A New Dark Knight

It was yet another dark and dangerous night in the criminal ridden city of Gotham. The shadowy and eerie metropolis had been changed quite a bit over the last forty years. Nevertheless one thing remained unaffected that even time had failed to erase, and that was the sinister city was still corroded with malevolence. It came in scores of different forms, beginning with the normal petty pickpocket exalting to the most noxious and bizarre villains. Yes, the dark city of Gotham had a very colorful history, most of which was full of brutality and terror.

The city of Gotham may've been swallowed up by evil and the law enforcement couldn't do anything about it. And then he had materialized the mysterious and valiant hero. A hero who remained an enigma from the shadows, he was there one minute then the next minute gone. He was the ruler of the night, for he was the night, the Dark Knight. He was Batman! Once he came the evils of Gotham City had been the ones blanketed with their own fear. For countless years the Dark Knight and his allies, Robin, Nightwing, and Batgirl had danced the sweet tango of battle in the never ending war of evil of their home. Then one day they vanished into thin air and with their absence the city once more ran amok with evil.

By the year 2039 Gotham had received an extreme makeover. The perpetual red skies had been painted over with a stunning shade of violet and the buildings of this murky borough were higher then the tempestuous clouds of the sky. Innovative technology had been casted into existence and like with all progress things got better and better. Although devoid of Batman around the criminal world had once more seized power over of the city and laid siege to it.

It would seem the city and its inhabitants were damn to a living hell. There seemed to be no hope whatsoever. And just when it seemed the bright flame hope seemed to be permanently extinguished, hope had come. One gloomy night a night like any other a lone figure was glimpsed gliding along like a ghost in the smog ridden skies. The black and red figure streaked across the heavens. After that night the city soon realized that their protector had returned.

One and all were buzzing on the subject of the latest Batman. Rumors and questions sprang up like wildfire all asking the same thing. Who was this new Batman, why had he been gone so long and most importantly could he handle protecting Gotham City by himself? Well the people of Gotham and the new Batman were about to find out.

Things start out okay. The new guy did a fairly decent job dealing with the new rouges of Neo Gotham. On the other hand it almost immediately became obvious that the new bloke needed assistance. After all, the original Batman had had friends he could count on. Not a soul is capable of do anything completely on their own, not without some type of help to aid them in their desired ambitions.

Right after the Tomorrow Knight had dealt with renegade heroes, The Terrific Trio, he came into a skirmish which he couldn't prevail by himself. It was a very late night, ten to midnight and the new Batman, who unknown to the world, was a young high school student named Terry McGinnis.

Terry had taken up the mantel of Batman after his father's murder at the hands of Derek Powers. Following an explosive quarrel with his father Warren he left to meet his girlfriend Dana. They had been harassed by a faction of Jokers, one of scores of gangs who had been inspired by the original Batman arch nemesis, an insane perpetual smiling lunatic. These idiots had decided to cause as much mayhem as possible in the name of the late Clown Prince of Crime. In the course of a series of extraordinarily circumstance he had met Bruce Wayne and in next to no time became his protégé.

Despite the fact that Terry had demonstrated he was capable of combating along with juggling the responsibilities of his two new worlds, it was a bit obvious that this was a little too much for one teenager to handle alone. Little did Bruce and he realize that help would come, but who would come to their aid, would rock their world and things would never be the same again.

Terry thought after defeating the Trio he'd get some downtime. But no sir! There was no such thing as a downtime when it came to being the Dark Knight. He had been attempting to do a dissertation on Gotham historical figures. He had just about finished it when a small tremor rocked the floor. He had to seize his laptop quickly before it fell off and broke. He could hear his younger brother Matt screaming like a little girl in the next room. After a few more moments of shaking like a leaf it stopped.

"Terry! Terry, are you alright?" called his mother Mary as she rushed into her son's room. She was wearing a pale lavender apron and had some pie mix on her face. Cowering next to her was Matt who still seemed a bit rattled.

"Yeah, Mom, I'm okay, and luckily so is my homework. I highly doubt that Mr. Carter would accept the fact my computer was smashed before I printed my essay. He is so not the understanding type. Man! That's like the third earthquake in less then two weeks. And add that odd storm we had the other day things have been just so off the wall!" he replied hastily.

He glanced over his shoulder at his window. He caught a glimpse of a strange colored light streaking across the night sky. At the same time as he had been saving Gotham he knew Bruce had been investigating these weather conditions anomalies. For Bruce Wayne after all he'd been through he always thought there could be some underworld connection. And as such they needed to investigate it. On the other hand, it had been pretty peaceful for the past two days so Terry wasn't worried.

He then turned back to his mom and brother. His mother seemed a little fazed by the recent events but she didn't seem nearly as scared as young Matt was. He was still shaking and to Terry, he must've been thinking the worse. Kids usually were the first to panic in a crisis.

"Man, Ter, right, Mom! Do you think the world is coming to end, like in that movie we saw last week? You know in the movie all these bizarre things happened and people started disappearing and in next to no time the world blew up!" Matt exclaimed madly as he clutched his model rocket so tightly he broke the right wing off. He didn't seem to notice it.

Mary's features faultier some but then became composed again. "Matt, I don't think the world gonna end. I would think if it was gonna end it would've done it by now. Now I don't know what going on, but I'm sure we've nothing to worry about. Now let's go have dinner, I made meatloaf," she said as she ushered her sons to the dinning room.

Terry didn't have much time to dwell on the radical weather. He barely hit the pillow and then his cell rang. "No! Not now!" he moaned as he grabbed his cell and clicked it. "Hello?"

"Suit up, that seismic activity we had has done a reasonably a bit of damage in business district. If you've been following the news reports that district has been giving the police quite a bit of trouble. The Jokers have been using it too store illegal firearms," Bruce informed him.

Terry moaned once more before snapping back, "Do you ever sleep? And how do you know they've got illegal firearms anyway?" he said as he pulled the suit on.

"Barbara informed two hours ago that a number of Jokers had hijacked a crate bursting of non-projectile prototypes weaponry. They did it just before the quake hit so the police haven't had time to find them. So you better hurry. I've got a strong instinct that another weather abnormality is about to strike in just an hour and half. So you better get going."

"As you wish, Wayne," Terry muttered as he jumped from his window into the Batmobile. With a yawn he hit the thrusters and soon was rocketing across the purple skies. Even with the speed of this awesome vehicle it would be at least twenty minutes before he reached the Jokers' territory.

"So, Wayne, any thoughts on what's been causing all this odd weather? I mean we've had to deal with all the aftermaths of each of these crazy things. So any clue as to what's causing it?" he asked curiously as he banked left.

"I've been scanning as well as researching it each and every one of these oddities with great care. It'd appear that there are random buildups of temporal anomalies. Each of these anomalies is emerging in different areas with an increase of energy. I'm still not sure what is causing these energy buildups but I'm getting better at predicting them. So you better speed up if you want to nail those Jokers before the next one hit."

"Well, I'll give you credit, Wayne, you're one smart cookie. Looks like those Jokers are having quite a party. Well it's time to do what a Batman has to do," as he leapt from the Batmobile and landed in a gaggle of Jokers, each and everyone holding some type of Buck Rogers weaponry.

"It's the Batman!" exclaimed the leader in shock.

"You've all been naughty children, I think its time you had a timeout," he replied coolly as he fired a batarang at them. The firearm started to hiss and crackle and the ringleader dropped the gun just as it went up like the Forth of July.

"Get him, you idiots!" the emerald haired loony commanded as lasers were fired every which way.

"Oh, shit," Terry exclaimed quietly as he began to exchange blows for his life. He may've had the suit but even with all of its technologically advanced gadgets he still was only human. Bruce was giving all the advice he could but Terry was still in a deadly struggle for his life, even his cloaking ability wasn't helping very much. Finally one of the Jokers managed to hit him in the chest. He fell down to the ground with a loud thud.

"TERRY!" screamed Bruce as he watched through Terry's mask. It fizzled for a few moments then came back into focus. One of the female Jokers held a club over his face and smiled wickedly.

"Looky here, boys! The Bat has just had his wings clipped! HA!" she sang as she hit him with the club. Terry moaned painfully as the headache ravaged his brain. "So, Boss, whatcha are we goin' to due to him now?"

Before he could answer the ground began to quake and the skies turned into a rainbow of light accent with lightning and thunder. Terry managed to get up and lean against a fire barrel. He watched in amazement has a vortex of light spun above the city. It spun faster and faster and then an explosion of colored light and sound went off and blinded everyone. When they could see again they were surprised. In the sky was there was the Batmobile, but they could also see Terry's Batmobile parked next to it.

Before anyone could say anything someone dropped out of the second Batmobile and landed in front of them. Everyone let out of a gasp of surprise. Standing before them was another person in the Batsuit. It looked like just like Terry's but it was midnight blue not black and whoever was wearing had extremely long black hair. It almost immediately became apparent that this was a Batgirl.

She smiled and said "Is this a privet party or can anyone join?" and before anyone could react she did a midair kick and took out two Jokers. She then disarmed a third one and then went into a handstand locking the poor bloke between her legs and did a back flip and sent him flying into a wall. Smiling still she raced over to Terry's side and yanked him up.

'Yo! You better get fighting or we are both gonna be greasepaint for these idiots!"

Though he still was in pain and a bit confused he got back into the fight and in a few minutes with this Batgirl's help won the fight. Despite the fact that both of them had sustained a lot of injuries from the fight they still managed to summon the police and get back into their Batmobiles.

Terry turned on the comlink and hoped he could patch through to this Batgirl's radio. He was surprise that she was doing the same thing. They both stared at one another for a few moments then he broke the ice.

"Look I don't know who you are or where you're from but you saved my life. So thanks."

"You're welcome. So where do we go from here?" she asked as they raced across the sky.

"If you follow me we're going to the Batcave. My friend will then deal with you, whoever you are,"

"You have a Batcave? Like a gigantic cave with an enormous mainframe and relics from over forty years ago? And you've got a friend to be of assistance to you? I think I know who your friend is. Still lead the way, Batman."

And with that the two Batmobiles raced through the skies and both shared some concerns. Still one thing was very clear. Nothing was gonna be the same again.