Younger Justice

Chapter 3

"We wouldn't want them to miss their teammate's... changing." Cobra and Savage smirked at this and some of the goons laughed.

Robin was now beyond confused, but he knew he had to focus to get his friends out of here. While Robin contemplated escape plans, the goons had roughly administered his antidote to his friends, but not before making sure their bonds were tight and adding a little Kryptonite to Superboy's. Wally groaned as he reached consciousness, they others were a little more graceful, but when they noticed Robin trussed up in enough rope to carpet the warehouse, their eyes widened to plates. As soon as she was able, M'Gann created a mind link and Robin found his head swamped with questions:

"ROBIN!? Are you ok?" Megan mentally yelled.

"They said they caught you, dude. You ok?" Wally asked.

"Truly, Robin, are you alright?" Aqua-Lad asked urgently.

"How come you're tied up with that much rope? I can barely see you!" Artemis exclaimed.

"I have to agree with Artemis, Robin, why are you tied up so much more thoroughly than us?" Kaldur asked.

Eventually, the team realised that yelling at him over the top of each other probably was not helping, so they waited a moment and let Robin respond," To the 3 of you that asked, I am fine," Robin heard a collective sigh of relief over the mind link, and continued, "The rope is because I have run into Cobra before, he knows that if I was tied down with the amount of rope you guys are, I'd be out of there in seconds... Even this won't hold me for ever, an hour give or take? Rule 1 for capturing Robin: Never, leave me conscious. Even in an impossible situation I can do something if I'm conscious, but if I'm not...not so much." There was a shocked silence in the mind link for a few seconds, before they were interrupted by Savage opening the briefcase and Cobra asking, "What about the Superboy? He is less than a year old, will he cease to exist?"

"No, his body is that of a sixteen year old, and this ray does not effect the mind...Ingenious, isn't it?" Savage said smirking, "Shall we begin? I would prefer to have them helpless as soon as possible..." Cobra nodded and jerked his chin at Robin, causing the thugs to grab him and carry him like a sack of potatoes over to where the villains stood. Robin was roughly dropped to the ground, and landed with a grunt. The team were protesting and trying to escape to help when Savage pointed the ray-gun at Robin and fired it. Robin could only lie helplessly as the world filled with bright light and then that faded away into darkness. The first thing he noticed was that that team were screaming their heads off, except for Superboy, who was still out of it, due to the Kryptonite. The second thing he noticed was that the once tight cocoon of ropes that he was trapped in was lying limp around him, with him in the centre. He wiggled forward until he managed to escape the pile of rope. As he emerged there was suddenly collective silence in the warehouse, before he felt himself being lifted off the ground by the scruff of his neck, "Going somewhere child?" Savage leered at him. Subconsciously, Robin wondered why the floor was so far away but he yelled back, "Put me down!" only to immediately stop when he heard how high-pitched his voice sounded. What was going on?

He kept glaring at Savage as he yelled through the mind link, "Guys! What happened? Why am I so short? Why does my voice sound like this?!"  After a long awkward pause, Kaldur responded, "Robin, is that you? You have been turned into a child! Here look at this,"  He showed his perspective of what was happening through the mind link. What looked to be an ebony-haired toddler in a tiny Robin costume, was being held more that a metre off the ground by the back of his uniform. The team were interrupted by Vandal Savage sneering and stating, "I see you are confused, allow me to explain, this ingenious machine makes whomsoever comes in contact with its ray 10 years younger, quite dangerous for teenagers to be around don't you think?" He paused to let out an evil laugh, then continued, "Ah well, let us not take all night, who's next?" He was about to fire the gun at the team when mini-Robin did a flip, kicking at Savages hands, forcing him to release Robin.  Robin dropped to the ground and flipped on impact, absorbing the fall. The team just looked at him shocked until Megan asked, "How did you do that, you're a toddler?!" Robin just gave an adorable giggle and said, "I was born in a circus Megan, I could flip literally as soon as I could walk."

Unfortunately, Mini-Robin was stopped when Cobra crept up behind him and injected him with something from behind. He wasn't sure what it was until all of his muscles suddenly gave out and he collapsed, he wasn't unconscious but his limbs weren't responding. For the second time in the space of five minutes, Robin had the thought, "What is going on?" But this time he accidentally projected it into the mind link, and a chorus of "Robin!" followed. "I can't move..." he told them, but was unable to continue when one of Cobra's thugs roughly picked him up and toted him back over towards the Villains who had a little electrified cage waiting, into which he was roughly shoved. They locked it and went back to their place next to Cobra, who then told Robin that the serum would keep him incapacitated for the next several hours, so he was forced to helplessly watch as, one by one, his team were turned into children, Wally and Artemis were now 5, M'Gann and Superboy were now 6 and Kaldur was 7. Robin realised that Wally wouldn't have his powers anymore, as he had recreated the explosion that had given the Flash his speed at age 11, Artemis had started training at the age of 13 and the school of magic Kaldur had attended only accepted 10 year olds and older. In his frustration he forgot to keep up his usual mental barriers so the team heard the whole thing, suddenly becoming very worried. How could they possibly get out of this?