings, which appeared to be swimming somehow.

One wall seemed to just be a mirror. After trying to wave to himself, falling over, breaking down into another fit of laughter and righting himself again was he able to see the other walls and floor were made of silver too. Apart from the bed, the only other object in the room was some sort of box in a top corner with fan, pumping air into the room.

As he looked down to examine the floor intently, he knew not what for, Beastboy became aware that he was in fact completely nude now. This induced another bout of laughter and he fell sideways to the floor trying to clutch his sides but failing miserably. It was at this point he had heard a voice.

"You've been injected with a major tranquilizer, a concoction of my own comprised of klonopin, diprenorphine and tranxene among other ingredients." Beastboy lifted his heavy head of the ground and observed that the mirror wall had become see-through. Standing on the other side of it was a dark figure framed by what appeared to be rock. Squinting his groggy and unfocused eyes, Beastboy tried to make out who was talking to him as the voice continued.

"It has the effect of an anti-depressant; inducing feelings of calm and relaxation as well as drowsiness and lethargy. You're currently in-

"I know hoo yu are!" Beastboy interrupted, finally recognising the form in front of him. "Yur Badman… I mean Batman!" he exclaimed victoriously. He watched as the hero slowly nodded once and a giddy elation filled him, "Heya Batman!" he shouted excitedly, waving enthusiastically at him; as happy as a child on Christmas morning, or as happy as himself on Christmas morning.

"It's clear the effects of the drugs have not ceased their effects sufficiently to engage you in intelligent conversation. You'd best get some more sleep."

"Sleep!" Said Beastboy triumphantly, proud he had made out one word. Then his head wobbled as his eyelids fell before he hit the ground, fast asleep.

It had been a weird dream.

Beastboy groaned. It felt as though there were several angry porcupines fighting inside his head. It was all he could feel; pounding away like it had its own very powerful heartbeat. Still, he felt well rested and really hungry. 'Wonder if I can beat Cy to the kitchen? Ugh, too much effort to try.' With another groan he rolled off his bed, falling a foot to the hard, cold floor.

Wait, hard and cold? His bedroom was carpeted.

Beastboy snapped his eyes open, momentarily confused at the sight of the steel wall in front of him. He sat up quickly, wincing at as his muscles protested loudly at the movement and his head gave a painful throb. Fighting down panic, he looked around the ten by ten foot titanium box he was in. The was a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, a strange box in one corner and one wall was nothing but a mirror. Apart from that and the bed, there was nothing else in his cell.

"Okay, okay, don't panic," Beastboy said to himself as his eyes widened and his body began to tremble painfully, completely ignoring his own advice and proceeding to freak out and hyperventilate. 'Where the hell am I? And how did I get here? Kidnap? Oh God, I've been kidnapped! Why? By who? I'm going to die! Oh, I'll never get to offer to teach Starfire a language by kissing her in front of Robin! Or tell Jinx Cyborg is totally into her. Or walk straight up to Raven and kiss her like in a movie then run like hell! Alright, alright, you've been trained for this. What's the first thing to do in case of kidnap? Come on, come on, remember! …Oh yeah!'

Wondering how his body had gotten so wrecked, Beastboy painfully pulled himself into a cross legged position with a groan; at this point realising he was wearing some kind of white gown. He frantically pushed that observation aside and closed his eyes. "Alright, control breathing. In, Out. In, Out. Need to relax and calm down.' Expelling one final breath, He opened his eyes.

'Next step; observation. Examine surrounding.' Sweeping his eyes around his prison once more, Beastboys sharp eyes detected the outline of a door barely visible opposite him. He noted its position but learned nothing more from his visual analysis; instead he closed his eyes and drew a deep breath through his nose. Sifting through the overwhelming metallic smell of the titanium, Beastboy thought he was able to detect rock thought it was difficult to know for sure as the air was very stale. 'So I'm most likely underground.' He thought.

"Alright, moving on.' Drudging up the lesson that had been drilled into him so very long ago, Beastboy recalled the next step, 'Try to find out why you have been captured. Okay, I remember returning from the battle against the Brain. We were all walking downtown when that weird monster thing attacked us.' He stopped for a moment as the memory of the thing rang a bell deep in his mind. He furrowed his brow for a moment before giving up chasing the memory. 'Alright, we were fighting the monster and then I saw Terra…'

Beastboy's eyes widened as it all came rushing back.

His frantic search for her, his joy at finally finding her, showing her around the tower and eventually the confrontation at the school. Beastboy physically winced at the memory of the pain of her rejection. Things got a bit cloudy from that point on, he could remember nothing after sprinting out of the high school.

'Then what happened?' It annoyed him that he couldn't recall anything. That had only happened to him once, when had become…'Oh, no.'

He had become the Beast.

'Damn, damn, DAMN! I probably went on a rampage and had to be forcibly stopped. Now I'm most likely in some sort of military prison or something. Either that or the guys had to stop me, damn that would have sucked. Crap.' Beastboy held his head in his hands, appalled. He couldn't believe that had happened again. He thought that entire problem was behind him, that he had control of it.

With a heavy sigh of resignation, Beastboy reflected that at least he hadn't been kidnapped and he wasn't going to die after all. 'Always a good thing. Never seen these holding cells before, must be new. Why am I wearing a hospital gown? Oh, I bet it's because I got injured when I got taken down and they had to treat me before sticking me in prison. Maybe I should try to escape. Got nothing better to do and I could fly on back to the tower. Nah, probably shouldn't do that. I know; I'll just walk about until I meet someone, should be good for a laugh.'

Beastboy stood painfully, realising that he must have done battle with someone as the Beast when his body painfully cried out. His legs in particular felt like they could just fall apart. Gazing around the cell, he wondered just how to go about escaping. The joints on the walls were incredibly smooth, like they had been melted together so no chance to hitting a structurally weak spot. Besides, he was in no position to morph. Every cell in his body seemed to throb with aches and pain. Nope, definitely not morphing.

Then he spotted the odd box in the top right corner of the cube and waddled painfully over to examine it. On the underside was a slowly turning fan. 'Must be the air supply, I could fly through it as a moth or something.'

"It's no use."

Beastboy whirled around, almost falling over as his legs reacted painfully and threatened to fold. The gravely, flat voice was coming from behind the mirror. If all the crime and detective shows he watched had taught him anything, then it was probably one-way glass. Whoever was on the other side could see him, but all he could see was himself. The voice continued.

"You're in a cell specifically designed to contain a shapeshifter. It is completely airtight, made of polymerised titanium and two inch thick carbon fibre reinforced glass. The air conditioning unit you were just examining works in a closed circuit air current, there is no way to escape through it."

Beastboy's trademark goofy half smile appeared on his face as he stared at his reflection.

"And all this for little old me? I'm flattered."

"I designed and produced the hold in case I never needed to contain Clayface. It seemed the only prison cell to be able to hold you."

The smile slid from the green titans lips. A look of confusion and thought took its place.

"Clayface…" He muttered to himself, "Rings a bell. Not to be rude, but who are you by the way? Some new commissioner I've never heard of before? And why would you need to build a prison to contain an enemy we've never fought?"

There was no answer, but suddenly the mirror became clear revealing a cloaked figure standing in the shadow, surrounded by dark rock. Beastboy let out a large sigh.

"Dammit, you're a bad guy aren't you? Crap, how do I get into these messes?"

"It's astonishing Robin never insisted you were educated on all known villains and their usual areas of operation. Quite astonishing."

"And of course you know I'm a titan, meaning this was all some overly complex plot to kidnap me. That narrows down the list of suspects." Beastboy was beginning to get genuinely afraid and also ferociously angry and sought to bury his emotion under bravado. "Come on out Slade," he bit out, "what's some darkness between mortal enemies, eh?"

The figure stepped forward into the light.

Beastboy hit the floor, mouth open in a dead faint.

"So that's the situation guys. Beastboy is currently drooling in one of Batman's holding cells after falling out of the sky just outside Gotham where he was rescued by a brand new Batgirl that I have never heard about!" His eyes shifted quickly from side to side and he cleared his throat, regaining his composure before adding "Any questions?"

Sitting around the couch he surveyed his team. Hidden beneath her hood, Ravens expression was unreadable. Her widened eyes were the only indication of a reaction, although a nearby lamp had exploded when he had said Beastboy was alright. Starfire beamed in happiness at her friend's safety, levitating gently a few inches above the settee, hands clasped in front of her chest. Cyborg was as completely rigid, unbelief on his face and the sheer surrealism of the situation Beastboy was in.

Getting no reply, Robin continued. "Beastboy is currently healing quickly and should have recovered completely from his injuries in a few days. Batman will keep us updated and when he's ready we'll fly over and pick him up."

"He travelled to Gotham in one night?" Cyborg exclaimed, "How is that even possible?"

Robin shrugged and leaned back into the sofa, "It seems that as the Changeling, he can do a lot of stuff we never thought he could."

"And he's in the batcave the lucky sprout, I wonder if he'll get to see the batmobile!" Cyborg groaned in jealousy.

"Oh, it is so joyous that our friend is unharmed and shall be with us soon!" Starfire cried as she flew into the air somersaulting in her joy. Robin smiled at the sight. "Oooh!" she said, a new idea occurring to her. "Perhaps he will introduce us to his valiant rescuer!"

The smile slid from Robins face as again the face of Barbara Gordon flashed before his eyes. Rising quickly, he turned to go saying, "Well, if that's all I'm going to hit the training room so-" His body was stopped forcibly by a glowing black aura that lifted him clean off his feet and set him back down on the couch.

"No, that will not be all," stated Raven as the ebony cloud dissipated. "How badly injured is he?"

Robin gave her an annoyed look before answering, "Batman said 'his body is wrecked.' It seems he severely cracked both shins before traveling all the way to Gotham and those two injuries are the most severe. They were probably further worsened by his disastrous skydive." He saw Ravens eyes narrow and mentally kicked himself. He pressed on, "Other than that he is suffering from chronic fatigue and severe muscle tearing. However, he's in no real danger."

"I could teleport over there, heal him and bring him back," Raven suggested.

"No, you wouldn't know where to teleport to and I can't tell you without revealing Batman's identity."

Raven nodded, then looked away and remained quiet.

"What exactly did you tell Batman about the whole event?" Cyborg asked.

"I had to tell him everything. Oh don't give me that look, he'd already hacked our database and read all about Beastboy's experiences as the Beast. He even knew about Terra and her betrayal." Robin looked around at the outraged faces. "Yeah, I know but trust me when I say it'll go no farther than him and the only thing we can do is improve our cyber security. Will you get on that as soon as possible Cyborg? Good.

"Anyway, I told him all about Beastboy as Changeling. He seemed unusually… curious about the whole thing to be honest," Robin thought aloud, brow furrowed. He had never known his mentor to be so interested in something like this. But he supposed if a foreign hero crash landed outside the tower he wold want to know everything about them as well.

"Okay then, now that we got that sorted I'm going to go train. Cyborg I still want that chemical analysis done as quickly as possible."

"Of course O mighty and wise dictator!" Cyborg pompously shouted leaping from the couch and stooping into an overly deep bow that the human body was not designed to perform.

Robin shot him a dirty look and left. At which point Cyborg carried on.

"Ya gel-haired traffic light," he muttered sinking back into the couch, thankful that his insults had not registered with Starfire as she was still flying around the ceiling. He waited for the usual agreement and joke from Beastboy, but was disappointed. "Ah, it's not the same making fun of him without Beastboy," He complained getting up to leave.

Raven was soon left alone as Starfire followed him out, undoubtedly to go see Robin. In the unnatural silence that followed, Raven realised that Cyborg was right.

It wasn't the same without Beastboy.

Next time – a gamechanger
Thanks for reading! Can't tell you how much of a boost it is to know people are enjoying my writing. All reviews, favourites and follows are greatly appreciated :)

Review Responses:
FF8Cerberus – I'm struggling with Robin actually. I'm not trying to paint him as an evil dictator; more as a somewhat paranoid control freak. I do have an arc planned out for him that does involve some serious reality checks, but my ultimate goal is to make you come around to him.

EX3451 – Yeah, I'm going to have to spend some time developing her as well. Really looking forward to writing Alfred!

Shugokage – Cheers

Kronk95 – I totally agree man. 'awome' :)

I'm going to try to get these out faster as I have free time over Easter! Happy Easter by the way!
Catch ya' later,
CJB