Batman was downloading all information he deemed useful from one of his back up databases. After being tossed around by an angry Amazon into his computer, the hard drive was destroyed. Luckily being his usual meticulous self, it was all backed up into multiple databases. The problem was it was taking awhile to sort thru one of them to find the data and files he needed to take with him. It would be better to try to locate Savage back on the Watchtower instead of mope in self-pity in his cave.

A small part of him wanted to just give up and grab a bottle of whiskey and just drink to oblivion while sobbing over his own failures and misery, but he squashed it down. He had more important stuff to worry about at the moment.

While waiting for his laptop to have downloaded all the information he had selected, he looked around to survey the damage not just for his computer but for his cave as well.

It was amazing how much damage he could do between his pathetic attempt to fight the mysterious stranger and Diana tossing him around like a bean bag. He roughly estimated the damage would cost him roughly almost half a million dollars. Being a billionaire that was nothing, but still, it was a little ridiculous.

"What are you doing?" the annoying voice chided in his head. "You are acting like an accountant instead of going after her! Go before it is too late!"

Batman shook his head. It was too late. He and Diana were over for good. It did hurt him, but at least he accepted it. Finally he had let her go completely. But still, his heart nagged at him. He was not being truthful when he said he did not love her.

The sound of Dick speeding up into the cave on the batpod gave Batman enough distraction to silence his doubts. It must be approaching dawn right now.

Dick got off the bike and began to stretch.

"Pretty quiet tonight. Had a friendly chat with Penguin today about some uprising drug smugglers…what the hell happened here?" Dick exclaimed finally noticing the damage to the cave.

"Nothing," grumbled Batman. Finally the laptop had uploaded everything. Perfect timing.

"No seriously, were we attacked or something?" Dick asked a little worried. "Is Tim okay?"

"He's fine. I just checked up on him, he is still sleeping. I need you to watch him today, maybe for the night too. I need to do some work for the League," Batman explained coldly as he made his way to the pad so he could be teleported back up to the Watchtower.

However Batman found his way blocked by Dick.

"You aren't going anywhere!"

"Try me!" Batman hissed angrily. The world was running out of time and Dick was acting like a spoiled brat.

"O I will. I saw your file on me the other day Bruce! It even said that you think I am in better physical condition than you. Do you really want to try to fight me?"

"Fighting is more than just physical skills, Richard. It is something you have still not fully understood."

Dick did not respond but instead with speed that could rival a meta, grabbed the laptop and flipped over to the other side of the cave before his mentor could react.

"Give that back!" Batman warned, pulling out a battarang. He was not in the mood to play games.

"How is that for more than physical skills? I know you got more of these but judging that you are in a hurry you probably don't want have to upload everything again. Tell me or I will break it!" he threatened while holding the laptop above his head.

Batman glared venomously. Dick was being insubordinate. He so wanted to go over and teach his protégé a lesson. But deciding that time was money, he figured it would be faster to tell than trying to fight Dick.

"Diana and I had a fight. We broke up. There you happy?" Batman asked sarcastically as he made his way closer to Dick to grab the laptop.

"What did you do?" Dick asked angrily.

Batman paused at that remark. He did not like how Dick was making it sound like it was all his fault.

"We both decided that we were being distracted by being together. We decided to go our separate ways."

"Distracted? She never tried to take you away from your mission; that was your own choice!"

"The world is on the edge of collapsing, the League is scrambling to try to stop an impending catastrophe and it is all my fault because I did not see this coming!" Batman said angrily. For a half a second Dick was stunned by the sudden volume uptake Batman's voice had undergone. That was all the time Batman needed to snatch his prized laptop back from Dick.

As Batman began to stomp back to the pad, he could hear Dick calling out to him.

"Bruce! You got to stop blaming everything good in your life whenever something bad happens! Have you ever realized that maybe bad things just happen because they do?" Dick retorted angrily while glaring at his mentor.

No response. That angered Dick even more. He decided to continue.

"What happens next? When the next catastrophe comes around, you are going to blame it on the Justice League and work alone again? Or are you going to kick Tim out again?"

Batman did not reply and before Dick could shout another verbal lashing, Batman was teleported away, leaving a frustrated Dick only a damaged batcave to yell at.

000000

Batman appeared on the Watchtower. He found that Holt was operating the controls but he was also donning on some armor. Since when did being on Monitor Duty require him to put on heavy duty armor? And why was one of the doors lying on the floor?

Sensing his first question, Mister Terrific explained, "Since we are short staff, even I am going to go into the field."

"You can't, the Watchtower will be deserted-"

"The civilian staff will still be here. We let the civilian staff in the Metro Tower be there alone all the time."

"But this is a lot more complex technology!" Not to mention a lot more expensive as well.

"If they have issues they can call me and I can instruct them to teleport me back up here in minutes. I am going whether you like it or not!" Holt responded glaring back at Batman.

Batman sighed but still kept his glare.

"Where are the rest?"

"They are in the cafeteria. Zatanna's trying to detect the objects. Superman meanwhile is charging up at the sun right now. If this thing gets released, we are going to need as much power as we can get."

Batman stormed off heading to the cafeteria. A part of him was a little hesitant to head over where everyone else was congregating. Diana no doubt was still angry at him and he was not in the mood to see how much damage she could do to the Watchtower cafeteria. He was pretty sure that broken piece of the door on the floor in the Monitor Womb was her handiwork.

He was near the cafeteria and he could hear muffled voices. It sounded like the entire available League roster was there. Shaking his head he attempted to enter quietly. However it failed because everyone had stopped talking upon his arrival.

Never had he seen so many people glaring back at him, especially when he was in costume. Zatanna, Dinah, and Shayera were staring daggers at him. He could have sworn he saw Shayera's hand twitch for her mace.

John and Wally were attempting to rival his own glare. J'onn as usual had his face blank but Batman could tell he was not exactly happy with him either. Only B'wanna Beast and Green Arrow appeared to not be giving him dirty looks, probably because B'wanna Beast was usually friendlier with him and Arrow was probably glad that there was someone to distract Dinah's rage from himself at the moment.

He noticed one person missing from the room.

"Where is Diana?"

"She left," Zatanna said coldly. Never was she this angry at him.

"What?"

"She left because you are a stupid asshole!" Shayera yelled back. No one hurt her best friend like that. She was about to charge at Batman and beat some sense into him with her mace but was held back by John's steady grip.

"Take your hands off me Stewart!" she shot back, her eyes screaming murder to her fiancé.

Before John could retort, J'onn stood up.

"Enough. We cannot afford to be at each other's throats right now. We are short on personnel…"

"Partly because he drives them away," muttered Flash darkly.

"What I do in my personal life is none of your concerns! Now can we get back to saving the world instead of acting like a bunch of high school students?" Batman responded angrily.

That seemed to calm everyone down. Majority of the room was still staring him down, but they all understood there was too much at stake to be chewing him out right now for being a dick to such a lovely woman who deserved better treatment.

Sensing everyone was back on focus, he looked to J'onn.

"Any progress?"

"I tried searching for Savage and his men telepathically but he must have anticipated this somehow. I have not been able to detect them. Zatanna in the meantime has been trying to see if she could sense the objects."

"How has that been going?" Batman asked at her.

Zatanna wanted to slap the stubborn jerk or turn him into something unfortunate but thought better of it.

"The artifacts are really old and complex magic. When they were made, there must have been a lot of powerful spells to conceal it so no one could detect them magically. Until one of the artifacts is used for magical purposes, I will not be able to detect any of them."

"So basically we are in wait-and-see mode right now?"

"You got a better plan?" she shot back.

Batman stood a little taken aback and dumbfounded. That earned a smirk from Shayera.

Defeated he sat down. For about two hours, everyone just sat there awkwardly. The overt tension in the room was suffocating. No one dared to speak again lest they risked being the victim to an eruption of anger. Finally Batman got up again to speak.

"It is early in the morning on the eastern seaboard of America. That means it has passed midnight already for about the first third of the time zones. We can probably start crossing off some areas Savage will not be in since Zatanna has not detected anything yet."

None responded to his suggestion for a second. Finally J'onn stood up.

"He is right. I will head to the Monitor Womb and work with Mister Terrific to start narrowing it down. After a few more hours if nothing happens, our parameters will be narrower and I think it will allow us to send members back on Earth in likely places."

"What is with the whole midnight thing?" Flash asked confused.

"The Question told Mister Terrific that the dragon can only be released on a full moon at midnight," John reminded Flash. The damn kid had short term memory loss and a short attention span.

"Yeah but do you believe him? I mean he was pretty distraught over his wife being in a coma. He still is clinging onto her body right now muttering random stuff."

"Vic may be unable to do anything more right now, but I trust the guy," Green Arrow said, defending his friend. "If he says that this dragon is going to be released at midnight then it is going to be released at midnight."

He was so upset and angry with himself at how he was unable to protect Helena. That was why he refused to stay up on the Watchtower in the med bay. His shoulder still hurt like hell from the bullet wound which would hamper his archery and combat skills, but he was not going to sit by while the rest of his teammates struggled.

"Are you sure this is all we have?" asked Shayera, not satisfied with their small numbers.

"We have Superman and Mister Terrific. We have managed to get some outside help though. I have been telepathically communicating with Mister Terrific and he has just teleported them up."

"Who?" asked Dinah confused. She thought everyone, even the reserved members were still in another universe. The only "outside help" she could think of was Helena who was currently clinging to-

No she could not think about that right now. She needed to stay focus. The world was in danger and she could not be fretting over her best friend right now.

As if answering J'onn's question the doors opened and in step two young adults clad in black.

Batman's white lenses widened in surprise. Not only was Nightwing standing in the cafeteria, but Batgirl as well. How the hell did Barbara get the costume back?

"What…are…you…"

"Hello to you too," muttered Dick, not letting Batman finish his question. Batgirl meanwhile was giving Batman an angry glare.

"Dick called the Watchtower after you left and learned that you were short on people. Dick offered himself and me."

"But you have not donned the mantle in over a year…"

Barbara snorted. "Please Bruce, you think because you took my costume away from me I would not be able to make another one? I have been secretly patrolling the streets with Dick all week. Had a feeling that you would need my help soon."

"Where's Tim?"

"He's safe with Leslie. Face it Bruce, you are not going to kick us out. We are here to help the League not you. If you do not like it, then you can leave."

Batman showed signs he was going to say something back but the rest of the people in the Watchtower was glaring back at him. He was all alone on this one.

"Fine," he muttered. Before storming out to find some solitude to calm himself.

Shayera slapped Barbara on the back.

"Way to go red, I love it when you kids put him in his place."