Avoiding Past And Future

5

M'gann yelped as she was pushed down by the weight of a very big and very angry dog. The hound was easily double the size of her so she opted to lay still before she got her head ripped off. A singular paw was enough to push her down with enough force. Her movement caused it to let out a cautionary growl and it slightly increased the pressure on her chest.

Superboy looked at the massive beast. He had to do something, anything to get M'gann out from there. Without giving it much thought, he tackled the hound. Mission success, it wasn't on M'gann anymore. But now he was stuck fighting a massive, green glowing, hound. It squinted its blood red eyes as it growled at the Kryptonian.

Before it could pounce, a whistle echoed from above. The strange teen floated down towards the hound and Superboy. "Cujo, sta." He ordered in a strange language. The hound, Cujo apparently, growled a final time towards Superboy before it walked off. Each step it took closer to the boy, it shrunk in size until it was nothing more than an all too familiar small puppy.

"H-hey! That's that dog that stole my food earlier." Superboy breathed out half in shock and disbelief. He let out a sigh of relief as he was sure he was about to get horribly mauled by that dog. The strange kid let out a nervous chuckle as he rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, heh. That was yours? I'm really sorry about that, he was just trying to take care of me." He crouched down to give the puppy a few pets. Even though he could hear the kid muttering to the dog, Superboy didn't care much for listening in.

"No sweat." Superboy glanced wearily at M'gann who just shrugged, wiping off the sticky drool it left behind. They didn't do or say much else as the kid stood back up. The puppy seemed content with ignoring their existence for the time being as the boy started to approach them slowly. "Now, if you guys wouldn't mind." He pulled out one last collar from his pocket. "This is kind of the last one I have left, so big guy, this one is for you. It would really be nice if you guys could just go back to your cells. Miss Waller isn't going to be happy if there is an even bigger mess to clean up than there already is." He awkwardly laughed a little as he jabbed a thumb up to the hole upstairs.

They were honestly contemplating if they should reveal their secret ID's to this kid or not.

He checked off all the boxes of being an inmate here, weird outfit aside, yet all he was interested in was getting them to go back to their cells. Even his fighting was more defensive and quick, rather than just throwing fists to throw first like many of the other prisoners. Outside of his fighting, he did seem like a calm person, but did that make him trustworthy of their mission? He didn't seem to recognize M'gann, even with her green skin and outfit resembling her uncle's. They didn't want to think about how long he would have to have been locked up already to not know about Superboy. He already made a few accidental tv appearances in Metropolis. Pretty hard to miss. Granted it wasn't that long ago, but it still felt way longer than any child should spend in a prison. Let alone one specialized in violent meta criminals.

Plus they couldn't shake off the strange familiarity this boy had. They hadn't been in the field enough to have met him before. Hell, he likely was already in here before they joined the team. Yet somehow they felt like they knew him.

Their train of thought was interrupted as the puppy stopped scratching its ear. It growled as it grew in size again. Before they knew it, the hound was standing close to the strange boy, protecting him of whatever danger it sensed. The boy's eyebrows knotted in confusion as he placed a hand on the hound's front leg. "Cujo, ce s-a întâmplat?" The hound didn't change much as it looked around to a select few specific areas around them. The hairs on the beast were standing up and it growled threateningly as it tried to get even closer to the boy. Before any of the others there could react, an arrow whizzed past the strange boy's head. As it landed in between the two groups, it exploded in a cloud of smoke. They coughed as barely visible, M'gann disappear in a blur of yellow and red. He almost didn't noticed that the hound had set chase after the blur but didn't pay much heed to it. He let the tenseness in his shoulders relax as he realized his teammates had finally made it.

Artemis had set herself safe up in the hole created by Superboy. Wally had already gotten M'gann out of the danger zone and brought her to a far corner of the room. "M'gann!" Aqualad called out as he rushed forward. "Can you link us up?!" He used his water bearers to create a wall between Superboy and the other two. With the wall in place, it also helped dissipate the smoke faster.

M'gann shook her head, finally ridding her psyche of the haze that had it clouded. "Everybody there?" She tested the link to be sure everything was still right as something still felt off.

"Can somebody get this thing off of me?" Wally called out as he was basically running circles being chased by a massive hound.

"I've tried!" Artemis called out from her safe spot. "The damn thing just runs through the nets like they don't even touch it!"

"Superboy get out of there! We will cover your retreat." Aqualad ordered the extremely confused clone.

"Right, right." He said as he jogged his way over to M'gann.

"Who is this kid anyway? There was nothing in Batman's files about a small kid being here?" Robin questioned from his spot atop one of the light fixtures. He readied a dull batarang, as he aimed for the back of the kid's head. Quick knockout so they can get out after dealing with that dog.

"Um, rude! I'm not a small kid, I'm almost 14!" The strange boy yelled out as he looked directly at where Robin was hiding. Robin released his batarang but it barely landed at the kid's feet as he was too shocked. Pretty much everybody in the room froze up, resulting in the gloriously chaotic fall of Wally. His rolling was brought to a stop as the hound jumped on him and aggressively barked in his face.

"What?" Artemis questioned over the link utterly confused. They didn't say anything out loud. And there was no way the kid could have heard their psychic conversation. Right?

Chaos soon erupted over the link as people were trying to figure out what just happened as Wally screamed in the background. They were arguing whether or not the kid might be a psychic or if M'gann somehow messed up the link. Because blaming M'gann always went over so well with the lovely anger management issues of a certain clone. The poor Martian could barely defend herself as the others couldn't possibly understand that she only reached out to the minds that felt familiar to her.

Amid all of chaos, it went unnoticed the two youngest in the room were quiet. Robin and the strange boy were locked in a stare. Each desperately trying to recognize why the other was so familiar. Realization hit them both like a freight train. The boy staggered back in shock, frantic hands shot up to where his face was covered as they traced the upper edge of the fabric. Robin had lost his balance from his perch. The bat in training barely managed to react on time to save his fall and he grabbed onto the light fixture. Dangling off the light he watched the boy nervously stare at each of his teammates before looking back at him. With a few, hesitating steps backwards, he turned and started running through the tables towards the hound and Wally.

"Cujo, veni!" He ordered as he patted his chest. He hound got off of the speedster as it ran towards the boy, rapidly shrinking back to the size of a puppy. They met about half way as the now small dog jumped into the boys arms. With a final hesitant look at the dangling bird, the boy rapidly took off into the air and disappeared through the ceiling.

"Robin!" M'gann yelled out in panic as she took notice of the dangling bird. With extreme caution and both Superboy and Aqualad ready to catch if necessary, she levitated the younger down to the floor. They barely spoke a word, all of them stuck on the same thought. What the hell just happened.

Well, all except for Wally who was complaining about the river of sticky glowing drool that covered him.

But one thing was for sure on everybody's mind. They were not looking forward to debriefing Batman.