Disclaimer: All characters (except Julia, Adrian, Alex, Julio Alvarez, and Adriana Alvarez) are not owned by me and are used without permission solely for the entertainment of fan-fiction readers.

Author's Note: Hey guys! I hope that my revision of Amethyst makes things a little clearer about Julia. I'm hoping that this new angle on the new Batgirl will help you see her more as a whole person and not just Batgirl.

Prologue

Hey, my name is Julia Alvarez, and I am here to tell you MY story. The story about how I became Batgirl. I know you must all be expecting the usual story about some run away kid who wanted to "save" the world. Yeah well, my story is nothing like that. It may have some similarities, but mostly, it is way different. I guess I should start from the very beginning.

I was born on April 14, 2026 to Adriana and Julio Alvarez in East L.A. Yeah, you heard me right, East L.A. What, were you expecting some rich high- class family from Gotham, or maybe the exact opposite? Sorry to disappoint you, but I was born into your regular middle class Hispanic family in East L.A. We lived in one of the better neighborhoods in that area, in our own little house on West Ridge Drive, with a little garden and all, my dad was into the gardening thing.

My parents met when my mom was in her senior year at high school and my dad was in his first year at college. My mom always says it was love at first sight, and maybe it was for her, but I personally don't believe in that. My parents would even argue over who fell in love with who first sometimes, can you believe that? Well they went steady all through college until they graduated. My dad graduated as an electronics engineer and my mother as a physical therapist.

After they got settled pretty well after a tough few first years, they got married. My mom told me it was a lovely ceremony at a park by the beach, but that as it was ending, a really big rainstorm hit. Everyone ended up running for cover and they had to move the reception to my grandparent's house. The last to arrive were the very wet, but very radiant newlyweds.

My brother was born five years later, on May 4, 2017. He was named Adrian Alvarez, after my mother, because my father said he look so much like her. He has her nose and her soft brown eyes. By that time, my dad was working at a rather large company programming their computers and running their computer systems and was about to get a big promotion to General Manager. My dad was a really smart man, and no one could do his job the way he did it, which was perfectly. Shortly after my brother was born, my parents moved the family to that perfect house on West Ridge Drive and out of the small apartment they had been living in. It was a two level house, with four rooms upstairs and a family room, living room, dining room and kitchen downstairs. It even had a small basement for storage.

When my brother was four, I was born. I was named after my father, because they said I had his golden-honey colored eyes and curly hair. And I was welcomed happily into the house on West Ridge Drive. Growing up in Los Angeles was great! My brother and I would play with the neighborhood kids at a daycare our neighbor, Mrs. Rodriguez, ran while mom and dad were at work. Then, our mom would pick us up and take us home, where she would make dinner while Adrian would watch me in the family room. Then my dad would come home and we would give him huge hugs and have dinner together. After dinner our dad would play with us and read us a bedtime story. Then we would go to sleep.

Adrian and I were not like most kids, who liked to play with their video games and watch television and play with action figures. Adrian taught me to read when I was four by reading me his books from school. We would read together and play with puzzles and problem-solving toys. We rather help our father with the gardening or play outside in the yard than watch television. Back then, Adrian and I shared a room, so we would talk into the night about what we thought about the world. I moved into my own room when I started school.

I started school when I was five. I started at Parker School Pre-K. Adrian was in the third grade at Seaside Elementary School a few blocks away. I hated Pre-k. I would be so bored because they were teaching the ABCs and 123s, and I had already learned that with Adrian. So I started taking Adrian's old school books to look at and read during school. The teacher noticed me not paying attention during class and when she saw what I was reading she called my mother that same day and told her I should take a test to enter elementary school. I took the test and was moved into the first grade at Seaside Elementary the next week.

I was always a straight A student. I studied whenever I could and would even study things we weren't even giving in class. I just loved to learn so much. It was like I had to know everything there was. I passed on the second, and then third grade. Always with straight As and top honors. In the middle of third grade, my brother Alex was born.

Alex was born on a rainy day in September. It was September 2, 2033. He inherited our tanned complexion and dark brown hair, along with my mother's soft brown eyes and my father's nose. My mother quit her job after he was born to have more time to take care of us. I never understood why she did that, but she always told me that her children's future was the most important thing to her.

I had just turned seven and was beginning to realize that my studies were not enough to keep me occupied. I saw Adrian, who was about to turn eleven and in the fifth grade, had taken up basketball and I decided that sports was a good option. I marveled at the way they ran up and down the court and passed the ball. But I knew that I wouldn't play basketball. I was never good with the whole dribbling thing. So I picked the last sport any parent would expect their seven-year-old daughter to pick. Karate. My parent's were surprised, but they supported my decision and enrolled me in karate classes. My world changed, for I had found my calling in martial arts.

I started karate with the beginners. The first year was very hard for me. I had trouble coordinating the moves and even more performing them. But I soon learned that if I practiced a lot and worked really hard, I could do it better than anyone. I began to progress. Soon, I was this eight-year-old girl taking class with ten-year-olds. My third year, when I was nine, I started progressing at a really rapid pace. By the end of that year, I had moved up three belt levels, to brown. A few months after I turned ten, I graduated to the black belt level.

That summer I decided that I wanted to broaden my knowledge of the martial arts. So I enrolled in judo. I also continued to practice karate during judo hours. That fall, I started sixth grade and I also got obsessed with gymnastics. Plus I was a straight A student in middle school. So you can imagine my schedule. I had school from eight to two in the afternoon. Then, the school's gymnastics team practiced from two thirty until four. Then, I took the ten-minute bus ride to Judo class, which was from four thirty to six thirty. Dad would pick me up and we would be home by before seven. At home, I would eat quickly, take a shower and then hit the books until about nine or ten, when I would go to sleep. On Saturdays I would get up at six thirty to go to gymnastics at a private facility half an hour away. I would practice there from seven thirty to nine, and then I'd go to Judo at ten. I'd be home at around twelve thirty. At home I'd eat lunch and study the rest of the day. Sundays were my day off. No studying, no sports. Just me and my family or friends. It was my day to chill.

When I turned twelve and was finishing the seventh grade, my mom was in a car accident. She was coming home from the groceries, when a hummer bike ran a stoplight, slamming into her car. She was taken to the hospital with internal bleeding. She died later that night. I was at home with a babysitter and Alex while my dad was at the hospital with Adrian. It was May 17, 2038. We were all devastated. Alex didn't understand that much, he was only four. He would just ask for "mami" a lot. It was harder for Adrian and me. My dad was a total wreck. He got obsessed with work and we spent more time with relatives and friends than with him.

The funeral passed and weeks passed. We tried really hard to get back to normal life. That year was the first time I got Bs ever. I stopped going to judo and gymnastics that summer. Adrian took over the house, because dad was always at work. We went downhill that whole year until my father finally had a wake-up call when I took some pills and had to get my stomach pumped. He realized that we had to change things big time. He moved us from our lovely little house to a big house in a fancy neighborhood the summer of 2039. My dad had gotten another promotion to vice-president and a huge raise.

The new house was huge. It had six rooms upstairs, four bedrooms and two studies. Downstairs there was a kitchen, living room, family room, dining room, and a den with a pool table. The backyard was enormous and there even was a pool with a diving board and slide. Alex loved the new house. He would play all day and would beg us to take him to the pool. Adrian and I grew to love it as well. My dad started spending more time with us and less at the office. Things got a lot better.

During the summer, I happened to venture up into the attic, where my dad had put all of my mother's belongings. I started to rummage through the boxes and came upon a chest that was locked. Of course, being the curious thing I am, I got my dad's tools and popped that lock open. I had curious skills at my age. It was a box with my mom's journal, pictures, old letters, yearbooks from high school, and an old shoebox among other odds and ends. Inside the shoebox I found newspaper clippings. They were all about this "Batman" figure that had shown up in Gotham City in New York a long time ago. The clippings kept up with the appearance of "Robin", "Batgirl", and years later, "Nightwing". I found articles about notorious criminals and the battles fought between them and the "Batman" as well. One by one, they all disappeared, except the "Batman". He had been alone for a long time now . . . a very long time. He was showing up less and less, but he was always there. The last clipping was from May 12, 2038, just a few days before my mom died. It was just so. I don't know how to describe it, but it got me "hooked". I started researching the "Batman" on the Internet. I became an expert on anything that had to do with Batman and his protégées. I also started getting crazy ideas about becoming a vigilante. Later, I started making plans. I thought I would never actually fulfill them, but they helped me have something in common with my mother, something to keep her memory alive. It was something that was mine and no one else's.

That fall, my dad enrolled all three of us at Renbrook Academy. I was to begin high school (9th grade), Adrian was starting eleventh grade, and Alex was to start first grade that year. Now is when things really get interesting.

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I decided to retake this story and revise it a little and finish it of course. Hope you enjoy the story . . . it's an idea in process which I would like to broaden on (maybe a series). READ AND REVIEW!

- Lady Artemis -