Author's Note: And we are back. A bit of a break for everyone so that you can recover from the two for one special we had last time. Now this is going to be an interesting story; about a couple years ago, I was involved in a conversation with a long time reader and reviewer, Protocol115, and from that conversation birthed the plot of this story. We're going to have some new characters, some old ones, and of course a crossover of Batman and the Teen Titans. Feel free to make your speculations, it only encourages my coauthor, ShadowMajin, and I. For reference, this story is almost immediately after the events of Dawn of Generation Lost which you can find on my account, and has some fallout from The First Degree, so you might want to read those first for a lot of context. Without further ado, enjoy.

Disclaimer: We do not own Batman or the Teen Titans

Streets of Blüdhaven

There was never any such thing known as long hours when it came to law enforcement. There was no regular nine-to-five, no real schedule for breaks and the like. You were on duty. The only time you weren't on duty was when it was exactly that, not on duty. That could change in a second. Nowadays a simple text or automated call could be the one thing that ended a pleasant evening.

Because of how irregular the hours were, real social lives, family lives, and everything not involving the profession itself fell to the wayside. Divorce and isolation were very common. Sometimes the guns aimed at them came not from criminals and suspected perpetrators, but their own hands.

This really increased in the bigger cities where there were more people and therefore more criminal activity. Some cities were good at hiding it while others became only known for it. Blüdhaven was one of these cities, most of its reputation coming from how bad it was. It was described as tough, sometimes dismal, and one would wonder why anyone would want to live there.

You could ask that same question about Gotham City. The answers, because there were more than one, would be the same.

Every night there always seemed to be something new. Murder, shooting, street violence, robbery that ended in a shooting, you name it, about ninety percent of the time it had a death involved. Whenever there was death, detectives were called in to assess the scene and begin hunting down those responsible.

Detective Richard Grayson, though he preferred to be called Dick, had been off duty for about ten minutes when he had to go back on duty. Then it was a drive with a partner down to the scene itself to start the processing procedure.

On the outside, he looked young for this job, some would say a rookie even. About a couple years since he had arrived here, and he had been showing that he wasn't some rookie. Crimes that would have been dragged along or put into the infamously huge cold case file room were solved or at least brought to a conclusion under his sharp eyes. There was a mixture of suspicion and begrudging awe because of that.

Maybe that was why he got tapped to look at this particular murder…though it was hard to tell if it was a murder and not a random killing.

It was in an alley, dirty and grimy, though this time the trash was scattered about it not from neglect but from the very crime that had taken place here. There was a body and there was a lot of blood everywhere. It was hard to tell if the corpse had once worn clothes; the garments themselves were slashed at the front. Coincidentally enough, there was enough mutilation to make it difficult to say if he was looking at a man or a woman.

Whoever they were, they had been through the ringer. If he were to judge by some of the blood splatter, they might have been thrown against the brick walls on either side of the alley. There was a dumpster further in, one with a large dent in it, looked crumpled, along with some rips left in it.

The detective was suspecting claws. This seemed backed up by similar marks dug into the brick and mortar of the walls as well. It was like there was a wild animal that had been here.

Wild animals were a rarity in a big city, even if Blüdhaven was the Reno to Gotham's Las Vegas.

He was crouching close to the body, making sure not to stand or place a foot in any blood. The young man who was slowly losing the right to call himself young peered into what remained of the face, and that was a challenge in and of itself. Skin was ripped there, possible biting? Was something trying to eat this person? If so, why leave this much of the body behind? There should be more missing, of this he was sure. There should be signs of dragging, in this case a drag trail. There were none so where this person laid was where the attack ended.

This kind of thing should have made a lot of noise. Someone must have seen something. Based on the initial canvas, there were a lot of reports of those noises, but no one had been curious enough to get close. There was someone, he was sure, who had, and either wasn't speaking or was hiding. Trauma had people doing a lot of weird things.

"So Grayson, what do you make of this one?" The question came from his partner of the night, if you could call her that. Detective Amy Rohrbach, a veteran who had five years on him, and was perhaps the only one most willing to work with him. Maybe that was due to a lot of other detectives not wanting to work with her, take three guesses why. This was real life, not Law & Order.

"Spontaneous, victim of convenience," Dick reported. "Whoever this used to be? Wrong place, wrong time. They were convenient, happened to be right there, and it was their unlucky night."

"Think it might be a new enforcer for Desmond?" Rohrbach asked.

Dick considered the suggestion. It wouldn't be out of line or character for a man like Roland Desmond to go out of his way for a new brutal enforcer. However, his hired killers favored more human based weaponry, guns, knives, bare fists, and once mid-century weaponry. While you could try to mimic a wild animal with any of those, he had his doubts.

"Look at the cut marks." He gestured for what was visible on the body then to the walls. "Too evenly spaced apart. It would be difficult, too difficult, and very time consuming to try and replicate it like that."

"What about ninja weapons?"

"These injuries are too deep for that. I'm thinking this is more animalistic than human."

Rohrbach wrinkled her nose. "What kind of an animal gets this far into the city and isn't seen?"

A good question, but Dick had seen a lot of things himself by now, which meant he could throw out a lot of options. "You know I came from Gotham, right?"

Rohrbach gave him a nod, but said nothing. It was common knowledge where he came from, which also added to some of the distance he received from others on the force.

"A few years ago, we had an…infestation you could say. A whole colony of bats swooped in and attacked anyone and everyone in sight. These weren't normal bats, though. They're called Manbats now, huge monsters and yes, they had claws. I saw some of the fallout, some left behind markings like these where they were spotted."

Rohrbach had a blank expression, but you could see some of the gears were turning in her head. "You think it might be one of these Manbats?"

"Depends. Manbats were people before they were injected with this serum. You'd have to get your hands on that serum, and there's only a handful of people on the planet who would know it, and last I checked, they were all in Gotham." Dick raised himself from his couch, standing on both feet. "A second check shouldn't hurt." He moved his attention away from the corpse and took in the rest of the scene once more. "We need to find whatever did this, and quickly. It's killed already and it'll do so again."

There was no real argument. Animals and humans may kill, but animals did it for food, and when survival was the motive, you did everything in your power to achieve it. Humans had the luxury of other reasons, if you could call them luxuries.

Dick's eyes narrowed, something further in catching his attention. He made no outward signs of that, keeping calm and blank. Instead, he turned to Rohrbach and said, "I'm going to do a canvas, see if I can convince a witness or two to come out of their holes. Failing that, maybe someone else will drop something. Call me if something comes up on your end."

Rohrbach waved him away. "If you find something interesting, how about you do the same? I'd rather not have you going on one of your hunches by yourself again. One of these days, you might bite off more than you can chew."

"Duly noted," the detective said wryly, leaving the scene. While it wouldn't be the first time he got a "hunch" if you will, his partner here was right in that every once in a while, he did get in over his head.

It was a good thing then he knew a few tricks about getting out of such a situation. It hadn't failed him yet, but one could never be too cautious.

Still, tonight's hunch had him thinking that a change of wardrobe was needed, one that would definitely get some frowns and a whole new batch of hostility at the station.

Trying to slip away while on duty wasn't easy, but Nightwing was figuring it out. There were still some bugs to work out, but give it a couple more months and it should be ironed out.

There were times when he regretted choosing law enforcement as his new day job. The irregular hours cut into his patrol time; sometimes he didn't even get a chance to do patrol. Add to that the late, late hours, and you could say he was burning the candle at both ends.

But he wasn't about to give up. Not here, not now. He had left Gotham to strike it on his own. Blüdhaven had a reputation, and one that he chose to challenge. His days leading the Batclan were over. Everyone that had been an original member had gone their own ways, though not entirely by choice.

Which made the new resurrected group a point of contention. He kept his opinion to himself, but it still rankled. All those years struggling, being dismissed and told to give it up, losing friends and teammates, and everything, only for a new group to pick up the name and get instant recognition. It was frustrating.

The young man was channeling that frustration into both day and night jobs. While it felt good to get tapped for when Batman was preparing for a rogue Justice League, it didn't change the gut punch that had come with the acceptance of the new Batclan. He had nothing against Bluebird or Spoiler; he had helped train those girls for better or worse, and they had potential, a lot of it.

They weren't Barbara. They weren't Tim. There was a loyalty to the original trio, one that had never reached its goal until after it had fragmented. It was like saying they had never been good enough.

At least Desmond's enforcer or assassin of the week gave him the chance to work out that frustration.

Back to the real matter at hand, he had noticed a disturbance further down the alley but had refrained from pointing it out. As Dick Grayson, he needed to have some fallibility, something to make him appear more human and a wunderkind. Directing others to the evidence you found was another source of frustration, but one strategy he needed to use so as not to be connected with the vigilante that was becoming a household name in this city.

Peering down from a rooftop while the crime scene in the alley was still being cordoned off and processed, he used a pair of binoculars to gaze downward at his finding. Dirt was something you would find in a dirty alleyway, something that trekked in and accumulated over time. It wasn't like there was a dedicated force to cleaning every single alley in Blüdhaven. You'd be fighting that battle every day, competing not just with other people, but with the animal population that did live here, strays primarily. Everything that walked around tracked dirt.

So when it piled up over time, pushed further and further in due to all sorts of factors, it sometimes let you have a little clue such as footprints. Enough dirt had been disturbed that with the binoculars, he could make out what might be footprints. They didn't look human either, leading credence to the theory of a wild animal, but pointing that finger had to wait. Something was off about the tracks.

It took a moment, but based on the pattern, he'd have to say whatever was responsible for the murder was bipedal. It stood on two legs, so random wild animal could be crossed off. So what else could it be?

Nightwing did not want a Manbat running around here. Those things were tough, could take a lot of hits, and not to mention the claws, teeth, and wings. Things were bad enough with organized crime. They didn't need Gotham trickling in here.

The masked man put away the binoculars, already studying the footprints and determining which way they went. Shoddy police work would delay the footprints' discovery for some time, so that meant he could try and find out who or what the perp was.

Taking off in a jog, he crossed a few rooftops to put some distance between himself and his fellow officers. He'd always check to make sure that whatever path the perp had taken was trackable. That meant stopping and surveilling the numerous alleys that littered this dark city.

The tracks would fade in and out; that was the best way to describe it. Even in dirty, grimy alleys, there were areas that were relatively cleaner than others. Trash would be absent, and there was less to step on, so needing to pick up on the trail was necessary. Eventually, he would venture down to ground level and do it the easy way, but not without putting some distance between himself and the crime scene. Keeping an eye out for any patrolling officers was also needed. That kind of crime would demand a lot of attention so long as people kept talking about it.

Puzzlingly, the trail turned to the street, alarming, yet there were no signs of panic or anything. Nightwing peeked out, noted some of the daring citizens who weren't yet too cowed by Blüdhaven's reputation. They didn't look scared or fleeing from anything.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe it was a very ingenious disguise…or perhaps something else. He didn't want to, but he did consider a metahuman, one with shapeshifting abilities. Tim had a teammate now who could do that; what were the odds he was dealing with one now?

Pulling back deeper into the alley, the vigilante considered his options. To be thorough, he would need to check across the street, see if there were any signs of his quarry, so that would mean getting back on the rooftops again. Crossing streets while airborne was a pain, but that was what grapples were for. Nice to have some better toys in his belt, that was one part of the past he'd gladly leave behind.

As a hand reached to his belt, fingers reached for the grapple launcher, paused, then gripped the handle of a baton. Spinning on his heel and charging the weapon up, he stopped a mouth full of teeth that was attempting to chomp his head off. Blue bolts sparked, temporarily lighting up what was a very large creature, dark blue skin stretching over a very thick body. The teeth themselves were not only sharp, but very long and pointed.

A booted foot planted itself on the hard torso, and Nightwing kicked off of it, flipping back to gain some distance while pulling out his other escrima. Holding both up in front of him, he eyed this ambusher, taking in everything he saw.

Lighting was bad so he could not get a good look. However, it seemed this thing was comfortable in the dark because it charged right at him. They were hard to see, but he was able to count four long and spindly arms that came complete with very long, dagger-like claws and each handful of them were stabbing their way for him.

Nightwing burst into action himself, parrying and knocking aside each hand that struck at him, backing further and further into the alley. When a claw drew too close to one of his escrima's ends, a flare of electricity would burst. These flares let the vigilante pick out more details, such as the two columns of beady eyes and how stretched the face was. There looked like there were little hairs but that was still too hard to tell.

He kept up with every slash and grab, getting a good look as one set of claws carved into the alley wall. He ducked then pushed himself forward, slipping between the creature's stubbly legs which caused his chest to drag against the ground. Tightening his grip on an escrima, he thrusted it back into a very certain spot on the creature's behind, and got a very high pitched shriek out of the monster's throat.

Something wrapped around his neck, and Nightwing swore as he was pulled up into the air by a whip-like tail, one that seemed to have a stinger on its end. Eyes widening, he dropped one escrima so he could grip the tail end and keep that stinger away from himself, or as far as he could with the tail wrapped around his throat.

That was one more thing: that tail was squeezing and cutting off both air and blood flow. Not good. But wait, that creature was turning around, two arms held aloft with those long claws ready to disembowel.

Forced to drop the other escrima, the vigilante reached to his belt and slipped out three throwing projectiles that may or may not resemble a batarang. Not a birdarang either—sorry Tim. But like those weapons, he threw out the trio and watched the sharp ends dig into the side of the monster's head. The center of each projectile glowed red, and then the blasts of three small explosions knocked the creature for a loop.

The tail yanked him back but did not release him. The stinger began to force itself against his arm and time was running out. A fourth throwing projectile was pulled out and this time stabbed into the tail that was still gripping his throat. The spasm of pain that ran up it gave him enough to work with, and by that slip his head out and free himself.

Landing in a crouch, he scooped up both fallen escrimas while dashing away, skidding to a stop as he spun around once more to face this thing. He didn't have a second to wait because the tail's stinger was jabbing at him, forcing him to dodge. To his right, then his left, tilt his head to right, now block with both escrima crossed in front of him. Electricity crackled and he pushed back.

As the stinger withdrew, the claws returned. Nightwing fell to a knee and tilted his body to the right. He felt air against his head and there may have been some hair that sprinkled downwards as the hand cleared the space just next to his head. Next, he fell back and went into a roll as a second hand stabbed into the concrete. Tiny particles clouded the space around that strike and cracks spider webbed around where the hand had struck.

For the third hand, Nightwing parried with an escrima and electricity flared against those claws. A return strike from the vigilante batted the third hand away and a reverse knocked aside the fourth hand that tried to swipe at him. The first hand made a return but was ducked all the same.

The third hand tried again but its aim was a little off, tearing into a dumpster instead. As metal tore, the vigilante grimaced as he realized that this fight was heading towards the street now. He couldn't allow that to happen.

Stepping on the outstretched arm, he ran up it, used one foot to touch down on the creature's head, gave a mighty jump that carried him up and over and just missed the stabbing tail stinger that sought some vengeance of its own. Once more he backed himself further down the alley way all the while this creature followed him, snarling.

Alright, so far it had taken some hits but wasn't slowing down. What could he do? The answer was obvious, use the heavy artillery. Easier said than done because carrying heavy artillery was a pain in and of itself and he liked to travel light. But this was what gadgets were for, right?

While the escrima had a certain level of voltage to them, he kept it low on purpose because he wasn't going to seriously hurt someone with them. Even if he turned them up high, that would also mean going into close quarters. Well, there was at least one part of Bluebird that had rubbed off on him.

It was a taser, one he whipped out and fired. The prongs struck the chest area, and a powerful charge flowed through the wiring and into the monster's body. The creature froze up, but only momentarily. Like it had a mind of its own, the stringer swung out and cut through the wires, ending the taser. As if unaffected, the creature continued to follow after him.

Well, that wasn't good.

Nightwing found himself stepping into a more open space, an intersection of alleys. There was more room to operate in, but less to kick or run off of. As if detecting the change, the monster reared up on its stubby legs and made with another charge.

The vigilante leapt out of the way and knocked aside the tail stinger once more. The monster spun on its two-toed foot, slashing with its claws. He pulled back, getting to his feet while blocking a follow-up slash. Reversing his grip on one of his escrima, he jabbed the electrified tip into the palm of one of the hands, getting a jerk from the limb. His other escrima slammed down on a thin, boney wrist.

He leapt up, spinning his body while swinging both of his weapons, knocking aside the other two hands. Landing on his feet, the young man surged forward and threw a punch, one that was reinforced with the handle of the escrima that remained in his grip. He got the side of the head and almost grimaced as the monster took the hit. It was definitely sturdy—

His other arm snaked around the creature's head and he pulled himself up, just barely slipping out of the trap the four arms attempted to close on him. The toes of his feet barely made it out of the way, and the next thing he knew, he was balancing on top of the creature's head with only his hands while the monster's arms were wrapped around its own torso.

The long head bucked and the deadly jaws snapped at him, but Nightwing was flipping over the beast, keeping his feet together as he landed on the tail, pinning it to the ground. Both escrima crossed in front of him, blocking the tail stinger once more and a counterstrike with one escrima knocked it aside while he leapt off the pinned appendage.

Needing to turn around again, he faced his enemy, trying to figure out how to pull a win here. He had no idea what he was up against other than it was tough. He had always preferred hand-to-hand combat, but this thing was making him regret skimping on the toys now.

Well, there was the last resort. Once more reaching for his belt, a nice little grenade now rested in his palm. Oracle had warned him about this one, a device akin to a flashbang but stronger. Almost like a concussor if you will. So how about a nice little concussion for the beast of the week?

Nightwing threw the grenade and surprisingly, the monster caught it with its teeth. Alright, time for det—and then the teeth tore into the grenade, ripping it to pieces before the detonation. Well shit.

The creature was advancing on him now, and Nightwing considered a brief retreat. No, not a retreat, otherwise this thing could go after someone else. Someone out on the street. Maybe he could lead it somewhere?

No time to think now, those claws were slicing at him. Back to defense he went, blocking and parrying until a hand backhanded an escrima hard enough to tear it out of his grip. Away the baton went, clattering against whatever it hit. One of the monster's hands balled into a fist and nearly hit him with the force of a sledgehammer had he not rolled with it.

He ran into something, trash can or box, it didn't matter. It fell over to a side and spilled its contents all the same. This threw him a little off balance and he had to prop himself against a wall to keep from falling. As if sensing weakness, the monster began to leap at him, arms held out, mouth wide, teeth and claws bared.

It came from above in the form of a blazing streak, slammed into the monster's back, and the resulting impact with the concrete ground was loud and kicked up quite a cloud of dirt and dust. The noise of the crash was deafening and Nightwing had to shield his eyes. It was instinctual; he had the lens of his mask to protect his eyes, but the reflex was too automatic to ignore.

From within the cloud of debris, a green light flared and gave off quite some heat. Nightwing was back on guard, wondering what the hell was happening. Whatever this was, would it be enough to take this monster out and if so, would whatever was responsible be friendly? He did not need to enter a second fight so quickly.

Slowly the obstructive cloud dissipated and the sight before him was…one he hadn't been expecting. For one, the monster was losing a lot of its bulk, almost flattened you could say. And if his eyes were not deceiving him, it looked like it was getting smaller. That wasn't making sense.

What else didn't make sense was the orange-skinned woman that stood on its back, green light dimming around her hands. Her long hair was settling, but its ends were wisping not unlike flame. Green eyes met with his, and a small smile was gifted onto him.

"Greetings, Friend Nightwing," Starfire greeted. "I hope my intervention was timely in its arrival."

It took some time for the shock and the, ahem, recovering from the last minute rescue to leave his system. Not that Nightwing was going to refuse help from such a lovely woman like the Tamaranean Titan, but what was she doing on the other side of the country?

She was supposed to be in Jump City. As far as he knew, she was not known to have wanderlust or to be alone. This meant there had to be others with her, and one of them he knew really well.

Relocating to a rooftop for privacy, Nightwing regarded the group of six that were currently not on the side of the country that he expected them to be. Visually, they were quite the eclectic group, colorful in a way that stood out in a place like Blüdhaven and not in a positive way. More like it made them moving targets for someone to try and shoot at for the challenge.

Starfire, he knew, though at an acquaintance level which was quite the shame. She was beautiful even by Earth standards, but maybe the whole deal about being extraterrestrial had turned people off thanks to not so recent events. Still, he would volunteer to keep her company if she would let him.

Then there were a few familiar faces, ones that were starkly in his memory thanks to a bunker that had been rigged into a death trap. The blonde in the armor had to be Wonder Girl; tall and metal was Cyborg, good to see he wasn't on his back anymore; the green one was easy, Beast Boy; but over there was a new face. Yellow from a prominent red bolt on his chest, this guy had to be related to the Flash somehow. Didn't take a genius to recognize that iconic symbol.

Last, but not least, an old friend who had gained quite a few inches. Taller, losing the last vestiges of his baby fat, but still so youthful, it was Tim, formerly Robin, and he recalled that he was calling himself Red Robin right now. Nice to see him again, however…

"What was that down there? I'm guessing since Starfire here was quick to kill it, you've met something like it before," Nightwing remarked, arms crossed.

To his credit, Red Robin didn't back down nor did he relax his stance. "You'd be right," his old partner in vigilance confirmed. "They're actually the reason we're over here."

The older vigilante was tempted to raise an eyebrow. Was this confirmation that a metahuman was involved? If so, why did it need the presence of the Teen Titans? Also, he had a feeling that there was something…or someone missing. Couldn't quite put his finger on it yet, but maybe getting Red Robin to talk here might help with that.

"So what are they and why did one attack and kill a bystander earlier tonight?" No sense dancing around this; he needed answers and needed them now.

His question got him some interesting reactions. Quite a few looks from the teenage superheroes were directed his way, a couple with surprise while others were more…grim. Oh yeah, there was history here. They knew something.

"Long story short, they aren't truly real—"

"Tell that to the vic," Nightwing interrupted, almost glaring at Red Robin. He'd seen the damage that had happened to the deceased and he wasn't about to be gaslit about it.

"—not real in the traditional sense. They're constructs, ones that can interact with the physical world, but not living. The one you fought? Not even dust by now," Red Robin corrected. "You can go all out on them if you find anymore."

"There's more?" he demanded, his body tensing. It was a struggle to keep his voice from raising, but could you blame him? That monster, or construct, had been tough to fight.

"There will be unless we can get to the source," Cyborg answered, an arm held up with which he was working on. Some sort of scanner, the vigilante guessed.

Looking back to Red Robin, "Is it metahuman?"

There was some hesitation, even with that blank look on his former teammate's face. The domino mask couldn't hide that, and Nightwing knew all of the younger man's tells. However, he got a nod to confirm his guess. "This isn't our first time, but we do know how to stop it."

"Find the metahuman and stop them?" A very generic and vague idea, but it was the only one Nightwing could work with right now. "Is it that simple?"

"The only good news you'll hear, yes. The problem is finding her," Red Robin responded.

Her. A girl metahuman. One that this team had met before and dealt with. That much he could figure out. The detail from earlier, about something or someone missing, it was nagging at him. Recalling the headcount and counting up to six, the new face with the teen with probably ties to the Flash, and the memory of the bunker deathtrap was enough to put another absent face to the forefront of his mind.

It was one with pale, almost gray, skin with a hood shadowing the facial features. Large, dark-colored eyes hauntingly peered into your soul while serving as a one-way mirror preventing you from seeing into hers, and a stoicism that might be on par with a certain Dark Knight, all of that returned to him, and he made a show of looking around.

"Where's the other one? Raven, I think her name is?" Another guess, a hunch if you will, but if he were a betting man…

Starfire looked down, appearing ashamed. Why was that? Beast Boy was shifting his weight from one leg to the other. Cyborg's jaw noticeably clenched. The speedster—

"Whoa, he's real sharp, isn't he?" said speedster spoke up. "He's catching on quick!"

—that didn't sound sarcastic at all and completely genuine. Alright, that pretty much confirmed it, but might as well get as much out of Red Robin as he could. There was going to be more and he needed to know what he was up against.

Before he could ask, his old partner explained, "Couple weeks ago, we broke up a metahuman trafficking ring, one with delusions of grandeur and world domination. The League is busy trying to figure out what to do with all the metahumans we were able to free. Before we could stop them, they were able to abduct and sell Raven on the dark web. Thanks to Cyborg, we know where the buyer is, but not who. We were only recently able to come out here and it was by luck that one of Cyborg's scanners picked up on the construct you were fighting. Personally, I'm hoping the buyer is here; it would make things a lot easier."

He had heard a little about metahuman trafficking and the League recently. Of course the Teen Titans had to be involved with breaking it up. There was a little pride there; that was no mean feat that his former teammate had accomplished. Changing the world a little bit at a time, right? That the same business had led the younger vigilante and his team out here, and that he was hoping that they could finish it in Blüdhaven raised an alarm though.

Reputation aside, why would Blüdhaven be more preferable? Was the Titans' destination somewhere worse? What place could be worse than…oh. Well, there was one.

It wasn't the criminal elements Red Robin was nervous about, was it?

"Is it where I think it is?" Nightwing nearly groaned, but he knew he had to ask.

This time, Red Robin gave out a sigh, shoulders slightly slumping. "It is."

Gotham. Shit.

"He finds out you're this far east, you know he's going to send you all back west, broken bones not optional." Nightwing felt he needed to warn Tim. Batclan or not, they had done their time and spilt blood in the same mud together. He was going to look after the one person he could say was the closest thing he would ever have to a younger brother, even if…even if it meant facing Batman himself.

Batman didn't want any metahumans in his city for a reason. The Teen Titans had gotten off lucky the last time. Now they were pressing their luck.

"If there were any other choice, I'd do it, but this is about Raven. She's part of the team and we aren't going to abandon her even if it means having to fight off Batman himself," Red Robin stated, hands trembling from the strain he was putting on them. Yeah, there was a healthy amount of respect and fear there.

"Yeah, she's one of us! We're not going to let some weirdo do whatever they want with her!" piped up Beast Boy.

There was a feeling he had where he was expecting Wonder Girl to say something, but curiously she didn't. She was looking away, appearing very uncomfortable. Must be recalling her up close and personal encounter with the Dark Knight, not that he blamed her.

"We are most concerned for her well-being." That was being argued by Starfire, and now Nightwing was facing her. "The creatures she births, they are not a good manifestation of her psychological state. Much is wrong, and the longer it progresses, we may face other nightmares as a result. For not only her safety, but the humans in these nearby settlements, we must find and retrieve her."

It was hard to argue with that, he found. The Tamaranean must have some impressive persuasion skills.

Rubbing the back of his head, he glanced away and thought about how messed up this situation was and what it might promise to become. Would it require League intervention? That would be the cherry on this shit sundae here. Batman was going to love all of this.

"At least contact Oracle and let them know you'll be in the neighborhood. They can try and lessen the impact when you-know-who figures out you're back in town," he recommended. There had been a temptation to not use the Oracle moniker, but frankly the Titans didn't need to know everything about Barbara.

"They're not going to be happy either…but better than showing up unannounced," Red Robin agreed, straightening his shoulders and posture.

There didn't need to be an agreement. Both could predict how the computer hacker was going to respond.

Instead, he said, "In the meantime, I'll see what I can find out on my end. Somehow one of those…constructs found its way here all the way from Gotham. The city has to be crawling with more of them…though you'd think that would be making the news now instead of all that stuff with Wayne."

Red Robin's brow furrowed. "Yeah, you would think."

Cyborg took a step forward to the vigilante. "I can hook you up with a little something I've been whipping up. It should help out in case any more of those constructs show up."

"Whatever you can give me, I'll take it," he readily agreed. Back to Red Robin, "Good luck out there, and please, try to be quick. The sooner you find your friend, the sooner you can get out of there. Oh, and try not to lose anyone this time around."

A grimace had to be shaken off before his old partner replied, "That's what we intend to do."

Author's Note: Yes, a nice little checkup with Nightwing. I hoped you enjoyed him while it lasted. Once more, I love to read your theories and thoughts about what's going, what might happen, and everything else. Protocol115, you know the drill, keep what you know to yourself, feel free to share your thoughts, and then enjoy what everyone else has to say.