Chapter Sixteen

"Titans! Go! New villains! Ones we haven't seen yet!"

"Really!" Cyborg exclaimed.

"We haven't had a new villain in a while! Just the same villains over and over!" Beast Boy added. Nightwing nodded. The team ran to their respective vehicles and rushed to the scene of the crime.

"You've been caught! Who are you!" Nightwing demanded. A ghostly pale woman with jet black hair and pale blue eyes looked up and smirked, frosty breath coming from between her lips.

"Oh, we're only caught if you manage to beat us… I doubt you'll be able to… Nightwing… Teen Titans… It is a pleasure to meet you." She said softly, her voice soft and light, almost seeming insubstantial, but filling their ears as if nothing else existed.

Was it her power? Did she have some sort of mind control that she was using on them? That shouldn't have worked. Nightwing had fortified their minds against outside interference without their permission.

"Mm… You're not the first people to think I've used mind control… I am not, though… I find though that I can be very captivating… Aside from being beautiful and charismatic, I have a certain Je ne sais quoi about me…

"My name is Hecate… That woman over there around the corner is Artemis… And the woman with the swords is Athena… We may be the goddesses of the same names… None of us remember how old we are or where we came from… But that's enough chit chat… Athena seems to be growing tired of my tendency to bloviate…"

"Tendency to what now?" Beast Boy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Speak excessively, Garfield… So, perhaps we should just wrap this up. Hecate said, a black energy glowing around her hands as she arced the energy and sent bolts of it flying at the Titans, who scattered and attacked.

"Titans, Go!" Nightwing said mentally. The two teams split up. Nightwing headed for Athena, who blocked his Escrima Sticks with her swords.

"You're an excellent combatant… I've heard of your prowess… You are who I most wanted to fight." Athena said, smirking at Nightwing…

"I'm flattered… Well, I would be if you weren't a criminal…"

"Oh, come off your high horse, Dick Grayson… You're a criminal, too… Just one that the city tolerates because you serve a purpose."

"You could become a tolerated criminal if you like… We're always looking for more Titans…" Nightwing said. Athena seemed to think for a moment.

"Tempting, but no. Being a criminal is far more profitable… And it's kind of fun."

"Are you working for Slade?" Nightwing demanded. Athena looked at him.

"Who? Oh, you mean that nutjob in the orange and black mask… No… He tried to recruit us. I said we would only join if he could beat us… He failed… And if he can't prove his superiority, why should we serve him?" Athena asked. Nightwing stopped for a minute.

"You beat Slade? But he's…"

"Yes, yes… A Biouser. That's never stopped us before. There are ways to stunt his abilities temporarily. Hecate has noted that a powerful blast of necrotic energy will stop or at least severely slow a Biouser's powers… Well, depending on the level of power put in… And I can see you are a Biouser as well… Are you one of this Slade's followers?"

"No! I would never work for that maniac!" Nightwing shouted, punching at Athena and releasing a powerful blast of telekinetic energy. Athena leapt back, then closed again, taking out her second sword and fighting the dual wielding Nightwing on his level, going blow for blow with him.

"Mm… You're much better than most of the enemies I've fought." She said with a smirk.

"Maybe you'd consider being my boyfriend? Ditch these losers and work with us." She said, winking at Nightwing and laughing as she twirled away, falling into a ready stance, leaping back into action immediately when Nightwing threw one of his Escrima sticks at her. She sliced it down the center and the two pieces fell to either side of her sword.

However, Nightwing commanded the pieces to repair themselves, and they snapped back together, almost as if by a magnet. It was really just the massive bioenergy invested in them, though. Robin closed on Athena as well, telling Nightwing to help the others. Nightwing nodded, and cartwheeled away, leaping into action on Hecate, who laughed manically as she fired blasts of corrosive black energy at the Titans.

"Mm… I watched you match Nightwing… What a name, right? He may have been Batman's first Boy Wonder. But he still has no taste."

"I see you have excellent taste in costumes, though. You're kind of adorable, too… You must be Damian… Bruce Wayne's bastard son and fourth Robin. Quite a mantle to adopt, especially working with two of his other former Robins."

"I'll show you how 'cute' I am." Damian snarled, running forward, slicing at Athena, who blocked Damian's sword with one of her own.

"You're stronger than our records show, and faster… Well, just better physically all around. But you still don't have the skill to match that increase in strength. Dick has enhanced you artificially, and you still need extensive training to fully be worthy of that power.

"Don't feel bad. Dick isn't quite settled into his new powers yet either. He has a somewhat intuitive understanding of his own powers. But that doesn't make up for a lack of practice in utilizing them." Athena said. "You are talented, though. How would you like to work for us? You could actually use those assassination techniques you learned from your grandfather."

"Ha… Tempting. But no. Dick, ridiculous as his superhero name is, has earned my respect. Have you?"

"I'm about to." Athena said, no longer chatting up a storm and lunging at Damian, slicing his side open with her sword, tearing through his supposedly tear-proof costume. Damian gasped in pain, blocking the next attack with his bare arm, using the tactile telekinesis and dense bones to keep the sword from cutting him. Athena smirked, twisted and kicked Damian in the stomach.

Her leg was far faster than Damian was able to follow, and instead of putting up a telekinetic shield, he took the blow directly to his chest. He tried to duck under the kick, but only managed to bend his knees a few inches. The blow connected directly to his ribs, shattering most of them and sending Damian flying. Meanwhile, the other Titans weren't faring well either.

Nightwing had been completely incapacitated, his Biological Manipulation combating the necrosis that Hecate had affected by sending a huge burst of necrotic energy at him. Starfire had been struck in the neck and chest with arrows that had strange magical effects and were pulling her down with their gravity. She could breathe, but just barely. Beast Boy's transformation had been fritzing and he couldn't control it.

Red Hood's guns had been broken and some magic was interfering with his regeneration, making it impossible to mend his broken arms. The rest of the Titans were in varying states of injury as well. At this moment, Athena called the other two ladies to her, and they disappeared in a cloud of acrid smoke.

Nightwing growled in pain, willing the necrosis to work its way through his body quicker, using his control over his own metabolism to a lesser degree than he should have been able to. However, he watched his limbs begin to blacken and swell and then go back down to normal, blotches of necrotic, stinking flesh pop up and then return to their normal color. Finally, he felt the last of it leave his system. He then teleported the Titans to him and the vehicles and teleported back to the tower.

"Gah! That was such a humiliating defeat! We've been powered up so much! How is it that we couldn't beat them!" Damian shouted angrily, his anger causing an aura to rage around him.

"I know… It was humiliating. But those three were able to beat Slade… If they could beat a villain of Slade's caliber, they could certainly beat us. Besides, we haven't had enough time to train our powers. We need extensive training.

"I've been studying… Well, as much as I can without practice, and I think I can set up the training room to make more time go by in the room than the outside world. Our training will benefit from days of practice when only hours go by outside. I'd like to test it with the whole team present. Don't worry. There's only a 0.1% chance of catastrophic failure." Nightwing laughed. The rest of the team went blank. Nightwing never laughed. He was always so damn serious.

"What about that 0.1% chance? That means that one in a hundred chance something will go seriously wrong!" Cyborg interjected. Nightwing nodded.

"Well… one in a hundred is not the odds I was hoping for. But we all have regeneration. So with that, the odds that any of us will die is about 0.0001%. Pretty damn low. Let's go!"

"Wait! What about eating? If we're training for days in the period of an hour, won't we have to eat like normal within that time?" Damian demanded. Nightwing shook his head.

"No. Your body, recognizing that only hours have gone by will not demand more food. Your body treats it like hours whereas your training benefits from days of straight training. And I can set it to different distortions. Isn't that cool?" Nightwing asked. The rest of the Titans seemed skeptical.

"Well… We need to train up our powers quickly if we want to defeat Slade and these new villains. So let's go." Nightwing said, leading the way downstairs. When they got into the room, Nightwing closed, locked and sealed the door.

"We just have to make sure no temporal distortion gets out of the room. So the room is sealed, a vacuum basically. We can breathe. There are machines in the wall that convert vacuum to normal earth atmosphere. Training Program… Set difficulty to 8, multiple opponents, time dilation to 150% speed. Randomize terrain." Nightwing commanded. The machine repeated his command and began turning and creating the villains.

This time, the machine created Slade again, and Superman. Nightwing called the Titans forward, and the eight of them separated and ran a pincer movement which both enemies countered, but Slade seemed more adept at doing. After all, Superman was strong, fast and durable. But he had little of the training that Slade had. If he had gone through Batman's training, he would be a terrifying force of nature. After all, Batman could resist mind control. Superman got mind controlled like every other week.

As Nightwing thought this, he dodged, and threw one of his Escrima sticks at Slade, which hit, shattering the older man's mask. Since Nightwing didn't know what his face looked like, though, it was just an empty face with eyes, a nose and a mouth.

"Well done… Little Robin has turned into such a powerful hero…" Slade taunted.

"Shut up!" Nightwing snarled back, moving toward Slade much faster, striking at him and being blocked by a bracer that Slade had created with his Biological Manipulation.

"Well done, Robin… Oh, but you like to be called Nightwing now, don't you?" He asked in his deep, gravelly voice.

Slade then grabbed the Escrima sticks out of Nightwing's hands and began beating him with them. However, Nightwing flipped backwards and ordered the sticks to explode. Suddenly, a huge explosion hit Slade, sending him flying. Slade flipped over in the air, though, landing on his feet on the side wall, walking up the wall. Nightwing gasped.

The computer was doing its work in spades, giving Slade random powers and switching them up every so often to make sure that the Titans got experience fighting all powers. Finally, Slade walked across the ceiling and leapt down, right behind Nightwing, twisting and kicking. Nightwing barely managed to block the attack, throwing up his arms, fortifying his bones tenfold in the split second that Slade's kick took to connect. He sighed in relief, grabbing Slade's leg and throwing him.

"Well done… You've truly shown your mettle. I always did have an eye for talent… But you've surpassed my expectations… Even your new powers can't replace good battle sense, though. And you've betrayed a fatal flaw… You assumed there was only one of me." Slade's slow gravelly voice came out. Nightwing gasped, turning around but getting hit by a powerful punch to the face by another Slade.

"You still fail to live up to the promise of your former master, Robin… How disappointing." Slade said condescendingly. Nigthwing growled, pumping more biomass into himself and enhancing his abilities further, moving jerkily towards Slade, finding that his movement now was far less controlled. He punched and missed. Slade seemed to smirk behind his mask, which he had reformed.

"Mm… Power isn't going to beat me… You need control… And even I couldn't gain that on my own."

Slade said this, disappearing and reappearing behind Nightwing, chopping him on the neck, breaking his spine with a swift strike. Nightwing gasped. He had been sure he reinforced his bones enough to take any strike without breaking a bone. He fell to the ground as he began to regenerate.

"Computer! Do the stopping!" Starfire commanded. The computer confirmed her command and shut down, the enemies disappearing.

"Nightwing! Are you alright!" Starfire called, running over to him as he sat up, his spine fully healed.

"Yes. I'm fine… I'm just not fully used to my powers yet. Slade has had superpowers for decades… He was a soldier once, then a supersoldier, then a mercenary… He's had decades to perfect what I need to try to learn in a few weeks…" Nightwing said. Terra's eyes lit up.

"Slade programmed the information on Biological Manipulation in my mind. Maybe he programmed knowledge of his other skills there, too…"

"You're asking me to read your mind, now?" Nightwing asked, raising an eyebrow. Terra blushed slightly.

"N-not exactly. But none of my own memories are in my brainstem. Just reflexive memory." She replied.

"Can't hurt to try." Nightwing said, creating a biomechanical flash drive and touching Terra's forehead, seeking out her brainstem. Finally, he found a dull sense of abilities that all humans possess and don't even think about. Breathing, basic kinesthesia, etcetera. He delved deeper into the stem, sorting through individual files that were tagged with brief mental images detailing what they contained. He downloaded each of the files, briefly examining each to make sure none of them were viruses or malware.

Finally, he downloaded all of them, and brought the drive up to his computer, plugging it in, and moving through each of the files faster than he was ever able to do before. It wasn't that he had a telepathic ability, it was more that he could read extremely fast now, and absorbed information at a phenomenal rate. After a few hours, he finished, and nodded, having fully synced all the memory into his own brain. In doing this, he discovered a number of abilities that would help him.

He programmed Power Replication into himself. Now, if they were attacked by any enemies, if he could observe or experience the opponent's power, whether by being attacked by it, or watching others be attacked by it, he could choose to copy it and make it his own. His power was already incomparable to what it was before. The only thing he was really afraid of now was losing himself in his new power.