Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN YOUNG JUSTICE! If I did, I would probably ruin it and I would be the only person who watched it anymore and Cartoon Network would certainly fire me after my 1st day of working there.

Author's Note: this is my first fan fiction, like ever. So please don't make the reviews too harsh. Also, this team is pre-zattana, so it won't include her or rocket.

…On with the story!

"Is the prototype ready yet?"

"It's nearly done sir, just a few more minutes of tinkering and Project Bestia will be ready for activation."

"And the false distress calls?"

"It was intercepted by The League; their team of sidekicks will arrive within the hour."

"Perfect."

56 minutes and 33 seconds later…

Robin's POV.

How did everything go so wrong so fast?

I mean, the team has gotten into terrible situations loads of times before, but this one definitely took the 'oh, we really screwed it up this time' cake.

The assignment was simple enough: find the hidden military compound in the forest, sneak in, free the captured Star Labs Scientists, and find out if it had anything to do Cadmus, as Batman had suspected. Then again, most of the 'simple' missions we had gone on hadn't ended up being so easy.

If I had to blame someone for this mess , I guess it would be Wally, seeing as falling face-first into the motion sensors didn't really fit in Batman's guidelines of 'extremely covert' and 'do not under any circumstances be seen'.

But then again, Wally was Wally. In his defense, it was dark, and he never saw the stairs. Also, to be honest, we had all been making mistakes since we arrived in La Pampa, Argentina.

Flashback

"Everyone put your camouflage on", said Megan, slowly landing the bio ship in a small Jungle clearing.

"Sure thing Green Cheeks" Wally said.

Artemis and I rolled our eyes in sync, kid flash would flirt with Megan any chance he got, along with the constant pleas for her to go out with him, even though the Speedster got turned down every time.

"Yes"

"Yes"

"Yea"

"GRUNT" (Superboy language for yes)

" We must remember what Batman said team," Aqualad said as he stood up from his seat in the bio ship, "this is a very high stakes mission, and we must not confront enemies unless absolutely necessary."

"Well if it is Cadmus abducting those scientists," Said Superboy, standing up from his seat to face him, "then no stupid guidelines are going to stop me from punching Blockbuster , Guardian, and whoever else is behind this."

Aqualad sighed, acknowledging that when Superboy wanted to punch something, there was almost no one, in this world or otherwise, who could stop him.

"Alright, let's go", Aqualad said, stepping out of the opened hatch and into the cool night air.

One at a time we stepped out and followed our leader into the moonlit jungle, where with luck we would find the Cadmus military compound and the 53 scientists who had been brutally kidnapped earlier that week.

End of Flashback

Finding the compound was relatively easy, seeing as not many of the farmers in the area didn't own many military cars, helicopters, and armed guards. Once we had entered the compound, through a hole superboy had punched in the barbed wire fence, (which remarkably didn't wake up the two guards sleeping on chairs not 30 yards away) we found a good hiding spot behind an old truck and hooked up to the mind link.

We obeyed Aqualad's orders and broke up into teams of 2, and as usual, Wally and Artemis complained about being paired up, but they shut up when Aqualad started telling us the plan.

Another Flashback!

"Artemis, Kid Flash, stop bickering! You know that I only put you two together because each group should have at least one person who is good at stealth." Aqualad said.

"Hey, I'm not that bad at stealth, and why did you have to put me with her! Why can't I be with Megan?" Kid Flash complained.

"Maybe because all you would do is stare at her and flirt?" I suggested.

"Dude! I wouldn't do that, at least not the whole time."

"Rob's right Baywatch, you wouldn't get anything done." said Artemis smugly.

"Don't call me that! And who asked you anyway Blondi-"

"Will you two please stop fighting and listen to the plan!" Aqualad interrupted, diffusing the situation before there was any bloodshed, most likely the Speedster's.

They both shut up, but still glared daggers at each other.

"Alright, here's the plan," Aqualad began, "Each team will be responsible for exploring one part of the compound. Miss Martian and Superboy , you will be exploring the trucks that they are un loading cargo from, "Aqualad pointed, "Kid Flash and Artemis, you two will be going into that building to your left, and no fighting alright?" They both nodded reluctantly. "Robin and I will be heading to the building complex in front of us. If you find anything, contact the rest of us on the mind link. Good luck, and remember, Covert!"

We all nodded and scanned the area for guards before dashing to our respective areas. At that moment I felt a chill down my spine like someone was watching us, I stopped and scanned the area once more.

Nothing, not even any security cameras, either the people in charge of this were complete idiots, or this was a huge trap. I seriously hoped it was the former not the latter.

I guess that some of Batman's paranoia must have finally rubbed off on me, I decided, because I knew from experience that sometimes criminals were just plain dumb….then again quite a few of our earlier missions had included traps. I pushed the bad thoughts out of my head and ran the rest of the way to the complex.

My amazing hacking skills easily got us through the security bypass and we proceeded down the hall into the biggest part of the complex. As we continued we checked each room we came upon, all of them were empty.

"Stop, someone is coming." Aqualad suddenly said.

We immediately went to the last door we checked and ducked inside. The sound of two pairs of footsteps echoed down the hall Kaldur and I had occupied seconds before.

Upon entering the room, I noticed something I hadn't before, when we were just focused on finding out whether there was anyone inside or not. I noticed the smell of an animal…. like what a dog smells like after you give it a bath.

Once the footsteps had passed, I turned to Kaldur and asked, "Do you smell that?"

He nodded, "there did not appear to be animals in this room when we first checked it."

I moved into the center of the room and looked around more carefully. We were in a large room that was mostly empty, except for a small table and what appeared to be a pile of abandoned animal cages filled with canisters of dog food. I made my way to the cages and inspected them, wondering aloud, "Since when do mad scientists keep puppies?"

"Woof Woof"

"There do not appear to be animals in the cages." said Aqualad, coming up from behind me.

"So either Cadmus invented invisible dogs, or there's something behind these cages." I said, removing the first few and setting them on the ground, revealing the outline of a door that had been previously obscured by the boxes.

"Woof Woof" barked the presumed dog behind the door.

Aqualad cleared the rest of the cages away and opened the door, water bearers at the ready in case of an attack.

As soon as we entered the room there was pandemonium, different species of animal calling out in alarm. We had thought there would just be the one barking dog, but found at least 20 caged animals in the room, varieties of birds, reptiles, mammals, and even 1 fish.

The room we were in was smaller than the last one, and there was a table against the wall that had a row of computers on it. I immediately went to the computers and started hacking; it took only 15 seconds to break through the firewall.

"Hey Kaldur, come check this out." I said as I pulled up a file titled 'Project Bestia'

"It's written in code, I can't translate most of it, but it has something to do with genetic mutation and animal DNA."

"We must report this to the rest of the team," said Aqualad, calling Miss Martian on the mind link.

'Kaldur, Robin, did you find anything.'

'Indeed we did. In one of the rooms we checked, we found quite a few animals and Robin found a file that had something to do with animal DNA. Did you and Superboy find anything interesting in the cargo crates you investigated? '

'Yes! All the crates were filled with vials that seemed to have some kind of blue liquid, I was meaning to ask kid flash about them right before you called.'

'Why would you ask Kid Idiot about that?' said Artemis, 'I don't think he'll have a better understanding of this than any of us.'

'Just for your information Arty, I'm actually a science prodigy.'

'Yeah right Flash Boy, and I'm a rocket scientist'

'Actually Artemis, everything kid flash said was true.'

'Wait, for real?!'

'For real Arty, how else do ya think I got my powers, I was the only person who was smart enough to recreate that lab accident that gave my uncle HIS powers.'

'Back to the subject,' said Aqualad, 'Artemis and Kidflash, what did you find?

'Well , it's really weird, but we found a few scientists, probably some of the kidnapped ones studying all these caged animals, probably like the ones you and Robin saw earlier, but -' said Artemis.

'Well actually there's one more thing, a really big thing.' added Kid Flash, ' There was this one big room the scientists kept on talking about, and something about a weapon. We found a door that we think leads to it, but we couldn't get in seeing as my hacking skills aren't as good as a certain Boy Wonder's.'

'Would we be able to get in?'

'Yeah, security's not tight at all.'

'The rest of the team will rendezvous with you at your co-ordinates soon.' finished Aqualad, turning to me and signaling that we should leave.

It didn't take long to get to the building where the rest of the team was waiting. Wally and Artemis were right, security was next to nothing, and while every nerve in my body was screaming TRAP at me, I told my senses to shut up. Even when I felt there was a 99.9% chance of this being a trap, I continued on, knowing full well that giving up on the mission just because of a hunch wouldn't sit so well with Batman.

We met up with the rest of the team in an abandoned and dark hallway. "It's just down this hallway" said kid flash, breaking the icy silence and pointing.

"Shhhhhh!" said Artemis glaring.

"Relax Arty, no one can hear us. Come on." He said turning to look at us and then racing down the hall way, up until he found the stairs.

"Wahhhh!" he said crashing down the stairs and landing at the bottom in a heap.

Stairs: 1 KF: 0.

We ran to help him, and I noticed a thin red line running just above his head that he had somehow missed while falling.

"KF, stay completely still, don't move your head!", I whisper-shouted.

But, of course he did, the top of his head touching the red line. It vanished and a low beeping started.

"Great job Kid Doofus, you set off the motion sensors!" I yelled at him, now having no reason to be quiet. We helped him up while I internally cursed myself for not hacking the motion sensors the minute we entered the building.

We were about to turn tail and run, but just then a scream echoed through the hallway, coming from the direction of the room we were going to enter.

We all looked at Kaldur and he nodded, we had to put the needs of other's before our own. That would be the main rule in hero's guidebook, if there ever was one.

It took me only 20 seconds flat to get us inside, but the second we rushed through the door, I wished we hadn't. It was dark in the room when we went inside; we never saw the ambush till it was too late.

The lights turned on. We were surrounded.

End of Flashback!

And that's how we got into this wonderful situation: surrounded by over fifty men, armed to the teeth with guns, knives, and lots of other things that would probably hurt like heck if you got hit by them.

I hated myself, I practically knew without a doubt that it would be a trap, yet I neglected to tell my teammates and now there was a high chance of none of us getting out of this alive. I mean seriously, almost no security cameras and easy to hack into systems, anyone with half a brain could figure out that this was a trap. Yet I, the protégé of the world's greatest detective, had shrugged off the coincidences and walked into a trap, today was definitely not a good day for me.

"You're 6 minutes early kidos." said a creepy voice as the guards to the right of me parted and a figure stepped through, Lex Luthor.

This is definitely not good, If the guards haven't tried to kill us yet, and Luthor is here in person, that means that they want us alive for whatever is going to happen next. I couldn't decide if I liked that or not.

"I hoped that we would have had more time to test the vapor version, but it seems we'll just have to hope for the best."

"What are you talking about, and what did you do with the scientists you kidnapped?" asked Kid Flash getting into a fighting stance with the rest of us.

"Well Kid Flash, they're right here." He said motioning to the guards who stepped aside, revealing stack upon stack of cages full of sleeping animals.

"Dude, I think you need to get your eyes checked, because those are just animals."

Luther just grinned. I had a terrible suspicion as to what he meant, but I hoped I was wrong and said nothing.

The guards moved their weapons and aimed them at us. "Drop it!" Luthor shouted. A large metal box fell from the ceiling and surrounded us.

"Ha," Super Boy shouted, "you really think that a stupid box is going to keep me from kicking your-"

He punched the wall, not noticing the faint green glow emanating from it, and immediately collapsed.

Kryptonite, the thing must have been laced with it. We tried to help Superboy up, but he didn't have the strength to stand.

"Uh, guys," Artemis said, pointing upward, "I'm just gonna go out on a limb here and say that's not good."

Vents at the top of the box had opened and now a thick blue vapor was flowing into the room. "Don't breathe it!" I shouted, fearing joker gas, fear gas, or worse. We held our breath as long as we could, but one by one, we succumbed to the need for oxygen, breathed in, and immediately collapsed.

I was the last to go down, holding out for at least 3 minutes, once the black spots dancing through my vision became too much to bear, I breathed. I collapsed to the floor, fighting to keep my eyes open, watching as my teammates appeared to change shape, my brain must be hallucinating, at least I hoped it was.

But soon I could fight it no more and let the darkness consume me.

6-7 hrs later

Uggh, my head was killing me. I concentrated and tried to rope in all the random thoughts bouncing around my head.

I remembered Batman assigning a mission, the team exploring the military compound, finding the animals, walking into the trap, and the team and I collapsing, thanks to some weird chemicals or something.

The Team!? What happened after we collapsed? I struggled to open my eyes, then focused.

I was met with the image of cell bars. No, not cell bars, cage bars! I was in a cage?

I tried to push myself up with my arms, only to collapse again.

What? Why couldn't I lift mysel-

I stopped and stared down at my hands in horror - or what used to be my hands.

"Oh this is definitely not good." I said, only to have it come out a strangled,

"Chirp!"