Chapter 23: Emotional Rescue
THE BATCAVE
Bruce Wayne's eyes fluttered open as he was on the table beneath the Kryptonian regeneration machine.
He heard an intake of breath and slowly, gingerly turned his head to the right.
There was Selina, sitting there in a metal chair.
The bags under her eyes told him that for however long he was out, she hadn't slept.
And he must have been out a while.
"Hey, Sailor," she said.
"Hey," Bruce said weakly. "Did we save bin Sayel?"
"We did…. I did, actually, but yes."
"Where is everyone?"
"Out there."
"And you're not with them?"
"No," Selina said. "Because I'm here with you."
And Selina stood up. From what Bruce could guess, she was walking back and forth to get some energy back.
"I knew something like this was gonna happen," Selina said. "I knew you'd over-extend yourself, or someone would get the drop on you, and you'd be down here. And I told myself, the first time that happened, I would be here. Not Alfred, not any of the kids. Me. Because there's something you need to know, and a situation like this would be the first time I'd feel comfortable telling you."
"I have to narrowly cheat death before you're comfortable with telling me something?"
"Because I don't like looking like I'm vulnerable," Selina said. "People say we're too different to make it work, but lo and behold."
Bruce thought that was fair.
Selina put her hands in her pockets. She looked like she was willing herself toward something. He knew this, not from some grand insight into human nature, but because that was how he himself got when he had to deliver a speech as Bruce Wayne, or had to hold an investor conference call.
"You wanted to know why I took your last name," Selina said. "Why I'm Selina Wayne and not Selina Kyle. Or Selina Kyle-Wayne, or… or whatever."
Even through his loginess and post-coma haze, Bruce felt himself perk up.
Selina looked at the ground.
"Brian Kyle," she said, "was a good dad as long as the times were good. He was funny. He was kind. Watched Pinocchio with me over and over again, and never complained. He liked the Steve Miller Band. Loved him a beer and a ballgame."
She had developed a smile while she had talked about her father, but in the ensuing silence, that smile faded, replaced by a shadow of her own devising, casting no figure in a darkness anyone else could see, except her.
"Then mom killed herself," Selina said. "He liked ballgames a whole lot less after that. Liked beer a whole lot more. At least, before he graduated to whiskey."
She stared off into the middle distance, holding a silence that eventually broke.
"I look like my mom," Selina said. "Except for the green eyes, I'm the spitting image of Maria Perez. Maria Kyle when she passed. And my dad… resented me for that. And… and he drank himself to death pretty much right in front of me."
A shine appeared in Selina's eyes. A few blinks later, and it was gone.
"Me and my sister wound up in separate foster homes," Selina said. "And to this day, I haven't seen her since."
She took her hands out of her pockets, and then opened and closed them a couple of times before putting them back in. "So when people wonder why I changed my name, I have to wonder why I shouldn't. Since I was a kid and I saw that shitty apartment me and my family lived in for the last time, I didn't even want Brian Kyle's last name. If the development of human history demands that I have to have a man's last name, I didn't want it to be the name of the first man who broke my heart."
Selina took a step forward, put out her hands, and leaned on the table upon which Bruce rested.
"I wanted it to be the name of the first man who made me whole," Selina said. "You, uh… You remember a couple of days ago when you gave me that ugly brooch your mother had? Told me I was the Lady of Wayne Manor? Tried in your own cute little way to tell me that this whole thing wasn't creepy, and you didn't wind up marrying your mom?"
Bruce nodded.
"Well," Selina said, "I for damn sure didn't marry my dad."
A silence followed, and a heavy one. Selina looked down at the table, before she fixed her eyes on Bruce.
"I remember," Selina said, "not too long ago, you quit being Batman for three years because The Joker died. Because you thought he was the only one in this life who understood you."
And now Selina leaned in. So close that Bruce could see her pores.
"That's bullshit, Sailor. I'm the one who gets you. I'm the one who loves you… I'm the one who makes you laugh."
And Bruce had to smile at this. Selina tucked an unruly strand of black hair behind his right ear.
"You and me aren't ending in divorce court," Selina said. "You know that, right? We're either getting buried separately, or we're going to the Old Superhero's Home together. Either way, wherever you go is wherever I belong. Because I want to be there. And you didn't try to change me. You didn't tell me to stop stealing. You just asked me-you didn't tell me, you asked me- to start stealing from the bad guys. And I accepted, because that was reasonable. And I'm not trying to change you. Being married to Batman means being married to a man who will take crazy risks and extend himself far beyond his limits if that means protecting his home and all the people in it. Which begs the question…"
She hovered close to his face. He could smell her breath.
"Can you walk?"
Bruce sighed. "I'm not getting any begging to stay here and rest? Alfred does it. All the kids do it. Why not you?"
Selina smiled. "I want nothing more in this world than to stand between you and whatever it is that's trying to hurt you… But I know how you roll. Can you walk?"
Bruce curled his toes before fixing his blue eyes on her.
"I can walk," he said.
Selina smiled again. "Good. Then you can fight."
She helped him up into a sitting position, his legs dangling off the side of the table. Before they went any further, however, she held his face in both hands, and brought her lips to his. The kiss was luxurious, but all too brief. Then she placed his head against her chest, above the soft expanse of her breasts. Her heartbeat reverberated in his ear, and it was a little too fast. Whether that was because of stress or because he was so near, he could not say.
Within this moment, there was a small part of Bruce, loud and in the back like the mouthy kid in class, that wanted to pull her onto the table with him. To reach underneath her sweater and trace his fingers along the bare skin of her back. To listen to that heartbeat until they both grew ancient.
But the rest of him knew that if he did that, then he wouldn't be the man Selina Wayne had married. And he certainly wouldn't be the man Selina Wayne deserved.
And with all of his education, with all of the eloquent prose and aureate poetry to which he had been exposed, the one thing-the right thing-that he had to say was:
"I love you too."
She broke the embrace, looked him in the eye, and smiled.
"Come on," she said. "I'll help you get dressed for work."
She put his arm over her shoulder and, with a slight groan, helped him off the table. They began to walk out of the medical bay.
"I don't need help getting dressed," Bruce said.
"A lot has happened in the last day," Selina said. "Most of which you need to be sitting down to hear. Trust me, Sailor, you need help getting dressed."
FORDMAN'S DEPARTMENT STORE - MIAGANI ISLAND
Damian Wayne took a deep breath, wiped the sweat off his brow, and straightened the collar of his leather jacket.
"I'm bored," he said, catching his breath. "You've done the one thing I cannot forgive. You have bored me. And… And that means we must finish the dance."
Stephanie was on the ground in a pool of her own blood. Whatever number of broken ribs she had in the middle of the fight must have doubled. One of his punches opened up a cut on her hairline. It was a small one, but the scalp bled like crazy, making the wound look a whole lot worse than it actually was.
But slowly, surely, she began to get to her feet. She squared her shoulders, and fixed the one blue eye that wasn't swollen shut upon him.
Damian smiled at this, a bead of sweat falling from his temple, and caressing his cheek.
"Willful to the very end," Damian said. "That's not a quality I like. To think, I had my affections set on someone as base as you. Nevertheless… That comes to an end."
Damian reared back, his right fist closed. This look on his face was resolute.
And every fiber of Stepahnie Brown's being, every synapse in her brain, screamed one word.
NOW!
Damian let his game-ending punch loose. And it landed…
THWAP!
...right in the open palm of Stephanie's gloved right hand.
Damian looked at her with wide, confused eyes. Stephanie used her left hand to jab Damian in the chest and push him away.
And then the two of them just looked at each other.
Stephanie smiled. Just doing that hurt, and she could feel that, with the swelling, one side of her smile was wider than the other. But she didn't care. She didn't care that blood and drool were leaking out of the corner of her mouth. She didn't care that her lips were swollen and cracked from repeated punches to the face. She didn't care that her teeth were brown from all the blood that had been in her mouth.
She didn't even care that she was in so much pain. That was fine. She knew she was going to get wrecked as soon as she came up with this idea. And in the context of a fight, she could fully justify pain being an emotion, just like anything else.
Damian balled up his left and brought it in.
THWAP!
It landed in Stephanie's open right hand. And, same as before, she pushed him away with just two fingers.
That punch was softer than the last.
Which was no great wonder. His punches had been getting weaker and weaker for the last couple of minutes.
"Here's the thing," Stephanie said. "I was trained by Catwoman. So I know how to work a con."
Damian tried to unleash a front kick. She caught it with both hands, and just dropped it, causing Damian to stagger back into a full standing position.
"And I was trained by Orphan," she said. "So I know how to handle pain."
Damian's shoulders drooped. His eyes were still wide, but that seemed to be more confusion than mania.
Stephanie started walking forward.
And Damian, in his puzzlement, started backing up.
"I wasn't lying when I said men like you weren't exactly rare," Stephanie said. "You're the type of guy who likes to play with his food. You're the type of guy who will wear himself out trying to prove how superior he thinks he is when he's been insulted. Who will use everything he has just to show off for someone who looked at him funny."
Damian charged her.
And Stephanie dexterously got out of his way, put her hands to his back, and shoved him forward.
He apparently didn't watch where he was going, or assume that she'd get out of the way, because he tripped and took a header, knocking over the only creepy mannequin that was still standing.
Damian immediately got himself back to his feet, the deep breaths he was taking puffed out his cheeks. His whole face had turned red.
"And I know this," Stephanie said, "Because my dad is just like you."
Damian put his back into a left hook, a slow one, which Stephanie just dodged. He lost some of his footing, but regained it at the last possible instant.
"Because in case you haven't noticed," Stephanie said, "I haven't thrown a single punch this entire fight. Which means stamina-wise, I'm fresh as a daisy. And you?"
Stephanie's hand darted out as quick as a striking viper, and Damian had been too slow, too exhausted, to get out of the way.
She didn't punch him.
She had merely drawn her gloved finger across his forehead.
Stephanie held up that finger. It was drenched with Damian's sweat. A single bead made its journey down the joints of that finger, and threatened to invade her palm.
"You're looking a little tired to me."
Damian put what he had left into a right hook.
He missed, his fist sailing right past her ear as she dodged.
Stephanie grabbed his shoulders and drove her knee into his gut, robbing him of what little breath he had left. Then she jammed her right elbow into his nose, and Damian dropped to his knees.
He brought his hand to his nose, and saw his own blood on his fingers, and looked up at her with rage.
"This… is… impossible," Damian said. Breathing for him was hard, as worn out as he was. The shot to the nose just made it more difficult. "What I have done to you would have sent more seasoned warriors to their graves!"
"Sucks to be them," Stephanie said. "They ain't me."
Damian got to his feet and tried to raise his hands.
Tried.
Stephanie brought her left next to her right ear and gave him a backhand slap-just to embarrass the little prick-and then rocked his jaw with an uppercut.
And on his ass he went.
This all hurt. Just moving hurt Stephanie Brown… But it didn't hurt as much as she thought it would. Adrenaline and his drinking buddy Dopamine were kicking in as one thought settled upon her.
I am going to beat Damian Wayne.
It wasn't a possibility.
It was a foregone conclusion.
Hope got her here. Certainty would get her the rest of the way.
He looked up at her, his eyes wide, his nose bloody, his lower lip on the verge of quivering, and Stephanie had to fight off the urge to laugh.
Damian Wayne had the look of a man who had thoroughly and irrevocably fucked himself.
Because he had.
"What… are you?" Damian asked through gritted teeth and sweat-drenched lips. The telltale tenor of fear had busted into his voice and put its feet up on the coffee table.
Stephanie put her hands on her hips, and smiled. Her face was lumpy and her teeth were brown… but if you asked her, she'd have said she'd never felt prettier in her entire life.
"My name is Stephanie Brown," she said. "And now I'm gonna torture you until you shit your pants."
AMUSEMENT MILE HALL OF MIRRORS - THE MAINLAND
Jason was turning red. Whether it was from the cold or from his ever-growing agitation, Cassandra could not say.
They were still sitting cross-legged on the floor of the entryway into the Hall of Mirrors. Cassandra was working on her second beer. And why not? It was tasty, and Jason appeared to have forgotten it existed.
She felt… weird. Her face was all tingly, and there was a great force building within her. Her urge not only to talk at the present moment, but to monologue, was hampered by her inability to do so. She felt like a balloon that kept filling with air, but never popping.
And this was how Cassandra Cain learned that she was a chatty drunk.
"How do you think this is gonna pan out?" Jason finally asked.
Cassandra took the beer away from her lips, and beheld him intently.
"What," Jason said, "you think I walk out there with you, there are gonna be hugs all around?"
"No," Cassandra said.
"No," Jason said. "I'm gonna go to prison, is what's gonna happen."
"Maybe," Cassandra said.
"Or better yet," Jason said, "or shittier yet, I'm going to Arkham. Bruce changed up everyone's fingerprints and DNA in public records, you know that right? I get fingerprinted, the name of Jason Todd isn't coming up. I'm gonna be a John Doe. I run around saying I'm a Robin who came back from the dead and Bruce Wayne is Batman, I'm getting a straightjacket and a cell right next to Two-Face."
Cassandra swallowed her beer, and said "He's dead."
"Clayface, then."
"Him too."
Jason stared at her in stunned amazement for a second or two. Cassandra thought he looked like Tim did that one time Steph stole that can of Red Bull out of his backpack.
And the memory caused Cassandra to smile.
And Jason saw this.
"You think you're cute, don't you?"
Cassandra wanted to say something to the effect of "WELL, SUPERBOY THINKS SO!" but she didn't have the words for it.
So she just shrugged and scrunched up her face, as if to say "Ehhhhh..."
Jason didn't seen to handle this well.
"For someone who can't talk," Jason said, "You just can't seem to shut the fuck up, can you? All you're doing is pissing me off."
Cassandra put her half-empty beer between her legs to free up her hands for signing.
"Better. Than. Trying. To…."
What was the word she was looking for?
"...Explode. Yourself."
Cassandra still wasn't sure if that was right.
Jason opened his mouth to say something, but instead opted to frown and fume.
He was quiet for some time. He looked at his lap, took a few deep breaths, and then began to speak.
"Tim Drake isn't here," Jason said. "I was gonna give him a talking-to. You're getting it instead. You're getting the talk about how all Batman wants is soldiers. We aren't even human to him. All that matters is the mission."
Jason rested his elbows on his thighs, folded his hands beneath his chin, and tried to stare into Cassandra.
"He was responsible for a dead child… and no one stopped him. I died, and he didn't even stop himself. We can look up to Superman and Wonder Woman if we want to, but their combined might was no match for Bruce Wayne's ego, because they didn't stop him either. You'll give, and you'll give, and when you've given everything, it's on to the next kid dying for a rich asshole's approval. Some catch-all figure to fill whatever void that anyone who looks at him has. You and me? Babs? Grayson? Tim? None of our lives matter to him as much as any given bad guy."
Jason turned red again, and fumed some more.
"The Joker killed me," Jason said. "And if it weren't for his bitchy girlfriend, he'd still be murdering people today. It tells me that The Joker was sacred to Bruce, and I wasn't. I was a sacrificed pawn in a chess game. And if it came down to it, so are you… You know that, right?"
Cassandra didn't even hesitate.
"Yes."
Jason was thrown by that, not expecting it.
"So if you had to die to save some piece of human shit murderer, you'd do it?"
"Yes."
Jason put his hand to his head. "Jes- Why? In… In a world where a fifteen-year-old boy with his whole life ahead of him gets his head caved in by a psychotic fucking clown, how can you sit there and tell me he doesn't deserve to die? What could The Bat possibly mean to you that you would put it all out there to save someone who isn't worth saving?"
Cassandra put down her beer, looked Jason in the eye, and told him the truth.
"Everything."
Jason blinked at her. Cassandra leaned in.
"We…" Cassandra said, "are all… worth… something."
So intent in what she was saying that Cassandra had ceased to blink. "I have… killed… before," Cassandra said. "Never... again. The Bat… saved me. So I… could save… you."
Jason's body language told her everything. His jaw hung open. His eyes darted slowly back and forth. He was trying to figure out something to say, but he came up dry.
This conversation was over.
Cassandra picked up her beer, drained the rest of it in a couple of gulps, and put the empty bottle back on the floor next to her. She stood up, and held out her hand.
"Let's go."
Jason stared at his lap for a little bit, not moving. His voice was quiet when it came.
"I can't forgive him," Jason said. "I just… I can't."
"You don't… have to," Cassandra said.
Jason looked up at her. His eyes had a fresh shine on them.
"This won't end well," Jason said.
Cassandra held out her hand for him to take. Her smile had a warmth to it as she asked a very important question. The most important one she could think of.
"Says who?"
FOUNDERS ISLAND
Nightwing saw Geo-Force get ripped to pieces.
Born Brion Markov, he was Prince of the nation of Markovia, forced to abdicate his title when his Metahuman powers became known.
He had the ability to manipulate soil and stone. He was able to levitate huge chunks of the ground and fling them at bad guys. Could bring outcroppings of rock up from the dirt to confine or destroy enemies.
All in all, a hell of an ability to have.
It was next to worthless, however, against the Army of Nemesis, who could make more of themselves out of everything he did.
A group of four set upon him on the corner of Second and Flint, their opening move being a vertical slash that opened Geo-Force up from his belly button to the center of his chest.
They crowded around him after that. All Nightwing could see were bits of flesh and geysers of blood as Geo-Forced screamed for a short time.
Nightwing was too far away to do anything about it. He had just finished off a pair of Soldiers with his electric escrima sticks, only to see Geo-Force die screaming across the street outside of a trendy bar, whose sign had been destroyed in the carnage.
As if to avenge him, two figures burst through the second floor of the bar, raining chunks of concrete and shards of glass upon the four blood-spattered Soldiers of Nemesis.
Just eyeballing it, Nightwing knew they were Crush and Strix.
Crush made landfall, cracking the pavement, and decked the Soldier right in front of her with the chain wrapped around her fist. She stood over the crumbling collection of gravel that used to be a Soldier of Nemesis, and yelled "DOOMFIST, BITCH!"
As Strix cleanly cut through two others with her absurdly sharp swords, Crush squared up with the final remaining Soldier.
The Soldier swiped at her. There was a splash of blood and a howl of pain.
Nightwing could see that this Soldier had just cut out Crush's right eye.
Strangely, Crush didn't seem to be all that bothered by this. She simply reared back at the Soldier, screamed, and grabbed its shoulders. She brought the full force of her forehead into the blank, solid expanse that functioned as a face for the Soldier of Nemesis.
Again.
And again.
And again.
It took five headbutts for Crush to render the top half of the damn thing's head to dust, at which point the rest of the Soldier of Nemesis collapsed into a pile of jagged rocks.
At least these things operated on zombie rules… kinda…
Once she had vanquished her foe, Crush, missing one of her red eyes and with blood streaming down her face from a small collection of cuts on her forehead, howled like a Viking warrior, before jumping two stories and through the window of the luxury apartment building across the street.
And Strix, who was a silent essay in confusion behind her stylized owl mask, just ran in through the front door of the apartment building like a normal person.
Which just left Nightwing on the street with a pile of rubble and pieces of a dead body.
Dick Grayson was older than Brion Markov. Not by much, but it was true. Nightwing met him on the first day Geo-Force was on The Outsiders.
Nightwing put his finger to his ear.
"Cyborg. Status report."
The voice of Cyborg came in over the comms.
"We have a division led by Supergirl and Midnighter. Another by Black Canary and Huntress. A third by Green Arrow and Red Arrow, and a fourth by Zatanna and Detective Chimp. They're pushing these things toward the middle of the island. The casualty reports are coming in, and… and it's bad."
"Give it to me," Nightwing said.
"Are you sure?" Cyborg asked. "I mean-"
"Just… Just give it to me."
Cyborg sighed.
"Aquaman down," Cyborg said. "Geo-Force down. Grifter down. Miss Martian down. Carli Quinn down. Red Tool down. Firebrand down. Blue Devil down. Artemis down. White Feather down. Roundhouse down. Gorilla Grimm down. Mouse down. Projectionist down. Atom Smasher down. Fairchild down. L-Oh, God."
"What?" Nightwing asked.
Cyborg was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was thick.
"Lady Shazam and Stargirl," Cyborg finally said. "Both down."
Nightwing's knees turned to jelly, but he refused to fall. He felt a twinge of sadness upon reflection that poor Geo-Force was a little bit younger than her. But Mary "Lady Shazam" Bromfield had been eighteen. Courtney "Stargirl" Whitmore had been just seventeen.
They were Goddamned children…
"You there?" Cyborg asked after a long and painful silence.
"You're right, Vic," Nightwing said. "You shouldn't have told me… i shouldn't have asked…"
"I'll keep you updated," Cyborg said. "Cyborg out."
As the line went dead, Nightwing thought that Cyborg was smarter about people than he gave himself credit for. He knew that Nightwing would want to stew in this alone for a bit.
But that would have to wait.
The corner of the SubWay restaurant down the street had been completely obliterated. From inside, Nightwing could see a flash of green light, and could hear a scream.
And that scream was very familiar.
Nightwing broke into a light jog down the street. As the snow hit his face. As the sounds of gunshots, and Canary Cries, and exploding arrows, and roaring, and screaming-so much screaming -filled his ears.
In what used to be the back room of the destroyed SubWay, Starfire was on her stomach on the floor. And Jessica Cruz was using her Power Ring, sending hot bolts of green energy to cauterize several vicious and gruesome wounds on Starfire's bare back.
"Baby, hold still," Jessica said. "If you keep wriggling, I'm gonna wind up…"
She trailed off when she saw Nightwing standing there. Starfire eventually saw him, too. There was a cut along the right side of her face, and the smears of dirt and blood on her cheeks had had inroads laid into them by tears.
Silently, upon seeing Nightwing, Starfire buried her head in her hands.
"What's wrong?" Nightwing asked.
The answer didn't come right away. Starfire refused to speak. Jessica had to do that for her.
"They got Beast Boy," Jessica said. "We saw it. They just… swarmed him."
Nightwing's heart dropped down to his stomach. Nightwing had served with Garfield "Beast Boy" Logan on an iteration of the Teen Titans back at the tail-end of his Robin tenure, and at the front end of his career as Nightwing. He always made jokes. He always hit on the girls in the team. He was always hungry.
And now he was gone. He was a clown, sure, but a good one. And the world needed him.
Nightwing didn't know what to say, but he opened his mouth to say something anyway.
No one would ever find out. Above them, from the upper floors, a rumbling started.
Nightwing looked up and saw bits of the ceiling disappearing.
Soldiers of Nemesis were reconstructing themselves from this very building.
All three of them looked at each other, and seemingly knew what to do without saying anything.
Jessica brought up a green energy bubble around herself and Starfire, while Nightwing jumped back into the hole in the side of the building.
A cascade of rubble and dust fell as the ceiling collapsed.
A chunk of ceiling hit Nightwing in the side of the head, and he grayed out. His field of vision shimmered, and he wobbled on his feet.
He saw Jessica emerge from the rubble, flying off into the night sky with Starfire in her arms. So that was a good thing.
But that left him alone with six new Soldiers of Nemesis to deal with.
A hand grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled Nightwing out before the rest of the building came down in a thunder, releasing dust everywhere.
On his back in the street, Nightwing ventured to open his eyes.
The dust was clearing, and standing above him was a woman-Asian, judging from the eyeholes in her mask-with teal hair and a blue supersuit. White leggings and a purple triangle in the middle of her chest.
She waved some of the dust away from her face.
"Uhh, hey," the mystery woman said. "I'm, uh, I'm Defacer? I'm with the Run-Offs."
Maybe it was the light head injury, but there was a weird shock of recognition.
"I feel like I should know you," Nightwing said.
"Nope," Defacer said. "Never met you before in my life. But I see Nightwing standing in a building about to collapse, I pull him out."
He wanted to ask how she recognized him, but from that angle, she'd have seen him from behind.
So he knew how she knew.
Defacer extended a hand, and Nightwing took it. She helped him to his feet…
...just as the six Soldiers of Nemesis emerged from the rubble of the former SubWay.
Nightwing wordlessly readied his escrima sticks.
"If I die," Defacer said, "tell my parents I said something awesome."
The Soldier of Nemesis took one step toward them.
Whereupon it was felled by a blast of electricity from somewhere behind them.
As the Soldiers turned to face their assailant, two more bolts of electricity dropped the ones on the far left and the far right.
A blast of Heat Vision destroyed another.
A Speedster came in in a blur and removed another's head.
And a lasso, pulsating with electricity, wrapped around the head of another. That head was obliterated in a shower of sparks and sand.
The dust from the destroyed building cleared, and Nightwing could see who came to their rescue.
It was Young Justice.
Jinny Hex and Bluebird were both wielding electric pistols. Superboy's eyes were still faintly glowing red. Impulse came to a stop, almost tripping as he did. Empress was holding two swords, ready for war. Wonder Girl was coiling her Lasso of LIghtning back up.
And there, in the middle, was Robin, bo staff in hand.
Robin smiled at Nightwing, and asked "Need help?"
THE AMUSEMENT MILE HALL OF MIRRORS - THE MAINLAND
Cassandra Cain led Jason Todd out of the Hall of Mirrors by the hand, as though he were an errant toddler.
By the time they were under the snow and the moonlight, Oracle had already woken up. Her green holographic mask was back in place.
And she did not look happy.
She stormed toward, Cassandra, but then saw Jason and began to storm toward him.
Oracle's body language told Cassandra of impending violence, so she stepped between the two, plastered on her best angry face, and tried to stare her down.
And so Cassandra and Oracle wordlessly locked eyes… only for Jason to break the silence.
"Uh… Hi, Babs."
"Shut the fuck up, Jason," Oracle said, still staring at Cassandra. Then Oracle stooped over a little bit to talk to the smaller woman.
"Cass," Oracle said. "I love you more than I love most of my relatives. But if you ever try something like that with me again, I will replace all of your chocolate ice cream in the freezer with human shit."
Cassandra's angry face slid off. That just...seemed like a weird threat to make.
"And not my shit, either," Oracle said. "You're not getting that lucky. I'm talking convict shit. From Mississippi. I've been on the dark web, Little Miss Badass, so I know people who sell it. Now if you'll excuse me…"
Oracle looked at Jason again, and Cassandra stood up straight.
"I'm just gonna zip-tie him to the light pole so the cops can deal with him," Oracle said. "Can I do that, please? Can I do my job?"
Cassandra didn't break eye-contact. But she did let go of Jason's hand and step away.
Oracle roughly grabbed Jason by the shoulder, and led him to the light pole next to the brochure stand. A few seconds later, Jason was sitting on the boardwalk with his wrists zip-tied around the light pole behind him.
After which, Oracle took some time to stop and stare at him.
"Seventeen people," Oracle said. "Five at Esteban's, five at the Sorrento, seven at the Seahorse. All dead behind your bullshit, not to mention how many people are dying on Founders Island right now. The Jason Todd I knew was an ornery little bastard, but he was a good kid. I don't know who the fuck you are."
It was only when Oracle turned to walk away the Jason elected to speak.
"Did you go to my grave?" he asked.
Oracle turned back. "What?"
"My grave. Did you visit?"
"I go there every year," Oracle said. "Went there. Me and Dick."
"But you spend the rest of your time upholding the status quo that got a fifteen-year-old boy killed in the first place," Jason said. "Seems a little hypocritical to me, but hey, at least your conscience is clear."
Oracle's facial expression didn't change, but Cassandra could tell by her body language that that last comment shook her.
"C'mon," Oracle said to Cassandra. "Let's go."
Cassandra put her Orphan mask back on. They'd gone a few feet when Oracle stopped, and said "Wait."
Oracle reached into the inside of her leather coat, and pulled out a small plastic box. She opened the top, and shook free two small white capsule-shaped objects, and held them out.
"Here," Oracle said.
Orphan squinted at them. "Pills?"
"No," Oracle said. "Tic-Tacs. You smell like a brewery. And we'll be talking about that later too."
FORDMAN'S DEPARTMENT STORE - MIAGANI ISLAND
Stephanie Brown had spent the last few minutes pummeling Damian Wayne to the extent that both of her hands were numb.
Now Damian was leaving his own blood trail.
And he was crawling away.
Stephanie suppressed the urge to laugh.
"Oh, you think you're done?" Stephanie asked. "GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE, MALFOY!"
Stephanie stalked over to Damian and grabbed him by the back of his leather jacket.
"On your feet," Stephanie said. "If you're gonna get your ass kicked, you best take it like a man."
Damian got to one knee before he sprung up, attempting to deliver a right palm strike.
Both of which were pathetically slow, both of which were easily dodged. Apparently, Damian had exhausted himself so severely when he was exacting punishment from Stephanie during the long opening stages of the fight that he was running on fumes. Even if it connected, it would have hurt about as much as the same blow from a three-year-old.
A three-year-old that was pulling their punches.
Stephanie exploded with a right cross, sending blood and a tooth flying from Damian's mouth. And to think, she was in excruciating pain a few minutes ago. Beating on this obnoxious little cretin worked better than Tylenol.
The right arm with which Damian attempted to palm strike was still out. He was teetering on his feet, but Stephanie grabbed the arm with her left hand, stopping his fall.
From there, Stephanie put all of her strength, of which there now seemed to be an unlimited supply, into her right fist as she drove it into the underside of Damian's forearm.
The muffled snap was resounding, and Damian Wayne's shattered ulna tore through his flesh, creating an unseemly sharp peak beneath the arm of his leather jacket.
Damian screamed. A scream so high that Stephanie had last heard its like when she was eight. She herself had made it when she had seen a spider in her bedroom.
He dropped to his knees, and held up his one good arm.
"P-Please," Damian said with a mangled mouth, spilling pink drool onto the floor. "Please… stop…"
It was so quiet, so pathetic, that Stephanie felt a small twinge of pity for the man at her feet.
That pity was short-lived.
Because Stephanie remembered what was behind her.
Five dead homeless people, who had committed no crime, who had not harmed a living soul, whose only offense against existence was that Damian Wayne thought they served better dead, as an intimidation technique against her.
No doubt they begged for their lives as well. And those pleas fell on the uncaring ears of a monster.
Stephanie sighed, and just said:
"Naaahhhhhhhh."
She drove her knee into Damian's face and heard something crunch. The back of his head bounced when it hit the floor.
From there, Stephanie straddled him, her knees pinning his shoulders down.
She rained rights and lefts upon his bloody face.
Stephanie poured everything into them. Her fears. Her anger at her dad for abusing her. Her anger at her mom for letting it happen. Her resentment of everyone in Batman's network for assuming that she couldn't take care of herself.
She thought about the one thing she wanted most in the world.
And she thought about the near-absolute certainty that it would never, ever be hers.
Stephanie only stopped punching Damian when she realized, a few seconds ago, that he stopped moving.
She unclenched her fist, and placed two fingers to his throat.
His pulse was weak, but it was there.
Stephanie got to her feet, and her entire body screamed. Now that the fight was over, now that the adrenaline and dopamine were coming down to normal levels, the pain was coming back. The pain from when she had gotten her ass handed to her, and now new pain, from having overexerted herself.
She slowly limped over to the suitcase bomb, her whole body reading her the Riot Act. She reached down and flicked the off switch, and took the small vial of orange gel out of the center.
Stephanie tried to crush it with her hand, but a bolt of pain surged through her arm, and she almost cried out.
Her right hand wasn't numb anymore. No, her right hand was broken, maybe even all the way down, past the forearm and to the elbow.
She shifted the vial to her left hand, which was also in agony but not as bad as her right, and crushed the vial, spilling orange goo and tiny shards of broken glass all over her leather gloves.
In hindsight, she thought she shouldn't have done this. It was an explosive and could have blown her to smithereens.
But it was just too cool to pass up.
She looked over at Damian, who was unconscious and now, finally, thoroughly defeated in every way someone could be.
Stephanie needed something to say. Something badass to put the period on this long, painful sentence.
But she couldn't come up with something clever.
Finally, she took a deep breath, and bellowed a single word so long and so loud that her face turned red beneath all of the blood.
"CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNT!"
She took another deep breath.
Then another.
And then, from a combination of pain and exhaustion, Stephanie Brown passed out.
FOUNDERS ISLAND
Batwoman needed to get Wonder Woman to a safe place.
For three blocks they walked, past images of horror and bloodshed.
Knight and Squire out of England had been fighting off Soldiers on the corner of Tenth and DeLaCruz. They both ended up in wet red chunks.
A Soldier just walked right through one of Burnout's protective flame shields as though it were nothing, and drove its right spike through his skull.
Dove had Hawk's arm over her shoulder in a sobering mirror image of herself and Wonder Woman. With Dove saying "Just a little bit further, hon, just a little further."
Only Hawk's head was wobbling lifelessly on his neck. And Dove hadn't seemed to notice that Hawk's feet weren't moving. Poor Dawn Granger was lugging around the corpse of the man she loved.
Robotman had been beheaded… but then again, Robotman was just a brain in a robot body anyway. Judging by how Robotman was yelling at Negative Man (who was carrying the head), Batwoman thought Robotman might be fine. Provided any of them would be after this.
Most heartbreaking of all, however, Batwoman saw just half a block down from where they were headed.
Artemis of Bana-Mighdall, Wonder Woman's fellow Amazon, was lying in the middle of the street. The snow was falling into her open, dead eyes. Apparently, she had waged an unsuccessful attempt to stuff her intestines back in through the large wound that the Soldiers of Nemesis opened in her abdominal cavity.
Batwoman rushed Wonder Woman past this, leaving a trail of blood behind her in the slowly accumulating snow. She hoped with all she had that Diana didn't see it.
They finally came upon the Barnes & Noble on Eighth. The lights were still on, and no one was inside.
Even divine horrors from Olympus didn't seem to want to go into bookstores these days.
Batwoman guided the bleeding, rapidly paling Wonder Woman inside the bookstore, and took her to the New Age section, which was just off of the little cafe in the back.
Oh well, Batwoman thought as she roughly cleared all of the books off the tall shelf and on to the floor. She placed Wonder Woman down on the green carpet, and then pushed the empty shelf over, so it leaned against the full shelf on the other side, forming a rudimentary lean-to under which Wonder Woman could stay out of harm's way.
Wonder Woman, her skin deathly white and her breathing shallow, asked Batwoman a question with a soft voice.
"Any ideas?"
"Not yet," Batwoman said. "I need to go think… Can I borrow your sword?"
Without even waiting for a response, Batwoman knelt down, reached in, and took Wonder Woman's sword out of its scabbard.
"I'll be right back," Batwoman said. "Hold tight."
Wonder Woman closed her eyes, and nodded.
Batwoman hefted the sword in her right hand, and went to the entryway through which they had just gone, and spotted a scattered collection of Soldiers of Nemesis striding down the street.
Good…
Batwoman was not the most proficient swordfighter. But this was a sword that could both split an atom and kill a God. She didn't need to be.
The blade went through the Soldiers of Nemesis like butter.
As she hewed and destroyed, Batwoman's mind feasted upon itself.
She reflected that she was the object of desire for a woman of myth and legend who was nigh indestructible and even then- even then! -whatever governing body that determined the fates of the people on Shitshow Earth managed to take that away from her.
Just like her mom.
Just like her sister.
Just like the military.
Just like Renee.
Batwoman was not in a place, either physically or mentally, where dignity had any sort of cache or appeal whatsoever. She had been screwed, and she was figuratively (and also literally, from the look of things) going to die mad about it.
She was mad at herself for having the dumbshit idea of becoming a superhero in the first place, which brought Diana into her life, and would, in the slowest and most awful way possible, take her away.
She was mad at the Justice League who, for all their might and wonder, could not seem to defeat what was, in essence, a Dark Souls boss.
And she was definitely mad at the Gods. The Olympian Pantheon. They who had no ideas besides usurping one another, and all of those plans spelled death and destruction for the folks on the ground.
Even Demeter, who warned her about all this. Who said the Army of Nemesis couldn't be stopped without the destruction of the Stone, and said Zeus himself couldn't do it, even at the height of his power. She didn't even tell them if there was even a way that the Stone could be destroyed, apart from some…
Some…
After destroying the last Soldier of Nemesis, sending it off to reform itself somewhere else, Batwoman stopped moving.
And she reflected that, were this a cartoon, that the world entire would have been blinded and warmed by the size and the brightness of the lightbulb that had just turned on over her head.
She couldn't be mad that Demeter didn't tell her how to destroy the Stone.
Because, in a roundabout way endemic even to the myths themselves, Demeter did tell her how to destroy the Stone.
A smile spread across Batwoman's face.
"So… Is he single?"
She put her finger to her cowl.
"Zatanna," she said. "I need you at my location now!"
A few seconds later, through a shimmering silver portal, Zatanna appeared.
Her top hat was missing. Her hair was a mess, which was something Batwoman hadn't seen even when they were both knee-deep in the shit. Her face and her white shirt and bowtie were smeared with dirt and blood. And the bottom half of her left ear was missing.
Zatanna looked at Batwoman with pleading eyes, and asked:
"Have you seen my cousin?"
Batwoman had, in fact, seen Zatanna's cousin.
Zachary Zatara was two blocks over, face down and unbreathing, in a pool of his own blood on the sidewalk.
Rather than lie, however, Batwoman just decided to push forward.
"Zatanna," Batwoman said, "I know how to stop all of this."
And she knew it to be true. She could save Diana. She could save the world.
Zatanna's face lit up. "How?"
Batwoman put her hands on Zatanna's shoulders and said:
"I need you to portal Wonder Woman and me somewhere."