The disclaimer crap is all in the first chapter if you really want to read it that badly then go there and read it. I do however wish to repeat that I do own my own storyline and my characters, which right now include Quanta.

I want to thank everybody who has given me a review because it gives me something to strive for. Also thank you guys for correcting some of the things that I've gotten wrong with my story. I've just started watching the show and got the itch to write about it so my facts are a little shaky. Anyway, please read and review because it can only make me better.

From the Ashes

Chapter 3

"And this is completely accurate?" Slade asked, his eyes following the action playing across the huge screen in front of him. Pictures of Nightwing in his battle against the caravan flashed across the screen.

"Yes, sir." Commander Triante said. "Nightwing fell for the ambush like I predicted and we managed to get this footage."

"Do we have any other information?" Triante flipped through papers on a clipboard he held.

"Apparently Nightwing is formerly the Teen Titan known as Robin. He disappeared shortly before the beginning of your conquest and we have been unable to locate him when we started the purge of the super powered." A silence fell over the room as the older military man stopped talking. Slade leaned forward froze the picture of Nightwing jumping down onto the ground and ran his fingers lightly over the picture.

"Sir. With all due respect I don't understand the trouble. He has been causing trouble, that is certain, but he is just a normal man. He doesn't even possess superhuman abilities."

"That is where you are wrong commander. Robin, now Nightwing, is more deadly that you could ever believe. He is my only miscalculation that I have ever had. You will bring him in commander, now matter what."

Triante shifted uncomfortably as he looked down at his leader. The commander had served Slade without fail since the worldwide campaign had begun and before that, and in those years he had never once questioned the man. But something about the sound of Slade's voice put him on edge. A leader couldn't afford to have anything on his mind except for the objective at hand, but Slade seemed close to an obsession with the Nightwing and that would only hurt the cause.

"Sir … are you sure that this is … wise?"

"Commander, you will do as I say now." Slade's voice was still calm but unbending as steel.

"Yes, sir." Triante inclined his head slightly and walked out of the room.

Nightwing came back into consciousness slowly, trying to figure out where he was without actually opening his eyes. He could remember the fight with Quanta and then Starfire knocking him out but he didn't know where he was now. The air was stale around him so he must be inside a building, and a quick flex told him that his hands and legs were still free to move around, though his weapons and equipment were all gone.

A hand brushed against his wrist and Nightwing exploded into motion. His free hand rifled forward, trying to catch the wrist of the person holding him, but just as his fingers started to close he could feel the person's wrist shrink and slip away. "Hey, dude chill." Nightwing knew that voice.

"Beast Boy?" Nightwing asked in surprise, his eyes snapping open.

"Beast Man now." Nightwing sat up slowly; pain flaring through his head like a red hot knife plunged into his brain and black dots swam across his vision. "You better not move so fast dude. Starfire said that one of Slade's soldiers really caught you in the head."

"Yeah, one of the soldiers." Nightwing rubbed his head where he could feel a bruise starting. His vision was already starting to clear and he looked over at his old teammate. Beast Boy had sprouted in the years and Nightwing guessed that he was half a head taller than Nightwing himself, though still very skinny. He was wearing the same type of clothes but he had a dark gray trench coat thrown over them. Also during the years he had grown a goatee.

"Dude, I haven't seen you in years. I mean ever since you up and left before. I don't think I've ever seen you without your mask either, you look so much more serious without it." Nightwing shook his head as the newly dubbed Beast Man continued to talk. He may be older but he still talked as much as he always had.

Nightwing took the time to glance around the room he was in. Dirty clothes, CDs, and tapes covered every surface in the room, obviously Beast Man's room, and he could see his weapons and equipment thrown on top of a pile of clothes. While his green friend continued to talk Nightwing stood and put his equipment back on. "Dude you need to come see everybody, they've all been waiting like … forever."

With a sigh that was almost inaudible the young fighter nodded his head. He didn't really want to meet that rest of the old team – he had spent long enough trying to forget them – but he wouldn't be able to get out of here without going past them. They walked out into the common room and three heads turned to look.

"Man, it's great to see you." Cyborg said standing and slapping Nightwing on his back, the heavy blow almost knocking him to the ground. The half-human Titan still looked pretty much the same, though his human parts did look older, and some of his cybernetic body had changed.

"It's good to see you in the land of the living." Raven said, nodding her head.

"Now you have to tell us what you've been doing, dude. I had to promise that I wouldn't ask you before we were all together again." Beast Boy jumped over the back of one of the couches and lay down.

"Well, I've been keeping busy. Actually fighting Slade instead of just hiding here in some damn hole while he does what he wants all over the world." The old Teen Titans looked down guiltily, except for Starfire.

"We had what chance?" Starfire yelled, knocking her chair back against the wall as she stood up. Starfire's voice sounded barely on the edge of control and her face was flushed. This was even more surprising than anything they had seen so far, Starfire was usually so happy they didn't think she got angry. "Just four of us against all."

"Forget it I don't have time for this." Nightwing spun and walked towards the door.

"Leave. We do not require your help or your presence." Starfire yelled, turning and walking into her room. Nightwing looked back his face guilty for a second, before walking up the stairs; leaving the three remaining Titans in their seats, gaping in shock.

"I'm confused." Beast Man said.

"Did we miss something between those two?" Cyborg asked, looking around at the remaining people in the room.

"Apparently." Whispered Raven underneath her breath. "We had better follow him; in this state he may be … irrational."

"Damn." Nightwing hissed as he glanced around. He recognized the area, though it would be a long trip back to the remains of the Titan Tower. He couldn't believe he had let himself lose his cool like that, it was just the sight of Starfire plus all of his old friends in one place had disoriented him. The young man cursed again and pulled his cloak closer to his body.

Nightwing started to walk back to the tower when the unmistakable sounds of battle reached the young man and he started running towards it before his brain managed to catch up to his legs. He turned the corner of a building and almost ran directly into the fight. Buildings spread apart in what looked like it had used to have been a park and Slade's robotic soldiers were coming in from every side. A wall of rubble had been stacked to form a rough shield and the soldiers were pounding the rock with hand lasers, blowing chunks of the wall into the air. Every now and then a person would stick their weapon over the wall and shoot at Slade's soldiers.

A beam of yellow energy came from the side and blew a huge hole into the wall, throwing bits of rock and a few bodies into the air. Nightwing looked over at where the beam had come from. "Dr. Light." The old super villain looked worse for wear since Raven had sent him to the mental hospital after their battle. His eyes were wide open and were tinted red and his hair had grown unchecked so that it extended out from underneath his suit's helmet.

"You worthless rebels, you can not stand against the all reveling power of the light. The light shows all." Dr. Light yelled his voice high and cracking. He raised up his hand, yellow energy gathering on the end when a heavy boot smacked into the side of his head, picking the super villain into the air, and dropping him more than a dozen feet away. "How dare you." Dr. Light yelled as he struggled to his feet.

Slade's robot soldiers turned towards the super hero and the sound of charging lasers filled the air. Robin burst into motion, jumping to the side and knocking a robot's head off with a vicious punch. The mad super villain followed after Robin, flinging a blast of energy. Robin dove to the side, the beam passing so close he could feel his hair ruffle from the wind, and hit the ground in a roll. He came up onto his feet just as quickly and brought his bo staff out of his belt.

Dr. Light sent another bolt of energy towards Nightwing but the black hared fighter just batted the blast away. Both of them jumped at each other, bo staff meeting against fists.

The people that had been hiding behind the rubble noticed that they were no longer being fired at and took the opportunity to unleash a deadly barrage. Robots ripped apart from the storm of bullets.

Dr. Light punched forward at Nightwing and he flipped backwards away from the blow but an energy beam flared from the villain's fist and caught the young man in the chest, flinging him to the ground.

"Ha, the light has judged you and you are unworthy." Robots piled on top of him. Nightwing struggled to throw off the robots but there were too many for him to eve shift the huge pile.

The weight on top of Nightwing lifted as the robots were thrown to the side. A green bear was standing on its hind legs over top of Nightwing. Another robot charged up and the bear turned, changing into a gorilla and a punch tore the robot into two. The gorilla changed back into Beast Man.

"You okay dude." Beast Man extended a hand.

"I'm fine." Nightwing whipped out a Bird-a-Rang up over Beast man's should and caught one of Slade's robots in the face. Nightwing stood to his feet and retrieved his dropped bo staff. A quick glance around the battle field told him all that he needed to know. Cyborg had taken control over the rebels and was in front of the rubble barricade, firing his sonic blaster into the groups of robots. Raven was making her way through the sea of robots, a globe of black energy protecting her as she made her way towards Dr. Light.

"Try and keep the robots away from Raven's fight." Nightwing said. Beast Man nodded and with a trumpet he changed into an elephant and charged through the robots, Nightwing following after his friends, finishing any robots that managed to survive Beast Man's charge.

"You." Dr. Light yelled, pointing at the approaching woman. His voice was high pitched and his blood shot eyes rolled around in his head. "I'll kill you." The obviously insane man punched his hands forward throwing beams of energy at his opponent.

Raven's cloak flared open and revealed an abyss of darkness and the beams sank into the inside of her cloak. "You can't even control yourself how are you supposed to kill me." The purple hared woman's eyes turned white and black energy crackled around the edges of her flared cloak. Black tentacles shot out from the darkness inside her cloak and slapped out at her adversary. Yellow light exploded from the man's body and the tentacles disappeared in that flash of light.

With a howl Dr. Light jumped forward and wrapped his hands around Raven's throat, smashing them both to the ground. He twisted his hands and drove his thumbs into Raven's windpipe, shutting off her air. Energy flared around Raven's eyes and an arm ripped off of one of the robots before slamming into Dr. Light's face. Blood flew from his mouth and splashed across the young woman's face, but his grip only tightened with the strength only the truly insane could muster. Raven continued to attack with the arm but it didn't seem to have any affect on the obviously deranged man.

Dots swam across Raven's vision and her lungs burned from lack of air. She tried to hit Dr. Light with whatever she had but she couldn't get enough control over her thoughts to bring her powers to bear. The sound of the robot's arm hitting the ground rang in her ears like the sound of the last nail being placed into the coffin. She was going to die and there was nothing she could do.

Nightwing and Beast Man had gotten bogged down before they had managed to get close to Raven's fight. Robots had piled in on the pair and they were now back to back with Beast Man in his gorilla shape.

"We need to back up Raven." Nightwing yelled over the sounds of ripping metal. Nightwing spun underneath one of the shape changers huge arms and stabbing his staff upwards. The fighter twisted his hands and the staff's spike sprang from the tip of his staff and led the way into a robot. "Throw me."

Beast Man grunted in response as he grabbed a robot and threw it into the masses surrounding them and buying them some time. The gorilla wrapped his huge hands around Nightwing's waist and tossed him high into the air. From his new height he could see the trouble that Raven was in. As he started to fall he pointed his staff straight down.

Raven continued to weakly swing at Dr. Light with her fist even though she knew it was doing no good. The world was swimming in front of her and the only thing she could focus on was the laughing mouth of her enemy. Dreamily she watched as he stuck his tongue at her. It was funny as she died the world suddenly seemed to come back into crystal sharp focus. It almost looked like his tongue was a spike.

She blinked as she realized that it was an actual spike. It was then she realized that the madman's hands had loosened on her throat and she fell into a fit of coughing as air flooded back into her lungs. Dr. Light's body was thrown to the side and more blood splattered across Raven. Nightwing stood over his friend, blood dripping down spike of his staff and even more splashed across his armor. His face was completely impassive and he turned joined back in the fight.

"You killed him." Raven said, more to herself than her friend. She wiped her face off with the edge of her blue cloak and stared at the blood soaked cloth. Even Raven wasn't pessimistic enough to believe that Robin could have changed so completely that he could kill with out even a flinch. He had even been the one to save Dr. Light from her when she had been fighting her anger. "Maybe Robin really is dead."

The rest of the fight was over quickly, now that the Titans could focus there attacks only on the robots. The rebels quickly began to pick over the robots for weapons and anything else they could salvage. The Titans had gathered over to the side of the battle.

Beast man, Cyborg, and Raven formed a semi-circle with Robin in front of them and by the two men's stance you could tell that they were angry. Nightwing stood opposite of them with his arms crossed over his chest and glowered at his old friends.

"Dude, I can't believe that you killed him." Beast Boy yelled, throwing his arms up. "I mean geez Nightwing we're the good guys."

"He worked for Slade. He deserved it."

"It doesn't matter. The Teen Titans have never killed one of our enemies on purpose. We ain't that kind of team." Cyborg said, advancing on his friend. "I would think that you of all people would remember that."

"This isn't a bunch of teenagers fighting enemies anymore. This is a war and I'm going to do whatever I have to get Slade and stop him." Nightwing reached inside of his cloak and grabbed something from his equipment belt. Cyborg's hand shifted and brought his sonic blaster out.

"Stop." Energy snapped around Raven and her cloak fluttered outwards. "This is pointless. We need to control ourselves." The group was interrupted from their argument by one of the rebels stepping forward. The rebel was a kid who looked barely over fifteen. He held some sort of old assault rifle underneath one of his arms.

"Are you all really the Teen Titans?" The rebel asked, awe in his voice.

"The one and only." Beast Boy said. He had gone almost at once from angry to happy at somebody noticing them. Just like him. "Of course I'm the famous Beast Man, leader and all together most powerful member of the team."

"Sure you are BM." Cyborg said but he was still glaring at Nightwing but his arm shifted off of its sonic blaster.

"Great our leader would love to meet you."

"Who's your leader?" Nightwing asked.

"Terra."

End Notes: Well, there is the end of the third chapter. I plan on exploring the relationship between Starfire and Robin later on but I figured it would be fun to show how much he has really changed.