Chapter 4: Mysterious Boy

"So tell me again, what exactly did you think you were doing by carrying out this rouge mission of yours?"

Batman was currently standing in the middle of Mount Justice with all of the members of the team in front of him. He posed his question to everyone, though he was fully expecting only one of them to step forward.

And just as he had hoped Aqualad, embracing the mantle of leader than had been thrust upon him stepped forward and held his head high as he explain once more.

"We were originally investigating a promising lead in relation to the new Drug that we had uncovered in the previous mission, the one that was the result of the combination and amplification of the Blockbuster serum and the Cobra Venom serum."

He turned to Robin who didn't say anything, but did swipe on his wrist monitor so that the projected info that he had been compiling in preparation for the big heist, was transferred to the main computer systems of the mount, and in turn projected in front of Batman for his perusal.

"Originally, all the leads we had been following lead to the discovery of a drug depo that was important for the transport of the new drug in and out of the city, and even possibly an integral part of the trade network for transport out of the country. Initially we kept the team small, with myself, Robin and Superboy spear heading the raid on the storehouse. We were under the impression that we would be able crash the party and collect enough evidence to shut down the drug depo completely and possibly gain more leads to other such depo's throughout the city and beyond."

Aqualad hesitated a bit but eventually chose not to hide anything. Chances are batman already had a perfect idea of what went down, but was simply given them a chance to salvage what they could.

"Unfortunately, we noticed that things were much more complicated than originally believed. Not only was the depo extremely well guarded, but the amount of personnel was much too high for a simple drug depo. Not to mention that the technology and weapons they had at their disposal were much to high leveled for simply drug pushers. We initiated contact in order to stall for time since we knew that a big trade was meant to happen tonight, and Ronin had already requested the rest of the team to give backup.

Once we had cleared the above floors of all combatants we delved deeper in the facility, where we discovered that the Drug depo also doubled as a research facility. After further digging we found an even more concealed research area where we found the unidentified youth. After we found a way to rescue him we were immediately forced to withdraw as the generators were compromised by a third party who most likely wanted to completely wipe away any and all possible leads to themselves that might have been found in the facility.

Thankfully we were able to extract safely, however we were unable to prevent the generations from overloading, resulting in the complete destruction of the drug depo and the underground research facilities.

That concludes the report."

"Hmmm" 

Batman grunted as he quickly read the reports that Robin had displayed. It wasn't lost on him how ridiculous it was for Robin to be able to once more hack into the Watchtowers data base even though he had upped the cyber-security yet gain. If Robin was able to do it, then it wasn't impossible for someone else to do it as well. He would need to up the security some more.

"I could sit here all night and lecture you all about the recklessness of your decisions. I could mention the fact that you were supposed to act on the orders of the League and not to mobilize for your own self approved and self imposed missions. I could spend hours going over the many ways that you all could have ended up buried under hundreds of tons of metal, steel and rock, but I know by now that you all don't listen to anything I say." 

Batman took his time to look each of them in the eye. Kid Flash and Miss Martian had the decency to look ashamed of them selves, and thought Aqualad was able to put forward a convincing front, it was clear that he also was taking the words spoken to heart.

The problem was with Superboy, the clone of superman who seemed to have a problem with any form of authority no matter how well meaning it was, and Robin. Robin's lack of respect towards authority figures was partly his fault given how they used to act while working together, though he wished that the boy wouldn't be so blatant with it.

"In your attempts to show that you all are capable of handling things on your own, you've only really shown us just how little you actually care about our rules and regulations."

he rook a moment to let his words sink in before dropping the bomb on them all.

"For the foreseeable future, you all will be grounded, literally and figuratively. No missions will be issued and I'll speak with Jon personally about making sure that the bio-ship remain grounded until further notice."

He raised his hand before any of them were able to speak out in protest. Glaring at them all, he was satisfied when they flinched back upon meting his gaze. 

"Take this time to reflect on what it is that you've been doing, and whether what you've done tonight was truly because you wanted to help, or whether it was so that you could stoke your own egos with a power trip disguised with good intentions."

Batman looked at them all a final time before turning away and leaving them alone. Whether the sentencing that he had laid down would be obeyed or not wasn't something that he wanted to bet on, since he knew it would only be a matter of time before they decided to go out on their own once more. He at least hoped that they'd take the responsibility of being a hero a bit more seriously this time around. 

Batman didn't take long to find his way to the medical wing of Mount Justice and wasn't surprised when he saw Superman, Wonder woman, and Martian Man Hunter all waiting for him. The three of them were all standing outside of one of the medical rooms, looking on pensively on the unconscious boy within. An act that wasn't that surprising given the rooms inhabitant. 

Bruce made his way over to the trio and joined them in their vigil over the boy. He seemed peaceful as he lay on the bed, though the fact that he was still unconscious was a worrying sign.

"Has he shown any signs of waking since I've been gone?"

Superman glanced over to Bruce and shook his head. 

"No, there's been nothing much of note since he's been brought in. Not too strange if you think about the state he was in when the kids found him. "

Wonder Woman nodded in agreement and added her thoughts into the discussion as well.

"I commend the young ones for saving him, if nothing else. Though their actions were reckless, I am happy that some good has come of them. No child deserves to be treated the way he must have been treated. Just watching the recording was enough to make my blood boil. I can only imagine how it must have been for them while being there in person and seeing it first hand. "

"So you've all watched the recordings then I gather. I'm glad that Robin had the sense to activate the teams body cams at the very least. We haven't been able to salvage much from the wreckage and what little we did find isn't all that useful."

Batman pulled out a tablet that had been attacked to his utility belt and began flicking through some files that had already been recovered.

"I'll need to browse through and see what data is still useful and what is just gibberish, but I can say after a preliminary look through these files that the young justice team was correct. This facility that they raided was most definitely a front to keep most prying eyes away from what they were truly doing on the deeper floors. This is the second time that something like this had happened and it can't be a coincidence.

It takes a lot of time energy and money to get a research facility that large and well secured built, and even more money is needed to have it fully staffed and furnished with some of the most advanced machines on the market.

Who ever is behind this had been making plans for quite sometime, and we've only just started to uncover their plot. I only fear that we may not be able to dismantle what ever crazy schemes they've been cooking up for who knows how long."

He looked up at the others expecting them to weigh in on the topic, but was confused when they all looked at him with disapproving eyes.

"Can't you take a break from your investigations for even one moment. I know that things are looking dire, but at the very least, don't you think that it is more important for you to be looking into who this child is, rather than who was carrying out the experiments on him?" 

Wonder Woman asked with her hands on her hips and with that annoyed look plastered across her face. It was a look that Bruce knew well since he as the one she usually used it on, give that it was the face she made when ever she thought that he was being to sinical or cold.

Super man didn't say anything, but Bruce had known the man of steel long enough to know when he wasn't pleased. Mostly because he wore his emotions on his sleeve, but still.

Batman sighed before pulling up a holographic projection and showing it to his fellow leaguers.

"I have been doing everything that I can to find out who he is, but I haven't had much luck. He's not in any of the data bases that I have access and the clearance to utilize, and even in the ones that I'm not supposed to be able to access, he's turning up a blank as well. It might take more time, but I'm not sure if we will find anything. Who ever is behind this isn't a minor small time crook. They're methodical, organized and most of all, rational. 

I'll keep looking but I'm not holding out much hope."

Superman and Wonder Woman didn't like the sound of what they heard, but they were smart enough to know that if Bruce said he was going to look into something, then he wasn't going to leave any stone uncovered. The fact that even he seemed despondent about finding the boys identity only made it all the more surreal.

Batman turn to the Martian manhunter who hadn't a word, quite unlike him given how talkative he tended to be from time to time.

"You haven't said a word the entire time that I was here and you haven't moved from that spot since you've arrived. What's wrong, did you find something in his mind?." 

The Martian sighed as he turned to Bruce, and while he put forward a half hearted smile, it was obvious that he was unsettled by what ever it was he had seen or felt. It was never clear with telepaths. 

"Normally I wouldn't be so unnerved, but this is…this is wrong on a level that none of you may ever truly be able to understand. His body may be fine but his mind is in tatters."

His tired voice was tinged with a hint of sadness and pity, though his clenched fist was enough to let the others know that his emotions where truly all over the place. 

"Bruce, I know that you all can't see the mind the way I do, but frankly speaking, it'll be a miracle if that boy ever wakes up again."

Martian Man Hunter finally managed to tear his eyes away form the unconscious boy and faced his fellow hero's, a somber mood enveloping them all as he switched over to a telepathic conversation with them all. Something he usually only did when he wanted to share the meaning of his words in a more meaningly and direct way. 

[When Megan told me that his mind was broken, I figured he had been exposed to such a traumatic experience that his mind had shut down. It's something that happens when someone experiences something so traumatic, that their minds can't handle it and in an attempt to escape reality, they end up lost within the confines of their own minds. It's a rare thing to come across, and usually the result of some seriously dark things being experienced, but compared to what's happened to him, I would have preferred if that's all he had been through.]

He raised his palms as he used his telepathic powers to allow the others to see an illusion of a large rubik's cube floating above his hand, slowly rotating around.

[You can think of the mind like... a complex rubik's cube. Each side of the cube represents a different facet of the mind. Emotions, rational, instincts, memories, the list goes on and on. Afterall, the mind is a complex and everchanging thing.

Still, a sound mind could be equated to a solved rubik's cube for all intents and purposes. All the many different facets of the mind are normally neatly organized, just like the order imposed when all of the colored sides of a rubik's cube are complete, with nothing out of place.]

Jon waved his hand and the large mirage of the rubik's cube in hand started to rotate and jumble the colors on its sides. It didn't take much for the once pristine cube to become nothing more than a complicated puzzle in desperate need of solving

[A damaged mind is the result of trauma. Living in harmful environments, Hanging around persons who are bad influences, and even something relatively mundane such a mental illness can have major negative impact of a persons mind. These experiences are the equivalent to me shuffling the rubik's cube, since it's the same way that the mind would be shuffled around. The colours no longer match anymore and the once organized mind becomes disorderly and confused. 

Unlike a rubik's cube that would need outside intervention to realign the colors, the mind is much more resilient. With time, the mind will fix it self and the shuffled colours will slowly become whole again. Of course just like everything, there is a limit to how much damage a mind can heal on its own.

A broken mind in this case, is similar to what happens when a rubik's cube is smashed onto the floor.]

The image of the cube trembled for a bit, before all of the parts of the cube separated and shot out into random directions. Watching as all the little pieces of the cube where blasted all around them, Superman Wonder Woman and Batman gained a deeper appreciation for what it truly meant to have a broken mind.

[Similar to the broken cube, a broken mind becomes scattered, losing its cohesiveness and being unable to perform its normal functions in any capacity. All of the the little pieces of the mind come apart and are unraveled while being scattered all over the place. Of course a mind in this state can't truly heal the damage done, and requires outside assistance in finding all of the pieces and putting them back together. 

But even if the mind is put back together, it is never the same as it was before being shattered. You can try to fix the cube by putting all of the pieces back together, but the cube is never the same as it was from before it was destroyed.]

They all looked on as the cube in the Martians hand slowly pieced itself back together, but even when all of the pieces where back together, the cube look much more haggard and beaten up than it had at the start, some of the pieces had the colored sections scratched off, and while it was hard to tell, the cube just looked much more fragile that before.

When Jon tried to 'move' the sides of the cube, the inconsistences of the damaged pieces became much more prominent, making it difficult for him to twist the cube in the way he wanted to. Every attempt to correct the alignment of the cube, risked causing it to fall apart all over again. 

[The pieces don't fit as perfectly as before, they might have become chipped or dented when the cube or the mind was smashed and broken, which makes it that much more difficult to put them back together, and even when they are put together again they might brush against each other as the cube is moved, stick and hitch up because oh how loose they have become, and are much more likely to fall apart, and just overall make it much harder for the cube to do what the cube needs to do in order to function normally.]

The telepathic image of the cube faded away ad Jon looked over his shoulder to the unconscious boy one more. Through the telepathic bond, they others could feel how unsettled he was, which only served to make them unsettled as well. Surprisingly it was Superman who asked the question that was on all of their minds.

[You said that his mind was in an even worse state than being simply broken. If you had to use the rubik's cube for an analogy, just how bad is it.]

Jon glimpsed at him before conjuring the rubik's cube once more. He didn't say anything and simple moved the cube through the different stages of destruction. First shuffling the colors on its side, then shattering it and piecing the parts back together even as they looked about ready to fall apart on their own.

With a sigh, Jon flicked his wrist and the once shattered cube exploded one more. This time, instead of the pieces slowly combining back together, they stayed apart, the pieces becoming even more broken than before as if being in this separated state was slowly wearing down at them with time, though not to the point of being completely impossible to put back together in the end.

They watched all of this with a growing sense of dread, imagining what it must have taken to do so much damage to a mind. Though the damaged parts were chilling to look at, they weren't what truly drew most of their attention. 

No, the thing that stuck out to them the most was the fact that all of the smaller pieces that had been covered in a myriad of colors, had all slowly started losing their color.

In no time at all, the cubes pieces were all leached of all their color and the pieces were rendered blank. Once the pieces were completely void of color, they where reassembled once more, each piece trying to find where it belonged.

Unfortunately the pieces never seemed to find the correct place were they truly fit, a perfect solution seemingly impossible to be found as the pieces kept breaking apart and reassembling over and over again.

Even if from time to time the pieces would form the general image of a cube, since all its sides where blank there was no way to tell if that particular configuration was correct. With all of the pieces missing their own distinctive colors it was practically impossible to be completely sure that the cube was truly fixed.

As they watched the rubik's cube attempt of being repaired, The Martians somber voice sounded in their minds, and they couldn't help but to agree with what he had to say.

[Even if his mind is repaired, what use is a mind without any of the facets that make it a mind in the first place? What use is a rubik's cube without any color?]