A/N: I do not own Teen Titans, they belong to DC Comics.
After waiting for two long days, Tim finally announced to everyone,"The carbon dating results just came in and it says Bruce is around the year 50,000 BCE (Before Common Era)." Tim alerts a team of time travelers that consisted of Superman, Green Lantern team of John Stewart and Hal Jordan, and Booster Gold. "Are you guys ready?" Asks Tim and they nod and leave for the Watchtower. After the team left, Tim walked towards Damian, much to everyone's delight. "How are you feeling, Damian?" Tim ask concerned.
"I feel better." Replied the developing Wayne.
"No more fits for today or tomorrow?" Tim tried making Damian smile or laugh, but he wasn't going to show those emotions.
"Why are you asking these questions to me, Tim?" Damian cut through the crap and asked.
"Nothing bothering you?"
"I feel fine, I just had to get some things off my chest." The young Wayne found himself reminiscing of the previous night, when he poured his rage for his unexpected change in a course of a week. However, he couldn't deny that the change was for the better.
"I think you should tell Dick about the bounty situation." Tim suggested.
Damian pondered the thought of telling Dick. It was going to be a hard thing to do, how was Dick going to react to news of a clone? A bounty? Despite these lingering questions, Damian's body walked towards Dick. "Hey Dick, I've got something to tell you." The boy said with uncertainty.
Dick looked at his little brother with confusion, "What happened?" His tone of one of worry.
"Talia tried to convince me to return to her and the League of Assassins, and I refused. Now, I'm up for bounty, then she told me she has cloned another son of Bruce, but I don't know how she did it or what he looks like." The boy spoke with a sense of remorse. "I don't want to put your's and Garfield's daughters in danger, so I can no longer work with them. I'm sorry, Dick." A tone of defeat was present in Damian's voice.
Dick was shocked by his brother's admission, he didn't know how to comfort the little boy, but he knew that he had to be there for Damian. "It looks like you're working with me, again. I'll have Anna and Mar'i work their parents." Although Dick wanted Damian to work on his leadership skills. Despite this, he understood the only way to get Damian, was to capture their daughters, and force Damian or Dick or Garfield to search for their daughters. Which would put them in a huge disadvantage, when you think about it. The assassins could set up a trap and kill off whoever goes after them. "How do you know you're up for bounty?"
"I hacked into the League of Assassins' database."
"Is there a way to get you off that list?"
"I don' believe so, but I wish there was a way, though."
Dick walked away from the developing boy and informed Kori, Rachel, and Garfield of the sudden change of plans. "Are you guys okay with this?" They nodded at Dick and said man let the cowl take over, and he went inside the batmobile. He revved up the engine, so Damian could get the idea that it was time to leave, but Damian was feeling a bit trolled by Dick.
"Thanks for the tea, Alfred." Damian placed the finished passion-flower tea on the wooden table and sprinted to the Batmobile. "You know, you can just say, 'Let's get inside the batmobile.'" Damian stated while securing his seat belt and putting on his hood.
*TT*
I saw my dad and my cr... er... cousin, yeah, my cousin, leave for Gotham. Why doesn't he want to patrol with Anna and I? Did we do something wrong? I'm pretty sure we didn't do anything wrong. We were ambushed! There wasn't anything we could do about it!
However, his mom did say something about a "clone", so there must be something I could research. I don't have enough time, we'll probably leave in about ten minutes. That doesn't give me time. Let's see, Mar'i, your dad and granddad are the best detectives in the world, what would they do if they heard about a clone from the League of Assassins? I do know that my time window is growing smaller and smaller by the minute, I suppose I'll start on the batcomputer, first.
I start my short walk to the computer, "C'mon, Robin! Crime waits for no man!" An enthusiastic Jason yelled at Tim.
"It's Red Robin!" Tim shouted.
"Yum!" Jason responds, I almost join him, and Tim smacks his face.
"Bye, Jason. Bye, Tim." I wave to them.
"Bye, bye, kiddo." Jason gives me a high-five while Tim returns the waving motion. They enter Jason's 1978 blue, convertible viper and they ride off to Gotham, as well. That gives me now about seven minutes to hack something.
The computer is sleeping, I see Damian has his own "profile", but he has a password. Let me guess "Kittenzrulez1987" and I am correct, a little too easy Damian. I look into the "recent places" under the "favorites" section and I see Damian's previous history. I have an idea where to start, but everything else, I have to figure out. I start working my hacking magic and I discover that there's really a clone of him, I thought his mom was lying but how did they make the clone? If they created Damian through artificial means, then they must've had extra DNA leftover. More over, I must continue of digital search for the clone before I lose all the time I have. There's over ten thousand folders in this database of there's, looks like I got to look by keyword, then.
I type in the word "clone" into the find section and I get one folder saying "Project Beyond" with a description of cloning a superhero and another saying "Whale Clone Test" without any description, much like most these folders. As much as these cloning projects sound interesting to me, they aren't the ones that I should be investigating into. I know there's something in this cloning search that would become valuable to me. I just know it.
"It's time to go patrolling!" I hear my mom and I know that my time is up. I back track all the way to where I had started and I prevent myself from the deleting the information. I have a feeling that Damian will be looking further into this, as will I.
"I'm ready, mom!" I fake a smile to her and Raven opens a portal to the patrol site and we enter.
*TT*
We enter Gotham without any trouble and I start getting a bad feeling in my stomach, like someone is spying on us. Who would spy on us? I wonder if Talia sent out my clone to spy on me, to get a sense of what I'm like. I see a quick flash of red in an alleyway, I know Dick didn't see it, but I did. It has to be that desert dweller! Dick is too busy looking at the road to see him but he is out here, that means the assassins' base is nearby too. The only place I know of that's an assassin base is the one in the Middle East, Talia never showed me any other bases located throughout the world. I think she had a feeling something like this would happen. Things are about to... I see the desert dweller land on the hood of the batmobile, wrecking the car, and us being the passengers inside; are treated to being lifted about twenty feet in the air while being inside the car and we brace for impact against the cold cement. "Robin! Are you okay?" I hear Dick and my instincts tell me to crawl out of the wrecked batmobile.
"I think this one's going on his tab." I try to lighten up the mood but I know this guy won't be an easy opponent. He doesn't look unfazed from landing on the car, I glare kind of knowing this guy isn't a normal human being. Then again, I think most of this Bat family's opponents aren't normal humans. We ready in our fighting stance and the dweller looks at us without getting into a fighting stance. I want to charge but I know this is apart of this guy's plan, so I take out my batarang, and I launch it at him. What!
He caught the batarang! I know I threw that projectile at him, coming in at about 144 km/h (90 mph)! Even with proper training, no one would try to catch something going that fast without any kind of gloves to help cushion the impact of the projectile. Dick throws smoke bombs at the guy and we start running towards him. However, I didn't see him react to the smoke but he just stood there, I don't think he even tried to wipe away the smoke away from his vision.
By the time we reach him, we uppercut him, and our fists just bounced off him! "Uh, I don't think that worked!" I dumbly tell Dick who could tell that our opponent was unfazed by the attack.
"We gotta take him down!" Dick yelled back and I nod at his response.
The masked man raises his arm and grabs something and like a whip snapping, his arm chops the sword that he grabbed from its sheath. We roll away from the heavy attack and I take out my bo staff. He looks at me, then he looks at Dick, who has two combat batarangs. He runs towards me and tries to slice me in half, but I roll to my right and I whack him behind the knees. He trips up but he quickly gets back up.
He faces us and I didn't realize how tall he was. His height creates a shadow over us and something has to give. I run towards him and he whips his sword at me but I block with my bo staff. Dick jumps over my stalemate and hits the jaw of the dweller. He just looks at Dick and head butts him. Dick takes a few steps back, obviously the head butt hurt Dick more than it did to the dweller. I push the staff up, causing the his sword to be launched upwards, and I try to hit him, but he catches my attack and I try to get my hand back to no avail. "You should've left with your mother, when you had the chance." Dweller tells me grimly.
"So you're just going to collect the bounty for yourself?"
"There was no bounty for your head." Impossible! I check on the database! "Talia knew you were going to be checking the bounty list and she anticipated this, so we set up a trap for you." He raises his sword, I saw the reflection of the light coming off of it. I ready my staff and I time so that it'll block the killing hack, but the attack never came.
*BOOSH!*
He shoves me to the ground but I see Dick attempting to pull the heavy weight towards him. Unfortunately, he didn't even budge, but he pulls the rope from the batclaw. Dick went flying towards him, fortunately Dick recovered quickly and he threw one smoke pellet at him. The smoke is blinds my vision but I know where the dweller is, so I crawl backwards, then I roll back on my feet. I see that Dick is lying on a car, unconscious. Great, I have to face this guy alone. This isn't going to be easy, many opponents have one weakness that I could expose or adapt to, but this guy is doesn't have one weakness that I can take advantage of!
He walks towards me menacingly and let's see, what can I use to my advantage? He swings his sword at me and I block with the staff. I deflect the attack and I hit him in the face with the staff, then I jump back to give me room to breathe. He doesn't show any signs of pain, great, what is this guy's skin made of? Steel?
I charge towards him and slide under him, causing him to miss his jab, and I trip him up with my legs. I get up first and I unleash on him with the staff; I use the staff for good use as I'm able to hit him for about fifty times until he slashes his sword at me. I block the slash but my staff breaks into two, on the sheer force force he delivers, and I fall backwards. Not the best spot to try to block any attacks. "Now, DIE!" He drives the sword to me and I close my eyes, again.
*BOOM! BOOM!*
I see the sword dropping on the ground and I see Tim lead with his bo staff at chest of the dweller. Tim rolls away, then Jason shoots a few rounds from his pistols, which push the dweller a few steps back. I don't think the rounds penetrated that tough skin, though. "Thanks." I tell Tim.
"Shut up and fight!" I would normally smile at a comment like this, but this guy is too strong or tough.
"This guy isn't a normal villain, he's like Superman, but without the Kryptonite." I alert him.
"Fantastic! Just when he leaves, this guy appears out of thin air." Tim tries to laughs about it.
"Are you two Robins done talking?" Jason questions us.
We charge to where Jason and the dweller are at, we try to help Jason, but this guy is reversing and countering our attacks. This isn't going to end well.
I try to hit him but he twists my arm around and kicks it. Ouch! I'm going to have a bruise later tonight, for sure. Tim and Jason aren't faring well against him. I think we need to retreat, before something bad happens to us. I see a line attach to the dweller, then Dick drags himself to him and kicks him. This causes the dweller to fly towards a building. "Retreat!" He throws a smoke pallet at him, then one below his feet. We follow suit and disappear in the smoke.
We meet up on a local skyscraper, I wipe the sweat coming off my hair, and I look at everyone else who's addressing their own wounds. "Did we seriously get our asses whooped?" Jason requests.
"No one has to know." Dick responds.
"Know about what?" Jason sees what Dick is going to do.
"Me either." Dick takes out the bat shaped communicator, "Alfred."
"Yes, Batman." He says in his butler voice.
"I want four ice baths to be ready by the time we come back to base."
"Yes, sir. I assume you want to return to base right now?" Dick nods his head.
"I think I'm going to get my car later on, during the day." Jason states. "What are we waiting for, shouldn't we go back to base?"
"I'm waiting for the batplane to arrive." Dick responses to Jason's complaining, then the plane in question arrives, and we are relieved.
"How are we going to fit, it looks like it can only sit three people." I ask.
"1, 2, 3. Nose goes." I see Dick and Jason quickly lift up their fingers to touch their noses. I look them confused as Tim looks pissed at them. "Sorry Tim, but Damian is going to sit on your lap." Dick laughs at him...
"What!" I yell at them. "Oh hell no!" Then I feel a jolt of lighting contact my neck and I black out.
*TT*
We arrive at the batcave, then Damian recovers from Jason's taser attack. "Okay, who tased me?" He demands. I begin to laugh much to his rage, but his body remembers what happened earlier in the patrol. "Ouch, ouch, ouch!" Damian holds his body together.
"Lil' bro, it's time for an ice bath!" I yell and I begin to take off the batsuit. After I take off the suit, I slowly go inside the tub full of ice and water. "Br..." I make contact with the water.
Slowly but surely, I let my body go fully submerge with the water. I look to see Alfred watching over us, making sure we don't go under water and drown or freeze to death, so I close my eyes. I let my body relax into the ice and I feel my body recovering from my little beef with the car that I landed on during the fight with that mysterious guy. I wonder if Damian knows who this guy is? "This is super cold." Speaking of Damian.
"Stop being a cat." I tell him without opening my eyes. "Embrace the cold, refreshing yet brutal, ajuua." Hehe, I made myself laugh, then Tim and Jason couldn't prevent themselves from chuckling.
"The water is too cold!" He yells back.
"We're sorry, princess." Jason adds and ,with the exception of Damian, we laugh harder.
"Okay, fine!" Damian shouts, "Leroy Jenkins!" He quickly goes inside the tub without pacing himself. "Oh my goodness! This water is too cold!"
"That's the whole point of an ice bath!" Tim states.
"I'm never taking another ice bath, ever again."
When Damian finally comforts himself with the freezing water, I realize it's been about fifteen minutes, so I have to get out of there. It would be unwise to stay in there for too long. "How long has Damian been in the tub?" I ask Alfred.
"Seven minutes, that's without complaining how cold the water is." I nod and I walk to said kid.
"Little bro," He looks at me, "time to get out of the tub." The way he gets out of the tub reminds of a cat. "Your whiskers wet?" I chuckle while he sticks his tongue out. Tim throws me two towels and I hand the other towel to Damian.
After we dry off and put normal clothes on (cause we just had our boxers on, no one wants to be in their clothes while in an ice bath), I see everyone else arriving back from patrol. "Dudes, why are you guys here early?" Changeling questions.
I look around and I come up with a white lie, "We were having our 'brother bonding time.'" I hope he doesn't know that I'm kind of lying, but I know it won't get passed the two empaths in the cave.
I see a big smile coming across from him, "Sure it is." Luckily, he drops it and walks away. I think I know what he's thinking, he's going to ask Raven, 'if I'm telling the truth and see what information I'm holding back.'
Alfred walks towards me and hands me a phone, "It's Oracle, sir."
I receive the phone, "What happened, Babs?"
"I think everyone is suspicious that they haven't seen Bruce and Diana for a long time, so GCPD is looking into it. My dad is coming over to the Manor in the morning, about eight to nine o'clock."
"How do you know this information?" I ponder.
"Remember Sam?" Her boyfriend.
"He's apart of the district attorney, right?"
"Bingo, so I looked into a couple of files and I discovered that they were suspecting you're the reason for Bruce and Diana's disappearance. They're already making a case against you."
"So I gotta fool your father into believing that I am too incompetent to kill them?"
"Correct, so have a good night."
"Thanks for the heads up, Babs, good night." I hang up the phone, "Everyone come here." I say somewhat coldly but they gather around me, nonetheless. "I just discovered from Barbara, that GCPD is suspecting me of 'Bruce and Diana's disappearance.' So we need to trick them into proving, without a doubt that I didn't do it and I give them the impression that I wouldn't be benefiting from his disappearance." I quickly pause. "So Damian, Mar'i, and Anna; I need you three to be out of the house and somewhere else." I look at Alfred, "Can you think of a place that would be low-profile for them to hang out at?"
Alfred shrugs his shoulders but Anna's flashbulb lights up, "We could go to a poetry café."
"Sounds like a good idea." I smile; I just hope that Damian doesn't get any stupid ideas along the way. "Jason, your car is somewhere in Gotham City?" He nods, "Take Tim with you and retrieve your car, and maybe go out to eat and make sure you save something for the rest us." I suggest to him and I look at Raven, Star, and Changeling. "We're going to have to trick Gordon, but the idea I'm using is the one Bruce used when he was beginning his career as Batman."
"Which would be?" Raven wants me to answer.
"We act drunk." I spit out.
"You sure this is going to work?" Changeling asks.
"If we sell that I wouldn't be benefiting from his disappearance, then it will work. No problems. Garfield, are your holograms rings still working properly?" He nods confidently. "Can you do this Raven?" I ask, wondering if her emotions would allow her to put up a perception of how the elite class acts.
"It's going to be a stretch, but I'll manage." Garfield puts his hand on his wife's shoulder.
"It's settled then, everyone knows what they're doing in the morning?" No one disagrees, "Let's get our rest, first. We'll wake up about 7:30 AM."