"It's so good to see you all!" smiled Emily.

"Terry," said Mary, "why don't you put your cousin's bags in the guest room and we'll all sit down and talk." Terry did this and Emily held on to her book bag.

"Sssoooo....." said Matt, "Did you bring me anything? Did ya, did ya, did ya?"

"Matt! That's rude!" said Mary.

"No it's ok. I brought you all something." First she held out a package for Matt, with green paper and a red ribbon around it. He ripped at it like a wolf for the kill, revealing a little package with a Batman figure inside. Matts pupils went to the size of bowling balls as he unwrapped it.

"Way cool! Thanks Emily!" and he threw his arms around her. She laughed with the pleasure she had instilled in her young cousin.

"Well, your mom said that Batman was the coolest thing out there, and there's this shop in Metropolis that makes custom figurines. And I just had to know from the coolest ten year old if Batman was really all that," and she laughed again. Matt proceeded to have Batman fight off the evil striped couch.

She next pulled out a bulky package for Mary with lots of padding. It revealed a flower pot painted with flowers. Mary gave small tears of pleasure looking at the pretty thing and hugged her niece.

"I painted it myself," said Emily. "I thought you might like it. Now last, but definitely not least, Terry." She held out a red package with gold ribbon to Terry. He glanced at his cousin, but then took it. He slowly unwrapped it, revealing a hard cover copy of the most popular book in Gotham! It was scarlet red with gold lettering. Metropolis and Gotham shared a lot of the same fads. For instance, the splicing fad had started in Gotham, but became very popular in Metropolis. Well, Tyger, Tyger, was a fad started in Metropolis, but had moved onto Gotham. Terry had read it before but not in book form. Books were rare and expensive and near impossible to find. Most books were on cd-rom's which you simply popped into the computer and read. And hard cover books were all the more precious.

"Emily. This must have costed you a fortune!" exclaimed Terry.

"No! About $50 all together. I bought one for me to. See?" she pulled out her own hard cover copy, only her's was blue with silver lettering.

"Thanks," said Terry and he hugged her.

"Huh? Oh, sorry Bruce," said Terry and he put his book down.

"Good book? I'm surprised your reading."

"My cousin got it for me."

"Hard cover and everything. Seems very nice. So how was your cousin? Does she know what your doing?"

"She's fine. And I don't think she knows. At least not yet."

"Your not going to tell her are you?"

"She's sneaky. I'm hoping she doesn't find out is all."

"We can worry about it later, now suit up!" said Bruce.

"....He grabbed his net, the large grey cat like thing ran towards him, feet pounding on the ground. His back was turned yet he could her it. Twang! went the sound of the net as it latched it's sharp ends into the rock cliff and Tygress against it.

'No!' he cried.

'So you can talk,' replied the man as he slowly walked up to the creature.

'My father taught me!' Tygress shouted angrily.

'Your father was a test tube,' said- Matt? Matt? You awake little buddy?" Matt was sound asleep. Dreaming he was trying not to get eaten by his own form of Tygress no doubt.

"Aahhh...He's sound asleep," said Emily smiling. She picked him up and tucked him intohis bed.

"Aunt Mary?" called Emily.

"What is it dear?"

"I think I'm going to take a little walk around Gotham. It can't have changed that much."

"No, it hasn't, but by your self?" she called from the kitchen. Mary heard the door close and knew her niece had already left. She sighed. She had forgotten how much Terry and she were alike. This was going to be a hard three weeks....

Emily wandered the city streets. It was good to be out of the house, the cool, crisp air was refreshing. Cars and motorcycles zipped past and the lights shown like stars. So peaceful and calm, the city at night. All of a sudden she was knocked off her feet.

"Gemme your purse girly," shouted a man dressed up like a clown. Jokerz. They suddenly surrounded her. She swung her feet around his ankles and moved away just in time, to avoid being crushed.

"And what are you all supposed to be?" she asked, skeptical.

"We're the Jokerz! Most feared thugs in all of Gotham!"

"Sure you are."

This angered them and the leader held up a gun. "So you gonna give us your money, or do I have to blast in your head?" Emily looked around her and was completely relaxed. She'd handled worse in Metropolis.

"Given the choices, I'd say no," she replied.

"Your funeral." and he held up the gun and as he fired, she rolled out of the way, jumped up and knocked one off their bike. She climbed on quick and went speeding off.

"Find anything on Blight yet?" asked Bruce through the radio.

"Not yet," replied Batman. In another part of the city, Batman noticed that the Jokerz were chasing after something. He adjusted his vision and saw it was his cousin! "Emily? What an earth?!"

Meanwhile Emily was dodging heavy fire and speeding as fast as she could. "Come on, come on!" she muttered to know one.

Terry was speeding off in the direction she was headed, but knew all to quickly what it was. "She's going towards the cliff!" cried Batman, and raced off.

Emily was going faster and faster when she realized up ahead, the road stopped. She braked as fast and hard as possible, but she had pushed the bike too hard, and it was skidding along. It wouldn't stop in time! She closed her eyes as the bike fell of the cliff, but she realized she wasn't falling. She was being raised up! She looked up and saw Batman holding her arm and carrying her up. She clutched his arm and he brought her down in an abandoned building. It was an old gun factory and it's leftovers littered the ground. She was completely amazed

"Your...your....your Batman!" she exclaimed. Then she gave him a hard stare. "....Your Terry," she determined. It all made sense. Terry's lying, why he had rushed off so quickly, why his mother didn't even know what it was exactly he did at night. "And Bruce Wayne was the old Batman!" she shouted again.

"I think one of those bullets lodged it's self into your brain," he said. And he turned to go, but she grabbed his arm.

"I'm not Terry!"

"Why are you lying to me?! Did I ever betray you before?!"

"I don't even know you! Let me go!"

"I know it's you Terry! And I know when your lying!"

"Let GO! I don't know what your talking about!" shouted Terry. Through the radio in the bat suit came Bruce's voice: "Terry, tell her the truth." "No!" Terry shouted back.

Emily kicked a box behind her with her foot. A pistol went up in the air and landed in her free hand. She aimed it for Terry's head.

"Don't think I don't know how to use one of these cause it only takes five years in Metropolis till ya need em. Make you a deal. If I'm right, you've got to let me help you. If I'm wrong, I'll walk away and we'll pretend this never happened."

"How can I trust you?" asked Batman.

"Because I'm your cousin. Flesh and blood and I love you."

"What if that's not good enough?"

"Then your not who I thought you were. Of corse, you stopped being the Terry I knew when I moved away. When I heard you were friends with Charlie Bigalow, and that you landed yourself in Juvy. But I still trust you with my life, and you saved me. And I haven't blown your brains out yet. Good enough?"

"No," he replied.

"Will you settle for it?"

"I guess," her hand shook with nervousness as she reached for the mask.

"I hope I'm right," she thought. She pulled it out to reveal Terry's head and she sighed and laid her head on Terry's chest. "Told you I knew when you lied," she said.

Emily sat in a room that was completely desolate. The only view there was was tinted glass and she couldn't see through it.

"I don't care," said Bruce. "The answer is no. No Batgirl."

"But I made a promise!" argued Terry. "At least see how she does. There's more to her then you can possibly imagine."

"Fine. Give her a test, but that's it, and remember Terry. My standards are high. I doubt she'll make the cut."

In the room appeared three batarangs, stuck into a plate of steel. "Get out the batarangs and fire them at your opponent. Your objective is to get the rock on top of the platform," boomed a disguised voice.

Emily laughed. "That's it? No prob!" and began to tug at the 'rangs. It was impossible to tug out, she tugged and tugged and tugged, but to no avail. She looked at the steel plate. Something had to be holding them in place. She examined it carefully, but noticed nothing. But then she thought she saw something glint. Like a piece of silver. It was! Pure silver! A button! She pushed it and out they popped. She held the three like playing cards. "This is too cool!"

She heard something behind her and before even looking at it, she turned and slammed a batarang into an android.

"Ha!" she laughed. And threw a second one at the approaching robot on her right, and without thought, her left. "That's it?! That's your big tough guys!?" she called at the glass and proceeded to do a victory dance! "Yeah! I rock!"

"Proud isn't she?" said Bruce to Terry, though he wouldn't admit it, he was silently impressed.

"You should see when she wins in real life," said Terry who was doing his nervous habit of rubbing his hand on the back of his head.

As Emily was showing off, an android crept up behind her and was about ready to strangle her, but she heard it first. Wham! She simply slammed her fist behind her and into it's face.

"That was too easy," she said and rolled, jumped and grabbed a bar in order to swing herself onto the platform, but all of a sudden the bar broke and she was hurtling downwards. As the bar broke she swung and grabbed onto the very edge of the platform. "Don't let go, don't let go, don't let go," she thought silently and with great effort pulled herself to the top. She grabbed the rock and jumped down with ease.

"Well?" asked Terry.

"Good," said Bruce.

"Told you!"

"But she isn't going to be Batgirl."

"What?! She did awesome!"

"I said you could give her a test. Nothing more."

"But that's not fair! Bruce?! Come on! I need all the help I can get!" cried Terry.

Bruce smiled. "I guess you do huh? Fine. Bring her out. We'll see."

Emily was shaking in excitement. "I'm going to be Batgirl! This is way too cool!"

Bruce was digging in a closet. "So do you have a high performance Batgirl suit?" asked Terry.

"I made your suit, Terry , when Batgirl was still helping me. I figured....Anyway, I wasn't getting any younger. I saved it. Barbra quit just after I finished it." He pulled out a suit that was identical to Terry's except it almost had a utility belt, had a blue bat symbol, blue boots, no gloves, and instead of a whole head cover, just a tiny blue mask to cover the area around her eyes. He handed it to Emily.

Her eyes went wide. "It's beautiful!" she whispered. She hugged Bruce who was rather shocked but in his own way pleased. "Oh thank you Mr. Wayne! I promise I'll do the best I can! When do we start?"

"Tomorrow night," said Bruce. "But if you want you can do a little detective work from the computer."

"A hunch?" asked Terry.

"We'll soon find out," replied Bruce.

A bit of recorded film from the other night with Blight ran over the screen. "It's the same. thing as always, and if Emily and I don't get home soon, my mom will flip!"

"Maybe not," said Emily.

"No, trust me. She'll flip and I'll be the one to get in trouble!"

"Not that!" said Emily. "The film! Bruce? Can you magnify that shot right there?"

"The one of the barrels?" he asked.

"That's the one." He magnified it a few times until she could read it.

"Huh? That's funny."

"What's funny?" asked Bruce.

"Those barrels. They say Wayne-Powers Industries. Hey Mr. Wayne, isn't that your company?" Emily said. Bruce's fist clenched.

"Powers!" he growled.

"You think he's hired Blight to get rid of the stuff?" asked Terry.

"Maybe," he said. "I think it's time to do some detective work as Terry and Emily."

"What did you have in mind, 'cause I don't like the way that sounds?" said Emily.

"The annual business dinner and dance is next Wednesday. Powers will be there. And now, so will I. With the accompaniment of you two...."