Jason woke up after about three hours of rest, thankful for his training and the magics used on his body over the years that each helped streamline sleep for him. He was still a bit exhausted, but that's what Excitavit was for. Taking two capsules of the military-grade drug Futurum manufactured for certain special forces and, of course, the agents of The Demon, Jason threw the covers off and stood before quickly arming and armoring himself. He then stepped out into the hall to find the Sentinels gone and the previously busy and noisy Theater mostly quiet.

He was updated on their current situation by a Knight who'd been guarding his bedroom moving on towards the War Room, from which Antonio and Shiva were still commanding the troops despite an exhaustion that was setting in upon both of them, only held upright by their own use of Excitavit. They weren't Jason, though, and the drug didn't effect normal humans the same way it effected him.

For him, one Marked by Lazarus who had undergone the trials of The Al Caste and had been studying ways to magically enhance his body's abilities and his control over it for years, Excitavit was a convenient substitute for much-needed rest, provided he didn't over use it. For regular humans, it allowed them to get up and be active longer than they had any natural right to, but exerting one's self too long or too hard, just as overusing the drug did for Jason himself, led to an entire host of health issues.

Ones he couldn't have his Right Hand and greatest assassin suffer through in the middle of a war.

He pushed open the door to the War Room, seeing the round table for meetings was gone and replaced by a giant computer system, not unlike The Batcomputer, only more compact and with red screen accents instead of yellow ones. Antonio and Shiva stood at the base of this impressive piece of hardware, watching situations throughout the Bowery unfurl as three Paladins on oversaw the entire battle.

When they heard Jason come in, they turned to see him in full Red Hood garb, standing there with his arms crossed over his chest. He'd come inside just in time to see a blinding point-blank gunshot and a fight break out on one of the screens between someone who he guessed was Rose and a few guys dressed like...owls?

The fuck?...OOHHH, "The Court"...Oh, shit.

Bruce reacted in an instant to the shot, but so did the Sentinels. They rushed in past her and secured what they could of the hallway while Rose turned and used her combative foresight to correctly predict the two batarang thrown her way, blocking them both and unsheathing her swords in one motion.

Still, she hardly had the time to get into a fighting stance before Bruce glide-kicked her from the side. He would've knocked her down with the full-body kick to her ribs had she not rolled and avoided the hit just in time. As soon as his feet touched the floor, the two fighters engaged each other in earnest, sending off sparks as her swords collided with his gauntlets.

Rose knew, thanks to Jason, that one mistake or misstep meant she was going down, and that she had little chance of actually subduing the opponent she was facing. Slowing him down long enough for her men to surround him was her only option if she didn't want him to escape again or cause major damage before he was finally subdued.

Bruce, knew, thanks to Dick, that Ravager's "combative foresight" worked based on previous information and experience. She didn't know what he was going to do before he did through some mystical sixth sense, otherwise he wouldn't be able to match with her at all. Instead, she used her knowledge on him to subconsciously predict his movements in advance. Much like what Cass used body language to do, only much less impressive and less prone to failure.

Being spontaneous isn't enough. She knows my faults from top to bottom, I need a distraction.

Before he could cause one, the perfect one for both parties materialized, as a girl's scream could be heard from within the facility. Bruce and Rose both looked to the hallway fight between The Help and The Sentinels, to the door at the other end from which they'd heard the scream, almost forgetting about their fight. The two shared a glance for only a second before jinxing each other.

"Truce?" / "Truce?"

They took a few more seconds to process that they now stood on the same side before then launching themselves towards the fighting, content to deal with each other after finding the child they'd heard and getting her far away from the fighting.

A clown sat in his dressing room, watching the screens of news reporters brave enough to fly over or venture into The Bowery. He sat the same way he always did as he watched chaos unfold, slouching and with one leg over the other, his gloved hands shuffling his playing cards as he smiled.

The reporters all spoke the same words as they watched what looked like a civil war, minus the explosions, go on through the streets of Crime Alley. "Where is Batman? What are the GCPD doing to stop this chaos? Should the government consider sending in the national guard?"

Joker watched and listened with bemusement as, amidst the gunfire, the hoods of all shapes and sizes ignored the reporters or shoved them out of the way whenever they tried to ask questions, regurgitating classic Gotham quotes like, "You want information? Read a NEWSPAPER!". Despite that, the people interviewed actually advocated the group and the violence they'd brought.

How hilariously predictable.

"It's been a long time coming!", one woman who looked strangely familiar to The Clown said when interviewed by an in-Alley Jack Ryder. "They're only killing murderers, they're helping us. Batman and the cops should stay away, hell, they should help 'em!"

His smile only grew as even a few reporters agreed with the sentiment, but didn't exactly condone the invasion-like battle happening in their streets. Instead they cited Archie Goodwin's attack and "The Joker's recent escape from town" as the "true causes for the attacks".

You're doing perfect, Kiddo! Honestly, I couldn't divide Gotham better if I tried! Well, maybe that's not true...and you did have help from your old Uncle Jay, of course...but still, bravo! Two days in and they're already eating out of your hand. Just a little more fuel on the fire, and they'll be willing to admit to it. At this rate, we'll have burnt down all of Gotham by next weekend!

Behind him, he heard one of his men approach. He smiled even wider at the man's announcement.

"Boss, the messages have all been delivered."

Speaking of fuel...

The Joker didn't reply, never ceasing his smile, and never looking away from the footages of carnage and mayhem.

See you soon, Jay Jay.

Facing Nightwing is like facing the ocean itself. He's not The Old Man's darling child just because of his disposition.

That's the way Alexi had heard Jason describe the original Robin, and how he had in turn described the acrobat to the paladins. A force of nature given flesh, a master who was in a class all his own, even when compared to Batman. In Xavier's mind, either that was all been the vodka the two had been drinking, or the first Boy Wonder was suffering from more injuries than they knew about and more worn out than he should've been while out in the field.

Dick, now breathing heavily as the vulturous Paladins continued attacking his defenses and slowly wearing him down, knew exactly what was about to happen. He'd overexerted himself too hard for too long, and now it was either flight or fall. Before he could choose, the Paladins were joined by eight more, including one with a uniform visibly more impressive than the others', with a grey leather jacket, unique gauntlets, and a version of their bird emblem with a sword behind it. That one, who Dick correctly assumed was in command, wasted no time before giving orders to the Outlaws who'd been slowly wearing him down.

"Stand down."

"What? But-!", the one closest to him replied.

"Orders from The Red Hood. Ravager and The Bat just came to a truce, we're all on the same side, so stand down, soldier."

The paladins backed up in an instant, and Dick took the second to breathe without putting away his weapons. Alexi noticed this, and, with reverence, spoke.

"You aren't winning this fight, Tsygan. If we wanted to take you, we would. Do you understand that?"

Dick hated himself for it, but he nodded.

"Good. You're smarter than I expected. Now, Ravage-...Rose, and The Bat are in some pretty deep shit, and we could use your help in getting her out. Since your mentor is caught in the same mud, we figured we should bring you along. You in?"

"...I don't really have a choice, do I?"

"As I said, smarter than expected. Take two of these.", he said, taking a small container from his jacket and throwing it at the surrounded man.

A fancy pill bottle? What the-?

"Those are called Excitavit, they'll keep you awake and help a little with the pain. Unless you want to 'ride to the rescue' huffing and puffing like an astmatik?", he added, noticing the man's hesitation.

Please, don't let this be a fucked up trick of some kind, he thought as he took two. He had to steady and felt a surge throughout himself, but, then, stood once more with his energy miraculously restored at the cost of a few seconds of short breath. All the soldiers surrounding him prepared for him to then try something, other than the leader. He simply took back out his escrima, put the pills in his utility belt, and smirked before speaking.

"So, where are they?"

Rose and Bruce had led an armored charge through the hallway, Bruce stopping her and her men from outright executing any of their enemies. After he interrupted the fight a few times to stop their killing and took a few rounds in the process, Rose, exhaustingly, gave them an order to go non-lethal. The sentinels didn't like it, but now seeing him in action, they recognized that they'd like to fight Batman about it even less.

So, the group fought side-by-side through hallway after hallway. Eventually, the halls had stopped just being passages, and the enclosed spaces had opened up into wide, cell-block areas. Inhumanely small, empty cells that were obviously being evacuated as they fought further into the facility. As they engaged another wave of enemies, Bruce felt like he should at least try to get some information from Rose.

"So...it's obvious you didn't know about this "Court of Owls" before coming here, so what did you know?", he finished just in time to block a knife to the chest, headbutting the man who'd just tried to murder him into the ground.

"Just that an excruciatingly vain man feared whatever was in here so much that he killed himself when we asked him about it."

"Harlan Graves?"

"The Underbroker."

"How did you connect the two? I've been looking for a connection between someone and The Underbroker for months."

"By asking someone even more well-versed in Gotham's underground than you."

"Dent?"

"Uh-huh."

"Hm...I don't think we're moving fast enough...if they have a back door, most of these people have already been taken elsewhere."

"I have some backup on the way. You do, too."

"...Nightwing?"

"Nightwing."

"Good. My other backup will find and cut off the backdoor, if there is one."

"Other?"

Rose glanced at him too long this time, and barely got out of the way before he launched himself over her and onto a Help member that would have just shot her point-blank in the head from behind. It probably wouldn't have killed her thanks to her helmet, but she didn't complain.

He helped her up and growled, "Less talking, more fighting.", as he all but threw her at another enemy while he went after one in the opposite direction.

God...so close and yet so far apart, all three of them.

Wendy Nicholson, a seamstress who'd been taken from her home three nights ago, was woken up from her sleep in the tiny cell allotted to her, and she immediately was hoisted up by one of her arms at gunpoint. She didn't fight as she was marched silently out by one of her masked captors, into a crowd of every other prisoner in the bright and grey cell block in which they sat.

When she started walking, another person quietly informed her and several others that something was happening in hallway one, and that a few even claimed Batman had finally arrived to free them. Wendy hoped against hope that they were right and he would be fast enough to catch up to the group. He'd need to get through that hallway, the main room, and this one faster than they could be loaded up onto the nearby boats, so it probably would've been smart to bet on him not being so. But, being someone willing to start a honest business in Somerset, giving up on hope wasn't an ability she had, else she probably wouldn't have been so disheveled or hungry. She wouldn't be bruised, and she wouldn't have been getting marched towards a boat ride she would probably never return from.

Please, if anyone can save us, you can.

They marched for a while, but, eventually, the crowd came to a massive lift that looked and felt like the floor of a warehouse, only unlike the one she'd been brought through, this one had no shelves on it and was completely barren.

Damnit. Please, please, PLEASE hurry up!, she mentally begged Batman as the lift started to rise with her, at least a hundred others of every background, race and age, and at least a dozen guards.

When the lift stopped moving, the fake floor above opening for their arrival, they came to a rest in a warehouse exterior just like Wendy had predicted they would. They were being herded out into the night, to the nearby riverside, all the time under threat of a bullet. Just as she was being forcibly loaded into one of the different boats docked along what she thought looked like Ward Channel as several had before and would soon following her, a few actually choosing to fight back and being immediately executed for it by their ever-silent captors, a rescue finally showed.

She looked up in amazement as a few in the crowd cheered, for The Batwing had just arrived. The docks were lit up in a second as the craft hovered over them, and while their kidnappers shot at the plane, which had started firing Bean Bag rounds back at them, one by one they were taken down by unseen figures rushing in and out of the shadow, like forces of nature.

Wendy was so caught up in amazement that she didn't even notice when The Help turned their guns on the crowd instead of the bats, right up until the one next to her shot her in her side. She and the others who'd been forced into the boat tried to rush the two who'd been trying to force her inside, but it was no use. They were gunned down in an instant, seconds before an enraged Robin could take down the two men.

Tim pushed all thoughts of understanding or mercy out of his head, as did everyone else, when the men in owl masks started executing the civilians. When he'd seen that poor, stupidly hopeful woman get shot up...that was more than enough to make him drop his usual quippy Boy Wonder routine.

They pushed for the defensive, taking bullets for civilians when they could, but the change from theatricality and deception towards outright brutality was immediate, as was the crowd joining in.

Damnit.

Mob violence on the criminals had just made an awful situation even worse. Much to their chagrin, they couldn't just kill these people, otherwise Bruce was liable to blow a gasket and bench them. So, they had to try and defend the murderers even as they beat them to bloody pulps one by one.

Some were understanding, others weren't, and this led to several fatalities on both sides before the fighting was finished, and all of the assailants were down. Even after they were, and the bats slowly gathered the ones still alive, they got more than their share of dirty looks and had to step several people from killing the unconscious kidnappers.

Eventually, though, what had been mostly shock and fear boiled over into fury when people looked around and saw just how many had died in the massive brawl. They had to help the injured civilians and keep everyone calm, or the bad situation was going to get worse. As always, the rest fanned out and tried to help the injured, while Robin tried to calm the angered crowd.

"EVERYONE, paramedics and police are on the way, please, stay calm."

One man came forward out of the angry mob that had formed around him before the tied up owls, yelling for Tim to hand them over or the crowd would make him, instantly demanding the attention of every Bat there.

"Please, try to understand, we can't find the people responsible for all of this without them, and-!"

"Some of us spent MONTHS in that hellhole, and where were you people!? Now, after a couple of us just watched our kids or our wives get shot by these bastards, you wanna tell us to calm down!? Go FUC-"

Before the overweight and painfully justified man could have continued, another one that looked familiar to Tim put his hand on his chest. the leaner, taller man looked dead into Robin's eyes as Spoiler and Batgirl came up behind the boy, and spoke calmly.

"We're thankful that you saved us, but those murderer's aren't leavin' here in anything but body bags. Step off.", he said as he balled his fists. Most of the crowd other than those still clutching onto their injured or dead friends and relatives backed him up, from little kids still crying to grown men like him, who were so filled with the anger of grief and pain that they simply had no space left at that moment for the sadness of it. A few even took the weapons lying around from the fight, readying for the inevitable confrontation.

The rest of the bats formed up around the three and readied their weapons. From the Wing, Harold came over the loudspeaker.

"Disperse, now!"

Jason stood at at the base of the computer now, Antonio and Shiva having left almost an hour ago. He was honestly surprised at how well thing were going, how disciplined and effective Antonio had made his little Gotham chapter of their forces in the single month he'd had. Before they'd given the go ahead to their men, intel showed over fifty seven different places throughout the relatively small Bowery, all marked for either takeover or annihilations, only three of which, were unoccupied.

Fifty four different dens of every type of scum imaginable to breach and clear, all without using any overwhelmingly heavy artillery, and all in the span of one night. And, somehow, they were actually succeeding. Minimal casualties was an understatement, the only thing he felt concern about was now Rose's mission investigating the group he hoped were only imitating The Court of Owls from Gotham legend.

He diverted Lawton's group to her to help look for this "back door", she and Bruce had speculated on, but for the first time since coming to Gotham, he was truly hopeful.

Maybe the next step will actually work out.

Dick and Alexi finally managed to catch up with Rose's team and Bruce. They were all pretty exhausted from the heavy fighting and taking just a second to breathe as they watched their reinforcements catch up through the hallway of unconscious men and busted doors. They were standing at what Rose believed to be the final door on the hallway as the Gypsy and the Russian, along with twelve Paladins, finally showed.

Dick ran up to Batman and the two examined the door for weakpoints or ways to get through while Alexi went up to Rose to get a quick debrief. As they spoke, they switched to a silent comms channel between them, preventing anyone else from hearing the conversation. Barbara was almost too caught up in managing the overall situation to actually notice this, but, while she did inform them that the two were obviously conspiring a betrayal, she couldn't hack into their suits to actually understand just what they were saying.

"Floyd is trying to find the backdoor like you asked. What's going on?"

"Have your men switch to non-lethals."

"Wait...you were serious about that?"

"Yes."

"Rose, this little truce isn't going to last. I'm not going to get my men killed over it."

"The people these fuckers are probably planning to use as collateral are more important, Alexi. I've already told my men that this truce is going to last until they are safe, no longer and no shorter."

"Fine. My men will know when you and yours start the killing that the truce's off."

"Good. Let them know, that, if necessary, they may kill to save themselves or each other, as well. Those people are the priority, but we-"

"Look after our own. I'll relay the message."

"Thank you."

Rose walked up behind Bruce and Dick, and asked if they had a way through the incredibly large door.

"I have some ide-", Bruce was almost finished saying when a voice came over the speaker system that had been inactive up until that point.

"Hello? Ah, so you can hear me? Good. That mean's you'll be able to hear this."

After the voice was finished with the sentence, terrible sounds came over the speakers. Sounds of gunshots and screams, visceral and horrifying.

"That's the sound of the rabble you just sacrificed your own lives for, that you became targets of the Court of Owls for, being gunned down like the common trash that they all are. Know, Outlaws, that their deaths lie upon your shoulders. You, and the pest who has helped you get this far. Know that before you all die.", the decrepit voice growled.

As the statement was finished, the massive door that they'd been standing before slammed open, revealing a massive room, stairs and cells all around with a glass office in the center, with members of The Help lined up everywhere they had a shot, Thompson guns and other armaments all aimed at the group of crimefighters and outlaws, a couple of whom, didn't manage to escape the hail of gunfire, being shot in everyplace their armor couldn't defend them by the dozens of shooters.

The rest all managed to run to the sides of wall that remained on each side of the space where the huge door had been, using the wall as cover from the gunfire. Bruce was trapped on one side with Rose and a few of the Outlaws, while the rest were trapped on the other. Dick nodded to Bruce after the very brief shock had worn off, the two agreeing to an age old strategy for such situations. Cheating.

Dick threw one of his remote Wingdings out, as did Bruce throw a remote Batarang, and when The Help noticed this and tried to shoot them down, they activated the Flare function of their respective shuriken, emitting twin bursts of pure light. When the blasts when off, so bright that they provided better lighting even to them and the Outlaws with them, Dick and Bruce rushed in, finding hiding spots in a second as Bruce also disabled the camera system that had gotten him caught in the first place. Both hid in different sections of the vent system, heading through it and to the office space at the room's center on the opposite side.

The Outlaws immediately took advantage of the seconds of confusion on their enemy's part, quickly using their superior equipment to annihilate any opposition as they quickly made for the office, as well, Rose taking point with Alexi just behind her and her sentinels fanning out and mopping up any opposition while his paladins formed up behind the two commanders.

Bruce and Dick instantly knew the truce was over and that Barbara had been right, picking up the pace through the tight shafts towards the secure office space. They both silently met up in a small but decently-sized shaft-way with an open vent-cover in it's center, directly over the office itself. They could now just barely see that while the Outlaws were trying to break down or shoot through the door and it's glass walls, the man in the white owl mask and black suit merely ignored them, writing something on a piece of paper at his desk on the opposite side of the room, his back turned to them.

He's already blue-screened the laptop beside him and the file cabinet's contents were already charred remains. The only thing in the mostly empty, white-floored room other than the man, his presumably empty desk and the ruined computer, was the 1911 laying on the desk beside him. The man, dressed in a white version of the brown owl masks worn by his lackeys and a black suit, seemed far too calm about what he had to know was either impending death or incarceration.

Before Dick and Bruce could jump one by one through the hatch and into the room, they noticed that the audible attempts from The Outlaws to breach the room had ceased. Straining to look over through the glass walls to ascertain a reason for this, they saw that their friend from earlier, the mad man dressed like an Owl, had returned and was taking them all on, having already killed one of the men who'd fought with Rose and Bruce through the first hallway, from the looks of it.

Well...at least now we have our diversion. We might even be able to get this "Mr. Agincourt" out of here and figure out what's going on.

Rose and Alexi were both trying to engage the assassin who'd already killed one of the sentinels in a surprise attack and injured another, but every time they made headway he gained distance and put them on the defensive. One look in the other direction at the wrong moment meant death, and that was with the uninjured sentinels and paladins surrounding him and trying, just as they did, to kill the sly son of a bitch.

Bruce grabbed and ripped off the vent cover so that Dick could jump down first and quickly followed behind him. In a second the masked man attempted to shoot him, but the acrobat simply threw one of his Escrima, hitting the older man's wrist before he could even aim the firearm and sending the weapon to the floor. He grabbed the stick out of mid-air and slammed the back ends of both of his sticks down on Agincourt's forehead.

Without the mask, the man would've probably suffered a concussion, but with it, the blow merely sent him backwards into the wall.

Sitting involuntarily on his own desk, the older man barely had time to reorient himself before Bruce shot him with a line and ripped him towards his fist, sending him to the floor. Before he could get up, Dick had already handcuffed him.

Completely in-sync, as always.

Rose noticed the immediate change in the group's opponent, but didn't dare to look behind her as The Owl looked over her shoulder at the office space they'd been trying to get into. The Owl, or, Talon, as he called himself, threw down a flash grenade and, while Rose would've parried it, didn't waste time with attacking her while she was temporarily blinded, nor any of her men. The Talon rushed right by them and headed straight for the office, where it looked like Batman and Nightwing had already captured the man in charge.

Rose pulled out a pistol and shot the assassin in the shoulder, causing him to scream in rage and pain but not change course, and wounding him just enough so that she could be sure that the man couldn't win against the two fighters he was headed for. Rose put her hand on Alexi's chest to stop him from chasing the man, and gave a command she knew he'd hate.

"You four, gather up our men and then regroup with us. Go!"

Alexi's silent fury at her command to leave dealing with two people who'd just killed three of their men and critically injured another was so massive she felt it, but he didn't give voice to it.

Hiding his anger was one of the reasons he was such a valued soldier, and she was thankful for it then more so than she often was. She could understand why he was pissed, but dutifully followed her to the other hallway's exit. When the four she'd sent to gather their fallen comrades, the injured paladin having already expired, met back up with them at the hall's entrance, she lobbed a high-explosive demolition charge across the room and to the opposing hallway's entrance, before planting one where on the wall beside her.

She spared one last glance to the Bird and Bat, who were now locked in furious combat with the injured Talon, before she and her men ran off, towards the faint sounds of gunfire.

Dick saw them running mid-combat, just in time for all three fighters to be disoriented by the vibrations and sounds of twin explosions going off, caving in both hallways and, as far as Bruce or he knew, effectively burying them all alive.

Floyd watched from a nearby rooftop, Jason seeing through his helmet's camera, as a mob of ransoms fought the Bats amidst a cloud of tear gas. Neither one needed to be a detective to see what was going on. The scene made it obvious why the family was fighting a crowd of Gothamites over the unconscious owl-masked forms nearby.

"Save only one for interrogation, Deadshot. Kill the rest."

"Understood. What about the Batwing?"

"Square plate along the bottom of the right wing, one round from you'll be more than enough."

"Got it.", he said as he racked the slides of one of his arm canons, before then turning to the men beside him who were also watching the brawl below, "Leave only one of the owls alive, people, kill the rest. Go!"

His team nodded and rushed onto street level as he took his shot. Instantly, the Batwing turned and took off, presumably back to The Batcave for repairs on it's fuel lines, if the small explosion his bullet's impact had caused was any indication.

In spite of a fucked shoulder completely negating half of his offensive power, the assassin refused to give up on rescuing his charge. He yelled and threw twin knives, the last two he appeared to have, before drawing his swords and rushing the pair before him. Dick trapped his right arm and sword in his own Escrima while Bruce used his finned gauntlets to catch and force the man's left sword back, putting more and more pressure on the kneeling Talon.

Dick was ready to hear the sound of an arm breaking when, to his shock, the masked man simply chuckled, all signs of his struggle vanishing. He got one knee up and then stood, the two confused fighters on either side of him still locking his arms down, although it was now clear that he'd been faking his previous strife. He looked to the acrobat to his right.

"Nice try, Grey Son. If I was the ordinary rabble you deal with, you'd have me beaten. But, as I've already told your "father" here, you've never met a killer like me.", the man said in a disturbingly calm way before grunting, and throwing both men backwards in opposite directions, both crashing into walls so hard, Dick thought he might've had a concussion. Dick looked up in fear and alarm as the wound in the man's shoulder healed itself underneath the hole in his uniform.

"I have to give it to that oriental girl, that bullet would've completely ripped my shoulder apart if I were a lesser man. Perhaps, then, this would be a fair fight.", he mocked the two, before the now standing Archibald spoke up.

"Talon! We do not have time for these childish games. The Court is in danger."

"Yes, sir. Shall I kill them so that we may-? "

" No. You may manage to kill them, but I refuse to endanger The Court by taking that chance. Do your duty, Talon. Eliminate the true threats to our Parliament while you still have the chance.", the older man said. The Talon almost seemed hesitant, but before Bruce or Dick could intervene, the assassin threw one of his swords straight through the chest cavity of the older man, causing him to try and yell out as blood gushed from his mouth beneath the mask. He dropped to his knees, already dead, as Bruce and Dick both attacked the mysterious "Talon".

The man responded by quickly kicking Bruce in the chest, much faster than they'd seen him previously move mid-combat, sending him flying back into the wall so hard his arms came up beside his head before he fell to the ground. He then quickly disarmed Dick with only one hand, blocking both strikes from the acrobatic fighter and sending his weapons flying, before he grabbed the younger man by the neck, holding him off the ground and applying enough pressure to cut off his circulation and put his unprepared body into panic mode, grabbing his arm in an attempt to free himself through force instead of trying to do something useful.

The struggling Nightwing could hardly hear the Talon's next words over his own heart, and yet, he'd never forget them.

"Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed. Speak not a whispered word about them, or they'll send the Talon for your head. Those are words both you and that failure of a mentor behind me know, Grey Son. You both should've headed them. Because you did not, the chaos, the death, the pain and loss that you shall feel when next we meet is on your head, and on his. Know that, and know that your dear little Barbara will die first."

Bruce, enraged at the threat, at the newfound strength of his opponent, and at how many people seemed to know the identities of his family and their allies, launched himself at the Talon only to tackle his own breathless son, the assassin throwing down a smoke bomb and vanishing through the vents in a only second. In the short moment it took for Bruce to regain his composure, they both heard a small explosion go off deeper within the shaft system, and he knew that the secret exit his enemy had fled through wasn't going to work, even if he found it somehow.

He helped Dick up before then contacting Oracle.

"Oracle, lock down the cave, now."

"Got it. Anything else?"

"Send us the Jackhammer.", he said before cutting off the transmission.

After throwing the bodies of the "Help" members in the river, Floyd had directed the people towards the GCPD blockade, and requested backup to shadow and protect them from above. While the people started their walk to Bermejo, he and his team met up with Rose and Alexi's group. They were surprised, to say the least, that Floyd's men had not only managed to capture one owl, but five bats as well. Before much fraternization could actually happen, though, Jason's voice came over the line.

"Good job, all of you. Now get the trackers and comm links of those prisoners disabled and then head home. This side of the battle's won."

"Got it.", Alexi replied. Before Jason could close off the line, Rose questioned what he meant by "this side".

"Simple. The Bats are in a bad way. I'm about to make sure they stay down this time. Just get back to the theater, Shiva will explain the plan."

Jason cut off the line and looked around the bend. Not fifty feet from him, down the last ancient sewer tunnel he had to slowly crawl through, was the old access door that led into The Batcave itself. The stealth suit he wore was a refined version of the wetsuit he'd worn years ago, when he'd damn near killed an unknowing Bruce in a homicidal rage using a Batmobile-strength car bomb. He was ashamed of that night...but that didn't mean the idea was completely worthless, as he was now proving. What had began as a simple wetsuit made with reflective fibers that negated thermal signals was now, thanks to Freeze's boys at Futurum Tech, a veritable nightmare for detection systems.

Laser detection didn't pick it up, the naked eye couldn't see it in any way so long as he was in shadow, and the suit ensured his thermal signature matched those of his surroundings to a tee. Even to The Cave's systems, he was a ghost. Of course, that wasn't all. The ends of the gloved fingers and booted feet allowed him to, as he was now and had been since entering the abandoned part of the Bristol sewer system fifteen minutes ago, stick and crawl along structurally sound walls and ceilings using the same artificial gravity tech used aboard ships like The Javalin or The Watchtower.

Because of course Batman was paranoid enough to plant basic tripwires along a hallway guarded by million-dollar defensive turrets.

Jason had made it to the barred security door and was about to creep down, when someone opened the door, causing him to immediately hide his face for fear of detection, as the only part of the suit not entirely vantablack were the lenses of the face mask. Whoever it was, they turned on a flashlight, it sounded like, before slowly beginning to stalk past. Jason risked a look to see if whoever it was had any backup, and after making sure they didn't, pulled a move from Selina's repertoire.

Still holding himself onto the roof, he let his lower half fall down. Before the man Jason didn't recognize could so much as scream, he'd simultaneously kicked the flashlight and pistol he'd been holding to the ground before latching his legs around the man's neck, cutting off airflow. It only took five seconds for the surprised and strangely untrained blonde to go limp. Jason allowed him to breath the second he did, before leaving him in the shallow water, taking with him the colt the man had brought down with him and what looked like a keycard as he made his way further into the Cave.

Ascending a dark staircase, Jason sincerely hoped Alfred was asleep. He would hate himself even more than he already did for this whole thing if he had to fight the man he thought of as a grandfather.

Once he was finally at the top, and through a second security door thanks to the keycard he'd stolen, he looked around to see a bigger, badder, and yet oh, so familiar sight. Giant penny, robotic dinosaur, and so on. The only constant he saw that he absolutely hated was the too close to home sight of Barbara panicking as Alfred and her tried to clean up one of Bruce's messes.

Well...this is gonna suck. But...it's gotta be done. They'll thank you for it, in the end.

He steeled his thoughts and dropped both the pistol and the card as he silently approached them.

Barbara was in the middle of explaining the situation up top and the intruder alert below to the almost free original dynamic duo when, suddenly, the power to the Batcomputer went out. She hardly had time to push herself away from the screen and to the intruder before Alfred was knocked unconscious due to a pressure point jab.

She growled at him, asking how he got in, but didn't yet reveal her hidden weapons. The man in the highly advanced wetsuit wasn't close enough for her Escrima to do much. The dark figure spoke, his voice unfiltered, as he marched straight for her.

"Wouldn't you like to know, Red?"

Barbara could swear she heard some form of pain in that statement, but didn't let that distract her. When the man came within striking range, she grabbed her Escrima and lunged for him from both sides, desperate to at least injure the man for daring to touch Alfred.

Jason had already heard of her rematch with The Joker, which was by far one of the best things in the fucking world to him, and knew all too well about her little surprises. He grabbed both sticks from her hands and threw them over his shoulder, before using a knockout dart from under his wrist on her.

Least I didn't have to hit her.

Bruce began panicking, and was on the verge of just calling in The League if it meant the safety of his family, when The Batcomputer finally registered as back online.

"Barbara? What the hell hap-"

"Sorry, Old Man. You got a different Red on the line, now."

As the voice Bruce immediately guessed belonged to The Red Hood came over his comms system, the yellow holograms showing his location and readings on the battle happening above his head turned to red and became scrambled, the Jackhammer changing it's direction.

"Where are you taking us?"

"The last place you were ever alone in your head, Mr. Wayne."

Bruce's eyes went wide at that oddly familiar statement, but before he or Dick could further question the villain, the line was cut off.

Damnit.

In the back seat, Dick was starting to breathe heavily. He didn't know why it was happening, he felt like he was going through a panic attack. His chest tightened and he couldn't speak as he held on to the edges of his seat, trying to steady his spinning reality.

Gordon had waited far too long for anyone's comfort. Now that he was getting reports that the "Outlaws", as they apparently called themselves, were dialing it back on the big guns, he couldn't buy Batman any more time to deal with the situation alone.

"All units, move in and secure the Bowery. I repeat, move in, and secure the Bowery."

Around him, The GCPD and Emergency services moved into the warzone as one, and all the police commissioner could do was hope he hadn't waited too long.