Batman looked at the ruins of Jump City, staring at its barren streets from the shadows. He had been here for over a year now learning all he could about Slade. At first he came to find Robin convinced that his protégé survived the assault, that no unknown villain could have stopped someone as skilled and well trained as Robin was. He quickly learned that Slade was unknown because he chose to be so, and that he was far greater a threat than he could have ever imagined.
For over a year he has slowly gained knowledge about Slade and his actions. His infiltration, unfortunately, had not gone unnoticed and every possible exit from Jump City was blocked. He could bypass them and escape, but the defenses made it so that Slade would know he had escaped and returning would be next to impossible. So he stayed and gained intel, he was very good at that. He had secretly scoured Titans Tower, the Jump City Police Department, and hacked into some of Slade's patrolling robots for all the data he could gather. He sent what he had learned to the Justice League, or what was left of them.
The death of Superman and Aquaman was hard enough on the League, causing many to leave unable to even think of showing any mercy to these monsters, but after what happened to Wonder Woman. Terra caused the Island of the Amazons to sink and then, with the use of her powers, heated the rocks and boiled them alive. When Wonder Woman learned of this she left the Justice League, for she could not be one of them when all she could think about was avenging her sisters. When the League found her body, what little there was left of it, even more left to avenge her. The League was a skeleton of its former glory and conflicts amongst the heroes were common now. The toll it took an Batman, to hear that so many of his former friends had died and even more have begun crossing the line and killing those that served Slade and Terra, was greater than he cared to admit.
It didn't matter now. He had a new mission. Slade had gone into hiding after the last time the Dark Knight confronted him. He had gotten so close to ending it but Slade was smart, smarter than anybody he had ever met before, and somehow he escaped. The world's greatest detective, that's what many called him, and he had to prove that true by finding this monster and bring him to justice. He was close now and soon, very soon Slade will have to answer for the damage he had caused, for the people he had taken. The caped crusader lifted a piece of shiny metal in his hands, one of Robin's birdarangs. Yes, he would pay.