March 31st
Blüdhaven
2315 EST

Andre turned to look over his shoulder as he ran down the alleyway. He'd been chased by Nightwing before, and he'd failed to catch him once, and by the looks of things, he'd get away again. It paid to be the fastest runner in the city when the families came calling to have some work done.

When he turned, a flash of red amidst the shadows was the last thing he saw before pain blossomed in his jaw and darkness claimed him. Standing above him, his assailant, the Batgirl, set about the task of cuffing him with an almost casual ease.

"I was letting him get away." Nightwing called from the fire escape above her. "He's been great at leading me where I want to be."

"Sure, tell yourself that." Batgirl said, using line to string the guy up like a piñata. She watched Dick execute a series of flips and springs from the walls of the two buildings, coming to a graceful landing a couple feet away.

"It's good detective work." Dick replied, stepping in towards her for a hug. "I've missed you guys."

Barbara returned it warmly. "We've missed you too." She replied. "Can we talk somewhere privately?" she asked, switching gears quickly.

"Yeah, since you ruined my investigation, sure." He said with a shrug, and fired off a line, sinking it into the tallest building within range. She followed suit, and for the next several minutes the two of them roped through Blüdhaven, just like they'd done in Gotham not that long ago.

"So, what's up?" Dick asked while leaning against the support structure of a large roof based neon sign. Barbara stood across from him, arms crossed beneath her breasts, her stance almost perfectly mirrored otherwise.

"Gotham's got a problem, a big one." She said after a moment, trying to find just the right words to convey the gravity of the situation. "Someone's killing criminal heads. Brick, Black Mask and Scarface tonight for sure, and nobody's heard from Two Face in a few days."

"You could have called me about that." Dick said, trying to divine her reason for meeting face to face. Of the top ten cybersecurity experts in the world, they were two of them, so telecommunication wasn't something they worried about being spied on during.

"Yeah, well, Batman's been gone, ostensibly doing work with the League, but the crime scene was too familiar, like I'd seen it before. I wasn't going to say anything in front of anyone else until I got your opinion on the matter." Barbara said, tossing him a small memory chip.

Dick slid it into his wrist computer and began accessing the files contained therein. Immediately, he saw the crime scene photos she'd taken, each of them opening in sequence. She'd shot the photographs in what he assumed to be her estimation of chronological events, and his own evaluation concurred with her. He wasn't sure why he felt so strong that this theory was sound until the thought struck him. "This is almost exactly how Batman staged that fake scene for us in the cave when we were training. "

"So it wasn't just me." Barbara said quietly. "I was worried I was projecting onto the situation, and I really needed to see your face when you looked at the pictures."

"No, as far as I'm concerned, you're right, this is scary close. You don't think he's cracked or something, do you? Finally gone off the deep end?" Dick asked, though he felt rebellion in his heart for even thinking it. He and Bruce had their differences, and there were plenty of them, but he couldn't believe this was something Bruce would do.

"I don't know what to think, and Gotham's only going to get worse. It's me and Damien right now, really. With Tim gone, and Deke and Aasha being global, it's getting more and more obvious he's not around." Barbara said with a frown. Over the past few nights, things had indeed gotten progressively worse, with tonight being a tipping point.

"You want some help?" Dick asked, not sure if that's what she was driving towards or not. "I don't mind."

Barbara shook her head. "No, I can handle it for now. I won't be shy if I need it later, but right now, I just needed confirmation about what I saw. I can't go to anyone else about this, except maybe Jason, and you know why I won't do that."

"Yeah, I get it. Babs, if it turns out to be him though, promise me you're going to get all hands on this. If he's got plans to take down the entire League, you know he's got plans for everyone else too." Dick asked, genuinely worried about it coming to that.

Barbara nodded and scowled at the thought; it made sense really, perfect sense, as to why Batman would be prepared in the event that any of the League members might decide to go rogue. If Superman or one of the Lanterns took a notion, they could eliminate the planet from the solar system. It left her wondering if he had plans in place for Deke, Aasha, or Kristof, three people she was well aware were on a similar level of power, despite all three of them 'dumbing' themselves down.

"I promise." Barbara replied, unhappy doing so. She firmly believed that it wasn't him, but the evidence was far too coincidental. "I need to get back to Gotham though, Damien's by himself and I have a feeling Gotham PD's going to be processing the Penguin's corpse before the end of the week."

"Yeah, I've got things on lock here. You know how to get ahold of me privately." Dick said, firing off a line and soaring off into the night. It left Barbara standing there, still leaning against the support structure of the massive neon sign. She worried about Dick here, with no support or backup, either in or out of the costume. As kids, they crushed on each other, and while it had gone nowhere, she still loved him as a member of her family. She wanted to see him happy, and here in Blüdhaven it seemed like he was one single drop of water in the ocean.

Nobody was going to handle Dick's life but him though, she knew that, and so she fired off a line of her own to get back to where she'd left the Batmobile locked down in security mode. Maybe, she thought on her way to the car, she could call Tim, check on him too. He was doing his damnedest to put together his team, she might be able to offer some advice.

"You're mothering them." She finally muttered to herself as she ran across a series of roofs, leaping and flipping over HVAC units and dividing walls. The world was moving too quickly for her tastes, things spiraling away from her grasp, and she was instinctively taking it out on the people she loved. Better it this way than anger, but all the same, this was her cross to bear.


It was late by the time Barbara made it back into the cave. She parked the car in the usual spot and went to hang the keys up, when Bruce's chair spun around. Startled, she paused a moment to see why, and that pause saved her life.

"Hello Bruce." The visitor said; his voice muffled under the bandages wrapping his face. Dressed in a heavy gray overcoat, whoever the hell the guy was flicked his thumb over a button, causing a small explosion to erupt on the staircase leading from the parking hub up into the cave proper.

Still several feet away from her shorter stride and abrupt pause, Barbara was able to roll away from the worst of the explosion, ducking behind a series of large metal shipping boxes full of the resources necessary to continue fighting the good fight.

"You're not him." The man said, coming out of the seat and pulling a pair of revolvers out from under his coat. "Where's Bruce!?"

"Sorry, on vacation, you've got me instead." Barbara replied, whipping a batarang towards the man. She used the attack as a distraction to move, dashing into one of the darker portions of the cave.

Above her, the man simply shot the thing out of the air and leapt over the safety railing to land several feet further down on a landing. "I'm not here for you. I want him." The man called out, his keen eyes scanning the cave, trying to track the Batgirl. He hadn't prepared the cave to fight her, leaving him at a serious disadvantage compared to Bruce.

Another batarang whistled through the air, this time from above him, he turned, leveling the revolver in his left hand, and pulled the trigger, just like Barbara had expected him to. The small concussion explosive triggered, catching him in the blast and knocking him several feet back and down on his back.

Not feeling chatty, she declined to reply, instead ducking back into the shadows. Pressing her advantage now wasn't wise, since she still didn't know his capabilities. What she did know was that he was a terrifyingly accurate pistol shot, though he'd chosen revolvers for the job. Twelve shots maximum, but given the deep booming report when he fired, odds were better that it was ten large caliber rounds. Her armor could handle two slugs for certain, so risking movement at that point was calculated and worth it.

The man got to his feet, shaking his head clear, and got into motion, running fast and leaping down stairs whenever possible. He wasn't about to make himself an easier target if he didn't have to. "Keep this up and we're going to have a quarrel." He called out. "My vendetta is with Bruce, nobody else. The butler and the kid don't even know I'm here."

"We have a quarrel already." He heard behind him, just as two slender, but very strong arms locked around his neck in a textbook chokehold.

Thirteen seconds before the blood carrying oxygen to the brain is cut off from pressure against the carotid artery. The man turned his head into the choke to buy himself time and wrapped his arms around himself in a hug, triggering four more shots in an effort to get her off of him. She was too slender though, and in this coat his reach was constricted. This was another case of being prepared for Bruce, not one of his protégés, as the coat was armored specifically to handle the way Bruce fought.

Finally, he drove his body back, using the advantage of his much bigger frame, and was rewarded with the sound of air getting knocked from her body as she struck the wall hard. Three more times he did this before her grip loosened up enough for him to get free, turning out of her grip before twisting his body to come face to face with her.

He lashed out a hard kick, catching her left knee and bringing her down, the pain blossoming and exploding like fireworks on the Fourth. Not giving up, Barbara snapped a quick hammer-hand punch into his solar plexus, the force from the quick strike enough to shove him back, giving her time to get back to her feet.

She stepped into his arm's reach, taking the advantage of his guns away from him, and headbutted him, using the armor plate in her cowl to add weight, smashing his nose and causing the bandages wrapping his face to start soaking blood. The sudden pain blinded him temporarily, so she capitalized on it, rocking him hard with a quick combo of punches and elbow shots.

He absorbed the damage, though he was going to be feeling it the next day, and realized this needed to end quickly. Taking the blows, he put his revolvers against her stomach the next time she struck, and let both barrels go. The sudden shock and impact put her down, though the lack of blood spatter told him what he'd expected.

Tossing the pistols aside, he grabbed her by the arm while she lay on the ground, gasping for breath as the two high caliber slugs had done a serious number on her. He reached into his coat, removed a syringe, and with a casual ease he pulled the cap off with his teeth and jabbed it into the hollow of her elbow, easily bypassing the Kevlar nanoweave in her second skin.

"You better hope someone upstairs heard that." He said, giving her about a quarter of the dosage contained within the syringe, before tossing it aside. "Next time I'm not playing nice."

Immediately, Barbara could begin feeling the effects of whatever he'd given her. Her body was beginning to resist her commands, wanting to go limp. She mustered what she had left, and tapped the alert button on her belt, praying she'd put enough muscle into the action to actually trigger the alert, before she felt her lungs begin ignoring the reflexive need to breathe. Even the two explosions wouldn't be heard upstairs, the amount of stone and concrete and steel used to reinforce the cave separating the two locations quite well. That alert was the only hope she had.


Sitting on the couch, absently playing a video game, Deke's phone went off. For a half a second, he had no idea what was going on, as it was a tone he hadn't set and didn't recognize. When he glanced at the screen and saw the words 'EMERGENCY ALERT' and a map showing a location, he realized what was going on.

"Fuck." He muttered, and dashed straight to the window. "Ash! Wake up and wait for me to call!" he shouted, his voice gruff, adding a wave of telepathic pulse to his words to make sure her brain recognized it, before he threw open the window and leapt out, uncaring as to who might see.

He began rocketing through the air, pushing himself as fast as he could risk and still see where he was going. The map had shown her at Wayne Manor, with a rider on the Batcave. He was glad he'd talked Tim into sending him the emergency alerts on a carrier signal, especially with Batman gone. Bearing hard that way, he kept himself just below supersonic to prevent breaking the sound barrier, and shot into the cave through the Batwing's access point, twisting and turning through the obstacles that made it all but impossible to approach from the air unless you knew the path.

Absently, he was glad he'd spent more time developing maneuverability over the past couple of years. Being the flying brick had gotten old quickly, and he never could have done this otherwise. As he flew, icy dread gripped at his heart. She'd only triggered that alert four times in the past six years, and once was to help him out, not her. Two more were in her first year. His girl wasn't shy about asking for help when she knew she needed it, but it was just how damn good she was that had him so worried. That she needed help at all meant very bad things.

Once within the cave, he reached out, trying to touch Barbara's mind. Her thoughts were faint, but they were there, and he used this to guide himself to her, coming to a landing beside her amidst the knocked over crates and other strewn bits of things. Nothing looked dramatically wrong, which was a massive problem as he couldn't assess the situation, so he began using his powers to unfasten her costume, every closure coming loose at once.

"Babe, what's wrong? What happened?" he asked, fighting his fear and nerves back as he peeled her out of her getup. Once the armor was off, he saw the two slugs and the massive damage they'd done, though that hadn't transferred near enough to her body to cause her breathing and heart rate to dip so low.

Eyes open and blankly staring at him, she screamed in her own mind, trying to explain. The static from her was too powerful, too confused and hurt and scared for him to fully grasp. He couldn't sift through it all, and the pressure began assaulting his head. With a grimace and a shake of his head, he continued undressing her, getting her down to the thin athletic gear she wore beneath the whole thing, before lifting her telekinetically up and sending her to the exam table.

"My word!" Deke heard from the top of the stairs. "What's happened down here?" Alfred asked, rushing down the stairs to see to Barbara. The damage to the cave was minimal, and there was no threat to their safety, so he immediately began looking over her.

"Mister O'Connely, what's wrong with her?" Alfred asked, grabbing the emergency kit and preparing to go to work.

"Don't know, her armor ate the slugs, but she's barely breathing and her pulse is really low. I can't sift through her thoughts either." Deke replied, squeezing her hand. He immediately began shifting his perceptions, feeling out her nervous and circulatory systems, when he discovered the suppression of her nervous system. "Paralytic, could be anything though. Curare, Tetrodotoxin, Succinylcholine, something else. I can keep her lungs and heart working until she metabolizes it. There's a syringe laying over by the crates on the bottom floor."

"I'll analyze it so we can neutralize it." Alfred replied, glancing around quickly in a double check of their safety. The look on the young man's face was one he'd worn plenty often, masked terror. He hid it well enough, but all of the telltale signs were there. The overly calm demeanor, the way he kept his eyes fixed on her, it was quite telling.

"I've got you babe." Deke said to the divine gift he'd been given. "You're safe. How's the other guy? Twice as bad, right?"

Feeling relief at her diaphragm being gently operated, and her heart pumping a bit quicker, Barbara was able to calm herself. Inside her thoughts, she smiled at her man, and pushed another thought at him, showing him the blood-stained bandaged face of her assailant.

She'd hurt him, horribly bad. He'd eaten several shots to the body in the attempt to put her down, more than a few designed purely to damage organs. At a minimum he'd be pissing blood for a week, and most likely, he'd be down several days nursing internal injuries.

More than that, she had a sample of his blood on her left gauntlet. In a few short hours, they'd have DNA, and whoever this guy was, who wanted to keep his identity so hush hush, they'd have him.