JLA: Riddle of the Beast

05. Sign of the Bat

Summary: The Night? It was...is supposed to be a time of rest. Just look at what happens this night.

“Are you out of your mind?” Tim flinched at the shrill voice echoing in the hills surrounding them. In front of them, as far as the naked eye could see, extended a valley, the valley into which the young Robin planned to start into, on way to his first part of his long journey. His first destination? Gotham.

“What do you mean?” He frowned, pulling his cape closer around him. With the night closed around them and their camp set up, the duo were midway through dinner and with Tim’s telling his new companion about his plans so she could decide whether to accompany him or depart to…well, wherever she wanted to go.
“You want to go to Gotham?” The way the blonde haired Stephanie spoke the word Gotham, she might as well have been talking about the deepest, darkest pit of hell. “Have you gone out of your mind?”
“No.” His frown deepening into a scowl, Tim stared at the luminous blaze, using a piece of twig to stoke it further. “You don’t understand.”

“What do I don’t understand?” Stephanie threw his words back at him. “Do I not understand that you have some secret you don’t want to tell me about? I understand that. Do I not understand that seeing as that you most definitely saved my shapely behind back there from those…those things, I should try to return the favor? I understand that. What I don’t understand why do you want to go into jaws of death by going to that place? Don’t you know what they do to people like you there?”

“People like me?” It was Tim’s turn to echo her words. The Oracle hadn’t said anything about such a thing. Then again, she…he…it hadn’t been all that clear with the instructions, especially any such warnings?

“Yes, people like you,” Stephanie gestured towards Tim’s general form, including his sheathed twin-blades. Still not getting any favorable response at her warning, she elaborated further. “Like…like…hmph, people with magical powers.”

“What do you mean?”

Sighing and shaking her head at Robin’s hardheaded and suspicious attitude, the by nature chirpy and helpful Stephanie started to tell what she knew about the bottomless well that was Gotham.

“I don’t know much,” she stated beforehand. “But it is said that anyone going to Gotham, th-they don’t come back. I mean there is this wall, I mean that high,” she gestured raising her arm as high as she could, “surrounding the whole plateau of Gotham, and once you get inside, you cannot come out. Never...never ever...ever.”

“And?” Tim urged her to continue, wanting to get the complete story before reaching a decision.

“And that for anyone like you,” once again a slender finger pointed towards him. “If any outside magical creature tries to even step onto the plateau or even get into the air, let alone the city, they are hunted down by these eight…no, ten…no, fifteen foot high man-machines. Hunted down and killed. And after that, that is after they kill you, they change you, I mean your corpse…change you so that you become one of them, and then you also do the same thing as them, hunting others.”

“Whoa!”

“Yeah, whoa.” Stephanie nodded quickly, almost as if expecting one of those blue-armored man-machines to show up there. “So boy hero, don’t even plan of going there. In fact, I say, even forget you even heard the name Gotham at all.”


Even with this new development, one whose authenticity Tim couldn’t confirm, he still had to find a way to go the city, after all, the Oracle did say that everyone would need to come together and only then could they stop the Beast and end its reign of terror once and for all.

So, what was he supposed to do now?

---

Later that night,

“Nnn-no…no…I-I can’t…please….”

It took Stephanie a few seconds to realize that the voices she was imagining or maybe dreaming, it wasn’t either a dream or a hallucination. It was in fact, her companion talking to in his sleep…or from the looks it, pleading.

Moving slowly as if the danger was very much there, she crawled over to Tim’s side and gently tapped on his shoulder.
“Tim…Tim.” She called out softly, hoping to rouse him but without the usual screaming and shock of a person coming out of a nightmare. “Robi-“

“AAARRGGGHHH!!” A loud blood-curdling cry tearing from his lips, Tim not only jolted awake, his new skills also reacted and Stephanie found herself throat to tip with a rather sharp blade, one of the two she had seen being used not even half a day ago. What made her blood run even colder was the blank look on Tim’s face. It was almost as if he wasn’t quite there.

Already frightened beyond her usual ‘limit’, she nearly fainted when Tim spoke to her…only with a voice that was clearly older and not quite his, a voice that was female.

“Who are you?” The voice asked her. “Answer me! Who are you and what are doing here?”

“I-I-I-…” try as she might the young woman couldn’t get either her real or ‘secret’ name out.

“Answer me or I slice your throat.” And true to her words, the stranger in Tim’s body stuck the tip of the blade against the girl’s throat, just hard enough for her to feel the prick, but not enough to draw blood.

“Ste-Ummn-…anie.”

“What?”

“St-Step….Stephanie.”
“What are you doing here?” The blade stayed at its place.
“Y-You…I mean he, I mean Tim…h-he-he-…” there wasn’t even space for her to gulp. “He rescue…rescued me from the Jokerz.”
“Jokerz.” The stranger eased on her grip, but only enough so as to allow the girl to better explain herself.
“Yes. Six of them. I was injured,” she nodded towards her bandages. “So he…uh, brought me here. I…”

“Shut up.” The stranger growled again, only this time, her tone held a little less anger and the barest of understanding. From anyone else, Stephanie would have called it compassion but not from this…this, who ever this was.

“Umm.” The normally talkative Stephanie wisely zipped her lips.

---

For what appeared like ages, Tim’s seemingly blank eyes stared down at her. Stephanie wasn’t even sure if he was even breathing. ‘God.’ She prayed. ‘What have I gotten myself into this ti…’

“Steph?” She stopped short as the familiar, friendly and given their current state, confused voice of Tim sounded to her. “Wha-Oh god.” He swore and practically flew off the girl under him, instinctively flinging his blade away from him.

“What’s going on here?” His panicked cry echoed into the empty night.

“I-I don’t know.” Stephanie didn’t think this was possible. If she had been frightened before, she was downright ‘scared spitless’ now. “You were sleeping and-”
“You attacked me?” Tim accused, looking all over her as if trying to find a weapon on her.

“NO! No, I didn’t. It was the other way around.” Was he mad or what? ‘Jeesh Steph,’ the blonde teen frowned at herself. ‘After what just happened…you got any doubt left about that? No wonder he wants to go to Gotham.’ That should have been signal enough for her. His going to Gotham. No ‘magic wielder’ in their right mind would even dare that.

“What do you mean ‘the other way around’? Why would I attack you?” Tim scowled at her thinking that maybe he shouldn’t have tossed his blade away.

“Yes. No. It was her.”

“Her? Who her?” There was no one around them.

“I mean…it was you but it was also her, the her inside you.” This was getting them nowhere. “Wait please,” she startled as Tim withdrew a smaller but equally sharp knife from within his boots. “I can explain. Don’t kill me. Please.”

“I am not going to kill you…yet.” With what he had just experienced in his dream…his nightmare, Tim had a little more than zero inclination to hear any sort of explanation. After all, hadn’t the Oracle told him that he would face many difficulties on his journey…many deceptions. Maybe this girl was one of them. Maybe she wasn’t even a girl at all.

‘Yet!’ Her internal alarms ringing in full emergency mode, Stephanie literally fumbled and fell over her words in trying to get as clear a recount of the events of a short time ago…and as fast as possible. It wasn’t just as if her life depended on it…it was that it really did, at least in her mind.

---

By the time she finished, not only had Tim calmed down, he was in fact staring open mouthed at her.

“You mean she was here?” He gulped. “That she was real.”

“Real?” What did he mean by real? Of course she was real. As real as the blade-tip that had been at her neck. “Yes.” She nodded.

“Huh.” Tim slumped against the tree trunk he had lined up against. 'That way if the girl did attack, he would have one side covered. How he came to know that bit of strategy had been a mystery to him…until now. “It wasn’t just a dream.”

“Dream?” Get away Steph. Get away from this boy right now. Despite her inner warning, Stephanie slowly inched towards her el-loco companion. “What do you mean…” she stopped, drawing in a deep breath at the bloodstain on Tim’s left arm, the stain that hadn’t been there a few hours ago.

“What happened to you?” She squeaked pointing at the clearly bleeding arm.

“Wha-oh.” Tim gaped at his arm. ‘This was where she cut….no. It wasn’t a dream.’

“What wasn’t a dream?” Stephanie’s question drawing him out of his stupor, he instinctively flinched as she reached up and pulled up his sleeve…only to reveal a fresh but already bandaged wound.

“The girl…the woman,” Tim corrected himself. “She was in my dream. At least I thought it was a dream…until…now.” His gaze returned to his arm, his mind a swirl of barely vague images, images of a dress in black armor female form…with a ‘bat’ engraved on her chest.

“What was she doing there?” ‘Oh lordy,’ Stephanie was seriously considering that maybe she shouldn’t have even gotten out of bed in the morning. Then none of this would happen. No Jokerz wanting to eat her alive, no strange man…boy appearing out of nowhere and saving her…and most of all no scary strange dream woman coming out of where she should have stayed…in his dreams. “She your girl or something?”

“No. She’s not,” Tim shook his head, his shoulders slumping at the memory of his girl, of Ariana. “She…died.”

“Oh.” ‘Way ta go Steph.’ Stephanie admonished herself. ‘Things weren’t bad enough that you just had to go and shove your foot in your mouth.’

“So who was she?” The young woman blurted out, hoping to change the subject.

“She…she…” Who was she? Even Tim wasn’t quite sure about that. “I don’t know. But she…she was teaching me.”
“Teaching you?” Teaching him what? How to scare people?
“She was teaching me how to fight.” The look that his answer got him was one of clear disbelief.
“But you already know how to fight.”

“No, I don’t.” Tim shook his head. Taking a deep breath, he went to recount in detail what all had happened with, right from when the Oracle called him, to how his strange woman was teaching him to use the powers…the skills he had gotten. ‘You must learn to use and control them,’ she had said to him. ‘Not the other way around.’

Though she did not say one single word after that, it had been enough for Tim, for he remembered how during his battle with the Jokerz he had left that as if he wasn’t quite there…that it wasn’t him doing the fighting, but someone else, someone who had shown no mercy in his…or her actions.

What it had been was skills running free…and without any conscious control from him, to their full-extent.

“Oh.” Once again, Stephanie was as lost as a toddler in a fair. “So…she was teaching you how to control them, and that’s how you got hurt.”

“Yes.”

Well, there wasn’t much left to say after that, at least not from Stephanie’s end. She really needed to get some sleep, one hopefully without any strange Bat-women, and maybe in the morning things would be clearer. ‘Or maybe I’ll wake up and find that this all was a dream,’ she shook her head at her own thoughts. ‘Yeah sure. Like that’s going to happen. And it’s not like everything about this is bad,’ she glanced at Tim. ‘No sir, some things are in fact very good…very hunkie.’

“You should get some sleep,” Tim gestured towards her bedding.

“Oh, yes,” Stephanie’s cheeks colored at being caught gawking. “You?”

“I...I’ll keep watch.” There was no way Tim going to sleep tonight. So spooked was he that he was considering actually forgoing any sleep.

“Uh-okay. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Note: Well that took long…Maybe because I veered (a lot) from the comic story. Then again, this isn’t supposed to be a word for word copy.

Still, next…the journey continues. First stop? Well, lets just say that I hope you’ve read the Elseworlds comic (Riddle of the Beast) and also have seen the JLU animated series.