Summary:
So, remember how the first Justice League Unlimited season finale was a time travel adventure where Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Batman ended up chasing some goober named David (or Chronos) around as he mangled the timeline with his crappy decisions? All the way back to the Old West, and to a version of Batman Beyond's future Gotham.
Here, Kei got dragged along.
Notes:
Originally posted on Tumblr, I went back and wrote an ending. It's based on Exorcising (and Exercising) Demons, available on my AO3 account (Liangnui). To make a longer story short: Kei lands in the middle of the flashback in Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker and, due to shenanigans, Isobu kills both clowns on the spot three days after they captured Tim Drake (Robin II). A rescue ensues. And so, so much therapy.
This puts Kei in the DCAU in time for some Justice League Unlimited stuff, which I figured I could write while in cartoon rewatch hell.
Character-specific notes:
Batman: 2002ish JLU Batman, Bruce Wayne. Approximate age: 40-something.
Old Bruce: 2040s retired Bruce Wayne. Approximate age: 80-something.
New Batman: 2040s BB Batman, Terry McGinnis. 17 years old.
Kei: Our narrator. 18 years old.
Genbu: Her 58-year-old self, nominally active in 2040s Gotham.
Kei had been prepared for a lot of potential ways the future could twist in circles when the timestream was being actively manipulated by some opportunistic creep with an inferiority complex. Like, there was a level of petty, thoughtless bullshit that was only really possible for the most banal sort of everyday evil. The kind of guy who went time traveling around and dropped dinosaurs in cowboy land because he got mugged in the past…well, he fit the bill. Heading through time portals to chase after a guy like that wasn't just heroism—it was basic self-preservation.
Chronos couldn't be trusted with ultimate cosmic power. She wouldn't have given the man a goddamn hamster and expected to see it alive a week later.
This was surreal enough that all semblance of thought just fell out of her head.
When the Future Justice League (obviously minus…most of them) arrived, squaring off with the cybernetically enhanced Jokerz gang members, she'd sort of expected them. Future Batman? Sure, it'd been long enough that the all-black suit with the red icon and flight bits was in circulation. Old Man Static? Okay, Kei had never met the guy personally, but it was cool to meet another electrokinetic after the Ultimen fiasco. And War Hawk! Neat that it confirmed the Hawkgirl-and-Green-Lantern relationship worked out in some fashion.
But the normal-sized person that strode out of the darkness and made fully half of the super-Jokerz team back the fuck up? A shadow wearing a white ANBU mask.
The crown of spikes was familiar. It was a rendition of something Kei had mocked up once, depicting Isobu's face in all its spooky glory. Glimmers around the material pointed to some kind of future-tech modification, which stretched down the jaw and neck and into the rest of the dark suit. The shoulders had been bulked out and armored, but Kei saw the vaguest suggestions of her favorite sword, the belt of materials and scrolls she often carried, and a red-lined hood that made the mask stand out that much more, like a bloody promise.
Not to mention Kei's own chakra signature, burning bright and clear in the stranger's body.
Every one of the gang enforcers who backed up, Kei noted, carried at least one obvious cybernetic enhancement. And the hyena hybrid just fucking cowered.
"And here I thought the last lesson I taught you would finally stick," said a voice with a machine monotone and a faintly Japanese accent, even years and years on. "Disappointing."
"Shit—"
"Oh fuck, it's that thing—"
"What is it doing here?!"
"I don't know—"
The figure cracked her knuckles. Isobu's chakra flared hot and hateful in a way it hadn't been for years, centered on the new arrival and creeping outward in a clear threat display. "Class is back in session."
"Surprised to see me?"
"A little. I'm more surprised that I lived so long."
Batman's meeting with his older self was overshadowed solely because Kei didn't really…get that far. Instead, a pair of worn but familiarly-scarred hands landed on her shoulders and dragged her away from that potential minefield. She'd only meant to ask if anybody else had made it this long, after hearing half the League had been shot out of space along with the Watchtower.
Not all heroes coordinated there, after all. It could be a mercy. Kei at least meant to ask about the other Bats, though she knew the answer would probably be "You don't wanna know."
Instead, Kei sat on a dilapidated future high school desk while her captor explained, "—Now watching someone retcon cybernetic enhancement into reality in real time was annoying, but we've worked through that!"
Kei stared, lost for words.
"Who is…?" she heard Wonder Woman begin, only to stop short as the older woman turned around, popped off her mask, and grinned.
Kei…wouldn't say she'd aged badly. Her face more lines, and time had turned her hair super streaky with gray and white, and her face had gone soft around her cheeks, but her spine was unbent and she didn't look anywhere near Old-Batman's age. Which made sense, since he'd started this whole drama already in middle age, where Kei had been a teenager, like Static.
Was still a teenager.
Time travel fucking sucked.
And in the previous few minutes, Kei had learned that a) her older self was absolutely not a part of the surviving Justice League, b) showed up to help them sometimes anyway, and c) retained about five percent of Kei's filter and didn't care about making people uncomfortable. Kei didn't know where the other ninety-five percent had gone and was afraid to ask.
"Diana-san," said Kei's future self, turning entirely to Wonder Woman. Her eyes appeared to be permanently Isobu-yellow, whereas Kei could remember to turn that off before she got a headache. "Nice to see you've cheated death and aging. You look good."
"Genbu, it's good to see you survived amid the chaos," said Wonder Woman, and extended a hand. As Old-Kei clasped forearms with her, her tense shoulders relaxed a little. "And that you've made a reputation for yourself here after all."
"Oh, it wasn't so hard once I put my mind to it," said… Okay, maybe she could be Genbu. It wasn't like Kei had ever thought that one through, and now the other Kei had finders-keepers privileges by a lot. "I found it takes a few demonstrations to really make a lesson stick."
"Why doesn't that hyena guy have arms?" Kei burst out.
"Because Woof thought he didn't need to check for tripwires," Genbu said, shrugging as she let go of Wonder Woman's arm. She smiled again, all innocence. "I'll get him next time."
Your future self has taken a proactive approach to some problems.
And weirdly, Kei thought with an edge of panic, I don't want to know how she got there.
Kei had always suspected that her particular skillset made an excellent fit for a guerilla campaign. And here was a version of herself who made good on that potential. The fact that she'd lasted this long was simultaneously depressing and encouraging. On one hand, everyone must have died if she was still here to get old and cause trouble in a warped timeline. On the other, she'd survived. Her and Isobu, by the feel of things.
What a fate.
"—Because we've already won! Think about it. If old Bruce is here, that means he already lived through this as Batman." Oh, Static was talking again. "Not to mention Genbu's mini-me. And yes, I do recognize those scars."
"Flawless logic," Old Bruce bit out. "Except that I have no memory of ever going to the future or of meeting my older self, or of anything else that's happening today."
"Those historical buildings we saw on the street—" Realization struck Batman square in the middle of the sentence. "The timeline's been polluted."
"So polluted that history itself is becoming fluid."
"I could have told you that," Genbu said, rolling her eyes. She flicked a hand out idly, and a kunai flew out of her bracer and into her palm in the same manner as New Batman's batarangs. "But it's like people stop listening when you get old."
"'Oh, it's that Chronos dipshit again' when staring down a time portal isn't actually helpful if you don't explain it," said New Batman. Or Terry. Kei didn't know if she was allowed to call him that. "You can barely pull off 'creepy and kooky' without edging into serial killer territory. Especially after what you did to Woof. Quit while you're ahead."
"And who are you calling old? You're barely two years older than me," said Static, more amused than offended.
"And that's two years you'll never get back." Genbu snorted. "Terry-kun, if Woof wanted to keep his hands, he should have kept them to himself. The same goes for Ghoul," Genbu replied, unashamed. She started cleaning under her nails with the point of the kunai. "Teaching the new generation is what I do best."
Kei winced, though no one here seemed offended by Genbu's flat refusal to dial down the violence. There weren't any rules in this kind of war. And, unfortunately, it looked like the timeline turning into a pretzel guaranteed that there were no soft choices. Chronos had already stolen them all, and for what?
For nothing. What a selfish little bastard. The end awaiting him was almost too kind.
"So, about the Dee Dees…?" Kei asked, while the others argued for a little while. She'd noticed a pair of Raggedy Ann twins earlier among the gang members, but it had seemed a little gauche to go "wait, I retconned you out of existence by accident already" in the middle of a fight.
"Chronos ruined the timeline for everyone. Something-something, we're all dead in a few hours if we don't fix it." Genbu had turned away from Wonder Woman and the others while they tried laying out missing bits of timeline, keeping her attention on Kei. Like some kindly old auntie who happened to carry her own weight in bombs instead of cookies. "But to answer your specific question: I think he pulled them out of some other branch and gave them duplication powers. Mostly, I'm too busy killing their copies to ask. Though I do hold out hope that, one day, they'll realize multiplying by zero still equals zero."
She looked entirely too proud of that.
It's not like Kakashi's here to make those bad jokes land. Which was a depressing thought, too.
"Wasn't that a Kimimaro line?"
"It was?" Genbu appeared to think it over, then shrugged. "Not like there's anyone here who can tell."
"I guess." Kei glanced toward the classroom window, long since boarded over and left to rot like everything else. "How did you know where to be? Since, uh, I don't think the remaining League…"
"Likes me? Don't worry, I know. Heroes don't hang around criminals, especially not a superpowered murderer." Genbu didn't even look slightly offended at Kei's clear discomfort. "I didn't have to ask anyone. I just had to look for us."
That sensor-type status was still holding strong, then. It didn't explain how fast she'd arrived without alerting anybody in the process, but some things Kei was probably not meant to know. Yet. "Okay, so if Batman gets removed from the timesteam by chasing portals, Old Bruce shouldn't be here at all, right?"
Genbu shrugged. "Chronos dips into alternate timelines fairly often, usually without noticing. Otherwise his meddling in the past should have deleted at least one of us. Honestly, I'm surprised anyone's still here to notice."
"You noticed."
"We almost always do." And that yellow glow in her eyes made it seem more of a threat than the words alone should have.
"And the actual Joker…?"
Genbu rubbed the back of her neck, where her high collar met her hairline, and tapped a staccato where a microchip might have gone on Tim Drake at some point. "Irrelevant. Like most things."
Because either the timeline held strong with Kei's interventions and that plot hadn't gone through, or it had and it didn't fucking matter because Chronos's irresponsibility and impending god complex killed all involved parties but two. Since Bruce and Terry were around. Unmaking the space-time continuum beat out a washed up comedian/serial killer any day. No amount of orbital death lasers really compared.
"So, uh, you're…coping."
"No," Genbu replied, "but it helps to have something to focus on."
"Like the end of the world?" Kei suggested, sounding desperate even to her own ears.
"Mm. Though I will say clownhunting has been interesting." Genbu's expression was too placid to be trusted. Her eyes flashed red-gold, mirroring Isobu's for just a moment. "I think they had…nine thousand members? Organized into two hundred cells or so at their peak." She made a dismissive noise. "I hope they enjoyed it while it lasted."
"I…guess that's one way choose a hobby?" Kei mumbled, trying to edge away from her older self without making it obvious. She could have just used Body Flicker, but any shinobi who lived to fifty-something in fighting shape could pounce like a leopard on speed.
"It keeps me active," Genbu agreed cheerily, and let her go.
That was…one way to put it.
"So, Tiny Turtle." New Batman somehow drifted into her orbit, while both other Batmen worked on programming a solution for Chronos's shit decisions. "Does being a seer count as a preexisting condition? Asking for a friend."
"For…the ban on talking about your own future?" Kei made a face at the nickname, but said, "I think you're good."
"If Bruce doesn't know what's going to happen, I've been assuming you—or your older half—already do. She keeps letting things slip while mumbling to herself." He raised two fingers, showing off the microphone pads on the tips of his glove. "So, is it true?"
"I think that if Chronos wins, this whole thing is pointless anyway." Kei shifted from foot to foot, trying not to think about the absolutely overclocked fūinjutsu options her future self handed off like they meant nothing. She could probably vaporize one of those cyberpunk Gotham monoliths by using four of them with enough forethought. "So, the mission is to get the thingy to his time belt. And if we're lucky, history snaps back into place."
New Batman took a moment to consider that option. "And if it doesn't, we would never know."
"On account of all being incredibly, retroactively dead, yeah." Kei let out a long, quiet sigh. "I'm a lot younger than your Genbu, but we'll put everything we have into saving the world. No matter the cost."
"Good to hear it. Sounds like this is the real curtain call." He rolled one shoulder. Maybe the cyber-suit wasn't holding up as well against the time-cheated weaponry as he needed. "Chronos has been trying to kill us for forty years, one way or another. Or two hundred. Guess it's not really news at this point that he needs to go down."
"I can still be sorry this is ending up on your shoulders." Kei flexed her hand. The sense-memory of almost getting her hands on that whiny little fucker still bothered her. Sure, breaking off and making sure one of the Wild West heroes didn't get eaten by a dinosaur was important, but… "Especially since we can basically see doomsday out the window, now."
There was a slight pause. "The lack of surprise is still weird. Can you share anything? Even a tiny hint could make the difference."
Looking at New Batman, nothing came to mind besides recalling that Chronos was a pushover in a fight, both because he was untrained and untempered, and because he was physically still a normal man. He recruited people and things to do the violence for him. Sure, he'd stitch-ripped vital points of reality by now, but that was less because of active, malicious planning and more impulsive tantrum-throwing. It was exactly like dealing with the kind of villain who went, "I want to destroy the world!" and then never thought "wait, where will I keep all my stuff?"
Also , Kei was going to take the secret of New Batman's parentage to the grave. It was incredibly not her business.
"There's…something." If solving the Chronos problem was as easy as just punching him and stealing his stuff—wait, actually, the whole "oops all dinosaurs" thing had happened earlier because that whiny sack of shit got mugged. By cowboys. Maybe parts of this could be pretty simple.
Then New Batman handed her something that looked like a credit card. Just…somehow wrong.
Kei stared at it. "What?"
"Seemed like a thought worth more than a penny, and this is what I've got." At least he took it back after explaining the joke.
"He has a glass jaw," Kei offered at last. "Absolutely no pain tolerance, and he'll throw minions at you and run instead of fighting. His only real defense is that his belt has some kind of security feature that shocks people."
New Batman considered that, tucking the card back into a belt compartment. "About how much power?"
"Not enough to kill." Batman had been hurt, but it probably wasn't meaningfully worse than being tased. He'd gotten up within a minute, in time to help fight the Jokerz until Genbu ran them off.
"That doesn't necessarily mean much with the resources he has now, but I'll keep it in mind." New Batman then added, in case Kei thought he'd let anything go, "About your powers, though."
"Genbu and I get glimpses, sometimes." Because if Kei's memory for this was bad, forty-plus years made Genbu's terrible. "Time travel was…somewhere on the list of things that might happen. Not that knowing it seemed to help." Kei crossed her arms over her chest and grumbled, "I should've let Chronos get crushed by that robot."
"If you had," Green Lantern cut in, "the belt might have been destroyed and made the changes permanent. And I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to get back to the twenty-first century the slow way."
"True." Kei blew out a breath, making her bangs flutter. "Could've still killed him for it."
"You actually can't," Genbu put in, sticking her nose into the conversation.
"Why…?"
"Because I'm not sure if there's some kind of failsafe built into the belt that makes it so only he can use it, or if the timeline will snap back without an override program," Genbu said briskly. "Any evil mastermind would take at least basic precautions. While I'm fairly sure Chronos doesn't have any planning skills, being wrong means we all get timesploded. So, I had to wait for all of you—" which apparently meant the 2002 Justice League members— "to be here. And write the program. After keeping the belt long enough to see how it worked. Because if I got that close, I was planning on taking his arms and—"
"Not. Helping." And Batman was still a spoilsport, even from the computer programming jam session. Old Bruce just ignored her.
Genbu flipped him off before going back to her corner.
Kei decided not to dig her figurative grave on her older self's behalf.
"I thought—I guessed the older you threw out the hero rulebook when we lost the League. But…I didn't realize the old you and the new you were still that similar. Old you to us, at least." New Batman leaned back against one of the computer towers keeping this improvised Batcave setup running. "Time travel's a pain."
"Ha. You said it." Kei puzzled over what topic was most important right now, then said, "So, from an outside perspective…what am I like? Or her, I guess."
"A little much," New Batman said, not specifying which Kei he meant. "Intense."
Both of them glanced in the direction Genbu had gone. According to some of the unnerving chakra pulses Kei had been getting lately, her other self was busy experimenting with something that would probably make Sensei balk if he saw it. Well, if it hadn't killed her by fifty-whatever, it probably wasn't more dangerous than the current "oh wow, the whole timeline is about to unravel" problem. Even without straining her ears, Kei could hear Genbu humming along to some pop tune likely predating this time period by decades.
New Batman didn't shiver or do any theatrical stuff, but it wasn't like he had anything to prove right now among heroes in desperate last stand mode. He was already in the all-encompassing, flight-capable Batsuit and…was probably going to die in the next hour or so.
Though not if she (or her older self) got the Dee Dees first. It sounded like there was a grudge there, built into the timeline.
"I could tell. I mean, I follow the Justice League's rules of engagement because it's how heroes do things," Kei admitted, staring after her counterpart. "But she…clearly doesn't want to."
New Batman actually winced this time. Under Kei's curious stare, he explained, "If I had to survive reentry the hard way, I don't think I would either. She was on the Watchtower when it was attacked."
Kei froze in place. Then, as though on a swivel, she turned her head toward New Batman with disbelief all over her face. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Kai-Ro found her. A month ago, you could've asked him about it." New Batman seemed more surprised at her surprise. Like Kei had any reason to think about surviving atmospheric reentry when the Justice League used Javelins and teleporters. "The crater's still visible from the air."
"Ahaha. Ha. No." Kei wanted to turn away, but there was nowhere to go. In this ruined scrap of a city hours from annihilation, the only option was to stand her ground. "I officially want to know less about the future."
If her older self turned to killing gangsters as a way of venting her hatred—amid a backdrop of the actual end of days—maybe that was the nice option. Kei didn't want to think about how many of them were high school fuckups who slapped on some facepaint and had no idea the remainder of their lives would be short. She didn't want to know.
Kei didn't think Genbu gave a flying fuck anymore about those kinds of thoughts. The battle lines were drawn. If the enemy had taken her people from her, then they were all going to die. Kei couldn't blame her. What was left of a woman who wanted nothing more than safety for those she cared about—provided by her own hands or not—when they were all gone?
She'd turned into their mother. The worst possible version, where the only goal was turning into a one-woman war. Genbu's future was already gone. Given the state of the world, all of it was dust in the wind.
Kei hoped Genbu hadn't waiting on them for forty years to turn this whole thing around. But if she hoped—
That moment of silent horror was ruined by a shout of, "Diana!"
Kei turned in time to see Wonder Woman vanish into thin air, fading away entirely the middle of her sentence.
"She…never left the island," said Old Bruce, looking as horrified as he could. Given the amount of shit he'd seen by now, Kei trusted his judgment.
Batman offered a worse option with, "Or she was never born."
"Time is running out," said New Batman, and there was the split in space-time, viewable through Gotham's bay cameras.
The horizon was white already. Kei half expected to see triple-jawed cannonballs flying out of the gap in reality, to feast on the continuity carrion left over after the dickhead with the belt started all this.
"Literally," he added, in case none of them could see that. "We need to find Chronos."
The process of "finding Chronos" involved tracking down the Jokerz gang member named Ghoul and scaring the shit out of him. Almost literally. Batman was angry enough at the loss of a teammate that Kei almost offered to dangle the buzzsaw-handed gangster off the building in case his moral center got tired after a long day.
Not his arms. That would be silly.
And if Genbu did a thing with genjutsu that made Fear Toxin look like a morning mist, Kei didn't say anything. Not even when she felt her counterpart double back and shred the guy to keep him from raising any kind of alarm.
Once Ghoul was past-tense, the next step was to track down Chronos's wife for information. Kei didn't remember enough about this part to be helpful, and if she didn't, Genbu's knowledge was even more fuzzy.
Kei had very rarely ever met individuals who could make her want to claw off her ears just by talking. Enid Whatever-The-Fuck wasn't on that list, lacking sound-based powers to leverage for that purpose. But if there was anyone who Kei wished could be retroactively kicked in the head—along with her goddamn husband—the candidate list was a short one.
Also, their Green Lantern got swapped with Hal Jordan for about ten minutes in there. Somehow. They followed the wife's directions to an Old West building inside the stolen Coliseum,
And after all that—the literal murders, the causality crimes, and the knowledge that reality was burning down around them—that fucking bastard was just lying in a cot. Thumb in his mouth, even, right until the moment where his wife ripped the blanket back and called him a loser.
Kei wanted to kill her. Just a little. For taking the initiative away.
Then Chronos popped the time belt into active mode again, taking advantage of that ruined stealth, and the resulting rip in space-time summoned the (remaining) Jokerz with even more advanced equipment. Just as a final fuck-you to give himself space to run and dig his grave deeper.
The Justice League squared up. The light from outside—from the rending of reality—was so intense that it was like morning had arrived six hours early.
At this point, Genbu stepped forward with serenity in her stance and howling rage in her chakra signature.
Kei knew that warning sign from the inside out. Now, from the outside-in, it was something else entirely. She whirled and shoved the nearest person—Static—backwards. "Back up, back up, back up—"
I have you.
And when that wasn't going to be enough for the others, Kei used her manifesting tails to slap down three barrier seals at the same time.
The first bubbled around in Chronos, Enid Whatsherface, New Batman, and Batman. The second caught Green Lantern and Static. The third she saved for herself, just in case.
Then Genbu went off like a dying star. Red exploded out of her, forming armored tails, hands, and a shell, slamming into the barrier and making them all shudder. Other parts ballooned outward, ripping the building to so much wooden confetti around them. Some of the energy from this timeline's Isobu got caught in the time rifts, but their suction didn't seem to slow her down.
It was like she didn't care if reality's death throes ate her, as long as the enemy died first.
Genbu got her wish. Every single Jokerz member was in pieces before they could scream.
Blood rained down on each bubble barrier. Someone's leg thunked off the top of Kei's singular prison, rolling down to the ground with a splat. She didn't look at it, other than to notice the knee joint once it dropped.
When Chronos flinched away from the ringing strike on his personal cell, too cowardly to face the consequences of his actions, Batman and New Batman wrestled him into submission. They couldn't hit him with a stun gun, at risk of shorting the damn belt, but they were either bigger than him or wearing a super suit. They'd handle it.
There was a flash as a rift the size of an elephant opened under Genbu's feet, barely a yard from them, and she dropped into it without another sound. The red tendrils of Isobu's chakra lasted a little longer after she disappeared, but they were gone by the time the rift snapped shut.
Kei undid the barrier seal. Blood immediately splashed down onto her head like it had been waiting for the chance instead of coagulating in place. "Ick."
"Oh god," said somebody. Maybe Static.
Kei dispelled the other barriers, picked up Enid Whatever bridal-style despite the blood, and walked them both away from the imminent danger. Whatever that counted for when the consequence wasn't death, but deletion.
"That'll go away once you fix things, right?" the woman asked as Kei set her down. She might've been talking about the blood, since the stains had transferred to her fancy green dress from Kei's costume. "Once you've stopped my loser husband from destroying most of reality."
Kei pinched the bridge of her nose, summoned some semblance of patience, and said, "A bit of advice for your next life, ma'am: Please just get a divorce."
And if Enid tried to slap her, Kei idly ducked out of reach and went back to see what the others had manag—
And then…Kei was in Wayne Manor. On the library's best reading sofa, because Robin gave her advice about where she was least likely to be disturbed by anybody's routine if she was so opposed to taking a guest room. She'd been napping before planning on heading up to the Watchtower, and then there was a mission, and then…time stuff.
And now she was here again.
Like nothing had happened.
What just…?
I think we won. Kei rolled over to check the light streaming through the window. It was that Gotham-only red-orange, as much from industrial pollution as some kind of citywide atmospheric curse. Location and time of day confirmed, Kei flopped back down. And I'm going back to sleep.
We should talk about what we just saw.
It never happened.
Yes, it—
Making a mental note to call in sick, Kei pulled the pillow over her face as though it could blot out Isobu along with the light. Never. Happened.
Notes:
And Kei never talks to Green Lantern or Batman about this again.
I like to think that if Andrea Beaumont could come up with an epic disguise for Mask of the Phantasm that hid her identity so well, Kei could get one too. But there's no hiding Isobu's chakra signature.
Chronos made three attempts to retcon the future Genbu out of existence. However, he couldn't find an early enough point in her DCAU experience to keep his assassins from getting lost or pulped by an angry jinchūriki before his wife distracted him from the plot. His Dorian Gray levels of imagination and self-awareness did not help.
(If anyone would like me to post the four chapters of the fic this is jumping off from, please let me know.)