Growing Pains - Chapter 75 (Patreon)

“So you got invited to the home of the Greek gods and didn’t even take the time to look around? Lame.” The ever annoying bird-wonder commented from where he was lounging on a couch while I regaled the rest of the Sidekick Squad with my latest adventure.

I gave him a glare but didn’t dignify him with a response. He was just jealous.

“At some point you will have to visit Atlantis, if only so we can compare the two.” Aqualad said. “I’d be interested in hearing how the architecture diverged once the city was pulled under the water.”

“It’s on my list of places to check out, but it’s a lot harder to just pop by when I can’t breathe underwater.” I admitted.

There had been several times over the years that I’d had the urge to check out the sunken city, only to realise I’d need to talk to someone about fixing that issue even temporarily. Then I’d get distracted by something, forget about following up on it, and then move the whole thing further down my things to do list once I realised it.

Once or twice I had almost decided to just try visiting by holding my breath, but the fact that I’d only be able to stay for a few minutes and wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone was enough to convince me to not bother.

“That’s still weird to me.” M’gann said, offering me another one of her more experimental desserts. Chocolate chip mixed with some sort of dried fruit? “On Mars, I’d never have imagined that much water even existed. It’s too bad you missed beach day. Donna and Wally missed it too. We’ll have to do another one soon so you can meet–”

“Speak of the Wall-man and he’ll appear! How’s it going, people?” Kid Flash announced as he and a blonde girl in a green uniform walked into the room. “Hey, Cali. Donna. Did you hear about our awesome mission? You missed out.”

“Not yet. We were telling the others what we were dealing with.” Donna replied. “Though who’s this?”

“No one important really, just – oof!” Kid Flash started before catching an elbow to the ribs.

“Name’s Artemis, Green Arrow’s new protege and your new teammate.”

“Glad to have you.” Donna welcomed her politely. “What was that about a mission?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Birdbrain said false modestly, while pretending to shine his fingernails – you were wearing gloves, moron. “Just protecting Dr Roquette from the League of Shadows while she deactivated a super weapon they made her build.”

I furrowed my brows – that name sounded familiar.

“Wait, you mean the virologist?”

He frowned back at me. “What? No, Dr Roquette is a nanorobotisist.”

“No, pretty sure she’s a virologist.”

“Well you’re wrong, after she was kidnapped–”

“She was kidnapped again?”

“Again? What?”

“Yeah, I rescued her a while back from the Gordanians–”

“The who?”

“The lizard guys Hawkie keeps fighting, keep up Birdbrain.”

While Birdbrain and I continued arguing over Dr Roquette, I was half aware of Artemis moving over to continue talking with Donna while Kid Flash moved towards where Aqualad and Superboy were sitting.

“So, are they always like this?” I half-heard the archer ask.”

“Sometimes. Depends on the day, I guess.” Donna replied.

“No kidding? If it wasn’t for the very obvious tail I’d have thought they were related.”

Okay, I couldn’t let that one slide.

“”Like hell I’d ever be related to that idiot!””

It took me a second to realise that both of us had turned to Artemis to shout that while pointing at the other.

Birdbrain was copying me.

“”Who are you calling an idiot, idiot?””

He did it again!

“”What did you say?!””

I growled and was ready to jump the idiot, but Aqualad had gotten up at some point and used that moment to push in between us.

“Okay you two, take a moment to cool off.” He said. “We can explain the full story in a minute. Besides, now that everyone's here we have a cookout to get started. Robin, you have the propane?”

Right. Half the reason I’d showed up this time was Donna telling me about the Sidekick Squad doing a teambuilding exercise and I’d heard about free food.

So argument on pause and more important things to deal with, me and the rest of the group grabbed what we needed and moved towards the semi-private beach behind Mount Justice.

The whole thing was a little funny because everyone was in uniform while huddling around a couple cheap twenty dollar camping grills but no one really said anything about it except for Artemis teasing Kid Flash about him changing his color palette to solid red after he ended up spilling ketchup all over himself trying to overload a hotdog with toppings.

I had opted for the clearly superior tactic of just adding one or two toppings per hotdog and then eating six at a time. If I wanted a particular topping combination, I could just take bites out of each one.

While we ate, we returned to the whole Dr Roquette thing and eventually worked out that Dr Serling Roquette was a nanorobotisist and Dr Amelie Roquette was a virologist. Apparently the two were sisters that shared a hobby of getting kidnapped by people that wanted them to make superweapons for them and we’d run into both.

Small world sometimes.

With that issue settled we went back to trading stories about different adventures we had both before and after the Team had been formed for Artemis’s benefit.

I made sure to correct any obvious over-exaggerations made by Birdbrain or Kid Flash, while they insisted on slandering me during some of my own stories. Donna would also join in against me from time to time like the traitor she was.

Despite all that, it was fun. The only thing that could have made it better was if there was enough room for a quick spar with everyone, but doing that would mean sand getting all over the food so I didn’t bother suggesting it.

Besides, sometimes it was fine to just relax for a night and enjoy the boys making idiots of themselves trying to one-up each other.

So naturally, the moment I had that thought – a blinding white circle covered the ground around us and with a brief tugging feeling, the scenery changed to something completely different.

-o-

I glanced around and after confirming all of us were still together it didn’t take much time to figure out we’d all been teleported.

For one we were now in a giant enclosed space with metal walls and floors instead of the sandy beach we’d been enjoying ourselves on.

Two, we were now surrounded by a bunch of rough looking aliens pointing weapons at us and didn’t look at all surprised by our sudden arrival.

So now the question was if they were after us specifically, or had they just been ready to abduct a random group and we happened to be it.

Before I could do anything to figure that out, though, a giant transparent dome sprang out of the floor and caught everyone inside. Everyone, that is, except for me.

Alright, time to get some answers.

“What’s the big idea here?!” I demanded loudly even as Superboy moved to punch his way out of the dome.

It didn’t work. Before his fist even made contact with the dome, something sparked and the half-kryptonian was forced to pull his hand back with a wince.

So not just a fancy glass cage. Good to know.

“That’s my question, Saiyan.” Another loud voice answered coldly. “You tell us that you can’t make it out here for months and then we find you here gathering specimens on your own. Trying to cheat us out of our deal by getting here early?”

I turned to look at the speaker and instantly noticed that he wasn’t the same species as the rest of the aliens surrounding us. Or if he was, they went through a wild transformation at some point in their lifecycle.

Most of them looked like some sort of hairy bipedal lizardman without a tail – if that description made sense at all – while the speaker was very clearly some kind of evolved insect, two arms and legs still but covered in an exoskeleton with large, unblinking eyes.

“I…” I said slowly, focusing back on his question. “Have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh really? You know nothing about how you said it would take you three months to reach this backwater and that we should just wait till you got there?” The Bug still sounded angry but there was no change to his body language to suggest that. He – it? – just kept staring blankly at me.

Creepy.

“I knew better though. You can never trust mercenaries and the only thing more well known than a Saiyan’s greed is their impulsiveness. Did you even have a plan to get those specimens off the planet? Or were you just going to hope another ship capable of escaping this sector would drop into your fleshy hands?”

Okay, unless something really weird was going on, this was a weird case of mistaken identity. Another Saiyan had taken a job to capture a bunch of ‘specimens’ from Earth and these guys thought that was me.

Also there was another Saiyan nearby?!

Or would be, I guess. Since according to the bug they were a few months out.

“No matter,” He said, looking at one of the others nearby. “The specimens were still recovered as required and in remarkably good condition. Send them to the holding cells and immediately depart from this sector. I do not want to risk the Green Lantern noticing us.”

“Hey, wait a second!” I objected as several more, smaller circles of light appeared under all of the others and the others were teleported away, leaving me alone with the aliens.

“As for you,” the Bug continued. “While the attempted treachery was annoying, you still managed to get a decent variety and in one piece that we won’t have to administer medical procedures or waste time waiting for healing cycles. I’ll be cutting your share by only twenty percent. Be grateful it isn’t more.”

I could only stare after the Bug’s back as he walked away as I took stock of the situation we suddenly found ourselves in.

Kidnapped off Earth directly onto a spaceship capable of interstellar travel at least. The Sidekick Squad were all captives and teleported somewhere else on the ship, possibly further separated wherever they ended up. And I was being mistaken for a hired mercenary, something that could change at any point if the aliens figured that out.

I took a deep breath.

Okay, on a ship again with no idea how sturdy it was. Going full Rambo and just blasting wasn’t an option. At least until I found the others.

But I’d done this before.

Time to focus and ask myself the important questions.

What would Batman do?