Connor flew away from the T Tower (or what was left of it) carrying Robin in his arms. When he got to a far enough place, he landed, put the titan on the grass and looked back. He could see part of the city and the island. A view that was so familiar to him seemed like brand new.

A moan. As soon as he turned around, realized Robin was waking up.

His eyes sparkled. "Dick!" He shouted in relief. That made the titan open his eyes and look at him.

Me and my big mouth.

"A-are you calling me by my real name?! Who... Wait..." He sat up and moved his head closer to the boy. "Beast boy?! Why do you look like you're Raven's brother?!"

Connor frowned. "What? Heck- no. That would be weird."

"Who are you then?"

"Listen. To get this whole mess, you must to know the truth. And you're gonna have to trust me like you did with Mar'i."

Robin widened his eyes. "Where's she? Where's everyone...?" His eyes spotted the tower, surrounded by smoke. He made a fist, while his chest sank. "No."

"Robin. Focus." He said, more serious now. "They're all alive. You'll just have to trust me. Ok?"

Robin had a suspicious and worried look on his face, but still, he nodded. Knowing him quite well, Connor found that enough and sat down next to him.

"It's a hell of a long story."


Darkness hit Mar'i's eyes, as Slade's robot opened the metal doors and threw her inside the cell. Then the thing closed them and walked away.
She grabbed the metal poles and tried to get out of there; but somehow they were resistant to her super strength. It took a while for the girl to get used to the new environment and soon things started to take shape.

A black girl, with curly hair and big brown eyes looked sadly at her. Almost as if she had pity. It seemed she was about 10 years old.
And something about that child looked familiar to Mar'i.

"Hey..." Mar'i tried to talk, carefully. "W-where are we?"

The girl raised an eyebrow at her. "Uh... In a cell?"

"That's not what I meant." She replied, annoyed. "Do you know why Slade wants us here?"

Not so surprisingly, the child just gave a shrug. "I wish I knew. None of them know either."

"Them?"

As an answer, she pointed at the back of the little room. Mar'i couldn't know how she hadn't noticed before, but there were about four or five children sitting on the ground, next to each other. She held her breath.

"Slade took us away from our families and brought us here." The girl continued. "But I don't know why."

She nodded. "Got it. And... You are..."

"Samantha."

"Samantha..." Mar'i said to herself, thoughtful. "Your parents?"

"Alive."

Mar'i shook her head, holding back her laughter. "No. Who are they?"

"Uh..." The girl's eyes focused on the new kid for a while, as her mind tried to make a sense out of these questions. But she answered anyway. "Karen and Victor."

Mar'i widened her eyes.

"W-why? Do you know me-?"

"I'm Mar'i. Mar'i Grayson."

Samantha's jaw dropped. "Mar'i! I can't believe it!" Sam hugged her tightly. "You're so young!"

She hugged her back, with a shy smile. "Yeah! And you're so... Out of Bee's womb." After a while, she remembered the people she had seen earlier. "And- hum... What about the rest of them?"

Sam let go of the hug and let Mar'i observe better their cellmates. One of them was a blonde, blue-eyed boy. He raised his head to look at the girls.

"He's mute." Sam said.

"Mute? Wait..." She thought for a while. "Jericho?!"

Surprised, he was able only to stare at her. And she knew she was right.

His own son...?

Next to him, sat another boy, a little older, red-headed and pink-eyed. He looked directly at his observer, knowing what she wanted.

"I'm Bernard. Jinx's and Flash's son."

The next one, a girl, after a while, did the same. And then the next one. And the next.

They were all super heroes children.

Dick's daughter was finally understanding the whole situation. She remembered the Terra story, and her father's with the villain. Both had been his apprentice, but both managed to scape from his hands. He failed twice. Now he couldn't risk failing again. Slade was not planning to have a new student.

He wanted a whole army.

But a question remained in her mind. Why didn't he capture Connor?

"What about you?" One of the girls asked Mar'i, waking her up from her thoughts.

"I'm Mar'i." She said, after shaking her head slightly. "My parents are Richard and Kor'i. And I'll do what I can to help you to get out of here. That's a promise."


Robin stared at the ground, stunned and reaction-less. A few seconds passed by in silence, during which Connor waited the leader to process what he had just been told.

Suddenly, Robin finally spoke.

"I can't believe it."

"I know, I know, it's hard to-"

"Raven married Beast Boy?!"

Connor glared at him. "I've just told you that your daughter is Slade's new apprentice and that your team is being kept captive, which includes your girlfriend, and what shocked you the most was my parents' marriage?! C'mon, pull yourself together!"

The leader seemed to ignore his remark and got up abruptly.

"Uh, D- I mean... Robin?" Connor called, raising an eyebrow. "Where are you..."

"We need to get Mar'i and the titans back."

"Like I don't know that." The boy said, almost in monotone. Robin then turned his head around to look at Connor.

"I won't let him hurt any of them."

"But we need a plan!"

"It's the plan or time to act. Your choice."

Taking a deep breath, Raven's son rubbed his forehead and mumbled, loud enough for the titan to hear. "And you did say you used to be really impulsive..."

"You got a plan then?"

"I thought the same as you probably just did. Y'know. An old fashioned thing." He said, shrugging it off. "Like breaking into the villain's lair and rescuing the heroes. But... I guess that's not the best option we've got right now. Slade has everything under control..."

Robin crossed his arms, annoyed. "Apparently. As usual. But there's always something he misses. Always a blind spot." A punch on his own palm. "I just need to find it."

After a while thinking, Connor brought a hand to his chin. "But... She's your daughter. It's like trying to rob the same bank twice, isn't it?"

"Exactly. He knows how I acted. And he will expect her to act the same way." Robin then remembered something. "Right, but first, if we're gonna do this together, I want you to have this." A small titan comunicator was taken out of his utility belt. "In case we get separated."

Connor raised an eyebrow. "You carry extra comunicators with you all the time?!"

"... ... Don't be ungrateful, just take it."

The boy gave a shrug and took the device.

"Ouch..." A complaint came from the trees nearby. Robin turned around and walked closer to it; to see Beast Boy walking towards him, weakly.

"Beast Boy!" The leader rushed to help him to walk. He put one of Beast Boy's arms around his shoulders. "Are you ok?"

The titan frowned. "Sort of. Where's everyone?" He asked as soon as he scanned his surroundings, worry speaking louder than pain.

"They're alive, but Slade took them. Connor and I are trying to plan a rescue mission."

"Who?"

When Robin looked at where Raven's son was, there was no one else to meet his gaze. He searched around a couple of times, yelling his name.

"CONNOR!"

But he was gone.


Mar'i paced back and forth inside the cell, while the others stared at her impatiently.

"Could you please stop pacing?!" Sam asked, annoyed.

Mar'i looked at her. She was too anxious and too frustrated to get angry at her at that moment. So the girl decided to let it go.

"Sorry." She said. "I'm trying to think about something but I... I can't."

"Just wait a while, maybe a few minutes. They'll open the doors."

Starfire's daughter rolled her eyes. "And what makes you think that?"

"They'll bring him. Soon, I guess."

That brought Mar'i's attention.

"What did you just say?"

"The boy." Sam answered with a shrug. It seemed it was something natural for her.

Mar'i's eyes went from Sam to the others, asking for an explanation. Jinx's son decided to talk.

"The boy. He was here before me, and among us, I'm the one who's been here for the longest. When they put me in here, I got a glimpse of him being taken away. And then we only heard his screams."

"He was being tortured?"

"We believe so." He answered the girl. "But we've never seen him."

"Okay... But you've got no idea ab-?"

Suddenly, the noise of the door being unlocked covered the little room. All the kids and teens stood up immediately.

And then the boy was pushed towards them; and the door was locked again.

Mar'i couldn't breathe. She had never felt such a pain before. Her hands started to shake while she walked towards Connor.

His face was way paler than it used to be; his eyes, tired, had purple bags under them; his clothes, torn apart and dirty. He had bruises all over his arms. Mar'i was about to touch him; but he tried to avoid her touch as hard as he could.

That was not the boy she knew. Slade was able to destroy her best friend.

And he was going to pay.


"Connor?" Sam asked, looking at the boy, shocked. Mar'i was only able to nod in response. She couldn't stop feeling like a big part of herself had been destroyed along.

All the kids looked, wide-eyed, at the boy. Mar'i waited a while and approached him slowly, taking careful steps.

"Con... Look at me." She said, raising her hand to touch him. "It's me."

Connor blinked for a while, as if waking up from a dream. He squeezed his eyes at the girl.

"Mar'i?"

"Thank God..." She whispered, as she brought her hands to his face, holding his cheeks. "What did they... How are you here, I left you..."

"They kidnapped and t-tortured me..."

"But... Why? Did they say anything about their plan?"

"No. They turned a machine on that fired lighting bolts at my head; and after some minutes I felt much weaker."

The girl shook her head. "I swear to you, Con. I'll make them pay for all they did to you and I'll get everyone out of here. I promise."

Connor smiled sadly at her words. He took her hand into his and spoke quietly.

"Don't say that. Don't make promises you don't know you can keep."

The girl shivered. She had the feeling that those words were from someone else. Connor was always hopeful, he always saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

And at that moment, that light seemed to fade into darkness.


Author Notes:

So, things just got a little more complicated. We're now heading to the climax.

Hope to keep you here for a few more chapters XD Maybe two or three. More like two.

Thanks (again) to everyone who's reading this fic! It means a lot. And thank you for your wonderful reviews.

Till the next update!

;)