General Herbison: Hello readers and welcome back. Now in case you did not know today is an important day for me. Today is the day that I first published my first piece on fanfiction several years ago. In addition to that this is also my birthday so double celebration!

Usual stuff, I do not own Batman or Star Wars or their characters. Enjoy.

With a command post established and having been filled in by Ivy, Grievous had begun assembling an army. There were a few gangs still roaming the streets that had served under the Joker, and Harley, that were loyal, or scared enough, to return.

Harley was the face and voice of the organisation. She was the one the goons would follow and Grievous was content to let her if it meant having the troops he needed. While he would've preferred battle droids compared to a bunch of dumb thugs at least they were intelligent enough not to question orders.

"So what is your plan?" Ivy asked as Grievous strode past her without a glance, "You clearly need something. Maybe I can help."

He turned to her and his eyes narrowed suspiciously, "And why should I trust you?"

"Look," Ivy rolled her eyes, "The sooner you are gone the sooner things can get back to normal. Now what do you need?"

"I need to recreate the energy crystal and get out of here." The cyborg growled.

Ivy turned as Harley entered the room, "Then there is going to be a problem."

"Whaddya mean Red?" Harley plopped down in a chair.

The green skinned plant person took a step aside, "The new guy intends to skip out."

Harley's eyes narrowed, "You are gonna to help me get revenge first."

"Do you think I care about your petty vendetta?" Grievous scoffed, "You will get those imbeciles you command to bring me what I want then I will leave."

A gun appeared in her hand and she pointed it squarely at his head as she stood up, "You will help me. Then I will help you."

"Do you think that will hurt me?" he laughed mockingly, "Put it down before I break your fingers." He turned and strode over to a monitor, "We will start by-"

There was a deafening crack and a bullet ricocheted off Grievous' armoured head. He turned on the spot to see Harley still holding the gun, only now it had a smoking barrel.

"Don't turn your back on me." She whispered coldly.

Ivy's eyes darted between them. She would support Harley if it came to a fight but she didn't want to get on the armoured figure's bad side, at least not until she knew his weaknesses.

Grievous strode over to the human and stared down at her. She met his gaze unflinchingly and didn't move as he trailed a clawed finger gently down her face.

"No fear." He muttered, "Only hatred."

"Get used to it." Harley tapped the gun against his chest.

With a grunt the cyborg folded his arms, "Get me what I need and I will help you have your revenge."

"Fair enough." The clown girl put her gun away, "I'll lure Bats in and then we'll deal with'im."

Grievous shook his head, "Too obvious. There are three so called 'heroes' that oppose us. In order to be victorious we must eliminate them one by one."

"And how exactly do we do that?" Ivy asked loftily as she tended to a plant.

"By using intelligence." The cyborg explained patiently, "It is incredible how little humans in this world possess."

Harley pouted her bottom lip, "I'll try not to be insulted."

"By factoring height, available features, voice patterns, skin tone and age, I can calculate the identities of the targets."

This response had Harley slightly drooling at the mouth and Ivy with raised eyebrows.

"In short he can work out who they are." She explained to her friend.

Harley nodded and hastily wiped away the drool, "Why couldn't he just say that?"

Refraining from throttling her Grievous allowed his body's cybernetic computer to analyse and shift through the city's database before it hit a match, "The one known as Batgirl is a human called Barbara Gordon."

"The Commissioner's daughter!" Harley grinned, "Oh this is going to be fun."

(LATER THAT NIGHT)

"I'll be working late tonight Barb."

The young woman smiled to herself, "No problem dad."

"Remember to lock the doors, and don't stay up too late."

Barbara's grin grew wider as she rolled her eyes amusedly, "Yes dad, anything else?"

"No, I'll say goodnight, love you."

"Love you too dad." She hung up the phone and waited a few second before rushing upstairs to get changed into her costume, "Barbara Gordon may stay at home, but Batgirl won't."

(GOTHAM CITY BANK)

Within two minutes a gang of Joker thugs and Harley had taken hostages and begun working on the vault, after following a carefully prepared plan by Grievous.

"Hurry up fellas." Harley stood with her hands on hips, "I wanna get outta here before the Bat patrol shows up."

All the lights went off, "Aw crap."

There were several shots from upstairs and she drew her gun, "Alright guys. They're here. Get the hostages and use 'em as shields."

As for her she made directly for the lower levels where a large group of hostages was forced to be a human wall as her goons worked to open the vault door. Behind it there the usual stuff, money, gold, important documents, and so on. But what it also contained was a small fortune in diamonds that Grievous had insisted on needing. So while the Bat squad took out the goons and freed hostages she would grab the diamonds and bail out.

Emergency lighting made it possible to see, but not very far. Heck the Batman could walk down the corridor and she wouldn't see him until he was three feet away.

"Hurry up." She growled as they finished setting the charges, "Gimme the detonator and take the hostages further back."

Not daring to argue they did as ordered and very quickly Harley found herself alone with the vault.

"Boom!" she thumbed the button.

Six small charges flared around the vault door. Each one designed for depth rather than spread and punched six holes in the vault locking bolts.

Slowly the door swung open.

(COMMISSIONER GORDON'S HOUSE)

As he had predicted the home was vacant, despite an intercepted phone call that concluded with the young woman stating she would stay within the dwelling. Clearly she had no qualms about deceiving her parent.

His attention turned to the best method of his plan. He could break in and make it appear to be a burglary, that would have the father rather curious on why his daughter had not been home at the time.

But that would invite a thorough search of the building before they returned inside and let their guard down. He needed to get inside without leaving a trace.

At that point he wished his former ally, though quite often rival, Asajj Ventress, was here. Grudgingly he admitted her infiltration skills were impressive, and certainly better than his.

With no bald witch here to assist him he instead turned to the green skinned female, "Can you get inside without detection?"

She closed her eyes and he noted the grass around her feet starting to sway despite the lack of wind.

"There is a window ajar on the second floor." She muttered, "I can sense a window box of daffodils."

Deciding not to inquire further Grievous led the way around the house to look up at the window, "Easy."

Ivy summoned a thick vine from the ground and used it to lift herself up to the window and peered inside, "I believe it's her room."

"Place the device beneath the bed." Grievous tossed a small device up to her, "Make sure you activate it after setting it in position."

A smaller vine twisted through the window, carrying the package, and, under Ivy's guidance, carefully set it under Barbara's bed and pressed the red button before withdrawing.

"Clear up your plants and we'll get out of here." The cyborg ordered as Ivy descended to ground level, "No evidence."

(BANK)

"Pretty." Harley grinned as she stuffed the diamonds into pockets on her jacket and zipped them shut, "Let's see, got the diamonds, now I gotta get outta here."

She turned to leave and found a familiar figure blocking her way, "Harley."

"Bats." Her smile turned into a snarl, "Get outta my way."

His blank face didn't even twitch as she drew her gun, "Surrender peacefully, I do not wish to harm you."

"Too bad." She tilted her head, "Cause I wanna hurt you."

"Who is your new ally?" Batman took a step closer, "Where is he from?"

"Like I'm gonna sell him out." Harley fired two shots at Batman and quickly thumbed her secondary detonator.

As he moved to evade her shots explosive charges planted in the row of offices where the hostages were kept detonated. The support columns cracked and the roof started to give way.

"A choice Bats." She declared, "Stop me or save the hostages."

His face didn't betray any emotion but he turned and vanished into the shadows.

"I thought so." Harley took the opportunity to make her escape with the diamonds securely in her pockets.

(JOKER HIDEOUT)

"Excellent." Grievous examined one of the precious stones, "These will be suitable."

Harley was twirling in a computer chair, "Did you get your job done?" she asked.

"Yes we did." Ivy answered as she entered the room, "A bomb planted beneath her bed."

Grievous looked at her in disgust, "A bomb? You think I used a bomb?"

"Then what was that?" the green skinned female raised an eyebrow.

"Fear." He sniggered as both women looked at each other in confusion.

(GORDON'S HOME)

Batgirl alighted on her window sill and expertly slipped inside and hastily changed as she heard her dad's car arriving.

The bank had been secured and a large number of thugs arrested. Harley had managed to evade capture with a substantial amount of diamonds while the Bat squad had rescued the hostages.

Commissioner Gordon had taken over clean-up, which normally gave Batgirl enough time to get home and make it look like she had never left. What she hadn't expected was for her dad to keep them on-site until everything had been taken care of and thus gave her barely a minute to seize a book and dive onto her bed before the downstairs door opened, "There's a letter for you Barb."

But as she landed on her bed there was an audible click and something beeped.

Experience and instinct kicked in and she dived from her bed and bolted out the door, flew down the stairs, before proceeding to tackle her dad back out the door just before the entire top floor of their home went up in flames.

"What the…" her dad grabbed his radio, "This is Commissioner Gordon, there was an explosion in my house. I need support down here now." He dropped the radio and pulled her into a tight hug, "What happened Barb?"

As her brain processed the events for herself Barbara Gordon's eyes picked out the envelope addressed to her lying on the ground and she lifted it. As she and her father moved back from the burning building and sirens filled the air she opened it to reveal a short note.

Burn little Batgirl. Burn!

Oh that was close. Alas we must finish for now. Please review readers