Jason Todd did not normally eat breakfast. Sure, all the health magazines that he occasionally browsed in the checkout line insisted that breakfast was a great way to "jumpstart your metabolism" and lose weight, but the truth was that skipping the so-called most important meal of the day had always given him more energy. The only times he had regularly eaten breakfast were at Alfred's insistence, since one did not simply turn down freshly made scones from Alfred Pennyworth. Ever since coming back to life, however, he had reverted back to his old habits.
The reason for that was because he was usually out so late that by the time he woke up the time for breakfast had long since passed. At the same time, maintaining his figure took a lot of fuel, so he tended to devour large lunches and dinners to make up for skipping the first meal, with plenty of snacks in between. It was not the perfect diet, but it worked for him.
However, last night had been relatively quiet, so he had turned in early and woke up at eight in the morning with nothing to do but eat. So he had fixed himself some bacon and eggs and was currently chowing down.
He was about halfway finished with his plate when a knock at the door interrupted him mid-chew. Taking a swig of orange juice, he worked a hand through the tangled mix of helmet hair and bed head that rested atop his scalp, then rose and strolled over to the door, pulling a tee-shirt over his bare torso at the same time. The shirt still smelled like the last person to wear it, which brought a smile to his face.
A smile that transmuted into an expression of bewilderment when he saw said person at his doorstep, dressed in her pajamas.
Jason rubbed his eyes. "Am I dreaming?"
The blonde shook her head. "Hi Jason," she greeted. "It's great to see you again. Now run for your life!"
He quirked an eyebrow. "Did Alfred make you watch Doctor Who?"
"No, I mean RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!" She pointed at the window behind him. He followed her finger, and saw what she meant.
On the opposite rooftop was what appeared to be a teenage girl, wearing the same outfit as the one in front of him. Oh, and she was holding a rocket launcher.
Jason did not hesitate to follow the blonde as she dashed down the hallway. The RPG crashed through the window and directly into his breakfast, scattering eggs everywhere and setting the apartment on fire. He sighed. At least that safe house had not required a deposit.
"What the hell was that?" he demanded as they raced down the stairwell.
"Oh, didn't I mention? We've got assassins after us!"
"Us?"
"Okay, mostly me, but I came to you for a very specific reason!" she explained. "And I brought some friends!"
Jason boggled for a moment. He had not expected his second date with Stephanie Brown to go like this.
"And where are they?" He brought up his foot and kicked open the door that led outside. It stung a little worse with bare feet than it did when he had his boots on. His boots that were now burning in the apartment, along with the rest of his costume.
"The Compact!" She pointed to a purple SUV about fifty yards away. They started running in that direction, but were interrupted by the appearance of a dozen wild schoolgirls.
"Okay, now I'm definitely dreaming," he remarked. "That's the last time I watch low budget kung fu movies before bed."
"I highly doubt there are kung fu movies about ninja schoolgirls."
"I swear it wasn't porn!" He held up his hands. "And you're missing out. Low budget movies always have the best action sequences."
"I'm sure," she said in perfect deadpan.
His reply was cut off by the fact that the schoolgirls all decided to jump them at once. Jason hopped backwards, barely avoiding simultaneous swipes from three katana blades. Stephanie had pulled out a telescoping staff and was fending off six of the attackers at once, which left him with the other half.
"You girls are so lucky I don't have my guns." One of them attempted a flying leap, which he countered by punching her in the gut. The sword fell out of her hands and into his, and he used it to fend off another swipe, batting it to the side rather than try to block.
Steph took a break from punching one of the girls repeatedly in the face to raise an eyebrow at him. "Was that a Shoryuken?"
"I used to hang out at the arcade before my parents died," he explained while he dipped back to avoid a swing from a kusarigama, a nasty little weapon that was basically a pair of nunchaku with a longer chain and a sickle on one end. "Sue me."
"Copyright lawyers are the least of our problems right now."
He muttered something under his breath as the chain wrapped around his stolen weapon. He yanked back on it, pulling its wielder close enough for him to lash out with a devastating kick. He removed the chain from it and stared down at the sword.
Jason did not understand the rest of the world's fascination with the katana. Japan was a notoriously iron-poor country, and katana were typically constructed using a folding technique to rid the metal of imperfections. All but the most meticulously constructed blades were horribly brittle and prone to snapping in two.
In other words, not his favorite weapon.
Their attackers also did not seem to know how to use the sword. Katana were intended for slicing and stabbing, but they were coming after him with hacking and slashing motions, putting their blades at great risk. They appeared to have been trained by someone who thought the sword looked cool but did not understand its strengths and weaknesses.
Fortunately for him and unfortunately for them, Jason had briefly studied Bushido on his quest to learn from the world's deadliest killers. He had actually sought out the teacher himself rather than having Talia recruit him, and he was the only one he had not killed. It had only really come in handy when he fought Green Arrow, and even then he had the good sense to put explosives in the hilt.
"You're all just a bunch of rookies, aren't you?" he taunted, dipping to the side to avoid the next attack. "Amateurs thinking they can cut it in the big leagues. You call this an ambush?"
Deflecting another swipe, he swung his blade in a downward arc and carved into the nearest schoolgirl's clavicle, twisting the blade slightly as it made contact and pulling it towards him to get the full effect. Blood started to pour from her neck, and he took the opportunity to kick her in the stomach, launching her into another one of the attackers and sending them both to the ground.
Three down.
"Don't you ladies know who I am?" he continued, chatting it up as they tried to eviscerate him. He preferred to talk while he fought, since it kept the enemy off balance. "If you did, you'd know you just made a big mistake."
"We are dead!" one of the schoolgirls shouted out cryptically, and he vaulted over her to avoid a savage charge.
"Goddamn right you are."
Steph's attackers had managed to corral her towards him by this point, trying to pen them in together so that they could surround and overtake them. Even though their training had happened years apart and under much different circumstances, all it took was a nod and two smiles for them to work together.
As if they had choreographed it weeks in advance, Jason ducked down and let Steph spin her polearm through the air in a full circle, forcing the others to give them some breathing room.
"So," she began as the schoolgirls quickly regrouped and started closing in from all sides. "Does this qualify as a normal Sunday for you, too?"
"Can't remember the last time I lived through Attack of the Killer Schoolgirls, but the part where they're trying to kill me is familiar enough."
"Just checking."
Two of the schoolgirls charged in his direction, and he allowed Steph to grab his shoulders and vault over him, kicking both of them in the face. They stayed down, which meant that only seven remained. Once she was on the opposite side, he spun around and sliced the shaft of a spear in two, then used the momentum to leap into the air and land a tornado kick to the schoolgirl's temple, sending her to the ground.
Six.
"How do you..." He trailed off as the first European weapon he had seen, a chain flail with dangerous looking spikes, passed dangerously close to his face. "...know these girls again?"
"I'll explain when they're..." She switched places with him and allowed the chain to become tangled on her staff, then yanked it away. "...when they're not trying to give us the Death of a Thousand Cuts, thank you very much."
"And here I thought this was gonna be a dull weekend."
Another of the teenage ninjas ran at him and he sidestepped while spinning, slicing her back open as she passed. She stayed down, screeching in pain. Whoever trained these girls had obviously not prepared them for an enemy who was willing to inflict serious injury. They probably relied on their innocent appearance and the social stigma against hurting girls to make their opponents hesitate, neither of which affected Jason Todd. People who tried to kill him died, no matter how pretty they looked.
Five.
"You want me to keep going? Come and get it!"
Behind him, Stephanie was facing off with two more attackers, whom she dropped by tossing the staff into their faces, which broke their noses with a sickening crunch, then swinging wide and knocking one into the other, cracking their skulls together and sending them both to the ground.
Three.
The next challenger made the cardinal mistake of swinging the sword like a baseball bat, which he easily countered by performing a back handspring and knocking the blade into the air with his feet. He then demonstrated the proper technique and slashed her diagonally across the belly before dropping her with a reverse roundhouse kick to the head. The blade descended from the sky and pierced her shoulder, pinning her to the ground and causing blood to pool beneath her.
Two.
They were down to one each, and Stephanie showed no signs of slowing down any time soon. Even though he had not been around to see it, he knew that she had commonly regarded as the weak link of the Bat Family when he was still nothing more than a bad memory. Somehow she had gotten phenomenally good when none of them were paying attention.
She smacked the lower end of her staff into a girl's stomach, causing her to bend over right into Steph's rising knee. The teenage ninja then caught a boot in the solar plexus, slamming her into the unforgiving wall of the alley.
The final schoolgirl charged at him with her sword overhead, which left her completely unprepared for when he plunged the blade in her stomach and ran it up to the hilt.
The look of shock on her face as blood started to leak out of the corners of her mouth only produced a tiny bit of guilt in Jason, and even then because he could not help thinking what a waste it was that a beautiful teenage girl had been turned into this. He buried the feeling as he turned around and twisted the sword before yanking it out of her belly.
He turned around expecting to see Stephanie gawking at his brutality and prepared himself for a lecture. It never came. Instead she simply motioned toward The Compact. "Come on!"
He blinked. Any of the other members of the family would have torn him a new one over using lethal force, especially against teenage girls, but Steph seemed to realize that they did not have time to argue over it. He was liking her more by the minute.
They arrived at The Compact without any further incident, and Stephanie hopped in the driver's seat while he rode shotgun.
"Okay," said Jason as they pulled out onto the street. "Not that I don't appreciate the surprise party, but does somebody want to tell me what the hell is going on?"
Outlaws
Exodus, Part I
"First, some introductions." Stephanie gestured to the two girls in the back seat. One of them was white with short hair and was glaring at him. The other, currently unconscious passenger was dark-skinned—he did not want to presume her race until she was awake, though he spotted more than a few Indian features—and clad in the same schoolgirl outfit as Stephanie and the rest of the assassins. "This is Wendy Harris, also known as Proxy, and that's Jolisa Windsor."
"Pleasure," he muttered. "Why's she asleep?"
"Sedated, actually. We haven't figured out how to counteract the mind control wafer she swallowed just yet."
"Mind control...?" he repeated, becoming increasingly baffled with each passing second. "Explain. Now."
"I'll start at the beginning." She took a sharp right into an alleyway, cutting across to another street. "A couple months ago, Batman sent me to infiltrate St. Hadrian's Finishing School for Girls. On paper, it's a pretty prestigious school that only the richest girls can get into, and it's supposed to help them realize their personal and professional goals."
Jason scoffed. "And let me guess; it's actually a secret ninja academy."
"Got it in one." She turned left coming out of the alley, startling a homeless person. "They train teenage beauty queens how to kill and then hire them out to clients who need a bodyguard that doesn't exactly look like one. Right before I was sent in to break up their little operation, they got a contract from somebody called Leviathan."
"Who the hell is Leviathan?"
"Great question." She pushed down harder on the accelerator. "And one that Batman just found the answer to. It turns out Leviathan is actually somebody we're all familiar with, especially you."
"Which explains why you roped me into all this." He glanced at the mirror to make sure nobody was following them. "Who is he?"
"She, actually." She turned right at the next intersection. "Talia Al Ghul."
A shiver ran down his spine. "...Shit."
"Yeah, she wants her little hell spawn back," Stephanie continued. "It's like Kramer vs. Kramer except both sides have thermonuclear capability."
"And why are those psycho ninja girls after you again?"
"Mind-controlled. Not psycho. And it turns out 'Leviathan' wasn't too happy with her troop supply getting cut off. They came after us this morning."
"And you came to me for help instead of Batman why?"
"Batman's still out in the middle of the ocean." She blew through the intersection just as the light turned from yellow to red. "I wouldn't have known the situation at all if Proxy hadn't been keeping up with Oracle."
It was then that Jason realized none of the intersections they had passed through were equipped with traffic cameras. She seemed to be specifically avoiding any routes that would allow them to be electronically tracked.
"Firewall is... gone." She closed her eyes for just a moment. "And so is all my gear. No batsuit, no gooperangs... nothing that made me Batgirl is left, except this car. We don't have any hiding spots left in Gotham, and I figured you might have some place that we could lie low for a while."
"Not anymore I don't. That was my last safe house, and Batman and Robin shut down my secret arsenal a while ago." He smiled faintly. "But hey, if you're serious about hiding, then we need to go to Switzerland."
Steph quirked an eyebrow. "Why's that?"
"Because it's where all my money's kept, and if I do a wire transfer from anywhere else in the world Talia and whoever else is interested will be able to track us. But if we go there and withdraw the money in person, then we can go anywhere we want afterward and no one will be able to follow us."
"I always wanted to see the Alps." The light in front of them turned red, and she stopped. "How do we get there?"
"Airport. I have a plane there all chartered and ready to go at a half hour's notice in case I ever need to leave the country in a hurry."
"Thoughtful." She punched some numbers into the GPS, and it plotted a camera-free route to the airport. "A little paranoid, but thoughtful."
"Is this thing wheelchair accessible?" Wendy inquired from the backseat.
"It uses stairs, so no. I can carry you if you want."
She looked at Stephanie. "Why are we getting help from this guy again?"
"Because, with the exception of the whole 'no-killing' rule, he's the closest thing to Batman we've got right now," she explained. "And it appears the whole 'planning and preparation' rule stuck with him just as well as it did with me."
He scowled a bit at the comparison, but could not deny that it was true. He had never taken crazy-preparedness to the level that Bruce did, but he always liked to have an exit strategy. He had an extra costume on that plane, as well as weapons. If they could get out of the country in it, they stood a chance of surviving.
Of course, he had thought that often enough to know that something was bound to go wrong.
They arrived at the airport about thirty minutes later, without encountering a single ambush. Jason had been through enough in his life to feel uneasy about that. He also knew enough not to say that out loud.
"It's quiet. Too quiet."
Stephanie Brown, apparently, did not.
"Great, now you've doomed us all."
"Hey, I know our luck hasn't been great this morning, but really, what else could they throw at us?" The gate to Jason's private airstrip opened in front of them. The plane was about a hundred yards away, ready to lift off as soon as they got aboard.
Jason rolled his eyes. "You're not even tempting fate anymore. You're flipping it off while smoking and wearing shades."
"Could you for once just look on the bright side?" Then, most likely to spite him, she uttered the most dreaded words in their jinx-ridden profession: "It's not like things could get any worse, right?"
As if she had violated some sort of cosmic three-strikes rule, the plane chose that moment to explode.
"Holy flying sneakers, Batman!" Steph exclaimed as she swerved out of the way of the flaming debris. The Compact skidded to a stop some seventy yards away from what used to be their ride out of Gotham.
"You just had to say it!" Wendy shouted from the back seat.
"Hey, that thing would have exploded whether I said anything or not!" She turned around and jabbed finger in her direction. "If anything I tricked out the laws of irony and made it blow up ahead of schedule!"
"It's still gone." Jason scowled at the burning wreckage. "And it means they knew where we were headed. That's why they didn't attack us on the way."
"Okay, so what now?" Stephanie turned to face him. "We buy a plane ticket?"
"I kinda left my passport in my other pants." He gestured down to his pajamas. "And I seriously doubt they're gonna let us bring an unconscious girl on the plane."
"We could just say she's sleeping," Wendy suggested.
"Still doesn't solve problem number one. And I doubt you ladies carry those with you either."
They shrugged.
"Besides, they'll be expecting us to do that. Which means we need to do something they don't expect."
"And that is?" Steph inquired.
"We need to hijack a plane."
They both stared dumbfounded at him for a full minute.
"What?"
"You want us to hijack a plane?" Stephanie repeated.
Jason nodded.
"Yeah, real funny," remarked Wendy.
"I'm not joking." His features turned deadly serious. "This is real. Killers are after you and they've already burned everything that gave you a life here. You're gonna have to leave it all behind. What's stopping you from doing that?"
"Oh, I don't know, how about the fact that we'll be branded as international terrorists!"
"I already am," he replied matter-of-factly. "You ladies don't have to come."
Steph and Wendy exchanged a meaningful look.
"And relax, I don't mean a 747. We're jacking a cargo plane." At their confused expressions, he elaborated: "No passengers, lots of fuel, and if we pick one that's big enough you can probably fit this thing in the bay."
Stephanie stared at the steering wheel for several moments. In that time, he watched her normally soft and friendly countenance shift into something dark and determined. She was forcing herself into a state of mind that would allow her to put aside her normal reaction to a situation and do what she needed to survive. He recognized that look because he had undergone the same transition a long time ago.
Hopefully it would not be permanent.
"I need to do something first," she informed them with a slight choke in her voice, grabbing her phone and stepping outside the vehicle.
Jason could not hear her as she made the call, and she had her back to him so he could not read her lips. As soon as she was finished, she disassembled the phone and stamped on the remains. When she got back into the car, her eyes were red as if she had been crying, but the tears no longer fell.
"You okay?" She nodded.
"Yeah," she replied numbly. "Let's do this. I trust you have a plan?"
"The plan is always the first casualty. What separates us from the rest is our ability to adapt under pressure." He smirked. "That said, here's what we need to do."
But even as he began to detail exactly how things were about to go down, he could not shake the feeling that part of Stephanie Brown had died that morning. And he did not know for certain if it would ever come back.
Clyde Johnson had always hated his name. It was not embarrassing by any means; it was a perfectly normal, all-American name. But that was what bothered him about it. It held no intrigue or mystery. It bored him half to sleep every time he said it. He wanted to change it legally to something more impressive-sounding, but the airline had strongly advised him against doing so, because apparently the paperwork involved in changing a pilot's identity was a bureaucratic clusterfuck.
Maybe it was for the best, though. He certainly did not have much of an imagination.
His boring name had been the reason he became a pilot, like his father. Of course, his father had been a pilot in the 60s and 70s, back when wearing that uniform would get you laid six ways from Sunday and an open tab at any bar in the country. Now nobody gave a two shits about airline pilots, especially after 9/11. They cared even less about the pilots of cargo planes, even though they kept the country supplied with everything from coffee beans to tiny plastic toys made in Chinese sweat shops.
And that was the reason he became a smuggler.
Being a pilot did not pay as well as it once did, and running things under the radar had turned out to be a pretty profitable side business. Right now he was set to fly out to Europe to pick up a shipment of automatic weapons for a client here in Gotham. He was an old client, one who had recently returned and still retained his old connections. Clyde had met him exactly once, and it had left a considerable impression on him.
After running through the pre-flight checklist, he confirmed everything with his co-pilot and contacted air traffic control to confirm that they were cleared for launch. When he received the affirmative, he taxied onto the runway and put his hand on the throttle.
"I wouldn't do that just yet."
"What in the...?" He looked behind him to see some idiot in pajamas standing at the rear of the cockpit. "How the hell did you get in here?"
"What's the matter, Clydie?" the stranger continued. "Don't you recognize me?"
His eyes went wide the moment he placed the voice. "B-boss! Sorry, but without the helmet I didn't..."
He shrugged. "S'okay. Here's what you're gonna do, though. You're gonna keep us on the ground while I open up the bay door. Nothing's in the bay, so you don't have to worry about losing any cargo."
"Pardon me for asking, Boss, but why—"
"Expecting company. Hit the throttle when I give the order, and not a second earlier, you got it?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Good man." He disappeared into the cargo bay and released the lever that opened the door. From what Clyde could see, there was a purple SUV trailing behind them at high speed. Curiously, airport security was not hot on their heels.
"Not that I'm doubting you, Boss, but what makes you think they won't shoot us out of the sky for pulling a stunt like this?"
"Because anyone who would either notice or care is too busy dealing with an explosion at the other end of the tarmac," he answered. "Just keep her steady."
"Will do."
"Flight 247, be advised, all planes are to remain grounded for the time being. Slow down and taxi back to the hangar."
Clyde weighed his options. On the one hand, violating a grounding order might result in fighters being scrambled, especially if they noticed him taking additional passengers on board. On the other hand, the man who had invited said passengers would most assuredly kill him if he didn't do exactly as ordered.
"I'm almost out of runway here, control," he radioed back, while his copilot wisely remained silent. "No choice but to finish takeoff."
"Negative, Flight 247, stop at once and proceed back to the hangar."
"Sorry control," he replied. "You didn't say the magic word." He shut off the radio.
The SUV rocketed into the cargo bay, stopping at just the right moment. The man closed the ramp and turned back to him. "Throttle, now!"
He complied, bringing the plane up to speed and pulling back on the stick, sending them up, up and away.
"Goddamn it, Stephanie, where are you?"
Oracle was, to put it mildly, worried. More accurately, she was on the verge of panicking. It was bad enough that the rest of the Bats were still on the other side of the world, having barely survived the opening salvos in what was sure to be a long and bloody war, but Firewall had gone offline two hours ago and now she could not raise Batgirl.
There was a time when such an occurrence would not have triggered as much alarm. But she had grown... closer to Stephanie in the past year, and the fact that she seemed to have disappeared off the face of the planet at almost the same moment that Talia Al Ghul had revealed herself as the mysterious Leviathan could not be a coincidence. Especially when she had just shut down the school that they were using to train their teenage death commandos less than two weeks ago.
She had been searching for the blonde like a woman obsessed for the last two hours, using satellites, radar, sonar, tracking beacons, and even traffic cameras to try and discover a trace of her. But Stephanie was nowhere to be found. If she had taken The Compact, it was not displaying on any of her tracking equipment, which meant the onboard navigational system must have been deactivated—though she would have had to physically remove it for that to happen. It was also designed not to show up on any known form of camera surveillance in case anybody else tried to track it, so that was a dead end as well. Or she could have just taken a regular car and left it behind. Or she might not have gotten out at all...
Barbara had been so immersed in all her advanced means of locating people that she forgot simpler methods existed. She did not even hear her cell phone ringing until after it had gone to voicemail.
"Hi, O," Stephanie's voice greeted her when she played the message. "I don't have much time. I just wanted to let you know what's going on."
Oracle stopped typing. She stopped looking at her screens. She stopped doing everything and listened to the emotion in the teenager's voice.
"As you've probably figured out, Firewall is offline. The remnants of St. Hadrian's blew it up this morning. Don't ask me how they found us, 'cause I don't know." She laughed bitterly. "I guess they must've followed me back."
Oracle felt her eyes burning. "Wendy's safe. She's here with me, and so is Jolisa. We're getting help from... somebody. I can't tell you who right now. I just hope you'll believe me when I say I trust them."
There was a long pause. "I know that you've always believed in me. And I am so, so grateful that you let me carry on your legacy." Her voice choked. "But it's time for me to leave Batgirl—and Gotham—behind. I'm not safe here anymore. None of us are."
She heard Stephanie sniffle, then choke back a sob. By now, she was doing the same thing. "I won't bother telling you not to find me. We both know you'll just try that much harder. But if you do, just do me a favor and... don't tell the rest of the fam where I'm at. Tell Tim I'm not dead this time, tell Dick he makes a great Batman, tell Damian I'm going to miss seeing him grow up, tell Cass she can have her old name back, and tell Alfred he's a better hero than any of us." Another pause. "And tell Bruce... I'm sorry."
Oracle could not stop the tears that started trickling down her face. "Damn it, you stupid girl..."
"Goodbye, O," Stephanie concluded, and from the sound of her voice she was on the verge of bawling as well. "And thank you... for everything."
The message ended.
Barbara sat there for a full ten seconds before exploding into motion, trying to trace the signal back to Stephanie's location. But it was long dead. She tried to track the phone's GPS, but it was offline. She must have destroyed it after making the call. That much was established when she tried to call her back.
She debated whether or not to apprise the others of the situation. They had enough to deal with right now, and Steph's life was not in immediate danger. She was just doing something incredibly boneheaded.
"That does it," she decided, letting anger override the agony she felt at losing contact with Stephanie yet again. "I'm telling her mother."