Batman Beyond 'Fan Fiction Story'
By Tayla Drago
Episode# 44 – Out of the Past
Terry, Gwen, and Megan take Bruce out on the town for his birthday, including a performance of 'The Legend of Batman', a musical based on Batman's legacy.
"I am vengeance...I am the night...I am..." the man playing as Batman begins to sing. "Batman!"
From three men and three women begin to sing in their villain costumes.
"Batman!"
"Batman!"
"There is a song the good folks sing!"
"Song the good folks sing!"
"Batman!"
"About a hero on the wing!"
"Hero on the wing!"
"Batman!"
"I am Gotham's Darkest Knight, the villains' darkest fright, turn on the signal light, for Batman! Batman!"
A huge wild applause happens for others to love it.
"They got a good one of me, huh?" Megan questions the other three. "Not bad."
It is apparently quite popular with the public of the day, including Terry, with sold-out shows.
"Are you enjoying this, Gwen?" Terry asks his girlfriend.
"I never been to a Boardway show before until tonight, Terry...This is fun!"
She seems to be enjoy it a lot with Terry and Megan with her husband, but Bruce himself...
"You hate me, don't you?" Bruce questions Terry.
"Lighten up. It's your birthday."
Like he already doesn't know about that and Bruce Wayne's age.
"Don't remind me."
Seems to be fun for Gwen for Bruce to be happy for her to see a show like this to like the real Batman only...The next scene happens where a guy dress as Gordon goes up to Batman.
"Good work, Caped Crusader! Once again, you've saved our fair city from those vile miscreants!"
"They were no problem, Commissioner! For as we all know, criminals are.." other Batman sings again.
"A superstitious, cowardly lot! They plan and plot, but they always get caught!"
Then the two together.
"Their evil schemes all come to naught! A superstitious, cowardly lot!"
"It's schway." Terry said to Bruce about the musical.
But to Bruce himself...
"It's schwarbage." he said back.
Bruce is naturally unimpressed, believing it to be a mockery of everything he has ever worked for, and leaves in the middle of the performance with Megan tagging along.
"Bruce, wait..." Megan follows him. You guys watch the show. I'll see Bruce home. Don't mind him. (Please don't be upset because of your age, Bruce. Please...?)"
Having Bruce's secret wife worry about him, Terry and Gwen stayed to enjoy the rest of the show.
"Will Uncle Bruce be okay? He looks sad when it's his Birthday."
"Maybe there's a lot on his mind to be with Megan instead." he thought about it. "Who knows. But at least I have you, Gwen."
Enjoying the rest of the night for the two kissed...Back in the Batcave, Bruce looks at some pictures of the women in his life. From Zatanna, Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, Andrea Belmont, Lois Lane, and Selina Kyle/Catwoman. Still, none of them could ever replace the women he truly loves a lot more being Megan Tsuki, the Psyche to love and to marry.
"Bruce, I knew you've be looking at the women who loved you for most..." she said. "What's wrong with me?"
"It's not that, Megan, I just wish for us to be young for a while to get special spark in our lives again."
Megan notice something from the Batcomputer.
"Hey, no picture of Talia al Ghul on here." she said.
"You want me t have a photo of your little sister who try to steal me away form you?" ask Bruce.
From losing her and Ra's from the fall that one time, part of Megan misses her while the other hate her only sister to have Bruce love her instead.
"I don't know...Hate her attitude, but she didn't have to die with Ra's..."
From Ace's growling to spell someone familiar to the two.
"Ace?" Bruce was confused.
"I know you missed her, but you don't even have a picture of this woman either." Talia shows herself. "Hello, Sister."
Talia was still alive! But how? Either way, Bruce was happy to see her again and Megan to have her sister alive and well for them to hug each other.
And then, Talia herself appears in person: Talia, as young and beautiful as ever, wishing him a happy birthday, and mildly surprised that Bruce doesn't have a picture of her as well.
"Talia! You're alive! But how? Tell me!" she was shock and happy to see while also being very confused. "(Because either way, I'm so happy to have a family in my life again to be normal.)"
"I miss you too, Sister, believe me."
Talia brought with her a meal of roasted pheasant with truffle risotto, just like what they once shared at a small bistro in Milan, but Bruce states that he can't eat such things any longer, and asks why she is there.
"I guess the Lazarus Pit did wonder to you, Talia." said Bruce.
"Yes...What my Father did with it is a cursed to have it down to me next over the years to still stay young, but it's the chance to have you two love birds to be young again. I wish to give it you, my only sister, and you my Beloved."
Talia admits that she has made free use of her father's last Lazarus Pit, and now she wants to offer its powers to Bruce, a chance to be young again and Megan too.
"Us? Young again?"
Terry and Gwen arrive back, and they are introduced, though Terry shows that he knows all about Talia and her father from Bruce's files to his mentor's mild surprise.
"Who's this girl?" ask Gwen.
"An old friend of mine, this is Talia al Ghul." said Bruce.
"And Talia, this is Terry McGinnis and Gwen Grayson. Also a couple."
"I've heard a lot about them. The two new Batman and Batwoman had to be the right choice for them to be so young."
Looks like Talia knows all about them...
"Hello, Talia..." Gwen felt something odd about her. "(Weird, she's different than she was when Uncle Bruce and Megan meant her many years ago...)"
"I've read a lot about you too. You're the daughter of Ra's al Ghul and Megan too who was part of the mess, one of the old man's worst enemies from way back. You helped Batman and Megan fight Ra's one last time in the Near-Apocalypse of '09. For the last couple of decades you been putting your father's money to work cleaning up the mess he made. Current residence is a two hundred acre estate on New Cuba."
Bruce gives Terry a surprised look.
"Hey, not bad..." this also surprises Megan.
"What? Did you think I was down here playing vid-games?" Terry said to Bruce.
Terry unknowingly repeats Bruce's question. Talia simply states she's offering Bruce a gift, and that she's staying at the Gotham Plaza until tomorrow night before taking her leave.
"Try thinking about, Beloved...I only wish is to see you happy again. And to you too, Sister."
Once Talia left, both Gwen and Terry had to ask Bruce and Megan what Talia meant from the nature of this special gift...
"What gift?" the two asked.
The next day, Terry and Gwen tell Max about it...
"ETERNAL YOU-?!"
"Shh...Maxie, please." Gwen tells her friend.
She stops, remembering they're in a library; Terry pulls her aside.
"Eternal youth?" Max whispers to them.
In conversation with Max at school, Terry, having been told all about the Lazarus Pit and its side effects, confides that while he doubts Bruce would go through with it, he could see Bruce was tempted by the offer.
"That's not all, Megan denies doing it." said Gwen. "She said her time with Bruce to be married and help out one another is the most important thing of their love and team work to ever happen."
"You think he'll do it?"
"I doubt it...Though there's part of Bruce who really wants to..." Terry explains. He has sometimes seen it in Bruce's eyes: Bruce would like to be Batman again and continue the crusade. "And for Bruce to leave Megan for being young again could be bad."
Gwen already hated the feeling already.
"They we need to make sure it doesn't."
"(From a woman to come back after many years or for an old man like him leaving his bride to be young again?)" Gwen inner self asks the others. "(I don't know, Gweny, you tell me.)"
Max wonders if such a situation would put an end to Terry's own heroics, which he now realizes is a possibility.
"Whatever happens, you two better find out soon." she said to them.
En route to Talia's hotel, Bruce's car blows a tire.
"I got this, Bruce." Megan helps him out.
"It's fine, Megan." he wanted to do it to take a long time.
He pulls over and after activating a distress beacon to the Batcomputer slowly gets out to change it, feeling more infirm than ever. Then, a group of muggers try to rob Bruce, who he and Megan fight them off. Scared, one of the muggers grabs a nearby woman and tosses her to the middle of the street.
"Hey!" Megan was afraid to shoot the person without the woman getting hurt.
"Let her go!"
Bruce manages to get to her, but he is too feeble and falls down while trying to get back to the sidewalk. Both are about to be flattened by an oncoming truck, when Batman, having received the beacon, arrives and saves them while Batwoman pushes the truck aside to keep on driving.
"That's right, pal, keep on trucking." she makes a joke. "Girl and Bruce are saved."
Megan checks on her husband's conditions.
"Bruce, are you okay?!"
Bruce bemoans his own helplessness.
"He's not so happy lately..." Batman said to himself.
In Talia's suite at Gotham Plaza, Bruce admits he's not sure why he's even visiting and Megan to tag along with him, relating the roadside incident.
"I would've done more if Terry or Gwen haven't saved me and that girl."
Talia says that no one has earned a second chance more; he has given up his whole life in service to others; and what's more, she wants a second chance to be with him.
"Maybe you have faith to give yourself a second chance to change it all, become young again...You and I can change the world if we do it together, and you too, Sister." She proposes to merge their corporations, and thus broadening her philanthropy to other nations.
"I'm not so sure it's safe, Talia, maybe Bruce and I might..."
But Bruce accepts for Megan to have a very bad feeling about it all.
"Okay." he said he was in. "Megan, I have to do this. You can with me."
But she had an odd feeling, even from Talia to be touching her hands on hers weirdly...
"Try to think tis over, sweet sister."
"Ah...Yeah... (Wow! What was that all about?)" Megan asks herself.
With Terry and Gwen accompanying Megan him, Bruce flies with Talia to her estate on New Cuba.
"An quiet type of plane ride this is, huh...?" Gwen said. "I just want to help out Uncle Bruce in any way I can."
Besides Megan not liking the idea at all. Bruce still has some misgivings, wondering if he even has the right to artificially prolong his life, but Talia soothes them.
"All of this is for you two...The pit is much safer than last time." Talia also says something to Terry. "For you, Terry, and your girlfriend shouldn't worry either."
"I'll tell you right now, there's no way I'm wearing the Robin suit."
She notices that Terry also has doubts and assures him that Bruce won't be taking back the Batsuit even after the treatments are over, not if she has anything to say about it.
"I promise you both and Sister that I'll be with Beloved's side through all of this to happen." she says so. "I know what I'm doing."
As Gwen and Terry waited for Bruce to start off, Talia tells them about Ra's on who and what he was before he finally passed on.
"Your father to love but to not like his ideas at all, huh? And Megan..."
"She's fine. A lot to worry about her husband, I too would if I were to marry him in her place." she said. "I do miss him a lot for some parts to have change if he did...Ra's al Ghul was a man of many contrasts. Leader, environmentalist-"
"Sociopath." Talia brings up her ear, indicating she heard that. "Sorry."
I think Talia gets the point for Gwen to find it hard to trust in someone who was Bruce and Megan's enemy.
"I was going to say father. I think this is how he like to be remembered."
For Gwen to pick up on something strange to keep to herself about it for Megan to be on to something already.
"(I'm not the only on who knows about Talia's odd behavior...Terry, me, and even Megan herself.)" said Gwen.
And now, it begins...Bruce go in it as the others watch and worry for some, even Megan the most.
"Bruce..."
Bruce has his first exposure to the Pit; he is briefly driven mad by the process and nearly attacks Terry when he goes over to him, but is quickly sedated.
"Uncle Bruce, don't! It's Terry!" Gwen had her fire out a bit to keep Bruce away. "I don't want to hurt you, but if I must...!"
"It's fine..." Megan sees Talia using some spray to place Bruce to go to sleep. "He just needs to rest up. (It worked. Still, Bruce, you all gave us half a scared.)"
Talia tells Terry and Gwen that the process is much improved from before.
"It's much better than it was a long time ago. Believe, you two, it'll be fine now."
Terry doesn't look reassured.
"Gwen, are you thinking what you're thinking too?"
"I am, Terry. I think something's up with Talia, like she's another person and not her real self. As well as Megan knowing about this, she and Uncle Bruce are both in danger."
For them and Megan were on the case to see what Talia was up to...As Bruce wakes up to see him looking a bit younger, Talia explains that it will take several more treatments before the process is complete. Bruce now resembles a man in his 50's: hair partially white, but possessed of a physique nearly as powerful as it was in his glory days as Batman.
"You look younger again, Bruce, I like it." Megan said to hugging him.
"Thanks, Megan, and are you sure you don't want to do this with me?"
About that...
"I want to, but something's odd about Talia, my own little sister, that I feel something off to lose you and her..."
"But why?" he asks his wife.
"Bruce...What are you saying? Don't tell me you still choose to love Talia's young self than me if I wasn't in the pit like you were!" this made Megan look sad. "Please don't do this to me to leave her-!"
"I won't...Never to you, Megan, but I would love a few weeks with us to feel and be young for a while. Not for your sister, but for me?"
Oh, that's good. Bruce won't live Megan for her younger looking sister Talia, to makes her feel a bit happy to do it on certain condition with him.
"I'll think about it. I just need to walk around for a bit, Bruce, excuse me. And thanks."
Good, Bruce was happy to be having Megan in his life with a little bit a change for her to start investigating more...
As Bruce and Terry work out in the gym together, Bruce is briefly exhilarated at his feeling of power, but then he cracks and angrily says that he is cheating nature just like Ra's to see Megan look upset because of this. He informs Talia's attendant, Carter, that they are leaving, but Carter makes it clear that they are prisoners. For one unique moment, Bruce and Terry fight side-by-side against the estate's thugs for Gwen to see and help the boys out.
"Terry! Uncle Bruce! What's going on?" she asked.
"Come on, Gwen!" Terry grabs her hand. "We're getting out of here!"
Stopping outside Talia's bedroom, Bruce hears Ra's al Ghul's unmistakable voice coming from inside. Bruce breaks in and sees Talia, seemingly alone. Now Megan knows something's up to hack into the systems to also try out the pit herself to aid the others, with some after shock to treatment from her watch.
"(This looks bad...And I'm going to regret this tomorrow...)"
Going in, will Megan be unharmed? As Bruce demands to know where Ra's is.
"Where is he, Talia?" Bruce asks Talia. "Your father's voice, I heard it!"
"He's here, I can sense Ra's." Gwen tells her to then getting it. "Wait...You're not...!"
Talia laments that she had hoped to keep this secret from him...
"I guess what's done, is done now..." then Ra's al Ghul's voice issues from her own mouth. "Detective."
"I knew it...You're Ra's using your daughter's own body!" Gwen figures it out.
No way! Momentarily shocked, Bruce, Gwen, and Terry are then literally shocked into unconsciousness by Carter.
"Tsuki will be my again and so will you too."
With Megan trying to get a hold of her younger self 'whatever it looks like' to hack into the place of Talia's right away...Outside the estate two of Ra's thugs, Mikey and Carl, prepare to toss Terry and his backpack into a crocodile pond and Gwen. Well, her other self kicks in.
"Burning passion. Batwoman!" Gwen transforms.
However, Terry regains consciousness and overpowers them and Gwen/Batwoman's help, then rushes back to the castle.
"We better hurry." he said.
"Right, but you know I had to come out because Gweny needed me. Let's go save the two old love birds from the fake lady!"
"(From the man who's using his own daughter's body you mean...)" Gwen corrects her other self.
Inside, Bruce awakens in restraints, hooked up to a device in the Pit chamber. Ra's al Ghul, occupying the body of his own daughter, explains how, after their last battle, his own body was too injured even for the Pit to restore.
"You always were the perfect specimen, Detective. Even old age has not softened you as much as I had feared." Ra's said. "As for my other daughter, this will be great to be bond with power and loving family again once I find her."
"I should have known you'd cheat death again, Ra's."
"I don't cheat death, I master it. Though I assure you, this time my longevity comes at a price most dear." In order to avoid death, he called on Talia to make the ultimate sacrifice: herself.
That's so mess up!
"Talia." Bruce felt bad for the real Talia's long gone.
Ra's had developed a computer allowing him to transfer his consciousness into another body, but at the time, it would only work for someone who was a close genetic match.
"I must move on to a new host body: Yours!"
"Sure Ra's, why not?" said Bruce. "Anything to hold off the Grim Reaper another few seconds." Bruce contemptuous. "I take it back. You don't cheat death. You whimper in fear of it."
Now, however, he has refined the computer to remove this restriction, and he immediately hit on Bruce as the 'perfect specimen'. The entire scheme was a ruse to make Bruce's body ideal to house Ra's al Ghul's spirit.
"SILENCE!" he slaps Bruce in the face.
"And you hit like a girl." he smirks.
Ra's also reveals that the incident with the tire and the mugger was staged. Once the transfer is complete, Ra's will reappear in Gotham with proof as being Bruce and Talia's long-lost son, making him the heir to Bruce's fortune and company.
Terry, now donning the Batsuit, enters the Pit chamber in time to interrupt the mind transfer. Ra's attacks with a sword and the two face off. With Batman backed onto the computer's control panel, he catches Ra's sword between his hands on a downswing and redirects the point into the panel, electrocuting Ra's into unconsciousness, and starting a fire.
Bruce breaks out from his restraints, and they both run out of the room, Batman carrying an unconscious Ra's. But Ra's wakes up and runs back in, shouting that he cannot let the computer be destroyed. Reaching the burning console, he activates the fire suppression systems, managing to keep the computer intact.
Behind him, a live electrical cable damaged by the fire breaks and when he turns around, he has just enough time to witness the cable swing freely towards the Pit...Bruce and Batman reach the outside of the mansion just before it goes up in a massive explosion that nearly knocks them off their feet. Batman wants to go back in to look for Ra's, but Bruce says, "Whatever was in there, died years ago".
Back in the Batcave, Bruce is looking at a picture of himself and Talia at what may very well be the same bistro in Milan that Ra's had mentioned: he actually did have a picture of her after all. His body is gradually returning to its normal age and will fully do so in about a week, but he's not bothered by it. Suiting up, Terry asks if she was "the" woman; the annoyed Bruce notes that Terry ought to be getting out on patrol, at which he does with a smile. Bruce switches off the screen and says softly, "Rest well, beloved" and whether he actually needs it yet or not, takes up his cane and leaves for the mansion above.