A/N: I know that I said I wasn't going to update till 18 views, but that isn't much fair to the few very loyal reviewers and readers that I have already. As long as you guys keep posting words, I'll keep posting chapters. I don't need a thousand followers or a thousand reviews, just a couple ones every chapter. SO this is for you; Twillightfairy, ArtemisCrock73, TERM1NAT0R, DonnaJosee. On another side note, I've had this chapter in pieces since before day 1 of this story. It's the longest existing thing I have ever written and is still good.

Chapter Nine

Calling the Calvary

Bruce was in the cave as usual, Alfred had already tried unsuccessfully to get him to eat upstairs in the manor. At the moment, the tapping of the keyboard was the only sound in the cave. The bats, who normally would flutter about, were coming home soon, but it wasn't quite sunrise yet. Batman's cowl sat pushed onto his back like a lowered hood. It was Bruce who sat working at the computer this early in the morning.

How the wrongs has been so quick to be piled against the father. The sorrows were his to carry, his burden alone. He had his sons home, but at the same not. Oh, where did he go so wrong with his second oldest? He tried so hard to raise Jason right. Dick had needed a mentor, someone to teach him to be Robin, to give him purpose. Dick hadn't needed someone to be his father.

But Jason… the boy hadn't had a father in the first place. Willis Todd was, by all definition of the word, not his father. Bruce should have stepped up… Maybe then, Jason wouldn't had felt the need to go chasing after Shelia and get himself killed

Fear held him back, it held Bruce back. The man didn't know anything to even be a parent in the first place. What if he had led Jason down a dark path? Setting him to beginning a villain?

But in his inactions, with his fears; Bruce; the boy's father, sent him down that path anyway. Jason, his son, was to pay for those mistakes.

"Master Bruce." Alfred's voice shook the man out of his self-loathing. "Please do come upstairs, sir. Master Jason did just stay the night after all. You mustn't disappoint the boy." The normally unflappable Butler's voice, held minor disapproval and regret.

"What does he want?" Bruce asked, already guessing the reasons for his second oldest' visit. The streets have gotten a little hard to control since his return from the Hospital. Bruce had Dick keep an eye on Jason for him to minimize causalities.

"He wishes to speak to you in the kitchen, Master Bruce." Looking around himself, the faithful friend left after telling the Batman. "I expect you upstairs and dressed presentably."

~In the Kitchen Five minutes ago~

"I told you, I don't need Bruce's help. I just need Baby Bird's and that stinkin' computer." Jason slumped on the barstool, foreseeing Dick's argument. Was there ever going to be a minute where the acrobat didn't have to shadow him?

"Come on Jay, you're not the only one that thinks Abby is their little sister, ya know. Let the family help." Dick didn't understand why Jason was so adamant that the Bats not get involved, even though they had the resources.

"I'm only here because Gotham doesn't need to have another No Man's Land. Abby is my family, and she's stuck with the Joker. You, Bruce, Tim, even Damian aren't my family. You'll never be my family. " Jason turned onto the older man with startling fury. "The same Joker who blew me up and crippled your girlfriend. Or don't you remember?"

"Jason enough." Bruce's commanding voice came from the doorway.

Turing around, Jason took in the appearance of his once-Father. Bruce looked the same as ever to the untrained eye, but Jason had been trained to notice minuscule details. The young man noticed the worry lines that furrowed his brow, and the odd tired look in his eyes…. Bruce had aged in the the six years that Jason had been gone.

"You've been at the manor since early morning. Why?" Bruce knew he was bad at emotions, he knew that if he tried to be concerned about his son, Jason would get the wrong idea.

"I've been trying to track Abigail. Coming here was my last option." Jason said pointedly said, swallowing what he was originally going to say.

He wasn't going to appear weak before his old mentor. Not after Bruce had failed him the first time.

"The Joker's captured Abigail." Dick supplied, knowing that his father and his brother were too similar to give in and apologize first.

"I've been looking for him as fast as I can. His next move could be anything." Bruce tiredly ran fingers though his hair.

"If the Joker has been in Arkham since the beginning: who has Abigail then? She's been gone for two weeks now. That girl's tough but not that tough." Jason crossed his arms, trying to hide the emotions thinking about Abby wrought

"She's your sidekick. Doesn't she carry gear that enables you to find her?" Dick asked, practically ignoring the two Batglares directed at him.

"One, don't ever call her sidekick. Not unless you want to lose something important; your legs for instance. It's a picky subject. Second, she usually finds and destroys the trackers anyway. I've given up on them." Jason started to dig through his pockets trying to find something. Eventually the man pulled out a pendant shaped like a bird in flight. Sighing, he tossed it onto the counter in front of his older brother "That is the only tracker. We won't be able to find her if she doesn't want to be."

"You're letting us help?" Bruce asked skeptically.

"Like Dickiebird and Abby has told me so many times. We're family, no matter how many times we may try to kill each other, we aren't gonna let anybody else do it." Jason shrugged helplessly. "Besides, you see what happens when you anger the kid. "

PAGE BREAK

Several nights later

Sourana grinned from where she appeared silently. Those heroes wouldn't know what she had in store for them. She was the Mistress of Mayhem, the one person that went beyond what even the Joker was capable of. This will teach those meddling two-bit cape wearing vigilantes, she was sure of it. She would wipe them from existence. Then and only then, will Abigail- her Malen'kiy Foks, be safe from her fate. It was a lesson the girl had to learn no matter what. Life was a big dog, sometimes it'll knock you down but you aren't finished unless you give in. Sourana wasn't going to let the girl's fate be her own and Foks wasn't finished just yet.

Sourana would easily wipe those peddling clumsy delinquents of crime and show the how it should be done. As the woman moved from one shadow to the next, you could only see flashes of what she looked like. Flashes of red hair were the only thing visible. The woman dressed like a vampire.

"Your move, Bats." She whispered to the air, staring down at the Arkham Island from her perch. The game was set, now all it just needed was its players to move into position.

"The Bats will make an appearance soon enough. And when they do, I'll be ready." Sourana whispered her green eyes hard as emerald gems.

PAGE BREAK

Later that evening

"I'm going to ground her ass for the next thirty years if I have to." Jason growled. The man was mad, almost to the extent that he was no longer thinking clearly. He was secretly worried about his sister, but they had a job to do.

"Enough, Jason." Batman growled, landing behind the man on the rooftop. The two were meeting on the edge of Red Hood's territory.

If Abigail was going to be rescued and soon, they needed to keep their whole efforts and minds on her. It was only a matter of time before the Joker caused more chaos and killed Abigail for the pleasure of it, Batman wasn't about to let another die at that creature's hands. Not if he could stop it. "Tell me what you've found." The bit that was Bruce slipped further from sight. He wouldn't say anything out loud, but Jason controlling the East End had it's upsides.

"There's a new wacko loose, by the sound of it. Whoever they are, they're calling themselves Piper. She's taking the kids out of Gotham, making them disappear." Red Hood reported, arms crossed over a leather jacket.

"I know, the Piper has only been active a few weeks. She's only taking the street kids and orphans. That's why no one has heard anything." Batman told him, having already investigated the woman. She was harmless, and didn't need him to hound." Anything else?"

"When I started to follow leads and the gangs that stopped giving cuts, I found something. At first I thought it was Black Mask taking back control, but he's still in Blackgate, but its worse." Red Hood threw a folder in front of the man. "That's everything I could grab before I got shot at. The gangs that quit giving me cuts; they're in the protection of a somebody calling herself Mayhem. They say that the woman is the one behind the Arkham breakouts and the disappearance of Abigail."

Batman picked up the rather thin folder and opened it. Inside weren't any real pictures of the Villainess; only a crude drawing of a shadow moving. "For someone supposedly scary, there's hardly any concrete information in here."

Red Hood shrugged, titling his head. "As much fun as our roof-top meets have been, I need to get back to patrol." He told the older man before disappearing back into the Red Hood's territory.

Batman watched as the black sheep of the family disappeared, tucking the folder away. The giant bat fired his own grapple into the night and followed the younger's example. Jason might have an image to keep for the crime's sake but there wasn't any heart to it anymore. He'd gotten softer since Abby's disappearance, even sleeping at the Manor every once in a while.