Dick, Jason, and Damian stopped running at the edge of the cliff to watch the gorgeous sunrise. The beautiful pink-and-orange masterpiece of the morning sky was absolutely photograph-worthy. They would have taken several if Dick hadn't convinced them before they left that they should leave their phones at the manor in order to "enjoy the peace of nature in the early morning."

Dick sighed in content and sat down on the edge of the cliff, watching the bright orb rise over the horizon. "Aren't you guys glad you came out here?" he asked.

Jason crossed his arms. "You make it sound voluntary."

"You didn't have to come."

"That's not what you told me earlier." He sat down next to his brother.

Damian sat on the other side of Dick. "Why are we here?"

Dick shrugged. "Because it's nice."

They sat awhile in comfortable silence until Jason stood up, brushing himself off. "Well, the sun's up. May as well be getting back."

Dick started to stand up, too, but stopped. "Do you see that?" he asked.

Jason looked around. "See what?"

Dick frowned. "The light. It's not sunlight."

Jason's eyebrows furrowed as he realized what he was talking about. He looked at his hand and found it brightly illuminated by a light that was most definitely not the reddish-orange of the rising sun.

A shrill noise filled the air.

And then they disappeared.

xXx

At the sound of his phone buzzing, Tim scrabbled to grab it as quickly as possible, almost dropping it in his hurry.

"Alfred!" he exclaimed in hopeful relief. "Has anyone called in?" He ran his hand through his hair in anticipation and slight worry.

"I'm afraid not, master Timothy." The old butler's voice was full of sympathy. "I haven't heard from anyone since they left this morning."

Tim took a deep breath, closing his eyes and trying to soothe his nerves. He mounted his motorcycle and started the engine. "They're okay, Alfred. They're fine." He was telling himself just as much as the butler.

"I'm sure they are, master Timothy," Alfred assured him.

Tim shoved on his helmet. "I'll see you when I get back to the manor," he told Alfred, then hung up the call.

As he pulled onto the street, he started to work through what he knew.

Dick, Jason, and Damian were missing. There was no sign that they were in any kind of trouble, or even that their disappearance was abnormal in the slightest. All that could be seen as actually unusual was that they didn't have their phones, which Alfred explained was Dick's idea. Nothing was wrong.

And yet, deep down in his gut, Tim simply knew something wasn't right. The only problem was, he had no idea where to start looking.

Tim was aware that Dick, Jason, and Damian had disappeared before, almost on a regular basis. Whether it was for personal reasons or Bat-things, it was hardly uncommon for Batboys to go off the radar for a while. What bothered Tim, he supposed, was that they had left so early, without even a snack for the road. If they were planning to be gone for a while, they would have at least brought food. And if they were going to be gone all day, you could bet that one of them would have brought a Bat-gadget or cell phone just in case.

As he drove toward the manor, his frustration at the conundrum steadily mounted until he had to stop and pull over at the side of the road to calm himself again.

He shut off the engine, turning off the headlight and plunging himself into the growing darkness of twilight. "They're fine," he told the trees next to him. "They're going to come home in half an hour and we'll wonder why we were ever so worried." His words echoed hollowly in the resounding silence surrounding him. "They're fine," he murmured.

He sat there for a moment, taking deep breaths and reassuring himself that all was well.

Finally, he yanked of his helmet and slammed it down on the handlebars. He dismounted the bike in a huff and started to walk through the trees.

"Come on, Tim," he scolded himself. "You're such a worrywart. They're going to be fine." He turned to a particularly sturdy-looking oak and started using it as a combat dummy. He drove fists, knees, elbows, and feet into the trunk, trying to work the uncontrollable worry out of his system. "They're-- fine-- they're-- just-- not-- back-- yet." He emphasized each word with a strike to the tree. By the time he stopped and took a breath, the trunk was splintering.

Tim rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Oops." He smiled apologetically. "Sorry, tree."

Naturally, the tree didn't respond.

"I don't really feel like going home just yet. Mind if I sit here for a while?"

Silence, except for the sound of the nighttime wildlife.

Taking that as an 'okay', Tim sat down and leaned aginst the tree.

He stared at the stars, barely visible peeping through the overhead canopy.

Without realizing it at first, he started saying the old rhyme. "Star light, star bright. First star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, grant this wish I wish tonight." He chuckled at the childishness of it, then sighed and told the distant blazing suns of galaxies far away, "I wish I knew where they were."

"Wish granted!" a girl's voice, pitched almost to a squeal, called.

As he bolted to his feet, a bright light enveloped him. He shielded his eyes as a high-pitched whine overpowered all the natural sounds of the woods. Before he realized what was happening, the trees and foliage around him dissolved away into a new, completely unfamiliar environment.

Not that he could see any of it, since he was blinded from the bright light, and now he was in almost complete darkness.

"He's here!" a new voice, just as high-pitched, exclaimed.

"Okay, girls. Calm down. Yes, he's ho--" the speaker cleared their throat-- "he's Tim, and we're all excited, but we've go to keep some level of civility here."

"TIMMY!" someone screamed.

Tim took a step back from where the voices were coming from, blinking quickly to try to get his eyes to adjust.

"See? You scared him!" the apparent 'voice of reason' chastised.

"No, I didn't. He's not scared, he's just backing up so he doesn't get surprise-attacked." He could start to make out a concrete floor and walls.

"Stop contradicting me. I was trying to make a point." As he inspected his surroundings, he found a strange machine pointed directly where he had been standing when he'd first arrived to... wherever he was.

"Look!" another voice chimed in. "He's figuring out what happened!"

He absolutely was. He realized that the machine he was inspecting was probably responsible for his arrival, and the girls he was now listening to babble probably used it to get him there.

Then he realized something else. "You said 'Wish granted.' You have them?"

A chorus of excited laughter met his ears. "He got it!"

A door behind him that he hadn't noticed before opened with a click. "Yeah, they're in here," the apparent leader in this confirmed.

As he entered the room, he looked around and was surprised to see his foster brothers in a rather large room, about the size of their exercise room at the manor if you included the pool.

Dick looked over from where he was entertaining himself on the trapeze set that was, oddly enough, set up with a set of combat dummies underneath. "Tim," he greeted. "Good to see you got here safely."

Tim blinked confusedly. "What?"

"They said they would get you here soon, then they would tell us what's going on," he explained as Jason fired off three rounds of bullets on a firing range and Damian practiced slicing up watermelons with his katana.

Tim looked around the room, bewildered. "What is this?"

Dick dropped down and walked over to Tim. "Not sure. As far as we've figured so far, we're entertainment."

A voice, the one that had seemed to be in charge, came out of a hidden PA system. "No, you aren't!" She paused. "Well, I mean, sort of. But you're SO much more!"

"Now you sound creepy AND cliché," another girl told her.

"Aw, shucks. All right, you know what, Fanta? You should try doing this."

"Okay." The PA made that annoying microphone whine. "You boys are--"

"HEY, cut it out! I wasn't serious. Give me that!" After a few moments of ruckus, order seemed to be restored, and the leader started again. "You're more than entertainment because you're you."

"Mm-hmmmmm!" someone agreed.

"You're the Batboys! The Waynes! The Boy Wonders! You're-- you're-- okay, I'll just say it. You're hot." She paused again. "Okay, except Damian. He's too smol. He's just cute."

"HEY!" Damian yelled.

"Did she seriously just say smol?" Jason mouthed.

Giggles erupted from the speakers. "In any case--" she started again.

"DICKIEBIRD!" someone squealed, interrupting the speaker yet again.

Dick looked alarmed. "What?"

"Hush until I finish!"

"Who died and made you queen?"

"I designed the thing! Sort of!"

"And we all built it."

"Give us a turn to talk!"

"Or we could pull up the TV feed and all talk at once," someone suggested.

"Okay, that sounds like a good compromise. Ari, set up the camera, would you?"

"Of course, ask me to get it."

"Stop complaining." She finally addressed the captives (because that's pretty much what they were) again. "All right, boyos! Just hang tight for a sec, while we get it set up."

There were a couple minutes of silence, in which Tim looked for exits and found none. Having nothing better to do, he started reading the books of puzzle games that were no doubt placed there for him. Dick went back to trapezing, and Jason continued to fire at targets, now doing trick shots out of boredom. For some reason, there was a box of kittens over by where Damian had been practicing, and he was now playing with them.

Three puzzle books later, the flatscreen TV came to life. Having nothing better to do, the elder three of the brothers came over, dragging Damian and his kittens with them.

Onscreen, five girls sat on a couch facing the camera.

The one in the middle giggled and blushed. "We should've stuck with just talking," she said nervously. Tim recognized her voice as the one in charge.

"Oh, so now you're nervous?" the one on her right accused.

"No! Okay, look at them and tell me you're not, at least a little."

The one to the left of the center crossed her arms. "Let's get on with it, shall we?"

"Right, right." The center girl pointed to the one on the far left. "That's Ari. That--" she pointed to the one between herself and Ari-- "is Cookie. I'm Ninja--" she pointed at the other person next to her-- "That's Fanta, and he the end there is Blunder. We met and became sorta-friends on Wattpad, so I invited them to join in when I had this idea."

"Is there a reason your names are like that?" Damian asked bluntly.

Ninja laughed. "Oh, those aren't our real names. Those are just the names we go by on Wattpad."

"That's the second time you've mentioned Wattpad. What the heck is Wattpad?" Jason asked.

Their captors gasped. "They don't have Wattpad, Ninja!" Cookie scolded.

"Yes they do!" Ninja exclaimed. "They mentioned it in that one story I wrote."

Dick turned to Jason. "People write and read stories online for free," he explained.

Ninja gestured toward the camera pointedly. "See?!"

"What does Wattpad have to do with anything?" Tim asked.

"Everything!" Fanta said, beaming.

"We came to love you largely thanks to Wattpad. We read what you did, and we decided to add to your legacy," Ninja elaborated.

"Whenever one of your charity balls gets held up, you can thank us fangirls," Ari added.

"And I'm responsible for at least eight times that you guys got kidnapped. That's just what I've done in five months," Ninja added proudly.

"That's not something to brag about," Blunder told her. Ninja pouted. "But it's not totally a bad thing, either," he added.

"In short, a lot of what you've done and what's happened to you is because of us," Cookie finished.

"Although I like to consider most smut out of continuity," Ninja ventured.

"I should hope it is," Dick agreed. Tim nodded affirmation. Damian didn't know what 'smut' was.

Jason just smirked.

Ninja cleared her throat. "Anyhow, this whole thing that's happening now is out there for the world to see, even as we speak."

"What?" Jason interrupted.

"People are following along with this conversation right now. Hi, audience!" Fanta called, waving.

Cookie grinned. "We-- well, Ninja, mostly-- created a machine--"

"I call it the Plot McGuffin," Ninja interjected.

"--that could bring you through the fourth wall so we could meet you. And here we are!" Cookie flung her arms out wide.

"We did a lot to help, though," Ari said with a hard look in Ninja's direction.

"Of course you guys did! I couldn't have done it without you!" Ninja reassured them.

"And now we're back to the present," Blunder stated, trying to get them all back on track.

"Right!" Ninja nodded vigorously. "And now... we don't know what's going to happen," she admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head.

"You don't know," Jason repeated in disbelief.

"Well, it's not like we PLAN these things," Ninja said defensively.

"Really? Because you should have some idea of a plan if you're going to kidnap people from a different universe," Tim reprimanded.

Cookie sighed and looked at the ground. "We never got past the part about having you do the stuff we think is hot."

"Not anything weird, of course," Fanta added. "Cuz you can actually, you know... get mad at us this way."

"We could bust out the killer robots!" Blunder suggested.

Ari nodded enthusiastically. "That could be fun!"

Ninja rested her head in her hand. "Yeah, but--"

"We're doin' it!" Cookie yelled and slammed her hand on the giant red button.

Inside the brothers' room, a hidden panel in the wall slid open, revealing four giant robots that were clearly equipped to annihilate and destroy. They pulled out of their alcove with surprising speed and surged forward at the defenseless boys.

"You realize Dick and Tim don't have weapons, right?" Fanta asked.

Cookie waved her off. "Just watch."

The fangirls watched in fascination as the boys immediately adopted fighting stances.

"Cover me!" Tim yelled as he bolted for a wooden chair. Jason responded by firing his pistols rapidly at the robots, drawing their attention. Damian charged at them, swinging his katana with full force.

Tim snapped two legs off the chair and threw them to Dick just in time for the acrobat to dodge the charging bots. Dick quickly joined the fight, leaping elegantly over their swipes and gracefully flipping over their blows.

Now that Dick was somewhat armed, Tim realized that he wasn't about to find a broom anywhere around there to use as a staff. So he decided to try something absolutely Tim-like.

"See if they have control panels!" he called to the others as he joined them in combat.

"Easier said than done!" Jason yelled back.

Tim leaped onto the arm of one that swung at him. He climbed up and latched onto its back.

He saw the clear outline of a control panel. "Damian! Throw me your sword!"

Damian grumbled, but didn't question it. He tossed his katana to his elder brother and made do without it.

Tim jammed the sword's point into the crack with all his might. The cover came clean off, revealing wires and circuitboards. Tim set to work.

Dick broke one of his legs. (Oh, sorry. One of his chair legs.) He dodged another robo-arm and attempted to block it, but only succeeded in breaking the other leg.

Seeing another blow coming, he moved his arms over his head to try and stop it. But it never came.

Dick looked up and saw one killer robot taking on the other three. It was ruthless in destroying them completely. By the time it finished, the other three robots had been demolished into tiny, smashed pieces and were now piles of occasionally sparking metal.

Tim, seeing that its work was finished, leaped onto its back and pulled out the circuitboard, effectively stopping it in its tracks.

The spectators rose to their feet, applauding wildly.

"Bravo!" Ari cheered.

"Encore!" Blunder yelled.

"NO!" Ninja snapped. "We will NOT have an encore!"

"Geez, what's got you so grumpy?" Cookie asked.

Ninja sighed deeply. "You do realize we have to send them home eventually, right?"

That immediately sobered everyone up.

"Can they come back again?" Fanta asked hopefully. "That would be... Fanta-stic!" She gave a large, exaggerated wink.

Ninja shook her head sadly. "It'll break once we send them back, and we won't be able to replicate it."

"Why not?" Ari asked.

"Why should I know?" Ninja snapped. "It's literally the Plot MacGuffin. It does whatever makes the plot the most interesting."

"So... once they leave, they can't come back?" Blunder asked.

Ninja shook her head again.

Cookie held up four sharpies and an armful of posters. "But we can still get autographs!"

xXx

"And remember, whenever life really sucks, just remember that it's the writers' faults, not yours," Ari finished.

"And that we fangirls are always rooting for you, even if we like angst before you win!" Cookie added.

"DICKIEBIRD!" Fanta yelled.

Blunder grinned. "Hope you don't mind if we roleplay as you guys."

"And if you get kidnapped, you can usually blame me. Although most of the ones I write have already happened in your timelines, so you'll just suddenly remember them." Ninja rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "You know what, just... keep doing what you're doing." Her eyes lit up. "Oh, wait. Scratch that, because Tim, you should consider replicating your Ünternet costume. It was awesome. And Dick?" She smiled apologetically. "Always shave. You're one of the few people I know who actually looks kinda nasty with a beard."

Dick looked slightly offended, feeling his face with his fingertips. "I look nasty with a beard?"

"How do you know what the Ünternet costume looked like?" Tim shook his head. "Never mind. I don't need to ask."

Now that it was time for a final goodbye, Ninja promptly grew flustered. "Well-- I guess that-- um-- I was wondering if-- Could you-- I mean--" She started over what she was trying to say several more times until she eventually gave up. She threw her arms around the boys, hugging them tightly.

They were surprised at first, then uncomfortable. Dick patted her back uncertainly.

After about three seconds of just watching, Fanta shrugged. "I'm in!" She wrapped her arms around the group, joining in the hug.

The three remaining participants in the story soon joined, and the nine of them stood there for a moment, just soaking it in.

Eventually, Jason and Damian managed to wriggle out, breaking up the hug.

Ninja took a deep breath. "You guys ready to go?" she asked.

"As ready as we'll ever be," Dick answered.

"And you have the letters for everybody else?" Cookie ensured.

"YES," Damian groaned exasperatedly. "You sound almost like Alfred before we go on patrol. Can we please go home now?"

Ninja nodded and stepped back. "You guys might want to close your eyes. It's pretty bright." She raised her hand over the button to send them on their way.

Tim stopped her. "Wait."

"What?" she asked harshly. "It's hard enough to do this without you telling me to stop."

"You really like telling our stories, don't you?"

She nodded. "Yeah, I do. A lot."

"Don't you like writing about us getting abducted?"

She nodded vigorously. "Yeah."

"Well, I have an idea." He whispered something in her ear.

Her eyes grew wide as he spoke. A wide grin spread across her face. Then she laughed. "I like that!"

Tim grinned and stepped back, rejoining the cluster of his brothers.

"Wait, what?" Cookie asked.

"Wait, what?" Jason echoed.

"Bye!" Ninja called to the Bats.

She slapped the button.

A bright light enveloped the boys.

A shrill noise filled the air.

And then they disappeared.

As the light died away, Cookie turned to Ninja. "Spill."

Ninja just laughed. "You'll find out when I write it."

xXx

The people in the story actually exist!

The credits go to
Ninja-- me
Fanta-- FantasyHalfa
Cookie-- cookiethife
Ari-- Evil-Bat-Cat
Boy blunder-- Boy-Blunder

The story idea Tim gave Ninja will appear soon in It Comes with the Cape. (Sorry about the self-advertising, but I couldn't think of anything for Tim to say that wasn't just total wish fulfillment. And I think it might have actually worked in better than any of my other ideas would have.)

I hope you liked this fourth-wall-less tale of enchantment and FANGIRLING!

If you are a boy, you can still fangirl. It is a unisex term.