I do not own Naruto, Teen Titans, nor any other element that may or may not appear in this story!This story is for entertainment purposes only.
Silent as the...
Chapter 15: Bright lights, Big city (part 4)
Gotham Streets
Naruto Uzumaki, aka Grave, aka X, aka Yūrei, certainly wasted no time in between getting to Arkham, infiltrating it, and ultimately breaking out when stealth was no longer an option for him when Harleen Quinzel, better known as Harley Quinn, Joker's second, enforcer, and just about everything else, seemingly convinced him to raid the facility's equivalent of a evidence room with her in tow to reclaim her possessions.
One personal car, a blue MG TD Midget owned by Warden Quincy Sharp, was stolen, probably out of spite on Quinn's behalf, after the two had essentially hospitalized close to thirty guards that came in to stop them when the alarms had finally been tripped. To make matters worse it seemed that a number of the inmates had escaped their cells, it remains to be seen whether or not if they were simply let loose as a distraction or if they simply took advantage of the chaos. The only silver lining to the situation at hand was only the majority of their 'patients' had been held back by the safety measures in place for a mass breakout; only a few, namely the heavy hitters of Gotham, had unfortunately escaped.
The car, for what it's worth, had been found in an abandoned parking lot with nothing to indicate where its passengers had went. Adding salt to the proverbial wound was that in that area alone, before the car was discovered, thirty carjackings and thefts had occurred in this night alone. Like before it only remained to be seen if they were isolated incidents or if it was a distraction caused by a sudden army of "shadow clones" as Robin had called them that were willed into existence by Naruto. If he, and by proxy his clones given what a "shadow clone" was, was smart then he would've have had them in pairs with one of them disguised as Harley via his "henge" ability to help increase their odds that the real pair escaped his pursuit; with any luck he could spot any anomalies with any at all 'Harleys' to help deduce if they were indeed clones or not...
Yet by some miracle it seemed he stumbled across the real Naruto and Harley Quinn.
Pck! Pck-Pck!
"She does know a revolver doesn't really stand much chance against the batmobile, right?"
Ptt!
"Neither would throwing said revolver against the windshield," Batgirl said with a smirk.
Regardless, the duo they chased through the city streets were atop a motorcycle that was barely keeping ahead by choice lest he rammed them by accident.
Plat!
"Must've been a brick in that chicken," Batgirl mused aloud as a rubber chicken bounced off the windshield. "She's really not on her A-game tonight."
"With the GCPD holding her weapons, the most she can do is improvise," Batman rumbled.
"True."
Whereas the gun possibly came from the saddlebags of the motorcycle, anything remotely related to Joker's known theme could be seen being used as a futile thrown weapon that harmlessly bounced off the batmobile from a seemingly endless worn leather bag that was slung over Harley's shoulder at an angle to avoid slipping off. Where all else failed, the woman at the back of the bike settle for pulling her eye down regardless of the black, open eyed domino mask she wore and sticking her tongue out at them as her getaway driver took to every turn convincible in a poor effort to ditch an equally mobile car.
"Now she's just being a spoilsport."
Pouting, the woman whose face was painted to be pale as Joker's, wearing a body fitting checkered leotard of red and black which predominantly covered her left and right legs respectively, the one garbed in black however held a grouping of four red diamonds, till the pattern was reversed from the waist up, though distorted slightly by a vest-like lacing along the middle of the entire suit that was primarily black, turned and practically hugged the shinobi whilst gleefully whooping as he took a particularly sharp turn into a too narrow alleyway, forcing the batmobile to speed past them to take the street next to it. Scowling, Batgirl partially glared at the duo as the two sporadically appeared between the varying gaps of the buildings, Harley's ruffs, both the traditional styled ones on her wrists and the one acting as her collar that was splayed like a jester's style of a ruff, flapping about wildly in the wind along with the tassels of her jester's hood as Grave picked up speed and bypassed every obstacle before him.
Without warning they disappeared altogether by the time they were passing a alley befitting a small truck. "Lost them!"
Wasting no time the gas pedal was jammed into the floor, kicking the vehicle into top gear and further into a power slide that soon had them roaring down a conveniently empty street save for the occasional parked car here and there. In seconds flat he done it again, scarring a passing motorist into coming to a screeching halt as they rocketed past him to slide into the street to their left just in time to catch the familiar sight of Harley's back disappearing around yet another street corner.
XVX
"Jeez, where have you been all my life, Skullface? Me and Mistah J could've used a guy like you during our bank jobs if you can give ol' bats a run for his money!" Harley whooped and giggled as best she could over the roar of the engine.
No acknowledgement came from Naruto other than a quick revving during yet another turn.
"Ya ain't much for talking, are ya?"
"I'm just having a bad night tonight," he grouched, hopefully under his breath and especially under the bike's near constant roaring.
"Yeah... I guess when Bats is involve then everyone's mood gets kinda sour. Hell, even Mistah J does nothing but scowl because of B-man on a blue moon."
He held back a sigh just in case she could hear it too, and mostly likely add onto a night of mounting aggravations and wrongs, however debatable, place upon him including, but not limited to, the batmobile zipping itself back into full view of the bike's rearview mirrors just as he was catching up with a truck trying to get as far away from them as possible.
"Aaawwww! Why can't he just leave us alone for five minutes!"
"Do you know how to drive a bike?"
"Huh?"
"Do you know how to drive a bike?" he asked again.
"... Kinda..." she answered with a nervous smile.
"Good enough for me!" Despite Harley's yelp after the fact, he hopped up, he himself squatting on the seat, and subsequently launching himself onto the side of the truck's trailer. Once he secured himself to the side he brought his hands into is most famous symbol and conjured two clones into existence, both of whom barreled their way to the driver's cab as the original climbed onto the top of the vehicle.
In no time flat the driver was cast out into the street with a clone acting as an improvised shield, rolling him away into the sidewalk before dispersing, as the truck jerked to the right and violently careened to the left with the brakes slammed into action, effectively tipping over the entire vehicle and forcing the original to jump onto a passing cable liner that ran along the entirety of the street.
Screeeech!
Rather than stopping outright, the batmobile made a hard turn to the left into a nearby street to avoid the, its canopy opening to reveal Batgirl driving the car from its right side while Batman himself was launched out of it, arm outstretched with the grapple gun and firing it at the passing liner.
"It was nice knowing ya, Skullface!" Harley cried as she drove off, albeit in a wobbly fashion as the two practically flew above her and glared at one another before and after coming to stand upright without fear of being winged by the numerous bridges and their supports meant to hold the train of cars aloft as they moved deeper into the city.
"Don't think that the Joker will keep his word even after you bring him what he wants," Batman managed to growl out over the collective din of rushing air, honking horns from below, and steel constantly grinding against steel.
"Since when wasn't it a gamble when dealing with people like him without some kind of insurance?" Grave rasped out in return as he drawn his ninjato and a kunai which he held in a reverse, but relatively loose, grip.
The avenger's eyes narrowed. "So you plan on using her as a hostage." The kunai within the shinobi's grip came to be casually swung around by its ring that his index finger came to hook itself around it.
"It won't work. You obviously don't know Joker well enough if you plan on using that tactic." Batman slide himself into a knife hand stance.
"With all due respect," Naruto rasped as the kunai slowed in its revolutions, "I am in no mood for a lecture."
Without ceremony he tossed the kunai at Gotham's knight and virtually chased after it half a second later. With practiced ease it was avoided as the man it attempted to slice in its passing all but bum rushed the shinobi in return.
Poof!
It was too late for him to react as a count of six wires, three for each side, attached to a simple shuriken on every single wire's end screamed out from behind him at a curve, the momentum of which upon catching him causing the stars to swing around his body further in a tightening, overlapping bind till the blades found purchase in his suit after three revolutions. As for Naruto, he kept his advance till he was on him with the backside of the blade at the ready in mid-swing.
Clang!
He failed however to account for the protruding scallops that the wires essentially missed. In a fluid motion Batman used them to slice his way out of the majority of the wires, the rest were essentially shrugged 'off' by a mere flexing of the arms to loosen what should've been otherwise unyielding metal given the clone that held them in place, and caught the sword between the interlocking scallops that trapped the sword in place.
Shiiink!
Till he deemed it necessary to used his armaments to slice off the sword, leaving but a stub of a blade in its place that was no greater than a moderate knife in its length that at best nicked his protective gloves in its sudden lurch downward. Without missing a beat, Batman grabbed the shinobi before he could recover and launched him towards his clone.
Ducking, abandoning the remnants of the wires even, the clone sped underneath the original in his arc as he corrected himself in mid-air to land on his feet while tossing the ruined sword away with a masked snarl, his hands at the ready with his most commonly used seal he stood atop the car.
It was a full second later while he channeled the chakra needed to apply to his work that he noticed a small canister-like device had been thrown at him.
Poof!
Bamf!
In their eagerness to crush Batman, the clones effectively left the original Naruto behind to struggle with a hulking mass of fast drying glue. Batman, meanwhile, clenched his fists while dodging a swing of a sword, activating the augmentations to his gloves, and delivered a harsh, if not terrible, punch to the chest by going underneath the clone's own guard.
Poof!
Whereas the clones stopped, hopping back out of precaution to draw kunai given a lack of proper swords to that effect, Batman charged with his enhanced gloves at the ready albeit deactivated for the moment. In his advance, however, he reached into his belt where the cape was most relevant, whipped out a strange bent rifle with a claw, whipped himself around and fired it at an oncoming set of trusses in short order before returning his undivided attention on the now charging clones.
With a grunt bordering on a low yell, Naruto freed himself and made to draw a kunai when something reached down and plucked him off the cable liner to slam into an overhead truss that made up a 'bridge,' leaving him behind as Batman dealt with his clones atop the still moving train of cars.
"I seriously starting to hate Goth—"
WHAP! WHAP-WHAP! CRACK!
"... –tham." With an unnatural calmness he planted his feet onto the beam long enough for him to stick to it. Taking the kunai, he reached behind him and spent the better part of two minutes freeing himself from a claw-like grapple that held him to it even with the aid of the byakugan. Last but not least he as he made the short trek to stand atop of the structure he yanked out the only batarang that stuck to him by embedding itself in the now destroyed, but still 'standing,' left half of his helmet. Casually he observed the item of relatively simple make, essentially the strange hybrid of a throwing star and a boomerang made to the likeness of a bat with edges but otherwise harmless wings that had a total of four holes, two for each 'wing,' as they ventured from a central flat node directly in the middle of the weapon. With no effort he tossed it up and caught it by the end of a wing.
"GRAAAAH!" Clang! And without a second thought he flung it away to uselessly bounce off a wall as he tried to pry off his helmet, the proper procedure briefly forgotten in favor pure, teeth gnashing frustration.
"I drive three days with only four hours of one spent sleeping!" he snarled as his thumb groped the latch needed to remove the helmet. "I find Billy got himself involved with the Joker of all people!" He growled as his thumb clamped down on the lever. "I ended up giving away my HAND STICHED 'EYE PATCH' because some eccentric ass wouldn't take my money!" The helmet shunted forward. "My bike gets stomped by a robot of the jackass who wrangled me into breaking his crony out of a prison of a asylum!" With a flourish born more out of anger than even a subconscious intention at best to reveal his naked eyes both naturally born and surgically implanted, the veins around the latter bulging against his will. "And now I have to make sure Batman, probably the only person within the entire world to kick Superman's ass as well as half of the League over, doesn't shove her back in before I free Billy..."
The helmet, after having its caved in portion inspect and held onto by one hand, came to dangle to his right. "And now my helmet's been ruined..." he grumbled.
Without a hint of a warning he thrusts the headgear upward so to point a finger, albeit hidden by the helmet, at random roof ledge as the rest of his hand tried to strangle the protective, though damaged, piece of equipment. "Billy! I am so going to kick your ass for this! You hear me?! I WILL KICK YOUR ASS!"
"What I do?!" someone yelled out from below.
"Not you! The other Billy!"
"... Oh... Carry on then!"
His jaw dropped as well as his helmet bearing hand after realizing what had just occurred and his free hand went to his face in a mild slap to cover up his embarrassment. "I hate Gotham," he grumbled as his hand reluctantly drew away from his face and dug into his utility belt. Producing a small scroll which soon expanded into a more formal one, he opened it up till it revealed an empty circular seal, pressed the helmet to the seal, and watch it vanish in a small cloud of smoke accompanied by a 'poof' before rolling the scroll back up. He fed chakra to it and watched it shrink back to the size it was moments before, the ends of the scroll glowing a dull blue as a result of which that died off when the energy was cut off and the scroll itself was returned to its compartment.
"Wouldn't want to risk plexiglass in the eye," he wearily sighed as he looked for something of an immediate remedy to his revealed identity. "Now what will..." Nothing but clotheslines filled his line of sight other than the occasional balcony. His eye came to a black shirt and he grimaced.
"I can't believe I'm going to do this."
XVX
Construction site (Abandoned)
The bike had long since been totaled and the batmobile abandoned for a time when the it became more and more of an area where going on foot was the only means to travel. Eventually the chase had to come to an end like every other ever held throughout history, this one ending up being an impromptu game of cat and mouse through an equally improvised armory of what must have been one of Penguin's weapon stashes, equipped with mobile signal jammers no less much to her luck that Harley must've appropriate for herself if her glitching Detective Vision, a setting in her and Batman's own cowl to essentially reveal positions and armament of enemies as well as help find evidence to a crime, meant anything.
Reaching into her belt she pulled out a pocket makeup case, complete with mirror, flicked it upon and used it to peer past the corner. "And there you are," she thought to herself as she spied on Harley, equipped with that of which she suspected plus a sledgehammer, waiting for her to make an appearance in the hallway parallel to her own. She frowned slightly however as she tilted the mirror out of precaution.
"I thought as much." Not only had she appropriate a jammer but she had made a fairly standard trap consisting of a wire and a grenade on the ground... and it appeared to be the only trap that thus far as far as her spying was concerned.
And her only warning to another's trap was that of the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.
An arm slipped past her guard much to her panicked dismay. Gloved fingers clawed at the arm out of instinct while a more thoughtful arm attempted to repel her attacker by ramming its elbow into his stomach. All she received for her efforts was a muffled, defiant grunt as the arm continued to suffocate her.
After a minute of struggling she became limp against her will; each jerk, clawing, ramming, and even foot stomping of an increasingly desperate vigilante dramatically fallen as the lack of oxygen deprived her of a lucid mind and even greater still the energy needed to have at least a chance to buck off her assailant.
Gracelessly she dropped to the ground with a groan like a bag of bricks with a hefty amount of cotton inside it to cushion the fall, in the quiet of the half finished project it was enough to draw Harley's attention.
Evading her own trap, Harley reservedly peer around the corner with a slight scowl, sledgehammer at the ready, only to blink in surprise to find Batgirl not only down for the count but being pinned to the wall by her wrists by X-like restraints of some kind that stuck to both the gloves and the wall like glue. Even her mouth was covered for some reason...
Oh well. "Skullface, is dat you?" she asked after spotting the samurai sword at his waist given that he was wearing some kind of hood like a ninja would wear instead of the skull helmet, plus one eye was closed.
"Yep," he replied with a half minded growl as he kneeled down and tested the restraints for good measure.
"Damn! You had a voice synthesizer thingie in that helmet, didn't ya? Neat!" She dropped the hammer without a second thought as she strutted over to the shinobi till she stood behind him. Without asking or waiting for permission she bent over, planted her elbows into his shoulders, hands propping up her cheeks, and gazed at Batgirl with a haughty smirk. "On top of dat you got the drop on ol' B-girl too! And she ain't a pushover compared to most sidekick Joes!" A hand reached over and ruffled the top of his hood, in her excitement she unwittingly displaced the shirt enough to reveal a lock of sun kissed hair. "You're just like a ninja, ain'cha?"
She frowned however as something came across as odd to her, warranting her to look down, idly noticing his blond lock for just a moment as she focused on his hood which she ruffled again. "Is this a T-shirt?"
"I'm having a bad enough night as it is," he growled in a warning.
"... Just once? Pleeeeeaaase?"
"... Just. One."
She cleared her throat and stood straight...
"T-SHIRT NINJA! HA!" she cried with an accusing, playful finger at him while he stood up and marched towards the nearest exit.
"... What, not good enough?"
No answer.
"Hey! Not all of them can be gold you know!" she whined as she chased him down, stripping herself of the mobile jammer in the process so not to be weighed down. Not once did she notice the glinting red light coming off of Batgirl's utility belt.
"As I said before, I'm having a bad night."
"Aw... I guess that's understandable," she sighed and pouted at once. Both her short lived mood both tangible and non were lost when they reached the street in time to catch the revving of a bike about to pass them. Naruto only walked faster to the street proper, stopped and held out his arm to catch the unwitting neck of a passing biker, knocking the shades clear off his face which he caught without a ghost of a thought in doing so.
Crash!
"Ugh... HEY! WHAT THE FUCK—..." The downed biker's protests died upon spotting Harley Quinn offering him a pleasant wave whilst following the guy who wasted no time in appropriating his ride. Closing his mouth in a tight clamp, he edged away very slowly lest he somehow provoked Joker's chief lieutenant even if she was distracted, perplexed slightly even, by the equally stolen shades the thug had tossed to her without looking.
"This night is getting betta and betta!" she mused aloud with a matching grin as she donned the glasses and assumed the position on the only seat once Naruto stood the motorcycle up and revved it for good measure.
Screeeeeee!
"HI HO SILVER, AND AWAY!" she laughed over the roar of the engine.
XVX
Miller's FunWorks ('Abandoned'), thirty minutes later
"Sweety, I'm home!" she called out the second she burst through the boarded up glass doors to the once store. Her lips forming a quizzical frown, she looked about to see only herself and her accomplice once he trudged into the building. "Mistah J?"
Grave made no effort to help once he spotted Billy still dangling from the pulley beneath an opening on the third floor of what he could only assume were the offices for the complex. "If you'll excuse me..."
"Hey!" she called out once she realized he was gaining distance in his aggravated march to the door most prominent to reaching Billy. "You're not just gonna leave a girl out here alone, are ya?"
Slam!
"Now dat's just rude!" she grumped as she stomped after him.
XVX
Third floor, four minutes later
"Are you still alive, Billy?"
"Ugh..."
"I'll take that as a yes," Naruto mumbled. In a brief look around he spotted the rope that held Billy aloft tethered around a handle bar bent at a right handle pointed upwards. Further inspection reveal the beam that was holding him up was on hinges, and a closed clamp on a adjustable lever was pointed towards him. Opening the clamp and pointing it towards the opening, Naruto soon grabbed the rope and began to pull, hoisting Billy up and even the beam once there was no more distance between Billy and the pulley's wooden support was nonexistent. With an audible 'clap' the beam banged against the top of the portal and with only a mild effort on his part, Naruto closed and secured the clamp on the top of the beam just before securing the rope once more to its anchor after letting enough 'slack' in the rope to simply let Billy dangle slightly from the pulley's wheel.
"Have mercy on poor Billy," he groaned pathetically, despite being lifted he was still upside-down.
Rolling his visible eye, idly noting the dull clack of a shutting door behind him. Opening his byakugan eye he frowned slightly to see Harley simply standing by the door with a frown of her own, a hand cupping her chin with only her index and her thumb in thought till she withdrew the hand to snap it in the announcement of an idea. It wasn't till she went into the office that he pulled out a kunai and pulled Billy inside before he began to cut the rope, all the while his clear eye monitored Harley as she began to root around the corner office, the door of which was closed behind her, till she had found what appeared to be a handheld detonator switch...
In all earnest he severed the ropes still bound to Billy once he was inside.
"Well it's been fun, grumpiness aside and all!" she announced as she opened the office door. "But unfortunately I got to find puddin'..." She began to strut towards the opening with a broad grin on her face. "It was nice meetin' ya Skullface! If you're interested then we got a positin' for ya if you ask!" She jammed. "Provided of course if we meet again!" she half chuckled as she darted past him and jumped out the window, the detonator forgotten and left to its fate as she let go of it in favor of catching her legs to roll through the air with a exhilarated cackle.
"Did Billy miss somethin'?" the red clad teen grumbled as he looked towards the exit Harley took just in time for a the wisps of a green mist to pour out of the vents.
Growling, Naruto wrenched a hand towards a compartment in his belt to which he retrieved a tracer the size of a finger nail and lobbed the device at Harley before she disappeared entirely. Grabbing Billy, he smashed his fingers on the buckle of his belt and disappeared long before the mist came in force, cloaking the entire building in a dense haze.
XVX
Streets, eleven minutes later
Bored, frustrated fingers incessantly drummed along an armrest within the batmobile as the blue eyes of the woman that owned them stared intently at the monitor on the console.
"We really need to get some sort of homing device on the cycles," she suddenly muttered.
"Usually its Robin who gets obsessive."
"Aside from you?" she grouched. "But in my defense it gets kind of personal when the same guy basically kicks your ass twice in one night and you never see it coming."
A rare smirk danced on Batman's face for a time.
Pat!
Screeeech!
"Oh now he's just rubbing salt in the wound," she grumbled as the canopy opened so she could pluck an X-shuriken with what appeared to be a note attached to it from the hood of the car. A frustrated glare partially blocked by the activated detective vision was wasted when it was clear that Grave had long since fled the scene.
Keeping the shuriken only out of a distinct need for evidence, she huffed as she settle into the seat whilst the canopy slide back into place and promptly snorted after getting a good look at the note's contents.
"What is it?"
"Looks like Joker managed to piss him off," she commented in a low rumble. "With any luck his tracer won't be noticed for quite a while."
The elder of the two glowered as the vehicle took off. "What's the catch?"
"He wants to join in the fun. Preferably being the one to maul Joker if I'm guessing right."
He hummed in contemplative thought. "His history does suggest that."
A thoughtful frown creased her lips and she puckered her lips in a pensive manner. "Say..." she spoke up a tad lower than her usual cadence. "What should we do about those ninja the Titans have to deal with?"
For awhile the quiet thrumming of the engine was all that rumbled through the cabin they shared. "... Nothing yet."
She slowly turned a raised brow at him. "... Am I right to assume the same reasoning for letting Deathstroke terrorize Jump City is in effect here?"
"Yes."
She sighed and screwed her eyes shut. The elbow of her arm came to rest on the passenger side wall of the car and her open palm came to cradle her leaning head. "Frankly I'm still surprised you sided with John on that one."
"He made a good point," he rumbled. "We won't be around forever. If they rely on us for all the heavy lifting then chances are they are going to be obliterated by a League class enemy when no one is around."
She smirked in response. "If he was your sidekick for at least a month without that ring then I bet he'll sing a different tune about that."
In an even rarer occurrence had occurred that night, he smirked once more in such a short amount of time.
XVX
Backstreets
It was... more frustrating than she had even half suspected. Crowded streets, suspicious people all over who were as tight lipped as they were passive-aggressive, and frankly the city was the largest one she had been in to date, at least three fifths larger than Konoha and nearly just as many places to hide in comparison between specialists and gangs who hide persons of interest and the sheer amount of abandoned, crumbling buildings only the dregs of society would consider using without a second thought. Not to mention that she couldn't use her byakugan without having to step into an alley lest she acquire the wrong kind of attention and the idea of a "ninja" running through Gotham was about as newsworthy as finding a penny on the sidewalk to most of those she could consider to be a part of Gotham's underworld.
Unfortunately, much to her chagrin, she had to resign herself to the hope that in her wandering she would find her beloved within this disquieting city.
Out of nervous habit she began to poke her fingers together as she milled about an alleyway that drew her closer and closer to a shell of as bar cordoned off by police tape. As she came nearer, however, it seemed that it was nothing more than a suggestion to keep out if the growing ruckus emanating from within it meant anything. She even faltered in her advance as she considered taking a route around it, especially when she spotted to agitated, sulking guards in red at the door when she could've sworn she heard a faint but all too familiar voice leaked out from what she could guess was a exceptionally large, jagged bullet hole.
On a hunch she ducked to the side of the building, narrow as it was, and activated her bloodline much to her heart stopping delight. There, sitting at the still standing ruins of a bar staring into a cracked mirror, was her scowling beloved blond who scrutinized and near constantly adjusted a eye patch. Next to him was another man in red, one of many disturbing replicas that littered the entire building now that she had a better look... clones perhaps? Were there shinobi within this universe who could create copies of themselves with more feasible ease that only Naruto had possessed? Regardless, the one in red was seemingly trying to engage her Naruto. What it was she couldn't tell, at most she could only hear a dull muffle coming through the numerous holes with the occasional "whoop" and "crash" disrupting what was already too hard to be heard. Pursing her lips, she followed the narrow alley to the bend and followed the equally small pathway there till she came the section of wall where Naruto was closest to, his attention turned to the one talking to him at long last. She pressed her ear to the wall, wood of all things given the its concrete surroundings, and frowned when the quality of what was said was distinctly lower than what could be heard, almost nonexistent thanks to the racket the clones were causing. A questing hand began to grope the wall in hopes of finding some kind of opening, a vent or perhaps a bullet hole; rotted wood was her salvation. A wall placed strike, enhanced slightly with chakra for good measure should do the trick. Unfortunately it was much too close for them to not notice the noise it would cause... yet fortune seemed to favor her when one of the red clones hopped up on a table with a cracking leg and began to dance on it. She'd just need to time it right...
Crash-Crash! "Whoowee!"
"Good one, Billy!"
Success! Was it sneaky? Underhanded for her to spy on her love? Perhaps but between her team's hunting of him and her being a part of it, his own PROVEN hostility towards said team... that and for all she knew the red one wasn't fond of other shinobi.
"—As I was just saying, Joker is crazy enough as it is but inviting ol' Batman to the party? I'm all for a good ol' fashion whoopin' for what he done to me but I ain't interested in being tossed into jail."
"And if we're going to take down the Joker I'd feel much more comfortable taking him on with someone who not only more likely focus on him and vice versa but knows how he fights as well." Without any provocation he beamed a devious smile. "That and he owes me for a smashed helmet."
His companion blinked and gave him a confused frown. "Are you suggesting you're planning on his cowl?"
The grin was lost in favor of a deadpan glower. "Ok... I'm going to walk you through this one: You were basically the go-to guy when it came to hijacking, hotwiring, and just about everything else in chop shop and vehicular theft classes, right?"
"Yeeeaaaahhh...?"
Naruto then holds up a strange disc-like object. "Now if we were to combine that with Gizmo's know-how of electronics, which you would most likely need, and toss Batman into the mix..."
It took a moment before a broad, toothy grin dominated the goggled teen's face. "Oh this is going to be good!"
Just then a dark figure with a pointed cowl, his body wrapped in a cape dropped down from a near rooftop and landed a few feet from the bar's guarded doorway. A similarly dressed woman, her own cape open however, landed beside him as he marched towards the door and its trembling guardians.
"Billy!" one of them squeaked. "He's here!" The other one offered a clearly nervous smile and stepped to the side, his arms arced as if to offer him free entry while the other smiled similarly and hugged the wall with his back. As for the barroom, every other "Billy" halted they were doing, some gulping nervously, whereas the "Billy" at the bar proper quickly stashed the device into a pocket in all haste whilst Naruto tied a garb around his head to form a classic shinobi hood around his face, mouth covering and all.
She saw the other woman smirk, as to why she could only guess at, and leaned in to whisper into the taller man's ear. He only gave her a look in response that was seemed to be his answer and a favorable one at that given her broader smile, more mischievous smile.
"Say Naruto, I thought shinobi had entire hoods built for that purpose, not T-shirts."
Slowly. Ever. So. Slowly. Her love turned to the red haired woman with a glare that would've killed lesser men and gave their loved ones a heart attack for merely being associated with them. It seemed to have no effect whatsoever on the strange woman triumphantly smiling at him in return.
"So..." he practically growled in his drawl. "Do we have an accord are did you just come in here to reveal to me that you know my identity, quite possibly my skill set, and quite possibly what I had for breakfast two days ago?" He then gestured to the Billy ext to him much to said Billy's squirming discomfort. "And while we're at it, just to rub salt in the wound, you're going to reveal his own identity, how many times he got sick, what school he went to, and how many times he blinked since you two got here?"
"Heh... Th-there's no need to get into that," Billy nervously chuckled.
"Nope," she said all too cheerily. "I think he gets enough punishment from Mandy as it is."
... Whatever inference that held for Billy, he not only got it as indicated by his hanging jaw but paled in stark shock as well.
As for the man in the cowl, he advanced towards Naruto and stopped at least three feet away, most assuredly catching her blue eyed love's glare and meeting it with his own. "Just minutes ago Joker kidnapped Commissioner Gordon, are you going to tell us where Joker is or not?" he growled out at the end.
At a deliberate pace her beloved reached into the utility belt he wore and retrieved a strange hand held device showcasing a small monitor no bigger than the palm of his hand. He tossed it to the scowling man just before standing and making his way to the door, the army of red clad teens following suit albeit with slowed or significantly slower starts depending on how close they were to the older man despite the mild distraction afforded by the device. "We'll see you there," he called out as he snaked his way through the taping.
A gauntlet covered hand slightly squeezed the handheld device a tad tighter than most would have done if the mild creaking of plastic under pressure was an indicator. Suddenly she had to withhold a squeak of surprise when he moved to leave only to stop and stare at the rotted wood she displaced with narrowed eyes. In a single bound she made it to the safety of the rooftops and made to move where the limits of her byakugan were only tested but never failing in following the one she loved with all her heart as thoughts of bold grandeur conspired to prove her worth and hopefully earn his affection in one blow.
But first things first: Where was this Joker person?
XVX
"Command Center," Troika HQ, Jump City
An image of a hollow green dot flashed in the corner of the TV screen showcasing a bootlegged copy of Godzilla. "Hang on, I gotta test this."
"Aw..." Mammoth managed to whine the second before he stuffed his mouth full with popcorn. Blackfire meanwhile languidly slurped on her drink through a straw as Gizmo paused the movie and used the very same remote to turn their TV into a monitor in full view of a dreary alley with the contrasting smile of an all too familiar face.
"Well, I lost that bet."
"Pay up." Burp!
"... You guys were bettin' on whether or not poor ol' Billy got killed here, weren't ya?"
"I think the money exchanging hands is evident enough," Blackfire purred with a one sided grin.
"You guys suck, you know that right?"
"Hey! I betted you'd live!"
"Correction then: Gizmo sucks!"
"Ha!"
"What do you want, Billy?" Gizmo growled out between grinding teeth.
His smile, lost upon learning of the bet, returned in full force. "Oh me and ol' Blondie here thought that considerin' all the hassles we both been through— him fighting giant robots and bat-people and me being stiffed by a demented rodeo clown, we've decided a little bit of compensation is in order."
"Huh... Naruto's really moving on up," Mammoth rumbled in between bites.
"Bat people?" Blackfire inquired with a sidelong glance.
"Batman and Batgirl," Gizmo grumbled. "Former's a founder of the League and takes down terrorist-level threats on a nightly basis while the other is a long time sidekick to the guy... and what do you mean by "compensation?" His eyes, squinted already, narrowed even further.
"Well I had me a job with Joker—"
"SAY WHAT?!" Even Mammoth dropped his drum size bucket of popcorn.
"Again, who?"
"Batman's nemesis and probably the only human on earth who can actually threaten the league on the whole without superpowers and crap like that..."
A impressed, albeit restrained, whistle escaped her.
"Anyway..." Billy started up again. "He only paid me half in advance for a job I couldn't complete in one night and beat the tar out of me for it... on top of that he used me as a hostage to get Naruto to finish what I started, and thanks to that he had to butt heads with Batman himself."
"This is better than any movie," Mammoth mumbled as his hands blindly searched for his missing popcorn.
"Now he and the caped crusaders are raiding this chemical plant nearby and..." His grin became wider for a brief moment till the camera was turned towards the parked and vulnerable batmobile. "As I said, I think we're entitled to a reward for our troubles."
... One could cough at the other side of the world and it still be the equivalent to a pin drop within the living room.
"Mammoth, where did I put the computer again?"
"Along the wall, I think..."
And like a bolt of lightning Gizmo bounded over a stunned tamaranean in a mad dash to reach the super computer...
Between his haste and his blown mind, he knocked himself into the ground by slamming head first into the computer's console.
"So..." Blackfire spoke up as she reached for the remote and looked it over. "Which button's the record button?"