It was September fifth, two thousand and twenty sixth. My father was twenty eight at the time and my mother was twenty. It was the day I was born two years after my cousin Jackson, and my other cousin Joan. It wasn't exactly the best day for the Wayne family, as I was born blind, my naturally grey. When my father learnt he was upset, but understanding, the only reason he was angry as he told me was because I couldn't join the family business. What is the family business you may ask, its crime fighting.
My father's name is Jason Wayne (formally Todd), but at work he's called Red Hood. My mother is Carrie Wayne (formally Kelly, then Todd), but most people know her as Cat girl, and not the one who is now Salina's replacement, but a member of the Batfam. My eldest Uncle is Dick Wayne (formally Grayson), known as Nightwing. My other uncle is Tim Wayne (formally Drake), better known as Red Bat, my last uncle is Damian Wayne most commonly known as Robin, never losing his old sidekick title even though he is his own hero. My aunts are Barbara Wayne (formally Gordon, then Grayson) now days she goes by Batwoman, my other aunt is Cassandra Wayne (formally Caine, then Drake), and my last aunt is Stephanie Wayne (formally Brown) she's now known as Batgirl, like her husband she never left her sidekick name behind.
This is what I grew up with, not seeing, but hearing about the adventures that they went on, mainly from Uncle Damian who had no problem with me being blind, he still thought I could become a hero. Everyone else put him down though, telling him not to mention the stories again if they caught him telling me, luckily he didn't listen to them, or I might have felt a lot different.
What hurt the most about not being able to go on missions though was watching my cousins. Jackson had taken on the name of Blue Bat expecting to become the next Batman (I didn't doubt him personally). Joan had become Nightjay in honour of her father Nightwing. Even my cousin who had been born a few days before me, Crystal was her name, didn't have a hero title until a few days before I got mine.
I didn't spend much time above ground except for when I went to school, so I had skipped a few grades being on equal grounds with Joan and Jackson, and was helping all of my cousins with their homework, with enough of my tutoring Crystal was also in the same grade as us.
I was nine years old, and the youngest person in the fifth grade. I knew more about criminology than most of my cousins, even though all of them had joined the team besides Crystal. It was November second Crystals birthday when she finally joined the team, she had just turned ten, and it time for her to join the fighting force known as the Batfam.
"Crystal Wayne, You have chosen a name and a uniform, from this day forth you shall be known as Shadow Bat unless you need to distance yourself from us, to help you become your own hero." Crystal looked at the ranks of the team in front of her.
Nightwing had read her the speech; he was wearing a black Kevlar latex blend with grey on his abs, a blue utility belt, and a blue bird shape on his chest, two blue lines spreading down his arms. He had a domino mask on, whit spikes going down on both the top and bottom. He had shaggy black hair, and average cocasion skin, at least that's what I was told.
Tim was in a dark grey body suit, with red on his lower pectorals, his abdominal, outer thigh, and the area around his elbow. His upper half mask was strapped to him by a button with a robin inscribed on it, a yellow back ground just like his belt. He like all the rest had white one way mirrors on his eyes.
My father was different from the others though. He was wearing a titanium steal alloy helmet that I was told was painted Red. He wore a brown leather jacket and a Kevlar latex mixture grey body suit with a Red Batman logo on it. He wore grey khaki pants with a red belt attached; his shoes were black leather with steal toes, and matching zippers. He had spikes on his knuckles, and a red pistol on his belt, and I could see two red knife handles sticking out of his boots.
Damian wore probably the simplest uniform of them all though, he was wearing the same material as the others, but it consisted of a black body suit, a red shirt, green gloves and boots, a black cap with yellow linings, and a hood. On his face he wore a simple green domino mask that had the same shape as Nightwings, a yellow R surrounded by a black circle, and black Kevlar utility belt with a yellow buckle around his waist.
Batwoman was wearing a full black body suit of the same material with a red bat logo on her chest, matching her high boots, bat logoed belt, spiked gloves, and the lining of her black pointed cape, her mask allowing for the visual of her scarlet lipstick and her hair to stick out of the back of her mask.
Black Bat wore a full black body suit with the same material as the others. She had a yellow bat log on her chest, the exact same colour as her belt. The mask attached to her long cape covered every inch of her face, even her short black hair.
My mother wore a full purple spandex suit with grey boots and gloves, black stripes going down her sides. She was wearing a warm domino mask, her red hair flowing down onto her shoulders. She had a whip on her grey belt.
Then there was Batgirl, she wore a full grey Kevlar spandex suit with a black mask, gloves, boots, and a cape, yellow touching every part of her uniform especially her belt, and the golden hair flowing out of her mask in a ponytail.
Nightjay wore a red Kevlar spandex suit with black stripes on her outer thigh, and her entire arm being black. She wore a domino mask so that her hair was visible, and she had a yellow R surrounded by a black circle.
Blue Bat wore a blue robin suit with dark grey lining and two Bat ears attached to his on the top of his head. He wore a blue Domino mask, not really hiding the stern and unforgiving expression on his face. He was wearing a baby blue utility belt, and had a steel bow staff on his shoulder.
Crystal turned to look at me, her pure black body suit covering every inch of her face, the outline of the Bat logo on her chest. I nodded my head as I heard her turn towards me, and she took the signal. "I am Black Bat, my name shall be the same, and my first loyalty is to truth and justice."
Nightwing smiled and walked up to Crystal. He grabbed her wrist, and raised her hand above her head. "This is our newest member of the team, Shadow Bat, the silent follower." The team clapped, and I just smiled. I was happy for Crystal, and glad that she could do this.
After the ceremony Damian walked up to me and ruffled up my hair. "Did I ever tell you the story of prototype ten?" he asked knowing very well that I hadn't. "Before you were born we began to design and build you a suit."
Damian stood in front of the computer, researching materials that could power the design for their tenth idea for my suit. The best one they'd found so far was plutonium, but it was too unstable, then he came up to a new sight stating that something was being developed by Star Labs. It was known as Xenothium.
It was an unstable material, but if you wired it properly it would have no problems. "This material has the ability to power a city for two days, and it can fit into a belt buckle." Nightwing looked at the computer screen and read the details about it.
"Xenothium is an extremely unstable material that needs to be wired perfectly for it to work." Nightwing looked over at Red hood, whose mask was on the table. His died black hair ruffled, his green eyes slowly examining the screen. "What do you think about it Jason?"
"The energy it puts off is red, so if you can make it work I'll allow it." The four brothers in the room smiled, and the girls just shook their heads. "Why don't we get down to the looks?"
Damian brought up the schematics needed to make the suit work, and made it into a human shape. The power grid showed it needing to go up to the face, and my father smiled. "Well we know he'll be wearing a helmet." Again the brothers smiled as my father took Damian's seat, turning the keyboard into a digital sketch pad. He drew on a tattered cape, and a utility belt. He drew a skull on the face, and put an X on it.
"What's the X for?" Damian asked intently looking at the three dimensional drawing. "I think that it's cool, but do you expect him to have a specific name." my father drew another X on the left chest adding details to the boots.
"The X stands for ten; we could easily make it represent something else like Xenothium." Damian nodded at my father's response, and then let him continue by drawing X's on my palms and back of my hand, adding the colours. Red for the X's, black for the body, boots and outside of the cape. The suit had a red lining in the cap, and grey for the gloves. Red knee pads, belt, souls of shoes, and straps. The details of the skull were left to eyes, and the bottom half of the jaw was removed.
Tim laboured for weeks trying to get the tech to work, and Dick took the time getting the Kevlar latex suit. When they had both finished their individual parts they put it all together, all that was left to get was Xenothium.
"Well Dick, it looks like we're sending Jason to go get us some Xenothium?" Damian mused, not noticing Dicks smile until it was too late. "Dick, I was just joking."
"I know, but Tim and the rest of us think it's a good idea, so Jason will go in the morning to right up the contract." Damian stared at Dick relieved, and quite aggravated that he would do something like that. "Jason will go with one of the body guards."
After my father made a deal with star labs that forty percent profits would be given to theme Wayne Tech could have forty percent of their Xenothium ore, the ore was installed, and the next day I was born.