The elevator doors into the cave slid open, and Dick and Kate walked slowly into the room, with Dick holding up Kate's injured form, blood having already soaked through her jacket from her shoulder wound. As Harleen rushed over to help her fiancée to the medical bay, Harper and Dick followed slowly.

"We saw the tower on the news, I thought you were dead," said Harper quietly.

"I'm guessing Edward and the others at the Clocktower have been calling every minute since then to ask if we've returned yet," said Dick, trying to forget the fight with Jason. They weren't related by blood, but they were brothers regardless, and Dick knew that the team was all Jason had.

Harper stopped short and turned to Dick, a grim look on her face. "Didn't you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"The Clocktower, it was all over the news... It got the same treatment as Wayne Tower. Explosions, people seen jumping out of windows at the top... There's been no word from Eddie, or Tim or Holly, or from Jason either."

Dick sighed in despair. Part of him believed that they could've gotten out okay, but at the same time... part of him was beyond scared for them. Tim and Jason were like family. Dickwalked a little away from Harper, then violently kicked at a pile of boxes, sending them scattering across the room.

"Dick!" yelled Harper, fianlly grabbing him by both his shoulders and looking him in the eyes. "Dick, you can't pull that shit here, not now! The League of Assassins, freakin' Lex Luthor, and the damn Court of Owls? All at the same time? We can't afford to lose focus, so stop that shit and focus on the task at hand. We need to figure out what's going on, or a lot more people will die."

"...I know... I know what's going on..." The frail armoured form of the Talon coughed, his body shaking, but his wounds no longer bleeding. Slowly, he sat up, and looked at them, his voice like gravel. "I know what the Court is planning."

Dick and Harper looked him over, and even Kate managed to look over at the bed beside hers while Harleen treated her shoulder.

"Well, go ahead," she said, wincing at Harleen sterilised her wounds.

"My name is... well, even I don't know that, to be honest. It's been a long time since I was around. I was born some time in the seventeen-hundreds, and put into a makeshift cryogenic sleep by the Court until about a week ago, when they woke me and hundreds of other Talons from past centuries. They told me that the original plan for the Night of The Owls was a failure, decimated by the work of Batman and his vigilantes. They told me that the Batman was dead and that the city was weak - that this was the perfect time to strike and take back the city."

"So why aren't you out there with the rest of your pals, killing innocents?" asked Harper.

"I'm not sure why my morality differs from the other Talons, but my best guess is some mistake with the chemicals used to place me in hibernation, which allowed me to dream, unlike the others, who sleep peacefully. I dreamed for three hundred years, and I saw visions of horrors beyond anything I had ever before imagined: Gotham, my city, burning to ashes. Piles of bleeding bodies and charred skeletons, and standing over it all, victorious in their slaughter, was the Court of Owls, holding me like a puppet on strings, controlling everything I did, every murder I commited in their name, leaving me with bloody hands.

"When I awoke, I was determined to undo the Court and prevent the coming destruction. I planned to escape the Court and warn you and your allies of the plan, but the Court found out, and those loyal to them hunted me down and did this..." he motioned to his numerous wounds, now almost healed but leaving wretched scars. "I barely escaped. After that, I found this cave, and found you, and the rest is history."

"Wait, how'd you know to find us here?" asked Kate, standing as Harley finished patching her up.

"The Court has been around since before the Batman existed. They have watched and studied him, his ways, and his allies for years. They put together the evidence and figured it out. That is why they knew to attack your company, and they analysed your covert war with the League of Assassin's during the occupation of Gotham to try and figure out where you and your forces were hiding- Oh, god. I've doomed you all," he suddenly said, a dismayed look on your face. Suddenly, a thunderous boom sounded from within the main elevator. "They're here."

The doors were flung away from their holdings and a dozen Talons dashed out from the billowing smoke. Dick and Talon, despite their injuries, pushed forwards, Talon versus Talon, blades digging through leather and glancing off bronze with showers of sparks from the friction. Harper slid under a table, collecting a riot gun from a hidden gun cabinet underneath, and emerged behind cover, firing rubber bullet into those that came closest, sending them flying back. Harley did the same, pulling an old shotgun from the armoury and blasting away. Kate did her best, her batarangs heping to hold them off a little, but soon the group was encircled, and fighting a losing battle. Dick was slashed behind the thigh, bringing him to his knee, but kept going as the Talon fighting alongside them covered his retreat.

"They heal too fast for us to fight! We can't keep doing this, we need a new plan!" yelled Kate.

"I have an idea," responded Talon, using a desk to vault himself over a horde of his former comrades towards two enormous metal tanks marked "N." Dick figured it out immediatly.

"Everyone down!" he yelled as the horde followed Talon towards the tanks, and Dick took hold of Harper's riot gun, replacing the rubber bullets with grenades. As they reached the tanks, Talon suddenly leaped to the left over a balcony, and swung down, his hands tightly gripping a pipe.

Dick fired the grenade, and the blast blew holes in both tanks, letting loose a tidal wave of steam and white liquid that enveloped the hostile Talons. Dick took hold of Harley, adn Harper to Kate, and grappled quickly upwards as the wave rushed underneath them, flooding the medical bay while they landed safely on a higher platform. Talon himself almost lost grip and fell into the abyss over which he swung, but Dick let down a grapnel line and he slowly climbed back up.

"What was that, Dick?" asked Harley, holding closely to Kate.

"Liquid nitrogen. It's how Bruce beat them last time," he responded, smiling. "Freeze the bodies, they can't regenerate, which means they can't fight."

"Which means now we've got a whole lotta frozen owlsicles down there," laughed Harper.

At that moment, the radios in each of their ears buzzed and fizzled weakly, before Jason's voice rang out through each of them. "...Arkham base, you copy?"

"Jason, it's Dick, we copy. I've been worried sick, man, where-"

"Dick, you gotta get down to Gotham Park. The rest of the Court of Owls are here, and it's bad, Dick."

"Oh, shit."

"Oh shit isn't the half of it. Luthor's here too, along with his assassins, and they're going at each other's throats. A lot of people are dead, including more than a few cops and paramedics. We're doing the best we can, but we're low on ammo and time. Luthor's got some suit that's tearing us the hell apart. We need the Batman."

"We'll be there." Dick turned to the others, who had all heard the same.

"Good, because you're him now, Dick," said Jason. "He's all yours."

"We can take turns kicking his ass."