Bruce

Bruce stalked down the corridor to his study. He impatiently yanked at his tie, pulling it off. He'd been having an uncomfortable tingling most of the night, nearly putting him off his game at the latest fund raiser. All anyone there could talk about was the spate of child kidnappings that was happening. There were other kidnappings as well, but it was the children that caught and held their attention.

Bruce had held his tongue. Most of the missing were creche children liberated a few years ago from that bizarre alien experiment. He just wished he'd paid more attention to it when it was happening. He'd only participated because there had been a rumor that Clark had a secret child there.

He'd met San. The kid was a cookie cutter copy of his dad without any of his dad's morals. Bruce had looked into the kid's eyes then and saw nothing other than native cunning and a propensity for cutting corners.

The kid, to be honest, reminded him of himself before he'd embarked on his training. The whole thought spooked Bruce thoroughly.

Perhaps that was why he'd tossed all the kids into those holding cells instead of immediately calling everyone responsible for them. Well, responsible for everyone except for Lucy and Court. Those two were troublemakers of the first caliber, but it was more of a Mxyzptik situation with them than actual mayhem. Left alone, they would more than likely leave everyone else alone as well. He'd read the kid's file from his first stint in juvey.

Bruce privately admitted that he'd even laughed. Those punks should have left Court alone. Then Lucy had gotten involved in his escape. At most, she'd probably do a couple months for springing the kid. Anyone with eyes and a brain could see that there was something more going on than what was being written into the kid's files.

He paused as he entered his Batcave. Then he looked over. The group of kids in question were sitting on an emptied area near his computer. The cells they'd been in during their first visit were pushed to the side. There were more of them than there had been before.

His eyes snagged on a little glowing figure standing in front of Lucy and pulling on her shirt. With a sigh, Lucy pulled out a cookie from the container in front of her and broke off a piece. She passed it to the little figure who was hopping in delight.

"She's going to get fat if you keep giving her cookies," one of the new kids muttered, his eyes busily scanning the entire cave. Bruce could almost see the intellectual greed shining through.

"She's made of electricity and..um…stuff?" Lucy retorted. She frowned and poked the guy next to her who was busy on a small laptop. "What's Trolli made of again?"

"Don't know. Ask Jeb. He cooked her up in that lab after all." Court paused and raised his head. "On second thought, don't. Who knows what he got to play with in that lab."

At that, everyone's head turned towards the curious one who ruffled hair that looked as if it got that treatment frequently.

"I was eight! How am I supposed to remember?" The one called Jeb protested as he noticed all the looks. "She's probably part alien-something. Right, Trolli?" He asked the little figure that easily jumped to his shoulder and waved the cookie in its grasp joyfully.

Bruce felt a headache coming on. Just how were they there? Did his security measures mean nothing?

He put the thoughts aside as he pulled on his cowl and ditched the dinner jacket. He stalked towards the children.

"You're back," he stated as he slid into the chair in front of his computer.

"And I still say," Lucy began before Aarti bopped her on the back of her head. "Hey!"

"Not that again," Aarti said, turning her attention back to her phone.

"Well, you know, now that I see him," another unknown said, a smile curving her lips. She ducked the swat Aarti aimed at her.

"Artemis," Bruce felt the need to say. "Why are you here?"

"Oh, we need help rescuing some people," Lucy volunteered, rubbing her head. "After much discussion, you won the draw, so to speak."

Bruce's headache slowly started materializing. He had an inkling he wasn't going to like what they were planning.

"Even though it's Aarti's fault—," Lucy began.

"—Hey! I told you already. I was in a fight, and they interfered!" Aarti looked up from her phone and glared at Lucy who arched an eyebrow back.

"And if you weren't so busy being Amazonian, you would have snatched that Amazon away before they snagged her," one of the new girls, the older one with dark green hair snarked.

"I was busy trying not to get snatched myself," Aarti replied before rolling her eyes and going back to her phone.

The phone interested Bruce. As far as he was aware, the Amazons didn't use them and were leery of the technology involved. He was also starting to get interested in what Aarti was looking at on her phone.

"Look," Lucy started again. "They got their hands on some rather difficult to counter tech, and we have realized that we need adults to lend a hand, and possibly…" Her voice died down as she started looking uncomfortable.

"They're hooking San on some weird version of Quell, and we can't contain him," Court broke in. Beside him, Jeb and the little glowing person nodded simultaneously.

"And how did you get in?" Bruce finally asked the question that had been bothering him.

"Oh, we let ourselves in," Court answered, finally looking up. His dyed purple hair gleamed even in the dim light of the Batcave.

"Don't worry. We won't remember a thing," Dawnie finally broke down to say. She darted her brother a fulminating glare. "I don't know why you didn't get Leilani—"

"—Because then, no one would have remembered the way back," Don retorted. He stripped a wrapper from some sort of bar and took a bite. Bruce noted the small amount scattered at his feet. "Oh, and can you find out just who is trying to track us using these wrappers?" Don waved a fresh one at Bruce, already eating another bar.

"Don't worry. You can't get any signals in here. Fascinating," Jeb said. The little glowing thing started squeaking. "Of course, Trolli. We always need your help!" The little figure, Trolli, smacked its little chest before darting back to Lucy who broke off another bit of cookie for it.

"They won't remember," the youngest girl said. She looked up through masses of black hair to reveal sharp green eyes reminiscent of Aarti's though lacking a certain spark. "My name's Leilani, and I'll let you remember that."

Bruce's eyes narrowed at that. The teens treated the child's words as truth. None of them batted an eye at the girl's outrageous claim.

"They won't remember," the girl said again. "When we leave, with your agreement or without, I'll wipe this location from Don's memory. Then no one will know how to get here."

"I don't want to know," Lucy grumbled. "Just wipe everything other than yay or nay. Dad beat the last person to get too close to this guy nearly to death after all."

"And good thing he didn't succeed, or there'd be no you," Court absently said, his fingers still flying across his keyboard. He paused and looked up. "Are you sure that Donovan got sent to Ireland because I'm just not finding him at all."

"That's a good thing," Jeb said, leaning over his shoulder. "If we two can't find him, then it's a sure thing that the overlords won't either. Hopefully," he added to Trolli's squeaking agreement.

Bruce took a deep breath. His brain started picking out the relevant facts, first and foremost being that none of the older kids wanted to be in his Batcave at all. Then the information about San popped out.

"You're saying that San is taking drugs?" He finally asked. By then, his headache was heading towards migraine country.

"And we need your help to dry him out before it gets any worse," Dawnie said, her eyes averted. It occurred to Bruce that the girl hadn't really looked at him since he'd arrived as if he was her own personal boogie man.

"Don't worry about Dawnie," Leilani assured him. "I'll wipe this entire visit from her brain, and we'll all act like we went without her."

Bruce's headache arrived at migraine country and staked out a nice place for a house as all the children nodded at Leilani's words.