A/N: HEY ALL!

YES! I am alive. Just been busy and whatnot. So here is a new chapter for you all, I'm trying to make each of them longer. And by the end of the story (which isn't for awhile yet so no worries ok.) each chapter will be even longer. Hopefully.

Anyways again thank you to all that have been reading this lil' fic of mine, your faves and follows... my dudes it means a lot. =)

You Reviewers are the best as usual tho'. I will say it again and again and again, you guys keep me writing and you keep me wanting to improve and keep me creative and ya know... yer all just awesome. Thank you so much

EDIT: 03/28/20222 Fixing mistakes and editing it a bit so it flows better, and slowing brining this over to A03

Anyways... ONWARDS WITH THE STORY!

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Syria was in the midst of a civil war, it was something that was all over the news back home. But people in America didn't understand the gravity of it. They didn't understand the feeling of being forced from your own home simply because you wanted to be ensured your own safety. These people had to worry about bombs, terrorist groups, and the military as well. Even though multiply countries came here to help them, there was little trust. And he didn't blame them. These people were unwilling participates in a war they never asked for. And once again he was questioning "Where was the help?" and again he received his answer in a deafening silence. There was no help, and there wouldn't be anyone coming to save the day.

Robin knew then that he alone would not be enough to change anything, the world was neither black nor white but a void full of grey. But he wanted to do something, and he already knew the path he was taking would spiral far from the reach of the hands of the Justice League or Batman, and even further away from the people he once called his closest friends.

It was odd now, how he had a new batch of friends. All of them once again from different walks of life. All of them had decided to pick up a weapon and fight, much like the Titans. But Sariel, Asif and even the newer member of the party, Gus. They fought on a much different level then that of the Titans. In a much different world.

They fought to kill.

They fought to win.

Because if you didn't, you'd die. And Robin didn't want to die. He didn't want anyone to die. But how many had up until now? The boy let out a sigh, the thoughts began digging a little too deep again. Perhaps he had been thinking on it to much these past few days? His mind wandered instead to the good news that Sariel had informed him of. It seems she had made contact with one of her so called acquaintances, and she had set up shop in her 'friends' office.

Him? He was just wondering around the little town. Well it was technically a city. What did Sariel call it? Hama? Yes... Hama, it sat on the banks of the Orontes River in west-central Syria, from what she had told him. It was an ancient city. And one of the few that were not currently in complete ruins, although from what he had read it to had suffered from the use of chemical weapons, tanks and overall hostile takeovers. But for the moment, things seemed to be peaceful for the city. That was until there was another raid.

However, since he was here he did grow curious about some of the cities more interesting landmarks. Azm Palace that was of Ottoman architecture. A castle, and some sort of fancy ancient water wheels dating back a few thousand years or so, he wasn't to sure, nor cared that much about the latter. The city was a mix of modern and ancient structures. And he had to admit, there was a part of him that wanted to get lost in the city, and find new things. It wasn't everyday one was in Syria.

"Exploring?" Robin knew the voice well, it was one that had haunted his dreams for so long, but now he found some sort of odd comfort in the fact that someone, even if it was Slade, was sticking around with him.

"A bit. Kind of bored really. Sariel's doing her thing and..." Robin shrugged. His eyes turning to meet the man. Slade had long since abandoned the Russian uniform and replaced it with a pair of khaki military pants, combat boots and button up white shirt. The snow white hair, goatee and eye patch remained the same. He had never seen the mans face before, until recently. Hence why 'Sergei' kind of blind sided him.

"I'm surprised you're not there with her."

"She's got a lot of work to do."

"Perhaps you should be there. You did want to lend your hand to the effort did you not?"

"Well yea... but... I don't think she needs me. She's got things covered. I told her to give me a shout if she did need help."

"And so here you are."

Robin meekly shrugged and gave the man a bit of a smirk as a reply. "Got nothing better to do."

"I disagree. I say we put your time better to use, apprentice."

The word still tinged at his seams but it didn't overall bother him like it used to. "Like what?"

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Sariel's so called 'friend' wasn't the most nicest of people. Hence why she had him tied up on the floor with a gun to his head. Well more like an assault rifle to his head. Sariel went to work and Asif was on guard duty. Meanwhile Gus hovered anxiously around the computer Sariel typed away at.

"What the hell did you find anyways?"

"Money."

"That much is obvious. I'm the one that found out about it after all, remember? Things on the Legacy went pretty hush hush once World War II was over. I'm amazed I found anything at all to be honest." Gus was pretty proud of himself. When he found something good, it was pretty damn good.

"You do always tend to come through."

'Damn right Sar. So, let's see what you actually found."

"Give me a minute will ya?"

Gus leaned back in his chair and looked back to Asif and their bound prisoner. "To bad douche head didn't want to play along. Sure is missing out on a lot of awesome shit." Gus gestured to the gagged man. Omar was another great hacker, intel extraordinaire. It was a shame that he didn't play well with others. How the hell did Sariel know him one may ask? One could say she has always been in contact with him, always directed towards his little house when she was in need of information on the surrounding area. And he's never been very willing to share information. So as usual, Sariel has had to do things the hard way. Although it wasn't always this way between them. Word is they were once friends.

"Shiiiit." Her tone was more of astonishment then anything else.

"What?" Gus leaned in to see what Sariel had dug up and smiled. "Damn... 500 mil, in US dollars to. And that's a small portion? Fuck me..."

"No wonder they can continue on as they have."

Sariel stood up and stretched her legs. Gus took the mouse in hand and began to scroll through her findings.

"It's gonna take time to open the rest of the files Sar... Obvious reasons being that they may be encrypted with something and it will just shut our shit down. You just took files, and we don't know what's in them. Although from the looks of it, you took some good ones. Look at this shit." Gus eyed some of the folders, "Maps, War involvement from 1059 to 1109, 1308 to 1509, 952 to 1005, weird dates, don't really have any history book quality to them. Hey look, Queen fucking Elizabeth the first. Wasn't she the one with that guy, the magicy science advisor guy?"

"John Dee."

"Yea that guy... there was something fishy going on in those bonny days of London."

"If they have files on Queen Elizabeth it could mean they had control over the British Empire at the time. Perhaps still do. Even the Queen of England has to answer to someone."

Sariel leaned on the desk and looked at her friend.

'We'll have to go through all of the files, if they actually are what they say they are."

"That's the trick. Jesus Christ on a fucking motorbike. You took them to town. Let's get the money off of here first though. If it will even allow us to do that."

"And if you can't?"

"I can, one way or another. I'll have to transfer it first, make it look much more natural when it it goes into an account already full of money. Although this is a lot more then I was thinking. May have to do various accounts..."

Sariel patted her friend on the shoulder. "Once you do your little filtering job, send it to the Swiss bank account. Not that I'm sure they don't have Swiss banks of their own. But what a better place to store stolen money?"

"That's the plan." Gus laughed and continued his work. Sending it directly to a Swiss bank would look to suspicious. Even for a Swiss bank account.

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He was not expecting Slade to guide him to a empty sandy courtyard, and suddenly attack him. It was a good thing he still had his bo-staff handy. The man had almost completely caught him off guard. Luckily he was able to dodge the attack. but it would seem that was all he was going to do. Dodge.

"You need to start honing your senses far more for this territory then you would if you were back in Jump or even Gotham."

Robin dodged another attack from the man. Then another, and another. They had been at this for awhile now and Robin was already running low on fumes. But he kept moving his feet.

"Each place in this world has something to teach you. The desert as you know is far different than that of the forest. Even so depending where you are, forests vary as well. Use your surroundings."

Robin growled, he was losing this fight. Even if it was sparring and even if he had accept the man as his master, he still hated the idea of losing to him. "Use your surroundings huh?" Robin thought to himself as his hand sunk into a pile of sand. He already knew this, it wasn't something new. But it would seem Slade thought it best to go over the basics with him. Looking around, taking in his masters consideration, he noticed that the entire courtyards floor was sand with bits of vegetation. The buildings that made up the courtyard were old, and seemingly hardly lived in since one of them still remained in shattered pieces from the last bombing. They were falling apart, leaving bits of rubble to be buried beneath the desert.

Robin narrowed his eyes and let out a growl as he grabbed a handful of sand and threw it at his counterpart, earning a grunt of pain from the man. Looking like he hit his target, Robin moved in and jabbed Slade in the gut with his bo-staff before releasing a series of punches into the man.

It didn't last long however. When Slade recovered he started dodging Robins attacks and quickly grabbed one of his fists. "Anger is good, but don't let it guide you."

Robin squirmed a bit. "You have to control that temper of yours." Slades words sparked something in the boy. He narrowed his eyes at the man and then kneed him in the stomach as hard as he could. The mastermind grunted and dropped the boy. Robin picked back up his weapon and readied himself for the attack he knew would come.

He was expecting something, anything from the man. But not the chuckle that was escaping from his lips at the moment. He was a bit confused to say the least. What did he do exactly to earn such a reaction?

"Well done."

"I don't get it."

Slade gave the boy smile, and for a moment Robin got slightly nervous. "You've gotten stronger. It seems the very thing you didn't want to partake in only made you better."

"I'm not the one that brought my ass out here."

"Didn't you, I do recall you running away and slipping onto a cargo plane. What did happen on that plane anyways?"

Robin shrugged, his form relaxing and he dropped his defence, but he still held onto his staff, one end in the ground as he put some of his weight on it. "I got found out. The entire plane was full of rifles and other weapons. So I guess they didn't want any freeloaders, so they dropped all their cargo, me included. I only survived because I clung to a crate that had a parachute attached to it."

"I see." Slade internally frowned at the idea of someone throwing his apprentice off a plane. The boy always did seem to attract trouble. The two were really alike in many aspects. "I would then assume you landed in the desert?"

"The Empty Quarter. Yea..." The boy shrugged. "Wasn't exactly a nice trip."

"I would also assume it was a rather aggravating journey." The man prepared to continue their spar. Robin responded by going in for the first strike. Slade dodged his movements easily taking note where Robin was making mistakes and where he could help the boy improve with his punches.

"You have no idea." Robin quipped. "Sand is a horrible thing." He dodged a blow from Slade. Amused, the mastermind asked. "Is that so?" Another punch and another dodge. "It gets fucking everywhere." Slade couldn't help but chuckle at his apprentice. If this was any indication of how they were going to work together then he couldn't wait to get Robin fully up and running.

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What he found was remains. Remains of a city, remains of people, bodies after bodies. Residents, soldiers, children... This was a complete massacre. Who wielded such power with such blood lust was beyond him. It all seemed so pointless.

Batman had witnessed many horrors in his time. This however, got put high on the list. War was something that made even the bravest of men squirm at night from terrors of the things they had seen or done. It was something that would haunt them until the day they died. It brought good humans to their knees or it made them turn from the light. But this... this wasn't war. This was just hate and spite. Slaughter. Bruce hoped that Richard was not here when this happened. He hoped that Robin was safe somewhere far away from here, trying to get home.

And hopefully far away from Deathstroke as well.

Batman scanned the city for any kind of word on his ward, but there was very little next to none. Although one woman spoke of something familiar. A young man and woman that took on the military force that came to their town. The two apparently stood up to the people that had done this. There was a fight. But there was no word if the two had won or lost.

With a frown Bruce thought the young man in the story had to be Robin, especially since she mentioned the kid was also a foreigner.

The Batwing hovered silently over Sa'dah as Batman looked over the remains. Ra's had told him some truths it would seem. He was grateful for that at least, it was another step in finding his son. The only problem from here was where did Robin go next? He knew the more time he spent here the further away Robin would be, but he'd have to collect more information before heading on. He couldn't spare any time if he got something wrong.

"Alfred."

The butler appeared on the screen with a yawn. "Yes Master Bruce?"

"Sorry for waking you..." Batman knew there was a huge time difference between Gotham and Yemen. Seven hours to be exact, but Alfred did want to help, since his concern for Richard was just as much as his own. Plus, Alfred did say it was okay to wake him if he did indeed need him.

"I need you to find any information you can on the burning of Sa'dah. It's a city in Yemen. I think Richard was here."

"My word, I hope he is alright."

"I've heard a few rumors that a foreigner stood up against those that had burnt the city to ash. It could very well be Robin."

"It does sound like something Master Dick would do. You don't think..."

Batman shook his head. "He's alive Alfred, I just have to find him. But this is where his trail ends."

"I'll see what I can find on my end." Batman nodded at his old friend. "Master Bruce..."

"Yea Alfred."

"Find him soon, that place... it does things to people."

Batman gave the butler a curt nod before ending the transmission. He would find his son. No matter where Richard was, he would find him.

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More Batman!? What is this world coming to!? *Sips her tea from her Batman mug*

So what will Sariel and Gang find on that disc of hers other than moneyz? Will Slade ever stop wearing casual clothes and get BACK INTO HIS AWESOME UNIFORM ALREADY!? Will Alfred fall asleep at the computer? Will Batman just terrorize the poor remaining citizens with his Batwing and make screechy bat noises at them? Raven never bought that cloak on sale and now it's full price. What will she do?

I dunno... .;;;;;

Anyways Send me some love and PLS PLS REVIEW!

Be good out there and see you later.

-Fangy