Disclaimer: I do not own Batman Beyond or any of the referenced story lines or characters therein.

Warp Element

Arrival

Backtracked

He groaned as he became conscious again, every limb feeling like it was being stabbed with pins and needles, prickling. He could barely make sense of his own consciousness. Noises swirled around him in a rather nonsensical succession for a few moments until his ears began functioning correctly again and he was able to pick out individual voices. He still couldn't seem to move, and instead, just lay there limp on his stomach, listening intently as he began to recover.

"That's impossible." The first voice was a child, skeptical.

"Nothing's impossible, Kid. I'm still working with this guy, aren't I?" The second voice was snide and sarcastic, with perhaps a tinge of cynicism. It was older than the first, but lighter and younger than the voice that came next.

This voice he recognized, but only slightly, and he couldn't put a name to the sound for the life of him. It spoke in a deep, dark tone, ignoring the comment of the second voice. "No, look at the marks along the walls, like a circle, rounding out from where he's laying. The explosion went out from him, almost like a force from a vertical landing."

"So… what are you saying then?" The child inquired.

The third voice mused again, and the prone form on the floor heard the sound of thick gloves gingerly tracing the walls. "It's almost like he was sent here – a warp if you will. The matter within the area of his arrival bent outwards, making room for him here. The marks on the wall are most likely from the outward expanding forces of pressure from accepting a foreign body that doesn't belong in the area."

The second – still snide – voice snorted. "Alright, we'll go with that then. But from where was he sent? And what the hell is he dressed as?"

A fourth voice joined in, practically as cynical as the second, but this one was feminine, albeit very strong, and much more playful. "Like you can talk. What the hell are you dressed as?"

"Not a bat, that's for sure."

"Well, you don't look much like a bird either, 'Nightwing'." The voice retorted in an amused manner.

Nightwing…? The form shifted, interrupting any reply that the acrobatic hero may have been concocting. That sounded familiar… he groaned again, and the four figures fell silent. He heard the shifting of feet, and a cape swirling lightly over the hard concrete floor. An object akin to paper fluttered in its wake. Trying to open his eyes, he found everything fuzzy, as if he were looking at it through dark, prescription sunglasses that were too powerful for his healthy vision. He moved, rolling over onto his back, hand reaching up to rub his eyes, but he found something in his way. A mask. He was wearing a mask. Why was he…? He still couldn't see, so he sat up gingerly, pulling the suffocating cloth off of his head. He blinked as lights blazed down upon him, squinting against the brightness. The four voices dropped from his mind as he scanned himself over. What the heck WAS he dressed as? Had that Nightwing character been talking about him?

He wore a full-body costume, jet-black and skintight but for a red bat emblazoned upon his chest. Wow. If that didn't scream 'gay', he wasn't quite sure what did. Why was he wearing this? He looked at the mask, his brain feeling like cotton balls in his head as he tried to remember. Nothing came to his mind, just a bunch of white fluff like TV static, and a headache. His skull was throbbing with a painful and steady pulse. Irritated at his lack of memory, he reached up to run a trembling hand through his hair. He brought it back to rest on his raised knees, and found it dripping blood. He gasped, eyes widening. He quickly reached back up to his skull, feeling tenderly along the edges of a large lump where a long cut pulsed blood. He'd certainly have bad bruising. He felt some of the dark, warm liquid drip down over his cheek in front of his ear.

Was that why he couldn't remember? Apparently, he'd taken a hard hit to the head. He closed his eyes, again struggling against the strange lack of information in his brain, but yet again, he was faced with that disconcerting and disorienting emptiness. Tantalizing tidbits of knowledge danced right beyond the fringes of his consciousness, but he couldn't quite seem to reach them. Every time he grasped further out in reach of some sort of confirmation of who he was or what he was doing here, the information just seemed to leap farther out of his grasp. Feeling frustrated, his pale blue eyes snapped open again, and he distracted his swelling irritation by taking stock of his surroundings.

He looked around cautiously, noting the scorched line around the wall, as if some explosive force had been detonated within the small, concrete room. Shadows shifted in the corners, and numerous dollar bills fluttered in the presence of some invisible wind. He reached down, grasping one in his clean hand and staring at it with inwardly slanting eyebrows. He was in a bank vault. How had he gotten here? He stood; leaning heavily upon the wall, leaving a bloody hand print from his black glove that had combed the crimson liquid from his hair. The vault door was cracked only an inch, but he could feel the presence of other beings, their eyes boring into him. Nervous, he replaced the mask. He'd known they were here anyway, he'd heard them speaking, but the feeling of nakedness that came without the mask was unbearable.

As his vision blurred and darkened again, he raised a hand by habit, pressing a small button he hadn't consciously realized was there. The lens of his visor cleared, letting him see in casual daytime vision. He pulled his hand back from the small controls under the pointed ear of his cowl, blinking at it for a second before reaching again for the controls. How had he known those were there? It was almost an instinct, moving as if the suit were an extension of his being. Apparently, he'd used it a lot in the past without having time to thoroughly think through his actions. He pressed the small switch again, and a strange, reddish tint came over the lenses – an infrared sensor. Scanning the room again, he found the four figures hiding silently where the shadows had been flickering. Impulsively, he flexed his right hand, and a foreign object came into it from the wrist launcher of the costume.

Surprised, he dropped the thing, and then knelt to pick it up again, finding the fit of the weapon strangely familiar in his hands. Though the object didn't exactly resemble a bat, he knew that was what the thin black and red metal symbolized. He ran his thumb lightly against the sharp edges, knowing that not only would this cut through flesh, but thin steel as well. The object was powerful, despite the fact he didn't even know what it was called. Imitating the motion he'd used before on impulse, the bat-like weapon retracted its wings, folding neatly into a slim, black body that he tucked into one of the belt pockets around his waist.

Quite at a loss of what to do next, he stood, staring through the infrared vision his visor so conveniently provided, eyes trained on the silent figures. "I know you're there." He whispered, but his voice sounded strange to his own ears, too deep and grim. Somehow, though, it seemed to fit, so he kept it up. The first shadow to separate itself was a large man in a black and gray costume comparable to his own, the black bat emblem and pointy ears on the cowl being the most similar attributes. The boy stood firm, sweeping his shoulders back defiantly, almost finding himself wishing that he was shrouded in a cape as well. That was pretty awesome, he had to admit. He found it harder to control his voice the second time around, and it almost cracked, breaking slightly free from his control. "What-" He cleared his throat. "What do you want from me?"

"I want to know what you think you're doing."

The deep voice was certainly one he recognized from earlier, and one that absolutely struck him as familiar, but he couldn't tell from where. The question to what he was doing was a good one as well. He opened his mouth to reply, but found his mind absolutely blank. What was he doing here? "That's a good question." He finally replied, hesitant and unsure of himself. "I…don't know." He felt the small bit of personality that had clicked into place as correct slip away like sand through his fingers in his moment of panic. Why was he here? What had he been doing? Everything before the moment of his awakening was blank, he confirmed in utmost horror, and his gloved hand absentmindedly went to the wound bleeding under the mask. He'd been hit on the head, and apparently, the experience had cost him dearly. He couldn't remember a thing. At this point, the man who stood before him knew more about him than he did, for he wasn't even sure what he looked like.

The dark, caped figure shifted ever so slightly, and suddenly, the young man knew he had a weapon in hand. "I'm not here to hurt anybody." He assured in a thin voice, raising his arms in surrender. That was true enough, for now at least. Even if he had been here to hurt somebody, he certainly didn't remember who, and wasn't in the mood right now anyway. He was trembling, scared out of his wits by his lack of knowledge. Was he a villain? Was he a hero? Though why a hero would be dressed like a demon in skintight underwear, he couldn't figure out. That was a less important question for a better day when he could actually remember his name. "Where am I?" He asked timidly, and the caped crusader relaxed a bit out of nothing more than sheer surprise.

"You really don't know." It was more a statement than a question, but still laced with grim incredulity. Finally, another figure detached itself from the darkness, a smaller version of the costumed man, but in black and blue instead of black and gray. Despite the fact that he had somewhat of a more slight stature, he was still extremely well built, muscles rippling from beneath his disguise. His face was grim, like his companion's, his eyes covered by a thin, black strip with white lenses fitting snuggly to the contours of his face. His costume was a little less skin-tight than that of his bulky cohort, fitting slimly to his figure, but also of an elastic material that was able to bend and flex with his lithe, acrobatic movements. The outfit was black from head to toe but for the blue design around his chest and shoulders, stretching down the outside of his arms and down onto his thick gloves. The gloves were balled into indignant fists as his biting glare shredded through the intruder.

"He's playing you." The figure hissed. "Something's not right about this guy."

"Yeah, because suddenly you're the one with a sixth sense, Nightwing?" The girl came out of the shadows as well, and feeling rather left out, the child followed, figuring if everyone else was going to reveal themselves, he might as well join in. "Give the guy a chance, he just looks really confused. Whose to say he's out to perform random acts of mayhem?" The one referred to as Nightwing glared at the girl, who was dressed much like the first man, but with touches of yellow in her costume, as well as her long, fiery red hair flowing glossy over her shoulders from the base of her neck. The young man was entirely different, his costume bright red and yellow, with splashes of black, and a bright 'R' embroidered into the left shoulder near his heart. The out-of-sorts stranger stared at them all, taking a slight step backward. "Leave me alone." He growled, feeling extremely overwhelmed. He should've known who these people were. A feeling grew inside of him that he'd seen them before, recognized each of them from somewhere… or at least, he recognized the costumes. The only person he could actually claim to know was the large man, the one who undoubtedly seemed to be the leader of this ragtag group of freaks. He shook his head, gritting his teeth. "Leave me alone. I didn't do anything!" At least, he didn't think he had.

The boy backed up another step, a look of interminable frustration coming over the mask. "None of you know me?" He asked, his panic rising, his breathing coming shallowly. "None of you can tell me where I am? Who I am? How I got here?" His voice rose to a pathetic and panicked yell, and the girl and the child in bright colors flinched slightly. The forsaken and confused teenager was trembling, feeling trapped. Some instinct deeply embedded within him urged him to fight, to escape, but he didn't. Instead, he poised his wrist, bringing it up level with the ground, and aiming at no one in particular, trying to maintain some semblance of calm and gain control of his nerves as well as the current situation. "I want to know what's going on!" He demanded, some note of insane pleading laced with his orders.

Nightwing's eyes were wide. "Dude, calm down. Who the hell do you think you are?"

"I don't know!" He spat. "I don't know…" His breathing began to come in short gasps, his chest heaving with even that simple effort. His hearing abated slightly to the strange muddled sensation he'd had when he'd begun to first wake up, his vision swimming before his eyes as the world began to spin. The big man took a step forward.

"What the hell is he doing?" Nightwing asked, though to the imposter, his voice sounded distant and liquid. His scowl deepened as the frightened newcomer turned his trembling batarang launcher on him.

"He's hyperventilating." The girl commented, and the launcher was next trained on her. "He's in shock. Back off, or he may…"

But it was too late. In a fit of adrenaline, confusion, and absolute fear of what was happening to him, the black and red clad stranger let fly the batarangs, and Nightwing cried out in dismay, leaping into action and tackling Batgirl to the floor as the sharp weapons sliced into the steel where her head and chest had been only milliseconds before. "Leave me alone!" The stranger yelled, feeling faint. At this point, though, it was too late to be left alone. His actions had marked him as hostile for the time being. The large man lunged for him with speed and grace almost impossible for his bulky, muscular frame, but the teenager took it in stride, reacting with skills he didn't even know he had. Surprising himself and everyone else in the room, he gave the man a hard slice to the jaw with his elbow, followed by a rather artistic roundhouse, and an acrobatic leap over the momentarily stunned man to escape out of the vault and burst through the front doors of the bank.

"I didn't do anything." He repeated, more to convince himself than anyone else. "I don't know why they won't believe me. I didn't do anything!"

He leaped, raising his arms by instinct, just as he had done everything else so far, leaping upward at an extraordinary distance to let his height and motion sensitive jet-charged boots rocket into action. He knew the large man was only a fingertip's length behind him, but he let the strange suit carry him away into the night, those soulless white eyes staring after him from below.

Batman's eyes narrowed to the point where they were almost closed as he squinted, watching the orange glow of the heels of the young man's boots disappear into the velvet night sky. What kind of technology…? Piercing sirens cut into his thoughts, and he realized they'd have to act fast to cover their tracks. This was something that he didn't want Commissioner James Gordon to get his hands on. This was a teenager fraught with confusion and frustration, fighting as if Batman himself had trained him. This was something only Batman could deal with.

Turning on his heels, cape swirling lightly around his ankles, he reentered the vault, interrupting what seemed to be a very passionate argument between Batgirl and Nightwing.

"I can take care of myself, thank you." Barbara snapped, not wishing to be saved by the man she'd once loved, and had been rejected by. She didn't need his help.

"Fine. You're welcome. Doesn't matter that I just save your life!" Nightwing retorted, turning his back on her and crossing his arms as she dusted herself off.

"I can take care of myself!" She repeated. "And I can duck without your help. You flattened me!"

"Yeah, well its better than being sliced in two."

"Are you not hearing a single word I'm saying?" Batgirl huffed. "I…"

"Stop it, both of you." Batman growled, striding between them and unceremoniously shoving them apart as he walked by, towards the bloody glove print on the back wall. Carefully removing a clean swab from his belt, he took a sample of the liquid to run tests on back in the cave, and then cleaned the handprint away, replacing everything in the vault exactly to how it was before they'd entered.

Nightwing scowled grumpily as Batman walked back out through the vault door again, disappearing into the darkness. Robin followed suit, somehow getting the impression that his mentor wasn't going to come back. "She started it." Nightwing mumbled, receiving an ungrateful smack upside the head from his former girlfriend. "Yeah." She hissed back. "And I'll finish it too, bird boy." She turned her chin up, walking past him and away, following Bruce.

Nightwing raised a doubtful eyebrow. "I'm sure you'll try." He muttered back, but she didn't hear, and he was left alone to finish the job, closing the vault door behind them and resetting the locks and alarms as if they'd never been there. He could do without Batman, but what would Batman do without him?

When the police finally arrived, all bats and birds had vacated the premises, and they found an empty and absolutely spotless crime scene where nothing had been stolen or misplaced. The vault looked as if it hadn't been opened in days, let alone broken into forcibly, so, scratching their heads, the Gotham PD simply left, filing a report about malfunctioning alarms, and alerting the owners of the bank later the next morning.

He stood atop a skyscraper among a sea of buildings, the wind tearing at his figure as he ripped off his mask again, gasping for breath as the rain began to sprinkle into his face. He couldn't see past the clouds above, just as he couldn't see through that strange barrier that had formed in his mind, refusing to relent his past to him. He squinted his eyes closed, turning his face upward into the increasingly severe downpour, spreading his arms in a gesture of submission. The heavy droplets rolled off of his costume like water off of a mallard's feathers, but he wished it would take him. He wanted it to take him away from here, take him back to where he was supposed to be. Take him back to before his first moment of awareness in the foreign vault...

But the rain just continued to fall, mindless of this form that mentally pleaded it to envelope him in some sense of memory and security. Some rivulets were tinged with red as the water cleared his black hair of matted blood, biting into the thin cut along the bruising mass of injury that was the right side of his head. His dark locks fell wet into his pale blue eyes, his strong, sharp features set interminably in intense irritation. Cars still sped along the streets far below him, but they weren't right. Nothing was. Everything seemed so out of place and surreal, as if he were in a completely different world than where he belonged. Nothing made sense, least of all his own personality. Who was he? Who was he supposed to be? What had he done to earn this fate?

He had nowhere to go to – no home, no family that he could remember, and no friends…

He couldn't even remember a letter of his name. For the moment, all he was seemed to be embodied in the costume he wore, and in the costumed figures that had triggered his strange nervous breakdown. He was calmer now, though, coming to terms with his condition. His mind ran at a slower pace, thinking logically.

The costume was all he had.

For now, that would have to be enough.