Nightwing: Out of Time 4 – The Final Conflict

Chapter 6

By Christopher W. Blaine

e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: Nightwing™ and all of the characters and situations previously copyrighted by DC Comics Inc. remain the property of that entity and are used without permission for fan-related entertainment only. This original story, and all original concepts and creations contained herein, are ©2004 and the intellectual property of Christopher W. Blaine.

Parallax scoffed at the idea that any of them could actually hurt him. He was beyond physical pain now and none of them held any emotional attachment to him. "Your friends fought valiantly, but in the end it was futile. They were temporal deviants trying to screw with my plans!" he barked.

"Your plans?" Per Degaton laughed.

The former Green Lantern slowly turned to face the other time villain. "You aren't even a good copy of the original. You have no vision; at least I could respect what the real Degaton was trying to do. He saw a world that needed changing and instead of just killing everyone, he wanted to use time to just make it right." He waved his hand a blast of emerald energy launched out, catching the other man squarely in the chest. "But you, you were a nobody, a temporal deviation, a what if! And somehow, along the way, you managed to corrupt the timeline of a fine, young man. Dick Grayson was a man worthy of being saved, of having a place in my new universe, but you have ruined that."

Lightning raced towards Parallax, sensing that he was about to close in for the kill. Unbelievably, he whirled and backhanded her across the roof. Only a hand from Titan saved her from going over the edge to her death. Parallax turned his attention back to Degaton. "Though I already know that you will be eliminated by my actions at the dawn of time, I think I will destroy you now."

"No! Jordan, don't do it!" Titan begged as he helped his friend to her feet. "You don't have the full picture yet. Things can be fixed."

"Yes, they can," he agreed, his eyes burning with a green glow. "Die, variant," he sneered as Per Degaton screamed. His body was suddenly covered in a shimmering emerald field and then he disappeared.

"By Zeus! This has to end now! Too many people are dying!" Titan said and he turned to Lighting. "Take the kid and run."

"What about you?" the blonde-haired woman asked. She saw the determined set of Titan's jaw and understood that he meant to take Parallax down. She wanted to explain to him that it was impossible, that they were facing a version of Hal Jordan that existed in their past.

The power mad Parallax had traveled through time in order to reshape the universe and he had failed. Eventually Jordan would sacrifice his life to save the Earth from the Sun-Eater. At least that was the way it was in her reality and since hers was splintered from his…

"I know what you're thinking," he said with a smile. "I've got mom's telepathy."

"You can read my mind?"

"When I want to," he said and then he gave her a peck on the cheek. She smiled at him and she went to say something when she suddenly became a silhouette within a green energy field and disappeared.

"No!" Titan screamed, turning to face Parallax.

"It is all for the best; the universe will be complete once more. The sacrifices of today will ensure that there is justice tomorrow." He then looked at the small child that was trying to cower behind a ventilation unit. "The greatest shame is that the children have to suffer; always the children."

"I'm going to kill you," Titan told him. "That is not an exaggeration, it is not an empty threat. You are going to die, Jordan."

"I could wipe you from time with a wink and a nod," was the venomous reply.

The Justice League teleporter began to hum behind Parallax and, not considering Titan a real threat, the once-heralded hero turned. Nigthtwing stepped out of it, saw Parallax and kicked him hard in the knee. Unprepared, Parallax stumbled. Titan took the opportunity to let out a war cry he had been taught by his aunt Artemis. Leaping high into the air, his magically enhanced muscles brought his fists down with the sound of thunder.

The blows should have been enough to crack an aircraft carrier in two, but they only annoyed Parallax. "You telegraph your attacks," he said as he kicked out behind him and caught Titan in the groin. The young hero went down.

Nightwing wasted no time in getting his punches in, but now they had no effect. "Damn you, Jordan, I should have guessed you were behind this!"

Parallax blocked each blow with a casual wave of his hand; one hand countering two fists. His speed was inhuman. He spoke in a bored tone. "I am not about to retry my case before you. I was tracking a divergent time path and came across your children from different worlds. They are now all dead because they are loose ends."

"I'm not dead," Titan roared as he joined his father. Parallax used his other hand to ward off Titan's attack.

"Since you are about to be erased from time, it really doesn't matter." Parallax sped up his defense, working it so he could get a good solid punch in. Both Titan and Nightwing went flying back.

Parallax started to move towards Nightwing, his hand outstretched. "I don't want to fight you, Richard. Help me and I promise you a universe made up of your wildest fantasies. I can bring your parents back. I can fix Barbara's injuries." He stopped a few feet from the moaning hero. "I can even save Donna."

A feral snarl escaped Nightwing's throat and he jumped to his feet. "I will not make a deal in hell for a little slice of Heaven. Donna may be gone but I will not injure her memory or her ideals by helping a madman like you! People die, Hal, and there is nothing you can do about it!"

"Yes there is, Richard," Parallax replied, a maniacal grin on his face. "I can make things right again! I can!"

"No, you can't, Hal," Nightwing told him. "You are as powerless as the rest of us!" He shook his head. "All of this is so confusing! Is Donna really dead? Is that my son? Is that little girl really my daughter?" He stumbled back had to catch himself. "I just want things to be normal again!"

"Only I can make it happen, Richard."

"As my old buddy Wildcat used to say, nuts to you, buddy!" Titan said as he kicked Jordan in the groin from behind. Parallax gasped and then fell to his knees. It had been a kick that would have leveled a skyscraper. Suddenly, the temporal villain fell forward onto his face.

Nightwing approached him cautiously as did Titan. Parallax did not seem to be breathing, but that probably wasn't so strange. "Is he dead?" Titan asked.

The former partner of Batman got down on one knee and checked for a pulse. He found none. "I think he is."

"Waverider, come in!" a voice said.

The time traveler looked up into the time stream, still not sure how the Linear Men were able to speak to him in that fashion. "Yeah?"

"Have you set that damn bomb off yet?"

"No."

"Dammit, boy! One of those variant Nightwing kids just killed Parallax by accident. Time is falling apart! Zero Hour never occurred!" The voice went on to rant about the fabric of reality being pulled apart and that the crisis had reached epic proportions. "Is there a reason why you haven't done your job?"

Waverider rolled his eyes and nodded his head. "I have another plan."

"Another plan? What the hell do you mean another plan?"

"Trust me."

"Trust you?"

"Waverider signing off," he said as he leapt out of the time stream and into a warehouse in Bludhaven.

"Well, aren't you about the cutest thing I've seen in awhile," Degaton said as he dragged Oracle out from behind her crate. He held her up by one arm and gave her a quick once over. "Yep, been awhile since I had a woman," he said with a lecherous grin.

"No…"

"Don't worry, toots; I'm a mass murderer, not a child molester." He threw her to the side. "Still, nobody would ever know."

"You have to stop what you're doing," she said, her voice normal. She was too scared to call upon hr mutant powers. She would have to handle this as herself. "Time is about to be undone!"

"I don't know what makes you think you know my business, bitch, but let's leave the time-travel stuff to the men," he said, giving her a wink. "Now, if you shut up and let me fix my machine, I won't have to do anything unseemly to you."

Oracle shook her head. "Your machine is possibly flawed; your repairs will not be correct."

"Who are you?" he asked, scratching his head.

"I'm from the future…"

"And you cared enough about me to travel to the past to save me from making a huge mistake," he said, the sarcasm heavy in his voice. "Let me guess, you're my kid?"

"Oh, God, no!"

"Sweet little thing, aren't ya?" He turned away from her and Oracle was a little hurt that he did not seem to think that a teenaged girl was worth his trouble. She was a powerful mutant after all! Didn't he know what he was walking away from?

He approached his machine and Waverider stepped out of a hole in time. Degaton jumped back, cursing. He reached for his sidearm, but a quick slash with his staff and Waverider successfully disarmed him. "Stop it!" he ordered.

"Fine! Piss on it! I surrender! Teenage girls, flaming men and broken equipment. I've had it!" Degaton said, dropping to the floor and crossing his legs. "Take me in, copper." He held out his arms, together, waiting for the handcuffs.

Oracle stepped into view. "Waverider!" she said, clapping her hands.

"Things have gone from bad to extremely bad," he explained, looking at Degaton's time sled. It was obvious that this person had come from a different reality all together. "You dimensional vibration timing is set wrong," he announced.

"No it isn't, jerk," Degaton replied. "78.6," he announced proudly.

"Yes, that's what it should be," he said, taping a small decal that had the set point written on it. "You have it set at 79.6, dummy."

Waverider put down his staff and picked up he bag of parts after adjusting the timing. "Come on, we have to put this back together. Oracle, Nightwing is outside. Stop him." Degaton looked at the timing setting.

"No wonder the damn thing kept crapping out," he said.

"Shut up, we have about two minutes to fix this thing and send you back to your own reality before a super-hero comes in here to kick your butt!"

Nightwing slowly approached the building, wondering if this was worth the trouble. John Law had been adamant and Nightwing considered him a friend and mentor. He had to believe him, or at least go through the motions to prove the man wrong. He walked quickly over to a set of stairs; he would check to see of the door was unlocked.

The door opened a costumed girl stepped out. Nightwing shook his head. She was cute in an odd sort of way and reminded him of Barbara when she had been Batgirl. "Dad! I mean, hey, what is up, jive turkey gnarly daddio," Oracle said, trying to remember how people spoke when her father had been young.

"You don't belong out here kid," Nightwing said in a whisper. "Did you see a man in there?"

She shook her head. "No, never seen a man in there."

"What were you doing in there?"

"Using the bathroom," she offered weakly.

"It's closed," he pointed out.

"Yeah, that's why I didn't go," she said.

"Do you live around here and what's with the costume?"

She still could not find the courage to tell her own father about her powers. She was stymied, wondering how to get out of this situation when she looked up in the sky. Crimson skies were rolling in and black lightning streaked. Time was coming apart.

"Now that's odd," Nightwing said as he turned to look.

Then there was a flash of light from within the building and the sky reverted to normal. Nightwing turned back around to find Waverider standing there. "Sorry," the time agent offered before slugging the hero.

Hard.

"It's over?" Oracle asked.

The Phantom Stranger put a hand on her shoulder and gave a slight squeeze. "It is never over, but an untold number of lives were saved because you believed."

"I didn't really believe," she said, the truth pouring out. "I just wanted to save my father. Look, I know that my reality is probably never going to occur in the real scheme of things, but it is my reality."

She watched as the Stranger pointed out the time paths and how they were no longer intertwined. "They are all changed to what they should have been all along," he told her. "You need only close your mind's eye and you will see that."