Suicide Squad: Operation Ardent Sin

by Necromancy101

Barbara Gordon escapes her fate in The Killing Joke only to wind up as a part of the Suicide Squad. She must take up a new identity and work with criminals she's spent her whole life fighting to survive Waller's mission and earn a new life for herself. Her partners include the likes of Deadshot, King Shark, and Harley Quinn.

Disclaimer: I don't own Suicide Squad or any other piece of DC related media. I'm just a fan working a piece for fun.

Warning: While this perhaps goes without saying, Suicide Squad is pretty damn dark. I'm going to write criminals of all kinds in this story, which means that if you read this story you're going to see the worst humanity has to offer and it is going to be offensive, disturbing, and really fucked up with a side of humor. Listing the particulars would be unending, but suffice it to say that if you're the sensitive type you should probably read something else. This story is not full of nice people. Oh, and characters will die. It's called the Suicide Squad for a reason.

Meet The Team

Barbara watched the woman in front of her drink coffee from a ceramic mug. The normalcy of it all felt so unreal. Normal wasn't something that described her life anymore, not since she'd become Batgirl really. But now even her time as Batgirl felt distant, and she yearned for its return. How had it all gone so wrong? Bruce now believed her dead. Her father thought the same, and she couldn't help but think that maybe they were both better off for it. Now she sat in front of one of the most dangerous women on the planet.

Amanda Waller set the mug down and gave a contented sigh. "It's the simple pleasures in life that make it all worthwhile." She was a heavyset dark skinned woman with a stern face. Waller wore a power suit and had cold, dead eyes that reminded Barbara of some of the inmates at Arkham.

"I never figured you for someone who drinks coffee with peppermint."

"I'm a girl of many secrets. As are you, Ms. Gordon. Tell me, do you really think Bruce Wayne believes you dead?"

Barbara still couldn't fathom how Waller knew Batman's identity. She certainly hadn't told her. "Yes. He'd have tracked me down by now if he didn't.

Waller nodded. "And you haven't had any episodes in a while. Am I right?"

Barbara shook her head. "No. I still have the nightmares, but I haven't lost control in a couple days now."

"That you know of."

"Don't play with my head. I'm paranoid enough right now."

"You're not so different now form the nuts you used to lock away, are you?"

Barbara looked down at the white of the tablecloth. "No. I can't say I am."

"So, criminal. Have you thought about my offer?"

The redhead nodded. "Task Force X you mean?"

"Yes."

"I hear they used to call the old version of the program something else during the Cold War."

"Task Force X didn't exist in the Cold War."

"Not officially. Nor are you officially restarting it. Isn't that right?"

"That's right." Amanda folded her hands in front of her. "I'm interested to know how you figured out that there was ever an older version of Task Force X in the first place."

"You didn't want to recruit me just because I'm good looking."

"No I didn't. Though on the right mission that could be a useful asset to."

"I thought you were shopping for a hacker, not a hooker."

"I'm shopping for the whole package." Waller put an arm on the table and leaned forward in a clear power move. "You were trained by the Batman. You're better with computers than he ever was. You're a warrior. You're courageous. You survived as a crime fighter in Gotham. All of that makes you very qualified to keep an eye on Colonel Flagg for me.

Barbara knew who Rick Flagg Jr. was and what his role in the team was to be, but the news that she would be watching him was new. "You're planning to put together a team of criminals and you're worried about the one legit guy in the whole group?" She didn't consider herself "legit" anymore. She was as bad as the rest of them as far as she was concerned.

"Flagg is one of the best SF officers in the world. If anyone can keep this team in line and put it to the best use in the field it is him, but the brass must be out of their minds if they think I don't know why I've been allowed to have him. SecDef wants him for any number of programs. He's a miracle worker. The only reason I've been able to get ahold of him is because someone wants me to be able to. They want to keep an eye on me. Which means I have a man on the team with other loyalties."

"Yes, he's loyal to his country instead a g-woman sociopath. Tack him onto the list of people who are going to be on this team with loyalty issues."

"Speaking of the team, I wanted your opinion on them."

"My opinion?"

"Batman is supposed to be something of a tactical genius, right?"

"Yeah. Doesn't mean I am."

"You underestimate yourself, Ms. Gordon. I have your measure a bit better, and if the worst should happen I may have to rely on you to keep control of the team."

"So now you rely on me? I didn't know the bomb in my neck was a sign of trust."

"I don't trust anybody. You're smart. A good op needs smart people." Amanda reached under the table and deposited a stack of files between them. "I want to know what you think of the people I've assembled. And there are some things you need to know if you're going to be working with them."

"Yay, I'm the teacher's pet." Barbara folded her arms over her chest.

"You were the teacher's pet as a kid, weren't you?"

"Yes. Yes, I was." Barbara chuckled just a little at that.

"Take a look?"

"You're just going to let me look at 'eyes only' files?"

"Your eyes belong to me, so sure. Go ahead."

Barbara hesitantly reached for the first filed and pulled it over. When she opened it she was greeted by a familiar face. The picture on top of the stack depicted a handsome, mocha skinned man with a hardened look about him. He wore the beginnings of a beard and the scars of multiple close calls.

"Deadshot," Barbara whispered.

Xxxxxx

Deadshot turned his masked head to stare at the pidgin eyeballing him. "You shit on me and I'm going to show you how I do it during duck season. Aright?"

The pidgin cocked its head.

"Don't look at me like that. I know you're smart and you're thinking it. You and all your little cousins think you're cute. Consider yourself warned." He pointed an accusing finger at the bird. Then he looked over the roof's edge. He used the device built into his mask too zoom in on the pizza joint seven stories down and across the street. "Gotcha," he whispered as he found his guy. Deadshot pulled out his phone and called Fiori.

James Fiori, one of the Coast City's old blood organized crime bosses, sat laughing with three of his cronies in the little pizza shop that had stolen his heart since it opened. Deadshot could see him reach into his pocket, pull out his ringing phone, and answer it. "Hello?"

"Hello, James. Long time no talk.

"Who is this?"

"This is the exterminator you hired."

"Deadshot? Wow man, you work fast. I just hired you this morning."

"No, you didn't actually. We just started negotiations. We never came up with the final number." While he spoke, Deadshot pulled out a small pad and brought it out of sleep mode. On the screen was the feed from the camera he'd hidden inside Paul Hernandez's favorite restaurant. The man loved Chinese food more than anything. The camera's placement afforded a great view of Paul's table Paul always used. There he was, sitting there with three of the women in his life. One of his goons stood nearby.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we haven't finished the stages of grief. We're still at bargaining, and Mr. Hernandez has been very generous in his bid?"

"What?" Oh Fiori looked pissed. "You're talking to that piece of shit?"

"I'm just a business man, James. You know how it goes. Now I could do the scummy thing and accept both of your hits on each other, but I think that would be a conflict of interest. So I'm opening it to a full on bidding war. He's hit a cool million."

"Paul's an animal. This is my town, and he just comes in here with his guns and his drugs and thinks he can take a piece of what my family worked so hard for. No. No way. He's got no respect at all."

"Respect don't pay the bills."

"Fine. Two million you dirty bastard. Will you kill him now?"

"Hang on. I'll get back to you." Deadshot said. Then he made a second call.

Paul was quick to answer. "This number is blocked. I'm guessing it is you again, Deadshot."

"Yep. Fiori's up to two and half."

"Really man?"

Deadshot laughed. "I've got to earn a living somehow."

"Go three, man. I go three."

"Hold please." Deadshot switched back to the other call. "We're at three now."

"Fuck, really Deadshot? You're killing me," Eddie said, his voice breaking a little in frustration.

"I could be if you don't up your bid."

"Fuck me. Three point five. Go three point five."

"We're doing decimals now. Really?"

"Why are you doing this man. He's not even an American."

"Nationality, race, and religion don't matter none to me. The question is does your check clear? A few FYIs though. One, he was born in Metropolis, so yes, he is an American. Two, his suppliers are local, not from south of the border. Three, that type of xenophobia just doesn't play well today. It's the 21st century, man."

"You're really going to give me a lecture me on being PC? An assassin?"

Deadshot shrugged. "Naw. I'm going to lecture you on being cheap. Decimals." He shook his head and switched to the other call. "Hey Paul."

"So, you going to do it or what?"

"Almost done. He's being an asshole and I'm running out of patience. So, what do you say to four million and we just end the bidding right here. I won't even call him back."

"How about we go back to the original off of a million and you do the job I agreed to pay you for?"

"Come on now. Don't be like that. This guy is the sort of dick I'd love to put two rounds in. Just send the money and we'll make it happen."

"You make me ask one more time and I'm going to go up to Gotham and find that little girl of yours."

Deadshot's muscles tensed. "What?" All emotion left his voice.

"You heard me. You see, Fiori is old news. He believes in all this blind trust shit. Me? I believe in finding out who I'm working with. I believe in learning about their weaknesses. I know all about yours. I dug into you as soon as I knew you were in town. So what do you say? You put the old man down right now and let the new blood take over or I go to Gotham. It's your choice."

Deadshot thought about it for a moment before he spoke. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll get the job done."

"Good," Paul said before he hung up.

Deadshot shook his head. "I was almost on your side, man." He switched back to his call with Fiori. "Hey, isn't your son getting married?"

"Yeah, why? Leave him out of this."

"No, no. You misunderstand me. You see, I feel bad about this whole thing. In honor of your son's coming nuptials and all that, how about I give you a deal. You send me everything you got on Paul's inner circle and I'll take every one of those suckers out for the three and a half million. The whole lot of them."

"All of them?"

"Yeah. Congratulations. I hope your son makes some girl very happy."

"You're not looking for a wedding invite too, are you?"

"No. I don't do those sorts of gatherings. Transfer the three and a half to the account I send you and we're good."

"We're good?"

"Yeah, that's what I said."

"Hey, thanks man."

"Yeah. Pleasure doing business with you." Deadshot hung up. "Asshole."

Deadshot had the money in his account two minutes later. He looked at the pidgin still sitting nearby. "Time to go to work." He got up, causing the pidgin to flutter away. He walked to the opposite side of the building and careful aim at the street below with his sniper rifle. Then he took two shots.

The bullets below ricocheted off of one of the cars in the street into one of the windows of the Chinese restaurant.

Deadshot pulled the little screen back out that should Paul's table. Both he and the goon beside the table guarding him lay unmoving. The back of Paul's head was a mess where the bullet had exited.

Two crime bosses bidding for their lives a block away from each other over lunch. Who'd have believed this shit. It wasn't even the oddest hit he'd ever had to Hernandez could have walked away a winner. Now Deadshot would have to kill every one of Paul's close associates just to be sure his daughter was safe. Floyd switched off the screen and put the device away in his pocket.

That was when Deadshot felt something hit his shoulder. It wasn't heavy. It felt more like something had dribbled on him from overhead. He glanced at his arm and then up at the pidgin that had just shit on him. "What the hell, bird?"

Xxxxxx

"That's right. The man who never misses. The Bat brought him in as I remember it."

"Yeah, I've seen him work. The things he can do." Barbara shook her head. "But he isn't the man who never misses. He's missed once that I know about." She'd once seen him take out five men with riot shields using only a single bullet. The crazy ricochet thing he dead dropped them all.

"Yes," Amanda said with a smile. "I imagine he's still sore about that. Tell me, what do you think about him."

"As far as choices go, he's not the worst. He has a military background, which means he has discipline. Came from a rough past, knows the streets. He's also an honorable man in his own way. Once he accepts a contract, and only then, he'll fulfill it to the letter. He doesn't have empathy, but he's not insane either. He's a cold blooded killer."

"Not entirely. Everyone's got a weakness."

Barbara leafed through the rest of the file. "Oh," she whispered when she came to the part about Deadshot's son and daughter. His son, Edward Lawton, was sodomized and murdered little more than a year ago. His daughter lived in Gotham.

"Even if we do lose him for some reason, we still have leverage." Amanda smiled.

"I didn't know."

"I imagine he works to keep it hidden. So you approve of him?"

"As much as I can approve of any of this. He's reliable by criminal standards and one of the most dangerous assassins in the world."

"The second most dangerous to be exact." Waller took another sip of coffee. "Look at the next one."

Barbara felt her stomach churn when she opened the next file. The host of pictures were beyond gruesome. "What did this?"

Amanda hummed the theme from Jaws.

Xxxxxx

"This the place?" Eddie Vasquez asked, looking over to his driver, Maria.

"That warehouse is where the bosses always dropped off the payments. I can't tell you much more than that."

"Yeah, well, neither can they." All of the higher ups over Vasquez's head were dead. There was no leadership anymore. "Wait here for me." Eddie climbed out of the car and slammed the door closed. He then made his way towards the indicated warehouse.

How had Fiori's men managed to do such damage in one day? Not a single one of Eddie's bosses had been spared. Of course, that kind of bloodbath meant opportunity. Whoever could get revenge on James Fiori would be the new boss. This was his chance to make a play. Vasquez had been one of the money men behind Paul Hernandez's operations, he had the cash to pay for the muscle. To think, tonight could solidify his rise from accountant to top dog.

When he got to the warehouse door he knocked. There was no answer. So he knocked again. Still no response. "Fuck, I hope this isn't for nothing." He tried the door. It was unlocked. "No risk, no reward."

Eddie slid the door open and froze. He couldn't breathe, nor could he believe his eyes. The floor was drenched in blood. Meathooks hung from the ceiling. Mounted on each and every one of them was a naked human being. Several of them had pieces missing, like something big had chewed on them. Each wore a frozen mask of horror in death.

Eddie began to murmur a prayer in Spanish. He covered his mouth with his hand. What was all this?

Something loomed out of the shadows in the back. Whatever it was, the thing was massive. A deep, powerful voice called out, "Are you one of Paul's?"

Eddie couldn't find the words at first. He mouthed silently. Part of him wanted to look away from whatever it was that was hidden by darkness from his sight, but the saner part of him only wanted to turn away and run.

There was barking sound that could have been laughter and then that horrible voice again. "Speak!"

Eddie trembled. "I am."

"Do you have another job?"

"I-I-I do."

The thing reached out and grabbed one of the bodies, then dragged it closer. The head disappeared into shadow and there was a terrible wet crunch. The sound that followed next could only have been chewing. Then the monster, for that was the only thing it could be, spoke, "Good."

Eddie couldn't help himself. He started screaming.

Xxxxxx

"What is that thing?"

"A monster that I'm going to make eat other monsters."

"This is like shit Killer Croc would do."

Amanda nodded. "King Shark isn't dissimilar from the monster you fought in Gotham's sewers. Monstrous features that are either a mutation or an atavistic genetic condition that appeared at birth. He developed misanthropy because of human treatment of him and became the monster everyone believed him to be. They even both take their new identities from a form of mythology. Killer Croc draws his from the urban legend of crocodiles in the sewers. The other one from a mythical shark god, even if he is most likely a mutated human. The people of Hawaii actually believe he's the son of that shark god. Superstition if you ask me. They're both cannibals who have developed a pathological love of human flesh over any other food and their bodies are immune to any of the potential dangers of consuming it. Add in their super strength, toughness, and ability to regenerate, they're both prime candidates for the program."

"If this thing is anything like Killer Croc then it is too dangerous to let out into the world. That monster is all but unstoppable. And the things he went through. He let it turn him into the worst sort of monster. This thing." Barbara continued flipping through the pictures. "This is sick."

Amanda nodded. "So that is a vote against."

"It is."

"Noted." Amanda looked pleased with herself, as though the response was what she was looking for.

"You're going to keep him on the team anyway, aren't you?"

"Yes. That kind of power is what I'm looking for. The Suicide Squad can't just be a team of well-trained people. I could do that with soldiers, and this is the sort of power that even inspired me to bring back Task Force X."

"So why am I doing this?"

"Just keep going."

Barbara moved on to the next one. "Silver Swan?"

Xxxxxx

"Please. Please let me go." Kuznetsov begged. "Please. I'll stop. I'll leave town. I'll never come back." He hung from the tallest tower in Midway City. The only thing stopping him from plunging to the concrete below was a rope bound to his feet.

"What good does that do the people you've killed? The people you've stolen from? The people you've terrified and bullied." The voice that spoke was high pitched and belonged to a woman.

Kuznetsov looked for its source. "You're not Hawkman," he cried when he found saw her.

"No," The speaker shook her head. She had wings yes, but they were white.

"Who are you?" Kuznetsov began to wonder just how many birds there were in this town anyway.

"I'm the Silver Swan?"

"The what?"

The blond woman took a deep breath and then made a deep growling sound in her chest. "It doesn't matter. You are a criminal and I am justice."

Kuznetsov began to feel just a bit better. He'd thought the hawks had come for him. That could have ended badly. But this had to be some sort of metahuman superhero wannabe with lines like that. "Look, I don't know what you think you're doing, but there are rules to this sort of thing. And you see, I know the rules. People like you don't kill people like me. They try and put the fear of God into us and turn us straight, then they take us to jail."

"Jail is better than you deserve. Don't you recognize where you are."

Kuznetsov tried to look around, but being upside down made that difficult. "Uh, on top of Midway Tower?"

"Yes. This is the place where your men threw Lee Warren to his death. He was a father of three. He had a wife."

"You have no proof I'm in any way involved in that."

"I'm not the cops. I don't need proof. I just need to know who is guilty." The blond produced a knife. "I just wanted you to feel his terror. This, Mr. Kuznetsov, this is your swan song." She cut the rope with a deft movement.

Until the very moment Kuznetsov hit pavement he believed it was just a scare tactic, that she would save him before he made impact. He was mistaken.

Xxxxxx

"Valerie Beaudry is her real name. She was exposed to a form of alien radiation while in her mother's womb. She was born as what you see there before you. We're talking a very literal case of ugly duckling to beautiful swan. What came out of her mother was awful little beast. This is the end result."

Barbara studied Valerie's picture. The woman was breathtakingly beautiful with long golden hair and white wings that fanned out behind her in an angelic pose. "I came across this one in the Justice League computers."

"Oh she's very well known to the league. The first time they came across her she was under the control of an abusive boyfriend. A career criminal who wanted to use her for her powers and what most men want. Wonder Woman ended up convincing her of the truth and saved her. Silver Swan was so inspired she became a superhero. Sort of. She began a reign of terror that dropped more bodies than Deadshot ever has. The Silver Swan puts bad guys down permanently and she's not too picky about how much evidence she needs before she does. Her hero eventually had to go bring her in."

"A vigilante."

"Says the vigilante."

"I'm aware of the hypocrisy." Batgirl sighed. "Says here she can produce sonic screams?"

"Oh yeah. She can pop a human heart at the right frequency or blow a building apart. She's also got hollow bones and improved muscular strength. She'd need both to be able to fly. Thoughts?"

"Better than the last one you showed me, but a vigilante who has no boundaries is dangerous."

"Noted. Next."

Barbara's reaction to the next one was a look of comical disgust. "Are you serious?"

Xxxxxx

The fence whistled as he inspected the swag covering his table top. "Digger, you always bring me the best stuff. Jewelry store again? A bank?"

"Museum. This is some high class shit, mate." George "Digger" Harkness gave a small snort and then coughed up some phlegm, which spat on the floor.

"Hey, watch the floors." Peter was a little, fat, pale bald man who didn't look the least bit intimidating when he lectured the much bigger Australian across the desk from him.

"Uh huh. Yeah, I will."

"If you knocked over a museum, why didn't you get me any cool novelties?"

George smiled. "I kept them for my bedroom."

Peter set to appraising the goods.

George waited for a few minutes before he grew impatient. "Hey mate, I got places to be."

"I'm sure your schedule is packed." Peter gave his least favorite customer a disgusted glance and a wave of his hand. "It takes time to ascertain the quality of every item you've brought me. You don't want to get underpaid, do you?"

"Oh one way or the other I'm getting paid what I'm owed."

Peter made a tisk tisk sound and wagged a finger at Captain Boomerang. "Come on now, you know how it works. Threats just slow down the process, and I don't keep money here, so you can't rob me. The only way you get paid is if I'm satisfied.

"Hurry up."

"You don't have other buyers you're looking to sell things to, do you?"

"Worried I'm cheating on you, mate? Gotta tell you, I'm not the monogamous type."

"The women of the world will cry themselves to sleep," Peter muttered and went back to his appraisal.

The minutes stretched by. George Harkness took to pacing about and making lewd jokes about anything in the store even remotely phallic shaped. Then the bell to the store tinkled.

"Hey, didn't you read the sign. It says closed," George said as he turned. Then he trailed off. Four men in suits had entered. None of them looked happy. "What do we have here? Men in Black 4?"

"We're here for you," a fifth man said as he entered. He nodded at the man behind the counter. "Thanks for the tip, Peter."

Harkness cursed as he recognized Rodney Williams. "Hey, mate. What are you doing here on this side of the world?"

"You killed my brother. That's what. What? You think you could just leave with his share the loot and no one would do anything about it?"

George scratched at his mutton chops. "Yeah."

"Nah. A guy who throws boomerangs should know that what goes around comes around."

George chuckled. "That's a good one. Wish I'd thought of it really. Bit of advice though. We're not in a white collar business, mate. We lie, cheat, steal, and kill to make money, which means that your coworkers are all liars, cheaters, thieves, and killers. Occupational hazard. Just watch." He smiled at each one of the four other men with Rodney in turn. "Any one of you who decides to turn on your boss and kill him right now gets a share of me loot."

Every single one of the men pulled out their guns and pointed them at George.

"Did you really think that would work?" Rodney smiled at George. "No. There are some criminals who believe in honor amongst thieves."

George whistled to himself. "Huh. Who knew?" He may have been a big, beefy, smelly man, but he was also a quick one. He'd turned around and vaulted behind the counter before any one of Rodney's men got a shot off.

"Besides," Rodney shouted over the gunfire. "They all get shares in the stuff if they take it after we kill you."

Bullets pelted the desk and destroyed the merchandise behind it. Some of the rounds even penetrated the wood. Peter fell dead, his body riddled with holes.

George inched his way along the floor like a worm, though he stopped to spit on Peter's body. "That's what you get for being a rat, you wanker." He moved the dead man's body in front of him as a sort of shield just in case a bullet that penetrated the desk hit him. The dead man's blubber might not be much protection, but it was worth a try. He then began sifting through his pockets, feeling for just the right boomerang for the occasion. "Aha." He pulled it out and threw it with the spin only a Harkness could manage.

The boomerang arched over the desk and George rolled over, covering his ears with his hands. "Enjoy." He both heard and felt the resulting explosion. The jewels on the desk rained down on having been blown off the desk. Glass shattered. The lights went out. Then there was silence.

George Harkness clambered to his feet and waved his hand to clear some of the dust the explosion had kicked up. He noted two important things when he could see again. First, there were no men left to shoot at him. Two, a gaping hole has replaced the front of the store. He scratched his mutton chops again. "It is at very tense moments like this that stress makes me forget how to throw a boomerang. But then it always comes back to me." He gave a short chuckle, but the sound died off shortly. "Nah, their joke was better." He then turned and started to collect what goodies he could before the cops arrived.

Xxxxxx

"Captain Boomerang, member of Central City's infamous Rogues."

"An overall scumbag and cockroach of a human being. Sorry cockroaches, didn't mean to insult you.

"He's a thief from Australia that crossed the Pacific to get access to better targets. He robbed most of the ones back home."

Barbara held up a picture for Waller to see of Captain Boomerang's many prison tattoos. "You know what two lightning bolts mean right?"

"Yes, I do. Turns out the Australians have neo nazi type bad guys too. Though I don't know if he got those particular tattoos back home or in the states."

"You don't think this is going to be a problem? I mean, I hardly think white power is going to sit very well with Deadshot and then there's…." Barbara trailed off and made a half-hearted gesture at Amanda.

Waller laughed. "You think I'll have a hard time getting him to listen to me because he's a racist?"

"Among other things, yes."

"I've dealt with worse than Digger Harkness. One way or another he'll obey my orders or die."

Barbara was a little red in the face. "Okay, I guess you know what you're doing. Except, no, I really don't think you know what you're doing. Why this guy? Don't you see, it says right here that he has a long history of turning on his partners. This guy is the lowest form of scum."

"You haven't seen the rest of the list then. Withhold your judgement."

"Why him? Really, what can Captain Boomerang possibly bring to the team? He throws boomerangs."

"He's a superb thief. The best I can get my hands on right now. He has exception combat skills in a pinch, and he's rather uneducated, which makes him easy enough to manipulate. He's got no real friends on the outside who will help him and no one who will miss him, except an estranged son."

"I'm not bad at larceny myself you know."

'I know. But you've got nothing on a thief who runs with the Rogues."

"How does he even get along with the Rogues? They're kind of a multiethnic bunch now, aren't they?"

"You're fixated on that race thing even more than I am," Waller said with a laugh and a shake her head. "So I'm guessing this is one you don't approve of."

"In two words: hell no."

"This man has tangled with multiple metahumans and survived. Also, if you have need to sneak something under Flagg's nose, he might be the one to go to."

"I'd sooner kiss the Joker." Barbara said. Then grimaced. "Then again, I'd need to think about that. It's a hard choice. Quite honestly, I don't see how you're going to sink lower than this."

Waller pushed the next file to Barbara.

Xxxxxx

Disabling the alarm system was a piece of cake, the sort of stuff even amateurs could do. Scaling the mansion to its third floor was similarly easy. Slipknot was accomplished at free climbing. He didn't even need to use his ropes or his grapnel gun. A small knife was all it took to unlock the window. Then Slipknot slipped silently in to the shadowy hallways.

His black suit made him all but invisible in the darkness as he crept down the hall towards the bedroom he knew his target occupied. He'd studied the buildings plans meticulously. Getting ahold of them was a bit of a trick. The home was custom built. But the contractors that did the work kept everything on file. Money was simpler than using violence in this case and his contract would more than make up for what the bribes took out of his pocket.

No guards. Slipknot wanted to laugh. Besides the one security officer who watched the gate, there was no one protecting the house.

The bedroom door was unlocked. Slipknot oiled the hinges just in case it was a creaky piece of work, then let himself in. The room was pitch black, but Slipknot could see just fine with his night vision goggles. He spotted two people in bed together and edged toward them. This place reeks of booze. Guess they had a bit of a party.

He identified the woman first. Her description matched her picture. Then Slipknot moved around to the man. His chest was rising and falling in a deep sleep, his face turned upward. How convenient. As soon as Slipknot made the second positive ID, he pulled out one of his special ropes. He had many different ropes for many different jobs. He could chemically treat even hemp ropes to make them as strong as steel. What he could do with better quality materials was even more impressive. His garrote rope was far more durable than a wire one, despite the fact it was made from threads some might find old fashioned.

Slipknot move fast, jerking the man's head up from the pillow and wrapping the garrote around his throat.

Mr. Carter woke and began to struggle, but he couldn't callout for help with the wire digging into his throat. His fingers clawed at the instrument of his death, but blood was already seeping from his throat where it was biting in.

Slipknot pulled Mr. Carter out of bed so that his victim wouldn't end up kicking the woman next to him. He then pulled even tighter. That made Mr. Carter gurgle and begin to spasm. Then the last resistance gave way and the garrote completely decapitated Mr. Carter.

Both head and bodily flopped to the floor.

Slipknot shook his head and looked to the girl. She hadn't stirred. "Really?" He found himself whispering? He then walked around the bed to her side. This just makes things easier. He put away his garrote in the special pouch he carried for biohazardous material, then he switched to UV and used one of his special wipes to remove every drop of blood from his outfit. After all, human blood just wasn't sanitary.

The girl groaned and shifted in her sleep. That was when Slipknot noticed she was still wearing her wedding ring.

Odd. Usually they take that off when they try to go independent and all of that. Slipknot shook his head. This girl had gone through all the trouble of escaping her husband, shacking up with a guy who had a "save the girl" complex and a lot of money, and she still hadn't taken off the ring. Oh well, wasn't his problem. Her husband had paid to get her back intact so he could deal with her and that was exactly what the customer was going to get.

Slipknot pulled out a specialized rope just for prisoners and leapt on her. He had her hog tied and gagged before she even finished that first scream. "Shut up. I don't need to hear you bitch all night." He then hauled her over his shoulder and made for the exit. The rest was easy.

Six minutes later, Slipknot tossed the girl in the back of the van he'd stolen for the occasion and slammed the door. He paused and pondered for a moment just what to do with her. Oh, she was going back to her husband one way or the other, but he wasn't on a strict timetable or anything. He had condoms tucked away in one of his many pouches. "Never go anywhere without them," he always said. "After all, fooling around with some bitch you don't know without protection? That's just unsanitary." But no. His client had used the word intact instead of alive when giving him the job. Intact had many layers of meaning and Slipknot knew better than to violate good business practices for a few minutes with some girl. This one was safe. Besides, with the money he was getting he could buy all the love he wanted.

Xxxxxx

"A serial rapist. Are you crazy, Waller?"

"That's only one of the many things he is. He started out as a serial rapist, but then he strangled a girl to death, which got homicide on him, and he wound up in prison. There he needed protection, so he became a hitman working for prison gangs. He specializes in strangulation. A cartel eventually arranged his escape so he could do work for them outside the walls of a prison. He's also master of climbing just about anything, able to traverse any type of terrain. He's become a professional hitman."

"I'm still stuck on serial rapist. You want me to serve on a team with a hitman rapist."

"If it helps ease your conscience think of it as being a safeguard against him. You're there to keep him in check."

"And you want this guy because?"

"He'll do anything I ask of him, no matter how terrible. Almost everyone else on that list has limits. He doesn't. Then there are the things he can do with rope."

"Please don't be making a BDSM joke."

"I'm not. He chemically alters the properties of his ropes, making them all but indestructible. On one occasion he wrapped a specially treated rope around his body and used it as bullet proof armor. He can create bindings for just about any kind of metahuman I require you to capture. If Harkness proves too difficult to control, Slipknot is the backup thief."

"If I see this guy going back to his old tricks I will break both of his legs."

"If I order him to, you will do no such thing."

Barbara stared in horror at Waller. "Is there any circumstance you could see yourself giving that order kind of order."

"I don't restrict myself to moral limitations. Which is why I'm perfectly fine with the next one on the list."

Barbara dreaded what she would find when she opened the next file. "Putty." The photograph on this pile depicted an eight-foot-tall giant made of pure muscle. His skin wasn't too dissimilar from hardened gray clay.

Xxxxxx

I'm going to break you, the marble grey giant roared as he rushed right at the red and green archers standing 40 meters away from him. He ignored the rusted cars that littered the junkyard around him. If one got in his way, he knocked it aside or went straight through it.

Both Green Arrow and Speedy let fly their arrows. The explosive charges in each projectile detonated, but hardly slowed the creature down.

Oliver looked to his protégée. "Go left." He then rolled right.

Putty rushed through the middle of them heedlessly and smashed into a tower of piled ruined cars, which promptly collapsed on him.

Speedy flashed Oliver a grin. "That wasn't so hard."

There was a metallic groan and a crunch. Then Putty emerged from the pile, a car held over his head. "Is that all you've got?" He roared at them. Then he threw the car at Speedy, who only narrowly avoided the attack.

Oliver hit the monster with the electrified arrows next. It had about as much effect as the explosive ones did.

Putty turned on Green Arrow and began to stalk forward. "I'm going to Sheriff of Nottingham your ass," he yelled as he grabbed a car at his side and threw it towards Oliver.

Oliver ducked and it sailed overhead. "I don't even know what that means." He had to leap to one side to avoid being clobbered by another car.

"It means I crush Green Arrow." Putty broke out into a full charge.

Oliver took that as his cue to turn and run. "You going to grind my bones to make your bread too?" He shouted over his shoulder. He was never one to resist taunting the bad guy.

Putty roared in anger and picked up speed.

"Speedy," Green Arrow whispered into his personal comm. "I need you to get to that trash compacter."

"We're really going to try and lure a giant into a trash compactor?" Speedy's said, his voice hard to hear over the roaring fiend.

"Unless you've got any better ideas, yeah." Oliver turned sharply. This threw Putty off and he crashed into another wall of cars. Oh I hope that slows him up, Oliver thought to himself.

It did. For all of about 10 seconds. Then the monster beat his way out of his junk prison.

Oliver fired another of his trick arrows at the creature, this time a binding arrow.

Putty broke the wires with ease and began to stalk forward. "You're going to look worse than Rocky when I'm finished with you."

"Yes, yes, you keep shit talking. I got it, you're confident." Green Arrow readied a second shot, but this time he aimed it at another piled of cars. This arrow was another explosive one and destabilized the pile.

Putty was quicker this time and stepped out of way.

"Huh, so you do learn." Then Green Arrow was off, racing towards the trash compactor, Putty in close pursuit.

Putty looked around and choose the largest truck to use as a club. Then he followed.

When Oliver finally made it inside the trash compactor he whirled around and nocked another arrow. "Hey, idiot."

Putty slowed to a stop at being addressed as such. "What did you call me?"

"Idiot. You do realize that truck doesn't really help you at all? Your body is denser than that piece of shit is anyway and you're strong enough to break cars with ease. Think about it. If you try to punch something with that truck, the thing will break. That truck is weaker than your body is. You'd be better off using your hands. Otherwise you're just going to keep breaking your weapons until you find something as tough or tougher than your body."

Putty screwed up his face and thought about what Green Arrow said for a few moments. "You're just trying to confuse me."

"Actually I'm just trying to help you out with simple logic."

Putty glanced at the truck in his hands. "But it covers a wider area. I only need it to survive one hit on you anyway."

Oliver Queen bit his lip. "Well, now that you put it that way. It kind of makes sense."

Putty grinned and took a step forward, then he looked left and right. "You're trying to lure me into the trash compactor. You're trying to Star Wars me."

"Do you have anything to do besides watch movies?"

"I like movies." Putty sounded defensive, but he was still grinning. Then he entered the trash compactor. "Go ahead though. It won't do anything."

"You're just going to let me try to smush you in this thing?"

Putty tossed the truck out and nodded his head like a child. "Uh huh. I'll show you who is tough. Then I'll kill you."

Oliver shook his head. "Okay then, well. Thanks for the handicap." Oliver climbed out and signaled Speedy to turn the compactor on.

Putty waited patiently for the walls to close in around him. Then he held out his arms. "You ever watched Hercules?" Putty asked.

Oliver shook his head. "I don't have much time for movies and TV. Crime fighting. You know how it is."

"That's too bad." Putty's grin had now fully evolved into a gleeful smile. He was doing it. He was holding the trash compactor at bay. "See?" A claxon alarm started up to protest the resistance.

"Oh I see." Oliver definitely saw.

"You messed with the wrong fucker today, Green Arrow." Putty bellowed.

A high pitch shriek rent the air, audible even over the alarm.

Putty's eye's bulged and his body began to quiver. Whatever substance his body was made out of now clearly didn't react well to the high frequency attack of the canary cry.

Black Canary stood atop a mound of cars, screaming her lungs out at the brute.

Putty's body convulsed and he fell forward on his face. The compactor resumed closing and the alarms died down.

Oliver waved at his wife. "What took you so long?"

Xxxxxx

"Putty has got the mind that doesn't even challenge the intellectual capacity of your average adolescent, but against physical attacks he's nearly invulnerable. His strength too is to be admired." Amanda explained. "He's been a low level thug for many different bosses. They've all relied on his strength and complete lack of whit. Putty gets along much better with children than he does with adults. He has a lot more in common with them."

"So another strong man? Why not just replace King Shark with this guy?"

"I like to keep my options open. The mission I have planned is going to get dicey."

Barbara frowned. "What do you mean by dicey?"

"You learn at the briefing, Batgirl."

"You know I can't exactly operate as Batgirl in the team. Batman will find out if Batgirl reappears and he will look into it."

Amanda nodded. "I thought of that and have already given some thought as to giving you a new identity for the time being. Don't worry. I won't be introducing you as Barbara Gordon to any of those psychos."

"Thanks, I guess." Barbara closed the file. "Who is the last one?"

"Oh I saved the best for last. The witch."

Xxxxxx

"What did you see that day, officer?" Lyla Michaels asked. She was the right hand of Amanda Waller and an agent of A.R.G.U.S, but Officer Curtis Maxwell didn't know that. He would never know who he really spoke to this day. She was just another bureaucrat he talked with about something he wanted so hard to forget.

"Well ma'am, I don't know how to describe it to you without it sounding crazy." Curtis had his arms folded in front of him and he looked unsettled. His face was creased with worry and haggard, as though he'd aged a decade in the days since the incident. "It's the sort of thing you'd expect to hear about in a Reddit creepy pasta, not see in real life. And I've seen a lot. I've been on the force for twelve years, ma'am."

"How old are you, Officer Curtis?" She already knew. It was in the file. But sometimes asking those simple questions helped people open up.

"Thirty-five years young." He tried to give her a pleasant smile. The expression was false and empty.

"Go on. Why was this so different?"

"I don't think I need to tell you that cops see a lot of shit in Central City. Every other day I see a good reason not to put my faith in my fellow man. Forget what my mom used to say. People are…." He trailed off.

Lyla studied Officer Curtis. Everything about this man was wrong for a cop. He was nervous, unsure of himself. Law Enforcement tended to attract certain types of people and this man didn't exude the confidence of a veteran either. Whatever he'd seen had undone him.

"People do shit things to each other, ma'am, but I've never seen anything like the Moone place. I still see it. I dream about it at night. Every single night. Then there are the times I see her."

"You see her?"

"The girl. She's still following me. I see her reflection in the bath water. I feel her lips on my ear when she whispers things to me. Those haunted eyes watch me from every shadow."

"Please, try to be as detailed as possible. I'd like to hear it in your own words."

"I was responding to a 911 call. One of the neighbors heard screaming coming from the house. So, I checked it out. The first thing I saw when I got there was that the door had been blown apart. Splinters and bits of wood were everywhere. I could smell something on the air. Sulfur."

Lyla wondered if the officer had smelled sulfur and recognized it as such at the crime scene or if he'd misidentified the strange scent as sulfur after the fact, retroactively completing the eerie scene with details of his own creation. "What did you do?"

"I called for backup. We see some strange things in Central City and we have strict procedures designed to keep us safe. Didn't take too long to get backup headed my way and the anti-metahuman task force on standby. We've got the best response time for that sort of thing in the country outside of Gotham and Metropolis. Then we went in." Crutis's face went white and he reached over with a shaky hand to grab at the glass of water sitting on the desk. He then took a few sips.

Lyla waited for the officer to collect himself.

"There were drawings on the walls. Strange things, like out of some satanist's fantasies. Some of the symbols were drawn in blood. Others with shit, er, fecal matter. The dining room was where we found the first body, Anita's body. I can't tell you what happened to her. You're going to have to get the lab report on that one. But I know what I saw. It was like what happens when you turn a sock puppet inside out, only this was a person and not a puppet. Everything was intact though. The innards out and the outside in, but all intact. God, she was still breathing when we got there."

"How long did she stay alive like that?"

"I don't know." Curtis shook his head. "I also can't tell you what was in the kitchen because I wasn't one of the ones involved with clearing it. I know I heard someone throwing up in there though. I went through the living room. There were cats in there. Three of them. They were each hanging from the ceiling. Every one of them had been skinned. Blood was still dripping out of one onto the hardwood floor. There were more of those hieroglyph things on the wall too. There were paintings in there too. Like, cave paintings. Only I think the caveman that made these was Hannibal Lector of his tribe, you know what I mean?" Curtis gave Lyla another weak smile. "Then there were the foot prints. You could see the outlines of bare feet burned into the floor. Little black prints everywhere. Every now and again there were hand prints too, like someone covered their hands in ash and touched everything they could. Anyway, I was part of the team that went upstairs, so I wasn't one of the ones that found Blake Moone. No. I saw the boy and girl instead?"

"Do you mean June and Sam?"

"Yeah. Sam was, uh, sixteen I think. June was, uh, is a senior in college. She was staying with her family over the summer after having returned from some sort of travel abroad program."

"I see you've been trying to find as much as you can about the Moones."

"Lady, I've got two choices available to me. Make sense of what I saw or forget it. The second isn't an option to me."

"Of course not. Tell me about June and Sam."

"He was up and walking around when we got there, but he wasn't alive anymore. That much I'm sure about."

"How could you know for sure?"

"He didn't have a head or skin, ma'am. It was just the body. It was drawing those symbols on the wall using itself. When we reached the top of the stairs he attacked us. God damn, we shot the fuck out of that thing."

"So bullets were effective against it."

"Oh yes. They did the job just fine. Never mind how stupid it was to think bullets could kill something that decapitation didn't finish of, but they worked."

"Where did you find the girl?"

"She was in the bathroom. The tube was filled to the brim with blood. She was laying in it, mostly submerged. Only her head was poking out. She was crying, begging us to help her. Over her head was painted some sort of pentagram. She looked like that girl from The Ring or The Grudge. Whatever one had the creepy ghost girl. The walls of the bathroom had been papered with Sam's drying skin. There were more of those symbols everywhere. What's worse, I almost felt as though I could make some sort of sense out of them by that time. Like I could almost understand them."

Lyla remembered looking at the photos of the crime scene before this meeting. The symbol drawn over the bathtub had six points instead of five, making it hexagram. She didn't bother to correct the officer.

"That was when the head, uh, buzzed us. Sam's head. It was like some crazy pissed off bird. It was flying. Nothing was holding it up. And it flew over our heads, shrieking at us. It wasn't attached to lungs anymore. How was it screaming? Can you explain that to me? How was it…." Officer Curtis trailed off again and his eyes widened in horror. He leapt to his feet, sending the chair tumbling behind him. He had his gun in his hands and pointing at something behind Lyla. "Fuck, what is she doing in here?"

Lyla turned in her chair to see what he was looking at. She was only greeted with the blank walls of the room they were using for this interview. "There's nothing there, Curtis."

"It's her," Curtis said in a strangled voice. "Oh god it's her. Can't you see her? She's right there."

Lyla looked everywhere. There was no sign of whatever apparition Curtis was seeing. "There's no one else here."

"No, no, no, no, no." Curtis backed up all the way to the opposite wall. Tears rolled down his face. He began to sputter and blubber out half formed words that had no meaning. He was frightened beyond all reason.

Lyla wasn't sure what was going on, but she moved out of the pistol's line of fire. She pressed her back into the wall and hunkered down. She could call for backup, but she waited. She watched.

Curtis continued making those frightened garbled noises, his hands shaking uncontrollably, tears now rolling down his face. Then, in one quick motion, he brought the gun up to the side of his head and pulled the trigger. His body sunk to the ground a second later.

"Well, shit. This is going to take some explaining." Thank goodness the whole thing had been recorded.

Xxxxxxx

"June Moone. She was an art student on a study abroad trip who ended up going somewhere she shouldn't. Now she's possessed by an ancient, malevolent entity. A witch for lack of a better descriptive term."

"A witch?"

"Yes. The magic kind. The kind you're imagining."

"If she is literally magic, how do you control her?"

"Her heart?"

"Her what?"

"Something we found when dig into the being's history. While we have her heart her power is limited and we can control her. June Moone in a way can direct the witch sometimes, but it taxes her."

Barbara read the girl's age. June Moone was 21, not much younger than Barbara was. "She's not a criminal at all, is she?"

"No. She was a normal person. Now she's the murderer who killed her own family because a witch was in her head."

Barbara looked at June Moone's smiling, carefree face in the photograph in front of her. It made her ache. "Is there a way to remove the witch?"

"Not that we know of."

"She doesn't belong with Task Force X. She's an innocent. She needs help."

Amanda took another sip of her coffee. "She's the gun. She stays."

"So what were my opinions good for in the end?"

"Plenty. I don't need to explain myself to you though. You work me. In the end, that's all that matters." Waller finished the coffee. "One other thing you should know. I left out one of the files because you already know this one very well."

"Who?"

"Harley Quinn. You remember her, right?"

Barbara's fist clenched tight. "Yes. Yes, I do." It was her fault Barbara had ended up here in the first place.