Author's Note: This chapter chronicles events related to the episode entitled "How Long Is Forever?" in the second season of the animated series. If you haven't seen the episode, I've included facts in this chapter that would help you understand the story. I've also included some things that the animated series didn't mention, but are considered facts even in that storyline.

Chapter IV

Blüdhaven City, twenty years after the founding of the Teen Titans.

It was the first time that the Titans had come together after well about two decades. Unfortunately, one of them had to go away again. Starfire had just entered the time portal that Cyborg had opened for her so she could get back to her own time, back to the early days of the Teen Titans.

The portal was closing now, due to the damage on the device that Cyborg used to open the portal. As soon as the portal was completely closed, the device (which Cyborg had to attach to his sonic cannon arm to activate) detached from Cyborg's arm and fell to the ground.

"Well…there goes Star…" Nightwing said, remembering the days when he was still called "Robin" – the days that Starfire had just gone back to.

"Yeah," said Cyborg, who transformed his hand from cannon form back to normal.

Raven stood in silence for a moment before turning her gaze to the device on the floor. She was thankful that it helped Starfire in the end, but it was originally a villain's tool. "We need to make sure that nobody ever gets to use that device for evil again.", she said.

"No problem!" Beast Boy exclaimed just before transforming into a Gorilla. He raised his right fist and aimed for the device.

"No!" chorused Nightwing, Cyborg, and Raven. But they were too late. Beast Boy's fist came crashing on the poor little thing and smashed it. At the same instant, a flash of bright light and an invisible shockwave emanated from the device. This caused the four Titans to shield their eyes. As soon as the light was gone, so was the device.

"Are you insane?" Cyborg suddenly exploded onto Beast Boy.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Geez…same old Cyborg!" said Beast Boy upon transforming back to his normal form.

"Oh, yeah? Well, it's just like same old Beast Boy to go wrecking stuff without thinking first!" Cyborg replied.

"Well, how was I supposed to know what would happen?" Beast Boy said in defense of himself.

"You weren't…" Raven uttered. "…that's why you shouldn't have done that."

Beast Boy turned to her. The expression on his green face turned from defensive to glad. He laughed before saying, "Same old Raven, too."

Nightwing didn't wait anymore for them to call him 'same old Robin', seeing as to how he wasn't really 'Robin' anymore. "That device…" he interrupted. "…got very unstable when I damaged it. Judging by the fact that there are no more pieces left, I'm sure that it must've opened a portal in time when Beast Boy smashed it, and time-traveled once again. There's no telling to which timeline it would go…or whose hands it would fall on…"

There was an awkward moment's silence before Nightwing spoke again, "I just hope that it won't be somebody like Slade…"

He turned to see the other Titans looking at him, each of them with one eyebrow raised. He realized that he had been exhibiting the same passion he had as Robin: the passion to defeat Slade.

The three other Titans said together, "Same old Robin."