Chapter 28: Underground Ornithology
THE GOTHAM CITY SEWERS
Oracle reached into the pocket of her black leather trench coat, and pulled out a small metal gizmo about the size of a Zippo lighter.
It was The Cone of Silence. She beckoned Black Canary and Huntress to get closer, for within three feet of The Cone of Silence, the Birds of Prey could hear out, but no one else could hear in.
"Gas masks?" Oracle asked.
They both had them. Huntress reached beneath her cape to procure hers from the back of her belt. Black Canary had hers beneath her leather jacket.
"Where's yours?" Huntress asked.
Oracle said "This mask has one built in."
"This is gonna screw with the Canary Cry," Black Canary said, holding the mask in front of her. "You do know that?"
"Use it as a last resort."
"The Cry, or the gas mask?"
"Take a wild guess."
Huntress smiled as she put hers on. "I can't believe you wanted to miss this to go to a faculty bake sale in Ivy Town," she said to Black Canary. "What happened to you? You used to be cool."
"Clearly," Black Canary said, "you haven't had Ryan's snickerdoodles."
She turned to Oracle. "What's the plan, Oracle?"
Oracle looked down from the catwalk to the members of the League of Assassins seeing to the twenty-one-year-old barrels of experimental Venom below. A few seconds passed as she surveyed the scene.
"They're moving the barrels from one truck to another," Oracle said. "The second one's just beyond that archway. When they're done, if they're still holding to the usual League MO, they'll do a sweep of the area before they take off. During the sweep, we blow the archway, separating them from the truck. I'll be on the other side. While the two of you are raising merry Hell with the boys in black PJs down there, I'll use the explosive charges in my coat to blow the truck, and the Venom along with it."
"How are you getting out?" Black Canary asked.
"Manhole cover," Oracle said. "Doesn't matter where it leads. All the bad guys are gonna be on the other side, trying to take on the two of you."
"Leaving us on the side with all the danger," said Huntress.
"Leaving you on the side with all the fun," said Oracle.
To which Black Canary smiled. "You know me so well."
"How are we blowing the archway?" Huntress asked.
"I have charges for that," Oracle said, feeling the hesitation creeping into her voice. "But… um…"
"You want a bigger boom, don't you?" Black Canary asked.
The green holographic mask of Oracle smiled, matching the smile of Barbara Gordon beneath. "You know me so well."
Black Canary winked at her.
Oracle turned to Huntress. "You have the crossbow bolts?"
"Sure do," Huntress said. "Freezers, flamers, tranqs. From the lab of a certain someone's certain ex."
That certain ex being Oliver "Green Arrow" Queen, one-time long-time love interest of Dinah "Black Canary" Lance-Choi. Oracle would have bet honest money that Ollie still considered Dinah's relationship with Ryan Choi "a fling," even now in their twelfth year of marriage.
"Do you have anything that could blow that archway?" Oracle asked.
Huntress regarded the bundles of bolts attached to the belt of her armor. "Ummmm…"
"Wow," Black Canary said. "If only there were someone who had a voice that could warp steel and deafen New Gods. That could bring down that archway lickety-split."
"Okay," Oracle said. "I guess the Canary Cry isn't a last resort."
Oracle looked down from the catwalk yet again, planning her moves, before she looked back at her two best friends on Earth.
"Ready?" she asked.
Huntress said "Shit yeah."
Black Canary just smiled.
The Birds of Prey scouted a part of the subterranean that was shadowy, and made their descent.
Oracle turned off The Cone of Silence as she made her break to the archway.
Huntress cleared her throat. The ten members of the League of Assassins turned and looked at her and Black Canary, both wearing gas masks.
"Gentlemen," Huntress said. "For ten thousand dollars, what 1984 Dolly Parton movie starred Sylvester Stallone as a New York cab driver trying to become a country singer? Anyone? Anyone?"
Black Canary turned to the member of the League nearest her. "Do you have an answer, sir?"
So apparently nonplussed were the members of the League to Huntress' eyes that none of them moved.
"I'm sorry," Huntress said, "but time has run out. The correct answer is Rhinestone."
"It's okay if you didn't see it," Black Canary said. "It's terrible."
"There is, however, a five thousand dollar consolation question," Huntress said.
She saw Oracle lurking in the shadows, about to make her way through the archway, on the other side of which was the League truck full of the Venom they'd taken.
Huntress smiled. "What 1996 Wes Craven film revitalized the slasher movie genre?"
Oracle was almost to the archway.
"Going once…"
The ten members of the League of Assassins unsheathed their swords from the scabbards about their waists.
"Going twice…"
Finally, mercifully, Oracle was through the archway.
Huntress smiled. She looked at Black Canary and said:
"Scream."
Black Canary inhaled, lifted the gas mask from her face, and let loose.
Dinah Lance-Choi's metahuman power was a sonic scream so powerful that it had, at one time, successfully defeated an entire platoon of fully armored and trained Amazons in one fell swoop.
Black Canary didn't have to go that hard tonight. Just hard enough to send the archway through which Oracle had just snuck tumbling down into rubble… and all ten members of the League clutching their ears in agony.
Huntress (who had her specially-made earplugs in) liberated her crossbow from beneath her purple cape, and sent a bolt through the left foot of the League ninja nearest her.
As the unlucky bastard's hands moved from his ears down to his foot, Huntress looked at the rest of the Assassins, and smiled.
"Now which one of you eligible bachelors wants to dance with me?"
Oracle ran into the narrow corridor as the archway gave from the force of Black Canary's Cry.
A similar covered truck to the one on the other side of the archway was parked half a block down. There had to be an outflow pipe that led to a reservoir or a street, so the League could get the experimental Venom above ground.
She reached behind the chest plate of her armor, and retrieved three explosive charges. They were little black plastic circles with a miniature core of Semtex at the center. Not much on their own, but placed along a truck's gas tank?
Oracle got on her back, and slid beneath the Venom truck. The adhesive on the charges stuck on the metal of the truck's undercarriage. She did the math in her head. The charges were enough to blow the truck and destroy the Venom, but weak enough that it wouldnt fuck up the sewer itself. Black Canary and Huntress were not on a timer. They could indulge themselves all they wanted.
Once Oracle was back on her feet and briskly jogging down the corridor, she considered setting the timer for two minutes, before settling on three to be on the side side.
She brought up a holographic display from her gloves, and started to set the timer remotely.
Oracle was about to press enter, when something small and hard hit the concrete at her feet. She had to squint to see what it was.
It was one of the charges that she had just placed on the Venom truck's undercarriage.
Then another.
Then the third and final.
They were being thrown from behind her, over her head.
Oracle waved away the holographic display, and turned around.
There was someone behind her, a silhouette between the two lights above them.
And when that silhouette stepped into the light, Oracle felt fear slop down her back.
He looked completely identical to the last time she had seen him in her Batgirl days. His face handsome and his features chiseled. His gray sideburns had gotten no snowier, and his goatee still did not have a single whisker out of place.
And those green, sunken eyes were still eerily mesmerizing.
He wore a gray suit and white shirt with no tie beneath a green cloak.
And he smiled at her.
"Why, Oracle," Ra's al Ghul said. "It's been decades. So good to see you… on your feet again."
Oracle didn't say anything. She was too scared. That last time she fought in these sewers, it had been against Catwoman and she had gotten destroyed. Now? She'd beg to have Catwoman back down here again.
"Nothing to say?" Ra's asked. "Nothing acerbic, or at the very least intelligent? Your reputation for the latter, after all, does precede you."
Oracle still didn't say anything.
"Pity," Ra's said. "I find a woman's silence is a mark of wisdom, and now you have strayed too far into my plans to be allowed to live. A true shame."
Oracle still maintained her silence, but there was a thin vein of anger running through all that fear.
Ra's al Ghul raised his arms, and his green cloak fell to his feet, revealing a sheathed scimitar at his waist.
He brought out his sword, and pointed it at her.
"Defend yourself, Miss Gordon."
Oracle brought her twin tonfa out from beneath her black trench coat. She flourished them, and then she advanced.
Black Canary was one of the foremost martial artists on Earth. On a scale of pure ability, not taking metahuman, alien, or supernatural powers into account, it was widely theorized that the only member of the Justice League who could even hope of defeating Dinah Lance-Choi (and in fact had on one memorable occasion)… was Cassandra Wayne.
Huntress, however, was not.
She was formidable back in the day, but it had never been in doubt who the real muscle in the Birds of Prey was.
For the last few years, however, Helena Bertinelli was happy as a full-time high school teacher, having given the Huntress moniker to her protege, the former Misfit Charlotte Gage-Radcliffe. She'd still trained in the past few years, still kept herself in fighting shape, but without the benefit of getting into actual fights.
All of this to say that right now, Huntress was getting punched in the face a lot.
She ate a right and fell back into the wall of the sewer. She spat blood, brought her fists up, and started homing in on the two members of the League that were giving her static.
While Black Canary was off a few feet away, dealing with the seven remaining members of the League of Assassins with the fluidity of a waterfall and the force of a Mack truck's pissed-off dad, the two douchemittens with whom Huntress was currently tangling actually had the Goddamned gall to re-sheath their swords and fight with their fists.
Huntress considered this an embarrassment. One that would have to be rectified with broken bones and lots of screaming.
She threw a left which the one on the right dodged. He sent a knee into her stomach in the same motion. She was armored, so it didn't hurt that bad, but it set her up for an elbow to the cheek from the one on the right, and that hurt like a motherfucker.
Huntress leaned on her backfoot to steady herself, shook the stars out of her head, and went back for another helping.
The one on the right went in for a lunge kick, and Huntress leaned into it as quick as she could, using both arms to hook his knee. She straightened her back, unmanning him slightly, and sent her forehead hard into the tip of his chin. It hurt like Hell, but it was this particular Assassin's off-button. He crumpled to the ground as though he were a statue of ash in a light breeze.
Which freed her up for the one on the left. Up went her fists again.
He went in for another elbow, which she blocked with her right forearm. They both brought their lefts in for uppercuts, but his was just a little bit faster. Her jaw got jacked, but she rolled with it, whirling around to position herself differently.
The Assassin pressed the advantage, coming in for a flying roundhouse, but Huntress had it scouted. She ducked it, and stood up after his leg passed over her, meaning that by the time he was ready to do anything else, she already had the high ground.
Huntress reared back, and put all of her force into an elbow that connected with the Assassin's right ear. He went rigid with a strange, squinty look on his face, as though he was trying to sneakily trying to rip a fart in church. Then he just sort of teetered over, finally going limp once he hit the ground.
She stood up straight and felt her spine pop.
Still got it…
Huntress called out to Black Canary. "Hey, peel me off one of yours, I'm getting bored over here!"
Ra's al Ghul had had centuries to hone his body and mind. To learn every discipline of martial art that had come into fashion in any continent across the entire globe.
His power was astonishing and his speed was blinding.
Oracle had no idea of the material of which his scimitar consisted, but she knew that her tonfa were the same unbreakable polymer that made up the electrified escrima sticks that belonged to the late Nightwing.
And Ra's al Ghul's scimitar was taking huge chunks out of them.
Making things worse was that Oracle started on the back foot, and had been there ever since. The fight had made her retreat half a city block in the wrong direction, away from the Venom truck, playing defense the whole time.
The strikes coming from Ra's al Ghul's sword were mostly overhand, with some on the side for good measure, but the power behind them was so great that she was exhausting herself trying to keep her guard up.
An Ra's hadn't even started sweating yet.
Oracle took the time from trying not to die to notice the sound of rushing water a few yards behind her. If she had to guess, it would be from a massive drain, into which storm water and sewage flowed.
But she had to guess, though. Taking her eyes off of Ra's meant certain death.
He came in with a high slash.
Oracle knew he was going for her head, and instinctively backed up.
When the scimitar hit what it hit, though, she found too late that he wasn't aiming for her head at all.
The sharp edge of Ra's al Ghul's sword embedded itself in a small steam pipe on the sewer wall, and at such an angle that the steam inside loosed itself on Oracle's face.
Oracle's mask protected her.
However, the steam had effectively destroyed the mask. The lenses (which were prescription) shorted out, creating lines of static through which she could not see.
Barbara Gordon yanked off her mask, and immediately caught a roundhouse kick in the face from one of Ra's al Ghul's expensive Italian shoes.
The impact was explosive. Barbara felt her right cheekbone shatter. It dropped her to her back, sending both of her tonfa flying. Lifting her head was difficult. Even apart from the pain of her broken face, it felt as though someone had stapled a sand bag to her face when she tried to move her neck.
She looked up with blurry vision, and saw Ra's bury his scimitar into the brick wall of the sewer.
"There is no dignity in using a sword to slaughter an unarmed opponent," he said. "In your death, Miss Gordon, I shall give you the respect you deserve."
The blurry form of Ra's al Ghul hit a stance from a discipline she could not identify.
"Have at you," he said.
The field of ten had now been winnowed down to three.
Black Canary was laying in surgical punches and heavy kicks into the one she was fighting. His head looked like a prune with tumors growing out of it.
Huntress, for her part, was doing… okay.
She had gotten back into the rhythm of fighting as much as she could, but it was clear that Ra's had brought some of his better guys with him this evening.
He tried to take her out at the right knee with a kick, but she moved with it, kneeling so her kneecap didn't shatter.
She brought up her forearm to stop the knee that was careening toward her face, but was caught by the follow-up kick to the back of her head with the other leg, which was glancing due to the awkward positioning.
But it was enough for Huntress' face to hit the ground. It hurt, but it was still defensive. Because she knew that the Assassin was going to go for the head-stomp. It was an advantage, and it had to be taken.
So Huntress brought her hands up behind her head, and caught the incoming foot at the last possible instant.
The Assassin's foot firmly locked in her hands, Huntress got to her knees. She could feel the impact tremor in the ground from the Assassin hopping up and down on one foot in order to stay upright.
Then she performed a side-roll, still clutching his foot.
His foot still kept turning in his hand about half a roll after the rest of his body stopped. And Huntress could feel the man's ankle shatter through the fingers of her gloves, as though the agonized shriek he let off wasn't enough of a dead giveaway.
Huntress got to her feet, and saw the Assassin screaming, holding his right leg by the knee, staring at a right foot that was turned almost entirely around.
One field goal to the face later, and he was done.
She looked up to see Black Canary finish off the guy she was fighting with a side kick to the face that sounded as though she were trying to tenderize a steak with a brick. He dropped to his knees before he keeled all the way over.
Which just left the one Assassin.
He looked on the young side, in his early twenties. He unsheathed his sword, and looked between Black Canary and Huntress with utter fear on his face. As far as Huntress could recall, neither she nor Black Canary had actually fought this young'un.
What, was this a ride-along with the other nine real League members?
Huntress felt pity for the poor little shit… but her pity only went so far.
She turned to Black Canary. "Hey."
Black Canary looked at her.
"Do Old Faithful," Huntress said.
Black Canary rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Really? "
"Yes, really," Huntress said. "I came out of retirement tonight. You can do Old Faithful. I'm going back into retirement after tonight, and I don't know if I'll ever see it again."
Black Canary huffed. "Fine…"
She stepped in front of Huntress, cracking her knuckles and affixing the one remaining Assassin with a death glare. She got into a stance, the Assassin brandished his sword, taking a tentative advance…
...and Black Canary hit him with a Canary Cry.
It was short, lasting a fraction of a second.
It was nowhere near full power.
It was focused.
And it was aimed right at the Assassin's stomach.
He dropped his sword as he went still and turned pale. His lower lip quivered as he realized what was happening.
Even from a few feet away, Huntress could hear the Assassin's gurgling stomach.
Seconds passed as the gurgling got louder…
...and at its apex, the Assassin' hunched over, and let out a thick projectile stream of brown vomit onto the sewer floor.
Huntress started laughing as the Assassin curled up and went to sleep. He got embarrassed, but he didn't get hurt.
"Eww," said Black Canary.
Huntress still kept on laughing. She could feel the blood rush to her cheeks and the onset of tears come to her eyes. It got her every time.
Once she calmed down, she looked over at Black Canary… to see that she had gotten just as pale as the unlucky Assassin on the floor.
"What?" Huntress asked. "You still get all urpy after you see someone puke? After all these years?"
Black Canary looked at her.
"We've been fighting for how many minutes? We haven't heard an explosion yet."
Huntress felt her blood run cold as Black Canary put her finger to her ear.
"Oracle, come in. Oracle, are you there?"
Oracle's earpiece was in her mask.
And her mask was now useless.
Barbara had spent so much time and energy keeping Ra's from slicing her to pieces that fighting him hand-to-hand was like moving underwater.
And she was paying dearly for her lack of speed.
Her left eye was swollen shut. There was the telltale grit on the back of her tongue from a crushed back molar. She didn't think her nose was broken, but she couldn't breathe through it. Compounding her respiratory issues was the fact that the blood issuing forth kept seeping into her mouth, complicating breathing from there as well.
And Ra's al Ghul just… kept… moving.
She unloaded a flurry that was just too slow. He weaved between the punches as though he was dancing, all the while with a pinched, pitying look on his face. Like a dad at his kid's soccer game, knowing full well that his child was a piss-poor fullback.
And he still wasn't sweating, the son of a bitch.
Ra's landed two swift kicks to the ribs. The pain didn't seep through the chest plate of her armor, but they were enough to get her off balance. And it opened her up to punch to that shattered right cheekbone. Her head exploded in pain, her mouth spewed blood and drool, and a pitiful moan escaped her lungs.
Barbara Gordon had been in the superhero game for well over twenty years. Even being put in a wheelchair didn't stop her. She was Batgirl once, Oracle now, and had been a fighter the whole time.
But right now, she had a feeling she had never had before. Not even when a gunshot from The Joker severed her spine and left her paralyzed.
Barbara Gordon felt as though she was not going to live to see midnight.
It was an icy feeling in her gut, incomparable to any sensation she had ever felt.
But if she was going out, she was not going to embarrass herself.
A right that Ra's dodged, and then a left that shared the same fate. She put everything she had into a lunge kick… and she missed.
A faint trace of a smile formed on the lips of Ra's al Ghul. The bottom half of his body moved in a blur. And Barbara was flat on her back upon the sewer floor before she heard the snaps or felt the pain.
She looked down at herself and saw that Ra's had, in essence, kicked both of her shins in half. The bloody, jagged end of her left tibia had torn through the leg of her black leather pants.
The pain finally caught up with her, and Barbara Gordon howled. And as soon as she spent her breath, she realized that terror and age-old sensations flooded back to her. For a few moments, she couldn't breathe in.
Because for the second time in her life, Barbara Gordon was unable to walk.
"There is precious little for you to be proud of in tonight's events, Miss Gordon. Save one thing."
Ra's spread his hands out and presented himself, showing Barbara all of the blood- her blood-on his clothes.
"At least you ruined my suit," he said.
Barbara got her breath back. And she screamed the one thing that she thought could give her comfort.
"FUUUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUU!"
"These are your last moments on Earth," Ra's said. "I will give you one last chance to reclaim at least a sliver of your dignity. Do find some final words befitting one with such a reputation as yours."
She started panting through clenched teeth, sending stray droplets of blood and saliva into the air in front of her.
"My only regret… is that I lived a good life… because I'm not going to Hell… and I won't be there waiting for you…"
"I am immortal," Ra's said. "I would never have gone there anyway."
"You… murdered… thousands!"
Ra's al Ghul said nothing. He merely smiled.
"You're insane!"
More smiling. And, to the shame of whatever life she had left, it was now that the tears finally came.
"You… You… YOU STOLE DICK GRAYSON'S BODY, YOU SICK FUCK!"
Ra's… stopped smiling. His eyelids fluttered over his mesmerizing green eyes. His brow furrowed.
Barbara spat some blood and drool onto the ground next to her, and looked The Demon in the eye.
"Get it over with," she said.
Ra's al Ghul, bent down. His steel grip wrapped around her throat. And he dragged her forward a few feet…
...to the sewage drain.
The enormous drain was a brick cylinder that went down fifteen feet. There was a concrete ring at the bottom for city sanitation to walk upon as they checked the rain or human filth that had collected in the middle.
And now Barbara Gordon was dangling above that fifteen foot fall, held there with one hand by Ra's al Ghul.
Barbara had to think fast. As she struggled fruitlessly to breathe, she figured her only hope was to to fire her grapnel gun into the ceiling as she fell, and just dangle in mid-air until Dinah or Helena found her.
Her fingers clutched at the grapnel gun at her belt…
...and Ra's saw this.
With his other hand, he reached out, yanked the grapnel gun from her, and tossed it down the drain. Barbara heard the splash it made. She also heard how long it took to get down there.
She saw the beads of sweat collecting on his brow. Could feel the wobble of the one arm holding her up by the throat. And to her shame, she realized that sweat and that strain was the best she could do.
Ra's let go.
There was no way to save herself. No way to right herself in mid-air.
Her only hope was to hit the brown, foul smelling liquid in the middle of the drain. If her body made contact with the concrete ring, she was dead, but if she landed in the middle, there was still the slightest bit of hope that she could use her arms to swim out.
She didn't even have time to reflect on how bad things had gotten. That landing in a wide pool of liquid human shit was the best case scenario.
The best case scenario did not come to pass.
Barbara Gordon's body hit the concrete ring.
Neck first.
In order for this narrative to progress, one important thing must be made known. Something so important that not only the emboldening, but the capitalization of the statement would not be unwarranted.
And that important thing is this:
BARBARA GORDON DID NOT DIE FROM HER FALL.
She felt the impact as she fell fifteen feet and landed on the back of her neck, but she did not feel the pain.
She did, however, see her vision funnel into blackness as her mind fell further than her body had, into the black and clingy grasp of a coma.
As Barbara's vision and thought became consumed by blackness, there was but one thing on her mind.
It wasn't what Cassandra, what Simon, what Dinah, what her father would do without her on this Earth. It wasn't even the prospect that, beyond the gulf, she would see Dick Grayson again.
It was the look on Ra's al Ghul's face.
The blinking. The furrowed brow. The cessation of that evil, shit-eating smile.
It was strange to her.
Because Barbara Gordon had called out Ra's al Ghul for stealing the body of Dick Grayson.
And Ra's al Ghul… had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.