Bruised

Chapter Eleven

Family Foundations

"Family. The center of all things in my life. By blood or adoption. Mentoring or friendship. Every meaningful moment that's rippled through my like has all started and ended with family…"

Batman

Jarvis led them to a small little café that he apparently owned. They took seats there as he served them all some tea. The little girl holding Phantom's hand. Nightwing and Red Robin didn't know what to say or think about any of this, so they just followed everyone quietly. They knew that they were out of their element when it came to whatever was happening, but they needed to be here.

They needed to help. No matter what kind of crazy was given to them.

"I was there when Martha miscarried," Jarvis explained smiling at the little girl who was just holding onto Phantom's hand. "I never thought that the afterlife would give me a second chance to right my wrongs. To start over with those I cared about."

"The Ghost Zone is a way to preserve things from all worlds," Phantom said as he looked over to the two heroes who were still just staring at Jarvis. "That also means that past civilizations are basically archived here. From our universe, there's so many doors, even though the Earth is the one that is the main link."

Phantom had to take a moment to realize why he knew that before just shaking his head. Sam and Tucker were also giving him weird looks. He just smiled at them.

Phantom sat down and the little girl hopped on his lap. He sighed.

"Yes, I've seen many types of people while here. Forgive me for not introducing their granddaughter, Elizbeth Wayne. She would be Bruce's niece I do believe," Jarvis explained as the little girl bounced on Phantom's lap in excitement. She just continued to stare at Phantom with wonder.

"So, you know about the Court of Owls?" Phantom asked tilting his head. Gotham wouldn't have led them down a weird path. Jarvis looked down.

"It was one of my greatest failures. I wish that I had been able to do more against them," Jarvis said as he sat down as well. "I tried so hard to help them, but the Court…they're very powerful. They were the ones who killed me."

"So why haven't we come across them before?" Red Robin asked. Jarvis looked at them and gave a critical eye to Nightwing.

"Perhaps there was a fight that moved powers around. Maybe our Bat themed hero actually does scare them to force them to stay in the shadows," Jarvis shrugged. "I know there's a huge Owl here the represents them, but Gotham keeps it locked away. Or at least she tried her best to do so. There's only so much a city can do."

"Well, we just fought a large Owl and won," Phantom said making Jarvis smile. The man was always happy when they managed to one up those stupid owls.

"Good. That thing has been plaguing us for a while now. It's been getting more and more brazen while coming out during the daytime."

Batman jumped from his plane onto the top of Fentonworks and climbed in though the open window. Superman flew in following him.

They didn't realize that two teens from across the street seen Superman fly into the house.

Batman walked down the steps of the dark house carefully. Superman wasn't as careful and broke a hanging picture frame. Batman sent him a glare.

He should have had Diana come instead, but she was busy. So, he was left with the Man of Steel who was able as silent as a train coming into station.

"Can you be any louder?" Batman growled as he set the frame on a table and glared at Superman who just grinned. Batman led him down into the lab where Robin was spinning in a chair as something was running on the computer. Robin stopped and stared at Batman with a smile.

"Technus caught you guys the moment you got above the OpsCenter," Robin informed making both heroes blink at him. "That's what the weird thing on the top of the building is called." Batman nodded before walking over to the computer.

"If I gave you the frequency of Red Robin's and Nightwing's comms, could that be used to contact them?" Batman asked as Technus appeared on the screen.

"I can't guarantee anything, only because ectoplasm does tend to mess with the tech some. The Ghost Zone is vast," Technus explained. "I would save it just in case. It's only been a couple hours since they left. If anything major happened, I have a line that would tell me something happened. So far the Ghost Zone feels normalish."

"Normalish?" Superman asked making Technus laugh.

"The boy is going through with claiming his crown."

"Wait, so she never died?" Nightwing asked making Phantom glare at him.

"Not everything here is the result of someone dying…well, not entirely anyway. Sometimes death just creates new beginnings for people," Phantom explained. "She was born from a life lost before it really began. It was born from the loss of potential. Gotham was never an actual person, but she represents the existence of an entire city that is power when the people work together. Gotham is an old ghost, and sometimes is probably mistaken as a god to some."

"That brings up so many more existential questions, but I will do that later," Red said wanting so much to talk to Phantom about how the Zone worked. How all of it worked. Since he showed up, he could see more bats that flew around, and the weirdness of the animals that would just stare at them.

He'd also noted the number of animals that looked like they were still alive somehow.

"Although, now we have more information about the Court. They wanted Jarvis to drive to the docks, so maybe we can go there and look around," Nightwing suggested. He doubted they'd find anything, but maybe they could look. "But Joe Chill admitted to killing them?"

"Not everything is what it seems," Jarvis smiled sadly. "When it comes down to it, Gotham has her own plans and ways. If she said that it wasn't solved in the human world, then it wasn't."

"Wait, if the ghost was protecting them, then…" Nightwing trailed off as Phantom created a little ice diamond for the child. He handed it to her before looking at Nightwing.

"They did try to kill the Wayne's before. They caused a car accident that made Martha have a miscarriage. But it didn't really work. Gotham probably had something to do with that. Now they're on guard. Everyone is," Phantom said with a shrug. "So now the court has to lay low."

"Now let's say they believe in higher powers," Sam said as she crossed her arms. "They either believe they have to work against them, or the powers are working for them."

"So, they set up Joe Chill to do it," Tucker said looking at them. "That Owl we fought would only need a few moments to blind Gotham long enough to get the kill in. Or at the very least distract her from protecting them by launching an attack here. Especially since this is before Batman came along. There is no protector here or in the real world yet. No way for her to spread the power."

"Conspiracy theories," Red Robin huffed as he looked through his computer again. "But this doesn't tell us who is running the Court of Owls."

"We have a list of Elites," Nightwing reminded as he pulled it up. "There's got to be almost a hundred names, so let's break it down."

They went to work then.

"Joe Chill lost his job with a company that the Vanderblooms owned four months before the shooting," Nightwing said looking at the way it was done. "They are on the list of suspects. And the timing was about right. Cause about a week later, there was a small economic crash."

"What was he fired for?" Red Robin asked looking at what Nightwing was doing.

"It doesn't say," Nightwing whispered looking at it confused. "There's actually about forty people who were fired around the same time within the company, and then there's about two other company names that are attached who also fired exactly forty people with no known reason at the same time."

"So, do you think that the Court was trying to destabilize Gotham in order to get rid of them?" Red asked as Phantom just listened.

"It would make sense," Phantom said shrugging. "But I figure at the end of this, we'll find the Crown, so we need a place to go."

"Well…what does the Court of Owls want?" Sam asked looking towards the heroes. "I mean, they clearly want the Wayne's in some form or another, but why?"

"Yeah, I mean this isn't every rich person in Gotham, just a lot of them. So why single out the Wayne family," Tucker asked as he looked over the files on his PDA. "I mean, it looks like they were trying to make Gotham better."

"Maybe they didn't like that," Sam shrugged. She got a little queasy before looking at the list again. "I don't suppose there's any Manson's on that list?"

"It doesn't look like it," Red said skimming though it again. Sam sighed out in relief.

"Good, would hate to be caught up in that shit," she laughed as she leaned back. She stared at the ceiling unsure where to go from here. She wasn't really much of the investigative type.

"Huh," Tucker said as he popped up a screen of a list of potential names for Talons. "This is…a list of people that they want to recruit for their little assassins."

"What is it?" Phantom asked looking at his friend.

"Uh, some of these are family names," Tucker said as he looked at Nightwing. "One of them being Graysons."

Nightwing paled.

"What?" he muttered making Red Robin looked quickly into what Tucker had found.

"I don't…oh my god, if Bruce hadn't," Nightwing whispered as he buried his head in his hands. Phantom winced slightly in sympathy.

"Well, at least that fate was avoided," Phantom said trying to look on the bright side. Nightwing glared at the hybrid. Phantom grinned back. "Besides, that doesn't help us at the moment."

"So, we can look into the Vanderblooms?" Red Robin suggested hoping to get away from the topic of possible futures.

"Alright, where do we find them?" Nightwing asked wanting to get out of here as soon as possible.

"Well, we could check out the mansion, but it's not here in the Zone," Red Robin said realizing that Wayne Manor was included in the Ghost Zone Gotham, but it didn't go much farther than that according to the map on his computer.

It was a little weird, but he was glad that they had way to know that before exploring.

"So, we need to figure out where they would be here in the city," Phantom said as he looked out the window. He'd only been to a couple cities that were flipside of the ones in the real world, and so far, this was by far the one he liked the most.

Gotham was so different.

Sentient cities usually made him uncomfortable with their silent judgement, but here Gotham hadn't treated him negatively just because he was a hybrid.

Gotham was so welcoming compared to what he had dealt with in the past.

"Well, there's a corporate office, but that's not where the Vanderblooms actually run their company from," Red sighed. He had access to a lot of information, but he was unsure of how to get current and past information at the same time. Gotham was keeping it a challenge.

"Well, let's go and see what we can dig up," Phantom said as he hopped off the chair. He knew that they were on a time limit.

One from preventing war, and another to prevent anyone from jumping into the Ghost Zone on an unnecessary rescue mission.

"This is so annoying," Sam sighed as she stood up. They headed out.

The streets were empty.

Phantom tensed and felt his powers react. He floated slightly off the ground prepared for a fight.

There was a screech that made everyone cover their ears.

Batman paced in the living room of the Fenton's house. He was debating if asking Waller would be a good idea. After Camdus had been shut down, Waller had been doing other sketchy things for the government. But if he wanted information about hidden government agencies, she'd be the one to ask.

He made the call.

"This better be good," Amanda growled out into the phone. Batman smirked. He did love to poke the bear.

"What do you know about the Guys in White?" Batman asked. He heard something crash on her end as she started cussing.

"How in the hell did you get word on that group of incompetent assholes," Amanda asked after a moment to collect herself.

"They may have started an interdimensional war," Batman informed as Amanda cussed again.

"I told the president that they needed to be shut down. They didn't understand how to be diplomatic. I knew this would happen," Amanda said. "They were way too set on their beliefs about ghosts."

"The president gave us a week," Batman said as he looked at a picture frame of the family. "The only good thing of this is I at least know who calls the shots for the ghosts."

"I can try to get you more time, but I'm not going to make promises."

"It may not be time I need."

"Uh, from my understanding there was only one Owl!" Sam called out as she dived away from one of the three owls that had appeared.

"It's a bigger issue than we originally thought then," Phantom yelled as he shot into the sky higher before turning and diving into the one chasing him and crashing them into the ground. "I think I understand a bit more about why Gotham sent us after them."

"Why?" Nightwing asked as he dodged the third one that was going after him and Red Robin.

"The Court of Owls is a bigger problem in Gotham than just the death of the Wayne's," Phantom said. "The fact that we thought there was only one to represent them means that they don't come out at the same time. Which means Gotham may not know how big it is either. She was using us to draw them out."

"Shouldn't she though?" Red asked as he flipped back before throwing explosives at the Owl.

"Not really, it's still only one being watching what is basically two cities," Phantom explained as he ecto-blasted the owl in the face before freezing it solid. "Trying to focus the energy at everything at all times is a little insane. So, she has protectors. They're unneeded here since she's corporal here. That and…"

Phantom laughed as the sounds of wings grew louder.

Nightwing and Red Robin twisted to look at the swarm of bats headed their way.

"And here comes some backup," Phantom laughed before tackling the Owl that was going after the vigilantes.

Here another chapter...cause why not.

I'm so tired. and I'm stuck in chapter seventeen cause I don't know where I want to take the next part, but I'm working on it
And like three other ideas that's bouncing around my head.