An Apprentice's Future

By: Malaizjan Dejesus & Reina Grayson

Author's Note: This is the climatic installment of the Batman Beyond Saga. Everything is coming together and this is the crossover fic. If you're a fan of either this series or Young Justice, than you will enjoy this! I am going to list the theme songs to various DC tv series and most of the theme songs can be found on Music of DC Comics: 75th Anniversary, which is available now, and the YJ Theme song is on its own album titled: Young Justice, which is also available. So if you don't have them, I suggest you go and buy them both!

Also, I had lots of help with this story. Reina Grayson deserves half the credit in getting 80% of this fic done.

Chapter 13

Music Playing: Justice League Theme Song

The Dark Knight knew Watchtower like the back of his hand. Which he should because he designed it and the League helped him build it. So he went with instinct as to where his wayward granddaughter would be-the darkest, coldest part of Watchtower. It was by design, for the deep freezers were located in the area. The area was also very cold and he did locate her, meditating and floating off the floor, a purple haze outlining her body. He said nothing, merely stood there as she seemed engrossed in her meditation.

"What." Meygan whispered, a dark and dangerous tone to it that signaled that the young lady was NOT in the mood.

"Are you alright?" he asked her gently.

There was a sigh, then, "You listened in. By comm link I assume," she deduced.

Bruce said nothing.

"So what do you want?" she asked as she turned to face him and opened her eyes, eyes that held a red tint to her blue irises. She then placed her feet firmly on the ground, the purple haze still there.

"We need to talk."

"No we don't." She didn't want to talk to him. He was the LAST person she wanted to talk to.

"We do." His own voice had a dangerous tone to it.

"No," she said.

There were at a standstill of wills.

Bruce knew he would have to do the talking then, because she was stubborn...much like her father and aunt. "Can you end this war with one blast? Without destroying the universe?"

There was a sigh from her but no other response.

"You can end this war. So why not?" he asked her.

"I'm not you. I will not risk my family or friends for any mission, not even to save time itself."

Finally a straight answer from her. He needed more though.

"Meygan..."

"No. I'm not talking to you." Meygan moved to get past Batman but he got in her way. "Move."

"No." Two could play at that game.

"Move," she told him again.

"Why will you not risk everything?" he asked her.

"We're not like you. Me and Dad. I will not be compared to you. Ever." Meygan made a move to leave again and once again, Bruce stood in her way. "I am not asking again." Meygan's eyes went to a darker shade of red.

"Meygan, you'll need to take your team back. Why are you reluctant to do that?" Bruce never saw the fist that came at him and knocked him down on his butt. That was unusual; he always sees a fist a mile away. Maybe he wasn't expecting her to do it. He countered with a leg sweep but she jumped up and flipped backwards away from the move.

Both were back on their feet in record time. Both glared at the other.

"I don't want to do this," he told her.

"You kept pushing it." Meygan came at him with a series of kicks and punches.

Bruce countered, knowing that this was insane. But he wasn't going to take another hit from her. He then came back at her with a fury of his own kicks and punches, which she countered. It made him proud, that Dick trained her well. They were at a move and counter move fight, neither getting a hit on the other. He knew that they had to stop this; that the fight was worthless.

Meygan knew this fight was pointless. But he kept pushing her and she had enough. There was no way she was going to let him win. She then did a spinning jump kick to his face.

Bruce caught that leg and with a hard elbow, struck her in the lower thigh area, right at the quadriceps. Both of them crashed to the floor.

Meygan let out a blood-curling scream of agony as that particular set of muscles were once again damaged from a fight. She crawled away from Batman slowly, painfully overwhelmed by the agony of the pain. She didn't have time to block that pain from the link.

Vincent was hanging out with his dad at the target range with Artemis and Wally when he felt the agony of his quadriceps in his left leg hit him hard. He let out a cry and collapsed to the floor. He held that part of his leg, tears streaming down his face. "Meygan," he got out.

"Roy to Superman. Where's Meygan?" he asked the Man of Steel over the Justice League comm link.

"Near the deep freezeers," Clark answered almost immediately.

"Vincent, can you walk?"

Vincent shook his head. "Not until...she blocks the pain from me."

"Okay. How is it you're feeling her pain?" Artemis asked.

"Our bond...We have one. It tends to go both ways with us." Vincent gritted his teeth. "I have to get to her."

"Not like that," Wally told him.

Vincent relaxed himself, steeling himself for the increase agony of the pain. He took deep breaths and with his will alone, pushed the pain away. He then hopped to his feet and tested his left leg. "Ok. Let me find her." He then took off to find her.

"Your son's weird," Artemis told Roy.

"I know." Actually, Roy didn't know what to take of this 'bond' thing but he went after his son. Something made Meygan feel that pain. And he was afraid he'd have to play referee for that reason.

Meygan kept backing away from Batman as he tried to get to her. She glared at him, in warning.

"Meygan, I'm sorry, let me see your leg," he urged. Now Bruce felt really guilty for what he did.

She pulled out her eskrima sticks and connected them to form a boa staff. She won't let him get near her. She couldn't. But her left quadriceps were in agony. She could feel the trickle of blood on her costume in that area. She feared that the wound she had gotten there hadn't really healed and now it was reopened. "Stay...away...from me..." she bit out.

While that was going on, at the same time, the first generation fire controller wanted to see this man for herself, and her daughter wanted to tag along, since she couldn't find Meygan anyway.

"Honey, you don't have to do this," Reiena said as she and her daughter walked into the prison hold.

"Mom, I want to be able to say what I couldn't when he tortured me," Areina Grayson said.

"From what your cousin says, you told him to fuck off; but I'm sure you have more," Reiena remarked.

"You have NO idea, mom," Areina retorted, her eyes focused into a batglare as they arrived at the cell.

"So, the fire controllers come together; how sweet," Ian said as he had heard them coming.

"Can it, Ian. I'm sick and tired of you and the Legion of Doom coming after me and my family. We WILL stop you from getting out of prison this time," Areina said.

"You should know what happened to your mother when my grandfather and Deathstroke tried using her against your precious uncle." Ian said, hoping for some kind of response.

Reiena had no idea what Ian was talking about as she had never been used against Dick by Deathstroke….at least not yet. Areina just glared and if looks could kill, Ian would have exploded.

"Can you just picture your mother with razor wire wrapped tightly around her body AND her drowning in a tank of water. Your uncle was so determined to save her; I'm sure he would have cracked under the pressure of losing Flamebird and become Master Deathstroke's apprentice," Ian said; still hiding the fact that he was actually Deathstroke.

"THAT DOES IT." Areina said as she got really close to the static field that was separating the heroes from the villain.

"Areina, calm down, he's just saying that to get you riled u,." Reiena said as she pulled her daughter away from the field.

"Oh, but you would have been proud of your little girl, Flamebird; She survived dry drowning and even had the sense of mind to get the inhibitor collar off of her cousin before myself and Drow pitted them against each other," Ian said.

Reiena couldn't believe that her daughter had to deal with that, and she was pushed past her limit of restraint. The first generation fire controller was about ready to attack Ian when Areina got in the way. "MOM…..let's go somewhere else. Ian thinks he can get to us, but we don't need a repeat of what happened to GA, now do we."

Reiena let out a heavy sigh and drew in a cleansing breath. "Alright, Areina; I'm sure we need to compare a few things."

"Weaklings," Ian said, hoping to get one of the two to deactivate the static field.

"Be lucky I've got enough restraint to NOT do to you what I did to Drow. He learned the hard way not to piss me off," Areina said as she and her mother headed out…..not even looking back at the villain.

Ian smiled.

Meanwhile, back in the future…

Max and Dana were hiding in the armory. They got separated from Wildcat, Star Girl and Wonder Girl when the Slade Bots rushed them. So, they hid in the armory, for none of the Slade Bots or the bad guys have gone in there. They had been there for 4 hours. The stomping of bots and attacks were now over. The two knew that wasn't a good sign.

"Let me jam the doors." Max went to the touchpad next to the door and with a few commands, the door was locked. "Okay. We're good."

"Good?! GOOD!? We're trapped here with thousands of bad guys capturing heroes!" Dana cried.

"Get a grip, girl!" Max went over to the computer terminal. She sat in the lone chair and tapped on the keyboard.

"What are you doing?" Dana asked.

"Checking the cameras; let's see where the bad guys are..." Max was hard at work for a few minutes. Then she got camera angles. She zoomed in on several of them. "Oh boy..."

"What?!" Dana asked, fear obviously in her voice.

"Looks like they got most of the heroes captured. I don't see Terry...Or Areina...And a couple of the others..."

"Maybe we should try looking for them?" Dana suggested. If Terry was still free, she wanted to be with him.

"I don't see them at all. They might have gone back to Earth..." Max then had an idea. "Hey, we can help them!"

"How Max- we have no clue on how to be heroes!"

"This is the armory, right? So let's get some weapons and go find them." Max got up, not waiting for a reply as she looked down the rows of weapons and gear, looking for batarangs or even better, birdarangs. She was near the back of the armory when she spotted something that made her smile. "Dana! Come quick!"

Dana made her way to Max and stood next to her. "Oh no, Max. NO WAY."

"C'mon, we got some training from Black Canary. We can piss off the bad guys if we dress up."

"But Terry said-"

"Terry isn't here, and the others have been captured. I say we do it. Let's get into those costumes and piss of the LOD." Max rubbed her hands together. She couldn't wait to wet her feet, sort to speak, with these bad guys.

"But wouldn't they be wondering why..."

"Dana, are you in or out? This isn't going to work if we don't do this together."

Dana sighed. She wasn't sure about this impersonating a hero but..."Okay. Max. I'm in."

"Perfect! And I can hack the comps so we can get a fix on where the bad guys are. This will be easy." Max was excited. She was going to show Bruce and the other Bats that she was so ready for this.

Dana...Dana wasn't so sure...

Back in the past…

It wasn't long before Dick, Reiena, Roy, Areina, Vincent, and some Leaguers arrived at the deep freezers and saw what was going on. For the first time EVER; the League members saw worry and fear on Bruce's face.

"What happened?" Superman asked.

"He damaged my leg!" Meygan screamed. 'Again,' she thought to herself, but she didn't say it out loud.

"Calm down; let's talk about this," Ollie stated.

Bruce drew in a breath and turned to the others. They were shocked to see that Bruce had blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth. "I just wanted to talk to her, and she threw the first punch."

"So you went into defensive mode." Dick remarked. "Meygan, let me see your leg."

"No." To prove that she was fine, she popped up to her feet but she could barely put any weight on her left leg.

"Meygan," Dick warned.

"No," she said again. "I'll live."

"Meygan…what happened with Mordred?" Vincent asked.

"Mordred? As in Mordred La Fay?" Superman asked.

"Nothing," Meygan said.

"Stop that!" Vincent said. He tilted his head slightly. "When you, Eolus and Olivia were trying to get to the Time Machine Portal…" he added.

"Vincent," Meygan warned, her eyes red.

Archeron pulled out his bow and loaded an arrow on it, but he was reluctant to aim it at her. "No. You got the Dark Knight thinking he really hurt you. All he did was re-injure you, I think."

Meygan sighed. "Ok, so he did. I'm fine."

"Put weight on that left leg," Vincent challenged.

She looked mad. But she did, and her leg gave out, her falling.

Dick caught his daughter before she hit the floor. She gave up and let her future father see the leg. He carefully cut her costume and it was as bad as she had feared. Yes, the cut was reopened in the large black-purple bruise on her left quadriceps but not all the way. "I'm sorry Grandpa…..I just hate being compared to you. History says that you risk a lot for missions, and I wasn't going to risk destroying the universe just to stop the LOD."

"It's alright, Meygan. I figured it was something like that. Even if I didn't meet you till you were older, in your time, you seem to have inherited the stubborn streak your father and aunt have."
"

How did you know that?" she asked him.

"Kid Fate," he answered.

"Great," she whispered. She was going to have a talk with Carlos.

"Guys, we'll stay with Meygan; we need to talk." Vincent remarked, knowing that Areina was going to tell Meygan what she had just told the second generation team.
Ollie, Superman and the other Leaguers understood and headed out. Bruce, Dick and Reiena didn't go, however the Dark Knight knew these young 'siblings' needed some time alone. Those 3 stayed anyway.

"Meygan; Areina set the team straight. Andrew didn't mean what he said after Areina's speech," Vincent said, and Meygan looked to her cousin for answers.

"Molly knows about it, but did you ever hear about the failed mental training exercise." Areina stated; only receiving a nod. "Uncle Dick sacrificed EVERYTHING for the sake of the mission after they lost Kaldur in the exercise. After that he swore he would never be THE Batman. But the others are sorry for what they said."

"Thanks Areina."

"When did you get hurt like this?" Dick asked. "This is really bad."

"As Uncle Jason would say, 'It's just a walk in the park'," she mimicked. He glared at her. So did Reiena. "Fine; one of the Slade Bots got in a lucky shot to it. And I was limping so Mordred took it upon himself to cut me there."

Batman made a decision. "You kids are all coming home with me."

Meygan glared at him. "I'm leader and I say no."

"I'm your dad and I say yes. No arguing," Dick added when Meygan was about to protest rather loudly.

Vincent grinned. "Sway. Can I see the Ming Vase?" he asked Bruce.

Batman stared at him in hesitation.

"I wanted to see it. I wasn't going to shoot it or anything…" Vincent mumbled.

"I think it'll be good for the team. Get you kids off of Watchtower," Reiena added. "You all could use the rest."

"I can meet Alfred?" Areina asked.

"You all can," Batman said. He then walked off to let Alfred know they were about to have a lot of kids around…

About 20 minutes later…

All of the kids from the future were ready to leave Watchtower. Some of the kids were apprehensive. Others were thrilled to be leaving. Being stuck on Watchtower, some of them for weeks, it was good to get off of the space station.

"Batman, are you sure?" Wonder Woman asked.

"Yes. I am. Agent A would be happy for more kids…" But Bruce didn't sound so convinced.

Luna held her brother in her arms. "Those…Zeta Tubes won't hurt Wes, right?" she asked Nightwing.

"It won't," he reassured her.

"Does this Agent A know how to take care of a Martian/Kryptonian baby?" she pressed.

"He knows how to take care of a baby," Dick said to her.

"Not good enough." Luna looked to Meygan. "Mey-Mey, we can't go. Wes needs specialized care."

Meygan smiled and winced as she got to her knees. "Luna, I'll be there to help him. And you're such a good big sister. If he's anything like you were, I'm going to have fun. Okay?"

"Ok," Luna agreed.

She fought her way to her feet, her left quadriceps were killing her. "Brian, no running in the house."

"Aw, c'mon!" Brian West protested.

"This house isn't speedster proof. You break it, we tell your dad. And your dad can take it out of your ass. Your choice."

"Okay, okay. No running inside," Brian grumbled.

"Ok, Batman. We're ready," Meygan told him.

Bruce turned and set the coordinates.

"Wait…" Meygan limped to the panel and hooked her comp gauntlet to it, downloading a file, then she smiled and unhooked it after it was done. "Ok."

"Accessing…Batman, 02…Nightwing, B01, Flamebird B08, Robin B13…Batgirl B16…"

The future team stared at each other.

"Let's do it." Meygan limped through first.

"Accessing…Rave, C-06…"

The others followed her through.

"Accessing…Kid Flash C-04…Archeron C-06, Syfon C-07, Airhawk C-10, Red Bird, C-11…Miracle, C-08, Eclipse, C-09…Wesley Kent, A-12…Shock, C-13…Kid Fate, C-18…Batman, C-12…Siren, C-15, Komos, C-17…"

The young heroes of the present were surprised. 18 members?

And the Justice League? They were very proud…

"I'm curious…" Blue Beetle went to the panel to pull up the rest of the C group. And they were displayed before them all. "Wow…," he said. Jaime then scanned down and saw something that made him feel alarm. "Blue Beetle 4?!"

"You have a kid, Jaime? So crash!" Bart said in a teasing manner.

**Can Alfred deal with the newest team from the future? And what about the future? What's happening to the heroes and villains? Stay tuned! **