Chapter 25: Truths

            Dinah wanted to slam her fist into the computer screen. She had blown off her after school Krav Maga class to go home and read through more of the material she had laid her hands on yesterday. But all the financial records and stuff was just not something she was trained or prepared to read. "Calm down," she murmured and closed the file she had been reading instead opening another hoping it would contain some clue she could use.

"Phoenix Industries," Dinah mumbled as she read the press release her mom had kept on something the men had worked together on. It said something about buying the old Gotham dockyards in some kind of land development deal. Dinah flashed back to the fire spreading across New Gotham in her dream. The bird of fire had risen out of the dockyards… Phoenix… She knew her Harry Potter well and the Phoenix was a bird that could burst into flame and get reborn. Her dream was pointing her in the direction of the old dockyards.

She had to decide what to do. She knew that if she went to her mom with just this, it wouldn't be enough. She needed to solve this on her own. And that meant she had to go to the old docks… on her own. Quickly she got up, grabbed her backpack, slipped in her cell phone and headed for the door, hoping she could make it out of the Clocktower before her mom made it home.

"Why don't you just go visit him, instead of trying to pull of the ultra stealthy superhero approach?" Barbara said as Helena slipped on her mask.

"It was you, who taught me to keep hero stuff and private stuff apart. Besides I never knew him that well. Mom did," Helena winced a little, as she thought about her mother, but continued any way, "I'd rather do the hero routine than having to talk to a man I haven't seen since… I was in high school, when I last saw Larry Ketterly."

"Alright, but you need to stick close to him okay," Barbara suggested.

"I always do," she replied and headed for the exit. Barbara meanwhile continued her work at Delphi looking for some kind of culprit. Helena wondered as the elevator descended where Dinah had gone off to. Maybe the girl was rebelling in some typical teenage manner and had gone to some wild party or was somewhere getting drunk. She wouldn't mind a bit of a party soon either.

She climbed out the window and launched herself off the Clocktower to land far below on the adjacent building before heading off to the north in a run. She felt the wind in her face and a wild joy every time she soared high between buildings or had to do some wild acrobatics just to avoid splattering on the pavements far below. She didn't like to admit it to anyone, but it was really the moments like these traveling in good weather from building to building that she liked her life as hero best.

Dinah carefully made her way between the rundown dockside buildings, factories, wharfs and warehouses. She had no idea what she was looking for and while the entire neighborhood looked ready to burn down at the drop of a match she had seen nothing to indicate any preparations for a conflagration that would spread all over New Gotham. She had however yet to get into one of the ramshackle buildings and have a look around.

She slowly walked over to one of the condemned building making her way around the garbage and debris. It looked like once long ago some kind of fire had raged through this section of the docks. She found a door almost leaning on its rusty hinges and held closed against the wind by old cobwebs. She gingerly touched the door and tried to press it open, but instead it collapsed inwards throwing up a lot of dust and scattering cobwebs here and there. She stepped inside.

She stepped right into a thick spider web that hadn't been illuminated by the sparse light filtering in from uptown. "Eww," she said and fought wildly to get the thick silky strands out of her face and hair. She fought so hard with her eyes closed that she tripped across a plank.

Dinah flipped herself onto her back and lay there for a moment frustrated but unwilling to give into her anger and the voice ridiculing her in her mind. She felt the dust in her mouth and sputtered. For a while she lay there feeling really pathetic. She wondered not for the first time what she was doing. She was out in the middle of a condemned building searching for clues about a crime she had only dreamt off. She wanted to become a hero like both her mothers, but she had just been taken out by a spider web and a wooden plank. Dinah laughed for a while as she tried to brush of the last strands of the web and to get a bit of the dust off her clothes before getting up and continuing her search.

Helena could see Ketterly moving from his kitchen into his living room. She didn't have a good view of it from the ground so she effortlessly bounded up onto a tree branch on which she could see into the cozy living room. Ketterly was apparently drinking a cup of tea and reading the newspaper. "This is a bit boring, Oracle," she whispered.

"No one ever claimed that watching some man going about his daily life was supposed to be exciting," Barbara replied in a distant voice.

"Is something up?" She asked at her friend's tone of voice.

"Maybe, have you seen my daughter today?" Barbara asked.

"No," she answered.

"She isn't home and I got a note today that she skipped school yesterday," Barbara said.

Helena considered it for a moment. She would bet good money that Dinah was out investigating on her own, but she didn't want to bring it up with Barbara. "She's probably out doing stuff with that friend of hers. You're the one who keeps telling me about those little stunts they pull like that party they went to this weekend. It is probably just her acting out because of your fight," she said.

"We're not fighting," Barbara instantly fired back.

"Right," she said and noticed Ketterly getting up to answer the phone.

"Someone just called Ketterly," she reported. She watched as the elderly business man spoke on the phone for a while then headed out of the room.

"Damn, where is he going?" She muttered.

"What I thought you were bored," Barbara replied.

"I repent, bored is much better than confused. I think he is leaving, the garage door just opened," she reported as she scrambled to get back out of the garden. Helena dropped down next to the black car and quickly got in. She only just got the engine running before Ketterly's town car came out onto the street. Smoothly she settled in a couple of cars behind him following him down towards the dockyards.

"Where is he going?" She asked as Ketterly made another subtle but noticeable amateurish attempt of shaking any tails by going off then back onto the freeway. He obviously didn't know she was behind him, but if he kept driving all over town he would undoubtedly notice that a big black hummer was hanging around his car the entire time even if she stayed a couple of cars back.

"Finally," she said to herself as Ketterly finally stopped driving on and off the freeway and headed towards downtown New Gotham. The black hummer's glossy finish reflected the city lights as they drove not to but past the ever busy inner city. Ketterly's car pulled up to a rusty chain link fence and parked.

"I'm in so much trouble once I get home," Dinah thought after casting a glance on her wrist watch. It was way past her absolute latest curfew and her mom was bound to know it oblivious or not. She looked around at the fifth or was it fifteenth old building that she was working through without any luck. There was a loud noise outside as someone kicked a can. She startled in surprise, but didn't move as she suddenly became aware of faint voices talking to one another.

Slowly as not to make any noise, she moved to glance out of a missing part of a window. Outside a couple of coat clad men ambled along heading towards the center of the dockyards and the most damaged buildings. Dinah backed up and headed back towards the door. Slowly she made her way in the same direction they had gone. Maybe her excursion hadn't been a total loss.

"Damn I've lost sight of them," she thought as she carefully slipped from shadow to shadow. She had last seen the two guys walking into the alley she was now using, but the only way out of the alley aside from heading out of the docks altogether was another ancient ramshackle door that they clearly hadn't opened. Maybe they had just been passing through, but she had a gut feeling that it hadn't been the case. Instead she tried to open the door without alerting anyone in the area.

Slowly she made her way through the burnt debris that had cluttered the entrance and walked across the creaking and charred wooden floors, when they suddenly gave away.

Dinah felt winded as she got up off the ground and brushed herself off once more. She was about to give up on her plan altogether and just go home, when she cast a glance around and was filled with an intense sense of memory. She felt like she had been in this hallway a thousand times before. Almost trancelike she ran her fingers across a burnt away beam and noticed the smashed pieces of a door near her feet next to several bullet casings.

Dinah flashed back to a fight scene that had haunted her dreams just as much as its repercussions for seven years. She was in the Joker's lair. The Joker's lair had been beneath the old dockyards. Almost dreamlike she walked the path her mom and Batman had fought so hard to tread.

Helena watched as Ketterly left his car and headed towards the gate to the fenced off and condemned docks. She got out of the car and followed him sticking to the shadows. "It looks like he is going into the old dock area. Maybe whoever is doing this, has convinced him to come to a meeting," Helena suggested.

"Maybe, I don't like this Huntress. Whoever is egging those people into trying suicide is probably a metahuman. Be extra careful," Barbara suggested. Helena barely cared to acknowledge the warning with a grunt instead she ran across the street as Ketterly picked up his pace and walked into the shadows of the first buildings. She opted to run, knowing that Barbara would have reason to mock her if a business man managed to give her the slip.

Helena walked into the T-shaped alley saw standing Ketterly in the T-cross talking animatedly to a group of goons. "Ketterly might be in trouble," she said and ran forward launching herself into the air about halfway down the alley.

She landed lithely in a crouch with her back to Ketterly. In front of her the goons stepped back shaken by her sudden arrival. "So boys, who wants to go first or are we planning a threesome," she suggested with a cocky smile on her lips. Strangely the goons weren't moving to attack, but looked more like they were awaiting her next move uncommonly clever for such two-bit hoods, who mugged men in alleys. A slowly growing throb alerted her as well to the fact that she was going to have a major headache soon. Typical that such a thing should hit her on a work night.

Finally the two goons were done waiting for her. She felt the strength of her metahuman powers roar through her veins as she launched into an attack. She bounced off the left wall, spun her left leg in the air and hammered the circular kick into one of the goons sending him into the other one. As she landed she felt dizzy and wobbled slightly as her sight became slightly unfocused. "Oracle, something is wrong," she said and stretched up getting ready to jump up onto the relative safety of a roof.

"Get out of there," her mentor yelled in her ear, but the voice was far away and seemed slower than everything around her. There was a stab of pain that just grew. Helena fell unconscious, while hearing Ketterly say, "Idiot, now we'll have to wait for her to awaken before we can question her."

"Huntress, come in, Huntress, please respond," Barbara yelled for the fourth time, but no response came. She watched on the monitor, how Helena's position slowly changed. Someone was taking her somewhere. Barbara wrestled with what she should do. She could stay and do nothing, leaving Helena to her fate or she could take a chance and head out performing the first field trip as Oracle ever. It was an easy decision. Yet as the elevator doors closed in front of her, she had time to worry about more than Helena. It was around midnight and she had seen neither hide nor hair of Dinah since breakfast.

Barbara got into her car and activated the link up with Delphi making it patch through to Helena's com and position in hope that she might still be able to reach Helena as soon as she woke up. Still there was the mysterious affliction that had slowed Helena enough to actually get caught. Once again she swore that as soon as technology allowed her too, she would put a health monitor into Helena's jewelry. The car roared out of the Clocktower garage heading for the old docks.

Helena woke up, but everything still seemed to be slow as molasses. She was on the dirty floor in some kind of room next to a pair of stairs. The two goons she had fought were hanging back near entrance at the other end of the large room. Larry Ketterly stepped up in front of her. His voice was the only one, which didn't sound like it was a faint echo. "Helena, little Helena, you seem to be a creature of many secrets," he whispered as if he was caring for a sick child.

She could get herself to respond or even conceive of moving. "I think I should wait, so that we can make the decision on your fate together, but meanwhile why don't you tell me," he suggested.

Helena instantly knew what he was referring too. The deep dark secrets and fears in her mind rushed forward each screaming to be named and given form, but the greatest one of them all stood above them in all its darkness. "I… I... lost her, I lose everyone. I am all alone," she whispered through suddenly teary eyes.

"Shh, I know, I understand," the fuzzy image of Larry answered.

Dinah felt strange almost as if she was entering the den of a lion as she walked into the office. Here the final battle had been fought. Here the groundwork if you will of her mom's disability had been laid. Here the Joker had been defeated. The first thing she stumbled upon wasn't that however. It was that the room was clean. A new wooden desk and chair sat there the Joker's had been before.

Slowly she approached it and glanced down. A cell phone and several paper clippings lay on the desk. One was from a few months ago when Helena had prevented an attempt to release hallucinogenic gas over New Gotham. The others were about the suicides. There was also a picture frame. She turned it over and saw the Ketterly family smiling towards her. She looked down at the neatly arranged desk again. "He killed his partners… He is probably a meta like me," Dinah realized.

She opened up the zipped inner pocket of her coat and fished out the special cell phone made for her by her mom. She dialed the number that would connect her to Delphi and thus her mom. She listened to the tone of the phone ringing, while slowly taking in the rest of the room.

The floor was still dirty, making Ketterly's movements through the room as apparent as hers. The phone still pressed against her ears she slowly headed over to the opening that Ketterly usually used thinking that she might find more evidence if she tracked his previous movements.

No one answered the phone in the Clocktower, which either meant her mom had gone to bed early or that her mom was out. Both options sounded very unlikely. She closed the cell phone again and stuffed it away, while thinking about what was going on back home.

Barbara brought the car to a screeching halt and impatiently tapped her fingers, while the lift brought her down to ground level. As soon as her wheels touched the dirt she was off, guiding the wheelchair with her implant, while her hands were otherwise occupied. A quick press on the buttons of her car key locked the car, while she rolled towards Helena's most recent position guided by her memory of the local map.

She carefully looked around the corner leaning her chest against her legs as she stared over towards the building she knew Helena was being held in. She could just see the outlines of two men standing on either side of the doors through the dirt glass at their backs. She took out two birdarangs and threw them with practiced ease at each outline. The high tech weapons smashed through the glass and both outline dropped prone. Quickly she advanced into the room.

"Stop right there or this little girl might hurt herself," Ketterly's voice greeted her as soon as she entered the room. Barbara couldn't help wincing as she saw Helena sitting propped up against a wall just to the right of a staircase leading down into what she knew was the Joker's old hideout. Helena was pressing a large combat knife against her chest. She could see the trance-like look in the black haired woman's face. Ketterly had to be the one who had arranged all the suicides.

"What do you want?" She asked and hoped the business man would be willing to negotiate at least long enough for her to approach and give him the beating of a life time with her escrima batons.

"I wanted to force your surrender, but now looking at you I think you might surrender without any resistance," he said and walked towards her with a smile.

Barbara made her wheelchair circle left towards Helena. Ketterly let her approach radiating arrogant self-confidence. "Helena, let go of the knife," she called out.

"She can't hear you. She listens to me now," Ketterly cackled a little and pulled out another knife. Suddenly a figure dashed up from behind and tackled her out of her chair. One of the guards at the door hadn't been as unconscious as she had expected. Before she could get out a baton, he had wrestled her to the ground.

Dinah found a staircase leading up. Pale light from the city illuminated the stairs. An unfamiliar voice said, "So you're more of those heroes that plague this city. And now you get to watch your friend commit suicide. I am sure we only need one of you to learn all your secrets."

"No, please, stop this," Dinah felt her heart sink as she recognized her mother's voice. Up those stairs a man Ketterly most likely was holding his mother and that probably meant that Helena was the one they had been talking about. "If I go up there now my secrets will be all out in the open. If I don't go up there now Helena will die," she reasoned, but her body had already decided to run towards the stairs.

She took the steps two or three at a time coming up to see Ketterly standing next to Helena and one of the goons holding down her struggling mom. Dinah used her velocity to launch a low kick to the back of Ketterly's lower legs. He fell backwards, but she just swung right in a low circle kicking the man holding her mom across the face. His blood spattered down his face as his nose took the brunt of her force.

Her mom threw off the guy, but he was still not down. Dinah remembered a lesson from her class that fit with her body position at the time. She kicked him in the throat then in the groin. He went fetal from the pain and remained in that position. She swirled around to find Ketterly glaring at her from the ground and her mom struggling to get back into her chair.

"You won't be able to safe your friend," Ketterly triumphed just as her mom got seated.

"Dinah," her mom asked dazedly.

"Later, Helena," she said and indicated the growing stab wound Helena was treating herself too. Her mom quickly rolled over and struggled to get the knife out of Helena's iron hard grip.

"There is nothing you can do. Once I sink my hooks into someone, I decide if they live or die. No matter what you do to me, I will still be in her mind, where you can't go," Ketterly cackled with evil glee.

"She can't but I can," Dinah said. She knew that this would be the hardest thing she had ever tried telepathically. She reached forward and put her hand, where her mom and Helena were struggling for control over the knife. She forced herself into both their minds and with great effort guided her mom over into Helena's mindscape.

They found themselves on a black and white New Gotham Street. Helena was sitting there as in real life trying to force a knife into her chest, while crying over something. She looked over to her mother and said, "I can't do more than this. She won't hear me. But maybe she'll hear you."

Her mom now clad in her batgirl costume walked over to Helena and bent down. "Helena," she softly called.

"I couldn't protect her. I failed her. I am a fraud," Helena replied softly.

"You were only a child," her mom reminded Helena.

"No, I am supposed to be a hero. But I always screw up," Helena said.

"You're wrong. You've never failed me. I chose this life. You don't have to protect me. We can protect each other. We have to," her mom explained and took hold of the knife.

"I can't do this without you," she said. Helena stopped pushing at the knife. "I need you," her mom whispered softly to her protégé. Helena let go of the knife and her mom immediately threw it away before wrapping her arms around Helena in a hug much like the ones she gave her in the old. Dinah felt a small pang of jealousy.

"You don't belong here," Ketterly's voice suddenly said. He stood on the pavement not far from Helena clad in a dark trench coat practically oozing power. Dinah wished so hard that she could fight against him, but she felt it was better to have her mother here than to try her hand at mental combat with Helena's life at risk.

"You don't have legs and you're not Batgirl either," he said and her mom fell to the ground once again handicapped and seemingly feeling all the pain of her loss all over again.

"Neither do you," Helena suddenly said before appearing behind Ketterly. She grabbed him and tossed him hard across the street. But the man just rolled back onto his feet, picking up the knife on his way. He turned around gesturing for Helena to dare to approach.

Helena ran towards him, but at the last moment she jumped high in the air and launched a flying kick. However Ketterly easily blocked it and Helena landed in a low crouch close to him. He swept the knife low, but she caught it and pressed him back against a wall. Suddenly Ketterly reversed his attack and in a quick move tossed Helena through a plate glass window.

Helena jumped back out at him, but Ketterly was ready throwing a massive punch which sent her flying apparently unconscious back into the darkness. He glanced once in her direction then headed towards her mom with a menacing expression. Dinah considered if she should cut the connection.

There was a roar and a massive concrete column shattered as a nearly berserk Helena tears through it and slams into Ketterly. Dinah took at step backwards at the sight of Helena's wild attack.

Helena grabbed his coat and used it as a hold to pull him into her massive punch. She repeated this once twice. Ketterly tore himself free and staggered back before lunging forward with his knife. They tumbled to the ground. "Why are you struggling? What is so great about your life that you would even want to fight to save it?" Ketterly asked through clenched teeth as they lay on the ground struggling for control of the knife.

"It is mine and I haven't given up on it yet," Helena answered and in one quick move got control of Ketterly's knife wielding hand and rammed the sharp blade into his guts. She got up and walked over to her and her mom, who could temporarily stand again. They shared a hug and she cut the connection taking them back to the real world again.