A/N: Hey there everyone and welcome back to chapter 3 of 'Nighco', now last chapter had Nighwing wake up in a strange castle and met the young boy named Ico. He noticed that Ico had a pair of horns on both sides of his head and not only that but he also had a pair of horns himself, then as they met Yorda and had their first encounter with one of the shadow creatures, and witnessed that Yorda has the ability to open up the stone doors they need to get out of the castle.

Now with all that out of the way I think it's time to see how those three will make it out of the castle.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything what so ever in this story, they all belong to their respective owners.

(Watchtower 7:38 PM)

"So you're telling me that Nightwing just vanished in a flash of light after picking this sword?" Zatanna asked as Batman just gotten done explaining the situation to her.

"Exactly, I've spent the last nineteen hours examining the sword trying to find out it's origins in the hopes of finding a way to bring Nightwing back." Batman stated as he glared down at the sword he had laying on the table.

Ever since Nightwing vanished Batman has spent hours in the batcave just typing away on the batcomputer trying to learn everything he could about this sword, he searched through several historical documents and folklore only to come up empty handed. He took a closer look at the inscriptions on it and tried to have them translated, but sadly that was to no avail though; that left him with one other theory and that the sword is magic based.

"We haven't had much luck with it though, which is why we brought it hear hoping that either you our Doctor Fate might be able to help us out." Robin explained to the sorceress.

"Well since he's away on a mission right now it looks like I'm the next best thing." Zatanna said with a little smirk on her face as she examined the sword and it's inscriptions.

"Do you know what any of the inscriptions mean?" Batman asked her with a bit of worry in his gruff voice.

"To be honest I've never seen anything like this before; hey maybe if I perform location spell then I might be able to at least know where he was transported." She suggested to both the Dark Knight and boy wonder.

"I understand." Batman said nodding his head instructing her to proceed with the spell.

" Wohs em eht noitacol fo erehw gniwthgin saw detropsnart oot!" She chanted as her eyes began to glow and magical energy started to surround the sword and shown her where Nightwing ended up at. It took her from this word and into an entirely different universe that didn't look too different from their own planet Earth.

What she saw in her vision was a giant stone castle setting in the middle of the ocean with waves splashing up against it, it looked more like a fortress than any castle that she has seen before, and from what she could tell the location didn't seem like the kind of place for welcoming guests; mostly due to the fact that it was disconnected from the mainland. She tried to get a look at the interior of the castle but suddenly her sight was being consumed by some kind of black smoke, what ever the smoke was it didn't want Zatanna interfering with what was going on behind the castle walls.

"Stay away!" A voice warned her as the smoke used enough force to break the connection Zatanna had with the sword and sent her flying back into the wall.

"Are you alright?" Robin asked her as he and Batman helped her back to her feet.

"Yeah I'm fine, but listen that sword had transported Nightwing to different universe and not only that but he seems to be inside a castle as well." Zatanna explained as stood on her own two feet.

"Is there anything you can tell us about the castle?" Batman asked wanting to know everything that she learned.

"All I know is that it was in the middle of an ocean and... well when I tried to get a look at the inside some black smoke was blocking my view and then a voice warned me to 'stay away' and broke the connection. I don't know who or what it is that's trying to keep me from viewing the inside of the castle, but I do know that's too powerful for me to handle on my own." She stated to the Dynamic Duo.

"The fact that you were able to locate Nightwing was more helpful then you thought, all we can do now is hope that Nightwing will be safe until we can find a way to bring him back." Batman calmly assured her as both Robin and Zatanna nodded their heads, but they both knew that he was deeply worried for the former boy wonder and was just putting on a brave front.

"Don't worry Batman I won't give up until Nightwing back home where he belongs." she said with confidence in her voice.

"Thank you." He told her with Robin nodding his head in agreement with their resolve.

(Castle)

"Whoa." Nightwing said as he, Ico, and the girl all stood in front of an old stone bridge that was covered in mist and stretched all the way to the tower on the other side.

They all took notice of just how high they were from the water and crushing waves down below, if Nightiwing had to guess of just how high up they were then it would be a good 30-60 stories high.

That didn't matter right now though, because all that matters was getting out this place so trio moved forward to the other side of the bridge. When they got halfway part of the bridge began to collapse under the girl's feet and left dangling from edge, but luckily Ico was still holding onto her hand was able to pull her up to safety.

"Are you ok?" Ico asked as he helped her get back onto her feet.

The girl simply nodded her head assuring the two boys that she was alright that they should continue to move they reached the other end of the bridge they noticed another pair of stone carvings just the ones from the previous room, so just like last time the girl walked up to them and placed her hand onto both of the stone carvings and was able to open them up.

Once they opened up a small square panel rose up from the ground causing a metal door suddenly came slamming down in front of them. Nightwing figured that the only way to open the door was to step onto the panel and he did just that and urged both Ico and the girl to run inside with him not far behind them.

When they got inside they saw that it was pretty well lit and not as dark like the last couple of rooms they've been in, there was a few barrels lined up in the room and big crate sitting right under the steps, they also noticed that the windows were bared up as well, then Ico spotted another square panel sticking out of the ground right in front of a metal door.

"A way out!" Ico said with joy as he ran down the steps and stepped onto the panel and caused the metal door to raise up and reveal metal bars blocking their way out.

"Doesn't look like we're getting out this way, but it was a nice try though." Nightwing said placing a comforting hand on the young boy's shoulders.

They both turned away from the door and saw that the girl was staring at the big cube, that made the boys curious so Ico hopped down there and pushed the crate out of the way. Once he did that some stairs started to raise up from the floor next to the windows leading to a way out for them.

"Looks like we'll be taking the stairs." Nightwing said jokingly as he helped Ico back up and then turned his attention over to girl and saw that she was shaking with fear.

He and Ico noticed a black portal open up from the ground and out of it was three more of those shadow creatures, though two of them looked like spiders that seemed to be crawling all over the place. The bigger shadow creature ran towards the girl but Ico was able to get between them and started to beat the creature with his stick, just like the one Nightwing fought earlier this one went down with ease.

"Good job Ico, I'll take care of the spiders." Nightwing stated as easily took them both out with just one hit.

With the shadow creatures taken care of the three heroes ran up the stairs and found themselves outside on a ledge overlooking the bridge that they crossed earlier. They moved forward through an open doorway and ended up high in a room that almost as large as the one that Nightwing woke up in when he first arrived in the castle.

The room was pretty wide and from the looks of things could almost pass as a train depot, when Nightwing looked up he saw rail tracks right above them and figured that this room is connected to them. He looked across the room and spotted a lever on the other ledge and realized that was the key to opening the door.

"You two wait here while I swing over to the other side and get this door open." Nightwing instructed as he leaped over the high railing and landed on his feet, lucky for him it wasn't that high up, he signaled to Ico and the girl that he was fine and dashed passed the three archways and found himself staring at a chain just hanging down in front of him.

Not wasting another moment he climbed it and swung over to the ledge where he saw another one of those crates from before, so he pushed if off of the edge making it easier for both Ico and the girl to climb up there. Once he did that he pulled the lever for the metal door to open from where his two companions were, but as soon as he did that two more of those shadow portals opened up and out came two of those shadow creatures.

"Here we go again." Nightwing stated as he jumped down to help Ico keep the shadow creatures from taking the girl away from them.

Nightwing did notice something different about one of the creatures in that it was skinnier than the last two they went up against, but what stood out to him was the fact that it looked like it had a pair of horns on it's head. He knew that he didn't have time to dwell on this new discovery and kept on fighting it.

They did make things a little more difficult for the boys by dropping onto the ground and sliding pass them in order to dodge their attacks and then striking them from behind. While they fought the two shadow creatures a third one crept up behind the girl and grabbed her, she screamed out for Nightwing and Ico to save her but the two shadow creatures were blocking their path to prevent them from saving her.

The creature carried her to one of the dark portals that was located in the upper right corner of the room and began to drag her down into the darkness as she tried her best to pull herself out of it.

"Ico you go save her and I'll handle these two!" Nightwing ordered the boy as he nodded his head and ran pass the two shadow creatures.

One of them tried to block his way but Nightwing had thrown a wingding at it's head causing it to disperse and fade away. Ico made it to her just in time as only the top half of her body was still visible and he quickly grabbed hold of her hand and began to pull her out of the portal.

"You're safe now." Ico told her as they both sought on the ground next to the portal as Nightwing looked on with a relived look on his face as he just gotten down taking down the other shadow creature.

The moment was short lived though as the shadow creature that grabbed the girl earlier had resurfaced from the portal and was going to try and take her away again, but unfortunately for it both Nightwing and Ico was ready it and double teamed it out of existence.

"Man those things are like cockroaches, no matter how many times you squash one of them, another one will just take it's place." Nightwing stated with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

"Nightwing, have you noticed that whenever we defeat those creatures the portals they appear from tend to vanish into smoke?" Ico asked the older hero who understood what he was talking about.

"Yeah I have, if anything it means that we were able to wipe the area clean of them. I did see something odd about one of them, it had a pair of horns on it's head just like us." He replied back to the young boy.

This place giving out more questions than answers, like why was the girl locked up in a cage? Why are the shadow creatures after her? What was up with the room full of coffins? These questions were starting to make Nightwing's detective skills kick in a bit, but he knew the only way to get the answers he wanted was to get out of the castle.

"Come on guys lets get out of here." Nightwing told them as he, Ico, and the girl each hopped onto the top of the crate and then proceeded to climb onto the ledge and headed out of the door which led to the outside.

Unknown to any of them though is that one of those questions will soon be answered from a very unlikely source.

A/N: Well there you go guys, chapter 3 of the story and I hope that enjoyed Zatanna showing up as well.

Now for the record I wanted to make this chapter a little longer but it was getting pretty late and so I ended it here, also I want to point out that I won't be going back to what seeing what Batman and Robin will doing for a while because we all know that they'll mostly be trying to find a way to bring Nightwing home.

I'm going to be keeping the focus on Nightwing, Ico, and Yorda to help move the story along, and for the record I'm sorry that things have been moving a little slow with the plot. I had to get some of the exposition out of the way, but things will be picking up next chapter. Also in case you're all wondering why I keep referring to Yorda as 'the girl' it's because Nightwing and Ico don't know her name yet, but that's all about to change next chapter.

Because there is still one more character left to make an appearance in this story, and that person will have the answers that Nightwing is looking for.

Well anyway read and review and I will see you guys' later next chapter.