In hindsight, 2054 had begun with a bang and was going out with a whimper for Terry McGinniss. As Chairman of the Justice League Unlimited, the "Tomorrow Knight" Batman had volunteered for Monitor Duty, noting that since he wasn't going to have much fun anyway, others should be given the chance to enjoy themselves.
He was sitting in the Monitor Room of the JLU headquarters, a 125-story office and residential tower. It was constructed from promethium alloy, combined with the upgraded offensive and defensive systems it was almost invulernable to attack. While the building was over 40 years old, the technology of the Monitor Room had been continually upgraded over the decades.
Terry was arguably the most powerful human on the planet this day, but that fact brought him no joy, only pain and regret of the loss of so many loved ones that year.
At the age of 34, he was at a crossroads in his life, both professionally and personally, and the words to the song of Auld Lang Syne were likely to have a deep meaning for him for the first time in his life. As the other members of the League departed to ring in the New Year with his loved ones, Terry leaned back in the chair, reflecting on the events which had led him to the decision that might cause irreparable harm to the League: the Earth and Gotham were going to have to make it without Batman in 2055.
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On January 14, 2054, Terry had received voting control and the de facto chairmanship of Wayne Technologies. The wealth and position came at the bequest of Bruce Wayne, who died two days earlier at the age of 83 from a brain aneurysm. Bruce's death wasn't completely unexpected but having worked side by side with the man for over 15 years, Terry was affected nevertheless.
Terry was out on patrol in Gotham on the night of January 12th, investigating a series of break-ins at mutagenics labs around the city. As usual, Terry was forwarding images of the crime scenes over the video link and bantering with Bruce back at the Cave when he heard a muffled groan followed by a thud. The comm. link was still open and Terry raced back to the Cave when he heard Ace howling in despair. He found Bruce dead on the Cave floor. After the ambulance took the body to the morgue, Terry walked the empty halls of the Manor that night, wondering what the future held in store for him.
Two days after Bruce Wayne's death, Terry hosted a memorial service at the Gotham Cathedral. It was sparsely attended, which shocked even the most jaded of Bruce Wayne's allies, former friends and even competing CEO's. It wasn't shocking to the people who knew Bruce well. It was an ignominious fate for the man who had done so much to protect the city he'd sworn to protect, but Bruce had
In recognition of the Bruce's work in forming the original JL at the turn of the century, Clark Kent and other members of the JLU who could pass themselves off as 'everyday' people attended the memorial service. They scattered themselves as best they could through the sparse crowd so as not to attract undue attention, reasoning Bruce had protected the secret of his alter ego to his grave. There was no reason to violate that compact. Their attendance was more out of respect for contributions made more than 50 years ago than it was for the man himself, who only a few of them knew directly. Those who did know him thought him an unnecessarily hard, bitter and lonely man who died unwept and unsung death.
As the last of the mourners filed out of the cathedral, a nattily attired lawyer named Brian Monaghan approached Terry and Bruce's adopted son, Dick Grayson. Like Terry, Dick had accepted the condolences of the attendees in the receiving line. Clark Kent stood silently next to Monaghan. As a member of the JLU, Terry recognized him immediately but showed no hint of recognition in front of a civilian. He stuck out his hand, introducing himself, then Monaghan showed the three of them a document which provided Monaghan power of attorney over Bruce's estate. Monaghan invited them to attend the official reading of Bruce's last will and testament, noting that it wouldn't take more than thirty minutes. Terry exchanged shrugs with Dick and Clark, then they all nodded in agreement. Monaghan pulled out his cell-phone and paged his limousine, leaving the three men to their own devices for a few moments.
For Terry, the reception represented his first opportunity to meet Grayson. As they waited for the limo to show up, they started making small talk about mutual acquaintances who'd appeared at the Memorial. Terry immediately found himself drawn to the man's company, a kindred spirit who shared the same trials and tribulations as former mentees of Bruce Wayne. Once the last of the mourners had exited the cathedral and paid their respects, the three men took a limousine Monaghan's office. He quickly ushered them into a large conference room, noting that Bruce had regularly employed his services for the past ten years while he handed each of them a copy of the will.
The will was typical Bruce in many ways. It was only two pages long but still explicit in its requirements. Bruce left detailed instructions as to the distributions of the voting shares of WayneTech. He left 46 of the voting shares to Terry and 44 of the shares to Richard Grayson. There was no reason or rationale provided for the allocation. Terry also received the deed to the Manor and all of the other properties owned by the estate, except for the apartment building Clark lived in. Bruce gave Clark that building.
There were two surprises in the will however. Bruce formed a charitable trust to be known as "The Princess Trust" with the remaining 10 of the shares. The second surprise was that Clark was appointed Trustee of the charity. Monaghan informed Clark that with the current dividend from WayneTech stock, the Trust would provide over $10 Billion per year to whomever Clark thought it would serve best. Monaghan gave Terry a video disk "to view later with these two gentlemen" then his final act was to hand Dick the urn containing Bruce's ashes.
They returned to the Manor in the limousine. The ride was quiet. Given the impact Bruce had on all of their lives, Terry reasoned that they were all reflecting on their memories of Bruce.
Terry was still in shock at the news that he was now one of the five richest men in the world when they arrived at Wayne Manor a half an hour later. A reception was being held there but the attendees found it difficult to celebrate the life of a man they hardly knew. Instead, they mourned the tragedy of his lonely existence in the Manor. After spending the politically correct amount of time munching on the buffet and exchanging small talk, the guests offered the proper condolences and congratulations to the new Chairman of WayneTech before summoning their cars to take them home. An hour after their arrival at the Manor, Terry, Dick and Clark were alone to execute the second half of Bruce's will: the legacy of Batman.
They took the elevator down to the Cave out of respect for Dick. He'd been in a wheelchair since 2009 (upgraded to a hover chair in 2041 when WayneTech patented new repulsor lift technology obviating the need for wheels). Dick had lost his legs as Nightwing during "The Battle of Gotham", his legs having been crushed under a pile of rubble. That battle had claimed over half of the existing Justice League members of that day, including five of the seven original members, notably Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawgirl and J'onn J'onnz, the Martian Manhunter.
The Battle of Gotham had occurred almost two decades before McGinnis was born, but Terry and other still felt the impact it had left on the Earth and notably the city of Gotham itself.
The battle occurred over a two-day period starting July 20, 2009. A large spaceship of an unknown origin appeared out of a boom tube on the JLU monitors early that morning. It didn't respond to any hails or messages. Instead, it immediately assumed an attack position next to the Watchtower II and opened fire with its forward cannons.
The two fortresses unleashed an amazing amount of energy upon each other for the next thirty minutes. The Watchtower II was a mix of Kryptonian, Martian, Thanagarian and Terran technology. The League members had been able to pick and choose the best aspects of each culture's technology when the new space station assembled. Despite the upgrade of its systems relative to the first Watchtower, the alien vessel achieved the upper hand in the battle by focusing its attack on the Watchtower's defensive systems, pummeling the forward shields mercilessly with disruptor bursts.
Despite receiving an equal amount of damage from the Watchtower's offensive array, the alien ship finally punched through the shields, unleashing a chain reaction through the Watchtower's power systems. Most of the JL members and support staff managed to transport to the Earth or escape in Javelin 9's before it blew up. J'onn and Supergirl were killed in the explosion however, sacrificing themselves by containing a coolant leak in the fission reactor to buy their comrades time to escape. The reactor finally breached its core, going critical a millisecond later. The explosion could be seen from most of the Asian continent however the League had little time to mourn its loss.
Reeling from the damage administered by the Watchtower, the alien ship crashed to the Earth's surface ten miles north of Gotham. Despite the speed and angle of impact, the ship held together, finally bouncing to a stop in a wheatfield. It hummed quietly for a few moments before a door opened on top of the ship. An assimilation of Darkseid and Braniac emerged a moment later, then initiated a rampage towards Gotham City which eventually flattened almost every building in Gotham.
The League later determined from the ship's records that Darkseid and Brainiac had been destroyed during the explosion of Braniac's asteroid in 2002, however the self-replicating technology Brainiac employed aided their cause one more time. Brainiac began to rebuild himself, assimilating whatever materials it could scavenge from the rubble. Eventually Brainaic found Darkseid's body hanging in space, literally blown in half from the explosion. Well aware of Darkseid's power, Brainiac assimilated that body with its own technology, bringing Darkseid back to life in the form of a cyborg, half Darkseid and half Brainiac.
The cyborg's power was incredible.
Batman reported to the crash site first, barely a minute's flight time from the Manor. The "Darkiac," as the press later nicknamed it, shot the Batwing out of the sky with hardly a glance from Darkseid's remaining eye. Batman managed to eject from the burning wreckage however the Darkiac was relentless, directing a second blast at the prone figure dangling from the parachute to deliver the final death-blow.
Anticipating her teammate's attack on the alien, Wonder Woman arrived at the last second. She managed to deflect the Darkiac's Omega Effect with her bracelets. As her teammate floated to the ground unharmed, the cybernetic upgrades were immediately apparent. The Darkiac simply widened the field of the beam until it overwhelmed her bracelets. Diana hit the ground a few feet away from Batman, blood trickling from her mouth. The beam had eviscerated her midsection, leaving no hope that her legendary Amazon healing power would be able to help her. She died in Batman's embrace a few moments later, their gaze locked upon the other until her eyes rolled back in her head.
The Darkiac wasn't satisfied with the Amazon's death. It attacked again but luck was on Batman's side once more that day. Booster Gold swooped in and evacuated his teammate's back to the Cave. After leaving Diana's body in Alfred's care, Batman strode down the Cave towards the engineering section. Alfred watched with trepidation as the last scion of the Wayne family strapped himself into a new Javelin prototype he been developing but hadn't had time to test, the Javelin 10. The new Javelin was armed with a powerful plasma cannon that proved useful in the ensuing battle.
It took the sacrifice of more than half of the League membership to halt Darkiac's rampage into Gotham. Green Lantern and Hawkgirl led a frontal assault on the Darkiac however the Thanagarian energy mace and Lantern ring were ultimately no match for the enhanced Omega Effect. They were vaporized after Darkiac's beams overwhelmed the emerald shield Lantern had erected. As Darkiac approached the outskirts of the city, Black Canary fell next to Green Arrow, followed by Mr. Miracle, Aztek, Flash and Vixen.
The League finally gained the upper hand with the arrival of Superman and Orion. The two of them were the only members of the League who could survive a direct shot from the Omega beams. The final assault against the Darkiac was a classic ambush. Superman and Orion baited the Darkiac to attack them while Captain Atom and Booster Gold moved into position in the rear. The Darkiac was equally clever. It sensed their attack, nimbly escaping the huge amount of energy Captain Atom unleashed. Both men were dead an instant later but the distraction they created allowed Batman to smash through its force field with the plasma cannon. Once it was depleted, he engaged the Autopilot and initiated a kamikaze run, ejecting at the last moment as the plane barreled into the alien construct. The rest of the League poured into the fray, unleashing whatever power they had left. Their combined attack staggered the alien who managed to fight back for a few more moments until Superman decapitated the Darkiac with an uppercut powerful enough to trigger earthquakes around the globe.
The cyborg self-detonated a moment later, leveling most of Gotham's building with a huge blast of energy. Nightwing's legs were crushed under the rubble of a building as he raced to save a family from their deaths.
The loss of so many League members, as well as much of Gotham, ultimately proved too much for even Batman. Two days after the battle, he sent the League an e-mail announcing his resignation, leaving Superman as the senior member. He did make one final contribution however, ultimately providing the funding for construction of the 125 story tall JL headquarters in Metropolis.
While Superman understood his loss, Batman's resignation from the League and the deaths of so many senior members left a void from which it took years to recover. The League changed from a proactive force to a reactive one, only dealing with threats which could be rationalized as having a direct impact on the Earth. Warhawk, the three-year child of John Stewart and Shayera Hol was left an orphan. Superman began spending less time as Clark Kent and more time as the surrogate father of both Warhawk and the Justice League for the next four decades.
Per her will, they buried Diana on Themyscira. Hippolyta granted a special dispensation to allow the male members of the League to attend the funeral. Batman didn't attend, claiming Nightwing's injury demanded his attention. Superman knew better. Bruce had never dealt well with loss and he rejected Clark's friendship when they both needed it most.
Bruce's decisions both before and after the Battle of Gotham affected his relationships within the Batclan as well, ultimately leading to its implosion. A year before Gotham's destruction, the Joker and Harley Quinn had kidnapped and brainwashed Tim Drake, the 15-year old who served in the position of Robin.
Batman and Batgirl tracked their prey for four weeks before ultimately located their new lair. Timm had undergone some of the most inhumane brainwashing ever performed on a human being as Joker deftly mixed a combination of chemical and electroshock therapy along the obvious psychological torment.
Despite the brainwashing, Tim turned on The Joker and killed him. In the aftermath, Bruce felt the damage that Tim had suffered would be too traumatic for him to carry on as Robin. They didn't talk again until the year 2045, when a microchip implanted with the Joker's DNA transformed Tim into the Joker. McGinnis as the new Batman ultimately removed the chip but the damage to Tim Drake's DNA ultimately proved to be irreversible. He died six months after the chip was removed from a form of leukemia his body had developed to fight the infecting Joker's DNA.
After Bruce forbade Tim to serve as Robin, Nightwing and Batgirl tried to fill the void in the ensuing years, covering Gotham when his League required him to be away. Their relationship blossomed into a full-fledged romance by this time and the two of them were even contemplating marriage when Darkiac appeared over Gotham's skies. After Dick lost his legs, Bruce blamed himself for his injury as well as the other deaths in the League.
Bruce held himself accountable knowing that he'd stopped Superman from killing Darkseid on Brainiac's asteroid. At the time he thought he was best serving the League by saving its most powerful member from a certain death. In retrospect he realized that he presumed too much. Batman cursed his failure and retreated to the sanctuary of the Cave, cutting himself off from his friends. In his grief, Bruce couldn't bear the thought of seeing Dick in a weakened state. He started avoiding Dick whenever he could, providing weak excuses that he was involved in League responsibilities but Dick knew Bruce too well to accept his excuses, especially after Bruce and Barbara had a romantic fling.
Their romance was doomed from the start. Batman's grief over his teammates and Barbara's grief over Nightwing's injury flung them together by circumstance. To some extent, Barbara had always had a school-girl crush on her mentor. He'd managed to dismiss her interest when she was in college but once she graduated and they were working together full-time, they stumbled into each other's arms, seeking comfort where they could find it. Within a year, Barbara realized that a small part of Bruce was dying every day and that Batman was becoming his full time existence. No matter how much she begged him to find more balance in his life, he would not accede to her wishes.
Barbara finally gave him an ultimatum in 2014: Relinquish the mantle of the Bat and settle down with her or lose her forever. He pointed her to the staircase leading out of the Cave without considering her proposal, asking her to "leave the suit" while he stared at the computer screen overhead.
Before his own death in 2018 from pancreatic cancer, Alfred attempted to reconcile Bruce with his proteges', but it was to no avail. There was just too much history there for any of them to forgive the past. Alfred was widely mourned by the superhero community as he'd managed at one time or another to perform an act of kindness for almost all of them. Clark Kent showed up at the funeral to pay his respects. It was the last time that Bruce and Clark would speak for the next 25 years.
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Bruce carried on as Batman until the upgrades to his suit could no longer keep up with his advancing age. In 2045, Terry McGinnis helped a battered and beaten Batman back to the Cave. He removed the cowl from an unconscious Batman and was surprised to find the wizened face of Bruce Wayne revealed as Batman. McGinnis subsequently stole the suit and assumed the mantle, which Bruce allowed, albeit grudgingly. While he was nowhere near the detective or the athlete Bruce had been during his prime, the suit allowed Terry enough latitude to overcome his weaknesses.
Bruce's role as a mentor and trainer was invaluable for almost every facet of Terry's life except for one, his personal life. While Terry assumed the mantle of the Bat as a means to avenge his father's death, he never had the obsession to carry on with the mission the way Bruce had done during his prime. He found it difficult to compartmentalize his life as Bruce had done to further the mission, but the requirements of the Bat meant that his personal life would be compromised more and more as he grew older.
Terry's subsequent introduction to the JLU in 2053 proved to be a turning point in his life. At the time, the League was comprised of Superman, Barda, Micron, Green Lantern, Aquagirl and Warhawk. Superman served as Chairman and had invited the new Batman to join the League as an associate member. Bruce was reluctant to let his protégé divide his responsibilities between Gotham and the League but Terry found the offer irresistible. After helping the League thwart a missile attack which seriously injured Warhawk, Terry and Bruce determined that Superman was behind the attacks. As Bruce was the only human on the planet who knew about the Fortress, Batman ultimately tracked Superman backed to the Fortress and defeated him, determining in the process that an alien named Starro had taken control of Superman's mind.
Realizing that the League needed Batman for it to not only survive but flourish, Terry became a full time member a week after defeating Starro. Becoming a member provided some benefits he hadn't originally anticipated as Barda had flirted with him since his initiation. While she was obviously older than him, within a few weeks he found himself alternating between overnights at the JL headquarters in Barda's bedroom with his own at the Manor. Bruce had disapproved of their union, noting that "you'll only get hurt", but McGinnis found her company to be a welcome relief as there was no need to hide his identity.
Unfortunately, Bruce turned out to be right.
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After Terry, Clark and Dick made their way down to the Cave, Terry produced the video- disk Monaghan had handed him an hour earlier. Typically cryptic, Bruce had scrawled "Eyes Only, Terry, Clark and Dick. No exceptions!" on the disk cover.
Terry uploaded the disk and Bruce's aged, slightly wizened figure appeared on the screen. "If you three are watching this then I'm dead. I was never one for big speeches so I'll keep it short. Clark, the Princess Trust is to be managed as if Diana was still here. You knew her character. Given your longevity, I would like you to carry on her mission here as best as that money will provide."
"Dick, I know you're not interested in serving in any capacity of WayneTech but I do have one request. The request is not for me but it involves Terry. He's come a long way in a short time as Batman, but there are some detective skills that could use improvement, along with a number of other weaknesses which you'll determine in due time. Knowing there is room for improvement, I would ask you to consider moving into the Manor for as long as you're able to serve as his mentor."
"Terry, I've given you control of the company and the legacy of Batman. I'm not sure if that is a blessing or a curse but since there doesn't appear to be a way to go back and change history, let's deal with what we know. One piece of advice: Don't let either the company or Batman consume you the way it did me. Try to make a life outside of those roles. Find a wife, have kids, something. I like you too much to let you spend the rest of your life in this Cave. In retrospect it was the biggest mistake…the only mistake, I've ever made."
"My last request. Per my instructions to Monaghan, by now my body has been cremated. I would ask that the three of you request another dispensation from Hippolyta so that I can be buried next to Diana. Do your best."
The monitor blinked out with no goodbyes or other farewell gestures. 'Typical Bruce' Terry thought with a shake of his head, then looked at Clark. "This may sound rude but why was Diana so important to Bruce?"
Dick and Clark in turn looked at him in shock. "He never told you?"
"Never told me what?" Terry asked, bewildered by their response.
"Bruce loved Diana." Clark replied, shaking his head with amazement that he'd managed to keep such an important fact from his protege. "He thought he'd managed to hide his feelings for her, but we all knew. Bruce was always a hard-ass, but when he was in the League, he wasn't always the bitter man you knew."
"Her death changed him." Dick agreed, interrupting Clark. "For the worse. He never stopped being Batman after that. I know he used my injury as an excuse to resign from the League, but it was more than that. He just didn't want to be around his teammates anymore, knowing that they would remind him of her."
Terry considered their statements but wasn't convinced. "I caught him looking through some photos of some girlfriends a year ago. Selina Kyle. Talia. Barbara…," Terry caught himself. "Sorry Dick. I knew you two were…close."
Dick waved his hand to dismiss him. "Ancient history," Dick replied. "Barbara and I are closer than ever now."
Terry nodded and continued his thought. "Bruce and I went on a mission soon thereafter which involved Talia Head. I don't know if Bruce ever told you but somehow Ra's switched bodies with her, replacing her mind was his own. After we killed Ra's, I asked him if Talia was THE love in his life, but he never answered me. I thought the way he acted was odd but I never followed up on it."
Clark nodded when Terry finished. "I think at one time Bruce might have loved Talia in his own way, but she never compared with Diana." He paused for a moment, struggling whether to reveal another secret about his dead colleague, then decided it made sense if they were going to ask Hippolyta for the dispensation to bury Bruce on Themyscira. He turned and walked deeper into the Cave, motioning for them to follow him as he walked. "I doubt Bruce knew I was aware of this particular…shrine. I came down here about a year after she died, begging him to rejoin the League but of course he wouldn't listen to me. He was exiting an area I'd never seen before but he hadn't either had time or the inclination to line it with lead."
Clark stopped farther down the tunnel where there was almost no ambient light from the rest of the Cave. Terry and Dick could see he was using his x-ray vision to locate his target, a large smile widening on Clark's face when he found it. "I don't know where Bruce hid the switch for this but I don't think we'll need it. Why don't you two stand over there?" He pointed a safe distance a few meters down the corridor.
Clark cocked his fist then punched what appeared to be a part of the Cave wall. Perplexed, they watched him punch the wall twice more before it collapsed inwards. Clark swirled the dust and rock away with some superspeed vibrations of his arms, then motioned them to follow him again, grinning even wider as they stepped through the door size hole he'd made.
Once inside the hole, the three of them gasped in amazement. There was a man-made grotto carved out from the limestone that looked like the Garden of Eden. The grotto was surprisingly large, measuring at least 40 feet deep by another 25 feet wide. Next to the entrance, a small brook bubbled out from an aquifer Bruce had tapped below the Cave. The water irrigated a small garden filled with plants of an origin Terry couldn't identify while ultraviolet lights hung from the ceiling, providing the necessary light for the plants to live via photosynthesis.
At the garden's border, a white marble bench of Greek origin sat in front of an altar. The alter was also composed of white marble, raised three steps above the garden floor. A life-sized statue of a woman stood radiantly on the altar. The statue was clad in a simple Greek toga, also composed of white marble. Her expression was bemused, as if she had just been let in on an inside joke but her beauty was unmistakable.
His initial thought was that some artist had replicated the Statue of David in female-form, then he looked closely at the details of the work. Terry's eyes widened when he recognized the model for the statue. Besides the sheer radiance of her form, a red-starred, golden tiara and lasso were placed on the head and hip of the statue, respectively.
Terry turned to his companions, equally stunned by the image in front of them. "I'm assuming that is Diana?"
"That is Diana." Clark confirmed. "Any more questions about whether he loved her?"
"But there were no records." Terry sputtered. "No indication he was so…obsessed with her."
"Did you ever know Bruce to reveal any of his feelings to you?" Dick chided. "His was an emotional cripple."
Pursuing his lips in disapproval at Dick's comment, Clark spoke up in Bruce's defense. "I always thought Bruce was…sentimental. He always kept some tokens or momentos from the past lying around the Cave. Look at your suits he kept on display in the Cave… or the Giant penny. It's all part of the same pathology."
Terry looked down, contemplating their statements. "I guess you're right. So what do we do now?"
Clark considered the question for a moment, then walked up and removed the tiara and lasso from the statue. "We go to Themyscira."
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Their arrival on Themyscira was met with initial hostility as forty Amazons armed with spears surrounded the Batwing, however when Superman emerged wearing the gold crown of an Amazon hero, they dubiously lowered their weapons and led the men to their Queen.
Hippolyta warmly greeted Superman as he entered the Temple but due to her lack o familiarity with his companions, could only politely nod at them. Superman kept the request simple. The Queen was initially aghast when Superman requested to bury Bruce's remains with Diana, however she relented a few moments later when Dick Grayson produced the tiara and lasso from under a blanket on his lap. Gripping the tiara and lasso tightly in her grasp, Hippolyta motioned for the men to follow her. A few minutes later they made their way to a westward-facing hilltop where a simple burial plot had been chosen as Diana's resting place years before.
Superman quickly dug a hole large enough to hold the contents of the urn, then backed away. He motioned to Dick, who nodded then eased his hoverchair over the hole. He murmured the Lord's Prayer then gently dumped the ashes from the urn into the plot. Terry scooped up a few handfuls of dirt to complete the internment then, with nothing left to do or say, the four of them made their way back to the Batwing.
"Thank you, your Highness." Superman murmured, bowing to her before they entered the plane.
"I would have considered your request a defilement of our culture if Diana hadn't left those instructions in her will." Hippolyta replied icily, then her tone softened as she cradled the tiara and lasso in her arms. "Thank you for returning the last pieces of her armor to me. They belong in Athena's Temple."
"We would have brought them back sooner, but I think Bruce needed some reminder of her." Terry added helpfully.
"My daughter loved him," Hippolyta replied mournfully, but there was a trace of anger evident in her jaw at the same time. "Unfortunately he never returned that love."
"How did you know about them?" Dick asked.
"Along with her will, she'd addressed a letter to him. I opened it after he didn't show up to the funeral. I never gave it to him. I always rationalized that one day I'd take it to him, but I've never been able to make the journey to Gotham."
"Do you still have it?" Dick prodded. "I'd like to see it, if possible."
"I regret that I burned it a few months after Diana's death." Hippolyta lamented. "It was almost a love letter. She urged him to find some happiness in his life with someone else since he wouldn't return her love. Did he ever do that?"
"No, he didn't." Dick replied, his own anguish evident on his face.
"That was his loss, then." Hippolyta stated sharply, then looked up to the sky. "He was a warrior however. Perhaps the Gates of Valhalla will open for him. I have no doubt that Diana will do everything in her power to greet him there."
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The three men returned to the Cave in silence, each contemplating the tragedy of the man they'd just buried. Having accomplished their mission, they were emotionally exhausted. Even Superman appeared drained. He shook both their hands then reminded Terry to attend the monthly meeting of the JLU in two days, then departed from the Cave.
Terry never saw Superman alive again.
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTwo days after burying Bruce on Themyscira, Terry was helping Dick Grayson sort the last of his boxes in his old bedroom at the Manor when his JLU beeper transmitted a stand-by alert message. The stand-by message was a "yellow alert" the League had developed years before. It required Leaguers to be in a position to assist without a specifying an exact location or requirements of the mission. The two of them took the elevator to the Cave a moment later. Terry pulled on the Batsuit while Dick pulled up the video image being fed from the JLU headquarters.
An alien ship was hovering over Metropolis. It transmitted no greetings and as yet made no threat, but it only took Dick one second to recognize its origin. He toggled the audio link to the headquarters. Green Lantern appeared on the monitor a moment later.
"Get your shields up!" Dick screamed.
"What…?" Lantern asked, staring back at the unfamiliar visage on his screen.
"Just do it!"
"Okay…" Lantern replied, peeved to be addressed in such a direct manner.
Dick's recognition of the alien ship saved Watchtower #3 and the League from certain destruction. A moment later, the ship unleashed a series of disrupter beams on the building but the defensive shield held for the moment then the League computers took over, unleashing a devastating reply towards the alien ship.
Batman appeared over Dick's shoulder a moment later. "Recognize it?" he asked in surprise.
"Hard not to." Dick replied. "Darkiac is back."
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By the time Batman arrived in Metropolis, the offensive systems of the Watchtower proved themselves superior to Darkiac's spaceship. After a series of bursts from its plasma disruptors to disable its warp drive, the spaceship plummeted to the ground, crushing two buildings underfoot until it came to a stop.
Batman joined Warhawk, Barda and Lantern in formation to initiate an alpha-strike against the Darkiac that emerged from the wreckage, but they all halted their forward momentum when the Chairman of the JLU's voice crackled over the comm-link.
"Stay back. This one's mine."
The second version of Darkiac was similar to the first that had appeared in Gotham almost fifty years before. The only difference was that there was less Darkseid in this version and more Brainiac, but even a layman could tell that Brainiac's technology had assimilated the rest of Darkseid.
The new combination was no less lethal nor did the Darkiac appear any less determined to leave his mark of destruction on the Earth. Superman closed with him at full speed, shattering windows on office buildings with the sonic booms echoing off his boots. The Darkiac showed no inclination to decline battle with the Kryptonian, beckoning him as he came in.
The city shook from the force of the initial impact as the beings reeled in pain, then they renewed their ancient battle, exchanging blows for the next ten minutes. Superman landed two successive shots to the Darkiac's chest, pummeling him to the ground. He jumped on top of the alien, seizing his chance to initiate a death-blow, but screamed in pain when Darkiac hit him with a combination of Omega beams and a green energy bath fueled by kryptonite.
Sensing an opportunity, Warhawk, Barda, Lantern and Batman swooped in from behind, unleashing their own weapons on the alien's unprotected flank. He staggered from the resulting damage but continued to focus his energy beams on Superman, smothering him with the combined effects of the beams. The remaining Leaguers maintained their assault on the Darkiac but they were losing their race to save Superman from the onslaught of kryptonite and the omega beams. By the time Lantern's energy ring neatly cleaved Darkiac into its two original halves, Superman lay dead at their feet.
It was the second and final time that Superman was laid to rest in Metropolis. A week after the funeral, the League elected Terry McGinnis, the new Batman, as Chairman of the JLU.
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Author's Note: There are a number of references to JL and Batman Beyond episodes in this chapter, including Twilight from JL and The Call and Out of the Past, as well as the continuity from the Return of the Joker. It's a big Retconn so if I got any of the history from these episodes wrong, please forgive me.
As I will be on vacation until early January, don't look for an update until at least January 10th. If then.
Happy New Year.
HB