Author's Note: I'm considering pretty much scrapping what I have here and doing a complete re-write, since this story is apparently not very well received and thus must need a LOT more work. Three reasons I'm saying so: (1) I haven't received any reviews since chapter 9, which is quite telling, (2) I've only had 14 reviews, by the same 4 people (who I hate to disappoint), which is really sad out of 11 chapters and over 690 hits, (3) I've actually LOST people that had alerted and/or favorited this story (and I never had over 4 of either anyway) telling me I'm doing something wrong. If you have any ideas for the rewrite, or any clue where I'm going wrong, please let me know. I won't be abandoning this story, but I would like it to be something others actually enjoy reading.

Chapter 1 of the rewrite has been posted already, so if you've been following this story and were disappointed with the first chapter, please let me know if it's any better.

—Chapter Twelve A: The Next Morning—

Beastboy was the first to realize something was wrong the next morning. He came up to breakfast with the strangest look on his face.

Robin, Artemis, Starfire, and Cyborg were already there, eating a whopping breakfast of ham, eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, and more fresh baked bread (plus mustard for Starfire, of course).

"Are you okay, little man?" asked Cyborg in concern, seeing the glazed, almost frightened look in his buddy's eyes.

"Uh, how to say this?" The green changeling licked his lips and rubbed the back of his head. "I think the Beast is back. I trashed my room sometime last night."

Robin frowned. "We better run some tests immediately. It could be a reaction to…"

Then Lore walked in, his habitual smile nowhere to be seen. He looked exhausted and ashamed, and his eyes swept toward everyone sitting at the table and he blushed bright red.

"I… I'm sorry," were the first words out of his mouth.

"So it was friend Lore who made friend Beastboy lose control last night?" asked Starfire, looking concerned.

"I did? Oh, I'm very sorry!" began the white-haired boy, sounding like he was about to repeat himself at least five or six more times.

"You didn't know?" asked Artemis, frowning. "Then what were you apologizing for?"

Lore's blush grew. "The… the front door doesn't work."

"How is that your fault?" asked Cyborg, frowning. "It's probably a malfunction. I'll check the system specs after breakfast."

"No, I…"

Robin interrupted, frowning. "Actually, I think I understand what he means. Star, could you go to the roof? Just radio what you see."

The beautiful Tamaranian princess looked like she was about to ask why, but Robin nodded slightly towards a Lore who looked like he was trying to make himself shrink. Her heart went out to the sweet boy, so she merely nodded and flew off to the roof.

Cyborg stood up, having a strange feeling about this, and walked over to the large windows, looking out.

"Whoa…" he said, at a loss for words.

As far as he could see, the entire island was covered in green. There certainly had not been fifty foot trees on the island before, just as he was pretty sure the view from this window had been of a sandy, yellow beach the other day. He quickly opened his arm and began running scans.

The others, noticing Cyborg's reaction, set down their own breakfasts and came to join him at the window. Beastboy whistled appreciatively. Artemis sighed. Robin was silent and thoughtful.

Starfire's voice came over the communicator about half a minute later.

"Robin! The island is covered in flora!"

They saw a flash of red and purple as she flew down past the windows in front of them, going down for a closer look.

"How bad is it?" asked Robin, not sparing any words.

"Whah! It grew!" exclaimed her voice in surprise.

Robin glanced back and saw Lore an even brighter red, flushed to the tips of his ears. He hadn't tied back his hair this morning, at least not yet, and it hung in front of his face like a drape, hiding most of his expression. The boy wonder grabbed Beastboy's arm to catch his attention, then gestured at the white-haired boy.

"He needs to calm down," he said softly. "Cheer him up, would you?"

Beastboy nodded and trotted off.

"C'mon dude, let's go watch TV. You haven't lived until you've seen all 362 episodes of Super Monkey Smash Sisters 12!"

"But I…"

"They've got it under control. Plants are no big deal," said Beastboy casually, pulling the boy along by his sleeve.

When they were out of earshot, Robin lifted the communicator back up.

"Star? Report."

"The flora has encroached on and completely surrounded our Tower's base," Starfire's voice answered professionally. "I can burn us out with my starbolts, but it will take a few hours."

Robin actually blinked. "Just how thick is this stuff?"

"There are vines thicker than six inches, and are not these types of trees called California Redwoods? Two of me could not circle some of these trunks. The grass is about four feet high, and some shrubs are…"

"Enough, I get it," said Robin curtly, rubbing his forehead, images of one of Batman's enemies, Poison Ivy to be exact, running through his mind.

"Oh, my!" suddenly exclaimed Starfire.

"What now?"

"How pretty!"

"Star?"

"Suddenly everything is flowering!"

"The stupid cartoon," grumbled Robin, hearing Lore and Beastboy's laughter from the other side of the room, in front of the huge TV. "Thank god it's a comedy and not a horror."

"I better go help her," said Cyborg, his voice reluctant, but his eyes again trained on the sea of green outside the window. "My sonic cannon could cut our landscaping time in half. Though maybe we should just use a flamethrower…"

Ray chose that moment to come into the room, yawning and stretching. He noticed the group standing around the window and came over to see what the fuss was about.

"Oh…" was his only comment. "You'd think Flora was here."

"Of course it's flora," replied Artemis, raising an eyebrow. "What else would it be?"

"No, no. One of my elementals, also known as Evergreen. Whenever she threw a temper tantrum, our castle would look something like this in the morning. Of course, she could make the plants retreat back as well, so no harm was ever done."

"Unfortunately, apparently Lore can't undo this mess," said Robin dismissively, before giving Ray an appraising look. "Grab a bite to eat, then you're joining Cyborg, Starfire, and Artemis with clean-up."

Ray looked wary. "Are you sure this is a…"

"Cyborg will be there if anything goes wrong. And it won't really matter if all that green goes up in flames," said Robin dismissively.

"What are you going to do, Rob?" asked Cyborg, curious why he had not volunteered himself to help out.

"I'll be consulting with Raven. It's probably not a coincidence that neither she nor Reville have showed up yet, so she likely started some sort of training for him the other day. I have a feeling that preventing this and similar issues might be a little harder than simply not letting anyone EVER put Lore in makeup again."

Raven groaned as she rubbed her face and sat up from her bed. She hadn't slept at all. Between Reville's nightmares, all fresh in his mind after forcibly reliving his past the other day, and Lore's mental screams of horror when he woke up in the middle of the night and realized he had make-up on, she hadn't gotten any sleep.

There was a knock on her door, and she easily sensed it was Reville, as exhausted as she was. Well, of course, with those nightmares. And Lore's alarm had probably woken him up as well, though perhaps that had been something of a relief. She slid the door aside and gestured him to come in.

"Would you like to learn to meditate?" she asked, not looking at him, as she arranged herself in the correct position on the floor and closed her eyes.

Without a word, as his relief made his gratitude more than obvious, he sat across from her and copied her pose.

"Relax," she instructed. "Close your eyes. Think of a single word that means something deep and precious to you. Focus only on that word, and…"

BANG BANG BANG!

It wasn't really that loud, but it certainly felt that loud to the two hypersensitive empaths who hadn't slept a wink.

"Raven!" called out Robin. "Raven, are you up yet? Is Reville with you?"

Raven sighed and got to her feet. Not bothering to walk, she floated over to the door and slid it open.

"What?" she asked, her weariness clear in the strain of her voice.

"Last night, Lore…"

"Freaked out. I felt it."

"Well, we're trapped in the tower. The Tower is completely surrounded by various types of plants."

"Do you need my help to clear the refuse?"

"No, actually. I'm sure Starfire, Cyborg, and Ray can handle it. I'd like to talk to you about Lore. Before that, though…" he looked around her shoulder, seeing Reville, still in the lotus position and breathing slowly and deeply.

Raven followed his glance, then stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her. Reville's mental state was actually leveling out already.

"How's Reville doing?"

"I am now aware of the extent of his issues. I am planning to instruct him on how to manage such issues and prevent them from interfering with his abilities."

"Could you do the same with Lore?"

"My senses tell me Lore's problems are substantially different. Reville could not cope with his problems, and Lore copes… too well." She frowned, not quite sure of how to word what she'd witnessed Lore doing with his emotions. "Or, rather, he doesn't cope, he deliberately ignores and discards the issue, instead of dealing with it. To illustrate, I can teach Reville to meditate so as to accept his traumas as part of himself, learning from them, instead of constantly fighting his own memories. Teaching Lore to meditate would be pointless, as he would have nothing to focus on, having already discarded the source of his problem."

Robin frowned, not quite understanding the point Raven was making.

"Remember the inside of my mind? Well, Reville's mindscape would be two parts of himself locked in an eternal struggle, his common sense and logic versus his trauma and anger, whereas Lore's would be… probably a small child sitting in the middle of a blank room, innocently asking you to play with him."

Robin frowned. "He's caused a rather extreme problem for an issue that you're saying he's discarded."

"Because he discards the issue, it is never dealt with. Something as simple as being a boy and getting upset being dressed up like a girl has probably always plagued him, and always will, because he's never actually sat down and thought about the problem and how he should react to it. I'm not even sure he would acknowledge it upsetting him so much. From what I've observed, he'll downplay the problem and change the subject."

"So what do we do?"

"I am not sure. His powers are aura-related, certainly, but they doesn't seem to follow the supposed rules regarding aura-related powers. Like…" her eyes suddenly widened. "Wait, is it possible he's completely unique on his world?"

Robin frowned, consulting the correct file in his mind. "He didn't say anything about that, and nothing in my file indicates such a thing. But it is strange that he said his full-blooded family is completely normal, so it's possible."

Raven looked stunned. All her research suddenly fell into place, like a puzzle she'd finally solved. "I had only heard rumors of such before. Robin, I get it. He's probably an Amalgamation."

"A combination of something?"

"An Amalgamation, a combination of all the power that should have been in his world. For some reason, it was all born within him, within one being instead of thousands. That's why his power seems so natural, why it's related so strongly to plants, animals, and healing, why he claims to have never had any training as an aura-user, but has such impressive power. It even explains why he throws away negative emotions instead of dealing with them – with so much power, if he did not immediately get rid of any threat to his cheerful demeanor, he could cause incredible devastation. It would be similar to… to me losing my control."

Robin groaned. "You mean he could cause an end-of-the-world scenario."

"I will finish instructing Reville on meditation, then I shall make preparations for Lore."

"I would prefer him learning to focus his powers without destroying the world, if that's possible. If not, he'll just have to be the healer hiding behind the rest of his team. In fact, that might be best."

"I'll have to visit Lore's mindscape. I can get him to reveal his true self there, and in a room with the proper seals, it should not affect the real world."

Robin nodded. "Good. I'll be discussing with everyone later today what is really going on, but to give you a rough idea, I need to make these six…" He waved his hand, unable to find a word to sum up the unusual combination of characters. "Well, we need to make them a team, a team capable of traveling across different worlds and working together on potentially complicated missions. That's why we need to understand each of the four we have found, and locate the two missing."

The whole Tower suddenly shook. Raven rolled her eyes, mumbling something negative about Ray, and Robin's communicator beeped.

"Stray lightning bolt," explained Cyborg's voice via the communicator. "But he's getting better…"

Robin had a bad feeling that the latter comment was only because Ray was within hearing distance.

"We have a lot of work to do," grumbled Robin. "At least Artemis – sorry, Arthur, seems simple enough to handle."

Raven nodded. "Crossdressing is incredibly minor compared to the issues of the other three. We can only hope the missing two teammates will be equally easy to train. Perhaps, while Reville practices meditation and I examine Lore, you could take Artemis with you, Starfire, and Beastboy, and search for their missing teammates? You could train her while Cyborg tries to work with Ray."

Author's Note: I am always open to ideas/suggestions/criticism, so seriously please review or PM and give me your personal opinion of this story, no matter how negative.