Disclaimer:

I don't own any of the characters or places I use in this story, they are all owned by DC comics.

Note: This chapter damn near killed me and I think it may show towards the end. Please note that I won't be able to update for at least another six days due to a much increased work load. Happy reading. Or not actually.

Series One Finale – Part Two

Riot

Nightwing grinned as he slammed another criminal's face through the brittle glass of a shop window. The bald man slumped in his grip as he lost his grip on consciousness, his head falling from the hero's fingers to hit the ground with a meaty sound of collision. Nightwing sighed with relief as the last of this particular gang of criminals was finally stopped, just outside the gothic gateway to Jump City Prison, affectionately named 'The Last Jump'. With a grunt he launched himself from his slightly hunched position into a full on sprint, his eyes set on reaching the gate itself. Bullets flew through the air from the nearby prison walls. Nightwing swore but carried on running, the bullets chipping tarmac off the road as they narrowly missed him. With a perfect baseball slide he slipped past the line of fire and into the huge stone and metal gate. He looked up at the haggard looking prison guards, police officers and his team mates. Red X was slumped against a nearby wall, a red gadget currently being toyed with between his fingers. Argent smiled tiredly at Nightwing and Jinx lent against her silver skinned friend. Nightwing smirked,

"Everyone alright then?" he asked with a faked casual attitude. The prison guards and police officers looked at him as if he'd gone mad but the Outsiders just laughed,

"Better than you birdy." Red X bit back with a smirk behind his face mask. Nightwing pushed himself back up to his feet and pointed at Red X, his serious leader attitude back,

"X, I need you to start scouting the east side of the prison. We've been told that their aren't any hostages there but I don't like surprises." He ordered, his voice changing to a commanding tone that broke no argument. Red X saluted, only half mockingly, before disappearing down one of the shadowy corridors that ran off from the gate. He turned to Jinx and Argent and the two girls groaned,

"We've got baby sitting duty?" Jinx half asked, half groaned. Nightwing smirked a little but nodded sternly. Argent sighed,

"Well it's better than trying to keep up with him." She pointed out, giving Nightwing a dirty look. Nightwing smirked again,

"Hey, it's not my fault you two don't believe in training." He commented dryly. Jinx flipped him the bird before trotting over to the tired group of guards and cops. Nightwing was about to leave when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned back, finding Argent holding him back. She smiled, a small and uncertain smile,

"Can we talk for a minute?" she asked, uncharacteristically quiet. Nightwing's leader instincts began to flash. Something was holding Argent back and he needed to sort it out or start preparing for her funeral.

He blinked, taken aback by his own deduction. His instincts were harsh. He shook his head to clear it before smiling down at Argent, his own smile a dazzling mixture of confidence and reassurance,

"Sure Argent, we can go into the booking room if you want." He responded, gesturing at the small room off to one side of the main gate's archway. The silver skinned Goth nodded meekly before leading him into the small room. Nightwing sat down in the leather chair of the booth and spun it round to watch her close the door behind her. Argent took a deep breath,

"Richard… we need to talk about…" her face flushed red, "about us."

Nightwing unclenched his muscles, only now aware that he'd tensed up so much as to pull all of his muscles taunt. The chair's arms groaned as he stopped the pressure he'd applied to them. His small smile finally managed to reapply itself,

"What about us?" he asked, trying not to see that the answer was obvious. Argent's cheeks flushed an even darker red but she slowly moved closer to him. Nightwing's eyes widened as the silver skinned Goth crawled onto his lap and leant down close to his face, her breath playing across his neck,

"I want there to be an… us." She stated simply, reaching down further still to kiss his neck lightly. Nightwing flinched, as if the kiss was burning hot, and managed to wriggle away from Argent until he was standing and she was the one sitting down in the chair. He backed up until his back was against the door,

"Look, Toni… you're probably just acting this way because of the stress of battle and this… this isn't what you want." He tried to convince her. Argent's face scrunched up and Nightwing felt his heart lurch. She chocked back a sob and threw herself at him, her arms wrapping around him in a possessive hug. He stared down at the girl crying into his costume for a minute before wrapping his own arms around her. Argent chuckled through her continued sobbing,

"Good thing you're suit is water proof…" she muttered wetly. Nightwing chuckled a little as well,

"Well I have to say that it wasn't designed to keep tears out." He teased gently. Argent sighed in his arms, apparently liking the feeling of being held by him,

"You love her don't you?" she asked suddenly. Nightwing blinked a few times,

"Who?" he asked quickly, a little too quickly. Argent smiled and nuzzled his chest affectionately,

"Raven… you really love her don't you?" she asked again. He paused for a minute to think about his response. Before his accident the answer would have been a hesitant yes. After the accident it would have been a definitely yes. But after her response at the wake… he didn't know anymore. He'd bared himself, as Richard Grayson no less, and she'd told him that they were just friends. He shook his head slightly,

"I think I do Toni. She… some of her words have cut me deep but…" he felt his eyes beginning to tear up behind his domino mask, "I love her anyway Toni."

Argent squeezed him lightly in the hug,

"So what about me Richard?" she whispered, almost too quiet to hear. Nightwing smiled and squeezed back,

"I've been told I make an excellent brother." He replied lightly. Argent sniffed loudly,

"I think I can live with that. As long as this little sister is allowed to crush on her big brother."

"Didn't Freud say something about that?"

"Not unless you want to have a daughter figure with a crush on you."

"Point taken. Sister with manageable crush on big brother it is then I guess."

Raven was beyond tired now. She'd been tired an hour ago, when she'd helped the rest of the Titans stop a runaway oil tanker that had been hijacked by one of the escaped convicts. Now, after five hours of constant power use and improvised martial arts at certain points, she was physically and emotionally empty. She was still using her powers, but she was on autopilot. Street lamps exploded from the ground they were supposed to be bolted to and flew across the tarmac to slam into larger groups of convicts who were attempting to swarm her.

Just as the last hundred or so convicts had tried.

She sighed as single man made a run towards her, a crowbar raised high above his head with obviously murderous intent. With an automatic flick of her wrist, Raven's powers had twisted the man's hands around in a complete circle. Both of his wrists broke smoothly and he fell to the ground, screaming in agony. Raven floated over to the kneeling man and silenced him with a swift kick to the temple. Her eyes flickered slightly and she turned round to find a completely deserted street.

The foes she'd defeated earlier had either been collected by the police or had limped off to lick their wounds. The other Titans were nowhere to be seen, having been pulled back to a medical station set up in the ruined police station on Fifth Street. She'd stayed because she was slowly healing herself anyway, that and she was the one most suited for this kind of fighting. This wasn't the flashy battles with HIVE; this wasn't even the covert duels with Slade. This was dirty, filthy, fighting in the alleyways and the streets. Anything was allowed in a fight like this. The police had started to use heavy machine guns to defend the medical and relief stations on the edges of the city, the National Guard had stopped taking prisoners hours ago and instead began executing anyone who surrendered.

There would be hell to pay for their handling of the situation when everything was normal again. But things weren't normal right now. Hell seemed to have crawled out of the broken prison with the convicts, its tendrils streaming outwards to incite the killing, the raping and the burning. The city was on fire.

Her darker instincts loved it.

For once, two of her most different emotions had come together to support her handling of the situation. Hatred loved the way that she was allowed to sink to any depth as long as she stemmed the tide of human filth running down the street towards her. Justice loved the way that she had given herself up completely and thrown herself into saving the innocent and punishing the wicked with righteous fury and pain.

For a second she glanced to the night sky, the midnight stars tainted orange by the roaring fires of the city's financial district. As coincidence would have it, during that second, a blue and red blur flew through the air above her. Raven allowed herself a small smile as she watched Superboy soar towards the prison, the centre of the problem. The end was coming at last.

Unfortunately, that was true.

Nightwing stood there in a state of total shock, his re-entrance to the gate was so startling. His fingertips went numb before they started to tingle, not the pleasant tingling of a lover's touch but the painful tingling of many thousands of pin tips being pressed to the skin. His hands shook uncontrollably, shaking fast enough to blur slightly in his tear-clouded vision. With great effort he raised his right hand to his face, his blistering fingertips reaching the lip of his domino mask. He shuddered with effort as he willed his fingers to obey him. The mask fell away and his tears began to slowly roll down his face, their path no longer barred.

Before him the gateway lay in ruins, twisted metal and discarded stone strewn across the ground as if the area had suffered from a massive explosion. Hands, arms and legs jutted out from under rubble while the hips and shoulders they attached to were across the gateway. But his eyes were drawn to a body which seemed to have been laid out in the centre of the hall purposefully.

Nightwing took a few shuddering steps forwards before falling to his knees beside Jinx's corpse, her pink hair resting in a pool of dark red blood. With a choking sob he reached down to rest a hand on her pale face, a look of shock and confusion still etched into her features. He slowly lowered her eyelids with his fingers, careful not to touch the eyes themselves. Falling back slightly his eyes rested upon the gaping red mess of a wound in her chest cavity. A clinical part of his mind informed him that Jinx's heart seemed to be missing from its resting place behind her ribs. Another part of his mind wailed like a madman at the loss of a friend.

His sorrow was cut short however, when another part of mind took control.

All consuming and burning anger blossomed from deep within his chest, spreading through his body to banish all of the weaknesses exposed by his sadness. His fingers became stiff and ready. His fists balled, tightening up muscles all along his arms. And his eyes settled into a heated gaze.

Rage was consuming him, he knew this.

Nightwing pulled himself to his feet and began to walk out of the gate, towards the source of continuous smashing sounds. His blood pounded in his ears and the edge of his vision began to blur, not with tears but with the tunnel vision of pure hatred and anger.

Rage was consuming him, and he didn't care.

The source of the crashing sounds became apparent as he turned the corner into the prison's exercise yard. A teenage boy, no doubt around his own age of seventeen, was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a black shirt with a red S emblazoned on its front. But in his hand he held the front of Argent's dress. He was holding said hero off the ground with apparent ease and he was in the process of smashing her back into the concrete of the exercise yard's wall.

This sight would normally have shocked Nightwing, Superboy was beating a fellow hero to death after all, but with rage clouding his mind he only thought of one thing. How could he make Superboy suffer huge amounts of pain before his death?

His new escrima sticks came to mind first and their 'little secret' was perfect for this battle. Flicking said sticks off of his back; Nightwing slid into a battle stance and flicked a switch on the baton-like sticks. Both weapons began to glow with an eerie green light and Superboy stopped moving suddenly. The Kryptonian slowly turned to regard the glowing sticks with wide eyes. Nightwing growled,

"Put Argent down. Right. Now." He ordered sharply, his grip tightening on his two weapons. Superboy complied, dropping Argent to the ground where she lay in a heap. Nightwing narrowed his unrestricted eyes, "What the hell have you done Conner?"

Superboy's eyes flashed a light green,

"I am to punish those who do not follow the law." He replied, his voice twinned with a mechanic voice, "It is my mission to rid this country of all law-breakers. Their punishment is always death."

Nightwing gritted his teeth so hard that he began to feel that he was causing himself a headache,

"I'm going to beat the crap out of you, no matter how you justify your actions." He seethed, slowly beginning to circle his opponent. Superboy shrugged,

"You will try, but you are an inferior hero. You have no powers or special talents." He replied in the same duel voice. Nightwing smirked lightly, twirling his escrima sticks,

"We'll see how inferior I am when I'm standing over your broken body."

"You humans are all so delusional."

Le Gasp! What's this?

Superboy has turned evil! Most uncool!

Will Nightwing and his glowing sticks (If you don't know what the glow is then my hinting is getting weaker by the day) beat the Kryptonian powerhouse?

Or will our hero be destroyed due to his lack of powers?

How will Raven help Robin now that he's in a duel to the death with one of the universe's most powerful beings?

And where the hell are Red X, Batgirl and Supergirl?

The answers to all these questions, and a badass fight scene, will be seen in the next chapter,

Series One Finale, Part Three – Dedicated