Watchtower- April 14th- 5:46 P.M.-
The team was called to the Watchtower by the Justice League, as they arrived at the Watchtower, they found the League members standing in the main room; they turned their heads and went quiet as soon as the team set foot inside. Nightwing and Aqualad who were ahead of the group looked at each other before taking their seats.
"Unfortunately, the artifact that you recovered from Sportsmaster and Cheshire was stolen from the Leagues vault earlier this week," said Superman, "for now we ask you to keep an eye open and if you have any idea of who could have done this, now would be the time to tell us," he finished. The team understood that the League thought Nightfall had something to do with that, and with good reason too, the artifact was meant to enhance the user's powers and abilities. A power-hungry person like her would be the perfect suspect. A few seconds later, darkness started shifting around on the ground creating a shadow portal from which Nightfall came out.
"How could you let this happen?" Asked Nightfall after the shadows dissipated. Their stares seemed to burn her skin, but the girl didn't mind; after all, she was used to it. "You took it because you said you could keep it away from them," she reminded them.
"Nightfall," said Huntress stepping forward.
"Yeah, I know, I know... I'll get it back, though I recommend you destroy it instead of hiding it. You clearly can't do it right," she said making the atmosphere even tenser.
"The artifact belongs in Athens, it's part of an Amazonian legacy and as such, it cannot be destroyed," said Wonder Woman stepping in front of Huntress, "I ask you at least respect its historic value," she finished looking down at the girl.
"You wouldn't know who took it, would you?" asked Black Canary, finally saying what the others were thinking. Nightfall glared at her for a few seconds before finally speaking.
"I get it, of course you suspect me. What do you want me to say? that I regret it? That I wish I could have done things differently? You want me to give you an empty apology? Tell me, what do you want to hear? Because I can say it, I just won't mean it," she said walking up to Black Canary. "Oh, I know what you want me to say…I'm sorry your friends were so weak that they died without putting up a fight," she said. Black Canary clenched her teeth and closed her fist, she threw a punch at Nightfall, but the girl stopped her fist.
Black Canary then threw a kick at her, and she took it, but then returned the hit with a punch to the stomach. The girl then turned her palm upside down and shadow chains came out of the floor and kept Black Canary in place long enough for Nightfall to hit her a few times. The woman freed herself after releasing a loud canary cry that pushed Nightfall back, and then she took advantage of that and tried to land a hit but Nightfall kept putting up barriers around herself to block the hits. The fight was finally stopped by Wonder Woman and Superman, they grabbed them and kept them away from each other until things had calmed down.
"You have no right to be here," said Black Canary.
"I do if it's something that involves The Light getting more power. What happened to you is nothing like what happened to me. You weren't kept in a basement, nobody ignored your cries for help when some sadist was injecting chemicals in your body and you certainly never had everything you've ever cared for taken away from you. I had to go through that, not you, not the team, not any other League member. Me!" she said raising her voice as the memories came back, at that moment the room was darkened by shadows covering up the large windows. "I was raised by The Light, trained by them, permanently scarred by them, and you think you had it hard? People die all the time!" she yelled, finding herself surrounded by darkness. Her chest felt tight, Nightfall had never said that out loud. Her skin itched and Superman's grip on her arm didn't make it any better. The girl pulled her arm away and opened up a portal only to disappear through it along with all the other shadows.
Mount Justice- April 17th- 4:27 A.M.-
"Can you believe they actually made us come in at this time?" asked Kid Flash leaning on Artemis while they waited for a Leaguer to show up.
"It is not really that rare," Aqualad reminded him. Just then Batman walked into the room with Nightfall right behind him. The two of them set themselves in front of the screen as it popped up with a map of Arkham laid out. "What are you doing?" he asked, suddenly Nightfall set her bag on the ground and turned to look at Batman.
"You didn't tell them?" she asked him, Batman quietly returned her gaze. "Of course you didn't. I'll be leading this mission," she said.
"What mission are we talking about?" Beast Boy asked.
"We have identified that Klarion broke into the vault and stole the artifact. Though we still have to determine the reasons why; we now know they are preparing for something big. Something big enough that they would be willing to break into Arkham," Batman explained.
"Why Arkham?" Nightwing asked.
"Jervis Tetch is locked up in Arkham. Whatever it is The Light wants, they need him to do it," Nightfall answered, she had finished opening some more files in the computer before turning to look at them. "We'll get into Arkham and prevent them from taking Tetch, first I'm going to have you…" she was interrupted by Aqualad.
"WHy should you be in charge of this mission? You walked away from this team," Aqualad said looking down on the girl. "Nightshade wouldn't have left," he told her. The girl finally turned to look at him and with a smirk on her face, she started speaking.
"Nightshade is not here" she said. "She did leave you, why do you keep forgetting that?" she asked. "This is not Belle Reve; these criminals don't have collars around their necks to shock them every time they misbehave. This place is where the criminally insane end up when they get caught. You're going to need my help if you plan on surviving a day inside. You may have experience in a lot of things, but Arkham is not one of them," she said.
"How do you know so much about this place?" asked Superboy.
"I broke in a few times when I was younger," she answered casually. If there was something Nightfall could do that the rest of them couldn't, was get into the mind of a criminal, mainly because she was one. Aqualad slowly stepped away from the computer screen. "You might not be comfortable with me in this position, but for the time being I only care about taking Jervis Tetch out of that place before The Light gets to him," she told them.
"What's your plan?" asked Rocket since she knew no one else was going to.
"I'm going to need one of you to pass as a criminal long enough for the Justice League to get Tetch safely out of there," she explained. "Any takers?"
"Why don't you do it, you'll probably fit in just right," said Robin. The room went silent, as they waited for Nightfall to answer, they grew tense with every passing second until the girl finally started talking.
"You're probably right, I'm the obvious choice aren't I?" she said, "after all Kid Flash talks too much, he might mess up, Miss Martian is very emotional and can easily be pushed over the edge, Superboy has trouble controlling his anger, Aqualad's sense of justice is too strong and he might be unwilling to do something that goes against it, same goes for Nightwing and you're just a kid with a bad temper," she said looking at each one of them as she spoke.
"Robin is right. Nightfall might be the one that's more qualified for a mission like this which is one of the reasons I put her in charge. She has the skills and the character to hold her own in Arkham, but unfortunately, she also has a lot of enemies that won't be fooled by a simple disguise," said Batman finally stepping into the conversation.
"I'm going to ask one more time before I start choosing. Anyone?" she asked again looking at them very carefully. Her eyes landed on Zatanna who felt her gaze and without really thinking it through she stepped forward.
"I'll do it," her words formed a smile on Nightfall's face, a smile that told Batman everything was going the way she had planned. Zatanna received a file and was told by Nightfall to study it carefully since it was the person she would be pretending to be in Arkham; there were other instructions in there too, but nothing really specific.
"Memorize that by tomorrow, the mission starts then. I have to go take care of some minor details now, but I'll be back in the morning," she said and walked away from the team while passing by Batman. "Told you one of them would be willing," she said in a hushed voice so that the team couldn't hear her. Just like that, the girl was out of the cave and the team was left behind trying to process everything that had happened. Aqualad stepping down, Robin calling Nightfall out for being a criminal, her giving out reasons as to why none of them would be good for the mission and then Zatanna volunteering to go into Arkham.
Mount Justice- April 18th- 9:15 A.M.-
Nightfall walked into the cave to find the team waiting for her, she thought they would be asleep, but it was a pleasant surprise to find them ready. They watched her set up a table next to the computer screens and then place a cardboard box on top of the table. Inside were a bunch of communicators that looked smaller than the ones they were used to. They looked at her as she unboxed things into the table. Zatanna was given new clothes to wear and once she had changed, she walked up to Nightfall and the girl handed her a tiny box and an earpiece.
"The contact lenses have a camera that will let us see what you see. The earpiece is our only means of communication, lose it and you're done for," she explained as Batgirl started to calibrate the earpieces with the computer.
"Well that's encouraging," said Zatanna. But Nightfall just ignored her.
"A small heads up. If anyone asks, you don't know me," she said after Batgirl finished calibrating everything.
"Who? Nightfall or Nightshade?" asked Zatanna. Nightfall glared at her before walking back to the table.
"Either. You studied your identity?" she asked taking out two more boxes and earpieces out, but she just placed them on the table. Just then, Batman walked into the room to take Zatanna to Arkham, the girl looked at the team, unable to hide her how nervous she was, she went in for a hug.
"It's going to be alright, we'll see you after this is over," said Artemis giving her an extra tight hug. Zatanna looked at Nightfall who had stayed close to the computers, it was clear she didn't have the intention of saying goodbye to the girl, so Zatanna just walked away with Batman.
Gotham City, Arkham Asylum- 3:00 P.M.
Zatanna stepped into the first security room led by Batman. He handed the guard a bag with her belongings and the guard handed the girl a uniform. Another guard appeared in the room and took her away from Batman and moved her into another room where she was allowed to change out of her clothes. After she was done, she was dragged into a second security room where they patted her down before leading her to her cell. Zatanna and the guard walked in silence through the long halls of glass and concrete cells. Some prisoners glued themselves to the glass door to see the new inmate while others didn't seem to care.
"Don't make eye contact, some of them get aggressive when you look at them," Zatanna heard Nightfall's voice coming out of the earpiece. She looked up to the guard to see if he had heard it, but he wasn't looking at her. Zatanna listened to her and stared straight ahead ignoring the prisoners. The walk to her cell was relatively short, but to her, it had felt like forever, so after the guard tossed her inside, she just sat on the bed. Her hands were shaking and she could feel her heart trying to jump out her chest. Nightfall wasn't lying when she said that Arkham was hell, the atmosphere felt heavy and grim from the moment you crossed the gate.
"You alright?" asked Nightfall. Zatanna had forgotten that she could see everything she did, including her shaking hands. The team stood in silence waiting for her to answer, they were all tense and Zatanna's anxiety was rubbing off on them. Well most of them since Nightfall seemed more relaxed than usual.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she answered.
"Good, I'll be here if you need me," she told her, she actually sounded kind of warm, but then she silenced the communicator and turned around to look at the rest of the team. "Here's the other half of the plan. There are two safe houses located behind Arkham. I need Kid Flash, Artemis, Beast Boy, Batgirl, and Aqualad in the house on the right that's just 3 miles away from the place," she said pulling out a map. "If anything goes wrong you will get there first and do everything you can to contain the situation. As for Nightwing, Robin, Rocket and myself, we'll be inside the second safe house 5 miles away from Arkham. Since we'll be monitoring the situation, we are the backup," she told them.
"What about Superboy and me?" asked Miss Martian, noticing that Nightfall had left them out of her plan. The girl opened a file that showed a picture of Calendar Man, a criminal with a fixation with Holidays.
"Early this morning Calendar Man was arrested; they are going to be expecting him at Arkham later in the afternoon. He is usually a quiet man and most of the time goes unnoticed, but if anyone talks to you just answer with a date and the name of a holiday. He's annoying like that," she said looking at Miss Martian. At that moment the Martian understood that she was also going into that place, so without asking anything she took Calendar Man's form and Nightfall walked up to her with a pair of contact lenses and an earpiece.
"Zatanna's job is to keep an eye on Tetch, yours is to keep an eye on her," she said throwing the other earpiece at Nightwing who caught it before it could touch the ground.
"You're sending Miss Martian too?" asked Artemis.
"Not just Miss Martian, Superboy is going too. There's a prison guard suit in the box I brought, put it on," she said pointing at the box on top of the table. "If any of you thought I was going to leave Zatanna alone in that hell hole, you were wrong," she said turning to look at the team. Superboy took the other box left on the table, and once they were all set, Nightfall sent them on their way to Arkham.
"Why didn't you send Miss Martian in the first place?" asked Robin.
"Calendar Man is a smart, but simple criminal. She can get away with pretending to be him because he doesn't interact a lot with the others. Sending Miss Martian alone as anyone else would need weeks of preparation," she answered while she packed up her things.
"And we don't have that kind of time," Rocket interrupted.
"I didn't think you were the type to have a contingency plan," said Batgirl.
"You people seem to forget that before joining your team, I was the leader of my own team," she said. "Plus, I was given tactical training by Queen Bee and The Brain. So that area is pretty much covered," she reminded them.
"So what type of background did you give Zatanna to make her a better choice?" asked Kid Flash coming to the sudden realization.
"A pyromaniac that went on a killing spree before being stopped by Batman and Robin, she's supposed to have a vast knowledge of explosives, the type that can be made out of common elements that should be easy to find in a prison cell," she answered.
"You really did think this through," Kid Flash complimented her.
"Of course I did, going into Arkham without a plan would be suicide," she answered looking at Aqualad who had gotten ready to leave first with Kid Flash and Artemis. He didn't say anything, he was not in the mood to talk, and he was not in the mood to admit that Nightfall had a good plan. Before they were about to leave, Nightfall handed them an earpiece that allowed them to communicate with each other, but not with the three that were in Arkham. After they were gone, Nightfall took one last look at the screen before shutting it down. "This is going to go wrong really fast," she said and left with Nightwing, Robin, and Rocket.
The first group arrived at the safe house, it was well hidden among the trees of the extensive forest that sat just behind Arkham Asylum. They walked into the unsuspecting cabin to find a comfortable kitchen, a living room connected to the living room and a hall that lead to the rooms and the bathrooms. If it wasn't right behind a prison for the criminally insane, it would make a pretty nice vacation home, but they weren't there to relax. Aqualad moved to the middle of the living room to look for a place where they could set everything up, but the moment he stepped on the rug, it lit up and they heard a voice.
"Identified, Kaldur'ahm/Aqualad. Permission to access video and audio granted," it said right before a holographic screen popped up in front of him. The screen allowed them to see and hear everything Miss Martian, Superboy and Zatanna were doing, but it didn't allow them to communicate with them. On the right corner of the screen, there was a small window that showed the other cabin, where the other group had yet to arrive.
"Did Nightfall do all of this?" asked Artemis walking up to the screen. Kid Flash stayed behind and walked to the refrigerator, he opened the door and leaned against the wall pressing his hand against it only to have the wall glow.
"Identified, Wally West/Kid Flash. Permission to access weapon supply granted," as the voice finished, the wall behind the T.V opened and they three of them could see a closet full of bows, arrows, swords, shields, and other small gadgets. The group walked around the room, examining every nook and cranny always pulling out something different. More weapons, a different screen that showed the perimeter of Arkham and a back door that would get them out of the cabin faster.
"When did she had time to do all of this?" asked Batgirl setting herself up in front of the screen. The others wondered the same thing, it was impossible with just one day of preparation, even a few weeks wouldn't have been enough to set all of this up.
When the team noticed, Zatanna was being taken to the cafeteria, they only did that with criminals that posed a low level of threat for the facility and other inmates and guards. The team watched as they took her down the hall, and since they were seeing through Zatanna's eyes, they could all feel the glares and stares the girl was getting as if they were being directed at them. She sat down on the table Nightfall had told her, right next to Jane Doe who was till beaten up and swollen from her encounter with Knockout.
"Don't say anything, she'll talk to you first," Nightfall told her. Zatanna stared down at her food and started eating when sure enough, Jane Doe started talking.
"You're new aren't you?" she asked. Zatanna nodded. "What you in here for?" she asked placing her skinless elbows on the table and cocking her head to the side to get a better look at her face.
"Tell her," Nightfall's voice ran in her ear.
"I was caught breaking into the Wayne Enterprises vault," she answered as nonchalantly as she could. A smile was drawn out of Jane Doe's face the moment she heard that, and in response, a smile showed up on Nightfall's face. Jane Doe started calling some people over to the table and in a matter of seconds, a crowd was surrounding Zatanna.
"Looks like everything is going according to plan," said Aqualad looking at the footage.
"Like moths to a flame. Nightfall really hit the right character," Batgirl continued.
"You were caught by that team of teenage bastards?" asked The Riddle, drawing their attention back to their conversation.
"Tell me about it, they have been nothing but a pain in the ass ever since they showed up," Jane Doe told them. "They even showed up at The House, Nightfall took care of them though," she said.
"Nightfall? Is she back?" asked another criminal coming up from behind them.
"And she's just a big an asshole as she was when she disappeared," Jane Doe confirmed. The group fell silent for a few seconds before Zatanna heard a voice in her ear.
"I heard she was working with those idiotic kids," said Nightfall.
"I heard she was working with those idiotic kids," Zatanna repeated and soon the silence was replaced by roaring laughter.
"No way! Nightfall doesn't work with anyone," one of them said. "But now that you mention it, there is this one girl who is with that team...Nightshade, was it?"
"Don't get me started on that kid. She's the reason I'm here, that girl cornered me and burned my arm until she got the information she needed. Sure she let me get away, but the cops were already waiting for me a block away, not to mention that bitch made me have my arm amputated," said a woman behind them.
"That's nothing. I worked with a guy once who saw Nightshade burning all of Black Mask's henchmen alive. She locked them up with her and all my friend could hear were their painful screams and pleads, he said she walked out with a smile on her face," he said.
"I get what you're saying, another buddy said she put a bullet through the brain of someone that saw her face," another inmate chipped into the conversation. "But still she doesn't compare to Nightfall," Jane Doe said looking at Zatanna.
"Oh, she is evil personified. Never met anyone that sadistic, aside from the Joker and Harley, and it should be no surprise, there was a rumor that Nightfall used to hang out with Harley. That kid would manipulate her victims, torture them until they would beg for her mercy and she would give them a little bit of hope before taking it all away," said one of the inmates.
"She killed a bunch of heroes," another one said. "The League is still looking for her. Who knows what they'll do if they find her,"
Inside both cabins, the team was listening to everything he had said. Robin looked up at Nightfall, she wasn't moving, it's not as if she was shocked, she just didn't seem to care that they were learning about her past.
"Worst of all is that her reason for doing all of that was nothing more than entertainment, she enjoyed killing, it was one of the few things that would put a smile on her face," he continued talking as the team listened in silence, no one was saying a word.
"I saw her once, I was about to blow up the wall of the federal reserve and she was passing by following after Big Barda," Zatanna interrupted the conversation after hearing Nightfall's voice.
"You can blow that up?" asked Jane Doe.
"I can blow anything up if I have the right stuff," she told them.
"Even a prison wall?" she asked, her lipless smile growing wider.
"That's even easier," answered Zatanna matching her smile.