Fanfic / Connecting the Dots

Superman: Bruce, tell me again why this arm is so important.
Batman: Because it came from another dimension.

—Opening Lines

In Connecting the Dots (available in English and Spanish, also here), a desperate move by Kakashi sends the rookies into another dimension, revealing a world crisis for both the Justice League and the Teen Titans.

Essentially runs off the premise that Kakashi's MS technique Kamui sends things to the DC universe. This gets out of hand when he accidentally sends the Konoha 12 plus Team Hebi to the DC world. The Justice League has to keep their rowdy visitors in line while trying to figure out a way to send them home. Spectre and a god-powered Luthor are also involved…

If you love the Rookie Twelve, this is the fic for you. Every one of them gets a crowning moment of awesome (yes, even Tenten; ESPECIALLY Tenten). The story is set in the somewhat broken continuity of the DC Animated Universe, but numerous characters from the larger DC Universe (and from outside of it) make cameo appearances or more. At over 300,000 words, it's a long read, but worth it. NaruHina is part of the story, but it is a minor part and shouldn't turn you away from this excellent fic. Now complete.

---

Tropes for this story include:

• Alternate Universe: The main twelve of Konoha + Sasuke's Hebi group get caught in Kakashi's Sharingan Warping Technique. The result is they end up scattered about the DC Universe.
• Artificial Limbs: Tenten loses a hand in her escape from Lex Luthor's captivity, but Cyborg and Fixit give her a mechanical arm with a built in laser gun. She is very pleased.
• Batman Gambit: Guess.
• Break Them by Talking: Lex Luthor/Darkseid gives a particularly devastating lecture to Superman after completing the Anti-Life Equation.
• Brought Down to Normal: The Spectre strips Sasuke of his chakra and dumps him in Gotham City. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
• Character Development: Sasuke shows subtle signs of developing some measure of empathy after his experiences in Gotham City. This culminates in the final scene in Chapter 33, where he is in charge of Otogakure, welcomed by Naruto into the Shinobi Alliance.
• Child Soldiers: When first meeting Neji, Green Lantern is disturbed by how much of a professional soldier the seventeen year old is. Especially when he mentions that he started at age twelve.
• Confusion Fu: One of the most obnoxious things the ninja discover is that they can't predict Batman.
• Continuity Nod: The plastic tips at the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
• Culture Clash: A major recurring theme. Of particular note is how bizarre the treatment of supervillains is to the ninjas.
• Damage-Sponge Boss: Wonder Woman and Superman have levels of stamina that the ninja aren't particularly prepared to cope with. Naruto in turn is the primary example of this among the shinobi.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Neji when the Teen Titans chew him out for killing Doctor Light. He doesn't understand why anyone would have a problem with killing an enemy on the battlefield and thinks the Titans needed him alive for practical reasons, like interrogation.
• Dynamic Entry: Is shouted by none other than Gai himself when he saves Mr. Terrific and Green Arrow from Bane.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Naruto and Sasuke make a formidable pair against Darkthor.
  • The Spectre tries to do this with Kyuubi and Trigon but the latter basically laughs in his face and the former only agrees after it's pointed out that Luthor could Body Surf Naruto and take control of him.
• Eye Scream:
  • Sasuke loses his left eye in the fight with Kyuubi Naruto.
  • Later, Neji shoots Bizarro right in the eye with a Blue Kryptonite arrow.
  • Luthor/Darkseid rips out Kakashi's Sharingan.
• Excuse Plot: One random day, Naruto encounters Sasuke, who conveniently just beat up all of their friends. Kakashi who is apparently Hokage in this continuity then uses Kamui to somehow bend space and time and throw everyone into the DC universe. From there the story runs itself.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Mr. Terrific insists there's a logical explanation for all the supernatural events going on in the story, to the annoyance of several characters, particularly Deadman and Blue Devil.
• Fusion Dance: "I was once Luthor. I was once Darkseid...Now I am both."
• Heroic BSoD: Mr. Terrific has a small one when Hinata unwittingly challenges his Arbitrary Skepticism by revealing details about one of his experiences with The Spectre she should, in theory, have no way of knowing.
• Highly-Visible Ninja
  "Ninjas? Don't make me laugh." Batman snorted. "Incredibly flamboyant with overpowered attacks? They can't begin to understand stealth."
• Honor Before Reason: During their initial confrontation, Wonder Woman gets more than a little annoyed that Sakura uses so many traps instead of fighting her face-to-face.
• Human Aliens: A good portion of the DC heroes, obviously. Neji lampshades this as he discusses with John Stewart while he and Rock Lee are given a tour of Oa.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All the chapters have words that end with "-tion" for titles.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: Did you miss the part up there where it said "Naruto", "Justice League", and "Teen Titans"? There a few thousand pop culture references sprinkled around also. Death of the Endless even shows up.
• Ironic Echo: "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission."
• Joker Immunity: Lampshaded in a discussion between Mr. Terrific and James Corrigan about how only the heroes or villains ever seem to cheat death while civilians tend to stay dead.
• Mathematician's Answer
  Huntress: Just tell me why [Kiba] is in his boxers.
  Question: Because I took off his pants.
• Mr. Exposition:
  • The Spectre, especially in the earlier chapters.
  • Luthor, to a lesser extent.
• Mythology Gag:
  • To help verify Hinata's story about How We Got Here, Lois Lane asks her to use her Byakugan to identify what color underwear she's wearing.
  • In Chapter 6, Sasuke is confronted with a mysterious intruder who prefers the dark. He naturally asks who the newcomer is.
    "I'm Batman."
• Neural Implanting:
  • Martian Manhunter clears up the communication problem for most of the Konoha team with his telepathy this way.
  • Shikamaru, having been in captivity for months, is unfortunate enough to get his English dictionary from Lex Luthor. He's not a fan.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Kakashi finally decides to teleport himself (and Gai) to the DCAU, and appears right in front of Lex Luthor, who rips the Mangekyou Sharingan out of his head and uses it to complete The Anti-Life Equation.
• "Not So Different" Remark: The Spectre actually compares Sasuke to Batman when he was of similar age. Both having their parents murdered and lashing out at the entire world for it.
• Omniglot: Batman, which makes him one of the few DC characters to actually be able to understand the ninjas from the get go.
• Poor Communication Kills: Until J'onn uses his telepathy to implant the English language into their heads, the Rookie Twelve can only speak authentic Japanese. Much conflict initially ensues because neither party literally understands the other.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Luthor considers not using anaesthetics on test subjects to be Stupid Evil, as their pain could cause false results.
• Reckless Pacifist: During the ninja's first encounter with the heroes Thou Shalt Not Kill policy, Neji points out that some of the Teen Titans standard tactics (e.g. knocking people off skyscrapers) could easily result in serious injury if not outright death to which Cyborg can only weakly defend by insisting that falling never actually kills anyone. In the end, the matter is brushed aside and left unaddressed by Robin insisting it's not the same because, even if his attacks could be lethal, Cyborg doesn't actually fight with the intent to kill.
• Refuge in Audacity: To keep word from getting out about Huntress' pregnancy, Question destroys her and his latest blood samples (in full view of Mr. Terrific and Green Arrow) and asks where the medical records are kept. After Terrific tells him, warning him only to tell Batman he's deleting files again. Why? Because he told them it's a safeguard against a Mayan conspiracy, and it's Question.
• Running Gag:
  • "Unless it IS!" "Shut up, Flash."
  • It takes a lot to convince Sai that he's not in a genjutsu. He likes to test its effectiveness by stabbing himself in the hand with a pencil.
• Shipper on Deck: During a press conference involving Naruto and Superman, Hinata nervously asks Lois several questions about whether the latter ever feels small, unimportant, nervous, daunted, or just not good enough. Lois doesn't understand why Hinata is asking her all those questions until she notices the way the Hyuga girl is looking at Naruto, to which the reporter says "Ooh. That's what you were talking about." Hinata tries to deny what Lois is implying, only for the latter to reply that the former can't fool a reporter.
  • At the end, when the Konoha ninjas are about to go back to their world, Lois and Hinata have one final interaction where the former jerks her head towards Naruto. Hinata briefly blushes before nodding her head, causing Lois to have a huge smile and give her a thumbs-up along with a wink.
• Shout-Out:
  • If you look closely during Ino's psychic breakdown, you'll notice several characters with their own connections to the mind...
    • Later, Harley, in an effort to cure Joker of his seeming brain death, kidnaps a neurosurgeon by the name of Sasha Nein.
  • Several to Discworld. Green Lantern replicates the 'Morporkian proving grounds of Atuinius 5'. There are references to Vetinari and Havelock streets in Gotham.
  • Beast Boy showing Neji some episode of Ask a Ninja.
  • When discussing the multiverse with Flash, Mr. Terrific uses a strip from xkcd. This then segues into the former talking about how he finds Peanuts to be rather dark.
  Flash: What are you talking about? Everyone loves Charlie Brown.
  Mr. Terrific: Except for everyone in his universe, apparently.
• Smart People Play Chess: Shikamaru vs. Lex Luthor, frequently. At the end, Shikamaru vs. the Goddamned Batman. Just when Batman thinks he won without Shikamaru noticing, it turns out that Batman already lost.
• Superhero Paradox: Chapter 12 has one of the better examinations out there; heroes draw villains, but Batman deliberately keeps things low-key to keep the city-smashers out of his city. As a mere human, he poses no apparent challenge to world-class threats, so while the tourists avoid Gotham, the businesses flock there because their buildings are unlikely to get knocked down. Wonder Woman shows up after Batman was hospitalized by Sasuke, and Cheetah shows up within the week. Superman Stays Out of Gotham because Batman asks nicely.
  Batman: Meta-criminals have no interest in Gotham. Gangsters do, because it is the only place most feel they have a chance. But so do businesses, research centers, and new families. While Metropolis' tourism business has been booming, Gotham's industry and population have been growing at unprecedented rates. Most people would rather live in a city where the buildings stay standing.
  • OTOH, Batman sees something he can't ignore after Wonder Woman shows up; people stop Holding Out for a Hero. The bright, shiny heroes inspire people to resist their situations.
    Batman: The gangs, cartels, and mobs have been falling apart. Members are leaving, children on the streets no longer flock to the nearest racket boss. And there's more. The people in Gotham have started to stand up against the criminals. Just small reports, mind you—an officer who refused to cooperate, a clerk who tackled a gunman—but it's something I'd never thought to see.
• Superpower Meltdown: Ino, unaware and untrained in her newly unlocked telepathic abilities, ends up unintentionally mind raping her friends. It takes Sai, and a handful of people with a Split-Personality Takeover to reach her and rein her in.
• This Is Reality: When surfing the internet, Beast Boy introduces the concept of fanfiction to Kiba. When Kiba asks him if there are any fanfics of himself, Beast Boy points out that of course there isn't, because he's real, and that would be creepy.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: The ninjas really don't understand this pillar of the DC Universe.
• Title Drop: Reverend McCay does this when his Epiphany Therapy to Sasuke segues into discussing his own raison d'être.
  "Alex, as you get older, you'll learn everyone suffers, and everyone thinks that they suffer alone. Even if they share their troubles with others, they think their own brand of sorrow is special and incomprehensible by anyone else. They feel like... like little dots. Like little, isolated dots of suffering, completely separate."
  "And what so few people understand is that they don't HAVE to be that way. They don't understand how to USE that suffering, to use it to understand others and to help others. The dots don't like to reach out to other dots, they don't try to connect. As minister, that's part of my job. To reach out to the heartaches in the pew and bring them into contact with each other. And, while I'm at it, to try and guess at the order to the dots. To… connect the dots, as it were, and see the overarching pattern to it all."
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: This is largely what Norman McCay dies of. May also be considered Too Cool to Live.
• Took a Level in Badass: Tenten likes automatic weaponry.
• Trauma Conga Line: Ooooh, does Sasuke get it bad here. Halfway through the story, he loses his left eye in a fight with Kyuubi Naruto, then gets lectured by The Spectre about how his vengeance-seeking will be his downfall. The Spectre then strips him of his chakra, forcing him to commit acts of petty burglary, which gets a partner he recruited killed and his leg mangled by a shotgun. And then Johnny Rancid's gang finds him and beats him up for fun before deciding he's Not Worth Killing. Only then does he decide he Ain't Too Proud to Beg in the streets of Gotham. Fortunately, at that point, it was the only thing that prevented him from crossing the Moral Event Horizon. He gradually begins to recuperate and salvage his dignity after meeting Norman McCay.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Robin is completely unmoved when Sasuke forces him to relive his parents' deaths via Tsukuyomi because a whole bunch of other villains with Mind Rape-based powers have done the same thing before.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 33 came nearly a year after the story was supposedly complete. Before that, Chapter 32 had Batman and Wonder Woman peeking in at another dimension watching a costumed guy shoot webs at his enemies.
• The Worf Effect: Whenever Raven is mentioned in a fight, she's knocked out from a genjutsu.
• Yin-Yang Clash: Sasuke's Sword of Kusanagi vs. Wonder Woman's Bracers of Athena: The sword dents the bracers. Both characters are flabbergasted for the exact same reason; it's the first time they'd ever seen their respective tools No-Sell.
  • Superman vs. a Rasenshuriken. That is all.
• You No Take Candle: The mysterious passerby who hands a destitute Sasuke a twenty dollar bill speaks this way. This character is a cameo by Pete from The Muppets Take Manhattan, who delivers the exact same lines in this way.

---