Chapter Twenty-Nine

Dick came out of his trance, looking at his clock to see that it was almost dawn, and he alarm was going off. He went to the main room and turned off the alarm, and checked the city to see which sector the villain was in and who the villain was. Dick groaned. It was none other than Superman himself.

"Well… I guess I owe Raven a congratulations. She suggested we take care of the situation before anything happened. Now… Well…"

Hey! Titans! A villain is on the loose! Get your asses out here! Nightwing demanded. The Titans all woke with a start, hurrying to get their clothes on and hurry to the sitting room, where they gathered around Nightwing, who looked around.

"Alright. Now, I guess Raven can say 'I told you so', now. Superman is on the loose. We need to defeat him without seriously injuring him. Remember that he's a hero like us."

"But… Superman is almost invulnerable! We can't defeat him!" Terra protested, her eyes wide with alarm. Dick laughed at this.

"Wrong. Magic, psychic powers, Kryptonite, and certain materials can get past his immense defenses. He's not immune to suffocation… If you're going to try though, I suggest making it fast. He can hold his breath a long time. Suffocation isn't the most efficient way of beating him.

"Titans, go!" Nightwing shouted, hurrying out of the window and landing on the ground below, being followed by the rest of the Titans, who were nervous, but determined. As they closed on Superman, it became obvious that he wasn't himself. His eyes were glowing red and he was surrounded by a red halo of energy, shooting blasts of fire at buildings and people. Superman turned to the Titans, grinning wickedly.

"Ahh… I was told by my master to exterminate all of you. You were such a problem last time that He believes that you're better off dead than in His way." Superman said, his voice seeming to resonate with a power that it had lacked before. Superman breathed deeply, and shouted, a huge blast resonating around the block, destroying everything in its way. The Titans dodged the worst of the blast while Beast Boy transformed into a Dragon ten times bigger than he ever had in the past.

It all happened so quickly. Beast Boy had barely turned into the dragon and breathed a long line of jet black flame when he was a huge swarm of the moths that Killer Moth had bred. They swarmed toward Superman, surrounding the man and biting, leaving the Kryptonian no time to counter. He tried everything in his arsenal; fire, laser vision, sonic shout. None of them seemed to get rid of enough moths to force him away.

After a few moments, the moths parted, only for Dick to move in, grabbing Superman's face and emitted a huge amount of electromagnetic energy. He had worked enough on his magic to know that he could, though this was the first time he had actually done it in combat. Superman roared in rage and agony as Nightwing coursed millions of volts of electricity into his body. In the next moment, he used his newly attained Molecular Manipulation to transmute air into gaseous Kryptonite.

It was harmless to Nightwing, but to Superman, it would cripple him temporarily. Nightwing used his telekinesis to control the Kryptonite and forced it in Superman's face. Superman's eyes widened. In the next second he laughed, though.

"Oh, Robin… Trigon has gifted me with a resistance to Kryptonite. So long as I serve him, I am highly resistant to Kryptonite… And much more powerful…" Superman said.

The mind controlled alien breathed in and all his wounds from Beast Boy's attacks healed. Superman then closed his eyes and opened them. A powerful laser that seemed incomparable to what it once was came out. Nightwing dodged, kicking Superman in the head, but seeming to do almost no damage. This was disturbing. Immediately, Nightwing grabbed Superman's face again, channeling electricity ten times as powerful as before into Superman's brain.

This time, it hurt, and he used the distraction to telepathically connect with Superman. He could feel an immense power behind the control. It was going to be difficult.

Raven. I need your help. Connect telepathically with me. I need more than just my own power to override Trigon's mind control on Superman. Nighwing said. Raven nodded, connecting with him and invading Superman's mind just as Dick was.

Between the two of them, they managed to invade Superman's mind, and move toward the center. Superman didn't make it easy for them though. As Dick and Raven fought to get in, Superman focused harder. Dick was finding a strange electricity coursing through his mind, making it difficult to focus. He could tell that Raven was feeling the same pain. Eventually, they made it, though, and Dick set off a mental bomb that would hopefully break Trigon's control over him.

As Superman stood back up, it became clear that the anti-mind control bomb didn't work. Superman flew at Dick, tackling him and punching him in the face, breaking his nose, despite the Soskotium in his bones. Since Dick had initially created Soskotium, he had made the compound far stronger. Its strength was nearly incomparable to any current metal, and it was almost fifty times as dense as the strongest current metal while still being only around a third as heavy as Lithium, the lightest known metal in the world.

His skeleton was only about a quarter heavier than it would normally be. He was working on adjusting to the extra weight, little though it may have been. A set of serrated claws came out of Dick's hands. His 'Wolverine Claws' as Beast Boy and Cyborg would have said, and he broke through Superman's tactile telekinesis shield that he had put up, cutting him rather severely, leaving a heavy wound on him as he tried again to contact his mind and break his mind control.

Beast Boy once again turned into a swarm of moths and swarmed around Superman while Cyborg made a huge telekinetic blast using his hand, which was once an energy blaster as the channel to create a focused blast, mixing it with energy from one of his normal blasts, hitting Superman dead in the head, dazing him and sending him flying backwards. When he opened his eyes, Terra immediately intensified gravity in his immediate vicinity while decreasing gravity in her allies' vicinity.

Starfire created endothermic plasma directly surrounding Superman, causing ice to begin to form around the frighteningly powerful alien, slowing him down. Superman dodged Jason's bullets, which continued to follow him, flying in an unpredictable pattern, zigging and zagging around Clark, eventually leaving slight cuts on him until finally, the three bullets sank directly into his knees, releasing their individual effects.

One was a cryo bullet, freezing his muscles, making it hard for him to move them without tearing them. One was neurotoxic at a level that would even affect Superman, and the third was explosive, blowing up inside Superman, taking a big chunk out of his calf. His bones were strong enough that an explosion wouldn't destroy them, but several cracks appeared down his thigh bone and the knee joint.

Superman roared as the simultaneous cooling and heating of his bones and muscles caused cracks in his bones and tears in his leg muscles. Dick used the opportunity once more to enter Superman's mind and scramble his brain, making it easier to get through and finally scramble the signal that Trigon was using to control him. Superman's eyes widened as his glowing red eyes changed back to blue, and he sank back to earth, collapsing as his feet touched because of the damage to his legs.

"Thank you, Dick… Thank you for stopping me. I'm so sorry for what I've done." Superman said, seeming deeply ashamed of himself.

"I understand." Dick said, walking up to Clark and putting a hand on him, healing his injuries before putting his hand on his head and enhancing his resistance to mind control.

"I've enhanced your ability to resist mind control, because let's face it. You end up getting mind controlled like every other week, and it's not something the world can afford, especially now that Trigon is coming back. We'll need you to be at your best to fight him with us. I advise you to practice your resistance with mental exercises. Raven and I can help if you like." Dick said. Superman nodded.

"I would appreciate that. Thank you." Clark said quietly.

"But if you would allow it, I need to return to Metropolis."

"Leave us your mental signature. That way we can practice your mind control resistance, even when you can't find the time to come all the way to Jump City." Dick said, contacting Superman's mind and feeling it until he was confident that he could find it even from a distance. He would share he knowledge with Raven, who could easily reach Superman, even from all the way on the other side of the country.

"Alright… I better be going. Call me whenever you need me." Superman said. Dick nodded.

"Oh, don't worry. We will need you, and when we do, you'll instantly be teleported to our location to help us fight Trigon. I've planned everything out. All the Titans, Batman, whoever his current Robin is, all of us, you will be there." Dick said. Superman nodded, not quite sure why Dick had such an easy time ordering him around. But given how he had been beaten so soundly, maybe it came with the new powers.

Superman set off, heading back to Metropolis, while Dick headed around, using his telekinesis and molecular manipulation to repair the damages done to the city before apologizing to the populace, who weren't in much of a position to refuse his apology, especially when he was personally taking on the role of fixing the damage done. Cyborg helped as well, using his energy beam to weld what could be welded and fix with just plain telekinesis what needed to be done.

Finally, they headed back to their tower and began to plan. The end was coming soon, and whatever happened, things would never be quite the same. Dick brought the Titans down to the training room and set it at 1:24, meaning that as an hour of outside time went by, 24 hours went by in the room.

He commanded the room to create Trigon at full power, namely at 10, and the entire time was spent battling against a nearly invincible being that was able to call negative copies of each of the Titans to do his fighting for him. By the end of almost six hours of outside time, they had finally exhausted all their energy, and collapsed. Dick called off the program and set magic and psychic replenishing pheromones to be released throughout the tower and absorbed bioenergy from most of the trees in Jump City.

After he had collected the energy, he revived his fellow Titans, and had them go to their rooms to rest for a while. Although only six hours went by outside, they had been training for almost a straight week in that room, and their enhanced abilities were showing. They were becoming much more skilled, much more powerful as they trained more, and soon, they would be ready to fight even people like Slade, and hopefully Trigon as well.

As Nightwing went up to the sitting area, the screen of the television came on, and Artemis, Hecate and Athena came on the screen.

"Hello, Nightwing. We see that you've become much more skilled at using your abilities. Well, that's not really the reason we've called. We understand that the grey woman's father is coming back, and that His coming will signal the end of the world. This happened once before, but you were able to send Satan back, correct?" Hecate asked. Nightwing nodded.

"Yes… Why? Are you looking to assist us in our battle?"

"Yes… And no. We have no desire to fight with you. But our desire to see the world end is even less. We will assist you in any way we can. If you need training, we can oblige. If you want weapons that will be effective against Satan, we can secure them for you. Our job will not be on the front lines. We're petty thieves, not warriors." Athena said. Nightwing nodded.

"I can secure any weapons we need for myself. But thank you. If you want to help us battle Trigon, we wouldn't say no. I'm sure we can use all the help we can get." Dick said. Artemis considered it for a moment, then smirked.

"We'll think about it. No promises. However, we could use any protection you can give us from Trigon's petrification magic."

"Figure that out on your own. Hecate, you have magic. You can protect yourself and your allies." Dick said. Hecate shrugged.

"I wouldn't know. I've never used that type of magic. Most of the magic I use is necromancy. Reviving the dead and harming the living… Those are my specialties." Hecate said. Nightwing shrugged.

"Well… I can't help you, still, since I don't know where you are."

"That's no problem. We're directly outside the tower. Come down. We can promise you there will be no fight between us. We bear you no grudge. We were doing what we do, and you did what you had to do. You failed last time, though given the increase in your abilities, I'm sure you'd do much better this time." Athena said with a genuine smile. Nightwing nodded as Raven came into the room.

She was only dressed in her night shirt and underwear.

"Hey, Rae… You wanna join me down in the foyer. We've got some guests that I don't want to face alone." Dick asked. Raven yawned widely, nodding and walking down with him to the entrance to the tower, where Raven gasped as she saw who it was… The three women who had even beaten her. It was well known that she had at one point been the most powerful of the Titans.

Even still, Hecate, Artemis and Athena had beaten her as if she were still a child. It had partly been the surprise that there were enemies so powerful out there that she couldn't handle them, but it had also legitimately been that they were immensely powerful.

"Hey there, cutie… You look good all disheveled like that." Artemis said flirtatiously, gently cupping Raven's cheek, her breath warm on Raven's face.

Raven swiped her hand at Artemis, who back flipped away from Raven, winking at her.

"I like a strong willed woman. Maybe consider ditching this square and joining me instead." The bow woman said. Dick decided to cut that fight off before it could start.

"Why don't you tell us what you want?"

"A magical defense against Trigon's petrification ability. Otherwise, how could we possibly assist you in the fight against him?" Hecate demanded. Nightwing nodded, and took a deep breath, creating three tiny bubbles of glowing energy, and sending them into the bodies of the three women, where they glowed temporarily and then settled down.

"There. Now leave, unless you really are hoping to provoke Raven into an attack?"

"Oh, no. We would never want that…" Artemis said with a laugh. Hecate put her hand up, though and the three seemed to disappear on the spot.