Chapter 14: The Search for Dick Grayson, Part 2, The Rise of Nightwing!
Disclaimer, SuperHeroFan does not own DC comics, Tales of Symphonia, Yugioh, One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, or anything else I forgot to mention. I mean if I did I wouldn't be posting this here in the first place!
The following happens at the same as Chapters 12 and 13.
Dick Grayson's POV
When I left the Teen Titans, I had every intention of coming back, I still wanted to be a hero, I still wanted to be with my friends. But how? How am I supposed to go back after Batman said that I can no longer be Robin? I understand where he's coming from. I did leave Gotham, but only because I wanted out of the shadow of the Bat. But, I can't do that without the Robin identity, I didn't know what to do. So I did what any logical person wanting to continue their super-hero career would do. Seek advice from the worlds most well known hero. Superman of course. After I had grabbed all my stuff from Titans Tower, I activated a device that made my motorcycle appear like an ordinary one, hiding the Robin symbol on it. I then put on some normal clothing and I started to drive my bike to Metropolis.
As I rode on my bike, I looked back. I felt bad about just leaving the team without an explanation. But I needed to do this without them. I needed to be able to go back, and have accomplished something from this.
'ding dong' I was at an apartment and it was quite late, someone came to the door.
"Hello?" a man, wearing glasses, asked.
"Hello Mr. Kent, may I come in?" I asked.
"Who are you?" Clark Kent asked.
"I am Richard Grayson." I said. "I believe you know of Bruce Wayne?"
"Oh, come on in Richard." Clark said, opening up the door for me. I went in and sat down.
"So what is it you want to talk about?" Clark asks as he sits down across from me.
"Well, Bruce has asked me to give up the Robin identity."
"What? But your were like a son to him!" Clark seemed a bit shocked, but he didn't over-react.
"Well it was my fault for just leaving Gotham." I explained. "We kept clashing on how we thought we should do things, and I didn't feel I was being respected as much as I should have been. I wanted to get out of his shadow, and do my own thing. But now he's found someone new to be Robin, and wants me to give it up, because I left. He said that this is a consequence I have brought upon myself."
"Well Bruce is right." Clark answered.
"What?!" I yelled, standing up.
"But so are you. Both of your points are valid. He wants to train a new Robin, and you want to step out and be your own person, and not stand in his shadow." Clark calmly responded. "But, there is a way to give both of you what you want."
"How?" I asked eagerly.
"Let me tell you about something I know of, from Krypton." He said. " Before my world was destroyed, before I was even born, a man was cast out for his belief that criminals should be taken more seriously, and he made an important decision, just like you will need to."
"Okay," I spoke, looking at by bag, it still had my Titan communicator in it.
"Well he decided that he would become a hero, not so different from the one you have already become, and may yet aspire to be. He took the identity of Nightwing, and fought crime with his friend, Flamebird for many years."
"Wait!" It seemed a light-bulb had been turned on in my head. "Nightwing! Thats it! When Starfire was taken to the future by that time travelling guy, Warp was his name*, she said that she met the future me, and that I called myself Nightwing! It all seems so clear! Its not in just that corrupted future I take that name, but in this one as well! Thank you Mr. Kent! Thanks for talking to me!" I grabbed my bag and was on my way to the door, I couldn't go fast enough. "Bye Mr. Kent!" I closed the door, and already knew where I would go.
THIRD PERSON
"Uh, Bye Richard." Clark said, quickly after Dick Grayson had left. "Huh, I guess I could have made my speech shorter if I had just said 'Nightwing'."
TRANSITION! (Several days later.)
Back to Dick Grayson's POV.
"It's ready!" I exclaimed, holding up my new costume, it was predominantly black, and had a blue Bird across the chest, it took the shape of a filled in V with a bird head, and indents to look like wings. It also had blue lines along the arms as well. I painted some of my Robin utility belts black so that I could still use those weapons with my new costume, although I've got some new ones as well. I put it on, and it fitted nicely. Now that my costume was ready I headed to the airport, my costume, (Minus the metal) was underneath my normal clothing. As I pay for my stay at the hotel, I see the lobby television on a news station,
"Superman has been sighted near the same hulking beast that seemingly killed him several years ago, but several new faces have also appeared, and seem to be helping the man of steel against this monster, and the other villains, whose powers are very similar to Superman himself." I saw Tyler as he clashed with a large hulking beast, and an eruption of energy seemed to come from the two, and the camera went off-line as the screen became fuzzy.
'The team is here, and they need my help.' I thought, running to the outside of the hotel I ran into a back alley with no one around, and quickly pulled out my tools and put on my entire costume. I then ran to my motor cycle, hoping on it and driving towards the outskirts of the city.
"Lightning!!!" A voice rings out, and soon, it strikes the ground right in front of me, barely giving me time to stop.
"What, was that?" I asked aloud,
"It was I." a blue haired individual, with a double edged sword, wearing a long cloak, stepped from the shadows. "my name is Yuan, and your going to have to come with me."
"I don't think so." I said defiantly, throwing a birdarang at him, which he blocked with his huge sword that was taller than he is. In that moment I hit the gas, driving away as fast as I could,
"You can run all you want, but I will capture you boy!" Yuan called after me. I turned a corner, trying to get away from him, but this time someone else was in my way. I slammed on my brakes,
"Beast Boy?" he was the one in my way, but he was wearing a very different outfit than he usually does. In fact it looked more like battle armour than anything else. Which meant, this Beast Boy was really a clone, being controlled by that Yuan guy.
"Well, now that you can't go anywhere." Yuan was already behind me, "It's time for you to give up," he held up his sword, "Before I'm forced to kill you."
"I'm not going to give up that easily." I retorted, I grabbed two smoke bombs from my belt, and threw them to the ground, and drove my motorcycle as fast as I could towards the Beast Boy clone, speeding past him before he could sense me. As I got to a parking lot, I ditched the bike, and used a grappling hook to get to the roof. But as I climbed up.....
"I told you, you can't get away." Yuan said, he was on what looked like a miniature airplane.
"What do you want?" I asked, pulling out a collapsable staff,
"What I want, is to resurrect my beloved Martel, but I can't do that if your not stopped!" Yuan roared, jumping off his plane and slashing at me with his double bladed sword. I quickly jumped out of the way, barely escaping Yuan's blade as it crashed on the roof-top.
"I'm not stopped?" I asked, "I'm not the one trying to murder someone with a sword as tall as I am." I flung a throwing disc at him, and it exploded in Yuan's face, giving me the time to jump to another nearby rooftop. Only to have a green gorilla try to punch me in the face.
"Ha ha, you actually thought such a pathetic attack would be enough to stop me!" Yuan said. "Why should I fight you myself, when you won't even fight a mere clone of your friend."
"Wait you know who I am?" I asked.
"Well its not very hard to figure out that you used to be, what did you call yourself? Oh yes, Robin. I mean, you change your suit's colours and suddenly you think no one will recognize you? You even have the same hairstyle as before, the only difference is that you don't have a cape, you wear all black and blue, and you just have a bird on your chest. I've known about you for less than two months and I can figure it OUCH!" during Yuan's pointless rant, I slammed him in the face with my staff, leaping past him and jumping down between two buildings, swinging from the fire escape to slow my fall as I landed safely on the ground. I ran as fast as I could towards my motorcycle, but once again a bolt of lightning nearly hit me, but it seemed to move on its own just as it came over my head...
"get down!" A voice called to me. I jumped out of the way as the lightning seemed to go back in the direction it came from, which is impossible....
"OUCH!" I heard Yuan yelp as his own lightning hit him, I turned to see who or what had caused it,
"Hurry this way Nightwing we need to get away from him!" A boy no older than myself said. He had on a blue shirt, which sported 2 large lightning bolts. He also had similarly styled pants. He even had a lightning bolt shape that was over his right eye. He also had a belt buckle with gold and black, symbol. The letter 'L' was on the buckle and was also gold.
"Who are you, and how is it everyone knows my new hero identity before I have told anyone!" I yelled,
"Hurry before he gets up." the boy threw a small shiny object to me. "Put this on," It turned out the object was a ring.
"What is it?" I asked slipping the gold ring that bore a gold 'L' on it as well.
"That is a legion flight ring." he said. "Hurry up."
"A flight ring? So as long as I wear this... I can fly?" I asked.
"Yes! It's already on so lets go!" he grabbed my arm and began to to pull me up, up and away.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Call me Lightning Lad." he answered.
"Okay Lightning Lad, do you realize that he's following us?"
"Not just him." Lightning Lad answered, "He seems to have brought friends." Lightning Lad indicated one clone each of Raven, Starfire, Beast Boy and Neji.
"We can't take them all."
^Yes we can, now that we are here to help.^ a female voice inside my head told me,
"wait who said that?" I looked around to see a girl, dressed in a red outfit. She wore a belt buckle identical to the one lightning lad wore, and she had a picture of what looked suspiciously like Saturn on her shirt.
"Nightwing, meet Saturn Girl." Lightning Lad said.
"Nightwing meet your end!" Yuan roared as he jumped to the building from his flying machine.
"All of the others are clones of my friends, and they are some how being controlled by his mind." I indicated Yuan as he pulled out his double bladed sword.
^Thats convenient^ Saturn Girl said. (?)
"How is that convenient?" I asked.
"Well Saturn Girl could use her power to redirect the clones back at him, allowing us to escape." Lightning Lad said.
"But what about her, if she gets hurt, she will have no one to help her!" I said.
^I'll be fine,^ Saturn Girl retorted, but I realized that she was putting her words in my head, without talking out loud.
"Who are you guys?" I demanded.
"We are from the Future, and we are two of the founding members of the Legion of Superheroes." Lightning Lad answered.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
^We'll explain later, get him out of here!^ Saturn girl yelled in my head.
"Time to go," Lightning Lad grabbed me and pulled me away from the battle as the clones all turned towards Yuan and began to attack him. But Saturn Girl seemed to be in pain as she fell to her knees as the clones hit Yuan, forcing him to fight back,
"Will she be all right?" I asked. Lightning Lad took me down to the ground and put me in a back alley,
"Run back to your motorcycle and get out of here, I'm going back for her."
"Why are you here!?" I asked again.
"Because history said that today, the people found you dead here in metropolis, we just saved your life," but as Lightning Lad said this, he started to fade,
"What is happening to you?" I asked.
"If we don't make some necessary changes to the past, our future will cease to exist." Lightning Lad said. "Certain people whom we had no knowledge of before are appearing in our history, and heroes who we know were to live longer are disappearing, and the future is changing as well. I'm here to prevent that, now go before I change to much!"
I ran back to my Motorcycle, I raced on the bike towards my stuff, I grabbed it and threw my normal clothing back on. Then I went back to Mr. Kent's apartment. As I drove, I saw the news on televisions in stores, the thing Tyler had been fighting was gone, and he had disappeared as soon as he had made sure everyone, and everything was back to normal. I even saw him in normal clothing as he went into the building with Mr. Kent, I hid back so that I wouldn't be seen. If the future was changing, that might mean that Starfire and the others could be in trouble. I waited all night in my new costume. And waited, and waited. Until finally, I got sick of waiting, and pulled out my Titans communicator. And I reconnected the power for it. Switching it on I spoke into it.
"This is Nightwing calling Tyler. I'm ready to come home Titans."
TO BE CONTINUED!
* This will make much more sense if you have seen the episode of the Teen Titans Tv series called "How Long is Forever?" In this episode, Starfire accidentally goes into the future 20 years with a villain. The villain, named Warp, Is only stopped after Starfire finds that the Titans have disbanded, and when she meets Robin's future counterpart, he calls himself Nightwing. Of course, she tells her friends of her adventures in the future, and tells Robin of the name he used in that future. Nightwing! So if you still don't get it, go watch it right now, and everything will be made clear!
Sorry this chapter took so long, I don't like having to write a story from only one character's point of view, and Robin/Nightwing is a hard character to write. My next chapter will be longer, I promise.
As for Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl, they are from the Legion of Super-heroes like Brainiac 5 a team based in the 31st century, but they won't appear very often if they ever do again. But they need to make sure our heroes know about the coming battle as it draws near, because they'll need all the help they can get. And if our protagonists lose, they (the Legion) won't exist anymore.
Please read and Review! I'll be back soon!