They walked the streets of Gotham City with impunity. The cops were no match for them, and there was no one else who had the guts to stand up to them. They were the Jokerz. They ruled Gotham.
Or so they thought.
Just as the couple shrank away from the Jokerz, a shadowy figure imposed itself between them and the hoodlums.
"Nice night for a walk," Batman said. "Now start walking while you still can."
"Batman?" one of the Jokerz blinked.
"No way!"
"Get 'im!"
They charged, and the red-and-black-clad figure suddenly wondered at the wisdom of confronting them openly like this. Before the thoughts could distract Batman further, the first Joker was upon him.
He ducked under the first Joker's baseball bat and straight-armed him in the gut, then pivoted his arm to the side, using and redirecting his momentum to send him crashing into the wall. The next one, wielding a chain, successfully wrapped it around Batman's wrist, only be pulled off balance. As he fell, his face was met by Batman's knee.
Two of the last three Jokerz stepped forward. One was a girl wielding a spike-studded rubber chicken, while the other was a big man sporting brass knuckles. They charged, and Batman staggered as the rubber chicken slammed into his side, but he grabbed it and pulled, twisting around and yanking the female Joker into the path of her larger companion, who barely avoided tumbling over her. As it was, he lumbered to a halt just in time for Batman to shoot to his feet and land a paralyzing strike to the side of the neck.
Batman turned to the last Joker, who had pulled out a gun and was holding it shakily.
Batman's eyes narrowed.
"Boo."
The last Joker dropped the gun and ran. He didn't outrun the batarang.
Batman crept into the Batcave and pulled off the mask, revealing a distinctly feminine face with brown eyes and framed with dark hair. She stripped out of the Batsuit and carefully placed it back in the glass case, just as the lights switched on. She spun.
Busted.
"Tara," Bruce said warningly, "what do you think you're doing?"
Bruce Wayne stood at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Wayne Manor. Next to him was a woman who could almost be her twin, if it weren't for the hair style, eyes, and age difference. It was her mother.
"Gotham needs Batman, old man," Tara Wayne said evenly.
"Batman belongs in that case, doing nothing more than collecting dust."
"I'll steal it again if I have to," she said adamantly.
"Not if I have anything to say about it," Bruce's face darkened.
"C'mon!" she snapped. "You did it! Dad did it! Why stop me?"
"Things were different then."
Tara snorted, "You sound like Chief Gordon."
"Tara..."
"No!" she snarled. "You're not my father! You won't even talk about him! Why should I listen to you?" She stormed past them and up the stairs.
Bruce's gaze followed her for a long moment, and he sighed, "Talia, how did you two do this? It was so much easier with Dick and Tim."
"Do not ask me, Beloved," she said, speaking for the first time since the confrontation began. "My husband had a way with children."
"I'm sure he did."
Talia looked across the Batcave, then at Bruce, "Why are you so upset, Beloved? Every night, you go to the Batcave, you make sure everything is ready to use, so why? You seem as if... you are waiting for something."
"I am."
"You have been waiting for Tahra to do this."
"No, I haven't," he said, shaking his head. The misunderstanding was understandable. "When I first met Nighthawk... Xander, he told me something. He told me that the next Batman would come twenty years after I quit, and that he would need my help."
"He told you of the future?"
"Yes, and he made it quite clear that the next Bat would be male, and it's only been fifteen years since I hung up the cape."
"But that was the future of a world in which he did not exist. A world where our daughter could not exist."
Bruce's eyes narrowed, "You mean _your_ daughter."
"Bruce..." she said, laying a hand on his shoulder.
"You lost your first husband to a costumed life, Talia. Do you want to lose your daughter too? She's all you have left of him."
Talia recoiled at that. After a moment, she looked away, "That was unkind, Beloved, and you know it. I will not dictate my daughter's life to her as mine was... and neither will I allow you to use my husband's memory against us."
"It may be unkind, but it's true."
"It was the costumed life he led that led me to him, Beloved," she said, meeting his gaze, a challenging look in her eyes.
"And if we allow this, it will be a costumed life that will lead her back to him, Talia, straight into the grave." He unconsciously reached up and rubbed his chest, "I was lucky, a minor heart attack took that life away from me, but she may not be so lucky, Talia."
Talia shook her head, "It was not your heart that failed you, Beloved. It was your will."
"Unlike _his_?" he snarled. After a long pause, he said, "I've seen much in my life, Talia, perhaps too much, but what I have seen tells me that your daughter is not meant for the life I once led."
"Neither was my husband," she pointed out, "and yet, he thrived in it until his last breath. If that is my daughter's will, I will not counter it, Beloved."
"Don't call me that."
"What?" Talia blinked in surprise at the harshness in his voice.
"I go to the Batcave every night," he said, "but don't think I don't know what you do each night."
Her eyes narrowed dangerously, "I honor the man who saved my life, my mind... my soul. You saw the message as well as I, _Bruce_. He did it for us."
"'Us'? Or _you_?"
Talia started... and looked away.
Gabriel Logan, aka Geo, was a large young man. He stood 6'1" and had a greenish tinge to his skin and green-blond hair. With his ability to alter his physical structure to mimic any mineral substance, he was a valuable member of the Justice League Unlimited. He was on his way to the Watchtower's cafeteria to get a midnight snack when he saw someone where there shouldn't have been anyone.
"Hold it right there," he said, placing his hand on the intruder's shoulder. "Who are you and..." He blinked when he recognized the intruder, "Batman?"
"Geo?" Tara pulled off the mask. "Gabe, it's me."
"Tare, what are you doing in the Watchtower?" he asked. "With the _Batsuit_ even?"
"I need to use Timecode's time machine."
"What?" he stared and shook his head. "No way. Uh uh. C'mon, Tara. Your father-..."
"He's NOT my father!"
He rocked back on his heels, "So that's what this is about."
"I just want to know who he was, Gabe," she said with a tired sigh.
After a long moment, he heaved a resigned sigh, "Fine."
"'Fine'?" she blinked in surprise.
"Yes, fine," he growled. "Remember the last time I tried to change your mind?"
"Umm..."
"You dyed my hair pink."
"Ohhh, right. Now I remember."
"I will break you, little girl."
"Ooh, wow," Raptor deadpanned. "I'm shaking in my boots." She pointed to her feet mockingly, "See me shaking?"
The massive earthquake had left Jump City in shambles, and the Titans were doing their best to help out with the rescue operations. Terra had managed to divert the worst of the earthquake away from the city, but there were consequences. There had been only one place she could divert the earthquake without putting more innocent civilians in danger.
Out to sea.
Where Jump City's maximum security prison was.
Terra was trying to shore up the prison's structural integrity, while Beast Boy was helping put out fires. Lucky Raptor was tasked with rounding up any escapees.
Including Bane.
"I was weakened when last we fought, little girl," Bane sneered. "I will not lose to you again."
"What? Do you get off on getting your ass handed to you?" she taunted with a feral grin, dropping into a crouch. "Well, c'mon, then. Let's party."
Beast Boy returned to human form, exhausted, and Terra caught him as he collapsed. Using her powers to provide a convenient bench, she sat him down and sat next to him. The fires had been extinguished, and the prison -- while now sporting uncut stone and odd angles -- was now once again secure and no longer in danger of falling into the ocean.
"I'm beat," he murmured. "I don't even want to try standing again."
She grinned, "Well, don't worry about tha-"
"Raptor!" Beast Boy suddenly surged to his feet.
"Huh?" Terra turned and saw Raptor, facing off against...
Bane.
"No."
Suddenly, what her future self had implied about Beast Boy's fate rushed to the forefront of her mind, and fear overrode everything else.
"We've got to help her!" Beast Boy said, starting to charge toward the fight.
"No!" Terra shrieked, grabbing him by the shoulder and yanking him back, off-balance. "You're... you're..." she stammered, clutching for an excuse, any excuse. "We're exhausted, Beast Boy," she said finally. "We won't do her any good in our condition."
Except... he seemed surprisingly fatigue-free right now. She frowned at the thought. Was it because... of Raptor?
No, that was silly. Of course, it _was_ because of Raptor -- he had been practically dead on his feet a moment ago -- but Raptor was a friend. Beast Boy would act like this for any of the Titans.
"Besides," she added, "Raptor beat him before. We'd only get in the way."
"But..."
Beast Boy was interrupted by a black shape hurtling through the air overhead, trailing flames and smoke behind it. It was headed straight for Bane.
"Who is that?" Robin wondered rhetorically. Raptor was dragging an unconscious Bane back to the prison, and accompanying her was a slender woman in an all-concealing black and red costume. Splashed across the chest of the costume in vibrant red was the Bat symbol, slightly more slender and longer from wing tip to wing tip than Robin was used to. He remembered seeing the costume before, in his little jaunt to the future, but obviously not worn by the same person.
"Dunno," Nighthawk replied unexpectedly. "But that outfit she's wearing looks like the future Batsuit."
Robin's head whipped around in confusion, "How did you...?" Then he remembered, "Oh, right."
As the two girls walked up, Raptor negligently tossed Bane to the prison guards and grinned, "Hey, Boss. Check out the Batchick. If it weren't for her, I'd've had to get serious." Her face sobered a little as she massaged her arm, "And I mean _really_ serious, Boss. That Venom shit packs a punch."
Xander nodded and looked at the Batsuited new arrival, sizing her up surreptitiously, "So, is it Batgirl? Batwoman? What brings you back in time?"
Her jaw dropped, "'Back in'...? How did you...?"
"Subtlety, thy name is Nighthawk," Robin grumbled.
"I know many things," Xander smirked.
Batwoman -- as Xander decided to think of her to avoid confusion with the still-active present-day Batgirl -- shook her head and said, "I... it... it's complicated." Xander noted with more than a little curiousity that her voice seemed about ready to break. Abruptly, he realized she was on the verge of crying. Before he could move to try and comfort her, she asked, "Can we go somewhere private?"
Xander and Robin exchanged a look, and Robin nodded, "Sure. Raven?"
At her cue, the half-demoness raised her cloak. "All aboard the Raven Express," she quipped.
Everyone gave her a very strange look, and she blushed a little, "What?"
"Nothing," Xander shook his head, smiling.
Raven teleported them to the Tower, and as they all arranged themselves comfortably in the Operations Center/living room, Xander asked, "So, what's your story?"
"Umm, well..." Batwoman hesitated. Finally, she pulled off her mask and threw herself at him, hugging him fiercely, tears streaming from her eyes. "Hi, Dad. I'm Tara."
Reactions were... varied.
"All right," Raptor said. "Pay up."
Cyborg grumbled and handed her a ten-spot.
Elsewhere, a man watched the occasion on a monitor. Although the monitor provided no sound, he was intelligent enough to put together what he saw.
The resemblance was striking.
Well, this was fortuitous.
It was an opportunity they could not afford to miss.
Predictably, Starfire, Raven, and Jinx were a combination of worried and hopeful as they waited to learn who Tara's mother was.
Robin chuckled.
Terra was blushing a little. *Why would Xander name his daughter after _me_?* she wondered. That she was completely mistaken was completely understandable.
Beast Boy was frowning, wondering the same thing.
For his part, Xander was simply stunned, though a small part of him was a little surprised at her name. He would have thought he'd name his daughter after Joy- Buffy's mom, all things considered. Maybe Tara's mom didn't like that name.
Tara stood up, schooled her expression, and said, "Sorry. I'm... well, I guess you could call me the future Batgirl. My name is Tara Wayne."
Suddenly, all the pieces fell into place in Xander's mind, and his jaw dropped, "Oh, crap. You're Talia's daughter." He began nodding furiously as the the facts went through his internal Murphy's Law filter, "And Bruce must have killed me and married her."
Tara blinked, "Err... not quite."
"Huh?"
"It was my grandfather. You kind of... killed each other."
Xander frowned, "Ra's? He didn't approve? Strange. Last time I saw him, he was practically throwing her at me."
He idly wondered why the room suddenly seemed to chill.
"Not quite what I meant," Tara muttered, feeling a little embarrassed for her father's sake.
Gurgling blood, the assassin clutched uselessly at his throat and collapsed.
"Are you all right?" the young man asked, turning toward his companion.
She nodded. "Yes, I..." she trailed off as she looked up at him.
"Come on," he said brusquely. "We need to keep moving."
It was morning in Titans Tower, and Tara Wayne was happy to have finally met her father. She stepped out of the guest room... and blinked in surprise.
"Uh, what's going on?"
Almost all the Titans were waiting there. All except...
Oh, no.
"Do you know what this is about?" Robin asked, holding up a note.
Tara accepted the note and read it, then shook her head, "Not a clue. I don't really _know_ anything about Dad. No one ever talks about him."
The note was short, concise, to the point, and appropriately cryptic. Which meant that it was pretty straightforward in not actually saying anything: "Hey, all. Sorry, something came up. Got to go. Don't know when I'll be back. Don't wait up. Tara, sorry to cut the reunion short. I love you. Later."
She felt her eyebrow begin to twitch. "Let me see his room," she said. An exchange of glances and shrugs later, Robin nodded, and they led her to her father's room.
Tara looked around. It was a chaotic mess. Finding a clue in here would be like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Still, there was something...
She frowned, "Someone else was in here."
"What?" Cyborg blinked. "No way. Who could get through the Tower's security?"
Plucking a tissue out of the wastebasket, she said, "Unless Dad wears lipstick, someone else was in here."
"Oh, um..." Jinx broke in, blushing. "That was me. I snuck in, kissed him, and he kinda kicked me out. That was around eleven, eleven thirty."
It was a good thing for Jinx that, like her, the other girls were still a little in shock over Tara's very existence, otherwise Jinx's existence would have been jeopardy.
"Oh," Tara blinked. "Still..." she frowned and sniffed carefully. "Lilacs and... sandalwood." She closed her eyes as she felt a headache coming, "Oh, no. Mom."
Robin stared. "You can _smell_ her?"
"Remember who I was raised by?"
"...right."
For the moment, they were safe. Xander peered through the window, eyes scanning the area. It was a small apartment, the furnishings plain but solid, and with hints of a higher financial scale than was typical of the apartment complex.
"Are you sure we're safe here?"
"As sure as I can be," Talia al Ghul replied. "This is one of my father's private safehouses. I suspect he was staying here before he disappeared."
That, incidentally, had been why Talia had suddenly appeared in Xander's room -- *Seriously need to add more locks,* he thought -- at one o'clock in the morning. Her father had come to Jump City to investigate rumors of a conspiracy against him within the Society of Shadows and had promptly disappeared. She was to meet him yesterday, but he was missing.
When the assassins showed up, she sought the nearest help she could think of: Xander.
*Jinx and Talia in one night,* he thought. *I wonder how many more dangerous girls are gonna find their way into my bedroom?* He considered that thought for a moment and groaned, *Shit. I just jinxed myself.*
At the pun, his libido decided to show him just _how_ "Jinxed" he could be, if he were to try. It took him close to half a minute to shake off the mental images... only to have them replaced with thoughts -- and memories -- of the young woman with him now.
*God hates me. That has to be it.* He looked up, *That's why you never gave me that aneurism, isn't it? You're having too much fun.*
"Husband, are you well?"
Xander winced and shot her a plaintive look, "Could you please not call me that?" He looked away again as his libido reminded him just what was concealed beneath her clothing.
"Very well, Alexander," she acquiesced.
Xander winced again. Intellectually, he knew the hurt in her voice was almost certainly an affectation, but...
"Please, call me Xander," he said. "All my friends do, unless they're pissed at me. Or, y'know, I'm in costume, and we're in public."
Which he wasn't. He was actually wearing civilian gear, with most of his surprises stashed away in a slightly different manner, since spandex and a cape would draw far more attention than he'd like.
She smiled warmly, and Xander was hard-pressed not to flush as she said, "Does that make us friends, then, Xander?"
He nodded silently, swallowing hard. The last thing he needed was to open his mouth while his brain was disengaged. There were good odds he'd make some half-assed comment about "his girls," and that would be a disaster waiting to happen.
She wouldn't get violent or angry -- he knew her well enough to realize that -- but she _would_ demand an explanation. A good one. And considering he had over a year's worth of teenage hormones building up and that she was not only drop-dead gorgeous but also literally the only available woman who was both willing and old enough to not make him feel like a pervert...
Yeah, providing a coherent explanation for that would be a little difficult.
It should also be noted that he was absolutely terrified that he might at some point be required to go up to the new Watchtower space station. True, it was still under construction, and the JLU technically didn't exist yet, but Xander was pretty sure they would soon. He had pegged his arrival in this universe having occurred during the reconstruction period between Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, and the new Watchtower was almost complete. He figured they were less than a week away from the formation of the JLU.
There would be over fifty superheroes headquartered up there. True, not all would actually live up there, but most would. And while the male to female ratio wasn't weighted on the female side, the women who would join JLU were, without exception, beautiful and, with perhaps one exception in Gypsy, fond of revealing outfits.
And damn it, he had renounced spandex.
Shaking off that distressing thought -- and the last surge of hormones -- he explored the safehouse more carefully, finally halting at the writing desk. He studied it with a carpenter's eye and nodded approvingly. It was well-built, made of mahogany, with a hinged cover that doubled as a writing surface and three drawers below.
Idly taking rough measurements in the back of his mind on the desk, Xander started to open the drawers but came across nothing unusual.
Except...
He reached his hand into the top drawer, gently exploring with his fingers. Something was off about the measurements, and unless he missed his guess...
Click.
He popped the hidden latch and felt the familiar weight of a sword hilt drop into his hand.
"Handy, that," he murmured as he pulled the sword -- a scimitar --from the drawer.
"How did you know?" Talia asked, her face twisted in confusion.
"I'm a carpenter," he replied off-handedly. "Measurements didn't add up." He set the sword aside, "Nifty as that is, though, it's not gonna help us figure out what's going on."
Turning his attention back to the top of the desk, his gaze was drawn to a notepad, which proved devoid of markings after a flip through it. He frowned and looked up. After a moment, he saw what he was looking for.
He opened the pencil sharpener and carefully shook the lead shavings out onto the notepad. Gently tapping it to shake off the excess, he smiled as he saw the name revealed by the lead shavings that rested within the impressions made when an earlier sheet had been written on. He recognized the name, but only vaguely, and he was pretty sure the man had not appeared in the animated series back home.
"So," he asked, "who's Ebenezer Darrk?"
"What is that?" Robin asked.
Batgirl -- Tara Wayne -- frowned, "I don't know."
"It's Scooby code," Raptor said.
"'Scooby code'?" they turned and stared at her.
She nodded, "Yeah. Boss came up with it, made it standard for the new Council." She pointed, "See that? Says he's walking into an ambush, but he thinks he can handle it." She pointed at another symbol, "Possible sacrifice to rescue." Another, "Possible ambush on us."
"I'm not sure what worries me more," Robin said slowly. "That this is apparently normal for you or the fact that it seems to work."
"What's it based on?" Batgirl asked, frowning.
"The true language of warriors," Raptor grinned.
"It's Klingon," Raven stared. "Well... abbreviated Klingon, anyway."
Beast Boy stared at her, "Raven? Since when can you read Klingon?"
She shrank back and blushed.
"Ooh," Raptor's grin turned lascivious. "Trek-a-thon with the Boss, huh? Gettin' serious."
Raven tried to hide in her cloak. Starfire pouted. Jinx glowered.
Both Jinx and Starfire vowed to get Xander alone for some Trek time... among other things.
"How can you possibly take the time to make plans for a desk, hus-Xander?" Talia demanded incredulously.
"It's a nice bit of construction, Talia," he replied as he made a few special notations on the sheet of paper. "And you did say this place was safe."
*Three... two... one...*
CRASH!
Talia whirled as the figures burst in through the windows, and Xander rose, drawing the scimitar he had found in the desk's concealed compartment.
*Right on schedule.*
There was a rhythm to these things, after all. A certain minimum frequency required to keep them on their toes, and given that this was almost certainly another elaborate scheme Ra's cooked up...
Well, that made the timing predictable.
"This one's dead," Robin said, getting up from where he had knelt by the assassin's body to feel for a pulse, only to find himself pressing against an open wound in the corpse's throat.
"I don't think there's much hope for this one either," Tara deadpanned, gesturing at where the other one lay sprawled on his back, a scimitar embedded through his sternum, pinning him to the floor.
"With this mess, it'll take forever to find any clues," Robin muttered sourly.
"Don't bet your sweet ass on that, Wonder Boy," Raptor said. She paused, then purred, "On second thought, if you really want to, I'll take that bet."
Robin gulped, coughed, then said, "What'd you find?"
"This," she said, holding up the sheet of paper.
Robin took it and puzzled over it for a moment, frowning, "I don't get it. A sketch of a desk design?"
"Not that," Raptor snorted. She pointed, "That."
Robin peered, and his training under the World's Greatest Detective began to show, "Janus, Hecate, and Artemis, along with more of that Scooby code. What's it mean?"
Raptor smiled, "It means he's got a plan, and it's telling us our part."
"Which is...?"
"Go back to the Tower, relax, and pretend we're not worried... until we get a signal. I'll know what it is."
Raven peered at the Klingon symbols, frowning. She couldn't quite piece it together, but with the Janus and Artemis symbols... she had an idea.
She nodded, "Agreed."
That's when the rest of the Titans decided to weigh in.
They spent the next two hours arguing about it.
Xander stood in the underground chamber, next to Talia. Somehow, he wasn't surprised it would end up here.
Well, perhaps not here specifically, but in this sort of place. They were where Dr. Ebenezer Darrk was supposedly headquartered, in one of the many underground Lazarus Pit chambers.
This was Ra's al Ghul. It _always_ ended near a Lazarus Pit.
*Why not some place like Club Med instead? Just once? Fun, sun, girls in bikinis? What was wrong with that?*
Of course, that line of thinking died a quick death when his libido reminded him of just what _was_ wrong with that by filling his mind with mental images of the girls he knew _in_ said bikinis. He had enough problems with the female gender without adding beaches and bikinis to the mix.
"Didn't you pull this stunt on Bruce once?" Xander asked, quirking an eyebrow. He paused and muttered under his breath, "Or has that happened yet...?" He shook it off and looked back up at Ra's, "So, what's your grand scheme this time, old geezer?"
"Silence, infid-!"
WHAM!
Xander glared at Ubu, who he had just punched in the face full-force, "I am really, _really_ getting sick and tired of you. Hell, even the whole dog joke's gotten old by now." He looked up at Ra's and asked mildly, "So, this Ebenezer Darrk guy, he real?"
"Oh, yes," Ra's nodded. "Most assuredly, and his treachery was no deception on my part, merely fortuitous timing. I had, however, disposed of him quite some time ago and subsumed his position, allowing his fellow traitors to believe themselves following his orders while you conveniently eliminated them for me."
"So what is it this time?" Xander asked. "Another plague? Blowing up the Lazarus Pits again? I know it's not nukes -- it'd take out more than just a good chunk of humanity -- so it's gotta be something else." He paused and looked around with a critical eye, "Or are you going to try your hand at chemical warfare this time?"
"Excellent deduction, young soldier, but not correct."
Xander frowned, then his eyes widened as another comic came to the forefront of his memory, "Shit. Tower of Babel." He looked up at Ra's, who was smiling approvingly at him and felt sick to his stomach.
"It was one of the many projects I had Darrk working on when he decided to turn on me," Ra's said. He gestured off the side, "The control panel there is connected to a transmitter on that scrambles the language centers of the brain. Down here and among my many facilities around the world, the effect is cancelled by jammers on those specific frequencies."
Okay, so what else? The Justice League was down to six members, and they had yet to organize the rest into the JLU. Which meant...
"So, how did you plan on stopping the Justice League? By stealing Bruce's contingency plans?" he guessed, recalling the details of that comic story arc.
"No, young soldier, not at all," Ra's replied. "We did it by stealing yours."
Xander's blood suddenly ran cold.
Batman's contingency plans took great care to remain nonlethal. They could cause great pain and suffering, but -- in the short term, at least -- they would not kill.
Xander's contingency plans, on the other hand, were far less gentle. They might not hurt as much, but they were more efficient and more likely to have permanent consequences, dirtier but easier to pull off.
Well, those that he didn't steal from Batman, anyway.
Wait one. Superman with the synthetic kryptonite, Green Lantern with the hypnotic blindness, Wonder Woman with the VR harness, Flash and the vibrating bullet, Martian Manhunter and the magnesium dust...
Oh, well, that was a relief. Those _were_ Batman's contingency plans, which he'd swiped and modified for his own use. Of course, he had more permanent measures available -- like the kryptonite bullets he'd used on Der Ubermensch -- but he'd only ever committed his primary plans to writing.
"So, what'd you do with Bruce?" Xander asked. "He's the only one I never made a plan for... the only one you can't plan for."
Which wasn't entirely true. He _did_ have a plan for taking out Bruce, if necessary. He just never trusted it anywhere beyond his own mind. If he had, he just _knew_ Bruce would find a way to get his hands on it.
It involved any convenient Gothamite social gathering and enough explosives to take out half the city. Oh, and a digital timer programmed to count down very visibly and show one minute and forty-two seconds more than the actual timer. Which would, incidentally, have no digital display and be fifty feet away with the _real_ explosives, rather than a whole lot of clay, and the whole lot would be disguised as something else.
Crude, but it would have worked. It was just a larger application of the same principles he'd used against Slade: You can't outsmart a bomb.
"That would be telling, young soldier."
"I suppose it would," Xander's voice was deceptively calm. Still, he had a plan. He didn't _like_ it, but it was a plan. There was no way he was going to hit Ra's with his Colt .45 at this range.
"You're always so willing to sacrifice the lives of billions of strangers, old man," Xander said, then grabbed Talia, pinning her quickly and pressing the muzzle of his gun to her temple. "But are you willing to sacrifice your own daughter?"
Ra's seemed unperturbed and replied, "That is a question you should ask yourself, young soldier. Would _you_ truly deny _your_ own daughter her very existence?"
"You're always so willing to sacrifice the lives of billions of strangers, old man," Xander said, then grabbed Talia, pinning her quickly and pressing the muzzle of his Colt to her temple. "But are you willing to sacrifice your own daughter?"
Ra's seemed unperturbed and replied, "That is a question you should ask yourself, young soldier. Would _you_ truly deny _your_ own daughter her very existence?"
"You're making assumptions, old man," Xander shot back, his grip tightening. "My daughter exists, so she'll always exist. Might not be in this timeline, but she'll always be out there."
"Do you speak from experience?" Ra's asked curiously.
"It's comic book physics," Xander grinned ferally. "Of course I know what I'm talking about. Even you know I'm not exactly from around here." He paused, then added, "It's called Hypertime."
"Perhaps you're right," Ra's acknowledged. He raised a remote, and Xander instantly knew that he had lost control of the situation. Ra's pressed the button, and an opening appeared in the roof near where Ra's stood on the catwalk over the Lazarus Pit. An apparatus lowered itself through the opening, and Xander's blood ran cold.
Strapped to the apparatus was a female figure wearing the unmistakeable black and red future Batsuit.
"As you can see, there's a rather more immediate threat to her existence here, now," Ra's pointed out. "I suspect you are aware that a Lazarus Pit kills anyone young and healthy who falls in one. Could you truly make that sacrifice? Could you murder your daughter's mother before her very eyes? Both of you knowing that, if you do, you have chosen to kill her as well?"
"For God's sake," Xander's voice was ragged. "That's your own granddaughter you're threatening."
Ra's nodded, "Yes. My granddaughter, sired by you, young soldier, and raised by the detective. She is almost a worthy heir, and had things been different, I would have no need of either of you."
It was then that Xander noticed what Batgirl was doing with her hands, unseen by Ra's in front of her. It wasn't anything spectacular, just a complex signal. After a moment, the reality dawned on him.
Everything was going according to plan.
"I am willing to make sacrifices, young soldier. Are you?"
"If I had to," Xander replied calmly, his grip relaxing. "I suppose we have that much in common, old man." He smirked, "But I don't have to... do I, Abs?"
Ra's al Ghul's eyes widened, and he turned, just as Batgirl -- having torn free of the steel cuffs with ease -- leaped to the catwalk next to him. She pulled off the mask, revealing not the time-traveling Tara Wayne, but the dimensionally-displaced Abigail Almadin.
"Hi," the slayer grinned, then punched Ra's in the face.
Meanwhile, Talia spun on Xander, then hesitated, torn between attacking him and... she didn't know what. "What did you do?"
Xander shrugged, "I wasn't buying his disappearance for a minute. I knew something hinky was up, so I made arrangements."
She reached up and brushed his hair back, "You would truly have done it, wouldn't you? You would have killed me if you had to." He looked away. She frowned, "Or would you?"
"If I had to, yes," he said quietly. He looked back at her and shot her a crooked grin, "So I made sure I didn't have to." He placed his hands on her shoulders and said, "Talia, you have a choice to make. He's right. I'm from another world, and because I am, I've seen what would happen in the future if not for me. He'll take everything from you, if you let him."
Talia shrugged his hands off and looked away, "He is my father. He gave me everything I have."
"Not everything," Xander said quietly. "Not your soul. And that's what he'll take. If you let him. Look at me, Talia. Am I lying?"
Up on the catwalk, the fight wasn't going quite like either had expected. Ra's was a master swordsman. That this young woman would be able to match him with with the railing section she'd torn off was... remarkable. On the other hand, Abbey was a slayer, chosen to kick demonic ass and chew bubblegum. That somehow, this old geezer was able to keep up, despite the Batsuit's enhanced strength, had to be nothing short of a miracle.
Slayers had the skill of millenia, trained to fight to the death against all sorts of nasty critters, but those nasty critters tended to rely on brute force, rather than skill. Moreover, those skills were instinctive, subconscious, on a level where only the most basic tactics were even considered.
Ra's al Ghul was a true master swordsman. While his experience was eclipsed by the skills resting within the slayer spirit, his skills were fully realized, with a clarity slayers lacked. They had been honed against foes of all sorts of different skill levels, and they were now coupled with a brilliant mind directing each move.
In the end, they were surprisingly well-matched, particularly when one factored in one other major factor. Slayers were created to defend humanity against vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness.
They weren't created to defend humanity against itself.
Whether it was the slayer spirit, millenia of Watcher brainwashing, or Xander's own training, the results were the same: Abbey, for all her skill, strength, and other abilities... was holding back.
Because, centuries old or not, Ra's al Ghul was human.
And humans were off-limits.
Which is why Ra's al Ghul's sword was able to slip past Abbey's guard and slice through the Batsuit, skittering across her ribs as she twisted to lessen the blow. At that moment, however, Ra's turned toward his daughter, who was heading toward the Babel device.
"Talia!" he called, the name a command.
She whirled, "It ends now, Father."
WHAM!
Ra's was blindsided by the punch, and he flipped over the catwalk and into the Lazarus Pit below.
Xander turned, and he saw an opportunity. In a flash, he had divested himself of his explosives, armed them, and hurled them into the Lazarus Pit.
"GET CLEAR!"
Nobody argued.
When the dust settled, Xander looked over at Abbey, "Where's Tara? And the other Titans?"
"Cleaning house," she replied, pressing her hand to her side. "It's a big complex. And lemme tell ya, that kid of yours is scary. Knows more martial arts than I can name."
"Did you really think you could kill me the same way you killed Slade, young soldier?"
The three turned. Ra's al Ghul emerged from the Lazarus Pit, eyes practically aglow with rage. He looked twenty years younger than he had a moment ago, compact muscles defining his body as he stepped toward them, his broken sword in hand.
"He was an excellent student, but a student nonetheless."
Xander blinked, "_You_ trained him?"
"Yes," Ra's nodded. "One of my few failures. I still remember when I first met him. He was young and raw with hatred, thirsting for revenge."
"What happened?"
"He chose his own path. He proved less than ideal anyway. Too focused to see the bigger picture." His gaze swept over to the horrified Talia, "It would appear you have chosen another path as well, Talia. Why have you betrayed me?"
"Because..." she hesitated, then raised her head defiantly, "...because Xander has proven himself a better father than you."
"Huh?" Xander blinked. *Where did _that_ come from?*
Ra's, apparently, wasn't in any mood for debating what she meant by that as he growled, "I see." With that, he charged.
A backhanded slash opened up Abbey's arm, and she stumbled back. Slayer toughness or no, that hurt. Xander lunged, shoving Talia out of the way just before the strike landed, carving deeply into his left shoulder instead of her chest.
He sent a weak backhand at Ra's with his left, followed by a right cross, but Ra's didn't even seem to notice. He crab-legged away from Ra's's furious swings -- each strong enough to carve away portions of the cavern's stone floor -- and looked frantically, searching for his Colt .45, when suddenly, a gunshot rang out.
Ra's blinked in surprise as blood blossomed from his chest.
Xander turned and idly saw the other Titans entering the room. But that wasn't what had his attention.
It was his daughter, Tara.
And his Colt, clutched shakily in her hands.
Talia gently took the gun from her daughter and turned. "Goodbye... Father," she raised the gun and emptied it into Ra's's chest... then sank to her knees.
Ignoring the pain from his shoulder, Xander crawled over and pulled Talia into a hug with one arm and Tara with the other.
"Shh," he murmured, "it's all right."
From afar, the Titans watched for a moment before Robin gave orders to evacuate the wounded.
It was a somber group that returned to Titans' Tower. A bunch of exhausted teenaged superheroes accompanying a grieving woman in her twenties who suddenly felt lost and adrift with the loss of her father.
It was an odd reversal of what one might expect.
The fact that the woman in her twenties hadn't left -- or been left by -- Nighthawk irked a few of the females, but given what she had just done, nobody begrudged her. At least openly.
"You're welcome to stay here as long as you like, Talia," Xander said, ignoring the glares his offer had earned him.
"Truly?" Talia asked, looking at him in disbelief.
"Of course," he replied. "Talia, whatever happens, you can always come to me. I won't promise I can help, but I will listen. I promise you that much."
This promise elicited several emotions from those present: From Talia, it elicited relief and some small sense of joy; from Jinx, Raven, and Starfire, it elicited annoyance; from Robin, it elicited a sense of impending doom.
"You're sure about this?" Xander asked. It had been four days since the eventful confrontation with Ra's al Ghul, and the three of them --Xander, Talia, and Tara -- had spent those four days together, practically excluding the other Titans from their activities completely.
"Yes," Talia nodded. "I must go."
"To Gotham," he nodded understandingly. "To him." He mentally kicked himself when he realized how that sounded.
She lowered her eyes, "Yes."
"Well," he smiled, "good luck. What are you waiting for?"
"To bid our daughter farewell," she replied. "I... do not expect to return soon, and I suspect she will be leaving soon as well. Oof!" The last was caused by the blurring tackle hug that their aforementioned daughter launched herself into.
Tara pulled back and smiled, "I'll miss you, Mom."
"I..." Talia's voice caught in her throught. "I shall miss you too, Tahra."
As they returned to the Tower after seeing Talia's plane off, Tara sighed, "I suppose I should be going too. I can't just keep putting it off forever."
"What's wrong with that?" Xander quipped. "It's not like the future won't be there when you go."
"Daaad," she smacked his arm and glared.
"Okay, okay," he surrendered. "But seriously, what'll happen to you when you go?" Xander asked. "With Ra's dead..."
"I don't know," Tara shook her head. "I could cease to exist the moment I went back, I could end up going to an unchanged future, or maybe I'll find myself in an alternate future I don't remember. Time travel's a tricky thing." She sighed, "I just wanted to get to know you, Daddy, not change history."
"Well," he suggested, "you could..."
"No," she cut him off. "I have to go. I have to try. My friends... my family's there."
"...all right," he accepted, pulling her into a hug.
"Thanks, Dad," she smiled, hugging him back and fighting off tears.
"So..." Xander said, after a long moment, "...who is he?"
Tara blinked, "Huh?"
"I know that look, Tara," he smirked. "There's a guy. So who is he?"
"DAD!"
"All right, all right," he said, waving it off. He turned serious, "Just one thing."
"Yeah?"
"You know how I fight. You know I shoot to kill."
Tara rolled her eyes, "_Daaaad_..."
"This isn't about your mystery guy, Tara," he said, shaking his head. "All I want to say is... don't be like me; don't be a killer. I cross that line so others don't have to. What happened with Ra's... that couldn't be helped. And it'll haunt you for a long time. If you ever need to talk, I'll be listening."
"All right, Dad."
He shot her a faint smile, "And hey, if it does turn out to be a changed future, look us up."
"Will do," she grinned. "Bye, Daddy."
Tara tumbled out of the time portal, tucking into a roll and crouch. She shook her head and looked around, then blinked in surprise as she realized she was not alone.
There were two girls about her age in the alley. The first stood about her height, with a slim build, a slightly pale complexion, and brown eyes. Her medium-length brown hair tied into a pair of twin ponytails, and she was wearing a dark grey spandex jumpsuit with a short cape. Suspicious angles suggested armor plating underneath.
The other also had a slender build and brown eyes, but her eyes were slitted like a cat's. Her shock of pink hair reached to her mid-back in a simple braid. With a start, Tara realized she was wearing the same kind of black-leotard-and-blue-hooded-cloak combo that Raven favored.
"Hello, Tara," the brunette said. "We've been expecting you."
"Who are you?" she asked suspiciously.
The pink-haired one spoke first, "I am Nightwitch, this is Nightbird, aka Dawn and Willow. We are your sisters."
"Half sisters," Nightbird corrected. "We've got different mothers. My mom's Raven."
"And mine is Jinx. Come, the Waynes already know about you. Adoption papers were drawn up in case you showed up."
Tara blinked, stunned. "And your mothers never killed each other?" she finally sputtered.
Nightbird chuckled, "Yeah, will wonders never cease?"
"Can we waste time somewhere else?" Nightwitch scowled.
Nightbird rolled her eyes, "Our sister, the spoilsport."
Story downloaded from
http://www.grandt.com/XanderZone/stories/read.php?story=TheNighthawkChronicles-21-FutureFlashback.html