Chapter Thirteen

"Hello, Titans… And Nightwing… It's so good to see you again… Your team seems to have grown significantly. Red Hood… the spoiled son of Bruce Wayne, Damian… And Terra… The last time we saw each other, you betrayed me, and killed me… But why should I hold a grudge about that? As you can see, I'm very alive, and very well…" Slade said in his typical gravelly, smug tone. Terra growled, immediately trying to attack him.

Nightwing stopped her, though with a minor psychic suggestion via their interlink. Although Beast Boy and Terra were officially on Starfire's team, there was a minor link still that Nightwing could exploit.

"Don't attack yet, Terra… We will defeat Slade… But he's not alone. He's got the Brotherhood of Evil with him." The young leader said, looking around and seeing Madame Rouge, Monsieur Mallah and General Immortus.

Immortus looked much younger, and much stronger than he had the last time that they had met.

"Where's the Brain?" Beast Boy asked. Slade chuckled darkly.

"I've reactivated it, but I do not fully trust it, and so it remains in my lair where it can do no damage to my plans. If you can defeat these members of the Brotherhood, I will fight you, myself." Slade said, seeming arrogantly confident.

"Titans, go!" Nightwing and Starfire said, splitting up and running simultaneously different yet complementary attack formations. Beast Boy transformed into a horde of biting and stinging insects, swarming around Mallah, who swatted at the insects, but could seem to hit none of them as they attacked him. Nightwing had to admit that Beast Boy was learning fast. He had to have transformed into at least ten thousand insects.

It wasn't even close to his full potential. Theoretically, he could transform into billions upon billions of insects, likely enough to cover an entire city block if he stretched himself. But for now, he was distracting Mallah, limiting the amount of strength that the giant gorilla could apply to the situation. Madame Rouge seemed to not be distracted at all, dodging and evading all of the team's attacks and throwing some attacks of her own.

Finally, Cyborg threw a powerful telekinetic blast at her, sending her flying limb over limb into a building. Meanwhile, Immortus seemed to simply be standing back, observing and analyzing their abilities for future reference. After all, an unknown power was very dangerous. One loss could make way for hundreds of future victories.

After a moment, though, Starfire threw some enhanced Starbolts at Immortus, who tumbled out of the way and stood up, showing an incredible alacrity for such an old man. Still, he didn't seem completely unfazed by the attack, and his ability to counter was almost nil, so he simply had to keep dodging. Unfortunately, Slade seemed to have his own plans. Suddenly, he appeared behind Terra.

"Hello, child… I would say it's been too long, but I feel it hasn't been nearly long enough. I can sense that your powers have increased dramatically… How nice of Nightwing to throw the traitor a bone." Slade commented sarcastically. "Is that electromagnetism manipulation I sense?" He asked. Terra turned around using her ferrokinesis to search Slade's blood for iron. There was very little. He had to be eating a very low-meat diet to have so little iron in his blood. Frankly, it couldn't be healthy.

Iron was vital for the bloodstream. Terra didn't know all the ins and outs of it, but she knew that even vegans needed to take iron supplements to keep themselves healthy. So, she switched tactics and targeted his bones, breaking his arm, clenching her fist and causing his right arm to shatter. Slade gasped, and drew back, his eyes wide with shock and rage. After a moment, though, he collected himself and seemed to smirk.

"Well done, child… Your abilities have indeed improved. Let's see how you do when you don't have my bones to break." Slade said, shaking his arm until it went back to normal. Then, Slade seemed to disappear, and reappear behind Terra, grabbing her and slamming her into the pavement.

"You must know how much I hate losing, child… I don't want you back as my apprentice, but that doesn't mean I can't get revenge on you."

"What are you going to do? Kill me?" Terra asked. She could almost hear Slade smirking under his mask.

"No, child… By the time I'm done with you, you'll only wish you were dead." Slade said smugly.

"Why are you doing this!" Terra demanded, fearing that she knew the answer.

"Why… To test Nightwing's new abilities…" Slade said. "I want to see if he deserves the gift that I gave him. For if one is not worthy of their gifts, then why should they have them?" Slade asked

Suddenly, Nightwing proved just how worthy he was of the gifts, having thrown one of his Escrima sticks, and hitting Slade in the face, cracking his mask. This was the second time he had managed that. Once when he rebelled against Slade after becoming his apprentice, and now, again when he threw the Escrima stick. Slade covered his mask, repairing it almost immediately.

"Hello, Nightwing… I'm highly impressed with your progress… You have seen to it that even your team is improving… At your behest, of course… I'm sure they feel quite indebted to you. You've even modified your weapons… I sense a strong bioenergy emanating from them. You ought to work on having them not leak out like that… You waste energy, and give away your position." Slade said, grabbing the Escrima stick as it flew at him again.

"Vampiric Explosion." Nightwing said firmly. Slade's eye went wide and he released the stick just as it released a powerful telekinetic burst and sucked his blood into the burst. When the explosion cleared, it showed that Slade was missing a hand.

"Well done, Nightwing." Slade said, simply waiting for his hand to grow back.

This happened in a matter of a few seconds. Slade had already had incredible regeneration, even before he became a Biouser. Now that he thought of it, though… If Slade's regeneration availed him so completely, how did the virus even take hold? Though the virus enabled regeneration in the user, it probably was not itself immune to regeneration. Nightwing blocked Slade's next attack, finding Slade to be even stronger and faster than he had been the last time they had met.

His punches felt like a train hitting him. Slade pressed his attack, twisting for a kick and sending Nightwing flying into a building, crushing the wall. Nightwing immediately got up, though and teleported back behind Slade, attacking and sending him flying as well. Nightwing looked around and saw that the rest of the Titans had taken care of the rest of the Brotherhood.

However, their problems were far from over. The Brotherhood hurried to Slade's side and the group teleported away, leaving only a piece of paper with a note behind.

Dear Nightwing,

I'm highly impressed with your use of your new abilities. If you ever want to learn more about them and their potential than the data in Terra's brainstem can teach you, simply say "to Master". I will gladly teach you. The teleportation ability associated with that will only work on you, though. You cannot teleport the team with you

.

It was very gratifying to fight you today. It was good seeing the whole team again, especially Terra. We parted on slightly adverse terms. But it seems as though you have gladly taken her back. And the growth in her powers are also highly impressive… Your doing, Nightwing? Give the spoiled Damian Wayne my best, and though we are on opposite sides of the law again, I hope you don't hold it against me personally.

Best wishes,

Slade.

P.S: I admire your determination to remain the melee combatant of your team, but you could easily become so much more powerful if you were to move into more styles of psychic and magical combat. I have complete faith that you could do it.

P.P.S: The virus took because I allowed it to. My regeneration would have availed me quite completely if I had wanted it to. However, I chose to let the virus run its course, only using regeneration so that the virus wouldn't kill me.

Nightwing scowled and ripped up the piece of paper, getting on his motorcycle and heading back to Titans Tower. Slade usually left some sort of clue for the Titans to follow in order to find him. Slade was big on his little games, something that Nightwing was always irritated by. His voice was so monotonous, but he seemed to always be enjoying a private joke at the Titans' expense… And what was worse, he never let the Titans in on the joke…

"Did I really just think that? No… I shouldn't care if he's making a joke at my expense! All that matters is catching him and putting him out of our misery! I can absorb him this time… Technically it wouldn't be killing him. It would merely be subsuming his body and mind with my own… Giggity… Oh, God… Did I really just say that? Who am I talking to? Myself? That simply can't be healthy… Why am I still talking?" Nightwing rambled to himself as he pulled up to the Tower and hurried in with the note.

He immediately brought it to the lab and put it under the new biomechanical scanner. It would go down to the submolecular level and dissect it on screen. It would make readouts of everything in and on the paper, including the brand of ink, the stores the paper could have come from, any dust, dirt or other debris that was on the paper and the composition of said debris. This would allow him to target certain smaller areas where the chemicals were known to exist, either within or outside the city.

The paper didn't need to be whole. Nightwing had overreacted and torn up the paper. But he could scan the pieces just as well as the whole. For the rest of the day and most of the evening, he stayed in the lab, going over every inch of the results of the paper, looking at various regions in the city that might correspond between shops that sold medium-high end paper and ink and caves or underground labyrinths that would make for good hidden bases.

He was so preoccupied that he jumped when Raven came in to talk to him.

"Um… You've been in the lab for six hours… Maybe you should have dinner and come back with fresh eyes and a full stomach?" Raven suggested. Nightwing shook his head.

"No… I don't need to eat or drink or sleep and I can't leave until I figure it out."

"Nightwing… You and Batman share a lot in common, an almost obsessive need to hunt down and defeat villains, a complex about needing to be right, and honestly, a tendency to neglect those you care about and who care about you." Raven said firmly, taking Nightwing's hand and pulling him out of the laboratory.

"Um… Nightwing… You don't think what Damian said is true, do you?" She asked, looking away uncomfortably. Nightwing raised an eyebrow.

"I wouldn't put much store in anything he says… But what specifically did he say this time?"

"You know? When he first met us and he commented on my grey skin, and looking surprisingly normal?" Raven asked. Nightwing looked at her. He was only surprised that his comment affected her so much.

"Raven… It doesn't matter what Damian says. You're beautiful… Besides, your skin isn't grey. It's just… Uncommonly fair… You might want to start wearing suntan lotion soon. Summer's coming."

"Mm… Dissembling isn't your strong point, Dick… You might want to stick to the truth… I am flattered, though…" Raven said flatly.

"I'm not lying… I think you look beautiful as you are. There's no reason that you shouldn't be able to know that I'm telling the truth." Nightwing said, holding Raven close to him and kissing her tenderly on the lips, looking her in the eyes.

"Thank you, Dick…" Raven said, blushing as much as her pale skin would let her.

"Maybe we could… Spend some time together later tonight?"

"I was hoping you would ask… even having crossed that line already, I'm still a little embarrassed to ask out loud. I'll rock your world later if you like." Dick said with a cocky grin.

"Nightwing, the day you rock my world, I'll change my name to Tootsie, put on a bikini, and work as the flag girl at the Jump City Boxing Tournament."

"Well, you better start picking out bikinis… Didn't I already win that gamble the other night?" Dick whispered, causing Raven to turn a pale shade of pink, remembering that night. She had been a bit out of control so it was partially due to her libido carrying her away.

But Dick had come through in excellent style that night, too.

"My objection is withdrawn…" Raven said as they walked into the common room and sat down for dinner.

"What objection is that, Raven?" Beast Boy asked, only to get a face full of Shepherd's Pie from Raven who had no interest in answering that question.

"Ew! Raven, you know I don't eat meat!" Beast Boy shouted indignantly, taking a napkin and wiping the pie off his face as quickly as he could.

"Oops…" Raven replied sardonically. Nightwing laughed at this. Terra spoke up next.

"Hey, Nightwing… I'm not feeling so hungry anymore! Was my appetite supposed to diminish so quickly?" She asked. Nightwing shook his head.

"No… I'll take a look at you later… The hunger stage wasn't supposed to wear off for another few days at least." Dick said. "Finish eating and I can take a look at you afterwards. No use being hungry when you're in your examination, right?"

"Hey! You're not gonna make'er take…" Beast Boy demanded, causing Terra to blush.

"No… I'm not. X-Ray vision allows me to see inside her anyway. No, I'm not using the ability now. Why would I waste mental energy doing that?" Nightwing asked, sitting down and taking a bit of Shepherd's Pie, biting into it.

"Mm… This is good… Who made it?" He asked.

"I did… When you have to live alone, you either learn to cook for yourself or you eat microwavable meals… And the latter was not an acceptable option for me." Jason said.

"Did you use lamb or beef in this?"

"Little of both… If I had used all lamb, it would have been too strong tasting. So I put in some beef to make it milder." He said.

"Ah, good… I like it." Nightwing replied… "Come to the lab later… I need to do the modifications that I didn't give you when you first joined. I've been examining you mentally, particularly in battle when your mind was the least guarded, and found nothing amiss. Damian, I need to modify you a bit more as well. Boy, it seems strange having three generations of Robins on the Teen Titans." Dick said passingly. Damian smirked.

"Now all we need is for Tim Drake to join us… And we'd have a complete set." Damian commented. Nightwing laughed, nodding.

"We hardly need any more Robins. We've got three on one team already…"

"Um, excuse me… I don't know about you, Dick… But I'm The Hero Formerly Known as Robin…" Jason said with a smirk. Nightwing didn't bother to respond to that comment.

"Okay… Terra, Damian, Jason… Come down to the lab whenever you guys are ready, cool?" Nightwing asked, standing up and washing his plate before heading toward the laboratory.