Author's Note: Because the weather took a turn for the cold here, I decided to curl up under a blanket with a glass of wine and re-watch the Spellbinder episodes. Not only was that fun, but it reminded me of the ebb-and-flow of the BB dialogue, which was super helpful in writing this chapter. And, hey, I think because of my mini-marathon, I managed to hit three different Batman Beyond slang words in the first page alone. Go me! Also, one more Spellbinder note: his final line from the last chapter about illusions and pleasure? That's actually a quote from Freud, which I thought was apropos for his character.

Also, to respond to one review (thanks, RDLC!) that asked about movement and Spellbinder's illusions, I was thinking that the tech that caused Jason's illusion was closer to the type he used in "Hooked Up," the type which locked people in their greatest fantasies (the one that felt like "pure love") and not the one in "Spellbinder" where people actually acted out their illusions to commit crimes. However, that IS what I was thinking of with the 'zombies.' Essentially, Spellbinder has used multiple types of illusions throughout the series and comics, so I decided to play with both. Hope that makes sense!

In this chapter, there are also a few references to Batman Beyond comic-canon here, just for fun. Nothing you need to have read to understand, but little nuggets of reference for those who followed the Vol. 2 series. Enjoy!

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I don't own any characters mentioned in this story. The rights belong to DC comics, Bob Kane, etc.

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Darkness Cannot Drive, Part 12/? (Chapter 11)

Terry bites his lip as he pulls the suit on as fast as he can in the cramped Bat-Wing. "I just don't understand what Spellbinder wants with the kids at the Juice Bar," he growls into the communicator.

[[If he's found a way to apply the technology used to create his personal illusion orb on a mass scale, he can incapacitate or hypnotize not just individuals, but whole groups. There are a lot of organizations who would pay top dollar for that kind of power.]]

"Definitely not shway," Terry grunts, pulling the mask on. "I better get in there and pull the plug then."

[[Be care...]]

Bruce doesn't get to finish his warning as Terry crashes through the club's skylight, glass raining down with him and reflecting the flashing dance-lights like neon rain.

"Whatever your plan is, dreg, it's over!"

Spellbinder tips his head to the side and chuckles. "Is it? I was unaware. I was under the impression it was just beginning."

All at once, the young adults from the floor begin to rise, eyes rolled back to reveal near-glowing whites. They shamble toward Terry, a sluggish army protecting their spiral-cloaked master.

"Slag it!" Terry weaves through the mind-controlled mass, dodging clumsy punches and sequined purses being wielded like maces. He tries to shuffle backwards, get out of their reach so that he can fly above them and go after Spellbinder. Unfortunately, he trips over a lone body on the floor, causing him to fall over, sprawling. It's only after he curses under his breath and wishes for more padding in the stupid suit around his tailbone that he recognizes the unconscious figure.

"Jason!"

Bruce's voice is harsh and sharp with anger. [[Jason's there? At the Juice Bar?]]

Slag it, he forgot about Bruce on the comm. "He's unconscious," Terry hurriedly feels Jason's neck and breathes a sigh of relief at the steady pulse. "Alive though."

"Ah, you two know each other?" Spellbinder coos. "I suppose that's not surprising. There are only so many people drawn to mask-wearing and cavalierly throwing themselves in harm's way. It's natural that you'd find one another—like alcoholics drawn to the same bar."

Terry wants to reply with something witty, but the zombie-like civilians are descending upon him and he has to concentrate on incapacitating them without hurting them. He weaves under flailing arms and sweeps a few legs, hoping that the vacant-eyed civilians aren't too bruised by their uncoordinated landings. "I need to stop this mind-controlled swarm without hurting anybody!"

[[You need to figure out what Spellbinder is using to control them. If you can stop his signal, it's possible...]]

"Of course! The light installation!" Terry curses himself for forgetting as he presses a explosive charge on his utility belt, arming it. He sparks his jettison boots, hoping to get clear of the swarming crowd. He only gets a few feet off the ground when several hands grab his leg, pulling him down again. "Slag it!" Terry kills the jets, but not before a few people's arms get scorched. He winces as he smells the sizzle of burnt flesh. "I can't get clear without hurting people!"

Terry hears a groan behind him. He turns slightly and, out of the corner of his eye, he can see Jason's previously unconscious body stumble to its feet.

"No, no, no, no!" Terry dodges a thrust from a girl who is trying to stab him with a half-broken juice glass. "Please don't be mind-controlled—I can't fight you too..."

"Don't worry." Jason's voice cracks and is mildly shaky. "You don't have to." He grabs a young man rushing at Terry and flips him, judo-style, onto the floor. "I'll hold 'em off if you can blow that thing." He half-nods at the flashing light installation.

"On it!" With Jason keeping a small perimeter, Terry rockets upward and over to the giant light-wall. He winces as the lights flash—on-off-on-off-on. The lenses in his cowl keep his head mostly clear, but now—this close up to it—he can feel himself getting dizzy. Sleepy, in fact. It'd be so easy to... to...

[[Focus, Terry!]]

Terry shakes himself awake. "Roger!" He sticks the charger to the wall with extra-flammable sealant and falls back, letting his gliders pull him away from the blast-radius. When the charger goes off, the wall erupts in sparks and a wave of black smoke. The whole bar does dark as the lights burst and go black.

All at once, the mob of people freeze and fall to the ground, moaning slightly. Terry sees only the quickest flash of red as Spellbinder turns to bolt out of the Juice Bar.

"He's on the move," Terry growls into his comm. He fires up his jets to go after him, but Jason has already made it across the room first. Terry notes with a cold wash of dread that Jason has a gnarled and nasty looking knife unsheathed in his hand. "Ja..."

Jason moves blisteringly fast; Spellbinder's legs are kicked out from under him, which Jason follows with a sharp hook-kick to the masked man's face. Spellbinder lets out a cry and is on his knees when Jason grabs him firmly by the back of the neck and presses the knife against his throat.

Terry's breath is frozen in his throat. He can't move, can't think. He sees flashes of Mad Stan and the knife growing out of that one nameless thug's body like a metal vine. He hears Max's warning ringing in his ears. Oh God, he's going to have to do it, isn't he? He's going to have to fight Jason, have to stop him...

"That was some trick." Jason's voice is hard and seemingly emotionless, cold like steel. "What was that supposed to be anyway?"

Spellbinder's voice is smug from under his mask and Terry can almost see him grinning. "Your greatest desire. I have to admit—I'm impressed. Not many can break out of one of my illusions. It must have been very painful for you."

Jason snorts. "Oh please. You're second rate—you're not even a knockoff Scarecrow. You're a wannabe Mad Hatter. Pathetic."

"Hmmm. You don't actually believe that," Dr. Billings half-chuckles. "You're using insults as a shield. Predictable, really. If my illusion hadn't touched a nerve, I very much doubt that you'd want to kill me as much as you do right now." Spellbinder carefully points his chin at the knife.

Jason is silent for a moment then chuckles. "Kill you? Hardly. I mean, don't get me wrong—shrink psychobabble always makes me want to hurt things. But you're really just not that important." Jason whirls the knife back toward him and uses the handle to whack Spellbinder on the head sharply. The costumed therapist slumps to the floor, unconscious, as Jason loosens his grip.

Terry feels his breath leave his throat in a tight wave. He presses his 9-1-1 signal, even though he's pretty sure that the smoke billowing out of the Juice Bar windows has already alarmed the neighborhood and that authorities are likely on their way—but better not to take chances.

[[Tell Jason that his time here is up. I want him out of my city. He needs to move on.]]

Terry hesitates, seeing the tightness in Jason's shoulders. "Not now," he whispers back at Bruce.

[[What? Terry...]]

"Trust me. Not a good time."

The bodies on the ground groan louder as more people start to wake up, rubbing their heads and bruised limbs. Terry hears the police sirens in the distance.

"Thanks for your help," Terry says to Jason. 'And for not crossing that line...' he adds mentally.

Jason nods. "Tell the surely-freaking-out old man that I won't make a habit of it."

Terry half-smirks. "Will do."

He wants to add... something. 'Sorry our not-date got completely interrupted. Sorry I never got to see you dance. Sorry Spellbinder clearly showed you an illusion of something which cut deep.' Instead he just nods silently at Jason as he rockets out of the Juice Bar skylight and heads back toward the Bat-Wing.

.

.

Jason stares out at the Gotham skyline and shakily takes another drag off of his cigarette. The ember burns and draws ever closer to the filter. He considers briefly lighting another one. 'So much for quitting,' a sarcastic inner-voice chirps at him. He quietly tells the inner-voice to go fuck itself.

It's late—early, actually. He can see the first hints of orange peeking over the horizon and beginning to reflect off of Wayne Tower—but he doesn't want to go to sleep yet. At best, he'll have nightmares. At worst... he'll dream of Spellbinder's illusion. A painfully happy dream would be far, far worse.

He is contemplating his options when he hears the fire-escape to his apartment building squeak with use. He turns to see Terry pulling himself up and onto the roof. He must have already returned the Bat-suit, because he's back in his normal clothes—tight black tee shirt and dark gray slacks clinging like a second skin. Jason curses to himself. Yep, definitely lighting that second cigarette...

Terry raises an eyebrow at him as Jason strikes flame and draws in a throat-full of smoke. "Thought you quit."

Jason tries to sneer, but he's pretty sure the look comes off as mildly sheepish. "Lectures from Bruce, or Dick, or Babs, or Alfred—those I could handle, kid. But you? You're, like, a third of my age. You're not allowed to nag."

"Not nagging," Terry says, plucking the cigarette from Jason's fingers. "Not lecturing."

The kid takes a deep drag off of the cigarette and passes it back as he blows some of the smoke out through his nose. He half-smirks at Jason, who is too stunned to school his expression. Terry may as well have pulled a rabbit out of the top of his head. Huh... the kid is just full of surprises.

"You..." Jason's voice half-cracks and catches in his throat. He coughs to clear it. "You shouldn't smoke, you know. I'm the immortal one here. You still can corrode your lungs."

Terry smirks. "Now who's lecturing? Don't worry—I don't smoke anymore. Just did for a little bit in juvie. All in the past..." He looks up at Jason, the light of the morning slowly revealing his face and pushing away shadows. "So. Spellbinder."

Jason grunts in reply and pulls another draw off of his cigarette. "Yeah."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Nope."

"Okay." Terry nods quietly and takes a seat on the roof ledge. They both wait in silence, watching the light reflect from glass and metal building to glass and metal building.

"It just sucks," Jason finally whispers. "Do you know how many times Bruce and I fought Scarecrow? I think I must have faced my 'greatest fears' over and over again. But those, well, they go away after the toxin wears off. And you're relieved—you can just keep telling yourself 'oh, it's not real' and move on. What's terrible about your guy's illusions is that you want the fiction to be reality—that there's no comfort in saying 'it's not real.'"

Terry nods. "We've had some real problems with that. People Spellbinder hit not being able to come back to reality. Some of his illusions mess with serotonin levels in the brain. One hospital had two different people—guards from Gotham First National Banks—try and commit suicide after they woke up from a 'Binder trance. They didn't want to face reality."

Jason is grim, quiet. In his mind, he sees a young Bruce smiling at him from the side of a hospital bed. "It's all going to be okay, Jay."

"You know," Terry's voice breaks through, pulling Jason out of his fantasy. "I don't think there's a whole lot of difference between our greatest hope and our greatest fear."

Jason raises an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, let's take my friend Max. She's said that her greatest fear is not being good enough, not making a difference. When she was targeted by Spellbinder about a year ago, she got caught up in an illusion where her parents—who are usually gone traveling and pretty absent from her life—tell her how proud they are of her and how good she is, how much of a difference she has made. They're two sides of the same coin, you know?" Terry sighs and looks out toward the sun. The light reflects orange off of his face and Jason can't help but stare. "Commissioner Gordon—Barbara—has had these relapses of Scarecrow toxin. Apparently she got hit hard with a concentrated dose as Batgirl and it never fully cleared her system—it just goes dormant. So, she was having this episode and going through a tough time and I was trying to help her solve a case as she was freaking out and, at one point, she turns to me and yells, 'You're not him. You'll never be him.'" For a moment, Jason can hear the pain in Terry's voice and winces. He can imagine how that heard to hear. "And," Terry continues, "that's weird, because—for me—that's both my fear and my dream rolled into one. I'm trying to be him, you know? Be Batman. Be as good as him. As skilled. As reliable. But... that's also my fear. That I'm going to wake up one day and be him. Bitter, obsessed, alone. I don't want to do that. To be that. You know?"

Jason nods. "Welcome to the Bat-club, junior. Get all of our issues for the price of one tricked-out suit."

Terry chuckles darkly. "Yeah. I've heard Tim and Mr. Grayson say something similar. They all tried not to be him. But there's also that admiration, you know? That—despite how mean he can be, how paranoid and distrustful and harsh—he's the best. He'll always be the best and no one will ever be as good as he was."

"Yeah," Jason breathes. "Bruce is... well, who and what Bruce is." Jason's memory floats back to grueling nights in the cave, practicing for hours on the parallel bars until his arm muscles screamed, Bruce refusing to let him put on the mask and cape until he was practically perfect. Until he met the man's seemingly infeasible standards. Those sharp blue eyes, calculating and evaluating. Looking for any sign of error or weakness, anything that could be exploited in the field, anything which could jeopardize the mission.

Jason feels a shiver run up his spine as he thinks about his own training sessions with Terry. He wonders if his own eyes have that aspect to them. If, after all this time, he's just trying to be Bruce after all...

Jason shakes his head and sighs, stamping out his finished cigarette on the roof ledge. "I think you'll be okay, kid. You're right—you shouldn't be Bruce. You shouldn't even be trying. I mean, in so many ways, he is Batman. It's hard for so many of us to separate him from the mask, you know? But that doesn't mean that's the end of what 'Batman' can be. You're making it your own. And," Jason smiles to himself, "you have a profound amount of heart. You won't end up like him. I'm actually not sure if you could if you tried. Grayson and I? We both bought into him—into the cult of Bruce. And, well, we both ended up bitter and alone, didn't we? But you... I think you'll be okay."

Jason turns to Terry. The sun is reflecting off of Wayne tower in just such a way that a line of white light cuts across Terry's cheek like an arrow pointing toward his lips. In his tiredness, Jason doesn't stop himself from acting on impulse. He reaches out his hand and traces the light on Terry's face lightly with one finger. He feels Terry suck in a breath. Sheepishly, Jason pulls his hand back and half-smiles.

"You should get home."

"...yeah." Terry frowns, hesitating. "I just... are you okay?"

Jason chuckles. "I think you're boss would say that there's a variety of evidence that suggests I haven't been okay for quite some time. What sort of scale are we using here?"

"You know what I mean." Terry's voice is firm but achingly caring. Jason doesn't know what to do with that tone, doesn't know what it means.

"Yeah," he finally breathes. "I'm okay." And, it dawns on him, that might actually be true. Terry's presence on the roof has calmed him, made the illusion seem more distant, less important for some reason. He sighs and begins to walk toward the fire-escape. "Thanks, Terry."

As he steps down the fire-escape ladder, he wonders how worried he should be that Gotham is starting to feel like home again.

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TO BE CONTINUED...