Just 4.5 sentences, before the story starts: No OC's or romance. This is a Light Novel. It plays after season two. For all parts of the story, the characters are owned by DC.
If Nightwing had been asked, how he had planed his day, jumping through a window would probably not be in his answer. That he now felt weightless to the ground, while a storm of broken glass and bullets rained down on him, was due to the small box in his utility belt.
It was the reason, why he had spent the last two month traveling around the world. He had left his partners, he had signed in some worldwide spy club; he even had changed his name, all to end at this cold temple at the bottom of the Himalaya. Of course later was not a temple, but a coverage for an infamous criminal organization, who used this place as a basement for their little science projects, but who cares?
The present came back, as the former boy wonder hit the ground and a set of build up velocity forced him to roll before sprinting towards the court door. Part of his brain was working on some serious puns about his opponents, but weaponized fake nuns didn't show any affinitive towards anything.
With one arm Nightwing pushed the door open, while his other hand reached for his sticks. "Sorry about my silence, but I have no nuns about puns." The silence and the bullet, hitting mere inches next to his head, showed him, he had better days.
The inner halls were high build with noble, old wood ornaments, which let the young hero feel small and unimportant, as if they had witnessed centuries of people come and go and no one left a difference, so why should he?
Luckily, ere Nightwing began to completely loose his mind, he ran into the next group of assassins, who probably never heard a joke.
Before the first goon could realize it, his forehead was hit by Nightwing's stick, while his followers face connected to black boots.
"What is black, white and hides in the snow?" His elbow rammed into someone's stomach, followed one stick in his opponent's face.
"A ninja penguin." Metal hit metal as his sticks blocked a katana, before shoveling its owner into another attacker.
"Ok, I first wanted to say nunja, but penguins fit better." The young hero jumped with a flip-flop over one of the man and pushed his legs into the jaw of another.
"Everybody loves penguins."
Just as Nightwing was about to punch ones lights out, his sticks stopped inches from his nose.
"Robin?" His sticks found its way into another face.
"Nightwing?" The ninja pulled his mask of, just to be replaced by a domino mask.
"Ha, I told you, I hadn't set the alarm off", said the ninja behind Robin, who obviously was Bart Allen. So this is why the alarm went off.
Nightwing shoot him a look, which could be interpreted as 'and you wear Wally's costume?', but satisfied with kicking the next best thug into the knee, before ramming him into the wall. A small part in him cried out, but went down in rationality.
"What do you do here?" both boy wonders asked in union, before punching the last goon down.
Suddenly, before any had the chance to answer, everything rumbled and the ceiling started to fall down.
"Looks like our coffee talk has to wait." Robin said with a grin, Nightwing had seen on him, whenever he had done something forbidden.
"Please don't tell me you did this."
Nightwing thought this place was chaotic before, but it seemed explosions and a collapsing building do a special charm. Kid Flash already broke into a dash, while quiet curses of nausea under his robe also indicated that Bumblebee came with them. More debris started to purr down on them, while the boy wonders raced down the identical looking halls, taking apparently random paths till they opened a door and took in the cool morning air.
"Where does your vehicle stands?" Before Robin pointed to the one sided forest Nightwing spotted the S-cycle. They just had a small route to go, but then they were wildly in the open. Well, Kid Flash was already half way across the snow field, so the question of other paths evaporated.
A giant shadow over Nightwing indicated, that Superboy had advanced towards them. Till Nightwing realized, that the shadow did not belong to Superboy. Just barley Nightwing managed to drag a yelping Robin out of its part, then a huge robot crashed into the snow, creating a small snowstorm.
Of course they had a gigantic killer robot.
"Get Back!" Nightwing didn't know if the team had heard him under the noise, but they all were gone when the laser started firing. White mist rose into the air, when snow and earth likewise melted.
"Bumblebee get into his circuits, see if you can shut him down." The laser had worn off, not without applying a supporting smokescreen. "I need a distraction."
Immediately Robin threw a few Batarangs at the Robot, which didn't even leave a scratch. Meanwhile Nightwing and Kid Flash started to run closer, Bart already trying to find openings and ripping wires out.
Out of his eyes Nightwing saw Kid Flash get knocked back by one of the fists and fly till he hit a tree, just as the black haired man reached the monstrous.
Using his momentum, Nightwing slides under its feet, a big smirk plastering his face. High frequent beeping was heard before the explosives on it legs blew off.
It's surprising, how a smile can abruptly drop, when you see that your explosives didn't do any damage.
The next few moments consisted of jumping on around the robot like a loose spoon. The many metal plates, which were used to give the machine its mobility gave a footing and Nightwing were still faster than the android.
Seeing an opening, Nightwing rammed one of his Escrima sticks into a hole at the elbow till just its hilt looked out. If he had looked up he would have seen a robot arm rush towards him, however, the next thing Nightwing knew was crashing into Robin and giving a picture, which would mysteriously appear on the next Christmas card.
Temporarily the robot looked with no emption at his wounded elbow. For a few seconds everything, except the beeping of the robot eyes came to a cold silence. Then it plugged the stick out of his machines as if it were an apple and moved his arms without showing any injury
"Any other plans", Robin asked.
All of a sudden the whole earth rumbled. It was way too big for explosions and the roar sounded like…
Nightwing looked up the hillside before he cried: "Everyone into the vehicle! Now!" The sound increased into an ear-piercing roar as thousands of thousands tons of snow slid down the mountain. Trees in his part got knocked of like loose matches before getting buried in the cold. They didn't had to run towards the S-Cycle, since she already decided to race at them at neck breaking speed and take off before the snowslide rolled over the place they just had been standing seconds before. With the same volume of a volcano the snow continued to roam into the woods, till the trees stopped it.
The newfound silence was just disrupted by their breaths, till Superboy impacted and let the robot look like a kitten, soon followed by a confident grinning Blue Beetle.
"What the hell did you just do?"
"I just saved your buts!" Blue Beetle declared, while blowing nonexistent smoke from his disrupter. The whole team looked like it just signed into a wrestling show. The following argument could probably been heard by Superman on the other side of the world, as they were slowly leaving the cold behind.
Nightwing patted over his reward. He got what he came for and this was all that mattered.
"Let's bring Wally back." That was the last think Dick had said to Artemis. Back then he had sounded insecure and hung up the telephone immediately, but now his plan had not only taken form, but stood shortly before its finalization.
"So this is why you blew their reconnaissance mission." Even though Dick had spent more than half his life beside Batman, he still couldn't hear him snuck up to him. The eerie light of dozens of monitors was the only light source, interrupted only by some sparks from the broken soldering iron.
"How long did it take you find this hideout? Wait, were is the tracker?" Dick had already taken one of his shoes off and rummaged through the insides before pulling a small electric device out.
"How many other?"
"Five" Even in the shadows Batman could clearly see the raised eyebrow.
"So what do I own the pleasure about inviting you to my place? Did Alfi run out of cookies?" Even with lights on, the whole place would be a mess of wires and machine parts.
"We are worried about you. What happened to Kid Flash-"
"Worried? Are you even capable of such a trait?" Dick finally faced Batman, just to see that he had removed his cowl.
"I took you under once. I know- we know, how it feels, when you lose someone close to you. The last few weeks I just heard from you when a mafia house blew up or as their theft suspect. Whatever machine you try to build, it simply won't bring Wally back." Dick hated that, the ever monotone voice, at the utmost raised if they were facing an enemy.
"You taught me to look at the facts." Dick's tone was acid.
"Fact is that Wally West had taken a strike with such a high energy density that his body vaporized."
"So where was the Black Flash? Where was the speedster's personal grim reaper?"
Dick shouted the last part out. He had stood up and was standing at the same height as his former mentor. "Just let me try this out. It's finished. If it won't work you can say 'I told you so', we fight and in the end reconcile."
"You and I both know that this isn't the first time you tried that. It's reasonable. After all, Wally was the only one out of Gotham you trusted with your unmasked life so much, that I thought, he had more secrets than you." Bruce took a deep breath. "But in the end Wally died. It's impossible to get him back."
"As impossible as saving the world from alien tech by running? It's our job to do the impossible." Dick's words haled loudly in the room.
"You don't understand."
"Admit it, you wrote Wally up by the second the lightning hit him. His memorial didn't even stood, when Bart already became Kid Flash. Tell me, are all sidekicks so replaceable? Because it seems to work perfectly for me and Jason." The next moment Dick was looking down with a split lip. It hurt, but Dick didn't care. Right now his head busted with injustice, while his windpipe felt like someone was chocking him. The same feeling when he and Wally talked for one last time. Otherwise he would have noticed the mix of sadness and guild in the fossilized face of his former mentor. A small voice inside him asked, if he was selfish, that Wally was gone like his parents, when they felt down, down, down, but it was soon silenced.
Batman was about to insist, when his phone rang. The thing about this call was, that not only did even a large part of the Justice League not knew its number, but also this phone didn't ring without a global threatening disaster coming.
"Dick…"
"Go" Dick once again made eye contact. "I am not a nine year old Robin anymore, who thinks the Joker is under his bed."
"And the call one month ago?"
"I was drugged!"
Bruce once again looked back before pulling his mask up and disappeared with blowing cape.
Left in the dark Nightwing asked "Were is Tim?"
Babara stood in the light of the door and looked over to him. "Working on his little side project, which takes lesser trouble than yours." She slowly took a few steps closer to him. "Why do you two always fight when you are spilling your guts? If it is a secret sign language, you should teach me." Her arms warp around his torso and warmth flows into him. Dick couldn't see her face, but it probably stated 'You are getting hugged by a gorgeous redhead, don't dare saying anything'. "I don't want to talk with you about him, I know you long enough, and we both know, it just hurts Bruce seeing you like this. It hurts us all. Artemis runs away, Barry tries to overload himself with sleepless work. If he hadn't arrived first, I would have kicked your butt and dragged you into the sunlight."
"It is night."
"In all these years you are still underestimating me." She took a step back and clearly showed the hidden message of 'I can so wipe the floor with you.'
"For you, I've missed hanging my cohabiter out of the window for using my laptop, so I want as less emotional breakdowns as possible. So, when your parents died, what did you do?" Dick didn't even have to answer, before she winked. "I've just got a message about a huge event in downtown. Wanna come with?"
In his now nearly ten year long career as hero, Nightwing has faced many bizarre situations. He learned of a city full of intelligent gorillas, faced puberty, nearly been killed by a gummy goose and not to mention having a guardian, who dresses as a bat.
However, nothing could have prepared him for this moment.
"Traitor! Pussy! Heartbreaker!" Each extension was marked with a street comminute blast.
"So, Enchantress and Abra Kadabra have… relationship problems?" Nightwing frowned deeply.
"Kadabra did some of his weird ritual thingy with another enchantress and you see the outcome" Babara helped.
"I miss the time when crazy couples like them stayed in reality shows."
In the distance Nightwing saw Kid Flash clearing the civilians from the danger zone, while Miss Martian, Superboy and Blue Beetle tried to separate the female magician from the only defending one, however, Enchantress just had to raise a hand and BB went down in a sea of plants. Immediately Megan began freeing him, while Superboy jumped at Enchantress, just to be deflected into the nearest building.
Two disks swilled though the air but were caught by Enchantress easily. They hung loosely in the air, before they exploded as Nightwing and Batgirl entered the fight.
"Could you contact Zatana?" Megan asked, while pulling Blue Beetle out like Sleeping Beauty.
"Right now, she's visiting some interdimensional Hogwarts." Batgirl's words surprised no one.
Out of the smoke came an unharmed Enchantress and turned the clouds into a gigantic snakelike energy creature. Honestly, could villains please stop throwing giant killer monsters at them?
As if the snake had its own mind, it leashed towards M'gann knocked her out and dragged an unconscious Kadabra towards Enchantress.
"If I can't have you in this world, I simply have to change it."
Good news, the cast seemed to need enough energy to let the snake vaporize. Bad news, the whole situation turned to be a save-humanity-mission. The before peaceful wind roared to a storm and began to lift dust of the street.
"It says, she is ripping this dimension apart!" Blue Beetle screamed over the abnormal winds. "She can't do that, can she?" Conner just shrugged.
Her chanting increased, while the scene turned into a force breaking storm. Lila lightning bolts crashed through the skies, while cars began levitating and set fire. They were running out of options fast.
"Beetle, can you absorb Kadabra's technology?" Nightwing could feel the space cracking like two plates crashing against each other without making a sound.
"It can, but I need to get closer to Enchantress." The cast reached its finale.
"I can do that." Everyone looked at Conner. Beetle was about to object, but before he even got a 'no' out, Conner had already thrown him towards Enchantress with an accuracy of a quarterback. His screams were heard even over the storm. Nearly in slow motion, Beetle flew the last meters, his arm already morphed into an adapter of the ward. The air around him filled with sparks, as magic and technology clashed together, sucking all ether in was working.
Then lightning hit Nightwing.
Out of his unfocused eyes, he could see the magic disappearing, just like a doll cut loose from its strings. A last roar crumbled as the cars and BB crashed back to earth.
Not even minutes after the incident, dozens of police cars parked all over the wasteland and took the couple away. By now only the messed street showed that something had happened, policemen and passerbys were still complaining, but the city would soon forget that. Hopefully.
"So, I will never get close to wards again, everybody is happy, the world was not destroyed, mission accomplished!" Blue Beetle did a quick fist bump with KF.
"Are you alright? You were hit by lightning." Babara sounded more concerned than in Nightwing's lair and looked ready to drag him towards the nearest ambulance with so much force that he really needed help.
"It was shocking." She hit his arm.
"Ouch, you hit an injured person." This time Nightwing was smart enough to evade the blow.
In the back of his head a small voice whispered, something was not right, that he missed something on the verge of his field of view, a forgotten dream, but couldn't point his finger on it. "It's just a strange feeling." Nightwing looked at the morning sun, the whole night had been a disaster, and he probably merely felt an upcoming flue.
Following his gaze, behind cities and over fields, across the ocean and the desert a yellow speedster crashed though dimensions.
He didn't stop. He couldn't stop. His feet caused small craters, his fiction set grass on fire and the lightning around his body burned glass into the sand. One of his goggles was cracked, but that was the last thing he cared about.
Suddenly his chest spiked in a burst of pain. Wally tried to slider to a halt, but the momentum was to strong and he felt face over and rolled though the sand till he stopped. It felt like a lightning bolt had struck him and trust him, he knew, how that felt. Only this time, the bolt seemed to have brought his best buddy the wrecking ball with him. His lungs felt like needles punctured them while in his body circled enough energy to let a power plant look like a baby battery. His heart hammered against his chest. Wally sought a halt, dare to anything, anyone, but there was just sand.
Then it disappeared too and all that left was blinding darkness.
The car moved like a shadow though the dark streets of Gotham. Creatures of the Nights hid from its flood light as it blazed its trail, till sliding to a halt in front of a long haired brunette, before opening the folding top.
An average man would just think of her of an eye-catching woman, but the Caped Crusader knew better.
"What do you want, Talia?"
AN/I need a Beta/Emotional Rollercoaster/Light Novel
First of all: Thank you for reading! Sorry for all the spelling, tempus, sentence structure and especially comma mistakes. In my mother tongue we have a really strict way of setting commas, while our English teachers always were like "Just set them somewhere, it'll be alright." I really need a beta-reader. So if you are interested, I would even, make covers for your stories. If you want it.
I wrote this chapter one week, before they announced a season three, and you all can thank my friend Jasmin for dragging me to upload it. The thing is, I realized an end goal, which makes every step of the light beautifully unfold like a ribbon.
This chapter is more a prologue too bring the characters on stage and the characters are all too OOC and I wrote too much at some points and too flat on other situations. I hope it gets better. So, this story will most likely be out of tree "viewpoints" The team, the Batclan, and the speedster family.
About the Light Novel: A Light Novel is like a half comic, half book. All paintings will be uploaded on my Deviantart page (tiger-ct. deviantart. com). The URL and link (if I can cheat on fanfiction) are also on my profile.