-A series of Vignettes featuring body horror!!-

The team wasn't doing well; Cheshire was fast and agile and smart, and she had a way of making the team act emotionally and irrationally during fights.

"Poor little things," She coed, looking down at the pile of teens from the edge of the roof. She tilted her mask back to light a cigarette, "tired of playing superheroes yet?" she took a deep puff. "...and Alice, you're still fighting like this is some kind of game."

"I'm telling mom!" was all Artemis could muster.

"Before or after she tucks you into beddy-byes?" She asked. The teens, barely lucid from the fight, tried to scramble up off each other, causing a tangled knot of arms and legs writhing on the pavement. "Wow, you really don't like the babytalk, do you? Do you?" She negged. "All tucked in with your teddy, telling mommy all about how mean sissy was to you." She took another self-satisfied puff of smoke. "While you figure out how to walk again, I'd better get going," and with that Cheshire dropped her cigarette of the roof and vanished.

There was a second in which Robin almost freed himself, then, a scream.

Everyone stopped, trying to judge who it had come form.

Instantly they untangled, each turning to see M'gann clutching her hip, hissing in pain. Kaldur delicately moved their fingers, revealing a small hole burned through her uniform, and a rapidly swelling circle on the skin beneath.

"Jade did this," Artemis growled, "I'm gonna kill her!"

Wally blocked her before she could give chase. "There's no point, she's gone."

"She hurt Ms. Martian!" Artemis argued.

"So, let's get Ms. Martian home, then later we can plan all the ways you intend to punish Cheshire!"

M'gann was utterly overwhelmed by their friends' flaring emotions and her own agony. She couldn't focus enough to summon the ship, they had to walk back.

She made it about three steps when her bones began to click. It wasn't obvious at first, just a gentle popping sound like someone cracking their knuckles. She noticed Conner glance at her a couple times.

She limped on a few steps, hand clutched over their hip. The sound got louder, like someone clicking their tongue, and Conner was clearly getting irritated.

"Alright someone else has to hear that!" He exclaimed at last.

"You hear it too?" Artemis asked.

"Sorry," M'gann hissed, catching up with them. "The pain, it's-- augh!" She let out a sudden cry. "It's m--making me sh-- shift!"

There was a resounding snap and her leg gave out, collapsing beneath them.

Wally dove to catch her, but he was too late, and Ms. Martian hit the ground solidly on their side with a cry of agony. She knew Wally must have scraped his knees because she felt echoes of the pain in her own legs.

"Ms. Martian!" Kaldur was on her in a second, checking her head for damage and helping her sit up. "Are you-- ah!" He exclaimed, jerking his hand back and staring down in horror at the indentations his palm had left in her side. Her flesh began trying to push these indentations out, filling them like a blister.

M'gann groaned in pain, cricking her neck to one side as the fluid pockets between her vertebrae popped and swelled. She tried to move, but suddenly it was like the air froze solid around her.

Kaldur cradled his friend close, his arms pushing in her supple, putty-like flesh. It felt like she was melting.

Robin swallowed hard. "Kid, go get the stretcher! We'll have to carry her back!"

"But--"

"Now!" The leader-in-training demanded. "Aqualad?"

Kaldur looked up, gripping M'gann tight. "It's dire, help me get her up."

M'gann didn't move again until they put antibiotic on the burn, at which point their skin began to twitch around the burn.

She didn't gain conscious until they were back at the mountain. It only took about an hour or so but to the team it crept by like a lifetime.

She couldn't talk yet at two hours-- their body was directing all its energy towards healing the burn-- but she squeezed Kaldur's hand when he asked her for a sign. That comforted her friends.

Artemis tramped down the school corridor towards her locker, feet dragging with exhaustion from another day of school, dealing with algebra and kids who could afford to buy Gucci backpacks.

The sound system rumbled to life, unlike the ancient PA at her old school, this one was somewhat legible: "Amber alert, Kingsway and 21st, heading north. Please return to your classes, and Teachers follow code 'crawl'."

fuck.

Artemis was pretty far from her class by now, but assuming this was merely another safety precaution the school took against the Gotham criminal structure, she figured she'd grab her water from her locker and duck into a nearby classroom to wait it out.

After all, she fought villains, having one merely pass a few blocks by the school didn't scare her.

She coughed, dropping her bag as she began to input the lock's combination.

It was so unfair that some of them had to go to school all day while half the league could up and go on a earth-saving mission at the drop of a hat.

She coughed again, fumbling the lock.

She coughed a third time, becoming aware of an itching in her lungs and her throat.

She stifled a small coughing fit, finally unlocking the locker and grabbing her bottle.

A violent cough burst through her lips before she could cover her mouth, splattering sticky green phlegm on the sleave of her blazer.

Before Artemis could question what she could have done to stain it so, she'd doubled over, clutching her chest, hacking her lungs up.

The first petal fluttered to the floor between her uniform shoes. She hadn't the time to investigate: coughing, hacking, eyes grit against the quickly onsetting headache.

Another petal got stuck on her teeth, another on her lip, before she knew it a small blizzard of thin, white petals were streaming from her lungs with every contraction, plastering the inside of her throat, making her cough more.

Her knees struck the floor as she continued hacking, desperately trying to inhale even the slightest amount.

There was a sprinting sound in the hallway, and she felt someone small fall against her. They said something she couldn't hear, then there was a sharp, snake-like hiss and she felt cold liquid splattering the inside of her cheeks, coating her throat and dribbling down further, activating her gag reflex.

Artemis heaved forwards, vomiting just in front of her locker. It tasted fowl, worse than vomit should, and it was thick.

"It tastes bad, I know," said a muffled voice beside her. "You're gonna be coughing up bits of chlorophyl for the next few days." Finally opening her teary eyes, she looked up to find Dick Grayson standing over her, a breathing mask over his mouth and nose. "Get caught out of class?" She nodded. "Me too, come on, we should get you to the front doors. You weren't the only victim-- I sprayed as many as I could," He shook a little aerosol can in his hand, "but they'll be an ambulance arriving shortly." Dick helped her upright, guiding her towards the foyer.

Wally was trying not to go into shock as his uncle carried him. He was a bit too big to be carried these days, but he was in to state to run himself.

It had all been an accident, a slight muscle twitch or break in concentration, it wasn't supposed to end up like this.

He'd been practicing passing through things again. Barry told him if he practiced he might improve.

He was just pushing his finger tips through a piece of cardstock, pulling them back, and pushing them through again.

The pain hit him like a tsunami. He dropped the cardstock, and heard something dense hit the floor.

Blood, there was a lot of blood, he screamed, grasping at his hand.

Something was missing.

With a sickening drop in his stomach, his eyes focused on the thing on the floor.

He was still staring it when Barry ran up to check on him.

He didn't need to explain, it was obvious what had happened; Wally collapsed on his bed, struggling to breath, staring at the ceiling. Barry at first almost called 911, but not wanting to risk Wally's identity, he called a personnel emergency to the league, demanding that they have someone at the nearest safe house as soon as possible to reattach Wally's fingertip.

Now he was trying to keep vomit down as his uncle half-carried half-dragged him.

At some point the despair hit him, and Wally started crying.

He didn't remember much, he remembered Barry turning to carry him through a doorway, and they he remembered someone explaining a chemical compound as they pressed a mask over his face.

Then, as if in an instant, his dry eyes were staring at the corner of a cinderblock wall. He blinked, but the image stayed the same. "Augh..." He moaned, swinging his jaw from side to side in an attempt to awaken the rest of his face.

"Be careful, you were just under general," Barry said, sitting beside him. "You were thrashing so much, it was the only way to reattach it safely."

Wally took several long moments, letting the drowsy words bounce around his skull as he struggled to decipher them. "How long...." He looked to his side and was shocked to see no arm at all. Barry quickly directed him to where his numb arm was draped over his stomach, and Wally calmed down somewhat. His hand was bound thickly in bandages and bandage covers. "How long was I out?"

"Little over an hour."

"Feels like days." Wally yawned.

Barry sighed heavily, his head sinking into his hands. "I'm so sorry Wally, if I hadn't told you to keep trying, we should've played it safe..."

Wally stared down. "I'm gonna be okay though?

"Oh yeah, It was successful," Barry assured, "It was just the last phalange, they think it'll heal without too much mobility trouble..."

"Good," Wally said absently, "thanks for staying."

"Kid, don't worry: I'll keep staying." Barry forced a smile, ruffling his hair.

The team was in bad shape.

Oceanmaster was trying to get his hands on high-frequency sub-nautical speakers, like the type used by researchers, and the kids were sent to see i they could get any idea why.

There weren't enough gurneys, some being lent to the watchtower, and as a result several of the kids had been left to try not to bleed out in the hallway or were getting stitched up on the floor of the medbay.

Kaldur's friends, delirious, had placed him in an empty bathtub in the residential quarters while the emergency surgeons were called in and readied the operating room.

His weakening fingers were still pressed into his side, packing down the bloody cotton his frantic teammates had stuffed in his wound on the battlefield.

He coughed into the dry air, spluttering up frothy red droplets, blood dribbling down his lips and dripping onto his already saturated tunic. He'd been impaled by a trident, and from the weakening of his lungs, it wasn't hard to guess what had been punctured.

In the dark of the room he could barely tell that his skin had gone ashy and purple.

"Aqualad!"

He let out a soft grunt, opening his eyes a crack.

"Is he awake?"

"I think so." One of the silhouettes swayed towards him. "Aqualad?" they asked loudly and clearly, "We need to get you on a gurney." He tried to nod, his entire head felt loose on his neck. "That means we need you to let us walk you to the hallway, because the gurney won't fit in here."

Kaldur nodded again, and braced himself to sit up.

He hissed in pain, sinking back.

"Wally, get down by his legs, we'll have to hoist him."

Kaldur didn't envy them, it couldn't be easy to lift someone from a bathtub, but the more he tried to move-- to help them-- it was as if he lost connection with his body.

Eventually he felt himself heavily suspended from two sets of arms. He could hear Wally grunting with exertion as he and the other voice carried him though the narrow washroom.

Getting on the gurney was the hard part, and as Kaldur bent forwards to climb up he heard a thick drizzle of blood flow from his impaled side, splattering on the floor.

They rolled him over onto the disposable biohazard sheet, and instantly he felt air rushing by his face. That wasn't good: they were trying to get him to the med bay urgently. He heard Wall shouting for someone to make way as they barreled through the doors.

"Aqualad, designation: B-02!" Wally yelled, rushing them to the operating theatre.

"Kid, hold his hand, try to calm him down while we put him under."

The next thing Kaldur remembered was blinking awake in a bindingly bright room. It took several seconds to realize what felt so wrong about this situation. His chest wasn't moving up and down.

For a split second terror sank in his stomach. He didn't want to be dead. Desperately he blinked as hard as he could. He was still conscious! With all the power he had Kaldur pulled his arm up. He was surprised when it gave no resistance; he was moving!

His numb fingers reached up and closed on something heavy around his throat.

"Aqualad?" A voice asked, and Kaldur's head reflexively flicked to the side. His king sat right beside him. He looked unwell, tired. Kaldur's mouth gaped open and closed repeatedly, trying to force something out. "Calm down, the surgery went without complications." Kaldur, still confused, went back to feeling the thing around his neck. It gurgled and rumbled beneath his fingertips. "It's a gill mask, it's still in development but with your lungs damaged it seemed best to use it"

Kaldur lowered his hands, his heart beginning to slow in time with the beeping monitor beside him. He was alive. He was fine.

And riding that wave of euphoric relief, Kaldur'ahm drifted back into a steady doze.

Conner's chin was wet and cold.

He made to stand, only for his legs to fail him, his arms not even budging to catch him as he landed on the gritty stone floor.

"He's at it again." Someone sighed nearby.

"Kid?" Conner demanded, shifting on the Hanger bay floor and trying to spot the redhead. "Kid Flash? What's going on?!"

There was a second, and then Robin's voice responded: "Conner?"

"He's back!" M'gan squealed.

"What's happening?" Conner became away of the flood of saliva dribbling over his lips and down his front. He tried to assess what was binding him: there was something constricting around his throat and his arms seemed glued to his sides. Beyond that, there was a sort of gnawing pain in his calf.

"You've been fading in and out of consciousness." Aqualad said from somewhere nearby. "What's the last thing you remember?"

Conner tried to forcibly calm himself. "We were emptying the equipment and testing animals from that elicit lab in Pennsylvania," he croaked. Upon further investigation the thing around his neck seemed to be blinking like an inhibitor collar, and on his torso was a straight jacket of sorts which harnessed to a chain which he assumed bound him to the wall behind him. "Why? What happened?"

"Well," Wally began, "You get three guesses who was bitten by a super rabid animal."

Conner didn't need three, dizzy and confused and upset as he was.

"What happened?"

"Let's just say hog-tying you wasn't our first plan." Robin said, walking into eyeline, but staying a safe distance from Conner. "A few of the kobra-creatures had mutated a new strain of rabies."

"...I didn't--"

"You attacked us," Artemis said. "It was crazy, it was Bialya all over again."

"Except with more drool and less memory loss," Kid Flash added.

Conner suddenly felt a flare of the ache in his calf and rolled over to get a better look. Through the shredded fabric of his trouser leg, he could just make out a swollen, purple-grey spot of flesh with what looked like canine dental indentations. The veins that crossed the area seemed to pulse magenta, and the surrounding skin was pallid. He shifted a little and noticed what looked like a yellow pus dribbling from one of the tooth marks, accompanied by a horrible stench of infection.

"How long was I out?"

"Four hours so far." Robin said.

"So far?" Conner scowled, struggling to sway upright, "Come on! Let me out!"

His friends glanced among themselves. "We can't do that, Conner."

"Why?"

"You see, the only reason you've been fading in at all is that your kryptonian DNA is fighting the virus, but your human DNA isn't doing so great. They gave you a vaccine but I don't think it helped."

"So?!"

"So, you've faded in before this. For all we know you might slip back into your feral-state, and we can't risk freeing you until we know you're recovered."

"..what happened last time?" Conner asked, not sure he wanted to hear.

"Almost bit off M'gann's finger when she got too close."

Conner sunk back. "Can..." he looked away, "sorry M'gann."

"It's okay, you weren't yourself," she assured.

Conner shifted weight off his injured leg, looking up at his friends. "Can... can you stay until I'm normal again?"

"We have so far," Robin replied, "Want us to get some boardgames out? We can move your peice for you."

"I'd like that."

Dick had been through this before: a new name in Gotham, things vanishing, grisly murders-- which batman refused to let him look at the pictures of-- suffice to say, it was routine at this point. It was supposed to be normal.

How bad could a guy using the moniker 'Sweet Tooth' really be?

Okay, to be fair, the deathtrap part was routine at this point too. Dick had been chained up my dozens of ex-doctors as they threatened him with horrific fates. On the surface this one was no different; a vat of boiling sugar, artificial colour and flavoring, fit right as a Gotham rogue's MO.

Robin hadn't lost his cool yet, he'd been here before.

"Bats always said at that sugar would be the death of me." He quipped as his bindings tightened. "So, what are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to kill you." The slender, aging mad said.

"Oh," Dick said, that rather put a cap on the situation. "Don't you have to like, taunt Batman, or poison the water supply or something?"

"No."

"You're not very good at this yet," Robin observed. "Villains always have to torture us first; leave the sword of Damocles hanging for a while before you kill us."

"I'm not doing that."

"Not one for talk, are you?" Almost instantly, Dick felt the table beneath him begin to sway, tilting towards to industrial vat below. Suddenly, the boy wasn't feeling quite so confident. "Whoa! Whoa! We can talk this out!" He scrambled backwards up the table, "Don't you want to tell me why you're doing all this?"

"No."

Dick let out a little gasp as the suddenly the table shifted sharply. He grappled with the edge to delay decent into his sweet demise. "Agh-- Bats?! If you're out there now would be a great time to save my ass!"

On queue a skylight somewhere nearby shattered. Dick felt a sense of relief as the table turned completely vertical, dumping him down towards the thick, sticky molten vat of sugar.

He caught Batman's blurred form in the corner of his eye.

A scream ripped from his body, popping his ears. It hurt. It hurt so, so, much. For a second he was convinced he'd been plunged into the vat, and a deep, deep dread filed him. He was dead.

"Robin! Robin!" A voice shouted over the ringing scream. Dick felt his head bonk off of something. He inhaled sharply, at which juncture he realized he'd been screaming the entire time. Then the pain hit again and the scream came back twice as harrowing. Opening his teary eyes a sliver, he saw Batman hovering over him; then, as if of its own accord, he head tipped, and he caught sight of his ankle, encrusted with a rapidly hardening--but still blistering hot-- layer of pink, strawberry-scented candy. He screamed again, his voice now getting raw, and fumbled for his ice pills. Batman grabbed his fists, stopping him. "No! You'll shock it!"

Dick's cry came out weaker this time, agonizing, as tears began to unstick his mask's adhesive.

Dick didn't remember much after that, he vaguely remembered Batman carrying him across the factory, and placing his foot in the first sink he found, supporting the rest of the boy's body as he ran cool water over the sugar.

All Dick could do was gasp for breath and cry. He'd never been in pain like this. Not even when Two Face pulled out one of his adult molars. He could faintly hear Bruce whispering to him, but it was hard to make out what he was saying, still the rhythm of the words reminded him of a lullaby his mother used to sing him

Eventually the words ceased, they turned off the tap, and Bruce tenderly touched his fingertip to the hardened splatter of sugar. Dick winced, emitting a sick whine.

"B?" He croaked.

Batman's head snapped to face him. "We'll deal with it at the cave."

Dick sniffed, drying his eyes. "B-- but I can't walk to the c-- car..."

Being mindful of his leg, Batman lifted him up--cradling the preteen --and carried him out.

-Prompts used were:

Burned,
Hanahaki Disease,
Split,
Impaled,
Rabid,
and
Candy Gore!!

Thanks to my friends and my wattpad audience for helping me pick!-

-ALT to the cover art: