"What... what happened?" Raven asked, rubbing her head. She had somehow gotten onto the couch in the main room The other Titans, save for Nightweaver, were in similar positions around them; there were soldiers tied up in the corner, and Batman had dragged a chair into the center of the room and had his head in his hands. His mask had been thrown down to the ground; she was struggling to comprehend what had happened.
"Batman? What's going on?"
"I put you all in danger. I'm sorry. I never should have sent you back here."
"What happened?"
"Kitrina was a double agent, persuaded to work for the same person that forced Red X to bomb you two, and who resurrected Black Mask."
"Black Mask is alive?"
"Was."
"Bruce, what's wrong?"
"You know about the nanobombs. Nightweaver had Cyborg channel them all into him. He used his powers to try and freeze himself. Slow the timer down."
"And Robin got the neutralizer?"
"Almost."
"No!"
"Black Mask tried to break his concentration. Nightweaver encased them both in a forcefield and blew himself up inside of it." The remaining pieces of glass in the tower shattered as Raven's emotions ran haywire. Plates, bowls, light bulbs, the TV screens, anything fragile, exploded. She threw her head into her hands and started sobbing; the walls began cracking and chunks of the ceiling started to fall.
"I failed you all. I made the wrong call and almost got all of you killed." Cyborg buzzed to life, his systems restoring after the massive shock.
"Woah! What happened here?" Raven tried to answer, but couldn't get a word out before she was taken by another sobbing fit. Batman explained the situation, and Cyborg rushed to the computers; all of the monitors were broken, so he plugged directly into the data feed.
"Good news and bad news. Bad news is, the Tower's going to be down for at least a year. Good news is, Weaver might be alive. Kinda."
"What?!" Raven yelled, searching for hope.
"With as much explosive force as there was inside of that small of an impenetrable space, it most likely didn't actually kill the subjects inside, but it would have been forced to implode. That would've opened up a wormhole and sucked them through into another dimension."
"Good work, Cyborg. See if you can save him. I'm sorry." He tore his cape off and threw it to the ground, then dropped out of the front window, leaving his mask behind.
"Cyborg... can you find where he would have gone?"
"No. It would have to be an unrestricted search."
"I can't do that alone."
"The Justice League could use the Cosmic Treadmill and have the Flash help."
"Please." Robin woke up and rolled over, coming face to face with Bruce's discarded mask.
"What? What is this?"
"I think he quit, man," Cyborg said, offering a hand to him. Robin took it and got to his feet, brushed himself off, and looked around.
"I'm going after him. I've seen this before."
"Do you think he's alive? Honestly?" Raven asked, searching for reassurance.
"I hope he is, but I wouldn't bet on it, Rae. I'm sorry, but the chances of him landing in a survivable dimension are astronomical. I'll try. If anybody could survive this, it's him."
"I shouldn't have doubted him. That's why he was so rude to her."
"It wasn't your fault. You're just going through loss. Don't lose hope yet."
"Treadmill's almost ready. Everybody knows what order to go in, right?" The Flash asked; a line of superheroes waited to enter the teleporter he was powering. Cyborg was manning the computers; Steel was first in line to get transported. Raven and several other heroes with transdimensional capabilities had already begun searching. Flash yelled out to Cyborg, the only person that could hear him over the treadmill's loud grinding.
"How did we get all of these people here?" he asked, staring straight ahead and running as fast as he could.
"Titans take care of their own. We've got a lot of pull with some very important people."
"I hope it's enough."
Nightweaver opened his eyes; everything was incredibly blurry, so he closed them again and let them rest. The air smelled terrible, reeking of trash and mildew. He could feel wetness under him, and he knew he wasn't wearing anything.
That's right. I exploded. Makes sense. His senses were beginning to come back to him; his back was leaning on a cold brick wall, and he was sitting on concrete. His eyes started working again, so he observed his surroundings. Three homeless men surrounded a barrel with flames rising from the top, ignoring him and focusing on their sole source of heat. He had no idea what city he was in, just that it was a very cold night and he needed to warm up. He stood and walked over to the flaming barrel and put his hands over it, trying to get some heat into them.
"Here." One of the hobos grabbed a spare pair of pants from a trash can and tossed them towards Weaver. He slipped into them and expressed his thanks, then went back to trying to warm up. The man who'd given him the pants, a fairly short man with short red hair and bugged out eyes, kept scanning their surroundings, waiting for trouble.
"If-if you don't mind me asking, what year is it?" The thick man across from him laughed.
"Bad trip, huh?"
"It's a long story."
"1983. November. Don't know what day it is."
"The twenty second," the short man chimed in, staring intensely into the flames.
"Yeah, that's right." The situation made no sense, but he decided to keep calm and try to figure things out.
"Where are we?"
"New York."
"That explains the cold. Last thing I remember was being in Jump City."
"What the hell's Jump City?"
"West coast, really big port city, huge red bridge keeping it together?"
"That'd be San Francisco, idiot."
"Leave the kid alone," the short man warned. Like a pack dog being ordered by the alpha, he shied away and went rummaging through a dumpster. "You're going to need to see Manhattan."
"What?"
"Hold on." He threw a trench coat over his street clothes, pulled a white and black mask on over his head, and put a fedora on. The transformation took seconds, and when he turned back around, he was face to face with Rorschach.
"Somebody's gonna have to explain this to me."
"Come with me." He walked towards the end of the alley and elbowed a window open, reached in, and opened the door to the side of it, granting them access to a closed restaurant. They both entered and Nightweaver took a seat, his head still swimming.
"What happened to me?"
"I have no idea, but you don't want to be here. Things are going to get bad soon."
"Since when do you worry about other people?"
"I don't let innocents die, and you have nothing to do with all of this. Manhattan might still be packing up. Let's go."
"Right now?" He was answered with Rorschach picking the lock on the front door and walking out; he kept a fast pace, and Nightweaver had a difficult time keeping up with him. They eventually reached an empty apartment complex, the pile of moving boxes left on the lawn.
"Hold on." Rorschach walked across the street to a gas station and popped a quarter into the payphone; within five minutes, Nite Owl showed up in a massive flying machine. He dropped out of the bottom, reminding Weaver of Batman.
"What's the situation?"
"You remember when we got stuck in that other dimension? Some crap that Manhattan was pulling?"
"Yeah?"
"This is the kid that was getting attacked by all those villains. Something brought him here."
"And he needs to get back?"
"I was hoping Manhattan could transfer him back home."
"He's already at the Air Force base. I'm not setting foot in there. Vigilantes are on thin ice as is, you know that."
"Then get us there. I'll handle it."
"Be careful. They'll shoot you on sight."
"You guys are gonna have a blast when they invent cell phones."
"What phones?" Nite Owl asked, his face curling in confusion.
"They're like landlines, but you can use them anywhere."
"What, just plug them in and they work?"
"No, you don't have to plug them in. Really useful for getting a hold of people you can't get to. I assume Dr. Manhattan doesn't have a phone?"
"He'd ignore it. He never answers his phone. Never." Archimedes lowered down far enough for them to climb in the hole in the bottom, and they were off in a few minutes.
"They're trying to bring him back, sir. They've discovered that Nightweaver and Black Mask most likely survived."
"We have the opening we need. Send boom tubes to Metropolis and Gotham. We will take humanity's crown jewels."
"Flash, shut it down."
"We've only gotten three people into the portal!"
"Darkseid's attacking Metropolis and Gotham. We've got boom tube signatures showing up everywhere. He's my friend, Flash, and I don't want to do this, but he's not worth two whole cities of people. We can search for him later." Flash slowed to a stop, bringing the treadmill to a grinding halt.
"Raven, your call." She'd been waiting for all of the other heroes to get through before searching herself; nobody debated the logic. She took a moment to think, but then realized what was needed.
"It's what he'd do in my situation. If he's in a survivable dimension, he'll be alive when we fight off the Apokoliptians."
"We'll make it fast," Superman said, approaching from the Watchtower's teleporter.
"Cyborg, which city's in worse conditions?" Raven asked impatiently.
"Metropolis. Darkseid probably anticipated that Superman would be there."
"Somebody needs to find Batman. We can't defend Gotham properly without him. Nobody knows it the way he does," Superman said, worrying about his friend. Robin appeared in the doorway, having just taken the teleporter.
"He's retiring. I couldn't convince him that it wasn't his fault."
"That doesn't sound much like him."
"I think he just needs some time. He isn't used to making mistakes."
"I'll handle it." Raven got up, but Robin held her back.
"His mind's too strong for your powers. Everybody's tried it on him. It doesn't work."
"Where is he?"
"I don't know. He's Batman. If he doesn't want to be found, he isn't found."
"That's too bad." Raven vanished in a cloud of darkness, leaving the other superheroes to organize against the Apokoliptian invasion. Green Lantern moved to the front of the room, addressing all of them.
"I'll get as many Lanterns as I can to help us. We're probably going to want to send some more people to Metropolis than Gotham. Let's get this done, people!"
"I'm sorry. I cannot help you."
"What?" Nightweaver spat out in disbelief; they'd gone through the trouble of breaking into a military base for nothing, then.
"It is beyond my ability to accurately transport between dimensions."
"You're revered as a god and you can't even get this done?" Rorschach asked 67
"Interdimensional travel is difficult, Rorschach. I would not expect you to understand."
"Good, because I don't! You need to find a way to help this kid. He's not cut out for our world, and if we can't help him, nobody will."
"Ozymandeus may be able to help you further."
"We both know he can't. Try."
"If I do manage to transport his body to another dimension, the chance of his collective consciousness remaining intact is fifty percent. The chance of him landing in his own dimension is infinitessimally small. Landing somewhere survivable in his own dimension even smaller. Attempting this would be sending him to almost certain death."
"What can we do?" Weaver asked, trying to ease the tension.
"I can try and develop a method, but until then, we would have to try to keep you safe."
"In my dimension, we have the capability to do interdimensional travel safely. Is there any way for us to tell them I'm here?"
"I am capable of moving myself across dimensions. I will have them come and get you as soon as possible, then."
"Thank you, doctor."
"I am only righting a wrong."
Raven prepared herself to go down to Gotham and fight; she took several quiet minutes alone to meditate and calm the raging waters of her mind. She floated around two feet in the air, gently bobbing up and down peacefully, her cloak gently falling below her.
"You know I can sense you, right?" she asked, knowing she had been being watched nearly since she began meditating.
"You alright?" Red Hood asked, walking in front of her and dropping to a crouch.
"As well as could be expected. Why are you here?"
"I know I don't exactly give off good vibes, but I like Nightweaver. He reminds me a lot of myself, if I'm being perfectly honest. He's angry. He's got issues that I understand. I just wanted to let you know that I'm trying to change what I was because of this. I was a real ass to him when he came to me for help, and I regret that. If you need anything to get him back, anything, then-" He was interrupted by a massive blue light appearing in the room; a tall, mostly nude, remarkably blue man appeared with them.
"Your friend is stuck in our dimension. He would like to come back." Raven was practically smiling from ear to ear the instant she heard the news.
"What was that, Jason?"
"We need Flash to operate the treadmill, then. I'll-"
"I can perform any speed based feat required. It would be a simple matter of telekinetically moving the gears."
"You don't understand. Flash is connected to the Speed Force. He's the fastest runner in the known universe. We need him."
"I will comply with your requests. You have more knowledge of this technology than I do, which is a statement I am not all too used to making." Red Hood dialed in his earpiece to the Justice League frequency, hoping Flash would be able to make it quickly.
"Justice League, this is Red Hood. A visitor from another dimension says that Nightweaver landed in his dimension. Flash, can we get a hand here?"
"How did you get onto this frequency, Hood?" Green Lantern responded angrily.
"That's beside the point. Is Flash free or not?"
"I can make it." Within a minute, Barry came in through the teleporter, eyeing Dr. Manhattan. "Hope this guy can work the controls. Cyborg's a little tied up."
"Our universes are nearly directly parallel. It should be a simple matter."
"I'll go in after him. How am I getting back?" Red Hood asked.
"Clip this to your jacket," Flash responded, handing him a large button. "Interdimensional communicator. You hit this, I'll start the treadmill up again, and that'll drag you and any biological matter you're in contact with at the time." Red Hood clipped it to his sleeve, the white and blue standing out in stark contrast to the gunmetal gray and blood red of his costume.
"Impressive," Manhattan noted.
"Raven, get to Gotham and help. I'll take care of this." Jason nodded to her, then stepped onto the teleportation pad. She vanished quickly through a portal, much too happy to be going to war.
"You know, Hood, you're the last person I'd expect to volunteer to go into an alien dimension to save somebody you don't know all too well. Especially seeing as this guy is our sole representation of life there. No offense."
"None taken. I am not typical of my world. Do not expect much change, save for technological differences."
"Let's get this started."