Chapter Text
Diana was sitting with all of the Waynes at their dinner table. She had learned about a cult that worships Kronos that had manage to get lost in the chaos of Gotham. As such she reached out to Batman and all his kids to help her. Which is why she is enjoying a meal with all of them, even the ones who more often like to stay away from the Manor unless they need to be there.
Looking around she smiles at the calm chaos of siblings bickering at dinner. Having watched nearly all of them grow up, she can't help but see them as her own kids. A voice in the back of her head reminds her that the only reason they aren't is the attachment issues that Bruce has.
That night she works alongside Batman as they trace the cult while the others run around the city dealing with other crimes. Though they all swing by at some point to spend time with Wonder Woman. However they are only able to confirm that the cult is in Gotham but not where they are or what they might be planning.
Which is something that gets on all of their nerves when Cass gets kidnapped the next day while she is out doing some shopping. When she actives her emergency comm, Oracle dives into what is going on and sees them shooting her with something that prevented her from fighting back.
"Okay, her tracker is working so they don't know about it or didn't bother trying to search her. I'm getting audio from her end so she managed to activate the open mic. Accessing the cameras nearby and it seems like they are relying on us not knowing where they are for security." The computer hacker explains as everyone gets suited up.
Cass was tied up on some altar watching as the cult ran around in a panic. From how they are moving and acting it is clear that they are rushing to get their ritual set up. She wonders why they kidnapped her if they weren't ready. She would ask but they did attempt to gag her, which does make her wonder if that is necessary with her mutism.
When she hears the leader shouting, she twists her neck a little to look at him, "Who was in charge of translating the part about the timing? Can't believe we almost missed our chance to do this. It only comes around every few centuries and if Steve wasn't as big of a space nerd, we would have completely missed it."
Despite how thrown together everything seems to be, the cult gets everything put together very quickly while the leader is rapidly setting up things around the alter while referencing a book. Occasionally he looks at his watch and frowns, though after giving one last look over he checks it and smirks. The comm hidden in her hair buzzes slightly to let her know that her family is on the way.
"Okay, sacrifice is ready, everyone begin the chanting. We should just be able to do it in time." The leader states.
Cass glances around and doesn't see any knives or other weapons and wonders how they plan on killing her. A large glass on the podium next to the book the guy is reading from suggests a poison of some kind.
Trying to shift so he won't be able to force her to drink it, while still keeping an eye on everything, she is a little surprised when he moves up next to her while another cultist steps up to stand nearby with a torch. A slight waft of air from a window opening carries the scent of what is in the glass to her and she realizes that they plan on burning her to death.
This is the moment the Bats bust in, with Wonder Woman dropping from nearly straight above the altar with just enough of an offset so not to cause any debris to hit Cass. Though the cult leader begins to quickly pour the liquid over her.
Just as the first drop hits Cass, she thinks she can hear someone call out.
[Time Out]
Danny was frowning as he flew through Amity Park. The Guys in White were chasing him again to try an capture him, so several were attempting to corral him someplace specific. The agency, or whatever it actually was, has been stepping up their attacks ever since they first arrived in Amity Park, though these last several months have seen a sharp rise in their efforts.
It's become quite difficult to fight off both them and the other Ghosts, though most of his rogues are usually okay with ending the fight when they get interrupted. Many have even stopped showing up in Amity Park altogether as long as he makes an occasional trip into the Ghost Zone to still fight with them.
Dodging another blast, he wonders if maybe he should leave the city like his sister and friends. They have been attempting to get him to do so, though with his parents not wanting to shut down the portal, he feels an obligation to stick around to deal with any Ghosts.
Jazz had gone off to some out of state school and picked up a dual doctorate in Psychiatry and Psychology and is working at some mental hospital. Jack and Maddie were extremely happy to have a third Dr. Fenton in the family. Danny actually had to convince Sam and Tucker originally to leave the town for college, with them thinking that Valerie was going to be attending the local college being why they agreed to leave.
He made sure not to let them know that the only other hero for the town had already made plans to leave herself. As they needed to know that he was thinking of his own future, he found an university that let him do nearly all of the Engineering courses he wanted to take online. The few that he couldn't do so with, there were comparable classes at the local college that he could take instead.
Thinking of his Fraid might've distracted him a little as a blast nearly hits him as an agent yells, "You can't run forever Phantom!"
Focusing on the now, Danny spots where the GiW was trying to lead him and charges up an ecto bomb with his ice powers. Heaving it at them, a couple agents attempt to put up an ecto-shield to protect them only for the ice to burst through and freeze the majority of them. A moment later and he has the remaining agents mopped up and fleeing away.
At least until one of the ones running turns around with some weapon he's never seen before and manages to get a lucky hit on him. Feeling something inside of his body twist, he fires several pinpoint ecto blasts to destroy the gun.
Turning invisible he flies off and returns back to his room in Fenton Works. Landing and turning Human again, he feels a weird sensation sweeping through his body shortly followed by incredible pain as it feels like he is being torn to shreds.
Almost an hour goes by before the pain passes and he can pick himself up off of the floor, glad once more that he has carefully encased his room in soundproofed ice. Something he did when he was dating Ember and didn't want his parents to figure out that he was keeping a ghostly girlfriend in his room most nights.
Looking around he sighs as he is at least half his former height. Figuring he got shrunk again and wondering if it was to make him easier to catch or something, he gently cracks his door to listen for his parents. Distant sounds down in the lab are not a surprise to him as he is pretty sure they've remodeled part of the lab so that they can just live down there.
A quick test to make sure he can still use his powers, he is glad that this time the shrinking didn't take them away and that he still has enough height to make moving around the house easy. That at least the clothes he was wearing also managed to shrink with him has him wondering what exactly caused this to happen. When he enters the bathroom, he notes that his head barely clears the counter and he has to fly up to see himself in the mirror.
Danny quietly curses to himself as he sees that rather than having gotten shrunk, he is now a kid again. It takes him a long minute to see the sticky note that appeared on the mirror. Clockwork's neat handwriting is a small comfort to him.
Don't worry about Amity Park
due to the GiW's escalations
the others will be staying out.
Until you recover, why don't you stay with Jazz
-CW
He sighs and goes back to his room to pack and make some arrangements. Though a brief thought crosses his mind and he smirks mischievously.
"Well, there's really no need to warn Jazz I'll be coming, now is there." He states to himself.
Bruce was panicking, and was struggling with suppressing a variety of emotions while he was pacing while Zatanna was checking over his daughter. The magician had met them in the Batcave after they had gotten Cass away from the cult.
After the leader had dumped the unknown oil onto her, a large burst of magic knocked everyone backwards with Wonder Woman the only one who managed to keep her feet. Loudly swearing, the Amazonian rushes to the altar to makes sure the cultists who are still near it are no longer a threat. It takes Batman just a hair longer to get there, during which a small flare of flame catches his eye as a little of the oil left in the glass met with the torch.
Knowing that his daughter was covered in something extremely flammable, he pauses at the sight on the altar. Cass was still alive, and as far as he can tell unharmed, but the magic that exploded did have an affect. He collects some of the oil still on her for further testing, and as he does so notices a sticky note on her sleeping face.
Wonder Woman lets him get whatever he needed as she states, "That magic belonged to Kronus. Though you'll need someone better versed in magic to explain what happened."
The other Bats are round up the cultists and securing them, Oracle comes over the comms to say, "I've already reached out to Zatanna. She's on her way to the cave."
Batman picks the note off of his daughter's face and reads it aloud, "I haven't appreciated sacrifices for Eons. Clockwork, formerly Kronus."
Diana quirks an eyebrow as she carefully lifts the small girl up into her arms. Her father gives her another quick check before relaxing just a little at reaffirming that Cass isn't hurt. That for whatever reason, she is just now ten years old.
Zatanna standing up as her spells finish draws Bruce's attention back to the situation in the Batcave. He braces himself for possibly bad news.
"So first off, Good News, she's perfectly fine. All that happened is that she got turned into a kid. Not so Good News, it's not an enchantment but something done directly by a god which means I can't just undo it. Neutral News, I do have spells that could age her up, but there are some possible, and some definite, side-effects that can cause major problems." The magician reports.
A slight tug at Bruce's sleeve has his jumping just slightly at how his daughter managed to sneak up on him. Looking down at her she moves her hands to sign.
"Would like to stay as a kid." She states.
He shifts to kneel next to her so that their faces are level with one another, "Are you sure?"
Cass nods and continues, "Until old enough, I will set aside my cowl."
That stuns him just a little, as much due to knowing that she means it as that one of his kids is actually willing to do so. He pulls her into a hug that she returns.
"Your cowl will be there if you ever want to take it back up, but it's perfectly alright for you to take this chance to live the childhood you missed the first time around." Batman tells his daughter.