Disclaimer: I do not own any copyrighted material that may be mentioned in this story. I do own the plot, the new character, and other characters that are not copyright but are of my own design.

Author's Notes: The Phoenix ROCKS! If you're a phoenix lover, please tell me so via a review. For the one's who did review my story, here are some answers:

strodgfrgf: thank you

NekuYasha: I thank you, StormRaven, and Chichiri for you kind words. Tell Chichiri that I ramble on a lot as well, so no apologies are

necessary

Light of the Sorrow: Actually, did you know that meteorites the size of school buses come flying at the Earth all the time?

When they enter the atmosphere they start to disintigrate and when they actually hit the ground they are the size

of a quarter.

Hotshot45: Here is what you want.

So here's what you've been waiting for drum roll Chapter 1! D

P.S. If you haven't already figured it out, when something is in 'italics' then it is a thought.


Chapter 1: Memories naught but ash

He looked around, but saw nothing around him. There was only a never-ending blackness.

'Where am I? Who am I?'

He looked around again as his surroundings began to shimmer and swim before his eyes. His body suddenly felt as though it was that of a child's, and flames burst into being on all sides. He ran, but the ever-burning flames just seemed to travel in his wake. Whenever his foot left the ground, the spot where it was but a moment ago, burst into flame. He was sure he would be incinerated when a door appeared in front of him and he burst through it.

His sanctuary was a small, dark room with a window. He knew that the fire would not be held back for long by the wooden door so he headed towards the moon-lit portal. Just before he reached his route of escape, the glint of metal caught his eye. Against the wall stood a halberd that, for some reason, gave him a feeling of intense sadness. He approached the weapon and reached out to it with trembling fingers. He had barely touched the shaft, when his surroundings began to shift once again.

The smell of a forest mixed with the putrid stench of burning sulfur reached his nose as his surroundings became fixed in place. He was on the edge of a forest that led out into a valley. His eyes took in the sight that was laid out before him. The valley stretched on until of a giant mountain shot up to loom above him as though something had pierced the soil with a giant thorn of rock. The peak went above the clouds and out of sight; yet he felt as though something or someone was calling out to him from it, though there was no audible sound. He stood in awe of the massive size of the mountain before he realized that this monolith of stone was the largest of a chain of mountains that extended to either side, forming a crescent-shaped range.

There was a bright flash of light beside him that surprised him so much that he fell to the ground. There floated the form of a girl sitting with he legs crossed. She had long brown hair that ended at the small in her back; and she wore the garb of a ninja, but it was different. Instead of being the traditional black, her attire had the same color as that of a cloudless sky. Until then, she has hovered there in front of him, her eyes closed, but then her eyes snapped open. She had eyes of such an intensive blue that they seemed to look into his very soul as she made eye contact. Her ends of her mouth curved into a slight smile as she looked upon him. Her voice echoed about him though she had not opened her mouth.

"It is does my heart good to see that you are alive, but I sense that your journey has finally begun after all."

"Who are you? How do you know me?"

"All will be revealed in due time."

"Can't you tell me anything useful?"

"Yes, I can give you one piece of advice. Listen to your heart; let it guide you, because your heart is your greatest weapon. Farewell."

With those parting words, she vanished the same way that she came. He picked himself up and went to the place where she had been. On the ground, exactly where the mysterious girl once was, lay a pendant slightly smaller than the palm of his hand. On its surface was the picture of a strange looking tree. He picked it up and began to study it when a dark shadow descended upon him and the sky turned to the color of blood and the grass changed from a healthy green to a dead brown. A laugh erupted all around him without a source; just as the strange girl's voice had, but there was a difference. The girl's voice had been something he knew he could trust, but this laugh was one that made the hairs on his neck rise and chilled him to the very core of his being.

The laugh continued on and on; but there was another voice. It seemed distant and echoing; but it was strong and filled with concern.

"Awake unknown one! Please wake! It is naught but a bad dream! Please wake! You worry us!"

As it spoke, it seemed to grow stronger and finally replaced the malicious laughter. It dragged at him and he felt as though he was floating upward. After a few moments, the voice finally pulled him into the waking world of the here and now.

When he did wake, and his eyes opened, the first thing he saw were the worried pair of emerald eyes of a beautiful girl that possessed skin that was slightly tinted orange and red hair that draped past her face as she leaned over him.

"You were having a nightmare."

"Who are you? Where am I?"

"I am called Starfire and you are with friends. You are injured and must sleep. So, please, rest."

The boy tried to sit up but a large, metallic hand pushed him back down.

"You'd better listen to Starfire. You're pretty banged up."

Without any complaints, he lay back down and began to fall asleep, staring in the beautiful eyes of Starfire, who graced him with a small smile before he slipped into slumber.

Starfire looked at the sleeping form of the strange boy. For the first time since they had found him, he took a good look at the boy. He was a young man with brown untidy hair and he looked to be about the same age as her. (In this fanfic Starfire is about 16) When his eyes had been open, Starfire noticed that they were blue with a hint of green in them. He had lightly tanned skin and he seemed to be well built, but not overly muscular; as she had seen some men on this planet. The clothing he wore was very strange, much different than anything else she had seen while on the planet Earth.

He wore a red muscle shirt, orange fighters shirt with matching pants (Think Goku's original fighting attire from DBZ without the marking and this one has long sleeves), and red gloves that had no fingers but came half-way up the fore arm to double as vambraces that secured his sleeves from flopping around. A large red stripe went up the middle of the outer shirt and split to go over each shoulder, but what really caught Starfire's eye was a large, round, red gem, which was on the center of his chest, that seemed to glow with a burning quality, it was almost as though a fire blazed within.

While she was examining the mysterious boy's garbs, Cyborg and Robin were having a hushed conference outside of the med lab.

"What's up Cy? Why did you pull me aside?"

"It's really weird, dude. This guy has bruises all over him, he has a few sprained limbs, and his clothes look like an army of angry kitchen utensils attacked him. But other than that he's fine, but the funny thing is that he fell from the sky as a fireball and he has no burns! WTF, man, WTF! What makes it even weirder is that I studied all of his injuries and they all have one thing in common."

"What is that?"

"What they have in common is that none of them, besides a few of the bruises, were caused by the whole meteor incident!"

Robin's right eyebrow (I count the top part of the eye-mask as where the eyebrow is located) arched.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, all of the injuries that I just listed have certain qualities about them that say that they were caused by something else. You know how we found this guy about a half an hour ago? Well, bruises normally take an hour or two for them to become discolored; and the cuts. If he had gotten those from the impact, they would most likely be scrapes, not cuts. The cuts were caused by some kind of weapon. The cuts on his clothes are mostly on the limbs or the front of the torso; with very few on his back like how he was in the crater."

"He was in a fight."

"?"

"What you have just described to me is the main areas where, in a fight, most of the attacks that get past a person's defensive, land."

"Oh, yeah, before I forget; before you guys got back and while I was running some tests, I spotted that gem on his chest. None of the equipment or any of my scanners can tell me what type of crystal is was, so I went to get a closer look at it; but when I touched it, I started seeing things that were not there. They were like flashing of images that formed in my mind. To tell the truth, there wasn't a whole lot, mostly fire, but there was one picture that looked like it was taken from above the ground. The image was of a large mountain and a mountain range that almost completely surrounded the viewer. It was an unusual geographical formation to say the least. It might be a clue as to where this guy has been. As to the fight theory, well Robin, I think we should keep an eye on this guy for a while."

"..."

Cyborg let out a huge sigh and turned to the open med-lab door.

"Well let's just let him sleep for now. C'mon, Starfire."

Starfire rose from the bedside chair and followed her two teammates; but at the door, Starfire glanced at the boy sleeping peacefully with indecisiveness on her features. She turned back to the way that her companions had left and called out to them.

"I think that I will stay and keep an eye on him. Is that all right?"

Robin pivoted where he stood and looked at her with an eye-mask. With a curt nod, he walked away.

-T-T-T-T-T- Sorry, but I had to steal this from my favorite author, Post. ; )

The no-named visitor to the tower woke during the night in a cold sweat and breathing heavily. He had just woken from a nightmare that he could not even remember clearly. He was just about to go back to sleep when he felt movement near his leg. He sat up and saw the slumbering form of Starfire with her head on the bed. He was brushing back a few rogue strands, which had fallen in front of her face, behind her ear when he noticed that she was shivering. The room was chilly and someone had laid a blanket on him. He took the blanket and draped it over Starfire and felt her fall into a calm, deep sleep.


Ending Author's Note:

Okay, I'm sorry to be so lame but I am making the setting of the next chapter to occur a week or so after this. I can't think of a good way to introduce the rest of the Titans to my character so I will write as though he has met the rest of the Titans during the time between the chapters.