Part 3

"Cyborg! Shut down!" Robin shouted as he pulled a controller from his belt.

"What?! Are you crazy? What if they-"

Robin however, had no time. Keeping his bo staff on hand while the controller was in the other. Both his eyes never left Slade's "Just trust me, it'll only be a minute."

In the face of Robin's grim determination, Cyborg complied. "Alright. Activating temporary shut down." Cyborg pressed a button on his arm now, and within seconds his entire body slowly became inactive. His blue cybernetic armour slowly faded to a grey as the half-human, half robotic titan stood still, frozen like a statue.

"An interesting plan Robin. Disable one Titan for me….Just what are you trying to do?" Slade asked mockingly. "Use your friend as a rag doll shield?"

Robin gave a grin, a grin he rarely gave to someone as dangerous as Slade. "You are aware of an Electro Magnetic Pulse right?" He flashed the controller in front of Slade's face. The villain's eyes opened wide in surprise. "Thought so."

Robin pressed the button.

The entire tower was shaking now; a blast emerged from Robin's laboratory. Only it wasn't an explosion per say, it was more like a wave. The air around them shook violently and became distorted in rippling waves. Beast Boy ran to catch a deactivated Cyborg as he tipped over from the earthquake, while Raven and Starfire covered their ears from the sound waves that shook the building. The wave passed the Titans harmlessly, although its effects were becoming apparent. Each one of Slade's robots was twitching uncontrollably now, their circuits fried by the resulting electric and magnetic fields that reverberated out of Robin's lab. The large heavy androids fell down now, like useless dolls, while other Slade bot's had their faces blown up, a horrible mess of circuitry and wires spewing forth.

Starfire, in the midst of all this, finally understood what Robin had been working on in his lab since the first day they saw Slade. But why didn't he tell them?

Her thoughts however, were interrupted as a series of explosions shook the room. In an instant, the hundreds of Slade bots that surrounded the Titans were destroyed.

The smoke began lifting now, revealing the angry silhouette of Slade, who stood in front of Robin, fists gripped. It seemed to everyone that Robin had uncharacteristically planned ahead of Slade for once.

"Looks like you're the one who's outnumbered Slade. At least this time I know you're not a robot". Robin commented on the fact that Slade was still standing even after the EMP, he was real this time, living and breathing.

There was no humour in Robin's voice, and he resumed his combat stance with the Bo staff. Cyborg, who restarted now, wondered out loud how the hundreds of Robot bodies around them suddenly just shut down. Soon however, the titans readied themselves for the next attack.

Slade, whom at first seemed to be shaking with rage, quickly resumed his calm stance; his gripped fists suddenly stopped shaking. He was chuckling in his usual sophisticated tone now as he gave an ironic clap of his hands.

"Impressive Robin, you have shown your skills well. Good coordination and execution, as well as thoughtful advanced planning. And you wonder why I chose you as my apprentice? But at what price? You could have triggered the bomb earlier, instead, you wait until your team is exhausted after a full night of fighting. And all…just to drag me here? Now was that worth it?"

"Shut up Slade," Robin said scornfully. "Its over."

"Sadly it isn't, skilled as you may be as my apprentice, I am still the master. You see… I too think one step ahead."

Robin stood dumbfounded there for a second. He had seen through Slade's siege, but there was another plan? Perhaps he was bluffing.

Robin however, got his answer less than a second later. The floor began shaking violently now, and the Titans quickly crowded around each other as beams from the ceiling collapsed onto the floor, while rock and rubble cracked around them. Slade however, just stood calmly in front of them.

Beast Boy however, knew what was going on. "He's still controlling Terra!" he ran towards Slade now, in the hopes of perhaps disabling whatever controller he was carrying.

Slade merely smirked. "Once again my friend, you are wrong."

Beast Boy stopped just inches from Slade now, not because he was frightened or anything, but because a huge red wall of lasers suddenly sprouted out from the ground. A series of laser beams surrounded the titans now, circling them and cutting a neat circle around them.

"Going down Titans?" Slade said tauntingly just before the ground gave way.

The five titans fell at least two hundred feet into a cavern now, a cavern that looked all too familiar to Raven and Robin. This was where Slade had planned to sink their tower many months ago, apparently, he was still using it.

Starfire, drained of her energy, tried her best to carry all her friends, along with Raven, but the two girls simply did not have the strength to fly for that long and soon, both plummeted with their friends to the bottom of the pit. Steel girders, gears, and elevators ringed the complex, while the team landed on the remains of a wrecked computer console. The resulting crash brought up a torrent of dust and smoke. The Titans groaned as they tried recovered from the fall.

"Is everyone Ok?" Robin asked assertively as he tried to regain his bearings.

"I'm alright, I landed on something soft." Raven commented.

"That….was me." Beast Boy said, his eyes still spinning wildly from the fall, another huge bruise began appearing on his head now, next to the old one that Raven gave to him at the quarry days ago.

"Aw man, the fall trashed my light, now how am I supposed to see?" Cyborg complained. In that instant, the lights of the complex came to life, along with the whirring of machinery around them. The entire room was now lighted, clear as day.

"Finally!" Cyborg said as he clapped the dust off his hands. "some consideration at last."

"Um Cyborg…I don't think that was for us." Raven commented.

Cyborg gave a confused look at Raven, "What? What do you-" He stared at the walls now, and watched with horror as he realized that there were eyes staring at them. Hundreds of them, cold robotic eyes that belonged to Slade's best Robot commandos, who had hidden themselves on the steel beams along the walls.

Then Beast Boy had to say it.

"Dude…can it get any more worse than this?"

The ground shook again, and the familiar Mechanical whirring of a huge drill echoed through the chamber. The ground beneath the platform they were on erupted now, and out sprouted the gigantic ten story robotic worm. The one remaining worm that they had failed to destroy days ago, its six laser beam eyes charged as it scanned the five titans, who could only watch in awe as the worm revealed its true size, dominating the room as well as blocking out much of the lighting from the walls.

"Do you always have to open your mouth like that?" Raven commented, slightly annoyed.

The fight did not last long. The Titans had been fighting for over a day non-stop. Raven was the first to give out, her powers drained to the point where she lost conciousness. Starfire followed soon after, knocked out by a laser blast from the worm's eyes.

Cyborg, his battery drained, did not have the power to use his weaponry, which meant that he was quickly overwhelmed as two dozen Slade drones jumped from the girders, resulting in a giant pile up which left the android titan helpless.

That left Robin and Beast Boy, and immediately the two began squaring off against Slade's robot commandos. Robin, his bo staff lost in the fall, was using his twin knight sticks to fend off the Robotic attackers, while Beast boy tried his best to get inside the robot worm. Sticking onto it as an octopus and feeling the metallic sides for any holes. The worm however, was not proving cooperative, and it swerved throughout the chamber, digging holes in and out of the room and sliding through them in an attempt to throw Beast Boy off it's back.

Robin fought with his usual ferocity. One robot received two lunges in the face, before it was sent flying into its other robot comrades with a shift kick to the chest. One of the heavy droids received a hole in its stomach as Robin stabbed it with his two steel Knight sticks. Right before it exploded however, Robin hurled the impaled Android into a group of slade bots, who quickly vanished in an orange flash as the entire cavern echoed in a gigantic explosion.

The Boy wonder did not remember much after that, and he soon found himself on the floor just feet away from where he used to stand, the blast throwing him back an immense distance. He was breathing hard now, his endurance training had never put this much strain on him, and soon the effects of over a day of straight combat was etching at his strength. He knelt down to catch his breath.

Another Slade bot tried to pull a sucker punch however, and just as Robin knelt down, he gave the robot a sweeping kick, tripping it, then picked up its leg and threw it off the platform, into the dark caverns below. There were more robots approaching and Robin had no more strength, he was on his knees now, tired, exhausted, nearly at the end of his limit.

Then the androids stopped. And an all too familiar voice echoed in the chamber.

"Tired already Robin? A shame. Had you gone on to be my apprentice, I would have trained your endurance to be much higher than this." He appeared now, walking calmly between his robots as they made way for him in the ranks.

"I am extremely disappointed." He gave Robin another one of his glares.

"Ugh!" Beast Boy groaned as he was thrown off the worm, landing only a few feet from Robin. He watched with shock as the rest of the titans were arrayed in front of them, each one in the grappling arms of an android.

"Let them go." Robin said darkly as he stood up, grabbing his two knight sticks as if he were threatening to lunge them at the masked villain.

"Robin, must we repeat the same old cycle again? You threaten me? I threaten you? You should know by now. It is I who wins in the end." He snapped his fingers now, and two slade bots, who used the lull in the fighting to approach Robin, hit Robin hard on the neck, knocking him down and causing him to drop his knight sticks.

"Now…isn't that better? Face it Robin, it's over, there is no need to continue suffering anymore. In fact, let's end it right now." Slade looked at the ceiling now, and watched as a reawakened Terra floated down gently to where the disabled Titans lay. Her face was stone cold, showing no emotion.

"Now where have I seen this before?" Slade gave a slightly amused chuckle. "Oh yes!" he said in feigned realization. "This reminds me of the last time where I had her finish you off. Rest assured, this time, there won't be any distractions." She was level with the Titans now, and already a gigantic boulder, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, was slowly being assembled from small rocks that filtered from the walls into one huge blob of granite. Her eyes were still blank.

"Terra! Don't! You gotta fight it!" Beast Boy shouted out. "We're you're friends! Remember who you are!"

Slade smirked. "Did I forget to tell you? My nanoprobes can alter memories. Every thing she ever knew about you can vanish with a push of a button."

Beast Boy was on his knees now, dejected by what had happened, all he had done. If it weren't for him, his friends wouldn't be like this….Terra…It was all his fault. But still, he couldn't give up. "Terra!"

"It is useless boy. My nanobots are still in her body, and hence, she is still under my control. She does not even remember you. Go ahead my dear, tell them. Tell them who you are. You are my apprentice." Slade gave a triumphant grin, then turned to Terra "and you serve only me."

"My name..is" Terra began in a monotone and lifeless voice. Each word stung Beast boy like a dagger, but then she closed her eyes, as if struggling to complete the sentence. Slade's eyes opened wide as she finished.

"My name is Terra. And you will not hurt my friends anymore!" She shouted, her eyes began glowing yellow now. The chamber was shaking violently.

"Terra!" Beast Boy shouted joyfully, almost in tears.

"How…is this possible, my nano-probes…" Slade took out his controller, vainly tried to figure out what was wrong, then gave Robin a deathly stare. "The EMP.....You…planned this far ahead?" Slade said with an angry surprise.

Robin gave a grin. "Yes. I knew about your nano-probes Slade, so I found a way to save her."

Beast Boy gave a surprised, grateful look to Robin. "Dude! But…how did you!"

"Remember that communicator I gave you before you went out to look for Terra? Well, I was worried, so I placed it on the same frequency as my communicator. I heard everything Slade said."

Slade barely had time to reply now, he was jumping back, avoiding the rock spikes that protruded from the ground, impaling many of Slade's robots at once.

"Destroy them!" He shouted angrily.

Terra stood in front of Robin and Beast Boy now, closing her eyes as she channeled every rock within the cavern. Robots were being destroyed left and right, some torn to pieces by jagged spikes, others flattened by floating boulders and others sliced into pieces with spinning rock plates.

"Hurry guys, save them! I gotta stay and fill up the chamber." Terra shouted as she wreaked havoc on Slade's minions.

Robin nodded, then ran off to carry Starfire up to the ceiling, while a much relieved Cyborg grabbed Raven. He shot his left arm to the ceiling, acting as a grappling hook which pulled them out, while Robin did the same, shooting a grappling hook to latch onto the ceiling. The four titans were soon gone.

They left Terra now, and she stood there on the platform, preparing to channel enough mud into this cavern to fill it up, to make sure Slade would never use it again. Cracks began erupting from the wall, releasing huge amounts of mud and water that slowly flooded the chamber.

This time around however, she had backup.

"You're not alone this time." Beast Boy placed an affectionate hand on Terra's shoulder.

Terra gave a smile, but she barely had time to reply when the ten story mechanical worm bursted out from the floor, giving a roar as it charged up it's laser.

"Hey wormy! Chew on this!" Terra grunted now, and the huge gigantic boulder that was levitating in the middle of the room quickly crashed right into the Worm's mouth. The beast tried to spit it out, but it found that it was useless. From the rock, Terra then morphed it into a gigantic spike, sending it straight through the worm's insides.

It was a more effective way than Beast Boy, and within an instant the worm was torn inside out, exploding violently as it sank, vanishing beneath the swirling sea of mud that continually rose.

Robin, hoping to be of assistance, jumped down from the hole in the ceiling now, landing on one of the platforms that overlooked the entire chamber.

"Let's get out of here!" Terra exclaimed, then made a boulder for her and Beast Boy to float on. Beast Boy could hardly speak as he looked into her eyes. Terra was giving him an affectionate smile as they floated to the ceiling. Finally…after all this time…she was back.

A dark figure watched from one of the platforms as the two titans floated on the boulder, beneath them was a swirling sea of mud, filled with a clutter of robot wreckage. He gripped his fists angrily now, and took out a laser pistol from his belt.

"I gave you the training to use that power, and I can easily take it away." Slade pointed his gun towards Terra, who was concentrating on filling the cavern as fast as she could with mud and earth while she directed the boulder away.

"You've betrayed me for the last time Apprentice." He fired, bathing the cavern in a red glow, and in that split second, Terra's world went dark.

Terra gave a weak groan as she fell off the floating rock. The rock itself, falling shortly afterwards. She created a huge splash as she landed in the swirling ocean of mud below, she sank quickly, and Beast boy could only see her hand reaching out to the sky weakly right before it sank beneath the waves.

"TERRA!" Beast Boy shouted, then wasting no time, transformed into a falcon and dove straight into the mud to rescue her.

Slade gave a satisfying chuckle as he watched. He had done all he could now, all that was left was to escape. He turned around, and gave an amused look at the dark figure who stood in the shadows of the platform.

"It's time to finish this Slade." Robin said as he whipped out his two knight sticks. "Right here. Right now. Once and for all."

The masked villain did not say anything, instead he just turned around, took out and retracted his bo staff. While this was happening, the cavern around them seemed to be collapsing, shaking violently.

"I always knew it would end like this Robin. You and Me, settling it alone on the field of combat."

"The only thing that's going to end, is you!" Robin rushed now, hitting Slade with a series of lunging thrusts.

Slade backed away, quickly getting the rhythm of Robin's attacks. He dodged one of the knight sticks from Robin's weak hand, the left, and parried the second lung with his bo staff. Both weapons clashed and that sent violent shudders through Robin's arm. Slade however, was quicker, and he kicked one of the knight sticks out of Robin's hand, sending it to the swirling sea below.

"Face it Robin, you are going to lose. You are at the edge of your limit. While I…am fresh and rested."

"You won't be if I make you move more." Robin screamed a challenge, throwing two explosive discs that Slade quickly dodged. The boy wonder charged forward now, using his last knight stick with both hands, like a club. Slade merely ducked out of the way, then lunged his bo staff up at Robin's chin.

He dodged it quickly, but the staff grazed his face, and that quickly gave Slade the opening he needed for another punch to Robin's face. The knight stick fell on the ground now, and Slade casually kicked it off the ledge.

"Well now Robin, it seems that you are out of weapons. How then, are you proposing to win this fight?"

"Same way I always do." Robin spat out a cough of blood, then stood up in defiance. He took two birdarangs out of his belt, one in each hand, then he combined them into a sword. "improvise."

Slade gave another amused chuckle. "A sword robin? How very Archaic of you. What's next? A shining suit of armour?"

The blade glinted brilliantly as Robin held it in both hands, horizontally in front of his face. "I'm going to stop you here Slade….even if it costs me my life."

"A foolish gesture, which will only end in your utter defeat." Slade charged with his Bo staff now, but Robin countered with his own attack. His blade swang widely and clanged violently with Slade's metallic bo staff. Robin was on the attack. A swing here, a punch there, Slade backed away, using his bo staff to block the series of sword swipes that the boy wonder dished out. It was as if Robin had caught a second wind, summoning his last reserves of energy. Slade continued backing away now, and soon he felt the edge of the platform behind him. It was time to strike back.

With an impressive arcing swing, he met Robin's sword with his bo staff, using all his strength in the hopes of beating robin back.

Slade's bo staff broke in half, shattering into a million pieces soon after and the masked villain opened his eyes in horror as Robin's attack hit home.

"It's over Slade." Robin said, the tip of his sword dripping with the fresh blood of the villain.

Slade held onto his wounded shoulder now, a slow trickle of blood flowing down his arm. He started laughing.

"Impressive Robin, you actually hurt me. To be honest, I never expected it." Slade said smoothly as he backed away from Robin, who kept his sword point aimed at Slade. "However, once again you are sadly mistaken." He shot a last deathly glare as he stood just an inch over the edge. "This is only the beginning."

Slade fell backwards now, seemingly plummeting into the swirling sea of mud below. But there was no splash….

Robin ran to the edge now, and saw with frustration that Slade had fallen into one of the lower platforms, which contained one of the holes that the worm dug as it tried to shake off Beast Boy. Unbeknownst to Robin, Slade had the worm dig to the surface during its fight with the green titan. Robin clenched his fists as he heard the same line repeated to him, echoing through the chamber as violently as it echoed through his head almost every night.

"Another day Robin…Another day."

Beast Boy emerged from the mud now, transformed as a Pterodactyl, in his claws, he carried Terra.

Robin escaped the chamber now, the mud had already reached the ceiling and was showing signs of slowing down. Calmly, he shot his grappling hook to the ceiling and quickly hoisted himself back to Titan's tower.

The rest of the Titans were there now, Starfire and Raven had recovered, and Cyborg caught Terra as Beast Boy dropped her into his arms. He quickly transformed back now, and the titans gave Beast Boy room as he propped Terra up in his arms.

The mud covered girl groaned weakly as she was settled down on the floor. She opened her eyes, just as Beast Boy held her in his arms.

"Terra! You're ok!" Beast Boy felt the tears of joy coming on now, finally, after a year! They were together.

Terra gave a weak smile. "It's ok now Beast Boy. I ….remember everything…I'm finally free from Slade."

Beast Boy's eyes widened in horror as he looked into Terra's eyes. He lowered his head onto hers now, hugging her even tighter than before. He had tried his best, swallowing hard as he fought back the tears these previous days, but now…there was no control, no restraint, the tears flowed now and Beast boy sobbed openly.

"Terra……no……."