Batman Beyond 'Fan Fiction Story'
By Tayla Drago
Episode# 25 - Terry's Friend Dates a Robot
Batman prepares for battle while Bruce trains him on fighting the criminal adversaries. While Gwen learns the fire controls and herself to be fighting as Batwoman on the other side of the Batcave room. The Riddler, Two-Face, and Killer Croc all fight against him, but the new Batman is just as effective against them as his mentor.
"How's Terry doing, Uncle Bruce?" Gwen checks on his progress.
"Like you are controlling your fire powers better every day, Terry's improving."
During the fight with Croc, Batman rips his head off revealing it to be a robot.
"I see...But maybe improving a bit too much for you to lay it down on him."
"You like what you saw there, huh Gwen?" Terry asks her.
"It was pretty cool." Gwen answers back.
Bruce says he has improved but could be a little more subtle.
"Not bad, but your execution could be more...upgrade." He instructs Terry to get a replacement robot after school.
Out at Hamilton Hill High School, Howard goes around the school announcing a party at his house, but no one seems to be interested. From Nelson and his gang...
"Who I want to see most at the place if I do go is Gwen and Dana."
And the same with Chelsea, Blade, and Dana.
"He can't be serious..."
"What if he is for us to have some fun there? Think about it."
For Dana to see Terry and Gwen to be sitting next to each other to see how Howard was doing, she was still feeling down for being dumped. It might be a while for her to feel better to hanging out as friends again.
"Who knows...And with those two, I rather not stay with them forever." she said.
Terry and Gwen tell him to give up on the popular students and that he's being shallow.
"I just want to be popular." he said.
"Come on, Howard, it's who you are that counts...not what you are like me for others like who I am with or without fire powers." Gwen shows them off a little. "But I still don't want to be a popular one at this school."
"No wonder why you have the hots for her now, Terry."
"Howard, come on..." Terry was blushing. "But you know we'll be at the party for sure."
Howard, however, doesn't care and claims that what he really wants is a cool girlfriend and popularity.
"If I can try to get Chelsea, Blade, or Dana to think I'm cool to have a girlfriend like one of them or some other hot girl, others will know of me." he said to them.
Is that even wise to try to do?
"But Dana might be a bit angry not to go out with any guy right now. (She's still mad at me, I still want to be her friend.)" Gwen then reminds Terry about the robot to pick up next. "Ah, Terry..."
"I know, got to get another robot for Mr. Wayne. Thanks, Gwen."
Terry and Gwen go off to the Synthroid factory and brings Howard along for the ride. While Terry deals with paperwork for Gwen to help him out, Howard wanders around and sees Louie, an employee, create a female for an unknown customer. Intrigued, Howard goes to Louie and orders a special order for himself in spite of the fact that he's told that it's illegal. He's specific about her appearance, particularly the height, hair, and eye color, but when it comes to personality, he only says she has to be absolutely devoted to him. For Gwen to feel something out to be an odd feeling that could turn out to be dangerous later on.
"(Huh?! I don't know what this strange feeling is...But something tells me it might be trouble, another robot.) thought Gwen.
The next day, the synthoid walks through the halls of school gathering a lot of attention, especially that of Nelson. However, she shoves off Nelson and says she's only interested in Howard. He introduces her as 'Cynth-i-a' and the two leave. Nelson is angry, believing that Howard doesn't deserve someone like her and plans to 'put him in his place'.
"As if a girl like her can fall for a geek like Howard..."
"Hey, Nelson, be nice!" Gwen stands up for his friend. "It's his first girlfriend to have, and not like you would get anywhere with another one."
Nelson still tires to make a move on Gwen.
"Unlike you and McGinnis are? What do you see in him?" he demands to know.
Feeling scared, Gwen slaps Nelson in the face to feel a slight burn.
"Because he gets me, unlike you do! Freak...!" Gwen leaves after that.
For others to laughs at Nelson, he'll teach Howard a lesson instead. With Cynthia overhears Nelson's plans and gets angry. Later, Nelson comes into the locker room from sports practice and finds that Howard's locker is open.
"Hey, Howard..."
He immediately begins a search. Cynthia is also in the locker room, and when Nelson is in position, she shoves over the lockers nearly crushing him. Gwen sees something for this Cynthia girl wasn't human at all to feel a robot type of feeling.
"(She's no human being...She tries to kill Nelson!)" she was shocked. "(I hate Nelson's attitude, but I don't want him to get hurt.)"
News of the accident spreads fast and the students wonder of its cause. Cynthia, however, coldly blows off the situation. The other students aren't very happy with her attitude.
"That girl has some issues." said Max.
"No kidding." both Chelsea and Dana together.
For Terry and Gwen to catch on, she tells her partner about it to whisper at one another.
"Terry, we might have a problem with Cynthia, I saw her hurting Nelson because he tries to hit on her."
Terry, Gwen, and Max go to investigate the fallen lockers with Max despite his objections it's the boy's locker room to bring Gwen along for the ride and discovers handprints deeply imbedded into them.
"Are you nuts?" Terry tells Max. "This is the boy's locker room! Gwen's fine with me, but having another girl?
Like Max cared.
"Yeah I can smell the mildew." she said.
"Hey, we're in it anyways if we stay close." Gwen found something from one of the lockers. "Look, two hand markings left on this part of the locker."
Terry finds it curious that someone with such small hands could push over the lockers. He scans for fingerprints but finds that there aren't any, which Max guesses that gloves might been worn.
"Maybe this person wore gloves?"
"I find that hard to believe." Gwen tries to feel something out again.
"Got anything?" Terry asked.
She might've got a clue.
"Someone did this to might be Cynthia to be very strong...I'm trying to figure it out next." she said. "(Could it be the odd robot feeling again?)
But to Max embarrassment the boys from gym class are heading in and she hides in a locker and Terry tells her that he'll let Mr. Silverstein know she'll be late much to her frustration. Lucky for Gwen to run into the girl's locker room to aid Max afterwards without the boys noticing. Now that he has Cynthia at his side, Howard re-announces his party, and the students are now interested. Chelsea even offers to have a dance with Howard, which upsets Cynthia so much that she cracks Howard's notebook with her bare hands.
"Hey, Gwen..."
Both Terry and Gwen saw something for Cynthia to do for she was a strong one.
"I saw it, Terry, it has to be her." she said. "And yes, I got Maxie out of the boy's locker room. And don't ask how."
Both Gwen and Terry notice this and follow her. They soon discover Cynthia trying to push over the school's stone logo onto Chelsea. When Terry tries to stop her, she attacks him, throwing him off the building.
"Move now or else." she said.
Gwen got bad to defend herself against Cynthia.
"Don't you..." she fires up. "HURT MY BOYFRIEND!"
Firing one off, it shows Cynthia to have melted parts of her finger to get hit to look all robot-like.
"Stay out of this."
There she goes to know that something was wrong with Cynthia.
"So, she's the robot." Gwen said to fly down to check on Terry next. "Terry? Are you okay?"
Terry's agility saves himself, and Cynthia's strength and abilities, as well as the evidence pointing towards her being the one who injured Nelson and various comments, she made to him that hinted at her origins, cause him to suspect her true nature.
"I'm good, Gwen! See? I'm okay!" he tells Gwen to overhear her say something when she was fighting with Cynthia. "Hey, did you say don't hurt my boyfriend? You mean me, right?"
Looks like Gwen did.
"Oh! Did I say that out loud?!" she felt ashamed. "Sorry! I was worried about you and I was thinking..."
"Hey, it's fine. It's sweet of you to worry about me." Terry said to having his hand on Gwen's face.
Holding that moment to stop, Gwen tells Terry on Cynthia.
"Terry, I saw her skin to be plastic to melt with fingers of a robot. This is big to have something like this run loose at our school. What are we going to do?"
They then call Max with Terry and Gwen's suspicions that Cynthia is a synthoid. Max is shocked that they even could make human-like synthoids, with Terry mentioning that the process is illegal, meaning he needs to do some sleuthing at Synthops.
"Does that mean someone got a hold of one of those things?" she asks them.
"Just keep an eye on her and not to hurt anyone if Cynthia does, the same goes for Dana." Terry tells Gwen. "I still care about her as a friend."
She understood to trust n Terry this time.
"I know, I want everyone to stay safe. Maxie, same with you. Good lucky."
Terry then tells Max to tell keep her eye on Cynthia in case she does anything drastic as he goes as Batman.
"Ready, Gwen?"
"Right." and she transforms into Batwoman next. "Burning passion. Batwoman!"
That night, Batman and Batwoman go back to the synthoid factory and finds Louie fulfilling more illegal orders.
"Your little cyber making is over now."
Batwoman sets Louie on fire a little from the pants to scare him with a warning.
"That was just a little taste of surrendering, pal. Don't make me turn you into deep fried chicken." she said. "We need to talk, all three of us."
"You ought to look into getting a synthoid, bat-freak! Two both of yous." he said to use a remote on something. "It'd give you both something to do on Friday night!" Louie then activates several synthoids and has them attack Batman and Batwoman but they are of little threat.
"Seriously?" Batwoman burns some to cutting the other robots down.
"(Batman, that man's getting away!)"
After the synthoids are done, Louie tries to flee and has a synthoid double confronts Batman to distract him but the ruse fails.
"Can we just talk about stuff? Get a good tip or something?" he was scared.
"Whatever..." Batwoman hacks through the system. "All yours, Bats."
Batman apprehends him and ends his sideline business.
"And you want a good tip? Get a real job."
Meanwhile, Howard is having trouble with Cynthia as she continues to shove anyone who shows any interest in him or tries to stop her. Howard takes her into his room and, after trying to call Louie to get her repaired, Cynthia cites that Howard's her only reason for living and existing. Howard tells her that he wants to see other girls. Upon hearing this, Cynthia malfunctions and becomes outright violent, nearly killing Howard. Max stops Cynthia momentarily, but the synthoid's strength proves to be too great. Max is almost killed, but Batman and Batwoman arrive to stop the carnage.
"Right on time, you two." she said.
Just in time at least.
"Party in the house-!"
"(Not now, please? Robot troubles to deal with first...)" said Gwen. "(I knew it was all Howard's doing with a reason, but not to hurt others. Cynthia's doing all of it to cause a mental malfunction to her entire system to lose it.)"
And for Megan to tell Gwen and Terry all about the robot works a few minutes ago.
Megan: Synthoids were a type of android that could take human appearance, either through holograms or by wearing a synthetic skin. They existed in at least the 2030's and by 2041, the private use of them was heavily regulated by the US government; ones that were able to disguise themselves as humans were illegal. Meanwhile, that same government semi-covertly used human-disguised synthoids for infiltrating and killing enemies of the state. A museum in Grandview City had an exhibit of old synthoid models, referred to in a tour as "experimental synthoid designs". These were humanoid but did not have the ability to pass as humans. In 2041, Bruce Wayne was buying commercially made synthoids for Terry to train with; they were designed to look like his old villains. Human-passing synthoids were later used as a key tool by the NSA: a large number of them were constantly coming in and out of a NSA debriefing center. The Zeta Project was a US government project to create a new, smarter model of infiltration synthoid. Eli Selig secretly added a conscience model to Infiltration Unit Zeta. The follow-up droid, Infiltration Unit 7, was far more powerful but lacked Zeta's intelligence.
"Help...!" said the scared Howard.
With a stronger opponent to face, Cynthia gets even more violent, forcing the party guests to flee the house for Batwoman's fire power nor Batman's items couldn't slow her down to keep on going. Since Cynthia is such a formidable opponent, the fight continues for a while.
"Howard, don't you see?" she said. "I was program to love only you."
"These things happen! We can still be friends!"
Not good for Gwen and Batwoman to hear clearly from Howard's mouth.
"Friends...? Are you stupid?!" she got mad.
"(Bad move, Howard...)" and Gwen.
Batman groans and puts a hand over his eyes. Here comes from bad to worse for this type of robot.
"Friends? FRIENDS?!" she starts to crackle with electricity.
In desperation, Howard tries to talk things out with her and naively suggests that they can still be friends which makes Batman slaps his forehead in disbelief at his stupidity.
"Wrong thing to say?" he asks the two-crime fighting duo.
"Is it ever the right thing to say?" Batman said back.
"Alright, I'm going in...! Ha!" Batwoman uses her Batarangs of fire and her staff to hit a lot on Cynthia to stop her and then go really haywire. "I think I got her...Kind of..."
I think this robot was going an overdrive now for Gwen to sense this next part.
"(Get out! She's going to blow!)"
The word 'friend' drives Cynthia completely mad. Her circuits overloaded, Cynthia explodes, destroying just about the entire house. Batman and Batwoman escape with Howard just in the nick of time. Batman drops Howard outside where the other students congratulate him on the party and its 'legendary' end.
"Later, gators." Batwoman said to fly off with Batman next.
Howard is happy that he now has the popularity he sought, but finds that Chelsea isn't interested in him, and to make things even worse, his parents arrive.
"So much for getting a girl." said Max.
"But he got popular, somehow..." and Dana.
Terry and Gwen act like they didn't know what happened to arrive of them seeing fire.
"I'll put some of it out."
With Gwen taking care of it, Terry sees of the robot doing a lot more damage when it blows up.
"Whoa...what the heck happened?" he asked.
And for Dana to still be a caring girl, she tells him.
"The party peaked early."
Howard's parents were very angry at both the fact that he maxed out their credit card—thereby forcing them to cut their vacation short, and that he blew their house up, accusing him of buying dynamite. Howard's friends leave him to his fate. Sorry, dude, but he'll be fine.
"Why me...?" he questions himself.
Anyways, once everyone left for Dana and Max, Terry walks Gwen back to Bruce's place to be talking for a bit.
"You think Dana will hang out with us as friends to not hate me forever, Terry?"
"Her?" he hears Gwen about it. "I think she'll get over it to finding someone else. And Howard too without the whole robot thing. We'll probably tell Bruce about one lose control to go on a rampage."
"Agreed. It's for the best without him hearing about the mess that just went down tonight."
Hard to know what will go from there, only for Terry to say something to Gwen, something very important to finally be told.
"Besides that, Gwen, you're awesome helping me solve the case. You're getting better every day...Enough to understand you more, to help you, know each other a lot, and..." Terry says it. "(Just say it already!) And for me to call you my girlfriend."
Oh, he said to Gwen! To her surprise, it was a joke, right? Not Terry to believe in that word to be very real.
"(What?) Terry, did you say that I was your girlfriend? Now I am to you? And official?"
"Look, what happened to Melanie and me, was a long time ago to not go into crime anymore. And Dana...again, she's special to have someone better, but for the both of us to look out for her."
He was right about that part.
"And Maxie?" she asked.
"What about her? We're just friends, that's all." he said to move up closer to Gwen. "Gwen, what you said about me as your boyfriend and other things we went through was hard, but I've finally made my decision to be with you and no one else. From the time I admit that I love you, saving you from the Brain Trust, and helping me through hard times, I knew I would find someone who gets me. And for Matt to say that he likes you, he was right about one thing...You're amazing."
I guess it's true for Terry to admit it all to Gwen to accept him as her new and first boyfriend now.
"(I don't believe it, Terry loves me...He's admitting to me he loves me...) This is a dream come true!" she hugs Terry. "Oh, Terry!"
"Gwen..."
For them to hug becoming a couple for themselves, but partners as Batman and Batwoman to keep a low profile was good to do. For there, of Terry kissing Gwen on the lips to be feel special.
"Terry?" Gwen moves a little. "You seemed very excited. I am too, but wow...That kiss."
"Sorry, I know. I want to take things slow both you and I. For us as Batman and Batwoman to know that we're a team for others to believe in that."
"But as us normally, we can show the world of our love. Understood."
For them to at least hug a bit longer to start off their relationship, Gwen's inner self says something for her to hear the news.
"(Terry and you, finally in love, Gweny, way a go.)" she said.
"You!" Gwen was surprised for her other self to say that.
"(I'm happy for you, really. Make sure he keeps you happy. I got you back, always.)"
And they will be happy on whatever happens to them next from this point on.
"Come on, Gwen, I'll walk you back home." said Terry.
For them to walk together and hold hands to start off their love nicely.
"Okay, but let's take the long way back." she said with a smile.
"I like that."
They do so for Bruce and Megan were both happy to see them in love at long last. It finally happened!