Disclaimer: Red Tornado blew the disclaimer away. Sorry!
9:32 pm.
Robin and Nightwing ran through the house. Finding Blank Face in this huge place was like finding a needle in a haystack. Partially because BF had left behind a dozen constructs of himself to keep the boys busy.
"He must've made these in a hurry. I break through them once and they melt into goop," Nightwing said, doing a side kick through a dupe's chest.
Robin did a back flip, breaking off a dupe's head. "That just makes things easier for us. So, where do you think the chip is?"
"The schematics I downloaded show that the lab is in the basement," Nightwing replied, quickly looking at his holo-wrist computer. He ducked a jab from a dupe. "I suggest we look there once we handle the bad copies."
After he said that, everything became automatic. If Robin needed to do a high flip, Nightwing cupped his hands in preparation. If Nightwing needed someone to punch a dupe while he ducked, Robin was there to supply the hit. At times, it seemed like the two were moving in perfect sync.
After a few more minutes, the dupes were all harmless piles of goo. The duo decided to take a second to catch their breath.
Robin wiped some sweat from his brow. "We make a pretty decent team."
Nightwing stretched his arm. "Yeah, I guess we do."
"I'm sorry for not trusting you. You've earned it. My trust, that is. You don't keep secrets."
For Nightwing, that was like rubbing salt in the wound. If only Robin knew...
"We should get going. We won't stop Blank Face by standing here."
He ran on ahead. Robin stood there a moment before following. For that split-second, Nightwing had sounded eerily like Batman.
They walked down the dark staircase leading to the basement. When they reached the bottom, motion-activated lights came on. The lab itself was so enormous, it gave the Bat-cave a run for its money.
Robin let out a whistle. "Dr. Kahn must have a lot of time on his hands. Speaking of which, how come we haven't seen him?"
"He's at a weapons conference in Munich. He'll gone for at least another two weeks," Nightwing answered. "Lucky for him, huh?"
"Yes. Lucky for him."
Standing on top of platform was Blank Face. In his hand was the microchip.
"What did you think of my look-alikes?" he asked casually.
"The first one was good, but the others seemed a little rushed," Nightwing replied, equally casual.
Blank Face shrugged in a very 'that is life' way. "Nevertheless, I've got what I needed. You're welcome to try and stop me. But then again, you could always just surrender. What do you say?"
The boys threw explosive birdarangs at him. BF had barely enough time to jump out of the way. He landed on a separate platform.
"I suppose that answers that question," BF muttered. "Kids today. So impulsive."
Blank Face spread out his arms, and some familiar white orbs flew from his body. They immediately flew toward the heroes.
"Hit the deck!" Nightwing shouted.
They jumped behind a counter as the orbs blew up. Every so often, the boys would throw birdarangs at the orbs, setting them off before they could hit. It was kinda like a snowball fight. Only with explosions.
This went on for a few minutes, until Robin reached into his belt to find it empty.
"I'm out!" he announced.
Nightwing handed him a shuriken. "Here. Take a Wing Ding."
"A what?"
"A Wing Ding!"
Robin paused. "Your shurikens are called Wing Dings?"
Nightwing looked him angrily. "Look, they were originally called Nightarangs, but my friend's daughter Lian started calling them Wing Dings, and it stuck! So Robin." He held the shuriken up close in his face. "Take. The. Wing. Ding."
Robin wasn't sure how he said that with a straight face, but he decided to take the Wing Ding.
They continued to fight off the orbs, but were so busy doing that, they didn't notice two gooey tentacles sneaking up behind them. The tentacles wrapped themselves around their ankles, then dragged the boys upwards toward Blank Face. They hung upside down before BF, who, despite not having a face, looked extremely pleased with himself.
"Like I said earlier," Blank Face said to the struggling heroes. "This fight is over. I win."
"When I get my hands on you-" Nightwing began to threaten.
Four more tentacles shot from Blank Face's waist, wrapping around their hands. Then they were flipped right side up.
"Please. Don't you see this pointless?" Blank Face said, bringing Nightwing in close. He cupped his chin. "There's nothing you can do. Our new timeline will be secure."
Robin stopped struggling for a second. "'Our' new timeline?"
"Oh, Nightwing didn't tell you? He's from the future too," Blank Face said smugly, looking at Robin. "I'm surprised you haven't figured out who he really is yet. I thought it would be obvious."
"Blank Face, if you tell him, I swear I'll-"
Blank Face looked back at Nightwing, jerking his face painfully to the side. "You'll what? Kick my butt? Devise some complicated plan to get me to confess and go to jail? Give me a break! Trust me kid, you're trying way too hard."
Nightwing grit his teeth.
"Look at yourself," BF continued. "You have clever themed weapons. You have master kung fu skills. You're multilingual and a tactical genius. You're at the peak of human strength, reflexes, speed, endurance, agility, and durability. You've become this, all in attempt to be more like him."
"What is he talking about?" Robin asked.
"Shut it!" Nightwing yelled at Blank Face. "You don't know anything!"
"What else is there to know?" Blank Face said. "You're the lone defender of Blüdhaven. And that's only because you turn down any help offered to you. You have barely any friends, because the only friends you've ever had was your old team, which most of its old members you haven't spoken to in years. Even your own girlfriend finds you antisocial! You've become more like him in more ways than one."
Blank Face's face began to bubble, changing. It eventually looked exactly like Nightwing's face, mask and all.
"Face it, bird boy," Blank Face sneered, using Nightwing's voice. "You can act like the big, tough hero. But deep down inside, you're still that little robin, so desperately trying to please his mentor."
That was everything clicked in Robin's head. Why hadn't seen all the signs?
"I used to be on one, but it failed."
"I used to go by something else, but I decided it sounded too childish."
"You guys wouldn't have heard of us. We were kinda covert."
"Breaking radio silence."
"And for your information, I've been at this longer than any of you. I just like to stay under the radar."
"Well, do me a favor and get tracted. We need to blow down this door."
"Seriously, why isn't anything ever just whelming?"
"You're Robin," Robin whispered. "You're me."
"Well, give the boy a prize!" Blank Face declared, his face once again becoming featureless. "And to be exact, Nightwing here is you in about ten years."
Robin ignored Blank Face. All he could do was keep saying, "You're me. You're ME!"
Nightwing just looked at Robin helplessly.
9:48 pm.
Aqualad knocked out the last mercenary. "Is that all of them?"
Superboy had been rounding the mercs up and putting them in a pile. "Should be. Unless some are hiding."
Kid Flash sat on the ground, rubbing his ankles. "Gosh, I hope not. This is getting old."
Miss Martian was looking at Artemis's arm, which had been scratched in the fight. "I wonder how Robin and Nightwing are doing."
Artemis winced as her wound was bandaged. "I'm sure they're doing fine. Robin's been at this longer than any of us, and Nightwing is pretty good himself."
"I suppose you are right," Aqualad said. "Besides, it is not like they are going to blow up the mansion."
9:46 pm.
"If it's alright with you two, I'm going to go ahead and blow up the mansion," Blank Face decided. "It's time for these Robins to fall."
Blank Face tossed an explosive onto the ceiling, then dropped Nightwing and Robin. With that, he teleported out of the lab.
The boys hit the ground. Robin landed hard on a counter, while Nightwing landed on the actual floor.
Nightwing sat up. "Yup. Gotta love that peak human durability."
He stood up, only to see that Robin had been knocked unconscious from the fall. He quickly checked for injuries, and diagnosed that all Robin would have was a nasty bump.
Nightwing pulled Robin into a fireman carry and muttered. "Was I always this useless?"
He ran up the basement stairs, only to find that a metal wall had slid over it.
He sighed. "Figures."
Nightwing quickly ran back down the steps, and set Robin on the floor. When he looked up, he saw that there were only 40 seconds left on the countdown clock on the bomb.
He frantically patted his pockets. "C'mon, c'mon, I know it's here..."
Finally, Nightwing found what he was looking for. He pulled a gold medallion with a green crystal. Attached to it was this note:
D,
Thanks for the help with Blackbriar Thorn. If you're ever in a jam and need an easy way out, just hold this up and say the incantation I taught you. It'll get you and one other person the heck out of there. But only use it in an emergency. The medallion can only be used once. Good luck!
Love, Z.
There were only ten seconds left on the clock, so Nightwing had to work fast.
He pulled Robin close, held the medallion up, and shouted, "Gnirb su ot ytefas, noilladem fo aW-reeT!" (Note: This reads "Bring us to safety, medallion of Wa-Teer. It's not a real mystical medallion. I made it up.)
The medallion spewed energy, enveloping Robin and Nightwing. They disappeared in a flash of light.
"3..."
"2..."
"1..."
9:48 pm.
"I suppose you are right," Aqualad said. "Besides, it is not like they are going to blow up the mansion."
That was when the mansion blew up.
"Robin! Nightwing!" Miss Martian screamed.
Kid Flash glared at Aqualad. "You just had to say it, didn't you?"
"I did not-" Aqualad began to protest, when a there was a flash of light in the yard.
Standing there was a perfectly unscathed Nightwing, holding Robin bridal style.
"You're okay!" Artemis said, running over to him. "What happened to Robin?"
"He'll be okay," Nightwing assured her. "We weren't unable to stop Blank Face, though."
"I'm sure you did your best," Miss Martian said. "How'd you get out here?"
Nightwing held up the medallion as it began to crumple to dust. "Gift from an old friend. One use only, though. But it's probably for the best. That guy who got eaten by his own tiger will go back to magic before I do."
"I'm glad you got out and all, but Jerk Face still got away," Superboy said.
"If only we knew what Blank Face's plan was," Aqualad said. "Then we could stop him that way."
"I think I have a way we can find out," Nightwing said. He handed Robin over to Aqualad, walked over to the pile of mercenaries, and dragged a now-conscious one off of it.
Nightwing slammed the guy against a tree. "What's Blank Face going to do?"
The guy smirked. "Like I'd tell you. I'm trained to resist torture. There's nothing you can do to make me talk."
Nightwing smirked. "Whoever said I was going to do anything?"
With that, all Nightwing did was frown and stare at the mercenary. It was a cold, hard stare. Not to mention mighty uncomfortable. It made the merc sweat.
After 2 minutes, the merc shouted, "Alright, alright, I'll talk! BF never told us outright what his plan was, but he did say that he was going to change the world. Make everybody more like him. That's all I know, I swear! Just please stop staring at me like that!"
Nightwing smiled and tossed the mercenary back onto the pile. "At least we now have something to work with."
"Impressive technique," Superboy commented.
Nightwing shrugged. "What can I say? I learned from the best."
"Was 'the best' Batman?"
Robin was awake, and boy, did he look mad.
"Robin," Nightwing said in an uneasy tone. "When did you regain consciousness?"
"Just now.", Robin replied bitterly as Aqualad set him down.
"Robin, what's wrong?" Superboy asked.
"What's wrong is that Nightwing is a liar!" Robin shouted. "He's from the future, just like Blank Face. He's a future version of me!"
The kids all gasped in shock.
"To be fair, I never said that I wasn't from the future," Nightwing pointed out.
"Nightwing... you're Robin?" Artemis asked, blushing furiously.
"I haven't called myself 'Robin' since I was eighteen," Nightwing admitted. "But... yes, I am."
"So this whole time we've been working with two Robins?" Kid Flash asked. "It's like Robin-ception!"
"You guys are missing my point!" Robin yelled. "All that stuff he said earlier. About how his team broke up, how a member betrayed the, how one of them payed the ultimate price. That was our team he was talking about!"
The team's eyes widened in realization, then they all glared angrily at Nightwing.
Nightwing rubbed the back of his head. "Maybe I should start at the beginning..."
I'm a very mean person, aren't I? Hope you enjoyed the two chapters in one day!