Team Batgirl

They were in the place of shifting time and color again, and Time Lapse had ascended even higher on the throne of his own creation, leering down at them from the column of swirling brightness. Though Steph had taken little notice of it before- likely because she was distracted by his yellow spandex and attempts to kill her- he'd been a very normal looking young man, conventionally attractive even, with the brown moptop and the straight nose. Now he seemed inhuman, bursting at the seams with power than stretched his skin taut, his eyes pools of black and every inch of him boiling. When he looked down at them, it was like being sneered at not by a supervillian, but by a capricious god.

"You're right," he boomed in a voice that reached out to them even before there was time to for words to be uttered. "It's much more satisfying this way."

"We are dead," Steph moaned in a whisper. "What can we do to stop someone who controls time?"

"Knock him out," Cass suggested.

"Great plan, Cass, except for the part where it will never work."

"No, she's right in a way," Babs whispered. "Look, he's clearly unstable and not all there. He's having trouble controlling that limitless amount of power, as well. We just need to keep him distracted from killing us long enough for someone to KO him, and then hopefully we'll be able to fix things."

"I wouldn't count on it," the echoing voice came from behind them.

Steph had been watching Time Lapse on his throne right as she heard the voice, but the second she turned her head to see him standing behind them, he was no longer there.

"I hate it when people talk behind my back," the man declared, pointing at each of them in turn. "And I will not be distracted from killing you."

"I have a plan," Babs muttered in her fellows ears as she took the time box from where it was stocked in her utility belt, along with her computer. "Both of you, do your thing."

"Um, what thing?" Steph said, bamboozled, but Cass immediately began to dance around Time Lapse, coming at him with every move she had.

Time Lapse growled inhumanly as Cassandra's blows phased right through him. His eyes resembled burning red coals as he switched his focus to her, and his bubbling skin was pale and waxy now, his body rank with sweat as he struggled to master himself. Steph glanced nervously at Babs behind her. She was tapping furiously at her computer with the steely determined look Steph had come to know so well, the time box balanced on her knees. Whatever her plan was, she was counting on her fellow Batgirls to shield her from the villain while she worked.

"You need to stop this!" Steph yelled at the man to draw his attention. "Look at you! You're barely containing your power! You keep this up and you're going to kill yourself!"

"Then I'll take you with me!" Lapse frothed, trying to direct his power towards Steph, but once again he was diverted by Cass's foot flying through his face.

"I thought the whole point of you coming after us was avoiding dying!" Steph yelled. Lapse's reply was an inarticulate scream of rage.

This suddenly turned to a laugh of victory when he finally managed to get a clawlike hand around Cassandra's ankle, interrupting her mid kick. Instantly, the youth drained out of Cass, muscle sagging and skin turning wrinkled and leathery. But that didn't stop the trained marital artist's knobbly knee from shooting up and connecting with her cackling foe's face. Lapse fell backwards directly into Steph's roundhouse right punch, and he was forced to let go of his rapidly aging victim. As soon as she was out of his grip, Cass regained her youthful glow.

"You make a kickass old lady, Cass," Steph complimented as her friend hit their foe again.

However, Lapse seemed to insist on staying conscious, and what was more, he seemed to have regained enough control that he was prepared to finish them off at last. He turned his power on them with murderous eyes, and Steph felt time stand still around them, her body freezing with it.

"Stop it!" She screamed, desperate to delay him a few more seconds. "Why can't you see…you have all this power and all you can think to do is kill us! You said before that you missed your childhood- but the way you are now, you could use your power to find out who you are! Relive what you lost! Why aren't you doing that?"

For the first time in a long time, Time Lapse stopped using his power. Steph was unfrozen, her knees gave out and she dropped to the floor. Lapse did something similar. He stared at her, oddly distorted and broken looking, his expression wondering.

"I think…think I will do that…" he murmured.

"Yes! You should!" Steph insisted, her heart beating fast. Could it really be this easy?

"I will do it…after I finally…finally…kill you…" he said, his voice turning raspy. He raised his hands once more, his eyes black tunnels, lips stretched so wide they threatened to split and Steph saw he wasn't going to hesitate or play games anymore. She braced for the end.

Babs hurled forward suddenly, almost faster than the eye could follow. Time Lapse didn't have time to even cry out before she thrust a familiar device into his stomach.

"I think it's time for you to go back in the box, mister," the redhead said triumphantly. Lapse looked down at his old time box, now fully repaired and ready to contain his power, resting on his belt where it belonged. What was more, it was beeping, seemingly emitting a steady signal. Sneering, the villain reached down to bat it away.

But something was wrong. The silver machinery spread, fusing into him, burning and melding with his flesh. Even Babs looked shocked with this turn of events.

"What did you do?"Steph screamed at Babs.

"Nothing!" Babs panicked. "When he had me looking into my future, he inadvertently ended up giving me some of the knowledge I'll have as Oracle, so I remembered stuff like how the hack into that little box! I just wanted to fix it so it would cut off his power!"

Time Lapse began to scream, writhing and flailing where he stood as the box sank into him. His eyes were still fastened on the three of them, and he slammed his hands mightily into the ground, which was now solid Gotham concrete instead of swirling color.

Steph felt herself being pulled back, away, the universe bucking and swirling around her in a way that was sure to make her throw up. She clung desperately to the strong arms of Babs and Cass, but they were being thrown back too. The ground was no longer under them, and gravity- no, something more terrible than gravity- it was pressing against them, trying to tear them apart. Time Lapse laughed, not caring that he was stuck with them, that this was happening to him too. He hung on to all three of them somehow, his arms spread wide to grip their legs. He was beyond anything and he couldn't be moved.

Steph looked into Babs's eyes, but all she saw was sheer terror. Cass's usually steady hands were shaking in hers. Every one of them felt that they were rushing towards death, and not the kind that you got over like an illness. They were hurtling beyond the end of time, beyond the universe or anything physical. Their surroundings shifted so much that they were an incomprehensible blur. She could feel Cass and Babs pulling away from her, but she redoubled her grip. They would not be separated, she would not lose them again. She began to recognize the images around them as connected and familiar- as people- as women- as…

Batgirls?

For an instant, they were in a secret basement with a short haired brunette in a purple suit. She fixed a red wig while perched atop an honest-to-God lacy motorcycle. She hummed a broken tune to herself, utterly confident in her ridiculousness.

Babs tried to reach out and touch her, desperate to find an anchor, but it was too late. Now they were in a place utterly deserted and dark, and with a shock Steph recognized the dark hair and surly scowl of Helena Bertinelli as she stood in a sleek black outfit, stitching up the mask that would someday be Cassandra's.

"Hel-" Steph choked out, and the woman whipped around like she had heard, but before anyone could react, she was gone and more unrecognizable batsuited women in various cities were flashing past.

"They can hear!" Babs gasped. "Just- have to get someone to catch us- Charlie!" She screamed as a redhead in torn jeans and a makeshift cowl catapulted past them in midair, but the wind was too strong and the girl's victory yell had barely left their ears before they were flashing past successive versions of Babs at the speed of sound- gray suited, black suited, old lady, impractical belly shirt-

"They won't ever hear!" Lapse gave cackle that was half a yowl of pain. He was delirious as the box continued to fuse. "They can't ever-

Cass kicked the clinging man to get him to hush, her hand extended too. Steph could only keep a grip on both of them.

Steph saw another one in a purple suit, small and young with tousled red hair, and she managed to choke out "EGGPLANT GIRL!"

The girl turned around huffily on her rooftop edge, crying "I'm not a vegtab-"

But before she could finish they were gone again.

"G-good G-going," Babs managed to grunt sarcastically against the head pounding forces of the time stream.

"Always s-so crit-critical," Steph spat back, but she was interrupted by an unnaturally loud cry from Cass "STOP!"

Their surroundings had changed again during the argument, they were now in a Gotham of bright colors and sunsets, a bustling city instead of a corpselike smoke factory. But most importantly, someone had responded to Cass's cry. From the top of the fattest, friendliest building, a small hand whipped out and grasped Babs's ankle, jerking them all to a halt.

Steph goggled down at their savior. She was a tiny thing, she couldn't be more than ten. She was nearly falling off the roof holding onto them, her foot hooked onto a crevice to anchor her. Nevertheless, she wore a wide smile. She was blonde, her hair was in a fussy bob, and there was a pointy red mask that did nothing to hide her cherubic face. She wore a bright red schoolgirl dress with a green sailor collar.

A little blonde girl Robin? Steph couldn't help but think wildly. Were they being saved by her cutesy alternate self?

But no, there was a Robin behind her, scaly underpants and all. He looked kind of like the younger Dick had, only different, blockier and more childish. He was goggling at his girlish companion as she bravely ballasted the three women and stunned man from being torn away by the winds of time.

"Betty, don't, that's too dangerous for a girl!" the Boy Wonder said huffily, reminding Steph irresistibly of someone else.

Betty cheerfully ignored him. "Are you from the fifth dimension like Bat-Mite?" she asked them politely as she fumbled her yellow belt with her elbow. Steph had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

The three of them and Time Lapse were floating oddly in midair several feet above the rooftop that held the girl and boy. The atmosphere was threatening to suck them away to yet another dimension and their only tether to this city was the rope held by the small girl. So Steph could only croak, "Please…help…"

A net finally popped out of Betty's belt, which Steph now noticed had a chunky Bat Symbol attached on it. The net slung easily around Steph's wrists. She stared at the contraption in mingled hilarity and horror. Was that an …oversized hairnet? Oh dear God. How unbelievably stereotypical. She shook her head. She was being rescued; she couldn't afford to make fun of the methods!

"Bettyyyy!" Robin squawked, flapping his arms. Steph wondered why he didn't help, if he was so concerned.

"Don't worry about me!" Betty said, her smile unflappable as she tried to reel them in. "I wanna be strong, like my aunt Kathy!"

The girl clearly had no concept of secret identity. Then again, neither did Robin. But no matter how strong her ten year old arms were, they couldn't quite hold up to the weight of three women and one villain being sucked away by time. Betty gritted her teeth and dug her pixie-booted heels in, but she was about to fall off the roof.

"Let go!" Babs cried out. "You have to!"

"Aren't you going to ask your big strong man to save you?" Lapse giggle feebly at Betty's struggles, apparently conscious again. "I thought that was your sole purpose here, lusting after him….tryyyying to prove he's heterosexual?" Time Lapse was getting almost Joker-ish at this point. Knowledge of multiple timelines must do that to a person.

For the first time, Betty's smile dropped. She looked desperately back at Robin, who seemed unable to get closer, a mysterious bucking wind keeping him at bay.

"Betty!" Steph burst out. "Even if that's true… you're strong, I can tell you are! Show 'em what you've got!"

Betty's smile was back again. She looked away from Robin, her eyes shining and determined. "Never fear, Bat-Girl is here! I'll get you down lickety split! It'll be nice to have some other girls to talk to, anyway!" Betty dug her heels in deeper.

Steph smiled back at her, but inside she was a knot of panic. Strong or not, one little girl wasn't going to hold them for long.

The world around them was shaking again. Colors were changing on either side of them, buildings crashing in. Dimensions were bleeding together, and out of the wounds poured all the women they had seen. Helena, looking grim and harassed, Charlie, bounding out of nowhere- The purple suited brunette fell in, looking utterly unsurprised by her change in scenery. And there were more- Batgirls in silver, in gold, in futuristic armor, in bad fashions and good, wave upon wave crowding onto the rooftops. Some women were falling off the roofs or dropping straight down out of the sky, sure to splatter on the pavement below.

Steph closed her eyes, unable to stomach any more death . Cass gripped her hand hard. It had finally happened. The world was completely collapsing and they were going to be crushed by this mass of people, suffocated when all the walls came crashing down.

Then her eyes flew open as she felt strong hands grip her ankles and a rope swing around her waist. All the women below them were no longer a confused mass and threatening mass, instead they were joined together. Instinctively they had gathered around the small girl, holding her steady, linking hands, flinging out additional lifelines to for the three of them to grab onto, adding their own strength to the table. Those who couldn't get near were rescuing the falling women who hadn't already rescued themselves, lassoing them before they met death below.

Steph's eyes widened in disbelief at the sight, and she cried out when she began to feel the three of them actually move downward. Slowly but surely, like fish being reeled in from a sucking, wrathful ocean, they were pulled to the ground.

Betty's smile was bigger than ever as she finally let go. Completely exhausted, her knees gave out. Robin barreled his way through the crowd to help her up.

"Wow," Babs breathed, looking at the vast crowd (a "what the hell is going on?" could be heard from Helena, as well as a cry of "DARK VENGEANCE!" from Charlie). "Go Team Batgirl."

Steph smiled out all of them, and she took Betty's hand. Robin was supporting her, his stream of dialogue split between admiring her, scolding her for being so reckless when she was so feminine, and complaining about a force that had kept him back. Cass shushed him.

"Thank you-" Steph began.

"N-no…" Time Lapse interrupted, his eyes popping, He fell to the ground, jerking spastically. "N-no, that wasn't…supposed to be what…happens…" He was still clinging to his three opponents desperately, but whatever powerful force bound them was weakening.

The rooftop around them began to shake, threatening to split apart as he took it back through time with him, but Cass leaped forward faster than any of them, jabbing writhing madman in the throat with a short and quick motion. Time Lapse's muscles went slack, and the newly visible city settled. Options gone, the man began to fruitlessly tear at the machinery that was infecting him so violently he threatened to rip himself open.

"Don't do it!" Steph cried. She let go of Betty's hand and ran forward, trying not to fall off the edge of the roof at the same time.

"I can fix you, don't hurt yourself!" Babs yelled, also leaping to the rescue instinctively.

"Stop it," Cass growled, still looming over him, and out of sheer pants wetting terror of the small girl in front of him, the disgraced rogue complied, his body again going slack.

The technology inside Time Lapse sparked, pulsing and pounding along with the blood that spread slowly from his wounds.

Cold sweat broke out on his forehead and as he shuddered. Suddenly, the rooftop vanished and they were standing in the streets of Gotham again. The crowd of women slowly faded away as well, all except for the three little street urchins Time Lapse had been so afraid of all along. He realized that standing there, blurred together in his vision, they looked like one person.

With a faint smile at this revelation, he closed his eyes at last, and vanished.

A/N: The climax! Like I said, originally chapter 5 was spread across too chapters, so it was different before I rewrote it. More angsty and repetitive and less...mindsearingly wacky? See, I remembered this idea I had earlier of Steph lost in time, falling past all the Batgirls and then one reaches out and grabs her and I had this weird idea it would be Betty Kane- then I started realizing that Betty and Steph are actually weirdly similar- cheerful, blonde, trying to seduce a stoic and jerkish Robin, Batman and Robin tell them to quit- so then I couldn't NOT do it. So I decided to use it as a climax and make it a team Batgirl thing to show all the LADY POWER I guess. Plus, she was first, and despite being a total stereotype created to unsuccessfully break up the awkwardness of the male-male stuff going on, she had her moments in refusing to let the boys get her down and breaking the BatGlass ceiling, I guess?

As for the weird references- the first purple Batgirl is 1960's BG, then obvs Huntress and Misfit, then a quick succession of graysuit Babs (probably pre crisis/old cartoons/early BTAS), black suit (BTAS), old lady (Batman Beyond...or the future!) and belly shirt (Thrillkiller. Never read it, whyyyy belly shirt). EGGPLANT! was The Batman, which I've also never watched. But that doesn't stop the references okay, I had to pull the alternate universe from somewhere).

Hoped you enjoyed, despite the weirdness. Here comes the conclusion!