A/N Don't own any of these characters, so don't sue me.

Many thanks to DaisyJane for betaing this story. I think she is Wonder Woman in disguise.

Shameless shout outs. Hepburn, hope your enjoying the weather. Lady Isis Congrates on finishing school, finally :P. KittyBatman you have one sick imagination, but I still love your stories. Icha can't wait for the next installment! DaisyJane, I'm glad to see your writing up a storm!!! If I missed anyone else sorry.

Enjoy all!

Dark Claw

Chapter 1: The Accident.

Batman was sitting at his computer in the batcave. He was looking over video footage of a break in at one of Wayne Tech's warehouses that had occurred earlier this evening. The thieves were heavily armed. They'd taken a portable zero point generator. It was a first generation testing model and it would cost Wayne Tech millions to build another one.

It was a very sloppy break in. The group looked like little more than stupid muscle men who could barely follow orders most of the time. The leader was dressed in all black and wore a mask. On closer inspection he noticed that the leader was female. She seemed intelligent and was barking out orders to the others, who were totally unprofessional. They'd been lucky because he'd been tied up with Two Face across town. The Gotham Police Department had also been slow because of a bomb threat at a factory on the north side of the city.

His comm. buzzed as Robin contacted him. "Batman, I've found your thieves. They're holding up in a abandoned hotel on Clark St. and Wayne Ave."

Batman punched up the map on his computer as well as pulling up the blue prints of the hotel."I will be there in ten minutes, keep an eye on them." he said as he downloaded the blue prints to his PDA. He started his way to the Batmobile. He pushed a button on his belt. "Batman to Batgirl." He called into his cowl's built-in comm. A few seconds later she replied.

"Batgirl here." she replied in a chipper voice.

"I need you to go to Clark St. and Wayne Ave. as soon as possible. Batman out." he quickly said and closed the connection before she could reply. The Batmobile canopy opened up as he hopped in. A deafening roar from the engine caused some of the bats to fly around the cave. He was gone before they found a new perch.

He parked the Batmobile in an alleyway a few blocks away from the hideout. He made his way towards Robin. Robin had a pair of binoculars covering his eyes as he stared at the building. "They haven't moved at all." Robin told him without looking away from the building.

He pulled out his own binoculars and looked over the building. It was three stories tall and very run down. The neon sign was completely smashed. Most of the lower level windows and doors were boarded up. The top level windows all had been either smashed or removed. He spotted a lone sentry on the roof.

"We hit the roof. Take out the guard and make our way down," he said to Robin as he placed his binoculars back in their pouch. Robin mirrored his actions and nodded his head in agreement. The two silently made there way to an joining roof top. The guard looked bored and was not really paying attention. Robin knocked him out before he even knew what was happening.

Batman and Robin entered through the roof entrance. The stairs were littered with garbage. They avoided the mess without making any noise. They stopped at a closed door that had light coming out from between the cracks. Batman held up a finger to his lips.

They listened to the conversation going on behind the door.

"I still don't understand how this will make us rich, lady." a gruff voice said.

"It's a multi-dimensional portal generator, you can use it to teleport to another dimension and steal from it. No one will be able to pin the crime on you because your not going to stay in that dimension." a clever female voice said.

"HUH?" was all the male voice replied.

"Watch and I will show you." she said said slowly as if speaking to a five year old. Batman motioned for Robin to be ready. A low humming sound started to slowly pitch higher. Batman knew she was powering up the device. They would have to move quickly before it was fully powered.

He stepped back and kicked the door off its hinges. The small group of men and the woman turned to see Batman move towards them. Robin came flipping out from behind him. Robin focused on the four men in the room. Batman moved quickly towards the lady in black.

He grabbed the petite brunette and her brown eyes enlarged to comical proportions. She was so scared that she pressed the button on the remote in her hands without realizing what she had done. The noise from a small round object started to ramped up quickly.

Batman turned his attention from her to the device. It was vibrating and hopping around on the wooden crate. He heard the woman scream, "NO!" as she struggled in his hold. In that instant the device stopped moving for a millisecond. Then exploded. Metal fragments flew everywhere. The blast knocked both Batman and the lady in black back several meters. As he laid there trying to breathe he saw the room start to change rapidly.

He looked up and saw a blue furry man beast standing above him looking concerned. The image again rapidly changed from the room with the man and back to the hotel room. Finally, he passed out from not being able to breathe.

Robin turned and looked as he heard the explosion. He watched as Batman hit the ground but what shocked him the most was the rapid flashing of another body overlaid onto his. All Robin could see was very quick glimpses of a man in a yellow suit bent over Batman at first and then lying in his place before Batman reappeared. The whole scene happened in a matter of seconds before it stopped.

The men not knocked out ran from the room. Robin slowly walked over to Batman's prone body. He looked over at the lady and quickly turned away from her. She was clearly dead as her bloody body had taken most of the shrapnel and her head was practically decapitated. He looked back at Batman. He had a very large chunk of metal sticking out of his chest but it was moving up and down very slowly. Robin was relieved to see him still breathing.

Robin knelt next to Batman."Batman?" was all he could manage to say as worry constricted his throat. He waited for a reply.

Bruce heard the voice of Robin and managed to wheeze out. "Help me up." Robin rose to his feet and tried to pull Batman up. But he couldn't move him at all. It was like he weighed a thousand kilograms. Bruce felt the pain in his chest and looked down and saw the metal chunk sticking out of his chest.

For some unknown reason he pulled it out. He was shocked to see that his chest didn't start to gush out blood. The shard of metal had blood all over it. He felt better now and sat up under his own power. Robin just stood there watching him and he leaned closer to Bruce to examine the wound on his chest. His eyes grew large as he looked at it closely. There wasn't a even a scratch on his skin.

"Batman, lets get out of here." Robin finally spoke. Batman nodded his head in agreement. He was feeling very strange and needed to get back to the safety of the batcave to regroup. He couldn't focus at all. He stood on shaky legs and followed Robin out of the hotel.

Batgirl landed next to them and saw the concern on Robin's face. "What happened in there?" she asked them.

"I don't know, but we need to get Batman back to the Batcave. He was injured." Robin replied harshly. This surprised her as Robin never talked to her like this. He was usually more cheerful. She nodded her head as she surmised that something very wrong had happened.

By the time they got back to the Batcave, Batman was almost back to normal. But Tim and Barbara were not convinced. Tim told her everything that had happened on the way to the cave."Bruce, I want you to get checked out by Alfred." Tim told him. Bruce gave him a hard look. Barbara spoke up.

"Bruce, for once listen to Tim." Barbara gave him a hard stare.

Bruce shook his head and sighed in exasperation."Fine." He walked over to the examination table and got on it. Alfred came down after Tim ran and got him. Alfred was a little upset at hearing what Tim had told him but had on his normal stoic face when they got to Bruce.

"Lay back Master Bruce." Alfred asked him. Bruce sighed and did as he was told. Alfred looked at the battered suit with blood on it. It was to damaged to repair. He took out a pair of electrically powered scissors and cut down the middle of the bat symbol. He peeled back the kevlar and was shocked beyond belief. There was blood on his skin but no wounds of any kind.

"Master Tim you said he pulled out a large chunk of shrapnel from his chest?" Alfred asked him. Tim walked over to Alfred and stood next to him.

"Yes it was about eight to ten centimeters in length and there was about four to six centimeters embedded in his chest. Why?" he asked Alfred.

"There is only a minor amount of blood on the skin and no wound not even a scratch." Alfred said in amazement. Bruce lifted his head and looked down at his chest. He remembered pulling out the large chunk of metal. Normally he would have left it there so Alfred could remove it as it was best not to remove the object because it helped keep the bleeding down to a minimum and more damage could occur during the removal. What the hell was happening to him.

Alfred moved the portable x-ray machine over towards Bruce. He took a picture of his chest where the shrapnel had been. Alfred came over with the processed image. They looked at it in shock. Barbara and Tim saw the look on both of their faces.

"What is wrong?" Barbara asked. Tim stood next to her awaiting for an answer.

"The bones in my chest... they're composed of metal?!" Bruce said out loud as he looked at Alfred to confirm it. Alfred slowly nodded his head. Alfred took several more x-rays of different parts of his body. Each and everyone showed Bruce's bones were now metal.

Bruce quickly cut a piece of the batsuit that was covered in blood. He ran this sample through a DNA analyzer. It came back showing a meta gene to now be present in the sequence as well as other DNA foreign to Bruce's. He cross referenced it to other known meta genes and DNA in his database. It came back with a negative reference found. Did he have a new gene not cataloged? He thought about what had happened. Somehow the devise must've graphed foreign meta human DNA onto his own. He would have to return to the scene.

But he had a very odd craving at the moment.

"Alfred.. do we still have that box of cigars in the study?" he asked him. Alfred nodded his head.

"They haven't been opened yet, Sir."

"Could you bring it down, now?" Alfred turned and left to retrieve them. When Alfred returned Bruce opened the wooden box of imported cigars. Alfred watched as Bruce took one out. Taking a utility knife from his work bench he cut the end off. He took a torch and lit the cigar. Alfred watched as he inhaled the smoke and seem to savor the taste.

Alfred said nothing as Bruce went over and got another batsuit. He returned with the cigar still in his mouth and wearing the new batsuit. Batman walked over to and got into the batmobile. He left a very confused and worried Alfred as he drove away.

Batman reentered the abandon hotel and collected every piece that could possibly belong to the device. He returned to the cave and set it all on an empty table. Bruce removed his cowl and gloves. He started to look at the shards of metal. The electronics looked to be completely burnt out. It would take time and effort to piece it back together. He pulled out another cigar and lit it. It helped him to relax, which was odd he thought as he never cared for them before the accident.

He returned his attention to the table and picked up a very sharp piece of metal. He bent to examined it more closely when he cut his finger. It caused a surge of anger in him, but it vanished when he saw the wound heal almost immediately.

Bruce went over to his work bench and picked up the utility knife he used to cut the cigars. He placed it on the his palm and with a quick jerk he sliced his palm open. He watched in amazement as his hand instantly healed. I guess that the meta gene causes accelerated healing, he thought to himself.

Just at that moment, a name came screaming into his thoughts. Bruce closed his eyes to control the painful headache. The pain dissipated just as fast as it came. He opened his eyes and whispered the name.

"Logan..."