James is a man of principle. He has a set of values that he swore he'd never waver from. He believes that no one should ever have to go above their family or the law. Part of that stemmed from how hard his childhood was. When his dad passed away and left him and Carson alone, he knew he had to toughen up to protect his sister.

The kids would pick on them because of their situation and force James into fights all of the time. He wasn't a bad kid, but he refused to sit by and let someone threaten his family in front of him. James believes that family is always worth fighting for. It didn't matter if it was punks who were trying to bully his sister or a thug that was trying to kill his mom and sister. That's why he was so devastated when his mom was murdered; he felt he didn't fight hard enough for her. In response, James went head first into his job. For him work had been an escape from his problems.

It has been a month since his mother died, yet he still hasn't gotten over it. Seeing her lowered into the ground still feels like a dream to him. It's not until he comes home to see Carson when he realizes that it was not a dream, it's his hellish reality. She was still grieving their mother's loss. He tried to talk to her about it several times, but every time she would blow it off and say she just needs time. He was okay with that answer after the first week, but not after a month. Something was going on with her and he made it a point of order to confront her about it.

He wasn't clean either though. His problem was that he was busy with his duties from ARGUS. He still had no luck on finding more intel on the Crow. The vigilante wasn't one to linger or leave traces that he was at a particular location. If it wasn't for the fact that he'd seen him in person he would still have doubts that the creep even exists at all. Another hurdle was the clone. The clone was having setbacks because the body was attacking the kryptonian blood cells from within. The clone needs a new DNA template or else it's just going to keep deteriorating over and over again.

Sometimes, James feels that it was a lot less stressful just being a grunt again. He still didn't know how he rose through the ranks. He wasn't exceptionally talented or mentally gifted. In fact, he was dead last in all of the important requirements in getting the promotion. According to Director Waller, the two biggest reasons why he was chosen were because of his loyalty and his drive to succeed. He had a high sense of loyalty to his duty of making the world a safer place, and that was a valuable asset to have according to her along with his drive to always see that a mission succeeds no matter what.

'For far too long we've put our faith in theses so called heroes and lost sight of our own sense of strength. Their mere presence insights conflict…conflict that they don't have to deal with, we do. I won't stop until every single one of them is put out of commission before they cause another disaster to happen. I have to…for Carson.' He thought.

He made it back to the apartment to see that Carson was on the couch watching the news. There was a reporter named Vicki Vale talking about how crime in Gotham had dropped.

"And as of September the crime rate in Gotham has reached an historic all-time low. Not since the first sighting of the Batman has it been this safe in our beloved city. I don't think this would be possible without the efforts of our newest guardian the Crow. We all owe him a great-," the channel was cut off suddenly.

Carson turned to see her brother sitting beside her, "Listen, we need to talk Carson."

"About?" She didn't know where he was going with this, but she hoped it was another 'how are you feeling' conversation.

"How are you feeling?" Carson groaned, "No sis, I'm tired of this. It's been a month since mom died and you're still acting like this!"

"Like what?" she responded now annoyed.

"Cold, you're so cold about everything. I know you're hurting about mom being gone, but so am I. I lost a mother that night too. We need to come together, but it feels like you're trying to push me away. Ever since the funeral, it's like there has been a wall between us and I hate it. I love you Carson and I just want my sister back."

Carson didn't know how to respond. She knew she had been withdrawn, but she didn't know that it was affecting James as much as it was. She was hurt, but in all of her pain she didn't stop to think about whether or not her brother was hurting too. She immediately felt horrible.

James continued on, "I'm not asking you to act like everything is normal because I know it's not. Mom…she's gone and we have to deal with that. So…I guess I'm asking that we finally deal with it instead of doing what we've been doing. Me…diving head first into work and you just distancing yourself from everybody and everything. It's time we started being a family again. The love we have for each other is all we have left Carson."

The siblings hugged and shared a cry together. Carson was touched that her brother felt so strongly about this. For the last month, they had been like strangers to each other. Just because Itachi left her didn't mean that she needed to distance herself from her loved ones too. She would never abandon James like that. After they got done embracing she smiled at her brother before ruffling his hair.

"Come on James let's get some ice cream before Luigi's closes for the night. Oh, and you're paying too." She said deviously.

James smiled at her shift of demeanor, "Why do I have to pay for it? I paid last time remember?"

"Oh stop being a baby. If it helps, I'll go easy on the scoops this time." James shook his head before getting his jacket. The only good thing about vigilantes like the Crow is that they keep the nights safe because everyone is too afraid to commit a crime. But just in case, he always keeps his gun ready because there's no such thing as too careful in Gotham.

Carson was in her room looking for a jacket when she stumbled upon a picture that made her stop and smile. It was of her and Itachi that she got him to take after days of nagging. She'd be lying if she said that she didn't miss him. She'd give anything just to know that he was okay because she hasn't seen him since that night. It sucks because despite how easily Itachi detached himself from her, she just can't bring herself to do the same to him. She didn't care what he said; there will always be a bond between them. Speaking with her brother just showed her how powerful and unbreakable bonds can be.

She put the picture back, grabbed her jacket, and left with her brother to get some ice cream and finally move past all of the hurt.

Artemis was on her way to the Cave via zeta-beam when she was caught by an unexpected guess, Robin. He had a look of surprise on his face as he walked out of the shadows of the alley, but the look quickly turned into one of smugness from having caught his teammate on his turf. Artemis, on the other hand, was rattled by his appearance.

"How random that you're in Gotham City…instead of Star City where you're uncle Green Arrow lives?" he said teasingly.

She had to think fast since the team still doesn't know of her true origin yet, "I'm…uh…here to see my cousin. She was in the state spelling bee, here in Gotham City." She replied on the fly.

"C-o-o-l. Did she w-i-n?" he was enjoying seeing her rattled.

She was beginning to get annoyed, "N-o."

"D-r-a-g."

Having had enough, Artemis ended the conversation and decided to head to the Cave. It was unfortunate that they zeta-beamed right into an attack. Thinking fast she dodged the initial attacks and regrouped with Robin. Both of their visions were restricted by the smoke, so all they could see where fireballs being hurled their way. Any attempt to counter-attack failed.

Robin and Artemis ran for cover since they were too exposed by their current location by the tubes. Their escape route was blocked though by a sudden wave of water crashing right in front of them and washing them away. They had to recover quickly because fireballs were still being thrown towards their direction. They ran deeper into the Cave to try to lose their attackers and so that they could establish contact with their teammates. They had bad luck on both fronts because nobody was responding to their calls and the attackers were right on their trails.

They ran into a shower room as a fire tornado chased them and tried to wash it away with the shower heads while activating cave security, but everything was locked down. All of a sudden the water in the showers started bursting from the pipes and flooding the room. Robin set off an explosive to create a whole in the wall and save their lives before they drowned.

They soon ran into the air vents to hide and formulate their next plan of action. Thanks to the Cave's blueprints that Robin downloaded while escaping they weren't completely blind. They maneuvered through the vents until they were able to reach the boiler room. It wasn't long until they were found because soon the entire room was engulfed in flames. They had little time to find the second access tunnel or else they'd be burned alive. Artemis was able to locate it just in time and they both rushed through it, but not before Robin left an explosive batarang behind to help provide cover for them.

While they had a moment to catch their breaths, Robin decided to get some information on the enemy as well as help cover their tracks by deactivated the Cave's motion and heat sensors. They went through the Cave's security footage to see just what they were fighting to begin with and what had happened to their teammates. It wasn't much, but they did manage to see the same water blasts that had attacked them earlier had also attacked their teammates.

"That's it…all four are dead." Artemis gave him a look of disbelief. He quickly modified his statement, "The cameras! I meant the cameras! I'm sure the others are okay. Just give me a second to find the fastest route to the hangar."

Artemis sat back and tried to convince herself that there were okay, but all she wound up doing was putting more stress on herself, "Yeah, they're fine. They have superpowers. They can handle anything."

They found themselves in the library as they searched for a secret passageway into the hangar which Artemis thought was so cliché. Not long after they heard the door being opened and prepped their weapons for an inevitable fight. They heard a robotic voice call out their names and Artemis automatically assumed it was Red Tornado. She walked out into the open, but saw that it was a different robot that had called out to them. It reached out to grab her but Robin pushed her out of its grasp.

"Yes on the red, no on the tornado!" They made a run for it but were caught off by yet another red robot. The killer robot started shooting fire at them so they climbed on top of the bookshelves to avoid being burned. Robin's quick thinking allowed them to find the hidden entrance and escape again before things could really get worse.

As they were running away Artemis questioned how they were going to be able to stop them since Red Tornado was a powerhouse amongst Justice Leaguers, except now they were facing two of him. They stopped when one of the robots started talking to them through the intercom.

"Attention Robin! Attention Artemis! You have exactly ten minutes to surrender or the lives or your teammates will be extinguished."

At least now they knew the fates of their teammates from the earlier ambush. They were being held as a bargaining chip to lure them into a trap. They quickly made a run for their friends, all the while being taunted by the robot's counting down on the intercom.

"We can access the hangar from here," they turned to see a wave of water coming towards them fast, "Or not."

"Will you please stop saying that?" Artemis replied. They were both caught by the wave and washed away. Robin quickly took out his re-breather to get a quick intake of air in before giving it to his comrade. While trying to regroup and think of a plan out of this, one of the robots quietly swam through the water and grabbed Artemis. Robin grabbed one of her arrows that were floating in the water and used it to free her before more damage could be done. He got a hold of her and used his grappling gun to retreat, but not without leaving multiple explosive batarangs as a deterrent from being followed.

Thanks to some stroke of good luck they found themselves in the now flooded bay of the hangar. Their luck didn't last because not even a second later the second robot started blasting them with fire blasts. Using the attack as cover, the two heroes swam until they were next to Superboy and Kid Flash to check on them.

"You guys okay?" Robin asked.

"Forget us! Help M'gann!" Conner responded form his makeshift prison. They looked up to see a cage made up of fire which led them to believe that was where the rest of their friends were being held because of their weakness to fire. Artemis called out to Aqualad to check on their status.

"Aqualad is she-" she was cut off.

"She is unconscious. I fear she…we cannot survive much longer." He replied.

The conversation was cut short by another fire blast emitted from the enemy. They tried to make their leave but were cut off by both of the psychotic robots. They just couldn't catch a break because Artemis started to notice how almost all of the arrows in her quiver were gone.

"I'm almost out of arrows."

"Distract her, now!"

They both launched their attacks. Artemis fired an arrow that had little to no effect while Robin threw a volley of batarangs that did nothing but bounce off of the robot. Neither of them noticed though that one of the batarangs landed precisely right next to Wally in his confinement next to Conner. Both of the heroes escaped by using the robot's powers to clash against and cancel each other out. They quickly dove into the water and found an escape hatch to swim out of. They were able to find another air vent and were trying to regroup when they heard one of the robots call out that they had six minutes remaining.

"What do we do?" Artemis asked in a panic.

"We save them. That's how it works." He answered with conviction.

"Maybe that's how it's supposed to work, but those robots already took out our super-powered friends."

"You seem distraught…"

"Distraught? M'gann is dying, we have no powers, and I am down to my last combat arrow. Of course I'm distraught!"

"Well get traught or get dead!" Artemis couldn't believe what she was hearing from him. They started crawling deeper into the vent.

"How can you be so calm?"

"Practice. I've been doing this since I was nine."

"What good is that to us now? What chance do we have against unrelenting machines?"

Robin stopped and inwardly kicked himself for not seeing it earlier. They were machines, which meant that they could be shut down. He also didn't ignore what she said about the combat arrow comment Artemis made earlier.

"What did you mean by combat arrow?"

"Huh?"

"Earlier you said that you were down to your last combat arrow, but not arrow in general. What other kinds do you have?"

Artemis pulled out her short arrow from the side compartment of her quiver. Robin eyed it weirdly while trying to figure out what it exactly does.

"It's a homing beacon. It's a way to contact a friend of mine should either of us be in need of help. Now that you bring it up, I think now would be a great time to call on him for help."

"Is this friend an acquaintance of the league?" Robin asked.

"No, not even Oliver knows him. He sort have just came onto the scenes as it pertains to the superhero business."

"So let me get this straight; you want to bring a newbie here to stop these robots when the entire team had no chance against them? And the league doesn't even know about him?"

"Look I know it sounds bad, but he's not like the average hero. He's-"

"Do it. We need all the help we can get."

Artemis was shocked that 'go by the book' Robin said yes to her bringing outside help in, "But why?"

"Like you said, M'gann's life is at stake. If it's between breaking a rule or saving one of our lives, our lives will always come first so call him in."

Artemis smiled as she took the homing beacon and relayed a message to her friend. "Hopefully, he'll get it and come in time to help save our friends."

"Yes, but we have to still forge ahead as if we don't expect him to come. The thing with plans are that they rarely ever go off without a hitch. So while we wait for to cavalry, I have a plan that should render those robots useless."

"How so? Because the whole reason we are stuck in this vent Is because none of our previous plans on fighting the robots worked out too well." she asked.

"Artemis you just said it right there," She had a big look of confusion on her face, "They're machines and one electromagnetic pulse will shut down any machine within range."

"Great…except you better have an EMP emitter in your utility belt because I know I don't have one in my quiver." She condescendingly joked.

"I'm fresh out, but I'm betting we can make one. What do you say KF, doable?"

Kid Flash could now speak to them thanks to the stray batarang lodged next to him. "Totally doable," They then heard that there were five minutes left on the countdown, "You know…if you had more time…"

They had to make time, so they pushed on the lab that they could use to create the EMP as a last ditch effort to save the rest of the team.

Back in Gotham, Itachi was on the prowl as the Crow. He caught word on a drug deal going down and decided to investigate. Normally he'd let the police handle things as small as this, but this was a special exception. When he took down Black Mask, he did more than take out one lone man. He took out an entire crime syndicate, which had multiple unintended consequences.

One of those unintended consequences was that now the entire city of Gotham was now basically free territory. Roman Sionis held absolute control over the city for over twenty years so when his rivals caught wind of his downfall, everyone tried to get a piece of the pie. Itachi has spent the last month combating them and is the reason why crime has been so low in Gotham.

There has only really been one player who keeps trying to assert himself in Gotham despite of the Crow's presence. He's been selling an extremely powerful and dangerous narcotic drug called Vertigo. It's extremely addictive, distorts one's sense of balance, and in its purest form can cause the victim to believe that they are in constant excruciating pain. It's a hell of a drug and needs to be dealt with immediately before it becomes a big problem. Itachi hasn't been able to identify him yet, but hopefully after this drug deal he hoped that he'd finally get a lead.

Fast forward to current time and you'll see that the Crow is in the middle of interrogating two of the drug dealers. He'd knocked everyone else out except for who he surmised were the head bosses of this operation. It wasn't hard since he upgraded his appearance since defeating Black Mask because he wanted to stay ready for anything. He cut his hair again so that it was in a low ponytail and now wore a sleeker, porcelain crow mask that was all black and adjusted so that his sharingan was more visible through the mask's eye-holes. He wore an all black high collared, short-sleeved compression shirt along with all black tightly fitted sweatpants. He had a gray flak jacket, metal arm guards and black arm sleeves that ended just below his elbow, and durable black combat boots. It was basically a modernized version of his anbu black ops uniform. He felt it was ironic because he was doing the same types of missions now that he was back then minus the killing.

"I'll only ask this once since I hate repeating myself, where can I find your boss?" Crow asked.

"Look man, I don't know. We just get anonymous emails and set the deals up. I'm just a grunt-" he was cut off by an axe kick from Itachi that shattered his collarbone and sent him crashing down to the floor screaming from the excruciating pain.

Itachi put him out of his misery and knocked him out cold with a blow to the back of his neck. He then turned and started to approach the thug's partner who was shaking with fear. When Itachi reached the man he lifted him up by his lapels and held him against the wall.

"You have ten words…ten. Make them count or I promise that what happened to him will be nothing compared to what I do to you." He threatened. The scared man looked at his partner and gulped. He knew he was screwed no matter what he said.

"Do you know what he'll do to me if-" Itachi covered his mouth up. He then drugged him over to the window in the room and slammed the man through it. They were four stories high so the prospect of dangling in the air that high terrified the dealer.

Itachi stopped when he felt a weird buzzing sensation. He realized it was Artemis's homing arrow and summoned it immediately. It was beeping and had a red blinking button on it. Wanting privacy, Itachi let go of the dealer and let him fall through the air. He summoned a kunai with wire attached to it and threw at the dealer to catch him before he hit the ground. It pierced his Achilles tendon and stopped the free fall. The dealer was struggling and screaming from the pain which was causing the kunai to loosen from its spot in his leg.

"I suggest you stop struggling, unless you actually want to fall that is…" the man then stayed still and bit down on his tongue to stop screaming. Itachi pressed the button on his arrow and heard a relayed message sent by Artemis.

"Itachi, I need your help. I don't have much time to explain but my friends and I are in trouble and could use some backup. I need you rush over to 63rd and Crescent Street. There is a back alley there, walk towards it until you get to what looks like a broken phone booth. You'll be zeta-beamed to our base. Once you get there I need you to find me. I should be in the air vents. Don't engage the enemy until we meet up, they'll be the two psycho red robots. Please hurry, my friends don't have much time left." The message ended after that.

Itachi sighed, 'Looks like I have to cut this short then. If Artemis is in trouble, I have to help her.'

Itachi had to cut his interrogation short, he pulled the dealer up by the wire and glared down at him as he was dangling upside down. "This is your last chance before I do to you what I did to Black Mask. Make your two words count."

The man furiously nodded before speaking again, "Count Vertigo!"

This quirked Itachi's interest, "Is that the leader behind this operation?"

"Yes, but all I know is his name. I've never met the guy so I don't know where to find him I swear!"

"I believe you," Itachi then knocked him out before throwing him back into the room with his unconscious partner. He would have cut the time down by using genjutsu but he was low on chakra. He's been up for five days straight following this case. He's glad he got some type of results from it.

'Count Vertigo…you're next.' He weaved the necessary hand signs and devolved into multiple crows to teleport to the alleyway faster. He got there and walked down until he saw a phone booth that looked broken just as Artemis instructed. He got in and almost immediately felt a strange sensation. Then he was zeta-beamed over to the Cave over in Mount Justice.

He suddenly found himself in a flooded cave. Sensing the other presences in the room, he quickly teleported away. He did so just in time because the two red robots came to investigate why the Cave's zeta-tubes were activated right afterwards. They saw that nothing was there and went back to watching over the hostages while Itachi watched on from above. Not wasting any time, he used his sharingan to scan for Artemis. After locating her signature he dashed after her while hoping he wasn't too late.

Artemis was pretty much at her limits and close to giving up. Her and Robin's plan to set off an EMP failed, she was out of arrows, and worst of all it got Robin captured. She felt powerless; like all she could do was sit by and watch her friends die. If she surrendered she'd surely parish with the rest of them, but her only other option would be to abandon them which was a choice she would never be able to live with. She was crawling through the vents when she fell through a passageway and landed in the souvenir room. It was where Kid Flash stored all of his souvenirs from the past missions.

"I hope the League finds me before the Reds." She then looked at the souvenirs and saw her sister's Cheshire mask. She remembered when her older sister abandoned her because she felt the family was beyond saving. She felt it was every person for themselves. Artemis refused to be like her.

"That might have been true about our family, but I found a new family. And here we're all for one and-"she stopped when she heard the robots say that she had one minute left along with footsteps. She had already assumed that the robots had found her and were about to kill her. Deciding not to give up without a fight, she waiting till the steps were right behind her before swinging her bow at the would-be assailants. When it was caught, she looked up to see that it was none other than her friend Itachi.

A wave of jubilance hit her and she went to hug her friend. Itachi eyed her weirdly, "I rush to help you and your response is to attack me?"

Artemis smiled nervously as she let him go, "I'm sorry. As you can see, it's been a very long night for me."

"What's the situation?" He asked trying to get an idea of what he'd gotten himself into.

"Basically, me and a friend arrived here and got ambushed. Everyone has been captured excluding me. In about a minute unless I surrender myself, my friends will be killed. And if I do surrender I'm pretty sure we'll end up being killed anyways. I'm out of weapons and almost out of time." She answered despondingly.

"Do you know of a way to defeat them?"

"Yeah, an EMP. I know you don't know what that is so to summarize; it shuts down all electrical based technology for a short period of time which helps since the enemy are a pair of mechanical robots. But we need something metal in order to connect the circuits of the Cave's main generator to set off the EMP."

"Will that arrow behind you do the trick?" She turned and saw the arrow she used to help her friends a while back against Amazo. She grabbed it and put it in her quiver. Itachi took his mask off and spoke to her, "We can still save your friends, but you have to trust me and do as I say. You up for it?"

"Definitely."

"Good. Here's the plan…" She listened as Itachi detailed what he had in mind. It worried her on multiple levels but she trusted that Itachi would not let any harm come to her friends. Itachi made his plan abundantly clear because if a single detail was missed, it would fail and result in the deaths of her friends. Itachi couldn't save his team when they were ambushed like this, he wouldn't fail again now that it was Artemis going through this. They left for the hangar to confront the red robots and end this madness.

Itachi walked back to the hangar to confront the two red robots. He needed to create a distraction so that Artemis would have a big enough window to get a shot off and save her teammates, but more importantly he needed to disable that fire cage before her friend dies. He had to play this smart if this was going to work.

He made it to the hangar and saw Artemis's teammates in the fire cage, along with her unconscious friend lying in a pool of water. He then eyed the other two that were restrained be twisted chunks of metal with water all the way up to their chins. The situation was dire and he needed to act fast.

The red robots confronted Itachi once he made his presence known, "And who might you be? I do not detect you in any of our databanks."

Itachi stayed silent. He activated his mangekyo sharingan and took aim at his target. The red robots started stalking towards him and got ready to attack. 'Amaterasu!'

He then launched his black flame from within his eyes. Both of the robots dodged the blast and went to counter attack. A fire blast was shot at Itachi at which he dodged. Then a wave of water was sent his way, he weaved his hand signs and countered, 'Water Style! Water Dagon Jutsu!'

A large amount of water came together to form a giant dragon and charged against the robot's wave of water. After the waves of water clashed into a stalemate, Itachi landed on the ground. The robots gathered to regroup and then started surveying the room. 'They're probably trying to find Artemis. I have to keep pressing them.' He thought.

They soon noticed that two of their captive had been freed. M'gann and Aqualad were still exhausted, but their fire cage was gone. Once the robots saw this Itachi used the moment to rush them with physical attacks. As he battled with them Artemis was a little ways back observing everything.

"He actually did it," she said to herself. "Whatever that black fire was it saved M'gann and Aqualad. The cage just went up in smoke…it's almost like the cage of fire was set on fire. And the best part is that the robots had no clue that they were never the target or else Itachi would have never have missed so badly. He even lowered the water level to prevent Kid Flash and Superboy from drowning. He's a genius."

She looked on as Itachi blitzed them with his taijutsu. He was dismantling them with speed she's never seen before. They may have had super strength, but they lacked in combat experience and Itachi was taking full advantage of that. His strikes and kicks had devastating effects on them, causing external damage to the robots. Each time they tried to use their element Itachi would just counter with an elemental attack of his own. After a while both of the robot's undivided attention was on Itachi and Artemis saw this as her moment to strike.

She walked forward and got a clear shot of the exposed circuit board of the main generator. Once she locked on she fired her arrow. Itachi heard the whizzing sound and figured Artemis must have seen her opening. The robots stopped what they were doing and directed their attention to the airborne arrow. Itachi saw that they were about to try to impede the arrow and took the necessary precautions to stopping them. In the middle of his assault he tagged both of them with paper-bombs and took this moment to activate them. Right before they launched their attacks they were caught in explosions, which allowed the arrow to hit its target.

Both of the robots recovered from the explosions just in time to see the metal end of the arrow hit the main generator and set the EMP off. Immediately all of the technology in the cave was shut down, including the robots. All of the water in the hangar disappeared so she knew that the bomb was successful. Artemis saw that the robots were down and went to join Itachi in the hangar.

"Kaldur how's M'gann?" Superboy asked.

"She breathes. I believe that she will recover. What of Robin?" Artemis then rushed over to check on him. At first glance he wasn't breathing but when he started coughing up water out of his lungs she knew that he would be okay. Itachi watched on from a distance as the team checked on each other.

"He's breathing too." After finally getting air he looked at his friend and smiled, "Way to get traught."

Soon Artemis, Robin, Kaldur and M'gann went to down to free Connor and Wally. Robin explained that once the plan failed he knew his only option was to fake getting captured so that Artemis could escape. He faked his drowning but passed out from the water he took in. Connor expressed how worried he was for his girlfriend.

"M'gann…" She grabbed his hand in hers and gave him a reassuring smile, "I'll be fine."

Artemis found a laser gun that would be useful in cutting her teammates out of their metal prison, but because of the EMP all the machines were down. Not long after, their supervisor Red Tornado joined them and they briefed him on what had just transpired. From his vantage point Itachi saw that another red robot had come like the others and decided to end this once and for all. He leapt down and landed just a few feet ahead of Artemis and her team ready to attack which caused a giant conniption.

"Who is that?"

"How did he get in?"

"Oh great, now we have to deal with this."

"Stand down intruder!"

The only two not to say anything were Artemis and Robin. He figured this must have been her friend that she mentioned and he must have helped her to defeat the robots. Though it did come as a shock to find out that she was friends with a guy like the Crow. He's read up on reports on him in Gotham, including what he did to Black Mask, 'This guy is dangerous. We have to be careful around him.'

"Stop! It's okay. It's just a big misunderstanding. The Crow is the reason why you're all safe. He helped me take the robots down," She then turned to face Itachi, "That is our supervisor. He's not like the other red robots, trust me."

Itachi lowered his guard after hearing her, but the others were still on high alert. Wally was one of the loudest to protest, "You really let some stranger in here?! What were you thinking? There's a reason we have rules …I mean he could have-"

"He saved your lives! He didn't have to but he risked his life for all of you. How about a little gratitude?" she countered.

"She's right guys. I may not agree with all of this guy's methods, but he saved us. There's no telling what might have happened if he hadn't showed up. We owe him," Robin walked over to Crow. "Thank you for saving my friends."

Itachi nodded back at him. Soon after the others express their gratitude, though Wally was still wary of him. Itachi then saw their mentor walk towards the defeated robots. He looked on and strangely saw a giant robotic sphere free itself from a nearby wall. The laser gun in Artemis's hands went off soon afterwards. Both Robin and Wally saw this and had the same thought, 'The pulse has worn off!'

Red Tornado touched one of the robots and then everything went bad. He used his power to create a wind vacuum that was sucking all of the air out of the hangar. Itachi turned and saw that Artemis and her team were all losing air fast. It wouldn't be long before they all lost consciousness and unless he did something soon, they would all die. Thinking fast, Itachi activated his mangekyo sharingan and summoned his Susanoo to protect the others. Using its humanoid form, he wrapped its arms around them to try and preserve their air. The strain was intense because of how low he was on chakra. By the time Itachi got his bearings back, all three of the robots were gone. He looked back and saw that the others were all alive and safe, just out cold. He deactivated his Susanoo and sharingan soon afterwards. He was severely low on chakra because of that stunt their supervisor pulled, 'I should have kept my guard up, but least they're safe at the end of the day.'

He slid down a nearby wall and watched over them. He'd stay until either they all woke up or help arrives for them. As he waited his mind went to a lot of places, but it mostly focused on Carson and wondering how she was doing. He spent most of his free time thinking about her and hoping that she was doing better since they last talked. Since that night he kept watch over her from a distance to mostly make sure she didn't get into any trouble, but he also liked being near her if only for a little bit.

"Please stay safe Carson…" he whispered silently to himself with the small hope that she'd hear it.

"Artemis. Artemis can you hear me?" Artemis woke up to the sight of Superman himself looking down at her. Once he saw that she was alright he helped her up to her feet.

Artemis surveyed the room and saw other members of the Justice League were there including Batman and Green Arrow. She figured a good amount of time must have passed while she was out. She also saw that her teammates were all safe and alert, along with Itachi who was off to the side by himself. Artemis gulped at having to explain why he was here in the Cave with them.

"What happened here?" Superman addressed her. Artemis looked at him with anger before responding, "What happened? The Reds happened! Red Tornado and his- Wait, where are they?"

"The Crow over there said they disappeared shortly after we passed out…all three of them. Looks like he saved us again and we owe him another debt of gratitude." Robin answered a bit bitterly.

Superman then looked at the Crow. He was briefed on how he saved the Team and was trying to figure out how to handle all of this. He walked over to Batman to get his opinion.

"What do we do about him? I know he helped save the kids but we know nothing about him."

"You know nothing about him," Batman countered. Superman quirked a brow but Bruce continued. "Let me handle him. You and the others help get this place operational as soon as possible. Have the kids wait in the conference room until I return." He then started to make his way over to the vigilante.

"And where are you going?"

"To meet with the Crow in private. It's time we talked. I have a proposition for him."

That's another chapter done. I hope you all enjoyed it. Make sure to leave a review, both positive and negative as long as its polite. I thoroughly enjoy reading your feedbacks and ideas. Thanks to all of you who support this story! Until next time guys and gals!