^^ the Bike's Space Form, stealth-mode ^^

— Erin —

I had hoped that Nightwing would panic, and I could get my giggles from his screams, but instead he leapt off the bike, and opened a parachute that was apparently hidden in his uniform, cool as a cucumber.

I activated the bike and rode next to him casually, raising an eyebrow at him as we slowly drifted towards the city. "You feel stupid yet?" I asked after a minute or two of silence.

"... A little." He sighed.

"Mm. Yeah, hop on." I let the bike spread, taking the form of a large disk, about fifteen feet in diameter, and placed it under him so that he landed next to me.

He disconnected the parachute, watching it float away, then looked at me. "So, you've got a Martian Bike? That's new, but very cool."

"Not Martian, actually, though a piece of the design took Martian tech as inspiration. No, it's entirely Mine and Sofia's own work. Now, when did Cassandra Cain, the Daughter of Shiva, the ultra-advanced culmination of five millennia of studies and tests in the field of bioengineering, a real and undeniable super-ninja forged to serve the League of Shadows, who then rejected the teachings of the League and left to join the Batman in her quest for Identity as a real girl with a Pinocchio Complex, become the newest member of the BatFamily?" I asked bluntly, getting straight to the point.

"Why?" He asked simply, though I could tell he was filing away a lot of what I'd said.

"I'd like to know when in the timeline I am, so I can attempt to change some things that need changing, avert some crises' that need averting, and all without mucking up the time-stream too much. I also don't want anyone to know that I know the future, though Flash Suspects, and I think Batman does as well." I stated honestly.

"Is there a way to mess with those things without messing with time?" He hummed.

"No. I've already irrevocably changed time when I attacked Lex Luthor. This is no longer Earth 16, it is Earth 17. All the bad stuff is still going to happen, somewhere else, but I can't change that. I can change this realm for the better, just a little bit, and I plan to. I don't want to overstep myself and accidentally become one of those time-travelers that thinks they can save the world, but I can help a few people and subtly help avert a few crises'. Simple as that." I shrugged, and sat down as the disk built a couch on top of it for seating, still whipping through the air above Gotham like a UFO.

He took a seat on the other side of the couch, and blinked slowly for a few moments. "Wait... so your arrival created another Earth with a Branch in the Timeline?"

"Correct." I nodded.

"And because of the unstable nature of time right now, you can change some things, and it won't cause any paradox's?"

"Weeeeeeeeellllllll..." I shrugged helplessly.

"Okay, so there'll still be paradoxes, but you think that it'll be worth it?" He asked slowly.

"Correctomundo, mi amigo." I nodded, and settled the craft in a hillock just north of the city.

"Huh... okay then. Do your best, I suppose? Now, let's take a look at your new powers, see if we can figure them out." He nodded, kicking his feet up as the chair turned into a recliner.

I raised an eyebrow at him, and the chair slowly turned into an Iron Maiden, making him rocket out of it with a yelp. "No laying down on the job." I said simply when he glared at me, and the entire structure turned to black mist, sweeping into the ground like tar. "That's the first ability. Very odd."

He hummed and took a sample swiftly, analyzing it with a small device from his belt. "Hmm... well, it's pure Dark Matter, but it's not emitting any Radiation at all. Seems you've managed to create Stabilized Dark Matter, and made it a programmable Material that can create complex machines at will. Very cool."

"Not quite at will, I have to have the schematics loaded into the talisman for it to work." I tapped my belt buckle.

"Ooh, I thought that was just your way of displaying your Texas Pride... pretty." He hummed, and then squinted. "Power and Fertility Deities, though? What's that about?"

"No idea, really, but I suppose I'll find out, eventually. Anyway, for my next trick, a portal, also made of Stabilized Dark Matter, which has achieved the effect of rippling and creasing Space and fusing two locations together semi-permanently, eliminating the need for me to travel within the Fold." I nodded, opening a portal and scratching an itch I'd had on my spine for a while, now.

He hummed. "Very cool... question; what about this confused you?"

"The ascension from Technology to Magic, mostly. My best guess is that my tech got so advanced that when it evolved and simplified itself, it crossed Roth's Event Horizon, and became Magic, as it was sufficiently advanced- you heard me tell that to Batman, I'm not repeating myself." I frowned at him.

He stuck his hand through the portal, and glanced at me when I shivered. "You felt that, right? Raven can feel when anything comes through her-... you're draining away my psychic energy, aren't you?" He pulled his hand back, and I realized I could smell the hormones in his blood reactivating where I'd accidentally pulled all the emotional energy associated with arousal from them.

"Yes... It's very odd. Raven's non-bloodline power is from the Realm of Pride, I think, making it slightly different from mine, but I think the basic principals are the same. And here I was, attempting not to be a lame copy of someone else... first Wonder Woman, then Miss Martian, and now Raven. Just great." I frowned, irritable at the revelation.

"Yeah, I know how that feels. Sucks, doesn't it? NOT that I have a problem being like Batman!" He hastily added, and I looked behind me, finding Batman, Tim Drake, and Cassandra Cain, all standing at the edge of the clearing.

"You followed me for a reason, I hope?" I hummed.

"I wanted to see your powers, because I haven't yet, beyond your skills in our sparring match, and they came with... because I don't have a car." Tim shrugged helplessly.

"Ah, I see. Well, it turns out my skills in hand-to-hand came partially from my heightened reflexes and hyper-intellect, so I'll have to train my body while they're locked up, just to be thorough. You're welcome to assist in future sessions on Melina Island, though I'd prefer little miss Super-Ninja, to be honest." I shrugged.

She narrowed her eyes, and walked forward into the clearing, while Batman watched calmly, sitting next to Dick and Tim on the long couch that reappeared when I waved a hand.

"Well, I didn't mean right now, but you must be itching for a rematch, huh?" I smiled, and started stretching my muscles carefully. Their lack of bulk was new, and distracting, but luckily I hadn't lost any flexibility, so I'd have to re-learn my various methods for choking people out... my thighs were still thick enough to work, I suppose.

She frowned, and nodded at my belt buckle, making her wish for me to turn off the power dampener clear.

"You're missing the point of the exercise. It's not about you and your wounded pride, my dear. It's about making sure I don't accidentally kill someone with my abilities; were you even listening?" I sighed.

She glanced at Batman, moving her shoulder slowly, clearly speaking her own language, one I didn't understand fully yet. I took it to mean 'what do you want me to do?' For now.

"She's right. She needs to know the extent of her abilities, not yours." He shook his head at her.

I rubbed my ears irritably as the gravelly tone made my ear-bugs buzz uncomfortably. "Can you quit it with that vocal disrupter? My ears are already ringing, stop adding to it, Alright? There's no heat signatures for half a mile except a pair of rabbits having sex in their burrow, two hundred feet north, and a herd of deer resting for the night about double that distance, northeast, so you can just talk, or better yet, don't."

He hummed, and then leaned back, accepting the comment.

"Where's Batgirl, anyway? She needs to be kept in someone's line of sight for the next two years or so." I glanced at Nightwing.

His eyes widened. "Is that what you were trying to Change in the Timestream? She's been Oracle since-..."

I cleared my throat, and looked at the glaring Batman. "Right, Sorry... I guess my arrival time was wrong, though I didn't come here on purpose... that sucks, I'd hoped to stop that from happening. I thought it would be this Christmas, so I had time. Damn."

I turned away from them, towards the glaring ninja girl, who was now waiting for me to make a move impatiently.

"Alright, Fine, one round, but then you go back to your work, Deal?" I asked.

She nodded, and pounced forward with nearly the same speed as one of Lobo's clones, an inhuman swiftness that was clearly one of her more enhanced features.

I kept my powers locked down tightly, leaving none of them 'unholstered', as I was beginning to think of my abilities as various weapons on my gun belt. Using too many at once taxed my body, so I had to choose one at a time, to go with my intellect and reflexes, the most important ones.

Strength/Speed+reflexes and mind, or, conversely, magic+mind, considering the mental acuity that was required for it meant I only got two, not three. Magic seemed to count for two, so those were my options, as of now.

Cain was still quicker than me, but my long experience fighting someone more skilled than me allowed me to calmly read her movements, and design a tactic to pin her, even without my abilities. She was a slippery one, and I knew if I put my hands on her before I was ready to pin her, she would break my arm with no hesitation, as it was non-lethal.

Her stamina was clearly also altered, in addition to the hellish training her father put her through, as she showed no signs of slowing down, even ten solid minutes into the fight. I'd been solely on defense the entire time, so I wasn't expending much energy at all, but I was getting bored, and there was little to no point to this anymore, as I'd seen my limits, and I was now capable of designing a training regimen to fix my flaws.

As such, I decided to end the fight. When she went low for a sweep of my legs, I tightened my thighs, setting my weight downwards, and her foot crashed pointlessly against my shins. The strength behind it was also superhuman, about 20x what her physical strength should be, at her muscle mass ratio, but still not enough. I stomped on her leg, holding her still, then kicked her jaw, knocking her out. "And there we have it, nighty night little Bat."

I whistled a haunting melody, and dragged her over to the couch, dropping her into Batman's lap. "There's a delivery for you. Now get off my bike." The couch dumped them all off, morphing into a white sports car at my command, downloading the necessary schematics instantly. I climbed in, and hummed. "Helix, make sure that The Joker is still in his cell in Arkham Asylum."

The car revved up nicely, and then all the glass blinked, gaining a HUD that overlaid the outside views as the men and Cassandra got up off the ground. "The Joker is still in Arkham... I think. They don't allow any digital cameras."

"Search the city with the other cameras, then; cellphones, street cameras, store cameras, anything you can get your hands on... but remember, League charter says you can only do that when looking for a Villain on the League's list." I frowned at the annoying list of limitations on the League's powers.

"Alright, I'll get to it. Anything else while we wait?"

"Make us as aerodynamic as possible, confine the force field to inside the craft, activate the Czarnian Camouflage, and then test out the Max Speed of this puppy, as we go to Metropolis and check out some crime." I nodded.

"Why Metropolis?"

"Metropolis's criminals are funny, whereas Gotham's criminals are too realistic, you know... and insane, don't forget that most of Gotham's criminals are insane." I shrugged.

"Ahh, I see. Alright, hold on, then-... what does he want?" He sighed, and I lowered the window as Batman knocked on it.

"Yes?" I raised an eyebrow.

"Just one thing... why are you asking whether or not the Joker is in Arkham?" He asked, the vocal disruptor turned off, thankfully.

"Because he's my current target for rehabilitation... I'd hoped to get to him before... the whole Gordon Family Debacle; the Killing Joke... but such as it is, I'll try." I sighed.

"Rehabilitation? You think that hadn't been tried?" He frowned.

"Not the way I'm doing it. I'm going to turn all his negative emotions and urges to positive ones. Or, that's the plan. It's worked before, in other dimensions, for Lex Luthor and Dr. Harleen Quinnzell, as well." I shrugged and raised the window, turning the tint all the way to one-way-mirror levels, then turning invisible as the car slowly rose up into the air.

"You just Batman'ed Batman." Helix chuckled.

"I know, it felt kinda great! Anyway, any sign of him?" I asked, as the craft changed form, shaping itself like an arrow, then launched itself forward so fast that the trees below us blended together like one mass of green and black. Then, they disappeared, and it was open water all around, an endless mass of grey and black water, as we headed away from the sunlit portion of the earth.

I narrowed my eyes slowly, forming a hypothesis. "Helix?"

"Yes, we are, in fact, needlessly circumnavigating the globe in 16 minutes flat, as our max speed inside earth's atmosphere is 30,000mph. In space we could easily reach 20 times that, as there would be nothing to move through. Using the Fold would reduce our speed by a factor of 4, but also the distance, by translating every foot of movement to 16 miles on the outside, or altogether a factor of 21,120. Therefore, our effective Max speed would be 1.2672e10mph, or 18.9x the Speed of Light!" He chuckled, sounding pleased with himself.

"That is impressive... is there a way to not lose speed, in the Fold? To remove the resistance from the equation? I know it doesn't slow me down, so there must be a way to manage that, yeah?" I asked, and turned the windshield into a chalkboard, allowing my neurons to fire at full capacity, and began working on the math with him.

Unsurprisingly, he beat me to it, (being a Hyper-Computer, after all,) and displayed the results. "It's true that you possess a field of AntiMatter that moves the Dark Matter out of the way and allows you to propel yourself and others, as well as this new ability to control and Stabilize the Dark Matter itself... it's possible that ability could be developed with an application of your abilities on the tech, and that would in fact negate the resistance and allow a type of magnetic propulsion, further increasing our speeds, whilst also protecting us from the effect that moving near to or past the speed of light has on anything bigger than a photon. You know, the nuclear immolation bit."

"Yes, let's avoid that at all costs, hmm? Also, why is the ship black?" I frowned.

"Uhm, Stealth mode?"

"We're invisible, Helix!!!" I sighed exasperatedly.

"... Oh... right." The ship sheepishly turned white again.

—

I hummed, looking at the empty cell. "So, let me get this straight... you don't allow cameras in this building... because it's a violation of your inmate's privacy?" I asked slowly.

"Not inmates, Patients. And yes. Though, how this happened, I do not know..." The director of the asylum frowned. "Check for-"

"Do not open those doors!" I snapped.

He blinked at me, as the two orderlies stepped back reflexively.

"Look at that room, and tell me what's missing?" I asked, handing the director my glasses.

He placed them over his own, and squinted, then took a step back. "How is this possible? He is there, but not?"

"A trick? He's pretty famous for those, isn't he? Now, you will flood his cell with a super-high dose of carbon dioxide, seein' as drugs don't work on him; then you will restrain him in this straight jacket, made of unbreakable fibers, and finally you will move him into that cell for about five minutes." I handed the director the Kevlar straight jacket I'd had built, and pointed at a neighboring, also empty cell.

He became visible, laughing giddily, and I immediately turned off my hearing; I knew he was a master manipulator, but he'd need to speak to me to manage that.

I stared him down, as the carbon dioxide pumped in, and he seemed to realize I couldn't hear him, as he began speaking in sign language. I had a very rudimentary understanding of it, but he was just as disturbing as in the comics. Perhaps more, seeing this level of insanity in a person, right before my eyes.

He slowly passed out, and I restrained him with my super-strength, not playing any games with him. Once he was in the straight jacket, I dropped him through a portal so that he was falling from 50,000 feet, above gotham. No way to pull any tricks that way, I didn't think.

Then I carved the Sigil that Helix had devised into every wall and surface, then summoned him back, canceling his momentum with a simple catch. The Kevlar absorbed all his attempts to free himself and powered itself further, after all.

Lastly, I moved his hair, and branded the back of his neck with the Sigil, tossing him onto the bed as he struggled and screamed. "There we go. Keep him under observation, this time? He should have a few changes to his psychology in the next few hours. Study them for me and report any findings, would you? This is part of an ongoing case-study. Have a nice day, then." I nodded and dropped through another portal, into my ship parked on the roof.

"Well that was a productive day." Helix commented, and started piloting us home.