"What was that?" I screamed.
"What was that chain?" She screamed back.
Needless to say, were both freaked out.
"What did I just do? I swear I didn't mean to do that. I am so sorry." I responded.
"What if it did something to me? It was going to heaven, Taylor. The actual heaven, that somehow exists." She said.
"I saw. oh God, Or should I not say that? I must have pissed him off." I had fucked up. Was I just a carrier for anti-God rings? Is that why Bet is like that? I knew that resetting won't help, I just knew that it was one of the very few things in all of the endless possibilities that resetting won't work on.
"Calm down. Let's talk about this. No more hiding things from me if you really feel guilty. Ok?"
I nodded furiously. I had to give her that much. I had permanently destroyed her connection to something clearly important.
"I will get on the bike and drive to the cave where we can coordinate with Bruce. The disaster is still going on. Tell me everything."
I just had to ask her something before I did.
"I know I have no right to ask you this but could you please turn off anything that's connected to Bruce as I tell you? You can record it or whatever, you can make the decision about whether to tell him or not afterwards. Just as I say it first."
She sighs. "I don't have anything on me connected to Bruce, except for an emergency tracker. He tried once, but I traced back his signal and learned his identity instead." She smiled. "So no Taylor, I don't report to him 24/7."
She continues "I also wasn't going to tell everything you tell me to Bruce, but I have no idea how to prove it to you. Did someone—no never mind. Just tell me your story so I can know what happened."
As we walked towards the bike, the seals on our chests fell off and turned to dust.
—
The ride felt longer than it was. Speaking of everything that happened to me was painful. And she asked questions, questions about my home and school life, my world and my powers.
I told her about what happened to me last time and she sighed. She didn't get angry with me. She didn't doubt me but she just sighed like that was to be expected.
And strangely I wasn't angry at her either.
During the drive, I noticed that she hadn't asked to me wear a blindfold. So I asked her why that was.
"I don't know if I can get angry at Bruce, Penny and Alfred for working with little information in a different timeline. but if you expect me to ask you to be blindfolded after all that, then no. And if bruce gets angry then he can kick me out of the team himself."
She was so cool.
She stops her bike and gets out. We were on the strange abandoned streets she the bat family knew so much about.
"Why?"
"Now that I heard what you had to say, I don't know if going to the bat cave would be the best use of our time." She said and I had to agree.
"What was the skill you used?" She asked me now that she knew about my powers.
"[Fatebreaker]" I answered.
"And this fate breaker was a noose around my neck? There is nothing we can do right now about the skill is there?" She shook her head to her own question "I will go meet Dr Fate, later but now let's focus on the crisis"
I agreed. "Just so that I get an idea. What percentage of the city do you think is infected? You know the city better, what's your take?" I asked her.
She didn't have to think about it. Her prodigious brain crunched numbers at superhuman speed and she gave me the answer.
"Not more than 2% from everything you told me. Right now, It's only the people joker infected himself, patients in hospitals, people working in hospitals and the ones that spent time outside without a proper mask after the emergency was declared that have been affected. A joker-zombie would have to laugh at your face for it to take hold. But I think the rate of infection will be 5% in half an hour. 25% in an hour and close to 100% in two or three. Gotham will burn to the ground if we don't get this in control soon." She said worriedly.
She continued. "What we want is an Antidote. If Bruce had it then it would have never become a problem so I don't think the answer lies in the Batcave."
"Is there a medical tinker or a healer in the city?" I asked.
"A healer won't be enough for such a large outbreak, however, a medical tinker or a medical specialist—" She takes out her pad and searches for something. "I might have a lead. There is this Doctor, Dr Dekker who might know something. Get on, we are going to meet him." She said.
Just before I could follow her I remembered something. "Wait, before we go there was this guy commissioner Gordon. It's all hazy but I remember him calling in—I think I think he was being targeted by the Joker. He is important to Batman somehow, Is he not?" I asked her.
"Dad? He is being targeted by the Joker?" Asked Batgirl.
Dad?
"I have to go save him." She said, panicked. Losing the lid on her anxiety she had since she heard from me how bad things could get. "I have to connect to Bat-network, is that fine?" She asks and I find it sweet that she had to.
"Absolutely, go ahead."
"Hi, Alfred. Where is dad? Where's Bruce, also Tim and Dick." She listens
"Aha, Ok. I am going to find dad and I am sending my friend to find Dr Dekker." She shut her phone.
"You didn't tell them that the Joker will probably be going for your Dad." I half asked.
"They won't let me go alone then."
"You are not going alone to meet the Joker," I said.
"Taylor, are you blocking me from helping my Dad?" She asked.
She had misunderstood. No, I didn't want to stand in the way of her helping her Dad.
"No, I am not. I want to go because I will get there faster, before Joker. I showed her my Kunai." I continued. "I can teleport and go in a straight line. Over any crowds of infected people that would stand in my way."
She didn't look convinced so I had to continue. "And I won't be able to understand anything Dr Dekker has to say. You will have to be there. Unless—Dick or Tim can go?"
"No, they are both working to put out fires all over the city. They won't be able to." She said, shaking her head.
"Miss Gordon, only you can figure out the cure. I don't know where Bruce is but he ran into some dead end last time. Please, Let me help your dad."
She still looked reluctant. I looked her in the eyes, I took her arms in mine and crushed them, hoping to communicate how sincere I was.
"Please Miss Gordon, trust me?"
It finally looked like she had come to a decision.
"My name is Barbara Gordon."
"You didn't have—"
"Shush." she put a finger on my lips.
"I am leaving my dad's fate in your hands. You will have to save him. No running away from this timeline. I am going to trust you, would you do it?" She asked me.
"Yes, I won't abandon this run—"
"Not a run, timeline. Please say it." She begged me.
I didn't know if it was a timeline or a run or a loop or a simulation. But I don't think that's what she wanted from me. She wanted me to think that I was going through timelines that will continue after I die. And—and I think I can do that.
"Ok, I won't abandon this timeline," I said. And she hugged me.
"Go save my dad, hero" she told me with a smile.
"And go save the town, hero," We exchanged tools, I gave her a few storage seals and a teleportation beacon, and she gave me some of the gadgets and ideas she thought I might need and we parted ways.
—
Barbara's tracker for her dad. Yes, she had one. Pointed at a hospital. Jim Gordon, her dad was barricaded there.
The first item Barbara had given me was a prototype mechanical Batarang launcher she had in her bike's storage.
I aimed it at the sky and made sure that my sturdy and reliable teleportation seal was stuck to the Batarang and I clicked.
It launched into the sky at absurd speeds. I can see why this was a prototype, that much power wasn't needed for what the bats usually used the Batarang for. Knocking people out.
I teleported to the Batarang at the height of its trajectory. As I was falling down from appearing in mid-air as the wind buffeted my face, Blood rushed into my veins and I let out an unintentional scream through the gas mask I was wearing.
The plan was to load the Batarang in mid-air and shoot again to teleport. However, I should have tried loading the Batarang a second time because that wasn't easy as I expected. The ground rushed towards me. A small horde of Joker Zombies looking up at my descent.
And right before I hit the ground I activated a seal she had glued to my costume.
The wind seal she had glued to my costume pushed me up again, giving me the thrust required to be airborne. My enhanced body handling the thrust without breaking my bones, as at the same time, the Joker Zombies went flying from the burst of wind.
It gave me enough time to load the Batarang again in mid-air, I pointed up at forty-five degrees again and I let it go. And then I teleported again before I hit the ground.
I whooped in joy due to the adrenaline rushing though my veins.
—
It took me 20 clicks of the Batarang to get to the hospital, barely minutes. I took a second to check the elevation before the button press that will take me to the hospital. I estimated the floor and the room and threw.
—
I burst into the room where Mr Gordon was. Glass flew everywhere from my explosive entrance. I looked around and he had barricaded the hospital door. Smart.
He was pointing his gun at me.
"Why do you kids have to be so showy? I could have opened the damn window," he said.
Can I admit that I didn't even think of that in the rush of my point-and-click mid-air teleportation?
"I had to make every second count. You know how important we think your life is, sir. Put this on."
I threw a gas mask at him as he rolled his eyes.
"Sure, kid whatever you say. What's your name?"
"Agent Fox."
"Not the worst name I've heard. Let me ask why are you here?" Asked Gordon.
"Batgi—Batman sent me. The Joker's coming after you." I didn't ask if Gordon knew Batgirl's identity.
"Did he now?" He looks at the gun he was clutching. "I think—"
A gunshot goes off right behind me. My instinctive response triggered and I teleport to the nearest beacon.
The Batarang that was already in my belt. Which dropped me on the floor and it was the only reason why I didn't have a hole in my head. I have to get better at setting beacons.
"Take cover," I screamed only to see Gordon was doing that already. I turned back as I heard a strange voice speak. A strange mix of squeaky and raspy.
"You are not funny foxy. You just use too many tricks." Said the man shooting the gun. I activated a glued wind seal, it propelled me up. I couldn't stand up the regular way, he would have shot me in the middle of it.
Mid Jump Let me take a good look at who was shooting at me.
It was the Joker. He was in Gordon's room, waiting for something, probably to get just the right timing to torture batman by killing his friend. I had no idea how he knew where Gordon would barricade himself, neither did I have the time to speculate.
Now, it's not a good idea if you are fighting a guy with a gun to jump up in the air. It usually restricts movement almost always assuring that you will get shot. I was banking on his surprise and the wind to make him miss his mark. However, I saw no surprise in his eyes and I knew he wouldn't miss it.
In that world where everything was slowed down and I was almost certain about his aim, I did what I had trained myself to do. I teleported to the Batarang. And promptly got shot in my arm.
"Nah Nah. No tricks. I told you I don't like when foxes do their tricks. Only I do tricks. Haha haha haha…"
As I clutched my arm in pain I wondered how he shot me when he was aiming at me in the air first and my teleportation was instant.
That's when I saw the cleverly hidden second arm he shot me with. He hid it in the shadows of his coat, Made me believe he was going to shoot me only using his eyes and figured out how I teleported from a single time seeing it and injured me.
He was dangerous.
"See I had this whole thing planned. My greatest joke yet. And some fox, not even one of his kids comes to ruin it? With tricks? With boring tricks? No, we can't have that now, can we? hehe, I am disappointed in bats."
I had an explosion kunai out to throw at him. And just before I could, he started speaking again and I felt like I should listen
"I don't like that fire in your eyes. Not at all. Did I mention that I had this whole hospital? Yeah, the whole hospital rigged to explode at the slightest bit of fire? It would have been the grandest finale to my second act."
No way, right? Or could he have? He knew Mr Gordan would be here somehow. Was it really that hard to think that he might have planned something else? I didn't think so.
I had to get close and be not at a disadvantage due to my hand. And I had to move fast enough that he couldn't shoot me.
I activate a seal right as he shoots near the teleportation beacon. Confiming that he could somehow tell when I was going to activate one. Unconscious tells? Micro expression? Some tinker tech? I didn't know. What he couldn't do, or not yet was tell which seal I was going to activate.
The seal I activated was the wind blast seal strapped to my back. I burst out in speed towards him. Hitting him. As I hit him, I jammed my fist into his gut, only for him to giggle and hit me back.
I leaned out of his next kick to only be punched. Not the obvious injury of my hand, I knew that was somewhere he would go for. No, he punched my rib where victor had sprained something.
Then he had an axe in his hand that came from somewhere that he was swinging at me. I ducked the first swing, then almost got my head cut by another. And right as I was about to duck again I heard the sound of a gun firing and automatically teleported again to my beacon.
I didn't even get a chance to pick it up before another fucking gunshot made me retreat by hand. I would be dead by now if my teleportations didn't land me in slightly random positions each time I teleported.
Did this guy have a supercomputer for a brain? Is he a precog? Is this what the goons feel like when fighting me?
I was lost. I couldn't beat the guy when I was fighting melee and he could always hit me when I was fighting from a distance. Even with instant teleportation and all my other tricks available to me, he was beyond my skill level. I had to admit that.
But that didn't mean I was out of options. I wasn't thinking with everything I had.
I jumped left. Joker's eyes perfectly tracking me. He was confused about why I did it, it gave me nothing and took me away from what I wanted, the teleportation seal.
He just wasn't thinking in friendship.
My new friend's dad took his aim. Right at the Joker's chest. He was tracking me so he didn't get a chance to duck or move, it came from his blind spot.
His heart exploded right in front of my eyes, the life going from his eyes as he fell down.
I ducked down and picked up the Batarang with my teleportation scroll. Only seeing it for the mental trap he had made out of my best item as he closed his eyes.
In every melee or ranged confrontation. I was aware of the Batarang, one part of my brain always looking for a way to get it back in my hands. To have my greatest advantage close. Seeing the danger he presented to it by pointing a gun at it.
It was only when I started re-evaluating my priorities and being reminded of Barbara that I remembered that Mr Gordon was a trained police officer who was in my room. He was on duty and was bound to have a gun with him.
All I had to do was give him a clear shot. Which he never had because of how my mind revolved around the Batarang.
Thank Scion that it was over. I hated thinkers. I threw the Batarang out the window.
—
"Thank you so much, Mr Gordon, I don't know what would have happened without you." I turned to him.
"B—but he always dodged." He said as he looked at the body of the fallen criminal.
"I think he forgot about you Mr Gordon. He was tracking too many things at once and your—"
I stopped because I looked at him and saw someone wracked with guilt. I didn't think he wanted to hear me congratulate him on doing something I was not fully sure I could have done. Even with what he had done to my family, the city and what I told Barbara to shock her. I didn't know if I could have killed the Joker.
"I am sorry," I told him instead.
"I should have—I should have done this so much sooner. All those lives I could have saved." He said as he sniffled.
It was strange seeing a grown man, A cop, crying over a mass murderer on a scale that was only comparable to Jack Slash and his troupe. But if he had let him live for so many years, then I kinda could see where he was coming from.
However, I was terrible at helping middle-aged men deal with their issues so I turned away to seal joker's body.
I threw a sealing paper, one with a larger-than-usual capacity at him and activated it. And to my surprise, it didn't work.
My ninja instincts to always check if someone's truly dead and Victor's spite bombing made me realise the next possible scenario.
I didn't bother to do anything else. I picked up Barbara's dad and threw him out of the window. I saw Joker's 'corpse' press a button I didn't wait to see what it did. I teleported to the Batarang I had thrown out and then rushed to catch a falling Mr Gordon.
Surprisingly the hospital didn't explode. The room we were in caught on fire though.
Fucker was lying.
I placed Mr Gordon down and threw the Batarang up so that it stick to the window. I teleported to the window and looked inside.
It was empty. The joker was gone—
Or that's what he wanted me to think.
I threw three of my explosion kunai inside and jumped down. The room exploded properly this time.
"Why did no one tell me the joker was an immortal?" I spoke to the communicator.
"Wait he is? How is my dad?" Asked Barbara.
"Yeah, your dad shot the guy right in his chest, exploded his heart and everything. He just regenerated his heart and got away.—or got exploded into hundred different pieces by my explosion kunai, I can't really tell." I told her. "Also your dad is safe. How did your mission go?"
"It went—fine I think. If joker's immortal—"
I stopped her.
"Sorry misspoke. Not an immortal, that would be someone like Siberian, I think. No, he was a brute, someone with auto regeneration."
"Re—regeneration. Of course, It's regeneration. The virus is not immortal. It's regenerating, that is so much more—" She trailed off and all I could hear was frantic typing on the keyboard. "It's I think I got it. You are a genius, Taylor." She told me as she hung up. Probably to focus on whatever it was she had just found.
"What just happened?" Asked Mr Gordon through his mask.
"Batgirl found something about the virus. That's all I know. What? or is it the cure? are not questions I am equipped to answer." I told him.
"No, Not that. Inside the hospital. Why did you throw me? Why did you explode that room?" He asked me.
"When I saw his 'corpse' move I thought it was him blowing up the hospital as some sort of final 'fuck you' so I threw you out of the window to save you. However turns out, Joker could regenerate, or was immortal or something."
"I hate to admit that that makes a lot of sense," said Mr Gordon. His voice almost tinged with relief. These people are weird.
We would decide on that later. It was time to get out of there. The Joker Zombies were coming out of the hospital.
"Do you have a car you can drive?" I asked him. He pointed me towards the vandalized cars parked near us.
When I was looking for some other way to get around, I heard the sound of an approaching vehicle.
It was the Batmobile. It stopped in front of us. Penny was inside it.
"I thought you wanted a ride." She said as the door opened.
—
I hated penny the most among the bat family. She was the one coldest towards me when I was locked up. She was almost smug when doing it. It might have been her way of relieving the stress of coordinating all of this leaking through, but I still didn't like her very much.
However, she was a great driver. She navigated the vehicle through the zombie (who were actually still people thus not crushable) filled terrain with surprising skill. Not running over anyone but keeping up speed.
"I believe we have the cure." She said a bit into the drive.
"What are we waiting for?" Asked Gordon.
"Bruce has to go collect it." She said.
"Take us to him. We can help." I said.
"No, this is important I can't—" she tried to say something more. But I was growing more and more pissed at her so I teleported to Barbara's location, leaving behind a beacon in her car.
—
"What are you doing?" I asked Barbara who was too lost in work to even notice me teleporting in. She was hunched over a computer, typing something.
"Holy—Taylor, don't scare me like that." She said, spooked.
"My bad, You were focused on something. Didn't even notice me teleporting in. I wanted to know what's happening to the cure." I told her.
"Writing the algorithm to synthesise the cure once Bruce gets the reagent." She replied. "Also the algorithm for the drone that will be carrying and spraying it. I am busy."
I wish I knew how to operate the computer like her. It all sounded so impressive. Tinkers were bullshit, also cool.
"Can I help Bruce?" I asked her. She looked at me and unlike Penny, she told me that she thought I could. Nah, it wasn't the tinkers who were cool it was her who was.
"Ok, so how do I and what is the mission?"
"It only clicked for me when you said that Joker was a regenerator, not an immortal that I understood what was going on. Can you believe, he even had faked photos from the 18th century to lead us down this path?"
She shook her head and continued.
"There is another villain called Ra's al Ghul who has a similar shtick. He has a pool that he dips into to regenerate or even come back from the dead. The doctor who I talked to, who had gone crazy and was shooting at me with a machine gun said some other standard 'lunatic genius' stuff. He helped the Joker create the virus. It was from the doctor's madness, your reports and Bruce's own investigation and knowledge that things started making sense. Joker isn't immortal, he is injecting himself with some variant of that water to give him regeneration. He is using the same water to make the viruses unkillable."
"Long and confusing story short, I want some 'magic water' that Bruce has managed to track the location of, to cure this. Here's the place, you might be able to help Bruce. Good luck."
She went back to the computer. The phone she had given me showed me the result of where to find the water.
I liked when I knew what exactly I had to do.
—
I jumped back to the bat mobile, startling only Gordon. Julia was unflappable. Whatever. I picked up the teleport Batarang and jumped out of the car. I then Shot the Batarang into the air with Barbara's gun and set sail.
—
It only took me only 10 shots before I found Batman. He was dropping down a hole in a park, not sure if he made it or if it was always here. Alfred was handling the rope that Bruce was diving down with. It looked like he had almost reached the ground.
"Agent Fox? How did you—" started Alfred but I didn't want to talk to him.
"Later, old man." I threw my Batarang down the hole. When it touched the ground I teleported to it.
"Agent Fox? Good. Someone who can teleport would be able to invaluable in getting the cure to Batgirl in time. I trust you have a beacon of yours sitting with her." He said.
That was not what I was expecting. I was expecting him to tell me this was too dangerous for me. Even his agreeableness was pissing me off.
"There's light coming from there. Please follow me and don't trigger any possible traps." He said as I was forced to move behind me. I kept an intensely close eye on my connection with my tags because if any of them were severed, I would know that he had a trap set for me specifically.
But for now, Barbara had trusted me and I would trust her.
I entered the clearing where what we needed to end this nightmare remained.
—
It was a decent-sized natural pool of glowing water. It glowed green turning the whole cave green.
At this point, I had mostly stopped thinking of everything in terms of Earth Bet powers outside of when it would help me better plan for an encounter. This world in contrast to bet had too many pattern-breaking powers and too many powers that resembled each other. It also seemed that humans were simply "More" than average earth-bet humans. Or they had the potential to be more. I needed to meet more people. Something I had noticed when the Batmobile ran over the Joker-Zombies and they just got up fine just after. Thinking about it, I don't even know how any of the bat-people got their powers.
But something like this, A cure that can give you almost perfect regeneration, regeneration that will bring the dead back. Who created it? Which mad cape created something like this and leave it in a literal hole in the ground?
Or if it wasn't created and instead naturally occurring, then how come only some select few even knew something like this could exist? Wouldn't religions be formed around it?
I didn't think there were any answers for me here. I stared at it.
"You sure it's the right thing?" I asked the hero.
"The readings are correct. It's Dionesium." He replied.
"Great. Did you bring a bucket? Because I don't think I can carry it in my seals" I said.
"Noted," he said with a small smirk as he bought out a—ball with a bat logo on it.
As he filled it, I dipped my hand in some of that liquid. It was thicker than water. I didn't think a fluid that could give you crazy regeneration powers would feel like this. Like death. I couldn't explain why but dipping my hand in it reminded me of each time I had died or seen someone die. I took my hand away.
I dropped it on top of the gun would I had been ignoring and then some of it on my chest. My wounds were healed, just like that.
Then I learned that Batman had finished filling it. He gave me the diowhatever-filled ball.
"That's all that we need? Don't you need more for other things?" I asked as I calculated what I would need to carry this back home.
"Yes, please take it to Batgirl."
"I am not doing this for you Batguy. Remember that."
I said, thinking myself cooler than I was and teleported out to Barbara.
—
"Here's the Dio—"
Penny snatched it from my fingers before I could finish my sentence. I looked around, there was an entire lab bought here. To synthesize the chemical.
"Algorithm finished. Compiling now. Is the bio synthesizer online?" Asked Barbara.
"Synthesizer connected and part of the network. Please send the Biogram." Said Penny.
Barbara said some other computer babble and then Penny added to it. I didn't understand a thing.
"Not one of those?" Asked the commissioner that was standing in the corner puffing on a cigarette.
"I think I understand a few words here and there," I told him.
"Better than me. It's all just gibberish." He said as he puffed on his cigarette again.
I didn't know how to respond so he picked up the conversation. He seemed used to it.
"It's Commissioner Gordon. Not Mr Gordon, unless you are visiting my house." He said and the quickly added, "Announced only."
"Ok, Sorry. I didn't know." I told him. He looked at me then.
"Huh, you are different kid. Once this is all over how can I get in touch with you?" He asked me.
"I don't know if I will be here when everything is—" My thought halted as I saw the usually unflappable penny abruptly stop doing what she was in the middle of.
"Bruce, he needs help. The Joker is blowing up the shaft." She turned to me.
"Of course, this night can't be over already." Both me and the commissioner chorused.
I teleported to the Batarang I had left to see if I could collect some of that water before I went back home.
—
I teleported in to see giant rocks falling from the sky and hear the roar of explosions going off within the cave. Bruce was expertly dodging them. I had to find a way to get out of here with Bruce before the larger rocks started falling and crushing us.
Or did I?
"Tell Alfred to run" I screamed into my communicator. And then I started dropping every single explosion and wind kunai I had on me.
"What are you doing? Teleport away I can get out of this." Said Bruce.
"No, you can't if you are—" Bruce pushed me out of the path of a rock falling down. It instead hit his back, breaking it and immediately knocking him out. I picked up him and ran.
As I ran, I started emptying all the storage seals looking for things that would explode. I dropped the insular seals, the ones that were not tied to any object, then the unfinished ones, the experiments, everything that was capable of an explosion or even a push dropped from my main seals to the ground.
Because the only way to survive an explosion underground was with an even larger explosion.
As the larger stones started dropping, as the earth started swallowing the hole in the ground, I jumped with the almost unconscious Bruce into the pool filled with the elixir of life.
I first gave the command for the wind traps to all activate and then as the explosion tags scattered, I gave the command for them to activate. The idea was to teleport out once I was in the pool but an unnatural sense of calm took over me as I drowned and I fell asleep.
—
AN: Yes you saw right, No life countdown.