Dick felt so confused after the girl slid down the hill. Why hadn't he thought that the men holding guns was out of place. Now that he thought about it, it did seem out of place. Then there was the fact that she looked like she had come from some sort of history reanactment. She was dressed like what a Roman general would wear. He watched her take out the first ten men with an elegance and grace he'd seen in few women. She was a trained warrior. He followed her down the hill and watched as she knocked every last man out. There were a few she left in her wake that were coming back around that Dick took care of. She opened the van doors, and just as Dick was going to reveal himself, he watched one trancrilizer after another hit her where there was no armor. He had a decision to make. Should he rescue her now or should he follow them to where their hide out is.

A woman in a short revealing dress stepped out. She said something to the girl before barking for her to be loaded onto the van. There was something about the woman that made it hard for Dick to look away, but she also sent a shiver down his spine. Two men grabbed the girl and roughly threw her into the van. They got into the front of the van, it started up and pulled out. The woman was definitely in charge, but Dick had never seen her before. He threw a tracer at the van as it took off. It made contact and he checked his systems to make sure it was giving a clear signal. Once he was sure, he got into one of the SUVs that had been left. Luckily the keys were in the vehicle. He started it up, but then noticed that there was something golden glinting in the grass. He got out and approached it. It was the same golden knife that had been strapped to her leg at the party. He went to reach out for it, but an immense fear for his life came over him, and he withdrew his hand. He stood up and looked around. He spotted a handkerchief wrapped around a guys neck. He removed it and used it to pick up the knife, careful not to touch it. He didn't feel the overwhelming fear for his life this time. He took it with him back to the vehicle and took off.

With the tracker, he could be a mile behind, and they would never know they were being followed. About midnight, they pulled off onto a deserted road. Dick pulled the vehicle over. He needed to approach this carefully. He turned off his lights and turned on the night vision on his mask and then got back on the road. The vehicle on his tracking device showed that it had stopped. He drove a little bit further until he saw what looked like a regular farm. Experience told him otherwise.

He got out of the vehicle and scanned the area. He flipped on some X-rays that showed an elevator and stairwell that went well below the farmhouse. He flipped back to normal view and zoomed in on the van. They were standing around talking. He wouldn't be able to tell about what at this distance. The conversation ended and the van doors opened. First they pulled out the woman in the Roman armor. Her purple cape draped around her like a blanket. Then a they pulled out a little girl around eight or nine. How could he have mistaken her for a dog? They put them on gurneys and rolled them into the farmhouse. Dick switched back to X-ray and watched as they got into the elevator and started going down. He scanned the area. The amount of security would rival Fort Knox. But that only served to motivate Dick more to break into that building, preferably unnoticed. Dick started to make his way through a field toward the farm house. He located the first set of security measures. It was more of a warning system to alert the farmhouse of incoming. He slipped past that with little problem.

The next was a bit more challenging. Automatic weapons that fired at anything moving. Dick didn't want them going off and alerting the farmhouse, but he also didn't want it to shot at him. He used his X-ray mode to locate the main wires to the alert system hoping that he could use it to access the weapons. He pulled out a pocket knife and dug down to the buried wires. He opened the main casing and hooked his personal computer system to it. He was thrilled to find that he had access to the entire system. He turned off the weapons as well as the sensors, but first copied the image so they farmhouse would see that all systems were up and working. He looped the cameras to show the same thing, so he could go where he wanted to. He even threw in some timed viruses that would cause some chaos for some time, after he got her out, of course. Once he was satisfied with everything, he continued his advance.

Getting up to the farmhouse was a breeze, getting past the guards unnoticed would be more of a challenge. He needed to get to the elevator, preferably the stairwell. The patrol of guards was pretty regular. He studied their pattern for awhile until he was confident that he had it down, then he timed his approaches and was able to get inside. The only ones in the farmhouse were those in the security control room, so it was easy to get to the stairwell. He hated stairs, but that was what propelling was for. He hooked his cable to the railing and jumped over the side. He traveled down some distance. He was worried that he would run out of cable before he reached the bottom, but luckily he had just enough.

He opened the stairwell door just a crack to check things out. There were two guards on either side of the elevator door. There was a glass wall with a single door with a security code next to it. Inside, he saw the gurneys, which now stood empty. There were tables with surgical instruments beside them and several vials of blood. He hated labs, even hospitals. There was a door with another keypad on it on the other side of the surgical room. He guessed they were in there. He prepared himself and jumped out of the stairwell, taking the guards by surprise. He took them both out with ease. He hooked his computer up to the security code next to the door and ran his code breaking algorithm. After a minute the door clicked green and he opened the door. He made his way to the next door without delay and did the same thing to the security code next to that door. Again after a minute, the door clicked green and Dick passed through.

At first glance the room looked empty, but then he saw a short bald man wearing a lab coat. He was staring into one of the tubes. Dick stealthily creeped up behind him and saw what he was looking at. It was the girl complete with her Roman armor with the purple cape draped behind her. Dick couldn't help but get caught up staring at the mysterious girl also. The man saw Dick's Nightwing reflection in the tube with a start. He didn't even have time to scream before Dick knocked him out. Dick went over to the computer and found the controls to her tube. They were sedating her nonstop. The dosage was more than it should be normally for someone her size. Dick opened the tube and removed the IV from her. He began looking through the computer files, trying to find out what they were up to and why they would be kidnapping children and women. He had just come across a file of blood samples showing half of a DNA strand. Before he could even figure out what that meant, there was a gasp of air behind him. He turned to see the woman awake and take in her surroundings.

"That was fast." Dick said as she stepped out.

"Di Immortales." She breathed as she took in her surroundings.

"By the way, you dropped this." He held out the wrapped up knife. "It seemed important."

She looked at him funny then snatched the knife out of his hand. "You're lucky you're still alive."

"I can handle myself." He smirked.

Her eyes then went wide and she ran to another tube. Inside was the little girl. The woman drew her sword and drew back as though she was going to strike it.

"Wait! No, no, no, no." Dick hurriedly said. She paused and looked at him with an eyebrow raised. "It's pressurized, if any changes are made it alerts everyone, which will have made everything I just did pointless."

"Get her out." She ordered as she pointed at the tube with her golden sword.

"Please?" He looked at her expectantly. Her only, response was a raised eyebrow. "Fine." he relented. He turned back to the computer and began the decompression.

The tube opened and she immediately began removing the IVs. Once they were off, she removed her body from the tube and laid her gently on the ground. She looked up at the other tubes. "Open this one." she pointed at a tube. "And this one." She went to another one. Soon she had pointed out five tubes that she wanted to open.

He complied though he was surprised there were so many. Once he had all the tubes open, he helped her remove the IVs and lay them on the ground. A boy she had removed had a bandage around his leg with a hint of blood on it and a bandage around his shoulder. He noticed her pouring some golden liquid over the wounds. She then placed something that looked like a lemon bar in his mouth. "That's a lot of kids." Dick commented.

"They've been collecting them over the past few months, but why?" She wondered out loud.

"Not sure, but they've been running tests on their blood." Dick showed her the monitor. "I wonder why they only have half of the DNA helix?" He pondered.

"Delete it." she said. He gave her a surprised look, then he noticed that she was pale as if frightened by what she saw. "We have to destroy everything they've done."

Dick took a step back from the computer. "Look, I'm all for destroying things, but I am curious as to what you are hiding. What exactly is going on?"

"Trust me when I say this, you don't want to know." She sounded earnest, but Dick couldn't let it go.

Dick went to argue back, when one of the kids toward the back of the room started screaming and scrambling back from one of the tubes. The roman woman immediately ran over and with out a second thought drew her sword and stabbed the tube the kid had been scrambling back from.

"What the . . . ?" Dick ran to the tube to see what was going on, but all he saw was an empty tube. The alarms went off and all the kids stirred and woke. "What did you do that for?" he demanded. The little girl started crying, and the kids looked scared and started to panic.

She didn't answer him. Instead she addressed the kids. "Soldiers, attention!" Dick looked at her disbelievingly.

Nothing happened at first, but then the kid with the bandages stood up straight as a soldier. "Praetor." he said weakly.

All the other kids looked from the boy to the roman woman. One by one they stood in line, straight and tall, and respectfully addressed her as, "Praetor." Even the little girl stood tall and said, "Praetor."

Once she had their attention she walked up and down the line as though inspecting them. "Et opus non est cum hominibus conversatio monsturum. Prepare for battle. I have one extra weapon, who can use it?"

"I can, Preator." A stocky boy stepped forward.

"Good you can take up the rear." She handed him her knife. The kid took it from her without any problem. She continued to look over the group of kids as if analyzing them. "I need someone to help this one." She pointed to the kid with the bandages.

"Preator." The boy began objecting.

"You're wounded, accept it. Your chance for battle will come soon enough." She ordered.

"I will help him." The little girl rushed up to his side.

"I'll help him too." Another boy walked to his other side.

"Good. As for ththe rest of you, find what you can for weapons."

"You can't be serious." Dick looked at her disbelievingly. "They're just kids."

"We're going to need every bit of help to get out of here."

"Because you set off the alarm!"

"It had to be done." She said unrepentantly. "Have you deleted everything?"

Dick turned back to the computer. He made an impulse decision and downloaded everything. He then planted a virus to destroy everything and any linking computers. "Done. But there are some blood samples out there."

"Then let's take care of them." She growled. There was a fierceness about her that intimidated him.

"We're ready, Preator." The stout kid said as he twirled the knife expertly in his hand. He looked ready for a fight.

"On me." Dick insisted.

"Until you need me." Preator stepped next to him.

He looked at her questioningly. He felt incense that he would need her at all, especially since he rescued her. "The elevator is a trap. Our best bet is to go up the stairs." He waited for her to find fault with that.

"What are we waiting for? An invitation?"

"We don't want their invitation." Dick grumbled as he opened the door.

"Too late." She said.

Sure enough a canister rolled into the room. Dick's instinct kicked in as he grabbed it and threw it back out the door and shut it tight. There was a loud bang on the other side. Dick opened the door and ran into the next room. Just as he had expected, it was a flash bang. All the men looked slightly disoriented. Dick wasted no time and took out the stunned soldiers quickly.

Preator walked in looking over the scene. "Where's the blood samples?" She asked, clearly unimpressed.

Dick opened up the fridge where the blood samples would be kept.

"How do we destroy them?" She asked looking around the lab.

"This ought to do it." Dick noticed a bottle of ammonia. He dumped the vials one by one down the sink, save one that he slid into his belt without her noticing. Once they were all emptied, he dumped the ammonia down the sink as well. "Now let's get out of here."

"Stay close." Preator ordered the kids.

Dick led them out of the lab and into the foyer, then to the stairs. They were empty for now. He rushed them in as the elevator showed another load coming down. He found a mop to slide through the handle, hoping that would hold them.

They were two flights up when there was machine gun fire from above. Everyone pressed against the walls. "Stay here." Dick ordered. "I'll go ahead."

Preator nodded at him in agreement. That was a first. He wasted no time in heading up the stairs taking care to check around blind corners first. When he peeked around one corner, he was greeted with a round of bullets for it. With his quick look he was able to count that there were at least ten men in high tech gear and a woman standing completely exposed behind them. He dug out his own version of a flash bang grenade and threw it without looking around the corner. When he heard it go off, he wasted no time in running around the corner and taking out as many men as he could before they regained their senses. He focused on the soft spots between their armor. A few rounds were fired from those coherent enough to fight back, but Dick was able to dodge them before taking them out. When he was satisfied that they were all down, he realized that the woman was still there, watching him with hungry eyes.

"Your trouble." She purred as she walked slowly toward him.

"You should probably get out of here." He tried to warn her.

"Maybe you're the one on the wrong side. They are the ones killing us."

"Kids are killing you?" Dick scoffed as he started backing away. He couldn't explain it, but everything about this woman put him on edge.

"Deliver the Praetor and the half-bloods to me, and I will let you live."

Dick found himself wanting to run back to the kids and the woman he now called Preator and bring them to this woman like a dog would return a ball to it's master. He fought the overwhelming feeling to do anything this woman asked of him. She was inches away from him, her scent tantalizing him beyond reason. "I, I . . ." He struggled to find the words. It was just so hard for him to think with her moist red lips inches from his. He could do it. He could run back and capture them easily. He could see the kids faces as he handed them over to this goddess. He could see Preator's face as he . . . . He came to his senses enough to weakly say, "No."

The woman raised a perfect eyebrow. "No? Then die!" Suddenly she lunged at him. Dick should have moved, but he couldn't. He stood transfixed at the horror that was swiftly going to end him. The beautiful woman's hair lit on fire, fangs grew out of her perfect teeth, and her perfectly painted nails became deadly claws aimed at his throat. He should have died, right then and there, but the woman's eyes widened in shock. It was then he realized that a golden sword was sticking out of her chest. He staggered back, trying to get his erratic heart under control. He watched as Preator retracted her sword and the woman, if you could call her that now, fell to the ground.

"Told you you would need me." Preator said.