While trying to come up with a plan, Jason managed to hack into the Bats' comms system through his car's hardware, and heard the old man himself ordering around his little soldiers.
"-tail it, that truck might lead us back to their hideout."
"We'll split up so that we can move faster. Cass, you're with me. Tim, you an-", the golden boy replied with his usual carefree nature gone. Jason was all too happy to back out of the system before Babs detected his presence, already tired of hearing his older brother's voice. He wondered why Bruce was apparently taking a backseat, but he didn't spend too much time pondering it, he couldn't afford to.
Well, Jason, cat's already out of the bag. Might as well have some fun.
He thought, putting the car on autopilot before hitting the ejector seat option on his console.
Dick was taking the lead with Cass behind him, leaping from rooftop to rooftop across Tricorner as Tim and Steph did the same on the opposite row of rooftops, eliminating the need to worry about the truck abruptly changing direction. Selina was on her bike to do the same for the need to worry about them driving into a tunnel, while Helena was providing over watch in the Batwing, following the action while maintaining a high altitude.
Before he could get close enough to throw a tracker on the truck which was, thankfully for his tired muscles, still trying to be discrete, he heard someone cry out behind him.
Cass.
Turning around in a second, Escrima sticks at the ready, he saw that Cass had been ambushed and taken down by someone in Outlaw garb brandishing a taser. He spoke into his comms quickly as he engaged the dodging man with his free arm.
"Robin, Spoiler, Batgirl is down, come to my location. Catwoman and Huntress, you stay on that truck!"
His arms now free, he managed to catch the first punch thrown by his opponent in his left arm, but before he could leverage it, the man in red's other fist slammed into his chest. He went on the defensive as his opponent did the opposite, flying at him with a ferocity he hadn't been ready for. Dick had just locked arms with him when he started talking through a voice modulator.
"Where's your Daddy? Boss figured to get at you, we'd have to go through him. Guess he's just letting anyone beat on his lackeys nowadays, huh?"
"I don't know...it probably has to do with the fact that you aren't worth his time."
The man in the mask chuckled and threw his own head at Dick's face so fast Dick could barely dodge the attack.
"Oh, really?", he said, pulling out two handguns from side holsters.
"You think you'll impress me with those?"
"No, I think I'll beat you with them."
"If you need guns to beat a man with sticks, you really aren't worth his time. Shame, I thought you people were supposed to be impressive."
Even as Dick threw out the barb, he had to admit, he was impressed. The man wasn't perfect, and there were obvious flaws in his technique, but the fight he was putting up with the guns he was using as small hand-clubs was still an admirable one.
Robin and Spoiler entered the fray just in time to see the hood level his pistol with Dick's chest emblem and fire a three-round burst, knocking him off center but not penetrating the stronger armor, before pistol-whipping him to the floor with his other gun. Dick rolled to the side and was back on his feet in seconds, as Tim and Steph had rushed to his aid in time to stop the hood from finishing him off. However, before they could fully encircle the man, he dropped a flashbang and ran past the stunned Stephanie, leaping onto another rooftop.
"Spoiler, get Batgirl to a safehouse. Robin, you're with me."
With that, Dick and his second successor gave chase just before the hood could vanish from sight.
Now a couple miles away, Catwoman took a gamble and sped around the truck that was now driving down Greenwood Avenue on the adjacent road, speeding to the intersection between it and Dushku Street, ejecting and climbing the building closest to her in seconds. As she pulled out a tracer-type bolas and watched the truck's approach, she was hoping that the truck's driver didn't see her, otherwise things were about to get even more dicey.
"Tell me when, Batman."
"Hold on...Now!"
Her catlike reflexes kicked in and she managed to actually hit the bottom left corner of the truck's bumper with the bolas.
"Yes! Helena, stay on it. I've got an ass to kick.", she said, climbing back down to street level in seconds.
Helena was finally able to drop from her overly high altitude and was preparing to get back on the ground via her ejector seat and glide cape, when suddenly The Wing lurched forward.
"What the hell?"
Barbara answered her question as Helena picked up speed and immediately started running diagnostics.
"The Batplane from the Asylum's on you."
"Run a scan on it, see if it has a weak point."
"Scanning...okay, I can see a few points of interest, but you need to focus on getting away from it and out of sight right now."
"Yeah, no shit!", Helena yelled as her plane again shook violently, undoubtedly due to the weapons of the craft behind her.
Below her, racing through the streets towards the fun she could hear through her comms, Selina heard this and let out something between an exasperated sigh and an angry yell before turning around and heading back to her original target.
George ran a few more evasive maneuvers after they stopped and he got out to remove the little unwelcome gift Catwoman had planted on the truck before finally heading out of Tricorner and into The Financial District along Gail Simone Boulevard.
"Everyone ready?", George asked through his wrist watch comm link as he started to slow down and pulled the truck into a back alley a block away from their intended target, The Gotham Stock Exchange.
"We're ready, pull over.", Alexi answered him.
George grabbed the duffle bag concealing his rifle from the seat beside him and stepped out, alongside Alexi. The team of the most experienced knights available to them in this city being led by the top two soldiers in all of the Outlaws didn't look like much, as, other than Alexi, they all had to be in disguise. George was dressed in a garbage worker jumpsuit, the rest in more casual clothing. Alexi was the only one who even wore their standard body armor, and only because he had to in order to operate his precious electro-gauntlets.
"Please tell me we aren't walking into a fuss like this?"
"We are, you aren't."
"Bollocks, don't tell me I have to-"
"Your job is to get up on that roof, and warn us if a silent alarm goes off and the politsiya start to show up.", Alexi informed him while pointing to a tall building across from the exchange.
"You know, being the best shot we have other than Lawton shouldn't feel like this much of a pain."
Alexi laughed and the two shook hands before George ran off to the building he was headed to, across the street and two blocks down.
"Damn durak. Come."
The four recruit knights under his command followed behind him. He didn't like it, but using Gotham natives definitely made sense, and they didn't exactly have a choice. Not with the Paladins split up, securing their few scattered criminal operations throughout the world, and with the Senior Knights picking up the slack.
Alexi had to admit, for all it's troubles, he would be happy when they'd finished establishing themselves in Gotham. They had a home in 'Eth Alth'eban, sure, but it just wasn't the same as having something of their own, and Alexi himself disliked being in that snake pit. He disliked being near the Al Ghul family even more. He was thankful when they finally saw their meeting point, The Gotham Stock Exchange's back entrance. Rose, Paladin Buck and her charge, Harvey Dent, were all standing in a group around a barrel fire along the wall of the building opposite as Alexi's team walked to meet them.
"He's not coming, is he?", the half-blind woman asked before Alexi could so much as greet her.
"No, he's not."
"Bats?"
"Bats."
"Damn."
"Yeah, well, he'll be okay. He said-"
"I'm still going to."
"I know. Now can we get along with this? I haven't been this cold since Russia."
"Yeah, we should get a move on. Dent?"
"Follow our lead.", the man in a mismatched black and white suit replied as he headed towards the two security guards posted on the door who had been eyeing them but hadn't yet called it in. As this happened, a certain curious cat watched from the sidelines, already knowing just who they were there to see.
"Babs, have I lost it?", Helena said into her comms as she slowly glided through the clouds, the propulsion system practically off and the plane's stealth hardware working to its fullest.
"The imaging from the Wing is picking it up headed for the airspace around the tracker, so I think not."
"Okay, then, how do I take it down?"
"You have to fly above and just past it, then let Bruce take over the Wing and glide down to it."
"What?"
"It's a manned aircraft that may or may not have bombs inside it, Helena, you can't just shoot it down over the city."
"Uh, I can't fly in front of it while in stealth mode, either!"
"You can't but the Wing can. Bruce'll take over, just get ready to glide out the back."
"Alright...he better not mess it up, this jalopy can't take much more."
She got up and armed herself before heading to the back of the plane, hanging on to both of the safety bars as the bay opened.
"Jump when I tell you...Now!"
Helena jumped into the clouds from the nigh-invisible black jet, straight onto the bigger and badder version of it. The mag-grips she'd taken from The Wing thankfully stuck her to it.
"Now what!?", she had to scream against the wind.
"The scan indicated the only person there is driving it. Knockout the targeting and recon systems by planting a timed charge there.", Bruce replied as he added a ping on her HUD located along the base and just below the left wing of the craft, "Then glide off before it detonates."
"Got it!"
"We need to see the broker.", Two-Face said to one of the door guards as he handed him a black, blank, business card that Alexi couldn't make out. Said guard stepped inside for a second before stepping back out.
"He'll see you.", the bald man said as he hit a hidden panel on the wall behind him, causing a reserved parking space nearby to split down the middle, the two halves sliding in either direction to reveal a staircase.
"This way.", Two-Face said, taking the lead down. Alexi was last in line, as the four knights had stayed above, and as the doors closed above him, he heard saw some kind of explosive go off in the distant sky.
No time to worry about Lawton now.
The group walked down what felt like two stories of stairs before they stopped at a door. Two-Face said something through an intercom and the steel door they had stopped at slowly unlocked before swinging open. The Underbrokerage, as the sign above the door read, was a literal dark reflection of the trading floor of the stock exchange building (Dark Knight Rises) above, with a massive floor presumably meant for clients from around the globe buying and selling on behalf of the gangsters, drug lords, and supervillains they represented. Besides the guards, though, who all wore strange skin-tight masks that completely masked their identities and grey uniforms, no one was around.
The silence of the room chilled the Moscow native to the bone as Two-Face led them through the room and to a door on the wall opposite the entrance.
When they got near it, the door, as the entrance door had, took a while opening. Before swinging open. They then had to walk up one flight of stairs before finally getting eyes on the "Underbroker". The man whose name Alexi didn't even know yet, nor did he care to, was wearing the same faceless mask worn by all in his employ, with a ridiculously awful red and black suit that put Jason's to shame. Alexi could barely hold back his own laughter at the man. Thankfully, Two-Face spoke to the man who was standing, looking down the room below.
"I wanted to come by, introduce my new friends. They sprung me from the-"
"I know what they did. And I know what you did. I may not be Batman, but I'm not stupid, Mr. Dent. You shouldn't have some here."
The group put their arms up as the four guards from around the room all leveled their submachine guns. Rose looked over her shoulder at him and nodded as the faceless man gave some who-gives-a-shit speech to Dent about how secrecy was his strength and that's why they had to die or some such shit. A signal Alexi understood perfectly. He blasted the two closest to him with his gauntlets before they knew what was happening and Rose threw two daggers at the ones he couldn't get. She dashed then forward and jump-kicked their boss in the forehead, sending him flying into the bulletproof glass he'd been standing in front of.
"Keep the room secure!", upon that order from Rose, Dent and Buck took out their sidearms. Rose, for her part, took the revolver The Underbroker had been attempting to take out when she'd taken him down from his coat pocket. Alexi merely walked out of the entrance to the Underbroker's office and engaged the enemy.
Alexi killed two guards who'd been storming up the stairs by getting close and snapping their necks simultaneously. When the other dozen began to shoot at him, now standing in the doorway into the main trading floor, he used his immense, mostly artificial strength to slam the massive door and keep it shut as they now pounded on it. That was, until the knights from upstairs made their presence known, ambushing the security team from behind using automatic Roi Arms pistols, killing them all in seconds.
Okay, starting to like these novichki.
Dick and Tim had chased the Hood through apartments and across rooftops in Tricorner for what felt like an hour before the Hood got into a parked black and red car, and took the chase across Tricorner Channel and into Old Gotham. They recalled their bikes and gave chase to the man who was weaving in and out of traffic as a police helicopter lit up his location for them and he made his way along Caine Boulevard, through The Financial District and The Cauldron. Waiting for him and blocking off the route to Chinatown over Finger River, was The Batmobile. It was a swift turn to avoid the tank-like one-seater, but the man in the mask managed, turning left.
"He's heading for Dini Bridge!"
"The cops are already shutting it down, keep him moving and make him stop.", Bruce said over the comms.
"Can do!"
Jason felt tempted to just continue on and activate his car's aquatic mode, simply vanishing into the water. But he still had to maintain some semblance of cover that he was just a hood, and not the hood, so he instead chose for a more "discreet" way out. He took a second and then a third left turn, The Batmobile on his heels with The Birds not too far behind it.
Now driving down Dietrich Baker Street, and towards the place where Finger River was at its thinnest, Jason deactivated his car's speed limiter and retracted its side mirrors. The car immediately rocketed down the deserted street, making sure the way was clear of people for his little stunt. Near the cut off, he turned ever so slightly to the left and, due to his immense speed, he felt himself and his car go weightless, together flying over the small, abandoned docking platform.
He wasn't going nearly fast enough to fly all the way across the river, but he did manage to land in his intended target: a very large and abandoned drainage pipe just big enough to accommodate his car with the side mirrors retracted he'd seen criminals try and fail to use on the run from cops since he was a boy. The car's armor held, thankfully, and he stopped as fast as he could before he crashed into the walls of the gothic, ancient sewers of The Somerset District, now free from The Bats.
He felt so lucky given that he'd actually managed to pull that off, that he risked a third incursion into Oracle's system.
"-just happened?!"
"I...it...I don't know, Nightwing. I do know that Catwoman, Batgirl and Spoiler are headed for Amusement Mile, and that I want you with them."
Drake tentatively replied, "Is it The Joker?"
"Maybe. B-", Jason didn't need to hear any more. He shut down the back door and pulled up a map of the Gotham Underground. Hitting the autopilot to take him to a different sewer exit along Sprang River, he lost all investment with even attempting to keep up the façade that he was almost certain The Bats had been able to see through. He activated the Gear Up protocol and selected both his personal armor, and personal arms.
As the car's interior morphed into a small, one-seat armory, he could think of nothing more than one mantra he kept repeating to himself: He won't escape this time.
After she wordlessly relieved Selina of her charge so that she could go meet up with Dick and Tim, Huntress waited and stalked her prey of four from the top of a broken light pole, a clunky teargas bolt loaded into her crossbow. As she waited, she eventually heard the sound of that damned Garbage Truck from earlier fast approaching. She went to the roof via her grappling gun, activating her mask's visual and audio aids to finally get some actually covert detective work done. The driver, the same man from earlier, got out and was met by the group who'd been down in...whoever it was the big Russian was carrying over his shoulder's secret lair.
The white haired and visually impaired woman from earlier along with the men in casual clothes followed closely behind, and as the three talked, Helena carefully glided down, avoiding their distracted gazes, and landed deftly upon the roof of their vehicle, now watching and listening through a remote controlled batarang.
"So, he wasn't lying?", the driver asked the woman.
Two Face, who was walking up the staircase now alongside a blond in a leather jacket with a large duffle bag, interrupted her reply.
"No, we weren't."
"Don't interrupt me again. Buck, what'd you find?"
"Graves didn't get to activate his secondary contingency plan, so we now have access to all the blackmail he was using to keep City Hall off his back for all these years. His records and accounts along with the contents of his safe-", she patted the duffle bag on her back as she spoke, "-are ours as well, but I couldn't access his clients' cryptocurrency accounts with just the information here, not without more time."
"That's fine, paladin, we can do that using his device, here. Stellar work."
"Good, now let's go home."
"Can't. The Redwing is down and the police are monitoring the harbors. We're spending the night in the city.", she turned to one of the hoods in the back, "So I hope the little base you have here is secure."
"It is, ma'am. Plenty secure."
"Good, then let's head over there. Load up, people. Buck, start looking through those records, I want to know how Joker got that damn bomb. George, you've managed to not get us noticed by cops so far. Think you can keep it up, or do you want me to take the wheel?"
"I got it, thanks."
Everyone other than the driver got in the back, while he got back in his seat. The truck was barely on when Bruce came through her comms.
"Helena, mark that car with your symbol so that we can use CCTV to track it. You need to get over to Amusement Mile, now."
"What? But I-"
"You did good, but there's a more pressing issue there, and I want the rest to have all the capable backup possible. You're capable, so mark it and get a move on."
"...That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me.", she said with a genuine shock in her voice as she started spray-painting a crude version of her Huntress emblem onto the truck's roof.
"Just get to the carnival."
Bruce, now thoroughly done with his state of disability, wished he had taken Dick's advice and stayed for extra time using the resources of The Watchtower to heal himself. He considered going back, but quickly decided that, for better or worse, he couldn't just leave when The Jokerz were, reportedly, tearing up their usual haunt without a care in the world. Possibly, even, staging a trap for his family.
Barbara was currently looking into the new mystery of just how the Outlaw Batwing had just vanished from her scanners a few miles off the coast, and a system-wide incursion alarm. He didn't like leaving his children without a mission coordinator, but they could manage for just a few minutes as he pulled out what few stops he could without outright admitting defeat and sending out a league distress call. Alfred helped him stand so that he could hobble to another end of the Batcave, the entrance to the Maintenance Wing. The Maintenance Wing was a mess of the many, many cars, boats, and planes that kept them mobile.
In the center of the massive mechanic shop for bat-themed engines of war that was manned by reprogrammed Lexcorp robot combat units made into workers, was one of Bruce's most important tech developers and maintainers, Harold Allnut. The man was hard at work fixing the intensive damage done to his newest Batwing. Without even looking back the handyman, who was currently working vertically on an opened panel of the circuitry of the left wing with a pair of wire cutters in one hand and spare circuits in the other, started speaking.
"If you need more air support, have the bots pull out an older model. I'm gonna need a couple days with this one."
"I will. Is the Thrasher's VR link operational?" (Court of Owls, prototype)
"Not calibrated as much as I'd like, but it'll work if we're in a bind."
"Good...what about the drop pod?"
"Completely, but you'll need a bigger 'Wing if you wanna play it like that."
"I do. Is the Recon Model-?" (Arkham Origins)
"Operational. Me and the bots need a few minutes to get it out for you."
"Good, there's no time to spare."
"I can fly it too, if you need."
"...Thank you."
"You don't need to thank me Bruce, just have Alfred make Italian tonight. And tell Huntress to work on her "flying"."
Bruce somehow smirked in the middle of the pandemonium going on around him at Harold's jab at Helena, but quickly went back into the main section of the Batcave, right back to the Batcomputer. Laboriously sitting down in his chair once more, Bruce called his friend and one of his closest, oldest allies; Jim Gordon.
"Batman? What is happening in the city, I've got-"
"Put all the calls you get about The Red Hood on hold, I need your strike team along with any cops you can spare without shutting down the manhunt for the escapees at Amusement Mile, now. I'll explain everything later, Jim, just trust me."
"...Alright. Better be a hell of an explanation."
That done, he considered waking up the injured Thomas Blake, but Catman was almost finished healing and without the Thrasher or even Harold, all that remained to protect them from threats that made it inside were fallible automated security systems. Blake had become the second to last line of defense if The Outlaws showed up at their doorstep, with the final one being Alfred's elephant gun and double barrel.
He then moved on to checking on the allies they had in the city that could possibly help via the Batcomputer.
"Status report on all stationary members of the subject group labeled Friends of the Family: Gotham."
"Jack Rider status: working. Holly Robinson status: home. Rory Regan: unknown. Renee Montoya: unknown. Onyx Adams: on vacation. Gavin King: on vacation. Theodore Grant: home. Jason Blood: home. Kate Spencer: home."
An aging boxer, a demon, and an insane reporter's split personality. Well, better than nothing.
As he piloted the fast-moving submarine form of his "car" through the murky depths of The Sprang River, Jason received a call, immediately hearing his girlfriend on the other end when he answered.
"Can you at least wait until I can make it there?"
"Can you make it here in...three minutes?"
"Jason, I-"
"I didn't want them to come out when you're halfway across town, Rose, it's just how it happened."
"Is there any way I can convince you to just leave The Jokerz to The Bats?"
"...I'm sorry, Rose."
"I know...please, stay safe."
"I'll try, babe. Call Antonio, tell him to meet up with us if he can, at that little outpost of his. Time we start planning for the future. If today's any indication, playing it by ear isn't gonna go well. By the way, you might wanna knockout the CCTV in the area and abandon that truck."
"What? Damn it, I gotta go. I love you."
"Love you more. Stay safe.", When she cancelled the call, Jason stopped watching her through the same cameras Babs probably was, getting to work on checking his armaments and his suit.
He had just finished when the autopilot announced that they'd arrived at the base of the concrete structure that separated Amusement Mile from the Gotham bay. He got onto the roof of his barely emerged craft, jumping up from it and hoisting himself up and unto the circus grounds that once were a place of such joy, such wonder. The plot he was on, in fact, was the very plot where once, he'd watched The Flying Graysons in their final act from a hole in their massive tent.
He chastised himself for losing focus and stole a Harley parked in the nearby parking lot of The Gotham Zoo, speeding past the people lining the streets, running away from the main fairgrounds. He'd barely passed by The Excelsior Motel when he first heard the gunshots.
Dick was again taking the lead in the group, determined to not fail this time. The group of heroes driving motorcycles, Catwoman and the Batmobile close behind them, nearly flew over the Western Miagani Bridge into Amusement Mile. They all drove straight for the sounds of gunshot in the main fairground plot, carefully avoiding fleeing residents. The Batmobile and their bikes had to unfortunately remain behind, forcing them to run on foot through the state fair.
They periodically found remains of innocents, which infuriated them, yes, but Dick was more interested in the remains of armed Joker henchmen found alongside them. It was par for the course, yes, to find a few henchmen taken down by armed civilians or cops, but this was...more. The dead clowns seemed to outnumber the people they'd slain.
The hell?
Pushing those thoughts from his mind, Dick continued on and the rest of the family followed suit, but they just kept finding even more dead clowns as they approached the main circus tent. Now, they were strewn about as if they'd been shot up by a military, no deceased civilians or cops around to explain them. They finally made it inside the main tent, finding the source of the shots they'd been hearing since their arrival.
It was him, The Red Hood. The blank yet more expressive helmet (DC Rebirth), the advanced body armor obviously designed to mimic their own, right down to the sigil on it's chestplate being a twisted mirror to that of Batman himself, all underneath a black long coat.
And he was currently waging a one-man war on The Joker's men.
Jason was so happy to tear apart the clowns in the tent, he'd almost shot the one in charge in his slaughter of them, before he'd realized he needed the psychopath. Before he was able to kill the freak's last few henchmen, of course, The Bats arrived to both spoil his fun, and stop him from getting his hands on Joker. Dickie was the first one in, and he threw two wingdings at both of Jason's wrists, in an attempt to stop his dual execution of the last two remaining soldiers he'd need to take down before interrogating the clown commander.
His armor, however, was handcrafted so that old tricks like that didn't work, with the customized shuriken bouncing off in a frits of electricity as he took his two shots, ending both of the so-called men cowering on the ground before him. He then turned and hit the Joker lieutenant still alive with a knockout dart from his gauntlet, wheeling around on the fast approaching Bats. Dick slammed into him with the full-force of a Bat, causing Jason to immediately go on the defensive, blocking or dodging Dick's attempts to hit anywhere but his helmet or chestplate, the areas best protected against electric attacks. Before he could gain the offensive, he felt his replacement hit his left knee with that stupid staff of his, putting him on one knee. He had to shoot Dick off of him to get back up, focusing on Drake.
As he stood, he heard a beep sound as a small concussive device and one of the newest Robin's little "Snap-Flash" toys planted on his back detonated, blasting him forward. Before the boy who'd planted the device and Selina could launch at him, thinking him off his game just because he'd been surprised and knocked off his feet, Jason held out his left gauntlet and blasted them with Futurum Tech's version of Crane's fear toxin.
He looked around, seeing that the boy's girlfriend and Bertinelli were attempting to get the clown he'd been after away from him.
The realization hit him in a second that the only one not accounted for, then, was Cain's daughter, who rocked his body with an assault on his turned back. His armor stopped the real damage, but the pain was still there. He turned and attempted to pistol-whip the girl, but she dodged it and anticipated his move of bringing his other gun around to shoot her cowl, dashing out of the way and staying behind him, while continuing to hit everywhere she could. To get her out of his way, he had to freeze her legs using a freeze blast from his left gauntlet, instantly encasing her legs in ice, binding her to that spot. She was still attempting to hold him down as he made a mad dash for the carnival tent entrance.
Now back on his feet and looking completely pissed at Jason's refusal to "fight fair", i.e. lose the fight already, Dick threw an Escrima at his feet, and when he jumped it, he threw the other at the man's Red Helmet, knocking him to the side. However, he then made the mistake of trying to engage him using only one escrima, and Jason took advantage of his knowledge on how Dick fought to correctly guess that he'd attack with the stick hand before the bare one, allowing him to trap that arm in his own, grab the other as it swung for his head, and then activate the taser function of his Bat emblem, putting Dick down for what, Jason hoped, would be the count. He was running out of ways to surprise them.
He hit the obviously panicked but still remarkably stable Robin and Catwoman on the ground with darts of antidote for his strain of fear toxin, which prevented the permanent psychological damage the strain usually caused, but knocked them unconscious as an intentional side effect of that process.
Helena, Stephanie and the unconscious Jokerz lieutenant they unfortunately had to protect were almost to the police blockade in front of the Excelsior when they heard a bike rev behind them. They turned and saw the Hood from the tent, whom Helena guessed was the hood based on the fact that he'd managed to take on a small army of clowns along with the three most well-trained members of their little team and walk away, flying down the street on the back of some schmuck's harley, straight at them.
Helena quickly swapped the tear gas bolt in her bow for an electric one, as she shouted for Steph to take the clown to the cops, who were watching but under orders to hold position only one small block away. She fired right at him, aiming for the weak point between where the bat symbol he weirdly wore met with the other armor plates on his chest. She hit her mark, but the impact made him only flinch, being a flesh wound at most, and the electric surge didn't seem to affect him. Before she could even get out her Bo staff, he rode past her. She took out her grappling gun, aiming it at the man's back, but wasn't able to get the shot she had lined up with his back off before she heard a beeping sound below her. Looking down in a second, she barely had time to move before the small grenade he'd thrown at her feet detonated in a blast of knockout gas, taking her down.
Stephanie was nearly to the awaiting cops, clown on her back, when she felt the approaching juggernaut of a fighter grab her by the hood and hair, and use that grip to take her and her captive into the sky as he apparently grappled on to the roof of the nearby four story Excelsior Motel. She landed farther than he, and the clown landed even farther away. Now on her hands and knees, but still between the standing Red Hood and his target, Stephanie considered letting the two kill each other. But, as the nearby new chopper watched the interaction lit up the rooftop, she knew she couldn't. Bats never gave up, and they never stayed down. Even if just for a moment, they always picked themselves back up.
Jason had to admire Brown's tenacity, but he really had to get what he needed from the clown and leave before the en route police chopper or Gordon's strike team showed up, forcing him to take even more desperate action. But before he could take her down, they were all three surprised when...something...dropped from the sky. The metal pod opened, revealing the biggest, bulkiest Batsuit Jason had ever seen. From it, spoke the echoey voice of the Old Man.
"Spoiler, get him to Gordon's men."
As soon as the sentence was spoken, and before Spoiler could so much as turn to the man behind her, Jason took his shot. The information the man might have wasn't worth the small window he'd just been given to size up how much better his original father and master had gotten over time first hand. He'd watched from afar at times, but this...this was something else entirely.
"Actually, how 'bout you go get your friends and skedaddle before someone else does? Better yet, tell Gordon his little team and that chopper up there should do the same, unless he wants me to get even nastier."
Spoiler looked back to the enormous suit, and after it simply nodded to her, she ran to the nearby roof access door.
Bruce got into a simple stance and immediately started approaching. Jason simply put up his guns and waited for his larger opponent's first move: a punch swung hard and fast, but the suit was larger and heavier, making it less agile than Bruce was used to fighting. He ducked the punch, then dodged the kick that followed. For the first few seconds of the fight, Bruce stayed on the offensive, until Jason removed two canisters from his jacket and activated them both, surrounding them both in red smoke as he continued to dodge attacks.
Usually, fighting in smoke was a non-issue for Bruce, but he wasn't used to the way his armor moved, nor was he used to smoke disabling his HUD technology, essentially forcing him to eye-ball a fight he wasn't technically even present to fight. He immediately felt his body move as the suit did, and got warning after warning that his systems were being messed with. Targeting system down and communicator offline, with several smaller systems like air and propulsion following suit, Bruce finally managed a lucky shot, and tried to follow up.
Jason's rebuttal was to dodge his second wild punch, getting in close and using the extendable katana from his jacket to then disable the circuitry exposed on the suit's arms when the fists launched forward, disabling movement of one after another. With Bruce now only able to swing his arms using his shoulders and the red smoke subsiding, Jason stood in plain view of the cameras and of Batman, who launched from the smoke, flailing both immobile arms.
Just keep him distracted, give them more time.
Jason simply extended one arm and shot a freezing blast, one much more powerful than the one he'd iced Batgirl with, straight at the Thrasher's legs. He then ran at and flipped over the frozen-still armor, coming down with his feet on either side of the helmet and his hands on said helmet's seams. It took all the power his suit's hydraulics could give him, along with a touch of his inhuman strength, bestowed upon him by the Lazarus Pit, to rip the helmet slam off of the suit knocking Bruce out of his connection with it.
From home, from the sidelines, and from the camera within the now detached helmet in Bruce's case, everyone in Gotham watched as The Red Hood, victorious above every Bat other than the Batman himself, spoke to the helmet as if he knew Bruce could still see and hear him.
"Next time you send your toys and soldiers to take me on, Old Man, at least send ones worth my time!"
He then crushed the helmet in his own two hands, something Bruce couldn't even do, and proceeded to remove a grenade from his jacket before dropping it into the empty suit chassis below. He was already off the rooftop, jumping onto another, when the explosive went off, the blast sending the gigantic bat symbol and the arms of the suit flying in different directions.
Bruce exited the VR Pod, before looking over to Barbara.
"Tell them to come home.", he said, his eyes on the Red Hood as news coverage followed his path over Panessa Studios and into the cold waters on the other side. Before she could relay the order, the feed changed and showed a scene so horrific, even Bruce's eyes widened in shock.
Only thirty or so minutes after he'd finished off the Bat-bot or whatever it was called, and Jason was still more worried about Bruce than he was upset at the disrespect. Bruce wasn't working with the League, Talia had assured him of that, so where the hell was he? He may have underestimated The Red Hood, but The Joker captured his attention like nothing and no one else.
A fact that Jason hated, but a true one nonetheless. So, either he was missing or injured. He decided to have The Leviathan look into it.
At the moment he was too busy trying to slowly drive through and navigate the run down and yet sprawling sewer tunnels underneath his old haunt, Park Row. Also known by a different name; Crime Alley.
He knew it like the back of his hand and he knew the sewers of Gotham, but this section of it more than any other. He'd had to know it to get around whenever major shit went down in Gotham before he'd become Robin, and after Deacon Blackfire's little coup slash martyrdom attempt, he'd expanded his focus and studied the entire Gotham Underground for what little time he had left in the yellow cape.
But that was a literal lifetime ago. He hadn't taken the time to really study the underground route to Antonio's little recon bunker until now. He was just past The Wayne Foundation Chapter, when Rose called him.
"So, you're almost here?"
"Almost. Antonio there yet?"
"Yeah, and he brought some backup."
"Good, we'll probably need it."
"Yeah, especially if you keep pulling stunts like the one you just did at the State Fair."
"Yeah, yeah. Any bad news?"
"...Ask me again when you get here.", she said before cancelling the call.
So really, REALLY bad news, then.
Thirty Minutes Ago
A six year old sat with her mother in the western terminal of Gotham's Archie Goodman International Airport. The child was a Gothamite and was about to leave on vacation from her home in northern Burnside. She and her mother were still awaiting their flight when the news cut out the feed to the cartoons running in the background.
She looked up from the Robin plushie she'd been playing with, and saw that on screen, someone she'd never heard of before was fighting with her second-favorite hero, Batman. The man in red won handily, but when he finally took off Batman's helmet and she saw he wasn't there, she knew he'd planned the whole thing. She smiled to herself, knowing Batman would stop the bad guy eventually.
The man beside her mother, who wore an oversized trench coat and a hat to match, started chuckling. She smiled up at him, about to ask him if he liked Batman too, when he started laughing. Everything around them seemed to freeze, including Mary's blood. Even children her age knew that laughter, that voice.
The Clown Prince of Crime violently cackled to himself and jumped up, throwing off his disguise to reveal the purple suit getup and sinister pale face that haunted the nightmares of everyone who'd ever lived in Gotham for long as he continued to laugh. Finally speaking before the terrified crowd of people, from policemen to career criminals, vets to veterinarians, foreign delegates to people who'd never left the city, The Joker's eyes never wavered from the screen.
"Well, well...after all these years. And to think, I thought you were just some cheap knock-off...no. You've become your very own kind of psycho, haven't you?"
The clown seemed to realize he was talking to a screen and looked around, playing at embarrassment.
"Oh! I'm sorry, I forgot that I was in the middle of something.", said as he removed a small metal thing from his jacket, causing Mary's mother to squeal. The world seemed to regain it's movement as people clambered either straight towards or straight away from the clown, who had his thumb over a button on one end of the small cylinder he was holding, smiling wide again and looking right into the girl's soul.
She heard guns, but she never looked away, her mother holding her tight as she could, knowing they couldn't stop whatever was coming and paralyzed by fear. As the two-person family cried, The Joker smiled as wide as he could, before he pressed the button. Gas filled the room in seconds, and everyone within the terminal laughed as hard as they physically could, just like the Joker.
The last image the six year old Mary ever saw was the Jester of Genocide pulling her toy from her arms as her face asphyxiated into a grin even more horrific than his own.
Hector was a member of the Batfamily who got the ole' character assassination bug and then murdered in Batman: Hush so that the story would seem more serious. A hunchback mute beforehand, he sold out Bruce in that story for a surgical procedure to make himself normal that someone with Bruce's connections with the JLA totally could've gotten him at any point years beforehand. Guess what happened in this timeline? Did you guess that he just...asked Bruce for some help instead of betraying the man who saved his life and took him in? If so, you get a cookie.
Also, for future reference, I've been and will continue to use the Gotham City map made by AspieCrow on DeviantArt. It has a couple problems, yeah, but so do all of them. It was the most clear, concise map I could find that made relative sense. You don't exactly need to have the map on another tab or anything, but looking over it would make this chapter and following ones that involve lots of movement around the city more coherent.
Finally, if you have seen any issues or have any suggestions, there's no harm in letting me know through a review.