Chapter One: The Portal
"That was great! Johnny Depp did SO well in it, and Orlando Bloom is WAY cuter as Will than he is as Legolas!" I was very enthusiastic, to say the least. Tonight had been great fun, just Babs, Dad and I up until late doing plain old fun stuff. Babs and I had the night off, 'cause Bats said we'd earned it since my run-in with Scarecrow and my ensuing injury, so we'd decided to have a movie marathon night. Dad had been home all evening, which was a surprise, usually he was called to the police department at least once every night once he came home, so we were all having some much-needed quality family time. OK, so maybe watching movies until our brains were nearly non-existent couldn't be counted as quality time, but all three of us were having fun. Until the phone rang.
We all looked at each other. It was almost one o'clock in the morning, so it was a fair guess that it was an emergency call, either for Dad, or for Barbara and I. Reluctantly, I got up and answered it.
"Hello? This is the Gordon residence."
"Bev? This is Dick. I called to give your sister a quick message. Could you give it to her ASAP?" I moaned inwardly. That meant that we were needed at the Batcave immediately.
"OK, what do I tell her?"
"Tell her that I have a surprise for her, a little like the one I gave her four years ago at the urging of Carl Septon, down in the cellar." My eyes widened; Babs had told me that story. A surprise, indeed. Dick and she had been investigating strange disappearances, and their search had led to a certain cellar, where they had found a portal to another dimension. Dick had gone in, and Babs had called up Batman. They had eventually gotten everyone out, but only seconds before the portal disappeared. If this was like that-
"OK, Dick, I'll tell her. See ya 'round."
"See ya 'round, kid."
I hung up, nodded to Babs, and went and kissed Dad. "Sorry, Dad, but we have to go."
"What was it? You look worried," Dad asked as he stood, his face creased in concern.
"Evidently, some kind of portal opened up here in Gotham." I spoke as I swung open the hidden door, grabbed my Mudgirl outfit, and began slipping into it as Barbara did the same. "Dick says it was like the Septon cellar one, and he wants us ASAP." I left my mask for last. "I'm sorry, Dad."
He only smiled at me. "Nonsense, I'll enjoy having the entire house to myself. I can keep myself company. I'll probably re-watch Pirates of the Caribbean and sigh and giggle every time Will Turner comes on the screen, it'll be just as though you were here." His eyes twinkled, and I chuckled.
"Will's nothing compared to Jack Sparrow," Barbara said mockingly as she pulled on her boots. "He's the cutest guy I've ever seen."
"Oh, really? And what about Dick?" I teased, sliding my gloves on my hands.
"Dick says Jack is the greatest thing on two legs that he's ever seen." We both laughed; Dick was more of a 'Pirates' fan than Tim, and Tim can quote the entire movie by heart and add in the sound effects, too. Simultaneously, we put on our masks. "We'll back by sunrise, Dad," Babs told him as we each kissed him.
Moments later, we were on our motorcycles headed for the Batcave. We signaled Dick, and he opened the hidden entrance and we roared inside. We pulled in, and there was Dick, looking extremely worried, which, actually, is rather difficult to do from behind a mask.
"Dick?" Slowly, I pulled off my helmet as Babs spoke to Dick. My eyes were picking up an eerie blue glow from the further end of the Batcave, and I had a pretty good idea of what it was.
"Where are Batman and Tim?" I asked, striding quickly towards the source of the light, Dick and Barbara following close behind.
I suddenly stopped in my tracks at the sight before me: a huge sphere of rippling blue light suspended in the air about a foot above the floor. I carefully walked around it examining it, and then stretched out my hand tentatively to touch it. The light emanating from it warmed my skin even before my hand came into contact with it. It felt like...liquid light, and I commented on this out loud as I withdrew my hand thoughtfully, and examined it carefully. There was nothing different about it but for a strange tingling sensation left on my fingertips. My hand was perfectly dry.
"Batman and Robin are both in there." Oh, great, I thought, rolling my eyes. Those two!
"So we'll just go in there and get them back?" Sounded simple. It never is, though.
"Tim was walking towards his outfit when this thing just appeared right in front of him, and he couldn't stop himself from walking right into it. Bats went in after him, but it's been three hours since I've seen either of them." Dick's voice was strained; he was really, really worried about them, and didn't care about showing it. I hated seeing it, knowing what he must have gone through over the last few hours.
"Well," I said as encouragingly as I could, "Let's get them out of there!"
Ten minutes later, I stood ready, carrying Robin's outfit and gear in a pack on my back, along with quite a bit of special gear of my own. Behind me, Barbara was tightening her own pack, trying not to look at Dick's face hidden face. Dick was staying behind out of necessity, being the best person to be left behind if there was no way to return through the portal. I looked away in embarrassment as they hugged swiftly, then took a deep breath and stepped into the portal. My boot sank in, and suddenly the glowing sphere expanded, growing, rushing over my body and cutting off the gasps of fear behind me.
It was amazing. I've never experienced anything like it before. I was floating in it, it was touching my skin, seeping through the cloth of my mud-colored body suit just like water, but I was breathing in and out regularly, as though it was liquid oxygen. Yet the sensation of liquid light remained. It was almost as though I was suspended in part of the rainbow, and I almost didn't want to reach my destination, wherever it might be. I reached it, however, despite my desire to linger.
Suddenly, I was tumbling through the air, and then- oh, thank you- landed on a very soft, downy bed. And then someone else landed on top of me. Someone very heavy, annoyingly so, and definitely male.
"Ouch." I heard the single word moaned out and I leapt up, out from under him, and clasped him in delight.
"Tim!" I hugged him exuberantly and he gave a gasp of pain. I suddenly realized how tightly I was holding him and let go. "Are you all right? What happened to you? Where have you been?" I looked around us. We were in what looked like a bedroom, but so sparsely furnished I knew it belonged to a man. No female would have left so little evidence of an occupant, and no female would be able to wear the chain mail, breastplate, helmet, and other various bits of armor laid out on the table against the far wall. The room was lit by half a dozen candles set in strategic places, and by their light, I could see the furnishings plainly.
The walls were of cold stone and strong timber, the kind of building that your ancestors built centuries ago and will outlive anything and everything. Tim and I looked at each other in confusion. Either we were in a room used for filming twelfth century scenes in, or we actually WERE in the twelfth century. Tim looked at me from his sprawled position.
"So, um, where are we exactly?" At his question, I sighed.
"We're in Rohan, probably Edoras, the capital city." He looked at me blankly and I sighed again. "We're in MiddleEarth, Tim." It took a minute to sink in, but he believed me. We were in the Lord of the Rings universe!
---What do you think? Is it any good? I've got lots more written, but I have to type it out before I can post it. By the way, Mudgirl is Barbara Gordon's adoptive sister, and I first introduced her in an old story that I have yet to post. Review and tell me what you think of it, please!---
