Kapitel 102: Memory Loss

Monday 6th September, 00:30.

Bialya,

Bialyan Desert.

Feeling a shiver run through her body, Barbara's eyes slowly flickered open to see the moonlight shining down from above creating a beautiful picturesque sight as she looked around the desert in confusion. Getting to her knees, her gaze scoured the landscape to check for any sign of danger, well-aware that she was still in uniform and that could only mean one thing; there was danger somewhere nearby.

'Where am I?' She wondered, raising her left arm Barbara pressed the locator button on her wrist, a holographic map popping up into existence with a blinking red light indicating her current location. 'Bialya? What the hell am I doing in Bialya of all places?' Her eyes then panned to the clock at the bottom left only to feel a second rush of shock course through her body. 'September? That makes no sense at all! It should be March! Is there something wrong with this?'

Barbara had no reason to believe there would be, Batman had never been on to allow himself or anyone to enter the field with faulty equipment. Even so, that didn't mean damage couldn't be accumulated while in the field that could cause malfunctions and considering she was struggling to even remember why she was in Bialya in the first place, Barbara did a mandatory diagnostics check on the holographic computer.

However, she was left even more worried when learning it was in full working order.

No fault to be found.

That meant it was September.

Not March.

'Then what the hell happened in the past six months? And why can't I remember a damn thing? Okay, calm down, Barbara. Think, think, think.' Closing her eyes, Barbara tried to think of any possible explanation for her current predicament, but she had too few clues or leads to explain why. 'Gah! This isn't helping at all. I'll contact the Bat Cave and find out what's happened.'

As she went to switch on her radio, Barbara found herself suddenly halting.

There was a thought at the back of her mind, an instinct that told her she shouldn't.

Barbara wanted to ignore it, get the answers she needed and solve this whole situation as quickly as possible.

However, she was too trained to do such a thing.

Batman had taught her to always follow her instincts in the absence of logic and clues.

With a long, drawn-out sigh of frustration, Barbara got to her feet and brushed off the sand covering her body before pulling up her map once more. Pressing a few more buttons, a second blinking red light appeared on the screen, the map zooming in on the light which was a few miles away from her current position.

'So it's not just me, Dick's here as well.' Lowering her arm, Barbara quickly began moving in Robin's direction with it being night in the desert, the temperature had dropped significantly. At a time such as this, it would be the height of foolishness not to capitalise as with the cool temperature she would be able to move quicker and cover the most ground before the temperature began to rise. 'I just hope Dick knowns more about our situation than I do because I've got nothing.'

-X-

Despite having been running for no longer than five minutes, having only been able to cover just over a mile in that time, Barbara had to quickly come to a halt when she heard the rumbling of a moving vehicle approaching. Not wasting a second, Barbara dived to one side, rolling behind a small rock formation nearby and peeked her head out to watch a convoy of eight military trucks rising over a dune in the distance and approaching her direction.

Half of which she noticed were peeling off and heading south.

Not willing to risk the possibility of being seen, Barbara crouched down low and watched as three trucks passed by. However, on the fourth, Barbara dived out from behind cover, rolling under the truck between the wheels and grabbed ahold of one of the pipes underneath. Pulling herself up so as to not be dragged along the sandy desert floor, Barbara took a deep breath to centre herself as she allowed the truck to bring her along for the ride.

'They seem to be heading in Robin's general direction.' She thought to herself, planning out her next steps. 'I'll follow them for now and let them carry me closer to him.' It was certainly much easier to allow the truck to bring her in Robin's direction as it was moving quicker than she was when running and if Robin did move away from Robin's direction or Robin started to move himself, she could always let go and move independently.

-X-

Monday 6th September, 07:00.

Bialya,

Bialyan Desert.

Taking a deep breath in, Barbara worked hard to ensure the meditative technique Batman had taught her was in full effect. As strong as she was, even she was beginning to feel the effects of holding onto a bouncing truck for nearly six and a half hours. Like she had expected, Robin had not simply stood idly around and had begun to move around, at first only a few meters in either direction from his original starting point.

No doubt he was trying to memorise his surroundings so as to not end up walking in circles as well as searching for clues. Then he had started moving north which as it turns out, was precisely where the trucks were also heading as well. Whether they were tracking Robin or if it was purely a coincidence, Barbara did not know. Either way, she had made sure at least to prepare herself for the possibility of a fight.

From the map, she could tell that in a few minutes, they would come across Robin's location where he would no doubt be hidden away. This would be the moment of truth as to whether they were tracking Robin as if they were they would be on him soon and if not they would continue to drive past.

As time passed by, Barbara kept a close eye on the map she waited till they got closer to Robin's location, she pulled out her grappling gun in preparation and took aim at an approaching rock formation. Considering their shared training, Barbara was certain that Robin would be hidden somewhere within that rock formation due to the amount of places to hide and vantage points it provided.

Ensuring her aim was spot on, Barbara fired the bolt while letting go of the pipe she was holding on to, she suddenly zoomed through the air. Despite her aim being true, Barbara had remained too close to the ground and she collided against it, bouncing and rolling down the hill before eventually coming to a stop.

Groaning in pain, Barbara slowly rose to her feet as she looked to see the convoy of trucks continuing to drive away, the tarp covering the back still in place meaning her presence was still unknown. "Now to find Robin."

Raising her arm, she looked on the map to see Robin's location was just a little ways ahead of her and so, dismissing the map, she started walking once more. He wasn't far, only a few meters ahead of her and as she rounded the corner, Barbara found him. He was crouched down, studying the direction in which the convoy had gone, the sand picked up by the trucks still slowly falling back to the ground.

"Batgirl, you're okay?" As if knowing she was behind him, he turned and flashed her smile of relief.

"Yeah, you?"

He nodded his head something that made her smile in turn. "Do you have any idea what's going on?" Robin asked the question that had been on her mind and hoped he would be more informed about it.

"No, I was hoping you knew why we're here and tell me what's happened in the last six months."

"I'm just as lost as you." He replied with a frown. "All I know is that Batman told us to keep radio silence. You haven't tried to radio anyone, have you?"

Barbara, shook her head, momentarily feeling a wave of relief that she had listened to her instincts as she was trained to do. "I was going to, but I decided against it." She then looked around warily. "So, what do we do now?"

"I noticed on my map that I'd placed a GPS marker on something. It's a few miles north from here. Don't know why but it's the only clue we've got at the moment." Barbara nodded her head in agreement only for both to notice the sound of something flapping in the wind, cautiously the two moved around the rock in front of them to see a piece of black fabric stuck to a rock.

Robin moved forward to inspect it, a red S symbol displayed upon it.

-X-

Monday 6th September, 17:00.

Bialya,

Bialyan Desert.

The sun was already beginning to set in for the night and with it, the overbearing heat of the Bialyan desert was starting to dissipate. Both Barbara and Robin were overjoyed at this bit of news, despite being trained to work in overbearing heats it was still difficult and tiring. In order to keep their progress constant throughout the day they had moved at a slow pace, never going beyond a simple walk.

But now, with light giving way to darkness and heat giving way to cold, they had started to pick up the pace.

As they closed in on Robin's GPS marker, the pair scrambled up the dune and staying low, looked over only to catch a glimpse of a black box strangely placed there. "Huh? Guessing that's why?" Robin vocalised, both cautiously studying the surroundings for any possible threats but after being certain there were none, both jumped down and moved toward the black box carefully.

Even though neither had any idea why the black box was here in the desert, it was incredibly high-tech.

However, their observations were quickly disrupted as soldiers burst out from the sand around them, guns aimed at them.

One man, no doubt the commanding officer of this dispatchment of soldiers started shouting. "اعلیحضرت آنها را زنده می خواهند! (Her Majesty wants them alive!)"

As the soldiers closed in on them, Robin activated the smoke bomb he had sneakily placed into the ground in case they had walked into a trap. It was a good job as they had been surrounded on all sides and without any need to communicate, both sprang into action.

Despite having successfully ambushed them, the guards were unused to fighting without being able to see their opponent. This was the case when all they could see was smoke, Robin and Barbara on the other hand were masters of this, even without their masks having inbuilt infrared vision in the lenses, they had been taught to fight without seeing.

The advantage of numbers lay with the Bialyan soldiers.

The advantage of the battlefield was with Robin and Batgirl.

Barbara quickly rushed across the desert to slam a flying sidekick into the face of one man knocking him out cold. Rolling along the ground with the strike, she jumped back up into the air and smashed her knee into the jaw of another. Using this very same man as a springboard, Barbara gripped ahold of his shoulders and flipped herself over him. As she landed on the ground, leveraged her body to throw the unconscious man into two others, the three of them falling to the desert floor in a heap.

She had unknowingly stepped out of the smoke by doing this, the wind having shifted the cloud of smoke leaving her exposed.

Two guards who had done the same noticed her and quickly spun to take aim at her exposed back.

Before they got a chance to fire though, a number of Batarangs hit their guns as the bullets that fired from the barrels of their guns went wildly off target. By the time they managed to recover and take aim once more, both Robin and Batgirl were upon them once again knocking them unconsciously in short order.

Crouched in the sand, both of Batman's apprentices studied the Bialyan soldiers who had managed to get back to their feet. Despite a good half of their numbers being unconscious on the ground, there was still a fair few of them standing and ready to fight.

"کافی! آتش باز کنید! (Enough! Open Fire!)" The captain shouted and the soldiers did so.

However, just as Barbara and Robin had safely jumped away, a black blur rushed across the ground and started taking the gums from the hands of Bialyan soldiers. "I'll hold that, thanks." Then the black blur came to a stop revealing Kid Flash who let the guns in his hand drop to the ground.

With a smirk, the speedster then rushed forward and started to give aid to Barbara and Robin.

When Robin rushed to deal with two Bialyan soldiers who still had their guns, they suddenly were pushed back by an invisible force. From the air behind him, Miss Martian stopped hiding and revealed herself, Robin looking at her shock and confusion.

Barbara on the other hand finished off the last man with a spinning hook-kick, coming to a stop to see Wally throw a man at three others where they collapsed to the ground. It was then she noticed one soldier about to get away, but an arrow cut through the air. She followed its trajectory, the arrow lightly exploding to reveal wire that wrapped around the escaping soldier tightly, bringing him to the ground.

"Okay, what the hell is going on?" She muttered

"KF! Man, is it good to see a familiar face." Robin exclaimed happily, moving forward to clasp hands with Kid Flash.

"Hey, Rob. Memory loss?"

"Six months."

"Wait, you guys have all got memory loss as well?" Barbara asked, looking to the gathered group who all nodded their heads.

"Let's hogtie these creeps and compare notes after."