Back in Batman Beyond Timeline: One Month after Phantom Stranger's offer

Terry sighed and looked at Diana. They were hiding out in Wayne Manor again to recuperate. Over the past month since the mysterious man offered to save their lives, the world had fallen apart. Gotham was one of the few cities not totally yet consumed by the beast.

"You know it would have been nice to have known that by sunrise after it was released, it would become unstoppable before hand," he said angrily as he flipped thru an old book on the dragon they had by chance come across. It did them no good though. It just told them there cause was hopeless. They could not win this fight.

"He was not kidding when he said it was too late," he added has he tossed the book against the wall.

"It did not work," said Diana sadly staring into space. She was the only Amazon left on earth. Before the dragon was released, her mother and Amazons had fled into another dimension with the gods. They offered her to join but she refused. She was not a coward and would not back away from a fight.

"Hey now we don't know that. From what I gathered on Bruce's research on time travel, when time is changed, it takes a while for the changes to be felt, especially if it is many years after the change is made. You know like a ripple or a-"

"Yes a wave. I know. You have explained it multiple times. It does not matter. It did not work."

"You don't know that-"

"Phantom Stranger said so himself he could not guarantee if his plan would work. It's over Terry. I am sorry."

Terry sighed and walked up to Diana and grabbed her hands.

"Well I am not giving up yet."

"But you did not even trust him-"

"You are right I don't but I have faith Diana. Even though it seems we are at the end I have faith. Besides I do not care if that damn book says the dragon is invulnerable now. It must have some kind of weakness."

Diana smiled at that remark. It brought her back to her earlier days with the League.

"You are so much like Bruce," she said with nostalgia in her eyes.

"Hey don't insult me," Terry said jokingly. That seemed to cheer Diana up a bit and bring her out of self-pity.

She stood and started to stretch.

"So what do you want to do this time? Aim for the eyes when we face it again?"

But before Terry could reply they heard a faint roar outside. The dragon was near.

"Well there goes our hideout."

But before Diana could reply a bright white light began to glow from the other room. The light then began to narrow and spiral. How could light spiral?

The bright light was now a vortex and began to suck everything out of the manor. Chairs and portraits as well were sucked into it. Terry and Diana could both feel the pull of it but held off.

"Well it looks like time has finally caught up," Terry joked.

Diana looked at the growing time vortex and back outside where they could hear the dragon a few miles away.

"What do you want to do? Jump into the vortex or try one last attempt on the dragon?"

Terry grinned. "Whatever happens, that vortex is eventually going to change the future. For better or worse I cannot say. Might as well get one last fight in before we go."

Diana looked at Terry sadly. She might never meet him; in fact he might never exist. But he was ready to sacrifice everything for the greater good just as she was.

She grabbed Terry's hand and looked into the white lenses of his cowl.

"For death," Terry said.

"For Gotham," Diana replied.

"For the world," Terry responded.

"For Bruce," Diana whispered.

Terry understood and the two warriors jumped out the window and began to charge at the approaching monster as it made its way up the manor yard with the growing white light to their backs.

000000000000

Present Timeline

The alarm was a device Batman had developed while he and John were stuck in the future chasing Chronos. While he was working with his future self, the older version revealed that he had been researching time traveling ever since Chronos began to alter it.

According to his future self, he managed to have developed a device that could detect when time had changed. The device itself was ingenious in that it existed out of synch with time. That meant it could detect when the future had been altered without itself being altered. A useful tool to combat time traveling villains. Let the past know the future had been changed so hopefully the past could stop it.

Batman remembered when his older self gave him the program to install on his computer which would alert him of any more time shifts after this mission. At first when Batman came back with John and fixed the timeline, he thought it did not work because his computer did not record any time shifts in the future. However a month later the thing went off without a warning and Batman realized it was just now detecting the reset in time he and John started in the future. That led to Batman concluding that the affects of time travel may not be felt instantly but instead after a certain period of time depending how far in the future it was, like a ripple or a wave.

Now that alarm was going off again. For a second Batman had forgotten all about it. But there it was, blaring again.

Immediately his suspicions grew. They were on the verge of an apocalyptic catastrophe and his little device was telling him someone had altered the future?

Batman began to look for more information on what the device detected. Another useful thing about the program it could not only roughly detect where the disturbance in time was caused but when. The computer began to spill out data. What Batman saw made his heart stop briefly. Not only did the disturbance occur in Gotham, but during a certain day that changed his life forever. It was the night of the date auction.

He felt like he had been hit like a train. The cold truth was starting to hit him hard. Everything that had happen that night and onward was not supposed to happen. He was not supposed to make the auction but by miracle he woke up. The eye was not supposed to get stolen but it did because he had lured the police away. He was not supposed to have won the three women at the auction and go on the three dates. The last month was not supposed to happen.

All that happiness he had felt was a lie. It was just a product of someone interfering with the time stream. It all made sense now. He and Diana being a happy, functioning couple? That was all not real. He was supposed to end up alone.

Why did God have to be so cruel and ironic like that? What gave Him the right to torture him, manipulate him that he could actually be happy?

"I hope you are happy up there!"

"Now that's not fair. I think it should be me you should be mad at," said a deep slow voice.

Immediately Batman turned around battarang ready. How could someone infiltrate his cave without him knowing? How could they even sneak up on him?

Batman saw no one but the darkness of the cave.

"Fear not I mean you no harm," said the voice again.

Batman saw movement out of the corner of his eye and immediately tossed an explosive battarang. It just hit the wall but no one else.

Batman heard a chuckle behind him and turn to find himself face to face with a man in an over large blue overcoat and fedora and two oppressive looking bracelets on his wrists which made him look like a prisoner. The man was about two heads taller than him, but Batman was not intimidated. Immediately he lunged to the mysterious figure and managed grab hold of him.

But it was like grabbing smoke. The next thing Batman knew he was on the ground and the intruder was behind him again.

"Batman I come to help you, not hurt you."

"Breaking in my cave seems more harmful than helpful," Batman sneered angrily as he got up. He decided he would not attack this stranger again, until he could determine more about him. As of right now, the stranger seemed to not want to attack him just yet.

"I must applaud you for excellent detective skills. I am impressed that you have figured it all out."

"What did you do?" Batman threatened angrily.

"Do not get so angry with me. I merely changed one thing in the past-"

"You had no right to interfere with my life!"

"Oh Batman this is so much bigger than yourself. I am nothing more than observer. I can see through all of time and space. In the future I saw the world was doomed. I usually am not allowed to interfere but I was allowed one chance to go back in time and change one thing, in hopes the future would be saved."

"And you thought it would be nice to play God and just change everything without consulting me?"

"Do not act like it is all about you Batman!" the stranger said, his voice finally raised. "I did not make the choice, I offered it to someone else who would be also be affected by it. In your arrogance have you not realized that not only your life but other people's lives were affected as well?"

Batman did not respond but the stranger had a point. So much had change in the past month for better or for worse.

"Besides I do not know why you are so mad. I just changed the opportunities you had. The choices you made were still based on free will-"

"My life this past month has been a lie!"

"Do not fool yourself Batman. Correct me if I am wrong, hasn't this change made your life better, happier?"

"My happiness is not as important as my mission! Your interference has been distracting me from my mission all this time!"

"I did not make your choices, you did. But I am not here to tell you to be happy. In fact I am here to warn you."

"Warn me?" asked Batman suspiciously. This man liked to talk, a lot.

"To save the future, I had to bring it to the past which is now. I cannot give too much away but to do that, someone had to make a choice, a sacrifice. Now it is your turn. Batman, there will come a time soon when you have to make a sacrifice. I cannot tell you what it is but I am confident you can figure it out."

Batman had enough and decided to pull out a bola to try to incapacitate his foe but before he could throw it, the stranger was gone. Leaving him alone in his cave again.

He was fuming mad. Just another super powered being trying to act like a god and manipulate his life. This is exactly why he distrusted metas. With their powers they felt like they could determine how everyone else could live their lives.

He refused to acknowledge what the stranger said about him being happy the past month. It could not be. It was the product of one giant con. And he fell for it hard.

One thing the stranger said was partly true though. He needed to make a sacrifice. He needed to let Diana go. She was distracting him from his mission. This past week has all been about her and not his mission. What was he doing when Dick was on patrol half the time? Watching movies with Diana so he could delude himself that he had a normal life.

The batclan and the Justice League he could still allow in his life. They did not distract him as much. Diana though, he could not accept her into his life.

Batman sighed and tapped his commlink. This was going to hurt.

"Wonder Woman, I need you to come to the batcave now!" he said angrily.

There was a pause on her end.

"Uh-okay Batman, I will be on my way down."

"What are you doing you lov-"

"No she is a distraction an obstacle!"

"She belongs to you just as much as you belong-"

The voice of the bat and the other continued to war in his head as he waited for the impending sacrifice he needed to make. He was Batman, alone now and forever.

Unnoticed, Phantom Stranger was back in the cave watching as Batman got ready to push the woman he belonged to away forever.

"Two sacrifices down, two more to go," he said mysteriously before fading away.