Wally stared at the one-way glass in front of him. So far, the interrogation room was emptied out, but soon there would be many visitors. Many, many visitors.

The twenty-seven victims. The twenty-seven criminals.

Wally had his arms crossed comfortably around his torso as Batman stood stiffly beside him. "Do you know why the birds are acting normal now that these guys are captured?" Wally asked the Leaguer despite his little fear of totally getting shut down by the man. He was intimidating.

"No," was the only response he got.

Wally sighed, before returning his gaze into the room. Black Canary had entered through the door and pulled the chair closest to the glass back so she could sit in it. Her back was to them, and the speedster could see the slightest hunch of her shoulders. She was obviously exhausted, and he assumed that she had a long night in Star City fighting criminals and such.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, and Black Canary's slightest fidgeting, the first victim was brought in. Wally bit his bottom lip but didn't say anything as the tall man sat down.

Black Canary stared at him for a second before asking him the first question.

"Do you know why you were attacked, Andrew Ressun?" she asked simply, looking at the man with narrowed eyes. Her voice sounded different, almost muffled as it reached behind the glass and into the secret room behind.

The man was tall and had a slight bulge on his stomach, and his thick hands revealed that he wasn't stick thin. Graying hairs started along the crown of his skull, and a small bald spot was visible through his thin hair. The man sighed.

"Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you," he drawled out, and his onyx eyes flickered to the glass.

"Why not?" Black Canary started, crossing one leg over the other.

"Because I don't have a reason to tell you heroes anything," he said again, though it was much more venomous than his last monotonous comment.

"Because you're a criminal?" the blonde asked.

"Because I don't care," he spat.

She raised an eyebrow. "Do you or do you not have a connection with your attacker?"

The man's face paled slightly and his eyes flickered unconsciously. His hands twitched - he looked scared for a second. "I don't know what you mean by attacker," he said slowly, but the fear was evident in his actions.

Black Canary sighed. "Then what about the other victims?" she asked again. Wally noticed how vague she was being, and he realized that she was playing with him, trying to get him to slip up or mention some detail that would seem unimportant on the surface when revealing it, but digging deeper would disclose what was going on.

"What about them?" he asked again, frustration continuing to wear him down.

Black Canary's eyes narrowed into a glare, and the man flinched at the pure anger radiating off of her. "What do you and the other victims have in common?" she ground out, placing her hands on the table.

The man gulped.

"I-I have no idea what you're talking about. I've never heard of them before in my life."

The hero stared at the sweating man for a second before she sighed. She abruptly signaled to the people standing outside the door. Her voice was icy when she spoke.

"Next."

0o0o0o0

The next was a man around his mid-thirties with a permanent frown on his face. Nothing.

Then an older woman with wrinkles surrounding her dark eyes. She didn't even open her mouth.

Afterwards, another woman, although she was younger, and she burst into tears, refusing to say anything between hiccups.

It continued just like that. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

Until the twenty-seventh victim entered.

0o0o0o0

(Warning: Cussing ahead. Oops.)

Wally knew immediately that when the last person came in to be interrogated, something was different. They had made no progress with the others, and some of them refused to talk at all. But this one seemed different. He seemed... lofty. Excited.

Sadistic.

It seemed as if he wasn't all quite there, like a part of himself was gone.

He sprawled back in the chair, his clean-shaven face pale. Dark mangy hair was matted against his forehead, but he was grinning lazily, not seeming to mind the handcuffs that were placed on him.

Black Canary started the interrogation immediately.

"Did you and the other victims have some sort of relation linking each other together?" she asked, her voice hard.

The man grinned and peered up at her from behind his glasses. "And if we did? Why does that matter?" he shot back, and Black Canary was momentarily surprised that he was asking questions back at her.

"Why did your attacker want you twenty-seven specifically?" she asked, answering his question with her own.

He laughed. It sounded haunted, and the tears that were leaking from the corners of his eyes set Wally on edge. He wasn't sure if this man had his head screwed on right.

His laughs calmed down into small chuckles, and he didn't seem to be aware that he was crying. "We f*cked up, that's why," he growled, and he reached his arms around his stomach as he gasped for breath between spouses of laughter. "We f*cked up big time. We f*cked up so bad, I'm surprised we're even alive right now. I'm surprised I'm even alive right now. Screw the others, I f*cked up enormously. I f*cked up everything."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Black Canary asked, overwhelmed with the amount of curses and information they were getting compared to the others.

He merely laughed though, laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed until there was nothing left of him. His sanity was obviously deteriorating, but the last thing that he said sent chills down Wally's spine as he watched the criminal degrade himself into nothingness.

"They're coming, and then we'll all be f*cked up."

0o0o0o0

It was quiet as Batgirl sat next to Wally. The two of them had watched the interrogations go on from the start, and after five hours of questioning and gruesome tactics of back-and-forth lies and truths, they were exhausted. It was early afternoon, and Wally was hungry.

Batgirl seemed to notice his lack of food intake, because she sighed, stood up and dragged the speedster over to the kitchen. M'gann was already there, cooking away. After the assistance and helpful explanations from Zatanna and Artemis, she was getting better at the whole idea of making meals for the team. Honestly, Wally couldn't care less how it tasted, food was food, but he appreciated the hard work the martian put into her hobby; although, it was nice to eat meals that weren't overcooked.

Taking one glance at their tired expressions, she realized that their expedition for more answers wasn't going in the best of directions, and hearing Wally's stomach growl was enough indication to set two bowls of warm soup in front of the two.

Batgirl ate slowly and silently; Wally, not so much. The pair did feel better after getting something in their stomach, however, and the bags under their eyes seem to lighten ever so slightly.

The bat's partner sighed before pushing an empty bowl in front of her. She muttered a small thanks to M'gann who took her bowl away, refilling Wally's for the third time. He quickly gulped that one down too, and the two sighed in contentment before standing up simultaneously, although Wally was faster.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to continue our investigation. I'll be with Batman if you need me," Batgirl said, not really sure if he was talking to M'gann or Wally, but when the other redhead started to follow after her, she realized that the comment was somewhat useless. M'gann would hang out with Conner, and she didn't see the need to get anywhere near her mentor. And Wally, well, Wally was following her already, wasn't he?

But neither of the two mentioned the stupidity of the comment, and she was glad for that.

"So," Wally started, shoving an energy bar down his throat that he snuck before he left the room. "Do you believe my hypothesis now on a mysterious attacker?"

Batgirl sighed for the umpteenth that day, but this time, it was more playful. "Yeah yeah, I get it. The victims responded negatively to the thought of an aggressor; so yes, it's probably true that there was someone who attacked them with their controlling powers over the birds. You were right, I was wrong. Sheesh," she said, using an overdramatic flair in her admittance. "What are you going to try to get me to admit now, that you're more awesome than me?" she said in a nasally voice, posing with her hip out as a petty high school girl.

Wally laughed. "I dunno, can you?" he taunted.

Batgirl scoffed. "And have your uncle constantly pester Batman and never let him let it down? No thanks, I'd rather not have a grumpy bat on my tail," she said.

Wally snorted. "Grumpy bat? You do realize that every time I see Batman from now on, the only thing I'll be seeing is Grumpy Cat in a Batman costume saying, "I'm too lazy to move", "the world doesn't deserve my sarcastic comments", or "go to hell." Thanks a lot, Bats," he said, laughing at the thought.

Batgirl chuckled. "But just think of the resemblance!"

The two teenagers took that moment to think of Grumpy Cat and Batman.

"We're never going to take Batman seriously ever again, even during the most serious of missions, are we?"

"Probably not."

0o0o0o0

The darkness settled around the city. Shadows leered around every corner, shuddering in the cold wind as the bright lights belonging to street lamps popped up, like sprouts of hope before the sadistic despair came to crush it under its foot. The silhouettes of the shade festered and thrived, their icy grip seizing the ones left behind; the defeated, the demoralized, the damned, the dead.

The sounds of tires running on cement started to dim as more people ran from the terrors, but the faint sound of rubber escaping the streets soaked in blood was prominent to their ears. The notes of rain pattering onto the city were delicate and precious, but the average person overlooked every drop; overlooking the tears of the sky as it wept the souls of the murdered, and the showers of pain and sorrow ended with a dark 'pitter' as the droplets collapsed onto the surfaces of the city.

Each soul cried out, desperate to be heard, but it was gone as soon as it came, leaving the urban expanse to wilt under the depression and mewls for the safe cocoon of faith. There were thousands of them, hundreds of thousands of them falling, descending from the clouded sky.

The melancholy ache of the rain washed away the blood and sparks of hatred that climbed high in the sky any other night. The city was instead filled to the brim with misery and the hanging fog of fear that clung to the air, lapping gently at the bare skin of people who were running in the night; it hid the desperation of the weak as they walked the bare streets of the urbanized area with their heads down, thin frames and burnt hands fiercely smoldering in the agonizing relief that came with the night.

Frost nipped at the forlorn and the broken, a reminder of the blistering cold that sunk into the skin of the poor, leaving them shivering in angst and the icy prompter that left tears frozen in their tracks.

Footsteps echoed throughout the empty alleyway. All the suffering torment was taken in with a blank glance of the figure as they climbed up the fire escape and onto the apartment building. The clouds started to clear up, and with it, so did the hesitance for savagery, and before long, the sounds of gunshots ricocheting throughout the city was heard as vengeance was unleashed. The figure didn't seem all that bothered by the brutality that was going on at the moment, deciding that the sky was a better companion.

The vivid stars were stark against the night sky, the contrast causing illusions to appear between them, like the lights were glittering and chasing one another in the dark, giggling and chirping along the way, but also fighting against the hold of the gloom. But suddenly, the stars weren't struggling against the embrace of the blackness of night to reach one another.

The stars scraped against the dark folds of nightfall.

They were being raked from the sky, pain and shivers forced upon all those who gazed upon the sight, and then they weren't scraping or dragging or raking or yanking. They were bleeding, their luminosity draining with their blood as they dripped down the canvas of the despair of night.

The figure stood on the building, puddles formed around them in the depressions in the ceiling, and they stood rigidly, thinking. They remained still, like one movement would be their demise. But this was Gotham; movement meant attracting attention, and that meant danger.

"The plan failed," they whispered to themselves, "but that's okay. There's a reason backup plans are made." They looked down to see an oblivious teenager walk down the street, brown hair spiked up in what they recognized as bed hair.

They sighed again, but it sounded muffled behind their mask. "I really didn't want to have to do this."

The smirk ever present on their face said otherwise.