Authors' Note: Thank you all for being patient. Here is the real chapter 55.
Steph chased Cass down the mountain recklessly, almost falling once and catching herself with just a bruised shin to show for it. They arrived at the farm together to find the buildings alight, the goats and chickens milling around, and the old man who lived there bleeding from a head wound. Not too serious, thankfully; he was pressing a clean cloth to his lacerated scalp and trying to help his two daughters-in-law extinguish the flames on the roof of their house. Steph checked him over quickly while Cass helped the two women.
They saved the house, but the chicken coop and the roof of the barn were total losses. Steph choked back her anger; these were just ordinary people trying to make a living on land that had been in their family a long time. Now, for some reason that made sense only to Lady Shiva, they were going to have to scrape together funds and materials to repair. "Who did this?" she asked the man.
He looked her over warily, and shook his head. Cass stepped forward then, meeting his gaze, and asked, "Lady Shiva? Or Ra's al Ghul?"
"What does it matter? The damage is the same. At least we are alive," he protested.
Sighing, Steph gave up. It didn't really matter which set of mercenaries had done this. "Which way were they going?" she asked.
Again the old man refused to answer, but one of the daughters-in-law tipped her head briefly, glancing toward the road. That was all the hint they were going to get, and Cass turned to follow. Steph had to hustle to keep up.
Once they were out of earshot of the farm, she said, "Oracle's going to freak. We've got no backup, Batgirl. We need to keep this to observation only."
"Cannot let them harm people," Cass replied, quickening her pace.
She couldn't exactly argue with that, and Cass was now moving fast enough that Steph couldn't talk easily. They held that pace as long as the road showed signs of travel, Steph checking her watch, which was synced up to the computer and the tracking program. All of the locator devices were still converging on one point ahead of them. Eyeing the terrain, Steph guessed they were at the base of the nearest ridge, which had a very steep face.
Cass slowed down, and got off the road, Steph following her. There wasn't much in the way of cover out here, but as they neared their target, at least being off the road would afford them some concealment. That meant traversing rocky terrain with lots of brush at the lower elevation. There was a seasonal stream down there, Steph recalled, which was why the vegetation was thicker.
They crept along as quietly as possible, watching the road. Recent tire tracks through the dirt, along with footprints, showed their targets had passed through not long ago. Steph caught herself holding her breath, expecting at any moment to round a bend in the road and come face to face with Shiva's soldiers. She had to force herself to breathe normally, to fall into the state of mind that would let her be ready for a fight without being so tense as to ruin her reaction time.
Breathing evenly and slowly, Steph followed Cass, her awareness focused on their immediate vicinity. They were stalking now, and she heard noise up ahead, the crunch of boots on rocky ground. Cass dropped to her belly and slithered forward, keeping a line of brush between them and the sounds. Their uniforms weren't good camouflage, but it was dark enough out to hide them. As long as no one had a thermal camera, at least.
Crouched beside her, Steph used the night-vision lenses in her hood to examine the source of the noise. A dozen men were moving slowly up the dry stream-bed, apparently looking for something. The one in front paused, and gave a short, repeating whistle that sounded a lot like the birds Steph heard at night.
The opposite face of the valley, rising to the next ridge, appeared to be solid rock, steep and treacherous. But at that whistle, a slab of stone moved, and Steph felt her jaw drop. She would never have guessed a door existed there, but it was clearly a door, with a man inside holding a gun as he peered out. At this distance, Steph couldn't hear the conversation, but she assumed code words were exchanged … and then the stone door yawned wide, as the entire troop of men below filed in.
"Shiva had someone inside," Steph murmured. "God only knows how many of her people she's managed to get into the fortress. This is going to be ugly."
Cass nodded. "Now we find our way in," she replied.
Steph grabbed her arm. "Cass, no. We have to call this in. It's over our heads."
"Not over mine," Cass told her. "Cannot leave. No help coming. I must. You should go."
Steph bared her teeth angrily. This was exactly what she'd been trying to avoid the whole time. "You know damn well I'm not letting you go in alone. Not against Shiva. Fine, lead on." At least she had last-ditch communications backup programmed into her watch.
Maybe, just maybe, they could manage this on stealth, figure out what was going on, and call it in once Cass realized she couldn't fight a whole army. Steph clung to that fragile hope as Cass began to search for another way in.
…
Nearly all of Joker's men were out on the street. The protest in front of the 39th Street police station had turned into a riot, and while the Bats had shown up and successfully secured that block, the fun wasn't over. People were pissed.
At a laundromat two streets away, a man and woman had been arguing while their clothes tumbled. She'd thrown the towels she was folding at him and turned to walk out; he chased her outside, grabbed her arm, and spun her around. She'd pushed him, he'd slapped her and shaken her, and suddenly three women running from the riot had changed course and attacked him. The man had been completely taken by surprise, and had tried to defend himself from his girlfriend and the three strangers. When four of Joker's goons came upon the scene, the man was huddled in a protective crouch as all four women punched and kicked him, shouting insults.
They'd attacked the women, of course. Joker wanted to teach these broads a lesson, show them all the reasons they shouldn't be idolizing Harley. The big fight at the precinct got too hot, but this was the kind of odds they liked. Especially since they were better armed than the women.
After they knifed the first two women, the other two ran. Then they knifed the man just for good measure, and left the scene while their three victims were still alive but bleeding badly. The way the city felt tonight, there'd be all kinds of trouble to get into.
Other groups of Joker's men had spread out around the original fight. He'd also ordered that any of the Harlequin graffiti needed to be washed away with blood. Two of his thugs grabbed a running woman and dragged her to a wall where the paint was fading, but when one flicked out his switchblade, the adrenaline-fueled panic made her fight like a wildcat. She kicked the knife away, then crashed her head backward into the face of the man holding her and broke his nose. He loosened his grip, and his partner tried to catch her again, but she reached between his legs, grabbed hold, squeezed and twisted as hard as she could. That put him out of the fight, and she kicked one with the bloody nose as she fled the scene.
To their very bad fortune, a larger group of women came barreling down the street just in time to see their intended victim running. Joker's men in their clown masks were easily identifiable, and this group of protesters had picked up improvised weapons.
The harlequin graffiti got sprayed with blood, but not exactly as Joker had intended.
Similar incidents were taking place faster than the cops or the Bats could handle them, and as the day drew to a close, the entire East End was spoiling for a fight.
…
Babs was being pulled in a dozen directions at once, with the police scanner and an entire wall of monitors feeding her information about the escalating riots. SWAT teams were in the field, but the residents of the East End weren't standing to face them. They broke and melted away, leaving the cops to deal with Joker's men or Dent's, and picked back up a few streets over.
Some businesses were being vandalized, but most of the violence was personal. Groups of women attacking men, groups of men attacking groups of women, all of them turning against costumed goons or cops wherever they found them. It was chaos, and she directed her people to the worst spots. This was no longer about trying to prevent a riot, it was about trying to minimize casualties.
In the midst of it all, she saw a message from Steph about a fire on a nearby house flick across her screen. That should've been something the girls could handle easily, but Babs didn't like them being on the move while she was so thoroughly distracted. She couldn't look deeper into it; someone had just set fire to a police car. Cursing under her breath, Babs rerouted Dinah that way.
Suddenly, an anomaly cropped up. One of the trouble spots abruptly went quiet. Babs looked at that screen, replaying the last thirty seconds, and smiled with equal parts relief and weariness. In that short span of time, a dark blur had flashed across the screen, leaving the Joker's men trussed for the police.
She opened her comm line, and said, "All teams, Blur is in the field. I've got no communications with her, but she's here and helping out."
"Thank God," Dick said, and Dinah muttered something similar. Babs took a deep breath; having a meta on the team was going to be useful, even if she couldn't direct Kala.
She had no idea, yet, that it wasn't quite the Blur who'd joined the fight.
…
Standing on a mile of empty air, the Empress looked down at the city below and sneered at the chaos. Brawling in the streets, police rushing about like ants whose hill had been disturbed, all manner of brutish violence.
When she'd first stood up, in the ruins of the abandoned theater, she had wiped the girl's tears from her cheeks – and realized that their uniform was missing a crucial component. She had no mask. The solution had been simple: the girl had brought a bag with all her belongings, and a torn sleeve from a black sweater tied across her eyes was sufficient to hide her features. The Empress had used heat vision to burn holes in it by which to see.
With her identity protected, she scanned the city below her, looking for Joker's men. Their ghoulish habit of painting themselves in clown make-up to better resemble their master made them easy to identify, but the first few groups she located were already engaged by Batman and his allies. The Empress did not wish to show herself to them. They feared her, as shown by their consistent response to her interaction with Jason Todd, and would drive her away. For a moment, thinking of that foolish boy, her heart cramped. Brutally, she pushed those unwelcome emotions away. No. She had no wish to relinquish control to the girl before her work was done. She had been through enough. Let her rest, let her sleep safely in the back of the Empress' mind.
And let the survivalist handle matters for now.
There. Five men in masks, no Bats to interfere, and when she realized what they were doing, the Empress was upon them swift as thought. She grabbed the blade of a knife before it could meet an unarmed woman's throat, meeting the wielder's eyes before she crushed the steel in her fist, never looking away. Let these pathetic lackeys tremble as the Joker soon would.
No threats, no grandstanding, no words even. She attacked the men silently, with a single-minded fury and every ounce of her tremendous speed. In a matter of seconds, all five were down, injured enough to regret their actions, and bound with their own belts or clothing. It had been the work of no more than a moment. The woman they'd threatened was as yet unharmed, frozen in what was likely shock, and to her the Empress spoke. "Go home. The streets are not safe tonight."
The woman ran, highly unnerved, and the Empress soared up again to continue her search. Her next targets were breaking into a building; again she stopped them with overwhelming speed, and left them bruised and bound. Her need for justice called out for more punishing acts, to hear cries that proclaimed their understanding of these lessons she taught, but she knew she could not.
The third group of men she spotted were running down the street, and she captured them easily. It was almost unsporting to hurt them, but anger rode heavy in her chest, and she put her strength to use, flinging them about with enough force to thoroughly frighten them – though she kept their injuries down to only bruises and sprains. It was a constant effort to restrain herself; so easily could she have shattered bones and ruptured organs. Part of her hungered to do it, to teach them real fear. An echo of the girl in her mind stayed her hand. Again, she would not be allowed to go too far. Not and maintain this tenuous trust. Now that it had occurred, she was loathe to betray it, high and hot though her blood ran.
Again and again, she sought out her targets, taking down a few of Dent's men as well. Her primary targets were Joker's men, though, and she hunted them ruthlessly. The Empress was unaware that her erstwhile allies had seen her handiwork, or that the police had noticed her intervention as well. Though she meant this to be a warning to Joker, she was helping quell the riots, too.
The last group was different.
A larger pack of vermin, this time, seven of them. And they were fighting with two police officers over something … a woman, on the ground and bloodied, unmoving. True rage awoke, taking over the Empress' mind. In that moment, the girl was utterly forgotten and she only saw red.
The first man she reached was bringing a makeshift club down on the wounded woman. The Empress caught it, grabbed the front of his shirt, and flung him away from her. He struck a parked car with a crunch of metal and a clatter of breaking glass, but she was already on the rest.
Another man had just kicked the woman. The Empress swept his legs from underneath him, letting him fall as she turned to the next. A heavy punch caved that one's ribs, and she returned her attention to the one she'd swept, hooking the toe of her boot under his side and kicking him away from her. He went rolling across the street as she locked on to the other four, the ones fighting the police.
One cop had tried to get out his mace, but the thugs had swarmed him. Now he was using his baton, hampered by the two men laughing maniacally as they pummeled him. The other had drawn his gun, and two of Joker's men were wrestling with him over possession of it. Kala dealt with the gun first, as the most dangerous item in this scenario. She plucked the weapon from the tangle of men and tossed it away, then grabbed the two goons by the back of their shirts and hauled them away from the cop. They barely had time to register her presence before she smacked their heads together. The heavy thunk noise of their skulls striking was rather satisfying, as was the way they fell to the ground.
Which left three injured men trying to recover themselves, plus two standing, and the other cop made a choked noise of pain. The Empress turned to see that one of Joker's thugs had bitten him, chomped into his face like an animal, and her disgust almost overwhelmed her anger. She bulled into them, knocking the officer and the other thug off their feet, seizing the biter. "You vicious beast," she snarled at him, shaking him in her grip. "I knew you did not deserve to be called a man – I had no idea you were undeserving to even be called an animal!"
She slapped him, blood flying from his mouth as his lips were mashed against his teeth by the force of the blow. He tried to stagger back, and the remaining villain rushed her. The Empress dealt with him one-handed, breaking his collarbone with one negligent punch. That freed her to shake the biter again, holding back only out of fear of waking the girl. If she snapped this vermin's neck like the rat he was, the girl would be horrified. Pity, the beast deserved no better.
She hauled him close, waiting for him to meet her furious eyes. "Tell your master my eye is upon him. He rules this city no longer. And should he escape, I will end him, even if the one who deserves to do so cannot." With that she tossed the man contemptuously aside, and surveyed the rest.
Some of the villains were trying to limp away, and she caught them all with breathtaking swiftness, leaving them bound one to the next. With no particular gentleness in how she handled them, either. Vermin such as these deserved no consideration, and perhaps a few days or weeks of soreness would lead them to reconsider their life choices.
Her work was done in seconds, and the Empress looked around, only to see that the cops had drawn their weapons … and trained them on her. "Stay back," one of them said, his voice quavering.
"Is this the thanks you offer your allies in the midst of the fray?" she asked, lifting her chin arrogantly, her dark left brow arching. If she had considered human nature in situations such as this, it would not have truly surprised her, but it stung in this moment. How foolish of these men. How dare they turn on her! "Did I not just save your life?"
The two officers kept their weapons raised … and then a new arrival changed the balance of the scene. "Stand back, officers, I'll handle this," Nightwing said. He had jumped down from a nearby roof, and walked toward her now with his hands out. "Blur, it's okay, we've got it under control now."
More the fool she, thinking that her presence would not be noticed for long. The Empress watched Dick Grayson with hunted eyes. Of all of her allies in this city, the girl most purely trusted this man, maybe even more than their lost lover. Yet if he had come with weapons drawn, she would have vanished. She inclined her head regally, cautious, and almost greeted him by name – but she could not use his name in this context. "Nightwing," felt odd on her tongue, to call him by her people's legend when he was not of their kind. He was not the Nightwing of myth, though he was loved by her father and thus entrusted with the name.
"C'mon, Blur, let's regroup. It's been a helluva day," Nightwing said, reaching for her arm.
Her natural Kryptonian aversion to touch overrode her determination to keep her identity hidden. Instinctively, she shied back, and both of them paused. It was only then that she realized that she had given herself away. If the girl had been herself, she would have leaned into the touch, not violently away. Behind the lenses of his domino, she saw his eyes widen as he realized he was dealing with her, not the girl who shared her visage. Her lip curled, ready to fight if she must.
His glance took in the men she'd overwhelmed so easily, and she heard his heart rate increase. But he offered her no violence. "Blur, we need to talk," he said softly.
"I believe we have tried that before and it ended badly for me with you and your family. I have had enough of talk," the Empress replied, taking a step back. "Now is the time for action, not words. I have had my fill of words this night."
He mirrored her, and spoke to the police, though his gaze never left her. "Officers, please lower your weapons, collect the Joker's men, and leave as soon as you can. We have a bit of a situation here."
The Empress chuckled, taking another slow step back even as the police complied. "A situation, am I? Again, a madness to be stopped, shunned, driven away? No, Nightwing. Your brother has already attempted that and failed. This is what should have been done long ago."
"You're an ally, not a situation," he said firmly, and his conviction was plain in his voice. "And you've been a great help tonight, but I need you to put the brakes on now, okay?"
She knew her eyes flashed red as her gaze locked on his. The thought of being refused her revenge colored the rage in her husky voice even stronger. "Will the Joker 'put the brakes on', as you phrase it? Has he ever done so? To those we care for, for those we protect?" she challenged.
"You're not like Joker," Nightwing said staunchly.
"Not even remotely," she retorted, stung. "And once I've seen to him, we will never see his like again. I will make certain of it."
He moved toward her slowly, his voice earnest and gentle. "We can't fight him by acting like him. We're the good guys, Blur. We have to know when to back off, when not to let our emotions rule us. The situation is under control now, thanks in large part to you. We can take a break, look at this clear-headed."
The Empress knew that 'clear-headed' simply meant he would prefer the return of the girl, instead of dealing with herself. "My mind and purpose is clear. And she is safe, safe and protected. Fear not for her. Let us not waste words when there is still more to be done. I am not finished for this night."
"Then let's do this together," he insisted. "I could use your help. And everyone else will be a lot calmer if you're with me. Okay?"
The look in her eyes was calculating, her chin raising a bit higher. Lowering her voice, she continued the intense look. "I am not interested in the paranoia of your former guardian. You know nothing of me and insinuate the worst. Were I the monster you believe of me, you would have lost one of your own already this night." Just remembering his vitriol, the Empress fisted her hands. "Why should I put my trust in you, Richard Grayson, when I know the suspicion you and yours bear me? After the words your brother dared speak to me?"
He showed her his empty palms in a mollifying gesture. "Kala Kal-El, this isn't about Jay. Or Bruce. And I'm not insinuating anything. We used to be afraid of you, but we're not fools. You've proven time and again that you'll help us, and not hurt people if you don't have to."
A careful step closer, and she heard anger creep into his voice. "As for whatever my brother said … I wasn't there, I don't know, but it was probably stupid and self-defeating. And if it made you this angry, it most likely wasn't true, either. He told me he loved you, but he explained why that scares the hell out of him. And when all this is over, I intend to go find him and see how much of my size ten boot I can fit up his rear end, for ruining this."
That assertion stole her breath, and the Empress felt her heartbeat thundering in her ears. She fought down the urge to collapse, still unwilling to cede control to the girl. Still, knowing that Jason Todd had admitted to another what he had denied to her shook her to the icy core of her soul.
…
Dick waited, all of his attention fixed on Kala. She wasn't herself; she was her darker self, the Empress primed to fight, and somehow this was all Jay's fault. Dick didn't know what had passed between them, what his idiot brother had said, but if Jay had kicked Kala out of Gotham, it had to be bad. And look, he hadn't even successfully kicked her out, because K was a lot tougher than they gave her credit for.
He'd been relieved, at first, to hear she'd joined the fight. But as she used her powers recklessly, he heard Bruce murmur, "We need a comm on Blur. She has to slow down." And hearing the reports from Babs and the police, Dick began to feel disquiet stirring. Kala was acting out of grief and anger, that was obvious.
But he hadn't been prepared for this. The Empress, furious and targeting Joker's men, turning to the police with scorn in her voice. Now he recalled everything in her file, trying to talk her down. And trying to keep her here, she could easily bolt off into the sky.
When he told her that Jay had admitted he loved her, she winced, her mouth twisting into the beginnings of a cry. Her hands came up, fisted by her temples, and she growled something in Kryptonese. Dick's study of the language was cursory, he could only tell that she was denying something.
And then she lunged at him. "Do not seek to cosset me with lies!" Kala roared, the same instant her hands struck his chest. Just a shove, she could've torn him apart with her speed and strength – she could've seared him with heat vision – but all she did was shove him so that he went sprawling. Luckily the cops and their prisoners had vacated the scene long before they started dropping real names, so no one else saw the attack.
"Get out of there, Wing," Babs said harshly in his ear, and Dick heard her fear for him in her voice.
They couldn't summon Superman, he didn't have blue kryptonite, and most of Jay's charming little ways of getting Kala to switch gears wouldn't work, coming from him. He had to wear her down – and Kala was still in there, because he was still alive. "I'm fine, Oracle," Dick said, standing up.
Kala was still there, hovering a foot off the ground, her eyes glowing red with threat. "Come no closer," she warned.
Dick did exactly that, trusting that as long as he didn't offer her harm, she wouldn't hurt him. The Empress was primarily about protecting her alter ego, at any cost. "Kala, you're my friend. I wouldn't lie to you. And I can't leave you like this. I don't know what happened, but I know you're hurt. Let me help."
She rushed him again, and this time he saw it coming, saw the decision in her expression as her mouth twisted into a grimace, and in her shoulders as she squared them. Dick had been trained as a superlative detective, but his first training was as a trapeze artist. In that world, all the cold-blooded physics calculations wouldn't help. An acrobat had to develop timing, and feel, and trust his body and his instincts. He didn't calculate the distance of a jump, he let his eyes tell his muscles what to do.
And right now, his instincts said not to counter her. So he didn't even try to dodge, and she slammed into him again, bowling him over. He hit the ground tucked and rolling, rising to a half-crouch as all his fighting instincts demanded that he locate his attacker.
Caught between training and compassion, Dick hesitated. Kala was hesitating, too. She dropped back to the ground, falling to her knees, and gripped her own shoulders as if she were afraid of flying apart. "No! I do not need your help, or your pity!"
Dick went to her, carefully, not standing up all the way. He didn't want to loom over her. "Kala, it's going to be all right. Just breathe for a minute. Even if you don't need help, it's good to have, right?"
The anger still raged in her eyes, but there was something more there, fear and pain and regret. Something trapped and hurting and terrible in its weight. "It cannot be 'all right'. For us, it never is. It never can. It is the cross we bear, that I resolved to hold for her. And yet, here we find ourselves again."
"Yes, it can," Dick insisted. He knelt in front of her, holding out his hand, and worry for her gave him eloquence. "Never give up hope, Kala. It's what the House of El stands for, what your father stands for, what all of us stand for. The hope that things will get better, that we can help make that happen – and the resolution that until it does, we all stand together."
Those eyes lowered to his hand, staring a long moment before slowly raising her eyes to his again. There were tears now, but the woman before him kept her voice steady as she spoke. "We owe that madman a fate in kind. No matter what great fool Jason Todd may be, the Joker will not escape our wrath. Blame not the girl, for all she wishes it as well. If we encounter that demonkind one night, there will be naught left. And I know how secrets keep. You will not know until after the deed is done. No more children will die at his hands."
They'd all known that the Empress hated Joker. Dick couldn't blame her. Who among them didn't hate him? Dick himself loathed the bastard for everything he'd done, to Bruce and Babs and Jay and scores of innocents. But the Empress was making it blatantly obvious that she intended to kill him, that her work tonight had been about revenge and not protecting the citizens. It should've frightened him, but this was still Kala.
Dick understood, better than most, how this cold-voiced killer could live within the sweet and playful singer. He was often called the friendliest of the Bats, the one least tarnished by Gotham's darkness, but that wasn't entirely true. Dick had his own anger issues, and the fact that he kept them well in hand was more a function of long experience than any intrinsic quality. He had lost too much, seen his efforts to save people overturned by a villain's whim or just cruel chance, had watched people he loved struggle and suffer because some madman wanted to make a point. It was enough to create rage in the gentlest of hearts.
The difference was, Dick took that anger and made it fuel his fight. He didn't cross the line Jay had bolted over, the line Kala was promising to cross. Even so, he didn't judge Kala for what she'd just said, or Jay for wanting to kill his murderer. He worried about them both, about the repercussions of those actions. With Jay, he worried that killing Joker would mark a slide back into sociopathic behavior, just when he'd finally thawed out and realized he was still part of the family.
All of that was something to worry about later. Right now, he needed to convince Kala's shadow-self that she didn't need to protect Kala from him. "I understand that," he told her, meeting her eyes. Knowing all the while that she could hear his heartbeat, track the tiniest microexpressions, that he couldn't lie to her. Fortunately he didn't need to. "Joker deserves what he gets, in the end. I'm not trying to stop you, just slow you down enough that you're not scaring the cops. Trust me, Kala. I'm your friend. Right?"
There was silence for several moments, that considering look still trained on him, before the expression on her face shifted and Kala began to sob, reaching for his hand before falling into his arms. "I … I wouldn't hurt you, Dick; not for … not for anything in the world," he heard her shudder against his shoulder, that chilly Kryptonian accent gone now, her whole body shaking. "She wouldn't have, I swear. God, Dick, I'm sorry… I'm … so sorry…"
He let out a sigh of relief as he hugged her close. "I know, Kala, I know. I'm fine. I knew you wouldn't hurt me. I always knew I could trust you. It's all right, you don't have to apologize. You're fine."
In his ear, Babs murmured, "We've got the streets almost under control. All of Joker's men who participated are in custody now, along with most of Dent's."
Dick knew Kala's superhearing could pick that up, and squeezed her tighter. "Hear that? The Empress did us a solid."
All she could do was sob, curling tighter against him, her hands gripping his uniform as if he was the only thing holding her in this world. Dick pressed a kiss to her hair, and murmured, "I've got you, Kala. It's gonna be okay." Eventually, he added to himself.
