"I'm telling you, this girl was crazy, she wanted to fight Jokerz. Who wants to fight those guys?" Terry was telling Max his adventures from the night before.

"Oh come on Ter, you know you enjoy a good ass-whooping every once in awhile." Max elbowed him playfully and was surprised when her gently nudge caused Terry to become slightly unbalanced. "You okay?"

"I'd have been better if I hadn't be hit by rocket," Terry grimaced.

"Was this before or after the Jokerz?"

"After, but the Jokerz didn't help." Terry eased himself into a seat in the classroom.

"No wonder you weren't in the mood to fight," Max said sagely.

"I don't like fighting!" Terry growled at her.

"Right, whatever." Max opened her computer as if to signal an end to the discussion.

"I'm serious!"

"Is that why you dress up in a costume and go out and pummel people nightly?"

"I don't pummel anyone," Terry sighed, this argument was pointless.

"And I think she had a point, you know, about men in this city having a hero complex."

"As I recall Nelson ran and hid when a huge robot almost stomped Blade to death."

"Well, okay, in a real situation they're useless," Terry glared at her, "I mean in most situations most of them are useless, but they're still all determined to play the hero, and she's right, it probably is y-I mean Batman's influence. They see this guy all over tv rescuing people- making it look easy, and they wanna try it."

"Actually, as far as I can, most people see Batman and decide they want to try their hand at beating him up, I swear, the Jokerz get more recruits everyday."

Max shrugged, "maybe she was wrong, maybe seeing Batman just makes people wanna hit stuff."

"Do I need to remind you two that this is a study hall- the purpose is to study!" The teacher approached them and hissed at them.

"Right, sorry." Terry opened his computer and starting writing a paper, that was already a week over-due.

XxX XxX XxX XxX XxX

"Terry, are you sure you're up for patrol tonight?" Bruce asked, as his protégé pulled on his gloves for his nights work. "You can take a night off,"
"Sure, send out a newscast, 'Hey bad guys, Batman needs a few days off, so if you could please not commit crimes, that would be great. Batman will return in a few days to kick your butts.'" Bruce grimaced at him, not enjoying the joke.

"Just do your usual rounds then come in," he said.

"I was going to check out Maxwell tonight,"

"That can wait,"

"Bruce, I'm fine, seriously."

"You were limping,"

"There was a stone in my shoe."

"Just be careful," Bruce gave up arguing, that boy could be so stubborn!

"Anything?" Bruce asked over the intercom.

"No, pretty quiet night." Despite the calm, Bruce could hear the tension in Batman's voice, he didn't trust the calm anymore than Bruce did, but maybe just this once. As if the gods were purposefully angry at Bruce, or perhaps karma was just against Batman as an alarm went off on the computer.

"Fifth and main, the big diamond store,"

"I'm on it," Batman reversed the jet, streaking across the sky. "Be careful…"

"Don't tell me, hostages?"
"The jeweler's family,"

"Same guys as last night?"

"Not sure, but be careful,"

"Right,"

Terry landed softly on the roof and looked around for an entrance, there was one, a window, it led directly into the room where the hostages were being held, he could see in through the window, a man, a woman, and two small children were crouched down behind the counter, as men with familiar uniforms and rocket launchers stood around the store. Oddly, they weren't stealing anything or even looking at the terrified family. They were waiting. Terry felt a cold hand around his heart, he knew they were waiting for him.

"Are you getting this?" He asked Bruce, "I think they're waiting for me."

"Be careful," was his mentor's only advice."

"Right…" Terry threw a smoke bomb in before entering himself. He then dove in through the smoke, and landed behind the counter with the family, "You're going to be okay," he assured them.

Then he sprang up and knocked the rocketman nearest the counter to the floor. The other men opened fire. Batman realized suddenly that they didn't care if they killed their comrade, as long as they got to him. He sprang out of the way with a series of acrobatic maneuvers, and one of them fired a whole through the wall, right near where the family was. Batman dove down and covered them as glass sprayed everywhere, mostly outward, but some fell inward, but at least now there was an escape.

"Go!" He told them, kicking away a few pieces of glass still hanging to the frame, then he dove back into the center of the room. The men were firing with careful precision, Batman's only break was that they had to reload after every shot. He managed to take out a second man by throwing him through a window, the window shattered. "I hope this place is insured…" he muttered to Bruce. That was two down, but the other two had slunk back into the shadows, he flew to the ceiling and went invisible, scanning the room. The family had gotten outside, except the youngest child, who still frozen in fear even as her mother tugged her hand. One of the rocketman was aiming right for her.

As if in slow motion Batman watched him pull the trigger, he hurtled downward and grabbed the child, throwing himself through the window, protecting the child and her mother from the blast, but the rocket hit him full in the back.

"Are you okay?" He asked, handing the child to her mother.

"We're fine,"

Batman turned back to the building. He knew the back of his suit had taken a direct hit, his wings were probably disabled. That was not good, but the main body of the suit was more strongly reinforced than the legs, so he was uninjured. He could tell the rocketmen had thought he was done, and were surprised when Batman swept back in. He could hear them muttering curses as the two remaining men struggled to reload quickly. He managed to kick the gun away from one, and secured him with a tie-batamarang when he turned to flee. One down- one to go.

He saw the man dart between the shadows and turned to follow him, and realized a moment too late he had miscalculated, an extra rocketman had been lying in wait. As Batman exposed himself to dive at the shadow the rocketman fired. It was a direct hit his side, and Batman was flung through several cases, bringing them crashing down on top of him.

"Batman!" Bruce yelled. Batman didn't have time to respond as he shot out of the debris and dove at the hidden rocketman. But then the other man stepped out of the shadows and hit him, with a second rocket, just as he was about to tackle the other man. Batman realized too late though, that the rocketmanand his calculations were off. His suit was damaged, his boots weren't firing as quickly, and it took him longer to reach the gunman than expected. The other man hadn't been counting on his slowed reaction times, and his rocket made direct contact with his companion, where Batman should have been.

The man stared stunned at what he had accidently done, before he could recover Batman went for him. The man gave in with little fight, either he had no experience with hand to hand combat or he care more about his companion than Batman had originally thought. But Batman didn't have time to brood. He limped towards the exit, trying to block out the pain in his shoulder and bad leg.

"Is there area secure?" Barbara approached him, the police had finally arrived. Batman nodded heavily.

"Uhh… Batman… you're bleeding…" One of the police officers stared at him. Batman glanced at his shoulder, the slight pain he had been feeling there turned out to be a piece of shrapnel buried in his arm.

"Everything okay in there?" Barbara asked, looking at Batman, clearly trying to see Terry's expression through the mask.

"One of the gunmen accidentally shot his own companion, I would suggest only sending in those with strong stomachs." Batman said, his voice even flatter than usual.

"You might want to get that taken care of," she motioned to his shoulder, trying to keep her voice steady.

"Right," Batman limped down an ally and disappeared.

Barbara called several police forward, "One of the men in there was killed by rocket fire,"

"We know Commissioner, we saw the vid screens."

"Did Batman…?"

"No, it was them shooting at their own guy, they were aiming for Batman and missed. But… it's pretty gruesome…"

"Alright, send in people to secure the scene."