Raventhedarkgoddess: This chapter may be a bit hard to follow because of all the villan diolauge with their names ((Or so my beta reader said I should write... She's a pain in the ass sometimes))... Sorry in advance. But, without further babbling, thank you for all the kind reviews and I hope you like the next chapter just as much.

Chapter Two: Present

The ground seemed to stop aburptly where the Titans stood. In reality, a giant crater had been blown in the road, making it impossible for any type of road trasportation. Cyborg let out a loud curse as Raven unclicked both their seatbeats with her mind and, in spite of the half-man's protests, managed to get him out the door and focused on the crime scene.

"Where are you, villans?" Robin noticed several cops behind their vehicale, firing at what he could not see, and so he made several steps in that general direction. "Come out and show yourselves!"

"How precious," said a low voice, female and laced with an edge that proclaimed itself dangerous without actually having to come into sight. "He thinks we're just common criminals to be caught by the police's back-up team of underlings!" The laughter that expelled from her lips was cruel and cold, and it was at that moment that the retreating sun moved slightly lower, permitting him to see her and her comanions.

Almost at once, as if they had been bred from his own feelings on the past, present, and future, three women appered, and he could almost feel which one was which. The first was Past: Silent and wearing a heavy cloak around her slim frame, her black hair falling in waves and her eyes peircing him.

Present was obviously the speaker. Her body was covered in a blue outfit, and she had a cold smirk on her face, almost mocking him while her brown hair fell around her face. She stared at him just as coldly as the girl next to her in a fashion that made him wonder if this sick villanry team wasn't in fact a group of sisters.

The third girl, he knew at once must be Future. She looked pained and indecisive, and her outfit was a careful mix of black and white, her hair long and blank, almost as if it had no color to it at all. Robin felta sense of forbidding, but his voice came to him none the less through the feelings of misgivings he was having about attacking the strange girls.

"Titans, GO!"

At once the bodies moved into position, painfully powerful starbolts whizzing past his left ear and what was perhaps a peice of the shattered hole of concrete moved past his face with stunning speed as an animal, perhaps an elephant, moved past him to attack their formation. At the same moment, the threesome broke their formation and began to move, away from the attacks.

"They're quick, man," Cyborg observed loudly as Robin made a move in on them, toward where Beast Boy was already struggling, now a small humming bird, to avoid their attacks and almost failing miserably. Robin just gave him a nod: Wasn't that obvious enough as it was?

"Beast Boy, look out!" Beast Boy looked up, but he was not in time to avoid a punch from the nearest girl, Present, and fell back on his now-human face, laying very still on the ground. For some reason, perhaps just annoyence and rage at watching his friends get knocked around, he lunged forward and tried to kick her.

Instead of a face, however, he managed to hit only air.

"Heh," she smirked in a completely unreadable voice, "Did you ever really think you could hit me?" He felt a hand press itself up against his neck and began to try to get away, but he failed, held there by her hand and some force he couldn't explain. He could almost feel her distain and anger at being near him, as if somehow she felt him to be an annoyence, an obsticale.

"Let... Me... GO!" He hollored, and struggled harder, but, for some reason that was out of his grasp, he could no longer breathe. His knees buckled from the strictness of the pressure, but he forced himself to stay upright.

"Do not harm Robin!" Came a loud voice, and Starfire attempted to hit the girl but missed by several inches for her fear of hitting Robin. "Put him down this very second!" Her frantic yelling, however, did nothing but initate laughter, and she fell, motionless, as the girl Robin had assumed was Past knocked her out of the way as if she were nothing.

"Slade didn't tell us the Teen Titans were so... pathetic," said the one called Past in a low voice, watching Robin try to breathe. "Had I known, I would have looked forward to the epxerienc of meeting them much less."

"Yes," the one called Future called, from where she was engaded in a rampent battle with both Raven and Cyborg. "Almost upsetting how easily we have made them fall to their knees."

"Could you not forsee their defeat at our hands, though?" Asked the one who held Robin and then let him slump to the ground. He looked dead on the pavement, and the three villans turned to face Cyborg and Raven, who stood all alone, backed into the corner of a narrow alleyway. "You two are next,"Present added, venom on her voice.

"Not on my watch," Raven hissed, and Cyborg moved over to where his fallen comrades lay, trying to bring them over to Raven, who was fending very well on her own, all things considered. Slinging Robin and Beast Boy over his shoulders and holding Starfire's form in his arms, he ran forward to the Azarathen.

"Retreat!" Future yelled. "Do not let them retreat!"

But all that they could see was the disappering of large black wings, the wings ofa bird that would carry the Titans home and throw them down on the rocks in front of their home.

"We're defeated," Raven whispered, trying to keep herself standing upright and help Cyborg bring their three injured friends inside. "Defeated here and now."

Defeated in the present. Defeated by Time.