December 24, 2020

Sparks flew out from a little nook in the Gotham scrapyards as you hammered a red hot sheet of steel to the desired shape. 2 days had it been since you crashed into a dumpster from the sky, 2 days since you were first introduced to the slums of Gotham city during Father Crime's heyday. You recalled your day of arrival, scrounging around for clothing and treating your wounds with stolen meds. 

You dipped the steel sheet into the water to cool it off before polishing it crudely and strapping it on to your shoulder. Your suit had been damaged badly in the fight, not even leaving the comms working, and with the much needed repairs, you've come to the Gotham scrapyards for parts. the past 2 days you've been slowly healing and rebuilding your suit, only taking down small time villains, pocketing tech that you thought might be useful in fixing your suit. You inspected your reflection on a grimy and shattered mirror, dozens of you in your new junk suit stared back with a stoic expression.

"Bruce would kill me if he saw me like this."

Putting on your trench coat, you dodged the guard dogs of the Gotham scrapyards, diving behind rusty vintage cars and crawling under heaps of junk and using the cover of night to avoid the guards of the establishment before hopping the wire fence. You did this so you could get a better feel of old Gotham, so you could more effectively search for Booster, or at least The Batman of the time, but that posed too many temporal risks. Your first day you had to adapt to the local slang of the people so you could blend in better, followed by your attempt to learn their gestures. Safe to say you failed horrible there, when a man your age, Tim if you remembered correctly, had tried to compliment you after he bought you some clothes that you had attempted to steal, he tried to give you a fist bump. 

You thought it was an attack and one thing lead to another... You'd rather not remember. Like a good citizen, you looked both ways on the road, seeing a bin lorry heading away from you, you decided to test one of the things you've salvaged from your suit. 

"Let's see if I hooked this up correctly."

The soles of your boots blazed and the rockets propelled you onto the top of the Lorry before sputtering out due to the immense heat. Your new suit didn't exactly have the cooling capabilities of your old one. You landed on an old couch and hid in the garbage as neon lights passed above your head as the bin lorry entered the main city, the sounds of traffic and the chatter of pedestrians populated the atmosphere. The driver turned a corner and You hopped off the ride, landing in front of a television shop to the amusement of a child that walked with her mother. Just as you were about to walk away, all of the screens in the TV shop buzzed to life as an emergency broadcast started to play.

"EMERGENCY BROADCAST! 

Here at Gotham live's very own chopper 7, we're seeing a robbery in progress at the Gotham Central Bank. The super-criminal Bane, along with his 2 accomplices have broken into not less than 5 minutes ago, yet they've already taken down the Orphan as Bat girl and Red hood struggle to keep up."

Your blood ran cold, you recognized those faces. What the hell were they doing here? They can't ever be recognized, or it might mess up the time line. Something's wrong and questioning those sisters seemed like the biggest lead to you as of now. Looking around, you approached a man walking by and tapped his shoulder to gain his attention.

"Hey, you know how to get to Gotham Central bank?"

// = - = L 3 G 4 C Y = - = \\

Bane threw the Bat girl at the Red hood, who tried to charge him while he avoided the cracks of Dee Dee's electric whip, both heroes fell to the ground disarmed as their opponents stood above them to taunt them.

"Would ya look at that, Dee! Fell like a bag of rocks!"

"I still think we shoulda made him feel more pain."

"Now, now, muchachas, don't just talk, we need to draw out the bat!"

Bane said, cracking his knuckles in preparation for the fight that was about to begin, but before he took another step, a batarang sprung up at his feet and smoke started to fill the area. Bane and Dee Dee started to cough up a storm

"What is this! You bats better not be pulling this, or Bane will break you!"

The two heroes present looked just as confused as the villains before the smoke enveloped them too. Mischievous laughter echoed through the smoke as Bane readied his dose of Venom if the need ever arose. One of the Dee twins got separated and all that was heard was an impact before her electric whip wrapped around the other, shocking her and taking her out of commission.

"Just you and me, old man!" Echoed the voice from what seemed like everywhere.

"Show yourself, little man!"

Laughter echoed once more as a batarang sprouted from Bane's shoulder, angering the villain even more. From the mist came and went a dark figure that struck Bane each time he got close, and it was much to fast for him to grab.

"Ragh! Bane will have you beat, little man!"

"Little man?" the figure threw another batarang, this time, Bane caught it, not knowing the massive shock it would deliver moments later. "I'm 6'0! I'm not short!"

Bane pressed a button on his belt that sent Venom down multiple tubes leading to his body, making his veins bulge with glowing green liquid and expanding his muscle mass 3 fold. With a roar, Bane had cleared a 3 meter radius of smoke around him, his vision tinted green from the Venom, he looked around frantically trying to get a proper view of his opponent, but all he could get where faint foot steps and an occasional black clawed hand. 

"Bane will break you! No matter how long it takes!"

With that, the venom powered man slammed the ground, causing a large shockwave that caused you to stumble and trip out of the smoke. Smirking, Bane brought down a fist to squash you, but you rolled out of the way just in the nick of time, you tried to do damage with your claws, but it just glanced off of Bane's venom enhanced skin, thinking fast, you deployed your electro gauntlets and squared up before delivering a devastating blow to Bane's Jaw. He wobbled for a bit, but regained his footing quickly.

"Hehe! Little Fox man can punch! Now it's my turn!"

He swung at you and you attempted to dodge, but you were still hit, sending you through 3 of the supporting pillars on the bank's front. Surprisingly, nothing seemed broken yet, but you were definitely feeling the mode. You struggled to stand as Bane charged at you like a rhino, smashing you through the walls of the bank, keeping you off balance and preventing you from making a strategic move. Ok, something is definitely broken now.

"Little fox man's not so tough anymore huh? Come on, nino! Show Bane what you've got!"

"I'm not a fox! Are you blind!" You yelled as the large man's fist almost connected with your jaw, missing by a mere inch.

"Well you're a bat with no wings, what do you want to be called, possum?"

Bane picked you up by the head and shook you around like a doll. You've had enough. You activated your boots and swung yourself so that you can judo throw him away from you before deploying your electro gauntlets once again and sending a flurry of blows his way, keeping him off balance before finally cutting off his Venom supply and delivering a rocket powered knee to his chin, knocking him out.

"Thank god this is over." You said as you fell on one knee.

"Far from it, fly boy!"

As the smoke parted, Red hood burst through the air, holding his guns high and shooting you with rubber bullets.

"Hey! I'm on your side, here!"

"Shut up, I recognize those batarangs, you stole the Batman's prototypes from his cave!"

Red hood threw some pellets onto the ground and pressed a button on his collar, activating the miniature bombs and sending you flying. As you cut through the air, you thought quick and shot a grapple line from your wrist to the marble behind Red hood.

"You missed, I'm right here, what the hell are you?"

Activating the winch system, you got pulled in at high speeds and kicked the Red hood on the jaw, cracking his mask.

"I'm better, but that's not the point here."

Just then, the Batgirl tried to sweep your legs from under you. You jumped over it and the attacks that soon followed before pushing her away and trying to reason with the angry future commissioner.

"Woah, miss Gordon, you've got to believe me here, I'm not the bad guy!"

"How do you know my name?" She yelled as she threw explosive batarangs in your direction, all of which were disabled from the EMP that went out when you deployed your electro gauntlets.

"Please listen to-"

Batgirl took your moment of speech as an opening and aimed for every man's weakness. With a powerful kick to the groin, you folded like a steel chair and fell to the ground groaning.

"How's that for better?" Using what strength that hit had not taken away, you brought her in for a headbutt, strong enough to crack her cowl, making her wobble and fall down the steps leading up to the bank.

"We didn't have to do this! I'm on your side!"

"I don't think so!" Coming back, the Red hood of Gotham pressed the red bat emblem on his armored chest, releasing it from his chest and splitting into two very sharp and very dangerous karambit knives.

"I've got to get one of those!"

"Well you can have em!"

He charged at you full speed and you suddenly entered the hardest fight of your life. Such ferocity and speed, the strength of which he strikes, without your suit boosted strength, you would possibly be struggling a lot more. He swung low and you hopped over it before blocking a follow up attack using the fabric of your trench coat.

"I thought you bat people were smart and all detective like? You're not even hearing me out!"

He froze in place, letting you catch your breath for a bit before placing the karambit knives back into their holsters on his chest, forming a sinister looking red bat symbol. he crossed his arms and glared at you through his mask. "Fine then, talk. Who are you?"

"I... I can't tell you."

"Then time's up."

He sent a knee to your stomach, before throwing you over his shoulder. You just barely landed on your feet, but while you were out of balance he landed a palm strike to your chin and managed to stun you enough for him to swing his fist at your bat symbol, causing white sparks to fly off and somehow activating the damaged contraption while sending you tumbling down the stairs.

Recovering from the tumble, you deployed four fore arm spikes and shot them out, embedding themselves all around Redhood. Thin silver strings shot out from the fragments and tied up the hero.

"Look, we're on the same side! "

"Then you better speak up!"

Growling, he split the wire with his knives and sent another barrage of attacks, you tried to block, but he's using a form of martial arts you couldn't even dream of identifying, this advantage of his made him land a heavy strike at an unarmored area of your body, the back of your calf. He landed more and more hits on you as the cover smoke started to part. News helicopters flew about recording the whole thing. 

'Great' you thought 'I need to end this before I change more of my past.'

Your bat emblem started to pulse a wicked red, much like it did when it was not damaged, taking this as a sign that you can finally use your superior tech, you slammed down on the emblem with your palm, but something else happened. Instead of deploying holographic explosive batarangs, it just grew brighter and sent out a wave of red energy disabling the tech in a 50 meter radius and pushing back Redhood. Unfortunately, this also interfered with the Helicopter's controls and it started to veer to the left at high speeds.

You should have taken the time to escape, to leave any chance of ruining the timeline by being known, but no. Innocent people's lives are on the line. Making a decision you'll probably regret. You ran in the chopper's direction, boosting yourself up with your repulsors and using your grapple lines to propel you into the chopper, grabbing everyone inside and deploying the vintage ejection system that the early 21st century men had installed.

The Red hood started to recover and saw what you were doing, utterly confusing him. He watched as you struggled to keep it up while he aimed his pistol at your head. He was about to pull the trigger and knock you out, but he faltered. 'Was this right?' his rage started to fade as he saw the flashing of camera lights in the distance, the smoke has since then faded, the crowd had watched them fight each other. He dropped his aim and this gave you time to activate your boosters once more, pushing the chopper away from crashing into a heavily populated area.

You landed nearby, next to the crashed chopper as the people cheered you on. You had saved the people, but in doing so, you feared you may have altered the timeline and cause something massive to happen, as you thought this, The people took images of you, Batgirl had recovered and tried to attack, but her friend stopped her.

"No! We need to see who this guy is."

Snapping back to your senses, you threw your ripped up trench coat into the crowd

"Zzz-Red hood, come in, report-zzZ"

Walking over to the smoke batarang that you had thrown into the concrete, Redhood scanned it with his lenses and found it to be extremely advanced, though made with cheap, seemingly broken parts. It was indeed based around the prototypes Bruce had made in the batcave, but the stranger somehow made it better. He knew something was up and he'll need help to get to the bottom of it.

"I'm not sure, Bruce."

__________________________________________________________________________

Walking down the halls of Wayne manor, Alfred Pennyworth held a silver tray, line with cups of tea and a bowl of sugar cubes. He entered the living room, being met by the dim light of the TV. Watching the news, was a figure cloaked by the shadows, but no, this was not Bruce Wayne, or any of the Bat family for that matter. A mess of dirty blonde hair had been watching the broadcast of the new guy in Gotham nonchalantly as he took another bite of his french toast. On the TV screen, the newly dubbed "Nightfox" had jumped extremely high using tech that he recognized, but can't place. With unreasonably good acrobatic skill and speed, the Nightfox had saved the people on the chopper. Though the footage was rather shaky and the camera still recovering from the blast, he saw the emblem on the Nightfox's chest and grinned madly as he rose up. He'd finally peiced it together and he could not be more happy.

"He's alive! Alfie, Y/N is alive!"

His yelling had woken up everyone at the manor as Alfred tried to calm him down. Booster gold will always be happy to see his best friend, even if it's just on a freezeframe on the TV.

"We need to get to him."