Jerimiah was walking along the railing of Es Securus's top deck, speaking with Francine Buck, Two-Face's handler. They were discussing her charge, and she was trying to mask her fascination with "them". It was not the "Harleen Quinzel" brand of fascination, but becoming caught up in the mind of a dangerous man was already dangerous enough.
He was trying to help her by explaining that he was only living so that The Joker could use him as a prime example of that.
The doctors, if they could be called that, had believed for the longest time that he was in a kind of comatose state, as he refused to interact for months after that fateful night, all those years ago. Whether or not they had been right, Jerimiah remembered everything.
He remembered all the times The Joker had come into his cell, simply to have laugh and tell bad jokes at one of the thousands of men he'd completely and utterly destroyed. He remembered The Clown showing him off like a piece of artwork to his fellow psychopaths, and as a warning to the few people over the years who might have thought about going to the police about his various secrets.
Killer Croc, Pamela Isley, and the like.
The only good memories were ones in which he saw the rare act of kindness by those few redeemable inmates. Harley slipping him extra undershirts in the winter, Pamela offering to bring the unresponsive shell he had been for years with her during a few of her numerous escapes. Even Harvey, as wrapped up in innocent deaths as he was, had slipped him unmedicated food once or twice.
Francine had to shake him out of his delusions. He grabbed the side rail with one hand and his forehead with the other, an aneurysm coming on, and then it happened.
The lightening storm on the horizon became a spiral of death, gold lighting bolts flashing one after another. And, slowly, that storm grew and grew, bolts of pure energy blasting all around as the maritime sky went black with the pitch-black storm clouds.
The next morning, a luchador sat in a bar stool leaning over a counter, as he watched the shaking woman behind that counter pour him his glass of water. Not even a quarter past ten, at that point, and Antonio already knew it was going to be a very long day.
His friend and boss had woken them all up, the little roundtable of his that Antonio was a part of, and congratulated them all on the night they'd had before then shoving them out to get to work, while he went to "spend time with" his family. Antonio didn't mind, though. He'd been overworking himself since he was born, he wasn't going to complain when so many others were being given the same treatment.
Especially not when it was being given by a man who worked just as hard as any of them.
Sandra was going with the Sentinels to bring those close to the Bats to Wayne Manor. Valley and a few others were to find and get back the equipment and people, dead or alive, that had fallen into police custody. Lawton would coordinate a security detail for The Theater. Petrov would round up the outlaws scattered throughout the district and help them make their way back, either to their homes or to The Monarch Theater. Fries went with Jason and Rose on their little trip, something about the cryopod they had stored The Bat in requiring upgrades.
Antonio, for his part, had been leading men around The Bowery to make sure that the locals had more reasons to be loyal than reasons to be disloyal, while trying to stay out of sight. Non-lethally stopping officers getting too rough with the innocent, helping the injured to clinics, and even giving local businesses reparations to stay and fix their establishments back up.
Establishments like the almost entirely empty one he now sat in, the most dangerous bar in the area, possibly in all of Gotham: The Bedlam Bar. He'd been hearing about it for months from recruits. The bar was named that after a swapping of hands years ago, as people had started a rumor that The Clown himself had drank there the night before he was created from a spill in vats of acid at Ace Chemicals.
So the most popular ghost story about the monster's creation went, at least.
Its owner was a bastard, who went through "bartenders" every month, buying new ones from the auctions hosted by The Mask's men in Tricorner. When Antonio had walked in, he'd honestly been considering allowing the man to just leave and save him the trouble of hiding his STD riddled corpse...but the sight he saw as he walked in alone, his men all handling some other trivial matter, put an end to that train of thought.
In a second he had walked up, ignoring the shouting, grabbed the man by his neck, and pulled him over both the counter and the woman.
She had watched as Antonio beat that man to death, before he calmly took a breath and then walked over to her. The horrified expression she'd been transfixed with and the way she jumped back as he got within arm's reach of her, it reminded him of what some battered wives did whenever he defended them in such a manner. So, he did to her what he had made a habit of doing to any of them that he had to deal with: he tested her.
To do so, he sat down at the bar, ordered what he always did at bars, and watched as she bettered her appearance as much as she could in slightly ripped clothes and with no makeup to apply, before she began pouring his drink. He had learned over the course of his life how to know someone by their movement, what and how they did every little thing gave him clues as to who they were, and to whether or not he could trust them.
He wasn't always right, but he wasn't wrong often, either. And at that moment, as she put his glass down on the counter before looking down at the floor and putting her hands together looking as though she was trying to sink into herself, Antonio's every brain cell told him that the small woman was traumatized, but not beyond her wits, nor his trust.
But, he didn't want to risk it. He might have just left and called an officer for her, but, as he downed his glass, the woman finally spoke, and changed his mind.
"Th-Thank you."
"...You are free, now. From him...and from anyone else."
"...What do I gotta do?"
"Nothing. Your freedom is yours."
"Then what can I do?"
"You could leave. Go to the police."
"...Or?"
"Or...you could take what you deserve, after all that the dog laying on the floor behind me has done to you, and make this place your own. We would protect you."
"Sionis and The Joker own Gotham City."
"Yes. And we own The Bowery."
"...I would get security?"
"Yes."
"Could I redecorate?"
"You would have to, don't you think?"
"Yeah...Okay, let's just...say I could run this bar alone,-"
"We would help with that to start, too, if you need."
"-what would I need to do beyond that?"
"There would be a few rules...but that's not what you mean, is it?"
"No."
"In that case, all you would need to do is keep your eyes and ears open on our behalf, and have your staff do the same."
"...Alright. You have a deal.", she said before extending a hand to shake. Antonio reciprocated, and the deal was made.
Antonio got up, turned around, and collected the fat carcass on the floor in front of him. It thrown over his shoulder, he stepped to the door and knocked on it before speaking again.
"I'll send someone by to help you clean later, more to help redecorate tomorrow. We'll find you workers. As far as your security, a man will be outside this door for the rest of the day, a team of guards will be here by tonight."
One of his men, after they had checked around for cops, knocked back. Just as he put his hand on the door handle, the bartender turned bar owner spoke again.
"...Thank you again, sir."
He nodded to her, and left. He then left one of his men behind to guard the door, as promised, and sent another two to dispose of the body elsewhere. As he led the remaining group down the street, one of his men asked where they were going now, and he replied with a phrase that would come to define his entire day.
"We're off to find the next lost soul in need of a salvador."
Gavin and Onyx had just gotten back in town after a short vacation to Hub City, where they had been trying to establish a Wayne Foundation chapter as a favor to Batman before getting recalled. Onyx had been geared up for a fight against the new player in town, The Red Hood, and even more so to deal with The Joker after his terrorist attacks on Archie Goodwin and Amusement Mile. Orpheus, on the other hand, was more focused on the small army of escaped supervillains everyone seemed to have forgotten about.
He had gotten in character as a "super serious gang leader" while they flew in via a private airfield way out in North Bristol. As soon as they could, the two stepped out to meet the grey-haired, massive chauffeur that his gang in East Side, The Blue Boys, had sent for them on his orders. They greeted him, but as they got in to the back of their limousine, they both noticed something...off. Their people were usually more friendly, less formal.
Maybe he's new? No one gave him the memo that I don't just kill my guys for no reason? He might just be jumpy, with everything going on in town.
It wasn't until he sat down right behind Onyx when he saw the man waiting for them in the back, wearing a blue trench coat and fedora getup. His head was down, fedora and a newspaper covering his face. Before Onyx could confront the man herself, Gavin grabbed his girlfriend and bodyguard's arm to calm her and let her know that he would handle it, before then speaking.
"...Okay, I'll bite. Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
The man seemed to chortle at Orpheus's questions as the car began moving.
"What I'm doing here is a favor to the people of my city whom you helped during your stay there, as well as one to our mutual, blind, friend. As far as my identity, Mr. King...", the man paused as he looked up at the two opposite him and let his newspaper fall, revealing a visage reminiscent of a human one but without any feature beyond a pale skin tone, with unkempt red hair falling down around the horrifying "face". At their barely-hidden shock, the man again seemed to stifle a laugh as he continued.
"That is The Question."
Tim Drake was just starting to awaken, when he started to overhear a conversation he could just barely comprehend in the back of his mind.
"So how's the hunt for your sister coming along?", said a male voice with a familiar cadence and tone that Tim couldn't yet place, as addled as his brain was.
"It isn't. I'm starting to think you might've actually killed her.", replied a woman Tim instantly recognized...but still, he could not place it to a name or face.
"Please. If there's one thing your family knows how to do, it's survive."
"True. But, then, she hasn't been my family in a long, long, time. Father saw to that."
"Try not to hate him too much, Talia. I can't afford more death in your family just yet."
"I know. That's why I try every day."
"Thank you. Who're you leaving in charge here?"
"Someone I trust."
"Good. See you around."
"I should hope so, child."
"Child? I'm almost 22."
"You will always be "child" to me, foolish boy."
As he realized that he was hearing the woman walk away, heels connecting with metal, he tried to focus on his surroundings. The fact that he was locked in one of The Batcave's reserve cells immediately hit him as he looked around. Glass wall/door like with the cells at Arkham Asylum, or WayneTech Asylum, rather, a small bathroom area, the cot he had been laid in, even the camera starring at him from the corner of the ceiling.
The thing about it that really stood out was that, now, a lockdown had been initiated. As such, a massive vault-door-like metal wall was on the other side of the glass. A wall practically nothing could get through and that would not move without the Batcomputer giving the order. That meant that the Red Hood had managed to not only get into The Batcave, but that, somehow, he had managed to hack into a supercomputer designed from the ground up to be unhackable by anyone on Earth, no matter how advanced their technology was.
Trying to put that aside, he hesitantly stood, and he realized he had been stripped of everything except for the thin layer of workout clothes he wore beneath his Robin suit, meaning he had zero equipment. They'd even taken his domino mask.
He decided that, if they were already watching him, he might as well try something that could get him information. So, looking at the camera, he yelled out.
"Hey! Can't a guy get a proper villain monologue at least!?"
He thought he would need to do more, but as he finished his shout, the security wall's hydraulics activated, and the wall soon lifted up, revealing the Red Hood with Ravager by his side. He was dressed in the toned-down uniform he had when he and Dick had first faced off, only he wore his personal helm.
"Sure, kiddo. What part of my evil plan are you just dying to know?"
"How I can stop it."
The older man that Tim had to look up at chuckled and turned to the smirking woman on his arm.
"Damnit."
"Outspoken by a child."
"In front of my girlfriend, too."
Tim half-smiled at this interaction, but quickly reapplied his poker face before asking his first real question.
"What are you going to do with us?"
"Keep you here until I can be sure that releasing you won't harm my efforts to overthrow Black Mask and kill The Joker."
"Why would you want to do that? You're obviously from here, but you-"
Tim stopped as the Hood held up a hand in a "pause" gesture, and used the other to, from what Tim could tell, answer a comms hailing. Tim didn't hear a word, but the man looked up to someone further down the hall, and held out the hand he'd shushed Tim with to give whoever it was a thumb's up. He then moved past Wilson and moved to the terminal on the wall. He pushed a few buttons, and the glass wall between them also flew up, opening the cell.
Before Tim could even think about making a move on Rose, The Red Hood slapped the side of the terminal twice, getting Tim's attention.
"You make a move on me or try to run, she'll break your knees. You make a move on her...", he reached one hand into his jacket and, without ever looking away from Tim, pulled out a massive kris dagger. He held it up as he continued his threat, "...and this is all you'll get out of it."
"...Understood."
"Then follow me.", the stranger said as he walked across the hall. Rose waited beside Tim's cell, as he looked around to see that every cell in the small ward had been locked down like his, and that all the metal security doors were being disabled at once. As they came up, he saw that everyone from Dick to Alfred was there, minus only Bruce.
You better be out there, planning our way out of all this.
He looked back in front of himself to see that The Red Hood had stopped in the center of the rectangular room. Before any of them could question it, all the doors opened, freeing them all. Red Hood turned back to his unknowing replacement and spoke.
"Any of them attack either one of us, short stack, and I'm blamin' you.", he said before walking on, never addressing the rest of The Bats, who all fell in around Tim as they followed The Red Hood out of the cell area. They walked until they came across the dojo. The Hood then stopped and turned around to face the crowd.
"Someone will be watching over the cameras and guards will be out here the whole time. You make me regret giving you this bit of time to be with one another, and I promise it won't happen again."
With that, they were left alone in the massive and noticeably empty training area.
Jack Drake had hardly drank his morning coffee when some woman in strange garb suddenly appeared in his house and knocked him unconscious. The pink-haired woman who was also zip-tied beside him in the backseat of the car he'd woken up in, Karon, whispered that she had just gotten dressed for a date with her girlfriend when men had similarly kidnapped both of them.
Tim, what has he gotten you into this time?
When he woken up, Jack had thought they had been in some old tunnel, but when the rocky walls and ceiling opened up, it showed not a freeway, but a massive cave filled with bat-themed gadgets and men dressed in outfits similar to the two helmeted men who had been in front seat of the car.
Christ, this is serious.
The car came to a stop soon enough and the four men waiting on them quickly moved around it. One man opened the door for Jack as another opened the door for Jack and told him to get out at gunpoint, and another did the same for Karon. Two more moved to the trunk, retrieving a blonde who had been thrown back there, who Jack assumed was the girlfriend Karon had told him about.
The three were quickly walked through the Batcave, past henchman upon henchman, until they finally were lead past two teams of guards each on one side of a big passageway into a mostly empty room, where a crowd of people talking amongst themselves all stood, with the only exception being a redheaded young woman in a wheelchair. One of them, he could plainly see, was his own son. They had the zip ties keeping all of their arms behind their backs cut, and were told not to try anything before they were allowed to pass into the room.
He walked up to his waiting son, while Holly and Karon both walked up to a woman he quickly recognized as the criminal Catwoman, also known as Selina Kyle.
"Are you okay, son? How hurt are you?", he asked as he grabbed Tim by either shoulder, looking over his slightly bruised face.
"Not too badly. I'm good, Dad. What about you?"
"I'm fine. You wanna tell me what kind of mess we're in?"
"Sure, but...it's a long story."
"I'm sure we have time."
Crystal Brown was getting more and more worried about her daughter, Stephanie. She hadn't checked in all night, something she always strove to do, and unlike normally when she'd had a long night, Crystal didn't find her passed out in her uniform somewhere in their shared home.
But, her daughter was in a taxing "line of work", and Stephanie had warned her that she would be even more overworked in the coming days.
She was going out for her first shift of the workweek, when suddenly she heard running behind her. She instantly spun around on whoever it was, pistol from her purse in hand, and saw that it was her deadbeat husband, Arthur Brown, in a trench coat.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!", he yelled as he put his hands up. He looked terrible...worried. Before his estranged wife had the opportunity to question him, his eyes locked on something behind her. She barely had time to move out of the way as he threw one of his plexi-glass pellets at someone behind her, and jumped over the hood of her car.
"No time to talk, get in!", he yelled as he flew into her passenger seat. Against her better judgment, she also jumped into her old Chevy, gunning it.
"We're going, now explain!"
"Friend told me a few of the bats, including Steph, were taken by this new Red Hood jagoff. Figured they'd come for those close to 'em, people like you, next. Guess I was right."
"Why'd you run up on me like that? I could've shot you!"
"I didn't have the time to waste...even when I thought I had made it to you first."
"Wait, if you thought you'd made it-?"
"Because of this, Crystal.", Arthur said, slowly opening his coat to reveal a gunshot wound in his side.
He groaned loudly in pain as his ex-wife immediately slammed on breaks, almost throwing him into the floorboard.
"Sorry!"
"No...you're not."
"...No, not really. That was for turning our daughter into a vigilante."
"Fair enough. Keep driving, we gotta put some distance between us and-"
"Can I trust you?"
"What?"
"If I reveal some secrets to you so that we can get out of this, and maybe save our daughter, are you going to use them against Batman someday?"
"Do...do you know who he is or something?"
"I know one of the people who works with him. Someone that can't be outed in any way, however this all ends up."
"...I promise you, Crystal, all that I care about now is Steph. Anyone who helps get her back safe has nothing to worry about when it comes to me tryin' to hurt 'em."
"That's good. Because if the person you're about to meet suffers in any way because of you, Batman's gonna kill us both."
She said as she quickly turned a corner, pulling over a curb into the driveway of an average, two-story suburban home. Arthur groaned again, but moved out of her way as she collected her purse from his side of the floorboard.
"Come on.", was all she said as she got out, looking around to see if anyone was actually hot on their tail. She saw no one as she led their way up to the front door of a man Stephanie had told her about. Someone that she'd said could always be called upon when needed, even in a case like the one Crystal found herself in.
Before Crystal could so much as ring the doorbell, the door swung open, revealing an aging black man in a military-esque grey and black uniform. Combat pants, combat boots, a gun, the whole nine yards, all of which really clashed with his wrinkled face and tortoiseshell glasses.
"Ms. Brown. Glad to make your acquaintance.", he hesitantly said, never taking his eyes away from Arthur, "And you must be Clue-"
"Arthur. Until Stephanie is safe, it's just Arthur. If you help get her back, it'll always be as far as you're concerned."
He looked at a small screen on one of his crossed arms before replying, "Good, you're not lying."
"What do you-"
Before the stranger and Arthur could drag out the tense meeting any further, Crystal interrupted her ex.
"Obviously it's some bio-scan or whatever, who cares? Let's get out of here before any of those hooded assholes show up!"
"That would be wise...follow me.", the man said as he walked deeper into the home. The two did as ordered and stayed close behind, following him through the impressive home's living room and down a short hallway, into the garage. Set out in the open was a brand new Rolls Royce Phantom, but the man went straight past it, to a vehicle hidden under a hastily-place sheet closer to the garage wall. When he removed it, Crystal and Arthur both slightly recoiled at the shock of seeing that the man had a full-on Batmobile hidden in his garage. It was small, and probably an older model, but it was obvious that the long black car had been made for The Caped Crusader, and that they had likely interrupted the man they had been following as he had been prepping it for use as his getaway car.
"Get in", the stranger replied as he pressed a button on his wrist screen, which opened the lithe war machine's cockpit, after which he quickly climbed in. Crystal sat down in the back seat and, as there was no third seat, Arthur quickly sat down in her lap, much to her chagrin and his discomfort.
The man driving hit a few buttons, and Crystal heard an automated voice say, "Stealth Field initiated.", before hexagonal shapes of light appeared all over the outside of the car, before it became both completely silent and invisible to all but those inside it. Thankfully so, because just then a man wearing one of those damned red hoods barged through the garage door, looking around quickly and overlooking their car, before then running off to look for them elsewhere in the house. Once the man was gone, they slipped away, the sliding garage door opening and closing behind them as they were spirited away by their unknown ally.
As Crystal began trying to treat Arthur using a medical kit she found beside her in the cramped cockpit, she asked the man driving the first question that came to mind.
"So, what is your name, anyways?"
"Oh, it's Lucius. Lucius Fox."
Rory Regan had been staying with Jack Ryder, as they attempted to work through the reporter's psychosis and mysterious origins for weeks.
Neither one had gone out as The Ragman or The Creeper out of a mutual distrust of how Ryder's alter ego would behave, knowing that their good friend Batman was under attack again, and they didn't want to risk him killing someone. Rory was used to stealing the souls of the wicked, and Creeper had always been crazy, but that would be a step too far for Batman.
In spite of their worries, while watching "The Battle for The Bowery", as the news had dubbed it, they had both agreed to shoulder the risk the following night. Batman would just have to get over it if Jack crossed the line.
Rory had gone out to buy extra rags for his suit, just in case. He carried them in a small cardboard box as he struggled to get back into Ryder's brownstone apartment, and froze as the door opened.
Jack was screaming in agony from somewhere in the house.
He left the door open and dropped the box of rags as he rushed in. Hearing that the screams were coming from his own room, he half-opened, half-smashed through the door, into the guest bedroom. He'd barely processed that Jack was laying on his side on the floor directly in front of him, clutching the sides of his head while his body flipped between his own and The Creeper's, seemingly choked by a strange metal collar, when he was hit in the back of his head so hard he blacked out.
Ryder also went silent, Blake and his fellow sentinel allowing him to rest after he had unwillingly played the painful part as their lure for his friend.
"Sorry, dude.", he said as he picked Rory up off the floor, "Orders are ord-...Yeah, I probably shouldn't tell you that."
Kate Spencer, a federal prosecutor who had just gotten dressed and was walking door to take her son to school before herself going to work, was shocked to find her ex-husband and her co-council walking up the hallway to her Ritz apartment together.
"What are you two doing here?"
The two looked at each other for a second, puzzled. Damon spoke first.
"You called us, Kate. Said that we-"
"No I didn't."
"What are you-?"
"Damon, I didn't call you."
"Then wh-"
Before he could finish his question, the apartment door on the right of Kate and her son, Ramsey, swung open. The superheroine known as Manhunter had no time to make a move as the two sentinels who'd brought the four of them together hit her and her metahuman son each with a knockout dart. As she fell, her vision fading and sleep taking over, she saw the same happen to both Peter and Damon, as they had stupidly rushed forward instead of running away.
Black Canary and Lady Blackhawk were both going insane trying to find their teammates, Oracle and Huntress. They had told the two that they would be working with The Bats, but after the previous night, Dinah and Zinda stopped caring. Their friends were in trouble, there was no more doubt in their minds. While Zinda tried her best to unlock Oracle's computers so that they could find something, Dinah stood beside her trying to use her JL communicator to get ahold of someone from outside the city, specifically Martian Manhunter.
"Damnit. Whoever this Red Hood is, he's blocking all com signals inside the city. I can't even try Etrigan."
"He's probably busy with some hell invasion anyways. You can't get anyone?"
"No. Can you get through the security on the computers?"
"Hell no...can you?"
"Nope."
"Then what's our next move, Dinah?"
"...Barbara always told me that if something like this happened, I should get out of town...but that's not an option. We don't know if the bridges are being watched, and I don't want to risk that. So...I guess we should find another old friend who I've heard is in town, looking into something to do with The Hood. Guy named The Question."
"Oh, the faceless guy? Helena told me about him."
"Yeah, we should probably start looking for him by-"
The room's security door opened behind her. She and Zinda turned to see Lady Shiva, walking in with a smirk on her face.
"Hello, Lang."
"Shiva...it's been a while.", Dinah said as she stepped forward to meet the other fighter. Zinda took off her cap, knowing what time it was, and set it on the desk before getting up to back up her fellow Bird of Prey.
"Yes it has. I hope your skills have not deteriorated since our last bout."
"Of course not."
"Good.", Sandra said as she cracked her knuckles, getting into a fighting stance, "Then let us cease the stalling."
Lady Blackhawk and Dinah got into stances of their own, and silence consumed the three as Sandra considered the unknown woman with her opponent and her surroundings. Noticing that the stranger had a gun belt on, she first threw a smoke bomb in Zinda's face, temporarily blinding her as she ran forward to meet Dinah in hand-to-hand. For all Dinah's prowess, she was a boxer through and through, and Shiva was in no mood to fight fair.
As the smoke around her dissipated, Zinda saw that Dinah was clearly outmatched. The strange assassin had already gotten behind her and locked some type of collar around her neck, sending her to the floor with what seemed like a combination of airflow restriction and electric shock. Zinda drew her gun and fired, trying to wound the woman, but the invading fighter simply evaded the shots through her sheer, cheetah-like speed, closing the gap and sending Zinda into unconsciousness with a flying punch to the throat that led into a hard knee to her forehead.
Jim had gone back to The GCPD headquarters when the sun started to come up, catching only an hour or two of sleep before getting back up to continue organizing the search for suspects, the interviewing of bystanders, and the interrogation of what few men they had managed to arrest the night before, all to get the story behind what happened during the newest Red Hood's practical invasion of The Bowery. The investigation wasn't going well. Even the most mundane of hood-bearers refused to answer the most basic questions so vehemently, that they had stopped
It was just past eleven, and he was watching news footage from the event, when the bomb went off. His office on the second floor shook violently, and fire alarms activated as an explosion opened a wall downstairs.
Damnit, NO!, he mentally yelled as he rushed downstairs, to what he knew was the small section of the building dedicated to the holding cells. He was met by Harvey and every other member of the department present, but they were too late. By the time they had arrived, whoever it was had already gone. He hardly comprehended an officer's explanation of what had happened, as he looked over the unconscious officers, the terrified or dead prisoners who'd been left, as well as the massive hole in his station's wall. All he really caught were the key phrases.
"-buncha Red Hoods came in and got their buddies". "Looked like that Azrael guy from way-". "Escaped through some "portal" or whatever you call-".
"Damnit."
"...Commissioner?"
"Get this damn wall sealed, and move them out of here.", was all he said before putting away his revolver and going back to his office.
I'm out of ideas, I'm running out of faith...Sorry if this ruins the spark or whatever, old friend, but we need to talk, he thought as he sat down at his desk and pulled out his cell phone. He quickly looked through a list of phone numbers he's saved for such an occasion.
Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Alfred Pennyworth, Lucius Fox...all of them and many more he'd connected to The Bat over the years, including his own daughter, Barbara, were all most likely kidnapped or in hiding. No, if he was going to get Gotham's finest the help they needed, it had to come from off the reservation. It had to be someone the Hood couldn't expect, or predict.
So, stopping just one name from the bottom, he found the number he was looking for. He quickly dialed it, and heard a woman pick up on the other end.
"Hello, who is this? Is this that damn reporter, again? I'm not givin' you a statement on whatever-"
"No, ma'am, this is GCPD Commissioner Jim Gordon. Who am I speaking to?"
"Katherine. Kate, I...Am I in trouble or something?"
"No, actually. But we need to talk...about the nighttime hobby I hear you've picked up.", he said, looking at a photograph he pulled from his desk, showing a young, inhumanly pale red head fighting dozens of Irish mobsters all by her lonesome in a red and black batsuit.
"...I thought you said I wasn't in trouble, commish?"
"You're not. Have you been keeping up with the news?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, let me tell you what the news isn't going to. Batman and his team? They're off the table."
"...Oh..."
"Yeah. And to deal with everything that's going on in Gotham, I need a Bat."
"So much that you'll settle for the off-brand one?"
"You're the original's cousin. How off-brand can you be?"
"Hmpf. Where and when can we meet?"
"Come by my office at GCPD Headquarters. Anyone asks, say you're coming to make me some offer of a few million dollars in charity to help things along."
"That's moronic."
"Hate to break it to you, but that's how Gotham sees most people like you. Blame "Brucie" for that."
"Yeah, well. I'll call up a couple old friends who aren't afraid of a fight, see if I can get them in on playin' some role in all this."
"Thank you."
As he set his phone down, Harvey came bursting in like he always did, no knock, no warning.
"Hey, Jim."
"Hey, Harv."
"Our boys keep coming to me with reports, but not just on these new Outlaws or whatever these jokers call themselves. Reports of Joker, Riddler, almost all the classics."
"Good. Send every one of them to me."
"Okay. What for? I thought we were supposed to be focusing on The Hoods?"
"We were. But I think this whole situation with them is bigger than I expected it to be. Major Crimes can keep handling them. I want our men focused on making our streets safe again, and I want them following up on every lead we have when it comes to the escapees."
"...You really think they're dead, don't you?"
"No. This Red Hood...he's a showboater. We'd already know if they were gone for good...I just know that they are out of play right now. We're about all we've got this time."
"Hm. Well, I'll tell everybody what you said. If you're sure?"
"I'm sure, Harvey. Also, have your stuff packed up. We're moving out for a while."
"Oh, yeah? We goin' back home, then?"
"Well we can't stay here now, it's obviously too vulnerable. And as far as I'm concerned, Harvey, we should never have left it."
"Good. Be nice to see the old station. See you, Jim."
"See you.", he replied as his overweight partner walked out.
Jim sat back in his chair, taking a swig from his flask. He allowed himself five seconds of peace, but the same nightmares showed up in his closed eyelids as always. The same ones he'd seen in his dreams for over five years. Barbara bleeding, stripped. Suffering. In need of someone to save her from that pale-white madman. As he saw those begging eyes, he forced himself to not take a rest, forced himself once more unto the breach as was his job, as both an officer of the law and as the father of a missing person.
It wasn't as easy as it once was, but when had Jim Gordon ever let back pain or exhaustion keep him from doing his job?
"We can't just not fight back!"
Dick, getting frustrated but trying to keep a cool head, retorted, "No, we can't, Rory. But those guys are all armed and none of us are. And even if we were, Ryder can't transform, that kid can't fight, and Dinah can barely even make a noise. Unless you can just get those collars off?"
"So what do we do? Just give in, not try at all?"
"No! But we can't win here, not now. We have to play ball and wait for another opportunity, or until the mess up and we can somehow make one for ourselves."
"But-"
"Do you have a better idea, Helena?", Barbara interrupted.
"..."
"I didn't think so. We might not all know each other, and I understand we're all mad, but being dumb and underestimating our enemy is how we wound up here. How some damned wannabe mana-"
"Do I feel my ears burning?", they heard the Red Hood say as he walked in, emerging from the crowd of guards backing him up. They had all been searched and brought to the dojo, but this was the first time a few amongst the crowd had even caught an in-person glimpse at this new threat.
"Let us go!", the six year old Ramsay yelled at the mysterious man, a child-like lack of fear in his voice. His mother pulled him back at pit herself in front of him, afraid of retribution. She had to know in the back of her mind that it meant nothing, that he could just activate his shock collar without getting any nearer, but Manhunter did it anyways.
Mother's tuition, Jason guessed.
"Sorry, but that's not happening, kiddo. Now, please tell me you guys aren't gonna try anything."
"We'll come quietly", Dick said before anyone could say anything rash.
"Good. I'll hold each of you to that. So, word of advice: if you do something dumb, at least make it count. Knight Edwards?"
With that, The Red Hood walked back through the crowd and into the main area of the Batcave. A hood to his side held a tablet aloft in his arm.
"When I call your name, get in line in front of me. Grayson, Richard. Drake, Timothy."
As the man went on like that for a few minutes, Rory and a few others still stifled at taking orders from an enemy, but the group complied as they were slowly lined up for what they all hoped was a prisoner transfer, and not an execution or something of that nature. After eight members of the crowd had been placed in the line, the man started another, which ended after another eight were lined up in it.
The only three left out were the three metahumans of the group: Canary, Creeper, and Ramsay. The "knight" quickly distinguished the three as "Line A", the line led by Barbara as "Line B", and the line led by Dick as "Line C", before then ordering Line A to follow him. Kate and Peter both held their breaths as their son walked away, through a small army of armed guards, before disappearing from sight.
Jason walked with the escort for Line A, wanting to make sure none of his men scared the boy so badly that he tried to use his abilities and fight back. He was probably already slightly traumatized, and Jason didn't want to add heart palpitations to the boy's list of issues. He was a ghoul for all this and he knew it, but he wasn't a complete asshole.
Thankfully, when it seemed like the kid was getting worked up at the fact that he could no longer see his mom, Jack and Dinah both took notice and stopped to try and keep the boy calm and moving.
A few of their detail started to intervene, but Jason held up a fist to call them off, which Dinah seemed slightly appreciative of, even if she tried not to show it. Soon enough, the three person group was moving again, and they were at the base of The Cave's zeta platform.
Jason nodded to the man at the controls, and a bright portal of light opened on the platform, the same way almost every Justice League member boarded The Watchtower, including Dinah. She seemed hesitant, knowing that if she stepped though, there would be no trail of her. But, thankfully, she acquiesced with no real fuss, and the group of nine guards, Jason, and the three prisoners all walked through.
The newly rebuilt and incoming Es Securus's brig had been designed to hold some of the most skilled people on earth, and twenty four 6x8 foot cells in all, every single one tested time and time again by members of The Outlaws, The Leviathan, and The League of Assassins. It wasn't exactly designed to house metahumans, but that was what the meta-collars had been invented for. They were a bit barbaric, but they were what Jason had, so they were what he had to use.
Jack was placed in the first cell on the right, with Dinah in the first one on the left. The entered the door-and-bar-less cells and walls slightly red hardlight were projected behind them, sealing them inside. Ramsay hesitated when entering his cell, the one beside Ryder's. Before he could actively resist, Jason bent down and spoke, instantly getting his attention with the scrambled voice Jason was just realizing probably scared the six year old.
"Hey, kid. You get in there alone for right now, and I promise you, I'll make sure your mom and you can share one cell together."
"Really?"
"Really."
"But...Okay. You'd better not be lying or my mom's gonna kick your butt."
Jason chuckled, saying, "I'm sure.", as he stood back upright.
He then turned, noticing but not acknowledging the puzzled looks he was getting from Dinah and Jack, and he and the small guard detail all walked back through the still-open portal to The Cave.
Lines B and C had already been walked to the portal, and Jason let his men take it from there. They knew what to do from there. It wasn't until his guards had come back through the door, Edwards telling him that all specifications had been met and the guards were in place, that Jason ordered Edwards to go get "the guest of honor".
Fries, who had been in the armory making changes to the pod for hours, brought Bruce out in the machine that looked too much like a casket for Jason's liking. Now equipped with tech that allowed for it's safe transport and almost completely removed the negative side effects of cryogenic freezing, Bruce's pod was being carried by four Leviathan members wearing exosuits, all of whom added to the mental connection Jason was making between a casket and the cryopod, as they carried him as pallbearers would a coffin.
Damnit, get your head in the game, man!
"Do you want me to walk with you?"
"No, Victor, I don't have time to actually explain any of this to them right now. I'm only going with him myself because...well, you know. Go find Rose upstairs, have a martini or something."
"...Yeah, that does sound pretty damned good right now.", Victor mumbled as he walked away.
Jason nodded to the four Leviathan members as he lead the way through what he couldn't stop seeing as a twisted funeral procession of sorts.
A few were shocked. A few were horrified. Some looked like they had expected it. But no one, not even Jack Drake, could stonewall the sight of Bruce Wayne, The Batman, being led down the hallway in that ghastly crypod. Selina assumed that Jason had made it look that way on purpose, as a thinly-veiled threat. Cass could tell by his body language, that The Hood seemed almost...sad. But however those present saw it, Jason made no indication that he cared. The only cell he even looked in was the one shared by Kate and Ramsay Spencer, to make sure his men had done as he'd promised. Other than that he kept his eyes up and in front of him, planted firmly on the door to Bruce's "cell".
When they made it to the circular door, it scanned him and recognized him as The Red Hood, quickly opening the ten-ton massive door. Walking through it, Jason moved out of the way of the Leviathan members so that they could walk towards the center of the roomy, arena-like area assigned specifically for holding Batman. For the most part, the room was insignificant other than the fact that it was nigh inescapable, as with the cells in the hallway leading to it. What made the room really pop, was the gigantic, armored, Amazo android bowing on it's knees in the center of the circular structure, fists formed and eyes constantly glowing a terrifying crimson.
Designated as "The Tyrant's Warden", or, "The Warden", the defensive robot was damn near the apex of Amazo technology.
Able to access the abilities of dozens of Justice League members' abilities, technology ranging from hard light construction to gravity manipulation, the bot was redesigned to have a far more armored look and defensive style, focused on the defense of not only it's cargo, but the ship it was stored upon. The Amazo that looked as if one were dressed in black night armor was even able to access a database of thousands of different fighting styles, so that it could never be outmatched in strength or ability, unlike most such androids.
There was no doubt in Jason's mind that The Warden's presence on board was the reason why the mysterious attack on the ship had been salvageable at all.
But, it's primary mission was hinted at in its name: it was a "living" prison cell. On it's back were fasteners in its armor that had been unused since its creation, ones that were now being used to secure it's intended cargo straight on to it. Bruce's cryopod fit onto it as if the robot had been built with this occasion in mind, because it had. Now fastened into the android, Bruce couldn't have been more secure, nor better defended from anyone trying to free or kill him.
He tried to remind himself of these things and think only of those, the cold facts of the situation, as Jason watched his adopted father get strapped to the back of a killing machine.
Fuck, I'm gonna need a drink after all this shit.
The Leviathan members left him alone on his order, going back through the portal while ignoring the demands for answers by those they walked past. When the door closed behind them, Jason removed his helmet.
"Sorry about this, Old Man."
A few seconds of feeling overwhelming shame was all Jason could afford, but he did allow himself to feel it, and feel it well, before he put back on his helm and followed the agents of Leviathan back through the brig's hallway, until he was stopped by Brown.
"Hey, asshole!", she yelled as she threw her shoulder at the hard light keeping her imprisoned.
"What?"
"What? What!? I'll tell you "What?", we want and deserve a goddamn explanation for all this! Who the fuck are you?! What are-?"
Jason laughed out loud at her, causing her to instantly silence herself, her hatred for the red hooded figure growing for every second she had to hear his obnoxiously disguised laughter.
"Sorry, I just forget how self-absorbed you people can be. As if everyone else under the sun is just supposed to kiss your ass one hundred percent of the time. I've already told your boyfriend across from you here, that I'd give you all a proper explanation in due time. You don't wanna wait? I don't care. I've got more important shit on my plate than sitting around and monologuing to the fucking help.", Jason took a step away, his remarks complete, when he though of another thing he should mention, " And, by the way, if you dislocate your shoulder doing that stupid shit, you will be fixing it yourself. 'Kay, Sunshine?"
"Fuck. YOU!", the blonde girl bellowed as she again slammed her body into the brick-wall-like hard light. Jason had already started back on his way out, and completely ignored her screams and curses as she again and again threw herself at the wall in blind fury.
And I thought I was hard-headed at that age, he thought, finally making his way back into The Batcave.
It felt shameful to him, being in that place with intent to undermine every tenant it had been built to defend, but it didn't hurt his heart the same way that being so close to a distraught Alfie did.
He's Alfred or he's "Pennyworth" damnit.
All of the Senior Knights and Paladins there were filling out the sewer exit, their duty done, leaving only the agents of Leviathan around to handle The Cave. He followed them, nodding to the member of Talia's honor guard that had been sent as the small group's commander as he climbed the Victorian staircase leading out to the mansion.
He found Rose and Victor sharing a drink of hundred-dollar Champaign.
"Hey, guys."
Rose walked to him, bottle in hand as she replied, "Hey, babe. Care for a drink?"
"No, no. We still have a lot of work to do. Moves to be made."
"What kind of moves?"
"The necessary kind."
"Oh, don't you play coy with me, dear. I invented coy."
"Yeah, yeah.", he replied with a smile, snatching the bottle from her and downing it all in one go.
"I knew you were gonna do that."
"You can see the future Rose. You know everything before I do it."
"No...no, Jason, I don't. Because you have this annoying, pompous trait of coming up with these little schemes and plans without consulting me, or even letting me in on them."
"And look at how far my annoying, pompous ass has gotten us."
Fries, who had been reading a text on his phone, interrupted the bantering partners.
"Speaking of pompous asses, I just got word from James. The news is running the story you told him to push through Wayne Enterprises when Fox went into hiding."
"Good."
"See? You've proven me right, as usual."
"Honey, when have I ever proven you wrong?"
"Well, when we first met, I thought you were a stupid asshole looking for a decent way to die."
"Oh? And what do you think I am now?"
"I don't think anything about you, now, babe. I know."
"Then I'm guessing you know what I have planned."
"And you'd be right. You've planned for us to go home and make a few daring moves. I just don't know specifically what those moves are, or whether or not I should be worried, because you won't talk to me."
"You never have to be worried with me around."
"And yet, I always am. Why is that, do you think?"
"How 'bout we talk on the way to the funeral?"
"Sure. Even a procession can't be more dead than this place."
"Agreed."
Vicky Vale's exhausted face was somehow still chipper and upbeat as she delivered her midday news report.
"Well, Gotham, in a completely expected turn of events, The Wayne Foundation has just donated ten million dollars to The Archie Goodwin Relief Fund started by city hall to aid the victims and the families affected by The Joker's recent terrorist attack on Archie Goodwin International, while it's chief competitor, Futurum Technology, has just given an eight million dollar donation to aid Gotham in rebuilding the airport, to get commerce in town back on track. In other news involving Bruce Wayne, Wayne Enterprises has just released a statement that it's CEO is still on vacation with his closest friends and family members. Chairman of The Board Lucius Fox is still the active CEO in his place. Moving on to the violent gang war rocking our city's streets, we will now here from our man on the ground, Tom Bu-"
An enormous man with steel in his voice spoke as he turned off the broadcast.
"Are you buying this?"
A woman of normally wondrous beauty and strength, laying in a hospital bed with her arm in a cast and a bandage wrapped around her head, chuckled weakly before she replied.
"Not at all. But I doubt you'd make it any better by going down there and throwing your weight around, Clark."
Superman sighed before he let loose a statement the injured Wonder Woman had to agree with.
"I really, really hate Gotham City."
"Yeah...I'm sure he hates it, too. Actually, I think he hates it the most, he just loves it too much to leave."
"Sounds like a toxic relationship."
"It is. But trying to get between them? That never works, you know that better than anyone."
"I do...I...I just wish he'd call us."
"What could we do? You're working through that overload of red sunlight, I'm unable to walk let alone fight."
"..."
"If you want to help him, Clark, go back to The Fortress, bathe in your sun chamber for a day or so. That way, you'll be ready when he calls."
"...Thank you. You always did make us both see straight."
"You're welcome. Now get out, I need to catch up on my show."
"I will never get over the fact that he even got you to watch that shlock.", he said with a smirk as he walked out, leaving Diana, Princess of The Amazons, to lose herself in the adventures of the USS Enterprise and its fictitious crew.
Especially considering we actually live it almost every single day, Kal-el mentally followed up, as he passed through the hallways of an enormous space station placed in earth's orbit by literal alien technology, he himself the last survivor of an advanced alien race.
Dear Rao...I'm a Star Trek character.