I don't own Batman Beyond.
Passing the Torch.
When Terry McGinnis came to Wayne Manor after being given his job by millionaire Bruce Wayne, the teenager tried to assume a cool, confident facade, but Bruce Wayne could see he was nervous.
Good. He should be nervous.
"D'you mind if I ask, Mr Wayne, but why did you give me this job?" Terry asked.
Bruce smirked at the boy's bluntness. In many ways, this boy reminded him largely of himself at that age, but at the time Bruce had been travelling the world, learning what he needed in order to become a vigilante. All of those years in Japan, China, Australia and India, learning from various masters of different arts, how many times had he given them attitude simply because he was just a teenager while trying to be undaunted by the tasks looming over him?
"I wasn't planning to, not originally," Bruce replied. "You reminded me of my mission."
"Mission?" Terry repeated.
"You said you'd read up on me, my past, and how I lost my parents," Bruce explained, trying to stem the pain in his heart as he thought about his parents and the senseless way they were murdered while he tried to hold back the stem of bad memories created by that alternate world he had experienced where his parents were alive and he was engaged to Selina. "I left Gotham and travelled the world," he went on as he escorted Terry to the clock where the Bat Cave entrance was located, "I planned to avenge my parents so then no other child ever suffered the way I had."
"Wow!" Terry said. "What did you learn?"
Bruce paused. "Everything," he said simply.
"C'mon, tell me," the kid persisted. Bruce had to award the boy marks out of a hundred for effort.
"Martial arts, criminology, gymnastics, and a host of other subjects," Bruce replied.
"Will I have to do that, travel the world?"
"Not unless you have to or want to. You have already made a good start when you stopped the nerve gas leaving Gotham."
"Would you really have shut down the suit again, with me inside it?" Terry suddenly asked.
"Yes," Bruce replied simply. "I stopped being Batman a long time ago. I didn't want the lineage to continue. I wanted Batman to die with me."
"And that changed when you saw me fighting Fix and Powers?"
"Partly. You reminded me when you told me you'd studied my history how alike you and I were in some ways regarding what Batman stands for, and when you told Fix on the transporter you were, Batman, I realised how true that was. You are not my replacement, McGinnis, you are my successor."
McGinnis looked suitably impressed, but a little daunted and shy. "Okay, so what now?" He asked.
"Now, you have work to do. You're already a good street fighter, but you need to be prepared for everything and I can help you with that," Bruce replied.
"So, you'll be training me, to like fight as you did?"
"Pretty much. The training will be hard, but when it's over you will be better for it."
"Cool," Terry nodded but then a pressing thought crossed his mind. "Hey, what about school?"
"My training of you won't be every moment of every day, McGinnis," Bruce replied as they got to the clock. Once they entered the Bat Cave and started down the stairs, followed by Ace the dog, Terry looked around. "How big is this cave?"
"It's quite big. There are caves and caverns which I mapped, which are used to house other pieces of equipment," Bruce replied.
"Just out of interest, I've heard about the Batman mythos, but what made you choose a bat?" Terry asked.
Bruce had no intention of bringing back the painful memories of Andrea Beaumont; her sudden departure had broken his heart and wrecked the newly amended plans where he could get married to her before her painful and devastating stint as the murderer Phantasm when she went after the gang who'd murdered her father after he'd borrowed too much money from them had been yet another bitter blow. "When I began, I had planned to become just a vigilante, but the crooks I encountered first weren't frightened of me. I realised I would need to scare them. One day, I was walking on the grounds when a number of bats burst out of the ground in a cave fissure. Their appearance gave me the inspiration I needed."
"And then you became Batman," Terry finished, enthralled. "But what made you stop?"
Bruce paused, turned and stared darkly and pointedly at him. Terry McGinnis was not easily swayed or scared by anyone. His mother was easily the scariest person he knew, next to Dana, but the look Mr Wayne was giving him told him the old man was not going to part ways on that information now.
Later, as the old man began his basic training, making it clear he would not tolerate argument, Terry began enjoying himself.