"So, whatcha got for me?", Ravager asked her fellow "Hand" as she watched Jason give her one final glance over his shoulder before disappearing further into the building.
An awake but obviously worn out Bane answered her, "You and a team of knights are on a special job we need done while Lawton and Petrov lead men to handle the more rutinario side of the take over."
"Wait, you're trusting those two to get along well enough to lead what's practically an invasion?"
"What you'll be doing can't wait. And, no, I'm having Valley go in your place."
"I thought Jason put him on the Es Securus investigation?"
"He hit a dead end."
"Then why not have him do whatever-"
"Because while I trust him with tactics, I don't trust him with finesse as much as I do you, Asesina."
"...Fine. What's the mission?"
"You and the men who'll be with you soon are heading to a warehouse by Ward Channel. We just got word from our people looking over the data you stole from Graves, and he was keeping strange files on a group he labeled "The Court", and on places throughout the city in connection with them like that one. When he was asked about this, Harlan became terrified that we knew anything at all and proceeded to break his own wrists in what we thought was an escape attempt...until he then bashed his own cabeza in on the concrete floor."
"Shit...yeah, this needs looking in to, at least. But Alexi's going to need all the men we can spare. Have someone else guard mine and Jason's room, send the Sentinels with me."
"...Okay, I'll have a few of the knights I was sending with you relieve them."
"Thank you."
Rose only had to wait a few more minutes before The Sentinels, anxious to finally leave The Monarch, showed up in full battle gear.
As she explained the details of their job, an ex religious assassin and two ex thugs, now three battlefield commanders, stood on the roof of the building. They all watched on their HUDs as, slowly, Lawton, the scattered majority of the Paladins, almost every knight, and the militiamen they now commanded throughout the district left the theater and got into their positions, awaiting the coming order to strike. Behind the three, Jean-Paul Valley, Alexi Petrov and George Kingston, was every Senior Paladin that they had, a detachment of twenty three men and women, watching and waiting for their commands.
Valley had agreed with Bane's approach for the most part, and had the knights and militia act in accordance with it, but had The Paladins and a few of the senior most knights diverted from their roles leading their lesser knights and the militia throughout the city.
"So, Valley, what's the plan?", Alexi finally asked as he but his helmet on, it's disguiser activating mid-sentence.
Jean-Paul, dressed in full battle regalia (New 52) for the first time since coming back to Gotham, turned to his two cohorts and said, "The plan is for us to wait and watch. Batman may not have shown before, but I am certain that both he and the GCPD will be waiting and ready for the unavoidable noise our actions tonight will make. Should they...or, perhaps worse, The Masks show, I need to know a force such as this one is waiting in the wings."
"...So we all just wait around in this one spot and watch, then?"
"Hardly. Have your men break off into teams of four, including George here. They will each report to a different specific rooftop in a different section of the district, making sure your men can counteract trouble wherever it arises, as soon as it does. The two of us will remain here."
"Lawton and all his "knights" can't watch their own backs?", George asked in spite of the masked glare Alexi sent his way, tired of being put on overwatch.
"No; they don't have enough trained men to watch every inch of the district. Otherwise we would be taking Somerset itself right now, not just The Bowery."
"Hmpf."
Alexi spilt his men up accordingly, while, only a few blocks away, Lawton and his eight man team of two senior knights, four knights of standard skill, and two militiamen who were soon to be knights if they survived the fight they were about to walk into. They stood in a stopped elevator, checking and rechecking their weapons, the elevator door and the fact that they were waiting on the order the only things stopping them from stepping into the hallway of the top floor of The Gotham Arms Hotel, taking out the two idiots guarding the door into the hideout of the biggest, baddest "gang", in The Bowery: the remnants of the Street Demonz who'd plagued Gotham since before Floyd had even been in the life.
One of the militiamen, a man named Chester who had been working for Black Mask only two months ago, finished with his second set of tests before he put away his sidearm, taking back out the AK that he'd slung over his shoulder.
The man had been halfway through asking Floyd how much longer they'd have to wait, when an announcement came over their comms.
"Operation Vincere begins in ten seconds.", the voice they all recognized as Antonio's said.
They immediately shaped up, Lawton took a deep breath, and as soon as the countdown was over, the doors flew open and the first two shots of a district-wide battle were fired.
Back inside The Theater, the plan explained to her backup, Rose crept out of The Monarch's window exit, the wooden cover coming back up. It seemed almost too quite, now, after the cacophony of the earlier mob. Now, as an extra precaution in case of complete and utter failure, the building was quickly being made to once more look like a simple shanty town, the armed and armored guards now in the background and everyone untrustworthy either working in the field or having been turned away for the night.
The young woman took one second on the roof of the adjacent building to look back at Jean-Paul and Alexi, waving to them, before she cut off her comms so that she wouldn't be distracted by the massive battle going on around her, and she advised The Sentinels to do the same. They did as she commanded, and then followed her from that rooftop to another, quickly approaching the mission site.
Unbeknownst to her, she once more was being watched by a creature born of Gotham's unique darkness. Only where least time she had been watched by the silent guardians of the innocent, The Bats, very different eyes now watcher her from distant rooftops.
The eyes of a myth. The eyes of a Talon.
Meanwhile...
"Bruce, I thought you said all of us needed training?"
"I did."
"Then you wannna tell me why you're currently in Gotham Heights?"
Bruce smiled as he watched through a pair of Batnoculars, as Tim called them, in his right hand with his other on his comms link.
"You know me, Selina...working is my training."
"Yeah, yeah. Just be safe, okay? You're the big, bad bat and all, but that doesn't make you invincible."
"I never thought I'd see the day when you would have that talk with me."
"Oh, I would've beaten you out there if not for the Wildcat comment. I'm not spending a week drinking nothing those awful protein shakes of his."
Bruce now full-on smiled, though she couldn't see it through the camera on his cowl.
"I'll be safe."
"Thank you."
The call over, Bruce dropped the smile and Batman's trademark scowl came forth. He'd been looking through an open window on the twenty third floor of Skyrise Apartments, into a room shared by two suspects in the Archie Goodwin case. Airport security guards who didn't show for work that day, and who hadn't been seen since. Earlier in the day GCPD officers had found dead Jokerz behind the building in an alley, and camera footage showed a member of the Outlaws, a "knight" if he was correct, kill them with an automatic weapon before shooting the camera as well.
They're most likely kidnapped already...or worse. But maybe the apartment can point me to where they were taken.
He thought as he jumped into the air, using his cape to glide across the street, slipping into the woods window and closing it behind him. He stalked through the apartment on high alert, ready for an ambush.
When he found no person and was sure there were no bombs or traps in the residence waiting for him, he immediately started his hunt for clues. He searched everywhere, searching for a connection back to Joker. While he did find signs of a struggle, with some chairs flipped over and the kitchen table turned on its side, he found nothing to indicate these men had so much as known who Joker was.
These Outlaws...they know too much. Even experts usually leave behind...something. Before, with their awareness of our movements, I could chalk that up to luck or to their intrusion into our the Batcomputer...this...this is something else. The Red Hood knows me, and I need to find out how.
"Oracle, are you certain they can't access the computer anymore?"
"I'm not even certain they could before, Bruce. But, yes, if try to access our systems tonight or in the future, I'll know it and their location."
"Good. I want you to do a search for me. All known allies or enemies we have capable of something like what the Red Hood has done. Someone dangerous and close to our family or to me, who'd be charismatic and skilled enough to create these Outlaws."
"That list'll probably be as long as Superman's-"
"We'll shorten it later through the process of elimination. For now just get started on it, or hand it off to Alfred. Your choice."
"Take extra work or make Alfie work even harder? What kind of choice is that?"
"An easy one to make for someone as good-natured as you. Get it done."
Barbara huffed before the line went dead. Bruce continued to search, finding nothing, and eventually decided to simply call in their disappearance to the GCPD through an anonymous phone call. He'd just finished with that, when Oracle came over the line again.
"Just so you know, something's going in The Bowery.", Barbara said over his line. Bruce looked out the window and into easternmost section of Somerset, the worst part of Gotham's worst district. When Bruce asked what she meant, she went on to say, "I've got a spike in 911 calls all over the place, people are reporting men in red masks with guns moving throughout it. Not only that, but we just had an informant call in about some massive recruitment drive he missed that ended only hours ago, saying that everyone across The Bowery not in with a gang, even a few gangs themselves, have flocked to The Outlaws at their base somewhere in Park Row, following their moves against The Jokerz over the past couple days. He even said he knew where the base itself was...but he had to go before he could actually tell me."
"So you think the Red Hood now has a much larger army, and that he's putting it to use securing his hold on the only territory in Gotham he won't have to fight Black Mask for."
"Yes. It's just...that doesn't make any sense. Trying to secure The Bowery, it's suicide."
"Maybe so, but so was attacking The Jokerz right in The Narrows, and the Hood did that. Something tells me these Outlaws don't put much faith in caution."
"That's an understatement. Dad's going to close off Bermejo Avenue along with the Sprang, Morrison, and Madison bridges, and to keep his best men on standby. But the GCPD can't have another Archie Goodwin Attack, so he's making sure to keep cops on standby throughout the city."
"Good."
"You sure you don't want me to send any-"
"I'm sure."
The conversation firmly over, Bruce let his hand fall from his comm link and opened the window before jumping through it, quickly gliding downward and to the awaiting Batmobile. He then drove, as fast as he could without hitting a car, through the busy streets of Gotham Heights and into the nigh-deserted streets of The Bowery. Crossing the soon to be closed Sprang Bridge, he left the Batmobile on lock-down in an alley off of Wilson street, near Neo Eden Park.
He'd only just gotten onto the roof of the nearby building when he heard the sounds of battle coming from said park, a run down and decrepit version of what once was a decent place to visit. The past month, a gang of Neo Nazis from Faucet City called, "The Sons of Valhalla" had moved into it, and Bruce had been trying to find time to remove them, the newest stain on an already filthy painting. Now, in the distance, he watched a massive crowd of at least forty men storm the park, executing whatever Sons they could find. They'd apparently already destroyed the gang's bikes and cars with some explosive, and were now simply mopping up an already beaten foe.
Bruce was tempted to leave the murderous "Aryans" to their fates...but, alas, he was Batman, so he had to try.
Even for scum.
He glided into the park in the dead of night, silent as he could, and landed unnoticed upon the roof of the only real structure beyond a few bathrooms in the park: the old arboretum, and the Sons' main headquarters. From the roof, he could hear gunshots inside but couldn't see inside without showing himself. He crept along the roof until he finally came to the roof above the center room, which was mainly glass, giving him a look inside. His look came seconds before the man in charge, one he'd already identified as one, Benjamin Pike, was executed by a gunshot. A man that he assumed was a "Knight" of some rank, led three of his fellow knights into the center, smoking gun still in hand, as more men and women in less impressive outfits with less impressive gear swarmed around them, quickly flowing through the room and deeper into the building.
Attacking dozens of men this well equipped head on in a wide-open space is suicide.
Even as he reminded himself of that, Bruce had to hold himself back from breaching through the roof and engaging the Outlaw forces. The man in the middle, who he guessed was in charge of this group and it's mission in Neo Eden, put away his weapon and pressed a few buttons on the arms of his gauntlet before holding one and bringing it closer to his face, speaking into it.
"Report in."
Three more voices, all similarly distorted, came voiced that their sectors were secure before the man in the hood simply replied "Good work, people. Regroup on me.", and pressed a few more buttons before speaking once more. "Commander, area secure."
A voice Bruce immediately recognized through his mask's pseudo disguiser as belonging to Floyd Lawton answered him, "Good. Keep it that way. Make sure we leave no stone unturned."
"Understood."
The man then ordered his men to preform the tasks asked of them, and right when they started to settle down, believing the coast was clear, right when Bruce was about to sneak into the room and begin dismantling the group, Nightwing came over the comm.
"Wait, Bruce."
"What is it?"
"Babs' cameras just picked up something you'll want to see.", Dick said before sending a new video to Bruce's HUD, which he opened with the press of a button on his cowl. Dick had been right in saying he'd want to see what he now did: video proof that Rose Wilson, The Ravager, one of the most deadly assassins in the world and a woman the two of them had been trying to tie to The Outlaws for a long time, operating in Gotham alongside shadowy figures wearing advanced combat armor, all of them in theme with The Red Hood and his men. The group appeared to have been heading in one direction before getting distracted and descended from a rooftop into an alley, where they stopped and killed a mugger in the middle of his robbing a woman with a knife. Then, as if the act meant nothing to the woman who'd beheaded a man, they flipped and leaped and climbed back onto a nearby rooftop, continuing on their way.
"Where is she?"
"This was taken a few minutes ago near the Islamic Cultural Center, and, based on her direction, I'd say she's headed for one of the warehouses near the Ward Channel."
"Got it, I'm heading there now. And, Nightwing?"
"Yeah, Bruce?"
"Get back. In. The dojo."
Dick huffed and Bruce, regrettably, had to leave taking down the hoods in the park for another day.
If anyone can tell me what's really going on it's her. Time to see if she really can see the future.
Half an hour later.
Finally, almost an hour after leaving the theater, after constant interruptions like needing to aid their other forces or help civilians caught up in the chaos slowly consuming The Bowery, Ravager stood on a building across the street from her target, the last building on the right side of Palance Street before it crossed with Ward Highway. She could see using her mask's bi-nock technology, that the surrounding bridges were raised. The GCPD was trying to block them in. The streets were empty, save from cars that were being driven by those trying in vain to flee from the reckoning The Outlaws had brought to them.
People had already gone inside, or lay dead. Militiamen and gang members, even a few knights lay in the streets, dead. Distant gunfire put her mind back on her assignment, and she looked across the highway below and at the small, square, and windowless storage warehouse. The sentinels stood close to her, watching in all directions. Four of them had already been sent down onto street level to scope out the building, and they were simply waiting on the go ahead by that group to move in.
Unbeknownst to her, The Batman was watching her group from a few rooftops away using his Batnoculars. Kneeling, shadowed and confused.
What's in Ward Channel so important that The Red Hood would send one of his deadliest fighters to investigate it in the middle of a war? What did I miss?
These thoughts boggling Bruce's mind almost clouded it enough for the man he felt behind him to slice him in two. Almost. The Caped Crusader sidestepped the bronze blades that would've come down on the top of his head, turned to face his opponent, and kicked him in the chest, all in one fluid motion. The man flew with the kick and flipped, back on him in a second. As Batman dodged and ducked swings of the twin swords, he absorbed what little he could about his new enemy.
Black and brown uniform. Bronze accents. Kunai across chest. Small arrows on right wrist. Left wrist armored. Big, grey goggles. Chest emblem, right gauntlet and overall iconography based on...Owls?
His assessments of his foe's looks and equipment down, Bruce began taking the fight seriously. The man was excellent with the blades, but Bruce could handle it and chose it over range, as the man's gear seemed to imply that ranged combat was more his speed. He kept close yet stayed fast, using the blade-catchers on his arms to fight back, but what few strikes he landed meant nothing to the attacker.
A few more seconds of mostly equal combat, and the two were locked, the Owl's swords each locked in one of Bruce's gauntlets. There, in that deadlock, Bruce's mysterious attacker first spoke beyond the odd chuckle or grunt.
"So...you're the great Batman? Color me unimpressed."
"And you're who, exactly? So many interchangeable serial killers are in my city right now, it's hard to keep track of you all."
"Oh, believe me, Dark Knight, you've never met any killer like me.", the Owl replied to the Bat, gaining the upper hand due to a surge of strength. Bruce kicked the man off of him and got a smoke to his face for his troubles. He, however, was the Batman, not the Batman's mind within an unfeeling machine, and he didn't need his eyes to see. He heard the man sheath his swords and knew in a second he had to push forward or he'd have to attempt to grab a throwing knife blind. So, he pushed from the grey fog and into the man who'd been preparing to through two daggers at him.
He grabbed the man's wrists, luckily enough, and the two once more were locked together. Now, though, Bruce wasted no time and struck the Owl in it's head with his own, to no avail. The other man's head didn't even move, leaving the two stuck like grappling sumo wrestlers. That was, until Bruce finally blinked his eyes beneath his cowl enough to be able to see once more, and used his restored vision to kick the fighter's left knee with his own left foot, putting the man on said knee.
The Owl let his daggers clatter to the floor, struggling to not let Bruce fully overtake him. Bruce was already contemplating interrogation methods when he heard a screech from above and looked up to see a fully-grown and pissed Great Horned Owl headed straight for him in a dive-bomb, talons extended. The distraction allowed the man he'd been beating to quickly get behind him and hold him still for the Owl to attack.
The feathered beast was inches from his face when, from nowhere, an electrified Escrima stick hit the bird of prey's left side, knocking it to the roof. The man holding Bruce in place bellowed.
"Amelia!", he yelled, throwing Bruce to the side to rush forward and catch the massive owl. He looked back at the original Robin, snarling out.
"If she dies, boy, SO DO YOU!"
He then threw a smoke bomb at his own feet, before vanishing with his winged companion in the few seconds the grey smoke took to dissipate. Bruce wanted to be angry, and deep down he was, but in spite of it, he took the hand Dick offered him and stood. Dick retrieved his Escrima, before turning back to him.
"The hell was that?"
Bruce answered the only way he could, starring at the spot where the man had just been.
"I've got no clue, old chum."
"...I had to come. Or, eventually, Tim was going to."
"Yeah...you're probably right.", he said, looking back to his original target and realizing in a flash that her and her group were gone. "Damnit, come on!"
Rose had already gone before she could notice the men fighting, or the arrival of her former mentor. She had received the all clear from her men surrounding the warehouse, and she led the rest of her group across to the small building, meeting up with her scouts.
"What's going on?"
"There's nothing here, far as we can tell from outside. "
"Well then, let's get inside and see if this has all been over some superstition.", she said, waving her hand for Johnson to open the door they'd been standing by.
They got inside, finding only a warehouse of common building supplies in row upon row, filling the decently-sized building. It had a concrete floor, metal walls and a metal roof, all as to be expected, and was well lit once they found the switches for the lights.
"Alright, you know the drill. Look around for anything out of the ordinary. Report anything you think might important."
The Sentinels fanned out at this order, searching the building from top to bottom.
Bruce and Dick silently landed on the roof, and the older of the pair was contemplating rising the no guarded door when his ward took out something from his own small utility belt. An advanced earpiece, it looked like.
"I took down one of their men on the way here. Hope there isn't a tracker in this thing.", he explained as he turned it on, allowing them to listen in on The Outlaw comms network.
"There's nothin' here! Just tools and shit.", they immediately heard someone exclaim.
"Yes there is, we just haven't found it. Hagan killed himself because we found out about this place, there has something to be here. Keep looking."
Dick, puzzled at Rose's words, spoke to Bruce over the transmission.
"Hagan? Isn't that the guy they kidnapped last night, Bruce? The Under-?"
"Broker. And I don't know, be quiet and we may find out."
Feeling like a scolded child, Dick let Bruce continue listening to The Outlaw conversation uninterrupted.
"-just keep looking. There has to be something here."
A few more seconds went by, with both crime fighters occasionally looking around for any more surprise attacks.
"Hey, boss! Got something over here."
Rose walked over to where Xavier had called her, the eastern corner of the building. He pulled something from behind the shelf, and handed it to her: a sheet of parchment paper, only it seemed to be relatively new. On it were two sentences, written in a cursive hand, underneath a simple yet elegant drawing of an owl sitting on a branch.
"Where is their perch, the watchers of this land? Where is their home, on this foreign sand? The hell is that supposed to mean?"
Blake Johnson, the only member of The Sentinels who'd been raised in Gotham, spoke as the group surrounded the two.
"With the owl, there, it seems like a reference to The Court of Owls. It's an old nursery rhyme from when Gotham was first colonized, meant to scare children into not talking abut their parents' secrets. In it, The Court is said to be "watching all the time" and stuff like that."
"Does the rhyme talk about their home?"
"Yeah, it's said that they watch everyone in Gotham from "A shadow perch, behind granite and...lime.".", as he finished the quote he seemed to realize something and looked over his own shoulder, past two of his fellow Sentinels, to the opposing corner. There, sat construction supplies, including a small stock of both granite and limestone.
Hearing this, Dick shared a look with Bruce just in time to see the man behind him. The same one from earlier, back for some more.
He stood on the roof of another warehouse and, with not a second to spare, Dick had to tackle his adopted father to the ground to stop the daggers he'd already thrown by the time Dick spotted him from impaling said father from behind.
"I'll get him. You stay on Ravager."
"Nightw-!"
"No time to argue, and you can't be in two places at once. They are more important than this jackass.", Dick said before throwing him the Outlaw comms link and leaping away. Bruce could only think how much hated when his sons were right as he watched his first run off after the...owl.
There's not a chance in hell that's a coincidence.
Two Sentinels moved the granite and limestone, finding a small remote with a single red button on it. Rose took it from it's place on the shelf, and crossed her fingers as she pressed the button. Immediately, the floor of the warehouse shook and began to sink, and The Outlaws all had to struggle to stay afoot after the initial jolt. As the group descended down a massive concrete shaft, going further and further into the dark underground structure, a few looked up to see that the hole left by the warehouse floor's decent made it was being closed behind them.
Bruce had come into the building at the commotion, and had to stop himself from running right into a concrete chasm. The well-lit warehouse wasn't a good place to hide, but he was lucky. The Outlaws were more concerned with their feet than what was above for the first few seconds, allowing him to quickly and quietly glide down and land in a prone position on top of one of the wider selves, far away from the consolidated group.
The Outlaws formed up in the center of the floor along the only clear part of the floor, the only space leading out not covered by a shelf and the space where the entrance wall and door had been before their decent. As they got ready for a fight, Rose said something that sent a small shiver down Bruce's spine. Something they'd both heard Jason say, in times like this.
"In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get back out again."
"Ah, caution's for bitches anyways. If you hadn't pressed it, ma'am, one of us would've.", Liam said, happy to finally be experiencing something interesting, at least.
"Yeah, yeah. Just be ready. We don't know who or what is waiting for us down here."
Meanwhile, now a block away, Dick and the mysterious stranger did battle once more, blades striking against electrified Escrima as the two fighters both tried desperately to take each other out of the equation.
"Where's your father, boy? Run off after the near-death experience?"
"No, he's fine after that pitiful excuse for a fight...how's your bird?", Dick mocked through a faked smile, genuinely worried that he'd killed such a magnificent animal.
"Oh, if she were anything but well, I'd have eviscerated you with a dagger by now, gypsy.", the man replied with smug condescension so thick it rivaled that of Lex Luthor.
"Really? That the best you got? Calling me something I'm proud to be?", Nightwing growled back. A lifetime of rich socialites looking down on him for his Romani blood had made him sensitive to the issue, but he didn't let it confuse or distract him. They'd been in a deadlock as they spoke, but as soon as he was finished with his mocking question, Dick broke that deadlock by using the concussion blast functions of his sticks to blast his opponents' blades away. He then unleashed a flurry of attacks as the man tried to gain distance and get out more weapons.
He didn't manage to take the enemy down, but it felt good to wail for a bit, and show the pretentious asshole a thing or two before he ran out of gas. The second Dick slowed down, even the tiniest bit, the Owl regained his footing, took out two knifes, and their deadlock combat continued. Eventually the man looked behind his own back and then over Dick's shoulder, before, laughingly, speaking once more.
"Hah! You truly do have potential, Grey Son.", Dick was momentarily shocked at the oddly Old World use of his name, but didn't show it, " We will meet again. For now, we both have more pressing matters to attend."
"What're you talking about?"
"I am talking about them.", he said, nodding in the direction behind Dick's back. Dick didn't stop putting pressure on the lock, but risked a glance behind himself.
Oh, no.
He barely had time to register four armored hoods heading their way from another rooftop before he was hit in the face with a smoke bomb and kicked in the side of the head so hard he hit the floor, his opponent gone before he could choke the smoke out of his lungs or wipe it from his face and domino mask. He'd only just managed to get back on his feet when he was surrounded on all sides.
These Outlaws weren't like the "Knights" Stephanie had described. Instead of thin, smooth armor, they wore suits comparable to The Red Hood's own, only with a bird symbol of the chest, unique equipment and looks for each of them, and, Dick was hoping, not as many tricks. Looking around at this, Dick said the only thing he could in such a position.
"Let's go, then."
Back in the underground, Batman watched from the shadows as the lift eventually stopped going. He estimated that they were at least fifty feet deep when it happened, and a wide, grey and silver hallway revealed itself to them, as did men armed with automatic weapons. Carnage didn't immediately start, however, the armed men in the tunnel actually welcomed them. They all wore jacketless brown suits with white undershirts and strange masks; brown and smooth, with owl-like eyes and drooped nose.
"Hello, Rose Wilson.", the front man of the group spoke in a disturbingly calm and decidedly non-lucid manner. The Outlaws, who had all been prepared for a fight, looked to her for orders. Wilson hesitated for a second without losing her composure, before asking a question in reply to the greeting.
"Who are you?"
"If you made it this far, you already know, Miss Wilson. You stand in one perch of many, all home to The Court of Owls. As for us, specifically, we are The Help."
"The Help?"
"We tend to messes and clean stains, should they present themselves."
"Oh? Are we stains, then?"
"No, Ma'am. In fact, if you hadn't forced this...rather tense meeting, you most likely would've been invited to a proper meeting place to have an audience with the whole of The Court. Now, well, Mr. Agincourt wants a talk with you. Nothing serious, just a few words before you meet with the rest."
"Hm..."
"As an added assurance of our good will, Mr. Agincourt is even allowing you to take your weapons, so long as our two groups first deal with our common enemy in the room."
What? There are no cameras, he has no technology, there's no way he...
Bruce stopped mentally debating whether or not he was the one the thin and obviously disturbed man with a Thompson gun spoke of when said man and all of his allies simultaneously looked dead at him, causing The Outlaws to do the same.
"After all, it is customary for visitors to help kill pests they allow inside, is it not?"
Before Bruce could do anything, Rose sighed a single word; "Fuck.", before she turned on her heels, and shot the man in the owl mask at point-blank range with her sidearm.
Yeah, I know you guys didn't exactly sign up for The Court of Owls, but they're one of the only things I can genuinely love about The New 52, and you can't really do a "takeover of Gotham" storyline nowadays without at least mentioning them, in my eyes.
So, I hope you guys won't mind that this sorta just became a retelling of that story as well, just in pre-New 52 continuity. I only hope I can do the original proud without losing track of my original idea for this story, making them an outright footnote, or just copying the source material with Jason and the Outlaws sorta added in.