The Hailite Building

[Bry]

Raven flushed at Speedy's words, then nodded at Robin before facing the young boy. He and his other eleven little mutants watched her with wide eyes, and suddenly Raven despised public speaking.

"Look, it'll be dark and cold, but completely safe. The less you struggle, the quicker it goes." She looked over the experiments and picked out four, including the olive-skinned leader. "We'll go first, the rest stay and wait, understood?"

After a series of small nods from the children, Raven unfolded her wings and closed them down over her first charges. To their credit, the most fight that she experienced was in the form of a small whimpering squeak before they stepped out into the grass at the base of the Tower. Raven gazed up at it, then down at the little leader.

"You stay here," she ordered him and whisked herself back into the Hailite hallway without waiting for a reply.

It took her three trips, but when she was finished, eleven children were playing ring around the rosy at the Tower. She gazed at them, feeling a small ounce of motherly pride in her chest. Ick. And then she was back in the now empty hallway. She stood still for a moment, listening, and heard a thunk downstairs as something very heavy sounding hit the floor.

Bingo.

She took off down the stairs, flying more than running, to meet up with her leader and Speedy.

[Kenni]

The ginger Titan had at least recovered from his explosive makeshift elevator descent enough to stay alive for the moment. Grappling with this experiment wasn't much fun, however.
"Listen, I make it a point not to kiss on the first date...unless you absolutely insist!"
Speedy was finding staying alive a bit of a challenge, what with the reptilian female's lunges of sharp teeth aimed for his throat and face with possibly the intention of ripping them off. She had to weigh twice-and-a-half the weight of a human male adult if not more, and the scientists had obviously programmed a blood-lust into this one to rival a tiger shark. Kicking repeatedly at the thing's belly wasn't working; he felt like a live fish on a chopping block dodging her blows. Maybe Robin hadn't heard them get into it on the floor here.
"No need to be--shy, Chief! She doesn't mean--a thing to me so if you don't mind--I'd like--it ever so much if--you'd not give us so much--privacy--!" Speedy haltingly called out for Robin in the dark as his eyes adjusted, enabling him to further dodge death.

[Silv]

Their trek downstairs hadn't been particularly eventful. Until, of course, they ran into what appeared to be experiments. Robin turned quickly when he heard Speedy say something as well as what appeared to be some sort of hissing noise. He didn't get long to contemplate it, however, because something else knocked him broadside. The thing was gangly and covered with dark blue fur but it was incredibly tall. Robin struggled as the thing held him in it's primate-like grasp. Slowly it drew it's face near to him and took a long, deep, terrifying breath. Robin's struggles ceased and his masked eyes widened. The hell-?

He didn't get to finish the thought because suddenly the wall behind him was gone and he was on the floor with the creature above him. He kicked upwards, knocking the thing back from him. It didn't seem particularly dangerous. And then it vanished. Robin spun in wary circles for a moment before the thing reappeared, phasing through the wall to his left. The Boy Wonder threw a birdarang at it that would never hit and suddenly the thing had grabbed him again and they were both falling through the floor.

Robin landed in a heap on top of the creature that had, oddly enough, repositioned itself to take the impact for the both of them. This gave the boy a window of opportunity in which to escape, shooting a freezing disk behind him to hopefully slow the thing down. He bolted for the door and nearly ran into Speedy and the whatever it was that was attacking him. A birdarang attracted it's attention as the Boy Wonder took off down the hallway hoping to draw the beast away from Speedy.

[Deleted]

A lithe green shape hurtled into view, entering from the door that contained the stairs. Beast Boy shifted into his human form, doubled over and panting from having to traverse several flights of stairs in a short amount of time. He might have left Batgirl in the dust, but was really too tired to care at the moment. They had searched the upper floors after freeing all the lab animals, but had found nothing apart from a few guards who hadn't had the sense to leave the building yet. The two superheroes had quickly subdued any resistant they came across and were heading back to the lower floors when Beast Boy heard the scuffle down below. Barking a warning to Batgirl, Beast Boy had shifted into a greyhound and barreled down the last few flights until he rejoined the rest of the group.

Recovering from his sprint, the changeling straightened up and narrowed his eyes; even with his sharp eyesight it was hard to see in the gloom of the corridor.

"Robin? Speedy? It's Beast Boy, what goi---AHHH!" He yelped in surprise as a mass of something leathery barreled into him. He couldn't get a good look at it, but could glimpse grey skin and a horn.

Shifting into a gorilla, the changeling roared a challenge to the experiment gone wrong before gripping it and beginning to try and wrestle it into submission.

[Aly]

All of these stairs were just about killing her. Beast Boy seemed like he was doing his best to wait for her, but she was just not having the best luck with the stairs. When Beast Boy had finally stopped, she almost shouted for joy, but she had no breath left. Staggering to the top, her chest heaving with each breath.

When Beast Boy took off again, chasing the source of the sound, she rolled her eyes before following him. This better be good. Maybe she would take Speedy up on that jogging offer. Lord knows she needed it.

Finally conquering the last step, she went into the room all of the commotion was coming from. She saw an alligator or crocodile-like experiment attacking Robin and Speedy. They seemed to have a handle on it. She was about to go help Beast Boy when a snake-like experiment curled its tail around one of her legs. She looked down at it in surprise before it flung her leg out from underneath her, sending her crashing to the ground. Cursing, she quickly regained her ground and pulled two batarangs out of her utility belt, slashing wildly. So much for helping these experiments.

[Bry]

Raven reached the bottom of the stairs and slid to a stop. All the noise--the growls, hisses, and fight cries--convinced her to stop and take in the scene before running blindly into the midst of it. And good thing she did.

Across the hall, Speedy was battling something huge and reptilian, and Robin was doing his best to help him. Beast Boy was wrestling a rhinoceros (Or what she guessed might be one) and closest to her, Batgirl was fighting off something that slithered. Her heart told her to time-jump across the hallway and help Speedy, but she'd had plenty of practice ignoring matters of the emotional sense, and she had no trouble this time either.

/The middle of a mission is no time to lose your head in favor of your heart, Raven./

So true.

She helped the teammate closest to her: Batgirl.

"Azarath Metrione Zinthos!" she chanted, taking to the air a few feet above anything that might attack from the ground, and sent flying a spark of energy, aimed at the snake-creature.

Alas, the ground wasn't the only battlefield.

Raven was blindsided from the left, knocking into a wall with an audible loss of breath and altitude. She hit the ground and looked up for her attacker, a flying.... Flying.... Something with fur and claws? She frowned, wondering exactly what had to be wrong with the human brain to think it would be a good idea to put wings on a mountain lion.

The cat hissed at her, exposing terrible teeth and glaring with near-human eyes, and swatted at her with a paw, but Raven waved a sheild into the air, saving her face from a gash, and then threw the energy into the cat, momentarily stunning it and tossing it into the wall opposite her. She looked around, needing something--anything--to throw as a projectile.... But the hallway was bare.

She growled in frustration and ducked into a room behind her, latching her powers onto the array of medical tools lining a table and sending them one at a time towards the floundering cat, effectively putting it out of its misery and trying to ignore the fact that she may have just killed a someone rather than a something.

Glancing beside her to Batgirl, she spoke. "Need a hand with that?"

[Kenni]

Struggling to reach the right arrow, blindly, from his modified quiver that crushed against his spinal area, was not a fun time for the archer. The right arrow in question was a Stun Arrow. After finally locating it by feel of specific notching patterns, he broke off the tip to activate it.
"Sorry about this,--doll!" He dodged another swipe at his eyes, then, wincing from his acid wound, thrust the crackling make-shift stungun into the alligator-anthro's chest. The incredibly heavy reptile fell immobilized to his left, and the boy rolled out, now rubbing his back and stretching.
But not for long. The others were in for it, and he couldn't even see Robin anymore. Unfortunately, his little trick didn't last long. The she-gator snarled, wobbling to her feet and pounced at him, to which the archer dodged deftly, remembering all-too-well the sense of helplessness he had felt beneath her. He staved off her malicious advances, trying to give his back some time to recover and therefore finding it impossible to run down the hall after the others and their dilemmas to help yet.
"Look, we aren't gonna work. Not that I didn't like our cuddle-session, Tiny. Therethere. It's just, you and me? We need to cuddle other people...beasts." Almost crashing into Robin, he side-stepped in surprise as his leader and what appeared to be an imposing ape came into view briefly, hurtled past, picking up She-Gator as a new passenger on the crazy train.
"Much obliged, Chief! But it looks like you've got problems of your own!" he trilled after Robin right after he fell through the floor and summarily disappeared down the hall. It was too dark for Speedy to tell who was even in front of him yet, much less that Robin's trajectory had come southerly and continued off into pitch darkness. His eyes were taking their time adjusting to the dark, but he could hear Beast Boy's cut-off sentence, and the struggling grappling match that ensued. Raven and Batgirl had also arrived, it sounded like.
"And hark, what dark through yonder beast-way breaks?" he mused, always one to make LIGHT of their pressing situations、recognizing Raven's voice immediately. Raven's mantra spoken, something fell to the floor with a gushy, sickening thud. She was surely more accustomed to the dark then the rest of them, and must be having no trouble locating her target and shutting it down. Speedy was more worried about Beast Boy, Batgirl, but especially Robin, whose presence had vanished about as quickly as it had appeared. He must be still hurtling down the hallway. Now able to use his bow again, he knocked out the Boy Wonder's would-be second attacker, leaving the She-Gator with three Stun Arrows to the chest and not leaving his name or address, deciding to find Robin and deliver back-up support. As his eyes adjusted fully, he notched a couple more Stuns and fired them at the blue primate's spinal cord, not without some hesitation.
"Just how much of the beast has gotten to these people..? Are we doing this the right way? There must be some kind of antidote lying around for the using, don't you guys think?" he yelled into his T-Comm. at the others as he ran, laxing the cord on his next arrow to press walkie-talkie mode on.

[Deleted]

Beast Boy was getting tired. This thing, whatever it was, was proving far more resilient than he had expected. He would have simply turned into a giant dinosaur and bitten the rhino-thing's head off if he thought it would do any good, but the corridor was too small for such a large transformation--he would probably fall through the floor and bring a couple of Titans down with him. Plus, the changeling still wasn't entirely sure if he would be killing something that used to be human; his morals wouldn't allow him to stand for killing a human life, even if it wasn't technically human anymore.

In the form of a massive primate, Beast Boy finally managed to get a lock on the experiment's head. Grabbing its horn and the back of his neck with meaty hands, he twisted and held until its struggles began to cease. He released the thing when it no longer moved, leaving an unconscious, leathery mass on the floor. Unsure how long the beast would be out, Beast Boy shifted into a kangaroo and gave it a kick to the head for good measure. The thing twitched, then lay still once more.

Reverting to his human form, Beast Boy assessed the goings on. Raven and Batgirl were handling a snake-like creature, and Speedy had successfully knocked out something that looked suspiciously like an alligator; the archer was now running down the hall in obvious pursuit. Robin and Mani were nowhere to be seen.

The changeling took a step towards Speedy, preparing himself to go after the archer and guard his back, when he stepped on something furry. He looked down at the creature he had stepped on before letting out a sharp gasp and hurriedly backing away. At a quick glance it looked like a giant cat hybrid with wings, and its body was impaled in several places with surgical tools.

Not wanting to dwell on if the creature had once been human or not, Beast Boy took off down the hall after Speedy. His T-Comm bleeped, and he listened to Speedy's idea. As ludicrous and far-fetched as it sounded, the thought of finding an antidote and learning how to use it still struck hope into the green hero.

Pressing a button on his communicator, he talked to Speedy as he ran. "These things look like experiments gone wrong. They might have been stepping stones to creating the metahumans we freed earlier," he theorized. He slowed to a jog as he entered a darker part of the corridor, senses alert for any unexpected attacks.

"If we can find an antidote, I say we use it. We'll need to look for it manually. I can't track it because I don't know what it looks or smells like." He suddenly shut off his communicator, having glimpsed Speedy's figure in the darkness ahead.

"Behind you," Beast Boy warned, not wanting to sneak up on the archer and find a Stun Arrow stuck to his chest. "Do you know where Robin and Mani are?" he asked, worried. Was Iris still here? He knew Raven was in charge of protecting her, but unless the Azarathian had dropped her back at the Tower, Iris' whereabouts were unknown as well.

[Aly]

Batgirl was surprised as the reptilian-like creature hovered in the air for a moment before spasming and falling back to the floor. Looking around, she sought out her helper. Raven. It was nice of her to show up. "Thanks." Her smile froze as a winged cat-creature suddenly started attacking Raven. She was about to help when Raven started flinging sharp medical tools, most piercing the mutant. Barbara flinched, averting her eyes, not able to forget that these were once people. However, she didn't have much time before the snake creature regained consciousness.

"A hand would be nice. Or two." She laughed nervously as the creature advanced, taking her two batarangs and clipping them together, making an elongated sword. Slashing madly, she finally caught the snake's side, making a long gash. She gave it a few blows to the head with her fist, trying to knock it out. Finally when it slumped to the ground with even breaths she sighed, unclipping the batarangs and putting them back on her utility belt. "Guess I didn't need it that much. Let's find the others." With that, she sprinted after Beast Boy and Speedy, though slower than they were. She was still getting used to this running everywhere thing.

[Kenni]

"Mani? She's gotta be around here somewhere; you guys came down together, Beabster! Robin's being stalked by--"
Here Speedy loosed another volley of Stuns at the blue beast tailing their fearless leader, letting go of the walkie-talkie button a moment, and looking around at all the doors down here they hadn't unlocked yet due to their attackers, in frustration, hoping to think up an idea about where an antidote might be.
"--your monkeyform's Uncle just ahead of us. Now. About that antidote; let's look for any remaining laboratories un-explored if we can. Stay alert for any more mutants and try to lay off their lives."
It was a jab at Raven but unintentional because he hadn't seen her actually drop the lionhybrid.
He kicked open some lab doors as he went, haphazardly, meaning to double back after dealing with Robin's threat if it hadn't dropped already from his ongoing efforts to incapacitate it. He hoped Robin was holding up.

[Deleted]

Beast Boy merely twitched an ear in response, hiding his mild annoyance. He felt like reminding Speedy that he had last been with Batgirl on the upper floors, and it had probably been the archer who had seen her last. The changeling had to believe that Mani could take care of herself, for he was faced with another problem entirely. He had just caught a glimpse of the furry blue monster Speedy was trying to take down.

"You start looking. I'll join you in a minute," Beast Boy said, putting on a burst of speed as he closed in on the creature. A feral snarl ripped from his throat, his human form melting into that of a feline. Roaring menacingly, the green jaguar sank his claws into the unsuspecting beast and brought it to the ground, wrestling to keep it in place.

[Deleted]

She did not know why, or how, she got separated from her team, but she had been. This hall was relatively quiet, nothing moved. She took in a breath, exhaling slowly. Mani paused; she could see her breath in here. Letting a shiver rack her body, the autotrophic woman walked down the dimly lit hallway, her heels letting out soft clicking noises against the marble floors. As she walked, she would hear soft shuffling, and pause. As soon as she would stop, the shuffling stopped.

Narrowing her eyes, the girl continued walking, and then advanced into a jog, the shuffling also picking up. It was the sound of bare flesh against floors. Her eyes slid over in their sockets, though her head never turned. She stopped abruptly, the sound also halting behind her. Manipulation continued in a brisk walk, eyes glowing. Vines sprang up from the floor behind her, tangling around whatever had been following her. Turning sharply, she was shocked to see a child, a good few years younger than her Garfield, tangled in the vines.

The young boy's face was soft, rounded and dirty. Bright, black eyes glistened as tears welled up in them as panic and fear rose. The boy thrashed about, bare torso already holding horrible scars from all of the experiments he was forced into. Mani's own heart clenched at the sight, and she walked towards him. He appeared relatively human, except for the two small black antenna that protruded from his dirty red curls. Mani slowly released him, dropping the poor child to his knees as he cowered, moving back on his bottom away from her.

"Hey... hey there, I'm not going to hurt you," she said softly, kneeling down, locking eyes with those big, black orbs. "I'm sorry I frightened you.... you just startled me, s'all," the green haired woman said.

The boy swallowed, seemingly calming down a bit. However, his body remained tensed, ready to flee at any moment. "Do you have a name?"

He shook his head no.

"Can you talk?"

He shook his head, cheeks burning in embarrassment.

"Well, my name is Mei... are you down here all alone?"

Again, a single nod. There was a brief moment of silence.

"Come on then," she scooped the child up, cradling him against her warm chest. At first he struggled, but slowly, after hearing the soft beating of her heart, he relaxed, resting his head on her shoulder and allowed her to cradle him. "I think... I shall call you Ricky... how is that?" Glancing up at her with those black eyes, a small smile crossed his face, and he nodded. "Great... I'll get you out of here, alright?" Her maternal instincts screamed at her to PROTECT. And she was going to protect this child at all costs.

He was terribly thin, with a pair of dirty, once-white cotton pants as his only protection from the harsh cold that plagued this hall of the building. His feet were bare, as was his torso. His hair was wild and unkempt, and there was no way he was over the age of eight. Her arms brushed against something on his back, something soft and yet rigid at the same time. Casting a quick glance downwards, she noticed two, torn black and gray wings protruding from the boy's shoulder blades. Of course; a butterfly. That explained the antenna and the big black eyes. Mei hurried down the hall, straining to hear for any sort of voices or noises.

Luckily, she heard something above her, and she raced up a flight of stairs, stumbling across her lost team members. Protectively, she snuggled the boy closer.

[Bry]

A wave of shame and nausea rolled over Raven as she heard Speedy's comment over the communicator. Lay off the lives of these creatures. They were once people.

/Murderer..../
No. Stop that.

/Don't lose your head, not right now. There'll be plenty of time for that later, when we're all back at the Tower./
With that, Raven put it from her mind and dove down the hallway, flying after her team into the dark. She picked up on some of the antidote comments, wondering why on earth she hadn't also thought of that.... Catching up to Beast Boy, she opened her mouth to ask what she should be looking for, but he charged into panther form and attacked the furry blue mass that was currently attacking Robin. Instead, Raven looked at Speedy.

"Any idea what these antidotes might look like?" she asked him. "Or are we just gonna grab every syringe in sight and hope one works?"

[Kenni]

With a sigh of relief, Speedy set down his failing Stunners and messaged the entire group once more; there was Mani..& Co.?
"We were just talkin' 'bout you, Catwoman. Beabster, Manipulation's fine, if you can hear this. So. Had a kitten I see! Watch your back for both your sakes; I think we've taken out most of these critters but many predators prey in packs." he messaged to Mani through the shared T.Comm line, smiling quietly at the dozing little boy; the archer really liked kids.
Raven's voice sounded near him, and he looked up, the smile growing a tad bigger when he heard it, then more grim, checking around them since his eyes had adjusted for any subtle movements in the encompassing dark mass of space.
"I'm no scientist, but they tend to like labeling things carefully, especially their own brilliant work output. I'm hoping to just collect as many vials as can fit in my near-empty quiver here and sort them all out afterwards..."
Speedy paused, then, sighing with satisfaction that there weren't any more threats besides Beast Boy's strugglematch, looked straight at the empath, his chin framed by his pointer and thumb.
"..unless, do you think Mani's baby could remember something used on him, say, an antidote? Keep him from reacting all the way with his hybrid beast, save him for another day's testing?" It made the ginger angry to think about both Iris, and kids like that one, being tested on like that. His fists clenched around the lowered bow.

[Silv]

Speedy seemed to have radio orders under control at the moment now that he wasn't being torn limb from limb and there wasn't much to add. He, personally, didn't have any hope for an antidote because he'd come across sickos like these before with Batman but he would let the others have their innocent hope. It was one of the things he admired most about his team. They weren't nearly as jaded as he and Batman.

Robin kept running when he heard that the thing was still after him. That had been the point, after all, to lure it away. Though, when he glanced over his shoulder it was the blue thing that was barreling after him. He heard the sound of a jaguar scream and skidded to a stop watching as a green beast took down the blue one. “Nice job Beast Boy!” he called down the length of the hallway as he turned back to join the others.

It was at this moment that one of the doors behind him opened abruptly and something yanked him back towards it by his cape. He hadn't bee expecting it and so toppled backwards fighting as someone grabbed in around the shoulders and shoved a cloth in his face. He recognized the smell instantly and tried to hold his breath and keep fighting but eventually he had no choice to breathe in the sweet stench of chloroform.

His mind began to grow hazy and darkness closed in on all sides. Robin continued to fight but his movements became irregular and he was flailing more than fighting. Eventually his motor movements ceased entirely to do what he told them to and as he slid to the ground he vaguely made out doglike shapes rushing out the door he had just been pulled through and then everything went dark.

When Robin came to again his head felt light and he realized that he was strapped to an operating table by his wrists, ankles and waist. He struggled for a bit, frantically and then calmly calculating the situation stopped his struggles and surveyed the room. It looked like an operating room. His utility belt had been taken away from him as well as his communicator.

“Heh. I see you're -heh- awake,” came a voice from behind his head. The Boy Wonder twisted violently to see but it wasn't worth the effort. He would have recognized the voice of Professor Chang anywhere. What, however, he was doing here was unclear to Robin. None of his sources had connected Chang to this place. Unless the man was a lot smarter than the teen gave him credit for. “It -heh- doesn't look like any of your dangerous toys can save you now, little boy.”

The ugly little man came to the right of the bed where Robin could see him and he had a syringe in his hand. The Boy Wonder's masked eyes widened and he began to thrash wildly as the man drew close. “Struggle all you want. Heh. I would -he-he- so love to experiment on you and see what would -heh- happen. But I have an order to fill and my -heh- benefactor would be most disappointed.”